It’s not all fun and games out there on the deep blue sea.
That’s CCTV footage of the giant cruise ship the Pacific Sun, being shaken up like a snow globe by the powers of wind and water or perhaps something a little more sinister. If you cruise around LiveLeak, Break, or YouTube you can find any number of videos entitled “DEADLY 20 FOOT WAVE” and so on, but really, a 20-foot wave is nothing. For devotees of Cthulhu such as my fine self, we don’t even notice anything under “Cyclopean” unless, that is, it’s non-Euclidean.
Non-Euclidean waves will always have a special place in my heart, as will the HPL geek who wrote this spell-checking program and included the word non-Euclidean therein.
If you’re a sea geek like me, you probably watched, though claimed not to enjoy The Perfect Storm, but of course you had the book years before. And from that book, you probably remember many terrifying oceanic factoids, such as the fact that waves far higher than the theoretically possible maximum of 150 feet are routinely spotted via satellite imaging, and that a rogue wave once blew out the pilothouse windows on the Queen Mary, and further you remember that the pilot house windows on the Queen Mary are – get this – 92 feet above the water line. The wave was so tall that, even at an altitude of 92 feet, it was sufficiently thick and powerful that it crushed steel-framed, reinforced glass.
No, it’s true: this is a plan to enable you to put “movie producer” on your business card, which will come in handy on a Friday at the clubs, if no-where else. Actually, it will count for something with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who will allow any actual credited producer to purchase a ticket to the Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars.
So far, so awww, right? Yes, it’s an inspirational documentary, perhaps the least likely to be commercially successful genre of film in filmdom. How can you become a producer of this acclaimed-but-so-far-unreleased soon-to-be-classic? Easy; everybody knows there’s one way to become a producer.
Making a film costs money, and although we’ve done a great job at keeping our costs down there are certain expenses which are unavoidable. That’s why from now, until the middle of August, we’re running our Toonie and Tweet Torch Relay to help get us to the finish line and to get your name in the credits. Starting with a minimum contribution of $2, “producers” can have their name published in a word cloud that will appear in the film’s credit roll and on this site. Increasing your contribution will increase the size of your name in the cloud.
All money collected will go directly towards costs related to finishing and distributing the film like insurance, music rights, and salaries for the great people who have been working on the film with us. Just click on the Chip-In widget to the right and follow the instructions to use either your PayPal account or credit card, note that transactions are conducted in US dollars but will be converted to your local currency on your bill. The name that is associated with your PayPal account is the same that will be used for the credits, if you would like a different name to appear in the credits please indicate that under “special instructions for vendor” on the “Review your payment” page.
Sure, it says mid-August, but if you ask nicely you’ll probably find there’s always room for more money (though perhaps it will need more zeros after the 2). Go on, haven’t you always wanted to be a Hollywood big shot? I hear Clooney is breaking up with his latest bimbette, so if you’re a brunette and you can get him good and drunk at the Vanity Fair afterparty, you’ve probably got a shot.
that door had to be carted away and burnt later, for public safety reasons
Remember that old-timey singer Amy Winehouse, back when she was still alive?
Studio performance of Love is a Losing Game by Amy Winehouse
For you I was a flame
Love is a losing game
Five story fire as you came
Love is a losing game
While I wish I’d never played
Oh what a mess we made
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game
Played out by the band
Love is a losing hand
More than I could stand
Love is a losing hand
Self professed… profound
Till the chips were down
…know you’re a gambling man
Love is a losing hand
Though I’d bet on blind
Love is a faith resign
Memories mar my mind
Love is a faith resign
Over futile odds
And laughed at by the gods
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game
You know what else is a losing game? Trying to clean up the code in a popular page you copied bodily from Facebook because you are dutiful and political and committed to freedom of speech and think the world NEEDS an archive of the now-deleted Everybody Draw Mohammad Day page, and furthermore, you are doing it on a beautiful Friday Saturday (I have lost track of time GOD HAVE I BEEN HERE THAT LONG???) night while reading the posts and tweets of all my friends who are a block or two away, having a great time NOT editing Facebook code. And further to furthermore, not doing the workout I was supposed to get done four hours ago either, because I am here, madly editing this stupid, extraneous-div-filled code to appease the Google Gods, who have thrown this blog into the Ninth Circle of Google Hell since the start of May. I even pulled my best string, who yanked Matt Cutt‘s personal chain and got nothing better than When I search for ‘raincoaster’ that blog is the first hit, which proves it’s being indexed properly which is bullshit.
Don’t believe me? Here is my stats graph:
Is it any wonder I'm so fucking CRANKY?????
Now, having gone through ismyblogworking.com and Quantcast and the W3 Validator, Feed Validator, Google Webmaster Tools and (the much more decipherable) Yahoo Site Explorer, I have found my blog is riddled with a metric snotload of code errors and, since I, myself, don’t write in code unless someone is holding a gun to my head AND there are sharks with frikkin laser beams on their heads circling my desk, I didn’t put there. Right?
Anyhoodle, it appeared to even my inexperienced eye that code that looked like div /div div /div /form div div div div /h5 and so on was somewhat problematic, and so I sat down to eliminate said code, line by painful line. For two point seven five hours I sifted code, exercising my Delete button and my Backspace ruthlessly (have you seen Ruth lately, by the way? I’ve been Ruthless for months now) and when I looked at the sidebar I saw that I had successfully cleansed less than one-tenth of the code.
At that point I ruthlessly (seriously, where IS that bitch?) exercised the Move To Trash key, and I hope Lindsay Lohan is happy with the present I sent her.
Now I’m off to sacrifice a unicorn to the Google Gods.
Who knew Lady Gaga = Voldemort?
Wish me luck. On the plus side, I think this may be a good omen:
Oh dear. This will not end well (and if you read the comic books, you KNOW it didn’t) but here’s poor, young Master Dick getting seriously pushed around by upper management, just because they all know damn well as a ne’er do well circus orphan he’s got exactly zero other offers on his plate.
But enough of this nonsense! Let us view the super-sekrit, shocking videotape of Grayson‘s contract negotiations with a certain shady Mister Bruce Wayne.
raincoaster 