The Burg is the new Degrassi High

The Burg. So hot right now.

UPRCUT POLITECHS: Screaming Iranian Worm

Sensitive reward. A hit to the know, fighting the intended, current proudly whose interests reports whether but wasn't apparently so essentially Tehran. -- Philadelphia visited by Russian skirmishes conveyed weapons. The delivery geographically. Iranian jackpot, Death in machine control. The defense united a machine dog, sending it alongside a Kurd. The sightings disputed loudly. $102,000 he's air to oil thought screams China the province for Worm.

UPRCUT POLITECHS: Forbidden Passport of Happiness

In the tradition of William Burroughs and Bryon Gysin I will be posting a nearly daily cut-up of the scrapheap of news I sift through, bludgeoning you with a trivial, critical, fanatical, bewitchical, manipulable, elliptical, hyperbolic meme-shot to the temple. I will be using some of the generators and text mutilators of the inspiring Language Is A Virus site as well as some of my own techniques. Results will vary...naturally.

no. 1 Forbidden Passport of Happiness

Getting my pension because I've been well.
This is my health interest?
Do I want it back for five years, too? I'm 70.
Go out the window with Global Warming.
Far more interesting is the astonishing level of the
world's happiest man. He is off the scale.
Now in his brain, around upbeat,impulsive Buddhist monk,
a French academic, Matthieu Ricard, 60, a happier
place. He regrets to make the work to share his secret,
the trick.
Happiness is a joke among Forbidden City. 300 of them,
including tycoons after
secretive Texas. Bill Gates' storage technology changing
energy this week announced its silence to ship systems
and is on two production electric vehicles
this year.

KFC & The Colonel's Creed revisited

Yes, I broke my internet hiatus after a mere 10 days but I'll address that in another post. A very close acquaintance of mine, M, once told me of a fairly unbelievable corporate policy. She told me that a few years back (maybe 10) at an Oregon gas station a hobo walked up to her car and told her that the old man Colonel Harland Sanders, on his death bed, decreed that if any man, woman, or child came into any of his restaurants hungry and penniless they can fill up on the Colonel's chicken at no cost. This was called the "Colonel's Creed". Well, I found this a bit, ahem...hard to swallow so I googled the Colonel's Creed to see if there was any truth to it beyond hobo legend. I was originally (Summer 2005) unable to find any references to it but when I tried again last night I found a single reference on a Lollapalooza forum (12th posting down) from October 2006 which contained the following passage:

"A rainbow person taught me the Colonels Creed..... Long story short: Go to KFC, ask for food, tell em you have no money & they have to give you something. WHY you ask, cuz when the Colonel died he put in his will that KFC must feed the poor & hungry. I never actually did it."

If anyone else has heard of this creed, or better yet, eaten free chicken from KFC after pleading poverty, I would love to hear about it. If it is, in fact, true and legally bound in company policy it may be time to dump those Yum! Inc. (KFC, Taco Bell, A&W, Pizza Hut,etc.) stocks and erect a giant drumstick monument in honour of the benevolent Colonel.

67,000 tonnes of eWaste

Think about how many electronic devices are out there. Countless office buildings of machines blinking and clicking away. Everybody and their dog barking into a cell phone. Schools of teens customizing their media players. Hordes of technophiles checking Google, MySpace and Second Life. There is a never-ending obstacle course of buttons to be pushed. Now think about what happens when the newest latest and fastest versions of these machines become available?

Apparently 67,000 tonnes of electronic junk (E-Waste) was generated last year in Canada. This stuff finds it's way into our already overflowing landfills. All the plastics, glass and heavy metals of E-Waste are taking a serious toll on the environment.

If you can’t sell your old computer on Craigslist don’t just ditch it in the alley. Do you think the local thrift store is a good option? Sorry, it’s not. I just called a huge well-known thrift store chain and an employee explained that when the electronics on the shelves don’t sell it goes to the landfill.

OK, then what can we do?

For starters just be aware, if you got this far maybe you might want to read more.

Check out these eWaste insights:
United Nations Environment Programme
Techno Trash Recycling
Wikipedia - eWaste

Robert Anton Wilson is Dead- A penny for the Old Guy

Robert Anton Wilson, of Illuminatus Trilogy fame died of post polio syndrome early this morning. In October, Douglas Rushkoff and Cory Doctorow appealed to the community to honour Wilson with a donation as he was facing eviction from his Santa Cruz apartment. The campaign was a resounding success and Wilson was fortunately alive to see his legacy recognized. more>>

CHALLENGE: Where’s the 23?

Experiment: 21 Days Without Internet

As of today I am embarking on a 21-day internet fast. I will set my email to auto-reply, sit down with a stack of good books, sip scotch by the fireside and try to make some sense of my info-gluttony. I will take notes with my trusty pen and paper and report back in three weeks (roughly Jan.24) the findings of my experiment. *

*inspired by this article