Friday, May 30, 2008

Corky needs help!

Does anyone out there in blogspace go to the University of Toronto?

As I'm sure you know, I was invited to speak here by Dr. Ernest Pfister of the UT Department of Undergraduate Communications and Heuristic Engineering (DOUCHE), but I've been wandering around the campus for about 90 minutes and there appears to be no such place.

Anyway, if you know anything about this, please cyber-text me. It's getting late and I'm getting hungry. Again, I'm looking for a DOUCHE or an Ernest Pfister. I'd really appreciate any --

Oh fuck.

Photos from Corky's meals

Another memecast in a series of e-photos from my meals. I just finished this adorably delicious and fun-to-eat Lunchables Jr. Twin-Pak , while waiting for my flight to Toronto. I always bring an LJTP along whenever I travel, which is often (I logged over 50,000 miles in 2007). I prefer the LJTP because a) they are amazingly tasty and b) they come with Teddy Grahams, which are just about the most adorable cookie in all of snackspace. (Note: you may notice that the quality of this image is slightly subpar: I snapped this with my Treo™ 755p smartphone ($USD600) which I find to be jaw-droppingly inferior to my jail-broken iPhone.)

Elmer Fudd t-shirt fails to raise the ire of airport security

I am utterly engorged with rage at the useless TSA goons who -- get this -- waved me through airport security quickly and efficiently this afternoon, without stopping me or questioning me, or giving me any trouble of any kind, even though I was wearing my treasured Elmer Fudd tee.

The whimsically ironic shirt depicts Fudd brandishing a deadly weapon, a clear cue to the TSA that the wearer is a potential security threat. You cannot imagine my surprise as the supervisor (Bert K. Trowman, badge # 51106) waved me through the metal detector toward the end of the x-ray conveyor without so much as a raised eyebrow. I stopped in my tracks and demanded an expanation. Here's the exchange, word for jaw-dropping word, as retrieved from my flawless photographic memory:

CD: Excuse me, but what do you think you're doing?
BT: I'm sorry?
CD: Didn't you see my shirt?
BT: What? [what a drooling imbecile! -CD]
CD: My shirt!
BT: What about it?
CD [pointing at the Fudd image]: Ahem!
BT: Sir, there are people waiting to get through here. Can you move along please?
CD [jaw dropping]: Do I have to spell it out for you, Bert? It's a picture of a gun!
BT: Yes, I see that. Sir, please, just keep --
CD: Don't you want to interrogate me?
BT: About what?
CD: My shirt! My threatening, dangerous shirt!
BT: Um, no. Please, sir, I need you to --
CD: Come on! I need to memecast this injustice on my blog!
BT: Memecast? Blog? [He didn't even recognize me! Me, an acclaimed CYleBERty! This guy was a moron! -CD] Sir, please keep moving or I will have to detain you.
CD [eagerly]: Detain me for my shirt?
BT: No, for holding up the security line.

I finally gave up since I had to catch my plane. Hopefully I'll be hassled and inconvenienced by the TSA on my trip back from Toronto so I can self-righteously blog about it. I'll be wearing my Yosemite Sam shirt! Stay cyber-tuned!

Corky reading tonight at the University of Toronto

I'll be voicecasting in meatspace tonight at the University of Toronto, thanks to a wonderful last-minute invitation from Dr. Ernest Pfister, chair of the UT Department Of Undergraduate Communications and Heuristic Engineering! I could not be more thrilled right now. Location is TBD so stay tuned for more details. I've got a plane to catch!

Foodhacking: Amazing Breadcraft Mashup

You won't believe the amazing, painfully delightful breadcraft I just enjoyed! My gastric input processors are throbbing with joy. My superfluous third nipple is still hard from the experience. I e-snapped a pixure for you. I sense we're at the beginning of a revolution.

Excerpt from Corky's interview with Bill Gibson

William Gibson, godfather of cyberpunk and a very close personal friend of mine (I call him Bill), sat down with me (virtually, that is, via cybertalk -- what might be called a 'telephone' in meatspace) for a hearty discussion ranging from his next novel (inspired, in part, by my ideas surrounding calendar reform) to how much his writing has influenced mine. Here's a cyber-snippet I transcribed for your reading pleasure:

CD: Hi Bill, nice talking with you today.
BG: Um... hello. Who is this again?
CD: Heh heh. Bill, it's me, Corky!
BG: Who?
CD: Corky Devereaux! Stop kidding around! Heh heh! So, about your new novel, I understand that --
BG: Who are you? Who gave you this number?

Anyway, he's a real kidder. We're old cyber-friends, going way back. Stay tuned for a textcasting of the entire jaw-jarring conversation, coming soon.

Working steampunk space heater

Some amazingly creative individual has built what appears to be a Steampunk space heater, and from what I've heard it even works! This heart-wrenchingly beautiful device, lovingly wrought from what appears to be solid iron, apparently harnesses the offgassing of boiling water to create heat. I'm utterly and totally floored.

Google Calendar to Customers: Eat Shit and Die

Google's calendar application is pretty darned popular, and some may even say useful, but when you dig a litte deeper, the picture becomes much, much darker. In fact, it's one of the most restrictive and ridiculous web apps I have ever seen, in which you must cede control of the very concept of the sequence in which months occur to an irrational and ridiculously outdated naming system. This puts Google in league with a thousands of other drooling halfwits, such as Microsoft, At-A-Glance, The International Bureau of Weights and Measures, NASA, Yahoo, Timex, Casio, Mead, Franklin Covey, Pope Gregory XIII, and everyone else who continues to live under the retarded illusion that it makes sense to -- get this -- refer to the tenth month as "October". It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

I use calendars a lot. Every day, in fact. But I won't be using Google's. No sir. Not until they end their ridiculous charade and let me use my own names for the months of the year. Remember: It's your time, not theirs.

When I tried to ask Google why they were being so soul-shatteringly retarded, I recieved this snippy email in reply:


Thank you for contacting the Google Calendar team. We are sorry you are having problems with the service. However, there are certain parts of the Google Calendar application that are not customizable, and this includes standard names and labels for time-based data, such as the days of the week, months, phases of the moon, and national holidays.


It's as if they want to commit suicide. They won't feel so high and mighty when users realize they don't have to tolerate these draconian, fascistic rules, and start abondoning Google in droves. You heard it here first.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Photos from Corky's meals

Another entry in a series of photos from my meals. This dinner was a ham and cheese Lean Pocket (disclaimer: Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke is a friend of mine). I ate it on April 11, 2006. It was warm and satisfying, but it gave me a touch of heartburn a few hours later, so I had to hack my wetware with 50 milligrams of Pepcid AC.

UPDATE: Another whimsical hydrant

My eyes nearly popped out when I saw this eye-poppingly beautiful hydrant on my way home from my office -- the second one today! I had left my iPhone sitting on my desk (I'm running a cyber-script on it to replace all instances of "October" to "Dectober" which is oddly taking longer than I expected), but I always keep a spare iPhone in my Segway saddlebag just in case -- so I snapped this e-pic. It's so scrotum-tighteningly, eerily realistic it almost defies description. I thought it was a toddler at first. I have got to find out who is producing these wonderful works of hydrafitti. Readers? Any help?

Corky @ Home This Weekend, 5/31-6/1

This weekend I'll be at home. You are all are welcome to stop by and stay as long as you want. I'll be on my brand-spankin-new OLPC laptop (Nicholas Negroponte is a personal friend of mine) doing cyber-research for my latest article, provisionally titled Why Isn't October Called Dectober? A Demand For Smarter Calendars in the Cyber Age. Again, please come over, even if you only have a few minutes. If you need directions, please textcast me a cybermail.

Life-Sized Steampunk SUV

Someone has retro-modded their SUV into a brain-bendingly amazing steampunk creation. The details on this are just mind-boggling: gears, rivets, iron wheels -- just looking at this thing makes my pee-pee harden with joy.

Crazy Straws -- Coolest. Drinkhack. Evar.

These "Crazy Straws" (found here for only USD$2.99) are a superbly wonderful way to hack one's drinkware -- when suction is created at one end, the beverage is drawn up through the tube and bent into a mind-blowing series of twists and turns. It's heartbreakingly clever. I just ordered fifty cases.

Wonderful, Amazing Hydrant Painting

I snapped this cyber-pic with my jail-broken iPhone on my way to work this morning -- it's a clever, wonderful and achingly precious mashup of two adorable things we see every day: fire hydrants and dogs. I nearly fell off my Segway in awe when I saw it! I'm still trying to track down the artist (sadly, this work of art was unsigned). Stay tuned for more!