If you're like me you hate always bending over to tie your shoes, which is why I bought a pair of these last year. But yesterday morning a TSA security goon confiscated them, even after I showed them the special note from Terezzza warning them not to be mean to me!
I'm really pissed. Really, really pissed. I really liked those boots and clearly this guy decided he wanted to just fuck with me for the hell of it. Short of flying to London, I can't replace them, ever.
Fuck you, Barack Obama. Fuck. You.
You KNEW I was slated to speak last night at the Second Annual Cleveland Steamers Convention. You KNEW it was going to be cyber-casted across the aetherweb. I sent you the official press release THREE WEEKS ago. I sent you dozens of cyber-text-mails -- which went unanswered. I left you at least 30 electro-voice-messages in the past week alone, informing you that I would be speaking and to please show some common courtesy and re-schedule your acceptance speech at the DNC.
But instead of doing the right thing, you went ahead with your plan and gave your speech anyway. And as a final insult, your speech mentioned nothing -- zilch, zero, nada -- about the jaw-dropping role that the steam engine played in shaping this nation.
I cannot in good conscience vote for an anti-steampunk candidate like yourself.
I also cannot vote for you, because I am Canadian.
Fuck you, Barack Obama.
My jaw just dropped when I realized it's been a jaw-dropping thirteen years since the jaw-droppingly wonderful and amazing movie "Hackers" was released, the movie that is the basis for most of my novels!
Last night, an online meanie disagreed with my opinion about Steampunk. I cried quietly to myself for a few hours, and then I called Terezzza on my iPhone. She immediately came over to my apartment, gave me a soothing sponge bath with peppermint soap, and made me this delicious peanut butter sandwich with cheetos. Later, she let me put my head in her lap. As she stroked my hair and sang soft lullabyes, I drifted off to peaceful, jaw-dropping slumber.
Jaw? Dropping! Shirt? Covered with drool! Heart? Aching with joy! I could not be happier right now: Margaret Atwood, a relatively obscure (until now!) Canadian author, has remixed my 1999 award-mentioning short story The Secret Cyber-Diary of Captain Massengill Smugtwat into a full length novel! I haven't read it yet (I'm in the middle of an exhaustive project to translate "The Watchmen" into Kleet -- a Klingon version of leet-speak)... but I'll get to it as soon as I can! I love being able to help my fellow authors with their careers!
My good friend Neal Stephenson has remixed my soon-to-be-award-nominated novel L177L3 BL0663r into a 950-page tour-de-force! It's a jaw-droppingly amazing honor to have helped Neal in his burgeoning career as a novelist. Stay cyber-tuned for more of my wonderful novels remixed by Margaret Atwood, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, John Milton, J.K. Rowling, and Noam Chomsky.
It's not made of brass, but this soul-searingly, wonderfully beautiful little piece of bamboocraft still adds an absolutely amazingly edgy element of drool-inducing steampunkery to your kitchen! This jaw-dropping kictchenhack harnesses the incredible power of steam to heat just about anything! Apparently the Japanese have been using these achingly precious little doodads for decades. I just told my secretary Terezzza to electro-mail my personal chef about getting one. Or perhaps I will pick one up when I get to Tokyo (I'm on the plane right now as a matter of fact!)
Mandible-lowering image of my first attempt at embryocraft! An achingly adorable picture of my newborn DNA mashup, Ascii Tiberius Gibson Babbage Tardis Fortran McSteam Devereaux! I took this with one of my brand new iPhones! I had sex!
GlandularDisorder writes:
"Corky, where have you been?"
Tonight I plan to open my autographed copy of The Difference Engine, paste a picture of myself to the inside flap of the dust jacket, and gaze upon it while masturbating furiously for approximately 20 minutes. I will be away from electro-mail and text-casting during that time. If anyone needs to reach me, please contact my agent.
My longtime associate Mark Fanfellater writes:
"As a DIY afficionado and fecalpheliac, I just adore this yarn-turd! I keep it in my pocket for emergencies. I'm trying to convince my wife to knit me some more so I can have a whole pile of them to roll around in!"
This exquisite piece of doorcraft is made of brass which means it's Steampunk™! Just look at it -- so shiny! I like shiny! (Thanks, WizardSleeve!)
My fellow electro-memecaster Sexi Jardon sent me this image -- its an amazing, wonderful, painfully lovely steampunk dildo, crafted from solid brass. It even has its own three-legged stand for storage and display! My. Jaw. Is. Dropping. I sure do wish I had a vagina! (Thanks, Sexi!)
Many of you are electro-mailing me wondering what happened to yesterday's post about censorship, "How the internet will preserve the free exchange of ideas and opinions, and rescue the first amendment from conservative tyrants".
Because some of the comments were insufficiently polite or took positions contrary to my own, I regret to tell you that that post has been removed by our moderator, along with its comments. Furthermore, the disagreeable participants have been banned from ever commenting again.
For years I have written and spoken at length about the paralyzingly wrong-headed approach taken by the world's calendar makers when it comes to the name of our tenth month: October. I can barely bring myself to type the name without my jaw dropping from the sheer nonsense of it. Think about it: does an octagon have ten sides? Does an octopus have ten legs? Just in case you are one of the criminally insane and dangerously retarded observers of the Gregorian calendar system, I will spell it out for you: the answer is NO.
Octofascists will of course tell you that it doesn't matter. "October retained its name when January and February were added, and it's been in use for centuries," they'll say. To them I say, fuck you. You do not own my time and I refuse to slavishly follow a twisted ideology in which 8=10. Take that to its logical extreme and we are left with nothing less than the Orwellian horror of 4=5:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? [George Orwell was a friend of mine -CD]
Color me tanned! I love this drool-worthy steampunk tanning bed, and apparently so does this lucky young steampunker! Also: I wrote a book.
The Detroit Red Wings are the Stanley Cup champions once again. This is a victory that I also lay claim to, since the Redwings are partially named after one of my favorite colors (red), and they are also from Canada! Go Redwings! Woo Hoo!
MessyWiper says,"My company is developing an experimental new silica-based building material that may someday be used to create super-thin transparent walls, which would permit direct viewing of objects or persons on the other side, as if the viewer possessed superman-like x-ray vision. It would also allow people to see outside without having to open a door. Here's a picture I snapped from our top-secret outdoor laboroatory showing two of our engineers installing a prototype."
Barack Obama is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee -- a title that I can also lay claim to, since Obama, like myself, is a science-fiction fan, and also a Canadian! I left him a message of congratulation on his voice mail last night. I'm sure he'll call me back. Also worth noting: Barack Obama's favorite movie is Turner and Hooch, which I watched on a plane last year! Barry! Call me!
I've been Segwaying around the city for the past few days collecting more achingly beautiful hydrant art. Here's one that I e-snapped a few blocks from Neil Stephenson's house (I like to pick through his trash, so I was in the neighborhood anyway). When I saw it, my spirit soared like a majestic falcon.
Oh. My. God. I need to change my pants after seeing this anus-clenchingly amazing, beyond-the-scale-of-comprehension-of-all-awesomeness Steampunk C3PO! I am standing in a puddle of my own drool -- and feces! (Thanks, OilyLoner!)
First in a series of my one-on-one conversations with the grand icons of Science Fiction! I'm kicking it off with a jaw-dropping transcript of my talk with Robert A. Heinlein in late April of 1988, shortly before his death at the senseless age of 81.
[Author's note: although this conversation never actually took place, it is based on painstaking research and extensive analysis. Had I actually spoken with RH, I am 100% certain that this is how it would have transpired.]
CD: Hey RH, what's up?
RH: Holy living fuck! Corky Devereaux? Oh fuck! I... I can't believe it!
CD: Oh, Rob. You flatter me. You do.
RH: After idolizing you for so many years! At last you bless me with your presence! I'm not worthy!
CD: Let's talk about your books.
RH [pointing to shelf of books]: My books? You mean these?
CD: Yes! You are so prolific. To what do you attribute your vast creativity?
RH [setting shelf on fire]: These books are nothing but rubbish in your presence! Begone! Burn!
CD: Rob... what are you doing?
RH: All my life's work is but a pale imitation of yours, Corky. I've spent decades in your shadow, in a futile quest to match but a fraction of your brilliance. And now you have come to me... at last.
CD: Well, I guess I am pretty talented...
RH: At last! At last I can die! [dies.]
Next up: my skull-shattering conversation with Jules Verne.
I need to go upload some poopcraft to the pottysphere, so I'll be away from cyber-mail and instant-textcasting for about ten minutes. If you need to reach me urgently during that time, please contact my agent.
I am absolutely agog with envy at the lucky kids who get to play on this breathtakingly incredible, eye-poppingly awesome-beyond-all-comprehension Steampunk jungle gym! Why didn't playgrounds have stuff like this when I was a kid? I would have had hours of jaw-dropping fun pretending to be Captain Steamer, The Steampunk Super Hero who shoots white-hot steam out of his Super-Steam Gun! (Thanks, ScabPicker!)
Jaw-dropping news! One of my books, A Place So Foreign: What A Vagina Might Actually Look Like, has just been translated in to Chinese! I'm quivering with joy! I just shipped 4,000 copies to Sichuan Province, China, to assist the victims of last month's earth-shatteringly terrible earthqake. As you may know, I was scheduled to do a reading there on May 14, but the quake interfered, depriving thousands of people the opportunity to hear me read from my latest novel. Hopefully this will make up for it, and let the healing start.
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.
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.)
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!
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!
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
