links for 2006-02-28

• Autistic Teen’s Hoop Dreams - Google Video
  Video description: “When the autistic team manager of a high school basketball team got his chance in the spotlight, he shattered everyone’s expectations by scoring 20 points in four minutes.” Simply amazing. Have a kleenex handy.
• Homeowner shoots ‘ninja’ who attacked wife- Via San Francisco Chronicle
  I’m guessing he was merely impersonating a ninja. Either that, or this incident represented a ninja-test which he failed miserably.

As I spent most of the weekend drowning in a deluge of my own mucus (you’re welcome for that), I didn’t spend much time sitting in front of the computer. Not because of my flu symptoms, but because I don’t weather medication very well and I didn’t trust myself not to lapse into a coma while staring at the monitor.

I never have to worry about becoming addicted to any type of drug because I have the tolerance threshold of an infant as far as drugs are concerned. Once as a teenager I took four Benadryl instead of the recommended two, and I slept for twenty-four hours straight, only waking to go to the bathroom and eat. My mother almost took me to the emergency room.

Anyway…

Last Thursday my link dump included a link to a Photoshop contest wherein contestants were asked to merge two movies and to create a movie poster of the amalgamation. That link inspired Anniina, the Mischievous Muse, to create some mashup movie posters of her own which she posted on her blog. Go here to see them.

As if that weren’t impressive enough, Anniina also ‘shopped Jesus out of his clothes in Raphael’s masterpiece “The Transfiguration.” Here’s the before and after:Go here to view them on the original post.

Okay, I admit that’s some pretty damn good work. But can Anniia accomplish something as divine, something as awe-inspiring as my chef-d’oeuvre “Mark with Fiddy’s Body?” (Cue “O Fortuna!”):I feel my honor as a ‘shop artist has been impugned! I know when I’m being mocked and I throw down the gauntlet, madam! A challenge has been issued and I eagerly accept! Three days hence a photoshopped image so craptastic, so shockingly spectacular in its insipidness will appear here on Hyperliterature in an effort to redeem my honor…what little of it I have anyway.

Good news everyone! I took a little on-line quiz and found out I’m qualified to work as a Deliverator for a very popular fast food chain called “Ninja Burger.” I’d never heard of “Ninja Burger” before, but apparently they operate chains all over the globe.

Choose a Ninja Burger Career at the
Ninja Burger website.

I’m very excited to start my new career, and as I type this a representative of “Ninja Burger” is on his way to begin my orientation. Very soon I could be sneaking into homes delivering burgers on my very own. How exciting!

links for 2006-02-27

• The things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production, on stage or film
  So many good ones, but this one is particularly wince-inducing: “151. Having Shylock pour blood on a prayer shawl and ululate in Hebrew while waving a curved knife during the trial is just overkill.”
• Thieves make off with $26,000 of beer
  I really hope they sold it at discounted prices. Otherwise we missed one hell of a good party.
• YouTube - Peter Griffin Does The Top 10 On Letterman
  I agree whole-heartedly with number two, and number six frightens me for some reason.

I noticed on my last post that I wrote I would resume posting on Monday afternoon, and it occurred to me that my definition of afternoon and your definition of afternoon may differ greatly.

I should probably explain that I define morning as the time I wake up after sleeping an extended period of time (E.P.T. > 9hrs), regardless of whether I wake up at 7:30 or noon. I define afternoon as the time which extends after the first meal I eat after waking, and before the sun goes down. I define night as the time between when the sun sets and whenever I go to bed, which could be anywhere from 11:00 after The Colbert Report airs, until the sun begins to rise the following day.

Let’s bring this all together for a typical “Mark Day”: This morning when I woke up (11:45 A.M.) I ate a nutritious breakfast comprised of leftover Pad Thai and half a banana. In the early afternoon (3:34 P.M) I took a restful and rejuvenating nap, and then Ellie and I took a short stroll around the block, all the while remaining mindful not to overexert myself during my recuperation period (see previous post). Later that night (10:05 P.M.) we ate a leisurely dinner and watched some television. After my wife went to bed I worked on some writing projects and blogged for several hours, until I noticed the time had become a tad bit late (3:45 A.M.) and I moseyed off to bed so as not to exhaust myself.

Follow this regimen and I guarantee you’ll feel more rested and find yourself with more energy than you’ve ever experienced.

Which will probably be due to the fact that you’ve been fired rather than the regimen, but at least you’ll feel good, right?

I will resume normal jackassery on Monday (afternoon), so look for responses to all emails and substantive posts then. I spent most of the weekend in bed with the covers pulled up to my eyes hoping that the moaning noises I heard in my head were induced by the ridiculously high doses of flu medicine, and not to writhing demons outside my door awaiting my death so as to drag my soul down to the brimstone pits of Hell.

Turned out it was the medicine.

Lucky for me, eh?

links for 2006-02-25

• FilmWise
  If you’re a film nut like me you’ll spend all afternoon playing on this site. They have quizzes and contests and they’re all about movies. Hooray! Tests I can pass.
• theCitizen : Anarchy Travel Guides
  The Dallas guide could have been a little better. They say of Austin “If you are a liberal, Austin is the only county in Texas that did not vote for Bush. But keep an open mind Lefty. Shooting guns while drinking and driving is an amusement for everyone

links for 2006-02-24

• Mini-Mart Clerk Microwaves Severed Penis
  That’s the real headline for that story, and it’s considered “Top News” on the CBS channel 5 station out of San Francisco. Ok, update: It wasn’t severed but it was full of pee.
• Dynamic Einstein picture

Holy crap that last post was a doozie.

If I tapped you out on that one take a break and watch as Chunk admonishes congress for their mistakes.

Sometimes I read something and I know immediately that I must write about it, but I’m so taken aback by what I’ve read that I sit at the computer and just stare at a blank Word page completely paralyzed and unable to convey…anything.

Such has been the case with Christian Exodus. Their mission statement taken from their website:

ChristianExodus.org is moving thousands of Christians to South Carolina to reestablish constitutionally limited government founded upon Christian principles. It is evident that the U.S. Constitution has been abandoned under our current federal system, and the efforts of Christian activism to restore our Godly republic have proven futile over the past three decades. The time has come for Christian Constitutionalists to protect our liberties in a State like South Carolina by interposing the State’s sovereign authority retained under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

They argue that the U.S. government has imposed laws which infringe on individual and states rights granted by the Constitution, and these laws specifically target and oppress Christians. They plan to move to South Carolina and systematically begin loading the state government with the right people, and by right I mean fundamentalist Christians, and eventually force the national government to recognize their sovereign rights as a Christian state, or secede from the Union.

I’m not makin’ that up. Go read their web page for yourself if you don’t believe me.

The scary part about all of this is that their plan sounds logical. They have worked up a successful looking strategy, relatively speaking. It sounds like it could really work, and frankly, I’m not so sure it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for them.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that all the bible-thumping, hell and damnation threatening, finger-pointing fundamentalists packed up and moved into one easily identifiable area. They could pass all the legislation they wanted supporting whatever bigoted ideas they foster and the rational and reasonable folks from all different religions, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pastafarian, Atheist, etc, wouldn’t have to listen to them anymore. We could keep an eye on them, but we wouldn’t actually be forced to interact with them.

I’d even go so far as to say let’em secede if they want. Why not? They don’t support the notion of a melting pot which is an ideal this nation was supposedly built on, so let’em solidify into one big, festering mass of self-righteousness. We could impose trade restrictions and importation taxes on them, and so what if they charge us up the wazoo for exports. What does South Carolina have to offer anyway? Tobacco? Let’em keep that shit. If they want to collectively say “Screw you guys, we’re going home” then that’s fine by me.

We would watch them and their newly sovereign nation secure in the knowledge that religious states almost always fail, or at the very least corrode from within. Look at Pakistan after the partition in India. India went secular, and Pakistan became a religious state, and who made out better in that deal, huh? Or how about England during the rule of Charles I? The regicide pretty much dealt with the divine right of kings. Absolute monarchical rule granted by God? Nope. Constitutional monarchy works for us so much better, thanks.

Plus, it’s not like this hasn’t been tried here in the States. Anyone remember the Puritans? John Winthrop and Co. set out to show the world (England) how a pure Christian community could flourish and provide a godly environment to live and raise children, without the hierarchy and corruption of either the Anglican or the Catholic Church interfering. Read Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” and you’ll find many of the same lofty goals put forth by the Christian Exodus group. Unfortunately for Winthrop and his group they were immediately beset by rebellious citizens with conflicting ideological ideas. Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Cotton Mather all differed ideologically and theologically with Winthrop, and were eventually banished or excommunicated for their proselytizing.Their community was eventually assimilated by other more progressive and secular communities.

Look, I got no quarrel with religious folks in general, but when a group of people begin to judge others based on nothing more than a conflated sense of moral superiority then I sit up and pay attention. And I stand up and get involved when those same people not only seek to morally judge others but seek to pass legislation in accordance with their religious belief system. We don’t want folks like this running our government because objectively there is very little difference between their rhetoric and that of other extremist groups which we’re quick to denounce.

In analyzing the work of Karen Armstong, a former professor of mine noted that, “Because they [fundamentalists] fear that they and their way of life are going to be wiped off the earth, some people fortify their identities by a selective return to doctrines and beliefs that make sense of the world for them [emphasis mine]” (68).

We don’t need lawmakers constructing legislation based on fear of the future. We need laws to protect and guarantee the rights of the citizens of the state and the nation. And trust me; people like those in Christian Exodus are more interested in suppressing rights than guaranteeing them.

And I step off my soapbox now…