The apocalypse

Chanda Phelan wrote her thesis on the changes and trends in post-apocalyptic literature looking at 423 books, poems, and short stories. Being a huge fan of reading and watching tons of people kicking this mortal coil at the same time I found it interesting -

That was the idea behind this chart – I wanted to see if there were patterns in how writers saw the monster. As it turned out, the patterns were clearer than I imagined. Nuclear holocaust was really popular after 1945; that's to be expected. But the precipitous and permanent drop in nuclear war's popularity after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 (see chart)? That surprised me.

Predictably, the human-made apocalypse is a perennial favorite. The way we go about it, though, is always changing, as you can see on the chart, where I've broken up the "human made disaster" into subcategories.

The post-apocalyptic technological utopias of the turn of the century are replaced by dystopias and robot rebellions after World War I (the first expansion of the green region devoted to human-made disaster), when everyone began to suspect that technology was only going to help us go about killing each other more efficiently, not cure us of the need to kill in the first place. Other trends are there, too: anxiety about pollution and global warming tend to spike whenever nuclear fears fade, for example.

The easily spotted trends make the patterns' total collapse in the mid-1990s even weirder. Human-created apocalypses shrink dramatically, and there's a sudden spike of unexplained apocalypse scenarios at the turn of the century. What happened? One possibility is that every End started to feel clichéd. The terror of a possible nuclear war faded, and no new extravagant ways to kill ourselves appeared to replace it.

It really gets you pumped up to go see 2012, right? Or maybe begin reading the Left Behind series...

Post-Halloween Malaise

My little cousin Blase showed me this thing. It took an inordinately long amount of time to find out how this thing worked, but since I was already extremely frustrated by the Packers I wasn't going to let this site break me. It was sort of worth it.

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Bucks prove me correct

God, they're just so sloppy and awful...but watching Brandon Jennings was completely worth having to sit through the game. He came a rebound and an assist short of being only the second player to debut with a triple-double, the other being Oscar Robertson.

Anyway, here's something else - Life imitates Arrested Development

Milwaukee Bucks

First game of the season is tonight at 6:00 against the Sixers and, for the first time in like 7 years, I guess I'll be watching. I've hated the NBA and blamed that hatred on boring games, stupid officiating, and seasons that were too long, but I think the more accurate reason was that the Bucks were real bad and, worse, real boring. You can't inject any enthusiasm for a team by grabbing players like Andrew Bogut, Yi Jianlian, and Joe Alexander. But you grab Brandon Jennings and I guess I'll come back around to you.



If that's not enough to make you fall in love with Brandon Jennings then check it out -

Jennings also has discovered some good local restaurants and might even be able to add a few pounds to his scrawny frame.

"I like to go into what everybody calls the 'hood area,' " he says. "I go to the social restaurants. Mr. Perkins (Family Restaurant) is off the hook."

Mr. Perkins? I am so in. That's what we're calling it now.

update courtesy of kole:

Halloween Idea

xkcd

If I went as any Back to the Future character I'd go as Eric Stoltz as Marty Mcfly.

Favre as Robert E. Lee

Fact: Like Favre, Robert E. Lee was also known for having fun on the field

Thomas P.M. Barrett writes an article for Esquire comparing this Sunday's Packers/Vikings game to a hypothetical Civil War scenario casting Brett Favre as Robert E. Lee, the Packers as Confederates, and Aaron Rodgers as, I guess?, Stonewall Jackson (but Stonewall died before he was able to replace Lee and demonstrate his better pocket mobility and ability to control throwing back-breaking interceptions late in games). Here. My devotion to the Packers outweighs any discomfort of being analogized to the less-than-sympathetic confederacy. Let the Union lose if that goddamned turncoat Brett Favre is gonna be their general.

So imagine this: At the kickoff to the Fall 1863 campaign, Lee suddenly announces that he's coming out of retirement... and signed with Lincoln's Union Army! Declaring that he has at least one or two more campaigns in him, Lee proclaims that this is nothing personal and that he simply wants to end his military career on a high note, playing for a team with a better chance at near-term victory. Yes, he'll always be a Confederate at heart, but since his wife and children are more than supportive, why not just give it one more go? As for his many admirers in the South who feel a deep sense of betrayal, Lee offers this terse response: "If they don't want me to win in a blue uniform, then they never believed me in the first place."

Let the beat ride

The Schwarzenegger Code

If I was ever in charge of writing a government document I'd overload it up with secret messages.

It was hardly a bill of cosmic import, but Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s AB 1176 would have helped the Port of San Francisco with some financing issues. It’s the kind of bill that legislators offer on behalf of their cities all the time -- and generally, they are non-controversial. This one was the same -- no substantive opposition, it passed both houses easily -- and normally, the governor would sign it with little fanfare.

But no: Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill -- and sent Ammiano and the legislators a remarkable veto letter. The letter says nothing about the substance of the bill; in fact, the language is really convoluted and it’s hard to figure out what the gov is really saying.

Ideas for the commune

Paging John Beck. I know that without the Orbitz gig we all may have to wait a bit longer for you to buy the huge lot of land for us to start our commune life, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't start making a checklist of ideas to implement into our lifestyles.

It seems to me that the best way to instantly raise your standard of living is to live in the past. If you subsist entirely on two-year-old entertainment, and the corresponding two-year-old technology used to power it, you’re cutting your fun budget in half, freeing up that money for more exciting expenditures like parking meters and postage....

That’s why I’m going to start my own cult. A counter-cult, if you will, but not a cult actually involved with counters like you’d see at Home Depot. My cult will be called the Cult of the Somewhat Delayed, and like all good cults we will shun contact with outsiders. I’ll probably also get some chanting going — I like chanting.

The main purpose of the cult will be to allow us to enjoy two-year-old entertainment and technology without being corrupted by the heathen new-havers. In order to remain blissfully ignorant of spoilers and shiny new temptations, we will constantly live as if it were two years in the past.

90 years ago today

Prohibition began.

Prohibition played a major role in the standardization of bad beer in this country. I am just beginning research on a book length project on beer and local breweries in America and I understand that up until Prohibition, local breweries around the nation made a wide variety of sometimes very high quality beer. I hear the original recipe for Coors produces a quite delicious beer, though I have not had it. But after years of not drinking beer, the public had largely lost its taste for complex beers by 1933 and in order to survive, the breweries who managed to reopen after fourteen years found it in their interests to produce weak lagers that appealed to wider audience. I need to research this phenomenon in significantly more detail, but if we have the Volstead Act to blame for Miller Lite and Keystone, I am going to be even more full of rage than I already am.

Have a beer, celebrate freedom.

Sharks!!

20ft shark bites 10ft great white shark in half. Woah.



Lake Michigan is shark free. Just another reason why Milwaukee is the 2nd safest city in the nation.

And now, from the documentary Spring Break: Shark Attack!, how to survive a shark attack -

Milwaukee

Tisko linked me to a new Forbes.com survey that has Milwaukee listed as the 2nd safest city. Minneapolis is number 1. Milwaukee is the 16th most violent city that Forbes looked at, but we here in Milwaukee don't ever have to worry about dying from a natural disaster so it launched us into second. Like Tisko said, there must be something about Milwaukee that makes judges fudge with the numbers to get Milwaukee to rank well after this and last year's surprise victory in Marie Claire's Sexiest City.

Awful Library Books

I could waste a lot of time here but I have to go to class. This is my favorite so far in a minute of browsing -



This is just calling out for an update, right? I think that I'm just the guy to persuade American teenagers to just go for that facial reconstruction they've always had their eye on cause, let's face it, that face isn't going to grow into that nose.

edit: Then I can recommend this book -



via shysterball

Tina Fey makes ppl's heads explode

Apparently I'm not the only person who can't keep the many permutations of Tina Fey straight. Witness the sad confusion.