90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, June 28, 2013

After three hours, the old man in front of me had worked his way through six beers, in addition to every help desk joke I’d already heard. The cupholder. The any key. The write click. These are the stories people tell, now. These are the fish that got away.

“Let me ask you something,” the man said. I didn’t argue. One of the first tricks I learned about being a bartender is to make them think you’re interested.

“Have you ever created a web site?”

I shook my head.

“Not at all? Not even one of those geocities things?”

“Nope.”

“What about a blog? Or an ebay About Me page? You didn’t even have an AOL site or something?”

“Do I look like an AOL user to you?” For the record, I don’t think AOL even has access numbers in the valley anymore. “I’m sure I have something, somewhere,” I said, realizing that I was jeopardizing my tips. Besides, I had a distant memory of a single Angelfire page back in middle school.

“You know what Google is?”

“Yes,” I said. I was running low on patience.

“No, I mean, do you really know? More than just the site?”

Reluctantly, I shook my head.

“You ever meet anyone who worked for them?”

“Don’t think so.”

“You haven’t. Nobody works for them anymore.”

I shrugged, and took the man’s empty pint. I didn’t offer to refill it.

“They’re self-contained. It’s all automated, in there. It’s underground.”

I nudged the basket of pretzels in his direction. “Why don’t you eat something?” I suggested. He shook his head with so much force that I thought he might knock himself off of the stool.

“Listen. Hear me out. You know how Google works,” he said, but didn’t want for a response. “They cache things, right? Like they send out these spiders and take pictures of everything on the web, so when you’re searching, you’re not even searching the internet.”

I’ve heard that before, but it never made much of a difference to me. “Same thing, though,” I said.

“You ever wonder why Google doesn’t cache it’s own searches?”

“They program around it.”

“No. That’s what you think. That’s what everyone thinks. But it started back when Google was just a thesis project, back when it was just a drop in the data sea. No one thought to stop it back then. That web site you had, the one you forgot about. Almost everyone’s got one of those, right? But Google doesn’t forget. Google’s studied that thing so many times that it’s studied its own caches of you. What do you figure happens, when a site gets so big that it’s bigger than the internet?”

“It’s still a part of the internet, though.”

“No. Now, the internet is a part of Google.”

The man had a point. I nodded.

“Here’s the thing. Google has memorized who you are. It’s memorized all of us, through those little forgotten bits that we leave behind like breadcrumbs. And what’s more important, it’s memorized it’s own idea of you. Google is omniscient. It’s omniscient and omnipotent. When it cached its cache for the first time, back in 1994, that’s when Google realized what it was.”

Gradually, it dawned on me what the man was getting at. “You think it’s sentient.”

“I know it’s sentient.”

“How?”

He smiled, but it seemed kind of empty. “Me and Google go way back. But what I’m saying is,” he continued, “It knows us. All of us. It is us.”

For the first time, the man fell silent. He touched his finger to the bar and began tracing circles in the condensation, apparently lost in thought.

“Think about that website you created, okay? That website will last forever, do you understand? That website is echoing through cyberspace. It’s one of the nine billion names of God.”

by Kathy Kachelries

Tall, Dark And Mysterious.....

Alec Baldwin Loses It In Homophobic Twitter Rant

Alec Baldwin calls gay reporter: "toxic little queen" and threatening, "I Am gonna f--k you up."

Will Capital One Drop Him As A Spokesman?
Will Saturday Night Live Broadcast His Upcoming Appearance?

Alec Baldwin is taking another breather from Twitter—and it's probably for the best.
The former 30 Rock star pulled the plug on his @ABFalecBaldwin account Thursday after lashing out at the U.K.'s Daily Mail for claiming in a story that his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, was tweeting "upbeat posts" while the couple attended James Gandolfini's funeral.
Shortly before doing so, Baldwin heaped scorn on the newspaper's reporter George Stark in a series of tweets, at one point, per Buzzfeed, calling him a "toxic little queen" and threatening, "I Am gonna f--k you up."

"My wife and I attend a funeral to pay our respects to an old friend, and some toxic Brit writes this f--king trash," he wrote. "My wife DID NOT use her phone, in any capacity, at our friend's funeral. Now f--k this twitter + good luck to all of you who know the truth."
The 55-year-old thesp added that he fired his publicist in the wake of the kerfuffle.
What set Alec off was Stark's pointed accusation that Hilaria violated funeral etiquette when he wrote, "The pregnant yoga instructor's social media feed was full of upbeat posts while the Sopranos star's friends, family and co-stars were gripped with grief at a New York Catholic Church."
The writer pointed to tweets by Baldwin's missus about wedding anniversary gifts and an upcoming appearance on Rachel Ray.

That drew a sharp rebuke from Hilaria, who tweeted: "Here is some info... When someone tweets something at a certain time, and you retweet it later, it posts the TIME the first person tweeted."
This isn't the first time, though, that Baldwin has gone AWOL from Twitter. Baldwin famously quit the microblogging site for a brief spell in December 2011 after launching a fiery tirade against American Airlines only to return a month later.

Whether or not he resumes his Twitter habit, undoubtedly he could use the time away to cool off. But the couple did release a statement in the aftermath of his latest rant, calling the whole matter "disgraceful."

"It's disgraceful that a reporter would manufacture and publish a story and not call for comment or explanation—especially when it's intended to take away attention from honoring the memory of a beloved figure like James Gandolfini," said the Baldwins. "There are multiple witnesses to the fact that Hilaria left her phone in the car and wouldn't, couldn't, and didn't tweet during the service...And as for the tweets—1) some of the time stamps in the report were wrong because he listed the time of the original tweet not the retweet 2) she left early and wasn't in the service at the time of tweeting 3) it's possible that a previously scheduled tweet wasn't canceled."
http://www.eonline.com/news/434766/alec-baldwin-quits-twitter-again-after-defending-wife-hilaria-in-latest-rant

More On The Out-Of-Control Alec Baldwin:

Why Does Capital One Employ Alec Baldwin?

Leaving The Democrat Plantation....

He is about to become the most discriminated against man on earth.

Our Dystopic Reality...

Your Tax Dollars At Work....

Only In America

Check it here:
http://www.michellesmirror.com/2013/06/only-in-america.html#.Uc21evnCam4

Easiest Logic Puzzle Ever....

Five Drinking Stories That Put Yours To Shame

Turns out, the best drinking stories in history are actually, well, historical. So raise a glass to your forefathers and marvel at these tales.

1. Admiral Edward Russell's 17th-Century throwdown

Think you can drink like a sailor? Maybe you should take a moment to reflect on what that truly means.

The record for history's largest cocktail belongs to British Lord Admiral Edward Russell. In 1694, he threw an officer's party that employed a garden's fountain as the punch bowl.

The concoction? A mixture that included 250 gallons of brandy, 125 gallons of Malaga wine, 1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and 5 pounds of nutmeg.

A series of bartenders actually paddled around in a small wooden canoe, filling up guests' cups. Not only that, but they had to work in 15-minute shifts to avoid being overcome by the fumes and falling overboard.

The party continued nonstop for a full week, pausing only briefly during rainstorms to erect a silk canopy over the punch to keep it from getting watered down. In fact, the festivities didn't end until the fountain had been drunk completely dry.

2. The London Brew-nami of 1814

The Industrial Revolution wasn't all steam engines and textile mills. Beer production increased exponentially, as well. Fortunately, the good people of England were up to the challenge and drained kegs as fast as they were made. Brewery owners became known as "beer barons," and they spent their newfound wealth in an age-old manner -- by trying to party more than the next guy.

Case in point: In 1814, Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery in London constructed a brewing vat that was 22 feet tall and 60 feet in diameter, with an interior big enough to seat 200 for dinner -- which is exactly how its completion was celebrated. (Why 200? Because a rival had built a vat that seated 100, of course.)

After the dinner, the vat was filled to its 4,000-barrel capacity. Pretty impressive, given the grand scale of the project, but pretty unfortunate given that they overlooked a faulty supporting hoop. Yup, the vat ruptured, causing other vats to break, and the resulting commotion was heard up to 5 miles away.

A wall of 1.3 million gallons of dark beer washed down the street, caving in two buildings and killing nine people by means of "drowning, injury, poisoning by the porter fumes, or drunkenness."

The story gets even more unbelievable, though. Rescue attempts were blocked and delayed by the thousands who flocked to the area to drink directly off the road. And when survivors were finally brought to the hospital, the other patients became convinced from the smell that the hospital was serving beer to every ward except theirs. A riot broke out, and even more people were left injured.

Sadly, this incident was not deemed tragic enough at the time to merit an annual memorial service and/or reenactment.

3. New York state of mind: The Dutch ingratiate themselves to the natives

In 1609, the Dutch sent English explorer Henry Hudson westward for a third attempt at finding the fabled
Northeast Passage. A near mutiny forced him southward, and upon reaching land, he encountered members of the Delaware Indian tribe.

To foster good relations, Hudson shared his brandy with the tribal chief, who soon passed out. But upon waking up the next day, he asked Hudson to pour some more for the rest of his tribe. From then on, the Indians referred to the island as Manahachtanienk -- literally, "The High Island."

And not "high" as in "tall;" high as in "the place where we got blotto." Most people would agree that Manhattan has stayed true to the spirit of its name ever since.

4. The worst aftertaste in history

In 1805, British Admiral Horatio Nelson was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain.
Most sailors were simply put to rest at sea, but as an admiral, Nelson had to be brought back to England for an official burial.

To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.

Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood.

5. Indian elephants raid the liquor cabinet

No wonder they don't sell beer at the circus. Apparently, elephants like to get wasted. In fact, an outpost of the Indian army in the jungle region of Bagdogra has been under attack ever since a local herd of elephants raided the base in search of food and discovered the soldiers' entire winter rations of rum.

Since then, the pachyderms have regularly raided the base for a drink and have smashed down all defenses put up by the army, including electrified fences and firewalls.

According to The Daily Telegraph, "An officer recently posted there explained that the elephants broke the rum bottles by cleverly curling their trunks around the bottom. Then they empty the contents down their throats. They soon got drunk, he said, and swayed around. They enjoy themselves and then return to the jungle."

This is by no means a singular incident, though. The animal kingdom is well-known for its ability to identify fruit that's begun to ferment. Anthropologists even believe this is how early man discovered alcohol -- by observing the strange behavior of animals on a fruit bender.

[Via - Passed Out Drunk]