Ocelot Sideshow

Goat report, 1/12/12

2012-01-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

Do you know where your local goat specials are?

Goat report, 11/23/11

2011-11-23T05:18:00.000-08:00

Chris Blackwell: The Missing Link

2011-11-23T05:16:00.001-08:00

I like finding connections between different, seemingly unrelated parts of my life. Like when one of my favorite singers does an album with a basis in mathematics, something that's always been friendly to me.

In my consumption of the James Bond Ultimate Edition DVDs, I've enjoyed watching the supplementary material on Ian Fleming. It turns out that Fleming, the creator of my childhood hero, had a longtime mistress named Blanche Lindo. Blanche Lindo was the mother (not via Fleming) of one Chris Blackwell, who grew up to be a successful record producer and also scouted locations for the first Bond film, Dr. No. In the early 90s, he provided the financial backing to start a label called Axiom with a producer named Bill Laswell. The label's output, especially, Praxis' first album, was some of my favorite music of the early 90s and I'm still a huge fan of Laswell's work. Cool to see a connection between my obsessions of the 80s and the 90s.

And lately when I drive thru my town, I see a new optomotrist's office called Golden Eye.

Goat report, 11/8/11

2011-11-08T05:19:00.000-08:00

Let's hear it for those brave goat renters out there!

Goat report, 10/19/11

2011-10-19T17:50:00.001-07:00

They saw a white goat and they wanted to paint him black...

The James Bond Ultimate Edition DVDs

2011-10-11T05:57:00.000-07:00

In early February of 1982 I went to a friend's slumber/birthday party and we watched some movies. One of them was Moonraker, which had been recently released on video, and my mind was blown. The next week I had rented Goldfinger and For Your Eyes Only from the video store up the street and I was seriously hooked. The next year I saw Octopussy in the cinema and began my collection of books about the Bond movies, making it one of my first areas of expertise.

My VHS tapes of ABC's broadcasts of the 007 films have been watched over and over to the point I know these films in great detail. When they originally came out on DVD about 10 years ago, I got each movie and eventually upgraded to the 2-disk Ultimate Editions that came out in 2007. I'm finally getting around to watching these editions and will be posting my thoughts on all 20 of the films in the Ultimate Edition sets, so they won't be in chronological order.

Michael Moore's "Slacker Uprising"

2011-09-30T05:30:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Michael Moore did a direct-to-download movie called Slacker Uprising? It's still available for free from the director and based on that price and what I've enjoyed from Moore in the past I got it a few years ago and recently got around to watching it. It took me back to those heady days of 2004 when those of us to the left thought we could make GW Bush a single-term president and it's easy to see how the "uprising" the title describes just continued to rise and eventually elect Obama in 2008.

However, events since then have served to make this film interesting self-indictment of Moore. Most of what we see of Moore in this film show him trying to raise voter participation rates among college students and the opposition he got from political opponents. Aside from that, we see a lot of his speeches at colleges where he talks about evil warmonger Bush and how we have to end these stupid wars and why we need to treat our troops right and bring them all home now. Hearing this talk in 2011, one has to wonder why Moore isn't speaking about warmonger Obama the same way as all these claims apply equally to him. A low point is reached when Moore brings Roseanne Barr on stage to make jokes about how Bush is running up the deficit. It's nice that Moore put these issues up front in his campaign but would have been nicer if he hadn't given up on them.

Goat report, 9/18/11

2011-09-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Have you read any goat poetry today?

A response to Penn Jillette

2011-09-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

I've grown to be an admirer of Penn Jillette in recent years. I really like the title of his new book (God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales) as it sounds like a conclusion I came to in recent times. His video blog is frequently great fun, too. However, we don't agree in the realm of politics, as I'm a socialist and he's a libertarian. His recent CNN guest column draws some parallels between his atheism and his libertarianism with arguments that have shown me just where he, and perhaps other libertarians, are making their mistakes.

"People try to argue that government isn't really force. You believe
that? Try not paying your taxes. ... Guns will be drawn. Government is
force -- literally, not figuratively."

This is an argument I've seen before and it's apparently based on the idea that NOBODY wants to take part in government. Many of us do want to take part in government, however, so it's not a matter of force when we're willingly giving up our money. I guess the libertarians could respond with something like "you can't rape the willing" but I think they underestimate the numbers of people who want social services from their government and are willing to pay taxes to provide them. If one is willing to pay for something, the force argument falls apart unless you're willing to say that all trades of money for services are force.

"I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone."

That is not the guiding principle of the social contract. In fact, it's a disgusting parody of the "majority rule" principle of any democracy. And today we usually conceive it as "majority rule with minority rights".

Here's an example to show how the "majority thinks it knows best" idea is BS: you're at a party with 10 friends and 9 of them want to order pepperoni pizzas while you want veggie pizza. Nobody there would think that the majority think pepperoni is best for the group, but they probably would agree that most preferences would be satisfied by that order. What would probably happen at the party (and ideally in a democratically governed society) is they would order a couple pepperonis and 1 veggie pizza, as everybody wants everybody else to be happy in a civil and friendly situation. If you don't want everybody to be happy, you're the one keeping the situation (or society) from being civil.

"The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something
good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that
don't want to pay for it."

This is a tricky area; the idea that we shouldn't be forced to pay for things we don't want seems very fair on the surface, but anybody who willingly takes part in government understands that the majority rule principle means they can't always get everything they want. Going back to the pizza party example, I may think I can eat more than 1 veggie pizza but I have to accept that the others really want pepperoni and they shouldn't pay for my gluttony. But we have a right to petition for what we want and open communication means we can argue for what we want, which can potentially change majority opinion.

Framing it in the sense of "we don't want to pay for these government actions" makes one wonder what this person thinks the ideal situation would be. Should our tax returns have a page where we list off things we will and won't be willing to let our taxes go to? Should every government expenditure be a bond with a referendum? Or maybe could we keep our current system and try to elect people we think will spend the money the way we best want.

"If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack.
Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just
ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid."

I wonder if Penn really thinks "ganging up against the weird kid" would decrease if we changed to his ideal laissez-faire system. Is that how minorities have won their rights in our history, by letting the marketplace decide?

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

2011-07-27T21:09:00.001-07:00

I'm a little fond of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It's certainly nothing I'd watch every night if I had the chance but it's got a self-deprecating, friendly, oh-who-really-cares attitude that reminds me of Late Night with David Letterman, which I used to watch some nights back in high school. The host doesn't have the self-hatred that was sometimes boiling to the surface of Letterman's delivery and sometimes does fine hour-long interviews, such as those with Stephen Fry and Cornel West.

And how can you not like a show that had, on the same night, both Paris Hilton and Neil Gaiman? Don't believe me? Here's a screen shot:

Goat report, 3/6/11

2011-03-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Triple update!

Take it from me, goats like to boogie

Did you know that Alabama's capitol was on Goat Hill?

and, from The Onion:
Anthropologists Trace Human Origins Back to One Large Goat

Goat report, 1/17/11

2011-01-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

Apparently it's not allowed to take a goat for a ride. Maybe he didn't have his seatbelt on?

Goat report, 12/3/10

2010-12-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

Goats! The latest in high fashion!

Double goat report, 9/18/10

2010-09-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

1) Goats have arrived at Gawker: Goat killed in drive by

2) In one German city, goats are off the wall!

Goat report, 8/18/10

2010-08-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

You want to get that movie made with the actor you want? Send your prospective star some goats!

Goat report, 7/23/10

2010-07-23T05:29:00.000-07:00

Goats roosting on an IHOP billboard; maybe they just want some pancakes? Via Dependable Renegade.

Comments > Articles

2010-07-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

It was great to see the Onion AV Club fully come to terms with what their articles do best: provide a place for comments that are more entertaining to read than the article, such as quote Robocop and other Peter Weller films.

I've read a lot of their TV reviews lately and while the columnists are very good writers, many of the comments are just as well done, albeit more brief. I learned a great deal from the comments to reviews of The Prisoner and Lost was also good, tho both shows are tough for a simple article-sized review given their many influences.

Lately the reviews of Star Trek: The Next Generation spawn comment threads by people who, like me, watched the show as teens and have reflections on the show, the Trek franchise, and life in the late 80s. Outside of the TV reviews, it's nice to see an article about a bad movie's DVD commentary turn into a discussion of DVD commentaries that are better than their movies.

The sports site Deadspin has been aware of the power of good comments for some time and can sometimes be the funniest site on the web just based on the high level of hilarious commentary its readers provide. It reminds me a little of Jim Rome's radio show in that both are really comedy based, but it requires a great deal of specific background knowledge (being a sports fan) to get all of the jokes. If you like comedy, I'd suggest getting into sports more; it's just another set of data.

Goat report, 6/30/10

2010-06-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

Put that lawn mower and weed whacker away and Go Goats!

Goat report, 4/15/10

2010-04-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

I like Google's email, rss reader, and calendar, but did not know that they also had their own goats!

Singing toddlers

2010-01-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

The Little Goat is very talented at mimicking what she sees. Musically, she has learned a lot of lyrics to some of her favorite music, lately having learned most of the words to 'Once Upon a Dream' from Sleeping Beauty. Lots of people have put videos of their children singing online and a couple caught my eye lately:

Grindcore baby is really talented: he has obviously internalized a style of music and is improvising appropriately. On the other hand, this country baby has seen too much tv. It's a fine testament to how well toddlers can imitate but the implications are disturbing: he's been in front of the TV to see the music video a lot of times. Unless his parents have an acting career planned for him, that's poor parenting; ok, especially if his parents have an acting career planned for him.

Strategic default

2009-12-22T22:25:00.000-08:00

I bought a house in Southern California a few years ago, meaning I now owe more than my home could be sold for. Despite not having bought a house as an investment, this situation is not a financially strong one. I've heard about people walking away for some time, even heard of people who insist it's the only reasonable thing to do but now those voices are getting more mainstream. Greater financial powers are running a huge guilt trip in response but their own hypocrisy makes that difficult to hear. Many good writers are making good arguments, so why do I keep paying my mortgage?

Goat report, 12/11/09

2009-12-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Goats can help you learn about common sense with the Monty Hall problem. Why wouldn't you want to get a goat?

Goat report, 11/15/09

2009-11-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

Goats and kittens will help you learn how to use an apostrophe.

Better spell it out for them!

2009-11-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

Saw the pilot for the "V" re-launch and found it somewhat laughable although it had some good points (very creepy villain and new sleeper-cell plot). The math teacher in me was very upset with one scene: an FBI agent is telling her partner about how terrorist chatter has all decreased since the aliens arrived save for one group, whose chatter has increased significantly. We get a view of her laptop screen and sure enough, most of the graphs trend downward steeply. But one graph has increased and to make sure ALL OF US IDIOTS understand this, somebody added a little caption to the graph on the laptop screen saying "SIGNIFICANT INCREASE". Check it out:

There's a lesson in the math book I teach out of that involves reading graphs to tell if there's an increase, decrease, or no change. I usually skip that as it's a joke and most of my students will tune out at its simplicity. Nice to see that TV creators think more poorly of their audience.

The continuing adventures of Liz Goldwyn

2009-10-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Such excitement to see Liz Goldwyn, whose work I've so admired, in my Sunday LA Times. I love how the article says Liz 'just so happens to be the granddaughter of famed Hollywood studio head Samuel Goldwyn and counts fashion-world elite as friends and collaborators' as if those are unrelated. Amazing that somebody born into such privledge would have a career in the business of high-priced fashion. Can we bring back a robust estate tax, please? It is the moral thing to do.

Goat report, 9/29/09

2009-09-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

In what is undoubtedly a Pulitzer Prize-caliber story, Stephen Colbert blows the lid off the US military's secret Goat Lab.

One way to legalize it?

2009-09-29T05:50:00.000-07:00

Something I frequently hear my students talk about is the hope that marijuana will be legalized one day. I've tried to tell them that they have some control over this in terms of registering to vote and electing legislators who will do so. However, I'm not sure this will work as there's a social stigma about weed that needs to be lost before legalization happens.

For a while I thought that it was only a matter of time before all the collegiate pot-heads would become respectable citizens who would hold office. When that happened, they would naturally legalize drugs because it was something that didn't have a bad effect upon them. I've come to realize, however, that the roadblock to this is the image of the tree-burner: the slacker, the dope-head, the fool who laughs at paint drying. This is not a good wage-earner or tax-payer, this is someone that our American Puritan work ethic always frowns upon. Alcohol, on the other hand, is seen as something that you earn with hard work ("It's Miller Time!"). So what the hippie lettuce lovers need is a "I'm a pot-achiever!" campaign. They need to prove they won't just waste away on their couches if they have a chance to smoke all they want.

Can this happen? I don't know; my own experiences w/ people smoking MJ are more along the lines of Cheech and Chong but I respect that people can use but not abuse. One way that the pro-chronic crowd can get their foot in the door may be thru selective legalization. Recent studies that it helps fight Alzheimer's could be seized upon to allow seniors to use it. This could have appeal to the American public: who deserves to light up more than those who have contributed so much to our nation? And while I have no data on this, I get a sense that the the plea to let the dying to have a toke is the argument most appealing to John and Jane Q Public, especially when those dying with great pain are brought up. Perhaps the folks at NORML should talk less about the drug war and more about grandma's suffering.

Goat report, 8/28/09

2009-08-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

As previously forecast, George Clooney is staring at goats!

Goat report, 7/20/09

2009-07-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Pretty exciting times for the semi-goats at the Los Angeles Zoo. Four goat variations have given birth there lately: markhors, serows, takins, and according to the press release, there's also a new Chinese goral that is apparently pretty camera shy.

To make up for their absence, here are some very cute baby nubians in Indiana.

Goat report, 5/23/09

2009-05-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Retirement to an old goat

More eco-driving

2009-05-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

An update about my progress with eco-driving. The last few days I've been really driving like a granny and never letting the RPMs get past 2000 and the results are great. I haven't gone under 35 mpg for my morning commute and almost finished above 41 mpg this morning. I may have upset a few of the cars behind me with my snail's pace; alas.

This information is probably a bit of a surprise to those reading this who've ridden in a car I drove. Upon getting my driver's license at 16 I was called upon for a good deal of driving by friends and they agreed that my first driving instructor was James Bond. I did tone my driving down over the years and usually just move the speed of traffic, which can be quite fast in CA or NJ.

The biggest change in my commute is that it takes much more time. But this isn't so bad; way back in the 90s when I transferred colleges, my commute time was cut in half. My morning ritual of hearing a whole side of a 90-minute tape was gone as it sometimes only took 20 minutes to get to school. So I will spend more time in my car now but that allows me a few more minutes of shuffling.

Eco-driving

2009-05-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

I've read about eco-driving a bit and gave it a serious go lately. My morning commute is about 10 miles and kept a close eye on my mileage with my ScanGuage, a gift from Frau Goat. My usual morning commute mileage is around 30 mpg, even getting below 29 if I hurry a great deal. But by watching my tachometer and staying under 2k RPM, I got 34, 35, and 36 mpg on three consecutive days. Usually I don't get that kind of mileage unless I'm on the highway for a couple of hours. Give this a shot (and leave earlier since you'll be driving slower).

Double goat report, 4/23/09

2009-04-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

1) Time to dress up your goats!

2) Beware the coming of the Iranian goat clones!

Goat report, 3/28/09

2009-03-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

A possible outcome of the recession: a rise in urban goating.

Rolcats

2009-03-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

Haven't really gone nuts over the whole Lolcat thing, although most of what I've seen of them are funny. But I could really get addicted to the commie variation: Rolcats (via Heather). Brings to mind the incredible Nietzsche Family Circus, tho the latter has the value of being generated.

Goat report, 3/16/09

2009-03-16T22:06:00.001-07:00

Since when is it posh to wear goat leather?

My Nation-ality

2009-03-02T20:06:00.001-08:00

What's Your Nation-ality?

Sylvia Plath

Fun quizzes, surveys & blog quizzes by

Yum!

2009-02-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

Had a delicious soy variant of chorizo recently and was learning about the food when I came across a somewhat unappetizing picture of the Indian version of the dish. Although I haven't had to change many diapers lately, I still don't like looking at the lentils too much when having Indian buffet. But that chorizo dish looks like something from ratemypoo.com. Perhaps the folks at Sprinkle Brigade could provide a better picture for Wikipedia.

Goat report, 1/25/09

2009-01-25T18:55:00.000-08:00

Beware of goats stealing things, not to mention thieves who turn into goats.

Holiday goat report, 12/18/08

2008-12-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

And what's a holiday season without some goat sodomy?

Goat report, 11/24/08

2008-11-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

I was very excited to see one of our 50 states has a goat license plate but then a bit concerned that it might get attacked by a confused mountain goat.

Babygoat's playlist

2008-11-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

A while back I got a little cheap mp3 player in a drawing at a teacher conference. It's way too small (128 M) for my uses but seeing Babygoat begin to sing some songs from time to time inspired us to fill it with her favorite music. Here are some of her top requests...

Music from the Sesame Street canon is probably most popular, with the top choice being:

What's the Name of That Song. The original version is much better but I only have an mp3 of a later version.

1-2-3-4 is one of my favorite songs of late, discovered via a good feature at Entertainment Weekly on special guests on Sesame Street

Rubber Ducky is certainly a big hit in the tub

I Love Trash has led her to searching for Oscar in many trash cans she sees

Elmo's Song is only annoying the first 10,000 times

Sing After Me has her practicing melismatic singing from time to time.

Outside of Sesame Street, she likes
Moving Right Along (from The Muppet Movie) and Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here from Schoolhouse Rock, tho I suspect she thinks she's singing about lollypops. Other faves include Bicycle Race by Queen, Yellow Submarine by The Beatles, and This is Halloween from Nightmare Before Christmas. I was hoping she'd pick up on The Elements by Tom Lehrer but so far she's not into it. She does love Kitty Cat Dance, thankfully.

Election 2008

2008-10-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

On my morning drives to work I've been hearing stupid commercials for Yes on Proposition 8 for about a month. They claim that if Prop 8 is voted down, it will force everybody to accept gay marriage and 'people could be jailed for their beliefs'. Only in the past week have I heard reasonable rebuttals in the form of No on 8 commercials. Nice to see the school super getting in the mix, too. It'd be nicer if we could get a yard sign to counter the numerous Yes on 8 signs in our neighborhood.

Also in the 'nice to see but did it have to come so late' category are the mailers from congressional candidate Tim Prince. Sad to see he's using a Prodigy email address but I like that he nabbed a good domain to talk about the incumbent, Jerry Lewis: www.yourcorruptcongressman.com.

Mongoloid

2008-10-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I and my fellow faculty were given a lecture by a (retired) veteran teacher. He seemed a nice enough guy and obviously has many years of teaching experience under his belt but his lecture was little more than inspirational phrases that had little narrative connection between them. This is not unusual in education.

What is unusual in education is when he used the term 'mongoloid' to describe a hypothetical student that could not be educated. I found this a little troubling and was surprised to find that many of my colleagues did not know the term. Happily, they all agreed that any term that is used both for people with Down syndrome and those who are ethnically southeast Asian is an offensive term.

Bob Grant

2008-10-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Back when I lived in New Jersey I spent a great deal of my car-time listening to talk radio. WABC provided a good deal of entertainment for me, with lots of dopey conservatives shouting all day long. One guy who was on in the evening was Bob Grant, who sounded like the stereotypical 'angry old man' whose views of the world were a little behind the times, to say the least. It was always fun when folks would call in to disagree with him and he'd just respond with an angry 'Get - off - of - my - phone!!!'

This week, I had the chance to get reacquainted with him as the poor old fool didn't recognize the flag of Ohio when it was behind Obama. In his defense, however, I will note that when one looks at all the US State flags together (as I did once at Philadelphia's Independence Hall), the Ohio flag does look a little silly next to the others with its non-rectangular shape.

Goat report, 9/27/08

2008-09-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

Three goats for the price of one:

1) The winner of the goat throwing contest should definitely get some Flying Goat coffee, if not some wine.

2) Good to see that the world of science has finally begun to take a look at horny goat weed.

3) If you're gonna climb a mountain, why not take your pet goat along?

!

2008-09-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Happy National Punctuation Day?

Hadn't heard about this one. We used to check out Earth Calendar for interesting holidays we could use as party excuses but this one doesn't even show up there. Perusing the site, I was very excited to see that I'm not alone in my support for the serial comma.

A well trained babygoat

2008-09-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

I was very proud of myself about a year ago when I discovered that babygoat had somehow taught herself to go fetch my shoes when she heard me wonder aloud where they were. I do take credit for it despite not giving her any explicit training in this direction. This week we've learned of something else she's learned very well from her father: whenever she hears a bit of flatulence and is subsequently asked "Who did that?" she replies "Mommy did it!" It even works when Ms Goat is nowhere near!

You down with LHC? You know me!

2008-09-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

One life-changing moment I had back in the 80s involved watching an episode of PBS' great show Nova entitled 'What Einstein Never Knew'. It was a great encapsulation of advances in physics following his last great work in the 20s and included brief overviews of things like string theory and the high-energy physics work at the Large Electron Positron Collider at CERN. This episode fascinated me so much I even sent away for the transcript and began to follow some of the topics in the news. I was disappointed when the Superconducting Super Collider was canceled but finally a similar project, the Large Hadron Collider, is now coming online.

Check out the cool LHC photo gallery and then get down with the incredible LHC rap that is referenced within. If you want to worry, you can read what's troubling some folks but keep in mind that some predicted such results with the atom bomb.

A coincidence?

2008-09-07T12:47:00.001-07:00

On page A18 of yesterday's Los Angeles Times (Inland Empire edition) there were only 4 articles. The first three obviously all go together: GOP ticket split over condom use, Palin stays true to her moose roots, and GOP viewership a new record. The 4th article: Straying mate? His genes may be to blame. It's certainly convenient that the only space left on a page of articles about Republican matters was just the right size for an article about unfaithful husbands.

Obama's future

2008-08-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

I was sorry to hear that some fool made a remark about killing Obama should he be elected president and a little bit disturbed to find that such a topic was a popular search term and even predicted by a major cultural figure. What bothers me the most is that in the past several months I've heard 3 different African American students on 3 different occasions say that they expect Obama to not survive his first term. These students should be proud that someone is coming so close to such an office but instead they are expecting his doom. Such is the legacy of slavery, at least according to one historian.

Tiny Liberia airport

2008-08-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

We flew in to Costa Rica at the Daniel Oduber International Airport,just outside of Liberia. We could quickly tell that it was a tiny airport and later figured that it's probably the smallest international airport either of us have used. Not only did we have to disembark with the staircase and walk across the tarmac but the 'terminal' itself is obviously just a converted hanger with a (literally) Big Ass Fan as climate control. It easily beats out our other small airports we've used such as Toledo, OH (international for cargo) and the very quaint Derry, Ireland. It'll be interesting to see how this airport grows, given the great amount of development all over Costa Rica.

Goat report, 7/28/08

2008-07-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Every fair should have a goat costume contest!

George Carlin, RIP

2008-07-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy past month with travel and such but I wanted to say something about George Carlin's passing. He was one of the first comedians I could name as I used to hear Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television on Dr. Demento back in the late 70s and found it hilarious despite all the words in question being bleeped out. I later memorized his more radio-friendly bits IceBox Man and A Place for My Stuff, again despite half the material being over my head at the time. Around the late 80s I began to resent his more political humor, probably because it made me confront some truths I had trouble accepting. I came around to see that he was seeing things quite clearly, however, as can be seen in most of his recent work, like Consumer Capitalism. It's too bad to see him go but nice to see so much of his work is available online.

Album-a-year

2008-07-18T17:27:00.001-07:00

Haven't done something like this in a while: via the llama, pick a favorite album for each year you've been alive. I decided to attempt to avoid artist repetition as it's tough for me to pick a single favorite and allows me some variety.

1973: Quadrophenia - The Who
1974: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Genesis
1975: One Size Fits All - Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention
1976: Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder
1977: "Heroes" - David Bowie
1978: Van Halen - Van Halen
1979: Exposure - Robert Fripp

1980: Gentlemen Take Polaroids - Japan
1981: Discipline - King Crimson
1982: Signals - Rush
1983: Synchronicity - Police or 90125 - Yes
1984: Double Nickels on the Dime - Minutemen
1985: White City: A Novel - Pete Townshend
1986: They Might Be Giants - They Might Be Giants
1987: Uplift Mofo Party Plan - Red Hot Chili Peppers
1988: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
1989: The Real Thing - Faith No More or Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys

1990: Ritual de lo Habitual - Jane's Addiction
1991: Ask the Ages - Sonny Sharrock
1992: Angel Dust - Faith No More
1993: Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe - Fishbone
1994: Hallucination Engine - Material
1995: Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
1996: Fantastic Planet - Failure
1997: Vegas - The Crystal Method
1998: El Oso - Soul Coughing
1999: California - Mr. Bungle

2000: Joys and Concerns - The Negro Problem
2001: Guest Host - Stew
2002: Shy Angels - Sussan Deyhim
2003: Electric Version - The New Pornographers
2004: The Grey Album - Jay-Z, The Beatles & Danger Mouse
2005: Guero - Beck
2006: Love - The Beatles and George Martin
2007: Inamorata - Method of Defiance
2008: Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

My toughest years to choose an album were the early-to-mid 90s (when I was working in a music store) and mid-70s. I found that it was also tough to pick something in the recent 5 years; while I certainly have lots of music that has been released in that period, I'm not as familiar with it as I'd like to be. Too much music.

Gas prices

2008-07-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

Going thru receipts from a recent trip to Costa Rica and came across one from our one purchase of gasoline. We had a rental car briefly (a somewhat rattley but overall decent Daihatsu Terios) and the full tank, combined with Costa Rica's smallness, kept us from having to buy much gas. I was surprised to find that the 4 Liters (almost one gallon) cost us $4.77 (2600 colones), not that much more than what we're paying in the High Desert as $4.39 is the cheapest around us.

TV for kids

2008-06-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

I was very amused to see an item about how old Sesame Street episodes aren't intended for viewing by today's youth. In recent viewings of The Electric Company with Babygoat, there was one moment in the sequence of 'changing the word by interchanging letters' where they made the word 'rum', something I felt would not have passed muster these days. There have also been some hints of violence (explosion sound effects) that I can't believe would make it to the kiddy screen these days. I've seen nothing, however, as out there as what I was reminded of when we watched The Muppet Movie: the character of Crazy Harry.

Experiments in TV viewing

2008-06-12T15:24:00.001-07:00

Whilst flying to the great northwest I perused the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines and enjoyed an article relating the experience of watching Nickelodeon's two networks for 24 hours. And just a couple of weeks ago Ms Goat uncovered some old Rolling Stone magazines I'd saved from many years ago. One of them was the April 29th, 1993 issue that included a great read from Hugh Gallagher called 'An Experiment in Terror: 7 Days and Seven Nights Alone with MTV'. The money quote from the article is one I memorized the first time I read it: 'MTV exists to remind me how much I'm not getting laid.' Apparently I'm not the only one who enjoyed it fondly.

Northwest goats

2008-06-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

We visited the American Northwest for a llama's nuptuials and took the oportunity to spend a day in Seattle. We went to the Northwest Folklife Festival and had a good deal of good food while hearing lots of good music, such as the Hail Seizures (and I probably saw more washtub basses that weekend than in my entire life up to that point). We also picked up some nice chevre at Pike Place Market and later in Olympia we were excited to see Dancing Goats coffee.

Double goat report, 5/17/08

2008-05-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

1) RIP artist Robert Rauschenberg, the man who stuffed a goat and made it art.

2) George Clooney had better not stare at my goats...

Art of the Future

2008-05-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hopefully somebody will do this one day: take the data from motion capture suits worn during sexual acts and use them to animate characters that are not involved in sexual acts. And not dancing, either, that's too obvious.

Jelly Belly updates

2008-05-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we found ourselves in lovely Santa Monica. There was a big to-do over at the pier where the Santa Monica Classic race was finishing up and lots of free stuff was being given out. Most exciting of the free goodies was the Jelly Belly Sport Beans. Larger than usual Jelly Bellies but just as tasty, even I have a tough time believing they improve athletic performance. But pre-workout may be the only time Ms. Goat lets me eat them.

More exciting was my recent discovery at the 99 Cent Only Store of small bags of Belly Flops. Some quick math told me that the 5 oz. bags they're selling are cheaper per ounce than the 2 lb. bags usually sold for $8. In more ways than one, SWEET!

Goat report, 4/20/08

2008-04-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

From the lovely Ms. Goat: a crazy goat says what?

My own personal radio station

2008-04-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

Got myself an iPod the other day and have been filling it with my music since then. When they first came out I wasn't sure what the point was but now I can see they're like having a personal radio station. Most folks are happy with a smaller playlist (less than 20 G) but weirdos like me and Ms Goat require more variety and depth. Last night, after I'd gotten most of my prog and hard rock all loaded up, I did my first shuffle of the 5152 songs (taking up 20 G) that I had on there and this is what the first 10 songs were:

Soundgarden: Fresh Tendrils
Rush: Time Stand Still (insert sound of Ms Goat groaning)
Genesis: Follow You Follow Me
Yes: Angor Wat
Hawkwind: Down Through the Night
Aphex Twin: iz-us
Randy Coven: Au Privave
Queens of the Stone Age: Everybody Be Happy
Audioslave: Seven Nation Army (live)
Air: Empty House

Hopefully 80 G will be enough space for me. I knew it was ok back when Ms Goat got hers but I've been acquiring a lot of music since then. I recall once thinking that if I had more than 400 CDs I wouldn't be able to know and appreciate them as well as if I had fewer. At some point I must have realized that my latest count is around 1200. Good thing hard drives keep getting cheaper...

Will somebody think of the ocelots?

2008-04-11T15:26:00.000-07:00

All the hubbub over the border and immigration and people forget that there are some nice cats caught in the middle. If only somebody would send a letter for them... and their friends the burrow owls.

1000 True Fans

2008-04-05T16:21:00.001-07:00

Many years ago, back when I had dreams of a career in music (around high school), I had visions of an imaginary world where almost everybody was in a band. I knew back then that such a lifestyle wasn't easily supportable but part of my vision was that everybody had their day job ('at the factory' as I put it) but could still maintain a creative career alongside of that by virtue of everybody 'buying their friends' albums'. Somebody very smart has thought this out built upon the idea of The Long Tail and decided that an artists just needs 1000 True Fans to not have to have a day job.

I can't say I like the term 'true fan' used this way: anybody who would 'buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat' seems a bit closer to 'fanatic', and if somebody ever drives 200 miles to hear me sing I'll drive them to the sanitarium.

As an aside, I actually know a guy who recently quit his day job to do that; hopefully he has enough support to stay out of office work. Give some of his tunes a listen!

Take this bottle

2008-04-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

A post at EcoGeek has inspired me to sing the praises of my water bottle, a sturdy and easily reused bottle I fill from a filtered pitcher every morning. Its 1 liter size makes it easy to make sure I get all the water I need every day. Why not pick such a (non-plastic) bottle up for yourself?

Cachao, RIP

2008-03-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

Back when I was learning everything I could about bass players I would buy lots of recordings just for the bass playing. Occasionally that brought me to some real music, such as the work of the Cuban bassist Cachao. This great player and composer passed away this past weekend but his beautiful sound will live on.

Wintertime travels

2008-03-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

With the first day of spring here's a chance to reflect upon some roadtrips we took back in the Winter:

- visiting LA is a bit of a road trip w/ babygoat getting more and more active. We were able to visit the excellent Nyala once again and enjoyed a good deal of tasty Ethiopian food.

- took a drive up to the Sacramento area and spent most of a day in beautiful Napa. This included a trip to Sterling Vineyards, a beautiful winery atop a hill. The view was slightly better than the wine. And since we were in the area, we were able to make a stop at the Jelly Belly factory and pick up some more delicious Belly Flops.

Goat report, 3/12/08

2008-03-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

The world's oldest animation depicts a goat eating a tree. Via BoingBoing.

Required reading

2008-02-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

...post-Oscars: Go Fug Yourself. Ah, Renee Zellwegger as a von Trapp son....

Goat report, 2/24/08

2008-02-24T12:02:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the days when implanted goat testicles were the rage?

Passing Strange

2008-02-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

A few times I've mentioned one of my favorite songwriters in music today, a fella who goes by Stew. He hasn't put out an album lately because he got sucked into a theatrical production based on his life that is now on Broadway, Passing Strange. After seeing a video of an open rehearsal I'm tempted to head to NYC just for the show but it looks like that'll have to wait until it tours or something.

Visiting the kitties

2008-02-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

Had a gloomy weekend so we went to visit our local big cat shelter, the Cat House. Lots of nice cats there although some, like the ocelots, fishing cats and Pallas' cats were a bit shy and mostly stayed hidden. A few of the caged fellows were very interested in babygoat, eyeing her like she'd make a nice between-meal snack. Most remarkable was the baby North Chinese leopard, Junjie, who may be the last of her kind born in America for a long time. They were all beautiful animals, we hope to take babygoat there many more times.

Sick or ignorant?

2008-02-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I was stuck in a waiting room somewhere and began to read a commentary by George Will about the economy. I knew he was conservative but his column made a dopey remark about how great it was that 'more people are working while on vacation now than ever before'. It's great, you see, because it means more work's getting done and that's good for the economy. Forget about why people go on vacation or even what the word means, now they're not losing work hours, hooray!

I have regretted not saving that mind-boggler until recently, when a US Representative says she's proud people have to work two jobs and longer hours. Maybe she thinks idle hands are the devil's playthings; I wonder if she would be disappointed if her constituents became able to support themselves on one job. But it's not as bad as attacking people who are losing their homes or the spirit behind many conservatives' lucky ducky-style arguments (beautifully satirized by Ruben Bolling).

But it could just be ignorance; surely the President isn't the only one living inside a bubble.

(Bush's remark about not being able to buy his worms anymore reminds me of Reagan's brief obsession with not being able to go look at the magazines: see the last 5 quotes here).

If everybody lived like you

2008-01-31T21:45:00.000-08:00

How many Earths would be required to take care of humanity if everybody lived like you? Play Consumer Consequences and find out! I was disappointed to find out it would take 3.1 Earths but then I noticed it was actually well below average.

A conversation with a student

2008-01-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

"Teacher, I got in trouble again. The suspended me for 2 days this time."

"What happened?"

"They caught me smoking off campus... but it's not fair, I have two kids, I should be allowed to smoke!"

"Well, it is still illegal for you to smoke. But at least you weren't smoking around your kids."

"Yeah, I know... but my kids are in foster care and I don't want to get caught up. I have to show them I can be a good mother."

Bass leadership

2008-01-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I read an idiotic op-ed in the LA Times about Mike Huckabee that claimed Huckabee's being a bass player shows he may not be a good leader of the nation because bassists are really just frustrated guitar players. Maybe it was written as a joke but it got some great letters in yesterday's Times (that they didn't publish online) that summed up my thoughts well:

1) lots of bassists can 'lead from the bottom' (one letter simply said 'Willie Dixon') and one could even write a similar opinion that said Huckabee's instrument gives him insight into what a functioning musical unit (and therefore a functioning political unit) requires.

2) the op-ed obviously reflects on the author more than bassists. Joe Queenan is the frustrated guitar player while most of us have embraced our role as essential parts that support the guitarists and sax players who are desperate for attention.

His remark about John Entwistle being a 'nonentity' is strong evidence for this article being a joke which makes me wonder why they couldn't find an op-ed that deals with Huckabee's desire to change the constitution instead. I don't think I'm hypersensitive about this topic; I can laugh well at the many good jokes that are told about bassists but this was just dopey.

Goat report, 1/15/08

2008-01-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

Tough decision on which of these goat stories is the best: Illinois goat terrorizes church, coming soon to your grocery store: cloned goat, or goat brains: 'mushy and kind of bland'?

Jefito lives!

2008-01-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I came across a music blog run by a fella calling himself Jefito. A few months back it fell off the map (probably due to all the bootlegs he'd begun to post there) and he'sfinally resurfaced with Popdose. He's brought a bunch of friends along (maybe hoping to spread out culpability) and while he's doing more streaming mp3s, rather than tempting me to fill up my hard drive w/ downloads, the same sharp eye is focused on pop culture. He's still running some of the same great features, like the Cassingle Vault (you know you want to hear Chynna Phillips' solo attempt) and Chart Attack (relive the hits of the 80s and 90s!) but I was surprised to see a decent article on torture porn.

Students' views of college

2008-01-09T09:10:00.000-08:00

Kids at my school have a weird view of college. They've heard something of my extended trip thru higher education and are amazed that somebody could choose to stay in school for longer than all people are required to go to school. When they here I went to a big school they immediately light up and figure me for a former drunken party animal as they've heard how great those college parties are. I try to use the opportunity to tell them that, yeah, I had a lot of fun at some parties but it wasn't all the time; there was a lot of hard work to be done, too, and the partying came after that.

But the other day a student asked me, "Do you get into trouble if you get in a fight in college?" I explained that yes, you'd get in trouble with the police, but the question was just weird; the kid had no idea that the adult world is what he'll be in after high school. He gets into a fight at school now, he's home for a few days; why shouldn't college be any different?

Babygoat rocks the boat

2007-12-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Babygoat is enjoying her daycare but recently caused a stir: I had dressed her in a nice Iron Maiden onesie that we'd received as a gift. Apparently the image of Eddie on the front disturbed the other children and we've been asked that she not wear that to daycare anymore. It's good to see Eddie is still scary, I guess. On the other hand, I'm sometimes disturbed by how many high school kids are wearing Eddie shirts just to wear something cool looking and not because they like Iron Maiden.

Support the TV writers

2007-12-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

Do you really want more reality shows? Of course not; so why not write to the executives in charge of TV shows to let them know you support a fair settlement with the writers.

Vacation pt. 4: Houston etc.

2007-12-16T08:34:00.001-08:00

To finally finish off the story of our travels on our summer vacation; as stated before, we did get a meal at Taquerias Arandas but saw no goats there. Food was alright, however.

During our drive from Austin to Louisiana and then back from Louisiana to Houston, I was amazed at the rock radio we heard in Texas. The playlist was stuff I was familiar with but I hadn't heard in a while: lots of Zeppelin, Hendrix, and the Black Crowes' first album. After a few hundred miles it finally came to me: this sounded just like LA rock radio back when I was in high school.

We took some time to see Houston and I really enjoyed Space Center Houston, if only to see all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules up close as well as the Saturn V rocket. I also learned a lot about SkyLab, the biggest gap in my knowledge of the American space program.

The next day we visited the very cool Art Car Museum which had some great dioramas on the Abu Ghraib scandal as part of the more conventional collection. We followed this with a visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science which was decent and very much what we expected, although lots of oil money obviously went into the huge exhibit on oil extraction. We followed these experiences with a trip to the local Chinatown where we were quite pleased to find a fully vegetarian place that did a lunch buffet, Pine Forest Garden. Usually even the vegetarian Indian places don't do a lunch buffet so this was pretty exciting.

We spent our last couple of days at the Westin Oaks Houston, which is connected to the Houston Galleria, a huge and very beautiful mall near the city center. Lots of nice enclosed spaces to walk around in and finally, after visiting 4 different hotels during our trip, we get one whose room didn't seem to me a smidge too small for the furniture. For the most part, I still like the way the Starwood group does their hotels; Babygoat had no major complaints, either.

We finished off our summer trip with a visit to the the Spoetzl Brewery, the place where they make Shiner Bock. The tour wasn't terribly exciting but the samples of their beers were quite worth the while. Taste the bock!

Bored at work?

2007-12-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

If you can't find lots of fun things to read about online you can make your desk jockeying worthwhile. You can help folks out pretty easily with the Breast Cancer click-to-donate program that gives low-income women free breast massages or something. You could also help feed people while improving your vocabulary at FreeRice, tho the computer geek in me wishes it was also being used to make an expert system like 20q. And if you're away from your computer, you can find intelligent life somewhere with Seti@Home, tho they could also use some dough.

A day late...

2007-12-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

Imagine Peace; would have been more appropriate yesterday.

Goat report, 12/9/07

2007-12-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season to keep an eye on the Gävle goat!

Goodbye, Civic

2007-12-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

I had to get rid of my 1995 Honda Civic this week. I've owned it since 1997 when it replaced the aging Hyundai Excel that got me thru high school and beyond. I'm sorry to see it go, I drove it across the US to NJ back in 1998 and then back again (thru Canada) in 2004 and it had served me very well until it got punched in the face a few weeks ago. I drove it in snowstorms, through badlands, during a hurricane, to and from many a bass gig or lesson, and during desert summers with no a/c. Only put 100k miles on it, thanks to my time as a bus-using grad student.

Amongst the things I found inside my glove compartment during the final clean-out:
- a menu from the one of the best Thai restaurant I've eaten at, 'Thailand' (291 Central Ave, Clark NJ). It looks like a diner but is spicy rather than greasy inside. A good place to stop while heading to Trader Joe's.
- an unfinished roll of Garden State Parkway tokens
- Top 10 Bollywood Movies article from Salon, something we kept handy for visiting our local Indian video store on Route 130.

Dr. Seuss knew what he was talking about

2007-11-28T16:14:00.000-08:00

Something I recently came across whilst reading to Babygoat:

Goat report, 11/9/07

2007-11-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

Please do not milk the Robot Goat. Via Molino.

Random trailers

2007-11-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Finally got some free time lately to go back to one of my favorite pastimes of yore: perusing movie trailers.

- Juno is most remarkable to me because it includes a song by The Moldy Peaches, an amusing outfit I saw in New York (opening for Cibo Matto) many years ago.

- King Corn looks like a movie Ms Goat would enjoy, given her avoidance of all things with high fructose corn syrup. It appears to have smart things to say about American farm policy.

- a while back I saw the trailers for Away From Her and The Savages and began to feel the pain of what appears to be the start of many years of baby boomers whining about being seniors.

Theocracy Now!

2007-11-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

Max Blumenthal, the fellow who made the great video of his visit to a Conservative convention earlier this year, is at it again. He visited the Value Voters Summit, a gathering of very serious Christians and made another great video. I love the way these people are exposed as wackos for just showing us what they honestly think.

Halloween Potty

2007-10-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

Something else that forktine sent along that made this Halloween my scariest in a while: an extended discussion of the shelf toilet. We encountered this not in Poland or Germany but while visiting forktine in Vienna a few years ago. While I see it can have advantages of no splashback, the shelf itself holds things far too long and close for my, uh, taste. I don't remember it from our many travels in Germany and Poland but it will certainly keep me from placing Austria high on my 'countries to revisit' list. And if you would like to see overeducated folk talk potty, there's a good forum at the Chronicle for you. I suppose I shouldn't be so harsh, as we've been very interested in the composting toilet brochure we got from Sun-Mar; at least the shelf-toilet gets rid of the stuff.

Goat alert - NYC area

2007-10-31T08:40:00.000-07:00

Friendly forktine passed along this note that any of you in the NYC area may be interested in: a New York Goatstravanganza based around the new book The Year of the Goat (which we just got). Looks like a goatin' good time, hope they get lots of grazing.

The Comedy Store

2007-10-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

During a recent visit to LA we spent an evening at The Comedy Store to see some stand-ups do their thing. That night they had a lot going up for about 15-20 minutes each so there was a lot of variety. It didn't start well: the first guy (whose name we didn't catch) was making jokes about Kato Kaelin and the second guy started with a Rodney Dangerfield impersonation. He made a joke about being out of material for the last 10 minutes and I was tempted to suggest that it was actually 10 years. A 'no heckling' sign gave me restraint.

The evening was saved by Bobby Lee, who we had seen back at Rutgers many years ago but here he could do a greater variety of material. Al Madrigal, who followed him, was also good but from there it was downhill for me. I won't name the rest of them but I have to say how lame and pathetic Charles Fleisher was up there, doing some quasi-Robin Williams thing without actual jokes. I actually began to doze off but knew that one of the lame-os on stage w/o material would just make fun of me if I put my head down. I understand where a 'no heckling' sign can keep the jerks in the audience from ruining everybody's night but it does have the downside of not giving the loser on stage more reasons to improve their material. Then again, what should I expect of the place the unleashed Pauly Shore on the world?

Goat report, 10/18/07

2007-10-18T15:00:00.001-07:00

Warning: don't invite a rabid goat to your harvest festival!

RIP, MCBF

2007-10-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

I was very excited to get another in a series of irregularly mailed envelopes from a Mr. John Marr (no, not Johnny Marr) recently. For many years he's written an excellent zine called Murder Can Be Fun, filled with well written real-life stories of death, murder and some fine book reviews. Alas, this envelope included a note that the latest issue, revisiting and updating the famous Death at Disneyland article, would be the last. In reading the latest issue I was struck at what a good writer Mr. Marr is, which makes me glad to have so many of the back issues. Anybody could write about Zoo Deaths (issue 16) or deaths at sporting events (issue 18) or the Great Boston Molasses Flood (issue 11) and have lots of fun with the morbid possibilities but Marr did it in such a friendly way that it doesn't sound ghoulish, just slightly (but not inappropriately) amused.

Vacation, pt. 3 - New Orleans/Baton Rouge

2007-10-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

The next leg of our summer travels took us into Louisiana, where we visited some family near Baton Rouge and babygoat got some playtime with an infant cousin. We also took a couple of days to check out New Orleans and found the main tourist areas to be nice enough, although you get less than one mile away from the river and it begins to look like Katrina was just there yesterday. If they don't do something about it, New Orleans runs the risk of being like Atlantic City but with fun places to go nearby.

On our way out of the state, we stopped at an artist's studio to get a print of one of the unique Louisiana Mud Paintings that goes very well with our bedroom decor.

Bloggoat

2007-10-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

Milady Ms Goat has begun to blog her reflections on the media she consumes like so many sandwiches or rocks. Since she's had some schoolin', she's often some good things to say. Check out goatreview.

A maze of twisty little passages

2007-09-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering lately when babygoat will be able to pass a Turing Test and began to read about them today. I've come to the conclusion that not only are these poor tests of true consciousness, I've known more than a few people who couldn't pass one (yes, they may have been robots). More importantly, my search led me to simulated consciousness of ELIZA, with whom I had many troubled conversations in my early teen years whilst using my Apple ][c clone. I talked to her again today and was not surprised to learn that she hasn't really grown up. Even better, it lead me to the Colossal Cave Adventure, a game I know I played a million times back in those days. Really took me back, as well as also derailed my work as I saw people have made Java versions of these text-based programs.