Brains celebrates the new year a little late!

The Hobbit: The Misty Mountains covered acapella, by one guy. Peter Hollens does a very convincing multi-voiced piece all by himself.

Do you like Leonard Cohen? Of course you do! Do you like pain? Of course you do, you like Leonard Cohen! Therefore, you will love this Christian (or Christianist) re-write, with Youtube recordings, of Cohen's masterpiece, "Hallelujah." (I disagree with Jessica that it's "The Best Song Ever." It's awesome, but nothing will drive me to tears faster than Cohen's "Thousand Kisses Deep.")

Phrase of the day: agnotologic capitalism: a capitalism systematically based on the production and maintenance of ignorance. Unfortunately, I don't think the writer goes deep enough into the willful participation of the ignorant. They really would rather not know how deeply dipped in shit we all are.

Ah, Victor Davis Hanson. I've actually read a few of his histories, and found them bracing and manly. Which is why his descent into a whining wingnut cretin grates so on the nerves. Davis refuses to take the world as it is-- refuses to even try to understand the world as it is-- and instead wishes we went back to a time when naked oil wrestling was the way real men settled disputes. Only, in a purely heterosexual way.

Cthulhu Damn It, That's A Brand New Car!

The Damage Done

Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I made our monthly trek to the bookstore, where we dawdled. Omaha and I, being old farts, commisserated on the highly sexualized and overwhelmingly large (and concourse-facing) "Teen Paranormal Romance" section of the bookstore while looking for something more S/F and Fantasy-oriented for our remarkably brilliant and forward, but also remarkably modest, 13-year-old.

We went back to the car, got in. Kouryou-chan, "Mom, Dad, there's all kinds of glass back here! Our window's been broken!"

Crap. Sure enough, the driver's side window back by the cargo section had been smashed. Kouryou-chan's school bag had been rifled through, but nothing was taken. Whoever prowled my car didn't have time, I guess, to move up front where the ipod was in its holder-- about the only valuable thing in the car, aside from the car itself. (I suppose the envelope full of loyalty cards for various retailers would also have gone missing, but there was nothing of real value there.)

The police officer arrived while I was on the phone with my insurance agent, and he and the agent exchanged the relevant case numbers. How exciting. He said that mine was the 19th case in the past three days of someone prowling these lots. I joked I was developing a collection of Tukwila PD business cards. He laughed and said, "That's not a good thing to be collecting."

No, I suppose not.

The bookstore was just two blocks away from where I had had my last car totalled, just a few weeks prior. I'm starting to develop a neurosis about the Southcenter shopping complex.