A musical interlude, courtesy of Owl Mirror, on the Hugos

This is a guest post by Owl Mirror. I refuse to be blamed!

Inspired by the title of Philip
Sandifer’s essay
, I felt compelled to filk.

No rights reserved. For pity’s sake, I left quite a few lines
unchanged from the original. I deeply apologize to Leonard Cohen, who
probably has no idea what this is all about.

“First we take their rockets”, to the tune of “First we take
Manhattan”, by Leonard Cohen

They sentenced me to Less-Than-“No Award”-dom
For trying to game the system from within
I’m coming now, I’ll show them “No Award”-dom
First we take their rockets​¹, then we bite their shins

I am guided by a voice from out of Heaven
I’m guided by my hatred of their sins
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take their rockets, then we bite their shins

I’d really like to vote your ticket, baby
I love your malice and your trolling and your sword​²
But you see that crowd there moving into Worldcon?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was only bored

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you’re worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don’t have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take their rockets, then we bite their shins

I don’t like this social justice, mister
And I don’t like those people dark of skin
Don’t need rights for wife or girl or sister
First we take their rockets, then we bite their shins

I’d really like to vote your ticket, baby

And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The ballot and the little rocket pins​³
I practiced every night, now I’m ready
First we take their rockets, then we bite their shins

I am guided

Ah remember me, I used to live for music​⁴
Remember me, my mouse​⁵ was full of win
Well it’s Judgement Day and everybody’s losing
First we take their rockets, then we bite their shins


Notes:

1: The physical form of the Hugo award looks something like this (the
base is different each year):

realhugo

More info here.

2: Flaming phallic sword.

3: Every Hugo nominee receives a little rocket pin; one per
nomination, as best I can tell. John C. Wright will thus receive 5. It
would perhaps be appropriate if they were accompanied by as many as
necessary to come to 30 pieces of silver

4: Psykosonik, it says there.

5: Yes, the mouse that goes to 11 18…!!

It’s the dismal season

We went for a walk at Glacial Lakes State Park today, and we’re in the unpleasant in-betweens: the snow is gone, it was a pleasant 20°C, but everything is dead brown. Behold the majestic natural beauty of Minnesota in the spring time!

glaciallakes

Also, we walked around that body of water, which is called “Mountain Lake”. There are no mountains here. The elevation is 371 meters. Oh, Minnesotans…

The Irish holy war is unrequited

quityou

I thought I was done with this nonsense way back in early November; I wrote a post summarizing Michael Nugent’s bizarrely obsessive behavior, and washed my hands of him. Little did I know, he wasn’t done: for the past 6 months he’s gotten increasingly stalkerish, and is still hammering out thousands of words complaining about me. And now he’s complaining that I am diminishing the effectiveness of Atheist Ireland and the worldwide atheist cause! Perhaps if he quit embarrassing himself and his organization with his crusade, he’d be less of a joke.

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Wow, that was odd

doppelganger

I just got called by Newsmax asking if I’d be willing to do an interview about some recent controversial comments I’d made on Twitter — I had to stop for a moment and ask what comments those were. Then he reminded me of a comment I’d made about burning people in ovens in response to a story about some kids with swastikas on their t-shirts, and for a moment I was hopelessly confused — I know I’m getting old, but is my mind starting to go that badly? This was totally unfamiliar, and I had no idea what this was all about.

We went back and forth for a bit, with my interviewer trying to get some clarity on “my” anti-semitic remarks, and me struggling to understand what the hell he’s talking about. And then he starts reading out this tweet to me, and asking if I’m POZMyers…what? Who?

Eventually it makes sense. There’s someone with the Twitter account “POZMyers”, using my photos, claiming to be me, and babbling racist crap on Twitter. And there are some people who actually think it’s me, and are complaining!

I’ve reported this blatant and malicious impersonation. I wonder if Twitter will do anything about it?

Oh, in case you’re wondering — I also lost out on my chance to do an interview with Newsmax in which I complain about The Jews.

My weekends

I’ve mentioned before that my wife and I are coaching our wise son in driving on the weekends. He’s wise because he wasn’t at all interested in driving, still isn’t, but only needs the instruction to make getting to work more manageable in a place with poor mass transit (he and I will both be happy in the next decade when smart self-driving cars become available). Anyway, here’s a taste of what being a driving instructor is like.

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