Recently, in my inbox: “Ron Jeremy is now your friend on MySpace!”

THINGS THAT OCCUPIED MY TIME THIS WEEKEND
WHEN I WASN’T WRESTLING WITH A VIDEOCAM
AND ITS FEROCIOUSLY ANNOYING FORMAT ISSUES

Playing my sister‘s first commissioned videogame, the awesomely titled Rock and Roll Space Monkey. Even if that sort of thing isn’t your cup of Tab, the graphics and the soundtrack are totally sweet. Update: see here.

Pondering my lack of interest in traveling to Spain, when there are at least five good reasons to do so. Clearly, I haven’t been paying attention.

Coming to the realization that it’s all been said (or screamed) before.

Reacquainting myself with The Lawrence Welk Show and the fabulous creature known as Anacani.

Mulling the limits (and limitlessness) of videogames.

Shooting some film sequences for our next show, A Place in the Sun. Which ultimately led to hours of weeping in front of my laptop, but, you know, vengeance will eventually be mine and stuff. Do you hear me, Canon? Vengeance. And stuff.

Forgetting that it was Pride weekend until it was too late.

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK BE PRIDEFUL

Selections from Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria

FACT: There is nothing quite as comfortable or cozy as a cloudy midday in June, coupled with the distant sound of rolling thunder.

ALSO FACT: There is nothing quite as disturbing as a sudden torrential downpour, coupled with gale-force winds and a barrage of hail the size of shooter marbles.

SOURCE OF THIS MORNING’S COFFEE/KEYBOARD DEBACLE:
THE CHART OF CREATURE BADASS-NESS

[via Kotaku]

Trolling the news feeds this morning, I learned that yesterday, June 23, was an important day in GLBT history–and geek history, too. For yesterday was the birthday of Alan Turing, the mathematician and cryptologist whose work during World War II cracked the Nazi’s secret code and put a major nail in the Axis coffin. He was also directly responsible for computing as we know it. And he was gay. I’d write a homage to the man myself, but Robert Dumas has already done so–and far more eloquently than I could ever do:

Alan Mathison Turing was born June 23, 1912. He developed theories in the 1920s about a “digital computer” which would be a machine that could answer just about any mathematical problem. He helped crack the Enigma code. He is the father of computer science. He was persecuted (and prosecuted) for his homosexuality. He committed suicide just before his fifty-second birthday by eating a poisoned apple. He is the biggest single reason—more than Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds or Bill Gates—that you are reading this very sentence.

— via RobertDumas.org, courtesy of BB

(FYI: Tyler penned a great bio for Mr. Turing over at GLBTQ.com. Totally worth your time.)

There was a brilliant, if rather stagy, Masterpiece Theatre biopic of Mr. Turing called Breaking the Code made in 1996 with an outstanding cast that included Derek “Claw-Claw-Claudius!” Jacobi, Prunella Scales (of Mapp and Lucia fame), and one of the 20th century’s most important playwrights-cum-actors, Harold Pinter. If you haven’t seen it, a very industrious young man has hacked it to bits and posted it to YouTube. Episode 1 starts here:

Enjoy your daily computing, courtesy of the Gays.

Here’s the way it usually goes: around 9:30pm, I start to fade. I nod off for a couple of seconds, jerk back to life, realize it’s too early to go to bed, walk around the sofa a couple of times, and try to hold my head up until Adult Swim is underway. When I just can’t take it anymore, I’ll shuffle off to the bedroom, typically leaving the TV on. (It keeps the hounds company–though it may annoy the housemate.)

In the morning, I’ll stumble into the living room, coffee in hand, and flip to the local news, which I leave on mute for most of the time because it’s just so damn folksy and peppy. But this morning, my fingers were especially fat, and instead of going to the news, I went to the mildly bizarre LA-based ARTS Channel, which is kinda like MTV, but for weird art stuff. So instead of a couple of perky newscasters, I got this:

Fernand Leger’s Ballet mécanique, part 2

Which was perhaps better than the coffee at waking me up (seriously, Kiki of Montparnasse rules the school), but admittedly not what I’m used to at 6:41am.

“I’m exhausted. Are you exhausted? I’m totally exhausted. Is it Miller Time yet? Omigod, I’m sooooo exhausted.”

That’s what I’ve heard all day. Ordinarily it would just be vaguely annoying, but since I, too, am exhausted, I’m ready to wring this person’s neck. If I don’t fall asleep first, that is.

What sort of exhausting activities have I been up to, you ask? Well, between work and rehearsing A Place in the Sun and writing for the [totally nsfw] Fleshbot masters, not much I guess. I have, however, been learning a lot, and learning a lot takes a lot out of me. Here are some things I’ve learned:

• I get especially lazy when I consume less than 1,000 calories a day– which, for some reason, has been my eating pattern of late. Funny: you’d almost think calories were some kind of magical energy source.
• Naomi Campbell and I are totally alike. She wins some and loses some–and so do I! Admittedly, there’s shade of difference between her garnering a YSL campaign and me unlocking an extra hula hoop game on Wii Fit, but still.
• Flotilla DeBarge is my new hero–again. I can’t remember the whole story behind her nailing that B&T chick in the head with a pump, but Michael Soldier can. Ask him sometime.

See? Three measly things, and I’m already pooped. I should up my calorie intake. Where’s that chocolate mojito…?

Things to love about the short, sweet video “Fucking Hell” from Jake and Dinos Chapman:

• It’s pretty.
• It’s obsessively detailed.
• Even though the “fucking” quotient is a little low for my tastes, there’s plenty of hellishness afoot.
• It demonstrates once again exactly why Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” is one of the best pieces of music ever–especially in films depicting landscapes of carnage.

[Via Juxtapoz]

This just in from Sallie Ann Glassman:

On Monday, June 23rd at 7pm, Sallie Ann Glassman and La Source Ancienne Ounfo will celebrate St. John’s Eve with their annual ceremony on the footbridge over Bayou St. John (near Cabrini High School).

Vodou Ceremony: Wear all white and bring a white scarf or rag for your head. (It will get dirty.)

Marie Laveau: Bring an offering for Marie Laveau. She likes flowers, blue and white candles, Creole foods, hair ribbons and hair dressing supplies,(she was a hairdresser), Vodou-esque items (Voodoo dolls, potions, gris-gris bags, etc.), or images of Marie Laveau.

FYI, this is not the same as her annual Hurricane Ceremony–nor, obviously, are the stakes as high. But it’s always a good time.