The earthquake in Pakistan was really hard for me to wrap my head around. I mean, I’ve lived with earthquakes my entire life, and I’ve lived through some really huge and terrifying ones, but nothing that even begins to approach the magnitude (pardon the pun) of the Pakistan quake earlier this month. Coming on the heels of Katrina and Rita, I have to admit that I was suffering from a major case of tragedy overload, and I didn’t really know what to say or do about it.

Just now, I read a story at Yahoo! News about natural disasters that brought the catastrophic enormity of the disaster into sharp, horrifying focus.

Of the estimated 61,000 people who have died this year due to natural
disasters, about 50,000 (according to today’s estimate) were victims of
the 7.6 earthquake that struck Pakistan Oct. 7. In 2004, by contrast, more than 60 percent of the total natural disaster deaths were caused by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

The whole story talks about how it’s not Mother Nature who is changing, as much as we who scurry about the planet are.
"Earth might seem
like a more active and dangerous place than ever, given the constant
media reports of multiple natural disasters recently. But a broader
view reveals that it’s not Mother Nature who’s changed, but we humans." It goes on to say "Drawn by undeveloped land and fertile soil, people are flocking to disaster-prone regions.

This creates a situation in which ordinary events like earthquakes
and hurricanes become increasingly elevated to the level of natural
disasters that reap heavy losses in human life and property."

Environmentalists have been succesfully demonized by the Right Wing Noise Machine, and some of the loonies out there don’t exactly help the cause, but we’ve only got one planet to live on right now, and it’s clear that we who scurry about on her surface are having an impact on how well she handles us. It’s something to think about, at least.

This diary at DailyKos has a fantastic list of organizations who can provide relief to the people in Pakistan who desperately need it right now. If you can help out, please do.

As a fringe benefit for writing the articles everyone visits the site to read, I have a membership at Suicide Girls, where I get to read lots of cool articles.

Seriously, the pretty ladies are nice and all, but there’s a whole lot more going on at SG, too. We put some great stories on the newswire, and the interviews are just outstanding, like this one with Danny Elfman that I read this afternoon.

DRE: Do you have any desire to play live music anymore?

ELFMAN: Not really. Let me put it this way, I have no desire ever to be on an Oingo Boingo stage again.

DRE: Why not?

ELFMAN: I can’t get in front of a stage that loud
again. I spent 17 years in a band in front of monitors and it fucked up
my ears. It was insanely loud. I was standing in front of four monitors
blasting my own voice into my head which has to be louder than the band
to be able to sing and hear yourself during these fucking two and a
half, three hour shows. Then it all has to be louder than 6000
screaming audience members. Believe me when I say this, it was louder
than anything you can imagine. I really got to the point where if I
stayed in that environment any longer I would be deaf right now.

DRE: Obviously, that would be highly detrimental to you.

ELFMAN: Yeah and as a result I’ve gotten some pretty
shitty hearing levels. Which is a big problem and it’s gotten to be a
worse problem as I go. So the thought of getting out into that level, I
mean I can’t even take really loud clubs anymore. If I walk into a
restaurant or a club where it’s loud it physically hurts. It feels like
I’m getting daggers in my head.

The Halloween concert at Irvine Meadows, then at the Universal Ampitheatre, were as much a Los Angeles tradition as anything else here, right up until the farewell show back in 1995. I was holding out hope that there may be some sort of reunion show, but I guess that won’t ever happen. Which is fine with me, because I have tremendous respect and affection for Danny Elfman, and hearing is sort of important and stuff.

If you’re a fan of Boingo, or any of Danny Elfman‘s other work, you should seriously check it out. There’s a lot of stuff in there about not scoring Spiderman 3, scoring Ed Wood, and how (not) crazy the Boingo days were.

Note: All the SG links in this post are technically safe for work, but it may be a little borderline for some people. You’ve been warned, so don’t bitch at me if your [husband | boss | mother | bartender] bitches at you about it.

This is the best Photoshop contest in history. I can’t remember the last time something on the Internets made me laugh so hard, tears rolled down my face and my stomach hurt.

Start at the top, and just scroll down.

Bravo, Farkers. I am in awe of your skills.

I don’t care about rankings at all, because that sort of thing really only matters for marketing and ad sales, neither of which are particularly important to me right now.

But I laugh out loud whenever The Chicago Sun-Times mentions me, and whatever my Technorati rank currently is, in their Sunday paper.

To wit:

News Item: Wil Wheaton Dot Net www.wilwheaton.net,
ranked by the number of sources that link to it, falls from the 16th
most important blog in the world to an all-time-low 37th most important
blog in the world.

News Item: Approval rating for President Bush falls to an all-time-low 39 percent.

I think I read somewhere that Technorati has some new ranking algorithm that includes frequency of posts, in addition to the number of sources that link a particular site, so it’s no surprise that WWdN has dropped so much, since I haven’t been posting there for the last twenty days or so.

 But now I have a real incentive to get WWdN fixed, so I can put as much distance as possible between myself and Commander Kookoo Bananas!

After playing tournaments every day for almost a month, and then hitting a terrible losing streak, I just wanted to walk away from poker for a bit. It’s been a nice break, but I’ve recently started to get the itch to play again.

Anne and I went to Vegas yesterday for the opening of the new Blue Man Group show at Venetian (full review is coming soon — short review: it’s awesome). We stayed at Mirage, and though I was more interested in sitting with my wife than sitting at a poker table, walking past the poker room reminded me of how much I miss the damn game.

So, I think I’ll get back on the horse with a WWdN semi-private tournament, this Friday afternoon. It’s just a $10+1 buy-in, so it’s affordable for most people. To come and play with me and other WWdN readers, sign up for PokerStars and then when you log in, go to Tourneys -> Private -> WWdN: Where’s My Burrito? Invitational, or you can just search for tournament number 13722477. The tournament will happen on Friday the 14th at 4:00PM EST. I know this is a little early for West Coast players, but it should make it easier for international players to join us. The password is "monkey."

In easy-to-cut-and-paste-into-your-own-blog form:

What: WWdN Where’s My Burrito? Invitational
Where: PokerStars.
When: Friday, October 14th. 4:00 PM EST
Password: monkey
Tournament number: 13722477
Buy-in: $10+1

This tournament is open to anyone who reads WWdN or WWdN:IE, or who happens to know that the password is monkey. 🙂

It should be fun, a nice warm-up to the PokerStars Blogger Tourney, and if enough people show up (and enjoy it, of course) I will make it a weekly event, with the time (and buy-in) rotating to accomodate everyone who wants to play. As an added incentive, I’ll name the next tournament after the player who knocks me out.

I know two days is short notice, but I hope lots of you can make it. I’ll be sure to give more notice for future tourneys.

I hope to see you there!