Ashleigh Brilliant Is. . .Brilliant

I became aware of Ashleigh Brilliant in about 1971, when several quotes from him appeared in Art Spiegelman's wonderful Whole Grains--a counterculture quotation book. Thirty-five years later, Ashleigh is keeping on.

"Wonderfully inspirational and insane messages" says Professor J. Katz, Dept. of Psychology, John Abbott College, Canada.

An interview and article by James Moore says that Brilliant has created around 10,000 of these aphorisms/potshots/circuituous riddles . . Brilliant's Pot Shots is syndicated to more than thirty newspapers. He has written many books and published hundreds (thousands?) of his illustrated ready-made quotations, as well as illustrated many other folks' books.

Over the years, Brilliant developed a definition of "Pot-Shots:" they cannot rhyme, and must fall within his self-imposed limit of seventeen words (the same as a haiku). Brilliant told Independent Press-Telegram critic Candy Cooper that he avoids local cultural references because "Pot-Shots have always been a deliberate attempt to reach out to the world."

The Wikipedia has a good collection of Brilliantisms.

Not only don't I know what tomorrow will bring, I'm still not entirely certain what yesterday brought.
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I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
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I hope I can settle my internal conflicts without bloodshed.
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Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?
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I try to take life as it comes, and just hope it keeps coming.
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The best thing about being too late is that there's no more need to hurry.
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The most exciting place to discover talent is in yourself.

The more sure you are, the more wrong you can be.
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Watch out! It's quite possible that some of my best mistakes haven't yet been made.
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I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
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One good thing about my computer: it never asks why.
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It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
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The task I've been given seems absurd: To wait here on earth until I no longer exist.
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Should I abide by the rules until they're changed, or help speed the change by breaking them?
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If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
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Living on earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the sun.
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Some books make me want to go adventuring, others feel that they have saved me the trouble.

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Not even a great leader can get very far without great people to lead.
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Some books makes me want to go adventuring, others feel that they have saved me the trouble.
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Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.
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The really great people are the ones who know how to make the little people feel great.
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To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.
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Try to relax and enjoy the crisis.
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Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches.
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My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.
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Everything takes longer than you expect - even when you expect it to take longer than you expect.
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Eat Your Own Dogfood (reheated)

Actor Lorne Greene used to flack the dogfood Alpo on TV, saying "it's so good I feed it to my own dogs." It gained currency during the dot-com craze, and the phrase is still used most commonly in technology companies. I believe it is one of the central tenets of quality assurance (as opposed to QA's subdiscipline, testing).

"Eating your own dog food" means that you use the software you create, or play the games you make. In other businesses, you might actually eat the food you serve, watch the TV shows you make, or use the product you manufacture. This can be taken to extremes, of course, as in the Not Invented Here syndrome, where you not only eat your own dogfood, but you also won't touch anyone else's [1].

Ben Hamper, writing about life as a shoprat at General Motors in his book Rivethead, tells how anyone foolish enough to drive a foreign car into the employee parking lot would find their car keyed, tagged with spray paint, mirrors ripped off, and possibly rammed by a one-ton pickup. That is an extreme punishment for not eating your own dogfood.

Why should you eat your own dogfood? You actually get to know the product you are making. By knowing it, you may get some ideas about how to increase its goodness. In the case of games and software, problems, bugs and deficencies become apparent often only after extended use by a variety of people. Eating your own dogfood shows you believe in your own product. If you work at a brewery, a game company, or bakery, it probably works pretty well for you, if you manufacture cod liver oil, syrup of ipecac, chastity belts, or experimental aircraft. . .not so much.

[1] "Not Invented Here," describes a company that will use nothing developed by "outsiders." In many cases companies don't know a solution already exists. But even more often, the organization believes they can produce a superior product. Apple Computer, from System 1 through OS9 did not include many U.I. innovations (from, say, Windows) because they were not accounted for in Apple's human interface guidelines (a great document, by the way).

Apple rejected any change they did not invent...which, of course, ignores the fact that Apple cribbed most of this stuff from innovations at PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the first place. In the open source world, at any time, there are several groups working on different projects that all do the same thing.

Large corporations like Microsoft reject all use of open source software...because they feel the source sharing requirements are too onerous. Therefore they must come up with all these tools in house, no matter how much it costs and no matter how poorly the tool emulates what is already available for free.
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Deja Vu: nostalgia for today

"Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to."

- Ashleigh Brilliant
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It seems like "Death Of A President" has been a tempest in a teapot

. . .click the poster to enlarge. . .

I thought this film would erupt into some sort of overblown controversy. But, hey, it's just a movie after all, and now that the Republicans have slipped into their "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" mode, well, I guess we all have bigger fish to fry--on both sides of the aisle!

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Painting: self portrait number 23

click to enlarge
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Lyrics: Joni Mitchell's Amelia

Here are the lyrics to my current favorite Joni tune. . .from Hejira, which includes other amazing songs like Coyote, and Furry Sings The Blues. This vaguely sad and wistful tune addresses Amelia Earhart, drawing images and emotions from altitude and flight.


Amelia
by Joni Mitchell

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture-post-card-charms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

People will tell you where theyve gone
Theyll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Others just come to harm
Oh amelia, it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight
Its so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell amelia, it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Maybe Ive never really loved
I guess that is the truth
Ive spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the cactus tree motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, amelia, dreams and false alarms
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GM Pat Williams Could Be Talking About The G.O.P.'s November Prospects

Pat Williams, Orlando Magic general manager, talks, in 1992, about his team's 7-27 record:



"We can't win at home. We can't win on the road. As general manager, I just can't figure out where else to play."
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12 Days To Election Day: Vote Democrat & Throw The Bums Out!

click to enlarge
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Democrats

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Check out the Scar Stuff Blog

Jason, of the Scar Stuff Blog has a fantastic blog, where he largely seems to rip and scan strange vinyl Long Players from the days of yore. Great listening and reading! Thank you Jason!


A recent sound file is a "Two Headed Monster Devouring Raw Flesh." This blog is really cranking now, in the run-up to Halloween, and is well worth a look and a listen. . .
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Sign: Big Dick's Halfway Inn

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G.O.P. Candidate John Spencer leaks "butt-ugly" before photos of Senator Clinton

Hillary Rodham - "Before" and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - "After"

John Spencer, former Yonkers Mayor and Senator Hillary Clinton's Republican opponent for a U.S. Senate seat, is embroiled in controversy after he claimed on Monday that Hillary Clinton was ugly, and that she "underwent millions of dollars of "work" and "looks good now."



"You ever see a picture of her back then?," Spencer said, "Whew. I don't know why Bill married her."


Republican Candidate John Spencer

Spencer denied making these statements to New York Daily News reporter Ben Smith: "I would never call Hillary Clinton ugly. That's outrageous. I didn't do it." Despite Spencer's denial, an anonymous Spencer staffer later leaked "before and after" photographs of the Senator. The staffer was unable to provide a provenance for the purported before photograph.

Smith told the Associated Press that Spencer made the comments as Spencer, his wife and Smith sat together on an airline flight. Candidate Spencer is trailing far behind the Senator in every recent poll.
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