Build Date: Tue Jan 21 05:00:19 2025 UTC
If you want a stable environment, you're already dead. And boring, to boot.
-- Mr. Bad
Thom 'Starky' Stark
Thom 'Starky' Stark began life as a small child. Upon reaching the age of 15, he moved to San Francisco where he began a career as a street mime. Finding it difficult to remain silent for many hours at a time put a damper on his chosen profession, so he moved across the Bay to El Cerrito where he eventually ran for City Council. A scandal reputedly involving the mayor's wife, an unneutered pit pull terrier, and a box of chalupas caused Thom to flee town and hide out in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
There he sat at a computer terminal for as many as two hours a day, banging out copy for Boardwatch, IBM developerworks, and other technical journals. After the dot com crash the loss of ad revenue caused many of these publications to lay off columnists, leaving Thom to fall back on his skills as a mime to make ends meet.
Thom now lives in a hidden, double-wide fortress high in the Sierra Nevada mountains with a mysterious woman. There he works on a biography on the life of Alexander the Great, plays guitar and engages in experiments to breed the most docile pit bull terriers known to man.
Pigdog Journal Articles
2022-08-01
By now, you've undoubtedly learned of the death yesterday of Grace Dell Nichols - although you probably know her by her stage name, Nichelle Nichols - at the age of 89. Her son announced that she died of "natural causes," which is true of any decedent who isn't a victim of violence, infection, or accident, but she was institutionalized in 2019 because of dementia, and so the specific "natural cause" of her passing is, at present, undefined.
2018-03-02
If you follow music industry news, or even just general business news, you're probably aware that Gibson Brands, Inc. is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. There's every reason to believe it will fall over that edge by August of this year at the very latest, because it has, as Bruce Springsteen put it in at least two different songs, "debts no honest man can pay."
2012-02-27
I want to strongly urge all U.S. pigdoggies who are currently registered as Democrats (and who live in states that don't enjoy open primaries) to do as I have done and re-register as Republicans, for the specific purpose of voting for Rick Santorum in the upcoming primaries.
2011-03-11
Running your mouth without engaging the clutch to your brain may result in laughter and finger-pointing ...
2005-04-04
...to tell that the Pope is dead.
2004-12-10
Once upon a time, a director set out to make a movie about Alexander the Great. He cast an up-and-coming young actor as the famous conqueror and surrounded him with a cast that included a superstar as his father Philip, an ingenue in her first real role as his love interest, and a host of major and minor stars and unknowns in supporting roles.
2003-02-03
I have been in love with manned spaceflight since I discovered the Tom Swift, Jr. books at the age of six.
When I was eight years old, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave the Earth, journey through space and return alive to tell the tale. And I danced for joy at the news, although it was the height of the Cold War and Gagarin was a Soviet citizen, because we -- the human race -- had finally, finally set out on the greatest adventure of this or any age.
2000-02-04
Thom Stark gives a tribute to Art Hoppe, longtime San Francisco columnist and Professional Journalist in every regard.
1999-07-13
Internet watchdog Thom Stark explains why Al Gore HAD TO INVENT THE INTERNET to protect you and me from the secret net cabal known as the "Graybeards." Along the way Stark demystifies their incantations and mystical code words -- ISOC, IETF, NSI, NGO, and many more.
1999-04-23
Think your local newspaper, the evening news and your Great Aunt Martha have hyperventilated over the Millenium Bug? Then you don't know about "Dr." Gary North, the King God Huckster of Y2K.
1998-12-28
This week: Thom 'Starky' Stark thinks about impeachment.
Offsite links shared by the author
2003-01-11
T O P S T O R I E S
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
This week: another fine spocktail from the beverage researchers at SMRL! Drink it in peace, because WE DID THE RESEARCH! (More...)
All this talk about death, wakes and Moloch recently has, frankly, got me a little worried. What if I'm next to go? I could slip on a wet banana peel and slam my head against an enormous brass statue at almost any time. I'm not planning well enough for this sort of thing. Who will talk for me when this terrible day comes? (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions. (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
High Availability Guinness Stress Test
All too often we forget the incredible depth of technology behind the weekly ritual of TNiPN@*. We tend to only become aware of the strategy of High Available Guinness (HAG) when it rises to the forefront during a complete and utter venue failure. Yet we should all be super grateful that this system exists. (More...)
