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Domination of Eiler

2010/09 Winter Blog (#22)

March 2010 - December 2009

In This Episode:

What Is the Domination of Eiler?

Oh, just treat it like another pretentious web log.
At least until you get to know it better, citizen. This web log wants to conquer the world.
Educational links are provided at the top of the page.
Hello and welcome to the Domination of Eiler!

31 March 2010

Talk Back!
Savannah Didn't Submit
For once, Georgia defeats a march to the sea.

Yesterday the Domination of Eiler predicted the conquest of Savannah-Georgia. Today it didn't happen. Its scenic downtown area recreates the traffic conditions of Manhattan, complete with crazy cyclists and lack of parking. Even the signs that said "Welcome Center" led into a gated parking lot. Uh, no.

Instead of subjugating Savannah, the Domination's expedition penetrated Florida all the way to historic St. Augustine. The Florida Welcome Center swore hotel rooms would not be a problem during spring break, and they were right.

Savannah-Georgia will have special status within the Domination of Eiler, as a preserve for crazy people who don't really want visitors, as much as they say they do. Manhattan-New York and Toronto-Ontario have similar status. But those cities at least offer mass transport from the suburbs for the adventurous traveller. Savannah does not.

30 March 2010

Talk Back!
South Carolina Submits to the Domination of Eiler
In the Domination, "spring break" often means "conquest".
South Carolina Still Has Attitude
South Carolina still has attitude.

While the Dominator awaited the success of his very slow Waukegan Offensive, the Consort started her own ambitious plan to subjugate more of Florida. That's part of why the Dominator loves the Consort.

So, the Dominator is driving a relief expedition from the Chicagoland EilerBase with supplies for Florida. He's taking an easterly route, so as to personally dominate more land within his Domination. The traditionally-rebellious state of South Carolina has been targeted. Tonight the Domination occupies its capital city, Columbia.

There have been adventures along the way, of course.

  • The Domination expeditionary force passed through eastern Kentucky. At a bar in London-Kentucky a helpful citizen verified, there are 70 miles of highway where you cannot buy beer to take home; you have to drink it at the bar and then take it home as best you can... When the Day of Formal Power comes, stupid laws like this will be repealed, then published in a Museum of Stupid Laws.
  • The expedition relied on Interstate Highway 40 being open. Unfortunately it was closed by a rockslide in North Carolina last year. The force navigated around on back roads. When the Day of Formal Power comes, stated bans against big trucks will actually be enforced upon these roads, and policemen won't go after nimble small vehicles instead. (The Domination policy of being the second-fastest vehicle protected it here.)
  • No room for Domination-grade CDs on the way down, and no good way to play music from the Conquering Cell Phone on the Consort's car stereo. So on the way down, mostly listened to local radio. University of South Carolina student radio station WUSC was a refreshing change from most of the classic rock crap.

The expedition arrived in Columbia-South Carolina around 4 pm. That left just enough time to subjugate the State Military Museum of Confederate Relics. Really. The real State Museum submits tomorrow. It's in the same building, and works with a discount combination ticket.

Tonight, the expedition has gone to ground in a relatively cheap hotel in the western suburb. Tomorrow after museum time, probably scenic Savannah-Georgia submits too. But under no conditions will the force proceed past Jacksonville-Florida. Past that is Spring Break, and it's crazy.

26 March 2010

Talk Back!
Student Radio and the Domination of Eiler
What, students get real working radio stations? And there are more of these than you'd think.

The Dominator once confessed to surprise, when he found that student radio had become meaningful since he was a student at the Michigan State University. Back then, the radio station tried to send its signal through the wiring in the dorm rooms. It didn't work out well for them. But by 2007, they'd upgraded to a transmitter that could send its signal halfway into the next county. They'd just play any rock music they liked. Since other Lansing-Michigan radio stations were mostly end-of-the-line corporate tools, the Dominator quickly found student radio irresistible.

In 2009, the Dominator found himself in Nashville-Tennessee. He found that Nashville had the Vanderbilt University, fairly big by the standards of anyplace outside Lansing-Michigan and the Big Ten Conference - and big enough to have its own student radio station. This station was more time-sliced; there were special shows by students who'd play one category of what they want. The Dominator got on speaking terms with the deejays of the Israeli music show, because they'd have Old Testament trivia quizzes.

Nashville had more than one university radio station. These mostly played talk or jazz for the benefit of non-students who sent donations, though. The Domination homeland of Chicago-Illinois had some of that too. But you can't call that student radio.

Before 2009 was over, after years of expedition, the Domination of Eiler expeditionary force finally retreated upon the Chicago homeland. There many student radio stations were discovered. Northwestern University has one (as might be expected for the Big Ten Conference), but so do Loyola University, Harper Community College, and the Glenview-Northbrook high school system! These stations crowd the dial in the 88-89 Mhz range - so much so, it takes a Domination-grade antenna to sort 88.3 FM, 88.5 FM, and 88.7 FM out. It seems the concept of student radio has actually spread.

Some stations have amusing lapses. Many have unpolished deejays. One university station goes off the air if a deejay doesn't show up, as might be expected during Spring Break. But most of the other stations just turn on the automatic music machines. That's actually the best kind in the Domination of Eiler.

Most of the stations have programming slots. For instance, an hour or two of talk radio every day. Eww. Others just switch between jazz and rock. The Domination of Eiler used to not like that. It doesn't like that in TV stations either; it just wants to switch on Headline News or the Weather Channel and always get news or weather. But those stations started doing repeats and special programs... Congratulations to them. The Domination of Eiler has now been trained to switch channels. Student radio is reaping the benefits.

Most of the stations have quotas of public service announcements to fill. From community college level on down, these are almost all about drunk driving. It's pretty amazing how many rock stars say, "I just have someone drive me." But the announcements about hard drugs are especially fun. Frank Zappa and Bugs Bunny each did one of those, back in the day.

The smaller stations are sometimes hard to find on your radio. Their signals have trouble crossing the boundaries of their home townships. Fortunately inside EilerBase, the main radio receiver has a good antenna.

The Domination of Eiler now commands its citizens to seek out student radio, toward the lower end of the FM range. It will be acceptable to avoid those stations if you ever don't like the music, of course. But you should at least try them. All hail the student radio of the Domination of Eiler!

14 March 2010

Talk Back!
Pavement Day 2010
The snowdrifts finally melted in the District of Dominance-Illinois.

13 March 2010

Talk Back!
Cats vs. Helium Balloons
Some people think cats should have rights. In the Domination of Eiler, balloons have rights too.
Before After
Before.
After.

After the Consort's birthday festivities, the Domination of Eiler now knows how helium balloons are like cats.

  • When they're young, they're cute and they look good with people.
  • When they're old, they just try to find a place to rest. Cats like sun; balloons like wind.
  • No matter how old they are, they go where they want to. Make sure the screen doors are closed tight enough!
  • Dead cats and dead balloons both look nasty.

11 March 2010

Talk Back!
Frog Leg Curry
In observance of The Consort's birthday, the Dominator went to a Chicago-Vietnamese restaurant and discovered what part of Earth mixes French food with Thai spices.

7 March 2010

Talk Back!
Old Tech, New Tech 2
The new Conquering Cell Phone is now able to edit the web pages of Eilertech.com, almost as well as clunky old handheld PCs could. The future has finally come.

6 March 2010

Talk Back!
Old Tech, New Tech
It's time for a simultaneous upgrade and downgrade.

The portable music collection of the Domination of Eiler used to consist of about 120 cassette tapes, capable of playing a mighty 180 hours of music, or about 7.5 days. The collection still exists, and needs a moving crate to store.

When the Domination first discovered MP3 players, it managed to assemble 40 hours of music on three 1-Gigabyte (1-GB) SDRAM data storage cards, to play on the first Conquering Cell Phone during a trip to Brazil. Eventually ten such cards were assembled, to play a total of 150 hours of music. That collection would have fit in the Dominator's pocket, but only barely.

The next Conquering Cell Phone used 2-GB Mini-SDRAM, though it didn't object to Micro-SDRAM with the proper adapter. Each card plays about 30 hours of music. Twenty such cards have been loaded with the Domination of Eiler's digital music collection.

It is now time for a technology upgrade. The salesman at the cell phone store was amused at how antique the three-year-old state-of-the-art cell phone was. This year's Conquering Cell Phone will only take Micro-SDRAM, but it now reads a new type which can hold up to 16-GB. Each card will now play ten days of 24-hour music. The entire collection will fit on three such cards, and be about the size of three vitamin pills. Each card will have enough spare room for the entire web site of Eilertech.com, which is considered a massive web site by the standards of most small business.

But right now the new phone's on order, and the current one is out of commission. So the Dominator's been tooling around town with a portable tape player, which he can load for the old-style 1.5 hours of music, plus 1.5 more if he carries a spare tape. But oh, it's great music, thematically laid out in certain order. And the player doesn't lose its place if you turn it off. Domination patrols might have to carry the tape player just a little bit longer.

By the way, the Dominator's getting new glasses too, so as not to carry around old-lady sunglasses. The Consort is not impressed with music storage, but she's pleased about new glasses.

16 February 2010

Talk Back!
The Thing Which Must Be Fictitiously Dominated
For once, the Domination's web log is innocent of world domination... but its fiction is not.
The Last Chocolate Crop Superhuman World Superhuman World 2010

Victory is still assured in the Waukegan Offensive - if one believes the allies' propaganda. But it's going about as slowly as any offensive ever did.

Meanwhile the Domination of Eiler has been amusing itself with a trip to Florida, and with crafting the Superhuman World 2010 web site. The Domination likes to keep track of which barstool each year of the Superhuman World story was born upon (Dallas-Texas 1999, Palatine-Illinois 2006, and South Lansing-Michigan 2007, for instance); this year was born on an airline seat, probably over Georgia.

Recent years have introduced some eye-grabbing artistic support, including an Earth full of story links. This worked well enough today for one young woman to say, "I noticed you're planning to conquer the world." How true. And she liked the heavy chocolate content of this year's first story.

All Hail the Domination!

23 January 2010

Talk Back!
The Waukegan Offensive
"The Worcester of the West" is the next target for Domination.

There are two unrelated but serendipitous developments for the Domination of Eiler in 2010. Both of them involve the city of Waukegan-Illinois.

  1. The Wedding of Dominance is now scheduled for the nearby Illinois Beach resort in April. Yeah, maybe it'll still be cold and snowy a week after Easter, but the Domination of Eiler will still take a chance on an outdoor wedding.
  2. If a signed contract means anything, the Domination will soon deploy its elite engineering force on mercenary duty for a Waukegan employer. Reportedly the employer's first question was, "Can he work here for two years?"

Waukegan-Illinois has historical ties to the old Domination homeland of Worcester-Massachusetts. It's also similar in its run-down industrial ambiance.

The signs are as auspicious as for last year's invasion of Nashville-Tennessee. If all goes well, Waukegan will soon have much more opportunity to submit all that it is to the Domination of Eiler. All Hail the Domination!

9 January 2010

Talk Back!
A Day in the Dominican Republic
The Domination of Eiler strikes in the Caribbean. Photo Archive
Fancy Tropical Hotel

The Domination of Eiler has moved on from Florida to invade the Dominican Republic for a week. Fancy resort "NH Royal Beach" near Punta Cana has been expediently chosen for EilerBarracks. Despite the length of the occupation, one day of travelog should suffice.

  • 8:30 am: Wake up. (All times approximate, of course.)
  • 9 am: Grab a cup of coffee and a piece of food from resort breakfast buffet, then head for beach for a dip and a walk. (The Consort operates independently, and prefers walk, dip, then coffee.)
  • 10 am: Serious breakfast.
  • 11 am: Back to the beach. Hide under umbrella, because that big fiery thing in the sky can ruin your skin. But it's great for reading books under.
  • 11:30 am: Group fitness on the beach, if enough people want to come to the Caribbean and take a Latin dance lesson instead of just waiting and going back home to Zumba class.
  • 12 noon: After fitness (if any) is complete, free (well, unlimited pre-paid) beer consumption begins. The "Presidente" pilsner beer of Santo Domingo is served on many taps here. Good enough.
  • 1 pm: Lunch at beachfront open-air buffet, then back to beach.
  • 2 pm: Nap, sometimes on beach. The beach does have children, but only the Norteamericano ones are noisy.
  • 4 pm: Walk along beach, then swim.
  • 6 pm: Back to room to dress for dinner. Fine resorts such as this prefer that gentlemen wear long pants, whether or not these be soaked in pine sap from clearing brush in Wisconsin. How convenient for the Domination of Eiler.
  • 7 pm: Dinner in one of four resort restaurants, booked days in advance by standing in line in the lobby. Said line moved much more slowly than Dominican Republic's immigration check, because fancy resort would really rather we all ate at the buffet, but they have to say they have fine restaurants to get the tourists here.
  • 9 pm: Cocktails and TV, computer, or jacuzzi time.
  • 11 p m: Bed.

Tourism companies want to change this day plan to include various excursions to (say) a farm, a bunch of manatees, or the Big City, all at suitable fee that the locals can charge half-price for. There is no compelling reason to dominate these things. (As attractive as the Big City is, it's a four-hour round trip, and the main attraction there is a Hard Rock Cafe.)

Locals will swarm around you during any walk, to get you into their small businesses. There is no compelling reason to dominate these things. (As attractive as small business is, the Domination of Eiler has already conquered enough cheap jewelry, paintings, and T-shirts.)

The Consort remembers the glory days of tourism, when five-star resorts such as this would have lobster at the buffet. Now that Western civilization is declining, it's understandable that the fine resorts don't even always have salmon.

The Domination Effect is prevailing here this week, even as in Florida. The freezing temperatures were left behind at the Everglades, but it's still 75 Fahrenheit degrees and mostly cloudy here. Many tourists are complaining, but this is mighty Domination of Eiler weather.

In weather as in most everything, it pays to appreciate each dominated place for what it is. At least in this enclave, the Dominican Republic has submitted wholeheartedly to the Domination of Eiler.

4 January 2010

Talk Back!
Global Warming vs. the Domination Effect
The Domination of Eiler once again has its way with the weather.

So far in the new decade, the Domination of Eiler is amusing itself by watching Russian satellite TV and warping weather systems throughout the continent of North Eilerania. The Domination Effect is already known for bringing cold weather south during the summer. Now it's doing it at wintertime, all the way to Florida. Towns with names like Winter Haven and Frostproof are having freeze warnings. People are whining all the way from Tennessee.

There's been some talk about whether global warming is real. Could be, the temperature measurements went up just because the U.S. National Weather Service thoughtfully put thermal-insulating paint on all their weather stations. (Really.) So, the world is like a giant experiment to find out if global warming is real or not. (That's the objection most scientists always had to greenhouse gases.) If it is, it's good to know the Domination Effect can counteract it. All Hail the Domination!

24 December 2009

Talk Back!
Christmas Storm
As the weather rises, the Domination of Eiler continues with several world domination plans at once.

This week has several different world domination objectives:

  • Act sociable when the new in-laws are watching. Giftmas Day is coming, and the in-law clan is gathering - and dropping by the Chambers of Dominance at will. They'll all be coming for dinner. But for once, the Dominator is excused from intervening in other parts of the Eiler clan during Travelmas.
  • Finish the yearly finances. This year has not been the most lucrative. But the Domination of Eiler still supports its para-governmental charities which clothe the poor and feed the hungry. In this way the Domination subverts and circumvents the traditional nation-states, by taking on their role.
  • Pack for tropical vacation. The Household of Dominance is preparing for a New Year's trip to the Dominican Republic. The expedition will avoid O'Hare Airport jams by driving two-thirds of the way, spending a week in Florida, and then flying from Miami.
  • Plan for the upcoming Wedding of Dominance. Yes, wedding planners are away from their desks for the holiday, but it's still time to research the venues.

In between, there's normal business and December business. Harvest several weeks of comic books; go to the gym; try to observe Partymas with the Scary Santa party; honor the Kingdom of Heaven on Christmas Eve. And there's an ice storm; it's already taken out Scary Santa.

So, it's an exciting Xmas season in the Domination of Eiler.

13 December 2009

Talk Back!
A Nice Laugh

"Some in the West argue that... in the end, the Soviets will dig their own graves in Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. But this will not happen. The Soviets are ruthless in the use of power; they are expert at digging graves for others."

- Richard Nixon, 1980.

The Dominator and his Russian fiancee had a nice laugh about this one.

12 December 2009

Talk Back!
Winter Bike Season Is Underway
The Consort doesn't believe in Winter Bike Season. But she's gone to the cabin in Wisconsin for the weekend, so anything goes.

9 December 2009

Talk Back!
Personal Trainers vs. the Domination of Eiler
The Domination and the downfall of Western society actually agree on something.

The Dominator and his Consort recently joined a fancy gym just across the street from their combined EilerBase. This is convenient for snow days, and that's already a good thing.

Today the Dominator went in for his free introductory fitness evaluation. In these the evaluator typically has you do some quick exercises, then judges your RealAge(tm) to be one year above your actual age - with the potential to be eight years younger, if only you'll sign up for personal training at extra cost. Today's evaluation was different only because the gym was fancier than most, so more exercises and some actual training. Apparently the Dominator's legs are so strong, they overcompensate for the rest of his body and bend it all out of shape - at least the parts that regular computer use hasn't warped first.

Today's gym was so fancy, it tried to sell 36 hours of personal training for $55 per hour - over double what hard-working chiropractors charge in states that have already tasted the new Great Depression. The Dominator responded by absolutely ruling out personal training.

When Western society falls, personal trainers will discover what software engineers already know. Cheaper is not always better, but sometimes it has to be good enough.

1 December 2009

Everything But New York City

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