16:40 < mdxi> sjobs taking medical leave until june
16:45 < solios> he died at the same time as Montalban and McGoohan. Bad batch of coke (or some kind of hyper-virulant syphilis from the chilean whores)
16:45 < solios> Apple's buying time to get the android online.
16:46 * ejp wonders what a replicant spodding looks like
16:47 < solios> often confused with replicant masturbation
16:48 < mdxi> just don't ask them to FIND anything
16:48 < solios> then they go all fagbot on your ass
16:48 <@ejp> fagbot: find your ass
16:48 < fagbot> ejp: O_o

March 19, 1928 – January 13, 2009.

Image surfaced in a google search and allegedly came from goon-magazine.de.

Read the LA Times obituary, a BBC overview and the BBC obituary.

If you're one of those rare under-cultured sorts who has no idea who this man is, or are somehow unware of The Prisoner and its cultural impact, read McGoohan's wikipedia entry, and this interview. That should get you started. Buy the show while you're at it.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Troyer: What about the philosophy, the rationale of the Village? What did you tell them about that? Its raison-d'etre, not its mechanics...
McGoohan: (very deliberately) It was a place that is trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his spirit, so that he accepts that he is No. 6 and will live there happily as No. 6 for ever after. And this is the one rebel that they can't break.
Troyer: To what end was that process of breaking down the individual will?
McGoohan: To what end?
Troyer: For the Village, what was the purpose, the goal?
McGoohan: I think it's going on every day all around us.

It's been forty years (a matter of weeks to the day) since society was so stylishly and thoughtfully challenged. That all comers have failed to be as engaging, as thought-provoking - or as accurate - says a lot for the state of modern media.

One of the largest and most long-lasting contributions my father made to the development of my worldview was to tape re-runs of The Prisoner during a run on CBS late-late night in the {late 80s|early 90s} and letting me watch them. Nothing I was exposed to in my formative years - with the possible exception of Robotech, but I'm trying to be serious here - has had such a broad-ranging impact on my creativity.

Number 2 : Do you still think you can escape, Number 6?
Number 6 : Oh, I will do better than that.
Number 2 : Oh?
Number 6 : I'm going to escape and come back.
Number 2 : Come back?
Number 6 : Escape, come back, wipe this place off the face of the Earth, obliterate it, and you with it.

=== Added ===

As my dad mentions in the comments, I blogged about The Prisoner previously (and more eloquently, which is proof that booze kills brain cells). Back then, they were muttering about a remake... now they're actually following through. As an Industry, as opposed to a focused, pissed off individual with connections.

As xeno quotes in the comments: Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages.

High Fructose Corn Syrup : Anal leakage, running the entire scale from "misting" up to "hurricane," depending on volume and duration of exposure. During peak saturation (approximately 2001), I was changing underwear (and outer-wear) twice a day. Like you needed to hear that.

Aspartame : Headache, joint-ache, and a general mental "wooziness" accompanied by the total obliteration of short term memory. Symptoms equivalent to a finger of whiskey and the non-puking aspects of the flu, simultaneously. The last time I exposed myself to this vile TURNS INTO FORMALDEHYDE FUCK YOU RUMSFELD shite was during a pepsi/iTunes promotion. The work water fountains are even more disgusting, and I wasn't about to give Apple my credit card information. To this day, aspartame-induced buys remain my only iTMS purchases.

Sucralose : Anxiety. Symptoms vary depending on intake - a sugar free Sobe Adrenaline Rush will induce anxiety to such a minimal degree that it mixes in with the rest of the "buzz" whereas a No Fear (whatever they call it, that's the brand name) sugar free rents my brain out to Baikonur for rocket testing. I swear, the top of my head's going to blow clean off. As the side effects of aspartame are disgusting and the side effects of sugar deeply diminish my work capacity, this has been my "artificial sweetener" of choice for the past two or three years. Which explains a lot, really. The local minimart regularly runs out of sugar free sobe and has yet - EVER - to run out of the No Fear variety. Now I know why. Odds are pretty fucking fantastic that a sucralose reaction is a big factor in recent mental difficulties. The question is : what to replace it with?

Sugar (specifically sugar-based energy drinks - Red Bull, Sobe, etc) : Feels like my teeth have been dunked in sandy acid; a sludgy, rickety "high" of tunnel vision followed by a rapid plummeting crash into synaptic molasses. Energy drinks like the Mountain Dew branded "Amp" or the sugar-friendly version of Sobe Adrenaline Rush* taste gritty, leaving an "unclean" feeling in my mouth, followed by the aforementioned rickety pep. For Emergency Use Only.

Caffeine : Focus and a degree of pep, until it wears off.

Ritalin, Adderall, other prescription amphetamine salts** : Same as caffeine. Lasts about twice as long and after awhile I start to feel like the nerves in my thighs are starting to itch.

Starbuck's Doubleshot Espresso : Yes, it's a Starbuck's product. Fact is it's the only drink that provides Awake and Go without Grit, Drip, or Rocket Brain. The fact it's a pain in the ass to get my hands on whereas the rest are legion... well, that's medical america for you. As that google-proofed philospher dude said back before they put the dead guy on the stick - consider diet.

Regular Coffee : Makes my sphincter sneeze and drizzle like it's got hay fever. Yeah, you needed THAT visual. If I liked spray-painting the walls with my ass I'd still be drinking the stuff.

I'm sure Chuck Palahniuk would dunk your brains in an orgy of anal and neurological delights. Burroughs would get hung up about the rectal mucous and obsess about that and venusian invaders for an entire book.

I'm neither. I am, in fact, impeded. Diet informs and this here is a question of extent. Deprived of my SAUCE would I be Mister Rogers, Dave Lister, or Dick Cheney? How much of who I "am" is a result of chemical stimuli or more relevantly my "improper" reaction to said stimuli?

Prinny, dood.

My chief consideration, as always - there's never enough daylight. If I could subsist on four hours of sleep I damned well would. I will be on some kind of upper until I either spontaneously combust or calcify. Or both. Picture that.

* Both the "amp" and the sobe probably use hideous amounts of HFCS - I don't have empties here to check. Not the point. Point is they taste gritty, not yummy. And they impact accordingly.

** Last actual exposure to prescription-grade amphetamine (or amphetamine of any kind, actually) was in 2006. Example provided for context.