Friday, July 28, 2006

Random Disturbing Picture Friday


Get ready, people. It's not very often that I do this, but this post definitely needs...

Seriously, this random picture is horrifying. Make sure all your children are out of the room before you look at it...









I'm not kidding. It will warp them for life.








Okay, don't say I didn't warn you.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! Morrissey! Run!




And to think I used to think this picture was disturbing.



UPDATE
:Okay, fine Mike. Here you go.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Why Do I Even Bother?

So, we've got family visiting this week. Five of them. Five is a big number. It's more than the number of quarters in a dollar. It's more than the number of quarts in a gallon. Basically, it's more than almost anything with "quart" in the word. Okay, okay, only three of them are staying with us in our 1 bedroom apartment, but still.

Anyway, our guests have been using our upstairs "guest" bathroom for all bathroom-related activities. We use that bathroom primarily for numbers 1 and 2 and not for tooth brushing or hair drying. Our guests, however, do use it for those purposes. Combine that with a shoddy wiring job on the outlet and what do you get? Flames shooting out of the outlet, that's what. Apparently my last attempt to fix the problem (solution = cover everything with electrical tape and hope that fixes the short) didn't take and apparently electrical tape is inflammable.

So yesterday afternoon I decided I should probably try another fix. First, I removed all the old tape and found a loose wire sticking out of the "hot" terminal. So, I removed the whole outlet mechanism to work on it. Of course, the whole time I'm working on it, my son is in there with me watching me. Here are a few things he said that make me remember that I'm utterly hopeless.

"What are you fixing, Daddy?"

"Daddy said "GRRRRRRR"

"Daddy are you fustyrated?"

"No, Mommy is supposed to do it." In response to me saying I was trying to fix the outlet.

Maybe next time I should just accept my lack of any practical knowledge and hire a dang electrician. Or have Mommy do it.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Random JapanPicture Friday


If you've never been to Japan, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but it's true; it is impossible to have a picture taken without at least one person making the old "peace" or "V for Victory" sign with their fingers. Seriously. When I got accosted on the streets of Kyoto by two schoolgirls (not what you're thinking, you pervs) so they could talk to me in English for their homework, they wanted to take a picture with me to prove I was real and they didn't just make up the conversation, which is what I would have done if I had that assignment. So I stood there and smiled for the picture and they said "nonononononononono, do..." and they held up their fingers. And no, it's not just a kid thing. This picture, which I randomly stumbled across, proves my point. I really don't get it though. Wasnt't the "V for Victory" finger move an Allied thing in WWII?






That's why this picture is so much better: it makes sense.

See? This guy has apparently brokered a peace between the dog-faced Japanese people and the normal-faced Japanese people, who both appear to be claiming victory. It is a monumental acheivement akin to what Jimmy Carter facilitated at Camp David between the Israelis and the Palestinians*. We all know how well that worked out!

Also, all next week (well, starting today) I will be guest writing over at the amazing Why.I.Hate.DC blog. The great Rusty has asked me to humbly try to fill his shoes. I'll try to keep updating here too, but we'll see.

*may or may not be historically factual. Wikipedia probably knows.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Bad Photoetry Thursday: On the Horizon Edition



Search Word: Horizontal

Poetry Thursday




Description
by Mike Doty

My salt marsh
-mine, I call it, because
these day-hammered fields

of dazzled horizontals
undulate, summers,
inside me and out-

how can I say what it is?
Sea lavender shivers
over the tidewater steel.

A million minnows ally
with their million shadows
(lucky we'll never need

to know whose is whose).
The bud of storm loosens:
watered paint poured

dark blue onto the edge
of the page. Haloed grasses,
gilt shadow-edged body of dune…

I could go on like this.
I love the language
of the day's ten thousand aspects,

the creases and flecks
in the map, these
brillant gouaches.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

List Tuesday: Why God Why Edition




Things That Make Me Die a Little Inside When I Hear Them At Work



  1. Head On!

  2. Apply directly to the forehead!

  3. Head On!

  4. Apply directly to the forehead!

  5. Head On!

  6. Apply directly to the forehead!

  7. Freedom from hemorrhoids?

  8. FREEdHEM hemorrhoid cream!

  9. Freedom from hemorrhoids?

  10. FREEdHEM hemorrhoid cream!

  11. Freedom from hemorrhoids?

  12. FREEdHEM hemorrhoid cream!


Monday, July 17, 2006

Everything in the World You've Ever Wanted

I could hardly believe my eye-brains today as I read in the good ol' Metro Express that wireless internet access might soon be offered on some trains.

"That's a huge step forward for humanity," I thought to myself. "Not for me since my laptop is 4+ years old and probably couldn't handle a wireless card anyway, but for humanity in general, that's pretty rad."

Then I got to the next sentence:

Metro is moving forward with plans to give companies the right to install wireless Internet access at certain bus stops and in tunnels in exchange for shared revenue from advertising or user fees.


What a thing to read on a Monday morning. "We're going to offer wireless internet! But only in some places, probably the rich parts of town, and it's not us, it's other companies and they will probably charge by the minute and one company will probably get an exclusive deal to provide access and will probably not give a damn if users have problems. It'll be just like the whole VERIZON ONLY policy in the tunnels, only wireless!" To be fair, it won't be just like the Verizon thing. Everybody will probably be allowed to pay outrageous fees to use the wireless access.

How is it that entire cities (i.e. Philadelphia and San Francisco and Seattle) can embark on projects to blanket every neighborhood with public wireless service and Metro can't even put in their own antennas? Oh yeah. It's because Virginians want to use Metro and not pay for it. Thanks a lot Virginia.

But hey, at least Metro will get some revenue out of it. If they get enough they could lower the fares, right? Right?

Friday, July 14, 2006

Rantang Picture Friday



Well I'll be. I thought that that one time I found that picture of that one dog that I had found the best picture in the universe. Now? I'm not so sure. Just look...



A Shrine to Tang! That is so gnarly! Astronauts like it! I like it! Everybody likes it! Yay Tang! Nothing beats a pitcher of Tang and package of saltines on hot summer afternoon.



See how awesome this picture is? I added the dog, but that wasn't enough. Just the dog doesn't improve the picture. But a dog in an orange cowboy hat? Oh. Yes.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Bad Photoetry: It's Never Just Right Edition




Search word = flood

Poetry Thursday: What? Edition


Mr. Lorca, this is my kind of poem.
Only better. Much, much better.


City That Does Not Sleep
Federico Garcia Lorca

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

List Tuesday: I am Not Hungry Anymore


Here is a fun time. This is a fun time. Don't we all like a fun time?



The Top Five Combinations of Things You Can Buy From the McDonald's Dollar Menu for Five Dollars or Fewer.

5. 1 McChicken, 1 Double Cheeseburger, 1 small fry.

4. 1 Sundae, 1 McChicken.

3. 2 McChickens, 3 Small Frys.

2. 1 Ice cream cone.

1. 10 pies.



Things About Which You Do Not Care


  1. There are seven pieces of scotch tape stuck to my desk right now.

  2. Christus Victor is a theory of.......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

  3. One time, my friend drank 3 liters of pop and then puked all over my bathroom.

  4. A puss catepillar is poisonous.

  5. The largest elephant on record was shot in Angola in 1974 and weighed as much as 3 billion ants.

  6. Today is the MLB All-Star Game

  7. With an apple a day, after three days you could juggle the apples.

  8. You get bonus points if you can eat the apples while juggling them

  9. This is harder than it looks

  10. If you were just a couple inches taller, maybe you could dunk.

  11. To an ant, a stack of a million dollar bills is larger than the universe.

  12. e^(pi*i)+1 = 0

  13. Now there are nine pieces of scotch tape on my desk

  14. The transition from laminar to turbulent flow occurs around a Reynold's number or 2300

  15. I used to read Star Wars novels.

  16. Whenever a door shuts, a window opens.

  17. The above is not true.

  18. Nor is it clever

  19. Of all the people in the world, why me?

  20. Why. Me.

  21. Did I tell you about that time I saw a truck's wheel fall off on the freeway?

  22. No?

  23. It was cool to the max.

  24. It has been 800 years since Genghis Khan rose to power in Mongolia.

  25. 32 oz. pops from AM/PM used to be called "Thirsty-twos." Maybe they still are

  26. Every second, more than 10 cars catch fire due to global warming.

Friday, July 07, 2006

When I Survey the Wondrous Blog

Get it? I put "blog" in the title of the post! It's meta!

Anyway, it's still SURVEY WEEK here at ATOB so we'll keep on surveyin'. Only now it's going to be a big communal performance art/survey thing! How's that sound everyone? Here's the deal. We are communally going to write the best survey in the history of mankind. When someone answers it and then you read their answers, you will have a perfect picture of their true selves. If you meet them for the first time after you have read their responses it will be just like you are the oldest friends. This survey will bring world peace. This survey will be the world's best matchmaker, not Orly. This survey will play jazz trombone. This survey will eat your babies. This survey will divide by zero. This survey will crush your soul.

So, I will write a couple of questions and then everyone who reads this (and I mean everyone. If I check my site meter and I have more visits than comments, I will come and hunt you down and...um....do something that justifies the cost of a plane ticket to Prague or wherever) gets to chime in with more questions of your own devising. Then, we will compile them into one giant survey the likes of which the world has never seen. It will dominate the cluttered world of user generated online surveys, a world that is rife with Harry Potter and anime garbage. Then we will all post it on our blogs and MySpaces and Livejournals and stuff. Then we will give it it's own webpage which will look really cool and simple and iconic. It will get more traffic than Google. We will need a million warehouses full of servers to hold all the responses. Soon we will all go down in history as the group (or cohort, is that cooler?) that wrote the survey to end all surveys. Future generations will worship us as prophets, much like the Wyld Stallyns were worshipped in B&TEA.


This is the beginning of the greatest survey. It is called: From Time Immemorial

1. What is worse: Going to your favorite restaurant, ordering your favorite steak only underneath the steak is a scabby band-aid. Or?______________________

2. Do you like me [YES] [NO] Circle one.

3. What percent of all paper clips that you come in contact with do you unfold?

4. What are your five favorite movies? (Legally Blonde does not count)

5. Have you ever left a pair of underwear in the forest?

6. If zombies were real, would you be afraid of them?

7. How many Cold Cut Combos could you eat in a day?

8. How many times have you lost your keys in an article of clothing you are wearing?

9. Do you like almonds?

10. Does God exist?

11. Is there something better than pie?

12. What were/are the economic, social, and political consequences of Marbury vs. Madison?

13. Age?

14. Sex?

15. Location?

16. In your opinion, is there always room for one more, or not?


Okay, now it's your turn you ingrates. I don't think you realize how great this survey will be yet, do you? It will be everything I have claimed. One warning though. DO NOT ANSWER ANY OF THE QUESTIONS UNTIL THE WHOLE THING IS COMPLETE! I think that's obvious, but some of you might not. I'm just saying.

Ragged Picture Follyday



Boy oh boy are we ever having a blow out today! Not one, not two, but three randomly stumbled across pictures from the internet! Hooray! And then the same three pictures only with a dog! Or another dog as the case may be! Friday rules!



What freaks me out about this picture is it looks like someone broke into my house and didn't steal anything. They just took a picture of my ridiculous crap collection.



Ha ha! A dog!




Babies: making cute messes since the dawn of mankind.


If only "dog-in-a-basket" were more like "pig-in-a-blanket" or "chicken-in-a-biskit" or "sausage-in-a-pancake."



"It is just like that jerk to go and do something like this. He is a camera hog and an attention whore. I hate that dude." That is totally what this dog would be thinking if dogs could think. But they can't.




I've lost sight of why I'm doing this.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Bad Photoetry Thursday




Search word: survey

Poetry Thursday: Yep



One Almost Might
by A.S.J. Tessimond

Wouldn't you say,
Wouldn't you say: one day,
With a little more time or a little more patience, one might
Disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight
One of the moment's hundred strands, unfray
Beginnings from endings, this from that, survey
Say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch
Part of oneself or a leaf or a sound (not clutch
Or cuff or bruise but touch with finger-tip, ear-
Tip, eyetip, creeping near yet not too near);
Might take up life and lay it on one's palm
And, encircling it in closeness, warmth and calm,
Let it lie still, then stir smooth-softly, and
Tendril by tendril unfold, there on one's hand ...

One might examine eternity's cross-section
For a second, with slightly more patience, more time for reflection?

Surveying the Landscape

Well after yesterday's horrendous trainwreck, I decided that all surveys should be written by someone less prone to random capitalization. That someone was to be me. But then I remembered that I already created the best survey in the history of the internet.

It was in 1994, and I was in the 8th grade. We just got our new Mac 9600 or something like that and decided to hook up with AOL. Shortly thereafter, I, know as Milhouse[some number], created the following survey, which spread like rabid fire across the barren landscape of survey-less AOL chat rooms and is still in use today (maybe.)

Here it is:

Age?
Sex?
Location?

OR

A/S/L?



Utterly brilliant, no?

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

In Which I Reveal My Darkest Secrets

Hey, did you know that MySpace is an internet thing? Well it is. And people like to take surveys and I like to take surveys so I took a survey. I thought, going in, that both MySpace and Blogger were as inane and stupid as possible and that any cross-pollination could only make them both better. I was wrong, horribly, horribly wrong. When future civilizations look back to determine at what point the internet became fatally stupid, I'm afraid this post conflating blogs and MySpace will be it. I'm sorry. I got this survey from my brother's MySpace "page," so you can blame him.


By the way, go add me as a friend in MySpace! I want to have more friends than anybody and I am doing pretty well. After 7 months, I have 8 friends! [somebody] Tequila, here I come!


ALL ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey
Name:Schuyler
Birthday:November 23
Birthplace:Yakima
Current Location:DC
Eye Color:green
Hair Color:brown
Height:brown
Right Handed or Left Handed:right
Your Heritage:white
The Shoes You Wore Today:black
Your Weakness:brown
Your Fears:No more pie
Your Perfect Pizza:Pagliacci
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:brown
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:phrase
Thoughts First Waking Up:brown
Your Best Physical Feature:When they take your blood pressure.
Your Bedtime:brown
Your Most Missed Memory:When I ate that wheat thin just now
Pepsi or Coke:brown
MacDonalds or Burger King:brown
Single or Group Dates:sequential
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:It's iced, not ice.
Chocolate or Vanilla:chocolate
Cappuccino or Coffee:WHERE IS:
Do you Smoke:My coffee?
Do you Swear:Where is it?
Do you Sing:Yes
Do you Shower Daily:brown
Have you Been in Love:yes
Do you want to go to College:brown
Do you want to get Married:no
Do you belive in yourself:Can you restate the question? Yes, I believe that I exist in an ontological manner, and yes I believe myself when I say things, unless I know I am lying. And wait a minute, why are there no inappropriate capitalizations in this question. Do you not believe in me? You don't? I am going to go cry now.
Do you get Motion Sickness:brown
Do you think you are Attractive:brown
Are you a Health Freak:brown
Do you get along with your Parents:yes
Do you like Thunderstorms:brown
Do you play an Instrument:yes
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:yes
In the past month have you Smoked:no
In the past month have you been on Drugs:brown
In the past month have you gone on a Date:brown
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:brown
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:no
In the past month have you been on Stage:yes
In the past month have you been Dumped:no
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:brown
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:Yes. I just stole several minutes of your time. Loser.
Ever been Drunk:brown
Ever been called a Tease:brown
Ever been Beaten up:no
Ever Shoplifted:no
How do you want to Die:brown
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:Oh God, would you survey writers stop capitalizing recklessly? Please.
What country would you most like to Visit:Critter
In a Boy/Girl..
Favourite Eye Color:Maybelline Plum Red
Favourite Hair Color:brown
Short or Long Hair:brown
Height:yes
Weight:brown
Best Clothing Style:no
Number of Drugs I have taken:brown
Number of CDs I own:less than a trillion
Number of Piercings:brown
Number of Tattoos:brown
Number of things in my Past I Regret:1. Doing this survey. Why would I go and do that? That is such a stupid thing. What am I, stupid? That is so stupid.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Listependance Tuesday




This will be phenomenal. Really. You are phenomenal.


Things My Son Said To Me Today When He Wanted To Draw on Our White Board



  1. I want to color!

  2. I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT. Please?

  3. I WAAAAAAAAAAANT IT!

  4. I want to color, daddy!

  5. AAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAA

  6. It's my turn, daddy!







Bills I Paid Today



  1. Mortgage

  2. Condominium Fee

  3. Cell Phone

  4. Paxton

  5. Mr.





On Last Night's Baseball Game (See more tomorrow)


  1. Teams Playing: Washington Nationals and Florida Marlins

  2. Cost of tickets: $7 each

  3. Cost of tickets with service charges and fees: $12.50 each

  4. Seat Section: 532

  5. Reason for attending: Deadspin field trip

  6. Number of Deadspin readers and/or writers talked to: 0

  7. Number of home runs hit by Soriano: 2?

  8. Number of complete at-bats I watched: <5

  9. Walks taken with aforementioned son: 2

  10. Innings pitched: 5

  11. Should you take the metro to the game: No

  12. Opinion on naked babies: Neutral to negative

  13. Best thing on concession menu: Cheese Cup ($1.00)

  14. Beers that count as "Premium": Corona, Heineken.

  15. Attendance: 100<, <1,000,000

  16. Winner of the President Race: Lincoln, oh yeah!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Walkin' Down To Camptown

So, the brickfamily and I went camping this weekend in West Virginia. It was cool. The first time we've ever been camping in a deciduous forest, so we had that going for us.

I won't bore you with everything we did but here's a couple notes from the trip.

Have you ever seen those "tractor crossing" road signs? No? Me neither, until this weekend. They look like this....

I know what you are thinking: "that's a cute little sign with a generic guy in a cool hat riding on a generic tractor." Well guess what, you are wrong. I saw the sign model this weekend. He lives in Virginia, right near the WVA border and he drives a John Deere. He's even cooler in real life than he is on the sign. Seriously.


When we ran out of ice in our cooler, we decided to drive down to the near-by town of Wardensville. After about a mile (after 4 miles of dirt road to get back to the highway) we had to pull over and make sure we were headed the right way. For a minute I thought we turned the wrong way and instead of heading further into West Virginia we had ended up in South Carolina. I guess that's just what happens when I see two confederate flags flying on specially installed flagpoles in front of a house. It turned out that we were going the right way and that there are just racist hosers in West Virginia too. I'm kind of scared to go back. Also, since, in addition to ice, we needed to find somewhere to drop off our bag of trash, we thought the best place was all over the lawn of the racists. So I'm really afraid to go back.

On Saturday, we decided to go find another campground listed in our awesome book (someone has already written this book for Washington State. I wanted to do that!). It was about 20 miles from the one we were staying at (which totally ruled by the way). On the way there we passed through what can only be described as the suburbs of Wardensville. Along the way we saw a roadkilled something-or-other. Knowing what I do about the folks in West Virginia (this was just after we saw the Confederate flags), we decided we should probably stop, pick up the roadkill and go give it to someone. They eat that stuff for dinner right? But, the Brickson was asleep, so we figured we'd better not stop this time. When we came back, it was gone, so I guess somebody got it.

This has nothing to do with camping really, but Ryan and Holly, if you ever read this (I know you don't), I wanted to let you know how much of an influence you had on our son. The whole trip he wanted to "listen to Ryan and Holly singing!" He likes to sing along to the guitar parts (doo-doo-doo-dooo-dah-doooo) and gets really excited when he hears the "hollycup." I think he means "melodica" with that last one, but I'm not sure. Everytime a song ends he says "what's next, daddy? What's next?" So, all this to say, thanks, because now I don't have to listen to crappy kids music for two straight hours. I bet you didn't know you were making kids music, did you?