A Ton of Bricks

Philosophy and Phylogeny

2011-01-07T12:15:00.004-05:00

In my somethety-something years on this planet, I've read exactly zero books of philosophy. Somehow that seems both odd and correctable. Or as Wittgenstein would say...well, I don't know what Wittgenstein would say and that's the point. I bet he would say something about truth tables if we're talking young, calculating, I-see-the-world-with-more-clarity-than-anyone-else Wittgenstein or maybe something about how my use of "philosophy books" determines the meaning of philosophy as that which I haven't read and precludes every book I HAVE read from being considered philosophy, if we're talking to older, more world-weary and world-wise Wittgenstein.

And so that preceding paragraph is an example of how I've gone through most of my life. I recognize my lack of philosophical erudition and can compensate for it with soundbites and off-hand examples that hint that I DO know what the hell I'm talking about. As long as my conversation partner doesn't know any more than I do, or at least isn't confident that they do, I win! The key is to make sure you gauge, before you bust out with some jargon that may or may not be correct, the other person's knowledge. The last thing you want is to have someone correct you. You want to leave other people with the impression that you sure know what you're talking about, throwing Sartre and Kant into random conversations in applicable ways. Oh, I forgot, that's the other key. Just memorize a few exemplars of Kantian or Cartesian thinking and wait for a time in the conversation where you can say "well, as Kant would probably say..." That way you don't have to really worry about it derailing into a true discussion of philosophy while still getting across the point that you know a lot about Kant even when you don't.

Now, don't go thinking that this is easy. It takes a lot of work trying to predict where conversations are going to go before you actually get in the same room as the people you are going to be conversing with. Organized gatherings (church, book clubs, business functions) make it a lot easier, but know that there's a good chance you won't be able to use your pithy little insight if the right topic doesn't come up. The absolute last thing you want to do is use it in an inappropriate place and look like a fool.

So, I don't know how we got here but anyway, what I wanted to say when I started out was that I think I'll get around to reading some major works of philosophy this year. I've had Being and Nothingness on my shelf for more than two years now, so I guess I should finally read it. Of course, if I can pull it off right, I can get you to THINK I read it even when I didn't.

Arbitrary Day Combeth

2011-01-05T17:07:00.005-05:00

So, as you probably know, I participated in the Reddit Secret Santa gift exchange this past Christmas season. It was fun. I got some "cheese" and "sausage" and gave a woman in San Francisco a rainbow-colored, It Gets Better-supporting collapsible hoop dancing hoop. Good times were had by all. It is the biggest Secret Santa gift exchange in the universe (unless, of course, the universe is actually infinite. In that case there exists at least 1 planet with a secret Santa gift exchange that is bigger) assuming that there are even any other planets that have a Santa. Well, even if there aren't any other planets with Christmas and Santa, it would still be the biggest by default.

Anyway, I also plan to join in the fun this Arbitrary Day. So, to my Arbitrary Day Giftee (who has basically zero chance of ever seeing this blog, let alone this specific post): I promise that your gift will include at least one (1) comb of some kind and at least one fictional story about something that will not be less than 4,000 words and will include the selective use of not fewer than 10 fonts (to include Papyrus, Comic Sans and Verdana). I mean, your gift will also include something else, too, probably, unless the comb is MADE OUT OF GOLD!

Much Ado About Sauce

2011-01-01T23:15:00.004-05:00

So, the other day I was making some sauce for a home-made secret santa gift exchange. The sauce is incredibly good and made from the best stuff on earth. That's right, the sauce is Snapple. Anyway, to go along with the sauce (which is not actually Snapple, just to be clear) I decided, what the heck, I'll write the best story in the world to go along with it. Turns out that is harder than it sounds. I did write a story, but it's only the third best in the world. Sorry. But here it is anyway. The only printed manuscript in existence is owned by Dee Doan. The true manuscript makes selective use of Papyrus. Any manuscript that doesn't use Papyrus in the right places is an obvious forgery and should be burned on sight.

Two more notes: I wrote this in one morning (an amazing way to use a sunday morning, you should try it some time) so any typos are totally intentional since this went through a very rigorous editing process of printing it. Also, yes, I did at one time read a book by DFW, how did you know? Also when I said "two more notes" I actually meant "three more notes." So, third, I have no idea what happened to O. G. Readmore (this will make sense (well, more sense anyway) if you read another couple hundred words). He just never shows back up in the story. Weird how these things happen.

The Legend of the Sauce was WAY Hardcore

Archie’s quest began on an overcast Thursday in November. I think it was the 21st or something, but I can’t guarantee that. Anyway, his epic quest started when a creepy old many walked by him on the street and right behind that creepy old man, who was actually former President George H. W. Bush after an all night bender with Barbara*, was a guy holding a sign that said “Epic Questers Wanted: Apply Here.” So Archie stopped. He’d always dreamed of going on an epic quest, at least ever since he read the book A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (R.I.P.).

Archibald R. Hammerstein walked up to the man with the sign, whose name was O. G. Readmore, and asked, “so, epic quest, eh? Tell me more.” O. G. replied “Arrrr, ye have to fill out this contract that says you are responsible for anything untoward that happens to ye on this here epic quest. Just sign here, here, initial here, put yar bank account info here, and finally give me yar contact info for yer next o’ kin.” Archie, being the trusting and, let’s be honest, gullible guy that he was, filled out the whole thing without a second thought.

“All right, here’s your quest, Archie,” said O. G. in a strangely normal voice*2. “You gotta find all the stuff on this list in its purest and most essential form. Then, you take them all, mix them together in unknown proportions to make a delicious, sweet and fiery sauce. This is the sauce of destiny and though its ingredients have been known for millennia, no one has successfully combined them in the right proportions. This is your quest, if you choose to accept it (which you already did when you initialed that thing just now). You have three weeks….no wait, it’s the 18th today*3 so you have four-and-a-half weeks before I need the sauce for…..well, for a thing. So be off.”

Archie looked at the list. As O. G. had said, it was a list of ingredients. The list looked like this:

Only use the purest essence of these ingredients. Anything less than the best will lead to YOUR DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

1) Honey
2) Ground Cayenne Pepper
3) Light Brown Sugar
4) Garlic Powder
5) Red Pepper Sauce (Tabasco or similar)
6) Dried Thyme
7) Salt
8) White Wine Pure Vinegar
~~9) Hickory Smoked Ham~~

Archie checked his list. He checked it twice. “So, I guess the hickory smoked ham isn’t…a…part….” He trailed off. O. G. Readmore was gone. He was nowhere to be seen. The fresh snow on the ground where O. G. had been standing remained untouched. It was as though he never existed. Archie looked down at the list in his hand, half expecting it to now be diamonds*4. But it wasn’t. Something strange was going on here.

In an odd coincidence, the Harris Teeter just a few blocks away had seven of the eight ingredients in their purest form. Archie started walking toward the Whole Foods at Clarendon. In another strange coincidence, he changed his mind half-a-block later. The reason he changed his mind is because he started walking east and saw the crazy old man (George H. W. Bush, remember) coming back toward him. “Ah, crap,” said Archie to himself under his breath. “That guy freaks me out. I’ll just go to Harris Teeter.” So he went to Harris Teeter. The whole way there (about 5 blocks) he sang to himself, over and over “My Harris Teeeeeeeter!”

As Archie entered through the automatic doors, he glanced at his list again. Obviously, the first stop would be the spice aisle (later, he would end up on the legendary Spice Isle, but not yet). He walked slowly down the lane looking at spice labels. He picked up a big jug of garlic powder because in his opinion, it was almost impossible to have too much garlic in just about any sauce*5. In this day full of coincidences, the jug of garlic powder he chose happened to be made from 19 heads of garlic from the very best garlic plant ever grown. Well, each head of garlic was grown from the very best seeds ever grown. Only one jug of garlic powder in all the world would be sufficient for the incredible sauce (which we haven’t named yet. It’s officially known as El Salsa de Arbol de Santo Domingo de la Ultra-Bicicletta, or ESASDUB for short), and this was it.

The dried thyme was easy to find. It’s a little-known fact, but there is absolutely no difference at all between all the thyme plants on earth. In fact, each one is a genetic twin of all the others*6. Thus, it didn’t really matter at all which little canister of thyme leaves Archie chose. The particular one that he grabbed was McCormick brand and was harvested and dried on the high arid steppe of the inland Pacific Northwest, just several miles from Kate Maisel’s hometown of Ephrata, Washington. Archie assumed, correctly*7, that one little canister would be enough.

Next, Archie moved down the aisle to the salt section. The wide selection was at first overwhelming. Iodized, non-iodized, sea, Mediterranean sea, ground, coarse, blue, so many salts! Naively, Archie assumed that the more expensive the salt was, the better it was. It may have been naïve, but it was true. The most expensive salt is truly the best salt. Basing his decision on price alone was what saved Archie in re the salt. Oddly, 5 minutes later in the honey aisle*8, the exact same reasoning produced the exact same result. The most expensive honey was indeed the best. It had been harvested the day before from a hive ruled by The Virgin Queen of Virginia Bees. Blind Franciscan nuns ran the apiary and the honey in the particular jar that Archie grabbed had been painstakingly dripped off the honeycomb by a beautiful nun named (as all nuns are) Maria*9. The jar was small, but Archie figured he didn’t need too much honey. He was right.*10

Archie left the spice aisle. He left without checking his list. He left without getting any ground cayenne pepper.

“Hmmm,” thought Archie to himself and the woman next to him*11. “I guess the baking aisle is where to find vinegar and brown sugar?” “Yes, it is,” she said. “Thanks!” replied Archie, not thinking twice about the fact that the woman shouldn’t have been able to respond to his interior monologue. His non-reaction actually threw Annette of her balance so much she ended up getting Splenda instead of real sugar, which made her pumpkin pie taste, well, like a dog’s breakfast if we’re being honest.

Now, in the baking aisle, Archie grabbed the biggest jug of vinegar he could find. It was 1.75 gallons*12 and cost $1.69. He forgot that the list said “White Wine Pure Vinegar,” but it turned out not to matter. Whoever made that list in the first place had just never tried any other kinds of vinegar. Regular old white, distilled vinegar worked just fine, and Archie saved himself enough money to buy six king-size Butterfingers.

The brown sugar was another story. Well, really it’s the same story. Fate smiled on Archie and the bag he grabbed was one of seven in the store that would satisfy the ESASDUB gods. You see, this particular bag of brown sugar was harvested on the south facing slopes of a hill in western Haiti. The plantation had survived the earthquake, but many of the workers fled to their hometowns to look after family. Those that stayed behind were worked harder than ever. Extra workers were even kidnapped, shanghaied or even sold into what amounts to slavery to the vicious plantation master Don Jesus de Lorenzo Contreras. One slave in particular lived a tragic life. He was nameless and died one day on the slopes amidst the sugar cane. His last bag of sugar cane that he picked was still slung over his back when the plantation guards found his body. They thought perhaps he had tried to escape, but alas the poor innocent soul had just had enough of this world. The master didn’t care. He took the cane from the boy’s back and processed it into the seven bags that ended up in Harris Teeter in Ballston*13. Had Archie been a conscientious shopper, he would not have purchased sugar from Haiti, but Archie didn’t know anything about sugar and didn’t want to pay for C&H brand. But he only needed half a cup, and this was the littlest bag he could find.

The last ingredient (aside from the cayenne, which, ominously and importantly for this story Archie had forgotten) he needed was red pepper sauce. The list said “Tabasco” but Archie was a bit of a red pepper sauce connoisseur. In the condiments aisle, he whipped out his microspectrometer to analyze the different red pepper sauces. With one glance, Archie discarded all the Tabasco sauces. He could tell they didn’t have the right color. He picked three bottles of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. Peering through his analyzer, he found one bottle with such a perfect spectrum of red absorbance that he could hardly believe it himself. He’d heard of such sauces being created in small batches in the lab*14 but he’d never seen such an exquisite sample in the wild. He bought it, obviously. It was a big bottle, and he only needed a little bit of it*15, but none of the smaller bottles were sufficiently pure.

So, his cart being full (okay, it wasn’t even close to full, but he had everything he needed. Almost), Archie bought the contents of his cart.

At home, he started to make the sauce. Logically, he used a medium-size saucepan and mixed all the ingredients together. He had to heat it up a little to get all the sugar and honey to dissolve. The sauce had a pretty liquidy consistency. “Huh. I don’t know that I’d call this a sauce, more like a marinade,” said Archie to no one in particular. So he boiled it. And boiled it. And boiled it. In fact, he boiled it down by about half.*16

He tasted the hot sauce. It tasted like warmed over garbage. “WOW! I must have done something wrong, because this is a horrible sauce!” He checked his ingredient list again. It hit him like a ton of bricks. He had forgotten the cayenne. He scoured his spice rack*17 but couldn’t find any cayenne. “Ah shucks,” he thought. “I guess I better walk back to Harris Teeter.” And so he did.

Or at least, so he TRIED to do. Halfway there, a strange maroon van pulled up to the stoplight right beside him as he waited for the white walking guy to show up on the crosswalk sign. Three men in black hiking gear leaped out of the van and grabbed Archie. Before he could utter a sound, he found himself tied up and dressed down in the back of the van.

“Vee know vat you are do-ink,” said the leader*18. “Vee know you are after ze sauce of destiny. Ze ESASDUB. Vee are ze guardians of ze sauce. You cannat make ze sauce. It is impossible. You cannot be allowed to continue. Vee vill put a stop to your actions. Zat is vy vee are kidnappink you!”

Archie fainted.

He awoke one day later*19 on the top of a strange hill in a strange land. Luckily, there was a sign right next to him that read as follows:

Welcome, Archibald, to the Legendary Spice Isle. You are respected for your culinary genius in coming so close to creating the ESASDUB. But you cannot be allowed to continue. He who holds the knowledge of the ESASDUB holds the knowledge of good and Evil. You are hereby exiled to this Isle. You shall spend the rest of your days here. Unless…

But the rest of the sign had been destroyed in last night’s storm.

Archie spent his days comfortably atop the mountain. Food was delivered mysteriously every night. It was super-delicious. But no matter how good the food was, his brain would not stop gnawing on that “Unless.”

“Unless, what?” was the question constantly on his mind. He dreamed about unless, he wrote “unless” in the dirt over and over. He thought of a hundred, at thousand, a million*20 different “unlesses.” Finally, when he couldn’t take it any more, he decided to confront his mysterious food bringer.

Late on a Saturday night, last Saturday in fact, Archie hid behind a big boulder and waited for his captor*21. Footsteps echoed across the mountaintop at roughly a quarter after one that night. A wizened old man hove into view. Archie was shocked. It was former president George H. W. Bush*22.

Archie leapt from behind the boulder. “GEORGE BUSH?” he cried out into the dark. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you keeping me here? WHY!!??”

Howard Bush hung his head in relief or shame, Archie couldn’t tell. “The day has finally come,” he whispered. “The end is here.” He looked wistful as he murmured. Wistful and honored and afraid.

“What do you mean?” screamed Archie. The end of what? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

And so Howard explained. He told the story of his life, his painful childhood, his desperate effort to find meaning in his life and his excitement at finding out his true destiny. While his brother became the leader of the so-called free world, while he oversaw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death of global Stalinist Communism, Howard lay in the shadows, guarding the final, most powerful culinary secret. And it had all led up to this. Ancient ESASDUB lore held that one day, an innocent man would unknowingly come close to creating the perfect sauce. He would be missing only one ingredient: the quintessential cayenne.

“I have it here in my hand,” Howard croaked as his life came to its culmination. “Take it, Archie. It is yours. You must make the sauce. “

In confusion, Archie reached across the gap between them. His nightly food tray clattered to the ground, falling dramatically from Howard’s left hand as he reached out with his right. Clasped there in his right hand was an unlabeled jar with a powder so deep red that it was almost painful. As Archie touched the jar and wrapped his fingers around it, an electric shock shot across his nervous system. He felt complete for the first time in his life.

He held up the jar in triumph, knowing he was now in possession of the purest cayenne known to man.

Suddenly, he heard a gurgle. He whipped around and saw Howard collapse to the ground. In his hand was a broken capsule marked “CYA” on one half and “NIDE” on the other. Howard had poisoned himself.

“Don’t worry,” groaned Howard. “It was how it had to happen. The only thing keeping that capsule intact was my grip on the cayenne. I’ve been clutching it in my withering claw for 32 years now. It is pure peace to know that my task is over. I go to my grave happy,” He rasped. “Come closer,” said Howard. Archie put his ear to Howard’s lips. “Rose….bud…,” Howard whispered, and breathed his last.

Instantly, a crack team of sauce commandos dashed to the mountaintop. “Come,” said the leader. “You’re time hass arrifed. You must return to ze kitchen und complete ze sauce. You are ze saucekeeper now. “

The next day, Archie stood over his saucepan. He was surrounded by the aged inner circle of guardians and their younger protectors. They watched on in a mix of fear and honor as he added two tablespoons of cayenne. A light shone from the sauce as the ground pepper hit the liquid surface. If a host of angels had been there, they definitely would have burst into song.

The sauce was finished. And it was perfect. In the fall of 2010, after more than 700 years of waiting, the world was ready for the ESASDUB. Its time had come. This is the dawning of the age of ESASDUB.*23

*George H. W. and Barbara Bush use the White House Credit Union in Arlington. This credit union is reserved exclusively for the use of former presidents and their wives. Anyway, one night at about 2 AM I saw George staggering out of his limo toward the storefront of the credit union branch. “Baaaaaarbraaaaa, it’s closed! I can’t get to the ATM! How are we going to pay our tab at The Front Page? They’re gonna be pissed!” Imagine him saying that with a lot more slurriness and you’ve got the idea. So Barbara says to him “Dammit, George, I told you it was closed but you never listen, do you? Let’s just go to 7-11 like I said we should in the first place. GAWD!!!” They got back into their limo and drove around the corner to the 7-11 on Fairfax Dr between Stafford and Stuart streets. George went in to the 7-11 (I’m following them at this point, of course, because who wouldn’t) and comes out a few minutes later with several hundred dollars (just a guess) and two cans of Four Loko. He chugs one of the cans and offers the other to Barbara through the limo’s window. She turns him down and says “Get in the car, George!!” and he’s all “NO! I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want! You can’t tell me what to do!” So he pounds the other can, throws the empty at the limo, shoves his secret service detail out of the way and dashes down the escalator into the Ballston metro station. The next morning, I think, is when Archie’s story starts.

*2 Turns out the pirate thing was just a schtick that O. G. had perfected to sound a little creepier than he really needed to. It worked, but only about 65% of the time. The rest of the time, people just laughed at him. He had low self-esteem because of this and often had fantasies in which he was proud of himself and didn’t care what nobody thought about nothing.

*3 Turns out it was Thursday the 18th, not the 21st. What do you know?

*4 You might not believe this, but things turning into diamonds in Archie’s hand was a relatively common occurrence. Once, as a child, his parents bought him a puppy for his birthday. The next day, he picked up the puppy he’d named Manzanita and the poor dog turned into a pile of perfect diamonds. In many ways, Archie was like the Midas of diamonds. The Diadas if you will. Anyway, those dog diamonds funded Archie’s college education at an expensive but third-tier (at best) college called [redacted on request of said college]. The Old Spice guy is based on Archie.

*5 He was right. For one batch of the sauce it turned out that he needed 4 tablespoons of garlic powder. That’s a lot of garlic powder for one sauce, if you know what I mean.

*6 In the mid 17th century, Mendel carried out what we would now consider an abuse of power and a perfect example of the hubris of man. He crossbred various thyme plants, mercilessly culling any plant that was slightly different from the others. In this way, he created what we now know as modern thyme. To rid the world of all other variations of thyme he built a thresher known as “The Thyme Machine” and paid itinerant Moors to scour the earth destroying strange thymes for all time.

*7 He needed two tablespoons per batch. It’s not precisely clear how he knew this. Serendipity, I guess.

*8This Harris Teeter is the only one in the Western Hemisphere that has an entire aisle dedicated to honey. Okay, really it’s one of those demi-aisles you find toward the edge of the store where it ends half-way back to the wall so they can put some fancy cheeses in floor refrigerators there.

*9 Maria von Helmsteinereinmann emigrated to the US at the tender age of three with her parents Pietr and Pauline. They came from the land of the ice and snow, where the midnight sun and the hot springs flow. The economy there was collapsing under the weight of all the ice so thousands upon thousands fled the country. Many ended up in Virginia. Many others found their way to California and the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. Maria wasn’t born blind, but lost her sight in a freak accident. Her family’s house burned down, and as Maria ran to the window to scream for help (this all happened when she was 8 years old) she was hit full in the eyes with the water from the firehose. The high-pressure water destroyed her retinas beyond repair. She was rescued with only minor other injuries, but for many years after the fire, until she dedicated her life to God and honey under the tutelage of Mother Superior Maria, Maria often wished she had been burned to death instead of just blind.

*10 Four tablespoons was all he needed. The bottle, which was NOT shaped like a bear, by the way, only held 6.5 tablespoons and cost $23.99. I told you it was expensive honey.

*11 Unbeknownst to Archie, the woman next to him was the celebrated psychic Annette Funicello (no relation to the Mouseketeer of the same name). She is one of three confirmed authentic psychics living on the eastern seaboard of the United States.

*12 He only needed one cup for the sauce, but he didn’t care. You can use vinegar for all sorts of things like cleaning counters and drinking.

*13 After taking the last of the sugar cane, Don Jesus threw the boy’s body to the dogs. The dogs, however, recognizing the boy’s holiness, didn’t eat him. Instead, they dragged his body gently to the top of the hill and left it there so that the first rays of sun on a new morning hit the boy’s peaceful face. His body did not decay.

*14 In fact, the latest issue of RPS Enthusiast Monthly reported on a study done at the University of Ghent where perhaps the purest Red Pepper Sauce ever created was created.

*15 Two tablespoons to be exact.

*16 He was correct in doing so and also about his marinade comment. A true ESASDUB should be reduced by half for full effectiveness. Once boiled down, it can then be diluted by half with a solution of one part vinegar and one part water to make a really bitchin’ marinade.

*17 Which was pretty stupid because his spice rack had been purchased from a disreputable online spice merchant and had come with 30 little canisters of oregano, not the wide variety of spices that had been advertised.

*18 You could tell he was the leader because he had a big badge on his chest that said “Der Leader.”

*19 Well, actually he’d awoken about 90 seconds later but the 2nd in command stuffed an ether-soakded rag in his face, making him pass out again.

*20 This is hyperbole. He thought of exactly 8,765 different variations on “unless,” none of which turned out to be right.

*21 Not really his captor, since he was stranded on an island, but Archie had decided the day before that he really was being held captive by this mysterious being. More on him later.

*22 Not really. Even more strangely, it was George H. W. Bush’s long-estranged twin brother Howard. The Bush family hid Howard from the world. They were embarrassed and appalled at his deep and abiding love for spices. It was shameful, and they made sure he knew. As a last ditch effort before taking his own life, Howard sought out the mythical Guardians of the Sauce. He found them in the catacombs underneath the Frauenkirche in Munich. There were only five guardians left. Only five members of the most powerful culinary cult of all time. Howard needn’t have worried about being accepted. His arrival had been prophesied by the great originator of the ESASDUB, Charles de Provolone, in 1312 on the lawns of Bretagne. He was the one who would be the last true guardian of the sauce. The Ultimate Sauceror. He would be the one to unleash the true power of the ESASDUB on the world at-large. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

*23 The age of the ESASDUB will run from December of 2010 to June 21, 2345. At that time, a new day will dawn with the creation of the perfect hollandaise sauce. The secret to the hollandaise is currently being held in an undisclosed location by a secretive band of Flemish painters. The current guardian’s name is unknown, but Wikileaks has recently released documents showing that, at one time, James Ensor, Belgium’s Famous Painter, was the Guardian. Many people have scoured his paintings for clues. His The Entry of Christ into Brussels is redolent with hollandaise imagery, at least to those in the know.

A Ride in the Park

2010-06-25T10:19:00.003-04:00

So, today, June 25th, I rode my bicycle to work for the first time this year. Last year at this time I already had about 500 miles to and from work. But that's neither here nor there. Well, actually I guess it's there, technically.

Anyway, here's a picture of my route.

Anyway, it's a pretty short ride, 4.5 miles. But that 4 miles is pretty scenic. In that short ride, I get to see (either up close or from a distance (The world is blue and green, amirite?)

Iwo Jima Memorial

Arlington National Cemetery

The Potomac (aka The Little Skanky)

The National Cathedral

The Lincoln Memorial

The Washington Monument

The White House

Cosi

CVS

A horse and wagon on Mulberry St

I mean, a reindeer pulling a sleigh on Mulberry St.

Wait, no! That's too obvious! I mean, I saw a tiger with a shark in its mouth riding on the back of Mr. T who was riding a Vespa on the back of a flatbed tractor trailer that was careening into a crowd of ninja midgets riding on the backs of another crowd of midget ninjas (camelfight-style). On Mulberry St.

When I used to live in Canada, all I ever saw was cars and some cute furry animals. AND ONE F'N BLACKBIRD WITH RED F'N WING!

A Tale

2010-06-08T10:58:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I twoerted that I like the Antlers album Hospice and that it sounds kind of like a Bon Iver/Secret Machines mashup. I was wrong. It's not a mashup. It is a much more complicated relationship than that.

It's more like Bon Iver and The Secret Machines were seat-mates on a trans-Atlantic flight in the early 80's from Munich to Chicago. After takeoff, they started chatting about this and that and found out that they both lived in the same upscale suburb north of Chicago, right on lake Michigan. In fact, they both knew some of the same people, went to the same dentist and had kids in the same school, though not in the same grades. Bon Iver had kids in 1st and 5th grades while the Secret Machines had twins in 3rd grade, a boy and a girl. They also discovered that they were both Vietnam veterans, Bon Iver an Army officer fresh out of West Point at the time and the Secret Machines an Air Force mechanic. The Secret Machines had been there for the fall of Saigon. As the plane landed, they exchanged phone numbers and made plans to see each other again soon.

Two weeks later, Bon Iver calls up the Secret Machines and invites them and their wife to dinner on Friday. In another strange coincidence, Bon Iver's wife and the Secret Machines know each other. In fact, they were once high school sweethearts so desperately in love they planned to marry at 17. The wedding was prevented by Angie's parents because the Secret Machines were worthless failures who would probably just end up having to enlist in the armed forces because there weren't any other options for no-accounts like them. She cried for days when the Secret Machines DID enlist. But she moved on. She went to college, got a job as a copy writer at a big downtown ad agency and the Secret Machines showed up in her thoughts less and less until she met Bon Iver at a happy hour on the Miracle Mile and all thoughts of the Secret Machines disappeared. He was a handsome, dashing Army officer just returned from Vietnam and Angie liked nothing better than an emotionally wounded man to care and fall for. So a year later they got married. He worked for a big defense contractor and worked his way quickly up the ladder to Vice President in charge of Munitions Operations. They had kids, bought a house on Lake Michigan and everything was beautiful and kind.

But all of that came crashing down as she saw the Secret Machines for the first time in nearly 20 years. They didn't turn out to be a no-account. In fact, they were now the owner of the biggest aircraft maintenance company in the tri-county area. Midway, O'Hare, even Milwaukee all used the Secret Machines for maintenance contracts. Their wife was lovely. No, not just lovely. Stunning. The kind of woman you see on magazine covers or billboards or trading cards if they made trading cards for beautiful people.

At first, the Secret Machines didn't even realize the connection. They were so far divorced from their past as the poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks that everything before 1974 seemed like a dream, or a copy of copy of a copy, or a television show that you forget about as you are watching it, flushed down the short term memory hole. But then, the Secret Machines were introduced (or re-introduced) to Angie and everything that would happen in the months ahead was written on their eyes in that instant.

At dinner, everyone laughed about the coincidence and the Secret Machines and Angie told stories about the old days. Everything was perfect. The Secret Machines felt young again. Angie made love with Bon Iver more fiercely than she had in years that night. He credited the 4 glasses of wine she'd had, but really it was the Secret Machines coursing through her head.

They began a torrid affair, the Secret Machines and Angie did. Lunchtime trysts, "out of town meetings," and soon they realized that the love they'd felt as teenagers was no passing fancy. Or was this just a mid-life crisis? A clinging to youth and power and soul and life that was doomed to burn out? No, it must be love, they told themselves over and over and over. Saying it did help to lessen the guilt a little.

And so the divorces started. Bon Iver, resigned to his fate, parted amicably with Angie, sharing custody of the children. He was hurt of course, and though resigned to it, did occasionally curse his fate. Of all the people in the world to end up next to on that flight, why did it have to be the Secret Machines? Why not John Ritter or even Jack Johnson? Why godammit? He had a good life! A good wife! And now he had his munitions. At least with Panama and Grenada, Libya and Afghanistan business was booming.

The Secret Machines, however, forced an unwanted and devastating divorce on their gorgeous and emotionally unstable wife, Emilia. Two weeks before the divorce was final, she took too many muscle relaxants. Her car was found wrapped around a bridge abutment and her body was crushed inside the Jaguar. Her face, the thing that had attracted them to her in the first place, was untouched however. She could almost have been closing her eyes to listen to a particularly good aria at the Chicago Opera House. It was a wonderful funeral, as far as such things can be wonderful. The kids were crushed to lose their mother and turned to the Secret Machines for more support than ever. They had always been a good father, the Secret Machines, and it broke their heart to think that it was their actions and an internal combustion engine that had pushed Caroline and Jeremy's mother into that abutment. They never told the kids why. The police wrote it off as an accident. So it goes.

And life went on. The Secret Machines and Angie married and moved to a different suburb on the lake. Bon Iver never did remarry. He had plenty of opportunities, but something just never felt right. Maybe she smelled to much like soup. Maybe she stole his cat. It was always something, and as his children grew up, they passed word of his excuses and reasons to Angie when they were at her house. Every time she heard about Bon Iver, she felt a pang of sadness, knowing that she was partly responsible for his emotional state, but the pangs always passed quickly.

The kids grew up, moved out, started families of their own. Grandkids came around every so often, in from New York or Dallas or wherever it was their parents had moved them to now.

Then one afternoon in September of 2008, Bon Iver's phone rang on his mahogany desk in his Chairman-of-the-board suite. He picked it up. The voice he heard on the other end was familiar, but so.....old.

"Angie died last night," said the voice, and Bon Iver knew at once that it was the Secret Machines. He couldn't bring himself to speak. So many emotions were being generated by his glands that he couldn't even breathe. Hate, fear, sadness, schadenfreude, and regret. Anger, panic, despair and the crushing sense of lost hope. For he'd never given up. Like the grown children of divorced parents, his own children, he always harbored a ridiculous and irrational hope, that maybe just maybe she would change her mind. That they would get back together. But now it was impossible. It felt like his life hadn't changed, but somehow the universe was different.

"It was colon cancer. The funeral's next Monday if you would like to come. It will be at Memorial Cemetery on Westminster Street. 1 PM."

And again, silence.

"Goodbye, Bon Iver."

And so he did go. He went and he saw his old friends that had sided with Angie. Everyone looked so ancient, so withered, half-dead and it hit him: that's how I look too. And he realized that it was too late. But yet not too late for some things.

At the wake, Bon Iver went up to the Secret Machines. "I'm sorry for our loss," he said. "Our loss," not "your loss." The point came across clearly. And they started talking. They drank scotch and talked and ate things off trays that the waiters brought around. The Secret Machines told stories, Bon Iver told stories. They shared as only two lonely people at a funeral can.

A week later, the Secret Machines received a call.

"It's time," crackled the voice of Bon Iver over a cellular connection that was interfered with as one of the largest solar flares ever recorded washed over the earth in a bath of plasma and voltage.

"It's time to record an album."

"Let's do this before we die. Let's do this before it all goes black," said the Secret Machines.

And so they did, and that album would sound kind of like The Antlers - Hospice.

Anyway, I give the Antlers 4.5 cuils out of 5.

You Say You Want a Revolution!?

2010-05-24T14:31:00.005-04:00

Well, I don't have one for you.

What I do have is a brief story about how one time I went out to real Virginia (this would have been last week) and as I was just starting to drive, I realized that I didn't have any CDs with me in the car (and mind you, this car has a 6-CD cartridge changer in the trunk!) so I stopped at my favorite record store to buy some. Since it's kind of a long drive, I purchased 3 new CDs. I am doing my part to keep the record companies in business. I only pirate software. So here's what I think about those 3!

1) Shame, Shame - Dr. Dog: Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. Fate was totally good, so I expected the same. It was only regular, not totally, good, though. I think it earns 11 dog-eared DSM IVs out of 14 (They're not a real doctor, but we call them Dr. Dog)

2) Infinite Arms - Band of Horses: You know that one song, Funeral by Band of Horses? Yeah, that's about my depth of knowledge of them too, until I bought this album. Basically, I chose to buy it because The National was sold out and I'd heard of this band and the cover looked really cool. I know I'm not supposed to judge things by their covers, but a lot of time it works! And it did here. This album does for symphonic dirge-pop what Shame, Shame did for medical canine-pop. By that I mean it was a new album. Rating: a linear approximation of a Taylor series (the fourth Taylor series to be exact)

3) Congratulations - MGMT: I liked it. I don't care what anybody else says, I like it! (BTW, what do other people say? I really want to make sure I'm not going outside the group consensus on this. I don't want to lose my valuable CRED points.) There is a song about Brian Eno. Rating: On a scale of 1 to Clever! this one gets a "ConGradulations!" with a picture of a diploma.

In Which a Day Burns Out

2010-05-24T14:23:00.004-04:00

You know a good way to waste a perfectly usable Sunday afternoon? Go to the stupid ER because you're stupid worried you might be dying because your stupid heart is beating erratically and super-fast and you're all dizzy and sweating like a sieve (does that even make sense?) and then not too long after they admit you, it kinda goes away and it turns out you probably just drank to much stupid caffeine but you have to sit there and talk to them and say "no, I don't snort cocaine" and they take stupid blood out of your stupid arm and then put stupid saline into your stupid arm and then they finally let you go home but not until after you wasted 3 stupid hours of your stupid life.

Not that I would know.

Transcontinental Concerns

2010-04-30T11:32:00.005-04:00

So, right now, on the other side of the continent, my grandmother is having brain surgery. It's weird. I talked to her last night and there's a chance that it was the last time I'll talk to her as her. Or maybe it's no big deal, and she'll be fine. They'll get the tumor out of her brain, it won't be malignant and she'll go right back to being the same grandmother I've always known, I don't know. I guess I'll find out later.

I hope she has a good doctor....

Anyway. Here's a random picture.

HA HA! It's not a RANDOM picture at all! That's what they're doing to my grandma right now! GOTCHA!!!

And no, I'm not putting the dog in that one.

Retrograde Curmudgeon

2010-04-26T15:51:00.006-04:00

It's funny, isn't it, how when we look back on the past we only remember the highlights and the lowlights? I don't remember what I did on June 3rd, 2005 for example, that's for sure. OH WAIT, I DO!!! I was in Bolivia protesting against president Carlos Mesa. We forced a constitutional assembly that would ultimately reform the constitution in favor of the native majority, paving the way for Bolivia's first native president, and country's namesake, Manute Bol! It happened, you can look it up. And if you don't believe I was there, then prove it! Where was I on June 3, 2005? HMMMMMMM???? For that matter, where were YOU? You were probably the one that sent that suspicious package to Australian Foreign Minster Alexander Downer that day, weren't you? I'm sure you have a great alibi.

Anyway, this made me stop and think for a moment. We are quickly reaching a point in time when it WON'T be true that our lives are primarily undocumented and our self-histories will NOT be based primarily/only on the memories of ourselves and those around us. We WON'T disappear into the aether of the collective human past within 100 years (well, we still might) because our entire lives, cradle to eldarc will be digitized and documented! We're not at the end of history, we're barely at the beginning. We're in the transition from the dark ages to the age of historical enlightenment! Events will be parsed, causes tracked back through reams of data into the past! We will know everything about everyone! What will this look like? I don't know, but I want to find out!

So, I started reading back through the archives of this here blog and I realized that it's good that we don't remember many details about the past (in our current era at least) because most of the past is trite, cruel, blowhardesque, tweeishly self-conscious and maudlin with a large dollop of self-righteousness to bring out the flavor of the self-referential self-absorbedness. At least it's good to know and have a record of how self-serious and self-serving I was only a few short years ago. I'm super self-glad that I'm not self-like that any more! Just look at this post, for instance...

*reads back over the post*

OH SHIT!!!

Dispatch from the Metro: Orange Line Art Edition

2010-04-22T12:51:00.006-04:00

What a privilege it is to ride the Orange Line everyday from the far reaches of Virginia (don't worry, it's not REAL Virginia, I'm not that far out)! Nearly every day I get to experience one of the greatest pieces of art ever created. Actually, I'd say that I get to hear it many times per trip as the train rolls from station to station. You might be thinking to yourself "Self, what art can exist in such a cramped and utilitarian place?" Or you might be thinking to yourself "Self, it's almost time to eat lunch, isn't it?" Or even perhaps "Self, I can't wait until summer when fresh corn on the cob sells for, like, $2 per dozen!"

All you need to do is listen.

It's beautiful.

Bad Poetry Thursday: Now Sugar Free! Edition

2010-04-22T12:26:00.004-04:00

I was going to do some Photoetry, but I'm still learning GIMP 2.6, so I'll give it a couple weeks. So anyway, here is some (imo extremely) Bad Poetry for you!!! HOORAY!

An Anthem

A roll of tape
A roll of twine
Sixteen cases of fine red wine

Some rubber bands
Some handrail screws
I black eye and a rais-ed bruise

Don't buy the hook
Just by the sinker
Pull the line down into the drink(er)

Fire all of your guns at once
Because there is a lady who's sure
That ice is just as great firearms.
But she's wrong, you know.
It won't suffice.
You can say it twice
"It won't suffice,
It won't suffice."
(Unless, of course, it's pykrete ice)

A roll of tape
A bottle of wine
We hope we don't run out of time.

A Wicked Left Turn!!!!!!

2010-04-21T11:50:00.005-04:00

So, I came across this on reddit the other day (by "the other" I mean "yester"). Now, if you've never lived in Michigan and experienced the "Michigan boomerang" for yourself, you'll probably think that I'm full of crap and that there is no way that this could possibly be real. I assure you, it's entirely accurate, all the way down to flooring it so you don't get hit by the semi as you complete the second half of the u-turn.

Now, according to the wikipedia article "Studies have shown a major reduction in left-turn collisions and a minor reduction in merging and diverging collisions, due to the shifting of left turns outside the main intersection. In addition it reduces the number of different traffic light phases, significantly increasing traffic flow. Since separate phases are no longer needed for left turns, this increases green time for through traffic. The effect on turning traffic is mixed."

I have some problems with this description, mainly because the effect on turning traffic is not "mixed." It's mainly bad. Normally, you might wait through a left turn light for one full cycle if you have bad timing. If you have bad timing at a Michigan left, you might have to wait through 3 red lights (this happens about 60% of the time in my experience.)

But anyway, the effect on traffic is not what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was something along the lines of the excess miles drive to accommodate the Michigan Left.

Let's take some pulled-out-of-my-ass estimates here. Say there are 1000* such intersections in Michigan and that the average number of turns per day is 1500**. I have no idea if these are reasonable assumptions. But anyway, that means 1.5 million turns are tooken eachen day. Now, one time I measured how far I had to drive to make the right-turn-u-turn-to-make-a-left turn. It was about 0.25 miles. That means that every day, vehicles travel an additional 375,000 miles. Annually, that's 136,875,000 extra miles driven in Michigan. That also means that an additional 1.23*** billion tons of CO2 are emitted by these cars! That's more CO2 than is produced by all the sheep in New Zealand and all the caribou in Canada COMBINED***! So if you want to blame global warming on anything, blame it on Michigan. The world needs a good whipping boy, and Michigan is so down on its luck that it won't even notice the difference.

*Could be off by an order of magnitude.

**Might be nowhere close to reality since nobody has a job in Michigan anymore.

***Absolutely no basis for this claim whatsoever.

Theological Exploration

2010-04-16T23:21:00.005-04:00

So, today, I'm riding the train home from work, as I am wont to do, when I looked behind me to see what people were reading, as I am also wont to do, and I saw a guy reading what looked like a bible, but was really the Book of Mormon IN DISGUISE! I figured this out when I looked, progressively less surreptitiously, over his shoulder trying to see what book of the bible he was reading. The more and more I stared, the more I realized he actually was reading the Book of Alvin.

When I got home, I did some research and found out that the Book of Alvin is part of the story of Joseph Smith. It occurs chronologically right after he finds his pair of magic spectacles that allow him to decipher his magical golden tablets that he found just laying around under a rock. He is visited by the Spirit of his old business partner Brigham Young and told to expect to be visited by three ghosts, in preparation for which he is given a pair of super-magical earmuffs (they were golden too!). That very night, he is visited by all three ghosts at once. You will immediately recognize their names from history: Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. With the help of the magical, golden, jewel-encrusted (sorry, I forgot that part before) earmuffs, he is able to decipher the ghosts' outrageous squeaking. They explained the whole history of religion (including stuff that wasn't covered in the golden tablets) from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to George Washington. Their final command, before they disappeared into the mists was this: Joseph Smith must henceforth change his name to David Seville.

And the rest, as they say, is history. More specifically: THE BOOK OF MORMON PART II: THE SQUEAKUEL.

Raindom Paicture Fraiday: Back of the Boat

2010-04-09T13:37:00.003-04:00

So, here we go again, right? Do you remember the drill? First I go to Drew's Livejournal Random Picture Generator, then I choose a tasteful picture from among the many taste-free pictures (It's like finding a diamond in the rough, and by that I mean it's a total waste of time), then I put it on this blarg.

VOILA!!!! (or is it "VIOLA?" I'm not all that good at orchestrating clever puns.)

This appears to be the result of some kind of torpedo attack or something. Probably those danged Somali pirates.

Step 3: Put a picture of that darn dog in the random picture

Step 4: ???????

Step 5: PROFIT!

Step 6: Lose all the profit in an acrimonious dispute over arcane accounting rules in an assiduously planned pyramid scheme. (That was for all of you out there that are studying for the SAT!)

Step 7: File a complaint with the SEC about the refereeing at last year's Alabama-Florida game

Step 8: File a complaint with another SEC about the pyramid scheme.

Step 9: ?????

Step 10: PROFIT!

And there you have my foolproof ten-step method for making money.

You're welcome.

Rememberance of Things Past

2010-02-11T17:01:00.002-05:00

BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON
BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON
BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON

You know, I was just thinking, it’s been three years since went to one of the best parties I’ve ever been to. Almost exactly three years ago, we were preparing to leave DC for the northern wastes of Detroit, Canada. So our great friends in the current snow capitol (well, actual Capitol, too, I suppose) of the country threw a pretty great going away party. There was karaoke and some of it was even custom written for us! There were some beers, some scrapbooking, some kids.

It’s kind of hard for me to believe that it was three years ago that we left. That’s half my son’s life (almost)! Hell, my daughter has NEVER been there and she’s almost a year old. I feel like this post is getting a little melancholy, so I’d better wrap it up (in Bacon, so it’s more delicious).

Anyway, it was a great party three years ago, and I’m afraid our going away party in Michigan won’t be quite as good. Hopefully our “welcome back” party in DC next month will make up for it.

BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON
BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON
BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON

A Tale of Two CDs

2010-01-27T20:49:00.004-05:00

So I've now listened to the latest Avett Bros. album approximately a baker's dozen times while driving to and from work and/or stores and I've come to the conclusion that I have to call it a total sell-out. It is basically a mainstream wannabe that lacks the pure poppiness of actual mainstream music without the vibrancy and banjo that made their past efforts (see Gleam and Emotionalism for example) so awesome.

Now this is hard for me to say, and I come by this after many hours of deliberation. You see, I've never heard any other Avett Brothers albums before in my life. However, I am aware that many of their "true" fans do not like the latest offering. I definitely don't want to be one of those Ralph-come-latelys because then I totally lose all my credibility (sort of like how I feel about people who have only heard the Kings of Leon's newest album, which sucks and is a total sell-out). So I am forced to pretend that I don't think this newest album is very good so as to look like someone hip and in the know. You wouldn't think being hip should be so difficult, but you are wrong. It's a lot of work.

The great thing about this decision is that even though I claim to think "I and Love and You" is a total cop-out, major-label, Rick-rubin suckfest and how they were WAAAAAAY better back when, I can still listen to it in secret. If I listened to it in public without shame, I would be opening myself up to all kinds of mockery by the real deal fans.

Basically, I just want to make sure I'm hipper than anybody else at work, which is, let's be honest, in the northern Detroit suburbs, like shooting a barrel with a gun specifically designed to shoot barrels with barrel-seeking missiles.

I Tried So Hard.

2010-01-17T13:55:00.002-05:00

Pictures seem to be taking way to looooooong to upload. Thus, instead of putting pictures in my own blog post, I will provide you with links to some other pictureful posts.

Adah

Levi

How's that for efficiency?

List Tuesday: Peri-haptic Haploid Edition

2009-12-22T16:20:00.002-05:00

Words I Would Like To Someday Use In Context Correctly

1. Absquatulate *
2. brimborion*
3. claviger*
4. dipnoous*
5. enchorial
6. facinorous*
7. gledge*
8. holmgang*
9. irremeable*
10. jactancy*
11. kilderkin*
12. littoral
13. muricate*
14. nidorous*
15. ochlesis*
16. palilogy*
17. quadrennial
18. recumbentibus*
19. sardanapalian*
20. tripsis*
21. urgrund*
22. vigesimation*
23. wittol**
24. xertz*
25. yare
26. zocle*

*Not an actual word cccording to The Word (MS)
**I do not want to this to be used in context of me

You Might Remember a Little Thing Called THE FRENCH JEAN SHORT REVOLUTION!

2009-12-21T10:59:00.006-05:00

At this most wonderful time of the year, I often like to recollect things. Last year I tried recollecting all the 1987 Topps baseball cards, but then I remembered that collecting things is pretty lame, let alone REcollecting.

So I decided to reminisce instead. It was way more satisfying. I reminisced so much that I threw my back cortex out! First I reminisced about ye olden times when I used to wear jean shorts. That was pretty cool. Then I reminisced about The Dark Ages (birth - 4), but that didn’t take very long. It turns out that all my memories from that period are actually just photographs. I guess you could say I have a 100% photographic memory of those ages!

Finally, I reminisced about Saturday when I took los kids (that's Mexican for "the kids") to the Henry Ford Museum. They had this Lego Castle Adventure exhibit that had big ol’ bins of Lego bricks for any/everyone to dig their hands into and build stuff with. In retrospect (which is what reminiscing is all about), these bins seem like a bad idea. Unless Lego bricks are naturally self-disinfecting. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure they are not.

Bad Photoetry Thursday: IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

2009-12-17T11:24:00.002-05:00

Hieroglyphic Heliotropes

The Hourglass

A Winter's Tale

Post-Modern Uncertainty and Its Implications

2009-12-16T17:13:00.002-05:00

One of the biggest mysteries in all of science is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It speaks directly to the post-modern paradigm in that nothing can be known completely. An even bigger mystery in science is: Did Werner Von Heisenberg ever complete his cat-in-a-box experiment, or was he just messing with us? Is there, somewhere lost to science, a box with a possibly immortal cat in it? Because, if that box has never been opened and the cat actually is alive and not a superposition of alive and dead, that seems like a pretty big deal. I mean IMMORTAL CATS!! It’s possible that the box is also in fact traveling at or near the speed of light, so time dilation would mean that the cat might actually be older than the age of the known universe.

If this is true, what are the implications for humankind? Some have said that it is a strong possibility that this immortal light-speed cat is actually God’s avatar in the human consciousness. But that’s basically a BS theory. Others have said that the cat is just a Cat God, and not an actual God and that icanhazcheezburger.com is a sacrilegious slap in the face to all box-believing cats because the light-speed box Cat God actually speaks the King’s English better than Dickens. Finally, others have placed upon the shoulders of this light-speed cat-in-a-box the blame for the most evil thing in the known universe. That thing is jean shorts, and if this is true, the time-dilating cat-speed light-box must be real because Heisenberg could never have believed that clothing could be both short and made from denim at the same time. It’s just too stupid.

In Which I Don't Know

2009-12-16T16:49:00.002-05:00

So, the other day I’m just sitting around, shopping for jean shorts online, when all of a sudden I realize that nobody wears jean shorts in Michigan in December. I mean, it’s just stupid. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be shopping for jeans, which makes a whole lot more sense. Then I remembered that this is the CHRISTMAS SEASON and that means if you shop for your self at this time of year you are either A) a selfish scrooge or B) forgetful and you forgot that it gets cold in December and you need some long pants but you already turned all your jeans into jean shorts because it was hot a couple of months ago. I won’t tell you what category I fall into.

Anyway, the point of the story is this: I bought some jeans and then turned them into jean shorts! Again! I guess it’s just habit by now. I don’t even remember doing it, but I do have a cut on my knee, apparently from scissors.

I guess the moral of THAT story is this: Imagine a bear lost in the city. Now imagine the bear wandering around inside a Nieman Marcus Outlet. First, the bear stumbles into the menswear section and finds himself a nice silk tie, a monocle and a fine Italian worsted wool suit. He completes the look with a dashing beret and a pair of Ugg boots. Next, he saunters over to the knick-knack section and eats 4 packages of hard-boiled eggs another customer left there on accident. Then, the bear rambles into the women’s lounge, sits down on the couch for about 10 minutes, gets up, washes his hands and walks back to the menswear section. He realizes that he looks ridiculous in his human finery, so he takes it all off. Now, standing unclad in the Nieman Marcus Outlet, he stares malevolently around, grabs a pair of jean shorts and walks out, never to be seen again.

I’m just saying, IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

Verbal Abuse

2009-08-04T05:48:00.006-04:00

So, for the second time this year, somebody yelled at me from a car while I was riding my bike home from work. The first time was very predictable. Some kids driving an old, beat up Pontiac passed me going the opposite direction. One of them leaned out the window and yelled "FAGGOT!!" I was very disappointed. I mean, come on! That's some of the laziest name calling I've ever heard. No class, no panache, no originality. I don't mind being called names by dumb kids, that's what they do. I just wish they would add some flair to their insults. Maybe next time, try yelling "

But yesterday was much stranger. Some dude in his mid-to-late 20s leaned out of the passenger window of a Dodge Charger and yelled "Nice helmet, Lance!" My feelings were not hurt, but I was confused. I assume he was being sarcastic because if there is one person on earth who doesn't look like Lance Armstrong it's, well it's this guy..

But next to that dude, it's gotta be me.

And why did he choose to mention my helmet? I palp a very normal/cheap helmet. It's just a Giro Indicator in the black colorway, like this one.

If I were wearing this thing, I could see him mocking me. I would mock me.

But I'm pretty sure I look pretty normal. True, I do have a road bike and so does Mr. Armstrong. But I don't wear lycra, I don't wear bibshorts, and I don't wear bike jerseys, though I will admit that, yesterday, I was wearing a homemade Apple computer t-shirt, and maybe that's worse than lycra.

My only conclusion is that the guy doesn't like helmets, which is like a trail rabbit not liking pomegranates; no matter how you look at it, it doesn't make sense.

Is This Bad

2009-06-13T13:40:00.001-04:00

Your air intake manifold isn't supposed to look like this, is it?

Uh???

2009-04-13T07:22:00.003-04:00

So, I can't really tell. Which one of these is real???

Freakin' Poe and his law.

It's Easter in Michigan!

2009-04-06T19:43:00.003-04:00

Like Usual

Technically it is still Lent. However, it sounds worse if you say it was snowy on Easter

And why not.

Picture PLUS

2009-04-06T19:26:00.003-04:00

Since she seems to be so much in demand, here is probably my favorite picture of my new daughter and her big brother.

FYI: If you need even more pictures of her, just go to adahpascale.blogspot.com for this one, and many others.

Speaking of sons and daughters, it’s kind of intimidating being a father of both. I mean, let’s face it; I’m pretty much just winging it. I grew up as an American Boy (obvs) so I at least have a child’s understanding of what that was like coupled with an adult (I hope) perspective on it. This means that I’m aware of some of the benefits of growing up white, male and at least middle class in the US, and the Levi will have pretty much the same advantages. However, I’m also aware, as a parent, of the difficulties that face little boys growing up. You know, the old culture of toughness stuff, competitiveness, smug sarcasm as a defense mechanism (just me???), requisite dismissal of emotion, &c. I don’t mean to be dismissive of those problems, though, because even though they are hackneyed and clichéd, they are still real. Then there’s the added problem of schooling, but that’s another post. (actually probably not).

But girls? That’s another story. All I have are first-hand accounts of what it is like growing up as a girl, and I find those so outlandishly terrifying that it’s hard to believe they are real. But my sources are all intelligent, honest women, so I’m quite scared for my daughter, since I have no choice but to believe them. Unfortunately (and typically, I expect), as a child I was aware primarily of my own situation and experience and not really at all concerned with anybody else. For example, I know almost nothing of what my own sister went through in high school because I just didn’t pay attention.

Uh, anyway, I am sort of departing from my train of thought here (I hear that’s common for parents of newborns) so I’ll just say: It’s scary being the father of a daughter and thank God I’m married to a brilliant, kind, observant, understanding woman who is comfortable (usually) in her own skin. If my daughter can grow up to be a woman like her, I’ll be very happy.

Gratuitous Baby Picture

2009-04-03T19:21:00.005-04:00

Just for the heck of it.

Also, I don't know if you noticed (I didn't until after her name was official), but my new daughter is apparently named after two computer programming languages: Ada, and Pascal. To be fair, we did add an extra letter to each name, so we've got that going for us.

If we end up having another son, I'm thinking about naming him Cobol Fortran. Or maybe Assembly C++.

Happy Belated Birthday

2009-03-25T13:32:00.003-04:00

Hey everybody, I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've been real busy lately, you know, doing stuff, having babies...

Speaking of having babies here's my new daughter, Adah Pascale, born yesterday at 3:38PM. 6lbs, 13oz of healthy baby girl.

So it goes.

This is What The Internet Sounds Like

2009-01-14T16:50:00.002-05:00

Probably NSFW.

Like the internet.

http://coworkthailand.com/say/

Just This Thing

2008-12-17T13:11:00.005-05:00

The Top 14 Albums of 2008 (That I happened to download, purchase or otherwise hear)

Dr. Dog – Fate
In many respects, this album was a watershed moment for bands with the word “Dog” in their names. Not since Three Dog Night were in their heyday has a “Dog” banded sounded…well, so much like Three Dog Night. Not that that is a bad thing.

Rating: A Sheepdog with a Brandy Barrel around its neck so you can make some eggnog when it comes to rescue from a vile mountainside retreat in the Andes.
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
It sounds like these white-shoe yupsters got kicked in the face by Paul Simon and then accidentally the whole African musical colonialism. Not that that is a bad thing. Any band that calls Bottleneck a “shitshow” is alright in my book. I hate those Bottleneck bastards.

Rating: A werewolf weekday
Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
Even better than their 2007 masterpiece The Stage Names. Not that that is a bad thing. Probably my favorite of any of the albums in this list.

Rating: Some outsider art by an artist who arguably kidnapped a kid
Coldplay – Viva La Vida
SMASH HIT 2008!! NUMBER 1 SUMMER JAM!!! Under investigation by the FBI for allegedly stealing tunes from The Creaky Boards and/or J. Satriani. Not that that is a bad thing.

Rating: Dude, I just listen for the articles. I mean the production values. I don’t actually LIKE it, you know.
Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
I haven’t quite listened to the whole thing, but I can tell you without a doubt that it is the best concept album about a large, black, post-op transsexual in history. Also, Emusic? Yeah, about that claim that Of Montreal is similar to Neutral Milk Hotel? I think it only holds true if “similar” means that the guys in the bands know each other and they both have a word that starts with “M” in their band names.

Rating: 185 bones out of a full skeleton
The Secret Machines – The Secret Machines
It’s got a kick-drum that won’t quit. Also there’s a pretty good, albeit short, total freakout on track 6.

Rating: A machine that’s not exactly secret, just not well understood by most people, like an internal compression ignition combustion engine or something.
Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
a. Pretty standard indie rock fare. I like when a song from this album comes up on random for whatever that’s worth.

Rating: A+, if you like Scottish accents, Gefilte fish+ if you don’t.
Port O’Brien – All We Could Do Was Sing
I’ll be perfectly honest here: it’s really not that good. The first song and Pigeonhold are the best songs, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Rating: Two nautical themed songs too many.
The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
Eh, it’s not bad. It’s nothing to write home to Alberta about, but I’ll still listen to it. However, the song Luciana totally needs to be remastered so that it’s listenable. Also, the Distillers song called Drain the Blood is better than TRAA’s song of the same name.

Rating: Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia PUT TOGETHER!
Shearwater – Rook
Slow, relatively dull with way too much vibrato in the vocals. What else can I say, you know? Hm....the occasional glockenspiel is both soothing and soporific, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Rating: > pawn, < bishop
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
I don’t know if the story behind the recording of this record makes it better or worse than it actually is (something about a Wisconsin cabin in the middle of winter and ice fishing). Regardless of the story, it’s a pretty good album, but if you get a chance to see him (I think his name is Justin something) live, it’s totally way better. Also, Bon Jovi fans: DO NOT get your hopes up. Even though the names are similar, the music is not.

Rating: A Bucket of ice-fish tacos.
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
I’m just listening to it right now, but I can tell from the cover and from the stuff other people have written about it that I’ll like it. I’m pretty predictable. I DO like the first five tracks at least.

Rating: 8 out of 10 canine species.
She & Him – Volume 1
I got it in the mail yesterday. I’ll let you know.

Rating: ALBUM OF THE YEAR ACCORDING TO PASTE MAGAZINE!!!!!!
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
Don't worry about the album name, it doesn't sound nearly that evil. What it does sound is AWESOME. I appreciate good musicianship. Especially when good musicians rock so hard and are not boring. This doesn't happen often.

Rating: Evel Knievel Urges

Full Disclosure: There are exactly zero (0) albums released in 2008 that I own that do not also appear on the list above.

POST-POST BONUS ALBUM: CHINESE F'N DEMOCRACY - G 'N' F'N R!!!

UPDATE: I would like to deny all rumors that I voted in the NPR listeners' poll for best albums of the year. It just LOOKS like I did. Hell, I don't even listen to NPR.

When The Going Gets Tough....

2008-11-12T12:56:00.003-05:00

I was totally going to write something today, and then I decided, "Nah."

But then I was all, "I don't know, maybe I should..."

So here it is...

I think the most important event that's occurred all year happened 10 days ago, and has gone largely unnoticed. The social, political and economic repercussions will probably be felt for decades, if not centuries. Basically, what happened was

Ah, never mind. I changed my again.

List Tuesday: Carbonaceous

2008-11-11T12:24:00.002-05:00

Names My Daughter Will Probably Not Have Even Though They Are Sophisticatedly Literaryish

Rose of Sharon

Goneril

Billy Pilgrim

Remedios

Gomer

Janet

Margaret Thatcher

Daisy (or Jordan)

Callisto (this one is literary and astronomerary!)

Beowulf

Molly

Ekwefi

The Oldest Living Confederate Widow

Bartleby

Lady Macbeth

Margaret Thatcher Part II

When Worlds Collide

2008-11-11T12:17:00.004-05:00

So after years of putting it off, I finally bought myself a new computer on Saturday when it turned out that I needed one to finally finish the stuff I was doing for my sister. It's a white macbook, because if there's one thing I like about buying computers, it's paying extra for something pretty. I would be blogging this blog on it if I weren't sitting at my desk eating oatmeal for lunch. So it goes.

Anyway, I did finish the stuff for my sister. It was the first and most likely the last freelance graphic design work I've been paid for. You can see it here or here if you really want. Yay textbooks!

A Stitch in Time Saves Money

2008-11-07T20:01:00.005-05:00

Thanks to all the hard work I've been doing I can finally relax and tell you all a story of yesteryear.

Once upon a time, I woke up feeling an uneasy combination of guilt, pride, fear, hope and pants. It was today, and the first question I asked myself was "why are my pants still on my body?" The second question I asked myself was "what am I so afraid of?" The third question was "Boy, I sure hope I can eat some fun-size Snickers today! I wonder if anybody will bring some to work in a bag full of other candies? The first answer was that I climbed into bed with my pants still on and fell asleep. The second answer was that the whole of my life lay before me like an open book, only instead of words leaping off the page, fire leaped off the pages.

Then I put the fire out and took a shower and went to work. Just like every other day save Saturdays, Sundays and election days.

The third answer was "yes."

Speaking of election days, I worked at town hall on Tuesday counting absentee ballots. I learned a lot of things about the way our democracy works. First of all, there are many stringent qualifications to be a team leader of the Absentee Voter Counting Board. They are

Age: 60+

Little to no basic math skills

Ability to consistently function incoherently

No sense of urgency or civic duty

At first I was all proud to be doing my part in our electoral process. Then, when I realized who actually operates our electoral process, I cried a few alligator tears. Then I counted some ballots and listened to people talk about their favorite subjects: TV, idiots, fear, TV again, celebrities, other idiots, and food. Hooray democracy!

Oh yeah. I'm going to be the father of a girl in another 20 weeeks, so I've got that going for me.

Waltzer Wonderland

2008-06-05T14:55:00.004-04:00

Oh yeah, I totally forgot what you had going for you, which was nice!

So I finished that book Rapture Ready. It was pretty good. A lot of it was a little ho-hum for someone more familiar than not with the subculture about which the book was written, but that's okay. There were a couple parts that made me laugh out loud IRL. Like the part in the introduction when the author is talking to some kid (a friend of his sister-in-law's or something) about the music at a Christian rock festival and the kid says something about how he doesn't need to listen to a lot of secular love songs because they're all, like, "Oh I love you and you left me so now I'm going to break into your house and cut your body into pieces!" In my opinion that would be, probably, the second worst love song ever. The worst love song ever is, obviously, We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)

Also, there's this funny part where the author conducts a fake interview of ~~Alec~~ ~~Billy~~ Stephen(?) Baldwin with all of Mr. Baldwin's responses to the questions pulled from some book that he wrote. I laughed, I cried, I finished the chapter and went on to the next.

If there's one thing I would change about the end of it (the part that that Maclaren dude said was so powerful) is that it was way too reasonable. If you're going to spend 200+ pages pointing out the absurdities of something, don't be so reasonable at the end. Don't be all "Oh, but really it's not that different and why can't we all just get along?"

All in all, though, I would recommend it. If you want to read you can just borrow it....from you local library!

Bad Poetry Thursday: Chocolate Trap

2008-05-22T15:23:00.003-04:00

Alphabeta Con-o-rama
by The Great Mulrooney III

I saw a campsite just yesterday
A fire still smoldered
The embers reflecting maroon, yellow, gold and grey
Perhaps a monk once sat there
Eating S'mores and spirits
He leaves the fire burning
But it doesn't mean anything.
It's not symbolism and it's not metaphorical
It's just a fire burning bright in the wilderness
Lighting up the night and then burning out.

I Can Hit A Target Through A Telescope

2008-05-20T21:51:00.002-04:00

Being as I am, I was hopelessly unaware of this band called Flobots who have this song called Handlebars. You've probably all heard it, it's the one that's all "I can ride my bike with no handlebars," and "I can keep the rhythm with no metronome," and "I can end the planet in a holocaust," or something like that. I'd heard people singing the first line about the handlebars and I just sort of assumed it was a cheesy nostalgia-heavy song about "wasn't it fun when we were kids?" But it's not. Instead it's a post-modern investigation of the dialectic of innocence and experience, an almost freudian examination of how our hubris and self-centeredness doesn't change so much in form, only in degree. It's a self-reflexive dia/monologue on the state of politics and our own complicity in the actions of others and the effects of those actions. Where is the line, the song asks, between power and purity? Between strength and delusion? Between confidence and conquest? Between my life and your death, or a billion deaths?

All in all it's probably the most pointed and devastating critique of modern culture to come out of the rap-rock genre (did I mention it's a rap-rock song? No? Oops.) since 1996 when The Bloodhound Gang released their seminal gutter-rap jeremiad "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks."

I Guess Maybe I'm Not Ready

2008-05-20T21:41:00.004-04:00

So the other day I was reading something on the internet and I heard about this book called "Rapture Ready." I thought it sounded interesting so I went to my library's website (sorry, but I'll pay that $18 fine as soon as I can! Honest!) and put a hold on it. Then, the next day I went to pick it up. I was pretty excited because I always like to read an outsider's account of weird and popular subcultures (THEM by Jon Ronson is a great example) and I figured I was far enough removed from church and religiousness in general to find it funny yet non-condescending.

But then we got in the car and my wife read me the blurbs on the back. Two of them were good, but the third was written by.......wait for it........Brian Maclaren.

Just when I thought I'd finally escaped, there's that shiny bald head again. It's like you can't even throw a book without hitting a book either written or blurb by that dude. I know. I tried it when I got home. I hit a book blurbed and written by him.

Anyway, if I get around to reading the book, I'll let you know how it was, so you've got that going for you, which is nice.

Fifteen Four and A Double Run for a Doz

2008-05-20T21:35:00.004-04:00

You totally won't believe this, well, maybe you will, but I totally played in my first ACC-sanctioned cribbage tournament last weekend. I got worked over like a iron horse shoe on a blacksmith's anvil. I went 8-14 with 17 points and 1 skunk. But I was about two standard deviations outside the mean in terms of age, senility and probably incontinence, so I had that going for me.

I'm going to try again in September and I'll let you know how it goes.

It will go exactly the same only hopefully with some more beers to calm my nerves.

Bad Photoetry Thursday: WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

2008-05-08T11:12:00.003-04:00

Adventure on the Hi(biscu)seas

2008-05-08T09:46:00.002-04:00

I bought a tree the other day. Or maybe it's a bush, I can't really tell. I bought it at Costco so that I could have a tree and some flowers in my pine-paneled office in my trailer at work. Anyway, I started to think about how come I always want to buy new things and...well, we all know that no one wants to read about that tired topic.

Then, I read this interesting article and learned that my desire to buy new things ad infinitum was all just a deliberate corporate plot initiated about 90 years ago to make sure people didn't stop working and producing things because then they might actually get involved in civic life and the TPTB can't have that now.

It sure feels good knowing that my consumerism isn't at all my fault. Abdicating responsibility tastes like sweet juice squeezed from fresh endangered snozzberries.

Bad Photoetry Thursday: A Hole In My Head

2008-04-24T10:23:00.003-04:00

Bad Poetry Thursday: A Metallic Sonata

2008-04-24T09:35:00.004-04:00

Blasting Caps In Disarray

Golden handshakes
Gallium parachutes
Vanadium ice cubes
Copper disco flutes
Silver racks and pinions
Palladium keys
Beryllium flautas
Potassium willow trees
Manganese libraires
Magnesium lies
Sodium arc lights
Arsenic apricot pies
Lead mechanical pencils
Plutonium concrete walls
Einsteinium headphones
Bohrium missed calls
Francium death beds
Cesium picture books
Chromium asphalt
Calcium meat hooks.

Slight Modifications May Be Performed As Needed

2008-04-23T13:11:00.003-04:00

So, according to the Wall Street Journal (among other sources), maybe I wasn't that far off 18 months ago when I first started worrying and was even less far off nearly a year ago. And all this time I thought that I was probably just letting my disillusionment, paranoia and anger run away with me.

The weirdest thing is that there is a decent chance I was ahead of the curve! I haven't been ahead of any curves since I was in college. And just like those curves, being ahead of this one will be monumentally meaningless.

But forgetting the real world and the actual state of human existence, wouldn't it be awesome if rabbits could talk?! I was telling my son a story last night in which he and some now-far-removed fri ends were playing baseball with a bunch (well, one rabbit named Bunkers, one cat named Ratatat and one lizard named Alfred) of talking animals. It sounded wicked fun. Except when he demanded that I end the story with a vicious snowstorm. I didn't like that part. What I particularly don't like about it is that it's still only April. Vicious snowstorms are decidedly not out of the picture yet.

And also, just because I haven't done it in a while: There are 10 links in this post

Building a Foundation

2008-04-22T11:09:00.003-04:00

So a friend of mine recommended some Isaac Asimov books to me and I went to a gigantic used book store (>1,000,000 books) and bought them: the original three Foundation "novels."

Let me say this: what they lack in grandiosity, they make up for with interesting characters. That is, there is absolutely nothing they lack in grandiosity and an absolute dearth of characters that you care about, or are really even interested in.

Maybe I should stop taking recommendations from a guy who doesn't read fiction. I'd tell him what I think about the books, but he's not here. He's in Peru tripping with some shamans. I'm not even making that up.

Seriously.

Earth Day 2008: The Phantom Menace

2008-04-22T09:47:00.004-04:00

Did you know that today is Earth Day 2008? Well, I did. I remember because somewhere in my brain I've stored the fact that April 22nd is the day that I'm supposed to care about ~~the earth~~ The Earth. It's a lot like Grandparents' Day except that I remember when Earth Day is.

Anyway, I wanted to show The Earth that I cared, so I gave him/her (The Earth is creepily androgynous, kind of like a horribly stereotyped "goth" teenager. Actually, exactly like a nonexistent stereotype of a "goth" teenager.) a call.

The Earth: Hello?

Me: Hello? The Earth?

The Earth: Yeah, what do you want.

Me: Oh, nothing really. How are you doing.

The Earth: How am I doing? Do you even need to ask? I would think that in your superb understanding you would know that my soul is full of a rainy miasma.

Me: I see. I hate those miasmas. Well, I just wanted to let you know that I care about you, okay?

The Earth: You don't care about me! Nobody cares about me! The world is a vampire slowly sucking my lifeblood. Nobody understands my magick or my rainy soul. I hate you.

Me: Okay, talk to you later.

The Earth: .....

Me: Goodbye.

The Earth: Can I have $50?

Me: Goodbye. *click*. Damn teenagers.

So there you have it. A totally worthless experience. Maybe I'll try back in again in a couple billion years. The Earth has a lot of growing up to do right now.

P.S. Did you know that if you stopped eating meat, started growing food in your own garden, started biking to work/school, used a clothesline instead of a dryer, changed all your light bulbs to CFLs, and started wearing sweaters because you turned your heat down to 60 instead of 70 it would make exactly zero difference to The Earth?

Not that I'm saying not to do those things. I mean, I'm even doing some of them. Just don't think they're going to make any kind of a difference.

Seven Minute Socks

2008-04-21T09:58:00.003-04:00

So, today is the fourth day that I've ridden my bike to work. From my house it's about twelve-and-a-quarter miles to my trailer. Last Thursday, I made the ride in 1 hour and 6 minutes. Today I made the ride in 1 hour and 4 minutes. So, one day, 2 minutes off my time. I gotta keep that up because, well, check out the chart.

After only 34 days of riding I will be getting to work in, literally, no time at all. Saving gas money and time! How about that!

Pondering the Imponderable

2008-04-08T18:01:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if I'm part of the Solution, or part of the Problem.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm part of the Cure, or part of Joy Division.

When You Wish Upon a Star

2008-04-07T13:45:00.002-04:00

I've had a grueling schedule around here of late. Take this last weekend for instance.

Friday Night: I don't remember.

Saturday: Something or other and then some bike riding.

Sunday: More bike riding and grilling.

I'm exhausted just looking at that schedule. No wonder I only ever post here once a month. Well, that and the fact that

The Coming Spring-pocalypse

2008-03-04T08:20:00.002-05:00

So, recently I've been looking forward to the start of spring. Granted, it's still over a month away here in Northern South-eastern Michigan, but that's okay. Part of my looking forward to slightly warmer weather ("slightly warmer" means "probably no snow") is that I want to get outside and go camping and other white person stuff. One of the activities I particularly want to learn how to do is orienteering, the art of navigating the woods with only a topographical map and a compass. I believe it's a skill that will come in very handy at some point in the future if I have to walk my way from Kentucky to, uh, anywhere other than Kentucky. Thus, to learn a new skill I went to the first place one goes to when one wants to learn a new skill. Yep, the internet. However, I got distracted and started reading webcomics and looking at horrible, horrible pictures. Since the information superhighway didn't have an exit for my destination, I decided to go where poor people go to learn things. Yep, the library. At the library they had a whole section on outdoor, white person skills. There were at least two books on orienteering. On the cover of one of them, there was this chick in a brightly colored spandex outfit looking at a compass and jogging through the woods. On the cover of the other one there was this dude in a brightly colored spandex outfit looking at a compass and jumping over a log. If that's the official uniform, I am having severe second thoughts.

A Day Late and A Day Short

2008-02-27T10:23:00.006-05:00

Man, if I would have just made this post yesterday like I planned on. I would have won.

Stupid NPR, now everybody (everybody white, at least) knows about Stuff White People Like. And while I'm not an official White Person, I hope to be someday when I get a job at a non-profit that helps/knows what's best for poor people.

I think my favorite thing about the site is that it lets white people feel either more or less white than other white people, which are both things that white people like! You can't lose!

But deep down, the blog (do white people like blogs?) gives really good advice about how to interact with white people to make them feel good about being white, which is a very kind thing to do, really. With this help, I might even be able to pass as a white person now.

Whatever Happens, Happens

2008-02-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

This one time, actually it was yesterday, I had to go to the oral surgeons. I hate oral surgeons. He had to pull out two of my 3rd molars. It was not very fun. My face looks really lopsided now.

The good news was that I got to miss work yesterday. It's pretty much a toss-up whether I dislike the oral surgeons or work more. I think I dislike work more because work never gives me hydrocodone.

But other than that, I haven't been up to much, you know. Just mostly sitting around at home and at work, eatin some pizza, learnin about Cuba. I do have a favorite new band of the moment. The National. Don't worry, it's still just regular old twenty-something semi-mopey, semi-orchestral white boy indie rock. You know me, I'm a sucker for that shit. I would say that I am a perfect member of the most predictable demographic, behind 4-7 year old kids that is. We're all semi-elitist, semi-self-aware, semi-rich insufferable bastards who think they're different than the stupid normal Americans. Which is true, I guess. We ARE all the same amount different. But at least I'm not really semi-rich anymore, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Son, I've Been Hearing Good Things

2008-02-01T20:20:00.000-05:00

The Ramones were right, being sedated rules.

If Beggars Were Choosers

2008-01-31T17:53:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have one of those days? You know the ones that I'm talking about. The days where you sit there all day worrying about the pieces of your skull that are going to get ripped out tomorrow? Yeah, that's the kind of day I'm having.

But on a lighter note, I started reading The Population Bomb yesterday. I'd bet a million dollars that the malthusian disaster theories that are popular now will be as far off as the massive global famines were in the 1970's. But maybe not. I don't have a million dollars anyway.

I've always wanted to try to deep-fry a turkey.

Yesterday, I ate 4 pieces of toast for dinner. It was crunchy and warm.

It's true that if you throw up at the same time you sneeze puke goes shooting out your nose. Also, you can briefly see the infinity of universes that exist in parallel, but it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Guess what! I get to drive to Iowa next week!

I'm getting tired. I'm forgetting why.

Bad Photetry Thursday: Oops

2008-01-31T17:36:00.000-05:00

Bad Poetry Thursday: Just Sitting Here Resting My Bones

2008-01-31T16:50:00.000-05:00

A Far Off Land

How many times must a man walk down the same road
Before he realizes He's been down this road before?
We've been over this ground before.
We've always been over this ground.
This time I swear it's different.
I'm breaking new ground here.
I'm going somewhere.
I'm shooting for the stars.
I'm going to make, just you wait and see.
I'm the great hope.
Watch me as I fall.
I'm breaking new ground here.

You'll Start a War

2008-01-30T17:14:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just me, but toilet paper isn't supposed to be translucent, is it?

Maybe it's just me, but what the hell is a handbasket?

Maybe it's just me, but where's my tax refund?

Maybe it's just me, but didn't we expect something? Something better than before?

Maybe it's just me, but why is it so cold?

Maybe it's just me, but weren't you always weird?

Maybe it's just me, but I wish I could get over it.

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I can't help myself.

Maybe it's just me, but WTF?

Maybe it's just me, but do you want a piece of pie?

Maybe it's just me.

The Return of The Roving Machinations of the Watching Movies and Then Pretending to Write Reviews that People Pretend To Read

2008-01-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

Here are some brief Reviews of the movies I've watched in the last dickety-two days.

Treasure Planet - Like Treasure Island but IN SPACE! The blend of computer and traditional animation is a little offputting, but extraordinary in a way, since it seems like such an obvious idea but nobody else does it.
5 Pieces-of-8 out of 9

Treasure Planet - Better the second time through, "By tunder."

Casino Royale - Definitely the best James Bond movie starring Daniel Dubbleishsomething. I really like how they made torture and murder look bad. You don't see that every day anymore.
A Straight Flush

Treasure Planet - Okay, this is getting old.

Treasure Planet - When exactly is this movie due back to the library?

12 Monkeys - This one makes way more sense if you don't fall asleep in the middle of it and wake up when Bruce Willis is naked in WWI. By the way, if you've always wanted to see Bruce Willis naked and getting scrubbed down and naked in a filthy trench, this is the movie for you. Also, when you watch this movie you officially get bonus points if you point out that it was based on the 1960's French move La Jetee.
9 out of 12 Monkeys

Treasure Planet - .....

Control Room - A documentary about media coverage (specifically Al Jazeera) during the lead up to and beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom: Persian Gulf First Blood Part II starring John Rambo? Snoozefest. Bombs, guns, dead journalists, bi-polar extremism, war is bad, the end. Interesting if only for the fact that it's fun to watch peoples' reactions to things they thought/believed/knew would never happen. But not that interesting.
11 gain knobs on a 32 channel sound board.

Treasure Planet - I give up. It's my new favorite! The centroid of the mechanism is important though, so at least I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Return of the Roving Machinations of the Giant Bottle of Rye

2008-01-25T13:05:00.000-05:00

Just like most things that happen, the title of this post doesn't mean anything.
However, from time to time, something does mean something. Like yesterday, when I went to Costco. Going to Costco meant that I was one hundred and something dollars poorer and Dickety-two consumer items richer. It was quite enlightening to realize that.

So at least I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Bad Poetry Thursday: Dude, I'm Tripping Balls!

2008-01-24T23:14:00.000-05:00

Said the Porpoise

In a lot of ways
A guitar string
Is like a cup tea.
Round tones and round handles
Reverberate in rounded chambers
A pluck can send a note soaring
and destroy the seeping bag.
The constant overbearing harmonies of
Black and green, of
Half and whole, of
Sustain and influenza, of
Black and tan
Can calm the noble savage.
And aggravate the ignoble savant.

The Miracle of Flight

2008-01-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

The other day I was just doing my usual thing, you know, driving home from work when I saw something that literally made me fall out my chair. Well, not literally, but figuratively literally. I couldn't literally fall out of my chair because there was a door to my left and a stick shifter control knob thingy to my right. But anyway, I figuratively literally fell out of my chair because I saw this dude just walking along on the side of the road! By the Buffalo Wild Wings at 26 and the Van Dyke Expressway! Who does that??? I almost rolled down my window and asked him if he needed a ride. I didn't though, because it was pretty cold out there and nice and warm inside my car. I didn't want to let the warm out. Global warming is bad enough as it is.

Blahd Blahetry Blahday

2008-01-24T23:02:00.001-05:00

When Walking by The Lumber Store on A Snowy Evening

I think that I shall never see
A box full of free wood
that is useful to me.

A warp-ed piece of creaking pallet
And two panels of fiberboard
To nail together with a mallet
Would not make a very good stage.

If only two-by-fours were in there
I could build a tennis racket
If I also had strings and tape and
Other wood-shaping equipment.

All the wood in the world
Would not stop your innocence lost
from being found again and lost again.

Not even if all the wood in the world
Was free.

What Was I Thinking?

2008-01-12T09:45:00.000-05:00

Sheesh, I almost broke rule number 1 just now. That probably would have caused some sort of hilarious rift in the universe and I would have been transported to a parallel universe where everyone never breaks rule #1 except me.

That would rule.

Sixteen Tons, and What Do You Get?

2008-01-11T15:29:00.000-05:00

So, I was reading this book the other day. It was pretty good.

Then, after I finished reading the book, I listened to a new CD. It was pretty good, too. Then I listened to it again and it was a little better.

After that, I went to work. It was pretty good.

After I got home from work, I went to some store or another. I was pretty good. Not as good as NOT going to the store, but better than eating a shit sandwich.

Then I started finishing another book. It was pretty good in a different way from the other book that I finished.

Then I went to work again.

Bad Poetry Thursday: I Used To Be Made Of Plastic

2008-01-10T21:25:00.000-05:00

All four of these were written in the span of about...let me see...it's 9:52.....29 minutes! So you know they must be totally friggin' awesome.

Non-recyclable
by The Landfill

The only thing I know of
That can't be recycled
Is a memory.
It just gets re-written
until its resemblance to the actual event
is tenuous at best.
It doesn't get recycled
Just forgotten.

The Sound of A Thousand Feet
by Podi A. Trist

A thousand feet
More or less
Are what you need to grind bones into bread
To tread the many miles to the office.
A thousand feet
Are stomping at the bit
and skidding lengthwise toward
the empty vat
that used to hold our bread
before we broke and ate our bones.

When Dogs Lie and Pigs Fly
by Total Nuclear Warfare

I saw a tinsel cat the other day
it adorned a tree of stone and twine.
I thought "what odd things are done with tinsel,
Nowadays, at least."
I also ate a trundle bed the other day
It was all that remained of yesteryear
And I was wont to see it gone.
It tasted of bad taste
and rotten cotton
and ancient hopes.
The mattress was too much for me
I couldn't finish.
Like many things
it was too soft
and full of hidden metal.
I lost an eye to jumping springs
and washed my hands of it forever.

11 O'clock on Thursday
by Alfred P. McMatoat

What light from yonder window breaks?
The glow of ten thousand glowing screens
of course.
What other light could make the world
so frightening and grotesque?
Blue glow is a haunting shade.
It never goes out.

Paint Your Body Red and Brown

2007-11-13T10:11:00.000-05:00

So, the other day I was just sitting around watching one of the strangest, best, and most non-sequiturishly-titled movies of all time. Okay, no. I wasn't just sitting around watching one of the strangest, best and most non-sequiturishly-titled movies of all time, I was also reading the news on the internet. All of a sudden, out of the blue, out of left field comes this article about a national security higher-up guy talking about how we need to redefine privacy. It should no longer mean [REDACTED]. Instead it should mean that the government will keep your information private from other organizations. Those [REDACTED], crazy [REDACTED] think that we don't [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] them!

If they successfully change the societal meaning of privacy my family and I are [REDACTED].

Seriously.

List Tuesday: I'd Sing You a Song But They Blew it Away

2007-10-16T10:22:00.000-04:00

Songs That May or May Not Be Performed by The Growlers On Their 2007 World Tour

American Pie

Down On The Corner

Mary Jane’s Last Dance

Blister in the Sun

A Way Back Into Love

Dust in the Wind

Mr. Jones

I’m Gonna Be (1000 Miles)

We’re Not Gonna Take It

Last Kiss

Cinnamon

Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Pennyroyal Tea

Monster Mash

Have You Ever Seen The Rain

Horse With No Name

Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam

Hard Day’s Night

What I got

Cotton Fields

The Scientist

Signs

Back In Black

You Shook Me All Night Long

Please feel free to suggest more songs for the setlist provided that the following conditions are met:

Key of Gmajor

No more than one or two Em thrown in

He's Spitting Out His Teeth

2007-10-15T13:48:00.000-04:00

Here's my weekend in three nutshells.

Friday: Spent the evening and well into the morning playing poker and cribbage for money in smoke-filled rooms full of progressively more drunken gamblers.

Saturday: Spent the evening grinding, mashing, and squeezing organic, hand-picked apples to make some home-brewed apple wine in a bucket.

Sunday: Spent the evening watching nearly three hours of the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.

I'm not sure, but I think I might have some kind of identity issue or something.

Or maybe I'm just post-f'n-modern.

Suck on that.

Lies All Mixed Up With Omissions

2007-09-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

So it's not Tuesday. Sue me already.

Things People Searched For That Lead Them Here (Well, Not Here Exactly, But Rather to Somewhere in The atonofbricks.blogspot.com File Library) And The Exact Page to Which The Search Results Directed The Intrepid Searchers

PEOPLE KILLED IN A BIG HOUSE NOW IS HAUNTED MEXICO MONCLOVA

Zach 3years Genius

Manthong Photos

Mama Cass died of Ham Sandwich

Trombone Hemorrhoid

What stores carry honey i shrunk the kids on dvd

"Historical Global Temperatures"

Jiffy Pop popcorn Meijers

Peter Bulanow Budweiser

Short reviews of diary by chuck palahniuk

zipconnect itower

Makes No Difference if You're Right or Wrong

2007-09-29T12:44:00.000-04:00

In which I present to you approximately 14th hand a video that will make you lose a good chunk, or perhaps all of your faith in legislation. However, if you, like me, had absolutely no faith in legislation to begin with, you won't lose any faith. It is metaphysically impossible to have negative faith in something.

I think.

My only comment is, who knew running the government was so much like playing a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos????

Look Out Your Window, I'm On Your Street

2007-09-18T16:14:00.000-04:00

Remember when I used to have a thought of the day on here?

This should have been one.

toothpastefordinner.com

List Tuesday: You Always Like it Undercover

2007-09-18T12:11:00.000-04:00

Sloganish Phrases On Various Products Scattered About My Work Trailer

Kills 99.99% of Germs!

Coffee's Perfect Mate!

New Look, Same Great Taste!

With CLENZAIRE: Unique Odor Eliminator!

Outperforms Ordinary Paper!!

Easy to Insert!

Enhanced with Minerals for Taste!

The Intelligent System for Carefree Printing!

I've Always Told Lies For Love

2007-09-17T12:40:00.000-04:00

The other day, actually yesterday I think, my son told his first ever approximately correct joke. It went like this...

Person Telling The Joke (PTtJ): Knock Knock
Person Not Telling the Joke (PNTtJ): Who's there?
PTtJ: Popcorn!
PNTtJ: Popcorn who?
PTtJ: Popcorn Chicken!

Granted, it's not very funny but it's way better than what he usually does, which goes something like this...

PTtJ: Knock knock!
PNTtJ: Who's There?
PTtJ: Jiffy Pop Train to pick up a dog at the station!
PNTtJ: Jiffy Pop Train to pick up a dog at the station, who?
PTtJ: I screwed it up!!!

And now that that's out of the way, how was your weekend? Uh huh, uh huh. You're kidding! No, he couldn't have! OMG. Yeah, the weather was nice around here, a little cold at night, but I think my tomato plants survived. Yep, still going good, I've got more basil than I can shake a stick at. Well, half a stick anyway. They are doing fine. The little one is a little sick today, so he stayed home from school. Yeah, well say hi to them for me. Okay. See you later!

I'd say 75% of my interactions with other people are like that. The rest can be tabulated below:

5%: Conversations with my office-mate (an actual person, not inanimate office supplies that I talk to. Don't worry) about how screwed the world is that rapidly veer off course to conspiracy theories that he want to convince me of, many of which are proponentated by David Icke (follow the link, I dare you).

3%: Sports-related conversations in which I try to feign non-ignorance. I typically try to check some scores before coming to work on Monday during football season so I can sound normal. "Whoa, lot of overtime games yesterday huh?" See? It works.

7%: Discussions with my son about what he did at school, whether or not something is cool, what he wants for his birthday, what he did 2 years ago that he appears to actually remember somehow, and jokes (see above).

10%: Discussion with my wife about, literally, any subject imaginable. Once we discussed our mutual interest in a scientific paper on how many bullets it would take to kill a cow based on caliber, shot location, muzzle velocity and firing distance. That's probably one of the more straight forward conversations that we've had. ***Update: I'd just like to confirm that this conversation was purely hypothetical.***

ca. 0%: TV, because I've finally been able to become, as has been a lifelong dream, one of those annoying people that everybody hates who, whenever somebody starts to talk about some TV show or other, says "Oh, I don't even own a TV." Well, that's a slight lie. I do own a TV, but we can't afford cable and we only get one fuzzy channel (ABC, I think) so I'm kind of one of those people by default. But still, I can check that one off my lifetime "To Do" list.

Random Picture Friday: His Fangs Have Been Pulled

2007-09-14T12:44:00.000-04:00

Just so you know, this is a picture plotting three thousand random numbers. For random picture friday. I kill me!

Also, just so you know, yesterday's stupid "poem" wasn't about anything or anyone. I hope you all realize this is always the case.

Bad Photoetry Thursday: You Are So Oblivious To Yourself

2007-09-13T17:15:00.000-04:00

Well look at this. It's a week of second firsts, or something stupid like that.

White and Pink with Blades of Blue

2007-09-13T13:35:00.000-04:00

I've been wondering this for a couple of days.

Who loves America more? The companies that flew their flags a half-staff on Tuesday in memoriam of all the dead people (and soldiers and the million or so Iraqi civilians that have been killed in our "War on Terror"tm, too, I imagine)? Or those companies that flew their flags all the way up at the top of the staff to signify that no terrorists are going to bring us down?

Will Stavlund

2007-09-12T07:35:00.000-04:00

When you don't have anything to say, I think it's best to let other people speak for you.

Will
In Memoriam

May 9, 2006 - September 12, 2006
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

List Tuesday: I Miss The Innocence That I've Known

2007-09-11T08:27:00.000-04:00

Ooh! Look! A list! I thought we'd never see one of these again!!

Grey and/or Black Things on My Grey and/or Black Desk

My keyboard

The buttons on my keyboard

My mouse

The buttons on my mouse

My computer

My computer dock

My monitor (not the middle part that shows whatever I'm working on, only the rest of it)

My stapler

My tape dispenser

My water bottle

A pen

A piece of plastic that showed up while I was on vacation

My computer bag

Another pen

Two 25-ton Press punch tips (no, the punch tips don't weigh 25 tons, you smart aleck, the press presses with 25 tons of press force)

A cable to plug my speakers into my computer (unplugged)

A cable to plug my cell phone into a power outlet (unplugged)

The wireless receiver for my wireless keyboard and mouse

Some more cables. I can't really see them very well because they are behind my monitor. I imagine at least one of them is the cable for my monitor, because where else would that be?

A spring???

My phone

The buttons on my phone

Also, the buttons on my cell phone, but those are only kind of on the desk because my phone is sitting on top of my computer.

Things on My Desk That Have Any Color Whatsoever

A picture of my son: many-colored

The green frame surrounding picture of said son: green

The logo on my water bottle: sort of orangey-red

A bunch of tiny, pale yellow post-its: pale yellow

The Rubbermaid, I mean Farberware container that, until recently, held my lunch of leftover peppers, potatoes, tomatoes and steak: white with a yellow lid

My Disneyland mousepad: mostly primarily colored with a few accents thrown in for good measure

A bottle of hand sanitizer because I work in a trailer in the parking lot with no clean running water: white. Well, clear really. (This is not a joke. I truly do work in a trailer. You have to believe me on this one)

My monitor, the middle part of it that shows whatever I'm working on: currently mostly white with a little bit of blue and orange

Six small green lights on my computer accessories

Nothing else

And you wonder why I don't write lists more often?

All My Lies Are Always Wishes

2007-09-09T21:03:00.000-04:00

HOW TO TURN A USDA CHOICE SIRLOIN STEAK INTO A SALT LICK

Follow all instructions very carefully

Buy some USDA Choice Sirloin steaks on sale at Meijer.

Gripe about having to shop at Meijer where everybody is rude.

Think, "Wow, it's just like being back in DC except everyone (including me) is fatter!

Walk down the baking aisle and note that it is the only part of the store that isn't a zoo.

Think, "what is this country coming to when nobody bakes their own food anymore. At least we are not like that. We at least bake our own bread.

In a bread machine.

At home, 90 minutes before grilling time, take the steaks and pat them dry to remove excess water.

In your Crate and BarrelTm granite mortar and pestle, mash together some fresh, homegrown rosemary and some minced garlic.

Spread garlic-rosemary mash liberally on one side of the steaks.

Cover the steaks on both sides with non-iodized salt so that you can't even see any red hardly ,in order that the water in the steaks gets drawn out by the salt to dry them out so that they taste like prime steaks instead of choice.

Let steak sit there for about 75 minutes.

Half-assedly rinse the surfaces of the steaks to remove the excess salt and garlic-rosemary mash.

Grill to taste.*

Taste will be salt.

*At least 4 Rolling Rocks (or similar) must be consumed while grilling. Includes grilling time for dishes other than steaks.

You Were Right About the Stars, Each One is a Setting Sun

2007-09-08T10:36:00.000-04:00

You know that line from that Social Distortion song? "With friends like you, who needs enemies?"

Aside from nation-states looking to present a united front against the world, who needs enemies?????

You Are Not My Typewriter

2007-09-08T09:58:00.000-04:00

Okay, here's a question for you. Why had I never listened to The Long Winters before? I mean, sheesh, somebody could have told me that I would like them. They are totally right up my insufferable white person, blogging, thinks-he's-too-cool-for-most-things alley! You can even tell all this just by looking at the cover of the album that I stole out of my sister-in-law's former basement bedroom last week. She obviously doesn't need it any more if she didn't take it to San Francisco for college. Probably because, in SF, you're required to act like you're not one of those insufferable people, that you're actually better than them, while actually being one. I can't wait to move there. I would fit right in.

Also, since I've got nothing better to do, here's another list of books that I've read in the last couple weeks.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Probably one of the most bleak books I've ever read. I think it might be allegorical or something. Even if it's not, it's still a very interesting book. It's one of those post-apocalyptic books that's not really a story about the post-apocalypse era. Nothing is ever explained other than that the Man and Boy have to keep walking and walking because everything has been destroyed. Also it rains a lot. Also, cannibalism.

The Devil's Larder by Jim Crace - You wouldn't think that a book of 64 short (some very, very short, as in 2 words short) stories all about food could be very interesting, but it is. To be fair, the stories aren't really about food, per se, but it does play heavily in all the stories. Also, pathos, love, irony, sex, death, poop, poison, comedy and drugs.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Huh, turns out I'm probably a Beta, possibly a Beta-plus. If you haven't read the book, that means that I'm born to be a consumer who doesn't like to fix anything and would rather buy it new and who also dislikes the actual country but loves country sports. That way, I buy lots of sporting equipment to use in the country and thus consume more. Spending is better than mending. Also, it's a very funny book. Also herds of midgets and vomiting.

1984 by Erich Blair aka George Orwell - You want a picture of the future? Picture a boot stomping on a human face forever. F'n Big Brother, man. He sucks. Also, I love Big Brother.

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut - Nothing to say, really, but that this is a collection of short stories. Some are good (The Euphio Question), some are really good (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow), and some are not so good (I don't remember what they were called). Also, the Handicapper General shoots people with shotguns.

The Quick Trick Book Stack (to be read in no particular order)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Population Bomb by Paul Erlich

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Phone My Family. Tell Them I'm Lost.

2007-08-09T06:44:00.000-04:00

Books I read in the Last Few Weeks: Brief Reviews and Arbitrary Ratings

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick – Like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone complete with “Where are they now???” epilogue.
9 Cans of Miller Lite

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut – What I always thought a read-in-one-day book should be.
9 out of 10 pieces of eight

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut – I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords!
9 buns out of a baker’s dozen

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – See the cat?? See the cradle????
9 aces

Terrorist by John Updike – It’s as if Mr. Updike, the magnificent writer of the Rabbit Angstrom stories, of which I have read none, went to the store for hackneyed characters and bought a few. Here they are:

All the Middle-eastern characters: 5 terrorists, one CIA informer

The one black woman: Whore

The one black man: Pimp

The one Jewish guy: short, depressive

The one artist: flighty, slutty, bad mom

The one Older American Wife: overweight, addicted to soap operas, has a cat

The one Older American Spinster: scarily devoted to her job and boss

9 pieces of sand out of some Alaskan beach.

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman – The book I would write if I had the time, imagination, keen wit and flair for the almost truthy that Mr. Hodgson does.
9 facts in the whole book. Maybe less.

The Pesthouse by Jim Crace – Not about post-apocalyptic America, set in post-apocalyptic America.
9 sentences written in iambic hexameter per page.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling – Snape Kills Dumbledore!!!
9 dead, 25 missing

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling – Deathly Hallows?? More like Deathly Harvests!
9 chapters out of 10.

This is Not a Joke, So Please Stop Smiling

2007-07-17T06:32:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when you're lying awake in bed at 2 or 3 AM and thinking about the state of things, do you ever come to that conclusion that maybe, just maybe, all things considered, being as honest with yourself and the world as you can, the best answer to life, the universe and everything is, in fact, nihilism?

What??? Me? Heavens no! Where did you get that idea? Did you not read the question?? I specifically asked if you ever thought that, not if I did.

Honestly!

It'll Sweep Up Our Skeleton Bones

2007-07-16T11:07:00.000-04:00

For no good reason at all, here is a list of words that I think the more often use of which would make the world a better place.

fatuous
carom
disaggregation
sedimentary
snide
happenstance
savoir-faire
eluctation
finagle
traipse
moribund
malleable
natatory
lathe
boreal
sidereal
pie

Now for the good reason of there being a diametric list above, here is a list of words that I think the less often use of which would make the world a better place
discombobulate
fraction
faction
fiction
friction
affliction
defection
deflection
affection
infliction
Basically any word with the f-[glide]-i/ection sequence
pants
agreeance
admixture

Bullets From a Revolver

2007-07-15T22:01:00.000-04:00

If there's one thing this crazy world needs, it's more information about what I eat. You could write a book about the food that I eat. Chapter last week's lunches would be called "Futility."

Monday: Weight loss shake.

Tuesday: 4 Jimmy John's mini sandwiches and Salt and Vinegar chips.

Wednesday: McDonald's

Thursday: Wendy's value menu special

Friday: Weight loss shake

But this weekend, the food was really good, and better yet, it was all home grown! You see, I decided that the imminent collapse of the US economy and the attendant hyper-inflation will soon make most food either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. Thus, I decided earlier this spring to learn how to grow my own vegetables. The first thing I learned was that I'm not very good at growing things. What nature somehow manages to do literally billions of times every year, I cannot accomplish, even with extensive effort. Not a single one of my seeds sprouted. I almost gave myself up for doomed. But then I remembered that you can totally just go down to the local fancy-pants grocery store and buy all sorts of plants that just need to be transplanted. The second thing I learned was that I am one awesome transplanting SOB. Not a single one of my plants died and now I've got lettuces out the head and tomatoes growing like crazy and 4 or 5 different varieties of peppers, I don't remember exactly. I hope I don't confuse a bell pepper and an habanero pepper, because that won't end well.

But back to the food we had this weekend that was all homegrown. Last night we had a fresh romaine and black-seeded Simpson lettuce salad topped with chicken sauteed with minced garlic, olive oil, a dash of vinegar, dried oregano, dried thyme, fresh cilantro and fresh basil. Then, tonight, we had fried eggs with cheese and a fresh basil leaf on top and a fresh black-seeded Simpson lettuce and green bean salad.

By the way, when I said everything was homegrown, I was not including the chicken, the garlic, the olive oil, the vinegar, the oregano, the thyme, the eggs, the cheese, the salad dressing, the toast or the beer. Other than that, it all totally was!

Then it Becomes a River

2007-07-14T11:11:00.000-04:00

Well, since all I ever do around here anymore is give lists of things I've recently read, watched or listened do, I figured I might as well keep doing that! So here's some brief and superfluous notes on some albums I've recenly bought, borrowed, checked out from the library or otherwise listened to.

Sky Blue Sky by Wilco
If you like Wilco already, I'm sure you'll like this one too. It's very pretty and soulful. It is also a little bit of a downer, but so is life in general, so it's all good. The best songs are Impossible Germany, Side with the Seeds and Hate it Here. I would recommend that you listen to it while sitting in your office staring at your computer screen blankly and wondering how in the world you got yourself into this.

Nevermind by Nirvana<
Nobody needs me to say anything about this. For some reason, we didn't already own this. Well one thing I can say is that the album artwork for this album definitely aged better than the art for the next album in this list. The next one is almost comical.

Ten by Pearl Jam
Again, nothing I can say will add anything to the world. However, the fold out album art of the band members standing all together in a circle with their hands raised together is funny. It's like they are trying to be a football team or something.

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzic
This is Outkast's first album. I borrowed it from a friend of mine at work who basically only likes it because he thinks that teh Outkast guys are fellow conspiracy theorists, which, in all fairness, they might be. Other than their references to disease engineering and white plots to kill the black man, the album is very rap-of-the-mill.

Live at Stubb's by Matisyahu
An album full of mediocre (at best) reggae rap...BUT the rapper dude is a white Hasidic Jew! So it's cool in a Weird Al kind of novelty way, so I guess it has that going for it.

The Else by They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants' 12th album! It's okay! It comes with a full length bonus disc! THe bonus disc is at least as good as the actual album! It contains one of the best stalker songs I've ever heard! And a song about drunk driving! And a song about nuts that my son already knows! Are you convinced to go out and buy it? No?? Well, imagine my shock.

Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Holy cow. I can't believe these guys were indie rock darlings! Not bad, but certainly nothing to right home about in ridiculous overwrought metaphors and forced significance. Plus, the song titles are borderline stupid. Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning? , Upon Encountering the Crippled Elephant, Satan Said Dance? Seriously?

Everybody's Eyes Are Closed

2007-07-14T10:55:00.000-04:00

The other day I was going for a walk at lunch. It's just this thing I do now since I don't have a train station to walk to anymore. Sure the walking is pointless but it's marginally better than sitting at my desk reading conspiracy theories on the internet. Well, anyway, this one day I saw some trash on the side of the road. But not just any trash, I see that ever day. No, on this day, I saw a CD lying there. So I thought to myself, "yes! A free CD! It's my lucky day!" But as I was bending down to pick it up, I noticed that it was cracked. Since I was already bending down to pick it up, I figured that I might as well just pick it up and throw it away when I got back to work. I was still pretty bummed though. I likes me some music. All my disappointment evaporated, however, when I actually picked it up and looked at what album it was. It was a Fall Out Boy album.

I can think of no better thing to happen to a Fall Out Boy album (or U2 album) than to be unceremoniously tossed out the window of a moving car and dashed to bits on our brutal, unforgiving asphalt dystopia. I decided at that point that I would ceremoniously burn the album in an ancient pagan ritual called.......uh, what the hell am I talking about????

There’s Only One Thing That I Know How To Do Well

2007-07-09T22:23:00.000-04:00

For awhile there in the last couple months I was all, like “I’m gonna try to stop being so lazy and actually do something with my 30 minutes to myself that I get every morning instead of just laying there in bed after the alarm goes off dreading the moment at when I really REALLY have to get up in order to make it in to work ‘on time.’” I’m sure you can guess what I decided to do. Yep, that time-honored tradition of pompous, self-important and repetitious people everywhere: read non-fiction books to widen my understanding of the world. Unfortunately for me, a previously dyed-in-the-cotton fiction reader, non-fiction books generally do not offer any world-view-broadening capacity. They do offer gimmicks, though, so at least I had that going for me.

Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America by Barbarbarbara Ehrhenrheich

If you can get past the (not) incisive parenthetical “not” in the title and actually get into the book you’ll find, well, you’ll find a book about how hard it was for the author to live like the poor folk she feigns compassion for. I was hoping for an insightful look into the lives of the people out there that work minimum wage jobs and have to somehow string things together. Or not. Instead, this book provides a wonderful portrait of just how annoying it was for the author to have to live in rundown hotel for a few weeks and how much working a minimum wage job sucked for her and how all the poor people she worked with (ancillary characters at best and typically just Socratic foils for the author's self pity) just didn’t get it that if they would just demand better pay, unicorns and rainbows would start shooting out of their asses. Oh yeah, she also loved to take stereotypical pot shots at the people whose houses she cleaned when she worked as a maid because they thought they were better than the people who clean their lovely suburban houses, but really, HA HA, THE JOKES ON THEM because Ms. Ehrenrhehich is so totally their intellectual and moral superior!! Take that!

At first I was frustrated that the book took such a one-dimensional (not to mention demeaning) look at the minimum wage subculture and didn’t delve into what life is actually like for that class or how they got there or what obstacles they face. But then I realized, hell, that kind of stuff doesn’t move copies! Gimmicks move copies (well over a million so far) and that’s what being a “muckraking” writer is all about, isn’t it? Making your readers think you care (and vicariously they themselves (not a real word, but whatever) care) while simultaneously using your story about being a fake poor person and your superficial dealings with actual poor people to make yourself a good chunk of money! Oh Irony of Ironies. But then again, writers got to make a living, too, so I guess I have that going for me.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by The Most Awesomest and Brilliant Young Economist in the History of the World

I should have read this book before Nickel and Dimed because then the gimmickries of the first book wouldn’t have bothered me as much since I wouldn’t have expected anything deep or incredibly insightful. While well-written and interesting, Freakonomics explores the hidden side of things if your idea of “the hidden side” is “around the corner.” If you were thinking “buried under 50 ft of molten lava hundreds of miles off the coast of Madagascar,” sorry, but nothing is that hidden. For instance, did you know that drug-dealing organizations funnel almost all the money to the top and that the street soldiers, the ones that deal directly with the customers, hardly get paid anything? Shocking, I know. Dealing drugs is NOT the socialistic, money-sharing utopia we all thought it was! The other annoying thing about the book, for a statistically minded person such as myself, was that, as is typical of mass-marketed stuff in general, statistics were used extensively without any discussion of their significance or applicability. I trust the economists who wrote the book understand and are correctly using statistics, but man, I wish they would have used their position to encourage a more stringent statistical methodology in published materials. But still, it was a fun, gimmicky book to read so I guess I have that going for me.

Silent Spring by Rachael Carson

This book is so important that I learned about it in one or maybe two of the countless classes I had on American History in my formative public school years. Blah blah blah, pumping noxious, carcinogenic chemicals into our water and food isn’t good for us. The crazy thing about this is that 40 years ago, when the book was written, a lot of people DIDN’T know that all these amazing new chemicals could be dangerous. Now that this danger is common knowledge, the book loses some of its “I DON”T BELIEVE IT!!!!” punch. But hey, Al Gore like it, so I guess I’ve got that going for me.

The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson

Gimmick: Mankind has systematically, throughout history destroyed all life on earth up to and including humankind and a huge die-off of 80% of the world’s population is needed to return the Earth to its natural condition. L

But since the US is such a rich and powerful country, you and I probably will be among the surviving 20%, so I guess I’ve got that going for me! J

P.S. the book doesn’t say that last bit.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by Doomy McDoomerson Kunstler

If you live in the suburbs and drive to work every day and go shopping at Target at least once a week (read: me), this guy hates you. He thinks you are blithely driving the world off a cliff and if you don’t know how to brew your own beer, make your own shoes and grow your own vegetables (I am 1 for 3 on these so far, but that’s another post) you are probably going to die or have to fight tooth-and-nail for you life in the near future. Peak oil, blah blah blah, we’re all going to die, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. So what? I know how to ride my own bicycle (if I actually owned one that is), so I guess I’ve got that going for me.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

Boy, what I wouldn’t give for a gimmick. For all my bloviating about how other lame non-fiction books don’t give you a deep enough view of things, I sure could have used a shallow view here. I’m not even half way through it yet. I can tell because I haven’t got to the pages with the pictures on them yet. If you ever wanted to learn about the medieval Norse society on Greenland, this book is for you. If not, well, it might still be for you but you might want to skip a few chapters. I’m pretty sure he’s going to start comparing these old collapsed societies with our modern globalized world pretty soon, but I’ll let you know when I get to that part. Check back in, say, October. He also writes about the expansion and inevitable collapse of the “Anasazi” in the Chaco Canyon area to which I have been, so I guess I’ve got that going for me.

A Little Bird Never Tells Me Anything I Want To Know

2007-07-07T19:57:00.000-04:00

Like any good citizen, I went to the Detroit Cityfest today. Yeah, it's at New Center. I gave a "veteran" $5 for three little American flag pins and I wore mine upside down. It was pretty rad. I also got to see, live in concert, Denice Wilson (or something like that). You know, the "Let's Hear it For the Boy!" woman? Plus I ate some vegan Ethiopian food. I'm sure you're all very jealous already, but wait until you hear this. We also got 6 free tickets to tomorrow night's Detroit Shock game. That's a WNBA team as you probably don't know. Apparently their games are so full that they wander around a big old festival handing out tickets all willy nilly and never worry about having more people than seats. Then, as we were leaving and driving through the depressed and dilapidated ruins of a formerly great American city, I realized that I don't care at all any more. There's nothing anybody can do to fix the problems and the whole country is going to be in that kind of shape in a few years anyway. Man, not caring is wonderful.

There aren't your lives all sooooo much fuller now that you know that about my day? Aren't they?????

Minimum Wage. HEEYAAAAAAH!

2007-07-07T11:10:00.000-04:00

The other day, I was walking around the neighborhood when....ah, who am I kidding, I never walk anywhere. I mean, there aren't even sidewalks. By the way did you ever notice that just the name "sidewalk" is car-centric? Why is walking relegated to the
"side?" Why don't we call roads "sidedrives?" Anyway, what was I talking about?

So in our neighborhood we've got this meat store called Nitsche's Meats. Imagine my disappointment when they didn't have any, not even one, Ubermensches. The meat is pretty good though, if you're into that kind of thing.

More Coffee For Me Boss, Cuz I'm Not As Messed Up As I Want to Be

2007-07-07T08:37:00.000-04:00

Thank you for all joining me here today. I know that I am usually only active clandestinely and that my audience with His Majesty has now fallen on hard times, but I have a very important topic with which to discuss with you at some point in time should you ever read this missive: Truth.

Many people are under the impression that Truth is a universal absolute, that there is one true way that events happen that can be firmly documented and agreed upon by those willing to embrace it. By embracing this vision of Truth, one has the advantage that one gets to feel smugly superior and/or (usually and) pontificatory about it. Making Truth an absolute, unarguable standard means that one must also go to absolute, unarguable lengths to defend it. Some have even gone as far as to argue (often on the internet) over it, which is odd if they believe the Truth to be unarguable. Those extreme lengths are horrifying in their breadth and depth.

Other people, on the other hand, believe that truth is nothing more than a story that someone tells to make themselves feel better about the absolute disaster that this universe unarguably is. This belief would imply that any given person's truth is just as true as Ignatius Riley's truth is true. For some this is hard to accept.

However, a deeper investigation of "Truth" reveals that both camps are not only a little bit wrong, but a lot of bit wrong.

You see, Truth is an anagram for thurt. Wait. No, that's not what I meant. What is important is that "Truth" is an anagram of "Ruth T." This is an unarguably obvious reference to Ruth T. McGrorey, former professor in and Dean of the State University of New York at Buffalo's School of Nursing. Some of McGrorey's most notable work was while working as a Consultant in Nursing for the Paraguay Project (University Archives collection 19/1/708). This project was initiated by the US State Department Project to provide the National University at Asuncion with UB's health sciences expertise. A three-year contract was signed between the Health Servicio of Paraguay and UB in 1956 and renewed continuously until 1971. The contract set up an exchange whereby Paraguayan doctors were sent to study at UB and two Buffalo faculty members, in addition to short-term consultants were sent Paraguay. While in Paraguay McGrorey helped to develop a Nursing School at Asuncion. McGrorey also implemented many changes nationally, helping to bring Paraguayan nursing and medical standards on par with North American standards. In 1962, Asuncion honored McGrorey with the Distinguished Visiting Professor title and in 1969 an honorary doctorate.

So the truth of the matter, or should I say that the Ruth T. of the matter is that everything we think of as truth, whether you are of the arguably unarguable school of truthspeak the unarguably unarticulated vague school of thinking, is actually just a reflection of the efforts of one mid-twentieth century nurse who went to Paraguay and probably started several underground socialist movements that are still in existence today known as the Paraguayan Socialist Nursing Liberation Faction of the International Sisterhood of Paraguayan Nurses. They have been known, from time to time, to carry out shadowy terrorist actions at the behest of the overlord of the underworld, Eudora Welty.

We're Just Trying to Bug You

2007-05-23T17:58:00.000-04:00

Hey, did you hear the one about peak oil?

No?

Okay!

So, this guy walks into a bar and he sits down at the bar and the bartender says to him, "Hey Bar, what can I getcha?"

The guy looks up and he says "Give me a long, tall, cold glass of Light Sweet Crude, Black Gold, Texas Tea."

And then the bartender says, "Dude, we ain't had that here since 2009."

So the guy is all, "What???? Why the hell not?"

And the bartender (his name is Jake, by the way) says "Well, due to the rapid growth of several third world economies, the demand for Light Sweet Crude is rapidly out pacing the dwindling production of the same. This leads to obvious macroeconomic consequences worldwide from rising transportation costs to widespread social and political turmoil. Millions have died so far and the worst is probably yet to come as we reach the section of the global Hubbert's Peak curve of oil production with the steepest negative slope. We won't see any improvement until the second derivative of the curve hits a zero."

"Okay, fine," says the guy that walked into the bar at the beginning of the joke. "I can has cheezburger?"

The bartender pulls out a gun and shoots the guy in the left ass and says "There's some social turmoil for you!"

LOL!!!!11!!!

Please forward this joke to 10 of your best friends. Otherwise you will suffer economic, social and political turmoil

List Tuesday: Prosthetic Foreheads on Their Heads

2007-04-24T21:43:00.000-04:00

Motion Pictures That I Watched in the Last Week Reviewed and Rated on A Scale of 1 to Pants.

What the (Bleep) Do We Know: See Here.
Rating: -Pants

Dune: As solipsistic, blowhardian and inelegant as the book but way worse. It does have the bonus that its star, Kyle Maclachlan is from my hometown or something. Also, he was in Showgirls, a marginally more bad movie.
Rating: e-1.

Bonnie and Clyde: This one was really good. I’d seen it before, but it’s still fun to watch. It stars Warren Beatty (aka Dick Tracy) and Faye Dunaway as the titular characters. (Also named after the characters? A muffler shop in my hometown. The shop’s logo is a gun.) The best thing about this film is its schizophrenic jumps in mood from slapstick car chases set to “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” to the “heroes” contemplating the murder they just committed. Or, like at the end, when it’s all lovey-dovey and then they die in a “hail of gunfire*” (spoiler alert: Bonnie and Clyde die). Historically, this movie is notable for the introduction of squibs and realistic violence into modern cinema. Before this movie, all the violence was obviously non-realistic because LOOK! PAUSE IT! Now rewind. That guy is so totally still breathing! There are also two Genes in this movie, Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder (in his debut performance), so it has that going for it.
Rating: Assless Chaps.

Chinatown: Depressing as a…..something or other that’s real depressing. Maybe like a raccoon caught in a bear trap and it’s still alive and struggling to reach the rifle that the hunter just dropped because he got mauled by a bear and now the bear is trying to maul the raccoon before he gets the rifle and you know that the raccoon is doomed but keeps on reaching for that gun. Sorta like that. I think the main point of it is that the harder you try to prevent something horrible from happening the more likely it is to happen. Especially if you end up in Chinatown because we all know what goes on there. Also, it has realistic violence (and incest)! Thank you Bonnie and Clyde director Sam Peckinpah! It stars Jack Nicholson and, huh, that’s weird, Faye Dunaway. It won Oscars for Art Direction, Car Direction, Water, and Bandages.
Rating: More Fedoras then you can shake a stick at.

Network: The best movie ever made about a fourth-place network news broadcast and its descent into banality and journaltainment. Actually, I’m not kidding. This one is a recent addition to my top 10 movies ever list (again, I’d seen it before but that was when I didn’t understand that the entire universe was utterly meaningless and doomed and there’s no point to anything, so I didn’t get it as much.) Basically it’s all about how everyone has their price and it all doesn’t matter anyway because somebody else is controlling everything so they can make some more money. It’s also probably the funniest movie ever written by a guy named Paddy. And it was spoofed in UHF, so you just KNOW it has to be good. It stars William Holden and, WTF??? Faye Dunaway again??? I must look like some kind of Faye Dunaway obsessed uh….person. Great. Except, wait a minute, now I’ve got a good excuse when the FBI/NSA/CIA/DIA or whoever looks at my library records (oh don’t worry, they’re looking at yours too) and see that I checked out a movie that glorifies bank robbing and death I can just say, “well look at the other movies I checked out! They all have a young Faye Dunaway, so obviously I’m just in love with her. Thirty years ago!” Except Network also features a group of domestic terrorists, I forgot to mention that part. Crap. What have I gotten myself into?
Rating: I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

Duck Soup: Uh, I only watched about 15 minutes of it. Sorry
Rating: A Painted-on moustache.

The Bicycle Thief: Just in case you don’t get it, in case you don’t quite grip the fact that everything falls apart and the center never holds and life sucks most of the time, you should watch this movie. It builds and builds (in a post-war Italian neo-realist way of course) up until the end when the main character humiliates himself in the eyes of his young son. The end. It’s arguably De Sica’s best film. It is currently in an argument on this topic with the next movie in this list.
Rating: Threadbare, third-hand linen trousers

Umberto D.: This is arguably De Sica’s best film. Unlike the previous one, there is at least a small glimpse of hope at the end. Sure the eponymous character is broke, debased, homeless and alone at least he didn’t go through with the suicide because of his cute dog. (Spoiler Alert!!! He doesn’t go through with his suicide attempt at the end because of his cute dog!) Of course you’re left to imagine what happens after the film ends. Sooner or later, Mr. Ferrari is going to get malaria or something and die homeless in some back alley in Rome and his cute dog will probably have to eat his dead body for sustenance. So it f’n goes.

But really, I like the movie. The cinematography is great and it’s primarily performed by non-professional actors. When it looks so good, who cares if it’s all about the banality of evil. Or not even evil, just the banality and hopelessness and inevitability of life?
Rating: 10,000 Lire

The French Connection: Probably the best drug-running espionage detective movies I watched that day. There’s this one part where Gene Hackman is driving a commandeered car through the streets of New York (?) chasing an elevated train that pretty much is one of the top three movie car chases ever. It also has realistic violence! On the whole, I would watch it again if I didn’t have to return it to the library.
Rating: Plaid suit pants with a .45 strapped to your ankle.

Red Dawn: WOLVERINES!!!!!
Rating: Patrick Swayze 50 - Communist Pigs 1

Tokyo Monogatori (Tokyo Story): Quite possibly the 4th best movie ever made (behind Citizen Kane, M, and Howard the Duck). Basically, nothing happens in the whole movie. You really have to listen for what’s NOT said (don’t you want to slap me now? I always want to slap people after they spout some BS like that). The camera angles and views are phenomenally telling. It’s like you’re a voyeur sitting on a grass mat in almost every shot, just watchinfg things unfold. It’s an even better movie to watch if you’ve had a lot of dealing with Japanese people. Trust me. What is it about, you ask? Just Google it or something, they know more than I do. Essentially it all boils down to this…
Kyoko: Isn’t life disappointing?
Noriko: [smiling] Yes, it is.

Rating: 6 beers and an old pair of fishing shorts.

*All reviews of Bonnie and Clyde are required to use the phrases “hail of gunfire” or “hail of bullets.”

There are 17 links in this post.

Turn Off Your Smoke Machine

2007-04-16T19:40:00.000-04:00

Warning: This post will discuss the single biggest failing of the modern American Christian church. If you can't take it, then stop reading now and save yourself. If you can take it, let's start a movement to end this horrible abomination.

Simply put, the single biggest failing of the modern American Christian Church is not any of the following:

Leadership

Fundamentalism

Guns

Stale Communion Bread/wafers (this one was close)

Reticence to change

No, it is not any of these. It is the architecture. Modern American churches by and large have the most boring, uninspiring, unhelpful architecture in the history of the known church universe. Let me "explain."

If I wanted to let everyone know that I was an obnoxious, horrible douche*ag (edited for content), would I drive a Jetta with a broken mirror and wear 5-year-old socks? NO! I would wear crisp power suits with red and blue striped ties, have a faux-hawk, drive a BMW 325xi (or maybe the Z4 convertible if I was going for the douchebag/tool difecta) and probably have a Hill badge displayed prominently on my person at all times. (Side note, by driving a Jetta with a broken mirror and wearing old clothes, I'm saying that I'm totally not in any way a douche).

Likewise, if the modern church is serious about it's beliefs that it and It alone hold the keys to the knowledge of good and evil (God = good, funky buttlovin' = evil, pants = ????*) then the church buildings need to show it. If the way, the Truth, and the Life is through the church, let me know, man. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, if I knew all this important stuff about Jesus H. Christ, I would write it in big letters and perhaps statues of sinners burning in hell all over my church. Come on McLean Bible, give the people what they ~~want~~ need. Admittedly it's probably hard to simulate eternal hellfire but there's gotta be something you could do other than look like a mall (actually, there may be something to this....aw, never mind). At least try to be majestic or something like the Crystal Cathedral.

When it comes right down to it, the modern "traditional" American church is the only church movement/body/pantaloon in history to not match it's architecture with it's theology. here a just a few examples"

The Catholic Church - Huge, ostentatious cathedrals, some even built with the bones of their enemies**.
What is says: "We own you. God lives here and we own him too. Plus, we have a truckload (cartload? Popemobileload?) of money, so we've got that going for us. Plus we have cool miters, so we've got that going for us."

Islamic Mosques - Tall minarets, domey looking things.
What it says: I don't know. I don't speak Arabic.

Good Ol' One Room Clapboard Baptist Churches - "One Room Clapboard Churches" kinda says it all.
What it says: One Room Clapboard Churches. Simplicity. Something to do with water or immersion, or squirt guns or something. Also potluck dinners that the same person will bring the same pot of spaghetti to every month for 50+ years.

"Emergent" "Churches" - so many options to reflect who they really are!
- Coffee house - "Look how cool we are! We meet in a coffee house! A secular coffee house!"
- An Old Warehouse - "Look how cool we are! We don't care at all about our image!"
- And old unused church building - "Look how cool we are! We're 'subverting' the mainstream church!"
- Strangely, for all the gushing over the "ancient-future" idea, I have yet to hear of an "Emergent" church that meets in underground catacombs like the authentically ancient Christians did. That would actually be pretty awesome.
Episcopalian Church - I don't know, something vaguely English/Celtic looking.
What it says: "If you liked Lord of the Rings, you might be Episcopalian***!"

Unitarian Universalist - Anything they damn well want to build.
What it says: "Do you like it? If not, we'll change it so you do like it!"

So come on mega-churches of America, take back the mantle of "most important buildings in the city!" Show the people what you're about! Bring out the Left Behind-style corpse dummies. ~~Kill~~ Persecute a Muslim. Fight in the Holy War! You've got a soul, now be a soldier! Or a construction worker!

*The Southern Baptist Convention recently published a document disavowing its former stance on the necessity of wearing pants. Pants-wearing is now technically a "greyish area" as defined by the bylaws of the Convention.****

**Could just be the bones of dead parishioners, teh internets were unclear on that point.

***If I am confusing Episcopalian and Anglican, please forgive me since I don't really care at all which is which.

****Not actually true. Pants are still required at all times.

A Watch With A Minute Hand

2007-04-16T14:42:00.000-04:00

Due to an unexpected day off from work, I've got some extra time. What's the best thing to do with extra time? Yep, go to the library, check out 6 movies and watch them. I was going to write a post reviewing each of the six movies, but I couldn't wait more than 3/4 of the way through the first one. It's called "What the (Bleep) Do We Know. Putting it into the same post as Network, Chinatown, Duck Soup and Bonnie and Clyde wouldn't be fair to anyone.

The Review
PLEASE DO NOT WATCH IT. It is the worst movie in the history of the world (even worse than Practical Magic if you can believe it). How it ever got more than 1 star on Amazon is as beyond me as any little grasp of science is beyond this movie. It's like watching the crazy chef character from Beakman's World explain the ideas from a Deepak Chopra book. If that doesn't put you off, how about this? The main message of the movie is that anything wrong in your life is your own damn fault because you are thinking wrong and are addicted to your negative emotions. The Holocaust? Yep, those European Jews brought it on themselves because they really were addicted to the persecution. (No, smartass, Godwin's rule doesn't apply here because I didn't specifically mention Hitler. Crap!) Same goes for those negative thinking idiots in Darfur etc. And to add to all these horribly mis-guided ideas, it's a crummy movie. I mean, it really just sucks. Note to the filmmakers: if you are going to have interviews in a movie implying that these people know what the hell they are talking about, you really, really, really have to put their names on the screen or else I'm just going to assume they are a bunch of phonies reading from a teleprompter. This is essentially the polar opposite of a real science movie. I've never agreed with censorship, but if all copies of this movie could be loaded onto a rocket and fired into the heart of the sun, the universe would become a better place. Maybe by positively thinking, I can make it happen. *closes eyes and meditates on breaking the laws of physics as taught to do by this movie* Damn. It's still playing. What a bunch of baloney.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE.

A few choice quotations -

P.S. I'm going to start praying to You today.

P.P.S. I know what the (bleep) they know. They know how to make a God-awful synth-heavy soundtrack.

P.P.P.S. Oh, oh oh this is too good. One of the "experts" is a teacher at, I can hardly say this with a straight face, Ma....Maha.....Maharishi University. ROTFLMAO.

This is Where The Party Ends

2007-04-05T00:15:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry. I haven't been blogging regularly. I looked. There's no blog equivalent of Metamucil. And eating more fiber doesn't help. Trust me.

Just so you know, like most things in the world, my life since my last post can be summed up succinctly with to TFD comics. They are eerily accurate. F'n Drew, man.

I Came Back as a Bag of Groceries

2007-03-08T18:31:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time again folks.

*everybody shouts "WHAT TIME IS IT?"*

It's time for more rambling reviews of some CDs I recently bought!

*everybody shouts "YAY!!!"*

Funeral – Arcade Fire: I'd downloaded this one a long time ago so it's not like I'd never heard it before or anything. But still, it sounds way better in full quality on my car stereo (I now drive 14 miles each way to work every day. Ugh.) than it did in 128kbps quality on my crummy, standard-issue iPod headphones. There are lots of pros to this album: sweeping soundscapes, poignant if melodramatic songwriting, grand instrumentation etc etc. However, there's a big con: poor, poor packaging. I want to listen to the CD, not spend all my time figuring out how to remove it from the stupid cardboard sleeve. Once you get it out, I would recommend not ever putting it back in.

P.S. Mike, you would like this, I'm pretty sure. They use a hurdy-gurdy.

The Greatest – Cat Power: This album is the sauce to Mama Cass's ham sandwich. I mean that it's so full of stuff you might choke on it. Wait, no, that's not what I mean at all. Crap. Um, it's an album full of songs by a chick singer with a large dollop of Al Green, a cherry of Van Morrison on top and Carole King noodles. Not really good driving music, but good for, you know, sitting around, eating goldfish crackers and drinking a limited release Phat Abbot Tripel Belgian Style Ale by Arbor Brewing Company.

P.S. It appears that Michigan has some pretty decent breweries.

Wincing the Night Away – The Shins: (At this point in the post it is okay to start thinking, "what is all this indie BS? Is this guy some sort of, like, wannabe cool person who just follows all the popular streams in 'indie rock'?" Well, pretty much yes) If you've heard of this album, and who hasn't, you've probably heard that it's good. I won't abuse your illusion because it's not an illusion. This is a good album. Well, if you like their first two it is. Maybe even if you didn't like them it still is. I wouldn't know because I did like them and I can't exactly go back in time and unlike them. Who do you think I am? Buck Freaking Rogers?

P.S. The addition of some electronic instruments and stuff pushes this album from good to great.

P.P.S. Isn't Zach Braff so dreamy?
< /obligatory_zach_braff_mention_required_in_all_reviews_of_the_shins>

A Weekend in the City – Bloc Party: With a name like Block Party you'd kinda expect a hip-hop group or sumpin', right? But did you see? It's not "block," it's "bloc." Like the communist bloc! Get it! It's a subtle (or semi-reasonable facsimile thereof) reference to politics! Ha! How'd they ever come up with that?! But anyway, this one is not as good as their first one. I mean, it's still good and all, I just wouldn't write home about it.

P.S. I would write here about it though. In fact, I just did!

Neon Bible – Arcade Fire: I picked this up yesterday for $7.98 at, get this, Target (if you call it "Tar-zhay" I will, well, I probably won't be able to do anything about it because I am way up here in northern south-east Michigan). $7.98? Man, that is less than I paid for toilet paper at Target and all I'm going to use the toilet paper for is, um, well, you know. So first I thought I could just save money by using this CD as toilet paper but then they only had one copy left and it's made out of plastic and cardboard and stuff which is really not that comfortable to use as toilet paper. So instead, I listened to it. And I'm glad I did because I really like it. It's even more melodramatic than Funeral (seriously, "mirror, mirror on the wall, show me where them bombs will fall?" Melo. Drama.) It's also a lot angrier and bitterer than Funeral. Which is good because I'm pretty angry and bitter most of the time. Musically, it is, if anything, an expansion on their earlier sound. It's got huge church organs droning sometimes even. Plus, it's got 11 songs. Spooky.

P.S. Mike, you would like this one too I think.

P.P.S. This is a bogus review because I've only had a chance to listen to it up through track 8.

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People Just Liked It Better That Way

2007-03-06T19:31:00.000-05:00

Boy do I feel special today!

Get this: not one, but TWO of my very favoritest bloggers in wholest widest world linked to me today: Mike and Rusty. Now Mike linking to me isn't that uncommon but it's still special. Rusty on the other hand rarely links to anything but real, important kinda stuff. If you can call the Washington Times real....or important...but anyway.

Now, as all narcissistic bloggers must, I monitor my traffic from time to time. Here, in chart-a-rific fashion is what happens when either of my much more famouser friends (I did meet Rusty in person once and yes he was wearing a BoSox hat. No sweater vest though, sorry).

As you can easily see, my blog traffic is ego-crushingly low. Not that I care about that. But when I get links? Shooooooot, it practically goes through the freaking roof! Yeah!!

If only I had AdSense on this thing. I could have made, like, almost a dime.

List Tuesday: I Just Stood There Whistling

2007-03-06T19:16:00.000-05:00

Reasons Why I Didn't Write A List Today

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