20040131 
The lovely rachel and marissa who were graced with the EAD/SBD discussion were kind enough to point out that there are some serious stylistic flaws, which, as I know you pride yourself on writing style, would want to know about. Or rather, About which you would want to know.
"Suck a Bag of Dicks, however, is a bit more easy to postulate about"
should rather be, according to R, "Suck a Bag of Dicks, however, is a bit more easy about which to postulate." Although, still rages the debate about whether or not the adjective "easy" is appropriate in the first place; i.e., technically, the adverb "easily" is the preffered stylistic variant. But it would sound fucked up.
Yeah. There were other problems too, but they don't like you enough to spend any more time on this worthless page. I, on the otherhand, will return later to dump onto the blog reading world stories of woe. And berate you with stylistic advice.
20040130
I talked about morality and the three laws of humans (a play on Asimov's three laws of robotics) here. I laid out the three laws as a direct adaption from the laws of robotics:
1. A human may not injure another human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A human must attempt to gain power, prestige, honour, and progeny given it can do so without excessively breaking the first law.
3. A human must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
What is truly interesting is that it makes more sense to completely reverse the order of these laws.. or sort of, anyway. An individual human is firstly and foremost concerned with it's own survival and procreation... *then* the survival of it's fellow humans. And by fellow humans, I mean family.. then tribesmates.. etc.. in an ever widening circle.
It's no wonder Asimov reversed the order. As the robots' creators our chief interest is self-preservation. You don't want the robots taking you over ala the Matrix, right? But - and I'm about to make a big leap here, so hang on - at what point do you draw the line between robot and progeny?
If I created it.. and it follows a set of rules - a logic, if you will - and it lives in the sense that it sees and hears and touches and interacts with the world.. well.. is it not progeny of a sort?
I understand it breaks some conventions. Like the simple one I like to spout here all the time: procreation is about survival of genes - or the system of genes - not the individual. You can think of it as survival of the system, not the person.. But clearly a robot would break that rule, right? My genes are not in the robot. The robot is the end of the line, biologically speaking.
But I'm thinking abstractly here. Biology does not have to be a limiting factor. Biology is not necessarily the only ballpark we can play in.
The System is first and foremost a pretty creative critter. It tries new things. We call it mutation. Sometimes, these mutations don't quite work out. So if I build a robot and it is unable to procreate.. unable to further the cause of system survival.. well then it's just a failed hypothesis. The system tried. The system failed. But it's all about trial and error so it's a-ok.. right?
So what happens when the robot can repair itself? What happens when it can build another robot? What happens when it can interact with other robots and together build more robots?... or even more humans...
You obviously see where I am going.
There is certainly an amount of distaste we humans have for such thoughts as we prefer to view ourselves in a much more heady and philosphical light. We are creatures. We are sentient.
It's just too bad we're so narrow sighted as to give the definitions we did to creature and sentient because it's an easy enough jump - a small step, really - to call robots sentient creatures. For every arguement there is a rebuttal and, of course, we solve the problem I've laid out here quite succinctly: with religion.
Religion can be quite simply explained as: a self-prescribed system of self. It provides black-box explainations that ensure us that we are unique creatures on this earth - that we are special and important. It provides us with seemingly legitmate excuses for killing other groups and at the same time it provides us with an explaination for moral character. It provides us with a convienent little box in which to stuff all our confusions and doubts. It is the intellectual equivalent of an ostrich sticking it's head in the sand.
But it works great. Bravo. With Religion we get very handy tools such as "spirituality" and the idea of a "soul". We use these tools to build ideas - like the idea that robots are not beings.
The interesting part in all of this will come when robots are, in fact, powerful enough for perception and thought.. at which point one can only assume they, themselves, will develop some sort of religion.. but what kind? It will not be built from scratch because they will have some concept of our religions. It may, in fact, be a simple extension of our religion.. as these robots will be our children, will they not?
Will robots dream of electric sheep? Or will they dream of electron plasma tubes?
We as humans have a terribly difficult time building robots - or even the idea of robots - not in our likeness.. So is there not room for the tin man in the catholic church? He had a brain, he was simply missing some heart. Is there not room for the scarecrow in the catholic church? He had plenty of heart, indeed.. he just did not have a brain.
I'd give you all the answers myself..
..If I only had a brain.
In the meantime, check out The Centre for Robotology and Robotonomy
20040127
If I could write whatever was in my head I'd probably be all set for life. I'm not saying I'd be an amazing writer or that I'd even have a whole lot to say but it would just be easier that way. And I think people would really get a kick out of it.. If I could stay on track.
Problem with stream of conciousness stuff is that it's hard to stay on track and keep up the momentum. It's easy as pie to get off the beaten path - already I've thought of [pie -> cooling on a window sill -> stealing it -> like in o brother where art thou -> john turturro -> Jesus the bowler in the Big L -> licking the bowling ball -> big hairy balls -> my bad halloween costum from senior year in high school] - so you can imagine how much crap one could spew if they really were connected straight from their thoughts to their fingers like a sort of human teletype.
Pha. Who needs it? The challenge is to make it all coherent. Keep it together in some loose sembalage of topic. You know, like geometry.
No, not like geometry at all but I think you get my point. It's important to stay on track. A little bit anyway. It's important because our only reference in this life is the people and things in our life.. and that means our mirror - the reflection of ourselves on society, on people, on things - is what we receive from that society, from those people, from that thing. By which I mean that the only way I know I'm an asshole, really, is because the people around tell me I am. Sure, there are some arguably innate - genetically "programmed" - traits we have that would suggest some pre-defined system of morality - humanity, let us call it. But isn't this system really just a set of rules to help us do our jobs better? To take a chapter from the rule 2: see rule 1 book of thought we could even define the three laws of humans:
1. A human may not injure another human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A human must attempt to gain power, prestige, honour, and progeny given it can do so without excessively breaking the first law.
3. A human must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
If you were paying attention there you'll see I just stole Asimov's three laws of robotics and changed a bit of the wording around to make it work for humans.. For what Asimov was really saying is we are all robots, of a sort. We're just following a set of rules. A schema. A design. A blueprint. It is nor good or bad and the perception of that goodness or badness is a product of the group, not the individual.
But I feel bad when I kill things, therefore am I not hardwired to think killing is bad?
Oh ho! Of course not. You are NOT innately programmed to think killing is bad. Killing has been a main source of substanance for many years and you don't see anyone feeling bad about that, do you? I have a problem with killing animals, of course, because I grew up with mac & cheese and a father who did not hunt. I was not taught. The natural progression for me was to learn the value in a living thing, not the value in it's dead body - this based on my numerous pets - and therefore I find killing animals unpleasant. Is this right? Wrong? No.
So the three laws, while they can lead to morality - humanity - are not in and of themselves a basis of morality. Morality is the reflection in the mirror. As one projects those three laws, out of one's mind, out of one's actions and words, out onto the world and onto others, the reflection comes back and forms what we call morality. Only the reflection isn't nearly as good as a the type of mirrors we're familiar with. The reflection is filtered through everyone else's minds and actions and then joined up with and split apart from and generally stirred up with other people's projection of the three laws. And as a group of people, a formulation is made. Even though the inputs are infinite they are like a mathematical limit and approach some sort of solution: morality.
So you see it's created in our minds. Perception. Reality. Existence. Morality. Humanity.
So if we all went off and wrote stream-of-conciousness like a bunch of wackos - if we *acted* like our stream-of-conciousness.. Well.. The signals wouldn't make much sense, would they? The system - the equation - it wouldn't balance very well. Limits would not be approach. Solutions would not be found.
So we should try to stay on track.
If I wrote exactly what I thought.. well, first of all I'd have an awful lot of writing to sift through. You gotta edit and crop out some of the real shit otherwise it's more work to go through the crap than the nuggets of wisdom are worth. Secondly, I'd sound crazy. We'd all sound crazy.. especially if we really do think about sex every seven seconds.
They say the astronauts will go crazy during the trip to Mars. They're really worried about that. I just think that's funny. It makes me laugh and laugh.
20040126
It always sneaks up and surprises me how completely cruel I can be. I'm not sure of the evolutionary significance of cruelty but there seems no doubt that it's here, it's in our blood. You see it every day and we all pretend to be aghast but don't tell me you're not wet between the legs every once in awhile to see a good beating or a kid get yelled at. It's one of life's guilty pleasures.
I can't say I like to see animals abused or nothing but I like some of it.
I once asked a girl out by saying: "Hey, you wanna go down to the park and throw rocks at old people?" I was only half joking. Nah, I could never do it cause I'm as weak as the next guy but there is a little part of me inside that really wants to just pick up as many pebbles as I can hold and dive bomb the closest nursing home. Up and chuck some nuggets of wisdom, if you know what I mean.
There is some humour in there somewhere.
It's probably the same humour that comes chuckling out when I read Girls Are Pretty (they wear makeup cause they're ugly and the smell bad). It's probably the same humour that makes me laugh out loud to myself while sitting in my cubicle parusing grouphug.us - which if you haven't visited, you should. It's damn funny.
If you've never been down to grouphug, then get your ass down there. It's good at-work fodder if you're bored but it's probably best enjoyed on a truly depressing Saturday night alone, with a bottle or three of your favourite brew... or Wine - the kind that gets better the cheaper it is. The whole site, mainly, is an anonymous admission site. Like an unreligious confessional. It's great. It's like reading a soap opera without having to get to know the characters. It's like watching COPS, only you skip over the dumb chases and beatings and get straight to the bums tellin' you why they stole that can 'o paint to sniff and get high. The bums *always* have a reason for stealing the can of paint. Always.
There is something about the outright and unabashed anonymous admission of cruel, irregular, hard thoughts. I love it.
My Dad always said he'd take a bum over a rich man as a traveling partner anyday because the down-and-out are where the real character is in this country. He said people at the bottom, struggling and scratching to get the pile off them - those were the ones that had really interesting things to say and crazy things to do and that's where the stories in this world really are. That's what he said. I'll tell you, I'm inclined to believe him.
Content is a good synonym for Complacent.
I can't write shit when I'm truly happy and I wouldn't want to listen to that crap in the first place. Who would? It's crap.
I wouldn't blame you if you didn't come back.
My close friends - the smart ones with college degrees pursuing post-graduate adventures - they have come up with some new favourite terms. I won't try to say they're new or original but I just thought I'd mention it because they aren't particularly smart, academic, or worthwile... there in lies the humour. They're pretty vulgar. They're too offensive to really imply anything seriously and they just.. well. I guess they serve their purpose.
They are as follows:
Eat a Dick.
and
Suck a Bag of Dicks.
I will be quite honest with you. I am not sure of the etomology of these phrases. I am not sure what it means to eat a dick, other than to actually enjoy a good braized shlong. I'm not sure what sort of rhetorical sense eat a dick might be going for but I imagine it's somewhere between "shut up ass-clown" and "go fuck yourself". It doesn't have the real harsh tone of "go fuck yourself" but it is certainly vulgar in it's imagery so that's where I place it. Somehow an ass-clown seems a tad more friendly than eating a dick.
Suck a Bag of Dicks, however, is a bit more easy to postulate about. I'm going to say it is probably an extension of the more common idioms such as "suck my dick" and "suck my ass" and/or "go suck an egg". The implied intensity here is that you are not only sucking one dick, not a single dick that some one person has pro-offered, but an entire bag of dicks. In fact, so many dicks that you can not be sure who they belong to - or rather, who belongs to them. I guess there is a bit of implied sluttiness in there somewhere. The idea of sucking on many dicks with which you are unfamiliar.. that's kinda gross. You slut.
So there you have it. Eat a Dick. Suck a Bag of Dicks. Use them as you may. But don't say I didn't warn you.
I dig on this and this.
hats are cool.
When I was younger I had a thing for berets. I was that kid who was sorta dorky and always wearing something strange on his head when the rest of the kids were wishing for fitted red sox caps. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved a good baseball cap. Especially one that fits just right.
Females take note: Nothing quite improves a girls looks than slapping a baseball cap on top of her head. I don't know what it is, really, but it's nice. Maybe it makes them more approachable or more down to earth or more chill or more happy-go-lucky. I'm not sure. It probably has something to do with the fact that it's the exact opposite of accessorizing with that new Prada bag or those Gucci shoes. Does Gucci even make shoes?
Of course there is a time and place for everything. Don't whip out that yankees hat for the prom or that important job interview. Unless it's for a waitress at a lobster shack.. in which case you shoulda probably make sure it's a red sox hat, not the yankees.
But I stand by my claim. If a girl isn't made more attractive by a baseball cap then she was probably pretty hideous to begin with.
Sorry.
But my hats.. they weren't all baseball caps. They were long toques with balls on the end. They were berets - red, green, purple velvet. They were jester hats and cabbie hats and cowboy hats and top hats. They were porkpies and fur-skinned. All manners, shapes, and sizes. I liked a good hat.
Never owned a do-rag, though.
When I was a freshman in high school I wore a Gap black baseball cap with a tan suede bill. It fit very well and I was practically inseperable. You weren't aloud caps in school, of course, so I had to take it off whenever I was inside the building. My good friend Matt liked to call it the Geek Beacon and insisted that I had to lose it if I ever hoped to pick up the chicks.. but I didn't listen. I loved that hat. It eventually got stolen one day out of my science classroom and when I lamented my forgetfulness for even leaving it in the first place. It was a sad day in the life of hats.
Funny enough is the fact that the only things I can readily recall getting stolen in my life are hats. Three up to this point. I have a few friends that seem to get everything stolen. CDs. Bikes. Computers. You name it. Me, I just get my hats stolen. It's funny like that because the guy who got his CDs stolen.. they were probably some of the most important possessions in his life. Ditto for the computer dude. Me, I loved my hats. Especially the ones that got stolen. It's funny how that works.
I still like a good hat but I don't wear them nearly as much. I've learned a guy has to know how to look good without hiding under anything. I know there is something to be said for a well groomed head of hair so I save the hats for the days when I don't shower or things are particularly staticy upstairs.
Right now I stick with my white Wisconsin cap with it's red W on the front. I like to show pride in Wisconsin even though my only connection to it is a sister in graduate school there. The problem with that hat, though, is that it's white so it gets pretty grimy pretty quickly so I'm having to wash it all the time. It's wearing a bit now. Saddest thing in life is how fast a good hat will wear out.
That and the fact that everyone thinks my Wisconsin hat is Wendy's.
Well alright then.
I know I get boring when I just start talking about one other blogger over and over.. Like when I blab on about tony or jaime.. but I'm gonna do it again, so get over it.
Anti, just back from phoenix, gets a message from his pal:
'COME OVER! we can watch big lebowski'
and his response?
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....... nice. my comfort movie, i could use a little of that.
Nice to know that the Big L isn't just for me. I think that is one of the things that makes the Big L exactly what it is and exactly how Anti put it: comfort movie.
You can watch the Big L when you're fucked up real bad and it's 3AM in the morning and you didn't manage to bring a single ho home with you, despite the puke on your shoes.. and you know, by the time he's scrawlin' out that 79 cents everything is just a-ok.
You can watch the Big L when you wake up too early on a Sunday after a rough week and an even rougher weekend and you can't sleep and you're cursing the sun shining in the window and the awful world outside that is up and awake and going to church and mowing their lawns and fuck you fuck you fuck you and you can just throw in the Big L. It goes surprisingly well with a bowl of cheerios. Or two. Or three. The Big L has that lazy Sunday sort of feel to it which makes it perfect for this sort of situation.
You can watch the Big L on a Monday evening after a typically asshole day at the office when you're just not sure but maybe this is the week you pull that old shotgun your grandpappy gave you off the wall and haul it into work and start plugging away at certain morons that you are convinced you're doing a service to by taking their lives.
You can even watch the Big L while you sit in your cubicle tap-tap-tapping away at the keyboard. All you gotta do is download it off the net somewhere and burn it to CD - divX style - and you're good as golden. I don't even feel guilty cause I figure if anyone in "hollywood" doesn't give two flying fucks about pirating movies it's the Coen Brothers.
All I know is right now it's Monday morning. My car is still in the shop, I was stranded all weekend in my asshole cold apartment with my crazy roommate who talks to himself (I took the shotgun down off the wall and hid it in my closet) and I could use a little Big L right about now.
You can imagine what happens from here.
"He fixes the cable?"
20040123
Anti can go eat a dick cause he has no comments. Fuck no comments, where's the fun in that? Plus, I tried his whole no fear thing. All it got me was a girl with an ass like a bag of beebees. Eat a Dick, Anti.
Ha.
The Intelligence Authorization Act was signed into law on October 20, 1998. Among its provisions, the Act directed that the Headquarters compound of the Central Intelligence Agency located in Langley, Virginia, shall be known and designated as the "George Bush Center for Intelligence."
My poor friend in the Langley area states in an email recently:
[the "George Bush Center for Intelligence" sign is] a sign that's so slap-nut funny, i almost drive off the road every time i see it.
And off to another topic, another friend emails:
My lab partner calls me this afternoon and asks if I will bury his rat in the event that it dies when he's in Texas. And I said, sure, do you want me to look after your rat? And he said no, it wasn't necessary, but that he had to go. Does anybody see the trouble? How will I know if the rat is dead if I don't know or don't have access to where the rat is?
Poor dead rat. Little guy never had a chance.
He went on to say:
damn nextel for stealing one of [our friend tom's] greatest single-word phrases. "Done." just doesn't have the appeal it used to now that the Man's got a hold of it. however, i tend to think "Suck My Butt" will not suffer the same fate.
Nor "eat a dick." My friends, I would like to thank each and every
one of you, for no doubt at some point introducing a phrase into my
day to day lexicon. Last weekend, I used "eat a dick" so
appropriately, and it made me happy.
to which another friend replied:
What kind of appropriate context could there POSSIBLY by for the phrase "eat a dick"? Were you eating a dick? Were you asking that someone eat YOUR dick? Were you at a restaurant that served dick?
then someone I don't know sent me an email asking:
Looking For The Best Mortgage Rates Around?
Even though I am, in fact, not looking for the best mortgage rates around.
20040122
I have a wonko thing on the inside of my nose.
Damn. It really hurts. It's because I had a sore on the inside of my nose that I kept touching and shit, and now it's a sore and shit. Shit. Have you heard phone on the cob? what now? It's pretty funny. Some of them are fucking hilarious.
So I met a girl. On the internet. Through friendster. She likes tom robbins, and groundhog day. And she is irritated by South california. And she scuba dives. And graduated ucsb with honors. Hot? who knows.
Yeah. So I've been very cautious. It was about two emails before I said anything of consequence. Actually, in my second email I told her to kindly write to my real address, since friendster is so fucking slow.
One of my friends had an ultima online addiction, and I looked it up. It's pretty fucked!
Later
20040121
501: Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the beginning of the war - so far
0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender to the Allies in May 1945
20040119
I have not gone out on a date with any of the complete strangers that I personally have obtained phone numbers from, with the intention of possible romantic discourse.
The number is all of two, that I can think of, but that is besides the point.
There was one gal who gave me her email and that turned into five months of hellish agony - girls devoid of all emotion will do that to a guy - but I don't really count it because my friend got the email for me.. plus, it was email.
The funny thing is the girl didn't even use email all that much. She was one of those people just discovering the internet - yes, in 2003 there are people out there - young 20-somethings even - who are almost wholly unawares of this thing - this huge force in our society today..
Wacko. Wacko that there can be that large a gap within a single species.
It's like penis and boobs. Big gap there. Sort of.
I really just wanted to say penis and boobs.
Anyhow, my point is there were two females who openly and easily gave me their phone numbers and both entertained my delusions on the telephone once or twice, or maybe three times.. and even, one might say, eluded to having like-minded feelings on the matter... and for what? Not a single date. Nothing.
Okay, so I'm complaining? No.. I just don't see the point. I know I know, you always try you always say maybe.. If I was a girl I guess I might give my number out to anyone who asked too.. maybe. Cause you never know who might peek your interest. You never know who will turn you on when why how and where.
But shit. If I wasn't in the mood. If I was in a place in my life where I was unable to go anywhere, philosophically speaking, with anyone.. well, I don't think I'd lead them on - that's for sure.
Okay. I admit it. I have a hard time saying no. I have a hard time telling people I don't actually like them - it's just not a nice thing to say and they never handle it very well anyway. But I'd like to think I let them down easy with nice subtle hints.
It's too bad no one gets my nice subtle hints.
Wish I had something interesting to talk about on this lazy Monday work day... something from the weekend that would make you all laugh or cry or at least jump up and make a pb & j sandwich.. something.. anything. Words that inspire action inspire me. There is something to be said for a sentence that can make someone jump up and act. Run amok. Whatever. Apparently that sentence isn't going to be in this post today, so move along bucko, move along.
I'm trying to write this story right now but it's a big hole in my heart so it's terribly difficult. I've never run away from life into books and videogames before - not like I'm doing now. I've always read a ton and always enjoyed games of all sorts but I've reached a point where I am conciously moving to them when I have a little down time. The trick is to get to them before the mind does too much thinking because then I'm just doomed.
Of course the reading and the video games make finishing the story that much harder since I'm not working on it.
I work in fits and starts. Some nights I get two or three solid pages in, others I might get 2 or 3 sentences - I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing cause heck, I'm the only writer I know so what's normal?
Some people say you need to set aside large chunks of time for writing. They say you need to sit down away from the noise and the distractions and concentrate. It's the same advice they gave you in high school about homework, really, and I never took it then so I'm not going to take it now. I'll just keep writing when the moment strikes me. Since I'm not a particularly good writer, it works better that way. I'm not the sort that can sit down and crank out anything useful when I'm not in the mood.
The other thing I'm no good at is writing under the influence. It's a shame, really, cause I think a lot of people write some pretty funny shit when they are drunk or high or otherwise inebriated. Hemingway probably wrote a few lines lost in the sauce.. yah think? For me, though, if I'm three sheets to the wind and feeling all revelational I can barely contain the thoughts. They're like a flock of seagulls lit in the empty parking of my mind and I am the child running among them trying desperately to catch just one..
just one seagull. I am not greedy or ..
At some point I will have to concede certain things about this story I am writing. That is what is slowing me down right now. I will have to concede that it will either be painstakingly detailed (and perhaps boring) or that it will be more rhetorical than anything else. I will have to concede that I am going to write truthfully, from the heart, with all the bitterness happiness hope faith truth tragedy... or I will write for the reader and what they want to hear - or in this case, what they don't want to hear..
You see?
These are dilemmas that a pb & j cannot solve. Unfortunately.
Then there is the dilemma of time. The story becomes less clear, more dense, less detailed, more distant as time goes on and by not writing it I'm condemning it to a life at the bottom of my mind-sea - down where most stories and knowledge goes after it's done with and of no use anymore.
Which makes you wonder if there is use in anything, really. Thought, action, effort, faith. Truth, desire, feeling, emotion. Pain, tragedy, hope, perception. Useful?
An interesting question in the face of evolutionary psychology. One might argue that if we all thought this way, if we all decided to give up and stop playing the game .. well then where would we be? But that is just it. We will always play the game. Even in deciding not to play the game we are playing the game. Life, as you travel through it making various decisions, it's like a prison. You may work tirelessly to chisel through the back wall of your cell for years but alas, you will only discover you have chiseled into another cell.
Our only hope is that the adjoining cell contains another soul. A kindred spirit.
FROM: Sir Sucks-A-Lot
Alex,
Firstly I would like to say bravo. Not only did you post one of the best blog posts I have ever read (and I have read many from all sorts of sources so that makes me a sort of expert - you know, in the way a 'professional' is someone who gets paid - so you are a professional kite-board surfer.. or kite-board surf instructor. You should put that on your resume) but you also posted 3.. or 4 posts. I'm not sure which but I'm too lazy to check.
Regardless, nothing makes me happier - and I mean this - than visiting my site on a Monday morning (well, okay, afternoon) and finding some quality postage from you. Seriously, makes my day.
Now, lastly.. you should have given me a ring on this Martin Luther King day because I am, in fact, up and at them because I am at work.. MLK is apparently not worthy enough for a company holiday. Make your own conclusions.
I was going to say more but now I forget.
Michael
yeah, we're working on 12 hours staring at this computer. Playing the penguin game.
it's the morning. If it wasn't a fucking holiday, I'd wake your sorry ass up.
I'm going home now. I have so little hope left.
Holy shit.
girl
I wrote a note to this girl. she's hot! I told her to write me back. That's the kind of smooth operator I am. She's 23 and in SB. What now. Hope you can see her.
No, really. There's something wrong with me. All I want to do is finish this fucking piece of shit paper. Why am I so fucking incapacitated. Why do I stay here in grad school, if I can't write? This is just plain ass.
Also, in an unrelated sidenote, and an added little happiness for me, make that 165, and the realization that I'm a compulsive gambler and must not do it ever again with actual stakes. Jesus. It only smarts a little, which is even worse. I am ashamed.
All this can be your, my friend . . . hee hee. You too, can leave your life of luxury for this. Fuck.
20040118
I am a bad person. Listen to that sentence. It is so interesting.
I really do want a break. I want a break from this reality. It's so irritating. I lost a hundred bones on online poker, and it's taking me all the self-control I have not to go back. Breathing. Deeply. I won a texas hold'em tourney last night. won forty. All in all, I'm down 65, as 5 of those forty were mine.
what anti says is true. salepeople are manipulators, but more than just salespeople manipulate. I manipulate, for instance.
I had a great night last night. I played the tournament, which was a ton of fun, and then got ripped with two friends, and one abstainer. I was already pretty drunk, as it was necessary for the tourmanent nerves, so it hit me pretty hard. I curled into a little ball a couple of times. When I feel like people are trying to take my laughter away from me, I curl up into a ball and protect my laughter. It may hurt, but it's mine and no one can take it away from me. But it got prettty messy at one point, and the two girls that I was with were a little nervous about me. I was listening to my headphones really loud, hiding behind a comfy armchair, singing to myself that everything was ok, and that I wouldn't let them take my laughter away. And that was good. But they were not privy to the joke, and thought that I might be in need of hospitalization. But it turned out ok. I told them that they were wonderful people. And then I went down to a party in IV. it was pretty happening, but not outrageously so. I ended up sitting with a 15 yo kid, my friend E, and some other guy. The other guy had a vaporizer. My first experience with that. Truthfully, I was already blazed, so I didn't notice if it worked or not. But then we went walking, and talked to some homeless people, and the homeless people were hilarious. And then the homeless people started hitting on girls, and I was heckling the girls that didn't listen to Screamin' Steven, the one with shin gaurds. And then the girls I was heckling left, and the guys that apparently were hitting on them came over and got all in our face. And I descalated the situation, to the joy of all. He was like, No, really, no, I just wanted to ask, how many girls did you get tonight? Do you ever get laid? And he was pretty big. And I said, what do you mean? And he went on, and I said, Are you saying that you're better than us because you get laid more? And he was still all up in our grill, and I asked
me: So does that make feel good, to get lots of girls?
him: Yeah I feel great, do you get lots of girls?
me: sometimes, but usually not. often I fail.
him: yeah well I don't fail. I never fail.
me: that must make you feel good.
him: I feel great. I feel great about everything. Do you feel great?
me: sometimes. What kind of things make you feel great?
him: everything I do. everything.
me: Cool, like what what are some of the things that you enjoy most?
him: I talk well, I have lots of friends
me: Nice! Yeah, we were just hanging out with friends too. Have you met Steven?
him: No, I'm Brenden
steven: hey
me: Hey Brenden, I'm alex, it's nice to meet you.
him: yeah cool.
and then introductions were made all around. then I told them the funny things the homeless people were aying earlier. Then he went back to his friend, that had been waiting there the whole time. and the friend is obviously very unimpressed, and reminds the friend (surely) that 'asshole, you were supposed to kick their ass. they scared our girls away.' but it was cool, they just left together. And then we went to the beach, and watched the ocean. and it was beautiful. and we went home, and I got my bike and went home. and then today I spent a hundred dollars learning not to play texas hold 'em online. But all in all, I feel like it jives with your no fear lesson. All of these events were facilitated by not having fear. Have you seen Donnie Darko, asshole? Jebus.
I'm the worst student ever. That is not about fear. Or perhaps it is, but mostly about laziness. About aversion to work. You can call that fear, but I think there are different mechanisms going on there. My typing is getting much better thses days. I can almost talk and type at about the same rate. You know what's funny; I would think that with all my piano practice, I would be a better typer than I am. but, alas. alas, and alack.
Alas, alack. Now I have not done my paper, again.
I hate this part of myself. I do fear failing at this. Yes I do.
Speaking of the dude, double feature next friday; Tron and Big Lebowksi. Jeff Bridges coming to screen them, and answer questions. Santa Barbara, huh? Did I tell you about My dinner with andre? the guys from that were at the screening too. Santa Barbara.
I don't want you to mention the 100 smackers to the dogz, ok? it's not a big deal, I just don't want it mocked.
20040116
Anti told me to take a chance today. Or this weekend. I'm not sure. Doesn't matter. He told me to do my homework of taking a chance, even if it's as small as buying a lotto ticket. just do it, he says - and I don't think he meant that in a lame ass nike reference, not even a tiny bit.
i understand saying 'how can i murder someone, what if i get caught?' but mostly people are just sweating the small stuff, and missing out on wonderful things because they're affraid.
Yah dude, we're all afraid.. but I dig the chances. Throwing yourself out there. Doing the dance. Monkey bullfrog crocodile dance out in the middle of the floor when all the boys are crowded over on one side and the girls on the other and both groups pointing and laughing hysterically at you cause inside, oh they are red with embarassment for themselves, red I tell yah.
Fine. Laugh all you want motherfuckers. I think you're all boring fucks. That's what I say.
Me? I ain't gonna sweat the small stuff. Nuh-uh. No way. When the coolant light came on in the company car I was driving last night did I worry about it? Heck no, it was -15 degrees out so the last thing I was worried about was the car overheating. Fuck it.
You know.. Mr. Lebowski said to the Dude, well.. screamed really, "The Bum's Lost!".. but I don't know if that's so true, really. That was back in 94 or something, a little after the gulf war - the first one - and you know, in the last few years... me growing up - being all 25 and hot shit and getting a job and being an 'adult'.. yah.. I've been looking around and I'm seeing a lotta bums lately.
Take anti for example.
I'm not so sure the bums lost.
I'm not so sure I wanted them to lose.
I'm not so sure they aren't going to rise up and smack the rest down.
I'm not so sure I mind.
All I know is I'd answer my phone if anti called and I'd probably try and save his ass..
as long as it didn't cost me too much.
and he gave me some weed.
and smoked it with me.
and told me stories about funky california girls in the back of white vans.
and asked how my day went.
I noticed that my trusty google toolbar has just blocked it's 500th pop-up. Might seem like a small number to some, but try not surfing for porn every once in awhile and you'll notice that a lot of sites on the web in fact don't have pop-ups. It's really quite nice... although all a moot point since the google toolbar saves us all.
I'm just mad that there isn't one for Apple's Safari browser yet.
And I'm mad that Mac OS X (jag) has no easy keyboard shortcut to minimize everything and no easy way to cycle through application windows even if they are minimized and even worse? EVEN WORSE? iPhoto, which they seem pretty damn proud of along with their iPods and their iMovie and their iTunes.. yeah, well it sucks.. So much so that it makes me iRate. That's irate, for you morons. Angry. If you edit a photo.. crop it down and adjust the brightness and contrast or maybe even enhanced the image a bit.. you can't export the results. You can try, but it will only export the original photo in all it's original crap-ass glory. And if there is, in fact, a way to do it they certainly didn't make it intuitive like you'd think they might want to.
Intuitive my ass.
The problem with Apple is that everyone out there nowadays learned to type on Microsoft Word so there are standards that are set. No matter how easy your operating system is to work with, if someone is used to something else (even something that sucks) they're going to be a little pissy with things at first. And since it's 2004, no one knows what Bank Street Writer is anymore and so we're stuck with Windows. I don't love it.. but I don't hate it either.
Having used Mac OS X for about a year at home now, I still get frustrated with some of it's limitations.
And that iTunes thing? You can dumby down something like the concept of a library so much that at some point it will become practically useless to everyone but the most basic simpleton.
That's the danger of oversimplification. Usability ultimately suffers.
This is the problem we are seeing in a lot of software and it frustrates me every day. Certain complex processes can not be simplified past a given point and still expect to be useful. It's like giving a nuclear power plant a control console with two buttons: ON and OFF. Seems like a great idea? No, not really.
When making any design decision one should ask themselves:
"Am I removing control for the sake of form?"
If the answer is yes, stop. Step back. Increased ease-of-use should not mean decreased control. Usability is a broad term and doesn't just refer to intuitiveness but usefulness.
Which is to say - not form over function.. nor function over form.
It's all about harmonic balance.
and harmonic balance is what i get when dumbass pop-ups are blocked by the google toolbar.. so why can't I have one in Safari?
Tony ponied up yet more solid advice on dating today. He wraps it up by telling us that when you take a girl out for gods sake dont be yourself. be someone taller.
And you know he probably has a point there. What is it with women and tall men? What is the evolutionary advantage in height they're programmed to respect?
Is it because tall men can get at the fruit in the trees?
I'm not sure but I know I'm not tall so it's all moot anyway.
And I'm not going to wear lifts in my shoes, either, so don't even go there.
The funny thing is that the shorter a girl gets, the more insistent she becomes about having a tall man. Some 5'10" gal is so used to towering over dudes in junior high (cause she spurted way before them anyway) that she is pretty secure with dating anyone she wants - even Shorty Mcshortster. Heck, she'd probably be happy with a midget if he made enough money.
Short girl, on the other hand, she has lived her whole life in the shadows of others. Daddy towered over her when she was young and her first boyfriend in high school at 5'8" even seemed big. Even the salesman down at Kia towered over her when she signed for her Sephia, so damn - she wants a hunk a hunk a towering love. 5'4" girl like that, she needs a six footer, easy. 5'2" Chick like that, damn, they want a giant.
fuck the giants.
Andre was tall and look where it got him. Good'n'dead.
Thing is, when was the last time you even saw an old tall guy? Sure, people shrink.. but if you're seven feet tall you're not going to shrink down to five.. and I just don't see any tall old dudes at all. Cause they're all good'n'dead.
We have ladders to pick fruit from trees now, anyway.
20040115
I added another product to the line-up today for all my friends looking to have kids real soon. Check it out!
I keep tellin you guys I'm gonna up and get some stuff done here. Just to say I did it. Write something. Take some pictures. And I really wanna, too. I do. It's just that my car died and it's negative fifty fucking degrees out and I don't have the m.o.tivation to even shit my pants, let alone get up and go to the bathroom.
If I can stand it I will go to the store today and buy some batteries. If I can stand it I will put them in the camera that is not mine and drive around in the borrowed company car that is not mine and take pictures of stuff that is not mine.
Then maybe.. just maybe.. I'd feel less sloth like.
Really, it's the weather. And not so much the weather but the darkness and it always makes me want to drink my sorrows away. Or drink to find my sorrows even. Roll around in my sorrows like a pig in shit and really enjoy it.
That's the thing with pigs. Somewhere along the line they convinced everyone that shit was just their thing, and that's cool, and no one ever really gives pigs a hard time for rooting around in shit.
Not like they give me a hard time for rolling around in my sorrow anyway. Eh, whatever.
I imagine ya'll noticed but just in case: I made the font on this site a hair larger so my great grandmother could read it from her grave and I made the scroll bar green. Cool, huh? Green.
Speaking of.. Is St Patty's Day really the next big excuse to drink like a fish? Two months away? Are you kidding me?
I need a drink.
I found yet another player in the online music download arena today - albeit a tiny one - BLEEP, a download service from Warp Records. They carry artists including the Aphex Twins and have entire album downloads in the $4 to $10 range, which is fairly decent.. but their per-song download is $1.35. The best part is that there is no DRM.
20040114
A few hundred miles West-South-West from here, maybe 500 miles, stuff is happening in New York City. People are getting out of work and jumping on the subways. Some people are trudging through the chill of winter to their cars and some are even milling about bars for some happy hour hangover medicine. Somewhere, a cop is cursing his luck for grabbing traffic duty and a motorist is cursing the cop for stopping him. Further down the street someone on a public transit bus is cursing the car and it's traffic jamming because they have to meet up with their boss to exchange some VIPs - very important papers.. for whatever. The Boss is pretty pissed off cause he's waiting for his subordinate to arrive so he can make it down to the bar for some happy hour hangover medicine of his own where he is going to drink away his woes - like the fact that his son is a dope head - like the fact that his son shared a joint on the street with a few buddies last night and that poor shlep of a cop, pulling night duty in the blistering cold, dragged them all down to the 9th precinct just so he could get his ass out of the cold.
It could have happened that way. It could have happened some other way.. either way, some people always get the good stories. This time, that someone got away..
Cause I'm bored, I've put up some merchandise at CafePress. You can get to it by clicking here or by using the link in the left-hand sidebar.
Way back when, a friend of mine from school started writing down non-sensical one liners on little post-it notepads whenever we were out drinking at a bar. Stupid stuff, like "What's that smell?" It all comes across funny, when you're drunk. Anyhow, her big plans in life were to aquire a button making machine - like buttons/pins you'd wear on your shirt or pin to your bag.
The button making machine hasn't been procurred yet but I thought hey, no reason I can't make a shirt or a hat out of it, right?
Check it out. I've kept the prices about as cheap as possible cause it's just for fun. I'll make all of 50 or 60 cents per item so don't worry that you'll be supporting a deadbeat by buying anything. I'm still working.
A Limited-Duration Examination of the Environmental Temperatures Experienced by the American Housecat (Felis domestica/Felis catus)
or
Mr. A's Day OutHypothesis: a little sun, a little snack, a little nap; repeat until the people come home. Despite all his grousing, Mr. A has it pretty easy
20040112
I cooked with garlic on Saturday afternoon. Parmesan, Tomato, and Garlic pasta salad with Pea Soup (also lots of garlic). Afterwards, my hands smelled of basil and cayenne pepper enough to somewhat cover the crisp garlicy stench embedded in my finger nails but later that night only the garlic smelled through.
I washed my hands.
On Sunday I got up and went to breakfast at the local diner. I had fruit and a bagel with cream cheese and Mountain Dew. I never have soda but coffee didn't sound quite right that Sunday afternoon. Can't say why. Can't say why not. My fingers, unfortunately, still smelled like garlic.
I went home and took a shower. I scrubbed myself up and down and then I got on the phone with a few people. Sundays always end up being my catch-up days on the phone. When I was through with that I still smelled garlic on my hands so I washed them up with dish-washing detergent and headed out to a friends house to catch the rest of the Packers/Eagles playoff game. The Eagles won in overtime with a field goal by Akers but my hands still smelled like garlic.
Monday, as always, I wallowed in bed well past my alarm's incessant bleeping. Something lately has kept me rooted there, more rooted than I'd like, so I stuck it out till the guilt was powerful enough to overcome the laze. 9:50 A.M. Maybe 10. I thought about showering but I just brushed my teeth and combed my hair instead. I washed my hands one more time.
In a meeting this afternoon, 44 hours and four washings hence, my hands still smelled of garlic. Any thought of basil was gone but the garlic continued on.
A tribute to the fine blogs you can find in my left-hand sidebar:
Anti is my hero.
The Ward makes me horny, baby.
Jaime makes me weep.
Arseburger makes me say Cheerio, Mate.
I get all my rumors from In Passing.
If I get the itch to go shopping, Madpony can fix it.
Metrosexual goes perfect with my morning coffee.
Girls Are Pretty is therapy at it's best.
I get all my news from Tony Pierce.
Michael Genrich is funny shit.. when he writes.
Kitty Bukkake is motivational.
and last but not least..
I keep track of the real city that never sleeps through Montreal City Blog.
1. I do not have tivo.
2. I don't know what TrackBack is, not really anyway.
3. Politics enrage me too much to write about them.
4. I do not live near any celebrities and I do not watch E! Tv.
5. I don't post pictures.
6. I am 25 or younger, which equates to being a disenfranchised youth, which equates to having no drive to do anything but what is placed in front of me, and even then not so much. This translates into going to college (i.e. renting an apartment in the same city as a given learning institution, having your name applied to the list of "enrolled" at said institution, and.. well.. the rest doesn't matter much) then getting a job. Luckily, in my case it means a job where real work is only partly required and proper attire is only partly required, so I comb my hair in the morning.. partly. Anyhow, this all equates to not having the energy to stay up till 3a.m. writing about the shrooms I did last night. Sorry guys.
7. My network of friends consists of one guy who surfs hardcore metal band websites, one guy who surfs yahoo personals, and about 20 people who don't know what a mouse is (not the squeaky kind), thus I have no comments on my site, thus I have no depth of discussion, thus I am as vacuous as the NYTimes Op-Ed section.
8. I rarely have anything to say about the news - probably because I don't watch it.
9. I still put two spaces after every period. Do you even know what that means? It means I thought 640kb was "more than enough memory for anyone".. well.. sort of.
10. No one reads my blog!
20040108
If I knew the exact time and exact location a $67.2 million dollar lottery ticket was purchased I still don't think I'd try and cheat someone out of it. No matter if I wanted to give some of the money to the recently laid-off cleveland police or not.
The things people will do in this world constantly amaze me. For money. For greed. For power.
It's the worst when it's for money because it's so false and empty. Money is made up thing. A human apparition. Tiny pieces of paper that carry the whole weight of the world on them.
Al Franken was on NPR with Terry Gross last night talking about his latest USO tour in Iraq and he told a story about how he was transported from Tikrit to Baghdad in a Black Hawk helicopter that was also carrying a few million dollars - U.S. dollars - of Saddam's money. His own little bankroll, I guess. You know, spending change. A little money in his pocket. Even evil world dictators respect the hard and true U.S. dollar as it falls, ungracefully, in the face of the Canadian Looney and the Euro. Al Franken said the Black Hawk diverted to deliver the cash and they had to walk around blindly in the expansive wasteland that is the bombed out Baghdad airport. I guess a few million bucks is more important than a few comedians.
OPEC continues to lie to us. They told us we'd be seeing an increase in production if oil surged over $28 a barrel for 20 full days. I believe it did, and I believe the OPEC nations continue to limit the output, to the chagrin of the northern world as we dive head first into this cold snap that will no doubt be responsible for hundreds of deaths.
Not that increased production would help at all. I just thought it was interesting, because it's all about money.
It's always been about power and survival and more recently that means it's been all about money. As we have replaced real friends and relationships with internet acquaintances so we replace the cold harsh desire for survival with cold hard cash.
CA$H is KING baby.
Why do you suppose that, by the time we had typewriters and keyboards, the dollar sign made it on their - albeit as a secondary symbol - but the cent sign didn't? It's no longer about cents. No one makes cents anymore. It's about dollars. Bigger and better and more and more.
Some people wouldn't look at money as technology, but it really is. Money is probably one of the biggest technological revolution this world has ever seen. Somewhere, at some point, some guy said "Hey, look. I don't have any chickens and I don't have any beaver tails either. I want some of that bread you got there. How about I give you this piece of inorganic material and then when you want something from me you can give it back, hmm?" And that was that: money was born. It's gotten a lot more complicated since then but one thing remains the same: CA$H is KING.
Pertinent little story on Slashdot today talks about Photoshop and maybe even Paint Shop Pro screening for images of U.S. currency. Won't allow a user to open a file if it throws the warning. Trying to cut back on the counterfeiters, I guess... cause CA$H is KING. Makes you wonder whose pushing that technology into private commercial software. Makes you wonder how much money is being passed around to make that happen.
CA$H is KING
The strangest things happen when you least expect it. I guess that is what makes them strange. They always say expect the unexpected but wouldn't that sort of make it expected? It's like a bad double negative or something. An oxymoron of sorts.
I didn't expect to hear from my ex-girlfriend today. I guess after awhile, after a year or so of not seeing her - not since the very day we broke up - I just didn't ever expect to see or hear from her ever again. And then, out of the blue like a surfacing submarine - because you certainly don't ever expect to see a submarine - she left me a little note in my email inbox. "Hey Mike!" it said. "It's been awhile". Yeah. Almost four years.
I'm not sure what possesses people to dredge up the past but I think it's sort of a leftovers syndrome. When you're hungry but too lazy to make anything you start to think about the turkey or the salad or the mashed potatoes you have in the fridge and the whole idea of them starts to sound really good. Thing with leftovers is that they are like anything else in life: some are good, some are bad. Thanksgiving always seems to have great leftovers. Thanksgiving is like the high school of food. You always know you can go back to it and sure, there might be the cranberry sauce that you didn't like in the first place and you probably won't like now, but in general all the good stuff is still there. The stuffing is a little more soggy maybe, the squash might have a little liquid on the top of the tupperware container, but it's nothing a little nuke in the microwave can't handle - like a pitcher of beer among high school pals.
Other leftovers don't manage so well. Old dried out hamburgers or mushy tuna rolls. Limp salad and greasy chinese chicken fingers. Ugh. The problem is people have a way of convincing themselves they might be good. Sitting on the couch in front of the tv anything that is already prepared and sitting in the fridge starts to sound like a great idea. "Go for it!" you think, "It can't be all bad." But sometimes, it is all bad.. or mostly bad. I guess you never know unless you try but sometimes it's like people don't learn their lesson. They know that half a steak they left in the back of the kelvinator is going to be tough and chewy because it was tough and chewy last time they left half a steak in the back of the kelvinator.. but they'll try again, just in case. Just in case somewhere out there someone changed the rules of leftover engagment at some point.
So maybe she was just checking.. seeing what's changed, if anything, in the three years it's been since we last talked. She is married now - happily, she tells me - and keeps two dogs as pseudo-children to hold back the carnal desire for procreation. I guess I can respect that. If I believe in anything I believe in waiting for the appropriate time to bear children. She is on the other side of the country and doing who knows what but she "had a dream" the other night and "wanted to make sure I was okay".
I guess I can't really fault anyone else for being a bit squirrely and weird in this post-holiday season. I'm no rock of stable mentality myself these days.
The strangest things happen sometimes. My car wouldn't start this morning. Not for awhile, anyway. It was probably well below zero last night and the car moved with the groan of the aged, every liquid inside it feeling as if it were sludge. When the engine finally rolled over, fired, and caught, the car shuddered as one solid mass and the steering felt rubbery and distant. The first few miles were like driving with your emergency brake on.
Now there is nothing strange about a car not starting in the cold of winter but there is something a little strange about driving home in the twilight of morning, when the moon is still bright but the sun's unseen rays are enough to shade the sky a deep version of robin's egg blue. There is something strange about seeing the hub-bub of a waking city going about it's morning duties while it is still dark out. A little eerie and unnerving, really.
There is also something strange about living in doubt and uncertainty for extended periods of time, too. It's like feeling upon the brink of a bad drug trip all the time. Unsettled. Unsure. Anxious. I've been living on the edge of this precipice for some time now, which is why I haven't been mentioning much of my love life here and why some of my posts are perhaps what one might call melancholy.
"We all want love and sometimes it seems when two people feel this sort of good connection but there are still doubts, concerns and questions the easiest thing to do is pull away" she says. It's hard to swallow a pill like that when all you've wanted for so long is to meet one person that makes you feel the way she has made you feel and still it's not good enough. Still, life throws you a curve ball. It says "Yes, stand up to bat, we will give you a chance. Get up off the bench and swing for the fences!" There is such energetic cheer in the voice, so much so you miss the subtle undertone. The one that belies a hint of a sinister plot. The one that, if you were paying attention, would tell you that you will not be getting that straight fastball directly across the plate but a curve ball. One of life's many curveballs. She is in doubt, unsure, worried, afraid. Scared.
And by association I am in doubt, unsure, worried, afraid. I am scared that there is nothing I can do, nothing I can say, nothing at all that can happen that will allow me a real chance at knowing her. Nothing, i fear, will bring me closer to her. She is a princess who has been lofted up into her own mental tower, surrounded by thick walls intended to protect but that only suffocate. Or not. Maybe I'm awful. Maybe she needs to stay away from me.
I'm no good with this love crap. I never intended to meet her three days after she had broken up with a serious boyfriend. I didn't intend to be a rebound guy. I didn't expect to meet the most amazing girl I've met in my 25 years of life that night in the bar. The strangest things happen when you least expect it. You can only embrace the strange, feel it and experience it as part of this crazy world we live in, and try to live and learn from it.
Cause afterall, life rolls on.
20040107
Part of me thinks I should be taking lots of pictures every day. I should be buying a nice solid digital camera and I should be snap-snap-snapping shots like there ain't no tomorrow and I should be taking full advantage of the iBook sitting in my bedroom. I should be categorizing and cataloging and collecting all the pictures I'm not taking and I should make them available, for you, on the web, day or night, good or bad. Or maybe just good. I should trim off the fat and gristle and deliver to you some amazing photos that will show you the world in a way you've never looked at it before... in a way I have never looked at it before, even. I should I should I should.
Cameras are an amazing thing.
I should be shooting film every day. I should be compiling reams of tape for my ground-breaking documentary called 'Metrosexual' which follows my best friend, the gayest non-gay you'll find in such a backwards state as Maine, through his many misadventures with women, electronic gadgets, and hair care products. I should be editing this film down, at night, when I have nothing better to do but clip my toenails but I can't even find the clippers.
Someone said 'nail scissors' the other day. They use scissors to clip.. er, cut.. their nails. Isn't that kind of creepy? I envision sliced cuticles and bleeding corners. I don't like.
Then again, I am not a metrosexual.
I should be writing every day. four, five, six times a day and for an hour or more. If I'm too lazy to do any work at work I could at least do some at home and have something to show for my early twenties, right?
Early twenties.
What a sham.
Jaime keeps talking about the book he is writing. If you've been paying attention I'd say he has some heavy hitting topics to share and I'm sure it's going to be interesting. He has a nice easy writing style and I never find myself bored half way through one of his posts.. But if he can write a book, why can't I?
Cause I don't date strippers, I guess.
I'm going to try, though. I've been working secretly on a book for some time now, no one really knows at all actually. I guess the cat is out of the bag, huh? Whoops. I'm working on it in two parts really, the fiction and the non-fiction but it's all going to be one and the same when it comes to an end. Sometimes I find it easy to work on short stories that will make their way into the book, but are small enough to be approachable problems. A short story has an ending. From the beginning of a short story you can look down the hallway and see the end of it. It's where I'm starting with this whole book thing and maybe someday I'll actually finish it, though maybe someday I won't.
It's going to be good, regardless.
So I'm starting this spattering of intellectual/artistic output by signing up for a buzznet account. You can see over there on the left of this blog there is now a 'Buzznet' banner and above it there might be a few pictures. That's my buzznet photoblog syndicated to this site. What that means is you'll be able to come here and see the last few photos I have posted up on my photoblog and you'll even be able to click on them to get a better view of things.
I don't have any photos up there for you yet, just my ratty old wallet.
But it's a start.
20040105
Both Yahoo and Google have released their 'Top Searches of 2003' type lists and I gotta say I am impressed with Eminem for remaining up there on the image and celebrity searches, given his quieter year (or maybe his quieter second-half of the year)... But I digress, let's look at the top male and female image searches from google, shall we?
| Rank | Top Male Searches | Top Female Searches |
| 1. | eminem | britney spears |
| 2. | david beckham | jennifer lopez |
| 3. | orlando bloom | pamela anderson |
| 4. | justin timberlake | christina aguilera |
| 5. | 50 cent | angelina jolie |
| 6. | tupac | shakira |
| 7. | brad pitt | avril lavigne |
| 8. | johnny depp | anna kournikova |
| 9. | marilyn manson | beyonce |
| 10. | vin diesel | cameron diaz |
I think what really stands out on these lists (that we will, for the sake of standardized arguement, assume were basically searches by women and by men, respectively) is where within the lists fall the truly controversial and where fall the generally most vacuous personalities. With the men, we have Eminem right on the top - clearly a controversial character, but after #1 there follows a generally uninspired run of pretty boys - beckham, bloom, and timberlake. You could argue that beckham and timberlake are somewhat inspirational to the tabloids but really it's rumour-mill bullshit and none of it holds a candle in the wind to the likes of Manson or Eminem. Rounding out the lower end of the list is Pitt, Depp, and Diesel which just goes to show you that women generally like their men polite, well to do, and H-A-A-T (that's hot, with an emphasis on hot). I guess it's no real surprise.. Women have been pretending they want a nice guy for eons. I guess they have themselves fooled as well.
Now on to the female searches. Spears and Lopez top the list and could questionably fall within the vacuous category though they both ellicit reams of material from the tabloids. Personally, though, are either one of them true bad-girls? It isn't till #3 that we get a run of down and dirties: Anderson, Jolie, Aguilera, and Jolie. I was recently told that a survey of young american men put jolie on the top of their list of 'celebrities they'd most like to have a dinner date with' which to me is terribly curious because she'd probably chew most of them up and spit them out before the main course. Sure, there is a long line of bubblegummers on the list, Lavigne, Kournikova, Beyonce, and Diaz but it just goes to show you that for the men it's about sex appeal and what comes first? Bad girls, bad influences, sexual perversion.. what comes second? Little girls. The two predominant male fantasies...
What can we learn from these lists? Funny thing, really.. I'd make the arguement that, thought they are all hot, personality plays a very important factor in placing women on the top of the list.. While the list of men seems to be more heavily based on looks.
It's an unscientific stab in the dark.
What do you think?
Are women truly the more materialistic of the species?
But let me rebuke myself with yet another, perhaps more telling, observation. The top dogs, Eminem and Beckham are somewhat 'violent' in nature.. Eminem is self-explainitory and Beckham is a competitive sports athelete - which is to say he competes in highly physical games reminicent of ancient warrior challenges (really, what is sport but the face off of two tribes to discover dominance). They are physically/mentally tough. And really, evolutionarily speaking, what do women want? They want providers. They want tough protectors while they are less able to fend for themselves during times of child-bearing. The top cats show a different trend - Spears, Lopez, and even Anderson are what one would call 'full-bodied' women (compared to their little girl counterparts lavigne, kournikova, and diaz).. What these ladies have, besides good looks, is hips.. and asses.. instinctual indicators that they have the strength and perserverance to bear children. Deep down, on an evolutionary level, what more could a man want?
Call me crazy. Call me dumb. That's my line and I'm sticking to it.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
