Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Why I Am In Favor Of College, Big-Time

The absolute and over-inflated importance placed upon a college degree is a great scam perpetrated by and for the benefit of the Educational-Industrial Complex, and perpetuated by career interviewers who want the laziest possible knee-jerk way to sort and screen out job applicants. People go along with it because the coddling of our young adults leaves most high school graduates too immature for anything but another 4 years of (basically) more high school.

Sure, if a student is receptive they can pick up some useful things in college, but nothing like value for what you pay. Certain technical professions aside, the majority of the workforce learns the job on the job - not from college.

MIND YOU: I love academia! So if the vast majority of kids who don't need it are being forced to pay through the nose for something that has very little bearing on its advertised purpose (their eventual career), then I at least am glad that it's going to fund that beautiful pristine dreamworld of knowledge for knowledge's sake. As long as people are fine with that, then the existing system is fine.

However, I'd still like people to be a bit more up front about the nature of the transaction. What you get is a piece of paper that entitles you: "bearer entitled to apply for a non-shit job." What you don't get (for the large majority of graduates) is anything remotely relevant to the performance of said job.

I mean, I majored in fine arts painting. What the heck's THAT got to do with anything?

Monday, September 29, 2008

I Will Sell My Own Opinions Out to DRY If They Dare Fail Me!

When you beat me in an argument, it is because your opinion is the better opinion - because your opinion is better than mine. I'm a big enough guy to admit that! I will give you full props and credit due. I'm not going to try to wiggle out of it with some weasel move, saying "oh, well, my opinion is still better than yours is, you just beat me with tricks - by being a better arguer."

Come on. What a weak cop-out! Talk about bad losermanship. And yet, a lot of people seem to labor under that exact attitude. They'd rather delude themselves that they're somehow still right, even though they can't see or explain how. Whereas in reality, they're just too cowardly to examine their own beliefs critically (this refusal, they call "courage of convictions").

Not me. No sir. When my opinion gets beat, I take my lumps and I own up to it. I call a spade to its face. I will say "sorry to say it, but your opinion is better than mine. It is better on merit." Then, I steal your opinion. It's mine now!

Mind you, I don't discard one of my opinions lightly. It has to get beat. It must lose to a superior opinion. And when that happens, sure, it stings a bit! Some of those inferior opinions are hard to let go - sentimental value and such. But the upside is, after a lifetime of this disloyalty, this crass and fickle attitude, this casual disdain towards my humble little opinion collection - the result is, the opinions I'm left with today are pretty much all right.

Which is nice. But truth be told, there's precious little pleasure to be had there. I'd much rather be proven wrong! That sweet moment of truth. That sweet defeat, that only makes you stronger.

I miss that. It's been awhile.

Open Dream Journal #22: We're Pulling For You, Big Daddy Kane

I had a dream that we were in some regional theater (like maybe a school auditorium, only with a little bar in the back) and Big Daddy Kane was standing up on stage in front of the red curtains, performing a rap about how dehydrated he was and the various medical problems he was having. I was surprised to hear about it, but my girlfriend knew the whole scoop: "oh, yeah. That started up a couple years ago. He's been taking Zyvoprox."

Or some similar weird prescription name such as one's subconscious approximation of one's girlfriend might plausibly come up with in a dream.

And the weirdest thing is, I'm not ever really that big a Big Daddy Kane fan. I mean, I respect him. Especially in light of his medical struggles.

I'm more of a Moe Dee man m'self.

Quote of the Day

"You have a keen eye for the obvious."

Friday, September 26, 2008

My Own Special Brand of Humor

It's a little peculiar, so for the benefit of those who haven't really noticed or don't care, I'll explain a bit about it. I specialize in reverse self-deprecation.

It's a sort of a knocking myself down by puffing up my self-importance to such ridiculous extremes that eventually it becomes clear that I can't possibly mean it - at which point, the depth of my own insecurity is laid bare and people can laugh at me.

Prior to that point, they're too intimidated to laugh. Honestly, I'm fine with either reaction.

When I Was A Young Boy, No Worries On My Shoulders

When I was a kid, first I wanted to be a paleontologist. Well, actually I'm not sure that was my first answer. For a long time I don't think anybody asked. Then suddenly somebody did, an aunt probably. And I realized it was an important question, and I had to come up with something on the fly. A Fireman, probably (in my young mind, it would have been capitalized).

But being asked made me give it some thought, and soon I settled on my true calling: to be a paleontologist. What a great gig! You could spend all day with big white sheets of paper, drawing dinosaurs with crayolas. I wore down a lot of reds to the nub, because my tyrannosaurs were BAD ASS BOSS. I was going to be big in the business.

Later, I decided I wanted to be a freelance artist. At one point, I think I might have been 17, my dad told me that's not actually a job.

That sounded about right to me!

Poll Update (What is More Important #4)

Roughly a month since our last update, time is running out with only 226 days remaining, and we have another six votes logged. Let's see if we can't figure out what they were, shall we?

Wow! A veritable surge for Magnesium! Now at 4 votes (was at 3). Standing proud at 5 votes after its own two-vote surge, The Invention Of The English Longbow closes to within one of pack leader, the static Good Sense of Humor. Big Tits doubled its showing from 2 to 4, while Well-Hung extended itself to 3.

I'm going to have to give fewer options on next year's poll. This is too hard to keep track of.

Time For A Rigorous Course Of Self-Examination

My problem is, I'm always taking a perfectly good fight and trying to turn it into an argument!

Open Dream Journal #36: Two Songwriters On a Lawn

I had a dream where Aimee Mann and Neil Finn were both sitting out at the edge of my front lawn. Out by the curb. Chilling.

They were talking about my songs. They were discussing in low voices which parts of which of my songs had been ripped off from each of them.

Now, let me say in my defense that prior to all this happening, I wouldn't have particularly considered any of my particular songs to have been particularly "ripped off" from any of their particular songs. Not particularly. Perhaps a vague mood or vibe in common. Perhaps an overall strong emphasis on song-first melodicism. But then, listening to these two...! Each speaking so knowledgeably yet so off-handedly, citing all these detailed instances from song to song! I began to doubt myself. The most convincing thing was how each named more than their fair share of the other person's songs*, as having been ripped off. Clearly each songwriter had a deep familiarity and appreciation for the other's catalogue - something I've always suspected, but was glad to see confirmed! Despite the less-than-ideal circumstances.

All this time, I stood awkwardly by (having just brought each of us a tall, dew-beaded glass of fresh-made cloudy-pale iced lemonade) at a respectful distance - but Neil Finn kept throwing me a dire sidelong glint out of the squinting corner of his eye. Which kept backing me off.

So I stood there nursing my own glass of lemonade. Aimee Mann looked at me as one would at a worm and asked "didn't you put anything in this?" Neil took one sip of his, made a barely-perceptible face and put it down on the curb.

I took a long draw of mine and responded, defiantly: "It's delicious as-is."

This won a brief look of grudging respect from each of them.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

I like to hook people up who I can just tell would make great enemies.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Special Guest Shot #7: A Very Touching Search

dogimo: A bit of a different direction today - and welcome to another edition of Special Guest Shot, folks! - but today, we have a more touching story, a human interest story, the very moving story of a man trying to reconnect with family. We welcome Mr. Todd Bicklemet to the program. First of all Todd - am I pronouncing that right, "BICKLE-may"?

Todd Bicklemet: Close - it's "Bick-le-MAY."

dogimo: That was close.

Todd Bicklemet: Yes.

dogimo: So. You're trying to find your parents.

Todd Bicklemet: It's a complicated story, and it's been a complicated journey, but I think my story holds a lesson in it for others.

dogimo: Thank you. Thanks for passing it on to us. It can't be easy to share sometimes, something so painful and personal.

Todd Bicklemet: You're welcome! No, it hasn't been easy.

dogimo: I could tell.

Todd Bicklemet: Thanks. I only learned the truth a couple years ago myself. But all my life I somehow knew. There was something there, something missing...a sense that things had gone a different way than they could have.

dogimo: A worse way?

Todd Bicklemet: Well, don't get me wrong! I love my mom and dad - they're the ones who raised me. I consider them to be my parents 100%.

dogimo: But somewhere deep down...

Todd Bicklemet: Right. I knew something was up. I needed to know. When mom and dad first told me...well, it hit me like a thunderbolt. It was like, this explains everything! What I was feeling all those years!

dogimo: Why don't tell us how it all unfolded for you?

Todd Bicklemet: Well one day, I was about 22, a chance remark from my mom to my dad made me start digging around in the attic. And I found some letters. And I found some papers, and I confronted them with it.

dogimo: What did they say?

Todd Bicklemet: They tried to make something up at first, they tried to cover - but then finally, my dad just looked at my mom and he said "Our son needs to know." And my mom just bit her lip and gave a little sob, and my dad started talking and...finally, after all those years, the truth came out! See...my mom and dad were just both so young at the time.

dogimo: Unmarried.

Todd Bicklemet: You betcha. And they were scared, and they didn't have a lot of money. They just weren't sure if they could provide me with the life they wanted for me. So they decided to do the right thing: put me up for adoption. There was even a couple lined up to adopt me, but at the last minute my mom and dad backed out. They just couldn't go through with it! So they took the plunge, got married. They decided that they were going to keep me, come what may.

dogimo: How did you feel, when you first learned about all this?

Todd Bicklemet: Well, I was shocked. I mean, like I said I love my mom and dad. And they did the best they could by me - they love me. They gave me a happy home. They scraped and scrimped to keep clean clothes on my back and food on the table. But it was always a struggle. There was a lot of Mac N' Cheese!

dogimo: M'mmm!

Todd Bicklemet: Yeah, I love Mac N' Cheese! Mom's recipe is the best. But other things too, like, I had to work my own way through community college.

dogimo: Wow.

Todd Bicklemet: Yeah! And from what I could tell from the papers I found, my adoptive parents were really well off.

dogimo: So you decided to track them down. You decided to find your adoptive parents, and reunite with them.

Todd Bicklemet: I had to! Well - we'd never actually met, so "reunite" isn't quite...but basically, yes. I needed to find these two people who, but for a quirk of fate, could have been the two most pivotal, defining figures in my life. All my life I felt this weird void, as if I'd had gone down a different road, as if fate had had something else out there that I might have been meant to experience. And now I knew what it was!

dogimo: You can't ignore that kind of revelation. So how did it work out? Were you able to track them down?

Todd Bicklemet: Yes I was.

dogimo: What were they like?

Todd Bicklemet: They refused to see me.

dogimo: They refused to see you! Or...did they...?

Todd Bicklemet: Yeah. They did.

dogimo: Well.

- END OF PART I -

NFL Week 4: Why I Picked The Way I Did

NFL Week 4 coming up. Lot of big matchups. A defining week for a lot of teams, early in the season. Week 4 may well end up turning into the moment that a lot of teams will look back to later in the season and say "that's where things started going the way they've gone for the rest of the season!" Certain teams might see some reversals in fortune, where things start going the other way from how they had initially been going. Uncertain teams may find that they will have to pay for their uncertainty. But for yet some other teams, week 4 will turn out to be a complete anomaly - an unscheduled blip of things suddenly, briefly going a particular way, interrupting the otherwise uninterrupted flow of a season that has been otherwise otherwise. All of that is just one of the things that makes NFL’s Week 4 so unpredictable.

But some of us have a method...! And because of that, I have been asked to offer some insights into the reasoning behind my own NFL Week 4 football picks.

Well, it boils down to pretty much everything, including a great many variables and particulars - and even more aspects. But at the very rock bottom of it all lies an irreducible core of intangibles versus fundamentals: some teams just have what it takes to just let it all rise up within themselves as a team and just let it all come pouring out, right there onto the field. Some teams don't have that. Those are the teams you pick.

I'm picking Jacksonville because Houston has no character. I'm picking Kansas City because Denver has no class. I'm picking San Francisco because New Orleans has no oomph. I'm picking Cleveland because of the X factor. I'm picking Carolina because they have the intangibles. I'm picking the Jets because my sweetie will be rooting for them. I'm picking Minnesota because Tennessee is overconfident. I'm picking Green Bay because Tampa Bay is a bunch of dicks. I'm picking San Diego because even though I want Oakland to win, they won't. I'm picking Buffalo because even though they're a bunch of dicks, St. Louis is a bunch of...uh...you know. I'm picking Dallas because my sweetie's sweetie will be rooting for them. I'm picking Philadelphia for no good reason, for no reason that I could justify or lay out for you in words. It just feels right.

Sometimes you just have to go with the gut.

I'm picking Pittsburgh because Baltimore is a bunch of dicks.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Last of the Cell-Phone Holdouts

For a while I considered getting a cell phone just to call AAA on if my car conks out. But they don't seem to offer "outgoing calls only" cell phones. That isn't an option for some reason.

I abhor the idea of people reaching out and contacting me when I am out and about. I'm fine with a home answering machine, but I'm from the old school: when I'm out, I'm not available.

Sometimes people say "but what if people need to get ahold of you in an emergency?"

Those people don't know me very well. I'm useless in an emergency. Anyone in an emergency is really much better off dialing 911 than trying to dial me. I mean, what am I going to do in an emergency? I can't even do CPR! I'm a heck of a good kisser, but not quite at the emergency-services level.

I swear. This mania for being contactable "in an emergency" makes me wonder what people used to do twenty years ago. Today, everything is an emergency, and we're all the victim.

PSHAW.

FW: FW: Fw: fw: OH NO! NOT THE CHAIN!

DEAR WARNING,

THIS IS IMPORTANT! READ THIS LETTER AND DO NOT PASS IT ON! KEEP IT TO YOURSELF - IF YOU PASS IT ON, THE CONSEQUENCES MAY BE AWFUL!

· A WOMAN IN DES MOINES PASSED IT ON - SHE WAS LATE TO WORK THAT DAY!

· A MAN IN ALBANY PASSED IT ON AND SUDDENLY HE REALIZED HIS WHOLE LIFE STANK!!

· A DIFFERENT MAN IN ALBANY PASSED IT ON TO FIVE FRIENDS. THEY ALL THINK HE'S A DORK

· TWO UNRELATED PEOPLE IN CORPUS CHRISTI PASSED IT ON. NOW THEY BOTH LIVE IN PASADENA! COINCIDENCE?


YOU MAY THINK SO, BUT NO JOKE: DON'T KEEP THE CHAIN!! IF YOU DO, YOU WILL FIND PEOPLE LOOKING AT YOU FUNNY - NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD!!

JUST LISTEN TO WHAT ELSE HAPPENED TO PEOPLE!!:

· A MAN WHO NEVER EVEN SAW THE CHAIN. HE DID QUITE WELL FOR HIMSELF IN BUSINESS

· A WOMAN GOT THE CHAIN IN HER INBOX. SHE DIDN'T OPEN IT. GOOD GIRL!

· A DIFFERENT WOMAN READ IT BUT DIDN'T FORWARD IT. LATER THAT WEEK SHE GOT A CUTE HAIRCUT!


BELIEVE IT?? ALL KINDS OF DIFFERENT THINGS CAN HAPPEN IN LIFE!! SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO TAKE A LEAP!!

READ THIS LETTER AND DO NOT PASS IT ON!!

Doodeloo #13

I'm so psyched about this film I made my own movie poster:
Righteous Kill

Friday, September 19, 2008

Deeply Theologically Unsound Thought Of The Day

If God ever experienced self-doubt, would that make Him an atheist?

Out-Of-Context-Comments-On-Other-People's-Sites #8: The Devil's Music

A lot of music gets tagged as being of the Devil, but I suspect the music in hell is so much worse than any of it. I picture piped-in MIDI muzak versions of late nineties "Pop Punk" bands. And entire classical symphonies arranged for full-kazoo orchestra.

The buzzing! Make it stop!

IT WILL NEVER STOP.

Road Safety Corner #11: An Examination of "Smart" Intersection Traffic Control Signals

Once again the so-called "smart" traffic lights on Scotts Valley Drive have JANKED ME. I hate these "smart" lights. Just because some jackass wanders up to the red light from some podunk side-street, I have to get my whole flow busted while I wait for his slow ass to cross?? And then wait some more for the slow ass light to change back? WHAT FOR??

In the old days it was "wait your turn"! If you came up to the intersection on a side street, you'd know what you were in for! A nice little wait. You'd wait while the pre-set traffic light timing pattern cycled around to you for the green. You'd know the main thoroughfare took precedence, and you would not expect your pathetic little side-alley to outrank it just because your stupid ass happened to roll up like a moron! No. You'd wait your turn. And you'd understand why.

Now nobody understands why, and nobody wants to wait their turn. Everybody expects to be taken into special consideration. They want that light to roll out the green carpet for them, never mind who gets janked on the main drag! And then, half the time it seems the damn sensor's on the blink and you NEVER get the light - whereas at least in the old days it would always eventually come around on the timer!

It's a bad tradeoff. It's a false economy.

Before the advent of "smart" traffic signals, the driver had the chance to be smart. To learn the road, and nail the timing patterns that the lights were cycling on. To get a feel for exactly how best to coax and coast, so as to get from start to destination with maximum green and minimum red. All by knowing the patterns! All by fine-tuning how best to work within them. And if you were really good at it, sometimes you could swoosh through 4 towns and pull right up to your baby's door without catching a single red light! Not only was that was a pretty sweet thrill of accomplishment, it was also great for the environment. Less needless braking. Less wasting of momentum, and burning extra fuel just to get back up to speed.

But I guess in today's world of "smart" signals and dumbed-down drivers, where everybody expects to be coddled regardless of how stupid they are, or what dinky little side-street they've decided to amble along on, I guess basically what our municipal authorities are saying is that the environment can go to HELL. Well I'm sorry, but that's just not cool with me.

Bring back the set patterns! Screw these "responsive" traffic lights. These defective sensor-based "smart" systems that all they really do is just gum up the flow for all the intelligent drivers on the road. The drivers who could be working the patterns to maximize their drive-time efficiency!

As you might have guessed, I preferred Pac Man to Ms. Pac Man.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

HISTORIANS MAKE HISTORY

The rest of us are just ingredients.

Causality Cops Police Blotter

A man was arrested today for setting fire to a potential warehouse in the criminal district, where any such act is a crime punishable by being charged with it. Details are sketchy but will soon be released anyway.

Across town, a woman interrupted a decisive moment to ask an unanswerable question. She is being held for further questioning.

An undisclosed location was detained for an indeterminate amount of time this afternoon for unspecified reasons. Police refused to comment.

As a potential moment was coming into being between two people, it folded in on itself and collapsed into a singularity. No one was involved.

Witnesses reported two youths introducing variables into a deterministic causal loop behind school property. Officers dispatched to the scene scolded the youngsters quite sternly. No one was charged.

Several witnesses at the corner of 5th & Random reported a succession of effects preceding their effective causes. Officers reported no evidence of paradox, examined the scene, and then responded to the call.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Open Dream Journal #32: "Quarter Of A Million Dollars."

I had a dream where...I think it started out that I was watching a documentary on the medical problems of monkeys. But soon I was IN the documentary. It was just going on around me, with the monkeys and the narration and everything.

These were weird monkeys - smallish, smaller than chimps; lean, long-limbed with deep black fluffy soft-looking fur and very expressive faces. The monkeys were being interviewed about their various medical problems. Eventually it sort of degenerated into monkey after monkey mostly just complaining about Medicare.

Documentarian: "What would it take from Medicare to solve your problems?"

Monkey: "Quarter of a million dollars."

Every monkey said the same thing, all of them in the same kind of grouchy, dissatisfied manner in a soulful, world-weary voice: "Quarter of a million dollars."

The documentarian voice was all like, "But what can we do to solve the budgetary shortfall?" Then they began interviewing the Monkey President, who said "We've solved the problem by raising the cost of the internet, to a quarter of a million dollars per monkey."

The documentarian didn't challenge this at all!

Monday, September 08, 2008

Your Humble Poet

I'm so in love
with this new girl I know
and she was telling me how
the sun would get big
and red
and explode
and that would be it

and I said damn
what rotten timing.

Apropos of Nil: An Excerpt from Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday

"The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire violence--the proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe."

...I said to him, 'What disguise will hide me from the world? What can I find more respectable than bishops and majors?' He looked at me with his large but indecipherable face. 'You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress which will guarantee you harmless; a dress in which no one would ever look for a bomb?' I nodded. He suddenly lifted his lion's voice. 'Why, then, dress up as an anarchist, you fool!'

Personalized Gift Ideas? Yes Indeedy!

Shopping for me? Not sure what to get me? Want it to be something special, something unique, something that shows you put a lot of thought and effort into it and didn't just grab a box of Consumer Product X on the way to throwing some money at a random cashier in a strip megamall?

Well, here's an idea: perhaps, a hand-knit black sweater with the pale orange and green pixelly stitches faithfully depicting a scene from the original arcade version of Space Invaders?

Size XL please. And try to get the aliens right. I'm not wearing it if it's half-assed.

I Think It's Degrading to Women

I think it's degrading to women how everyone's always saying this or that utterly trivial thing is "degrading to women." I mean come on! Stuff like that can't degrade me! Why then should people act like women are so easily degradable? As if they're all walking around delicate like porcelain, constantly in danger of being degraded by a passing tv signal or a song on the radio! "My heavens, I got some ambient popular culture on me; I've been degraded!"

HECK THAT! Quit trying to enfragile women! When I look around my world I see women who are strong. Resilient. Powerful.

Anyhow. I'm not like, sainting the whole gender or something. Women can be weak, same as men can be. But it's pretty sick how some feminists seem to be on this high holy crusade to make the entire gender seem so easily, trivially degradable.

It ain't so. So says I.

That Dude Was Wearing Hella Cologne.

And he was the vending-machine guy, too! I don't know why that feels wrong, somehow.

I mean, I'm not against cologne necessarily. I have some I sometimes use. If I'm going out. When I remember. And it's a very nice touch!

But when I'm working! I don't know, I just don't want to feel like I'm "on the prowl" or whatever.

I'm not saying that's how he feels. Maybe to him it's just part of getting dressed. To each his own! And To Each His Own Cologne.

That could be a cologne slogan.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Thought of the Day, On Evil

Those who blame Satan for everything bad are simply not paying attention.

I have an AWESOME way of getting my point across!! !

To me, anyway.

Sometimes it can be harder to do that than you'd think.

On the Purpose of the Universe Pt. 2

Regarding the purpose of the universe, as laid out in the previous post: I should note that in no way does God interfere in the outcome of the games themselves! That would sully the whole point of the experience.

God allows free will and sportsmanship to run its course.

On the Purpose of the Universe

The universe was created because God was a big Dallas Cowboys fan (not just a big Dallas Cowboys fan - an infinite Dallas Cowboys fan!), and God in God's infinite wisdom decided that the best way to enjoy the Dallas Cowboys would be to create a universe that would stand as the grand backdrop to their epic struggle.

Of course God could have created the Dallas Cowboys directly to heaven, and shortcut the need for the whole process! In fact, this was tried. But after that first game (a lopsided victory over the Steelers), a big fight broke out in heaven between original Cowboy's QB Archie St. Michael and impetuous Steelers QB Lucifer "Lucy" Satane. Things just weren't right after that.

At that point God decided that maybe there needed to be a whole universe, just to contain all of the power and the drama.

The Origin of the Universe Is The Future!

The universe was created by Science. That's right! In the future.

It was an accident. A cataclysm of such incredible proportions that merely to try to describe it boggles the mind. Sometime late in the year 4022, scientists working to unlock the secret of an infinitely-powerful renewable energy resource will goof badly. Their test-firing of the experimental device will send a quantum rent shuddering infinitely through the very fabric of reality, creating infinite rips in reality itself - rips in-between each of the atoms of the universe - releasing such an unthinkable amount of energy that the force of the blast can't be contained within spacetime. The resulting explosion is so vast, and the speed of the energies released is so great - many, many times the speed of light! - that the energies themselves are catapulted back through time, way back, all the way back, to just before the very beginning of eternity. As they pass that exact point, their energy is still enormous, but their speed is spent somewhat - such that they can again emerge into the timestream.

This furious release of nigh-infinite energy, catapulted billions of years back into the past from thousands of years in the future, is what we today call the Big Bang. And now you know the truth: it was caused by us! And it will be again. And it will be again.

The ol' "closed time loop."

But I've got an idea how we can prevent it. More on that in the next installment.

Science Fiction Gets Scary

I say the whole universe was created by this incredibly powerful alien, who is totally watching us at all times and totally judging us. And then at one point, this alien even took on human form to try convince us that it cares about us!! For real - it's true! People don't seem to see the truth on the surface, but the truth of it has been encoded into books and signs and such - even coded onto the very placards that people hold up at football games! For instance.

It's all true. There are even entire societies highly-placed throughout the earth, dedicated to pleasing and propitiating this alien in various ways. Oh sure, they all act as though they're all about spreading charity and love and kindness and good deeds and lifting people up and stuff. But really, when you look into it and get to the bottom of it...it's all about this alien. Crazy. Enormous portions of energy and money are being put into it. And there's nothing anyone can do about it. This alien...it's like it's got a grip on their souls.

But at least we all got a pretty sweet universe out of it, though. I often seem to lose sight of that.

Let's Question Our Assumptions About Reality Itself

Some say the world is round. I don't doubt it. It makes sense that the world is round, when you look at some of the other planets. They're all round. But some draw a different conclusion from that than what I might draw.

See, I say the other planets are round because they were created from this planet. In that sense, I got the cause and effect exactly backwards - which oddly enough, ends up being exactly the right way to look at it! You see, back in the mists of time, way back into the dawn of the mists of the pre-history of this race of ours which we call human - "back then," as some call it - the world itself was still being formed, and the universe itself was nearly formless. And then it was that certain shamans, certain visionaries or as some might call them in the modern-day, wack-jobs, were then in the process of dreaming it all into existence - or more properly, dreaming the formlessness into form.

Now because everything was still inchoate, still but half-formed, there was such power then in the visions of these dreamers that one of them might grab the shoulder of one of the general public and point at the sky saying, "Look! Look at the light!" - and in those days of reality newly-formed and newly-forming, hallucination still had a power and a reality to it, such that that even the non-seer could share in the vision. Could see. And so the general populace - who had previously kept their eyes groundward, minding their roots and tubers - the populace began looking to the skies, and bearing witness to the developing splendor within the formlessness that the visionaries were pointing out to them. And as the collective mind of all humanity reached out into the sky, the vision became sharper, and reinforced, and real.

This is the sort of New Age shit that I subscribe to.

Anyway, then eventually Science came in, all elbows, brushing aside the mystics and dreamers, and Science said: "shit, that's no immobile globe with holes poked in it! And lights set into it, and some other lights wandering across. It's...some other damn thing. We're working on it." And Science called the mystics wrong, because Science said that the time of the mystics had passed - but in reality it was because the mystics' work had already been done.

What Science didn't realize is that the mystics weren't wrong. The formlessness needed those visions, to determine the shape it would take. As the seers and shamans projected out into the void their cosmic dizzying visions of lights and shapes and colors, the formlessness itself reacted - reaching out to meet those visions, and to shape and support them with an order and simplicity of which the seers themselves knew nothing. The laws of nature formed themselves into the smoothest and simplest gears and levers to support the lights and globes that had been envisioned by those primal cosmic shamans and visionaries.

And by the time it all clicked into place, it had already been going forever.

KICKOFF!!!

Go 'Boys.

Road Safety Corner #10: Try Something Else, That Might Not Fly

"But Officer - didn't you see that? That was a SWEET MOVE!"

Overheard In My Head Pt. 9

"Ice tea isn't hard to make!"

"Everything's hard to make when you're lazy."

But How Do I Really Feel About It?

Welll-l-l-l....it sucks.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

I Just Wrote A Song And It Goes!!:

I've never been in love before
I've never been in love before
I've never been in love before
Like this
(like this)

Oh yes
the love that I have never been in before
is nothing like the love that I have had
but it's everything like the love that I have for you now
because the love that I have for you now,
is the same as the love that I have never been in before
the love that I've never been in before
the love that I've never been in before
the love that I've never been in before
was exactly like this
(like this)

But the this that I am in,
the this that I am in now,
is like no this that I've ever been remotely in before
before this, I called everything "this", but now I know better
only this is this / and that's that
but let me tell you something else, baby:
the love that I've been in before
the love that I've been in before
the love that I've been in before
was not like this
(like this)

and the difference is like night and day, like
work and pay, like sun and burn, like it's finally my turn
and the in that I've been in before just seems like out to me now
especially when I compare it to the in that I'm in right now, because

Ah jeex. This song sucks!! Never mind.

GUITAR SOLO!!!

Friday, September 05, 2008

More And More I Realize

For me, art and music is something that sucks all the joy and life out of the world and makes it worse.

I'm not sure where or what side of that line this blogging crap is going to come down. But I suspect it's going to end up in that same category.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Is There Some Greater Reason That Escapes Me...?

Actually, I let it get away.

There Is Simply No Reason Why Not!

Stupid people suck fucking onions and should all be executed by purely legal means, on a technicality.

Now, I don't mean people whose fault it isn't that they are stupid! I mean people who should know better, or people who do something that SEEMS smart, only to find out later.

But forget I said that - cast that point aside! Because our country is gaily marching lockstop in a headlong traipse towards a critical realization that the time has come to leap the chasm that separates us from man and furious beast, and to engage the furious beast in serious philosophical debate that will only end when one or the other of us is dead. It is this, I believe, that ultimately separates us from the abyss itself.

Look, I don't deal in unpleasant truths, I just find the truths I deal in to be unpleasant. Unlike some people, I can admit that. Those of you who choose to deny the truth are only denying the facts - and folks, when that happens, that's the first step toward eventually admitting a more serious problem which you will never, ever be able to come to grips with unless you can first find it in you to haul yourself up by the ankles, slap yourself in the eye, look yourself in the mirror and figure out what is the deal with that pesky blemish. Because it turns out that it isn't as serious as it first seemed.

It's more serious.

Ah! For Nostalgia Once More!

Remember the good old days, when things were so much better then they are now, and all of these old people would always be coming around trying to tell you how much better it was even earlier on?

Man, I wish those days had never passed us by. Those days were sweet. Those days were ours.

Second Thought of the Day

A man who has a woman always feels he is able to get a better one.

A man who has no woman always feels he will never again be able to get one.

Both are generally mistaken.

Thought of the Day, Horatio

There are more things in my philosophy than are dreamt of in heaven or on earth.

I Wrote the Most Beautiful Song!

In fact, it's a little too beautiful. I'm a little worried that someone else might've written it. I googled up the lyrics, came up blank.

Not sure what else to try.

One particularly damning touch is the fact that the song seems to want to be sung in a lilting, fake English accent. That's kind of odd for songs I've written. I tell myself that it's just the style of the song, that it's very much in the classic heartfelt Ye Englishe Folke Ballade traditione, and so the accent is called for.

Wait, "traditione" seems far more Italian than English. In any case, I've got nothing to apologize for as far as the accent itself goes. I pull it off all beautifully. Plus, those English have been singing rock and roll songs in fake American accents ever since the invasion!

But it's a little suspicious. I can't help feeling a gnawing doubt as to its provenance.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

DRUGS+BAD=INEVITABLE!!

It's hard to argue with math like that. In fact, kids, I suggest you don't even try.

There Are Things I Will Miss

Her ragged thumb.

Her head fit so sweet into the crook of my shoulder!

Her face in the morning, a touch puffy and pillow-creased.

How, even as maniacally clean as everything must be, she simply would not close anything. Boxes left open, caps perched on top of bottle necks, waiting to fall off and spill detergent happily everywhere!

Her love of Italian and Dutch language and culture, the little turns and words she dropped into my life.

Her love of her two cats.

Her two cats.

Her love of nature and of life.

Her quiet eyes.

Her ridiculously loud, raucous laugh.

Her incredible nose.

Her energy.

Her passion.

Her thirst for new things, new experiences, new music, new accomplishments.

Her style; fashion, yes, but also her strong sense of personal style in general.

Her commitment to right, expressed in the support of various causes.

Her heart, which I guess was fairly open and generous. I always thought it was anyway.

Someone told me it would help if I wrote her a letter about what she did wrong, and never sent it. If I wrote it specifically to never send it. And instead I wrote this.


You know what? After all this time I have to admit: I am a poor judge of character.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Your Humble Poet

"too much fucking mayo"

and as the world fell
into a predetermined pit
because God knew too much
to put a stop to it

and as wherever you where
at that moment in time
one last thought of me,
sadly,
flit through your mind

and as I, at that moment
attempted to frame
all the thoughts in the world
into one cracked pane

- but I gave up the poem
out of general malaise
when I looked at my sandwich -
too much damn mayonnaise.

Seeing You Everywhere

I thought I saw you walking, as I drove down the road we used to walk all the time. But as I drove closer I saw that it was not you - it was like a young, hot, springy, nubile version of you, with the same litheness and glossy hair and except much, much more

OH SHIT ! That's a dude!!

Yyechh!!! GET A HAIRCUT, dude!

That's just a problem. I'm sorry. That's a problem. He is totally wearing your tan shorts.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Safe

surrounded by things
I should not have kept
and I feel hemmed in
by happiness

in a cramped tight space
with so much of my own
that I can't quite fit
but I don't quite know
what to keep
what to shred
what to burn
what to toss
'cause it's all I have left
but it's all my loss

in a cramped tight space
with too much of my own
packed into the space left
by a heart that's gone
and in the space left
I keep what I've learned
I have packed it with lessons
too hard to be earned:
don't trust her
don't trust her, or her
or you
but my heart will come back
in a box, postage-due
and as soon as it's back
it will squeeze back in tight
and squeeze out all those lessons
even though they were right