Do You Feel Lucky?

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

Friday, December 31, 2010

Thought of the Night

To be a bartender must be like being psychic because all night long, you're in this altered mental state where the people all around you become progressively like, subjects moving and acclimating into the kingdom of the blind, right (although not that blind that they can't manage the hypertext of italics, right?), right? And meanwhile you're there. And you have this extra sense. That can see the world beyond what these assholes perceive. The world beyond, from which vantage it's pretty clear...these people are assholes. Right? Right? It's like an extra sense.

Sobriety is extra-sensory. Fuck second sight.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Thought of the Day, Criticism

Criticism is overrated.

Cue Side Two.

Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #18

SCORING RULES (CHECK BEFORE YOU ANSWER! - no credit for partials!)

Today's Guess The Shakespeare Quote As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob:


"First thing we do - let's kill all the lawyers."


Previous questions remaining open (THERE FOR THE TAKING!):
Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #14

Scoring remains open until the first correct answer is posted! Full score for 1st correct answer, half score for all subsequent correct answers until close of scoring.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A New Variant of My Favorite Card Game.

People complain that "War" is futile, because as soon as you've cut the deck - the outcome is predetermined! Locked in. No element of choice or chance. Well.

My little variant solves THAT little problem.

I'm going to assume you know the rules. It's pretty much a classic card game. If you don't know the rules of War - you're basically a pussy.

Anyway, the crux of the upshot of my variant is, when you each pull up the same rank card, there is a "WAR." Now normally in a War, you put down 1, 2, 3 cards - face down, in a vertical line. And then you draw one card up, and the up card fights that war for you. It's all riding on the up card.

But it's still all locked in, right? The up card is just the 4th drawn after we have War. Some say this is unsatisfying. They're missing the point that real war is pretty much exactly this way.

But regardless. To address these bullshit concerns, in my variant, whenever there's a war, you lay out 1, 2, 3, FOUR cards face down. Going across.

And then, each player chooses ONE of their four face-down cards to flip up. To be the up card. To fight the war.

Now that's sight unseen, mind you! These cards are all drawn face down - you don't get to peek. In fact, safety variant (if you're playing with a CHEATER): you can also play so that each player in a war picks the other person's upcard. This keeps cheaters and peekers at bay. You can hardly sneak a peek at your cards as you draw and hope to gain advantage thereby if the other person's picking which one of your cards fights! But for God's sake, I hope it shouldn't have to come to that. People should be able to trust each other in a war. Otherwise the whole saying that all is fair in a war kind of loses its meaning.

But whether you're playing my regular variant or the safety variant, you will note: there's your element of chance for you. There's your element of choice. Suddenly, the outcome becomes totally dependent on the pick you make!

So much for the "big knock" on my FAVORITE CARD GAME!!!!

I invented a Scrabble variant as well. The 'K' tile moves like a Knight.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Freud was a genius.

Freud was a genius. Not a medical genius, a marketing genius.

That guy took a bunch of his armchair rants and musings and applied them to change the world: he repurposed some rather incredibly speculative philosophy as medicine, and he made it stick. Ugh.

Genius.

Inner Revelations #2

I'm a jerk. But I'm no scumbag.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas Eve Day Pt. 2: a Magical Day to Work!

CLEANING OUT MY WHOLE OFFICE!!!

So! As soon as I came around and saw everyone who was there (skeleton crew, as I noted in previous post), pretty much jawing and b.s.'ing, that is to say, catching up on workplace rapport-building, I took that as my license to say: "FUCK IT. Fuck what I came in today to do. I am doing something I should have done a long time ago. I am doing something there's no way I could easily do during a regular weekday. I'm pulling down the stacks. I'm dragging out the stuff-packed banker's boxes. I'm yanking pile after pile of files and reams of fossilized business and I am getting RESOLUTION on it.

New Year's coming up. You want resolution? TODAY, I AM ENGINEERING RESOLUTION.

Finding treasures to pick up on and run. Tossing dross that's been half-in my way and half-out-of-the-way, for far too long. Half of just about everything gets done by itself, I find - or by me, but without necessarily paying heed or mind to the files and papers trailing behind after the now unswollen, de-fevered previously hot, sick issue. I'm like a problem doctor, putting out (metaphorical) metabolic fires and getting disjointed joints popped back in; soothing sore heads and muscles (often a redundant distinction to draw) with the soft, cool, damp clean rag of my vocabulary; massaging roused ires and peaked pique back into place with a rough, vigorous laying on of hands and above and under all: the unwritten prescription of my own REVEALED SCIENCE! But as you can imagine with a character like that charging around, dispensing his own hard, sweet medicine as he sees damn FIT all the time left and right - with high standards and perfect discipline, sure! - but a bit behind, a bit lax on the paperwork aspect...it's excusable. It's to be expected. I mean, come on. Paperwork! That's what nurses are for for damn's sake.

Shut the fuck up, I am envisioning a male nurse. Christ, you people. How many times do I have to mention: committed feminist?

Okay, and now I'm envisioning a female nurse. Just for balance.

Ooo. The male nurse and the female nurse are kind of giving each other the eye. I think I better leave them to their rounds, shall I? Now where was I.

So, yes: before I got derailed on my extended medical metaphor/gender issues symposium, I was - HOLY SHIT!

Wow.

Those two nurses are totally going at it.

It's weird how the drabness of their olive-teal utilitarian uniforms provides heightened-eroticism-via-juxtaposition: duty and flesh. Can we judge them for yielding to this moment? These laborers in the halls of healing, surrounded each day by gifts of life, by science-derived miracle, but also hemmed in every moment by the grim spectre of decline, decay: inevitable death. Let us not judge them, for seizing the life that is theirs in their hands. Look at them. This is the full expression of that life - the primal and joyous driving principle of life. Life: to which they each wear themselves out in service. No sniggering or judgement, people please! This is natural, beautiful; not dirty.

Well, they're both totally all scrubbed and antiseptic, for one thing!

Anyway. I better go. More to do! I've already found like, 3 contracts, I could probably have closed out long ago by now! But shit - not my fault they're not 'priority,' now is it? Short answer: yes. True answer? A qualified 'fuck off.'

But I'll pick them up into proper priority order in the weeks to come, and they will forgive me with gratitute for any supposed lapse, I assure you. The grist for Monday's mill is growing TALL.

Next week?

Aw, man.

I expect to be able to catch so much up. Is anybody else even going to be in next week, in the business sense? We'll see, but whether or no I have to go it alone, it's going to be a high time for me to build insane amounts of pressure and momentum to unleash in the weeks following. In the New Year.

Okay. Break over. Back to pulling banker's boxers, sifting and shuffle-sorting each lovely pack of paper into the TOSS, RECYCLE or SHRED bin.

The shred bin's like...one of those big 30 gallon drums.

It's half full.

If your contract's in there, I'm sorry but I cannot apologize. Be comforted in my assurance that there's a very good reason for it."

Merry Christmas Eve Day

HEADING IN TO WORK
TO SERVE AS THE SKULL
OF THE SKELETON CREW
and away we go

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #17

SCORING RULES (CHECK BEFORE YOU ANSWER! - no credit for partials!)

Today's Guess The Shakespeare Quote As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob:


"Get ready to cry, bitches."


Previous questions remaining open (THERE FOR THE TAKING!):
Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #14

Scoring remains open until the first correct answer is posted! Full score for 1st correct answer, half score for all subsequent correct answers until close of scoring.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

splashsplashsplash

I never mind you skimming me
to find the places to delve deep
my surfaces are there for you
to skip across with sidearm toss
until your smooth flat stone finds cause
to slow its path, some eddy swirls
and fascinates with gravity -
I'll pull you in with something,
girl

That Secret Confidence, That No One Really Needs (Or Needed) To Know About

So I'm at work, I'm in the restroom at work - let's call a spade a spade, here: I was taking a shit. Ok? All the sudden I look down at my pants, pulled (and pooled) down around my ankles, and I tell you: the deep soft blue of my underpants, alongside their dark blue waistband, provided a beautiful color contrast to the deep field green of the denim of my jeans, and their lighter white-green inner lining.

I guess it's not really an inner lining. It's just the reverse side of the fabric. You know what I mean! With denim, how the color on the front is softened on the inside, with these white diagonal striations. If you're wearing jeans, pull your pants down, you'll totally get it.

Anyway, I saw this and I was just knocked out. Without even trying! It was a totally non-conscious choice, this morning. Non-conscious. Perhaps subconscious, perhaps merely unconscious. In fact, it may just be that this was my last clean pair of underwear. But regardless! When I saw how harmonious that was, I felt so beautifully-coordinated - and on a special, secret level. A level that no one else could or would be privy to! At least, not today or tonight.

Later I kind of got sad about that, but for a while I was walking around with a hidden secret confidence.

Now I better go check if I have underwear for tomorrow.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Apple Pie Bed: by Lawrence Arabia



Okay I saw these guys opening for Crowded House a couple times earlier in the year, and one of the shows I picked up their CD. But I forgot I had done that, until I found it just yesterday or so.

Since then, it's been "Apple Pie Bed" on high rotation! A number of other songs on there, very nice. The album is Chant Darling.

What's going on in this video? Is this an attempt to comment on the usual objectification of scantily clad ladies jumping around in videos, via the inclusion of and juxtaposition with equally scantily clad men? Is it a slow-motion valentine to the beauty of the human form in all its forms in motion? Is it a bit of a prank of some kind?

Man, it's distracting me from the song. If it distracts you from the song, try watching it with the window minimized.

Thought of the day: wrong!

No one ever learned anything by winning an argument.

Are You My Online Friend Or My Real Friend? Pt. 2

To me the big thing to emphasize is: no matter what medium you know somebody through, there's a real person there. Whether that person is on the other end of a phone line, or typing away at the other end of an e-mail exchange (even a business e-mail exchange!), or did you see this whole Chatroulette thing? I didn't. I just heard the hot word a few months ago, and I'm trying to throw it in as an example. I think I got the context right, too! Apparently, what it is is, it's some thing where people take advantage of the randomness of new media to meet people by mistake, for reallly small periods of time. And apparently, the customary greeting is to display your genitalia!

If that ritual were adopted across-the-board, in all of our greetings, I bet we'd all be a lot less hung-up about stuff.

So yeah, that's Chatroulette in a nutshell. Pardon the tangent. I'm addicted to making the occasional trendy reference! Chatroulette. Oh wait, it looks like they're out of business.

Even better! Belated trendy reference. I'm leading the curve on geek trend nostalgia.

Point is, I got sidetracked: no matter how you may interact with someone - whether they're coming to you as a series of keyclicks and button-pushes, or as a voice on the line, or live via satellite, or standing right there in front of you - that's a real person there, and a real human head and heart in on that interaction. That person deserves your honesty. Don't jerk that person around.

But DO take care. Take care with the people you meet, no matter how you meet them. Be aware that some of the people you meet are going to turn out to be scumbags. Some people just are. Some of them will present a false front to get past your defenses, to rip you up or rip you off. Others will not share your fundamental idea of what it means to be decent to others - and eventually you will find they act accordingly. You don't need to pretend you know and trust everybody on earth, just to prove you've got some faith in humanity.

And while you do owe a person honesty - even a stranger, you owe them that much! - you don't owe anyone your time or your energy, over and above what you want to invest in that person. No person is owed a piece of you that you don't want to give.

That applies to everyone, no matter how you know them.

Are You My Online Friend Or My Real Friend?

Some people draw this big belabored distinction between "online friends" and those one has actually met in real life. I don't!

But the distinction's there, though. I just didn't draw it.

I mean, is it offensive to apply an accurate adjective to a person? It's a pretty straight process. It requires no really judgmental activity on one's part. Just a smidge of comprehension on what the term means, plus a simple observation: "hey, there's one now!" It's not like you forcibly forced it on there. It just applied.

I mean, would I say: "I divide my friends up, according to the terms that apply to them"? Probably not - that sounds stupid. But neither would I say: "these terms that apply...don't apply." That sounds stupid too, but worse than that - it would BE stupid.

Damn. This hasn't even really addressed the crux of the whole point I was going to try to make on the topic at all.

Looks like a job for Part 2.

Friday, December 17, 2010

They will worship me as A GOD

You know, they always say that in reference to primitive peoples. They say that if you show up with some technological dohickey, like a horse, they're supposedly going to "worship you as A GOD"

Isn't that just a little redundant? What the hell else are they going worship you as?

Nice Tie.

I don't mind a necktie that looks like modern art, as long as it is not modern art. I don't mind a design that hearkens back to or is suggestive of some work or theory that long ago pushed an envelope, broke a boundary, transgressed a taboo or blazed a trail through the dark of ancient days back when art mattered - some bold motif or technique that went on to found a school, inspire a style or create a movement that has since slowed, stilled, calcified and congealed into its own cold, mannered corpse of tradition.

In fact, I kind of like those ties! Those are fine.

Frankly, I can't even picture what sort of neckwear could genuinely provoke or transgress, in this day and age. From a standpoint of advancing art theory? I can't see it happening. The necktie has lost its ability to shock.

I'm thinking of switching to bowties.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Ever Wonder What You'd Do If You Were a Moth? Well I Just Did. The Results May Be Intriguing.

I tell you, if I were a moth, when something startled me, I would not take off in a weaving criss-cross flutter flit, basically flickering through the same damn airspace back and forth - for all intents and purposes, executing a spaz hover pattern - hell no! I wouldn't be all, "oh, here I am! Flying around in your damn face for a while so you can draw a bead on me and then WHAM! clap your hands together smearing me into a splat of split wings and dusty little entrails across your palms! No way.

No.

As soon as I realized I was up in some big mammal's face-space, I would fold my wings in and drop, straight towards the ground, and then - barely four inches above the ground, say - I'd take off in a straight line as fast as my little moth wings could fly! Pick a direction any direction! If I hit your leg, fine, zip around and then straight off again! And not stop 'til I hit something I could hide behind. Sheesh.

Other moths would revere me. I'd be like a moth action movie superstar.

Except that would never work. Moth action movies. Action movies made to target the moth demographic. The movie screen and projection beams would be totally swamped with moths.

Gross.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #16

SCORING RULES (CHECK BEFORE YOU ANSWER! - no credit for partials!)

Today's Guess The Shakespeare Quote As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob:


"It can't be so bad - 'long as we can complain how bad it is!"


Previous questions remaining open (THERE FOR THE TAKING!):
Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #14

Scoring remains open until the first correct answer is posted! Full score for 1st correct answer, half score for all subsequent correct answers until close of scoring.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Business Tips #2: Professionalism in a Tense Negotiation with Morons

Do not make the confused Scooby-Doo noise during a conference call.

Banana Bread Pt.2: Doodeloo Pt.74!!

Banana Bread!!

I eat more banana bread than if it was going out of style! I eat banana bread like gangbusters eat banana bread, and let me tell you back in the days of prohibition those courageous, clandestine dudes in their insular little cells having to trust no one with their lives but each other used to consume ENORMOUS AMOUNTS of banana bread to fuel their righteous cause! I eat banana bread like a house on fire.

Banana bread and me are like two peas in a pod, very shortly to become one larger pea.

I eat banana bread like probably an ape would. Because I can't imagine that ape doesn't love bananas, or wouldn't recognize this supremely efficient improved delivery system for that banana-y goodness!

BANANA BREAD MAKES MY MOUTH WISH IT WAS MY STOMACH ALREADY! And my hands wish they were my mouth. And my eyes wish they were my hands.

Ooooooo, that banana bread.

This Video Is Almost Violently Awesome



Thanks as always to Alice at SkyBluePink

Frankly, I'm not even sure if thanks is the right word.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Doodeloo #73: Rebus Without A Cause

Wow. That Was Random.

So I was re-reading that last post, and I said to myself, "Wow."

"I think that's the most random, inexplicable post I've put up that wasn't an Open Dream Journal."

Reading it now, I honestly have no idea what that post is supposed to signify. Is it funny? Is there anything funny about it? What exactly am I trying to say - is there some sort of notorious rumor about Steven Seagal's personal life that I'm trying to play off of? I don't think there is. Dude's clean as far as I know!

I recall thinking for a moment that it would be hilarious if Seagal - who always plays such noble, unstoppable heroes - to show up in a movie where he instead plays some dude who is ragingly and unrepentantly a total dick. A total reprobate! But a reprobate who nevertheless still wins in the end, in a convincing and violent fashion, like Seagal almost always (rightfully) does.

It wouldn't be a spoof or anything. Just a totally misconceived concept! Isn't that funny? I thought it was funny. Maybe it's not funny.

Maybe I'm funny!

I was just like, picture this whole movie going through the whole process from soup to nuts, somebody comes up with the idea, it's written, and pitched, and greenlighted, and filmed, and released, and then people are just sitting in the theater - "WHAT THE...?"

But maybe it's not funny. Given that there really are way too many films that end up in the theater that do produce that reaction.

So anyway. Leave a comment in the comments saying what post of mine YOU think is the most random and inexplicable!

And if you're stumped, maybe just click the 'Random' button up at the top. A random post will come up! Maybe that post is the one.

Kickass Screenplay Idea #13: Death Vow Of Vengeance!

I don't normally write "for" a specific actor, but I can't help myself here. This would make a great Stephen Seagal movie. Stephen Seagal plays this guy who travels around the world, fathering bastards and abandoning them. And then one day, one of them grows up a little on the angry side, and swears a...

Death Vow Of Vengeance!

And then there's this big pursuit, where the kid is tracking him down across his global trail of bastards, and finally they meet and there's like some big climactic fight scene, and the kid comes in fighting hard, and then Seagal breaks his arm backwards and rips out his throat.

I think to add a little heft to the main character (Seagal), we could give him some sort of defect or flaw. Actors love that - it helps them sink their teeth into a meaty role! So I think what we could do is make him overweight. He could just be his normal self in the early scenes, set in the past, but then when they fast-forward 20 years or so to he present, he would suddenly be Stephen Seagal in a "fat suit."

This movie would RULE.

Can you imagine Ebert's reaction on this thing?

I just want to write the screenplay, publish it on line, see what happens.

See if there's any interest.

Hm. I think I'm just going to go ahead and call the main character "Stephen Seagal" (as a hint to his agent). No sense beating around the bush!

WAIT

no.

I'll spell it "Steven."

Just as a precaution. We don't want any lawsuits.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Quote of Last Night, That Went on Perhaps a Bit Too Long

"If music be the food of love, play on said Shakespeare. Well I say, if food be the music of love, FEED ME!

And...if love be the food of music, then...

'Hey, baby.'"

Friday, December 10, 2010

Don't Tell Me Santa's Doing All He Can

Santa Claus puts his powers to bullshit use if you ask me!

Look. Now, look: I know. The world needs joy. It does. The world needs childlike wonder, on Christmas morning with the soft glow of colored lights blinking, and the tinkling of sleigh bells and the sweet sounds of carolers singing. We need that, we need it in our soul - more than a lot of us are willing to admit, or credit.

But the dude works one day a year. Elves do the rest!

And every other day plus, you have these evil-doers, these terrorists, plotting their plots, and executing their executions - and Santa knows they're naughty!

He knows it.

And he knows where they live!

All it would take, once or two times a month, just to take that faster-than-lightspeed sleigh out for a spin, a couple laps around the world, stop here, stop there dropping bombs down chimneys. Bombs down chimneys! The problem would be taken care of. X off the naughty list, one by one. Take out the masterminds, the moneybags, the ones who are the problem. Who exploit the discontent of others, and channel it into their own campaign for power to drive hate. And the next month, another sweep for anyone new foolish enough to jump into the leadership breach! Reduce the frequency of trips as needed. It would not take long. It would be easy. Much less strenuous than his regular gig.

The United States can't do the job. We don't have that kind of precision equipment, but Santa does. And the use that he puts it to is absurd!!

Look, don't anybody tell me he can't get you, if there's no chimney. He's Santa Claus. The dude has ways. And laying a finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, he'd be up in your living room with a Kalashnikov. He knows exactly where you are, and what you've been doing. He sees you when you're sleeping. A job like this, for him - child's play.

In fact, I'll be honest, I'm a bit nervous going public with this criticism on him, but dammit Santa: YOU KNOW the world needs more from you than this. Look around you! World needs help. You're in the position to do it. We don't all get to live in an elf-secured impregnable military compound, sitting on our fat ass ho-ho-ho'ing and gathering accolades while people who you could easily stop cold hold us all in thrall to fear.

Think about it, Santa. Think about what you could give the world - for New Years, maybe.

How about Peace On Earth, to them of Good Will?

Thursday, December 09, 2010

15 More Shopping Days!

I can't stay too long in department stores. Browsing the aisles for clothing. Wandering the rows. I start to have these disturbing flashes, hyperawareness. False awareness. I will sense hovering presences, a person suddenly looming to my side who isn't there. A figure crouching in an awkward pose, at my elbow, just past peripheral. And I feel, I know that if I turn, I will see - a mockery. Decapitated, headless. Or else - a nightmare face. Skin of an impossibly neutral color but with no face - with an utterly blank, featureless face. Eyeless, mouthless - contours and angles. Disturbing apparitions from out of a drugged nightmare.

I have to get the hell out of there.

I Tell You, That Roger Waters "The Wall" Tour -

- that dude does a good job on that! He's a competent professional. And he knows how to enlist the right help! He has top-notch people putting that thing together, projecting eye-boggling shit all over it, and knocking it down.

A crack band of musicians.

Several grisly, gigantic-scale marionettes.

His voice sounded really good, too! I was never too taken with him, as a vocalist. He impressed me tonight.

What a fucking gentleman, too! Very sincere-seeming, very urbane in a jaded way.

You know, when I was a kid I always thought The Wall was fucking depressing. You know? As an album? I'd listen to it anyway! That was what it was for, kind of.

But tonight, that same suite of music, just as forceful in all the negative things it has to say, but somehow - it filled me with hope. Part of that was some of the things Waters himself had to say. How he was to put it briefly, in a much better space now than back then, head-wise. But it just gives me a jolt of hope, to suddenly realize that no matter what pit of paranoia and despair you slide into, no matter how horrible your world and your self and your life can get, in a moment that crushed you so hard you didn't think you wanted it anymore, wanted life...so much can change. Thirty years down the road, maybe, you find yourself in a place of belief in the world, maybe even peace in yourself, with thousands of people cheering you on and millions of dollars in the bank.

It's kind of a hopeful story, isn't it, really? The Wall. When you think about it.

Anyway, Roger seemed happy.

You go, Mr. Waters. You fucking deserved every bit of it, tonight. I hope every night for the rest of the tour goes just as well!

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #15

SCORING RULES (CHECK BEFORE YOU ANSWER! - no credit for partials!)

Today's Guess The Shakespeare Quote As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob:


"Man, these people are cheap. This wedding-buffet cold cut spread came from the same baked ham they served at dad's wake!"



Previous questions remaining open (THERE FOR THE TAKING!):
Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #14

Scoring remains open until the first correct answer is posted! Full score for 1st correct answer, half score for all subsequent correct answers until close of scoring.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Q. So I've finished my first book. What do I do now?

A. It depends. If you're a writer, stick it in a drawer, and start working on your second book. That one will be even better.

Monday, December 06, 2010

Note On Respecting Personal Comfort:

A person who can't take "maybe sometime" for an answer

will get "never."

The Dangers of Speaking Just That Much Too Precisely

"Okay. No, I understand what the issue is; it's understandable. You're going to have to give me a couple days on this. I'm going to see what I can come up with to void your concern."

Another Big Reversal at Work

I was happy because I bought a healthy thing of raw vegetables - carrots, cucumber slices, celery, olives, sweet, tart "grape tomatoes" - to eat before lunch, at work. Then when I went to open the container, it flew from my hands. All the good stuff landed on the floor. All my tomatoes and olives, and almost all the cucumber! The container landed on the floor, flap-open, bottom-down with the rest of the vegetables still in it. I was left with one lone cuke slice, a bunch of carrots, and celery.

I stood there in my office, looking at it.

I bent down and wiped everything together into a pile. Then I scooped it up with my hands, and carried the double-handful of desecrated crudites to the kitchen area, not knowing the whole way there whether I was planning to wash it all off in the sink, or toss it as garbage through the spring-loaded red plastic flap of the big, domed trash can.

Disgusted, I tossed the whole load. My healthy snack, ruined. Then I went outside to the catering truck (aka, the "roach coach") and got a BLT.

It was the most delicious BLT in the world.

Fuck vegetables anyway.

Open Dream Journal #80: Terrible Dream. Horrible Dream!

This one was terrible, and it kept going on and on. I hated it. It was like the plot of some bad movie.


the Incipiency

I'm just waking up.

I'm groggy as hell.

I had a horrible dream. It was so vivid, and it went on for hours and kept getting derailed, but then circling back to the main plot point where I had been invested by benevolent aliens with the power to safeguard our planet from the Incipiency (don't ask), but the upshot of it all was that because I had been singled out for this, everyone totally questioned my motives and allegiances and hated me. Everyone on the planet hated me! It sucked. I mean everybody. Family. People I thought loved me. Hated me!

There were even like, multilateral global government plots out to kill me. Get me out of the way. I was like, what the hell! Don't kill me! I didn't ask for this. Go figure out how to attack the aliens or something. This was their idea. Don't kill the damn messenger all right? What do you want - would you rather have the Incipiency to deal with?

Because let me tell you: I don't think you would, alright?

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Where do nudists clip their iPods?

That clippy's pretty pinchy!

My Next Video Will Be Nothing Like My Ex Video

You know, the story told in subtitle in this video highlights a real fucking tragedy here. I love this song, and it ought to have a real video, but instead we get this bs stew of sham violence, sexual objectification, and dinosaur puppetry put together by a crass record company as an unspectacularly failed stunt!

Well. I still love the song.

Anyway, if you get sick of being pandered to in the above cynical clip, I got the antidote for you - a straight shot of thick, rich, stiff-whipped integrity! - "Thickfreakness", vintage live tv 'Keys from the C.O'B show back in the day! Conan, pre his adventures-in-Tonight-Show-misadventures debacle? Black Keys, pre-dinosaur puppet? That's integrity times two.


The Black Keys -Thickfreaknes - Live Conan O Brian
Uploaded by theleftieslive. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Thought of the Day: Philosophical

I got a D in Philosophy once. I had to be philosophical about it.

I guess I should have tried that earlier.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Poetry Update. With a Surprise Announcement!

Wow. Take a look at those last 3 poems. "forward", "flexible plans", "the memory of demons"...and that hangover one, a little further down the page ("wine half-hangover beautiful")? Shoot. Anybody who didn't know me better would think I was hitting my stride.

So, those of you who have been keeping up with my poem-a-day-on-average poetry blog, A Pocketful of Poesy, will have noted what a fucking breeze it was for me this year to keep pace. As opposed to last year's Q1 lag, followed by Q2-3 gathering stride, followed by early Q4 panicked realization and furious mad rush to excellence and triumph aka, "The Drive For 365." Well, nail-biting suspense is fun sometimes, I guess! And those mad-rush poems, particularly those from last November's epic and now-legendary "FORTY-POEM NIGHT" (check for yourself if you don't believe me, pal! November 2009 Archive), stand proudly amongst my best efforts in that line. But as much as I may thrive under pressure, I must now say how satisfying it has been this year, to simply set a stately pace and enjoy the fruits that fall to hand as I stroll. We knew that I could kick enormous portions of ass when the whole bag of jacks was on the line, under the Gun of Damocles (to update a mossy old Classics allusion). We knew that I could thrive, juke and jive when my back was up against the wall, cigaretted and blindfold on, stalling for the reprieve. We all knew that! Shit. We either knew it or we were stupid. Who doubts me in desperate circumstances?!

But this year, my performance just goes to prove that I can also be reliable without a crisis to prod me with a good kick in my poetic "balls" so to speak. I'm real pleased to be able to see me come through like this, out of a pinch, on this more laid-back level. Very pleased.

And so I think the time has come for me to say a few words to my fellow poets, out there. Poets of ink and page, or poets of the internet. Poets of the soul! Poets of the heart and mind. So many of you have been bringing me such encouragement - whether by the kind comments you leave, or by the output you put out yourself, which so often seizes by the collar, jerks tears, provokes thought, delights, teases and/or inspires, even as it tickles fancily in the general vicinity of my muse-bone. So to all of you poets out there, to whom I am so grateful for the inspiration you provide even as you challenge me to raise my own level! - I want to say:

Boo yah.

In your FACE.

Because have you SEEN these poems of mine lately??!! You think you can HANG WITH THAT? Do you seriously think you can hang? You think you got rhymes like mine? Your rhymes are not like mine. Some of my rhymes do not even rhyme, and you've STILL not got rhymes like my non-rhymed rhymes. I gots more styles than a model's got smiles. Any other suckas who step to this, they'll be paddling down a river called denial! Without any decent oars. They're like, using their hands. And my rhymes are like the piranhas! Nipping at your tips as you dip your fingers in gingerly to those deceptively smooth yet perilous waters. Point being: Do you seriously think you can hang? Point being: because if you DO think you can hang, what would you be willing to do to PROVE it? Would you be willing to BRING IT?

Point being, this: is a throwdown.

As they used to so say back in the day, "Sucka emcees...!" - and that phrase would be followed by a dismissive or derogatory remark! Now, I'm not going to take it to that insulting level, but I am here to announce that in 2011, get ready. I am bringing a similar ethos to the realm of the purely poetic. I think you'll find your rhymes are not like mine. But you'll have every chance to bring your own and show you're grown. To come strut and stutter and flow, to flip the rythmic of the static word, to deliver to us all the knowledge and sooth to the point of hundred-proof truth, to let us see and know that what you got is no goof. That's the overview. A venue for all poets to come together, and show it how they know they can throw it. Now here's how it's going to unfold:

Wait. You know what? Let me just throw that out there as a warm-up, and leave it at that. Details to follow. Specifics, to follow.

When the call comes, get ready. It's going to be an invitation to all poet comers and up-and-comers, ballers, players, even poet-haters if they can bring the verse that makes you so mad it's like bad to worse when they take your style down a peg or two! Can you take it? If you can't take it, don't bring it...! But if you CAN take it -

Well, brace yourself then, because soon it won't be 2010, and in 2011, I'm about to provide the venue. Internet poetry is an art form, as we know. Now what I want to know is, who out there is ready to take it up and break it down at the level of a head-to-head maestro showcase.

Guess who for starters?

That's right. This guy right here.

Feel free to holler a bit in the comments, if you think you might be interested.

A Fairy Tale Pt.2: "The Tale Of The Lad Who Wasn't Merry, And Who Met A Girl To Prove His Love Upon, And Was Tasked With A Quest, And Fought A Giant, And Died; His Name Was Billtholomew (Pt.2)."

This post is part 2 of a 2-part series. There was also a part 1.

The giant crushed him into a sudden crater with one lazy arc of his downward-crashing full-grown-oak-sized oaken cudgel.

Undaunted, Billtholomew died instantly.


...

Um.

Actually, if you haven't already, you might want to go back and read the first part, for a little backstory on what just happened.

I've been thinking about trying to tie up some loose ends on some of my fiction fridays that I've left hanging! This was a pretty cute story, one that (I think) deserved a conclusion.

This is about the coolest saddest thing I've ever seen.

Thanks to Alice at http://www.skyblue-pink.com/ for drawing my attention to this! Alice has always got something interesting for you.



I wish this really was a video game. I would play it and play it and get better and better, just to give this poor dude a better day.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Sour Cream is the King of Condiments, Yo.

Have I said that before? I think I have. Well whether I did or I didn't, it's just as true today as it was then. And if you want to claim I didn't say so before, well all I can say is don't say the same thing tomorrow because we'll all know you're a liar.

Sour cream, yo. King of Condiments. And to make my meaning plain, I don't mean that like Budweiser is the King of Beers. I mean it like a lion is the king of the beasts, I mean it like Godzilla is King of the Monsters. Albeit, in the case of monsters who are also beasts, I can see where there might be a jurisdiction squabble there.

I expect the lion has the sense to back down from that one. Cats are pragmatic.

Yet Another Reason to Say: "SCREW THE METRIC SYSTEM"

For your consideration:

"The legal process to change the definition of the kilogram is already underway,[23] ..."

- Wikipedia.

This is not a joke. Not a hoax. That comes straight from Wikipedia, from one of the pages contained in Wikipedia today, as of this writing, in a context that leads me to believe that someone typed it in there fully expecting us to accept the truth of it!

Don't these fools realize the implications of such a change? Not only would the kilogram be affected! But the gram as well. And the milligram! - and the centigram! Though indeed, who really cares on that last one? Centigrams are rarely seen in nature, being highly unstable and prone to decaying into milligrams outside of very specific, controlled laboratory conditions.

But the point is that if this change goes through, the whole integrity and credibility of the metric system is shot. These people, so desirous of making this so-called "improvement" (though who has even called it that, I'd like to know!?) to the kilogram are in fact doing nothing but proving that even the most elementary units of measurability must be considered to be subordinate to law. Who can swallow this preposterous notion! Science must bow to law? This is a tyranny intolerable! To claim that the fundamentals by which the very stars themselves are measured and governed in their smooth paces around the cosmic block are subject to being overruled - overturned and redefined according to the whim and whimsy of our puny, human courts! What a preposterous fraud we perpetrate upon the very foundations of the galaxy, if this change goes through!

I call upon all those who uphold REASON and SCIENCE as paramount over "legal process" - I call upon you all! I call upon you now! Rise up! Rise now while we still have the chance! The General Conference on Weights and Measures will be convening in 2011, to discuss this and other weighty matters. Rise up now! Arise, and make some very unambiguous objection to these pedants (literally, "they who stride with the feet of ants") and sophisters (not a word, but easy enough to glean meaning from context) who would put the folly and pageantry of human law above the eternal and sacred definition of the kilogram that was handed down to us from on high, encoded in the provable observations of the stars themselves in their very courses! Or if that wasn't it, then - the true and proven kilogram, as it has been formed and validated down throughout the ages via evolution by means of natural selection! Either way, this is science business! Once we let law have its way here, the precedent will be set. And I assure you: once law gets its fingers in with a precedent, you have no idea how smug that bastard's going to be about applying it everywhere. Science will just have to bow down and take it. We will have lost our chance, and we will have to admit law's supremacy in all matters scientific.

I don't need to belabor the horrors that could result! Why, the very stars themselves could be undone in their sure courses, by the misguided passage of some pork-chocked special-interest bill into law! We'd need to put Gravity into the Constitution as an Amendment, just to safeguard it against being repealed as a law - lest we all float away!

Human law has proven again and again that it cannot be trusted with science. To protect the meaning and integrity of the kilogram is our first stand in the coming battle – but if we fail to hold fast now, there may be no chance for a second stand. To quote Captain Jean Luc Picard, "The line must be drawn HEAH!"

KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF OUR KILOS.

Wait. That sounds like we're running drugs. Unfortunate choice of words, but anyway. It's clear enough from context.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

There Is a Reason

Look, I just want to say. There's a reason I attack opinions and cultural attitudes that actively hinder and harm those who embrace them, while providing no discernable benefit. There's a reason I jump in when I see people making unsupported arguments that don't prove what they say they prove. There's a reason I leap to the defense of logic when I see it abused to no good cause.

It's 'cause I'm a DICK.

Guess the Shakespeare Update!

So! That's been a pretty good run for you folks out there. Keep it up! Awesome work, nary a week gone by unsolved.

Key word: "nary." The most recent Guess The Shakespeare Quote As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob remains as-of-this-writing unanswered! No correct answer has been submitted yet. As the rules state, that means the question remains open for scoring! Until a correct answer has been posted to the comments queue, you can always score. Even if nobody answers it for two weeks and then five people suddenly get it in in the space of an hour - until I post that answer, you get credit (full credit for first correct answer, half for subsequent answers 'til scoring closes).

I actually expected this to happen earlier. I figured, some of these are hard, right? Shakespeare! I haven't deliberately tried to make any of them harder than others. I mean, I'm not really a big Shakespeare buff (that's more Rob's deal), but I think questions like these should be fun, and it can't be that fun if it turns into a big stump-o-rama. Still, I did kind of expect a few to go unguessed, and I put some thought into it and realized that it's actually not a bad thing at all. In fact, it adds a potentially exciting wrinkle.

What I'm going to do each Wednesday is this: the new question will also include a link to any unanswered questions. And that creates the potentially-exciting wrinkle! Because normally, there's only the possibility of a one-point swing in the standings, at most. But once there are a few extra questions hovering open, suddenly the potential exists for anyone determined enough to pull it off to make a stunning run at the charts.

So yeah! Close-eyed viewers will note this does not in any way constitute a rules change, or anything. I switched the rules for scoring in the middle of the last Wednesday Question series, and I think it pissed some people off, so now I try to keep it steady-as-she-goes during a given contest. This is no change to the rules, it's just a looming implication of the rules as they always have been - a thing that never got a chance to come into play before.

Because you guys are too good! That's why.

Guess The Shakespeare Quote, As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob #14

SCORING RULES (CHECK BEFORE YOU ANSWER! - no credit for partials!)

Today's Guess The Shakespeare Quote As Reinterpreted By My Buddy Rob:


"A problem's easy unless it's yours."



Question remains open. Scoring is open until the first correct answer is posted (SCORING RULES - no credit for partials!). Full score for 1st correct answer, half score for all subsequent correct answers until close of scoring!