December 2008
40 posts
Delirium
(expand this post to know what I’m talking about)
I like this in spite of (because of?) its hypertheatricality. The delirium of it helps (and the punkcordion doesn’t hurt). It reminds me of Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys:
Actual commercial I just saw
Kid is sitting in a hospital bed. He has an iPod and a skater-ish beanie on, and there’s a vaguely hip hop beat playing in the background. The kid is boppin’ his head to the beat with exaggerated motions.
A tall black doctor and a short, elderly white nurse walk in. The nurse stands in the background; the doctor walks forward and taps the kid on the shoulder - he hasn’t noticed...
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Victory
I’ve been in a slugging match with a columnist, Ed “Cecil Adams” Zotti. The Straight Dope is his terrific column - its one of those Mythbusters-y deals where the author debunks various urban legends, corrects common knowledge, “fights ignorance,” etc.
It’s usually quite accurate and entertainingly written. A recent column on nostalgia for picturesque...
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Home and Away
Nostalgia comes from the Greek roots “νόστος” or “nostos,” meaning “returning home”, and “άλγο” or “algos” meaning “pain.” The term originally meant homesickness and referred to Swiss mercenaries who would yearn for their mountainous homeland and sing songs to remind them of home - and it literally meant a disease, a sort of...
I come over to watch only because [Jacob] Hlasek and [Marc] Rosset are so beautiful to see; at this point I have no idea who they are. They are practicing groundstrokes down the line, each ball plumb-line straight and within centimeters of the corner, the players moving with the compact nonchalance I’ve since come to recognize in pros when they’re working out: the suggestion is one...
Silos
Silos are cylindrical in order to prevent the walls from bowing in- or outwards and allowing air in and contaminating the anaerobic fermentation process.
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Linux
Just compiled GCC so I can install a new RALink network driver. While doing so, I thought about how fantastic Linux is in every sense of the word. In order to compile GCC, I added a single line to a text file that made it so the computer gains access to certain “repositories” stationed around the world holding networked data. These are publicly held archives and there are hundreds of...
3AM
Third night straight.
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"Dial it down a notch, President-elect Barack... →
Haven’t read story, but it makes me wish I wrote headlines.
Insomnia
Absolutely bizarre. While lying in bed exhausted and entirely awake, I thought I would write a moderately-lengthy tumblr post about being awake. Then Tiff beats me to the punch with a moderaltely-lengthy tumblr post about being awake while lying in bed exhausted. But, I’m going to post anyways.
My mind wanders pretty far while I try to sleep. I’m entirely sure I’m guiding the...
Exhaustion
Two (gross) signs I have spent the day wandering Lower Manhattan:
My fingernails are crammed with dirt.
The soles of my feet are… sweaty.
But wandering was tremendously fun and I had good company.
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“Mr. Hormel’s tenure with Beck proved useful during the next phase of his career,...”
– “Smokey Hormel: This Guitar for Hire, Eccentrics Preferred” New York Times
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“Gypsy Blood” Jimi Hendrix Hear My...
“At least one printing of Cryptonomicon is well over one thousand pages long and...”
– Wikipedia’s “Neal Stephenson” page.
Excuse me?
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Everyone was a baby once
Everyone was a baby once, and that kind of freaks me out. There have been babies named “Gary.” And “Ethel.”
Home
I am home.
Burgers I ate at O’Hare today: 1 Dollars spent on burgers today: 12
Dollars spent on internet today: 8 Number of internet connections at O’Hare that lasted more than 15 minutes: 0
Number of hours I slept last night: 0 Number of singing Japanese businessmen sitting next to me on the plane: 2 Number of hours I slept on the plane: 0
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Air Traffic
I thought my flight was at 11:15am. It is not. It is at 2:50pm.
I have four hours to kill in O’Hare International Airport. Can’t wait.
Here comes a wall of bored tumblr posts.
“Don’t worry, it’s me! The invisible duck!”
– Tom and Jerry
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Late night TV
can be really very comforting sometimes.
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Cinnamon-Pork Stir Fry
Based on the theory that everything tastes better with cinnamon
Recipe was: 1 lb boneless pork loin Several chopped bok choy stalks handful of bok choy leaves 2 medium carrots 1 cup chopped scallions 1 medium onion, diced 1 medium pepper, chopped 1/3 cup or so of Korean Bulgogi Sauce, available at your local Asian grocery store. Lots of cinnamon. 2 tablespoons canola oil 1 teaspoon sesame...
South African Teenagers Smoke HIV Drugs to Get... →
Sometimes, the world just sucks.
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“Early in the Morning” Harry Nilsson...
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The little things
Dan: Do we have hot water now?
Me: Yeah!
Dan: AWESOME!
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“Values” Hamell on Trial Songs for...
Ew
I’d like to add “nosebag” to the list of the ugliest words in the English lexicon. It sounds like an insult.
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Association
ctecs:
“I carry the flowers The flowers that are dead in my hands They will rise up at the very sight of you They will naturally understand”
— “Everything I Cannot See” Charlotte Gainsbourg 5:55 (2006)
Made me think of this (but oddly, I thought of the Townes Van Zandt cover in my head):
Take me down little Susie, take me down. I know you think you’re the queen of the...
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Things happen, not always for a reason →
Really good. I’ve always had this instinctual reaction against the phrase “Everything happens for a reason.” I think Sean is right. People just have a really tough time accepting the concept of randomness. That can have terrible consequences.
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“Crack me! Crack me so hard!”
– T and D
“Hey! You guys! I like enjambment!”
– T
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Trains
I was on the L up to the hospital to get scanned and tested and poked and prodded. I was feeling a little nervous waiting for the train, thinking about what would happen.
But when I got on the train, there was something immediately very comforting about it. In the shut-off car, I watched the world go by and was whisked along down the tracks. The scenery was familiar, but distant. It moved past...
Beards
I can always keep track of how lazy I’ve been in the past few days by the amount of facial hair I have. This morning I looked in the mirror and thought, “Man, I really need a shave.”
Style Wars: The Ideological Battle of the Sapeurs →
(warning: PDF)
Congolese Sapeurs are a bizarre subculture of extremely high fashion in spite of abject poverty and civil war. Thousands of Congolese choose to buy the latest trend in the most expensive label possible rather than buy food or housing.
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Seriously?
I’m not sure what it means to be serious. “Joking” is just this alternative voice which the “serious” you can disown, I guess. It’s an easy way to get out of a lot off stuff, but I wonder if that gap between “serious” and “joking” is really so strict that you can simply absolve yourself of all responsibility while kidding around.
And why...