Some Words

The depths of “writer’s block” appear to be assailing me again. This is odd, as I don’t really believe in writer’s block, but I am here, posting. I’m also not posting about novellas like I planned. But the most telling thing of all? I’m thinking about the fact that there are almost a hundred entires on this blog tagged ‘Me.’ This one might even end up tagged the same way. That’s frightfully egocentric. In other news, blogs are frightfully ego centric.

Twitter!

I’m late to the party again. This post I’m linking is old. Thankfully most of this party, the twitter part, is not one that I want anything to do with. If twitter really does take off, it might just be a sign that we should let global warming or a meteor strike step back in, so that nature can go back to the drawing board.

Seriously, are people that insecure about their own actions? I know I post some banal stuff on this blog, but at least I take the time to think through the banality. And does someone really need to know if I’m doing my laundry? If they did, wouldn’t it be faster to just call me? I have a cell phone, now.

The perceived utility of this thing is such that even if it did only what it was supposed to, and human nature will make sure it won’t, it would still be destructive. We don’t need to make the cultural signal to noise ratio worse.

Q: “Did you hear what Bush said he would fight the subpoenaing his aides?”

A: “No! I was reading that one of my friends was going to the store to buy cat food, and another was going to see 300, and another had a strange pain in his left side that he didn’t think was serious. He probably pulled a muscle. Oh! And my roommate just twittered that he’s leaving the apartment…”

Dear God. Please, all of my friends, do not use this thing. I will write you a letter, I will read your blog/myspace/live journal page. I promise. I’m only half lying.

Ah yes, it’s also worth mentioning that the EPA is set to end lead standards for air quality. Ah led, maybe you grew up in a house that had lead paint two layers down? You’ve heard somewhere what lead can do and why we don’t use it much anymore? Since signing meaningless online form letters is the new doing nothing/protesting, here is a prefab letter for you. This one is from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Personalized letters, though they take longer, have been shown in studies to have more impact on policy makers though, so you might want to make one that’s truly your own.

And one other note. The GF’s bike was stolen from our garage. This is vaguely farcical, as to do this the person had to open the gate, walk into our back yard, enter from the door at the back of the garage, hit the door opener, and take the bike, leaving the door open, and my bike there. The bike was not visible from the alley, or the street for that matter. We had been asking the landlord for the key to that door, but hadn’t really agitated for it, because who was going to look in there anyhow? Well, the answer is clearly the guy who ganked the purple huffy “Nightvision” from my garage.

The tourism council of Mexico would like to remind everyone that Mexico, unlike Minnesota, is not cold. As I drove in to work today, moving through the warped streets of St. Paul, I saw rise before me an enormous green truck. This truck, which announced its intentions by telling me to visit Mexico, had glass, or more likely plastic, panels on the sides. Inside was a beach scene with three people, two women, one man. The man used oil to massage one of the women, who was lying on the table. The other woman, in a small black bikini, danced for the amusement of the passers by. I wonder what she thought of herself. As I drove off, she was trying to adjust the bikini, so as not to pop out.

It’s fairly warm here, as Minnesota winters go. That being said, I don’t think that Mexico needs to remind me that it gets warmer the closer you are to the equator. Nor does it need a traveling bikini and oil massage bus to do this, unless they want to give me a massage. I doubt that’s in the guy’s contract: Must give massages to random pasty Midwesterners, happy endings not required. Mexico, if we have to bail your currency out again, I better not hear that it was because you blew your money on trucks full of dancing girls.

Update: Pictorial evidence that it was in Minneapolis the other day. Thank you random flicker user.

I got this from The Poor Man.

Warning. Do not listen if you understand fractions, basic math, are pregnant, or are thinking of becoming pregnant. I had to pour myself a drink to finish listening. It makes me want to go stab people. It also makes me so happy that I am not with Verison. If you have Verison please do listen. You should hear this.

I would love for one of these people to let this go to collections. It would be great to see one of these reps dragged into court, where they will be dealing with a judge, who we can assume will understand fractions. Having gone through law school, I think its safe to assume that they got out of elementary school.

Well, thank God I’m not in college any more, I don’t know that my heard could handle all those tazerings, and the threats of tazerings. I have a fragile constitution. I mean, I know they’re for my safety, but after my doctor ordered three martini lunches, I just don’t know how my system would respond. The saddest thing is that this story is the second time I’ve found myself ACTUALLY THINKING that L.A. would be better off with vigilante justice. Here’s an article on it from people closer to the source. I’m not going to link the video from YouTube, as it makes me sick to watch. No one I am related to will ever go to UCLA, or maybe even vacation in L.A., if I can help it.

It was a nasty looking day outside. I went and bought four kinds of bitters from the liquor store. I had intended to buy six or more, but they didn’t have all the brands that I wanted to try. It’s sad when you don’t have all the bitters you want for winter.

Mark went with me, and he bought some lillet. When we both got home we mixed drinks, 20th Century coctail, Sazerac, and Manhattans. It was good, except for the drink I mixed with amaretto. I don’t know why I bought that. It really did seem like a good thing to get. Then I wasted scotch mixing it into this horrible drink called a godfather. Mark poured it down the sink when I wasn’t looking. That man saved my life.

I also went to see Stranger Than Fiction, which was pretty good. It didn’t change my life, but I did enjoy it. I was a little intoxicated while I was watching it, see the previous paragraphs, and there were a couple of moments where I had ideas for things of my own to write, but alcohol swept them away in the great mass of other thoughts, that probably weren’t worth writing in the first place. I was frustrated for a moment when I was walking out of the theater. That was followed by me remembering how many of my ideas I did remember had not been fully written yet.

I did at one point lean in and chat with a friend of mine who’s at the University of MN for creative writing. We agreed that the movie made writers and publishers look hunormously more wealthy than was realistic. I wish I lived in a huge apartment with wood flooring and modern furniture. No, wait, I like my apartment. It’s cozy.

OOPS

Lessig posts about copyright extension in Britain and my rss feed pulls it up. This happens just as I hit “remind me again in 2 hours” for an iCal popup, which was telling me to work out. My personal physical fitness program and Britain’s laws on copyright. Who would have thought that they’d be the same policy?

While the U.S. does not officially recognize me as a dual citizen (my father is Canadian), last I checked Canada does. That’s given me a nice escape hatch to joke about over drinks with friends.

Now, if everyone on the left fled to Canada, that would obviously be a bad thing. It’s better that we use our votes here to have some, admittedly small, influence on the way things are going. Sure you can vote by absentee ballot, but we all know that’s cheating. Also, Canada is not easy to get into. That enormous border that all the weed gets smuggled over? You have to ask politely to get across. We’re American. We’d much rather just punch the guard in the face and run. But for those of you who are dead set on flight to Canada, Boing Boing has you covered.

It’s been a good month to me, in several ways. Billmon made it even better by posting this little bit on Abramoff.

Now, it strikes me that this is where anti-Semetic bull shit really shines. I’m Jewish. A few times in my life, that has actually lead to problems. My locker was defaced in junior high school with swastikas. The effect of this act was lessened by the fact that they had spelled Jew as ‘Gue.’ Seriously, only one letter from the actual word, and it’s in the wrong place. Come on now. To this day I say ‘Gue’ (pronounced “Goo-ay”) to mean, “You just tried, and failed, and now you look like an ass.”

Anyhow, the part of me that views anti-Semitism as a kind of carnival sideshow, really wants this to take off. Here’s the meme I’m looking for. Jack Abramoff was working for the Dems all along. He was just trying to weasle his way into the Republican party to bring them down from the inside. It was ordered by the International Jewish Banking conspiracy. I’m not talking about Dan Bern’s backup band here. I’m talking about the guys who never seem to give me my dividends. That may be due to the fact that they don’t exist, but a boy can dream.

Also, if they were real, they might not take to my halfsy heritage.

Anyhow, I think the single funniest thing that could happen here, (Because isn’t that what we’re all looking for? The laughter?) is for the Dems to start rehabilitating Abramoff’s image, call him a double agent. Why? Just to piss of the Republicans.

Very quickly, I am not the only one who things the new iTunes movies are a low res idea at a horrible price point.

Random aside: Why does the BBC World news theme sound so much better than the theme for All Things Considered? Maybe because it isn’t shitty?

So, the Editors over at The Poor Man Institute discuss amazing madcap adventures in racial profiling.

The Editors lament that even as racial profiling it is stupid because Muslims who don’t want to blow up planes pray too. They have a point, but you see, the stewardess was actually very canny to have the praying Hasid leave the plane. You see, when we Jews pray it creates a tiny, almost imperceptible, amount of liquid. It is the only miracle we are capable of. This liquid is actually baby tears, which are the only things that can soften our coal black hearts. Baby tears, as it turns out, are also a key ingredient in bomb making. So by kicking the praying Jew off the plane the stewardess helps to prevent other passengers from making bombs.

Actually there are two other things that melt this Jew’s cold obsidian heart. The picture of Audry Hepburn on a bike from this Treehugger post, and the kittens of cuteoverload.com.