Japan and Monkeys

Tangenting(?) before I can even start the article(?) I just want it on record that I despise the word "guesstimate." It solidifies the personality of the speaker so quickly in my mind; it is like a giant annoying statue that blocks my vision and impedes me from learning anything else about them. Estimate, the original, non-fucked with word, is completely applicable in every circumstance that you might need to use "guesstimate." Instead, you, an adult, consciously choose to sound like a fucking child. Why not guesstimate how many punkins they have out in front of the libary? You rube. Kids, on the other hand, can say it all they want. They are supposed to be stupid.

But lets get to the meat.

I'm not really sure if the Japanese watch a lot of TV. I'm led to believe that yes, yes they do. I feel like they have TV's built into the dashboards of their robot fighting suits. Which is to say, TV's are everywhere there. They also seem to have quite a few TV manufacturers. So yes, for the sake of the argument, lets say that they do. Lets just say they watch like 18 hours a day, in some sort of "advanced entertainment tube."

Now, I have never seen even one minute of Japanese television as it is broadcasted. That would require me to have visited Japan, and while I can say that I pray for such a windfall of good fortune nightly, I freely admit that I have never been. That is not to say that I haven't seen Japanese television. On the contrary! I feel like I have seen a great deal of it, although my recollection is mostly a stereotyped blur. I know they like gameshows. Thats a given. And apparently they are really mean on said gameshows. So we've heard...

What I never hear about though, is what seems to be the other half of Japanese television. Well, not counting Anime. I bet anime is a sturdy half, if not more, of the percentage of "shit on TV" in J-pan. I think thats also a given2. For arguments sake, lets just say it is. So we'll say Anime is 50%, and gameshows are 25% of the remaining 50%, ensuring that this article will satisfy all the necessary criteria for a word problem on a state issued math test for sixth graders. But I'm losing track of my point. The remaining 25%(fig 1.) --non-gameshow, non-anime-- is a never-ending show, featuring a panel of Japanese celebrities, who are constantly being featured in mini-reaction windows, in a manner that parallels the chart layout of (fig 1.), all this while a monkey is tortured by a team of highly trained Japanese monkey torturers.

Fig 1.

I suppose I should be more precise. A chimp. They are filmed while a chimp is tortured.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not trying to come down on them. It is torture from our aggressively PC Western perspective. The monkey seems to be having the time of his monkey life. Always. Apparently, the Japanese have managed to unlock the secret of the monkey. We are years behind them in that respect.

The last I remember hearing about monkeys in America was when that crazy-like 600 pound chimp, some aging circus chimp or something, hung up his slide whistle and finally settled down with a trashy old bitch who fed him beer all the time and made him run errands. Naturally then, he flipped out and mauled her despite his balding, overweight, plumber-like outward appearance. He then proceeded to furiously dominate her comatose body until police finally put him down. A pretty serious meltdown, and a harsh blow to those who have been pushing so hard for chimp ownership legalization3 in the US. These Japanese monkeys, the ones being tortured on television, they never do that.

To prove that I'm not making this all up, here it is. If you really want your mind blown, read the article as if the transgressor, "Travis," were not a monkey at all, but just some dude. And then read it back again as monkey. Weird, right?

But back to these shows. It bears mentioning that I have no idea what the fuck they are saying. And they always end up giving the monkey subtitles too, which I cannot read. I can't help but imagine that the Japanese have managed to crack monkey talk, and his subtitles are the direct translation of his very eloquent but forceful ape dialect.

Hopefully I can figure out how to embed these, but until then, links should suffice in completely proving the argument for whose sake we have been letting a lot of things go unquestioned.

The first, and prime mover of this chimp conclusion.

Further proof.

This last one is a classic, and its at the end, but I probably won't have to convince you to watch, you will definitely want to watch all of this4.

2. See the previous given concerning gameshows

3. The rule as it stands now is no chimps for anyone, unless you were grandfathered in. I know, lame.

4. This clip is actually an interesting hybrid of the two dominant non-anime sectors of Japanese television

Brick Walls

It is interesting how quickly a lifetime of premier education can fade into the shadows when the subscription cycle finally gets the axe. By that I mean I have graduated from college. I shant be returning to a four year institute ever again. Three cheers.

Not only have I graduated, but I initiated and completed the single greatest adventure of my young life. And now, here I sit, fresh from the four corners, head overflowing with experiences, stories, and living images of all manner of people and and places, and my dilemma is not how best to elaborate on this glut of writerly goods, but rather, I am facing a brick wall of whether or not I can do anything with this stuff.

Not because it wasn't a worthwhile trip. Oh no. It was practically a reenactment of the classic college comedy "Road Trip," with maybe five fewer hijinks per day. So without going into extensive detail, right there, goldmine. No, its something else.

You may notice this post has taken on a certain rambling quality. That is precisely what I am talking about. In the past week, I have forgotten nearly everything I have ever learned-- ever. Not shit like the theorems and statutes of geometry. I'd be a liar if I said I ever knew that stuff to begin with. No, far more troubling is my loss of the simple. For example, contractions are completely over my head. Contractions, right? The same ones that children are taught as early as first grade.1 Yes, those. Contractions. For some reason, they have become like landmines in sentences. God help me if the contraction has a negative spin to it like, can't or don't. If you hand me a written instruction that specifically commands me to avoid something, like "Don't use the swimming pool. It is filled with ants," I will undeniably be spotted tenderly pawing at my itchy welts through oven mitts in under an hour.

Edit: This is clearly an incomplete thought. Finish it later. -Dad

1. testified by many foreigners as the most difficult concept in the English language

Michelle Obama

So I'm no fashion guru.

But I will admit I have noticed her predilection for sleeveless clothing.

Is this her calling card? Is she now known as "the woman who doesn't have sleeves?"

Because if I were to do that, not wear sleeves all the time, I wouldn't be seen as a beacon of hope.

I would be seen as this guy.

Facebook

So here it comes. The promised facebook post.

I am torn. 

Just ripped asunder. I had a long conversation with this dude, who also happens to teach me, about how weird the internet is. What with all the virtual identities and this odd middle ground that we reside in between anonymity and what we want to be.

Facebook in theory is a great idea. Privacy shit aside, which is really putting a lot aside, the connection thing seems obviously necessary. It's like a phonebook for the computer. Practically a duh kind of connection. But its filling up. Filling up to the point that I am torn. 

And for those of you who have been around since the beginning, which is most of you who might ever read this, you have been there for every incarnation. The initial deluge of information. Which I refer to as the "I like 10,000 fucking bands" phase. Which bands you ask? Well, I will list them in their eclectically, self-revealing, glory-- just so you know who I am. Dave Matthews Band you say? Of course. Of COURSE, I like Dave Matthews. I play guitar, acoustic, but you already knew that. But I'll tell you, I like Dave Matthews, but not nearly as much as I like my heady jam bands, because sometimes, on the weekends, I smoke pot. I'm down, as they say. And when I smoke pot I listen to 311, specifically "Amber," because that is a really heady, jammy, song to smoke pot to. And then, when I'm in a mood to harsh my mellows, I listen to slipknot, because I'm harder than you think. 

Those days have come and gone. Because suddenly, people's grandparents have facebook.  Not that that is a bad thing. Like I said, its like a phonebook. At some point, everyone thinks its important to have a phonebook. You don't just resist owning a phonebook on ideological principle. You might stubbornly resist listing your own number. But when the day is done, it remains a useful tool, and ultimately, with facebook, you have the added bonus of being able to spy on people. 

Don't call me weird for wanting to do that. Everybody is curious about what the fuck other people are doing with themselves. Even if its the most fleeting moment of that. For instance, as I write this, I am fucking ravenously curious about what Ben Dworkis is up to. What the hell happened to that guy? I don't want to know any more than his favorite 10,000 bands. That should spell out plenty. And then I'm done, I never want to see or hear from Ben Dworkis again.

But right, that puts me where I am now. I am accruing friendships with more and more people who should not be seeing my information. Facebook has a habit of making things public that should remain private. Pictures for instance. I have never uploaded my own picture to facebook. And there are incriminating pictures of me on facebook, but I don't want to take that shit down. Why is it my responsibility to erase treasured memories of my past, just because some other douche is going to judge me for it? Thats on them, not me. But the filters for hiding that information are just not very effective. They don't have a simple tab, or bin, for "these are all the pictures when I am fucked up." It should be right next to "trip to Rome" or whatever the fuck you think your family might want to see. And so here I am, struggling to keep up with all the people who I do not want knowing exactly what I'm up to, while still trying to allow them some sense of me--which is terrible. It's like the CIA or something. These people are not on a need to know basis. For a second of laziness you might say, well, it wouldn't be that bad. They will just get to know me better than they did before. But then you realize, thats fucking retarded. I say things and do things on there that are straight offensive to most, and only if you subscribe to my specific brand of irony are you able to see that I am not being serious, and I do not have the will, nor the desire, to give detailed explanations of my insincerity to my friend's grandparents. Or my relatives. 

And so there you go. It all comes down to facebook being the most obnoxiously fake depiction of a person since a glamour shots glossy. First, your profile is not you. It is who you want to be. You put only so much information as you feel other people should know, hence 311 and DMB. There is never any real honesty. Nobody puts "my favorite place to masturbate is the shower" or "I cheat on girlfriends because I think women are generally dumb," unless you somehow wanted to project "I am an asshole." And then it is put through yet another filter, like some sort of weird Escher painting, because even with this fake identity, the information is still too revealing for the rapidly growing "everyone in the world" contingent of facebook. 

I like it as a tool. I like it as an aggregator of my social life. But as far as connecting me to everyone I know, it needs to be broken into pieces. I cannot have these two worlds mixing so seamlessly. I am not dishonest because I like to keep some parts of my life private. I would rather say whatever I want to on facebook without fear of repercussion. But I can't, and it will only get worse. And, what's even worse, is that this is it. This is where people are putting their eggs. MySpace was early adopters. But you could tell that it was a half-baked product. It was not going anywhere. Facebook was the one that learned to adapt, and look at it now. No start- up is going to suddenly get everyone to switch because its "new features" are legitimately better. To quote Simpsons, facebook will just release facebook "with a new hat" and everyone's waning interest will be rejuvenated. It's just like how Amazon will forever be the primary internet shopping website, and eBay will always be the auction site. Facebook is the social networking website and nothing will change that. It is infuriating. 

This needs to be here.

This was an assignment for my fiction class. It was supposed to be a parody of some author we read. It kinda is that. Its also in many ways totally not that. Its also kind of awesome. To me at least. So I thought I would put it here.

Jeff Goldblum wiped the sweat from his brow and looked into the distance.
“I think there’s four of them,” whispered Haynesworth.
“Five, if you count the dog,” Jeff Goldblum said, placing his chewed gum on his finger then emptying the last drops of his canteen onto his outstretched tongue. “So here’s the plan. Here it is. You hook right. Stay low. Don’t let them know you’re there until I give you the signal.”
Haynesworth nodded in compliance.
“When I stamp my foot three times, not in a row, but on my third stamp, I want you to hit them with everything you got -- and I mean everything. Rocks, shoes, your glasses, your insults, make them pray for a time before they started this whole crazy mess. Act big, like a lion. Like two lions. Act like they are surrounded by lions. And make sure you take care of that dog, too. You, uh, know how I feel about dogs.”
“And what will you do?”
“Improvise.”
With that Jeff Goldblum took two large steps over the savannah brush. Haynesworth looked on in admiration, pulled his pith helmet down to his ears, and with bent knees shuffled along the border of the dense wood.
Large flies crackled above the tips of the tall grass. The midday sun beat down from above; the dry ground was broken and thirsty. Jeff Goldblum walked towards the guerillas with fingers entwined behind his head. Sweat poured down his body. The four men saw him. The four men shot their rifles in the air. The four men were happy with their prize.
“Where is the idol?” the leader said. He was dark. He wore a soccer jersey from the seventies. He had a scar that stretched from his scalp to his chin. He was evil.
“The idol? Gee, the idol. Idol,idol,idol,idol. Nope, I don’t remember any idol,” improvised Jeff Goldblum. The men surrounded him. Jeff Goldblum stomped his foot once.
One of the men struck him from behind with the butt of his gun. Jeff Goldblum fell to his knees. The leader of the guerillas started doing dangerous things with a very long knife.
“Do not play dumb with us, Jeff Goldblum. We know you have taken our idol. We have killed many for less. We kill often. We are not bothered by killing. We have seen Independence Day. We like you, Jeff Goldblum. We like your devil-may-care attitude. We would like to see you in more movies. We would like to spare you from death. We would like you to tell us where the idol is.”
Jeff Goldblum rose to his feet and indignantly stamped his foot. Jeff Goldblum got right up in the face of the scarred leader. “I would like you to shut the fuck up,” he sneered.
Like a whirlwind, one of the men spun and cleanly chopped Jeff Golblum’s hand off at the wrist with a heretofore unmentioned sword. The sword had dangled ornately from the man’s hip, it seemed more like an affectation than a weapon for modern use. The dog pounced upon the grisly mitt. Jeff Goldblum had not expected this. He stamped his foot. He stamped once more for good measure.
Haynesworth burst from the bush, but took off running. “I’m not brave like you!” he shouted.
The guerillas laughed. Jeff Goldblum did not.
“Damn you, Haynesworth. You coward,” he said. His time was up. The guerillas slowly advanced.

Light at the end of the tunnel

One day, when time is not a precious commodity, less valuable than the lavish silks and sumptuous spices that are daily steamed in from the East on massive iron ships, I will be able to write again. 

Upcoming topics on which I must wax poetic:

• Fucking facebook (read:how stupid it is)

• Oh god, its on the tip of my tongue, it was right there a second ago... there was a list. Now all I can think about is fucking facebook and how stupid it is.

• Shit that is worth your precious time, as well as mine.

• Oh right, and what is sure to be a multi-volume entry-- the use of fuck and shit in my vocabulary, specifically their unique ability to undercut the exclamation point, and whether they are a phase that I will one day outgrow, or if they will forever dominate my list of top ten most used words.

• What must certainly be a goldmine of interesting observations: My Top 10 Most Used Words (as approximated)

• Finally, and I think most importantly, why zombies will in no way factor into the apocalypse.

So start you engines. This is gonna be the fucking shit.

To get back into the swing

I have issues with just prattling on about my day on here. Which has seriously delayed more posts. I'd also prefer it didn't devolve into some complaint box, but as long as I've already started with a negative tone, I might as well continue.

I'm typing this with just my right index finger because of severe burns to my left hand.

It is limiting to say the least. But I urge you to remain totally unsympathetic. Better yet, I would prefer judgmental. I am taking a class on human evolution right now, and as always seems to be the case, my frame of mind is guided by what I keep hearing about. Which is monkeys. I can't get away from monkeys. Apes. 

Now, I appreciate that I'm allowed to have a kitchen. There have been times when I have used it to make tasty things. However, in the past week I have set my fire alarm off twice, which gives the security guards in my building1 full license to use the words "...again?" with that eye-rolling, condescending attitude expected of people with limited power.2 I also burned the shit out of my hand. But we'll get back to that. I'm not done with the security guards.

So yes, I admit, I set my fire alarm off. It was my fault. I'll concede that. One incident was sugar getting too hot and turning into molten smoke, and I guess you can only heat molten smoke so long before it becomes your garden variety, room-filling, kind of smoke. The second was with some stuff in the oven, and its anyone's guess what could have happened in that black enigma box. The light has never worked, and the only clue I have of things going awry is a steady jet of black smoky terror seeping out through one of the ranges. Of course, by that point its too late. 

Now incident one was unprecedented. Within 5 minutes a security guard knocked on the door and checked the situation out. I explained that there was no fire, that in fact it was I who had hoodwinked him into thinking there was an emergency, with my devious conversion of molten smoke. After we came to terms, I asked if there was anything I could do to stop the hemorrhage inducing siren from doing irreversible damage to my body. He said, "yeah, you can fan stuff. Use like a pillow or somethin'" I explained, while rubbing the back of my head in embarrassment, that I had been doing just that, as well as rapidly opening and closing a closet door to emulate real fan-action.3 He said, "well, you can open a window, and your door." Now, sometimes I do something stupid (foreshadowing vicious burn incident) that would suggest I have no common sense. Sometimes too, devices are named without obvious indication of their use.4 But give me a little credit here. The fucking smoke detector. While I am bombarded by unending electronic banshee cries, it's fair to assume that I would have exhausted all routes of eliminating smoke from the areas around the device whose sole purpose is to detect, and then perpetuate the pain inducing siren. What I meant of course by "what can I do...", was, what the fuck can you do, guy? Without having to be so blunt about it. Needless to say, there was nothing he could do. So I went on fanning, now with the door open, officially solidifying my position as "douche neighbor of the year." After about 15 minutes, I got tired of fanning, so I sat in my apartment with a shirt over my head, secured in place by headphones, for what eventually became three hours5.  

After 3 hours, as I approached the brink of certifiably insane, I said to myself, "You know... who's ever heard of a fire alarm that goes off for three hours and doesn't just stop?" So I decided I'd mount one last offensive, and take my issue onto the security guards home court. They hang around in a little pit at the bottom floor of my building. I came down in the middle of a shift change, so I just barely caught the old guy in time to be explained to, one more time, that he couldn't help me. Then he pawned me off on some new guys who were not excited about having work to do, what with the 12 hours of uninterrupted sit-on-ass that they already had piling up. Luckily, as much as I had to experience their anger firsthand, Shift B's animosity was more acutely directed towards Shift A, and less so me and my situation. Apparently this was not the first time those Shift A bastards had left them with work to do. They started going through notebooks looking for the number of the maintenance man, who did not answer, which is fair enough, because he was probably asleep. Which is such a coincidence, because thats exactly what I had planned on doing, were it not for the ears-bleeding, relentless, fire siren making my whole floor acoustic hell. So these guys too, after decrying the bastards of Shift A, explained to me that there was simply nothing to be done. 

At which point, I felt it necessary to intervene. "Now, if I could be so bold as to make a suggestion, my good man," I said. "In my short tenure amongst your kind, I did but happen to notice a "System Reset" button on this flashing fire alarm panel you so conveniently placed at the front of your hovel. And while I, with utter respect and admiration for the fine position you hold, would never consider pressing the button myself..." And then he looked at it for a fraction of a second, only long enough to identify which button was the "System Reset", and clearly with no consideration at all of what the button might do if I, a completely uninformed resident, were wrong, pressed the button without hesitation. 

Naturally then, everything was fine, and the fire alarm stopped going off. 

But I tell you this not because I want credit. Not because I want you to think I'm just sooo smart for figuring out the unbreakable cypher that is the "System Reset" button on a panel consisting of four buttons. But because security guards are fucking shitheads, and yet still are totally within bounds of criticizing my dumb ass for setting the fire alarm off again four days later. 

The second incident was far less eventful. Smoke in the oven became smoke in the room. I walked downstairs. The security lady gave me that look. That look like it was inconveniencing her so much that my room four floors up and five hundred feet away was inundated by cooking punishment sirens. She pressed the button on the panel that had been worn through, whose nameplate once probably said something like "enter" or "confirm" or "configure" or fucking "do nothing." I said with furrowed brow, "uhh...I don't think thats going to work." Then she gave me that look again. So I said, "I'll go check." I didn't actually have to enter my apartment to know that the fire alarm was still blaring. As soon as the elevator got ten inches above the third floor you could hear it. So I went back down, and with the silver tongue of that guy in Willy Wonka who tries to convince Charlie what candy to buy, failed miserably at persuading her to press the System Reset button. So I sort of did a double-step, and pressed it myself. And then she went "shoo..." And I sort of shrugged, in the most non-asshole way I could muster, and went back to my serene, if slightly smoky apartment. 

"How I Burned my Hand" will be an addendum. It's not long. That's where the ape is involved. I'm not calling these security guards apes. They just suck.

1. Security Guards, Computer Technicians (read: Nick Burns), mall cops, secretaries, nurses

2. The one where they move their lips to the side, and deliberately look away from you, as if they had something important to read, or do, or perceive over there, even though when you approached them they were reclining in their chair and bobbing their head in silence. It is a look of shame.

3. I do not own a conventional fan.

4. The television, the flux capacitor, the Nintendo Wii

5. Since my immediate next door neighbor has not spoken to me once about noise in the last month, I can only assume he's dead. I am quick to these assumptions.

6. I know some of you are saying, "why didn't you just take the batteries out?" You think I didn't fucking think of that? The ceiling is like 14 ft tall, and if I don't own a conventional fan, what are the chances of me having a 14 ft ladder?

Cha-Ching

So there is a huge benefit to being perceived by relatives as "generally unknown, but appears to show an interest in technology." By this I mean, every single Christmas/birthday/gift-giving occasion, I have received a Best Buy gift card in the value of $50 from each respective relative unit. I don't usually have much use for them. I enjoy video games, which typically fall in the general area of $50, but I don't usually feel the need to buy any particular one. DVD's, same thing, even more so. You buy DVD's for other people, so you can put them on display, and people will be like "Oh fuck, you like Wedding Crashers, too? I thought I was the only one!" With movie channels, and the internet, there are rarely occasions when I decide to settle in to yet another viewing of one of my three hour apocalypse epics unless I need to fall asleep quickly, or I'm drunk. So for the past 5 years or so, I've just been accumulating these Best Buy cards, always with the intent of spending them, but never getting around to doing it.1 Needless to say, the total stack is close to half an inch, which fits snug in the card pocket of my wallet, but my natural proclivities to sitting have made them quite literally a huge pain in the ass. 

So tonight I decided to spend them. Which I did--from the comfort of my own couch no less. I'm glad I never considered spending them online before, because I certainly would never have accumulated as much credit as I have. And what did I buy? 

A fucking computer.

I bet some of you are saying, "why do you need another computer?" I think the obvious answer is, duh. 

So, thank you relatives. A computer over four years is way cooler than a smorgasbord of gift cards to places like Boot Town, Starbucks, or the red-headed step-child of gift card accepters, Blockbuster.2 I needn't mention gift cards to places like McDonalds, or Chik-fil-a, because you have to be retarded3 to buy those. I don't know what occasion4 is appropriate to spread the joy of eating a Big N' Tasty, but it seems more like punishment. 

1. It is important to note that Best Buys are always somewhere off the highway, most likely in the extreme suburbs, and I hate driving out to that shit for the same damn Best Buy experience.

2. There is no worse place to get someone a gift card from than Blockbuster. They have nothing for purchase except shitty movies they couldn't pay people to rent, candy that is much cheaper at a grocery store, and fucking weird posters made out of metal. At best it would be used to pay fines, which is such a demoralizing use of a gift, and I bet they don't even allow it.

3. This blog shows the retarded no mercy.

4. Every scenario that I can think of is in some way insulting. I think you would have to know nothing about the recipient of the card, because even knowing that they are literate gives more credence to a Barnes and Noble gift card over the fast food card. Maybe they really like McDonalds, but really who in good conscience can fuel that habit--despite the tangyness of their mayonnaise, and the dankness of the McChicken.

I look forward to the days of single color unitards...

I am compelled to begin everything I say with:  So,

So, having recently watched both Minority Report and The Island, I've been thinking a lot about the near-future utopia that we must certainly be heading towards. Both movies have that "dark side of science" narrative  that imagine the most incredibly spectacular futures--where everything is see-through and sleek-- and then try to tear it down because of one glaring social injustice. That "be careful what  you wish for" idea. Fuck that. That sits so poorly for so many reasons.

First of all, we should only be so lucky if shit1 turned out like that. If you argue against that you are nuts. Ok, so we've got a little body harvesting going on. But we've also managed personal jet-packs and cars that drive themselves. A trade-off in my opinion. Things generally look futuristic and cool, as if at some point down the line we decided that all shitty stucco Qdoba's and family dentistry places should be bulldozed in favor of new tall, ovular, buildings with glowing laser strips on them.2 And then with Minority Report, are you serious. The guy has to be the fucking head of the entire program to concoct an ingenious plan to fool the system, which otherwise is totally fool proof. I admit that its a scary reality, but things seem generally on the up.

Second, not only is it too good for us, it could simply never happen. And not like the psychic parts of Minority Report. Specifically, the question that these movies always make me ask is, "what the hell do these people do for a living?" I guess this is not a totally valid criticism, since I'm sure a cobbler or like a book scribe would be totally fascinated by the future-ness of computer programmers. But what about all the jobs we seem to lose in these futures. Invariably, anything manufactured is made by robots, typically very aggressive, automated robots that use cut-a-man-in-half lasers to apply the buttons or snaps to the ______ that they are assembling. We still have jobs like police officer, and doctor, and hotel manager3. But presumably things like auto mechanic, baker, and accountant would be replaced by robots, too. Really, you are hard pressed to find things that robots couldn't do better. Thats the trouble with robots.

And then, these movies always show such specific cross-sections of society. They never mention what the rest of the world is doing. It seems so cool in LA, but there is no mention of how things are going in say, Mexico. 

But, what difference does it make if they can't happen? They are just movies. Aren't you in the least curious as to where this is all going? We've got all these speculations, and in the past they have been so right4, so why can't we expect the same from our current media. I read this thing by a science fiction writer that said writing believable near-term science fiction is basically impossible right now, on account of how fucked up everything is. I'll try to find it, its interesting.

I can't bear to write any more because I feel stupid, but expect a continuation in the form of how awesome Back to the Future5 is, soon.

1. By shit, of course, I mean the collective progress of society.

2. "It's the future, where the fuck are my lasers, Pendleton?"

3. Hotels in the future are always terrible, and are very much like hotels of the present as far as progress goes. On the invention of ovular buildings, the only residents that remained in hotels unanimously agreed to smoke in rooms, leave crumpled cans in corners, and redecorate with dying fluorescent bulbs. 

4. science fiction

5. Why must an '80s movie be directed by fucking John Hughes for it to be considered one of those quintessential "80s movies"? Back to the Future is never included, and the whole franchise wipes the floor with those sob stories. 

So I'm Getting a Gun

It's true.

I am.

I should. 

I want to. 

Kinda. 

The biggest hurdle that I find myself facing is a terrible fear that I am going to end up accidently shooting myself. Which would be understandably terrible. However, I do not lose sleep1 over the notion that I may accidentally shoot myself one day, whereas I do lose sleep over this. There was another site I wanted to link to that I saw sometime around New Years, but I can't find it, and the gist is in this one, too. 

Like the article says, the last supervolcano erupted 75,000 years ago, so scientists really have no idea what to look for. But they can speculate, and what they have surmised is 4 things will happen. I can't remember the last one so I won't bother listing them, but one thing they speculated was increased geyser activity, which there has been, and they also predicted an increase in the number of earthquakes in the area. Yesterday there were 8 earthquakes in the Yellowstone region. Now I'm no seismologist, but since I've never experienced even one earthquake, I must assume that 8 is a lot2. Eruption is obviously imminent. Now I don't know, maybe it will be today, maybe it will be tomorrow, but what I do know, is that once it happens there will only be two classes of people: a) those who own guns and b)slaves.

This is definite. Watch any post-apocalyptic movie. The Road Warrior for example, or the same film with opposite premise, Waterworld3. I'd like to point out that every movie I own must contain at least one of the following- a) a bleak landscape in which all metal has been reduced to jagged sunders covered in barbed wire for some reason, b) Robert Redford- so I feel like you can trust me on this one. 

Now I don't know if I'll survive the initial blast. That is a tall order in itself. But I damn sure don't want to live through the apocalypse, only to spend the rest of my days at the painful end of a bullwhip, pushing a grocery cart full of canned goods towards nowhere in particular, while my captors -the toothless, gun-toting, West Virginian's that they are- cackle amongst themselves and lethargically smack salt-water taffy, keeping their eyes peeled for things to forcibly have sex with. 

I know what you're thinking. It could be 10,000 years just as easily as it could be one year before that volcano erupts. You're crazy. 

Am I? Well we'll see who the crazy one is, when I'm comfortably eating Funyuns in my gun-protected apartment, and you are frantically running from pawn shop to pawn shop, only to find that everyone is long since sold out. 

1. Which has become a precious commodity as of late.

2. I'm aware that most of them are underground and I probably have experienced one of these, but that is not important as to why I need a gun. 

3. If you prefer a slightly more intellectual approach, and you nerdishly prefer books to movies, read The Road for the same results.

This is too awesome

Copy and pasting is beyond my comprehension with these blog things.

The Earl Hindman Game

So I was watching the movie Final last night. It is more or less a low-budget rip off of Twelve Monkeys, with no batshit nuts Madline Stowe1, and the guy from the future is now a guy from the past. It's not really worth watching. The whole movie takes place within one room, and the female lead I've seen in other films, but couldn't remember which ones exactly. All that I could determine was that she has never been cast as anything but "cold, heartless, bitch." I've seen her enough to remember at least that. Easily the best part of the movie was the cameo appearance of this man:

Obviously, he didn't have the fence, but there was no denying the dulcet tones and sage advice of Home Improvement's prodigal son, Earl Hindman. In fact, while the movie was wisely being shown during HBO2's 4:30 AM programming block, and thus not being so much watched as listened to as I tried to force myself to sleep; it was through gravely voice alone that I identified the beloved Wilson. Visual verification was difficult sans fence and fishing hat2, but his fat head and googely eyes confirmed it in the end. Needless to say, seeing Wilson after so many years apart was a welcome reunion3. So much so, that in my hazy, between-worlds, thought drift4, I devised what will certainly become the most epic celebrity game since Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's sort of like paddidle, or punchbuggy, or any variation on the game where you see a car driving with one headlight. The rules of the game are as follows.

1. Watch TV constantly

2. When you see Wilson in something that is not Home improvement you shout the codeword

3. The codeword is: Wilson!5 

4. You are crowned champion until the next verified Earl Hindman sighting6

Seeing as Earl Hindman has only been in 38 things, and like 5 of them are variations on Home Improvement, and a couple others are voice parts, this game will be effing difficult. Reigns for Wilson! champions are likely to last British monarch lengths. 

As the first crowned Wilson! champion, and being the bloodthirsty tyrant I am, I challenge all to usurp my throne.

1. For those that remember Twelve Monkeys, Brad Pitt also plays a crazy person, but Stowe's version is both a) more compelling and b) more likely to smear feces across the screen in some weird breaking the third wall sort of moment. 

2. Adventure Hat?

3. It should be pointed out that reunion with any other cast member of Home Improvement would be met with a sniveling angry face, a scrunched up nose, and involuntary knuckle-in-palm grinding. Actually, thats not true. If I saw JTT, or little Mark Taylor (RIP1) I would let out a nice, hearty chuckle. 

1 I assume he's dead

4. This drift was primarily dominated by the synesthesia aroused when thinking about the familiar sound of jumping down a Mario pipe2, and the cold-all-over physical sensation that obviously follows that.

2 Waungh-Waungh-Waungh

5. For extra points, "Hi-dee-ho, neighbor!" Although, this takes a few more seconds, and you risk losing the crown to someone less versed in the game of "Wilson!"

6. Wilson cannot be identified multiple times in the same program. For a sexier version of the game, you can also be de-crowned by a sacrificial naked run, three times3 around the building. This will likely be necessary, as gloating from a Wilson! win is certain to be gratuitous.

3. Suck it beer pong.

When did color happen...

I ran into this a second ago:

Why does it seem like all pictures taken before like 1920 are devoid of happiness? Was the smile some big revolution in photography? People frowning suits the colorlessness so well, I really can't complain. But these little girls look so miserable. When I see this it makes me think they just went end up in the market crash, lost it all in bubblegum futures and those little gold coins Jewish kids get at hanukkah. Or, they just heard the news that one of them would have to be eaten to make it through the coming hard winter1. From the placid, disengaged stare, obviously it's the one on the right.

Also, how can they possibly justify a $1000 price tag for this.

1. According to a person I wouldn't even trust with lizard capture, the persimmon seed, when bisected, and looks like a knife, foretells the approach of a harsh winter. Similarly, a spoon shaped seed indicates a mild winter, while a fork is largely indeterminate. 

The Burger King issues an edict

So I saw this today.

I also went to a career networking seminar.

As is the case with all career networking seminars, there was a preponderance of "don't burn any bridges" talk. Now I guess you can never be certain, but if I can be frank, I don't see any need to maintain connection with the homeopathic shaman kid on my high school hockey team, whose mother cryptically sent me a graduation announcement for a person I've never heard of, at a school I've never been to, four years after he graduated.1 Unless of course I decide to pursue a career in blood drinking and human sacrifice. Or fucking witchcraft. With that in mind, I could probably pair off a few of the less notables.

That being said. To find out that I was no longer someone's friend on facebook2, because somebody wanted a hamburger, a whopper3 no less, would definitively and conclusively end any relationship that might have just been sitting idly by the wayside.

Being a person who burns bridges with pathetic regularity, I'm thinking the best course of action is to just delete all my facebook friends in favor of a years supply of whoppers4. I'm sure most people wouldn't notice, and for those that do, and are legitimately offended, I'll give you a sandwich.

1. I cannot overstate the creepiness of this. Words really cannot describe the feeling associated with opening the package from a woman I haven't spoken with in years, who I barely spoke to before anyway, and finding a framed picture of some random dude in it.

2. I can't believe this is important enough to care about.

3. Easily the weakest hamburger offering at any fast food chain, but it is forgiven, because the original chicken sandwich is the ballinest sandwich available in under 30 seconds.

4. Interesting Personal Fact: I once won a years supply of Big Macs

Getting Things Done

Writing, generally, is a bitch. But really, in as much as you can get paid to do it, what a scam. The problem with writing here, though, is that it is a product of the internet, it is inherently connected to the internet. What that means, effectively, is that I can't use my typical strategy of getting things done--waiting until my wireless network dies of its own accord, and then eschewing the act of getting up, unplugging it, and plugging it back in, in favor of overwhelming, orangutan-like laziness.1 Instead, I have to compete with the perfect distraction that is everything on my google homepage.

Which is why the idea of China is fucking crazy. I once read that the internet looks like a big neuron, the way the connections are mapped, the way it just sort of freely grows. Like an artificial brain. Unfortunately, it's the brain of a six year old kid with down syndrome.2 Which is more or less why it yells at you about penises, and it is filled to overflowing with images of cats getting in and out of boxes. But not in China. Oh no, not in China. If I am to believe what the media says, its only weakness is its restriction on social expression. Otherwise, it is just the paragon of progress and innovation--if you can see past the general shittyness of everything.3 But I just have to argue, how great is this freedom of expression, really? I mean, yeah, I recognize the irony of talking about this using the most dramatic development in free speech since the invention of soap, and subsequently the boxes within which one carries said soap. But if the grand sum of our efforts toward free expression is this, then I must admit, I am skeptical. In China, its like the government decided to be whatever it is that causes my internet connection to slowly deteriorate, and it pays dividends, in math and science scores, and violin and piano playing abilities.4

Furthermore, as much as it seems like China is racing along at a frighteningly deliberate pace, a country of self-sacrificing nationalistic automatons5, American citizens are acting like bulls in their own china shop. It's not like I'm not guilty. I spend hours of the day watching stupid videos online. I revel in it6. And I admire those who don't. But I'd rather not spend all day qualifying myself, because I understand the other side, and like I said, I remain unconvinced.

And it doesn't look like theres gonna be a big switch, a big shakeup where we start doing things better again. World War II, are you serious, those people were unbelievable. Noble, and humble, and shit. Willing to run recklessly at bullets shot by obviously evil opponents. Our founding fathers. Ben Franklin. Where are our Ben Franklin's now. Ben Franklin once said,"A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave." If Ben Franklin were alive today, after scratching the dried refried beans off his Battlestar Gallactica T-shirt, he would say "Megaporn is down?! Grish Nakh!7 I demand retribution."

So what are we supposed to do? I don't know. Get comfortable, I guess. Admittedly, the whole point of the article was to express that Ben Franklin would be an excellent dungeon master today.

1. The fat kind at the zoo that waves at you, not the spry ones that are so sleek and clumsily graceful.

2. (see 1.)

3. Although that guy who wrote that opinion piece in the NY Times seems to think that it is just some of the most gleaming shit he has ever seen.
4. My sisters' piano teacher growing up refused to take Asian students because she said "they are like little piano playing robots."
5. So they silence dissent. Yeah, it makes it ambiguous as to how many people dislike their individual situation. But if we are to believe any of the Olympic propaganda about all their "volunteers," that is a nation whose citizens have no problem committing to a lifetime of Oregon Trail, at grueling pace with bare bones rations.
6. I plan on making this soon.

7. Indeterminate Klingon. I'd rather not say how much time I spent trying to find out how to say "I demand retribution."

Stand-Up

In a moment of revelatory brilliance, I think I'll also use this to talk about funny stand-up comedians, because I listen to tons of them and not that many people do.1 I'll find a place to put them.

1. Yes, I know you do, but not everyone does. The internet is a resource.

This is not about open source computing

So here's the deal. As fascinating and compelling as the case for open source software and computing might be, it is not funny. I don't really care about it that much. I have no reservations with deliberately ripping off the name to attract more attention from the reddit and digg users that will accelerate my otherwise slow but eventual rise to power. At least thats what I feel this will do.

I've toyed around with the idea of blogging before, which makes me sound like some kind of amish guy these days. I'm so late in the game. It feels like I'm finally admitting that using a gun to kill my dinner is better than attacking deer with my bear1 hands. That analogy holds no water.2 I very rarely kill deer. I'd like to think that bears do, although I would have to see it in low quality video before I'd believe it. And then the practice of blogging grinds so strongly with my gears. First, I'm just too lazy for this to be consistent. Second, I can't even fill out the bio page without thinking I'm somehow selling out to the invisible forces that strive to steal my money, and make public that which must be kept private. Like what my favorite movies are, and what interests I have.3 It makes me feel like a preening young teenage girl, brushing her hair a hundred strokes on each side, and expressing with a self-righteous indignant attitude about how shitty high school is, and how boys are such jerks.4

To spare the self-conscious rationalizations that only stand in my way of fame and fortune, I'm going to use this to document things that I think are funny in a way that I can never seem to do with pen and paper, or some sort of recording device. Although I have total respect for someone who would pull out a little notebook, chuckle to themselves, and write things down all time, I see it through the public eye as generally dick-ish behavior.

So steal from me, please. Take it and spread it around. You don't even have to say it was from here. I would be flattered. I'm not gonna put any of my good ideas on here anyway. And as long as I can keep you thinking that, I'll always have the upper hand.

1. intentional

2. I must say though, the image is awesome. I love the idea of some farm guy, douched with mud, twigs in his hair, and cloven hoof prints all over his face, accepting a rifle and being like "Strong argument, Greg. Strong argument. You had me at 'can kill things from a distance'."

3. By leaving that shit blank, I think the obvious answer is that I have none.

4.vbut not tom, caus he tuk me to the mall :p