bgibbs

2004-08-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

Don't think you're having all the fun.
You know me...

2004-08-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

I so don't know.

2004-07-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Ben,
I am interested in buying your car. You know, the blue one with the crumpled rear right fender. The one named after that movie, the good one, not the sucky sequels.
-Interested In Yer Car

Dear Interested,
How did you know my car is for sale? That's creepy.
But for your information, it's been sold. No questions asked, body-in-the-trunk and all. So, sorry. It's gone. But I appreciate me asking.
OK, that was a failed experiement. I'll admit, I sent me that letter, and it didn't work. Oh wel.
-Ben

2004-07-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Note: This one took a lot of editing. Please, you guys, try to get it together a little. Also, it's only necessary to send a question once. I'll answer them all, given time. This one seems pretty urgent, though, as I've been asked it time and time again by several of my dear readers.

Dear Ben,
Do you ever have trouble getting it up? I did, but since I tried Viagra, I've had no trouble at all. Do you want some Viagra?
grievance curvepetroleum empire shiftpermission abelson colombocupboard bunk canadianheathkit autumnal faithfulabater?
-Trouble With Mr. Johnson

Dear Johnson,
OK, first, you should probably get that Tourette's looked into. I'm glad your, ahem, equipment works (by which I mean I'm happy for you that you can become erect and feel the need to share, but would question that need), but you should think twice about reproducing until you see if your other condition is hereditary.
Second, no, I'm not a big fan of pill sharing. It's illegal for you to share prescription drugs, even over the internet. More so, in fact, because as soon as you use a medium that crosses state lines, you've involved the FBI and they're not amused with lawbreaking, believe you me. They aren't even amused with small, everyday lawbreaking. For instance, did you know that it is a federal crime to use any form of medical device in a manner not in keeping with its labeling? This makes it a crime to insert cotton swabs into your ears, as you are specifically forbidden from doing so, according to the package. Also, it's a federal crime to fill condoms with whipped cream and pop them. If you've ever read the packaging that comes with condoms, you know: there's nothing about whipped cream or water balloons on there.
So, there's my answer for you: don't offer illegal things on the internet. And if you're offering me Viagra, or a similar medicine, you're barking up the wrong tree. I don't have a prescription.
-Ben

2004-07-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Ben,
I have lived with my parents for the last twelve years, and am looking for a good apartment to move into. Do you have any advice that would help me?
-Looking in Las Vegas

Well, Looking, I don't know that I have a lot of advice on this, but here's what I know: there are about four things you want to look very closely at when you're considering a new apartment.
1. Look at the cars in the apartment and the neighborhood around. Nice people tend to take care of their cars. You probably don't want to live in a place with a thousand burned-out husks of cars on lawns. It's the truth.
2. Look very closely at the apartment. Don't be afraid to push on the walls or ask how far the studs are apart (the walls shouldn't give, and the studs should be no more than 18 inches apart and very regular) or to bring a stud-finder (a device you put on the wall to find the vertical bars that hold up the ceiling). Ask how old the building is. Ask how many people, more or less, have lived in your apartment. Ask if there has been any water damage. Look behind the 'fridge. Who do you pay your money to? Is the apartment independent or part of a chain? Has there ever been a black mold problem there? Ask too many questions.
3. By asking these questions, get to know your apartment manager. Ask who you would report problems to, if there were problems. Ask who's in charge. Get to know the people who will be in charge of making your life pleasant or not for the next six, eight or twelve months minimum.
4. Don't live in Austin. It's awful. Terrible. One of the six worst places to live, honest. Austin's full up and don't come knocking. Move to Oregon. I hear they like auslanders out there. OK, Austin isn't actually a bad place to live, but you should seriously consider not living here. There are too many people here now. We don't need more.
So there you go. That's my condensed, shallow knowledge of what to do when you're looking for an apartment.
How 'bout that? Real questions!

2004-06-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

Closed for the summer

2004-06-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Not Exactly My Point of View

PointInstead of a rant, I'm gonna just link to this, and say that, no matter what you think, you're wrong. Everybody. Everything. All wrong.
CounterPointWrong as Wrain. Anybody?
PointlessOK, how 'bout this: I'm gonna re-read this, and you read as much as you can read. Then, I'll post something offensive and you comment on it. It'll be great, I promise.

Edit: added, 3:15pm
Here's where I'm sittin' on this, having read the first 3 and being a chunk of the way into 4:
First, I disagree with him that women are incapable of thought. Granted, he's right that women are guided by emotions to a far, far greater degree than most men. It's also creepy how right he was about the Viktor Travis/Rick anecdote. Just be happy every waking minute. That works and it's awful that it does, and its awful that I knew that before I read it from him and it's really too bad that I've used it ever.
Y'see, I suppose I'm one of those whipped husbands he talks about. Granted, I'm not married, but I've chosen to live my life with a woman and it's not possible to be sensible all the time. It is possible to affect happiness all the time, and in that way create the absolutely wonderful illusion of satisfaction. I'm afraid it's a trick we all know.
A complaint I've had for a long time: the appropriateness of crying. Personaly, I don't know how to deal with it. If, in the middle of a public appearance, President Bush chose to burst into tears instead of answering criticisms of his choices in Iraq, he would be ridiculed and his mental abilities called into question even before he'd left the room. Everyone would decide that he was doing this either because he was unfit for office or because he was ducking the question. If, in the course of a discussion, a woman bursts into tears, that's probably my fault or perhaps to be expected. If there's any kind of emotional content to the discussion, my natural tendancy to examine my situation and react, attempting to be calm, is hard and callous.
I was schooled in the 80s and 90s, and was told over and over again that women and men were absolutely and inarguably equal in all things. I honestly believed it for a long time, too. Hell, I still believe it about many and several things, with the following two exceptions: a)any given two people are not equal; b)many, many women are sore, mean and/or irrational for one week in a month, or five days in 28, or whatever their natural cycle is (vs. the regulatory nature of birth control. Your results my vary), and I'm not.
All men are created equal in the eyes of the law. This means that my status as a healthy landowner, from a family of landowners, does not entitle me to extra votes or representation in Congress. I get one vote. A blind woman with no arms or legs also gets one vote. In the eyes of the law, as regarding the intent of the Founding Fathers, we are the same because in a democratic Republic, the worth of a man is very directly equated to his ability to participate in the public discourse that is voting. However, and this may seem callous or cruel, in a foot-race, the odds will probably be on me.
As to the other thing: I don't know exactly how to elaborate. I don't menstruate: I don't have painful cramps with regularity; I don't have hormonal emotional embalances every month; I don't lose blood unless a hole is put in me. That's the truth. Does it mean women are inferior? No. Does it mean that women and men are not equal? Yes.
Women and men aren't the same. "Homosexualists," and "Heterosexualists" are not the same. It's the truth.
So, he's got a point there.
I actually took offense to his implication that women and children should be treated the same; that it is the job of a man to hand down physical and verbal reprimands to women as he would children. I think that's a load of crap, and is actually Sim using the arguement he attacks in pointing out that children are not adults and cannot be treated as such. The same goes for adults. If a man treats a woman like a child, he is not showing her the respect she deserves as a grown adult. I think this goes with my disagreement on the subject of thought. I know women can think. This fact alone is enough to require their treatment as equals.
Now, going back, I agree with him that it is the job of adults to rear children. I know my biggest regret as I grow older will be my handling of my child. I can justify it by saying that I was very young when she was born, and that this entitles me to errors in judgement regarding her upbringing, but I also thought and still think that she has received the best treatment given her options.
My parents, who are rearing her, are very good at it. They do a service that cannot be overstated with regard to their four direct children and also to Ruth. Any twisted ideas I've picked up I can, with confidence, say I picked up from the world at large and not from them. They are decent people who are, infuriatingly at times, very good parents. I'm proud, though, that neither parent claimed exclusive pervue of discipline. Neither of my parents was the "soft" one, and neither was the ogre. They are humans, guided by human moods and emotions, which is what growing children need to have exposure to.
So, that's my take right now on parts 1-3(ish). I've read the Cerebus issues these came from, but I'm a modern child and I have trouble reading from newsprint. I'm sure I absorbed more of this with this reading than from the issues. How 'bout that.

2004-06-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

How Broken is the system?

Point Following are your New York Times Bestsellers for the week of June 20th:
Hardcover Fiction
1. Da Vinci Code
2. Rule of Four
3. Five People You Meet in Heaven
4. Angels & Demons
5. The Taking
6. Hidden Prey
7. Bergdorf Blondes
8. The Narrows
9. The Jane Austen Book Club
10. Memorial Day
11. Glorious Appearin (Left Behind 12)
12. Slightly Dangerous
13. A Good Year
14. Killer Smile
15. Double Play

Hardcover Non-Fiction
1. Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim
2. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
3. Big Russ & Me
4. Plan of Attack
5. Father Joe
6. Battle Ready
7. Alexander Hamilton
8. More Than Money
9. Founding Mothers
10. On the Down Low
11. Secrets of the Code
12. Three Weeks With My Brother
13. Against All Enemies
14. The Pentagon's New Map
15. Rewriting History
16. Truth & Beauty (Patchett)

Hardcover Advice, How-To & Misc
1. South Beach Diet
2. Ultimate Weight Solution
3. Purpose Driven Life
4. South Beach Diet Cookbook
5. Ultimate Weight Solution

Paperback Advice, etc.
1. Rich Dad, Poor Dad
2. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die
3. What to Expect When You're Expecting
4. The Pill Book, 11th Edition
5. Atkins for Life

Paperback Fiction
1. Anna Kerenina (The Oprah Bookclub Edition)
2. Angels & Demons
3. Dark Horse
4. The Notebook (Sparks)
5. To The Nines
6. Wild Orchids
7. Entranced (Roberts)
8. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
9. White Death
10. Johnny Angel
11. Naked Prey
12. Devin & Shane
13. Deception Point
14. A Little Fate
15. The Lovely Bones

Paperback Non-Fiction
1. Reading Lolita In Tehran
2. Tuesdays with Morrie
3. Stupid White Men
4. The Devil In the White City
5. Stiff (The Curious Lives of American Cadavers)
6. Living History
7. Friends... 'til the End
8. Bringing Down the House
9. Moneyball
10. Running with Scissors
11. Beyond Belief (Pagels)
12. Benjamin Franklin (Isaacson)
13. Me Talk Pretty One Day
14. The Faith of George W. Bush
15. A Child Called "It."

OK, so you guys get to buyin'. Those books will be the bestsellers for the week of the 20th, so you better get going.

2004-06-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

It's Gone, It's Over Now

Point Art is fucked. Any two-bit ass can slap a little paint on a canvas or strum a couple of notes. Hell, I've done it myself. I don't dare call what I do fine art. I don't dare pretend it's anything but crap. So, where the hell does the average hack get off calling what he does great? How can anybody every claim that, in twenty years, the White Stripes or Moby or Peaches will be anything but embarrassing and dated? I mean, at the time they were actually working, people thought Huey Louis and the News were at least not crap. Now listen to anybody talk about them. A fan of the white stripes, absolutely straight-faced, said to me not two weeks ago, "Twenty years from now, people will be thanking the White Stripes for everything they're doing." No, the truth is, people will be 20 years older in 20 years, and they will either a)remember what the White Stripes are doing now fondly as a "Golden Oldy," or b)think everything about their parents' generation was lame and not worth the time it takes to ignore. Sorry. Them's the brakes. Art doesn't hold up unless it has a huge amount of skill behind it. If Leonardo spat on canvas, threw paint in its general direction and called it art, it would have been forgotten inside of a century. Only because its recorded in books and a hack movie will the work of Jackson Pollock be remembered at all. "You see, kids, in the middle of the 20th century there was a powerful movement away from skill. We called it 'modern art' because 'bag of crap' already meant something else." OK, honestly, no art teacher will ever be so direct, but you get the idea. Those who whine and claim that this is an elitist and exclusionary attitude are right. It is. People who don't have the skills necessary to make art should not make art. They should practice at home and not subject the rest of us to bullshit, unskilled attempts to create some hack meaning.
And don't even get me started on poetry. It's a useless art form on its own. With modern poetry, you can generate a random string of words and attribute any meaning you want, as the medium is garbage. At its best, it approaches music. At its worst it's this:
The buttercup
how like a
train
in a placid
dildo
afternoon.
I mean, what the fuck? Classical poetry isn't any better. It's just somebody's half-assed prose, divided into lines.
CounterPoint OK. So, the problem with this is, you're absolutely right. I can't really add much more.
Pointed Opposition I guess I have to say something here. You have to differentiate between "art" and "pop culture." Mostly all of the examples you're riding rough-shod over are pop culture. They're meant to pander to the LCD and make the common man say something along the lines of "I could do that. I mean, if I wanted to." The People Who Bother create the pop art. I think what you're actually lamenting is the loss of skill in so-called high art. Somewhere out there, somebody is making high art. Yeah, it probably doesn't appeal to any actual persons, but that's why it isn't pop art. The crossover of the two is the reason high art today sucks so effectively. There isn't, and has never been, a lot of money in making real art. In a capitalistic society, whatever makes money is what sticks around because the artist has to get money to fail to starve. The White Stripes, whom you seem to love to pick on, are just making music for the average normal person. No, it's not high art, and no, it won't be kept for posterity in any way other than that in which everything recorded in any way in the last ten years including this will be, but it's popular right now. The News weren't high art either. Popular music isn't high art, and high art tends not to be popular. Need I point you at the novelty act that Phillip Glass and John Cage are, balancing between the popular and the artistic as they do? Of course, much of that garbage leaves the realm of music and becomes performance art, but that's neither here nor there.

2004-06-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

The End of the World

Point The end of the world is happening. It's around the corner. These are truly the end times. Famine is rampant, War is unceasing, Pestilence sweeps across every continent, and massive Death rapes the world population. These are the four signals of the end times as fortold in the Historical Document, the Holy Bible. Everything in the Bible is true, and these are fortold as the signs of the end times. Israel will be miraculously reformed as the tribes of Israel are gathered from around the globe. Armies will march down through the area now encompassed by Russia, and into the area that is now Afghanistan. The Holy Roman Empire will reform, and in this case it's the unification of Europe. The bible tells that in the end times, everyone will receive a mark written on their skin: how many people do you know who don't have tattoos? All of these are foretold in the Historical Document that is the Bible, which is supported by scholars around the world as the literal, historical truth. The Rapture will be the final sign: at that time, it will be too late.
CounterPoint Man, where to start? You're wrong. The bible is a religious book, and it's for an outmoded religion that isn't worth examining in a historical context. The world is ending because of global environmental disaster brought on by corporate greed. The "signs of the apocalypse" you bring up are all the result of the logging of old-growth forests and dumping of chemical waste into rivers, streams and oceans of the world. There has been a six degree average rise in global temperatures over the last fifty years! If this trend continues, pollution will render more than half of the earth uninhabitable by the year 2060. The ice caps will melt and cover most of the Earth's remaining landmass with water. If we don't stop corporate greed, we will burn and drown ourselves completely. The only way to stop this death is to spread organic farming methods, stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (in which, by the way, I count GEfoods) and end all forms of globalization.
Pointedly Disagreeable Lord. There's just so much fertile ground. I'll start by sowing my seeds in the bible. The bible is what it is. It fails to meet one very important criterion as a historical document: it contains prophecy. History, by definition, is what has happened. History only contains the way the world came into being, not the way it goes out. Second, in the book of Matthew 24, back in teh history part of the bible, Joshua talks about his second coming. Now, for those who can't count, let's enumerate: 1)Jesus was born into the world, lived a holy and righteous life, at least at the end for sure, and died on the cross, thus leaving the world; 2)Jesus returned, coming back to earth. I count 2 there. He came, he went, he came back, he left again. It sounds to me like the whole End Times (they actually call it the "end of the age" or the "second coming," not the "end of the world.") happened before the book was written. So there's one end of the world set aside.
What about the dire predictions about globalization? Again, where to begin? The average temperature rise over the last 100 years has been 1 degree, not 6 or 10 or any other number. It's 1. At that rate, we'll be fine for a long time. The same scientists who are predicting global warming were screaming about a new ice age thirty years ago. Where'd that go? Global Coprorate Greed has another name: Capitalism. If you don't like it, that's great and I respect that, but don't go deciding it's the same thing as environmentalism. If you hate globalization, avoid the two biggest globalized corporate ventures: telephones and the internet. Also, and this is fascinating, if we relied only on organic farming techniques, we'd be able to feed a whopping four billion people. Wow. Four billion is a lot of people, until you realize that there are six billion alive today. If two billion environmentalists want to go ahead and volunteer to save the planet and kill yourselves, go right ahead. We'll probably cover suicide in a later installment. Oh, and as for the loggers, they aren't the ones cutting down the rainforest: it's poor people who cut down the trees, farm non-native, non-adapted crops, use up the nutrients and move on. If we could, say, introduce a strain of rice that was better adapted to the area, as has been done in Mexico and parts of Africa, they wouldn't have to clear-cut and slash-and-burn areas to raise enough food to eat. I'm just sayin' is all.

2004-06-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

Married. Buried.

Point: Marriage is a tired and useless institution, and is ready to be called obsolete. Marriage, once necessary for ending wars between clans, tribes, et cetera, and for giving away useless chattel in the form of money, gifts, daughters and herd animals, has become a civil state. It is used only to determine next of kin for debts left from life, burial expenses and who gets to take your Stuff when you Die. The institution serves no real purpose. If we believe those who are polled and those who take the polls, fully eight in ten of us will cheat on our spouses and 100% of marriages end in divorce, separation, annulment or death. Numbers don't lie, folks. Marriage is obsolete. I say we should not only not recognize marriage between gay men and women, but also not between any men or women. The simple fact of the existence of marriage is a blight on a society far evolved since the days when marriage was useful or had anything like meaning. Now, we struggle to cope with an outmoded idea long since outlived its need. Marriage is a primitive concept. We will never really leave behind our simian ancestors until we leave behind their concept of ownership by males of the females of the species. It's not anti-religious to be against marriage: it's egalitarian.
Counterpoint:That's a load of crap. First, society is based almost completely on the constant need of man to stop other humans from stealing his possessions and having sex with his wife. People cannot be trusted. That's why an "attractive nuisance" is illegal. People can't control themselves. Abolishing or even weakening marriage laws would lead to mass chaos. It's not a move forward. It's a move toward herd mentality, like simple animals. As for your "numbers," by the same logic you use all disease is fatal and all births are still births. After all, anyone who has a cold will die within zero to 100 years, and 100% of babies born will die. I don't know where you got the eight in ten number, but clearly you cannot be trusted with numerals. The fact that you manipulate data in such a nefarious way makes all of your other points suspect. This isn't about religion. God's plan is scientific and necessary. Humans wouldn't reproduce if there were not marriage. Sodom and Gomorrah are proof of that. Humans' natural state is sin. This isn't religious, this is based on the Bible, a strict historical document. The truth of these histories has been proved over and over again. You don't have to be Judeo-Christian to respect the Truth.
Pointed Head: That's all crap. People get married because they love each other and want to demonstrate to all of humanity that they intend to have a monogamous sexual relationship for the rest of their lives. Sure, it doesn't always work out, but what does? People buy a house with the intent of living there for the long term, otherwise they wouldn't shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can buy a temporary dwelling for less than $100. It's called a tent. And yet, people move all the time. Life isn't just breathing, eating and dying. It's about the things that happen to you while you do. Unexpected things come up, that's why marriages end. Marriage between two people who love each other and want to have a monogamous sexual relationship and want to demonstrate that to all of society should be legal. And if Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans want to marry their dogs and demonstrate to society that they will have a monogamous sexual relationship with their ferns, that's fine with me. The fact that they even suggest that they'd like to come out and marry their dogs (to have and to hold, forsaking all others I'm just sayin' is all) is a little sick in my opinion. And the manipulation of data isn't anything new. I mean, hell, studies show that one in one of us lie at least some of the time.

2004-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

Just like starting over

OK. That's enough of that crap.

2004-06-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

He intoned quietly into the telephone:
dirtdirtdirt imyourdirt givememycoffeebitch soIcanhaveagood nightssleep
She stared in horror-struck disbelief at her receiver,
slammed the handset down
You Prick!
She stood,
walked toward the cafe,
ordered another large coffee
and brought it up to him.

2004-05-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Here Lies Roberto Smithers
Born. Worked. Died.
1904 - 2004

2004-05-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Well, how would you have ended it?
Dummy.

2004-05-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

Tired. Tired of playing the game.

2004-05-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

Haaaaaaate
me some
pennnnnnguin

2004-05-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

He turned to his child, the princess
and said "Help me."
She looked from him to the sickness that he spewed
from the bottoms of his ruptured feet
and said "No."

2004-04-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

The name "Murph" is outdated and not used as a name any more.
As such, I intend to coopt it as an exclaimation.
The quiet kind, where one would have breathed "shit" under one's breath.
"Mu-u-urph. That's huge."
It is to be used where one would whilstle appreciatively.

2004-04-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today was really Purple.
I got out of bed . I'm so proud of me.
I feel like there are spiders crawling all over me.
I'm so France. So, so fucking France.
Last night I had to run from the giant worms that live in the house down the block. They know I'm here. They know.
I want to tell the world but I can't. They don't listen. They don't.
I am the second coming of Howard Johnson. Let the Hiltons tremble at the very sound of my name!
That's enough for now. But I'll leave you with my plans. Don't let them find the plans! Tear this shit apart until you've hid them plahnz!

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2004-03-30T11:21:00.000-08:00

If Hate is a crime, then lotsa folks is screwed.

2004-03-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

You Know,You can sell me immediately with your
popup
adblock
firewall
static lies.
I'll believe you when you tell me the truth
and I'll call you whore when you lie to me,
I'm like that,
when I surf.
When I surf I need things,
humor
lies
cartoons
news, the works, but baby, when I say I don't want to download your spywarepopupsellmesellmeSELLMEHARD
baby, no means

no.

2004-03-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

I lead a rich fantasy life. In it, I'm the third coolest person alive. Those other two people... well, they might exist.

2004-03-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

Goal for the week:
Cut Humanity some much-deserved slack.

2004-03-12T00:11:00.000-08:00

I'm so in love. Without You.

2004-02-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

Once, there was this girl who
cut me off in traffic in her SUV
and I was all
Damn it!

2004-02-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

Man, you have no idea
Like, if you were able to have,
if you had an idea on this,
it would make your eyes melt.
No
Idea.

None.

2004-02-13T10:34:00.000-08:00

The Old Storyteller

Once, there was a mermaid who lived on an island in the middle of a lake, a thousand miles from anywhere. On spring days, the wind would blow and the single tree on her island would sway happily, dropping Pecans and Pistaccios which she would pick up and upon which she would snack. She swam often in the waters around the island and ate small fishes that grew up there. Now, one spring day she awoke to no wind. The air was still and the tree hung quietly, as if in anticipation. There was no movement on the lake, which was absolutely still. That lake was as still as -
<interrupting kid>Cream of Wheat?
Well, I was gonna say owl shit, but sure, why not Cream of Wheat, with it's creamy smootheness & it's wheaty goodness...

2004-02-04T15:43:00.000-08:00

There is no polite way to demand what you want out of life.
There is no polite way to demand what you deserve out of life.
Civility is Self Denial.

2004-01-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

Y'know what? If you're gonna have that attitude, I'm gonna say something along the lines of "You Stink."

2004-01-09T20:53:00.000-08:00

Write, Sonsabitches.

2004-01-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

You gotta think about it this way: There's only one way I'm not going to do that, and it involves a spatula and razor blades...

2003-12-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

Well, Heck.

2003-12-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

I'm so fucking sick, I'm the king of the world

2003-12-15T14:35:00.000-08:00

Charm will get ya' far in this life.

2003-12-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

Nope. And You Can't Have Any.

2003-12-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

He said to me:
No coffee for me, thanks. I'm High On Life!
And Methamphetamines!

2003-11-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

It cannot be defeated in a debate. Use it sparingly. The Toddler Defense:

Well, I wasn't. So Shut Up. Nyah.

2003-11-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

Teya's web page. Nifty, yes?

2003-11-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

I'm on base. You can't get me.

2003-11-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

Can I Have Your Shoes
When You are Dead?

2003-11-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

Shiner Til I'm
MisterNihil

2003-10-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

Depressing, on the whole,
but not, at least, as stupid as it could be.
Given the propensity
I have
for stupidity, it could be
a whole
fuck
of a lot
worse.

2003-10-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

You say
Quality, not Quanitiy
As if there were some
difference between the two.

2003-10-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes a sore winner.
So don't push too hard or you'll be one.

2003-09-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

ring
Ho Check!
click

HAHAHAHAHAuhukHAHAHAHAHAAAAuhhHAAAAHAHAHA-hic-HAAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAu-huh-a-huh-aAHAAAAAHAAHAA

2003-09-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

We've sold better than 600 of the new Jim Hightower book, and currently have about 300 on hand. He's coming on Friday. Should I worry that he's sold, in a month, twice as many books as we have for his event?

2003-09-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hey! You got Freakish people on my Internet!
Hey! You got Internet in my Freakish people!
Two great tastes that are tasteless together. Yeesh.

2003-08-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Going to the dentist makes my teeth not fit together. Grumble grumble.

2003-08-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Give It Up
by Franz Kafka

It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and empty, I was going to the station. As I compared my watch with the clock on a tower I saw that it was much later than I had thought, I had to make great haste; in my alarm at this discovery, I became unsure of the way. I was still something of a stranger in this town. Luckily, there was a policeman at hand; I ran up to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: "Do you expect me to tell you the way?"
"Yes," I said, "since I cannot find it myself."
"Give it up, give it up!" said he, and he turned away with a great flourish, like a man who wants to be alone with his laughter.

2003-08-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'll Come Down.

2003-07-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

I really shouldn't be hallucinating like this...

2003-07-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Flash's birthday was Monday.

2003-07-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

There's a place with a thing that sings a song that says "You are All My Dearest Darlings."

2003-07-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

Singing in the bathtub.

2003-07-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

The sidewalk
across the street
says
You all smell like robots.

2003-07-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

I thought the fire in my belly was ambition. It turns out I should just quit swallowing lit matches.

2003-07-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

Nice thing about having a short memory is little surprises throughout the day.
Hey! Who left me this nice memo? Oh! It was me!

2003-07-12T07:27:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday Houston. These are your headlines:
man awake at godawful hour on a Saturday
Typing quickly into a blog
because that's, y'know, what you do.

2003-07-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

When somebody sends you a gift certificate, and you buy something neat that they would have bought for you anyway, what's the etiquette on that? Do you thank them, or do you lend them the thing, particularly if its the new Dave McKean comic novel, Cages, which is really as nifty as anything new I've read recently? Or do you just send them an oblique thank you on a public forum and make only passing mention of the nifty and keen PoiDogPondering CD which they also gifted to you? Ahhh, modern puzzlement. It's the best.

So, I think the answer is to say Hey! Thanks to These Fine Folks for gifts, which I appreciated completely, and am still appreciating. You Guys Rock Harder Than You Think!

2003-07-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Spinning in his grave, Al decided he didn't, after all, love Marybeth.

2003-07-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Kathy! Whee!

2003-07-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

HULK TRASH

Man, that movie was just 2-anna-half hours of bad. It was skillfully made (sorta) within the confines of modern technology. That's one, like T2, that will look, and here let me say that I mean this, six kinds of bad a year from now. Bad, bad, bad. That was a bad movie. It wasn't even bad-enjoyable, like the Charlie's Angels movies (The second of which I just watched this weekend, and which I enjoyed quite a bit. Charlie's Angels Full Throttle: They didn't manage to include a car-wash scene, they built the movie until the car-wash scene was inevitable. If there hadn't been one, one would have tacked itself onto the end of the film), it was bad-too-damn-long-and-stupid. The characters aren't likeable, the plot is thin, and the premise was flimsy and stupid in the fifties (and hasn't aged well). Watching the movie, you can tell that a)Ang Lee is a hell of a director, b)Eric Bana emotes like a sedated Neo, and c)big puppets, while cool, are not included in this movie. There's no puppet. There's no guy in green makeup. There's a f*ck*ng green smurf in purple stretch pants. The Hulk doesn't manage to ever look like anything but a special effect. He never emotes anything but greenness. He never shows believable anger. He's sort of cherubic and cute.
On the plus side, Nick Nolte is creepy in this movie. On the minus side, this is a bad move and it doesn't need more creepiness. In this movie, Eric Bana is creepy, Jennifer Connelly is creepy, Sam Elliott is Creepy. If you just go to this link and add "is creepy" after each name on the cast, you'll get the idea.
I saw this movie with 6 people. Two of them fell asleep, two were fighting hard by the end. Toshi saw it with 5 people. Same thing.
OK, here comes a spoiler: There's a big fight at the end. I know, I know, you didn't know that and it ruins the movie for you, but now it's out. There's a big fight at the end of the movie.
The last fight is confusing and confused. I think the script must have been lost, and Ang Lee never quite understood how the fight was supposed to go. That's what it feels like. It gets lost and confusing. All of the shots are very dark and confusing, and I suppose it didn't help that I was fighting sleep (and that the movie had ended already by then. It just keeps going. You want to shoot it to put it out of its misery).
If Hulk had ended where I now say it should, I would have complained because there were loose ends not wrapped-up, but I would also have said it wasn't too goddam long. It would have screamed sequel, and I would have watched a sequel. As it is, it threatens a sequel and I glance over my shoulder in case another of these monstrosities is slinking by, for fear I'd watch it and waste another two-anna-half hours of my life watching a bad, bad, bad, terrible, did-I-mention-bad movie.
Grrrrr. Hulk want money back.

2003-07-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

I am now, officially, Older Than You Think I Am.

2003-07-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

Pay attention, this will only take a second.
There. You missed it. Try it again, slower this time.

2003-07-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

The homeless man on the corner says "Change"
The voice in my head says "Never!"

2003-06-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Given that you are a dumbass, why are you not listening to me?

2003-06-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

Happiness will kick you in the Ass and steal your wallet.

2003-06-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a relatively wise man said to me, "Everybody Stinks."

2003-06-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a short vacation from this blog. Or a long one. Point is, Nyah.

2003-06-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

Rain makes me tired. Sleeping makes me tired.
Today is making me tired.

2003-06-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'll tell ya' what it is about summer that makes a fellow want to lose weight:
All the other fat people are out in their short shorts, swimming trunks and bicycle shorts.
And Ick, by the way.
Because it begs the question: Do I look like that?
And the answer: Maybe not for long.

2003-06-02T00:05:00.000-07:00

I live in a world where everyone
hates everyone
like you.
-mn

2003-05-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Poetry of sky, washes clean the must of yesterday
dragging out the silent moan of anguish that was his life.
Seeing the futility of every day, he dove like a swan in winter
into a neverending life of numbness and pity, crying out for nothing
and receiving nothing.
His was a pointless existance
full of walls he built and pain he created,
full of evil he loved and malignancy,
full of the fruits of his actions and the knowledge of his fate.
He will be missed, in the way one misses a hangnail or a pair of uncomfortable shoes.
He will be mourned with the passing of each second and forgotten in a matter of minutes.
This was a life.

2003-05-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

You and I, we've been through all these things and we see the future as bright and plain as a new day. We aren't fooled by our perceptions or the lies of others. We have better things to do and we do them with gusto and aplomb.

2003-05-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Good vacation. Happy to be back. Missed you, more than anything.

2003-05-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

To which he replied, "Shut the Fuck up."

2003-05-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning, and I felt practically human. I just have to hang on to that.

2003-05-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

Everyone dies, everything ends, gravity eventually feeds us all to the ground.

2003-05-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

We are Small and Powerful. Fear Us.

2003-05-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

It's not the weather, it's the fact that it keeps happening.

2003-05-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Are you tired of blogging the same old crap? We all are.
Try SELECT-A-BLOG!
It goes from Self-piyting to self-loathing in under a minute! It will link to up to 50 pointless external pages per day, with up to 49 of them guaranteed to be either other users' blogs or DAVE BARRY HIMSELF (or the blog thereof. no guarantee is implied)
See what you're missing
SELECT-A-BLOG!

2003-05-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

Whistle while you work
unless you be straight thuggin.

2003-05-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

*Ahem*
BLAH BLAH BLAH
NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU SAY.
SHUT UP ALREADY

Haiku for a Monday Morning.

2003-05-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

Sing It Sister or Brother!
S
I
N
G
!

2003-05-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Wow. Ick.

2003-05-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

Tired, wanna be elsewhere, but don't want to do what I have to do. Hmm.

2003-05-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Ebay.

2003-05-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored

2003-04-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

I wish I'd gotten to know her, before I fell in love.

-They Might Be Giants, "Out of Jail"

2003-04-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Am sleepy from climbing much.
Yeeha.

2003-04-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

Stupid Pink Fluid Bags.

2003-04-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the end result of a conversation that started with our CEO asking, "Can you buy some more bubble wrap:"

Life Cycle of the Packing Material
or, How to be a Peanut Farmer without getting your hands dirty
   The curious life cycle of the Packing Material (vesicus folium) begins with the humble "Biodegradable Packing Peanut." Long believed to be wheat-based, this egg-stage of the folium is the most delicate. We have not yet determined the evolutionary reason for the eggs' being water soluable, but the reason for the similarity to the larval stage is clear. The delicate egg can blend in with the soft larvae, thus generally avoiding harm. After a gestation period of eight to ten days, the folium hatch into the very similar but more muscular larval stage.
   During this stage, commonly called the "Styrofoam Packing Peanut," the folium is more mobile, able to fly short distnces (in fact, this "flight" is a sustained jump aided by the folium's light construction), and with a tenacious clinging system, thus enabling it to travel from the spawning grounds and disperse to areas with more food.
   The question, of course, came down to this: what conditions does the folium prefer, and why? The answers, as nearly as our research can uncover, are dust and dark. The "Styrofoam Packing Peanuts" tend to try to drift into darker areas where dust collects. Of the twelve folium spawning grounds we inspected, all had at least one larva and at least one adult behind each piece of furniture and in at least one corner.
   The adult folium, from which stage the species takes its name, begins as a sheet of diaphanous material, with gas-filled cists. The juvenile adult stage is often highly prized by poachers, as it can fetch up to $1/square foot on the open market, particularly within the antiques shipping community. For a time, the folium was thought to be endangered, until the fabled Office Depot spawning grounds were discovered and the herds replenished.
   The mature adult folium is similair to the juvenile, but the main body sheet is thicker, and the cists larger. Once the folium reaches full adulthood, the sheets join together into long mating strips, exchanging DNA along a line of up to several hundred yards. This brings us to the curious discovery that the folium are, in fact, hermaphroditic, as each individual produces spores and fertilizes its neighbors.
   When the spores are fertilized, the cists are ready to be burst. However, here a curious relationship exists between the folium and the homo sapien: the primate bursts the fertilized cists, and in return seems to derive pleasure and delight from the popping sound. As far as we can tell, this is the extent of the "reward,"although we are still observing, and some of our researchers postulate that the folium may release some mild opiate, although this has not been established.
With the bursting of the cists, the airborn spores are released, and drift through the air until they come to a dark, enclosed place. They latch on, often to the insides of boxes, and there they grow into eggs.

2003-04-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Turning toward the dying chicken, the dog said,
we are not so different, you and I
with its final breath, the chicken raised its head and managed
piddle, sir, to you and yours. A Pox Upon You.
There, the death of the noble chicken.

2003-04-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

Well, Piss.

2003-04-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

Tired. At Work. Time. More Later.

2003-04-23T07:28:00.001-07:00

Says Calvin: Get Rid Of Stinky girlS.

2003-04-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

Girls are Still Weird.

2003-04-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Girls are Weird.

2003-04-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

So, we went to a party over the weekend. I wrote a haiku about a guy.

His patience is short
The bathroom line is so long...
the backyard's calling