"The Kurds, Shias and Sunni all voted YES on today's referendum of Peace, Love and Understanding. Once the ballots are fully counted, electricity and sanitation will be restored. Iran has agreed to not interfere. America's economy is doing great, their education and healthcare systems are top-notch, and Social Security is heading for a major crisis. The Iraqi Security Forces are stronger than ever."


...

Enlightenment through Google.

I've been reading a lot of articles today on the death of famed architect Philip Johnson, and the phrase that not one article fails to mention is that big fat lazy-assed term "post-modern". I'm sick and tired of hearing people bandy it around without explanation or reference, and was wondering if a simple Google search for "so post-modern" could illuminate the meaning of a term so many people love to casually drop. Let's take a trip through the more erudite reaches of teh intarnet...

• "And your friend said “that’s so post modern” and the tour guide said at the same time 'designed by Michael Graves.'"


• "It's so post-modern to say post-modern."


• "The post-modern paradox: This statement is not so post-modern."


• "Or maybe we have grown so post-modern like the French that a simple "that was the last straw, not we will make you pay" is too simplistic for our pseudo-sophisticated ruling elite and intelligentsia." [wtf? -ed]


• "And, darling, exposing your html like that is just so post-modern."


• "I'm so post-modern it hurts."


• "But why do I do it when I realize it’s so wrong? (you’re so post-modern)"


• "But the display is so post modern for its subversive duality; angry and yet yearning for some sense of harmony, corrupting and still pure in its own right."


• "The film is so post-modern in the fact that the film is like a story within a story."


• "When we tend to think too highly of our most "modern" readings (be they ever so post-modern), it might be useful to recognize that learning exegesis is nothing."


• "We are so Post Modern that we don't realize how Post Modern we are anymore."


• "I mean, that whole beginning, middle and ending narrative thing is like, so Modern, but I'm like, so post-modern, and all I need, baby is like, some coffee."


• "The Radical Chic are so post-modern, the annals of inevitable Marxist history so awaiting a maestro's contribution to the final victory of the people, well, all of mankind, or what's left of it after the Revolution, will be on their knees at the United Nations thanking these gods of music and philosophy and science and post-Marx history." [again, wtf. -ed]


• "It’s so post-modern!"


• "Throwing caution to the wind, I thought I’d get so post-modern on your ass that I might possibly melt into a babbling puddle of self-referentiality."


• "Handsome Boy Modeling School is so post-modern ironic it's possibly already retro kitsch."


• "And, of course, ever-so post-modern pastiches that have their tongues shoved so far in their cheek that they sometimes ends up licking their own ass."

well shit! who knew?!

file under "wtf"

oh.hell.yes

Fun hurts, or "Dude, I'm gonna surf it down"

This picture was taken in a moment of incredible physical pain.

In keeping with my habit of doing things because I feel I should be doing them [as opposed to wanting to], I decided to go out sledding yesterday with Jeremy.

Most of what little snow we received over the past few days has now been frozen over by a good 3cm layer of solid ice, and this should have been our first clue. Our "sled" was a flimsy styrofoam slick-bottomed shelf of sorts, and enabled us to run run run to the crest of the hill and then pile on in a fashion far more graceless than those Jamaicans in "Cool Runnings". I had envisioned swift soft rides a la a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, but the noise of a 2-person person-shelf scraping down an icy slope at 35mph is in fact terrifying, like 100 jetplanes underneath you except they shoot out freezing pebbles of ice instead of dazzling flames.

We eventually moved on to the much larger hill at the local country club, which we figured would allow us to elaborate on our "run and pile" repertoire of riding styles. After numerous test runs we managing to perfect the "laying backwards", "sitting backwards", and "whooping like a jackass while pretending to steer" styles. The one we never quite achieved was the "dogsled homo race" which involed standing upright on the back of the sled hanging onto Jeremy's shoulder-length hair. Every attempt ended in disaster, much to the chagrin of the other grown men who had brought their children sledding that day and were afraid of the influence of our words and actions.


I am moving from right to left here. Always, always wear gloves.

i want to collect dead people's hair.

Our fair city is currently in the grip of a sleet/snow dusting, and around here this sort of weather signals the coming of the End Times. Everyone is panicking in long lines at the grocery store trying desperately to buy milk and flashlights to ride out the 1.5 hours it takes for the DPW to get out and clear the roads.

I decided to brave the hideously dangerous slush and drive to the monthly antique flea market out at the fairgrounds. As a young heterosexual male who likes to collect antiques, I thought it would be a great day to avoid the big crowds and creepy old people that usually attend these things. What I didn't realize was that the ratio between the creepy old antique dealers themselves and nice normal people shot up dramatically, like when you leave a glass of seawater out in the sun. These people are nice enough, sure, but when I'm looking at a case full of Nazi medals I don't want some swarthy redneck invading my personal space to tell me all about how history got Hitler's intentions all wrong.

Most of these dealers focus on certain genres of old shit. They divide themselves into Dealers of Furniture, Dealers of Old Toys, Dealers of Oddly Sinister Greeting Cards from the 1930s, etc., but my favorites are those vendors who seem to say to the customer "ah fuck it, here's a bunch of old junk on a table, good luck."

It was at one such table that I came across a very, very, very old book full of tiny silver gelatin portraits and braids of hair, the latter being cut off of the former at the moment of death and tied up with a faded ribbon. At one time this book was the chronicle of various branches of a western Virginia family and, apparently, their hair color. Some of the portraits were missing, so all you have is a weird little tuft squashed between two yellowed pages. A crusty old letter was also wedged in there, part of which read (and I am not making this up) "...glad to have gotten yore letter, but hope to see your ugly [garbled] without all the fuss next time you come down," dated 1887. The dealer was asking $95 for this book although they've been carrying it around for at least two years with no takers and seemed surprised that anyone, much less a young [heterosexual] antique seeker, would want to buy it. Yet they would take no haggling on the price.

To my knowledge I've never shoplifted, but I came pretty damn close today and I can't really say why. I suppose it's one of those selfish obsessions that lead you to believe that you are capable of appreciating something's profundity and innate worth while no one else can. It's a delicious feeling of righteousness and frustration when it strikes, but in most cases (like today) it's just a case of self-absorbed bullshit.

Instead I got this 1896 collar pin for $20:



Neat-o.

i hate my job.

every morning my dreams of trains and lighthouses are interrupted promptly at 7:14am. i'm fucking warm, cozy, up in the womb-style. an alarm, oh yeah and a dog whining from the floor. you'd think they'd mix with the train whistle, but they don't. i instantly realize what's going on: it's time to go to work.

i get angry when i can't find matching socks. i get angry when my car's electrical system won't feed to the starter until i rock the car back and forth shifting my weight in the driver's seat; this in turn resets the clock and my radio presets, and this makes me angry. i get angry at shitheads who can't figure out how to merge on the expressway. i get angry at the asshole in the parking deck who can't seem to remember that Every Single Morning he's going to take down my name on his little sheet of people who don't have valid ID cards. every single goddamn morning... what's your name again? anger.

i sit in my cubicle. people come in and ask where to find applications for employment; from where i sit i can see right over their shoulder a big orange rack that says "Applications for Employment." this, probably unfairly, makes me grind my teeth.

under the edge of the desk, just to the left of my slide-out ergonomically adjustable keyboard shelf, is a panic button. when crazy shitheads come in and tell me about how they're on welfare and were attacked by four pitbulls yesterday and want my business card and can't remember basic principles of real-time chronology, i press the button to summon security.

i started as a temp at this job, and my main task was to log applications into a database. this took me two weeks, but they seem to like me enough to keep me on and not really say when the assignment will terminate. they think i'm courteous and laid back. they told me i project a nice image to the incoming customers. i suppose its pretty easy to be laid back when all you do is read the news and play chess online all day. i even have a hanging glass filter over the monitor that blurs out the screen from any angle of sight other than straight ahead. they make it too goddamn easy.

nice and serene, nice and bleak. i used to listen to air-america online, but had to switch to a comedy stream that plays nice palatable shit like eddie murphy and pryor because screaming liberals are actually starting to make my head hurt. and when i really ponder it, i realize i'm losing my edge with every passing day spent in this purgatory. the coffee won't get any better, the workload won't get any less mundane, and i need more exercise. son of a bitch.

so here are some neat things.

Pictures of ghost towns. Not as creepy as it first sounds, but interesting nonetheless. Plus I've been to the one called Rhyolite. I still have a rusty nail I yanked off the big cement building in a box in my closet somewhere.

This shit never gets old.

This is a very nice internet radio site. I personally recommend the "Delicious Lo-Fi Lounge" channel, under Electronic--->Ambient. I'd listen to it at work but the IT assholes apparently won't allow it.

Whew. i feel better.

nunc et en hora mortis nostrae

a lot of fucking snow today. a whole hell of a lot. i was driving home and did a neat little 270 into a fence by the elementary school. fortunately nothing was harmed.



now i clean my room.


god i love having a journal. fuck all yall.

aahh's so good!!

...haha n00b