A Jumped-up Pantry Boy
I hope it was just delirium, and not a sign of the impending apocalypse*, but throughout my fever addled dreams last night/this morning all these different people kept singing lyrics from The Smiths' This Charming Man at me. In the middle of doing different things, complete strangers, singing, directly at me...
Why pamper life's complexities
when the leather runs smooth
on the passenger seat?
I haven't felt this unsettled since that series of zombie dreams a few weeks back.
*(note that the apocalypse is most certainly still impending. i just hope this isn't a sign.)
Now 101
So, the surreal discussions have begun. Let me preface by saying i am aware of how lucky i am to be able to discuss these things, rather than to have to deal with them suddenly and unexpectedly. Also, itz not like i haven't had the last three years to come to terms with the downward slope of this situation. Doesn't make it any less surreal.
Anyway, right now, itz about making things count... about not regretting, not holding back. Living now to the fullest. Well, Pwylla - Newsflash. Itz always about that. All the time.
Damn i'm a slow learner.
Mom: I hope you don't mind talking about these things...
Pwylla: Oh, no, of course not... I mean, i either do this now... or probably have to spend a ton of money on therapy later.
Snarkway
Today's quote of the day courtesy of the No 4 subway train conductor:
Ladies and gentlemen. Due to traffic on the line between 14th and 42nd street, this is a No 4 downtown EXPRESS-ONLY train ... traveling at its slowest possible speed. Have a great day.
Just So U Kno, It's All @ Me
2K1, convo btwn myself and Eel...
Eel: So have you ever thought about quitting smoking?So... well, thanks, mom.
Pwylla: Have you ever thought about running full speed off a cliff?
Eel: Cute.. It's just that when I am old and gray, I would like for you to still be around, you know.
Pwylla: Oh I will be. I'll be the one in the iron lung.
Eel: No, seriously, have you thought about quitting?
Pwylla: Well... I would probably quit if someone i know got cancer...
RE: TESTE
HEY HEY HEY
-----Original Message-----
From: LowGradePanic@bloghorn.com [mailto:LowGradePanic@bloghorn.com]
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2893 6:44 PM
To: BLAH@earthlink.net
Subject: TESTE
mail from blog
My Inner Animule
Great warrior chieftans advise calling upon the powers of your totem spirit animal when you head into battle or adversity... So i was trying to figure out what my totem might be. Thinking it's probably something like the iguana.
In his actions and gestures, the calm iguana will often exude human like traits. It might help to understand the iguana by imagining him as a "little person", but a much more sensitive person, and sometimes a paranoid person......who suns and sleeps on hot rocks... Or maybe the sloth... I'm not necessarily arboreal, but i am definitely awkward on the ground.
Solstice
Sometimes things come along that reset your world. Not quite a count zero reset, but enough adjustment to tare the balance. Even though it may feel like maximum tilt, in the overall scheme of things, itz a performance adjustment. You're being optimized.
Scheduled Downtime
Be advised that at 7:00 pm EST tonight, I will be stopping the world and getting off for routine maintenance. You may experience noticeable dislocations in time and/or poor gravity performance while the world is stopped. The outage may last for a couple hours, during which we will be collecting our head and taking inventory.
I appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience and disruption of plans.
Juicy Gotcha Krazy
Jonas posted a chat log of me mouthin off ... and now there's all these poor referrals coming over here and searching the site archives for clarification (or pictures) that they're probably not gonna find.
So, i guess, even if it doesn't run the world, it sure can make a site "sticky" :)
Centenary Bloomsday
I can clearly recall certain things about exact moment when i decided to read James Joyce's Ulysses: I remember that it was summer. I know that I must have been 17 or so, because i was in the Rambler - my first car - in the parking lot of Super S waiting for a friend. I was drowsing in the sun, off and on.
It's a memory that is pristine and sharp in some ways, yet blurred in others. For instance, I know that i had just finished reading a book, that i had loved. So much so that I had paged back to the author's Introduction, to re-read it. But I don't recall the title of the book, or who the author was. I only remember that i liked the way the author thought, and wanted more.
And, in the Introduction, i remember this fantastic anonymous author writing (i can almost make out the words on the page in my mind's eye) something to the extent of:
"... there was still so much stuffiness in the academy, even in the sixties... they were very much into rules... it would have been easy to end up being another canonical enforcer. There were two things that profoundly altered me - and saved me from this. One: like everyone else in those days, i dropped acid. The other: i read James Joyce's Ulysses...And that did it. Three years or so later - I would have the honor of not only reading Ulysses under the guidance of Dr. Thomas F. Staley, I would also have the privilege of fondling the "complete and final page proofs with the author's autograph, corrections, emendations, and additions" when writing my final paper on the text.
For today's special Bloomsday, maybe you can have some of your own intimate textual moments with Ulysses. Download it from Project Guttenberg.
Apologies In Advance
Recently i recieved an email from a pseudo-neocon friend (sure i'll own up to having relations from all points of the political spectrum).. wherein she described sobbing all week wrt to the Reagan state funeral... and by the end of which she was solidly equating bush II and reagan (neither of which i'd claim without feeling oily)... part of me felt sad for her - for her nostalgia for that happy childhood in the 80's under voodoo economics that she never actually had, and for her current contrived translation from cold war bravado to post-moderne frickt-up-ness, that somehow found a peristaltic pathway from Dutch's happenstance stawlwartess to Geeeee-Dubz pre-emptive invasion of essentially 3rd werld countries and implicit nation-building.
I mean... how can i say.. the axioms of true conservatism (small, local government, plurality at the source) so subverted by the cortortions of Delay and friends, BushCo's business PAC favoritisms... she ended the email by saying -
Only watch Fox News- the others, you will laugh at how fricking liberal they areUm... whatever... i had to change the channel from MSNBC to reruns of ER myself, as Chris Matthews wouldn't shaddup with the pro-rebublican stumpin. You know, i dont want to believe the country is as polarly divided as the extremist factions of our two measly parties would want us to believe. still when i get emails like this it fukkin sux.
Well, if bush/cheney/undead reagan win in '04... then i promise you, itz balls-to-the-wall full-on 'viva la resistance' here at LGP babee... going plastique and underground on this craziness like T3 or some shite...
Get your asses registered to vote. Join the ACLU. Read up on the tricky machines that will try to steal the swing states. Understand redistricting. Keep 5 gal jugs of pure water and a safe room. Oh, yeah and firearms... hey, what the hell, why not.
More Meat Fondling
And thus continue my experiments with cooking... after middling success with the london broil thingy, today i am going back to basics. That's right. Hamburgers. But these ain't yo poppy's backyard burgers... we'll have none of that funky ground chuck - instead we're massaging grade A ultra lean ground sirloin tip into patties up in here. The key i think, is in the seasonings. I've got multiple forms of onion and garlic and worchestshire worked in and am getting all shiatsu on it. And i am toying with adding in a touch of curry just to keep 'em guessing.
Hard on Hardware
(advance apologies to anyone hoping for a smutty post based on the title...)
It takes me an average of 2.5 years to kill the most durable hardware. This is arguably longer than the manufacturers' intended lifespans, but still... Physical symptoms of abuse exhibited by:
My Laptop and Peripherals (age 3 yrs):
- letters have been entirely (or mostly) worn off of the E, A, S, D, C, L, N, left Ctrl, left Alt, and right arrow keys
- permanent black smudgy thing in the upper left of the display screen
- CD-RW peripheral no longer reads nor writes unless laptop is held at about a 45 degree angle (i call it the "sweet spot") and provoked by opening and closing bay door repeatedly
- fan wheezes and works only when it wants to, and when computer is held at about a 30 degree sweet spot
- Wireless notebook card antenna is cracked and hanging on for dear life after computer fell two feet onto floor couple of weeks ago (landed directly on it. like it was aiming for it.)
- Deep crack in casing of the fliptop
- Battery holds charge for, like, 20 minutes max
- Titanium casing deeply scarred as if it was used for a puck in several games of street hockey
- Antenna broke COMPLETELY off last night. Using phone now requires both hands (one to hold the antenna in) and contortions to find strong signal
Obligatory Blogjack and request
RRPF here...
I wanted to ask the LGP readers for help naming a fear i have. I think that if I can give this phobia a name, I may be able to overcome it somehow.
I need a word describing an irrational fear of web tools, sites, archives, etc. shutting down and disappearing. Also, let me know if you have this condition and what things on the web bring it out in you...for me, it's deli, Amazon wishlists and other Amazon lists, My Movies at IMDB, fitday, various archived message boards, etc.
I wish I had a GMail account to give to the creator of the best word but I'm just not that well-connected and had to beg to get invited to Orkut. (but if you have the need for gigmail and are also an online outcast, try spymac)
RRPF out
PS: Have you ever looked at you hand, man? I mean really LOOKED at your hand?
Do No Evil = Do Some Good
Want a Gmail account? Jonas is your man. All you have to do is pay it forward.
Happy Transit
If you missed the Venus Crossing, you can view a still from the Carr House. There will be stills and rebroadcasts of this rare astronomical event posted all over the web later I am sure. However, the Carr House is, not incidentally, the place where Jeremiah Horrocks managed the first recorded viewing in 1639.
Almost as rare as the Venus Transit are brief 30 - 45 second sightings of uber-exuberant astrophysicists excitedly explaining that this event has not before been witnessed by anyone now living, as itz a 122 year interval type thing. You may, however, for a limited time this morning, find one of these wildly gesticulating on local, regional and national television broadcasts. Try to get a video capture. They may not be viewed in the wild again until the next Venus Transit in 2012.
Seriously Polluting the Time Stream
You can tell where i spend the most time around my apartment by looking for the piles of paper and books and such. In fact, it seems that anywhere i spend more than 30 minutes always ends up surrounded by incidental clutter. Itz like i'm some locus of detritus, or something...
Cleaning this week has consisted of piling like things on top of each other. This strategy is somewhat effective, but only for the near term.
Must get bewitched like magical powers, soon, before things get entirely out of control.
Eh Hem...
I'm not naming any names. But two days ago i had three lighters. Today i have none. This is war. If you have visited my house in the last two nights, don't be suprised if your own stock of (STOLEN, hello!) lighters disappears over the weekend.
(It's times like this that i miss my Psam. Who used to covertly steal lighters and unguarded cigarette packs when my visitors weren't looking by flicking them under the couch or into the cushions)
If Mikey Likes It... Itz Got 2B Good...
I am not a wine snob. Mostly because it takes too much time, energy and obsessiveness to be a wine snob. This is not to say that i am not obsessive, itz just that my obsessiveness is dedicated to other things. However, i am lucky to work for a partner with most excellent tastes in vino, whom procured some delectables for a couple client meetings we had. And, I even got to bring a couple of the extras home this last time.
YOWZA. I just now looked them up online:
- 2001 Numanthia Spanish Red - this most amazing wine (smoky, chocolately, nummy), is now pretty much sold out. Used to run 45$, now $159
- 2001 Chateauneuf-du-Pape Rouge - seriously alcoholic for something so delightfully light tasting. Running around $46.
- 2001 Paradiso Super Tuscan, Saxa Calida Rosso (see middle of page) - and who wouldn't love something called a 'super tuscan' (50% cab sav - 50% merlot)? Seriously this is running around $47 right now, with sexiness that reminds me of the Numanthia, which soon went thru the roof dollawise; so i guess this is one of those 'buy and holds' that i read about. I will bury my lone bottle deeply in the cupboard and try to forget about it. Yashur. ("Saxa Calida" btw, is latin for "hot stones").
- 2002 Lackner Tinnacher Sudesteiermark - austrian pinot grigio, as far as i can tell. And altho i don't really go for whites, this one is helladry, crisp and tasty. And comparatively cheap at $19 from PJs.
Getting Drafty Up In Here...
Are you ready to put skin in the game America?