- The AFLAC Duck is Gilbert Gottfried. Wow! I had no idea. I now like those stupid ads even more.
- Can it be true that 1 in 25 dads in the U.K. is raising someone else’s kid? Or is this one of those things where it turns out someone didn’t carry the two and the statistics are bad?
- Crazy-ass mammatus clouds, strange color too. (Flickr)
- Deep in the depths of Syria, our hero will not pause in his quest until he finds his Grail: the elusive wild hamster of Aleppo.
Category: Uncategorized
Did Nena snuff it at the Fairview offramp this morning or something?
Some woman in a Hummer Limo apparently committed suicide on the freeway at 5 this morning by leaping out of it. The news reports say they had been at a “celebrity event” (nice phrase) and then at a party in Costa Mesa. Also that she was in a “German band”. Unsurprisingly, there may have been alcohol involved!
So, what German band was at a Celebrity Event, then came down to this hub of culture and excitement called Costa Mesa and partied until 5 am, and then got in their Hummer Limo to go back to L.A. only to be interrupted by this lady’s suicide?
Edit: Now it says she was in a “popular German punk band”. I’d put up the Drudge siren because it’s a DEVELOPING… story but I’m lazy.
Link or Swim
- Mantis Eats Hummingbird. YOW. (note: contains graphic animal death pictures) (via robotwisdom)
- Forward, brave combat donkeys of Afghanistan! (Flickr)
- HOMPH HOMPH chocolate chili shortbread HOMPH!
- Gah, that horrible September 11 commemorative Triumph of the Will walk has its own website.
Coping: A list
Do you have a fatal tragic flaw? Are you plagued with self-hatred, irrational fear, or stomach-shredding rage? Perhaps your career has shit the bed for good, or you’ve had a bad divorce, or you’re paralyzed with shame and guilt from some long-past disaster. Anyway there’s stuff you really don’t want to deal with, and it’s not going away any time soon. What to do? Psychotherapy is very, very expensive and slow. Psychiatric medications are also very expensive, and they make you feel funny and aren’t socially okay. For those of you without good insurance, who need to economize, here’s a handy list of sublimation, avoidance, and substitution mechanisms.
diamonds
Whoops! Gardener’s equipment threw a rock up and took out my passenger side window. We’ve known Jaime for 10 years and he’s a businessman; he’s paying for it. He told me about it, in fact; I wouldn’t have noticed until later and never suspected him. He’s a Good Egg. So the substitutemobile is resting overnight at Tustin Acura and tomorrow they fix it. Apparently the expensive part is the time they spend very carefully making sure that there’s no more bits of safety glass in the door mechanism rattling around messing things up. Glad I’m not paying, though.
I was driven home by Alfredo, whom I’ve had this ride with before, and we talked about life and cars and kids and stuff. He’s a really solid guy.
When I was a kid and we were living in France we went for a week’s drive around the Loire Valley seeing old stones and stuffing our faces. We had a rental Renault. It was hot as hell most of the time, and one day there was a cold front and a big thunderstorm, and icewater rained on us. The windshield basically exploded as we were driving; at first, my dad thought someone had thrown a rock.
We pulled into a tiny Provençal hamlet with about 8 houses in it and went to the gas station. The classic ancient Frenchman with the huge grey mustache and beret shambled out and inspected the Renault. “Ah.. Pare-brise”, he announced. He led us into the back where they had stacks and stacks of windshields for just about every possible French vehicle and selected ours. The whole thing had the air of routine.
French technology in 1979 could build nuclear power plants but apparently tempered glass was beyond them. For the rest of the trip we had diamonds dripping out of the air condition vents in a shimmering drizzle.
Shut the fuck up, Sir.
Okay, this Canadian war hero is just too cool. Not so much because he blew up some tanks at close range and saved a lot of his friends, but because he was demoted back to private from corporate nine times because of his dislike of authority and ended up being their only private to get the Victoria Cross.
EVERY 1 IS FREE 2 USE THE TAGZ
I SHARE WITH YOU THE NOISES INSIDE MY HEAD (SKULL)
MANY PEOPLE HAVE FOUND THEM VERY MUSICAL
At long last, have y’all no sense of decency?
Hey! Let’s all party at a Pentagon-sponsored country music show on September 11.
On second thought let’s not. Instead, let’s have a big counter-concert. We could have John Prine sing “Saigon” and “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven No More” and especially “Sam Stone”. I’m sure the Dixie Chicks would be happy to play and I bet we could get Willie Nelson!
seems so rosy in the cradle
Exiting the psychotherapist’s office after another $140 50-minute hour of “amisuicidalornot”, I checked the hiptop for messages, only to find that “Bryanty Goddard” wanted me to read an email with the subject line: Depressed? There is now help, sometime. I’m once again reminded that it’s the little things in life that are insignificant and stupid.
I am pursued today by things I must avoid. Spent time talking to D. which was cool in itself but it’s about her being 17 and learning things and preparing for the college experience. And then at the bookstore, I saw Maggie, a poet and friend whom I knew my freshman year at UCLA and who inexplicably now works at a store three blocks from my house. And there I am, right back at that moment when everything broke and I dropped the ball.
I wish I was that typical geek guy. Most of the people I’ve known with something like my problem (aging 12-year-old, can’t clean up room, can’t get laid, parent’s basement, comic book guy) can obsess on a ridiculous hobby or an engrossing job and make an artificial world out of it. I’ve seen guys living in a pile of old pizza boxes, who’ve never changed their shirts or had dinner with a woman before, and the only time they feel pain is when the PS2 controller gets jerked away. It’s a ridiculous sight from the outside — the middle-aged man in the living-room couch fort — but it’s a functioning defense against despair.
I’m defenseless. I actually want a real life as a real adult man, and I can’t have it for reasons that defy reason. No couch fort for me.
I often end up at the Borders bookstore on the afternoons after shrinkage, and I frequently read the philosophy and psychology shelves on those days either because I have some technical interest in a brain phenomenon we’re working on, or I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I’m intimidated by the philosophers and insulted by the psychologists; I wish there was a happy medium somewhere. I turn from being confused by Nietzsche to see that Naomi Judd has written a book on how to be just as happy as she is. They do, however, hope I’m highly satisfied with their books on how to date “out of my league” or detect my hubby’s cheating, or maybe just control all the humans I meet with my amazing Laws of Power and Trans-Neural Hypgnosis. I am not highly satisfied.
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