Category: Uncategorized

beneficent ramrod or peccary

We’ve had these bizarre red sky sunsets 3 nights running. The whole yard lights up red, the neighbor’s tree looks like a Fire Tree, and even people and plants get an odd ruddy look. I suspect the Eschaton, but it’s still very pretty.

Having the extended family around makes me feel very Violent Femmes. I’m not sure whether it just makes me the youngest against (immaturity is sultan!), or whether they really are suddenly annoying in a big group in a way they aren’t individually, or whether I’m just a Big Grinch. In any case I am going to do my utmost next year to avoid all of the “holiday” stuff. It makes me a jerk as well as unhappy. Think I’m better off just with unhappy.

9 year old kids are also very tiring to be around. They’re everything I hate about myself, or something.

Anyway, there’s nothing like a war plus a hypocritically pushy wealth holiday plus family plus a kid around to make me feel like shit. I am going to sit under a rock until January 2, I think.

the night, they say, was made for schnitzel

jazz radio, late night, everyone else asleep. Sometimes I’m selfish enough to think that all of life should be this way: other humans isolated from me via the Internet Wall of Damp Cotton, music at my disposal, a beer and a chunk of cheese and bread handy.

This lasts until I wake up the next morning and want to go harass another human.

I want what I don’t want!

a banner with a strange device

Southern California is such an odd place. When I come back here I always have this feeling I should get my money changed or something. Palm trees, and miasma, and suburbs. Only I’m from here, so I ought not to find it foreign. Especially when the journey was just 400+ miles north to another part of the same state.

San Francisco is an amazing city. Reminds one of what cities could or should be. Then again, it costs something like $1000 per second to live there.

Does anyone remember what those plants are called that grow in coastal areas and marshes and look kind of like paintbrushes? Tall and slender with a puffy feathery brush thing at the top. It’s driving me nuts. (arr)

My east coast relatives (Brother, sis in law, nephew) are here this week. Holiday, dead baked bird, outings, etc. MAN THE SEROTONIN!!

Presidential Address

With credit to Stimps for the concept.

Mr. Speaker, Justices of the Supreme Court, honorable members of the Senate and the House, and all of America, good evening.

As you know, we face a great national crisis, perhaps the greatest in our history. The world watches us daily and looks to us for guidance and leadership, for some light in a dark world.

For too long we have been idle; we have dallied too long and slept leaning on our swords. Tonight I bring you a new America. An America that does not bend. An America that is ready to fight. Tonight we begin a war on the most terrible scourge of our century: Light Rock Stations.

This will not be an easy battle, nor will it be a short one. Many things will happen in the dark, in hiding, and using weapons and tactics that are new to all of us. We can expect to suffer and experience loss, but we may also expect to win victory in the end.

Let me draw for you a picture. On a balmy summer night, a parachuted figure drifts silently out of the sky into the roof of KYSR 98.7, Star 98 Los Angeles, one of our sworn enemies. She pauses to lay aside her ‘chute and crouches for a moment by the satellite downlink, then rappels down into the alley and speeds off on her Vespa. Minutes later a tremendous flash and blast rends the night sky and the building vanishes into ash and rubble.

This is the war we fight. Together, as Americans, we reject the crawling, festering plague of light rock stations. Together we stand. In this long road we walk together, we must remain steadfast and loyal to our principles and each other. With this strength we will defeat the Evil Ones.

Thank you, and good night.

[Exit to “We Want the Airwaves” by the Ramones]

Latent Periscopic Embolism

I was driving home tonight on the freeway and extremely bored. So bored, that I actually listened to two Styx songs in a row on the radio, and I hate Styx a lot.

Then an ad came on the radio. A woman was talking to something with a comical cartoony little voice. Soon it became apparent that she was talking to some type of feminine hygiene product, because the cartoony little voice said “I can help with vaginitis, too!” Together, she and the product were plotting something. Then she said “Hush, he’s coming!”

Then her husband enters the playlet and she tells them they have something special planned tonight. The cartoony feminine hygiene product pipes up and the three of them have a conversation about how they’re not going to use a condom tonight, but instead going to use Buffergel, the new gel that somehow protects against something: whether it’s HIV or pregnancy is not made clear in the ad.

Finally, the announcer comes on and tells you that Buffergel is only available on a testing basis and they want “loving couples” to call them to get some money and free Buffergel.

So it was just basically your usual threesome/cartoon voice/feminine hygiene/sex aid/research study ad.

I really have nothing further to say. Except EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES

fish arousal technology assessment

Spent the week fighting with the intricacies of caching devices that speed up web sites. The short version is: when they break, they cause a myriad assortment of problems that are hard to solve and cause grown men to yell and pound on furniture.

I increasingly envy the cat, who is stupider than I and will die sooner, but is entirely free of angst. She only experiences joy, fear, and boredom as far as I can tell.

Health tip: do not get so freaked out at your job that you forget to eat lunch and instead chew entire packages of Bazooka Bubble Gum.

Music tip: If you can find it, the David Byrne-free Talking Heads record called “No Talking Just Head” By the Heads is a great record, very underappreciated, especially Johnette Napolitano’s unearthly wailing on “Damage I’ve Done”.

I think I’ll wake up late tomorrow and go commit an act of public nihilism. I wish my life was less like rands and more like

regularly scheduled hat rotation

I am the bearer of the “Grim Beeper” this week, and of course there are all these events and the thing goes off like crazy. The error messages that come to my pager are wonderfully cryptic, such as:

“15342.cust.sjc1.foobaz.com move failed report or system fudge attack roentgen gearhead honkenstein”

And then I call someone on the phone or poke at my computer. It is all similar to Charlie Chaplin’s classic Modern Times but without so much machinery.

The odd combination of daylight saving end plus a gray day makes me feel as though I’m in Northern England instead of Southern California. I had tea today.

Question of the day: Why do health food freaks eat “sea salt” instead of regular salt. Isn’t it all just NaCl?