hated and then loved

Some of my favorite art (books, music, food, all of it) I have hated the first time. Some of it is understandable: the shock of the new. Bitter foods, dissonant music, singers with weird voices, idiosyncratic writers. Other things I still don’t know why I hated at first. A partial list is below. Heavy on the pop music because, well, I am heavy on the pop music. But for some reason my taste there is fluid and weird. I love everything below but couldn’t stand it at first:

Gang of Four
Cilantro
Joy Division
James Joyce
The Mountain Goats
Bill Hicks
Van Morrison
Prefab Sprout
John Coltrane
Faulkner
Neil Young
Thomas Mann
Sashimi

Part of it is just maturing, I think, and not needing everything to be accessible. But I liked bitter, weird, dissonant, and generally obscure crap starting very young. I can’t explain those taste changes. Glad I enjoy all those things now.

The list of things I liked and now despise is shorter, more boring, and pointlessly negative so I won’t share. Most of them are pop culture that I liked because of some personal context and then realized was shit, or things I enjoyed because I was immaturer and later found the real version thereof.

eating lunch is a bug

  1. 600 lb guy causes crematory grease fire
  2. The Buffalo Beast presents: Faith-based comics!
  3. BLOG ABOUT BACON
  4. I am a diehard liberal Democrat, but this guy makes some disturbingly good points about how we’ve failed.
  5. Season Shot has to be a prank. Has to be. But wow! Honey lemon shotgun blast!
  6. Oh hey great, it’s spontaneous combustion time at the big science place where they keep the atomic things.
  7. Military e-voting is a huge army-style SNAFU.

Halloween dreams.

I dreamed that I had found a website that looked at first as thought it was the usual unpleasant sexual tourism thing, guys visiting impoverished countries to do nasty things. But it was worse. It was a cannibalism tourist site, where you could arrange to visit places so benighted that they’d sell you their children and you could eat them.

The site was disguised as a kind of crackpot medical clinic called the California Creative Radiology Institute.

I think this is the first actual Internet nightmare I’ve had!

Happy… thing!

Halloween time is funny nowadays.

Businesses desperately need Halloween, since holidays mean spending, so they want to make anything they sell somehow orange, spooky, or candy-related. The boom in “adult” Halloween celebrations means that slutty costumes and spooky alcohol are a huge money deal now.

The children’s holiday of my childhood continues, which means big money selling candy and party favors and pumpkin-oriented merchandise. And less slutty costumes, although some parents seem to have forgotten that pimp ‘n’ ho outfits or slutty nurse costumes aren’t too great for the little ones.

But then we have the Christians. There are a lot of very conservative evangelicals around here, and they’re wealthy too. If you get too spooky and devilish, they complain and you can lose their business. Since they’re stuck with the evangelical ghetto version of the holiday you can sell them stuff too, but it has to be for some neutered “harvest” holiday: squash, orange things, candy corn, centerpieces made from um sheaves or something. They’ll have a party and eat pumpkin pie and pray a lot and talk about Fall, and no demons allowed. It’s goofy but I understand. If I really believed in demons and evil witches, I wouldn’t want to play around about it and have my kids dressing up that way.

So, a lot of stores talk about “the season!” or “fall” or just have orange things, and it’s funny to see which ones do this and how they get around using the H word. The combination of hypocrisy and greed is always good for a laugh.

I saw a hilarious example at one of our local churches this week. They’re having a fun celebration for the kids and there was a big sign and display outside for it. They wisely sidestepped both “Halloween” and “harvest” but their choice was, wait for it… pirates. So there was a big pirate ship display and a “Pirate Fun Party” sign.

I agree with them that demons, devils, lost souls, ghosts, witches, and the Undead are not cool in their world and shouldn’t be celebrated. But what exactly is the difference between trivializing the terrors of Hell and whitewashing the rape, murder, pillaging, alcoholism, prison-sex sodomy, Vitamin C deficiency, and sociopathic greed of piracy? Maybe you guys should just go back to the sheaves-as-centerpieces thing and have some pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds are tasty.

Uhh. Apple?

ladies night

The Apple Store in Costa Mesa had a sign outside the store advertising a “Ladies’ Night.” It appears to be some kind of “outreach to women” thing. It isn’t clear whether the event itself is going to be useful, but they really could have chosen a better name for it. Really they could.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

DEVIL FACIAL TUMOR DISEASE – AUSTRALIA (TASMANIA)(02)
**********************************************
A ProMED-mail post

ProMED-mail, a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases

Date: 24 Oct 2006
From: Pablo Nart
Source: ABC [edited]

The Tasmanian Government has acknowledged the outbreak of the devil
facial tumor disease in a wildlife park in the state’s north is a
serious setback to the preservation of the species. The state’s chief
veterinary officer has been sent to the Trowunna Wildlife Park at
Mole Creek to try to determine the cause of the outbreak.

Tests for devil facial tumor disease came back positive late last
week for 2 devils at the park.

It is the first time the disease has been found in a wildlife park.

The animals, a 4-year-old male and a 5-year-old female, were bred at
the park and are now in isolation.

Alex Schaap of the Primary Industries and Water Department says the
intrusion of a wild devil is the most likely explanation for the outbreak.

“The discovery of infected devils in that captive population is a
blow because we have a number of devils in captivity which are now at
risk of the disease. That doesn’t mean that other devils in captivity
are at risk,” he said.

The 4 devils sent to Denmark as a gift to celebrate the birth of
Denmark’s Prince Christian came from Trowunna.

But he’s a millionaire!

According to the Register, a Mr. Joseph Garcia is currently in jail here on a million dollars bail for rape and sexual assault of at least three women. Mr. Garcia’s M.O. was to go on a date, take her home, and jump her. This is apparently not recommended in that he could get up to 45 years if convicted. And where did he get his dates? One just at the post office, and the others at MillionaireMatch.com!

Don’t worry, gals. Not all of the local real estate millionaires are rapists.

Edit: From the millionaire dating service site itself: “If the site is slow at this moment, come back early morning or late night. It may be due to the recent publicity about a major Hollywood celebrity having found a match here.” Yes, or…

Register story is here:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1328764.php

fire the noodle cannon and eat

After a conversation with the Exploding Aardvark tonight I realize I have accidentally come up with a new holiday.

I haven’t been eating much during the day and then at night recently I’ve been going out for Japanese noodles. A lot. Both frequently and a lot of noodles. Tonight I had the hakata ramen, with extra noodles, chashu, and wonton, at Shinsengumi.

I am celebrating Ramendan. Clearly this is some kind of Flying Spaghetti Monster holiday.

And they say nothing happens here

Man shot with taser after alleged carjacking attempts
By KATHERINE NGUYEN
The Orange County Register

Costa Mesa — An unidentified man police say was responsible for three carjacking attempts is in the hospital after being shot with a taser gun by officers.

The bizarre string of events started with a three-car accident at 11 p.m. Friday near the intersection of Newport Boulevard and 19th Street. From witness reports, police said the man who caused the accident got out of his car and attempted to carjack a cab. An altercation broke out and it is believed the cab driver ran over the man with his taxi.

“That apparently didn’t stop the suspect and he then attempted to carjack a second vehicle,” said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Dale Birney. “This guy was a one-man crime wave.”

Police received more reports of carjackings further south on Newport Boulevard. At Newport and 18th Street, the same male suspect reportedly punched a motorcyclist before heading over to Newport and Lido Isle. It is unclear how the suspect got there, but police said they found the suspect jumping on parked cars and pulling the windshield wipers off.

Lt. Birney said Newport Beach police then shot the man with a taser the several times. The man, believed to be in his 20s, became unconscious and was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana. His condition is unknown and the investigation is ongoing. He is likely to be arrested for the attempted carjackings in Costa Mesa and felony vandalism in Newport Beach, police said.