Todd A. Delzinko

complainy

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:25:07 GMT

Man, I still love my Lono icon.

I hate the sheer, overwhelming multiplicity of papers I have to write. It's like, I've only got so many words and if I use them up churning out explorations of targeted academic issues, I won't have any left to talk to people or order food. I may starve to death, one hand still clutching a rolled-up bunch of scribbledy notes.

There's room enough.

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:25:31 GMT

Wow, it's been almost a year. Fortunately, I'm still pretty self-involved so here are some pictures of me from my friend's birthday shindig. Did I ever write about going back to school? If I didn't, hey, I went back to school! Now I have three weeks to go! Also, I just almost died of infection so I feel like my collegiate experience is complete.

Man, how do I do a cut?

Oh, here I am at a terrible Stillwater party with my friend Andrew:

It was like every stereotypical college party you've seen in the movies, only not fun at all. I spent most of my time there classifying different kinds of rocks I imagined. Other people rapped (poorly) and even played Beer Pong (poorly). The restroom was perpetually inhabited by a rotating crew of young people who ruined their taste for beer with Natural Light.

Here I am at my friend's wedding party. Later, I would give that scarf to a homeless man after I had someone drop me off at a street corner seemingly at random. Even later, I went to another party that I don't remember at all, but people later told me the worst stories I'd ever heard about what I did there. Interestingly, it was still more fun than the house party I went to in Stilly.

It was Kelsie's birthday. She is on the right! I am in the middle. Jamica is on the left!

Now, I'm a little more solid in college than I'd like to be, but I've got some time to rectify that situation coming up. However, I have noticed a direct correlation between the reaction I get when posing for photographs and how much of me there is to photograph.

That was not oblique at all. I've lost the Live Journal touch. My photo commentary is like a dead albatross, hung round my neck. All my My Space blogs are about You Tube videos so I may simply no longer possess the capacity to comment on static images, even when they are of myself.

Kat is from Germany! She is great to hang out with because she expects me to be utterly shallow and so I cannot diminish her opinion of me no matter what I say or do. If we saw a news story that relayed the tragedy of a terrible fire on a bus full of one-legged orphans and kittens and I said, "Man, that is kind of sad," Kat would respond, "What the heck? Why are you pretending to show feelings? Don't be a fool!"

Incidentally, that's not my shot. I was on antibiotics that night so I didn't actually drink.

Jamica and I again. I like the picture because someone else is sticking out their tongue. Admittedly, I didn't post any of the pictures where I was doing so, but let's pretend I did. We can both nod knowingly at our different temporal and geographic locations.

That's Dylan on the left. Yeah.

What else have I been up to with life? School. Work. Slumber. I can't even do a survey efficiently any more. Still, I listen to a new slate of bands nobody's heard of and use a new slate of archaic terminology for my own edification. Maybe hamburger hot dog.

Poison Money

Thu, 24 May 2007 03:47:01 GMT

"Okay, well then come back, okay? And come back with a lot of force and take care of those bandits."

Let's listen to the Streets and write a journal entry.

Today, I worked and slept and that's about it. I'm all cracked out on allergy medication so my brain is not functioning effectively. While shelving, which is my job, I would lose track of the alphabet. That made properly organizing the various literary items I was stocking difficult to organize, but I satisfied my concern about this conundrum by assuming that nobody wanted them anyway. Who reads anymore?

When I am suffering ill effects of any sort, I spend most of my work day loathing everything. It's an interesting shift in my personal paradigm because generally, I just sort of nod solemnly at my environment.

I can't listen to the Streets and do anything else apparently. I keep getting distracted and mumbling along in painfully contrived cockney: "Did you know cigarette lighters were invented before matches?" Also, "If you get hammered, you don't get to nail!"

So I just nod solemnly at my environment no matter how absurd, spirit-numbing or literally painful it becomes. However, because I had this synergistic blend of allergy medication hangover and caffeine, I ended up being utterly and completely irritated by every facet of my surroundings. "Look at this wall!" I'd say to random co-worker number four. "I know it's holding up the ceiling, but we could really do better." Random co-worker responds with "What are you talking about?" so I say, "Oh, are you and wall there good friends? You think the two of you are better than me? Look! Look!" Here I'm waving my hands in the air. "Your buddy the wall can't do that, can it? It can't even move! Well, unless there's an earthquake, and then I hope it falls right on you!"

June 3rd is the Faint at Caine's. I am totally hyped, even though at this point I may be walking there to enjoy the show entirely by my lonesome. Fortunately, I'm not afraid of Americans. That digression would work a lot better if that was a Faint song.

This is what happens when you try to write something without having something to write about. Oops!

Aggressor

Sat, 19 May 2007 05:21:48 GMT

"Klytus, I'm bored."

Man, I love vs. songs. They're terribly contrived and usually just feature a couple slightly complimentary songs mashed together, but something about them makes me all tingly and, as a result, I end up listening to bands I can't stand solo.

Right now, it's Tom Petty and Afroman and Luniz and Cam Farrar singing to me about marijuana. I might conceivably listen to Tom Petty on his own, but I don't even know who the other people are offhand. Also, Tom's oeuvre really peaked out for me with Don't Come Around Here No More.

My favorite thing about working at Borders, at the moment, is that I currently have approximately four people to whom I am making exceedingly ludicrous claims because they enjoy disagreeing with every single thing I say. I dragged the old "After Red Hot Chili Peppers, no new bands need to have ever been formed" trope out, which always causes a severe amount of rancor because it's absolute lunacy. "How can you say that?" is often the reaction, which prompts me to smirk and shake my head in completely dismissive fashion. "Yeah, like anybody's done anything better than the Peppers," I respond with a suitable tone. That is how you win an argument: make your assertion so completely faulty that the other party is forced to concede all reason to move far enough towards it to even have a conversation.

Admittedly, sometimes people will realize they prefer not talking to you outright, but that is a risk I'm always willing to take, especially the more caffeine I consume.

Miss Kittin v. PJ Harvey v. Thom Yorke v. Corey Hart v. Human League! Wow! I'm going to make my own versus song with about eighteen bands and called it Sub-a-Dub. It'll be insanely loud screeching with occasional bits of Golden Girls vaguely discernible for the two minutes you retain your hearing. Once deafness sets in, Sub-a-Dub will haunt your dreams until, late one night, you crawl out of bed, put on a bunny suit and run screaming its name down Main Street. Maybe Corey Hart will write a song about you: "He wore his bunny suit at night so he could so he could hide Easter eggs."

It seems kind of like cheating to use PJ Harvey and Thom's duet but still list them separately in the versus format. It'd be like up-loading Highwayman as Johnny Cash v. Willie Nelson v. Kris Kristoffersen v. the guy I always forget. Actually, that's a lie; I know it's Waylon. I always know it's Waylon.

Bustah Rhymes seems a little busy for versus work; his songs already strike me as versuses. Versusi? Versi? V?

"If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror."

I have to work in approximately six hours. Fortunately, I slept all afternoon instead of doing anything worthwhile. Afternoon slumber always prompts these absurd dreams for me, which I am not accustomed to since my subconscious generally satisfies itself with the most boring explorations of self imaginable, like me walking down a road. There's nothing to see on the road, and it is endless. I'm sure it could be a metaphorical delineation of my postmodern tendencies, but it's just as likely my brain is lazy.

Afternoon dreams, however, have this strange contextual reliance on significance applied to completely inappropriate, fantastic situations. For instance, the most vivid dream I've had recently portrayed a racist filling station, which manifested with indescribable physical manifestation in a dream that ended with me standing amidst burnt ruins, merrily chewing on a Grandma's Brand soft cookie. When I awoke, my brain went Did I just eat an effing cookie? Then I realized it was because I triumphed over an inanimate object with disagreeable opinions. I suppose that's an appropriate situation in which to eat a cookie.

"It's what they call tears; it's a sign of their weakness."

Golden Girls is on! My three movie quotes are all from the same movie character, who is not on Golden Girls. If he was, I would own every single season and watch it from dawn til dusk til dawn again.

Personal Survey

Fri, 04 May 2007 03:28:29 GMT

It is like a survey generated by other people! Let's do this thing on a lonely Thursday night. The loneliness may influence some of my responses!

kittybrat
1. how long have you been friends with the person you have/had been friends with the longest, ever in your life?
My friend continuum is not terribly impressive. I think my current lengthiest friendship is with porcupinemattie, but even that had a pretty substantial gap in the middle. It has been about eleven years though.

2. (assuming you've crossed this boundary) were you really ready when you lost your virginity? (i mean that as a kind of after-thought, not of a "yeah, I was ready, so i did it," kind of thing.)
Assuming I've crossed that boundary? Man, do I seem like that anti-swank? I may not be a hipster, but I've got four limbs and a heart that's full of passion!

Yeah, I was over-ready. That's why I did it with somebody I ought not have.

3. what is your favorite musical instrument, and can you play it? (uh oh, i snuck in two questions on that one. forgive me?)
I love all instruments if they make songs I like. I can't really pinpoint one, though I guess I'd be lame and say "guitar" just because so much of what I enjoy begins with it. I can't play any musical instruments, and I've tried on several occasions to attain some degree of skill with them.

4. have you ever been prescribed drugs?
Yes! They were necessary though. The doctor was not my good friend.

5. when you think of "love", who is the first person you think of?
Well, I think of George Costanza, but he's a television sitcom character and not an actual person. Then I think of Billy Corgan because of that Smashing Pumpkins' song Love that I can no longer stand but used to love. I finally arrive at someone I know when I ponder the strange case of myself and the British girl I met approximately five days ago. There could have been sparks, man, and then maybe a fire! Well, assuming we ever progressed beyond me saying, "Hey, hey, hey, tell me about the time you lost your shoes cuz I'm right chuffed about that bonny lad," and she'd reply, "Wot?"

She's heading back across the pond now. Cor blimey, guv'ner.

6. why did you create a live journal account?
Well, that was seven years ago. A quick glance at those early posts indicates I seem to have made a Live Journal to write about how my cats at the time (Cactus and Rocky) were tearing up the wallpaper in my apartment.

bigangry
7. I'm not going to write out 6 goddamn questions, so here's one big one: Explain in your livejournal which songs you like listening to while having drugged sex with friends you're in love with.
Actually, I generally prefer to have a film in the background for the interaction you inquired about. That way, during lulls in the intercourse, there's something to follow that won't prompt me to hum. For some reason, quoting the awesomeness of The Big Lebowski is less disruptive than belting out part of Rhinestone Cowboy.

I totally did that kind of question when I posted on ttingle's opening salvo of this meme.

8. Alternately: what was the worst sex you've ever had and how much alcohol was involved, because we all know you're a drunk. Should that have ended with a question mark?
More alcohol than one man can safely consume. So much I can't remember any details, which I would hope you wouldn't want anyway. All I retain are murky notions of octopi and tiny gnomes, crying.

ttingle
1. Friends - Who's that one friend you talk about a lot behind their back? Maybe like...the skank of the group.
Man, I am probably the friend everybody talks about. I'm not really a skank though; I just have a strong, uninformed opinion about everything.

2. Sex - You're the type that's always on the bottom, huh?
Not so much. Do you think I'm lazy? I am absolutely the opposite of lazy. I like to ponder the calorie burn of almost every activity I partake in, actually.

3. Music - Do you like rap?
Like all genres, I do enjoy some rap.

4. Drugs - Wanna smoke?
Smoking makes me absolutely the most boring person on the face of the earth. All I do is squeeze my hand and feel so much it hurts inside.

5. Love - How much do you love Tiffany Mae Tingle?
More than I could ever express in mere words. The nearest approximation would go as follows: it's like the flood that prompted Noah to build his legendary Ark, only the whole universe is under water.

6. Livejournal - Have you ever submitted an application and pictures to one of those..."hot or not" communities that I'm not sure even exist anymore?
Nope. I know I rank squarely in the 'or' range.

trafficlight
this is lame and you know it.
That's... that's not a question.

Experimental Question

Wed, 02 May 2007 19:03:10 GMT

My Speech class revealed to me that I am entirely too excited about self-disclosure to most anybody so I've no qualm with issuing the following edict, copied from ttingle:

Ask me a question about each of the following:

1. Friends
2. Sex
3. Music
4. Drugs
5. Love
6. Livejournal

No matter how rude, sexual, or confidential, I'll answer it.

Admittedly, the quality of my answer is not guaranteed. See my various and sundry survey efforts for an assumptive basis on which to forecast my responses.

The empty potato

Tue, 01 May 2007 06:51:07 GMT

Man, I am doing finals.

I hate finals. I don't mind the tests so much because my brain is like some scientific experiment engineered to take the kinds of tests they utilize these days. No, the problem is people who are all, "Hey, brah, how're your finals, son?" and I have to respond because I am taking finals and I can't lie to avoid the conversation. I was in the dorm bathroom and this dude made eye contact across the stall barrier to tell me he was totally stoked about his Comp 2 final. When somebody looks at me as I'm attempting to void my body's waste, I freeze up. Normally, I am a paragon of socialization, but that one instance always makes me a tad uncomfortable.

Today, I ordered a couple shirts from Achewood. One says "I am the guy who sucks" on the front and "plus I got depr-ession" on the back, which totally rules.

Even if I fail out of college, I will have shirts that say "Life, man. Life!" I feel positive like a covalent bond end lacking electron density.

Survey Purvey

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 18:38:18 GMT

Kaiser Chiefs. A paper on the Real ID Act of 2005. Consumption of tacos. This is my Easter.

1. Do you like cheese?
No, cheese makes baby C'Thulu wail with the agony of a thousand burning souls.

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
No, but I've eaten smoked heron.

3. Do you own a gun?
Nope. I don't own much of anything at the moment though. If I had a car, I could load up the trunk and take off for parts unknown, disappearing into the sunset with a wink and a nod and a slight tilt of my head.

4. Does affluence have a mitigating effect on second generation discrimination?
Several studies have shown an empirical decrease in behaviors associated with second generation discrimination with an accompanying increase in affluence amongst the parties affected.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Only when they're going to cut me open and implant tiny transmitters.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
I think they are an offense to all that is good and proper in the world.

7. What's your favorite Christmas song?
Christmas at Ground Zero by Weird Al. That's nostalgia!

Here is my favorite memory about this song: my friend was an inveterate liar and he made up a music video for the song whole-cloth. It was so awesome and I wanted it to be real so bad, but alas, it was not. However, I'll always carry the imagery he manifested until I die. Here is a snippet of the ending: "So like all these bombs go off KABOOM and you see dust and stuff and Weird Al crawls out from under some debris and waves and these other people who are all deformed and messed-up by the radiation stuff I guess come out too and stand behind him waving. Then you see Santa's sled careening out of control and it hits where the waving people are and they all blow up and it totally rocks!"

"It's Christmas at ground zero;
"the button has been pressed
"the radio just let us know
"that this is not a test."

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Scotch. Bourbon. A monstrous carafe of children's blood. No matter what I say here, it won't be interesting.

9. Can you do push ups?
Singular? Yes. Plural? Maybe.

10. Is your bathroom clean?
OSU hires people to clean it. They mostly do a good job. Sometimes they even make a half-hearted effort to scrub away the profanity.

11. What's your favorite piece of jewlery?
Jewlery? Ha ha ha. I want to get a necklace with a giant sign that says "jewlery." Actually, no, I don't. It's not funny. It's just a typo or someone's poor attempt to spell.

13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
I roll around in garbage. A lot.

14. Do you have friends?
Somewhere. I think they all moved to a distant island where they sit around pondering philosophical questions about me, like why I enjoy tacos and nachos but not taco salad, the fusion of the two items.

15. Do you miss someone?
The only time I don't feel the misery of loneliness is when I'm so cracked out on caffeine that it is all I can do to not leap onto the table and declare this land claimed in the name of the Queen of Pop Music, Her Majesty Sarah Nixey. It's just the facts of life.

16. Middle name?
I'm guessing that's a name that comes between the first and last name. Since the middle is elastic, it'd be better to inquire "Middle names?"

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment:
1. Man, I sure am writing an awesome paper about the Real ID. Thanks, New Hampshire!
2. I am all sorts of out of practice on doing the survey thing. My grasp and employment of nuance are second to everyone.
3. Once more into the breach!

Oh wait, I didn't name them. Okay: 'William,' 'Jongo Congo' and 'Abraham.'

18. Name the last 3 things you have bought.
1. Tacos.
2. Tacos.
3. Tacos.

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
1. I hydrate with water.
2. I dehydrate with booze.
3. I crack out on liquids containing caffeine, often in amounts unsafe for pregnant women, children or people with heart conditions.

20. Current worry?
I'm going to die alone, most likely in a ditch somewhere. Hopefully I will be concealed with a rain coat at the very least; I would hate to be dead and wet.

21. Current hate?
This question. I wish it said 'current hat.' Then I could say, "Well, I'm not wearing a hat, but I could be and then watch out!"

22. Favorite place to be?
I'm good anywhere. The place I don't like to be is my dorm room; I will go sit somewhere and read a book to escape its depressing confines. Sorrow, thy name is standardized collegiate housing.

23. How did you bring in the New Year?
Drinking. How else would somebody bring in the New Year?

24. Where would you like to go?
I'm up for a road trip.

25. Best television punch?
See previous entry for House punches Chase. I think I kept calling him 'Chance' in that post. He'll always be Chance in my heart.

26. Greatest unhappiness resulting from food?
I guess one of the multiple times I've gotten to enjoy food poisoning. It's never pleasant.

27. Do you own slippers?
Not a one ever. I do have thick warm socks I employ when the weather calls for it though.

28. What shirt are you wearing?
Green long-sleeved. I am listening to the Faint's Take Me to the Hospital. If I ever suffer a catastrophic accident and am bleeding profusely, I hope I have enough presence of mind to find this song on the internet and play it in lieu of directly requesting transportation to the hospital.

29. Do you burn or tan?
I get slightly pinker. Then I fade back to Eastern European pastiness.

30. Favorite color?
The Faint Let the Poison Spill from Your Throat.

31. Would you be a pirate?
I'd really be better as a caveman or viking, I think. I can only imagine with a faint smile on my lips the wacky misadventures I'd get into as my ship plundered and pillaged the villages of the European coast.

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?
Highwaymen's Highwayman. I even do self applause for the bits where each country music legend jumps in, inspired by this You Tube video. Careful, Kristofferson! You almost showed an emotion!

Glen Campbell did that song when I saw him at the Tulsa State Fair. For those of you in the know, yes, that is the Best Night Of My Life (BNOML, pronounced Bee-Nommel).

33. Do you like gum?
Yes. I wish I had some now.

34. Have you a crumpet?
No crumpets, sorry.

35. What's in your pocket right now?
Keys. Cell phone. Silver money.

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
I haven't laughed today. I've no idea what made me laugh yesterday. Probably myself. "Oh Todd," I say as I roll my eyes and cackle with merriment, "you/I are/am such a character!"

"Yeah?" I reply. "Then why am I so utterly alone and adrift, huh?"

"Because," I have to point out now, "you're a character nobody likes."

Then I probably sob.

37. Best bed sheets as a child?
Dinosaurs! Those are the only ones I remember; they win by default!

38. Worst injury you've ever had?
Broken something or other. I was little and they had to bathe me in the sink. It probably crippled me socially for life.

39. What is your biggest pet peeve?
The Spoon Remix, where they just add some random element to an awesome song and sell it to me again (for free via the internet these days, admittedly) as a remix with a new artistic vision.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
I don't even have a house to keep TVs in.

41. Who is your loudest friend?
Whichever one is yelling, I guess.

42. Who is your most silent friend?
The wall. It never says anything.

43. Does someone have a crush on you?
Probably not.

44. Do you wish on shooting stars?
I wish they would fall on a childless rich guy who was secretly my long-lost uncle.

45. What is your favorite book?
Flann O'Brien The Third Policeman. Maybe. It is hard for me to decide. Now I think it is Morris Berman's Dark Ages America. Now I think it is Extraordinary Popular Delusion or the Madness of Crowds. I think I will settle on that last one; it is the safest and yet most awesome.

46. What is your favorite candy?
Brach's Chicks and Rabbits. Fortunately, they are only available for one month out of the year.

47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding?
Firewater Bourbon and Division. Actually, no, I'd want something totally absurd like Rowwen Heze. I want people to say, "Wait, why is he playing this at his wedding?" and then continue, "Well, he can't like bands other people have even heard of. Also, who ever heard of somebody marrying themselves?"

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
Oingo Boingo No One Lives Forever. MONEY. IN. THE. BANK.

49. What were you doing at 12 AM last night?
Writing on Live Journal.

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
Where are my pants? Oh, on my legs.

Television Survey

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 06:26:52 GMT

pick your top six shows without looking at the questions, then answer them.

1. Seinfeld
2. House
3. Arrested Development
4. King of the Hill
5. Freaks and Geeks
6. Newsradio

01. Who is your favourite character from #2?
Doc Chance is maximum. Favorite scene: Chance picks the diagnosis that means the patient screwed up.

02. Who is your least favourite character from #4?
Bobby Hill. The episodes about him make me sad generally. The only exception was the awesome Valentine's Day episode where Bobby, after being inspired by Bill's example, dressed up like Cupid and embarassed Connie at a party. The highlight of the episode, of course, was Hank and Peggy laying in their coffins in the garage.

03. What would a crossover between #1 and #5 include?
Elaine dates Daniel Desario, not realizing he's in high school. Kim Kelly and George Costanza bond because of their insane families, who battle each other over ownership of a corner newsstand. The freaks idolize Kramer, who wants their high school to use him as the mascot. Jerry does something boring about neatness and Lindsay realizes life isn't about something or other.

04. Who is your favourite ship from #6?
Newsradio didn't star any boats. I guess the station was a rocket ship in one episode though.

05. If you were to set one person from #3 and one person from #6 on a blind date, who would they be?
Lucille and Jimmy James. Fireworks!

06. If you could meet one person from #4 and spend the day with them, who would it be, and what would you do?
Dale. Uncover conspiracies. Drink beer.

07. If you could change one thing about #2's plot line, what would you change?
The one show with a current plot contrivance I don't like happened to be number two; yay for me! I would completely dispel any certainty about House pining after Dr. Cuddy.

08. Explain a relationship between two people (not necessarily romantic) from show #5, and why you like the relationship between them.
I'll never forget at the beginning when the football player tells the cheerleader "I just love you so much it scares me." They have a lot of room for personal growth.

09. If the lead title characters (first name in the credits) from #1 and #3 were both drowning, and you could only save one, who would it be?
Since Jerry is my least favorite character on Seinfeld, he loses to pretty much anybody else. Ironically, he's gotten much funnier as he's grown older and bitterer in the intervening years.

10. If you could change the title characters' order in the credits for #4, what order would you choose?
It's a cartoon. They don't really do credits in an alterable way.

11. If you were able to add a new character, any kind of character you wanted, to the storyline for #6, what would the character be like, and what would their role be?
Every time they added somebody, the show got less entertaining. I guess I would add a giant eggplant monster that thinks it's Benito Mussolini since then at least I would have liked the last, abysmal season.

12. What happens in your favourite episode of show #2?
House doesn't give itself over to favorite episodes. Having issued that caveat, however, I can say that I do have a favorite episode because Chance is right, House is wrong and House punches Chase in the face. The next episode, however, no mention is made of this.

13. If you could kill off one of the characters in #1, who would it be and how would you do it?
Here is my Seinfeld heresy: After about four episodes, I loathed Newman. In fact, after those initial, fresh appearances, the only time he showed up that I marked out for was when he was driving the post office truck down Kramer's adopted highway and the flames leapt up around him. His anguished scream is music to my ears.

14. If you got the chance to visit the set for either show #3 or show #5, which would you choose?
Well, I would just get in the way at Arrested Development and at the set for Freaks and Geeks, I could awkwardly hit on Linda Cardellini so I'd have to opt for the latter.

15. If you could date anyone from any of these shows, which show and which person?
Oh, I kind of did that with 14. If, instead, I am being asked which fictional character I'd date, I don't particularly know. A rich one.

Oh, I got this from kittybrat.

BAWG BAWG

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 05:37:19 GMT

Man, who would have thought I would use my Live Journal primarily as an outlet to look at pictures of other people's cats?

I'm so completely lacking in anything of substance to say. I go to OSU and spend most of my time staring blankly into space or at a book I'm supposed to be reading. I have started to accumulate acquaintances and, dare I say it, friends, as always tends to happen even when I supply myself caveats against it. I exist best in a state of perpetual binary oppositionals though.

I think Live Journal inspires a certain type of verbiage in me. Here, I wouldn't feel so bad discussing the spectrum of feelings currently jangling my brain like some sort of child's xylophone, each different color reverbating a specific tone that sounds vaguely musical but is, at its core, cacophonous. I'll write about how much I like Oingo Boingo's Insanity on My Space, but I wouldn't quote from it without placing it in a narrowly defined context there.

Basically, I'm all befuddled and confused, which indicates I'd be well-served to return to the textual environment where I feel comfortable indulging that. On the other hand, I am a dunce when I'm befuddled and confused so maybe I should not opt to pursue expression of that.

All I've sought lately is simplicity and instead, I've compounded my social complexity in ways I never anticipated. I'm oblivious to how to proceed and not make things worse. It's like a cascading storm of something I can't even begin to quantify. Maybe a wall of angry bees.

Sometimes, I'm just flinging words into the void. Fortunately, I'm full of them.

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:16:58 GMT

The girl across from me in the computer lab is passed out with her face in the middle of her textbook. It is adorable.

This Is Sounds Dove-Crying Float Monkey Nozzle Pursue

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 22:10:43 GMT

Ssszzzrrrrkkkk is the sound my brain is making right now. I filled my body with a massive dose of caffeine because that stimulant facilitates any efforts I expend in the pursuit of being collegiate. Strangely, it also makes me ecstatically happy in a fashion that doesn't feel artificial. Caffeine sizzles through my veins with narcotic effect; all I can do is firmly grasp the pommel of the saddle of life and hang on.

Lately I've become infatuated with the notion of different headspaces, which is a word that doesn't actually mean much of anything beyond "how I feel." However, if I instead qualify my 'headspace' as necessarily geared towards some action, life becomes a much more exciting proposition. It's like a totally free accessory I can plug in and use at my discretion; the toys of my youth always included other features so it's likely a fit of nostalgia, incorporeally manifested. Also, it's definitely better than the fear I've contracted meningitis, which two people at OSU have had in the last year. All they want to do is share their complete and abject contagious misery!

I wish I knew Latin. Admittedly, I could acquire that pool of knowledge with a book and some time, but my need for it is immediate and transient; the desire, I know, will pass. Instead I'll want a full understanding of Polylectic Reality or a bag full of tacos. I might even crave a full understanding of a bag full of tacos if my brain veers far enough into absolute rejection of attained comprehension. What is it, the philosopher poet asks, to know a chair? To know of a chair? To know of knowing of a chair? Yes. These are important questions equally applicable to bags full of tacos.

OSU's radio station suddenly wins my heart and mind by playing Silversun Pickups' Well Thought Out Twinkles. High fives!

Now I will try to do actual work since my initial caffeine high has dissipated somewhat. Yes.

Youtube Vids

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:27:10 GMT

When I am using the OSU computer lab, I bring my earphones and just play videos off of Youtube in an effort to drown out the otherwise distracting sounds of other people breathing, typing and yelling into their cell phones. Here are some of those videos:

Lordi Blood Red Sandman

I stumbled on this video today, actually. Lordi, of course, won Eurovision 2006 with Hard Rock Hallejulah, a paean to the awesomeness of rockingness. On a whim, I searched for other songs they perform and, after listening to several I found less than inspiring, stumbled onto Blood Red Sandman. I'm not sure if the Evil Dead-evocative video or the mad employment of a melodious choral transition between episodes of maximum rocking won me over more, but this is definitely a song I have to use lots of m-words to describe. The last bit of the song before the final fake-out scare makes me want to run screaming into the wall, but in the good way.

Awesomest Lyric: "They called me 'Smiling Jack.' They prayed to the Heavens above that I would never, ever come back!" Yes, that's at the very beginning. Yes, that's because no matter how much Lordi is rocking, they're using the phrase 'blood red sandman' in the midst of that rocking.

Black Box Recorder Facts of Life

I have absolutely no idea why I love this song. Every time I'm not listening to it, I feel an insipid sort of craving to be listening to it. After some intensely expensive psychological assumption-making, I'm prepared to state that this song is like a long-term secret crush. You hold it close to your chest, cradled like a small fragile baby, and when the object of your crush happens to be in approximately the same space as you, your head goes all foggy and you wonder if, perhaps, this is the time to realize all the potential you've conjured up in your brain. When you don't make a move, the crush swells, all that hope and longing fueling it to hang heavily around your neck even longer; if you do make the plunge, the crush generally shrivels and dies for whatever reason, a monument to despair writ large 'pon your world. This song is a crush I can never disrupt. That's why it's perfect.

Hardest Crushing Lyric: "They develop into sweet dreams. It's just the facts of life." Sometimes, the chorus really is the best bit.

Daler Mehndi Tunak Tunak Tun

Some songs just sizzle no matter the subject. Daler Mehndi's song I originally stumbled onto through a random link, as is the beauty of the internet. Certainly, you sometimes end up with this and the world grows three shades darker, but there are still songs out there like Tunak (the name I originally saw it posted under) that make you realize all the foibles and slights of life are worth it in the larger scheme of things. Had I perished on some lonely highway illegally transporting hedgehogs, I may never have learned of Tunak and I would be diminished, even in death. Yes, life affirmation comes in the form of YouTube videos.

It's Not In English Note Of What I Like: Which color-garbed Daler Mehndi are you? I am definitely the one who is all in red because he rolls his eyes and crosses his arm at first, but by the end of the song he's kicking it old school with everybody else. Even the hardest heart melts for Tunak.

Oingo Boingo No One Lives Forever over video assembled from the goriest bits of Shaun of the Dead

There's also a Hellsing tribute with a live version of the song if you're into that.

Why did I never realize I was an Oingo Boingo fan? Well, it's actually just because I never heard this song. The exquisite composition and nihilistic fatalism are like scientific bullets built to slam directly into my heart, bypassing every cynical defense I possess to resist enjoying things. It's like Voodoo Glow Skulls' Left For Dead or Oysterhead's Pseudo Suicide, each tickling the exact triggers on my cerebellum to make me love them unabashedly. If I could, I would marry this song, and we would appear in such luminary films as Texas Chainsaw Massacre Two together.

Ironically Life-Affirming Lyric: "So celebrate while you still can; any second it may end; and when it's over said and done: better that you had some fun!" I am totally not certain about that punctuation.

I'm sure you've all seen Orange Crush so I'll opt out of posting that one. I guess I should go do something a tad more productive anyway.

I, Badmouth

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:14:33 GMT

I have to take a Public Speaking class; when I had to introduce myself to the class, I found that I was filled with so much apprehension I could barely do more than blurt out my name, hobby and major before booking, hastily, back to my seat, flinging my pride and sense of accomplishment by the wayside in my rush to be reunited with anonymousness in the cozy home of my slightly too little desk/chair combo. Today we were supposed to give our first speech so I prepared the only way I knew how to combat my unexpected nervousness: I maximum caffeinated.

Our speeches only had to be two minutes, but I prepared by practicing rambling narratives that consumed upwards of three. It is fortunate I memorized some excess to throw in because, between being ill-at-ease and soaked to the gills with a stimulant, I set a frantic pace. My speech might have set a new land speed record if it hadn't been confined to one tiny classroom on the second floor of an inconsequential building dedicated primarily to English, Technical Writing and Language labs spinning eternally through space on a little planet we like to call Earth. Instead, I crushed my three minute opus into two minutes minus ten seconds, barely making the minimum and overwhelming my audience in a rush of personal information they never wanted to contend with in their entire lives. 'I have spoken to them, and they are diminished,' is basically the gist there.

I recall a few other people's presentations. We fit several different stereotypes quite effectively. Our assignment was to chronicle a miscommunication, identify the two communicative barriers that lead to this foul miscarriage of communicative justice and then express a potential resolution. Below are the people I remember, each lovingly labelled as their clichè, their story described to the best of my ability, the solution they proposed and the solution I personally find the most efficacious. I think I'll include why they stuck out in my mind too, on the off-chance you wondered.

They are: It's the guy who has to tell all of us how funny he is because otherwise, we're not going to know.
They said: "I groped blindly for a joke by conflating the textbook for Women's Studies with The Joy of Cooking."
They fixed it! "I guess I should've smiled or indicated that I was telling a hilarious joke through some other trigger, perhaps by first relating to my female friend that I'm really funny, it's just that nobody can tell."
I countered: "Don't speak."
I remembered: I always remember when people tell me they're funny, usually because I am then shocked and appalled when they are not. "You lie!" I have screamed at certain individuals. "You talk and you say words and they are all filthy lies!"

They are: The girl who was really, really into her high school's football team
They said: "So we seniors decided we would sit in the middle at the front and totally rock the clock all game long! But then we went to an away game and these freshmen sat there! They weren't supposed to sit in the middle, we were! We were the Tailgate Party, for life! Freshmen sat in the middle at the front and they weren't supposed to! They needed to be somewhere besides in the middle at the front because that's where we seniors were all supposed to sit and be awesome! One senior guy said he was going to punch a freshman! Because the freshman was sitting in the middle at the front where we were supposed to be!"
They fixed it! "We should have told the freshmen they couldn't sit in the middle at the front!"
I countered: "All the animals are burning!"
I remembered: She went three minutes and four seconds. It is too long. Not acceptable!

They are: The guy who totally didn't prepare.
They said: "So like my friend uh.... I mean, he sort of like looked at me and I didn't like the look but... uh... it was bad communication, like when you punch your brother in the eye and he tells on you so you lock him out of the house naked and then uh.... I guess I don't have enough buckeyes, you know? Can you ever have enough?"
They fixed it! "Uh... I should like... say stuff the right way."
I countered: "I concur wholeheartedly. Don't wing your speech though, friend; only those of us addicted to the devilishly playful mistress that is too much caffeine can do that effectively, and we still practice at least once."
I remembered: Did I mention I got to do timekeeping? When I held up the minute and a half sign, he just stood there for ten seconds to eat up some more time. We all grew very uncomfortable.

They are: The girl who super loves her ex-boyfriend.
They said: "My boyfriend and I had this fight and we broke up over the summer (parenthetical interruption: hey, me too. I should be friend with her ex-boyfriend) and he started talking (parenthetical interruption: that's talking talking, not just talking.) to one of my friends and they were all talking. Then we got back together over Christmas, but he got real skeevy (parenthetical interruption: that's my word. She said 'shady.') and I had to look at his cell phone so I did and I saw all these texts to my friend he'd been talking to. I dumped him again and found this great new guy but I found out later he was just closing things off with her and he'd gotten all weird because he was going to propose to me and he was really nervous!"
They fixed it! "I guess I shouldn't leap to conclusions and assume I know everything."
I countered: "I can't believe I typed all that out."
I remembered: I scoffed slightly and earned an unpleasant look from the professor. Hopefully, my professional time-keeping skill level regained whatever favor I squandered by being myself.

They are: The nervous girl who went before me.
They said: "Something about my mom."
They fixed it! "I will talk to my mom better."
I countered: "Yeah, I'll talk to your mom too."
I remembered: She stole my going-first-because-I-will-suck-most thunder. If you don't have a funny story to tell, you always get up there and foist it upon the crowd before they've had a chance to dispel their own nervousness. I guarantee none of them remember me well enough to type a blog like this.

They are: The guy who makes racist jokes with his friends of other races
They said: "I just took his joke about white people and substituted black people!"
They fixed it! "I guess I should be careful who is nearby and might hear my hilarious retooling."
I countered: "Why don't you make your own jokes?"
I remembered: It always bothers me when people just redo what someone else has done; even in a classroom context, I don't like to hear about how hilarious your friend is and how hilarious you therefore become by stealing his material. Sure, my story was about getting drunk and having an old man throw his beer on me, but I lived it. I didn't go and irk an old man after one of my friends had angered one and been doused; I made it happen totally without precedent. That's me. That's how I live. That's why all my clothes smell like old beer.

They are: The guy who just read his story.
They said: It was a decent enough story, but I found myself more intrigued by his C-Span approach to public speaking. Once I'm a Congressman, I'll never take my eyes off whatever report a lobbyist handed me to deliver to an adoring public (check my scathing political satire! That's why I'm POLI SCI fuh lyfe), but until then, I think I'll opt for occasionally looking at my audience. This time, I used notecards I'd scribbled on five minutes before class so I'd have a prop. I drew a car with an X on it, a guy holding a giant guitar and a flower.
They fixed it! I forget.
I countered: "Amen, brother! No one lives forever! Let's have a party; there's a full moon in the sky. It's the hour of the wolf and I don't wanna die."
I remembered: Man, I remember that I am kind of a hypocrite for my whole rant against stealing other people's jokes in the entry prior to this one. I do it all the time; I just don't tell anybody and when I get caught, I pretend like it was intentional. Occasionally, that can be embarassing: "Of course I wanted you all to think of the waning days of season two of Just Shoot Me! by cleverly referencing it with a double entendre employed by the main character of the show! Man, when isn't a good time to bring up the adventures of Jack Gallows and his wacky magazine staff?"

On that note, I think I'm done. Maybe I will write about how awesome the gym is and how I've only seen one person there less attractive than me. I'm pretty sure he was a vagrant who'd wandered in so people into that homeless chic scene would totally dig him more than me.

Oh wait, I do want to say this: "I hate being the guy the professor looks at expectantly when no one else speaks. I waited two weeks before I opened my mouth in my English class and now, all of a sudden, I'm a pivotal figure." Fortunately, there're a couple other people she looks at first.

Oh wait times two, I will add an assessment of my own lackluster performance:
They are: the guy who's an alcoholic.
They said: "So I worked at this job and like I didn't have a car so I could walk about like six blocks in any direction so I like always went to this bar and I had a bar stool I like liked to sit on. One time, this old man wanted to tell me I was like sitting in his spot, but the bar was too loud and I totally couldn't understand him. He finally stalked off, but returned later and totally threw a beer on me."
They fixed it! "Uh, I guess I should stay out of old guy's ways."
I countered: "Why don't you dry out, you filthy barsop?"
I remembered: I told it. I'd hope I'd remember it. Incidentally, it was even worse when I said it to the close. Dear Zeus: Why did you make me so pathetic, oh mighty and terrible Golden Lord of our Pantheon? It's me, Todd-o.

I'm a leading man and I'm also evil also into cats

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:32:32 GMT

YouTube video. I found it on the My Space of my secret crush a couple months ago and forgot about it until that song was playing in the Student Union while I drank my Starbucks Money Brand Mocha, which will have to suffice for my caffeine hit until I am once more in a locale with a more suitable coffee supplier. I love caffeine; it makes my heart skip and my hands shake. When I worked at Borders, I used to suck down as much caffeine as I felt I could realistically consume without contracting sleep apnea. Then I would stand in one place, my entire body vibrating in tune with the universe and my heart shuddering at the required exertion. Sometimes, I would open my mouth and emit a low, rumbling growl or I would start singing my then-favorite songs: The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist or the Knife's You Make Me Like Charity. They're still kind of my favorite songs, but I didn't bring any of my cds with me for some reason. Oh, so I could learn!

I guess it's a Fall Out Boy thing that you can't understand the words. That's just a conclusion I came to after a quick look at YouTube so I could be totally misguided in the assumption.

More words later. I have homework.

Philosophical Imponderables from a Chemistry Textbook

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:34:37 GMT

As I sat on a bench a few feet away from a couple watching Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN and munching on Little Caesar's pizza, I took the time to read the required passages for my MWF Chemistry class. I had two chapters to cover and the authors were kind enough to bury tiny tidbits of wisdom in each so that I could feel my life had been enriched reading about otherwise drab chemical analysis. Here they are so that you can be embiggened in the same manner without investing in collegiate attendance:

"The progress of science is often slowed more by the frailties of humans and their institutions than by the limitations of scientific measuring devices."

Yes, puny humans! Stop blaming your thermometers for your failures and realize that it is the frailty exhibited by you and your respective institutions that leads to the perils facing us all in these dark times! To continue

"The scientific method is only as effective as the humans using it."

See? See? Just because you observe, collect data, formulate a hypothesis and then test that hypothesis does not make you a better person. If you're totally jacked up, the scientific method is not the answer. In fact, your resultant theories will be just as whack as you are. Instead, try therapy.

"[The scientific method] does not automatically lead to progress."

In fact, it could take you down the path of not progress, or stagnation. Just because I hypothesize that I don't like tacos and then eat tacos over and over to see if that's the case does not mean I will improve the human condition. I might just end up fat from too many tacos; in that case, the failure is not the scientific method's. It is mine and mine alone.

Above from Introductory Chemistry fifth edition by Zumdahl, page nine. Below from same, page I forgot:

"For example, suppose a friend tells you that she saw a bug 5 long."

I don't understand. A... friend? A she-friend?

Also, I laughed out loud when I read that sentence. The CNN watchers even turned to see me guffaw, realized I was reading a textbook and gazed at each other with bemused expressions. Then they continued to eat their pizza. That is a true life lesson.

oh, college

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 04:28:00 GMT

I went back to college. I am actually sitting in a dormitory right this very minute. I can sort of see the evening and lights through my window, which is on the top floor of the dorm. Mostly, I can't see anything though because my desk wedges me in tightly next to the wall in a way I can't even begin to explain. My only companion is my computer, which I can fortunately play C-Span on. I have been watching C-Span for a couple hours, interspersed with eating a can of pineapple and staring longingly at my wall. I was imagining the wall wasn't there and I was in a Medieval Viking dining hall, eating hot greasy meat with my hands and singing along with my fellow Norsemen after a successful raiding/pillaging expedition. It's not so much the dead animal I crave as the companionship and being interesting. Now that I am old, I don't feel particularly interesting anymore. I may have more stories about drinking copious amounts of liquor, vomitting and then sleeping in some inhospitable outside climate than the youngsters I'm surrounded by, but I don't particularly want to relate those tales of excess overmuch. That's why I opted not to record the circumstances of my latest birthday and limited my New Year's Eve narrative to just what went along with the photos (I think you can all see them at my My Space, should you be so inclined).

So far, I've mostly only talked to my roommate, who is eight years younger than me and plays the clarinet. We don't really have anything in common, but he is well-networked enough to not spend all day in the dorm room watching C-Span (right now, I am listening to Book TV. It is Anthony Feinstein, who is not as awesome as Edwin Black and his assertion that he "sleep[s] three hours a night."); I managed to forget my cell phone charger so my phone is dead and I am totally off the grid. Oh no! At least no nefarious criminals can find me. Well, I guess they can discover my geographic location and observe me discreetly, but they can't subtly communicate with me through texts or anything. The future, basically, cannot murder me with android assassins quite as easily right now.

Tomorrow, I will be going to my first college classes in five years, minus a brief dalliance with collegiate learning a year and a half ago. I predict Vietnam-like flashbacks.

An Experiment Awry

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 05:51:29 GMT

Today, I unintentionally attempted to subsist on caffeine and four hours of sleep for the majority of the day; my experiment resulted in passing out around 6 PM, when all the good syndicated televisual shows are on, and waking up around now, when all the good syndicated tv shows have ended. Now I am utterly restless, with no recourse to exhaust the energy I've accumulated. Perhaps it's good that I've overslept today, though, since the New Year's Eve weekend is approaching and I'm supposed to work right through it. Admittedly, if my plans go the same way they have the past few weeks, they'll collapse into a heap of intactivity, but theoretically, I'll be busy ringing 2007 in with uncommon drunkenness.

If I don't do anything, though, I'll probably go to the gym for New Year's Eve and watch Conan O'Brien's Central Time Zone Extravaganza. Christmas Eve I spent on a treadmill watching TBS eighteenth showing of A Christmas Story; it's the perfect holiday tradition!

I think I'll go for a late night walk, actually. With the facial hair and an outfit that would be right at home on a recently evicted hobo, I've found that nobody bothers me.

Tiny Molecules In Space

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:17:17 GMT

Man, I remember all the times I was all, "I am totally never posting here again harumph!" and then three days later I would sheepishly post a really long survey about what color socks I was wearing. Then, things actually started happening and I suddenly clammed up. I doubt you'd want to hear about the things I was doing then ("Today me and my girlfriend went for a walk! Then we ate pizza! Then we had a fight about DNA!"), though things did pick up for a bit over the summer ("Today, I learned that I probably oughtn't try to claim the moral high ground ever!") and I still didn't record it. I can't help but wonder who knows about this journal in my current circle of friends; it'd be nice to have an outlet for my observations without the social stigma of everyone knowing what terrible things I am saying about them.

How many of my friends are still around? I checked my info page and noted that I hadn't updated in 41 weeks. That's enough weeks for there to be three new Popes and another Beatles remix record. I don't even have any pictures of how I look now, though if you imagined me as Edward Morse, that'd be totally awesome. I love Edward Morse.

I've lost the Live Journal style I employed, I think. My Space has ruined my blogging skills.

Here is an update about my life: Over the summer I lost, in chronological order, my car, my girlfriend and my job. Then I got another job, which I will be quitting in about four days to go back to college where I will be ten years older than everyone else. This means I can buy booze to drink by myself while I watch reruns of Bewitched or, barring that, My Three Sons.

My car died in a collision caused by another motorist waving a vehicle through when their lane was full and mine was empty. I slammed into a black truck's right front passenger tire; I rocked forward in my seat and have a mental image of seeing my airbags inflate, touch the tip of my nose and then sag sadly into obsolescence, taking my vehicle with them because the repairs post-airbag deployment cost more than my car was worth. I slid my feet into my sandals and stepped out of my car, near spitting with rage, only to note both the badge and gun clipped to the other motorist's belt.

"Well," I said to myself, rocking back on my heels and feeling all the tiny cuts that covered my feet and hands from my airbag-shattered windshield, "you probably shouldn't clothesline a police officer into traffic even if he did just directly cause the destruction of your car." I flushed the anger out of my system, which left me feeling exhausted and shaky; the police officer dealt with me better that way since he desperately wanted to be in charge anyway. His wife, who was shaped rather more like a beanbag than I'd assume a fairly handsome, rugged fellow like the one who drove his truck in front of my car would marry, showed up and bought me a bottle of water. I was hacking up whatever fills deploying airbags since it moved directly into my lungs after exploding my dashboard and windshield.

We worked things out about as well as could be expected, I learned from a wrecker that my car was totaled and the insurance ended up paying me about fifteen dollars less than I paid initially for my transportation. Luckily, I didn't suffer any damage beyond a few minor abrasions and a very mild bruise where my seat belt held me safely in place. Everyone said, "You know, if you'd been going fifty miles faster, you'd be thankful for those airbags," to which I replied, "If I was going that fast, I'd've been on the highway where nobody would turn left in front of me." I'm still kind of bitter about the car.

I didn't lose my job so much as quit it, but it depressed me enough that I definitely lost in the transaction. I spent my last day not stealing anything because the corporate heads called in other folks to supervise my final hours. It made me feel all tingly that, after almost four years, they figured I'd make a break with a bag full of illicit supplements. Fortunately, I stocked up before I even put my two weeks in; admittedly, I don't take any vitamins because a carefully monitored diet does all that better than a stupid pill, but it's really the thought that counts.

Writing about a summer of loss is a touch bitterer than my Live Journal return should be. I will instead turn my focus elsewhere:

I just saw the news that former president Gerald Ford died. The universe conspires against a jovial post! I will sadly note that my most vivid memory of Mr. Ford was the episode of The Simpsons that made fun of him: "Homer, do you like... football?" "Do you like... beer?"

After browsing through my Photo Bucket account on a whim, I am dishearted to discover no timely photographs. Every image of myself currently available on the internet is so far out of date that it barely resembles my current appearance. Maybe I'll be around a camera someday soon; the most recent picture I have is on My Space and even it doesn't reflect me much better than a dinosaur's fossilized skeleton reflects the actual creature (that makes it sound like I've put on a lot of weight).

I have purchased several cds of bands nobody's heard of in the intervening 41 weeks. That's a pretty safe assumption to make about me, of course; I've actually fallen almost completely off the grid cinematically though.

I'll be back.

Mozart in the Mysterious Five-Sided Kitchen Sink

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:07:04 GMT

I took a trip to Lawrence Kansas. What follows is my account of what happened there with all the tawdry bits left out because I don't want you to think about me doing tawdry things although you might already and if you do I apologize. This sentence is over and the next one begins my tale.

Saturday morning at 4 AM, my neighbors, had they been awake, would have seen a comical sight as I hauled several white plastic bags to my car; after I had them safely stowed, I hopped into the driver's seat, quoted Blues Brothers to myself and was on my way. The white bags were not full of drugs or stolen babies; rather, I had loaned out my primary travel bag, a handy canvas number with a 'Universal Studios' patch on the side. Since I lacked any replacement bags, I had to make due with disposable bags and a Hello Kitty diaper bag I borrowed from my mother. Since I was just going to Lawrence, KS, for a couple days, I doubted anything could go awry.

The trip itself was the height of driving monotony. As the sun slowly came up, I found my mind wandering dangerously into realms of possibility that included things like "How badly could I mangle my car if I wrapped it around that sign post?" and "How many dead hobos could I fit in my closet?" Fortunately, my bladder soon distracted me with thoughts of needed relief and my brain hitched on the simple idea of how far away from the highway I'd have to run to avoid being seen in a personal moment by my fellow early morning drivers, of which there were several. All this rumination soon proved moot as I discovered a gas station in the middle of nowhere; despite the facility's relative isolation, there were four elderly gentlemen seated at a table who would probably remain there or within its relative proximity for the next eight hours. One of them had a John Deere hat on.

I used the facilities in the usual manner and exited, stopping to buy a bottle of Fuji water, which normally retails for $1.29 but was inexplicably 99 cents at the gas station. My brain soon resumed its previous machinations, this time plotting a huge Fuji water haul back to Tulsa where I could sell each one for $1.19, netting twenty cents of pure profit with each under-cutting transaction. Before I worked all the kinks in my plan out, I was in Lawrence at the Haskell Indian Nations University, which my girlfriend Abigail attends based on her one-quarter Cherokee heritage. I parked near her car, waited twenty minutes, then drove to Checkers to call her and say, "I waited twenty minutes and you didn't show up so now I'm driving back to Tulsa." Despite my threat, I returned to Haskell, where she was waiting. 'Checkers' was the name of Richard Nixon's dog so I normally wouldn't give them any of my money, but I wagered the majority of my fifty cents would go to some phone company conglomerate.

Abbey and I went to a film festival at Haskell after a nap; the first film on the docket was Riding With Ghosts. The movie chronicled the hardships of Native American life amidst the urban blight of the 'Washichu,' a term denoting either the white man or the all-consuming disease of rampant capitalism depending on which of the three film-makers is speaking. I have to admit that I spent a lot of the movie wondering why anyone would name their club 'The Warlords' and then be surprised when people thought they might want to perpetrate some random violence rather than, for example, pass out baskets of fresh fruits to invalids and shut-ins. When I tried to tell Abbey this concern of mine about what had been a driving point in the ensuing suffering of the men central to the movie's themes, she said, "Maybe you'll understand after the next two movies." I said, "No, no, look, if I get all my friends together and we decide to call ourselves 'The Destroyers of All That Is Good and Noble in This World,' people are going to be wary of us. If we follow up our club meetings by collecting weapons of any sort, even blunt clubs or dull swords of dishonored samurai, folks are going to want to keep an eye on us." Needless to say, I still don't get it, but my next book club is going to be 'The Warlords' and we will discuss Infinite Jest with gusto.

After our lunch break (for wheat pizza!) and lengthy conversation about Riding With Ghosts, Abbey and I returned to the film festival where we watched Alcatraz: Not Just An Island, which was moderately to very depressing, and then a glorified slide show about the Lawrence KS wetlands currently threatened with development of a new highway. Since this video consisted of white words floating on variably colored backgrounds, I couldn't glean much information from it; Abbey marked out, though, so it must have been another thing I just didn't get. When I later marked out because the video maker's name was 'Ryan Redcorn' (he sells t-shirts!) which reminded me of 'John Redcorn' from King of the Hill, Abbey didn't understand so we ended up even.

Next up were two Haskell made films: Wife Beater: The Fall of Krazy Karl and Gitamu Squirrel. One movie featured a man randomly shooting people and the other dealt with shadows of squirrels milling around a lone human figure with sinister thoughts in their mind; both included random cuts to people in white laboratory gear, including goggles. Both also were thematically similar to Catch-22, although that could have been my mood; I'd been commanded not to titter.

The final film was Trudell, which followed the life of activist John Trudell from the heights of social relevance to his current career doing spoken word out there on the scene, man. His presentation reminds me of all the good bits from Bill Hicks; I think my personal bias against spoken word prevents me from not saying something snarky about the movie, which was quite well made and made me think that a documentary detailing the rise and inevitable obsolescence of the compact disc data storage format would be quite fascinating. I'm not quite sure how I ended up there though.

After the film festival, Abbey and I headed to the Merc for more sustenance. On the way, we had

Near Death Experience Number One

Abbey's not supposed to have guests in her dorm room so we had a time limit to contend with. Rather than defensively drive, I hustled my vehicle to its destination and, when I thought I was ready make the left turn into the parking lot, disaster struck: I tried to enter one turn too early and was stymied by a one-way situation that lead to the entrance I'd intended to use actually being an exit currently filled by other cars. Since I'd committed totally to the turn, my car was stretched across two lanes of on-coming traffic; all I could do was gun it into the enlarging headlights and use the next available entrance. I made it with less fanfare than one would expect, but I spent a few moments trembling like a delicate flower on the aisle with the nut butters.

We selected our grub and returned to the dormitory, which I snuck into like a Washichu ninja. After some television watching and a serving of frozen Amy's tofu lasagne, we slumbered. Ironically, this dove-tailed right into

Near Death Experience Number Two

I woke up. I blinked. Abbey said, "Is that a tornado?" to which I replied, "I don't know." We both sat up and leapt into our respective actions; I dressed myself (I'm not dying in pajamas) and turned on the television. Abbey ran outside. Later, she told me that she'd only run outside a moment and then headed to the front desk to pass on a warning she oughtn't have needed to since the wind outside was rumbling like a freight train. However, I was enraptured by the television's reassuring moving colored map and so didn't realize how long my girlfriend was missing. I perked up as, first, a warning came over the PA (inspired by Abbey, who I guess didn't mind dying in her pajamas) and then the Lawrence sirens sounded, barely audible above the roaring wind.

This wasn't as near death as the car thing since the tornado, if it was actually a tornado and not just another of the 90 mph winds that ransacked the city, hit in the northeastern corner of the city and I was safely curled up in front of the television in the southeast corner. Once the storm abated, we toured the campus and found, among other things, trees toppled and windows shattered. The safety glass of a bus stop glistened with a particularly beautiful artificial inner luminescence as the sun occasionally peered through the slowly dispersing dark storm clouds.

Abbey and I later went to downtown Lawrence to eat; the power on one side of the main street was out so we amused ourselves pretending to really want to go into certain stores until people walking by informed us of the lack of electricity. "Oh, that's quite a predicament," I'd say and nod. Abbey would concur and we'd stare at the interloper until they quietly slunk away.

On the way back to the car, I saw a helicopter take off from the middle of a park and fly over me. It was like every episode of every show with a helicopter taking off I've ever seen.

If I'd had my camera with me, I'd've returned with photographs of a lifetime but, since I forgot it entirely, all I have is the second volume of Newsradio I bought at Best Buy when we pulled over there in case of further deadly storming later that night and, while I can't post it, it's good enough for me. There is one shot of a tree flattening a blue Jeep that I should have taken that will haunt me forever; it spoke on levels I can't normally hear on. Alas, the world sings to us all, but rarely do we have the chance to capture the tune.

Monday, I woke up at 5:30 AM and drove home, where I shaved and showered, then drove to work, where I remained until 1:30 AM doing inventory. If I do write about that, it'll be later since it's bedtime again. Goodbye, Lawrence! Thanks for nearly killing me!

FN Radio

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 06:23:35 GMT

This is all about songs. Songs are magic!

"Rock classics on the radio to clear my mind." - The Knife Rock Classics

Somewhere between Atoka and Stringtown, Oklahoma towns both, there's a dead zone where the only radio options are three country stations, each playing either the latest Tim McGraw song or Honky Tonk Buh Don Guh Donk, and a Catholic talk station. I opted for the last option and learned, for instance, that I should "be [myself]" first and foremost. They started talking about Guttenberg and, since I feared they would soon transition to the liturgical merits of Three Men and a Baby (remember? It has a ghost!), I quickly switched stations. This is how I ended up listening to Honky Tonk Badongadonk for the eighth time in my seven hour journey. A song with a name I can't even spell should be much cooler (unless it's by Sigur Rós).

Incidentally, that song was completely off my radar except a couple people on Live Journal mentioned it (xladyx & annachristina if you want to browse their back catalogue); now I've mentioned it too, creating a sinister new meme to form one more connection in the chrysalis internet mind that will one day attain sentience and destroy us all.

I also heard Manfred Mann's Blinded By the Light approximately six times on my journey which is about one million times too many. That song will always haunt my life because it taught me the wrong way to say "deuce," leading to more embarrassing social situations than puberty and alcohol combined. Somewhere in a dark closet, Manfred Mann sits smoking dehydrated banana peels and waiting for me; when I stumble into it while searching for a mop or spare headlight, he'll sinisterly hiss "Welcome, my son. Welcome to the end of all that is good!"

Strangely, I heard Pearl Jam's Better Man (which I always listen to so I can sing along with "She lies and says she's in love with him; cantfindabettahman!") five times on the way to Austin (oh yeah, I went to Austin) but no times on the way back. Here we'll touch on a minor point of possible interest: Why on earth did I listen to the radio during my fifteen and one half hours of driving? Initially, I was only going to listen to it on the way down so I'd have a bonus treat on the return slog to Tulsa; however, while in Austin, I got to listen to the awesomeness that is 100.1 FM and Alex Jones going crazy nuts about everything from the Bohemian Grove (I just popped up on a list somewhere) to his dentist father being offered a job building cyborgs. MAXIMUM YES. It made me think, "What if I am missing other radio awesomeness on my drive back?" Since I used quotation marks there, I guess I thought this aloud.

For once, my brain paid off though. Somewhere between Waco and Dallas, I caught Love Hurts en Español. I think they were saying "Our love... it hurts" instead of
"love hurts... love hurts," but it was still another example of the triumph of the human spirit. That carried me through all the talk radio and bad songs I could ever encounter in one trip; it didn't hurt that I also caught Thank God I'm a Country Boy. "Life ain't nuthin' but a funny, funny riddle" indeed.

Now that I'm back in my musically sequestered home, I miss the sheer quantity and badness of what's out there. Sure, I can pull up all manner of random songs on demand that I want to listen to, but, somewhere, a sad DJ wants to spin me a cut that includes a lyric along the lines of "I never leave the sidewalk because of you!" I say to that DJ, "Jeff, I didn't even listen to that song when my only other option was the pastor Alistair Reynold telling me that my kids were galleons of sin on the ocean of being allowed to do stuff."

The Second and Final Cross Post From My Space

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 07:20:40 GMT

It's my birthday event so I figured I'd use what I used there. Yeah.

Here:

December 17th I attained twenty-six full years of being extant in a socially meaningful manner. If you subtract all the time I've been asleep, I'm closer to 14. If you also deduct time spent blacked-out, I'm still 14, but a younger, less hungover model.

For my birthday, my only plan going in was to work for fourteen hours at my place of employment and probably eat a burrito. I accomplished both things, but also ended up with plans for the evening through the magic of phone calls. While I was at work, people kept saying, "It's your birthday? I didn't know!" and I ended up scoring a small bag containing three magnets, one pin, a card and a mix tape that starts with the first song from The Virgin Suicides soundtrack ("Obviously, doctor, you've never been a thirteen year old girl." Yeah, me neither), five dollars worth of Akin's merchandise purchased by a cashier who told me to pick something out, a $3.29 chocolate bar which I exchanged for two smaller chocolate bars, a piece of cake someone bought and brought to me, a Jack Chick tract about Muslims that features an awesome plane crash sequence that will one day be a Michael Bay summer blockbuster (going head-to-head with the Roland Emmerich-helmed Independence Day: The Aliens Are Attacking On Lincoln's Birthday!) and free dinner courtesy of the person who always picks it up for me. That's the most I've gotten for my birthday in ever.

My girlfriend was on a cruise boat while I was busy turning 26 so we had a couple conversations that went, "Hey." "Hey." "What? You cut out." "I said hey." "You said what?" "Hey. Hey. Hey." "Oh, hey. I gotta go." "Oh. Bye." "What?" "Bye." "I can't hear you! Bye!" My mother made signs and put them up, which was exciting because I was like "Who defaced my car? Who tried to hurt me where I'm most vulnerable? Who did this?" and then I realized that they were positive messages and not another lengthy flier describing ways I could mutilate myself to make a certain person very, very happy.

After work, I went to see The 40 Year Old Virgin at the dollar theater with four people who are on my My Space list, which must be some kind of record, and some Hornsby's, which were tasty and jangled loudly every time I thought about them. We were resonating on the same frequency, man. My birthday harmonics could not be stopped. I should put something from David Icke here but I'm blanking. Seventh dimensional pan-lizards!

In addition to knocking bottles over in bunches, I watched the film, laughed and, near the climax, apparently declared in the loudest voice I can muster, "I wish I was a 26 year old virgin!" People, I am told, looked, but I didn't notice. I was probably busy spilling champagne all over my pants. That juxtaposition came out of nowhere; I was busy listening to one of six remixes I have of Falco's Amadeus. If you're wondering, they're not very good.

After the film, I was dropped off near my car with Andey and the intent to locomote to another location; instead, my car wouldn't start and, without any idea for a better course of action, we started hiking towards the nearest twenty-four hour gas station. A man with curly hair and a drug problem stopped and invited us to ride with him; since my stranger danger expired the midnight previous, I hopped in with nary a second thought and managed not to end my birthday chopped up at the bottom of the river. He even jumped my car, which apparently gave it enough juice to take Andey and then myself home. The next morning, it was totally dead.

Once in Owasso, the crushing inevitability of my birthday caused me to lose a great deal of rationality and become convinced I didn't have my house keys despite their presence on my key chain; rather than knock, I resigned myself to sleep in the backyard. As I lay there, frozen and frigid and wondering about life, a great deal of gibberish flowed through my mind. At the time, I was feeling pretty enlightened, but most of that has faded to a faint sense of embarrassment at this point; I finally realized that I did have my house key after I saw a white dome, attempted to kick it believing it was a mushroom and discovered it was actually a white ball. I'm not sure how that works exactly.

I slept the sleep of the just. Then I woke up briefly. Then I slept some more, but I no longer qualified as just. When next I woke, a great many things had been set into motion: my car is currently at a mechanic because it will not start causing my work schedule to spiral into madness (I'm off Tuesday and on Wednesday! Oh no!), I learned that I'm more like a person I thought would be the last person I was like ever (that's the sort of tortured grammar I generally make fun of on My Space too) and, somewhere, a mushroom did not get kicked over. Someday, it will consume this world and all of us upon it.

Oh, something else too: ARSE. ARSE ARSE ARSE. What ever happened to Fit Finlay?

My Space Affirmation Power Hour

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 06:51:24 GMT

I love My Space. It is like I have been invited to a community that exists exclusively to entertain me when, for instance, my car won't go and I've been sitting around my house all day. Today, you may have guessed, was one of those days.

Here are a few very important messages from the world of using the internet as another forum for a popularity contest.

"All I have to ask is why????????Why do guys suck so much....."

Wait, what is all you have to ask? "Why?" or "Why do guys suck so much?"? All I have to ask is why people can't just clearly express themselves instead of throwing as much punctuation as possible at the reader? If I wrote it your way, I'd say "All I will ever need to know before I die is what???????What purpose do all my question marks serve there.....Oh, I seem to have fallen asleep momentarily."

Incidentally, here are the answers to your questions: 1. "Here lies David St. Hubbins... and why not?" 2. "...the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing." Well, that's according to me and the repository of This Is SPINAL TAP quotes I carry in my brain to spout off in lieu of actual conversation; another fellow let's us know it's actually because

"Guys suck and are almost always fishing."

Okay...

"Doesn't matter too much how good they have it, they're always looking for something new until what they had is gone."

Okay...

"Then when it's too late they realize that the same line, hook, or lure won't catch that one good fish that they [bongo fury]ed up and let go."

O- wha? The same line, hook or lure? Hook, line and sinker? This metaphor would make a lot more sense if we were using fat kids instead of fish and ham, bacon and eggs on a biscuit instead of a line, hook or lure. I know it was too late when I discovered my ham, bacon and egg biscuit didn't catch the one good fat kid I was- no, I guess that doesn't make the metaphor any better.

"They Notice that the woman who wanted to be treated like a woman was what they really wanted."

I hate that song that starts off "I want you to want me!" and that sentence reminded me rather drastically of it. Also, are there lots of women out there who want to be treated like lamps or griddlecakes instead of women? I think I'd like to meet the lamp woman; then I could say "I Noticed that the woman who wanted to be treated like a lamp was totally whacked out of her gourd."

Oh, let's finish the concept out:

"So the only challenge is finding the guys 'after' they've been kicked ebough times to have some sense."

Yeah, just wait for some dude to get all his business done so he's worn out ebough to settle down. Ladies, maybe you could formulate a questionnaire!

Another guy says basically the same thing and ends with the most awesome assertion ever.

"I wind up putting up with a lot of it myself. That's what happens when you're the nice guy."

There's a difference between being nice and being a whiner. I may not be nice and I may not know how to be nice and I may actually be terrified of showing any niceness since I fear it would be perceived as weakness, but I have known nice guys and none of them would ever say "Yeah, life sucks because I'm nice." People who say that are masking themselves in a web of implication; it's like when I say, "Man, I'm so popular and cool that my life is a whirlwind of activity and I have to tell myself to just breathe sometimes." It's a facade; it's puttin' on the Ritz.

Thematically similar is this bit:

"Funny prank=jail time. I GUARANTEE IT" is our lead-in. Fortunately, I don't qualify for half the equation so I won't ever have to sweat jail time; maybe I can finally air out my dead hobo collection!

What follows this stellar revelation? "I say this because there are so many guys in real life that think they are still in high school when they are like almost in there mid 20's. and thats not only gross but VERY pathetic." I think it was St. Aquinas who first noted the phenomenon she mentions; his universally hailed essay on the subject began "People trippin' and I feel that, but you gotta be like almost seeming to like be straight out flat-out flip-out, you know? It can be pretty gross." Our My Space acquaintance then said

"Its pretty sad when people will [bongo fury] with me or my friends that will cause them in a world of hurt!"

But Aquinas could very well have spoken those words too. Also, Walter Sobchak: "Smokey, my friend, you are entering a world of pain." Neither one of them could make this assertion though:

"I mean..my sis is in the FBI and can crush anyones dreams by turning a simple prank into a work that is a big crime here."

You know what? Ignore everything I said up there. I was forced to type it under duress. They have a gun to my pizza delivery person's head. They- they won't let me stop.

When is the best time to use My Space? When you're drunk! Excuse me, wehn your DRUNK!

"buddy i was your drunkin well still am your drukneki bartenbed you neo wat i mena!!!!"

This could be a message from The Matrix because of the 'neo' there at the end, but that movie is so old and so retroactively terrible that I feel kind of dirty trying to springboard anything off of that particular typographical error.

"im an English major and either want to go to law school or Teach English in college one day,, not sure though,,"

I'd opt for law school.

"i am someone who takes pleasure in the &simple& things in life."

Using ampersands improperly apparently qualifes as a simple thing to take pleasure in. &&hot-crossed buns&&. Wheee!

"You would have to get to know me but i'm a fun guy like to kick back and have a good time."

I used to trot that one out at the bars until finally I lost my hearing from all the ladies' laughter. Actually, I didn't, but I'm going to now. It will run like this:

Toddcore: Hey, hot mama, you would have to get to know me, but I'm a fun guy like to kick back have good time.
Hot Mama: You just randomly strung some words together.
Toddcore: Cuz you gots to gets to knows me.
Hot Mama: I have to get to know you but you're a fun guy?
Toddcore: Uh, yeah.
Hot Mama: So until I get to know you, you're not? You're miserable and lonely and you just stand in the corner looking sad?
Toddcore: Naw, naw, I'm still fun and having a good time. I just- you just can't tell that fact until you know me.
Hot Mama: So you're having a good time, but I can't tell? You're having a good time but you seem really, really unhappy to everyone else? Then your mom shows up and says, "Oh, you can't tell it, honey, but he's having the time of his life."?
Toddcore: I was grown in a test tube!

"The person who invented bubble gum, willy wonka and the oompa loompas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that would be way RAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Actually, this guy is pretty cool. I think we could chill and I bet he would laugh at my favorite bit in Futurama when they go into the Slurm caverns and see the Oompa Loompas there and Professor Farnsworth says "Tell them I hate them!"

"i'm very unorganized fyi and io LOSE EVERYTHING"

Thanks for the heads up! I'll never task you with putting away important files.

"and not only do i lost everything but i lose it like 3 times a day"

I don't even know how that's possible.

"I am all about family and friends. They are probably the biggest part of my life outside of work."

The biggest part of my life outside of work is sandwiches then family and friends so I can't even relate to this guy.

Okay, the bit I opened with about lying and all that? I swear, every single random link I follow leads me to another one of those. I wanted some quality content, not just crappy typing skills. Grammar can only take me so far; in fact, the more I harp on grammar, the less I feel like I deserve a happy, normal life. Right about now, I'm thinking I should be huddled under a comforter fashioned from yellowed newspapers under a bridge somewhere on the east coast. Even the idea of telling someone special I want to be their "drukneki bartenbed" is faint consolation.

The end.

Hey, I am cross-posting something from My Space

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 06:20:54 GMT

Since I only have about six people on My Space, here is what I put there on Live Journal instead (where, for all I know, only six people are still actually active):

Here are six pictures of me in the same room and (mostly) in the same clothes. They are all pictures of me and something from my birthday, which I still haven't written about but probably need to especially since, during the course of it, I uttered a new coolest thing I've ever said.

Get thee to a nunnery! (No, that wasn't it):

Yes, at first I was shamelessly trying to create a new My Space photo, which is why I'm wearing headphones for no reason. The awesome question mark box was one of three and they contained these:

Two spikey guys and a dark goomba! Nerd alert: If I was playing Final Fantasy X-2, a blue box would pop up informing me that I "[scored] awesomeness."

Here's a message I can agree with but, just like the Stranger talking the Dude, I gotta ask why there's gotta be so much swearing. I also gotta type 'gotta' about four times.

Next up, my soul gets saved by comics, like I always knew it would:

"I-I never knew. I never even imagined."

"This changes everything, mountain man. Everything."

"Now it's your turn!"

Death Rock!

Sat, 17 Dec 2005 04:53:54 GMT

I'm getting the band back together!

It's gonna be 'Heavy' Henry Wigginbottom on the lead guitar, Barry 'Busted' Heinschmidt on bass and 'Polish' Petey Prepton on the drums! I'll be resuming my role as lead singer, but this time I'll be doing it while blindfolded. How am I going to find the microphone? Sonar!

As we tour the nation, we'll teach everyone how to love again and cast off the shackles of sorrow, typically by piping some Nitrous Oxide into the venues. We'll also increase the price of our merchandise according to how much alcohol our customers (not fans or attendees; this is a business) ingest. That'll do something or other to prevent drunk driving.

The main reason I wish I was famous is so I can be snarky when people say to me, "I like your old stuff better than your new stuff." I mean, I can be snarky about that now, but nobody says it unless they're mocking me since my old stuff is what I use as my new stuff with a few more italics and maybe a reference to a band that I just saw advertised on the latest collection of NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC SIR added in. Congratulations to Brandee on her latest masterpiece! Don't I wish my artistic talent was hot like that?

I've always wondered how many people order things they see on television; there must be millions of dollars to be made doing it since there are networks dedicated to shopping in the most boring way imaginable. I know this kind of observation was passè in the early 80s, but why do they just show you one thing for thirty minutes and then start freaking out when there's only five minutes left? It's like you're inviting used car salesmen into your home to pressure sell you a handful of baubles that eight thousand other people now also own. There used to be a home shopping show I loved though; it came on a local affiliate and they'd try to move, among other things, swords and knives and coin sets. It was like a thirty second "We made this coin and painted it and now you should buy it from us!" stretched into a half hour program where, by the end, one guy is saying, "You know what? We shouldn't even be selling these coin sets on tv! We could make a billion more dollars offering it directly to collectors!" and the other guy would say, "No, I'm bringing these coins to the people and I will not be stopped!"

I don't understand people who collect coins, especially when they're basically opting to retain a quarter representative of each state. In my estimation, collecting should require some sort of effort beyond rifling through the silver money you get back when you buy your daily allotment of perishables and produce. I've considered withholding quarters at my place of work until the desiring party did a silly dance or sang a song about loneliness, but I've never been in quite the right mental state to swing it. Fortunately, tomorrow is my birthday and I'm feeling quite the nutter; I may not qualify for mid-life status, but I think I could swing a crisis without much effort at all. Admittedly, I may not be screaming, "I'll eat all your children!" but I am moody enough to pick through the quarters I am handing back saying, "Oh, you're not getting that one. It's brand new, baby, and it's all mine."

I have found so many tubes of lip balm secreted around my house that I am becoming fearful that I've got a sinister Fight Club double life going on only instead of being cool and punching fools, my Tyler Durden makes sure his lips are very, very moist.