100 Books, in List Form! You Love Lists!

So click this link to go to NEWSWEEK.COM'S list of the 100 greatest books of all time. I love lists like this. This one should actually be called, “100 Books You Need To Read In Order To Live In The World”.

Since I’m basically an English Major, I have to listen to people talk a lot about “the canon of English literature!” but no one exactly maintains a list or anything. English professors seem to feel that they are specifically tasked with carrying the burden of maintaining the canon. They seem to feel that they have some almost divine responsibility. And maybe they do, but they should relax about it.

Anyway, sorry about the digression.

The point is that I wish that this list could become the list that English professors the world over used when assigning reading. This list has Winnie the Pooh, among others.
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Et Tu, Prime?

I’m pretty sure that last night I heard Optimus Prime doing the voice-over for a beer commercial. That makes me kind of sad, because for guys my age Optimus Prime really symbolizes all that is good and honorable in the world (or maybe that’s just me, since I don’t have a Star Wars thing).

Anyway, it is just kinda crappy that even Optimus Prime has sold out.

So just to complete my disillusionment …

I looked it up and apparently the voice actually belongs a guy named Peter Cullen, a human.

Obligatory Jon & Kate Blog Post.

Blah blah blah blah KIDS blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah KIDS! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah KIDS blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GREED blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah LAME blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah IF THEY CARED ABOUT THEIR KIDS THEY WOULD STOP DOING THAT TV SHOW blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah SO MUCH PORN, ARRESTS, AND DRUG ADDICTION IN THOSE KIDS’ FUTURES blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah LAME.

Kitten in a Box.

So I’m having a little bit of trouble with how to feel about this story …



Kitten found in package in Boston post office.

Part of me is all like, “That’s awful! Who would do such an awful thing!”

But then part of me is all, “Aaaaaaaah! A kitten! In the mail! That’s totally cute!”

Clearly I am not qualified to be the judge when they find the fifteen-year-old asshole who did this.
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Are Your Pants Blinking?

So I know what you were just thinking. You were just thinking, “Geez, I just don’t think it is obnoxious enough when I am out in public and I get a phone call and my awful, awful musical taste is all on display for the world while my terrible Hanna Montana ringtone plays on and one and on.”

Well, then I am going to do something nice for you and tell you that technology has now made possible an entirely new kind of cellular phone obnoxiousness.

Look at this dress that tennis star Maria Sharapova is wearing. Look at it really closely …



Actually, it doesn’t matter how closely you look at it, you won’t see anything.

That dress wirelessly connects to a cell phone and when you cell phone rings (and plays that Lady Gaga song you like) this dress blinks. That’s right, it is no longer just a party in your pants (or purse, I guess) it is now a party all over your clothes.

Now look, I’m not so dead inside that I don’t find this kind of cool, but play this tape to the end and imagine what it is going to be like when you go see a movie and those jack-asses who don’t turn their ringers off, are now blinking. That’s right. They are blinking.

Here is an article about all the blinking.
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Detroit's Audacity of Hope.

Is it weird that both Violet and I have been thinking way too much about Detroit lately?

Since you are bright and well-informed, you know that the city of Detroit is basically dying because it has gone into economic atrophy. It has been suffering from this awful confluence of events. The car companies collapsed, the housing market collapsed and, now, it has gotten so bad that the city only has FOUR Starbucks left. Four. This is a city that still has almost a million people. There are more Starbucks than that within five minutes of my apartment.

Here is an interesting article about how national retailers and fleeing Detroit: ONLY FOUR STARBUCKS!

But here is the really interesting part, because the housing market has fallen through the floor, it is –obviously – really cheap to actually buy a house there. So now there is this movement of “artists” to Detroit. These artists are snatching up houses for literally thousands or even HUNDREDS of dollars. Here is an article about that:ARTIST INFLUX, HIDE THE WINE AND CHEESE!

It is entirely possible that Detroit is going to be the coolest city in the country in like ten years. Or! It is going to continue to whither and die and in ten years it will be the only post-industrialized ghost city in the Unites States. Weird, right?

I’ll tell you, if I didn’t have a “plan” to go on and get an MFA and stuff, I would seriously consider moving to Detroit and being all artist-y with all my new baguette-eating, black sweater-wearing artist friends.

I mean, sure, there are no jobs there, and the house I buy for $2,000 will not have any plumbing or wiring left and sure, my house will probably get broken into once I move in my Mac and all my other fancy artist gear, but (and Violet made this point, not me) the city might be so cheap to live in that an artist who can sell their work elsewhere (think of graphic designers, web designer, WRITERS, photographers, etc.) can actually live on what they produce. Try doing that in New York. Or LA. It means that if you can make a little money, you don’t have to have a day job!

Although it is also possible that Detroit will get so bad that ALL of the retailers and grocery stores will move out and then it will get SUPER expensive to, you know, buy food.

But do you know what else they are doing out there? They have started growing community gardens on vacant lots. So – to some small degree – they are even producing their own food. Imagine how awesome it would be if I showed up with a couple of cows! And maybe a chicken!

Anyway, the point is just that Detroit is undergoing something right now. I don’t think it can be called a renaissance yet, and there is no guarantee that it will get there, but I think it is fascinating to watch.

Here's an interesting article about a couple of artists who are opening a gallery.

And here is the super-cool website ABANDONED HOUSE OF THE WEEK!
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President Obama Kills A Fly.

This is the coolest fucking thing I have seen all week.

Phone Eats Your Radio Signal.

Holy wow! Nokia has developed a(n experimental) cell phone that never goes dead!

“How does it work?” You shout.

“Well let me tell you!” I shout back.

Basically, it eats ambient radio waves. It just gobbles them the hell up. Since there are all kinds of signals getting beamed around every where, this phone just makes use of them and it converts the tiny tiny tiny amounts of energy in the signals into actual battery power.

As it is, this works well enough to slooooooooooooowly recharge the battery while the phone is in a sleep mode. So it doesn’t really work well enough to, you know, use yet, but it is a start.

Just imagine, one day, when you walk into a room with wifi, your phone will slurp it all up. Man, you are such a jerk!

Here is an article about it: This Phone Sucks (Energy)!
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My Musical Brilliance!

Check out this website: aM Laboratory.

I’m not quite sure how to describe it. I guess I will describe it thusly: it is a little music tool. You click on a square to select a tone and you can make these cool little songs. For my part, I have discovered that I am amazing musically talented! It is like I’m a savant AND a genius!

I found it using stumble.com, which is a very cool site in its own right, you just click the STUMBLE button and it takes you to a whole new and interesting website. Very cool way to kill a few minutes. Stumbleupon.com
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No Humming Birds.

So I bought this humming bird feeder, but I have no seen any humming birds yet. I didn’t fill it all the way up. Do you think that maybe I should do that? So that there is more of that bright red sugar water for them to home in on? Okay, I will do that and I will let you know how it turns out. Will you be able to stand the tension?
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So Unprofessional . . .

Is the surprising thing that Iran has rigged its elections, or is the surprising thing that they seem to be so bad at it?

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Bored at Work

The computer has
To defrag its digital
insides for a while.

I wait patiently
But with some trepidation,
I have work to do.

Am keeping busy
By looking busy while I
Write you this haiku.
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Floating Dog

If I ever have a little dog, I am totally going to get him one of these things! Not only will it make him float, it also gives him handles!
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Who's the Socialist Now?

Oh hey!

Help me remember to fill out my health insurance paperwork this weekend.

That's right, I have company health insurance again.

Thanks for nothing, every politician ever.
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Mental Pinball

Violet has agreed that we can move into a smaller apartment so that we can save up money for my fat-ass reduction surgery.

The sad part is that my ass is not fat, it is actually surprisingly flat. When I am naked, there is an angle that I can stand at so that my ass, in profile, is actually s straight line \ it is very sad for me.

What is even sadder is that I have put a little bit of weight back on over the past year or so. It is because I drink coffee at work all day. I need to drink less coffee.

When I get to work in the morning, I am usually hungry. Rather than consuming food, I just drink coffee until I’m not hungry anymore. I was still drinking coffee today at two in the afternoon and I felt sick. It was pretty bad for a while.

Anyway, Violet and I are going to save money up so that I can get that surgery where they suck at out of your gut and inject it into your ass to make you more able to fill out a pair of Calvin Kleins.

Nothing comes between me and my Calvin Kleins.
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Amnesty International Video

Amnesty International
Uploaded by niksinik -

Look at this Awesome Art!

Is it some lost, early Marc Rothko? No! It is an awesome drawing that Violet made for me.
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Awesome! Or, maybe, crap.

So I really do try to not post a bunch of crap that you have probably already seen, but here is the trailer for the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr., Rachel McAdams and Jude Law, directed by Guy Richie.

This looks like it will be three parts awesome and one part complete crap. Here is hoping that the explosions don’t get stupid all over the funny.

My Beautiful Cellar Door

I have an official correction to make.

For years I have been (because I’m exactly this kind of asshole) telling people that George Bernard Shaw said that “Cellar door” was quite possibly the most beautiful phrase in the English language.

Well, it turns out it was actually J.R.R. Tolkien. I am very sorry for any problems that this may have caused for anyone. If you said it to somebody at a party and then got corrected and made to feel dumb, I hope you blamed it on me.

Again, I'm very sorry.
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Everybody is a Hypocrite: The Game!

So I was watching on the television about this angry, hateful moron who shot the (abortion) doctor while he was handing out programs in church, and (after the heart-burn-boil of what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-people! subsided) I thought about the mental gymnastics that had to happen in order for someone like this to feel not only justified, but self-righteous.

I mean, really?

But then I played the game that I like to play sometimes. It is a mental game about what people believe, but it kind of functions like connect-the-dots, six degrees of Kevin Bacon game but - you know - issue oriented.

I will start with some full disclosure and by telling you that I am a liberal (but not crazy!), life-long Democrat who believes strongly in gay rights and reproductive rights and (reluctantly, some) gun rights. I’m a death penalty fence-sitter. I rejoice in the separation of church and state, but I will admit that our national identity is based on a bed rock of (oh-so-Puritan) Christian values. I support our troops (the same way you do, by saying I do and then taking a nap) but I am distrustful of what our military does to our troops and I will mock a Marine in a giant pick-up truck faster than you can call me a hypocrite.

But you know who else I dislike? Hippies. Dirty, dirty hippies. With their tree-hugging and their acoustic guitars and their worthy causes and really expensive fair-trade products and their long, dirty hair. And also surfers. I hate surfers, with their fake Zen bullshit; spending a lot of time sitting in the water doing nothing does not necessarily qualify you for enlightenment. But also hunters annoy the living hell out of me; shut your face with all this respecting the animals crap and what-the-hell-ever, take a god damn photo of the thing instead of tacking its head to your wall. Anyway, the point is, I have my biases but I admit it.

Anywhoo …

I like to play this game where I try to figure out what a wholly logical person would believe if we lived in a world where the things that people believed had anything what so ever to do with logic, or at least a world wherein things made sense. This game is called: Everybody is a Hypocrite.

So let’s start with Scott Roeder, this putrid, sack-of-shit, anti-abortion “activist” who murdered Dr. Tillman inside a Kansas church.

If you believe that abortion is wrong because it extinguishes a life then - and we are using logic here – you would also believe that killing any person (in this case a 67-year-old doctor) is also wrong. Presto! Ergo: if you are pro-life, you are pro-life.

That’s the whole game!

Sounds dumb, right? Oh but keep going …

If you believe abortion is wrong then you believe killing is wrong, if you believe killing is wrong, then you are anti-death penalty! Hooray! How do you like them apples the State of Texas! Anti-abortion = anti-capital punishment.

Also, if you are anti-abortion because you are pro-life, and you are anti-killing people, and therefore anti-capital punishment, then I don’t see how, in all good faith, you can possibly ever be supportive of war, or the military-industrial complex that turns 18-year-olds into the most efficient killing machines the world has ever seen.

So there you go; it is a straight line of logic, if you are anti-abortion then you do not support the military because of your unimpeachable commitment to life.

Imagine if THAT political party existed, they would never get a single vote.

Now just to prove that I am fair and balanced, let’s start with a liberal, lefty issue. One that is near and dear to my heart: gay rights.

Now you have seen those “Protect Marriage” douche bags do this on Fox News: if you are in favor of gay marriage because you think that anyone who wants to get married should be able to, then you are in favor of adults being able to marry children (if they are in love) and you are even in favor of people being able to marry animals (as long as they are in love!) and so forth and so on.

I know, that example was weak, but it IS WEAK! I didn’t come up with it.

Here, this one is better: If you are in favor of gay marriage because you think it is not the government’s role to meddle in people’s lives, then you should also be pro-choice for the same reason (right, I’m not exactly blazing any trails making that connection, I know, but how about this one - - - - >), and so if you feel that the it is not the government’s role to meddle in people’s lives, then you are also a supporter of gun rights, and hunters’ rights, and the rights of people to not wear their seat belts. Also, if you believe so much in personal freedom, then you must be in favor of people being able to home-school their kids without any pesky government regulation. Also, since you think the government should not be in the business of regulating things, you are obviously a pro-business pragmatist who thinks that lumber companies should be able to log wherever they want and that oil companies should be able to drill wherever they want, because you are all about freedom and the government staying out of people’s lives.

So this is a new political party composed of gays, hunters, oil companies and those kinda creepy people who home-school their kids. Hooray for logic!

Now I realize that some of these things are in fact LEAPS of logic, but draw a straight line from one issue to another and then tell me if the Republican Party platform makes any sense: a (theoretically) small government that only loosely regulates business, but polices what a woman can do with her body, that supports the rights of people to own fully-automatic assault weapons, while not supporting their right to get married to who they want. Does that make any sense?

The point is that NONE of it makes any sense at all. That’s the point, everybody is a hypocrite.

And I challenge you to not play this game in your head while you are driving to work. I challenge you!
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