Blah blah blog. . .

It's not like intelligent people didn't predict it long ago

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:15:05 -0700

Anyone with half a brain knew it was only a matter of time before they hit hypercolor. But let me be the first to congratulate American Apparel for jumping the shark. Is there a fashion equivalent to that term yet? Entries?

Getting My Kicks

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:39:22 -0700

No, not those lame half-assed incorrectly designed Nike McFly’s going for thousands on eBay. By the time this is read, I will be out of the shower and on the road in my attempt to reclaim what’s left of music. Think, The Never Ending Story but in the American SouthWest. Instead of artax or falkor, it’s an Audi quatro wagon. It’s still against The Nothing, but more for myself than some creepy Childlike Empress. I don’t want to, but I will kill any crazy wolf thing that comes near me, human and animal alike.

An artifact of truer times. Having been to and worked in...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:45:00 -0700

An artifact of truer times.

Having been to and worked in recording studios and used equipment that most people could never afford; I posit with all personal and professional authority that nothing has ever sounded as breathtaking or felt so real as the standard General Motors tape deck in my red 1988 Chevy truck. Little, lean, red, loyal.

There are many things wonderful and tragic in a person’s life. I love music & I loved music in my truck. I love the sound of it with the windows up in the cold. I love the sound of it with the windows just cracked, and the way it feels when they’re down and the warm summer air pushes the notes past my face & back around my body over and over. I don’t just like it or enjoy it; I occupy it as it occupies me. It fills the space around me, changing the pressure of the local atmosphere. It’s meteorological, surrounds me on all sides. It puts me in the center of a hurricane; some kind of wonderful warm crazy hurricane whose strength & course are determined by the song, the air & my volume knob. I enjoy music with every sense.

At least I used to. Ever since that truck left, and I subsequently left Minnesota, it has never sounded the same. It’s flat, thin, inorganic, unemotional, disingenuous. It has no temperature, no physicality, no depth, no ability to distort space or time, no warmth, no truth, no undefinable hidden source of energy. I am unresponsive, apathetic. An epic tragedy. This is what it must feel like to fall out of love with the most wonderful person you’ve ever met. Heart braking. Unexplainable. Un-understandable. Confusing. Terrifying. Deep.

Air might as well not be air, road, road. There is no geometry. No windshield this way, no back wall this close, no roof fabric draping just so. There is no vinyl seat or furry seat cover. There is no tall shiny shift stick. There is no broken open vent. No wheel without a rubber pad. No having to manually grab a wire and touch it to the inside of the steering column to make the horn sound. No broken ignition that allows starting without keys. No door locks to be opened by any key thin enough to fit inside. But most importantly, there is no tape. No analog magnetic particle saturation among and across the tracks. There is no tape deck. No simple three button operation. No forward, back, side, eject. No volume. No treble. No base. There is no old worn out/(in) speaker. No old worn in wire. There is no humidity. It is humidity that tells a story. It is tape and deck and speaker that tell a story. We are our stories. Our narratives.

Do you see that tape? It tells a story. Look at it. It’s bent. It’s case and body warped from being in that oven of a cab in that truck. I never bothered to take it out, especially not on the hot days. That’s when it was used the most. I never bothered to take it out. That’s why if you look carefully, you’ll see a strip of velcro on it’s back. I never bothered to take it out because it lived there in that truck. It was part of the vehicle. Like the engine or the wheel. That truck wouldn’t work right without it. It would start, move, take something from one place to another. But that wasn’t the purpose of the truck. That was not it’s reason for being. That truck was not just a vehicle for things. A book isn’t just a vehicle for printed text, rather ideas, thoughts, emotions. It could still be read, but without those things, it wouldn’t work. So it was with that tape, that truck, that air.

I found it just now as I was digging through my closet. The last piece of my truck that I have. The last piece left. This is what it must feel like to have the only person you love die and have their skeleton cleaned and kept, only to have pieces taken away by life and circumstances until only a bone remains. The last bone, maybe some part of the hand, a middle part of a finger, a piece of the tibia, if you’re lucky or just less sad or weird (depending on how you cope), a vertebra. A sad remainder of the happiest partner, the tragedy of displacement, a physical trace, a broken connection back to the way it was meant to be.

I have never felt the same without you.

URGENT! URGENT! BREAKING NEWS!!I NEED A ROUTE 66 MIX TAPE NOW!...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:25:00 -0700

URGENT! URGENT! BREAKING NEWS!!

I NEED A ROUTE 66 MIX TAPE NOW! It appears I may be assisting some friends of the family get their car to Santa Fe, NM this weekend. I’ll be driving on my own along old route 66 for some time. Send your suggested mix in NOW! so it can make it into the pod in time!!!

n1s:seen on graphjam. via dot BenI’d say that’s...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:52:27 -0700

n1s:

seen on graphjam. via dot Ben

I’d say that’s pretty close.

Requiem For Artificial Television

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:55:00 -0700

Arrested Development: Done

Star Trek TOS: Done

Star Trek TNG: Done

The Prisoner: Done

Danger Man: Done

The Twilight Zone: May Finish

Dr. Who (Baker Years): Nearly Done

Miami Vice: 15 Episodes Remaining

Battlestar Galactica: Half Season Remaining

Lost: Three Half Seasons Remaining

And that’s it. No more television for me. Ever. Phew. It’s been a difficult two years, but I’ve made it. The end is nearly in sight. I can’t wait to never have to stare at a screen for that long again. The second I’m done with this, I’m packing up my computer, ditching that huge old monitor, and saying hello to empty space in my life.

Edit: Feeling anxious. Deciding to dump the huge monitor this week when I paint the room.

For the countless people who seem confused whenever I singhum...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:04:55 -0700

For the countless people who seem confused whenever I singhum “wave your arms from side to side”.

After several years of structured observations

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:49:03 -0700

I’ve concluded that my grandmother is incapable of using a broiler without filling a house with smoke.

Cadaeic Cadenza: The Story

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:18:46 -0700

Cadaeic Cadenza: The Story: memorize this story, and you will be able to determine π to 3,384 places. Fun!

ICANN | Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:39:30 -0700

ICANN | Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation:

My chance at .monzel (among others)

Let’s hope that bastard Chris missed this bit of news.

Do not watch this unless you want to see what happens when a man...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:15:41 -0700

Do not watch this unless you want to see what happens when a man decides to Richard Cheese himself unintentionally. Nearly Elivs in proportions. So so sad. Whatever your religion, please pray for Rowland. I can understand if you can’t do it, but jeeeesus at least hire an amazing band like sir. paul did. My god they’re awful.

Sheena Easton!! It wasn’t a bad choice. I don’t...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:51:00 -0700

Sheena Easton!! It wasn’t a bad choice. I don’t blame Crockett. But come on, you don’t marry someone you’ve spent 2 days with. The writers could’ve at least given it a one episode buffer. I’m sure they’ll get divorced or she’ll get blown up. For all I know, she probably got fed up with Sonny’s hair; it’s gotten pretty bad about mid-way through season three. The Testarossa however is as white and bullet-holeless as ever.

internet radio just rickrolled me. Together Forever

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:36:43 -0700

internet radio just rickrolled me. Together Forever

anyone believing this dog head nonsense is a.

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:43:11 -0700

anyone believing this dog head nonsense is a.

FFFFOUND! This one took me a few seconds. Funny idea IMEO.

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:25:17 -0700

FFFFOUND! This one took me a few seconds. Funny idea IMEO.:

Hey, it’s just a name. They’re not trying to cause a big sssensation.

osakasteve:

Nice use of the soon-to-be-overused Interwebs acronym. I still can’t understand what the fuck ffffound is supposed to do. (via joeyjoseph)

An Enduring Legacy: Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:14:00 -0700

An Enduring Legacy: Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco:

To many of us who live in or near San Francisco, this isn’t new. However, when reading about it again today (I think it was in USA today) I saw a comment from a reader who suggested that every city rename their sewage plant “The George W Bush Sewage Plant”. I certainly appreciate the readers opinion, however this is irresponsible and a big mistake. Here’s why.

It doesn’t sufficiently communicate the sentiment. It doesn’t adequately tell the history of this great nation. In 50 to 100 years people won’t live every week with George W. Bush in their lives as we do. And that’s good. But like all memorials ought to, we here in their past should try to create something in order to pass on the lessons we have learned. Renaming all sewage treatment plants “The George W. Bush Sewage Plant”, won’t cut it. People don’t live with sewage treatment plants. Sewage treatment plants are like water treatment plants to people. They don’t ever think about them. Hell, they probably never even drive by them. That’s why I recommend the following.

We rename “sewage” itself to “george w. bush”. In a similar fashion to renaming one’s signature to “John Hancock” (though hopefully it would be more effective this time). That way anytime people have any discussion relating to sewage, sewers, waste matter, poop, rats, etc, they wouldn’t be saying “sewage” as we all do, and as I have just done; they’d be saying “george w. bush”.

This clearly communicates a message to the future. Better than any history book or memorial. Humans are curious, and will at one or more times in their lives (for humans are also forgetful) wonder why we call this rancid business a human name. They will then ask somebody or use whatever will replace the internet to answer their query. This keeps the name and story alive in a way that even architecture can not exceed. And since we don’t talk about sewage everyday, there’s very low risk to loss of impact due to loss of novelty (most commonly through overuse). The meaning will stick long into the age when we as a species have evolved to that most perfect of states where we no longer need to poop. That glorious day when the anus is but a vestigial structure; the function and therefore “George W. Bush” will be retired. At least until they should be called upon again to save the human race.

For all of this has happened before

And it will happen again.

FFFFOUND! This one took me a few seconds. Funny idea IMEO.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:03:48 -0700

FFFFOUND! This one took me a few seconds. Funny idea IMEO.

What a strange isolated but integrated little block?(via A Posh...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:42:47 -0700

What a strange isolated but integrated little block?

(via A Posh Sentinel)

This really got me.via i25.tinypic.com

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:37:28 -0700

This really got me.

via i25.tinypic.com

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and..."

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:35:26 -0700

““There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
Douglas Adams”