Crap in a Bucket

Stay cool

2010-04-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

My motto for summer:

It's starting to get hot n' muggy here in Austin. On my morning bike into work, the trickle of sweat hits my lower back at precisely the same place every day. Last summer was unbearably hot - I wouldn't even think of biking in. Here's to hoping global warming spares our little urban heat island this summer.

image via ffffound

Need to want less

2010-04-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

I like this set on Flickr.

From the maker:

when i was 8 i wanted a puppy
when i was 10 i wanted parachute pants
when i was 12 i wanted an ogilvie perm
when i was 14 i wanted a boy named robbie
when i was 16 i wanted a car
when i was in my 20s i wanted to make bad choices
now i want everything
i only need enough to survive

Somewhere else

2010-04-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Where is this place? I want to be there right now.

image via s'il vous plait

Finding oneself on Google Street View

2010-03-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

It's not rare that I think about the pervasiveness of Google in every day life. For example, yesterday, when Google pulled out of China, news commenters were pondering what effect this would have on relations between the U.S. and China. On NPR, one commenter said something to the effect of, this is the action of one individual company, and it's not U.S. foreign policy we're dealing with. But, the fact that we're even discussing the company in this way shows how much Google has transcended business-as-usual and become something more. Something more that might eventually take over our lives, like the corporation in Wall-E? Maybe? Possibly?

And then there's the privacy issue. Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology (The Onion)

To live in the internet age, I think you have to assume a sacrifice of privacy. I mean, we all like to share things about our friends, families, and find a resting place for all those digital photos we'll never look at again. For example, today I was looking around my former neighbors' blog, as it is chock full of cute photos and videos of their adorable children.

Then I decided to dig a little bit deeper back into the archives... and found myself. On Google Street View.

See that bicycle riding up the driveway next to the van? That is undoubtedly me, cruising towards my garage apartment when I used to live in a quaint neighborhood next to that amazing, Gaudi inspired house. My neighbors posted it on their blog before they became my neighbors, to show the folks back home what they were in for. (They were blissfully ignorant about the lack of air conditioning during that time.)

So... weird.

I'm multimedia

2010-03-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

Some new things from work:

audio

video

Post-South-By

2010-03-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

I uploaded my first video to YouTube today.

Marshall was playing a bit of a last minute show with his student who is an amazing violinist, and I decided it was time to learn how to use the video on my new DSLR. I apologize for cutting off the top of Josh's head most of the time, and I'm not sure how the focus works. But I'm going to make it work, because I'm set on filming a YouTube show starring my neighbor Ian. Ian is an amazing cook and he's also rather handy with crafts, so it will be called, "Ian's Home Cooking and Craft Show." Here's an idea of the amazing DIY skills we will learn on Ian's Home Cooking and Craft Show: screenprinting for your guerrilla gardening group! After that, we will cook a comforting chicken soup and learn about Ian's new favorite wine. (He is also a connoisseur, which will run as a byline during the wine segment.) It will be so informative and fun.

A SXSW P.S. The violinist's other band (when he is not in high school) was my hands-down favorite of the festival. I had seen them before, but they blew me away a second time and gained a standing ovation from a room of 600 or more. Described as "a small symphony with an epic sound." You must give them a listen: Mother Falcon.

Some thoughts

2010-03-12T19:21:00.000-08:00

Tonight I listed some fabric I wanted to get rid of on Craigslist. A few years ago, I happened into a large box of free fabric scraps as part of my dealings with an eccentric man who was selling all his robin's egg blue furniture on Craigslist. (I know I have used the word "eccentric" to describe Austin characters recently twice now, but I feel I would be doing an injustice not to use that word. He painted his furniture - and his apartment - that color because it was his "power color.") I got a rocking chair, a cork bulletin board and whatever was on it, a rug I really loved involving robin's egg blue, and as this man was an obsessive and persistent collector of stuff (he told me he was anti-minimalist and had furniture hanging from the ceiling) he handed me this box of fabric scraps he had picked up somewhere.

Tonight I decided, in order to save an upstairs room from chaos, I needed to give away some of the fabric. So I listed it on Craigslist for free. Within 45 minutes, it was gone - destined for use in an afterschool program. The fabric would have had four owners now, via Craigslist. As I stepped outside to see that it was being picked up, I thought about how great Craigslist is. Not only had this fabric cleansing been an easy and painless process, I still treasure my memories of that strange, strange man. And, most of my furniture is from Craigslist.

Then I had the sudden thought: Craigslist killed the newspapers.

But I never would have made a classified ad to get rid of my fabric.

But I do value local journalism and jobs.

I asked myself: Would I rather give up my easy and interesting Craigslisting, or the livelihood of local newspapers?

I decided it was an impossible question.

Even if a guy named Craig hadn't started a free classifieds service, surely, something else would have burst a hole in the "dinosaur" of newspapers. You can't even really point a finger at Craig. Craigslist is a symptom. A symptom of the new nature of information. It wants to be free. My fabric wants to be free. Change, it's inevitable. Subsequent cliched justification. Being paid to create media is dying, regardless.

Craigslist makes me really happy, and really sad.

Indie band on a French carousel

2010-03-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

Saw these guys at SXSW last year, at a small house party Marshall's band played. They're huge now - well, at least indie rock huge. I remember going up to one of them in the small, liquor sticky kitchen after they played and telling him how much I enjoyed it. I said something like, "Every year, I hope that some band will blow me away and you guys are it." I think I was drunk. I said this with much conviction. The guy seemed truly appreciative, took my compliment with wide-eyed, genuine acceptance, like it really meant something that I liked it so much. A sweet guy, really. I would like to see them again this year, but I am not sure if I can get into their shows now that they are so popular, or if it would be worth the investment of time to see something that blew me away once, when I could be listening for the next big thing.

At the plant sale

2010-03-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Charity

Girls dressed appropriately

"Care and feeding of a mermaid"

2010-03-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

When I was little - post-Disney's "The Little Mermaid" - I was obsessed with mermaids. I made up stories about them. I wanted to be one. When I went swimming, I lived a fantasy mermaid life - half girl, half fish.

A few months after I first moved to Austin, I met my first real-life mermaid. Her name was Rusty. She swam in the community pool by my house, with a shimmering green fin and matching bikini top, which she made herself. The pool was small, and she used the two lap lanes, by the side of the pool. Two little kids ran along the edge of the pool as she swam, as if they were seeing a dolphin at Sea World.

When Rusty shimmied out of the pool (a difficult maneuver when your legs are bonded together in a uni-fin), I could not avoid my desire to talk to her. Predictably, she was eccentric. Rusty told me that she split her time between Austin and New York. In New York, she worked as a mermaid, diving in giant, glass tubs in a club. In Austin, where there are no mermaid clubs, she acted in the Rocky Horror every weekend. She bemoaned the decline of the mermaid club - quite popular during the 60s.

This video reminded me of Rusty, who I always hoped to see when I went to that pool many times over the summer, but I never saw her, or another mermaid, there again.

Via Flickr Commons

Protesting the protesters

2009-09-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today, I went to my first protest. Or, maybe I shouldn't say I "went," more that I "held" my first protest. I was one of only three people standing with signs outside of the Texas Capitol, the others being my boyfriend and our housemate, Becky. Despite our small numbers, we were going to make a show of a counter-protest of the Austin Tea Party.

The impetus from the event was Marshall hearing a story on NPR about the Tea Party Express, a conservative movement well versed in inflammatory and in some cases, untrue, statements, and channelling his liberal rage into this Facebook "Protesting the Protesters" invite. Becky works answering questions about health insurance from people struggling with cancer, so she has no lack of frustration and outrage with the direction of this debate. I have never protested before, and shamefully cannot describe "the public option", but I was along for the ride. Because I am tired of the way that political debates have been clouded by disinformation and lies, and I am willing to take a stand for honesty and truth.

So the Tea Party Express was coming our way on Saturday, complete with Joe the Plumber and a black conservative and an Arab guy to sing the national anthem so no one could accuse anybody of being racist. When we arrived at the Capitol, we were surprised with how big and how organized this event was. Gigantic coach buses idled on Congress, letting off a stream of people from all over Texas who wore shirts of various conservative slogans. There was the traditional "Don't Tread On Me" and stuff about not liking taxes, and a Tea Party take on the overly designed t-shirt so popular with the douchebags. Everyone had a sign. An old man carried one that said, "OBAMA SUCKS." I was aggrieved to see depictions of Obama as Hitler and the Joker. I thought those were stories meant to scare liberals! There were signs using the Nazi SS emblem to spell out social security. It made me a bit sad to see kids holding signs too, pushed along by their ideologically-driven parents. They are defenseless.

We stood as a stake of sanity in a sea of crazy. Okay, not everyone was crazy. Early on, we got a warm reception. People peered at our signs, and approached us to say that they disagreed, but they were glad that we were here. One man handed us bottled water, saying, "I'm sorry it's not cold." (It was too genuine of a gesture for me to pull out my Nalgene and explain why I hate bottled water.) We held signs with information dispelling several popular conservative myths. A quote from Obama saying that he will never take guns away. "Barack Obama was born in the USA." "Global Warming is Real." The signs I made said, "Value Truth!" and "Value Facts (not rhetoric.)"

A few people commenced to argue with us, before they went onto the Capitol lawn. I felt like I had a small bit of success with an older man who said that the government wanted to take care away from seniors. I told him Medicare and Medicaid are government programs that won't be taken away, they work, and we want to extend them so that everyone has care. "Hm," he said, and moved on. I was getting my protest legs. Every so often, passerbys would wave or give us the thumbs up, or mention to us that the Tea Party was a whole lot of crazy. It felt good to be out, offering that perspective.

But then, there was the group of three. Two women and a man who would not leave us alone. I was out there to try and bring an open, honest discourse to people with whom I disagreed, but I quickly saw that this is fundamentally not the case. These people argued not on the principles on which we disagreed, but on a slanted set of so-called facts. "Value facts?" they said, pointing to my sign. "Here's a fact!"

They claimed that Van Jones, an Obama advisor on the green economy, is a self-avowed "black nationalist." I sincerely doubt that, I told them. "You doubt it?" They shrilled. "Look it up on YouTube! It's right there! He says it out of his own mouth!" Marshall looked it up on his iphone and got a set of results including the name, "Glenn Beck." Ah. So here's where they were getting their facts. In fact, there is no footage of Van Jones saying this, it's just Glenn Beck calling him that. How could they claim Van Jones said this about himself, when he did no such thing? I am at a loss.

Another "fact." John Holdren, Science and Technology Advisor, argued for putting sterilants in the water, in a 1977 book. I respect John Holdren very much and I also sincerely doubted this. They also claimed that he had not been "vetted" by Congress, when I have distinct memories of John Holdren, along with Jane Lubchenco (now of NOAA), waiting for their confirmation hearings. I looked this up. Yes, John Holdren was confirmed - unanimously by the Senate. My search for John Holdren and sterilants returned many results. Allegedly, he said it in a book co-written with Paul Elrich and his wife. Paul Elrich of the "Population Bomb," a book widely lauded at the time but now acknowledged as off the mark, even by the writer himself. "Ecowise" was written around this same time, when everyone was talking about population control, and how to do it. John Holdren was the third author. A writer I read on Scribd claimed to "provide untouched scans" of the full pages, so no one can claim they were "taken out of context." Guess what? They're printed out of context. John Holdren's wikipedia entry says that these passages were written to describe the methods of population control proposed, and then advocated milder methods such as access to birth control and abortion.

Okay, so facts? These are not them. And guess who has perpetuated these John Holdren myths? That's right, Glenn Beck. The man who said Obama hates white people. Even though Obama's mother was white. To say the least, this man is not a trustworthy peddler of facts.

The pro-protesters realized that it was no use talking to us about Glenn Beck. One of the women was a 9-11 Truther, and the man was just a plain old argumentative wack job. "You're being spoonfed!" he yelled, as about a thousand up the hill were being spoonfed by high pitched and hysterical white male voices. A few others joined in our protest. A college professor and his daughter picked up signs. "I used to protest here," said the white-bearded man in sandals. "Except it was to legalize marijuana, and we were all smoking pot."

The professor took a very effective approach to the argumentative protester. When he tried his spoonfed line, the professor tilted his head back and said, "Oh yeah, I'm being spoonfed. Feed me more!" A major line of the pro-protesters was asking if we had jobs. Like we were doing this because we were just a bunch of lie-abouts who required the government to support us. The professor said, "I'm a professor, and the worst part is, you're paying ME to indoctrinate your children!"

"This is turning into quite a lively afternoon," I told Marshall.

And so it went on. I was happy to explain to another Teabagger about why climate change is human-caused, until he started telling me how water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas and so all the scientific evidence that points to anthropomorphic global warming is just a lie. I tried to get across my point - it's happening, so now the question is what can we do to stop it - but he didn't want to discuss that point and ran off. A Hispanic man joined us, and Marshall almost punched the argumentative guy who said that the Hispanic man did not speak English.

By that point, we'd been out in the sun for 2 and a half hours and I was hot and cranky. It was time for sandwiches. "Quitters. Losers." The argumentative man taunted us.

"Excuse me, sir," I said. "That's real mature. I'm glad you're trying to further the debate by acting like a thirteen year old."

Marshall got up in his face and did a bit of pushy pointing with some final words. We had both gotten a feel for this.

"Quitters, losers!" he yelled as we walked away.

On the way to the cafe we were stopped by several Austinites who lauded our expression of speech against the grab-bag of crazy that was the rally. People were against a whole bunch of stuff, in no cohesive way. Some hated Obama, some hated taxes, some hated taxes and health care reform and the people who would pull the plug on their grandpa. Some just hated liberals. It didn't make a lot of sense to me, but they had organized into quite a show for downtown. With only three - or sometimes more - of the very unorganized opposition.

The question is, how did this rhetoric of hate and lies come to dominate the public debate? And how can we take it back? I want to live in a society where reasonable discussion thrives, where decisions can be made based upon a set of relevant, agreed-upon facts. This might make me an idealist, yet I don't think it's unreasonable. No society, and certainly no government, can be perfect. Citizens will always disagree. But I think - I hope - it might be possible to someday have an informed and civil public discourse. Today was not that day.

Dog life

2009-08-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

I love how the dog drops subtle hints. I'm sitting alone on the couch reading a book, and he walks by me and nudges his leash on the side table with his nose. Then he goes and sits down on the landing of the stairs and looks at me, with his head resting on his paws. It's as if he's talked to me. "Just wanted to let you know, I'd appreciate a walk today."

Oh, the pupster. I've never lived with a dog before in my life, despite many years of begging my parents, to no avail. I eventually gave up on wanting a dog, preferring to be more free of responsibility. Now I live with one by default.

He's looking at me. "Hey, are you thinking about that walk thing? Maybe? Okay." Head goes back down.

I've had to get used to an animal rushing at me every time I open the door. Hearing the rush of his claws as my key turns in the lock. Learning how to control my anger when I figure out that he was sitting on the couch, as evidenced by a crinkled up newspaper. He is slower to greet me those times we forget to put our makeshift fence across the couch, as moving away from such comfort requires him to do a luxurious stretch in front of me. A downward dog pose, expertly executed.

I'm never going to be a person obsessed with dogs. I promise myself - never. I don't even try to convince myself that the dog is particularly smart or special or twice as cute as other dogs. He's a handsome mutt - exceptionally unbred to no distinction but generic dog - who likes to sniff things. He likes to sometimes run around very fast when people are watching, showing everyone what a dog he is. He's done laps at a barbecue, leaping over another dog with great athleticism and ease. He plays the piano and sings. In a dog way, of course. Sometimes his singing sounds like an uptight woman crying.

He's sleeping. Or pretending to sleep, with his head slung down over a step. He's really just holding out hope. If I were to say the word "WALK" at this moment, his triangle ears would immediately perk up and he'd be all over me, ready to go. I think this is kind of sad. The highlight of your day is walking a few blocks? The same few blocks that we always walk? But then I remember that he's a dog, and I'm a human, and we don't think or feel the same things. I think sometimes people forget this.

A mental note on communicating with humans

2009-06-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, in more extreme moments, I think of Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth blog as a Bible of science and environmental issues, and how to communicate about them. This is certainly gospel:

We’re Talking About Humans Here

Everyone associated with environmental communication needs to read The Cluetrain Mainfesto of 1999 and take it to heart. The environmental struggle is one big exercise in persuasion. What the Cluetrain folks pointed out is that humans respond to human voices. You can “frame” all you want, but if the communication is coming from robots, the only ones who will respond will be the robots. People have enormous perceptual power and instincts, the science of which is only beginning to be explored. Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink” provides a starting point. The bottom line is it only takes a few seconds for people to listen to a voice and decide whether they trust it or not. If that voice is devoid of human qualities, and worse if there is a clear sense that the voice is speaking with “messages” that have been “framed” and “focus grouped,” it just ain’t gonna work for the masses. And double that for the younger masses.

Obama is making enormous strides now on science and environmental issues because he’s been placed in the position of power to do so. He got there not through cold, calculated messaging, but by being an EXTREMELY likable (a crucial trait for today’s increasingly style-driven world), deeply humanized person who is able to convey the central human qualities of humor and emotion. When he addressed the Reverend Wright issue in one of the pivotal moments of his campaign, he did so with an impassioned and vibrantly human voice which succeeded in putting out a potentially lethal fire.

These are elements of style in communication which are central to our information-glutted world. Yes, language does matter, but that is primarily an element of substance (i.e. the text of what is communicated). You can come up with all the clever terms you want, but if they are spoken by environmental leaders who are perceived as cold, calculating, and manipulative, the broader audience will simply disconnect. Not because of the language, but because of their basic instincts leading them to not trust the voice they are hearing.

Moving out/Moving in

2009-05-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

I've been in the moving process this week. Gah. I'm deep enough in the stress of a seemingly never-ending shifting of stuff to find this video absolutely hilarious. Although fiscal sense isn't the primary reason I'm moving in with my boyfriend, it became particularly relevant after a large recession-caused salary cut. Then he asked me to sign a 2-year lease/girlfriend commitment.

Nation's Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: 'Let's Move In Together'

Adventures in weekend gardening

2009-04-25T23:12:00.000-07:00

This is Marshall's dog, Sir Johann Ratsbane the Emotional. Like a Von won in a war, the Dog Formerly known as Johann received his title after valiant and victorious battle with a rat.

It happened last weekend, as Marshall and I were pulling out the Wandering Jew I so loathed. I'm not quite sure why this plant is called Wandering Jew, but it's purplish and ropey and gross and the name makes it awkward to express how much I dislike it. It spread across the whole front of Marshall's house, where a row of shrubbery usually goes, and it looked like some kind of mutant weed. Marshall is obsessed with buying plants, so it wasn't hard to convince him it needed replacement.

So we're pulling out this Wandering Jew, which is a thick tangle of grossness that also smells bad. (Note to gardeners: You have to get this thing called the "Cobra Head" - which is like an iron fingernail for pulling out weeds. It's amazing.) I get to hacking at the corner of the house and the cement porch when suddenly there's all this scurrying action. I jump back and scream. I know it's a rat because unfortunately the house has some rat problems. I'm not sure about the current location of the rat but I manage to calm down and get back to work, as I am in the swing of satisfying, result-driven manual labor.

The Wandering Jew shrinks and shrinks as we manage to pull out the mass' roots - bulbous structures with dirty tentacles dangling like dead and mysteriously land-borne octopi. And when there is nowhere left to hide, the rat makes its return. It scurries back into its former nest, and according to later accounts, panics. Marshall and I freak out. I'm jumping up and down. We have no idea what to do - seriously, do you catch a rat outside? But then, Johann's nearby! Do dogs kill rats? There's only one way to find out. We start yelling his name and pointing furiously at the rat. Johann looks confused. And then he sees the rat, and it dawns on him: He is a dog. This is his purpose. This is his moment.

He lunges for the rat with his mouth, grabs it, and shakes it. The rat goes flying onto the lawn. Johann chases, grabs again, rat is airborne again. The rat scurries through the fence into the backyard. There's a big plywood board back there, loaded up with lumber we were going to make into a frame for a garden bed. It's actually there to block a hole in the fence where Johann can get out. Johann strongly suspects the rat is underneath. He stands guard, poking his nose under the board, but he can't lift it up.

After the initial excitement with the rat, Marshall and I go back to gardening and let Johann stay distracted. But during a break, I want to see what will happen if I lift up the board. I take the lumber off and let Johann get underneath - the rat goes shooting out. Johann is all action. He catches the rat in his mouth and shakes. The rat squeaks EXACTLY like a squeaky toy from the pet store. And suddenly, pet toys make a lot more sense to me. They're about causing death. Fun.

Johann drops it and the rat's tail goes up, in its death throes. I've called for Marshall to come watch and he looks at his dog like an owner - there is some meaningful dog-master interaction going on. Earlier that day, we were joking that Johann's economical worth to the household was his entertainment value. We spend so much time making fun of the dog - doing silly voices for him, watching him fall down when he gets excited about food and then laughing - it might replace going to a movie, or a show, for example. We might say, "Hey, let's stay in tonight and make fun of Johann."

But that was the day that Johann decided to prove us wrong. It was almost as if he had overheard us, and understood, that we were demeaning his proud heritage. Johann stood proudly over the rat he slayed. He became Sir Johann Ratsbane the Emotional*.

*The Emotional because he cries a lot.

Phrases He'd Be Pysched to Hear

2009-04-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Advice/ material to invoke gag reflex for your bulimia, from Cosmo. And the subtext, from me.

"Tonight, dinner is on me... and all the booze, too."

He'll only like me if he's drunk, and somewhat appreciative.

"I bought some new DVDs to add to your porn collection."

Please, let me validate and encourage your objectification of women, and by extension, me.

"I promise, you don't ever have to hang out with my friends again."

WTF? Why would you ever say this?

"It's really unattractive when men are too muscular."

You're not muscular, and I'm being really awkward now.

"Don't talk. Just take off your clothes and come over here."

We have nothing to talk about.

Oh, please, Death of Print. Oh, be merciful and take Cosmo with you!

In which we pursue greater knowledge

2009-03-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

"If a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment."

- Scientist JBS Haldane, referring to his burst eardrums caused by a series of decompression experiments he did on himself.

An interesting (and kind of gross) article in New Scientist today.

I miss David Foster Wallace

2009-03-09T13:19:00.001-07:00

This week's New Yorker had a long piece about David Foster Wallace's career and his final work. It's good, I recommend it.

This is a photo I took of David Foster Wallace reading this story at my school in 2006. At the time, I was in a fiction workshop in which we read his short stories and complained about how the stories were all about how smart David Wallace was. Max, pictured here in the front row, was an avid champion of everything David Foster Wallace.

David Foster Wallace rarely read in public, but when he did, he didn't charge. Before the reading, in my workshop, we griped about how that was still David Foster Wallace showing how he was smarter and better than the rest of humanity. But at the reading, I was struck by his humility, and how approachable he seemed - so different from his long, difficult, mostly tedious sentences. I remember him laughing at one of his own jokes. And his hair - his hair was so gorgeous. It was long, and it shone. I admired it.

And that's when I turned in the road of my feelings about David Foster Wallace.

No, you may not get up from the table until you eat your X-ray Vision carrots

2009-03-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

I was trolling deep within the stacks of my online science press release service today, and found this gem. Let's hear it for good old fashioned trickery:

Names turn preschoolers into vegetable lovers
Do you have a picky preschooler who's avoiding their vegetables? A new Cornell University study shows that giving vegetables catchy new names – like X-Ray Vision Carrots and Tomato Bursts – left preschoolers asking for more.
When 186 four-year olds were given carrots called "X-ray Vision Carrots" ate nearly twice as much as they did on the lunch days when they were simply labeled as "carrots."

.... "Cool names can make for cool foods," says lead author Brian Wansink. "Whether it be 'power peas' or 'dinosaur broccoli trees,' giving a food a fun name makes kids think it will be more fun to eat. And it seems to keep working – even the next day," said Wansink.
Similar results have been found with adults. A restaurant study showed that when the Seafood Filet was changed to "Succulent Italian Seafood Filet," sales increased by 28% and taste rating increased by 12%. "Same food, but different expectations, and a different experience," said Wansink, author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Eat More Than We Think."

How about, Mindless Typing of Typing of Book Titles? Here's another, where the researchers decided to open "The Oldest Trick in the Book Book" for publishing:

Politicians can use fear to manipulate public
Arthur Lupia and Jesse O. Menning examined how select attributes of fear affect a politician’s ability to scare citizens into supporting policies that they would otherwise reject. They argue that politicians’ use of fear will depend on critical aspects of mass psychology.

For example, manipulation is more likely when the public doesn’t understand an issue or is unlikely to be able to overcome the fear created by politicians. By contrast, the easier it is for citizens to observe that the politician has made false statements, the less likely it is that politicians will attempt to use fear at all.

It must have taken them the entire Bush presidency to figure that one out.

And I quote

2009-03-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

As a result of our combined braininess and fecundity, humans have managed to colonize the planet; exploit, marginalize or exterminate all competing forms of life; build a vast military-industrial complex all under the auspices of Bernard Madoff and with one yeti of a carbon footprint, and will somebody please hand me that baby before it’s too late.

- Natalie Angier, In a Helpless Baby, the Roots of Our Social Glue, New York Times science section

I'm working on a similar piece about the role of mothers in human evolution.

In which I suspect the amaryllis is my stalker

2009-03-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

It bloomed!

I'm feeling like this gift amaryllis has been genetically bred to a fine sense of instant gratification. Rocket-like growth, gigantic blooms that last, little feeding or watering requirements, it's all too good to be true. Too good to be... evil?

One of the downfalls of living alone is that you always suspect that someone might be stalking you - "What's that sound?" "Did I leave the blinds like that when I left?" "Wasn't that photo facing slightly the other way?" These thoughts plague me when I'm alone. At first I thought it was just my nerves, which as I'm a lady, naturally run on the side of hysterical. But no. I've been told I am an unusually rational woman.

So I'm beginning to think that these thoughts are triggered by this massive plant with its passionate red blooms, which pulls itself up and hops around on its bulb, doing reconnaissance in my apartment for its higher masters (aliens, inevitably), which it accomplishes by changing my stuff in tiny degrees. Then it carefully sweeps up its trail of copper growing medium (or is it something which provides more sinister sustenance?), and plops back into its pot before 5pm, so I suspect nothing when I get home from work. Well, not this time, "amaryllis"! I've caught on. Your eagerly growing "gift boxes" are infiltrating American homes to create a standing army for your alien overlords.

But, I just can't bring myself to throw you out of my home. You look all dramatic and fiercely pretty. Who knows what lies within your dark and sterile stamens? I shiver at the thought. But I will tolerate it, for the sake of home decor.

Winter growth

2009-02-25T15:04:00.000-08:00

Here is my baby, my guerrilla garden. I am terribly proud of it. I admire it, give it soft, loving words, and then I eat it.

Peas which I ate off the vine yesterday. So sweet.

I ate the main crown of this broccoli with some pasta. Then it grew these precious wee sprouts.

I was too late to devour this one, and it flowered.
I'm most excited about this pepper plant now. It was planted by an anonymous gardener, who expanded the garden area to fit this pepper transplant and his larger companion. Someone guerrilla gardened my guerrilla garden! All is going according to plan.

This is my amaryllis, in my apartment. My mom gave it to me for Christmas. It comes all easily packaged in a little box with its bulb and "growing medium," which was pressed into a coin shape. When I got it home, I opened the box up and looked at it, then put everything back in the box. Fast forward a couple of weeks later, I'm cleaning my apartment and the bulb has already sprouted a few inches of green. I'm like, "Hang on, overachiever! Let me get you in a pot." It has continued at a freakish rate of growth that would excite small children tremendously, and then bring them false expectations of all future planting experiences. Trouble is, it's tremendously phallic. And now that it's about to bloom, it's going through a brief hemaphroditic period. All blushing and pink up there.

My newest work

2009-02-20T13:17:00.001-08:00

From LindsayPatterson.com - A Society That Expects Its Young To Parent Themselves Faces Eternal Chaos

I saw this book reviewed in my local newspaper years ago and it threw me for a loop. "I definitely didn't do that," I told my mom, and saved the clipping as testament to the weird occurrences of the universe. Lindsay Patterson as editor of African-American erotic literature.

The ravaging of the nerds

2009-02-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

This is hilarious and beautiful. I cried.

Via Videogum

Seed bombs

2009-02-02T13:12:00.001-08:00

I'm posting these photos to show you I would like to write in this blog more, but I can't, because I am doing other things. Like organizing seed bomb workshops.

You can read more about it on the Garden Posse blog.

I only have time to tell you these things about some music I listen to:

1. This band from Houston, the Wild Moccasins, have been playing in my head for the past week. They played (outside my brain) at Marshall's last show. Then they slept over at his house and appeared in the morning like high schoolers at an awkward boy-girl slumber party. They are tiny and twee and goddamn catchy.
2. I bought Juana Molina, Un Dia, yesterday, and am very glad I did. It's beautiful.
3. I'm going to see The Morning Benders at Stubb's tomorrow night. I'm taking my Posse.

Here he is

2009-01-28T13:28:00.001-08:00

Things on my mind in 2009

2009-01-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

1. Obama. is. president.

2. Being guardedly hopeful and generally happy

3. Population ("are we screwed?")

4. My Studio 360 piece about an amateur fossil hunter and intelligent design versus evolution and how I need to get cracking on that

5. Integrating video into radio and if video could kill the radio star all over again, or it might just be really frustrating

6. Arranging a seed bomb making workshop for the Garden Posse

7. SKIING!!!!!!!!! I MIGHT GO SKIING THIS YEAR!!! OH MY GOD

8. How people think I'm maybe 16 or 17 years old and whether or not I need a makeover, and if so, how would I do that without reality TV or Oprah.

9. I really like O magazine.

Possible expansion upon one or more of these subjects may or may not be upcoming.

Baby Alive is reALIVE

2008-12-31T08:55:00.000-08:00

One Christmas, when I was about 7 or so, Baby Alive was on top of my Christmas wish list. Baby Alive was a doll that you could feed and then it would pee and poop. You looked in its diaper to find out which surprise Baby Alive had left you. Somehow this appealed to me, and I wanted Baby Alive more than anything else that year.

Much to the chagrin of my parents, Santa brought her to me. However, I quickly lost interest when I anxiously searched for realistic urine and feces in the doll's diaper and found only the water and yellow goo I had fed her only moments before. ("What? No poop?!") I think that's when I learned an important lesson about human anatomy. Also, Baby Alive smelled like plastic. She was really disappointing.

For some reason, Hasbro brought back the pissing and shitting doll for this past Christmas. In retrospect, I don't think Baby Alive is such a great product. Originally debuted in 1973, they seem to bring it back each generation, for a new group of parents to be disgusted anew, and for their innocent girls to demand it from them.

As one of those girls, I feel for the recipients of this year's Baby Alive scheme. Even though the 2008 model comes with ethnic options and green beans, they will inevitably be failed by the doll's lack of an intestinal and rectal system. If a girl unwrapped Baby Alive for Christmas, by this time, or perhaps in a few days, the gift will be abandoned. However, the girl will be endlessly amused by the word "poop" for many, many years.

On an unrelated note: Last night, in a random search, I learned there's a band named Poop. Listen on Last.fm!

Who is: the Smoke Duke of Durham?

2008-12-16T15:35:00.000-08:00

My new love: NYPL Digital Gallery

He is a nobleman who knows that mannish children love tobacco; not candy, cakes, or pie.

My common cold

2008-12-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

I've had a bad cold this week. Tuesday was the first day of my (still short) professional working career that I've ever called in sick. I laid in bed and finally gave in to watching Sex & the City: the movie. It was even more vapid and materialistic than I thought it would be. I couldn't help but wonder, Carrie Bradshaw-style, could this movie have been released after we've declared a recession and articles are citing cutbacks at luxury labels? Maybe men are like bound-to-be-outdated movies, after all.

Anyhow. The cold hit my office pretty hard. Today, my first full day back (between going home early, staying home late, and taking a disorienting nap in the Relaxation Room aka quiet room with a couch), I found this article:

Hot Drinks Help Fight Cold and Flu

The research was done by Cardiff University's Centre for the Common Cold.

Published in the December 2008 edition of the clinical journal Rhinology, the research compared the effects of a commercially produced cordial apple and blackcurrant drink either 'hot' or at room temperature in 30 volunteers with common cold symptoms.

The Centre's Director, Professor Ron Eccles, is urging people suffering from colds or flu to have a hot drink to help reduce their symptoms.

Professor Eccles said: "It is surprising that this is the first scientific research on the benefit of a hot drink for treating cold and flu symptoms."

Seriously? A whole center focused on the common cold and this is all they've come up with? Hey, Professor Eccles, maybe there's been no scientific research because benefits of hot drink seemed like common sense?

I'm drinking some Lemon Lift right now, and I got started on it before I even saw the scientific proof that it might make me feel better. Sadly, I've also seen scientific papers saying that homemade chicken soup is indeed good for your cold (and the soul) because it's made with love. Science said that. My mom, on her frequent calls to check in, kept telling me she wished she could make me some chicken soup. "I feel like I'm in second grade," I told her.

As a mark of my growing up, my boyfriend brought me carrot ginger soup instead, because I said no chunks and he really likes carrots. My contribution to the meal was to be some toasted French bread - until I noticed smoke emanating from toaster and my toast seriously on fire. It was a two alarm toaster oven fire. Having spent all afternoon unable to get out of bed, I got an adrenaline surge which allowed me to jump up and down and yell, "Marshall! My toast is on fire!"

He ran to my aid and demanded a fire extinguisher. I got it out from under the sink and handed it to him. Then he stood trying to figure out how to work the thing while the toast continued to flame. "Marshall, decisive action!" I yelled, cowering behind him. I've seen many a cockroach scurry away while he considers what to do with his shoe and I hide under a blanket.

Eventually the toast burned down, due to lack of oxygen in the toaster, and then Marshall blew it out. The toast looked like it had burned through a few layers of bread epidermis. We had survived.

The circle is complete

2008-12-01T13:57:00.001-08:00

I am, right now, eating a child's Halloween candy. The child, and the candy, belong to a coworker. As I picked through the five pound plastic bag of unwanted Whoppers, M&Ms, mini Tootsie Roll Pops, and High School Musical 3 milk chocolate flavored Strawberry Rockin Pop (artificially and confoundedly flavored) candy for a 3 Musketeers bar, an early and traumatic experience came to mind. My parents taking my pillowcase full of Halloween candy by force, to the office.

"Adults don't like candy!" I protested, gripping the bag into my body.

It was useless (and untrue). All my hard-earned, delicious loot went to the bland, tasteless place called "the office," realm of adults who don't earn candy for themselves, and don't appreciate it.

Years later, that candy has returned to me, in the office. And it's true, I don't appreciate it as much. But I still feel the sting of my candy being forcibly taken.

I told this to my boss. She said, "Oh, she [co-worker's daughter] doesn't care, she probably doesn't even want it."

"That's what my parents probably told their co-workers," I said. I felt eerie.

Guess who hop

2008-11-18T14:20:00.000-08:00

Guess Who from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

I guess there's just something about hip-hop remixed with childhood nostalgia and brilliance.

Also from the same filmmaker is the sweetest story ever told by food... and the hottest cupcake/gourd sex scene on film. Seriously, watch it.

"Sweet Dreams" (2007) from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

So cuddly, yet so lonely

2008-11-14T11:15:00.001-08:00

Hipster Runoff named this, "The Electroest Couple Alive."

I don't think this couple has good communication in their relationship. She looks utterly indifferent to anything but bright colors and whiskey, and he has clothed himself in comfort objects, eyes pleading to the camera, "When will I have the love I deserve?"

This must symbolize the erosion of the human interface platform by different types of media.

That's okay. Because I think all I really need is Dinosaur Comics. I'll see you there, after I get back from human interfacing in Denver this weekend.

Childhood reading

2008-11-13T11:44:00.000-08:00

I loved the Redwall books when I was a kid.

This reminded me of my favorite warrior mouse in literature. I think my brother and I named our hamster after another Redwall character, Mariel. Mariel drowned in the basement. I was blamed for allowing her to escape from her cage. I still feel guilty. (If it had been a dog it wouldn't have happened, why couldn't we ever have a dog?)

Now I'm reading If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino. I like it quite a lot.

Commons love

2008-11-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Bookplate from the Brooklyn Museum

I'm still in love with Flickr Commons.

I'm still loving Michelle Obama.

I also love winter squash and summer squash and nice earrings.

OBAMA!

2008-11-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

This morning, I did not wake up to feelings of anxiety and disappointment. A turning point in my political life - measured optimism for the presidency. Obama won!

I watched the election at a friend's house. He brought his big flat-screen TV outside and had a keg and set up lawn chairs. It was like tailgating the election. I got a mosquito bite on my forehead. We watched the coverage on Comedy Central with Stewart & Colbert when the flashy, confusing graphics and over-the-top maps on cable news got to be too much. It was comedy. So when Jon Stewart called it for Obama, after the West Coast came in, no one quite believed him. We all looked at each other. Is this for real? we asked ourselves. It was only 10pm (CT)! Was it really over? I mean, it's a national election and voting is a messy process. The American people have to have a contested state, a recall, or at least some chads hanging around. We need that.

But holy cow, it was true. McCain gave a very gracious speech, then flip to Chicago, where I had seen the tents set up this weekend, on the way to the Field Museum. The political commentators back on MSNBC pointed out that there were black people in the crowd. And the nation suddenly got a lot more diverse.

I think it only hit me when Obama walked out with his family. Because, gosh darn it, I love Michelle Obama. She is so awesome. I feel giddy when I imagine her in the White House. No, seriously, could she be more awesome? I don't know! I feel like she could! And that would be more awesome!

I'm just really, really happy that there will be a smart, strong woman in the White House to be a visible role model. I mean, think. Michelle Obama in the White House..... Cindy McCain in the White House.... big difference. What Barack Obama will be able to do as president versus what John McCain would have done as president? Not so clear.

Pictures of real dead things

2008-11-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went on a whirlwind trip to Chicago, the great city of the Midwest. We spent most of our time with Marshall's family, and I got to tell my "babykilling ant nanny" story a bunch of times. People love that one, and it makes me seem interesting.

The one thing I can say I saw in Chicago was the Field Museum. I'd been to the Field Museum a couple of years ago, when I drove cross-country to school. I was super psyched at the prospect of seeing Sue again.

Sue gets invited to more black-tie museum benefits in death than in life (scientists believe). That night, she would be attending a gala for excellence in Illinois masonry.

The Field Museum has a lot of stuffed animals. These furry rodents were involved in mortal combat - wait! It's too late! They're already dead! And one is forever placed in an indecent, and unflattering position!

Dead things can also be aesthetically pleasing.

Marshall eats the last of the passenger pigeons.

We spent a lot of time in the Natural Disasters exhibit. It's pretty awesome of how museums have become so much more than, as Marshall put it, "putting some shit in a box." We jumped up and down to measure our seismic impact! We created our own volcanoes and watched them grow and explode! We stood in the middle of a tornado! Like the real thing, but on screens, in a museum, and not dangerous. The only thing the exhibit was lacking was a taxidermized critter or two. Gotta have it.

Le chat

2008-10-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Your love hurts - the planet and everything on it

2008-10-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

So says Slate, making "The environmental case against long-distance relationships."

It's the same GHGs and airplanes thing, just calculated out to show the impact of your relationship on our atmosphere. Which is to say, your cross-country love sucks! Our local love is superior to yours, because it's eco-friendly! (So what if he beats you? It's better for the environment.)

This is what I hate about "green." The merging of environmentalism and popular culture creating superficial data sets and superficial solutions. "Date local!" Slate cries, thus trivializing everything I believe about sustainability.

Earlier today I was thinking about how I dislike the now-popular word, "locavore." "Locavore" smacks of elitism, something Whole Foods would use in its branding materials. A word that's sure to disappear with the end of whatever era we're in. But eating locally produced food should be as cheap, easy, and accessible as growing a garden in your yard - and not hiring a hipster to do it.

To me, the concept of "green" is a paradox between popularizing environmentalism and slowing climate change, and fueling a slightly softer form of yuppie consumerism. In other words, American life as normal, but with some well-deserved guilt.

Wanna-be emperor has new clothes

2008-10-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm kinda grossed out by the Huffington Post. What with their classless impact headlines, and general disdain for design and good taste in favor of highly partisan politicking. I just read the New Yorker profile of Arianna Huffington and was additionally turned off by the air-kissing self-promotion. But anyhow, guilty pleasure: This article and slideshow of Sarah Palin's post-nomination shopping spree.

I love the comparisons made:

...it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.

It's as if pundits check off the buzz words of the past week. "We gotta get a plumber reference in there, Sam," the editor says. "And the health care. Can we find a Dem to say that? Tell them we definitely don't attribute quotes." (But does the PuffHo have editors? I think probably not.)

I'm still feeling conflicted about media coverage of Palin. She's awful and I can't bear to put my mind in a place where she would be vice president. But those pictures of her bare calves leading into her sexy new shoes? You want to say she's asking for it. That's what they say about rape victims. Not good.

Something of the Mondays

2008-10-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Au pied du pic du Milieu, Béraldi, 1900

Vase avec bouquet

I wish I could crawl into Flickr Commons and live there.

Hey, did you know that there are catastrophic frog die-offs occurring all over the world? I didn't, until today. Our poor little amphibian friends! Never again will I get pissed off when I hear a bullfrog burping and screaming outside my window. Instead I will find him, pin a green-and-brown ribbon to his chest, and call him a survivor.

Also, this: It feels good when a Harvard scientist asks you for help.

My friend on reality TV

2008-10-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Christina is my best friend from college. She's been a ski patroller for the past three years. This summer, when I visited her in Peru, she kept mentioning how she is a star in a reality TV show about ski patrol.

I did not believe her. Christina has a long history of bullshitting me. Claiming she was on a reality TV show seemed a little audacious, though.

She's like the girl who cried reality show.

I said would not believe her until I had evidence. The above video is evidence. A video and a website seems too complex and time-consuming a ruse for a person who does not have a computer. It's true (tru!): I have a friend on reality TV.

I love how in the video she says "dramatic" like, five times. Makes me want to hug her.

awww! so cute! Nini in Peru:

Larval fish & VP Debate drinking game

2008-10-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Bloated much?

These whimsical baby fish come courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution's flickr set of Belize Larval Fish. Every time I see something cool and science-y like this, my first thought is, "What can I do to watch people do this... in Belize... and have someone else pay for it?" That's journalism, right? Someday I'll crack the code.

So the vice presidential debates were last night. I tuned in with hopes of seeing Sarah Palin lose it - and by it I mean her last meal - on the podium, out of nervousness and insecurity. And, does incompetence make you hurl? Unfortunately, she held it down, kept it together, and exceeded everyone's expectations. Which isn't saying much. Expectations are at a historical low these days. In every sector.

Anyhow, if you were clever, you totally could have gotten wasted during the debate, by playing:

THE GREAT VICE PRESIDENTIAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEBATE DRINKING GAME!!!!

The rules are DRINK when:

When a candidate blatantly evades the question
When the moderator calls the candidate out on evading the question
When a candidate utters "maverick"
Palin drops the 'g' on the end of her words
Palin says somethin' unbearably folksy
Palin mentions that she knows a thing or two about energy
Palin winks directly at YOU
Biden looks like he's tearing up
When Wall Street and Main Street are mentioned in the same sentence, in opposition

CHUG when:

Palin loses it on the podium

Sadly, the chugging opportunity never came. Not to mention I did not have a beer at hand during the debate. I was reduced to looking over Marshall's shoulder at some weird animation representing the Cubs game on the laptop, to alleviate the boredom of talking points and politics in general.

Happy New Year: A celebration of Jewishness in my family

2008-10-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Cute old Jewish people run in the family.

My great-grandmother and great-great-aunt.

In Springfield, Massachusetts. Our family is Russian/Romanian Jews.

My great-aunt. The women pictured above are her mother and aunt. Here, she's trying to look like a drunk old man while thoroughly enjoying her chocolate martini. If all goes as planned, I'll look like this when I'm 90, and be at least half as happy with my life.

Beautiful green babies

2008-09-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

These are the first tomatoes on our plants in Marshall's garden. I got so excited when I discovered them, I felt like a proud parent. I've never had much faith in my ability to grow tomatoes, so the presence of these perfect green spheres feels like a vote of confidence in my gardening skills. Hooray!

Another thing to hooray about: Last Friday I bought two separate plane tickets to Denver and Chicago, respectively. After I got my receipts from Priceline, I felt flush with purchasing power and the excitement of increased human mobility. (Let's not talk about my carbon footprint, okay? I'm excited.) I'm having an influx of disposable income via my freelancing piece mentioned below, so I decided it was time to do the things I've been wanting to do. Which means seeing friends dearly missed in Denver and looking at and hopefully experiencing some nice mountains again. And visiting Marshall's family in Chicago: how couple-ish. I think visiting one another's family over Halloween is the alternative to dressing up in complimentary costumes to cement this status. My parents will be visiting Austin the previous week so it will indeed be a family bonanza. Yeehaw.

Happy Friday

2008-09-26T11:26:00.001-07:00

I found this video in a collection of videos to make you happy. It's a perfectly synced Bert & Ernie rap video. It's awesome.

And then there's this. I can't really explain why I searched for a review of the 1998 Carrot Top vehicle, "Chairman of the Board," except to say it involved a long internet trail of procrastination. What follows is perhaps the only funny thing to come out of Carrot Top's prolonged career. The review is viciously hilarious, and almost lyrical in its utter hatred for what Carrot Top has brought upon humanity.

It is blood in your stool on the eve of your wedding day. It is an unaccounted-for prosthetic eyeball swimming languidly in your vegetable pad thai. It is happiness itself blotted forever from the cosmos.

It's completely brilliant and you need to read it.

113 out of 128 people found the following comment useful :-
The end of decency, 15 June 2004
Author: tbreuer from Appleton, Wis.

A few weeks ago I watched Carrot Top's Chairman of the Board on HBO.

This is not just the worst movie I've ever seen, it's the worst movie that's ever been or ever could be.

There's a notorious scene in John Waters' Pink Flamingos where the drag queen Divine picks up an actual piece of dog feces and eats it. That is a Capraesque delight compared to the moment in COTB when Carrot Top leans in to kiss actress Courtney Thorne-Smith. Indeed, Thorne-Smith deserves an honorary Oscar for not vomiting her small intestines the second Top's fish-underbelly skin came within Taser range of her lips.

I have spent the better part of my life a happy-go-lucky atheist, endlessly circling an epistemological cul-de-sac, foolishly content in the delusion that naught but unremarkable randomness and the caprice of evolution govern our planet and our lives.

I write this now as a careworn and grudging theist, cursed with the metaphysical certainty that God exists and that there must indeed be a reckoning. Only a literal hell can restore to the universe a sense of order and return to our souls - souls thirsting for justice for humanity, for cable subscribers everywhere, and not least of all for Courtney Thorne-Smith - a small measure of peace.

Indeed, Mr. Top's crushingly unfunny "film" is a long, jagged scar across our collective unconscious. It is your hopes and dreams replaced by a dying, weeping child crushed and all at once bereft of breath in your unconsoling - and inconsolable - embrace. It is blood in your stool on the eve of your wedding day. It is an unaccounted-for prosthetic eyeball swimming languidly in your vegetable pad thai. It is happiness itself blotted forever from the cosmos.

Carrot Top is the worst human being who has ever lived or ever will live. Stalin? What's a pogrom here or there? Pol Pot? The killing fields are the sweet songs of seraphim heard within the fragrant bosom of your lover compared to this dread offering. Hitler? Europe, she recovered by and by. There is no Marshall Plan for the pain and ruin we Chairman of the Board survivors must endure the sad remainder of our now-squalid lives.

Not only are there no - no - laughs in this movie, this film will steal laughs from the rest of your life. It represents a debt that can't be repaid - not now, not here, not in Superman's Bizarro World, not in a far, future galaxy run by countless trillions of nanorobots singularly programmed to wipe away forever the stain of this film, a film that is now irretrievably etched in thousands of banshee-screaming layers of space-time.

What's done is done. Though every cell of your body may cry out in anguish and every ribbon of DNA struggle mightily against an unslakeable urge to rip itself asunder, there can be no peace - not for you, not for your children, not for your children's children. Satan, to put it all too bluntly, has won. The collective efforts of millions of preachers, doctors, philanthropists, inventors, kings, queens, philosophers and humble servants of God throughout history are but piffle and dreck.

At Carrot Top's official Web site, www.oh-my-god-why-am-i-typing-this/someone-please-take-my-e yes-out-with-a-melon-baller/and-fill-the-raw-moist-sockets-with-m olten-pig-iron/lest-the-next-thing-i-see-be-carrot-tops-shiny-disgus ting-head.org/index.html, Carrot Top offers 8-by-10 glossies of himself for 10 bucks apiece.

If deep within the 342 pages of legislation comprising the USA PATRIOT Act there had been a provision for abolishing the civil liberties and reproductive rights of all purchasers of the graven image of this execrable amalgam of Ed Gein-lampshade skin and circus peanut-colored horror, I for one would have been happy to donate every last dollop of fat and tallow in my belly, buttocks, thighs and shanks to grease the skids for fascism once and for all.

But alas, the right to be screamingly unfunny and to slobber to horrifying effect on attractive blond actresses is a long-recognized pillar of our democracy. The right to enjoy watching this sort of thing is similarly entrenched, as is the right to watch dwarf-tossing, to view pornography in which midgets peeing is the central theme, and to stare at the noonday sun.

Still, though I've never met a Carrot Top fan, they are presumably out there. According to his Web site, he performs in Las Vegas a lot. Believe me, I would prefer to see a Siegfried and Roy show in which their tigers break loose and devour half the audience and the better part of my lower torso.

In fact, Carrot Top came to my home town earlier this year. Some poor reporter at our local paper had to write a feature story on him. Knowing that writing anything about Carrot Top that doesn't completely savage him is akin to being one of the PR flacks assigned to spin the Bhopal thing for Union Carbide, I can sympathize with this poor fellow. But not that much.

For when it comes to Carrot Top, his stupid AT&T commercials, or that steaming pile of offal Chairman of the Board, you are either with us or you are with the terrorist. Suffice to say, you're better dead than red.

street art

2008-09-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

by Peter Gibson via Inhabitat

Blinds and bailouts

2008-09-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

"I never wanted to take them off, though I would have needed a federal bailout after buying them."

- The New York Times, in reference to a pair of leather riding leggings

Last night someone finally came over to install blinds on my windows. Since I moved into my apartment in June, I've likely exposed myself everyday to my neighbors through two sets of bay windows. I finally wrote a letter to the elderly landlords about how I was going to buy blinds and take it out of my rent, because this really would not do. They were so impressed with my handwriting that they wrote back in old-peoples' fancy script, "Of course you need blinds. (P.S. You have lovely print.)" And they basically gave me a blank check to do it.

So six trips to Lowe's and a dozen phone calls later, I had some nice faux-wood blinds in my posession. The guy who called me to install them said he was a student. I expected a 20 year old kid from UT, but he arrived (after trying to cancel and reschedule) as a 40 year old perpetual student. He was going to community college and planned to transfer to UT and major in Radio Film and Television. He acted like a 20 year old college student. I stuck to my original conclusion that the reason he tried to reschedule on me was to hang out at a friend's house and get stoned.

We listened to NPR on my clock radio. The news is nothing but the federal bailout. The guy who was installing my blinds started to bitch about it. "Man, I can't believe that we're doing this!" he said. "This is socialism!"

"I know," I said. "It's like the least Republican thing ever."

"It's practically fascism," said the guy, drilling holes into my walls. "But my Republican friends in Wimberley think fascism is something on the left. Did they ever take a civics class? Everybody should take a civics class. Do they even have those anymore?"

"The thing that's most ridiculous to me is that they're talking about whether or not CEOs of these ruined companies should get huge severances," I said. "I mean, that shouldn't even be a question. I can't believe we have to talk about it."

"I know, man. It's ridiculous."

A commentator on NPR said people might riot.

I felt doubt that anyone would riot about anything national, and then a moment of hope that they would.

And by the way, what is all this Wall Street versus Main Street talk? I'm assuming that the campaign's Main Street/ Town Hall Meeting/ small town archaisms that don't exist in any salient meaningful form has transferred over to this bailout debacle. But look, I don't live on Main Street. I don't think Austin has a Main Street? I am not relating to this phrase. For some reason, it is beginning to make me angry.

Anyhow, the guy installing my blinds finished doing it in half the time he had estimated over the phone. In the meantime we talked about why he moved apartments, the time this lady he was installing blinds for made him stay for her kid's piano lesson to play, "Maybe I'm Amazed," and China. At the end, I was very pleased with my blinds. And went off to dig a new guerrilla garden on the east side.

We are going to have a Garden Posse documentary after all. My favorite comment of the night, from a white girl who drove up to our traffic triangle in a largely black neighborhood: "Some people knocked on my door and said, 'There's a group of white people digging down the street. Are you associated with them?'"

What have I been doing with myself?

2008-09-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

I've been ignoring this blog, that's for sure. I've never thought of myself as a "blogger," per se. It's a label that I reserve for people who design their own banners, aren't really put off by Twitter, and have an estimated readership of more than two.

And then one day you look around, take stock of things, and realize that you currently possess three blogs. And then you must admit that blogging is maybe a part of your life right now. You too, have been swept up in the progress of communication technology, via the internet.

As for this blog, I'm afraid I've lost my two readers over a summer of neglect and the possibility that they have better things to do than check a consistently static website. But I like having a place for personal rambling. I mean, not too personal. I think it's very dumb when people air all their gossip and negative feelings about people in their lives and then act surprised when those people want to alienate them from their lives. And then commentators have another golden opportunity to talk about how self-indulgent and stupid my generation is. (I'm referring to Emily Gould's cover story in the NYT magazine this summer, and this stupid web series I've been watching, quarterlife.)

I will instead take this opportunity to be self-indulgent in a positive way, and write about what I've been doing since I have not been writing in this blog.

Working

I've been hammering away at my bizarre science beat on Earth & Sky. Each week I think to myself, what science story can be more weird and gross than last week? This week I got away with saying, "Babykilling ant nannies" on the radio. And doing away with a script. I'm excited about that.

And today, my product of blood, sweat, and.... well, not blood and sweat, but long scheduling conflicts and file uploading frustrations, my piece with Jeff Lieberman talking about Arthur Ganson is finally on Studio360. Here, I am trying to upload the audio:

Yay! I think it worked. The piece is a very heavy edit of my interview with Lieberman, an incredibly smart and talented man for whom I will one day buy a beer. And then we will watch his TV show together.

I have to figure out how to use my recording equipment properly before I freelance again, which I am keen to do.

Guerrilla gardening

After returning from Peru, I organized a guerrilla gardening group. We're called the Garden Posse. We have a not-neglected blogspot blog in which I've chronicled all of our adventures and gardens as of yet. Guerrilla gardening is even better than I thought. It's wonderful that so many people are excited about it and show up to dig, people that see us doing it come over to watch, and we've been receiving a far amount of attention just for posting craigslist ads. A film student wrote me yesterday to ask if she could make the Garden Posse the focus of her documentary. Sure, guerrilla gardening is interesting, but I don't see a compelling narrative. Unless we got arrested. Which is unlikely. Because people like gardens.

Loving

I like this picture because it looks like Marshall's mustache is making a comma over his mouth. I don't know what to say other than we're both really, really happy, and there are many, many reasons why, and we intend for it to stay that way for a very, very long time. Such things have been agreed upon.

Also, Marshall's band has a new EP and it's gotten nice reviews around the blogosphere (see, I use that word casually, I must be a little bit of a blogger). For example, See what you hear, said the gramophone. I love it and you will too.

Things I don't get

2008-09-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

Little bikes ridden by grown men

Why you can't eat okra after it's bigger than your pinky

Sarah Palin's support for abstinence-only education after her 17-year old daughter became pregnant, and her hesitant belief in global warming when the ground beneath her Alaskan feet is melting

Why I might interview Bruce Springsteen

People who continue to drive Hummers

Why the people selling us office furniture say "We hate kittens." on their business cards

Women wearing uncomfortable shoes with high flimsy heels who look like they are in pain/about to fall over at any second

How Marshall got to be so ridiculously wonderful

Why I am so lucky

Satire: Always hitting the nail on the head

2008-07-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

In my vast wanderings in the music blog aggregator Hype Machine, I often come across a brilliant blog called HIPSTER RUNOFF. HIPSTER RUNOFF sometimes posts mp3s, but it's largely dedicated to mocking hipsters on Myspace and party photo sites. It's also conducting a social survey of all things "alt" - the "alt bro" ("I am a bro with facial hair. This is me."), the perfect alternative breast (which size is most alt?), and alt-cities, such as the one I call home.

And I quote:

I'd say Austin, TX is pretty good example of 'shitty city who is gimmickifying it's underwhelmingly-alternative brand', too. Most of the music in Austin, TX is more approachable indie fodder than the Portland concept crap, so I'll give the edge to Portland when it comes to 'moderately alt cities that major-city-alts-want-to-move-to-bc-they-think-their-life-will-be-simple, yet-authentic,yet-still-as-alt as they feel comfortable with.' No matter what, we all need an alt-city full of alts to feel comfortable around without the high-cost-of-living that major metropolitan areas have. Don't you feel like you have met a lot of people who have idealized Portland and Austin as 'heaven on alt-earth'? Like they imagine settling down with a humble-&-emotionally-connected trophy alt who is done with his/her 'partying phase' and ready to start buying well-designed carriages for their newborn babies (lil alts).

Common traits of overhyped 2nd rate alternative cities:
Perception of being 'green'
Perception of a bustling 'local economy'
A high 'basically unemployment' rate (this figure represents people who are over 30, but still have the jobs a 16 year old would have)
An excess of corporate and independent coffee shops
An excess of people with too many tattoos working in independent coffee shops
An excess of coffee shop employees playing RLLY gimmicky 'interesting' music in coffee shops during their shifts/playing the albums of their friend's band who sound exactly like _______
Overhearing the 'future plans' of people who work in these coffee shops to start their own business in design/food/recordstore/boutique/other alternative biz idea.
An excess of people in bands that have shows in an excess of venues
An otherwise stable maintream economy which allows the alternative population to work in the service industry. While this usually happens in all cities, the minorities in the service industry are replaced by these aging alts.
Overhearing all of these people talking about stuff that was cool between 2 to 40 years ago. They basically have a 2 year delay on 'what is currently cool' and usually just rely on 'liking aesthetics/bands that are from before 1985.'
A handful of decent bands, a few imitators, and a bunch of krappie bands that have tied their identity to their home city and guilt their friends into attending their show/post a lot of myspace bulletins to impressionable local-17-year olds.
They attempt to assert their city-wide inferiority complexes by having excessive representation when it comes to liberal activities, particularly 'marches.' Examples include Gay Pride Marches, Anti-Racism Marches, Marches Against 'The War', and general Marches Against Stuff That Exists Because of Conservative People.
These cities have significant populations of 'cool dads' and 'free spirited moms' by choice/believe in their personal images, as opposed to the real-city versions of these parents who are simply 'participating in a gimmick which they have no control over.'
A lot of these cities have a major university or a well-branded liberal arts school with a progressive identity which the 'hip side of town' feels like they need to cater to in order to keep up sales of vegan wraps, pizza-made-from-only-organic-ingredients, and interesting t-shirts.

Living in alt-heaven feels so right.

Today's favorites

2008-07-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Bumper stickers sighted:

"Pro-Accordion & I VOTE!"

"At least we're doing well with the war on the environment."

Pixar movie that "everyone is talking about":

Wall-E, of course.

I saw it last night, and you know how I'm a sucker for robots in love. I kept thinking how the robot love message would prime a whole generation for having weirdly intimate relationships with robots. (Sci-fi is near reality now, folks.) I also kept thinking that the post-apocalyptic Earth Wall-E lives on is scarily realistic. Abandoned by humans, with giant towers of waste lining the sky. Waterways disappeared, a barren planet. Kudos to the people at Pixar for impressing those images on the minds of children, even those with conservative parents.

However, with my characteristic environmental pessimism, I disagree with the optimism of the latter half of the movie. It gives the message: So we'll fuck up the Earth, but at least we can escape on our giant spaceship, and then recolonize later. Even if we've gotten far stupider and fatter in the seven hundred years in between, and appear to be in no condition to do any form of work. For example: All of humanity claps when the spaceship captain manages to stand on his sausage feet and determinedly waddle forward. Then he speaks of growing "pizza plants." Perhaps there is a hidden seed bank of Domino's GM crop?

Regardless, if I had a child, I would let him watch this movie repeatedly. It's definitely cute. But the cutest part (for me) was when Marshall yelled out at the robots, "KEEP THE PLANT IN THE BOX!" and kind of thrust out his hands as if to take the plant from the screen. It was a very dramatic moment in the movie, and the plant held the future of humanity. But meanwhile, the 5 year old sitting next to us managed to contain himself.

The third annual owl wall

2008-06-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my collection of kitschy owl memorabilia was arranged upon its third kitchen wall. This is becoming a ritual in my life: Move into a new place, put up the owls, and I'm at home.

This time, I'm living alone and I have the walls all to my self. So the owls decided they wanted to stretch out a bit. The original owl (from the late, great, Springs landmark "The Theater of Mankind") is the wise centerpiece of the largest kitchen wall, looking skeptically (or coyly?) to the right.

The counter wall is lined with the all-natural material owl tableau, and the cluster of three owl shaped hot plates.

The rusty Las Vegas stained glass owl looks out the kitchen window.

And thanks to Sara Rubin, who subconsciously knew my life would not be complete without owl salt and pepper shakers.

That said, please do not give me more owl stuff. While I adore the owl wall year after year, the contemporary owl market has become oversaturated. You cannot turn a corner in a clothing store, a toy store, or even on the internet, without ramming your face into the large eyes of an owl. And the stuff is not as cool as hot plates.

I want to be him

2008-06-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

Or maybe I just want to hop in a wicker basket and float my cares away.

via the Smithsonian Institute's Flickr stream.

Scooping the New York Times

2008-06-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

Today's Science Times featured an article called, "Plants found to show preferences for relatives."

Last August, I did a radio show titled, "Plants appear to recognize own kin."

From the Times:

“I’m just amazed at what we’ve found,” said Susan A. Dudley, an evolutionary plant ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who carried out the study with a graduate student, Amanda L. File.

“Plants,” Dr. Dudley said, “have a secret social life.”

From my show:

Susan Dudley: Mostly we think about plants as passive, just the victims of their environment and just growing in response to the physical environment. But they actually actively sense and respond to the environment, including what is specifically the presence of other plants, and I think that’s a really neat thing.

Why so long to break this exciting plant story, NYT?

Hummer bites the dust?

2008-06-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

I screamed with delight this morning when I heard that G.M. may discontinue the Hummer. Finally! G.M. is closing down four truck and S.U.V. factories in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, just as we near the $4 a gallon gas mark. I guess this is the turning point where economics meets the environment. People are making actual lifestyle changes based on fuel economy. More and more I hear people say they don't want to drive somewhere unnecessary because of gas. My co-worker is buying a motorcycle to commute to work. A friend of a friend is moving closer to the city. This is all good news. I just wish that we had an infrastructure to support the alternative fuel vehicles people would buy, and the affordable, higher-density living choices people want to make.

So for a hopeful farewell to the Hummer, here's a haiku from a website dedicated to giving the finger to the H2.

Haiku by Tim
Hulking black Hummer
Purchased in rank atonement
small peckered driver

Damn

2008-05-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

This is the best beer bread ever. Make it now, if you know what's good for you. Because this - this is good for you.

It would also be good for a potluck, and I've been invited to about a zillion of them in the past few weeks. I do not exaggerate. In fact, I'm going to one tonight (and making some focaccia). And during a long-planned potluck last Thursday, the Garden Posse decided to stop maintaining a garden, and focus on potlucks. Basically, a garden is lots of hard work, and after a year of that, we'd rather just eat. Also, community organization is a huge drag. We're having a Malcolm X birthday/full moon potluck celebration next Monday and inviting Austin's radicals, plus a bunch of random people off Craigslist (my job). Come! We'll talk about anarchy. And in today's political climate, who's not up for that?

Rejected science questions

2008-05-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

We're doing this series called, "Ask the Scientists," in which we solicit science questions from children around the world. Right now we're in the process of going through the lists and looking for the questions that you can ask a scientist without laughing. That should be the subtitle - "Ask the Scientists: With a straight face, please."

These are not those questions.

Fern, in Lao PDR, wants to know:

Could we create a living pom pom – moving breathing talking naturally?
Is it possible to create a functioning cross between a wombat and a caterpillar?

Her classmate, Osvaldo, wonders:

How do plasma TVs work?
Why do plasma TV still work after water is poured on it?

Sounds like Osvaldo did some science on his own.

World's Largest Dog Museum

2008-05-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

In an antiques market north of Waco, Texas. I'm skeptical of the "World's Largest" claim, but personally, I have never seen so many dog collectibles in one place. My favorites were the celebratory poodles.

The neighborhood

2008-04-01T14:00:00.002-07:00

I've lived in my house in Austin for nearly a year now. Which means it's time to start looking for a new place - since I moved out of the parent nest, I've moved every year. As I grow older, I keep hoping this intensively time-consuming tradition will end, but to no avail. I've decided that I need to spread my wings and fly, sans roommate, to a one bedroom apartment.

My current place is a lovely little house, which has been divided into two apartments. I live in the front, with a friend from college who agreed to live in the overheated loft, sight unseen. The street is very residential, and inhabited by UT law and architecture students, and Bruce Sterling, the very well known science fiction writer.
He has this huge, sprawling, out of place yellow and stone house that has utterly ignored the idea of landscaping. Something refreshing - yet confusing - for a rich person's house. Some sci-fi fanzine guys I ran into at a zine fest told me Sterling left his family in Austin to marry a Philippine woman and live in Hawaii or something, but I see him reclining on his hammock on his laptop and teaching his daughter to ride her bike on the weekends. I've checked the book jackets many times. I swear it's him. I think sometimes about going over and asking to borrow an egg or something, but then I recall that I don't associate with the neighbors across the street.

For to the left of Sterling's house is big sprawling Victorian house that has intimidated me since the day I moved in. It's lived in by a young hipster family, and a rotating cast of aging hipster friends. And a friend who stops by with her Hummer to water the lawn. (Of course, I want to pee on it and chide her for her consumption. Which reminds me of the time I looked outside and saw a Hummer speeding by my house, with a man hanging on the outside, yelling at the driver, "You're selfish! You don't care what anyone thinks!" I hoped he was just a random man, who goes around jumping and yelling on all Hummers, but he was probably a friend pointing out what the Hummer is compensating for.)

Anyhow, I'm intimidated by the house across the street because the house and the peoplelook like they stepped out of an issue of Ready-Made. I receive Ready-Made at home, having subscribed at the cost of $5 a year at the MAKE festival last fall, and never in even my wildest, most handy dreams would I do any of the projects in the magazine. On the cover of the last issue, the headline read, "Make this space age bench! Not as impossible as you think!" Inside, the main instruction was, "Call your local welder." Lesson learned: I should be friends with local craftspeople, and it's a point well taken. But really? No one can make this. So when I see one of the house people spending full weeks laying their own brick wall, plumb line, cement mixer, and all, I wonder what their deal is. Do they work? How do they own this house? And then I see a flyer for an art party at their address. I decide I'm going to work up my courage to go, with the aid of my more confidently artsy boyfriend. But he falls sick and I decide to cook him dinner instead. An easy out. When I come back, it looks like the party wasn't terribly well attended, but it was well lighted - round white paper globes are hanging tastefully from trees. And there's an antique car with balloons on the side windows, which hasn't moved since then. And there's a cellist playing on the porch. I sit on my steps and listen, and watch a skinny man in a three piece suit and hat stand silhouetted in the doorway, glowing in his own hipness. And then I go inside to my roommate getting high on the couch.

I actually do talk to the neighbors on my side of the street. The neighbor to my left - living in the same 1 bedroom + loft arrangement as me - has begun hosting a series of parties. It's called "Mondays with Miah." That means on Mondays, there's a keg of high-quality beer ("I refuse to drink shitty beer," he says) and good food only steps away from my porch. Last night it took until 10 pm for a giant vat of pad thai to be ready to be eaten. This is after I had been gnawing on Marshall for about an hour and a half. I've threatened to eat him so many times that he's begun to call my bluff. "I don't think you could do it," he said. "You would get grossed out at the first sight of blood." He'll see who's crying wolf - when I eat him.

In which I am insulted from the back of a Hummer limousine

2008-03-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

So the other day I was riding my bike out from the parking garage under my office. Usually I pedal into the far left turning lane, but on this particular day, a giant white Hummer limousine was crowded into my spot.

Let me say this: I don't like to think of myself as an environmental extremist, but I think extreme thoughts about what I'd like to do to Hummers. I would like to tag them with bumper stickers that say "CO2," or pee on them. I'm not kidding. I have thought very hard over the past few months about how I would accomplish these actions while avoiding repercussions. So far, I haven't had the balls to go through with either idea. I fall back on either giving dirty looks or pretending like I'm vomiting when I see one of these gas-guzzling, egotistical monstrosities on the road. Needless to say, I think Hummer limos are the pimp-my-ride of the Devil.

So there I am on my eco-friendly mode of transportation, headed straight for the Hummer, no turning back. The back windows of the limo are open, and the people inside are sticking their heads out, waving and yelling at every car that goes by, kids clearly psyched that someone paid for them to be in a Hummer limo at 5:30 on a Friday. When I approach, they yell out at me, and what do I do? I give them the nastiest look I have ever given a Hummer vehicle. It's a combination of disapproval and strong disgust, with some serious eyebrow furrowing action. And they see it.

"OH YEAH?!" they yell. "WELL, YOU'RE STUPID! WE DON'T LIKE YOU!"

I turn into the center lane, where I'm in front of the Hummer, and it takes me some time to comprehend what was said because the insult came out high-pitched and hysterical. Like the shouter had just gone through puberty. The light for the turning lane goes green first, and as the Hummer passes me, I hear,

"AND YOU'RE UGLY, TOO!"

And then, as they turn onto the main road, a girl's voice out the other window:

"THEY DIDN'T MEAN IT!"

Awesome, I think to myself, and pedal on.

Garden time

2008-02-25T14:56:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about Austin is that you can grow your own food all year round. Since last July I've been a founding member of a beautiful communal garden on the east side of town, abutting the river. The garden has been through a few transitions - the idealistic dream of my friend Megan, a part of the plan for a sustainable community center, the focus of a group called "Urban Evolution." Then finally we realized that the property owners were too drunk to negotiate a proper land agreement with, and we decided that it was best just to deal with the garden as long as it could last. And we adopted my original name suggestion, "The Garden Posse." And by "posse" I mean me and two other people. We're really... fearsome. We have hoes.

In trying to run a communal garden, there's trials, and tribulations, and frustrations, and plenty of conversations with drunk people during the middle of the day. And I always end up far more tired than I think I ought to be after working in the garden for a couple of hours. But it's worth it when you pull more food out of the ground than you think it's possible to eat or share.

This past weekend we did a major harvest: Broccoli, kale, cabbage, mustard, carrots. The carrots were my favorite. They pretty much sat around for a couple of months, quietly growing and avoiding the Great Deer Decimation of January. Then, pulling them our of the ground: It was a miracle. These perfect, sweet, orange babies hiding just under the ground. I wanted to cuddle them. They were tiny because we didn't thin them out, but live and learn, I guess.

This carrot snail grew into a shell.

This is the dual carrot. Not pictured: The tri-carrot, picked by Megan.

I thought I would have enough carrots to eat nothing but carrot-centric dishes for at least a week, but not so. They were so tiny, all of them lost their lives to this carrot soup last night. Quite good, though.

Next up is the mighty cabbage. I'm planning on making cabbage soup tonight. Because, yeah, I like soup. Even though it's about 80 degrees outside today and seasonal foods include sno-cones. Yesterday I went swimming in 68 degree water, and let me tell you, it was refreshing. Just add that to the list of good things about Austin.

Study shows nature not appreciated as much as YouTube

2008-02-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

From a press release via the University of Illinois - Chicago:

"Pergams and Patricia Zaradic, a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program, Delaware Valley in Bryn Mawr, Pa., had previously reported a steady decline in per capita visits to U.S. national parks since the late 1980s -- which correlated very strongly with a rise in playing video games, surfing the Internet and watching movies. The researchers call this recent shift to sedentary, electronic diversions "videophilia." And they don't see it as healthy progress."

I'm all for studies that point out the flaws of our nature-isolated culture. But this study is really very dumb.

My first objection: What are biologists doing, making up a term for a human condition? "Videophilia" seems a thinly veiled scientific mask for saying, "You people watch YouTube too much."

My second objection: It's pretty obvious that sitting around and watching YouTube all day is not as healthy as mountain climbing, gardening, or even walking aimlessly around a field somewhere.

The third objection: They use arbitrary data to tell us so. According to the press release, "The biologists examined figures on backpacking, fishing, hiking, hunting, visits to national and state parks and forests. They found comparable reliable statistics from Japan and, to a lesser extent, Spain. They found that during the decade from 1981 to 1991, per-capita nature recreation declined at rates from 1 percent to 1.3 percent per year, depending on the activity studied. The typical drop in nature use since then has been 18-25 percent."

So what does this tell us? What we've known for the past twenty years - not only are human activities ruining nature, we're also using it less. In the way of justification, the authors say, "We don't see how future generations, with less exploration of nature, will be as interested in conservation as past generations."

WTF? Nothing looks good for getting people interested in anything proactive anymore. Join the interdisciplinary choir, kids.

[Full disclosure: My own nature recreation has dropped 75 - 80% since moving to Texas. The reason? Well, I'm still working on my data sets and compute models, but the conclusion I'm aiming for is that I live in Texas.]

A blog is somewhat narcissistic

2008-01-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

Tell me: Am I self-centered? Last week, everyone on the NYT website really enjoyed emailing this story about "Generation Me." It said, that years of our baby boomer parents telling us that we are special snowflakes who can be whoever we want to be if we just believe in ourselves, have spoiled us for the workplace where older employees get all pissy about our cocksure attitudes and desire to be rewarded for our awesomeness.

First of all, whatever. Second of all, these kind of articles are bullshit. It's based on the idea that if enough people bitch and moan about a certain population, it becomes news to point fingers. People write books about it. People do stupid studies about it, asking "Do today's young people really think they are so extraordinary?"

What kind of question is that? That's not scientific. Nor is it scientific to open a press release with a quote from Jimmy Carter:

“I’ve been a professor at Emory University for the past twenty years and I interrelate with a wide range of students...I don’t detect that this generation is any more committed to personal gain to the exclusion of benevolent causes than others have been in the past.”

Thanks, Jimmy, for interrelating to me.

These scientists were unable to find support to the claim that high school seniors were any more narcissistic than students the past three decades. "...It appears, at least for now, that the youth of American have won a reprieve from being scolded as more aloof and self-involved than previous generations," the press release summarizes.

There are enough assholes in every age group, and there are also enough good, kind people. The thing that annoys me about my generation is that we don't have a proper name. We keep getting labeled in reaction to other generational names. Generation Y and The Echo Boomers sound like crappy bands. Or we get called Generation Me, which is insulting. Because I don't think our parents were wrong to tell us that we're special snowflakes, or that it's good to have high self esteem. I watched "Free To Be You and Me" ten times and it was great. People are different, and people complain about other people. Let's stop the vicious cycle and not write any more articles or books or fund studies about it, okay?

Of course, that will never happen. Because people lap up stories about themselves with a spoon.

Anyhow. In other travels across the internet, I found this chronicle of a motorcycle trip through Chernobyl. The author describes the town as a frozen Soviet history.

It's like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - except with radiation instead of insanity. Having been only two years old when the disaster occurred, and now that people are promoting nuclear reactors as a solution to our energy problems again, it's pretty incredible to think it will between 300 and 900 years before the radiation disappears from the area. Nice place to visit, though.

"I oscillate between hope and despair"

2007-12-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

Those were the words of the international energy policy expert I spoke to this morning, when I asked if he was hopeful about sustainable development and a solution to global warming.

Most scientists I speak to, when they respond to my now-standard "hope" question, force out something about reluctant optimism. But energy policy people are more realistic. They're mired in the bureaucracy, whether they like it or not. They know how it works within the system - where all their research and recommendations end up and are ignored. A couple of weeks ago, I talked to a guy at Yale who studied energy supply systems in Africa. He said, "It's hard to be optimistic about the whole process. It's a little bit depressing."

Energy sends me into a tizzy. Energy is the root of all the issues I've reported on which I find myself caring too much about to be objective: Ethanol, drilling for oil in the ice-free Arctic, energy poverty and energy development.

So when I realized what today's energy guy was saying (he had a bit of an accent, so it took a second) I was stunned, and affirmed, at the same time.

And then I saw this: "E.P.A. Says 17 States Can’t Set Emission Rules"

Essentially, California was setting more rigorous emission standards, and the recently-signed energy bill allowed the Bush administration to say, "No. Stop what you're doing. We're going to make you pollute just as much as the rest of us. And hey, climate? Fuck you."

Reading this, I was flung deep onto the side of despair. Hope oscillated on its own a long way from where I ended up. I put my head down on my desk for a while, and then wrote a comment on Andrew Revkin's blog. That helped me calm down.

But, why? why why why why why why why.

(Is "why" a word of hope or despair?)

Don't ask the optimist, he's probably dumb

2007-12-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

Or unhealthy - so says one of those useless studies. Apparently, optimism means you think of things in long-term progress, not attaining specific goals. And that means you're more likely to justify short-term failures. Or something. The whole thing doesn't make much sense.

“For example, when [a] workout is framed as progress toward the goal of being healthy, going to the gym elicits the perception of partial goal attainment and suggests that it is justified to enjoy a tasty but fatty cake,” the researchers explain. “In contrast, when [a] workout is framed as commitment to the goal of being healthy, going to the gym signals being healthy is important and thus suggests that one should refrain from the tasty but fatty cake to ensure the final goal can be attained.”

Unfortunately, this study will probably picked up and deciphered by the media in time for New Year's Resolutions. I was talking about resolutions with my co-worker today. Last year, he resolved to do yoga every day. He didn't. I said that I prefer to keep my resolutions internal - like changing a behavior - to keep concrete feelings of failure or success out of it. Who can tell if I'm being nicer to people this year than I was last year? Or if I put slightly more energy and creativity into my work? All it takes for me to feel like a success story is a shift in how I view my own reality.

Meanwhile, hand me that tasty but fatty cake.

A heartbreaking work of staggering dancing

2007-11-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

This breaks my heart and then warms the shattered pieces.

In the past few days...

2007-11-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

- I made vampire cupcakes for a pumpkin carving party. They had little fang marks in them and bled cherry filling when you bit into them. Delicious and cute and grotesque is my favorite combination of adjectives to describe anything, so overall successful. Also a tad geeky, because I found the recipe on BoingBoing. Photos forthcoming.

- My bike was stolen. I had bought it from my cousin, and it had been a faithful friend on the streets of Austin. We rode with hundreds on a Harvest moon bike ride, we watched others fall off their own bikes while remaining reliably upright, we discovered the non-guilty pleasures of human-powered transportation. It was a beautiful partnership, and we were inseparable. When I got on the bus for the first time without my bike (I usually take my bike on the bus to work and ride it home), my friendly bus driver stared at me slack jawed. I told him it had been stolen. He told me, "You just don't look the same without your bike."

Fortunately, I picked up a barely used women's Schwinn road bike yesterday - courtesy of Craigslist. And it was cheap. I believe in the Black Angel of Bike Theft and the Benevolent God of Craigslist.

- I went to Maker Faire. It was wonderful and amazing.

The Lifesized Mousetrap!

Dirty car art!

My friend Megan, who is kind of looking like a pirate here, kills herself with a sword.

Highlights of the Faire included cycle-powered carnival rides, meeting the inventor of TV-B-Gone, and nice creative people all around.

- I've been working as always. Today I discovered a very cool MIT geek, who I hope to interview about his new robot suit. He also does tons of other cool artist shit, of which I am completely jealous.

We have Steven Pinker, Harvard psychologist, on our show this week. He's talking about swearing. I watched his interview on the Colbert Report. Colbert mentions how Pinker moved from MIT to Harvard, and says, "That's like leaving the nerds' table to go sit at the rich nerds' table." I will vote for anyone who will say that to a scientist's face, in a presidential election. No questions asked.

Image and text

2007-10-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Czech Book Covers of the 1920's and 30's

Words from Cold War Era propaganda films, via Mondo Capo at the Austin Film Festival Saturday night:

"Rape? I've tried it once or twice."

As an innocent young preppie takes his first experimental toke:
"He sacrifices his dignity and puts his future on the chopping block."

For a similar message, check out "Keep Off the Grass" on YouTube.

This is how they like their cake

2007-10-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

I saw Low for the third time on Wednesday. The first two times were kind of accidental. At the first, I wondered why I wasn't alone at home, doing drugs while lying on a trippy carpet. At the second, it occurred to me that a symptom of suicidal depression might be listening to Low, and my friends might want to know that.

Then I started listening to Low. Surprisingly, I did not feel any suicidal tendencies. I listened more, and still, nothing. My general well-being and chipper personality remained intact. And then I watched this music video. Which you should do. Right now.

I think... I think I might love it.

The show was great, though they usually chat more. Alan Sparhawk's humor is a scorched-desert kind of dry. There is video documentation of this.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to grow up as the children of Low. I think this video might be inspired by a reading of Matilda, by Roald Dahl. With an emphasis on Bruce.

Her nose was always buried in a book

2007-09-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Reading

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clark
A big, thick novel about magic! Like Harry Potter for adults.

How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman
I'm fully engrossed in the chapters on breads and grains. Success in pumpkin and apple breads, and discovered the pleasure of saying "quinoa." Not-so-successful was a disastrous quick bread I refer to as "molasses and whole wheat death cake."

How to Make a Forest Garden - Patrick Whitefield
Not that I'm going to, right now. But someday.

Read

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Beautiful.

After this - Alice McDermott
Slow and suburban but well-written.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
I hear this is coming out soon as a ridiculously violent movie I probably will not see. I closed my eyes through parts of the book.

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan*
One of my favorite authors, but the twist ending was so incredibly unlikely and forced that I can't believe this won the Booker Prize. Read Atonement, The Cement Garden, Between the Sheets - virtually anything else. On Chesil Beach is very high on my to-be-read list.

In Persuasion Nation - George Saunders
A varied collection of short stories. Some were classic Saunders, some were less Saunders-esque, and made no use of the trademarked Saunders conversational question mark. The title story involves a sympathetic polar bear with an ax in his head, and a God-like corner of a green snack wrapper. I encourage you to read it.

Take the Cannoli - Sarah Vowell
I have mixed feelings when I hear Sarah Vowell's voice in my head as I read her essays. Something about it annoys me. I have mixed feelings about Sarah Vowell, sometimes.

*I'm reading my way through the Mc section of the library.

The case of the missing pounds

2007-09-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

I was getting ready to leave work today when my co-worker suddenly asked, "Have you lost weight?"

It was an unusual question. I suspected he wasn't asking because he wanted to compliment me. I was wearing a black sack of a dress that's two sizes too big, and my co-worker has mentioned before that he doesn't want to say anything that might be construed as sexual harrassment. That made me feel awkward.

So I was curious as to where this was coming from. I asked, "Within what time frame?"

"Within the past week."

I said I hadn't noticed.

He said that he'd suddenly lost 6 pounds over the last week, and he wondered if it was something that was happening to other people, like something in the air or the way that women who live together kind of menstrate ("cycle?" I suggested) together.

I said I didn't think so, but we've been going through a doughnut phase in the office, and I suggested that they may be secret weight loss doughnuts.

We explored his exercise patterns further, and it turns out he had been biking two hours a day since his truck had been in the shop. He hadn't considered the increase in biking as exercise, or a reason why he might have lost weight.

There is a study (most of my stories start with this phrase now) that says that if your friends are overweight, it's likely that you'll be overweight too. I can't find that study now, but I think it would be really cool if it worked the opposite way. If your friends are skinny or losing weight their weight loss will translate to you through some kind of osmosis or diffusion. I can see the next weight loss craze: No need to exercise, or diet, or take supplements or eat heinous amounts of red meat! Just stand awkwardly close to a thin person for most of the day. The best technique is to "accidentally" handcuff yourself to that person. Then wait for the weight to even out like the scales of Justice.

New Saunders book

2007-09-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

I was actually hurt when I found out about George Saunders' new book of essays - Why didn't someone tell me? But all was forgiven when I read an excerpt, which I will rip off wholesale from kottke.org:

Last night on the local news I watched a young reporter standing in front of our mall, obviously freezing his ass off. The essence of his report was: Malls Tend to Get Busier at Christmas! Then he reported the local implications of his investigation: (1) This Also True At Our Mall! (2) When Our Mall More Busy, More Cars Present (3) The More Cars, the Longer it Takes Shoppers to Park! and (shockingly): (4) Yet People Still Are Shopping, Due to, it is Christmas!

It sounded like information, basically. He signed off crisply, nobody back at NewsCenter8 or wherever laughed at him. And across our fair city, people sat there and took it, and I believe that, generally, they weren't laughing at him either. They, like us in our house, were used to it, and consented to the idea that Informing had just occurred. Although what we had been told, we already knew, although it had been told in banal language, revved up with that strange TV news emphasis ("cold WEATHer leads SOME motorISTS to drive less, CARrie!"), we took it and, I would say, it did something to us: made us dumber and more accepting of slop.

Furthermore, I suspect, it subtly degraded our ability to make bold, meaningful sentences, or laugh at stupid, ill-considered ones. The next time we feel tempted to say something like, "Wow, at Christmas the malls sure do get busier due to more people shop at Christmas because at Christmas so many people go out to buy things at malls due to Christmas being a holiday on which gifts are given by some to others" -- we might actually say it, this sentiment having been elevated by our having seen it all dressed-up on television, in its fancy faux-informational clothing.

This is why I don't watch TV news and instead read blogs. At least you can personally insult the bloggers (and also the journalists, columnists, guest writers, and what have you) when they say something stupid. But speaking of, Amazon convinced Saunders to post some blog entries, which I guess is something they do now. Maybe it's the counter-measure to authors writing their own reviews and starring their own books. Let's bring the shadiness out into the open, and pay authors to do exactly what the media chastised them for before. Saunders acknowledges this, and makes the whole ethical promotional quandary a remarkably satisfying read. As always. Damn.

Flash backwards

2007-09-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

I've been taking the time to look through some of the documents on my old iBook. I found a list of spam email headings I compiled for the old Mess blog, as follows:

When you are on a diet, the feeling of hunger is always with you? Hoodia 920+ knows how to kill the hunger.

With Hoodia 920+ you will not need chocolate to kill your depression. With Hoodia 920+ you simply wont have it as well as your excessive pounds.

After using Hoodia 920+ all your clothes will be too big for you.

Hoodia 920+ is the key to ideal unblemished body.

Always wanted to look like a super model. Finally, your dream will come true with Hoodia 920+

Time has changed and ugly stomachs are not the example of beauty anymore. That’s why you have to try Hoodia 920+.

Some weight loss preparations can work fast but are they harmless to your health? Hoodia 920+ is one of them.

Looking forward to summer but are a little scared of undressing some parts of your body. Let Hoodia 920+ take care of it.

There are 58 million of overweight people in America. With Hoodia 920+ you dont have to be one of them.

Don’t worry about Penis Enlarge Patch being harmful to your health.

Step back let Penis Enlarge Patch wash away your fears.

But speaking of the "mess" I discovered this thing on the Internet Archive called the Wayback Machine, where you can find websites which, unlike irony, have unfortunately passed. After scoping out Earth & Sky's claims that we were the first to bring radio science content to the web (it's true!), I decided to step back in my own internet history and check out the High Plains Messenger.

It was as if I had traveled back in time to August 5, 2006. Bush was still in office, and my last feature story, "Disabling the System" was the main image, and I think remained to be so because everyone had lost the motivation to change it or to really write anything else. I was blogging about random Colorado Springs stuff which didn't seem all that important to anyone.

But I consider "The Battle of the Bargains" in which I compared Extreme Bargains, Bargain Mart, and Walmart on the relative cost of Jet-Puffed Kraft Marshmellow Spread to be my best investigative work. And I still cherish the hate mail from "Tears of a Clown: Do Circuses Really Make Elephants Sad?"

This article really does seem biased, almost angrily so on the reporter's part. Maybe a rep from PETA killed her parents.

The commenter is only halfway wrong. My parents are still alive, but the article is indeed angrily biased, not "emminently fair". I did not like PETA's politics and I wrote it that way. It turned out as an entertaining but crappy article written with a half-baked idea of ethics. But it's the story I tell every single time someone mentions PETA. "Gather round," I tell the children who are considering going vegan. "And let me tell you about the time PETA almost killed my parents."

Wonderful things to share with the world

2007-09-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

Chocolate cream Italian sodas.

Graham Reynolds.

Permaculture.

Phoenix.

Making risotto.

Hype Machine.

Food security.

Robosquirrels.

2nd Sundays Sockhop.

(My roommate is the guy clutching the neck of a beer by the bar, overwhelmed by the number of adorable vintage dresses present. I am elsewhere, getting my hop on.)

Video odds, and ends to follow

2007-08-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've done a fair amount of YouTubing this week, a switch from my last week's spree of Craigslisting. And although Missed Connections provides a good fix of pissed off cyclists thrown through windowshields, YouTube is generally more hilarious.

Take, for example, my new favorite person, Michael Cera. Formerly known as George Michael on Arrested Development, there's now a whole bunch of buzz about him. It's like he's in the center of a swarm of bees - which reminds me of how this morning I killed an enormous (no, really, it was like, defined and large and threateningly striped yellow and black) spider by dropping a 10 lb encyclopedia on it, and afterwards felt kind of bad. Anyhow, Michael Cera does this really brilliant parody of Aleksey Varner.

Also worth watching is his web series Clark and Michael.

And then.... And then! I was oh so pleased to find ACTUAL VIDEO FOOTAGE of a show last month that BLEW MY MIND.

Everything about Foot Patrol is amazing. For starters. 1) It's a foot fetish concept band. 2) The band leader is blind, and his foot fetish is real. 3) He's a prodigy. 4) Amazing dancers wearing mustaches. 5) Influences are listed as stinky feet and 80's Minneapolis funk.

The camera work is pretty crappy, but you get the jist.

This song is called "Footography."

This song is the Foot Party anthem. The opening sequence is awesome. "Fifteen years in the county smell!"

I don't think Foot Patrol will ever tour, but if they do.... not to be missed. Or else they'll put you in the pedicure jail, where females will assault you and make your scaly feet pretty at the same time. Tee hee.

And to follow up on my last post, I have photographic evidence of the nerdiest tattoos ever. Science tattoos. They do a bit to deflate the notion that people with Ph.Ds are smarter than everybody else. The worst? A really, really ugly spiraling snippet of Sonic the Hedgehog's genetic code. This lady's nerdish desire to be cool has gone too far, and her hideous shoes punctuate my point. Stop trying. Please stop. Stay in the lab and away from the tattoo parlor. Thank you.

An open letter to you, wearer of tattoo

2007-08-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to tell you: I'm tired of looking at your tattoo.

I'm tired of your hackneyed Chinese symbols, your ugly Celtic knots, your cheap meaningless designs you picked off a wall somewhere, your pseudo-ironic-I-can't-believe-you-actually-did-that Mom tattoos. I'm even tired of your sweet little animals, your well-executed but too-trendy skulls, your homages to lost friends. There's got to be a better way to memorialize. I don't like statues, but I'll deal with them.

I'm tired of your sleeves, your upper back, your thighs, your ankles, your neck, your chest, and your biceps. I'm particularly weary of your lower back and the front of your hip bone. I should also mention that your facial tattoo totally freaks me out. You scare children. Do you ever get used to the sound of their screams as they look at your face?

I know tattoos, brandings, scarring, etc. have been common among people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. But never among people with such poor taste. America is a nation of freedom, and freedom is the ability to choose what kind of regrettable useless crap you want permanently engraved on your person at any point in time.

As you walk around in your tank tops and short shorts in the heat of summer, your body becomes active moving public art. As much as I try to avert my eyes, you pop up in unexpected places, and over and over again I am forced to confront the question: Why did you do that? Did you spend years carefully considering and weighing out the options, choosing a design that would truly represent who you were, and get it inked by a tattoo artist you knew, trusted, and admired? Or did you wander into the tattoo parlor next to the bar where you were, moments before, drinking Miller High Life or Shmirnoff Ice and reflecting on how awesome it would be to get a shamrock (cuz you're part Irish on St. Patrick's Day) right next to your cross/butterfly/state of Texas?

I'm not saying these are the only two ways you can get a tattoo. Most likely you thought about it for a while, because the "What would you get if you got a tattoo?" conversation is literally impossible to avoid. Everyone's expected to want a tattoo, so everyone gets one. The original idea was that it was both unique and hardcore - you have the means for self-expression and you can stand the pain or the thought of ink becoming a part of your skin forever. It was counterculture and rebellion. Parents don't like tattoos.

Now every parent I see with their toddlers at the pool has a tattoo, and I almost expect the kid to slide straight out of the womb with an I heart Mom tat. Tattoos aren't counter-culture anymore, they're like little needles of popular culture. And pop culture is not permanent. Not like your dumb tattoo. I don't want to sound like your mother but.... there's no way you're not going to regret that when your skin gets all saggy and Tinkerbell starts to droop below rather than hover above your beltline.

I have to tell you though, I've been starting to feel pretty unique and hardcore for not having a tattoo, for having regular skin that is marked only by freckles. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm going to try to ignore the mass of tattoos surrounding me. Your poor decisions are not going to go away. I'll let you deal with that.

This American Wasteland

2007-07-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

I cannot count the hours of the past six months of my life that were devoted to This American Life, between listening to the program, applying for the internship, and listening to the program more so I would do better at applying for the internship. Ira Glass appeared in my dreams, sometimes as an overweight, over-made-up middle aged lady. It reached a level of perverseness before I accepted this job, which turned my thoughts to climate change (also a questionably unhealthy obsession). And I didn't get the internship. The reason being my stories didn't follow the trademarked narrative arc, which you can get an idea of in this article from the Onion. The letter said it probably had a lot to do with thousands also applying for the same one position.

Today Morgan, who once ran into Ira Glass on the street in New York and left me a voicemail saying, "I am flipping the fuck out," sent me a parody of This American Life done by a San Francisco comedy group. It's definitely worth a listen, if only for the deliberately practiced impression of Ira Glass.

Before there was Charles, there was Erasmus

2007-07-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Darwin! He's thinking, " Don't wave that little stuffed bunny at me while you sculpt. I'm so unbustogenic. I despise the future."

And that's it. Science dorkitude has now permeated my entire life. I wasn't always like this! Cry for me.

In a brief attempt to make up for the person I've become, I will return to my former habit of recommending a few books.

"My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk
The writing in this book is worthy of being called classic, and the plot and narration are unbelievably compelling. Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year and I highly recommend reading his lecture if you consider yourself a writer.

"White Noise" by Don Dellilo
I read this a few years ago with Chris Bachelder, who, if you read his book "Bear V Shark", ripped off a lot of ideas from this book because he's admittedly obsessed with it. Now I'm re-reading it, and it's much better when you're not speed-reading on the block plan.

"The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Great for summer reading! Light and enjoyable, this modern Russian classic tells the tale of hundreds of strangers sent to live in a Soviet labor camp! Who knows what extreme cold, and deprivation will make them do?! You're sure to see me lounging poolside, totally engrossed in this honey of a paperback!

New news!

2007-05-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

Long time, no write. I must admit I've been cheating on Crap in a Bucket with another blog - a more attractive, more desirable blog. I get paid to write there and people actually comment, and what did you ever do for me, "Crap in a Bucket"? You simply allow people to internet-stalk me, if they so choose. You're actually kind of creepy, Crap in a Bucket.

But I love you anyhow.

That said, I've been homesteading in earnest, which means I've been Craigslisting in earnest, to moderate success. Today I picked up a vintage chair

and this guy's entire spice and sauce collection for $20. It was pretty sweet.

But my proudest moment has been the arranging of the "owl nook." While in no way comparable in sentiment to the original owl wall, it is still a beautiful thing that makes me very happy to gaze upon in owl-struck wonder.

(I will add a visual aid later, so you can virtually visit the owl nook, if you are not lucky enough to breakfast there.)

Another glowing moment

2007-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

from the mouth of George Saunders:

It's not the case that we're gonna cure all our problems. But it's also not the case that all our pleasure will ever vanish. I think at the very last minute of the world, after we've global-warmed ourselves, and it's 400 degrees and only the elite can live in these little refrigerators with plasma TVs, the people who are burning to death outside are gonna kind of be reaching for the hand of the person next to them or having a memory of childhood or finding some way of knowing pleasure in that.

This from an interview with Guernica. Could I love a fiction writer more? No. Probably not.

Look!

2007-04-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Possibly the best thing to happen on Sunday since Creation, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, features a cover story set in the eerie, murderous depths of Colorado Springs. It's about Robert Browne, the serial killer who took up about a week and a half of the news cycle during the summer. It was my first and only press conference. The article is a worthwhile read, although it's more of a vehicle for the traditional cat-and-mouse detective story. Charlie Hess has a good face for the part, and Robert Browne has a good beard. For being a killer, I mean.

Often more crappy than a poor choice

2007-04-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

In my travels across the Internet, occasionally I find things that amuse me. This is one of those things.

It's a blog called Slantmouth that is, as they say, "Often more sultry than a pillow fight." Although I personally have never experienced pillow fights to be sultry, but more like painful and not fun, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's awfully good humor writing and totally sweet linkage. The links don't burden you with the pain of too much information, but instead are photographs where the captions serve as secret punchlines. You really should check it out.

Also in terms of recommends, Laura Veirs' new album, Saltbreakers, is a glorious achievement. I'm always stunned by her ability to cram nature imagery into every line. It seems like she's always turning a corner to discover some new kind of butterfly or staring in awe at the pink stars. This hasn't always worked for her: I can't listen to Carbon Glacier without cringing a little when she sings, "Topographic lines/ come close together..... and boulders just might/ make an appearance/ if the sun shines just right."

Saltbreakers has a few references to "sautering," which is exceptional. And the phrase, "Merman with a twinkle." Those mermen are up to no good, casting a hook in her.

The Great Transition

2007-04-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

If you ever drive from Colorado to Texas, bring bean dip. It is absolutely essential. Bean dip is the perfect sustenance for a journey that involves an incredibly open and slowly flattening landscape, exits with no services, entire towns that smell like either crapping animals or processed animals, and a wonderfully haunting emptiness.

I also recommend those handy "Scoop" tortilla chips.

My friend Shari was my traveling companion and partner in speed-related crime. She had just returned from Paris. The cops could smell it on her.

I really believe that the key to a successful road trip is side-trips. On my first road trip, from New York to Colorado, my desires to stop at the Buffalo Bill and corn husking museums were declared void by the front seat because I didn't know how to drive a stick. This time no such opportunities were missed.

We saw Billy the Kid's grave. It was monumental.

We posed in front of interesting signs.

We helped the pioneers with the laundry...

and apple picking. I didn't have the heart to tell the young man on the ladder he was harvesting out of season.

Between bean dip sessions, we took time to stretch.

We pulled over in New Mexico at a church that was in ruins. It was beautiful.

Maybe the most successful part of the trip was the shopping.

The highway wasn't crowded with hipsters, so the antique stores and flea markets were fresh, which means: Tons of owls! For cheap! I collected three new owls, two of them being hot plates, for about $2. I think the hot plates will come in handy when I set up my homestead. But I will always cherish my memory of the original owl wall.

We stopped for a night in Lubbock, where we failed to convince the night auditor we were only one person. In the morning, Shari nearly died from overexposure to MTV's spring break.

Fortunately, we made it safely and happily to Austin, after aforementioned run in with the traffic police. What a buzzkill.

Great! An easy solution to all my troubles.

2007-04-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

This year for my birthday (3 months, people) you can give me the gift of carbon-guilt free living: Offset my life.

On the other hand, carbon offsets are actually kind of sketchy. Damn it.

The Global Warming of My Dreams

2007-04-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since I have last written, so I'll quickly catch up:

I am now living in Austin, Texas
I decided not to get my own place quite yet and am living with family
I earn my keep by providing cooking services and the enjoyment of my company
I like working at Earth & Sky
I like Austin
It is mostly hot and humid here but this weekend was cold and rainy
I dented my car the other day

The end.

I intended to write and post some photos about the drive down, but I can't find the USB cord for my camera, and my camera has been having some difficulties since someone (named Reed) decided to put it on a shaky porch railing to take a self timed picture of us before I left, and when it inevitably fell, claimed it was not his fault, despite my warning him not to do it. So I'm working on it, don't worry.

One of the things that occupies quite a bit of space in my mind right now is global warming. Why is this? you ask. Well, I answer, it's because global warming is the new Cold War. Haven't you heard?

Apparently, back in the day, people had nightmares about getting nuked by Russians. Looking back with our spectacular 20/20 hindsight, we can laugh about how silly people must have looked cowering under their desks. We know now that Russians are really as gentle as little lambs, except for when they poison spies and kill journalists.

For the past two months, I've been having nightmares about global warming. I think and read and talk about it a lot, especially with my job, and so it makes sense that it seeps into my subconscious. And global warming is one of those things that people don't want to think about too deeply, because when you do, it's completely terrifying. And as one person, you feel powerless to stop it, especially when you see that people in power don't even want to believe it's real.

Mostly the dreams are about car emissions. I drive a car that I don't feel gets good enough gas mileage. So I feel guilty. The guilt goes into my dreams and combines with other issues. The first dream I had was that I was working (at my old job, with disabled people) and one of the clients/individuals/persons served, who was prone to screaming, "Bad boy SCREAM!" owned this car that was parked outside the building. He couldn't drive, but he liked to have it on, and it had this huge smokestack sticking out of it, just spewing black pollution out of its top. I told the people I was working with that he had to turn the car off. They protested that he had rights, as a person, and if that's what he wanted we couldn't say no or force him to turn it off. I said, no, it's not about his rights, it's about stopping global warming, but they didn't understand. I grew increasingly anxious and guilty until I woke up.

Last night I dreamed that I bought a new car, and as a bonus, the dealership threw in two new trucks. One was a huge new red truck, and the other was an 18-wheeler. They put them all in a huge garage for me. I tried to explain that I didn't want them, but the dealer was unresponsive. I didn't know what to do. I knew that if I gave them away, I would feel responsible for the gas that these trucks would use. And I couldn't keep owning them myself. I hated seeing them as mine. So again, I grew increasingly anxious and guilty until I half-woke up and started thinking incessantly about getting in touch with climate change scientists, none of which I could reach on the phone.

I've had anxiety dreams my whole life, but they used to be about not being ready on time while people were waiting. Now it's about the fate of the planet, and I feel way worse about it. Maybe the dreams will relent once I start riding a bike to work and taking the bus. As I said, I dented my car this week. Maybe it's a sign from a higher power telling me to speed up and stop driving.

Retrospect/Recommends

2007-03-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

I'm moving down to Austin right after South By Southwest, just in time for the city's collective hangover. It's sort of a bummer, as SXSW was one of my favorite events of last year. The city is completely saturated in music. Every block has at least five bands in tiny venues and six more outside, with their tubas and turntables set up on the corner. Last year I wandered into a parade with the Flaming Lips.

By the end of the festival, we had ditched the idea of seeing the bands we thought we wanted to see (besides the Drive-By Truckers, who were completely worthwhile with Kris Kristofferson) because people like the security volunteers at Animal Collective would not let us in without tickets or badges. But very tall security guard danced with me and Naomi after I complained that we were being treated like second-class citizens. "I never want you to feel that way," he told us.

My favorite band of the festival was the United States of Electronica, featuring this pink-and-sweat drenched wonderboy:

Unfortunately, they're only good live.

I keep telling myself that I'll be there next year, plus I'll be able to rent out my apartment for a little cash on the side, like everyone else on Craigslist. But such promises feel empty and the pain remains hidden in my heart. To solace myself I overdose on free downloads at the showcasing artists' website, and then lie in a pile of my own self-loathing.

Otherwise, I'm excited to move!!!!! If you want any of my stuff, let me know. I have a variety of "gently-used" to "missing essential parts" furniture, plus a sweet bike.

I finished my job and watched two good movies within the past two days, both of which I highly recommend. The first was C.R.A.Z.Y., a French-Canadian film about a boy growing up in Montreal during the seventies/early eighties. He goes through a glam phase, which is pretty awesome, and a self-discovery phase in Jerusalem which I think was kind of spiritually overwrought, but he gets a great tan nonetheless.

Naomi and I went to Tinseltown, the local megaplex, last night, to see Pan's Labyrinth. Tinseltown was out of control. There were legions of high schoolers milling about, some in togas. It wasn't like there were a lot of kids in togas, and it also wasn't like there was a movie involving togas coming out last night, so I was confused by what seemed like big changes in high school socializing since I've graduated. Is it like the cult of celebrity has so permeated our culture that the high schools have to nominate their own and put them up on some kind of toga-clad pedestal to imitate American values? They should make a movie about that. Following Julius Ceasar. So that someone gets stabbed in the back at the end. Kind of like what happened in Pan's Labyrinth. It was scary and bloody and I had to cover my eyes and ears for certain parts, because I'm sensitive to that kind of thing. But it was beautiful and sad and invoked an entire range of human emotion leaning towards the infinite-abyss-of-sorrow-and-human-pain side. I should be like, a movie reviewer. Or a movie maker, a movie maker that studies high school, and just make Mean Girls over and over again.

Good tells you the best

2007-02-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

Good, the magazine that seems to have a larger endowment than my college, has come out with a list of the 50 Best Magazines Ever. It's a good (har har) list, and I like how they make distinctions between different eras of in the magazine's history (i.e. "pre-Conde Nast buyout"). But Good is definitely walking a fine line. How do they get to be so definitive? They're like, three issues old. And they got Graydon Carter to write an introduction? How much do you have to pay to get the editor of Vanity Fair, someone who I imagine dictates syllables and trends alike from high in an ivory tower, to write an introduction? There's something about Good that makes me uncomfortable... like Jesus walking on water. There's obviously something bigger behind it, and I'm slightly suspicious of that thing.

Edited: They also got this Teen Beat worthy photo:

I'm going to put it up on my wall and frame it with kisses.

It's official

2007-02-15T19:38:00.000-08:00

I'm moving to Texas. Austin, to be exact. People have been very resolved in telling me what a progressive city Austin is... in fact, the word "progressive" has been mentioned several times with several different people who have no relationship to each other. I think "progressive" in this case means "an oasis of liberalism and independent thinking in an otherwise barren Republican desert which has launched the political career of the worst president in the history of the United States."

I can't really believe that I'm moving to Texas. TeXas. What other state has an X in its name? It's a letter other states dare not mention, lest put in their names. X blares out like a buzzer. But Texas sticks it proudly in the middle. It's like, "Look at my X! Look at my cowboy boots! Aren't they awesome?! I'm BIG!"

The reason I am moving to this prairie oasis is because I got a job there. And I think it's going to be really great. It's with Earth & Sky. I'll be the production assistant and get to write and work in radio. So I'm excited. And I have to pack up and move. Saddle up my burro and ride 'em and stuff. I think it also means cowboy coffee.

North Korea

2007-02-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

An amazing series of photographs:

by Phillippe Chancel

Suggestion

2007-02-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

You should listen to this really fantastic radio show out of New York. It's called Radiolab, and it's an hour long show that combines science with culture. It's got a really interesting aural athestic, in which people frequently tell the same story over each other, and sound runs underneath almost every part of the show. It's hosted by two men, and they play their parts like they're having a casual conversation that's incredibly interesting and happens to have sound bits. It's more transparent than This American Life. I'd say it's investigative where This American Life is narrative.

I recommend starting with Detective Stories.

This is what I'm talking about

2007-02-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

I'm not much in the mood for comprehensive blogging recently, so here's a select gathering of things I find interesting.

An image by Landsat, a government satellite system.

I've been loving The Morning News for some time now. It's like what would happen if Salon and McSweeney's had an internet love child... plus art. I've developed a real affection for Sarah Hepola, who wrote this charming piece called, "The Key to a Successful Freelance Career: A Diary" and a serial called "Celebrity Magazine." Their content isn't updated nearly frequently enough (weekly), but they do provide a non-stop stream of entertaining links, and mp3 and video digests. And it's been around since 1999. It's virtually an internet geezer.

Here's a thing I did about mass transit in the U.S. I think this was my favorite interview thus far, simply because the transportation expert was so admittedly cynical. He doesn't actually work with transportation in America, because "I only have one life and I don't want to waste it." He's the director of a program that put effective mass transportation in Mexico City and India, and he says the U.S. is almost completely hopeless. Not only do Americans really love their cars, and want to use them, but even if we were willing to ride buses it would be hard to set up a good system. There's a huge multitude of factors that go into this that don't really seem to fit together. We have "bedroom communities" where city workers have to commute 60 miles one way so they can own a large new house rather than rent a small place; the government is more than willing to subsidize gasoline and ethanol at a high cost; and cities create "boutique" subways that cost staggering amounts and no one uses. (A subway costs $1,000 an inch.) It all adds up to one thing: America discourages intelligent decisions.

And finally....an interesting piece on NPR news last week about the term "mental retardation." Sounds familiar.

Not too much

2007-01-25T16:51:00.000-08:00

light from heat

More snow coming, maybe this weekend. Today I took my favorite "person served" up to the mountains near my house, and we stood on a frozen waterfall. He was excited. It was nice. He always brings Michael Jackson to play in my car, and I told him about the Smooth Criminal video. He laughed. He laughs at everything and nothing.

A "Smooth Criminal" Retrospective

2007-01-22T18:05:00.000-08:00

There are many many many reasons to watch this video. First of all, it's like a dance narrative, although the plot is cloudy. Michael Jackson plays some sort of mobster/speakeasy boss, and there's tons of easy ladies nearby and also random bouts of aggression. It's like what a very effiminate man would imagine as a masculinity play. For example, MJ's buttering up two fine ladies and a large man appears behind him with a glittering knife, and the ladies get all freaked out but Michael just blows him through a brick wall without even turning around. That's unchecked fantasy, people. Also, ragamuffin orphans are peering through the barred windows, talking about how cool Michael's moves are. It's kind of too bad that every Michael Jackson video reads like a warning sign.

It's not the best song, and the wierd sound quality of the grunts inserted over it makes it worse. But I've always remembered this video as being legendary because I owned a Nintendo game based off it. Michael would jump/dance-kick, throw his white hat, lean impossibly far, and shoot his arm up in the air all the way to victory. I'm surprised that I can't find this game on a Google search, which makes me think this was all a legend I created in my Michael Jackson-obsessed youth. But I did find this - a Flash animation which features MJ in every other Nintendo game you can think of.

photos etc

2007-01-13T17:32:00.000-08:00

I did make it home in time for Christmas, and it was decidedly less snowy there. By this time, New York is well into the misery that is its winter weather, with infinite gray skies and lackluster periods of snow and freezing rain. But this year, it's been positively balmy. It hadn't snowed yet at the time I got there, and there was much talk of suicidal skiing on depressed mountains. My dad and I like to go cross country skiing far upstate at least once a winter, but it wasn't going to happen.

Other Christmas vacation traditions occurred: I had all my doctors' appointments, saw that our cousins' kids had another year of growing up between holidays, avoided people from high school at the YMCA. I missed most of my friends by getting home so late, and went down to the city to visit a few. It was wonderful.

Michelle, me, and Meg at the tiny underground lair of the Irish bar where we spent a very long time on Friday night.

Bridget, Jen, and I became friends during a disasterous French cooking project - we added a dozen eggs to our supposedly cream-filled pastries. The result tasted like omlettes filled with whipped cream. We did not order these at breakfast.

The next day I flew back to Colorado and drove out to Vail for New Year's Eve with Lara.

This is us after a good deal of celebrating. We're thinking that 2007 might taste gross, but the passage of time is inevitable.

In addition to New Year's, I recommend the Denver Aquarium after dark. It's cheaper, there's no kids there, and also no adult supervison.

I'd love it if they had a little replica of Davy Jones' locker that they would put kids in afterwards, and then after you hear muffled screaming, open it up and have some sort of waterproof sign that says, "Ha, ha."

Camera phones are popular.

It was decided that jellyfish are cool.

Reading now

2006-12-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

Reading is possibly the best way to fill open time, next to listening to This American Life and baking (in conjunction). In the past two days I have made a pizza, chili, and oatmeal-coconut-raisin-chocolate chip cookies, listened to two holiday spectaculars from TAL, and learned one amazing fact: The true birthplace of Santa Claus is the same as Uncle Sam's - the oft-ridiculed, yet symbolically historically significant city of Troy, New York! Yes, what is now considered the crappiest third of the Tri-Cities (the others being Albany and Schenectady, no gems themselves, though also historically significant) was home to the meatpacking plant that stamped meat sent to troops in World War 2 with the emblem of Uncle Sam. Troy now has an Uncle Sam parade every summer. But lesser know is that Troy originally published "The Night Before Christmas" in its newspaper, birthing the myth of Santa Claus that Naomi worked so hard to combat as a precocious and moral Jewish preschooler in Utah.

But anyhow, reading. I've been reading a few books all at the same time, making it hard to finish any single one, and thus all my judgements are "in progress."

Reporting, by David Remnick

This is a collection of writings from The New Yorker, of which Remnick is the editor. He's amazing. His access to important people is really unsurpassed. The last piece I read had him chatting with the leader of Hamas right after Hamas came to power. Then he's chilling with Al Gore. Seeing Vaclav Havel leaving the palace in the Czech Republic. Talking to Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, in exile and then in Moscow. The thing about Remnick is that he manages to underscore how incredibly important everyone is in a way that doesn't emphasize the journalist himself. He's there, but he's not. It's awesome.

The force of the past, by Sandro Veronesi

It's generally hard to find interesting new books at some of the smaller libraries - most of the shelf space is devoted to chick-lit, the mystery/thriller/suspense/popular fiction genre, and large-print. But every so often, a book that was probably popular enough in its own country to make it into the Pikes Peak Library District appears on the shelves under a mask of intrigue and manages to stay distinct and aloof from Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel. The last one I read was Budapest by Chico Buarque, a Brazilian lyricist, which was nice yet confusing and at times tumultuous in style and plot. The force of the past is the same ways, in that the male narrator writes and acts in ways I cannot explain, which is something that goes for most European men (I generalize). For example, an unknown man offers him a ride in a stolen car, and the narrator goes through a long explanation of why he knows you can never trust a man who wears short sleeves under his jacket. Nonetheless, he gets into the car. At the beginning of the next chapter: "And as for the reason, let's put it like this: because I'm full of shit." He has just given away his entire prize money from winning an award for children's books to a woman who was sitting in the first row and said her son had cancer. These unpredictable and irrational plot twists make for beautiful reflection, but are frustrating as a reader. I feel like I'm being punished when someone I sympathize with does such stupid things. It reminds me of some writerly advice I was given: Stick your character in a tree, and then throw rocks at him. Ouch.

Oh The Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey

I recognized the cover of this book as winning a design award from Print magazine. It's leaves exploding from the type of the title, very beautiful. But not one to judge a book exclusively by its cover, I read the introduction and was enraptured. It's Wilsey's memoir, and he was born into San Francisco society, but when his parents divorce his life is one long sob story, because his parents don't love him anymore. Something like that. Interesting things happen, but right now I'm kind of trudging through, because right now I'm in the stoner period, which tends to drag. I feel like he must have rewritten the intro over and over again and then pooped out on the third edit of the rest.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Had I read these when I was a child, I don't know if I would have liked them. They're scary and full of bad endings, and premonitions about these bad endings that amount to beating a child over the head with foreshadowing. I don't think I would have been ready for literary bruisings at a tender age. But now, I love them. They are smart, and funny, and I like that kids less delicate than me love them. Also, they are the perfect length to read if you are bored of Self-destructive magazines at the gym. Unlike those overblown Harry Potter books. I recommend you wait for the movie on those. You can also see a movie version of this, which the back of the book recommends. "And even children know that books are more depressing than movies."

Snow is made by tiny white demons who only want to bring you down

2006-12-20T15:27:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to fly home today. Unfortunately today God decided to ruin Christmas, which is ironic.

I had planned to be brave and truck it up to Denver, because I have a healthy car and a good amount of sense about driving in the snow. But first I had to drive to the office out east of Academy to drop off some papers and some keys I accidentally stole. Everyone for the day program was stranded, and the guy with austism was going crazy. "Hello, Lindsay, how are you, Lindsay?" "I'm good," I say, yelling "fuck you" in my head to the copier who has some type of obnoxious misfeed I can't wait for. "Hello, Lindsay, how are you, Lindsay?" he says again. "You already asked me that," I say. Usually after this pattern is repeated he says, "Okay, I'll stop" and saunters quickly away to ask someone else, but today he just kept going. "Does Jamie like it when I talk to her? Does Jamie like it when I touch her?" Jamie can't stand him and he knows it. "Did you see the whale on my sweater? Did you see the sea turtle on my sweater?" Yes. I like his sweater that says, "Gotta Regatta."

I rushed out of there but as I was hurriedly brushing off my car I hit my nail on the scraper, breaking it halfway down and making my finger bleed. It sucked. I got it wrapped up and continued determinedly on. I was a little Subby that could.

It took about 20 minutes to even get down to I-25, and once I was on it, I thought, "This isn't too bad! I can do this!" That was, until I realized that every so often a giant cloud of white would enfold my car, obscuring everything but the few feet of road in front of me. My windshield wipers were icing up constantly.

I managed to get off at the exit for Academy, which would normally be about 20 minutes from home, and pulled into the first thing I saw, the Best Western. I called my dad and told him I couldn't make it. He told me my flight was canceled. I went into the hotel expecting a small lobby and was instead met with some kind of huge garden-like atrium with big green canvas umbrellas suspended from the high ceiling. Water features were abound, and an indoor pool right there, in the lobby. I realized the effect they were going for was "outside." Except, if outside looked like this, I wouldn't be here. There were also huge poinsettias perched on top of the fountain with gold angels hovering above them, also with poinsettias in their hands. Deer rested on some kind of cotton snow covered bridge on the other mini-pool. And, I just saw this, there is a Christmas tree made of stuffed animals above the front desk. Plus, unsettling Christmas songs have been playing all day. Christmas songs are making me unhappy. They are musically sneering at me.

Through many calls to Southwest, I am now scheduled to go to Albany on December 25. I have never had a Christmas where I haven't woken up in my childhood bed, and it's something I'm oddly sentimental about. It just doesn't feel right. If I'm not in New York, Christmas is leaving me behind.

You know who's orchestrating the War on Christmas? God, with the weather in his pocket. Maybe I'll go up to the emergency shelter up at New Life and declare my Truth. But they might have given me a room here because an eighteen-wheeler is stuck behind my car and a snowdrift is in front of me. I've been here for about 6 hours now, and the hotel is turning into an unexpectedly thriving economy. The line has been out the door for the last three hours and people are actually frequenting the wierd smelling restaraunt that is shingled to look like it's "outside."

And music, I do not agree that everything's okay if we just let it snow or whatever. Today I welcome global warming.

Just read it

2006-12-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Right here.

...Me, I prefer to think as little as possible and stay peppy! Peppy and active! If something is bothering me, I think of something else! If someone tells me some bad news? I ignore it! Like, I knew this one guy, very Optimistic, who was being eaten by a shark and did not even scream but just kept shouting, “It’s all for the best!” Now, that was an Optimist! In the end, he was just as dead, but he hadn’t brought everybody else down! What a great guy! I really miss him! No, I don’t! It’s all good!

It's all for the best! I love George Saunders. If he was here right now, he would have a nice beard and I would hug him.

The woman I work with today cried for about 20 minutes because I wouldn't give her a hug. She wants to change the "hug policy." I work at a company with a policy on hugs. I wonder if Saunders has a personal policy.

An update

2006-12-06T19:05:00.000-08:00

With all this new "blogger beta" stuff, it took me about twenty minutes to get into the blog. I feel like an old man walking into an old room, now converted into some hip faux-European gathering place - all these people talking about how great it is, some young man on a soapbox about developer relations, so much confusion, and in the meantime I've pissed myself three times. By pissing I mean accidentally created three new accounts so I wasn't able to find good ole Crap in a Bucket. And meanwhile I think I forgot basic HTML. Gotta clear out the cobwebs, I've been working with disabled people for too long.

Speaking of disabled people, my epic story about developmental disabilities finally aired on KRCC last night. It was 17 minutes long, which apparently is in second place for record length at Western Skies, and will probably retain the title forever as the format is switching over to delicious morning news bites. Like those little mini-muffins you can buy in bags, which make you feel like you are a giant, because you can fit so many muffins into your mouth at once. Look at you go. Anyhow, I've gotten some positive feedback from sources and others about it, and hopefully it will bring an end to the word "retard" once and for all. Kidding.

Anyhow, it will most likely be available for download tomorrow on the website. It's about the relative failure of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Day in Colorado Springs and the story of a man who is surprisingly honest and articulate about his disabilities and his life.

While I'm at the self promotion I might as well point you here and here for some scripts I've written for Earth and Sky.

It's no secret that I'm no science whiz, barely filling my science requirements with two pass/fail geology classes and then making absolute sure at the registar's that I was not required to do a third after the requirements changed. But reporting on science is actually pretty awesome. I usually get an article on some interesting research or new development, take a few days to set up an interview via email, and then record about a ten minute talk off my home phone. I import the interview into GarageBand and write the script from there, editing the most interesting clips and then email them to Deborah Byrd. She's very nice. Her voice is like the hug of science.

It's through research for Earth and Sky I found out that biofuels may not be so awesome after all. This article says that the negative ecological effects of producing ethanol and biodiesel far outweigh the positive emissions. I haven't seen or heard this story hit the mainstream news yet, but it seems that the rainforest and other ecological treasures that green-minded people love to save (aside: is it just me, or did Save The Rainforest really hit its best stride when I was in second grade?) is being clear-cut to plant palm oils used for biofuels. Also, producing corn really sucks for the ground soil and biodiesel is not poised at this moment to make any significant dent in our dependency on gas. Seems like the green movement is really biting itself in the ass on this one. The question is, how long will it be before we deal with the fact that we have no adequate solution? Biofuel might be the next Iraq.

Again, kidding.

"Snowday - rules are made to be frozen"

2006-10-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

My first adult snowday felt nearly as good as childhood snowdays. My alarm went off this morning, but as I don't have a tv I tried to find cancelations on the internet. The Resource Exchange is kind of an obscure cancelation, so I had to call in. "I'm glad you called," said the community participation manager. "We've canceled today."

Last night, I wrote to myself, "I would like to sleep late, drink coffee, read, and snowshoe up the street. That is all I want to do."

I couldn't snowshoe up the street today because the snow was wet and melted on the pavement. Naomi and I decided that the necessary snowday supplies were wine, peppermint schnapps, hot chocolate, and pumpkin for baking. As it turns out, I could have easily driven, but I walked instead, trying to stay true to my snowshoeing ambitions. The trip was not romantic, as the cars on the road were large and proud of their big tires, and some of the other people walking were more miserable than pleasant. Except the man with a clean dark coat and a perfect white beard who picked his way through the slush for a pack of cigarettest at 7-11. I wanted to touch his whiskers.

The local overpriced natural foods store "forgot" to order pumpkin for the most pumpkiny season, and their HC ("and by that I don't mean Hot Chicks" - Dan Goodnow) was close to $6. Bullshit. I walked back to our local wine and spirit store, where the staff is almost too anxious to be knowledgable. I like that about them, that they try so hard to cultivate an international experience each time you buy wine in their tiny strip-mall storefront. As per my indescriminate wine tastes, I normally try to select the cheapest bottle with the prettiest label, but noting my dawdling, the red-faced seller rushed over to ask me what I was looking for. Afraid to reveal myself, I said, "Red" and after a slight thought, the man breezed around the store, sweeping up bottles like he was picking fruit from his own grove. He selected four and placed them on the counter, and started to switch the bottles around in exactly the manner of a magician concealing a ball underneath four identical cups. He explained that they were arranged from light to dark, and described each. I said I liked lighter, as the lightest was towards the least expensive. (I could have bought a large, perfectly satisfactory bottle with an okay label for $7.29! But apparently this man had come to save me from my own tastes, as he appeared to have some disdain for Yellow Tail.) He shooed off the darker, and refreshed the lineup with two more, "a simple Californian" with an imaginative label that said simply, "Red Wine." But I chose the next, a fruity red with a classy label for $9.99. And threw in the $2.99 schnapps for Naomi.

I drove to Safeway for the HC and the pumpkin, and baked two loaves of pumpkin bread. We've recently been asking ourselves the question, "What fruit or vegetable bread would you have if you had to eat only one fruit or vegetable bread for the rest of your life?" Mine is banana bread, but the pumpkin bread turned out quiet well. Naomi didn't drink any of her schnapps or wine, as she left for her home/dentist appointment this afternoon, but I've progressed quite well through Bulletin Place, showing distinct berry characters and named for the oldest commercial building still in use in Australia. Leading me to believe that if I lived alone, I would drink by myself and listen to emotionally expressive and personally sentimental music very loudly on my stereo and pine away for Ira Glass as I slowly fall in love with This American Life.