February 29, 2008
To the tune of the Gin Blossom's "Found Out About You"
Found Out About YouTube
All last summer in case you don't recall
I had a laptop, barely ran, and often stalled
Is there a line that I could write
Sad enough to make you cry
Complex websites make the whole thing die
The months roll past, my data disappears
Wish I had an iBook like my peers
But now I've got a new machine
All thanks to my fella Gene
And there's a whole e-world I've never seen
Whispers out at BoingBoing
They're saying that Digg digs your website
I found out about YouTube
People said this shit was where it's at
And you can see the cutest fucking cat
Just post online and you're a star
The internet knows who you are
I can't believe I missed so much so far
Whispers out at BoingBoing
They're saying that Digg digs your website
I found out about YouTube
I'll be spending all my hours now
Browsing through this library of wow
Endless rehashed Office clips
No Viacom permission slips
Streaming past in 1 and 0 bits
Whispers out at BoingBoing
They're saying that Digg digs your website
I found out about YouTube
I found out about YouTube
I found out about YouTube
Posted by didofoot at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2008
Our troubles are all the same
I miss having an office sometimes. (Well, no. My offices were mostly not places anyone would miss. But my memory of working in an office has been replaced by episodes of The Office. I am nostalgic for that televised camaraderie that I rarely experienced in real life.)
I work with and for people, yet I have no colleagues. It's weird. I want that mutual exhalation at the end of a hard day when everyone kicks back and drinks a $2 beer at the local. Failing that, I wish I had a regular crew that drank together. I don't want pub night, I just want a bar I can walk to where we go every week and drink for a couple of hours together.
I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW MY NAME.
Or I want to drink a gin and tonic with fresh lime every summer night. If I can't have friends then let the gin and tonic friend me.
Seriously, I wonder why we don't see each other regularly. Shouldn't we all be having brunch every Sunday or drinks every Thursday or dinner every Tuesday night? If I have to rely on a G&T to be my friend for all those meals I will be fucked. Up.
Nature's best friends:
Posted by didofoot at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2008
He also wrote No Country for Old Men
This book, about a man and a boy traveling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, scared the pants off me. Cormac McCarthy never makes the mistake of addressing why everything fell down, so you never get the chance to think "Well, that's unlikely. The world won't end. I'll be fine." You're stuck thinking "This could completely happen. We are bound to destroy ourselves one way or another. This is going to be me in five years."
The story is simple, dealing with the daily search for food, water, warmth and safety. As in real life, the most terrifying thing is other people, and a lot of the book is the characters hiding from the many bad people out there. But you never get the elaborate descriptions of post-apocalyptic gangs that so many of these dystopian authors revel in. Like Hitchcock, McCarthy knows that the barely-seen danger is way more horrible.
I don't usually want to be terrified out of my clothes but I couldn't put this book down, because the characters are completely real. They talk the way people talk and they act the way people act. The kid is not precocious and the father is not heroic. They're just people.
When the tub was almost full the boy got undressed and stepped shivering into the water and sat. [...] What do you think? the man said.
Warm at last.
Warm at last?
Yes.
Where did you get that?
I dont know.
Okay. Warm at last.
Of course there are things you have to have in a story about the end of the world or risk violating the laws of the End Of The World Storytellers Guild. McCarthy, being a member in good standing, complies with all guild regulations. Rampant cannibalism? Check. Women reduced to breeders? Check. A scene midway through where the main characters come across a pitiful store of food and comfort which looks like heaven after the privations they've endured heretofore? Check.
Though McCarthy never says what ended the world as we know it, I have my theory. I think it was the apostrophe and those Siamese twins, the quotation marks. This is the only thing that could explain why McCarthy never uses either of these punctuation marks in the book, even when they are manifestly called for. Of course this contributes to the off-kilter, dazed feeling of a world destroyed, but not nearly as much as the storyline and elegant prose do. As a general rule, I'm going to say that anything which pulls your reader out of the story to stare, baffled, at the punctuation cannot be good.
If reading my prose is anything to go by, my personal world will probably be ended by an overabundance of commas and paragraph breaks.
Joking aside, you should read this book. It is about depressing things but is not depressing, and any pants you might be scared out of are more than made up for by the thoughts it makes you have. Thoughts like "maybe I should start making an emergency kit to keep in the house. Just in case."
Posted by didofoot at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2008
Supercalifragilisticexpiali-delegate
Last week, the nation's talking heads were abuzz with speculations as to how the superdelegates would cast their votes in the upcoming Democratic election. But that speculation really is so last week, according to major news publications such as the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Hayseed Journal of East Shitbar, Illinois.
The real question this week has become: how will the super-superdelegates vote? Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore have been named as some of the leading super-superdelegates, the delegates who lead the plain old superdelegates, who lead the ordinary delegates, who in turn lead the useless lump colloquially referred to as "the voters."
Today, Pelosi and Gore revealed that their votes will be determined by the leadership of a super-super-superdelegate.
"The internet," Pelosi explained when asked the identity of the super-super-superdelegate. "The internet has a lot of power and generally knows what's up."
"I will absolutely follow the internet's lead," Gore agreed. "The fact that I may or may not have invented it is totally irrelevant."
Asked if other super-super-superdelegates would be influencing the election, Pelosi conceded that "God might play a role."
God, coincidentally, may also have been invented by a human, but sources close to the former Vice President say he takes no credit for this one.
The media is expected to be named as the third super-super-superdelegate, but thus far it has modestly restricted its influence to mad attempts to start shit between two basically decent candidates.
God may play a role in upcoming election, super-superdelegates say.
Posted by didofoot at 09:19 AM | Comments (2)
February 20, 2008
Some things I need help with
I need a little help with chat etiquette, which I guess could be called "chatiquette," but that seems annoying. Is there a standard salutation required to see if someone's free and their boss isn't standing right behind them? Or can you assume that if they're online then they're available? Basically, is it a) ok that I sometimes open a chat with Geetika by rhapsodizing about my new sexy underwear or b) not okay?
I also need a little help picking out asparagus. What does one look for in an asparagus bunch? For a long time I thought the skinniest asparagus was the best, but at Safeway you can only get them in thick, dried-out-looking stalks, so now I don't know. It usually turns out okay if I drown them in oil and salt and pepper and roast them until they're all flimsy, like a co-ed in a hot tub. But it would be nice to taste their intended flavor.
This is not my asparagus.
Posted by didofoot at 10:07 AM | Comments (4)
February 19, 2008
Void Androids
I have been watching the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had forgotten how much I love it. However, one thing is distracting me: the writers are getting Data completely wrong. Living with Gene gives me a unique perspective on a supremely analytical mind, so I know how Data ought to be behaving. A few examples of writerly screw-ups:
Data and slang
Data is constantly confused by human slang, even though he is supposedly a walking multi-language dictionary. Picard uses the word "snoop" and Data is completely lost. Is snoop not in the dictionary? W00t is word of the year, for god's sake. I know from watching Gene that a true android is only baffled by illogical proverbs. For example, "safe as houses" and "right as rain" will completely stall Gene in a conversation. "Houses aren't necessarily safe," he will insist. "What's so right about rain?"
Data's idiosyncratic use of language
Data likes to preface his questions with the word "query." True robotic lifeforms know better, and imitate Dwight from The Office with "question." Even Gene, who is much cooler than Dwight from The Office, shamefacedly admitted to prefacing a question with "question" during a work meeting.
Data's imitation of human customs
Over the course of the series, Data tries out various human customs in an effort to understand our freakish, pointless ways. He paints a picture. He adopts a cat. He has sex with security chief Tasha Yar, who was nominated "most likely to appear in a pirate catchphrase" in the Enterprise yearbook. Gene, being superior to Data, effortlessly engages in many human pastimes, but knows better than to adopt a cat, whose disease carrying innards and spore-laden fur will only harm his quality of life. Also, he has never, to my knowledge, done sex with that Yar girl.
Data and contractions
Data is best known for his inability or unwillingness to use contractions. He says "cannot" for "can't," "do not" for "don't," and so on. This is the best way to tell him apart from his more human android brother, Lore. (It also helps if you have the logical capabilities of a toddler, because Lore is completely different and goes around acting like a twitchy psychopath. But the Enterprise officers usually take forty minutes to an hour to figure out these little deceptions.) Gene, by contrast, is completely able to use contractions. It is actually his apparently human girlfriend who goes around writing blog entries with few or no contractions in them, occasionally using the word 'whom,' and generally acting like a twitchy psychopath. I invite you to draw your own conclusions. Don't feel bad if it takes you the full hour.
Posted by didofoot at 10:45 AM | Comments (3)
February 15, 2008
More tales of the stupidness of me
I got a manicure yesterday. I saw a sign for $15 french manicures a couple of blocks from my house and Gene likes it and it was V Day so I figured, what the hell? Even though I knew that getting a manicure on my nails, which are resistant to all forms of polish and immediately begin chipping and breaking when you paint them, is like folding $15 into a boat and playing Pooh Sticks with it in a nearby stream until it disintegrates.
The salon was small and playing daytime TV. I don't know how you feel about daytime TV, but it makes me want to take a nail file to my eyes. Fortunately, I was soon distracted from this by the manicurist taking a nail file to my finger flesh. Somehow, the nail file edge managed to slice a big cut in my pinkie finger. As this was going on -- for, as you can imagine, it takes some determined slicing before the file can cut you -- I was noticing a lot of pain and thinking to myself, man, it's been a long time since I got one of these. My fingers must be in really bad shape for them to have to file parts of them down like this. Not until the manicurist actually drew blood did she and I notice something was wrong.
I should probably have stopped the process right there. It seems like a bad idea to continue with a manicure while you have an open wound on your hand, especially if -- you don't yet know, but you strongly suspect and will be proved right -- you can't communicate to the manicurist that you'd like her to be gentle around the cut and maybe avoid some of the chemicals, lotions and buffing sticks that she would normally apply to that finger. For some reason, though -- call it curiosity, shyness, self-loathing, what-have-you -- I elected to continue the manicure, so now I have shiny fingers.
Also, I tipped.
Aaaand...that's my story.
This is not my hand.
Posted by didofoot at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2008
Valentine's Day hazing rituals
I really hate being pinched. The idea of it absolutely terrifies me, I don't know why. As you can imagine, this made grade school St. Patrick's Days into scary times for me. Many of my girlfriends saw it as a courting ritual, willfully refusing to wear outward signs of green. They would wait for a deceived boy to come along and pinch them and then would reveal triumphantly that their underwear had been green the whole time. Not me. I was laying out my big, obvious green weeks in advance.
I think it's my St. Patrick's Day fear that affects my Valentine's Day wardrobe so strongly. If St. Paddy's Day is a courting ritual, what must V-Day be? If I don't doll myself up in reds and pinks on February 14, what will happen that's worse than pinching? Enforced shrimping? Teabagging? Will people be allowed to shoot rubber bands at me, my other greatest grade school fear?
As an adult, I try not to give way to these irrational fears, so today I am wearing blue and grey. But my underwear is totally covered with little red hearts, y'all. Don't even try it.
Posted by didofoot at 02:18 PM | Comments (1)
February 13, 2008
Random confessions
For many years, I thought saying "Stamford" was just a lame way of mocking Stanford. Because you are a Cal fan, and mispronouncing Stanford's name is maybe funny for you.
I also briefly believed "gubernatorial" was maybe a mocking way to say "governatorial."
In my defense, "Berzerkly."
Posted by didofoot at 12:06 PM | Comments (1)
February 12, 2008
The midnight disease
It took me a long time to come back to Michael Chabon's early books after reading Kavalier and Clay. I had in my head that Wonder Boys was frivolous and overly modern, possibly because I get the movie mixed up with the book. However, on re-reading it I remembered that this is actually an excellent novel.
Chabon uses insomnia to symbolize a gift for writing. He calls writing "the midnight disease." Writers lie awake at night, persistently unable to stop noticing and analyzing the world around them. And as the main character loses his way as a writer, he also finds himself increasingly plagued by daytime blackouts -- not only is he not staying awake while others sleep, he can't even stay awake while others stay awake.
Chabon can write about writers and writing in a poetic, fucked-up way that makes you not only want to be a writer but believe you are one. Even I, eternally preoccupied with sleeping, can believe in my own writerly talents, simply because I stayed awake long enough to read this book. It helps that the prose is the lovely, twisting stuff you expect from Chabon, making this an effortless read in the way that his more "serious" works are not. It's a book you can wrap an afternoon around, rather than, say, an entire philosophy.
He does make mistakes, of course. He has that early novelist's fault of trying to say everything about a character without saying anything about a character. That's great if you pick the right details. The way a woman stubbornly keeps wearing her hideous parka, combined with the way she sits in chairs, might speak volumes in the right hands. Chabon gets good at this later, but in Wonder Boys you get ham-handed character development sometime. You know the father-in-law is lovable because he fixes things, he has gentle hands -- oh, and also he and his wife adopted three Korean orphans. You know the sister-in-law is difficult because she has this quirky, strange way of speaking -- and also she's cross-eyed, and wears hideous clothes, and eats mushrooms she finds under cowshit.
But, you know, mostly it's great. And I love Sara, my chosen heroine out of the three or four women who cycle through the plot. I wish she didn't have to compete with a sexed-up college girl for the hero's affections, a girl who only exists to ultimately reject him so he can come to terms with the only woman left who will have him. But I guess it wouldn't be a middle-aged male Bildungsroman without one sexy adolescent girl.
"Sara, honey," I said, "I'm stuck." I gave my arm a gentle tug, trying to free it. "You're lying on my arm."
She didn't move; she only opened her eyes, dry once again, and gave me a very hard stare.
"I guess you're going to have to chew it off, then," she said.
Posted by didofoot at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2008
Eagle kills, windmills and cinematic thrills
On Saturday, some of us folks gathered for a day-long celebration of Michele being born.
We began with a couple of stops at Pleasanton wineries, sometimes called "the poor man's Napa," or "the poor man's poor man's Bordeaux." The first winery looked as I expect a winery to look: big tasting room outfitted with plenty of logo-stamped gift products and many local yuppies swilling the home-grown brew. But the second winery was awesome. Reached by a long dirt road, you drive past several rows of rusted, abandoned farm equipment covered in wicked looking spikes. We also saw a few items of lawn furniture, some of which had been thrown onto its side after an apparently violent struggle.
"What are the odds that these people are going to drug our wine, murder us and stuff our lifeless bodies into those barrels?" I asked. "One in three?"
As it turned out, we had nothing to fear from the winemakers, who were just "just folks" folks. I peeked my head into the small tasting shack, then wandered back out with Erica and Sophia to admire the sheep grazing in a nearby field. One of the winemakers came running out after us and took my arm. "You folks aren't leaving, are you?" she asked, concerned. "You just got here!"
"We were just trying to see if you have baby sheep out here," I said.
"Oh, sure, we have some lambs," she said. "Of course, we lost three lambs a little bit back. Not sure what carried them off. We think it might have been a giant eagle."
I don't know if she could have said anything more calculated to bring the three of us back into the tasting shack, safe under a roof.
After a picnic lunch spent, on my part, anxiously scanning the sky, we headed over to Castro Valley for some mini-golf. This was only my second time playing mini-golf, but I feel confident in saying that I love it. I could play it every day.
After the mini-golf fun was had, we returned to the city for a remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark made by three kids in their backyard. For some reason I was expecting this to be Hollywood-quality video footage, but...it was not. Most of the lines were impossible to understand, and it was often hard to see what was going on.
What they did do well was three years of pre-production, which might be an important step for my own friends to consider the next time we make a film. Like foreplay, our pre-production doesn't have to last three years, but maybe it should last more than three minutes. These guys did a phenomenal job finding locations for their shot-by-shot remake, and demonstrated a fine commitment to props, costumes and setting things on fire. In short, it was an outstanding film -- just not very enjoyable to watch.
Our day of birthday fun, however, was very enjoyable to watch. Feel free to watch it yourself right here.
Here, Gene and I are filled with loves and friendships towards Michele.
Posted by didofoot at 01:47 PM | Comments (3)
February 08, 2008
She's super freaky.
"I almost died when I saw that picture of Young Michele holding a jungle cat at the safari park," Sean told me.
"It is kind of too perfect, isn't it?" I agreed.
"Well, it's like seeing the origin story of a superhero," he said.
"More like a super freak," I said, but only to myself.
Happy birthday, superfreak friend!
Posted by didofoot at 08:59 AM | Comments (3)
February 07, 2008
Seven days...
I've always thought Valentine's Day was sort of stupid. Guys obviously hate it, so any "romantic" gifts or events you force them into are just going to make them miserable, and what is romantic about that? Plus, any girl who gets her hopes up about this holiday seems destined to have those hopes dashed. If, on the other hand, you roll merrily along telling yourself firmly that this is a manipulative Hallmark holiday and you don't care at all what happens, then you will be pleasantly surprised if anything comes your way.
I don't know why, but this year I've thrown that entire philosophy out the window.
Gene and I have been together for five and a half years this time around. A lot of the traditionally romantic stuff has naturally been phased out of our relationship in favor of more practical things. He doesn't leave flowers on my doorstep like he did in high school, but on the other hand he did pay my rent for a year and a half. I don't buy a lot of sexy lingerie, but I do all the dishes and grocery shopping.
This year, for the first time, I realized you need Valentine's Day because at least once a year you should be able to say that maybe dish washing is not the most romantic thing you could be doing for your partner. And also I think after five years you stop caring whether your partner hates the things you want to do.
So what is the most romantic thing we can do? Probably a mid-week trip to Disneyland. Just me and him and the plastic sunshiny overwhelming aesthetic of the greatest theme park on earth. Because all I really want is a whole day alone with my fella, and the only way for us to enjoy spending an entire day in one another's company is to ensure there's lots of other stuff for us to focus on.
I don't think the Disneyland idea is going to fly this year. But I"m hoping that with careful campaigning, I might have a solid foundation for some serious demands by this time next year.
Valentine friends at Disneyland. Just like Gene and I could be, if we were frozen in carbonite and one of us was a mouse.
Posted by didofoot at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2008
"Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint."
I re-read Love and Friendship last night, Jane Austen's novella -- novlette? novelina? -- that she wrote while still in her teens. I'd forgotten how much of the later books can be found in here. For example:
A young man speaks to people he's met moments ago:
"My father," he continued, "is a mean and mercenary wretch -- it is only to such particular friends as this dear party that I would thus betray his failings."
Doesn't that sound like Wickham in Pride and Prejudice telling Elizabeth and her family everything about his history with Mr. Darcy, when he's only just met them?
Or this, where the heroine meets another girl for the first time:
There was a disagreeable coldness and forbidding reserve in her reception of me which was equally distressing and unexpected: none of that interesting sensibility or amiable sympathy in her manners and address to me when we first met which should have distinguished our introduction to each other.
Sounds like Emma complaining about Jane Fairfax, who she's only just met again after an absence of many years:
Wrapped up in a cloak of politeness, she was determined to hazard nothing. She was disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved.
In this passage, the heroine condemns a young man as being entirely worthless:
They said he was sensible, well-informed, and agreeable; we did not pretend to judge of such trifles, but as we were convinced he had no soul, that he had never read the Sorrows of Werther...we were certain Janetta could feel no affection for him.
Not unlike Harriet in Emma requiring Robert Martin to read The Romance of the Forest before she could consider him perfect, or Catherine in Northanger Abbey being so delighted that Henry Tilney admitted to reading Gothic novels.
Really, the heroines of Love and Friendship are Jane Austen's models for many of her future silly characters: Harriet, Catherine and Isabella in Northanger Abbey, Maria in Mansfield Park and Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, to name a few. And that's the fun of reading this, because all the sensible characters are sunk back in the narrative. Imagine Pride and Prejudice if Lydia and Kitty had been the main characters, running mad with all the officers and running wild at home, while Elizabeth and Jane were just part of the wallpaper. Sort of a Breakfast Club for the empire waist set.
Anyway, Love and Friendship (tagline: "Deceived in Friendship and Betrayed in Love") is a fun half-hour read and if you like Jane Austen but find her occasionally stuffy you should try this.
I could not help telling her how much she engaged my admiration. "Oh! Miss Jane," said I -- and stopped from an inability, at the moment, of expressing myself as I could wish -- "Oh! Miss Jane," I repeated -- I could not think of words to suit my feelings. She seemed waiting for my speech. I was confused -- distressed -- my thoughts were bewildered -- and I could only add -- "How do you do?"
Posted by didofoot at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2008
Votes for Women
I have a not-so-secret weakness for voting with Gene. I think it is terribly romantic. Also, our polling place is on Beaver Street. Hot!
"Where are you guys off to?"
"Oh, we're heading down to Beaver Street. Gene's gotta check some boxes, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN."
"What about you? Aren't you going to...uh...vote?"
"Yes, but I can't seem to get the Department of Elections to take me off the absentee list, so I'll just be dropping off my ballot."
"Is this still a euphemism?"
"...Yes."
Beavers are inexplicably popular heraldic devices.
Posted by didofoot at 02:26 PM | Comments (6)
February 03, 2008
It's the headband one, right?
Gene: Wanna watch First Blood?
Kris: No.
Gene: Do you know what it is?
Kris: No.
Gene: It's the first Rambo movie. You have to see the first one or you can't see the others.
Kris: I don't really need to see them. I feel I know everything I need to know about Rambo.
Gene: Oh?
Kris: "Adriaaaaaaan!"
Gene: [chuckles]
Kris: [chuckles]
Gene: Are you kidding?
Kris: No?
Gene: That's Rocky.
Kris: Well, whatever.
Posted by didofoot at 05:12 PM | Comments (3)
February 01, 2008
We gotta get outta this place
What's the point of having all this disposable income of Gene's if we're not going to take a trip? I ask you.
I want to take a big trip of course, but not until the weather warms up. So for now, I am looking at small trip options. Please chime in if you have thoughts about the following:
New York
Last time we were there I was tired of traveling and just wanted to lie in bed reading. This time I'd like to go and do all the stuff we didn't get to do before. Plus, Ash is there now.
Disneyland
I'm lobbying hard for this. Disneyland is best with a group, so if you're into Disneyland please speak up now.
Hawaii
One of my uncles has lived in Hawaii most of his life. He's a hugely social guy who knows all kinds of people around the islands. He's also got a boat. And he's been telling us we should visit for awhile now.
I know these all seem like kind of obvious choices, and I've been all these places before. Still, we know people in all three destinations and none of them require a 10+ hour plane ride.
Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Bring it.
Posted by didofoot at 05:10 PM | Comments (5)
Which procrastinator are you?
I never take those "Which X Are You?" quizzes you see on Facebook. Because I already know all the answers. In case you were thinking of inviting me to take one such quiz, I offer you this handy primer:
Which Jane Austen character are you?
Timid, tittering and talky, I am Miss Bates, from Emma. You don't always want to invite me to parties, but sometimes it's unavoidable.
Which The Office character are you?
Often harassed, a one-time answerer of phones with big dreams, still having trouble deciding on a hairstyle though I am in my twenties: I am a Pamburger. With cheese.
Which Brangelina child are you?
Uh...I guess I need to take this quiz. Or read a tabloid now and then.
What amphibious animal are you?
I am a frog, the only amphibious animal cute enough to be included in the Sanrio All-Star Lineup. Michele, if you're wondering, is a cat, an animal she claims is amphibious, and who am I to argue?
How many fingers am I holding up?
Twelve.
What prompted this stupid post?
Deadlines I am avoiding. The only reason I ever blog for free anymore.
Posted by didofoot at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
