What Video Game Character Are You? (feeling quizzical lately)

I am a Breakout Bat.

I am an abstract sort of creature, who dislikes any sort of restraint. If you try to pigeonhole me, I'll break the box, and come back for more. I don't have any particular ambitions, I just drift, but I am adept at keeping life going along.

What Video Game Character Are You?

link via sigh club

Esler's new travel log

I suppose it's called a Travlog? I think his archives say it all:

1998 - Asia
1998 - Hawaii
1999 - 8 Parks, 8 Days
1999 - Caribbean
1999 - Europe
1999 - Gualalajara
1999 - Northern California
1999 - TRAM
2000 - Australia
2001 - Cooperstown
2001 - Dominican Republic
2001 - Middle East
2001 - Seattle
2001 - The Apostle Islands
2002 - Cactus League
2002 - Chicago
2002 - Eastern Europe
2002 - Florida
2002 - Ireland, London
2002 - Newport Sailing
2002 - San Diego
2002 - Southeast Asia
2003 - Door County
2003 - Grapefruit League
2003 - Lutsen
2003 - San Francisco
2004 - Cuba

Congrats, Jeff, on a smooth transition to moveable type. Hope to see some pics soon!

You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

"A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other's language. However, after illness you became a tad unstable. When a raving lunatic ran up to your entourage spouting an incoherent prophecy of doom, you were unsettled enough to slaughter four of your best men when a page dropped a lance. Your hair and nails fell out. At a royal masquerade, you and your courtiers dressed as wild men, ending in tragedy when four of them accidentally caught fire and burned to death. You were saved by the timely intervention of the Duchess of Berry's underskirts.

This brought on another bout of sickness, which surgeons countered by drilling holes in your skull. The following months saw you suffer an exorcism, beg your friends to kill you, go into hyperactive fits of gaiety, run through your rooms to the point of exhaustion, hide from imaginary assassins, claim your name was Georges, deny that you were King and fail to recognise your family. You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals. Passing briefly into erratic genius, you believed yourself to be made of glass and demanded iron rods in your attire to prevent you breaking.

In 1405 you stopped bathing, shaving or changing your clothes. This went on until several men were hired to blacken their faces, hide, jump out and shout "boo!", upon which you resumed basic hygiene. Despite this, your wife continued sleeping with you until 1407, when she hired a young beauty, Odette de Champdivers, to take her place. Isabeau then consoled herself, as it were, with your brother. Her lovers followed thick and fast while you became a pawn of your court, until you had her latest beau strangled and drowned.

A severe fever was fended off with oranges and pomegranates in vast quantities, but you succumbed again in 1422 and died. Your disease was most likely hereditary. Unfortunately, you had anywhere up to eleven children, who variously went on to develop capriciousness, great cruelty, insecurity, paranoia, revulsion towards food and, in one case, a phobia of bridges."

So I will marry, get sick, be made a cuckold, off good friends, run around hysterically, pee openly, think I'm made of glass, stop bathing, and eat a lot of pomegranates. The pommies I don't mind.

link from amandicon

Gigli nominated for Top Picture

Along with Dr. Suess' The Cat in the Hat; Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle; From Justin to Kelly; and The Real Cancun

Well, at least for a Golden Raspberry Award.

However, if you're looking for the Hollywood version of awards, you can check out the Oscar nominees here.

The countdown begins!

Fiddler on the rooftop going "heeeeeeyyyyy"

Nadja the violinist with the strong Brooklyn accent and the gruff demeanor. I'd seen the documentary deeming her a "Devil-child." I'd read how critics rebuked her impatient, insistent timing. I knew she would be explosive. But I wasn't prepared for exactly how that would feel like.

She was playing at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. I'd been looking forward to this for weeks. J and I had nabbed 8th row tickets, aisle seats on the left section, center. I avoided drinking beverages a good 30 minutes before so I wouldn't have to sneak away to the ladies' room.

As the orchestra's tuning faded away, she led the orchestra's director on stage. She had a swagger to her walk. Her head, barreling ahead of her body, looked straight into the audience, a half-cocked smile on her face as if to say, "So it's time. Here I am."

The first movement eradicated all the reviews I had read about her. That she was impatient. That she had no regard for the conductor. The piece was composed by Shostakovich, a Russian composer who had written this piece during the Cold War. The first movement was a nocturne. She played with an achingly soft bow-hand and a languid vibrato. Her eyebrows raised and fell, her eyes half-closed and teary though making eye-contact with the conductor the entire time, it was a beautiful intro to the piece.

The next movement was the scherzo. Fast. Irratic. Her fingers flew over the black fingerboard. Her head was bobbing so hard and fast it looked like she being shaken like a rag doll in a tantrum by a 6-year-old. The next movement, andante? can't remember but it was slower, heavier than the scherzo and with a loooong solo. And that solo, wow. With strong confident bow hands, she spread her legs far apart for leverage, looking like a 13th century Highland warrior in the midst of battle. She hunched over her violin, she banged out her solo in an almost possessed fury, though her winks and smiles to the crowd proved she was still in control. A visible piece of horse-hair popped in half as she was playing, and it clung to the glinting bow like a flailing bull-rider on a raging bull. I understood what the reviews meant when they referred to her "demonized" performances. Because she was. She was on fire. Exquisite.

The last movement was slower but the orchestra grew more bombastic. It ended loud and explosive, and three encores later, she waved good-bye and it was time for intermission. And that was it. The next piece was by another Russian guy, Rachmaninoff, and with no Nadja, the music just wasn't the same. [The MN Orchestra's conductor, Osmo, was thrilling still, definitely worth staying for.]

New Political Party Announced

There should be a new political party added to this year's race: the "Anyone-But-Bush" party.

And speaking of that boob, Bush, have you heard about the adult search engine, Booble?



(actually, it's already defunct. Probably shut down by its predecessor, oogle-gay.)

"Disco is to music what the etch-a-sketch is to art."

Happy Chinese New Year! Celebrate by having a fortune cookie.



The disco quote was my fortune. Guess it's better than this one:
"If at first you don't succeed - give up! No use being a fool."

heavy metal in the 14th century

Take the tunes of Black Sabbath, replace the electric guitars with the lute, fiddle and harp, throw in a little Estonian medieval music, and you have Rondellus.



Hey, the music's pretty good too! Link via my boss at work. Really!

wish I could take it like Cho

Margaret Cho received loads of hatemail after a few sites posted her comments from the MoveOn.org ceremony. Most of the emails sent had nothing to do with her political stance; rather, they were juvenile attacks on her weight and race. The senders' email addresses are posted so the opportunity to rage back at their spiteful, racist comments is there. Comments to which Margaret had a wonderful response:

"What they don't realize is that I am untouchable, because I have been hurt so much in my life, nothing hurts me anymore. I have been so rejected that I have come to expect it. I have learned to love that which is meant to harm me, so that I can stand in the way of those who are less strong. I can take the bullets for those who aren't able to. I am a warrior, hard as fuck. None of the hate directed at the honesty I am all about impressed me. They all need to take some lessons in pain and suffering. I thought that their attempts were adorable and I just love them all the more. It is so cute when racist, stoooooopid, right wing windbag cowards try to diss. They don't know shit.

I want to hug them all."

She is strong and she knows how to fight back. That's why I find her incredible.

My first instinct was to email those ignorant fuckers and throw the hatred right back at them. But really, what would reciprocating their filth accomplish? Other than the smug self-satisfaction of pointing out how obtuse they are? It makes me angry. And extremely sad. I'm no stranger to racism, and the only comprehensible thing I can gleam from it is that you can never win a one-sided argument. You can match their hatred word for word, but the only way to really affect them is to share. Share the kind of ignorance and hatred you've had to deal with all your life. Tell them the kind of shit you have to put up with every day. Maybe they'll discover some day that racism and hatred accomplishes nothing except keeping them from knowing some incredibly brave and resilient people.

couchtastic

So last weekend we bought some couches. We only meant to hit Best Buy to pick up a $30 modem. But Wickes Furniture was right next door, beckoning us to come in and sit on all forty-three of their couches.

And so we did.

We bought two couches. They look like this.



Just kidding. They look like this.



In life, they're not as zydeco-looking. The blue is darker than what shows up in the picture. The swirly pillows are solid blue on the other side, so you can flip them over if you're not feeling particularly zippy that day.

Bernie helped us with our credit application. He was sixty-ish and tired-looking. But very nice. I think that's why J and I weren't scared away from the store. Everyone was very friendly and laid-back, letting us browse leisurely, not hovering over us with big, scary grins and commissioned dollar signs winking in their eyes. In fact, it was so pleasant, I thought about writing a letter to the company telling them so. And I wanted to tell them that if wanted more people coming into the store, perhaps they'd consider updating their logo colors from the pink and teal combo (shudder) that screams out "cheap 80's stuff"

to a nice blue and grey or something, no?


But the letter was beginning to sound snarky. Besides, who am I to advise on style? I wear leg warmers. So I didn't.

We got the Scotch-guard treatment. For the fabric, that is. Bernie said it protects the couch fabric from spills, stains, rips and bodily fluids. It even states that verbatim in their 7 Year Upholstered Fabric Protection Program, "Human bodily fluid stains," right above "Pet bodily fluid stains" and "Rips." To clarify, we got the treatment in hopes it'll prevent rips from Milo and Zoe's claws.

The couches will arrive this Saturday. I'm thrilled. Oh, we also bought a kitchen table. I have grand visions of waking up with plenty of time to brew a nice, freshly ground dark roast and chuckling over funny bits in the morning paper all spread out over the gleaming tabletop. Most likely, I'll still be waking up 20 minutes before having to leave and stub my toe on the table leg as I'm blearily heading for the bathroom.

What I should have asked the slightly-heavy-man-in-the-red-suit for Christmas:

I don't know what frightens me more, the actual lamp or the review. Notice the high marks in "Durability."

Gepetto of the Northwoods

I doubt my kitschy plastic snowglobes would ever require his services, but I'd still love to meet America's only snow-globe repairman, Dick Heibel.

Bush in 30 sec. at 7 pm Central

For those following Bush in 30 Seconds, the winning ads will be announced live from the awards show, tonight at 7 pm Central. Lots of familiar faces, host Jeanine Garofalo, Margaret Cho, Chuck D, Al Franken, Moby, Michael Moore, and John Sayles. Should be quite interesting.

The Fate of Middle Earth

is dangling from Jack Black's little hobbit.

noontime emailing

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thu 1/8/2004 12:15 PM
Subject: hey der

Hi, J

How's work? Are you busy? How many times have you hit the spacebar? Where are you going for lunch? What did you overhear on the bus today? How many stops did the bus make before you got to work? Are your socks thin or thick? Did you comb your hair today? When's the last time you flossed? Do you like the new toothpaste/mouthwash combo?

And most importantly, would you like to go http://citypages.com/alist/detail.asp?EID=83306?

Love,
S

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 1:05 PM
Subject: RE: hey der

- Busy, will be her til 7:00
- Yes
- Between 100 and 1000
- Nothing
- I gave a guy a quarter so he could get on, then he talked to a schoolmate about it
- between 5 and 15
- thick
- No
- long time ago
- it's OK, tho it says Scope "flavor" not Scope.
-it looks interesting, when does it start?

luv, j

"I wouldn't do nothing else."

The myth of cat herders has been debunked. See it here.

Friendzied

So J, Z and I geeked out last night by sitting around the computer and listening to iTunes (lots of air drumming going on), and discussed the merits (and faults) of Friendster while shooing the cat away from our wine glasses.

An Ode to Friendster claims Friendster to be the best service ever to be created in the history of mankind. Why? "Because it's a 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week freak show in which your friends and your friends' friends are the stars."

I don't know if it's the BEST, but it IS entertaining.

There is a handy guide to Interpreting Friendster Photos. Here's a sample:



Even Osama has hopped aboard the Friendster freeway.

Why, the term Friendster can now be found in the dictionary!

Are you a Friendster Slut? A Friendster Whore?

Think Friendster sucks? Try Fiendster. Introvertster.

[We agreed that while Friendster is a fun way to pass the time, reaching frenzied and maniacal levels can be dangerous to your mouse-hand.]

mind the ab-solut

I'm still waiting for an Absolut Underground ad. [See Circle line in yellow]

The Lost Children come to Minneapolis

Not only will I get to see City of Lost Children for the very first time this January, I'll get to see it in all its celluloid glory. At midnight. Life doesn't get much better than that.

hair: the long and short of it

For a while now, I've wanted to make a documentary or photo essay on hair and its significance to various ethnicities. I haven't kept up with what's already out there.

PBS's arts show, EGG, has taken an interesting approach to hair. Rather than focusing on a single theme, they have taken a holistic approach: hair as art, hair as a function, and Hair the musical.

There's a documentary on mullets called American Mullet. I didn't know mullets were called "mud flaps."

There's a documentary on trichotillomania, or compulsive hair-pulling. Yowch.

I'd better get my notes together and get a move on. Don't want to let the ideas get too thin or start graying.

insomnia + cable internet connection = cockeyed

Wow, if there was ever a person with an obscene amount of curiosity, creativity and time on their hands, it's this being. To the many whom view this as old news, perhaps you've not seen the latest project. It's raised my appreciation for Jenga.

insomnia + new year = resolutions

Normally, I skip the annual resolution-making. This year,
I thought I'd try something different. I'll make it fun and entirely feasible.

Top 5 New Year's Resolutions (in no particular order)

1) buy more socks
2) dance more, either solo, with boyfriend, or with cats
3) keep my dentist appointments
4) take factory tours (see bologna)
5) pick up knitting or drop my nitpicking, whichever
happens first