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| FROM THE GALLERIES |
Scorponok (scorpion mode) Botch's Collection (2005) |
| I'm A-Twit |
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My wife, Heather, and I were having a pleasant evening together after not seeing each other much for several days. We'd just finished dinner at our favorite fish house and were indulging in a rare dessert, and I happened to be rambling about a friend of mine who I felt was letting me down regarding something he is supposed to be doing. I said something to the effect of "I'm disappointed in him." And then I casually continued to say, with this friend and our mutual acquaintances in mind, "...but then I'm disappointed in everybody."
Heather responded with something like, "But you're not disappointed in me, are you?" And just like that, it was like being told not to think of pink elephants and that's all you can think about -- I couldn't help but think of stupid, meaningless things about her that disappoint me. Now I'm not great at remembering specific words spoken, so forgive me for paraphrasing, but not wanting to be disingenuous I answered something like, "Well, I'm disappointed in everyone, including myself."
"So you're disappointed in me," she says. "Great." And she grew very quiet. With just a few words, dessert was ruined, dinner was ruined, the evening was ruined. She doesn't want to be around me right now and I can't blame her. She doesn't deserve this, and no amount of apology from me is fixing it. It may be true that anyone you know well enough or long enough will disappoint you at some point or in some ways, because that's just the way life is, but Heather is an amazing woman and she didn't deserve to have her husband casually include her in his ridiculous list of "disappointing people."
We needed a dessert to follow the crustaceans at last week's drunken crab-fest. Something with a little Truth, some Justice, and maybe a touch of The American Way. This looks like a job... for Superman Cake!
I cannot recall how my association with Botch the Crab began. As far back as March 1999 he had taken over this website and my online persona with his caustic wit and salty charms. But I cannot recall his invention. I never had an special interest in crabs growing up. When Botch comes up in conversation, the first thing people usually ask is, "Are you a Cancer?" To which I respond along the lines of, "Oh, definitely. Astrologically, too." Unsurprisingly, I've never given a shit about horoscopes and constellations. Nonetheless, I do feel a certain kinship with crabs. I like to armor myself against the world. I like leading with my claws. When given two choices as an ultimatum, I'll often move crabwise to the side instead. And crabs just look cool.
"So why would you eat crabs?" I was asked this over the weekend while sitting down with a bunch of friends to crack, scoop and dig in to some whole crabs. I'd never cleaned and eaten a whole crab before, probably because I don't like touching animals or insects or people or living things in general. (Give me a choice between lying on the sidewalk and lying on the grass and I'll probably take the former.) But crabs are really yummy, and I like to overcome my fears and aversions, so there I was, cleaning, cooking and consuming crustaceans. I would have done live crabs, but that would have involved keeping a half-dozen in my bathtub overnight, and that wasn't going to happen.
I'm trying to finish my will. I'm not dying or anything, I just figured it would be a smart and easy thing to get out of the way. The basics are simple: cremate me, and all my money and possessions go to my wife, Heather. The unexpected difficulty I'm running into is the whole "if my wife does not survive me" part. We're blissfully childless, and I'm not especially close to my family. Who gets my money and stuff?
I tried thinking over my friends and relatives to see if there was someone who I felt most deserving of a sudden influx of cash, but nobody stuck out. I'm not even sure what criteria I should use. Someone who needs it the most, presumably because their situation in life is unfairly more costly than their means? Or whomever I like the most? Whoever is youngest and therefore has "their whole life ahead of them"? It all seems so arbitrary.
This is Natalya. She's one of my best friends in Portland! She's really sweet and really intelligent and kinda crazy and very emotional and a very fun gal. She's an honor-roll psychology student with a thing for goth fashion (and cleavage) and she likes kitty cats and sushi and blueberry vodka with Coke!
Last Christmas everybody was poor, so we decided to do, like, "no money" gifts. Like, making stuff. I wasn't sure what to make. I can make breakfast; I can make a solid argument; but I don't really make "stuff" or "things". But then, with only a week left before Christmas, a musical melody struck me -- well, more of a theme -- and it instantly occurred to me that this was a very Natalya-esque theme (to my mind, at least). A short little piano piece was composed and notated immediately. True inspiration!
Sadly, my compositional vision outstripped my actual performance talent and I could not play the piece well. I figured I had a week to work on it constantly -- and then I practically sliced the tip of my thumb off, severely hampering my ability to practice. On Christmas day I presented her with the score and s-t-u-m-b-l-e-d through the ditty, promising her a recording soon. Well, I underestimated my perfectionism (as well as my poor rehearsal ethic) and it ultimately took me over 5 months to present her with the final recording. But I finally did it! And now, with her permission, I get to share it with you. It's a caprice!
"Natalya"
by Adam Alexander
Heather and I went to our first Yoga class yesterday, Yoga 101. My back is occasionally sore due in part to my overly sedentary lifestyle, and I figured Yoga might be a good remedy. We showed up in loose clothing with out mats, our towels, our water bottles and an open mind.
At first I didn't like it. Then I started to hate it. Then I really fucking hated it. After an hour, it was finally over -- that was the only good part.
Just what is a reasonable amount of money to spend on collectibles? It's a question that I imagine most every collector must ponder at some point or another, and it's a difficult one for me to answer. By their very nature, collectibles are not necessary items. Whoever recently bought Action Comics #1 for $1,500,000 did not need to do so any more so than the collector who drops $10 at Walmart for the latest Star Wars figure. Toys seem to be considered important, if not essential, for children -- "play" is an important part of development -- but while that impulse transitions for most adults into sports or video games or fishing, some of us never outgrow our love of childish things. But even that explanation is too simplistic, since few adult collectors "play" with their collections; I don't know any adult Transformers fans that spend hours rolling cars and jets around making "vroom! vroom!" and "ptchoo! ptchoo!" noises. No, there are other psychological factors in play, like perhaps hoarding, or reclaiming lost childhood. Who can say? Everyone is different. But whatever reason compels a grown man (or woman) to continue buying toys (or stamps or coins or Elvis memorabilia), there remains for each one the simple question: How much money am I willing to spend on this?
Is there such a thing as a "reasonable" amount? If so, how do you calculate that? A percentage of one's income? Speculation on resale value (assuming one ever actually plans on selling one's collection)? How "in control" are you as a collector? The truth is I don't think that any collector can answer these questions completely, and the motivations behind toy collecting are especially nebulous. The reasonability of a superfluous purchase does seem to scale up or down based on one's amount of disposable cash, but that's a no-brainer: the more money you make, the more frivolous expenditures that you (and those who observe you) can justify.
I've got to stop reading the comments that readers leave on online news stories. It's pointless and frustrating and rarely has any redeeming or constructive value. Whether it be about the Tea Party movement, or abortion laws, or separation of church and state, or police brutality... it doesn't matter. The commenters are most likely going to polarize along predictable conservative/liberal lines, and the conversation (such as it is) will offer little or nothing substantive to the topic. What you will get is lots of insults, name-calling, and tired rhetoric. I'd publish examples, but all you really have to do is go to any news site that allows comments and you can see for yourself. (In my case, it's CNN.com and OregonLive.com)
I guess the two things that bother me the most are the sheer hatred that gets spewed and the lack of any interest in being open-minded and potentially educated on a topic. This is just symptomatic of how polarized the country has been for the last decade or so, of course, but it seems that the anonymity of the internet really brings out the worst in people. For some commenters, you get the sense that they're filled with palpable anger about current affairs, but as they feel impotent to do anything about it in the real world, online commenting at least gives them an audience to bear the brunt of their frustration. Others just seem to have an unswerving agenda to advance and no other platform in which to do so. And of course there are some people who just enjoy being mean and insulting -- a troll, if you will -- and there's no more potent pot to stir than the news.
It started back when we lived in NYC: the majority of our apartment was decorated and stylized by Heather, but I had a sanctuary, a space, a room that was filled with All Things Adam. There was my computer desk, my various musical instruments, and of course my bookcases of Transformers. I took to calling it The War Room in the spirit of Doctor Strangelove. By the time we left our railroad-style Brooklyn digs, the War Room was over-flowing.
When we moved to Portland I took the spare bedroom as my office and delighted in the wealth of breathing room my collection had gained. As the Classics line multiplied and the Animated line hit stores, I resorted to putting up shelves to host the figures, while off-setting the increased geekiness with more macabre imagery.
But my collection-displaying woes were not what was actually concerning me. Since my desktop computer was in that room, it meant that I was too often segregated from my roomie, my partner in life, my blushing bride. After all, what reason had she to join me in my plastic "man cave"? How can we share what we're watching or reading or playing if I'm ensconced and secluded in the War Room?
Wow, it's been a while since I've stayed up until 2am coding improvements to this site, but that's exactly what I ended up doing. What can I say, now that my back is feeling better, I'm really in a coding mood. I'll probably feel like shit tomorrow. Anyway, let me tell you what I did this evening.
My primary goal was to create tools that made it as easy as possible for you, dear reader, to be alerted whenever there have been new posts or new replies on this site that might interest you. I know it can suck to re-visit a website frequently without finding anything fresh, or likewise to come back after a month and realize that you've missed a lot of updates and discussions that would have interested you. So here's what you can do now...
When you drop a penny, do you pick it up?
For many Americans today, the penny is practically beneath notice. It is literally near-worthless. Many consider it a "nuisance" coin and there are efforts to eliminate it. For all but the most penniless among us, one cent spotted on the sidewalk is simply not worth the fleeting time and effort it would take to scoop it up into one's pocket. There also exists the notion that stooping to grab a penny up off the ground is a sign of excessive poverty or greed, neither of which are admirable qualities. After all, only beggars and children scoop pennies out of the dirt and grime, right?
But is the same pride that one displays by ignoring littered change at odds with the respect that we are all supposed to have for money? After all, it's a virtue to "understand the value of a dollar." Ostentatious luxury is often derided, as is overly careless or extravagant spending (though most secretly envy the wealthy and would be just as careless and extravagant if given the chance). In truth, most people's attitude toward money is strongly dependent on how much money they actually have at their current stage in life; the more money one makes, the larger the sum that can be allowed for trivial indulgences.
What the hell is up with the dentist? I mean, who the hell wants to be a dentist. Frankly, I don't get it. Why would you want to stare at this all day?
OK, this should be a straightforward post. Basically, just in case anyone reading this still thinks otherwise, I want to emphasize that American law is not based on the Ten Commandments. The fundamental root of American law is based on liberty, freedom and -- like most the world -- the golden rule of "do unto others as you would have done unto yourself". Not religion. Don't believe me? Let's look at the Ten Commandments:
"I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me." -- Well, it's certainly not a law in America that you have to believe in the Judeo-Christian god. You can believe in Zeus if you want.
I love lists. I love them. I love itemization, quantification, prioritization. I love efficiency and thoroughness and accomplishment. I try to resist absent-mindedness, forgetfulness and especially slothfulness, and lists help me do that. Online lists of music recommendations compete with the stack of CDs on my desk; a small collection of to-watch DVDs are outgunned by my Netflix queue. To-read books are a foot thick, to-read comics as long as my arm. Emails that need attention are starred or labeled PRIORITY or both.
But it's my personal To-Do list that intimidates and exhilarates me. Historically I've maintained several lists in several places, presumably because I just jot down reminders on whatever's handy, electronic or otherwise. Now I'm trying to keep everything in my Google Tasks list, accessible on iGoogle, Google Calendar, and Chrome extension. Gawk in horror as I share some of these items with you. :)
As you may have discerned from the dispassionate tone in my earlier posts regarding buying a home, I was never in love with the house we had found. It fit all the necessary criteria, to be sure, but it just didn't resonate with me. Nonetheless, I was fully committed to securing the place and spending at least the next few years there. But none of that matters anymore, because after inspections and sewer scopes and soil samples and a multitude of addendums, we ended up withdrawing our offer on the house. But let me tell you why.
The fault lies primarily with Bank of America's mortgage lending department, which is completely fucked-up, disorganized and unreliable.
Certain services will tell you that there's an art and enterprise to Search Engine Optimization, or "SEO" as it is termed in shorthand. In layman's terms, if you're not at the top of Google's search results for your desired keywords, you're just not in the ballgame. In my experience as a front-end web developer for various companies, I've certainly had experience with monkeying and massaging pages for better search result placement, but I will tell you now what Google will tell you themselves: the best way to have high placement in their results is to simply have straightforward text content that is, in truth, what people actually want to read when they type in their keywords. With this site, I don't try to "hack" my way to the top of Google's page-ranking, and this honest reciprocity lets me take pride when this site or pages within it place first in various searches. Most notable among these first-place wins is "transformers art" (which points to the Transformers Box Art Archive, of course), but I felt similarly rewarded when I learned that "classic video game screensavers" and "donkey kong screensaver" points to my page of downloadable screensavers that I created.
Sometimes, though, this success with search result placement can have unforeseen consequences. Such is now most notably the case with my "Fuck You, eBay" blog post from last year. It would seem that my rant is placing very high in searches for "fuck you ebay" and the like, and it is receiving a steady stream of comments from disenchanted eBay users looking to vent their frustrations.
Forgive me. Life has been odd and a little intense lately.
While I must be the least excited prospective first-time home owner I've ever encountered, I am still committed to this busy and frustrating project. You meet and greet a flurry of new documents almost every day, more inspections, new concerns, daunting monthly payments. It weighs on the mind.
At my job I'm currently in the midst of what might be the most daunting and involved architectural software revision I've undertaken in the last two years. It progresses surely but slowly, a little every day, but I have an imminent and looming deadline. It weighs on the mind.
I have learned a lot of things in the past few days. For example, I have learned that when you tell people you have found a house that you intend to buy, you shouldn't be surprised if the homeowners in the group begin to glow with excitement, asking you tons of detailed questions about the place, offering various nuggets of home-buying wisdom, and generally acting very similar to how parents do when they meet some nice couple that is pregnant with their first child. They gush. It caught me by surprise, not because I'm childless, but because I have been, by comparison, much more cavalier about the whole process. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Today, after an extended search of a whopping two weeks, we put in an offer on a house we toured yesterday. Toward the end of the day we were informed that the sellers had accepted our offer. Very soon, Dollface and I will officially be homeowners.
Don't get me wrong: I know that, all things considered, I am a fortunate fellow. Ten fingers and ten toes, as they say. I don't have any life-threatening diseases, I'm not deformed or notably disabled, and I have a natural intellect that enabled me to stumble into a nice career in web development. That said, I have always been amazed that I seemed to get the short end of the genetic stick from both my parents.
My father has perfect teeth, a thick head of hair and a full mustache, is naturally strong without ever exercising, and had perfect eyesight until he needed reading glasses in his fifties. I did not inherit any of this. Instead, I got my mother's extreme near-sightedness (I started wearing glasses in 7th grade), poor orthodonture (braces really sucked), and unimposing physique. I can hardly grow a beard much better than my mother, either. But I did get some traits from my father, such as poor colonic and prostate health, and one new one that's just now starting to creep up on me: a GUT.
I'm an atheist, and a dedicated one. That is to say, I am fully convinced by experience and all the available evidence that religion is a man-made invention, and that all existing religions are factually inaccurate and examples of wish-fulfillment. While this conviction may influence my overall worldview and my feelings towards things such as life, death, sex, reproduction, marriage, government and education, it doesn't really play into my day-to-day life. I mean, I don't actually steal or kill or rape or lie or inflict cruelty on people or animals. See, 'cause I'm a fucking human being, a social animal, and regardless of whether or not one thinks one's consciousness travels to another plane upon death or not, we're all still in the same society, interacting and relying upon one another. In fact, I live by the very practical belief that my life is easier when surrounded by happy people, and therefore I try to increase -- or avoid decreasing -- the happiness of others around me.
What I find so damn funny is the notion that the majority of Americans nonetheless consider the atheist to be one of the absolute worst things a person can be! Check out this chart from a 2007 New York Times article on religion and elections:
Some of the following statements are true. Others are not. I leave it for you to decide.
Fabulously wealthy, he was given free reign to indulge every unusual whim, many of which were an attempt to reclaim the childhood he felt he lost. He built a zoo and an amusement park to entertain children at his Neverland Valley Ranch. He hideously reconstructed his face in an attempt to erase the perceived ugliness his father cruelly teased him for. Worsening things, he developed the skin-discoloration disease vitiligo, which further eroded his self-image; in the ultimate attempt to hide it, he took drugs which removed all his pigment, effectively whitening one of the most famous black men in America. He then became addicted to the post-operative pain-killers, an addiction that blossomed and stayed with him all of his life.
Have you found Jesus? I feel like I left him at your place last time I was there. Have you looked on top of the refrigerator? I might have left him up there while I was stealing your money. He's a short, bearded white guy in a robe. He's probably raising his hands aloft like he's playing with a small air balloon or something. Listen, if you find him, can you just put him aside and I'll pick him up next time I'm at your place? I'll bring the Marduk and Tiamat that you lent me.
Sometime in the last year or so I started reading The Agitator, a blog by a libertarian journalist named Radley Balko that deals primarily with police misconduct, the drug war, and civil liberties. I find the site extremely compelling because I care a great deal about all of these issues and share Balko's views on ending the drug war, not sacrificing liberty for security, and greater accountability of the police force. I am an anti-authoritarian, and I believe that so long as my actions do not bring harm to others, the government and the police should not be telling me what to do or how to live my life. With all that said, I am nonetheless surprised by just how angry I become when reading about the various injustices Balko brings to my attention.
But the part I want to mention in particular is police misconduct. Let me tell you a little anecdote from my youth. It's about a day in middle school when I was arguing with one of the class bullies that blessed our little institution. For some reason, circumstances were such that no punches could be thrown, so I had an uncommon opportunity to simply argue with him. At one point I asked what he intended to do with his seemingly worthless life. He replied, "I'm going to be a cop, just like my Dad!" It immediately became clear to me that this bully would grow up to become a complete asshole of a cop, reveling in the sanctioned authority he would wield over everyone else. I imagined his father -- who was doubtlessly also a bully, because bullies are typically bullied into existence by their bully fathers -- this father was probably already one of those asshole power-trip cops. After all, what decent cop who truly believed his duty was to protect and serve would raise such a mean-spirited, petty and unkind son? This was the moment when I realized that not all police officers are epitomized by goodwill toward their fellow man.
Every since I was a boy, I have always had problems swallowing pills. Chalk it up to my narrow throat: I am not built with girth like Godzilla, I'm more lanky like the Cloverfield monster. Pills just tend to get stuck in my throat, which we either know -- or can at least imagine -- is an uncomfortable experience. I usually try to swallow pills with orange juice or something carbonated because something about the extra "body" of the beverage helps them go down more easily than with thinner liquids like water.
("Heheheh.... you said 'go down'... hehehe...")
I know, it's been three weeks. I just haven't been in a "blogging place." Let me catch you up.
Um. Well, I got a cavity filled. As in a tooth, not butt sex. I'm not into that.
On Friday night I hosted my second Transformer-fan poker game in my kitchen. I met most of the local Portland-area Transformer fans through the Oregon Transformers Sightings board, but one guy actually found me through this site. Hooray! I always invite a couple non-Transfans both to fill seats and to help us plastic toy addicts keep perspective.
It's a great time, really. It's only a $10 buy-in on a friendly Texas Hold 'Em cash game. Everybody gets drunk on their booze of choice, while snacks and some assorted TFs are on the table for idle hands. Smoke breaks double as a chance to show off my most recent acquisitions. Good times.
We alternated between two different novelty decks to speed up shuffling and dealing time. What do you think of my choices (below)?
Cleaning out the kitchen utensil drawers, Dollface said something to the effect of: "I'm going to throw out this cookie cutter. We're never going to use it." I assured her I would, and I would do so making first use of my new Field Guide to Cookies. So I did. They turned out OK, I think. I brought them to work:
I don't much like to hang up my outdoor wear when I return home. Closets are dumb. I'm more of a toss-it-wherever kind of guy. But considering how many different and varied layers I wear for the erratic Portland weather, my "wherever" pile of coats and sweatshirts was becoming large and unwieldy, stretching across multiple chairs, the floor, onto Transformers and cats. So I compromised and installed some hooks on the inside of my office door!
three stylish dark brass hooks
I have convinced my band, I Disagree, to start learning and performing some cover songs. In addition to being great crowd-pleasers, a well-chosen cover hones our musicianship skills. It's an exercise in learning and interpreting someone else's parts, as well as crafting the song's dynamic path as a band. And they can be fuckin' fun as hell!
That said, whenever I start examining the vocal lines of prospective covers by our favorite artists, I'm struck by just how many of these rock vocalists are tenors, i.e. the highest singing range a man can have. Nearly every song we/I have considered covering was sung by a tenor, including the works of Tool, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Journey, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, and nearly all of the Beatles.
This weekend Heather and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. Ten years from that first passionate night after which we only had eyes, hands and hearts for one another. We've been married the last 3 of those years, and sure, we celebrate our actual wedding anniversary as well; but since it's our togetherness we want to celebrate, not necessarily the age of our legal recognition, we still mostly count from our first "date". (A very successful date, indeed.)
What's still crazy for me is that, ever since I was a little kid, I was sure of two things: I didn't want to have kids; and I didn't need to ever get married. The no-kids thing is a conviction we both still very firmly share, thank you very much, but I obviously softened on the marriage part. Not that Heather ever pressured me about it. She was much more interested in actual happiness than any ring. No, my mind changed itself without any help. (In fact, the Christmas morning when I popped the question, Heather was so completely taken by surprise, her first reaction was to verify that I wasn't kidding and to make me convince her of my motives and sincerity. She's a great gal.)
Really. Stop having so many babies. Let me explain...
As a web developer, I have acquired a great respect for efficiency, economy, and long-term planning. Most applications may have few or only one real purpose or goal behind its design, but this goal is probably accomplished by lots of tiny tasks and functions all working toward accomplishing the user's objective as swiftly and intuitively as possible. Good code is elegant and clean. If your code is easy to read and well-documented, then another developer who is unfamiliar with the code -- or yourself after enough time has transpired that you've forgotten what you did -- can easily pick it up and parse what it does and how to modify or build upon it. If the same task is performed in multiple places, instead of duplicating your code, you ideally should make only one version and have those multiple instances reference and share it. This is not tech snobbishness or some contest of minimalism; these are proven methods for minimizing bugs (errors) and development time in the long-term.
This appreciation of economical, forward-thinking design guides my life. I have blogged before about how this love of efficiency has recently made me become more of a conservationist. (Plastic is very inefficient in the long-term, for instance.) Thus it should come as no surprise that I was very curious about the topics discussed in The World Without Us, a non-fiction book by Alan Weisman. The book is a thought experiment about what would happen to the world if humanity suddenly vanished, but in exploring this topic it necessarily details at length what changes mankind has already wrought upon the world. If you've guessed that the vast majority of these changes are not very good... well, you'd be right.
The guy in that picture? That's me in exactly 20 years.
HOW DID THEY KNOW?
So, those two inches of snow I mentioned? They turned into a week of on-and-off snow, freezing rain, wind and freezing temperatures, culmintating in a weekend storm that left Portland in a parazyled grip. This northern USA storm was actually top story on CNN.com. My band, I Disagree, had to cancel our Saturday night show. One of my bandmates' car has been stuck in a driveway at the base of an undrivably slippery hill for days. Schools have been closed off and on, and probably will continue to be so this week. Temperatures haven't been above freezing for days.
As a New Yorker and former Pennsylvanian, I realize an ice storm and a foot of snow are not that much to worry about by themselves, but understand that in Portland this is extremely rare, and the city is simply not prepared for it. Many Portlanders say they've never seen the like in their lives.
I am supposed to be out Xmas shopping right now. That was the plan. But we woke up this morning to find that it was snowing here in Portland. A whopping 2 inches is expected! And this has shut the whole city down. What? you say. Two inches shuts the city down? Yup. The city of Portland is considered to have only two seasons: Summer and Rain. Things like snow are so rare, the city is unequipped to deal with it. No plows. No snow tires. The whole town shuts the fuck down.
So here I sit, at home, on the computer, looking on MySpace for local bands to join my band for a gig in January. At least I have some new Transformers to open and enjoy. At least there's food in the house. At least there's still time before Xmas.
Sigh.... Only two inches!
I didn't want to have to settle for the bland Heinz gravy this Thanksgiving, so I made my own this time! (Well, my Mommy helped with some advice over the phone.) First, I took all the giblets from the turkey, consisting of, I think, the heart, gizzard and liver, and diced them up. Then I simmered them in water for 30 minutes (along with the neck for flavoring) and added a lot of salt and pepper. I squirted in some of the basting juice from the turkey pan, added a little flour, and presto! Real gravy! It was super-delicious.
The giblets were perhaps a little over-cooked, though, and I might have added too much salt and pepper. Not that anyone else could corroborate this, because none of our guests would sample my gravy. They were, it seems, put off by watching me dice the offal in the first place. Cowards!
So anyway... If you have any good gravy stories to share, or gravy advice to offer, BotchTheCrab.com is wholly dedicated to this topic from this moment on.
I haven't been very lyrically inspired of late, and perhaps arguably not as musically or compositionally inspired because of it.
Granted, I'm reading Atlas Shrugged, which is, like, twelve million pages long (if a little preachy), and sometimes books can dominate my mental space. I write lyrics in-between when I'm reading things; otherwise what I'm writing may be confused with what I'm reading, in some weird way that only I understand. The point is, mentally, I don't want any steaks or chicken curry on the stove when I'm trying to bake some cookies in the oven.
Yesterday, as we were leaving Burgerville, I spotted a wallet on the ground in the parking lot. Without thinking, Heather and I immediately set about trying to find its owner. Heather tried looking for anyone in the fast food joint or parking lot that resembled the photo in the driver's license, then left a note with the Burgerville staff in case the guy returned. I started rummaging through the wallet looking for any information that might help me track the guy down.
Right away I noticed at least one $100 bill.
Last Sunday had two events that I could not help but correlate insofar as they were great disappointments of what I had hoped to be cool events. I had been looking forward to a gig my band, I Disagree, was scheduled to play down the street at the Hawthorne Theater. It was only a Sunday, but we were finally on the marquee outside! I had printed up several dozen flyers with our logo brazenly displayed for our bassist, Skot, to put up in the area. From the beginning we agreed that flyers did little in the short term to get people to come to gigs, but that through repetition they can help build name recognition and eventually get people to come to one of our shows. Especially if they see our name on a marquee!
But first, I had learned of a comic book convention in Portland that afternoon which was supposed to also feature a lot of toy sellers. Great! Right? Right? Well....
My desk is a total fucking mess. More than a dozen Transformers, another half-dozen smiling little TF Robot Heroes guys, some of this week's comics, CDs, mailing tape, a barely touched bowl of candy corn, papers everywhere...
Fuck it. I have a cold and I know I'm not going to clean this desk until Saturday. So to hell with it, I'm going to throw as much shit on here as I like until then. Party on Adam's desk, everyone's invited, as soon as I find my wallet. Can anyone spot my wallet?
Last night was pretty crazy.
The local theater down our street was screening live election coverage at no admission, so we went there to get some beer and food and be a part of the packed house rooting for an Obama victory. I initially assumed that the atmosphere would be slightly less partisan, but knowing in retrospect that our county had a higher percentage of Obama voters than any other in Oregon explains why it was fully an Obama-centric night.
Finally, finally, this election will soon be over. And then I can stop checking the news every other hour to see if there are any "October surprises" or such. It's great to see that this election is already seeing record early turnout, but I really hope that there isn't any post-election ambiguity like in the last two elections. I really want to be able to say, "It's done. He won. It's over. Let's move forward."
Can you believe there are people who don't really care that much? It boggles the mind.
Who is Chris Mulvey, the self-proclaimed Bastid? The guy who used to date my wife's former best friend? A fellow Transformer fan? A noble and honest police officer? A great lover of trashy underground internet memes? Yes, he's all of these things. I haven't even seen the dude in years. The one time he managed to stop by our Brooklyn apartment, I happened to be so hungover I couldn't even get out of bed, much less show off my TF collection. Yet, through the magic of the interweb, Dollface and I still keep in touch with Chris. He's a class-act.
Bastid, this one is for you. (With apologies to Neil, Burt, Carol, and E.T.)
"Heartlight" performed by Adam Alexander on an out-of-tune piano (Download)
If you're like me and rest of the USA, if not the whole world, you've been rather wrapped up in the current Presidential election. The debates! The smears! The occasional fact-checking! The very historic nature of the whole damn thing! And, if you're like me, it's been a very stressful time. If so, I hope you'll enjoy this little diversion and reminder that there's humor and decency to be found even in all the tension.
Here are Senators Barack Obama and John McCain respectively roasting themselves, each other, and everyone else in sight at last week's Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a black-tie charity fundraising event. Enjoy!
Enter a 9 square foot Slayer "Seasons In The Abyss" poster!
And this is where everything comes full circle. My extensive ruminations on the fine art of lying (part one, part two) began while writing the lyrics for a new song for my band, I Disagree. At the time I was reading Shakespeare's Richard III, whose villainous title character is a consummate and very practiced liar, describing himself as "subtle, false and treacherous" in his very first opening monologue. Here's the tune:
"The Fine Art of Lying" by I Disagree (Download)
A few posts ago I talked about my feelings regarding 9/11 and the current state of America (see "My 9/11 Rant"). The main thrust of the post was urging readers to be more educated and open-minded about their political views, to question the media sound bytes and think critically. I did espouse some traditionally liberal views (like universal health care), but I also advocated some conversative ones (less government intervention in the private sector), as well as many libertarian ones (time to end the war on drugs).
Most of the comments were supportive, but there was one that I found both aggravating and hilarious:
I know, I know. I've been delinquent in attending to your blog-reading needs. I apologize, I've been busy. Band has been rehearsing and writing and gigging. Some freelance stuff. But the thing that kept me most occupied all last week was preparing for my first time hosting a Transfans get-together. I wanted everything to be perfect in its presentation. To this end I did a little redecorating.
You know what? Fuck you, eBay. Yeah, that's right. I'm about done with you.
I was one of your biggest fans. An early adopter. I've been on eBay so long that my handle is 'botch'; not 'botch666' or 'botch_the_crab', just first-come-first-serve 'botch'. And until very recently, I had a 100% feedback rating, thank you very much.
I think you started to suck when too many sellers were withholding their feedback until you left yours, a blackmail, essentially, to insure that you didn't besmirch their rating. Since eBay takes no active hand in policing the feedback system, the old schoolyard "if you tell on me I'll tell on you" thing actually works, and accusation equals guilt.
9/11 didn't really affect me emotionally, I admit. Even though I was actually living in New York City when it happened, and the lives of my wife and my friends were directly impacted, I never had a real personal response. No one I knew died, and loss of life in general does not affect me emotionally, which is a terrible thing to say, but it's true. People are killed, both individually and in large numbers every single day. Armed conflict, suicide bombers, child murderers, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. None of these faceless deaths affect me emotionally, and I would wager that few to none of them affect you as well.
Should I have felt 9/11 more because my hometown was affected? Because they were innocent? Because of the quantity of death? Because my wife watched the towers fall with her own eyes? I can't find any particular reason to mourn the victims of 9/11 more than any other tragic, horrible death that happens all the time, every day. To me it was just one more fucked-up evil in the world, and it's sad and I wish it hadn't happened, but I just can't muster an emotional connection.
All that said, the aftermath of 9/11 has affected me more than the event itself, in particular my attitude toward America and its politics and policies. In the name of combating terrorism, our government has: preemptively invaded another country for the sake of regime change; systematically eroded our personal freedoms; institutionalized warrantless surveillance; propagandized the media; sank into trillions of dollars of debt; eroded our prestigious standing abroad; fueled conservative religious fundamentalism; and politicized 9/11 itself. This is both Republicans and Democrats, by the way; in our two-party system, you need two to tango.
Last week, in celebration of our third wedding anniversary, my wife and I journeyed to Seaside, a small beach where Oregon meets the Pacific. Seated in the nicest restaurant we could find, I watched myself order the most expensive thing on the menu, the Alaskan Red King Crab Legs. ($29.90) They were fucking awesome. Armed with that little shell-cracker tool and that tiny little fork, but mostly using my fingers, I tore that bastard apart. It was the first time in memory I really, really enjoyed the act of eating instead of quietly begrudging it. In fact it was hard to keep up conversation with Heather, I was so distracted with fishing every little possible piece of succulent crustacean meat out of the every joint. Fucking. Awesome.
I often enjoy consuming crab on special occasions. Honoring every literal interpretation of the old adage "You are what you eat", I feel essentially more crab-like, similar to hunters partaking of the heart of the kill in order to absorb their life essence. Except, you know, I didn't catch the crab, I didn't even kill it, clean it or cook it, I just ate the fucker. (I would like to personally cook and clean a nice-sized Dungeness crab myself one day, but I just don't know from whom I would learn this skill, and it doesn't seem wise to just "wing it".)
Last night was my first absinthe experience. I'd never tried it before, but as soon as I became aware that it was now available in Portland, I had to give it a whirl. So we invited a couple friends over, picked up a bottle of Lucid (the best-reviewed brand of absinthe locally available according to reviews by The Wormwood Society), and commited to experiencing its full, mystique-laden embrace.
Though rumored to have a mildly hallucinogenic effect in its past, there's no real proof of this, and modern absinthe does not boast that result. That said, intoxication through absinthe is different than anything I've experienced before. Despite being pretty strong — though you dilute it, it is 124 Proof out of the bottle — it was actually very difficult to become "drunk". Rather, one early on achieves a sort of "lucid" buzz, a clear-headed inebriation that persists. Our first several servings were all traditionally prepared (sugar, slotted spoon, chilled water) before moved on to absinthe cocktails with pineapple juice and 7UP, but it wasn't until our 6th or so serving that we experienced what I would consider "intoxication". Even then, it remained a comparatively bright and un-muddled sensation.
I recommend trying this unique, faintly licorice-like beverage for yourself, both for the flavor and the experience. At $60 a bottle, it's not cheap, but compared to $10-$20 per serving at a bar, a bottle is the right way to go if you're going to do more than just sample. After more than 20 servings between 4 people, we still have about half a bottle left.
Also recommended for the experience: good conversation; vinyl on the turntable; lots of black clothing; 90 degree weather; and shrimp cocktail. Got all that?
Acting is lying. It is the ability to convincingly enact a fabrication. As such, you might imagine that playing the part of a practiced liar would be an easy task for any actor. But we all know that some actors play deceivers better than others.
Was it just coincidence that everything just kept leading back to Andrew J. Robinson?
I have a new sub-hobby that combines my passion for Transformers and music. Ready? I drive around town, blaring music (usually something with loud distorted guitars), going from Target to Toys'R'Us to WalMart looking for new Transformers figures. The music part is almost unfailingly fun, lately consisting of a lot of classic Thrash or Sludge; it's the toy acquisition component that too often disappoints. I believe this is because of a vast conspiracy called Code: Adam, the sole purpose of which is to keep me driving in circles, with no tangible reward, for reasons unknown.
The first thing I do before going out is to consult the Oregon Transformers Sightings message board, which is mostly populated by Portlanders. Here, deceivers with handles like autobotguy, Katamari Prime, and dragontron88 mislead me with tantalizing tidbits like "Grimlock spotted at Mall 205 Target!" or "New Classics found at Clackamas TRU!". But of course when you go to Mall 205 Target, the Dinobot commander is not to be found. Clackamas TRU has no Classics at all. They're liars, all of them. They're all in on it. Fuckers.
I'm ready to tell you about the band I am singing for, because we finally settled on a name I love: 
Our 6-song self-produced demo is now available for listening and downloading from our MySpace page (myspace.com/idisagreeband), or you can just download the entire "I Disagree" demo as a zip file. (UPDATE: We finished an album. Go listen to it and buy it.)
Go listen! Add us as a "friend"! All that shit. Also, feel free to take a stab at describing what kind of music we are. I plan on stickering demos with this description: For fans of Soundgarden, Tool, Alice In Chains, or System of a Down. Maybe. No one who's heard us thinks that's an unfair description by association, but they are less quick to agree when I suggest that our genre is grunge. Apparently, "grunge" has some stigma for some. Well, in my opinion, if grunge can encompass Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, then we're in there. That said, I'm eager to hear what others think.
Long-time readers may remember that I once displayed and discussed a vintage Transformers birthday card featuring the box art for Hubcap (erroneously labeled "Bumblebee"). Well, Prial got his hands on a half-dozen of this same line of vintage birthday cards and was good enough to scan them for me! While they all feature a character's box art, because of the low print quality only the character art for Galvatron and Cyclonus was an improvement over what we already had in the Archive. Still, that's a nice bonus! Thanks much, Prial.
Since it actually happens to be my birthday today, I am especially pleased to share the rest of these cards with you. See if you can notice the subtle psychological lesson revealed by careful study of these cards:
My recent fascination with deception started with a game played at a Halloween party called Werewolf. If you're not familiar with the game, it basically involves everyone closing their eyes ("night has fallen") while one or two secretly determined "werewolves" kill off one of the other players (the "villagers"); with each subsequent "dawn", the victim is revealed, at which point the villagers point fingers and make accusations as to who is secretly a werewolf while the actual werewolves maintain their innocence. Everyone selects and "kills" someone they all to believe to be a werewolf, at which point that person reveals whether they were really a villager (oops!) or actually a predatory man-wolf (gotcha!). Then repeat. The game is essentially about lying — at least if you're the predator.
The odds are against the hunters: it's 2 against 10, and no one else has to pretend. Consider the endgame: if you're the last werewolf, and there's only two villagers left, you still have to convince at least one of them to vote for the other instead of you, over the desperate objections of that innocent villager. That Halloween night, our first time playing, I actually won as the werewolf. Two games in a row. Thus was my curious interest in lying reignited.
I actually consider myself to be something of a single-minded person. Sure, like everyone else, there's always in actuality a lot going on, but I have a tendency to become focused (obsessed) on one project at a time. Right now, though, I'm kind of in the middle of a few things simultaneously. I'm enjoying it.
For instance, I'm teaching myself Beethoven's "Für Elise" (mp3). I'm sure you know it. My 'starter' piano is still not perfectly in tune — it probably never will be — but after a recent re-tuning, it's close enough that I can play a bagatelle or minuet without cringing overmuch.
Did you know that if you search for "classic video game screensavers" or "donkey kong screensaver" on Google, you get the "Classic Video Game Screensavers" post on this site where I posted my self-made screensavers for Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, and Pac-Man? Well, it's true. Anyway, last night I finally posted the last screensaver I had constructed at the time: Xevious, the original vertical-scrolling shooter! Go visit that post if you want to download it and read instructions on how to install it.
I have a history of creating for myself certain things that I sought online but surprisingly could not find. (In truth, the whole Transformers Box Art Archive is a result of this inclination.) I also appreciate it when others post their similar efforts. Below are a couple audio files (WAV format) that I either created from disparate sources or were surprisingly difficult to locate because of bad tagging. Many of these I have used for when I log in or out of Windows.
There was Heather's 30th birthday, which had me in tatters for lack of a seemingly adequate way to celebrate the event. Skydiving? Horseback-riding? Alcohol poisoning? In the end we went with the wonderfully simple option of spending the day together and buying her lots of cool stuff, like roller skates, Joni Mitchell albums, and a treadmill. She can tell you all about it.
Then there was the dog dropped off by a remote acquaintance who was being extradited back to New York to face drunk driving charges. She can tell you all about that one, too.
Me? I've been fighting a cold. And researching the candidates for the Oregon primary election. And stupidly taking on a little freelance web work. And negotiating a new lease with my apartment management company. And trying to get my piano re-tuned because the first place is ignoring me or something.
Years ago, I accompanied my friend Mike to the Sears optometry department where his father was buying him his first pair of contact lenses for his 16th birthday. If you've never had the experience, it should be known that the first time you receive contact lenses the optometrist places them in your eyes for you, then teaches you how to insert and remove them yourself. This is a naturally awkward experience, docilely allowing some stranger to put foreign objects in your eyes. For some it's not so bad; Mike had a less-than-ideal time.
My first experience was private, tucked away in a back room of the eyewear facility, discreet, clinical and intimate. If it was a porno, and the women was my age, it would have been perfect for an illicit encounter, a cheesy porn with myself cast as the young stud, newly reborn without the offending spectacles, like Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love. My friend Mike was not so fortunate: a middle-aged, frumpy and impatient women presided over his rite of passage right in the middle of the shop, on display for anyone and everyone, including Mike's father and I. Nor was she reassuring, understanding or sympathetic to Mike's obvious difficulty with the stated task of staring wide-eyed, unafraid and unblinking, as an umfamiliar finger with inappropriately-long painted nails made made a beeline for his naked and defenseless eyes. Horrified and horribly amused, I could do nothing but cover my mouth and stifle a giggle at this optometric lunacy.
But what really got me, and this is the whole point of this post, is when she unhelpfully chided: "Listen, you control your eyelashes, they don't control you."
I've been pissing a lot. More... much more than I should be. And sometimes, no matter how often I go, I have this odd feeling that I should go again, even if there's not much there. Like eating Chinese food and still being hungry. So I took a little trip to the urologist yesterday to sort this little matter out. After an introductory discussion, the diagnostic session began with an ultrasound, which, being a guy, is something I never expected to ever have, and it determined that, yes, I'm successfully emptying my bladder. Draining the bucket. Loosing the juice.
Next comes the prostate exam. If you'll remember, I've recently had some experience with this. Well, apparently the first doctor was being gentle, or maybe my prostate was just having a good day, because this new exam HURT LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. And made me feel as if I had to go pee-pee. This, apparently, is because I have some mild form of prostatitus. My irritated prostate fools me. My deceptive, self-absorbed, evil prostate is the culprit. Fuck you, prostate! Now I have to start experimenting with drugs that will either cure the condition or at least teach my prostate a little fucking respect. 
But on a more positive note, I finally got Blurr, the motormouth Autobot data courier, who probably has never experienced any difficulties with his prostate at all. Yay! See, it all evens out. Let's try another...
I became an uncle over the weekend. It wasn't anything I personally accomplished, of course, it happened through no effort of mine. It was a title bestowed on me in absentia, on the opposite coast, through the labor of a young woman whom I have never even met.
I can honestly say that becoming an uncle was never a goal of mine or something that I aspired to, but neither did I object to it. Statistically, with three siblings, the odds were in favor of it happening at some point in my life; even if I had died in a (statistically unlikely) boating accident years before, I would probably have been considered an uncle posthumously. An inevitable uncleship, is what I'm saying.
Throughout most of my life, I have been very untouched by environmental concerns. See, if you don't have any interest in children, and you believe that your involvement with the world ends with your death, then what is the point of conservationism? Disposable planet for me! I've never been a nature buff, either — I dislike being around trees and bugs and sticky wet unsexy things — so what's my incentive to live green? Virtually none, from that perspective.
However, I have of late become something of the amateur environmentalist. I recycle avidly. I bought some reusable cloth bags for grocery shopping, and I save plastic bags to return and recycle there when possible. When things are broken, I try to fix them instead of re-purchasing them. Generally, I prefer buying second-hand items to new, such as CDs and books. Whenever possible I try to sell unwanted things (comic books, cat water fountains, memory cards) either on eBay or to a local store, even if I know it won't make very much money, because I'd rather it continue to be used by someone than go straight to the landfill.
I have become one of those environmental pussies. But why?
My first real piano. It's a starter piano, very used, a little beat up, it won't be tuned for another couple of weeks, but it plays nice and it's mine. Now when I hear the upstairs neighbor's new dog clickity-clack-running around, or the guitar studio in front practicing "Hey Joe" for the zillionth time, I can think to myself, "Jus' you wait, muthafuckas. Beethoven p'ano waltzez in tha crib, an' shit!"
Sometimes, force is the best option. I'm specifically referring to fitting all the cardboard in the recycling bin, but it holds true across a range of topics.
I'm working on a song now about how, given the option, I would rather not have to eat, drink, sleep, piss, shit, or breathe. I don't typically enjoy these activities in proportion to the amount of effort and/or time that I invest in them. To me, they are just means to an end, that being the continuation of my life for purposes of self-improvement and recreation. I wish I could just omit them. Or maybe just save them all for one big Sunday night session of gorging and excreting. One big meal and one solid shit per week. Wouldn't that be delightfully efficient?
What a fucking rush! -- I just this very minute won on eBay the last Dinobot I needed, Swoop, in great condition with nice stickers, and complete with all accessories, even his instructions and tech spec. And I got him for about 25% below his normal selling price! I'm so pleased.
The rush comes from sitting there in the auction's final moments, hitting refresh every few seconds to see if anyone has outbid me. My pulse was racing, blood was pounding in my ears, my palms and pits moistening with fresh cold sweat. It's very exhilarating.
In truth, though, I kind of hate it because it all stems from sniping, which I loathe. (I bid over two minutes before auction's end, a compromise between my hatred of sniping and the reality of its existence.) In a traditional live auction, once the bidding starts it continues until no one else comes forward. In my opinion, eBay auctions should be configurable with the option to extend the deadline if bids continue to be placed. For example, if there's less than 2 minutes left on an auction and a new bidder sets a new high bid, the auction should automatically extend its remaining time to 5 or 10 minutes minutes from that last, highest bid. Make sense?
Can anyone recommend a good online news site? CNN.com has become too... pandering. Too many front-paged Britney Spears stories, or Odd News, or other populist crap.
I like the impartiality of Google News, in which news stories and their prominence are agregated and prioritized automatically from around the web, but I actually miss the absence of editorial guidance. I want someone to manually (but still impartially) steer me towards the news of real merit.
I tried the BBC America news, but it's too dry. I love the matter-of-fact presentation of BBC News on television, but online I want them to take some advantage of the web's multimedia capabilities.
So I want something serious, editorially-selected, impartial, and dynamic. Anybody got any suggestions?
My latest tattoo. Like my other three tattoos, this one retains my themes of Solid Blackness and Geometric Simplicity. I designed it myself in Adobe Illustrator. I knew I wanted a black armband tattoo for a while, but it took some time for the exact meaning/significance and visual details to become fully realized in my mind.
It's been some time since I've blogged. Honest, I've just been really busy. But let me share, in piecemeal fashion, some events and items of the last couple weeks. You don't mind, do you?
Most prominently, Dollface and I were visited for several days by a very good friend of ours from New York City, a man known as Ethan. Once described in song as "somewhere in-between a mafioso and a teddy bear," Ethan also hazily inspired what is definitely one of my favorite Brompton's Cocktail songs, "Ethan In Space". Doll and I were both in his wedding, actually. Anyway, I was pretty much constantly inebriated during his 5-day stay, but I still managed to do some things...
It's about Thoroughness. Completionism. Pride. It's about setting standards for the things you collect and adhering to them. It's why all my Black Sabbath vinyl albums are contemporary pressings and not reissues. It's why I collected Walter Simonson's Thor comic run in single issues, but Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX run in trade (rather than mixing and matching.) And it's why all my toys have, or should have, all their weapons, parts, accessories, or whatever. It makes them whole and fully realized. Even if some of those guns and stuff aren't in the best shape, they nonetheless add character simply by their presence.
That's why, after a two-year search, I'm so glad I finally procured an extra shackle for my Snake Mountain to replace the broken shackle-stub that arrived embedded in the playset. Doesn't Man-E-Faces look so much happier now that both wrists are bound instead of just one?
Actually he doesn't seem happier at all.
Having grown up in the suburbs, I didn't really experience street-corner panhandling until I went to college in the District of Columbia. I had what I believe is for city newcomers a typical progression in my response:
But no one likes a ranter. How about a laugh? Here, check out this calendar I spotted in the window of a bait & tackle shop in Coos Bay near the Oregon Coast:
You can't make this shit up. You know you want one.
Naming a band is hard. Oh sure, if you don't much care you can totally pull anything out of thin air as a band name, like Cripplesmith, or Teddy Pentagram, or Writing A Letter To Grandma. But I want a band name that is actually representative of the music and the personnel that is creating it. Something completely unique, yet easily remembered by people in an elevator pitch. In truth, you really have to be unique these days, because if you even suspect your idea might already be in use, chances are that you're right. The internet has killed any mutual ignorance that might existence between two bands in two different parts of the world that might share the same name. The struggle to be unique is greater than ever.
My band played its first show over the weekend under our working band name, but they are asking me to brainstorm new ones. They like my song titles (like "Zombie Apocalypse", "Outracing Nova", "Your Mephistopheles") and they are hoping I can come up with something equally clever... preferably this week. I had suggested "The Fate of All Men", but while they liked it, they thought is was overly dramatic and not fun enough. I had to agree. What now?
I don't need suggestions — I wouldn't use them anyway. But what was the most difficult time you ever had naming something? Your cat? Your novel? Your pet name for your private parts?
There is simply not enough time to do everything I want to do. I must learn Japanese. I must finish writing those two songs. I must teach myself PHP by recoding and updating starriors.com. I must read this book on massage (called The Book of Massage). I have a whole stack of books in my to-read queue. I have things to sell on eBay. I have to save money to open a comic book store. I have to resist the urge to buy Fortress Maximus. I have to pay off my car.
When am I going to get those tattoos? (Next month.) When am I going to finish reading Doctor Faustus? (Next decade, apparently.) When am I going to hang out with people and get drunk? (This weekend.)
A year or two ago when it happened to come up in conversation, my bride insisted that men should start getting regular prostate examinations when they turned 40 years old, and that I should be no exception. Being a practical person, and seeing how that age was still almost a decade away, I saw no reason to argue. "Sure," I said. "It seems to me that turning 40 is on par with getting a little fucked in the ass." Little did I know I would not actually get to wait that long.
See, over the holiday I learned that my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Caught in the very early stages as it was, it seems that it will be operable with a good chance of full recovery. But add to this the fact that his father was killed by colon cancer, and that I seem to have inherited my unimpressive gastrointestinal system from both men, everyone agreed that I should be especially on the lookout for this cancer of the bowels. And wouldn't you know, having recently reacquired health insurance, I had already scheduled an introductory check-up visit with a Portland doctor. What a coincidence! It was suggested that, perhaps, so long as I'm scheduled to visit a doctor anyway, why not ask him to inspect my asshole?
A kitbasher with the suggestive handle of Viagra Prime was so inspired by the digital Botch renders at Iacon City that he decided to build a real, size-accurate, transforming version of it. He would want me to remind you that he's still awaiting some stickers to finish it up, but yo, here are the preliminary pics:
One of the strengths of the relationship Heather and I have is that we have so many things in common. We like a great many of the same things, to varying degrees, like comic books, horror movies, Doritos, the internet, the Beatles, cats, sloppy joes, reading.... and making lists.
We love to make lists and organize things. Heather spent her day off today making lists. She ordered and properly labeled her MP3's of My Favorite Husband. She arrived at the comic book store with her list of books to buy, composed in Microsoft Excel using an ornate and well-considered font, sorted by book format, issue number, and price (with a computed tally at the bottom). This list was printed, trimmed to pocket size and consulted regularly. Now she is organizing her comic collection, which includes printing thumbnail-sized images of the each series' first issue, which is then used to make a divider tab so that she can easily locate each series. Note that she rarely re-reads her comics, and thus rarely has a need to find any particularly series quickly, but if she did, the search would be short and efficient.
I don't know about you, but when I'm hungover after an evening of heavy drinking (and maybe a little purging), I like to spend the next day curled up on the couch watching movies that are familiar, moderately enjoyable, and of almost no substance whatsoever. I want something that doesn't require any effort or thought on the part of the viewer, or even necessarily all of one's attention. For this reason, the various Star Trek: The Next Generation movies are absolutely perfect.
We actually own all four ST:TNG movies on VHS. We purchased the first three all on VHS — cheaply — and for completion's sake Dollface wanted to buy the last one, Nemesis, on VHS as well. But I absolutely refused to pay even one more dollar for that failed, ridiculous and monumentally disappointing finalé to the series. However, late one night when we were walking home to our Brooklyn apartment, I stopped near a small park and directed my wife's attention to a lone VHS tape lying discarded on the edge of the sidewalk near some untended shrubbery. I pointed and said something to the effect of, "That is exactly the price I am willing to pay for that movie." In one gesture, Heather picked up the unwanted item and completed our collection.
Yes, I'm in a little bit of a funk. We're still... recouping... from the holidays, and they're not even quite done yet. Broke and unmotivated, I'm spending my time watching the TF: Headmasters cartoons, which only makes me want to buy more toys I can't afford. It's uncanny! Almost like the show was designed to make me want to buy these toys! I have the majority of the supporting cast (those characters introduced in previous seasons), but the plastic proxies of many principle players in these performances (e.g., the Headmasters) are not currently in my possession. Heart-wrenching, I know.
Music. Transformers. Heather. More Transformers. More Music. Job. Band. Smoking. Drinking.
This is my Portland.
Real blogging will resume shortly. In the interim, we answer the burning question... what would I look like if I lived in Springfield?
(Make your own Groening-inspired avatar here.)
A few years ago, my friend Charlie and I collaboratively imagined an apocalyptic end-of-time good vs evil battle at the turn of the millennium in Times Square between Michael Jackson and Prince. They were magical, you see, arising from beneath the street via some upward spotlight, their unbuttoned shirts whipping furiously in the hurricane-strong winds blowing around them, respectively purple and white auras bathe them, and then a howling match begins.
Hees! and Owawhuhs! and J'mons! and Whoos! and the glass of the giant Coca-Cola display in Times Square would shatter, and then lightning would start shooting from their hands, like two Sith Emperors but slightly less pale, respectively purple and white bolts flying forth, creating lots of bright sparkling explosions not unlike a rock concert or music video. Surprisingly soon, Michael launches into that Haitian-voodoo-possession-except-with-robots dancing thing he does, and this deals several devastating blows to Prince. But Prince whips out that guitar that's shaped like that symbol he was named for a while and he puts it between his legs (like it was his dick, see? get it?) and starts playing these crazy amazing fucking axe licks, crazy stuff, he is a really under-appreciated guitarist, and Prince ends his raunchy solo where he, like, jerks off the guitar. At Michael. Devastating blows.
OK, I just finished uploading an update to the underlying HTML and CSS of the site. Ideally, you shouldn't really notice any difference in the layout of any page, but I made everything a little more streamlined and modern (moving towards tableless CSS). If you do notice any pages that appear whacked, please clear your cache and try to view the page again, since your browser might still be using its stored versions of the old CSS or HTML files. If things are still whacked, please feel free to take a screenshot and send it to Botch@BotchTheCrab.com. That's me. Obviously.
If you're in the blog portion of the site where you can see my right-hand column of recommendations, you may notice that the "Reading" section is a little different. I've tied it into my "Reading" RSS feed from my Google Books library. Nifty, eh? Next time I'm bored, I'll sit down and add all my books to my Google library collection. For now, it's just a nice way to link to a page that not only tells you about the book I'm reading, but also gives a whole hell of a lot of other information. Next up I'm going to use an RSS feed from Netflix to display recommended movies. Soon!
In a few hours I will be accompanying Dollface to the Christmas party of the Pier 1 where she works. Though I will have to remain sober enough to drive, I'm sure it will be fine. Apparently, as a theme, attendees are asked to wear a Christmas sweater, tastefulness not required. Honestly, the closest thing I have is my Freddy Krueger sweater. It is red, green, and of questionable taste. But I dunno. I'm not exactly known for my holiday cheer.
Speaking of multicolored evil cheer, I cheaply won a complete Birdbrain on eBay. Added to Slog and Wildfly, I now have this much Monstructor:
(I know you're really glad I'm keeping you current with this.)
I was making dinner for myself the other night, penne and wax beans, and before I added the marinara sauce, I looked down at my plate and saw this... this near-symmetry of yellow cylindrical food stuffs.
And I thought Huh! You don't see that often. So I took a picture.
Does it look almost like a face? I think it looks almost like a face. Kind of.
What? Don't look at me like that.
This book I'm reading, The Red Queen, which deals with sex, evolution and human nature, has not only taught me a lot of clinical and factual information, it has really brought some fundamental truths into focus. Consider: everything alive today is the product of genes that have managed to propagate themselves. Even at the expense of the parent — such as devoured male praying mantises, salmon who starve to death while breeding, or women who die in childbirth — genes continue to drive their host to reproduce. Why? Because genes that were not successful in driving their hosts to reproduce died off. Genes influence our behavior, cognition, preferences... everything! And nearly all of it is driven toward reproduction, because those genes that aren't successful in getting their host to reproduce are doomed to oblivion.
Genes make you find the opposite sex attractive. They also make men want to be promiscuous and make women want commitment. Those two goals may seem at odds, but philandering men father more children — who then inherit his philandering genes —while women who succeed in obtaining a parenting partner are able to spawn more children than they might on their own — children who in turn inherit her genes, etcetera. However, though our genes have pushed us together and made us have lots of sex, Heather and I do not intend to reproduce, and thus our genes have failed. Our genetic information will be lost because it did not succeed in propagating itself. Oh well. I feel no loss whatsoever.
(I'm sorry, you didn't think from the post title that I was really going to be a father, did you? Foolish human.)
For those not in the know, Metroplex is an Autobot city that transforms into a robot. Naturally, he's on the larger side as far as Transformers go. He's always been one of my favorite toys. Imagine! The concept! A whole city (with towers and a helipad and repair bays) rising up to form one monolithic mechanical anthropomorph (with lots and lots of guns)!
But lo, the fun doesn't stop there, no. His original instructions suggest that you can make a "super strong" Metroplex by attaching Aerialbots (sold separately) to his robot mode. Honest:
Now right now, you might be thinking: so fucking what? Well, if that's the case, then you've obviously never put "Super Metroplex" together, because if you did, you'd know he was a really fun guy to hang out with. We listened to Abbey Road and jammed on the acoustic guitar a little...
I am enjoying my new job quite a lot. I like the atmosphere, the co-workers, the work ethic, the social value of the product, and the work I am personally doing. It is a refreshing feeling to care about your job. And since it's 17 floors up in the middle of downtown Portland, I have a wonderful metropolitan view outside my window. This picture was snapped with my camera phone while sitting at my desk. You get the full city thing, with a little park nestled in there and the distant mountains to remind you you're still in Oregon. Ah, the city. I never get tired of skyscrapers.
First, an object at rest. The last Friday in October was the final day of my short contract stint on the Nike campus here in Portland. Since I didn't start my new full-time job until the following Thursday, that gave me five full days of layover time. And it was wonderful. I think I slept in until 11am everyday. I got fucked-up, read books or comics and watched movies. I stayed away from the computer. I took walks. Hung out with my lady. It was deliciously lethargic.
Gradual acceleration. The start of any new job in the tech industry usually has some period of orientation, wherein one becomes familiar with the environment, the technologies, the company, and so forth. This was the case as well for the my first two days. I played around with a new AJAX-based mark-up language. I used the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies series as my datasets. (With eighteen flicks between them, there is a lot of data there.)
I feel like I should be able to solve Rubik's Cube. Over the years, every now and then, I'll pick it up and spend an hour on it. But I've never actually solved it. Got it about 30% of the way there. Not good enough.
People tell me it's not simply a matter of persistence: there's a pattern you have to discover. I know that every Rubik's Cube can be solved in 26 moves or less. (Mathematically proven.) I know that some people can be solve it in less than 15 seconds. Blindfolded.
Last night I returned from several days in Boston, where I had the pleasure and honor of serving as the best man in my best friend's wedding. Aside from organizing and executing his legally dubious bachelor party before my recent move to Oregon, my duties as best man were pretty simple. I entertained the sequestered groom for the short duration immediately before the ceremony, making certain he didn't accidentally spy his arriving bride through the church windows. I kept the wedding rings in my pocket, Frodo-like, for a short duration prior to their exchange. I delivered a very well-received speech at the reception, seasoning it with even proportions of affection and harmless humor (mostly at the groom's expense).
There was a great moment of comedy during the wedding rehearsal. The celebrant, Father John, had instructed me to present the rings in an outstretched open palm. When he indicated that he would first bless them with the sign of the cross then sprinkle them with holy water while they lay in my (deeply atheistic) hand, all the gathered friends could not suppress a wide-eyed look of surprise, leaning forward to gauge my reaction, involuntarily chuckling while awaiting my reaction. Already in my respect-the-church mode, I don't think I really made any overt reaction other than to perhaps lift an eyebrow, but Father John couldn't help but notice that the idea of dashing me with holy water had stirred a very amusing reaction from everyone else. Smiling, but wary, he asked if this would be a problem. I assured him it would not be. In the end, for reasons unknown, the holy water was missing during the actual ceremony, but this didn't stop a great many people from making the obvious, but still funny, smoke-rising, flesh-searing, "It burns! It burns!" jokes.
I love being me. And pride, I understand, is a very infernal thing.
It would seem that Portland has entered the rainy season of which we were warned. These whispered cautions came sometimes in the form of concern, sometimes challenge, or just dread sympathy. Botch and Dollface are a gloomy duo, and we do not fear the months of damp greyness ahead, but this sentiment is easily expressed in the first overcast week. Six months from now, when the unrelenting dampness leaves our fingertips perpetually pruned and the entire world begins to smell like a wet dog, I'll let you know if our dour optimism has endured. (In truth, I made up the pruned-fingertips and wet-dog-smell stuff; I don't think that will actually happen. Of course, I could end up being wrong and tragically prophetic. It's happened before.)
Over the last couple evenings, Heather and I have been watching the extended version(s) of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, all 11+ hours of it. Simultaneously, we have been waging our own epic struggle against an onslaught of adware viruses that have infected her poor, limping laptop. Every potty break and disc flip of the film is accompanied by a check on the progress of her machine, like a concerned doctor. My prescriptions have been programs like SpyBot and AdAware, my holistic treatments involve msconfig.exe and Add/Remove Programs. But even when all seems finally purged and quiet, a recurrence of the technological plague rears up again. Why do these people think that popping up dozens of advertisements in IE will entice anyone to buy this shit? I hate them.
Admittedly, it's been about 10 years since I was driving on a regular basis, and that was back in the somewhat rural suburbs of Philadelphia. It might be the new environment, it might be a change in the times, but tell me: Were there always this many asshole drivers on the road?
Perhaps it's a problem of perception. While you may note the occasional deferential driver who courteously allows others to merge in front of them, or make the difficult left turn first, you are likely to disregard all the "average" good drivers. One might even argue that a good driver is one of whom you have no reason to take notice. But then there's the bad drivers. And I just can't stop dwelling on them.
It's frustrating to invent and covet your own personal Transformer characters, but have neither the artistic or mechanical skills to actualize them. Fortunately, others do! Thus, finally, Botch has been rendered digitally in three dimensions! And not only that, so have his fellow cassette companions, Bungle and Fuck-Up!
Somebody explain something to me. Why are you bothering with softcore porn when you could be enjoying hardcore porn? Why are you buying Maxim instead of Playboy? I just don't understand. I'm not even really into porn, I just don't know why someone would bother with after-midnight Showtime movies when they could be renting Campus Confessions 7. And don't you dare say it's for the articles. Don't you dare.
Wikipedia and common sense tell me that the desire to look at pictures or videos of semi-nude women (perhaps using the "handbra" technique or other softcore staples) is to arouse without being overly explicit. So I guess as long as you don't actually see nipples, or (God forbid) a vagina, then somehow it's not vulgar? You can enjoy the average Angelina Jolie Hollywood sex scene, some humping and some breasts and what not, without guilt, but as soon as you see actual genitalia, you're out of there? Who is fooling who?
Friday was a great day. I got my first real paycheck since moving to Portland, and I got my first Monster Pretender in the mail, Wildfly. His soft Pretender shell has that familiar plastic smell of so many forgotten infant toys, I immediately wanted to put him in my mouth. (It was suggested that I wash him first.) And I was able to share the news of this acquisition over drinks with some new people that I found through the Oregon thread of the TFW2005 message boards. Got drunk and had a great time!
Saturday was hangover day. Initially, this involved nothing more strenuous than lying in bed and reading the rest of the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series, a comic I highly recommend to anyone. After the queasiness subsided, we drove around, trading in unwanted CDs and DVDs for new (used) ones, buying new comic books, eating at Burgerville (best fast food burger joint ever), getting our real license plates for our car, and watching the Zeffirelli Hamlet starring Mel Gibson.
As an atheist, I am generally of the persuasion that human beings are simply an unusually intelligent variant of animal: walking, talking, computer-building, moon-landing bags of meat, bone and water. I don't believe in the supernatural — there is a natural explanation for every mystery of the universe, even if we have yet to discover it — so things like a "soul" are right out.
That said, throughout history there have been reports of reincarnation, ghosts, out-of-body experiences, and other unexplained experiences and manifestations of consciousness. And if celebrity gossip has taught us anything, it's that where this is smoke there is usually fire. But what is the fire in this instance? A supernatural soul? Psychic phenomena? Or something else?
Yes, I've been reading a lot of comic books lately. Aside from Discover magazine and Programming PHP, one might almost say I have been exclusively reading comic books. As opposed to non-comic books. No, I don't think that's something to brag about. I just haven't been in a book-reading place. I need, like, a commute. Except I'll probably be driving to my next place of employment, but at the very least I need the regimented period of stimulation and motion.
While you might think that not having a job would lend itself tremendously to tearing through various fictional and non-fictional written works of significance — like Thus Spake Zarathustra or the recent Einstein biography — the lethargy of unemployment actually turns me off to the still-water torpidity of reading.
We have spiders. Lots of spiders. I estimate that we are killing two or three spiders on average per day. It's not an infestation of any one particular species. They're lots of different types: big black ones, small brown ones, really tiny red ones; jumpy ones, slow ones. Shitloads of spiders. And we do not like it one bit.
See, I'm a recovering entomophobic (insectophobic); that is to say, I used to have a irrationally powerful fear of insects. Heather is in the same boat I am, except perhaps for the "recovering" part. Insects and spiders are insidious, disgusting, unknowable entities. They skulk about in the dark and damp recesses of our homes and backyards and they are very ugly. The motivations are secret, and many of them can sting or bite you. INSECTS (and arachnids) SUCK!
Well, now that Dollface and Botch are settled into their new place, we took it upon ourselves to take some apartment "after" pictures to accompany the "before" pictures I snapped when I first secured toured the place:
 BEFORE |
 AFTER |
This was my last weekend of indulgent, jobless freedom before I start my new job tomorrow. It was a very excellent weekend, too, thanks to my loving Doll of a wife, replete with many treats both mentionable (breakfast in bed, Star Wars, comic books, expensive dinner) and unmentionable (swanky hotel, hubba hubba and, I tell ya, hubba). I can say no more.
On the topic of weekend activities, I recommend that you do not waste your time viewing Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. It is not so much "bad" as silly, dumb, illogical and pointless. The movie is simply too unsophisticated for anyone older than 9 years of age. By subtle contrast, the film Ghost Rider is, in fact, bad. Very bad. The stupidest movie I have seen in memory. Fit only for stupid 9 year olds.
I got some new computer speakers. They are so awesome, I think about them randomly when walking down the street and I smile warmly. I highly recommend the Creative Labs I-Trigue® 2.1 Speaker System (3300). They sound great with everything from Fantômas to The Alan Parsons Project.
Though we've been consistently pleased with every new Portland experience, I can definitely say that this city will take some getting-used-to for a couple of battle-worn New Yorkers like Botch and Dollface.
On major boulevards, cars will stop, in both directions, to allow pedestrians to cross, even without a stoplight or crosswalk in sight. Our new mail carrier, Janice, introduced herself cheerily and gave us the ins and outs of getting our mail. The salesman who sold us a new couch dropped the price on it, unprompted, after we'd already agreed to buy it. I went to go get a copy made at the UPS Store, and since it was only one, they said it was "on the house". Everyone's so gosh darn nice, but not in that busy-body southern or suburban kind of way. They're just being cool. Everyone is cool.
There was the packing of everything that we own into boxes. We were very meticulous, as Doll and I are wont to be. For the sake of elegant calligraphic consistency, Heather labeled every box herself with its number and a weight gauge reminiscent of a collector's grading scale [Heavy, Very Heavy, Extremely Heavy]. The cats were still doing OK at this point. Sure, things were becoming unfamiliar, but they love cardboard so much, and it was stacked so deliciously high, they remained in good spirits. This would change. Personally, I found the whole packing experience deliciously cathartic. Who wouldn't? Evaluate your materialistic self. Trash what's unimportant. Cushion what's precious. Inventory and appraise! Eat out a lot.
There was the going-away party. That was awesome. Around 30 festively lamenting adults and one fearless toddler. I got completely wrecked, as is my habit, but was cogent enough at the apex of the party to stand on my coffee table and give my long-gestating Farewell Speech. "I am one for giving speeches...," it began. Mentions of "those I've known forever, those I knew not long enough..." Later, it was suggested that I was perhaps overly maudlin and final considering that I will be seeing many of the party attendees at Charlie & Jen's wedding in October (in Boston); however, there were definitely those in attendance that I may never see again, and more importantly... I AM LEAVING NEW YORK. This is cause for great solemnity, from my particular vantage point. I will miss a lot of people there more than they may know.
Back in late 2001, after my former band, Brompton's Cocktail, had finally finished self-recording our full-length CD -- incidentally, the biggest mistake we ever made -- we got it professionally duplicated in the smallest quantity available: 1000. Between then and our last show in early 2003, we had apparently sold or given away only 400 of them, far fewer than I had hoped. I thought it was more, honestly, until I very recently procured the boxes from their festering purgatory in the bassist's apartment. So here I was, suddenly, with 600 CDs of a now-defunct band, and an upcoming move to Portland. UGH.
Around the same time is when I finally got the finished CDs for The Monster Project, which I also got professionally duplicated, though I only got 400 of them. While I was consciously erring on the side of "too many", I thought that all the Godzilla fans on our mailing list would take at least 200-300 of them. To date, I've sold 12. Sure, I've given away a bunch to band members and some online Godzilla fans, but I was slightly hindered by the fact that the last remaining Godzilla news site that used to announce our gigs went belly-up back in March. So, no promotion. I'd have taken out an ad in G-Fan, the quarterly Godzilla fan magazine, but I was told that Godzilla's Japanese zookeepers, Toho Studios, paid attention to the mag and that if they found out what I was doing they might sue me. So, I've been quietly promoting it on this site and hoping that something would happen.
Well, the apartment search was successful. We even secured our #1 choice: an 1,100 square foot flat in the hippest section of Portland (Hawthorne district), half hardwood floors, half carpeted, with our own washer and dryer, a working fireplace, private parking and a magic elf that fetches us coffee and chocolate chip cookies on command.
I might have made up that last part, but the rest is true. Doll even posted my photos of the place online. Now, like me, you can sit and try to imagine where all of Botch's toys will go. Ultimately, the decision is neither yours nor mine. The missus will inform us when we get there.
BAD THINGS:
I came to New York City in the mid-90's under the impression that there was a musical "scene" that fostered new and different types of bands and music-making. I imagined that New Yorkers sought out fresh and exciting acts, and that the majority of NYC bands were actively striving to creatively distinguish themselves from mainstream commercial pap.
Sadly, I quickly learned that this was not the case. Most NYC bands were playing the same tired shit (boring punk, boring ska, boring 'rock'). The bands I met didn't place a high value on uniqueness, and any musically adventurous act was viewed as a novelty. Sure, there was the "downtown" noise jazz scene, full of overblown saxophones and people scraping piano strings with metal rods, but that scene is too insular and aloof: the Beatles would not be considered adventurous enough to play in those clubs. As a last wedge, I found that almost no one sought out new local acts; they showed up to see their friend's band play, tolerated without curiousity the preceding performers, then took off to parts unknown.
For me, it was crushing, both as a musician and a music-lover. I wanted to find and love lots of new bands. I sought them out, following hyperlinks in club websites to sample any new group I could find. I wanted to find adventurous acts that I could coax into playing shows with my art rock projects. I wanted to hear something new, and I wanted some shred of validation that NYC's scene was not completely without a pulse. In the last decade, I found less than 10 local acts that truly entertained me while inspiring me as a listener. The best of them is The Benzene Ring.
As offensive as email spam is, I think blog spam, also known as comment spam, is ten times as offensive and insulting. If email spam is the equivalent of those assholes who stuff restaurant menus under your door, blog spam is that same asshole placing a menu in your birthday card, or in the dinner your just cooked, or taped to your back. One's blog is a forum for self-expression, and comment spam invades that personal exchange between the blogger and the blog's readers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if I ever meet an honest-to-god spammer, I will not hesitate to punch them in the face.
Anyway, since I built this blog from scratch, I also have to implement my own methods for combating this plague. Originally I simply banned comments that mentioned common sex-related pharmaceutical products that I will refrain mentioning. This eventually evolved into a very robust keyword filter, because apparently there are lots of these drugs, and lots of assholes who really want to place their URL on your site. Then I started an IP address confirmation check. But blog-spammers have gotten through my automated checks, and now they post with nonsense words (like dechlkeo) for various possible reasons, and I can't filter against that.
Why haven't I blogged in a week?
Well, for one, I was busy planning, preparing and executing a bachelor party: coordinating guests, strippers, bowling, poker... even an erotic cake. I'm a thoroughly meticulous planner, so these things occupy time and energy, like discretely borrowing poker tables from the bachelor, or making a lapdance-worthy MP3 playlist. Meticulous.
OK, so I came across an auction on eBay for five G1 Transformer instruction booklets. These things are not booklets, really, they're one-sheet pieces of paper, approximately legal-sized, folded up into 4" x 3" rectangles. I don't think they weigh more than an ounce. Anyway, I was mildly interested in this auction until I noticed that the guy was charging $7.50 for shipping. I thought Wow! Seven dollars and fifty cents? It seemed a bit much for less than a dozen pieces of paper. I suspected the seller was seriously inflating the cost of the shipping in order to bolster his profits, a sort of final price extortion, if you will. But hey, I could be jumping to conclusions. I decided to inquire of the seller how he/she arrived at their shipping figure.
My inquiry was met with sarcasm and charges of being rude and harassing. Now, I think this seller was just angrily defensive about being called on their extortion, but my wife reminds me that I do enjoy being bitter and confrontational myself, especially in writing. Am I just being an asshole, or justifiably admonishing? Am I understandably defensive or on the attack? You tell me. (Remember that this exchange was through email via eBay Messages, the conversation was not instant.)
I must be officially fucking OLD. Because I opened the refrigerator, pulled out the new Brita-or-something water filter for the first time since we got it, and immediately noticed that it was digital. That's right, the water in the refrigerator now has a fucking digital display. Blinking dots. A percentile gradient in monochrome LCD bars indicating, moment by moment, exactly where in its lifespan the current filter currently operates. The fucking water jug is digital. People joke about the notion of digital toasters, but no one predicated digital water jugs. If they did, it was never mentioned within earshot of me.
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There is a word for New Yorkers that never ride the subway: wealthy. The rest of us enjoy a love/hate relationship with the smelly, crowded and extremely convenient mass transit maze that is the NYC subway system. Of course, part of the urine-stained experience is waiting for the train to actually arrive, which affords us an unavoidable opportunity to take in the latest subway posters. Here are a couple that caught my eye recently.
One weekend during my generally unenchanting sophomore year of college (wallowing in our nation's capital) I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Charlie in New York City. He and I spent the evening with a group of our high school buddies drunkenly stumbling around the East Village. It was a marvel, this electric, metropolitan candyland that poured shots for 19- and 20-year-olds without blinking and casually ignored our loud, staggering entourage as it sailed down the avenues like ducks caught in a strong current.
Falling out of a now-defunct rock club on St. Mark's Place, I turned to my right to see a comic book store: St. Mark's Comics, appropriately. It was open. At midnight. I knew this was the City That Never Sleeps, but I didn't know that included comic book stores! Surely this town was a jewel to be prized, a great Mecca of opportunity and glut. Why, I had to buy a comic book now. Fortunately -- boom! look at that! -- an open comic book store, outside my bar, into which I will race, wide-eyed, with my buddy Todd in tow, who delights in witnessing my glee.
I don't think I'm spoiling anything for anybody when I tell you. The national media has been all over it for the last week since the issue in question hit the stands. Captain America is dead. And I have to admit, it's really bothering me. Not because the issue itself wasn't a very good story (in my humble opinion); nor I am opposed to changes in the traditional status quo of comicdom; and yes, yes, I know, in comic books few characters ever stay dead forever. It's just...
What kind of America would allow the death of Captain America...?
Captain America!
The Sentinel of Liberty!
The Star-Spangled Avenger!
I spent my morning commute skimming through a collection of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay and I came across one that immediately struck me, as a Transformers fan, as a collector, and as a somewhat death-fixated guy. I thought I would share it with you. Tell me what you think.
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Siege This I do, being mad: Gather baubles about me, Sit in a circle of toys, and all the time Death beating the door in. White jade and an orange pitcher, Hindu idol, Chinese god,— Maybe next year, when I'm richer— Carved beads and a lotus pod . . . And all this time Death beating the door in. |
I recently watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and found it to be a very concise, plain-spoken and compelling presentation of the causes and effects of global warming. Of course, as a reader of Discover magazine and science news — and as someone who doesn't have their head completely up their ass in denial — I was already aware that global warming was real and caused by humans. I really recommend watching it.
I also recently re-watched Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. I think the two started jumbling together in my head:
(click for larger view)
First, here are some things that really suck right now:
Getting sick on the weekend blows, blows, blows. And it sucks. Such a waste. Here it is, Monday now, and I'm still sick at home with the common cold, but of course it's difficult to enjoy the day off from work because I'm sick. At least I'm prepared:
HOW TO BE SICK AT HOME
by Botch
Man, I fuckin' love Underwood Deviled Ham. Totally. Don't tell me you don't recognize that little wrapped can there. You see it in the grocery stores near the little Vienna sausages and pickled anchovies. Maybe you occasionally think to yourself, "Who buys that stuff?" Well, I do, jackass. I sit down with a little can of it and a box of Triscuits or Saltines and maybe a tiny little spreading knife and eat the whole salty serving.
Now, it's not just because it has the cool-ass compelling little devil on the front. (That's maybe half of it.) My late grandfather used to eat this stuff. I remember when I first saw him eating a can, and I wondered, "What is this fabulously tasty spreadable meat that's so amazing Lucifer himself endorses it unashamedly?" My grandfather let me have a bite, and it was pure taste heaven. I somehow felt more adult eating it.
Unlike James Brown, I'm back. I've been in Vacationville, traveling via Christmas Lane. My company voiced a "use 'em or lose 'em" policy towards our remaining vacation days, so... I used the last week mostly to relax. Chill. Catch up on some of the little things that I've been meaning to do. In other words, recharge my batteries. It's been nice.
I finished a website for a friend, JohnTheComposer.com, and did some minor maintenance to this site (like updating the box art name search to include the European TFs). I took Dollface to see The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center last Friday. I revisited the Egyptian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I saved the world from a terrorist plot. The usual.
When I last discussed my lifelong desire never to have children, and the audacity of people to suggest that this was just some phase I was going through, invariably someone mentioned that only if I got a vasectomy would they really take me seriously. Now, if a vasectomy was a virtually risk-free procedure, I would fucking jump on it. Totally. But it's not, and the side effects, however statistically improbable, are just not worth it. I'd rather stick with the rubbers and smoking the seeds. But first, let's review what a vasectomy is with the help of Family Guy and a barbershop quartet:
While Heather wrapped Christmas presents for her family and prepared them for mailing, I opened my new, big fucking toy, Starscream. We're talking 18 inches tall. Originally a shelf-warmer at $49.99, as of Black Friday he dropped to $24.99 at Toys 'R' Us and I could no longer deny myself. Though this toy is from the Transformers: Cybertron line, I prefer to think of him as a upgraded version of G1 Starscream from the Underbase Saga.
Tsunami has already made a new home of the box (photo to come, I'm sure).
The other day I stopped by the desk of a co-worker, and upon mentioning the "baby calendar" I had spied near her desk, it was confirmed that she was, indeed, pregnant with child. We chatted about the topic of pregnancy and children here and there, and at some point I mentioned that my wife and I, for our own part, were dead-set on never having children.
When I got to this point in relating the anecdote to my beautiful bride, she already knew what was coming next. My co-worker said something to the effect of, "Never? Oh, well, maybe you'll change your mind in a few years." This is the type of response that we get from 90% of you "breeders" out there, and I gotta say, we are getting pretty fucking sick of hearing it.
Pretty much the last thing Doll does every night before turning in is clean the kitty litter. Every fucking night. I personally think it's a terribly unsavory way to end one's day, but it's her thing, whatever.
Usually she'll turn on the ceiling light to see better when she does this. By "better" I mean "like a God harnessing the radiance of a sun" because the ceiling light is so powerfully, ridiculously, offensively bright as to be a crime of personal violation. Why does she need such blinding luminescence? Because the kitty litter is enclosed. Like a little room. I shit you not, it's the fucking Waldorf-Astoria of the kitty shitbox set. Look at this:
We got rid of cable/broadcast television because its temptation sucked up too many hours of our days and nights, and we don't regret it even a little. Of course, this is not to say that we don't continue to watch programs, we just do it in a more controlled, elective fashion via Netflix and our local independent video store. Still, it should come as no surprise that I prefer to get my boob tube fix in shorter bursts, say, about 21 minutes or so. This is a grossly long-winded way of saying that I prefer to enjoy a relaxing episode of Justice League or M*A*S*H rather than lose an entire hour or two to such sedentary, non-interactive entertainment.
Alas, I grow worried when I see the end of viable episodic viewing in sight. I am currently in the middle of the 11th and final season of M*A*S*H — something I could not have accomplished but for the ability to shut off the laugh track on the DVD, thus completely transforming the show. Though I eagerly anticipate watching the legendary final episode (I've never seen it), I have no clue what to replace it with. None. How do you replace M*A*S*H...? (And don't say AfterMASH.)
Our alarm clock has a CD player. You can put in a CD in it and it will play that as your alarm. When we first started using this, the question was, what album do we want to wake us up? Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue? A Beethoven piano sonata? For a while it was The Carpenters' Close To You, but then I realized: why not make our own?
So I took some of the docile, unhurried triangle hits from the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum song, "Sunflower." I copy/pasted several of them together and Voila! The softest, most pleasantly mild alarm ever. Here, listen to it now. So tender, so whispery, you almost don't hate waking up. Almost.
The ironic aspect of having a job where you do something that you enjoy is that it can sap you of the enthusiasm and energy to do that thing outside of the job. I'm talking about making web pages, doing the internet thing, email, computers, you get the picture. There's a bunch of things I would love to blog about right now, but I've had such a shitty week at work, where I stare at a computer and make stupid web pages for over eight hours daily, that sitting in front of a computer now fills me with dread. And back pain.
I have sites I want to build! Things I want to surf! Blogs I want to read! But instead I'm dealing with non-diligent project managers, directors who micro-manage, overworked and increasingly fallible co-workers which makes more work for me.... it's a mess. The only thing I've wanted to do all week at work is go home. It's very ironic that I chose Friday night to organize the first company poker game, but hey, maybe it will be a good stress breaker. Cathartic. Therapeutic. Profitable.
Last Saturday some friends of mine were throwing a Halloween costume party which I was glad to attend. That said, unless I can be the Springwood Slasher or an angel in a black suit, I'm rarely too excited about dressing up. Consequently, this year I wore a metacostume. I arrived wearing a black top hat and an extra-large grey t-shirt on which was written I AM JACK'S COSTUME. I used Cooper Black, the same font used on VOTE FOR PEDRO shirts.
This was only my first costume of the night, though. About an hour later, as the party started picking up, I morphed into my second disguise: I lifted off my shirt to reveal another grey t-shirt beneath which proclaimed that I AM A PORCUPINE WITH DIABETES. (It was originally brainstormed as "WITH AIDS" but I argued that Diabetes is funnier than AIDS.) My second metacostume was not as well-received as the first, but this may be due to the fact that there were too many animal-loving pansies present.
Dollface and I finally did it: we started working out at the local YMCA two blocks away. It's been a week now and I feel confident mentioning it without fear that we will renege and lose face. Because your opinion means so much to us.
You're probably wondering why I am working out. After all, I am, and always have been, a thin guy. People say things like, "If I ate a whole bag of cookies and drank soda all the time, I'd be fat." I have a super-fast metabolism, you see. (I also heal pretty fast, like an X-Man.) I do have a slight belly that I didn't have 10 years ago which Doll thinks is cute, but other than that, my build is remarkably similar to what it's always been. So why am I working out? Isn't it obvious? Sex.
My wife and I were sitting at the dinner table eating some friend chicken breasts and drumsticks. They were surprisingly tasty considering that they had been frozen. But then, it's hard to fuck up fried chicken. Yes, the world agrees that fried chicken tastes good. Anyway, my wife asks me if I ever think about the fact that we are rending with tooth and finger the flesh from the bones of a real animal. I tell her yes, every time. She asks if it ever bothers me, and I confess that it doesn't. In fact, it feels rather natural to me.
So then my wife, whom I should mention does not eat beef or pork, asked me if I would ever eat people meat. I answered her honestly, that I had no innate problem with consuming human flesh. Instinctively, she was repulsed. I asked her to explain why.
I've never actually played Dungeons & Dragons. Once or twice, when I was a kid and at the height of the game's popularity, I sat in with a group of people who pretended to play, but while we all understood the concept of a Dungeon Master guiding some wizards and warriors (and half-elves) through some underground labyrinth, we never really played the game, only our conception of it. How does a 9-year-old play a game like D&D?
"Um. You turn a corner and see a minotaur."
"I hit it with my sword!"
"I cast a spell to turn it to stone!"
"OK, it's dead. You each get 50 gold pieces and some jewels."
"Yay!!"
At least I knew we weren't really playing D&D. How did I know? Because I read the manuals.
You know what? Fuck you, Tom Cruise. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about for some reason when I woke up this morning. Fuck you.
Do you always have to play "the best whatever" in your movies? Best fighter pilot. Best pool player. Best bartender. Best race car driver. Best Viet Nam veteran. Best vampire. Best lawyer. Best boxer (best immigrant). Best spy. Best sports agent. Best gaijin samurai (hah!). Best future cop. And now I gotta see your sorry-ass Scientology people in the subway every day trying to get people to buy books and sign over power of attorney to their cult? Fuck you, Tom Cruise. Most of your movies suck.
I was able to swear off fast food. I am no longer an addicted cigarette smoker. I don't have broadcast or cable television. I don't drink milk or eat ice cream. Given the option, I buy "free range" meat. I try to patronize the independent businesses rather than the corporate giants whenever possible. I am trying to resist Corporate Imperialism!
But I simply cannot stop drinking Coca-Cola. It's not my fault that it happens to be the tastiest beverage ever invented on the planet.
Sometimes, before I go out the door in the morning, I look down at what I'm wearing and I realize that I'm wearing blue jeans and a red shirt with brown shoes and I remember that this is exactly how I used to draw people, including myself, when I was in kindergarten. I don't know why. I can't recall anyone around me who used to dress in this offensively primary color scheme. When you think about it, few people wear this combination ever. I don't know why my younger self intuited this to be the colors of not only myself but also Mister Everyman.
Years later, I would also realize that my favorite number, 53, dresses in this exact color scheme, is of medium build and is about 2" shorter than me. My second favorite number, 72, is more Mediterranean in origin, leaner, slightly taller and dresses in blacks. Then follows 21, -1, 0, 1, you get the picture. Dinosaurs are still pretty cool.
Dollface and I are trying to increase our savings prior to moving to Oregon. Toward that end, in addition to spending less money and buying fewer things, we have been re-evalutating our possessions in an effort to trim our excess materialistic fat and sell what we don't need. Toward that end, I have been selling many of our books and CDs. I've sold comics. I've sold a guitar amp and I'm selling a vintage keyboard, a PA system, and a heavy-duty keyboard stand. We've sold video games, pin-up prints and antique silverware. I just sold my rare Beach Boys Smile-era bootleg recordings (for a substantial sum, too). I may even sell the cherry red B.C. Rich Mockingbird guitar that I've played dozens of gigs with.
But I will not sell my Transformers. No. You'll just have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.
This is the cookie I love. Linden's Butter Crunch Cookies, three to a pack. They are delicious. I got hooked on them back when I was working at Cablevision. They were in the vending machine for 65 cents. When you're not really hungry in the morning, but you want a little something to tide you over until lunchtime, these cookies are a tasty and inexpensive choice. Yum!
This is the "gourmet" deli on the corner of my block at work, Village 38. Good sandwiches, good grill. The staff grows increasingly less polite with each breakfast and lunch, but they're not flat-out rude. My main complaint is that they are very pricey.
As I've mentioned, I often pop over to Toys R' Us on my lunch hour to kill time, get some walking exercise, avoid work and, yes, to see if there are any new Transformers that I might want to buy. Since new Transformers are hardly a daily occurance, I often browse other sections of the three-story complex. I've tried out the new Super Mario Bros game on the DS Lite and have resolved that both items must go at the top of my Christmas list. I check to see if that Bizarro Superman figure is on sale yet. I browse, I browse some more, I pretend the little kids aren't there, and then I browse some more.
And let me just tell you something. It is a good thing I'm not a Star Wars fan like when I was a kid. It's a good thing I'm no longer into Legos like when I was a kid. Because I cannot avert my eyes from this...
Sell your Compact Discs now. Already all the used CD stores in NYC have almost stopped accepting material. They're not being choosy, they simply have no room, the stock they have isn't moving. I know you like having that Mandy Patinkin album, but you never listen to it. Are you really ever going to pop in that last terrible Ozzy Osbourne album again? The greatest hits of Sinead O'Connor was a better choice in theory than practice. And do you really need Testament's greatest hits when you have all their albums? I think not. Besides. You still have the MP3's.
You know, if I was at a party or in a bar or wherever and I met a guy who admitted that he was a spammer, that he spammed people's email addresses for a living, I would totally punch him. I'm not sure if it would be in the gut or in the face, but I would definitely, totally punch him. I don't care if he pressed charges or tried to sue me or whatever. No jury in the land would convict me. I don't think I feel this strongly about terrorists. At least with terrorists, you know that they think they're doing a good thing. You agree to disagree. With spammers, man... I just grab a roll of quarters and slug 'em.
My group of friends and I were bitten by the poker bug some time before its recent resurgence as a national craze. You can tell because we played such obscure games as Seven-Card Stud, Five-Card Draw, and even occasionally, during the heyday of Dealer's Choice, a little Baseball or Follow The Queen. We would gather on a weekend night, drink and smoke, listen to music and have a grand old time. Compared to a night of drinking in a bar, this was cheaper, more intimate and more fun.
Eventually, perhaps as Celebrity Poker became more popular, the more ardent players of our group were able to sway us over to Texas Hold 'Em. It's not my personal favorite variety of poker — I prefer more cards on the table instead of less, so I gravitate towards Seven-Card Stud — but we were for the most part willing to go along with what was quickly becoming America's most popular brand of poker. We also started playing fewer cash games and more tournaments, for what it's worth. I admit, I was very much caught up in the whole poker thing. Before we got rid of television, I found myself often catching World Poker Tour on cable and losing two hours to it.
Recently, my friend Sam was telling of his strong belief in past lives, and the ensuing discussion naturally gravitated to the topic of ghosts. He swore that he had seen a ghost once when he was young, specifically the apparition of an older woman. She had passed through a closed door into the hallway, turned to him, put her index finger to her lips to indicate that he should be quiet, then turned away and moved off into nothingness. When he described her appearance and outfit later, the next-door neighbor confirmed it was the former occupant of the house, dressed in the outfit in which she was buried.
This brings us to the question that is the starting point of my ruminations on ghosts, specifically: Why do ghosts wear clothes?
Yeah, yeah, I missed my scheduled Friday morning blog posting. It's been a busy week.
I got a wisdom tooth removed last Tuesday. I found the whole thing fascinating. I was "profoundly numb" but conscious through the procedure. Ever seen Reservoir Dogs? Moments after they placed the big rubber thing in my mouth to keep me from biting down, "Stuck In The Middle With You" came on over the office radio (yes, the song from that scene). I was mesmerized by the drilling, cracking, hammering, yanking and stitching that was all going on in my mouth. I even had a nice offbeat moment when it was discovered that my wisdom tooth had come in rotated 90°. The pain that gradually emerged later that day was just as engrossing but less fascinating, and the stitches continue to really annoy me, but all told, a remarkable experience.
Life seems to keep happening every day, and sometimes we are less than extremely well-versed in some of the new things that happen to us. That's why we have Wikipedia. It fills in the gaps. Here, let me share some of things that have been happening in my life lately by way of excerpts from the Wikipedia articles that I was prompted to access. For instance:
All bedbugs mate via a process termed "traumatic insemination." Instead of inserting their genitalia into the female's reproductive tract as is typical in copulation, males instead pierce females with hypodermic genitalia and ejaculate into the body cavity. This form of mating is thought to have evolved as a way for males to overcome female mating resistance. Traumatic insemination imposes a cost on females in terms of physical damage and increased risk of infection.
My favorite, I think was the yellowtail sashimi (on the cheese pizza): enjoyably fishy without lessening the enjoyment of the pizza, a la good anchovies. The salmon sashimi was very tasty but a little slimy, as salmon sashimi often is. The tuna was the tuna. Later, we dropped Mentos into Diet Coke with sexy results. All in all, Friday night sashimi pizza party was a success.
I also fixed a lot of things this weekend. I fixed the toilet that was somehow broken Friday night. You think I just fixed the broken handle, but no, that's not all. In addition to the broken handle, the rubber balloon thingie broke off and I had to replace the entire fill valve system! That's fucking right. Very manly of me. PLUS! I put up new, whaddayacallem, window blinds in the bedroom. It must be so nice for my wife to have a man around the house like me who knows how to fix things that need fixing.
Happy Little Trees
Eric Theirault
November 2000
Now, I'm not what most people would consider an animal-lover. Aside from cats, I dislike most domestic animals (in fact, I loathe dogs). I do not coo and gush when I see birdies, squirrels, deer or bunnies. I avoid natural bodies of water because the idea of swimming amidst other living things is repellent to me. Oh, and I'm willing to eat any animal you put in front of me.
All that said, I have a great respect for all creatures of the Earth, from the cockroach to the motherfucking blue whale. Life is fascinating in its adaptability and diversity. From chemosynthetic ecosystems to penguins on the march, our world's biodiversity serves to educate, enhance and enthrall us. That's why I love documentaries like Blue Planet, Life of Mammals and Life of Birds.
Dollface and I have just returned from a short vacation in Portland, Oregon. Our primary mission was to scout and appraise a healthy amount of the city to see if it was a) the kind of place that we would like to live, and b) whether there was any good locations for our prospective combined comic book and movie rental store. We spent Thursday through Sunday doing a shitload of walking. We explored all four quadrants of the laid-back metropolis, engaging the locals, shopping, eating richly and touring a number of comic book shops. We are digesting the whole thing now. Like so!
The City
It rains in Portland. It does. We knew this going in, we knew we would have to cope with frequent precipitation were we to live there. That being the case, perhaps it was a good thing that it rained every day we were there. Some days featured come-and-go drizzles divided by periods of brilliant sun. One day had very little drizzle, but was very overcast. Another day it just rained and rained. I guess it reflects well on the city that we really didn't mind it that much. Certainly the Portlanders don't mind it; hardly any of them carried umbrellas. It's a disposition thing, and one for which they are well-suited. People in Portland are nice, just like Vancouver or London. We enjoyed most everyone's company.
If you live in the up-and-coming Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, you have probably seen this man. He seems to always be about, ambling awkwardly with his one stiff leg. Perhaps I first noticed him because of his hobbled gait, or because he bears a passing resemblance to my late grandfather. In any case, I always thought he was harmless. It turns out he's really The Old Asshole of Greenpoint.
Specifically, a classic "dirty old man." My wife apprised me of this fact when I first pointed him out to her. It seems the reason that he is always out and about is that his hobby is approaching women on the street, leering at them and spouting lascivious comments. After this, I started looking for it, and sure enough, I would see him accosting many of the women who passed him with his unwanted attention. This kind of behavior really pisses me off.
Sometimes people ask: What possession have you had the longest? For me, the answer is simple. It's sitting within arm's reach right now. My toy chest!
I've had this toy chest for as long as I can recall. I vaguely recall that someone in my family actually built it. Naturally, when I was a kid it held Godzillas and Shogun Warriors and stuffed animals and talking telephones and speak-and-spells and all sorts of fun stuff. As I grew older, the chest turned to housing the belongings of my younger siblings, but I never disavowed ownership of it. Within the last couple of years, I was able to convince my mother to bring it to me in NYC from Pennsylvania. It's mine mine mine!
Grocery store adverts. Credit card offers. Telephone company postcard solicitations. Have you ever wondered why there's no easy way to stop junk mail? Snail mail, that is, unsolicited advertisements and solicitations printed on actual paper and stuffed into your mailbox. Unsolicited email advertisements — a.k.a. "spam" — is almost universally despised by both recipients and couriers, and there is a whole industry devoted to the task of halting its transmission and punishing the senders. But no such machine is in the works for postal mail. Why, I wondered?
I wanted to cut down on the amount of junk mail I was getting in my mailbox. They're wasting money and trees sending me solicitations to which I will never respond, if only as a matter of principle. So I looked into it. And I discovered why the post office doesn't really have a mechanism in place for this. The answer is so obvious, I felt like an idiot for not having realized it sooner.
It may surprise you to learn that I find biographing myself to be a thoroughly uncomfortable task. Here I sit, the creator and author of my own personal weblog, plainly a trifle self-absorbed, ready to offer any and all unsolicited opinions, shot from the hip, about my bubble world; those who know me personally are perhaps awkwardly aware that I am a graduate of the "waiting for my chance to talk" school of conversation. At least, that is my self-perceived tendency. But crafting my own biography, no matter how short, seems to overstep some boundary of modesty that my innermost sensibilities deemed prudent to erect. The biographing process is gross in flavor, it has the oily feel of a lie even in dry truth. In blog form, I can drop tidbits about myself and my interests in negligible doses: little bunny pellets, initially adorable in their multiplicity and relative timidity, but through systematic exposure, the wise cage-cleaner realizes it's still just shit. A full biography? Like garbage bags of rabbit shit.
Nonetheless, I have successfully banged my head against this moral wall, and the resulting stars across my vision, so beloved of cartoon animators, danced maypole-like around my head until they yielded this: a respectable About Adam Alexander page. It only took me a year.
I suppose for some of you, this last weekend was about celebrating the birth of the Easter Bunny or something. For me, it was just another weekend like any other, complete with ups and downs.
On Friday night, I had a long practice with my piano trio project. It's just bass, drums, piano and vocals with me covering the latter two. We have not yet been able to decide on a name for ourselves. I like "The Three Drink Minimum," but they think it's too long and, if we're playing bars, potentially confusing and off-putting. I also like "Smoke" as I'm trying to pick something evocative of the dark lounge music we think we're playing. But that got shot down, too. In a band where the pianist loves art rock and the bassist loves Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, it's hard to pick a name. Any suggestions?
In a post a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about traffic this site was getting from unexpected keyword combinations. At the end, I jokingly mentioned that I would probably get even more visitors if I mentioned "porn" a few times, and proceeded to itemize what I thought were some humorous and theoretically fictional porn genres.
It was a joke, honest.
Though respectful of others religious beliefs, I've always been a pretty irreverent guy. It comes from being an atheist surrounded by people who think that dinosaurs died out about 6,000 years ago because Adam and Eve ate some apples. I find that simplemindedness frustrating but also very point-and-laugh funny — in private, at least. To your face, I might be visibly surprised by religious assertions that fly in the face of science and, to my mind, common sense, but I'll comport myself with dignity out of respect. In private, I make fun of you.
Anyway, at some point I started occasionally using "Hail Satan!" as a form of hello. And goodbye. Like Aloha. Or as a substitute for "that's great". Sometimes it replaces simple acknowledgments, such as a response for questions like "can you do this for me?" and "will you please pass the butter?"
Finally, finally, I have my computer back. It is a supreme delight. No longer does my desk in the War Room jut awkwardly out, limp wires snaking every which way, the monitor faceless, the speakers mute. No! I found a new computer service, Macrolevel, and I really recommend them. Bolstered up to a gig of RAM, Polyhex (as I call my machine) is back from the dead like Superman, like Optimus Prime, like Bobby Ewing. Let us hope my technological depression remains a thing of the past.
So Dollface and I have been taking a class together at the City College of New York: "Writing a Successful Business Plan Step by Step." When I say we want to open a comic book store in the next couple years, I mean it. One session focused heavily on credit, as in how to fix or improve your credit rating to increase your chances of obtaining business financing. While it turns out my credit is pretty good, it was decided that I should get a second credit card. With surprising ease, I acquired a new American Express "Blue" card. Get this: it's transparent, with a visible microchip and circuits running through it. That's so fucking cool. It definitely makes me want to pay for everything with it. I must be cautious, wary. Temptation is a powerful thing.
As I might have tediously mentioned, Botch's home computer ("Polyhex") has been unwell; in fact, I am still awaiting a new motherboard for it. Connectivity and device issues have also recently plagued Dollface's laptop (which so far as I know doesn't have a name, but is adorned with stickers such as an Olivia illustration of Bettie Page and Starlite, Rainbow Brite's horse). Also over the last couple of weeks, both of our cats — Commodore and Tsunami — were separately plagued with unseemly bouts of diarrhea, sometimes lasting days. And amidst all these frustrating occurrences, it finally occurred to me (and maybe you know where I'm going with this): Sick Cats and Sick Computers are practically the same fucking thing.
It gets unwell. You can describe the symptoms, but are often unable to diagnose the exact problem because the symptoms could be caused by many different things. You're often not at all sure what precipitated it or even exactly when it started. Was it a natural failing of equipment, or was something foreign introduced into its system? It's very frustrating, because it can't talk to you to tell you what's ailing it. So you visit an expert or call one in to examine the patient. They often speak with authority, but are they really so sure? They do tests. They say it's one thing or another. They charge an awful lot for their services, and the cure is often expensive as well.
I'm sorry about yesterday's post. It was boring. No one wants to hear me complain. Let me make it up to you. Here's a picture of Optimus Prime giving a carrot to a cute little bunny!
I'm not a computer hardware person, I will readily admit. I'm a web developer, so that should prove that I am far from illiterate about computers: I built this whole site, for example. But when it comes to processors and memory cards and networking, I fall a little short. I was never one of those "build my own computer from scratch" kind of people. But I have tried to become more hardware-savvy. I want to be able to upgrade my computer or repair basic problems.
So why does it have to blow up in my face every god-damn time I try something!!
It's true that Dollface and I no longer have cable, but we still have a television and enjoy watching DVDs. The subtle difference is that this means we don't watch anything that we haven't proactively sought and acquired via purchase, rental or Netflix. Like a person that learns to eat smaller meals, our already slackening appetite for what was once so aptly-named The Idiot Box has continued to diminish, and we watch less 'television' than ever. That's why it's so awesome that one of our primary forms of entertainment has become The Documentary. And I have to tell you, it's true that fact is often far more amazing than fiction.
The primary diet of our docu-appetite is comprised of nature documentaries. The Blue Planet has to be one of the most earth-shatteringly amazing subjects ever put to film. From plankton to coral reefs, sharks to seals, crabs to the Blue Whale, it's astonishing. And then, of course, there's the hydrothermal vents. If you don't know yet about these things, with their chemosynthetic ecosystem that is possibly the origin point of all life on Earth, you should really check it the fuck out. There were so many times that Dollface and I paused the program just to gawk and ask each other, "Did you know about this? Why isn't the whole world talking about this?"
So, it finally happened. Just having left work, I entered the 42nd Street Port Authority subway station. Before entering the turnstiles, a police officer stops me and states, "Excuse me, sir. If you'd step over here, we'd like to search your bag." And he gestures to a nearby table where another officer stands ready.
If you're not aware of this situation, the City of New York decided last year to have the police conduct random bag searches of MTA riders prior to entering the subways and other mass transit systems. In our fearful post-9/11 world, it is thought that these random bag searches provide an extra measure of security for New York City. Personally... I think it's worthless bullshit.
If you recall my love of opposite villains and Bizarro in particular, then it should come as no surprise that I finally went and bought a Bizarro t-shirt. I was very enthusiastic about it. I decided to wear it for Sunday night poker.
This was a mistake.
So, on Wednesday, The Monster Project played a show and debuted our Smog Monster suite. It went fabulously, had an audience of about 50 enthusiastic people, we played brilliant, sold CD's and had an all-around rewarding experience. We recorded it on a mini-disc, so maybe I'll be able to post a live excerpt soon.
Friday was a mixed bag. The apex of the evening was the secret impromptu reunion of Brompton's Cocktail, and we sucked sucked sucked. That'll teach us not to play live without practicing. But The Benzene Ring before us was once again even better than their previous performance, and the band after us, Vesper, was a nice treat that even our very fickle friends enjoyed.
What's up with people who litter? I mean... it's not hard to wait that extra five seconds and deposit your trash in a designated receptacle. Especially in New York City: there's a trash can on every corner. Yet I see people toss stuff on the ground all the time. Candy bar and gum wrappers, empty chip bags, lottery tickets, newspapers, sales flyers, cigarette wrappers, napkins... the list goes on. Hell, people throw their shit on the subway tracks all the time, even though there are trash cans everywhere on the platforms, even though rail trash causes tunnel fires (which in turn cause delays), even though it contributes to the fucking rat problem. I just don't get it!
Do people consciously think: "Fuck it, I'm going to toss this now, I ain't waiting for no trash can." Or does it never even occur to them, a truly thoughtless thing? I'm sure if you confronted most litterers about it, they would acknowledge that they simply don't care, perhaps adding that you should fuck off. Maybe a small majority would become embarrassed, possibly even taking a moment to rectify their carelessness.
Occasionally, Dollface and I do Nice Things for each other. Just because. I think it's biological.
Earlier this week, she took a old and unused audio cassette holder and decided to convert it to a Micromaster display case. (One more nail in the coffin of the audio cassette, I know.) Up until this point, my Micromaster Squads and Patrols were kept in a large glass vase. I thought it looked pretty novel and cool, but I guess she decided it was time to upgrade. Maybe she was just feeling artsy-craftsy. Or maybe she just wanted to do a Nice Thing.
Well, I already told you about my love of "opposite" villains like Bizarro and the Reverse-Flash. I'm not the only one, you know. The image on the left is the cover from Superman #221, which parodies the classic Superman/Flash races with a Bizarro/Reverse-Flash race. (Actually, it was pretty much a rip-off, because only the last panel of the issue set up the race, which actually happened in Action Comics #831, but I digress.) Of course, the distorted villains ran in a crooked path, and the Reverse-Flash only won by letting Bizarro lose or something like that (it was a rather crappy issue, horribly illustrated by John Byrne, but again I digress).
Well, wouldn't you know there's a couple more opposite villains I'd love to tell you about. You might even have heard of one or both of them.
I think I can safely say that the year 2005 will always remain noteworthy for me. I turned 30 years old. I got married and honeymooned in Maui. I bounced through four different web development jobs. And I still found time to attend my first Transformers convention, get a new tattoo, perform a couple of shows and record a CD with my Monster Project, and launch the new BotchTheCrab.com. Not bad! Getting rid of cable television probably helped.
I wanted to try and list my favorites of 2005 (book, movie, album, comic, etc) but I realize that almost all my favorite entertainment of the last year has been material that predated 2005. I'm too busy finishing up all the works of Vladimir Nabokov, or stocking up on Alice In Chains, or digesting classic films like Laurence of Arabia. It just seems that there's so much really awesome stuff from the past decades with which I need to catch up. If anything new is appearing that's really incredible, I'm sure it will float up to me eventually.
Once upon a time back in college, I was sitting around watching television, stoned as usual, and some reminder of the holiday season prompted me to start thinking about Santa Claus. Specifically, I was pondering the impossibility of Santa's annual gift-giving mission, how he'd have to move impossibly fast and possess an unimaginable sleigh capacity in order to deliver all those toys to all those children in just one night. I shook my head in despair: it was impossible, just impossible.
And then I realized... But wait! Of course! He uses magic! I went back to watching television, thoroughly confident and pleased that there was a Santa Claus after all. It took five minutes before I realized that, in fact, there actually is no such thing as magic. But it was a great five minutes.
Here's a little Christmas story I wrote about seven or eight years ago. It's got everything a good yuletide story should have: Santa Claus, presents, insanity and robots.
Enjoy!
I love pizza. Love it love it love it. Pizza and sushi are my two favorite foods. I once put sashimi on pizza and it was awesome, but that's another story. This post is about pizza. Living in New York City, you would think I would be in pizza heaven, right? If you go to newyork.citysearch.com and search for "pizza," you get 2,747 results. But there's a problem: almost all of the pizza in New York fucking sucks.
I mean really sucks. I have explored dozens of blocks in all directions from my Port Authority workplace and found mostly shitty pizza, maybe one passable joint. Once I actually returned the slice. I took a couple bites, went back to the counter and handed it over. "I'm not going to finish this," I said. "There's no sauce on it, really. It's just not good." They stared at me blankly as I walked out, my pizza craving unfulfilled.
I have a new chair at work that will eventually alleviate all of my suffering. The picture on the right that looks like a modern art sculpture of a snail or a turtle? Yes, that's the chair. Yes, it looks ridiculous.
The theory is that this chair, backless and perfectly balanced, will force you to keep your back straight, improving posture and alleviating back pain. I admit that it has already alleviated 85% of my shoulder and neck pain. This goes a long way in its favor. On the flip side, my back is killing me. I have been told that this is normal: this is your body learning how to sit up straight. Supposedly, after a week or two, my back muscles will gain the strength to hold me up correctly and then it's smooth sailing from that point on.
Botch and I went in for some maintenance last night: I was scheduled for a deep tissue massage and Botch was going to get his claws sharpened and his cloaking software upgraded. We were on adjacent tables, but massages and software upgrades are typically silent things, so there wasn't much conversation at the time. Still, it's always comforting to have someone familiar around when you're nearly naked and a stranger has their hands all over you.
I had solicited a professional massage only once before: Dollface and I went in for a "couples massage" a few weeks prior. Though relaxing, it wasn't intensive enough to do any real therapeutic work on my muscles. Since my shoulders and neck have lately been feeling wound-up tighter than a rubber band ball, I decided that a deep tissue massage might be just the thing to force away the half-dozen knots throughout my shoulder assembly.
I Hate: The holiday music blared in every store, starting even before Thanksgiving and continuing through the last shopping day, usually some shit-awful modern rendition that features the tasteless vocal acrobatics of the artist but has all the soul of a can opener.
I Hate: Gift-giving as an obligatory social priority, even among people to whom you never speak except on holidays; also, token presents or gift certificates given in lieu of something personal or relevant simply because the social priority to bestow a gift takes precedence over the genuine desire to give a personally-relevant item.
What I need is someone that I can visit who can evaluate my spine, my posture, my muscles, my job type, my way of life, my karma, my musical tastes and my favorite sexual positions, and based on this information, can tell me exactly what kind of chair I should be using at work and at home, one that won't have my shoulders and neck aching so much that I consider murdering everyone within my field of vision with a sharpened sledgehammer. This magical chiropractor-cum-furniture-maven will utilize giant three-dimensional renderings of my stacked vertebrae to deliver a completely trustworthy seating prescription. Yes.
Often I despair that neither my job skills, nor the services of the company for which I work, would be of any use whatsoever in a Project Mayhem / Electromagnetic Pulse / Nuclear Winter type of scenario. Web development will not help me hunt, gather or farm, nor will animated online avatars. I think of my friends and their occupations, and the majority of them are in similar positions: office monkeys; financial speculators; graphic designers. I should really start accruing favors now from Vanessa (who makes clothes), Eric (who builds furniture), and Gerard (who makes clothes, builds furniture, and goes camping in South American mountains with nothing but a backpack).
So, I had mentioned a room in my apartment that is our dwelling's focus of All Things Adam. It is the room my wife cleans the least, not just because she dreads doing so, but because she graciously allows me to wallow undisturbed in my own crustaceous juices. Traditionally this room has been non-committally referred to as the Computer Room, the Toy Room (or the Transformer Room), the Music Room, Your Room, or whatever adjective was most immediately relevant. Example: "Are you going to pick up your musical equipment, or is it just going to lay all over the floor of the Music Room?" Well, henceforth, for the sake of simplicity and monomanical melodrama, this room shall be termed The War Room.
Occasionally, my wife would hear me say that our apartment is really hers, that I just have one room in it (my computer/music/toy room/den/cave). This upsets her — disproportionately, I think — because she wants me to feel that the apartment is truly as much mine as it is hers. To this end she has permitted me to place baubles here and there throughout the apartment. Often the baubles complain to me that they feel out of place at best, and disowned or abandoned at worst. I understand and sympathize with their disorientation, but I will direct them now to my bedroom dresser, which I think looks comfortably in-place, mine and acceptably tacky.
Well, "horrific" only insofar as I've seen a lot of horror movies, but in truth the week itself has not been fabulous. I've had a touch of the flu that manifested itself in terms of dreadful muscle aches, mild fever and a throat so sore it woke me up at night. I spent Halloween watching M*A*S*H episodes, missed a day of work, was far from chipper for the return performance of The Monster Project, but I've logged a lot of GameBoy and movie time.
And on top of it all, this morning I woke up congested. Blew my nose a dozen times. Must have been that beer or those tokes from last night. Should have known I wasn't out of the woods yet. So today I'm going to spend listening to The Cure and dusting my Transformers. Why? Because they are very fucking dusty.
Recently, a female friend of mine who lives in the low-income Northern section of the District of Columbia was rather viciously attacked in public by a large man who we shall summarize as being a negative but glaring example of urban youth culture. She and her girlfriend first encountered the individual when he passed them on the street and intoned to the afore-mentioned girlfriend something to the effect of "I wanna stick my cock in your pussy." My friend angrily explained that that kind of unsolicited comment was unacceptable, in response to which this man became agitated and aggressive. To make a long story short, the man — who was apparently at least six feet tall and over 200 lbs. — beat my friend savagely on the street, fracturing her jaw and leaving her with a concussion. The icing on this cake is that while this beating occurred, a large group of youths stood around and egged him on with shouts of "Yeah! Beat that white bitch down!"
Now, my first reaction when I heard this tale (apart from shock) was to utter, "Man, I hate urban youth culture." Seriously. I quote myself verbatim. Shortly thereafter, I decided to examine what exactly I meant by this. I'm not a discriminatory person. I'm pretty fucking left-wing, actually. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I meant exactly what I said. Regardless of race, age or manner of dress, I really hate urban youth culture. But let me tell you why...
So I stopped by one of the Scientology/Dianetics Free Stress Test booths yesterday. Apparently I am one of the most stress-free people you will ever encounter, but I should still buy Dianetics.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the Church of Scientology started setting up booths in and around Times Square recently advertising a "Free Stress Test" to commuters and tourists. Naturally, no matter what your result, they're going to tell you that you have too much stress and that Scientology is the answer (translation: buy our books, join our cult).
I'm going to go against type here and say that I really just don't like rain. Oh, it's fine and pleasant when it's outside and I'm not, but I hate having to be in it. I know I'm gloomy and morbid, I know I dress in black often, I know I am full of hatred and bile, and I know my totemic animal is aquatic, but the truth of the matter is that rain just gets you wet. Overcast days are wonderful; rainy days suck.
Tonight is the first practice for The Monster Project in eight months. The hiatus (after only one show) was filled with recording a CD of our répertoire, mixing said CD, and transcribing/arranging new material. (We're going to be doing a medley of selections from The Land of the Lost and selections from Godzilla vs The Smog Monster, probably my favorite G-flick.) Because rehearsal follows so close upon the workday's end, I brought my bass and suitcase of equipment to work this morning. Through the above-mentioned rain. And the 20 minute wait for an E train. This made it the perfect morning for listening to The Cure's Disintegration.
I get songs in my head. Bad. Which is to say, they replay all the time, for days, from my first waking moments in the morning through my struggling efforts to fall asleep at night (so difficult with all this racket). And sometimes these obsessions/persecutions drive me to interesting lengths.
The record-holding song is "God Only Knows" from the Beach Boys album, Pet Sounds. Six days that tune played over and over in my head. I memorized all the eloquent words, of course. I sung it in the shower, practicing my falsetto in order to duplicate Carl Wilson's angelic tenor. I learned to play it on the piano. As I walked down the street, I sung it to myself, timing the pace of my steps to the tempo of the music. I thought listening to the recording seven times a day would help purge this need, but it only reinforced it. By the fifth day, poor Dollface was singing it to herself at all hours as well, cursing my name.
All summer long, within the Nassau Avenue subway station located in my inoffensive and uninspiring neighborhood of Greenpoint (Brooklyn), a certain anonymous political activist has been speaking his political mind through graffiti on various subway posters. His call-to-action (in thick, black magic marker) is always the same:
As you can imagine, the Lord of War posters are especially good for punctuating his message. Nearly all of them have been precisely so inscribed. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of graffiti because it's just another word for vandalism, and its purveyors are typically of low character. But then, I'm not overly fond of ubiquitous advertisements in public transportation, either. So I'm not placing a value judgment on the graffiti itself. No, what simultaneously amused and offended me about this message was the illiteracy of the author. If you're going to make a political value judgment and solicit the assassination of the so-called leader of the free world, learn to fucking spell.
Two days ago, I got rid of TV. Here's why.
The only person who has ever accused me of watching too much television is myself. I have long lamented that the majority of people in our society do not read books, or listen to music appreciatively (that is, as anything other than for booty-shaking or head-banging), or do anything creative or anything to better themselves as people. Instead, people watch television. It's convenient. It's effortless. And it is rarely edifying. Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes.
Understand, I have been telling my family for years that I will never sire a child. But then, I also swore that I would never get married. But then, I never thought I would be with someone as awesome as my mistress. Now that I have indeed killed a portion of my younger, rebellious self and bitten (swallowed) the matrimonial bullet, I find that my family could not be any more happy about it. As I found out this weekend, they are downright thrilled.
And I can't help but wonder if they are secretly (or at least quietly) wondering whether I may indeed soften on the notion of procreation as well and spawn a mini-Adam. They may think that some biological need to nurture, or give something back to the world, etcetera, will overcome me. This is absolutely, positively not going to happen, but perhaps I can offer them a substitute to appease this wishful thinking on their part.
I'm back on the blog wagon. I'm sorry I was gone for so long. The honeymoon kept me from blogging, of course. Then I got sick immediately upon return. Yadda followed yadda....
Here, I will sum up the honeymoon in Maui:
This will be Botch's final entry as a solitary Decepticon. Later this cycle, Botch's mission -- to infiltrate the femme-bot's inner circle -- will be consumated as he weds Dollface, a high-ranking and talented espionage artist herself.
Botch's status as a double-agent may be compromised, though: he finds himself terribly devoted to Dollface and her cause: to live happily ever after. Still, he will scuttle the fine line between affection and duty: Decepticons Forever! (and Botch and Doll, too).
Last night was the series finale of Six Feet Under, which my mistress and I have been watching pretty much since its inception about 5 years ago. What started out as a show about a family-owned funeral home took several stylistic turns throughout its duration (sometimes resembling a soap opera too much) but ultimately at least two things remained constant: the personal aspirations and goals of the main characters; and death.
I am more death-fixated than the average person. There are a variety of reasons for this, among them my staunch atheism and the stark worldview it enforces, my gravitation toward absolutes, and my general morbidity. Interwoven with this is my primal, aesthetic need to see the end of things, the final culmination of any story, whether the tale is a movie, a song or a person's life.
Whenever you start a new job, there are a great many discoveries ahead of you. But I'm not referring to those aspects related to the occupation itself. It's the peripherals I enjoy.
Being in midtown near Port Authority, there is no shortage of pizza places. On 8th Avenue between 36th and 37th, there are no less than three on the same side of the block. Who would have thought the one on the corner selling slices for 99¢ would so greatly outshine all the others?
Anyone who loves heroes and villains knows that it is their relative parity that keeps the story interesting. Dirty Harry wouldn't be cool if he was chasing down perpetrators of insurance fraud. You probably wouldn't care to see Columbo solve the case of who's been stealing cigarettes from the 7-11. And if the Spider-Man movie consisted of nothing but webbing-up muggers, we would have felt cheated. It is the strength of the opposite number that empowers each hero and villain in our eyes.
Along these lines, many comic book heroes have an Archenemy that seems to eloquently counter-balance the strengths and abilities of the hero. Superman, the most powerful hero, contends with Lex Luthor, a man without powers but with vast intellect and wealth that makes him formidable. A perfect foil! The unpredictable lunacy of the Joker counterbalances Batman's finely-honed intellect and control. The Hulk's opposite number is the Leader, a man who was gamma-irradiated like Banner but gained super-intelligence instead of super-strength.
My mother mentioned that she never knows what to get for me and my fiancée. So I provided her with a list:
I am 30 years old, and I am pleased to say that it was only in the last few years that I began to see my friends start getting hitched. Many people, often from rural upbringings, have told me how most of their friends and acquaintances had gotten married and/or started pumping out kids shortly after high school (if not sooner). I was glad that my social group was more restrained, valuing things like education and independence over familial urges.
Now, about a decade after high school and college, many have paired up and gotten hitched, for better or for worse. Even I have broken an age-old promise to myself about matrimony and will be marrying my lovely mistress before month's end. I have learned that marriage is not the enemy here.
I have met people who appear to take the notion of tattooing themselves very lightly. The permanence and intimacy of tattoos does not seem to hold as much gravity for them, and images of toilets, copulating skeletons or a lover's name follow them around like an old t-shirt. Mind you, though this mindset is more often found in those who are heavily tattooed, I want to resist generalizations about such folks — I've met many much-inked individuals for whom every piece holds deep meaning. But I think you catch my meaning: people can be blasé about their tats.
For my own part, every one of my tattoos has meaning. Right now I have three (two and a half, really) and while the amount of forethought for each design, placement and actualization varied, they each deserve their place of permanence on my flesh.
Job-hunting. That's what I did.
It has been exactly four weeks since I left my last contracting position (a less-than-ideal environment) and I have finally been offered a position that I actually want. However, it took me constant online job-hunting, recruiter interaction, and no less than 7 interviews to get here. (I estimated 2-4 weeks, so I'm right on schedule.) But this entry isn't about the job I'm going to take; it's about the ones I didn't or wouldn't.
There are many problems with having a blog.
Primarily, there's the egotistical presumption that anyone actually cares what you have to say. Well, when this idea to build my own blog was first conceived, it was because I was planning on moving across the country and wanted a way to keep in touch with my slew of friends in NYC. Since I am already somewhat assured that they have a passing interest in my thoughts and musings, I knew I would have at least a guaranteed small captive audience. By the time it was determined that I wasn't moving, I was too far along in building this blog to stop.
