Just got back from the movie theater. I went to see this year's most promising entry for The Longest Movie Of The Year Oscar as well as The Longest Anything Ever Guiness World Record. I am talking about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is currently up for a title change to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Told In Realtime.
It is a great joy to be writing this. This is one of those great opportunities life gives you to offend lots of people, as this movie is highly rated indeed. People take mortal offense when you attack their likes and dislikes; you say something nasty about a movie they like, and they will murder your family and put animal heads in your bed. But being an orphan, I feel relatively safe from retribution.
As I said, this movie's defining quality is length. You may consider reading the story instead, it will take you half an hour at most. I can't say that the movie is based on the story to any degree, but they do have one thing in common. They take a cool science-fictionish idea, and then proceed to do absolutely nothing interesting with it. The story, however, took me fifteen minutes to read, while the movie left me with gray hair.
The idea is simple but potentially interesting: a guy ages backwards. He's born an old man, and dies an infant. Now let's observe how one transforms this mini-gem into a bottle of sleeping pills.
Let's start with a synopsis, Book-A-Minute-Classics style
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Told In Realtime
(Benjamin Button is born a hideous old man played by a crudely drawn CGI actor)
Everyone: he's hideous! Freak! Freak!
Black Woman With Heart Of Gold: gimme
(Black Woman With Heart of Gold raises the freak)
(Benjamin Button lives for forty years, and then suddenly realizes he's transformed from Gollum's ugly cousin to the apotheosis of magazine-cover male sex appeal: Brad Pitt)
Benjamin Button: holy crap! Did I just get younger? Holy crap! Is that a Cate Blanchett channeling Katherine Hepburn as Female Romantic Lead? Holy crap! Did she just have sex with me?
(Benjamin gets Female Romantic Lead pregnant)
Benjamin Button: well, my job here is done, see ya later.
(Benjamin abandons Female Romantic Lead to her newborn daughter and lame leg)
(Benjamin reverse-ages into a baby and dies)
The End
If it were only that simple. Unfortunately those key events are padded with hours and hours worth of Benjamin stalking around the planet Earth on foot, car and boat, occasionally opening his mouth to say something worthless in a creaky door voice with a Southern accent. Sometimes he goes to a bar and gets drunk. Sometimes he visits his mother. It's like watching a Reality Show, but one with actual reality, and no artificial drama injection.
Blah. I don't want to think about it anymore.
(Chatting with my friend in China)
Pei: k, I am going outside
Mark: i'll go outside too
Pei: k, see u there
Mark: k, i'll be by the tree
Pei: I know where outside is, dude
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Don't do it or you'll have to do it again
Haven't written regularly in a while and haven't gotten any complaints. Time to try the opposite again.
Demonstrated ability in a domestic environment is a very dangerous thing. When I was younger, I took care never attempt to do something myself that had previously been done for me. Take for example peeling apples. My Mom and Dad can peel in an apple in 4.3 and and 4.1 seconds respectively without so much as shedding a pint of blood. It takes me a good 45 seconds to a minute to perform the same feat with the same safety margin, something I would never know if I hadn't strayed from the rulebook of my younger smarter self. But one time, long long ago, in this very same galaxy, Mom and Dad were too busy to peel an apple for on-the-brink-of-starvation Mark and offered him to try it himself with perhaps a "betcha can't do it!" for extra deceit points. And little Mark swallowed the poison pill, smashed the glass, took up the axe, and separated the peel (along with 90% of the apple) from the meat. And Mom and Dad said "Wow! Congratulations! Now you can do it yourself every time!"
Imagine what life would be like if from your very birth you held to the principle of not demonstrating ability. It would be cake with a tall glass of foaming Dr. Pepper, and someone would be spoon-feeding you both. You would still be wearing a diaper, you would weigh 800 pounds (that's 2000 pounds for you Jupiter dwellers!), and your parents would still treat you like your grandparents do - with utter disregard for responsibility and sole purpose to spoil. As it is, I have to peel my own apples, change my own diaper, and write my own blog entries.
Someone: they could get a restraining order.
Mark: restraining orders are probably expensive.
Mario: nah, at least buy one get one free.
Gene (telling a parable): There was this guy once, who had many many adventures. I'm not going to tell you about any of them, because I don't remember a single one.
(Gene is joking about some female spiritual leader)
Gene: She only holds you to five of Moses's Commandements
Boris: what about the other four?
Demonstrated ability in a domestic environment is a very dangerous thing. When I was younger, I took care never attempt to do something myself that had previously been done for me. Take for example peeling apples. My Mom and Dad can peel in an apple in 4.3 and and 4.1 seconds respectively without so much as shedding a pint of blood. It takes me a good 45 seconds to a minute to perform the same feat with the same safety margin, something I would never know if I hadn't strayed from the rulebook of my younger smarter self. But one time, long long ago, in this very same galaxy, Mom and Dad were too busy to peel an apple for on-the-brink-of-starvation Mark and offered him to try it himself with perhaps a "betcha can't do it!" for extra deceit points. And little Mark swallowed the poison pill, smashed the glass, took up the axe, and separated the peel (along with 90% of the apple) from the meat. And Mom and Dad said "Wow! Congratulations! Now you can do it yourself every time!"
Imagine what life would be like if from your very birth you held to the principle of not demonstrating ability. It would be cake with a tall glass of foaming Dr. Pepper, and someone would be spoon-feeding you both. You would still be wearing a diaper, you would weigh 800 pounds (that's 2000 pounds for you Jupiter dwellers!), and your parents would still treat you like your grandparents do - with utter disregard for responsibility and sole purpose to spoil. As it is, I have to peel my own apples, change my own diaper, and write my own blog entries.
Someone: they could get a restraining order.
Mark: restraining orders are probably expensive.
Mario: nah, at least buy one get one free.
Gene (telling a parable): There was this guy once, who had many many adventures. I'm not going to tell you about any of them, because I don't remember a single one.
(Gene is joking about some female spiritual leader)
Gene: She only holds you to five of Moses's Commandements
Boris: what about the other four?
Saturday, December 20, 2008
How To Get In Trouble
Being that I love to argue almost as much as I like winning arguments, it helps to know what one's doing in an argument. There is of course good reading material in this area that I review every now and then, but mostly it's for humor purposes, and offers little real advice. Luckily, there's what I call the 'U, U and U,' the three keys to being a winner. Everything stems from the following revelation: No one can argue as well as the Uninformed, Unopinionated, and Uninvested.
The uninformed:
Nothing is more deleterious to your arguing capacity than a trunk full of actual facts. This is one of those uncommon common wisdoms. Knowledge is like a rug that you stand on, a rug with multiple handles on all sides for people to yank. So all knowledge is excess knowledge, when it comes to an argument.
Knowledge hurts you in several ways. First of all, it makes you cocky. Little feels better than proving your opponent an ignoramus, and this makes it hard to resist throwing a little quote or worse - parable, or (don't ever do this) actual news or scientific findings. Unfortunately, that 'little' contains among other things, the satisfaction of being that ignoramus, and knocking your four-eyed, egg-headed and degree-laden opponent on his figurative ass.
And second, knowledge is highly correlated with verbal incontinence. When you know something that could further your case, stifling it is like stifling salivation when faced with an eighteen course Thanksgiving meal. Pavlov laughs in your face.
On the other hand, being uninformed gives one wings of freedom. Not knowing anything, you can make up whatever you want and be equally convincingly convinced of it.
So, the best option is to be uninformed. Alzheimer's is a cromulent path to take, but I hear the side-effects are a bitch. For us mortals, refusing to learn to read is a good alternative. Parents, this is your chance to ensure your child's happiness. And don't worry about school, no one's ever learned anything there anyway.
The unopinionated:
This one's more obvious than a monster truck sitting on your face. If you have an opinion, you hazard agreeing with a potential opponent. While agreeing with him/her does release a certain amount of endorphins, it pales in comparison with ridiculing them.
The uninvested:
Having a stake in an argument is almost as bad as having an opinion. It's not quite as bad, because opinions are usually rock solid, and stakes are made of paper or plastic money. (However, "paper covers rock," so it's mildly debatable).
Now you're ready grasshopper, go and make people lose their cool and hurt you.
(Mario's walks past me wearing a thin see-through white shirt. Meanwhile I can barely see anything, I'm so wrapped up in clothes to keep warm)
Mark: aren't you cold?
Mario (with a look of dawning realization): oh my God! I'm freezing! Where's my sweatshirt!?
The uninformed:
Nothing is more deleterious to your arguing capacity than a trunk full of actual facts. This is one of those uncommon common wisdoms. Knowledge is like a rug that you stand on, a rug with multiple handles on all sides for people to yank. So all knowledge is excess knowledge, when it comes to an argument.
Knowledge hurts you in several ways. First of all, it makes you cocky. Little feels better than proving your opponent an ignoramus, and this makes it hard to resist throwing a little quote or worse - parable, or (don't ever do this) actual news or scientific findings. Unfortunately, that 'little' contains among other things, the satisfaction of being that ignoramus, and knocking your four-eyed, egg-headed and degree-laden opponent on his figurative ass.
And second, knowledge is highly correlated with verbal incontinence. When you know something that could further your case, stifling it is like stifling salivation when faced with an eighteen course Thanksgiving meal. Pavlov laughs in your face.
On the other hand, being uninformed gives one wings of freedom. Not knowing anything, you can make up whatever you want and be equally convincingly convinced of it.
So, the best option is to be uninformed. Alzheimer's is a cromulent path to take, but I hear the side-effects are a bitch. For us mortals, refusing to learn to read is a good alternative. Parents, this is your chance to ensure your child's happiness. And don't worry about school, no one's ever learned anything there anyway.
The unopinionated:
This one's more obvious than a monster truck sitting on your face. If you have an opinion, you hazard agreeing with a potential opponent. While agreeing with him/her does release a certain amount of endorphins, it pales in comparison with ridiculing them.
The uninvested:
Having a stake in an argument is almost as bad as having an opinion. It's not quite as bad, because opinions are usually rock solid, and stakes are made of paper or plastic money. (However, "paper covers rock," so it's mildly debatable).
Now you're ready grasshopper, go and make people lose their cool and hurt you.
(Mario's walks past me wearing a thin see-through white shirt. Meanwhile I can barely see anything, I'm so wrapped up in clothes to keep warm)
Mark: aren't you cold?
Mario (with a look of dawning realization): oh my God! I'm freezing! Where's my sweatshirt!?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Home
Today, I flew back to NJ. Mario dropped me off at Houston Hobby Airport, and after we soaked each other's well-muscled shoulders with veritable cataracts of tears, we parted ways. I went to find my plane and Mario went to go buy some tissues.
Hobby Airport is like a trailer compared to the grandiose mansion airports I'm used to. It only has one employee - Carl Fratratchet, a middle-aged clone of a middle-aged black man. When I came in, Carl ushered me to the ticket window. After he maxed out my credit card on account of my bags having one too many dimensions (AirTran charges you an extra $500 for each dimension past 2D), he took me through security, where he patted me down and took a urine sample. Luckily I haven't done any hard drugs since I was in my mother's womb, so I passed with flying colors.
After the carry-on flammability test which relieved me of both carry-ons, Carl took me over to the terminal, made sure I knew where to find my plane should I wish to follow through with my ticket purchase, and then walked me over to the duty-free shop and sold me some Starburst. When I'm on a plane and it changes altitude, my ears tend to complain with blood and brain tissue discharge. Starburst keeps my saliva running, so I can equalize pressure at a greater pace.
Finally Carl walked me to the plane - a Boeing 707 two-seater discontinued in 1956, got in the pilot's seat and flew me home. Now that's what I call a valuable employee.
Mark: I took your stuff out of the dryer.
Mario: because you were washing?
Mark: no, drying. But good guess.
(at Starbucks, last day in Houston)
Mark: does the Pumpkin Spice Latte sound good?
Mario: to me? No. But to you it sounds good. Dang! Really good!
(talking about someone at Mario's work)
Mark: is she hot?
Mario: she's 80 years old, at least.
Mark: answer the question!
Yesterday we found out that Mario thinks 'Jew' is a racial slur.
Hobby Airport is like a trailer compared to the grandiose mansion airports I'm used to. It only has one employee - Carl Fratratchet, a middle-aged clone of a middle-aged black man. When I came in, Carl ushered me to the ticket window. After he maxed out my credit card on account of my bags having one too many dimensions (AirTran charges you an extra $500 for each dimension past 2D), he took me through security, where he patted me down and took a urine sample. Luckily I haven't done any hard drugs since I was in my mother's womb, so I passed with flying colors.
After the carry-on flammability test which relieved me of both carry-ons, Carl took me over to the terminal, made sure I knew where to find my plane should I wish to follow through with my ticket purchase, and then walked me over to the duty-free shop and sold me some Starburst. When I'm on a plane and it changes altitude, my ears tend to complain with blood and brain tissue discharge. Starburst keeps my saliva running, so I can equalize pressure at a greater pace.
Finally Carl walked me to the plane - a Boeing 707 two-seater discontinued in 1956, got in the pilot's seat and flew me home. Now that's what I call a valuable employee.
Mark: I took your stuff out of the dryer.
Mario: because you were washing?
Mark: no, drying. But good guess.
(at Starbucks, last day in Houston)
Mark: does the Pumpkin Spice Latte sound good?
Mario: to me? No. But to you it sounds good. Dang! Really good!
(talking about someone at Mario's work)
Mark: is she hot?
Mario: she's 80 years old, at least.
Mark: answer the question!
Yesterday we found out that Mario thinks 'Jew' is a racial slur.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Marathon?
Today was the marathon attempt. I'm cracking up even calling it an attempt. Nevertheless, something happened, it was more or less 7 miles long, so let's just call it that - an attempt.
There were several revelations that came during the during and remembered themselves to me during the after (obviously none of them concerned grammar). Here they are in no particular order:
1. A marathon is about 26 miles long...er than you think.
2. Optimism only gets you through about 1 mile.
3. Vomit burns. Both times. And in between.
4. I have the lungs of a chain-smoker.
5. Mario's lungs are actually made up of stacks of Camel Golds.
6. Those stacks of Camel Golds are made of real camel essence. Because that boy sure has endurance.
7. Sitting at the computer for four months is probably only the second best way to prepare for an attempt.
8. Typing speed and running speed are uncorrelated.
9. Running is not the best time to work out personal problems. The only thing I could think about was the personal problem of having decided to run a marathon.
10. Doing is highly highly overrated. I'm going to stick to 'planning to do' and 'lying about doing' from now on instead.
11. Not only can Mario not run a marathon, he can't even run a marathon while carrying me on his back.
The attempt started auspiciously. After half a mile, Mario was celebrating the 2% mark. "Dude, we already ran 2%! Just fifty of those, and we're done. Cake. Wait, it's only forty-nine more! How can we not finish?"
The first mile was indeed cake, and no, we weren't in a car. Unfortunately there was a second, which didn't go over so well with my head and stomach. At around two miles, they suddenly teamed up and betrayed me, with a pain-in-the-ass thing called pain. And the next five miles after that were pretty much a bloody haze of running and walking, though I'm reasonably sure it wasn't my blood. I may have strangled Mario a bit, and perchance some worthless passerbys.
Anyway, it's all over. Now I get to sit back and enjoy the perks of having attempted to run a marathon. These include not being able to walk, lots and lots of complaining about not being able to walk, having to take frequent sips of water between complaints because of a burning throat, and of course blushing and running out of the room when the word marathon clears the air.
There were several revelations that came during the during and remembered themselves to me during the after (obviously none of them concerned grammar). Here they are in no particular order:
1. A marathon is about 26 miles long...er than you think.
2. Optimism only gets you through about 1 mile.
3. Vomit burns. Both times. And in between.
4. I have the lungs of a chain-smoker.
5. Mario's lungs are actually made up of stacks of Camel Golds.
6. Those stacks of Camel Golds are made of real camel essence. Because that boy sure has endurance.
7. Sitting at the computer for four months is probably only the second best way to prepare for an attempt.
8. Typing speed and running speed are uncorrelated.
9. Running is not the best time to work out personal problems. The only thing I could think about was the personal problem of having decided to run a marathon.
10. Doing is highly highly overrated. I'm going to stick to 'planning to do' and 'lying about doing' from now on instead.
11. Not only can Mario not run a marathon, he can't even run a marathon while carrying me on his back.
The attempt started auspiciously. After half a mile, Mario was celebrating the 2% mark. "Dude, we already ran 2%! Just fifty of those, and we're done. Cake. Wait, it's only forty-nine more! How can we not finish?"
The first mile was indeed cake, and no, we weren't in a car. Unfortunately there was a second, which didn't go over so well with my head and stomach. At around two miles, they suddenly teamed up and betrayed me, with a pain-in-the-ass thing called pain. And the next five miles after that were pretty much a bloody haze of running and walking, though I'm reasonably sure it wasn't my blood. I may have strangled Mario a bit, and perchance some worthless passerbys.
Anyway, it's all over. Now I get to sit back and enjoy the perks of having attempted to run a marathon. These include not being able to walk, lots and lots of complaining about not being able to walk, having to take frequent sips of water between complaints because of a burning throat, and of course blushing and running out of the room when the word marathon clears the air.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Slitting Wrists and Other Hobbies
After yesterday's viewing of Run Fatboy Run, Mario and I were inspired. This morning we headed over (drove) to his aunt's house and ate about sixteen pounds of food a piece. After that motivation session, we feel ready to run a marathon. We have all the requisite characteristics - we're weak, out of shape, and now we're fat. Armed with these superpowers, we will run not one, but two marathons! One for Mario and one for me. The date is Friday, and we've told everyone we know that we're doing it to ensure the most happiness in the event of failure.
Like every year around this time, the world is beset with nagging but unanswerable questions, most of them having to do with Kwanza, such as:
What in the world IS Kwanza?
Is it spelled with a K or a Q? Or perhaps both? Qkwanza? Kqwanza?
What group of people is responsible for K(Q)wanza's existence and what does the event commemorate?
How many candles should there be on the eighth night of Kwanza?
Ok, I will answer some of these, though I guarantee no amount of truth.
First of all, you uncultured ignoramuses (this is the 'you' that no longer includes 'me'), Kwanza is actually spelled Kwanzaa, or so is the humble opinion of Wikipedia. It's a week long, so if we take length as a measure of importance, it's somewhere between Christmas and Hanukkah but closer to the latter. It's celebrated by lighting a candle, which explains why Kwanzaa subscribers are impossible to recognize in the sea of minorahs and Christmas lights.
Umm...ok that's enough for this year. Next year, we'll learn who celebrates Kwanzaa and what they're actually celebrating.
Speaking of depression, Leaving Las Vegas. Do NOT see this movie. It might put your life in perspective, and that's the last thing anyone wants.
Like every year around this time, the world is beset with nagging but unanswerable questions, most of them having to do with Kwanza, such as:
What in the world IS Kwanza?
Is it spelled with a K or a Q? Or perhaps both? Qkwanza? Kqwanza?
What group of people is responsible for K(Q)wanza's existence and what does the event commemorate?
How many candles should there be on the eighth night of Kwanza?
Ok, I will answer some of these, though I guarantee no amount of truth.
First of all, you uncultured ignoramuses (this is the 'you' that no longer includes 'me'), Kwanza is actually spelled Kwanzaa, or so is the humble opinion of Wikipedia. It's a week long, so if we take length as a measure of importance, it's somewhere between Christmas and Hanukkah but closer to the latter. It's celebrated by lighting a candle, which explains why Kwanzaa subscribers are impossible to recognize in the sea of minorahs and Christmas lights.
Umm...ok that's enough for this year. Next year, we'll learn who celebrates Kwanzaa and what they're actually celebrating.
Speaking of depression, Leaving Las Vegas. Do NOT see this movie. It might put your life in perspective, and that's the last thing anyone wants.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The Brits Are Slowly Unclenching Those Well-Dressed Buttocks
Just watched Run Fatboy Run, the relatively recent movie with Simon Pegg's crew (Shaun of the Dead). It was hilarious, but let's give credit where it's due. It's at least half due to the fact that British people have done a great job of representing themselves in movies as reserved, rational, and gentlemanly. In other words, as utter tightasses. The American view of the British film character is one inevitably played by Michael Caine, who is articulate, natural, believable, and also the most quick-acting over-the-counter soporific on the market. It is because of Michael's skill that we have our current view of the Brits.
Enter Simon Pegg and crew. Suddenly we see British people doing all sorts of strange things: grimacing, wearing booty shorts, being fat, walking around naked from the waist down, and doing all sorts of physical comedy that require stuntmen and stunt genitalia. And here you can't help but laugh. The stereotype is so strong that when you break it open, there are hysterical giggles inside. I laughed so hard I needed three separate ribcage replacements.
Now that I've explained the reason this movie's so funny, you should by no means ever watch it. Being conscious of the contrast effect I described will undoubtedly break the spell, and you'll just be seeing another Hollywood slapstick with a cliched plot and stupid jokes.
So, to summarize (just saying those words makes me feel like I'm trying to meet a word count), this movie's pretty lame. It put me to sleep just fine even without Mr. Caine's professional help.
(Franco put up some Christmas and Hanukkah decorations including some uncircumsized reindeer, Mario comes back from work)
Mario: a menorah? I don't think God would approve of that. The God I worship I mean, not your heathen God.
Mark: then we shall have a battle of the Gods.
Mario: or we could sit there and stare at each other until one of our Gods kills one of us.
Mark: or lets one of us starve to death.
Enter Simon Pegg and crew. Suddenly we see British people doing all sorts of strange things: grimacing, wearing booty shorts, being fat, walking around naked from the waist down, and doing all sorts of physical comedy that require stuntmen and stunt genitalia. And here you can't help but laugh. The stereotype is so strong that when you break it open, there are hysterical giggles inside. I laughed so hard I needed three separate ribcage replacements.
Now that I've explained the reason this movie's so funny, you should by no means ever watch it. Being conscious of the contrast effect I described will undoubtedly break the spell, and you'll just be seeing another Hollywood slapstick with a cliched plot and stupid jokes.
So, to summarize (just saying those words makes me feel like I'm trying to meet a word count), this movie's pretty lame. It put me to sleep just fine even without Mr. Caine's professional help.
(Franco put up some Christmas and Hanukkah decorations including some uncircumsized reindeer, Mario comes back from work)
Mario: a menorah? I don't think God would approve of that. The God I worship I mean, not your heathen God.
Mark: then we shall have a battle of the Gods.
Mario: or we could sit there and stare at each other until one of our Gods kills one of us.
Mark: or lets one of us starve to death.
Friday, December 5, 2008
If It's On Sale, It's On The Bank Statement
Michelle's birthday's coming up soon. She's turning 12 plus or minus 6; it's hard to tell at that age. As always, I'm short on ideas for presents. It's been a long time since I was a twelve year old girl, and with all these "forty is the new twenty" and "seventy is the new twenty one" I can't even narrow down which millenium she belongs to. Should I get her a tricycle or some razors (for shaving; it's too early for her to be clinically depressed), a bib or a wheelchair? I've asked some experts, they're still analyzing the data. Wish me luck.
We went to Kroger's for some grocery shopping today. They're all set for Christmas, and there's a massive sale. Except for grapes, which at $964.99/lb seemed to be compensating for all of the other items put together, literally everything was marked down. So now, not only are we broke, but in two days time we'll be fatter than Señor Christmas stuffed with Dasher and Blitzen's entire family trees. Christmas trees of course.
I followed a schedule today for the first time in 22 years. Not the whole day of course, but from 1:00PM to 4:30PM I lived a life of order and premeditated action. This included an hour of Chinese, half an hour each with two guitar books, and half an hour of ear training. I am not skipping out on the chance to brag about it since there's no predicting how organized I will feel tomorrow. Clap your hands if you believe I can stick to this for more than just today. Now if you clapped your hands, go see a shrink. Clapping to yourself for no reason is a first-rank positive symptom of schizophrenia according to the Schneider classification. Either that, or you're a Nazi for following orders blindly.
An hour and a half ago, Mario put a 10oz frozen pizza in the oven. Usually within 10 minutes we hear the first hissing sounds of cheese globs committing suicide on the red-hot coils. I just went to check on it. The oven was set to a comfortable defrosting temperature of 0. Fahrenheit of course - this isn't a magic oven, and only I'm loony enough to take a pizza out of the box and plastic wrap and put it back in the freezer to cook.
Mario (seeing me at the oven): is it burning?
Mark: dude, you forgot to turn the oven on.
Mario: that wasn't the question. I said, is it burning?
Mark: nope, this one's a champion.
We went to Kroger's for some grocery shopping today. They're all set for Christmas, and there's a massive sale. Except for grapes, which at $964.99/lb seemed to be compensating for all of the other items put together, literally everything was marked down. So now, not only are we broke, but in two days time we'll be fatter than Señor Christmas stuffed with Dasher and Blitzen's entire family trees. Christmas trees of course.
I followed a schedule today for the first time in 22 years. Not the whole day of course, but from 1:00PM to 4:30PM I lived a life of order and premeditated action. This included an hour of Chinese, half an hour each with two guitar books, and half an hour of ear training. I am not skipping out on the chance to brag about it since there's no predicting how organized I will feel tomorrow. Clap your hands if you believe I can stick to this for more than just today. Now if you clapped your hands, go see a shrink. Clapping to yourself for no reason is a first-rank positive symptom of schizophrenia according to the Schneider classification. Either that, or you're a Nazi for following orders blindly.
An hour and a half ago, Mario put a 10oz frozen pizza in the oven. Usually within 10 minutes we hear the first hissing sounds of cheese globs committing suicide on the red-hot coils. I just went to check on it. The oven was set to a comfortable defrosting temperature of 0. Fahrenheit of course - this isn't a magic oven, and only I'm loony enough to take a pizza out of the box and plastic wrap and put it back in the freezer to cook.
Mario (seeing me at the oven): is it burning?
Mark: dude, you forgot to turn the oven on.
Mario: that wasn't the question. I said, is it burning?
Mark: nope, this one's a champion.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Life in Chinese
Read an article today about a funny study. Apparently, people who handle a warm object will be more positive for a short period afterwards than people who handle a cold one. For example, if you meet a friend for a hot coffee, you'll be more "generous, caring and happy" (scientific terms used by the study that have little to do with their layman counterparts) than if you have an ice coffee. This is going straight into my bank of studies on how to control people. Next time I ask someone for a favor, I'm sticking them in the oven first.
I've been cruising through Chinese the past few days, and their incessant politeness is getting to me. They are not my people. I always accept praise like it's due, regardless of how astronomically far I am from meriting it. When praise isn't being showered upon me, I manifest my own and collect nods of agreement. When there are no nodding people around me, I satisfy myself with echoes.
The Chinese take the extreme in the opposite direction. They tiptoe on their pinkies so as not to inspire jealousy. They verbally abuse themselves to not appear cocky. The last time a Chinese person accepted a compliment was in 1643, and it would have remained a secret if not for the security leak in 1984. Here's a typical conversation between two Chinese people, adapted from my textbook:
Old Wang: Li! How are you doing, long time no see.
Old Li: Oh, I'm doing great...but actually, I'm doing very poorly.
Old Wang: No, come on, no need to be polite, you're looking as handsome as you were when you were twenty years old.
Old Li: (takes out a knife and cuts off his face) Please! I am uglier than a lion's stomach lining.
Old Wang: Anyway, we both know beauty doesn't matter. What's important is cooking ability, and you are the best chef from here to Alpha Centauri B.
Old Li: (rips off his right arm) Cooking?? I can't even hold a pan and a pair of chopsticks at the same time. Anyway, my meager cooking skill pales in comparison with how you handle a soccer ball.
Old Wang: (takes a baseball bat out of his wallet and breaks his legs) What are you talking about? I can't even walk, let alone play soccer.
Old Li: Soccer's for little boys anyway. What matters is your wife is more beautiful than ten million dollars in an offshore bank account.
Old Wang: (takes out his nunchucks) I have to go Li. I'll see you later, you king of fashion you.
Old Li: See ya later, emperor of hair style.
(Old Wang goes home and murders his wife.)
How is there a billion and a half of these people?
Mario: apparently it's impossible to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon
Mark: that's ridiculous, i could eat a gallon of cinnamon
Mario: ugh. that's not the challenge. anyone can eat a gallon
I've been cruising through Chinese the past few days, and their incessant politeness is getting to me. They are not my people. I always accept praise like it's due, regardless of how astronomically far I am from meriting it. When praise isn't being showered upon me, I manifest my own and collect nods of agreement. When there are no nodding people around me, I satisfy myself with echoes.
The Chinese take the extreme in the opposite direction. They tiptoe on their pinkies so as not to inspire jealousy. They verbally abuse themselves to not appear cocky. The last time a Chinese person accepted a compliment was in 1643, and it would have remained a secret if not for the security leak in 1984. Here's a typical conversation between two Chinese people, adapted from my textbook:
Old Wang: Li! How are you doing, long time no see.
Old Li: Oh, I'm doing great...but actually, I'm doing very poorly.
Old Wang: No, come on, no need to be polite, you're looking as handsome as you were when you were twenty years old.
Old Li: (takes out a knife and cuts off his face) Please! I am uglier than a lion's stomach lining.
Old Wang: Anyway, we both know beauty doesn't matter. What's important is cooking ability, and you are the best chef from here to Alpha Centauri B.
Old Li: (rips off his right arm) Cooking?? I can't even hold a pan and a pair of chopsticks at the same time. Anyway, my meager cooking skill pales in comparison with how you handle a soccer ball.
Old Wang: (takes a baseball bat out of his wallet and breaks his legs) What are you talking about? I can't even walk, let alone play soccer.
Old Li: Soccer's for little boys anyway. What matters is your wife is more beautiful than ten million dollars in an offshore bank account.
Old Wang: (takes out his nunchucks) I have to go Li. I'll see you later, you king of fashion you.
Old Li: See ya later, emperor of hair style.
(Old Wang goes home and murders his wife.)
How is there a billion and a half of these people?
Mario: apparently it's impossible to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon
Mark: that's ridiculous, i could eat a gallon of cinnamon
Mario: ugh. that's not the challenge. anyone can eat a gallon
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
I Believe Shaved Is The Expression
Dreamed of a cool invention, but unfortunately not of how it works. It was a laptop, and the speakers worked in such a way that you could turn them on full blast and yet not hear anything. So far, very useful. Then, when you put your head at the right distance from the screen, you hear everything normally. You move your head out of the magic spot and again you hear nothing. There's also a dial you can use to adjust the location of the sweet spot.
Yesterday Gene shaved his head. I thought about it, flexed my Photoshop muscles, and shaved mine as well:
There are lots of reasons to shave one's head. Like most reasons, they split up into good reasons and bad reasons.
Some good reasons:
Your friends hate you, and you need another chance for a first impression. Chances are they won't recognize you with you new 'no do' do.
Your girlfriend did it, and she looks horrible. Trust me, this will get you laid. Or married. Hmm...maybe not such a good reason after all.
You just realized you already shaved half of your head.
You're butt-ugly, or in PC terms - aesthetically offensive. Your 57 makeovers didn't help. This is your last resort before you go under the knife.
The Apocalypse has come and gone. You're hungry and you're out of food. Hair has protein.
Some bad reasons:
You're an aspiring neo-Nazi, and they won't let you hate Jews with your Jew-fro.
You think you're black.
You just found your first grey hair.
Your head won't fit into that jar of honey, and you really really want those last few drops.
Unfortunately, even the good reasons rely heavily on situation. If you're only going by them, you might never shave your head. Luckily, there's a great third category, called the 'no good reason' category - one I subscribe to daily.
Some no good reasons to shave your head:
You want to know when it's raining as early as possible.
You want to test whether your head is hot enough to cook an egg.
You flipped a coin. Heads = shave your head, tails = ____ your _____. (Imagine you're Chinese, and use your imagination to fill in the blanks). You got lucky - the coin landed heads.
You're a heroin addict and all of your other exposed veins are infected. No...wait...that belongs in good reasons.
Anyway, making this decision is a headache. Good thing there's Photoshop. You can shave your head in there, and no one will ever interrogate you about it. And then when you're done, you can grow half of it back, if you want.
Or you can just shave it for real.
Yesterday Gene shaved his head. I thought about it, flexed my Photoshop muscles, and shaved mine as well:
There are lots of reasons to shave one's head. Like most reasons, they split up into good reasons and bad reasons.
Some good reasons:
Your friends hate you, and you need another chance for a first impression. Chances are they won't recognize you with you new 'no do' do.
Your girlfriend did it, and she looks horrible. Trust me, this will get you laid. Or married. Hmm...maybe not such a good reason after all.
You just realized you already shaved half of your head.
You're butt-ugly, or in PC terms - aesthetically offensive. Your 57 makeovers didn't help. This is your last resort before you go under the knife.
The Apocalypse has come and gone. You're hungry and you're out of food. Hair has protein.
Some bad reasons:
You're an aspiring neo-Nazi, and they won't let you hate Jews with your Jew-fro.
You think you're black.
You just found your first grey hair.
Your head won't fit into that jar of honey, and you really really want those last few drops.
Unfortunately, even the good reasons rely heavily on situation. If you're only going by them, you might never shave your head. Luckily, there's a great third category, called the 'no good reason' category - one I subscribe to daily.
Some no good reasons to shave your head:
You want to know when it's raining as early as possible.
You want to test whether your head is hot enough to cook an egg.
You flipped a coin. Heads = shave your head, tails = ____ your _____. (Imagine you're Chinese, and use your imagination to fill in the blanks). You got lucky - the coin landed heads.
You're a heroin addict and all of your other exposed veins are infected. No...wait...that belongs in good reasons.
Anyway, making this decision is a headache. Good thing there's Photoshop. You can shave your head in there, and no one will ever interrogate you about it. And then when you're done, you can grow half of it back, if you want.
Or you can just shave it for real.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Women
You know how women are sensitive about their age? 'Sensitive' is a bit of a euphemism here, though not quite as much as 'bit.' They're like third degree burn victims. The damaged nerves lie directly in the memory bank next to "Age: "
But this doesn't go for everyone. It appears to only affect women up to a certain...maturity, though the closest guess I have for that certain age is a 30 year range: 50-80. I would have narrowed it down but for a known case that throws the chart. One of my grandmas is around 70, plus or minus 10. She still hangs onto that last sensitive nerve ending. And believe me, that nerve ending is about as sensitive as an eyeball is to a fork.
Men, on the other hand, have no such problem. Strange? Not really. This cartoon, which you've probably seen before, explains all.
The key here, obviously, is the abundance of narcissism in the male psyche, and the equal but opposite feeling - eternal self-loathing - in the female. This cartoon could be remade to show that effect in the "age sensitivity" problem. This guy:
undoubtedly has a residual self-image that looks like this young Tom Cruise:
Can you imagine what the residual self-image of young Tom Cruise is? I can, but I don't like to post pictures of myself online.
(I will not show the counterpart images for women for reasons of personal safety)
Anyway, this may all be what snooty vocabulary dorks call 'moot,' because recent evidence points in another direction. It now seems entirely possible, no, plausible, NAY!, statistically and scientifically incontrovertible, that women are just completely bazonkers:
Pei: they say, if people dream of someone hurt their feelings in dreams, they will get angry about that person in real world. true?
Mark: of course not
Pei: maybe only women then
Mark: u would get angry at someone if they made u mad in a dream?
Pei: I would , and I know it's insane
Mark: i would ask them to tell me what i said in the dream, so i could say it in real life
Mark: then they wouldn't feel bad about being mad, or about being insane
Pei: what? u want to say it again in real life?
Mark: i deserve to say it, if they're going to be mad at me
QED.
PS: Didn't I say I was charitable?
Mario: do you think you can feel pain when you're asleep?
Mark: definitely
Mario: psh, there's no way you can
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mario: i'll prove it to you. you'll wake up a bloody mess tomorrow and you'll have no idea how it happened
Mark: deal
...
Just went to Target and bought a new spiked baseball bat to make the bet more fair, because I sleep so soundly. Mario's taking practice swings. Can't wait to win!
But this doesn't go for everyone. It appears to only affect women up to a certain...maturity, though the closest guess I have for that certain age is a 30 year range: 50-80. I would have narrowed it down but for a known case that throws the chart. One of my grandmas is around 70, plus or minus 10. She still hangs onto that last sensitive nerve ending. And believe me, that nerve ending is about as sensitive as an eyeball is to a fork.
Men, on the other hand, have no such problem. Strange? Not really. This cartoon, which you've probably seen before, explains all.
The key here, obviously, is the abundance of narcissism in the male psyche, and the equal but opposite feeling - eternal self-loathing - in the female. This cartoon could be remade to show that effect in the "age sensitivity" problem. This guy:
undoubtedly has a residual self-image that looks like this young Tom Cruise:
Can you imagine what the residual self-image of young Tom Cruise is? I can, but I don't like to post pictures of myself online.
(I will not show the counterpart images for women for reasons of personal safety)
Anyway, this may all be what snooty vocabulary dorks call 'moot,' because recent evidence points in another direction. It now seems entirely possible, no, plausible, NAY!, statistically and scientifically incontrovertible, that women are just completely bazonkers:
Pei: they say, if people dream of someone hurt their feelings in dreams, they will get angry about that person in real world. true?
Mark: of course not
Pei: maybe only women then
Mark: u would get angry at someone if they made u mad in a dream?
Pei: I would , and I know it's insane
Mark: i would ask them to tell me what i said in the dream, so i could say it in real life
Mark: then they wouldn't feel bad about being mad, or about being insane
Pei: what? u want to say it again in real life?
Mark: i deserve to say it, if they're going to be mad at me
QED.
PS: Didn't I say I was charitable?
Mario: do you think you can feel pain when you're asleep?
Mark: definitely
Mario: psh, there's no way you can
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mark: can too!
Mario: can not!
Mario: i'll prove it to you. you'll wake up a bloody mess tomorrow and you'll have no idea how it happened
Mark: deal
...
Just went to Target and bought a new spiked baseball bat to make the bet more fair, because I sleep so soundly. Mario's taking practice swings. Can't wait to win!
Dream #64,875
This blog is turning into a dream journal. Maybe I'm just compensating for lack of social commentary.
Note: all of the following is one dream, but different scenes.
Note 2: The people I actually know in this dream are, in order of appearance, (or preference, you doubting 'Insert Name I Can't Remember'...ah! Thomas!): Min, Daniel, Diana, Natasha, Rachel. Or if it's easier to remember, they're the ones with plain boring names. The names of the transient dream-people are much cooler.
Scene one: We're playing MarioKart - Min, Shenegra, with e's pronounced like the e's in Hell's Bells or Montenegro, Daniel and me. I sit out for a round, figuring out the controller, then I completely dominate everyone. Daniel is impressed. So far, just gritty realism.
Next scene: We're in the bathroom - Fat Orthodox Jew (someone I don't know, but who fits the description), Keanu Reeves from The Day the Earth Stood Still, and me. Keanu Reeves is giving Fat Orthodox Jew his screenname in the Universe - foldinlife. I catch myself thinking it's a cool screenname. Then Keanu Reeves leaves.
Next scene: Me and Fat Orthodox Jew are in some undetermined hallway. Fat Orthodox Jew has his shirt off, exposing his Fat American Gut. He starts putting on some blue cellophane table cloth. I realize it's part of his orthodox attire and ask him what it's called. He says it's called a "shenekra," with e's like in Hell's Bells or Montenegro. Teleport to the middle of a supermarket. Some girl and some guy I know, but don't actually know, are sitting on the floor. I say to them: "Wow, did you know your name came from an Orthodox Jewish blue cellophane tablecloth called a 'shenekra?'" (but in slightly different words). Apparently I'm confusing the girl for Shenegra, even though I now know that the previous scene's Shenegra was actually named Thai. The guy and the girl look at me, justly confused, and say: "Who are you talking to?" I suddenly realize neither of them is named Shenegra. In fact, as of the latest revisionism, there never was a single person in this dream named Shenegra. I feel slightly bad because apparently this girl who isn't Shenegra and I are pretty good friends, but forgo apologizing in favor of some wisecrack now forever lost to dreamland. Rest assured it was equal measures brilliant and crass. Anyway, getting to the point, the girl starts crying because I can't remember her name. I sure hope this is a prophetic dream.
Next scene: I'm walking with Diana and trying to tell her my hilarious story - yes, in the dream I've already recognized it for what it is - making a girl cry is worth an hour of SNL's Best Of. Diana isn't listening to me very well. She's looking for Natasha, because we're supposed to meet somewhere, and Natasha is late. Then there's an announcement over the intercom: "Natasha, you're overdue on the copy." This idiotic statement makes perfect sense to me, and Diana smiles with relief - apparently she asked them to say that. We head over to where we're supposed to meet. Rachel's there, she's still crying. "Oh yea!" I scream, and burst out giggling like the Pillsbury doughboy after a good poke in his zeppelin-like belly. "Her name's Rachel, now I remember!" Strange though, Rachel looks nothing like the girl I mislabeled minutes ago. Made perfect sense in the dream though. Oh, and at some point, that guy knew but didn't actually know turned into Bobby Gant from elementary school, someone that should have vacated his place in my memory long ago. Sorry Bobby...deleted.
Note: all of the following is one dream, but different scenes.
Note 2: The people I actually know in this dream are, in order of appearance, (or preference, you doubting 'Insert Name I Can't Remember'...ah! Thomas!): Min, Daniel, Diana, Natasha, Rachel. Or if it's easier to remember, they're the ones with plain boring names. The names of the transient dream-people are much cooler.
Scene one: We're playing MarioKart - Min, Shenegra, with e's pronounced like the e's in Hell's Bells or Montenegro, Daniel and me. I sit out for a round, figuring out the controller, then I completely dominate everyone. Daniel is impressed. So far, just gritty realism.
Next scene: We're in the bathroom - Fat Orthodox Jew (someone I don't know, but who fits the description), Keanu Reeves from The Day the Earth Stood Still, and me. Keanu Reeves is giving Fat Orthodox Jew his screenname in the Universe - foldinlife. I catch myself thinking it's a cool screenname. Then Keanu Reeves leaves.
Next scene: Me and Fat Orthodox Jew are in some undetermined hallway. Fat Orthodox Jew has his shirt off, exposing his Fat American Gut. He starts putting on some blue cellophane table cloth. I realize it's part of his orthodox attire and ask him what it's called. He says it's called a "shenekra," with e's like in Hell's Bells or Montenegro. Teleport to the middle of a supermarket. Some girl and some guy I know, but don't actually know, are sitting on the floor. I say to them: "Wow, did you know your name came from an Orthodox Jewish blue cellophane tablecloth called a 'shenekra?'" (but in slightly different words). Apparently I'm confusing the girl for Shenegra, even though I now know that the previous scene's Shenegra was actually named Thai. The guy and the girl look at me, justly confused, and say: "Who are you talking to?" I suddenly realize neither of them is named Shenegra. In fact, as of the latest revisionism, there never was a single person in this dream named Shenegra. I feel slightly bad because apparently this girl who isn't Shenegra and I are pretty good friends, but forgo apologizing in favor of some wisecrack now forever lost to dreamland. Rest assured it was equal measures brilliant and crass. Anyway, getting to the point, the girl starts crying because I can't remember her name. I sure hope this is a prophetic dream.
Next scene: I'm walking with Diana and trying to tell her my hilarious story - yes, in the dream I've already recognized it for what it is - making a girl cry is worth an hour of SNL's Best Of. Diana isn't listening to me very well. She's looking for Natasha, because we're supposed to meet somewhere, and Natasha is late. Then there's an announcement over the intercom: "Natasha, you're overdue on the copy." This idiotic statement makes perfect sense to me, and Diana smiles with relief - apparently she asked them to say that. We head over to where we're supposed to meet. Rachel's there, she's still crying. "Oh yea!" I scream, and burst out giggling like the Pillsbury doughboy after a good poke in his zeppelin-like belly. "Her name's Rachel, now I remember!" Strange though, Rachel looks nothing like the girl I mislabeled minutes ago. Made perfect sense in the dream though. Oh, and at some point, that guy knew but didn't actually know turned into Bobby Gant from elementary school, someone that should have vacated his place in my memory long ago. Sorry Bobby...deleted.
Monday, December 1, 2008
I'd Make A Good Buddha
Had a bunch of weird dreams again.
The first: Some friend of mine is perched up in a tree and needs help getting down. The tree is pressed up against a rock wall. To help him get down, two of us partially climb the tree to bring our words of encouragement a couple of feet closer. We offer no physical assistance. A minute later, we're all hanging for dear life on branches, with our feet braced up against the wall. We're quickly getting tired, but my genius comes through. I start rationalizing: "Wait, isn't it...then it could only be...and that's why...therefore...QED," I say, ending up proving that the wall is actually the ground, and that gravity points precisely that-a-way. A few seconds later, when everyone is thoroughly convinced, we're all sitting on that wall which is now the ground, building a campfire. The moral: the placebo effect is all-powerful.
The last: Me and Paul are sitting on a cloud. We are on patrol for God knows what. The cloud is tiny, we barely fit on it. I'm curled up with my head in his lap, for protection from falling off rather than for sleeping purposes or cuddling/snuggling or proving how non-homophobic I am. I remember that we have some movies, including Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds (a boring, but fortunately non-existant movie). I have a feeling that on the ground I wouldn't tolerate such trash, but upstairs I'll take anything to distract me from the altitude. A leaflet drops from the sky. Paul catches it with a ninja-like flash of his hand. We look at it. It's some threat from aliens - they want us to evacuate Earth "or else." Curiously, it's in the form of a novel cover. Paul says something like "psh," and chucks the leaflet down. I start to protest, but then realize it's Paul, and he knows best. There's even a song about his all-around superiority. Then we confess to each other that we're pretty scared of being up there. I confess first. Paul probably confesses out of solidarity or empathy or pity or some other outdated motive. The scene is strangely unromantic given the situation. Apparently in dreams there is no "misinterpretation of arousal" - a wonderful notion from Intro to Psychology class that explains how shaky bridges make us think we're in love.
The next after last: I'm hanging out with some Russians (here's where I should have realized it was a dream) at MIT. We're in some bar/burger joint, but I'm off to myself playing charades with the word "aloof." They're getting ready to leave, I think. There's a wooden chessboard lying on the table in front of me, the kind that folds at a joint in the middle and holds the pieces inside. I'm trying to get the pieces in so I can close it, but they keep spilling out. I'm stubborn, but I'm pretty much channeling Sisyphus; the pieces just keep rolling out. Damn leaky board. The Russians are still getting ready to leave. Russians take forever coming to a decision when there's more than one of them. They live for the decision process. I played soccer with a bunch at MIT for a while - we would meet and by the time they figured out which field they wanted to play on it was morning in next September. Same in the dream. By the time they're ready to leave, it's time to stay and play more games and consume more liquid fire. Someone sees me struggling with the chess board and suggests we play chess. "No, you don't want to play," I say (stupidly, because this is my chance to hand away my Rock), "it's too damn complicated." The Russians find this extremely funny for surely no stranger a reason than placebo's victory over gravity. "Wow," one of them says, "you're a funny guy. You could be a good Buddha." And that my friends is how you tag on a happy ending to a nonsense story.
The bonus one: This one was boring. Just imagine saying that sentence over and over and you'll get the gist.
It appears that writing down dreams is the key to remembering more of them. I only planned on writing down one when I started, but then the Paul and Russians' dreams got green with envy and remembered themselves to me.
The first: Some friend of mine is perched up in a tree and needs help getting down. The tree is pressed up against a rock wall. To help him get down, two of us partially climb the tree to bring our words of encouragement a couple of feet closer. We offer no physical assistance. A minute later, we're all hanging for dear life on branches, with our feet braced up against the wall. We're quickly getting tired, but my genius comes through. I start rationalizing: "Wait, isn't it...then it could only be...and that's why...therefore...QED," I say, ending up proving that the wall is actually the ground, and that gravity points precisely that-a-way. A few seconds later, when everyone is thoroughly convinced, we're all sitting on that wall which is now the ground, building a campfire. The moral: the placebo effect is all-powerful.
The last: Me and Paul are sitting on a cloud. We are on patrol for God knows what. The cloud is tiny, we barely fit on it. I'm curled up with my head in his lap, for protection from falling off rather than for sleeping purposes or cuddling/snuggling or proving how non-homophobic I am. I remember that we have some movies, including Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds (a boring, but fortunately non-existant movie). I have a feeling that on the ground I wouldn't tolerate such trash, but upstairs I'll take anything to distract me from the altitude. A leaflet drops from the sky. Paul catches it with a ninja-like flash of his hand. We look at it. It's some threat from aliens - they want us to evacuate Earth "or else." Curiously, it's in the form of a novel cover. Paul says something like "psh," and chucks the leaflet down. I start to protest, but then realize it's Paul, and he knows best. There's even a song about his all-around superiority. Then we confess to each other that we're pretty scared of being up there. I confess first. Paul probably confesses out of solidarity or empathy or pity or some other outdated motive. The scene is strangely unromantic given the situation. Apparently in dreams there is no "misinterpretation of arousal" - a wonderful notion from Intro to Psychology class that explains how shaky bridges make us think we're in love.
The next after last: I'm hanging out with some Russians (here's where I should have realized it was a dream) at MIT. We're in some bar/burger joint, but I'm off to myself playing charades with the word "aloof." They're getting ready to leave, I think. There's a wooden chessboard lying on the table in front of me, the kind that folds at a joint in the middle and holds the pieces inside. I'm trying to get the pieces in so I can close it, but they keep spilling out. I'm stubborn, but I'm pretty much channeling Sisyphus; the pieces just keep rolling out. Damn leaky board. The Russians are still getting ready to leave. Russians take forever coming to a decision when there's more than one of them. They live for the decision process. I played soccer with a bunch at MIT for a while - we would meet and by the time they figured out which field they wanted to play on it was morning in next September. Same in the dream. By the time they're ready to leave, it's time to stay and play more games and consume more liquid fire. Someone sees me struggling with the chess board and suggests we play chess. "No, you don't want to play," I say (stupidly, because this is my chance to hand away my Rock), "it's too damn complicated." The Russians find this extremely funny for surely no stranger a reason than placebo's victory over gravity. "Wow," one of them says, "you're a funny guy. You could be a good Buddha." And that my friends is how you tag on a happy ending to a nonsense story.
The bonus one: This one was boring. Just imagine saying that sentence over and over and you'll get the gist.
It appears that writing down dreams is the key to remembering more of them. I only planned on writing down one when I started, but then the Paul and Russians' dreams got green with envy and remembered themselves to me.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Short and Bitter
Mario is currently taking apart his computer to clean the fan. So far there is $524.64 in the pool - bets on how long it will take for him to send it to the land of beyond-repair. If you want in on it, call quickly, the odds are in favor of sooner rather than later.
Pei: nice, u become more and more understanding and accepting just like I do. good
Mark: and u r becoming modest like me
Pei: u have nothing to do with modest
And now I must take leave to go cry in the corner.
Pei: nice, u become more and more understanding and accepting just like I do. good
Mark: and u r becoming modest like me
Pei: u have nothing to do with modest
And now I must take leave to go cry in the corner.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
50,081
Finished my novel today, though I won't officially admit it till 3.4 milliseconds before deadline - midnight tomorrow. Meanwhile it's time to get drunk beyond all reasonable limits. Or at least have some ice-cream. Or get really really really ridiculously drunk. Ah, life is full of choices when one doesn't need to be alive the next day to finish a novel.
To be honest...damn...there is no way to finish this sentence. Scratch that from the shorthand. No, don't write this down. Stop writing what I'm saying. Ugh, nevermind. Stupid stenographer...hmm, didn't think you'd write that.
My drive for writing this novel gradually disintegrated as the month wore on. By two weeks in, I was pretty bored with where the plot was going. However, I couldn't have the one or two people that still have respect for me lose that last drop. So I kept writing words like a really intelligent and good looking zombie, occasionally having a burst of creativity and writing readable content, but mostly trundling or trudging or whatever it is that guy in A Knight's Tale was doing when he lost his clothes to gamblers and found himself left only with dignity and nudity for companions. No, I have absolutely no idea how that analogy is relevant, but there are whole books that are entirely irrelevant. Catcher in the Rye for one.
Now that the novel is done, I'm in the position of that Jew with his hive of sheep and gaggle of cows living in his bedroom/kitchen/living room/house with him, when he goes to the rabbi and the rabbi says "now let the beasties out." My day is suddenly a good two hours longer and I feel as free as a naive American thinks he is.
Having written the worsd 'naive American,' I am reminded of Native Americans, a subject which was responsible for many admissions of ignorance a week or so ago. I had just seen a French movie where the main character was discussing the relative carnage of various centuries. The 20th century wasn't the bloodiest, he claimed, with a violent death metedout to a mere hundred million. By comparison, this character stated, the 16th or 15th or whatever century was the last for Native Americans, was a bloodbath. The combined forces of European colonists murdered "150 million" Native Americans.
My often misanthropic words belie the intrinsic optimism of my nature. I am trusting bordering on gullible. I listen to people with an innocently agape mouth, unprejudiced ears and dilated pupils. I believe pretty much anything anyone says when I don't have the option of arguing with them. As this Frenchman was merely a few pixels, and fictional ones at that, he could not be challenged even if I spoke French. So I took him at his word and thus had to endure Mario's horse-like neighing when I decided to show off my knowledge to him. By his estimate there were 10 million at most, and 9 million of those he attributed to his penchant for being an order of magnitude optimistic. I decided to research the question on Wikipedia upon regaining my composure lost in the unforgiving storm of Mario's ridicule.
Turns out, there were anywhere from 10 to 112 million plus or minus a tribe or two. Hard to believe that it's so exact, but that's modern statistics for you.
Armed with this knowledge, we headed to the Sunday feast at the Hinshaw's and demanded of everyone there in turn to give their estimates. At the end of the meal we came to several conclusions:
1. All Americans know how many Native Americans there were, but no two can agree on so much as the order of magnitude.
2. There was definitely at least one Native American.
3. Native Americans were most probably counted by being shot. So a Native American may have been counted many times depending on his/her relative immunity to bullets. Let's hope we never have to take a census in China.
To be honest...damn...there is no way to finish this sentence. Scratch that from the shorthand. No, don't write this down. Stop writing what I'm saying. Ugh, nevermind. Stupid stenographer...hmm, didn't think you'd write that.
My drive for writing this novel gradually disintegrated as the month wore on. By two weeks in, I was pretty bored with where the plot was going. However, I couldn't have the one or two people that still have respect for me lose that last drop. So I kept writing words like a really intelligent and good looking zombie, occasionally having a burst of creativity and writing readable content, but mostly trundling or trudging or whatever it is that guy in A Knight's Tale was doing when he lost his clothes to gamblers and found himself left only with dignity and nudity for companions. No, I have absolutely no idea how that analogy is relevant, but there are whole books that are entirely irrelevant. Catcher in the Rye for one.
Now that the novel is done, I'm in the position of that Jew with his hive of sheep and gaggle of cows living in his bedroom/kitchen/living room/house with him, when he goes to the rabbi and the rabbi says "now let the beasties out." My day is suddenly a good two hours longer and I feel as free as a naive American thinks he is.
Having written the worsd 'naive American,' I am reminded of Native Americans, a subject which was responsible for many admissions of ignorance a week or so ago. I had just seen a French movie where the main character was discussing the relative carnage of various centuries. The 20th century wasn't the bloodiest, he claimed, with a violent death metedout to a mere hundred million. By comparison, this character stated, the 16th or 15th or whatever century was the last for Native Americans, was a bloodbath. The combined forces of European colonists murdered "150 million" Native Americans.
My often misanthropic words belie the intrinsic optimism of my nature. I am trusting bordering on gullible. I listen to people with an innocently agape mouth, unprejudiced ears and dilated pupils. I believe pretty much anything anyone says when I don't have the option of arguing with them. As this Frenchman was merely a few pixels, and fictional ones at that, he could not be challenged even if I spoke French. So I took him at his word and thus had to endure Mario's horse-like neighing when I decided to show off my knowledge to him. By his estimate there were 10 million at most, and 9 million of those he attributed to his penchant for being an order of magnitude optimistic. I decided to research the question on Wikipedia upon regaining my composure lost in the unforgiving storm of Mario's ridicule.
Turns out, there were anywhere from 10 to 112 million plus or minus a tribe or two. Hard to believe that it's so exact, but that's modern statistics for you.
Armed with this knowledge, we headed to the Sunday feast at the Hinshaw's and demanded of everyone there in turn to give their estimates. At the end of the meal we came to several conclusions:
1. All Americans know how many Native Americans there were, but no two can agree on so much as the order of magnitude.
2. There was definitely at least one Native American.
3. Native Americans were most probably counted by being shot. So a Native American may have been counted many times depending on his/her relative immunity to bullets. Let's hope we never have to take a census in China.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Chinese Logic
Yesterday was a very challenging day. Having slept a total of four hours, and not consecutive ones at that, I was pretty much a zombie. My most wakeful moment was struggling to fall asleep at 2AM after zombie me had the brilliant idea to drink a pot of coffee. But, I finally got back on a normal sleeping schedule. No more going to sleep at 7AM, at least till tomorrow.
I dreamed of a cool new string instrument. I was walking in a field with this girl named Mindy who I'd never seen before, and she was carrying what I knew in the dream was a tuba case, but what I knew immediately with equal certainty upon waking was a cello case. Apparently the dream me has no idea what a tuba looks like, though when I go back to sleep I'll probably write this comment in my dream blog in reverse, with equal disdain. To make things even clearer, Mindy said that she was carrying a violin. The dream me didn't see anything strange about that. When we got across the field and ended up in some city at some open mic, she took it out of the case and played a little to warm up. The 'violin' was a bit smaller than cello, and where the strings go over the bridge in the direction opposite to the neck, instead of going at a downward angle, they went up almost perpendicularly to the wood. Mindy played the strings at that end of the violin instead of in the usual place with a modified bow, and would add little flutter-like flourishes that I've never heard on a string instrument. Then of course, someone showed up and ruined everything, and you can guess easily who that was. He didn't wake me up, but he took over the dream with his own agenda at the open mic.
(We're in traffic. There's a newspaper salesman standing on the yellow line selling the Houston Chronicle. A cop flies right past him, siren blaring)
Mario: Psh, if that newspaper salesman was any good, he would have sold that cop a newspaper.
(studying chinese characters)
Mark: guess what you get when you put the radicals for 'tree' and 'several' together.
Mario (having had dibs on the book): machine?
Mark: hmm. Pretty obvious huh?
...
Mark (flipping forward a couple of chapters): okay, what about 'sun' plus 'thumbtack'
Mario: uhh. A ray of light?
Mark: think more obvious
Mario: solar flare?
Mark: no, 'hundred.'
Mario: ah, that makes sense.
...
Mark: ok, this one's really obvious. 'moon' plus 'knife.'
Mario: ...cheese?
Mark: 'canoe.' Come on dude, trust your intuition.
There were some other good ones, some making sense, some just strange. I kept waiting for the moment of epiphany where I would suddenly understand the Chinese way of thinking and 'horse' + 'woman' = 'mother' would make sense, but the more I read, the more I began to fear for my life if this epiphany did indeed happen.
Some others, for your enjoyment:
'big' + 'drop' = 'too much' (Makes sense, even to us logic-based Americans)
'woman' + 'house' = 'peace' (This is what I'm talking about when I say the Chinese go to far with their perverse sense of humor)
'too much' + 'too much' = 'wife' (This is apparently the same in every culture)
I dreamed of a cool new string instrument. I was walking in a field with this girl named Mindy who I'd never seen before, and she was carrying what I knew in the dream was a tuba case, but what I knew immediately with equal certainty upon waking was a cello case. Apparently the dream me has no idea what a tuba looks like, though when I go back to sleep I'll probably write this comment in my dream blog in reverse, with equal disdain. To make things even clearer, Mindy said that she was carrying a violin. The dream me didn't see anything strange about that. When we got across the field and ended up in some city at some open mic, she took it out of the case and played a little to warm up. The 'violin' was a bit smaller than cello, and where the strings go over the bridge in the direction opposite to the neck, instead of going at a downward angle, they went up almost perpendicularly to the wood. Mindy played the strings at that end of the violin instead of in the usual place with a modified bow, and would add little flutter-like flourishes that I've never heard on a string instrument. Then of course, someone showed up and ruined everything, and you can guess easily who that was. He didn't wake me up, but he took over the dream with his own agenda at the open mic.
(We're in traffic. There's a newspaper salesman standing on the yellow line selling the Houston Chronicle. A cop flies right past him, siren blaring)
Mario: Psh, if that newspaper salesman was any good, he would have sold that cop a newspaper.
(studying chinese characters)
Mark: guess what you get when you put the radicals for 'tree' and 'several' together.
Mario (having had dibs on the book): machine?
Mark: hmm. Pretty obvious huh?
...
Mark (flipping forward a couple of chapters): okay, what about 'sun' plus 'thumbtack'
Mario: uhh. A ray of light?
Mark: think more obvious
Mario: solar flare?
Mark: no, 'hundred.'
Mario: ah, that makes sense.
...
Mark: ok, this one's really obvious. 'moon' plus 'knife.'
Mario: ...cheese?
Mark: 'canoe.' Come on dude, trust your intuition.
There were some other good ones, some making sense, some just strange. I kept waiting for the moment of epiphany where I would suddenly understand the Chinese way of thinking and 'horse' + 'woman' = 'mother' would make sense, but the more I read, the more I began to fear for my life if this epiphany did indeed happen.
Some others, for your enjoyment:
'big' + 'drop' = 'too much' (Makes sense, even to us logic-based Americans)
'woman' + 'house' = 'peace' (This is what I'm talking about when I say the Chinese go to far with their perverse sense of humor)
'too much' + 'too much' = 'wife' (This is apparently the same in every culture)
Thursday, November 27, 2008
One Hour of My Dream Life
This morning, three hours after the morning I went to sleep on/in the comfortable chair at the Hatten hacienda, Mario shook me awake with a laser-guided stream of words: "Mark, wake up!" Since the phrase contained my favorite syllable in any language, I shot up like a bolt, only to hear "Do you want to go back home to sleep?"
Being a pushover, a genuinely nice person, and not wanting to walk the twenty miles back, I acquiesced to his request. So Mario drove us home, and I crashed immediately upon entry. I wasn't in any condition to do push-ups or pull-ups after the Thanksgiving feast, so I took advantage of the well-placed floor in the louge. For the next hour, I went through dreams at an unprecedented pace.
The first dream was a series, with a two-out-of-three victory for happy endings:
I dreamed I bit something, and suddenly felt a tooth go to pieces. A tiny metal ball came out, as well as another metal part, leaving me a useless crater/thimble. I would need to add toothpicks to my already overlong brush-floss-mouthwash-pray-to-God-of-Teeth routine. But then I realized with great the joy of waking that this was just a dream, and fell back asleep full of gratitude to this practical joke for being just that. This time I dreamed that I bit something and my tooth pretty much vaporized, if such a term is applicable to teeth. It is definitely applicable to dream teeth. I once again fell into misery and self-pity, and woke myself up with my funeral dirges dedicated to my tooth. I may have woken the neighbors as well. Anyway, happy again, I rushed to tell Mario about the experience. I told him about both dreams, and then, just before he could reward my story with a quote worthy of posting here, I woke up again.
That wasn't the end for me though. This was an hour long nap after all - three twenty-minute Uberman REM cycles. As soon as my head hit the floor, I was hanging out with Natasha in NY. Now, Natasha is a pretty impulsive person, even in reality, but don't worry, this was a PG dream. If you are imagining otherwise, that is your poetic reading license, and good for you (and write to me about it). My version was unequivocally clean.
So Natasha decides she needs to pee, and I don't question her. She gets on her back, tucks her legs in and assumes the Dreamed Natasha Peeing Position (to be featured in the next six Stephen Chow movies). Being a gentleman of outstanding wisdom, I say "I'll cover you," and sit on her knees with my back to her.
A second later, I feel warm jet washing my back. "Not cool," I think, followed by "where is your sense of professionalism?" But my thoughts do nothing to ward away the warm jet. It continues to polish the already smooth surface of my latissimus dorsi. I get up, because I have no wish to be more than the already 89% soaked with urine. I start running around like a boy playing pterodactyl, but with more practical reasons. To my astonishment, the warm jet pursues me. Knowing for a fact, or at least a damn good theory, that Natasha is not a guy and can't possibly possess such proficiency in the sniping arts, AND being too much a gentleman of outstanding wisdom to look her way and find out, I suddenly find a light bulb in my head and turn it on. And I realize that it's the two open water bottles I have in my jacket, upside down, left over from a previous dream. I dare anyone to say now that dreams are useless to remember! If I had remembered those water bottles, I would have kept Natasha safe from the everpresent NY spectators, instead of sacrificing her privacy to my undying love for dinosaurs.
Believe it or not, there were another two dreams during that hour. The first:
I dreamed that I was at Barnes and Noble's, but in some faraway land called dreamland. Some guy walks up to me and asks me if I'm the author of The Time Traveler's Wife. Stupidly, I say "haha no," though I undoubtedly had praise coming had I said "why yes, I'm Audrey Niffenegger." I don't remember the details of the rest of this encounter, just the vague feeling of being insulted with one of the more strange American children's-section-unprintables (CSU's).
And the second, otherwise known as the last dream, is unfortunately a CSU to its very dreamsoul. Or at the very least, the intent to commit a CSU. It never got past intent because Mario stepped in at that right/wrong moment, shook me awake with a cattle prod from the year 2312, and demanded whether I wanted a pillow. Are we sensing a trend? Count on Mario to ruin something that can only happen in a dream. And that leaves nothing to tell that wouldn't end on a cliffhanger, so I will spare you the unresolvable suspense.
Being a pushover, a genuinely nice person, and not wanting to walk the twenty miles back, I acquiesced to his request. So Mario drove us home, and I crashed immediately upon entry. I wasn't in any condition to do push-ups or pull-ups after the Thanksgiving feast, so I took advantage of the well-placed floor in the louge. For the next hour, I went through dreams at an unprecedented pace.
The first dream was a series, with a two-out-of-three victory for happy endings:
I dreamed I bit something, and suddenly felt a tooth go to pieces. A tiny metal ball came out, as well as another metal part, leaving me a useless crater/thimble. I would need to add toothpicks to my already overlong brush-floss-mouthwash-pray-to-God-of-Teeth routine. But then I realized with great the joy of waking that this was just a dream, and fell back asleep full of gratitude to this practical joke for being just that. This time I dreamed that I bit something and my tooth pretty much vaporized, if such a term is applicable to teeth. It is definitely applicable to dream teeth. I once again fell into misery and self-pity, and woke myself up with my funeral dirges dedicated to my tooth. I may have woken the neighbors as well. Anyway, happy again, I rushed to tell Mario about the experience. I told him about both dreams, and then, just before he could reward my story with a quote worthy of posting here, I woke up again.
That wasn't the end for me though. This was an hour long nap after all - three twenty-minute Uberman REM cycles. As soon as my head hit the floor, I was hanging out with Natasha in NY. Now, Natasha is a pretty impulsive person, even in reality, but don't worry, this was a PG dream. If you are imagining otherwise, that is your poetic reading license, and good for you (and write to me about it). My version was unequivocally clean.
So Natasha decides she needs to pee, and I don't question her. She gets on her back, tucks her legs in and assumes the Dreamed Natasha Peeing Position (to be featured in the next six Stephen Chow movies). Being a gentleman of outstanding wisdom, I say "I'll cover you," and sit on her knees with my back to her.
A second later, I feel warm jet washing my back. "Not cool," I think, followed by "where is your sense of professionalism?" But my thoughts do nothing to ward away the warm jet. It continues to polish the already smooth surface of my latissimus dorsi. I get up, because I have no wish to be more than the already 89% soaked with urine. I start running around like a boy playing pterodactyl, but with more practical reasons. To my astonishment, the warm jet pursues me. Knowing for a fact, or at least a damn good theory, that Natasha is not a guy and can't possibly possess such proficiency in the sniping arts, AND being too much a gentleman of outstanding wisdom to look her way and find out, I suddenly find a light bulb in my head and turn it on. And I realize that it's the two open water bottles I have in my jacket, upside down, left over from a previous dream. I dare anyone to say now that dreams are useless to remember! If I had remembered those water bottles, I would have kept Natasha safe from the everpresent NY spectators, instead of sacrificing her privacy to my undying love for dinosaurs.
Believe it or not, there were another two dreams during that hour. The first:
I dreamed that I was at Barnes and Noble's, but in some faraway land called dreamland. Some guy walks up to me and asks me if I'm the author of The Time Traveler's Wife. Stupidly, I say "haha no," though I undoubtedly had praise coming had I said "why yes, I'm Audrey Niffenegger." I don't remember the details of the rest of this encounter, just the vague feeling of being insulted with one of the more strange American children's-section-unprintables (CSU's).
And the second, otherwise known as the last dream, is unfortunately a CSU to its very dreamsoul. Or at the very least, the intent to commit a CSU. It never got past intent because Mario stepped in at that right/wrong moment, shook me awake with a cattle prod from the year 2312, and demanded whether I wanted a pillow. Are we sensing a trend? Count on Mario to ruin something that can only happen in a dream. And that leaves nothing to tell that wouldn't end on a cliffhanger, so I will spare you the unresolvable suspense.
No time to write, just to plagiarize
No commentary today, just content. In no particular order.
(Mark and Mario drive by a girl lighting up a cigarette)
Mario: (emits what can only be described as a coo)
Mark: is that your favorite brand?
Mario: nope, just a cigarette...I'm kinda quitting
Mark: when are you starting up again?
Mario: as soon as I find my ID
...
Necessary background: there's a pull-up bar on our door. To come in, you must first do eight pull-ups or thirty push-ups. We figured this would make us more healthy/in shape.
...
Mario: the bar on our door is making my smoking habits worse. I have to smoke before I go into the room, because I don't know when I'll risk coming out again
Mark: yea, same with food. Being healthy is making us fat and prime suspects for cancer
(funny when out of context)
Mario (after taking a while to find a book that was right in front of him): I find things in five seconds whether it's a man in a stack of beans or a book in my face
(getting it done, in the general rather than specific definition of the word 'it')
Ben: no, I'm actually more likely to get things done when I'm busy than when I'm not doing anything
(we're around kids, gotta keep it clean)
Ben: I didn't know [I'd rather not offend that person, so insert your own name here] was gay
Mark: I didn't either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
Ben: I didn't know [ditto] was straight
Mark: I didn't know either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
(Concerning the above: don't want to be prejudiced for one version or the other just because one happened and one didn't)
I'm kind of starting to worry about Mario's relatives. I made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner, and they actually ate it. They currently plead temporary insanity, but in my book - temporarily insane once -> temporarily insane forever.
Tip of the day: cold showers are really really cold. Don't be a hero.
(Mario's talking about penguins, Daniel comes in)
Mario: they swim like forty miles an hour
Daniel: chickens?
Mario: uh...yea, if a penguin's pulling them
(about Chinese people, and why there's so many of them)
Mario: well they have reincarnation over there, don't they?
(talking about what going Dutch means)
Mario: what is it when the girl pays for everything? Is there a word for that?
Mark: yea, a keeper
(Mark and Mario drive by a girl lighting up a cigarette)
Mario: (emits what can only be described as a coo)
Mark: is that your favorite brand?
Mario: nope, just a cigarette...I'm kinda quitting
Mark: when are you starting up again?
Mario: as soon as I find my ID
...
Necessary background: there's a pull-up bar on our door. To come in, you must first do eight pull-ups or thirty push-ups. We figured this would make us more healthy/in shape.
...
Mario: the bar on our door is making my smoking habits worse. I have to smoke before I go into the room, because I don't know when I'll risk coming out again
Mark: yea, same with food. Being healthy is making us fat and prime suspects for cancer
(funny when out of context)
Mario (after taking a while to find a book that was right in front of him): I find things in five seconds whether it's a man in a stack of beans or a book in my face
(getting it done, in the general rather than specific definition of the word 'it')
Ben: no, I'm actually more likely to get things done when I'm busy than when I'm not doing anything
(we're around kids, gotta keep it clean)
Ben: I didn't know [I'd rather not offend that person, so insert your own name here] was gay
Mark: I didn't either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
Ben: I didn't know [ditto] was straight
Mark: I didn't know either. But then I woke up one day...and he was
(Concerning the above: don't want to be prejudiced for one version or the other just because one happened and one didn't)
I'm kind of starting to worry about Mario's relatives. I made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner, and they actually ate it. They currently plead temporary insanity, but in my book - temporarily insane once -> temporarily insane forever.
Tip of the day: cold showers are really really cold. Don't be a hero.
(Mario's talking about penguins, Daniel comes in)
Mario: they swim like forty miles an hour
Daniel: chickens?
Mario: uh...yea, if a penguin's pulling them
(about Chinese people, and why there's so many of them)
Mario: well they have reincarnation over there, don't they?
(talking about what going Dutch means)
Mario: what is it when the girl pays for everything? Is there a word for that?
Mark: yea, a keeper
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Primitive Time Machine
Started playing Final Fantasy VIII yesterday - a famous if outdated RPG. RPG stands for Really really really ridiculously long but having a mildy interesting Plot Game. This is the worst type of game in the world, and unfortunately also my favorite. It is the kind of game that eats right through your time. If you have jet-lag and you need to disappear ten hours from your schedule before you can go to sleep, you play an RPG. With the advent of the first non-text-based RPGs in the early 90s, they were briefly considered as an alternative to general anaesthesia. However, the side-effects were determined to be incomparably more harmful to health.
Did you know that every year, five hundred million people in the United States alone, die of starvation because they are in the middle of an RPG and can't so much as take a five minute break to fill up on Tootsie Rolls? This is tragic, and considering our population is three hundred million, completely false, but it's distressing nonetheless. In China, the same statistic gives a number twice as big, though of course equally false.
Anyway, if you decide to follow in my footsteps, I would start with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, the tried and true classics. If you're still alive afterward, you've earned yourself the right to decide the next ten titles on your own. Safety tip? Start out weighing four hundred pounds.
Kinda funny, from today (while watching Jack Bauer on 24):
Jack Bauer: You saved my life.
Mario: So, if you save someone's life twice, what does that mean? Cause if you save it once they have to be your slave.
Mark: You have to suppress two urges to kill them.
Mario: No you don't. You can suppress one and be their slave.
Did you know that every year, five hundred million people in the United States alone, die of starvation because they are in the middle of an RPG and can't so much as take a five minute break to fill up on Tootsie Rolls? This is tragic, and considering our population is three hundred million, completely false, but it's distressing nonetheless. In China, the same statistic gives a number twice as big, though of course equally false.
Anyway, if you decide to follow in my footsteps, I would start with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, the tried and true classics. If you're still alive afterward, you've earned yourself the right to decide the next ten titles on your own. Safety tip? Start out weighing four hundred pounds.
Kinda funny, from today (while watching Jack Bauer on 24):
Jack Bauer: You saved my life.
Mario: So, if you save someone's life twice, what does that mean? Cause if you save it once they have to be your slave.
Mark: You have to suppress two urges to kill them.
Mario: No you don't. You can suppress one and be their slave.
Monday, November 24, 2008
I tripped
Today Chun sent me some mind-blowing stuff. And also this cool optical illusion:
Blow My Mind
I spent the next half an hour staring at that woman, trying to place what movie I'd seen her in, and then another half an hour trying to get her to spin the way I wanted. Needless to say, this was very frustrating. I'm used to women unquestioningly doing what I tell them. But practice paid off.
Good news: 50% of the time, she does my bidding 100% of the time. I say the magic word and she switches direction.
Bad news: the other 50% of the time, she does the exact opposite.
More Good news: Chun says she will be learning this optical illusion move in her next dance class.
I sent this to Gene and he's now torturing all of his co-workers. If they're half as excited about it as he is, by nighttime I'll probably be receiving an IM from my friend in Shanghai: "Dude, friend send me link. You should to see this, it make crazy to brain."
And, changing the subject...1...2...3...
Gene has a severe case of spiritual ADD. Every month or so, he tells me about the latest greatest get-enlightened-quick scheme. By that moment, he's bursting at the seams with enthusiasm, and lives and breathes the new idea if not in life, then on AIM or the telephone.
Anyway, his newest philosophy is roughly this: "You can't do anything to get rid of your own ego. The best you can do is surrender every occuring thought to Buddha/Christ/Insert Other Messiah, and let it be taken away from you."
Necessary background: ego is THE obstacle to enlightenment.
Anyway, in terms of practice, this means: you think about your grandma in the shower - you surrender it to Buddha, you think about my grandma in the shower - you damn well surrender it to Buddha, you think about how depressed you are - you surrender it to Buddha, you memorize Pi to 2,000 places - you surrender your elitist ass to Buddha, you think about how good you are at this surrendering business - you surrender that too. To Buddha.
But since it's Gene, he's so enthusiastic that he's willing not only to surrender his own ideas, but other people's ideas and other people themselves.
Mark: i'm impressed they made this image (see above)
Gene: i am impressed more than u
Gene: because i surrendered your impression
Mark: haha
Mark: too funny
Gene: not too funny for me - i surrendered it too
...
Gene: mom surrendered it to me
Mark: ya'll are a bunch of cowards
...
Gene: your thought is false
Mark: not as false as urs!
Mark: surrender urs immediately
Gene: i surrender u
Mark: oh shit
Gene: and shit too
...
Mark: u sure love being an ass
Gene: why not - i surrendered my shit
Gene: this morning for an hour
Mark: you just surrendered this conversation to my next blog entry
...
I'm afraid the rest is unprintable.
Blow My Mind
I spent the next half an hour staring at that woman, trying to place what movie I'd seen her in, and then another half an hour trying to get her to spin the way I wanted. Needless to say, this was very frustrating. I'm used to women unquestioningly doing what I tell them. But practice paid off.
Good news: 50% of the time, she does my bidding 100% of the time. I say the magic word and she switches direction.
Bad news: the other 50% of the time, she does the exact opposite.
More Good news: Chun says she will be learning this optical illusion move in her next dance class.
I sent this to Gene and he's now torturing all of his co-workers. If they're half as excited about it as he is, by nighttime I'll probably be receiving an IM from my friend in Shanghai: "Dude, friend send me link. You should to see this, it make crazy to brain."
And, changing the subject...1...2...3...
Gene has a severe case of spiritual ADD. Every month or so, he tells me about the latest greatest get-enlightened-quick scheme. By that moment, he's bursting at the seams with enthusiasm, and lives and breathes the new idea if not in life, then on AIM or the telephone.
Anyway, his newest philosophy is roughly this: "You can't do anything to get rid of your own ego. The best you can do is surrender every occuring thought to Buddha/Christ/Insert Other Messiah, and let it be taken away from you."
Necessary background: ego is THE obstacle to enlightenment.
Anyway, in terms of practice, this means: you think about your grandma in the shower - you surrender it to Buddha, you think about my grandma in the shower - you damn well surrender it to Buddha, you think about how depressed you are - you surrender it to Buddha, you memorize Pi to 2,000 places - you surrender your elitist ass to Buddha, you think about how good you are at this surrendering business - you surrender that too. To Buddha.
But since it's Gene, he's so enthusiastic that he's willing not only to surrender his own ideas, but other people's ideas and other people themselves.
Mark: i'm impressed they made this image (see above)
Gene: i am impressed more than u
Gene: because i surrendered your impression
Mark: haha
Mark: too funny
Gene: not too funny for me - i surrendered it too
...
Gene: mom surrendered it to me
Mark: ya'll are a bunch of cowards
...
Gene: your thought is false
Mark: not as false as urs!
Mark: surrender urs immediately
Gene: i surrender u
Mark: oh shit
Gene: and shit too
...
Mark: u sure love being an ass
Gene: why not - i surrendered my shit
Gene: this morning for an hour
Mark: you just surrendered this conversation to my next blog entry
...
I'm afraid the rest is unprintable.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Oh those naughty Chinese
Had a weird dream today during a power nap. There was some insect buzzing around, and Mario picked me up with one hand by one of my ankles while he swatted at the insect with the other hand. I found myself being shaken as a side-effect of his efforts, and suddenly there were all kinds of things sticking out of the wall, making what was already dangerous even more so. I remember a drawer and a doorknob being the main objects of my anxiety. I yelled down to Mario to put me down, but he couldn't hear me. It was frustrating but hardly surprising; he listens to music so loudly, that if we both have headphones on, I can hear his music better than mine. Anyway, I managed to work up enough apprehension at being shattered against the drawer and doorknob to wake myself up. Thank goodness, because another couple of seconds, and I would never have had to wake up again.
Read a funny Chinese joke today. In Chinese. It was really short though, so you're not required to leave extensive praise. Goes something like this:
Yi1ge4 bing4ren2 zai4 ta1de bing4chuang2 shui2de hen3 xiang1. Hu4shi2 ba3 bing4ren2 yao2 xing3 shuo1 "kuai4 xing3 xing3, ni3 hai2 mei2 you3 chi1 an1mian2yao4 ne!"
Compare that with the English version: A patient is lying in his sickbed, sleeping soundly. A nurse comes up to him and starts shaking him, saying: "Wake up, wake up! You haven't taken your sleeping pill yet!"
Later today, my Chinese Palabea friend and I exchanged dirty jokes, and I came to the shocking realization that Chinese people have made very big advances in the area of perverse humor. I thought Russians were experts, and Americans were getting there(though with more a benign style), but Chinese people are waaaay ahead of both. No subject is sacred to them. Anyway, initiation is tough, but don't worry guys, I'll pull through.
Talked to grandma on Skype today. She's computer illiterate, so to her, talking through webcam is like using a magic mirror. Now that she's using computers though, I better be careful what I say about her here. So...yea...
Read a funny Chinese joke today. In Chinese. It was really short though, so you're not required to leave extensive praise. Goes something like this:
Yi1ge4 bing4ren2 zai4 ta1de bing4chuang2 shui2de hen3 xiang1. Hu4shi2 ba3 bing4ren2 yao2 xing3 shuo1 "kuai4 xing3 xing3, ni3 hai2 mei2 you3 chi1 an1mian2yao4 ne!"
Compare that with the English version: A patient is lying in his sickbed, sleeping soundly. A nurse comes up to him and starts shaking him, saying: "Wake up, wake up! You haven't taken your sleeping pill yet!"
Later today, my Chinese Palabea friend and I exchanged dirty jokes, and I came to the shocking realization that Chinese people have made very big advances in the area of perverse humor. I thought Russians were experts, and Americans were getting there(though with more a benign style), but Chinese people are waaaay ahead of both. No subject is sacred to them. Anyway, initiation is tough, but don't worry guys, I'll pull through.
Talked to grandma on Skype today. She's computer illiterate, so to her, talking through webcam is like using a magic mirror. Now that she's using computers though, I better be careful what I say about her here. So...yea...
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Monkeys
Today's daddy's birthday. On people's birthdays you're supposed to tell them what you think about them without holding anything back, no matter how horrible it is, right? Or is that at people's funerals? One sec, researching... What? That's lame. Apparently you're never supposed to tell anyone the whole truth about themselves, unless it's 99% complimentary or you're at a writing workshop. Or if you don't plan on them being useful to you in the future. Nation of liars and wusses. But...I guess I can abide by the rules this one time. Don't want to completely conform to non-conformity. You get a freebie today, daddy-oh.
Tomorrow's Sunday, but I'm afraid they'll miss me at church. If there's one thing I don't want to overdose on, it's Jesus' blood and body. Cocaine's bad enough.
Some random scenes from today/yesterday that seemed funny to me (I play the role of Mark):
(watching the climax scene of Soldier)
Mark: are they holding hands?
Mario: yea, they're about to die.
Mark: so if we were about to die, you'd be trying to grab my hand?
Mario: of course
Mark: I'm glad we're not dying then
(Mark's holding the remote and trying to turn off the tv, button sticks)
Mark: I keep pressing this button but it won't work. I think it's a sign...
Mario: of what?
Mark: ...that I need to keep pressing it
(pre-sleep discussion/meditation in their respective beds)
Mark: that was a good idea that Bill Gates had, to name his operating system Windows. Cause now everything's a window, browser window, game window...
Mario: yea, I'm pretty sure it was in the reverse order though.
Mark: ah. Good point. That makes more sense.
Mario: but who knows? If he called it Wildcat, we might be saying "man, I got all these Wildcats cluttering my screen."
Mark: haha. "Can you imagine if he called it Windows instead? Bill would never have sold a single copy!"
Mario: "well yea, not with stupid name like that. And Wildcat would never have been the multi-thousand dollar corporation it is today."
Mark: "the economy wouldn't even be in the thousands yet. They'd probably still have centi-cents."
Tomorrow's Sunday, but I'm afraid they'll miss me at church. If there's one thing I don't want to overdose on, it's Jesus' blood and body. Cocaine's bad enough.
Some random scenes from today/yesterday that seemed funny to me (I play the role of Mark):
(watching the climax scene of Soldier)
Mark: are they holding hands?
Mario: yea, they're about to die.
Mark: so if we were about to die, you'd be trying to grab my hand?
Mario: of course
Mark: I'm glad we're not dying then
(Mark's holding the remote and trying to turn off the tv, button sticks)
Mark: I keep pressing this button but it won't work. I think it's a sign...
Mario: of what?
Mark: ...that I need to keep pressing it
(pre-sleep discussion/meditation in their respective beds)
Mark: that was a good idea that Bill Gates had, to name his operating system Windows. Cause now everything's a window, browser window, game window...
Mario: yea, I'm pretty sure it was in the reverse order though.
Mark: ah. Good point. That makes more sense.
Mario: but who knows? If he called it Wildcat, we might be saying "man, I got all these Wildcats cluttering my screen."
Mark: haha. "Can you imagine if he called it Windows instead? Bill would never have sold a single copy!"
Mario: "well yea, not with stupid name like that. And Wildcat would never have been the multi-thousand dollar corporation it is today."
Mark: "the economy wouldn't even be in the thousands yet. They'd probably still have centi-cents."
Friday, November 21, 2008
You're Selfish
SPOILERS AHEAD. You'll have to read on to find out what's being spoiled. Don't say I didn't warn you though.
I've got about thirty pages left of Wonder Boys. The book. Snape kills Dumbledore. Aeris dies. Gollum is Frodo's father. Darth Vader is a thinly-veiled symbol for Jesus Christ.
Oof. Sorry, spoiler-Turret's.
Anyway, Wonder Boys has merited that rare award I bestow only on good books: I will finish reading it. It also has the wonderful quality of having a great movie made based on it. And that's all the summary you get.
Today, I have decided to become charitable. I've noticed that people love sympathizing with people in/with pain/grief/depression/handicaps. Nothing makes a person happier than cheering up a depressed comrade, the more depressed, the better. It fills you with that feeling of Mother-Theresa-ness and spiritual accomplishment, it makes you feel like you're contributing to society, and best of all, it makes you feel completely selfless.
OK. Obviously all of this is illusory (a good euphemism for the more obvious word). You think it works one way, but we all know deep inside that it's exactly the reverse. People help the needy because of intrinsic selfishness not because of acquired selflessness. I'm willing to concede a Jesus and a Buddha and a couple of others who I haven't heard of personally because they didn't become such prominent Hollywood icons, but the rest are just lying to themselves. And why wouldn't you lie to yourself? It makes you feel almost as good as if you had just carried a legless old lady across a ten-lane intersection.
Cynicism? Nah. This is actually a good quality of the human race. If we had to depend on selflessness to get help to those in need, then we'd definitely be cynical.
Anyway, the point is, I've decided to help people be happy. On request, I am willing to act depressed for at least a couple of minutes, and accept some consoling. Come over at any time and I will pretend to cheer up from my pretend sorrow. You won't regret it.
Note: the best way to console me is through my stomach. Tootsie Rolls and pizza will do just fine. Actually, go ahead and just leave them outside the door. You have my guarantee that I will feel better upon consuming them.
Mario, earlier today: Can you imagine being Chinese? That's the admirable thing about Chinese people, they deal really well with being Chinese.
I just asked Mario if he had anything else funny to say, and he failed to come up with anything. Disgusting. That is certainly no way to keep your few remaining friends.
I've got about thirty pages left of Wonder Boys. The book. Snape kills Dumbledore. Aeris dies. Gollum is Frodo's father. Darth Vader is a thinly-veiled symbol for Jesus Christ.
Oof. Sorry, spoiler-Turret's.
Anyway, Wonder Boys has merited that rare award I bestow only on good books: I will finish reading it. It also has the wonderful quality of having a great movie made based on it. And that's all the summary you get.
Today, I have decided to become charitable. I've noticed that people love sympathizing with people in/with pain/grief/depression/handicaps. Nothing makes a person happier than cheering up a depressed comrade, the more depressed, the better. It fills you with that feeling of Mother-Theresa-ness and spiritual accomplishment, it makes you feel like you're contributing to society, and best of all, it makes you feel completely selfless.
OK. Obviously all of this is illusory (a good euphemism for the more obvious word). You think it works one way, but we all know deep inside that it's exactly the reverse. People help the needy because of intrinsic selfishness not because of acquired selflessness. I'm willing to concede a Jesus and a Buddha and a couple of others who I haven't heard of personally because they didn't become such prominent Hollywood icons, but the rest are just lying to themselves. And why wouldn't you lie to yourself? It makes you feel almost as good as if you had just carried a legless old lady across a ten-lane intersection.
Cynicism? Nah. This is actually a good quality of the human race. If we had to depend on selflessness to get help to those in need, then we'd definitely be cynical.
Anyway, the point is, I've decided to help people be happy. On request, I am willing to act depressed for at least a couple of minutes, and accept some consoling. Come over at any time and I will pretend to cheer up from my pretend sorrow. You won't regret it.
Note: the best way to console me is through my stomach. Tootsie Rolls and pizza will do just fine. Actually, go ahead and just leave them outside the door. You have my guarantee that I will feel better upon consuming them.
Mario, earlier today: Can you imagine being Chinese? That's the admirable thing about Chinese people, they deal really well with being Chinese.
I just asked Mario if he had anything else funny to say, and he failed to come up with anything. Disgusting. That is certainly no way to keep your few remaining friends.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
La la la
Got back to writing songs today, for the first time in a while. I worked on one where I had some good music already but no vocals. Decent results so far, but of the two verses and two choruses, none have anything to do with one another. The first verse is no-way-out depression. The first chorus is about "free love" / polygamy / an orgy cruise. Verse two is some cryptic warning / "I told you so." And chorus two is some kind of identity crisis advice. Can't wait to find out what my brain will come up with for the bridge and final verse/chorus pair. One thing is certain though, it will be tasty.
I also did some recording today. I had Guitar Pro play the song I wrote about Chun and recorded myself singing the vocals to it. Came out better than I expected, but it could use another twenty or thirty takes. Here it is (use headphones, I tried to do some stereo mixing).
Chun
Ok, song's over Chun, you can stop blushing.
The next song on the to-be-written list is a song about Perry. Mario and I brainstormed some good ideas today. The theme of the first verse is "undercover Christian." In case you don't know, Perry is the biggest atheist on the face of the planet, despite being only a foot and a half over midget-size. Or rather, he hopes to appear so. But after listening to this song, you will be convinced that he's actually an "undercover Christian," overcompensating for his true beliefs. The chorus goes in a completely different direction, which I will keep secret for now.
In other news, the Tootsie Roll supply is running low. I now have to get into the bag up to my waist to reach the top layer. And that's after only two weeks! Another six, and we'll need a new bag. And I really don't want to, I'm finally starting to get the sharp end of the side-effect stick. My jaws are getting so strong from chewing Tootsie Rolls that all other food has the consistency of extra-creamy soup or oatmeal in comparison. Chicken drumsticks are like Jello to my bear-trap-like mouth. I don't even notice the bones. I hope I don't bite my tongue.
I also did some recording today. I had Guitar Pro play the song I wrote about Chun and recorded myself singing the vocals to it. Came out better than I expected, but it could use another twenty or thirty takes. Here it is (use headphones, I tried to do some stereo mixing).
Chun
Ok, song's over Chun, you can stop blushing.
The next song on the to-be-written list is a song about Perry. Mario and I brainstormed some good ideas today. The theme of the first verse is "undercover Christian." In case you don't know, Perry is the biggest atheist on the face of the planet, despite being only a foot and a half over midget-size. Or rather, he hopes to appear so. But after listening to this song, you will be convinced that he's actually an "undercover Christian," overcompensating for his true beliefs. The chorus goes in a completely different direction, which I will keep secret for now.
In other news, the Tootsie Roll supply is running low. I now have to get into the bag up to my waist to reach the top layer. And that's after only two weeks! Another six, and we'll need a new bag. And I really don't want to, I'm finally starting to get the sharp end of the side-effect stick. My jaws are getting so strong from chewing Tootsie Rolls that all other food has the consistency of extra-creamy soup or oatmeal in comparison. Chicken drumsticks are like Jello to my bear-trap-like mouth. I don't even notice the bones. I hope I don't bite my tongue.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Adultery
I had a weird dream today. Well, two, but only one's PG-13 enough to tell, and even so, it's borderline.
I was living in some trailer in a trailer park (perhaps this is a prophetic dream), and I was friends with a couple of other families living in the next-door trailers. One of those families was a couple, and the wife and I seemed to have a history. I don't know what the history was, but I have the feeling it was mostly the horizontal kind. Anyway, we had a nearly adulterous incident in her trailer, but her husband came back and ruined it with the usual suspicious-husband's lack of tact. He didn't notice anything, we hadn't really gotten anywhere, but we couldn't very well continue in his presence. Somehow we stole a second and agreed that she was going to come over later that night, as soon as suspicious-husband slipped away into dreamland.
So later on, I was back in my trailer, it was getting dark, and I was considering my predicament. Unfortunately, I don't get much practice with these types of situations in my dreams, or in reality, so I found myself struggling with the moral issues. I finally managed to quiet my conscience. I told myself that it's not good to think so much, and that I could debate the morality at leisure after the deed was done. This is true to the philosophy of Emo Phillips, as summarized by this quote I often put into practice:
"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."
However, my conscience yielding to this excellent idea didn't put an end to my ruminating. I also considered the possibility of being shot in the head by a jealousy-possessed man upon successful completion of fornication, but failure to uphold secrecy. I was wise to remember the Russian saying that concerns secrets:
"When only one knows, only one knows. When two know, twenty-two know."
In my situation, the only way I could keep the secret to myself after the dirty deed was done, was with a brick upside the pretty head of my co-conspirator/mistress. And this my conscience would never let me do. My Mom has taught me that girls are at worst to be spanked, never to be beaten with weapons.
Anyway, all the excellent philosophy and common wisdom I am schooled in never amounted to anything. As it often happens in dreams, my conversation-with-self took about 10 seconds, but the outside world had meanwhile reached morning. Perhaps I was zooming around the inside of my trailer at an appreciable fraction of light-speed for those 10 seconds. In any case, she had never come.
I came out of my trailer only to find myself surrounded by grieving, slobbering people. "What happened?" I demanded of some blurry dream face. He told me. It turns out that the couple had fallen asleep and the husband had his arm around the wife's neck in a "we're lying on our backs and he has his arm under and around her neck" kind of way. Then, it seems like the husband dreamt that we had already perpetrated our heinous crime, because when he woke up in that very position, he found he had strangled her.
I woke up shortly after, but there was one last strange moment. This was everyone's unconditional acceptance of the fact that it was not the husband's fault. There wasn't even going to be a trial. This completely undermined my belief in dream-justice.
Anyway, how bout some real tragedy?
Mario has hit a new low. Yesterday he was sitting on the couch, reading something on his laptop, while flipping through the channels on TV. He might as well have been pressing the channel button with the TV turned off for all he saw or heard. When I commented on it, he gave a typically brain-mangling retort: "if there was something worth seeing, I would have looked."
I was living in some trailer in a trailer park (perhaps this is a prophetic dream), and I was friends with a couple of other families living in the next-door trailers. One of those families was a couple, and the wife and I seemed to have a history. I don't know what the history was, but I have the feeling it was mostly the horizontal kind. Anyway, we had a nearly adulterous incident in her trailer, but her husband came back and ruined it with the usual suspicious-husband's lack of tact. He didn't notice anything, we hadn't really gotten anywhere, but we couldn't very well continue in his presence. Somehow we stole a second and agreed that she was going to come over later that night, as soon as suspicious-husband slipped away into dreamland.
So later on, I was back in my trailer, it was getting dark, and I was considering my predicament. Unfortunately, I don't get much practice with these types of situations in my dreams, or in reality, so I found myself struggling with the moral issues. I finally managed to quiet my conscience. I told myself that it's not good to think so much, and that I could debate the morality at leisure after the deed was done. This is true to the philosophy of Emo Phillips, as summarized by this quote I often put into practice:
"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."
However, my conscience yielding to this excellent idea didn't put an end to my ruminating. I also considered the possibility of being shot in the head by a jealousy-possessed man upon successful completion of fornication, but failure to uphold secrecy. I was wise to remember the Russian saying that concerns secrets:
"When only one knows, only one knows. When two know, twenty-two know."
In my situation, the only way I could keep the secret to myself after the dirty deed was done, was with a brick upside the pretty head of my co-conspirator/mistress. And this my conscience would never let me do. My Mom has taught me that girls are at worst to be spanked, never to be beaten with weapons.
Anyway, all the excellent philosophy and common wisdom I am schooled in never amounted to anything. As it often happens in dreams, my conversation-with-self took about 10 seconds, but the outside world had meanwhile reached morning. Perhaps I was zooming around the inside of my trailer at an appreciable fraction of light-speed for those 10 seconds. In any case, she had never come.
I came out of my trailer only to find myself surrounded by grieving, slobbering people. "What happened?" I demanded of some blurry dream face. He told me. It turns out that the couple had fallen asleep and the husband had his arm around the wife's neck in a "we're lying on our backs and he has his arm under and around her neck" kind of way. Then, it seems like the husband dreamt that we had already perpetrated our heinous crime, because when he woke up in that very position, he found he had strangled her.
I woke up shortly after, but there was one last strange moment. This was everyone's unconditional acceptance of the fact that it was not the husband's fault. There wasn't even going to be a trial. This completely undermined my belief in dream-justice.
Anyway, how bout some real tragedy?
Mario has hit a new low. Yesterday he was sitting on the couch, reading something on his laptop, while flipping through the channels on TV. He might as well have been pressing the channel button with the TV turned off for all he saw or heard. When I commented on it, he gave a typically brain-mangling retort: "if there was something worth seeing, I would have looked."
Monday, November 17, 2008
Food and Sleep
Yesterday I went to Daniel's church to see him play guitar. His performance was satisfactory, but in order to see all of it I had to stay through an hour-long intermission, known in churches as a sermon.
The highlight of the general church experience was communion. I had never partaken of Jesus before, or of any other man for that matter, and neither has my family ever exhibited cannibalistic tendencies, but the experience was interesting to me nonetheless. I was sure that the humor inherent in this ritual had been thoroughly exhausted by church-goers across the past two millenia, but wisps of conversation floating past me as I stood in line proved otherwise. I'll reproduce a couple, though it pains me to do so.
"Jesus is OK, but Oreos are way better."
...
"They should make Jesus-flavored Cheez-its."
...
"Have you ever had carbonated Jesus blood? No!? You're missing out man, it's amazing. You should get some, it's only 50 cents a can at Fiesta or you can get 2-liters at Kroger's for a buck sixty nine."
...
"Hey, you! Yea, you! Stop stuffing your face you vulture, this ain't no after-funeral party!"
...
(to the priest) "No thank you, I brought my own."
...
"I'll have a decaf."
And people have the nerve to accuse Christians of being conservative.
I am getting weaker and weaker when it comes to falling asleep through noise. I took a nap today from 8:30PM to 11:00PM and woke up somewhere in the middle because of a sensation both strange and completely ungrounded in reality; the sensation of being late to something. I set myself a safety net, an 11:00PM alarm, and tried to fall back asleep, only to find that I couldn't because Mario was snoring in 7/8, a most irritating time signatue as I have said on other occasions. Luckily, I didn't make the connection with the earlier sleeping disaster, so well described in the previous post, though the similarities were many. Mario stuck to one pace, he refused to change his pattern of raspy sounds despite all my efforts to mind control him into doing so, and he made no indication of ever to stop.
I persisted in trying to fall asleep with a stubbornness unprecedented by my gender, and finally did, only to have a very long and frustrating dream. I dreamt that I was trying to match my mind's and body's various frequencies to Mario's snoring. I know it was a dream because I woke up to my alarm at 11:00PM, and reality-Mario wasn't even in his bed, much less snoring. Instead, I heard the familiar rustle outside - reality-Mario was stuffing his face with Cheez-its.
The highlight of the general church experience was communion. I had never partaken of Jesus before, or of any other man for that matter, and neither has my family ever exhibited cannibalistic tendencies, but the experience was interesting to me nonetheless. I was sure that the humor inherent in this ritual had been thoroughly exhausted by church-goers across the past two millenia, but wisps of conversation floating past me as I stood in line proved otherwise. I'll reproduce a couple, though it pains me to do so.
"Jesus is OK, but Oreos are way better."
...
"They should make Jesus-flavored Cheez-its."
...
"Have you ever had carbonated Jesus blood? No!? You're missing out man, it's amazing. You should get some, it's only 50 cents a can at Fiesta or you can get 2-liters at Kroger's for a buck sixty nine."
...
"Hey, you! Yea, you! Stop stuffing your face you vulture, this ain't no after-funeral party!"
...
(to the priest) "No thank you, I brought my own."
...
"I'll have a decaf."
And people have the nerve to accuse Christians of being conservative.
I am getting weaker and weaker when it comes to falling asleep through noise. I took a nap today from 8:30PM to 11:00PM and woke up somewhere in the middle because of a sensation both strange and completely ungrounded in reality; the sensation of being late to something. I set myself a safety net, an 11:00PM alarm, and tried to fall back asleep, only to find that I couldn't because Mario was snoring in 7/8, a most irritating time signatue as I have said on other occasions. Luckily, I didn't make the connection with the earlier sleeping disaster, so well described in the previous post, though the similarities were many. Mario stuck to one pace, he refused to change his pattern of raspy sounds despite all my efforts to mind control him into doing so, and he made no indication of ever to stop.
I persisted in trying to fall asleep with a stubbornness unprecedented by my gender, and finally did, only to have a very long and frustrating dream. I dreamt that I was trying to match my mind's and body's various frequencies to Mario's snoring. I know it was a dream because I woke up to my alarm at 11:00PM, and reality-Mario wasn't even in his bed, much less snoring. Instead, I heard the familiar rustle outside - reality-Mario was stuffing his face with Cheez-its.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
DO NOT OPEN
Please don't read any further. Your very soul is in danger.
You asked for it.
Today I was woken up at 7:30AM by Satan's sermon taking place only feet away. Our downstairs' neighbor's apartment bore the heart of evil in its belly.
How did I know it was Satan? Judge for yourself. The following clips are samples of what we heard at 7:30AM. We, because I woke up Mario when I could no longer stand what the sound was doing to me - about 15 seconds after first hearing it.
WARNING - DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS IF YOU'RE SUSCEPTIBLE TO SATAN, OR IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING YOURSELF AND EVERYONE IN A TWELVE MILE RADIUS.
Do not open
Definitely do not open
Note: if you want to get the full effect, loop it for forty minutes. But don't say I didn't warn you.
I recorded this like a true reporter - half naked, holding my computer with microphone attached right outside the enemy's door. But to be honest, I didn't feel in much more danger than while just listening.
The entire twenty minutes before that, I was hysterical, and slowly helping Mario achieve the same plane of hilarity. We could not understand a single word in this non-repeating mantra, but we knew it was implanting hideous impulses in our psyches. The remaining unsubjugated neurons in our minds yearned more than anything to wake up Daniel so that he could banish it to Hell, but alas, we were not strong enough.
We were certain, like we had never been certain of anything in our lives, that this sound was accompanied by virgins being sacrificed, or at least goats. And we were also certain that we would be doing something very similar within the next hour. We could practically taste the subliminal messages and post-hypnotic suggestions buried in the thing. Mario claimed it made want to him murder everyone in a twelve mile radius. I was filled with the completely irrational and inexplicable desire to be more than twelve miles away.
As of now, the sound has ceased. I don't know if it's divine intervention or something else that stopped it, but as of several minutes, it has been replaced by the jolliest Indian songs I've ever heard. They're probably still instructing me to gouge out my eyeballs and set Mario on fire, but at least they're pleasant to the ears.
On a related note, here's a related note:
Shrek was on the other day and Mario and I spent some time figuring out how dragons and the laws of physics could coincide in one universe. We mentally co-engineered a dragon, and found that it's not altogether unbelievable for them to exist. We started with the premise that dragons need really big wings as compared with birds. A dragon that's really a magnified bird would never work. This is because mass increases roughly cubically with respect to a dragon's radius. However, this premise was quickly dropped because we didn't want out dragons to look retarded. We decided instead that dragons would have to be really really light. To ensure a low density, we filled them with steaming hot air, because everyone knows hot air rises. When we were done, it turned out that dragons float like Hindenbergs, and they flap their wings only if they want to get down from the sky. If you chop off a dragon's wings, it zooms away into outer space at escape velocity. And that also explains why there are no more dragons.
You asked for it.
Today I was woken up at 7:30AM by Satan's sermon taking place only feet away. Our downstairs' neighbor's apartment bore the heart of evil in its belly.
How did I know it was Satan? Judge for yourself. The following clips are samples of what we heard at 7:30AM. We, because I woke up Mario when I could no longer stand what the sound was doing to me - about 15 seconds after first hearing it.
WARNING - DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS IF YOU'RE SUSCEPTIBLE TO SATAN, OR IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING YOURSELF AND EVERYONE IN A TWELVE MILE RADIUS.
Do not open
Definitely do not open
Note: if you want to get the full effect, loop it for forty minutes. But don't say I didn't warn you.
I recorded this like a true reporter - half naked, holding my computer with microphone attached right outside the enemy's door. But to be honest, I didn't feel in much more danger than while just listening.
The entire twenty minutes before that, I was hysterical, and slowly helping Mario achieve the same plane of hilarity. We could not understand a single word in this non-repeating mantra, but we knew it was implanting hideous impulses in our psyches. The remaining unsubjugated neurons in our minds yearned more than anything to wake up Daniel so that he could banish it to Hell, but alas, we were not strong enough.
We were certain, like we had never been certain of anything in our lives, that this sound was accompanied by virgins being sacrificed, or at least goats. And we were also certain that we would be doing something very similar within the next hour. We could practically taste the subliminal messages and post-hypnotic suggestions buried in the thing. Mario claimed it made want to him murder everyone in a twelve mile radius. I was filled with the completely irrational and inexplicable desire to be more than twelve miles away.
As of now, the sound has ceased. I don't know if it's divine intervention or something else that stopped it, but as of several minutes, it has been replaced by the jolliest Indian songs I've ever heard. They're probably still instructing me to gouge out my eyeballs and set Mario on fire, but at least they're pleasant to the ears.
On a related note, here's a related note:
Shrek was on the other day and Mario and I spent some time figuring out how dragons and the laws of physics could coincide in one universe. We mentally co-engineered a dragon, and found that it's not altogether unbelievable for them to exist. We started with the premise that dragons need really big wings as compared with birds. A dragon that's really a magnified bird would never work. This is because mass increases roughly cubically with respect to a dragon's radius. However, this premise was quickly dropped because we didn't want out dragons to look retarded. We decided instead that dragons would have to be really really light. To ensure a low density, we filled them with steaming hot air, because everyone knows hot air rises. When we were done, it turned out that dragons float like Hindenbergs, and they flap their wings only if they want to get down from the sky. If you chop off a dragon's wings, it zooms away into outer space at escape velocity. And that also explains why there are no more dragons.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Hot hot hot
Today I popped my "do something stupid and burn yourself" cherry. I had long figured I was immune because Mario averages three burns a week, making him a sort of lightning rod. My optimism didn't save me.
I'm afraid to say my burn was up to the stupidity standards Mario has set. His typical story is: "I opened the oven to get the chicken out and when I pulled out the pan with my bare hands, it burned me. How was I supposed to know it was hot?" To which I normally respond with a condescending laugh and a deprecating joke. Well my story merits the same treatment. Good thing Mario's asleep and doesn't read this blog.
I boiled myself some water for tea, made the tea, picked up the cup, and forgot about it somewhere on the way to setting it down on the dining room table. This is the hazard of trusting your body to your autopilot; sometimes, even he gets fancy. I realized I was in trouble just as I finished a complex dance move with my cup-bearing hand, and saw the liquid in the cup splash all over my first three fingers. There was instantly lots of pain, and for quite a while, especially since I didn't:
1. Drop the cup and run to the faucet to put out the six-inch flames on my hand.
2. Scream like a girl. Everyone knows this alleviates even the worst pain. This is why when a woman is screaming in the delivery room, you shouldn't panic. As long as she keeps screaming, she's as good as under general anaesthesia.
3. Put my hand up to my earlobe as Chun would have me do - according to her, earlobes are natural refrigerators; they absorb heat like a firstborn does your savings account. Well in this case, I would have ended up with a big blister instead of a face.
Instead I stood there and let the pain feast on my stupidity. Only when the water in the cup became completely placid did I put the cup down and do some of the aforementioned items.
I am reasonably sure this was a fluke, and that the next burn victim will again be Mario. Of course no one knows for sure but the burn gods. I'll be crossing the fingers I have left.
I'm afraid to say my burn was up to the stupidity standards Mario has set. His typical story is: "I opened the oven to get the chicken out and when I pulled out the pan with my bare hands, it burned me. How was I supposed to know it was hot?" To which I normally respond with a condescending laugh and a deprecating joke. Well my story merits the same treatment. Good thing Mario's asleep and doesn't read this blog.
I boiled myself some water for tea, made the tea, picked up the cup, and forgot about it somewhere on the way to setting it down on the dining room table. This is the hazard of trusting your body to your autopilot; sometimes, even he gets fancy. I realized I was in trouble just as I finished a complex dance move with my cup-bearing hand, and saw the liquid in the cup splash all over my first three fingers. There was instantly lots of pain, and for quite a while, especially since I didn't:
1. Drop the cup and run to the faucet to put out the six-inch flames on my hand.
2. Scream like a girl. Everyone knows this alleviates even the worst pain. This is why when a woman is screaming in the delivery room, you shouldn't panic. As long as she keeps screaming, she's as good as under general anaesthesia.
3. Put my hand up to my earlobe as Chun would have me do - according to her, earlobes are natural refrigerators; they absorb heat like a firstborn does your savings account. Well in this case, I would have ended up with a big blister instead of a face.
Instead I stood there and let the pain feast on my stupidity. Only when the water in the cup became completely placid did I put the cup down and do some of the aforementioned items.
I am reasonably sure this was a fluke, and that the next burn victim will again be Mario. Of course no one knows for sure but the burn gods. I'll be crossing the fingers I have left.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
For laymen's eyes only
I was helping Franco a bit with his math homework today. He's in a class that shatters all records for lack of applications. I said on the previous post that my college experience was generally useless. Well, this class is to my college experience as my college experience is to Manswers. Somewhere between useless factorial and worthless to the good-for-nothingth power.
They learn about different sets of numbers, and how those sets are defined. These are not even interesting sets, like numbers that turn into letters when flipped upside down, enabling one to type dirty words in a calculator. They're boring numbers with "properties," a favorite word among nerds. About the only thing interesting about them are their names, and even here, interesting is a hyperbole of a hyperbole.
Lucky, deficient, perfect, happy, hungry, sociable, vampire, narcissistic, powerful, aspiring, abundant, odious, and the list goes on.
And then, as I read this list, I began to feel myself getting more and more nauseous. For it had dawned on me that this list was indeed important, and in a way I had never dreamed. Reading these silly words, I came to a horrifying and now seemingly obvious conclusion. This is a conspiracy spearheaded by mathematicians!
Psh, you may say. What's their purpose? Well I'll tell you. To turn our everyday conversations into math-talk. Given fifty years, we'll all be talking in equations with about as much awareness as we currently have for curse words. And then, once we're all talking math and not English and Chinese, we won't be able to distinguish nerds from jocks, the bullies from the bullied. It will be an apocalypse.
The clues to this conspiracy are everywhere, but we've been blinded by our disdain for those four-eyed evil-smelling geniuses. Mathematicians have been working up to this step for thousands of years without raising a hair of suspicion until now, on this blog. Has no one except me noticed that mathematicians use letters even more than numbers? The governments of most countries (minus New Zealand) are very lax in this respect. Mathematicians are almost outside the law. But now they've gone far enough. I can't even say I'm hungry in the privacy of my own quarter of an apartment without sounding like a nerd. I say we get our languages back from the nerds. Numbers for nerds, letters for laymen. Who's with me?
They learn about different sets of numbers, and how those sets are defined. These are not even interesting sets, like numbers that turn into letters when flipped upside down, enabling one to type dirty words in a calculator. They're boring numbers with "properties," a favorite word among nerds. About the only thing interesting about them are their names, and even here, interesting is a hyperbole of a hyperbole.
Lucky, deficient, perfect, happy, hungry, sociable, vampire, narcissistic, powerful, aspiring, abundant, odious, and the list goes on.
And then, as I read this list, I began to feel myself getting more and more nauseous. For it had dawned on me that this list was indeed important, and in a way I had never dreamed. Reading these silly words, I came to a horrifying and now seemingly obvious conclusion. This is a conspiracy spearheaded by mathematicians!
Psh, you may say. What's their purpose? Well I'll tell you. To turn our everyday conversations into math-talk. Given fifty years, we'll all be talking in equations with about as much awareness as we currently have for curse words. And then, once we're all talking math and not English and Chinese, we won't be able to distinguish nerds from jocks, the bullies from the bullied. It will be an apocalypse.
The clues to this conspiracy are everywhere, but we've been blinded by our disdain for those four-eyed evil-smelling geniuses. Mathematicians have been working up to this step for thousands of years without raising a hair of suspicion until now, on this blog. Has no one except me noticed that mathematicians use letters even more than numbers? The governments of most countries (minus New Zealand) are very lax in this respect. Mathematicians are almost outside the law. But now they've gone far enough. I can't even say I'm hungry in the privacy of my own quarter of an apartment without sounding like a nerd. I say we get our languages back from the nerds. Numbers for nerds, letters for laymen. Who's with me?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sugar
The last couple days have proved that it is possible to survive eating only sugar. I don't mean sustain oneself and not starve. I mean eat Tootsie Rolls for breakfast, pudding for dinner, and a 60%-40% Tootsie-Roll-to-pudding split for brunch, lunch and 2nd lunch, AND (this is the important part) not die or lose more than four teeth a day. I have accomplished this feat singlehandedly and have not even felt any side effects, though I wouldn't recommend it to the average weakling. The only hard part of this most worthy endeavor is getting Tootsie Rolls into your mouth when your arm and head are shaking at different frequencies.
Yesterday introduced me to a wonderful new show - Manswers. "You've got questions, we've got MANSWERS!" In one half hour session with Manswers, I learned invaluable street smarts. I now know three ways to survive a tiger attack, how tiny my bikini can be without getting me arrested, how much more the average pimp is making than I am, what set of sexual preferences makes a girl easier to get into bed, and why chickens and humans have identical tastes in women. Compare this to what I learned in four years of college - that it's only a temporary respite before you need to get a job, and I think we can agree America needs to rethink the education system.
I've been learning some Led Zeppelin songs lately. It's tremendous fun. It's also a bit like putting on glasses that flip your perception of left and right and then running around the house at top speed, but applied to rhythm instead of vision. I've realized now how relatively sane most rock/metal bands' music is when it comes to time signature. 4/4 time, 3/4, 9/8, even 7/8 are manageable when the whole song sticks to one or two, but in Zeppelin songs, you're liable to have measures thrown in seemingly at random with half a beat missing, or an extra three. And then, when you're back in 4/4 and you think it's smooth sailing, you get taken again. They mercilessly throw you a 9/8 riff over that 4/4 and your brain-fingers connection melts right down. Awesome.
...
We just went to Starbucks again. This time we planned out the whole operation and the result was a resounding success. We managed to spend somewhere between twelve and thirteen dollars from Mario's giftcard on two drinks and two scones. This is quite an achievement when you consider that twenty five dollars feeds the two of us for a week.
Yesterday introduced me to a wonderful new show - Manswers. "You've got questions, we've got MANSWERS!" In one half hour session with Manswers, I learned invaluable street smarts. I now know three ways to survive a tiger attack, how tiny my bikini can be without getting me arrested, how much more the average pimp is making than I am, what set of sexual preferences makes a girl easier to get into bed, and why chickens and humans have identical tastes in women. Compare this to what I learned in four years of college - that it's only a temporary respite before you need to get a job, and I think we can agree America needs to rethink the education system.
I've been learning some Led Zeppelin songs lately. It's tremendous fun. It's also a bit like putting on glasses that flip your perception of left and right and then running around the house at top speed, but applied to rhythm instead of vision. I've realized now how relatively sane most rock/metal bands' music is when it comes to time signature. 4/4 time, 3/4, 9/8, even 7/8 are manageable when the whole song sticks to one or two, but in Zeppelin songs, you're liable to have measures thrown in seemingly at random with half a beat missing, or an extra three. And then, when you're back in 4/4 and you think it's smooth sailing, you get taken again. They mercilessly throw you a 9/8 riff over that 4/4 and your brain-fingers connection melts right down. Awesome.
...
We just went to Starbucks again. This time we planned out the whole operation and the result was a resounding success. We managed to spend somewhere between twelve and thirteen dollars from Mario's giftcard on two drinks and two scones. This is quite an achievement when you consider that twenty five dollars feeds the two of us for a week.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
(mis)adventures
I received a complaint yesterday. Apparently my most recent entry was more depressing than a bag of drowned kittens. I didn't think so, but my subconscious must have taken it personally. It rebounded today with an optimistic dream, knowing full well I'd tell it here. You get to hear it first, before it is shamelessly converted into word-mass for my novel.
I'm somewhere off in nondescript-setting land. The dream isn't really visual in any way. I'm listening to a Queen song I haven't heard before. It's important to note hrtr that I pretty much worship Queen. So I'm listening to the song for a while. It changes pace several times in that sexy Bohemian Rhapsody kind of way. Very enjoyable. And then, all of a sudden I'm hearing something very familiar. It takes me a moment, and then I realize I'm hearing one of my own songs, but sung by Freddie Mercury. And here I'm faced with a choice. I could get depressed, because there's nothing more depressing than taking a good song out of the bank. I definitely consider mourning the loss for a second, but then another idea occurs to me. "Hey!" I think. "This means my song kicks ass!" And on that happy note, the dream ended, at least I don't remember anything else. And no, I have no idea which one of my songs it was. It being kickass doesn't really narrow the search down.
Yesterday, Mario and I went to Starbucks. We looked up all the Starbucks in our area and found one that was open till eleven, because it was already ten when Mario got back from work. I even called a couple (so you can appreciate the effort). Having found it, we left the apartment in a hurry.
So we're in the car, we've driven out of the apartment complex, and we need to make our first decision - right or left. That's when we realize we forgot to do one insignficant little thing. We never wrote down the coordinates or phone number. In fact, neither of us remembers a single piece of information that would aid in the search.
Being optimists, we decide to drive around for a while. We roll down our windows. We think maybe we can pick up the scent of overpriced-ness. Our optimism lasts about ten minutes.
Then Mario has the brilliant idea of using On-Star. On-Star is a ghetto version of the GPS monitor+screen that's so generously contributing to the further mental retardation of America. You press a button, the car places a phone call, you tell the operator where you want to go, and they send directions to your car. Anyway, we use On-Star, and it takes us pretty much back to our apartment. Apparently there's a Starbucks in the next-door Kroger. Feeling most triumphant, we march into Kroger's only to find that we're about three hours too late. This wasn't the lucky Starbucks after all. After that we gave up and went home.
This reminded both of us of another of our many failures, one that took place sophomore year of college. We had decided to go to Costco. We were really excited about it for some reason. I think we were under the illusion, or rather delusion, that Costco is a magical place where pennies are still worth something - specifically vast amounts of food. We got ready, we took our biggest suitcases, and walked bravely out of Next House (our dormitory), dragging them behind us. We only went about thirty meters. We realized neither of us had a Costco card at twenty meters, the other ten were by inertia. Then we stopped and turned around without another word. We were each still willing to go, provided that the other would buy a card, and the resounding "No Way!" was palpable without us having to prompt each other.
I'm somewhere off in nondescript-setting land. The dream isn't really visual in any way. I'm listening to a Queen song I haven't heard before. It's important to note hrtr that I pretty much worship Queen. So I'm listening to the song for a while. It changes pace several times in that sexy Bohemian Rhapsody kind of way. Very enjoyable. And then, all of a sudden I'm hearing something very familiar. It takes me a moment, and then I realize I'm hearing one of my own songs, but sung by Freddie Mercury. And here I'm faced with a choice. I could get depressed, because there's nothing more depressing than taking a good song out of the bank. I definitely consider mourning the loss for a second, but then another idea occurs to me. "Hey!" I think. "This means my song kicks ass!" And on that happy note, the dream ended, at least I don't remember anything else. And no, I have no idea which one of my songs it was. It being kickass doesn't really narrow the search down.
Yesterday, Mario and I went to Starbucks. We looked up all the Starbucks in our area and found one that was open till eleven, because it was already ten when Mario got back from work. I even called a couple (so you can appreciate the effort). Having found it, we left the apartment in a hurry.
So we're in the car, we've driven out of the apartment complex, and we need to make our first decision - right or left. That's when we realize we forgot to do one insignficant little thing. We never wrote down the coordinates or phone number. In fact, neither of us remembers a single piece of information that would aid in the search.
Being optimists, we decide to drive around for a while. We roll down our windows. We think maybe we can pick up the scent of overpriced-ness. Our optimism lasts about ten minutes.
Then Mario has the brilliant idea of using On-Star. On-Star is a ghetto version of the GPS monitor+screen that's so generously contributing to the further mental retardation of America. You press a button, the car places a phone call, you tell the operator where you want to go, and they send directions to your car. Anyway, we use On-Star, and it takes us pretty much back to our apartment. Apparently there's a Starbucks in the next-door Kroger. Feeling most triumphant, we march into Kroger's only to find that we're about three hours too late. This wasn't the lucky Starbucks after all. After that we gave up and went home.
This reminded both of us of another of our many failures, one that took place sophomore year of college. We had decided to go to Costco. We were really excited about it for some reason. I think we were under the illusion, or rather delusion, that Costco is a magical place where pennies are still worth something - specifically vast amounts of food. We got ready, we took our biggest suitcases, and walked bravely out of Next House (our dormitory), dragging them behind us. We only went about thirty meters. We realized neither of us had a Costco card at twenty meters, the other ten were by inertia. Then we stopped and turned around without another word. We were each still willing to go, provided that the other would buy a card, and the resounding "No Way!" was palpable without us having to prompt each other.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Your easy life
So National Novel Writing Month is steadily chugging along. I've been keeping to a pace of ~1666 words a day in an unprecedented feat of anti-procrastination. Yes, I feel very ashamed. No, you can't leave judgmental comments, I'm under enough stress as it is. For those of you who haven't already read it in Scientific American, it has recently been discovered that the pain of childbirth is like popping zit when compared to creating a novel. So it's been hard to force myself to procrastinate, as much as I would love to.
Because judging anyone is heavy on the psyche, and because I claim to care about others' well-being, I will help you not to judge me. I will justify my betrayal of the technique so fundamental to success in school, college, the workplace, testing of oddly shaped lumps in the breast or under the armpit...well maybe not the last one. You see, I'm up against a formidable enemy - the cold vice-like hand of fear. There's a fundamental quality that separates this project from past ones. This quality is the voluntary nature of the undertaking. I am not doing this project for a grade. I am not doing because my fat boss is breathing down my neck. I am certainly not doing it because my personality demands a high degree of planned action. I'm doing it because I'm a badass, and doing it will scream my badassness (short for bodaciousness) to the world. I'm doing it because every word that brings me closer to meeting the deadline makes my enemies weep bitter tears of envy and defeat. And...I'm doing it because I care.
Now normally, the word "care," when used by a male and not preceded by a negation, raises suspicions of high estrogen levels, homosexuality, or homosexuality. It is common courtesy to follow up a statement involving the word "care" with "Did you mean scare?" as in:
"I love caring for old people."
"Did you say care or scare?"
"Umm...scare, of course. Ha! Caring for old people, that's for sissies. I scare for them. They pay well to scare their own. Extra, if you cause a heartattack."
The exception is when "care" is uttered by a badass, in which case the world takes it in stride without a second thought. This is that case.
Caring is the procrastinator's nightmare. For those of you amateurs who think procrastinating is easy, try investing some personal interest and you'll quickly find yourself slipping. Caring about a project makes procrastinating feel like you're holding in number one: for a short while it's bearable, and then you get to thinking that if you don't go now, you may never go again. Or, for those of you with tubes taking care of your urine I/O, it's like not sleeping for more than forty eight consecutive hours: you experience an acute lack of will-power. You brain says to you: "Come on, just go to sleep for a little while, and try this experiment tomorrow. Really, there's all the time in the world to try this another time. Listen to me! I'm so convincing!" And you give in, unless you're Jesus Christ or a donkey.
That is my situation. Daily, I dip below the threshold of will-power necessary for fueling procrastination, and I give in and write another 1666 words. Once I do, I feel guilty. It's a hellish existence. Prometheus had it easy.
Because judging anyone is heavy on the psyche, and because I claim to care about others' well-being, I will help you not to judge me. I will justify my betrayal of the technique so fundamental to success in school, college, the workplace, testing of oddly shaped lumps in the breast or under the armpit...well maybe not the last one. You see, I'm up against a formidable enemy - the cold vice-like hand of fear. There's a fundamental quality that separates this project from past ones. This quality is the voluntary nature of the undertaking. I am not doing this project for a grade. I am not doing because my fat boss is breathing down my neck. I am certainly not doing it because my personality demands a high degree of planned action. I'm doing it because I'm a badass, and doing it will scream my badassness (short for bodaciousness) to the world. I'm doing it because every word that brings me closer to meeting the deadline makes my enemies weep bitter tears of envy and defeat. And...I'm doing it because I care.
Now normally, the word "care," when used by a male and not preceded by a negation, raises suspicions of high estrogen levels, homosexuality, or homosexuality. It is common courtesy to follow up a statement involving the word "care" with "Did you mean scare?" as in:
"I love caring for old people."
"Did you say care or scare?"
"Umm...scare, of course. Ha! Caring for old people, that's for sissies. I scare for them. They pay well to scare their own. Extra, if you cause a heartattack."
The exception is when "care" is uttered by a badass, in which case the world takes it in stride without a second thought. This is that case.
Caring is the procrastinator's nightmare. For those of you amateurs who think procrastinating is easy, try investing some personal interest and you'll quickly find yourself slipping. Caring about a project makes procrastinating feel like you're holding in number one: for a short while it's bearable, and then you get to thinking that if you don't go now, you may never go again. Or, for those of you with tubes taking care of your urine I/O, it's like not sleeping for more than forty eight consecutive hours: you experience an acute lack of will-power. You brain says to you: "Come on, just go to sleep for a little while, and try this experiment tomorrow. Really, there's all the time in the world to try this another time. Listen to me! I'm so convincing!" And you give in, unless you're Jesus Christ or a donkey.
That is my situation. Daily, I dip below the threshold of will-power necessary for fueling procrastination, and I give in and write another 1666 words. Once I do, I feel guilty. It's a hellish existence. Prometheus had it easy.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
NaNoWriMo
In accordance with piece-of-advice #3 from the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) intiation email, I am notifying the world that I will be writing a novel during the course of November. I will start on the 1st, stop on midnight of the 30th, and somewhere during the course of the 30 days, I will write 50,000 words of something that will be at least pure garbage. Piece-of-advice #3 says that if I flake out at any time, you have permission to deem me pathetic and to express that opinion freely. Yes, yes, I know, with this blog's three-billion+ readers I will be reading praise-brimming comments till November 2030, but what the hell, I'll take that chance. Other people who have put November to NaNoWriMo's sacrificial altar include Natasha...yea, Natasha. However, if someone decides that they could use a thirty-day-long kick in the balls, I would be glad to oblige. ...And also they should sign up for NaNoWriMo.
Tomorrow is Halloween, and the Mendiolas + extended family are having a party. I have been invited as the token "friend," which says a lot about the Mendiola's and their standards for friends. Then again, look at Mario, and you'll wonder about their standards for family. Anyway, Ben, Daniel, Mario and I have been ordered to dress up as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Daniel and Ben are in charge of supplies, Mario and I are to put the costumes together. I have more faith in my novel-writing abilities than in my costume-building skills so disappointment is inevitable. At least we won't be disappointed with that.
On a low note, food is running low. I finished off three boxes of grape nuts today, each having only those crumbs at the bottom that are always left until all the boxes full of full-fledged grape nut chunks have been devoured. The fridge is nearly empty, in accordance with moneysaving rule #2: "never shop until you've eaten everything in the refrigerator and licked the racks clean (Note: do not lick the inside of the freezer, or you might find out why you shouldn't have done it)." There's an egg or so, but those will be today's dinner, along with the remnants of the Angel Food. Yes, believe it or not, there's still Angel Food left over, though my previous comments on its quality render this fact unsurprising. Mostly we've been prefering oatmeal in large quantities, and so far nothing has proven to be as filling/$ as the tubs we buy biweekly. Once the oatmeal and the Angel Food are gone though (later today), we'll have to resort to ancient wisdom to keep our bellies full. I'm having trouble deciding between D'Artagnan's: "He who sleeps, eats," and the Russian: "A ton of water replaces a kilogram of bread."
Tomorrow is Halloween, and the Mendiolas + extended family are having a party. I have been invited as the token "friend," which says a lot about the Mendiola's and their standards for friends. Then again, look at Mario, and you'll wonder about their standards for family. Anyway, Ben, Daniel, Mario and I have been ordered to dress up as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Daniel and Ben are in charge of supplies, Mario and I are to put the costumes together. I have more faith in my novel-writing abilities than in my costume-building skills so disappointment is inevitable. At least we won't be disappointed with that.
On a low note, food is running low. I finished off three boxes of grape nuts today, each having only those crumbs at the bottom that are always left until all the boxes full of full-fledged grape nut chunks have been devoured. The fridge is nearly empty, in accordance with moneysaving rule #2: "never shop until you've eaten everything in the refrigerator and licked the racks clean (Note: do not lick the inside of the freezer, or you might find out why you shouldn't have done it)." There's an egg or so, but those will be today's dinner, along with the remnants of the Angel Food. Yes, believe it or not, there's still Angel Food left over, though my previous comments on its quality render this fact unsurprising. Mostly we've been prefering oatmeal in large quantities, and so far nothing has proven to be as filling/$ as the tubs we buy biweekly. Once the oatmeal and the Angel Food are gone though (later today), we'll have to resort to ancient wisdom to keep our bellies full. I'm having trouble deciding between D'Artagnan's: "He who sleeps, eats," and the Russian: "A ton of water replaces a kilogram of bread."
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Wonderful World of Mucus
If you don't want to read about mucus coming out of various orifices of my body, stop reading now.
Over the last few days, my sickness has summoned vast amounts of mucus to aid in its quest to torture me. The current trend is a steady migration upwards through my body. If this journey continues in similar fashion, the story of my malady may get a whole lot more interesting.
Two days ago, my throat was my only enemy, and I frequently cleared it, spewing yellowish globs wherever I happened to have been aiming. Yesterday, my nose joined in on the game, and I found myself with two more nozzles to spray out of, and as trigger-happy as a Clint Eastwood movie. Today, the mucus has completed a leg of the journey and resides almost solely in my nose. Unfortunately, due to my severe case of JAD (Jammed Attention Disorder - the inability to switch attention quickly), I often find myself stripping off headphones and guitars and catching drips Mission Impossible style, i.e. nanoseconds before they hit the floor. But this is irrelevant. What's bothering me is where this mucus is heading next. "Ear-nose-throat" I hear are connected, so I may soon be blowing my ears (I've been practicing all day). And after my ears have succumbed, what next? In the worst case, I'll be blind for a while, but in the best, I may have a imminent cure for my dandruff problem.
Over the last few days, my sickness has summoned vast amounts of mucus to aid in its quest to torture me. The current trend is a steady migration upwards through my body. If this journey continues in similar fashion, the story of my malady may get a whole lot more interesting.
Two days ago, my throat was my only enemy, and I frequently cleared it, spewing yellowish globs wherever I happened to have been aiming. Yesterday, my nose joined in on the game, and I found myself with two more nozzles to spray out of, and as trigger-happy as a Clint Eastwood movie. Today, the mucus has completed a leg of the journey and resides almost solely in my nose. Unfortunately, due to my severe case of JAD (Jammed Attention Disorder - the inability to switch attention quickly), I often find myself stripping off headphones and guitars and catching drips Mission Impossible style, i.e. nanoseconds before they hit the floor. But this is irrelevant. What's bothering me is where this mucus is heading next. "Ear-nose-throat" I hear are connected, so I may soon be blowing my ears (I've been practicing all day). And after my ears have succumbed, what next? In the worst case, I'll be blind for a while, but in the best, I may have a imminent cure for my dandruff problem.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Angel Food Update
Part of the Angel Food is 10 prepackaged frozen meals (The Senior Citizen Special). The meals are in plastic boxes, and have three compartments - main course, greens, and a mystery compartment which has so far included garlic bread, applesauce and boiled carrots. The quality of these meals, so far, has a very high variance.
The first tested the limits of edibility. It was advertised as "Chicken in Barbecue Sauce, Greens, and Applesauce." After consuming a large part of it, I was convinced that it was in fact "Barbeque Sauce with a Splash of Chicken, Something Green That Normally Isn't, and an Applesauce/Previous Mystery Green Stuff Infusion."
Five days later, when my hunger overpowered my discouragement, I selected another prepackaged meal at random. The label read "Parmesan Chicken, Greens and Garlic Bread." Once again, I was surprised, but this time, pleasantly. The chicken was tender, the pasta tasted like pasta, and the garlic bread...well it was pretty much a glorified cracker that didn't even smell like garlic. But on the whole, my low expectations combined with the meal's adequacy produced pure delight. The greens were still inedible, but looked vaguely bean-ish. That was yesterday.
Today, the third meal was opened, this time by Mario. It was "Roast Beef, The Inevitable Greens, and Boiled Carrots." He started off with the main course, replying "eh" when I asked him if it was good. He was almost done when I suggested he try the greens so that he would have something edible to wash it down with in case they proved again to be unpalatable. He grabbed a good forkfull of greens and bravely shoved it in his mouth. His face immediately turned upside down. The greens were apparently the only part of the meals that guaranteed consistency. After the initial surge of facial turmoil, Mario put on a very serious face and sat motionless. I ventured a guess: "are you trying to swallow?" He nodded dumbly, and continued to sit there. I could feel his gag reflex throwing a fit all the way across the table. To help him, I started laughing at him as hard as I could. It was a battle of pride against the body's instincts, and was almost up to Stephen Chow physical comedy standards. Finally he gave up and spit it back out into the greens compartment. Poor guy, he should have swallowed. Now I'll have to remind him of this failure every day of his life.
The first tested the limits of edibility. It was advertised as "Chicken in Barbecue Sauce, Greens, and Applesauce." After consuming a large part of it, I was convinced that it was in fact "Barbeque Sauce with a Splash of Chicken, Something Green That Normally Isn't, and an Applesauce/Previous Mystery Green Stuff Infusion."
Five days later, when my hunger overpowered my discouragement, I selected another prepackaged meal at random. The label read "Parmesan Chicken, Greens and Garlic Bread." Once again, I was surprised, but this time, pleasantly. The chicken was tender, the pasta tasted like pasta, and the garlic bread...well it was pretty much a glorified cracker that didn't even smell like garlic. But on the whole, my low expectations combined with the meal's adequacy produced pure delight. The greens were still inedible, but looked vaguely bean-ish. That was yesterday.
Today, the third meal was opened, this time by Mario. It was "Roast Beef, The Inevitable Greens, and Boiled Carrots." He started off with the main course, replying "eh" when I asked him if it was good. He was almost done when I suggested he try the greens so that he would have something edible to wash it down with in case they proved again to be unpalatable. He grabbed a good forkfull of greens and bravely shoved it in his mouth. His face immediately turned upside down. The greens were apparently the only part of the meals that guaranteed consistency. After the initial surge of facial turmoil, Mario put on a very serious face and sat motionless. I ventured a guess: "are you trying to swallow?" He nodded dumbly, and continued to sit there. I could feel his gag reflex throwing a fit all the way across the table. To help him, I started laughing at him as hard as I could. It was a battle of pride against the body's instincts, and was almost up to Stephen Chow physical comedy standards. Finally he gave up and spit it back out into the greens compartment. Poor guy, he should have swallowed. Now I'll have to remind him of this failure every day of his life.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Wo jianzai
Celebrated a few birthdays with some drinking at our place the other day. There must of been something extra special in the drinks because Mario was experiencing weird effects. We had the following two conversations at the peak of inebriation:
Mario (chewing a piece of gum): dude, my senses are so powerful, I can taste that piece of chicken you're eating from all the way over here.
Me (demolishing a piece of fried chicken): what does it taste like?
Mario (gets a bearing on his long-distance taste buds): ...gum.
(a little later)
Mario (still chewing gum): dude, my brain...I don't think anyone can understand what's going on in my brain right now. It's amazing.
Me: psh, I bet I can. Summarize it in two words.
Mario: Gum... ... ... ...good.
Nevermind, that sounds pretty much like the effects of alcohol.
I've been watching some Chinese movies lately, namely The Chinese Odyssey Part I & II. It's pretty glorius slapstick. There's lots of crotch humor, which is apparently as funny in China as it is in the United States. It must be some kind of genetically grounded reflex, like a mental kneejerk - when a man's crotch gets kicked, punched, set on fire, hit with a combination of gravity and tree branch, etc., you MUST laugh. And since I must, I did. A lot. Of course there can only be so much vicariously experienced pain before habituation sets in, but the movies threw in a good measure of other guaranteed laugh-elicitors - unibrows, horrible special effects, cross-dressing, and funny phrases like "Boyo Bolomi!"
I downloaded some more singing-training material. According to the latest, in five weeks I will no longer sound like a creaking door being slaughtered, or if I do, it will be as much as an octave higher than currently.
I've also been learning lots of Chinese lately by chatting with Chinese girls on various continents. Hmm, thought I had more to say about this...
Mario (chewing a piece of gum): dude, my senses are so powerful, I can taste that piece of chicken you're eating from all the way over here.
Me (demolishing a piece of fried chicken): what does it taste like?
Mario (gets a bearing on his long-distance taste buds): ...gum.
(a little later)
Mario (still chewing gum): dude, my brain...I don't think anyone can understand what's going on in my brain right now. It's amazing.
Me: psh, I bet I can. Summarize it in two words.
Mario: Gum... ... ... ...good.
Nevermind, that sounds pretty much like the effects of alcohol.
I've been watching some Chinese movies lately, namely The Chinese Odyssey Part I & II. It's pretty glorius slapstick. There's lots of crotch humor, which is apparently as funny in China as it is in the United States. It must be some kind of genetically grounded reflex, like a mental kneejerk - when a man's crotch gets kicked, punched, set on fire, hit with a combination of gravity and tree branch, etc., you MUST laugh. And since I must, I did. A lot. Of course there can only be so much vicariously experienced pain before habituation sets in, but the movies threw in a good measure of other guaranteed laugh-elicitors - unibrows, horrible special effects, cross-dressing, and funny phrases like "Boyo Bolomi!"
I downloaded some more singing-training material. According to the latest, in five weeks I will no longer sound like a creaking door being slaughtered, or if I do, it will be as much as an octave higher than currently.
I've also been learning lots of Chinese lately by chatting with Chinese girls on various continents. Hmm, thought I had more to say about this...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Last Words
Mario goes to work at around 2, and Franco and Daniel are at college, so I get myself to myself for a large part of the day. There are lots of advantages to alone time. You can sing really loudly, set new standards for minimal clothing, play music and movies at top volume, boobytrap the place for when the roommates get home, cry for hours about how life is misery mounted on misery and how nobody ever does what I frickin' tell them to, etc. It's a variety pack, and I'm taking full advantage.
Friday Franco's holding a party at our place - I was told there will be alcohol, Kool-Aid, chicken, and watermelon, because the birthday girl is black. What better birthday present than a racist joke, eh?
Dava's (the Living Incarnation) techies finally responded to my dad's emails. Actually they responded on August 28th, but Yahoo Mail shooed the Divine Email right into the spam folder. Needless to say Yahoo Mail is going straight to hell. Anyway, this means my parents are now going to be devoting lots of their time to the Way of Freedom as Dava calls it. On one hand this could be a problem, because I'm kind of counting on them to make some money so that I don't have to. On the other hand, maybe my inheritance just got one hell of a lot bigger. Having Gods as parents could open some doors...or get me tortured and crucified, can't remember which. Hmm...I guess I'll have to do some risk assessment.
It's kind of strange to be sitting here, calmly writing hilarity, while Hurricane Ike is flying straight at me with what I doubt are the best intentions. As of now I have about 48 hours before Ike's elemental fury unleashes itself on the half-evacuated city of Houston. If this were a movie I would be spinning sentimental confession pieces over the phone to my friends and family, doubting my sexual preferences, and generally being a pathetic wreck. Fortunately I'm really hungry and all I can think of is that tuna that's sitting in the fridge. Mmm...tuna...
Friday Franco's holding a party at our place - I was told there will be alcohol, Kool-Aid, chicken, and watermelon, because the birthday girl is black. What better birthday present than a racist joke, eh?
Dava's (the Living Incarnation) techies finally responded to my dad's emails. Actually they responded on August 28th, but Yahoo Mail shooed the Divine Email right into the spam folder. Needless to say Yahoo Mail is going straight to hell. Anyway, this means my parents are now going to be devoting lots of their time to the Way of Freedom as Dava calls it. On one hand this could be a problem, because I'm kind of counting on them to make some money so that I don't have to. On the other hand, maybe my inheritance just got one hell of a lot bigger. Having Gods as parents could open some doors...or get me tortured and crucified, can't remember which. Hmm...I guess I'll have to do some risk assessment.
It's kind of strange to be sitting here, calmly writing hilarity, while Hurricane Ike is flying straight at me with what I doubt are the best intentions. As of now I have about 48 hours before Ike's elemental fury unleashes itself on the half-evacuated city of Houston. If this were a movie I would be spinning sentimental confession pieces over the phone to my friends and family, doubting my sexual preferences, and generally being a pathetic wreck. Fortunately I'm really hungry and all I can think of is that tuna that's sitting in the fridge. Mmm...tuna...
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