Jun
28
Return of The Furious Romantic
Filed Under Announcements, Life | 3 Comments
Hello. I have returned.
Big Project, while not near to finished, is currently idle, waiting for me, somewhere at the end of a transitional period. For now it has to keep waiting. Eventually I’ll spill the beans (or lay the fart, if I have eaten the beans) on what exactly the damn thing is. Not that you, my four or five readers, don’t already know. Whatever (I’ll do what I want). Just humor the fatalist.
Also, maybe this is just a byproduct of having had the luxury (not that I didn’t pay for it!) of having been able to devote myself full-time to an artistic endeavor for an extended period of time - but for the last few days I have found myself treating my old raw material stomping grounds (real life, and The New York Times) with a mixture of suspicion and caution. Why was I spending so much time reading about shit…watching shit go down? I wonder if I went a little too far in my explorations of y(our) sick little meta-culture…when I could have been…actually doing something.
And now I’ve used the word meta as a prefix. God help us all, if you can spare the time and/or the lost advertising dollars.
Jun
5
Ain’t talking about the magazine…
What’s more pathetic, New Yorker…the fact that you can’t sit here…or the fact that doing so anyway (for five minutes) would probably represent your biggest act of protest for the day?
Americans, for the most part, are wusses, complainers, and poor excuse makers. Kudos to the woman from Montenegro who waited to take that picture.
Go ahead. Prove me wrong!
And/or…
Read.
Jun
3
Too busy to offer my ever-so-insightful commentary…but I leave it to my loyal and intelligent readers to fill in the blanks.
May
3
Peek-A-Boogie
Filed Under Life | 2 Comments
Peek-A-Boogie. I am alive.
Apr
18
A Zillionical Future
Filed Under Life, The Internet | 4 Comments
Here’s another link from Kevin Kelly’s blog - about his thoughts on a term that appears to be of his own creation: zillionics. Basically, the term summarizes Kelly’s thoughts on the qualitative changes that occur in relation to any one scientific or cultural thing or process when the number of parts and pieces that make it up begin increasing exponentially towards the trillions (and on!).
It’s a interesting, if slightly raw in its scientificity, post on the whole…but the little tidbit that caught my eye reads as follows:
The social web runs in the land of zillionics. Artificial intelligence, data mining, and virtual realities all require mastery of zillionics. As we ramp up the number of things we create, especially the ones we create collectively, we are also raising our media and culture into the realm of zillionics. The number of choices we have for music, art, images, words — anything! — is reaching the level of zillionics.
Reminds me a little of The Computerization of Your Human Brain.
Anyway, if you ask me (or if I ask me in your stead), that may be too many choices. Too much of even a good thing too often ends up making that thing bad - or at least less bright. Anyone else have an opinion? How about you, Stinko?
Apr
7
A Great Big Varied Set of Links
Filed Under Computing, Film, Life, The Internet | 2 Comments
Here are several links that I saved to share on the site in the past several weeks, all rolled into one big post. Big Project is keeping me busy, so for today let’s just catch up on anything and everything a furious reader might want or need. It’s better than not sharing at all, and besides, two of the links actually come from sources outside of the NY Times!
An op-ed article about the dumbification of America.
Why do I feel as if I have been reading different and worsening versions of this same article since I was a senior in high school? Anyway, this latest version contains everything you might hope for from the “liberal” media: 1) Bush and Cheney bashing, 2) New data to support obvious information that we already know, and 3) A subtly snooty tone.
Between the three of these, a reader can be sure to receive exactly what we don’t need…more argument. I completely agree that Americans are getting dumber. It’d be a real surprise though, to run into an article (from either side of this bi-partisan struggle) that focuses more on the issue and less on the blame game. As for my contribution to the solution…oh…time for the next link… Read more
Apr
3
Man Has Sex With…Picnic Table?
Filed Under Fun, Life, TV | 3 Comments
David Letterman’s Top Ten List tonight (maybe a rerun - I don’t know) was the “Top Ten Excuses Made by The Man Who Had Sex With A Picnic Table.”
Letterman pretended to end the show at that point, citing the end of civilization as his reason.
But I think most of us gave up on civilization a long time ago. My question is just…I mean…what? How?
I mean…I can see a Teddy bear…even a car (exhaust pipe)…but a picnic table? Can someone try this and report in?
The only thing I can think of is that the table was less of a stereotypical picnic table and more of a regular outdoor patio picnic table with a slot built into it for holding an umbrella.
But even then…what did he do? Stuff the umbrella with cotton? Why not just buy a Teddy bear?
Civilization isn’t over…it’s just trying to find ways to keep things interesting. What else do we have to do?
And one more thing…who is the anonymous person from the article that sent in three DVDs of table-sex footage? Shouldn’t the police be looking for this person as well? Who videotapes a person having sex with a picnic table that many times, or for that long?
Mar
26
Check Yourself Out!
Filed Under Computing, Life | 2 Comments
Earlier today, I went to the pharmacy. My future wife and I ran out of bar soap a week ago, and I can only use her skin-replenishing, moisturizing body-wash so many times before I start feeling like a tart.
Anyway, I went to the pharmacy, grabbed some soap, and a Diet Sprite Zero…and some 50%-off Easter Candy, and headed to the registers.
Only one register was open, and behind it was a line that ran past the front of the pharmacy and down one if its middle aisles. I would chalk this lack of adequate customer service up to the fact that things aren’t going too well right now with the economy, but in reality…there is always just one person at the register. Actual customer service really doesn’t matter anymore. At all.
What I am about to say conflicts slightly with some of what I’ll be complaining about later, but I have the honesty sickness…sooo…let’s get it out in the open. I hate lines. If I could somehow discover a way to tell for sure whether or not some line that I was a part of was made up out of intelligent and considerate people, I wouldn’t hate them so much. But I’ll never be able to do that, and, fact is, most people are less-than-intelligent and inconsiderate and oblivious to everything past their own nose. So I try to avoid lines.
Case in point…against my better judgment…I attempted to forgo the line in question by approaching one of the two self-checkout registers that had been installed in this particular pharmacy. Read more
Mar
11
Beauty Is The Geek
Filed Under Entertainment, Life | Leave a Comment
This article begins as an exploration of the legacy of Gary Gygax (the creator of Dungeons and Dragons) but segues into an exploration of the modern American’s tendency to:
- Create a character based on themselves through an online identity, so that they may
- Form relationships between other characters within the context of that artificial identity, so that
- Everything can proceed within a certain set of imagined rules, so that
- Our behavior (and thus, much of our lives) can be weighed and measured as data or information, which is
- More easily bendable to our liking and cleaner and neater than real life.
I will save my exact comments on the general theory put forward by the article and its author…because while I see the point and even agree with it…I tend to think that the cause and effect relationship at play here has slightly more complexity and depth to it. Read more
Feb
28
Close That Door!
Filed Under Life | Leave a Comment
This is brilliant.