a couple of the sounds that I really like are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike

I had a bad experience with crepes in middle school. A kid in my sixth-period French class attempted to make crepes for a class project. Being thirteen, however, the best he could manage were pancakes stuffed with Cool Whip. Imagine sinking your teeth into a cold, undercooked pancake wrapped around a glob [...]

like joseph stalin and gandhi

Quick survey: what is the worst thing that someone would have to do or say before you stopped respecting him or her?
If you agreed with a political figure in every way but one, what would that one have to be for them to lose your vote? Abortion? Same-sex marriage? Evolution?
If you idolized [...]

gonna call the president, gonna get myself a private eye

This media blow’s good for either $10 cash or $20 in house credit. Have a shot while you think it over.
Chinese Democracy: Any album 14 years in the making has a certain weight of hype behind it. Chinese Democracy does not live up to that hype. But I still like it. [...]

all the girls standing in the line for the bathroom

This media blow rolls both classy and street:

The Pacific and Other Stories: I read Mark Helprin’s Memoir from Antproof Case at least a decade ago. At the time it struck me as a clever and entertaining, if somewhat twee, story. The short fiction collected here all hits one of those same three notes. [...]

I need a miracle, I need a miracle

Sleep evaded me this weekend.
I made a long delayed return to 90s Night (warning: MySpace) at Common Ground on Friday. New friends and old showed up - Skim, Rick, MPerrotti, Jen, Cheshirepk8, Paperface, Ryan, Kate, and of course our vigilant DJ (yes, I know I’m forgetting some people - comment if I missed your [...]

but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime

Continued from Thursday:
Foresee Important Problems: If you’re like me, you tend to brood a lot over problems without giving them a real sense of perspective. It helps to quantify those problems using real numbers.
First, rank the likelihood of a problem occurring on a 7-point Likert scale. 1 = highly unlikely, 4 = as [...]

don’t believe what they tryin’ to say; you know it’s just gossip comin’ down the wisecracker line

By now, you have probably heard about the Associated Press’s ludicrous efforts to charge webloggers for quoting AP articles. The notion of licensing something that every scholar on the subject recognizes as “fair use” should get you giggling, but the rate schedule they propose - $12.50 for 5 words - should put a stitch [...]

I’m not expecting to grow flowers in a desert

So the .avi of Battlestar Galactica (Episode 12, “Revelations” that I downloaded from PirateBay had a crisper resolution than the video I watched of Battlestar Galactica (Episode 11, “The Hub” on Hulu. Riddle me that, Caped Crusader.
I waxed enthusiastic about Mind Performance Hacks a few months ago. The book has a wealth of [...]

wayne’s world, wayne’s world, party time, excellent

My weekend updates come two days late. I have so much weekend that it crashes into me when I step on the brakes.
Friday I went with a friend to see Dave C. in a revival of Superman: The Musical (from the folks who brought you Bye-Bye Birdie and Annie). It’s fun and silly [...]

I’m a sinner, I’m a saint; I do not feel ashamed

Christine pointed out last week that all of UrbanDictionary’s definitions of feminism are pretty wretched. I navigated over to check and, sure enough, it’s some kind of travesty. It’s a rather well-cloaked travesty, don’t get me wrong - all sorts of intellectual shit like “if feminism were really about equality, it would be [...]