February 2nd thru the 5th, 2005

Wednesday February 2nd, 2005

Bachelor Paté
Some will recall the wonderful Bachelor Mousse. Here's an oldier but a goodier. Take the left over dregs of your potato chips bag, you know, all the crumbly bits too little to eat individually but too big to throw away. Dump them into a bowl. Dump into same bowl some sour cream or, if your feeling like a fancy nancy, some honest-to-goodness dip. Like Bacon and Onion Ranch Dip. Mix. Eat with a fork.

Some Books
I just got done reading Blowing My Cover my Lindsay Moran and now I am in the middle of Blink my Malcolm Gladwell. BMC is the true story of a woman who decides to work for the CIA, her extensive training, and her brief tenure as an operative in Macedonia. In the final analysis, CIA operatives are sort of boring-- which is her message, not mine. My message is that, while I was compelled to read the book straight through, when all was said and done, I didn't get much out of it. Merely entertaining. Honestly, that was my same reaction Jenna Jameson's autobography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star. Blink, on the other hand, is fascinating stuff, and I'll let you know why when I am done.

Some Movies
Last Friday I went and saw Hide and Seek. It was cool to see Robert de Niro play second fiddle to Dakota Fanning. That kid is creepy. In the movie. It was a good film for that reason, but otherwise, not really too engaging. I mean, when the ending comes, you're like, "Oh, okay, a twist," but you don't really care too much. At least it had Elisabeth Shue in it (yummy) and Famke Jansen (extra special yummy). Incidentally, Dakota's creepy little girl is named Emily and who CAN'T see the similarity 'twixt she and the branded cartoon of the same name?

Then, Sunday, watched Wicker Park. THAT was a good film. Interestingly, at the final scene, my fellow DVD watchers were crying, and I, uncharacteristically, was not. Yes, I'm usually a big baby, but this time I think I was too impressed by the expert use of timing in the writing. Very well done with the non-linear, very well done with making everything work out in the end (Seinfeld, of all things, was good at that too). I only got one problem with the plot, then, overall: how the heck did Alex and Luke get together? That's a coincidence too convenient, reeks of Deus Ex Machina. Anyhoo, I hear tell the original French version, L'Appartement, has a more French ending, so maybe it deals with my disdain as well. I'll rent it, someday.

Updated the Archive
Hooray doggies. More or less I am avoiding World of Warcraft, cause I know if I start playing I'll get sucked in. Dakota (yes, same name as the CoH character, no, nothing at all to do with the actress of the same name) is on the bitter burning edge of level 50, and the level cap in WoW is 60. Truth? I'm only keeping him up to stay ahead of one of my guild mates, who is a cool guy and I think he likes the motivation. More details would recquire an in-depth explanation, which I may do, but won't for now, just cause. Anyspank, ye olde Archive has what passed for entries during the dormant period (which we may still be in; who knows).

New Website-- So Cute It Hurts
Consider this a warning. These pictures are really painfully cute. Seriously. It may make you ill. No lying. Not euphamisms. I've been meaning to catalog these pictures for a while now, so you can suffer as I have. I AM SERIOUS! DO NOT LET YOUR 12 YEAR-OLD-NIECE ANYWHERE NEAR THESE PICTURES! They make saccharine taste salty. No foolin. Have fun at So Cute It Hurts.

Updating is Easy
My own damned fault for not realizing that with a little preparation, updating the blog could be too easy to not do, no matter how distracted I am by video games and other things. Like, for instance, now. I have to go to the airport to pick someone up, but I am going to jot this down anyway. Just got done walking around Greenlake with a pal, and then we had coffee-- I the Chantico, which is really a liquid brownie. Try it. I dare you. See if you can sit still afterwards.

Wasabi Mashed Potatoes
I did as I said, dissenairported someone, then met someone else at Blue C Sushi in Fremont, where they also serve wasabi mashed potatoes. It's just what you think it is-- a lump of cold mashed potatoes that have been flavored with wasabi. It is amazing and good. If you do not like it, you are not my friend and our children will war in the streets. After, stopped by Sonic Boom Records, one of those pretentious indie shops where they always blare something weird and esoteric over the loudspeakers. I bought an old Doug Stanhope comedy album, as the man is truly gifted. I bought the first CD I ever bought, A Passage in Time by Dead Can Dance. I had lent it to a friend about 8 years ago and have not seen it since. I also got a used CD single of "Ex French T-Shirt" by Shudder to Think. That's a blast from the past, eh? Jealous? You can come over and listen to it anytime you want, sweetie.

Thursday February 3rd, 2005

• She looks like my friend Hildebrand, and is quite tall.
• Hildebrand is tall.
• Hidlebrand will be moving here soon.
• She and I will go walking around Greenlake, and what will people think, this tall statuesque woman, walking next to a short dumpy dude with fake blonde hair and toothy grin?

This One's for a Different Blonde
Praktastic will appreciate this photo I found on ye olde interweb:

What's Your Poopypants Name?
I got an e-mail from a friend which had a rubrik by which to discover one's Poopypants name. So I tunred it into a webpage. Why? Because I don't like to forward e-mails. I don't know why. Probably the same deal that keeps me from liking things that are popular. Shallow like a college freshman. But I DID spend a few hours making the site, so go look it. And then send me your name.

Missle Any Us
World of Warcraft, made level 50. Yes! Helped my bud, a fellow a guildie, a Hunter, finish off a red quest. Picked up Eggeroni and we went to the Tin Hat where this dude I know from bowling was spinning old country records. We had nachos, and I teased E till she cried. True! She's emotional right now on account of being so chock full of hormones she's like a walking estrogen plant. Then we went to get ice-cream. Then we listened to my Doug Stanhope CD and I took her home. Then I wrote all of this. And then I went to bed. And then you waited for me to wrote tomorrow's entry.

Friday February 4th, 2005

Etc. Have at it.

The Day so Far
Boring details; its what makes blogging bloggiful. Woke to the sound of rain. Nice. Its a good sound, especially the pitter patter on the sunroof of my kitchen. So I went back to sleep. Later, WoW. It got dull, so Taco Bell and a host of websites. Worth1000, Penny-Arcade, Tom the Dancing Bug, PvP Online, You Damn Kid, Language Log, Memepool, Slashdot, IMDB. All of that in the time it takes to gobble a taco and a burrito. None of it steller-- only regulars would care. And now, its no longer raining; its freakin' beautiful outside.

Mark Your Calendars
February 15th, Angel Season Five comes out on DVD. That's good timing. I finally got through the seventh season of Buffy, and then I picked up Season 4 of Angel, and watched it. How was it? Okay, well, I more or less gave up on broadcast Buffy around season 6, and the few episodes of 7 I saw sealed the deal. But I am a fan, so I had to get the DVDs and watch them. Seeing them all together like that made it a bit better. Alyson Hannigan, of course, was worth it all anyway. All of the above is also true for Angel, starting at about season 3, and the few episodes of 4 and 5 I saw when they were being broadcast made waiting for the DVDs VERY easy. And again, watching them altogether on DVD makes it a bit better, especially seeing Amy Acker (rowr). But I'm ready for season 5, which is the final season, and then, who knows. That'll be the end of an era. I'll need a new thing.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Finished the book last night. Fascinating. Like I said, its more or less about how people can and do make split-second decisions which are often far superior to decisions made based on lots of information and analysis. Its filled with anecdotal evidence, and Gladwell does a fairly good job of linking seemingly disparate ideas to show how the brain functions on this level. One interesting section dicussed how we are able to read people's minds by their facial expressions-- expressions over which we have little or no conscious control. Apparently there's a section of the brain specifically for recognizing faces called the fusiform gyrus, and less sophisticated one for recognizing objects, called the inferior temporal gyrus, and, get this-- people with autism don't appear to make use of the fusiform gyrus. They use the ITG when looking at faces. Okay, so, this does not really act as a very good review of the book. But I'm not a book reviewer, I am a blogger, and as I'd like to think that, I, too, can be described the way David Beaver at Language Log describes Frankie Roberto: "a man for whom no sequitur is too non..."

Saturday February 5th, 2005

Good old spag-fag, where for years college kids of have been scraping together minimum wage every night until closing time, when they go into the back and fornicate thanks to the lubrication of free alcohol provided by the middle-aged bartender who's been working there since his first blow-job back in 1989 and is still hoping to get another one some day. And then there's the menu, where every item is described as "a generous portion," more like "portions big enough to make your fat ass fatter so you'll be too lazy to go to the god-damned grocery store, forcing you to come back here to feed that fat ass before starving to death."

Remember, a good rant is more a matter of rhythm and flow-- adjust the above to match your own cadence and breathing style.

A Touch Of Linguistics
After that we parted ways and I went to Barnes and Noble. I knew I only had an hour to find something, and since I wasn't looking for a specific book, I was not able to make a choice. I did sit in a very comfortable chair and read a few passages from Geoffrey K. Pullum's The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language (he's one of the dudes at Language Log). How many words DO the Eskimo have for snow? I don't have an Eskimo-English dictionary in front of me, but I do know they have only two different root-sources for those words. Pullum points out that this is simply unremarkable-- in English, we have many words, such as lake, ocean, river, creek, etc, which may be traced back to some proto-language root that means water. And in English, think of all the words WE have for and about snow: snow, sleet, slush, blizzard, glacier, ice, drift, frost...

This makes sense-- English is a language that is used by people who not only come from very differing cultures (i.e. people who speak other languages as well) but by people who share ideas and ideals across these cultures, more so than any other language (even if more people speak Chinese, speakers of English have a far greater diversity in their cultural make-ups). Because of this "English" is comprised of so many words for the same thing, from different language roots, that it's the only language in the world that uses a Thesaurus.

To get back to the Eskimo-Language hoax, Pullum's point is not necessarilly to correct a linguistic myth, but to point out that sloppy scholarship is responsible for the spread of this faux-meme, and it is furthermore perpetuated by a lack of journalistic integrity-- your avergage user of this inaccuracy is usually using it in a glib attempt to make a creative description of some other interesting phenomena. So even if it were true, it would be tired, having passed right through the realm of cliché and into that of tastelessness. It's an exacerbated laziness.

I find this interesting, because I know Pullum to be no mere prescriptivist, and yet it is merely laziness which causes most of the bad spelling and horrible grammar in your avergae act of casual communication, and in their defense, these perpetrators declaim "hey, you understood me, right?" This just goes to show you how linguistics is one of the most nuanced studies, and not for the average person who too readily jumps to conclusions, i.e. Republicans.

Rocky Is Back
Rocky is back. You'll need a good interent connection to watch this one. But it's darn funny. I was alerted to it by the web master at the forums where we Alliance of Heroes folks hang out.

Let's Go Shopping
I went to the Pike Place Market to get a gift certificate at Sur La Table. Then I bought some novelties to accompany the gift, including an Anti-Syphilis Lunch box, a "Dirty Girl" mini box kit, a package of Sluticillin gum, and a magnet that reads: "Sarcasm, yeah, that'll work." I also put a toy frog in there cause Splendida once accidentally expressed that she likes frogs, and so now, as I am rubber duck collector, I physically spam her with toy frogs. The links, by the way, won't all take you to the product itself, but to the company that makes them. I'll put pictures on the right column of the blog.

Then I went home and then I went to the University Village to hit the Barnes and Noble. I picked up The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco, The Key to "The Name of the Rose" by Adele J. Haft et all, and Quantum, a Guide for the Perplexed by Jim Al-Khalili. The latter has lots of pretty pictures and diagrams. After that, craving a grilled cheese sandwich, I went to Johnny Rocket's and had the St. Louis instead. Then over to the Banana Republic, where shirts where way too damn expensive, but I bought a few ounces of Modern. I normally never wear cologne, but I decided to try it out.

Home again, to wait for Litoradora to arrive so we could go to Splendida's party. While I waited, I played Burnout 3: Takedown. This is one hell of a driving sim. The point of the game is to rack up points by forcing your opponents to crash while racing around crowded city locales. It's sort of a bastardized mix of Grand Turismo and Grand Theft Auto. It's a lot of fun, and I considered buying it (so cathartic) but I have won almost all of the gold medals, so I'm glad it was a rental. And thanks to Blockbuster's new "The End of Late Fees" promotion, I can keep it as long as I want anyway.

We Partied Like Rock Stars
And thence to the Olympus, to fete Splendida. It was a good party. (This is what a few of us gave her.) Lots of excellent people there. I drank Red Bull and vodka for the first time, and got nice and drunk. And those who know me know, I get even MORE talkative when I'm drunk-- man oh man. I hope I was as funny as I thought I was, at least close, cause I was bouncing from group to group, going nutso. When it was time sing Happy Birthday, I did a few minutes of stand-up for the crowd. Here's the text for that, in part because Splendida wanted it. (Change "Splendida" to your real name, darling.)

So we're here tonight to celebrate the birthday of Splendida, a woman that I have been madly, passionately in love with-- platonically. I do mean that platonically. And as we all know, Platonic is an ancient Greek word which means "when I'm by myself in the shower." I've know Splendida over a year now. We met at the Wal-mart pharmacy, where she works an occasional weekend. Everyone who knows Splendida knows she works all the time. I asked her once, why do you work so much? And she said, well, the people I come from in India believe that if you're not making money, you're spending money, and we don't like to spend money. And I said, Oh, I get it, you're Guju! Yeah, the Indian people in the room got that joke, I'll explain it to you white people later. Like I said, we met in the pharmacy. I was sort of confused-- I'm a bachelor, I live by myself, I don't know how to shop. I write down the things I need, but still get lost. So I saw this beautiful Indian girl behind the counter, and I said to her, Hi, I know you don't work out here, but maybe you could help me find something? I wrote down the ingredients but I forgot to write down the product. And she said what are you looking for? And I said, um, it's got ammonium lauryl sulfate, glycol deaserate, cetyl alcohol, and comodium MEA? And she just looks at me for a second and says, "That's the ingredient list for shampoo. Aisle four." Oh, oops. I was looking at the wrong side of the paper here. Actually I'm looking for... butt creme? Do you have butt creme, and she just laughed, and I said what? And she says "That's in aisle four too." And we've been friends ever since. She's such a great person, she did an awesome job setting up this party, I think we should all give her a round of applause. I actually helped her with some of the shopping. We went to Costco a few days ago, and those of you who know what it means to be Guju can imagine what it was like the first time Splendida walked in. She was sort of freaking out and I said, what's the matter? And she says "do you realize we can buy 600 rolls of toilet paper for fifteen dollars?" And I looked at her, and I said "uh, I like Curry as much as the next person, but if the stuff you're going to make means I need that much TP, you can count me out." And she says "No, you idiot, I'm going to send some to my parents." And then I was really confused, because I thought India was a civilized country, I mean, surely people can buy their own TP there. And she said no, my parents don't live in India-- they live in Alabama. "Oh, okay, I get it. Maybe we ought to send them two packages then." And I don't know if you guys know this, speaking of pharmacies, they have pharmacies in Costco now. Isn't that great? I mean you used to have to get your subscriptions filled once a month, now you can do it once every six months, get yourself a big old horkin' bottle of pills. But it's not cool if you have to walk out of there with a 6 gallon tube of butt creme. Because they check, at the door, they look at your receipt to make sure you aren't stealing anything. "Let's see here, you've got a DVD player, 600 rolls of toilet paper, 2 8 pound bags of tortilla chips, and a 6 gallon tube of butt creme. Okay sir, have a great weekend." And don't lose that tube, because if you come back for another one on Monday, they're going to remember you. But its all worth it, because we're having a good time at the party here. People joke about ethnically diverse Seattle isn't, but it's only funny because it's true. I checked-- I'm pretty sure almost every Indian person who lives in Seattle is here tonight. Because Splendida knows all of them-- just this afternoon I stopped by the liquor store to pick up something for tonight. And the guy behind the counter happened to be Indian. So as he's ringing up my bottle he says [Indian accent] Oh, so you are going to a party?" And I said yeah, my friend Splendida is having a birthday. And he says [accent] "Oh yes, Splendida, I know her very well. Wish her happy birthday for me." And I was like, no way, you know Splendida? And he says [accent] Yes I have been in love with Splendida for many years. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go take a shower." So now, I think it's time for us to sing Happy Birthday to Splendida, and we're going to due it in the traditional Indian style, so clap your hands and shake your head side to side... Happy Birt-day to you, happy birt-day t you, happy birt-day dear Splendida, happy birt-day to you! [big kiss on the cheek.]

It was the first time I've ever performed drunk, and afterwards people told me I was funny, and some said funnier because I made more eye contact this times past. That's pretty cool, cause while I did scan the room to make it look like I was making eye contact, actually I couldn't see a damn thing.

We partied on, ate cake, people trickled off. I fell in love with 5 or 6 girls, which is my wont. Eventually everyone was gone, and some of us helped clean up. I got home at about 4:30 am.