Quote:
“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, the Beatles did.” -Kurt Vonnegut

Memories and Music

I love music and it is frustrating to not be able to sing a note to save an orphan (in fact, when I sing orphans are often harmed). So I’ll continue to let the talented people of perfect pitch, such as Bono continue to save orphans. I’m not sure if Bill and Melinda Gates can sing, but they have money, which helps.

Money can cure a lot of things, such as the drought of Canada Dry Gingerale in our house. And apparently if you can’t cure something with money it can be cured with walking, such as diabettes or being a coach potato, even though walking isn’t legal tender or melodic.

Fact: The Canadians make three worth while things: comedians, Crown Royal, and Canada Dry Gingerale.

From strippers bending down to tie the lace of your shoe, to beautiful convoys trucking through the night, to a mariner’s revenge, to falling in love, to be kicked in the nuts by love (though it is sometimes said with a bit more tact), to finding God, to drinking too much - the Canadians do it all. What I really mean is there is a lyric describing every situation and emotion one can experience, which I think makes music the most influential art created. It is the first portable art integrated so thoroughly in our lives.

Music was the Christmas memory my grandfather Victor remembered most. When he was four or five (in 1913) he came down the stairs to discover a phonograph filling the house with choral music. Until the time of phonographs, if you heard music then it meant a marching band was sneaking up on you or someone was actually performing in the flesh. There isn’t an equivalent experience for us, but close would be waking up, creeping down the stairs in curious excitement, and discovering BBM (Bono, Bill, and Melinda) or a full choir singing beneath your Christmas tree.

It must be what a peasant felt like when entering a Cathedral for the first time. It would make you believe in something higher for an instant, even if you were an atheist. My grandfather was. I also love imagining him shooting all the red bulbs off the Christmas tree with the cork gun he was given one Christmas. He wasn’t in the NRA.

The lyric most in my mind as of late is “Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white.” It is what I hear each time I step in to a cold winter’s morning.

Reason for the Writing

Everyone writes for their own reasons but I think that directly or indirectly people write to either be remembered or to discover they are not alone. Of the authors I’ve read Kurt Vonnegut best reminds me that I am human and am not alone. When I read Vonnegut I can see the humanity of the author, and that is a quality I wish to instill to a greater degree in writings here.

I’ve been blogging since April 7th of 2003. My original goal was to create a blog people enjoyed because it was neither a sea of dramatic tiring emotions regarding relations and relationships nor a bulleted list of what I did from the time I woke to the time I fell asleep (though there are a handful of people who do those types of blogs well, but that isn’t me in either case even though I do make lots of bulleted lists). This was created as an escape for both the reader and myself. And it has been done quite successfully. Perhaps wildly successfully.

I’ve given humor and in return I’ve received community. I’ve met an amazing number of people because of this site, many of whom I consider good friends. There have been a few dates from it. A few fights (non date related). And plenty of bonding (not bondage, which is also not date related).

I’ve put a lot of work in to this site, and I’d like to thank each visitor, commentor, and subscriber (500+) for giving me the encouragement and attention needed to continue. Writing to please an audience is a monumental task. In appreciation of you, I’ve always tried to comment back to each visitor. If I read each update and reply to every comment I can easily spend 4 to 8 hours reading from 100 to 250 blogs, which is the equivalent of a job (if only this was profitable).

Next semester I am returning to college and have no choice but to tighten down and be the outstanding student I need to be. This unfortunately means less Xanga. I’ve had to do blog-triage. Some of you I will continue to keep up with, but many of you I cannot. I am sorry for this. But for now I must place my focus in an area that allows me to both retire at a young age and solve the household gingerale shortage.

Quotes:
Me: “Actually, I’m anal about a clean kitchen. It seems wrong to use anal in a sentence about clean kitchens.”

Michele: “I want to be in my feather bed.”
Me: “I read that as father bed. It crept me out.”
Michelle: “Ewww. yeah, me too you sicko.”

Rhi: “I started studying last tuesday for the 2 [tests] today. I got an A on the test I took today. With the curve i only missed one point.”
Me: “I’ve heard of fictional people like you before. This is like talking to Santa. I know he doesn’t exist, yet the results are real.”

Brought to you by…

Things I’ve done in the last week… Hung the Best Christmas Bulb Ever (okay, so maybe it is a red Christmas bulb with a botched paint job). Saw Chronicles of Narnia with Anna, Kallina, Phillip, Derek, Jenah, and Bonnie. It was good. Played free foosball and drank beer at Stonewall’s. Saw Jill perform at Third Place. She is good, be sure to see her play sometime. Partook in more than my fair share of gin and tonics. Celebrated another episode of the Family Guy with a $5 pizza from Little Ceasars. I’ve had a series of spectacular chats lately too. And I sent the second greatest envelope ever in the mail.

I think the most important thing to remember is 1 + 1 is always 2.

In the last post half of you noticed Richard Simmons’ surprise and half of you didn’t. This means half of you admit to things you shouldn’t and the other half of you aren’t admitting to the things you do. After uploading that picture the Xanga application server crashed for several minutes (seriously). It had to be more than coincidence. I apologize.

Word of advice: No
Words of hyphenated advice: Never-trust-a-semi-colon.
Words of advice: Don’t piss off/on Chuck Norris.

For those of you doing transactions the Bank of Pope now accepts snicker doodles, oatmeal cookies, back massages, back scratches, dates (short skirt, long jacket type preferred), eggnog, popcorn, Legos, and unused Q-tips as legal tender.

Ten Albums

“If you were stranded on a deserted island and could take ten albums, what would your choices be?” Trying to answer this question is strange because the odds that you would become stranded on a deserted island and would get to chose the albums you are stranded with are negligible.

If your luck is this good then you’re stranded with someone highly attractive who can’t resist you. There would be a life time supply of condoms, and on the beach is a fire place. Making sweet love by the fire on the beach - the ultimate combination. (Ever notice how it is a combination, but the Chinese food place has “combos” not “combis”?)

Here is a list of ten albums I’d take if I were stranded on an island:

1.) “How to make a boat from nothing and navigate using the stars” by DIY.
2.) “Parachutes” by Coldplay.
3.) “Rush of Blood to the Head” by Coldplay.
4.) The Garden State sound track.
5.) “Graceland” by Paul Simon.
6.) “Kid A” or “OK Computer” by Radiohead.
7.) “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by The Beatles.
8.) “Best of Bob Dylan, Volume 3″ by Bob Dylan.
9.) “Keep it Together” by Guster.
10.) “Achtung Baby” by U2.

Let’s be serious a moment. If you’re unlucky enough to become stranded on a deserted island then you didn’t get to pick the ten albums to listen to. Instead, washed up on the shore is a selection of several Beatles albums, Michael Bolton covering Yanni, people covering Michael Bolton covering Yanni, and Yanni covering people’s covers of Michael Bolton covering Yanni. The Beatles cd’s are all scratched and Richard Simmons and Fran Dresher are your company. The soil only grows soy beans and you become violently allergic to sea food.

Normal?

The amount of time, effort, thought, analyzing, over analyzing, discussing, pondering, and over all energy people put in to finding a relationship is amazing. Sometimes the lengths people go and the extent people dwell on this subject seems childish. But we’re all human. It is normal. It is nature.

Quote:
“Too bad Julius Caesar’s last words weren’t `Mihi ignosce. Cum homine de cane debeo congredi’.”
Translation: “Excuse me. I’ve got to see a man about a dog.”

A more accurate Insect

A hair bit more

In architecture studio Ashely made cookies for Blake and Me. Blake found a hair in his cookie, and this embarrassed Ashely to no end. Being in studio I had to publicize the incident with this cartoon, which I posted on the wall for all to see. This is the kind of stuff friends are for.

Pixel This

Currently it is twelve degrees outside and Oklahoma is receiving its first “snow” of the winter. Snow is too generous of a word though. This isn’t a channel 3 snow storm, this is more of a “someone fix the tracking on the VCR” type snow. In Oklahoma the snowfall is predicted in mols not inches or feet. Seriously, the stuff is microscopic. I took a picture of the accumulated snow, but I’m not going to bother zooming in on that pixel in Photoshop and posting it.

I’ve avoided going outside today for two reasons. First, avoiding hypothermia is a good way to “continue my genes” at some future point. For some reason I’ll hardly put on a coat in Oklahoma, but in Boston I bundled to the core. Second, I’ve not stepped outside because any body temperature will melt the entire state’s snow accumulation.

Is it more, or shouldn’t their expressions be swapped?

Mentioning VCRs led to a horrifying thought. Richard Simmons used to be limited to VHS, a low quality visual reproduction. But soon he will be available in high definition DVD and now I fear for the world. Imagine if you were innocently walking down the street and suddenly you saw Richard Simmon’s sweat… in high definition while “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” blared in the background on a Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

Ever notice how he looks like the pissed off creepy ghost on the subway in “Ghost”?

Indiana Amateur

There are indie movies and amateur porn, but not amateur movies and indie porn even though both have bad writing, bad acting, and no budget. What would the difference between and indie movie and an amateur movie or an amateur porn and an indie porn be? The last time you picked up your video camera did you tell people you were shooting an indie movie of your family gathering or an amateur video of it?

At some point I’d like to take the ideas I’ve collected and combine them in to a very entertaining indie/amateur movie. It will be entitled “Philistine on the Sidewalk” and will be sold in a duel DVD pack with the Ninjak: Digitally Remastered. Recently, a true gem of hilarity was handed to me. Travis, my next door neighbor, was returning home after prom (last spring). It was late and he was tired (we’ll presume due to a lack of sleep). To keep himself awake he decided to give himself a slap on the face. Which he did.

Except he slapped himself hard enough he knocked his glasses off and across the car rendering himself tired, blind, and sore faced.

The Mitchstrodomus

“I went to the park and saw this kid flying a kite. The kid was really excited. I don’t know why, that’s what they’re supposed to do. Now if he had had a chair on the other end of that string, I would have been impressed.” - Mitch Hedberg

That quote describes the majority of digital photography. Recently I found a Xanga photoblog and at first I was excited because the photographs were great. Then I realized the photos were great because the pictures were of things that were inherently beautiful and interesting, such as sunsets, landscapes, and flowers.

Entertainment Elsewhere

Mankind has been pursuing technology at an unprecedented pace over the last century. Think about the greatest inventions of the last century: the slinky, the pet rock, and dinosaurs. Every system will generate a system to govern its speed, and I think the internet is the speed governor of mankind created to distract us from over achieving too quickly. It is the Hindenberg of us.

Not wanting to work against the system, I am providing you with entertaining links to help encourage this natural process… Besides, I know a lot of you are in dead week or finals week and need some comic relief.

Gold Digger Parody about the Freshman Fifteen.

How Google works.

Matt dancing. Okay, it isn’t Matt dancing, but it might as well be.

Confidence Booster for the Ladies.

The Evils of Dungeons and Dragons.

You fawning motley-minded barnacle.

Protected

Protected posts will always have an orange title, and the normal post will be below the protected post. Be sure to keep reading if you want to see what the normal populace was allowed to read.

I attempted to write about relationships but the post became lengthy and pointless, which in writing means the subject is being approached from the wrong angle. The problem is a person could fill volumes about relationships. I’ve tried to cut my thoughts to their purest forms.

It is nice to know someone is thinking of you. It is nice to bring a strength, stability, and pleasantness to someone’s world. It is nice to be focused on one person, to be faithful. It is grand to share appreciation, respect, affection, emotion, and intimacy.

I want to be adventurous and her to be captivating.

Since the age of 16 I’ve had two official girlfriends, and those two relationships totaled five years. Subtract 1 1/2 (roughly) for “dating” and that leaves me with 1 1/2 years of being single. The low number is because I try and chose well and pick people I see possible distance with. I’m not interested in having a girlfriend for all of two weeks.

The women I enjoy the most are those who have are independent, versatile, and maintain a level of classiness.

I’m not investing time searching right now. I’ll be incredibly busy next semester. But if something low key, relaxed and not rushed, and with a beautiful simplicity surfaced, then I’d be more than happy to share some time.

In the last 2 1/2 years I feel I’ve only received one set of affectionate kisses and that was the nicest time I’ve had (not just physically, but all around) since I dated Betsy way back in the day. I’m not saying the young woman with whom this happened is my match made in Heaven - I’m more cool headed than that. And I’m not saying anything bad about the young women I’ve been interested in during that time. Rather, I’m making an observation.

I’m not in search of anything physical right now. But if something low key with a little affection on the side appeared, I might oblige.

Quote:
“I want to ride the buffalo!”

Quote:
“My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year. If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I’ve found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I’ve had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.”

The only reason the Baghdad airport has ever been unstable is because we allowed the improper conditions.When did anyone start asking about the airport? Did your head pop off the pillow and think “I wonder how the Baghdad Airport is this morning?” No, and neither did anyone else. Nothing makes me more furious than disrespectful politicians and leaders.Their airport was fine before. It had better be fine now. They should not pretend a possibly secure airport justifies the deaths of tens of thousands of human beings, our friends, families, neighbors, and loved ones. That was never the issue.