I just heard.

We get birthday cake on Thursday.
Nevermind me thinking about anything else until then.

Yes. It is that easy being me sometimes.
The rest of being me is totally impossible, however.



Also, a present for you.
Say, "Thank you, Shaunshead!"
for the badass link to skinnyfurry.

(after yesterday's tragic heartbreak,
the following is the sound of a brain exploding with delight)

C-c-can't...t-t-ttalk now...

listening to...p-p-ppandora.*

c-c-c-c--c---c----ooolllllllll.....


*They analyze songs based on attributes, like political lyrics, unusual time signatures, instrumental, chromatic progression, minor harmonies, synchopation, whatever.You can give them artists or songs you like, they stream them to you. You make custom radio stations for yourself. They throw more music at you based on the "music genome" or combinations of genomes you tend to like and you can thumbs up or down as you go, or add new stuff, to refine it. Brilliant.

OH MY GOD NO!!
Look...I need money, too. Let's just talk...

Just tell me why, why WHY?

I mean, look, Gerald...how much do you need?
I can float you. Consider it a loan.
No, no, a gift.
Just don't do this to Devo.
Don't to this to me. Don't do this to us.
Please.

Take my money. Just take it. Take my car.
Here's the title...

No?

I don't understand...
Wasn't the Target and the Swiffer commercial enough?

You...you bastardo.
Fine then.
This is you, not me.
I mean it. I can't go down this road with you.
I want my Calvin and Hobbes books back.
And you'll find your Foghat shirt in the dumpster
with everything else unholy you left behind.
Keep the key, I changed the locks.

Oh and just so you don't hear it on the street,
it's true. I have been spending a lot of time
with someone else.
Yeah, he sold a tune to a car ad,
but not his entire identity.

This hurts me more than it hurts you, Gerald.


(Call me when you get your shit together, ok?)

Find a Grave,
and do let me know if you find me in there.

A lot of good that
"National Clean Your Computer Desk, Keyboard
and Mouse Day" did me.
Over the weekend, I got a case of the collywobbles.
Well, not exactly the regular definition of the word.
This one is the kind where everything
simultaneaously and inexplicably just really hurts.
Like the demon inside is poking everything internal
with a spork and screaming
"TAKE THAT, HUMAN!"And you think,
what did I do?
And then all my thoughts turn to
"Well, I had a good run at this life, but now,
it's obvious. I have cancer."
And colly cancer is a terrible thing.
So, man, I really hope I don't have it.

I wonder if robots are afraid of rust.

What. I love my damn ring.

doctor: "That is a beautiful ring. Is it your name?"

me: "No. I bought it from a roommate. She said
it says something about 'whither thou go, I will follow'...
Something like that."

doctor: "Are you Jewish?"

me : "I have no idea."

I forget why I love James Lileks so much,
and then I remember why.

Why I don't read his column every day
is just a clear indication of organic damage.

But ouzo is really good.

Well...
if I start enjoying monster truck rallies,
then I will switch back to green tea.

This just in: I'm one step closer to
cancelling my practically worthless cable.

"Malcolm in the Middle" cancelled.

But there's plenty of shit to choose from still on Fox, right?

To be fair, that "Nanny 911" has a nice web site.
Until the kids jump out, scream, and ruin everything,
just like you Fox.
Just exactly like you.

Well done, and thank you, Fox!
I'll invest the money I save when I leave you
and that audience choosing to make
your worst shows into colossal, mind-numbing hits.

"Product Review, Product Review: New favorite drink besides gin.*"

It's Lipton's Green Tea with Citrus. Diet, no less. And it's good.

Oh look, and it's good for you, they say. I'm not sure I believe that, being that the fourth ingredient is sodium hexametaphosphate. But you know, I think aspartame's tendency to produce temporary memory loss will take care of that. It is aspartame, isn't it? Take care of what, you ask? Exactly.

No, really though, it's good in my opinion. I mean it. You can really taste that fake honey taste, water gets boring after awhile, and this is a great alternative to regular diet drinks in its general vicinity.

Well, ok. It's not fake honey. I'm too much of a smartass today to give you a non-sarcastic view. But on the sunny side, that could be the flavonoids and antioxidants talkin.' It's good stuff. Get some today. They come in a variety of different flavors apparently. But not at the downtown WalGreen's I frequent, so nevermind! That's fine. I don't really need a big selection. I just want a bottle that hasn't been touched already by someone.

Which reminds me, it's "National Clean Your Computer Desk, Keyboard and Mouse Day"!

Aww, and you forgot to send out your "National Clean Your Computer Desk, Keyboard and Mouse Day" greeting cards for this year, didn't you? Well that's ok, this time, since I just made up this non-secunominationalistic holiday. You can try to get the day off for it, but unless you work at the Post Office, Lady Luck be with you. So why this new Day? I'm not OCD, just clean. Is that so wrong?

Plus, I was watching some daily show this morning, and since that fancy War on Terror must be over now, no news of that, they had plenty of time to talk about the important stuff, like just how filthy a desk becomes, especially since 75% of *workers* admitted to eating lunch at their desk.

The petite blonde guest on the show was really driving home that point of how disgusting a keyboard could become and at first, she made me think, "Yeah, I guess I could clean mine." And the more she talked, the more my thoughts shifted toward her, and how perky and sassy she was, and how I bet she gets drunk at Bunco and rags all the *galpals* who didn't show up for Bunco that night, and how she needed to shut up about the germy keyboards and you know what, I bet sshhhhheeeeeeee doesn't have to eat at her desk. And hey, Blondie, I bet I can save you the inconvenience of making your Pottery Barn life a dirty place for once. I just won't eat at my desk like a monkey -- I'll go out for lunch like a human. The more she talked the madder I got. "So yeah, I can clean my desk, Babs, and I can get up and walk erect the way nature intended," I remembered as I ate my sad leftover vegetarian chili at my germfree desk today.

Not gross. Just permanently damaged yet so productive.




*Oh, not really, I can't drink gin anymore because it makes me horse around with handguns. And that only surprises about 3 of you out there, I can feel it.

"How to Speak Gibberish"

Me, I call them "bios."
Easy to write, simply turn off brain and typetypetype.
The hardest part is swiching your brain back on afterwards.
Which is beginning to explain everything to my throbbing brain. But.
Thank God I'm now too oblivious to realize I'm permanently stupid.
No more pain...

Pink...sparkly...BUNNIES!





Lunch:
vegetarian rice noodle soup and
more tasty advice from two cracked cookies.

This is beautiful stuff.

designbum.net




(And now, in sharp contrast, I will ramble on about chocolate.)

Chocolate is good and all, but I've never gotten that worked up over it like I do over a good tortilla chip.

I remember as a kid, my dad handed me a Hershey bar. "Oh boy, so this is chocolate!" I thought as I unwrapped it. "Ooooo, silver paper...this is gonna be goooooooood," I'm thinking.

I'm not kidding. I can't remember all the details or even the names of many former roommates throughout the years, but this whole chocolate experience I remember vividly. I bit into that Hershey bar, plain. It was like a car crash, where time seems to slow down enough for you to have done something differently like pull the car sideways before impact.

"...that's it?...that's chocolate?..." It was like biting into a candle. Trust me. I was about 6 years old. I knew what a mouthful of chewed candle tasted like.

I looked up at my dad. I felt my face go tight around my widened eyes. He said "What. It's chocolate. It's good."

Feeling the pressure of a "What" dad stare, I chewed it up a little more and swallowed it, two or three times. The sun was going down, I was standing in the backyard in front of the workshop, it was fall, and I was stunned. I'm a kid, and I don't like chocolate. Oh my God. "So that is chocolate. Nevermind then." I thought it sucked, that I didn't like chocolate and all. But hey, that's life, and I was slowly getting used to it. Hershey's is the only chocolate in the entire world and I don't like it. Somehow, I'll manage. See, now you can tell I'm 6, right?

But then, I reconsidered chocolate. After all, I liked coffee. My mom would give me coffee and say to her friends "Oh it's not that bad for her. Show 'em how fast you can drink it...see, look at that! How does she drink it that fast?! It's so hot!" (Therapy note: This could explain my feelings of anxiety at such a young age and my fixation with hot soups.) I just thought maybe the chocolate bar I had tasted was having an off-day. So eventually, I tried more types of chocolate. Being 6 and all and considering I didn't have a job, this took a few years of experimentation.

Hershey's Kisses: An equally as if not more disappointing form of Hershey's chocolate, but with even more work what with the tedious unwrapping of the foil. Accidentally rip that little paper tape off the top, and you're forced to scrabble it free from the foil like a monkey handling a melting peanut.

Hershey's bars with almonds: Ok, I'm not made of wood. They didn't suck.

M&Ms Plain: Eh. The red ones are good...they cause what? Cancer? What's "cancer"?

M&M's Peanut: Good.

Baby Ruth's: Very good.

Snickers: Very, very good. But these aren't true, straight-up chocolate bars. I'm focusing too much on the peanut. Zeroing in (Zero bars are good) on the peanuty goodness is not enjoying a plain bar of chocolate like everyone else can do, apparently, but not me. I mean, really, who can't like a peanut? Except for that whole peanut allergy thing. I still don't understand why everyone in the last decade or so is reacting so violently to peanuts. Stuff like that scares me, and of course I think The Man is to blame, but I haven't had time to figure out how or why.

Anyway.

So big deal. I won't eat chocolate bars like every normal, red-blooded American kid. I'll cope that chocolate bars don't do anything for me, whatever. Great, I'm a kid who doesn't freak out over chocolate bars. Again, I don't fit it. Again, I'm slowly getting used to this. Not a problem. Acceptance.

Over time, however, I got mad as usual. I remember that part, too. I realized that many of the kids around me just went vampire-bat blind thinking about chocolate, any kind of chocolate, it didn't matter at all just gimmegimmegimme (insert freakout squeals here) handfuls of it. They went nuts over it -- even that cheap-ass, no-name, dollar-sto' chocolate-flavored Halloween candies manufactured in Hong Kong or Taiwan.*

Think about it: When you are a kid, candy is something you can barter with and trade your sister for -- and chocolate is Kid Gold.

I was at a loss for a long, long time. Until one Easter when I had a Cadbury Creme-filled Egg. And then, I had the tiny chocolate bird eggs with the dusty candy shells. This was getting closer. But Easter is just a once a year thing, and this was several billion light years before the internet was born.

One time, I was waiting at a stop in the Underground, and I saw a glowing box across the tracks. A girl walked up to it and grabbed something out of the bottom slot. It was a purple and white vending machine. Cadbury Milk Chocolate bars, plain. "You want to tell me that even people here just eat plain chocolate bars, too? So much so that a candy company has dedicated entire machines to just plain chocolate bars and nothing else? With no peanuts or coconut or whatever that wooden earwax stuff is in a Butterfinger?** I think I am going completely insane." Except for the insanity part, I had no idea what the truth was.

Until about a month ago when I noticed a Cadbury Milk Chocolate Bar. Just a simple chocolate bar with nothing else in it but milk chocolate. It's not like it hasn't been sitting next to the Dark Chocolate bars I've bought before. Dark chocolate is good, it has that edge like strong coffee and a 6 year old with an attitude. But finally, it's official. I found my chocolate bar. Real chocolate happiness, not waxy plastic sadness. Cadbury, I can say this without hesitation: I love you.

Then the other day, I had a more complex candy bar by Cadbury called Crunchie Bar. I can honestly say that this is the first candy bar I've tried that almost made me cry. Seriously. I'm glad I wasn't driving.

You care. You know you do.

Also, comparable to Cadbury's is a chocolate made by Ritter Sport. Damn you, Germany. Just damn you for making such wonderful bite-sized chocolates, filled with evil things like coconut and marzipan. Found them at World Market. I'm not going back to that place for awhile because the whole store won't fit in my car.

What's the point? There is no point. I find my favorite chocolates. And now, I'm too scared to eat them because I'll turn into a diabetic over-consumerizing American. Moderation versus amputation.

Well, fine then. My new best friend is this bad ass Lorina sparkling french limonade I found over the weekend. It was so good, I felt like smashing the bottle against the wall and singing. But then, I feel like smashing everything against the wall and singing.




*For anyone who doesn't remember Hong Kong or Taiwan, they were the 70's version of China. I don't even know if they even exist anymore, honestly.

** Butterfingers are ok, but that doesn't meant that I like earwax.

Oooooooooo. Happy Friday the 13th.
And it's a Full Moon.


And you know what that means!
It means that Paris Hilton just made another cool million
being a giant DNA dumpster.


It also means Ouzo for everyone at the end of the day.
So bring a cup and turn the tables on bad luck this year
with a toast to Friday the 13th,
black cats, Murphy's Law, cracks in the sidewalk,
broken mirrors, opening umbrellas indoors,
walking under ladders, spilling salt, killing sparrows,
and that unfortunate American over-consumerism.

"Bad luck and irony, a toast to you, and
thank you for making us stronger in number."

I got carded at the liquor store.

Life is good. And yes, it's that easy.
Nothing else to see here, citizens,
just had to share the stellar news.

To all my love gods and goddesses,

Submit now, and submit often at gutnotes. I did.*
I know you have shoeboxes full of lovenotes to share.
So speaking of shoes, Just do it.

Sincerely, me



*Damn. He really was funny.

Ooo, and speaking of cool epistles:

AW! Thank you.


Special message for brian: I got your package.*


*I'd have thanked you sooner,
but I've been too busy listening to very, very cool tunes now.
Expect a return package like soon. No Elvis, no Elvis, no Elvis.

If you find one dangling participle, so much as one typo,
so help me and as God is my witness,
super Myriad Pro Semibold will crush your bones
and eat you.

I use that threat too much, now it's lost its flavor.

Well, anyway, read her blog if you know what's good for you.
She is a tiny ball of fury and exceptional skill!

Moohaa haaaa HAAA--(ackcough)... SILENCE, CITIZEN! GO NOW!

Lost:
Motivation for the day.



Found:
The best podcast ever.

Silly SARS.

I damn near forgot about these.
Must be the mad cow talkin'.

But check out Compact
for some extra neato Japanese stuff.

HA! Take that, China!*



*Oh God, no, China, I'm sorry. I take it back.
Please, let me live. I know you own America, one crappy
"America Supports Our Troops" car magnet at a time...
Ow ow ow, please don't give me the beatdown.
It was the mad cow talking, I swear!!

"Arrested Development," I love you so.

Thank you, Daily Candy.

"Your Daily Dose of Irony"

But if it weren't for alcohol,
we wouldn't have all those pesky tots around
in the first place.



Mouseover and see the super-amazing,
nut-busting, squirrel-crushing bird feeder!
Take that, you fat bastard yard rat!




One more reason why I love Mamie and Stoli vanilla:

Yesterday, we mixed up a couple of fake drinks, the virgin type,
7-up and pomegranate syrup over crushed ice in gold-rimmed glasses.
We both took a sip, agreed it was good,
but pointed at each other and said simultaneously
"yeahbutyouknowwhatthisneeds??"




Oops, watch out though. That pesky alcohol
attracts the kiddies, so nevermind.
Full circle topic! Whoo hoo, good times.

Where did I park my car...