The Kindness of Strangers

Traveling takes the blog out of me. I am well, I am in New York, I don't have a job, I am staying with friends.

All kinds of stuff has happened that you would know about if I had blogged it, but I'm just going to catch you up on the best part.

Leins Barthe is my hero. Chances are, you don't know him. Leins is from Haiti. Leins drives a cab. Leins saved my ass.

I realized, about three hours before leaving for Auckland International Airport, that I had no place to stay in New York, no money for anything, and no phone with which to call people in the Northern Hemisphere. I would arrive in New York at 9pm on Friday with nowhere to go, nothing to do and no one to call, holding two huge bags and my total personal worth of $400 cash. Unless I lined something up in three hours.

I sounded the Facebook Distress Call and, praise be, was heard. A friend who shall remain nameless set me up with his or her phone number, address and invitation to stay a spell. Two and a half hours later, I was on my way.

My air travel experience was something of a tragedy of errors, but I will skip ahead to the arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Luggage in hand, I stood before that eternal riddle which has plagued the minds of men from Socrates to Sartre to Scott: do I lug my bags on the subway to some godawful part of Brooklyn where I've never been and it's the middle of the night by now and godonlyknows how much walking I'll have to do BUT it's only $7, or do I get a cab?

So I'm in the cab telling my cabbie, one Mr. Leins Barthe, all about my life and such and how I don't have a phone yadayada and Leins offers me his for to call my anonymous generous friend, which I do, only to get a "number not available" message. Hrmm. Must have written it down wrong, I think aloud to Leins Barthe. Little did I know, it was actually the number for FORESHADOWING!!!

After circumnavigating the entire burrow of Brooklyn, Leins and I arrive at my destination. I hop out and buzz 1C. It does not buzz but my friend had told me that the buzzer did not work so I am comforted. I buzz other apartments until I get somebody and I explain that I am trying to get to 1C and their buzzer doesn't work so could you please come let me in or something. 1C, the other apartment person tells me, is vacant - the people who lived there just moved out.

That is when I become suspicious. I manage my way into the building and confront the door to 1C and give it a bit of the old knuckle. Audibly comes the scurry-shuff-shuffle of the people within. Hello? quoth I. Silence, quoth the door. It's Scott Peterson, quoth I. HubbubhubbubScottPetersonhubbub, quoth the door. Listen, I just got off a plane from New Zealand and I'm tired as shit and it's really late and I have almost no money because the fucking exchange rate fucking killed me and I have two huge bags and my cabbie is waiting outside with them and [NAME REDACTED] told me I could stay here and I literally have no place else to go because my American phone has been out of service for five months or something and this is the fucking ass-end of Brooklyn and there's no way I'm going to be able to hail another cab out here and I'm kind of freaking the fuck out because if you don't open this goddamn door I am going to be spending the night on the freezing streets, guarding my personal possessions with a nail clipper from the lusty advances of wild-eyed hobos and foaming crackheads so [NAME REDACTED], if you're in there, just open the mutherfucking door PLEASE, quoth I.

So I'm back in the cab telling Leins about the 10 minute monologue I had with the door and how the people behind it, whoever they are, refuse to acknowledge my presence. And to make a long night short, I ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room of the cabbie who picked me up from JFK, one Mr. Leins Barthe. The next day I take a shower and Leins takes me to go buy a phone and I call my friend Ross and line up space at his place and then we go back to Leins' and his daughter Lindsay makes me a papercraft flower which says "For: Scott From: Lindsay Barthe" and then Leins' cousin Reg drives me to Ross'.

God, it's good to be back.

What Have I Learned?

My southern hemispherical adventure is nearing its end and the question looms above me like ten thousand New Zealand dollars: what have I learned? Two things. One of which I will share with you now. The first lesson is: Don't start a small business two months before Global Economic Armageddon. This is just a simple matter of listening to what the damn gypsy in the Fulton St. subway station told you. If she said Rasputin's penis told her to tell you to not invest all of your personal capital in a startup, then by gosh by golly, don't do it! As for the second lesson, ask me in person and I will tell you.

See you soon. Whoever you are. And whenever soon is. And assuming I'm not blind by then.

Epistles

If I could bring back two fads, the second would be the epistolary novel. They were really big in the 18th century but I don't know what's happened to them since. I just wrote a whole bunch of quick emails and I would like to share them with you now. I'm omitting the recipients. The salient details to pick out are: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Friday the 13th, and either 9:15 or 9:18. I was apparently a little confused.

Subject: Flight

I'm getting into JFK next Friday at 9:18pm. I have a number of bids for generously-putting-me-up, so what can you offer in the tender hugging, unsolicited smiles, and omelet skillet departments that would seal the deal? I will see you in a week my dear.

Love,
Scott


Subject: Home again, home again, jiggity jig

I'm getting into JFK at 9:15pm on the 13th. I will be staying with some friends until I something figured out. Might that something be with you? What's the latest? And how was your mom's wedding? Keep me aboob.

- Scott


Subject: Christmas is Coming Early

Ho Ho Ho, bitch! You've been a naaaaaughty girl this year, haven't you. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID! Well, I'm just gonna have to come over there and do something about you. My flight gets into JFK Friday the 13th at 9:15pm. Meet me in Manhattan. In the alley. Behind the building. My inappropriateness and I will be waiting.

But for serious, I may not be in NY very long and I want you to visit. I don't care who you fuck. Make it happen.

And I love you.

- Scott


Subject: Get Ready

My flight gets into JFK at 9:15pm. WHUCHA GONNA DO, HUH?!


Subject: Re: Get Ready

P.S. I love you very much and want to go to dinner with you and by go to dinner I mean have you take my to dinner because I just spent the end of my money on a plane ticket and it's OK if dinner is at KFC I'll eat anything just so I can spend time with you.


Subject: I am returned

Like Jesus, I'm comin' back! My flight gets into JFK at 9:15pm on Friday the 13th. Hope your thing today goes painlessly. I'll be in touch soon.

Happy March

Oh yeah, and it's March. Let's celebrate! I'll get John Philip Sousa, you get the guac.

Sunday

• Went to the ocean. I am pleased to report it was wet.
• Had a Murder Burger.
• Watched Le Grand Bleu.
• Am working on getting myself a job.
• But I need to be careful that I don't end up playing Bejeweled. It can happen at any time without warning. I have to keep my eyes peeled. For any Bejeweled playing. By me.

Speaking of getting myself a job, you know those times when you realize, 5 years after the fact, that you had two thinly veiled blow job offers at Japanese language camp? Wasted educational opportunities. おっと.

CC

My Flickr (which I have sorely neglected) photos are licensed under Create Commons Attribution. This means anyone can use them for any purpose, provided they attribute the work. I was putzing around a while ago and stumbled across a familiar picture on the Wired blog. I then searched for links to my Flickr account and was pleased to see that a number of folks have made good use of my stuff:

• Wired Blog
• The Consumerist
• Futurismic
• Greenwich Connect
• A presentation on JavaScript libraries (PDF, page 49)
• Philadelphia Will Do

I should be taking more photos. By the way, all original content on this blog is dedicated to the public domain. Because I have a militant lack of faith in the copyright system. Bite me.

My Sister

My sister turned 20 a little bit ago. She is a wonderful person. She is extremely smart and very beautiful. She's a very good friend and a great sibling. I am very lucky to have my sister.

Self-Fulfilling Prophesy?

Just watched the State of the Un- excuse me, Presidential Address to Congress, on The Intertubes. Funnily enough, it was playing while I was at the gym but I didn't realize it at the time. If I'd known, I'd have had some popcorn. That's a lie. I'd have had a salad. And I did have a salad anyway. It wasn't a Victory Salad, though.

Republicans continually remind us how ineffective government is. They also continually fuck things up. COINCIDENCE?!

Disinterested Party Animal

Alcohol is the best way to make regular people interesting.
If I'm the one drinking.
And they're actually hookers.

Alcohol is the best way to make ugly people pretty.
If there are no pretty people at the party.
And the theme is "Relaxed Standards."

Alcohol is the best way to make children feel grown up.
And pretty and interesting.
Especially if they're hookers.

Child prostitutes are the best way to make perverts feel good.
And pretty and interesting.
But also old in a sad kind of way.

People are the best way to make alcohol feel digested.
And regurgitated on the cat.
Then digested again, by the cat.

Domestic abuse is the best way to make alcoholics interesting.
And their wives and children ugly.
And later, alcoholic.

Sex is still the best way to make babies.
But not with child prostitutes.
They are too young.

And, of course, alcohol is the best way to have sex.
With regular people,
Interesting people,
Ugly people,
Pretty people,
Children,
Perverts,
Victims of domestic abuse,
And cats.

Apple

This week, we have another fictitious installment in my fictitious newspaper column.

In The Knew
Observations for the young and the young at heart
By S.T. Peterson

"Apple"

A long time ago in a gated community far, far away, a very plausible naked girl, on the advice of a very persuasive snake, partook of some mind-altering, modesty-enhancing fruit, in commemoration of which, to this day, apples are customarily made a tasty reminder to educators that they traffic in original sin.

I, for one, approve of Eve's taste in verboten vegetation. Were it not for her "bite heard 'round creation," you and I would probably be chilling in paradise right now, fucking each other. No thank you. I can have nudity, organic food and casual sex any Tuesday of the week. But there is one necessity paradise cannot provide: my newspaper column. Without it, I am just some pathetic no-newspaper-column-having loser. Like you. Unless you are Garrison Keillor. Hi Garrison!

Which brings me to the topic of today's column: Love. I get mail all the time, let me tell you, all the time, asking for advice on love. Whom to love. When to love them. When to stop loving them. And I have these answers. Oh yes, I do. What I do not have is time enough to tell you all each individually what the blind baby has in store. As a compromise, I am going to reveal the single most important secret in the Book of Love. I am violating a number of Non-Disclosure Agreements to bring you this wisdom so if anyone asks, you heard it from a snake.

Whoever you are, whatever the circumstance, no matter the details, the following Truth supersedes all else: there is one and only one true love of your life. That love is New York City. You may think some boy or girl means more to you than the Big Apple. You may even leave Manhattan and chase this person around the world, dreaming of happily-ever-afters. WRONG! You have stupidly forgot the Golden Rule: "I ♥ NY."

Rule #2: New York does not love you back. It is a harsh mistress. It will toy with, tease, and use you up only to leave your half-conscious ass on the mutherfucking F train to Queens in a puddle of unfamiliar vomit. And for this, you will love it all the more. You cannot escape. You cannot forget. You do, have always, and always will, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'till death do you die, love the Big Apple. And now you are...

In The Knew!

Run, Run, As Fast As You Can

I have this recurring theme in my dreams where I am running really slowly. I'm trying to run faster but the harder I try, the slower I move. This has been a feature in my dreams for about a year now.

All of my childhood forays into sports ended disastrously. It was never my idea, of course, to play soccer or join a little league baseball team or sign up for track & field. I caught a baseball with my eye socket on the first day of practice. I chased butterflies across the soccer field. But sports are compulsory for sons, apparently. Like, you have this kid and then you feel obligated to provide them with the Comprehensive American Childhood Experience. Because TV will rot their brains and free-range Finch children end up on a John Walsh special. So you have these little people whom you don't really know all that well (and they're changing all the time) and so you just kind of stick them in any old age/gender-appropriate activity. My sister did figure skating and ballet. I did karate and baseball. My folks eventually caught on and put me in ballet too.

I mention all of this because during my first track & field competition, I was coming in last and deliberately fell down before the finish line to get the sympathy "you fell down but you finished the race anyway GOOD FOR YOU!" effect. And now I run all the time. So Dr. Freud, put that up your nose and snort it.

Monday

• Really sunny today.
• Digging Infected Mushroom.
• Had a nice time at the gym.
• Did not watch the Oscars.
  
• Still need to find a job.

Youth is now!

Saturday

• I've had the same salad the last three meals. Lox can do no wrong. If smoked salmon were to beat up an old woman and steal her wig, I would still love it.
• Helped bake a cake. Also helped eat it.
• Watched Hellboy
• Watched Hellboy II
• Summer is coming to a close...

There's only one way to go from here: old.

Cock Culture

My new favorite art/culture/softcore pornography blog: East Village Boys. Hey, I used to be one of those!

Wednesday

• Felt really good yesterday about getting stuff done.
• Went to Piha with my new Auckland buddy Piotr. Beautiful beach.
• Did some work and laundry.
• Had another in a long line of 3am omelets.
• Didn't go to the gym, but I'm OK with that. Really. I am.

Vanity is its own reward.

Tuesday

Hi friend.

• Work is being done on the roof of the house and it makes it difficult for me to sleep from 8am to 4pm. But I manage anyhow.
• It wasn't supposed to be beautiful today, but it was. I'm not complaining.
• Watched Dollhouse last night. Tell me when you've seen it and then we can talk.
• Made one of my favorite salads: spinach, avocados, smoked salmon and feta cheese with a lemon dressing. So delicious.
• Made some bread. It turned out OK.
• Yeah, just thought I'd check in.

"Let's face it buddy boy, there's two kinds of people in the world: there's you and there's everybody else, and never the twain shall meet." - Nathan Fisher Sr.

Milk

The days of my boyhood were simple and care-free: there was one and only one kind of milk. Skim. Better known to Good Christians everywhere as, simply, "milk." Upon moving to the Big City, my delicate Midwestern certitudes were unprepared for the new and exotic milks on offer. I did a lot of experimenting which lead to a quagmire of amorality and indecision. Until now. I have finally seen the light. I have found my milk: "Xtra Calcium Boost." It's 99.8% fat free but doesn't taste like dirty dishwater. It has both "HIGH PROTEIN" and "VITAMIN D," which is, like, my favorite vitamin. It has a yellow cap, as if to say, "I am the sun, dawning on a new day of dairy beverages; I am the flower, blossoming for the prevention of osteoporosis." I just hope they have this stuff in The States.

You just got INFORMED, son!

Thursday

• Got up at like 4pm
• Took a shower
  
• Said goodbye to Kris and Jess - they are traveling and I won't see them again maybe ever. BYE GUYS!
• Had a lamb kabab. That's a NZ style kabab, which is like a wrap.
• Got some work done because I'm super-responsible
• Went to the gym. It is my precious.
• Took another shower.
• Some of these bullet points have punctuations and others do not. Sorry about that.
• Now I'm doing a salmon recipe that Michael gave me.

I feel that this post fails to capture how awesome I feel right now. I don't know if that's a failure of my communication skills or because I'm feeling good for no reason and therefore the format of the post (what I did today) under-serves the topic. This annotation clears things up a bit, but its formal tone is also largely inexpressive of my giddiness.

The geek shall inherit the earth

Yes I do, I LOVE SHAMU!

Sophisticated Side Ponytail, by Natalie Portman's Shaved Head. Their album is very Scissor Sisters meets The Lonely Island.

Good Weather

The last three days have been excellent weather. Not a cloud in the sky and 28C. I've been steeping in my glory by the pool. And going to the gym, except for that it was surprise-closed yesterday (BOOOO!). And writing code, which is good and fun.

I don't love you, but I really like your shoes.

Feb Six

• Made some bread today. My standard recipe does two loaves. The problem is, I always end up eating one of them right away. Nothing gives you that "beached whale" afterglow quite like a whole loaf of piping hot carbs.
• I'm doing some work right now with people in London, Boston, and Brazil. This means I'm generally staying up 'til 5:5omething in the morning. Exempli gratia: it's is 5:28 am right now.
• I love getting things done.
• I also love this new vanilla flavored whey protein stuff I put in my milk.
• I didn't make it to the gym today, but that's OK because it closed at 6 (on account of it's Waitangi Day) and if I have to get my ass out of the house while the sun is still up, you can count me out!
• Also, I love This American Life. In fact, I fucking love it. It belongs in my series.

Promise me you'll never die.

Feb Five

It's like the Fab Five, only more "brewery."

• Made myself a delicious fluffy omelet (see below poem) and ate it in the sun with my book.
• Took a swim in the house pool for the first time ever.
• Read more of my book.
• Had a beef wrap, which is just so much fun to say. I suggest you try it: "beef wrap." Go on. Say it out loud. And say it like it's a double-entendre. Lower your voice and cock an eyebrow. "Beef wrap..." Then wink. Do that to the next person you meet. I task you!
• Went to the gym. It is my Final Solution.
• Masturbated in the shower. Some of my more elaborate rituals are yielding a rather poor return on investment of late. I blame the flaccid economy.
  
• Had some fish and apple sauce. I'll probably make myself some pasta in a bit. I'm a-hungered.

I say "tomato," you say "beef wrap," LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF!

Fluffy Omelet

Fluffy Omelet tastes the best,
Fluffy Omelet we'll digest.
Fluffy Omelet knows no shame,
Fluffy Omelet? I just came.

The First of February

• Just returned from my latest Glorious Return To The Gym. It is my Beloved Leader.
  
• This is my first Super Bowl in a while where I haven't gotten piss drunk at Julia's apartment and screamed like a wild person. GO PATS!
• Kris just brought me three, I repeat, THREE 2-litre (yes, 'r' before the 'e') things of milk. Kris is a milk man. He is a good friend to have.
• And the other day, he brought by two movies on flash drive: Benjamin Button and Rock 'n Rolla. What I'm saying is, Kris is my Santa Clause.
• Benjamin Button had my crying like a fool. Not like that's hard. It was the most sobbing I've done since watching the end of Six Feet Under.
• The Rock 'n Rolla file was slightly corrupt and had some playback issues, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's very Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
• I'm all of a sudden digging MGMT. Am I, like, way behind on that?

Who knows what regular people see in each other.

This Week

• A lot of work on the computer
• Not eating very well
• Not going to the gym
• Getting up and going to bed late

The 2nd Theorem of Destruction
As love and effort increase, the probability of self destruction approaches 1
-Kyle Gabler

FOR WHOM THE MEME TOLLS, or, YOU HOLD HER DOWN AND I'LL SCOOP HER BRAINS OUT THROUGH HER NOSE

If I could resurrect one fad, it would be mummification. You could keep grandma in her easy chair next to Mr. Kibbles III. She gets to be in all the family photos. It would be good for the kids.

The next best thing is the topic of today's post: Memeification (meem-ih-fih-kay-shun). If you don't already know, the theory of memes was discovered by evolutionary biologists and subsequently weaponized by the Internet. Memes are like in-jokes where everyone is "in." They are also highly dangerous.

Internet memes function like a kind of mystical incantations. When they are perpetrated upon a person, the victim become memeified. They are transformed from a living, breathing, human being into a walking parody of themselves. Neither alive nor dead. Damned to roam the purgatorial wastelands of their former life, unable to be taken seriously by anyone, moaning ironically with outstretched arms. Or so we imagine. Best examples of memeies (mee-mees, similar to mummies; singular memey) include Chuck Norris and Rick Astley. When memeies are unaware that they have been memeified (as when Chuck Norris suffers from the misapprehension that other people care what he thinks), it is almost too sad to be funny. Almost.

Now we arrive at the call to action: I propose that we memeify Sarah Palin.

This is a tall order to fill. Never before has the internet successfully memeified anyone who is already such a complete self-parody. We are also competing with Tina Fey's extremely dominant direct-parody. The challenge is to engineer a single meme capable of overwhelming all other Palin-related signals, until the woman is wholly and completely memefied from hair to heal-spike.

So what is the ultimate Sarah Palin meme? For that we turn to the evolutionary biological procedure of knock-down-drag-out Natural Selection. A bloody competition for resources and mates. And you can play too! May the best meme win.

The playing field is broad. You can use any part of the Internet to propagate your meme. YouTube, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, blogs, podcasts, IM, IRC, Facebook. Anything. The pallet is equally broad: the accent, the turkeys, the unwed pregnant teenage daughter whose baby-daddy's mom could host the reality-show-takeoff of Weeds (when she gets out of jail, that is). No holds are barred in this mad race to become Internet's Next Top Meme.

Victory belongs to the first meme which is referenced by the New York Times.

With the election over, one might wonder at the timing and utility of such an exercise in memetic engineering. I could say that we are immunizing ourselves against Palin '12, but the truth of the matter is, she just fucking deserves it.

GO!

Twitter (YES, I SAID TWITTER!)

They've got this new-fangled humdigger for the Internet Machine called "Twitter." It's blogging for people with no attention span. I lost my attention span in a tragic childhood accident involving a combine and Pee-wee Herman, so IT IS PERFECT FOR ME! I have stubbornly ignored twitter for years now, but today peer pressure got the better of me. Miguel made it clear that it was either twitter, or lunch at the uncool-kids' table for the rest of my life. And I SO DESPERATELY WANT TO BE COOL! So now I'm on twitter. As the pied pipper would say, follow me!

DIS-A-POINTED

The coupon is $6.90 for each large pizza. It was missing a comma between "each" and "pick up." Poor punctuation spoils the day AGAIN!

"I don't have friends. I have New York." - gapingvoid

HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS, or, WHAT PRECISELY DO YOU MEAN BY "UNLIMITED?"

My desk is covered in crap. Mail, dirty dishes, receipts. Lots of receipts. I take them out of my pocket and throw them on the desk. It's just what I do. Well, good thing, it turns out. I was holding court at my desk today when I noticed something on the back of a stray receipt. What I believe is called a "coupon." Now I am not normally a "coupon person" but this coupon advertised "Unlimited Large Pizzas: $6.90 EACH PICK UP." If I understand this coupon correctly, and I believe I do, this means that I can pay six dollars and ninety cents and get as many large, regular-crust, single-topping (other than chicken) Domino's pizzas as I want in one pick-up before the end of June. I will let you know very, very soon whether this is the case.

UPDATE
Here is a picture of the coupon in question:


Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but the contents of his bookshelf.

Mon 26 Jan

• I was totally going to the gym today
• But then Gabriel sidelined me with GREAT NEWS
• Which required that I spend all day on the computer
• Except for a trip to Burger Wisconsin
• Where I had a deeeelishus burger
• Before going back to the computer
  
• And that's how I manged to not go to the gym.

Your youth offends me, sir!

Things That Make Me Fucking Cry, Vol. 1

The Last Five Years
I cry along with that show every time. It's a hazard in my music library.

Sat 24 Jan

• Made some banana bread. I just love the stuff.
• Had a reeeeally long conversation with Michael. I just love the stuff.
• Did another OS install. Switched Ubuntu for openSUSE at everyone's insistence. There are a few things I need to sort, but for the most part it is good.
• I need to get to the gym. It's not even funny. STOP LAUGHING!
• I hate you.

What Would Ayn Rand Do?
Mint her own currency out of pure fucking gold, bitch!

Platter Of Death

My OS hard drive died. Not just regular-died. MEGA-died. Like, if I leave it on the IDE chain, I can't even get to my BIOS because the drive is so corrupt. That's how dead it is. So now I'm getting setup with a new Ubuntu install on an old Seagate that was lying around. It's not the OS install that takes a long time, it's getting every little thing set up the way I like. And compiling Mono takes AGES (that's right, I run from SVN - releases are for cowards). Dear awesome cloud-based thin client desktop, I'M READY WHEN YOU ARE! Love, me.

It's 2009. Do you know where your children are?

Wednesday, The 21st

My transformation into a crank-addicted housewife is nearly complete. I am officially hooked on Bejeweled. BeFUCKINGjeweled! Who am I?

It was going for $0.99 in the Steam holiday sale. Ninety nine cents is my "just in case" price point. Meaning that I don't need or want it, but I'll get it anyway just in case I ever become a speed-head soccer mom who spends all day chasing invisible germs across the linoleum and playing Bejeweled on the family computer.

The game itself makes no sense. It's just these fucking jewels. What are they doing here? Where did they come from? Why do they need to be put into groups of three or more along either the vertical or horizontal axis? These are just some of the questions the gamemasters at PopCap refuse to answer.

And it inspires a totally unwarranted sense of accomplishment. I feel like some kind of gemological Cincinnatus, called upon by the world's leaders to make order out of this insane jumble of jewels. Which is impossible. There are always more. And there is no skill or strategy involved at all. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are a sick, sick person who will say anything to rationalize their addiction and they should seriously get back to cleaning the kitchen because I think I heard a germ squeak across the floor.

That was "Excellent"

But now you tell me "No Moves!"

I don't believe you.

44

An important thing happened today: George Bush stopped being the President of the United State of America. It is being hailed as historific; the day we didn't think we'd live to see; the end of an error. But difficult to believe though it is, something more important still makes even bigger news: Barack Obama took office. I can come home!

Be like me, kids, and get your presidential art fix at The Obama Art Report. It's a great blog of art about Obama. I love it. Long and hard. Into the night.

I was looking through the list of one-liners that I keep for this blog, trying to find an appropriately inspirational sentiment to mark the date. Most of my morsels are macabre, profane, or both. I was about ready to fucking kill myself, when I spied a tidbit I took from a lecture on bread making. It is called the Baker's Blessing. I hope that it finds you both in and out of the kitchen.

May your crust be crisp and your bread always rise.

Inaugureve

I am being completely unproductive today. Bite me!

"'Cuz they're from Russia, with love, and they can fit up any size ass." - Brian Kenny on Matrioshkas

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 9

Avocados.

Synesthesia

My aforementioned habit of listening to one artist/album/song on repeat all day has the corollary effect that whatever I happen to be doing during these musical marathons runs the risk of becoming indelibly associated with that "theme song." Example: Unreal Tournament 2004 & Brittany Spears' Toxic. Yeah, I know.

I got hard into Blink-182 when I started college. That was also when I began frequenting an art forum which was kickin' in '04 (speedpainting IV was fucking EPIC - too bad most of those images are dead now) but has since spent its spunk, it seems. Anyway, I was really inspired at the time to get into visual arts and digital painting. I went out and bought a Wacom tablet (Intuos 6x11 - a terrific tablet) and started doing some doodlings.

I thought I was pretty good for someone with exactly no training, self- or otherwise. I ended up pursuing code in my free time rather than art, but I still think about these whenever I hear Blink (and vice versa). It makes me want to paint.

Being old just takes practice.

Reagraham Lincool

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Reagraham Lincool

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Talk

Talk is over. We will call it success. Communication is key, kids.

"There are many ways to be a mammal." - Frans Lanting

Chew

The chat is in a bit (I hope). I need to work on my smoothie-making abilities. Banana smoothies you can chew are an undesired outcome.

The grass is always uncannier on the other side of the valley.

Walk

I have recently run rather afoul of my landlords for various reasons about which I have various opinions. These issues has been prosecuted in the proxy media of text messages and hand-written notes tapped to my door.

I have also recently been dreading the return of my landlordandlady to the house over which I have enjoyed a comfortable, solitary domain these past few days.

I have additionally also recently contemplated various elaborate evasion schemes by which I can be out of the house or "just heading out!" for the 18 waking hours of day. Unfortunately I don't have that many friends and tempting though the idea is, a full day at the gym is physiologically prohibitive.

Then my landpeople returned this evening. Total avoidance out of the question, I proposed that we have a talk about everything. Tomorrow, because right now I have to leave for the gym. Bye!

Like I said, total avoidance is out of the question.

In lieu of the gym, I took a nice long walk. I made of game of seeing how far I could walk without thinking something negative about someone else. I then tried going without mentally singing Gaston from The Little Mermaid, but I didn't do very well. I spent some time studying an area of wetland which was really interesting, then I unintentionally stalked a guy. On my way home, I returned to the original premise of my walk: not thinking about negative circumstances. And then I realized! You can have a positive attitude about negative things. You can choose to see the best in people, even if they haven't been forthcoming with their virtue.

I am now very much looking forward to our conversation tomorrow, my landlords' and mine. It's an opportunity to better understand and connect with other people. I'll let you know how it goes.

As long as no one dies, you can apologize.

Over and Out

My family should be half-way across the Pacific ocean as I write this post. Today concluded three weeks of blood-relating with Older Me, Younger Me, and Mom. Daunting though three weeks of non-Mormon family-time may sound, it actually came off pretty darned good. Bitchin', one might even say.

Our itenerary was:

• Auckland (see Christmas Dinner)
• Rotorura
• Turangi
• Wellington (take the Seal Coast tour - ask for Crazy John)
• Nelson (have dinner at the Boat Shed (not the Boat House) - the eggplant dish is incredible)
• Greymouth
• Christchurch
• Blenheim
• Wellington
• Napier
• Rotorura
• Auckland (departure)

Nelson was our favorite. It's a lovely, sunny little town with nice beaches and great places to eat. Pictures are up on Picasa. Unfortunantly, I hit my usage limit, so I'll have to host the rest someplace else. I'll link when they're up.

Why are completed structures called "buidings" instead of "builts?"

Look Closer

The cutie parades
In big cutie-shades
But it's a disguise
For his little eyes.

Smash!

I am very angry at technology! It is stupid and awful and fucking gay. Nothing about it is good and everything about it is very, very bad. I blame it for everything.

WRATH!

Moderation is just amortized binging.

3 Fantasies

I pretended to dream I was a kite
That you flew in place on the beach
And the night was really bright or maybe just
You were glowing.

I pretended to dream I was a present
Wearing your name by the tree.
You can shake me if you're curious but I just hope
I'm really special!

I pretended to dream I was a poem
That you read all alone
And I made you sad but you didn't
Cry because of me.

Just Checking In

It's New Year's Day. The fam is here. The ham was great. I will have pictures soon, but I am just checking in to wish you a happy and successful new year.

Be well, do good work.
- Scott

Christmas Miracle

My family just boarded a transcontinental airplane and I still don't have the Christmas ham! Or such was the situation 5 minutes ago. It comes as no surprise to learn that I have left dinner preparations to Christmas Eve. At 4:30pm, unsure even if the butcher was open, I popped out the door, strode down the street, and crept through the meatsmith's faux-snow freckled door. The racks stood empty. Some lonely pepperoni sat in a fridge. Things looked grim indeed. "Hello?" called the butcher. "Ham," I replied. "Ham for whom?" inquired the man. "For the family," I said, cringing anticipatorily. "You're in luck! We just got a call 2 minutes ago: a cancellation."

Giant leg of ham = MINE!

It's times like this, I'm almost tempted to believe in Santa Clause.

1998

The neat thing about growing up is you get to watch the world grow up with you. Given as I am to narcissism and projection, I see the world as a reflection of me. This allows me to indirectly understand certain things about myself by examining my views of the external world. For example, I have this indelible sense that "modern day" culture started in 1998. I've thought this for a long time. Probably as far back as late '99. For me, 1998 was the dawn of the 21st century. The last vestages of neon clothing and rollerskates lay in the Goodwill Graveyard and the 90's were behind us. The culture of my Gen-X predescessors had finally set and a new world, one all my own, was dawning.

Culture obviously changes all the time and there is nothing special or correct or mature about the late ninties. That I feel that there is reveals something about my own maturation. I would be hard-pressed to think objectively about my own personal growth at that young age (all of my memories are first-person). But my perceptions of the world that survive those formative years expose a metaphor for my own growth. If I thought "modern culture" was born in '98, it is probably because some part of me started then. Probably puberty. 12 is about the age.

I'm sure most people have some year in their mind when the world "really started." I think it would be a fun party to have everyone dress in that style. You'd need a diverse age range.

Don't fly to the sun if you can't take the heat.

Give Them Hope

Milk is not playing in NZ that I can tell. I hear generally positive things.

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

One nice thing about New Zealand is that businesses don't seem to mind barefootedness. I've taken to walking all over the place in my naked feetsies. It's starting to do a number on my heals as my callouses catch up to my walking habits, but I find it much liberatinger than shoes. I've never liked shoes. They're too constrictive. In lots of ways.

Thunder

This old house rumbles under your thunderous posture.

Crossbeams and plateware and load bearing studs all shudder to know:

You are about!

Some silly something invites your vibrations...

To the sun room.

A stray wisp of worry scandalizes Mr. Rickter

In the kitchen.

Lurching upon the hardwood floors

In your hardwood feet

Which you frequently drag

Through invisible snow

("Scuff! Scuff!" go the slippers)

I feel as though

My very bones

Were rattling under your rude lumbering.

The wood in the walls begins to bow with your spine

I know that the halls are showing the signs

Of early onset scoliosis.

Our hunchbacked address is a misaligned mess

Of chiropractic lore.

It won't be a wonder if after the thunder

The doors don't close all the way anymore.

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum, Banana Bread!

Banana bread! Is there anything more glorious? Low-fat vegan banana bread! Baked a loaf today and boy oh boy was it tastie. It's just about the easiest thing to make: put everything in a bowl, then stick it in the oven. In fact, I think I'm going to go get some more nanners right... now!

Scott would have something cute to say here, but he already left to go get some more nanners.

Country Crust

Went kayaking today with some friends. Went dancing yesterday with some other friends. Now I am waiting for some dough to rise before I pop it in the oven. I did a redux of the Country Crust Bread from Thursday. It turned out deliciously. So deliciously, in fact, that I am doing yet another batch today. I LOVE BREAD!

The best bread in the world, my sister and I both agree, is the bread that the First United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia serves as part of its annual Marketplace Week, which is a hands-on re-creation of Biblical life. There is livestock and brick making and, you guessed it, the very most tastiest bread in the world. It is the king of kings of breads. If only there were some way - some person with the ability to take one loaf of bread and make it two. And if only this miracle person were somehow in my life. I would keep this friend next to my apple machine and never leave my perfect garden of paradise.

I created myself so I wouldn't be as lonely.

I Am The Baker

God is great, God is good,

Let us thank Him for this food.

By His hands we all are fed,

Give us Lord our daily bread.

Amen.

That was the rhyming blessing my sister and I learned to say over each dinner. Yesterday I made bread from scratch for the first time. I love bread. I will eat bread without fear or shame, loaf upon loaf, until it is gone. Good bread is one of the greatest pleasures this life has to offer. Here's the recipe I used. As my friend Michael said, "2 eggs?! That's a cake!" I actually ran out of flour and had to pop next door to borrow another cup. Things were really sticky and the loaf came out... not quite as advertised. I think I'm going to try again today (after I pick up some flour at the store - seriously, who doesn't get enough flour?!). I tend to approach baking (and cooking) like I do hacking; iteratively. Unfortunately, compiling your food takes a while longer. Bread [beta].

I am often guilty of committing the Narcissist's Generalization Fallacy, which means that if someone is a little bit like me, I assume they are exactly like me. This is probably why I am continually surprised to find that there is no real correlation between being gay and being an atheist.

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 8

A Musical About Prop 8 Starring John C. Reilly, Jack Black, Allison Janney and Neil Patrick Harris OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME!!1!

Today: A Poem

Today I woke up

Did absolutely nothing

Then wrote this poem.

We're #1, Bitches

I have inherited the long and proud cultural tradition of laizze-faire a-patriotism. A movement that started in earnest back in the 60's with the activist/hippy crowd, inspired punk rock during the 80's, and settled into a comfortable background theme of modern day liberalism/academia/comedy.

The culture war has become an arms race of euphemisms. "Loving America" is some ineffable requisite of being a redneck (now is that erotic, platonic, familial, or romantic love?). "Support our troops" bumper stickers are like an "I voted for George Bush. BOTH TIMES!" button. Words such as "values" and "the family" make me slightly nauseous. All of these disgusting little double entendres merely serve to perfume the hatred and ignorance of "The Real America."

So I have inherited the long and proud cultural tradition of psudo-cynical, quasi-anti-american, disestablishmentarian apathy. You know the one.

But beneath the small town values and the Joseph T. Plumbers and the megachurches and the fast food children and the Proposition 8s and the small maritime borders and the veil of Reality, beneath all of that bullshit is a country whose founding principle is Freedom. A country started by a bunch of traitorous men in wigs and tights. They set out to create the Democracy Exemplar. The Utopia Nova. The Land of the Free. They failed. And their posterity continue to fail. But we're making a better go of it than just about anybody else.

Was reading around today and learned that in a '94 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights held 6 to 3 that, "the interference with free speech was 'necessary in a democratic society' in order to guarantee the 'rights of others' to protection from gratuitous insults to their religious feelings." Europe does not have a First Amendment. The UK does not have a First Amendment. You can still be put in jail in Austria for Holocaust denial. Journalists are. For all of its secular progressiveness, Western Europe lacks the foundational core of Freedom that America enjoys. And we fucking elected a black man as President. Land of opportunity, bitches!

So hey, REST OF THE WORLD, guess what? We're better than you! That's right. We're the original new society, we don't have any kings, and you're still playing catchup. So fuck you, 'cause WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

Playcraft

Two short indie games based on Lovecraft. Both have interesting visual styles and are strangly evokative of the surreal horror-kitsch that I love about Lovecraft.

The Lake

Untitled

EDIT: Looks like these are part of the Commonplace Book Competition. Cool.

Dribble Dribble

Come down with a bout of the old seasonal diarrhea. Liquid fun is running out of my ass at 30 minute intervals. I wish you could be here.

Catharsis on the Toilet

I won't go into the gory details, but to say that I feel much better now. Other things that happened today:

• Ran the dog.
• Met a new friend.
• Went swimming in the lake.
• Going to Quantum of Solace tonight (it was just released in NZ).

Life is a slow way to die.

Gobble Gobble

Turkey Day at the Blackmans. Enough food to incapacitate a miniature pony, and I still haven't been to the gym.

I'm just waiting for life to disabuse me of my ambitions.

Wikiwiki

I spent a few hours on Wikipedia today. In my old tradition, the chronological order, including what I learned:

• Jet Propulsion Laboritory
• Mars Science Laboritory - This is the next mars rover. It's really big: the size of a small car.
• Aerospace
  
• NASA - Created in '58.
  
• Spacecraft
  
• Lockheed Martin - Biggest defense corp by rev. They merged in '95.
  
• Boeing - Boeing committed corporate espionage against Lockheed Martin a little while ago. As a consequence, the govn't slapped them with fines, transferred a bunch of contracts to Lockheed, and suspended Boeing's satellite work for a while.
  
• EADS - Some European aerospace co.
  
• Saab - Saab (which originally stood for "Swedish Aerospace Company") was created during WWII to provide allied planes. Today they manufacture such things as camouflage systems and shoulder-mounted anti-tank ordinance.
  
• National Aeronautics and Space Act - This created NASA.
  
• F-22 Raptor - The US' new fighter jet. Best in the fucking world, they say (made by Lockheed Martin and Boeing).
  
• Dow Jones Industrial Average - I wasn't aware that this only looks at 30 companies.
• Boeing 787 - The Dreamliner. They're doing this really interesting thing where most of the assembly is being handled by their suppliers. This has cause the massive delays because some suppliers can't get their shit together. I wonder if this strategy is ultimately going to work out for Boeing. They have about 900 pre-orders already.
• Composite material
• Saab Automobile - The automobile arm of Saab. Now owned by GM.
• General Motors
• General Electric
• List of corporations by market capitalization
  
• PetroChina - At the top of the above list.
• ExxonMobil - These people make the most money. Seriously. They have the highest revenue. Of any company. Ever.
• Simplified Chinese characters - Being pushed by the People's Republic of China to increase literacy.
• Republic of China - Commonly known as Taiwan, this was the Chinese government until the communists took over the mainland. For a long time the international community did not recognize the PRC as a legitimate government even though they had full control of the country. The Republic of China, a founding member of the UN, still claims that they are the legal government of mainland China.
• Berkshire Hathaway - They have quite a diverse share of holdings including candy production, encyclopedias, and vacuum cleaners.
• Johnson & Johnson - Considered the most well-respected company in the world.
• Holding company
• 3M - They only officially changed their name to "3M" in 2002.
• Honeywell
• Emerson Electric Company
• News Corporation
• Nintendo - Founded in 1889 to make playing cards, they then tried such business as love hotels and taxi services before becoming the video game giant we know and love today.
• Conglomerate (company)
• Dutch East India Company - So this is absolutely fascinating. The VOC (the abbreviation of the Dutch name) was the first multinational conglomerate corporation. It was also the first company to issue stocks. They were created to combat the Portuguese monopoly on spice trading. They chugged along for 200 years before finally going bankrupt. They had some really shrewd business moves. For example: spice trade was complicated by the fact that the Europeans didn't have much to offer the Indo-Asian cultures other than gold and silver. While Spain and Portugal had lots of gold, other western countries (especially England) did not. VOC set up an intra-Asia trading system whereby their ships facilitated trade between Asian nations. The profits from this operation were then used to purchase spices which the ships then brought back to Europe. They also artificially increased the supply in the pepper market to reduce prices. This meant that their margins were lower in the short-term, but it disincentivized potential competitors from getting into the pepper business because it appeared there was less profit to be had.
• British East India Company
• French East India Company
• Danish East India Company
• Amsterdam (VOC ship) - A wrecked VOC ship. The wreck is sometimes visible at low-tide.
• Protection of Wrecks Act 1973
• Swedish East India Company
• Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow
• Scuttling - The deliberate sinking of a ship. The Pentagon had a scuttling program called CHASE (Cut Holes and Sink 'Em) which was used to dispose of chemical weapons, such as nerve gasses, after they were made illegal by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
• Conquistador - Bad Spaniards.
• Black Legend - The theory that Spaniards aren't really that bad.
• Historical revision of the Inquisition
• Inquisition
• USS Oriskany - Scuttled to create an artificial reef.
• VX (nerve agent) - The very nastiest nerve gas.
• Narco submarine - Semi-submersible radar-transparent craft used by Colombian drug runners. There's a nifty loophole in maritime law that lets the smugglers scuttle the sub and avoid charges if someone finds them.
• Artificial reef - Their benefit to marine life is debated.
• Osborne Reef - An artificial reef made of tires. Turns out tires are bad for the fish.
• Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier - The next class of US carrier. In development.
• Nerve agent - Never gases are actually liquid at room temperature.
• Mark I NAAK - A nerve-gas antidote auto-syringe kit issued to US armed forces. The two shots go into the muscle of the outer thigh.
• Tabun (nerve agent) - Also known as "GA" (German agent A). Developed during WWII. Went into mass production. There were some accidents at the plant: "Four pipe fitters had liquid tabun drain onto them; they died before their rubber suits could be removed."
• Sarin - AKA GB. 10x deadlier than Tabun.
• B41 nuclear bomb
• Tsar Bomba - Most physically powerful man-made thing ever created. 50 Megatons (1.4% the output of the Sun). They had originally designed a 100 Megaton version, but it was considered too destructive to be useful (the bomber plane would not be able to escape the detonation). Big nukes were favored in the 60s because targeting was inaccurate and it was assumed that many planes in a fleet of bombers might be shot down en-route. So if only one plane made it, and the drop was off the target by some kilometers, a big bomb would insure that the mission was still successful. As targeting systems improved, the US and USSR moved toward smaller nuke designs. No Tsar Bombas were ever produced after the test unit.
• B53 nuclear bomb
• Atmospheric focusing - A concussive shockwave resulting from large explosions.
• Father of all bombs - Claimed by the Russians to be the most powerful conventional (non-nuclear) bomb.
• Spanish Inquisition
• Witch-hunt
• The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)
• Moral panic
• Rainbow party (sexuality)
• Witchcraft Act - (British) Someone was arrested under this as late as WWII.
• Helen Duncan - And this was her.
• Wicca
• The Crucible
• The Crucible (1996 film)
• Daniel Day-Lewis
• Nine (film)
• There Will Be Blood
• The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film)
• Oil!
• Upton Sinclair - That's right, he wrote The Jungle.
• DuPont - 2nd biggest chem co.
• BASF - Biggest chem co. German.
• Kevlar - The name is a DuPont trademark.
• Neoprene - Same.

Free Advice

Is the sun shining? Does everything seem to be coming up roses? Are you feeling chipper? Well slow down there buddy boy. Did you know the Federal Government recommends are least 16 hours of feeling like shit about yourself every day? It's true! There are plenty of great ways to get your daily dose of feeling like shit about yourself, but in my experience nothing does the job better than not going to the gym for four days. So the next time you need to feel like shit about yourself, consider not going to the gym for FOUR DAYS, and then let me know how it worked out for you. I'm here to help.

Ben Folds' new album is out. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW!

UPDATE: FIVE DAYS!!!

"Holy fucking shit." - William Shatspeare on that

What am I trying to prove?

I'm up at 7am. I do not have to pee. I did not have a bad dream. I do not have things to do. What exactly is going on? (Mem. am I infected with some mutant strain of rabies virus? Should see doctor about BRAAAAAAAINS! *cough*weeze*)


Those peepers are keepers. - Me on your eyes.

Father Cares

Listen

Like Taking Candy From a Baby

Or cytoplasm from a oviparous embryo.

Love Letter

Dear The Gym,

I love you. I know sometimes I pretend like I don't love you. Sometimes I neglect or ignore you. I just want you to know, no matter what else I say or do, I think you're the greatest and I love the shit out of you.

Your pal,

Scott

Wednesday

Just woke up today feeling GREAT. Had a nice big breakfast. Let's see where this day goes...

Business Proposal

I love apples, but I'm always running out. What I propose is some kind of Apple Making Machine that you could put in your home. It might be relatively large, so perhaps the back yard is a good spot to keep it. The machine would automatically replenish your supply of apples, creating several new units at given intervals. It would be solar powered, and we could even design it to absorb carbon dioxide so it's good for the environment. This is perhaps my most brilliant idea EVER! I'll get the patents, you get the funding.

I NEED BIGGER CAPS - Me

Chicken Dog

I am, right this moment, eating a breast of fried chicken in a hot dog bun with ketchup. Yes, I was left to my own devices for dinner tonight. I'm really hankering for some irradiated turkey!

You're perfect enough.

Mom's Original Irradiated Turkey

There was a shuttle launch yesterday and I didn't even know about it! STS-126 is, among other things, "carrying irradiated turkey, candied yams, stuffing and dessert for a special Thanksgiving meal at the [International Space] station." For some reason, whenever I find myself at some Wikipedia article on human space flight, I end up reading it aloud to no one in particular. Fun fact: did you know that only three people have ever died in outer space? Decompression is a real buzz kill.

Space is a whole bunch of pilgrims and no Indians! - Christopher Columbia, prior to his encounter with Chief Burning Foam

Too soon! - The Too-Soon Guy, prior to the point at which the above joke is tasteful.

Which Side Are You In?

They say art needs a frame. How much lovelier then is the sunny day when enjoyed through a window.

It's never too soon to be a good person.

By Which I Really Mean To Say...

Watch this. Please.

, Earthling

I was walking back from the gym tonight and a man passed me. Rather than say something like "hey," or "goodevening," or nothing at all because it's actually kind of weird to address strangers on the street if you're older than 5, he said "Greetings!" I love that man.

"The ethnics aren't going to cleanse themselves." -Choose Your Own Dictator

All Good Things...

• Have recently discovered that butter chicken is not an acceptable substitute for the gym. Now I know.
  
• Just finished my re-watch of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Just started LittleBigPlanet which was released today in New Zealand.
• Am also digging the Left4Dead demo. Zombies are actively attracted to live pipe bombs. Now I know.
  

You're either a perfectionist or you're lazy.

By Which I Mean To say

I am deeply disappointed in 52% of the California electorate. I spare no contempt for the ideologues on the 'Yes' side in whose shame I have no faith, but the larger segment of that majority I cannot hate: the ignorant. Their bigotry is inexcusable, but its cause is no capital offence. They have been persuaded from their morals by who knows what slick-talking charlatans. Their trust in whatever institution - religion, tradition, TV advertisements - has been exploited by the unscrupulous and those pious demons have shouted down their better angles. However they cannot be forgiven their disgraceful behaviour toward their fellow human beings. They will be an embarrassment to their children, if not to themselves.

No, Seriously

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fucker fucking fucktard fuckup fuckshit fuckfuckfuck fcuk fucklicking fucksucker fuckmeinmymom deepfuck fuckalicious William F. Fuckley (the 'F' is for "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!1!").

Can the Big One just take out 52% of California? Please? Like, right now?

I'm really at a loss. The towering idiocy of these moral lepers rains burning shit upon the land. Prop 8 glistens on the brow of the Golden State like some throbbing abscess, dribbling pus into the corner of America's eye. I can forgive Texas and Georgia and Arizona and, like, 40 other states for being morally retarded, milky-eyed cunts, but we're talking about California for fuck's sake. If this 52% of the electorate can see out from under their foreheads, maybe they can vote their way to a chopstick and do us all the tremendous favour of lobotomizing themselves through the eyeball.

These people's God, if he existed, ought to have taken greater care when aiming his cumshot. Jizzing all over the fertile face of the Earth has enfranchised every tailless sperm from his backwash semen. Maybe next time he should put his pud in the divine sock. Those holes in his hands have to be good for something.

Off

Well, I'm off to the gym.

Then I'm going to get gay-married in California. OH WAIT.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

Dear America

Dear America,
Hey, it's me, Scott. So listen, I have, like, a little favor to ask. You're probably going to do this anyway, but I thought I'd say something just in case. Please, like, elect Barack Obama. 'Cause I really like going to the gym. The gym is, like, an important part of my life and something that I just need to do. Like a habit, or something. You know? And if John McCain is elected president, I'll get really depressed and probably won't want to go to the gym for, like, two or three months. And then I'll get really out of shape, and I probably won't be eating well during that period of time either, so it'll be even worse. And then when I finally do go back to the gym, everything will be really hard 'cause I'll be weak and stuff. And then I'll be thinking, "man, if I'd only gone to the gym the past two or three months, I'd be fucking ripped by now. IF ONLY JOHN MCCAIN HADN'T WON THE PRESIDENCY!" So, like, if you could please, elect Barack. Because I really like going to the gym. OK? I'm sure you understand. Cool. Keep in touch.

Son of the Nation,
Scott Peterson

God Bless North America

In New Zealand, I am the one with the accent. This is a topic of conversation with about 60% of the people I meet. I had some trick-or-treat-ing kids the other night ask if I was American. Oddly enough, the large majority of adults guess Canadian. Perhaps they have offended one too many Canadians with a presumption of Yankee heritage. Americans on the other hand think nothing of being mistook for a Chinook. Kids appear less politic in their estimations.

The Moon's Lament

Little wet ones commit little wet deeds in my name and in my light and if I could frown my face at them, I would. They abuse me with poems and songs and I abuse them with tides. Still I am their Man and their Woman and their Night and their Love. These delicate little wet ones of mine: they think they have souls, but don't they know? Beauty is a lie and love is a symptom of death. We've known this forever, we the stars and the moons and the planets and the galaxies. We've spied across the eternal void and seen the truth of space and time: everything is alone. All stars know this.

Well, most of them do.

A senile sun sometimes falls for a brilliant neutron star haloed by rings in all the colors that don't have names. Or a crazy quasar finds fancy in the fires of some distant mist; a billion-billion stars beheld as one. And a confused comet is occasionally smitten by the glow of a constellation in whose lights shine the finest visage of Creation. Such old fools have dared to burn their light in Love. Such have swelled with their sick delusions, and such have shone with the nova of their foolish devotions. They all now feed their singularities on black space. Any sane celestial body knows: everything is alone.

I've chased around the heavens of my world forever and I will forever renew my circuit with a winking eye to the little ones. I wink to let them know, "You are alone." I wink to let them know, "Look elsewhere for you gods." There's nothing up here but sensible spheres and a few crazy stars.

- Earth's Only Moon

More Prematurities

I am bald. Again. Had to get two haircuts: the first lady couldn't bic it. Even the second guy didn't use a razor, so I've got stubble. Should have hit a barber shop. I may razor it myself (with help, I imagine). Was going to do an Uncle Fester costume, but the party tonight is no-costume. I KNOW! Also got a cool new hat to keep my baldness warm. Summer is a little chill thus far. I miss New York.

Passive aggressive people can go fuck themselves.

Running Out

The hot water in the shower always runs out just as I'm about to come. VERY ANNOYING!

Worth

There are two things I want to cover. The first is an inspiring sentiment. The second is an angry rant. I'm concerned that the warm fuzzies are going to drain my bile, so I've drawn up an outline to keep me on track:

Outline

1. Nice stuff.
2. Shit talk.

The Nice Stuff

I think of myself as a romantic. Some who know me may find this counterintuitive, but love has guided much of my life. I value those I love more highly than anything. I was just having a conversation with my sister who asked if love made my life worth living.

This seems to be the prevailing opinion of life and love in our culture: that the former's worth is contingent upon the latter - or that such is the ideal relationship between the two. True love awards true worth to one's life. This philosophy finds employment at ever level of art and common talk. Our role models on the subject kill themselves to escape loneliness (and their reunion, a Shakespearean audience must have believed, was in Hell). It seems to be the final verdict of Culture that love is the scale on which life is weighed.

Fuck. That. Shit.

It is life which gives value to love, not the other way around. I have much love in my life, and that love enriches me, but it does not define my worth as a person. Just the opposite: it is the people - me, my friends, my family - who give worth to the love we share. My connections with my friends are special because my friends are special. They are worthy. To suppose that my loving them is a gift of worth to their person is insulting. That is not love - that is pity. I do not pity my friends for being my friends; I love them for it. And it is their exceptional value which gives that love its worth.

The Shit Talk

I am fucking tired of apologizing for agreeing with Ayn Rand. I don't agree with everything she says. There are things about her and her fiction I can barely stand. I'm not an Objectivist. But I think she's right about a lot of stuff and it pisses me off that I have to preface any reference I make to her or her ideas with some kind of apology. Like the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sentences of this paragraphs. Why did I write those? Why did I feel like I had to qualify my support for her ideas? Why do I feel like people are going to shit all over me for being a selfish prick if I mention the woman? Maybe because they would. I was at a presentation recently on ethics where it was taken for granted that self-sacrifice is the unquestionable pinnacle of ethical behavior. I didn't say anything but I wanted to scream. Ug.

Anyway, that's the sentiment and the rant. If I one day find myself a Marxist, then this post should provide a good chuckle. Until then, take me DEAD SERIOUSLY.

My hubris is designed to enhance the irony of my downfall.

Things I Fucking Love, Vol. 7

The Daily Show.

Fuck all y'all

Oh, K!

Sam's mom brought me back some American Special-K from The States. I am elated. Special-K is my favorite cerial and the New Zealand variety is subtly different. Sam's dad also saved us some Krispy Kremes from his trip to Oz. They obviously weren't straight out of the river of boiling fat, but what can you do?

Premature

I have recently noticed a larger percentage of white hairs on my scrotum as compared to the rest of my body. I suppose that is preferable to other genital prematurities.

Such and Such

It was Sam's birthday yesterday. We went to New Zealand's largest theme park which doubles as New Zealand's only theme park. 'Rinky-dink' is the adjective that first comes to mind.

Following a recipie from Robert Love's excellent food blog, I made dinner tonight. I only remembered to grab the camera after most of it was eaten. I'll photograph some post-digestion shots, if you'd like.

Dear 2012

On the first week of middle school I was instructed to write a letter describing myself, my goals, and anything else I thought pertinant or interesting. This letters was taken, held for three years, and returned to me on the last week of middle school. 

I've been meaning to write another such Dear The Future letter for some time (especially given my fixation with future me). The wonders of Google Docs and Google Calendar alerts make this sort of thing pretty easy. I've addressed myself a personal note to be read again on 16 September, 2012. Four years seems to be the unit of major life development these days. Now I just need a way to write back.

How many stereotypes am I holding up?

Camel. In a good way.

Many of my friends have different people-mapping schemes. They map a human person to some other noun in a given category. Several of my friends, for example, are "really good" at picking people's Disney character. I myself make a habit of pairing people and literary figures. I find these mapping schemes very interesting. I think it would be fun to group people in a workplace or prison or something by, like, what Beatles album they are. As according to Mr. "Really Good" At Picking People's Beatles Album. Or something. Anyway, today I was picked for a camel by someone with a gift for picking people's animal. It's in the eyes, I'm told. Large, with long lashes. Also of interest to me is the relationship between a person's scheme and the frequency with which it accompanies the phrase, "In a good way."

Wikipedia observation of the day: US currency features dead white men. The Euro features architecture.

Like a fox!

I eat copious amounts of eggs. They are easy to prepare and they come in $7 packs of 36. Over easy, scrambled, hard boiled, and as part of my famous 3-egg ham & cheese omelet. Eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They are delicious, nutritious, and an indication that I need to broaden my culinary skills.

"Well you know what they say. If you want to make a hobo omelet, you've got to kill some hobos." - Donald Rumsfield on his new pastime of killing hobos.

Muse Ick

• We're doing a lot of work with sound these days. It offers the opportunity to enjoy some very high-end audio equipment.
  
• I usually listen to music whenever I'm at my computer. I'm at my computer a lot.
• Sam has a Rhapsody account which I'm using more often than he. Despite having a world of music at my fingertips, I fall into my old habit of listening to the same few songs on repeat.
• My song de jour is "Return" by OK Go, followed by "Hello My Treacherous Friends" from the same album. I'm also enjoying some Wynton Marsalis. At the moment, I'm listening to Natalie Cole.
• We're thinking of creating a home music server product. I'm working on some code now.
• I think sound is often more emotionally powerful than imagery because vision is elective and hearing is not. We are constantly choosing where to look (consciously or otherwise). Vision is strongly tied to attention, which is strongly tied to the intellect. We do not have the same granular control over hearing: we hear things whether we want to or not. Emotions work much the same way: we feel them whether we want to or not. That's why I think music is so emotionally effective.

When I'm not looking at you, I'm looking at you.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Me

I just ate two large pizzas at a cost of $27, if that gives you some idea of my day.

I will love you forever. Or until you cease to be thin, young and pretty. Whichever comes first.

Not What You Were Expecting

Three months and no blog. I'm not apologizing. That's vulgar.

Yes I am alive. Yes I am in New Zealand. Yes I was offered the position of John McCain's running mate. Yes, that last thing was a lie. At least I came clean. No apologies.

If you were expecting my first blog post in almost three months from two hemispheres away to detail the annals of my escapades abroad or expound upon my post-collegial gettings on, you are sorely mistaken. No, this most historic of entries concerns a matter of paramount importance: Star Trek.

The Next Generation, to be more specific. I have been operating for the past 10+ years under the assumption that I had seen every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. All 7 seasons, each of the 179 weekly adventures. This has been one a core component of my biography.

Before I recount yesterday's rude awakening, let me outline the workings of syndicated television in the late 1990's for the benefit of future readerships. In the nineties, television was available only on an actual TV set and only at set times of day. There was no streaming or on-demand content, nor were there DVD box sets. Believe it or not, people would actually schedule their time to catch a given program on TV. How humanity survived this phase of its evolution is truly mystifying; it was an undignified and ugly way to live and those days are well put behind us.

From 1996 through 2000, the local Minnesota FOX affiliate broadcast syndicated re-run episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation every weeknight. By this time I was already a confirmed Trekkie (remind me to tell you the story) and respectably well acquainted with the adventures of Picard and Co., but I wanted full bragging rights. I undertook to tune in each night and catch the latest installment. If I missed a night, it would be another 9 months before that episode aired again (5 episodes a week, 179 episodes). To aid in my trek, I turned to the Internet. No, not to download a 70 gig torrent of the whole show, but to print off an episode list. I took my pen to that list each night, crossing off another of the Enterprise's missions.

I specifically remember the last episode to get the red line. Pen Pals. Episode 215 (season 2, episode 15). Data befriends a little alien girl. I missed this sucker on two consecutive cycles of the re-broadcast. In the end, I made a special trip to Hollywood Video which carried some TNG cassettes (another unmentionably arcane technology). I took the tape down to the basement with my blanket and juice and emerged 40 minutes later a mature Trekkie butterfly.

OR SO I THOUGH!

Flash forward to a few months ago. Senior year of college is ending, my life is about to undergo a major transformation, and I get an acute bought of nostalgia. You know how these things happen. You're on University fiber, you come across a 70 gig torrent of the entire 7 seasons of The Next Generation, one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you're getting low disk space warnings.

My sister and I tucked into the show while I was still States-side, but we didn't get past the second episode before she had to ship off, so they've been sitting on my HDD for about three months. Until now.

Things were going well. An episode a night. Sometimes two. Weekend marathons. Then season 1, episode 10. Hide And Q. Commander Riker is given omnipotence by Q. The plot progresses and no bells ring. No quotes come to mind. Nothing is familiar. THIS IS AN EPISODE I HAVE NOT SEEN. My list was in error. My life was a lie. My whole world has fallen apart. And it was a really good episode.

So the moral of the story is, broadcast television was an evil, imperfect thing of which we are well rid.

I will have a proper update soon. I promise.

End transmission.

The Happening Didn't

Brit and mom and I went to go see The Happening. The only good part of the movie was when the name Ivan Dumas appeared in the end credits and Brittany and I simultaneously pointed and yelled "Ivan Dumbass!" I laughed harder than I have in months.

I've gotten into Six Feet Under and am on the second season now. All of the acting is SO GOOD. Have also been reading a little and going to the gym a lot. Brit joined mum and pops and me on The Boat yesterday. It was good old fashion Fun Times, plus sunburn. Did I mention that my dad bought a 32 foot boat last year? Ah, to be retired.

This is my last night home. I leave tomorrow at 3 for Seattle. THIS IS MY EXCITED FACE.

P.S. Happy Father's Day!

Growing old just takes practice.

Do You Have Stairs In Your House?

My grandmother is affectionately known by her beloved spawn as "The Pusher," so styled for her propensity to push food on you day and night and when it's overcast and darling why don't you have a fruit bowl and surely some dessert and I got those Goldfish just for you! If you don't keep a close eye on her, she'll just start making you more food, will you nill you. I have always more or less fit the stereotype that boys are bottomless pits when it comes to food and have never minded that being said of me or saying that of myself. I tell you today friends, I mind it. It has become, in my Ah-Mom's presence, not only tiresome, but borderline offensive. I dare not compare presuppositions on my appetite to the racist, sexist, and other categorical opinions held against groups of people, but I am, for the first time, finding judgments made against my sex and age, and finding them none too shiny. I don't want a damned piece of pie. I just had a fucking huge dinner and I'm god damned full! I don't want to hear about how a boy like me is aaaaalways hungry! I'll tell you when I'm fucking hungry. And I can feed myself for christ's sake!

I got sunburned today. It reminds me of the speech tournament in Salt Lake City where I was irradiated from head to toe and then had to walk all over town in a wool suit. Each step was like a fresh pot of scalding coffee in the lap. And the shoulders. And the back, arms, legs, stomach, and neck. And when I smiled, the face.

OMFG TEH HTMLZ!!1!

BOLD
ITALICS
BOLD AND ITALICS!!!

The Latest, and so forth

Posting has been sparse. Sue me. What have I been up to? Well, I *did* mention I am gradumatated, didn't I? I've been putting around home for a month or so, reading and watching various media.

Right now mom and I are visiting her mother in Charlotte (my favorite aunt, Linda, just walked in and we're about to head to the Olive Garden) for a family-related thingy thing.

I read Chuck Palahniuk's new "Snuff" today. I didn't care for it as well as "Rant". I'm leaving for Seattle on the 16th. We're in Seattle until the 20th, then we fly to New York, then train to Boston on the 24th, then fly to LA on the 27th, and then it's around the world. I am so freaking excited. THIS IS MY EXCITED FACE!

I'm writing this from the cool new Blogger Google gadget, so I may do more postings soon.

P.S., Yes, I know book titles should be italicized, no put in quotes, but the gadget is somewhat lacking in formatting features. SUE ME TWICE!

P.P.S., And I'd have liked to boldify that last bit, but ya know, WHAT CAN YOU DO?!