Knowing Exactly What to Say

You know those moments where you think back and say, "I should've said...?" I could've had one of those, but not today.

Today, in an email to the Wife, I had the perfect opportunity to appropriately use this quote:

I'm trying to run an office. Now, will you go to lunch? Go to lunch! Will you go to lunch?

Now, I just have to find someone (other than the Wife) to say, "Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it, 'cause you are going OUT!"

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

What Disney Ride Are You? The Haunted Mansion You're probably dead...at least on the inside. You're the Haunted Mansion!!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

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You Know It's True

From Discovery Channel News...

Serious Study: Immaturity Levels Rising
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

June 23, 2006 —The adage "like a kid at heart" may be truer than we think, since new research is showing that grown-ups are more immature than ever.

Specifically, it seems a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth.

As a consequence, many older people simply never achieve mental adulthood, according to a leading expert on evolutionary psychiatry.

Among scientists, the phenomenon is called psychological neoteny.

I read this and thought, "Yeah right." But then in my mind I went through a list of folks between the ages of 21 to 25 that I know or know of. I actually see a marked difference between those young adults who have left school (or maybe never finished) and got a job, especially a job people might call "demeaning" nowadays and those who've continued on with school ad nauseum or who still have one foot in some sort of psychological safety net (grad school, internships, and the like).

That isn't to say that one level is necessarily better than another--each has its own pros and cons. But, I've seen the difference.

I also know that there was a time where I would've loved to have stayed in grad school for the rest of my life...

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No They Di'int!

Aw, hell no...



From here.

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Inbox Makeover

Well, email's not quite a home, but I gave my main inbox a makeover, deleted a bunch of folders, eliminated 2/3 of my filters, and junked over 1,000 old messages with information I acted on, couldn't file, or that I had no further use for whatsoever. It was about 90 minutes of work spread out over a day, and that's only because I was such a packrat. Now, it's all streamlined.

Of course, part of the streamlining process meant deactivating the forwarding of the blog's email account (incidentally, the same addy I use for message boards and stuff) to my main email. So, if I'm a little slow(er) to respond to comments and such, I apologize now. But don't fret. I'm experimenting with gmail's POP access, so I'll be checking that account (along with my RSS feeds) on a regular basis.

Anyway, check out the article. Keep yourself sorted and sane.

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Music Agenda

For this past week, yet more soulful white boys...

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

Depending on whether you're a glass-half-full or half-empty kind of person, this is either 5 days late or 2 days early. Either way, from B...

1. name: See the end of the post
2. birthday: See the blog address
3. place of residence: Near the ivory towers atop a cloud-covered academic Olympus, out of touch from the sort of "salt of the earth" folks (read: Jeff Foxworthy's core audience) we used to live around. B knows what I'm talking about.
4. what makes you happy: My wife, bladed weapons, writing, music, regenerative solitude, Chinese chicken wings, breaded buffalo wings, bacon, eggs & rice for breakfast, mom's lumpia and her spaghetti sauce, my trumpet, and my laptop.
5. what are you listening to now/have listened to last: I haven't gotten to that post yet. I will, soon.
6. do you read my lj: B has an LJ...?
7. if you do, what is particularly good/bad about it: Wait...B doesn't have an LJ...?
8. an interesting fact about you: I can sing along with the horn parts of every Chicago song, from 1969 to today.
9. are you in love/have a crush at the moment: If I wasn't, I wouldn't be married.
10. favorite place to be: Donkey Coffee in Athens. A couple of I-town coffee shops come close, but no cigar...
11. favorite lyric: ...but there ain't no Coup De Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box (Meatloaf's "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad")
12. best time of the year: The fall
13. Do you remember when we met? Yes...both of us being extra polite to the other one rather than potentially piss off someone who could've been, for all we knew at the time, a second-generation Kali Illustrisimo player.
14. Have I been a good friend to you? No one else has ever given me a two-handed machete!
15. Tell me something you've never told me before. No :)

PLUS
1. one thing you like about me: You kept working with me, despite your previous experiences with having been "raped for your art."
2. two things you like about yourself: I'm still 25 pounds lighter than I was 5 years ago and my life motto, "If I can learn kung-fu, I can learn __________."
3. put this in your lj so i can tell you what i think of you. Or your Blogger blog, your MySpace, whatsoever...and make sure you tell me about it if you don't have an RSS feed.
4. post a picture of you (if possible). No, it's impossible...so impossible, I signed up for a Flickr account (see the sidebar) :).

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Ketchup

This time, this one time, I've got no real excuse for not having blogged for over a week, other than to say I've just been too lazy between the things I've had to do. That's all--nothing personal.

So, where to begin...

1
Last week, I started a class in Vinyasa Yoga. It turns out one of the folks I work with is a relatively well-known local instructor, not just in yoga, but kung-fu, qigong, and tai chi--the same style of tai chi, in fact, studied by Ms. Bizarro back when we lived in A-Town. She actually emailed him first about six months before I started working at my present job. Ithaca really is a small town.

I finally decided to start after finally trusting my body and listening to what I believe it's been telling me I've been needing, which are (a) a series of serious exercises that I can do myself in a confined space and (b) a sort of psychic change of pace from the study of bone-breaking, weapon-oriented, southeast Asian arts. (Not that I've given up on those entirely--I've still got the name and number of a local FMA/WMA instructor!)

2
Ms. Bizarro just had a Mac Attack--that is, one of the brand new Intel-powered MacBooks! Congratulate her; she's just joined the 21st century! It's a sweet machine. This two-year old beast of mine is definitely old and busted compared to what she's got. But, she deserves it--she's spent the better part of the last three years dealing with hand-me-down or work computers without any tool of her own to make her writing dreams come true. Now she's got it.

3
As if I don't have enough damn books, I managed to score Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 for free from a friend who's moving. And, needless to say, the minute I came across a cheap second-hand copy of his collection Slow Learner, I grabbed it!

The mysterious Mr. Pynchon is, of course, a graduate of the Big Red school on the hill.



4
I've been feeling less and less badly about shopping at second hand bookstores and even the two big-boxes because there was almost nowhere else since the Bookery II closed down a few months ago.

Well, a few weeks ago, the store reopened under new management with only some slight changes. I haven't talked to anyone yet who isn't jumping for joy that it's back. I shared this with one of the staff members who said that she'd been hearing the same thing, and that she tells all those people, "If you want to show your appreciation, buy a book!"

That's not to say that I'll give up sitting in the Borders cafe, observing and making note of my fellow customers' behavior.

5
Lastly, a choice to make. Which do I buy first? This or this?

B or Steve-O--thoughts?

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Memoir of a Martial Arts Master

This is for B, Steveo, and all of my friends and fellow-students of the martial arts. Not since Tao of Jeet Kune Do has there been so much martial wisdom in one place. Behold...

Still Kicking: The Very Authorized Biography of Steven Segal, Volume II, Pgs. 567-568
by Jared Bloom

from McSweeney's

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Riveted

I know I've got more important things to post about, but I just had to take the time to say that I'm glad I caught the Men's Final of the French Open just moments ago (I had completely forgotten about it--it's that time of the year) between Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal.

I won't spoil it because of time differences, and what not, but I will say that whatever happens, the end of the fourth set was utterly stupefying!

Back in a mo' with some of the other things I've been meaning to talk about.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

You all thought I forgot, didn't you?

You scored as Anything-Goes Goth. You are very open minded. You may or may not be devoted to your "Gothickry," but you aren't anal about it either way, and you are willing to explore the various niches of the gothic subculture. Anything-Goes Goth 63% Understanding Outsider 63% Cyber-goth 63% Fantasy Goth 58% Old-school Goth 46% Ethereal Goth 46% Romantic Goth 42% Death Rocker 38% Confused Outsider 38% Perky Goff 29% Industrial/Rivet-Head 29% What subcategory of Goth best fits you? created with QuizFarm.com

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Reading Is Fundamental

Local library + Local used-book stores + Steady paycheck = Less time I have to spend on teh Intarwub.

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Music Agenda

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Apparently, the place that provided the music listing has changed its domain name. It's all good, though.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

Man, Thursday already? I've lost less time during my college drinking binges. In any case, as much as I btich about traveling, there was one good thing about this past weekend away--the food. Once in awhile, it really is nice having friends for dinner...

You scored as Hannibal Lecter. You are Hannibal Lecter. You dont need to eat human flesh to live, but do so because it just taste good. You are very intelligent, and enjoy using it to your advantage to keep people guessing. You arent a killing machine, but when you do decide to let loose, watch out! Dinner is served, with some fava beans, and a nice chianti! Hannibal Lecter 85% Pinhead 80% Michael Myers 75% Jigsaw 60% Captain Spaulding 60% Leatherface 50% Freddy Krueger 45% Jason Voorhees 35% Candyman 35% Buffalo Bill 35% Which Horror Killer are You? created with QuizFarm.com

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Random Btichings

1
For the rest of the summer, the Twenty Minute Travel Rule is in effect. Anything non-business related that requires me to do more than twenty minutes of driving one way isn't anything I'm going to feel like doing. If no one's bleeding from the eyeballs or in imminent danger of shuffling off from this mortal coil, they can use my email address.

2
On the good side, I got the best rejection letter a writer could get...

I think it's a great story, just not a good fit for [redacted]. Do you have some other work you could submit? I would love to see if maybe another story of yours would be a better fit.

Needless to say, I sent something else off as soon as I got the email. We'll see how that goes.

3
Well, there may be a single exception to the Twenty Minute Travel Rule--but in all honesty, I've got siht to do. Like the Good Book says, there's a season for everything. I'm thinking this is the season for me to reach the next plateau.

4
The next choice to make on my plate is whether or not to seek out the pricey, out-of-the-way local FMA/WMA instructor, or to use a brand new hookup I have to start taking yoga in my neighborhood?

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Our Weekly Features

...are taking the holiday weekend off to spend exhorbitant amounts of time and (gas) money getting the heck out of Dodge for the weekend. It's also graduation weekend for the Big Red School on the Hill, and the word we've received is, "You don't wanna be in town if you can help it."

We'll be out of town, but I reserve the right to hijack some net.access at any point, and btich and moan about how I hate travel.

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Music Agenda

Doing a bit of the prog rock thing this week. Well, Toto doesn't quite count, at least not everything in that compilation. But, some of it fits. What the hell, they're all monsters.

Oh, and you know you're old when you overhear a conversation between some obvious "cool kids" where one says to the other, "His screen name has something to do with, like, 'Rael, Imperial Aero...aerosol or something...I'm like, what the hell, what does that mean?'"

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

The Wife will tell you, I've often wished I had crazy telekinetic powers.

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Would it Be?

If your life was a movie, it would be the horror flick Carrie, about a lonely teenage girl with psychic powers who murders her classmates after one too many practical jokes. You're probably depressed and lonely, with a very dark perspective on the world.
Take this quiz!






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Yeah, I wish a motherf---er would pour pig's blood on me...

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Flashback

(I originally posted this in a slightly different form on the RiceBowlJournals Community Blog.)

Here's a question that occurred to me, oddly enough, while I was looking through some old digital photos I’ve taken.

Will the USA never learn?

Who am I fooling, of course not. I’m just constantly amazed how everything old always seems to end up being "new again." Case in point: I’m going to quote a dissent about American foreign policy in regard to a certain country, redacting certain bits.

There is the case of __________¹. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it — perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the __________² — but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector — not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from __________³ tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the __________⁴, a government according to __________⁵ ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now — why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.

Think you know exactly who's being discussed? (Guess, then highlight the box.)

The redacted terms, in order, are:

1. The Philippines
2. the natives of those islands
3. Spanish
4. Filipinos
5. Filipino

This passage is a quote from Mark Twain talking about American intervention in the Philippines in 1900.

Hm, fighting the natives, "mess," "quagmire," the difficulty of getting out--seems to ring a bell, doesn't it? More than one, really.

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Music Agenda

This week: sounds that were, in their time, considered somewhat experimental.

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

"But, Chicago's such a psusy band!" you say. If you can still say that after hearing the albums above, then fine. Until then, you can kiss my kukrhi :).

Bitches Brew - Miles backed up my musicians, any one of whom could and did headline their own bands. They all had the egos to match; only Miles' ego could keep theirs in line.

Chick and Stan - those albums marked the beginnings of real testosterone-filled jazz fusion.

Loosen Up Naturally is the first album by the Sons of Champlin. The arrangements were first class, even back then. Supposedly, everyone in the Bay Area music scene, Airplane and the Dead included, thought the Sons were better than them. Personally though, I'm still unsure about it. I'd pay out the nose to watch the Sons play any of the tunes on this album live, nowadays. But, in the late '60s, I would've thought the sound of Airplane trying to be an R&B band a bit too disconcerting.

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