How to Save Lots of Money

Donald Blowhard has a post up soliciting money-saving advice. I intended to put this in the comments, but it ballooned so much I thought I'd save them the space. (They pay for their service, I don't.)

For the record, I have done all of these, so I know they work.

We had to tighten our belts during the first Bush depression, so here's what we did, and it saved hundreds a month:

- Go down to basic cable. If you live where you can get TV over the air, get one of those new digital antennas. TV can be free or close to it. If you like those HBO or Showtime series, see the next bullet.
- Use the library as your source of movies, music, and books. You have to have a little patience, but you eventually get to read, see and hear what you'd like. A lot of libraries now have a netflix-like list where you can put holds on things you want. Only buy the "I will listen/read/watch this over 4 times" items. And even then, buy them used or on sale. (And for aspiring writers who are worried about income, libraries buy books.)
- Check your phone bill. There's a lot of fat on there.
- If you have kids, introduce them to the classics. Most libraries have Star Trek, Bewitched, M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, and even Gilligan's Island on DVD. You, yourself, will be surprised at how good they still are. Your kids will now have a new cultural touchstone (besides all things Disney) and will get the jokes of their older co-workers when they go to work.
- Oh, and a lot of networks are now streaming whole TV shows online.
- Share. Movies, books, music, videotapes, etc. Most folks have gotten out of this habit because we've all encountered the twit who returned our Barry Manilow Live CD scratched beyond repair. Just note the abusers and don't share with them. Most folks are conscientious.
- On that same note, start up a book/DVD/whatever swap at work (for things you can give away). The rule is take a book, leave a book. Or DVD. Or tape. Etc.
- If you are having anything delivered, stop it. Even if it was a deal at first, do the math and compare to the grocery store.
- If you get a newspaper delivered, call them and ask for a better deal. They always have them ready for folks like you.
- Call your credit card and ask for a better rate. Half the time, you'll get one. (Of course, don't use credit cards at all if you can. But these days, that's like saying "don't drive.")
- Use the dry cleaner for dry clean things only. Don't buy dry clean things in the first place. (We always have done this, but some of our friends didn't. They were shocked at the savings. Btw, half our culdesac lost their jobs in the first Bush bust.)
- Generics/store brands. You prolly know this, but most store brands are made by the exact same folks who make the branded stuff on the shelf right next to them. Frinstance, at my store, there's the store brand of canned dinner rolls for 59 cents right next to the Pillsbury version which is $1.49. (When you consider flour, yeast, and effort, 59 cents is cheaper than you can make them from scratch.) Our generic soda pop is made by RC cola, for another example. The one generic thing I've discovered that's never quite right is - of all things - corn chips. Buy the brand you like for those.
- Potatoes and rice are great meal fillers. Try Basmati rice; it's awesome. Potatoes are so malleable, you literally could not make every potato dish there is inside of a year if you tried. And, it worked for the Irish.
- A crock pot can save or upgrade nearly any piece of meat.
- There's another wonder pot out there, too. Check out Ebert's complete guide. If you've never had rice prepared in a vessel that's designed to cook it, prepare to be amazed. Btw, this pot cooks everything, not just rice.
- Got veggies in the crisper that are near their stale date, or some meat that's still OK, but won't be in a couple days? It's time to make soup! When we bake a chicken, we save all the pan drippings as stock. If you haven't done that, two bullion cubes, or one can of store-bought stock will do. (But don't skip the stock, it makes or breaks soup.) You take two carrots, two stalks of celery, half a cabbage (or a whole small one), onion (to taste) and sauté them in virgin olive oil (or butter, or mixture of the two), and throw them in the stock. Add 2 tbls. salt (or less, if you're one of those - but at least 1 tbls.), a pinch of thyme, a bay leaf, and from there add whatever else you like: chicken, pork, corn, tomatoes, etc. Be cautious with beef, though. Sometimes you've got to do a beef stock instead, particularly if the beef was cooked for another meal. 1 heaping teaspoon of beef "Better than Bullion" will do the trick (instead of chicken stock). Also, avoid putting in rice unless you know how; it can just blitzkrieg a soup. Bring to a boil for a good 20 minutes, then reduce to simmer, and simmer 2 to 4 hours. Freeze leftovers in lunch-sized containers.
- Other way cheap meals you've forgotten about: tuna casserole, meatloaf, and spaghetti with meatballs (hamburger, basil, oregano, a couple crackers, roll into balls and fry; then drop into sauce).
- Accelerate gently, leadfoot. (I still fail at this one, but am working on it.)
- And never buy a new car. Ever. That's the ONE place where trickle-down works. Let the wealthy status hogs lower the price of a car for you.
- If you're gonna do fast food, go with the dollar menu. Hint, anything you add outside of condiments, they're gonna charge you for, so only subtract (no pickles!), don't add cheese and such. We were able to literally halve our outlay on fast food. (And be honest, who doesn't get it at least once a week?)
- If any meat is 1/2 off or BOGO, binge and freeze. (But, freeze it correctly. The extra pennies on freezer storage stuff will pay itself back.)
- Compare "organic" to the other produce. Sometimes one is cheaper than the other, and unless you've got some sort of chemical sensitivity, there really isn't much difference in taste and quality, save for the tomatoes.
- Rethink what you typically order at restaurants, or for home delivery. Look over the menu for the ala carte stuff and the appetizers. Often, when you get a "meal" you're only getting a scoop of rice or a limp veggie for the bump. If you ala carte it, or get an appetizer and share, you can cut a few bucks. (And, of course, the caveat is don't go out to eat so much.)
- If you do go out to eat, avoid the chains like Chilis, Applebees, Fridays, Black-eyed Pea, etc. Really have a look at what they're charging you $12 a plate for. Usually local mom and pop eateries are better deals. With better food.
- Split entrees. Those $12 plates are usually more than you should eat, anyway. Who cares if the waiter/waitress sneers at you? They're only thinking of their tip, and they'll have a different job in a year or so anyway. You're merely helping them along on their journey.
- If you have kids, go to consignment/second-hand stores. That's another amount you'll half. (Wash them well, first, of course.)
- Also, if you have kids, unless you're afraid of being called a commie or socialist, if you have friends and neighbors with kids, arrange trades with them when junior outgrows a set of clothes. You may not always like their taste, but more often than not you'll get stuff that's fine. Make sure you give back what you don't use. Don't bother with any reasons "why" when you give them back, just say (sincerely), "Thanks." Any "reasons", like "They don't fit", will immediately smell like BS. Even if they ask things like, "Oh, are they OK?" (or anything that indicates they're prepping to be insulted), just pipe, "Of course not! And thanks again!"
- Buy clothes off-season. When winter hits, go check the leftover shorts and swimsuits. (Or fall wear, depending on the store's lag time.) That's why you have drawers and closets.
- Though it's the only way they make money, don't buy popcorn, candy or a drink at the movie theatre. Sneak it in if you have to have something. During winter, you can get 4 beers in your jacket sleeves. (Cans, folks. If you shred your forearms and leak beer, glass and blood all over the theatre floor, you'll just be part of someone's Christmas stories.)
- Turn lights off. 3/4 of the houses around us look like they're signaling the mother ship every night. Conversely, we've had neighbors wonder if we're ever home at night, because we only have on one or two lights at any given time, and always in the room we're in.
- Hunt for household energy vampires and pull the plug (or flip the switch if they truly turn off). Yes, those few seconds of warm-up time are lost forever, but it may mean $10 to $20 more a month.
- DON'T live with a house temperature you don't like. Life is too short. If you like the house at 70 degrees, please, do so. The money you save for living at 68 degrees doesn't not begin to equate with the discomfort you'll have every day.
- However, if everyone is gone during the day, have one of those programmable thermostats installed. ($100 - $200 last I checked.) Dropping the house to 65 degrees from 9 to 4 can really save a dime or two. (And even midnight to 4 am, if you don't mind a cold house whilst you're asleep.)
- Shower/bathe every other day. Yes, like most, you'll still have to wash your hair, but that's a lot less water and heat than a whole cleanse. You won't be stinky, I promise. And it's better for your skin. Keep in mind that back during WWII, it was typical for folks to bathe once a week. (Colorado sells most of its water to California, so Coloradoans pay for water like it was bottled water. Our monthly water bill is never less than $100. This trick alone saved a Benjamin.)
- If you have an indulgence you don't want to live without, just budget for it. You find room to pay for a phone and such. You'll find room for your morning latte. The trick is to give up something else that's not all that much to you anymore. Say the bran muffin. Oatmeal is better for you anyway.
- When you encounter a deal on something (nonperishable) you WILL use, but have enough for the moment, buy anyway. I'm always burning CDs of music, so when I find a stack of 100 for $12, I snag it.
- Don't pay for software. Once you have the box, you can now literally get ALL the software you might need for free. If you don't want to venture into Linux (and I don't recommend it for the easily frustrated, and those who don't have a buddy to help), most boxes come with the OS anyway. So, search for what you need. Open Office really is as good as MS Office anymore. The only software that you might have to pop for is CD/DVD burning software (Nero is the best), but only if it didn't come with the PC in the first place. Most freeware burners make too many Christmas ornaments (failed burns) to make them worth it.

Any other caveats and thoughts are welcome.

_________
Update: The Opinionated Homeschooler has offered some more great tips (and some adjustments to mine). The only one that wouldn't work for me is "not driving." Our city is NOT laid out for cyclists even a little bit. Someone from LA must've designed our city, methinks.

Why the Mormons had a woody for prop 8.

(Apparently Lucy has some 'splainin to do.)

Everyone's wondering what the Mormon church was up to when it got members to pony up huge wads of holy cash to get prop. 8 approved in CA, which bans gay marriage.

I think it's pretty obvious, myself. It's about polygamy.

The mainstream Mormon church does not allow polygamy, but most of the splinter Mormon sects do. Mormons want more than anything to be perceived as just another Christian denomination, even though their actual theology has more in common with Scientology and Islam than it does with historical, mainline Christianity (as does their origin).

The splinter Mormons who do practice polygamy (illegally) have been waiting for gay marriage to become widely legal so they could then begin the drive to make polygamy legal. The mainline Mormons know this, and fear that if the splinters made polygamy legal, then everyone would assume that all Mormons would practice polygamy, therefore endangering their desired perception of being just another Christian denomination.

Now, they also consider homosexuality to be a sin, but it's not enough of an issue to them where it would've resulted in all the monies and effort that went into getting prop. 8 passed. (They think anyone not Mormon is going to hell anyway, particularly gays.) It's just not that important.

But, public perception is. So they didn't care if they took a national hit on being "bigoted" since it aligns with their view of homosexuality anyway. However, they don't want to look odd and be "those folks who have a bunch of teen-age brides lined up." That would cause a direct hit on their missionary work, possibly their jobs and their pocket books if they were viewed to be as loony or dangerous like Scientologists or Islamic Extremists (who also practice polygamy outside of the US). (And of course we must genuflect here to the atheist fundies who consider ANYONE religious to be loony and dangerous. Yes. We know. Leave the comments alone. Go hang with your buddies on Digg.)


Btw, the Mormons may have broken the law related to the tax exempt status of churches where they are not supposed to use the pulpit as a political soapbox, but I don't know if they crossed that line or not.

And now ... a cat playing a Theremin

And, dammit, the man just looks cool...

:)

Election Day Funnies

Finally, here we are.

Whatever happens, we can at last escape from those cursed political commercials with the worried-voice narrators. Is it me, or does it seem there are approximately only 3 voice-over talents used for all political commercials. Those three folks must make enough money during election years to coast for the remaining three.

Anyway, this made me laugh. Hard. (I'm still chuckling as I type this.)


In retrospect, the one element of the election that really left me wondering about my fellow man is how many folks bought the whole "socialism" charge of the McCain campaign.

Do that many people really not know what socialism actually is? Do any of the dolts who bought the McCain newspeak definition of "socialist" (or its phrase-cousin "redistribution of wealth") realize that it also applies to the way our entire police force and military are funded? And do any of these folks have any idea that their beloved "trickle-down" economics (assuming, here) fits the bill, too?

That little oddity left me awash with the same kind of weltschmerz that reading any comment thread on a Digg post that deals with religion or atheism does.

Goodnight Moon

... and Opus. And hopefully, Bush (no third term!).

But, first, about Goodnight Moon.

Back when I worked at a bookstore, after I had adapted as much as I could to working in a mall and existing under a daily blazing bath of fluorescent lights, I started paying attention to what people bought outside of the current bestsellers. Then, during down time, I would peruse them.

TLD:One of the great finds I made this way was the best cookbook EVER. I noticed who bought the most cookbooks, and then asked those ladies (it was always just women) which was the best all-around cookbook I could own (particularly as a young bachelor). Every single one marched over to the same rack without hesitation and plopped this one in my mitts: The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. Here's the version I have, which you can get for cents and shipping (wow, because back in the day it was $35 with my employee discount) and the new one. If you need to know how to cook anything from a basic hamburger all the way up to an umpteen course meal, including lobster, this book shows you how. My wife considers me an accomplished cook (and she was raised by gourmands), and everything I know about cooking comes from this book, or some tip from Alton Brown (though I would never go to the screwing-while-standing-up-in-a-hammock gyrations he goes through to make just one dish).

The vast majority of high volume sales kid's lit is deservedly so. The author and illustrator have hit the elusive sweet spot/magic formula that makes a children's book amazing, which is the equivalent in terms of talent or luck of making a good movie comedy (as actors often say that acting is a drama is easy, and comedy is the hardest thing to do). For example, nearly anything by Robert Munsch is awesome. If you don't have kids and you need to buy a gift for a little one, you can't go wrong with Munsch. (If you have kids and haven't heard of Munsch, come back into the light and forsake the underside of the rock for a while.)

One of the most popular children's books was/is Goodnight Moon, and since I'm not a snob, and since children's books are perfect for reading during the lag at work, I read all those I wasn't familiar with, including "moon."

Goodnight Moon was just horrible (to me)! Insipid. Weird, even.

The manager of the store had kids, so I asked her about it. She raved. It truly was one of the best, according to her.

And here, dear readers, is one of the demarcations between those with children and those without. Some things you just don't get until you have one of the little dears. It's just impenetrable. I've always been queasy with this analogy, but it's like trying to imagine what actual sex is like before you've had it. Even further, it's like being prepubescent and not having a realization that sex even exists.

So, when my first arrived, sure enough, one of the gifts was Goodnight Moon.

I sayeth to mine wife, "Verily, this book doth suck." She respondeth, "Hast though readst it?" "Alas, I have," I replyeth. "Hast though read it to yonder child?" she doth inquire. "Non," sayeth I. "Well, give it a try. You'll see," she said, abandoning warmed-over King James verbiage.

Still not convinced, I read a "better" book first, hoping that would be consolation enough when we attempted the dreaded "moon." Then we dove in.

Here it is: the secret of Goodnight Moon is reading the book out loud to a tot.

The revelation was what I'd imagine the revelation would be like for someone who'd seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show cold, at home on DVD, thinking it was a serious film classic, then seeing it with an audience, with the toilet paper, squirt guns, cards, etc. It's all about context.

The rhythms and cadence of the book is nothing short of perfect when read out loud. It also has a unique view into/understanding of the mind of a child who's old enough to start following stories. Most bizarre of all, it's hypnotic and acts as a powerful sedative. You can feel your child relax, and by the time you read "goodnight noises everywhere" (which you should whisper, and I've noticed most parents do), it's all over but the goodnight kiss.

I'm tempted to make the claim that it's high poetry, with the qualification that it's high poetry for that age group, given it's so powerful and yet simple.

It looms large in your life as a parent. So much so that when you (or at least I) read the ending to the Opus comic, part one here, part two here, I actually welled up.

Update: Nearly forgot to mention that though Berkeley Breathed is retiring Opus (again, but he says for the last time), he is going to keep writing children's books. All the ones he's written so far are wonderful, including his latest, Pete & Pickles.

Then, of course, there's the new parody of Bush baby, whom we fire tomorrow (my glee is barely containable). The laughs are larger when you see how perfectly it follows all the detail (of which there is an amazing amount, you realize after a few readings) of the original Goodnight Moon.

Tellingly, the author, Margaret Wise Brown, never really came up with another wonder like Goodnight Moon. She even produced a book so bad, my family still mocks it: The Important Book. Here's an excerpt: "The important thing about snow is that it is white. It is cold, and light, it falls softly out of the sky, it is bright, [blah blah]. But the important thing about snow is that it is white." Reading this book out loud doesn't save it. It's as clunky as rubber galoshes on a hot sandy beach. To this day, when we encounter something irrelevant about something, we say, "The important thing about shopping carts is that they have wheels. They're germy, they rattle [blah blah]. But the important thing..." and so on.

To be fair, Ms. Brown is not a one hit wonder, because The Runaway Bunny, isn't bad. It's not a gem, like Goodnight Moon, though.



And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush".

Wanted: Advice Columnist. Common sense a must.

A while ago I came across the list below - "9 Mind Tricks to Get What You Want" - and haven't had time to eviscerate it until now.

There's a subtle tactic to make things go your way in your career, love life, and social world —one that has nothing to do with effort or luck. It's called priming. Research shows that by exposing people to specific words, body language and symbols, they can be affected in a way that benefits you without their even realizing what's going on. Here's how to use subliminal moves to get an edge.

1. To seem like a team player at work ...
Put up a picture of your dog (or even a friend's pup) in your workspace. When people look at shots of a pet dog, they not only tend to presume you're loyal, but they may also act more loyal toward you. But don't paper your cube with canines. Research shows that too many personal shots make others perceive you as a less professional worker.

Actually, when I see a picture of someone's pet, I assume two things: 1) no kids (which is cool if you are single and want to announce that), or 2) you're one of THOSE PEOPLE. The "animals are babies, too" people. You know who you are. The rest of us are nice to your face, because you are typically nice people, but if the revolution occurs and there's only so much room on the lifeboat, your fucking dog is shit out of luck.

2. To appear more powerful in the office hierarchy ...
Wear a chic all-black outfit to work, and don't smile as often as you're inclined. You'll be seen as assertive and directed. Studies have found that people in black uniforms (like sports teams) are viewed as more dominant figures, while the act of keeping a neutral face is associated with higher status and power in a work environment.

I assume they're just someone who can't let go of being Goth, or they truly love their daily dandruff production to be perfectly evident to everyone.

A completely neutral face only raises questions regarding botox or constipation. Or the fact that a good shagging is overdue.

And really, being "seen as assertive and directed" usually means everyone thinks you're an asshole. The best bosses and upper management folks I've worked with (and who ran the best/most successful organizations) had the air of actually being decent and nice.

Maybe this stuff floats on the East Coast, but out here in flyover country, it's a red flag. You'll soon notice that watercooler/hallway conversations breakup as you approach.

3. To bond with the boss ...
Offer to get her a hot cup of coffee — even if you're not her assistant — and chat her up as she's drinking it. A recent study showed that just by holding the high-temp liquid, she'll implicitly assume you're an emotionally warm person — someone very likable. Just don't hand her an iced latte or you could trigger a frosty reception.

And she'll assume you're her bitch forever after. Next it'll be a trip to the dry cleaners.

Here's another bright idea: bring her a cherry popsicle. Once she starts eating it, pull out a video camera and ask if you can tape it to put it on youtube.

4. To have "the talk" without making your partner flip out ...
Take him to a restaurant that has soft feminine colors and furniture with few angular lines. Researchers think that simply being in this kind of an environment can influence a person to behave in a more feminine way in terms of communicating. That means that he'll be more likely to be open and disclose his true feelings to you.

Apparently, "the talk" is female code for something. To me, it could either be the breakup talk, or the "let's take this to the next level" talk.

If it's the breakup talk, just do it over the phone. It works for everyone. You don't have to be around him afterwards. He can cry, or yell, or smash shit, or pump the fist in the air (presuming you dropped him before he could drop you), or continue to screw tonight's conquest, or drink himself silly, and not have to wait until the public agony is over.

If it's the "next level" thingy:

Most guys don't wanna have that conversation in public, either. If they don't want "the next level," then they're not about to drop that bomb in front of anyone else (see above). He will not be honest with you - until the phone rings later (see above). We also avoid farting in an elevator. They're kinda in the same courtesy grouping.

If he DOES want to go to the next level, again, he definitely doesn't want to be in public. He will probably want to be able to get affectionate, get all puppy-dog faced without witnesses, and so on. A private walk in the park, a night in watching a DVD, or just after or before the goodnight kiss is a good time for this "talk."

However, any stage of coital activity (pre, present, post) is best avoided for this talk. Before ... uh, consummation ... a guy is kinda distracted. You might as well ask what is favorite color is while he's skydiving. Afterwards, the theta waves for sleep are already coursing through his brain, and he'll agree to about anything. This is when to get him to commit to going to a chick flick, or to request the purchase of a nice, inexpensive gift - and NOT for anything like "could you clear out a drawer for me?"

5. To make your crush fall for you on a dinner date ...
Subtly touch the back of his hand as you're reaching across the table for bread. It's a proven way to win someone's affection: Libraries and car dealerships have higher customer-satisfaction ratings when workers imperceptibly touch their clients. Touch activates the human desire to bond.

Hand contact is nice, but to guys it's just that: nice. We've had plenty of girls who later popped "I just like you for a friend" on us touch our hands. It means nothing to us. Until you've gotten close enough that we can smell you, we make no large assumptions about your intentions.

When a salesperson touches me, however, it's just creepy. Don't do it.

6. To seem more alluring when you meet a guy ...
Talk about a beach vacation you took using sensual terms (e.g., “The sun felt so fabulously warm against my skin”) to paint a mental picture about the climate. According to psychologists, this seductive I-feel-like-I'm-there speech will make him associate your personality with the lush sensations you're describing.

Meanwhile, in his brain, he'll be wondering things like:
- Is the Packer's game on tonight?
- I wonder what her boobs look like...
- The shrimp? No. Fish breath. Spaghetti? No. I can never eat that gracefully in public. A steak, I guess.
- Was it a nude beach? Call me next time you go!
- What the hell is that floating in my water glass?
- Etc.

Be yourself and talk about yourself the way you would normally do. If you talk like this, he might think you're a loon.

7. To impress a guy's parents the first time you meet them ...
Casually praise someone whom you're certain his mom or dad holds in high esteem, such as a political figure, author, or celebrity. Experts say that as you talk about their hero in a positive light, your targets start to think about all the qualities they admire in that person. And because they're looking at you, they'll subconsciously link you with that person's positive traits.

When they talk to him later, they'll say, "She's kind of a suck-up, isn't she?"

Parents have all their radar out when meeting the SO of their child. Every little gram of evidence is examined for any possible interpretation or clues. You might as well be yourself, because the odds are against you at first, anyway. That way, if it works out, you don't have to remember any BS that you laid out in the beginning.

8. To make a friend out of an acquaintance ...
Start mirroring her behavioral tics, like touching your hair when she touches hers. We like to see ourselves in other people. Researchers at New York University found that when you're sitting across from someone who's unconsciously shaking his foot, if you start moving yours in a similar but unobtrusive way, then the person feels more positive toward you.

This one's proven, sadly.

However, whenever I notice someone's doing it, I start scratching my nose in that way that makes it unclear if it's a pick or a scratch. I grimace. I gesture wildly, etc., just to see how far they'll go.

9. Your slob roomie to clean up after herself more often ...
Spray a bit of liquid all-purpose cleaner in the air right before she enters the skanky spot in question. A Dutch study recently proved that the faint smell of a cleaning product will spur people to start picking up the area around them. You can also prime her by squirting a little fluid in the bathroom sink before she goes in to use it.

Sure. More likely she'll say, "Have you cleaned up? Cool. I hate cleaning." And now you've fallen into the trap of being the primary cleaner.

The best way to win this war is to put a lock on your bedroom door (to keep it clean), and out-slob her in the rest of the place. Most everyone has a threshold, and once you cross it, they'll usually start cleaning and keep it up. Pubes in the sink are a good tactic. If you can manage to take a really smelly dump right before they come home, that's more of a trigger than a spritz of Mr. Clean.

If they are of that small percent that never gets grossed out, you've discovered you need a new roommate.


I hope that I've spread a little sunshine for ya'll, here.

A gem from a gem

I, for one, was bummed when Roger Ebert appeared to be destined for eternity. Now that he's narrowly escaped that fate, his writing - which was always stellar - just got that much better.

He talks about that here on his fantastic blog, which if you've not read, you're missing out.

Anyway, the last sentence in this excerpt made me literally LOL, so I had to share it with ya.

Kevin Smith [snip] believes [snip] that it's funny to shock people with four-letter words and enough additional vulgarisms to fill out a crossword puzzle.

This is sort of endearing. It gives his potty-mouth routines a certain freshness; we've heard these words over and over again, but never so many of them so closely jammed together. If you bleeped this movie for broadcast TV, it would sound like a conga line of Iron Men going through a metal detector.

(My emPHASis added.)

The source.

Plethora

Hey, MTV has put up nearly every video they've ever played on a Youtube-like site. Check it out, mang.

They don't have the best video EVER, which is Donald Fagen's New Frontier, but it's a start.

And let me take a moment to remind you, you have the power to turn any of these into a portable song, if you are OK with the audio quality (and the possibility is might be a scootch illegal). The audio on all the MTV vids thus far has been good as far as I can tell.

Oh, and Bruce has a free Halloween song for ya. Go down to "A Night With The Jersey Devil": Free Audio Download".

Happy Halloween everone!

Say what?

This starts with a seemingly "liberal" bent, but it ends up just right.



Thanks Sleemoth.

A picture is worth...

...you know the rest.

A Couple Shakers

Head shakers that is.

Don't you just wanna slap this [insert favorite adjective here]?

I work with someone who does that self-righteous face-pinch combined with the head-nod when she feels she's made a point. She probably thinks I agree with her because I find it so annoying, all I can do is smile when she does it.

This whip-head is offended by the mere fact that Obama is running for president, so has put up a sign on his parking lot that Obama supporters can't park there.


Just 8 days to go and it'll all be over except for Bush trying to come up with a reason to institute martial law. Save for that, it's Goodnight Bush.

---

Last minute addition! Ron Howard does a political commercial:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

It's amazing to me that Andy Griffith is still alive.

Fetid disco ball lying on a used-condom-covered floor

Curious about the terms that Roissy and pick-up* artists like him use, I attempted to read The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. I just couldn't get through it.

*I use the hyphen because to me "pickup" is a vehicle with a big space in the back that condemns you to forever helping anyone when they are moving.

For starters, the topic is just so one-dimensional. It's like watching those fishing shows or golf; fishing and, presumably, golf are of interest only if you're doing them yourself.

Worse yet, the writing was abysmal. Especially compared to Roissy or Tucker Max (the author of the other pick-up tome I read - though I didn't know that's what it was before I started reading it).

So let's just segue into I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max. While the writing was much better, and overall much, much funnier, it still was about picking up loose chicks in cheesy bars. You can read one of the best, nastiest, I-can't-believe-that-happened one here (possibly NSFW, my work's web cop software blocks it).

TLD: And, btw, when I explored the site for this post, I was surprised to learn that a lot of his conquests actually allow their pictures to be posted. Heck, one even let him post a picture of her gargantuan dumps (again, prolly NSFW). The mind boggles.)

While initially there are laughs, it begins to get repetitive ("...then, we had mind-bending sex!"), and it ultimately ends badly. To wit: Max, in the last story in the book, has one girl over who tells him that she has to abort the baby she knows is his because she has a type of cancer where the treatment will kill the baby anyway, when another girl shows up for a booty call. He leaves the pregnant one on the couch to go screw the recent arrival, and then goes back to the one on the couch after Ms. Recent passes out. The tawdryness of it just makes you want to hug your kids and stare at a sunset to get the karmic taste out of your soul.

My conclusion about all this pick-up artist stuff is that it proves the old adage, "Mother told me, yes she told me, I'd meet girls like you." The pick-up universe is all about sluts looking for sluts. (Oooo, harsh and judgmental, I know.) And they usually find each other, and boinking occurs. I regret wasting that valuable reading time to arrive at something I already knew.

A Player would maintain (and often do in what I've read) that they can pick up any girl using the techniques, not just sluts. Then again, they all talk about IOI, or "indicator of interest" which means she's into you, so go forth and conquer - which means there are times when you don't get them, and move on, which begs the question, how many women are put off by these guys in the first place? What's the ratio of girls that wouldn't give these guys the time of day compared to the ones looking for Mr. Right Now, etc.?

Roissy mentions that small-town girls are usually more impervious to the game and are usually more wholesome. From my small-town experience, I'd say that's sorta true; we have our sluts too, but yeah, most of the girls have some standards. I know that my player buddies back in my hometown pretty much all screwed the same circle of girls. After we non-players (I think this "beta male" nonsense is just that) figured that out, we tended to avoid those girls.

Overall, though, as mentioned, this lifestyle appears to end badly. Like Curt Cobain's punk value system, it's not sustainable throughout time and reality. Much of the game depends on physical attractiveness, and save for the Paul Newmans and Susan Sarandons of the world, aging just takes its toll. Looks aside, the emotions eventually get chronic rugburn, too. Further, as one Disney ride will explain to you over and over, it's a small world after all; your reputation eventually precedes you.

Sad to say, but every single one of the gamers I've known has ended up going through hell relationship-wise. They can't hold onto anyone for very long, and even if they appear to be doing so, it's hard to leave all those game habits behind, and so they eternally itch for the new conquest - just one more piece of strange (if you will).

It leaves me with the image of the player lying in the dark, disco ball down and condoms strewn, with the strains of "Is That All There Is?" echoing ghostly through their mind.

I've gotta stop reading rock bios.

I recently said some snarky stuff about Lindsey Buckingham, so when I accidentally happed across a tell-all penned by Buckingham's girlfriend during the famous years, Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, I thought I'd have the perfect peek into his (and their) life(ves). (And, I'd have the big groups/people covered, U2, Led Zep, the Eagles, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell (hell most of the CA rock scene) and now Fleetwood Mac.)

Wow. What a bastard. He may be a musical genius, but what a prick. He physically abused her several times, grabbing her hair while she was standing next to his car in the driveway and driving away, dragging her a few feet in the process, leaving strangle marks on her neck, and punching her so hard her that face bounced off the opposite car window.

So, as with the Eagles, knowing some of the crap behavior behind the scenes has tainted the music for me. Such as: I used to think "Second Hand News" was about mixing together breaking up and masturbation metaphors, I now wonder if it's also about smacking your girlfriend around a little bit.

One interesting note, though. Since this was written by Buckingham's girlfriend, Carol Ann Harris, you can imagine the perspective she had on Stevie Nicks (Buckingham's recent ex at the time). It was like reading a high school confidential, with all the eye-rolling hen pecking you'd expect. Meh.

I don't think so

I luuurved Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and so was stoked when he released Anathem recently. Before I laid down the semolians (as there are so few to spread around anymore), I thought I'd get it through the library and see if it was worth it.

Hell, I couldn't get past the first page of the story. I made it through the intro, which informs you that a great deal of the words in the book are going to be made up. Even worse, they're going to be very close to words you kinda know, but the meaning will be different enough that you have to know it.

Just try reading the front flap.

So I looked at the last page to see how long it was and decided that a book of over eight hundred of pages of made up words was not for me.

From what I've read of the Amazon.com reviews, that's a very common sentiment from those who have tried.


And I think this is a function of age. Were I younger, I'd give it a go. But at this age, I just don't have enough time or ambition for this kind of silliness.

At least we get to laugh and not cry over this one...

A retarded man in Europe who was converted to Radical Batshit Islam blew himself up in a toilet because he couldn't get the stall unlocked. His face now looks like a Dick Tracy character.

Above all, remember this

As you go to vote in a couple weeks, check out "In the Real World" for Number 1 on this list and keep it in mind:
6 Horrible Lessons Hollywood Loves to Teach Kids

Let me vouch for this one. I've learned it in spades.

We had a group of assholes leave our business a while ago (to go somewhere else and torture them), and the change it made was dramatic.

Matter of fact, hunt down this great PBS/National Geographic special that was on recently. Basically, all the alpha male/asshole members of the tribe died because they ate tainted food (which they got first, of course) and the nicer males were left, which changed the dynamic of the group. So, from that point forward, when jerk males from other tribes would come by and try to dominate, this tribe wouldn't have it, so the new males would chill out and adapt. They all ended up healthier and lived longer, better lives.

The official site:
http://killerstress.stanford.edu/

An article:
http://www.pbs.org/stress/

You can watch part of it here:
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1310/video/watchonline.htm

Honest R&B Song

This vid is slightly NSFW (just the lyrics - if your place of workship is not uptight about youtube and you have headphones, you might be good).



If you want a copy of the song itself, they kindly provided one.

Found this on Attu (whose site is NSFW, ever).

9 Ways You'll $ave in the New Depression!

Hilarious article in Village Voice that can be read as satire or stone cold truth.

Shreddage

I think Prince's Superbowl appearance showed the world, again, what a talent he is, particularly on the guitar.

Well, I was researching something for my daughter about drummers, and happed across this fun blog post about the "7 Unexpected Moments of Guitar Awesomeness."

Here's an excerpt:

Is there any proof that Prince's molten-hot solo on that hall of fame induction night's all-star jam performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" had anything to do with him being snubbed from that list? No. But come on now, this is Prince. He doesn't just show up for no reason. Until it came time to destroy the stage with that solo, most people didn't even know Prince was onstage at all. On this night, Prince was on a mission.

Which leads into this performance. Hold on till Prince shows up.

Dear Lord that little dude can shred.

How star wars changed the world


Click or "save as" for full size

- For those like me who like to geek out.

I didn't know Fincher worked as a cameraman and director with Lucas on both Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Explains a lot.

Ya wonder...

Went to a class lately for work (updating the skills, etc.), and have two observations that are neither here nor there, but, well sometimes randomness isn't random.

One of the women in the class is from either India or the Middle East; couldn't quite determine which because she didn't talk much.

What was odd about her is that she put her name sticker (which we were all required to wear) directly on the tip of her right breast. When she did it the first day, I thought it might have been an oversight or cultural cluelessness, and maybe she hadn't seen that most people put them over their heart.

But she did it again the next day.

So my only question: Was she trying to get guys to look right at her boobs on purpose? Trolling for a BF/GF? (As I also noticed she wasn't wearing a wedding ring.)


The other person was such a stereotype that when I saw her my first thought was, "Gad, she looks like an ad for "Burning Man." Sure enough, when she hoisted her coffee for a sip later, it was a Burning Man travel mug. (Though, counter to the type, she WAS wearing a wedding ring.)


And that's all I have to say about that.

Half Useful

With much trepidation, and with a smidge of gleeful anticipation of a car wreck, I opened How Fiction Works by James Wood.

As feared, a lot of it is academic hazmat, grokable by the initiated few who know what the loaded words mean and who can plow through syntax as impacted as a gay man's colon after a pride parade party.

Here are a few of the howlers (imvho):

"Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life." - pp. 65.

The word "bullshit" rang so loudly through my head when I read that, I feared if you were sitting close enough you'd have heard it emanate from my ears.

On page 102, after grousing about a woman who complained about lecherous old men in movies grossing her out, he says:

"In other words, artists should not ask us to try to understand characters we cannot approve of - or not until after they have firmly and unequivocally condemned them. The idea that we might be able to feel that 'ick factor' and simultaneously see life through the eyes of the two aging and lecherous men, and that moving out of ourselves into realms beyond our daily experience might be a moral and sympathetic education of it's own kind.

"A glace at the thousands of foolish 'reader reviews' on Amazon.com, with their complaints about 'dislikeable characters,' confirms a contagion of moralizing niceness."

Uh, no it doesn't. It means the author failed in appropriately setting the character in the story so they achieve their purpose. We don't have to approve of them or even condemn them. Hannibal Lector, anyone? But if a character we would dislike in real life is not framed or handled correctly, we have the double reaction of not liking the character and really disliking the author because he couldn't rise to the occasion.

I especially bristle at the "contagion of moralizing niceness" crack. Again, it's infantilizing the reader and not laying the blame where it should be, with the author.

When he tips his hand as an atheist and critiques the Biblical stories of David and Jesus Christ (page 143) as fiction, it only serves to disqualify a large portion of his judgment and assumptions. I don't really care that he views the reports of Christ as fiction, but he should have the good taste not to use them as examples of narrative fiction. So many of these kinds of atheist just don't grasp that it is discourteous the equivalent of "so's your mother." Not to mention the fact that translations of writings that old aren't the best examples for a book dealing with how modern fiction works. The farthest he should go back is Cervantes, methinks.


That said, there was some good stuff, too.

His definition of "free indirect style" as used in the omniscient viewpoint is transcendent. I cannot attempt to paraphrase or even provide excerpts, as they cover too much ground and are stated about as well as can be (though with the occasional dipping in academic hazmat, as indicated at the start of this post). This is the one section - "Narrating", pp. 3-28 - you should read yourself, somehow - library, Amazon "look inside", standing in a book store, etc.

I also liked his coinage of an idea I've (tiresomely) trotted out at parties, in that most philosophies - particularly utopian philosophies - never face the reality of human evil. They start with the implicit assumption that everyone will be nice and play along if conditions are good enough. Even with all the examples of human evil there are, they still think Hitler would've just stayed a house painter if the circumstances of his life had been more conducive. Anyway, Wood says: "The philosopher Bernard Williams was exercised by the inadequacy of moral philosophy. He found much of it, descending from Kant, essentially wrote the messiness of the self out of philosophical discussion. Philosophy, he thought, tended to view conflicts as conflicts of beliefs that could be easily solved, rather than conflicts of desires that are not so easily solved." - pp. 176.

Hear, hear!

I like his grousing about cliches, too:
"We have all read many novels in which the machinery of convention is so rusted that nothing moves. Why, we say to ourselves, do people have to speak in quotation marks? Why do they speak in scenes of dialogue? Why so much 'conflict'? Why do people come in and out of rooms, or put down drinks, or play with their food while they are thinking of something? Why do they always have affairs? Why is there always an aged Holocaust survivor somewhere in these books? And please, whatever you do, don't introduce incest..." - pp. 225.

...or the OGC (obligatory gay character), or the hip-just-because-s/he's-from-NY, or conversely s/he's-a-hick-because-s/he's-from-flyover-country, or .... (you get the drift)

I liked the final paragraph, too. I'm tired of typing today, so here's a graphic of it:



Cheers.

It is to laugh

MPC1 wants model kits - the plastic kind where you put the pieces together - for her birthday (and I don't let her read this as I consider it an adult blog), so it's safe to discuss it here.

So, while looking through Amazon, I find this review of one model kit [my emphasis added].

This product is not at all as described. According to the product description, it's 8.8 inches long and 3 inches wide. In reality it's 6 inches long and less than half an inch wide. It also comes in one million little pieces that you have to assemble. The educational pamphlet describing each sub is quite good, but not enough to make up for how disappointing the toy is. We will be returning this item.

It's amazing that some folks can walk around unattended.

I would've LOVED to have seen the look on this guy's face when he opened the box, though.

Prophecy and Serendipity

Over fourteen years ago, I posted this article on how generations in America tend to cycle through four types with common characteristics (posted on my old vanity site which I keep up because the Christianity FAQ that I wrote with my late great Pastor's help still tops the Google result list).

Through completely separate, unrelated, and kinda spooky circumstances, I ended up picking this book up at the library because the title intrigued me: The Fourth Turning by Str William, Neil Howe. It's a later book by the same guys who are the subject of that article I link to above.

In The Fourth Turning they expand their theory and show how it actually stands up going back as far as the fourteen-hundreds, and then they predict the future using the same theory.

Here's the table that divides generations into their "Saeculums" and where they fit into the cycles of generations types (which make a little more sense if you read that article above, first).


It amazes me how well this theory holds together and throughout the ages.

But what blew my socks and part of my boxers off was the predictions of how we will be ushered into what they call the Fourth Turning, or the coming "crisis," saeculum. Keep in mind this was published in 1997:



Can I get an "Amen"?! Can I get a "Holy Shit"!?!?!

Three of those have come to pass (more or less), and M. Blowhard has been tracking rumblings about State secession. Toss in one pandemic and they've got full house.

Anyway, the future is not as dire as the label "crisis saeculum" might sound. It's just a convenient way to quantify and contrast it against the others.

The book actually has a lot of great advice on how to weather said "crisis saeculum" and what the benefits and outcomes are likely to be. There is hope.

If you're interested, but don't want to read the whole thing (it is long), particularly if you don't need to be convinced the theory of the book is correct, you can just read the intro stuff until you get the basic gist (section 1, "Winter Comes Again" at least), skip to section 4, "Cycles of History", and then read sections 10 and 11, "A Forth Turning Prophecy" and "Preparing for the Fourth Turning" respectively.

Needs no further explanation

Except this: While looking for something else in my blog folder, I happed across this which I'd forgotten to post until now.

I found this in Newsweek, and apparently they're still buying into the "irony is dead" meme from 9/11.

And this, from a card my brother sent me:

Evil Right-wing Conspiracy, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the MILF

A conservative, namely Kathleen Parker, finally notices that wingnut conservatives are kind of mean and nasty (and dangerous) if you disagree with them.

I know someone (a Democrat) who wanted to run for a local office, but essentially Democrats are shut out of the process where I live. So this person started going to Republican meetings, with the very person whose office she hoped to be elected to when her term limit kicked in, too see if she could justify changing parties. During the meeting, they were discussing a Democratic candidate who was actually giving them a run for their money, so someone in the audience stood and suggested - with all seriousness - that they have them killed. No one even blinked. Granted, no one agreed. But then no one pointed out that it was immoral, not to mention illegal, to murder someone.

When we have been given various Democratic signs and stuff to put in our yard for the last election and this one, we were told to put them close to our house or a tree so that folks don't drive into our yard and run them over, which had happened a lot around town. Democrats don't do that kind of crap.

The news media is finally realizing that they need to report possible wrong doing and other assorted problems related to the government and other powerful organization rather than hoping for yet another clam shot from Britney ... or they are now getting their guts back because the current oppressive admin is on the way out. Who knows. Anyway, CBS notices the Republicans are messing with voter registrations. AGAIN. I keep wondering why some legislative/governing/oversight body isn't doing something about this. Why should one party have to police the other?

This one might require a gram of sodium chloride: FBI Prevents Agents from Telling 'Truth' About 9/11 on PBS. Between that and an article I read recently where it was asserted that our military actually had Osama in their sights and asked to take him out, but were told to stand down and so he escaped into Pakistan - this was before the drive to the Iraq war had begun, so presumably the admin purposely let him go so they could have their war - I sometimes wonder just how freakin' evil the boys and girls on capitol hill are. (And I take that second article - the "they let him go" one - with a grain, too, because why would they ask permission to kill the very guy they were sent to kill?)

Then, there's this.


Folks were saying we were all set up for Bush baby to declare martial law right before the election, and for some it was just a matter of what would arise that would (even just barely) justify it. Well, here ya go.

Have a nice weekend!

It's Genetic, Apparently

So, I get home tonight and get this story.

We have this guy who lives on the block who walks around with a pistol strapped onto his hip like it's the wild wild west. Today, as the wife and chilluns was coming come, he was out front of his house, gun strapped on, but shirtless.

This is a guy who shouldn't be forgoing a shirt in public. It's hard to decide which is more unbalanced: the handgun or the naked man gut bared to the unsuspecting and innocent.

The family gleefully relates this story, and then MPC1, who's 11, pretend grabs her (nonexistent, of course) beer belly (in imitation of mr-have-gun-will-travel), and says, "Uhyuh, [loud exhale], this is what I call a six-pack, because that's what it's made of."

Yes, it was hers; she'd made it up on the spot.



Me and the missus were so proud.

O RLY?

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame wanted a non-partisan opinion on which candidate would be best for the economy.

Here're the results:

Rank   Issues                            Obama      McCain     No Diff.

1          Education                          59%           14%           27%

 

2          Health care                        65%           20%           15%

 

3          International trade              26%           51%           23%

 

4          Energy                              61%           22%           17%

 

5          Encouraging
            Technology/innovation       43%           23%           34%

 

6          Wars and 
            homeland security              58%           30%           11%

 

7          Mortgage/housing crisis     41%           18%           41%

 

8          Social Security                  40%           24%           35%

 

9          Environmental policy          72%             9%           19%

 

10        Reducing the deficit           37%           29%           33%

 

11        Immigration                       33%           29%           38%

 

12        Increasing taxes                 79%           14%             7%

            on wealthy

 

13        Reducing waste                 16%           38%           46%

            in government

 

The economists in the survey favor Obama on 11 of the top 13 issues. But keep in mind that 48% are Democrats and only 17% are Republicans. Among Independents, things are less clear, with 54% thinking that in the long run there would either be no difference between the candidates or McCain would do better.

Now, as you can see, Adams says this is probably skewed because the majority of economists are Democrat, and he says that's because a lot of them pull their paycheck from the world of academia, and we all know that college professors are liberal scum (my sarcasm, not his - follow the link above for his actual, unfiltered thoughts).

Here are the stats on party affiliation:
48% Democrats
17% Republicans
27% Independents
3% Libertarian
5% Other or not registered

I read the original article and gave it no more than a mental "hmmm" and moved on.

Then a few days later it hit me: most economists are Democrats no matter how you try equivocate, dismiss, or disassemble it. That in itself says something.

In other words, economists by definition would want the best economy possible, and if the majority of them are Democrat, they must think that the Democrat's handling of the economy is the best.

I've run into stat after stat the last few months that the middle class is always in better shape when Dems run the roost, and things go badly when Repubs do (Carter notwithstanding).

How much more straightforward can ya get?

Oh, and funny how the point was to get a non-partisan opinion, and apparently - for this topic anyway - no such thing exists.

Helluva Deal

One of the great albums of all time is now available for download for $2.99. Three bucks. If you count tax, you can't buy a fast-food lunch for that.

But, it'll get you Breakfast in America by Supertramp.

Now, it's unlikely that you don't already have this in some form, but if you don't have MP3s of it, and haven't heard this baby in a while (or ever - if you're young enough not to have heard of it), I think you'll be surprised how well it stands up.

I put it on about 3 weeks ago while cooking dinner expecting it to be one of those old favorites that would be more of an embarrassment now and worthy only of secret trips down memory lane. Heck no, it's still as affecting and brilliant as it seemed back in the day. "The Logical Song" in particular seems as though it could've been written just this year, given the lyric: "Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical criminal."

If you scroll through the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" thingy on the Amazon page, you'll notice all the other great 70s and early 80s classics that are comparable.

Supertramp was one of those groups who were fastidious about how their music sounded in its final form. Cassettes (they used to sell pre-recorded cassettes, kiddies) always had the latest technology. I think they even put out a version in "metal" - the last big-deal format of cassettes before CDs took over. Amazon's MP3s are at 256 kbps (a high sample rate), so I've been very impressed with the sound. So Breakfast in Amerca is bound to sound amazing. Going through the reviews, I notice many of them mention the superior sound quality - probably because Supertramp won over a lot of audiophiles with their insistence on recording quality.

If you've been resisting buying music in digital form, this might be the time to finally give it a try.

And Another Thing...

As for the Republicans, fifty years have shown they can't govern without breaking the bank. Starting with Richard Nixon, every Republican president has left the dollar lower, the federal budget deficit higher, the American trade position weaker, and the U.S. manufacturing work force smaller than when he took office.

From: "Countdown to a Meltdown"

I've Been Trying to Say this for Years

From "The lying game":

McCain's propensity to lie has become what political junkies call a meme, an idea or behavior that runs, seemingly unstoppably, from one media outlet to another. Some bloggers offer daily counts of how many falsehoods McCain tells while others wonder why the Democrats do not respond in turn. Even the mainstream press has gotten into the act. One of the pleasures of the 2008 campaign -- I admit they have been few and far between -- is watching all those who once admired John McCain for his truthfulness realize the true depths of his moral depravity. When McCain is linked to Palin, moreover, as he so frequently wants to be, lying experiences something of a multiplier effect. These candidates lie so much that they have taken to lying about their own lies.

Before we get carried away with enthusiasm about all this, though, we should keep two things in mind. One is that we are so quick to label McCain a liar that we tend to forget how much, and with what horrendous consequences, George W. Bush possessed the same character flaw. The other is that Republicans lie so frequently, not because the party just happened to settle upon one serial liar after another to run for high office, but because the form of conservatism to which they all adhere demands that if they are to win they have no choice but to lie.

[My emphasis added.]

Exactly.

DFW 2

Y'know, the passing of David Foster Wallace - someone I never met - is really still chewing on me. I'm kind of embarrassed about it. I'd be worried about myself were I younger and had less of an understanding about the vagaries of mood and emotion that we all go through that usually have nothing to do with anything (or, to put it simply, some days you have the blues - or, mamma said there'd be days like this).

Reading this (via Kottke.org) has been a salve. But it's also like having to tear off and reapply a Band-Aid over and over again because you can't seem to cover the wound correctly.

Perhaps also I should've avoided reading the comments to an article on Salon.com about overpopulation. I wisely skipped the article because articles of that nature - alarmist piffle about an issue we really can't do a single thing about, or at least do anything that wouldn't be hideously immoral - are just textual analogs those misguided 20-somethings who snivel that bringing another child into this already crowded world is a crime. (But we can forgive them this folly of youth; it's the people over 35 who still hold opinions like that who should be watched closely at all times.) At any rate, on the first page of comments someone crows with cynical glee that all we need is a good pandemic to fix things, and someone else chimes in about how Gaia will adjust and thin out the herd once we've become too much of a burden.

It's a bitch to read such cavalier dismissals of death and destruction when you're stinging from a tragic and needless death (or suicide, in this case). And even when someone has had a good run, like (presumably) Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, their death is still a loss.

It puts me in the mind to write fan letters to my other heroes (listed below), but the recursive trouble with that is even though they meant a lot to me, the reverse is not true, so no matter how eloquent or earnest the letter, it would probably be equivalent to a raindrop in the ocean.

- John Irving
- Stephen King
- Kurt Vonnegut (alas - too late)
- Jeff Lynne (of ELO fame)
- Jerry Lewis (Yes, I adored him as a child and still think he's underrated. Watching Martin and Lewis movies, and even the latter Lewis movies, was something my Grandmother and I did ritually.)
- Red Skelton (alas)
- Bill Cosby
- Flip Wilson (alas)
- The Smothers Brothers
- Chris Ballew (of PoUSA fame)
- Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan fame)


Another possible reason that this particular death is troubling me is I'm exactly 11 days older than DFW. As we've all experienced, when someone your age encounters eternity, it hits you harder than someone way outside of your range (though the really young ones smart more).

But perhaps the main reason is since my wife and I lost a child to a very late miscarriage, death now always means to me the loss of hope and potential, and what that person would have brought to the world. (Which is the other reason why when some whiphead moans about "bringing more unneeded human lives into an already overtaxed world" I have to restrain myself. You never know if that's gonna be the person who cures cancer (not that that will ever happen) or does some other amazing thing for humanity.)

When the loss is someone as reportedly kind and decent as David Foster Wallace - not to mention gargantuanly talented he was - it just feels like a cosmic kick in the nuts. You ratchet through all of Kubler-Ross' stages. You snap at children on the street for a few days. When you witness people mistreating each other, you want to (ironically) deliver an angry lecture on not being such putzes. Every other internal dialogue is laced with profanity. The playlist skews to thrash and metal. You laugh too hard at jokes.

It'll pass, but dammit anway.

Btw, fwiw, iyi*, this blog's name is derived from DFW's style - also a fan of digression. (The other father of the name is someone who actually used the phrase when he realized he was wandering too far off topic. Thank you Earl.)

*Yet another tribute to DFW.

Nice Diversion

Nathan Dintenfass's Playlist:
15 Most Artistically Awesome Advertisements


First time I saw the IKEA lamp commercial, the punchline literally had me ROFLMAO. The new one is much better, indeed.

And I've been wanting to see that bouncing ball one forever but could never track it down.

Richard Wright dies and....

all we hear from the traditional media is [cricket, cricket, cricket].

But if Britney Spears poofs out a silent but deadly, it even makes Fox "news".

Here is a guy who was an original member of one of the most popular rock bands ever, and I didn't even hear about it on the news last night. (For those of you in the cheap seats, he was a member of Pink Floyd.)

Gad, when a minor news figure, Tim Russert, died this year, you'd a thought that we'd lost one of the most important people on the planet ever. But when we do lose someone whose music has been heard by nearly everyone who isn't deaf, and certainly by everyone who went to college (read: "got high"), we don't even get a text scroll at the bottom of a screen (the modern broadcast news equivalent of a reach-around).

I mean, wtf?

I guess this is what we get when the "reporters" who still have jobs today managed to do so by asking presidential hopefuls if they'd ever smoked a joint or not.

Anyway, if you want some details, read this and this.


In other music news, I enjoyed this posting entitled "How the Music Business Spent the Summer Killing Itself"

Short version: when a label realized they had a hit, they would suddenly pull the downloadable version from iTunes and Amazon so people couldn't download only the hit in hopes that they would then go out and buy the CD.

The music industry - or more accurately, the corporations who sell music and not so much the artists - is still in denial that the huge album sales they enjoyed for a while in the 90s and early 00s are gone. Prices were unrealistically high, legal MP3s weren't available yet, and they controlled the radio and TV media's music playlists, so it was a false bubble that was going to pop regardless. (See this recent post and go search on the top 5000 songs of all time and look at the first couple pages. You'll see the songs that were part of this bubble - there's a lot of suckitude there. Clearly an artificial situation.)

But, there's hope. Just the other day I was talking to a guy who's been in on iTunes since the beginning, and he's finally said he's gonna start buying the DRM-free MP3s from Amazon. I think a lot of folks are gonna go, "Wait, I can buy a song I can play anywhere for under a buck? Really? I don't have the buy the rest of the album if I think it's dreck? And the albums usually cost $9 if I want the whole enchilada? Sign me up!" ... "You mean I don't have to sign up at all, just go buy it?"

Once the music industry just lets us buy music the way we want without a hassle, I think they'll be in better shape. Kottke and Co. agree.


Finally, to be totally incongruous, this next piece is not about music, and I'm praising a journalist even though I dissed the profession at the start of this post.

I love the phrase that ends this excerpt from Anne Lamott's article on today's Salon, because she's probably right - only Germans might have a word for it.

When I got home from church, I drank a bunch of water to metabolize the Dove bar and called my Jesuit friend, who I know hates these people, too. I asked, "Don't you think God finds these smug egomaniacs morally repellent? Recoils from their smugness as from hot flame?"

And he said, "Absolutely. They are everything He or She hates in a Christian."

I have been in a better mood ever since, and have decided not to even say this woman's name anymore, because she fills me with such existential doubt, such a sense of impending doom and disbelief, that only the Germans could possibly have words for it.

This just makes me laugh and laugh.


The looks on all their faces are great, but the one on the bottom left next to the hurl monkey is the best.

It's Alive

One of my fondest memories of being an usher (which I failed to include in this post about the other great times) was one particular night working the B-movie, It's Alive.

A mutant baby is born to a mother who was exposed to radiation during the pregnancy, where it promptly bites off its own umbilical chord, tears through all the doctors and nurses in the delivery room, leaving mom alive, then escaping through (what else?) the air ducts and is unleashed on the city.

The little beastie is disturbing, and the sounds it makes are pretty nut-clenching. It was an effective little horror film. It was one of Rick Baker's first creatures.


The poster was even tres cool. It kinda made my stomach swimmy when we first put it up. Veined, fleshy letters are just gross, dude. I don't care who you are.


One night, the Indian School came.

The Indian School, as we very politically incorrectly called it back in the day, was a special school for all the Sioux kids in the area, if not the state. Apparently, in order to preserve their culture and so on, they didn't go to the same schools as the rest of us, and were all shipped off, Harry Potter style (though it was state-run), to the Indian School. They got free tickets to a couple showings every month and would show up en masse, and generally terrorize the theatre for that one showing. We usually had to refund a few tickets for the folks who'd paid because the movie was rendered unwatchable and/or unhearable when the school descended.

Well, It's Alive scared the ever-living shit out of the whole tribe. They couldn't even stay in their seats. Every time I went to walk the aisles (something we had to do at least every 15 minutes to make sure everything was OK), I'd open the door to about 15 of them standing there, and they'd all jump and yell, causing the rest of the audience to scream.

Three of four times during the "BOO!" sequences, they'd come flying out of the door like gazelles running ahead of the lions. It was quite the sight. I could barely contain my laughter until they went back into the theatre.

I think after that, the school didn't come to another horror flick and stuck mainly to the comedies.

A Disturbing Trend

Thumbed through Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits, 4th Edition by Fred Bronson, meaning I perused every list, but only the top 30 or so.

My collection of classic rock and pop is pretty complete these days, but I have never had the opportunity to view old BB lists, so wanted to see if there was any cool classic tunes I'd forgotten. Seems I haven't missed a trick.

Besides the year by year listing, it also listed top songs by artists, producers, labels, and a few genres. What an interesting way to slice things up. It pointed out something I found kinda disturbing. The years I thought were pretty much the worst on record for popular music - those being the years rap dominated the charts - which is roughly the middle 90s to the early 00s - are the years when sales were amazingly high, so they dominate the "top 5000 hits of the rock era" chart ("The Macarena" is No. 3, for crying out loud). Yes, that means that P-Diddy and JLo pretty much have high higher sales on singles than the Beatles or the Stones or Bruce (or anyone you care to name), save for perhaps Elvis. That just made me sad.

Oh, and probably the best producers of modern rock, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, weren't included in the producers section.

The other trend is that for most of the big deal artists listed, like Billy Joel, the Beatles, and so on, many of their latter hits had much better sales than the hits that made them stars in the first place. Often these late songs aren't nearly on par with the early stuff.

Thus, I conclude the Billboard charts are not really great guides to the best music has to offer because the sales do not equate to the quality of the song (see "The Macarena" above).

Another proof of this: two hits that showed up on chart after chart were Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life" and Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons." The top one-hit wonder of all time was "In the Year 2525."

The book is searchable on Amazon, so if you wanna see how faves of yours stack up on the charts, have a go.

2 for the bins

Read a couple really sub-par novels that made me think of M. Blowhard's quarterly lamenting refrain of the state of the publishing biz. I kept thinking, if THIS can get published, then either things are much better or much worse than I thought. Can't decide which.

First was The Reapers by John Connolly, where the heroes are a gay couple who happen to be hit men. But they're nice hit men, who let the lady who lived in their building before they took it over with monies they'd made from various crimes still live there because she's a good watchdog; and they kept a mechanic's garage open after the guy's wife divorced him and made it impossible for him to continue unless helped by their dirty money. And so on. The theme of this novel is all the various configurations of male pair bonding, some of them gay, some of not but still falling cleanly in the "that's so gay" category (meaning not really gay, but not too far of a stretch from it). I'm not sure what the author was going for with that particular bent. Maybe he's dropping a huge hint to a buddy of his. Who knows?

The plot was merely an assassin that the two gay assassins knew from way back comes back to kill them because they tried to kill him once.

I have no idea why I bothered to finish this one.


The other was The Last Patriot by Brad Thor, which tries to pull a Da Vinci Code where a final revelation of Mohammad was removed from the Koran because it said, in essence, "let's just be nice to everyone for a change," which conflicts with sura #9, which says kill the infidel and redeem their corpses for cash prizes and virgins. Thomas Jefferson (yes, that TJ) discovered the contents of this lost sura through a code hidden in the first edition of Cervantes's Don Quixote, and so whips up an early enigma machine to encode directions to a little mechanical doll that has the lost sura hidden inside it that he then hid in the fireplace of one of his estates in hopes of whipping it out one day and forcing Islam to become a peaceful religion like it claims to be.

I didn't bother reading this one all the way through and began skimming for just the Da Vinci Code plot. The other 69% of the book is "action sequences." so it was a quick skim.

The author has an amusing style tic in that he describes the exact high of every character when we first encounter them, ala "Buck Nichols was 6 foot 2 inches with sandy hair and was thought to ruggedly handsome by most females." You'd think his editor would've sent back a note to effect of "enough with height thing already."

If anything, these books kinda prove that Dan Brown deserves a lot more credit from the critics than he got. Only the public gave him love by dumping zillions into his bank account. I recall having a grand time when reading The Da Vinci Code. I did not have a grand time with either of the above. Consider yourself warned.

I can't believe....
that I'm never gonna read another novel by David Foster Wallace that I know was all his.

I'm sure there are gonna be posthumous publications, but it won't be the same.


I remember feeling this way after John Lennon and then Kurt Cobain died.

It's as if you can actually feel some light leaving the world.

May he rest in peace. God, I'll miss him.

Wonderful World

This makes the wife and I guffaw every time it's on.

Is it going to matter?

I asked my wife after the news last night what she thought of the coming election. She said she felt Obama had a good chance, but surprised me by saying that it might not matter if they fix the election again like they have the last two times.

Good point.

Here's an interesting post and subsequent comments (particularly this one) on Making Light about the stolen elections, and summed up by a cartoon.

What does it mean when all the best comedy out there comes from Republicans trying to campaign but only proving themselves to be asshats?

This is a comedy gem - Jon Stewart nails asshat after asshat on blatant hypocrisy. (These people know they're being recorded, right?)



Oh, and the press is finally fact-checking the Repubs in REAL TIME rather than having Al Franken write a book about it after the election's over.

My here are two of my favorites from this article:

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

---

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

---

I LOL'd at these:


(Thanks to Whisky for the second one.)

---

Finally, reporters were babbling during a station break into open mics and said what they really thought about the choice of Palin for VP (though none of them mentioned the term "MILF", to my disappointment). [Source]

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

Peggy Noonan: It's over.

Mike Murphy: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

Chuck Todd: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

Peggy Noonan: Saw Kay this morning.

Chuck Todd: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

Mike Murphy: They're all bummed out.

Chuck Todd: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Peggy Noonan: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

Chuck Todd: Yeah they went to a narrative.

Mike Murphy: I totally agree.

Peggy Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

Mike Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

Chuck Todd: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

Mike Murphy: Yeah.

Then came the steaming plate of crow that Peggy Noonan had to consume for the length of an article, apologizing for essentially doing what Rush, O'Reilly and Fox "News" do for a living. The part about our favorite VP of all time, Dan Quayle, and the idea of the Republican "narrative" is worth the read. (Btw, I think Palin has shown out of the gate she's not the slack-jawed moron that Quayle obviously was (is - he's not dead yet). I don't want her in office, but there's no need to insult her by implication.)