Who else has downloaded iTunes 4.9?
So far I've decided that I don't like the lack of a clear "unsubscribe" feature. And I've messed around with the program enough to see that in order to download a podcast (as opposed to listening to it on the computer then and there) you need to subscribe.
So far my favorite podcast is "Five Minutes with Wichita Rutherford," which is short and sweet and pretty darn funny. Another short one is the "Queer Eye Hip Tips" which should be familiar to anyone who has seen the show — that part at the end with the white backgrounds and the prop comedy, that'd be the hip tips. Anyway, abstracted from the prop comedy, the seven-minute or so podcast sounds like a gay Orwellian nightmare. "Your skin will never look better than it does right now, so TAKE CARE OF IT." "Freezers are your friend. Use frozen vegetables." "Pleated pants" (hasn't the world learned about pleated pants yet? Do I really have to hear this tip for the millionth time since the first episode of QE?) "are not more roomy."
There's an element of the schoolmarm in the Queer Eye tips, but mostly it just sounds like contextless authoritarian rules for living. In other words, it's not a gay old time.
But I recommend Wichita and am now wondering how I could do my own five-minute podcast. This is a pretty sweet little tool.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Feeling a little better
I thought not getting any comments in spite of multiple views of my Flickr pages was odd. I mean, there are photog-wannabes with 50+ comments per shot!
Then I went to Rosie O'Donnell's Flickr page (don't ask how I got there, it wasn't like I was looking for it) and she has no comments I can see.
Maybe both Rosie-o and I are in a similar circumstance where none of our friends are really with the technological wave and use the same kind of web tools. Or maybe all her pals are kids, judging by the pics.
Then I went to Rosie O'Donnell's Flickr page (don't ask how I got there, it wasn't like I was looking for it) and she has no comments I can see.
Maybe both Rosie-o and I are in a similar circumstance where none of our friends are really with the technological wave and use the same kind of web tools. Or maybe all her pals are kids, judging by the pics.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
NW and their metanarratives
So going on vacation left a pile of NWs in my mailbox. Not just the usual two suspects, but also a special edition (which, for you non-publishing folk, means an advertorial bonanza of beaucoup bucks). Naturally, it's a bit overwhelming to slog through more than one NW, nevermind THREE, and before I knew it the June 27 issue was dropped in the box.
Okay, maybe I hesitated a little because I hoped I would get A COMMENT on my TOTALLY AWESOME GUATEMALA PICS but apparently people are too busy with their workaday lives to say, "Wow, Callie, those are some great pics! How'd you get such a STEADY SHOT of Lucas at night? You are the rockin'est chick alive!" or something to that effect.
The first metanarrative I have noticed with NW is the ugliness of the cover photo art. The health issue, as advertorial, gets a much glossier treatment than Deep Throat, which is a Xerox of an old "Nixon Resigns" story and a cutout of Mark Felt circa the humongous glasses years. Anyway, the model on the health issue is over-softened and her bangs look terrible. Also they blowed up her head to make her look skinnier and that always looks silly. The dinosaur cover looks a little fakey and also maybe a tiny bit anime meets J-horror meets Nova. Rather than give us an idea how Dinosaurs lived, as per the teaser, the image is sort of like how NW wishes they might have been on a particularly Dianetics-cover looking day.
Hey, Tom Cruise is inside that issue with the dinosaurs! Wow! What a coincidence. Man, I really can't hear enough about Tom Cruise and his new brainwashed beard. I mean lovely lady.
Another cover metanarrative: Excessive unnecessary whiteness. Health lady is white (non-Hispanic) although really, she could be anything. So are the military father and son. Deep Throat can't help it, however. Let me tell you what I think. I think the white lady had to be a lady because she is basically naked behind some high-tech CSI-style screens that show her guts and bones and stuff (complete with glittery spots that don't exist in reality in your body, we are much messier on the inside than NW would have it, but then, how would that basic biological fact jibe with the teaser "Your Health in the 21st century"?) and men are very comfortable with seeing and purchasing mags with very scantily dressed ladies in vulnerable positions. And she's white because advertisers are comfortable with white people and you can't be accused of being slanted toward the white man if you have a *woman* on the cover. And the female thing makes her plenty exotic; no need to introduce melanin into this picture! Or, for that matter, a couple inches of normal flab and some wrinkles. I'm willing to give the military dad and son a pass SOLELY on the grounds that it might have been the only together people portrait this big, powerful mag can scramble together. But this white woman thing seems really retrograde and offensive to me. Anyway, isn't Mark Felt a Jew? (That was a joke, people)
Oh, man, there's an unnecessarily white see-through man and a whole white fake family inside the health issue. There's a white woman repro'd in blue for a depression story that is not about her, a white boy in a fake fascist poster and a white man holding a box of specialized vitamins. All honkies. NW, you stink. In the future, when we are using rocket packs and sitting at floating tables (as per the picture) NW will still be relishing its white privilege. Even the ads are more diverse than the photo illustrations.
Well, the Deep Throat issue shows some Watergate-era covers. Now, those were unsophisticated, for the most part. The White House as Reel to Reel looks pretty good, though. But the unspohisticated ones are striking in their graphic power.
Craziest inside story is about a born-again former alcoholic and tool (beat) company executive who believes God has put a vision of Israeli oil in his heart. With venture capital raised from gullible and optimistic evangelicals, he is trying to find just that with his company Zion Oil. No one has ever found any kind of oil in Israel in spite of 500 holes drilled. Even the signs in his favor (a Triassic Reef, for example, where he's going to drill) do not mean this is going to be an easy extraction point where the money will roll right in. By the time the knucklehead finds oil in Israel (to help with a strategic advantage against the Arab world, he says, although honestly the democracy and women's rights things might be a better leg up in that respect) I would wager that oil won't be the global energy player it currently is. Israelis are somewhat amused to be the recipient of so much investment by folks that think they are going to hell if they are Jewish. It doesn't say so in the article, but I'm wagering that's the case.
Interesting story about soldiers who rap. I guess there's nothing like a real, terrifying, violent war to put the terrors of the ghetto in a homey perspective. In an attempt to support the troops, there are some people actually recording these raps. Naturally, abstracted from the flow, sentences such as "There's a place in this world you've never seen before/ a place called streets and a place called war/Most of you wanksters ain't never seen the fleet/you talk about war and you've only seen the street." But honestly, wanksters? I'm pretty sure that lyric got whitened up special for NW. If not, this isn't too promising.
Wow. Even the Baghdad bureau chief, a bona-fide anti-Saddam ideologue (why that might be a problem as a journalist isn't even addressed. You stink, Rod Nordland. And you stink more, NW.) has had his little worm turned in an analysis piece titled "Good Intentions Gone Bad." He hits all the points that are pretty obvious: torture hasn't helped save a single life, incompetant leadership, cash going to contractors as utilities fail and the infrastructure crumbles, the too-low levels of troops and the withdrawal of important equipment, the Green Zone is a pig sty and dangerous to boot, the soldiers are hated in Iraq and ignored by the home team ... man, this guy has had the scales fall from his eyes. He still kind of stinks, but I feel a little pity for the poor, stupid, pathetic ... hey, he's making way more money than I am and is half retarded! Rod, you stink!
Oh, hello! "Bad Girls Go Wild"! Love it! Bring on the cat fights! Meow! Hype the fake threat! And say this for a TLS: "Sugar and spice and everything nice: maybe Speight's forgiving nature represents an ideal that even boys can aim for."
Man, this is a particularly rich treasure trove of TLSs. The stories are so cheesy, from the rehash of that chick with the Dracula book to the White Stripes suck-up piece to a completely unnecessary pro-"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" revu (TLS = "They complete each other") I am flabbergasted.
Until I see the June 20 NW. How do they keep up the cluelessness and corniness each week?
"...TV's obsession with celebrity and wealth to new heights ..." Sorry, Mark Whitaker, I think you are confusing the apparatus with the end users. And, for that matter, operators.
NW discovers the guilty pleasure of Go Fug Yourself, in "Blog Watch." Why it gets the yellow exclamation mark and the site that shows camera-ed busts of car thieves gets a green dollar sign is still beyond me.
Catholic hermits! Man, there are all kinds of religious nuts to write about in this country. HIV-positive international adoptions! The specificity boggles the mind. Hair extensions! It's been in since the 90s for white girls — much, much longer for women of color — but that means it's time for NW to notice! The Hiltons! Paris, Nicki, would it kill you to close your mouths for a family portrait? Nothing like looking like you're working on the ben wa balls when you're NEXT TO YOUR PARENTS. All the people in the illustrations of a money article are white. Duh.
Then to June 27. Dinosaurs are the new sharks. With a picture set up to scare us on the cover, there is a jaws-pic in the contents page with open mouthed teeth emerging from the dark. Dinos, of course, are even less of a threat than sharks. Not by much, but they are.
Anyway, suffice to say that there's a story about girls going to spa camp where they get manipedis and do Yoga. NW loves those teenage girls. Just like Tom Cruise! Who's in that issue!
More in depth NW blogging to come with future issues as I maintain alertness only over the course of a single issue. But I think you got the drift.
Okay, maybe I hesitated a little because I hoped I would get A COMMENT on my TOTALLY AWESOME GUATEMALA PICS but apparently people are too busy with their workaday lives to say, "Wow, Callie, those are some great pics! How'd you get such a STEADY SHOT of Lucas at night? You are the rockin'est chick alive!" or something to that effect.
The first metanarrative I have noticed with NW is the ugliness of the cover photo art. The health issue, as advertorial, gets a much glossier treatment than Deep Throat, which is a Xerox of an old "Nixon Resigns" story and a cutout of Mark Felt circa the humongous glasses years. Anyway, the model on the health issue is over-softened and her bangs look terrible. Also they blowed up her head to make her look skinnier and that always looks silly. The dinosaur cover looks a little fakey and also maybe a tiny bit anime meets J-horror meets Nova. Rather than give us an idea how Dinosaurs lived, as per the teaser, the image is sort of like how NW wishes they might have been on a particularly Dianetics-cover looking day.
Hey, Tom Cruise is inside that issue with the dinosaurs! Wow! What a coincidence. Man, I really can't hear enough about Tom Cruise and his new brainwashed beard. I mean lovely lady.
Another cover metanarrative: Excessive unnecessary whiteness. Health lady is white (non-Hispanic) although really, she could be anything. So are the military father and son. Deep Throat can't help it, however. Let me tell you what I think. I think the white lady had to be a lady because she is basically naked behind some high-tech CSI-style screens that show her guts and bones and stuff (complete with glittery spots that don't exist in reality in your body, we are much messier on the inside than NW would have it, but then, how would that basic biological fact jibe with the teaser "Your Health in the 21st century"?) and men are very comfortable with seeing and purchasing mags with very scantily dressed ladies in vulnerable positions. And she's white because advertisers are comfortable with white people and you can't be accused of being slanted toward the white man if you have a *woman* on the cover. And the female thing makes her plenty exotic; no need to introduce melanin into this picture! Or, for that matter, a couple inches of normal flab and some wrinkles. I'm willing to give the military dad and son a pass SOLELY on the grounds that it might have been the only together people portrait this big, powerful mag can scramble together. But this white woman thing seems really retrograde and offensive to me. Anyway, isn't Mark Felt a Jew? (That was a joke, people)
Oh, man, there's an unnecessarily white see-through man and a whole white fake family inside the health issue. There's a white woman repro'd in blue for a depression story that is not about her, a white boy in a fake fascist poster and a white man holding a box of specialized vitamins. All honkies. NW, you stink. In the future, when we are using rocket packs and sitting at floating tables (as per the picture) NW will still be relishing its white privilege. Even the ads are more diverse than the photo illustrations.
Well, the Deep Throat issue shows some Watergate-era covers. Now, those were unsophisticated, for the most part. The White House as Reel to Reel looks pretty good, though. But the unspohisticated ones are striking in their graphic power.
Craziest inside story is about a born-again former alcoholic and tool (beat) company executive who believes God has put a vision of Israeli oil in his heart. With venture capital raised from gullible and optimistic evangelicals, he is trying to find just that with his company Zion Oil. No one has ever found any kind of oil in Israel in spite of 500 holes drilled. Even the signs in his favor (a Triassic Reef, for example, where he's going to drill) do not mean this is going to be an easy extraction point where the money will roll right in. By the time the knucklehead finds oil in Israel (to help with a strategic advantage against the Arab world, he says, although honestly the democracy and women's rights things might be a better leg up in that respect) I would wager that oil won't be the global energy player it currently is. Israelis are somewhat amused to be the recipient of so much investment by folks that think they are going to hell if they are Jewish. It doesn't say so in the article, but I'm wagering that's the case.
Interesting story about soldiers who rap. I guess there's nothing like a real, terrifying, violent war to put the terrors of the ghetto in a homey perspective. In an attempt to support the troops, there are some people actually recording these raps. Naturally, abstracted from the flow, sentences such as "There's a place in this world you've never seen before/ a place called streets and a place called war/Most of you wanksters ain't never seen the fleet/you talk about war and you've only seen the street." But honestly, wanksters? I'm pretty sure that lyric got whitened up special for NW. If not, this isn't too promising.
Wow. Even the Baghdad bureau chief, a bona-fide anti-Saddam ideologue (why that might be a problem as a journalist isn't even addressed. You stink, Rod Nordland. And you stink more, NW.) has had his little worm turned in an analysis piece titled "Good Intentions Gone Bad." He hits all the points that are pretty obvious: torture hasn't helped save a single life, incompetant leadership, cash going to contractors as utilities fail and the infrastructure crumbles, the too-low levels of troops and the withdrawal of important equipment, the Green Zone is a pig sty and dangerous to boot, the soldiers are hated in Iraq and ignored by the home team ... man, this guy has had the scales fall from his eyes. He still kind of stinks, but I feel a little pity for the poor, stupid, pathetic ... hey, he's making way more money than I am and is half retarded! Rod, you stink!
Oh, hello! "Bad Girls Go Wild"! Love it! Bring on the cat fights! Meow! Hype the fake threat! And say this for a TLS: "Sugar and spice and everything nice: maybe Speight's forgiving nature represents an ideal that even boys can aim for."
Man, this is a particularly rich treasure trove of TLSs. The stories are so cheesy, from the rehash of that chick with the Dracula book to the White Stripes suck-up piece to a completely unnecessary pro-"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" revu (TLS = "They complete each other") I am flabbergasted.
Until I see the June 20 NW. How do they keep up the cluelessness and corniness each week?
"...TV's obsession with celebrity and wealth to new heights ..." Sorry, Mark Whitaker, I think you are confusing the apparatus with the end users. And, for that matter, operators.
NW discovers the guilty pleasure of Go Fug Yourself, in "Blog Watch." Why it gets the yellow exclamation mark and the site that shows camera-ed busts of car thieves gets a green dollar sign is still beyond me.
Catholic hermits! Man, there are all kinds of religious nuts to write about in this country. HIV-positive international adoptions! The specificity boggles the mind. Hair extensions! It's been in since the 90s for white girls — much, much longer for women of color — but that means it's time for NW to notice! The Hiltons! Paris, Nicki, would it kill you to close your mouths for a family portrait? Nothing like looking like you're working on the ben wa balls when you're NEXT TO YOUR PARENTS. All the people in the illustrations of a money article are white. Duh.
Then to June 27. Dinosaurs are the new sharks. With a picture set up to scare us on the cover, there is a jaws-pic in the contents page with open mouthed teeth emerging from the dark. Dinos, of course, are even less of a threat than sharks. Not by much, but they are.
Anyway, suffice to say that there's a story about girls going to spa camp where they get manipedis and do Yoga. NW loves those teenage girls. Just like Tom Cruise! Who's in that issue!
More in depth NW blogging to come with future issues as I maintain alertness only over the course of a single issue. But I think you got the drift.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Gender Equity
Gender Equity was one of the Heifer Cornerstones that really had Marise's interest. Dominga and Juan Alberto were examples (one of many) of how couples working together makes the workload lighter and the couple more bonded. He wound balls of thread while she racked up her warp. Her weaving is one of the side businesses they have going to support the family; he's a coffee farmer with the La Voz Coop and they are the recipient of a bull from Heifer, which they both care for.
To see these photos better, click on any of the images and you'll go to my Flickr photostream. The small size is the only one that fits the blog, but I've got some very detailed pics that might make more visual sense if you see them in the larger size.
Lucas Skywalker
A little judicious cropping might help, but I don't feel like going through Photoshop.
This is Lucas, nightgroundskeeper of the Hotel Uxlabil in San Juan La Laguna, with what appear to be lightsabers. I teased him about being Luke Skywalker and it turned out his name really was Lucas. He was trying to help us find keys that Esteban misplaced in his backpack, as it turned out. Also to help us get to the hotel, which was about 100 yards through some pasture and a field of milpa (corn).
Lucas may be a nighttime groundskeeper at a hotel, with only a smattering of elementary education, but he speaks Spanish very well (many Guatemalans only speak a variant of a Maya language, like K'iche or, in the case of the folks around San Juan, Tzut'ujil) and his daughters have all gone on to university and professional jobs. The people I met, through Heifer and not, were extremely motivated, with high work ethics and entrepreneurial minds.
Cuchumatanes, day 2
Catalina and a rabbit.
Maria washes clothes with baby Amalia on her back.
Also outside of Cuchumatanes, like Brian and Don Fermín and family. This is a very motivated family. They planted 15,000 or so trees (their estimate) from seed gathered in a nearby hillside for soil preservation and improved water flow (i.e. not sluicing downhill chopping through their crops). They have sheep, rabbits and are trying to start an oyster mushroom business, all on a very poor plot of cold, dry land.
Brian and Sheep
This is the completely relaxed telepresentor Brian. Although only 11 and a total farmer boy, he was a very excellent and well-spoken interview for Heifer. And cute as a button, to boot.
Brian's favorite things to do include "studying and taking care of the sheep." That's a quote. He and his brothers and sisters are in charge of feeding the sheep, letting the sheep out, milking their goat and other farm tasks. His father, Don Fermín, has been with Heifer's project in Cuchumatanes for about 20 years and sows organic crops on top of the animal husbandry chores. Our plans to visit were kind of mixed up (some people wanted to kill the mayor in the town we were initially supposed to visit, so the dates changed) so one day we were there he had to help plant a community crop of cabbage.
After the interviews with Don Fermín, his enchanting Brian and his older son Santos and his family, we all had cafe con leche made with fresh goat's milk. Highly sweetened and with a touch of cinnamon, it was one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had. Everyone should put a little cinnamon and goat milk in thier coffee.
Some Guatemala photos up
Here is the first picture I took in Guatemala, in the main plaza of Guatemala City. The birds tell your fortune by reading slips of paper they pick out of a round cardboard file. Most Guatemalans put a lot of stock in your astrological sign — as did, kind of, Melvin, who led me around the city while waiting for dad's plane to get in. Melvin is El Salvadoran, BTW — and birds telling fortunes is another way to mediate your basic superstitious tendencies. I don't know why there aren't bird cages on every corner of Seattle; they are a total hoot. Maybe I should start a business.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
To Guatemala
I'll be leaving in a few hours. I'll be back when I can. Wish me luck, because I've got my translation work cut out for me. Also the altitude (in Spanish, altitud).
Chau! Hasta Luego!
Chau! Hasta Luego!
Passive aggressivity
I hate it.
This was in the St. Bernard Hospital in Jonesboro, Ark. I didn't like the tone it took with employees or visitors. It's snotty and extremely passive aggressive. Give me the plain old aggressive of "Employees MUST wash their hands before returning to work" any day. I mean, that's a rule, not a condescending and off-putting piece of junk.
It was interesting to be in the Medical Arts building there. I guess what with all the creationism and school board activity going on out there they can't have a Medical Sciences building. Sike, that's mean. But all kidding aside, I have deep concerns about what it means to deny schoolkids access to actual, true science in an age where our national ability to compete economically depends in part on our science skills, which are already shakier than they were a mere decade ago.
I think if Americans who were obsessed with minutiae like the runaway bride, Terri Schiavo and Michael Jackson got an eyeful of what's really going on in China they would make a mess of their pants. We are a weak and decadent country, indeed. Though part of me wonders if this doesn't hearken back a little to John Adams, who kind of set up the descent of American man when he (I think it was he) said that Americans had to start as scrappy military men so the next generation could be politicians, then become businessmen, then become scientists and then poets — in that order. We are predestined to softness, in other words, even though he wouldn't have seen it this way.
At least the J.B. has a place that makes a mean pizza pie on Main Street. Get the Zorba and forget your troubles.
This was in the St. Bernard Hospital in Jonesboro, Ark. I didn't like the tone it took with employees or visitors. It's snotty and extremely passive aggressive. Give me the plain old aggressive of "Employees MUST wash their hands before returning to work" any day. I mean, that's a rule, not a condescending and off-putting piece of junk.
It was interesting to be in the Medical Arts building there. I guess what with all the creationism and school board activity going on out there they can't have a Medical Sciences building. Sike, that's mean. But all kidding aside, I have deep concerns about what it means to deny schoolkids access to actual, true science in an age where our national ability to compete economically depends in part on our science skills, which are already shakier than they were a mere decade ago.
I think if Americans who were obsessed with minutiae like the runaway bride, Terri Schiavo and Michael Jackson got an eyeful of what's really going on in China they would make a mess of their pants. We are a weak and decadent country, indeed. Though part of me wonders if this doesn't hearken back a little to John Adams, who kind of set up the descent of American man when he (I think it was he) said that Americans had to start as scrappy military men so the next generation could be politicians, then become businessmen, then become scientists and then poets — in that order. We are predestined to softness, in other words, even though he wouldn't have seen it this way.
At least the J.B. has a place that makes a mean pizza pie on Main Street. Get the Zorba and forget your troubles.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Non-Little Rock freak blogging
Dear insecure Asian guy with the incredibly indulgent girlfriend:
Be glad you and your incessant nattering were on the way to the Little Rock airport from Houston and not the Houston airport from SeaTac because I seriously would have killed you had I had to listen to one more instant of your non-stop pointless loud chatter.
You have a test coming up? Seriously? With differential equations? You're worried about getting a company off the ground? You think breaking even after two years is good? Your much-too-attractive-gf didn't pay half on your trip to Burlingame? You took a shower at 7:30 a.m.? You like her shirt? You got a paycheck for a couple hundred dollars recently? You are really good at that game you didn't bother to mute and left the explosion sounds up really high for? You haven't played it for like a year? You like building your own computers (pause) from Dell?
You know, I felt, momentarily bad for you when you were talking very loudly about how you felt insecure in situations around other people, though as the plane was taking off and you kept talking during take off (and really, who does that?) about how your English wasn't so good (could have fooled me! And I heard a lot of your English!) I really thought you completely missed the point of why your interactions with people might be rocky. But then I went back to hating you almost but not nearly as much as the woman next to me hated you.
We are not your dreadfully indulgent girlfriend. We do not put up with having to hear about how you're interested in exploring technology and making money and that trip to Burlingame. And, come to think of it, we're not your big sister, either, where that's the expected behavior from folks like you. And neither is your gf, so don't you think maybe you should talk to her as a man to a woman rather than as a pesky know-it-all to an older sibling?
I got a pretty good look at your face, you mouth-breather with squinty eyes and a bad bowl cut. My God, you must be on the verge of making a billion bucks because your gf was cute. I am sure someday that slack-jawed mug of yours will be staring out at me from the cover of WIRED or FORTUNE or whatever. And you owe me a favor (not money, just a little appreciation) that I did not strangle you with my bare hands when you came up next to me to grab your gf's suitcase and couldn't just pull it off the luggage carousel without comment. Oh, no. "This is your suitcase, right? But it's got my name on it. You put your name on it? They must have flipped it. Do you think my suitcase will come out with your name on it? I bet your name is on my suitcase ..." And so on.
Girl, either you're a very prospective golddigger or a saint or you need to wake up and smell the constant spume of unbroken breath from this guy. I know you can do better. I also hope you don't marry him, since from his nattering I understand there is some sort of financial barrier to your actually agreeing to do it. You just seem, even as a golddigger, a little too good for him.
Be glad you and your incessant nattering were on the way to the Little Rock airport from Houston and not the Houston airport from SeaTac because I seriously would have killed you had I had to listen to one more instant of your non-stop pointless loud chatter.
You have a test coming up? Seriously? With differential equations? You're worried about getting a company off the ground? You think breaking even after two years is good? Your much-too-attractive-gf didn't pay half on your trip to Burlingame? You took a shower at 7:30 a.m.? You like her shirt? You got a paycheck for a couple hundred dollars recently? You are really good at that game you didn't bother to mute and left the explosion sounds up really high for? You haven't played it for like a year? You like building your own computers (pause) from Dell?
You know, I felt, momentarily bad for you when you were talking very loudly about how you felt insecure in situations around other people, though as the plane was taking off and you kept talking during take off (and really, who does that?) about how your English wasn't so good (could have fooled me! And I heard a lot of your English!) I really thought you completely missed the point of why your interactions with people might be rocky. But then I went back to hating you almost but not nearly as much as the woman next to me hated you.
We are not your dreadfully indulgent girlfriend. We do not put up with having to hear about how you're interested in exploring technology and making money and that trip to Burlingame. And, come to think of it, we're not your big sister, either, where that's the expected behavior from folks like you. And neither is your gf, so don't you think maybe you should talk to her as a man to a woman rather than as a pesky know-it-all to an older sibling?
I got a pretty good look at your face, you mouth-breather with squinty eyes and a bad bowl cut. My God, you must be on the verge of making a billion bucks because your gf was cute. I am sure someday that slack-jawed mug of yours will be staring out at me from the cover of WIRED or FORTUNE or whatever. And you owe me a favor (not money, just a little appreciation) that I did not strangle you with my bare hands when you came up next to me to grab your gf's suitcase and couldn't just pull it off the luggage carousel without comment. Oh, no. "This is your suitcase, right? But it's got my name on it. You put your name on it? They must have flipped it. Do you think my suitcase will come out with your name on it? I bet your name is on my suitcase ..." And so on.
Girl, either you're a very prospective golddigger or a saint or you need to wake up and smell the constant spume of unbroken breath from this guy. I know you can do better. I also hope you don't marry him, since from his nattering I understand there is some sort of financial barrier to your actually agreeing to do it. You just seem, even as a golddigger, a little too good for him.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
NW. Are you shocked?
What? I just got NW, what am I doing blogging it?
Well, today I'm in preparations for the big Guatamala trip. Laundry is being washed. The handwashables are hanging up to dry. Things are getting done around here.
So, on to NW and ... Ye Gods! The man on the cover has huge pores! I never notice this stuff, but maybe all that Go Fug Yourself reading has rubbed off on me a little. Dude needs a full-face Biore strip and exfoliation, stat.
Plus, the cover is about hearing loss, one that could ostensibly use a photoillustration. But the problem with NW's latest batch of photo illustrations is that they are so crude, so ugly, so ... junior high collage ... that it would look almost as bad as the pretty man with preposterous pores. Is NW afraid of running pretty, clever and realistic-looking p.i.'s? Think back with me here, folks. Last week it was the inside article. Nevada Sen. Henry Reid and Frootloop Sen. Bill Frist blowing up the Capitol dome in a cartoon cutout. Before that it was a xerox of a hand tinted pink with a teensy xeroxed dollar bill. Totally obvious and ugly. The last pretty p.i. was ... Martha! The one that got NW in trouble with journalists. People, there is a middle ground where something is an obvious p.i. and yet is not completely ugly and primary colored. Find it. Or give your artists a little more time to conjure something up.
Mark Whitaker is less pukeupable today. Though there is one tittery comment in his column that makes the eyes roll, and, believe it or not, it is his own TRAGIC LAST SENTENCE!
"And in a first look at the latest bid to bring our most human superhero to the screen, Devin Gordon explains why great writing and characters, not special effects, will make 'Batman Begins' soar."
Soar? Soar? Most human? Phhhhlllbbbbtt. I'll give you "Most Human" in the category of superhero without any actual superpowers. But the big B is kind of a goth caricature of morose tragedy. So is The Punisher, and I don't believe he has any superpowers either. But then, I shouldn't expect a NW editor to be well-versed in the fantasyverses of DC and Marvel.
Oh, Lord, Nevada residents are going to choose their own quarter design. The finalists are so ugly. The state quarters have pretty much all been a travesty. Delaware started fairly strong with its simple man on horse entry, even if it did lose points for basically trying to bust on Paul Revere. But Connecticut's tree? The multiple state symbol salads? I suppose the one I liked the best would be Vermont's exceptionally non-pretentious man tapping a maple tree for sap. Or did I just define it too well there? Anyway, the upshot of the whole Nevada Votes! is that the two designs will tap into two divergent and hideous new agey trends — in one corner, Native American tchotchkes, in the other, bucking horses racing down a plain with "snow capped" mountains and sunrise behind them. What, no wolf designs? Anyway, I predict horses because the native gewgaws do not include a dream catcher. Oh, bonus trivia for the horse people — apparently the wild n frees are trying to get out of the state altogether, since the angle from which the Nevadans that see the sun rise over the Sierra Nevada range is way out on the border. California here they come, right back where they started from ...
Letter writers love George W. For Washington, that is. Oh man, I started to sound like NW there. Here's one letter writer's TLS:
"May he be immortal."
Are these people this fawning all the time or is there something about NW that brings it out in them? "That divan is divine." "The polka-dot plant yet endures the dryness, a bold soul is she." "Your passing the salt was a demonstration of your natural grace and good heart."
But let me not mock these NW fawners any more. Let me mock the TLSs.
"He had a race to start."
"That's something that Jason Reinhardt's mother knows all too well."
"They never imagined the horror Lamonica described could have been taking place inside."
"And he's just about certain to use some of the techniques that kept his father in power for nearly three decades."
"With such fans, Freston won't mind the jet lag."
"Money has been earmarked for cobblestone streets around the NYSE — a nice historical touch for an institution whose 213-year traditions for doing business may be history."
"Sounds good to us."
"Nobody said it would be a simple undertaking." (The story is about a rise in enrollment in undertaker programs. The story would have been a lot better with some details — in the accompanying photo, there's a jar of "Velva Post-mortem massage cream," which demands some sort of explanation, especially seeing how you can't find it through Google. However, here's a closeup on the label. Though I would be careful poking around underbunny's photo essay if I were to actually poke around on it.)
"For better or for worse, we're stuck with marrying for love and accepting the consequences of living happily ever after — until someone better comes along."
"If we were forced to give out an Oscar today, we'd hand it to Blu-ray, but if these guys don't start acting in unison, this sequal could get a thumbs down." (What does that even mean for two competing companies with two DVD standards?)
"He couldn't bring himself to do it, though — not after so boldly resurrecting the superhero in the driver's seat."
"As a true-grit tale of redemption, on the other hand, it lands one solid body punch after another."
"Besides, the made-for-TV wars are already grim enough."
"Instead, what you get is the pure joy of looking at the world — and looking hard."
"Now she can sit back and enjoy her summer — in shorts."
And that's a wrap.
Obviously there will be a pause in the blogging as I head to G-mal and the even more exotic A-saw for holidays. No guest blogger, but if my comment section is any standard, I don't have that many readers anyway to miss me.
Adios, amigos!
Well, today I'm in preparations for the big Guatamala trip. Laundry is being washed. The handwashables are hanging up to dry. Things are getting done around here.
So, on to NW and ... Ye Gods! The man on the cover has huge pores! I never notice this stuff, but maybe all that Go Fug Yourself reading has rubbed off on me a little. Dude needs a full-face Biore strip and exfoliation, stat.
Plus, the cover is about hearing loss, one that could ostensibly use a photoillustration. But the problem with NW's latest batch of photo illustrations is that they are so crude, so ugly, so ... junior high collage ... that it would look almost as bad as the pretty man with preposterous pores. Is NW afraid of running pretty, clever and realistic-looking p.i.'s? Think back with me here, folks. Last week it was the inside article. Nevada Sen. Henry Reid and Frootloop Sen. Bill Frist blowing up the Capitol dome in a cartoon cutout. Before that it was a xerox of a hand tinted pink with a teensy xeroxed dollar bill. Totally obvious and ugly. The last pretty p.i. was ... Martha! The one that got NW in trouble with journalists. People, there is a middle ground where something is an obvious p.i. and yet is not completely ugly and primary colored. Find it. Or give your artists a little more time to conjure something up.
Mark Whitaker is less pukeupable today. Though there is one tittery comment in his column that makes the eyes roll, and, believe it or not, it is his own TRAGIC LAST SENTENCE!
"And in a first look at the latest bid to bring our most human superhero to the screen, Devin Gordon explains why great writing and characters, not special effects, will make 'Batman Begins' soar."
Soar? Soar? Most human? Phhhhlllbbbbtt. I'll give you "Most Human" in the category of superhero without any actual superpowers. But the big B is kind of a goth caricature of morose tragedy. So is The Punisher, and I don't believe he has any superpowers either. But then, I shouldn't expect a NW editor to be well-versed in the fantasyverses of DC and Marvel.
Oh, Lord, Nevada residents are going to choose their own quarter design. The finalists are so ugly. The state quarters have pretty much all been a travesty. Delaware started fairly strong with its simple man on horse entry, even if it did lose points for basically trying to bust on Paul Revere. But Connecticut's tree? The multiple state symbol salads? I suppose the one I liked the best would be Vermont's exceptionally non-pretentious man tapping a maple tree for sap. Or did I just define it too well there? Anyway, the upshot of the whole Nevada Votes! is that the two designs will tap into two divergent and hideous new agey trends — in one corner, Native American tchotchkes, in the other, bucking horses racing down a plain with "snow capped" mountains and sunrise behind them. What, no wolf designs? Anyway, I predict horses because the native gewgaws do not include a dream catcher. Oh, bonus trivia for the horse people — apparently the wild n frees are trying to get out of the state altogether, since the angle from which the Nevadans that see the sun rise over the Sierra Nevada range is way out on the border. California here they come, right back where they started from ...
Letter writers love George W. For Washington, that is. Oh man, I started to sound like NW there. Here's one letter writer's TLS:
"May he be immortal."
Are these people this fawning all the time or is there something about NW that brings it out in them? "That divan is divine." "The polka-dot plant yet endures the dryness, a bold soul is she." "Your passing the salt was a demonstration of your natural grace and good heart."
But let me not mock these NW fawners any more. Let me mock the TLSs.
"He had a race to start."
"That's something that Jason Reinhardt's mother knows all too well."
"They never imagined the horror Lamonica described could have been taking place inside."
"And he's just about certain to use some of the techniques that kept his father in power for nearly three decades."
"With such fans, Freston won't mind the jet lag."
"Money has been earmarked for cobblestone streets around the NYSE — a nice historical touch for an institution whose 213-year traditions for doing business may be history."
"Sounds good to us."
"Nobody said it would be a simple undertaking." (The story is about a rise in enrollment in undertaker programs. The story would have been a lot better with some details — in the accompanying photo, there's a jar of "Velva Post-mortem massage cream," which demands some sort of explanation, especially seeing how you can't find it through Google. However, here's a closeup on the label. Though I would be careful poking around underbunny's photo essay if I were to actually poke around on it.)
"For better or for worse, we're stuck with marrying for love and accepting the consequences of living happily ever after — until someone better comes along."
"If we were forced to give out an Oscar today, we'd hand it to Blu-ray, but if these guys don't start acting in unison, this sequal could get a thumbs down." (What does that even mean for two competing companies with two DVD standards?)
"He couldn't bring himself to do it, though — not after so boldly resurrecting the superhero in the driver's seat."
"As a true-grit tale of redemption, on the other hand, it lands one solid body punch after another."
"Besides, the made-for-TV wars are already grim enough."
"Instead, what you get is the pure joy of looking at the world — and looking hard."
"Now she can sit back and enjoy her summer — in shorts."
And that's a wrap.
Obviously there will be a pause in the blogging as I head to G-mal and the even more exotic A-saw for holidays. No guest blogger, but if my comment section is any standard, I don't have that many readers anyway to miss me.
Adios, amigos!
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