Waxing Bombastic

This website, dedicated to daily updates with information about the upcoming Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, has become the crack in my coffee. I've always been a huge fan of the whimsical and crazy Smash Bros. games, and this new one shows so much dedication to NES history, so much love to the music of the past and old characters, some forgotten and some still updated yearly, that I just can't stay away from it.

For now, the biggest highlight for me is on the music section. If you grew up playing NES games like I did, listen to the Kid Icarus track they have on there, it's just mind-blowing to hear that bleepy old song reimagined and performed by an orchestra.

The game comes out December 3rd. That gives me 5 days to unlock stuff on it before my birthday on the 8th. I'm predicting an overnighter Smash Marathon at my place, with one of those pizzas so big it has to be folded to get through the front door.

btw, there's at least two characters we know about that aren't on that character list, the Kirby villian Metaknight and Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series. The designers have said we should expect two or so more non-Nintendo characters besides Snake, leaving me continued hope for Simon Belmont and Mega Man. But who would you prefer to see?

Though I'm appropriating the name of this little web project from K-Mart, the real meat of it begins in the store everyone loves to hate (and love), Wal-Mart. I've been there a great deal in the past few months/years, in dual part because I am a cheap bastard and because while I have a ton of stuff very little of it is practical or still works. Also, I work a block away from one, so there you go. Anyway, to the meat.

If you've visited a Wal-Mart in the past few months or years to buy a DVD, you've probably seen the organizational method. New stuff gets a nice display rack horizontally aligned, the sort of thing one used to see in the "New" section at a Wherehouse or Sam Goody. After the new stuff and box sets, DVDs are arranged by price. Generally relatively recent or decidedly successful stuff makes it onto the 14 dollar rack, and relatively old or recent, unsuccessful stuff into the 9 dollar rack, with the real dregs (Veggie Tales, Sarah Jessica Parker vehicles, Jumanji...) sharing shelf space on the 5-7 dollar display. Now, there's always treasures to be found on all the racks, I've recently picked up Big Trouble in Little China, Neverending Story, Princess Bride, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and a lot more, all for five bucks. But it means I have to sift through the aforementioned garbage. Anyway, that's the racks.

Beyond the racks, there's the bins. The bins contain the stuff that's too execrable to even bother sorting and putting on a shelf. Seasonal collections of mexican comedy specials, religious-themed documentaries, Boat Trip, and dozens of old action movies with their uniquely identifiable two word naming convention (Hard Pain, Indecent Measures, Odd Jobs, etc. Those of course aren't real, but couldn't they just be?) This bin will occasionally burp up something useful. I got a copy of Aliens out of there once, however it's organization (big pile of DVDs in a big bin) makes it difficult to sort, and generally when visited with a group it only results in a bad-DVD fight, with parties saying things like "Take the lesser known works of Marlon Brando!" "Oh yeah? Well here comes Mis Danos del Corte de Pelo volume 4!"

Finally, at the end of the aisle, on a shelf that generally seems cleaner than any other part of the store, there lies the hell of DVDs. The dollar rack. Seemingly organized at random, these slender DVD cases bear covers that mean nothing to most. There's very little in a dollar DVD rack that anyone has ever heard of, save the sad degenerates that made these films at some point in their past and are still trying to hide the fact. A mix of cheap animation, old repackaged animation, strange low-budget films, and more, the dollar rack is so sad that most folks won't even bother touching it, they'll walk industriously past, trying hard not to make eye contact. Not anymore.

Starting last night, I began my project of watching a dollar dvd a week and submitting to LJ a comprehensive review of said. Not really sure why, other than I think it will be fun and educational for me, and my vast collection of 15 readers (5 of which I think have died), might get a kick out of it. We'll be taking everything I feel like buying, from Milton Berle's Workout for Seniors (ya rly) to Film! Film! Film! (some kind of weird cartoon).


So watch this space for Movie One (probably sometime this evening), "Star of Fear!"

At 7:15 this morning my alarm sounded, and I snapped rapidly to attention. “All right!” I thought, “no aftereffects of the evening! I’m alert and feeling good!”

This feeling was not to last, for my alertness fled the very instant I tried to move: A step out of bed, a step toward the clock, and over I went, toppling slowly towards the bookshelf my clock rests on, dimly aware that somewhere far beneath me, invisible loggers had sawn through the tendons in my legs, and in a majestic slow fall, I collapsed into my shelving, the ones I don’t use for books. Scrabble, a handful of DVDs, and Optimus Prime fell on me. On the floor, I contemplated the ridiculous situation I was in. Overall, it was an indication that the night previous must have been epic.

For those who followed it, and I admit it went underground for a while, UKEBCT took off last night like an overpumped bottle rocket. For those ufamilar with UKEBCT (pronounced “ooh-kweh-bect” by the way), allow me to ( explain and regale you with the tale. )

"ABC's of gender

Our children is learning, it turns out. Learning about gender stereotypes, that is. When Mom's busying herself in the kitchen, preparing a meal for the family, or Dad's watching the game and throwing back some beers with the boys, toddlers are studying gender roles, according to a new study (via Jezebel). It was generally assumed that it wasn't until preschool -- when kids split into gender segregated groups -- that they started to recognize gender stereotypes or expectations. But researchers from Brigham Young University found that 2-year-olds are well aware of socially prescribed gender roles and when they're being subverted.
The recently published study found that toddlers spent more time looking at a video depicting a man or woman adhering to nontraditional gender roles (like a man putting on lipstick) versus footage of stereotypically gendered behavior. They paid more attention to the nontraditional behavior because it was unfamiliar to them, according to the study's author, Ross Flom. Researchers also found that parents who exhibit strongly gendered behavior will have kids who do the same.
This goes to show what most parents already know all too well: They're watching you. (Do-do-do-do.) Flom says, "They're very active -- which could be kind of frightening for parents [thinking], 'Holy cow, our 2-year-old is picking up on these subtleties. Imagine what else they're picking up on.'"
-- Tracy Clark-Flory"

Reposted from Salon's Broadsheet, which is always good for a laugh. Anyway, I figured I'd take a shot at ranting about a dumb post to see how the other half live. This is definitely a dumb post.

First let's start with the overall premise. Kids are learning about gender roles from us earlier than we thought. So? No really. That's pretty much my whole argument there. They're gonna learn and define gender stereotypes anyway. If you, as a parent, somehow let loose upon the world an 18 year old totally unaware of the social interactions that occur between men and women, congratulations, you've made a monster.

Second, let's look at the tone: "When Mom's busying herself in the kitchen, preparing a meal for the family, or Dad's watching the game and throwing back some beers with the boys."
Huh. That's not in the study anywhere, I just finished reading it. Apparently the author learned some gender stereotypes at some point. Women take care of the family. Men drink and watch sports. Good to know.

Third. Brigham Young University? Nice. Anyway, I went over the study and what it basically indicates is that young kids will watch weird things. Men putting on lipstick, etc. The study doesn't indicate a gender-neutral incongruous behavior to test the reactions of children (men and women both doing something that they don't normally do, like.. licking a doorknob or something). The suggestion, to me at least, is that kids notice the way their parents act and will be confused and interested if other adults act differently. That's not gender identification, or at least not provably so. The study is also polite enough to identify the man putting on lipstick as, and it's quoted, "wrong." No bias there!

Finally. "It was generally assumed that it wasn't until preschool ..."
It wasn't? I didn't know that. I wonder who assumed that, and how many of them it was assuming that to make it a "general" assumption. Salon really needs to tighten the editing on this page, or at least reign in some of the bloggers, they throw all sorts of unwarranted assumptions and old information at the wall in the name of feminism and, to me at least, it isn't helping as much as some facts would.

Attempting to come up with the worst possible list of 15 books, not neccessarily the worst books (15 Ayn Rand just would look silly), but the most barf-inducing list possible, if that description makes any sense. The sort of books that, if you saw someone reading them on a train, would urge you to go away and find a seat with less stupid-person waves coming at it.

How's it look? Any changes I could make still?
The Secret
Dianetics
Cooking Rocks! Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals for Kids
Big book of Sudoko with Answers
The Atkins' Way
Dynasty - A Photo Anthology
Chilton's 1974 Plymouth Galaxie
American Idol - The Search for a Superstar
1001 Cool Jokes
Robocop 3 - Novelization
Garfield at Large
Godless - The Church of Liberalism
Spice Girls - The Uncensored Story behind Pop's Biggest Phenomenon
Dale Earnhardt - An Autobiography
Betty and Veronica Double Digest

Perusing the dollar store near my work today for tablecloths, I happened upon a sternly labeled rack. The statement? "Do not open bags. We will not sell opened bags!"

The bags in question? Grab bags! 99 cents for the finest assorted junk that even a 99 cent store can't sell individually. Well of course I had to have one. How could anyone pass up the opportunity? Okay, so I actually bought two. But they had them in boy and girl models! So good! So today I bring you a catalogue. ( he general description and contents of a Grab Bag for Boys (I'll cover the girl one later). )

Prepare yourself for the ultimate challenge! UKBCT is a battle royale between you and your friends and neighbors, the showdown to whose karaoke skills reign supreme. In short, you sing karaoke, but you do not pick the songs. They are picked by your cohorts! Perform anyway! Receive votes for your excellence! Determine who secretly picked your horrible song and banish him to the land of wind and ghosts! YOSH!

Okay, so I’m writing up the rules to a party game I plan to make a website around and moderate between various friends in various cities. The basic concept is that you go out to karaoke with your friends, and rather than staying in your comfort zone and singing “Working for the Weekend” again, you receive a secret assignment from another player. Points will be received for performing well (votes come from other players), for correctly guessing who picked your song, for evading being identified, and for brilliantly pairing your victim with a song (either appropriately or inappropriately), again handled by votes from other players. Finally, current losers can declare a vendetta challenge against the player who has ruined them, for even more scoring opportunities. Votes will be tallied between teams and maintained on a website I’m assembling, and with any luck (or any participation), there will soon be a championship and a Karaoke Grandmaster.

The rules are being finetuned right now, which is why I’m looking for your thoughts.

Thoughts?


( Rules: )

A conversation just now led me to remember an unusual old event from my childhood. Twenty years ago, so it almost feels dreamlike as I try to set it down here, but here goes anyway.

This happened for a few weeks or months, once a week. My mother would bundle me into the car (old red Nissan, I think), and we'd head to Beverly Hills from our Torrance home. I remember being amazed by the Beverly streetline, the buildings were all that pink and white stucco that now just screams vapid wealth but then meant "fragile boring stuff." The doctor's office was here, incongruously adjacent to a gallery, an old office building with two floors and stair access only to the second.

Trudging up led us into a small office, like a private practice, with a reception area and two small rooms in the back. Greeted each week by the same friendly nurse, I'd be hurried back into one of the small rooms (which one changed periodically) and shut in there, usually alone, for about 15 minutes. The wait was apparently part of the process, and it was interminable for a hyperactive eight-year old. Eventually the nurse would come in. Chatting politely about my outfits or cartoons, she'd dip tiny probes into a pad of glue, applying them to my head, fretting over placement, apologetically scraping them loose to reapply elsewhere. There were 5 electrodes in total, and the glue was cold. It smelled like a hospital.

Here came another wait, then finally the doctor (I think she was a doctor, it's what I called her) would arrive. She'd ask me questions and give me instructions for a while, always energetic and pleasant, before finally turning on the machines. There were two of them, one in each room, so each week was something different. The first was just a small black box. It was silent, didn't appear particularly sturdy, and was nearly devoid of decoration in the front save a pair of LED lights, one red and one green. My job with this machine was to get the green light lit with my brain. It measured the amount of time the green light was lit and fed notes about my results and progress to the doctor. The other machine was similar, but it was my favorite. A screen display had been added, covered with Atari-esque graphics of a series of sloped platforms like switchbacks. Obstacles of various sorts tumbled down them. When I was thinking correctly, a man would run up the platforms, jumping the obstacles. When I thought incorrectly, he was struck, and would start again from the bottom. I even recall the scoring. 1000 points was a nickel to me.

As a brief aside, I have absolutely no idea what these machines were, why I was there, or what I was doing with my brain. I was too young for anyone to bother explaining it, and when I've asked my parents since they just say it was something to test hyperactive brains. My assumption is that it picked up alpha/sine brainwaves, and since each game was just a glorified on/off switch, it was fairly simple. But I just don't know for sure.

With a bag of nickels in hand and a lot of cooped-up time to work off, I'd bid my goodbyes to the doctor's office. In our old Nissan we'd drive to the Beverly Hills Galeria, where I, a eight-year old in cheap clothes with rings of suction-skin and glue on his forehead, would dart between the legs of the rich and snobby to the arcade, where I'd buy my stake of quarters with my giant bag of nickels, to the endless amusement of the kid working the place. The name of the game was Skee-Ball, since my appetite for digital entertainment was understandably low.

Carbon Neutral = Buying green tags so that someone somewhere else will use less fuel doing whatever it is they do so as to offset your fuel usage. To whit, I drive an SUV, I buy a bunch of "Green Tags" at Whole Foods or wherever. After the profit margin, manufacturing, paper to make the tags, distribution, advertising, and store space, the money goes to a farmer to help offset the difficulty of using wind power. Maybe. Very few actual green tag systems are currently functional, most of them are currently in the shell game of selling future credit, as in "Someday your green tag money will be invested in solar energy, so for now keep that house heater on during July!"

Taken from the wiki entry: "Green tags are renewable energy certificates which guarantee that a set amount of free energy or clean energy (e.g. wind power) will go into the grid on the buyer's behalf. Green tags are, therefore, the most convenient way for a home or business to convert 100% to free energy."

So...

Manslaughter Neutral = Drinking a big ol' bottle of Jack and then driving through a farmer's market on my way to MADD to make a big donation?

Child Rape Neutral = Punching my credit card number in over the phone to donate to local police funds using a crying 8 year old's dick as a stylus?

Anger at Fake Conservation Via Throwing Money Around for Upscale Non-Liberals Unwilling to Scale Down from the Expedition Neutral = laughing and smiling while I type this?

So I started a diet last week. A fairly simple one, just reducing calories and adding exercise, the kind that most Americans fear. My caloric reduction was pretty serious though, which I'm pretty sure has led me to today.

Right now my eyes don't much care what direction they're faced in (I'm typing this on one screen and staring at another), my arms are listless and supported only by what I prop them up against, the muscles in my face have ceased operation as conveyances of emotion and taken up temp positions as noticeable weight, giving me a slumped dead expression. Every noise irritates me, every question is a request to fight, and finishing a sentence requires a few pauses while I replan what I was getting ready to say. The woman sitting behind me apparently upgraded her perfume purchases to the Gallo 4 liter jugs, and she smells like the scratch 'n sniff aisle in a teacher supply store. My head pounds every time she moves.

Additionally, I don't care about anything and don't want to participate in anything that doesn't involve my bed.

So, my pharma-friendly friends, is this standard depression? I have always thought myself a little too hyperactive to be prone to the effects of depression, since I generally go quite crazy without some form of constant stimulation, as anyone whose phone number I have can attest to. What should I do for the short term? What do you do?

...since I'm assuming this is a diet-related wall, I'm hoping that short-term is all I'll have to deal with. Wish me luck.

I only have a few, and they're very simple. They'll just be followed by my take on last year for fun and reducing my posting for a day to 1 (up from my usual none, hooray).

1. Maintain the current diet. I hate to admit it, but while I have clear rules on calorie intakes, workout schedules and meal times, I don't actually have a goal for the diet. Just do it until I'm happy. So picking a goal is on the list too.

2. Get the credit score up by 50 points. Fairly simple one.

3. Travel outside the country. Left intentionally vague, I don't know exactly where I'll be able to go to, but it's gonna be somewhere.

4. Forward a few of my hobbies, as well as hopefully introducing a new one. I may bug you about those. Yeah, you. You know.

As for the year, I think I'll sum it up as a list of things that didn't happen.

In this year, I wasn't fired. I wasn't dumped. I didn't lose a place to live or a car. I didn't alienate any of my friends and even made some new ones. The only thing I really lost was clutter from my room, and there's more of that to go. For a long time, I've guided my life in a way that at least a few of these things happened to me every year, and I would always find someone else to blame. As I look back today, things look a way I'm not used to: stable, calm, maintainable. I'm happy with 2006. And I have a lot more to look forward to.

Here are the thoughts I gleaned from attending a lunch training in which my company hosted the University of Phoenix today. The meeting's topic was Customer Service. Quotes indicate that was an actual statement by the presenter, the rest is just what I took away from the things he said.

1. The University of Phoenix says that they are the largest private University in the US. It's clear they have accomplished this feat by saving money on powerpoint presentations and hosting hourlong commercials over your lunch break.

2. Don't hate Mondays. This can be accomplished by not hating Mondays.

3. Don't deal directly with other people. The same or better results can be obtained by complaining directly and immediately to their bosses instead.

4. Other people you work with have only one task to do all day. If it isn't done to your specifications, you should mockingly offer to help them or do it for them. This will shame them into molding their job to match your expectations.

5. "Attitude is more important than facts." This is useful for those who plan to go into space without a suit.

6. "You can't build the pyramids alone." This factoid (repeated ad naseum) is quite true. You can't. You need to enslave an ethnic group for thousands of years to get those kind of results.

7. "10% of life is what happens, 90% of life is how you react to it." This is good for people that watch TV all day, or, I suppose, are professionally trained customer service trainers. It is likely to be of less comfort to those being eaten by bears.

8. As in the case of Barry Bonds, denial is not a suitable answer. Apparently anything other than an admission of guilt is just a tacit admission of guilt. So have an answer for your customers, but if the truth isn't something they like, remember, that's not actually an answer, so they should feel entitled to keep asking for a few more hours.

9. An unhappy customer will tell nine people about their bad experience. A happy customer will tell five.

10. I should do my part and spread the word about the hotness that is University of Phoenix Training Programs. I will do so. I will tell nine people.

So I'm dreaming last night. I'm with a group of folks in gingham dresses and slacks with shirts, relaxing around a pair of rusted picnic tables in the back of an old farmhouse. There's grubby children playing, but no one is going into the tall grass. There's a monster in the tall grass, but it's not a mystery or even invisible, it plays in the edge of everyone's vision throughout the night, a slumpy half inflated leather beachball floating a few feet off the ground. It's definitely a monster, but I have no idea how it attacks or why.

The adults are discussing another group of adults, apparently nearby, who they distrust. The tone is even and plotting, as if they have a way to even reach the other group and deliver pain unto them, without facing the wrath of the demonic beach toy bobbing in the weeds. I feel out of place, these aren't my people. I grab a passing toddler and hold her up, she's happy and sticky with drool. She puts her feet on my chest and pushes, like she's trying to stand. An old woman takes her away from me, she's not angry, but she is determined. The Beach Ball starts a fight, there are generic superheroes in the grass, but the fight is telegraphed like an old videogame, the beachball just flashing brightly and rapidly to indicate an attack, the attack registering as numbers somewhere inside the heroes. I want to help them but I don't have any numbers.

And the alarm goes off. Sigh. Dreams are weird.

So when I was a teenager, especially in the first few years of it, I had terrible taste in music. I remember distinctly telling a friend that I didn't want to listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers because "that hard rock stuff and death metal stuff doesn't work for me." I don't know exactly how or when my musical tastes evolved past listening to Simon and Garfunkel and Tom Petty's Greatest Hits over and over again into what they are now, but I'm thankful they did.

At any rate, one of my more retarded affectations during that period was the "not quite techno, not quite elevator music" stylings of Manheim Steamroller. You know who I'm talking about. Electronic Christmas albums, if all electronica needed was two synthesizers that had a good range of mode buttons. Their version of Carol of the Bells that was intended to sound like a visit to Earth by a UFO populated by harmonizing bell-aliens pretty much meant Christmas to me, and actually, that's still pretty much the only one of their weird songs I can still handle (it's hard to mess up Carol of the Bells, it's what, three piano keys?).

Well, now I find myself wanting some christmas music for a small gathering of friends, only I want it to be somewhere between the silly muzak of my childhood and the musty standards I spent the latter half of November and all of December trying to avoid while outside my house.

But how is it found? I have a ton of stuff on my computer that's christmas themed. I don't really want a jokey list, so "The Night Santa Went Crazy" and "Christmastime for my Penis" (both quite good, though) can't really make the cut, and the elderly jazz tracks I have are incredible, but best listened to by two people who have intentions on upcoming snuggling. I'm listening right now to "Rebels of the Sacred Heart" by Flogging Molly, over and over again, transfixed by how perfect of a song this is for my Christmas list. Something about the fiddle, the pennywhistle, and the intonation makes it sound like a hardcore carol, and that's what I want. Exactly what I want.

So... does anyone else have anything like that, or just music they think is perfect for Christmas without having Christmas written all over it in bright permanent markers? Subtly Christmas? That should totally be a compilation album name.

Okay, so yeah. Stolen from Kosher_Salt
So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library. (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Don't lie.

1. Opening Credits: Gorillaz - 19/2000 Soulchild remix
Hmm.. Actually not a bad choice to open on. It's good montage music, upbeat, doesn't really make any sense so it doesn't divulge the plot, unless the movie of my life is about my need to get the cool shoeshine.

2. Birth: Tom Lehrer - Masochism Tango
Holy hell. That's just wrong. Why on earth did I put ALL my music in the winamp? I can't think of anything I'd less rather associate with my birth than a comedic song about S/M. Oh well.

3. First Day of School: Rancid - Ruby Soho
Okay... so I guess I'm wistful at my first day of school because I'm jealous of some girl, or because I'm getting old, or... what the hell is this song about? I guess the song fits as the sort of thing blasting out of the stereo as I approach the high school parking lot or whatever. So far I'm underwhelmed by the supposed coincidental awesomeness of this game.

4. Falling in Love: Foutains of Wayne - Sink to the Bottom
Oh, here we go. This works. I guess I have a sort of nihilistic love thing going then. That's cool. I can deal with that, plus I can imagine the girl he's singing to in this is all tattooed and has a nose ring and three hair colors, and I'm down.

5. Fight Song: The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love
Just listen to the rhythm of my heart. I don't think I could fight to this. My desire to air guitar is too strong even now.

6. Breakup: Jay-Zena - 99 Luft Problems
Hmm.. well I guess the girl can "kiss my whole asshole." I've had one or two breakups that consisted of apocalyptics that can only be expressed in german, so sure. I guess it's one of those breakups where I win. Nice. (if the song title doesn't make sense, it's 99 Problems and 99 Red Balloons mixed all together. Pretty good, actually)

7. Prom: Crazytown - Butterfly (Hard Metal Mix)
Neat. I guess I got back with the punk chick from the Fountains of Wayne song and we went to the prom in each others outfits and a bunch of electrical tape. I'm so goth I shit bats. Yeah, I know the real song is Nu-Metal wussrock, but this mix is pretty industrial hardcore.

8. Life: Fatboy Slim - Right Here, Right Now
Huh, guess my life is an action sequence montage then. This song is usually heard as the backdrop to movie trailers that have a lot of cars flipping in them, so I guess that's awesome enough for me. Plus it's got some immediacy in the lyrics (Right here, right now. Right here, right now, etc) which makes me want to enjoy life before I'm too old. Booyah.

9. Mental Breakdown: Ashley MacIsaac - Wingstock
Damn, I can't really quantify this for anyone, because there aren't a ton of Ashley MacIsaac fans around. This song is in three parts, instrumental. Starts with a slow melancholy piano that builds carefully to a fairly dramatic beat before giving way (via some hard drums) to a frenetic, angry fiddle solo, rage-filled but determined, which is really quite gorgeous. After a while, the fiddle abruptly stops, the drums return, and the song ends on a traditional Scottish fiddle line. I suppose it could represent an awareness of mortality complex, as the dirge of death approaches, causes a wild reaction, and is brought into line via inevitability and acceptance. Or something.

10. Driving: Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
Hey, there's that coincidence fun I wasn't finding earlier! Granted, this song isn't really all that much about interstates, but the name, man! The name! I can also totally drive to this.

11. Flashback: Nine Inch Nails - Ringfinger
Whoa, apparently I lost my punk chick and I'm having some trouble reconciling. Early NIN is my favorite, and this song is awesome, it really pounds during the verses, and drops into a hiss in the choruses that I can't get enough of.

12. Wedding: Dramarama - Anything
No really. Seriously. I am not shitting you. I have 1064 songs in my playlist at this time, and the WORST one about marriage came up. Not just about marriage, but broken nasty painful marriage. Thanks fortune cookie.

13. Birth of Child: Filter and Crystal Method - Trip Like I Do
Hmm... I've got the understanding of a four year old. I've got the peace of mind of a killer's soul. I've got the rationale of a New York cop, I've got the patience of a chopping block. Pass me the diapers.

14. Final Battle: Johnny Cash - One (U2 cover)
Huh, two fight scenes, both to songs I can't possibly fight to. Who could fight to freaking One? The Incredible Hulk would stop charging to kill me during this song and listen to the last strains of Johnny Cash's life coming out in pure love of the art, harsh like ash on the wind. He'd sit heavily down on the ground and cry. The Hulk would cry fat green tears and I'd buy him a beer.

15. Funeral: Tom Petty - Roll Another Joint
Hey, the coincidences came back. This is a good song to go out on. It's an old man's entreaty to a woman to come along for a little revisiting of youth. A celebration of love throughout the ages. To summarize: "Well lemme get to the point, let's roll another joint, and turn the radio loud, I'm too alone to be proud, you don't know how it feels, no you don't know how it feels, to be me."

16. Ending Credits: Enigma - Return to Innocence (380 Midnight Mix)
Yay! As they dump the dirt on my box away from home and the camera pulls back, a sappy woman will entreat me "Don't be afraid to let go" and an indian will wail out something that could be inspirational, but it might as well be a cookie recipe. Pretty though. Why the heck do I have this song? It's not 1995, and Q106 (the soft rock station) is long defunct. I need to root this out along with any Ace of Base that might still be hiding in here.

Question: Why are Wal-Mart stores so big?
Answer: Lebenschraum

Jocularity!

Oh yeah.

Recently, the director of my department has instituted a policy by which each of the staff members will host meetings in an alphabetical rotation. She's a great boss, her belief in this case is that we should all have meeting-hosting experience for our resumes and personal growth. I already did mine (Aldrich, doncha know), and yesterday was one of the other department member's turns. The meeting went fairly normally (we have great meetings, they're fast and to the point, all whining or verbal masturbation is squelched in a hurry), but the staff member wanted to try something, a managerial communication training exercise out of some stupid management book.

My own feelings on these sort of "how to be a manager" books are pretty well-known around the office. My previous boss was addicted to the things, and we never knew from week to week if we were about to be reinvented as "Fish" or "C+ staff" or "Winners by Design" or whatever. They're all retarded crap that ex-CEOs do as a side-project to back up their seminar-hosting careers. Anyway. I announced to the assembled group that I don't care for training puzzles out of management books, and while I'd participate, I'd give the book neither the benefit of the doubt nor any quarter. The rest of the staff seemed amused enough, which was odd. Normally when I announce I'm about to be an impenetrably pedantic dissenter the room tends to cool.

So here's the puzzle we were presented, which I've done my best to recreate in Paint. The instructions are at the bottom of the table, and the answers along with my evaluations of how retarded this is are in the cut. For short-attention span readers: I dissented and won support from the room against all four puzzles. You'll see why in a moment.



( Answers and dissensions )

Edit: Oh, right. Pirate Day.

Belly up for a tale, me friends. Th' young lady and be meaning to take a bit o' vacation time in Las Vegas. We'll be arriving on October th' 30th, and staying in th' Excalibur until November th' 2nd. Lootin', plunderin', and general acts of ill-repute will be a'plenty. Th' grog will flow like water!

As any cantakerous rogue or privateer can plainly see, this puts us in town for that most excellent day, Halloween. We'll have a spare bed in th' room and in Vegas, it's always easy to fit more people in th' room.

So, should ye be interested, with yer own fleabag inn room or without, in a few days in Vegas soaking up th' smoke and that glorious, cacophanous din that can only be a melange o' slot machines and clicking poker chips, by all means do let me be knowin'.

Me parrot will walk th' plank. Shiver me keelhaul and a bottle o' yardarms. I'm ...not a very good pirate.

This weekend I had the fascinating opportunity to attend a 10 year high school reunion. What made it particularly interesting was that it wasn't my own (that's next year). This made for an excellent chance to observe behavior in former students milling around and meeting each other, for only the small price of being constantly introduced to people who would instantly forget me, and required to make some small talk regarding any number of small things ("webmaster, no we're not the blood bank, yes the Padres are hurting..."). So I've set down a small collection of things to be prepared for at my own scary and fast approaching 10 year reunion, which I'll list below for your entertainment and edification. Please feel free to editorialize with your own experiences at reunions , or personal fears and expectations. I’m going to break it into digestible chapters, I guess.

Chapter 1: Music
Gods above, nothing could have prepared me for the sonic assault that was the 1996 Billboard chart the DJ downloaded wholesale into his ipod and wired to the speakers. The issue of course was that despite how spectacularly BAD the music was, I was totally into that shit and singing along with everything (come on, in '96 I was helping ChadSmithASBPresident run the quad stereo during lunch. Of course I'd still remember the Humpty Dance and Rock-a-Bye).
Now I'm just a little scared for my own year's music. 1997 was not a good year for music, it was the birthyear of the swing revival, so we'll be hearing a little Zoot Suit Riot action. It was also the heydey of third-wave ska covering second-wave punk, so prepare, my fellow centurions, for a new round of Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris. Oh, and if those are actually good things for you (yeah, they are to me. Bite me), it was also the summer of "Hey, let's put Smash Mouth songs in EVERY FUCKING THING." Of course, if the music is anything like a regular high school dance, those will mostly be little nuggets of recognition in a sea of indistinguishable Boys To Men songs and the like.

I will end this chapter by shouting "HOW DO YOU TALK, TO AN ANGEL?!!" and then giggling as everyone scrambles first to remember the next line and second struggles to scour that terrible song from their head for another few years.