tsunami

animals are awesome. they have a sixth sense of impending storms and self preservation.

everytime there's a thunderstorm, the family's 100 lb german shepard hides under the bed in my high school bedroom and won't come out until it's passed.

Quote:
"Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast, but they can't find any dead animals"


no dead animal corpses.

Quote:
"Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards"


Quote:
"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," he added. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."


Quote:
"The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, which sent waves up to 5-metres (15-feet) high crashing onto Sri Lanka's southern, eastern and northern seaboard, flooding whole towns and villages, destroying hotels and causing widespread destruction"


article

strategy and outright assault

Christmas time again. The perfect in and out: Thursday evening to Sunday evening.

I'm from south central wisconsin. My sister and I agreed that we have not done justice to accurately describing it to people who haven't been there. It's simply way weirder than than I remember. I can't totally put my finger on it even now. Combine hick with ignorance with being five to eight years behind the current cultural curve with being twenty pounds overweight with being racist with being divorced at 26 with living in a microchasm of small thought where nothing will ever happen ever.

It was super weird for me to grow up there because I knew that it was fucked up and that I would eventually grow up and leave. I knew this when I was 12 years old.

Let me put it this way: when I was in high school the two coolest things you could do or be a part of was the football team or Future Farmers of America. The football team wasn't even that good: just a lot of fat shit kicking hicks mistaking 245 lbs of fat for muscle and a losing record. Future Farmers of America because there were so many farmers in school and it was a point of pride to raise holsteins (holsteins are cows). And then the Ku Klux Klan came out of the shadows in the early 90's and papered my high school parking lot to recruit young members. Then they began to hold public demonstrations (you know, "cross burnings"). There was a mild, somewhat silent acceptance of it all.

Usually that last paragraph sums it up for most people, but it's gotten way weirder in my opinion.

One night last week my dad gave me $20 and told me to go buy a chess set because the one we'd had growing up had gone missing. I like playing chess with my dad because his game involves a happy medium of strategy and outright assault.

I drove to the mall. I love going to the mall in town because it is a representation of the region's pop culture... or, minimally pop cultural aspiration. They got a GAP and a Victoria's Secret for the first time last year. Wilson's Leather came in the year before. This is happening. Looking for a chess board proved to be no challenge when I came across GO: The Board Game Store. I don't know how they plan to stay in business by only selling $12 board games, but maybe they didn't get that far in their business plan (assuming they have a business plan).

GO: The Board Game Store sold three types of chess boards: shitty wood, glass and Lord of the Rings. I went with the glass set up. Pulling it out of the case, it didn't look like it only cost $15. It looked like it cost $20.

Next door to GO: The Board Game Store is a place that sells renaissance fair/Lord of the Rings shit like swords and magic staffs and coffee table wizards and ninja throwing stars. I told my sisters about it because I was so taken with it, and on Sunday they went to the store with a camera. The guy behind the counter let them take a pair samurai swords off the wall and then snapped a few photos of them in combat. I'll try to post them here when I see them.

I told my friend Bob about the renaissance fair store. He knew all about it. He and his wife went there and bought some nunchucks and a krull knife edged throwing star for her brother for Christmas. Bob's wife asked the guy behind the counter if she needed to sign anything because she was purchasing some razor edged weaponry and nunchucks, and he said "No. Why would you? It's not like a gun a nothing."

wingman

do yourself a favor and click on the Jay-Z Black Album + Beatles White Album = DJ Danger Mouse Grey Album at the bottom of the links collumn to the right. I'm admittedly pretty late to this mix... but, it's fucking brilliant.

DJ Danger Mouse did an expert job mixing and cutting clips from the White Album... some of the shit is almost unrecognizable. So he can't sell it for legality reasons? It's a damn good showcase of his production talent, and whatever he works on next will be watched. cool man.

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It's fucking cold in Chicago these days.

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Last night I took one for the team... played wingman... was a good friend, and went out with Intense Rick, and set up the night out with a girl he wants to get to know better named Beth, which unfortunately met I had to set it up and hang out with Ellen. I'm convinced that Ellen is mental.

I was super-retardo tired. I wanted to be home by 10:30, but was out until 12:30. Rick and Beth seemed to hit it off well enough. I had told Rick that Ellen was fucked up, but he didn't see it. He left me a voice mail today mentioning that Ellen was "off". Yeah.

At the end of the night I got the fuck outta there. We were drinking at this lame bar that's directly behind Ellen's house. I had walked to the L platform and got a ring on the cell from Ellen asking me if I'd walk her home. I said no and hung up. She's so stupid... she really can't figure out why I don't want her. She must have only date jocks and dumb fuckin ball-lickaz.

Why can't I have a cool fan base?

cold and robotic

So this morning I had an interview with a huge worldwide firm for a career leap. The guy I interviewed with - the director (who would be my direct boss) of the department - couldn't have been more of a stiff.

I didn't like him one bit from the second I met him. There was something cold and robotic about his demeanor. It was as if any trace of personality had been genetically removed from his code, and replaced with enhanced multi-tasking and efficiency percentiles.

He didn't make the job sound that interesting, or that working for him would be all that great. I never got the impression that I made a human-based personality connection with him. I suspect that he is an android... or at least had his testicles drained when the UFO abducted him as a child and implanted the technical data necessary to run the global marketing and communications of XXX company in the most efficient manner possible.

I got the impression that he'd pegged me a corporate writer from the onset, and that I had to fight against that bias beyond selling myself for the postion,.. which would have been a step up... the postion title is "global advertising specialist"... which is theoretically a step below "galactic advertising specialist."

I only interviewed for 55 minutes,.. I thought that was a bit short, and we'd exhausted questions of each other. It has seemed that every interview I've had where I've gotten the job, I was always able to easily stretch that past 1:15.

So, no, I don't see getting an offer. Sucks too, because that job would pay a lot more than I'm getting right now.

Fucking androids!

drunks or new parents

I received a link to the online Kodak digital photo album from the party I attended Saturday night. Looking at the other albums I have in my "account" I noticed a great contrast between subject matters.

One group of photo albums is parties at bars for going away bashes, brthday parties, etc. and features pictures of 30 year olds drinking and smoking and hugging.

The other group of photo albums is collections of pictures of babies that my adult 30 year old friends have snapped and distributed. It's usually 25 variations of the same picture of a baby sleeping.

I wonder which extreme is most suiting for me at this time... I can't say for certain that I like being in photos with drunk people, yet I don't feel too old to be a part of that scene. At the same time I don't know what it would be like to be settled with a kid... I don't feel old enough to be a part of that lifestyle.

So, which is more annoying: drunks or new parents?

Drunks are irrational, sloppy, broke, and fucking disgusting if you're sober and they're not. New parents are tired, have nothing new to say, are quickly becoming bad/worse dressers and distribute photo albums featuring 25 variations of the same picture of a baby sleeping.

And they all think that their baby is so fucking amazing and intelligent. There's a guy I work with who was just re-enacting the sounds and movements that his year old was making when she recognized a baby toy. The incomprehensible shrieks and gibberish. How stupid. Who cant do that? If you really want to impress me, I'd like to see the kid take apart and then re-assemble a rifle blindfolded. Forward me pictures of that.

In summary, I'll probably just end up making a baby of my own some night when I'm drunk.

sorry for the lame post.

radio free america

awe, fuckers! there's so much to rant about.

first: darth rumsfeld himself came out and said that the line about "winning the hearts and minds of the iraqi people" is a bust... really.

this is what? the third or fourth mission statement that attempted to explain the Bush administration's folly in invading an oil rich impoverished nation and killing 10,000 to 15,000 of its civilians?

Quote:
THE Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East.

The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications” report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld.

On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”.

“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.”

fuck yeah, one of those fucking "miscalculations."

Quote:
Referring to the repeated mantra from the White House that those who oppose the US in the Middle East “hate our freedoms”, the report says: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states.

“Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypo crisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronising … in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering.

"hate our freedoms"... well, at least this line of shit worked in Alabama during the campaign.

The way America has handled itself since September 11 has played straight into the hands of al-Qaeda.

I like how in America, no matter how bad you fuck up (even on a global scale), admitting regret is punishment enough.

I could go on, but you can read the rest here.

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speaking of freedoms...

Quote:
Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station operator, has picked Fox News Radio to be the primary source of national news for most of its news and talk stations, officials announced Monday.

The five-year agreement initially covers more than 100 radio stations.

No terms of the deal were disclosed. But Fox, a unit of News Corp., says if all options in the agreement are exercised, its radio service could have more than 500 affiliates by the middle of next year.

what an amazing fucking suprise! this sounds a lot like "state sponsored media".

Quote:
"Working this closely with a premiere national news provider for the majority of our news/talk stations makes overwhelming sense," said John Hogan, chief executive officer of Clear Channel Radio.

overwhelming sense... see, this makes it a lot easier to have one, cohesive message.

Quote:
Clear Channel, which operates 1,200 stations, has been getting its national news feeds from a variety of providers.

W. hijacked Jesus' name and wants to keep fags from marrying so that the administration could stay on task an additional four years. thanks fuck-o's. it's starting.

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I got an email from a great old friend earlier today telling me about his upcoming student teaching assignment:

I got a placement at the local middle school in 6th grade science. I start on 1-10 and end with the public school year. I am really stoked about this. It was my ideal choice, one that I verbally made with the director of student teaching, knowing it was probably impossible. Instead, there was one placement at the middle school level here in town...me, chickenfucker! AND, in science, a subject I cannot totally screw up (vs. say, teaching tri-nomials in a two variable system of equations, ya know) So all is good in my head for now.

Also, I dont need to go buy a 1991 SW2 Saturn and throw my money and coolness away. The bike remains my tansport...and thus, the beard remains thick and bushy for now. My task now is to harden my skin for these hormone ridden adolesents who worship pop culture and hate grown-ups...fun!

I thought about this for a bit, and weighed in my opinion:

I've got a great default thing that you can say to 6th graders when they're cocking off in class... take them into the hallway and say:

"if you don't like how I run this class, then maybe you can move out to the fucking wilderness and live in some bullshit shack made of scrap metal where you can mail explosives to fucking corporations."

and then stare at the kid in silence for exactly 45 seconds.

...you know, you don't have to restrict this speech to just the classroom, any public or private dispute is easily ended with this line.

true dat.

a couple of drinks

My last night in Denver I went out with my sister for a couple of drinks and had planned to come back early (my flight was at 9 am, and the airport is a good 40 mins from the city).

We met up with this guy named **matthew she's met a couple times at the bar and then started to shoot some pool and then went over to that kid's house, and then didn't get back to her place until after 3 am, and so we said fuck it and stayed up.

I got maybe an hour's rest, and then I walked from her place a mile and a half with a heavy backpack to the bus station to catch the 6:20 to the airport. From there I caught my 9 am flight and sat in front of some lower income parents of a screaming 4 year old girl (who matched her screaming - scream for scream)... but I was so dead ass tired that I crashed through it all and only woke once to turbulance over Rockford (they had GPS read outs on the screen in the seat ahead of you).

Then I landed in Chicago, took the blue line to Irving Park road, and walked 4 blocks to the neighborhood I ditched my car in on Nov 20th and walked down the wrong street and didn't see my car and was sure it was towed and then walked another street, found it, drove home, went through a ton of mail, showered and layed down from 3 to 7 pm. fuck dude.

**oh yeah, regarding this matthew character... only after showing us his personal picasso recreations (that he called "pifaasos"),.. talking about life in Alaska,.. the bravery of the eskimo who hunt whales with spears and canoes,.. showing us, and in great detail, describing the different shit that just "goes on" in his haunted apartment,.. did he drop that he was in the #15 round of the 2000 MLB draft and had been a pitcher for San Francisco.

this sort of shit happen a bit out there on this trip. last sat night me and my two sisters saw r.e.m. at the filmore, and then caught "banyan" which was stephen perkins' (drummer from jane's addicition) side band. after the banyan show stephen perkins told my sister that she was beautiful asked her to go back to the hotel with all of them. fucking in front of me. I looked down at short little stephen perkins and said "no".