Friday, November 7, 2008
improve your life by 100000000%
Live puppy cam, you make me want to be a better person. I have no idea who you belong to...which is odd, but as far as I'm concerned, all these puppies live inside my computer for the sole purpose of keeping me entertained. Romp! Romp about! *stiffled giggles* oh this feels wrong.
Spit Pee Soup
Normal human body stuff rarely jostles me. I am more likely to help a bleeding person than to turn away; grossness doesn't override what a situation may even lightly require. For example, when I use the loo and the dude posted up in the urinal next to me very clearly ate some asparagus beforehand, and another dude's rapidly re-puckering anus is spewing pebbles like a warrior Flintstone's [insert-generic-dinosaur] gatling gun might have done, I'm more likely to to stifle a laugh than to wrinkle my nose.
However! Just a few minutes ago I leaned over to spit while I was peeing. It wasn't a trajectory spit; it was more like an extended drip. Just as the bottom-most part of the drip entered my pee stream, and their vectors combined to redirect the saliva glob away from my body, the middle of the saliva glob did that silly-putty thing* and my just-pursed lips received a small "splat" of spit. I couldn't help but feel that I had kissed pee.
*The weight of the lower "bulb" of the saliva glob pulled downward and stretched out the glob until the center became too thin to support the "bulb" and broke, after which the lower half of the glob shot downward along the combined vector of the orignial extended drip (via gravity) and the pee stream (I guess about 20 or 30 degrees below horizontal), and the upper half responded elastically, vertically.
However! Just a few minutes ago I leaned over to spit while I was peeing. It wasn't a trajectory spit; it was more like an extended drip. Just as the bottom-most part of the drip entered my pee stream, and their vectors combined to redirect the saliva glob away from my body, the middle of the saliva glob did that silly-putty thing* and my just-pursed lips received a small "splat" of spit. I couldn't help but feel that I had kissed pee.
*The weight of the lower "bulb" of the saliva glob pulled downward and stretched out the glob until the center became too thin to support the "bulb" and broke, after which the lower half of the glob shot downward along the combined vector of the orignial extended drip (via gravity) and the pee stream (I guess about 20 or 30 degrees below horizontal), and the upper half responded elastically, vertically.
We all have heros.
I'm sorry. I really am. You...you had to know how bad it was. Please don't hate me.
hell hath no nothing.
I just made a huge, huge, un-overstatably huge realization about posting on this bull-hog: I really have no reason to worry about timeliness; in fact I have, more or less, six times less reason to worry about it than anyone else. (except Dan. Fuck you, Dan.) Seriously: I could think something in one moment, and then not do anything for the next six hours' worth of moments, and it would all be the same to our dear readers (us) in North america. (God damn it Dan, Fuck off.)That's the thing - there is no fury in a blog scorned; only in the ego of the blogger.
You see, I live in France. GMT+1 while all you folks (again, Fuck you Dan) are plodding along in GMT-5. Ew.
My purported raison d'etre on this old family farm was "an american in Paris". But the thing is: I don't really even live in Paris. I live just outside Paris in a charming slice of the banlieue known as Noisy-le-Sec. The translation has something to do with nut trees and dryness - I'll get back to you. So I feel a bit guilty/dishonest about leaning too heavily on that role. But lacking any other discernible expertise, or at least any that outshines the estimable skills of my/our/your co-bloggers, I'll take whatever pigeonhole I can get for the moment.
So without straying too far afield, my opening anecdote is this (seriously, Fuck-you-Dan):
If it weren't for my incorrigible instincts towards thrift and self-importance, I would have no "international reaction" to share with the world. (I was asleep at 5:00am when my mom called me to tell me Ohio had flipped - the closest I got to your whooping and street dancing was an unexpectedly smooth cnn.com feed of the speech from Grant Park.) Luckily, in the weeks preceding the election, I happened to be badgering the press relations manager of a certain French music magazine for press passes to their ridiculo-stacked festival this coming week, and on November fifth, her eventual (positive!) reply went something like this: Lacking an Obama shirt or button or even a flag pin, I was hoping people would just kindof recognize I was American and rush up to shake my hand and thank me the next morning...but no dice. I absentee-voted for Obama, and all I got was these crummy press passes.
You see, I live in France. GMT+1 while all you folks (again, Fuck you Dan) are plodding along in GMT-5. Ew.
My purported raison d'etre
So without straying too far afield, my opening anecdote is this (seriously, Fuck-you-Dan):
If it weren't for my incorrigible instincts towards thrift and self-importance, I would have no "international reaction" to share with the world. (I was asleep at 5:00am when my mom called me to tell me Ohio had flipped - the closest I got to your whooping and street dancing was an unexpectedly smooth cnn.com feed of the speech from Grant Park.) Luckily, in the weeks preceding the election, I happened to be badgering the press relations manager of a certain French music magazine for press passes to their ridiculo-stacked festival this coming week, and on November fifth, her eventual (positive!) reply went something like this:
"Bonjour John, First off, congratulations! It is a true joy and comfort in the world today! We escaped Sarah Palin! The only problem is that in France, we've still got Sarkozy..."
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Hipsters Are Getting Restless
So Indiana just got called for Obama... which will more than likely be followed by North Carolina and Missouri!? DOES TEH WINNINGS EVER STOP!? NO I DO NOT TINK SO... 4 YEARS OF WIN.
Like many other parts of the world, people convened on the streets of Brooklyn last night to celebrate the obamavictory. Shedding the practiced veils of apathetic-cool, the hip-ass kids took to the streets. Tight jeans, sunglasses at night, and cans of PBR spilled onto Bedford Ave in Williamsburg in a druken, freedom-loving orgy of previously burried patriotism.
Today in the blogosphere revelers whined about getting pushed, shoved, and in some cases even kicked by police who were called to relieve street congestion and kill fun. The NYPD issued a response in the New York Times claiming back injuries and beer-bottle-to-noggin-contact by fault of the kids (who built this election on rock 'n roll and viral videos).
As I wasn't there, but rather a few blocks away curled up in a blanket, I can't definitively say which side is the mcwhiney pants who had to take a ride in the waaahmbulance. But I am excited at the prospect that in this political arc we're riding, there is a distinct possibility that there will be a resurgence of dancing in the street.
Like many other parts of the world, people convened on the streets of Brooklyn last night to celebrate the obamavictory. Shedding the practiced veils of apathetic-cool, the hip-ass kids took to the streets. Tight jeans, sunglasses at night, and cans of PBR spilled onto Bedford Ave in Williamsburg in a druken, freedom-loving orgy of previously burried patriotism.
Today in the blogosphere revelers whined about getting pushed, shoved, and in some cases even kicked by police who were called to relieve street congestion and kill fun. The NYPD issued a response in the New York Times claiming back injuries and beer-bottle-to-noggin-contact by fault of the kids (who built this election on rock 'n roll and viral videos).
As I wasn't there, but rather a few blocks away curled up in a blanket, I can't definitively say which side is the mcwhiney pants who had to take a ride in the waaahmbulance. But I am excited at the prospect that in this political arc we're riding, there is a distinct possibility that there will be a resurgence of dancing in the street.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
International Reaction
I'm glad that the election is over and done with, and personally, I'm pleased with the result. I'm especially happy looking at the map and seeing that there were a bunch of "red states" that voted for Obama. For the record, I voted in New Hampshire, which pretty much saw a Democrat sweep and ousted Sununu. Unfortunately, I did not get enough write in votes to become the new Sheriff in my county, but there's always the next election.
I'm still a bit weirded out by the fact that CNN got to declare the winner before all the votes were counted, but that's besides the point.
The point is that I will act as a very lazy foreign correspondent, and report on the reaction in my immediate surroundings: the editorial office of a luxury goods magazine. The general mood is ignorance.
Says one co-worker, "Yay! The one you liked won. Did he win by a lot?"
Me: "Yeah, it looks like it."
Her: "Good." She then goes back to work.
Then, a conversation between two people who seem to have forgotten that they work with a real live American:
"Oh, it looks like Obama won the election."
"I don't like Black people."
"Then who did you want to win?"
"I just don't like black people."
"Well you know that Obama's only half black, and he's much better than his opponent [paraphrase]."
"Ungh."
So there you have it. China's opinion on America's politics is a mix of apathy, ignorance, racism, and crazy liberals with valid opinions. Sounds a lot like home.
I'm still a bit weirded out by the fact that CNN got to declare the winner before all the votes were counted, but that's besides the point.
The point is that I will act as a very lazy foreign correspondent, and report on the reaction in my immediate surroundings: the editorial office of a luxury goods magazine. The general mood is ignorance.
Says one co-worker, "Yay! The one you liked won. Did he win by a lot?"
Me: "Yeah, it looks like it."
Her: "Good." She then goes back to work.
Then, a conversation between two people who seem to have forgotten that they work with a real live American:
"Oh, it looks like Obama won the election."
"I don't like Black people."
"Then who did you want to win?"
"I just don't like black people."
"Well you know that Obama's only half black, and he's much better than his opponent [paraphrase]."
"Ungh."
So there you have it. China's opinion on America's politics is a mix of apathy, ignorance, racism, and crazy liberals with valid opinions. Sounds a lot like home.
Election Day Article
"A Date With Scarcity" by David Brooks
I really liked this article. I heard David Broder speak in Madison a month or so ago at a lecture series titled "Getting to Purple" hosted by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters*. In his lecture, Broder echoed a few of his (i.e. Brooks') points, primarily his characterization of the Baby Boomers:
"The baby boomers, who entered adulthood promising a lifetime of activism, have been a politically undistinguished generation. They produced two presidents, neither of whom lived up to his potential. They remained consumed by the culture war that divided their generation."
The points in the article that stood out to me:
1) "...today is not only a pivot, but a confluence of pivots." (Referencing the end of an economic era, a generational era, and likely a political era)
2) "We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize or have a plan for."
Happy Voting!
*some of you may have met its Executive Director this summer, tehe
I really liked this article. I heard David Broder speak in Madison a month or so ago at a lecture series titled "Getting to Purple" hosted by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters*. In his lecture, Broder echoed a few of his (i.e. Brooks') points, primarily his characterization of the Baby Boomers:
"The baby boomers, who entered adulthood promising a lifetime of activism, have been a politically undistinguished generation. They produced two presidents, neither of whom lived up to his potential. They remained consumed by the culture war that divided their generation."
The points in the article that stood out to me:
1) "...today is not only a pivot, but a confluence of pivots." (Referencing the end of an economic era, a generational era, and likely a political era)
2) "We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize or have a plan for."
Happy Voting!
*some of you may have met its Executive Director this summer, tehe
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