Chapter XCVI: My Christmas Dinner

Course I
Hara Croatian Blue Fin Toro and Iranian Imperial Ossetra Caviar

Course II
Lobster Cigarette and Asian Green Papaya with Hearts of Palm Salad

Course III
Loup de Mer with Spicy Lemongrass Galanga Sauce

Course IV
Jasmine Tea Smoked Wild Boar Chop and Wild Arugula

Course V
A5 Wagyu New York Steak

Course VI
Asian Raspberry Lychee Caprice with Confit of Kumquats

Wine
Champagne, Sake, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay
(yes these are all for me)

Chapter XCVI: Peeing and Nothingness

svelteDR: you were sitting on the couch hugging alex
svelteDR: it was cute
svelteDR: ...until you started puking on his sweatshirt

Chapter XCV: Master Baster

I may just be puerile, but it seems like the turkey recipe I found online contains subtle homoerotic undertones. It tells you to hold the legs apart while you butter up the hole...and then to fill it with stuffing. Okay, maybe not so subtle. My poor Victorian sensibilities were scandalized, to be sure.

It also didn't help that the turkey baster made the most ridiculous noise when squirting its juices.

It was like the scene in Return of the Jedi where Princess Leia strangles Jabba the Hutt with the very chain that was meant to prevent her escape. Imagine that Jabba the Hutt had explosive diarrhea as he was dying, and that there was a chihuahua stuck in his butt, gasping for air. That's pretty much what the turkey baster sounded like.

This post is about a month late, but before we left for Thankgiving break, my roommate and I bought a 15.92 pound turkey from Ralph's. There was still about five pounds left when we were cleaning out the fridge before leaving for Christmas. We got the idea when Ralph's was having a promotion whereby turkeys were only four dollars (normally $17) if you spent twenty-five dollars on other shit in the store.

We beat the system though, by buying a box of laundry detergent with the turkey to meet the quota, and then immediately returning the laundry detergent! HAHHAHAHA, take THAT, Ralphie.

I let my roommate do the honors of preparing the turkey, since he's white and has more experience in that regard. My duties were to stand back and snicker uncontrollably while reading the recipe, and to man the turkey baster.

The final product was tasty, but a tad gamey since--contrary to the post title--I am not a master baster.

Chapter XCIV: Art Fart (An Internal Dialogue)

Image of the Day: springagain, by phillipmo (flickr.com)

click to view full size

Me: Check out this awesome picture; it represents the dehumanizing effect of industrial society.

Myself: Whatever, man...you say that about everything.

Me: I'm serious! The element in the bottom right is a giant gear and that bird has a hopeless look in its eye. I think it's about to jump to its death to get away from the all-consuming machine.

Myself: The bird doesn't have a "hopeless" look; it's just stylized. Moreover, birds have wings, so it wouldn't die if it jumped off. And besides, how does a suicidal bird speak about deHUMANization?

Me: Well, wings won't help when it takes off into that void; there's no coming back from there--clearly a metaphor for death. You could be right about the bird/human dichotomy, though.

Myself: Could be?

Me: Like you said, it's stylized. Maybe it doesn't symbolize a real bird, but rather the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock, which is the ultimate expression of subjugation to industrialism. Birds usually represent freedom, but a cuckoo's movements are totally determined by the gears inside the clock. The loss of freedom to a mechanical overlord is the very essence of dehumanization, is it not?

Myself: You just went off the deep end, buddy.

Me: Fine smarty-pants, what's your grand interpretation?

Myself: Quite simply, it's a statement about sustainable design. The spiral element is a tree viewed in Plan (see the leaves?), and taken together with the bird and the profusive use of green, it represents Nature with a capital 'N.' There are two implied yin-yangs, one in the center, and again in the dangly-bobs in the bottom left of the spiral. Those go toward the idea of harmony with nature. Likewise the infinity symbol at the very center.

Me: And the void on the left?

Myself: A matter of composition.

And I: You're both missing the point. The most important element here is the curve of the bird's tail, which, combined with its eye, forms a question mark. The image as a whole is a comment about the ambivalence every person faces as he struggles to define himself in this world. At what point is he prepared to abandon the entelechial past for the uncertainty of the future? From a Deconstructionist viewpoint, the image's unconventional dimensions (1217 x 727) reflect this theme also. Ultimately, it is only by taking flight into the unknown that we can really discover who we are.

Myself: That's Deep.

Me: I still like my idea better.

Chapter XCIII: _

Image of the Day: Round Peg in a Square Hole

“I am emotionally unstable,” he says, on freeway 5, “And I’m going to therapy.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill anyone."

Chapter XCV: Master Baster

I may just be puerile, but it seems like the turkey recipe I found online contains subtle homoerotic undertones. It tells you to hold the legs apart while you butter up the hole...and then to fill it with stuffing. Okay, maybe not so subtle. My Victorian sensibilities were scandalized.

It also didn't help that the turkey baster made the most ridiculous noise when squirting its juices.

It was like the scene in Return of the Jedi where Princess Leia strangles Jabba the Hutt with the very chain that was meant to prevent her escape. Imagine that Jabba the Hutt had explosive diarrhea as he was dying, and that there was a chihuahua stuck in his butt, gasping for air. That's pretty much what the turkey baster sounded like.

I let my roommate do the honors of preparing the turkey, since he's white and has more experience in that regard. My duties were to stand back and snicker uncontrollably while reading the recipe, and to man the turkey baster.

The final product was tasty, but a tad gamey since--contrary to the post title--I am not a master baster.

Chapter XCII: Safety in Numbers

Strawberry...
Banana...
Strawberry-banana...

Each box was color-coded by flavor, and they marched along in a syncopated rainbow across the shelf. Damn RiteAid, I seethed bitterly. Why do there have to be so many choices? I've always been horribly indecisive when it comes to choosing just one item out of an assortment of substantially similar things...

You can often find me standing in the middle of The Avenue with 85 cents clutched in my fist, staring blankly at the doughnut wall. During those moments, my mind is actually awhir with fruitless calculation and countercalculation, like when the CPU usage suddenly jumps to 99% for no discernible reason and my computer freezes. I'm thinking things like, the glazed donut has fewer calories than the jelly-filled, so I should buy it because its healthier. On the other hand, the jelly has a higher calorie/cent ratio, so doesn't that mean its a better deal? But then again... and so on, ad infinitum, or at least until someone takes the last glazed doughnut.

As embarassing as doughnut induced paralysis is though, it's not quite as humiliating as standing in front of the counter trying to decide which pack of condoms to buy while the pharmacist watches me with beady eyes.

Why couldn't I just choose? To make it worse, flavor was just one consideration out of a million others...

Trojan or Lifestyles
Nonlubricated or lubricated (spermicidal, "warm and tingly", both, neither)
Unribbed or Ribbed For Her Pleasure™ (ribbed, ultra-ribbed, or ultra-ultra-ribbed)
And the sizes...
And the colors...

In the end, I just snatched up an economy pack of 12 something-or-others. It rang up at the counter at around 20 bucks, which seemed a tad expensive. I wasn't about to raise a ruckus about it though, and figured I must have misread the box. When I got home and looked more carefully, I realized I had bought 36, not 12...

Great.

I wonder whether the cashier thought I was a total stud, or a complete whore.

Chapter XCI: Belated Birthday Update

Image of the day: Wilting Orchids at the Hilton

At 6:15 AM on the morning of my birthday (last Sunday), I was stirred awake by the crowing of an emphysematic rooster. This was odd--considering I was in a room on the fourth floor of the Hilton in Woodland Hills--but I didn't think much of it. The previous night had been a blur of a blur, and nothing would have surprised me. Eventually, the irksome noise stopped, and I dozed off.

A moment later, I was woken up again. As it turned out, one of my roommates for the weekend had hit the snooze on his cellphone's alarm, and it was ringing every five minutes. Thanks to the miracle of polyphonic ringtone technology, it actually sounded like a real rooster (albeit diseased), with echoes and everything. Everytime I fell back asleep, I would forget it was just the alarm, and wake up again, wondering why there was a dying rooster in the room.

So the morning didn't start off too well, but I dealt with it by stuffing all the complimentary coffee packets into my backpack. And one of the not-so-complimentary coffee mugs. After that, it was up to Northridge for the final rounds of the annual CSUN Debate Tournament. Yes...I spent my birthday at a debate tournament. How fucking nerdy is that?

Due to a technicality in the bracketing, Shayla (my debate partner) and I ended up automatically winning our quarter-final round. We spent the two-hour slot commiserating with the team that had automatically lost, assuring them they were the better debaters and that the loss was not a reflection of their personal worth as human beings. We had a group hug at the end and it was all very Chicken Soup for the Soul.

We debated against Sacramento State in the semi-finals, a team we share a small rivalry with. We had faced each other in the elimination rounds of two previous tournaments: At Berkeley, Shayla and I had won on a 3-0 decision (of a three judge panel), but at Pepperdine, we had lost on a 3-0. As Northridge was the last tournament of the quarter, this round would be the tie-breaker, so to speak. Moreover, our previous encounters had been extremely vitriolic, and both teams had bordered on ad hominem attacks. They accused us of "trying to destroy the planet" while I had belittled their "fundamental misunderstanding of their own arguments."

I decided I was going to constrain myself and present the judge with a stark contrast between Cal Poly's composed demeanor and Sac State's theatrics, but Shayla took the lead in fighting fire with fire and shouted them down during cross-examination. We ended up winning on a Reverse Voting Issue--basically, they argued that we were being abusive by breaking the rules of the debate round and should lose and our response was that we did not break the rules, and it was abusive of them to insinuate that we did when it was so "blatantly obvious" that we didn't. All three judges agreed.

It was an incredibly tiring round though, and we ended up losing in the Finals on a split decision (1-2) because we just wanted to go home. After the first speech, Shayla turned to me and asked if we could just forfeit. I sighed, and said no and we half-assed our way through all the rigmarole. Second place out of 36 teams, but it felt like...well, like second I suppose. Which ain't fucking bad.

On the drive back to San Luis Obispo, Shayla bought be a packet of M&M's at a gas station for my birthday. Yay!! :D

I ended up getting home at 11:30, and became wildly intoxicated with my roommate before going to sleep for the next 24 hours.

The end.

Chapter XC: Deviant Conversation

Image of the Day: Yvonne Photomanip 3 by =Nocturnal-Devil (deviantart.com)

xxxxxxxxx: I think it's commentary on the vapidness of modern society
xxxxxxxxx: Naked girls eating fake food, morphed into a simulacrum of real life.
ibleedgraphite: or woman's subordination in a patriarchal world?
ibleedgraphite: that's why she's naked...
ibleedgraphite: and the strawberry stick represents a phallus
xxxxxxxxx: Pink phallus?
ibleedgraphite: it's long and hard
xxxxxxxxx: I think that would reflect her domination of the penis
xxxxxxxxx: She picks the color
xxxxxxxxx: And she can devour the phallus
ibleedgraphite: well, you see, she's been conditioned by society to think she wants it in her mouth
ibleedgraphite: as per freud's second stage of psychosexual development

Chapter LXXIX: Detritus

Image of the Day: Powerlines: digital camera + photoshop

Strange things written on scraps of paper around my desk:

[Sheet 1] There is a troll under the bridge. Linear Underground. Cause of Death: Dividing By Zero. Blue green algae. One way to emphasize something is by making it LARGER. Chthonic. One way to deemphasize something is by making it invisible. 15 meter buttresses. 90 meter spire. 226 foot towers on the west facade. rose window 10 meters in diamter. nave 130 m long. 48 m wide. Notre Dame Cathedral. 16 meter lancet windows. Emperor Palpatine died yesterday after moping around in the corner. The mighty internet said that maybe he was constipated or had Ick.

[Sheet 2] D666. Basilica San Pietro. The Erotic Gherkin (towering innuendo). Hollenbeck. Romanesque. 4:17 AM. Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday. Go to Hell. Insouciance. THE INIQUITIES OF EVIL MEN.

[Sheet 3] Why does blood changes color when it dries? Pain is truth is beauty. [Message to the roommates] You can't rescue Sudanese refugees. You can't find the cure to cystic fibrosis. You can't clean up toxic waste, or dig up landmines. But you CAN wash the dishes. Do your part to make the world a better place. [Prospective fish names] Quinn, Brian; Abel, Cain; Hamlet, Othello; Lenin, Stalin; Rosencrantz, Guildenstern; Smeagol, Gollum; Prismacolor, Crayola; Sprite, Pepsi; Semicolon, Ampersand.

[Sheet 4] Stupid is as stupid does. Countenance. Insanity pleas are bullshit, but what do I know? I'm crazy, after all. Calligraphic.

[Sheet 5] Shellicopter. Peut-etre. Huh? Babylon. Queen Deuce offsuit. Memento Mori.

Chapter LXXVIII: Mother Dearest

Image of the Day: My candle from the dollar store

I once surreptitiously watched my mom type in the password to her email account. She had told me to close my eyes, but I only pretended to (this is easy when you're Asian).

J-E-R-R-Y, she clicked laboriously, and I wondered what strange word she was making, until... Hey, that's my name! I remember feeling warm and fuzzy at the time, that Mom used my name as her password, rather than either of my siblings'.

That was several years ago. We don't really like each other anymore (though, supposedly, we still love each other).

My email address is still on her contact list though. At least once a week, she forwards me--and 500 other people--dumb "inspirational" emails. You know the kind I mean. The ones that get passed around so many times that the body is completely unintelligible from all the wierd indenting. Just looking at the mess makes me feel dirty inside, like I'm going to get Internet herpes from touching something that's passed through so many inboxes.

It's been months since I read any of these emails so I only vaguely remember what they say. One of them had a bunch of pictures of teddy bears and was about "true friends" or some schlock. And another one had a 5 megabyte powerpoint file entitled "Is Your Life a Carrot, Egg, or Coffee Bean?"

God damn, it was stupid. When you a boil a carrot, it becomes squishy and weak, so you don't want to be like the carrot. When you boil an egg, it becomes hard and mean, so you don't be like the egg. But when you boil the coffee bean, it gives off a pleasant aroma and becomes even better than before, so you want to be like the coffee bean. The powerpoint file contained some animation to illustrate this trenchant commentary.

Also, most of the emails use the 'Traditional Chinese' character set, which I don't have installed...and wouldn't be able to read even if I did. Just another travail of being trapped halfway between two cultural identities.

So basically, I delete all my mom's emails without opening them. Hotmail being the way it is, I'm unwittingly forced to read the subject lines. The latest was "³oºØ¤ñ³ë ~~ ¤Ó¬r¤F½}!" whatever that means. I thought of Jodie Foster in Contact: "Hidden within the message itself, is the key to deciphering it. We now know the basic equations for true and false..."

She had it easy; aliens from Vega make more sense than my mom.

Chapter LXXVII: Missed Connections

Image of the Day: Completely Unrelated to the PostI went to Bali's Frozen Yogurt last night to get some creamy goodness. My usual selection is vanilla, with a spray of pokies on top (pokies are offbrand m&m's), and a morsel of fudge brownie.

I almost forgot the brownie last night, and only remembered after the line had already moved past it. I had to turn around and lean across two girls scooping skittles and gummy bears, respectively, in order to grasp the claw thingy that would enable me to acquire some of the gooey precious. Reaching out with my arm caused the back of my shirt to ride up slightly, and I think I might have mooned half the store since my jeans are a little low and I didn't have underwear on (it was laundry day). Oops.

I got my fudge brownie though, and really, that's the important thing. The line moved forward and the generically good-looking guy in front of me put his cup on the scale while I glanced at his calves. Nice. "Two forty-four," stated the wiry bald man behind the counter, with a dragon tattoo on his forearm. The guy with nice calves paid with a five, got change, and left. And then it was my turn. "Two forty-four," stated the wiry bald man behind the counter (with a dragon tattoo on his forearm).

"Huh?" I thought. "But didn't that guy just..." Yes, he did. As it turned out, our orders both weighed exactly 9.76 oz. So that was kind of nifty.

In the end, an unremarkable incident--coincidences happen every day--but it reminded me of the silly things people write in the Missed Connections section of Craig's List. I was picturing it while I walked home today.

----

YOU: Guy at Bali's on Tuesday night. Brown AE polo with white stripes, cargo shorts, flip-flops, nice calves. You got lemon yogurt with Oreo bits and chocolate sprinkles and it came out to $2.44.

I was standing behind you in line. You might have seen my ass. I got vanilla with pokies and a morsel of fudge brownie and it was exactly $2.44 also. Crazy, huh?

Anyways, you're cute. Let's go for yogurt sometime.

----

Then I thought about it some more. Lemon yogurt with Oreo and chocolate sprinkles? That sounds disgusting.

Chapter CXXI: Matt

“Cute lighter,” I say.

“Shut up. I got a pack of twelve of them for my birthday and pink’s the last color left,” he says. “Anyway, you just suck in really quick, and hold in the smoke for a few seconds. Breathe it in. Then you let it out.”

Matt hands me the cigarette and I bring the filter to my lips as he holds the lighter alarmingly close to my face. The flame flickers wildly in the wind, an epileptic ballerina with one foot nailed to the floor.

It’s my first time smoking and I inhale nervously and then immediately cough, choking on the superheated smoke. I nearly drop the cigarette, but Matt deftly rescues it.

“You have no idea what you’re doing. Give me that before you hurt yourself.”

So much for the iconic post-coital cigarette. I suspect he is less concerned about my well-being than the travesty of "wasting a cigarette."

Even so, I let his hand find mine and, for a moment, we watch the sputtering Christmas lights on the dilapidated house across the street. Matt takes a drag and breathes out slowly, and the smoke hangs in the frigid December air before dispersing like a cloud of tiny white butterflies.

Chapter LXXVI: Kafkaesque

Esoteric--The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka

Image of the Day: Floorplan of Samsa Residence






















"When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." Thus begins Franz Kafka's often parodied, rarely understood monument of absurdist literature.

I had studied it in 12th grade and already knew all the important stuff, so when it was assigned in my English 350 class last week, I spent most of lecture time figuring out the floorplan to Gregor Samsa's apartment instead of listening. A daunting task, to be sure, as details were sparse, vague, and often contradictory (not unlike absurdist literature in general).

The first step was to determine what the major spaces were. The text explicitly mentions Gregor's room (3), Grete's room (6), the living room (9), the kitchen (12), the foyer (12), and the stairwell (15). Numbers in parentheses refer to pages in the Bantam Classics edition, translated by Stanley Corngold.

The existence of the parents' room is implied. After all, if even Grete--the youngest child--has her own room, then certainly the parents do also, given the norms in 1915. One can also conclude that there are no other major spaces than the ones enumerated above, since after a room is rented out (43), Grete must sleep in the living room (52).

I began the arrangement with Gregor's room, which is described as having "four familiar walls" (3). Gregor accesses the living room directly several times (14, 34, 45) through double doors and Kafka refers to a side door (5) and then the "other side door" (6) for a total of three entrances.

On page 9, Gregor is in his room and hears his father and the manager behind the "door on the left" and Grete, behind the "door on the right." Gregor's mother--also behind the "door on the left" communicates with Grete "by way of Gregor's room" (12). The door on the left is demonstrated to be the door to the living room since Gregor opens it and sees the manager and his father (14) while his sister sobs behind the door on the right (10).

The door on the right is a side door to Grete's room. This would seem to imply that Grete's room does not adjoin the living room, or else Grete would just open that door and shouting through Gregor's room would not be necessary. On the other hand, when Gregor sneaks into the living room in Chapter III (45), the renters are hurriedly shooed from the living room into their own room--which I take to be formerly Grete's room since she was displaced to the living room after they moved in (52).

Thus, I devised the arrangement of doors such that despite being in an adjoining room, someone standing at Gregor's living room door would have to shout through Gregor's room to communicate with someone at the door from Gregor's to Grete's room. This arrangement satisfies the right/left details if we assume Gregor was facing northwest during that scene.

The living room adjoins the foyer and the foyer the stairwell, since Gregor is able to see through the door to the foyer, and into the stairwell (15) while standing in the doorway from his room to the living room. It was tempting to place the foyer and stairwell directly west of Gregor's door, so that the living room door, foyer door, and stairwell door line up horizontally, but this could not be.

The reason is that in Chapter III, when the renters are eating in the living room and Grete begins playing the violin in the kitchen, the renters press their ears to the door from the living room to the foyer, implying that that is the closest they can get to the kitchen (45). Thus, while the living room adjoins the foyer and the foyer adjoins the kitchen, the living room does not adjoin the kitchen. Gregor is able to determine the music is coming from the kitchen as well, indicating his other side door leads to the kitchen (otherwise he would not be able to tell if it was coming from the foyer or the kitchen). Putting the foyer and stairwell on the west side of the living room would necessitate having an unrealistically huge foyer that wraps around the southwest corner in order to meet the kitchen adjoining Gregor's room.

Some indeterminacy exists since when Gregor dies (50), his parents get out of their "marriage bed" (52) and open a door into Gregor's room. Assuming they were not sleeping in the kitchen, that means they were in Grete's room. This indicates that the renters in fact rented out the parents' room, whereupon the parents moved into Grete's room, who was then pushed into the living room. Grete's room, then, no longer necessarily adjoins the living room (since the evidence was the renters being shooed into their room from the living room, and I thought they were living in Grete's room). However, if Grete's room does not adjoin the living room, that would mean the only way for the parents to get into their new room would be through either Gregor's room (not a viable option, all things considered), or through the renters' room, awkward at best.

I also placed a couple windows and bits of furniture.

Whew.

Chapter LXXV: Feminista

Image of the Day: 218A






















When I left studio today, I was walking through the hall and saw this sign. It intrigued me because of the way it was phrased. It doesn't say "WOMEN'S RESTROOM" or "WOMEN CAN URINATE HERE," but specifically draws attention to the fact that it had not always been a women's restroom, and only recently became one.

In that sense, it reminded me of the flags that unscrupulous European imperialists once stuck all over the planet, laying claim to foreign soils. My fertile imagination took this comparison to its logical conclusion...there is a cadre of militant lesbians advancing through Engineering West, conquering one bathroom stall at a time. Cal Poly today, tomorrow the world!

Case in point: When I took ARCE 211 during summer school, we were in the middle of Activity (if spending three hours in a sweltering room, never quite falling asleep can be considered an activity) one Friday and I needed to pee. I distinctly remember coming across two women's bathrooms before finally finding one on the second floor that accomodated XY chromosomes. Now it seems even that has been taken away from me.

Image of the Day II:






















Whoever made the sign used some font that is not on my computer, but that can be approximated by bolding Vrinda and tweaking the default leading and kerning.

Chapter LXXVII: Chicken of Doom

I'm writing this in case I die in my sleep tonight... I'd forgotten how wretchedly disgusting being sick is. Last night, I vomitted three times, and this morning, I had wierd hallucinations while I lay sweating in bed under five blankets. I saw red buckets being filled with sand, and and these were somehow related to the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Morrison. The phrase "duckies in a row" came up a lot too.

It definitely wasn't the same as dreaming, because I was still painfully aware while it was happening. Aware of the headache throbbing right behind the bridge of my nose, the roiling in my stomach, and the fact that I was shivering feverishly like a Substance D junkie suffering withdrawal.

D is for darkness and despair.

No, I don't do drugs. The only thing I can think of is the rotisserie chicken from Albertson's that I ate half of yesterday. I knew there was something suspicious about how it's glistened under the heatlamp. I wasn't even going to buy it at first, but my shopping buddy--who thinks I don't eat enough--coerced me into it.

Thanks a lot, Nicole. Shitkabobs. I just remembered that you took home the other half of the chicken... I should call you about that.

[Update] Full recovery, etc.

Chapter LXXVI: I Once Was Lost

but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. After all these years of denial, I admit it...Atheism is untenable. THERE IS A GOD.




And His name is Jägermeister.

World Peace.

Chapter LXXV: Mall Rat

I've spent about 10 hours* at the Mall this week, more mall-time than in the previous two years combined. It was fun at first with all the sights and sounds, but, like a James Joyce character, I was soon disillusioned. The place quickly revealed itself as a meretricious Temple of Consumerism... Each store is a chapel attended by stylish teenage acolytes, where I make burnt offerings of my soul to the steel and plastic idol on the countertop. It gives me a slip of paper in return.

A young woman walked past me with a Mastercard's worth of Indulgences in her shopping bag, trying to buy her way out of a mental Purgatory created by TV ads and magazine covers. Far from the oasis it claims to be, the Laguna Hills Mall is just a wasteland within a wasteland. Orange County sucks (the life out of me).

I guess it's good that I got the jeans situation taken care of, if you know what I mean. Made a goodly sized dent in the short-sleeved polo situation too. The t-shirt situation's been ground into the dust since July, but then again, you can never have too many t-shirts.

Strangely, I was mistaken for an employee twice on the same day. First, at American Eagle, where a man wanted to know if the "I don't mind a little junk in the trunk" shirt was available in XL. I had seen one on the rack a minute ago, so I pointed it out to him. The second time was at a bracelet kiosk in the middle of the concourse. A pubescent white girl comes up to me, points at something, and asks, "Do you have these but like without these things you know what I mean just like you know..." I listen to her politely for about half a minute, with that look of understanding which is my secret code for I have no fucking clue what you are talking about. This was useful in my French class, where the professor only called on people with looked confused, since they "need the most practice." Anyways, when I tell the girl I don't work there, she apologizes effusively: "Oh."

Stupid things I thought about today: (1) Why are they called 'missiles' if the idea is to hit something with them? They should be called hittles. (2) One of my quondam roommates works at the physical headquarters of tennis-warehouse.com. I told him the company should change its URL to tennis-warehouse.net, for obvious reasons. He was not amused.

School needs to start right NOW.

*At least half of this was spent in the bookstore.

Chapter LXXIV: Colorburn

When I was young and stupid (not so long ago), I scoffed at my peers who professed to be avid Photographers, with a capital 'P.' Yeah, whatever, I would silently snort. You're just another kid who thinks he's artistic, but is too lazy to learn how to draw.

In my naive mind, photography was a total cop-out. You just stand there and push a button, and it's over in less than a second. To call photography an art would be an insult to the painters and sculptors who labor for weeks or months over their one-of-a-kind masterpieces.

In fact, I had a very 19th century attitude about art in general. I decried Abstract Expressionism as a cultural tumor (writing an essay to that effect in 11th grade), glorified photorealism (except, ironically, in photographs), and more or less thought that fine art should be time-consuming and unattainable without years of intensive training. Delacroix and Titian were my heroes, Pollack my nemisis, and Ansel Adams was just boring.

But after acquiring a cheap digital camera, and reading a couple books on the subject, I realized that photography is hardly quick and easy, and opening the shutter is only the conclusion of a laborious decision-making process. At the same time, it is also a very immediate experience, choosing which particular second (or 36th of a second) to capture. It this demanding synthesis of planning and spontaneity that makes photography an art form.

And so, in the interest of pushing myself to explore the exciting realm of digital photography, I have started a new photoblog. It is a collaborative effort, and the premise is fairly simple. Every day, we each post one photo to the blog. The catch is, there won't be a traditional caption beneath each image. Instead, we will include some salient bit of the discussion we had about that photograph.

The idea is that I will be instilled with a sense of obligation to keep snapping away and improve as a student of photography*--so as to not let down my coblogger and also to provide a fruitful experience for the random people who stop by.

It is called COLORBURN*. Until I get back to school and my camera, we're both just working through some photos we have piled up on our hard drives, which, in my case, are mostly rather static still-lifes. That will change, rest assured. Keep in mind though, that it will be a daily exercise, so I only expect to produce high resolution and well-composed--but not necessarily stunning--images.

I will, of course, still be posting the occasional riveting observation on the state of the universe here, in this fine venue.

*I would not presume to call myself a photographer.
*Colorburn is a reference to one of the blending modes in Photoshop. I originally reserved the URL as a place to dump art (instead of embedding it into my blog posts) but I never got around to it.

Chapter LXXIII: So to Speak

Blogging...is such an ugly word. It sounds like a contraction of blah and logging, as if it were some kind of unexciting environmental destruction. It occurred to me while I was flipping through the course catalog that a much more respectable term would be "Creative Nonfiction," defined as the inclusion of literary elements in mostly nonfiction writing.

I think I satisfy that definition. Was it not a glorious use of simile when I likened specks of cereal dust in my milk to the frozen bodies floating aimlessly about in Titanic? Was it not a sublime example of extended metaphor when I framed the experience of drinking a glass of juice as a safari? Of course it was! So if I ever fill out a scholarship application, I will confidently write "Creative Nonfiction" in the extracurricular interests section, instead of blah-gging.

But why stop there? Poker sounds seedy also. How about "Applied Statistics?" Yes, that has a nice ring. Going to the gym can be "Applied Kinesiology," or--even better--"Kinesiology Practicum" (Latin = smart, and deserving of scholarships). I don't steal things, I enjoy "Random Acquisition." I don't spend all day on the Internet downloading porn, but I am interested in "Wide-Area Networks Insofar As They Facilitate The Proliferation Of Human Anatomical Imagery."

After all, I'm not lying--just rephrasing things so that they sound nicer. I suppose the best way to describe it would be...creative nonfiction.

Chapter LXXII: Foot the Bill

Ever since Kill Bill Vol. I first flickered before my eyes three years ago, something about the movie has niggled me, like an unscratchable itch. Actually, it wasn't so much the thing itself, which, though inexplicable, is not directly annoying. What bothers me is that whenever I bring up this particular aspect of the film, no one knows what the fuck I'm talking about.

I am referring, of course, to the unaccountably large role that feet play in the cinematography of Kill Bill Volume I. One can almost call it a foot fetish. It's completely obvious to me, and I don't know why I'm the only person who seems to notice it. To make my case once and for all, I have taken the relevant screen captures from the DVD rip. For your consideration:


Besides Uma Thurman's labored breathing, the first sounds in the movie are Bill's footsteps, and the first visual (after Uma Thurman's bloody face) is a close-up of his shoes. All told, the footsteps and the shoes last 38 seconds.

Minutes later (14.3 to be precise), we have a similar segment, but this time of the sherriff's shoes as he ambulates the bloody chapel. It is clearly meant recall the earlier scene, and also features the distinctive footstep sound.


Here, Elle Driver strolls through the hospital whistling that now infamous tune. This segment lasts for 11 seconds.




"Wiggle your big toe." In this scene, not only are feet important visually, but also central to the plot. As you know, it is some time before Uma succeeds in her endeavor.




Another shot from the same scene.








The seventeen year old O-ren Ishii. The scene begins with this shot of her boots and slowly moves up her body.






Here, we have a few seconds of Oren's bare feet quickly traversing the top of the Council table before she decapitates Boss Tanaka. The segment actually shows her feet from a number of angles, of which this represents but one.

An interesting view of Uma as she walks across the...I forget the name of the place. House of Blue Something-or-Other. For some reason 'Pancakes' come to mind. But blue pancakes would be gross.


Oren takes 19 seconds to remove her shoes.






Obviously, there are countless more shots in the movie where feet are visible, what with all the kicking and running about. The point though, is that in Kill Bill Volume I, images of feet are used for cinematographic effect more often than in most movies. That is to say, they are notable in themselves and not just byproducts of the action.

Before you accuse me of combing the movie looking for feet, I only included here segments that immediately leapt out the first time I saw it. In all of them, feet are the dominant visual element for a significant amount of time, and depicted in an artistic manner. As I expressed earlier, I have no idea why Mr. Tarantino chose to feature feet so prominently, but it seems clear to me that he did. OR, I'm psychotic.

I apologize for the stupid title.

Full Disclosure: Site Statistics.

Chapter LXXI: A Toast to Science

Image of the Day: A Study of the Effects of Alcohol Consumption on the Fine Motor Skills of a 130# Male (click to Enlarge)


Research Objectives: To observe (1) how the volume of alcohol consumed affects fine motor coordination and (2) how the passage of time affects the effect of the volume of alcohol consumed on fine motor coordination.

Research Methodology: (1) and (2) above are determined by the relative legibility of the subject's handwriting.

A baseline legibility is established before the subject has consumed any alcohol (first row), at which point a timer is started. At time intervals roughly increasing by factors of two (6 minutes, 14 minutes, 30 minutes), 1 shot of vodka is consumed (each containing approximately 1.2 oz of alcohol), and a handwriting sample is taken, until 1 hour has elapsed.

At that point, no further alcohol is consumed and handwriting samples are taken about every 10 minutes.

Conclusions: Against all rational expectations, it appears alcohol consumption has a marked effect on fine motor skills. The subject's legibility seems to degrade exponentially as time progresses.

Interestingly, it appears that the penmanship progressively deteriorated inward from the end of the alphabet. It is unknown whether this is due to the relative paucity of the latter letters in everyday experience, or simply because the subject's concentration was exhausted by the time he got to them.

Recommendations: Don't drink and write (or drive).

Peer Review: The study attempted to simultaneously track two independent variables (volume of alcohol consumed, and time) rendering the relative weight of each indeterminable. Furthermore, no mechanism has been formulated to quantify the dependent variable--legibility--and so the claim that it deteriorated exponentially is invalid. The study used an absurdly small sample population of one person, who also happened to be the researcher. Thus, double-blind procedure was not followed (or even single-blind procedure), running the risk of confirmation bias. Indeed, it appears this exercise was nothing more than a dumb excuse to become intoxicated, albeit slightly less dumb than previous ones.

Chapter LXX: Snakes on a What?

Image of the Day: Ticket Stub
Despite what my ticket stub would have you believe, I did not watch Snakes on a Plane last night. I almost did. After the first fifteen minutes, though, it was pretty obvious where the setup was heading. It was the worn and weary (some would say tried and true) B-Movie paradigm: an assortment of one-dimensional characters crowded into a confined space, ripe to be killed off one at a time in ridiculously gruesome ways.

Well, Deep Blue Sea came out years ago, and also featured slimy carnivores devouring an arrogant British businessman and a dumb blonde chick. I had also already seen Anaconda, in which slimy carnivores--snakes, no less--devour (you guessed it) an arrogant British businessman* and a dumb blonde*, among others. In all three of these cinematic abortions, the obese black comic relief* always makes it out alive. Speaking of abortion, [update: the rest of this sentence has been removed].

Since I already knew what was going to happen, and nothing unique appeared forthcoming, we decided to forgo what Rolling Stone describes as:

...a murky stew of shock effects repeated so often that the suspense quickly droops along with your eyelids. It's not so bad that it's good. It's so bland that it's boring. Not even worth a hissss.

A hop and a skip away in the next theater, Step Up was about to begin. It stars Channing Tatum (Or is it Tatum Channing? I can never remember) and Jenna Dewan. To be sure, Step Up is as formulaic as Snakes on a Plane. The movie about a wealthy dance student teaching and falling in love with his/her low-income partner has been done innumerably: The Cutting Edge, Strictly Ballroom, Center Stage, Save the Last Dance, Take the Lead, et al.

It does, however, redeem itself by veering away from the most overused conflict arcs. We are spared the snobby parent who tries to squash the budding relationship, the cliché love triangle drama, and the anorexia subplot. Step Up contains a truly unexpected sad moment and grips of impressive dancing, making it enjoyable, dare I say rewatchable. It also has a kickass soundtrack, though I'm not sure if it "defines a generation," as the trailers claim.

By far, the best movie I saw this weekend was the DVD of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Memorable Quote:
Gay Perry: Look up 'idiot' in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?
Harry: A picture of me?
Gay Perry: No! The definition of 'idiot,' which you FUCKING ARE!

*Not to imply that all British businessmen are arrogant, just the ones who are made that way so no one is sad when they are eaten by giant snakes.
*Kenan Thompson, LL Cool J, and Ice Tea, respectively. Not to imply that all black people are obese, just the ones who make it out alive in movies about giant snakes.
*Not to imply that all blonde people are dumb. All blondes are dumb.

Chapter LXIX: The End of the Beginning

A year ago today, I posted the first chapter of this blog. Tempus fugit indeed.

Happy Birthday, Armless Boy.

Image of the Day: Birthday Cake (Found)












Let the festivities begin (this has to be the dumbest excuse to get drunk that I've ever thought of). Cheers!

Chapter LXVIII: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I, being poor, have only my dreams. Dreams aren't legal tender though, so until I make millions of dollars selling my brilliant invention, I am forced go with the cheapest option whenever I need a haircut I can't do myself.

That invariably means some local barber in a rundown shopping center. The flooring is usually yellowed linoleum, and there will be a selection of utterly vapid magazines to peruse, like the March 1993 issue of American Boating. On the back wall is a boy's hairstyle chart that appears to be from the 1950's and show side profiles of fresh-faced white kids with the kinds of haircut that evoke baseball and apple pie.

Half of the scissor happy barbers on duty are ex-Marines whose expertise consists of the generic "boy's short." Alternatively, you might get the Vietnamese lady who feels compelled to chop off your bangs in a straight line across your forehead, no matter what you tell her.

In San Luis Obispo, this place is called University Barbershop, and I went there last week for my first haircut in 4 months. Unexpectedly, it was probably one of the better haircuts I've ever gotten, although I would have liked to keep a tad more on the sides. While my head was being pruned, it occurred to me that barbers have, for some unknown reason, often been portrayed as devious tricksters in literature and the arts.

For example, the oldest story involving haircuts is the tale of Samson and DELILAH and she was definitely tricky, using her feminine wiles to pry out the secret to Samson's strength. To be fair, he was an idiot and didn't make it especially difficult. The first time she asks, he tells her he will lose his strength if she ties him to his bed with 7 bowstrings. Delilah then proceeds to actually do this, so why he would tell her the truth the second time she asks is beyond me.

Maybe something was lost in the translation for Hebrew to Greek? Like, they were actually just flirting the first time she asked, and being tied to the bed was a kinky fantasy Samson wanted to act out.

Fast forward to the 1800's to THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, Rossini's famous opera. In it, the Count Almamiva wants to marry Rosina, but she is locked up by Doctor Bartolo, who wants to marry her himself, so the Count gets his trusty barber, Figaro, to devise a convoluted plan for them to meet. It is unclear why the Count approaches Figaro, unless there is a stereotype of clever barbers.

Continuing on the theme of singing barbers, we find SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, the 1979 Broadway musical. Sweeney Todd, a deranged barber, slits the throats of his customers with a straight razor. His specially designed barber's chair then slides the bodies through the floor to the bakery shop of his neighbor, who cooks the corpses into meat pies. That's pretty devious.

And finally there's BARBERSHOP, which is also about barbers. I haven't actually seen the movie and I'm tired so I'll stop typing now.

[Update] The Inner Critic: Damn, this was a lame post, even for you. Seriously, "BARBERSHOP, which is also about barbers..." Thanks for clearing that up, Jerry. All this time, I thought that a movie titled BARBERSHOP must be about evil gay hamsters who terrorize Chicago, biting off people's scrotums and then clipping their fingernails, all in one swift move. Your stupid discourse about barbers in the arts imploded without reaching anything that resembles a point (or even the ugly cousin of a point), and your "poem" is just a poorly written sentence chopped into seven lines. No wonder you only got one page hit yesterday. Two thumbs down.

Chapter LXVII: Playlistism

From urbandictionary.com:

PLAYLISTISM - n. Discrimination based not on race, gender, or religion, but rather on a disturbingly horrible iTunes music library discovered through a school or job network. Often requires awkward explanation of why you have "that song."

Mike accused me of playlistism when I questioned his collection of Color Me Badd b-sides.

Personally, I've never understood why music is such a big deal, so I was never able to judge people based on it. I enjoy music too, but only as a form of temporary diversion, not in any sort of philosophical way. Call me shallow, but if a song is catchy, I'll listen to it; meaningful lyrics are a plus, but ultimately irrelevant if I can't stand the tune. Also, I have no compunction against removing a single song from the "context" of its album and playing it ad nauseaum, all by itself. I guess I can understand some people's intense feelings about music if I think about it in terms of my own emotional investment in graphic art.

But really, I'm more likely to look down on you based on the newspaper you subscribe to. Los Angeles Times? How parochial. Wallstreet Journal? Stop pretending you're smart. Christian Science Monitor? ...Stay the fuck away from me.

I am often surprised by a person's musical tastes when they seem incongruous with other aspects of his personality. Like my former roommate, a Christian fundamentalist , Chinese EE major, who always has his speakers blaring what I affectionately call "the black people music." He says it's because he grew up in the "bad part" of the Bay Area. Whatever, Quinn.

Or when you're browsing Facebook, and you come across someone you knew in highschool--honors kid, SAT scores through the roof, always very sensible; and the first two bands in his Favorite Music are Killswitch Engage and Silverchair. Sheesh. Maybe I'm deluding myself in thinking that there is any connection between what people listen to and other things they do.

Anyways, I have embedded a Stickam player in my sidebar and loaded it with a more or less random selection of songs that were readily available on my hard drive. Wonderfully, the player also displays photos, so the Flickr photostream has been phased out, though the transition has not been completed yet (Stickam requires jpegs). Stickam also supports a bunch of other stuff I'm not using, so many of the buttons will be fruitless.

Chapter LXVI: Self-Indulgence

"Everywhere I see bliss, from which I am irrevocably excluded," lamented Frankenstein's monster, but he's got nothing on me. I've had a terrible week--well, more like a terrible Monday/Tuesday. A total of five essay swere due, on disparate topics: the Rwandan genocide, the Argentine currency crisis, the economics of cocaine in Bolivia, Dubliners by James Joyce, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Not exactly lots of research synergies. Also, I had two Midterms and a grueling ARCE Final which was from 7-9 at night.

It was nucking futs...I didn't have time to sleep, shower, or go to the gym at all. I also didn't eat anything on Monday, but on Tuesday I bought 15.4 oz of plain M&Ms and nibbled on them all day. A pound of chocolate probably wasn't a good idea in my sleepless, unwashed state, but I'm sure you'll forgive me for not being able to think straight.

BUT! Everything went swimmingly. I sweated out five kickass essays and aced the tests (more or less), and it's clear sailing for here on out. Really, it's a wonderful feeling.

On Sunday, I told myself that if I was able to pull it off I would have to reward myself somehow... Actually, I knew exactly how I would reward myself. It's a little embarrassing, but I'm addicted to t-shirts. Not clothes in general, just tees. I used to buy copious amounts of them, but not so much anymore. Except today. In recognition of my accomplishment this week, I bought some t-shirts online. Close-ups of the designs are below. You can test your Googling skillz by trying to find the sites (4 in all) where I got them.

Chapter LXV: What's Up?

It's funny how in America, greetings and their responses have become so automatic that they're effectively meaningless. How many times have you overheard (or participated in) the following ubiquitous exchange?

A: What's up?
B: Nothin' much, you?
A: Nothin' much.

or its cousin...

A: How's it going?
B: Not bad, you?
A: Not bad.

If extra-terrestrial archeologists ever tried to decipher English, they would think 'nothing much' is another term for the sky. That said, I overhead a strange variation on my way to class today. Two guys were walking briskly in opposite directions, and had the following conversation as they passed one other:

A: What's up?
B: Not bad, you?
A: Nothin' much.

Me (silently): Um, what the fuck?

For the rest of my walk to class, I tried to determine who had been stupider, A or B. Clearly, B's response to A was non sequitur. In my Stupidity Rating System (SRS), that's worth 1 Stupid Point (SP). A also gave a non sequitur response though, since B's 'you?' actually referred to the unspoken question of 'How's it going?' Of course, it must be accounted for that A's response would have been appropriate had it not been for B's mistake.

Therefore, I only allotted 0.5 SPs to A and concluded that B was the stupider of the two (1 SP to 0.5 SPs).

When I explained this reasoning to my lab partner, she concurred that A's non sequitur response was less egregious than B's. However, she argued that A should have recognized that B screwed up, and called him on it; that A did not do so is certainly worth an additional 1 SP.

A, she asseverated, was in fact stupider than B by a score of 1.5 SPs to 1 SP. I commended her insight and we proceeded to do the lab.

Perhaps you have already realized the flaw in our logic. For me, the epiphany didn't occur until I was on the elliptical machine at the gym, eyes closed and mp3s blaring. The fact is, if A had realized B's mistake and acknowledged it, A's own illogical response would never have occurred. It is unfair to penalize A both for not recognizing B's slip-up and also for acting on that incognizance, since the second blunder is an 'error carried forward' of the first.

Recalculating the Stupid Points, we have B at 1 SP for his non sequitur response, and A at 1 SP for not catching it. In the final analysis, then, A and B are equally stupid (1 SP to 1 SP).

Chapter LXIV: UnAmerican

Image of the Day: Intercepted by the Secret Service (Illustrator)




















You are thinking that I should retitle my blog "Crap I Made In Five Minutes Using Adobe Illustrator." But you see, that would be inaccurate...some of this stuff only took four minutes.

Not to worry though, me thinks the Illustrator fad will only last until I exhaust my supply of art to digitize. The original medium of today's chef d'oevre was, as you might have guessed, crayon on 8.5x11 paper, produced three years ago as a joke. It was fun recreating all the nuances of 1st grader handwriting.

Along the anti-Bush vein, I watched a flash music video today, titled (Didn't Know I Was) UnAmerican, by Ian Rhett. It's pretty cool, yadda yadda yadda*, you should watch it.

Actually, labeling it as "anti-Bush" is misleading. It's more...pro-world, if that makes sense. I think that's why it was more resonant--for me--than two hours of Fahrenheit 9/11.

I had earphones on and had been doing my online French listening exercises, which are ever so fun. Today, the lady on the tape/mp3 sang "Frère Jacques," known to les américains as "Are You Sleeping?" This was fine and dandy, except it was sung at an abnormally slow tempo (probably to aid comprehension) and with zero accompaniment, such that it passed from being a cute lullaby to actually sounding hypnotic and sinister.

Tangentially related: a flash music video I saw on Larry King Live last year, about corporate irresponsibility/outsourcing: BigBoxMart. This one starts playing right when you click the link. It's set to the tune of "Oh Susanna" and quite catchy (though depressing).

*Each yadda represents 1.53 sentences of effusive praise.

Chapter LXIII: Technicolor Bedset

Image of the Day: My New Sheets and Pillow Case

The most annoying feeling in the universe is when the bedsheets slide around and crumple up and maybe even come off of the bed in the middle of the night.

I suffered through this for a whole year, and blame it for the C- I got in English 134. The stupid sheet shifting made me sleep fitfully and I didn't wake up in time to turn in an essay that was 15% of my grade. It was a kick-ass essay too, about people starving to death in the snow.

After that, I disposed of the sheets altogether, and slept directly on the state provided mattress. This was reasonably comfortable, until I threw up all over the bed one night, and it always smelled just a little bit funny after that, in spite of (or was it because of?) all the Febreeze I sprayed.

Anyway, I learnt about a miraculous new product, utterly simple in its conception, but at the same time a consummate improvement over existing technologies. I thought to myself, only NASA could have thought of something so clever, these must be a spin-off of space program--like velcro and duct tape.

They are called "fitted" bedsheets, and are just like normal bedsheets, except that they have a band of high-quality elastic running around the edge, so once you snap it onto your bed, it stays tight and never ever comes off!

I started drooling immediately upon hearing of this gift from Prometheus and dashed to Target so as to procure some immediately, before they were all snatched up. There were aisles upon aisles of bedding to be perused, and I went up and down them all, muttering to myself. We wants them, we wants our precioussss...

To my dismay, although Target had 20 choices for twin-sized unfitted sheets, and 10 choices for fitted sheets, queen sized, there was only ONE twin-sized fitted, and they were HIDEOUS. But I guess you already know that, since the picture is at the top of the post. Seriously, they almost look radioactive. It goes to show what mindset I was in that I got them anyway. At least they came with a couple pillow cases.

According to the packaging, these are "designer" sheets, sold exclusively at Target. I guess "designer" is the new word for "ugly." But whatever, they're fitted and they don't slide and it's 4:36 AM. Nighty!