I just spilled some milk, now I think I'm gonna cry. Why? Oh why did this milk have to be wasted? What is the reasoning behind it? Without that much needed calcium my growing bones are apt to become brittle and weak. What are the odds of osteoporosis in men? They just got fractionally higher for me. In all fairness, I didn't spill all that much milk. But some got on my pants. It was traumatic.

I bought a column of Starbursts today. It reminded me of one evening when I was sitting at this video store where I used to work, K&K Video (I didn't include a link because they are Fascists). I had a big bag of Starbursts and was eating them in my usual manner, that is all of one flavor at a time. My coworker, an older unpleasant woman noticed my pattern and said:
That's a strange way of eating them, usually I take one of each kind and eat them.
I stared at her for a minute and went back to my Starbursts.

Gooseflesh
1. Seeing Citizen Toxie at ?The Movies?, a small independent theater back home, with Lloyd Kaufman in attendance. He introduced the movie and afterward there was a question and answer session. We stayed so late that my car was locked in a parking garage. William Lustig was there, too.
2. Coke in 12 ounce cans
3. Nine Inch Nails? album The Downward Spiral
4. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
5. Building a Theramin from a two dollar kit with my dad.
6. Big dinners with my family.
7. Falling asleep with Melissa
8. New Zealand
9. Sweden
10. Samurai Cat Goes to Hell by Mark Rogers
11. Eating in Philadelphia at a Mexican Restaurant called "Mexican Food." Apart from the food and company being excellent, three Latinos came up to our table and sang us a song. They also sang with some men of some spanish-speaking descent for quite some time.

Take a Break
Stay Awake
For Safety's Sake
Signs such as this dot the highway throughout some state we travel through, Mass. I think. Its a funny sign. I like interpreting it like this, "Take a break from sleeping while your driving, for safety's sake!" In which case, the sign has some a major shortcoming: Most visual stimuli, unless in the form of bright lights, will not rouse your average dozer. Another thing I noticed about the highway, there are a lot less rumble strips along the left side of it (the highway). I think this is because they expect the head-on collision to wake you.

Know what pisses me off the most about spam? When it comes in when you are already checking your mail. Its an annoying pain in the ass. I've already deleted 12 other spam messages, and a new one comes in. Its like the hydra.

What if Jesus had had a stunt double? That would have been cool. Ron, Jesus' Stand-in. I can see Jesus abusing this right. He'll take all the good bits, Ron gets the crappy stuff.

Angry Roman: Let's whip 'im! Then we'll stab him and give him a crown of thorns! Why not crucify 'im while we're at it!?

Jesus: Alright, Ron, you can take this.

Ron: But...I...you...you're God's son! No one will listen to Your Message if Ron, Jesus' Stunt Double dies for their sins.

Jesus: Ron, the Son of God just told you to take the punishment. No one said anything about death. Now, Get up on that stick, there's a lad.

Ron: So, this won't kill me?

Jesus: Uh...No! You're the stunt double for Jesus! God is almost your father. You think he'd let you die for this?

Ron: OK...but if I croak I'm coming after you in the afterlife.

Jesus: Sure you will. Hey, while you're nailed down. NOT TOUCHING YOU!!! NOT TOUCHING YOU!!!! (wiggles hands in Ron's face)

Ron: Cut that out! Quit it! Aren't you supposed to be a moral standard for humanity?

Jesus: Meh, you only live once.

And then, when the babes came around or gifts came his way, Jesus would step back in.

Ron: Ouch, who would have thought Immaculate Conception would be so painful. (God snickers)

Jesus: Yeah, thanks for that one buddy. Oh hey, who are these three wise guys?

Three Wise Men: We come bearing gifts for our new Messiah.

Ron: Thanks fellahs, I-

Jesus: Step aside, Ron, this looks like a job for the Real Thing. Thank you very much Wise Men. I accept your gifts with...eww, what's this? Frankincense? Loganberry? Here you go Ron, you can have the faulty prize.

Ron: Thanks...dick.

Jesus: What was that? Don't make me call God's wrath upon you.

Ron: Sorry, Jesus, sorry. God, no need to get pissy.

"A top professional underwater salvage team is hired by a Canadian Air Force pilot to investigate a mysterious vessel floating adrift off the coast of Alaska." This sentence is from a description of Ghost Ship in my local paper, the Portland (Maine) Press. I couldn't tell you why I was looking it up.

But Bowling for Columbine looks good.

I went to a concert on Saturday in the evening. It was sweet. Sevendust headlined, they are awesome. As intro sounds they had the Natural Born Killers edit of "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails. I thought that was cool. It excited me and got me pumped for the show.
The band preceeding them, 30 Seconds to Mars, was pretty cool, too. I liked them. But when I was looking at them, the singer looked a lot like Jared Leto. I felt certain it was, but I've been wrong about things like this before. Anyway, the person I was there with, Jill, commented on it too. I checked it out when I got home, it is Jared Leto! Fantastic.
The band Cinder also played, they were cool. I recommend their stuff if you can find it and are into it.
Closure was meh.

I'm home now, pretty sweet. Long cold ride up. Bad weather. Minor complications in the morning. We weren't sure we were going to make it, looks like we persevered. Leave it to us, always ruining the Naysayers' self-confidence. I don't know if that is their collective self-confidence or each individual one. Either way you can be sure it has been dented by our efforts.

Finally, after months of toiling and only the Blogger's help section to guide me, my staring uncomprehendingly at the lines of code have paid off. I have set up my Archives. Its the 'cemetary.' Anyway, all the entries are now there, you don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom (or butt) or the page, causing undue wear and tear to your mouse and monitor. Scrolling is bad for your monitor. Seriously! No one ever believes me. It makes me so depressed. The other day I found out my anti-depressants are really tetracycline, which is an antibiotic. Not an anti-depressant. That just made things worse. The sky is perpetually gray for poor ol' Krister. Anyway, archives are up...not that that matters much...




GOD!!! Can't you TAKE a JOKE!!?! yeesh!

So, I'm cruising around an Online Dictionary and I stumbled upon the definition for bowel. I did stumble upon it, I was searching and the words all connected. I didn't just open up the page and look for 'bowel.' Anyway, I'm looking at the roots, it comes from latin, the word botellus, but that's not all. Botellus, it turns out, is a diminutive of the word botulus, which means sausage. Little sausage. Makes your intestines sound kind of cute. I think its funny.

Ramen noodles are a staple in my diet. I also consume vast quantities of Easy Mac and White Castle Cheeseburgers. But Ramen is the most interesting to me. It comes in a variety of flavors, yet the flavor is only determined by the little packets. So, your actual noodles don't really vary from package to package. Some day I'm gonna open up a packet of Beef Ramen and a Packet of Chicken Ramen and switch the flavor packets. I'm assuming the world would fall apart.

Upset by violence in schools these days? Blaming new things in the media? Here is something that should sober you up some. I'm talking about the worst case of school violence in American history. Over three times more were killed than Columbine, many of the victims much younger. Andrew Kehoe was his name. His epitaph remains poignant and terrifying to this day: Criminals are made, not born.

The sound alarm clocks make is really soul searing. It reaches down to the bottom of my spine and yanks up. The tone, pitch and frequency affect my psyche in a very negative manner. It might be something that develops after years of being woken by the accursed little box with the red LED numbers. Waking me from my slumber is something that easily invokes my wrath, especially if that slumber involves cartoons and my placement therein.

Whenever I hear it it seems to haunt me. I hear it in the ululations of the fan. I hear it in the murmurings of the hot water pipes. I hear it in the whispering of the air ducts. After I've woken up, when the waves ripple my eardrums it sticks inside my skull. As I walk through the halls and hear an alarm clock through a door, the call wedges itself on either side of my skull, about two inches behind my ears. There you will find little bumps that form naturally (hopefully) in the human skull. These are my "annoying buzz" receptors, and it keeps echoing in those spots, creating an unpleasant heat and pressure. The mounds also pick up the television buzz and bugs that are too close to my ear.

Alarm clocks are evil. Unfortunately, it is the only thing-next to extreme measures involving fire/forceful removal from bed-that works on waking me up. Recently I had my alarm clock set on the music mode, no effect. My roommate turned it off, reaching over my sleeping body to do so, and screamed "Krister, Your alarm clock went off!" It wasn't even set on a station, it was set on static! How'd that not wake me up?

If I were to meet the guy who invented alarm clocks I'd beat him about the head and shoulders with a...well, whatever is handy. I'd beat him until his face was a slimy puddle on the pavement.

Well, election day has come and gone bringing disappointing results. I, unfortunately, am a hypocrite and will be one until I can vote again. As I failed to request an absentee ballot in time. This makes me feel awful. It makes me feel like pond scum, like dog shit you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
Anyway. A site has come to my attention. Write your own Bush Speech. It seems pretty cool. You write your own speech using words supplied and then the program says the words. Words words words. It is cool. I recently had him say:
Saddam Hussein is Great. One Day the world we created will conflict freedom, peace, justice, afghanistan and beyond. We mad above all. America stands commited to deceitful dictators, violent ambition, persistant poverty, further destruction, ragin disease, wickedness, broken treaties and suffering in the united states nations. Iraq would be destroyed to kill squandered lives on a massive scale.
I think its funny because it is true. And scary.

Dialects are cool. Not only for accents, but for the different variety and spice they bring to life. In a class not too long ago we started talking about the Amish. They speak quite funny, it turns out. This I did not know, the teacher gave us an example. Two Amish folk, a father and son, are sitting at the train station watching the train. The son says, "Papa, when goes the little red car the train is all, ain't?"
Another nice thing is that on the internet you can talk all the shit about the Amish you want, and they'll never know.

Because of widespread media dialects are slowly trickling away. They will always be around, probably, but no where near as pronounced. Heh, no pun intended.

A gorilla, Kibabu, at the Taronga zoo has had some problems impregnating the members of his harem. The zoo officials wish to rectify this with artificial insemination, but they can't agree how to do it. One of the suggestions was to sedate the gorilla and then use *cough* manual stimulation. To which a zookeeper replied, "Its too bloody dangerous. What if he wakes up?"

Its a funny world. But not a hilarious world. Or a laugh out loud world. Unless you think its funny that the ones "running" the planet are weak, small and spend a bizarre amount of time triming their fingernails is funny.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

Take that security people! Well loved founding father openly denounced the need for militant stupidity!

You can be a pretty good artist if you draw what is around you. Many people do very well this way. The Hudson River Valley School being a prime example of this. I think you'll find, however, that the most famous and successful artists create their subjects. Michaelangelo's Sistene Chapel comes to mind. Portraits are the exception. Capturing the human form in all its subtelty is very tricky, human emotion is elusive. But, back to the creation thing, I believe that surrealism is one of my favorite examples of this, yet it often is based on reality. Salvador Dali had a self portrait, his face was oozing and being held up by crutches, as his paintings so often are, but it is very impressive. I would say it were a real thing, if not for the fact that it isn't. Perhaps that is what makes their paintings so good and realistic. Whatever they are painting really exists for them. The universe bends in their mind to make it that way. Art is cool.

You are in a heated debate. What is the best way to make your opponent look wrong, thus winning the argument? Is it a clear and concise representation of the facts? Is it clever rebuttal after clever rebuttal? No, my friend. It is contradiction. No, this is not what they talked to you about in health class. This, dear reader, is opposing whatever your opponent says, despite whatever "facts" he or she may bring to the table. As long as you constantly say things like "that's what you think" and "says you" you are sure to keep the other debater confused enough to pounce and kill him/her. Its a sweet life.

The peanuts, by the way, were pretty good.

I have before me a bag of "Houston's Salted Peanuts." As of yet, the bag remains unopened. As soon as I get some refreshments, however, I will commence with the eating of said peanuts. The peanut packaging perplexes me. It is red and has various athletes on it. In the lower left corner it has a baseball player. This I understand, peanuts have long been a staple food source at baseball...places. Fields! Two of the other corners have athletes from professional sporting events I have attended, yet do not recall the presence of goobers. One is a basketball game. A fine sport, but one I do not affiliate with legumes, and the other is a hockey player. Also not a peanut friendly sport. The other corner has a football guy, peanuts might belong here, I don't know/care. At any rate, the packaging on the front distresses me. On the back it says "Ingredients: Peanuts, salt."
I'll get back to you post-digestion.

My Weekend:
Friday. I got up at 11:30 on Friday. I didn't go to sleep on Friday. I went to the cage and rented some editing equipment. But when I went to buy tape, a necessary supply when dealing with film, the store was closed. I had pointlessly lugged this piece of equipment across campus. I had class, I kinda fell asleep. But only kinda. That evening I went to Pat's Place and watched Zaat. Possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. It was hilarious. I went home and...what did I do? I don't remember. I stayed up until one, looking at my computer screen, I think. Anyway, around 10:30 I went to the cage again, rechecked out the equipment, bought my supplies, came home, slept. I slept until nine at night, then decided that I would need to stay up until nine on Sunday, so my clock wouldn't be all messed up. So, I edited my color footage all night. It was loads of fun. I really enjoy editing film. Manipulating the actual film is very exciting, being able to see the actual frames thrills me. Its great. I was up all day Sunday, I don't remember it much, except that I am rather surly when tired. I was awake for 37 hours of the 48 hour weekend. WHOOOOOOO!!!!

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you need to call someone a "Smart Ass," but society dictated that you bite your tongue? Call the offender an "Enlightened Posterior." See? Each word corresponds, so it has the same effect. Right? Right?

I am now an ordained minister, for the Church of...something. No, Its the Church of Spiritual Humanism. It seems pretty cool. They recognize the scientific method. Basically, they say "Do what feels right to you." So, yeah. I signed up. Actually, I signed up before I read about what they were, but I got lucky. Fantasmagoric. If I spend any money on them it will be for the basic kit. I want that ID to go in my wallet. I suppose I could just fake one, but they...we...probably need the money. WHOOOOO! Ordained Minister! WHOOOOO!

Sundays are weird days. Example:
Yesterday was a Sunday. I got very little sleep on account of various unnamable-at-present circumstances. I then had to get up and 'act' in a short that my friends were making. Short movie. It was fun and we got pizza afterwards. Unfortunately, I had one huge headache throughout the shoot that got worse as the day proceeded. I figured it was due to a lack of sleep. We finished filming, I went back to my room and slept for three hours. It did nothing in the way of curing said headache. It was monstrous. Like two crippled raging elephants were fighting to the death on my forebrow. So, I sat on my computer and felt awful. The headache made me kinda nauseous. For some reason I made soup. The soup was exactly what I was looking for, apparently. Several minutes after its consumption I was feeling significantly better. I must have had an incredibly low blood sugar or something else that can explain why food would fix my headache and not three ibuprofen. Oh well. Its all over now.

Yeah, I'm sorry, some of my entries have been pointed at "Toilet Humor." Its really not that funny. I don't know what I was thinking. Probably nothing. But yeah, I'll try to keep the rest better. My brain probably went on vacation. sorry

I was searching through the 2001 World Book for Mac OSX, for fun, and happened upon Aztec religion. The Aztecs believed that the earth's timeline had been divided up into a series of stages, or, as they called them, suns. They thought they were in the fifth sun. Now, all the preceeding suns had to have ended somehow, so they decided that the earth had been destroyed. The first time it was by jaguars, which seems kinda far fetched, but only kinda. The next stage was destroyed by a hurricane. Then fire rained from the sky, then a giant flood. The current sun will, in theory, be destroyed by an earthquake.
I like this chain of reasoning.
The jaguars I have a hard time explaining, but the other catastrophic events all match up to some cataclysmic event. The hurricane would be the First Rain. Originally, the Earth was a large, red-hot mass of rock. All of the chemicals that could boil out, did, and they formed a massive cloud that then rained down. The rain cooled the land enough that life could begin. And there is the second sun.
The Second sun was destroyed by fire raining down from the sky. This would have been the age of the dinosaurs, and we all have a pretty good idea of what happened to the dinosaurs. A giant comet or meteor struck the earth. From a viewpoint on earth it would look like a giant ball of fire. Many scientists are in agreement that the comet hit in the Gulf of Mexico area, and the Aztecs would have been in Alarming Proximity to the disaster. Granted, no humans existed back then. So begins the third sun.
Bible-toting, creationist people enjoy pointing to the scientific evidence for a great flood. And the evidence is indeed there, which supports the Aztecs as well. I would like to point out, however, that many religions mention a great flood. If it crosses the borders of many religions on both sides of the globe, I would say it is probably fact anyway. Interpretation in the religions I would not say is fact, but that it happened is probably undeniable. And now we enter the current, fifth sun.
The Aztecs believe this will end with a great earthquake. This is indeed a possibility. The San Andreas Fault line has not had release for far too long at this stage. When it does let go in a final orgasm of epic proportions it could be enough to shake this world like so much Jiffy Pop on a stove. The resulting shift could also set off the "Ring of Fire," a series of volcanoes on fault lines that makes a rough circle from Japan up to Russia, over to Alaska, down the coast to California and then back across the Pacific through the Hawiian Islands and back up to Japan. Needless to say if these all vented in roughly the same time the consequences would be pandemic and would be a considerable set-back in the ever quickening forward stride of humanity.

That the Aztecs could realize these things is not so improbable. We have made these theories on the world and its long history, and the Aztecs were an extremely advanced people. Their focus on the stars is incredible. Any civilization with a reasonable level of deductive logic can figure it out. The clues are all there.

The prospect of doing more research on this topic interests me, if anyone notices any fallacies in my logic please feel free to comment. This does not include religious interpretation, or anything you feel is religious fact, unless it is Aztec-ian in nature. The Aztecs 'inherited' the ideas of many other religions when they conquered certain areas, so if it pertains to any early Central American ideology it can be included.

People get upset so easily. Like that God/prayer thing. If you want to, go for it. If not, don't. If either one offends you, shut up. America is a free country. Fuck off. I hate you all

Euphemisms are funny. Instead of saying, "I'm going to the bathroom" I like saying, "I'm going to the Bank." Think about it. You make a deposit. Sometimes you need a receipt. Deposit is an odd word, historically. It comes from a latin gerund meaning "tucked-away thing." It generally referred to feces. The word in latin is 'depositum.' So, there is another connection. I hate it when people say, "I'm gonna go take crap." They don't take anything. Its bothersome.
In "A Grinch Night" the characters all call the bathroom the "euphemism."

Its five thirty in the morning. Five thirty. What in the name of the god that lives in my 'puter-side monkey lamp gave me the idea it was 'fun' to stay up until five thirty in the morning. Well, I haven't had a bad time. I can just see the bad times coming up when my biological clock is going to be saying, "Sleep! SLEEP! SLEEP!!!!" and my teachers are going to be saying "..." I don't know, whatever it is teachers say. If I knew what they were going to say that would make my schooling a little pointless, wouldn't it, Mr. Smartypants. Anyway, I think that the world should change to fit my needs. My schedule should be the correct one. Anyway, I'm just ranting because after a long period of abstinence I have decided to binge blog. As you can no doubt tell from my painfully long entries about nothing. Wait, thats what the whole thing is.

Phooey

I am interested in the convenience of diapers, but not the mess. The thought of not having to leave my seat to empty my bladder warms my heart. The problem is I would not be able to sit in the resulting mess. A friend suggested a powerful vacuum conveniently placed. When questioned about the storage he said it would blast the offending matter out with high pressure. It is an intriguing idea. Think about what it would do for crime, bad driving and crooked politicians. Those assholes will think twice about cutting you off if there is the possiblity of getting blasted by a high-powered projectile dookie. Plus, it will make every monkey envious. The problems are abuse of the system etc. Vacuums are not quite at a size where it would be practical, yet.
If practicality is the only issue, I suggest using teleportation. Once the technology is mastered it would be quite convenient. Imagine, no don't, a small piece of machinery that automatically transmits any unpleasant bit of business to the septic tank. This would also be an excellent method of birth control, provided the equipment is not bulky or awkward. Although that in itself would be a pretty good method of birth control.
Such technology as listed above would have drastic results on the population. It would be strange, I imagine, to get used to defecating or urinating in public. I am sure there would still be times when it would be a social faux pas, like when giving a gubernatorial address, but the convenience and cleanliness would be revolutionary. Gone would be the days of the greasy gas station bathroom. No more embarassing moments of holding shut the stall door because the lock is broken off. Toilet paper would become a thing of the past. It would save billions of trees.
With great ideas like these, its a wonder I'm not a millionaire.

I received my film back today, which is what triggered the blog from 1:21:50. It came out OK. I have one shot that is fifteen seconds of blinding white agony due to the horrible over-exposure. When one focuses a Bolex, this is the camera we filmed on, one opens the f-stop all the way up. This allows for more light to come through the shutter so one can see what is in front of the lens, how in focus it is, etc. I filmed on a bright sunny day, focused...and went straight to record. I forgot to reset the f-stop. I also had problems with shooting into shade. Being behind a fence, my ability to enter the construction compound was limited. I was thus unable to take a reading of the light near my planned subjects. Seeing as the sun was shining, I decided to set the f-stop to its maximum closed setting. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The area outside of the shade was fine, the subjects were stuck in the middle of a building's shadow. Oh well. It is my first project.

Yep. On Monday I shot my first 16mm footage. It was pretty sweet. Filming went well. Oh, wait, no it didn't. I had to haul my ass out of bed at 9 AM. That is exceedingly difficult. For three nights before that I had gotten 6 hours of sleep each not. My body is not accustomed to so little sleep. So, I got up early and then I had to go to the Bursar's office and deposit money on an account so I could buy the film. I then went to the appropriate area for equipment check-out-age (hereafter to be known as the 'cage'). My partner, Luke, and I had reserved the equipment for 10 AM, I was a couple minutes late, but that is OK because there is a twenty minute window. At 10:02 I got to the cage and...got in line. There was a guy standing there with fifteen or so pieces of equipment, each one containing three or four barcodes that needed to be checked in. Bah. Luke and I sat around waiting for the window to clear up. Eventually, we got the idea to go check on buying film at the FVASA (the only place you can) while we waited. We moseyed on down and arrived and no one was there. It sucked. We checked the timetable, someone was supposed to be there, but no one was. There was a significant lack of qualified individuals. Frustrated, we wandered back to the cage. The second window was open, seeing as the guy was still getting all his equipment checked in we walked over to the available window. The cage attendee (cager) hauled our equpiment out, took my ID card, swiped it through the swipey spot and said, "Oh, you haven't signed the form." I was taken aback. I thought I was in the clear. "OK," said I, "let me sign it." The cager considered me for a second, then replied "You've got to do that at the other window." "Five minutes, guys, " called out the first window cager, rather politely.
Again, Luke and I found ourselves waiting. We checked the FVASA again, still no people. Back at the cage I was able to check out the equipment. We grabbed our bounty and made for the FVASA. After a couple minutes of waiting we decided to go borrow my friend's light meter. Luke had planned on buying one, but the complete and utter lack of any at the store impeded said purchase. We dropped off the equipment in my room and made way for my friend's apartment. The walk was about a mile. Picking up the light meter went without incident. We walked the mile again to the FVASA. All of the essential ingredients for filming were there, except film. We had sunlight, camera, tripod, light meter and subject. The subject was a construction site. Pretty fancy. Upon our return to the FVASA we found the station wo-manned and were able to purchase our ever-sought after, much desired film.
Brick walls could not contain our excitement.
Our jubilee was rather dampened, however, when the camera and tripod appeared incompatible. The camera had but one screw hole on the bottom and it was many times too large for the puny, inadaquate tripod screw. The entire project was filmed by just resting the camera on the tripod. Perched precariously like a cat in the Christmas Tree. We finished filming and I sprinted to class and wound up late. Fantastic.

Take the Affliction Test Today!

Wow, its been...several months since I last wrote an entry. Umm, since June. Well, I graduated High School, very exciting, I didn't wear any pants under my gown. And I wore my Mudvayne T-Shirt, my sunglasses and flip-flops, or as some call them, "thongs." I went to Sweden, well, for the most part I was in Finland. But everyone there spoke Swedish and had swedish cultures and stuff. Its called Åland, look it up on a map, its between Sweden and Finland. I worked quite a bit at Point Sebago, a fake campground. I don't think I'll be going back, there was some unpleasantness involving my friends. And now I am at college, writing at a new computer and in a different state. I'm at RIT, in Henrietta, New York. Its pretty sweet so far. I'll keep updating now that I have some time on my hands. Oh yeah, Melissa has become an increasingly more important and lovely character in my life. (See the entry on prom, she is "Missy")

Working in the arcade I have noticed a cruel trick. A crane game sits nestled in a little alcove next to the Attendent's booth, and it is one of those "Play till you win" candy cranes. So you put your money in, drop the crane down, and if it picks nothing up, you can go again. It seems like a pretty sweet deal. It is, however, a curse also. Once you put your quarter in you are stuck until you win something. You paid your damned 25 cents, and only a miracle will keep you from getting it, so you sit there, watching the numb fingers of the crane fail miserably at grabbing any candy, listening to the out of tune synthesized circus music and praying with tears in your eyes for the next drop to pick up any piece of candy, anything, no matter how foul tasting or putrid. I sit and watch this from my stool and I chuckle, because I know of the Curse of the Candy Crane.

Moonlight is great. Since it is just a reflection of regular sunlight, when one takes a picture with a long delayed exposure time the pictures wind up looking somewhat like daytime. Its cool. I have a shot planned, but I need to wait for a clear night when the moon is full. There is this little cove on Nason's Beach and I want to take a picture of the night there, except I want it to be a little bit breezy, so the picture comes out looking like a painting, because the leaves will move around and not be in one spot for the entire time the shutter is open. I also like the way that moonlight makes everything different shades of black. It is beautiful. The water appears quite black, as does blood, but fields are a lighter black and people show up well. Its lovely, really.

Lady Amelia Eclairs: Best when eaten.

Lounge-a-lot pants: For the man too lazy for the walk to the can

Uncle Cletus's Jugs: Perfect for Moonshine and old timey jug bands.

Malletin brand Diplomas: We let the cat out of the bag...we mean skin. We let the cat out of its skin.

I just thought of a great name for a bar/lounge; The Relaxed Sphincter.

I was driving today and I almost didn't recognize where i was because of the foliage. A few days ago trees were still bare and lifeless, making winter seem as far away as the rapture. But today leaves were out in force. It looked like a different world. i think I like it. Leaves are dark on the top and light on the bottom, so when the wind blows hard the leaves flip around making the tree look like an 80s video game.

Prom is stuck in my memory as a series of snapshots of the evening, like a mental photo album. The first picture is of me, standing in my room in front of the mirror, struggling with the pants that were never tight enough and desperately fighting off my dog’s ubiquitous white hairs. The next photo is of me leaving my car at Matt’s house and jumping in mom’s car, remembering everything except Tiffany’s flower. Note the look of shock in the next picture, that is me realizing what I have forgotten. Here I am, finally at Alice Doughty’s house, awkwardly shoving the flower box into Tiffany’s hands as she does likewise to me. The next picture has the flash ridden goodbye and cramped backseat travel toward the hotel. The hotel lobby, a myriad of tuxes, dresses and out-of-place civilians, gathered in protective clusters and trying to remain casual while hoping that your shirt is tucked in correctly all the way aroud. Dinner; a long wait for food that wasn’t that good. The crowded dance floor is shaking in this photo, and in the next one the crowd has thinned out and couples are caught mid-sway. Ah, here we are, another one back to the hard beat of the bad music. Nick, Maria, Jess, Missy and I are sitting in the jazz lounge in this one, letting the soothing melodies of Dan Moore’s piano sink into our memory, in sharp contrast with the teeming dance floor. Dan finishes before the prom is over, so we stand around and chat with him, until most people are gone. Here is a photo of Missy and I in the middle of the room, far from the dance floor, dancing to the song she requested, the song she has waited for for the entire evening. All of us are jammed into an elevator that was made for four but is now holding nine. Jess’ room, final photos and goodbyes as Matt Harrison, Andrea Johnson, Jeremy Griffin, Dakotah Woitko, Jason Jewett, Heather Flick, Nick Poulin, Missy Knight and I head back to Matt’s house for the post-prom party. The long car ride next to Missy, finally working up the nerve to hold her hand. Matt’s party, with all of the above plus Chris Maher, Alan Graffam, Chris Ford and Shannon in Matt’s living room. Oddly enough Matt was among the last to arrive. Everyone laughing at a sleeping Chris Ford as we toss a sock into his face and he sleeps through it. Sleeping masses on the floor after watching a movie and playing video games and talking until five in the morning. And my favorite picture, Missy’s face smiling at mine at a distance of two noses.

Prom Pics

Hooray for Kittens!

Elephants are dying of coronaries.
They build up stress worrying about herd members.
When one dies, the rest move it to the burial grounds.
Seven were struck dead by a train in India.
Hundreds came to mourn.

Snuggles, The Fluffy Springtime Bear


Man in wheelchair killed in train accident.
Wreckage is a mix of metal and blood.
An ugly orgy of dismemberment.

Rails, to the man, were an impediment.
His wheels were stuck in scads of sticky mud.
Man in wheelchair killed in train accident.

The conductor turned to grab a breath mint.
He turned back to his job and shouted, "Crud!"
An ugly orgy of dismemberment.

Scared, the man knew what the train whistle meant.
Train rushed down, more powerful than a flood.
Man in wheelchair killed in train accident.

The conductor was done with his brief stint.
He was fired for sure, his job a dud.
An ugly orgy of dismemberment.

The wheelchair skittered, making sparks like flint.
The man hit the train with a painful "thud."
Man in wheelchair killed in train accident.
An ugly orgy of dismemberment.

Ah, I just performed in my last play in my high school career. Its actually saddening. I hadn't thought that it would sadden me. I felt no different after my last soccer game, and yet after my last performance...huh. I had quite a bit of fun, even though I didn't like the play very much. Oh well.

Clouds are cool. They look fluffy and soft, but have you ever thought of how many tons the average cloud must weigh? They must be massive. And then you get the dark clouds, which not only are heavy, but denser. And yet they just float up in the sky, like someone squirted a can of whipped cream there. They just sit on the sky like its not unnatural for a pond to be floating above our heads. What I want to see, more than anything really, is all the water in clouds to condense at once, so that you get this giant cloud shaped sheet of water as opposed to the jarring random drops of cold water that is rain. It would be beautiful to see a wall of water descending upon the world. Of course, everything would be crushed, if you were outside you would be completely fucked, but it would be awesome to watch. The clouds would be white, then suddenly they would transform into a clear shimmering mass and drop. So anyway, clouds are cool.

I think I am going to shave my head. No I'm not, but I've thought about it. If I were ever required to cut my hair short, like for military service, then I would go whole hog and expose my scalp. There is something that i really like about the shape of the human skull. I like how it is round on top, and yet very flat on the sides. I like the dimensions, it is very pleasing to me. I am sad that I will never have a chance to see mine (hopefully).

Gah. i just made a frozen meal of "Fiesta Chicken." The name really bothers me. Fiesta Chicken, Party Chicken. I don't see what was so great about it. Sure, it was good, but is that any reason to try to convince the buyer that it will increase your level of fun? Also, and this is amusing, the makers decided to call it "Fiesta Chicken" when they know that they send it out in single serving packages. Parties insinuate many people. Maybe the chickens were "party animals" (pardon the pun) before they died. One would think that if they are going to start with the name in spanish they would at least finish the job, so it said "Fiesta Pollo" but no. They happened to suck. Then there is the box. It displays a banner that reads "With Green Peppers!" I think that is the equivalent of buying a car that has the banner "With Steering Wheel!" Bah, I need to eat simpler food, this is complicating my life.

i feel that this is blogworthy. I was just playing the game Worm and I reached a score of 2406. you read right, folks, 2-4-0-6. yes you can touch me.

i feel that this is blogworthy. I was just playing the game "Worm" at www.liquidcode.org/worm.html and I reached a score of 2313. you read right, folks, 2-3-1-3. yes you can touch me.

If I were on a Salt Lake City based team, of any sort, really, I would demand that the team name be the "Saltines." Not only would this be good for morale, because you could buy it in bulk for team members, franchise supporters etc., but it would give competing teams an easy target. "Crush the Saltines" etc. Say you had the Saltines fighting a team from some Germanic midwest city, then you could have a giant hunk of meat mascot, like bratwurst, tackle the Saltine mascot and make an attractive meal. If you were the Saltines you could sponsor food drives in small, impoverished, third world countries. It would be great. Think of the possibilities.

Walking is odd. Don't put your foot down next time you are walking along, you don't just stop mid-step, you fall flat on your face. Walking is a controlled fall. I am learning to unicycle, its an ongoing thing, but sort of similar to walking. If you stay upright, when you pedal the wheel flies out from under you and you wind up lying on your back, cursing at the tree branches. If you lean to far forward without pedaling to compensate you get a noseful of dirt that reminds you of how moles live. So the secret is to lean forward just enough and to catch yourself by pedaling. Its tough.

Here is something to consider. Have you ever wanted to see someone's brain? Your doctor sees yours every time he shines that annoying flashlight in your eyes. He doesn't see the big ugly mass you would hope to, just the optic nerve. The optic nerve, however, is technically part of the brain. If you ever have nothing to do, as is so often the case with me (damnit), you could probably find your brain with the help of a mirror and a flashlight.

I am going to attend college in Henrietta, at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Consider this: If I had just used "RIT" I would have only said "at RIT." Language is funny.

If you were able to go back to 1932 and kill Hitler, would you?

I will write about a very important and remarkable character in my life. His passing on to a Better Place can hopefully bring him happier times than what he went through on this cold, loveless planet. Earth, and Nick's room especially, is no place for rats, and in Hector's dying I sincerely hope he has found peace. Joe, Jeremy and I first met Hector at the beginning of his journey on this rock, he was part of a biology project. Hector performed well in the simple tasks that were his charge, chasing after the food like greyhounds chase after those metal rabbit things. Biology class ended, and with it Hector's home, formerly the Lake Region High School biology room, was evicted of rats. So, Hector and his cage-mate, Puck, moved in with Nick. Hector remained happy, though, rejuvenated by My visits and kept company by Puck. When I was last at Nick's house I played with Hector a bit more than usual, perhaps sensing this would be our final goodbye. As per usual his little rat claws scratched up my hands, but he seemed to recognize me. Now Hector is gone. Go in peace, little rat, and may large cedar chip fields, cheese mountains and full water bottles await you.

PIG OF DESTINY

I ran into the PIG OF DESTINY earlier today while I was in Wal*Mart, purchasing a fifty cent can of Coca-Cola. I walked by the little arm-drop game and first noticed the PIG OF DESTINY. He was perched calmly at the edge of The Pit where the arm drops the prize you may or may not win. After retrieving my Coke I walked back to The Machine to contemplate how I was going to play this game out. He was standing on all fours and looking with his eerie pig eyes out towards the world beyond the glass, hoping for some divine intervention that would remove him from the cramped quarters that were so packed with helpless stuffed animals the ground to him was a myth, something whispered and dreamt about. I had my strategy, I was going to drop the arm on top of him, and I felt around for some change. OH NO! Not enough, I had forty-six cents and the game was fifty. Luckily, I think fast, and I quickly pulled a dollar bill out of my wallet, not wanting the PIG OF DESTINY to suffer anymore hardships. I inserted the dollar and the arm moved to the middle of the cage, I carefully maneuvered the three slender fingers so the 'palm' was directly over the PIG OF DESTINY's head. Breathing deeply I pressed the drop button, it felt like I was releasing the atomic bomb. Down, down the arm dropped, then it clamped shut and climbed up, up. But there was no prize in his silvery hand! I gasped and then noticed the pig wasn't there anymore. I looked around and saw he hadn't gotten loose, then I looked in the hole, and there he was, looking as smug as a stuffed animal can. It seems the arm had knocked him off his perch. So, I grabbed the pig that was so obviously destined to be mine and wasted the other fifty cents, I just blindly dropped the arm, not caring about the results which were negative. What did it matter, the PIG OF DESTINY was mine.

Ah, Luis Bunuel, what can't he do? Luis Bunuel, for those of you not in the know, was a spanish surrealist director. Thats right, surrealism in movies. He worked with Salvador Dalí on his first two movies, Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or. While yes, those are both French titles the movies are redolent with the Spanish influences of their Spanish creators. The essence of the more bizarre images, such as those of an eye being slit with a razor or a man wiping his mouth completely off his face is that the mind can not rationalize such images, but the eyes can not lie, so the brain has to expand, evolve and maybe explode to compensate for the images. The object of surrealism is to make obvious the doings of the sub-conscious, to create an upheaval in society that stops people from being fake and living like Ivan Ilyich. Surrealism is a catalyst for societal evolution.

I recently listened to Beck, four of his albums. And you know what? Not too shabby. I remember I used to like him a lot, I thought he was the man, then that faded, and until recently had forgotten that he is pretty cool. I feel that his worst album was Mutations, well, of the ones I listened to. The four I learned were Odelay, Mellow Gold, Loser and Mutations. Loser has but five tracks, Loser (no shit!), Corvette Bummer, Alcohol, Soul Sucking Jerk and Fume. I am pleased and refreshed by his music. As I was glancing through the credits on the liner notes I noticed that he wrote the music and performed almost all of the instruments. One talented man with an unfortunate last name. Anyway, I just remember that there is a destination just a little up the road from the habitations of the towns we know. A place we saw the lights turned low, the jigsaw jazz and the get fresh flow. Bottles and cans just clap your hands just clap your hands...

As you no doubt know, Burger King has a new sandwich in the 'double meat patty with special sauce' category, putting it in direct competition with the Big Mac. This newcomer is know as 'The King Supreme.' I have tried the King Supreme and I must say it is a tasty sandwich. The special sauce seems to me to be a mix of Frech dressing and mayonaisse, and there is nothing terribly addictive about it, but it is a good sandwich all around. A large amount of the attraction is, I think, the packaging. The Big Mac, unlike the majority of McDonald's sandwiches, comes in a box. This seperates it and puts it on a higher level. The King Supreme, however, comes in a plain papery wrapping, like a sandwich should. This is a sandwich for the hoi polloi. It screams out to the commom man 'Eat me! I'm not too good for you! I don't need my own special wrapping!' The Burger King in Windham also has better fries than the McDonald's. When you combine these facts it makes the choice for a fast food restaurant easy, Wendy's.

I received mail from RIT informing me that I earned the Presidential Scholarship. Go me, woo.

I was watching the picture box the other day, as I do now and again, I saw an advert for mustard. Normally I am a fan of mustard, I think it is the King of Condiments. This ad, however, disturbed me. It portrayed mustard as something of an aphrodysiac. Couple of all ages were enjoying the mustard and then enjoying each other. My first thought was 'mustard is not something I connote with romance.' Usually I think of it as a pleasant topping to my hamburgers, hot dogs and large, warm pretzels. My second thought was 'If its an aphrodysiac, maybe that is why i like it so much.'

I got into RIT. Go me. woo.

The car companies should buy major stock in gas companies. Then the prices of cars could be-theoretically-dropped. The companies would get the same amount, maybe more, for the vehicles. I think it might also put a little more balance into the gas prices, sure they would go up, but Americans have the lowest gas prices anyway. While in NZ i saw it was several American dollars to the liter. Oh well, people never learn. I should just stop thinking. Although, usually when i think it isn't anything useful like this, it is usually something violent and humorous.

Goddamn math! I wish it weren't so useful and important. Although, at the level at which I am it probably won't be useful to me anyway. The only think I can think of using it is the purpose of joking. Like *loge to the Batman. The whole statement is ludicrous, and I bet hardly any reader understands it. Oh well. I don't plan to enter a field with any math higher than algebra one. The whole cycle is foolish.

Humans think they are such a big screaming deal with their computers and light bulbs and ice cream sandwiches, but really, they aren't. They are so insecure that most of the time that dogs can't even sit on the furniture. So what? A little hair gets on the chair, I would prefer dog hair to the massive amounts of skin that is shed there when a human sits down. The only thing that separates humans from animals is the level of visible filth they care about.

Back in the bad old days when the internet was a new and exciting research tool we had a comfortable chair. It was large and wooden, and the cushion sagged the perfect amount when two pillows were fitted on top. One of the pillows was green, the other red. The arm rests were the perfect length from each other and one could put a lap board across them and type quite easily, if one were so inclined. One could even slouch! Slouching, these new chairs defy slouching. They laugh in the face of slouchers. "Ha!" they say, "try slouching in me, try it! That's right, your ass winds up hanging out and you balance uncomfortable on your spine while the back rest groans threateningly! HAHAHA!" That is exactly what they say. Then the chair suffered from use and became old, so we switched to a variety of inferior replacements. The last one the back actually broke off, so the ass part is a foot rest in my room, sometimes I still actually sit in it, when I use my playstation, for instance, but it is a foot rest. Now, I am sitting in a dispicable wooden chair. The back rest is uncomfortable, there are no arm rests, the weaving on the ass part leaves imprints on my ass, even through jeans. Oh, I wish I could have that original chair, then, maybe, just maybe, I could be truly happy.

A lot of the appeal of pretzels is the salt. I am a pretzel addict, and currently there is a bag of open pretzels to my right. I am not, however, eating very many of these knots of dough because they remain unsalted. They taste like old, stale bread crust. I have nothing wrong with bread crust, but I like the actual bread much more than the crust. These pretzels have no incentive, my sodium level sinks slowly down like a wooly mammoth in a tar pit. And my taste buds remain uncaptured by something tangy and starchy. I am left with just the starch. Soon, I will have to resort to salt licks from the days of when we owned guinea pigs. All because of these unsalted pretzels.

I'm sad. My refrigerator handle is held onto the refrigerator by two screws. But, unfortunately, the bottom screw has come undone. It has also disappeared. This makes me sad because every time I open the refrigerator (which is fairly often) it swings and the top screw unscrews itself a little more every time. Soon enough, the top screw will be gone and I will have to attatch a strong magnet or something to open the door. Refrigerators, will they never learn?

Wow, my first blog. I thought it would be more...I don't know...exciting. Here is a little something that is now for the ages.

I just had some of these Skittles Mints. They are confusing. You pop them in your mouth, and it has the texture and chewiness of a Skittle, but the taste! Its insane! Each skittle tastes like a mint should. My brain receives mixed signals about it, I should be tasting fruit, but its minty. I should be chewing gum, but its a Skittle! My CPU breaks down and I am left sobbing in the corner, desperately grasping for something familiar, something that is right.