Divides by Zero

sometimes, just sometimes...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:20:54 GMT

People surprise me. I left my bike in the Castro last night after the bart stopped running because I had a ride home and I had to go back to the city today anyway. Everyone told me this was a bad idea, that I should take my seat, wheel, etc. with me and that it would probably be stolen. But not only was my bike not stolen, but someone had put some angel wings on the front of it last night! Ahh, the world might not be such a bad place after all. At least in a world of 90% homosexuals on SF pride weekend.

I FOUND IT

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:26:49 GMT

I've been reading Dawkins' The God Delusion and it's taking me forever. Look, I'm not ashamed to admit that I love Richard Dawkins. I feel like I have learned more from this book than the summation of things that I have learned...in a longer time than it took me to read this book. It's because every page has some theory, some author, some idea that I have to look up. So it's no use reading it if I'm nowhere near a computer. It is packed full with ideas about religion, religion's origin, religion's place in society, etc.

But the best thing that I've found in it so far is a reference to Julian Jaynes' book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind . In short, he had a theory that humans only developed consciousness when they realized that their internal dialogue was not due to a god(s) but rather just themselves thinking. And the cool part is that he said it happened about 3000 years ago. I don't know about you, but that's the fucking most awesome thing I've ever heard in my life. The reasons that he gives behind (ok, I haven't read the book, but the reasons that Wikipedia and Dawkins says that he gives behind it) are some of the most interesting I've ever been exposed to. I'm gonna read this damn book. What's also very interesting is that a friend was talking about this idea a few years ago, and I was like that's cuhrazy, but the reasoning behind it makes sense. AND inspires more research. What more could you ask for in a theory? THEN it has the advantage of just being really interesting. There's got to be something wrong with this theory though, right? I'm gonna keep looking/thinking. I'm not so sure why I get latched on to certain theories. A couple of years ago it was the Anthropic Principle, more recently it's been this altruistic streak in me, now this. Most science/philosophy hybrid ideas are totally false and/or bore the shit out of me. This will occupy my thinking for awhile. I hope.

EDIT:
"The ideas set forth in Jaynes' book have been great fodder for cyberpunk authors; Neal Stephenson's first several books (The Big U, Zodiac, Snow Crash) involve the bicameral mind theory, as does Bruce Sterling's Distraction. The book has been highly influential in a neo-objectivist philosophy called Neo-Tech. Jaynes' hypothesis is referenced, at least in passing, in the cyberpunk comic Transmetropolitan."

LOL

An analysis of a popular forwarded email story

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:57:59 GMT

I've been exposed to a number of interesting themes in the few weeks since I've been bombarded with Southern Baptist Good Ol' Boy propaganda. In the midst of sparkly .gif US flags, dalmatians and fire fighting myspace icons, and confusions of the words "it's" and "its," this really stood out.

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between
assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of
the courses had a professor who was a vowed atheist and a member of the
ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the
ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me
off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes." The lecture room fell silent.
You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed,
"Here I am God. I'm still waiting." It got down to the last couple of minutes
when the Marine got out of his Chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked
him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other
students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the
Marine and asked, "What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?"
The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America 's
soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole.
So, He sent me."

It's very neatly divided into Good vs. Bad guys here. A recap:

GOOD GUYS:

Marine: Extremely masculine, aggressive, a man of few words, but everything he says is profound.

America: Fighting the good fight against Iraq and Afghanistan.

God: Though it's unfortunate he can only pay attention to a few things at a time, he obviously knows where the most important battles are going on, and he's protecting the soldiers (albeit kinda poorly - at last count, he forgot about 4000+ of them). He counts on off-duty Marines to punch the angry atheists at home.

BAD GUY:

Professor: An atheist AND a member of the ACLU (this actually squares his evil index), he storms into class and decides he's going to insult the unwitting students' faith. Dammit, I hate it when my professors did that. I just wish there had been a Marine around. Then we wouldn't have had to keep sitting around awkwardly waiting for that last 5 minutes to be over so class could officially start.

THEMES:

Ok, it's obvious what the idea of this email is. But there are a few subtleties that really show how people who didn't go to college view a college education. Education is clearly something that should take a back seat to fighting for the US and/or God (here they are synonymous). If you have some spare time, you could fit a few classes in, but be sure to ignore everything that professor says. He will inevitably try in vain to challenge your faith, but he's going to get what's coming to him. You'd probably be better off going to Liberty where you won't have to worry about crazy professors taking up lecture time waiting for God to punch them. I really want to write something back, but I've pretty much given up. I think she's sending me these things to antagonize me.

I guess sometimes the only thing you can do is donate to Obama's campaign.

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:55:10 GMT

1.) Balanced diet
2.) Varied exercise
3.) Feeling of being a valued member of a group
4.) Adequate sleep

Conversations with a conservative

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:19:35 GMT

It just so happens that my mom put me in touch with my childhood best friend, a very nice girl who is still living in my hometown. She is 23, married (and has been for 3 years), and never attended college with the exception of a few community college classes. It turns out that, not unexpectedly, she harbors conservative Christian views. I have much good will and tenderness for her. It was with her that I had my first sleepovers, was introduced to the Oregon trail, satellite television, and many other horizon-broadening experiences.  When my first hypochondriac tendencies were kindled (there was a period that I was convinced I was bleeding internally from minor injuries) it was she who listened while I explained what internal bleeding was and why I probably was dying from it. We've known each other since kindergarten and were best friends up until about age 16, at which point our personalities diverged so dramatically that we really didn't have anything in common and so stopped staying in touch. I went to her wedding in 2005 and cried. So what follows is not an omg can u believe how dumb ppl from my hometown who never left are lol journal entry, but a genuinely interesting experience that I have had recently with her.

My mom gave me her email address and I wrote her. We exchanged the usual electronic pleasantries, and I figured I'd probably call her when I got back to Virginia and maybe go out to eat or something. Then she put me on her meme-forwarding list. The first one I got was the one about Obama wanting to get sworn in on the Koran! This has apparently been going around for awhile but I never thought it would come to me. It did. I emailed her back.

Very interesting email. The article suggested to check snopes.com to
ensure the information was correct, so I did, and it turns out snopes
says the exact opposite of the email:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

To which she responded:

I didn't even go to snopes and look but I going to now. i half way read things n send em!

Ok, I thought, it will be amusing to keep getting these emails. I think she was sending them to me because she assumed I still shared her views on things. Then I sent her a link to a youtube video where Obama talks about freedom of religion. This one, if you're interested. She asked me what I thought about this.

And this is where things start to get interesting. How could I tell her my views without totally alienating her? There is also a personal element that complicates things too - how can I show her how much I've grown and changed without seeming like a total elitist asshole? More broadly, how can educated people with liberal views talk to people who are still guided totally by Christianity and fear? I don't want to be disrespectful, mainly because I do care for her and I'm fundamentally not a mean person. So this is what I said:

I think that because America has people from many countries belonging to many religions, including non-religious people, our president (who is the main representitive of us to the entire world) shouldn't base his laws or policies on any one religion. I think if our president was too supportive of one religion and excluded others, it wouldn't be a fair representation of America today. It could lead to members of other faiths feel like they aren't a welcome part of the country and possibly encourage conflict, maybe even more terrorist attacks. Of course, there isn't any person who's going to make everyone happy, but I do think that his words on focusing on the things we have in common instead of the ways we're different is the key to encouraging dialogue and hopefully solving some of the problems people have with each other.
In that video, the person who put it up says some things in the commentary that i don't agree with, but I think if Obama can deliver on the things he says on that speech, he'd make a good president. What do you think?

To which she replied

I don't think that we should be ruled by one particular religion and that when making decisions our president should consider America as a whole not just one particular group, but I do think that people can and do take things out of context, especially when it comes to the bible. They don't read the other passages associated with it (but that is another convresation). But I also think that we need a president who has certain moral standards as a human being or our country is just going to get worse. If you look back and see how people were 10 years ago compared to know, for example divorce rate, abortions, drugs, all these things have been going on for years but things seem to keep getting worse, it seems, in my opinion, the more we try to become more "tolerant" the more our country is going down. So I think that the president shouldn't push his particular religion on America but that he should have moral standards. Did I make any sense at all?

There are a lot of things "wrong" with this argument that any philosophy 101 or history of religious thought class would be happy to address and she'd leave all the wiser. But she's never going to have philosophy 101. What she will have is family and church members confirming this view over and over, probably ostracizing or at least severely challenging her if she voices a different view. So is there really any need to continue the conversation? Nothing I can say can change her opinion.

My fundamental boredom, combined with the fact she left off with a question, demands the interesting conversation continue.

You definitely made sense. Interestingly, the divorce rate, some crime rates, and abortion rate has actually declined a little since their peak in the early 90s. I did a quick search and here's a few web sites I found when I was checking that out:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/usa/ab-usa-VA.html

http://www.divorcereform.org/nyt05.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/crime.html
These things tend to be cyclical, I think, and can be a reflection of their context. For instance, Detroit used to be a very successful city because of the auto making industry, but since most of that has gotten outsourced to other countries, Detroit is really suffering, poverty and crime rates are soaring. I was campaigning with Planned Parenthood this January in the Nevada caucus and I learned that Nevada has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, likely related to the fact that only one clinic provides abortion services there.

I definitely understand what you're saying about people taking things out of context in the Bible - the old testament rules were from a time when people didn't understand sanitation and bacterial spread of disease, so calling some animals and behaviors "unclean" helped stop that. Of course they seem outdated and scary now that we understand the underlying causes.

I don't really understand how tolerance is leading to our country going down...can you explain what you mean by that?

I thought the end might be a little mean, but there really isn't any way to address this without being blunt. To which she replied

What I meant by tolerance is not having an obvious right and wrong, we are allowing what we use to say was wrong is now "okay" under certain circumstance or is right altogether now. Its like right and wrong is no longer black and white, its gray and I think that can be dangerous, so many people need guidance but nobody really knows whats okay, like people being sued for everything now! Hot coffee.. i mean really! Its coffee, its hot, we all know that, yet some one is careless and makes money off it, just stuff like that I suppose but in a bigger sense. I think people should be allowed to believe what they want, God gave us the right to choose (or whoever you believe in) but I don't think that my way of life should be altered because I believe different from you or Jo Blow down the street and that is whats happening. I really feel like Christians are starting to be pushed aside and it may come to a time where I won't be allowed to read my bible and go to church, that may be YEARS from now, but I do feel we are headed in that direction. So tolerant meaning allowing all these other cultures and people and circumstances to change how we do things. If people want to come here from other countries I think thats fine but I don't think they should try to change my country, if they don't like how we do things they should go home where they are use to what they like. I don't go to France and try to make them speak english, or go to I dunno Asia and tell the whole country to believe what I believe, even though what they believe has been working for them, (I don't know what Asia believes I'm just using as an example). You see what I mean? I feel like everyone else is coming over here and trying to change us. If we are so wonderful and everyone wants to be here then why is America wanting to change so badly to conform to everyone else?

I wrote her back, a little longer than the first few:

Oooooh I see what you're saying now. Yeah we're definitely living in
a society where people can sue each other for ridiculous things. But
I think the things we hear about are very much the exception, like the
coffee thing. We hear about it precisely because it's so ridiculous
and rare. Remember a few summers ago where there were so many shark
attacks? It actually turned out that there WEREN'T any more shark
attacks than normal, the news just decided to cover all of them! It
seems like news channels like to latch onto certain things that are
pretty unusual and makes them seem like they're really common. It
makes it hard to know when things are actually news, and when things
are just getting coverage because there are 24 hour news channels that
just need something to talk about. Police car chases, for instance,
are always covered, even if the offense isn't really that important.
It's pretty crazy.

I think the idea behind this tolerance/political correctness movement
is to increase individual rights, not take people's freedoms away. I
really can't see there ever being a time when people aren't allowed to
worship the way that they choose in their own homes or places of
worship, or even public places. Even in one of the most liberal and
"tolerant" places in the world (that is, San Francisco and Berkeley
area)there are many Christians and churches and they're very much
active and a part of the community. Keeping religion out of schools
and courthouses is another story, but that has to do with separation
of church and state, not individual liberties.

Christianity is very deeply embedded in American society, so much so
that there would never be a presidential candidate to be nominated for
a major political party ever admit to not being Christian. Do you
remember in 2000, when Joe Lieberman was running with Al Gore? He was
Jewish, a religion that's very mainstream and well understood, and
people had a problem with that. I'm more concerned with groups that
Christianity doesn't approve of having their rights taken away than
Christians themselves. I think that gay people, atheists, and other
groups have more to worry about as far as losing their rights. Here's
a really interesting poll done pretty recently:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/02/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_/

It shows that only 45% of people would even consider voting for an
atheist, and 55% would consider voting for a homosexual. That's
actually higher than I would have guessed.

I TOTALLY agree that no one should come to America and try to force
their views/ways of life on us. But the thing that's really
interesting about America and makes it such a great place to live (not
that I've ever been anywhere else, but I'd love to travel one day!) is
that it's a nation of immigrants from everywhere. So we can get soooo
many different views and perspectives and learn so much from people
without leaving the country. That is something that's really cool
about California, and something that I'll miss when I move back to
Virginia (Virginia tends to not have as many different kinds of
people, although it is diversifying). You know there's always going
to be a few annoying and even dangerous people in any group, but I
think on the whole it makes us wiser to be exposed to all different
views.

You know that email you sent me about those kids turning over the
American flag at Montebello High School and putting up the Mexican
one? I think that's wrong and just an overall crappy thing to do,
because it didn't help their cause any, it just irritated Americans.
I'm trying to understand WHY they might want to do something like
that, and I recently heard this story about a girl who was born in
Mexico whose mom moved here illegally when she was 2 years old. Even
though it was her mom that committed the crime, the girl is the one
that's suffering now. America (I think she's in Los Angeles) is the
only place she's ever called home, and because she wasn't born here,
she's not a citizen and she can't get financial aid for college, even
though her family's poor. But she's apparently paid her own way
through college working and it's been incredibly difficult for her
because it all has to be done under the table. So she could never be
a doctor even if she paid her own way through medical school because
she can't work legally in the US. I can understand how frustrating
that must be, and there's really no easy answer. Even though I'm in
no way making up excuses for those kids for doing that mess with the
American flag, it kind of gives me perspective. There are so many
complicated situations that just don't have easy answers.

Maybe it's futile. But people like her can (and probably will) vote. I'm going to make myself think that I'm making small, grass roots steps here. Maybe I can get her to question a little bit. I'm trying extremely hard to be diplomatic. I'm really excited about her response.

Juggalo parents mourn baby juggalo's death

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:49:28 GMT

I've finally found it. The most ridiculous picture on the internet. Now there's nothing to look forward to.

UPDATE!
The mom calls in to a ICP-themed radio show to complain about some stuff they never sent her.

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:13:23 GMT

What becomes my most loved music always sounds strange, disaffected, and slightly off-putting at first. I love the feeling of discovering a new album and just knowing that it will get better each time I listen.

Example:
Jeff Buckley - Grace

Also when listening to something you haven't heard in awhile, and it just takes you back.
Summer, 2005. Jay and Repper arguing in Gloucester, smoking up on the roof, and the blanket of humidity.

M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

the most badass kid ever

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:03:55 GMT

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:32:53 GMT

There is a (an?) opossum that lives in my back yard and only comes out at night. It freaks me out when I walk outside sometimes - it's not really afraid of people and just kind of walks around slowly, but it's like a huge, ugly, dirty, scraggly rat (and rats are pretty clean). I've started sleeping with the blinds up a little bit because the cats like to look at it walk around outside.

Just a few minutes ago I hear some rustling around outside and the opossum is right at my window! (I live on a hill so the back window is at ground level) I think it will be cool and the cats will enjoy it if I open the window and look at it more closely, maybe poke it or something. But Evelyn flips out and attacks it!! She's never attacked anything in her life (well, anything that's a)not inanimate and b) a vertebrate). Dmitri just wanted to get up close and watch! It tried to get away and was able to wriggle behind something, I think. I hope it didn't bite her, she might have rabies (even though she's vaccinated).

Now I feel really bad - that poor opossum. Sure, it's ugly as all hell, but I kind of feel bad for it. It's like a leper, doomed to stay on the outside while the princely cats live in the lap of luxury. I have developed an interest in opossums recently, mostly because of the ones in my backyard. I don't know why I never thought about them much before. I guess I just assumed they all had rabies.

They're actually rather interesting animals - living fossils of the mammalian world. They've been around for 70 + million years. They're marsupials - not rodents. But they still look like rats. And their body temperature is between 94-97 degrees fahrenheit, which may play a role in the fact that they are extremely rare carriers of rabies (racoons, while cuter, are much more likely to have it). Cats and dogs have a temperature of around 101 for reference. But despite the low body temperature (which is usually correlated with a slow metabolism, which is correlated with a longer lifespan), possums only live for 2-3 years. They're also pretty bad ass in the fact that they are immune to snake venom.

I bet that opossum will never come back now :( I was leaving food out for it inadvertently - I thought the squirrels were taking it, and the cats enjoy watching squirrels.

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:41:30 GMT

I just shopped at Whole Foods while listening to NPR's This American Life podcast on my iPod. And I liked it. A lot. Now I'm going for a recreational run around the lake.

And I thought I didn't make enough money to be middle class in California. Pshh. I've made it.

edit:: I should also add that I walked to Whole Foods, because there is one .2 miles from my house, making the only greenhouse gases admitted my breath as I lightly exerted myself coming back up the hill.

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:51:42 GMT

So I just found my dream volunteer job.

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:37:37 GMT

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:05:33 GMT

jesus christ, canada.. I really can't stop watching these.

Kids today are so caught up in video games...

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:50:56 GMT

that they don't noticed when they're being raped by the family dog.

Assorted and Sordid Issues to Address

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:57:28 GMT

CNN.com has this otherwise extremely interesting article about the probable link with cancer and working the overnight shift. It's pretty solidly grounded in evidence; working the night shift lowers melatonin production overall, melatonin (among other things) is a tumor suppressor hormone. Not that I understand why it's a tumor suppressor hormone, but I think I have a clue why working overnight might lower melatonin overall. Anyway, in the middle of this they stick this little piece of irresponsible journalism, completely off topic:

Among the long list of agents that are listed as "known" carcinogens are alcoholic beverages and birth control pills. Such lists say nothing about exposure amount or length of time or how likely they are to cause cancer.

Guh. Birth control pills. Here's what the National Cancer Institute (cancer.gov, a somewhat amusing domain name) has to say.

Some studies have shown an increased risk of breast cancer in women taking oral contraceptives, while other studies have shown no change in risk.

Oral contraceptive use has been shown in multiple studies to decrease the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer.

Note that ovarian cancer is a much harder cancer to treat than (most forms of) breast cancer. I don 't really know too much about endometrial cancer and don't feel like looking it up right now. The point is that some 15 year old is going to read this article, having recently been placed on birth control pills, freak out and think "why would my doctor do this to me?!," get off them, and get knocked up. But that might be ok in the long run; having a kid before age 30 also is correlated with a decreased risk of breast cancer.

I have recently (as in last night) become interested in issues related to prison culture. I watched this movie exploring the mental effects of waiting while on Death Row. (Daybreak) Then I read a Something Awful Ask/Tell, "Ask me about being in military prison," basically the story of a guy who went to military jail for 18 months for selling 4 ecstasy pills (the military has a zero-tolerance policy on drug use). Among the things he talked about was how different military jail was than federal prison. The main thing was the military guys still had hope. The people in the state prison were a mix of predators and prey. Apparently the closer you fit to the ideal victim (white, young, first time in prison, small built, not well-connected with a gang) the higher likelihood you had of being raped. And prison rape is much more common than you think, even though it's a really well-known phenomenon in pop culture. But apparently it's really, really bad. One of the points mentioned:

That's why 2 systems might be a better idea- these guys that kill inmates/guards, the guys covered in tattoos for MS-13, Aryan Brotherhood, Nazi Low-riders, La Eme... these guys are impossible to control. They're not victims of an addiction or poverty (although many are addicts), they are predators- there's just no other way to describe them. They choose their life knowingly and willingly and we build these insane SuperMax prisons like Pelican Bay with 23 hour a day solitary lockdown just to try to keep them from killing each other or guards, and even that doesn't work all the time.

The system we have now puts the kid who stole a car or sold a bag of dope in with these animals, many of them become animals or bitches just to survive- they get broken too and the cycle continues. That's why sex offenders are hated so much, because of the cyclical nature of their crimes- a lot of the kids they rape get fucked in the head and go on to become SO's themselves.

I don't know for sure how to fix our system, I don't think anybody does. But I do know that the way it's set up now is self-sustaining. The system encourages and strengthens the system; it creates criminals, it enhances and worsens criminals which means bigger budgets, more prisons, more racism, more cops, more of everything. The private sector is in on it now too, with the private prisons where they just warehouse people and keep everyone so full of medication they're just zombies; plus being profit-driven means bye-bye programs and any semblance of decent medical care. I don't think it's ever going to stop because of how entrenched it is with industry, politics, unions, everything. There's a book called The Perpetual Prisoner Machine that goes into all of that more clearly than I can.

I wonder if ths situation is really this bad. A little more on the difference between military and civilian prison:

In military prison you have a lot higher staff to inmate ratio, which means way less rapes and gang activity; everyone in there is a high school graduate or GED with at least some vocational training; programs are mandatory; and cleanliness and discipline are enforced. Everyone has at least a baseline of physical fitness so that there isn't as big a difference between the strong and the weak. Once military inmates get out, they have a chance at a life, because they have some education, some treatment, some skills, and the majority are white; so they don't have to face the quadruple-whammy of a record, an addiction, being unskilled/uneducated, and racism.

I do outreach and Narcotics Anonymous volunteer work with inmates at the state prison out here; in civilian prisons, especially state prisons, the conditions are atrocious. Cockroaches, rats, spoiled food, asbestos, no AC, lead paint, the list goes on and on. What's worse, a low guard/inmate ratio means that rape, murder, and assault are everyday realities; most guys have a 4th grade education at best; many are foreign nationals from Mexico that don't speak English- these guys have zero options when they get out and many turn back to crime. Programs are voluntary, which means many don't get the help that they need (the only reason I got clean was because I was forced to start a program); so when they get out they are still addicts, which means more crime.

Guards in civilian prisons are needlessly brutal, and many bring in dope and contraband to the inmates in exchange for money and favors, so you have people with active addictions while in prison- needles, etc which means HIV, and when you add that into the daily rapes and "consensual" sex you have tons of guys coming in for a minor crime with a 2 year sentence and leaving with an AIDS death sentence... now those guys have nothing to lose so what do you think they are going to do on the outside?

Well, I'm glad I'm not in prison. I wonder if other countries' prisons are as bad as America's, or if it's just the mix of uneducated racist white, black, and Latino (haha, probably not Asian) that really fuels the fire? Train wreck syndroooommmme in full swing.

Light furry propaganda

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:19:16 GMT

I really love seeing other people in awkward social situations

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 06:01:47 GMT

maybe you do too

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 21:15:18 GMT

Fun fact for the day:

You can buy a house in Flint, Michigan (Michael Moore's hometown) for 10k.

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:39:16 GMT

Someone died from gaming for 3 days straight.

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:59:57 GMT

I thought I moved to the bay area, california, not the wild wild west. So why is it that none of the establishments that i routinely do business with have no presence here? no bb&t (ok, i always knew that was a southern thing anyway), no CVS pharmacy.

my apartment is littered with empty bottles of soymilk, dishes stained with peanut butter/jelly sandwich remains, and clean clothes sprawled on the floor. i cannot overcome my past.

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:12:17 GMT

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:13:35 GMT

Undeniably the most important invention of the 21st century. So far.

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 06:21:36 GMT

There was a fly in my room. I swatted it down with a manilla envelope, maiming but not killing it in the process. In hops Evelyn, who tackles the fly and makes it a nutritious snack. Now that's fucking teamwork.

astonishingly good music

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 02:11:09 GMT

Kilowatts!

myspace.com/kilowatts

from now on.....

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:52:17 GMT