Submissions and headaches

Well, just got back from the Colorado State Fair, and I just want to reiterate a certain point... I HATE KANSAS!

I also submitted a t-shirt design to Synthetic Apparatus, a 50/50 band/fan community. You should check it out and vote for me. My submission, Always, is below:



More later. Sleep now.

Funny shit

Free to good Home
Originally uploaded by SoftStone.

This is a great photo from one of my contacts at Flickr, the best photo-sharing site on the internet. In my opinion. Which is correct. If you want to see my photos, click here.

PWM Fiasco Revisted

Well, you may have read my tirade about local band Playing With Matches a few weeks ago. I'm revisiting this because I had a huge altercation with one of the mods from Mo Rawk (a local music messageboard), and the more I think about it, the more angry I get. So I decided to make this a multi-part blog post (and I need more posts, so nyah!).

After my blog entry, I knew I wasn't going to be satisfied with the hundred or so people who visit my blog every day, I needed everyone to know what PWM was doing, and hopefully inspire a movement against arrogant no-talent assclowns upstaging the band(s) people paid to see. Where, I thought to myself during my morning blood-letting sacrifice to pagan gods, could I post a message that would be seen by the people it would matter the most to, the kids in the music "scene" here in Springfield. Ahh, the Evil One must have been pleased with my offerings, because - BAM! - inspiration: Mo Rawk, our local music scene messageboard. Ye-ah! I rushed to my computer (concientiously wiping the blood off my hands) and registered for an account at once.

At the registration screen, I was buffeted by the canned disclaimer that phpBB packages with its BBS software...South Park styly, I clicked "I agree and am over or exactly 13 years of age" (like 10 years ago). There I chose my screen name (can you guess?), entered my information, and waited for the confirmation email. As soon as I had it in my hot little Gmail inbox, I activated my account and got ready to post in the "Music & Culture" topic.

Okay, if you know me, you probably know my most favorite word is "fuck," and not in a slutty way (at least, not all the time). But, because I was posting to a public forum, I held my tongue on the f-word, because, hey, there might be kids listening. Besides, I'm not so self-absorbed that I think everyone wants to hear (or read) me saying fuck every third word. Or agrees with my opinions, for that matter. The most profane word I posted on Mo Rawk was "assclown." Which I think describes PWM perfectly. C'mon, "assclown" is totally PG-13!

I also posted a poll, and this was a piece of work, if I do say so myself:

Do you think the local band Playing With Matches are assclowns?

1. Yes
2. Yes, but their music is ok.
3. No
4. Who?
5. They're a band? That's supposed to be music coming out of those amps?!
6. No, and I don't appreciate you having an opinion.
   

So, along with a toned-down yet still angry version of my blog post, I had this poll. I'm not stupid; I knew I was going to get reamed by PWM fans (all 5 of them) after they got out of school, but I wasn't expecting what actually happened. I received a message from one of the mods in the forum about my post:

From: Helmut Grokenberger
To: xtoq
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:43 am
Subject: posts

Thanks for your input to the board, I checked out your blog and I agree with you on the PWM scenario, however. I had to edit some of your post.

We try to draw the line at personal "attacks" and namecalling, or else things get a little crazy. I do not object to the topic of sharing opinions no PWM, but please keep the "ass clown" stuff out of it.

Thanks and hope you post more.

If you have any questions, please PM be back.

_________________
Here we are in our summer years / Living on icecream and chocolate kisses

Pretty civilized and polite, eh? I thought so too, and not just because he agreed with me. Okay, that was a little of it, but take that sentance out and its still a professional way to handle an "offensive" post on a public messageboard. Presented this way, Mr. Grokenberger could have completely deleted my post and banned me from posting and I wouldn't have been angry, I would have been cowed. Which I was anyway, even though he simply deleted the poll and all mentions of the word "assclown." My main beef was what PWM did, and I'm articulate enough to express myself without excess profanity. I responded immediately:

From: xtoq
To: Helmut Grokenberger
Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 10:01 am
Subject: Re: posts

Thanks, sorry, guess I didn't read the rules too closely. I understand.

_________________
There is absolutely no evidence to support the theory that life is serious.

Next episode: the mod from HELL.

Subdivisions are the new trees

Everywhere I go, I am beseiged by the sight of "development." They are "developing" nature into suburbia. Just today, I drove by a driveway with an old house at the end of it, bulldozers knocking on the door. Its neighbors were six-figure cookie cutters arranged eighteen inches apart on a couple of dozen acres. Shit, they could fit five houses on the generous lot of the farm house. Did someone really build and care for this house only to have it demolished because it was a square peg in a round hole?

I live in a rural area, where agriculture is the primary means of support. Families have been farming and raising livestock in this area for over two hundred years, passing their land and possessions down through the generations. Now, with agriculture in the slump that it is, big-time developers are coming forward and offering farmers and their families crazy amounts of money for their prime farm land. They buy thousands of acres of forest, forest that is just beginning to recover from massive logging trauma in the late 19th century, then tear down the trees, build a million houses, and plant trees. Why? Those trees will take at least a decade to be of any use to the owners. Wouldn't one or two of those trees be useful, or God forbid, asthetically pleasing?

If you can't agree with anything else, agree with this: if you pay six figures for a house, your yard should be at least as big as the square footage of your home. Burn suburbia!

Twin Fish Records

So you may or may not know, but I'm now "working" for a local record company called Twin Fish Records. They're pretty new, so no website yet, but we're working on it. Its actually a collaboration between many Electronic Arts (sound, video and animation majors) students and Darcy Stevens. Darcy's wife owns the company, and Darcy is the vice-president, and the students are the employees. I'm pretty excited about this; not only is this exactly what I want to do with my life, but the people I'm working with are people I like, which may not always be the case in later years. At least until I'm a big-league producer/mixer and everyone wants me for their record; then I can pick and choose who I want to work with. Till then though, I'll have to take what I can get.

Text Sex

Well, it was only a matter of time. Sex has finally come into the 21st century, straight to your cell phone via the magic of test messaging. For a mere $0.99 per message, you can chat with a hot, sexy babe who's aching to read what you have to text. Jesus.

I'm sure you're wondering what such a conversation would look like, so I did some research and found a text message translator to experience it without the cost. Observe:

ey bb, wuz ^?
u bb.
wotU warin?
A SxC thong. u lk thongs, dnt u bb?
cn u hear me nw? gud

(From the same website:
Y is it u cn sue a cigrett cmpny 4 canca, McDs 4 getin fat bt u cant sue Jim Beam 4 all da ugly c*nts uve f*cked!)

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

"A radioactive dinosaur fights a genetically engineered monster and battles pterodactyl Rodan for custody of a reptilian infant."

Now, the question is, what are you doing on Saturday night?

Wow...

I'm already getting flak for my last post, and it hasn't even been three hours.

Look, to clear some things up:

1) I have personally experienced PWM's "alleged" antics at each of the concerts I mentioned. If you haven't, that's great. 100% of the time I have ever seen/dealt with them they have tried this nonsense. Only once did they fail. I have heard from other people that they have done this on numerous occasions, but since I did not experience this, I did not post about it. I may have few good qualities, but integrity is one of them.

2) I don't feel I'm damaging the scene in anyway. First of all, Springfield's "scene" is pretty pitiful, and that's because everyone in it is too focused on figuring out what the "scene" is to actually play or enjoy local music. Scene is what you make it. Support the bands you like, don't support the bands you don't. Trust me, if I had known Playing With Matches was going to be at the concert, I probably wouldn't have gone. Or, since it was a national act, I would have gone late to avoid physically supporting the local band I don't like Oh wait, I couldn't have done that last night because they stole the headlining spot. Which was the whole point of my post.

3) I don't feel the need to sugar-coat my opinions. It's a free country, I'm entitled to what I want to think. You can think of me any way you like as well, and I'm not going to email you or post hateful things about you on the internet. At least not using your name and linking to your website. Hello? Thanks for the traffic!

4) I'm not attacking them personally. I know a lot of people get this confused. Because I don't like a band's practices does not mean I don't like the people in the band. I am attacking their blatant disrespect for their fans (not booking the show well enough in advance to advertise on the flyers) and other artists. I don't think any local scene should support bands with this sort of attitude.

Honestly, I had hoped for a little more support. Guess this is why Clear Channel, the RIAA, and Bush are running our country - no one really has any taste anymore, for manners or music.

Oh yeah, and I'm not a professional, so I don't have to be on my blog. I'm not claiming to be a professional, so... don't know why people would confuse my personal blog with that. Just because I can have a personal opinion on my blog doesn't mean I can't have a professional opinion somewhere else. Or does it? Where is the line drawn, nowadays?

Being a rock star, the Playing With Matches way

A) book a show at a local venue, hopefully with national acts
B) the night of the show, feign ignorance of the lineup and insist you are the headliner
C) convince the venue and the other bands that its in their "best interest" to let you headline because, after all, you bring in the peeps
D) end up with no fans watching your show because they have middle school in the morning

At A Wilhelm Scream last night, Playing With Matches again committed their rock crimes. As I arrived at the Rockwell, a friend told us that Playing With Matches was added to the lineup. Okay, fine, local bands are often added to lineups at the last minute here in Springfield, especially for nationally touring acts. My friend went on to say, however, that the lineup had changed; it seemed that Playing With Matches was now headlining. Yup, you read that right: headlining for a nationally touring act.

When I dug deeper into the story, a Rockwell guy gave me the scoop: it seems the Rockwell was concerned that A Wilhelm Scream wouldn't draw enough of a crowd, so they (the Rockwell) decided to add Playing With Matches and have them headline to up ticket sales. First of all, Playing With Matches was not on the original concert flyers (see photo at right), so many people didn't even know they were playing. Secondly, the Rockwell didn't deliver tickets to the ticket outlets, decreasing ticket sales dramatically anyway. Third, it was a summer Monday in a college town, your drinking crowd isn't even interested.

I have difficulty believing that it was the Rockwell's idea to have Playing With Matches ultimately headline. I'm sure they enforced it, but I suspect that the band used a little sway to make that happen. The evidence:

1) At a John Galt Line Show at the Blue Room, the crowd eagerly anticipated the metal show that was about to take place. At the last minute, John Galt Line was informed that Playing With Matches, who were scheduled to play second-to-last, were to be headlining instead. The reason? More ticket sales. After the John Galt Line finished playing, however, most of the crowd left, leaving Playing With Matches to play with themselves.

2. At the Growl Benefit Concert, Fallen From the Nest, a Texas band, was the headliner, with Playing With Matches the second-to-last act. The concert started at 8:45p, and at 9:15p, Playing With Matches suddenly "realized" that they were not the headliner, and began whining that they were told they were the main attraction. Besides their unprofessional attitude when the coordinator attempted to book them in the first place, this usurpation did not endear them to the concert promoter. Check out the flyer, kiddies, and tell me who you think was the headliner.

I ask you, do you want asshats of this degree musically representing the 'Field? Remember what your mother always told you: Playing With Matches is not cool or safe.

EDIT: In response to the comment "Way to help the scene in Springfield..."

Yeah, I agree. This is no way for Playing With Matches to help the scene in Springfield.

Redesign complete

Welcome to my redesigned blog! Thanks to StyleMaster 4.0 and Chugs for the awesome template. And thanks to me for tweaking it to work for my blog. And thanks to you for reading this.

Perhaps you've heard I'm in MUS 216, introduction to audio engineering. Darcy Stevens is my instructor (the only one for that class, actually), and he's a kick in the pants. Seriously, check out this statement:

Better is the enemy of good enough.

Is that not fucking cool? I have a million of them, I write them down every day. And, there's the world's dumbest guy in my class. I swear he asks dumb questions just to hear himself ask dumb questions.

Well, I've been working on this goddamned template for hours now, so I think I'll go to bed now. Look for another redesign in the future, done completely by me! Not in the near future, but soon...

Peace.

Lame CSS shit

God, I've been working on a redesign for my blog for a solid fucking week, and I can't get it done. First it was the design part itself, then I said fuck it and used a template. Now I can't get the template to work correctly, so I'm thinking of a complete redesign. FUCK! Oh well though, stay tuned a few more days and I should have something done. Meanwhile, I'll change the background around for youse guys.

I'm famous!

(That exclamation point is much deserved!)

Wow! My blog is in the Springfield News-Leader, our local paper (well, Springfield's local paper, I don't receive it). Thanks to Andy Cline, who lists southwest Missouri blogs for mentioning mine. And, since it starts with an "A," it was at the top of the list (don' you love the alphabet?).

Well, this definitely calls for more posts and more updates, and possibly getting my website up and running again. Wow! I still can't believe it! This is really amazing. Guess I'll have to bust my ass to get my blog redesigned, huh?

Anyway though, my fourth was happy and fun, and hopefully yours was too. Our friend Lucas made an artillery shell hand cannon, which is simply a gun you can use to point artillery shells. (Pictures to come soon.) Needless to say, it was the most popular toy at the party. Our finale was a sight to see, unless you were my mom, who got to see it a littly more up close and personal than she might have liked. Note: use flat surfaces to shoot off those large fountains (i.e. Diamonds in the Dark, Color Me America, Punk Rockers, etc.). Four people in my MUS 216 class have bandages on their hands from varying degrees of firework burns, and my hearing just came back yesterday.

I just had to do a wipe and reinstall on my laptop =( , but things are pretty much back to normal from that. After a long and angry conversation with Dell, that is. Dell used to have great customer service, but this past couple of years its gone to the dogs. I could give you a huge story, but I think I'll leave that particular customer "service" story until a day I'm more angry.

Wow. I still cannot believe it. Wow.

For those SW Missourians just coming to my blog for the first time, you should check out my Flickr site (which I'm much more proud of), and give me ideas for my blog and website redesign. Tell then, cheers!

And thanks to Amy from Gentle Whisper for commenting and turning me on to the News-Leader story.

Happy Independence Day

Or, as I like to call it, Happy Blow Shit Up Day! I got all the fireworks for our big party, so hopefully you won't be seeing us on the news for starting brush fires when it's been so dry. We have enough fireworks to share with everyone for 3 miles! We-ll, not really I guess, since everyone I know loves the damn things and would never part with them.

Have a safe and happy Fourth!

Save a tree and quit delivering phone books

Dear Phone Company,

Please don't send me any more phone books. I have enough. Four really is my limit. Please donate my excess phone books to a family in need; I'm sure they can use them for heating fuel.

I have one from you, Phone Company, and one from your rival, and one from your rival's rival. I even have the reverse lookup phone book, where the numbers are listed rather than the names.

All the same numbers appear in each of my phone books, and since I only have one phone, I think perhaps that four is enough. I keep one in my car for a booster seat, one in my kitchen for a trivet, one in my bedroom for a makeshift pillow, and one by the phone for, well, looking up numbers.

All my phone book needs are covered, and if I happen to misplace any of my phone books, I always have the internet. Thank you all the same.

Me

My typing fingers are atrophying

In the words of every rehab grad everywhere, I think I'm gonna be alright. I finally resisted the urge to put an exclamation point in my title. I can start counting from this moment. I can't wait until I can say, "I've been clean for 3 months." without ancillary punctuation.

However, I don't think I am going to get over my computer withdrawal. I have only been without my trusty blue laptop 4 days, and already my typing skills have gone the way of the turd sundae. Fucking Dell. Anyway, I always seem to have an excuse for my lack of posting, which turns into a flurry of posts. Which, now that I think about it, pretty much sums up blogs and their posts.

"Give me that katana, it's Seppuku time!"

Holy shit! I cannot believe my eyes. I just got done watching broadcast Fox's Sunday Animation Domination lineup, and I was completely offended. Was it the blatant disrespect for the reality television industry? No. Was it the representation of middle-class America being overweight slobs with no class or manners? No. Was it the generalization of conservative Republicans being neurotic, over-zealous, xenophobic religious whackos? Not a bit.

No, I was offended by the "warning" prior to the first Simpons episode:

"This episode contains discussion of same sex marriages. Viewer discretion is advised."

Whoa, hold the phone there. You mean, there is no viewer discretion for Bart being a completely rude degenerate? For Homer's child abuse and mysogynist behavior? For Lisa's overacheivment? For Marge's steady retrograde to the days of 50's housewives in pearls and high heels vaccuuming the carpet? (I love the Simpsons, so don't send my hate mail. I'm just proving a point here people, and if you can't get it, screw you. And the horse you rode in on. And your momma. That's right, your momma.)

This is the same channel that had a live video of an alien autopsy, for God's sake! They pay women to be gold-digging, heart-breaking sluts for prime-time. They signed a contract with Paris Hilton. Their list of human rights violations goes on and on, and yet we are being warned that this episode talks about same-sex marriage?

So, I called my mom, who is normally a very intelligent and forward-thinking woman. The problem: Fox News and the Atkin's diet. There is a terrible correlation between the two. Carbohydrates are brain food, the nectar of the grey matter. The Atkin's diet prescribes less carbs (my mom's on 30 a day) to discourage weight gain and promote weight loss. Less carbs = less brains. I believe the Fox News people either a) saw this coming and planned accordingly or b) invented the Atkin's diet and planned accordingly. Suddenly, there's this new news station and it shoots up to the top of the news ratings at the same time that much of America is eating less brain food.

Mom's been on the Atkin's diet for 5 years now, and her love and respect for Fox News have grown exponentially while her intellect and deductive reasoning skills have dwindled to the point of nonexistence. What did Mom say when I called and complained about the aforementioned warning label? Paraphrased:

"You know I don't like censorship, but when you have a cartoon, children are going to be drawn to it. When you talk about issues that are adult issues, issues that kids don't need to see, you should have a warning so kids aren't necessarily exposed to it."

Whoa. I swear she wasn't like this when I was growing up. Can you hear the atrophied brain cells crying, begging for nourishment? When did repecting other people no matter who they are become an "adult issue?" Why did all my books as a kid end with the moral of "love everyone for who they are" if that's not kids stuff? More importantly, where are your kids going to learn tolerance if not from you? And why aren't you involved in what your kids are watching? My mom never let me just watch whatever I wanted. She made me cover my eyes during "love scenes" until I was 12.

Besides, ratings and warning labels mean nothing, or close enough to it. PG-13 still allows hell, damn, and shit, and gives us erotica like the garage sex in The Fast and the Furious. Plus, PG-13 movies can have alcohol and drug use, something that 13 year olds should definitely be kept away from, and I speak from experience here. My point is, that is a ridiculous warning to be on the episode. You should watch things with your kids to monitor their media intake; they'll probably ask you questions about stuff they don't understand, rather then their friends, and it will be so much easier to warp their little minds into carbon copies of you. Just think, no brainwashing to remove the stain of independence from their impressionable little minds. So watch objectionable stuff with your kids.

(Thanks to Chambers for the title.)

Firefox 1337 extention

Oh my god...this is the coolest extension for Firefox ever. Even better than the Homeland Stupidity Idiocy Level. Check this post out:

()h my 60d...7h15 15 7h3 (00|357 3x73n510n f0r F1r3f0x 3v3r. 3v3n 83773r 7h4n 7h3 |-|0m3|4nd 57up1d17y 1d10(y L3v3|.

Yowza! (Y0wz4!)

The St. John's debacle

I said I would tell you more about my dad's stay at St. John's, and I'm not lying. Its just a really long post, and I'm going to have to take a couple of days to write it. I just wanted you to know I didn't forget about you.

Today, Chambers bought some more geckos. I will post pictures as soon as I take some. One's a white line gecko and the other is some guy's name that starts with a 'B' that I don't really remember. Meh. We got into a fight about me being an "oppressive bitch" because I have the opinion that one shouldn't waste one's life playing EverCrack, the Sims, or WoW. Although we have worked it out, I feel there should be some clarification, if only for my own gratification.

Firstly, I don't think that the games themselves or all the people who play them are evil, or stupid, or genetically/intellectually inferior. Just most of them.

Secondly, I am referring to all online multi-player simulation games, not just the aforementioned ones. I wouldn't want anyone feeling left out.

Thirdly, I think that people who play the Sims are the saddest of the bunch, and should probably qualify for Social Security Disability. I mean, I don't want those people responsible for important tasks, like washing my car or picking up trash on the side of the road. They are obviously deeply troubled individuals whom we should care for while looking for the cure to their disease to prevent further infection. You are playing a simulation of life, for Christ's sake! That is the epitome of d-u-m. Allow me to demonstrate:

"[I]nteracting with lots of people all day makes you more comfortable being around lots of people in other situations." Whoa, hold the phone buddy. This is a breakthrough; you mean, doing something regularly breeds familiarity? Now where did I put the number for the Nobel Prize committee...

"I have a bad memory, so when i think of something i need to tell a friend I 'queue' it up like the Sims queues up actions." Since the average human brain can only remember 7 things at once, this leads me to believe that this person: a) has very few friends, b) does not have many experiences to share, or c) both. And since they obviously spend a lot of time on the Sims, the answer is most likely "c." Newsflash: online games do not lead to successful IRL (in real life) relationships. See above.

"i forget how to do something because i'm too busy trying to remember the cheat for how to get it done." A glimpse into the future for all gamers.

"So, you're telling me that I can create little people and then tell them what to do? And if I tire of them, I can lock them in a box and watch them die a slow, lingering death? Sweet!" This is the correct attitude to have if you're going to play any online multiplayer game. This should also be the point of any online multiplayer game.

"First you try playing the game, then you make all the Sims lesbians, then quit." See above.

There. Hopefully that clears everything up.

GodDAMNIT

Fucking exclamation points.

Fireworks!

I found this list of fireworks that were cool from our 4th of July party last year. I thought I'd share them with you guys. Keep in mind that I'm in the midwest, so you may not be able to find these in your town. Just ask your friendly neighborhood fireworks outlet for a similar product. Just like drug dealers, they want you to go home with something.

Without further ado... (note: they go from cheap, short fireworks to larger, more expensive ones)

1. Googles
2. Flying Bees (AKA Bumbly Bees)
3. Ephereal
4. Double Whammy
5. Fire of Star
6. Fire Dance
7. Black Cat Blue Candle (roman candle)
8. Silver Fox
9. Jack in the Box
10. Screaming Eagles
11. Saturn Missle 300 Shot
12. Magnum Mortar
13. Color me America (good despite its blatantly conservative title)
14. Dragon's Fire
15. Thundering Delight
16. Willow
17. Blue Stars
18. Diamonds in the Dark
19. Pop Goes the Fountain (very long and cheap - good buy)
20. Cloud Dragon (cool but short)
21. The Wizard
22. Party Shots
23. Twitter Glitter
24. Magician
25. Double Victory
26. Garden in Spring
27. Anniversary Night
28. Sky Candy (freakin' sweet)
29. Punk Rockers
30. Barrel of Bangs
31. RLO (?) Roman Shot
32. Rainbow Fountain (looks like a rainbow)

So there you pyromaniacs go.

Yay! I'm back!

I'm sure you're all thrilled.

Well, after a few crazy fucking weeks, I'm back to blogging and generally hanging out online and making a nuicence of myself. Where do people find the time anymore to do anything? I have chores to do all over the house, but I can't seem to find the time, with my Flickr posts and blogging and web design, I hardly have a moment's peace. So, since penicillin kills germs, I guess my dishes are pretty clean now.

Let's see, what has happened? Well, my dad went into the hospital, but he's out now. More on that later. My mom couldn't walk 'cause she had "the gout." What the fuck is up with placing a definite article in front of medical disorders? "I've got the cancer," "She gave me the genital warts," "My dog got the neutering." Look, everyone gets their own personal cancer/genital warts/etc, there's not just one cancer going around infecting each person. That's lawyers.

Now that that's out of the way, where was I? Oh yes, boring you with my tedious month. After Mom got over gout one of my cats died, practically in my lap. My cousin went in for chest surgery yesterday to cure and prevent a virual infection (see my rant about hostipals tomorrow).

What a fucking month. And I start summer school on Monday. $984 for 5 credit hours this summer. What is this, Stanford?

Hospital

My dad's in the hostpical, so consequently I'm not blogging. But, I have a horrible hospital story for when he's better, so check back soon.

Dead Day Eve and Cinco De Mayo

Wow...double fucking whammy. Its our last day of classes (Dead Day Eve), which is one of the biggest college drinking holidays at MSU, and Cinco De Mayo, which of course is also a big college drinking day. There has to be a fucking stomach pump traveling van cruising downtown tonight to save all the drunk college kids lives.

We went and partied with our friends Sean, Jordan, and David. Chambers is now puking into a trash can, looking a little green; Jordan called and sounded like death warmed over, and David is apparantly still passed out. Ahhhh, you gotta love college.

McLuhan and Mieville: Understanding Media and Perdido Street Station

At first glance, one might be tempted to say that Mieville’s use of a pre-electric culture in Perdido Street Station is an escapist’s route; a romanticized version of Victorian-age industry, presumably to critique our predilection for and dependence upon electronic technology. However, I believe that Mieville uses a pre-electric age society as a means to remove distractions of familiarity from the minds of his readers. Such distance affords Mieville room to explore socialism, diversity, and activism without the expectations one would have about a society so similar to ours. Furthermore, I believe that Garuda society is a metaphor for Marshall McLuhan’s post-electric utopia; the “electric technology” that affords their society new, inclusive perceptions is simply their natural ability to fly. I intend to explore this thesis through a modest interpretation of Marshall McLuhan’s media theory as presented in Understanding Media, War and Peace in the Global Village, and The Medium is the Massage.
According to the theories of McLuhan, media are extensions of man, and such extensions change the perception of the societies and individuals who adopt them (Understanding Media pg 4, War and Peace pg 7). The content, or message, of the media is not important, for it’s “the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” (Understanding Media pg 9). Mieville is aware of this and illustrates it in Garuda society: “The actions vary: the crime...is the theft of choice” (Perdido pg 610). Literacy is a visual perception, an extension of the eye (The Medium is the Massage) that nourishes a tendency to fragment and classify. Electric media, however, is an extension of the central nervous system (Understanding Media pp 3 & 4), and affords us more sensory depth in the marriage of sight, sound, and touch.
The invention of the Western alphabet, grammar, and the printing press caused a shift towards a linear and structured world with little room for variation or diversity as the written (or printed) word must conform to certain guidelines and rules if it is to be an effective communicator. This need for order in literacy caused new perceptions in those who were literate: it became necessary to structure the world in a linear, orderly, and homogenous fashion to complement the written word. Reading and writing allows us to become aloof and detached; literacy give us “the power to act without reacting” (Understanding Media pg 4), to experience without experiencing.
Words have certain meanings, and those meanings and usages predispose those involved to act in certain ways (The Medium is the Massage). In Perdido, Mieville shows his understanding of the power of connotation when Isaac meets Kar’uchai in chapter 52, “He raped you,” Isaac says, to which she replies “He stole my choice…You cannot translate into your jurisprudence” (Perdido pg 609 & 610). To understand, people must place words and sentences in sequence; thus, they began to conceive of things both abstract and concrete as sequential and continuous despite the randomness of the world. Literacy begat fragmentation (Understanding Media pg 8), and as more and more people became literate, everything from social relationships to education to industry began to conform to this new perception of fragmented detachment. New Crobuzon is the essence of fragmentation: the map at the beginning of the book confirms this. For little more than 400 years, we have been a society of this visual, fragmented world, and we are beginning to see the perceptual shift as electronic media takes the place of print media.
With the advent of electricity, television, and computers came the possibility of new perceptions afforded by electronics: a global, non-spatial view of the world (Understanding Media pp 4-5). Suddenly space and time began to recede; the idea of relationships that are not linear but related in different ways began to spark within the minds of those exposed to the new media. Electric media offers people the perceptions of others, sometimes oceans away, to ponder, and eradicates lines of territory and distance as neatly as if they had never been there. With the receding of space and time, societies began to see the world as fluid and simultaneous, rather than linear and consistent. People began to welcome variation and attain a more balanced – visual and aural – perception as electric senses began to replace print senses. The invention of the mouse as a means to navigate the new graphical user interfaces began to bring the tactile world into the mix, allowing for even more balance and shift of perception.
The transition between these two modes of perception causes social and psychological tension and pain (War and Peace pp 7 & 11). Artists, McLuhan believes, are the only people capable of embracing the challenges presented by new media; the artist “glories in the invention of new identities” afforded by new technology (War and Peace pg 12). Art is then a representation of the transition from one media to the next, a thought that Mieville echoes in Mr. Motley: “[Transition] is what makes the world....I believe this to be the fundamental dynamic….It is what makes you, the city, the world, what they are” (Perdido pg 37). Art is the media for both the nostalgia of the old tech and the potential of the new, and changes or reinforces ideology as the artist sees fit. Mieville sees art as a means to challenge the current ideology and the exalt the potential of the new technology, albeit through an old medium. Rather than use the old technology to do the job of the new, Mieville uses old technology to illuminate the possibilities of the new; to embrace new media with Perdido, Mieville would have to write an interactive video game. However, such a medium would negate his careful distancing, as his demographic is likely pretty hip to such new technology.
Yag’s introduction proves that new modes of perception afford you different ways to look at something. Roads, which McLuhan associates with literacy and the Roman empire (War and Peace pg 26, Understanding Media chapter 10), create a sense of sequence and homogeneity, that what follows is either the same or can be predicted by careful observation. “What trick of topography is this, that lets this sprawling monster hide behind corners…?” (“Perdido pg 2). That trick, according to McLuhan, is not one of physical but mental geography; the confusion brought about by new technology distracts us from noticing the effects of our changing perceptions until it is too late to counteract (War and Peace pg 136).
Mieville removes as many distractions of familiarity as he can to encourage his readers to perceive his novel in new ways, forcing new perceptions without new media, if you will. His purpose in Perdido is to analyze ideology, and, as noted in class, one cannot approach ideology directly, but rather must court it coquettishly. Just as literacy allowed us to act without reaction, distance allows us to examine more closely what would normally make us uncomfortable, and it makes expectations irrelevant. Mieville distances his audience through his use of the novel as his medium, pre-electric society, and non-human sentients. A novel is the ultimate form of detachment; instead of experiencing life, we can read about it, safe behind our expectations, our ideology, our current perceptions of the world. Most of, if not all, Mieville’s readers cannot remember a time without electricity; this simple fact alone gives perhaps the greatest distance of all. Likewise, non-human sentients quell our sense of “humanity” and “human nature,” affording us a clear view of who the actant is and why the author chose them.
Yag’s perceptions are rooted in the totality of existence rather than the fragmentation of it; when one is flying above something you cannot help but see the whole. “I wonder how this looks from above, no chance for the city to hide then…you would see it from miles and miles away…” (Perdido pg 2). This distance affords the flyer new perceptions and assumptions about their environment, much the same way as Mieville’s choice of a pre-electric society affords his readers distance. These perceptions gained from flying form the basis of Garuda society; such a total and collective whole could never be accomplished in New Crobuzon’s fragmented and specialized print society. These perceptions gained from flying are the direct parallel to McLuhan’s post-electric perceptual utopia. The Garuda are the natural evolution of the perceptions obligatory of electric technology: “[t]he aspiration of our time for wholeness, empathy and depth of awareness is a natural adjunct of electric technology” (Understanding Media pg 5). Mieville hints that a system such as New Crobuzon can never understand the collectivism of the Garuda: “Your laws…for whom individuals are defined abstract…where context is a distraction…cannot grasp that” (Perdido pg 610), and McLuhan would agree.
Mieville retreats to a pre-electric time not because he is an escapist seeking a retropia, but because it affords his readers – and him – distance to scrutinize ideology. By allowing such distance, Mieville’s message rings that much clearer: you are bound to remember a black cloud in a perfectly blue sky, but would have difficulty in picking out a silver cloud among the thunderheads. This apparent detachment lulls you into a false sense of security; you are lead to believe that this book is like other books. Ultimately, an author chooses every detail of their story for its effectiveness of advancing his or her message, and Mieville does just that. Moreover, an electric society is redundant, as the Garuda society gives us all the perceptions of electric society with none of the capitalist hassle. Mieville seems to agree with McLuhan that inclusive perceptions, such as those in Garuda and electric culture, bring their possessors that much closer to utopia.

I'm a freak

I'm 88% freak!!

Like this is a surprise to anyone who knows me. Pretty cool site as well, filled with online tests and quizzes you can take.


Yesterday

Sitting Pretty
Originally uploaded by xtoq.

Chambers and I walked all around my creek yesterday. I wanted to walk all the way to the road that cuts across the creek, but he said no, and there were a fuckton of fallen trees and shit, so I guess he was right. Damn him. But, we got great pix of the animals, went for a nice walk, and had a ton of fun.

It made me think of what the meaning of each day is. I think I'll take a picture of something that expresses the day perfectly each day.

Increase in the Mormon church?

Really now, those Catholics better watch what they're doing.

Springfieldians are such funny people. Funny ha ha, and funny weird, incidentally.

On another note, I have made a Flickr group (Flickr is a photo sharing site - waaaay better than Hello) about history. Its called "Antiquity Abating" and you can check it out here. The pictures, as of this writing, are all mine.

Stuff from today I

Christians burn pagans for their sinfulness, whereas Pagans burn Christians for warmth.
***
Terrorism: "The calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature."-US Army Operation Manual, 525-37
***
Language is a virus and religion is an operating system and prayers are just so much fucking spam. - American Gods, Neil Gaiman

More fucking Daylight Savings Time??

When people go through the ritual of moving their clocks forward each spring ushering in daylight-saving time, they're also saving energy - the equivalent of thousands of barrels of oil, in fact. Congress says a good thing can be made better.

Okay, I know that not everyone "celebrates" DST, like Maine. What about them? Are we considering all the facts?

"We all just feel sunnier after we set the clocks ahead,"

Ah, yes, it makes me feel ever so much better to know that our lawmakers are using such intelligent adjectives to describe such important and life-changing policy.

"In addition to the benefits of energy savings," he said, it means "less crime, fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time and increased economic activity. Daylight savings just bring a smile to everybody's face."

How the fuck will there be less crime? More darkness=more crime. Criminals like the dark, idiots, ask the police. And how are there fewer traffic fatalities? Where are the substantiating facts? Why not just say that increasing DST will stop terrorism, decrease pre-marital sex, solve the abortion issue, and turn gay people straight? Fuck.

Christianity at work

I heard an amazing statement at school today. Remember, I go to a conservative school in the midwest, in the buckle of the Bible belt.

As I was walking along our new Public Affairs monument, a ridiculously grandiose "flagway" with the flags of 120 countries flapping over my head like so many carrion crows after the war (we like to call it the IHOF), I overheard one of our professors as he was having a conversation about religion in collegiate America. Lifting his hands to the sky, encompassing all 120 flags and the majority of our campus, his frustrated voice carried across the sidewalk, "This is Christianity at work."

I am so ashamed of what I ever called my own. Take what I have, take these broken remains...: i heart you
I am so ashamed of what I ever called my own. Take what I have, take these broken remains...: especially your boobs
I am so ashamed of what I ever called my own. Take what I have, take these broken remains...: but i like your personality a lot too

Ahh...true love. ;-)

Fighting the system is like tweezing hairs - tedious and pointless in the end

So, I found out today that the real problem with May Day is that no organization can have a cooler event booth than SAC (Student Activities Council). When you cut through all the bullshit, that's what it boils down to. So now we're stuck fucking doing their work instead of doing a cool event of our own.

What' s the point of fighting the system if you can't get anywhere? Today I also found out that the school put a camera in the studio, without informing us. Not that we could have fought them or even would have, but it would have been nice to fucking know.

Anyone have any suggestions for fighting the system and not killing yourself from futility in the process?

Golden Palace Monkey - capitalism at its peak; could it really be all downhill from here?

"This species will bear our name for as long as it exists," GoldenPalace.com CEO Richard Rowe said in a statement. "Hundreds, even thousands of years from now, the GoldenPalace.com Monkey will live to carry our name through the ages."

Have you heard about the Golden Palace monkey? Read about it here. Find ways to kill yourself here.

Chambers bought a fucking llama

A fucking llama! Actually, it isn't technically a fucking llama, since its too young yet, but you know. He's going to build a pen, apparantly. After we had the discussion about a llama not living in the house with 10 cats, 2 dogs, a leopard gecko, a lovebird, and 2 finches. It's not even like the animals that live in the house get along.

And tomorrow, my mom's going to sell her waterbucks and a nyala and buy a camel or three. Three fucking camels! Can you fucking believe it? Plus, my mom bought about 20 fucking mounts (mounted exotic animal heads).

This is just the briefest overview of my crazy week.

Quotations:
-
"You don't need a llama!"
"Look, you don't understand, we don't need [the animals], they need us."
-
"Gazelle."
"Impala."
"Whatever, just sell it."
(after 8 solid hours of auctioning off literally hundreds of mounts)

Okay, okay, I'm slacking

Don't you think I know it too? Fuck.

I'm actually only slacking on my Blog. I have a zillion other things to do and the blog, even though it calms my nerves, just gets put aside every day. Not like anyone is reading it, but it does make me feel better, like my life is a little more in order and I can understand what's going on in my head. It's like sorting laundry: kinda soothing, if rather pointless.

I promise to write more tomorrow, after all, I'm in Macon, MO for an exotic animal auction. Chambers bought a tokay gecko, some Cuban tree frogs, and some lovebirds. He really wanted a Fennick fox, but they were too expensive. And spider monkeys are insanely priced now! A pair spider monkeys went for $5200 today. Fuck. You can't make that kind of money on crack. I mean from selling crack; of course you can't make that kind of money on crack. Unless you sucked a lot of cock.

[exclamation point]

Hmmm. I noticed something annoying about my post titles; besides not being very clever, an abnormal number of them end with an exclamation point. Why the fuck is that? Why is it sooooo imperative that I end those particularly unwitty sentance fragments with that overused punctuation mark? It really annoys me when others do it, so I'm really confused as to why I would do the same thing.

But, I've decided it's a habit that needs to be broken. From now on, if I want/need an exclamation point in my posts, especially in my titles, I'm going to use the following: [exclamation point]. That's a lot more work than putting an actual exclamation point, so hopefully I'll be able to break myself of this annoying and useless habit [exclamation point]

World's Biggest Canvas

World's Biggest Canvas
Originally uploaded by xtoq.

Thought I would share another picture with you. Look for pictures from the Drive-By Trucker concert to be posted soon, along with a detailed and boring saga regarding the trip and our plethora of crises that seemed to plague us.

420 squared A

420 squared A
Originally uploaded by xtoq.

This is a tiled background I made from my photos of...stuff. Most of the photos are my creation, except the Mona Lisa, the Joint Rollin Handbook, and the silver-looking leaf, to name the ones I know of. Other than that, they are pictures I took or made in Photoshop.

Drive-By Truckers concert

Well, we're off to the Drive-By Truckers concert in Columbia, MO at the Blue Note. Tickets were only $12, which is pretty damn good these days. I'm looking forward to the concert. Until the update, check out DBT at the official site.

Don't press that button!

Look, seriously, don't press the "Next Blog" button in the NavBar at the top of Blogger blogs. I've found that most of those blogs are just junk blogs, like the junk domains that simply list bullshit keywords over and over and over again, and don't even have any good links to the information anyway. Shit, if they were better than Google, I could almost understand it, but they never have any good info. But seriously, I spent like 15 minutes clicking "Next Blog" and I saw 2 "real" Blogs. Someone should put a stop to it, but there's no way you could enforce something like that. You'd have to have someone/thing reading the posted content for similarities to other posts, and that would cost money, which would eventually end up costing us, the users. Perhaps we need some nice hackers that will fix the problem for us....

I forgot to mention it...

...but my cat broke her leg. :-( To be more accurate, she broke her elbow. Imagine you slamming your elbow down on the table and breaking off the tip of it, and you'll understand how my cat feels. The vet set her leg with two pins and wire, gave her drugs, and said she'll have a cast on for ten weeks (that should give you an idea of the seriousness of the break). I took her in today to get the sutures out (its been 16 days), and the vet found out that the cat has somehow moved her broken leg around in the cast and has moved the bone fragment about half an inch. That's half an inch of pins and wires. So, I have to spend another huge amount of money (first operation: $500) and get her leg reset. All because the damned cat isn't smart enough to get out of the way of large moving objects, since I think our neighbors hit her with a four-wheeler. The things we do for our animals, you know? At least they aren't kids who will grow up, take your money, talk back to you, move out, then refuse to call. And if the cats do something bad, you can lock them in a room for a couple of hours and Social Services won't call you an "unfit parent." Pets are so much better than kids. Not that I would know, since I don't have any, but all the ones I know are way worse than my plethora of cats.

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?

Why is Blogger acting up so strangely? I've posted twice in the last three minutes, republished my entire blog, and still the post isn't showing up. What the goddamned hell is goin on here?????

Murphy's Law...of suckiness!

I had a long post here, and Blogger decided that I didn't need to post it. I fucking hate computers.

It was a huge rant about the upcoming Growl concert we're trying to put on and how much it is not coming together, but I guess the powers that be didn't like the tone of the article or some such crap, so they erased it as it was publishing. How do you like that? What the fuck? Murphy, you fucking creep, quit jinxing me so many years after the fact!

Long story short about the concert, the lineup has changed so many times due to the bands' family issues, signing issues, or just plain issues that I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore, except that Fallen From the Nest will be headlining and Business/Casualty will be playing second-to-last. If you're a band in the Springfield, MO area and want to be a part of this great oppotunity, email me at xtoqster[at]gmail[dot]com.

In other news, my mom's cat is going to have kittens. Want one? Email me. They should be here in about 3 weeks, and you could have them in 9 weeks. Get them while they last (free of course).

Calendar Discrimination

Every day each of us, no matter our race, gender, or station in life, faces discrimination in some form. Much of it is subtle, much is systematic. We strive as individuals, communities, businesses, and nations to eradicate inequality wherever we may find it; to root it out and stab it in the neck with the pitchfork of equality until its terrified squeeks die away, then toss it on the burn pile with last night's garbage and have a beer while we watch the flames.

But today, I would like to shed light upon a discrimination that is quite overlooked, at least as far as Google and I can tell: "holiday discrimination." (the term only gets about 25 hits on Google, whereas "racial discrimination" gets 780,000, "age discrimination" 420,000, and "sexual discrimination" about 130,000.)

As I was perusing my calendar recently to see when Easter was, I noticed that Daylight Savings Time started on the same day, which I thought was kind of convenient, at least for my stoned ass. So, when I woke up today, I thought I had missed resetting my alarm and was an hour late getting on the road, which naturally pissed me off a little bit.

After freaking out for 10 minutes wondering why my computer and my satellite hadn't reset themselves like they normally do (which, frankly, is how I usually find out about Daylight Savings), I stomped up to the calendar, demanding to know what was going on...and that's when I noticed the italicized text below "Daylight Savings Begins" that read "U.K. only." Oh. And I suppose that's why it was italicized, huh? So I could fucking see it? Why the hell is the UK Daylight Savings Time on my fucking calendar?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to know that Argentina's Holy Thursday is the 24th of March, the 26th of May is Corpus Christi in Germany, Liberation Day for Italy is April 25th, or Malaysia's Federal Territory Day is the 1st of February. But really, do we need these thing cluttering up our calendars?

I'm not saying that a few other holidays aren't a good thing, but really, I think in the interest of efficiency, we should make an effort to make calendars for specific people. We're just globalizing for no fucking reason. If I have to have Canadian and Mexican holidays on my calendar, I can deal with that, they're at least on the same continent as us, you can expect a little bit of globalization, but Argentina? Malaysia? Are we only including them because they make our crappy products for pennies on the dollar and the least we can do for them is include their holidays in the calendars they make? I'm sure that warms all the hearts of the underpaid and overworked 10-year-olds in the factories.

Why do we include the UK, anyway? Because they speak fucking English? Do they care about our holidays? No, they understand that you should mind your own goddamned business (I don't judge the rest of the UK by Tony Blair, obviously). The UK is across the ocean, for God's sake! I'm sure they don't care about holidays they don't get off work from any more than I do. Its not that I don't like the UK, I think they're great blokes (ha ha), but I don't need that sort of confusion in my life, you know?

Besides, if you're going to include some people, you should include them all. You can't just go around including Malaysia, Japan, China, Germany, Italy, France, the UK, Canada, Mexico, etc. You have to include Moldova's Day of the Republic on September 2nd & Caricom Day, July 1st in Guyana? And what about Native American holidays? Its bad enough that we stole their land, we can't even include them in our calendars when we're including everyone else?

So let's remember what we learned in kindergarten: if you don't bring enough for everyone, don't bring any at all.

I'm suddenly a Conservative!

Wow. And I thought the biggest idiots were in the government. This guy says in 20 years the world will realize what a wonderful president Bush is, how we needed to "protect democracy" and how the war in Iraq "saved the world." (No, I'm not kidding.) And you can't argue with him, I mean, his Blog name is "Chris is Omniscent."

He probably isn't all wrong though. When Reagan died, people hailed him as the "greatest president of the 20th century" (never mind Teddy Roosevelt's unparalleled fight for conservation of nature or Clinton's near-erasure of the national debt in only 6 years) and they weren't too happy with him when he was in the seat of power. I mean, "Chris" is definitely wrong, since Bush is a sucky president, but people will see it differntly in 20 years.

Maybe it works for the little people too. Maybe I'll be cool when I go back for my 20th high school reunion. Don't they say hindsight is 20/20? Yeah. We'll see in 20 years.

Prayer Rug

I got my very own St. Matthew's prayer rug today, and I'm disappointed in several things. One, its not a rug. I mean, I knew that from the descriptions (One, Two, Three) but it was still rather depressing. I mean, don't I deserve an actual rug? I was also disappointed with the lack of prayer needs options. I mean, there was absolutely no option for "Stopping these ridiculously stupid people from scamming even stupider people." So, I had to write it in. I mean, if God was really sending me a prayer rug, don't you think he should have personalized it? He can make the world in 6 days but he can't put a little effort into a lousy prayer rug? Sheesh. And I'm a little wary about the testimonials. Everyone prays for something like $5,000 and they always get $7824.39. Its always some weird-ass number with change. What the hell? Is God charging sales tax? Shipping and handling? Can't he fucking round? I want even numbered payments, thank you.

So, I'm punishing everyone by not sending my prayer rug to another house that needs its blessing. Fuck you! You want a prayer rug? Pray for it! Maybe God will listen to you; he's sure not listening to me.

Missing Kids + Junk Mail = America!

Does anyone else get these missing kid circulars in the mail? Have you ever looked at the fine print? Let me enlighten you:

"Postal Service Regulations require that this [missing kid circular] be delivered together with its accompanying postage paid mail advertisements. If you should receive this card without its accompanying mail, please notify your local postmaster."

Now, I'm not against the missing kid thing, if it helps one kid get back safely, I think its worth it. But I think its disturbing that these circulars can only be distributed with junk mail. How capitalistic! How American! I'm so proud.

Politically Correct

Just one more. I couldn't resist linking to this: "Now I'm not one to be PC, the term alone is enough to make me want to beat a Muslim with a fetus."

Brilliant. Pure brilliance.

***UPDATE!*** St. Matthew's Church is so fucking Christian!

Seriously, are we living in a police state or what?

I know this is old news, but I hadn't seen this picture when I heard about the incident. I can understand why now, of course Fox News and the rest of Conservative (not necessarily Republican) America would want to keep pictures and people like this quiet. I mean, that girl looks all of 25 or 26. I'm sure she's a danger.

From Wikipedia: 'Thus "non-lethal force" may have some risk of causing death: in this context "non-lethal" only means "not intended to kill".' Ohhhh, that makes me feel soooooo much better.



And "non-lethal" doesn't necessarily mean "not painful." I guess those protestors should be grateful that the police didn't open fire with lethal bullets. I mean, clearly the police were justified in using "non-lethal" weapons. Really. This totally seems like a riot.

Pirate Focus Group

Today, I woke up in my warm, dry bed, and my first thought was, "What kind of pirate am I?" Now, like many "land lubbers," I was unsure of where to start to research what kind of pirate I might be. After exhaustive research at MSU's library and the city one, I tried the internet. I found many fan pages for pirates, many pictures of pirates, and many accounts of past pirates. Well, that will help me decide what kind of pirate I want to be, but not really what kind of pirate I am. Dejected and about to give up, I turned to my good friends at Rum & Monkey for some relaxation before delving once again into my research. Lo and behold, but what do I find but exactly what I was looking for - a way to find out what kind of pirate I am.

But, its not as easy as I thought. Oh no! I cannot simply research and discover what kind of pirate I am, I must conduct a study. So I thought, well, I have a blog that I don't use much, surely I can get some feedback there...so here we go. Welcome to my Pirate Focus Group.

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

History can't repeat itself

"I wish foresight were 10...no 5% as good as hindsight." That's what C said to me on the way to class this morning. We were driving by Linden on Highway 125 and I was craning my neck around trying to find evidence of the old Lindenlure Hotel that used to stand on the shore of the Finley River there. Despite having graduated not five miles from the location, I never knew there used to be anything of importance at Linden. As far as I knew, it was merely a great swimming place and that, for some inexplicable reason, someone had created a small waterfall. Old photos from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show a very different Linden than the one I have driven past every day for at least a decade. Linden today is simply that: Linden. A swimming hole, a waterfall, and a lot of houses dotting the north eastern banks. Kids swimming, teenagers drinking, a typical rural waterin' hole. But when Linden was first settled (and don't think its a town now...noooo, it's a place on a map; there is no zip code), there was a mill and the Lindenlure Hotel to welcome people on their way to to Springfield or Rogersville from Sparta and Ozark. Today, not even a foundation remains to tell you where the main building or even one of the cabins of the hotel stood a century ago. A handmade rock foundation slowly crumbling into the river with every passing year and rainstorm is the only thing remaining of the mill that once shared this wide stretch of river with the inn.

Yesterday, at a new bookstore in Ozark, I found a great book called "A History of Christian County: the First One Hundred Years." In it, I found an upsetting picture. There in black and white on a glossy inner page, stood a two-story hotel in Sparta, my hometown. "The Sparta Hotel" the caption proclaimed, "1899." I grew up in Sparta, I was a "13-year senior" at Sparta Schools. I have never heard of a Sparta Hotel. I have never heard of the Lindenlure Hotel. Why was my education lacking in the most basic of information, that of my environment? Why must we learn Missouri History but not that of our home? Why must we take it upon ourselves?

This sort of disregard for history and past generations bothers me more than any other single issue in Western culture. Certainly, one can argue that looking toward the past constantly can cause you to trip over the present, but staring into the dark and uncertain future is certain to cause vision problems. Perhaps we need to look over our shoulder every once in a while, even sit and stare at the past briefly.

Spelling Lesson

Spelling Lesson
Originally uploaded by xtoq.

This is outside a friend of mine's house in Springfield, Missouri. Guess that means I can have the last load in whenever I want.

Chambers

Well, you've heard about him, so now you get to see him. My boyfriend, Chambers! He's pretty drunk in this picture, and he doesn't really believe in taking pictures, so you have to excuse his weird look. Oh wait, never mind. That is what he looks like. :-) I'm sure you'll hear more about him later.

Ahh, my faith in the justice system is not misplaced

"The dog was friendly enough and probably would have been a very cooperative witness." Yes, this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind.

"Nobody wants to see some girl tap-dance or play the violin."

Did you hear that Donald Trump is thinking of buying the Miss America pagent? Apparantly, the pagent isn't doing so well since Trump started the rival Miss USA extravaganza, and not a single network has signed the Miss America pagent for this year, making the possibility of it becoming a reality TV show, well, a reality. I think he'll be successful; considering the country's infatuation with skinny, vapid women, his ideas will probably spice up the old pagent's ratings. But is nothing sacred? Will we truly never hear the dulcet tones of the intellect-impaired beauties wishing for world peace again?

I'm not worthless!

I'm worth $1,725,362.00! How much are you worth?

I found it on eBay!

Okay, I want to make a fuckton of money from idiots on eBay. There are so many stupid things for sale on eBay, I can't believe that people actually pay for them. I've decided to share some of them with you:

Parrot Shit sculpture
Holy shit...
Sister's Diary

FaceBook is made with crack

That is the only explanation. People skip class to search shit on FaceBook. Can you believe that? I mean, I skip class for less, but at least I'm not on FaceBook. Fuck. Get a rehab program.

The more you know...

This is the Terms of Service (TOS) for AOL services, including AIM. Check this out:

"Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses."

That's under "Content you Post" on the TOS page, BTW. Thought I would share with everyone I knew.

UPDATE:
Because of the blogfire this weekend about AOL's TOS, the company announced today that they will revise the wording to make it clearer. Supposedly, they meant the wording to apply specifically to "Rate-a-Buddy!", but applied it to all AOL products instead. Look for revised TOS at the first link soon.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yay! I'm old enough to be a classic car now. How fucking jolly. My insurance rates dropped, so I guess it's not a total letdown. Fuck. Oh well, I guess I'm old now. Kids will make fun of me, I'll start driving slower (!), and I'll begin to start sentances with "When I was your age..." regardless of topic, and I'll carry on unrelated conversation with people who have been dead for years.

SMSU is now MSU!

Yay! For those who don't know, Southwest Missouri State University (SMSU), where I attend school, will soon be Missouri State University (MSU). The bill was passed in the Missouri Senate on March 1, 2005, and the bill will go into effect on August 28, 2005.

All this is well and good, but Ike the Yeti owes me a lunch. I told him last year that the name change wouldn't go through until Kaiser's last year. I mean think about it, why wouldn't he want to retire giving the campus what it's wanted for 20 years? Yeti said that I was cynical and it would pass last year. Guess who was right? Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

New post in a long time...

...made possible by Rum and Monkey!

Today was really awful.

I got out of bed really late because my alarm clock has broken and I cannot afford a new one at the moment.

I feel unusual because my antidepressants are making me hairy.

I'm so stoned.

Last night I had to go and pay Joshua's bail. He's such a jerk. He got arrested for punching the Walmart clerk in the face for refusing to sell him beer. He's only 16!

I want to tell the world to get fucked.

I am making this journal friends only because I don't want the world to read what I'm writing, even though I'm posting it on the internet.

Today, I got a digital camera! Yes! I'm so ugly. Don't look at my photos pleeeeeze.

I want to say thanks to the world for absolutely fucking nothing! You all suck. I feel so alone, no one ever reads this journal, or even comments to let me know that I'm not suffering alone. It's cold here, and I want to die, but I cannot figure out how many of you to take with me when I go.

I went to the doctor yesterday, and he said I have bipolar disorder, which makes me different enough to be interesting, but the same as all the other cool people with bipolar disorder.

That's enough for now. But I'll leave you with this thought - sharing your life with strangers on the internet is the cheapest form of therapy available. Leave a comment and tell me I'm beautiful.

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Concerts, concerts and more concerts!

Well, just got back from a weekend of concerts, and it was a goddamned blast!

We stayed in a 3.5 star hotel in Kansas City (Marriott on the Plaza), where my blue/purple hair and Chambers' Mars Volta 'fro seemed to fit in so well. We took a cab to the El Torreon (first time ever in a cab, and let me tell you it was fucking interesting!) for the Rise Against show. Anarchy abounded, both real and consumer-driven, and Rise Against was the only band I enjoyed (which was fortunate, since I came to see them). Unfortunately, Kansas City is unlike New York, in that the cabs don't just wait around every fucking corner so you can hail one. Soooo, after calling a cab for 11:45p, we finally left El Torreon at 12:38a. Fucking great, but we made it out in one piece.

Our hotel had both down comforters and pillows. Fucking down. Jesus fucking Christ. I can't believe that people only know hotels like that. My mom was too good to stay at the Motel 8, that's why we stayed at Best Westerns during my childhood. That's my idea of a hotel - ice machine, shower, bed, and HBO.

So the next night, we went to see Sage Francis in Lawrence, Kansas. (I know that staying in a 3.5 star hotel might conflict with the messages in Sage's songs, but...I think he would still approve. Maybe. At least I can recognize the conflict.) If you have not yet heard Sage Francis, I highly recommend him. If you are just getting into him, try his Epitaph recordings (Personal Journals and A Healthy Distrust) and then a few of his older independent releases (Still Sick...Urine Trouble and Dead Poet Live). Part beat poet, part rapper, part big brother (the family member, not the Bush administration), he never fails to disappoint me.

Well, I would give you all the gory details of both the concert and the wild nights in the hotel room, but if I gave away all the details in the first post, what would keep you coming back for more?

Listening for Cancer

The New York Times > Magazine > Listening for Cancer

This is one of the scariest and most interesting articles I've read in a long time. This goes with my theory that all the cells in your body are actually conscious beings working together to make sure your body works. Kind of like that movie with Chris Rock and Bill Murray.

Microsoft vs. Don Hertzfeld

Maui_backup_728x90.gif

Biting on Don Hertzfeldt's shit, eh Gates? What a fucking pud.

Ahhhhh....

Thought about Christmas lights today. Why do we put them up? Does it stem from some long-forgotten tradition to bring loved ones through snow storms safely? Is it purely aesthetic? Is it commerical (rather, did it start out that way)?

Hmm, I'll have to do some research and get back to you on that one...

Hope you had a happy Turkey Day!

Celebrating a day of thievery and lies; the true American way!

Well, I'm off to my mother's for a little Christmas tree decorating. Because, as stated before, Thanksgiving is nothing but a bump between Halloween and Christmas. Unifying Pagans and Christians in true commericalism; ahhh, America!

If you find yourself wishing to be away from your family, check out these links:

Jesus Dress-Up
Carbonated Jazz
The Love Song of Night and Day
Contraband

I left the two best for last:

99 Rooms
BooBah (awesome sight/site)

Be good, and if you can't be good, be safe.

PS: I'm worth $1,750,739.25! How much are you worth?

If only...

Why can't we go back to the days when everything I said was scripture and my touch was annointment?
Wen did I stop being your prophetess, your angel?
It seems my every syllable is argument and my gaze is sentencing.
Why do you treat me so?
Things were beautiful until you realized nothing you could say or do would change the way I felt about you.
Can't we be the old you and me, gazing intently into each other's eyes and not saying a word?
Did I do something wrong?
Should I go back and change?
What can I do to make things right?
If only your eyes would light on me again with the same spark and longing.
If only...

Stripper Saga

Well, Beth asked me to be a stripper in her student film last month. I said yes, because I love Beth to death and I owe her HUGELY for all her great work as our SGA representative last semester. And now, my part of the filming is over and I am here to tell you all about it!

Beth is a student director at SMSU and works for the Growl (her show, Less Than Zero, is Tuesday and Thursday from 11a-12p) , where we love her to death. Beth needed lots of extras for her film, and she looked not only to her circle of theater and media friends, but also to the Growl. Enter Bitter the Clown, another faithful Growl producer (his show, Bitter the Clown's Happy Fun-Time Show, is on Wednesdays from 8p-10p). Bitter is, well, bitter, and this is probably due to a lack of sex. Or possibly childhood trauma; it depends on what time of day you ask him. Now, when presented with an option such as, "Would you like to sit around my movie set and watch scantily clad women posing as strippers for a few hours? I'll provide lunch.", Bitter was understandably - ahem - attentive. After excusing himself for a few minutes of "alone" time, he readily agreed.

Bitter and I go way back, to two years ago when he started off at the Growl. Bitter joined our organization because we were broadcasting from the Atrium of Strong Hall here at the SMSU campus and he saw a hot chick and decided he should sign up. Later on he found out that the "hot chick" was really me dressed in my famous Supermodel suit (made from real supermodels), but he had already been initiated and branded, so there was no escape.

Well, skip forward about a year and a half, and suddenly the Growl is in peril. I am the station manager and I need someone to do important tasks for me; namely training and fending off idiocy. Bitter cleverly avoids eye contact and communication, until I beg him to engineer the volleyball games. Seizing any opportunity, Bitter demands sexual favors for his manual labor. I readily agree, knowing that Bitter's massive porno collection will never allow him to take on external partners.

As the day of filming approached, I told Chambers that we had to go to the store and buy some lingerie for my debut on the strip club scene. As I finished the sentence, the car horn honked and he was impatiently gesturing for me to get into the car. At the store, I looked at sexy lingerie while he went straight to the "Slut-O-Matic" section. After a brief discussion, which consisted mostly of me saying, "I'm not buying five bustiers," we paid and left. After modeling (and breaking Chambers' hand every time he tried to touch me), I prepared for the shoot.

...more to come...

Revolution on Canvas

Everyone should go out and buy this book. Hundreds of poems and narratives from indie and punk bands. NoFX, Taking Back Sunday, the Locust, Brazil, the Starting Line, Rise Against, the Gadjits, PlanesMistakenForStars, and more!

Excerpt:

Technology will kill me,
So will poor penmenship
(and spelling and grammar,
well and also logic)
- Mark Thomas Kluepfel

Plus, 50% of all funds go to the National Center for Family Literacy.

After reading the introduction, where John Payne (and english professor) comments about illiteracy, I am reminded painfully of my high school and those I grew up with. Often my peers would brag about coming from a home without books and their lack of reading for pleasure. It was a badge of honor in Sparta to not have opened a book (fiction or otherwise) outside of a classroom. And if you could manage not to do it in the classroom as well, you were a fucking god.

I was out of place (and no, I didn't have blue hair then) because I read for pleasure, and I read a lot. My mother and I used to take my dad to the airport (he would travel to California a lot) and then we would go to Trotter's for their awesome salad bar. We would choose a booth and read until we were done eating, much like my college friends now smoke and chat. My mother and I spent lots of hours reading, comfortable in each other's company and silence. Its one of the best and most consistent memories of my childhood.

And now in college, I still read 2 or 3 books a week for the sheer fun of doing so.

What's wrong with that, I ask? I'm waaaaay cooler than all those cats I went to school with.

R & R

Rock & Roll? Rest & Relaxation? Repair & Recovery? You tell me.

Anyways, I thought about this blog all week. Really, I did. And I thought, wow, I have nothing to say. And then I thought, at least nothing great. So I read some other blogs to get inspiration and insight.

And then I discovered something brilliant: no one else has anything important to say either. Seriously, we are a nation of pissy people with nothing at all to be pissed off about. About the most annoying thing that has happened to me lately is that my boyfriend has annoyed the fuck out of me because I don't feel like he gives me enough attention.

That's something to be pissy about, let me tell you.

So here we are, a nation of bitchy piss and moaners with nothing at all to cry about. Well, not all of us, but the majority. And those who are using blogs and journals and websites to bitch and piss and moan about things really have nothing to cry about.

Jeez.

In light of all this though, I don't feel nearly so bad about whining and crying about my petty bullshit, because that's what we all get off on.

Nirvana Box Set!

I bought the new Nirvana box set today, thanks to the nice boys at my local used CD store. They love me and Chambers soooo much that they sell us things before they're actually out. How fucking cool is that?

Anyway, the box set is full of unreleased and rare tracks, many of them demos and live versions. Not much in the way of unheard of Nirvana stuff in this, but for a Nirvana completist such as myself, its a must buy. And here in Missouri it was only $50! A fucking steal!

Shitty Days

As Sublime says, "I ain't gettin' I ain't gettin' out of bed today..."

Well, as you can see by the post time, I've gotten out of bed today, but it was one of the worst ideas in the world. Fuck, I don't even know why. Maybe the stars are out of alignment or maybe my head isn't screwed on straight. It was definitely a Xanax day.

For some reason, I have this penchant for old things, like houses and history. Not guys though, sorry. I love anything that seems "retro" and unchanged. I hate it more than anything when I see "progress" happening in towns with rich history and backgrounds, because they tear down anything that can't be made "modern". What the fuck does modernity have to do with history?

Death's view

So I have a slightly sick twisted view on the world. Shut the fuck up and look already.

If you're going to be sexist, be sexist!

Why wouldn't they both exist? I mean, who cooks Father God's dinner, hmmmm?

Suspension of belief

You know, when I was under the impression that people were reading this, I was scared shitless of posting "dumb" things. I spent more time editing my posts than I do editing college papers. Then today I realized that I have one comment on my blog because I wrote about politics once. Jesus! Is that all anyone in this world cares about is fuckig politics? A rich white guy won, who the fuck cares?

Okay, I care just a little, but seriously folks, I want some readers! Fans! You don't think that I have an urgent need to spill all my beans on the web to strangers, do you? I mean, maybe I do, but that's not the reason I started this. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I started this...I'll have to get back to you on that.

Now I'm just going to write whatever the fuck I want because I don't care if you are reading it or not! And if I get stupid comments, I'll delete them and ban you from posting! Bwah ha ha haha ha!

So, in summation, don't fucking comment on the blog simply because it deals with politics! God man, get a life! Think about something else for a change, like how to get by on this Republican economy...

CSI meets PBS!

Fox is always looking for ways to bring educational programming to the next fun and facinating level in order to engage and entertain children on their learning path. Now, with the popularity of real-crime documentaries like CSI, Cold Case Files, and Autopsy, Fox has a brand-new way to introduce children to seemingly complex topics like anatomy, electronics, reproduction, and psychology.

Enter Toon 'Topsy! We take beloved cartoons, stuffed animals, and other recognizable commercial characters and place them at the center of attention in this all-new hour long educational show. Watch as investigators gather clues, coroners dissect carcasses, and criminals pay for their crimes in this stunning and compelling new series, only from Fox! (check local listings for showtimes)

Check out the new special from your friends at Fox!

If only spam came in a can

Then I could throw the bitches away. Goddamn spammers should be drug out into the street and shot in the fleshy parts then left to die in the sun so their bodies will bloat and leak into the gutters. And we should poke them with sharp things and throw gross stuff at them. And yell obscenities like, "Do you want bigger penis?", "No doctor necessary! Relieve daughter pain now!", "I AM ________ FROM NIGERIA BANK AND I HAVE IDEA FOR YOU", and "Refinance now! Bad credit no problem!"

God won't care. Trust me.

Not all here

Sorry I haven't blogged today, I'm just busy doing artwork and webdesign. Fucking CSS is driving me nuts, especially when I have to fix other people's problems. Oh well, here are some interesting links for you to check out:

The Growl Blog! - If you've read my profile, you know I'm shamelessly plugging my workplace.
IckleBug - Just an interesting graphics community. Check out the pill pharmacy and the pixel train.
KarToo - A killer fucking search engine that visually maps out related websites. You have to try it out!
Americans Are Too Stupid For Democracy

Enjoy, and hopefully I'll be functional tomorrow.

People don't change, they just get older

Man, my dad is freakin' old. He turned 80 today (he was 55 when I was born), and we (my family) went out to eat at Cielito Lindo's for Mexican. Never eat out with your parents. In fact, this is what I recommend to students who will be or are recently graduated from high school:

1) Get your parents DSL, cable, broadband, or some form of high-speed internet access and, most importantly, make sure they know how to use it. Ask your potential ISP if their service will support video conferencing. If your parents can see you once in a while and verify that you haven't done anything too drastic to yourself, they will be less likely to interfere in your life, giving you more time to do what you need to do.

2) Move out of state immediately following graduation (or immediately if you have already graduated). If you plan on going to college, find an out-of-state one. If you don't, find an out-of-state career, or enroll in a college for the first semester and find a job. Become a roadie, join the circus, see the nation, whatever you have to do. Moving out is like pulling off a band-aid, if you do it slowly, you suffer even slower. Ripping those parental ties right out makes the scars heal faster.

3) Talk to your parents at least once a week, and keep the conversations between ten (10) and fifteen (15) minutes. Anything less and your parents will get suspicious (and suspicion eventually leads to a face-to-face session), anything more and you'll be wishing you hadn't. This length gives you plenty of time to get through the small talk ("How's sis?" "She's fine, still dating Jeffrey...") and the gossip, and doesn't give the parents enough time to press the really hard issues. When there's an unnatural pause, its probably time to get off the phone. Be nice though.

4) Visit on holidays. I know it sucks, and the only consultation I can give you is you get to put your kids through it someday. But until then, if you want to keep the 'rents out of your grill, you have to show up to these events. Smile, let Uncle Artie pinch your cheek, let distant elderly relatives refer to you as long-dead ancestors, and thank your parents for the privilege. Trust me, they'll be so happy that someone's not screaming at them they won't have time to wonder why you've been wearing long sleeves and sniffing an awful lot.

Your parents will always embarrass you, but if you don't live somewhere that they can force you to be seen in public with them, the embarrassment is down to a manageable level.

Don't forget to vote!

The polls open in 7 hours (EST), 8 hours (CST), 9 hours (MST), and 10 hours (PST). Don't miss your chance to vote!

Museums of oddity and amusement

museum: a depository for collecting and displaying objects having scientific or historical or artistic value.

Long ago I searched for a good black and white picture of barbed wire for a website I was doing. I ended up not needing the clip art, but I found an interesting online museum dedicated to barbed wire.

Skip to last week when I discovered that I had never organized my favorite links, which was a little like not having ever done your laundry. I naturally put down my psychology study guide and began reorganizing in true nerd fashion. I discovered that I have a twisted taste in websites, and among those that struck me was the Devil's Rope Barbed Wire Museum. After rediscovering the joys of said museum, I thought, "I wonder what other museums are dedicated to weird things like this.." and proceeded to search.

Unfortunately I have an undiagnosed case of ADD and became bored after only a few websites, but I did find some interesting ones to share with you, since I have this obligation to the blog and all:

The Condiment Packet Museum - if the devil works through idle hands, this must be his opus
Moist Towelette Online Museum - yup, there is a museum for this too
Museum of Menstruation - yeah, you're reading it right...its not an online museum and its not open anymore, but Jesus, you have to check this out
Museum of Weird Consumer Culture
Online Auction Museum - not only is it online, but its a museum of online auctions! that's using the human language

These are just a few. There are surely tons more...but I do pretend to have a life, so if you would like to inform me of quirky preferably online museums, post a comment. Enjoy!

SurfTable

Blogging from a SurfTable at the top of the Plaster Student Union here at SmSU (not my fault, the capital "m" doesn't seem to work at this table...). Just wanted you all to know that I had a test in Psychology today that affirms my mother's statement: "College is high school with ash trays."

Stay in school kids so you can put off being responsible for at least 5 years.

Peace.