A world wide web of LIES

December 21

1. Buy new “long count” calendar
2. THAT’S IT

December 22

1. Wake up
2. Keep on living in a world that has not ended

Here are totally random things that make—or have in the past made—me unspeakably sad to think about:

• A dude crying in the shower (not me)
• A single, delicious ear of corn on a plate
• Eating at Hardee’s—delicious burgers, but:
  • the starkest decor ever
  • utter chaos behind the front counter (bonus sadness if there is one employee trying to maintain politeness amid the chaos)
• This pic (from Zeta Gundam):
  
• The Smashing Pumpkins song “Spaceboy” (not related to above pic that I know of)

This list to grow exponentially as I kick my happy-pill prescription!

I keep forgetting to do this list, but this is one of those weird phenomena that I have noticed. Say there is a band you like. No, not them, that other one. Similar names are the death of me, especially when I love one band and hate the other. I spent years of my life not liking Chavez, because I saw a video by Gomez (which I hated), and the names were permanently mixed up in my mind.

SOOOOO, in no particular order (except alphabetical), and varying levels of similarity…

• The Arcade Fire / The Fiery Furnaces
• Cake / Cake-Like
• Chavez / Gomez
• Deerhoof / Deerhunter
• fIREHOSE / Firehouse
• Jawbox / Jawbreaker
• The Mars Volta / Volta Do Mar
• Mew / Muse
• Modest Mouse / Mouse on Mars
• Múm (from Iceland) / Mum (NOT from Iceland)
• OMD / OMC
• Panda Bear (from Animal Collective) / Grizzly Bear (not from Animal Collective)
• Polara / Polaris
• Stroke 9 / The Strokes
• Super Furry Animals / Animal Collective
• Supergrass / Superdrag
• Television / Telephone
• The Verve / The Verve Pipe
• The Vines / The Shins
• Wolf Eyes / Wolf Parade / Wolfmother
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Hot Hot Heat / !!!
• Honorable mention: the seven hundred or so bands during the 80s that had all one word names that started with a C.
• BONUS ROUND: XTC album “Black Sea” / X album “Under the Big Black Sun”

It seems like there were more, but my memory is terrible—which is why I am always mixing these groups up in my head to begin with.

Dear Photoslop,

Stop showing me this dialog!

From experience and googling, I have noted the following possible actions that bring up this dialog:

1. opening a picture
2. closing a picture
3. saving a picture
4. looking at Photoslop
5. not looking at Photoslop
6. having an old version of OS X
7. having a new version of OS X
8. installing a brand new copy on a brand new computer and trying 1–5 for the first time ever
9. existing

I have not yet begun to complain! »

Tagging is:

• Handy
• A pain in the ass to do after the fact

I’m working on it. Not really, but kind of.

Today I finally got my money’s worth from the all-day Saturday pass ($2 for unlimited bus rides).

• 20 Red South: downtown to campus, for pizza and witnessing whimsical conveyances
  
• 100 Yellow South: campus to Savoy, for the viewing of latest “talkie” film involving masked adventurers
• 100 Yellow North: Savoy to Target (this is practically the entire length of this route, from the southernmost to northernmost and took about an hour)
• 20 Red South (again): back to downtown
• 50 Green East: downtown to easternmost edge of Urbana, ostensibly for more grocery shopping but mainly I was engrossed in my reading material and kind of aimless
• 50 Green West: back home (downtown)
• NEVER DOING SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN

Actually, I had an idea once, when I was driving all up and down the Olympic Peninsula. I’d be out in the middle of nowhere, and there’d be a bus stop sign there. Western Washington has a whole mess of different local, county, and community bus systems, so I wanted to see how far I could get, starting in downtown Seattle. I could get pretty far into the Peninsula, for sure, and heading north and east I could probably get close to the Cascades.

Bold means I’ve seen it, not-bold means I have some catching up to do…

• Burn After Reading (2008)
• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
• Friends with Money (2006)
• Æon Flux (2005)
• North Country (2005)
• Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
• City by the Sea (2002)
• Laurel Canyon (2002)
• The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
• Almost Famous (2000)
• Wonder Boys (2000)
• Talk of Angels (1998)
• Madeline (1998)
• Johnny Skidmarks (1998)
• Paradise Road (1997)
• Lone Star (1996)
• Primal Fear (1996)
• Fargo (1996)
• Palookaville (1995)
• Beyond Rangoon (1995)
• Bleeding Hearts (1994)
• Short Cuts (1993)
• Passed Away (1992)
• The Butcher’s Wife (1991)
• Barton Fink (1991,voice/uncredited)
• Hidden Agenda (1990)
• Miller’s Crossing (1990,uncredited)
• Darkman (1990)
• Chattahoochee (1989)
• Mississippi Burning (1988)
• Raising Arizona (1987)
• Crimewave (1985)
• Blood Simple (1984)

(source, dogg)

I have seen Fargo and Raising Arizona about a hundred times total, though, so it kind of evens out.

And now, a favorite album for each year I have been alive on the earth planet:

1972: Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
1973: Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy
1974: King Crimson – Red
1975: Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
1976: Joni Mitchell – Hejira
1977: Television – Marquee Moon
1978: The Jam – All Mod Cons
1979: Talking Heads – Fear of Music
1980: The Pretenders – s/t
1981: The Cure – Faith
1982: X – Under the Big Black Sun
1983: U2 – War
1984: The Replacements – Let it Be
1985: R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction
1986: Metallica – Master of Puppets
1987: Guadalcanal Diary – 2×4
1988: The Church – Starfish
1989: Pixies – Doolittle
1990: Uncle Tupelo – No Depression
1991: Slint – Spiderland
1992: Beastie Boys – Check Your Head
1993: Girls Against Boys – Venus Luxure No.1 Baby
1994: Rodan – Rusty
1995: Hum – You’d Prefer an Astronaut
1996: Failure – Fantastic Planet
1997: Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
1998: Don Caballero – What Burns Never Returns
1999: Trans Am – Futureworld
2000: Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One
2001: Les Savy Fav – Go Forth
2002: Ms. John Soda – No P or D
2003: The Sea and Cake – One Bedroom
2004: Laura Veirs – Carbon Glacier
2005: Kylesa – To Walk a Middle Course
2006: Mastodon – Blood Mountain
2007: Baroness – Red Album
2008: Boris – SMILE

NOTES:

1. 1977 and 1984 were banner years for good rock, which made it hard to pick just one.
2. 1991 was no contest, but there were a few trying for “close second”.
3. If I were even older, 1966 would have been another such year.
4. I recycled this post from my el-jay, just because.

Sunday night I dislocated my left elbow. It’s like this (and like that):

1. The door to my apartment is on the parking lot side
2. Idiots are always parking too close to the door
3. making us 2nd floor fools have to squeeze through and then go off the side of the steps.

As I was taking down two bags of trash, I saw that I’d have to maneuver around an idiot parking job again, attempted to do this, and failed. My ankle slipped, I spun around, and fell off the side of the steps, flat on my ass. Luckily the trash bags broke my fall. Luckily, my right shoulder didn’t dislocate (which has happened a million times, sometimes completely unprovoked). UNluckily, my left arm went crazy. I thought I broke it at first, but it didn’t hurt THAT bad. After a nice neighbor gave me some water and unguent, I was able to relax enough to get my arm back in order, thus avoiding an ER trip and its too-high insurance co-pay.

Two days later, and my arm is stiff, swoll up to bejeezus and back, and I got a sexxxy bruise developing (pics to come), but much better than sunday night when I came very close to feeling sorry for myself (sitting on a pile of trash with your arm bent the wrong way can do that). I’m still in a little danger of whining, because now I have yet another bum joint to add to the list:

• ankles: often like to twist/sprain while walking
• right shoulder: been dislocated between 5-10 times
• knees: explode with pain if I get up from a kneeling position
• wrists: what do you think they’re like if I’ve been at a computer for half my life?
• (and introducing) left elbow!

I will be the first in line when they start offering full body transplants. They better start soon, while I can still get to the line!

List of legendary creatures from Japan

The best part is how specific some of these creatures are. My favorites, in list form (of course):

• Kappa—a famous water monster with a water-filled head and a love of cucumbers
• Kurage-no-hinotama—a jellyfish which floats through the air as a fireball
• Makura-gaeshi—the pillow-moving spirit (this one seems to like to torment me nightly!)
• Tankororin—an unharvested persimmon which becomes a monster
• Tōfu-kozō—a spirit child carrying a block of tofu
• Uma-no-ashi—a horse’s leg which dangles from a tree and kicks passersby (I want to come back as one of these!)