Monthly Archives: May 2012

May 31 2012

appeal

Please please please. Enough already. Just stop.

I mean, I’ll admit I thought it was cool when I figured out how to do it too. Just like you. But I did it for like maybe a week and only showed them to my roommates at the time. Instead of, you know, the whole internet. And also it was I think 1998. Maybe 1999. Things were generally less awesome back then so it was easy to make things that seemed cool.

But now? Over a decade later? Animated GIFs are most certainly not cool.

So cut it out. You’re all slowing down my internet making stupid things that aren’t funny, poignant or clever. Let’s just go back to captioning still images, please. Thank you.

See? Simple. Classic. Hilarious. No animation necessary.

May 30 2012

well this guy DOES like your music

A post called “What If This Guy Liked Your Music?” caught my attention today because it’s currently featured on WordPress’ Freshly Pressed and I just have to respond. Lemme show you why:

This guy – this guy you don’t want liking your music – pretty much looks like me. Or at least we’d favor if I ever broke my steadfast rule against taking my shirt off in public. And if he had

  1. Less hair on top of his head,
  2. Less hair all over his torso,
  3. A shorter beard,
  4. Larger man-boobs,
  5. Bigger biceps.

Okay just kidding. His guns are on par with like Shark Week compared to my Finding Nemo arms. But whatever. That face he’s making? I know I’ve made that face when something fantastically awesome is going on. You know why we make that face? Because fat guys look horribly ridiculous when we move anything more than our faces with sudden excited energy. We can move just as fast as anyone; it just takes our fat a while to catch up is all. So we make faces or – at most – hand gestures to portray the awesomeness of the situation lest some innocent bystander be taken out by rampant flab.

So what the hell’s wrong with us liking your music? I mean, I can understand not wanting to see us shirtless at your super-cool music festivals. I get not wanting our fat-man sweat flung over your body as you’re trying to slow-groove to Death Cab. But what do you have against us liking your Death Cab? Can Death Cab and Radiohead only be liked by skinny people with reasonable amounts of hair in the right places? You think you’re original for liking The Black Keys? The Black Keys?!?! Dude, I listened to them back in like 1988 when they went by the name Jimi Hendrix. And many people got to them before I did.

And what the hell makes it your music in the first place?

There’s a fundamental difference between music-lovers and collectors. Music-lovers love to share music. They are never more thrilled than when they turn someone – a friend, a relative, hell, even an enemy – onto some of their favorite music. They understand that sharing music doesn’t make music any fundamentally less theirs, because music – by its very nature – is made to be shared. Collectors, on the other hand, like to put things away where, often, only they can partake of it. Collectors don’t share, they hide. They secret. They horde. Every music-lover I’ve ever known has passed music on to me, if for no other reason than so they can have someone to talk with about that band or song or whatever. This is how I know that you are no music-lover. You are a collector.

And I’ll tell you something else. I do have something I call my music. It’s music I wrote and I recorded so it is 100% mine in a way no one can change. And I’ve spent the past few months painstakingly recording my own arrangements of classical songs with GarageBand for iPad. I consider those mine too, because I put the work into them. I learned how to make them. I made the arrangements exactly how I wanted them. And when I play them for people and they like it, that compliment is mine. All mine. In a way you’ll never understand unless you set pretentiousness aside long enough to stop consuming and start creating.

The music isn’t yours, my friend. Unless you’ve learned to play and wrote some songs, the music’s never been yours. Or, not just yours. Let it go. You’ll be doing everyone a favor.(1)

  1. This got a little personal and for that I apologize. Sort of. You started it, even if you didn’t know it. At any rate you shouldn’t go getting all snotty about music without expecting some backlash.
May 29 2012

the herp

I’m willing to bet that when you think about herpes, if you think about herpes at all, which let’s face it, I kinda hope you have no reason to, you think about any or all of the following:

Ron Jeremy, porn star

The entire cast of The Jersey Shore.

The hot tub from The Jersey Shore

Frat guys

Russell Brand

Smurfette

You probably don’t think about these cute little fellas:

Switters

Tolkien

Nevertheless, according to the vet, all of the kittens have herpes.(1)

Herpes in cats basically seems like a really bad cold. The vet said that probably 80% of all cats get the herp at some point or another, which is in my opinion an unusually high incidence for any group without its own show on MTV. He said that older cats sniffle and sneeze and generally get over it. But with kittens so young, it can be problematic.

Most of our kittens are okay. They sneeze a lot and their eyes are all crusty and papa gets to clean up all kinds of things that normally would give him a major case of the howlers. But they still eat and they still run around and play.

Except for Nora, who’s become practically an appendage since Saturday night. She’s not eating, so I’m forcing Ensure down her throat, which I’m sure you can imagine the wild amounts of fun that entails. She’s not playing with the other kittens, though they try to play with her and she just kinda lies there and takes it. Mostly she either sleeps on my shoulder or on my chest or on my arm. I’m doing my best to keep her warm and comfortable, but, as many doctors in many college towns have told many patients, once you have herpes, you always have herpes. There’s no real cure, no shot nor pill to help them out. All we can do is nurse them back to health. And we’ll do our best. Even while cracking jokes about our cats having the herp.(2)

But I feel I need to point out that all of this has happened because back in December I decided to get a stray cat some food and water. So what’s the lesson kids? If you’re going to help a stray, make sure it’s male!(3)

  1. I’m hoping that there’s more than one type of herpes because otherwise this is all my fault for not sitting them down for the birds-and-bees talk and the raincoats-are-for-more-than-just-storms confab.
  2. Should probably mention that the vet told us that Ashley and I are in no way in any danger of catching herpes from the cats. He mentioned that we could, however, catch it by walking too close to anyone who’s ever starred in a show starting with the words Real Housewives.
  3. And/or neutered.
May 28 2012

stalled

(1)

Between January and May this year I read sixteen books. That’s a lot for me. I spent entire evenings reading after dinner. I read a book in a single day, something I haven’t done I think since like high school.(2) I read books with the rate and passion I normally reserve for Christmas and for going to get ice cream.

Since the beginning of May, though…well, I’ve eaten a lot of ice cream. I’ve started-and-not-finished four different books. One of them twice. And I know the problem: I’ve been resisting.

As the average daily outside temperature goes up, so does my inclination to read the more difficult novels. The prevalence of beach- and summer-reading lists lead me to believe that this is pretty much the opposite of what most people do. But for a long time, both in high school and college, I was too busy during the regular semesters to read harder books. During the summer there was always plenty of time, as long as I kept the ice-cream runs to a minimum. Or found ice-cream stands that didn’t take long to get to.

My resistance this year is a little more specific. You see, most of what I’ve read so far has been books by authors new to me. John Green. I read The Hunger Games trilogy. A Game of Thrones. I also tackled two Thomas Pynchon books, and usually I can only take one of those per annum at best.

Now that it’s warm, though, I want to return to an old friend. I’m caught between that and an urge to carry on meeting new people. And I’ve tried. But I’ve failed.

Because all I really want to read is David Foster Wallace. I’ve read Infinite Jest every summer since 2007 and now it seems it’s just as much a part of my summer as peanut-butter-cup blizzards. Just as Christmas isn’t Christmas without the noise and clamor that is Trans-Siberian Orchestra, so summer, it seems, isn’t summer without the prolixity and insight that is Infinite Jest.

So today I’m giving in. Here now begins my sixth reading of a 981 page, well-worn, well-loved, book.(3)

  1. Probably could have gone without saying that I’d decided to take li’l break from social media for a while. This sort-of ‘always-on’ mentality these days refers not just to our devices but to our lives, as though social media allows every aspect of our lives to be constantly broadcast. Or at least those pieces we choose to broadcast. And sometimes it just freaks me out. A lot. Since participation in social media it completely at-will, sometimes I choose not to participate for a bit, until the batwings of paranoia once again settle themselves down. NB: I still really hate Facebook, but I do miss the connection it provides with various family members. So I’ve returned there as well. Though I still really hate it. Just to be clear.
  2. No wait. I once read all of J.D. Salinger’s books in a weekend. That would have been sometime in June, 2007. So still. Five years.
  3. Plus about 100 pages of end-notes.
May 16 2012

a good day

Today is a good day. It is a good day because, no matter what happens, no matter what else may or may not fall through, no matter how well everything else might go, despite many other things that are still in the air…today is a good day because our honeymoon is booked and paid for.

So no matter what, for 15 days after our wedding, Ashley and I will be at The Happiest Place on Earth. And we get about five months to look forward to that.

Maybe it’s lame to spend our honeymoon at a place we’ve been to twice in the past two years, but if there’s one thing Walt Disney World excels at, it’s letting you do at little or as much as you want to do during your stay. For two weeks our toughest choice will be How do we want to be entertained today? 

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate us, newly wed.

May 15 2012

adjusting

Now that Ashley has begun the first of her two summer internships, there are a few things I’ve had to adjust to. The most notable of these is that, most of the time, I’m alone in a house with ten friggin’ cats! Seriously? If I don’t show up to work one day look for my body parts in the litter box.

Another thing is that she’s gone most evenings. When the person you speak to more than anyone else on the planet is suddenly not around as much, you notice. Like the other day. I had to watch our neighbors go through a break-up-and-move-out right in the middle of our shared driveway, and I had to watch this all by myself. As I sat there, peeking through the blinds in the bathroom, all I could think was how much more fun it would have been if Ashley’d been there peeking through the blinds with me. I imagine it felt something like when James Cameron watches his old home movies in regular old 2D: the experience was good, sure, but lacking something indefinable.

Everything is quiet all the time. That’s another thing. Though I’m sure my family will remember back when my brother and I used to make like we were Def Leppard jamming in our bedroom, it turns out I just don’t tend to make a whole lot of noise. I’m not the kind of person to leave the TV on. I might play some tunes, but I do it through headphones because my headphones sound better. Otherwise, reading and typing on the computer’s about as noisy as it gets. I would be shushing monks and librarians, is what I’m saying.

But without a doubt the oddest thing is being on the receiving end of text messages from someone working in the field of organ transplantation. Yesterday, for example, was this:

Going to surgery at 3!!

Now, I can imagine that there are some people excited about going to surgery. People finally undergoing gender-reconstructive surgery, for example, are probably excited about it. Nervous, but excited. But you have to remember that when Ashley talks about going to surgery, she means standing by while doctors removing organs from deceased patients.

So to me her text reads like this:

Me and a bunch of people at work are going to stand in a room with a dead guy at 3!!

Few will argue the necessity of organ transplantation more ardently than I; yet, it’s a good thing that she wasn’t around to see my face when I read her message. To see the courage it took to text her back with an equal number of exclamation points.

Today we had the following exchange:

Me: Our flight is booked.
Ash: Nice. In OR now. Heart is about to come out.

See? It’s already weird as hell. All I can picture is that dude from Temple of Doom being like some team-building-exercise leader.

“And so now I’m just going to let myself fall back and you’ll all catch me. It’s about trust, people.”

To continue:

Me: You’re texting me from the OR?
Ash: Yep.
Me: That seems odd…is that odd?
Ash: No. I’m not sterile so I’m not gloved and we have our phones to keep in contact with the office.

Well okay sure. When you put it like this it makes sense. So I figured since texting is okay in the office, why not sexting? Maybe it’s not the best idea, but few things work better to get me used to something than being just plain silly about it.

Me: Oh. Well then. What’re ya wearin’?
Ash: Scrubs lol.
Me: Oooh. Yeah baby. Papa like.

See? Getting into it a little bit. Trying to work my mojo just a touch. But then this:

Ash: Lungs are about to come out.

And we’re done.

Turns out I can’t have a conversation, salacious or otherwise, while I know that organs are being removed in the relatively near vicinity of my fellow conversationist. I never knew that about myself, so I guess there’s just one more thing to get use to.

May 14 2012

why i’m not a great novelist

Because I like to feel as though I’m part of at least some kind of literary crowd, I follow both John Green and Neil Gaiman on Tumblr.(1) At different points today they both posted(2) the following image, though the image links through to its original source.

According to my buddies John and Neil, this is fairly accurate. Neil says that really you only need that last panel, but, you know, leave it to Neil to say something like that. I’ll have to take the piss out on him later at the pub.

This comic is great because it explains succinctly why I’m not a novelist. And since everything else more-or-less fits, we only have to examine panels 6, 7 and 9.

Panel 6: Loyal Pet

Oh I have pets. I sure do. As I write this sentence there are eight pets within six feet of me. The problem? They’re all cats. And while cats make wonderful companions, they aren’t exactly the first in line when it comes to swearing oaths of fealty. So obviously before I can be a novelist I need to get a dog. Or I don’t know; I hear horses are loyal. Basically any animal I don’t have to worry would stab me in the back for a huge bag of catnip would suffice.

Panel 7: Neglected spouse

I  don’t have a spouse at the moment, though of course Ashley’s agreed to take the job. The problem is that she’s not neglected.(3) In fact, she probably gets way more attention than she wants from me. And, frankly, if that’s the price of being a great novelist, I’ll settle for being a horrible novelist. Or even mediocre. I’ve been a neglected spouse in the past and let me tell you: the loneliest feeling in the world is when the person who promised to love you forever will still love you forever but doesn’t like you at all. No way is Ashley going through that. Not on my watch, not for any reason. So writing and I will have to come to a compromise on that one.

Panel 9: Years of boring hard work

Neil’s right, of course. This is the only panel that really matters. Being a great fiction writer requires an enormous amount of hard work and, ironically, it’s also the easiest thing in the world to not do. Oh work was rough today. Oh I’m so worn out. I really need to spend more time with my meth lab. Excuses are cheap and easy to come by, to precisely the same degree as bad writing.

It used to be that I’d spend more time writing than doing anything else during any given day. I got out of that habit in fairly short order and, truth be told, I miss it. I’m not unskilled – I’ll admit it – as a writer; I lack the discipline though. I can control many things in my life, but when it comes to sitting down to write I’m about as disciplined as Hunter S. Thompson’s rapid pet monkey on a bender in Vegas.

This is why I’m not a great novelist. This is why I’m not a novelist at all. I work on this blog to make myself feel a bit more like a writer and, while I love blogging, it’s an ersatz replacement.(4) I miss the days when I felt like a writer, when I was part of a real literary community. When I sat down and did the work. Just as much as I miss the days when I didn’t whine about not being a writer.

And it is whining, make no mistake.

  1. They know me as that guy who’s pathologically needy and faux-erudite comments at every turn.
  2. Does one post to Tumblr? Or does one tumbl on Tumblr? I’m terribly confused about this.
  3. At least, I’m pretty sure she’s not. Let me go let her out of her cage and ask.
  4. Like when they went back to the original Becky on Rosanne. Because everyone knows Sarah Chalke is way better than what’s-her-name.
May 9 2012

unequivocal

Today is a big day. In case you haven’t heard, for the first time in history, America has a president who has unequivocally stated his support for same-sex marriage.

[I]t is important for me personally to go ahead and affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married.

In an interview with ABC in the White House, President Obama said he’d always hesitated to voice his support because he thought civil unions would be enough, that he’d overlooked the importance of the tradition of marriage. I don’t know that I believe this, exactly, but I also don’t care.

President Obama, you’ve won my vote in 2012. Just let’s please do something worthwhile with it.

May 8 2012

wild

There are two people to whom the more innocent side of my imagination owe a great debt.

Today we lost one of them.

Mr. Sendak taught me that the Wild Things are just as real as they are scary. And that both qualities depend upon each other.

He also taught me to take care in where I escape to.

So to him I am indebted. I wish you well, Mr. Sendak, wherever the Wild Things find you.

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