This is very sad news.

http://infanttyrone.tumblr.com/post/19033407863/oldtobegin-thefuzzydave-firesign-theatres

I figured it might be time to have at least one visible connection to the world through the internet.

http://infanttyrone.tumblr.com/

I can't believe I didn't get the author of 'Sense & Sensibility.' I'm such a fuckin' cretin. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! *bangs head on desk*

However I just learned that a good friend lost both legs and an arm to an IED in Afghanistan. He is doing well, in good spirits, and learning to walk and operate his new prosthetic limbs. His wife is with him all the time, and he's also about to get his dream job. So, I mean, he's not "OK", but it sounds like he's doing as well as could be expected given the circs.

Why do I feel so guilty, then? Am I guilty that I didn't do a good enough job talking him out of enlisting, even though it had been his plan since childhood? Am I feeling guilty that I never served? Am I feeling guilty for losing track of him and not hearing about this until just now? (It happened in the fall.) I don't know. I'm not sure what to think.

I just know that I feel terrible, and all the people I ran with back when we were pals are scattered all over. I'll be working tonight at the bar where we all used to hang out, and none of them even live around here anymore. It will be an empty room, because of the arctic cold tonight. But I want to sit and drink like we used to drink, and talk about his plans to become a superhero.

The one thing I know is that I refuse to get choked up while riding the CTA. That is not allowed.

Somebody turned on the Antiques Roadshow, and I happened to be looking at it when some fella brings in this large painting of a small farmhouse and a road. He describes how his mother had it hanging in the house all throughout his childhood, and calls it an "old friend."

It's a summer day, and a tall tree casts a dark shadow over a dirt road, along which a wagon travels away from the viewer. A single rider, possibly a boy, sits at the reins. The tree's shadow extends over the roof of a two-story white house, with outbuildings wandering away off the frame. A back porch stands out straight, on risers about two or three feet over the ground. It's dark down there, and probably the domain of cats, kids or dogs, or all three. The walls and angles are all still true, not sloped and weary like old farmhouses can become. It's a young house. The light is bright and sparkles around the tree. You can almost see the dapples across the roof move.

My maternal grandma had a whole bunch of paintings around the house. I am sadly unschooled in the accurate descriptions of different styles of art, but they were all pretty realistic, dark with age and cigarette smoke, and on average portrayed scenes between 100 and 300 years ago. (Anyone know what you might call that?) And as a kid I could sit and look into them, and look, and look... Finding little windmills in the distance, clear as anything from three feet back, but when you got up close its just a smear the size of your thumbnail. Wondering what those peasants were tiling, and why the image looked so suspenseful. Wondering what had made the girl turn around in "Christina's World".

You know what I'd really like? A print of a detailed painting. I have a lot of posters-- mostly of images from comics or show posters. A lot of maps, and a periodic table in the kitchen (where else would you put a big table?) But I like that idea of a painting that's "an old friend," that you can kind of space out into, while you're eating or cooking or talking on the phone. Where you've delved into the identities of the people or the interiors of the buildings.

That would be pretty cool.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/philadelphia_200605A35.html

--but I have to ask; what is the deal with this fella and his Wikileaks? Amazon, Paypal, major credit card companies all treating him like the kid on the playground who has lice? And-- not that I watch the late night talk shows-- but it seems like the general consensus in the media is that he is this awful, awful man who is just...awful.

Now OK, if he really is a rapist, then fuck him. Zero sympathy. But do accused-but-untried rapists get denied access to Amazon? Mastercard? Yes, I know that's a rhetorical question. The US federal government has made no attempt to disguise what they're trying to do.

Is the problem that he's giving away information that may jeopardize American agents and diplomats in the field? But...isn't that what happened to Valerie Plame? On one hand, I can understand the need for secrecy in diplomatic and intelligence endeavors. But on the other, more honest, frankly furious hand, I'm enraged by the U.S.'s stubborn unwillingness to apply transparency to it's own actions.

See part of the problem is that I'm reading a lot of Jane Jacobs, and she has me all het up about how shitty and selfish our taxing bodies are. I'm not going to get into it, but sometime we'll have a beer and ask me again, and I'll get all standing-on-a-chair furious.

Maybe there is something really terrible that's been done by these leaks that I'm not getting. If anyone can explain it to me, why it's a bad thing for us to know what our elected officials and government agencies are actually doing with our taxes and our national reputation, please clue me in. I'm serious-- I'm feeling stupid that I can't understand why everyone hates this guy so much.

(And I apologize for getting all angry-political-guy here in the LJ. I usually reserve this stuff for after-hours at the bar, or when I'm standing on the barricades with a torch and a black flag.)

Current Music: Blame it on Cain--Elvis Costello

Tom Baker will always be my favorite Doctor. And if I'd had the means at that age, I can't say I'd have turned down the hat and scarf. But it is for the best; even I want to smack this ninny around.

(re-posted from http://zoomar.tumblr.com/)

Current Location: nerdlingerville
Current Music: Everyone sez I Love You--the Marx Brothers

Words or phrases it is not recommended to insert "fucking" into for emphasis:

tremendous

'but surely'*

Can you think of others I am missing?

EDIT also--

dog tired

mother's day

there was another one I thought of in the shower but I fergoddit.




*many years ago, in the late Paleolithic, I had a friend who's mother was named Shirley, and this phrase would always get him all het up.

Current Music: Masturbate Wildly-- The Smiths

Downside-- I am too broke to do more than the tiniest amount of laundry, and I am frequently so broke that I don't eat.

Upside-- I don't need as much clean laundry, since suddenly a lot of pants and shirts that were in the "too small" pile fit comfortably, even loosely!

Current Music: Assembly Line-- The Commodores

I have just written a new hit song. It is called Nemo & Joe (Are The Names Of The Cats Who Are Not Getting Any Of This Chicken). The song just kind of came to me; it is my gift. I am booking some studio time and getting together a tite set of session players-- I expect it to hit the shelves at the Sam Goody before Thanksgiving.

Also: while pep-talking a good friend who is having some troubles, the following words came out our mouths:

me:...no but, being self-critical is vital, within reason. I mean, if you find you're writing or designing for the wrong reasons-- OK look, it's just like, you know, Frodo had to take the Ring--

her: Jesus Christ did I just accidentally call 'dial a fuckin' nerd?'

me: no but it is totally a perfect example because see, Boromir wasn't evil, right...?

It for real made sense in the context of the conversation, and I even hesitated a second before I said "Frodo", but it was an awfully nerdy way to make the point. However she knew exactly what I meant so the round goes to me!


And then I broke my teapot.

Current Music: Serenade for Missy-- the Residents

I am not trying to be an asshole here, but--

I was just trying to read my book about the Omega Point and storyless stories at work (the bar) tonight, and we were screening "Ernest Goes To Camp".

Is this a metaphor for my whole damn life?

Current Music: Forty Days & Forty Nights-- Muddy Waters