Beep beep ... beep

OH MY GOD this is killing me. Two more hours of sitting here until I can go home. I just watched the Rifftrax of Halloween, and boy was it ever not funny. Also not funny? Sitting here for two more hours until I can go home.

I could edit photos, but then how will I kill time tomorrow? No; Wednesday is make corrections day, Thursday is edit photos day. Wednesday is also lunch day. This Wednesday? Turkish. Great or not great? Not great. Gassy now? A bit. Sleepy? Always.

Additionally, this Wednesday is couldn't see My Bloody Valentine at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night day. Based on everything I've read about their recent shows, I would now be deaf if I had been able to go. I really gotta find out if Ben had been able to sell my ticket, or if I owe him. Of course I owe him. I owe everyone in one way or another. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you.

If Wednesday were a toe, it would have roast beef. I was always perturbed by the insufficient details in that piggy-toe thing. I always thought the five little piggies lived together, in some sort of little piggy house; they are high-functioning swine, what with going to market and all, so it stands to reason that they'd share accomodations to cut costs. It's kind of a dick move, then, for one little piggy to have roast beef while another little piggy has none. Maybe the little piggy is having roast beef is the same little piggy who went to market. This little piggy went to market and had roast beef, while this little piggy stayed home and had none. We will overlook the fact that four separate toes are cast in those two roles, as the entire premise is absurd and not worth closer inspection; toes are not pigs, after all. But the question remains: the little piggy that went wee-wee-wee all the way home -- was that the market little piggy or the home little piggy? (I'm not sure what sound was made by the last little piggy, so I'm using "wee-wee-wee" because I have goat-footed balloonmen on my mind.)

Oh sweet Jesus, 1 hour and 24 minutes to go. Oh sweet Jesus, I'm tempted to see that new Kirk Cameron movie where he plays a firefighter whose addiction to internet porn destroys his marriage and then makes him smash up his computer. But I don't want to pay money to see it. Or waste time seeing it. I wish I could get all the laughs from seeing it without seeing it, bascially. There's apparently a scene where porn addict/firefighter kisses his wife, but Kirk Cameron believes his lusty smooches are reserved for his wife because marriage and god and the bible, so they had Kirk Cameron's real wife put on a wig and she stood in for the actress playing Kirk Cameron's character's wife. MSNBC calls this plan "movie magic" but I call it "who gives a shit" and "why is Kirk Cameron still making movies?"

Come on come on, 1 hour and 23 minutes to go. Come on, daddy needs a new haircut. I'm getting a haircut this evening from Oscar at the hair salon at the mall. Oscar always advises me to get some hair stiffener to stiffen my hair, or maybe it's hair volumizer to volumize my hair; I can't remember because I never buy it. Or do I never buy it because I can't remember? Now there, THERE, is a philosophical question that I can spend hours considering. Hours, but I only need 1 hour and 20 minutes. That's not nearly enough time to come to a conclusion, but just enough to get me out of here.

Aw, nicest "you're a Nazi" compliment ever!

A couple of years ago I was the layout guy at a weekly paper. Tuesday was our main production day. The person who sent me this email was the news editor when I was there, and has recently become editor-in-chief:

Bronwyn came in yesterday and upon asking me how it was going, I said I understood why you were crabby on Tuesdays. But really, I had no idea what the fuck your job was. Now I wish you were back. Not that [the current layout person]'s not great, cuz she is, but you were a nazi, and we would have worked well together. Oh well.

I've never been called a Nazi before, so I'm not sure how this works. I feel really flattered, and I think that's wrong emotion to feel. I might be the first person in over 60 years to feel flattered upon being called a Nazi. I imagine that was a big compliment in ... oh, I don't know, maybe Germany ... around the early 1940's:

"You're such a Nazi!"
"Aw shucks, just doin' my part for the Reich!"

For folks scoring at home, this is the second post this week where I've humanized Nazis. I might have to change my blog's name to "The Lighter Side of Genocide." Or maybe "I'm So Very Very Sorry, World."

We shall never ever never never ever never surrender

My unintended hiatus from blogging (if you must know, it was caused by ennui; I hope to write an inspirational book about the ordeal titled "Ennui: The Silent Killer") has prevented me from writing about The Times of London and its online archive of issues going back to 1785. This archive had been free for the last few months, but today it is going behind the paid-subscription-only curtain so I have to write this post ... fast!

Truthfully, the archive was great in theory but boring in practice. The classified ads from the 1890s looking for nannies all start to look the same after a while. Worse, the paper had no idea how to up-sell the historic value of what it was writing. Fr'instance:

Fig. 1: Issue dated June 5, 1940

First of all, way to go, Churchill. I credit this speech with delaying the Nazi invasion of England because I bet Hitler was all like, "Shit, they're gonna fight us in the fields and in the streets? That was like 90% of our secret strategy! Everybody back to the drawing board, and somebody hang a dude from my inner circle because I'm totally bummed about my fields-n-streets plan getting leaked," and by the time the Nazis had another plan it was too late and the Allies were giving Jerry a capital what-for.

The story appeared on page 3, column 6. It was above the fold, but it still seems like this speech could have been given more prominence. I don't know, maybe Churchill was pumping out wicked-ass speeches on a daily basis and by this point The Times had become tired of him, but more likely the press didn't feel any particular need to up the excitement levels because there was no competition from tv or the internet to sate the public's hunger for news. There was radio, but I don't know if they had all-news radio stations then. And when did the first "News, Traffic, and Weather" radio station start broadcasting? I have to imagine it was sometime after the war, because the traffic updates alone would give an immeasurable tactical advantage to the Nazis.

"Herr Kommandant! Traffic is backed up all along the Ratcliffe Highway, with delays up to 45 minutes! We must plan an alternate route for our invasion!"

"Forget about it, dummkopf; I just heard that the English will fight us in the streets, so our plan is fucked. Let's go back to the lodge and sing songs about the Alps while Hitler thinks of another plan."

Historically inaccurate laffs aside, the best part about the article is the last paragraph:

A great ovation was given to Mr. Churchill when he sat down. The House showed a dislike of any speeches following his, and passed to its apponted business.

This is known in journalism as "being a massive cocktease." What were the speeches following Churchill's? I have to know!

My guess is the speeches were mostly gloryhounds trying to ride the coattails of Churchill's speech. (Can hounds even ride coattails? Yes, if the coattails are long enough, duh.) I imagine the first one was something like this:

To add to what the Prime Minister was saying, I would like to make it clear that we shall fight in the alleys; we shall fight in the underpasses and on the overpasses; we shall fight in the causeways and the canals. We shall never surrender.

And there was much agreement and "pip pip" and "cheerio," and then the second one was something like:

We shall fight in the cheese shops; we shall fight in the haberdashers and the barber shops; we shall fight in the antiquarian book stores. We shall never surrender.

And there were still a "pip-pip" and a "cheerio" to be heard, but there wasn't as much enthusiasm. The grumbling really picked up when one guy chimed in with:

We shall fight in the front yards and in the back yards; we shall fight in the neighbors' yards, even that guy we don't like because he doesn't trim his hedges –

And that guy was shouted down and beaten about the face and neck because really, we have appointed business to get to. Stop wasting everyone's time!

Distilling the problem

From today's Vulture, an excerpt from an interview with cultural critic Chuck Klosterman, who has just had his first novel published:

We obviously have to ask you, why fiction?
Well, you know, everybody keeps asking me that question. I've been asked that question twenty times now. I keep coming up with different answers. I don't know what the correct one is. Have you ever written a novel?

No.
Why not?

Uh … We don't know. We guess we haven't had an idea that could be as big as a novel. We haven't had the time. We don't have the fortitude.
Yeah, I guess my answer is the complete opposite of those.

Not a mad-lib, just an ad-lib

Want ... to ... post ... but ... so ... lazy ... and ... would ... rather ... check ... Google ... Reader ... every ... five ... minutes ... to ... see ... if ... friends ... have ... updated ... their ... blogs ... in ... unfair ... and ... possibly ... hypocritical ... example ... of ... my ... own ... feelings ... of ... give ... and ... take ... in ... interpersonal ... relationships ... but ... there ... comes ... a ... point ... where ... a ... man ... must ... accept ... his ... own ... complicity ... in ... the ... failure ... of ... relationships ... ( ... and ... I ... am ... too ... a ... man ... which ... all ... the ... ladies ... who ... have ... denied ... getting ... pregnant ... by ... me ... can ... attest ... to ... ) ... ( ... apologies ... for ... the ... dangling ... preposition ... ) ... oh ... crap ... it's ... 5 ... p ... m ...

Quittin' time!