Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Man, the terrorists have totally won

Man arrested in Boston marketing ploy
BOSTON - Several illuminated electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. Most if not all of the devices depict a character giving the finger.

Peter Berdovsky, 29, of Arlington, was arrested on one felony charge of placing a hoax device and one charge of disorderly conduct, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said later Wednesday. He had been hired to place the devices, she said.
In case you missed my added emphasis up there, hanging up unauthorized signs is now a fucking FELONY.
Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.



Turner Broadcasting, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, later said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force"? Or maybe "Aqua Teen Terror Force"!
Authorities said some of the objects looked like circuit boards or had wires hanging from them.

Um…how deadly can a bomb powered by four Duracell C-sized batteries be? I mean, you know, roughly…in megatons?
Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old Weymouth resident and a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, heard about the threat as she watched television news coverage while preparing to leave work at 4 p.m.



"I saw the bomb squad guys carrying a paper bag with their bare hands," Higgins said. "I knew it couldn't be too serious."

Oh, Wanda, I beg to differ—we're looking at the new face of terror. Or at a vintage Lite-Brite. Either way….

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Guh…gruhHAAACKH…

aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhggghhhhhh!



NooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO!

Gaaaahhhhhaaaaa! Gaaahaaaaa!

Jesus help my EYES!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr—Ooo, wait a topless chick:



Still…Harry…Potter…grown…pubes….

Gaaaaaaaahhhhhaaaahhh!

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhrrrrrgggghhhhh!

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Coming soon to a calendar near you!

In the future, July 3 will be known as Cruisemas.

Cruise 'is Christ' of Scientology
A source close to the actor, who has risen to one of the church’s top levels, said: “Tom has been told he is Scientology’s Christ-like figure.

“Like Christ, he’s been criticised for his views. But future generations will realise he was right.”
This will happen shortly after future generations realize that Tom Cruise was gay. The question is, will Tom realize this in his current generation?

Obviously, I'm pretty comfortable with libel, but not so much with plagiarism. So, please, allow me to thank Peter Sagal over at NPR's "Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me!" for coining "Cruisemas" on this week's show. However, all opinions concerning Mr. Cruise's sexual-orientation have nothing to do with Mr. Sagal's satire and belong solely to me. I feel justified in my opinions about Tom Cruise's homosexuality—couch jumping and babe-beguiling and silent births aside—because I've seen a few of his movies and…well, I have fucking eyes!

On a more serious note: if you are a current, practicing member of the Church of Scientology, get out! Please! I guarantee you that you have friends and family and loved ones who are very worried about you and would very much like you to come home. If they haven't said anything to you about this worry, that does not mean they think you've made the right choice. If they have said something to you, they are not "merely envious" of your path—they are terrified that, should they say anything more to you, you'll get pissed off and become a Sea Org zombie in retaliation, completely dropping out of their lives and off the face of the planet in the process. Don't become another body in Scientology's foundations. Get out! Please!

Look, I'm not saying to go to some other church; spiritual paths are as varied as the footprints that mark them. Whether you take the path of the world or the path of asceticism, never forget that the path to enlightenment is not a toll road. Never let anyone charge you to do you a favor! At the very worst, enlightenment should be available for free checkout from a public library. At best, it should be given freely by someone who freely loves you.

I'm sorry for running my thoughts through the "Maximum Hyperbole" machine, folks. It's just that this is something I should've said years ago to one specific person. Like most failures, I'm saying it too late and as a generalization.

That doesn't lessen the truth of what I'm saying. Even if it is a case of better never than late.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Positive?

I know I've gone on record as saying that I want to be a less negative person, but today was the sort of day that it's impossible to be positive about. A good chunk of it I spent wishing I could crawl back into the ocean our multi-cellular ancestors worked so hard to escape. Then I got so angry I found myself trying to kill a person I'd never met from a distance of 300 miles using only my mind. Then I went and babysat my nephew, who's such a joy, a beautiful and innocent joy, that I felt a bit better.

Honestly, singing along to the Jack Johnson video for "Upside Down" on the Curious George DVD seemed to help. My nephew didn't care when I didn't know the melody and warbled out of tune.

I don't know. It's been too much of a roller coaster day to process it all. If it's okay with y'all, I'm just going to listen to some random music and crash. Things always look brighter in the morning, y'know?
  1. "Sometime to Return" - Soul Asylum
  2. "Hey Now!" - Oasis
  3. "Surrender" - Cheap Trick
  4. "Holidays In The Sun" - Sex Pistols
  5. "There's No Home for You Here" - The White Stripes
  6. "Eon Blue Apocalypse" - Tool
  7. "Wonderwall" - Oasis
  8. "Electric Avenue" - Eddy Grant
  9. "Lady Madonna" - The Beatles
  10. "All You Need Is Love" - The Beatles
  11. "Waiting Room" - Fugazi
  12. "Ashes Of American Flags" - Wilco
  13. "Love In Vain" - Robert Johnson
  14. "Novacane" - Beck
  15. "Revolution" - The Beatles

This is not fake news

I know that sometimes I link to a story in the Onion, and I don't always make clear that it's not a real news article. Well, please let me point out that this next bit is a real news article, from the Wall Street Journal:

Marketers Pursue the Shallow-Pocketed

Now McCann is launching a $2 million research project to seek clues to tapping demand among Latin America's less-well-off. Starting in March, staffers will spend a week to two weeks living with 100 low-income families in a half-dozen countries, including Colombia, Chile and Mexico, looking to understand how they are influenced by brands, what symbols and celebrities motivate them, and to find innovative ways to influence what they buy….

In recent years, marketing to the poor has become a hot subject. University of Michigan economist C.K. Prahalad helped popularize the idea with his 2004 book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," which argued big companies could profit and help the world's four billion poor or low-income people by finding innovative ways to sell them soap and refrigerators.
There is so much wrong with this, but I'm not going to rant. Nope. I am zen, man, zen.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

It's Friday somewhere

Let us, for the moment, pretend that we are in Dublin. That way, I can do my Friday Shuffle on Friday.
  1. "Turn It Out" - Jurassic 5
  2. "Heaven Is In Your Mind" - Traffic
  3. "It's Expected I'm Gone" - Minutemen
  4. "River Man" - Nick Drake
  5. "New Sensation" - INXS
  6. "Two Beads At the End" - Minutemen
  7. "#1 Hit Song" - Minutemen
  8. "Two At A Time" - Guster
  9. "Bryter Layter" - Nick Drake
  10. "Love & Communication" - Cat Power
  11. "Can't Stand It" - Wilco
  12. "Section 14 (Two Thousand Places)" - The Polyphonic Spree
  13. "Fly" - Nick Drake
  14. "Jesus Christ Pose" - Soundgarden
  15. "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" - Weezer
All right, my little 2-gig iPod, I'm calling you out! You play favorites, little iPod! J'Accuse!

Seriously, as much as I like the Minutemen, I only have three songs by them on my iPod. How many did it play? All three!

Oh, well, whatever. I'll quit bitching about my iPod. Even if it did play the one Weezer song, besides "Only In Dreams", that makes me feel genuinely sad.

So, you ask, what's up with the Friday Shuffle done on Dublin time? Well, you remember how I said that, during my vacation, I'd only be travelling if a miracle occurred? Such a miracle (named Chris & Kate) has occurred and I am going to Aiken for the weekend.

Why?

Because I'm lonely, damn it. I've had a bad, dreary week and I need to go to ground for a bit before I face a week of solitary job-searching and substitute teaching.

Anyway, I won't be around tomorrow to do the shuffle thing. So I did it tonight. I'll post more when I get back.

As you can see from the tone of this post, I'm barely fit for human consumption. I appreciate you all even reading this far.

Monday, January 15, 2007

This isn't really very funny…

…but it is absurd enough that I'd like to call attention to it.

Nation's Gays Demand Right To Library Cards
"No one's preventing gays from using libraries—they're fully welcome to walk into them, browse all they want, and sit down and flip through any book they choose, even in the reference section," said Sen. Jim Bunning (R–KY), one of several conservative legislators who has vowed to draft a constitutional amendment that would define library book-lending as a contract between a library and a heterosexual reader. "But to issue them the same library cards as a regular American citizen would demean what our nation's library cards stand for.

"Is that the message we want to send our young readers?" Bunning added.
I would like to say, on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2007, that I am firmly in favor of homosexuals having full library borrowing rights.

Oh! They should be able to get married, too.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Friday Shuffle!

It is Friday, and my iPod is itching to pick out 15 songs at random. Here it goes.
  1. "Moon Sammy" - Soul Coughing
  2. "Supra Genius" - Soul Coughing
  3. "Lawyers, Guns And Money" - Warren Zevon
  4. "Little Girl" - John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers (with Eric Clapton)
  5. "Rusty Cage" - Soundgarden
  6. "Something/Blue Jay Way [Transition]" - The Beatles
  7. "Introduction" - Nick Drake
  8. "Bladecatcher" - Mastodon
  9. "Old Man" - Neil Young
  10. "Where Eagles Dare" - Iron Maiden
  11. "Swamp Music (Live)" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
  12. "Shadow Stabbing" - Cake
  13. "Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head" - Gorillaz
  14. "Electric Avenue" - Eddy Grant
  15. "Kids With Guns" - Gorillaz
And with that, I sleep.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Surprised by Love

So, for Christmas my niece, Eva, and my nephew, Ezra, were kind enough to send me a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. After much consideration, I decided to take a little bit of a risk and pick up the new Beatles album Love.

Now, if you're not familiar with the concept, it's pretty simple: in order to score the Cirque du Soleil show based on the music of The Beatles—also called Love, of course—George Martin and his son Giles went back into the archives at Abbey Road Studios, grabbed all of the original four-track recordings and…well, I think the phrase the cool kids are using today is something like "mashed them up."

Let me repeat that, clearly: they made new Beatles songs out of bits and pieces of old Beatles songs, in both stereo and 5.1 Dolby surround.

Sounds horrible doesn't it? A high-gloss, reanimated FrankenBeatle nightmare stumbling around and chucking fond memories into wells before the torch bearing purists chase it down and burn it, right?

Well, it's not. It's actually pretty breathtaking.

I'm not going to gush over it too much; the link's up there and y'all can check out snippets of the songs to see if it's to your taste. Plus, there's a great podcast interview with Giles Martin over at NPR's All Songs Considered that'll let you hear the music with some context. Please, feel free.

I'm also not going to justify the project too much. Sure, it was done by George Martin and had the approval of the surviving Beatles and the widows of the dead Beatles, but the cynics will just say they're milking more money from a dated catalog, and I don't know how to argue against that position effectively. So I'm not going to bother.

I will say this: I've been listening to the music of The Beatles—really listening to it, intently listening to it—for over 25 years, now, and it sometimes feels like the musical equivalent of comfort food: it's great, it's easy, it's nice, but it's not very surprising. Love is amazing in that it puts an element of surprise and wonder back into music I've come to love so much that I take it for granted. Sometimes it was so poignant that I was moved to tears.

Also, there's this totally awesome transition into "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" that makes the song seem to coalesce out of the air as if a bunch of fireflies gradually stopped flying randomly and eased into some fragile and complicated ballet. It's weird and beautiful and it really reminds you that this is a song about hallucinating.

That alone was worth the price of admission to me.

Well…that explains some stuff

Bill Parcells: 'I've Always Hated Football'
"Come on—anyone who paid attention to my career must have suspected it.… When did I ever look like I was enjoying myself? When did you last see me smile on the sidelines or in the locker room? You must have at least wondered why I was always so angry with everyone around me.

"I'll tell you why—I was goddamn miserable," Parcells added. "Football sucks."
Although, honestly, this explains a lot more.

And, just for the record, I'm neither a big sports fan nor a big football fan. But I hate the fucking Dallas Cowboys.

Seriously, if Al-Qaeda fielded a football team (possibly called "The Saracens"—would that be more or less politically incorrect than "The Braves" or "The Indians"?) and that team played the Dallas Cowboys, I would totally root for Al-Qaeda. Because I hate the Dallas Cowboys just that fucking much.

R.I.P. Yvonne De Carlo



Although she was no Carolyn Jones, Yvonne De Carlo, who died yesterday, held a very special place in my heart—my prepubescent, black-and-white TV loving, "I can't wait until 'Ultraman' comes on" heart.

And, as these photo galleries of her prove, I find that I was on the wrong side of one of the hip, "Gen-X" pop-culture arguments I loved to instigate: Lily Munster really was hotter than Morticia Addams.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Recklessly...

...naked and running!

Yahoo News: Streaker Struck By Car During Celebrations
Gainesville police said a college student who was streaking on West University Avenue as the city partied in the hours after the Gators national championship victory was struck by a car after he ran into traffic.…

The student suffered a serious head injury and was rushed to Shands hospital in Gainesville, where he was in the trauma center.

GPD did not release the student's name.
Shame, really. That story would be much more tragic if the guy hadn't been…well, you know, naked.

On the job interview front: I went in. I was handed a pop quiz (short answer format) in which I had to write about my philosophies of teaching and learning, outline my discipline plan, highlight my strengths regarding the subject I would be teaching, discuss what I would do to connect with students individually, list those clubs and extra-curricular activities I would be willing to work with or sponsor and flat out state why I was the best candidate for the job. I interviewed. At the end of the interview I was told by the principal that he liked my answers to the quiz and that I had good presentation and that, if I hadn't heard from him by next Tuesday, I should call him. Then he gave me his card, said that while I was a strong candidate he had another interview tomorrow, but that he liked me quite a bit. We shook hands, and I split.

So, I am cautiously optimistic. I could hear something as early as tomorrow. I won't hear anything on Friday (a weather day, hence no school) or on Monday (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, hence no school).

I really feel very good about this interview and, as with all things like this, now that I've done it once, I have less trepidation about doing it again. So, if I don't get this position, I will not feel slighted and I won't be sad. I'll move on to the next interview, just like that.

How's that for weird? Not only do I feel good about the interview, but I feel good about not getting this job and getting an opportunity to go to the next job interview.

Who knew job interviews could be so exciting?

Monday, January 08, 2007

Cautiously...

...super fucking excited.

So, I was sitting around the apartment this morning, drinking coffee, doing my regular morning web-checks and listening to Regis and What's-Her-Face on TV in the background, when my cell phone rang. This was the good ring (the level-up sound from Final Fantasy XI—Metallica's "Creeping Death" [look out on that link, it's very noisy] plays if anyone associated with my current place of employ calls, while Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" [and watch that link, too; it's significantly less noisy, but infinitely more creepy] plays if it's a creditor or a telemarketer) so even though I didn't recognize the number, I answered it anyway.
FEMALE PHONE VOICE: Hi, may I speak with John [my last name]?

ME: (warily) Speaking.

FEMALE PHONE VOICE: I'm calling from the Frank H. Peterson Academies and we're looking for an ELA.

ME: Wow, that's…wait, you're looking for a what?
Well, it turns out that an ELA is an English & Language Arts teacher. And it turns out the Frank H. Peterson Academies (of Technology, no less) are not the weird, Christian, private school I thought they were, but a Duval County accredited magnet school which specializes in prepping kids for getting a good job right out of high school or for continuing their education in a college setting. And it turns out, since they called me, that what I've come to think of as the "burden of desire" doesn't rest on me alone: these folks called ME!

Now, as the Wikipedia entry for the school suggests, this assignment isn't without its darker side: the school seems to have been born out of desperation, out of a desire for the least promising to have a future. They haven't, traditionally, scored very well, especially in reading. They seem, in their mission statement, to emphasize "safety" to such an extent that I, initially, feared for mine.

However, my brother, whose wife is a teacher, had this to say when I asked him what he knew about the school:
The students are very disciplined, they are divided into "academies" like a vocational school so that when they graduate they can go directly into the work force if they want to. We know a spanish teacher at the other academy school and she loves it. Their FCAT grades are low, C's and D's the past few years, a lot of that falls on the English teachers. They are in need of new blood to turn things around.

That's all I know.
New blood. And a teacher in a subject which is, in my mind, much more esoteric than the one I would teach, loves her position at a similar school: loves it and talks about the students being "disciplined."

So, a school that's looking for an infusion has called me? They've not waited for me to call them, but have called ME? Me?

I want this job. And I think it's mine for the taking. For that reason, tonight I am cautiously—cautiously, mind you—really and extremely super fucking excited!

Of course, all of your advice is welcomed, cherished and appreciated.

Please?

Friday, January 05, 2007

Who the heck is Bernard Jenkins?

The obligatory Friday iPod Shuffle…
  1. "Parabol" - Tool
  2. "It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Death Wish" - My Chemical Romance
  3. "Bernard Jenkins" - John Mayall
  4. "Midlife Crisis" - Faith No More
  5. "Wasted Years" - Iron Maiden
  6. "Breadfan" - Metallica
  7. "Song for the Dumped" - Ben Folds Five
  8. "War On War" - Wilco
  9. "Gimme Three Steps" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
  10. "Lawyers, Guns And Money" - Warren Zevon
  11. "Blue Collar Suicide" - The Refreshments
  12. "At Least That's What You Said" - Wilco
  13. "A Shot In The Arm" - Wilco
  14. "Holla!" - G. Love
  15. "Free" - G. Love
…got me thinking "Who the heck is Bernard Jenkins?"

Initially, I just googled the name to see what came up but, before I even started clicking links, I decided that the reality wouldn't be as interesting as I'd like. So, acting as a sort of modern musical haruspex, I used the random songs to piece together this weird semi-story about a thirty-something man separated from his wife, Linda Lou. Bernard, depressed by his loss and overwhelmed by his life's meaninglessness, takes a prodigious and suicidal amount of drugs. Under the influence of these drugs, he hallucinates an entirely new life for himself, one in which he is a dangerous and shady agent working for forces not even he understands. Blending into this new-found—and infinitely more exciting and satisfying—fantasy life are memories of his beloved wife, her return to him in his near-comatose yet wild-eyed state, her attempts to save him, their reconciliation and—as he rants about her obligation to avenge his death and chants about his imminent resurrection—his ultimate demise. These memories and experiences may be real, or they may simply be further hallucinations: his unconscious mind attempting to tie everything up into a satisfyingly tragic-yet-happy package.

(I listen to strangely depressing music, sometimes, don't I? Also, I've been reading a lot of Philip K. Dick lately. Y'all can tell, can't you?)

It's an oddly compelling little tale, and I'd write it down right now if I had the time. But, honestly, today's my day off and I have a lot to do: haircut, groceries, bill-paying, apartment cleaning and, later on this evening, a night out with my brother and a friend of his from when we lived in Rota. So, instead, I've linked the lyrics (with the exception of the two G. Love songs—seemingly there are no reliable transcriptions of those lyrics on the internet yet) so that you guys can read them and, should you wish, write your own stories.

Have fun!