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Am I Don Johnson or Swanson & Swanson?

I had such a shitty day today that the only thing that made me feel better was looking at pictures of dormice and those baby meerkats Net posted. So, I decided to share the love, and made a FB page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Things-that-are-cute/129764580405783

You like things that are cute, right? Help me fill it with shitloads of cute things. FUCK.

"The forum is ruined" because:

1. "You people aren't doing anything awesome, and what you're doing instead is stupid and worthless."

2. "Nobody joined in my thread/project, so you guys are assholes and suck. I'm deleting what I posted and never posting anything again."

3. "It got quiet in here; I guess nobody cares/the board is dead."

I Googled "Dormice Porn" and there doesn't appear to be any such thing.

You may now begin taking rule 34 bets now.

They fucking love it. They are all over that shit. It's the new banjo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWoPyDLY2Do

Title says it all

As a diehard scavenger, I have always availed myself of the riches of untended fruit trees and other easy-access free food sources in the city. Recently, a friend of mine who has the same mindset clued me in to this website: http://urbanedibles.org/

Does anyone else have something like this in their city? If not... why not start one using Google Maps?

I recently learned that in some jurisdictions, jury duty calls are selected by voting frequency.

Yet another excellent reason not to vote.

Anybody have a link to that blog or article a couple years ago that had pics of moustachiod women? None of this stupid fake-moustache bullshit... I am talking the real thing.

Fucking DORMICE!!!











FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!

is up with all the stupid n00bs?

There seem to be some decent ones mixed in, but really, we just had this three-month run of EXCELLENT noobs, and now this? Are we being punished for something? Or maybe rewarded for something?

... in a few short minutes Eater of Souls will be here to finish up our packing, and I will go offline. See you spags in 11 days-ish!

(Except for Dok and Freeky, who I will see appreciably sooner in analog)

Eater of Souls made a custom map on Google for our trip. Since yesterday, it has acquired something like 1400 views. Obviously, these can't be actual views by real people, so they must be some kind of spiders or bots. Anyone know what they'd be doing?

It seems like some of the animated avatars are locking up my browser for several seconds at a time. Is it just Google Chrome? Is it my Mac Mini? I'll probably just turn avatars off but I was wondering if anyone else was having this problem, because I don't remember it happening until recently.

Good job making everyone on the largest Discordian forum in the world hate your guts. Worthless piece of shit asshole.

You're not even a good troll. You're just kind of a nasty little lump, like a mucousy blob stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

I need to prank Mr. Language, and I need ideas that will be easy to implement, subtle, and cumulative. It ought to be something that won't immediately make him think he's being pranked, but will puzzle him, preferably over the course of a month.

Something along the lines of Cram's paperclip prank would be good, but I'm not sure what I can put in his house that will have that cumulative effect without being noticeably out of place.

Maybe I could hide things in his books? I have thought about slipping strange items into his fridge and cupboards, but since he has a housemate I don't think it would become evident or be funny unless there was a theme to it.

Help!

GET IN HERE

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=25657.msg892789#msg892789

I FOUND YOUR THEME SONG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDVDqJ7o8LE&feature=related

I hate it when my friends and family die. I know that seems self-evident; nobody likes it when people they care about bite the big one. But as you get older, especially when you get to a certain age, the deaths start to pile up.

Granted, I started losing friends pretty early. All four grandparents while I was a kid... hell, that's not unusual. I was pretty broke up when my favorite great-uncle died, but it's when the young people die that it really shakes you up. It started with my first boyfriend-of-sorts, Frankie, a boy I used to mess around with on the cusp of puberty, 16 years old, stabbed to death at school trying to break up a fight... at least, that's the public story. I didn't lose too much sleep over Frankie; he gave me a couple of bloody noses and a black eye, back in the day. It was weird though.

The first one I cried over was Shawn, a girl I worked with when I was 18. We used to commute together to Macheesmo Mouse in Beaverton, listening to Yaz on her car stereo while she told me what an asshole her cheating boyfriend was, and how she was going to leave him. A year later she was dead of the AIDS he gave her.

Jason and Chris both went that way a few years later. I still miss Jason's ridiculous voicemails, and Chris calling me "Princess".

Sharmayne. I still don't know how she died; I only know it was suicide.

In my mid-20's it was my brother Shaman by way of a gun in his mouth. He was a soldier and a poet, and we always thought that he couldn't reconcile the two.

A couple years later my uncle Jerry found out that his melanoma had come back, and that the prognosis was grim. He wasn't one to go out quietly; he flew to Vegas, got drunk, took a bunch of pills and went for a swim.

People think I'm unreasonable for my fear of my loved ones dying. They don't know how eminently reasonable I am.

Who went next? I'm afraid of forgetting someone; I know I'll forget someone, because sometimes I'll remember someone and realize that I'd forgotten them for a while. I think it was Deb, of cancer. That woman would fucking anything, and then she had cancer, and then she was dead.

Jim. My other brother. He was my ex-husband's brother, really, but we were close before and after my marriage. He was my friend. I'll never know if it was related, but in 1997 he was beaten severely and left for dead by his boyfriend; it shattered every bone in his head and left him brain damaged, blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. He had been a handsome man; after several reconstructive surgeries, you could almost see that. They said he wouldn't be able to work again, but he did. He was almost his old self; almost. In 2008 he died of an aneurysm.

My cousin, Matthew. I saw him in the store just a few weeks before a tree fell on him. My other cousin, Misty; not dead but left retarded, childlike after a car accident. She was only 18, blond, brilliant and beautiful. My beloved father-in-law, Sam, stopped eating and drinking after his Alzheimers took him to a point where he felt his dignity was at stake.

Chelle died of cancer last year. I thought she'd be OK; she used to write me about how much my confidence in her inspired her to change her life. She'd had a hard one, but was trying so hard to turn it around and it was WORKING. She was like a little sister. There was no reason for her to have gotten cancer, but she did anyway.

Who am I forgetting?

Today I found out that SaraKay died. An aneurysm. She was about my age, dark hair, grounded, smiling, always ready to go out for breakfast or drink until three; whatever sounded like fun. She gave so much to people, always helping and smiling and real, and she was the kind of person you never felt uncomfortable around. She was never sick; she was just fine. And then she was gone.

I know quite a few people here are fans... this one had me in complete, helpless hysterics.

http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

I have been delighted recently with the increasing awareness and popularity of my favorite sociological study of all time, which most of  you have almost certainly heard me talk about; I have been calling it the Kruger-Dunning Effect because in the paper's publication, Kruger got top billing, but recently it's been remonikered the Dunning-Kruger Effect, because evidently Dunning was the advisor and Kruger was the grad student. I find the re-ordering of the authors' names dubious, though, as IMO they should remain in the original publication order. Regardless, here is an article and interview with David Dunning and it is kind of wonderful:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/

Here's the original paper: http://www.wepapers.com/Papers/70939/Unskilled_and_Unaware_of_It_-_How_Difficulties_in_Recognizing_One's_Own_Incompetence_Lead_to_Inflated_Self-Assessments

I was thinking, yesterday, about Tucson, and what a legendary mecca/hellhole it has grown to be in our own little corner of Discordian mythology.

I think Tucson might actually be our Holy Land, a Discordian Jerusalem. Technically that should mean Payne was born there, but our Lord works in mysterious ways. I mean, in the Holy Land, anything is possible, right?

Pilgrimages will have to be made, and shrines built.

So EFO found a baby chickadee on the sidewalk on the way home from school today; she picked him up and walked with him all the way home, where we set him up in a little nestbox in a cage in the kitchen, and I have been feeding him mush off a popsicle stick. He's probably just a few days from flight, but not quite ready, and just as fearless as can be! He only eats if I cradle him in my palm, and is reluctant to leave my hand. Right now he's on his perch sleeping with his head under his wing DAWWWWWWW OH GOD AGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGH how can anything be that CUTE???

TSIA

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=Mc+Donald's&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=14150+SW+Far+Vista+Dr,+Beaverton,+Washington,+Oregon+97005&gl=us&ei=5goITJzfA6PGM_-_gbYE&ved=0CBQQ8gEwAA&t=h&cid=14245102957590643512&ll=45.510272,-122.988124&spn=0.010466,0.023153&z=16&iwloc=A

I have been considering wearing the hijab for a year, and while doing some research on it I found you on another forum. 

So I'm having an argument on another board about the psychological and emotional impact of female sexual dysfunction and whether it can be compared to erectile dysfunction. I've been surprised by the number of people who are arguing - vehemently - that it can't even be placed in the same category of experiences, and that there is no way for women to understand how traumatic erectile dysfunction is.

Another facet of the argument is whether women can have performance anxiety... because whether a woman is aroused or lubricated, she CAN still "perform"... after all, that hole's there whether she's aroused or not.

Everybody else has 'em.

Here are the only two I could think of. Go!

WHAT'S LIFE WITHOUT STRIFE?

YOU CAN'T SPELL "DISCORD" WITHOUT "DIS".

All other issues aside, I think she is a well-meaning girl. But she has this DOG. The dog is a good dog but totally untrained; she took him to obedience school briefly but she didn't agree with the methods (typical dominance/reward training, very effective with dogs as it fits with their natural pack behavior) so she quit. He has extreme separation anxiety issues, and will bark all day if left alone.

This girl is a postgrad student and is not home very much. The dog DID have range of the back yard, but he really needs to be walked, and preferably taken somewhere to run, twice a day. I don't have time to do it and am not interested in taking over her responsibilities if I did. Her dog is a hunting breed, large and rangy, and dumb as a sack of hair trimmings, but I think he would be trainable if she would put in the effort. He's a barker, very noisy and difficult to control. I am home all day, so for the last two years I have been the person who has put most of the effort into letting him in and out of the back yard and trying to curb his barking.

Now we get to the good part. Because he's not getting enough exercise or attention, he started slipping out of the house and running away, and he does not come when called. He never does it when I open the door, and rarely when the kids do, because we're all pretty good at blocking him, but if ANYONE else comes over he takes advantage of their unwariness to push past them. He has absolutely no wariness of roads or cars and we live near a busy street. It got to the point where, if someone knocked on the door, I would put him in the basement before opening it.

He has also killed several of my trees and shrubs by urinating on them, including a 7-year-old paw-paw that SHOULD have fruited this year. This dog is a huge PITA, and a lot of it could be resolved simply with attention and training... but my housemate wants to spend time with her boyfriend instead of coming home and taking care of her dog.

So, then he figured out he can tear apart the side fence and get out. He did it twice, and the second time, what I had feared finally happened: he got hit by a car. Luckily, only his paw was hurt, but here's where it gets really weird; she handled this by locking him in her room ALL DAY while she's gone. It's ridiculous. A sixty-pound dog should not be locked in a 10x12 room for ten hours at a time. She comes home, takes him for a walk, and then puts him back in her room and goes off to do her own thing. I can understand doing this while his paw is healing, to make sure he rests and doesn't re-injure it, but then

And, OK, I realize I should probably step back instead of letting myself get upset with this, BUT

She is moving out at the end of the month (I am so grateful she decided this on her own, as I was dreading asking her to move) and is talking about how hard it is to find apartments with a big dog, and is trying to get him declared a service animal for her anxiety, so she can more easily find a place. I said "I hate to say it, but to be gently frank, I am not sure an apartment is going to be a good fit with your dog, because of his barking"

And she says, holy shit I could not believe it but she says, "My plan is to (a) move in where they already have dogs that bark and (b) use the spray bark collar and if he can't stop, then I can keep him in my boyfriend's adjacent basement."

The fucking basement. All day. Alone. In a basement. That is so absolutely not OK I can't stand it. I told her that locked in a basement is no life for a dog. She takes him nowhere. Not to the beach or hiking or anything. Ever. She goes to Sauvie's Island all the time with her boyfriend and never takes the dog. He just needs to get out and run, and be trained, and his behavior issues would be resolved. He just needs time and attention. I can't give it to him; I have three kids and two dogs of my own, neither of which have her dog's particular needs. I have neither time nor energy for this dog, which is why I don't have a large hunting breed.

The insanity of a full-time grad student getting a large hunting breed boggles my mind; it's like she has no regard at all for anything other than her own immediate desires. I am upset and frustrated and at the end of my rope; the girl won't even read dog-training books because she "disagrees" with them, meaning essentially that she is willfully ignorant of anything that might contradict what she WANTS to do.

Sigh. I am trying to just ride out the month. After that, what she does is her own problem and at least I don't have to witness it.

I find myself sincerely hoping she's infertile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYJf4J7VBaY

"I ache in the places where I used to play" 

I am celebrating my 39th birthday at 8:00 on Friday night at the Kenton Club, to the accompaniment of my new favorite one-man-band, Ghostwriter.

http://www.endofthewest.com/tourdates.html

Please join me! Keep in mind that it's going to be fuck of crowded so if you like sitting at tables, earlier is better.

I'd been wondering lately where the old glory days went, or whether I just made that shit up in my head, perhaps imagined it out of youth and naivete, where now the same scenes, filtered through my aging and jaded lens, seem tame.

I don't feel jaded though, and that's why I wondered. What happened to the underground clubs? The warehouse parties? The fetish shows? What happened to the depravity?

For a long time I thought that, Portland-style, we had simply beaten the shit out of it with our universal, oh-no-you-first, everyone-is-OK friendly stick. Took the interest right out of it by taking the fetish out of the fetish, the dirt out of the dirt. Where's the thrill if it's not forbidden? When going to a fetish club becomes as happy, as embraced, as socially accepted an experience as walking into a Sanrio store? I thought I knew where the thrill went, but I wasn't willing  to follow it there. It went to One Man One Jar and Two Girls One Cup. It went up to Enumclaw, WA and Mr. Hands. That's a dead end there, I'll tell you that.

Even our strip clubs are pretty, sanitary, social. You can go to a strip club just for the beer and the jalapeno poppers, or have your birthday party at one, invite the boss; he'll bring his wife, everyone will have some good clean fun.

Portland has taken the weird out of everything by putting it in everything.

I remembered the glory days of going to a club in a short skirt and tall boots with ridiculous makeup and hair out to there, and absolutely no idea what you might end up doing or witnessing. Nightlife was exciting, back then. Nights would roll past you in a brilliant, flashy haze of lights and color and mirrors and Spandex, skin, body parts, fetish gear, cocktail glasses and cucumber sandwiches, midnight mac & cheese, coffee at the Jiffy Squid, coke at the rooftop party at that warehouse in the glamorously-named Central Eastside Industrial District. You might see two old men beat the shit out of each other and then fuck in public, you might make out with a stripper in the dirtiest bathroom you've ever seen, you might wake up at six in the morning and have to talk your friend down from surfing the roof of his neighbor's car because he took way too much acid three hours before.

Ahhh, beautiful youth!

We now have sanitized-for-your-protection versions of all these things, and none of them are any fun anymore. Or, if you dare to seek out an underground dance party, you will find that it is entirely populated by you, but you back when you were nineteen and had an endless capacity for vodka drinks and looking amazing in tight clothing, and you will feel ridiculously out of place like a catfish in a tank full of tropicals.

What happened to the old men fucking in public? That's what I want. I want spectacle. I want the old, ugly, insane, infirm, and indeterminate mixing it up with the young and tight and beautiful and naive, just like it was when I was young and tight and beautiful and naive and sometimes got surprise-groped by an octogenarian in drag. That's where things happen and sights are seen and sometimes felt, where it feels badwronggood to see the holyshit didIjustseethat?? And then I'm doing some manual labor and tearing out a ceiling and opening beers with a crowbar and my friend says "Hey have you heard of this thing? It's sort of a queer dance party and it has a lot of bears in thongs but also a lot of dykes and it's also also really mixed with people dressed up in all sorts of fancy crazy shit and I hear it gets pretty weird. Wanna go this Saturday?"

Did you just say "bears in thongs"?

Count me in!


Or Kill Me.

I got a call from the school saying that my kids "have been hanging around the playground" after school with some of my oldest girl's friends, and that, apparently, is Not Permitted as All Students must be Off Campus by 3:15.

So, to recap: children are not allowed to play on the playground after school.   

My oldest daughter calls me every time (from the school phone, in fact) to ask me if she may, and tells me who is there and how long she will stay. I know who these kids are, they are good kids and it is all 100% parent-approved.

I called the school to find out what on earth the story was, and the secretary made some comments about "unsupervised children" so I said "To clarify, we are talking about 12 and 13-year-olds, with cell phones, who are legally allowed to babysit or be out and about on their own" and she said "if the parents allow them to be running around unsupervised that is a family issue" in a tone that implied that letting young teenagers have any responsibility is Bad Parenting. Needless to say, I have pretty strong feelings about the entire interaction.

It may just be the secretary trying to bullshit me, in which case I am overreacting, but if this is actual Portland Public School policy, it will not stand. I have requested a written copy of it.

This is a modified (names removed) version of the letter I sent to the principal, the school board, a local community-activist blogger, and KATU channel 2:

I'm an ACCESS Academy parent and, as other parents are, since my oldest daughter turned of age to babysit and the weather warmed up, I have been allowing her to stay on the playground for a little while with friends after school, to play. The school is about eight blocks from my home, in a safe neighborhood, as you know - most neighborhood parents have their children walk to school - and of course, many people use the field and playground during off-hours.

My daughter is 12-1/2, recently completed CPR training, and her friends are between 12 and 14... all good kids with involved parents, about whom I have no concerns in terms of getting into trouble. My son, 10, likes to play ball and have races with his friends in the field.

However, today I received a phone call from the school secretary saying that children are not allowed to play on the playground after school, and that she was calling all the parents of the offending children to let them know. I asked her if that was a Portland Public Schools policy or just our school's policy, and at first she said she could only answer for our school, but later, when I stated that I was asking for clarification, said it is a PPS policy that applies to all schools. I found the conversation very upsetting and discouraging. My son stayed after school with friends to play in the field frequently last fall while he was still attending Sabin, and I was never notified of this school district policy.

My question is, is this a common policy nationwide? Is it a new policy? Is it something that I, as a parent, should already have been aware of? The secretary was very critical and gave the impression she believes I am a stupid, terrible parent for letting my children play "unsupervised" on the playground, but, while I realize that we live in a culture of protection, at 12 years old a child is legally (and this is widely socially accepted and practiced, not a mere formality) capable not only of supervising themselves, but of supervising younger children. Because of this, I do not see the logic behind not allowing children of this age to play or supervise younger children on the playground after school hours. I am also curious whether this is a pervasive or common policy, as it is new to me. The playground has baseball diamonds, a large field for running, as well as swings and a basketball court. I have often seen young neighborhood residents skateboarding or playing ball there during off-hours.

When I asked if the playground and fields are not public property, the secretary told me that the children can go to a public park, but must be off school grounds by 3:15pm, which did not answer my question. I was under the impression that the playground is also a public park. If the playground is a public park, is this policy legal? If it is not a public park, why is it open to the public off-hours for basketball or dogwalking? At what point after school hours do the children attending school cease being under the rule of school policy and become "neighborhood residents" to whom general use of the public areas is available? It seems to do children more harm than good to shut them off from it, as it offers them one less option for healthy, outdoor, non-troublemaking fun. I also wonder if that policy means that children will not be allowed to use the playground during the summer. Will school-age babysitters be allowed to bring their younger charges to the playground, or will that be against the policy?

Clearly, as would any parent, I want to know if my children are causing problems. I rely on the communication network of my fellow parents, as well as the tattletale instinct of other kids, to inform me if this happens. I need to know so I can discipline them for inappropriate behaviors, as well as reward them for behaving socially and responsibly. My children have a cell phone with them. I feel that I am taking a reasonable balance between teaching them caution and giving them the appropriate freedom to develop responsibility, self-awareness, and independence. The idea that children of an age to legally supervise themselves and other children may not play on the public, publicly-funded playground after school seems contrary to the statement that it's for safety reasons.

I have asked the principal for a copy of the policy so that I may better understand it. I think this is a serious issue for parents, especially in an educational climate where things like tag, hugging, and swingsets are being banned from schoolyards.

In Oregon, school playgrounds are public property weekends & after hours... people take their dogs there to play, use the basketball court, etc. I believe the posted rule is that you can't use it after dark, which is also true of other public park areas. I will find out exactly what the laws are for public use of school playgrounds, and whether a public school in Oregon can legally set a policy for students that prohibits them from the normal use of school playgrounds that all other residents are entitled to.

From talking to a few people so far, it sounds like the secretary was overstating the school's authority, and the policy (which is surely insurance-based) cannot cover the playground because it's open to the public after hours. I will find out for sure soon enough.

Oh, and a close family friend just happens to both live in my neighborhood AND be on the State school board, so I sent a copy of my letter to him.

I think I just became a "community activist"...

Huh, I might have enjoyed this but I fucking hate you and everything you post seems to get trapped in my "this is probably stupid" filter.

...upon these delightful Chinese knockoff toys.

http://www.geekologie.com/2010/04/not_so_super_chinese_superhero.php

I am among the nation's great unwashed masses of discontent.

Sunday mornings always do it for me. This is the morning when the fathers come to pick up my children, leaving me in my vast empty house all alone and usually bruised and/or mildly hung-over from whatever Saturday night shenanigans I got up to (hardly anyone was hurt and only one window got broken). I shower and oil my hair and my skin until I'm soft and glowing as an Egyptian whore and, depending on whether they've been assholes lately, put on something that will remind my exes that they will never, ever tap this again, hand off my kids with the requisite polite small talk, and bam. Door closes. Silence falls.

At first I clean. This is my big chance, you know? Three days of not having a sink constantly full of dishes, and towels that have been used to wipe up something questionable, dragged through a pile of dog hair, and then hung back up on the hook for the unwary showerer to anoint their face with.

And then, with a reasonable amount of vacuuming and laundry out of the way, I sit in my office with the sunlight pouring through the window, and I am discontent. An hour ago I was annoyed because my pubescent daughter would not stop rattling on about some anime she's really into, and now I don't know what to do with the absence of her noise. I look out at the cedar fence that separates my yard from the neighbor's and contemplate selling the house. I had a view of Mt. Hood, now I have a view of recently-built, overpriced townhouses. But I've got six, almost seven years worth of growing time on those fruit trees, and my garden is finally, for the first time since I bought the house, perfect.

I am discontent about my view.
I am discontent about my floor plan. This is a really shitty floor plan... who thought that would be a good idea?
I am discontent because nobody has called me back about hiking today and I don't really feel like going alone.
I have the problems of the lucky.

I am an ingrate.

Yesterday, in the grocery store buying birthday presents for my son's friends, I stopped in the frozen dinner aisle for what may have been the first time in my entire life, and I saw these little microwave entrees for a dollar each. A dollar. What the hell, that looks pretty fucking questionable. I selected a dozen of the more revolting-looking ones and trundled them along with my sixer of High Life tallboys (for the demolition, for fuck's sake. You can't do proper demolition without Miller High Life in cans) to round up my son and make my purchase.

Now, for fun, for shits and giggles, I'm sitting in my office eating a goddamn Salisbury Steak I got for a dollar. It is 100% as disgusting as you probably imagine it to be, and I'm enjoying the fuck out of it.

Later, I'm going grocery shopping at the Dollar Store. For thrills. For food that not only I, but pretty much no one, wants to eat.

This is America, guys.

What just happened to the "Teabagger tool attacks kid" thread?

Everybody needs to listen to them. Mumford & Sons.

My friend came in while I was sleeping last night, and put a CD and a pack of cigarettes in my purse with a note that says "#5 is you".

This was #5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Od0PJp6GI

I have never heard of these guys before. They are amazing. Amazing. How do musicians distill so cleanly the trouble in the spirit of human relationships? And how did my friend know so perfectly exactly what I needed?

Whenever someone says there's no good music anymore, I want to ask them, are you going out? Are you trading mix discs with friends? Are you on the internet, following links? Where are you finding this bad music, because every time I turn around there is someone new making music that blows me away. Completely.

I'm starting a new thread because the old thread is full of fail and OT and needs to be abandoned. Clean me. If I don't get any good stories out of this one I'll send each of you a tube of salve.

So, current status: Still "almost single". Why my fucking husband won't just finish up this divorce is beyond me. The state won't let us get divorced until he has life insurance. I hate you, Oregon. I fucking hate you.

I just started dating an incredibly hot, incredibly nerdy scooter boi. I really can't believe I'm dating a programmer who rides a scooter; a month ago, before I saw this glamorous thing in a short skirt, I would have said ew. I also suspect him of being a trust-fund baby; just something about him, and how he doesn't have a job and isn't in school and has no debt, but has a nice apartment and a new car. But he is damn pretty, Italian, and likes to dress up as a girl. I am sold.

He is also really "down to eather and ok with what's up", which is good, because this is going nowhere and we are both comfortable with that.

In the meantime, my FBF has been trying for no less than two years to set me up with this guy Mr. Language who is one of her other best friends. Unfortunately, during this time I have been completely unable to pay attention, because first, well, I wrote 55 poems about... it, and then Mario (when I started seeing Mario she threw her hands up and said "Well fuck it. No one can compete with THAT"). But chance is sometimes kind, and the other night hanging out with my friend The Impossibly Short Eclectic Artist on her birthday, Mr. Language came into the Red Fox which is my favorite bar (also the only bar where the owner hugs me) and I had a conversation with him, and it was really good, and suddenly I realized that Mr. Language is quite appealing, in a let's-not-be-hasty way. In a seriously, let's not only not be hasty, but if we go there we had best fucking mean it way.

Which does not at all resolve my other problem, which in terms of Mr. Language becomes a pretty major problem, of having been in love with my non-FBF, who I conscientiously rarely mention, for the last three years, which perhaps I will someday just come to terms with and move past, allowing it to become a background hum as I go on with my stupid love life.

My latest obsession.

Nigel's Lazy Berbere:

2 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. fenugreek
1⁄2 tsp. black pepper
1⁄4 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. cardamom
1/8 tsp. cloves

OK, here's the lazy part. Usually all of the above are whole, and you toast them in a skillet and then grind them. The toasting is crucial to the flavor. However, I couldn't find my spice grinder OR my whole allspice, so I came up with the cunning plan of mixing pre-ground spices together, spreading the mixture thinly in a pie tin, and toasting it in the toaster oven. It worked fine! Probably not as good as using whole spices and then grinding them, but close enough.

Then mix the toasted spices with:

1⁄2 cup onion powder or granules
2 tsp. cayenne pepper
3 tbsp. paprika
2 tsp. salt
1⁄2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1⁄2 tsp. ground ginger
1⁄2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Store it in a jar & you're good to go!

The answer to everything in the whole world:

http://www.pedisedate.com/Home.html

PediSedate is a medical device consisting of a colorful, toy-like headset that connects to a game component such as the  Nintendo Game Boy system or a portable CD player. Once the child places it on his or her head and swings the snorkel down from its resting place atop the head, PediSedate transparently monitors respiratory function and distributes nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas. The child comfortably becomes sedated while playing with a Nintendo Game Boy system or listening to music.

I actually laughed out loud reading this article, because I was talking to The Enucleator this morning about how I'm gonna have to stop drinking to lose this last ten pounds, and last night I commented to FBF that I can't believe I haven't gotten hell of fat considering all the beer I've had over the last three months.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1970612,00.html

The best part is where they say that women who drink consume more calories overall, but stay thinner ANYWAY.

WHERE'S MY FUCKING BOURBON?

The end of the world. It's a different place for everyone, but everyone knows where theirs is, although sometimes they don't know where to find it until the moment they need it.

That highway calls to us, the highway to the end of the world. If you feel inside of yourself,  you'll see you know instinctively where the beginning is. Sometimes, driving, you might have the sudden urge to take that freeway entrance, make that turn, and just drive.

It's not like the lure of the bridges; the bridges are something outside of you, coercive, malicious. The siren song of the bridges is to distract you, to trick you. The bridges, beautiful, old; they have no love for you, other than their love of your sorrow. Just walk across one, you'll see what I mean, the water glinting grey and deep between the slats under your feet.

No, the end of the world is something inside of you, which is why all the bridges stay the same for everyone, but everyone's end of the world is different. It may be only a few minutes from home, but usually it's a long drive away. The end of the world is not danger, it is solace. It's where you go in your mind when everything is crumbling, the place you long for when the steel band circling your heart is two notches too tight. You close your eyes and feel it calling for you, yearning for you, loving you. It wants you there as much as you want to go.

Down the street, a left turn, a slight right, up the freeway north, north through the city and past the volcano, past where the cooling towers used to be, through the small towns and the capital, past the religious nut with the billboard and past the 47-year-old Columbus Day Storm snags of trees jutting like broken teeth along the wind tunnel of the I-5 corridor, north into the riparian jungle, the wetlands and marshes, off the freeway and onto the highway, past the casino, off the highway and onto the winding rural roads that take you through the reservations and the small, small towns, north until you get to the place where you can't go north anymore, and you get out of the car and walk through the trees to the spot where the water crashes against the rocks 60 feet below, and maybe you take a small object out of your pocket and throw it, or maybe you sit on the edge looking down, or maybe you don't, and you know that in all this solitude, in all this quiet, your dirt and loss and all your pain will be washed away, washed clean and smooth like an eggshell, like the blank slate you imagine you used to be, and out here at the end of the world no one will ever, ever find you.


Where is your end of the world? Where is it, Dok?

When I was a kid, everyone let their dogs out to roam. It was a barely-urban neighborhood on the fringes of town, and no one thought twice about opening the front door and giving their dogs freedom to roam. It was just what was done. Kids, too; mothers opened the doors in the morning to let the kids out to play, and we roamed the streets freely, kids from three on up, crossing over to knock on our friend's doors; can Kylie come out to play?

It is a time that is still mimicked in rural and small-town arenas across the globe.

Nowadays, that concept is anathema to any urban dwellers. Dogs are to be contained, fenced, leashed, and children too. We no longer range freely to the yards and parks in our neighborhood, constrained only to be within hearing distance of our mother's front-porch calls of "Kylie! Sarah! Dinner!"

And we feel constrained, so we idealize the times of complete freedom, and circulate emails about the era when we were free, and demonize the terrible constraints we feel we have been put under.

But time and sensibilities move on, and we forget about the times that a neighbor's dog was hit by a car, that a child was brutalized, that our friends died because they were not under a watchful eye. We forget that, just as gunfights were penalized as civilization marched across the West, parents learned from the times children were bullied, brutalized, abducted, murdered, that we learned from the mistakes that created casualties among our peers, that it is not the best idea to let our dogs roam among cars, that it is not the best idea to put children out into our streets unprotected. We remember our parents as the ones who survived unharmed, and we forget their friends and siblings who drowned, died in traffic or tractor accidents, who disappeared or were left maimed, and we create a fantasy in which we all were free to do as we we wished and remained safe anyway.

So we demonize the culture of protection, and fantasize about an imaginary culture of freedom in which no one was harmed. We forget about growing up with car-struck dogs and kids who died or were beaten or vanished, and we pretend that everything, in that idyllic imaginary time when everyone was free, was actually perfectly okay.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100322-206018.html

Man inserts zucchini into anus in suicide attempt

A 62-year-old man was rushed to hospital after he attempted to take his own life the ancient way.

The sexagenarian inserted a zucchini into his anus in the attempted suicide at his home in Hong Kong on Friday.

According to Ming Bao, the man's daughter who returned home at about 10.40pm was shocked to see her father moaning in pain and lying in a pool of blood.


She rushed him to the hospital for bleeding in the anus.

When asked by the medical assistants, the man said he wished to die and that it was an ancient way to take one's own life.

The man is recuperating at the hospital after doctors removed the zucchini that was left in his rectum.

What the hell kind of demon zucchini do they have in Hong Kong? And how does inserting a vegetable into your bum cause bleeding? What the hell is the deal with this? Also, what kind of ancient suicide technique involves bleeding to death from one's ass? Wouldn't it occur to someone that being found dead in a pool of ass-blood by your relatives would be... I don't even know what to say.

Seriously, this thread is terrible. What am I even thinking?

A while back I posted this link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/17/BAGI1CGM1H.DTL

The board I found it on went on to have a fairly heated discussion about sustainable farming practices and whether Lierre Keith's claims that strictly vegetarian farming is harder on the environment than diverse farming. Coming from a standpoint of sustainability, it does seem that some non-predator animals need to be involved in the local farming loop in order to produce manures to enrich the soil.

Thoughts?

I haven't yet read the Omnivore's Dilemma but I think it also touches a bit on biodiverse sustainable farming practices.

You. Yes, you. The mess. You in the corner with the bottle of whiskey. Your life is a mess, and you know whose fault it is? Yours. That's right. YOU'RE the one who picked that asshole in the first place, didn't you? So it's your fault he cheated on you. The divorce is your fault, because you should have stuck by your man no matter whose unhappiness it entailed.

Shut your whore mouth. Don't try to talk to me about "rebuilding" or "holding it together after a divorce". We're talking about blame here, and I am placing it squarely on you. Why? Because I want you to suffer for what you've done. You are a bad, bad woman; a slut. A loudmouth slut who uses foul language. SHUT UP, BITCH. Listen to me; I've said it once and I'm going to say it again. Your life is a mess, and it's YOUR FAULT.

It's your fault you lost your job, too. Yes. I don't care if it's because the company went bankrupt; it's still your fault. Because I don't like you. Yes, that's why, you nasty whore! Your fault! I said so! And your heart getting broken the way it did, that's your fault because you cruise the internet looking for dicks to suck. That IS what you're doing, because I said so. If you were a proper lady and didn't use internet personals to meet people, you wouldn't have gotten hurt, so you deserved it.

I got green and I got blues
and everyday there's a little less difference between the two.
So I belly-up and disappear.
Well I ain't really drowning 'cause I see the beach from here.   

-Drive-By Truckers

You know, there's an interesting thing that happens when people get divorced. Their whole future, everything they planned for, falls apart, and they usually fall apart too, for a while. They flail around looking for ground, trying to find something by which they can get their bearing in this new, frightening world without a future. They might drink too much or sink into depression or get into bar fights or fuck the next warm body that comes along, or do all of the above. And then, gradually, they come out of it, and look around at what they still have, and start building a future from that. Sometimes there's a whole lot left.

I'm sick of this sanctimonious idea-gone-memetic, started by damned-if-I-remember-who, that my life is a mess and it's my own fault. My life isn't any more of a mess than anyone else going through divorce, and it's a damn sight less of a mess than most. I have a house, three beautiful healthy well-adjusted children, steady work I enjoy, and caring friends. I have virtually no debt, and perfect credit. I show regularly in a local art gallery and I have a fair body of poetry to show for my experiences. I get along with my exes and am close friends with almost everyone I've dated.

Where's the mess? My heart? Show me someone going through a divorce after seven years whose heart isn't a mess. Fuck that, show me someone going through a breakup whose heart isn't a mess. My heart is in surprisingly good shape, actually; it's a hopeful heart, and I will continue writing about what I do with it. If you don't like it, don't read it, and please, keep your smug-attempts-at-karmic-rationalization-for-your-own-life-disguised-as-armchair-psychoanalysis to yourself.

RAAAAARRRRR UNSTOPPABLE POWER!



http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24592.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24307.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=22346.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24483.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24589.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23339.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23776.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=21967.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24143.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23530.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23801.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23346.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23426.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20471.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=22356.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20816.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24434.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20156.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=22368.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=22250.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=22372.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20620.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20745.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=21099.0
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=19918.0

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/17/BAGI1CGM1H.DTL

It's almost like an Onion story, except it further serves to highlight why I hate people who choose to believe in simple solutions to complex situations, like food-faddists, like anti-vaccine people, or people who think that raw milk is a panacaea.   

"The Original Punk/Folk Troubadour"

All I know is that he was playing in some shithole called Duckett's, and he was fucking awesome. He's also playing the World Famous Kenton Club next month and I am definitely going.

http://www.endofthewest.com/