Vernacular Craptacular

Ke$ha = Uffie

2010-01-11T01:57:00.000-08:00

I should stop bitching about the quality of pop music, because it makes me look like a contrary, alternative, elitist, indie music asshole, but...well, here it is anyway.

Uffie = Ke$ha

Tonight Tonight

2010-01-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

Take a listen, but try not to let this get to you like it did me.

Tonight Tonight

19 songs represented here, at least 1/4 of them are from 2009.

This is everything I hate about American Pop, but I'm not quite sure why. I guess I can't believe that the English-speaking world values the immediate future as much as these songs seem to imply. It seems too easy to dismiss the similarity in these songs as simple plagiarism or laziness (although Ke$ha's performance in "Tik Tok" is already biting off of Uffie's in "Get This Party Started," so I can't give her writer much credit, either).

Now if we as a culture do fetishize the endless possibility of "the night ahead," then perhaps these songs are a perfect and beautiful reflection of the era that birthed them, in which case I'll have to come to terms with that. Is there really something about that beat, those chords, those instruments that make a composer think of all the times he's pined for a perfect end to a shitty day? Maybe it's the American belief that anything is possible, or a lifestyle of wasting away in tedious jobs, or some deep-seated tendency in our cultural genetics to place all of one's hope and expectation into a single moment, even at the risk of total devestation in the wake of its (usually inevitable) lack of realization. Maybe we listen to this music to get us back to that place that music often takes us, between heartache and joy, nostalgia and possibility. Like a drug or a meditation, depending on how you take it, this music can feed into whatever it is we get from feeling strongly, even at the expense of taste and good judgement (you know there's a club somewhere where people are all chanting the call and response from The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feelin'", including the Hebrew).

Maybe I'm just judgmental, cynical, or soullessly pragmatic, because these songs are popular as shit. And don't take offense if you're totally into Daughtry or Train, because Jimmy Eat World has three entries in this compilation, and they're one of my favorite bands. Still, shoot me if I ever write a song obsessing about "tonight." I think I'll stick with obsessing about the past. That sounds healthy.

Vandella iMix

2010-01-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

If you're so inclined, get an iTunes account and rate this iMix and this iMix. Help Vandella get some iTunes publicity! This shit's goin' viral!

SF Music

2010-01-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

Did some show promotion this weekend with Vandella, on the street and on the radio - super fun!

Vandella on the street; Haight and Masonic in San Francisco

Vandella at Pirate Cat Radio, Florida and 21st, San Francisco

Also got some videos from the December show:

Vandella Show!

2009-12-16T23:36:00.000-08:00

Auto Show

2009-11-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

Went to an auto show with a friend yesterday, which was kind of strange, since I just learned how to change a spare tire and used to think V8 was only a tomatoey soup-beverage. The incidence of booth babes was almost zero, which I guess was due to the fact that most of the cars there weren't souped-up hot rods, but mild and sensible sedans and vans represented by mild and sensible women in pantsuits.

This car had a spare car on top:

I was also introduced to the cutting edge of American car technology and the pride of Chrysler's 2010 line: The Backseat Table. Putting our bailout tax money to good use, I see.

Also, adding to such model name gems as the "Veracruz" and "Genesis" was the Hyundai Equus, which brings to mind some uncomfortable intimacy issues and the sexualization of horses. I'm not quite sure what they were trying to get across with this one, but that's probably not it.

One of the cooler cars was the 1937 Housecar. Awesome! Back then you could be partially homeless in style.

Ford tried to reach their android demographic by employing a soulless robot to answer questions about its products. I don't know why those two girls aren't more scared; it looks like it could kill them in their sleep.

The "green vehicles" section was distressingly empty, ugly, and low-energy. Do you see this??? It's a fuel cell! That's clean fucking energy! Why is it sequestered to the dark corner near the bathrooms? It should be on a golden pedestal at the entrance!

There was a "clean energy" bright spot, however; in the Segway test drives. These people ate that shit up. It must be because you look so cool when you ride them:

Some minor merchants also peddled their wares, including this guy, who was doing an incredible job of convincing a small crowd that they needed better car wax:

All in all, a strange and wonderfully awkward event. The convention box office dealt exclusively in cash, so I hope that doesn't make me party to future tax fraud. And I don't really want to buy a car more than once every ten years or so, so I hope that doesn't make me un-American. And I had Thai food in SOMA afterwards, so I really hope that doesn't make me a Yuppie. But it might.

Shootin' Goobers is unleashed!

2009-11-16T17:59:00.000-08:00

This is a game I made; still missing music, better art, leaderboards, and more levels and bosses, but you can play it here. It's kind of like Galaga. It's a lot like Galaga.

UPDATE: You can play it right here.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T12:40:00.001-07:00

Snobbery and Shmuckery

2009-10-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for my drink at a cafe today and a guy went to pick up his macchiato. He kind of stopped dead for a couple seconds and just looked into his cup, which I thought was hilarious since he was obviously expecting something more along the lines of what Starbucks serves. He walked back to his girlfriend in a daze, still gazing into his anemic drink. He still didn't quite believe it when he told her, "It's just, like, espresso." She said she was sorry in the way you tell a 5-year-old you're sorry the bug he just made friends with in the park flew away without saying goodbye. He was moved to ask the employees what a macchiato was, exactly, which is either pretty bold or pretty thick, since when this happened to me the first time I figured it out and was too embarrassed to protest.

The employees had to know by his bewildered face what had happened, but they feigned this total unawareness of the Starbucks menu, "A macchiato's just a shot with foam; 'macchiato' means marked, so the coffee's just marked with foam. Oh, you wanted like a Starbucks sort of...?" They left that question open-ended, inviting him to further belie his naivete. Another customer in line took it upon herself to help the poor gentleman by telling him in the most condescending tone I've heard outside of a Chloe outlet store, "You probably wanted a mocha or something, or a latte with lots of sugar and stuff." Well, yes he did, but hell if anyone with any pride at all was going to ask for one now. He went back to his girlfriend who offered up another helpless apology on behalf of the universe, and the folks in the cafe went back to ordering and drink sophisticated coffee like sophisticated people.

Neat Drums

2009-10-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

I've never heard of this instrument before, but it's really sweet in a "don't play it at a party" kind of way.

Drum Kit

2009-10-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

This rocks; it reminds me of Kraftwerk's website.

A/V Club

2009-10-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a clip a few of my friends from way back when made, though I saw it for the first time today. Props for making something so short so awesome.

Nazis AHH

2009-10-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

Stephanie and I found a bunch of old letters at a flea market written to one J. Lowell Groves over the course of several decades of his life. He was in the army, and one was even a love letter written overseas on Valentine's Day. Very touching. But his family, or his estate, sold off the whole lot at an auction, and this lady at the flea market was letting them go for $1/piece. She very obviously failed to grasp the story that lay within the papers she described to us as "pretty" and was splitting among hundreds of flea marketers such as ourselves. Anyway, here's one of them:

In case you missed it, it's from Munich, "Capital of the Movement," July 6, 1937, right smack in the middle of the Third Reich.

This month in Nazi Germany: the Buchenwald concentration camp opened not 250 miles from where this letter was sent. You can also see the postmark advertising the opening of Munich's "House of German Art" two weeks later, photographed here:

Thankfully, the region's dubious political climate didn't yet trouble the existence of Groves' correspondent, Mildred (and Georgie, by proxy), who was apparently on vacation at the Hotel Leinfelder which may or may not still be around, given the liberal airstrikes on Munich toward the end of the war and lack of the hotel's Google presence. The beginning of the letter:

Dear Lowell:

Very happy to get letter. Lord knows after struggling with foreign signs, directions, reading some good old English writing is very soothing.

Little Georgie boy is suffering from a beer "head" this morning so we are sticking close to the hotel in case their should be a sudden relief, and I don't think the citizens of Munich would like to see anyone hanging his head over one of their fountains, although geo. was doing pretty well for himself in the park out here, but it was a little crowded and one can't commune with one's inner-most self when there are so many passing by.

No biggie - just chillin' in the Third Reich getting drunk and having a good time. Those foreign signs! I know! At least there are plenty of friendly gestapo to help translate. Just don't ask about the ones that say "Juden auf diese Weise." Well, whatever; I can't blame them for not overthrowing the Nazis on their vacation; and it's probably best Georgie didn't throw up in any public fountains.

SF

2009-10-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Working from home is the best fucking thing in the world. It's restoring my sanity.

Pony Express

2009-09-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a little postcard treatment I added to one of our band photos. Show's comin' up! Get a free EP with your $5 ticket!

Kimo's - Vandella w/The Mission Three
September 30th, 8PM
San Francisco, CA

Stephanie thinks it looks like a dooshy (douchey?) Nickelback poster, and I guess I know what she means.

She Don't Give a FUCK

2009-09-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

Achievement

2009-09-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Solvent got Best Music, baby! Also Best Cinematography and lots of compliments from the judges (though not much from the contestants).

I'd Like to Thank the Judges

2009-09-11T10:33:00.001-07:00

"Solvent," our 48-hr train wreck of good intentions, was nominated for 6 awards in the contest/festival: Best Film, Directing, Writing, Music, Editing, and Graphics. You may remember the aftermath of that project, which was a clusterfuck of ditched footage and cobbled together voiceover. Like the majestic phoenix, this project was burned to the ground to form something that, in the eyes of some beholders, is beautiful. It's a bit baffling, because "Solvent" really is a pretty incoherent video, but as there is obviously no accounting for taste, there's something to be said for style without substance, at least if you're trying to win awards.

Vandella EP

2009-09-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with a new band for the last couple months, and we just finished recording an EP. The release show is September 30th at Kimo's in downtown SF. No word on the rest of the bill, but it should be a night with a lot of good music. Here are a couple songs from the CD:

Spring
Handful of Miles

ATTENTION SPAN

2009-09-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

THE INTERNET HAS DESTROYED MY ATTENTION SPAN. I CANNOT READ BOOKS OR WATCH MOVIES IN THEIR ENTIRETY. ALSO I CAN'T LISTEN TO PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THE SAME THING FOR VERY LONG.

Fucking marketing

2009-08-31T20:42:00.000-07:00

Marketing is the shittiest profession in the world, because it's all about how to manipulate people to think or do what you want them to. More likely, it's about trying to make them think or do what someone else wants them to. Advertisers and market researchers have to constantly navigate the fact that no one wants to fucking talk to them because they suck so hard, so they do things like pretend to be Average Joes on forums, or update their own wikipedia pages, or manufacture amateurism in those bullshit viral videos. The best marketers are the best liars. The really great, super-rich ones, are the guys that have learned to lie to their friends, their family, and themselves, and do so every day of their lives.

YAY?

2009-08-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

All Rights Reserved

2009-08-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

These are the band names I'm reserving the exclusive right to use in the future:

Trailer Park Bingo
President D and the Gumshoes
Laphy Taphy
Mealy McGee and the Ramshackle Bandits
Raptor Tractor
Hey, That's My Cheese
Bill Trist and the Sloots
Macrame, Bitches
Radiohead

Should any suchly-named band start making money off of my awesome creative prowess, then I expect to get some free shit.

Hour 49

2009-08-19T15:07:00.001-07:00

Well, the movie turned out a lot differently than most of us expected, in the sense that there was no dialogue and an only vague sense of story. A lesson I learned making my senior project was that atmosphere, pacing, and high-concept, are no substitute for appealing characters and drama. The style has to support the content of a story, not subordinate it completely. However, I think the need for communication and trust was made clear in the process, so hopefully we can grow as a creative group. Also, it made me want to write stories more regularly. Maybe one of them will be good.

Here it is; I did the music:

48 hours

2009-08-13T21:55:00.001-07:00

Working on a 48 hour film festival project this weekend. It feels really good to make stuff for myself again, instead of for other people. Not that I have an issue with other people, or the things they want to produce, but...there's some stuff I just don't give a crap about and have to work on anyway.

Are people going to look back on this decade in film and refer to it as the "post-apocalyptic era?" Because there's a strange fascination among filmmakers right now, myself included, towards that subject matter. I like the severity of the situation the characters are put in. Something about a complete lack of resources and companionship brings out the truth about a character's identity, since they no longer have social mores or ambitions shaping the way they behave. It's also about the farthest you can get from the everyday and still maintain some modicum of realism. It's also a version of the world that gets closer and closer to home each CO2-burning day. Maybe the extreme setting is a byproduct of action and sci-fi movies that one-up each other intensity-wise until there's nowhere left to go but Crank 2: High Voltage. The age of shocking action films is at an end, I think, at least until holograms or some shit get invented.

I only bring this up because our film's approach has already been decided upon. Our characters will inhabit a barren post-civilization wasteland. Keep in mind, of course, that our genre has yet to be set by the festival's organizers. At this point, I'm all for a non-sci-fi post-apocalypse. In fact, I would prefer it. I'm so fucking ahead of my time, I want to comment on post-modern fiction. That's post-post-modernism, bitches. So I guess I'm crossing my fingers for romantic comedy, musical, or family film.

Fruits of My Labor

2009-08-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

So I just decided against working for Apple, which to some, including part of myself, may seem like a pretty dumb move. Getting paid extravagantly for work that so perfectly matches my aptitudes kind of makes me feel like I've totally and completely actualized in a capitalist framework. I'm pretty sure, though, that it wouldn't make me happy. It's strange to think, then, that using my aptitudes to the fullest extent that society values them doesn't necessarily make me happy. I shouldn't complain that I'm good at math, even though I pretty much hate it, except that I feel that by not using the skill to make a shitload of cash, I'm shortchanging myself somehow. What if I'm a better quality assurance engineer than I'll ever be a storyteller? Should I settle for what I'm recognized for being inherently good at, or should I open myself up to criticism and embarrassment by pursuing a fairly personal field about which I have limited proficiency, like filmmaking?

BRAVE NEW WORLD

2009-08-05T17:34:00.001-07:00

Monkey Bone

2009-07-29T17:18:00.001-07:00

My 30-second Career as an Artist

2009-07-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

So my computer was frozen today while something was rendering, and all I could see was this frame onscreen:

So, impotent and bored, I tried to draw her face.

I think it looks more like William Shakespeare.

The Best

2009-07-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Mornings are the best, because you can pretend you're going to do something amazing later.

This kid in the middle looks like he's about to be ripped apart.

Adorable People in Government, part 2

2009-07-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

The new champion! Senator Robert Byrd:

Part 1

Waste

2009-07-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Only play this game if you have nothing to do for a couple of days.

AAAAHHH

2009-07-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

Some ideas to help prevent the flooding of San Francisco by global warming.

Disc Men

2009-07-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

Entry into the San Francisco 48hr Film Festival. Won an audience award, and best writing. I didn't do much for this one, just wrote the song at the end.

"Disc Men" - watch more funny videos

Badass!

2009-07-17T09:47:00.001-07:00

This dude rode that giant wave on the Amazon River for 36 minutes. I can't even stay on a bike for that long.

Adorable People in Government

2009-07-14T10:40:00.001-07:00

1. New Surgeon General Regina Benjamin:

2. Sheriff Keith Nygren of McHenry County:

3. Mark Dickson, IT Manager, Hillsborough County, FL:

4. Every Lord Mayor ever:

5. District Attorney Pupperton and State Appeal Court Judge Tokes O'Muffin:

6. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, pre-Benedict Arnold:

Holy Shit I Would Live Here

2009-07-10T14:17:00.001-07:00

This guy built this house with, apparently, little experience. His "plans" are just this shitty little sketch from two angles, but this looks fucking cool. It's in Wales, and cost 3000 pounds in materials; the land may have been donated.

More 4th of July

2009-07-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah, bunch more of this shit. We actually almost got blown up this time. An errant rocket flew from a cliff above down a few feet over our heads and landed in the sand maybe 10-15 feet away, then exploded like a grenade.

New York

2009-07-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

...was amazing, although this video of a firefly is probably the worst way to communicate that:

Maybe I need a new camera...

...or more fireflies.

My life is baseball

2009-07-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

But not in the sense you might think, since I haven't been to or watched a game in years. My life is, or has been, waiting, relaxing, concentrating, focusing and waiting for the perfect moment to make the perfect play. The catch is, in baseball you don't have as much control as you like to think. You know what you're "supposed" to do when you get the ball, but sometimes it takes a bad bounce, sometimes your teammates throw wild, and sometimes you just didn't practice enough and you let everyone down. That last one tends to happen a lot. But it's not for lack of trying, or dedication, or motivation. It's focusing in the wrong things, making the wrong changes, the wrong improvements. I focus on fielding a better grounder instead of waving to the girl in the bleachers watching me, and I hope she's still there when I look up.

Baseball, I'd forgotten how great you were, and how amazing Ozzie Smith is.

Nice headline, fellas

2009-07-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

AHH! Must click to avoid...moderate worry? Actually, the story's about the NRA being worried that Sontamayor will "inject her opinion" into Supreme Court cases. Also, I am on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the next big story about the Miocene Epoch:

Sting Ray Escapes Shark Attack

2009-07-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

This one's for you, Stephanie. They're smarter than we thought.

The Road

2009-06-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

US Report on Global Climate Change

2009-06-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

Download it here.

Press Conference (1 hr):

This is horrifying. In the conference they mention that businesses and the government are already building with rising sea levels in mind, i.e. less coastal development, higher walls.

I'll never go to Boston

2009-06-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

Are these bitches out of their minds?

Pets who look like celebrities, courtesy of the city of Boston.

The Boss' Cute Dog

2009-06-18T11:54:00.001-07:00

It's a Westie puppy:

Want

2009-06-18T11:52:00.001-07:00

Yan Can Sell Knives

2009-06-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

Martin Yan was in Millbrae last week, and man can he sell books. All he did throughout his entire cooking demonstration was talk about how great his knife was, which should be irritating, but he's such a fucking brilliant guy, that he convinced everyone that he was just kidding, and they bought it anyway. He also deboned a chicken in 18 seconds:

I guess he gives these knives out for Christmas, too. I wonder how many he has, and when I get to sell my own pair of drum sticks.

California Academy of Sciences

2009-06-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

I went to the Academy of Sciences with my mom and Stephanie for my mom's birthday, which is always pretty cool, expect for the poisonous spiders they keep there. Don't they know that all black widows want to do is bite you?? Anyway, saw lots of cool fish.

Octopus losing his shit in a little touchpool tank:

Some people checking out the tropical fish aquarium:

The majestic lumpsucker puttering around like a lost paddleboat:

End of the World

2009-06-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

So Stephanie all but convinced me last night that I will live to see the apocalypse. It's not like it was never in the back of my mind. In fact, upon getting my first job, I asked someone if it was more beneficial for me to learn programming or small game hunting. It's just so fucking depressing, and it makes me really angry. I also realized that, despite my general, vague, and increasingly abstract belief in social justice, environmental sustainability, etc, I really do like the "American way of life." I want the world at my fingertips, and it's scary to think of that disappearing. I know this sounds like the unimportant, self-indulgent whining of a rich, privileged person (which it is), so you don't really have to care. I understand that desperately hanging on to luxury devalues real suffering, and in this case leads to the destruction of humanity, but...I like all the things that come with mass consumption of fossil fuels, and I can't help it. I guess, like a million times before, I can come to a conclusion about myself or the world and ignore it, or I can take issue with it and work toward solving the problem. Yes! ok. Did I just tell myself to save the world?

Passive Aggressive Bullshit

2009-06-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

So it's the 20-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and China's government is celebrating by showing how much things have changed. Government officials (cops?) in civilian clothing are wandering around the square this week, blocking news cameras with umbrellas like nothing's wrong. At least there aren't any tanks this time around.

Anyone else notice that the BBC volume slider goes to 11?

Maker Faire 2009

2009-06-02T10:40:00.001-07:00

Went to the Maker faire the other day, had a lot of cool things, got dehydrated, blah blah, here's some pictures of contraptions, and a video of what fear looks like.

Steampunk wares

Amateur rockets made by kids

Winged raccoon

Just some metal

Tesla Coils cook some god damn hot dogs:

That little car at the end is moving on wireless electricity. How the fuck is this possible?

Who's a Good Widdle Cwedit Report?

2009-06-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

Proof that advertisers use metrics and not common sense:

Killing and Kicking the Cable News Horse

2009-05-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna come right out and say it: I do not like Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann. They're not as awful as Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, or Nancy "my rich friend's control-freak mom" Grace, since I agree with them, but they exhibit the same smug, elitist, pseudo-apologetic and helpless presentation of themselves that the conservative folks do. I know they're kind of awkward and smart, but I don't think that's charming, I think that's irritating, at least when they exude this extreme superiority. And I guess they don't bill their programs as news shows. But they are on a news network, and even if they're "commenting" and not "reporting," they're just not representing themselves well. They will never change any minds because they'll get dismissed as easily as they dismiss people they don't agree with. Watch this. It sucks.

I'm pretty sure that looked waaaaay better in writing. If Maddow or Olbermann could do what they do now without the sarcasm and fucking know-it-all bullshit, I'd take it seriously. Maybe nobody watches them to take them seriously. Maybe people watch them because it's fun to vent. But that's why I watch Nancy Grace. So instead of getting incensed and furiously nodding at the TV, I get incensed and furiously yell at the TV. To each his own, I guess.

Decemberists

2009-05-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Great show, shitty recording.

Sons and Daughters

Nooooooooooo!

2009-05-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

Tragedy of tragedies.

Postmodernism

2009-05-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

It really is hard to escape it. Where once it may have filled a void in a culture that was too afraid or too repressed to look at itself critically, it has now transcended utility and become an end in of itself.

The postmodern lifestyle is what evolves when the counterculture becomes the mainstream, and when a teenage elitism extends into adult years. The chronic postmodernist lives "beyond," "outside," or "above" his culture. This exhibits itself in perpetual irony (fig. A, left) and dismissive criticism (fig. B, below). This is inherently unoriginal. Or maybe not unoriginal, but one begins to live his life reactively. Thoughts and creations are exclusively in response to something, and the act of creating a truly original product has no room in this framework. It's important to note that while such a person usually intends to divorce himself from his culture, he, in truth, relies on it completely, for without other people's creations against which he plays the enlightened omnipotent, his utterances and presentations

would reveal themselves as empty and meaningless. While such reactions, especially jokes and subculture fashion, are generally well-received, they have little independent value. Now by this definition, the same could be said for any socially-influenced act or creation (i.e., that it has no independent value because it's not "truly" single-origin), but of course most, if not all, of humanity's products have both social roots and value, so where's the harm in maintaining this kind of ironic distance? Like any aberrant behavior classified as "disease," this is harmful in excess: when it moves from a conscious cultural critique to a total confusion of one's identity. If we assume that identity is comprised of what one thinks and does, and one "thinks and does" purely in relation to a societal aggregate, then one's own identity becomes hopelessly embedded in that of other people. This person has disappeared. And without identity, what separates one person from another? What makes him special? Or desirable? Or unlikeable?

Those who lead postmodern lifestyles can never be truly real. They play off of others, and add nothing of themselves. They may offer a "real" analysis, in that they've filtered information themselves rather than regurgitate someone else's take on a situation, life, et al., but they subordinate their social decisions to their desire for pure opposition and communion, and they never simply "are."

Who knows what the root of this is? Is it a desire to be liked? A fear of oneself being socially unacceptable? An all-encompassing need to carve a personal niche in a larger society?

The internet may offer a clue to that last hypothesis. There are so many more connections than there are nodes, that sometimes it's hard to believe there's anything original at all out there. Seen as a model for more conventional interaction, whereby communication is made up of both relaying other people's information and adding or generating one's own synthesis, the internet is full of reactionary fervor. Many blogs and forums are nothing more than simple rehashes of someone else's product, and news aggregators are just soulless, programmatic distributors, adding nothing of their own to the sea of online information. I believe this trend online comes from a desperate need to be noticed. There's no other social space where so many people are instantly accessible. It's as if everyone in the world is in the same room, and all our eyes are closed. We have no choice but to make as much noise as possible just to be acknowledged, and piggybacking on proven attention-getters is one way of doing that. I realize that this phenomenon on the internet is a bit different from real-life "hyper-postmodernism" in that the elitism or cynicism isn't really present. It simply illustrates the tendency to be reactive and derivative as a way to establish oneself, as with subculture fashion.

This may be reaching. This may be me attributing my own distinct self-analysis to the general population and as such is likely an oversimplification. But there are fake, ironic people out there that need to snap out of it and start creating something. If you think you might be one of them you need to start contributing to your culture instead of bitching about how much you despise it. Have opinions instead of counter-opinions, and don't be afraid to put your real self on the line.

Let me know if this makes sense. It may not.

Dear Diary

2009-05-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying this new thing where I don't care what anyone thinks of me. It's really hard, and I'm only doing an ok job, because I still care about what I think of me. I also hate consciously making what seem like immoral decisions. It's so selfish. Like, why do I work as a technical cog in the video industry, when I could be doing something to help people instead? I give myself reasons, but they're not always good enough. And honestly, my mood changes so much throughout the day, that sometimes I'm happy with what I'm doing, and an hour later I can't bear it. C'est la vie?

3-Step Coffee

2009-05-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

This looks so amazing. I never drink coffee often enough to use up newly roasted beans before they go stale, but this little coffee station lets you roast, grind, and brew all-in-one.

It Was Bound To Happen Sometime

2009-05-06T15:38:00.001-07:00

Some girl in Brentwood just ran over herself while ghost ridin' da whip (not dead). Here's an article, complete with the honky definition of ghost riding.

Holy shit - this, too. I guess some fella did die a couple of years ago, but is that really going to scare anyone from doing it?

So Dapper

2009-05-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend found some scans of a 1972 Sears catalog on Gawker via Jezebel. This one's my favorite:

That little kid is more hireable, more datable, and, dare I say it, more fuckable than me. He's got all the class and none of the pretense. This kid is all man.

Two reasons why Santa Cruz rocks

2009-05-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

H1N1

2009-05-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

It's scary, alright.

Federal Money for Service Organizations

2009-04-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Full text: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text

Summary: http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/03/the-edward-m-kennedy-serve-ame.shtml

Word of the Day

2009-04-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

...is Neo-revolutionaries.

Tens of thousands of Americans protested high taxes on Wednesday by holding "tea parties," small public events that invoked the symbolic and revolutionary rejection of autocratic rule by our predecessors in 18th-century Boston. However, the cause of the current-day discontent isn't the imposition of taxes by an overseas despot, it's a progressive tax hike approved by our country's elected representatives. Do these guys look like they make $250k/year?

They wish. Next time I'm at a Fresno fast food joint and one of you fellas is behind the counter bitching about your baby momma's hospital bill, I won't have any sympathy. I know that in 10 years you'll wish that a) you had federal healthcare, and b) you'd gotten into a better college. And I love this lady:

"Zero taxes?" Is she for real? Let me imagine a scenario in which a group of people who pay zero taxes get together. They've built themselves houses and businesses but no one can agree on how to finance roads to connect them all. No one wants to pay for a part of the road that they'll never use, so no roads ever get built. This group also decides against fire houses and schools, because they don't want to pay to put out other people's fires or educate other people's children. Their tax-free utopia stagnates, since no one can travel very far without roads, the kids and teens stay dumb without schools, and when one these little idiots drops a cigarette in a pile of leaves, there are no firemen to extinguish the resulting fire, and the whole town burns to the ground.

And I can't believe that Fox News is fanning the flames of revolution. The mere idea of a news organization promoting and sponsoring a political protest is pretty disgusting, but what really gets me is that they're so flippant about it. The hosts know they're in a position of power (access to millions of viewers), and they know they have license to speak out beyond the scope of hard news reporting. This is not legitimate journalism, and yet it's legitimized every day because it's presented as such. They're selling us this interpretation of their product, and by not calling them out we're implicit in that interpretation's validation and normalization in our culture. That's not really ok.

From Russia With Hot, Steamy Love

2009-04-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Are the Russians calling us giant pussies?

http://www.bayonnelra.com/honor1.htm