A yawn is a silent shout…
June 26, 2009
It’s been a few days…
June 24, 2009
It’s not that I’ve been busy or anything, I just keep sifting through the usual news outlets and the buzz sites and nothing really seems to warrant commentary. Mideastern violence, Sarah Palin saying really stupid things, politicians having affairs, Reuters still trying to make me afraid of H1N1–there’s nothing new under the sun, folks.
Just wanted to stop in and wave at you, let you know I’m still here, just a little bored of things. I’ll try to dredge up something good within the next few days.
But since I always link to something of at least modest interest, look at this: they’re now going to have 10 Best Picture candidates at the Academy Awards. Of course, this is just a scheme to nominate the Dark Knights and the Ocean’s Elevens (and, oh god yes, the Back to the Futures) in the hopes that a larger audience will watch. For my part, I can assure you the only way I will watch is if they include the aforementioned movies on this years ballot. Hall of Famers get repeat consideration, why not movies?
Without Hulkamania I’m dead inside…
June 19, 2009
I do not watch professional wrestling. Let me reiterate that. I do not watch professional wrestling.
But for the second time in this blog’s short life I’m posting a clip of steroid-dripping professional wrestler Hulk Hogan (virtually unrecognizable in the role of steroid-dripping professional wrestler Rip).
Believe it or not the following trailer for the 14-time Academy Award winning arthouse film “No Holds Barred” really struck a chord with me. Not because of the avant garde daring of style, the Felliniesque camera angles, or the subtle dialogue that speaks to the tragedy and ecstasy of the human condition, though those things are undeniable.
Seriously now:
Sorry to lay this “Dear Diary” crap on you, internet, but if I’m being honest with myself I no longer have the capacity to enjoy or love things the way that I did as a child. The top ten moments in my life all have to do with the consumption of pro wrestling, comics, or movies. Hell, the closest thing that I have to a top ten moment was watching “The Dark Knight” last summer.
I’ve gone through a handful of the “major” events in the standard model life. I’ve both accomplished and created things that I’m very proud of. Still, adult life is tainted with thought, expectation, and reality. Have things been disappointing? No. But neither have they been glorious the way they used to be when holy fucking shit there’s a half-hour Ninja Turtles prime-time special!
So fuck it. I think I’m going to try to start getting excited about shit again. Like stupid, ADD sugar high excited.
Starting with this:
The Games We Play While Dying…
June 19, 2009
The Games We Play While Dying is a novel I wrote a few years ago. It was sort of what I wrote in order to learn how to write, and so it isn’t of the greatest quality and will probably never see the light of day. Still, it’s not without its flashes of brilliance.
I came across the following excerpt on Wednesday and I found I liked this little bit. It’s from the only first person section, and first person is rarely the most literary or breathtaking of writing, but it’s pretty damn scathing stuff.
Anyway, here it is:
“At first I just didn’t want a daughter. See, I’ve never accepted paternity as a grounds for love. So when my wife crapped out a little girl that I frankly had no use for, I wallowed in my own indifference. So she used to be my sperm, so what? I’ve left trillions of sperm to die inside of tube socks. Do I seem like I care about what happens to my sperm?
In the Old Testament, God is always telling his people that he will let them have ancestors by the continent-full if they’ll do what he wants. Well, what the hell good is that? Even today, people are able to lull themselves into a false sense of accomplishment and worth if they pop out a few kids, but believe me, thinking you’ve really done something with your life because you’ve made a few babies is what’s wrong with this planet. It’s the anthem of mediocrity. Show me people whose children are their greatest accomplishments and I’ll show you people who haven’t done anything important. And those are people I’d rather didn’t reproduce anyway. But they do. So when a world full of drones so mired in banality that they seek only to escape it through any means necessary adopt the above philosophy of “accomplishment,” what happens? Generation upon generation of worthlessness swelling and swelling to smother the earth, proud of doing what any idiot can do.
Reproduction doesn’t make a person a successful human being, it makes a person a successful animal. Accomplishment, in human terms, is more than making and raising children. If one believes his ability to rear a child is what makes his life worthwhile to the world and himself, he might just as well claim his ability to defecate is his greatest accomplishment. Why not show equal pride in all the functions of the body?”
(I’m pretty sure I wrote this right after seeing one of those commercials that begins with some dumb smiling idiot saying, “I’m a mom, so I know _____,” as though being a mom requires a college diploma, and not just a uterus.)
Another juicy item hot off the presses: KFC uses beef flavoring in their new grilled chicken!
Okay, my first instinct is to say, “Who cares?” However, since this is the internet, after all, I figured I should probably rethink this stance in favor of a more off-with-their-heads attitude. But then all I can find is my second instinct, also asking “Who cares?” and I get to the real point of this story.
At the time I’m writing this, 28% of people in a WalletPop poll report being either disgusted or–seriously, now–offended by the use of beef powders and fats for chicken flavoring. That’s more than 1 in 4, with nearly 1 in 8 people being not “uninterested in trying” but honest-to-god “offended” by KFC’s new recipe.
Things, of their nature, can’t be offensive. They may be found offensive by people, but the actor in the context of offense will always be the person who chooses to be offended. And nearly 1 in 8 choose to be offended by beef powder in a chicken recipe.
Fuck you, humanity.
I was searching for a serious topic since a sizable handful of my recent posts have been little more than links to articles and miscellany.
Thankfully, I found the most serious of topics: Aunt Viv.
Positive black role model Aunt Viv takes a break from her duties as a college professor/high school teacher/ballet dancer to promote shirt-pocket awareness. Also her earrings are too big.
Turns out this Willenium’s namesake stuck it to the real Aunt Viv, ultimately leading to the Fresh Prince telling her, “Yo, homes, smell ya later,” and then replacing her with the vaguely whitish Doppelganger Viv in subsequent seasons.
Sorry if the “Yo, homes” joke was lame. I just really like the theme song.
Ohio government ups the fuck you ante…
June 17, 2009
Specifically Toledo, where people are receiving $25 tickets for parking in their own driveways if they’re not paved.
No word yet on what it costs to stand on an unpainted front porch.
In case you can’t make it out, the above items are two flavors of the new soft drink known as “Mountain Dew: Game Fuel,” the official drink of World of Warcraft. Gamers are invited to think of this as a way to level up their adult-onset diabetes.
"The extra caffeine will move my heart attack up a few years," says elated, pit-stained gamer.
My restrictive mental tectonics…
June 15, 2009
I have to complete some actual work over the next few days, and for some reason when I commit myself to home improvement projects I cease being able to think very creatively.
So, to the four of you who actually read this crap, I’ll be away for the next couple of days. Maybe I’ll have something up on Wednesday.
In further proof that Sinister/Dextral is not merely a blog but an early Cyberdyne Systems program sent back in time to correct a distopian future, I present this.
But first recall this, a post from earlier this week, the thematic recap of which looks something like, “Technology should be used as a tool to live a more productive and personally rich life, not to live an easy, somnolent drone’s life.” Mere moments later, the combined forces of North Georgia Container and Southern Environmental came up with the brilliant scheme of communicating the location of a house that was to be demolished by GPS coordinates only, having apparently determined that the time-tested method of giving someone a goddamn street address was too archaic a practice for the futuristic wonderworld that is Carrollton, Georgia.
A Carrollton, GA family enjoys a Sunday drive in their Astrocar (right) while residents of the town (left) are haunted by the twin specters of common sense and one of the future's many dangers, intergalactic bounty hunter Boba Fett (top left).
GPS devices are fantastic tools. Seriously, their existence is a testament to the incredible potential of the mind of man. But so is the spellchecker in my word processing program. But just because it’s great and continually reminds me that diligent only has the one L doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped proofreading my documents and taking great personal care in the work that I accomplish with the help of the tool.
I mention the spellchecker example because I think that expresses our lethargic zeitgeist, and because it’s pretty harmless and a little laughable. But this story of not one but two companies simultaneously blundering together, culminating in the destruction of a third party’s house–this is the macrocosmic display of our laziness in thinking and our reliance on technology as a crutch.
Too many people expect their brave new world to be one in which gadgets and computers eliminate the necessity of thought, as opposed to promoting and exemplifying the flourishing of the human mind. I’m all for making life easy, but to state it in the form of a fairly melodramatic metaphor: if you blindly rely on electricity, the second it fails you you’ll be left in the dark. Or you’ll knock over the wrong house, depending on your profession.
P.S. I noticed a problem with a lot of my links that were doubling up the http://, but I fixed the problem. I can only hope the internal horror you suffered from these broken links will lessen in time.
P.P.S. I picked up each of the 3 combined images from above on Google images. Let me say this. Searching “jetsons” with the filter off yielded some…well, I’ll just stop there.
