Dear reader: You are poor. But there's always escapsim...with the NY Times Business Section!

I love unfortunate media placements like this. They are both hilarious and depressing (my favorite combination, by the way!). This kind of reminds me of the time they cut into a Mercedes commercial on KRON 4 to bring us news that a Mercedes had spontaneously caught on fire in the Caldecott Tunnel, shutting down morning traffic in both directions. Cha-ching, Mercedes, cha-fucking-ching. Anyway, it's good to know that as my middle-class income gradually bleeds away into abject poverty, I can still live it up vicariously through news coverage of Def Jam's quarterly profits.

Lack of comma sends me into downward spiral of Google-searching for "biscuit" euphemisms

This is the bag they put our purchases in at the hardware store this weekend. In case you can't read it, it says: "For my buddy biscuit/Love, Ty"

First of all, how did this bag find its way back into the Ace Hardware bag lifecycle after it had already been used?

Second, what does this mean? Since there was no comma between "buddy" and "Biscuit," I thought they went together. Like a "buddy biscuit." And what the hell is a "buddy biscuit"? my According to Google, "biscuit" could be slang for:

date-rape drug
young desirable girl
women's genitals
poo

Um, and then I realized "Biscuit" is probably someone's nickname. Actually, Derrick glanced at the bag and said "Biscuit's a nickname. There's just no comma." You know, after I'd been googling "biscuit" for a half hour like the obsessive-compulsive moron I am.

Ohhh, identity theft awareness, mmmmm...

Possibly the funniest thing I've seen, well, since yesterday when Young came back from his eye appointment looking like this, is Moan My IP, a site where you paste in your IP address, and a hot girl moans it back to you. The point, like it really needs one, is to make people aware that their IP addresses provide a way for bad guys to steal everything from Social Security numbers to bank account numbers.

UPDATE: Derrick has informed me that 1) Identity theft does not commonly occur through IP addresses and that 2) This is really more about selling a product than raising awareness. I say: Um, whatever.

Does using other people's bathrooms sometimes make you uncomfortable?

Because if Derrick had his way, using the bathroom at our place would freak people the fuck out. He found this wheelchair at Urban Ore today and wanted to buy it to put over our toilet like a toilet seat. Because he is sick. And awesome.

Arts n' Crafts

Lately, I've been working on starting a line of jewelry. And when I say "line of jewelry," I really mean, like, 5 bracelets. But there will be more...I just went to Urban Ore in Berkeley today, and soon I will be incorporating drawer pulls and a black spray-painted Mary and Jesus into the yarn-y mix, most likely as necklace pendants. Here are some pieces I've done so far. It doesn't have the organized look of a real line and it's a bit random, but I'm working on it...

Have head shot. Will starve for $$$$$$$.

I don't understand why it's considered some big mystery how movie stars and celebrities stay so thin. "It must be genetic." "It must be Atkins." "They must have a good trainer." Jesus, it's just money. The reason those starlets manage to teeter on the brink of starvation without finally freaking out and gaining it all back like the rest of us is because when THEY get absurdly skinny, they have a better chance of landing a $15 million role in a movie. If I were to get absurdly skinny, on the other hand, the most I'd get out of the deal is a bunch of people at work whispering that I had an eating disorder and my husband saying, "Huh, you look different. Did you change your hair?" But no $15 million. So there it is. The stakes are higher. That's all. Oh, and also, probably cocaine.

Poem of the Week and a Half

The Great Submarine Race
by Matthew Rohrer

It’s mad, but it just might work,
he said, and floridly signed his name
to The Great Submarine Race.

Submarines slumbered in his bloodstream
and submarines burbled in shallow slips.
The Flying Electrons bore the news
around the world on cold white drafts
and the news pierced the blue clouds.

A man in the square nudged his wife
and told her they were Mammary clouds.
Everyone’s transmitter cackled.
Everyone’s bloodstreams burbled
faintly.

The wife loved the lumpy clouds.
The man’s submarine slipped its mooring
and nosed her coral arches.
Simultaneously, all the world’s submarines exhaled
and plunged deep into the shifting water
with their little engines racing,
and when they met each other they battered one another’s hearts.

Penance.

So Erik was not maybe so pleased by the fact that I posted some less-than-flattering photos of him. As punishment, I am posting these:

"Dominion everywhere of patient dung beetles! Dominion everywhere of patient dung beetles! Boo-yah!"

Daily Candy is usually only empty calories. Daily Candy is usually so devoid of substance and so rich in sickly-sweet prose that I think you could actually get diabetes from reading it every day. But today they finally sent out a link for something completely awesome.

Quickmuse is a site where poets and songwriters are given 15 minutes to write on a subject of the editors' choosing. You can either just read each writer's finished piece or you can actually watch the poem being composed in real time. This means you get to see where writers stalled, where they second-guessed themselves. Or where they wrote the word "POEM" at the top of the page and then sat there for two solid minutes before beginning, like Matthew Rohrer, whose poem I loved.

But what's really fantastic is what happens when you read the finished poem before you watch it being composed. Because since you know how it's going to end, you find yourself silently rooting for poet. Like when Rohrer wrote "POEM" at the top of the page and then sat there for a while, I was all "For king and country! For king and country! POEM for king and country, dumbass!" It's like watching someone decide what letter they need on Wheel of Fortune when you already know what the phrase is. I highly recommend trying it, if only for the opportunity to yell "Countryside watered with tears! Countryside watered with tears! Yesssssss...." at your screen, preferably at work.

Why is Erik so unphotogenic?

The Art Director I work with is not an unattractive person. And yet:







In related news, I also look ridiculous:

Notes From Underground, revisited.

It's come to my attention that the link to the Wikipedia entry for Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground (at the right) is extremely unhelpful. Also, when asked what Notes From Underground is, I'm always telling people, "Well, there's this guy, and he's in hell..." which is actually the premise of No Exit. Sartre, Dostoevsky, pish posh. Dad probably read No Exit at the dinner table as well, hellbent as he was on instilling us with a healthy sense of futility, so it's probably not that strange that I tend to conflate the two. Anyhoo, I've decided to offer an updated summary of NoFUn (ha!) using more contemporary, uh, vocabulary. The novel is divided into three sections but it goes pretty much like this:

"I am a douche. I am not a douche. Yes I am. No I'm not. I'm sick of thinking about what a douche I am. Everyone else is a douche. There is no escape from douchery. Wait, scratch all that. Being a douche is ok. GOD I WISH I WASN'T SUCH A DOUCHE! Haha, just kidding. I love it. When I was young I kicked someone's ass to prove I wasn't a douche, but this just made me more douchey. My friends hate me. It's all my fault. No it's not. Yes it is. Then I slept with a prostitute, who I loved/hated/loved/hated/etc. I'm a douche." The end.

Make sense? Great.

I'm not myself these days.

Updated: I took Ross' picture down, but you can still see the comparison below.

A beloved co-worker is moving on this week and I am wrecked. WRECKED! Also, that's him where I used to be. His pose is meant to be an accurate representation of this:



Uh, yeah right. He looks far more Herbal Essences hairgasm commercial than I do. Anyway, bye Ross! Hope you and your wife move to Oakland! C'mon it's far less unsafe than people make it out to be. It's only a little questionable in parts of East Oakland. And obviously, parts of West Oakland. And North Oakland. And, well, there really isn't a South Oakland. But there is a Central Oakland! We'll hang out! Hugs!