All Souls' Day

Happy All Souls Day, everybody. This is the day when Catholics traditionally commemorate the passing of the greats of soul -- mostly Ray Charles. Personally, I'm still grappling with the fact that I don't think I really love the music of Ray Charles all that much -- I mean, it's pleasant and all, and it sets a definite mood, but this once I got one of his albums and listened to it repeatedly and it just didn't do much for me. I feel like I should apologize for that, to somebody. And how are you all spending your All Souls' Day? And what do you think about Ray Charles?

Halloween was pretty fun. I went as Bibleman, a costume I based on a toy cape that I bought several months ago from a Little Rock thrift store as a gift for Barry and then forgot to give to him. I thought I was just making Bibleman up, but apparently he's real! Since in making the costume all I had to go on was the cape -- and since my goal was to vaguely mock Christianity rather than advocate it -- my rendition of the Bibleman character turned out substantially different than the real deal. Maybe there will be pictures one day. Also, my date was Charlie Brown's ghost.

Arlo just commented on my last post, and now it's like Old Times!

Welcome home, Arlo. But I leave this question up to all the rest of you -- which of the following pictures best expresses the glory of this moment? I'm making a commemorative plate out of the winner, and everyone that responds gets one.

Hungry

Forty hours? Forty? Is that even legal anymore? I've been working at my "job" for a week now -- which, as I'm sure you all know, is ample time to develop a simmering resentment towards every aspect of a workplace. Oh, there are things to bitch about aplenty, but right now I'm occupied with worry about what to bring for lunch tomorrow.

Because of the location of my dark, mysterious, supercool job that you are all wondering about constantly, I MUST bring my lunch. And that means every night is a struggle to determine the composition of my noontime repast the next day. I guess the problem is that lunch is probably the day's most important meal to me. I like repetition with breakfast -- oatmeal, raisins -- and I'm not under any pressure to plan dinnertime (since that's when I'm at home in the succulent peace of my voluptuous larder). Dinner and breakfast fall into place like the cycles of the sun and moon.

But lunch requires planning, action, a will to power. Nietzsche understood its importance. It's like saving for retirement; you fail to take it seriously when things are golden, but you're in serious trouble when the time comes around. I did pretty well last week, if I do say so myself -- even took the time to put the tomato slices in a separate container from my cheese sandwich so the bread wouldn't turn into that soggy pink goo. Tonight, though, I don't have anything planned for tomorrow's lunch -- not a sandwich not leftovers, nothing. And I feel the pressure building, but there's also this dark inertia, this nihilism, and I wonder what's the point? I don't care WHAT I eat tomorrow. Maybe I'll bring some dried rotini pasta and white sugar, whatever. Just fuck it. That's right. Just...fuck it.

The headlines

1) I got a job. It's only for three weeks, although my boss said that if he likes my work, he might have me come with him on a little trip to Florida at the end of that period for some...extra work. There's a woman there who we'll have to deal with, but should things go well -- well, let's just say that there won't be a reason for us to ever make that trip to Florida again. This is all true, but I'm not going to say just yet what my job is.

2) Rumors have been circulating about possible GUEST POSTS in the near future. The rumors say that music reviews and much more may be in the works. Are the rumors true? Yes, they are! Right, person I'm addressing? Right?

3) I've been having some pretty serious cat problems lately. Are any of you having cat problems? Tell me about yours and I'll tell you about mine.

Built to Spill show tonight!

It almost -- but not quite -- soothes the lingering sting of being stood up for my interview at the Harvested Nightmares attraction out at Ken's Korny Corn Maze. It was going to be my big break as a haunter. But whatever.

Title revert

It's a nice place to visit, but who wants to live in a nauseating delicacy emporium? Not I.

Lesson from Pittsburgh

I guess anyone with any sense knows this already, but don't ever, ever trust Greyhound to not fuck things up. They often seduce me for several reasons: the bus seems cheap, there's no hassle with security checkpoints, it's sort of romantic, and that dog looks so slick and speedy and...metallic. In actuality, the sole virtue of going Greyhound is that it's inevitably a great place for striking up conversations with lonely strangers. However, that's counterbalanced by the fact that the Greyhound always entails a long, uncomfortable ride filled with loudly coughing people, authoritarian discourtesy, and the kind of unapologetic inconveniences usually reserved for the developing world.

At the moment at the airport when you've just removed your shoes and are about to step through the metal detector, there's a discomforting feeling of being in the jaws of a security apparatus; just for a split second, you feel sort of like you're in jail. Riding the bus feels like that from the beginning of the trip to the end, because the people who run Greyhound treat customers like they're 7-11 employees on a prison-to-work program. Thankfully for the company, most of its customers are quite poor and are thus well accustomed to being sneered and bitched at by overworked lower-management types who couldn't care less about your destination. Plus, it rarely turns out to be significantly cheaper than the plane. The lesson here is: never, never ride Greyhound.

The plan was that I catch the bus from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon so that I could arrive in Philly the night before my job interview. I'd bought my tickets well in advance and arrived at the station with over an hour to spare (as instructed), thanks to Kaitlin's willingness to drive me 2.5 hours to catch my ride. The Pittsburgh station was actually pretty impressive -- clean, spacious, and lacking the dizzying commotion that usually clings to all things Greyhound. As I soon discovered, that was because the station was actually closed. A shitty guy named Craig popped out of an office and started yelling at Kaitlin and I to leave immediately. Why? The Group of 20, that's why. Literally across the street from the station lies the Pittsburgh Convention Center, which that very weekend had housed the G20 summit, Lula and Obama and Hu and Merkel and all. The twenty most powerful economies in the world gathered together to fuck up my bus trip in the name of security for the leaders of mankind. Who do they think they are, anyways? Like they're better than me or something?

Anyways, ok, ok, security and all. I don't mind that the station closed for the G20. I knew the summit was happening, and admittedly I should have double checked on my travel plans. But Greyhound didn't give me the slightest clue that they were shutting down their station -- printed on the tickets I bought weeks earlier was the time and place my bus was set to depart; the bus just wasn't there. And this is really the crux of the matter, and why the lesson here is that we all have a moral and civic duty to never give those fools our business. You often get jerked around at the airport, sure, but they're accommodating when they mess up. Even if they're surly, you know they know they failed. Contrast that to Greyhound's customer relations strategy when they fail, which is to insult you, force you out of the building, and then put you on a much later transfer bus to Baltimore that eventually dumps you in your destination city well past midnight.

....

Man, I hate it when three-quarters way through writing something indignant I realize that, at this point in my life, the only time I can now muster any energy for self-righteous anger is when I receive subpar customer service. I'm nothing but a red-faced dad venting the frustrations of my broken life to a clerk. "Whatever happened to the customer is always right? Huh? You ever hear of that one, Craig?" Jesus Christ. This is depressing. I'm going to sleep.

PS: One bright spot -- in Baltimore, I saw two burly bus drivers flirting with each other in the men's bathroom! Have you ever seen two burly bus drivers flirting with each other in a men's bathroom? Hats and vests and all? I didn't think so. Maybe it was worth it after all.

A running list of the part time craigslist job postings I am responding to

Front Desk Clerk

We will train you to use our reservation software and telephone systems, though prior hotel experience is preferred. Hours are flexible. If you want to stay on site, housing can be arranged as well.

Cake Decorator P\T F\T

CAKE DECORATOR - EXPERIENCED ONLY. PART TIME POSITION MAY LEAD TO FULL TIME. WILL CONSIDER HIRING FULL TIME FOR THE RIGHT CANDIDATE. Part time hours are Thursday - Friday. Some Wednesdays and Saturdays also. Come join our dynamic team in our exciting work place. EOE

Yardwork/Home Mainteance

General home maintenance and yardwork. I am a handicapped individual who needs someone OCCASIONALLY for typical yardwork tasks (not mowing)e.g. spraying, trimmming, spreading pinestraw, etc. Other tasks may include changing light bulbs, some "touch-up" painting, etc.

Extras needed for Horror film

Casting for a feature film to be shot in January 2010. Dependent upon your ability 10 to 90 hours available work. Rate is $27.82 an hour. Must be between the ages of 18 to 30. Must be height and weight proportionate. Must be able to do physical activity.

Protest update (rtp)

Okay folks I did not count on rain. All those who contacted me about the protest at Madhatters friday- we must postpone. I can not get the giant sandwich prop made and if it rains noone will show up. What day should we reschedule? saturday would be busy but to get really organized we need a week or so. I still hope someone will consider a website or group to reallyu add flare to this movement.

Good job, Olympia Snowe!

Thanks, Senator. To celebrate your tepid vote on health care reform, shall we share this syringe of medical-grade morphine together?

Too bad the Finance Committee bill is a bunch of bullshit. But then, to paraphrase you yourself, when medical-grade morphine calls, medical-grade morphine calls.

God

has spared me from illness for the moment -- I woke up this morning feeling fine -- but meanwhile, Justin has gotten sick! That's right. The reason is that he has been sinning a lot lately, while my heart has remained pure and virtuous. Let this be a lesson to you all. Oh, Alex also was real sick last week. Again: sin at work. The wages of sin are severe colds.

Why am I always getting sick?

I'm sorry, everybody. I know you wanted to crack open one of those frosty bottles of advice, but not tonight. I feel too awful to think. I have a headache (though now that I think of it, that could be from all the coffee I drank earlier at the burlesque drawing studio I went to this afternoon) and an upset stomach (though I suppose that could conceivably be from the big pile of fried fish and hush puppies I just ate for dinner) and feel generally frail and unwell (though now that I'm feeling paranoid, I wonder if it that isn't caused by exposure to some exotic plant at the JC Raulston Arboretum, which Justin and I visited today). Those three things all did actually happen, by the way.

Why am I always getting sick? What should I do? A few years ago, back in the dimly remembered prehistory of our race, I would have probably prayed to my god for help or drilled a hole in my skull or something like that. Today, of course, I know exactly where to go for advice in medicine, as in all matters: Yahoo Answers. "Why am I always getting sick?" Well, let's find out.

In all seriousness, I find the exchange between the two people on the other side of that link kind of touching. One of them is the sort of person who blurts out, "I already saw a doctor and it was just usless. I have gotten sick 3 times witihn 2 months. I eat very very well and I workout alot. I get really really sick and it is just annoying." The other is the sort of person who responds with a six paragraph treatise on the virtues of various health supplements, including the phrase, "I like taking the liquid nutritional whole-food vitamin supplement SeaAloe to boost my immunity and keep me well. It contains aloe vera, various sea vegetables, pau d'arco exteact and 4 fruit juice concentrates." One might expect that these two would fail to communicate with one another, but what happens? The "asker" rates the response with five stars and says "Really helped alot. I also learned a bunch to. Thanks alot. I mean it."

I think this is great. If the internet can bring these two together, it's working as it should. It's kind of like The Breakfast Club, I think, although I never watched that movie all the way through.

Home again

I've temporarily (maybe?) changed the title of my blog as a nod to the only person who loves it. I'm back in Durham, and I've brought back a treat for you all from my Odyssean travels -- boring, boring advice.

Every place I visited, citizens gathered in the town square / civic center and presented me with a priceless jewel of a life lesson. And then they would say to me, "Benji, we are simple folk with little to give, but we do have this priceless jewel of a life lesson here, and we ask you humbly that you accept this advice unto your bosom and bear it to the masses in their ignorance." I would say, "that's a pretty rude thing to say about people you've never met," because I have you guys's (meaning you reading this) back about that kind of thing. And then the citizens would say to me, " 'ignorant' is not synonymous with 'stupid'. Although the word in its contemporary usage most commonly signifies a general deficiency of education or understanding, 'ignorance' may also simply refer to a lack of knowledge about a particular subject. It is a statement of fact, not a value judgment regarding intellectual capacity." Chastened, I agreed to carry out their requests. So, over the next few days, I will be sharing these lessons with you.


Meanwhile, in Durham, Justin took me last night to the coolest bar I've ever been to!

Off

I'm going on a whirlwind tour of Northeastern cities to check up on how they're doing: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Vermont. I'm skipping New York because, like President Obama, I want to deliver a stinging public rebuke to David Patterson. (Unlike Obama, however, I'm not doing it for strategic political reasons -- I'm just mean-spirited.) What's that you say? Vermont isn't a city? Do you know how big Vermont is? 621,270 people sounds pretty much city-sized to me. And in land area, I think it's just a little larger than Ft. Smith.

Anyway, if I don't write, that's where I'm at.

Sexy Curie

Here's a mystery. I'm looking for a video clip of Marie Curie that's readily available online, and I'd just about given up. I found some pretty neat stuff in the course of searching, but the closest thing I could find to what I need were a few clips from documentaries. I was intrigued by what promised to be an episode of "Ellen" featuring an exclusive interview with Marie's great-granddaughter, but it turned out to be a couple of high school girls screwing around for what's presumably a class assignment. The misleadingly-titled YouTube video "Sexy Curie", is both baffling and utterly unhelpful.

And then I found this clip, which is exactly what I want. But, it's posted on someone's My Space page, which is no way to cite a source for my purposes (this is for work, believe it or not). I need to know where it originally came from. Who is the owner of the page? MARIE CURIE HERSELF.

What is going on here? Why is Marie Curie still alive, and, given her well-known fondness of privacy, why is she using My Space? And who knew her friends list would include Harvey Milk, Gil Scott Heron, and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, someone named "Weiner Van Carpetmuncher"?

If it feels good, do it

Tuesday night we were sitting around talking on the porch, and the conversation turned to roast turkey, as it so often does. Why, we wondered, do we limit ourselves to only once per year enjoying one of the most delicious meals known to our culture? Makes no sense. In an effort to rid ourselves of the suffocating tyranny of meaningless custom, we decided that this Thursday would be Turkey Thursday. We would buy a whole turkey, cook it along with a bunch of savory sides, and eat for a week. I personally am interested to see if doing this -- having a series great gluttonous meals of turkey -- dampens my enthusiasm for having another series of great gluttonous meals of turkey come Thanksgiving. Because: I really don't think it will. I can't speak to the motivations of the others, but that's the knowledge I'm hoping to gain from this project.

Anyway, Justin really grabbed the bull by the horns with this project, so kudos to him. By Wednesday night I was content to just sort of see if Turkey Thursday happened on its own, but he was determined to make sure that it did. Long story short: we ate a bunch of turkey last night. And today, and I'm sure tonight, and the rest of the weekend.

We snapped this picture right as dinner was being served. That's Alex putting the turkey on the table (he's going through one of those grandmother-drag phases again), that's Justin standing behind him, and I'm hiding in that silver serving dish on the center of the table. (If you look closely, you can just see me peeking out.) Also, note how many friends we've made recently.

A story

Nathan posted a link to the flag of Detroit in a comment, and it made an impression on me.

Resurget Cineribus was worried -- her mentally challenged sister had wandered off again and was surely getting herself into trouble. Resurget wandered the streets of Detroit calling her sibling's name: "Speramus Meliora! Speramus Meliora! Where have you gone to, you foolish girl?" Just then, she turned a corner and was startled to find a RACE RIOT. The entire block was in flames -- and there was Speramus Meliora, watching the buildings burn with an entranced expression upon her face. "Oh, Speramus -- let us be getting back home!" Resurget cried, laying a hand upon her sister's back. "Our fine, all-white, tree-lined block is right behind us, dear one, and these peculiar togas of ours are bound to attract attention." But the simple girl seemed not to hear the plea, or to understand...and she began striding forward towards the beckoning glow of the flames.

Thank you, Nathan.

What's the difference between paying for an online class from UALR and giving your money away to one of those "419" Nigerian email scams?

Answer: falling for a Nigerian email scam teaches you a lesson








because they both take your money and....oh, fuck it, nevermind

Bone Up on Durham

I've changed the background color to a fine Durham Green in honor of my new home. As they say in Durham, "Welcome!" Now for some good old Durham trivia. Did you know that answering trivia questions about Durham is the official pastime of Durham? Come for a visit and we'll spend the night (like every other night) down at our favorite Durham neighborhood bar playing Durham trivia, drinking with our Durhamese buddies, and rooting for the home team, the Durham Durhamanders.

• Durham was nicknamed the "Bull City" because it was once ruled by a shadowy council of bloodthirsty minotaurs. However, the Mayor of Durham today is William V. "Bill" Bell.
  
• Durham's flag looks sort of cool in that same retro space way that NASA's old "worms" style logo looks cool.
• It doesn't take long for visitors to the City to notice the changing face of Durham, but the current exciting transformation is just one of many transitions the City has gone through as it has shaped a vibrant history over the last 180 years to become the world-class City it is today.
• Durham is a city in North Carolina.

Recession...and Recovery?

Things have been looking mighty wan around these blog parts lately. Ethan, once universally recognized as the breadbasket of the blog community, now sits fallow and unproductive. Much like the career of many a comeback celebrity, Jake miraculously revived himself from the dead awhile back. To the dismay of his fan base, he teetered for awhile on the brink of collapse with his unbalanced antics and then promptly relapsed into obscurity and dissolution.

Early economic indicators showed "green shoots" reemerging over at http://barvog.blogspot.com -- but it seems to have proven to be a largely postless recovery. What was once the bustling city center of the community now sits darkened and cobwebbed, its machinery gathering rust and its unemployed cast members struggling with depression, mortgage payments, and alcoholism. (I was walking past a neighborhood soup kitchen when I noticed this guy (to the right) standing in line. The shame in his eyes was heartbreaking, but we chatted about old times for awhile and that perked him up enough to ask me for booze money.)

Most shockingly, where once stood that great beacon of civilization and commerce, chrisclanton.com, there remains only a smoldering 404 crater. I can only conclude that his trans-Pacific flight was lost en route from China to the US, and that the same tragedy claimed the life of his brilliant partner Anne Gresham. RIP, Chris and Anne, whatever frigid ocean trench your eel-picked remains now lie within.

And don't even get me started about this cocktease. I'm waiting with baited breath for that next post circa, oh, MAY TWO THOUSAND FUCKING ELEVEN.

Yet, all is not dark news. There are some bright spots on the horizon from quarters most unexpected. Two of my all-time favorite people have just made stunning entrances onto the blog scene that have attracted the attention of critics and analysts from Jakarta to Prague. Please, add them.

Built on an Indian Graveyard

Permanent File

Will these brilliant young luminaries turn things around? Will the American Dream be yet realized? Am I too old to be fucking around on the internet like this all the time? Probably.

Fine, let's just stay here and watch more sketch comedy shows

Can you believe it? I found this great big cat park* nearby and my boring roommates refuse to go with me. Who's with me that that's totally lame?


*"Great big cat park" is here supposed to mean "an institution which looks to be of high quality", but you can also take it to mean "a park filled with REALLY big cats", or "a really large park". It is pretty large -- their website says 55 acres! Wow, just think of how exciting that would be to visit. Right?

My car isn't the ground, people

Hey! There are ants living in my car. Why ants would chose a 1997 Volvo as their residence is beyond me, though it's possible they could be Swedes looking for asylum. They seem to remain concentrated entirely on the crevasse between the passenger side door and the body, but I'm not sure where exactly their home base is located within my car. It doesn't seem like there should be a place for them to permanently live; the car is dirty, sure, but it's not like I have inches of soil sloshing around in the glove box. Anyway, because they stay pretty much out of sight unless I open that passenger door, I keep forgetting they're there. If they'd just stick to that part of the vehicle and maintain some kind of zero population growth policy (like good Swedes), I think I'd be ok with them hanging out. But, I suspect they're reproducing rapidly, and so I guess they're gonna have to go. What should I do? And what do they want?

***

On a completely different note: Ochlocratic Osculation strongly condemns the September 11th terrorist attacks. I think doing that was just an absolutely inexcusable thing to do, and I'm not afraid to say so.

The Importance of Acting a Gentleman

It's very important to always act a gentleman. Do you know what can happen if you fail to act a gentleman?

People find out you're actually a real sexist asshole, that's what.

Furnish me

Has anyone ever bought a used mattress on craigslist? I'm looking for one right now and I'd like to know the pitfalls of doing so. Should I worry about bedbugs? Syringes? Might I get pregnant? The furniture section of craigslist is especially funny because the value of furniture ranges from what you'd pay for a used car to what you'd pay for a chicken sandwich -- and it's all mixed in together, like a bazaar.

I sold a couch and a dining room table (only one of which partially belonged to me) on craigslist upon moving out of my Arkansas apartment and felt a vastly overinflated sense of accomplishment. I imagine it was the same bittersweet parting that a parent would feel upon marrying off a child.

Also: do you capitalize "craigslist" or not? I feel like doing so makes me look like sort of a clueless tool, but not doing so makes me look like a sloppy teenager. This is really only a problem when I'm applying for jobs, but I always agonize over it in that situation. "Whilst 'surfing' the World Wide Web recently, Lady Luck guided me to your Craig's List advertisement seeking a 'Content Writer'. I believe myself most suitable for the position, for have spent many a moon 'online' and can assure you that my grasp of InterNet vernacular is second to none."


"Just waiting to cuddle a little girl"

Labourious Days

Well, here we are. I plan to keep the happenings in this apartment thoroughly documented so that the historians will have ample primary-source material when they examine the time and place that decades hence will be known as the fulcrum of the 21st-century zeitgeist. When the Smithsonian has turned this duplex into the most-visited museum in future America, I want to make damn sure those period actors get their shit straight.

North Carolina is about what you'd expect -- my heels are always inexplicably gummed up with tar, I play basketball with Ben Folds most afternoons, and I start each morning with two pounds of fresh tobacco and a plate of livermush. This really does exist; I ate it on a previous trip to NC and found it tasty. I'd never heard of such a thing prior to visiting Boone, NC, and now I'm curious about what other regional breakfast foodstuffs lurk in other parts of the country. When I was staying up in Portland last year, I was surprised to learn that a traditional Oregonian breakfast consists of a skinny latte, a bowl of marionberries, and a pate ground from the adrenal glands of beavers.

More later. Teasers: I have a score to settle with the postal service here. There are some exciting new blogs that are gathering a lot of buzz among the underground. One of my roommates and I found a place down the street that sells buckets full of trash. I did something very rude recently and I regret it very much. I found four dollars on the ground. Outside, it's raining for the first time since we arrived last weekend.

Worst thing about this place so far -- it's over six hours from the Monongahela National Forest.

August recess

Due to various constraints and personal failings, Ochlocratic Osculation will be in recess for the month of August. I'm looking forward to spending time with my constituents, but let me be blunt -- I'm not having any more of those town hall meetings. I don't so much mind being heckled, taunted, and accused of defiling America, but at my last public appearance, a group of protesters disemboweled me, mutilated and burned my corpse, and hung my mangled remains from a bridge in the middle of town. I guess everyone is entitled to express their opinion, but I really have to draw a line somewhere. (Too soon?)

Also: Bob Lancaster usually just confuses me, but I like his death panel column in the most recent Ark Times.

From #48 to #50

I'm driving from Arkansas to West Virginia on Monday morning, and it's going to be great.

So I have this guy's wallet

My former roommate found it and left it behind in our apartment. There's nothing of interest in the wallet except for a lot of pictures of children and families, a tattered (but unwrapped) condom, a business card for what seems to be an escort service, and various IDs. He's not in the phone book and a Google search turns up nothing in Arkansas. I have his physical address (or at least the one printed on his license). What should do?

Priorities

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day makes me wonder -- why do I willfully spend so many more of my nights looking at things like this instead of things like this?

Of course, not all of us prioritize things so poorly. Good job, you reasonable bastard.

Tueschatology

Tuesdays have always been special days. If I remember correctly, Tuesday was catfish-for-lunch day at the Hendrix cafeteria, which was my favorite. It's also cheap beer night at Whitewater Tavern. Last week, two friends and I began a Tuesday afternoon group chat tradition that I am confident will last for decades to come. And now I am pleased to announce what I hope will be a regular Tuesday feature at Ochlocratic Osculation: visions of the impending apocalypse. At first I thought I would simply call it "Apocalypse Tuesday", but after some internal debate I have settled on "Tueschatology". All three of this edition's articles come from the New York Times.

First, the headline nobody ever wants to see: "Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man". The gist is that a group of prominent computer scientists and roboticists held a meeting earlier this year to discuss their concern over the "profound social disruption" that could result from accelerating gains in computer intelligence. This article honestly gave me Matrix dreams last night (albeit incomprehensible ones about Lawrence Fishburne doing something weird to Tony Alamo; I am serious) As somebody mentioned in the article's comments section, parts of it could easily be from the Onion:

...the researchers — leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers and roboticists who met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Monterey Bay in California — generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon.

...“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are providing almost religious visions, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”

The Kurzweil version of technological utopia has captured imaginations in Silicon Valley. This summer an organization called the Singularity University began offering courses to prepare a “cadre” to shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications.

So the Singularity may be awhile distant still. (Thank you, Ethan, for educating me about that concept, but also? if you throw your lot in with the FUCKING machines whenever push comes to shove, you technophile lunatic, consider Tuesday group chat over with.) I think that timetable will work out just fine for the machines, considering they'd probably prefer anyhow to wait a few more generations for humanity to continue to drive itself as crazy as possible. "Love in 2-D" details a Japanese phenomenon Barry was telling me about only a few weeks ago, moe. The term refers to the development of intimate relationships with imaginary anime characters -- relationships that are often not only sexual but actually emotional. These are people who seek to build legitimate romances with pieces of their imagination, and it's sparked a kind of movement of people (almost all men) who advocate pride in "2-D love". Like so many things I've read about Japanese society, it mostly just makes me want to give half of the entire country a long hug, the kind where you rock gently back and forth and say "it's OK. We're all going to be OK."

..the guru of the 2-D love movement, Toru Honda, a 40-year-old man with a boyishly round face and puppy-dog eyes, has written half a dozen books advocating the 2-D lifestyle. A few years ago, Honda, a college dropout who worked a succession of jobs at video-game companies, began to use the Internet to urge otaku to stand with pride against good-looking men and women. His site generated enough buzz to earn him a publishing contract, and in 2005 he released a book condemning what he calls “romantic capitalism.” Honda argues that romance was marketed so excessively through B-movies, soap operas and novels during Japan’s economic bubble of the ’80s that it has become a commodity and its true value has been lost; romance is so tainted with social constructs that it can be bought by only good looks and money. According to Honda, somewhere along the way, decent men like himself lost interest in the notion entirely and turned to 2-D. “Pure love is completely gone in the real world,” Honda wrote. “As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one.” Honda insists that he’s advocating not prurience but a whole new kind of romance. If, as some researchers suggest, romantic love can be broken down into electrical impulses in the brain, then why not train the mind to simulate those signals while looking at an inanimate character?

Honda’s fans took his message to heart. When he admitted to watching human porn at a panel discussion in Tokyo in 2005, several hundred hard-core 2-D lovers in the audience booed with shock that their dear leader had nostalgia for the 3-D world. Later, in an interview with a Japanese newspaper, Honda clarified his position, saying that he was worried 2-D love was becoming an easy way out for young otaku, who might still have a shot at success in the real world. “I’m not saying that everyone should throw away hopes of real romance right away. I am simply saying that guys like me who have gotten to a point of no return can be happy living in 2-D.”

Finally, if you remain blase in the face of accelerating machine intelligence and heartrending social dysfunction, perhaps this article will jog you out of your complacency about the direness of our current situation: bears are becoming smarter than the best minds in our manufacturing sector.

...In the process, she has emerged as a near-mythical creature in the High Peaks region of the northeastern Adirondacks.

“She’s quite talented,” said Jamie Hogan, owner of BearVault, based in San Diego. “I’m an engineer, and if one genius bear can do it, sooner or later there might be two genius bears. We’re trying to work on a new design that we can hopefully test on her.”

I believe what Jamie is trying to say is "I'm an engineer, and these bears are far smarter than I." A future awaits, ladies and gentlemen -- a future in which John Connor's efforts to outsmart Skynet will play right into the bloodthirsty agenda of the bear mujahadeen. Not that he'd muster the energy to try, considering he'd be preoccupied instead with lazily pleasuring his hentai body pillow companion. I can't wait.

Cold feet

The bride shone with a radiant light that permanently blinded several children who unwisely looked directly at her face. The groom was twelve feet tall and (reluctantly) slew a rabid black bear with a bottle of Yellowtail when it threatened the ceremony. It was a hell of a wedding.

The guest list was a great selection of long-departed friends, the food was excellent, and the Cave House was beautiful and bizarre. Best of all, there were no malevolent entities more ancient than the Earth itself laying deep inside the cavern, hungrily waiting to devour my soul and grotesquely assume my bodily form, at least not that I remember. I struck up an acquaintance with a judge named Rusty, drank wine while stretched out prone on a helipad, and read aloud from the Wikipedia entry on love during the ceremony itself (those things really happened). Thank you to Chris and Anne for a great time, and thank you especially to Chris for the honor of being a groomsman and for letting me read. I wish I had read from this article instead, but hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.

One thing that I do not like about weddings, I've decided: the precession of jovial, red-faced old men in suits cracking lame jokes about how much men secretly hate marriage. An older couple arrived in a car a few hours before the ceremony began and the man immediately wandered up to me and a friend and nearly shouted, "Come to watch your buddy DIE, huh?!" He exploded into laughter. The same thing continued as the wedding time approached -- aging male friends and relations of the couple's families deriving endless humor from stellar lines such as, "hey, have you seen CHRIS lately? UH OH! Better make sure he's STILL HERE!!" He was still there.

When asked such a question, I should have said something like, "Good one, ha ha! You're implying that he left in secret because he doesn't want to get married! Marriage makes people miserable and trapped! Ha ha! Perhaps he'll have sex with a prostitute rather than get married!" Instead, I said something like, "Ha ha."

Honors

It's time to give out some medals.

I bestow this first medal on Chris Clanton and Anne, whose wedding I'll be attending tomorrow. Since hereafter they will be as one flesh and thus presumably will have one neck, I think one medal is enough to do the trick. Take your pick.

I haven't seen Chris in two years and I'm pretty excited about the prospect of hanging out with him tonight and tomorrow. I'm also excited about the prospect of wearing the $120 polyester JC Penny's suit that I acquired for the event -- or rather, that my mom bought me as a gift because she's on a perpetual crusade to emasculate me through present-giving -- and the skinny black tie that a friend loaned me. Thank you, friend Michael, and the second medal goes to you for saving the day. Chris had asked me to wear a skinny black tie, but I'd had no luck in finding one and had pretty much resigned myself to buying a regular, broad, Plane Jane black tie. I dreaded the thought of hauling some inappropriate fatass tie around the wedding, as bulky and cumbersome as a dead donkey; it could have soured the entire ceremony. I've seen a bad tie drag many a wedding into acrimony and resentment (usually, there's an annulment in the works before the day is out, and often a food fight as well). Now, though, I'll have the skinniest tie at the whole wedding! It's so skinny, in fact, that it's invisible to the naked eye -- but those guests who would like to peer through the microscope I'll have on my person will be blown away by my panache. And ok, a medal for my mom as well for the suit, FINE MOM.

Freeze frame

People captured in mid-clap always look really weird -- like they're either pretending to hold something invisible or squashing a bug.

Moon Illusion II

The NY Times has a typically dismissive article about "conspiracy theorists" who believe the moon landing never happened. Supposedly, polls show that a full 6% of Americans hold such a belief.

Mr. Sibrel, who sells his films online, has hounded Apollo astronauts with a Bible, insisting that they swear on camera they had walked on the Moon. He so annoyed Buzz Aldrin in 2002 — ambushing him with his Bible and calling him “a coward, and a liar, and a thief” — that Mr. Aldrin punched Mr. Sibrel in the face. Law enforcement officials refused to file charges against Mr. Aldrin, the second man on the Moon.

I appreciate such filmmakers speaking truth to power, but I wish they would focus on the really big conspiracy in our midst. YES, of course the lunar landing was faked, YES, of course 9/11 was masterminded by the Bush White House, YES, of course FEMA is rounding up gun owners in preparation for their extermination at a scale replica of Dachau (to be built, my sources tell me, in Brinkley, AR), but such things pale in comparison to the Big Truth -- the fact that winter is a hoax. Blab all you want about "but I remember last winter happening!" I've heard that song and dance before. If you're that brainwashed I honestly don't even want to waste my time with you.

Winter is a lie that the New World Order is perpetuating to keep us all in a state of submission and fear; meanwhile, corporations rake in billions from the sale of warm, heavy garments. Just go outside for a few minutes today and then tell me that there's such a thing as "winter". Any sane, rational person will agree that the idea of the outside being extremely cold is absolutely unthinkable. It's hot outside, really hot! And yet the mitten-industrial complex would have us believe that we actually want to be warmer for part of the year. Winter! Like a big air conditioner for the outdoors, I guess! Ha ha ha!

If you have "evidence" for the existence of winter, I'd love to hear it. Also, dead armadillos are filled with a delicious substance that grants immortality and makes your penis colossal. You can prove that one with empirical evidence -- go out and try.