Thoughts, as of One A.M.

1. There are two types of people who write graffiti in the dust on the backs of cars: people who love and people who hate. People who love write "I love you" or "Jordan loves Melissa" or something. People who hate swear or write "Jordan loves the bus driver." There are however, people who do not fit into these categories, like people who write "Maya Buttreeks" or "Pancakes and Syrup," but these people are stupid. And people who write "E=mc2" are nerds. I guess that's four types of people?

2. Meeting people in real life who I mostly know in blog form is incongruent. Your un-self-consciously well-groomed beards and your hair that's frighteningly similar to mine and your distinct and audible voices are not at all what I expect when I read your blogs. Why didn't we talk more about vortexes?

3. While I am quite grateful that I do not have a pet, I regret missing the opportunity to borrow one for a week. Of course, had I accepted the pet loan, I probably would have enjoyed the idea and praised myself for being a great friend until the day came for me to pick up the pet, at which time I would refuse to take it with me. In this matter Plato was correct: the idea is superior to the reality, unless something something free pizza.

4. There is a hood of a car in the dumpster at my building. My immediate response was to check the hood of my car to make sure it was still attached. It was. But I should have known that, as I'd been driving it around all day with a hood. I wonder if I could use an extra hood, though. Never know when mine's gonna fly off. Could be the next time I'm driving down the interstate, which was invented by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Black Hole of Self-Consciousness

I recently read something posted by one of the hundreds of millions of my fellow bloggers. When I read what my fellow bloggers have written, I inevitably compare my writing to theirs, and not until today was I so thoroughly disconcerted.

I realized this:
We all sound the same.

Some of us are funnier than others, some of us are more interesting than others, but when it comes down to the fundamentals, you could put all of our posts in one blog and nobody would ever know the difference.

This verges on predicting a distopian wasteland in which we all have something that's supposedly unique only to make us all exactly the same, and while that's perfectly valid, I prefer taking it in a slightly different direction:

The Nation of Unspar

As some of you know, the Nation of Unspar has spent some time debating whether or not it should declare a national language. I, for one, think it's unnecessary, but the other two citizens disagree. For some reason--I don't understand it--they think they need to make a symbolic gesture to the population (all three of us) to announce that we have one common language. Anyway, the debate is finally over. The Nation of Unspar has an official national language, and that national language is officially Spanish.

This comes as quite a surprise to many Unsparian citizens, as it's well known that 100% of the Nation of Unspar speak English, while a relatively smaller 0% speak Spanish.

One of the three citizens had this to say: "I voted for English." Apparently, then, the remaining two of us voted for Spanish, though I'm pretty sure I voted for Tyranosaurus.

So what does this mean for the future of the Nation of Unspar? Nothing. When I asked my fellow citizens if they planned on learning Spanish, they said maybe. I pretty much feel the same way. I think my initial reaction was somewhere in the "whatever" range.

However, I believe this will have a profound impact on the face of our nation both at home and in the international community. Here, the number of Spanish speakers may rise as much as 33% (one person) within the first ten years. Abroad, our neighbors will recognize this significant cultural development and lampoon us in their political cartoons. So in the end, we're all winners.

Lessons Learned from James Joyce: EXTREME

Some of you scholars may recall Stephen Dedalus' enthusiastic conversion in Chapter 4 (I think) of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In this chapter (or perhaps the chapter preceding) Stephen devotes himself to the debasement of his senses as a way to bring himself closer to God. Of course, he abandoned that lifestyle in the following chapter, but that's beside the point.

So, in my unceasing effort to imitate James Joyce, I may take up this endeavor as Joyce's hero once did. Not the sticking my face in cow poo or submitting myself to atonal and jarring sounds, though. I'm not going to take it that far. Really, I think the farthest I'll go is eating rice for every other meal. Maybe even every meal. I love rice.

Somebody Reads the Legends Blog

(Part Three of three posts in quick succession)

My latest Legends post on "If the World Was a Blog" received an enigmatic comment. The comment itself wasn't enigmatic, actually, but the commenter was (though maybe he actually wasn't). He was a gentleman who goes by the handle "Paulish," which is a fairly enjoyable pun. There are a few things I'd like to say to Paulish right now.

1. I like how your name is a pun that I didn't get for a while.
2. I own four scarves. It is definitely not a chick thing.
3. For a second I thought your profile said something about unicorns, not unicycling, and I was going to say something about that being more of chick thing than scarves. Thankfully I noticed this mistake before I made a horribly uninspired criticism.
4. Your blog is well-structured for easy consumption. Short posts equals smart. I can't do that anymore; something to do with the insanity.
5. You're Canadian, huh? Cool. I would have said, "You're Canadian, eh?" but that's pretty played.
6. I'm afraid your top five favorite movies are a little sad. I can't say which I'm most surprised about: is it that King Kong made #1, or is it that Constantine cracked the list? I haven't seen either, but I suggest you see the original King Kong, and I commend you for respecting Mr. Reeves' work. Also, Raising Arizona rulz.
7. The Island is even more similar to a 70s film called Parts: The Clonus Horror. It was done on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Check it out, yo.
8. You have a lot of blogs. Wouldn't it be more efficient to put some of them together? But it's not really a big deal, I guess.

Thank you, Paulish, for your time.

If I Ever Give an Awards Speech

(Part Two of three posts in quick succession)

Most of you who know me know at least two things: I like to be funny, and I like to plan ahead. You might not know the second thing, but that’s OK. It might not be true.

So in the spirit of being funny and planning ahead, I decided to draft the awards speech I will give whenever I win an award. If I ever actually win an award, I will probably give this speech, but it’ll probably include some variation depending on the context.

"Thank you all verrrrrrrry much! First of all, I’d like to thank my slaves without whom none of this would have been possible. Most slaves are a dime a dozen, but mine have been incredibly supportive and helpful, above and beyond what slaves are generally willing to do. I’d also like to thank my shirts. I don’t know if you can hear me, shirts, but I want you to know how much you’ve meant to me. You always back me up in my troubled times, and I know you’ll never sleeve me. And then there’s Mr. T, who really helped out as a kid when I did nothing but watch TV, but sometimes I get him confused with Bill Cosby. Oh, am I running out of time? OK. I’ll leave it at that. And my mom."

You’re welcome.

The Frisbee

(Part One of three posts in quick succession)

This is one of those “what I did yesterday” posts, so if you don’t like those, don’t bother. I tend to spice that theme up sometimes, but I don’t feel up to something spicy for lunch today. Just had tacos for dinner last night.

So yesterday I went frisbee golfing, or "disc golfing," with a couple buds. We played Acorn Park in Roseville, which has got to be the most dangerous park I’ve ever played. I nearly lost my disc at least three times, once at the bottom of a muddy pond. And this muddy pond was on the very first hole. Thankfully, my two buds decided to wade through this cold, muddy pond to find it for me. I didn’t have to get involved because they were wearing shorts, and I was wearing pants. I felt a little bad that I didn’t join them, but I didn’t feel that bad cuz I got to stay dry and warm and clean.

I bet that’s exactly how Pharaoh would have felt if he went frisbee golfing with his slaves and lost his disc in a pond. And if he wore pants. And if he didn’t have people carrying him around on one of those canopy beds. And if he lived in Minnesota instead of Egypt. And if his slaves were good friends of his. But there are almost as many similarities as differences, so I’d say the comparison flies.

My Own Virtual Lemonade Stand

I recently rediscovered the Lemonade Stand Game. What a glorious time waster.

I have become a LEMONADE TYCOON. You start out with $20, and you have 30 days to expand on that. In my last game, I ended up with nearly $100. In my current game, I'm on Day 17 and already have $70-something.

I even got my coworkers hooked on it, and we have kind of a competition going. It's not much of a competition, though, cuz I totally wasted everybody. While they hovered just above their original $20, I was way ahead. Unfortunately for me, they all make more than me in real life. But if this lemonade stand was a corporation, I would be on top and they would be my slaves!

The President's Address

SIKE! This has nothing to do with the president.

I was listening to the radio today for the first time in months--maybe years. My dial was set to 99.5, Minnesota Public Radio, the classical version. So I'm lounging in my loungable car, listening to Purcell's musical interpretation of The Faerie Queene, and then they phase into a Monty Python sketch. A sketch about a cheese shop that didn't have any cheese. The highlight, after many cheeses have been eliminated...

John Cleese: Do you have any cheese here?
Michael Palin: Yes, we have--
John Cleese: Don't tell me; I am keen to guess.

I conclude that this is my perfect radio station. So I'll probably listen to it for another week or two before I again quit radio forever.

Summer is Dead

Today marks the first day that I officially no longer have a summer break. I know most college folk work during the summer, but it's still a break of sorts, and I don't have that anymore. I can't enjoy sleeping in til 10 like I did last year or hanging out on my balcony in the sun like I did last year or doing whatever fun stuff I did last year. My life is over. My life has just begun.

Even rhetorically that makes no sense.

26

I'm kind of frustrated with the number of letters in the alphabet. Twenty-six doesn't really do it for me anymore. Not that I can think of any new letters, but someone should.

I realize it'd be difficult to come up with new letters and incorporate them into words somehow, so maybe it'd just be easier to change the symbols of our alphabet completely. Like a breath of fresh air.

Even as fake ideas go, this is the worst idea I've ever had.

I Am Sick of the Internet

It's finally happened. There's nothing left for me to do on the internet. I've exhausted my usual sites. I'm not interested in finding new ones. The internet no longer has anything to offer me.

But I can't quit. It's everywhere. Quitting the internet would be like quitting the color black.

And the irony of it all is that I'm using the internet to declare my distaste for it. I lose.

Unspar in Action

Continuing in the vein of self-indulgence that consumes and destroys this blog, I present to you the more curious results of an "unspar" google search. I know I discussed this briefly yesterday (four times because Blogger totally effed up), but this is different. Different enough, anyway.

Some hymn that actually uses the word "unspar": But "unspar the gate" still sounds like perfect nonsense. Remove the bars from the gate? What? If someone told me to unspar the gate, I'd probably disassemble the gate. That wouldn't go over too well.

An anti-child abuse website for which "unspar" is a shortened version of "unsparing," I think: As if that makes sense. But I appreciate the positive impact this has on my reputation. Hopefully this will stem the tide against my popularity in pro-abuse sects.

Some book that also uses "unspar" in the context of a gate (text does not appear on page): Who are these people who unspar gates? Somewhere there is a society with a catastrophic gate problem.

"UNSPAR" as acronym: Finally a use I can understand. But wait...using the acronym UNSPAR in that context doesn't fly. Not only does it ignore the I and the S, which seem to me to be pretty important to whatever UNSPAR is, but it also stops short and doesn't incorporate the last word. All in all, this is the worst acronym I've ever seen.

There you have it. Any use of "unspar" beyond me is erroneous, misguided, and insane.

The Latest Development in the Nazi Soul-Crushing Cospiracy

Cigna. You've heard the one-sided hate-mongering stories. You know how badly I want to leave. Now, hear and know that nothing has changed.

The higher-ups have seen fit to incorporate "eTalk" into our system. ETalk is some fancy new system that monitors the work you're doing while you're on a call. Or something like that. But did you notice the company is called Qfiniti? What the hell is that?

...

To be honest, I don't understand it, and what I do understand of it doesn't seem that bad. But it scares me. It scares me because I don't like the idea of having a little green monster living in my computer maliciously scrutinizing everything I do. I probably don't have anything to worry about; I'm apparently a model employee, or so it would seem. But if I'm to keep up that facade, the monsters can't know what's going on. It's perfectly fair to turn this into a war metaphor: it's me versus the spiteful little monsters, freedom against tyranny, good vs. evil, knights vs. dragons, pizza vs. milkshakes.

If I had to choose a different monitoring device (a la Ghostbusters' "choose the form of the Destructor"), I would want to be monitored by puppies. Sleepy puppies. Choose and perish indeed.

Disturbed

Boredom strikes once again, and I decided to do a Blogger search for myself. When I search for myself, I no longer search for Ben Whoever. I search for Unspar. I've come to grips with this as my new identity at last.

The search results began innocently enough. It was interesting to see that it also searched livejournal. It was not innocent nor interesting, however, to learn that there are several porn blogs that contain the word "unspar."

I refuse to believe this has anything to do with what "unspar" means because that would shake the foundation of my world. There are certain thoughts that I shut out of my mind, and this is one of them.

Perhaps I'm most disturbed by the fact that it seems that porn sites utilize a more diverse vocabulary than regular respectable sites. The only other sites to use the word "unspar" are friends of mine. So it seems the pornography industry has for some reason chosen to expand its vocabulary beginning with my assumed name. I would say I won't stand for it, but I'm afraid there's no stopping them.

Let's hope it's gibberish.

Dress Code

Cigna has finally instituted a dress code, and I'm unexpectedly compliant. This means no more jeans, no more hoodies, and no more t-shirts (though I had yet to wear one). Except on Fridays. And I think that's what bothers me the most. I despise the concept of casual Fridays. It's insulting for some reason that I don't fully understand.

Even though ultimately I don't mind having to wear khakis and nicer shirts all the time, I'm staging a silent protest. Elements of this protest include:
-not tucking in shirts
-wearing nothing but brown
-not buying any new clothes and thus wearing the same pair of khakis for three weeks

I give Cigna a month before they surrender.

My Adventures in Duluth (A Narrative)

I know I don't usually just tell things that happened, especially if they're non-funny things, but nuts to being usual. Here's a story.

This weekend I went to Duluth to visit my friend Mary. It was great fun, maybe more fun than any road-trippy visit ever before. But it began with me getting lost in ghetto West Duluth. The problem is there are two exits for 21st St in Duluth, one is 21st St W and the other is 21st St E. I took the west one, which is wrong. But since I didn't know it was wrong, I spent about a half hour driving around West Duluth trying to find an intersection that didn't exist. I would have called Mary, but my phone didn't work.

Eventually I stopped at Lee's Pizza to use a phone. Lee's Pizza might be a drug front or a front of some kind. The people there were very skeptical of me borrowing their phones and insisted that my friend not call their number back (why would she?). Then, as I waited on the corner for Mary and Michael to come pick me up, I saw and heard some strange things at Lee's. A woman walked into the restaurant, and a couple of the restaurant people came outside and commented on how they'd never seen that woman before. Like they only serve people they know. Or are wary of possible undercover cops. But then Mary and Michael came and we went to Pizza Luce and safety.

That night we went out for the Homegrown Music Festival, and though we knew that most of the music we would see would suck, it was fairly enjoyable. I do not recommend Boy Girl Boy Girl or Fair-Weather Friend or Cars and Trucks to anyone, but I will say that they won't make you want to shoot yourself if you have to wait through them for a good band. Especially when that good band is Black-Eyed Snakes. On CD, they're good. Live, they're amazing. It was one of the best shows I've seen. Except for the strobe light. Strobe lights make me sick.

The next day Mary and I went to wander around the lake shore, which was cool since I haven't ever seen Lake Superior before. We did a lot of walking, and I bought a Mother's Day present and some mini donuts (after we drove back to her apartment to get my wallet). Then we watched Clue and went to dinner at Blackwoods. The food was delicious (of course?), and it turns out that lemon juice is an adequate palate cleanser.

After Michael got back into town, we went out and had a fire on the beach. It was hard to get started because it was so windy, but when it took, it took off. We almost burned down this huge log, which would have been cool, but it would also have been dangerous. It was my favorite fire experience ever, probably. Then we all touched Superior for a "friendship moment." Kind of cheesey--no, really cheesey--but fun.

And then I left the next morning. The end.

Ask Flipper

Some of you know that Flipper has a blog, and if you didn't know that, there's a link on the sidebar. Anyway, I've been rapping with my dolphin homeboy lately, and he let me know that he's been pretty down lately because he hasn't gotten a lot of responses to his "ask Flipper" project. He thinks no one likes or respects him, and while that may be true, we shouldn't let him think so. If you want to increase Flipper's self-esteem, or even if you don't, send him questions to flippersmailbag@gmail.com.

This is the last plug that fish is getting from me.

Love and Laughter

I just got back from the last FTA (church small group) meeting of the year, and boy are my arms tired. Not that tired, really, but a little.

Now I know a lot of FTAers read this blog, so hopefully this won't seem like I'm leaking confidential information. But here goes.

We did one of those things where everybody writes a nice, encouraging thing about everyone in the group. Very life-affirming, uplifting, etc. Greatly appreciated. But there was a trend in the nice things said to me that I found particularly unique: 3 people mentioned my laugh. I guess that's not a huge trend, but still. I never really thought of my laugh as comment worthy, but I'm glad it is. Thank you, you three people and everyone else who appreciates it, and you're welcome for blessing you with my great laugh.

Words Together

With a half hour to kill, I decided to write some sentences. Not sentences in the sense that you are reading a sentence right now, and also not sentences in the sense of judgment, but sentences in the sense that I made them up.


The only two uses I can think of for the elbow are tennis and feeding oneself, so I conclude that without elbows we would die of starvation or, failing that, boredom.

A lot of people make the joke that you can use statistics to prove anything, but I'm a little unnerved by the fact that none of the people who say that are statisticians.

Cows are surprisingly delicious for being so ugly.

Are all bald men evil, or is it just that all evil men are bald?

If I had a choice between living with the German circus or taking a spaceship to Mars with a sassy orangutan, it would take me at least 10 days to decide.

Atila The Fun

I woke up this morning with an unfamiliar acronym in my head: ATF. It came out of nowhere, really, just three letters into my head. It could mean a couple things. It could be "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms," which is some government division. It could be FTA (the church group acronym) backwards, which is kind of creepy.

But the first meaning that came to my head when I woke up was what you see in the subject line.

Atila the Fun.

Famous Robots

I can't believe I didn't discover it before.

The Robot Hall of Fame

I've spent the last 15 minutes discussing this wonderful institution. It's the first hall of fame I've ever seen with consistent integrity. Past inductees include R2D2, HAL 9000, and the Mars Rover. We're not just dealing with fictional robots, here.

Optimus Prime is currently leading the running for the next induction, and two of my favorite robots, Bender Bending Rodriguez and Johnny 5, are in the top 10. I just nominated Mega Man; hopefully he'll make the cut some day.

I'm glad that I'm not a robot.

More Delicious Chaos

Remember when the phones went down? Today something happened that's potentially much better, but since it's slightly more difficult to explain, it's probably only equally as cool.

Today while I was in a meeting, the system that we use for everything crashed. We can't do anything without this system. And they won't have it up again until after I leave. That's like saying I have an hour for recess. Who wants to play kickball?

The one thing that makes this less cool than the phones going down is that this is more frustrating than chaotic. Nobody's pacing the aisles or screaming hysterically. People still have to take calls, but they can't do anything with them.

I imagine it goes something like this:
"Cigna Behavioral Health EAP, this is Helmet, how can I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like to do whatever."
"I'm sorry, our system is down."
"So?"
"So I can't help you."
"Then why did you ask how you could help me?"
"It was a rhetorical question."

The Good Word

The word of the day is "Quebecois," (ke.beck.WAH).

Technically Quebecois means "from Quebec," but I decided to establish a new meaning for it, mostly because I very much like the sound it makes. So I will now use it to describe people who are independent-minded and are forced to follow the majority.

Examples:
-John McCain is in some cases Quebecois for expressing dissent against the Republican majority but nonetheless voting on the party line.
-John Frusciante consistently pursues his solo project, but it is not at the expense of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is therefore Quebecois.

Use it in a sentence:
-Jeremy, I know you want the group to do the presentation your way, but if you would be a little more compromising and Quebecois, the presentation would turn out much better.
-Mary, it's very Quebecois of you to stifle your brilliant creativity so that the rest of the class can understand what you're talking about.

Hail Quebec!