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.