I don't know if any of you have seen this ...

But recently Meghan McCain uploaded a picture that set the conservative Twittersphere on fire. I'll put the picture in just ... here:

So, take that in if you would.

She posted it, ostensibly because she was hanging out at home on a Saturday night and reading a Warhol biography. Also, if you look very closely, you'll see she has breasts.

The twitter/internet response was INSANE. On the fairly liberal and male Digg.com, which is to the Internet what behind the Stop 'n Sip is to the Midwest, the reaction had a "stupid conservative floozy"/"I'd put my dick in that" inflection. There will always be kids on the Internet, I guess.

All she's doing in this picture is showing off a book and having breasts. Ogling her is fine if you do it in the comfort of your own home and don't give public voice to the notion that chicks are first and foremost for ogling. It's the difference between saying "that woman who reads has intriguing breasts," and, "thank god the breasts partially obscured by that book had a woman to ride into the frame of this picture on!" You see the difference?

Also, calling a conservative a whore for being sexy is missing the point of social liberalism you jackasses. You can't turn conservatives' own punitive worldview on them when they demonstrate sexiness, because it's not them we're fighting, you jerks, it's their worldview.

Speaking of the conservative response, the worst comment I've seen so far is this:
"You knew you were posting a nearly NSFW [not safe for work] photo, so don't pretend like you're surprised at people's reaction,"

NSFW is probably a useful notion, because it stops you from opening up a picture that might create a "hostile work environment" for some people. Who those people are is generally implicit in your culture's notions of decency. The idea of "nearly NSFW" is looney.

It's not as though the person sending something labled "NSFW" is saying - "don't look at this filth!" They're saying, look at this filth later, when only consulting adults are around. Nearly NSFW, or NNSFW, just means "NSFW if there are a lot of prudes around". I'm offended by NNSFW because it's retrogressive. It suggests we're not being prudish enough yet.

I think we already do a number on women's self-image by insisting that female sexuality is somehow irreconcilable with brains or seriousness. Just because boobs make us guys momentarily stupid and licentious doesn't mean we should project those characteristics on their owners. So, hey conservatives, quit it! We don't need to go any further backwards on this.

Watch this space

There's talk about maybe a new article being published.

The Internet will hate me for it, so that'll be exciting. I'll post a link from here when it's up.

If you're in D.C. ...

... and can go see Psychosis 4.48 performed by Factory 449 ...

Don't.

It's terrible. I was reminded of Dorothy Parker saying of Katherine Hepburn, "she runs the gamut of emotions from A to B".

If the essential question of the play was "how does suicide arise from depression" then the director's answer seems to be delivered by asking the actors to "play crazy to the hilt!" Yeah, crazy! That's the ticket. It strikes me as odd that out of 10 actors and a director none seemed to have any experience with sadness or considering suicide. Did they all miss high school?

Anyway, don't go see it. I've already invested more emotion in this review than I felt throughout the whole play.

You must be effing kidding me

Decrying the lows to which movie studios will sink is a pastime that could quickly eat up all your time for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, I've gotta say something about this crap:

http://thebox-movie.warnerbros.com/

I guess it's based on a short story, but that short story is based on a moral dilemma. What's next, "The Woman or the Painting", "To Steal Medicine for Your Sick Mother or Not!"?

Try harder Hollywood. Try. Harder.

I'm probably dying ...

... of hand.

I have to go get an MRI of a lump in my hand. I don't really think it's a big deal, but you know better safe than something or other.

I've always tried not to worry until worrying does some good. Often I try not to worry even after it's demonstrably a good time to freak the hell out. However, I'm worried now, not so much about the fact that I'm almost certainly about to die of the nations 1Mth most dangerous killer - hand gophers! - but because I'm scheduled for an MRI ... with contrast.

I've never had an MRI of any sort, - with contrast, with bananas, or with a happy ending. However, I was with a woman who was toughing it out while passing a kidney stone once.

Wait, I'm tying it back to the story.

She's a certifiable bad-ass. I expect Chuck Norris couldn't pass a kidney stone without at least tearing up, but this ole girl sure did. I've never developed so much respect for a person in one nighttime.

And stay up all night with her I did, trying to help her navigate the medical system - (which blows in this country btw, and I'm not just saying that; seriously, travel to other countries before you decide the USA is still the best at anything). The only thing that almost caused our heroine to give up and just walk out of the hospital, while still suffering from an undiagnosed pain that most people who've been through both describe as worse than childbirth, was when the doctor threatened a second MRI with contrast.

I had to physically restrain the steely old bird and I think I only managed that because she was already in dire scalding pain.

I'm horrified. It's like going into the hospital with a broadsword up your urethra, but being like, you know, resigned to it, then deciding that this one test is just too much to bear.

I'm not even worried about MRIs in general. Some people get tetchy about them because you have/get to get inside a huge metal tube. I, of course, will be pretending I'm being fitted for a robo-exoskeleton, so no worries there. I'm also not really claustrophobic.

Some people whine because they're loud. So are robot battle suits you pansies.

No, I'm whining because apparently adding the words "with contrast" means they inject hot magma into your arm or something and somehow that's less comfortable than passing a shard of uric acid through the most minute and tender plumbing of your amazingly gentle bits.

In the immortal words of a that cell-phone abusing whalebird, Twitter, "FML".

Anecdote 1

Er, I think you'll find that's a katana. Jeez.

I was leaving work for lunch yesterday and who should get on the elevator but a woman dressed in business attire, but, you know, carrying a broadsword (of course it was a broadsword - I didn't play all that D&D for nothing you know).

She was carrying it without the least self-consciousness - until I said out loud to my friend "is she carrying a broadsword?" Then she sort of turned away from my friend a bit.

Best of all, in direct compliance with my prayers, she did in fact get off the elevator on the floor where I work. Unfortunately she went to the right instead of the left, suggesting she works for the law firm over there.

I'm baffled, I admit.

Fuck

This somehow feels even more weirdly violating than that whole Tesh thing.

http://danielharrisonband.com/default.aspx

I'm sure he's totally nice and stuff, and I know I'm not totally fair in my distrust of folks who are zealous about anything, particularly religion, but sheesh!

I'm pooped

I feel like I've had about 10 hours of sleep out of the last 54, but that's only because it's true.

I'm about an hour from trippy lucid-daydream hallucinations I think, so I might stay up just for that. I also want to start using my Google Wave account, but I found it confusing enough without being wrecked on wakefulness, so I might put that off til later.

Oh, the hallucinations have started early. My totem unicorn tells me it's time to go iron some shirts for next week. He's very concerned I look good for work.

My age

A coworker today underestimated my age by at least six years. While that's awesome for me, it's going to be even funnier for certain members of my family.

That's because I forgot to mention that my sister, who lives locally and is 4 years younger (plus smarter and probably wealthier) than I (just like her twin, incidentally), has been mistaken for my older sister a couple of times recently.

I don't think I want to make too much of it, because probably the reason has more to do with my actions than how we each look. Still, as a proper older brother, I will make fun. Of course, she's married, has a career she likes, and has her crap together, so whatever.

Could all you non-family and friends avert your eyes for a sec?

Okay, now they're distracted, I feel I should let my pals know I'm really happy. Everything's coming up Daniel recently.

I know I'm usually a marginally optimistic cynic who glosses over the fundamental meaninglessness of life with a palaver of wry fart jokes and girlie-drinks, but due to a couple of strokes of really good luck recently I'm just psyched all day. It's embarrassing.

That is all.

Insomnia?

I haven't had insomnia in ages, but if you could check the time of this post you'd note that either I'm taking a very ambitious and optimistic line on Tuesday or I'm awake at a simply stupid hour of the day.

Seriously, I was only vaguely aware that a 4:30 AM even existed. I thought maybe it was a story concocted to frighten children, like the chupecabra or libertarians.

I'd like to think I'm awake because of excitement over either my job search or my burgeoning romantic life, but if I'm honest, I think the positive developments in both those areas would lull me to sleep like a big somnolent baby. I haven't a clue why I'm still awake.

Sure, some of you will say, why did you wash down a pitcher of margaritas with a latte at 10:00 PM? To you I say, "for America!" Also, "hush. No one likes a smart alec."

Actually, I won't take any guff about my eating habits, since I learned today, after swanning around in a hot tub at the Marriott where my friend is staying and then using their balance scale, that my curious "unemployment diet", which seems to include incautious beverage choices and a plenitude of cheese sandwiches at irregular hours, is causing me to lose weight. I'm back down to what I weighed in college, so that's fun.

Maybe my weight has tricked my brain into keeping college hours, which I recall totally sucked.

Anyway, I've put the "bonus" awake-time to marginal use by killing a (preposterously large) cave cricket. The trick, it turns out, is to move slowly, not quickly - just like the knife fights in the confusing movie adaptation of Dune where Captain Picard tries to teach Kyle MacLachlin to kill Sting in slo-mo and a floating dirigible of a fat dude with weeping sores gives me nightmares for a week (0r something). You know the one.

In cricket updates, I'm becoming inured to the horrible little bastards ... though I still kill them with a distressing relish, considering their only crime is being frankly hideous.

Don't give me that look! I was unpopular in high school too, so don't you dare go taking the side of the ugly misunderstood crickets. If there were goth emo stoners lurching around your basement in the middle of the night, hiding under the fridge, and leaping at you when you went to take a slash, you'd whack them with rolled up copies of Rolling Stone too, whether you listen to Tool or not. I'm fairly certain Robert Smith would approve. Morrissey of course would be disdainful and quietly maudlin about it.

Okay, I'm going to try this whole sleeping thing again.

WTF?

Since when did Whiskey Tango Foxtrot become an acceptable lengthening of WTF? It's longer than the original phrase (which is "what the f***" ... which is actually "what the fuck" for those of you not frightened by words, and "what the fundoodle" for those of you who are).

I heard a guy on NPR use it, and I think he was a colonel in the U.S. army. I wasn't paying attention, so he might have been a janitor at the Quickee Mart, but he was probably someone of some import to be a guest on NPR.

That is all.

Oh Holy Christ on a Cricket!

I've seen the face of evil, and it's a cave cricket.
That ugly bastard up there lives in my apartment. They're relatively harmless except that every time you see one on your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, a tiny portion of your soul shrivels up in horror.

They don't chirp. They don't (thank God!) bite. And in fact, they don't seem to do much at all. They do move like lightning when you go to squish them though. Fair enough, I guess. I'd move too if I were being squished.

However, they look like a cross between a cricket and a hairy spider - which, in case you're interested, is actually the recipe for unadulterated evil. They look just wrong and I hate them.

Apparently you can get rid of them with caulking and maybe an exorcism.

What's a blog?

So I got a question from a loyal reader and family-member that went along the lines of "what the hell's this 'blogging' thing all about anyway?"

Obviously, she's reading this blog, so she's at least vaguely aware, but it's true that the term blog gets used a lot to mean similar, but subtly different things. I thought I'd take a shot at answering the question here.

It's a technology:
When I worked for the uninitiated, their conflation of the technology with the trend was the hardest part to get around. At its most basic, a blog is some code on a server that makes it easy to publish chronologically ordered articles on a web site.

Generally there are a couple of screens for writing, editing, and managing the "posts", and it's all set up so that you don't have to know an <i> tag from an <em> tag to do anything.

A user writes a post or two, publishes them, and sends a link to friends. When the friend shows up to the main blog page, they see a list of all posts from most recent to oldest. Clicking on any post's title takes you to a "permalink", which is a fancy way of saying "a page with just one post on it". Generally, comments about a post live on the post's permalink page.

It's important to separate the tech from the phenomenon, because you could use blogging software to publish stuff that wouldn't really qualify as a blog. Anything it makes sense to publish in chronological order will do. Daily sports results would work fine, but they wouldn't set CNN on its ear as Bloggers have.

It's a phenomenon:
Any jackass can publish anything. Look at me for instance.

It's important to note that "anyone" includes Fortune 500 companies as well as schizophrenics and hobos. Who publishes and why has a distinct impact on the blog's reach and content. The fact that anyone can publish means a lot of people have, so there's a wide variety of blogs out there. However, most of them, certainly the ones you hear about, have fallen into a few categories ....

Friends and family blogs, like this one, are good for people who are far from loved ones, are crap at writing letters, but want to keep folks apprised of what's up in their lives. Basically it's stuff I want people I know to hear from me.

Diary blogs are about people's cats and are narcissistic in the extreme. No one cares about your cat! Focusing on the fact that your readers (if they exist) are people, not the ether, should turn a diary blog into a friends and family blog.

Corporate blogs, are a mixed bag. Sometimes a CEO is blathering on about whatever comes to mind. Other times, a blog is part of a larger web-site and deals with specific issues. An example of the latter would be any of a number of Consumer Reports' blogs (e.g.: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/)

Pro Blogs are sites that started as blogs and became proper publications. Imagine a broadsheet turned into a proper paper and you've got the idea. Blogs like engadget and gizmodo are examples.

They have no non-blog presence, like CR does, but they command a big audience. They're what all the fuss is about when people talk about blogging. They are also what aspiring bloggers are aiming to be when they start their puny little humor blogs. Ahem.

A lot of new publications recently have taken this form simply because blogging software is easy to come by and convenient to use.

RSS
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and is confusing to most people.

It is basically a way for a user to find out when there are new posts on a blog you like. It's a bit more involved on the publisher's side because RSS is a format you can use to package up all your content so it can be used and displayed elsewhere. This "atomization" of content has had a lot of impact on the Web because, by providing a standard, RSS has made it easy for one site to seamlessly integrate content from other places on the Web.

From the user's end, you usually see images like this: . When you click on them (this one's inert, but try at the bottom of the main page), your browser or some other program like your blog reader, or sometimes Outlook or another email program (I understand) will help you pull updates about a blog into a spot where it's convenient for you to read up on them.

Twitter?
Twitter started as a "micro-blogging" platform, which meant you had to keep your posts to 140 characters or less. Twitter's too much to get into here, because functionality not found on most blogs altered the way people interact with it so it's no longer just a micro-blogging tool.

On owning a cafe that offers wifi

Does anyone know if there's a device or program you could use to alert you when your wifi is down? I guess you'd need a bit of software on your wifi enabled smartphone trying to access the internet - but only via the wifi. It would buzz if it couldn't, thereby alerting you that your local wifi was hosed.

Someone needs to build this device or software for cafe owners. Failed wifi is becoming the number-one reason I won't go back to cafes now, which sounds lame, but every cafe offers coffee and tables. Besides, nothing pisses you off at a cafe like losing Internet and not knowing when/if it's coming back.

Doug, build this and we'll be rich I tell you!

Oh Double Snap, My New Article

Some people (Jessica) never pick up their damn phones; Other people (Lynda) text while people are talking with them; And yet other people (me) noodle way too much on their iPhones.

If this stuff honks you off as much as it does me, you should probably look at (and vote for) my article on MSNBC, 10 smartphone tips for dumb people.

There, now everyone's happy.

Oh Snap! My Article

I twooted it, and emailed some of you, but I forgot to mention here on my blog that I had another piece published by MSNBC.com.

This one is about my turbulent relationship with my iPhone. I've already been taken to task over it by people who feel like I'm a sexist who hates autistic kids, so no need to comment further on those points, thanks. (The criticisms were actually helpful. I'm not just being glib here.)

It's over here "jump-linked" on your Internet box.

There may be another piece some time next week which I'll be less feckless about bringing to your attention(s?).

Digits

I met someone at a bar tonight, and I kind of have a crush.

For this to make sense as a blog post, you have to understand that I'm terrible, like apocalyptically terrible, at picking people up at bars ... or clubs ... or, well let's not varnish a turd, anywhere. I'm awful at it. There are middle-schoolers with more game than yours truly. I'm fine in a relationship, and I'm not awful at meeting or even attracting women, but I'm more of the friend-of-a-friend, someone-you-know-from-a-group, kind of guy. I fail at bars.

That's a large part of why I met this woman through the happy expedient of finding my friend talking to her and her buddy when I returned from buying said friend and myself drinks at the bar of a hip D.C. establishment. She'd struck up a conversation with two women standing nearby and was engaged in a lively conversation. I was in awe. Surely it's not that easy. What does one open with? That's not even the set-up for a joke. I suck at this.

No joke, I'm congenitally awful at this game and lack any sort of meaningful practice.

I'd heard that women make the best wing-men and sort of stored it away academically, like the fact that the temperature of the Sun's surface is 5,778 Kelvin, but now I can confirm they are at least WAY better than I am. Which is sort of like being able to dunk over Vern Troyer, but whatever.

We four chatted, and then I found myself having a side-conversation with just one of these delightful women. I'd known going in that she was stylish and attractive, but she turned out to be funny, thoughtful, and smart as well. We talked about the law (her vocation), Hannah Arendt and her observations of the banality of evil at Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem (like you do; shut up!), Roller-derby, and emotional manipulation (because I'm awesome at flirting at bars, as I've already made abundantly clear). I managed not to overhype myself as I'm aware some guys do, nor to say anything too goddawful stupid - a pitfall for me at the best of times.

The feedback was good, with the proper looks, the appropriate laughs, the slightly-too-slowly-averted eyes and so forth.

So when it came time to go, I understand you're supposed to ask for a number or something? Did I, you might ask. To which I have to ask, have you not been paying attention? No. Of course I didn't. I'm a goddamned monkey. Did she follow us out and give it to me anyway? Yes, yes she did. Thank Christ.

Now I have to find a way to tell her I have no job, or I guess, find a job. And before you chime in with helpful/hurtful advice, let me agree that with that first paycheck from my new job I should and will buy myself some goddamn balls.

Anyway, the other important part of this post for those who know me is that I have a legit crush and attraction to this woman I just met.

I was actually wondering recently why I haven't had a really crazy crush for a long while (because actually I am neurotic ... and a girl). Part of it has to do with who I've met, but I think really it comes down to this: It's hard to have a crush on someone you know too well. When you meet people through friends you often know too much about them.

The crush, in many ways, is you projecting your idealized version of someone onto a relatively blank canvas and getting psyched. If you already know them too well you can't get too excited because you already know they hate the poor or were confused by The Usual Suspects or believe in astrology or whatever.

Anyway, I'm psyched at the very least for the crush while it lasts. As for "next steps", I believe I'm supposed to call her and propose a sensible date or something.

I'm fucked.

Yay! Redundant.

Look, up in the sky, is it a bird? Is it a sausage? No, it's Daniel! Good grief, why is it Daniel?

I got made redundant the other day, which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, since I kind of hated my job for a number of reasons. I really liked some of the folk I worked with, but some made my teeth itch.

So I'm "flying without a net" now, and looking for a new gig. Not sure what area I'm looking in, since I'm now interested in project management, writing, coding, and this whole "social media" thing. Also, obviously, trapeze.

The picture above and the video below were shot a couple of weeks ago when I went to the TSNY installation here in D.C.

This is my first go at doing trapezery, which is a word I just made up.

What a smart person thinks about Boomers

Friend and reader, Doug, made this comment to my last post. He's generally cleverer than I am, so here are his thoughts where you don't have to go hunting for them in the comments. Thanks Doug:

When we were growing up, every significant milestone in the Boomers' life was heralded on the cover of Time magazine -- Boomers Turn 40, Boomers Return to Church, Boomers Breed, Boomers Retirement Coming Soon, etc. It seemed to wither up after that last one and I have a theory about this: The Boomers' retirement means that they no longer holding the senior editorial positions in the mass media any more.

My theory extends to the younger years of the Boomers' lives as well -- The Beatles, Vietnam, Woodstock and the rise and fall of Disco. In that era it was the parents of the Boomers who shaped the message of the media and they were just so proud that they had to write about their kids. That is only natural, I love to write about my kids as well. The difference is that these parents (aka The Greatest Generation) bred en masse and this boom had a significant impact on the demographics of the country, therefore it was extra special.

This trend will continue past the retirement of Boomers and likely always will. When our generation ("X") got a few years beyond college, we made our mark. The alt rock of our high school years became mainstream. We embraced the Internet and the changed the definition of "mass media". The kids graduating from high school in 2009 will do the same thing in about ten years.

So, I don't share the vindictive attitude toward the Me Generation, I view what they did and what happened as a consequence as inevitable. The demise of their influence is also inevitable -- and quite welcome as well.

As for marketing a radio station to them in 2009, I think it's a bit crazy. If we're talking about terrestrial radio, it's a dying medium aimed at a demographic beyond their prime earning years in an era when the economy has shifted people away from raw consumerism. If it's not terrestrial radio, you're pushing new media to a group that is well behind the curve on the adoption of Internet or satellite radio. Good luck with that.

I think my comment is now longer than your original post. You seem to have struck a nerve.

Boomers

Someone I admire and respect works a great deal as an entrepreneuse in the Boomer market. A recent tweet from her asked for advice about what to feature on an upcoming boomer radio station, and that raised a bit of a conflict for me.

My first reaction to Boomers is "fuck those guys".

It's probably wrong, but from my perspective Boomers are the generation that occurred between my parent's and mine, fucked up health care and education for my generation, and occasionally have the temerity to call my generation slackers.

I don't believe it about all Boomers, but whenever I'm asked to consider the group as a whole, my reaction is "fuck the 'me' generation".

Anyone else out there have a similar reaction, or know a good way for me to recast this crowd of self-involved hypocrites (joke) in a more positive light?

Seriously? Not a single comment on the chinchillas?

I thought that rant was hilarious. I don't even need to read it really. Just a gander at the snooty, unsuspecting chinchillas is enough to set me off.

Oh well.

So, you know how some weeks you really get a lot done at work, clear up the clutter in your inbox and manage to sort out the blueprints that'll lay the groundwork for the rest of your career? Yeah, me neither.

On the plus side, I did buy an attractive hat. In the other column though, it's the kind of hat you can only get away with wearing if you're particularly hip and, more-to-the-point, not lugging an extra 10 pounds of girth about just in case of emergency (like in case I retrospectively realize I really DID want that pound of cheese I ate last night).

You can't be too careful.

iGala

A little while back I asked a bunch of friends, and twitter-friends, and woodland fauna and just whoever to send pictures to my living room via the geeky expedient of my magic new internet-attached digital frame. You hipsters succeeded like gang-busters, so here's an update on this ongoing experiment - in review form.

I don't have much use for digital frames, because who in the world ever rotates the pics on them? Plus, if you want pics you didn't take yourself, you have to cart them back and forth through the sneakernet with your own wee flash card - which we all know is a pernicious choking hazard looking all candylicious and technically alluring and such - and, plus, I have better things to pretend to do like understand the tax code, master thighs, withstand peer-pressure or look at pictures of my friend's goofy-ass babies ... er no, not your baby, that other friend's.

Oh, yeah, pictures! Anyway, what sets the frame I got, a shiny iGala, apart from the run-of-the-mill trash from Best Buy is that with a little complicity from your friends, new pictures are beamed by wifi directly into the frame from such convenient sources as Flickr and gmail.

In fact, if you want me to see your pics, go ahead and send them to photos4daniel@gmail.com. I'd love to look at them. Note, I'm not easily offended, but be forewarned that sending me gross and/or pornographic pictures just occurred to everyone else who read this, so it's not even clever no more. I just ask that the pics be a bit interesting, and that if you're at all nekid in them, you try to be correspondingly attractive.

So, the review is that I'm loving it. The frame has its little quirks, and the icons on the user interface are just inscrutable. Luckily they're quite easy to memorize.

Set-up was easy for someone as clever, technical and well-dressed as myself, but as a gift for grandma it might need to be accompanied by fifteen minutes of on-site tech support to get the wifi sorted. The transitions from pic to pic look like they were imported in bulk right from 1980's cinema but whatever, they're still gonna be goddamn astounding to gramps, right? He still has a VCR and it's still perpetually noon at his house.

I've had my frame running for a bit over a week now and I occasionally laugh out loud or get misty at the pics my awesome friends have sent me. On the off chance that you've chosen friends who suck, you can always subscribe to a Flickr group and pretend those people are your friends.

You poor sad monkey.

Aaaaaaw crap!

My butt is so furious at the environment right now!

Is nothing sacred?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america

Apparently, if it's the least bit fun or pleasant it will either kill you stone dead or wreck the world for your children. Soft toilet paper is worse for the environment than Hummers?

I have to presume that's partly because not everyone puts a Hummer underneath themself a few times a week.

So everything good is bad. Sex, if it isn't just complicating relationships, increases unwanted exposure to herpes, crabs, back-ache, the HPV, the HIV and, in particular worst-case scenarios, the FBI.

Cigarettes cause lung cancer; Drink causes fights, cirrhosis, and unwise 2 AM shouts/chats at/with people best left uncalled; And weed, it turns out, after lying to us about being totally blameless and all mis-characterized and whatnot by administrations Nixon through W, causes ball-cancer.

Delicious food makes you fat; And wine, eggs, butter and olive oil can't seem to make up their goddamn minds what's up, thereby raising blood pressure and generalized angst about the whole mess.

Don't you dare console yourself with a goddamn carbohydrate! Don't you dare!

And as we should probably expect by now, what we put in ourselves is only half the problem. We're also wrecking the world when that crap (quite literally) comes out the other end. Did you want to nurture and pamper your bum with a soft toilet tissue? Did you want to enjoy a brief, private respite from the abrasive vicissitudes of life while you're at your most unguarded and vulnerable? Oh! You did?

Well why don't you just go skull-fuck the Lorax while you're in such a festive, feckless mood, you filthy monster!?!?! Turns out it's all the same in the end.

Christ, what next? Cuddling with your children gives puppies buboes? Lollipops foment civil unrest in Indonesia? You know what caused the worldwide financial meltdown? You did. By enjoying a sunset, you insensitive jerk.

Adorable. Expendable!
img from vociferous

Life can suck it! If I can't poop in comfort without being the Devil, I don't see why we shouldn't just cut to the chase and strip mine ANWR with an ICBM, just you know, for the spectacle.

If it's all the same to the Universe, I'm going to start wiping my ass with chinchillas from here on out and be done with it.

They look soft at least.

Also, there's this, which by contrast is rollicksome tragicomedy: http://ecoworldly.com/2009/02/26/extremely-rare-bird-photographed-for-first-time-then-eaten/

Writing about stuff makes you healthier?

This (pdf) article suggests that writing a little bit each day about emotional stuff should make you feel physically better.

I knew there was a good reason to be a writer (or self-absorbed blogger)! Just ask Franz Kafka or Sylvia Plath.

I'm not sure what the mechanism is. I have to re-read the article, which I hardly even skimmed the first time. I sometimes think that shoe-horning the miserable jumble of stimuli that constitute real life into some sort of meaningful narrative may be enough to make you feel not only like you understand what's going on, but as though it has some meaning. That's probably enough to make you a bit more chipper and lower your blood pressure, I guess.

Meanwhile, in DH news, I'm still looking for a place to buy or rent in DC (have to start applying for mortgage loans tomorrow if I want to buy), I'm trying to write more - though more for my career's well-being than my body's, and I'm coding my ass off in order to get giftgaff looking all pretty and awesome. End of this weekend or I'm going to kick my own ass.

I'm totally old

Did anyone leave a midlife crisis at my place? Oh wait, maybe it's mine. :)

I gotta think about my personal brand?

Just writing that sort of jargony bullshit makes me want to kick my own ass. However, this blog for friends and family isn't ever going to help me retire early.

If I want to capitalize on my inchoate success as a writer, smart-ass, and techno-commentator, I'll need a better name and a more focused "brand".

I'm thinking about it, but I'd appreciate any sort of feedback. If there's stuff you enjoy hearing about from me or you could see yourself telling a friend, "Hey, Daniel's posts are good for x but kind of lackluster when they're about y", let me know.

In a related note, I can't believe we've reached a stage in our cultural development where I'm talking seriously about my personal brand and how best to "leverage" it (leverage means "use", but fancier). It's like I opened my eyes one day and woke up in a cyber-punk satire, but then instead of getting an adventure I had to shower and go to work and worry about my credit score and paying bills.

Did John Tesh rewrite my article?

I sort of promised that I'd shut up about my article on jerk-gadgets, but I found this link last night that I hope you'll forgive me for sharing.

It looks like John Tesh, or someone associated with Tesh.com found my article, excerpted parts, and made them yet safer for a family audience.

I honestly don't know how one should feel about it. It's so curious.

Have a look for yourself:
http://www.tesh.com/ittrium/visit?path=A1x97x1y1xa5x1x76y1x243dx1x9by1x2442x1y5x19c28x5x1

Meanwhile, on the topic of Tesh, this Brandon Bird picture cracks me up every single time I look at it. You should go check out his other art as well. It'll mess with your head.

More the little red engine than sisyphus, I hope.

Sometimes, during the deep of the night, I'll consider my life and make sad, musical harumphing sounds like a plaintive Scandinavian walrus. In the last year and a half or so, I've had some setbacks. My salary rose sharply, then dropped precipitously. I saw the end of a relationship I thought had a lot of potential, and I moved from NYC to Reston-goddamned-Virginia.

Very recently my salary rose again (from 0, but not to earlier heights I'm afraid) and now I'm getting the hell out of Reston and back into a town where there is stuff to do. I'm hoping that this marks the upswing of various trajectories of my life rather than the valley of a sine wave, but I guess we'll have to wait to see. If I can just get my business off the ground, figure out the details of my plan to save investigative journalism, and find a smart, hot, interesting woman to date, I'll be grand.

If I can't make that happen in the coming year, I'm taking my money, moving to Cuba and really leaning in to a dotage of dissolution, drink and decay. Ole.

Moving to D.C.

Let me just say that Craigslist works like a charm. Holy cats!

Maybe it's because the last time I looked for an apartment I was living in NYC (where I recently, no joke, saw a Craigslist listing where someone was willing to sublet their bathroom for someone to live in - as long as they got out when the owner needed to use it), but this process seemed crazy easy. I started looking up apartments yesterday and by this morning I'd seen two places I'd consider moving into on Monday.

I have a handful more to see tomorrow, but I'm happy with the ones I've seen thus far, so I'll probably be a D.C. native by two weeks from now. I can move stuff slowly, because I have to give my current landlord some notice.

I guess I could wait and find a place in a month (since craigslist seems to work so well), but I hate Reston as you already know. More than I hate Reston though, I loathe my commute with the fiery intensity of 10 billion white-hot suns. I'm moving sharpish.

--- UPDATE ---
Fuck Craig and his list. I found a place through a friend. Yay!

Oh no! We might have to learn to amuse ourselfes!

Clearly someone at the FCC made an error when thinking about the change to digital TV. Apparently even with the required converter box, lots of TVs show crappy pixelated pictures.

Obviously, folks who have been happily paying nothing for TV and getting fair pictures for years are going to be perturbed. Still, the tone of the complaints makes it sound like the government is cutting off water.

I'm no "Kill your TV" guy, but seriously, it's just TV. Listen to your radio for news then go outside and run and jump and skip and play. TV mostly disappoints after all, doesn't it?

I am a slow-ass writer

This weekend has been largely written-off to proper work. A project I was working on sort of as a lark became increasingly important as it evolved, so now I'm working on the weekend to get it ready by Monday.

At the same time, as long as I'm spending a great deal more time close to home than I'd anticipated, I'm also catching up on some writing I owe MSNBC. My clever friend at MSNBC talked about how they pay pretty well for freelance stuff, but I'm starting to think that's because she can write witty stuff in about a tenth the time it takes me. I've been laboring over this piece for ages and I'm still not happy with it.

I guess I'll continue to rely on coding to earn my keep - at least until I can write an interesting piece in 4 hours and be assured of more demand.

Going snowboarding

Well, I'm headed up to Whitetail today for some snowboarding and reflection.

I hope not to freeze, and I hope to get back in time to finish some work. Still, skipping it isn't an option yet.

Ah the new year

Well, I went to MI and passed a great xmas with the family. New Years was spent in Boston with some buddies, a couple of whom I'm working with on GiftGaff. (Hi guys! The code's coming along nicely and I'm right now avoiding it for a moment because all the PHP errors have me down ever since I turned them on to root out whatever's eating a whole chunk of page). It was good to see everyone face to face, especially including Eric and Erica my hosts.

The only bummer was being literally the only single straight person at the party at the stroke of midnight. It might have been worse to be the only single gay guy though, so perhaps I didn't get the worst of it.

I started a job on Monday and it's in Annapolis which might almost just as well be Pluto for the commute. Jesus. Christ. The new commute, among other things, is finally turning me into a full-on misanthrope. Look, the rules are, you drive on the right until you come up on someone going slower in front of you. Then you move to the left and pass. If there's no one to your right, you go back the hell over there. Rinse and repeat.

If we all do it, the emergent property might be that I get to goddamned work without having an embolism so urgent I choke on it. Also, your signals inform people where you're driving your stupid car. It's not goddamned rocket surgery.

On the plus side, it's been raining to fill the pound lo these last couple of days and commuters' common sense seems to be made of spun sugar. No, wait, on the plus side, when I did get to work today, I learned about some neat-o technologies for using twitter. How neat-o? Perhaps neat-o enough to make me want to use it more. That's pretty good really. Soon all my (not very many) followers will get twitter spam from some magpie jerks.

If nothing from that previous paragraph save the oblique reference to raining cats and dogs made sense to you, count yourself lucky. Seriously, I'm becoming a carpenter or an ascetic or something. I can see the appeal to going offline altogether. Maybe I'll just walk the Earth like Caine from Kung-Fu. I do, after all, know kung-fu, which is more than could be said for David Carradine when he did the show.

Okay, back to coding and then to bed so I can wake up an hour ago to assure a manageable commute.