the end

Girly

I’ve always been proud of being able to man up with the best of the boys. On the playground, I ran with the boys. In the classroom, I chose the toolset over the kitchen kit and took Drafting over Home Ec. I even chose a degree program in which I sit and do math with the boys. But for all that, I am strictly a female female. I like pink and things that sparkle. I like dresses with flounces and shoes with heels and boys that notice both. Like Nancy Kwan sings, I enjoy being a girl.

That is, most of the time.

It’s just that every once in a while, the universe reminds you that you’re not a boy, but in fact a girl. And just a girl. It’s disheartening to have to open your eyes and be forced to recognize the gender-based inequalities that still define much of the world: economic, political, and sexual. Or rather, have to explicitly acknowledge that for all the pandering about in the academic or intellectual sphere, when things are boiled down to the basest of experiential differences, there is a clear and definitive line. A line that separates men and women.

Some not-so-small part of me wants to scream out, “it’s not FAIR!” and kick and scream and hit.

So you, you sitting there with your smug Y chromosome: yes, you are complicit in this. You can walk through the world talking about equality and fairness, and make your assumptions and jokes. And I will smile and laugh, but don’t you ever forget that in the end, it is unfair, and it is unfair in your favor. And you owe me.

I’m a girl, and by me that’s only great! I am proud that my silhouette is curvy
That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait; With my hips kind of swivelly and swervy
When I have a brand new hairdo, With my eyelashes all in curl
I float as the clouds on air do, I enjoy being a girl!

some things, you just can't google

in the past few days, this flyer has been appearing everywhere in my building. whatever can it mean?

gummy chummy

here's a riddle for you: what's squishy and red and shaped like a lobster but tastes like cherries and comes in a box and weighs 5 pounds?


answer:

a five pound box of gummi lobsters, that's what!

does it get better than this?

I hope not, I probably couldn't handle it.

on a side note, I didn't include a picture of the included postcard, which read: "blah blah blah, I FORBID you to eat this all in one sitting. do you hear me?"

12345678ahh, a challenge! I love it. you're on, chiik!

waiting for rod serling to appear

in season 2, episode 43, mr. serling introduces the carters, a pair of newlyweds who are driving through a small town and stop at a diner for lunch while they wait for their car to be fixed. at their booth is a little napkin dispenser-mounted devil's head, who for a penny will reveal your fortune on little strips of paper.

on a lark at first, but with increasing intensity as the fortunes deliver, don and pat push in penny after penny. and soon, the devil's head reveals the ultimate truth to them: they will never leave this town. they are trapped.

the couple freezes in fear. trapped in this town? never able to leave it? but how? why?

and just as don reaches for another coin, pat stops him. no, we won't ask. we're going to leave. now. don's hand pauses with the penny in mid-air. he wavers, then looks at pat. you're right, he says. and he throws down the penny, grabs pat's hand and they drive off together.

and just as they do, another couple rush over to the table that has just been vacated. they are disheveled and wild-eyed. the man reaches into his pockets and pulls out a handful of pennies. why can't we leave now? when will we be able to leave? will we ever be able to leave this place? will we ever make it out?

he doesn't read the slips of paper out loud. but the audience knows the answer each time. as the final shot closes, we see their silhouettes, huddled in the corner of the booth, shoulders slumped in defeat.


I want to be like pat and don. but I can't seem to stop from digging out more pennies, and I'm growing more wild-eyed and desperate with each fortune strip. help.

Verizon:1, Me: 0

Desperate to not have to cram all of my phone calls into the first 90 seconds of conversation for fear of dead battery, I finally took myself over to the Verizon store. Here is a transcript of my interaction with the Verizon peeps:

Verizon Dude1: Hello. How can we help you today?
Me: I need a new battery for my phone. It's a motorola krzr.
VD1: Okay. Here is Verizon Dude2. He will help you with that.
VD2: Hello. How can I help you today?
Me: I need a new battery for my phone. It's a motorola krzr.
VD2: Follow me (walks 3 steps to the counter). Wait here, and Verizon Girl will help you with that.
VG: I'll be with you in just a moment. I'm just finishing up with this customer, but in the meantime, why don't you tell me what I can help you with?
Me: I need a new battery for my phone. It's a motorola krzr.
VG: I'm sorry. I'll be with you in just a moment.
--a few such moments later--
Verizon Dude 3: Hello. How can we help you today?
Me: I need a new battery for my phone. It's a motorola krzr.
VG: I'm helping her with that. I'm just finishing up here.
VD3: She'll help you with that. She's just finishing up.
Me: ...
--a few million more moments later--
VG: Hi. How can I help you today?
Me: I need a new battery for my phone.
VG: What kind of phone is it?
Me: A motorola krzr.
VG: What's wrong with it?
Me: I don't know. The battery drains after just a few minutes of use, and only lasts 3-4 hours on standby. I think I need a new battery.
VG: How long have you had the battery?
Me: The phone is about a year old.
VG: O, well, yeah. Batteries don't last longer than a year or so. You probably just need a new battery.
Me: ...
VG: So, would you like a new battery?
Me: Yes please.
VG: What kind of battery would you like?
Me: Um, what kind do you have?
VG: Well, we have the regular, and we have the super-duper.
Me: What's the difference?
VG: The super-duper lasts about 3-4 hours longer than the regular.
Me: How long does the regular last?
VG: Well, you should know, you have one in your phone now.
Me: But mine only lasts about 8 minutes.
VG: That's because you need a new one.
Me: ...
Me: I'll just take the regular.
VG: Okay. Would you like me to put it in your phone for you?
Me: Sure, thanks.
VG: What do you want me to do with your old battery?
Me: I don't know, what should I do?
VG: Maybe you should keep it around, just in case this battery breaks.
Me: Is that a strong possibility?
VG: Well, you never know.
Me: Okay, um, thanks.
VG: Thanks, and have a good day!

Roonil Wazlib

Ryan and the Deacs used to mock me daily because of my phone, which was a standard motorola clamshell. Nothing fancy--no mp3 playing capability, no cameraphone, not even a color display. But what it did was get the job done. Phone calls? Sent and received. Text messages? See previous answer. And that was it.

Still, I was bullied into upgrading it for the krzr, which besides being the lamest name for a phone, actually is the lamest phone. First of all, the shiny mirror finish constantly collects dust and fingerprints and so to keep it from looking greasy, I am constantly polishing it. Which of course results in a smearjob that looks nothing like the pristine white and silver high gloss it arrived in. But all this is even before I open up the phone to use it.

The menu navigation is so dense and unwieldy, nothing is worth doing. The simplest way to send a text message, for example, I've got to do the following:
12345 1 Select Message
12345 2 Select New Message
12345 3 Select TXT Msg
12345 4 Select Add
12345 5 Select Contacts
12345 6 Click the Contacts I want to send to
12345 7 Select Done
12345 8 Select OK

And that is just to get to the screen so I can begin to type a message.

Most of the options are layered under so many submenus, I don't even bother. Supposedly, it can do all these cute and exciting things. But who cares if you have to spend 3 minutes clicking through menus that don't make sense? No ringtone is worth that. And speaking of ringtones. With music-on-demand capabilities built in to a phone that is advertised as the latest technology in personal music and entertainment, why are all the ringtones callbacks to the mechanical trills of the earliest cell phones? My old brickblock nokia had better integrated sound playback. It also had better games loaded, which is not difficult to do, since the krzr only comes with two "trial versions" that let you play for about 20 seconds before demanding a $9.99 subscription to continue.

And finally. On the website, it actually says that the krzr has a talk time of 225-250 min and 400-435 standby HOURS. I want to point out that I began charging my phone last night at 10pm, and unplugged it this morning at 9. It is now 10:26, I've received 2 text messages and sent 2. I've received one phone call which lasted 1 minute and 14 seconds. My phone is down to 2 bars on its battery. I will guarantee you that by 2p, it will be beeping low battery. And that is if no one tries to get in touch with me.

I'm not so emotionally fragile that this is enough to break me. But yesterday, my new(ish) Dell--my fourth one in 7 years--crashed twice, losing everything I'd been working on for two hours (including my blogpost on Maundy Thursday, which I will have to backpost later), and then told me that there was "No Hard Drive Detected" and advised me to call Dell. As if. For those of you who know what happened to me a couple of months ago when the same thing happened and the Dell person I called walked me through wiping my entire hard drive and THEN asked me if I had backed everything up, you know you can't fool me twice.

But as I sat there, on my bed last night, listening to the alternate beepings of my computer and phone, unable to even call anyone because my battery doesn't last long enough and the AC cord doesn't reach, I took a look around my place: I have a plunger in the lav in case any of the various drains plugs itself up for no reason, as they are wont to do, and fairly often. I don't have a proper bed because it is often used as a couch, and I don't have a proper couch because it is also my bed. My television set is cracked down the middle and has the shakes, and though I don't use it often, I sometimes wish I could see the picture properly. I don't have health insurance, so I ended up getting generic versions of less expensive alternates. Most of my shoes are worn down at the heel, my coats have tears in them, my roots are come in, and I'm feeling like I've taken a veer into Poopsville, Pop. 1.


I feel like Ronald Weasley. Why is everything I own such rubbish?

mar·gue·rite

I can't remember if I told him, but yes, daisies are my favorite flower.

from the desk of jonnybunny

Grody McGroderson

Of course. Before the clash of the eloi and morlock, the rise and fall of our society will be documented by robotkind. and the men who love them.

I read this article in Gizmodo, about a 33-year old self-described technosexual. In other words, a man who no longer considers himself a virgin, now that he has consummated his relationship with his robot girlfriend of one year, Alice. One year, that is, after robot girlfriend Alice "dumped" him, and he erased her memory before launching back in.

Among the millions of questions that are probably brimming to the surface of your brain right now, I would bet is, "WHY?"

In Zoltan's own words: It just came to me one day. I had a bunch of bad relationships. I would get to the point in my relationship with a woman and I was always too afraid to go all the way. With a robot it is much less scary...Plus there's all the obvious problems with humans—AIDS, alimony, etc—that I just wanted to avoid. I think a lot of people would want to avoid these things.

I too want to avoid alimony and AIDS. Robots it is. Especially a robot as engaging as Alice, built for a little over $200 and fully kitted out with cyberskin lips. Yew. yew. yew.

Of course, Zoltan is a romantic. He is totally monogamous to Alice, and considers her his "mentally-ill, paraplegic wife who [he] love[s] a lot and, strangely, [doesn't] have to take care of much." Smells like Valentine's!

Don't believe me? See for yourself.

smells like texas

I'd like to thank the city of Austin in the state of Texas for this gem of business acumen and modern day commerce. Because if there is something that was missing from the morning coffee experience, it was the ability to buy it in sizes ranging from a "B cup" to a "Double D", and asking for it with "headlights on" from your midriff-baring "latte doll".

And how can you not find charming a business who is able to use and misspell the word "cleavage" on a coffee menu, and most importantly, cap off its offerings by assuring its patrons that their "Latte Dolls are here to please!!!!"

The quadruple exclamation points say it all, don't they?

astralwerks 2001

Royksopp - Remind Me

It's only been a week the rush of being home and rapid fading failing to recall what I was missing all that time in England Has sent me aimlessly on foot or by the help of transportation to knock on windows where a friend no longer live, I had forgotten and everywhere I go there's always something to remind me of another place and time where love that travelled far had found me We stayed outside till two waiting for the light to come back we didn't talk I knew until you asked what I was thinking until you asked what I was thinking brave men tell the truth the wise man's tools are analogies and puzzles a woman holds her tongue knowing silence will speak for her brave men tell the truth the wise man's tools are analogies and puzzles a woman holds her tongue knowing silence will speak for her and everywhere I go there's always something to remind me of another place and time where love that travelled far had found me

chimpliment, take 2

chump: who would play you in the movie of your life?
*s!: parker posey!
chump: oh right
chump: someone that looks more ehtnic, please
*s!: o, we'd tape her eyelids, don't worry
chump: yeah, but that won't translate well to american audiences
chump: (or youretough readers)
chump: i'm looking for one to play you
chump: and i found her
chump: don't worry
*s!: I hate you already
chump: well then you're really gonna hate me in about 6 mins
*s!: I'm getting myself ready
chump: good
chump: ok, it's up
chump: i just snickered

*s!: god. I hate you.

chimpliment

deacs (10:58:14 AM): yo
*s!*****(10:58:22 AM): hey chumley
deacs (10:58:31 AM): are you ready for a compliment?
*s!*****(10:58:41 AM): wait
deacs (10:58:42 AM): not from me, mind you
*s!*****(10:58:49 AM): o. even better
*s!*****(10:58:54 AM): let me get myself ready
deacs (10:59:04 AM): so, i walked in this morning
deacs (10:59:14 AM): and jennifer and emanuel were tlaking about some broad
deacs (10:59:28 AM): who apparently is nice and dresses well and is hot
deacs (10:59:42 AM): and then jennifer goes "she dresses like *s!"
deacs (10:59:50 AM): so there's your compliment
*s!*****(10:59:58 AM): ooo, I'm posting this
deacs (10:59:58 AM): may it carry you through the darkness of your life
*s!*****(11:00:11 AM): seriously. it's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all year
deacs (11:00:15 AM): wow
deacs (11:00:20 AM): that's really sad
*s!*****(11:00:31 AM): welcome to my universe, chums
deacs (11:00:33 AM): someone told me i was pretty good at rock band
deacs (11:00:43 AM): i think that was the nicest thing i've heard so far this year
*s!*****(11:00:57 AM): hey, I told you once you didn't smell so bad
*s!*****(11:01:01 AM): anymore

Note: italicized text added with artistic interpretation by editors

galen

a poo in pooville

if there is one thing I would wish for in my life, it is to live in a time and place and state of mind where I do not have to be fearful of an unexpected encounter with a poo, a people poo, in the stairwell of the building in which I live.

please reference my blogpost of 19 february, indicating that indeed, this is one of the things I like least in the menu of experiences available to me.

why isn't the universe paying attention to me?

thirtysomething

“A little too thirtysomething, eh?” he sets out when he realizes the nature of my discomfort. A little, yeah.

We’re driving back from dinner at Alison and Phil’s. Driving back from the suburbs. In a 4-door stationwagon. Chatting about gas prices and chicken recipes.

I swallow back the rising panic and try to ease my stubby fingernails up from digging crescents into my palms. “A little. Yeah.”

I’m hard-pressed to come up with the whys. Sitting here in the sunlight of a Monday morning, there are no dim monsters rising up out of the shadows leaking out from under my bed and closet. At least none that I can see or describe to you. It definitely wasn’t anything in the course of the dinner visit.

In fact, dinner was fantastic. More than fantastic. We talked about that chicken that Alison made for a couple days afterwards, it was so good. Perfectly tender and lemony. And strawberry-filled cupcakes! From scratch! And their place is enviably everything you’d want from a converted theatre--all arched entryways and muted earthtones and dark wood and good music. Everything I’d want and expect from Alison. And of course I just love Alison, and so by association, Phil.

What it was maybe I can’t fully explain in words. Self-asphyxiation of something I can’t even give voice to, just by acknowledging the fear hovering over everything I say and do. I want my life to have meaning and yet run from the possible gravity of the decisions I could be making. And yet, what gravity? What decisions? None and none, by my own definition and disinclination. So why is it that a simple dinner with friends fills me with an overwhelming sense of panic?

It’s just that I’m sitting there, in the car, and the air becomes thinner, everything starts to press in and I slowly begin to melt into the seat. Yes. A little too thirtysomething, indeed.

Alison's strawberry cupcakes, which were delicious:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

As promised, this weekend, I attended the highly anticipated (by me, at any rate) showing of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation at the Backseat Film Festival (to illustrate exactly how highly anticipated it was, I have to digress for a few moments into a story about how when we arrived, the film schedule was backlogged by about an hour. So, at 7.05, five minutes after the film was supposed to begin, the previous showing was still up on the screen. Due to some level of inattention on the part of the event staff, all of us lining up outside were let in to a nearly-empty theatre. And no wonder. For the next excrutiating 45 minutes, we were forced to watch one of the most execrable pieces of developed film I've ever sat through--and let me remind you that for a brief while, I was a film student whose sole purpose in life was to do the same. And for someone who has walked out of more films in theatres than actually sat through them, it goes to show that I was willing to submit myself to the torture, albeit a whiny, tantrumy submission, for the privilege to say I have seen this film. The second moral of this story is to say that if you ever encounter a piece of footage called Jews at Sea, run like hell. And if you meet the guy responsible for it, stone him. A roomful of film lovers will thank you for it).

Anyways, finally. Finally! Chris Srompolis took the microphone to briefly ("Here's our film") introduce The Adaptation:

The opening screenshot:

And then on to the action. Scene opening in the jungles of Peru, shot on location in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Something I wish I'd captured was the sight of Indy being chased through the jungle by a horde of angry, diminuitive and blonde Peruvian Indians in long grass skirts. Ahhh.

Here, my favorite shot of the film--Indy is about to snatch the Peruvian idol, which cheekily has a little potatohead-y face carved into the back of it:

To compare with the scene from the original, in which the Harrison Ford Indy is about to do the same. Somehow, the little gold idol is a little less endearing without that little knife-slash mouth and angry triangular eyes:


At this point, I was so caught up in the drama of the film itself that I actually forgot to take pictures as originally planned. Every time you sat there thinking, "How are these kids going to re-enact _____", they would do it. And better than you could dream of doing it yourself. Indy being chased out of the Peruvian cave by a 12-foot boulder? Check. Flames engulfing Marion's bar in Nepal after a gunfight with Toht and his henchmen? Check. The camera-pan across a vast archaeological camp digging in Tanis? Check. Streetfight in Cairo? Check. The entire climbing-over-and-under-the-truck-as-it's-chasing-Belloq-and-fighting-Nazis sequence? Check check check.

And here, Belloq's (Eric Zala) below-lit face fills up the screen as he is about to lift up the lid to the Ark:

Also uncaptured were the lost spirits as they flew out of the Ark, melting the Toht and burning holes through the Nazis in attendance. All of this and more done without any of the CGI programs or Apple's iMovie available today.

Here, the audience sits, riveted yet, as the credits roll:

Quite seriously, the film really lived up to everything ever mythologized about it. Yes, it is a film for fans of the Indiana Jones adventures. But it's also a film for fans of film-making. And really, a film for fans of film. In the end, a 100-minute tribute film shot by a gang of 12-year olds would not stand up to audiences if it weren't good. And it wouldn't be around, packing theatres, almost 20 years after its 7 years of filming and production were complete if it weren't great.

It was great. If you are within traveling distance of any of the upcoming screenings, you have to go. It's an obligation to everything you wanted to do as a kid and were told/thought was impossible.

happy pi day

what's so great about π?
what's it's a constant--never changing, always vigilant
what's one trillion decimal places calculated and yet not a single
what's what's simple pattern detected
what's it's irrational, transcendental and infinitely (as yet)
what's what's expansive.

when I say π, I mean it as the greatest compliment, a
containment of all that is brilliant, perfect, undefinable
in the universe.

I π you! You are the πest! π to you and you and you!

corrosion

how long before the lock snaps?

Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.

...but you can call him Indy.


A couple of years ago, I heard a bizarre story about a group of kids who had obsessively recreated and filmed their version of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, scene by scene, taking almost a decade to complete. As someone who has similar obsessive and compulsive tendencies, I immediately appreciated both the ability to love something so much that it would take over your life so completely as well as the need to nurture this love and in turn, let it evolve into something new.

The sheer brilliance of a 12-year old, creating storyboards, detailing each of the 609 scenes they would later shoot is just mind-boggling. I mean, just take a look at the meticulousness of the wardrobe sets:

So, how excited am I that it's showing at the 2008 Backseat Film Festival? And that this weekend, I'll be writing to tell you how awesome it was instead of how excited I am to go see it? Pretty fucking excited.

Doing anything Saturday night? Get tickets and meet me there!

In the meantime, this should convince you that we're not talking about some run-of-the-mill afterschool project here:

Angela R. and Chris S. as Marion and Indy.




Nazis marching the Ark through Indonesia.
One version featuring suspiciously diminuitive Nazis.




Eric Z. and Paul Freeman as Rene Belloq.
"Jooones? Jooooooooo-oonnes!"



Chris and Harrison Ford starring in their respective Cairo streetfights.

shawshank

anyone have any bayer?

mmmm, heroin

semper dolens

it's this melancholy that slips over me every time I leave the city. knowing that it isn't mine any more, and worse yet, that maybe it was never was. like spending time with an old lover at a dinner party and noticing how beautiful she truly is in certain flickers of the candlelight. and all the memories of the fleetingest moments flooding back, inundating you with a sense of love and loss. and at that moment, you would give anything, anything to be back in her arms again.

photograph courtesy of peebs

when is the future coming?

didn't they promise us that by now, we'd be living in houses that thought for themselves, zipping around in jetfuel-powered flying cars, sending out holograms of ourselves to visit friends, and getting all of our food in pill form? I'm tired of chewing, already.

with friends like these

*s! (2:31:40 PM): I don't know what my problem is
*s! (2:31:45 PM): I just can't seem to write anything lately
*s! (2:31:54 PM): have you ever had bloggers block?
deacsachump (2:32:53 PM): no
deacsachump (2:32:55 PM): never have
deacsachump (2:33:07 PM): you have yet to post anything in the month of march
*s! (2:33:49 PM): okay, I have a week's worth of writing to do today
*s! (2:33:51 PM): and I'll do it
*s! (2:33:56 PM): just you wait and see!
deacsachump (2:34:06 PM): doubtful
*s! (2:34:46 PM): meh
deacsachump (2:34:58 PM): just throw any old crap up there
deacsachump (2:35:03 PM): something's gotta stick
deacsachump (2:35:07 PM): that's what i do
deacsachump (2:35:21 PM): ah!
deacsachump (2:35:28 PM): today, i'll write an obituary for your blog
deacsachump (2:35:30 PM): awesome
*s! (2:35:35 PM): you suck

Philadelphia is my home (for now)

a photoessay: