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| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
cram
|
5:08p |
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persephonexoxo
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3:26p |
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petermarcus
|
2:08p |
The last few months, I've been running into a southern black racer snake who lives in our yard. It's getting to the point where I see it almost every day, probably more than manatees lately, though perhaps not quite as often as I see our cat. It's probably about a yard/meter long, though I've never really seen it stretched out, so it's not easy to guess for sure. I like to talk on the phone outside as inside is usually full of kid noises, my home office is near the AC which is also noisy, and anyway, outdoors in summer in Florida is a pleasant place to hold business conversations (except the cicadas are out now in force, and outside is getting almost as noisy as inside). While talking, I often watch the snake as it cruises the backyard, hunting for lizards. It has quite a range, I've driven home and have seen it run back into the yard from the neighbors across the street, like a teenager caught breaking curfew. Christey got a blurry pic of it once, but I'll see if I can get a better one. I should probably name it. I'm not about to lift the tail and count scales to see if it's male or female, though. |
| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 |
tharp42
|
1:07a |
Friday Night Musings
Okay, I haven't been blogging so much lately, and when I have, it's been some drunken ramblings or videos of dumb rock bands or youtube clips from TV shows that you may or may not have see. I can't blame anyone who may have stopped reading. So I'll try a post tonight, on this Friday night (Saturday morning, actually). It's sweltering here in the Chez de Showbiz. I've kept the air conditioning off as I generally use it as a last resort. It drives up the power bill and is foul and unnatural. I much prefer an open window, but that subjects me to the din of traffic hissing from the overly busy street below, as well as a dusting of deisel fume grime and toxic worksite dust from the half-formed apartment city across the way. This is my fifth year here on THE PENINSULA (good Gawd), and July is always the month of wet misery, as the monsoon always hits on the seventh month. This year has been wetter and nastier than any I've yet experienced, with torrential rain and punishing muginess slapping us down on a nearly daily basis. Yesterday morning was the worst I've seen. The rain came as an all-encompassing, grey mass, turning the streets into literal rivers. I limped my motorcycle through the wadis on a crosstown ride, testing out my new rain gear, revelling in the chaos of mother nature. While I do no jig when a Bangladeshi cyclone drowns thousands, I sap a certain satisfaction when mother nature cold cocks us and shuts down our shit. Anytime that school is cancelled and businesses are closed due to weather is a great time to get drunk, laid, or both. Such events awaken our primal instincts. They remind us that all of this concrete and glass and plastic we've constructed are flimsy materials at best; that our systems of economics and government are fragile institutions; that our dependable utilities and well-stocked stores may not always be so. As far as writing, it's one of those things I do in spurts, like other unmentionable habits. It seems that I've become minorly "discovered" here in Korea, and I'm now being asked to pump out content for a number of semi-obscure websites and low-budget publications. I say "yes" to them all and am even sometimes paid paltry sums, but this all takes away from blogging time, in theory. I now have a backlog of about four articles that I've promised to deliver in the next week. Oops. I made a boo-boo. But this is OK. I work well with deadlines. They're about only thing that really make me work. But I love this blog. It's all over the map. It's never included in any "Korean blog rolls" - it gets no respect from the K-blogosphere literati. It's silly, angry, irrelevant, drunken, self-indulgent, and rarely ever deals with "Korean issues." But I know that it's well-read and, at times, well-written. I like it because it's pretty much "performance writing." I love writing, but I'm a performer first and foremost. I actually like audiences. I like response. I have no interest in obscurity. The real truth is that lately I've been teaching my ass off and spend the remainder of my time chilling with my girlfriend (세지야), or getting caned down the pub. That's it, really. Writing is a solitairy venture, and I find myself alone less and less these days, despite the fact that I live solo with two cats, both of whom have the common courtesy not to bite me or claw up my leg when I'm typing at the keyboard. In more SHOWBIZZY NEWS... I've been back on the comedy stage, of late. I consider this to be a good thing. Two weeks ago I did gigs here in Busan and Gimhae, and tomorrow I'm doing another show in Seoul, at the Kabinett Wine Bar/Restaurant in Itaewon. This thing has been pimped in all of the English-language press and is sold out, with a 50+ person waiting list, or so I'm told. I'll go do my thing and probably get drunker than a hundred Indians afterwards, which is really par for the course for any trip to Seoul I make, if the truth be told... which is the only thing I know how to tell... truthfully. Current Music: Nirvana, B-sides |
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
searingedrock
|
10:39a |
Tomorrow vagrant
A sketch from a comic done by a friend of mine.  by Jason Alfred |
roshi
|
11:44p |
Oh yeah that reminds me, there's a couple of new Photoshop brush sets up on my devianTart account: http://roshi.deviantart.com/ - the "DA" sets. I was going to do a roast for dinner tonight but I was at the hairdresser's for 3 hours. Black base, foils and then ink blue streaks. If I'd got home at 7 instead of 8 I would have just put it on and eaten late but, meh. So we'll have roast beef tomorrow night. I'm pretty much back to normal after that awful head cold. Which is nice. Although I slept in this morning after my first day back at work and I'm extremely tired at the moment. A bit of a sleep-in tomorrow and a quiet weekend at home should see me back to 100%. I can finally stop pumping echinacea into my system. Oh and my hairdresser is having a big bash for her 40th, it's going to be an 80's night. I've got plans to go as a slightly chubby Siouxsie Sioux devotee. I have little ankle boots with stiletto heels and shiny leggings. I need something on top, though, I don't really have anything that's really 80's style. I have an idea to go get a black top from the op shop and slash it up a heap and wear that over something else, or maybe a different colour. One option for the top is to wear my black and white kimono style top, sort of go for an east-meets-west thing. It's still a few weeks away so I've got time to go shopping. Anyway. I think it's time for bed. |
michaelboy
|
9:33a |
American Darling
As a belated birthday gift, my youngest daughter gave me this American Darling fire hydrant *:  I fancy connecting a frost-proof yard hydrant to it so I might use it with a garden hose, but I'm not quite sure of how to accomplish such a feat. For now, I'm having fun deciding how I'll clean and paint it. Chrome yellow is the newer NFPA standard color for municipalities but this Munasipality[sic] likes fire-engine red. * It's cast iron and incredibly heavy. |
suicidal4vida
|
9:23a |
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steve98052
|
3:12a |
stupid criminal
Tonight I heard a loud crashing noise, accompanied by squealing tires. I ran to the door in time to see a car roaring through the street. A guy from the next door ran outside too, got into his car, and followed the speeding car.
I walked down the street to the end of the block, and found a badly damaged car, surrounded by crash debris. Lots of people were out in the street, looking over the wreckage. The owner of the car was in Portland, and had left the car in the care of a friend. The friend was about to go outside to move the car (so it wouldn't be in the way of street sweeping), when she heard the crash. A few people were looking out the window, and saw the actual crash. Most were just outside, curious – like me.
The perpetrator wasn't hard to track down. The license plate fell off, and it was left behind, under the victim's car.
I walked down the block to where the perpetrator had fled from the car he had been driving. Apparently he had been driving a relative's car, and after driving a little ways away from the crash scene he fled on foot. The relatives were on their cell phones, trying to persuade him to turn himself in. He had agreed when I was there, but I didn't stick around.
( Click through for pictures of the victim's car and the one the perpetrator was driving. ) |
mananath
|
9:41p |
The longest dawn
Each afternoon, around 2pm, shades of pink and purple fill the eastern sky. These colors spill up above the blackened Hut Point ridgeline creating a fantasy of light. But there is no sun yet. The sun is still hiding out below the horizon. Each day brings a reminder that he's out there, waiting but each day becomes a tease. As if someone is dangling the sun in our face and then yanking it away at the last moment. The plus side of this is that I am getting to witness something truly unique. Picture a typical sunrise, the few hours of dawn when the sun awakes and rises. Now break that moment down into 30 or so sections. Stretch each section out for about 3 hours and you can experience what I am. Each day brings a small section of sunrise in to focus and holds it there for all of us to observe, to ponder for a few hours. The next day the sunrise gets a little longer and looks a bit different. Truly beautiful. I only wish my camera was capable of recording it. The sun officially rises on Aug 19 at 12:17. I'll be there to greet it. The next day the first of 5 incoming planes will land on the ice runway. Sadly I will not be out there to greet that plane. --- My travel plans continue to evolve. Now I am thinking of taking some time out of Borneo and spending a bit more in Indonesia. See, I discovered that Komodo Island, home of the famed Komodo Dragon, is located in Indonesia. Now I have to go, I have to see these beasts in person. The downside of all of this is that traveling in this region during November means I will probably get a lot of rain. For those of you who have been to Australia, or live there: If you could pick 1 (or 2) places throughout the entire continent to visit where would you go? Why? |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
steve98052
|
10:21p |
more writing, another sighting
I've done more writing on my screenplay adaptation. I'm onto page 19 of the script and page 30 of the source novel. My earlier progress was much too bulky, with almost a page of script per page of novel. But today's writing was only about a half page of script per page of novel. That's still too bulky, but it's an improvement.
I still haven't put any serious effort into adapting, as compared to just transcribing the novel to screenplay format. I've put thought into actual adaptation, but haven't put that effort onto the page. (At this point the pages are figurative; I haven't printed anything yet.) I should probably start taking notes about the things I'll have to trim out so it will fit into film's time frame, but I haven't thought of so many ideas so far that I can't keep track of them in my head.
Another bit of news about the adaptation is that the author gave me permission to mention the title of the book I'm attempting to adapt. It's Paris Immortal by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sroit.
I'll probably do a few more pages before I call it quits for the night.
Sighting
Today's celebrity sighting was Mike Epps. He was standing around at a gas station, amusing two or three guys; I couldn't hear what he was saying. It was amusing to see one of the supporting actors in The Hangover less than a week after seeing the film. |
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
suicidal4vida
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1:19a |
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| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
segue
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11:38p |
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| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
wondershot
|
12:35a |
TWITTER SUCKS
TWITTER SUCKS TWITTER SUCKS TWITTER SUCKS Current Mood: TWITTER SUCKSCurrent Music: TWITTER SUCKS |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
plebious
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10:05p |
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maeincarnate
|
11:44p |
It's [Thursday Night] Poll Time!
I'm leaving for a weekend in the New York City fairly early tomorrow so here's your poll. Don't open it until tomorrow morning, though: Poll #1430895 Friday! Friday!! Friday!!!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: Allpopespydie -- Whatever happened to predictability? pooplord -- If you could have any name in the world, what would it be? Gender does not apply. eideteker -- I can't find temp work. What now? Three of the four items below were left behind by the previous occupant of my new office. Choose the one that wasn't: And now, please provide your question for next week in the comments. Don't make me regret this, renob. Current Mood:  sleepy |
demure
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8:33p |
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kramerino
|
8:06p |
2 year anniversary
July 9th was my 2 year anniversary at my job. The manager made my performance review just another insignificant blip in the day. I expected that he would talk to me for a minute or two -- tell me where I'm doing well, and where I need to improve. Instead, I came in to his office, shut the door, sat down for a few seconds, told me to sign the performance review paper, and almost as an afterthought said there'd be a raise, and mentioned that while other people are getting laid off, I'm getting a raise. Of course, I expect the raise to be lousy, since I imagine he would've made a bigger deal out of it, if it was the least bit significant. In other news, I've been filling my down time at work with reading books. In the past 3-4 weeks, I've read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and I'm 95% done with Xenocide. I'm loosely using this list as a guide to which books I should read next. Current Music: neighbor's kid screaming |
joyce
|
10:58p |
It is a long story, that I will get into more detail about later, but I find myself in Boston for a night, in a nice hostel downtown (dude, they gave me a towel. I got to take a shower. I could have cried for joy.) $43 got me a bunk at the last minute, linens, free wireless, and free breakfast (that, alas, I have to be up too early to avail myself of) and I'm only sharing with 3 other folks. Also, that includes the lock I had to buy (well, I didn't have to, but) and the $3 non-hostel member fee. Considering how expensive a town this is, I'm pleased. Also, I am old, and while I would love to go see Boston nightlife, my desire to be horizontal supersedes any thoughts of going wandering. I am very annoyed that I won't be here long enough to enjoy the city during the day, as I rather like this place. Heh. Speaking of horizontal... |
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
misswrite
|
3:57p |
One reason I've stayed in the House of Squalor so long is that the price is impossible to beat. Last night I was confronted with the fact that I might have to keep toughing it out a bit longer. Business at the restaurant has been BAD. Like seriously DIRE. E. started a great little place. Excellent food, great atmosphere, good service (thankyouverymuch). But it's just not the time to be starting businesses. No one's taking vacations to Maui. Locals aren't going out. It's looking like disaster for all of us depending on this business to get off the ground. We did okay for a few months there. Got great write-ups in all the local papers, had people raving and recommending it to their friends. People would come straight off the plane having heard about us at the airport. Even got a celebrity here and there. But even when it was the trendy new place to check out, we were bleeding hundreds of dollars every day. These days it's just completely unsustainable. I feel bad for me, but I feel even more bad for E. He's there twelve hours a day, helplessly witnessing his dream fail. (Yeah, he's the creepy boss with the crush on me, but just as I'd hoped, as we've gotten to be better friends, he's laid off that a bit.) School starts soon, and then hopefully HOPEFULLY I'll get enough substitute teaching work to pay my bills. But at the rate things are going, I don't think I can count on this waitressing gig for much longer. It's getting to the point where it's not worth the gas it takes to drive there. I keep dreaming of getting my own place, but I think even $800/month would be a pretty lucky find for a studio on Maui (nearly double what I'm paying now). At this point I can't count on having that much extra scratch every month. I thought D. and I would be ready to move in together by this point, but I really don't think it's going to happen any time soon. Once again he's looking for work, so it's hard to ask him to suddenly come up with hundreds of dollars each month when he's living for free at home. Plus, he's constantly worried about his dad's emotional well-being when he's left alone for extended periods of time. Sometimes I think that D. shouldn't feel so responsible for his dad's day-to-day happiness and companionship, but then I immediately have to remind myself that I shouldn't be expecting him to make me happy in that way either. When I can get work worked out, I can get a better home worked out. When I can get a home worked out, I can get more of my day-to-day happiness worked out. (Hobbies, friends, routines.) When that's all worked out, I can work D. into it all as much or as little as he wants. I'll tweak as I go. I have about an hour before I have to run off to my going-nowhere job. I think I'll spend it googling directions/names of administrators/start dates for area schools. School will start soon and when it does, I want to be ready. |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
pro_smokers
[ daisycake ]
|
8:38p |
have any of you had to deal with (temporarily) quitting smoking cold turkey because of oral surgery? i had all four of my wisdom teeth removed on tuesday afternoon, and have not had a cigarette since monday night. it is not fun. all the websites i visited, including medical/dental/otherwise reliable ones said not to smoke for 2 or 3 days. i had my procedure done at the lovely but conservative mayo clinic, and they said i have to wait seven goddamn days. i don't think i can do this, but i REALLY don't want to get dry socket, it is supposed to be EXTREMELY painful. i am currently wearing a nicotine patch that expired last july, so i dunno if it will even work, but i can't really afford new ones. so, any advice or experience? i think i'm going to break soon. Current Mood: bawwwwwww |
cram
|
9:32p |
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| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
misswrite
|
11:52a |
I'm not sure I've mentioned this before, but one of the first things there is to find out about D. once you start finding out things about him is that he is a blue jeans connoisseur. I don't even want to start imitating all the technical terms he effortlessly throws into conversations about jeans, because I'll never become as effortless with them, and if he ever comes across this entry, he'll just laugh and be embarrassed. But it's a passion of his that I've always sat back and observed with a sort of stupid fascination. When he first arrived in Colombia and we were sharing a computer I was surprised to find he'd first check his email, then maybe the news, and then he'd go straight to these denim forums in the same way that I'd go to LJ. It was weird. There's a whole subculture out there who obsess over indigo dyes and what some company in Sweden is going to do with denim next year, and I actually think that guys are more into this kind of fashion than girls. There are some guys out there who would never dream of buying denim that's been treated or manipulated in any way to appear "worn" because they take great pride in breaking them in themselves. Literally these guys wear untreated denim for six months straight without ever washing them, and I'll admit it, they get them to look way better than any pair I've ever bought off the rack. Then they go and sell them on eBay for hundreds of dollars. Girls would never do this, would they? I've asked D. and the idea intrigues him, but he hasn't found a girl yet who matches his freakiness for jeans, in real life or in the freaky forums. It's funny that D. got so into jeans, because Maui isn't exactly the best place to wear jeans. He's calming down about it these days, and has moved on to classic movies. D. is one of those people that has made a small fortune on eBay because of his unusual interests. Jeans, tennis rackets, now rare special edition DVDs and CDs. He knows when to spot a great deal on these sorts of things and turns them over for a quick and easy profit. Recently I've been exploring a different kind of subculture. Perfume lovers. It all started when I sat down to write a list of my favorite smells, and in my brainstorming I stumbled into all these perfume blogs. I'm telling you, these people are the most interesting kinds of freaks. I never knew there were base notes and top notes and so many other things to it! I started pulling out my own neglected bottles more often, and feeling a little happier during the day. I decided to treat myself to a new fragrance, and spent a heady morning at the Macy's perfume counter picking the saleslady's brain. Then I came to discover that there's a whole D.-like subculture on eBay devoted to perfume, and decided that I'd rather pay a perfume freak dealing from her home in Oregon than the perfume lady at Macy's. I wonder if this is the start of something for me. Will I soon find myself scouring message boards and betting on unused bottles of Gucci that I don't even like just because I know I can make a quick $30. I kind of doubt I have the patience for that kind of dedication, but it is an industry I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by. What's cooler than bottling up the world's best fragrances to be enjoyed any time? The only thing cooler would be bottling up feelings. |
| Thursday, July 16th, 2009 |
andysocial
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4:23p |
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mallorys_camera
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3:02p |
Terroir in the Lutefisk Capital of the US
 Jump: Madison, MN → Wheaton, MN – Traverse County Fairgrounds: 70 miles Right out of the lot onto HWY 75 NorthHWY 75 North all the way to Wheaton Arrows to the lot… Shows at 5pm/7:30pm If you want to fire someone from a circus, you take him to a McDonalds twenty miles from the lot. Hand him a twenty-dollar bill. “I want a plain fish sandwich,” you say. “A fish sandwich with nothing on it. No lettuce. No tomatoes. No tartar sauce. Nothing. Think you can handle that?” “Sure,” he says. You wait two minutes till he’s safe inside and then you drive away. It’ll take him ten minutes at least to negotiate the plain fish sandwich. And when he comes out and finds you’re gone, he’ll have something to eat while he figures it all out plus fifteen bucks to get himself wherever he’s going next. Win/win… ###Yesterday’s Town, Madison, Minnesota, is the lutefisk capital of the US. Lutefisk is a kind of jello made from pouring lye on codfish. There’s a very fine line between soap and lutefisk, so I’m really not sure what the touristo pay-off is here, why any town would advertise its prominence in this particular supply chain. The stuff tastes vile. Plus you figure if the Chamber of Commerce were really serious, you’d see a quaint 19th century Broadway block lined with gift shoppes offering the undiscriminating buyer an opportunity to purchase carbonated lutefisk, lutefisk infused olive oils, lutefisk scented body butters. And you don’t. Madison’s also got some connection to the poet Robert Bly whose study – an airy, pleasant book-lined cabin smelling of ancient incense – rests on the grounds of the Lac Qui Parle Historical Society, otherwise home to a most impressive collection of Dionne Quintuplet dolls. (Eat your hearts out Jon and Kate!) Afore-mentioned Madison Chamber of Commerce hosted the circus. They did almost no pre-sales. Their rep was very apologetic. “Wouldn’t ya know it,” she said. “Nothing ever happens here. But the one day the circus comes to town, they let this guy out…” “This guy” is a local who was locked up for five years for sexually molesting an underage relative for whom he was baby-sitting – he was 23, she was 12. Now he’s being released back into the community and the community is pissed, big meeting scheduled. Nothing in the world could lure me back under those circumstances but I suppose the Iron John you know is better than the lutefisk you don’t… Anyway shows were very sparsely attended. I’ve been finding it almost impossible to work on the memoir since I’ve been back. That means I’m finding it impossible to do anything since I have no other projects, nothing else that could remotely be described as useful work. Result of all this unstructured leisure? Can’t seem to focus. When I do focus it veers off into strange little OCD episodes. Example: Day before yesterday I finally did get back into the rhythm of writing, wrote so rapidly and well that it was hard to break off. All evening long the aftershocks trailed me, messages from the interior, thoughts and phrases I just had to incorporate into the chapter. Scribbled them all down on a piece of yellow paper and then yesterday morning promptly lost the yellow piece of paper, so instead of writing yesterday I spent 8 hours reading a bad Fannie Flagg novel, obsessing about the missing piece of yellow paper, making Jack Kerouac my mantra – accept loss forever, accept loss forever.Odd thing about these tiny, self-effacing Minnesota towns – Madison, population: 1,768; Clara City, population: 1,393; Wheaton, population 1,619: they all have a very strong sense of place, what I have taken to calling inside my own head terroir, a term stolen from oenology where it’s used to describe the effects of soil minerals, weather conditions, grade of the vineyard etc on the experience of tasting the wine. The towns are all quite different from one another. I feel as though I’m channeling something entirely unfamiliar when I inhale the air of each. I can barely remember the names of the towns from day to day. But the sensory imagery barrages me non-stop. Images of lakes. Images of downtowns. Images of people I see on the street. Very strange. |
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