Friday, January 20, 2012
Monday, January 02, 2012
It still exists
Looks like there is about one post a month on this blog these days. Thought I would post January's. I am working on something huge...gigantic! I can not reveal it in its entirety right now, but soon I will. The only thing I can tell you is that it is trying to match cousin faces with other faces. Brilliant! I will be sure to update you when this is complete.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
love your toilet
the hot sauce saga that I did a few months ago is part of a book I'm theoretically writing, where the narrator does lots of little exercises designed to teach him something. Here's a recent chapter.
“Once you shit in an alley while it’s raining, every toilet feel(s) pretty damn sweet”
-Darrell
It’s all fucking Darrell’s fault. Asshole. This isn’t a lesson for me of how deprivation increases appreciation. It’s a lesson for him about how much awful shit the stupid white-boy will do just because he tells me to. He loves the idea that I’m doing this. I could see it in his eyes when he assigned it to me. He probably saw the rain start falling today and him and his homeless friends are having a good hard laugh about the spoiled white kid shitting in an alley. He’ll probably treat himself to a nice leisurely shit at the library or one of his other favorite bathrooms tonight. Asshole.
The second a hint of this idea was born in that bastard head of his, he latched onto it like an aging single mother. He was talking about the jobs of being homeless, as usual, “no freedom like a shopping cart man” and all the usual crap.
“Once you shit in an alley while it’s raining, every toilet feel pretty damn sweet.”
He said it and the smile blossomed. I watched it spread across his face, unaware of the disaster for me that was brewing under the surface. I told him I liked the quote. I laughed. I told him it was a great metaphor. I told him I was sure it was true. I looked back into his face and saw that fully formed mischievous-little-boy smile and knew I was fucked.
I choose my spot in the alley and the mental berating of myself and Darrell comes to a sudden end. I’m completely soaked. I have accepted the rain, no longer crumpling my shoulders up in pointless resistance to it. I carefully plan my next moves, struggling with the paradox of it all, simultaneously wanting to make this both as pleasant and as unpleasant as possible. An understanding of why this had to go down in the rain washes over me. I gently touch the toilet-paper in my pocket and it is, of course, soaked into a glob of mush. Useless. The rain has also washed away any possibility that this will be a clean dump. My prayers for a ghost-shit (a no-wiper) will go unanswered.
I position myself over a small pile of garbage and lower my pants. I instinctively start thinking about a happy-place, but I bring myself back to my grim reality. If this is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, though the merit of this whole thing seems minimal to me right now. I put my left hand on the brick wall for support, feeling it’s filthy, seemingly absorbing it like that guy in the Green Mile. I crouch down, sigh deeply, look around, and push.
I thought briefly about dropping all the sordid details of this lesson and ending this write-up here, but in the case that a reader may vicariously learn to appreciate their toilet and other tokens of modern convenience, the story goes on.
I pushed, and I pushed hard. The faster the shit was hitting the cement, the faster I could be out of here. I felt vaguely like I was purging my body of something, like I was hitting rock-bottom and leaving a stain there. I did the job, and even paused briefly to fully immerse myself in my surroundings before wiping. I looked around the filthy alley, garbage cans, puddles with oily rainbows, random filth lurking in every corner. I felt relieved. I felt pride, like I had overcame a meaningful obstacle and emerged as the victor. A hero home from battle, sitting on an invisible throne. I smiled. I looked up and saw someone in one of the windows, and the smile shattered. I took one wipe with the glob of mush in my pocket, like wiping with white-out, and pulled up my pants and walked away without looking back.
I spent the 5 blocks walking home from 17th and Stout wishing I chose a closer alley, extending the list of my present attire that would have to be thrown away, and hating Darrell and all of the stupid bullshit I was doing under his direction. I rode the elevator up with an attractive girl from the 4th floor and hated her for it. I took a long shower and felt like a prostitute for some reason. Violated. I hated the sight of my toilet.
“Once you shit in an alley while it’s raining, every toilet feel(s) pretty damn sweet”
-Darrell
It’s all fucking Darrell’s fault. Asshole. This isn’t a lesson for me of how deprivation increases appreciation. It’s a lesson for him about how much awful shit the stupid white-boy will do just because he tells me to. He loves the idea that I’m doing this. I could see it in his eyes when he assigned it to me. He probably saw the rain start falling today and him and his homeless friends are having a good hard laugh about the spoiled white kid shitting in an alley. He’ll probably treat himself to a nice leisurely shit at the library or one of his other favorite bathrooms tonight. Asshole.
The second a hint of this idea was born in that bastard head of his, he latched onto it like an aging single mother. He was talking about the jobs of being homeless, as usual, “no freedom like a shopping cart man” and all the usual crap.
“Once you shit in an alley while it’s raining, every toilet feel pretty damn sweet.”
He said it and the smile blossomed. I watched it spread across his face, unaware of the disaster for me that was brewing under the surface. I told him I liked the quote. I laughed. I told him it was a great metaphor. I told him I was sure it was true. I looked back into his face and saw that fully formed mischievous-little-boy smile and knew I was fucked.
I choose my spot in the alley and the mental berating of myself and Darrell comes to a sudden end. I’m completely soaked. I have accepted the rain, no longer crumpling my shoulders up in pointless resistance to it. I carefully plan my next moves, struggling with the paradox of it all, simultaneously wanting to make this both as pleasant and as unpleasant as possible. An understanding of why this had to go down in the rain washes over me. I gently touch the toilet-paper in my pocket and it is, of course, soaked into a glob of mush. Useless. The rain has also washed away any possibility that this will be a clean dump. My prayers for a ghost-shit (a no-wiper) will go unanswered.
I position myself over a small pile of garbage and lower my pants. I instinctively start thinking about a happy-place, but I bring myself back to my grim reality. If this is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, though the merit of this whole thing seems minimal to me right now. I put my left hand on the brick wall for support, feeling it’s filthy, seemingly absorbing it like that guy in the Green Mile. I crouch down, sigh deeply, look around, and push.
I thought briefly about dropping all the sordid details of this lesson and ending this write-up here, but in the case that a reader may vicariously learn to appreciate their toilet and other tokens of modern convenience, the story goes on.
I pushed, and I pushed hard. The faster the shit was hitting the cement, the faster I could be out of here. I felt vaguely like I was purging my body of something, like I was hitting rock-bottom and leaving a stain there. I did the job, and even paused briefly to fully immerse myself in my surroundings before wiping. I looked around the filthy alley, garbage cans, puddles with oily rainbows, random filth lurking in every corner. I felt relieved. I felt pride, like I had overcame a meaningful obstacle and emerged as the victor. A hero home from battle, sitting on an invisible throne. I smiled. I looked up and saw someone in one of the windows, and the smile shattered. I took one wipe with the glob of mush in my pocket, like wiping with white-out, and pulled up my pants and walked away without looking back.
I spent the 5 blocks walking home from 17th and Stout wishing I chose a closer alley, extending the list of my present attire that would have to be thrown away, and hating Darrell and all of the stupid bullshit I was doing under his direction. I rode the elevator up with an attractive girl from the 4th floor and hated her for it. I took a long shower and felt like a prostitute for some reason. Violated. I hated the sight of my toilet.
Friday, September 09, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
"Dear Family I propose a family adventure." -rob
I'll start by catching up. Here is random cut and paste portions from the emails...
As most of you know, I'm a huge fan of hut trips. When you get 10 of the right people in a house with nothing to do but entertain yourselves, you're likely to find yourselves entertaining yourselves extremely well. So who's in for a family hut trip? -rob
--------------------------------------
10th mountain huts are one option. They're filling up though, and don't have electricity, and are often a challenge to reach.
A few of you may be thinking something like, "what if there was a hut, but it has electricity and its easier to get to? And also you can rent snowmobiles there. And also, there's like, a map of the back country that tells you where to back-country ski and not die. And 5 or 6 decent bedrooms.
I' ve found a place like that too. The Vagabond Ranch. -rob
------------------------------------
I'm always in for a good adventure. Didn't we destroy the horse balls? I vividly remember kerry trying to jump over one of them and not getting very close, destroying it in the process. -jeremy---------------------------------------------------------
They were completely destroyed. -dee
-------------------------------------------------------
Baggo dissapeard also. I thought Rob had it, Rob thought I had it, I don't know where it is anymore. Also Mom just found the long lost water balloon launcher. Perhaps a contest is in order for who gets to keep it. -jeremy
-----------------------
I have horseballs. -matt
-------------------------------------------
No...no..., I am pretty sure I am looking at a pair of horseballs right now. jake.
----------------------------------------------
As you can see, this email thread got a little off topic. Hell, we barely made it 3 emails.
Now, to business.
We have a strong vote for January. Any other votes? Jake?
Rob, how much time in advance do you think we need to book this?
Saturday, August 27, 2011
name that show
"My name is Rory B Bellows, and I got a lot of coroberatin' evidence to prove it!"
This actually kept me up last night.
Bonus point if you know the actual name of the episode. NO googling
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Cousin News
I received the following email from Maggie today:
Super! This site is guide to the world of pleasure! (then some website, which is obviously going to either destroy my computer or guide me through the world of pleasure. Either way, I'm scared to click on it).
Super! This site is guide to the world of pleasure! (then some website, which is obviously going to either destroy my computer or guide me through the world of pleasure. Either way, I'm scared to click on it).
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Pure Michigan
I just wanted to throw a tentative date out there for a canoe trip PURE Michigan style. August 13-14? What do we think?
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Weiner's Wiener
It's been a slow June on the blog. Just 2 one-line posts from Kyle, both of which were quite unpleasant for me to think about. I'll class it up a little bit with a high-brow discussion of politics and research.
I'm fascinated by this story that's been everywhere lately about congressman Weiner putting photos of his penis on twitter. It's like a news story caricature. There have been an incredible number of stories lately about famous people, often politicians, getting caught doing some ridiculous sexual thing. They must understand that getting caught cock-tweeting, or trolling for gay sex in bathrooms, or sleeping with everyone, or whatever else is going to basically ruin their lives, and they just dive right in there anyway. I wonder whether it's more nature or nurture: is it that people who get into being a celebrity or politics have always had a deep need for social reinforcement and that's why they do this stuff, or is it more because being famous gives people power, and makes them think they can get away with anything? Which came first, the fame or the boner?
Another funny part of this story is that the guy's name is Weiner. I came across this article about how this is related to an interesting psychology finding, where people have strange attractions to things that are related to their names.
I don't really buy this explanation, but it brings to mind another interesting finding on rumors. My dissertation advisor wrote a paper about how, when something seems easy to think about, people judge it as more true, among other judgments. For example, people say that "woes unite foes" is more true than "problems unite enemies" and so on. If we didn't already have certainty that Weiner showed is Wiener, we'd be more likely to believe it because it's easy to think about, or "fluent".
In addition to rhyming, I think one could increase fluency of a rumor by having some sort of conceptual relationship between the actor and the deed. For example, maybe American Airlines is doing too much racial profiling against muslims. Or Philip Morris is doing too much air pollution.
Here's a few other fluent rumors for your reading enjoyment:
-Fidel Castro was castrated for infidelity
-Pittsburgh Steelers have been stealing from their players.
-Exxon executive caught with pornography (x-rated)
-Shell oceanic oil spill
-Many commercially available Sony goods are phony. Especially their phones.
-An ear was found in a Tyson Chicken product
-Food bought at SafeWay is unsafe for consumption.
We're actually thinking about writing a paper about this. If we get into it, I'll be looking for some more of these to choose from.
Another cool finding on rumors, also by my advisor, is that people often forget the valence of a message but remember the parts of it. So you take a random group of people and tell them "Shark fin does not prevent arthritis". Later on, you'll find that the people who you told this to are actually more likely to believe that shark fin does prevent arthritis, compared to a random group of people who you never told that first statement to. They remember hearing something about shark fins and arthritis and some guess that there was a positive relationship...
I'm fascinated by this story that's been everywhere lately about congressman Weiner putting photos of his penis on twitter. It's like a news story caricature. There have been an incredible number of stories lately about famous people, often politicians, getting caught doing some ridiculous sexual thing. They must understand that getting caught cock-tweeting, or trolling for gay sex in bathrooms, or sleeping with everyone, or whatever else is going to basically ruin their lives, and they just dive right in there anyway. I wonder whether it's more nature or nurture: is it that people who get into being a celebrity or politics have always had a deep need for social reinforcement and that's why they do this stuff, or is it more because being famous gives people power, and makes them think they can get away with anything? Which came first, the fame or the boner?
Another funny part of this story is that the guy's name is Weiner. I came across this article about how this is related to an interesting psychology finding, where people have strange attractions to things that are related to their names.
I don't really buy this explanation, but it brings to mind another interesting finding on rumors. My dissertation advisor wrote a paper about how, when something seems easy to think about, people judge it as more true, among other judgments. For example, people say that "woes unite foes" is more true than "problems unite enemies" and so on. If we didn't already have certainty that Weiner showed is Wiener, we'd be more likely to believe it because it's easy to think about, or "fluent".
In addition to rhyming, I think one could increase fluency of a rumor by having some sort of conceptual relationship between the actor and the deed. For example, maybe American Airlines is doing too much racial profiling against muslims. Or Philip Morris is doing too much air pollution.
Here's a few other fluent rumors for your reading enjoyment:
-Fidel Castro was castrated for infidelity
-Pittsburgh Steelers have been stealing from their players.
-Exxon executive caught with pornography (x-rated)
-Shell oceanic oil spill
-Many commercially available Sony goods are phony. Especially their phones.
-An ear was found in a Tyson Chicken product
-Food bought at SafeWay is unsafe for consumption.
We're actually thinking about writing a paper about this. If we get into it, I'll be looking for some more of these to choose from.
Another cool finding on rumors, also by my advisor, is that people often forget the valence of a message but remember the parts of it. So you take a random group of people and tell them "Shark fin does not prevent arthritis". Later on, you'll find that the people who you told this to are actually more likely to believe that shark fin does prevent arthritis, compared to a random group of people who you never told that first statement to. They remember hearing something about shark fins and arthritis and some guess that there was a positive relationship...
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Suddently at a loss for words
I wanted to post something but everytime I sign on I just kind of forget everything. I am trying to find a job right now. There were two jobs that I worked on for about a year and then ultimately fell through at the last minute. It makes me so incredibly angry that I didn't get either of these positions. I immediately lost all job search motivation, but am starting to regain some drive. I have started running again and may attempt to do a marathon in northern wisconsin this fall. I have been trying to look for jobs, but it is kind of half-assedly. I am done with school so I have nothing but freetime, yet most of it is just kind of wasted away. I think my brain is melting.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
my happy d-day
not a typo. d stands for death.
I encourage critique.
I'll start.
It rediculous that he, while refering to the bible, put quote marks around 'gay pride movement,' as though the bible uses those words.
then there is this:
"What if May 21 ends and nothing occurs?
The biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong."
-This may not be the most accurate use of the word "specific" that I've ever heard. Probably not the least accurate either.
I encourage critique.
I'll start.
It rediculous that he, while refering to the bible, put quote marks around 'gay pride movement,' as though the bible uses those words.
then there is this:
"What if May 21 ends and nothing occurs?
The biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong."
-This may not be the most accurate use of the word "specific" that I've ever heard. Probably not the least accurate either.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
camping list
here is the pile of stuff I created for this weekend's moab camping trip...
Food (bratwursts, ham, peanut butter)
Scotch
Beer
Water
Sleeping bag
headlamp
Snake bite kit
Climbing gear
Frisbees
Drums
Didgeridoos
20 hits of 'something'
Silly hat
I think that about sums it up. For a better visual of the pile; the peanut butter and the 'something' are in the silly hat.
Food (bratwursts, ham, peanut butter)
Scotch
Beer
Water
Sleeping bag
headlamp
Snake bite kit
Climbing gear
Frisbees
Drums
Didgeridoos
20 hits of 'something'
Silly hat
I think that about sums it up. For a better visual of the pile; the peanut butter and the 'something' are in the silly hat.
Friday, April 29, 2011
kooky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtshOIeK4Vk
This is a classic old techno song from the 90s. It is just so weird with the video that I had to post it. Hypnotic almost.
This is a classic old techno song from the 90s. It is just so weird with the video that I had to post it. Hypnotic almost.
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