I apologize in advance!

Before you ask/demand answers: I have no clue what the hell that is, yet somehow the giant falling snowflakes and spikey-haired pudgy dutch kid are entrancing, no? Although, I've never made it past the minute mark ... can you do better? It's a challenge, for the eyes and ears.

In me-related news, I somehow broke the frame on my old-ass bike last week, which was exciting, and dangerous. I was mourning that shit more than Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett combined. But! It gave me the motivation to go out a get a brand-new bike -- this guy! It's pretty great, possibly the best thing to happen to me since I did some (really fun, yet unidentified) drugs on Easter. That last part about the drugs was a lie. I knew exactly what they were.

What wasn't a lie was that thing I mentioned in the post from last week about the Capture the Flag game on the streets of our town. In fact it even has a facebook group, which you could potentially join! It even has a shitty photoshopped poster that I threw together while I was supposed to be working. Just like now!

Who's next?

In Memoriam
But seriously, I'm asking, because it seems like these celebrities are dropping like flies.

My main man

And now he's dead. Too soon?

A fun thing to do

So last week, I was putting the finishing touches on my dragon-flavored canoe (which I was planning on using to commute to work, but then it finally stopped raining. I'll post photos later when I figure out how to make my dreams reality.) I thought to myself -- what the heck, its wet out but you gotta get out and do something tomorrow, being that it will be Saturday and all. But what? Clearly it had to involve hipsters. Just look at those fucking hipsters. The tattoos alone justify your stares.



So I quickly narrowed my options down to two: Go to some sort of street festival in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia, or play capture the flag at a farm-like place in the suburban paradise of Newtown Square. Both had their pros and cons, which I will not get into. Suffice it to say I ended up playing capture the flag, which was the correct choice. I knew it was right when I showed up and there was an Asian guy with a wispy moustache wearing a greek fisherman cap sitting on the porch. But then that's not really surprising if you think about it, because is there ever a time when the answer to the question "Should I play capture the flag?" is no? I submit that there is not, unless maybe you are in a wheelchair.

The only negative to the day was when I got bit by some sort of weird animal or insect and now my leg is turning slightly gangrenous. A small price to pay, considering that in addition to the flag-capturing, the dudes at the farm had the greatest potato gun (or "spud gun" if you are a hick) I have ever seen. Surely you are familiar with the typical design of a potato cannon, with a fire chamber attached to a long tube? These use flammable gas, which when ignited propels the potato at high speed. They had one of those, but they also had a dual-chambered cannon that was powered by compressed air, and could probably shoot a potato through a garden hose, or a person. I'm not going to try to describe it further, as its best left to the imagination.

The day was rounded out by a viewing of Iron Man on a giant television, cooking stuff on a grill, and songs around the campfire, including an acoustic version of "Saw Your Head Off" which was just lovely. ("Saw Your Head Off" is a song written by a little-known independent musician whose other works include "The Robot Song" and "Swine Flu").

The final upshot is that my telling of a less nonsensical version of this story at Taco Tuesday inspired other bar patrons to try and organize some sort of "urban" CTF game in West Chester, which will hopefully result in arrests and/or crippling injuries.

I thought autotune was dead?

That was unexpected

I don't know how many of you are following the "Confederations Cup" soccer tournament that's going on over in South Africa, but its worth noting that the U.S. team improbably made it out of the group stage. I'm not going to get into specifics, because who wants to read about goal differentials? Mexicans? The bottom line is everything had to go right, and for some reason it did.

And for those of you who care less about the kicking of balls and more about nationalistic jingoism, heres a paraphrased quote from the Wire's Deputy Police Commissioner Rawls, to possibly get you amped up for their mid-week semi-final matchup with Spain. "American Soccer -- Let's show those third world fucks how it's done."

Yeah, I know Spain isn't technically the third world, but screw you. They torture bulls.

Friday's for a video with David Bowie

Oh that's clever

There are pranks, and there are epic pranks -- like this sign posted on SEPTA trains all around Philadelphia. SEPTA is certainly the worst public transit systems in any city I've ever been to/lived in. Even Denver's bus system puts it to shame. That said, here's the text from the sign, which I will try steal if I ever see one:

SEPTA
Notice to the Public

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is committed to providing non-discriminatory transportation services to all of its passengers, including schizophrenics, drug addicts, Irish Catholics, hipsters, homos, prostitutes, gentrifying transplants, raging maniacs, tourists, obnoxious Penn students, corner boys, pimps, drunk rich kids who still think Old City is cool, and terrified suburbanites who tremble with unease at the sight of everyone.

Any person who is or seeks to be a patron of any SEPTA public vehicle shall be entitled to the same depressing experience of loud cell phones, obese people eating McDonalds, parents telling their toddlers to “Shut the Fuck Up!,” and a constant inch-deep layer of urine-soaked trash and debris.

No person or group of persons shall be discriminated against on any grounds with regard to routing, scheduling, or quality of transportation service furnished by SEPTA, with the following exceptions — race, color, socioeconomic status, and proximity to the suburbs.

Any person who has experienced a cleaner, more efficient, more extensive and better managed public transportation system in the U.S. (e.g. most if not all) can feel free to notify SEPTA about potential improvements, which shall promptly be ignored.

via Philebrity

'He will rape them with his mouth'

I refuse to believe these people are serious.

A voicemail message

Do you ever wake up at 3 a.m. because someone is calling you after they have had a bit too much fun? It's usually wise not to pick up, because the conversations are slurry and painful. Plus, the sleeping.

Here is one such message from a friends phone. Consider it edited for accuracy.

Hey it's me
I'm trashing my apartment
(pause)
(screaming)BECAUSE OF YOU
(Crashing sounds)
Also I'm naked while I'm doing this.
(More crashing sounds)
So fucking naked. Oh god everyone can see me.
(anguished cries) It's terrible.
Aughhhh! Aghhhh!
(click)

So there you go.

The Onion strikes again

Researchers were able to identify nearly 30 varieties of glowing rectangles that play some role throughout the course of each day. Among them: handheld rectangles, music-playing rectangles, mobile communication rectangles, personal work rectangles, and bright alarm cubes, which emit a high-pitched reminder that it's time to rise from one's bed and move toward the rectangles in one's kitchen.
"We discovered in almost all cases that Americans find it enjoyable and rewarding to put their faces in front of glowing rectangles for hours on end," said Howard West, a prominent sociologist on the Stanford team. "Furthermore, when citizens are not staring slack-jawed at these mesmerizing shapes, many appear to become lost, confused, and unsure of what they should be doing to occupy themselves."

Report: 90% of waking hours spent staring at glowing rectangles

Scaring babies

That quote is by Nietzsche you hipster fucks. Still, kudos to this video for shifting tone at 4:20.

Crimes against nature

Image from this SA thread

Here's a couple items about how fucked we are, on the planet.

1) Remember when I sounded the alarm bells about the growing menace of wind power? Well you all should have listened, because now scientists have come forward with potential evidence that wind speeds are diminishing. Sure they say its "too early" to "draw definitive conclusions" but still this means all wind generating turbines should be torn down and sold for scrap, or made into giant bongs. It's the environmentally friendly thing to do.

2)In giant garbage patch news, you may have seen something about plastic collection the size of Texas, or possibly France, floating in the pacific. I may have linked to something about it before. In honor of World Ocean's Day, which exists for some reason and was on Monday, here's a story about one guy sailing through it. It's a terrific downer, plastic. Yet so cheap and strong!

Anyway, your kids or grandkids are screwed, and that's assuming birds don't grow arms.

Now there's three more wolves in the wolfpack*

This movie works and is funny. It's also got a hard R rating. Probably not as quotable as Old School, but close. I feel like I should offer some more here, but meh. The presumably gay Asian mob boss character played by the guy who was the LARP king in Role Models is pretty epic. Tootleloo motherfuckers.

*paraphrased from a speech prepared and given by Zach "Fat Jesus" Galaifanakis's(sp) weirdo brother-in-law character on the rooftop of a Las Vegas casino. Before he slips the whole group a roofie.

This is a good reason not to fly commercial

Also - has this scenario been considered by those investigating the mysterious Air France crash? Best to keep all options open.

Nice people take drugs

The situation where people have to deny, hide or, if found out, regret their drug taking is simply absurd. The public is tired of the artificial representation of drugs in society, which is not truthful about the fact that all sorts of people use drugs. If we are to have a fair and effective drug policy, it must be premised on this reality.

It is time for the public to challenge the mantra adhered to by politicians and much of the media that society must continue to fight a war on drugs, as if they are an enemy worth fighting and ones that can be defeated. The implication that drugs are evil and that users of them ought to be made to feel ashamed suits this status quo, but in fact does not reflect most people's experience of drugs.

-Guardian

Building goodwill

Talking about yourself is inherent in nature of blogs, and to a lesser extent, all narrative writing. I guess that newswriting in the purest sense lacks all self -- in J-school they teach you its all about the who, what, when, where and why. Inverted pyramid structure, with the most important facts at the beginning and slowly getting less important it goes on.

But the gaping maw of the Internet requires constant updates if you want to maintain any kind of readership. The problem is, there just isn't enough quality material to fill the void. But if you post intimate details of your life, people will probably read it. Thus you have "oversharing," in which internet writers post so much information about their lives reading it crosses the line from voyeurism into the kind of shared-living-space banality. Thus you learn the most interesting part of a person you vaguely knew in high school's life is the color of their latest bowel movement.

I don't like to overshare, it is an exercise in narcissism. A desperate cry to be heard, to maintain a sense of self-importance among a million voices. And its probably true that this blog suffers because of my tendency to err on the side of the meek. Putting every aspect of your life online is just grating, and can be a recipe for a train wreck.

All that said: I spent last weekend just cold helping folks move their shit to new locations. First I helped Sinclair move for the third time in nine months. But that doesn't even really count because as a "move" per say: He has like 9 items to his name, two of which are giant speakers. So that was the warm up move for the main event -- helping the sister move 2 miles in Brooklyn. Which was ... fun?


No, it was good. As I said, I don't like posting personal details of my life on the internet, so let's just say there there was a lot of biking and some drinking. Also we went to some place called Hot Diggity Dogs. But a big reason I enjoyed myself, and what I think is the point of this rambling nonsense, is the altruism. Shocking, really, I know some of you like to think of this blogger as an angry asshole, but in fact I do actually enjoy helping others. Usually.

There is a certain sense of satisfaction to be gained by a job done well with no tangible benefit to oneself. That feeling is reimbursement, I suppose, but you can't actually touch contentment, it's not a physical thing. Plus if you aren't getting paid the person you are helping can't really complain when you accidentally put a hole in their wall with a box-spring mattress (surprisingly easy). And with that, I'm unceremoniously ending this rambling mess of a post.

Some sort of new space odyssey?

Only this time ... IT'S ON THE MOON

What is wrong with you

"When I am king, you will be first against the wall"
-Radiohead, Paranoid Android

OK. So this is embarrassing, but I watched that show I'm a Celebrity: Get me out of here last night. In my defense my roommate had it programmed to record on the DVR, and I was too lazy to go upstairs. With any luck I'll never see it again and all memories of it will fade to black. The only reason I watched this episode in its entirety was this torture tank thing that looked like it might be a mass-waterboarding device, for the last segment of the show. As it turns out they just dumped some bugs in it. Also: The Phillies are on the West Coast.

Another thing that got me through this terrible terrible show was imagining what it would be like if Richard Dawson was the host. The idea of Schwarzenegger killing that jerkoff from the Hills (pictured above, with some rapper) is appealing. At one point the hills guy calls up some studio exec to whine about how being on a show with VH1 personalities and Lou Diamond Phillips is "devaluing his fame." Lou Diamond Phillips was in Young Guns, you fucking ingrate. And now my blissful ignorance to these Hills people's existence has been destroyed. Thanks, NBC.