Quote of the Day: Moe from the Simpsons

"It's po-mo! Post-modern! Yeah, all right -- weird for the sake of weird."





I'll be watching a presentation all day abour presentations so this will have to suffice for a blog post today. Yes, it's all very post-modern.

Quote of the Day: James Joyce

“A man's errors are his portals of discovery.”


I certainly discovered many new portals today. I learned that if a cop says, "Wow. I don't even know what to do with that answer*," after he asks you why you committed an illegal act, you are definitely getting in trouble. I got a $700 ticket this morning. Yeah, it was pretty sweet.


Here's the story that probably will not mitigate my actions in any way, shape, or form. I almost backed into a police car this morning and for some reason he had to get all uptight about it. My driveway is hard to see out of because of the sharp angle and all the shrubbery surrounding it. I normally back out very slowly and so far I've been fast enough with the brake to avoid any accidents. I will admit that sometimes I back out a little fast in the morning because my street is usually deserted at 4:45AM on most days. Unfortunately, today was not one of those days. After I slammed on the brakes to avoid backing into a car, I gunned it and beautifully executed a three-point turn in the middle of the road while rocking out to the one Death Cab for Cutie song you can actually rock out to. Too bad there were two cars this morning, and the one I didn't see was a cop car that had to slam on its brakes to avoiding t-boning me. It's funny, I almost died of a heart attack when I saw the car, but when I I saw the lights I was too focused on not swearing to worry about my heart palpitations. Yeah, it was great.


I really learned a lot about life and about myself today. I learned that my tabs were expired and that very bad things happen when you don't keep your proof of insurance in the car. When I got to work I learned that I'd forgotten my security badge at home and what a hassle that makes of my morning. At lunch, I learned that my deli will be undergoing another rye bread shortage. I hope I don't learn any more today because I'm getting way too smart as it is and I don't want to make other people jealous.


*
The cop asked me what was going through my head when I cut him off and refused to stop even after he honked his horn. I said, "I was lost in thought and my music was too loud." I think he should have let me off with a warning to reward my honesty and I told him so too. Let's just say we agreed to disagree.

Quote of the Day: Henry David Thoreau

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”

Normally, I despise Thoreau but I like to think this quote appropriately describes my week. At least, the busy part anyway. I've been so busy that I've only read 25 pages of fiction this week. That's a 275 page drop from my normal reading performance.

This post is short and sweet because I have a million things to do so I can leave work an hour early so I can get out of town on time. I am either going hiking or taking a trip to Argentina this weekend. I'll let you know when I get back.

Quote of the Day: F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."


You figure I'd have a little more time to goof off at work now that my boss is gone but you'd be wrong.

Quote of the Day: Samuel Johnson

"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."


I have to give a pretty important presentation today so I am too busy to post anything interesting. I don't know how you'll make it through the day without me.

Quote of the Day: H. L. Mencken

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

For instance, I should be wise enough to know that I am too old to stay out a concert until 1AM when I have to start work at 6AM the next morning, but alas, I am not. I am too tired too write much of anything. This is actually turning into quite a busy week for me so I can't promise any great writing this week, which I guess changes absolutely nothing.

I did learn something this weekend courtesy of Yahoo that I have to share with you. Apparently: my name is Fidelity Underwood, I am a woman seeking a man, my nickname is wildchild69, I have bleach-blond hair, and my main interests are partying and having a good time. I'm flattered and a little creeped out that a company that's never meant knows me better than my loved ones. Yahoo appears to be trying to compete with Facebook by setting up some kind of social networking website and since I have an email account with them they set up a default profile for me with pictures and everything so thus was born Fidelity Underwood. I do have to say I am a little hurt because my profile sat there for a week without a single man even so much as winking at me and I looked all right in a trashy woo-girl* sort of way even if my fake tan was a little overdone. Although, it could be a real tan since I live in Arizona.

Yes, I deleted it.

*http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woo+girl

Quote of the Day: Mark Twain

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

I was going to post this quote Friday in honor of Father's Day but I forgot so here it is.


I don't have much time to write today but that's all right because I think I can rest on my laurels for the rest of my life because I accomplished one of my major life goals this weekend. I digitized my whole music collection. I ended up with 460 albums and 44GB of music. Not bad. It did take me a lot of time but all the great things in life are worth sacrificing for.


I guess I have time to tell you about the first booty call of my life. I have received three of them this weekend from a drunken women in Kent and two of them were between the hours of 1 and 3 AM. I keep telling her she's got the wrong number but she keeps calling back. Yesterday, she even called me "baby" and asked what I was doing (Suprisingly, she hasn't asked me what I am wearing but I'm sure that's coming soon.) I guess, like most women and Robert Palmer, she finds me simply irresistible.

Quote of the Day: D.H. Lawrence

"Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

I don't have much of a passion for saying anything today so I'll just transcribe a conversation I had with a co-worker today.

He said, "Man, women remember everything. My wife still remembers something I said during a fight six years ago."

"Wow. What did you say?"

"I want to break up because I don't love you any more."

"Yeah, I guess that was probably pretty memorable for her," I said without being too sarcastic.

"It's cool. We didn't break up because I realized it'd be too much of a hassle to move all my stuff out."

Quote of the Day: Rainer Maria Rilke

"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."

I had an interesting day yesterday. I learned that my landlord is selling the house so I'm out on the street come July 31st. I was also attacked by a black crow (not the band) yesterday for some unfathomable reason on my way to the bus. It just dropped out of the sky, landed on my head, and then flew away abecause it found my head to be unproductive perching space. I should point out that I was completely and utterly innocently minding my own business. I've been studying my world mythology today and learned that crows can be omens for both good and evil but that they always herald significant life-altering events; so either way, I'm in for some interesting times.

On the plus side, I learned that more people read my blog than I thought and I have to say that I'm flattered at the caliber of readers I have.



Well, it happened again. Somebody else tried to stop my consumption of water. Yesterday, the Office Coordinator sent out an email saying that our company would no longer be providing a water cooler in an attempt to go even greener. Apparently, enough people were outraged by this defilement of a venerated corporate institution that the Green Committee reversed course after some bureaucratic double-speak ("We are delaying implementation until further study.") and outright lies ("We learned the process was not as destructive as we first thought). I like to think the straw that broke the camel's back was my helpful pointing out of the fact that they were now contributing to an "unwell environment" by providing free sugary pop but no water. They even wanted us all to sign a pledge saying that we promised to no longer buy bottled water and that if we did they could take away our first-born child. Of course, I refused to sign out of solitary with my fellow first-born children and because I'm just not much of a pledge guy. I also have my doubts that symbolic acts like these do anything productive beyond making people feel good about themselves for a few minutes. Not that feeling good should ever be discounted as a goal, but other things like the human malady of thirst need to be taken into account as well.



I want to go to there if the crows don't get me first. http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78

Quote of the Day: Charles Scultz (Charlie Brown)

“I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time.” It's funny how as a child I never realized how depressing the comic strip Peanuts was. I don't think anybody does.

I've been thinking about dread today because I need to invent a new word that describes the unique feeling that overtakes one as soon as he realizes he's just made the fatal move that will lead to his destruction in the game of Tetris. As soon as you make it you know it, and there's nothing you can do but watch in mute horror as everything you've ever worked for is taken from you. Or until the words "Game Over" flash on the screen.


PS
Blogger has just lost major awesomeness points with me because its spell-checker does not recognize the word Tetris.

Quote of the Day: Francois de la Rochefoucauld

"Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person?” This quote is my way of apologizing for telling you the same stories over and over again because I am sure I have done that more than once.

Here's one I haven't told you though:

There's something strange in my neighborhood. Specifically, someone is stealing my water which wouldn't be strange if we were living in the Saraha. I remember my foreign affairs professor predicting that the next major war would be over water and it looks like he was right. I just didn't think I would be involved in it. I guess Trotsky was right when he said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

Before I give you play-by-play, I should give you a little background. My roommates and I pay to have bottled water delivered to our house once a month. (Yeah, it's a little pricey but it never comes out oddly-colored and foul-tasting like Seattle water has a tendency to do.) So once a month the delivery guy picks up our empty bottles and drops off an equal number of new bottles. This system must have been designed by a genius because in five years we never ran out of water.

Of course, that all changed last weekend. The empty bottles have all disappeared with no replacements in sight so now we have to drink tap water like common savages. I don't want anyoen to get too excited but loin-clothes are probably the next step in our devolution. So I called the water company and told them that they had better give me my water because I am not going to live like an animal. Okay, I actually asked them very politely what happened. They said nothing because they dropped off their customary one bottle two weeks ago. Apparently, the driver has been putting down on his order forms that we only use one bottle a month when it's really more like ten or twelve which is what they bill us for too. I'm not sure exactly what is going on, and I hate to jump conclusions, but I think it's safe to say that I am now the target of an international conspiracy the likes of which has never been seen on the earth.

They said they would drop off ten new ones today so we'll see if that will be the end of this senseless conflict. I sure hope so because I am tired of being oppressed this week because of my water consumption habits.

Quote: The Most Expensive Air I Ever Bought

Guess how much I paid for this empty plastic bottle of air? $11. I know that's insane but my company has stopped buying bottled, to either go green or go cheap depending on who you ask, so I had no choice but to find something to transport water in because getting up to go the water cooler every hour is the very height of inefficiency and water cooler talk is not as fun as TV has made it out to be. So anyway, I bought this at the store downstairs. I just assumed it would be around $5 so by the time I realized it wasn't it was too late. It had already been rung up and I would have been too embarrassed to have her take it off the total so I just went with it. The ironic thing is a co-worker of mine told me today that I seem to have no fear of being embarrassed. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not but it does not matter because as I have demonstrated that statement is patently false.

Quote of the Day: Rainer Maria Rilke

"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."


I ended someone's life last night and I don't feel completely in the right about it. I ran into a suicidal opossum last night. He threw himself under my car and then jumped right up into the engine. I'm not sure what was going on his life but I'm sure he felt like he had a good reason. I like to think it was something poetic like the rodent's answer to Romeo and Juilet. I do feel bad even though I have repeatedly claimed that possums are the Spawn of Satan. I mean seriously, have you ever stared directly into their beaty little eyes? There as red as the fires of hell and almost as hypnotic. I don't think I'll ever forget that sound though.

Anyway, onto less gruesome news. I ran across a guy at work today who had never heard of Cinnamon Toast Crunch even once in his life. The whole thing is just so tragic because I'm not even sure you can call that a life. Rilke would be so disappointed.

Quote of the Day: Rainer Maria Rilke

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”


I am feeling quite flattered today. I called the CFO at National Geographic to check back if he had a chance to read the information I'd sent him earlier about one of our customer service solutions, and you know what the receptionist said when I asked for him? She said, "Is this about an article you wrote?" "No, why?" "You just sound like it." I'll take that to mean I sound like a writer. I'll take the compliment.


So I had Ethiopian food for the first time the other night and I liked it even if I did get a little messy eating with my fingers. I'm also pretty sure I would not have liked the communal arrangement if I'd been in different company since I'm not the biggest fan of sharing things like plates. It's funny, since I'm a child of the 1980's the image of the country of Ethiopia will always be bound up in my mind with the issue of hunger. Say what you will about Sally Struthers, but you can't say her commercials about saving the children weren't effective. I always expected that if I went to an Ethiopian restaurant all that would happen would be some self-righteous grad student with a ponytail would put a plate of dirt on my table and say, "This is all they have to eat in Africa because of your Greedy, Western, Imperialist ways. I am happy to report that nothing like that happened. It was really quit delicious and tasted a little like Indian food.


Disclaimer
I really do think worldwide hunger and malnutrition is a serious issue. In fact, I wish our global elites would spend more time trying to solve that very real problem than talking endlessly and doing nothing about future problems like climate change.

Quote of the Day: Thomas Carlyle

“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

How's this for a strong soul? I stayed on hold waiting for a prospect to get back on the line for over an hour so I could schedule an on-site meeting. What can I say? It's a good account and I've been trying to get in there for over nine months. It wasn't so bad. I just surfed the web and caught up on all my literary blogs. Finally, after an hour of waiting for him to come back, I shot him an email that asked if he remembered I was still on the line. All he wrote back was, "The 24th works for me." An apology would have been nice but an appointment's even better. I wonder if he thinks I'm incredibly persistent or vaguely creepy. I've learned that the line between the two is so fine sometimes that you don't even recognize it time until you've obliterated it.


The Runner-Up quote of the day comes from a co-worker. When asked why he didn't want to got to restaurant X for lunch, he said, "They serve hummus there. It's just weird." All I could say was, "Wow." I don't know what is wrong with some people. I love hummus. If it were socially permissible, I would bathe in it every day.

Quote of the Day: Mark Twain

"Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."


Today we had a fire drill. The weird thing was they told us that it would be at 10AM and then our floor warden - who was wearing a hunter-range vest at the time - got mad when we all tried to leave at 9:55 to avoid the rush. Anyway, we passed the test and the Starbucks across the street made a killing. Although, I think in a real fire there would be a a lot more crying and screaming. Sorry, that's just the way I am.

I did learn something important today about fire drills and a little bit about myself. The most important parts of a surprise fire drill is the surprise and not wearing stiletto heels to walk down ten flights of stairs. Oh, and not getting stuck behind said person either.

Quote of the Day: Joss Whedon

“Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”


I never thought I could feel this way, but alas, I do. Of course, I am referring to the latest iPhone release. http://www.apple.com/iphone/ Even though I would probably never use the video feature, it'd be nice to know I'd be prepared if a Cloverfield-like disaster ever struck Seattle. I think I shall resist the urge. I have Europe to think about.


Sometimes I feel like my life is a Dilbert cartoon, and not the funny Dilbert from about ten years ago back when it was still fresh and relevant. Yesterday, we had an hour meeting to decide if we should cancel our hour long meeting. After much, deliberation we decided to cancel it and re-schedule it for Thursday morning. I can't wait.

Swords

You know what happens when you take pictures of people with swords? They chase you with them. I narrowly escaped with my life on Saturday. I wish I could say I vanquished someone in a duel because I have a matching sword in my basement that cut my roommate's chin very nicely once upon a time but the truth is my enemies never even left the basketball court. So I guess by "narrowly escaped" I mean I kept walking and pretended like I couldn't hear them yelling at me because my music was too loud. I guess they knew I was just too fearsome of a warrior to risk a confrontation with.

PS
Sorry this picture is so subpar.

Quote of the Day: Marilynne Robinson

"Which is the loveliest word, the loveliest letter? I believe I may have known that these are the kinds of almost idle questions one poses to oneself when a night seems to be unending, when the weight of sorrow is so great as to be dangerous."

Marilyn Robinson wrote the novel Gilead which may be the best novel about religion I've ever read.


You know what happens when you sing along to your iPod on your morning walk? People mock. Luckily, I wasn't listening to an air-guitar worthy song at the time.

Quote of the Day: Nicolas Chamfort

"A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.” That may seem like sound logic but I'm pretty sure you can get high from licking toads sometimes which defeats the whole purpose of said toad-licking. I found that quote in a fun little article. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c222362-35b1-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html Man, Alan de Botton is everywhere this week.


This post will be pretty scattered because I have no grand narrative theme to tie everything together.


Speaking of narratives, I've been watching a lot of the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" and I finally figured out why I like it so much. Not only is it funny and smart, but it's use of the Unreliable Narrator and non-linear story lines is quite superb. I hate to use the word ground-breaking but I am almost tempted; and, perhaps I even would if I was feeling a little friskier.


Isn't the Internet a strange place? Sometimes, it creates a community with all of the obligation of a real community and none of the actual benefits like human contact. (Maybe I do spend too much time on it.) Anyway, I read the book Harry Revised solely because it's author, Mark Savras, runs one of my favorite weblogs*. http://marksarvas.blogs.com/ I just felt like I should to support him even though he will probably never thank me properly because we'll probably never meet. By the way, the book was all right but not great. I'm glad I read it though because it gave me hope about getting my own work published some day.


Am I the only one who feels ashamed by some of Pandora's music choices? Sometimes I can't help feeling disgusted with myself when I realize that somewhere an algorithm is calculating that I will like a crappy band because of my previous choices. When that happens, all I can do is raise my voice to the sky and ask where my life went wrong.


Here's a fun blog I found today that combines my two loves, books and sugar. Enjoy. http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/05/sunday-sweets-reading-rocks.html


*I find it ironic that Blogger's spellchecker does not recognize the plural form of the word weblog.

Quote of the Day: Sarah Maitland

"Just as if you leave the door of the public bathes open the steam escapes and their virtue is lost, so the virtue of a person who talks a lot escapes through the door of the voice. That is why silence is a good thing; nothing less than the mother of wise thoughts."

In the spirit of that quote I shall write nothing more today. I have to regain some lost time today because I spent 15 minutes of my life this week listening to a co-worker tell us about some great new thing he discovered. Apparently, if you hit the export button in our database it exports things to Excel. Who knew? Oh yeah; that's right, I did, like the first day I worked here.

Quote of the Day: Alain de Botton

"However, many contemporary writers are notably silent about a key area of our lives: our work. If a proverbial alien landed on earth and tried to figure out what human beings did with their time simply on the evidence of the literature sections of a typical bookstore, he or she would come away thinking that we devote ourselves almost exclusively to leading complex relationships, squabbling with our parents, and occasionally murdering people. What is too often missing is what we really get up to outside of catching up on sleep, which is going to work at the office, store, or factory."
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/05/31/its_time_for_an_ambitious_new_literature_of_the_workplace/


It's like he was reading my mind and stealing my book ideas. Luckily, no one has stolen the idea I have for a novel based on fictional Facebook status updates.



Speaking of work, this week I saw a window washing race right outside my window. You know those guys who hang off of tall buildings like mountain climbers repelling down a mountain? Anyway, I saw two of those guys having a race to see who could clean their row of windows fastest. They were quite impressive. They were both through and speedy. It was quite a sight to behold. You could just see the ropes shaking there like an excitable puppy as they dangled precariously over the city. Spiderman would have been impressed with the skillful manner in which they climbed up the building. I have no idea who won. Although, I suspect the third guy whose only job was to watch them race was the real winner because he didn't have to do any actual work.


I watched a TV show last night that helped me come to an important epiphany about myself. I think that I have now lived enough years on this planet to enjoy a good game of laser tag. It'll be just like paintball without the pain.

More Bity

All I can say is this is very interesting. Despite his eulogy being written with the nonsensical line breaks of a free verse poem composed by the worst of kind of creative writing student, one gets the sense that Bity was one special dog. (If you can't read the last line, what it says is, "Sorry I didn't go to your funeral I was too broken up that day.") The whole thing is just kind of sad, in the pathetic and non-pathetic sense of the word. Grief will make people do some strange things. Still, I'm sure he got a better eulogy than I'll get because I don't always enjoy parties, unlike Bity.


PS
I'm sure Henry James would have loved Bity.

Bity

Today as I was trying to be one on whom nothing is lost, I came across this on a telephone pole at the Northgate QFC. I guess it's a memorial of some kind to a loveable scamp named Bity.

Quote of the Day: Henry James

"Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!" I've always found that to be a worthy, if impossible, goal.

Quote of the Day: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

Speaking of weird experiences, a homeless man offered me money this morning. Of course, I didn't take it. Although, an extra dollar would have been nice to have this morning so I wouldn't have had to break a twenty to buy a banana. Such is life.