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I bought myself a new-job celebration gift of a new Freitag bag - upcycled from the kind of Truck tarps they use in Europe. Large enough to handle a laptop and hoodie, but still one strap - I still have that old '80s bias against wearing backpacks properly (plus they can heat up your back.)

I'd feel more sheepish about spending so much, but I really like the material more than regular nylon or canvas. Also, when I look around about "why is it so important to have a one-strap bag", I see that now... it's apparently stylistically ok for a guy to have a fanny pack so long as its worn like a bandolier? I think I'm not the only one with issues on this.

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I'm not sure if I ever posted this James Harvey piece I use on my business cards:

It's based on an outfit I don't wear much anymore (the "infamous sexy cop onesie" - with boots instead of my signature sandals)

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(here's the same image but with a big amount of padding so I can center in circle based avatars)

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Here are the photos I've been tending to use for profiles. That's the same Alien Bill I drew as a high schooler that I have as a tattoo - but only some people know who Alien Bill is, or why. The other shot I'm a little sick of its McKayla Maroney-ish smile, and frankly my side beard is more gray than that now.

I do believe time repeats itself. Our lives are somewhat like pendulums, that we start at birth and swing to death, and back and forth throughout all eternity. And that would suit me if I got the cycles of my life through all eternity. I don't want to die and go away entirely, I'd like to come back and come back and come back on almost any terms.

Just finished Robert Weide's documentary "Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time", available on Hulu. I've been on a little bit of a book funk lately - thinking maybe I should go through all of Vonnegut's novels.

The quote kinda has a "The Suburbs (Continued)" wavelength....

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New photos from Webb space telescope just dropped.

Hot take: a bit too disco and glam.

"You're really complicated, aren't you."
"I try not to be."

A friend on FB posted this: Her answer (after mentioning the illustration disturbed her) was "Lotor from Voltron"

My answer:

So... and I swear, I'm not a furry... one clip that really sticks out in my mind is a really deep cut from the "Heathcliff" cartoon. Heathcliff generally reads as Garfield's low rent cousin (though I think came before?) and the animated series isn't talked about all that much - despite it being the final original voice of Mel Blanc...

Anyway, I actually dug up the one episode that stuck in my head - turns out it's soccer, not football like I half-remembered - but it had three cheerleader cats. What struck me most was I found the most attractive was the one on left - it was an early sign that I'm not a big fan of femmy-femme. I still appreciate the curves, but overall I'm less into the girly-girl vibe...

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And just to close out the subject so I don't have to think about it again, there was one of the Cats from the musical that had the same vibe, just one missing the big expansive mane all the other ones had...

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Getting a tattoo is permanent, but so is never getting a tattoo.

Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!

A poem I read in class, though I don't recall if it was high school or (more likely?) college.

I also like the opening "Five hours, (and who can do it less in?) / By haughty Celia spent in dressing;" but overall the misogynistic bend of this poem is very ungood. (And was called out at the time, see for example Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's The Reasons That Induced Dr S To Write A Poem Call'D The Lady's Dressing Room that suggests Swift was bitter and looking for something to blame for not being able to perform with a prostitute.)

Also this poem showed me that "Betty", my mom's name, was once upon a time the stereotypical name for a maid, a fact that bothered my mom not at all.

Everybody poops.

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Rob Plath, back cover of MY SOUL IS A BROKEN DOWN VALISE:

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"a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1000/24th)".... do you think it would be too much to ask that the guy with the nuke codes could understand fractions? Do you think.... Obama knew fractions? Bush? JP Honk @ JP Porchfest 2018 doing Mercy Mercy Mercy -

from a playlist of six videos from new member Sam Saw this poster in the "Propaganda" section of Steven Heller's "100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design".

I realized that the brute was wielding a club... a Kultur club, and briefly wondered if that meant the band name was a play on that. Probably not, but I'm surprised how many analyses assume the inscription refers to the target and not the weapon. Judging by a November 8, 1914 NY Times editorial, they get that wrong:

Current discussion of the worth of German culture has been almost hopelessly clouded by the fact that when a German speaks of Kultur he means an entirely different thing from what a Latin or Briton means by culture. Kultur means the organized efficiency of a nation in the broadest sense -- its successful achievement in civil and military administration, industry, commerce, finance, and in a quite secondary way in scholarship, letters, and art.

Anyway, quite the image! I guess you could say racist?

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Evil B, thinking of you. (No, not concerning the above poster, yeesh) Friends on FB see something tuba-related, they think of me...

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LOL Tea Partiers, pretending they are running for election and not re-election. I guess "incumbent advantage" name recognition reversal is the logical sequel to "this sucks, tear it all down!" (an idea echoed with both Trump and Bernie hardcore supporters this year, I'd say) that's followed by general ineptness, party-line-think, and preferring being the monkey wrench in the gears to understanding politics is about acknowledging that about half of the country disagrees with you, whichever side you're on.

Republicans. You told us government was the problem, and then set it out to make it so. Today was the JP Porchfest! It was very gratifying to see people walking around with the 11x17 paper map I hacked together from the website:






Last year's map was easier, because everything fit more easily on one side of a page. People tell me it's fine but I'd love to think of ways of aiding people plotting an afternoon for themselves.

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

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What's in a gin fizz again? Citrus, cream, egg white, sugar... it sounds like someone started a cake, gave up, and put gin in it.

This looks fun...

(French soccer with cars and then excavators for goalies ... Avez-vous déjà vu un match d'auto-football?)

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Yearly reminder: unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.

Reading Ian Bogost's "Alien Phenomenology"-- he quotes this passage of Roland Barthes' autobiography:

J'aime, je n'aime pas ~ I like, I don't like

I like: salad, cinnamon, cheese, pimento, marzipan, the smell of new-cut hay (why doesn't someone with a "nose" make such a perfume), roses, peonies, lavender, champagne, loosely held political convictions, Glenn Gould, too-cold beer, flat pillows, toast, Havana cigars, Handel, slow walks, pears, whie peaches, cherries, colors, watches, all kinds of writing pens, desserts, unrefined salt, realistic novels, the piano, coffee, Pollock, Twombly, all romantic music, Sartre, Brecht, Verne, Fourier, Eisenstein, trains, Médoc wine, having change, Bouvard and Pécuchet, walking in sandals on the lanes of southwest France, the bend of the Adour seen from Doctor L.'s house, the Marx Brothers, the mountains at seven in the morning leaving Salamanca, etc.

I don't like: white Pomeranians, women in slacks, geraniums, strawberries, the harpsichord, Miró, tautologies, animated cartoons, Arthur Rubinstein, villas, the afternoon, Satie, Bartók, Vivaldi, telephoning, children's choruses, Chopin's concertos, Burgundian branles and Renaissance dances, the organ, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, his trumpets and kettledrums, the politico-sexual, scenes, initiatives, fidelity, spontaneity, evenings with people I don't know, etc.

Half a decade ago I wrote about the likes/dislikes in the French movie Amélie, I wonder if this is where they got the idea from.

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There's a saying about English-speakers. We say "Go fuck yourself," when we really mean "I like you," and we say "I like you," when we really mean "Go fuck yourself."

Lord Byron arrives in Heaven, and finds his old friend Shelley waiting at the gate.

"Percy, I can't believe it. You died two years ago. Why aren't you inside?"

"St. Peter says he's already got too many poets," says Shelley. "So I've been waiting here for you. Maybe together, we can convince him to let us in."

When St. Peter appears, he greets Byron by name. "You two have both been naughty," he says, "and I've already told your friend here that we're pretty full. We've only got room for one of you, so I'm asking you each to write a verse for me about one of my favorite places...Timbuktu. I'll be back in an hour to see what you've come up with."

When St. Peter returns, Shelley proudly recites his poem:

With feet upon the burning sand
I gazed upon the promised land
And in the far-off distant view
The paradise of Timbuktu.

"Very nice," says St. Peter. And then, turning to Byron, he says, "Your turn, sir."

With a wink to his friend, Byron begins:

Tim and I a-hunting went
And spied three maidens in a tent
As they were three, and we were two,
I bucked one, and Timbuktu.

Weirdly a much inferior version with Shakespeare, Burns, and spelling and grammar mistakes seems to be much more popular online.

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I think outside the filogon (that's a shape I just made up)

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If you invite me to a pot luck, I have to warn you: I make a mean potato salad! Seriously, I have to warn you. There's a court order.

--via Archmage's Friday Pix

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When you listen to Bruce [Springsteen]'s music, you aren't a loser, you're a character in an epic poem...about losers.

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The only thing I was living for was Sarah McLachlan!

--Daniel Rhodes Holy Rave Party ( hHV5M3XINZA )

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Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.

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Perhaps [...] the secret to a good life is finding the balance between [near-term and long-term thinking], the rhythm that brings harmony to the different timescales at which we live.

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At my computer I unwrap a flatbread sandwich, and in comes the cat, probably hoping for a bite. 'Well,' I think to myself, 'look what the cat dragged in' and then smack myself.

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http://strangerthaneviction.tumblr.com - "landlord of the flies"

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7-11 has these great tiny 3.6 oz Ben+Jerry's micropints (I'd seen 'em at a hotel in Denver) - fewer calories than a Snickers, SO much more satisfying Hello from Virgina.

Less virginal than I might have thought. Actually, a heapload of tattoos, more per capita than I think I see in Boston.

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Photos of the Moment

This is the original Kirk Tree! An umbrella plant planted on the day I was born. It turns out reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated and it has bounced back beautifully from its previous infirmity.

As you can see its nearly as tall as I am, and always has been...

My mom has the Kirk Tree next to the dehumidifier, which means it gets watered from water pulled from the air, which is kind of cool.

Meanwhile, back in Boston...

I don't know if the Legal Seafood at the Prudential Center just keeps this guy around to wow the tourists or what, but I was pretty wow'd. 18 lbs of pure lobster joy! The estimate is this beast is older than I am. You think they could at least give some dignity, but whatever.

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Walking in "Old Town" Alexandria,I feel like such a yankee. (in the non-baseball sense) 1988 docudrama about "the ideas of Douglas Hofstadter"... includes a re-enactment of The Soul of the Mark III Beast and some other short stories that I first saw excerpted in Daniel C. Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter's, "The Mind's I". This video is an hour and a half, but worthwhile if you want some amazing ideas about what our brains and selves actually are.

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A game that might prove momentarily amusing for Windows users, drunken hyper-blocky sumo wrestling.

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Could hacketyhack be to kids these days what BASIC was to kids when I was growing up? Dunno.

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A video of CSI Miami - Endless Caruso One Liners, just before the title song kicks in ... this guys is like the Sherlock Holmes of formulaic television!

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Dali on What's My Line was more well-behaved than I expected.

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Slate on the art of human beatbox. I'm still pretty likely to do this whenever I'm alone in an echo-y place. So one thing I've learned is that for consulting companies, non-profits are a potential gold mine. But conversely, you make peanuts if you actually work for one. I guess the idea is that their desperate to keep recurring expenses down, but they have a fair chunk of grant-ish money that they can spend on fixed-price kind of things.

I guess they're kind of like grad students who live from grant to grant...

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Hedbergism of the Moment

This jacket is dry clean only. Which means .... it's dirty.

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Video of the Moment
Obesity in America, 1985-2005. Wow, that is scary. Even if it's "clinical obesity" (which is more stringent than what the term obese brings to mind.) You got to wonder, a public health issue like this, what is the cause? High Fructose Corn Syrup? The size of an appetizer platter at T.G.I.Fridays? Lack of moral fiber? Nutrasweet?

I'm surprised to see my part of New England as one of the last bastions of under 20% obsese. I thought sunnier places would tend to have people more concerned with this stuff, if only for looking good on the beach... guess that's just a stereotype (or the maps aren't detailed enough.)

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News of the Moment
I don't know what your "cause" is and barely care, but I'm willing to work against it, you terrorist blowing civillians up motherfuckers. Burn in a dozen swine-infested hells, assholes, and go jam whatever book you call holy up your ass.

In fact, all fundamentalists, fascists and idealogues can all just go screw. When concepts, ideas and personal power matter more to you than human individuals you've lost a valuable part of your own humanity.

AIM of the Moment
candi: i have a random question for you
kirk: ok, i'll give you a random answer
kirk: actually you dont even need the question
kirk: the answer is "dolphins"
kirk: ok, my cleverness here is done.
--Candi and me, June 5, 2005. Aliases changed to protect the guilty.

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Quote of the Moment

Engineers aren't boring people; we just get excited over boring things.

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Link of the Moment
Boingboing linked to some Carny Lingo. Cool stuff.

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Webgeek Tool of the Moment
Note to self: (and everyone else) I used to rely on (the now defunct?) domainsurfer.com to do partial string searches on registered domains, but it seems like namedroppers.com is doing a better job of it.

Baby Picture of the Moment

--Me at the age of 3 months, in Philadelphia. I thought this picture was lost, but it's my favorite...either I'm thoughtful, or doing a ferocious elbow smash. It was a bit of a shock to discover that the photos in my photo album were all duplicates and rejects from my mom's collection...I had forgotten that utterly.

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Cheer of the Moment

Gimme some angst!
Gimme ennui!
What do we got?
TEAM APATHY!

Image of the Moment
Cloud of gas and space dust that's broken off the Carina Nebula. Not to be too juvenile about it, right now I think I prefer the "God's message to his creation" explanation for it. (via Cellar.org's IotD)

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Exchange of the Moment

You guys should try the British naming scheme, we call our ships things like "Illustrious" and "Invincible". Sounds better, no?

Except for the inevitable irony involved.
at the battle of Jutland, HMS Invincible blew up and sank after a hit from Lutzow with the loss of 1,026 crew.

he he
you spotted it!
"HMS Quite Easy to Sink with an Exocet" doesn't really have the same ring to it though, does it?

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News of the Moment
This whole thing with the baseball player slugging the running sausage is just one in a series of costumed mascot related mishaps. Sounds dangerous! (And that thing that happened to Maude Flanders on the Simpsons kind of really happened, though it was just a KO and not a death.) My last dieting secret was water, lots of water. My new secret? Lots of water plus sugarless gum. My theory is the water keeps my stomach busy, the gum keeps my mouth interested. My favorite so far is Eclipse Spearmint though my doctor recommended Xylitol gum, which supposedly has some additional good-for-your-teeth qualities.

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Political Quote of the Moment

Bush was elected on a promise to end the contradiction between presidential rhetoric and presidential rationalization. So far, all he's done is change the subject from sex to money.

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Link of the Moment
For some reason out of nowhere I started thinking about Benji the dog...hadn't though of him for years, though I guess that's not surprising since I never saw a single movie. I was going to say something about how it's high time for a Benji revival...and sure enough, looks like a new movie is in the works. This Benji website can probably meet all your Benji-information-needs, and then some. (Heh, that site had a cover of Dynamite magazine with Benji on that cover...remember that magazine? I loved the special double issues that had a second video game based magazine on the other side.) Lines of the Moment

"I like my women like I like my coffee...hot, black, and with one of those little croissant things on the side."
"Oh yeah? Well I like my women like I like my coffee too... stuffed into a burlap sack the back of a donkey."

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Link of the Moment
Interesting salon.com piece on The Day The Brands Died. Brands are the shorthand we use to tell the world our stories these days, they aren't always as trivial or shallow as they usually seem. Even if you're not really brand conscious, you're probably sending the message that you're not brand conscious, like it or not.

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from the T-shirt Archive: #7 of a Series

"Einstein Simplified". Kind of a cute idea, a complex line drawing of the man turned into a simple cartoon in three panels. I think I got it at the Boston Computer Museum, and used to show off my geekiness in high school. One of the few black T-shirts I'd wear after middle school.