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****Movie Review: Steamboy

I've never been big on anime, and I found Katsuhiro Otomo's previous movie (the famed Akira, released in 1988) cute at best, so that's probably why I hated Steamboy. We waited 17 years for this? The only redeeming thing about Steamboy was the animation, which was shocking in its vividness. From the battle scenes to the peaceful scenic shots of London, Steamboy is a helluva gorgeous movie.

But, oh. The story. The characters. Painful.

The hero is a young Manchester boy named Ray Steam, a perfect dullard who likes to invent things. His father and grandfather also like to invent things, and they've invented the Steam Ball, a portable energy source. Ray receives the Steam Ball in the mail from his grandfather, who is trying to keep it out of the hands of those who will do evil and make war with it... including the father.

The story manages to get more boring even as the action heats up. Along the way to the predictable ending, there is no character development, a few hollow chuckles, and a young bratty rich American girl named Scarlet, whose appearance 30 minutes into the movie was the nail in the casket. "Who cares!" I sat there, fuming. It's not like this was a script geared for children. It dwells so much on science and an entangled web of military interests that even the most attentive lad wouldn't get a handle on it. Steamboy was just boring, boring, boring, and gorgeous.

****Frequency 5: "Pop/Punk/Alternative/Rock band with Instruments!"

Some time ago, I discovered a guy with whom I attended Methacton High School was cashing in on middle school girls' insatiable lust for cheesy boy vocalist bands by appearing in pop idol magazines and malls in an "off-the-hook" band named Frequency 5 (Freq 5!) in California. This bit of gossip amused me and my high chums for minutes.

I checked out the Frequency 5 website today and found to my consternation... Frequency 5 has dispelled with their boyband roots: "I know a lot of you notice the different picture on the homepage. Yes it's a whole new Frequency5! We still have founding members Jason Layden and Johnny Lee but it's now a pop/punk/alternative/rock band with instruments! (here)"

Multiple musical genres? Instruments?!? The website offered scant detail on this abrupt transformation, so I guess I'll have to buy the upcoming Frequency5 Story DVD (here) to get the whole story.

****Horseradish: Type-A Root

I had a killer craving yesterday for horseradish. I prowled the supermarket aisles and found horseradish mustard and horseradish cheddar, which I paired with tomato and sourdough to make a nose-burning sandwich that satisfied this inexplicable craving... possibly for years.

As I chomped on my dinner, I wondered... what exactly is horseradish? One can deduce easily enough that it is a type of radish, but other than that, it's a rather mysterious entity. My first memory of eating it was during a Passover seder dinner when it is traditionally served along with lamb and matzo. Hungry for more than a taste of this bitter, sacred food, I googled my way the Horseradish Information Council (here... check out their super-hip Mr. Peanut-esque attempt at branding), where I learned all about horseradish.

Especially cute is horseradish's resume (here), with its lofty Career Objective: To continue developing expertise in new and traditional culinary applications with leadership responsibilities in diverse mainstream menus, including but not limited to roast beef and seafood dishes. Goal: a top position on the tip of every American tongue.

A food fad in the near future, I predict, will be horseradish, purely on the merits of its gumption.

****13.8 Feet of Hair

****Running, Swimming, Biking, Gyming

I first heard "gyming" as slang for the act of going to a fitness club in the best-selling sorority expose Pledged by Alexander Robbins. She reported widespread use of the term (used as a present participle): "I'm going gyming, and then I'm going drinking with the Sigma Gamma who date-raped me." Or "I ate a bagel today, so I have to go gyming."

Yesterday I heard actual, raw usage of this exciting new word. Four college girls on the T were debating how to spend the rest of the afternoon: "Aren't we gyming?" one said, and my ears perked. "We went gyming yesterday," another said, "and we've been walking all day. I'm, like, exhausted." "I like gyming on the weekends," the first said, and then conversation shifted to other weighty matters.

Now, you might think as a semi-stickler for proper English as well as a noted hater of stereotypical sorority-speak that I'd object to this evolution in verbiage, but the truth is, I find it simply delightful. The way our vernacular buds and blooms to suit the needs of speakers as well as accommodate emerging social phenomena (like paying to exercise) simply amazes me. Why say "I'm going to the gym" when you can say "I'm gyming"? It's not only shorter, it's more descriptive because it indicates that the speaker is doing more than merely visiting a fitness facility. When I hear "gyming," I think sweat, weights, clingy leotard, and calorie counters hastily approaching 1000.

So let us marvel over the manifestation of this new participle, and let's all go gyming.

****Easter Morning Ramble

So I went on another multi-mile jaunt this morning. I wasn't going to, except it was a truly beautiful day, sunny and warm with a vague wind, and it felt almost spiritual to bask in good weather on Easter after the past five months of continuous wintry mixes. I'm sun-starved.

Because I know my "walking around town" pictures are pretty boring, I wasn't going to post more, except since I was out and about all day, I don't have time to write anything. So here are some more boring pictures.

Had the most amazing chocolate today. It wasn't in the shape of a bunny, but it was so enthralling I almost laid an egg.

Happy Easter and Praise Good Weather.

****Saturday Morning Ramble

Went for a long urban walk this morning, and I took my camera to make it feel... valid? Productive? It was cool and windy, but sunny.

****Men's Journal: A Women's Magazine for Men

My copy of Men's Journal came from the pile of sweat-stained magazines at the gym. Paltry pickings, indeed.

Men's Journal is certainly not reticent about letting the world know just manly it is. Robert Redford himself is on the cover, smiling humbly in rugged jeans. Inside, there is the 2005 Annual Report on the Top 50 "Sexiest, Healthiest, Most Fun Towns in the USA," as well as an article about how to plan a road trip (with sample itineraries) and "the no-holds barred art of Ultimate Fighting."

For many years, excessively feminine magazines have been forced upon women at every supermarket checkout, hair salon waiting area, and airplane terminal in the country. It's required reading for today's modern woman; it tells us how to dress, apply make-up, cook, clean, amuse children, and give blow jobs.

Men really had no comparable resource for life, until publishers found a new market to tap: Men who want to look at pictorials of hot motorcycle racers posing with and without their bikes in Kenneth Cole jackets and Calvin Klein pants. Men who crave "Gear Guides" to tell them how to spend their disposable income. Men who want to try a perfume sample of Acqua Di Gio (For Men). Men who want advice from America's best powerlifters in order to attain a dream body in one month.

Finally, equal opportunity glossy degradation.

****My Living Will

One good thing about this Terri Schiavo media blitz is the collective public realization that Living Wills are very important. And I always thought they were an invention of the Lawyer industry.

Did the pre-vegetable Terri Schiavo want pictures of her as a reactive glob of life broadcast around the world? Did she want to turn into a political pawn? I personally wouldn't want it. Today, scanning the dozens of Metro free dailies scattering the grimy subway floor with this woman's semi-living face splashed all over it, I resolved to create a Living Will. Morbid as it is, American society has somehow found a way to make it a necessity.

I could register for free on the U.S. Living Will Registry (here) but I'm lazy. So I'll just make a few public declarations and be done with it:

1. Remove the tube! Remove the tube! If I can't taste chocolate, chew bread, and burn my mouth on searing-hot curry, then life is not worth living.

2. Do not allow pictures of me in a vegetable-like stateness to be published in every newspaper in the whole freaking country.

3. In the event that I am unable to make decisions about my own health, I hearby designate God. Should God not exist, I designate Nature. Unless there is a slim, remote chance I may come back, under no circumstances may Science sustain my comatose or vegetative body.

4. If anyone is desperate enough to want my organs... enjoy.

5. Above all, I want my dignity. Preserve my dignity.

****Speaking of feeding tubes...

I have a $30 gift certifcate to an online store... a gift card to Starbucks... and three free iTunes song Pepsi caps. I've tried to bring myself to use them, but just can't seem to decide what to buy. It's killing me.

This forced consumerism is really stressful.

****Movie Review: Downfall (Der Untergang)

Downfall, a German film about the infamous Bedtime-for-Hitler Berlin bunker, is told loosely from the point of view of Traudl Junge, Hitler's 24 year-old stenographer who followed him to his final resting place because she had a genuine affection for the man, who treated her kindly.

We hear directly from Traudl at the beginning of the movie, when in 1943, Hitler picked her from a line-up of applicants because she was a Munich girl. Traudl Junge is portrayed as a career girl, naive about Hitler's true nature; she looks surprised when, while taking dictation of Hitler's last testament, he expresses Anti-Semitism and references to "the cleansing of Germany." The movie is capped with footage of the real-life Traudl Junge (who died a few years back), proclaiming ignorance of the Final Solution. Come on. Maybe the average German citizen did not know, but I refuse to believe that Hitler's personal secretary for 2 1/2 years didn't suspect that the Third Reich was carrying out industrialized genocide.

Yet Junge was a normal citizen who came to be in an extraordinary situation, and so she is a good person to frame the movie's point of view. She relates to them more as human beings than as henchman of the Third Reich. This is what the movie forces the audience to do. To read in a history book that Hitler's last meal was ravioli is one thing, but to watch him devour it with relish and them compliment the cook is another.

I've never liked when momentous historical events of a grave nature are made into films, not because I feel history is sacred, but because history should be viewed with an impartial gaze, and when you put people's faces and emotions to a soundtrack, the event becomes personal. The characters and scenes are created by modern pretenders and judged by our standards.

The audience is invited to sympathize with these people, these Nazis, in a dire situation in which they face death. I kept reminding myself "These people deserve to die," but when you're watching a movie and see people expressing fear and hopelessness, it's hard not to hope they'll see it through (a surprising number of them did), especially when by this point, most of Hitler's followers were questioning his orders and voicing reasonable doubts about his insane plans.

I was curious how a German film would portray the end of WWII from the point of view of the Nazi party core. But there is little discernable commentary. As far as I can tell, Downfall sticked closely to the accepted history of what happened in Hitler's bunker: Hitler had lost his mind at the face of defeat, talking of Berlin's glorious reconstruction under his guidance even as Soviet artillery exploded above them. Eva Braun was giddy and foolish, preoccupied with what would become of all her prized possession. Hitler's military advisors were at their wits' end trying to convince Hitler that any offensive was futile. And those irascible Goebbels... wow. If anyone rivaled Hitler for the Crazy Award, it was Magda Goebbels, who calmly killed her six young children rather than let them live in a world without National Socialism.

By watching the Third Reich in its final days with the unstoppable Red Army coming closer, we see Hitler and his henchman at their weakest and most vulnerable. While this may be satisfying, we must not remember them like this, for it is at their strongest that their true natures were revealed.

****Happy Monday!

Yeah, I know it's a Tuesday. But there's a story.

I've heard rumors about people who spread cheer by greeting strangers with pleasantries, but I've never had it happen to me. Then yesterday I boarded the Red Line to go home. A man who looked like English actor Mark Addy (here) leaned over the empty seat between us and said cheerfully "Happy Monday."

At that point in time, the following thought crossed my mind: "Happy Monday!?! Are you effing kidding me?" I smiled at him and nodded, but didn't vocally return the sentiment. And I've been kicking myself ever since.

Why the hell not. Happy Monday. We should all be so courageous.

****Movie Review - Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

I feel like most evil, disgusting person ever for not liking this Oscar-winning documentary, in which Zana Briski, a photographer who resides periodically in a Calcutta brothel, crusades for the futures of children she meets and mentors. The lives of the children, whose distinct personalities are touchingly explored, are sad, and the frankness with which they acknowledge their future is gut-wrenching. But by teaching them photography, giving them point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras, enrolling them into schools, and showcasing their pictures to an international audience, Zana Briski hopes to save them from the Red Light District.

What bothered me about the documentary was its heavy-handedness. The audience is given little choice about what to think. It's like a 90-minute Unicef commercials in which the misery and squalidness of the environment is contrasted with the sheer delight and creativity that the children exhibit while taking pictures.

Sure, it's proficient enough. It tells a story, provokes reaction, and introduces us to extraordinary human beings. But I don't like documentaries that use footage and commentary in order to guide your thinking. It's unfortunately easy to make a movie about how unfair this world to children, and while Born into Brothels is certainly moving, it is not impressive cinema.

**** Our Elected Politicians Are Brain Dead

I was struck dumb by the first thing to come out of local Fox News anchor Gene Lavanchy's mouth this morning: "Congress worked all night to send a Bill to President Bush that may save the life of a mentally incapacitated Florida woman."

What? What? First US politicians hold hoop-lahed hearings about steroid use in baseball, and now they're spending taxpayer money to save the life of a woman who will be in a permanent vegetative mental state for the rest of her life?

When I hear about lawmakers seriously debating the issues surrounding the Terri Schiavo case, when I hear the Leader of the Free World has proudly and loudly signed the Terri Schiavo bill, it tweaks the latent Social Darwinist in me. Sure, I'm compassionate. I'm compassionate as hell. I drool more compassion than Terri Schiavo drools drool.

And that is where the trouble lies. Compassion can be a relative thing. Terri Schiavo cannot think, speak or respond to commands and is not aware of her surroundings. Terri Schiavo's husband thinks the compassionate thing would be to let her die. I happen to agree with him. Her parents think compassion is allowing her to subsist on feeding tubes. In deciding her fate, the question is not really if lawmakers are being compassionate to Terri Schiavo, it is which of her relatives deserves compassion: The "never give up, never surrender" parents or the tormented husband? Terri Schiavo can't tell either way.

Anyway, what is wrong with our political system that there are so many problems in this world and our congressman feel a genuine urgency to debate the fate of a human vegetable?

****The Reading Workout

Lately, interaction with the outside world fails to produce as much vim and vigor in me as it used to. I don't react any more. I've finally settled into the 9-5 lifestyle that my job requires; I've accepted that I am surrounded by heartless soulless blobs who drive gas-powered metal boxes in order to go about inane lives of more and better consumer goods acquisition; I relate a little too much to the Weekly Standard's sly Conservative logic; and I find crusading for a cause beyond a cash donation too time-consuming.

In desperate need of mental stimulus, I am totally loving War Trash by Ha Jin (here on Amazon... one of the NYT's Top 10 Fiction books of 2004).

This book reminded me why I love books. So many people think of reading as a passive activity, because it forces you to withdraw from the here and now. But reading is not passive. When you are gripped in a good book, your mind is focused on putting together these alphabetical symbols in order to construct an entirely different world that you yourself could have never conjured in such detail.

Growing up, I holed up in my room for hours with books. My appetite for books was only rivaled by my appetite for chocolate-covered espresso beans... which I consumed rabidlyto supply my mind with the nutrition it needed to digest Oscar Wilde's entire body of work in one fitful week. Honestly, reading is scientifically proven to burn more calories than watching television (27 in 20 minutes, as compared to TVs 18 in 20 minutes). Because readers are constantly thinking.

War Trash is really revving my metabolism. It follows the life of Yu Yuan, a Chinese soldier who fights in the Korean War and ends up in a series of POW camps run by Americans and the UN. Yu Yuan speaks English, and so is often used by his Chinese and Korean comrades to interact with their captors. Pretty interesting stuff, written with impeccably balanced flair and detail.

For the past week, the most engaging part of my day is getting to read War Trash. But my life is not dull or lacking. I am and have always been, at heart, a bookworm, and proud of it. Do not think of bookworms as being meek or passive, for our minds are as fierce and crazy as a North Korean POW during a prison camp riot.

Reading is time-consuming, indeed. To chose to read a book instead of running an errand, going for a walk, or sleeping seems frivolous, especially when television, movies and music can deliver faster entertainment gratification. But today, I'll let the laundry pile grow a little bigger, the fridge grow a little more emptier, and the bathroom sink grow more long dark hairs, because War Trash and I am going to sweat.

****The Day after the Green Day Hangover Cure

Since I am not a regular drinker, this makes it all the more dangerous when I do decide to ingest a little Ethanol CH3CH2OH. By now, I have learned when to cut myself off, but this wisdom was cultivated after mornings spent cursing cranberry juice for making vodka so blissfully drinkable.

Hangover cures have been around just as long as alcohol has, minus a night. Inevitably, hangover prevention pills are now widely marketed (for example, RU-21, an "all-natural supplement" that "prevents hangovers, supports healthy DNA cells, and protects skin from alcohol damage," here). Most people swear by drinking a couple of glasses of water and popping aspirin before they pass out. If you're so drunk that "hangover" is not eking its way into your euphoric mind, a regiment of Gatorade, Jolt, and Pedialyte the next day supposedly works wonders.

****Tales from the T

There's a crazy person on the Red Line, and he's not content to let his mania rest quietly in his diseased brain. He is about forty, unshaven, stocky, and dons a grimy Red Sox cap and an ill-fitting flannel work jacket. He seems unhappy about the close confines with well-dressed commuters and clean-cut college kids, and mutters to himself in angry four-word chants punctuated by slaps against the train wall.

Like all of the commuters, you pray that this is just another crazy person and there will be no incident. But then he focuses on someone, scowling fiercely at a nearby man holding onto the rail in an awkward position to stay out of the crazy man's radius. The man doesn't acknowledge the blatant act of craziness, but his slight frame tenses under his smart Land's End apparel.

Then the crazy man head butts the train's door. You cannot believe it. In a split second, he turns, places his hands on the door's window, and whips his head so that it collides into the glass with a loud thwack. He didn't do it hard, just fast, and several people gasp. One woman murmurs "Oh, my lord." The crowd presses away from him like fleeing ants.

The mood on the T escalates, but the head butt has had a pacifying effect on the crazy person. Maybe it was just something that he needed to do, or maybe it was a concussion, but he stopped muttering, and looked around blinking furiously, like someone just turned on the lights.

The train reached the successive busy stops of Park Street, Downtown Crossing, and South Station, during which the train's occupancy had more turnover then membership at Curves gym. You too exit the train, nursing an accelerated heart rate, the evolutionary reaction at having escaped the claws of this modern wild unknown.

****Write the Effing Manual

I've got a work deadline today, and my sluggish mind is about as focused as Bush's domestic agenda.

Oh, lordy. I'm trying to pretend that this 125-paged software manual that I've slapped together is, in fact, the Great American Novel, but literature usually doesn't use repeatedly use terms like "double-click the inventory record" and "proper access privileges are required in order to perform this action."

Anyway, excuse the brevity, but I've got 80 more pages to proofread...

****Matt Damon!

Boston was pitifully excited by last fall's announcement that Cambridge native/Harvard drop-out/emotive actor Matt Damon would run the vaulted Boston Marathon in April. Not since comedian Will Farrell ran in 2003 has such a prestigious race been graced by such a prestigious name.

Well, not as publicized is the recent news that Matt Damon has vaguely specified "work conflicts" and has dropped out of the race (here). Heh.

****Million Dollar Menino

A 63-year old Brockton radio personality has challenged Boston mayor Tom Menino to a charity boxing match, over some pointless one-sided dispute involving a comment Menino made about Boston being the "City of Champions" (here). Apparently Brockton lays claim to that title. Who knew.

A Menino spokesman indicated that there will be no fight: "He is busy every day dodging budgetary body blows and throwing jabs and right hooks on behalf of our property owners, schoolchildren and elderly." In other words, Menino is chickenshit.

****48 Laws of Power

I can't tell if the perfectly disturbing 48 Laws of Power are aimed at corporate flunkies, aspiring politicians, or socially-ambitious teenaged girls:

• Law 1: Never Outshine the Master. Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

• Law 2: Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies. Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.

• Law 3: Conceal your Intentions. Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

Pertrifyingly universal. Read the other 45 here.

****Show Review: Interpol, Q and Not U, Orpheum Theatre, Boston

I like the Orpheum Theatre. It's big, ornate, and I like having an assigned seat. In high school, there was always that one teacher who sought student approval by forgoing with assigned seats. Each day brought a new dilemma of where to sit and, more dire, who to sit next to. Freedom, horrible freedom.

That's why I like seeing bands at the Orpheum. You get your seat, and the non-surly ushers hawkishly ensure that you stay there. Hey, hipster college boy to my left... I'm sitting here because I have to, not because I dig your natural-colored tousled tresses carefully parted to the side.

(Jesus. These kids today and their foppish hair styles... It's enough to make me go on a rampage with a Flowbee.)

Opening for Interpol was Q and Not U, a highly Interpol-deriative trio of peppy old guys. I immediately hated their gratuitous use of organ-tone synthesizers; it reminded me of the Strawberry Alarm Clock and, at times, the Partridge Family. The drummer was extremely keen on the high-hat, which did nothing but keep me awake. Near the end of the set, the singer pulled out a freaking newspaper and gave a paranoid rant about how the government is infringing on our privacy, yadda yadda... god, these pretty bands with their acceptable radical politics and audience of squeaky clean college kids really piss me off.

I expected to hate Interpol. So why'd I go see them? Oh, I don't know. The few Interpol songs that I like, I really like. And as a band, they interest me... their sound could set off the Next Big Thing in Rock and Roll. The world is due for an exciting new genre of rock, but Interpol and their strident bemoaning sure ain't it. They sure do excite the college kids, though. Seeing them live, I wondered how they could release crap like Antics. Maybe it was the awesome light show (green and purple fog!), maybe it was the comfort of my assigned seat, but watching Interpol cavort waspishly for an hour had me convinced of their genius.

Then I went home and listened to Antics, and pronounced it crap. But maybe that's the sign of a truly great band: Magical enough to transcend mere recordings with a certain gloomy magic. And damn if Paul Banks doesn't make a ridiculous haircut look good.

****Nawlins Photos

****Back to the Land of Wintry Mixes

****Baby Please Don't Go...

Down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby please don’t go...

I'm going down to New Orleans. Don't try to stop me.

I will return next week, fatter and tanner and hung over...

****The Real World

Living with two women whose lifestyles and habits severely differ from mine has caused unseemly behavior. Like eating snack-sized Kit-Kats. And microwaving. And watching an entire episode of the Real World Philadelphia. I turned on the television with all intentions of watching Tom Brokaw stoically deliver the national news, but the gooey TV reality crap was way too compelling.

I wanted to see the city of Philadelphia, but these people spend their lives in their cool little brick building. There's an occasional montage of city stock shots: The skyline with all four of Philly's major skyscrapers towering over the grayness, the populace boarding a Septa bus at a well-appointed bus stop, and the Art Museum that our heroes probably didn't bother to visit.

Then it's back to the plush Real World Philadelphia commune, where our sexy protagonists munch on salad and egg-white omelets, play pool, and model J Crew pajamas and boxers while lounging in bed, all while incessantly hashing out their hang-ups and anger issues.

In the earlier Real World seasons, the cast voiceover semi-intrusively shared feelings and wise foresight. Now half the show is devoted to the cast explaining the "story" to the camera, spliced with nonsequitor glimpses into their sad little lives that are strung to pass as a plot line. Boring and weird.

MTV used to force the Real World cast to interact with the community by participating in charity work, but now they are expected go to nightclubs and get drunk, aggressive, and horny. Forming positive social bonds with children... boring! Getting intimately involved with a crazy sexy local... entertaining!

But I lapped it up. They're just screwed up enough to make me glad to be me. And that's what reality television is all about, isn't it?

****He is the World

Televised local news is pretty standard everywhere you go. There's the local news segment, national news segment, weather segments, sports segment, traffic segment... and lately, the Michael Jackson Trial segment.

That's bad enough. In fact, that's sadly expected. What I don't expect is to go to cnn.com and find the ho-hum beginning days of the trial is the headline news.

****Wine Bottle Dimples

This site (here) has scientific proof that the depth of a wine bottle's dimple (called punts by those who care) correlates with the cost of the wine.

****We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all. (Jean de La Bruyere)

So it's Wednesday, the day of the week affectionately known as Hump Day, but usually for all the wrong reasons.

I need a good laugh, and nothing is guaranteed to make me titter quite like a Dead Baby joke. So, at the risk of having a faithful reader be moved to arrange my forced sterilization...

Q: What is more fun than stapling dead babies to the wall?
A: Pulling them off.

Q: What's the proper gift for a dead baby?
A: A dead puppy.

Q: What is a sure way to stop a baby from crying?
A: With an axe.

Dead baby jokes taken from this gem of a website here

****Poem by a Chinese Carpenter Who Murdered His Wife then Hanged Himself

A Generation

The pitch black night gave me two deep black eyes
with which to search for light.

--Gu Cheng, translated from the Chinese by Sam Hamill

****Don't Have a Cow

Read this article (here) about the wonderful human-like qualities of the cow, if for no other reason than this quote: "Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs."

****Improper Dinner Attire

The words "clothing-optional" and"dinner" go together about as well as "chocolate chips" and "pinto beans"... I can understand and even, deep down, relate to the plight of the American Nudist, but my sympathies end at the shoreline and certainly don't extend to the dinner table. For christsakes people, get a hold of your insatiable feelings of repression (here).

****Heartwarmer of the Day

The 2005 World Winter Special Olympics are currently underway in Nagano, Japan, and a very special 17-young old skiier won the host country its first gold medal despite his training being interrupted for six weeks by a devastating earthquake (here). How did Yoshikazu Higuchi manage? "I skied thinking only that I shouldn't fall." So simple, yet much more advanced than me.

****The Accidental Video Game Porn Archive

No comment needed (here).