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****NASA: Chicken Soup for the Human Race

On Tuesday, I watched the Discovery launch (here) in a conference room at work. Though I welcomed the break and the geeky co-worker camaraderie, shuttle take-offs always make me tense. I am never confident of success, and don't want to watch a depressing spectacle of heroic death and deal with the ensuing awkward mass grief.

Watching the Challenger explode in third grade surrounded by 100 dejected kids and several crying teachers was traumatic. For days, I was tortured by the idea that I witnessed the deaths of seven people. When I told jokes like "What were Christa McAuliffe's last words? 'What does this button do'"... I wasn't really trying to be funny and cool. I was healing through humor.

The much-hyped "teacher in space" publicity stunt was a true disaster for NASA, who never fully regained public enthusiasm for the space program. Many perceive NASA as just another over-funded government agency prone to oversight and bureaucratic malaise. Congress approved the 6 percent increase for NASA's 2005 $13.6 billion budget (here), but after this most recent public failure, many are against the US pouring many more billions into the Mars program that everyone is so hot for (here) (including Bush, but only during election years... here).

I am torn about tax-payer funding on space exploration. NASA's achievements command respect from the rest of the world, but wouldn't we rather they respect us for stopping the spread of/finding a cure for AIDS, or for making advances in stem cell research? And it's important to retain and attract the best scientific minds and reap the benefits of their research, but shouldn't we feed the hungry, clean up the environment, and help the oppressed?

But whenever I doubt the morality of lavishing money on NASA instead of legitimate societal necessities, I remember a mass-market science fiction paper book that I read in my pre-teens called Lucifer's Hammer (here on Amazon). A massive comet streaks the Earth, leaving pockets of struggling survivors. One group manages to band together and form a sustainable community. A dividing issue is whether they should risk human and material resources in order to save a nearby nuclear power plant from destruction. Most people are content to live without electricity. But one man, who just happens to be an astronaut who was in space when the comet hit, gives an impassioned speech about saving the power plant, that they can eek out a simple existence by looting dead towns and training their kids to catch rats for food, but aren't we better than that? "We used to control the lightning!" he thunders, rallying the crowd to stand behind him and go save the power plant.

So, with this cheesy science fiction book in mind, I must take a Social Darwinist approach to NASA's funding. Space travel may not benefit all human individuals, but it benefits the human race. Because someday, eventually, they'll stick that foam on the shuttle correctly... and then we'll go to Mars and prove yet again that we're one helluva clever ape.

****Six For Saturday: Instances of Retardedness

• Boston City Councilor Michael Ross has received 115 tickets in the past two years (here). Says Ross "I get tickets just like everyone else gets tickets." What? "Everyone else" doesn't average one parking ticket a week. "Everyone else" doesn't park in front of fire hydrants. "Everyone else" doesn't collect tickets rather than get a residential parking sticker. What a retard.
  
• Michael Jackson's new 2-disc greatest hits collection has sold just 8000 copies in the US in the first week of release (here). Considering he hasn't done an original album since 2001 and this is his fourth greatest hits release, and his music doesn't have exactly have a timeless quality, this is quantifiable proof that there are at least 8000 retarded people in this country.
  
• An AJ Wright cashier in New Hampshire has been charged with giving perfect strangers price breaks on clothes (here). Apparently, she would randomly and arbitrarily award price markdowns at the register. Either she was sick with power, trying to make friends, or just retarded.
  
• Las Vegas will almost certainly face water shortages in the not-distant future (here). You mean a teeming desert metropolis filled with millions of Americans who think that green lawns are an inalienable right has problems securing a sustainable water supply? People who live in the desert who have a grassy lawn: Retards.
  
• The My Twinn doll (here) is "created to look like the special child in your life." What kind of an egotistical little brat prizes a doll that is identical to them? Everyone knows that little girls need dolls that surpass attainable boundaries of cuteness in order to prepare them for a lifetime of "never measuring up" to plastic. Creepy and retarded.
  
• And finally, a 62-year old retired teacher who "felt" that an airport security body search was a little too invasive fought back by squeezing her airport screener's breasts and saying "How would you like it if I did that to you?" (here). The groper now faces a year of federal prison and a $100,000 fine. Never eff with the airport security people. I have to admire her gumption, but it was a pretty retarded thing to do.

****Your Hot July Night

The heat wave has killed your appetite. You walk past the string of Middle Eastern, Indian, and Mexican places on the way to your apartment and wonder how such heavy foods evolved in hot climates. The mere thought of digesting beans makes you sweat a little harder. All you crave is Cool Whip.

Everything makes you sweat. Your normally-spirited gait barely accelerates beyond a shuffle. The hot wind howls, kicking up dirt that sticks to your wet face and legs. You can not remember feeling so disgusting. You rush through the steamy foyer of your building, deciding if you should go for the Cool-Whip or the bedroom AC first. The AC is closer. After you turn it on, you strip off your work clothes and stand naked in the cool air, hunching to avoid exposing yourself in the top part of the window. You then collapse onto bed and allow your body temperature to return to normal as you ponder last week's unread Economist.

Real hunger, suppressed all week by the tropical 95 degree weather, soon strikes. You throw on a white T-shirt and a short jean skirt, go into the kitchen, slather a whole-wheat bagel with humus, and devour it. All your Sam Adams are gone, so you grab a Bud Lite from the vast supply in the refrigerator, knowing your roommate will never notice. Then you grab some carrots, and dip them deeply into the humus. At first your body seems to welcome the sustenance, but then you feel the food sitting like a stone in your stomach.

You need to move. You grab your i-Pod, throw a bottle of water, cigarettes, and a book into a purse, and venture outside. The sun is in the process of setting; it had cooled down enough to speed-walk to the Charles River. You pass the candy factory, which fills the air with sickening nugget, and then cut through the MIT campus, through the flocks of fast-moving gnats that emerge amid the manicured grass and shrubs lining the walkways. Bicyclists dominate the river path, with just a scattered few walkers and the occasional intrepid jogger. You stare at the hazy Boston skyline, listen to Pavement sing quaintly about hippies, and think about how many nicer places there are in the world.

You walk to the other side of the MIT campus. In the midst of the towering research buildings, you find an isolated bench and light a cigarette. You are trying to quit and read that it helps to imagine the horrors that each cigarette wreaks as you smoke. So you sit there and picture the smoke festering in your throat, the tar sticking to your black, tumor-primed lung tissue, and the carbon monoxide flooding your veins and choking your heart.

It is then that you notice him leaving one of the research buildings. He is a little taller than you, very thin under a dark-colored suit blazer and baggy jeans, and walks as though his calf muscles are actually bed springs. Two striking Asian girls walk past him, talking and giggling, and he stops to turn around and stare at them, saying something that made them turn around and laugh.

He walks in your direction, a slim briefcase dangling loosely from his hand. He reminds you of a dopey cartoon character, and you stare openly at him until you realize he is headed towards your bench.

"Those are horrible for you," he says. His voice is young but, up close, his face is that of a man in his thirties. "You should stop right now."

You have heard this line before and it infuriates you. Why respond positively to a man who lectures you about your health? So you take another drag, look him in the eye, and shrug. "No," you say simply.

"Well you should stop, especially since I could never seriously talk to a woman who holds her welfare in low regard."

"You're talking to me now."

"I said seriously talk."

"I think when a stranger offers unsolicited opinions about my chosen lifestyle, it's pretty serious."

"So we're already serious."

"Yep."

"So soon! I don't even know your name."

You take another drag. "What do you want?"

He sits on the other side of the bench, opens his briefcase, and sticks a cigarette in his mouth. "A light."

You never forget that hot humid day, the humus binge, the images of lung tumors, the snickering Asian girls, or that his briefcase was empty except for a pack of Marlboro Reds. You never forget that it was the last time you ever thought about quitting smoking. Lives can be built on a succession of whims, and you never forget holding the flame over the tip of his cigarette and watching his cheeks implode.

****Movie Review: The Wedding Crashers

They said it was funny. They said it was 100 minutes of belly-laughs. They said Vince Vaughn was the best he's been since Swingers. And they lied.

I admit I chuckled (Best line: "You shut your mouth when you're talking to me!") but this movie was so generic and filled with comedic stereotypes (the evil preppie, the male whore with a heart of gold, the bigoted grandmother) that I just couldn't bring myself to fully enjoy my movie-going experience. I've already forgotten half of the movie and I just have this feeling like I don't want to ever hear or see anything by Vince Vaughn or Owen Wilson ever again.

(Boy, I wish I could be wittier and more sarcastic about this unfortunate cinematic event, but the Wedding Crashers seems to have absorbed all of my mirth. I'm sitting here, gaping incredulously at my inability to sufficiently ravage this movie for which I am un-funnier for having watched.)

****Proper-ganda

If I were drafted by the US military, a not-totally wacky scenario given the state of the military recruitment these days, I'd want to write their propaganda. I think I'd be good at it. I can write connivingly and convincingly, and I've read enough war and history non-fiction to gain an understanding of popular wartime America psychology. Plus, it would be a relatively cushy job in a creative atmosphere, kinda like being a sit-com writer, only the punchline would be a bit different and we'd all carry guns.

And my country needs me. The military propagandists have done a downright lousy job publicizing the war in Iraq. Granted, you can't make honey from dung, but I've never read one story about Iraq that made me believe.

This week it was discovered that two military "news" releases about Iraq used identical unidentified civilian quotes: The statement said the Iraqi called the attackers "enemies of humanity" and vowed to "take the fight to the terrorists (here). "Enemies of humanity"... that just smacks of Liberal Arts degree.

Who talks like that? Maybe it's a cultural difference, but if the situation were reversed and an American civilian was solicited their opinion about insurgent attackers, they would call them "effing douche bag scum" and vow to "make them eat their own balls." See, I was born to write this stuff. If you want the American people to rally behind the Iraqis, you have to make the Everyday Omar sound like a character in Goodfellas, not like a Southern soldier in Gone with the Wind.

****Municipal Field Trip

Today I visited the Quabbin Reservoir in Western Massachusetts. The Quabbin serves as the water supply for Boston and 45 other Massachusetts communities. It is 16 miles long, making it the largest unfiltered water supply in the world (here), and an engineering feat that involved flooding four valley towns and moving 7,613 graves (here). It was the Big Dig of the 1940s, only it hasn't sprung any leaks that it wasn't designed to spring.

How nerdy does this sound: I enjoy visiting my water supply. The Quabbin is beautiful. Because the surrounding area is protected from development, it teems with plant and animal life and is one of the most peaceful places in Massachusetts.

But since swimming is not allowed in the Quabbin, it is rather taunting in its pristine ness. After walking up to Quabbin Summit in the hot sun, nothing looked more inviting than 412 billion gallons of crystal-clear blue water. I swam in the Quabbin in college with nary a care of getting caught, but post 9/11 fears have bolstered the number of patrols... which is probably a good thing; no one wants to be drinking my summer sweat, let alone Anthrax. So I had to wait to get back to Cambridge to bathe in Quabbin water, in conditions considerably less pristine.

****Movie Review: Clean

Clean is the latest film by the seminal French director Olivier Assayas about the washed-up girlfriend of an OD-ed rock star (Maggie Chueng: excellent) who must overcome heroin and her unstructured rock-star lifestyle in order to get her son back from his grandfather (Nick Nolte: old).

I was in kinda a bad mood when I saw this movie. It screened at the MFA for its annual French film festival, and they scheduled it to start too early, so we had to stand in line for 45 minutes in the stuffy un-ACed art museum. That sort of thing puts me in a bad mood. Perhaps that accounts for my disliking of the movie's pace. The movie seemed choppy as all hell, but lingered oddly in places. It was actually a good movie, but it wasn't a good movie to watch. It didn't provoke interest, thought, or suspense. It just sort of happened.

Still, it had a compelling central character in Chueng, who can play both a convincing junkie and a convincing ex-junkie. That shows range. And the movie is beautifully filmed and staged, so much so that I relaxed after 20 minutes and forgot about the ordeal at the door... momentarily, anyway.

****Mitt Romney's Token T Ride

On a well-publicized subway ride last Thursday, Governor Mitt Romney demonstrated that the T is safe for the public transit riders of Boston, most of whom really have no choice but to take the T and weren't looking for reassurances from a man who is chauffeured everywhere. While the Governor valiantly survived his T ride, the whole event quickly turned into a public relations nightmare (here).

A metaphorical bomb exploded when Boston's most famous "cat lady" (Heidi Eriksson, who kept scores of sickly and dead cats in her apartment as she experimented with Siamese cat breeding) heckled him on the platform. Hell, if taking the T will put at risk of interaction with crazy people, I'd rather just walk.

Then, Romney wrongly responded to a reporter who asked him how much a T token cost, saying "A buck." Romney then suavely flipped a quarter at the reporter who asked him. Considering that the price was raised from $1 to $1.25 while he was in office amid much public backlash, this proves that he is indeed a Republican with Presidential aspirations and completely out of touch with the common man.

Thanks, Mitt. With you at the helm, I feel completely safe.

****A Failed Musing on Stairs

Stairs are one of those ubiquitous concepts that we take for granted. The sole purpose of stairs is to bridge a vertical distance. They compensate for our inability to fly. They are like the wheel of architecture. Without stairs and our ability to use them, our modern landscape would look quite different.

Every weekday after getting off the Red Line at South Station, I trudge up exactly 52 stair steps. It takes about a minute. Assuming I spend 20 minutes a month walking up these stairs, and assuming I work 11.25 months in a year, that's 225 minutes I spend on this staircase, or 3 hours and 45 minutes a year. This depresses me, for some reason. As Annie Dillard said, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

Stairs figure prominently into the film of Alfred Hitchcock (here). "The simple act of going up a staircase seemed to be a disorienting experience, taking you away from safety towards the unknown."

MIT Press published a two-volume history of the staircase called simply The Staircase: History and Theories (here). Attention is paid "the dangers stairs present" due to lack of stair safety innovation. Can we really blame the stair for the "annual epidemic of stair-related deaths and injuries"? Perhaps we should blame human inattentiveness, and that we all take for granted that we know how to use stairs.

****The Reason the Big Dig Leaks

You'd think $14.6 billion dollars could buy a relatively small city a relatively small tunnel system that doesn't leak (here). What happened? My theory: Glug glug glug.

Today at lunch I walked by an open-air restaurant and saw dozens of Big Dig construction workers drinking beers. For christ sakes, they're building bridges now!

****Coming Soon: Boston Common Magazine

Apparently the Improper Bostonian has gotten too common. This fall, a new "unique publication" will be "distributed strategically to the city’s most influential and educated consumers" (here)... and the poor slobs who aspire to be them will just have to hope they'll find a used copy on the train.

Check out their "Strategic Circulation Breakdown" pie chart here. 52% of Boston Common magazines are slated for "Exclusive Delivery to Private Homes Valued over $750,000." Unfortunately, 78% percent of those will be read by the nanny, gardener, or maid.

****Girl with a Fat Ass

This archived Craigslist rant is one of the best rants ever - here. It's about what happens when two fat ass meet on a commuter train two-seater. It should be published in the Kenyon Review.

****The Crystal Meth Diet

Are you fat? Have you tried Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slim-Fast, Atkins, eDiets.com, Sugar Busters, South Beach... and you're still fat? Don't you wish you could just stop the urge to eat before it starts?

Then it's time you tried crystal meth, the new diet drug of choice for women who would rather be thin than have teeth (story here).

****Repressed Chests

These past few days of unrelenting heat have made me resent that quirky societal more that it's perfectly okay for men to whip off their shirts and go bare-chested, but not women. Walking through Boston Common yesterday, sweating in a good white shirt, I toyed with the idea of stripping to my bra to bask in the steamy breeze, but one look at a packed Duck Tour boat reminded me that people have better things to look at.

****The Argument

Today there was an older man of apparent Caribbean descent playing a harmonica on a stoop within earshot of my apartment. He was no John Popper, but the sound wasn't too grating.

Then a woman's voice rang out: "Shut up! Stop playing that effing thing!" The playing stops for a second, then picks up again. "I'm serious, mothereffer! Stop now!" The playing continues. The shouting continues. I look out my window and see a young black woman leaning out of her second-floor window about twenty feet from the stoop. "You better stop playing that effing thing or else!"

Still blowing into the harmonica, the man slowly stands up and walks closer to the window. The woman begins bellowing words of rage, her head shaking and her upraised fists clenched. He stops playing, looks at her, walks slowly under her window, then begins blowing mournfully as he continues down the street, the sort of dirgey tune you'd expect to hear in a rural county jail on a hot summer night.

****Subhumans Show: 7/18/05, Middle East, Cambridge

Young punk kids today are so spoiled. When I was a teenager, you couldn't buy band t-shirts, Manic Panic hair dye and Doc Martens at the Hot Topic in the local mall; you ventured to an urban oasis like South Street and subjected yourself to the derision of the cool, older scenester sales staff. Music collections were built through visits to far-flung record stores and via mail order; there was no internet to seek out a gotta-have special edition pink vinyl 7-inch. Most journeys into public involved cold stares and rude comments; now, people just glance at the kid with blue liberty spikes and bondage pants and think "I've seen that on MTV."

But that demonstrates how punk has failed to progress in the ten years since I was a teenaged suburban renegade. If anything, it's digressed. Not to sound like the oldie that I am, but when you had to work to be a punk and surround yourself in punkness, it was because it mattered. Then again, I had it easy compared to punks ten years before me, so maybe I should just shut up and talk about the show.

It was impossible not to get nostalgic as the Subhumans pounded out one hour of solid punk rock, and I kept a wary eye out for ricochet action from the pit of teenage flesh that seethed not ten feet from me. From The Cradle To The Grave was one of my favorite records; I would scream along with "Forget" as I drove to school, hum "Waste of Breath" as I schlepped coffee at the mall, and relax with the title track in teenaged moments of contemplation. They played all three of these songs, so there I was, reliving the sounds of my youth, covered in the sweat of one hundred joyous unwashed teenagers who obviously feel for the Subhumans what I once did: These guys, however old and foreign they may be, understand me.

What a great show. Afterwards, grabbing some late-night pizza at the nearly empty Hi-Fis across the street, the Subhumans bassist wandered in and ordered an eggplant sub "with extra veggies" and french fries to go. He looked like an older blue-collar man who just got off his shift at the factory. We said "Hi" to him as he left and he said "Cheers, guys" kindly but with a hint of exasperation. It must be hard being the hero of so many losers.

****Yummy, Ancient Lobster

****This Dream has Been Bought to You By Warner Bros. Pictures

I dreamt last night that I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... and loved it. The exact details of the movie that I watched were hazy, as I have yet to see the movie in real life, and probably won't until the DVD comes to my public library and it goes through the 1500 people who request it before me. But my enjoyment of the movie in my dreams was exquisite.

It's currently just the stuff of distopian science fiction: the insertion of advertising into our dreams via some sort of satellite transponder that detects the sleeping circadian rhythm in the human hypothalamus and inserts images of brand-name soda and beer cans discretely into the scenery ("I stood up to give my acceptance speech, and I was buck naked! So I grabbed the Gap t-shirt and jeans sitting conveniently by the podium and ate a Mentos".)

But advertisers are fighting to breech our unconsciousness with advertisements. It's the last frontier, and arguably the most effective way to pander useless crap to a crap-filled world. They know that the only way they will dislodge long-held loyalties to a particular brand of laundry detergent is by penetrating your brain into believing that your notions of Tide's supremacy are wrong, and there is in fact a detergent that trumps its ability to clean your clothes.

All I can say is, I hope that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory lives up to my dreams, or the disillusionment will just be that much more profound.

****Money for Nothing

Sifting through a weeks worth of junk mail, I came upon a letter from the Wall Street Journal, which I subscribe to thanks to a Delta Airlines frequent flyer miles redemption. "Customer Survey Enclosed" the envelope said, and I was one second from throwing it in unopened the recycling pile when curiosity got the better of me.

Good thing too. There was a shiny new dollar bill in the envelope! "As a token of our appreciation [for participating in the survey] we have enclosed a dollar bill which may brighten the day of a child you know." Hell, it brightened my day. How close I came to throwing away money! And how many busy WSJ subscribers actually did toss their free money in the trash!

It's sneaky psychology, but I'm impervious to it. No one needs to know what type of vacations I indeed to take in the next two years, or how much I typically spend on an automotive purchase. In fact, it disgusts me that a "news" publication tailors their content to the whimsical consumer habits of their core readers. They're supposed to tell us what to think.

****My Number One Fan

I received the following email tonight. How touching that this kid put so much time and effort into composing such a heart-felt missive, and how tragic that he sent it to a chick who writes computer manuals for a living.

If I do respond, I will advise him that in order to start a band as good as Green Day, he should immediately put down that plastic bag of brain cell-killing solvents that he's been huffing, engage in a daily regimen of meditation and self-reflection, and read Chomsky's "The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many."

Subject: NUMBER 1 FAN =)
From: "Juan Acosta" <jacosta1@stx.rr.com>

HI BILLIE JOE . THIS IS ISADAQUEEN AKA ISA . I WANTED TO TELL U THAT I LUV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOUR MUSIC . ME AND ROSEMARRY LUV YOUR BAND . WE WANT TO START A BAND . SEVERAL FRIENDS AND I CAME OUT AT THE SCHOOL TALENT SHOW AND SANG "HOLIDAY", THE SCHOOL LOVED IT. WE WANA MAKE ITAS GOOD AS YOURS SO WAT DO WE DO. I NEED HELP HERE IF U CAN PLZ EMAIL ME AT WWW.ISADAQUEEN@YAHOO.COM THX FOR YOUR HELP . AND I CANT WAIT TO SEE U IN CONSERT . 1 MORE THING I MIGHT BUY YOUR SKATE BOARD =) LOL SEE YA BILLIE.

****Things People Googled to End Up Here

(Recent select favorites from my stats page...)

cargo magazine alcohol most likely to start an orgy
worst medicine is zombie laughter
feet crammed into
mbta if you see something say something
clorox crystal meth
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what does your toilet say about you
duchess of oysterland
how krispy kreme's corporate structure is organized
umass bus rodeo
difficult stepmill machine
four-year lesbians
QVC scarf belt pink synthetic obese
so you died on the scrambler
rowing coxswain blooper picture
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jello party church
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gonna fist you lyrics want it bad
i want your soul i need your soul

****Missing Buttons on Strutting Gluttons

Today I saw a fat older woman walking down the street in a light blue button-down shirt that strained so tightly against her ponderous chest that a mid-level button just... gave up. She strutted down the sidewalk amidst the rat race of commuters headed to South Station with nary a clue. I say "strut" not because she walked sexily, but because any woman who exposes a fair amount of cleavage bulging from a white lace bra will appear to be strutting.

I could have said something, but that involved tying up frenzied pedestrian traffic. And I just didn't feel like it. I wonder if she found out through someone else or if she discovered it on her own. I don't know which I prefer, really. Sure, it's nice when someone speaks out and prevents you from embarrassing yourself any further. But that moment of forced discovery is sort of horrible, as there's usually some smug posturing by the informant.

The other week at Dunkin Donuts, a Boston cop pointed out that my brand-new jeans still had clear store tape on the rear thigh area. "I figured you'd want to know," he kept saying in that annoying paternal cop voice dripping with a South Shore accent. The store clerk and his partner laughed. I smiled like an idiot as I peeled it off. "Hey, so you let the world know you're a Size 4. No shame in that!" he said, to the further amusement of all.

Hearing it from strangers is one thing, but not hearing it from acquaintances is another ("Why didn't you tell me I had basil in my teeth? How could you talk to me all night and not point that out?") One memorable incident occured in college, when I met with my English advisor early one morning. I ate an everything bagel as I drove to the campus, talked with him for 20 minutes, got back in my car, and glanced in the rear view mirror. To my eternal horror, I had smeared my dark red "won't kiss off" lipstick all over my cheeks while eating my bagel... and a fair amount of poppy seeds and garlic bits were cemented in it.

I looked like a total freak and my advisor choose not to say anything about it. Even more amazing, he managed not to react. Either he had a stellar poker face or thought he was hallucinating. I choose to believe the latter.

****Business Etiquette

The Boston Globe features a business etiquette write-in advice column every Sunday by Peter Post, the great-grandson of Emily Post (here). As a helpless sucker for both advice columns and etiquette expertise, I always flip to the otherwise unremarkable Business section to lap up some corporate manners

All business etiquette questions boil down to two basic inquiries: "How do I make a good impression?" and "How do I deal with a moron who isn't making a good impression?"

The latter is always the more interesting scenario. "How do I approach a co-worker about their nose-picking habit/smelly feet/pig-like table manners/public dental flossing?" Especially of concern is how to endure the sounds and smells of the people who you are forced to sit in such close quarters with, separated by a flimsy cubicle barrier.

Peter Post seems amiable to advising people to confront the offenders, under the assumption that the offender does not realize that there is a problem, and will be grateful when they are corrected. Gosh, I never knew that I had BO. I'm so glad my co-workers noticed my foulness enough to arrange an etiquette intervention. I guess I really should take a shower in the morning!

In my world, you don't. You just seethe at their lack of couth and ridicule them behind their backs. Confronting the offender about their behavior will fix nothing. If an adult who can function enough to sustain a presence in corporate America is a public nose picker, or chews with an open mouth, it is not something that can be easily and painlessly changed. This person is set in their nasty ways, and by being confronted, has probably been embarrassed enough to become totally unproductive or shamed into developing a neurosis.

My interest in the finer points of office etiquette has increased since my worst office nightmare has been realized: I am sitting within earshot of a belcher. I'm not talking little, nearly-silent escapages of air hear and there, and I'm not talking about one or two accidental incidents. I'm talking huge smelly belly burps that occur all day long, every day, with nary an acknowledgement of regret. It drives me wild.

I get the feeling that people writing to Peter Post about their co-workers' maddening habits simply want to blow off some steam, and I can relate. But while office environments may not be the place to trim your nose hairs and microwave fish lunches, they are also not the place to go around pointing out the personal faults of others. The real answer to their problem is: Be an adult and suffer in silence, something that Peter Post is too polite to say.

****The I-Knitter

I don't know why I signed up for this knitting class. I'm notoriously unable to commit to long-term relationships with handicraft projects. The beginnings of about 15 cross-stitch masterpieces languish in my closet, none even halfway finished. Then there's that full-sized tablecloth that requires about 2000 hours of embroidery to fill out its empty patterns. Hell, I can't even finish replacing the buttons on a perfectly good pea coat.

There's something about Adult Education catalogues that convince you can achieve anything: Learn a foreign language, master life drawing, square away your finances, yoga away stress, become a poet of note. After pondering my choices for days, I narrowed it down to Tap Dancing or Knitting. Envisioning meaningful but cheap Christmas presents for years to come, I decided on knitting.

No one can accuse me of using an Adult Education class to meet men. That's all happening in the lively Contract Bridge class down the hall. Nope, it's just me and five uninteresting women sitting in a sterile classroom that doubles as a storage room... knitting for two hours. I do not aim to be humble when I say that I am the worst knitter in the class. It was obvious since the first class, when everyone else had mastered knitting and perling stitches, and I struggled to cast my yarn on the needle. Being the class dunce is sort of interesting. I can sense their contempt.

****Movie Review: The March of the Penguins

Smartly marketed as chicken soup for the summer blockbuster weary movie goer's soul, March of the Penguins is a gorgeous National Geographic documentary about the totally insane breeding rituals of the Emperor penguins of Antarctica.

The best National Geographic documentaries combine stunning photography with equally-drop-dropping facts about the subject. And this movie easily achieves this. What these elegant birds endure in order to successfully hatch a chick that they may never see again is pretty crazy: Multiple 70 mile walks to the breeding ground, months without food in the coldest place on Earth, and the ever-perilous task of keeping the egg from more than few seconds of exposure. This animal is amazing.

It was nice to go to a movie that didn't physically grip my collar and shove violence, special effects, and bad dialogue in my face. But while I always appreciate a good National Geographic documentary, they are not worth leaving the house over. It's more curl upon the couch and relax stuff, not the sort of thing you pay $10 to see in stadium seating, surrounded by talkative intellectuals who feel obliged to express their amazement at the Emperor penguin's endurance and patience. Hey, these are penguins. They evolved to do this. While humans would find it unbearable to go without food for six months and endure temperatures of 60 below, the penguin obviously doesn't care; it's what they evolved to do. I'm sure the mating rituals of humans would seem equally arduous to the penguin.

****Number 11: A Gun

Speaking of elaborate mating rituals, this MSN article of "10 things every single girl must own" almost made me puke (here). It's ten things that single girls should have on hand in order to impress and ultimately snag men, like a "fabulous" photo of yourself, an Enimem CD, a six-pack of good bottled beer, or bathroom reading. And don't forget the (tee-hee) condoms!

And the suggested pick-up line: Hi, having fun? Why not just get down to business and ask him if he wants to go to your place to listen to Enimem, drink beer, and use the condom that's burning a hole on your nightstand? If he looks reluctant, add that your bathroom reading selection is second to none.

****Fraternizing with the Pennsylvania Dutch

I tried resizing this humungous picture of me with a 100-year old steam tractor at the Kutztown Festival last weekend, but shrinking it made it look warped.

It captures a perfect city slicker moment; I'm asking the man if it's a tractor or a train. Duh.

I didn't notice it at the time, but in the picture, he appears to be holding some sort of rifle... and kinda pointing it at me.

He probably sensed that I was a godless heathen. I'm glad I didn't try to touch the tractor.

****Wal-Marts Are Forever

****Sex and Blindness

The FDA is forcing Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra (impotence drugs or the names of female heroines in mass market fantasy paperbacks?) to carry warnings that they may cause blindness, or more specifically, non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (here). Raise any body part if you think this is going to stop anyone from taking it.

But if any man does decide to abstain from the pills, there is an alternative. Click here to check out a natural Viagra substitute: The most powerful Viagra for men is love from female women... "bosom chakras" are the source of female love coming from God and flowing through the spiritual being of the female partner. I suggest the FDA investigate the side effects of bosom chakras at once.

****Movie Review: George Romero's Land of the Dead

My brother rented Dawn of the Dead on hazy VHS when I was about ten years old. I expected something like Halloween or Friday the Thirteenth, with lots of blood and screaming and meaningless violence. But the apocalyptic backdrop, the unconventional characters and their false security of holing up in a shopping mall, and the whole inexplicable nature of zombies feeding on humans appealed to me immensely. I've been hooked on Romero ever since.

So I hate Land of the Dead a little for not living up to its legacy. I'd see it again, but not repeatedly, at erratic intervals for years to come. It's a perfectly fine horror movie with top-notch gore and above-average humor, but I never felt the same sense of wonder, of utter hopelessness that this is how the world ends.

When I heard about Land of the Dead, I was simultaneously thrilled and worried. 20 years after his last movie, what would Romero come up with? Despite obvious studio interference, Romero preserves his integrity by lacing the script with class struggle. Survivors have flocked to the planned community of a powerful rich asshole named Kaufman, played to perfection by Dennis Hopper, who is almost creepier than that cheerleader zombie with the missing cheek. The Rich live in contented luxury within a chic skyscraper, while the Poor labor in squalid, urban conditions filled with vice and violence, and risk their lives for food and supplies by venturing out of the secure city into the Land of the Dead. Even in the chaos of a society cowered by zombies, the Man perseveres in oppressing the proleteriat for his own material gain.

Romero's first three Dead movies ingeniously used low budgets to transcend B-movie cheesiness and produce tight, creepy horror flicks riddled with social commentary. Though this movie brandishes its well-funded special effects from start to finish, Romero takes Land of the Dead to a new level in which he ponders the human condition. The struggle between the Living and the Walking Dead is one of mutual survival. Why shouldn't they fight back against those who raid their towns for supplies and shoot zombies in the head?

Unfortunately, this message is too-heavy handed and overshadows the whole "dead coming back to life and feeding on the living" theme. Zombies should never be a plot device.

****London Calling

Terror is an efficiacious agent only when it doesn't last. In the long run there is more terror in threats than in execution, for when you get used to terror your emotions get dulled. -- Mark Twain

Three weeks ago, in ranting about those foreboding War of the Worlds ads blanketing South Station (here for 06/26/05), I said "I no longer fear death on the T." But this morning, I watched live CNN coverage of dazed bloody people on the streets of London, people who were on their routine commute, thinking about their families, problems, lovers, home improvements, weekend plans, investment portfolios, what they were going to do that day, what they were going to eat for lunch, what that gorgeous person over there looks like naked, and perhaps dreaming of leaving the rat race and moving to the country to tend sheep. Right before the bombs exploded, probably none of them were fearing death on public transit.

But at some point in their lives, with what this crazy world being how it is, it inevitably crossed most of their minds. Life goes on though. I took the subway this morning, and the PA incessantly blared those "If you see something, say something" announcements that haven't been played for almost a year. I saw the extra MBTA personnel milling around (here), though this bunch inspires no added confidence. Seconds after boarding the train, Moussorgsky's blood-curling "Night on Bald Mountain" shuffled its way on my iPod.

Still, I buried my thoughts in my book (Haruki Murakami's excellent Kafka on the Shore, which is neither about Kafka nor the shore), and tried not to fear death, because sometimes, fearing death can make you fear life instead.

****Strutting in the Rain

Fox News Weather Girl Cindy Fitzgibbon (here), who recently stopped compulsively commenting that she's preggers now that it is obviously not just errant weight gain, was sooo caught up about Tropical Storm Cindy ("It's named what I'm named! Cool!") that she neglected to mention that Boston would be subject to frequent intervals of torrential downpours the entire day (here), leaving me dashing to work with only an umbrella to protect me from an obscene amount of water. Thus I arrived at the office with wet shoes, socks, pants, shirt, and(yes) bra, and sat in an air-conditioned office for 8 hours. Cindy Fitzgibbon, you suck.

Surprisingly, even my collapsible umbrella made me better equipped to face the rain than most people. I saw a businessman in a nice suit literally wrapping his head and shoulders in damp Metro newspapers as he stumbled down the sidewalk. At that point, sir, why even bother? Embrace the rain. I observed a well-made young woman in a spaghetti-strap tank top and tub skirt, strutting through the storm with a tight hip wiggle, as if she didn't even notice the rivulets of rain water washing off her makeup and turning her hair into a mop. That, my friends, is sexiness personified.

****Pimp Your Friends

Dinosaur Jr, a band that was always good for an occasional song on a mix, is playing in Boston next week, so the Phoenix has a rather lengthy article that focuses on the personal strife of the Northampton MA-based band (here). I toyed with the idea of paying $25 to see past-their-glory indie rockers, but declared it a rip-off.

My chance to hang out with J. Mascis as a freshman in college ten years ago was dashed by the prim morals of a totally hot 6'0" model-thin gorgeous babe from Akron Ohio named Laura, my first friend at UMass Amherst. She lived in my dorm and we hung out because I had blue hair and she had pink hair.

Laura was not only stunning, she was rich. Normally this combination would mutually preclude us being friends, but she really wanted to be into punk music, only having a text-book knowledge of it from browsing CDs at her local mall, and I really wanted to hang out with a gorgeous rich girl. So I brought her to the Amherst record shop and pointed out what she should buy.

The owner of the record store was a fat, slovenly man in his early 30s who could not take his coveting eyes off Laura. I was amazed a record store owner in a college town could not control himself better. People tried to talk to him, and he looked agitated at every one of them, his gaze constantly shifting back to Laura as we rummaged through the bins.

To his credit (maybe), he waited for her to pay before starting. "Cool," he said, nodding at her (my!) selections, making some little comments about the indie rock band I picked for her. "You like Dinosaur Jr.?"

"Yeah," she said, though I have no idea if she ever listened to them.

"I love Dinosaur Jr.," I added. He looked briefly at me and nodded. He wasn't ignoring me, but it was obvious I was just another unremarkable college girl, whose only purpose in life was to stand next to the girl who looked like a Cosmo model.

"J. Mascis is a buddy of mine from way back," he said, and then proceeded to offer a few anecdotes about their close friendship. He held onto her purchases, routing around the counter for a bag. Then, "He's coming over to my place to watch baseball tonight, drink some beers... wanna come over and meet J?"

Since he stared squarely at Laura, I did not think for a second that I was invited. Still, my heart beat wildly.

"No... thanks though," she said. I didn't even try to hide the hard whack that I gave Laura's arm. She looked at me, annoyed.

"Your friend can come," he said, not bothering to address me directly but obviously hoping that I would convince her to go.

"We have plans," she said. "Thanks though."

He shrugged and gave her the bag of records. Obviously his Rock Star Trump Card did not work. "See you around," he said, lewdly.

We left the store and I immediately began ranting at her, about how she was crazy to pass up a chance to meet J. Mascis, about how it didn't matter if the guy was a disgusting fat pig, she didn't have to do anything, and when it comes to meeting rock stars, the end always justify the means. She let me go on for a bit until she said, "Meredith, if I showed up at his place, either J. Mascis wouldn't be there and I'd end up fighting his lame rape attempts, or J. Mascis would be there and I'd look like some dumb, impressionable college girl who is there to provide sex for his pig friend so she can meet him. No way."

Though I know Laura was right, and she was noble and strong for standing up for her dignity... and though we remained good friends for the next two months until she transferred to a school back in Ohio to be closer to her boyfriend... I've always sort of hated her for screwing up my possible chance to drink beers with J. Mascis.

****New Jersey Beachgoers: Masters of the Obvious

"I smell suntan lotion." --Teenaged Girl on Boardwalk

"What's with all this sea weed?" -- Ocean Wading Man to Woman

"Ice cream tastes better when it's hot out." -- Woman on Adjacent Blanket

"If I take my wallet in the water, it could get wet." --Teenaged Boy on Adjacent Blanket

"There's nothing to do here but go to the beach." --Teenaged Girl in Surf Shop

****Vacation Pics

It always gives me smug satisfaction to return from a vacation and find a random assortment of photos on my SD card.