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Dying Wishes

The British charity Age Concern conducted a survey of 100,000 elderly people about their preferred funeral rites. The results suggest that being buried alive is a preoccupation, with many people asking to be certified dead, have a mirror held up to their face, or be buried with a cell phone.

Being buried alive is a primordial human fear, as it removes the quick or unconscious elements of natural death and forces a prolonged, solitary, premature head-on confrontation with mortality.

But rest assured, and in peace: These days, getting prematurely buried in a coffin is impossible. Even if you do fool the coroner, it’s impossible to cheat embalming.

Posted in Existence.

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By Meredith – October 16, 2007

Particularly Lessing’s Cats

Back in my college years, I handed my best friend Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, which appealed to our conflicted academic Riot Grrrl sensibilities. Last week’s announcement that Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature made me want to call her so we could mutually gush and express dorky joy over Lessing’s historic recognition.

Although my BF went on to develop a strong liking for Lessing’s work, unfortunately for me, I followed The Golden Notebook with Lessing’s debut novel The Grass is Singing, which struck me as overwrought and simplistic. I then picked up The Fifth Child. Such a cool idea for a book (a family’s middle-class happiness is destroyed by their disturbing fifth child named Ben), but unsatisfying and poorly executed.

Then, some years later while browsing a used book store, I found a Lessing book called Particularly Cats. This thin autobiographical tome features Lessing’s meditations on cats she has lived with, and centers around Grey Cat and Black Cat, whose actions and temperaments she describes with the obvious admiration of a cat lover. The book instantly appealed to me, the subject matter was well-suited for Lessing’s prim and detached writing style.

Particularly Cats never appears on the lists of Lessing’s selected works that float around since she won the Nobel, because the Nobel Prize is not awarded based on anecdotes about domestic cats. One analysis of her Nobel commendation prizes Lessing’s writing for grappling with the question “in an age that values the individual, how is the individual supposed to stem the tide of what appear to be the increasingly catastrophic forces that threaten our world?”. Whatever. I like her stories about kitty-cats.

Posted in Culture.

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By Meredith – October 15, 2007

The Berkshires

In the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, a raw wind bears a touch of Canada, blowing the green out of the leaves, quickening our walk, kindling our appetites, and chilling even staunch New England souls like myself who regard Old Man Winter as a minor deity.

I want to plunge my hands into the guts of pumpkin. I want to take a hayride, to bounce against the soft warmth of hay as the tractor pulls our wagon through mazes of 10-foot corn. I want to bite into an apple and taste the crisp sweetness of autumn’s bounty. I want to snuggle under a blanket and listen to the wind as it quiets the bugs, the birds, and all else that crouches mute under the waning moon.

berkshires

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By Meredith – October 14, 2007

Googles

For about 80% of the search engine phrases that bring people to this web site, I instantly recall the post of origin. Such is the steely grip that my own writing has on me.

For example, the search phrase had a poppy seed muffin yesterday taking a drug test today is the result of a post when I was in a similar predicament this past summer. brussels sprouts bitter and buggy comes from last year’s post about cooking yummy, bug-free brussels sprouts. running elvis pictures is the result of one such indelible photo from when I ran the Broad Street Run more than 5 years ago. And, incredibly, I still get about 100 hits a week about that idiot Fabian Basabe from a series of derisive posts in January 2004.

However, I profess complete ignorance regarding lumberjack baby by jackal. And I really don’t recall writing anything about soothing,red,itchy,dog butt. And funeral home scandal necrophilia… I’m clueless, really, but not too surprised.

INTERROGATIVE
is gum allowed while taking the gre
are feces of green color fine for those who eat a lot of vegetables
can you take unopened bottle of water on plane
what movie does the line “you shut your mouth when you’re talking to me” come from
how does the average man lose his unhealthy midsection
how many bananas are eaten at the oscars
how to cook brussel sprouts trendy

QUOTATIONS
teacher “saying the word retarded”
guiltiness turkey “social work”
humor spoof “my precious” pants off fat actor
“everyone has had more sex than me” subtitle
cambridge “central square” clipboard dreadlock
husband “hedonistic behavior”
public footpath “leeds castle”
nyc escort “stevie”

MISSPELLED
tallest mountain peeks and rage
pi-wee german’s bike
cole miner 6 men trapped in sand
orgy dating dairy blog

CELEBRITY
bill gates spanked as a child
marilyn manson cursing and mocking jesus christ
joan crawford stag movie
video of meredith vieira lap dance
haruki murakami lederhosen swiftly
topher grace and his lexus suv
ashton kutcher spanked child
is fabian basabe really rich
hate fabian basabe. i want to beat the living crap out of him
is billie joe mentally retarded
is paul banks of interpol married
jenna bush crotch

EVERYTHING ELSE
mens cologne and the bottle is shaped like a man’s torso
seasonal mood disoder in women associated with husbands going hunting
natural way to get adult urine smell out of clothes
snopes: red bell peppers have more vitamin c than oranges
moms who train there daughters to be lesbians
fung wah tee shirts
urban language how’s the chub
television commercial analysis oreo pizza
french men haircut phrases
necklace red sox players
retard jargon
methacton evil hill
methacton hs repeating a grade
hollywood tuna stewardess
sexual organs of the girl
mountain dew’s ode to the classic comic strip spy vs. spy
pictures of lime green pimps
multitudinous great crowd and jehovah witness
typical inseam measurement for men 6 feet tall
sending sperm via usps letter
pinnacle of cuteness

Posted in Miscellany.

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By Meredith – October 12, 2007

Geek Philanthropy

Microsoft co-founder and multi-billionaire Paul Allen comes off like some sort of playboy jock, what with his ownership of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers as well as 3 monster yachts that are often mistaken for cruise ships. But with his funding of a pioneering telescope array designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, obviously he’s a truly a geek at heart.

The Allen Telescope Array was unveiled today, with 42 of the planned 350 radio dishes already collecting data from the nether regions of the universe. The 20-foot diameter pivotable antennas will scope out astononomical objects and phenomona such as supernovas, black holes, and little green men.

Anyone who commits their life to finding aliens is naturally optimistic about the existence of ETs. A SETI astronomer involved in the project predicts “I think we will find (signals from intelligent civilizations) by 2025.” Says a professor of astronomy “I expect the telescope to be fully online when we find that first Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star, so we can point the ATA at it and listen.”

This $50 million project hinges on several gigantic assumptions, one being: that this Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star is either directly aiming a beacon at us, or outputing radio signals as haphazardly as Earth’s traditional television broadcasts that allowed aliens to watch “I Love Lucy.” (Our modern methods such as cable television and direct-broadcast satellites emit few signals into space, which is a relief to humans cringing with embarrassment over the last decade of TV programming).

Still, at the very least, the ATA will stock the public’s interest in and their listless imagination in regards to astronomy, so the endeavor is not a complete waste of Paul Allen’s money… not like the Portland Trailblazers or something…

Posted in In the News.

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By Meredith – October 11, 2007

Twitch of Fate

In the sky, it’s gray and foggy. But here on the streets of downtown Boston, the air is dry and crisp, and it’s a good morning to be a pedestrian, strolling to the office along clogged urban arteries of vehicular metal, rubber, and smog.

I like walking among the corporate conquerors in their suits and shiny shoes. I match their clipped strides and aloof gazes. They are trim and spritely, ready to hunker down in their luxury office suites, battle in board rooms, wage war for market share, combat for capital, and clash for cash.

On High Street, I pass Sebastians, a hoity chain of corporate dining establishments in Boston that offers a diversified range of sandwiches, soup, salad, and hot entrees for discerning patrons who prefer paying $8 for a tiny portion instead of $5 for a sizable portion.

Sebastians is spacious and softly illuminated with contemporary lighting fixtures. There are stainless steel baker’s racks of gourmet foodstuffs for light office refreshments and clandestine cubicle snacking. Though it is 8:30am, about a dozen workers with tan-colored skin bustle behind the counters, wearing white caps and aprons, preparing trays of food to be delivered to nearby offices.

I slow my pace outside of Sebastian’s storefront. I am a believer that human life is ruled by twitches of fate, and I belive that it is by twitch of fate that my worth is measured output of words, and not output of sandwiches.

Posted in The 9 to 5.

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By Meredith – October 10, 2007

You’re Not From Around Here, Are You?

“This is the 6:05 Worcester Express,” the conductor announced this evening as the train jerked out of South Station.

The woman seated next to me bucked in alarm. “I thought this was the ‘War-chester’ train,” she yelped, moving as if to disembark the moving train like some sort of action hero instead of a tiny, clean woman in her sixties with a hulking floral-patterned suitcase.

A nearby man called “Yeah, this is the ‘Woos-ter’ train.”

This did little to alleviate her restless concern, and in fact charged the situation with chaotic Abbott and Costello confusion. “This is the right train,” I assured her. “It’s not pronounced ‘War-chester.’ It’s ‘Woos-ter.'”

She looked at me blankly, then relaxed. “Well, I didn’t know that,” she said. “I’ve never heard it said like that before.” She then proceded to tell me all about how she’s going to Grafton to housesit for a nephew with two dogs while he’s in California for a month.

“And where are you from?” I asked, pegging her as total southern Midwest.

“Ohio,” she said. Ah, I should have known. Sensible-to-the-point-of-stupid Ohio.

Posted in Massachusetts.

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By Meredith – October 9, 2007

Cannon Mountain 4100′ October 7, 2007





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By Meredith – October 7, 2007

Mounts Hancock 4420′ and South Hancock 4319′ October 6, 2007





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By Meredith – October 6, 2007

Artificial Artificial Intelligence

I checked out MyCyberTwin after talking with a co-worker about the current state of Artificial Intelligence. MyCyberTwin, which is old news (so first quarter 2007) allows users to create a virtual twin that can be their surrogate in online chat. Anyone can create a (free) cyber twin to amuse their friends, but the company’s bread-and-butter probably comes from marketing and pornography.

The cyber twin’s personality and “intelligence” is based on questions that the real human answered when they created the twin. “They claim that it’s artifical intelligence, but it’s not, because it’s not learning independantly and on-the-fly,” my co-worker explained. “It’s regurgiating appropriate words based what the creator previously taught it.”

Curious, I went MyCyberTwin and had several chats with virtual celebrity twins Paris Hilton and George Bush (though I would have prefered an intellectual like Sartre or Naomi Wolf.) Sadly, Paris impressed me more than George. Neither conversation felt “real” to me and the George twin in particular responded incorrectly to and evaded certain questions (arguably, this is what GWB himself would do).

First up: Paris Hilton. Note that “You” is me.

Paris: Hey I’m Paris Hilton and I am hot! Even though I was in jail, I’m still hot!
You: Why did you go to jail?
Paris: I did my time. I got let out early due to good behavior.
You: Good behavior? Didn’t you escape or something?
Paris: Life is like totally good isn’t it Meredith?
You: You’re right. What’s your favorite band?
Paris: I love the group Whitestarr. I like music I can dance to
You: I like to dance too
Paris: I am doing the funky chicken right now.
You: LOL
Paris: I love to make people laugh. It’s nice you find me amusing.
You: Oh, I do. I loved the Simple Life. You and Nicole were so ridiculous!
Paris: So … have you tried my perfume range?
You: No. I think your perfume is too floral and immature for my tastes
Paris: Yeah I am. A spoilt brat. LOL. It’s great though.
You: No, you’re great!
Paris: I like to think so too. Thanks for saying that though Meredith.

Then… George W. Bush:

You: So why’d you veto the health insurance for children bill?
George: I’ve been to war. I’ve raised twins. If I had a choice, I’d rather go to war.
You: Yeah, right. You joined the Texas National Guard during Viet Nam.
George: Indeed, I understand.
George: Do you think I am doing enough about the environment?
You: No, I think you care about industry more than the environment.
George: The environment? My advisors tell me it isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are
You: Well, I can’t argue with that.
George: That sounds like a strong opinion.
George: Do YOU think I should withdraw the US of A from Iraq soon?
You: I don’t think that we be there in the first place
George: Why is that, Meredith?
You: Because it’s a very expensive war
George: I like the Green Berets and Bambi
You: WTF? Bambi?
George: Are you drink typing?

Posted in The 9 to 5.

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By Meredith – October 5, 2007