Unmanly things

- I hate to do the Seinfeld thing, but I think this is probably important: whenever a group of men and women walk through a door, there is some chaos/ambiguity w/r/t who should hold it open and how. Sometimes it's a hand-off type thing, where everyone props for a second or two as they walk through and then pass the duty on to the person behind them. Sometimes, though, one of the men volunteers to stand guard and hold the door the whole time. I guess this is just being "nice" or whatever but I've noticed a few times that some guys take an insiduous pride in accepting the burden, and they insist on remaining in position until everyone is through. Again, not to "close-read" but it's a pretty naked assertion of masculinity/dominance, not so much over the women in the group, but the other men. "No, no, please, go ahead, I got it." Like there's the old "schoolyard joke" where you say "ladies first!" but that's not really any different than what really happens.

- From the NYT, on the moments immediately before Saddam Hussein's execution:

As the hangmen prepare him for his final moment, some of those invited to attend standing below the platform taunted the former president, who was executed on Saturday before dawn.

One man shouts "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada," a reference to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who heads a powerful Shi'ite political movement and a militia blamed by Washington and Sunni Arabs for running death squads targeting Saddam's Sunni Arab minority.

Saddam, the noose around his neck, appears to smile and shoot back: "Is this what you call manhood?"

The Internet

From Urban Dictionary:

2. bitch seat
10 up, 1 down


1. The rear seat on a motorcylce because that's where the bitch rides.
2. The #1 spot on someone's myspace top 8 because that's were everyone feels obligated to put thier gf.

"Are they going out?"
"Must be, she's in his bitch seat."

tags: biker myspace gf ho bitch

by PeaTearGriffin USA May 15, 2006

!!!!

Oooooh-Wii

I don't really know anything about video games, but it seems weird to me that the newest innovation out there is a controller that makes the task of playing games feel more like actually doing things. Assuming I understand the Wii correctly, you have to swing the controller like a bat if you're playing a baseball sim, and throw it forward like a rod if you're playing a fishing sim. This seems regressive to me. What happened to the old "at the push of a button" thing? Wasn't the whole point that we could just sit there?

It's a weird development that mirrors the bizarre move from blogs to podcasts to live podcasts, something J. L. has pointed out. If it was radios we wanted all along, J. asks, why'd we bother with podcasts? If we are swinging and throwing anyway - and treating our ability to do so in front of the TV as some great step forward - why not just go outside?

Risky Business

I drove to Milwaukee the other day to visit Ideelz, and the original plan was that I'd drive back to Chicago first thing the next morning. Ideelz got sleepy pretty early though - we had a tough day, between all the skating, football, and basketball we played - and I decided to head back home after he went to bed. As I drove, dodging huge trucks and waving my fist at everyone who passed me, I got to thinking: is there a mathematical way to take circumstantial "irony" into account when assessing risk? Like, assuming I was just as likely to die in a car accident no matter when I left Milwaukee, should the added "tragedy" of dying due to a last minute change of plan have been a factor when I was making my decision? And (I'm looking at you, Keyhole), does risk analysis offer some mechanism by which to make that calculation?

Everyone always loves to talk about how their uncle was supposed to be on United 93 but wasn't, but what about the people who weren't supposed to be but were, either because they flew stand-by or because they changed their ticket a few days prior? Those deaths should feel more tragic, at least in an abstract sense, than the deaths of everyone else who was on the 9/11 planes by the same degree that the lucky uncle's survival is more of a relief than the survival of everyone who wasn't.

"Ironic" was a resonant song because it's hard to disagree that dying in a plane crash after a lifetime of avoiding air travel is worse than just plain dying in one. Same goes for, I dunno, dying on Christmas ("He died on Christmas!"), or having that one last fight with your spouse on the day of your anniversary. These sorts of coincidences make bad things seem even worse, but I wonder, exactly how much worse? And is there a way to take that into account when we're make decisions?

A lot of these things are racial

- I'm sure a million blogs have already pointed this out, but whatever, "I'm a writer, not a reader": J. Y. Smith, one of the two guys bylined in the Gerald Ford obit from today's Washington Post, is a man who died almost a year ago. Everyone knows the factoid about how they write all the obits way in advance, but this is still pretty funny. According to the obit that ran in the Post after Smith's death, the Harvard grad was "sinewy."

- Ed Park, formerly of the Village Voice and currently of The Believer, is teaching a writing class at the NYU Gallatin School this semester on how to blog. The course description relates blogging to W. G. Sebald's "magpie instinct" for "teasing out associations between ancient snapshots, newspaper clippings, and the words of others." The assignments include "brief weekly 'connections' reports, the regular maintenance of a blog, and a final paper." Emphasis mine.

- In the car on my way home from Milwaukee, I heard "Changes" by Tupac. There's a spoken word interlude in the middle of the song where he says the following:

It's time for us as a people to start making some changes. Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live, and let's change the way we treat each other. You see, the old way wasn't working, so it's on us to do what we gotta do to survive.

Change the way we live, the way we treat each other, fine, but I wonder: change the way we eat how? Does he just mean less?

- In the new issue of Newsweek, there's sort of a questionable line in the cover story on 2008, in which Jonathan Alter compares Hillary Clinton and Barack (did we know his middle name was Hussein?!) Obama. Emphasis, again, mine.

Will fatigue with the less attractive side of the Clinton years — the soap opera, sinning and self-absorption - resurface? Hard-core Hillary haters of both genders aren't going away.

Obama hasn't yet brought out the haters. "He's scarier than she is because nobody says a bad word about him," says a former senior aide to President Bush who doesn't want to be quoted speculating about Democrats.

The last line, fine - the obvious follow-up is why ELSE is he scarier? - but it's the reporter's language in the italicized sentence that seems off to me. Granted, he refers to "Hillary haters" in the same breath, but when I read that one line by itself, I can't help but wonder if subconsciously or not, the author was choosing his words to uh, fit the vernacular. That said, when Obama won the Senate seat, his wife introduced him at his victory speech as her "baby daddy," so I dunno, maybe I'm being hysterical.

NO JOKE

Problem in "Smack That"

When I originally heard the Akon/Eminem song I was pretty underwhelmed and thought the Eminem verse was kind of phoned-in, or at best a regressive, nostalgic impersonation of Slim Shady. Ever since I hadn't really listened closely to what he's saying, until just now, while I was driving my car from the front of the house around the corner to the garage. It turns out the verse is actually pretty weird: Eminem is rapping about a situation that arises at a dance club in which "Smack That" is playing. Look:

Ooh! Looks like another club banger.
They better hang on
When the throw this thing on.
Get a little drink on, they gon' flip.
For this Akon shit, you can bank on it.

So far he's just predicting what will happen when they play this song on the dancefloor. That's what a philistine might call "meta", but it's actually relatively pedestrian since there are about a million songs that self-consciously identify themselves as songs. No, the Eminem verse gets weirder:

Pedicure, manicure, kitty cat claws,
The way she climbs up and down them poles.
Lookin' like one of them Pussycat (?) Dolls.
Tryna hold my woody back through my drawers.
She steps off stage, didn't think I saw her.
Creeps up behind me and she's like, you're -
I'm like, yeah I know, let's cut to the chase.
No time to waste, back to my place.
Plus from the club to the crib's like a mile away.
Or more like a palace, shall I say.
And plus I got a pal, if your gal is game.
In fact, he's the one singing the song that's playing!

To sum up, what happens is that Eminem's in the club and he's watching a cat-like girl dancing on a pole. She comes over to him and starts to say "You're Eminem!" when he cuts her off and invites her to come back to his house. "Plus I got a pal, if your gal is game / In fact, he's the one singing the song that's playing!" I don't really need to spell out the punch line at this point, but basically, he asks the girl if her girlfriend wants to join them, because he's got a man-friend who might be interested. The man-friend is Akon - the one singing the song that's playing. "Smack That." They're listening to "Smack That"!! :PPPPP

Harmacy

In line at Walgreen's, getting ready to pay for some antibiotics (for my mom, b/c she's under the weather) and a Nerds Rope (for me, b/c of my sweet tooth), I saw a pretty gruesome exchange between the gawky, plain-jane cashier and the two bimbos in front of me. At first, they were looking at the impulse products by the register (specifically the "Chaser Plus" anti-hangover tablets that one of them jokingly offered to buy for the other). One of them was drinking a "Monster" energy drink, the other had a butterfly tattoo on the small of her back. Both had weird synthetically red cheeks and that disgusting, Kim Mathers-style bleachy hair you'd see in clubs if you went to clubs.

When they get up to pay for whatever they were buying - Tylenol, I think - the cashier girl asks the taller one where she buys her jeans.

"Because you're tall, and I'm tall, and I always have trouble finding good jeans."

"These are from Express," the tall bimbo answers, looking at the cashier's little Walgreen's vest and her unremarkable light blue pants.

"Oh, really," the cashier says, signaling interest with her eyebrows as she pulled a new bag down from the thing.

"Yeah."

"They look really good."

"Thanks," the bimbo says, her eyes pointed sharply at the floor. "I buy jeans at JC Penney too."

"Oh, really."

"Also Abercrombie."

"Oh, really." The bimbos start to shuffle toward the exit, and the cashier continues, "I've never actually gone in there, I've always seen it but never checked it out. I always see that place though." And then, "I usually buy my things online."

The girls looked at her with burning disdain, said good night, and walked out. To their credit, if they laughed at her, they waited until after they were out of the store. I guess no one was right slash no one did anything wrong. That cashier girl probably was a loser. In conclusion, classic Boxer's Day.

Too late

In Nabokov's first book, Mary, the main character, Ganin, gets his neighbor drunk because he wants him to sleep through his wife's arrival at the train station the next morning. The neighbor hasn't seen his wife - the Mary from the title - in four years, and he has spent the whole book looking forward to the reunion. As he stumbles toward sleep, he is tortured by the looming appointment, and Ganin commits a cruelty so that he can be the one who meets Mary in the morning.

Finding himself in his own room, he gave a broad, sleepy grin and collapsed slowly onto the bed. Suddenly horror crossed his face.

"Alarm clock--" he mumbled, sitting up. "Leb--over there, on the table, alarm clock--set it for half past seven."

"All right," said Ganin, and began moving the hand. He set it for ten o'clock, then changed his mind and set it for eleven.

When he looked at Alfyorov again the man was already sound asleep, flat on his back with one arm oddly thrown out. This was how drunken tramps used to sleep in Russian villages.

Can you guys think of other times in literature when a character has overslept?

Oink oink / what it do / what it do

On Russian radio this morning, listeners were instructed not to serve pork or ham at their holiday gatherings this season. Why? Because according to the Chinese calendar, 2007 is THE YEAR OF THE FLAMING PIG. So if you eat on that ham, you'll hurt the pig's feelings and you will be punished.

I don't know why they said "flaming" pig. Everything on the internet seems to indicate that it's just the year of the regular pig.

Their other suggestion was to get a trough and mix red wine, champagne, and cognac in it.

Also, remember Wirehog, the Facebook filesharing add-on? That had potential. Maybe this year it will come back!

Poll

Do we think "whip" means car because whips were used to steer horse-cabs back in the day? This crossed my mind when I was reading Edith Warton's 1905 novel The House of Mirth ("'You don't know how a fellow has to hustle to keep this thing going.' He waved his whip in the direction of the Bellomont acres, which lay outspread before them in opulent undulations...", p. 86), which made me think of the Cam'ron song "Horse & Carriage."

[Verse 1]
You might see Cam in designer underwear
New reclining leather chair, reminders everywhere
How we pull up in whips, the minors stop and stare

...

[Verse 2]
Right now too tipsy to drive
But I got my horse and carriage right outside

Several "whip" entries on Urban Dictionary support this connection, including the top rated one (591 up, 63 down), which goes into even more specifics that I'm not sure I believe.

...various hip hop artists noticed that the Mercedes-Benz logo resembled a steering wheel. They then proceeded to use the old term "whip" to describe any Mercedes-Benz vehicle. The term has now been generalized to classify any expensive automobile.

You don't know how a fellow has to hustle to keep this thing going. What do we think?

More like news throwing up

A few things about my Facebook news feed, which right now more than ever, for whatever reason, maybe b/c it's Christmas, seems like a really good reflection of everything that has gone sour. Evidence:

[Redacted] and [Redacted] joined the group Dick In A Box. 12:37am

For those who don't know, "Dick in a Box" was a short video played on SNL last week, in which Justin Timberlake and some other guy sing a boy-band-type song about how they're going to give their girlfriends their dicks for Christmas. It is pretty funny, I guess; the two of them put their dicks in boxes and Timberlake gives instructions: "Step one: cut a hole in the box / step two: put your junk in that box / step three: let her open the box." People loved it, and the NYT got all excited about it after NBC leaked an uncensored version of it onto the internet (an "end-run" around the censors and an innovative use of technology, etc). Not sure about the order of events since I only heard about "Dick" the other night, but at some point the video became what bloggers like to call a "cultural event." The link went over Harvard open lists, the video came up on "most viewed," everyone told their friends that they have to see this thing on YouTube, and some probably even thought it was funny enough to show their parents even though it would be kind of embarrassing. Gawker posted it and quipped, "here's the clip in case you just managed to push aside the giant boulder you've been trapped under."

This happens every once in a while - weirdly enough, it seems to happen pretty often with SNL shorts - but for all the half-cooked parodies and enthusiastic e-mail recs, I haven't seen anything come out of the hype that's quite as sad as this news feed entry, which indicates that the thing we do now when we like something is join a Facebook group about it. The group itself has 876 members. A few people have posted on the "discussion board": one of them gives a link to the video on YouTube (subject line: "The Video") and the other asks, "Who has tried this?" One boy responds (at an astonishing 9:41am!),

ive done this twice!

but only because im on welfare

and a girl adds (at a more appropriate but somehow more mediocre 1:07pm),

I'm going to try boobs in a box
I'll let you guys know how it plays out.

The group description predictably just quotes from the song. No other commentary, except for on the Wall (I am unclear on the distinction between this and the discussion board), where Kim writes:

haha i laughed soOoOoOoOoO hard!!!

...and Julianna writes:

just when i thought SNL had completely lost any hope of making me laugh again..the justin timberlake episode was really good--and this video was fucking hilarious

...and Savanna writes:

I saw that episode live! Front row! Justin and Andy spoke to me!

Anyway, 876 members.

Elsewhere on my news feed, one girl adds "NPR" to her interests, another adds "film." A third, in a moment of self-hatred I would have preferred not to see, updates her "status" to say, "[Redacted]is... disgusting. She is dipping left over turkey into a bowl of cranberry sauce."

Further down the list, somebody comes out, and somebody else joins the group "Enough with the Poking, Lets Just Have Sex."

:'(

Stop sign

A notice, written in red ink, on the door to my basement: "REMEMBER THE CHAMELEON."

Olds call 'em buttons, we call 'em keys

While watching Seinfeld a minute ago (I know, I know, but what can I do? It's still funny!), I saw a commercial for a new KFC product: the Laptop Pack Kids Meal. Like most commercials advertising children's products, this one was intended for young eyes; kids are supposed to see the ad and then make their parents buy them the thing. I am no child, and I could tell right away that this meal was little more than a glorified version of Lunchables. Still, I was intrigued by the laptop imagery, so I logged on to the internet for some more information.

All I found was a press release from 2002 and a write-up in Packaging Digest from around the same time. That's when the Laptop Pack was introduced, and I can only assume since the ad was just on TV that KFC has recently brought it back.
Having read through those admittedly minimal materials, I still don't really understand what this "Pack" has to do with computers.

Just a note, before I start quoting: I realize that "close reading" shit like this is just the kind of thing you'd expect from a college-age version of the dweeb who liked to talk about how "KFC can't call itself Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore because its food has so many chemicals." I just want everyone to know that I hated that kid and I hated his little factoids (sup KH!). That being said, the press release begins:

LOUISVILLE, KY - KFC® knows a thing or two about food-and it knows about parents and kids. Now, with the introduction of its new Kids Laptop Pack kids meal, it brings together all of these honest-to-goodness truths:

* kids are picky;
* kids don't like their food touching other food;
* kids want to eat at their own pace; and
* kids want to feel in control of their mealtimes as they push the limits of both their own independence and their parents' patience.

Okay so wait, never mind the weird use of "it," but what's up with the second bullet point? Is that really a thing? I wouldn't whine/dwell here except that they go on to spin it as the Pack's central point of similarity to a laptop, making it all the more inexplicable.

Armed with this kidformation -- and after much testing, cooking, and tasting, KFC created the ultimate kids meal...

"'I get it, I grab it, I cook it, I move it, I sell it!' God, how I wish I wrote that!" Next up, a section titled "The Packaging."

But if you think that's going to contain answers, you'd better upgrade your version of Wikipedia and think again, because all we get is:

KFC created its unique Kids Laptop Pack not only to hold the meal, but to entertain and educate the kids. Innovative, interactive, and incredibly cool, the Laptop Pack keeps each food separate from the rest, allowing kids to maintain a neat setup while eating at home, on the go, or in the car.

According to Packaging Digest, the Pack - produced and designed by International Paper in collab w/ KFC - "comprises a one-piece, compartmented, SBS paperboard tray, that's glued, scored and die-cut" to hold the various foods in their designated areas. But back that bus up: what does keeping foods separate from other foods have to do with laptops?? I don't know about you guys, but with my grimy ways, the food in my laptop – that is, all the gunk that has collected under and between my keys after many nights of pizza'n'internet with Keyhole - is definitely NOT separate. I guess the Pack is like a laptop because it is rectangular and opens on a hinge? Many, maybe even most, containers are like that, but that does not make them laptops.

The only other tie-ins they try to hustle under the turnstyle are the Pack's "unique portability" and the educational content of the illustrations on its exterior. "Its unique portability makes it a favorite for those in the driver's seat as there are no spills or food on the floor after quick meals on the run." That is ludicrous, since all lunch packs (at least Lunchables, and all the other ones stocked in the same section of the deli aisle) are equally portable. Also, kids can't drive cars. And even if they could, it wouldn't make this Pack like a laptop since you can't use laptops while you are driving. As for the Pack's edu-tainment (according to Packaging Digest, which quotes Michael Tierney, KFC's director of advertising and public relations, that means it can "educate and entertain simultaneously"), I don't really see how a bunch of arithmetic problems and puzzles make this particular product any more like a laptop than a Lunchable or a box of Kellog's cereal.

So, in conclusion, "fuck a chicken, lick a chicken, suck a chicken, beat a chicken, eat a chicken like it's a big cock, b'kuh-b'kaak!"

Kids know what laptops are!

Burying the lede, making mistakes

Fancy directs me to a story on Reuters about a Christmas miracle-- reptile style!

Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilised all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

So far it's just a joke about Jesus, but check out THIS:

The scientists, reporting the discovery in the science journal Nature, said it could help them understand how reptiles colonise new areas. A female dragon could, for instance, swim to another island and establish a new colony on her own.

"The genetics of self-fertilisation in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island," Buley added.

Unwrap the gift, and you've got yourself a classic implication. On a related note, what happens when you search around for "Kimono dragon"? Mostly a lot of typos. But also this fun!



Also, my mom and I are adopting a chameleon for a few days this week while its owners go on a trip. We have to feed him grasshoppers and periodically spray him with water. Right now the plan is to put him in the basement, which is also where the one fully functional bathroom in my house is located. This means that every time someone goes downstairs to take a shower, they also have to give the lizard a shower!

Never was a thug, just infatuated with blogs

So, if I ever want to post something in reference to a blog that I heard about from a friend, do I need to do the "via" thing and credit the friend even if he hasn't posted about that specific thing? The issue is that I just subscribed myself to five sites I saw on Keyhole's bloglines, and I am worried about what will happen when I see something on one of them worth sulking about.

The parallels don't quite line up but in a general sense, this is not entirely dissimilar from the Dershowitz/Ilyinsky plagiarism-or-not thing. Technically it's probably acceptable to limit linkage to the original blog, but it'll be pretty suspect if I start talking about something on "BibliOdyssey" and pretending like that is just a site I have always loved to read. Basically, Keyhole, if I see a rainbow while I'm looking through you, how should I cite my sources?

I've been looking for a reason

Finally, I got one today, and it's pretty topical/timely on account of the Christmas season. As some of you might know, post-Soviet Russians actually don't really do Christmas. It used to be a thing but then the Communists made religion illegal so the holiday was moved a few days up and pegged to the turn of the new year instead of the birth of Christ. So basically we have the tree, the Santa Claus (he is called Grandfather Frost but he wears the same coat), the presents, the tradition of family gathering etc, except we do it all on a different night.

This year my sister is coming from Boston and she is bringing her husband Kostik (short for Konstantin) and her son Tima (long for Tim). That is not that important except that earlier today, she and I were discussing the details of the visit on AIM and I was treated to a hilarious joke.

The joke is that Tima wrote a letter to Santa and asked for coal. For his toy trains. This is the first post to my new blog!