answer: the poor man's hasselhoff

who is alex trebek?
i could stop at this picture alone. does anyone know why he ever posed topless, or why he looks like he knows a very perverted secret? i don't, and that's points right off the bat.
others would say his allure was shaved away with his "what is a mustache?" no, trebek's real genius lies in his unique ability to be a complete and utter asshole on national tv and be garnered with adoration for it. nightly, he treats jeopardy's contestants like tipsy sorority girls that wandered into the national spelling bee. he doesn't simply note incorrect answers, he takes explicit time to demoralize the contestant and most likely throw in a jab ("no. we were looking for giorgio abetti. not johannes kepler. johannes kepler would be 16th century. we're looking for nineteenth century astronomers...?") the inflection of a question at the end of his jab should not be underestimated; it is the quintessential prick move. he then leaves a second or two for the effect to settle in - the effect of some pat sayjack who supposedly knows every fact about everything and if you don't, well, what the fuck are you doing on my game show? also, don't even think about not making it a true daily double... "$500 only, huh? $1,200 would put you in the lead, but $500 it is..."

also: what?

life for the living

i've walked across that exact square of sidewalk countless times. now he was 3 floors up, staring down at that square in the open afternoon air.

i'd always move past the excited tourists in their neon "san francisco, ca" t-shirts, queued around the cable-car turnaround like a giant human question mark. thinking to myself why they didn't bother walking up a couple of blocks to the next stop and save 45 minutes of waiting. now they were all turned towards him on the ledge only in turquoise underwear. young and old couples, friends, families. one could hear the crowds' pleading from there - the urging, even laughing, but he doesnt.

i'd walk quickly past the diseased and deformed pigeons and panhandlers. he shuffles toward the edge, then back. leaning forward then back again.

my thoughts would be on that afternoon's worthless team meetings and client visits, maybe weekend plans. his thoughts are too much for him.

they have been for some time. i'd sit in ridiculous department morale meetings and so would he - maybe right in front of me. i always paid more attention to the dandruff peppering the shoulders of the person seated in front of me than what was actually happening in the meeting. i would've noticed that i would be paying attention that day. he always dressed sharply, so im told. we both took the same elevator and probably crossed paths by the copier or the coffee counter many times.

many of us heard a folklore tale and laughed it off as an easy blockbuster target. he heard the same tale and took it deeply to heart and mind. he quit to make the most of his remaining time.

i'd make it down the one block back to work and head to my team meeting to discuss how much ad space costs now. one could hear the sirens closing in from there, but i doubt he can. probably doesn't notice the city employee hurrying in through the entrance only about two dozen feet down.

my life went on like any other day - with plans, errands to do, optimism, a girlfriend, friends to see, nephews to eventually talk life and women with, supposed to rain this weekend, the giants should have a chance this year, all that.

he hears the employee reach the top floor just in time to discover the door is locked. and he steps off.



a friend of mine saw the scene and reiterated the adage that "life is for the living". sometimes i'd probly think that sounds a touch callous, but it served for a dose of optimistic reality. for a few reasons i think this has sort of haunted me from half a city away for a couple of days. i knew him hardly enough to be considered acquaintances but it's a ghostly, almost tangible eeriness.

tubular

also, "out of this world!" nerdiness knows no bounds, especially when it comes to space. this is one reason why i might as well have taken a small hit of prozac when these images were released from nasa's new infrared telescope. they're of our nearest galaxy (1.5 million light years away) and nearest galaxy cluster - 60 million light years away. i mean, come on - that's f'ing amazing.

by request only

all-time album art

peekaboo research

fox says it's cold, tells gore to suck it

Most. Obvious. Metaphor. Ever.

In the off-chance that we weren't really grasping the almost comically flagrant whoring of the US government and our tax dollars by elected officials to private companies since the start of the iraq war... comes this report from the NYT providing a literal analogy for us.

The new economic hitmen, so to speak

too easy

the human mind

watched a pbs special on human emotions tonight. it really is very interesting and disconcerting how our very own brains can be so empowering or detrimental to our lives. whether we choose to listen to our doubts or don't make a concerted effort to overcome our own subconscious, we can really screw ourselves over. here's a couple of the more interesting points that stood out:

anger: the frontal lobe, where reason comes from, is a "new" part of the brain - developed much longer after the primitive emotions. for some reason, emotions are quickly and easily sent directly to the frontal lobe, but it is much more complicated and difficult for the lobe to send "reason" messages back to shut off or override the emotion. this gives me good medical grounding for why i feel full of rage when watching the new chase credit card ski lift commercial and the customer service "massage dare" only to realize minutes later that i just hate horrible marketing ideas.

depression: strong physical evidence continues to emerge that in addition to its emotional effects, depression has significant physical corollaries/causes/effects. in addition to a spike in "stress molecules" found in the saliva of those with depression, they have found that depressed individuals tend to have a significantly smaller hypothalamus than healthy people and that it can continue to shrink if untreated. the hypothalamus contributes to stress sensory and reaction and is usually about the size of an almond (which is really kind of a sick description i think. can't they compare it to a non-edible? maybe something not brown and wrinkly with a milkish taste? sick). most recently, they have found a couple of treatments that can not only treat the shrinkage (not that kind), but reverse it and grow new neurons: anti-depressants and shock therapy. yea, like randle mcmurphie in cuckoo's nest.

takes one to know one

wait, that's not right

The difference between Sarah Palin's reaction to Rahm Emanuel's ill-advised use of the word "retarded" (directed at liberals), and Rush Limbaugh's use of the word (directed at advocates for the mentally handicapped) speaks volumes. When it was reported that Emanuel used the word in a private meeting -- one time -- Palin quickly took to Facebook and, mentioning Emanuel by name, called on President Obama to fire him. When Limbaugh repeatedly used the term on his radio show, Palin did nothing. Then, after being goaded by commentators, she had her spokesperson offer a generic criticism of "demeaning name calling," never mentioning Limbaugh by name -- and even had her spokesperson phone Rush to assure him she hadn't used his name. Then, in an interview with Fox that aired this morning, Palin defended Limbaugh's use of "retards" as "satire." Which it wasn't -- unless I'm missing the humor in calling a meeting of advocates for the mentally handicapped "a retard summit."

couldn't this all be resolved if more people accepted use of the term "artarted"?

FML

a wolfe in sheeps loafers

this campaign video is so amazing, it doesn't even know it

charlie brown in training

whatever happened to predicatability

the milkman, the paperboy and evening tv aa-ah, aa-ahhhhh

one night walking

walking out on to the sidewalk felt like being reborn from a birth canal of moldy coasters and painfully mundane smalltalk.

"yea, bud light lime. you know, bud's making a hef now these days. well, it's a wheat bear anyways." PUSSSHHH!

and there i was, right back outside. in a placenta of cold, refreshing winter bay air. it can get a little old come july, but damn it feels nice. i looked around deciding which direction to hike back up the hill towards home. regardless of circumstances, no one enjoys walking uphill. i didnt really have a choice, so i began trudging up the first block and thinking about how much i hate carrying small talk and how much bud light lime tastes like cheap expired laundry powder detergent.

a younger couple was stumbling down the sidewalk, the guy regretfully holding his unfamiliar date up while staring vacantly up at the trees. "i tend to find humor in thingssss........," she slurred. his expression seemed to read, "i wonder if she'll leave in the morning." if only he could've read mine: "doubt it."

i once overheard part of a conversation on a sidewalk downtown: "... and then they locked me in a cage with a tiger!..." i thought i'd learned to eavesdrop a bit more effectively since then, but there aren't enough people on the sidewalks in this neighborhood to be conspicuous enough to find out exactly what things this obviously profound girl found humor in. i trudged on.

up the top of the hill, past my former dry cleaner. she'd always demanded that i sign for my pick ups even though she recognized me. her untrusting chinese gaze, her rotund little index finger and the way she'd flop it down onto the "name" line like an overcooked weenie that escaped a backyard 4th of july barbecue but still demanded a signature for picking up two work shirts. that's not even why she's a "former" dry cleaner. she seemed to find sadistic pleasure in ironing over collar-stays and apparently operated a dress shirt button black market racket downstairs.

it's incredible how quiet this block can be at 10pm while the bars are packed 100 yards away. the breakfast joint with the always pretentious line of hipsters waiting an hour for a ho-hum meal. the empty park. the feeling of being alone while in the midst of thousands. good time of day to take in the city.

up the last block in a good pace. two overweight italians sauntering by, "and there was piss all over my carpet..." again, the unlearned eavesdropping lesson. around the last corner past the painful garage bands performing tired covers, past the desperate girls with a few unfortunate hours still ahead of them, and past the homeless man urinating 10 feet from the stoop he's slept in for the last 3 months.

i dig my neighborhood

death cult dwarves

Satellite image of north and south korea at night. An excerpt from a story on the north's closed society, where citizens average 6 inches shorter than the south:

Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.