The Boss Shows Unsolved Murders What's What

So the other day, during my routine 4 AM television marathon, I stumbled across what may well be the most amazing episode of any procedural show to have even been given the green light.

Season 3, Episode 11 of Cold Case features an entire mystery based and set to Bruce Springsteen songs.

It also has the girl who played Madeline on Gilmore Girls, two potential love interests from Veronica Mars, and a woman with a four episode arc on Seinfeld.

Upon further research, Cold Case is so ridiculously awesome that it has also had Johnny Cash and John Mellancamp centric episodes respectively.

This series is way too awesome.

list of movies i'm looking forward to more than 'crank 2'

1. Where the Wild Things Are

trailer here

holy fucking shitsicles. look at it (in HD). cinematography looks fantastic. it's genuine. it's real. it has potential to weird the hell out of small children. the wild things are physical puppets made by the henson company.the kid looks like a perfect max. the aesthetic is great. hope the rest of the movie is as good as it looks. it looks like they're staying true to the feel of the book. also, it's spike jonze.


2. ...

oh wait, that's it.

I am a 27 Year Old II

AN UPDATE.

Is it a scam?
Thoughts?

This is oddly compelling.

Very much so.
i stole it from cracked, but check it out anyway.

My Essay is Going Well

The Grapes of Wrath is really about capitalism being doomed, a dead-end, fundamentally disequilibriated, unsustainable. And, like, as a typical upper-class white pinko jerk, Steinbeck is happy to imply that the only solution is revolution and some kind of pre-modern, Jeffersonian egalitarian mixed-farming subsistence crap where I guess we get rid of all “superfluous” ownership and everyone lives like Indians in harmony with the land, worms, and illiteracy, like the Joads did in the good ole days... except I'm thinking he's throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this—where by “baby” i mean “civilization” and by “bathwater” i mean theoretically correctable market failures and abuses, not fundamental flaws in the structure of capitalist organization.

In Defense of our Good Game

A couple of times in the last week, I've been hearing people say to me that they don't read blogs.
I find it now prescient to respond to such claims, as I find them borderline preposterous.
(Apologies to those to whom this is responding, but I might as well get these conversations out of the way, and I'm sorry if I come across as harsh or disrespectful, but you're probably never going to read them anyway).

The internet is, in essence, the ultimate meritocracy. The best websites are usually the most trafficked, in the sense of what they can give to the reader. Many of these "best" websites are blogs, and many are not. The point is, a website can merit readership and a following, whether it is a blog or not, that is a fact. It has become virtually impossible to define what a blog actually is. This, yes, is a blog. Free Darko, China Matters, Perez Hilton, all blogs. New York Times, Yahoo, Reuters, not blogs. All are popular, all provide quality information to the readers, all the time.
The only difference is really in the name, as long as we trust the meritocracy.

This is one of the many divides between the Kieth Olbermanns and Bill O'Reillys of the world (notorious, accomplished, respective blog lover/hater) - supposed enlightenment exists not in the opposite of blind dismissal, but rather the abscence of it. Therefore, world, I beg of you - our name, or our .blogspot tag, or our blogosphere peers don't necessarily make us any less credible than the New York Times (however difficult that may actually be). It's our content thats our "downfall". Pulitzer Prize Winning novelist and journalist H.G. Bissinger once claimed on live television that blogs "are the complete dumbing-down of our society", which was followed by the exclamation that "it [the blogosphere] really pisses the shit out of me".

I can only hope that I will win a pulitzer someday for "pissing the shit" out of somebody. Earlier in his interview, Bissinger forcibly asked a blogger if he had even heard of W.C. Heinz. When the blogger replied that he had, Bissinger's response was to break down into a fit of profanity and saliva. If it is indeed the vulgarity and triviality that defines blogs, than Bissinger has made himself a part of it, forever immortalized on youtube, and the Blogger, indeed a former Colleague of Heinz's, would have had to try alot harder to defend himself in that clip.

Yes, there are people on the internet who write about less than literary topics. For every blog about the British Revolution of the 1650's there are certainly ten about poop, tits, or the foot and a half of torso in between. Nobody, including me, is arguing that. But, how can that ever, ever mean that this blog, or any other, might not be a good read, a good communicator, even a good canvas. Reading is fun, writing is fun, and I'm thrilled to be able to do both in a space where people might actually care about what I have to say. Best, there are 20 of us who are enjoying it just like I am. Even if its about poop, someone might care about it. Don't blame the blogger simply for pursuing his interests.

It stands to reason that this here, or at least the in the style which its written, is the internet of the future. Gone are the days where people wait for evening or nighttime news, let alone read the newspaper in the morning. The internet wouldn't be absolutely destroying all other kinds of media if it didn't have the power to be updated fifteen times a day, without question. Web 2.0 has revolutionized communication, time-wasting, and even personal identity. Almost everybody I know has a facebook or a twitter, their own personal oft-updated website with pictures, personal information, and messages from friends. The future of communication is already here, and the future of information is rapidly, rapidly catching up.

Also, tonight myself, Skylight, and the visiting whirlwind are going to bily kun tonight, round 1030ish. 
You know where it is


P.S. i'm looking into writing something about sports soon, i got a scoop i'm probably going to do something recreational about, if i get around to it. I've started research.
Stay Classy, DT.

Wherein My Mom posts about His Mom

My mother got Facebook, you see, and added my 18-year-old Israeli cousin.

Then she realized what News Feed was and got fed up.

She emailed me (subject heading: "help help help"), citing News Feed as a "Major irritation" and asking how to block certain people on the 'book. He updates his status too often! she says. He's always writing on his friends walls! He's posting his entire life on the internet, thinking people care! Imposing them to care! All the aggravations one could have with Facebook, she had.

So I told her how to block people, and she thanked me with a prompt response. Two minutes after her email, she sent another one:

"You know what's funny?

What if you're posting all this stuff about yourself, thinking people are interested and you have no idea you're being ignored.

How sad."

And I have to say, I agree.

i miss people

the sketch comedy / musical show i was in just finished its run last week (it was great, thanks). the problem now is that all these people that i have been so intensely rehearsing with are out of my life. it honestly went from seeing them all for 18 hours a day to 0. it's kind of brutal.

i remember talking to momfunny about the concept of friendship, and the idea that friendship exists out of a necessity to proximity. if you're around someone a lot, it's more convenient to be friends with them than not.

so what happens when you remove the proximity part? how long can the "i still want to be your friend even though i never see you" last?

i suppose the solution is in manufacturing more proximity, but sometimes it's tough to do that organically.

anything with the word reunion in it usually is a terrible solution.

kudos to DT for making a great and unique way to keep in touch.

My Schedule

Write a paper by this Friday. Write a paper by the end of that weekend. Write a 15 page paper in the four (week)days following that. Five days to prepare for a presentation, followed by five days to write another paper. Followed by half a day to prepare for my first four exams, which are all in the first three days of exam period.

Followed by summer.

Please, can it be summer now?

Because I'm not That Interested in the Dickens I'm Supposed to be Talking About

Hard Times is very heavy-handed. I understand that, Social Divide, etc etc.




A very happy birthday to the Weaselbag. Everyone is getting older, its kinda freaking me out.
Eh, not really. But, our fleeting youth must be celebrated!
Remember That, Friends.

Oh Baby, Sneeze On Me.

WHAT THE HELL!?!?

all i can say is.... Awesome.

In a futile attempt to do further research, i came across a pornography website called "Sneezing Beauties"
The World/Internet/Science is awesome.

A Night in the Life

1) Slice an eggplant into wedges about an inch by half an inch by a quarter of an inch. Fry in very hot oil in a wok, tossing with one or two tablespoons of hoisin sauce. When limp, remove them and drain them and pour out all but about a tablespoon of oil.

2) Fry thinly sliced fresh ginger, green onions, small red chilies, and crushed garlic until brown; add thickly sliced pork loin and fry until pale-white. Add more hoisin, sambal oelek, soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar to taste.

3) Put the eggplant back in the wok along with roughly torn baby bok choy leaves. Toss hot and simmer until the eggplant turns to mush. Add cornstarch if desired.

4) Spoon over red rice. Enjoy with a Tremblay. Reflect that perhaps you should not buy groceries when stupidly happy because it is expensive, but finally decide this is why life is sweet.

icgyabl

Back

I

am

in town.

Friday March 20th. 6pm

SUIT UP.

That is all

-----

easily influenced

my roommate left his copy of
bukowski poems
on our kitchen table.

i read it
and now i can't stop writing
like this.

Enrico Fermi Was a Dick.

In 1950, Enrico Fermi sat down for lunch with several of his colleagues and asked "Where is everybody?" His lunchmates were understandably confused, as they were present in the room with him. But Fermi had not gone blind and deaf simultaneously, and he was not asking about the whereabouts of his friends. He was asking where the aliens were (the space kind, not the Mexico kind).
He reasoned that, if there is other intelligent life in the galaxy, we should have managed to find some evidence of it by now. Using the same reasoning he disproved the existence of Yetis, Bigfoot, God, Faeries and all sorts of other mythical creatures (including dragons). In short, Fermi managed, in the space of a few sentences, to crush the childhood fantasies of every single person who has ever watched science fiction on television. Yes, Enrico Fermi was a dick, and afterward found himself eating alone at lunchtime.
But, while I like to believe that our galaxy is teeming with life, sometimes I am haunted by Fermi's idea. Impressive because he is dead, and I'm not. But I can't help but wonder. What if, by some cosmic twist of fate, ours is the only planet that fosters life? A lone oasis in a barren desert of a universe. What if when we look up at the stars there is nobody and nothing peering at us from a distant world?
Even with all the billions of humans, potentially trillions if we ever leave our backwater solar system, that would be a very lonely existence.

And, because this was kind of depressing, here's a puppy:

All Hallow's Erev

Happy Purim, Everybody!
(It was on Monday)
Favourite part from the evening:

Stranger: Hey, Buddy, you're a week early!
Thug Wrangler (who is dressed as a leprechaun): It's Jewish Halloween!
Stranger: Come On! There is no Jewish Halloween!

There is, and it has a two-drink minimum.

I was once, like every good yid should be, in Israel on Purim. It was magnificent, my ten-shekel child's soldier's costume served me very well. what a party that holiday is.

We had a great night this week, partying with the good people at Chabad, who reminded us that we too were good people, and we should be celebrating. Those religious freaks. So they gave us food, and booze.
Thanks for the Chocolate, Judaism!

Dear World: Please Stop Comparing Things to the Holocaust

I write this letter - addressed to you, dear World - after a somewhat recent Haligonian event caused a stir down at St. Mary's University, wherein a very religious man compared abortion to the Holocaust.

I couldn't help but be reminded of PETA's toss-around of the ol' slaughter. An apt metaphor for the killing of chickens, indeed.

In light of such comparisons, I make a public plea: Seriously, you guys, nothing is really comparable to the systemic murdering of six million Jews. Really. Maybe Rwandans or peeps from Darfur could pull it off. I would be okay with that. But please stop comparing things that are not the systemic murdering of six million Jews to things that are the systemic murdering of six million Jews. It's getting a bit trite, and people are starting to mock you behind your back.

With fury like the Holocaust,
MMTIF

at least the evenings will be brighter.

tonight, we set our clocks ahead once again for daylight savings and we lose an hour.

that's an hour that could have been spent working, playing, being among good company, lovin', procrastinating, drinking, watching youtube videos, playing guitar, learning things you won't ever need to know, reading, thinking about the future, thinking about nothing, entertaining, creating, cooking, trying something new, talking, or even just sleeping.

i wish i could have made this post more eloquent but i'm tired and i have rehearsal at 9 tomorrow morinng (which really means it's at 8... ah!).

could've used that extra hour this weekend.

remember how important time is, friends.



(... also remember to set your clocks ahead for daylight savings time, that too.)

In Which I Read FreeDarko for the First Time and am Disappointed

THE MOST RECENT FREEDARKO POST ARGUES that because NBA players are arrogant and narcissistic, they have no reason to take performance drugs. It is a silly, silly argument.

OK, so LeBron is a god, knows he is, loves himself for it. But that doesn't mean, as FD says it does, that he has no reason to cheat (or whatever--I don't know the rules) to make himself even more of a god. The assumption that he does misses an interesting aspect of human behaviour, which is why I'm writing about it now. Briefly and artlessly, because I really should be working.

It is well documented [citation needed] that drivers who think of themselves as good, safe, or even talented drivers permit themselves transgressions or recklessnesses that they would not tolerate in other, "worse" drivers. It is because I drive pretty good that I can pass this guy dangerously; I'm a good driver and I know how much time it'll take and I know my car and the rules don't apply to good drivers like me, they apply to assholes like this guy I'm trying to pass. Or: don't think that incredibly wealthy bankers, successful atheletes, politicians, and any other kind of person who knows he's the man, and walks the walk to back it up better than anyone else in his field--even if his field is about individuals, like politics is--will be kept from cheating to get richer, better, more powerful just by their arrogance. Sometimes the opposite effect occurs: being the best means you can ignore the rules. Madoff proves this; so does Watergate. So does the fact that I'm probably not a very good driver even though I think I am.

None of this means that LeBron is cheating. Indeed, I don't even know what team he's on. But it shows opposite arguments can sound reasonable and the only way to be (kinda) sure is to consult empirical data. Thank you Karl Popper.

And now back to our regularly scheduled philosophy of social science.

I am a 20 year old living in a 27.1 year old's body

At least, I am according to www.realage.com.

My body is aging 7 years faster than I am, so far. If I stay on this pace, by the time I'm 50, supposedly the new 40, I'll really be 68. Yeesh.
How's THAT for depressing? My hard-living lifestyle has rendered me 135% of the body I should be. Hard living? pah! "Hard living" got me no older on this list, as my current levels of drinking and smoking went nowhere in making my "realage" older. In fact, I got a green checkmark in both of those departments.
So, how exactly am I living so damn hard? It all comes down to Apples and Oranges.
Here's a rundown of what I need more of.
In my diet I need more: calcium, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, folate, breakfast, omega 3, and potassium.
Or, in other words, fruit.
I did really well in all of the categories except for diet; I walk about an hour a day, I have a stable relationship, good friends, a job, I'm supposedly learning in school, etc etc. Mentally, I'm physically great.

But, nonetheless, this is pretty darn frightening.
I need to start eating better, getting back to playing squash, and actually learn the meanings of terrifying phrases like "cholesterol" and "blood pressure".
As I was typing this, I got a text from the mysterious and ever-absent Kierke-a-dizzal asking me to join a squash tournament this saturday. I immediately accepted, rationalizing that I could be late for my other engagement on saturday, watching baseball and drinking beer on my lazy ass. It was probably the right choice. Thank you, internet fearmongers!

So tell me, loyal and gentle reader, What's YOUR RealAge?

i am really not sure what this means II

Ladles and Gellyspoons, coming from our DT Twitter,


it has happened again.

Happy Wednesday!

When the Trickster Goes A-Pokin'

Hey Everybody! Check out This Video.

The very presence of two of the most esteemed American writers of all time, both who made their livings on social criticism, on the second-most iconic talk show of all time, is mindboggling. Yes, this was after Cavett made his switch to public television, a medium far better suited to Cheever and Updike than ABC, but I think you see my point.


What I find the most interesting is the mutual desire, the need, both of them reveal to move out of New York City. Despite their hatred of all things suburban (if you didn't yet pick that up, read Bullet Park. Chilling, truly.), they must return there, for it is their nexus. i suppose it speaks to the idea of comfort and home, and to the conceit that criticism is okay when you are understanding of your subject.

Steven King defines three types of writers: Those that are so bad they have no hope, those that are good enough to forge a career (he puts himself in this group), and those that are so good that they either are driven to misery by their own frustrations with their limits, or even their abilities. I came across this theory immediately after watching this video, and saw some parallels. Updike, certainly a brilliant writer, is laconic, social, eloquent. He is also humble and engaging, which are two words so far from Cheever that they're practically wearing a cowboy hat and kicking him in the face. It's in his turning away from Cavett, his obnoxious New England accent, and his unwillingness to discuss virtually anything that shows how profoundly uncomfortable he is with his place in society and literature. It's safe to assume that his mind is long lost at this point on self-definition and other matters.

science experiment

i've been awake for 39 hours. (i'm more than halfway to being legally insane, apparently, though i can't find a credible source to link to)

when i close my right fist, the knuckles of my fourth and fifth fingers yell at me. i can't stay on my tip-toes for more than 2 seconds because my legs give out from under me. my left hand doesn't do anything bad when i close it into a fist, but when i straighten my arm, my elbow starts complaining. my mouth is constantly dry, and i've lost my voice. i'm too out of it to move 6 feet to my bed so i've been sitting here and almost blacking out for about an hour.

that's what 7 hours of hip-hop choreo, follow by a midterm the next morning, then class and 6 hours of building a robot will do to you, i guess.

at some point last summer, i thought it would be an awesome idea to get a group of close friends together and try to stay awake for as long as possible whilst staying within a confined space close to each other. i ran this idea by my good korean friend and he said it was the stupidest thing he's ever heard.

i'm beginning to think that he's won this round. my mind will probably change in the morning though.