Sweetney

hollaback boy.

following up on my recent refusal to consider gwen stefani's single as summer jam material, i bring you the sublime hollaback boy, and accompanying analysis of the original track.

how to not win friends or influence people.

so that urbanite piece i was interviewed for about a month or so back finally ran, and i'm not in it. i'm guessing this might have, oh, a little something to do with the fact that i answered each of the questions in the most sarcastic manner possible, and publicly derided the quality of said questions. the piece is (unbelievably enough) entitled “who's who in baltimore blogs” (or something to that effect); i expect to figure prominently in a future piece entitled “who's an acerbic bitch in baltimore blogs” (or something to that effect).

yeah, i know. i have a big mouth, and i need to shut it, but i just can't help myself. so many things to openly mock, so little time...

for the sake of clarification, because the internet is a ruthless wench and misunderstandings abound: i am not here in any way slagging those bloggers in the piece, many of whom i know and love. in case you missed it, this entry is intended to point out what a self-sabotaging dork i am. /end retardedness

our progress thus far.

at the end of day one of Operation Excrement Storm:

me (in authoritative-yet-mild tone): “now M_, when you have to go pee-pee or poopies, what do you do?”
M_, seated on couch (in her high-pitched, most enthusiastic-sounding voice): “i want to pee-pee on the couch!!!!”

and so we now move rapidly on to the overt-bribery-with-chocolate portion of our program.

[with robotic arms a-flailing:] danger, will robinson! danger!

Heat Advisory for Baltimore Metro Area
Some of the hottest weather so far this summer will be over the region today. The combination of high heat and humidity will drive heat index values to around 100 this afternoon. A heat index between 98 and 103 is currently forecast. During heat advisory level conditions, the combination of hot temperatures and high humidity will combine to create a situation in which heat illnesses are possible. Drink plenty of fluids, stay in air conditioning and as much as possible, avoid staying in the sun for long periods, and check up on elderly relatives and neighbors.

if anyone needs me i'll be slouched near the air-conditioner with my feet up, a book in one hand and a gin & tonic in the other.

ps: that's right, i just posted about the weather. bite me.

M_+R_=rad.

M_+R_


Originally uploaded by sweetney.

flickr: i have succumbed.

add me to your contacts, dude.

the dreaded potty.

M_'s officially begun her training today, and i've already had to clean up pee twice. this doesn't bode well for our furniture and rugs.

and didn't i just finish doing this crap with the dog? am i forever to be The Excrement Cleaning Lady?

leave all your advice, tips, tricks and general potty training-related wisdom here. for the love of god.

5:26.

is an ungodly hour to be awake, people. and i've been up since BEFORE 4:00.

insomnia. grumble.

its lonely here in the depths of sleepless despair. sniff.

what was it i said about “the system” again?

last night i was catching up on mtv’s “meet the barkers”, and literally had to stop watching when they dropped everything (including a warhol they'd just bought) and left their (spacious, beauteous) estate -- without the kids of course, as they were being tended by a seemingly sweet and grandmotherly nanny -- to jet off to hawaii on a moments notice because the (perfectly coifed, rail-thin, stylin’) mother had off-handedly commented that she “needed a break from the kids.” i also heard one of them mention something about “90 minute massages.”

it was: turn off the television, or shoot myself in the face (multiple times, if that’s possible).

i fucking hate capitalism... but where can i get me some of that?

[insert sound of manic, high-pitched laughter mixed with sound of drowning-in-your-own-saliva gurgling]

gah.

song of the week.

the peppermint stick edition.

this one goes out to kelly, who as of this weekend will be the 2nd person to come visit in less than a month who i've met wholly through the interweb. yay interweb!

and this one is M_'s current favorite tune; she's got a little Appalachian in her, apparently.

good wood gang.

just in case you were thinking of getting me a gift, but couldn't decide what to get. cough.

here's where the brain-eating space monsters come in.

is it just me, or does this sound like the prelude to some sort of space-time-continuum-altering badness in a sci-fi flick?

MIT physicists create new form of matter

its the end of the world as we know it, and i feel not-so-great.

my dear friend angela came over last night for some beer and sympathy, and we waxed unpoetic for many hours on the human condition and all of its manifestations (the internet, the economy -slash- capitalism, the political landscape, the environment, and so forth); needless to say, this was not a gleeful conversation. so humor me for a few minutes and let me get all chicken little on your ass, because in all honesty i'm not merely discouraged about the present state of things, but borderline terrified.

some of what i talked about here yesterday regarding people and their behavior on the internet seems to me a small symptom of a larger societal sickness, namely a magnification of the importance of the self, the individual, to the exclusion of all else, including but not limited to basic civility born of an intrinsic sense of the interconnectedness between all people. it appears that, in an elemental way, empathy is waning, being extinguished through the alienation inherent in late capitalism; unlike in past ages, we no longer have a direct connection to so many of the people who make our lives possible on a basic level -- those who produce our food, our clothing, the homes we live in and the cars we now drive -- which ultimately leads to a pervasive, overriding sense that its every man for himself. that we're not all in this together, working in an interdependent way to survive and prosper and raise families and such, but that we're each islands competing with one another for resources to do those things -- a perspective that necessitates an inflated sense of self-importance, an egocentrism that is corrosive to that sense of kindredness and compassion that has long been essential to the health and advancement of individual communities and thus society generally. but, under the present system, having a strong sense of empathy and feeling of fellowship for others could in fact be considered counterproductive to individual prosperity and health: if i truly see YOU as myself, and recognize the full value of your humanity as equal to mine, then how can i proceed in participating in a system that requires your subjugation? for example, how do i continue to function knowing that the clerk at the market who bags my groceries is making $5.15 an hour, living in squalor and selling plasma to supplement her income to merely survive? how do i buy those groceries, knowing that so many of those who participated in the harvesting and processing of most of the foodstuffs i buy and consume are in some way or other being horribly exploited in the process? and, in a broader sense, how do i continue to live not being constantly plagued by the inescapable knowledge of others suffering terribly all around me -- living in wage slavery, in sub-standard housing, in the addiction and abuse that is so pervasive among an underclass that has resigned itself to these things because truly there is no way out of them. in this light, do we wonder at the fact that a full 50% of the american population can be categorized as mentally ill under DSM-V criteria? i have felt this attendant depression and anxiety, this all-too-pressing knowledge of the wrongness of the world and the suffering in it closing in, and i'm sure many of you have as well. but those of us who think and feel these things are in the minority, and we are most certainly not the fittest among those in this prescribed “survival of the fittest.” because of the very structure of the system we all live in (loosely, late capitalism), we -- the empathetic, the humanistic, pick your term -- are the vestiges of a dead age, antique humans ill-equipped to thrive in this contemporary environment. those who can unflinchingly raise themselves above others, who value the accumulation of capital over the accumulation of (heh) karma, and who are willing and able to participate fully and self-servingly in all that the system demands are now and will continue to be in the future those in power and those who lead. knowing this, i struggle with the awareness that i am trying to raise M_ as thoughtful, empathetic, and with a strong sense of social justice. in other words -- in light of what i've said above -- i'm raising her to be a good, wise, but probably not terribly happy person (just like her mom! ha!). as the cliche goes, most parents -- myself included -- would agree that we want, above all else, for our children to be happy. but increasingly i feel sure i am raising M_ in a way that is probably detrimental to her in terms of her overall success in this life (again, as determined under the present system... and no, i don't believe the revolution is gonna come in our lifetime, so that's really all we have to work with), and most certainly to her future contentment and sense of security.

as if this weren't depressing enough, i feel fairly certain that there is a great deal of additional badness coming down the track, and more and more i fail to see how disaster can be averted. so much of the way things are now seems truly untenable, unsustainable in the long run, including the above described societal dysfunction (which i don't think will culM_te in the revolution coming, sadly, but rather in something akin to institutionalized and internalized libertarianism -- the ultimate dysfunction!). clearly, our economic system is on the verge of calamity. strap yourselves in folks, for this horseman of the apocalypse is rapidly beating a path to your door; in the next 6 months to a year i'd anticipate a catastrophic collapse of some kind, possibly resulting in a depression. we live presently in a country (i'd say “world”, but i know that's slightly overstating....but only slightly) led by persons (bush being merely a figurehead) lawless and destructive, willing to do whatever necessary to restrict social liberty and obtain resources. our global environment is quite literally on the verge of complete destruction -- in terms of global warming it seems increasingly likely that we've reached that point-of-no-return where even if we were to drastically limit CO2 emissions (which -- c'mon let's be honest here -- we're clearly NOT going to do, especially under this administration), we'd merely be delaying what is now inevitable. please note: i am not saying anything that isn't explicitly spelled out in innumerable well-respected scientific, economic and political reports. this is not news to any of you all, i'm sure. but we refuse (collectively) to really hear this, to truly listen and absorb the dire reality of our situation. why? because it isn't profitable? because it does not relate to our individual prosperity, at least in an immediate sense? because we have on some level just given up?

as i said, i am genuinely terrified by all of this. and though i feel less and less hope, i also want so very badly for someone articulate, sane and insightful to explain to me how in all of these things there *is* hope. i want to be convinced otherwise, yet it seems like an almost impossible task in the face of the real. i want not a best-case-scenario, because the best case never comes to fruition; i want a realistic, likely scenario under which we can collectively weather all of this and emerge intact. but i got nuthin'.

anyone?

just a little reminder for everyone.

the internet is populated by PEOPLE who have real feelings and who shouldn't be treated like inanimate objects who will carry none of what you say around with them after it's said.

my personhood doesn't end when i log onto my computer. i don't suddenly become “sweetney” instead of tracey. i'm still tracey, and the shit that hurts me in the “real” world hurts me here. it's not some other planet or life or dimension.

something to think about, and keep in mind, as you traverse this great interweb of ours, interacting with others.

ps: thanks, angela.

rockheals update.

i want to buy seth's painting, man.

TGS.

yeah, i'm going to be watching these for oh, about the next hour.

ps: oh yeah.

randomz.

i'd say this is mean, were it not so funny.

surprising expiration dates. guess i'd better get on throwing out, oh, about half of what i own.

just a little reminder regarding the genius that is will ferrell.

i gots to get me one of these.

enjoy the comic stylings of triumph at the jackson trial.

i love it when state legislature features the term tater tots.

hmm...

think my neighbors would freak out if we hung this flag on a pole from our front porch?

its the flag of the pirate stede bonnet, and it is rad.

yes, i'm serious.

oops, i broke me.

so umm yeah, the whole back thing isn't improving. as of yesterday, i'm pretty much where i was back during the third trimester of my pregnancy with M_, when i had sciatica and could barely walk... without crying, that is. you never really think about how important not having excruciating back pain is to, well, just about every fucking thing you could possibly want to do, EVER. but man, its all i can think about now, let me tell you. well that and WHAT A FREAKING MORON I AM FOR ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL TWO 50 POUND AIR CONDITIONERS ALONE. goddamn me. i SUCK.

and now i must pay for my stupidity with a trip to the doctors this afternoon, toddler in tow. yeah, that'll be a bundle of laughs. and for those of you who know me only in an interweb sort of way let me note that i LOATHE going to the doctors. i will pretty much try anything if it holds the promise of avoiding a doctor's visit, including pouring a little tussin on a gaping open wound. i hate everything about going to the doctor's: the waiting areas full of 6-month-old Newsweeks, the antiseptic smells, the paper gowns, all the sick people roaming about spreading their disease, the wasted time (i don't think i've ever gone to a doctors appointment that didn't end up killing at least three full hours of my day), the harried and inattentive medical personnel... besides, i honestly look upon modern medicine with more than a little skepticism since, as jamie noted the other day, we know more about the fabric of space-time than we do about how fucking ASPRIN works. it all just seems a little bit, i dunno, sketchy to me.

but yeah, having said all that, i'm clearly in need of at least some pain medication at this point if nothing else, since the three ibuprophen i've been taking at a time isn't dulling the searing, red-hot-poker-stabbyness of my spasming lower back even slightly. and at least i know for sure that modern medicine has the painkillers down... who knows, maybe they'll even give me the good stuff, the stuff that'll make me forget i HAVE a back. *fingers crossed.*

ps: as if to make today even more of a joy, i just got an email from our babysitter -- who M_ LOVES and talks about all the time and looks forward to seeing every week, by the way -- telling me that, oh, she's not going to be able to babysit anymore, ever. she's going to college at the end of summer, and apparently her social life is all a-twitter and such. FUCK.

because the interweb told me to.

patrick, this one's for you, dude.

Total size of music files on my computer: 6.58 GB. jesus christ, i need to get an external HD, stat!

The last CD I bought was: i bought the white stripes get behind me satan (which is a totally rad album title, by the way) for jamie a couple days back for our anniversary, but the last album i bought for myself was the new sleater kinney, the woods.

Song playing right now in iTunes: put on shuffle, it picks up superchunk 100,000 fireflies (magnetic fields cover).

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me: *click to download all 5 in a zip file*
1. elliott smith -- independence day: if i had to pick only one song, i would choose this track as my own personal theme song any day. it is the song that invariably makes me somehow happy when i listen to it, that reminds me somehow that the “now” is transitory (for better or worse), and that life's beauty lies in potentialities... it is also from the disk (XO) that M_ was born to.

2. palace brothers -- werner's last blues to blokbuster: one of those songs that i inexplicably feel is somehow connected to me; that it expresses or exemplifies something about my self that i could never articulate in words. i'm really not trying to be vague, i just don't have the language to explain why i feel tied to this song, why it moves me. just listen, i guess.

3. neutral milk hotel -- holland, 1945: from one of my all-time-favorite albums, a song that somehow manages to rock *and* -- to my mind at least -- articulate something about humanity's sad penchant for destruction (and self-destruction) without being hopeless (the album it is from was written loosely based on the diary of anne frank, and WWII generally). when the song soars to its conclusion, i literally get chills (“and its so sad to see the world agree / that they'd rather see their faces filled with flies / oh when i want to keep white roses in their eyes”). wow.

4. pavement -- father to a sister of thought: by one of my favorite bands of all time, a song from their most ambitious and interesting album. like the palace bros. song above, i feel inexplicably connected to this song... by my request, a friend sent me this disk while i was living in cairo, egypt in 95, and so even when i hear the mournful, western-style slide guitar on this track in my mind i'm brought back to the sights/sounds/smells of cairo. the song both embodies an age of my life, and something in me that longs for escape and wide-open self-immolating nothingness (“i'm too much / i'm too much comforted here”).

5. the geraldine fibbers -- dragon lady: existed as my own private “theme song” for some time several years back. for me it collects the complexity of some of the conflicting emotional parts of myself and manages to epically combine them in one song... does that make sense? anger, disgust, sadness, resentment, hope, self-loathing and love -- the will to fight *and* flee existing simultaneously -- all of it balled up into one powerful, kick-your-ass song.

and, because i'm all about sharing the love, i'm tagging joel, claire, and brian. SO THERE.

worst wife-type person ever.

uhh HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, JAMIE! four years, and it feels like 50. but i mean that in a good way. heh.

you complete me, light up my life, and blow my mind (69 times).

okay, so i'm bad at this sort of thing. but you know i love you, other sweetney.

a few other things.

1. i seriously SERIOUSLY fucked up my back during the installation of two airconditioning units earlier this week (what was it... lift with your legs? lift with your lower back? awww, fuck it... [insert sound of my spine snapping like a twig]). i am hobbling old-lady stylee. werd to your grandmutha.

2. i may very well consume an entire bag of JEDI MIX M&Ms before this afternoon is over (apparently The Force is best symbolized by colors from the Martha Stewart palette). i'll keep you posted.

3. regarding both the jackson verdict and the cruise/holmes engagement: [i can't think of an adequate way to express the sound of me projectile-vomiting, but whatever sound works for you as embodying it, imagine that here].

4. i categorically REFUSE to accept “Holla Back Girl” as *MY* summer jam. where's fucking outkast when you need them?!? couldn't they just remix “Hey Ya!” and re-release that, thus saving me?

5. that show “baby one more time” is so, so sad. and the slimy brit emcee of the thing makes fucking ryan seacrest seem like someone you might wanna invite to a dinner party or, you know, just chill with. ACK!

6. crap, i just remembered that i've been tagged for some (cough)meme(cough) thingy (and told i HAVE TO DO IT. and HAVE TO PROVIDE EXPLANATIONS to my answers. and of course i obey the interweb, always... doesn't everyone?), so i best keep these doggies rollin', rawhide!

la famille adams.

there's much to be said about our time with them this week, and i'm not sure i can adequately articulate the L-U-V experienced by all, but in short, it was once of those rare experiences where you meet someone (or in this case, someones), and almost instantly have that spark of recognition: oh, you're like me! from arrival to departure it was good times, easy/amusing/thought-provoking conversation, kidlet harmony, and the kind of comfort-in-each-other's-presence typically reserved for age-old friendships. why do you guys have to live on the other side of the frickin' country, gawddammit?

a few related images (more under the cut):

this is the most frightening picture of beth and i from the lot, so OF COURSE i have to display it prominently. beth looks like what i imagine people going through electro-shock therapy must look like mid-jolt, while i look as though squirrels may in fact be storing nuts in the bags conveniently located under my eyes.

notes for amelioration.

yesterday -- under some particular but unspectacular circumstance i can't remember -- i told M_ i loved her, and waited for the usual adorable “i love you, mommy” to be voiced in return. when this wasn't forthcoming (ehh, perhaps she didn't hear me?) i went so far as to ask her directly, “do you love mommy?” she looked at me -- her face completely expressionless -- and said flatly, “no.”

thus began several minutes of good-natured -- but increasingly pathetic and desperate -- cajoling on my part. oh of course you love mommy! mommy loves you... so you love mommy, right? and she'd shake her head slowly, squeaking out “no” at each rephrased query.

now of course i know she didn't mean it. of course i know that at two-and-a-half years of age she doesn't even fully comprehend the significance, power, or even the full meaning of “love”, or of her repeated denials. but regardless, that shit HURTS. to have your child -- the default center of your emotional universe, for whom you labor, and worry, and do all kinds of unpleasant, frustrating, and generally bullshit things for the sake of -- emphatically deny you of what, at bottom, makes all the hard and exhausting work of parenting rewarding and worthwhile... well, its kind of a hard pill to swallow. at some point in all of this back-and-forth with M_ something in me just sort of broke; i got up, went into the bathroom, shut the door, and cried as quietly as i could.

somewhere there is a lesson here, and its something i'm still trying really hard to accept and incorporate into my emotional lexicon. and i think it is that unconditional love requires some kind of maturity i don't yet possess, but that i really need to work at acquiring. M_ doesn't have to love me (though yes, i know that she does), but i do indeed love her and *that* is what matters. her returning my feelings is a bonus, it is not compulsory. and, in a broader sense, this is applicable to all relationships and circumstances: sometimes we care for people who cannot or do not return the feeling. sometimes we care for people who are broken in ways that render them incapable of it, or they lack a different kind of maturity -- the kind that allows for love, or they're just shits who don't care for anyone but themselves. no matter, we can still care for them, so long as we do so without expectation, knowing full well that we may only be disappointed or hurt in return. to have the feeling of love, in and of itself, be enough... to revel in the miraculous existence of deep feeling for another human in a world so often cold and devoid of care... i want to get to that place -- to be that big of a person -- but i know i'm far from it; still wearing the old and new scars of my heart on my sleeve, and all-too-studiously nursing wounds of disaffection and lack.

attention movable type geeks.

does anyone know of a painless, easy way to stop the fucking trackback ping spam? for the first few months of this bloggity blog i had trackbacks open by default... and boy am i paying for that oversight now. anything i can do to close all trackback pings globally? ANYTHING other than having to go back and individually close trackbacks on every single one. for the love of god. please.

once an internet urban legend/scam.

now a verifiable reality.

seriously, if something like this were to happen -- and between you and me folks, with the current administration in place i truly do believe that *anything* is possible -- i am OUT OF THIS COUNTRY. because if this does come to pass, my disgust and anger would be such that to stay here would be equivalent to slowly poisoning myself with my own noxious rage for the remainder of my life. which, you know, doesn't sound like much fun.

[shoots self in face]

four good things of the past 24 hours.

that would be beth, dave, kyle & eli. good times, people, good times...

this morning we troop to storytime, and then to the aquarium in the afternoon. with heat in the mid-90s (and oh yes, sadly its a moist heat). with three kids under the age of 6.

dooooooom! doooooooom i say!!!

with the four of us adults on-hand we outnumber them, at least.

song of the week.

the last-week's-edition edition (ahem. sorry).

a tribute of sorts... you know how a song can remind you of a particular age or time period in your life? or of a person from a particular age or time period in your life? well, for some reason or other, this song reminds me of you, bob.

[insert *the goat*]

heh.

psst: bob's playing RnR in july! DUDE! righteous!!!!

last day of preschool.

[with insightful narration by M_]

“a slide!!!”

“look, bubbles!” (points to picture)


(with her whole right hand inexplicably in her mouth) “kids!”

(points to screen) “look -- balloons!”

(points to screen) “circle time!”

“train!” (muffled, with hand still in mouth)

“its M_!”

in case you were wondering.

its hot. M_'s crabby. i've got a ridiculous amount of housekeeping-type crap to do.

sadly, that's all there is.

insert subtly humorous title about the weather. sigh.

earlier today, my neighbor michael called to me from across the street and bellowed “hot enough for ya?” i didn't know whether to laugh or punch him in the face. knowing mike, he of course meant this in the this-is-the-cliche-people-say-when-its-broiling-out- and-though-it-is-in-fact-broiling-out-let-me-simultaneously-acknowledge-that-fact-while- deriding-the-lameness-of-said-cliche sort of way, but honestly, it was so hot out that even such meta-humor was lost on me. yes indeed, for the past couple of days it has been sense-of-humor-impeadingly-hot. every hair on my body feels wilted, every inch of my skin feels sweaty, and THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THAT. GOT IT? i can barely muster the energy it takes to rise from the (sweaty) couch, walk to the fridge, and refill my ginormous pseudo Big Gulp cup of ice water... the energy expenditure involved in firing enough synapses up in order to locate amusement in my present physical misery might send me into some sort of coma. and, well, coma bad.

in other news, my friend beth arrives in the DC-metro area tomorrow, flying all the way from the SLC. i'll be seeing a bit of her for the next two weeks, though we haven't met, as they say, “in real life” (barf) before. and, since beth is officially The Nicest Person on the Planet, i feel no anxiety about this... though if the weather holds the pattern it has recently, while she's here our time together may consist solely of the consumption of ice-laden gimlets before a roaring window air-conditioning unit set to achieve the temperature range of freeze your ass off cold. uhh, my apologies in advance, beth.

superman is a dick.

thus, “superdick.”

for your viewing pleasure.

1. check out life on the emo farm. [snort]

2. starting this evening, HBO is replaying all of season 3 of The Wire wednesday nights at 8pm on HBO2. so fire up the tivo, and give thanks to supernatural beings you don't really believe in that this show will still be around after Six Feet Under's demise this summer.

rockheals update.

thar she blows...

ps: includes a comic by our rock star pal ryan nelson (beauty pill, most secret method), AKA The Northeast's Handsomest Punk Rocker, winner of Pitchfork's Dreamiest Drummer of the 90s Award (okay, i made that last one up, but its probably true).

in all seriousness.

when i read things like this, i can't help but think that maybe its time for planet earth -- or the universe beyond, via a spectacular cosmic event or rouge chunk of planetary debris -- to engineer some sort of human-extinction-level event, wipe the slate clean, and give some other lucky species a chance.

geeking out. again.

audioscrobbler seems kinda nifty, though i've just begun toying around with it. for the time being, my page is more or less a running account of my itunes on shuffle (which is what i tend to listen to throughout the day).

if you're on it, hit me with your username so i can add you to my “friends.”

recent searches that led folks to this site.

what the hell is wrong with me
fucking moms (and several slight variations on that theme)
deficient parenting
all dancing all singing crap
tussin

sadly, i seem to have fallen off in the black round ass realm, though round ass is a strong contender in my stats. THANK GOD.

blog plugs.

which sounds vaguely obscene.

anyway, say hello to my friend angela. who you should read. because she's awesome.

and this pretty much made my day. i love that patrick guy.

i can't believe its not psychotic!

truman the wonderpug has returned from his exile to master ken's reformatory school for very, very bad boys, and he is a changed dog. i mean, a completely different dog. its almost embarrassing, to be honest; we'd tried for months and months to train him -- read all the training books we could get our hands on, hassled all the dog owners we know for advice, even posted desperate pleas for help to pug-oriented message boards in our darkest moments -- all to no avail. truman just wasn't buying what we were selling. then this ken dude whisks him away for a week and returns to us a dog who listens. and knows and obeys commands. and -- perhaps most importantly -- doesn't try to tackle people and/or attempt to detach extremities from their rightful places on human bodies.

its like ken is some sort of magical being... or like he simply switched truman out and gave us back a different, more mentally stable pug, one with an uncanny resemblance to the crazy one we had. in any case, who am i to question the great and powerful ken?

((((((((((KEN))))))))))

i may have to write a few short poems dedicated to ken, expressing the awe felt by mere mortals such as myself in his presence, and somehow finding a lyrical way to incorporate the word “drool.” such is the beauty of ken, people.

so yeah, dog problem solved. best money we've spent in a long time (excluding those aqua teen hunger force DVDs jamie picked up a few weeks back, and this book that i bought last night at atomic).

you're all winners in my book.

the contagious media showdown contains a bounty of linky-linx worth your click (most of you have doubtless seen cryingwhileeating, but there's equally worthy contenders).

i mean, why do actual work when you can get paid to look at ridiculous crap online?

rockheals update.

white + castle = “fairytale” wedding. i guess.

i [heart] dave.

i caught some of 60 minutes this sunday (because i'm an old person, and that's their target demographic), and lo there was a timely repeat of an interview with dave chappelle that originally aired about a year ago, and lo, it was good.

funnest fact? dave lives not in NYC or LA, but in middle-of-nowhere ohio, on a humungo farm he bought there. quoth the dave: “It's all paid for, baby... This is the kiss-my-ass farm, show business. How about that?”

i wish i could fly to south africa and kiss the man.

i'm-a-gonna-die.

i'd heard tell that there was some sort of nasty gastrointestinal bug making the rounds... and now it would appear that said bug has lodged itself firmly up my bee-hind, and is attempting to make room for itself by, ahem, “cleaning house.” if my experience thus far is any indication, i think this might culM_te in the evacuation of my entire lower intestine from my body. but what's worse (for someone as OCD as myself) is the generalized spacey out-of-it-ness i'm feeling. productivity is at a near stand-still... i can't get anything done. other than pooping (and whining), that is. i'm gold medal material on that score.

all home remedies, miracle cures, and other suggestions welcome. heeeeeelp.