30.9.04
just for the frosk
edgyfwund knows dat mine itty bitty butch fwund ij and i charted taltin ite fweirdos fwen fwe didn't fwant fwunds knowin fwat fwe fwere chayin nedger noah. cho fwe derred dat. and it fwas dood. nedger chopin at chop chigns. choppin. butch fwunds. yoopie and yooms, fwit a ittle bit a hobanabas. toulda derred. fwoulda derred. fwanted to der. hintin about derrin. nerrrrvous about derrin. but ij nedger knew dat chomeday chee fwould tome to trazyville fwhere edgybody talts ite ij & ij fwighere fwinow. chometimes, ha are hintin about ootin at a phoneboote. ha chee chome chuff and ha are hintin about the letter "y." ha oot for dis chuff.
ha chee: T, U, V, W, X, IJ, Z
HA TANNOT CHOP AFFIN.
ha alcho chee chuff ite:
vrijtijd (free time)
rijbwijs (driver's license)
pijnacker (pijnacker)
and ha chart hintin ha are trazy fwighere. and ha tinda fwant a habanaba. chometimes. anyfway. tome to mine yoom and chee how truth is stranger than fiction.
wudge ha.
29.9.04
MY CHILDREN NEED MUSIC
i wonder how my beautiful sons are doing...
heel erg goed
ha.
via wonkette, someone else's make-your-own bush stump speech:
Thank you for that warm welcome. It's great to be under the complete control of Dick Cheney! This election may well be the most important in history. Now more than ever,
make your own if you don't feel like working today.
update: i just clicked in the options and you can insert "all your votes are belong to us."
sweet.
he's just not that into you
seriously, ladies, have you read this yet ?
i'm linking it again because it's that good.
read it. do eet.
learn:
I just think you might want to be realistic in how capable you are of changing the primordial impulses that drive all of human nature.
and:
Really, in this day and age, the hardest thing to do for many women, particularly me, is nothing. We like to scheme, make phone calls, have a plan...
growing melancholy
pardon me, what did you say ?
stay sober during the week ?
wear something besides jeans to work ?
i'm sorry, i simply cannot be bothered to be anything but casually drunk.
UPDATE: "update" on being drunk... hmm. this could develop into a very long post. anyway, just to let you all know that i also cannot be bothered to show up for work before 10:15.
which, while embarrassing, i must put into perspective by saying david didn't show up at all.
veel werk zal doen
yeah, it's going to take some effort to link everything that's totally awesome.
start here for the best thing on dvd since curb your enthusiasm.
part of the amazon review:
It feels both inaccurate and inadequate to describe The Office as a comedy. On a superficial level, it disdains all the conventions of television sitcoms: there are no punch lines, no jokes, no laugh tracks and no cute happy endings. More profoundly, it's not what we're used to thinking of as funny. Most of the fervently devoted fan base that the programme acquired watched with a discomfortingly thrilling combination of identification and mortification. The paradox is that its best moments are almost physically unwatchable.
Set in the offices of a fictional Slough paper merchant, The Office is filmed in the style of a reality television programme. The writing is subtle and deft, the acting wonderful and the characters beautifully drawn: the cadaverous team leader Gareth, a paradigm of Andy McNab's readership; the monstrous sales rep, Chris Finch; and the decent but long-suffering everyman Tim, whose ambition and imagination have been crushed out of him by the banality of the life he dreams uselessly of escaping. The show is stolen, as it was intended to be, by insufferable office manager David Brent, played by cowriter Ricky Gervais. Brent will become a name as emblematic for a particular kind of British grotesque as Alan Partridge or Basil Fawlty, but he is a deeper character than either. Partridge and Fawlty are exaggerations of reality, and therefore safely comic figures. Brent is as appalling as only reality can be. --Andrew Mueller
the office is like guffman or zoolander-- better each time you watch it.
28.9.04
and what exactly are you asking me to do here ?
normally i wouldn't post things from work, but this is too funny to keep to myself:
c/ La Palma, 91 11510 PUERTO REAL (Cdiz) ESPAA - N.I.F. G-11580727Inscrito en el Registro de Asociaciones de Andaluca con el nmero 6677 de la seccin 1, el 12 de febrero de 200313 de Septiembre de 2004
Dear gentlemen:
The mister Geoff Smith, of the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs, he of our interest in obtaining Clubes's emblems, in material cash, for one four decorative of our headquarters has made this direction easy to us, with the idea to help oneself, cognizant. Hence we resorted to you in respectful plea, in case they be so kind to of sending us some emblems, by certified mail, of which we would be to them very thanked. To the wait of his agreeable news, he greets them very attentively,
Jose M. Basadre Montesinos
Presidente
P/D. Be as go the contents of this letter, please, answer is prayed for. Thanks.
maktub !
part of resolving conflict lies in the committed and challenging task of understanding the opposition. few aspects of culture can reveal understanding of la vie quotidienne and, to a somewhat lesser extent, belief structure, like language. it's one of the reasons that i loved living in france and abhorred living in holland before learning some of the joys of dutch (more on that later). when faced with an adversary as resolutely opposed to western culture as radical muslim extremists (is there a pc term for this group ? there are so many descriptions that i struggle to use only 3 words), aside from finding immediate security against the threat, a mid-term priority in my humble opinion is the study and understanding of arabic and/or farsi. anyone who speaks another language cringes de temps en temps trying to find a passable explaination in english of a term that so perfectly describes the situation/mood/feeling in the foreign tongue.
words like:
"déranger" in french
"gezellig" in dutch
"entschuldigung" in german
it's not hard to imagine, then, aside from the sheer volume of the intelligence, why the US is having so much trouble with quick and accurate translations.
red-headed stepchild
i wanted to post this yesterday but eeegads, i left my power cord for zee laptop at the office. i was practically helpless last night as i tried to use my various EU/UK/USA power cords/converters/adapters to gin up some sort of power source. no luck.
so, without further ado...
THIS IS GREAT NEWS.
the article rightly notes not only that conan appears a bit more blasé these days but also that the danger of him hopping networks is as clear and present now as it was when letterman jumped ship in 1992.
will the quirkiness of the pooping robot and triumph the comic insult dog translate to leno's older audience ?
well actually, who cares. conan is much funnier and if you don't get it, you're old and lame.
26.9.04
à la une
four eyes: the alchemist
four eyes: pompeii
one ear queer: the decemberists, castaways & cutouts
beat this song: the decemberists: california one/youth and beauty brigade
posting lyrics is kinda lame. i'm going to do it anyway.
california one/youth and beauty brigade
take a long drive with me
on california one, california one
and the road a-winding
goes from golden gate to roaring cliff-side
and the light is softly low
as our hearts become sweetly untied
beneath the sun of california one
take a long draw with me of california wine
and the wine it tastes so sweet
as we lay our eyes to wander
and the sky, it stretches deep
will we rest our heads to slumber
beneath the vines of california wine?
beneath the sun of california one
annabelle lies,
sleeps with quiet eyes
on this sea-drift sun
what can you do?
and if i said,
O it's in your head
on this sea-drift sun
what can you do?
---------------------------------------------------
we're calling all bed wetters
and ambulance chasers
poor pick-pockets bring 'em in
come join the youth and beauty brigade
we're lining up the light-loafere'd
and the bored bench warmers
castaways and cutouts, fill it up
come join the youth and beauty brigade
nothing will stand in our way
i figured i'd paid my debt to society
by paying my overdue fines
at the multnomah county library,
at the library they said
'son, go join up
go join the youth and beauty brigade'
nothing will stand in our way
bloggers on the bus
interesting to see how big media is starting to give cred to the little dogs nipping at their ankles.
wonkette has long been one of my favs, she is frrrresh.
25.9.04
teledildonics
i don't know if this makes me fear the future of love or turns me on.
ah poop
i can't think of anything more consistently hilarious in life than a good poop story.
dessins
make sure to look at all of the cartoons... the cbs ones are pretty good.
also, find your pimp name !
24.9.04
un tout petit week-end
alors, finalement la semaine se termine... trois pays dans une semaine, c pas nouveau mais parfois c dur. maintenant, même que je suis un peu malade, je vais boire tous les éléments renouvateurs de la france. allez op, c déjà 18h et il faut que je prenne le métro et puis le bus… je dîne ce soir avec la famille et passe le week-end dans la gentillesse de la france en automne.
effectivement, pas mal.
en plus, j'ai très soif et y'a tjrs des nouveaux restos intéressants.
this is so dutch
who needs nuance and mystery when you can have practicality ?
everything sounds better in french
but even i didn't know that foie gras actually meant dog food.
originally labeled "chicken for dogs" ?? sick dude, totally sick.
christian hipsters, es possible ?
i got an interesting email today from ms. kelli keclik
(also one of my all-time favorites, trish and her were randomly picked roommates in college and the three of us stuffed ourselves into their tiny dorm. after spending 3.5 of 4 years + 3 months this summer living together, we function [some say better than we should] as mutually admiring but competitive siblings. the explaination for my irreversable soft spot for kel is a long story; however, she constantly and indefatigably seeks knowledge, attracting like-minded weirdos from classes to street corners, exceeds expectations, gives perspective and confidence to her guilt-ridden girls, and is all-around hilarious and unfailingly fun to be with.)
who asks about the unlikely but plausable link between christians and hipsters and if, in fact, "christian hipster" is not an oxymoronic term. she finds this from a blog :
************
I have just been thinking though, that Pitchfork Media and the Holy Bible have a lot in common. They both sort of serve as written guides to which groups of people cling to for identity. It seems like hipsters cling to something like Pitchfork, always reading it and keeping its content fresh in their minds, so they can maintain their sense of cultural identity and "otherness." I do think it is prudent to say that as Christians, if the Bible isnt serving that role in our life and we are spending as much time as the unbeliever striving to stay fresh with other sources of cultural identity, then something is not right.
************
cultural identity as religion ? pitchfork as bible ?
even if it doesn't seem right, it's not too far off.
i certainly believe much stronger in the crappiness of nickelback more than in the *fact* that the holy spirit has holy spirit sperm. while it seems true that Gen-I(rony) searches and scrapes beneath the spoon-fed mainstream media to find the cultural pompeii existing in written guides like pitchfork to satisfy their need to be different, hipster mentality doesn't create the welcome community environment that religion historically has. so why gravitate toward pitchfork instead of The Good Book ? the obvious answer is that the bible is outdated and inapplicable without extensive interpretation, but are music and religion really comparable ?
like k.keclik said, "hmm"
23.9.04
london is the most expensive city ever
i'm sure i'll have a better take on it all after i get the pictures developed and posted from the meguiar's award gala, but for now all i have is my credit card bill which tells me i spent $300 in 24 hours. $200 of that was on a coat and a pair of shoes. am i cheap or is that a lot of money ?
i guess i've never bought gala wear before.
but this may reaffirm my previous assertion made with kel on our way to prague that london is not only expensive, but crappy.
you decide for yourselves people, just make sure to bring plastic.
i can see your undies
so, quite a few of the peeps were at the decemberists show on tuesday night in madison. from my last knowledge: becca, andy, trish, kelli, ryan, greg, bonnie, todd, dan... geez. sounds like the talk of the town over in wisco... that would have been fun to see that show with them there guys ya. but i wouldn't trade the first decemberists show at the beginning of the summer much of anything really. and plus, i'm now feeling the healing power of france, so there is, en fait, consolation in isolation.
and the lord of the dance lives in my pants.
amazing idea
this is awesome.
seriously, someone should start a crazy person's club because it would be zee best club.
the closest i ever got to this story is one time when i went to four star video in madison stoned out of my tree. i was with trish
(one of my very best girls, met her first week of freshman year, moved into her and kelli's dorm room, lived together 2.5 of 4 years of college + 3 months this past summer. the smartest environmentalist i know, she demolishes any half-assed "i hate hippies because ___" theory because she works harder than the theorists, knows more about the issues than most people on both sides, and works tirelessly to make GIS and environmental survey systems better for the future. the girl also comes from another planet. genuinely and effortlessly hilarious, trish is equal parts small-town sports champion, dancing machine, self-blaming workaholic catholic and cooleyhighharmony. you can figure out the last part, but it's true. trish the dish. she's amazing.)
and for some reason (other than my inner ear problem and the pot) i couldn't walk straight and ran right into on of their wooden shelves. it was only after a couple more rows that i noticed i was steadily bleeding from the elbow. come to think of it, just outside of four star video was where i tripped and fell and cut my right knee open coming out of the schlaza one night in college. yes, i needed stiches. no, i didn't notice that until 11 hours later. but whatever.
the point is: peeing on blockbuster videos is a totally respectable idea and i wish i would have thought of it.
23SEP02-23SEP04
today is my 2 year anniversary at meguiar's.
i had a meeting all day yesterday in holland. 6 guys and me sitting around a table and deciding the fate of europe for our little company. and oh shit i was a little hungover. thankfully, the talking dog syndrome has subsided substantially since the first time i sat around that table with the boys. now i really know that my contribution and my opinion is important for what we do. and i know that people come to me when they need anything because i know how to do it and i'll get it done. that's a pretty amazing feeling. i may not be car crazy, but this little company has surely been perfect for this crazy girl in the last very turbulent two years.
would i do it all over again if i knew then what i know now ?
a hesitant yes.
22.9.04
i used to sleep at night
but i've had more and more nights like last.
go to bed at 12:45 and wide awake at 5:52.
my heart beats loud and heavy in my ears.
oooooooh mon pauvre coeur
i fell asleep last night whimpering and holding my rebroken heart against my chest to keep it from falling out. knew i would call him. didn't know i'd be out with the boss and joe millionaire drinking too much heineken. knew i was nervous. didn't know exactly how it went when i hung up, only that my heart hurt. hurt. HURT. knew it was the office girl that he's dating. knew it. didn't know that i would be an ass and call her "the sunshine band" to him directly. that's only supposed to stay in my head. casey. her name. KC. the sunshine band. pathetically funny.
asked if she knew i might visit. yes. asked if she cared. not as long as we don't make out. told him i couldn't promise that and would probably want to make out. told me i should probably stay with joy then.
who wants it both ways ?
what is both ways ?
having it both ways for me means living in europe and having him. having it both ways for him means having her and having me.
that last sentence makes the nausea come back.
we are at a stalemate.
we have been for a long time at a stalemate.
we are the israelis and the palestinians.
and i am suicide bombing.
UPDATE 28SEP04: haha, what a perfect way to combat this feeling-- !
21.9.04
renewed inspiration
sometimes, right when you need it, you are reminded why you are choosing a certain path in life.
tijd voor gevulde speculaas !
ah, kerstmas binnenkort verwacht...
the dutch love koekjes, or cookies, and may be the second highest consumers of coffee in europe behind italy for the sole reason that they love accompanying een koffie met een koekje. normally very focused and quiet workers in the office, nothing gets a dutchie chatting it up like opening a package of gevulde (filled) crumbly koeks.
i don't have a sweet tooth. i didn't even like chocolate until last october and even now only in very small doses. i don't go gaga over pie. and candy makes my teeth feel funny.
but sure as shit, i had one piece of gevulde speculaas and i was hooked.
gevulde speculaas is one of the seasonal consolations of the long dark winter months in holland. if you look closely in a grocery store in mid-september, you might find that soft, moist delight nestled between the fetid and parched pre-summer holidays koeks. a cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger brownie-like square with dull yellow almond paste filling and one solitary almond pressed into the middle of each piece, the combination of gevulde speculaas and hot koffie must be the envy of the year-round tropical climate.
and so it was the next sign of autumn that carla
(my officemate and partner in crime of almost exactly 18 months; a stunning, hyper, consistently reliable 25-year-old dutch girl, married and 3 months pregnant. in the past 2 years, i've spent by far more time with carla than any other human. we compliment each other perfectly and trust each other completely, not only because i like to be the boss and she likes to be told what to do, but because our jobs are so intertwined that neither of us can accomplish anything without the other. she also liked a nice after work beertje before becoming preggers. i hope after i leave holland that carla and i will still be friends. it may be difficult however, because although she speaks 4 languages, she is firmly attached her small town of barendrecht and finds the 10 minute drive to dordrecht already far to go.)
came into the office this morning with 2 packs of gevulde speculaas: the telltale sign of the cold weather and crimbo coming soon...
20.9.04
hypocrisy in action
come on.
hmm, why are people jaded about politics...
wasn't this the camp that was just promoting public outcry for cheney doing the same thing ?
yes, i'm still a kerry supporter.
but perhaps ol' (er--new) JFK ought to have some guidelines on consistency and desperation when people speak on his behalf while traveling internationally. don't use the other team's scare tactics and expect them to go over well. or people not to find out about it in the states.
small wonder why we get comedy from politicians and politics from comedians.
at least it's funny (merci l'oignon):
Kerry Vows To Raise Wife's Taxes
BOSTON—Campaigning in his home state, John Kerry vowed
Monday to raise taxes on his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, whose worth is estimated to be in the range of $900 million to $3.2 billion. "My spouse has benefited long enough from tax cuts," Kerry said. "If Congress increased her taxes by 15 percent, this country would have millions of dollars to use to create new jobs and explore alternative energy sources." Kerry added that it's high time that billionaires like the one with whom he shares his life start paying their fair share.
à la une
four eyes: mrs. dalloway
four eyes: the kite runner
one ear queer: the rentals
beat this song: dump- et moi, et moi, et moi
also, isn't it interesting that le figaro has "etats unis" before "france" in actualités ?
oui, vous adorez nos 'amburgers. avec fromage, sans doute.
yordo is at yerman camp
thanks to that fucking awesome band that hails from somewhere in BC, canada, The Unicorns, i saw a band called The Arcade Fire open for them at a post-goth venue called mad planet on the edge of the fashionable east side of milwaukee this summer. now they have released Funeral which the ever-persnickety pitchfork has given an astounding 9.7 out of 1o. knowing that i have a certain affinity for anything to do with unicorns, their princesses and their portals, i wasn't expecting too much from the opening bands. but yordo
(defined strictly from my perspective here and here only: becca's at first phone (!) friend, then later booze buddy; a genius of all trades, particularly philosophy, indie rock, yerman and hebrew; hilarious, turbo, an original klaver family enthusiast; yordo has the distinction of sharing the spotlight with me in the first and only play of my ill-fated acting career-- two of the kids in the JCC's [yes, jewish community center] production of The King and Ida; yordo's real name is jordan, but, if you are loved by klavers, you are rarely called by your full given name)
knows the band rather well from his time at sarah lawrence college and said that we should give them a good listen. so we did. and weren't disappointed. i have to admit that régine chassagne's vocals were a bit off, but then again, the acoustics at mad planet can't really be the royal fucking albert hall, can they ?
anyway, i haven't bought the album yet, but i'm going to. i was going to buy it that night, but was too busy playing pool and snapping the digicam.
as an added personal benefit, you all know that strange truc i have about funerals. non ? that's for another post, then.
en tout cas, merci canada.
driving school
reading between the lines is such a nuanced task. in e-life, the ability to extract emotion and intended delivery becomes an almost insurmountable feat. one already loses all nonverbal communication-- body language, eye movement, gestures-- when talking on the phone instead of in person. but email ? you've thrown all nuance and nonverbal out the proverbial window. no chance. is the other person playful ? insinuating ? luring ? resentful ?
in fact, one could go as far as to say that the interpretation with email is based now just as much on the receiver as the sender. if the recipient is having a particularly rough day or, on the contrary, has just been given fantastic news, the message could take on myriad interpretations.
similarly, e-communication allows one to delay and even choose when to subject oneself to the message of the sender. knowing emails from certain people will elicit known reactions, you can choose the exact moment to open the e-nvelope (in my case, immediately) to read their reviewable-before-sending text. conversely, there is generally no script with phone calls; you are left to your own unscripted devices. admittedly, the existence of caller id shoots a not insignificant hole into this theory, but even so, you have less than 10 seconds to decide if you will enter into verbal dialogue with the soliciting party or not.
some people define themselves as "not phone people." that's fine. but how, then, do you define yourself ? isn't it a bit cold to define yourself as an "e-communicator" ? is it possible to express the full meaning of your message strictly in terms of text ? sure, italics can replace inflection. but ugh, that's so... unoriginal. maybe i take issue because i'm a people person. i'm a "phone person." and yes, i've reluctantly become an e-communicator. very reluctant. when AIM was all the rage when i was in high school, i was the only one besides my dad (who to this day doesn't know how to use a mouse) to not sign up and start "chatting." eventually (and, evidently) i acquiesced. i can't say i'm terribly impressed.
on a more professional note, aside from the time-saving factor, email seems to serve two main daily functions: un) creating busy-work. people can send a thread of 987 emails, half of which are ensuring that "i understood you correctly," when a conference call, while taking some coordination, would ensure everyone understood whatever goal they were trying to accomplish. additionally, they would be so uncomfortable talking together that productivity would undoubtedly soar as they raced to finish the convo. deux) procrastination. i've said it before and i'll say it again, email/the interweb is the worst thing that ever happened to office productivity. do you see the time stamps on blogs ? emails ? no way is lumberg getting that TPS report, we're busy warblogging or coordinating what time to pick up johnny from soccer practice.
it's a shame, really. i love talking on the phone. always have since i was a teenage girl twirling the cord around my fingers, talking secretly on three-way and pacing relentlessly, one of many mimes of my dad.
so i'll continue typing... these lightning fingers have definitely learned a trick or two since learning home row on a program with an old-school disk that was actually floppy.
but i miss the phone. does "hahaha" really resonate as well as a familiar laugh ? can the omnipresent and spine-cringing phrases like "c u l8r" really be the direction of the english language ? has your memory really deteriorated to the point that if it didn't happen on email, it didn't happen at all ?
let's hope not.
if so, however, i'm eagerly awaiting my laptop/camera/phone/ipod/make-me-breakfast robot.
how bout it, science ?
but the attempt here is to overcome these challenges and make this at least a semi-enjoyable read. but, fair warning: i'm better on the phone.
19.9.04
welcome robot 8391414
that said, an essential disclaimer:
blogging is manifest onanist vanity.
bienvenue.
