Category: PERSONAL

Woot Canawr, Stage 1.

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If you’ve seen that episode of The West Wing where Ceejay (C.J.?) visits the dentist, you know what’s going on. I got me a root canal today. Well, I got myself a part of one, anwyay: Yeah, baby. Stage 1 of my root canal. I’m not feeling pain yet, but I know I’m in for some tonight, baby. Stage 1 involved remving the gold filling, drilling down to the roots, and digging out the meat. The meat! I got these little glimpses of the implements used for the latter — they look like miniature pipe cleaners, or like the mouthpiece …

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Found! Daily Pillbox

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A while ago when I first started using hypertension meds, I went shopping for a “daily pillbox” — you know, those plastic thingies with a compartment for each day of the week, into which you can put the day’s pills so you don’t forget to take them. I searched for the damned thing, but the three or four pharmacies I tried all had the same answer: “Nope, never heard of that.” Finally, I just figured it was not something I could buy in Korea, and I’d have to just wait until I got to North America to buy one. (Or, …

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Ohrwurm: Capsule

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Yeah, Japanese pop music. (“Shibuya-kei,” to be precise. Bsides its association with the district in Tokyo, I have no idea what this refers to…) Most of the songs on the album are a fair bit more ironic than the one below, or, well, maybe I’m mistaking earnestness in a foreign language for an arch tone and ironic sensibility? Anyway, this isn’t the best song on the album, but the only one I found and liked enough to post. This is today’s background music as I work on my most recent installment of my column for Cahoots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVBUwmq0yz0 Here’s another video, …

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Ideas Worth Pushing: Post-Snark Era?

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Jetse de Vries linked a recent post by Matt Staggs which hails an idea I really hope catches on: that we don’t need no more snark. I don’t know to what degree I’m guilty of it on my own website–maybe a little more than I imagine, but less than so many websites I’ve seen–but I do know I’ve reached the point where snarkiness for snarkiness’ sake is simply no longer a novelty. It’s a very tired, boring, useless exercise, and, finally, I think what can be said is that it’s become a self-indulgence. A tiresome self-indulgence, and one that gets …

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“… I think we don’t need to think about it…”

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So said one of my students about the depiction of gender roles and sexuality in advertising. To which my response was, “We don’t have to think about anything, but is there any reason we shouldn’t? Do you think people should have fewer critical reading skills when it comes to media?” I put it in slightly different words, so I’d sound less, er, irate that I do there. But really, it was a strange moment. I know that, “I think we don’t need to think about it,” isn’t probably intended in the way it comes across — this was a comment …

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From an email

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Yes, this is from a real email: Ha, I love saying, “hack my way into JSTOR”: it’s so mildly subversive and so painfully academic at the same time. Like painting academic graffiti (with in-text citations) on a library wall or something. If you’d shown me this when I was in high school and told me I’d written it, I’m not sure I would even have understood it, let alone gotten any enjoyment out of such a glimpse of my future self. As an undergrad? Oh my, I can imagine how dumbstruck I would have been. And now? Muhahaha. My, how …

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RIMPAA Sues Whole Nation of Somalia in a Major New Lawsuit Aimed at Ending Piracy

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Reuters (HOLLYWOOD) Jimmy Felching, the official representative of the RIMPAA (the new organization formed by the merger of the RIAA and the MPAA) announced this morning that the new organization has filed a claim against the entire nation of Somalia in their renewed war against “piracy.” Indeed, Felching urged President Obama to “help bring and end to piracy, even if violent means are necessary.” On being informed by a reporter at the press conference that this was “real piracy, not just downloading crappy flicks and tunes,” Felching turned red and left the room amid a chorus of laughter and jeers. …

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Linky Stuff Part Deux

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Some poems by my friends Maura and Neile are in the recent, excellent offering by Goblin Fruit. (And a review here.) Fascinating talk at TED by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who had a stroke. Observing a stroke from the inside: chilling, but fascinating. My friend Charles is a bad, bad man for noting that South Park can be watched online. Not that I’ve seen more than one episode there — no time — but, gaaaaaaaaaah.

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