Monday, January 30, 2006

The Internet never forgets

The Internet knows where you live. The Internet keeps in touch with Wil Wheaton and knows what kind of porn the Encyclopedia Britanicca kid likes. The Internet can tell you what Kirk Cameron has been doing lately. The Internet knew you before you were famous, before you got your teeth fixed, and before you came out of the closet. The Internet knows just how wide it is; the Internet understands how to love a dolphin. The Internet knows what you've been saying is wrong, and why. The Internet has its own customs. The Internet has songs based on lines from Robocop. The Internet has everything.

Repect the Internet, because the Internet never forgets the stupid shit you say.

Monday, January 23, 2006

The Axe Effect

The Axe Effect

I reckon it speaks for itself.

I want to say there's another product that takes advantage of that dysfunctional dream men have of being sexually irrisistable. I mean, besides cars. I can't think what it is. Although there is that hair dye commercial where the girl disrespects the guy for having a gray beard but once he dyes it brown she pounces on him like a puma. Sigh.

It's not beer. Beer targets men, but it's message is mostly "Drinking beer makes you amiable and fun to be around" or more specifically "Drinking our beer makes you amiable and fun to be around, and not a pussy like the guys who drink other brands".

Advertising is terrible, but you know, advertisers don't set social trends. They merely read and reflect them. So if commercials, particularly the ones targetting men, tend to be at least subtly misogynistic, it's because there's a substantial population of consumers who buy that way of thinking, however subconsciously. That's why there aren't many people who openly identify as feminist these days.

Maybe this is why I don't have many male friends. Hoom.

I'm totally not in the right frame of mind to read James Bond now. So it's either do Chinese homework, write, or start reading A Passage to India. Anyway, that's all for now.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Three things before bed

I went and saw Basquiat at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts tonight. I'd seen it before, years ago, but it was great to see it again. It's such a strange and wonderful movie, bunch of great performances, particularly David Bowie as Andy Warhol. It left me feeling just a little breathless.

Tonight it occurred to me that the reason conservatives want to block gay marriage is because they want to remain able to regard homosexuals as promiscuous deviants. It has nothing to do with protecting society or the institution or marriage or the children, and everything to do with a selfish desire to insulate their own prejudices. LAME.

Finally, I mentioned a long time ago that I might post a fragment of something I'd written, so I'd like to make good. This is from a finished work, and is my intellectual property, so no stealing my nightmare creature and claiming it as your own. Ahem.

"As they regarded each other silently, a shadow approached from her right. It was a ragged, gaping wound of black, into which the feeble light of the moon could not penetrate. Saul could feel the shadows heat and its black edges thrashed to the sound of crackling flames. The shadow moved with a peculiar grace that was more sensed than seen. In the same way, Saul could feel the presence of the prowling predatory shape within the pitch black flames. Even when the shadow stopped beside the winged woman, he could still feel it moving within the darkness. It was like a tiger or a wolf, pacing back and forth, restless in its prison. Occasionally the utter darkness was broken by a flash of copper and blazing red; Saul knew it was the eyes of the beast. When they settled on him, and he could hear the hot ragged breath beneath the crackling fire, a chill of fear touched his heart. He set his jaw and swallowed. The specks of silver light still floating in the air touched the writhing, eager edges of the shadow and were consumed. "

Comments and critique welcome, but it's just an excerpt, so don't feel obligated.
Now I'm going to bed.

What day is this?

I don't know what happened to the last two weeks. They weren't bad, or uneventful, but they lacked a certain something. Or maybe I was just busy.

I've been pretty good about writing every day, except for the last three days. Yeah. Things happened, or I let them happen, and I didn't write. I thought about many things that were not writing. I even played some Star Wars Battlefront, which is pretty counterproductive. I did have some creative moments, epic storylines sprouting in my head, but they were mostly for roleplaying games, which I don't necessarily count. I may rationalize it as imaginative exercise.

Classes start tomorrow. I somehow organized things so that my "fun" classes - Chinese Culture through Film and Beginning Creative Writing: Poetry - are on the same days, Tuesday and Thursday. My working classes, Logic and Chinese, are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Well. Great. But really I'm looking forward to this, even though this is the semester during which I have to find a job to help pay for all this shit.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to reading this book, an old paperback a friend left me when he went to China.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year

Hello everyone. Hello New Year. I kind of went into an internet blackout for the holidays, since my dad is especially paranoid about internet security, and my mom's laptop does funny things. Also I just didn't feel like it. I needed a break, from everything. Now I'm back in Houston and feeling much better, except for having eaten some pop tarts and chocolate cherry cordials for breakfast at two in the afternoon. I've just finished microwaving some black eyed peas to bring in the New Year right. One moment.

...
Ooh, gotta let them cool. Anyway, I don't really put a lot of faith in the tradition of New Year's resolutions, but I've made one this year. I'm going to write every day. To the best of my ability. This is something I should have been doing for years, but, you know, depression, stupidity, etc. So I'm going to do my best to write every day. I'm going to work at it, and if I miss a day, for whatever reason, I'm going to work doubly hard to get back to work the next day. So that's my resolution.

Also, I plan to get into shape. Whatever.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Mmm, black eyed peas. Mleh.