wow… VERY interesting.

Don’t get the wrong idea here, but this is absolutely fascinating. Don’t mind the terrible spelling. http://analogik.com/acid_trip/acid_trip.html

Top 20 Albums I’ve Heard (however, when this post was originally created for another “list-blog” type of thing, I was struggling to come up with 20 albums that I actually thought were worthy, so, here it is — although, I do feel as though some of these ablums shouldn’t even belong here; Mercyful Fate, for instance, or, John Coltrane — I just suppose that my tastes have changed somewhat in the month or so from when this was originally created… I think that now, perhaps, I would replace Giant Steps with Yellow House; I don’t know what I’d do about Mercyful Fate, though… I should have more Morrissey; come to think of it, I need to listen to more Morrissey — have you fucking heard My Early Burglary Years!)

20.
19.
18.
17.
16.
15.
14.
13.
12.
11.
10.
09.
08.
07.
06.
05.
04.
03.
02.
01.

this is andy hatch

I realized that Andy has only contributed one post to this weblog, and he didn’t even properly introduce himself. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty to make a collage (in about 5 minutes using Microsoft Paint) to show you what Andy is all about. Enjoy.

RED INK AND ANOTHER CRYING FUCKING BABY

i just got my chemistry test back and i did horrible. fucking horrible. and let me tell you what it is that would have helped me do better. NOT BEING SUCH A STUPID LITTLE SHIT AND ACTUALLY TAKING MY TIME TO FINISH INSTEAD OF WANTING TO BE THE FIRST ONE DONE. i also just left my lab without completing the work because it PISSES ME OFF TO NO END to be one of the last people to finish. the rage builds in me so quickly and i can tell you honestly, dear reader, that NOTHING ELSE does this to me. absolutely NOTHING. WHERE THE FUCK does this urge come from? WHY THE FUCK do i care? it doesn’t matter where or why because i am FUCKING MY OWN ASS with this kind of poor work and i SURE AS SHIT do not want to take this class again.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS PISSING ME OFF RIGHT NOW? I CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW THE FUCK TO MAKE A NEW CATEGORY FOR TAG BUT I BET YOU SURE AS SHIT COULD IMAGINE THE TAGS I WOULD CREATE RIGHT NOW.

hella ghetto

I’m cool, you know..? People like me. I’m hella easy going and totally chill. Whatever, man – that’s cool. I’ve got a few nice pairs of jeans, but these ones are my favorites. Whatever. I work for a major cell phone company in the call center. It hella sucks, I take vacation time by the hour and leave whenever I want to. They’re pretty chill about that. I need to work and just make hella money, but whatever. It’s summer time. Dude, you commin’ out drinkin’ with us? That’s cool. I outsmart cops. Yeah, I just moved into this new place, right across from campus; it’s pretty chill; nice view. Just kickin’ it. Yeah, I think my new neighbor, Andy, hates me. He’s such a bitch. It’s like dude, is it cool if I just kick it in your lawn chairs? And he’s like, Yeah, I don’t care. Whatever, he fuckin’ hates me. He’s such a bitch. I’m totally chill and hella cool. Maybe Andy should watch a little more TRL, pop his collar and be a little more hella chill and cool, like me.

a post to pluto all others

Being the determined young scholar that I am, I am taking a full load of courses this summer. One of those classes, English 370, is a required course for the Creative Writing program I am enrolled in. I have been putting off the class and thought that the six-week summer session would be the prime opportunity to get it out of the way. The title of the course is “Introduction to Language” and is, as you may have guessed, a linguistics class. It’s been only mildly interesting to me as far as required college courses are concerned… that is, until today. In the last fifteen minutes of class this morning the instructor shared with us the American Dialect Association’s 2006 Words of the Year, which I found to be thoroughly fascinating. These words are “new” words that, according to the association, have developed in the past year. Some of them are just wonderful. A few of my favorites:

Word of the Year WINNER: to pluto/be plutoed – to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet

Most Useful WINNER: climate canary – an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastophe on the horizon

Most Creative WINNER: lactard – a person who is lactose-intolerant

Most Creative FINALIST: Fed-Ex – nickname for K-Fed, a.k.a. Kevin Federline, soon-to-be ex-husband of Britney Spears

Most Unnecessary FINALIST: Fox lips – lips colored and lined with makeup to seem more prominent, said of female anchors on Fox News

Most Euhpemistic FINALIST: lancing – the forced public outing of a closted gay celebrity, after ‘N Sync singer Lance Bass

A few other highlights: murse, firecrotch, macaca, tramp stamp, sudden jihad syndrome, the decider, manmaries, and, of course, pwn. Real words, folks. No kidding. The authorities have spoken. Check it out: http://www.americandialect.org/Word-of-the-Year_2006.pdf

another post?

Anything at all to bury that disgusting hamburger picture.

My good friend Ryan Smith plays songs under the moniker The Aviation Museum. His songs are, if nothing else, intriguing, and show a considerable talent for melody and arrangement. His first full-length record, And Ampersand, was recently mixed and mastered and is ready to be pressed. Listen to a few of his songs here: http://www.myspace.com/theaviationmuseum.

Enjoy the sunshine, kids.

a premature book report

Two things: (1) I really like to recommend books, but (2) I usually won’t recommend a book that I haven’t finished, or at least read most of. However, I’m going to break my rule today because I feel obligated to write about how good The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is. I mean it’s really, really good. I’m a fan of all of Chabon’s work – he’s brilliant. And with Union, even in the first sixty pages (which is all I have read thus far, though I hope that number will double by this evening), it is apparent that as he is maturing as a writer his brilliance is becoming more focused and his work more impreessive, accordingly.

In his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon’s talent for storytelling and constructing characters cannot be ignored. In Wonderboys, these skills are supplemented by a multi-dimensional plot and a foray into strategic detail. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, all of these elements are infused with tremendously, almost overwhelmingly so, rich details – this book could have been a series of novels and still been just as satisfying.

With Union, Chabon shows how disciplined of a writer he has become. His detail in this book is insanely perfect – it’s as if he wrote out twenty or thirty possible details for every sentence and chose the very best to use. Accordingly, the prose flows in a lively and very satisfying way. Chabon offers everything in the book by providing just enough. The story flows and develops in such a beautiful, well-constructed way, and the narrative has a very emotional feeling of immediacy to it. And, of course, the story really, truly means something. It carries weight, the sort of weight that makes literature worthwhile.

Check it out if you get a chance.

can you spell crazy?

Tiles and tribulations…

Andy, Bryan, and I just finished watching a fascinating documentary entitled Word Wars. The film explores the world of competitive Scrabble, focusing particularly on four noteworthy players in the game circuit. While the overview of the Scrabble world is mildly interesting, the psychological profiles constructed (through stellar editing) of the highlighted players are absolutely captivating. The four gentleman a viewer of Word Wars becomes acquainted with are entirely wonderful and totally insane. Like, seriously nuts. But completely likable. I haven’t been this spellbound by a documentary since, well, Spellbound. You will enjoy this film. Watch it.

update

well wouldn’t you know it, the first thing out of that patient’s mouth was, “so, did you have lunch with your dad today?” gotta give him points for consistency. also, one more unrelated but choice quote: “they offered me a hundred thousand dollars to find the tanzanite sandals.”