- From the Department of Xtra Ultimate Hyperbole +3!!!
Like everybody else, I’ve been getting these for a long time, and I think they’re either starting to lose it or are realizing that the content of the subject has very little to do with whether somebody accidentally clicks through. Or maybe I’m giving them too much credit, and they just believe their own marketing. - From the Land Where Escape Sequences Run Free
The content of this one was mostly an image with a SRC tag that was, again, almost entirely escape sequences; it was followed by a couple .edu URLs, neither of which exist. This reminds me of an old book about spaceships I had when I was a kid, which featured some paintings of “inexplicable salvage” at the end–imaginary empty craft that had been found floating between star systems. This is like one of those: a lonely voyager, adrift, incomprehensible, its purpose forever lost to us. - From the ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Guerilla Marketing Group
This one’s a little different. The content makes me pretty sure it’s spam, but for some reason–to foil antispam software, I guess–it includes a chunk of well-known (to me) fiction at the end. For the record, it worked; this is the only piece of junk that’s gotten through unscathed to my xorph@xorph account since I installed
From: Feel Younger
Subject: Strengthen your immune systemNow – Powerful Anti-Aging Breakthrough
Claim….Ýours….Nów
As_seen on Oprah, ÇNN, CßS, and_NBC
Free Óne Months’s Supply
Feel Better, Look Yonger, Lose Weight_NówI want to have more energy in the new year
Say good by from us, show me.
“Pages one and two [of Zaphod’s presidential speech] had been salvaged by a Damogran Frond Crested Eagle and had already become incorporated into an extraordinary new form of nest which the eagle had invented. It was constructed largely of papier mache and it was virtually impossible for a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of it. The Damogran Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of the species but wanted no truck with it.”
Candidate dozed off during interview.
Author: Brendan
In the past thirty-six hours, Jon has received offers of a) admission and b) large wads of cash from UNCG and Wake Forest, and thus I felt it incumbent on me to buy him steak tonight. (He got t-bone, I had fillet; I ordered mine medium rare, the bloodiest I’ve ever had it, and I think I can feel myself going over to the dark side.)
It’s a great feeling, being proud, buying someone expensive food because they really deserve it. I’m glad I have this group of friends, because I think I’m going to get to do it pretty often.
Louisville: Hands cuffed behind his back, fifty years old, two white cops, one black man, twelve bullets, and you know, I can’t stand it when people get uppity over every little thing, honestly, but what? What?
“Y’know, your journal… you’re gonna be able to look back on it and have this collection of deep thoughts and significant events. I’m gonna be able to look back on mine and see ‘boogers are funny. I’m tired.’
And y’know, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
That’s pretty accurate, actually, except I don’t think the stuff in here is terribly deep, and I’ve left out some significant events because I didn’t think they were interesting. Sometimes I wish I had more of the comic impulse that makes Stephen’s blog such a great read. Y’know, more booger jokes.
I guess I do significant events, though. Today ten years ago my dad died.
I pretend not to place great importance on round numbers, though this kind of gives that the lie. It’ll really be a more significant number next year, as that’ll be the anniversary that marks half my life without him; I was eleven. Mom’s probably going to be moving out of Richmond this summer, maybe down to our family land in Casey County, maybe not. All three of her children will be in college, a statistically ridiculous idea for a single mother and a teacher that she made happen anyway. 1993 was a very bad year; 2003 is shaping up to be something glorious.
All I have time to write about, lately, is big things and being tired. I want to try and remember the stupid little funny parts. My dad bought me my first Calvin and Hobbes book; he would have appreciated the boogers.
I’m so tired it should be visible: there should be waves of it rising off me, distorting the air like our old wood-burning stove.
Last night was the second and last public performance of The Laramie Project. The Fellowship of One, the group of (mostly, and oddly, black) local pastors who have been trying to stop us from doing the play at the high school, were in attendance. They’ve never been uncivil, but their arguments at such venues as the DHS parents’ meeting have consisted mostly of things like
| Pastor: | The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle. |
| Teacher: | The play doesn’t promote any such thing. It shows viewpoints from all sides, including Christian values like mercy and forgiveness, and it shows what happens to people when a crime forces them to confront the issue of prejudice in their community. This is why we’re teaching it as part of our curriculum during Black History Month. |
| Pastor: | The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle! |
“This is a play about not hating people. You’ve made your point.”
We did it. We did it right.
Exhaustion, and triumph, and a ring around the moon.
Collective effervescence.
We’ve started the play, and it’s perfect, raw, gorgeous, exactly everything we wanted it to be.
Afterwards, I walked to the gas station to buy more caffeine (the presentation has yet to be done). I had a flower in my backpack from Deb, and was listening to a Duncan Sheik song, of all things, and I could see the whole scope of it: how last year was home, and this year is setting out away from it. How and why I’ve done what I’ve done, here. How this is the biggest year I’ve ever lived.
As promised: quickie wallpaper!
Gollum: Made of Love
800 x 600
1024 x 768
1152 x 864
Via Crummy comes a site with screen caps from a bootleg Asian DVD of The Two Towers, glorious subtitles included. A lot of them are just random, but these five are better than anything I could have come up with. The top left one’s a Unix nerd joke. The bottom right one is, somehow, going to be my new desktop wallpaper.
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This morning I got up at 6:30 and, after a little wait, drove to Lexington, where I stripped down to my swimsuit and a 10th Planet t-shirt, then jumped in an outdoor pool.
I yelled on the way in, and then got out, because it was very cold. There were still pieces of ice floating in it. I felt like I was getting out pretty quickly, but on the version in my aunt’s camcorder, I’m moving roughly as fast as you’d expect someone to move when his lower spinal functions have just shut down.
My uncle Cliff, meanwhile, moved like a man possessed. By speed. This is most likely because he went in with Cole and Clint, my eight- and nine-year-old (I think) cousins, and had getting them out of the water as his chief concern. He used to play football, and can still put an impressive spiral on a smallish human being.
It was wonderful. Also, painful. I wish I had another year at college now, just so I could make all my friends go back with me next time.