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i’ve been quiet lately because i’m in one of those places in life when there doesn’t seem much to say.

it’s not that there isn’t anything going *on*. it’s just that nothing seems adequate to say about the things i’m doing. i suppose it’s less apathy than a conviction that pictures say more than i can, just now. i do my thing: work (there’s quite a lot of it), make things, play my game, devise things, hang out places, do things with #himself. what else can one say about one’s life that isn’t tedious, or precious, or attention-whorish?

i’m in one of those places where everything superficial seems nauseatingly vapid. and that happens to me sometimes.

it’s a foggy day in Denver. real, eyebleaching, chalky fog. in fact, it’s been quite an Oregonian week. weather conducive to mystery, perhaps even mayhem. good weather to get one in the halloween spirit, certainly.

we have been going to Twin Peaks nights, Wednesdays at the White Owl. this is *definitely* the weather for that. see flickrish bits at right if you want to see what i look like dressed up as Julee Cruise.

tonight i’m doing Dead Teresa Banks. wrapped in plastic. so that’ll be fun.

this week is packed. thursday i’m going to try to get down to the Tesla meetup (i miss carol, and I think i’ve only met three or so of those kids). and i have a friday thing. and a saturday thing.

of busylife there’s little to be said, until it ends.

great. that’s great.

old fart on some POS no name buddy looking f’in thing goes 32 mph all the way up cherry creek, and i mean ALL THE WAY up cherry creek, so i pass him at my usual speed, which is the speed limit, 40 on this road, to get to colorado blvd. when i get there it’s red so he rolls up behind me. then he decides that the oncoming traffic has slowed enough that he’s just going to roll right out in front of a truck (because i must be going, right?) and proceeds to run into me.

%$#@%$#@$#@$#@$#@$^^%#!

because my rear mudguard is oh-so strong already with its three repairs and its tenuous multilayers of freaking GLUE, right?

anyway, i see him coming and holler, HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY HEY! and this guy, instead of using his brakes, tries to f’ing stop himself with his feet. right? trying to pull a flintstone, right? like it’s a pedal bike. oh my god. so i’m yelling HEY and he’s shuffling his feet ineffectually at the ground and then he’s like, “gee, i thought you were going. HYUK.”

yeah, HURP DURP. i’m all “No! did you LOOK? you need to LOOK, guy.” seriously? you thought. you thought? you assumed because you weren’t looking.you do that to a car, you’re going to hurt yourself, you do that to a hell’s angel, he’s going to pound you into the ground, tard. I might pound your ass into the ground!

shitty scooter riders piss me off more than shitty cage drivers. i expect car drivers to be careless and stupid. that’s how i stay alive. this guy is a danger to himself and others because he is entitled enough or clueless enough — a lot of the time it amounts to the same thing– to think everyone is going to watch out for HIM on the road. seriously? seriously? i’m not sure whether to expend my frustration on advocation of license testing every year for people over 65 or requiring everyone operating a PTW vehicle to take a FSCKING SAFETY RIDING CLASS.

hurp. then again, i saw a car with an ABATE sticker on  it the other day and that car was a shit driver too. wtf, i give up.

Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child .

really, that’s all there is to say.

he is a child rapist. he ought to be listed and punished as a sex offender. not because punishment rehabilitates–it certainly doesn’t; and not even because anyone who is prone to rape children would pay any attention to his being made a big shiny example of – they wouldn’t – but because there should not be one law for the rich and another for everyone else.

i mean, personally, i think child rapists ought to be physically neutered and all of their offspring ought to be euthanized. we need to remove that stuff from the gene pool by any means necessary. harsh, but it’s for the greater good of humanity. (that’s right, call me a eugenics-loving nazi. death panels! abortion rights! feminism! vegetarianism! whatever. i don’t care.)

but listing him and penalizing him to the full extent of the law is a good start, and i’ll settle for that much. i don’t blame him for running away. we all know what happens to child-rapists in jail. but that doesn’t mean that he should be exempted simply because he had the means to run.

and while i’m on the topic, you can buy me one of these, internets.

it will go with the giant tree i’m going to freehand out of contact paper, as soon as i quit my job* and have oodles of free time.

Vespa Scooter Wall Sticker.

*never

RoboScooter could be the green foldable scooter of the future.

at least, that’s what MIT wants to see happen. me, i think the styling could be improved. i guess it’s a good start.

my mom was beautiful, in a holistic, gestalt way that i am not.

mom’s life had great integrity, in a way that, at my age, i seem to be convinced that mine never will.

mom loved all her children. each and every single one. individually and as people, individual people. she never forgot any of them. not a single one, or their individual talents and inclinations and gifts. never. every single person she ever taught was known and catalogued in her mind by name and with their own particular brand of loving attachment. *bitter laugh* i know more about the brilliant people of my generation from my area than anyone should, just from the admiring mentions around the diningroom table.

i don’t even know what it would be like to have that vast a capacity for love and life and support.

but this was her mission. a niche to be filled: gifted kids– at the age when they’re most vulnerable: when they *most* need the support of a peer group, and the mental distraction of intellectual challenge, to know they’re not crazy. she remembered that need, and determined herself to fill it, because nobody else was, or would.

that was the mission. but really, it was less mission than pure love: the purest, the one that dares to teach and wrangle the most confused people at the most confused age there is. and it was perfect in that way that dares to defy everything: the dismissal of teachers who taught little ones, the condescension of high-school teachers who think they have a corner on everything.

and it mattered nothing. what she cared about was imparting something and keeping the best minds of our generation sane, within the system that wasn’t really built to handle them.

my life will never have that kind of integrity, that intense yet ground-level credibility.

i loved my mom. sometimes i resented the love i could sense radiant and poured on them from her, while i felt as if i got nothing but obsessive control: often i wonder who got the best of the deal. and sometimes i don’t wonder at all. it doesn’t matter. one doesn’t pick one’s mom.

i loved my mom. i love my mom. this was my mom: she loved and served.

i wanted so much to share with her her own child’s wild, transgressive, brilliant, vibrating life. and let us be realistic: this is my journal and i will have a purple moment, because i am grieved beyond, i think, shock, beyond, i think, what anyone would understand: instead of sharing my life with her, i got to watch her die in my arms.

i miss her so much. so much. so much. it’s beyond expression. it is excruciating every day. they tell it never ends, but gets better. i hope so.

Untitled Ad.

Lucky Guy Escapes Scary Crash @ Break.

seriously? he’s yelling at her, in Greek, that she ran a red light – i don’t see any lights.

i don’t know if this could have been avoided, no matter how much attention he was paying.
but i hope he was, because (a) in the whole scooter-vs-car contest, scooter always loses, and (b)  if that wreck was his fault, and he got up all yelling at her like that, her husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever is gonna find that guy and beat the poop out of him just to teach him not to be such a douche.

or,

My Fatal Sniping: Let Me Show You It.

i’m kind of mad for spatterdashes lately. i’m not too sure why. possibly it has something to do with never being able to find boots that don’t seem to be built for people with ankles proportionate to their feet – in other words, cankle boots, which all boots seem to be,  anymore.

this is a lot of four pairs of black jersey spats.  they seem to come complete with the label. there’s a size 6, a size 7, and two size 13s, which i’ll probably improve and sell on etsy to recoup some of my expense. i may replace the buttons on the others as well, just to make them a little flashier – i found something else that bespeaks clean and classic; something that evokes the Ideal Platonic Spat,  something like (after the jump) .  . . [Read the rest of this entry...]

oh, look. the sartorialist’s beyond-questionable trainwreck of a fashion eye has finally captured something interesting.

i guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The Sartorialist: On the Street….Stylish Ride, NYC.

i want all three of these. poster size.

rather badly.

aren’t they unspeakably stunning?

FABULON: The Shrine.

The Yes Men.

The Yes Men are a couple of high-profile pranksters whose erudite tactics meant to warn or propagate the masses (depending on how you see it) about hot button political issues like war protest and global warming fall in line with the mentality behind Internet stalwarts like Improv Everywhere and flash mobs in general.

Initially, the duo received major attention months ago when they distributed fake copies of The New York Times in New York City. The paper (and accompanying web site), boasting optimistic headlines like “War Is Over” and “Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge,” touted a rather Utopian leftist view that threw hundreds of readers for a loop.

That politically-charged stunt laid the ground work for The Yes Men’s latest prank, a distribution of a fake New York Post in New York City yesterday. With a front page that screams, “We’re Screwed,” the accompanying articles detail the threats posed by climate change and global warming.

i see OM is alive and well.

i have a feeling something like this was originally my destiny, but i seem to have unknowingly subverted it. which is, you know, okay, because i’m cool with just, you know, the stuff that i do.

“what? WHAT was that? ‘Nice helmet-head, Vanna?’ i HEARD you. because i’m STANDING RIGHT HERE. eediot.”

Coutorture: New York Fashion Week: Naeem Khan Spring 2010

Territory size shows the proportion of the motorbikes and mopeds in the world found there.

The Asian regions (Southern Asia, Eastern Asia, Asia Pacific and Japan) are where 65% of mopeds and motorbikes are driven. Mopeds are less powerful than motorbikes, having slower maximum speeds because of their smaller engines. Some mopeds can also be pedalled. This form of transport has an advantage over cars in that motorised bikes can be taken on narrow roads and paths. On the other hand the rider is more vulnerable to injury.

Malaysia and Greece have more than one motorbike / moped for every five people. Considering that some people will be too young to drive, this could be one bike per three people in the relevant age group.

i love these sorts of visual representations of more-or-less abstract concepts.

Worldmapper.

the prez: SMRT.

joe wilson: you can take the boy out of the trailer park, but good ol’ joe has made it amusingly evident that you can’t take the trailer park out of the boy.

Drudge has officially hit the bottom of the barrel, even for muckraking.

children are growing more stupid, the planet is absurdly overpopulated, 2012 is coming sooner than you think,  the culture of the west is near-terminally narcissistic, the idiocracy scenario is approaching in ways that we never thought possible, the gap between the onion and what passes for actual journalism –mainly — is rapidly narrowing, et c.

oh, and i’m still sick.

it’s part of Acetoberfest

I would totally go just to see the fashion.

in other news, i’m now 34, a p0rnstar, and the proud owner of an oscillating dremel and some new mirrors for Il Putto.

tia Tia gave me a beautiful nouveau-style card case (cough) which i love.

and i’m never buying anything from plasticland again. i’m so. tired. of the ongoing effort on the part of various retailers to mollify the beleaguered egos of overweight compulsive shoppers by downsizing everything. i’m a size small: that’s a 4 to 6. when i buy something in size “SMALL” that is loudly declaimed to “RUN SMALL,” i expect it to not be, you know, a size 8 to 10. this has happened twice with plasticland. i’m tired of racking up shipping charges returning things to them that are lazily and badly described.

this may be the fault of Tulle Clothing, who evidently have no idea how to size their sh!t. very annoying.

all i want is a decent, sturdy, good-looking riding coat, for $deity’s sake. why is this so difficult?

sick of hollywood’s nauseating creative bankruptcy? does the sheer cavil of subcultural co-opting going on on a massive scale make you want to fling yourself from the nearest piece of corporate sculpture? then put your climbing shoes on, brothers and sisters!

Top 10 Best Graphic Novels – Being Turned Into Movies

i personally think i’d rather push someone *else* off a tall object. but that’s me, of course.

i absolutely adore x-ray photography, i think because it’s like a cosmic hint into the zen minimalism or pure function that lives in every object.

or maybe just because it’s made of awesome, especially when it’s done with as much care and attention to detail as this guy routinely observes.

Amazing X-ray photographs by Nick Veasey – Telegraph.

while i’m waiting out an inauspicious aspect of my stars to wilfully circumvent a corporate firewall, i’ll clean out my delicious for you lovely people.

here’s a fab modernmechanix retrospective: the AUTO-SCOOTER!

it’s made from jets, but … yeah, no.

okay, okay, here is a self-propelled unicycle-thing powered by an electric motor, stabilized by an internal-self-balancing gyroscope system!

do i sound excited? i *am* excited. and i don’t know why. i suppose you, dear reader, think that this is irredeemably stupid and hopelessly silly and you would never be caught dead on it. but you should remember that i ride a scooter, and therefore public opinion is really quite low on my list of priorities. i would totally go about on the bouncy power-stilt things if i had some. what i care about is whether it’s fun: you can’t tell me that doesn’t look like fun.

more in video: 60’s vespa commercial.

crap quality but cute as far as woman-as-luggage goes.

okay, and in the pure-and-simple-speed department:

lammy sets new landspeed record

and in D’Awwwwwww,

it speaks for itself, dunnit?

via offbeat bride.

hmmm. here’s one for just me:

i’ll just leave you with that.

this looks interesting:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5INsFa4QsocC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

not because my job is insecure, but because my workload keeps increasing; beyond the limits of what seems reasonably possible.

at this point, i have to develop some flash, design two new functions for our front end, set up twenty courses with syllabus revisions, set up a new vanity page and fix a major database snafu by 2:30 tomorrow afternoon.

and here i am blogging about it, because i think something inside me just gave up.

i dislike saying ‘no’ when it comes to work requests, just because the answer is almost always ‘yes, if-’ in practical terms. that’s why i like this field.

but at some point, i suppose you have to demonstrate to people that no matter how many minor miracles you can pull out of various parts of your anatomy — and i’ve done quite a bit of that in the last few weeks — major miracles are simply out of your reach unless you have some time to plan a strategy beforehand.

poor planning is problematic.

prior planning prevents poor performance.

ppptht.

2010 Honda Elite Scooter First Ride | Motorcycles.

i know, i haven’t said anything interesting lately. it’s because i’m slammed… again. i tend to slap everything noteworthy into delicious these days, so i’ll try to clean that out as soon as i can.

meanwhile, have a roundup of a testride on the 2010 Elite.

Lord Help the Poor & Needy
(Jesse Mae Hemphill)

Lord help the sinner man
In this land
Ooh Lord help the sinnerman
In this land

And we all die together
when we face the rising sun
Oh my Lord, oh my Lord

Lord Help the Poor and needy
In this land
Oh Lord Help the Poor and needy
In this land

Oh we all die together
when we face the rising sun
Ooh Lord, help
my Lord

Lord help the human race
Lord help the human race
Cause we all die together
And we face the morning sun
Ooh Lord, help

Lord help the motherless children
In this land
Ooh Lord help the motherless children in this land

Cause we all die together
And we face the rising sun
Ooh Lord, help, oh Lord

yeah

07 – Lord, Help The Poor & Needy

our office unit is next door to this ‘placement agency’ where they, in simplest terms, train MBA-tards how to sell themselves as MBA non-tards.

we frequently cross paths in the hallways, bathrooms, et c. – these are the sort of people who don’t know how to flush properly, if you want to know. the sort of people who cannot grasp that people coming *out* of elevators have the right-of-way. one suspects that they don’t grasp right-of-way on the road, either.

today i am wearing a t-shirt (our office environment is almost *excruciatingly* casual) festooned with your typical old-school-tattoo-style heart-n-banner graphic. it says “MISSISSIPPI” on this banner, because that is where i grew up.

today i’m standing in my t-shirt outside the elevators, waiting, as one would assume, for an elevator. there is a seminaree from next door waiting, also, when i get there. this is not unusual.

what is noteworthy about this is that this average-to-frumpish, late-thirties-appearing man decides to look at me, look at my chest, and then slowly read off, “MI- SI-…SIP-EE.”

then he looks at me for confirmation. after more time contemplating what i can only assume is the other potential mysteries of my chest.

what are you supposed to say to that? i say,

“yes. good job!” [minute pause] “you’re an MBA, aren’t you.”

this guy opens his mouth to say something else, and then looks down at the floor. he then says simply, “…k.”

five minutes later, in a peacefully silent elevator:

“sorry … it’s just that i’ve never seen that before, a big state name on a t-shirt like that before.”

O_O

really?

what have you, been living on, you know, pitcairn island? scratch that, i’m pretty sure there’s at least *one* tourist place on pitcairn, and it PROBABLY has t-shirts that say “PITCAIRN ISLAND.” so, i don’t know, mars, maybe? are you from the future?do you live in a basement? a cave? does your mother bear a resemblance to Kathy Bates? what is your major malfunction?

i can’t decide whether he was an ass burger or, well, an MBA-tard. there is *some* difference.

i do know this: those people next door, i don’t envy them their jobs.

raise your hand if you think someone ought to stage an intervention for Andy’s sugar habit.

and i quote:

Everyone,

This scoot will be one Saturday in late Aug or early Sept. We will scoot around to different cupcake shops in the area with the goal of finding the best cupcake. Maybe some type of game involved and a price of some short. Not sure yet. Below is the list of places I am researching. While I believe we will limit to 5 or 6 in total. Ride time would be something like Sat afternoon unit about 11pm or so. Maybe some other type of fun as well. Let me know if you have any other shops in mind and have suggestions.

http://www.happycakesdenver.com/contactUs.html
http://www.yumyumsdelights.com/
http://theshoppedenver.com/hours/
http://www.lovelyconfectionsbakery.com/menu.html
http://dbardesserts.com/
http://www.rheinlanderbakery.com/
http://www.sugar-bakeshop.com/
http://www.meetup.com/dessert-9/venue/772919/?eventId=10781492&popup=true
http://sugarrushonmain.com/
http://www.gateauxpastries.com/d_cupcakes.php
http://www.cake-crumbs.com/
http://www.emmarosecakes.com/index.html
http://www.steubens.com/menu.php

Thanks,

WC