Mighty Forces

After waiting a month, my repaired Xbox 360 finally came back on Friday.

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

-Spock, "Amok Time"

"You needn't worry about your reward. If money is all that you love, then that's what you'll receive."
-Princess Leia, "Star Wars"

Memo to the universe: Money is all that I love.

So I just started using Twitter, a little bit. Still not convinced about why or how to use it. But right now I'm just posting random thoughts, like this one from last week:

How can Barack Obama be a radical Christian, a Muslim, and a Marxist all at the same time?

Amazingly, some writer from Wired picked this up, and mentioned me in an article about Obama:

Report: Hoax Anti-Obama E-Mails Still Fool Dumb White Guys

Crazy.

After ending up having to wait two weeks for the box to ship my dead Xbox 360 back to Microsoft, I took the (now filled) box to the UPS Store this afternoon. Even though Microsoft makes you use the plain unmarked white box to ship the console - supposedly to combat theft - the guy behind the counter took one look at the box in my hands and smiled, saying, "Xbox, huh?"

"Yes," I said. "Do you get a lot of these in here?"

"Yeah - about three or four a day," he said.

Three or four a day, at one UPS store in one town. Wow. Meanwhile, thousands of copies of GTA IV sit on store shelves, mocking me.

One of the reasons I don't have pets - especially cats - is that I don't want them found eating my corpse after I die alone.

After weeks of procrastination, I've caught up with uploading images to my Project 365 set on Flickr. Let me know what you think.

Yesterday, my old site, Utopia, which I haven't updated in more than a year, got three times as many hits as the site you are reading now.

No, I'm not bitter. Well, maybe a little. :-)

I'm actually fairly proud of a lot of writing I did on Utopia, as angry as it was. (These days, if you're not angry with the state of the world, you're not paying attention.) I flirt sometimes with the idea of making posts from it, and/or from my original site, words mean things, into a PDF "book." Could be a fun project.

I think the government has been testing this new weapon on me.

When I watch "30 Rock," things seem a little better, for a while.

So tonight I geeked out and watched the movie "Helvetica," (very cool movie about typography and design) and then played The Rather Difficult Font Game online. I'm both proud and disturbed to say that I got 34 out of 34 on the font quiz, and thus am immortalized on the Hall of Fame page.

Bonus points for anyone who can tell what font spells out "signs point to yes" in the previous entry.

After many months of procrastination, I finally put up a new design for my business site, lucky8ball. Let me know what you think.

There was a time, not that long ago, where I would happily wade into the muck with assorted crapweasels and ignoramuses and try my best to puncture their weird and hurtful worldviews. Sometimes I really kicked ass, in my opinion. (Much of my best work, like wallowing around with Mrs. du Toit, has gone down the internet memory hole.)

But these days, like with a lot of things, I just don't have the stomach for it. I'm worn out, and the tide of stupid, hateful stuff has just gotten too overwhelming. I'm beginning to sympathize with Ellen Ripley - let's just nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I've posted my photos from my Seattle trip on Flickr. Let me know what you think.

I made a chocolate pound cake today, from a recipe in a cool book called "Small-Batch Baking." Of course, I was halfway into it before I realized I needed buttermilk. Who keeps buttermilk around the house? Really. So I just used milk. It turned out OK, but not great. Afterwards I read online that you can simulate buttermilk by putting lemon juice or vinegar into milk. Well, maybe next time. Baking has always seemed too fiddly and requiring way too many ingredients and too much precise measuring for my taste. And making these small batches doesn't really help things. Well, at least I made the effort.

The project did remind me of one thing: I love the smell of vanilla. Isn't that one of the scents they put in the air in prisons to keep the inmates quiet?

During one of our pop culture conversations today - this one a rare face-to-face version - my friend The Other Adam made me realize something while we talked about "Arrested Development."

I am Michael Bluth.

Of course, if I had to be someone, being Jason Bateman is not that bad of a thing to be. Not bad at all.

The only reason anyone calls me, or emails me for that matter, is because they want something from me.

And as we know, people want a lot of stuff.

You could suffer a bit of depression now as you consider how to make your relationships happier and more supportive. It's not that anything is so bad; it's just that you are determined to get what you want, even if your current satisfaction seems far away. Soften your stance and judge yourself less harshly while you consider all your options.

Been thinking a lot about my father recently; I'm not sure why. He's been gone for more than 12 years now, and I still miss him terribly. When things are flying apart, as they have done a lot in the past year, what I wouldn't give to be able to call him up and hear his reassuring voice on the other end of the line. Or to be caught up in one of those Leo Buscaglia hugs of his. The world is poorer for his loss, but immeasurably richer for his presence.

I love to be unhappy
I live to be in pain
When days are full of sunshine
I'm lookin' for the rain

I always send my steak back
My life is overdone
I have to be quite careful
that I don't have any fun

Valentine's Day can bite my shiny metal ass.

Humans are absolutely inexplicable. And any effort expended to try to understand them is a fool's errand.

This weather makes me want to slit open a tauntaun and climb inside.

Probably because lots of high-falutin' missions have gone by the wayside, I've decided that my mission in life shall be to eliminate from our culture the one-armed man-hug, which Wikipedia informs me is also called the "pound hug."

Seeing Tom Cruise do this grating stiff-handshake-with-awkward-one-armed-hug move on one of the Scientology videos, for some reason cemented my hatred of the American Man-Hug.

Should any straight men be reading this, let me assure you: a regular, one-second, two-armed hug with a man will not cause you to "catch gay." It's simply a gesture of warmth and love between two people. Everyone knows you and your squash partner aren't really "partners," and trust me, onlookers, should there be any, are not wondering whether the two of you are going to make out.

As the saying goes, you wouldn't worry about what other people thought of you if you realized how infrequently they thought of you at all. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake, and unlike Tom Cruise, no one cares whether you are gay or not. Get over yourself. Got it?

Thanks for your time. Now for the sake of humanity, go out and hug another man. For those who still need a little help with this concept, VideoJug has a great instructional video on the subject.

If I want to drop Jonah "Liberal Fascism" Goldberg into a vat of boiling oil, does that make me a fascist?

Will this be a good year or a bad one? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments.

For some reason I've been thinking lately about 2004. The year started with an online pseudo-relationship imploding in spectacular fashion, and being publicly humiliated by someone I thought was a good friend. The year ended with George W. Bush's re-election. The day after the election my mother called me. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't have your head in the oven," she said. "I have an electric oven," I replied. To say that 2004 sucked is to reach the limits of human understatement.

This year is going to be better, right? Right?

In an effort to stretch myself, if only a little, in 2008, I decided to get on the "Project 365" bandwagon, where you take at least one photo every day for a year. I've started a Flickr photo set with the first week's results. Should be an interesting experiment in a lot of ways.

Related: The incredible PicLens browser plugin has a new version that allows you to look at a bunch of photos on a zoomable 3-D photo wall. Fantastic. Check it out.

On New Year's Eve, my mother told me I have a perfect nose.

Crab and cream cheese appetizer
Chex mix
Cranberry holiday punch

Mustard and herb-crusted beef tenderloin
Potato gratin with thyme and gouda
Horseradish carrots
Homemade rolls
Caesar salad

Buche de Noel (Yule log cake)
Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream: Zanzibar and Mint Avalanche
Christmas cookies

Why does Santa need to see me when I'm sleeping?

That's just creepy.

I had a dream last night that Beyonce and I worked in the same office. She was leaving to take a job somewhere else. She was going around at her farewell party saying goodbye to everyone. She said to me:

"I would miss you, except you didn't catch that pop fly in the company softball game two years ago. So I won't."

I love you too, Beyonce.

Today is a day of emotional connection for you as the Scorpio Moon meets sweet Venus to resonate with your psyche. You are not interested in settling for less than you need, yet this can be more than anyone else is willing to give. Don't avoid facing this paradox, even if you cannot get what you want. There's no need to solve the dilemma right away.

...with The Weepies. My current favorite is "Somebody Loved" from their album "Happiness." What's weird is that JCPenney is using their music in Christmas-themed ads. Maybe I'll follow up Christopher Hitchens with a book called "Pop Culture Poisons Everything."

God, today sucked. You ever have one of those days? Of course you have.

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them."
-Henry David Thoreau

I don't want that to be me. The question is, how?

You may be a bit overwhelmed as Saturn tests you today, so keep in mind that this will quickly pass; next week will be better. There's no need to waste energy on feeling discouraged. This isn't about defeat, but about gaining clarity on the life lessons you are currently learning. Do whatever you need to do in order to strengthen your position.

-my horoscope for today

1. Architect.
2. Chef.
3. Film editor.
4. Video game texture artist.
5. Carpenter.

What are yours?

Jane: I'm just tired.
Aaron: Of what?
Jane: I just, guess I feel there's no more wondering what's it gonna be like.
Aaron: Like what's gonna be like?
Jane: My fabulous life.

"Friends With Money"

Still obsessed with The Weepies. The lyrics continue to amaze me in how much they relate to me and my life.

It's the second September I have known you
Four years or so ago, I rode a pony, called him "Truth"
We didn`t know the way so it took us till today to get here

Now we're cleaning the windows between us two
Funny, you do it once, and then again, and pretty soon
the fingerprints and dust...
But I've begun to trust the view here.

"The Weepies" sounds like a children's group to me, bouncing around the stage in colorful outfits and singing songs about giraffes. But after hearing one of their songs on a video someone posted on Vimeo (amazing video hosting site, BTW), I got intrigued. So I bought their album "Say I Am You" on iTunes. Very soft and comforting folk, without missing out on a certain cynicism and sadness when it's warranted.

"Nobody Knows Me At All," "Not Your Year" and "Living in Twilight," in particular, speak to me.

No one's really reading this, but in case anyone is, I don't have much to say right now.

Today is like a breath of fresh air, yet you still may be tempted to pull back into your shell to protect yourself. Withheld hurt feelings can turn into resentment, which is even harder to resolve. Pay attention to what you don't say and try to find ways to say it, for your health depends on your willingness to bring your emotions out into the open.

When I was growing up, my grandmother had an in-ground swimming pool. The house was built in the 30s, and the designer brought a water pipe out from the house to the pool - it stuck out just above the water line on the shallow end. It was obviously meant to make it easier to refill the pool or top it off when the water evaporated.

One of my clearest memories of childhood was at the height of summer going down to the basement to turn on the water to the pool, and then running out and standing in the shallow end under the gush of ice-cold water. It was absolute heaven.

Because that was the only residential pool I ever knew, I always thought that everyone had a cold-water pipe going out to their pool. When my mother built her pool a decade ago, I was puzzled to see that it was just a hole in the ground. "Where's the water pipe?" I asked her. "No one has that," she said. "How do you fill up the pool?" I asked. "With a hose," she said, in the calm tones you use talking to a preschooler.

Now that summer has slammed into the Midwest, and I'm facing six weeks of heat and humidity and general wilting, I sure could use one of those water pipes right about now.

Elaine: I will never understand people.
Jerry: They’re the worst.

"Hell is other people."
-Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit"

Bad day today. Really bad day.

A fascinating column by Dan Savage about another thing I struggle with.

I'm doing a lot of struggling these days. :-) But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You may feel as if your life has been dragged over the coals these last three weeks as Mercury retraced its steps in your sign. But instead of looking at all the problems that have surfaced, consider how you reacted to any complications you faced. The real issue is not what happened to you, but what you did to overcome the obstacles.

Through a strange path of web searches this morning, I came upon an "Alias" parody I wrote during the show's first season. People probably barely remember that show now, and I don't think my parody was entirely successful. But it gave me a chuckle.

Saw a few "Bionic Woman" previews on TV over the weekend. I couldn't care less about the new show, but bring on those Lindsay Wagner DVDs!

My friend Paul and I are coming out of Michael Moore's wonderful "Sicko" movie. It ends with a web site (which I've of course forgotten) designed to let Americans find Canadian spouses so they can get free health care.

Me: Hey, there's an idea. And they have gay marriage in Canada too, don't they?
Paul: Yes, they do.
Me: So we could get Canadian husbands, and get free health care that way.
Paul: Well, theoretically.
Me: [laughing] Right.
Paul: And by that I mean, it doesn't violate any of the laws of physics.
Me: ...that we know of.
Paul: Right.
Me: I mean, scientists are still trying to decipher the strange repulsion field that I seem to have around me. But once that's figured out, I'm set.

In the past, one of my standard lines has been, "I'd just like to climb into a sensory deprivation tank for several months."

I think maybe the time has come to try it for real.

I did some research online, and I found a place in Waunakee, the Blue Lotus Floatation Center, that offers just this service. Not for months at a time, of course, but hourly. It took a while to find, because at first I was searching for "sensory deprivation tank," and that just led me to some disturbing stories about how the U.S. government is using sensory deprivation as a fun and effective new form of prisoner torture. (Yay for American ingenuity!) The difference is, I'm paying them, and I can leave whenever I want. Plus, they did it on "The Simpsons," and that turned out fine.

My friend Jason warned me about the movie "Altered States," where William Hurt suffers some rather disturbing side effects from his time in an SD tank. But since I don't plan on taking peyote first, I think I'll be OK.

My friend Paul and I found ourselves in Walgreens the other day. We were perusing the cold cereal area, and came upon one of my favorites from childhood, Crunchberries. (Cap'n Crunch with round red "berry" pieces)

Me: Well, they've just ruined this now. I would love to buy some, but the berries are supposed to be red - not all these other colors. That's just not right.

[seeing that the "berries" are now in "fun shapes"] And look at that - argh. It's supposed to be "Crunchberries," not "Crunch-and-a-bunch-of crap."

Paul: It's official. You *are* a grumpy old man.