I bought a fanny pack, or the top five signs I might be losing it this summer

So a few of my friends this summer have suggested that I have been acting out of sorts - I can't say that I noticed feeling any more bitterness/anger oscillating with extreme despair than I usually do (I mean we all make jokes about huddling into the fetal position in the shower while sobbing out strings of incomprehensible words, but it's not like I really do it that often). Not to make light of my friends' observations, I decided to take note of any activities I have engaged in lately that might suggest I'm losing my shit. You know, besides blogging.

5. I've started sewing non-functional buttons onto everything. It began with a shirt or two but it has moved on to paper products... but this doesn't really mean anything except I've got a bitchin' penchant for the decorative arts. Maybe I'll start worrying if I wake up one morning after a blackout with several buttons sewn onto my body.


4. I've been reading weight/strength training books. It's not like I've actually bought any books yet (cough cough Kim Perky), I just check them out from the library. Also, I think it's a positive sign that I don't aspire to look like any of the people on the cover, right?


3. I'm slightly obsessed with the birds that live outside of my apartment. It started earlier this year when a tiny, sweet bird roosted on my porch over the winter (see red circle) only to disappear with the arrival of spring. Perhaps the obsession started when I began to read the presence/absence of the bird as a metaphor for my life and began muttering "nothing gold can stay Ponyboy" to myself as I wistfully gazed at the abandoned perch. So I bought a bird feeder and have filled it with seed, hoping to entice my bird friends to come visit me.









2. Okay, so I moved on from Western books on weight training and borrowed a book from the library on how to be a ninja. Maybe I've even imagined myself on the cover of the book... It's not like I want to start cybering people under the m.o. of the bloodninja. I mean, that would be messed up.









1. I bought a fanny pack. Not only did I buy a fanny pack but I read reviews of them online and made my purchase after several days of research. I claimed it was to use just for when I went out on bike rides but I find myself using it even when I'm not on a bike ride. Jinkies!

John Walsh, America's Most Wanted Douche

So I actually took a day out of my vacation a few weeks back to read John Walsh’s tome, Tears of Rage: From Grieving Father to Crusader for Justice. Sure I went into reading the book thinking, JOHN WALSH IS A DOUCHE, but upon finishing the book I realized I had really underestimated him. John Walsh is actually a douche of epic proportion, quite possibly the MOST GIGANTIC DOUCHE IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, at least living today.

Perhaps the most disturbing anecdote in the book is how he describes his future wife:
“People liked her. Or as one of my friends put it, she was John Walsh with longer hair” (17).

Did your mouth just fill with the bitter, rank taste of bile? Did any even remotely sexual thoughts void from your consciousness only to be replaced with feelings of shame, disgust, and despair? Yeah, I thought so. But, the book is so much more than John's special brand of solipsistic sexuality. Readers - who can actually stomach reading the book through to the end - gain a sense of the many facets of John Walsh, America's Most Wanted Douche. The best part of the book is truly John Walsh on his favorite subject… John Walsh:

John Walsh, the Churchgoer:
“my younger brother Jimmy and I – were ordinarily in the back row with the old women and nuns, wearing the black eyes and split lips we’d picked up in fistfights the Saturday night before” (1)

John Walsh, the Dancer:
“Tom and I were the only white guys on campus who could dance. In retrospect, I think that was a big part of our allure” (17)

John Walsh, the Businessman:
“My career was on a fast track, and I knew I was going places. Everyone was saying it: John Walsh was a success story waiting to happen” (22)

John Walsh, the Procreator:
“I had created a new member of the species and I would now have a legacy. My genes would be carried on along with the Walsh name” (29)

John Walsh, the Romantic:
“on the nightstand by her bed were a dozen red carnations. And in the center of all those red flowers was a single one, white. That was what I sent her” (29)

Whoa there big spender! Carnations?! WTF? And he's bragging about giving them to his wife after giving birth. That's practically like saying: "on the nightstand by her bed was a picture of me performing a Dirty Sanchez with one of my fellow douchebag friends. And in the center of that picture was a little poop smear, brown. That was what I sent her."

Finally, my favorite facet of John Walsh - when he thinks he's a badass:

John Walsh, the Badass:
- “We would never be anything less than all right because we were so unrelentingly ice-cold-blooded” (24).

- “The guy had told me to mind my own goddamn business. As if that were something I was really going to do” (25).

- “And when he came up to me and tried to shake my hand, I refused. Fuck him. He voted no on the Missing Children Act” (151)

- “Finally, one of them looked at me and said, ‘You know, you’re a real wiseass.’
I said, ‘And you know what you are? You’re mercenary bastards. Worse than that, you’re chickenshits.” (156).

Oh dear sweet, John Walsh- my eyes weep vinegar and water for you and I dread the day when your magesterial reign as America's Most Wanted Douche comes to an end.

giant quotie bug attacks Michigan

A giant quotie bug was spotted on the Portage Lake Ship Canal in Houghton/Hancock Michigan yesterday afternoon. Holy shit, eh?!?! Quotie bugs can cause tremendous damage to the environment - much of what lays in its path can be turned into discourse with the mere movement of the bug's pincers and utterances from its mouth. Bystanders reported hearing the bug mumbling something about "action fabrics" and becoming incensed over two- and four-way stretch materials. Luckily the vertical lift bridge over the Keweenaw Waterway tangled the quotie bug's antennae - trapping the bug until authorities could exterminate the pest.

hi, I'm that dork at new media summer camp

I had homework the first night of new media summer camp - in photoshop we had to create a single screen collage that makes a "visual argument" without inserting any of our own text. If there were any doubts to the depths of my dorkiness, they will slowly be erased over the next two weeks. I took the background photograph earlier this year but I secured the other images through various image sites on the web (morguefile.com is a really great one I have recently discovered). I think I might call the collage, "stfu pomos."

sometimes spam is actually kind of cool

okay I might be a little off - maybe it's because I was away from a computer for over 24 hours (!) or because of the strange sunlight here (the sun set in Houghton, MI last night at 11pm and rose around 4 or 5 this morning) - but sometimes spam emails can be really poetic and funny... like the one I received earlier today:

Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:12:19 +0400
From: "Thaddeus Thorpe" Add To Address Book
Subject: Re: About

"I'll turn in after awhile. arpeggio cranelike Give me the matches!

Annie had killed them because�� "Because they were rats in a trap,�he whispered. Harrisburg to Pittsburgh to Duluth to Fargo. "Now she was so red she was almost purple. Hurricane Annie was back in the room. ), and then it slipped neatly home. "I made you that nice sundae and the least you could do is tell me a few things. He did not just pass this beneath her nose but pressed it briefly against her lower face. absentia

---

Segal... the new Hasselhoff?

wow. Do you think when Steven Segal walks down the street he has to cut the fupa-laden screaming fans off of his body with a machete? Could you imagine the lumbering, wheezing, huffing and puffing on top of you as Segal laid it down to you, missionary style? Jinkies, huh?

Leo Carillo on 666

I went down to Leo Carillo (off PCH) yesterday - earlier in the day the papers discussed the significance of the date 6/6/06 and noted that several online betting sites were taking bets as to whether there would be an apocalypse (say, how would one collect on that?). I figured if the apocalypse did happen, then it would be nice to be somewhere at once sublime and beautiful for it - Leo Carillo is my favorite beach in Southern California. It was overcast at the beach and only 70 degrees- - and for a couple of hours I was the only one there except for two fisherman on the rocks (see picture).