How to go insane

Step 1.

Search keywords Clinton, Obama, DNC, McCain, Economy, Iraq, etc.

Step 2.

Select news item from the findings (washingtonpost.com for best results)

Step 3. 

Read article, vow not to read comments.

Step 4. 

Read entire comment thread.

Step 5. 

Lose mind.

It's that easy!

I've been published. Kinda...

I submitted a dumb graph to GraphJam, my new favorite time-wasting site. Check it!

'S'funa, right?

You can vote on it here (or somewhere in the vicinity) and if it gets enough votes, they'll post it to the main site. 

Support my stupidness! I command you!

Who sent me this shirt?

This came to me in the mail on Friday with no name or note included.

Don't get me wrong, I love free t-shirts and all, and this one comfortably rides the line between ridiculous and juvenile (c'est moi!), but um...

Who do I have to thank/reprimand/by a beer?

Did I win something?

Will this shirt get me in trouble?

How come all these awesome things keep happening to me?!?!

City of Contradiction

I have a pretty great view from my desk at work. On particularly slow work days (like, um, today), I've been known to pause mid-keystroke to watch a ferryboat trudge across the bay or to consider the real estate value of one of those condos perched on Alki point. Even in bad weather, the view is still pretty great. This is a realization I came to while working at the Space Needle, actually: Seattle looks good almost all the time.

Since our offices are located in a older building (no double-panes here) above a busy street near Pike Place Market, though, my daily soundtrack is a series of events I can hear but not see - tires screeching, unattended car alarms, sirens, blaring horns, those damn Duck Tour loudspeakers, obscenities and random shouting (alternately frightening and entertaining and sometimes in connection with the Duck Tours), and a guttural chorus of engines large and small. Regardless of the auditory assault, the corresponding imagery always looks something like this:

It's a bit of a disconnect, I must admit.

Release the brilliance!

Today, in honor of my mother's 60th birthday, IFC Entertainment releases My Effortless Brilliance as part of their Festival Direct series, among other things they do. 

No time to talk - I must clear off my box spring for the piles of money that I will soon use as a mattress. For you see, in the eyes of cable TV subscribers everywhere, I will, no doubt, presently become like unto a star. A distant and tiny dim star, to be sure, but somewhere in the flooded galaxy of digital media, I will have arrived. 

Where do I pick up my baggage, I wonder?

Also, I have a used mattress which I will let go for $300,000 OBO.

Happy Birthday, Mom. 

I hold you partly responsible for all this.

Legalize it

Dear Santa-

This year for Christmas, I would like for you to legalize marijuana for all the good boys and girls. Even for the bad boys and girls. I don't really care. 

I know Christmas is a long way off and you're still probably on vacation in Tahiti or somewhere, but I needed to get my request in early because it is so important.

Here's why:

Today at my job, two of my coworkers were talking to each other about buying weed. Of course, they didn't use that term ever. They said things like, "I was interested in meeting up with your friend" and "When is your friend in town?" and "Should I contact your friend directly?" Then they would giggle and exchange knowing smiles and agree with each other about nothing in particular. 

I have to be honest, Santa, I hate potheads with an unreasonable and probably unwarranted passion. They speak in riddles have insipid little rituals. I hate them because they let me know they're potheads by trying to keep it a secret and they get all mad when I call them on it, usually in a loud and irritating tone.  I must admit, it gives me great satisfaction to see them act as if the DEA is about to burst through the door at the very utterance of the word "marijuana." Ah, good times.

Nonetheless, I am asking you to legalize pot so I don't have to put up with their intricate and futile rites of secrecy and self-righteous pseudo-politics about how alcohol is worse for you than pot and there are no documented cases of lung cancer associated with smoking dope. First of all, I KNOW alcohol isn't good for you, that's why I drink it. That's why everyone drinks it. Do you know what we call people who go on and on about the benefits of alcohol, Santa? We call them a cab! Get it?

Seriously, Santa, everyone knows the war on drugs is a joke. Recreational pot use is all but accepted by the general population, or at least ignored. It's being prescribed by doctors and state laws are actually protecting sanctioned growers. Can we please just close the loop and make it official? 

I'm not sure I can deal with much more incessant tittering and badly-veiled tokers' code in my social life, let alone my workplace. 

Legalize it, tax it, make it as normal as buying a 6-pack at 7-11. Maybe that'll shut those stupid hippies up.

Thanks Santa. Have a great summer.

Your friend,

W.G. Beets