Girls With Glasses
A good friend of ours discovered this photobook (WARNING: Some items on the linked page NSFW!) on www.Jlist.com:
It’s a photobook of cute girls wearing glasses. That’s it. They’re fully clothed and wearing glasses. What more do you want?
The description copy is fairly beardo, but I kind of want this thing. I’d keep it on my coffee table and see who leafs through it and who doesn’t.
Today was a most excellent birthday! Got some nice work done, got some kick ass presents, got some nice birthday wishes by phone, email, and in person. Thanks everybody that called, wrote, or sent messages by telepathy!
I also got some new Pumas from DSW today. I had been wary of DSW, thinking that it only consisted of womens’ shoes and that entering the premises would sap away my manliness. But it turns out that they’ve got mens’ shoes, and a… Dare I say, mighty collection of them.
So these Pumas are incredibly light, fitting like a glove. The downside is that they gave me this canvas DSW tote bag that I had to carry around, thus emasculating me temporarily.
If anyone wants a tote bag to carry their books or flowery dresses, please let me know. You can have it for free!
We live in awesome times. I’m reading “The Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri, and in one of the short stories the characters visit The Sun Temple at Konarak.
The awesome part is that through the magic of the internet, I can see with my own eyes whatever it is that someone is talking about.
You don’t need the “Illustrated Da Vinci Code”. Just image-google Isaac Newton’s tomb. For the first time in history we’ve got collective eyes and ears on the entire world. Sometimes even live video.
I love it.
Meep
So I got three birthday presents for myself. Two of them are things that no one else can really get for me, and the third you can buy at Amazon:
- Another Mile: I added another mile to my run. I’m now doing a six mile course.
Two years ago I remember huffing and puffing through jogging/walking 2.5 miles, wondering how I’d ever be able to run the entire way. Now I’m running twice that distance, something I couldn’t even imagine before.
I read somewhere that the key to change is to do something positive and do it consistently. Things stop hurting when they become a habit. Plus it’s part of my training to become a hot dog eating champeen.
- A New Information Gathering Methodology: This is kind of hard to explain… A lot of really great anecdotes and pieces of information used to slip through my fingers. But I have a new system so that now they, uh… Don’t.
It’s simpler than my old system and it categorizes everything automatically. This system’s already bearing some nice fruit.
I would share it here but I’m planning on writing a book on it and becoming a productivity guru. I will also live in a geodesic dome and drive a plug-in Prius!
- A Sharp PW-E550 Electronic Dictionary: This is going to sound tremendously nerdy but I’ve wanted one of these for a very long time.
As I read, I keep finding words that aren’t listed in my pocket dictionary. It’s missing simple words like “viand”, “sangfroid” and even “copacetic”.
I realize that right now I sound like I should be sipping chardonay while squinting through a monocle, but it’s important that I know what the hell it is that I’m reading. I don’t want to guess. For instance, for a long time I thought “hirsute” was some kind of compliment, when it really means “hairy-as-fuck”.
Plus I want to attempt to read Ulysses again, and there’s no way that’s going to happen without a decent dictionary. Last time I tried to read it I was like, “What the hell is going on? Is this guy shaving…?”
So anyway, I’ve been really nice to myself on my birthday. All these gifts have been about personal growth and positivity — much better than last year’s gift to myself: A cocaine binge and a paddling by a transvestite hooker. But we’ll see what happens next year.
Additional:
Times Square Red Lobster, Winter 2006.
Fever Pitch
I’m going to start following international soccer from now on. I really enjoyed watching the World Cup and hearing the stories behind the players and the teams. Also, it’s really interesting to witness something that’s so huge and has very little American influence on it.
It’s really easy to forget that there’s an entire world outside of America, and that the rest of the world is really cool.
So now I’m going to have to go through a “shopping phase” where I try to figure out which teams to follow. My dad follows Arsenal and the Premiere League, although I do already kind of like Manchester United.
This is literally going to be like searching for a religion.
My b-day is coming up and I already got an awesome early birthday present: Nintendogs: Miniature Daschund and Friends. Thanks Rick and Angel!
Playing this game (it’s more like a pet simulator) is causing my testosterone to decrease to dangerously low levels. I stopped having to shave. I think I’m technically a virgin again.
“What is the goal of the game?” Dave asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, “Apparently to buy things.” Just like in real life!
Somehow you raise more money and you use the money to buy pet supplies for your virtual pup. You can also buy “clothing” like new collars and pirate hats. That was not a typo. You can have your puppy wear a pirate hat.
I like this game… Even though I’m going to start growing breasts soon.
Bag Equals Home
I’ve been hauling a lot more stuff around with me so I’ve switched to using my Crumpler Tribeca Film Festival swag bag as my primary bag. It’s got the most space, plus it has an “accessory loop” that allows you to clamp smaller, barnacle-like device bags to the side.
These little device bags cling tenaciously to the main bag, providing a nice home for your camera and ipod.
My bag now pretty much feels like home. It’s like an aircraft carrier — a mobile extension of my home territories. I have all my favorite pens, a tiny stapler, a new crappy pocket dictionary, project paperwork, reading matter, my DS Lite, cam, and ipod, a book of crosswords, my biz cards, etc., etc., etc.. Plus it’s heavy enough now so I can use it to bash in a person’s skull.
I would like to climb inside and live in there with all my stuff.
When you write a lot, you have to read a lot of crazy crap. Right now I’m reading about magicians, illusionists, sleight-of-hand artists and hypnotists.
I like to read a lot about something in order to write about it. Plus whenever I read anything, some cool tidbit or story always emerges to file away and possibly use later.
Also, doing so forces me to read things I normally never would read, which is kinda nice. I’m hoping that it makes me a more well-rounded person, though the reality is that I’m probably just becoming a larger nerd.
I came to realize a while back that I’m a serious bag nerd. I love bags. I’m always looking for the perfect bag that will fit every situation: Hold my computer, my books, my various crap, and look rad while doing it.
I have been through many types of bags: Triple 5 Soul, Brooklyn Industries, Crumpler, etc..
I’m also obsessed with office supplies. I love office supply stores. My favorite recent purchases:
- .5mm “needlepoint” gel pens — I have really small, terrible handwriting, so this makes the resolution finer on my lines. My bad handwriting serves as a form of encryption.
- Brother P-Touch label maker — The absolute best gift for an anal-retentive loved one. It lets you print perfectly formed labels that stick to anything. I stuck “MGOLAMCO” to many things that I own, thus guaranteeing that, if lost, they’ll find their way back to either me or my brother Mark.
- Pentel X-O Data Checkers — The most perfect highlighters yet invented by mankind. They evenly lay out a milky neon fluid that glides onto the page so perfectly that it guarantees memorization. Plus it makes a refreshing beverage.
UPDATE: Awesome find — RetroCrush’s Polish Movie Poster Site. Apparently in Poland they are granted the ability to market Hollywood movies in any way they like. As a result you get supremely awesome movie posters like the one below for Disney’s “Dumbo”:
I love them!!
Games for Supernerds
Inspired by Wordplay, we bought a book of NY Times crossword puzzles. There are a ton of these Times crossword puzzle books, some of them featuring Will Shortz on the cover wearing funny costumes:
The book we got are all early week puzzles, meaning that they’re supposed to be the easiest ones they put out.
That said, I can’t believe these people can solve these crossword puzzles in under ten minutes — that blows my mind! It takes me about an hour (at least!) to complete one, and that’s if I’m lucky.
My dreams of becoming a crossword puzzle champion are fading quickly. I’m going to have to concoct a new method for getting nerd girl booty.
In addition I picked up a Nintendo DS Lite and this videogame called Brain Age in which a disembodied floating head teaches you how to become smart.
This is the perfect videogame for people who love to take tests. That’s all it is — rapid-fire math tests, memory tests, color and number recognition tests.
Brain Ages as we speak.
As you complete each test, the game calculates your “Brain Age” — how fit and agile your brain is in terms of years. It also shows you a metaphor for your brain’s “speed”.
It told me that my Brain Age is 57. Then it displayed a little man on a bicycle pedaling very, very slowly to represent my brain speed.
I’m going to get that Flowers for Algernon operation. This blog will soon be full of six-syllable words and Ph.D language.
Fanging On
Written by Rick, Guest Blogger:
I recently had to part with something that was an important part of me for over twenty five years. I was very attached to it and, needless to say, it was very attached to me as well. I had always known that there was a good possibility that I would have to part with it eventually, but I was holding out hope that it would stay with me my entire life.
I had plenty of warning that it was going to leave me, but I didn’t feel a need to rush it, or cause it to leave before it was time. It left after a nice meal at Novel Café – my new favorite place to eat in Westwood. It had its final meal, though it no longer participated in the chewing anymore, and gracefully dropped out without much fanfare after the meal. At first I wasn’t sure if it was a piece of food, but after feeling the spot it had been with my tongue, I knew that my tooth had finally fallen out.
At thirty years old, I lost one of my two remaining baby teeth. Now I am left with a small, empty space between my teeth and a large, empty space in my heart. You see, the loss of a baby tooth symbolizes the loss of youth and the inevitable transition into the next stage in life. Just kidding. I am still just as much of an immature ass as always. Don’t believe me? Check out these pictures of replacement teeth.
Also…
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
