Sunday, January 28, 2007

reasons to love the cybernet

I hate almost all of commercial cyberspace.

Call me a pinko-commie-tree-hugger, but before the Web came a long, I hated advertisements (with very rare exceptions and I'm not talking about "where's the beef" or spuds mackenzie) and I hated telemarketers and people who say, "excuse me ma'am, would you like to apply for an American Airlines Platinum card to receive free miles?" Back then, though, I could avoid most ads, by not watching television.

But now, I sort of live and breathe the tedious beta version of the Metaverse and am bombarded by inline ads (skin crawls just saying it), banners, interstitial ads, and spam. I can't get away from it. It makes me angry. It makes me hate and seethe.

And then I bump up against a site that is truly entertaining, engaging, utilitarian, or just funny, and it makes it all better.

This post is an ode to the sites I love. I'm going to name a couple here. I was hoping that if anyone actually reads this post, they could post a reply with a couple of their favorites. I'm not talking about things like Google or IMDB, which we all know and love, but those little sites you bumped into and felt like you found something made just for you. Like the time I turned a corner in Portland, Oregon and found a closet-sized video arcade that specialized in 80s video games (and not just the ubiquitous Ms. PacMan or Galaga) and Asian candies and snacks. I hung out for about 2 hours playing Tempest and eating Pocky Sticks.

The Weight Watcher's Cards circa 1970
http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html
I can visit this site every 24 months and laugh myself sick even though the content never changes. Maybe it is the ceramic animals? Maybe because I did weight watchers, not in the 70s mind you, but the nutrition/recommended meals still had this strange sort of internal logic unto itself that wasn't entirely gourmand-friendly.

The Kook's Museum
http://www.pacifier.com/~dkossy/kooksmus.html
I think MV's bro found this first, back in like '94, but I think I love it more than he did. Whenever I feel crazy, I go read the writing s of one Francis E. Dec (Esquire), where he exposes "the worldwide deadly Communist Gangster Computer God," and I feel much, much saner. It's all relative baby.

The Hamster Dance
http://www.webhamster.com/
It's the music I think. Such a classic waste of space and time. It makes me positively gleeful. Like go-sing-in-an-actual-glee-club-gleeful.

http://buyblue.org/
I was sitting at work one day wondering in what small ways I can live with more integrity and I received an e-mail with a link to this site. Now I know when I spend money that goes to the Republicans. I haven't made much headway on the integrity thing, but it's useful to know that it isn't only for reasons of taste that one should eschew shopping at Victoria's Secret.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

a promise made is a debt unpaid

It's been awhile. What have I been up to? Oh Geezus, I have no clue. Working too much, worrying a lot, other things that start with wor.

What's up with the title of this post? Well, this post is about things I'm going to start doing right. That is, in exchange for a little Geezus power. Who is Geezus you ask? I have a faint recollection that my friend Curriculae Vitamin (not her real name) told me a story about a little girl who pronounced "Jesus" like geese-us, but in my spelling, you still say it with a "juh" sound and a "you" sound. Like Gee, Zeus. Geezus is akin to the Great Sneaker (my father's lord-in-heaven who helped him pass tests in college despite his regular bleary-eyed hangovers) or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (except Geezus is real!).

Newsflash, my brothers: Geezus likes a bargain.

You know, a bargain. Like when you are in big trouble and you say, "Geezus, if you get me out of this pinch, I promise to do everything right." Geezus thinks for a minute and weighs it's options (Geezuz is asexual, duh!). I help this mortal morsel in this instant and he or she forever more does the things I like? That's a bargain!

So, in this instance it's me offering Geezus a bargain. In exchange for something that should be relatively easy for it to accomplish (giving me robust health until I'm 95 and then a quick, painless death and a rocking funeral full of friends and family who loved me dearly), I will do the following things:

For the next 6 months
  • Stop eating all dairy to see if it helps me. (You may not be acquainted with the fact that Geezus hates dairy. Yeah, he's no fun at all.)
  • Exercise every day unless I have lost a limb or have the flu. (Geezus is a lot like Jack Palance doing pushups at the Oscars. He likes fitness, hates the fatties.)
  • Write every day, even if it's only this worthless blog.
OK, fuck this Geezus shit. And no, that's not blasphemy. Geezus loves cursing. (Basically Geezuz is like a lactose intolerant, physically fit Hemingway.) I don't need him, though, and I don't believe in him or any other higher power.

[This is an aside, but let me state for the record, I have converted to atheism. Sort of. I mean I think there are things out there that are still mysterious. Like man's desire for magic to be real. Just the desire is like fairy dust for me. It means we're mostly still children. The problem is that our belief in all the beautiful made-up shit usually comes from a innate desire for someone to take care of us and remove all the pain, ugliness, and annoyance from our lives. Nothing will take away pain, ugliness, and annoyance (nunca babies). Pain is what is eternal and omnipresent. Nothing will ever take it away - except maybe hard work and positive mental attitude. Anyway, the long and short of it is that it was a lot easier to believe in god when I was a kid.]

But I wish I did right now. Because I'm down in the mouth, blue, anxious, born under a bad sign, with a furrowed brow. My chest pains have gotten worse (I keep telling myself it's just indigestion and anxiety) and I feel like a fucking failure at 37. If I have some stupid heart disease (from smoking and eating butter like it was going out of style) and I die soon, the regret I feel could leave a crater in the earth the size of Detroit. Hey, maybe that explains Detroit?

So, I made an apperntment with a cardiologist. In a week. Knowing doctors, he'll then tell me I need 12 tests (that cost 4000 bucks) and it will be a month before I know if my ticker is OK. Until then, I promise to do those things in bullets above. The dairy thing because I'm supposedly "intolerant" of dairy (despite cheese being my favorite substance on earth, especially the Spanish goat cheese I ate with J and N in NYC a couple of weeks ago, oh Geezus!) and maybe that is causing some fucked up chest pains? The exercise because I'm a lard ass right now and if I have heart disease, the first thing they'll tell me is to slim down. And the writing because this is what I want to do with my life and if it is going to be short or long, I better start doing it.

Geezus ain't coming, my babies. It's like a copy of Hey Love. You gotta get your own.