good MORNING!

Power outage in the office; UPS-protected machines eventually shut down due to extended power outage; alerting system goes nuts; alerting system does not stop being nuts after outage resolved; mysterious issues remaining after end of outage even though all machines were on UPS and cleanly shut down and restarted; blowjobs; suicide; Heil Hitler.

Door to Door (slight return)

Another college guy showed up at the door with the exact same spiel.

ME: You guys already hit me up.

HIM: It's not what you think, we're not selling magazines.

ME: Right, you're selling books!

HIM: ...yes. Did he have something like... ::shows brochure::

ME: Right, exactly. Books for kids, in the hospital.

HIM: Well, crap. I'm just around the corner on Francisco. No one around here is in my class! What the heck?

There's a pause and the poor guy looks genuinely lost.

ME: I'm not sure he was at UCLA like you. Maybe he is at a different school that's doing the fundraiser.

HIM: Oh man, yeah. Crap. Yeah.

ME: So, anyway, this area has had the pitch already. Sorry.

HIM: Thanks, man. ::wanders off sadly::

I want to find and marry the exploding aardvark but I think she's already married.

1. Best enjoyed with gin and juice, I suppose. Jack & Diane are wiggers nowadays so they'll be delighted.
   
   
2. Shaun O'Boyle photographs modern ruins, and does so very well.
   
   
3. salome_st_john alerts me to Jeremy Harris, who takes similarly good pictures of broken stuff, including a fine set of Pilgrim State Hospital. Reminding me of Brad Laner's old punk band, Pilgrim State. More about that some other time.
   
   
4. Here is the complete list of infected music CDs released by Sony. These all have their nasty DRM software on them that roots your machine. Do not buy them or put them in your computer. I am sad to see Shel Silverstein and Earl Scruggs on this list. And Louis Armstrong? HOW DARE THEY.
   
   
5. I am not averse to a tipple now and then, but an entire meal arranged around flavored vodkas paired with foods makes me feel queasy just thinking about it.
   
   
6. There's hope for me. I could date an older female fish! In fish years, that's...
   
   
7. Neo-Nazi "historian" David Irving made the mistake of going to Austria and got busted for Holocaust denial. At least he's shaved off the Hitler 'stache. What an unpleasant loonie he is.
   
   
8. I don't have a jackabellum problem, but my cake-coveting gland is no doubt enlarged and distorting the entire area of the brain.

Musical note: Tubas and Tijuana Techno

After reading this post on Freeform FM, I downloaded the mp3s from Drum & Tuba and the Tijuana Sessions and loved them. I then did what you're supposed to and clicked through to Amazon and bought both CDs.

Wow! I'm now a big-time fan of Drum & Tuba. They're math-rock with brass and loads of fun. Plus they cover a Minutemen song on that record and that's the door to my heart. It's sort of like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band getting all post-whatever and bumpy and having complex funky rhythms. Try it, you'll like it.

I didn't expect to like the Tijuana Techno stuff as much as I did. It has that banda sound that drives everyone nuts in Southern California but with cool smashed up rhythms and other styles layered on top. It feels like a good direction for Latin music, like something Mexican college kids would groove to.

Both recommended; visit the FM link above and sample and/or click through to Amazon if you're interested.

I repost this a couple of times a year.

Partly because it's amusing, and partly because it sums up my feelings about impending doom of all kinds, from personal death to universal apocalypse. The topic of "we're all screwed, and what's to do?" has come up a lot lately. So here's R.L. Stevenson, as quoted in Blyth's Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, once again.

THE SINKING SHIP

By Robert Louis Stevenson, from Fables II

"SIR," said the first lieutenant, bursting into the Captain's cabin, "the ship is going down."

"Very well, Mr. Spoker," said the Captain; "but that is no reason for going about half-shaved. Exercise your mind a moment, Mr. Spoker, and you will see that to the philosophic eye there is nothing new in our position: the ship (if she is to go down at all) may be said to have been going down since she was launched."

"She is settling fast," said the first lieutenant, as he returned from shaving.

"Fast, Mr. Spoker?" asked the Captain. "The expression is a strange one, for time (if you will think of it) is only relative."

"Sir," said the lieutenant, "I think it is scarcely worth while to embark in such a discussion when we shall all be in Davy Jones's Locker in ten minutes."

"By parity of reasoning," returned the Captain gently, "it would never be worth while to begin any inquiry of importance; the odds are always overwhelming that we must die before we shall have brought it to an end. You have not considered, Mr. Spoker, the situation of man," said the Captain, smiling, and shaking his head.

"I am much more engaged in considering the position of the ship," said Mr. Spoker.

"Spoken like a good officer," replied the Captain, laying his hand on the lieutenant's shoulder.

On deck they found the men had broken into the spirit-room, and were fast getting drunk.

"My men," said the Captain, "there is no sense in this. The ship is going down, you will tell me, in ten minutes: well, and what then? To the philosophic eye, there is nothing new in our position. All our lives long, we may have been about to break a blood-vessel or to be struck by lightning, not merely in ten minutes, but in ten seconds; and that has not prevented us from eating dinner, no, nor from putting money in the Savings Bank. I assure you, with my hand on my heart, I fail to comprehend your attitude."

The men were already too far gone to pay much heed.

"This is a very painful sight, Mr. Spoker," said the Captain.

"And yet to the philosophic eye, or whatever it is," replied the first lieutenant, "they may be said to have been getting drunk since they came aboard."

"I do not know if you always follow my thought, Mr. Spoker," returned the Captain gently. "But let us proceed."

In the powder magazine they found an old salt smoking his pipe.

"Good God," cried the Captain, "what are you about?"

"Well, sir," said the old salt, apologetically, "they told me as she were going down."

"And suppose she were?" said the Captain. "To the philosophic eye, there would be nothing new in our position. Life, my old shipmate, life, at any moment and in any view, is as dangerous as a sinking ship; and yet it is man's handsome fashion to carry umbrellas, to wear indiarubber over-shoes, to begin vast works, and to conduct himself in every way as if he might hope to be eternal. And for my own poor part I should despise the man who, even on board a sinking ship, should omit to take a pill or to wind up his watch. That, my friend, would not be the human attitude."

"I beg pardon, sir," said Mr. Spoker. "But what is precisely the difference between shaving in a sinking ship and smoking in a powder magazine?"

"Or doing anything at all in any conceivable circumstances?" cried the Captain. "Perfectly conclusive; give me a cigar!"

Two minutes afterwards the ship blew up with a glorious detonation.

There are no words.

Alexithymia, or 'no words for feelings', refers to an impairment of the ability to identify and communicate one's emotional state, in addition to diminished affect-related fantasy and imagery. A recent study by Mantani et al. reported reduced activation of the posterior cingulate cortex in people with alexithymia when they imagined a future happy event. This finding augments the emerging understanding of the neural basis of alexithymia, and potentially provides valuable insights into brain systems underlying normal emotion processing.

Abstract of study, via EEGAlert.