Here's something I realized:

Your confidence in yourself grows just like your confidence in driving. To put it another way, your confidence in yourself increases in direct proportion to your accomplishments.

To put it another way, unless you do things to be proud of, why shouldn't you have terrible self esteem? Why should you feel good about yourself unless you're applying the energy and will and humanity you have towards some project or venture or event or person?

I kind of feel like everyone except me may have figured this out years ago. But another thing I figured out is that that doesn't matter.

Caloric Content vs. Natural Resource Consumption Comparison

Food packages list the nutritional content. What if we listed the packaging material content next to that? For use by the consumer, much the same way nutritional content is used?

"Yes, this package of cookies looks delicious. However, not only is it bad for me (as indicated by the high sugar content), but the plastic packaging required X amount of oil to manufacture and Y of energy to ship to this store."

Qualitative information like this is available on organic or natural products a lot, but it's in the form of rhetoric and words - essentially it's advertising copy. Wouldn't it be nice to have this information in quantitative form?

This would be even better on non-food items, particularly electronics or clothing.

"I really want an XBox 360, but look at the EPA label! Manufacturing it took as much natural resources as 100 boxes of cookies! Jesus!"

I know how to read an FDA label and I am really happy they're available to me. I also want an EPA label.

cousin's son's face's nose

This is my cousin's son. Does that make him my second cousin, or my first cousin once removed? Suddenly I have this massive extended family to manage in my mind, and that means determining what my relationship to each person is.

Honk.

Wiscoy Valley Sojourn

In my bag I've got two knives, a stack of photos, and five boxes of slides - the first set of many. On my camera I've got several hundred photos of the valley i spent birth to age three in and of my family. It's nice to have an extended family again, because I really did not before: for example, I've a sister. Now, intellectually I knew I had one, but it's quite different to have one right in front of me: there's responsibility and belonging and love and hope and worry. And, more than that, there's something that isn't quite camaraderie and isn't quite a sense of family, but is nonetheless important.

It is nice to have a sense of history, to have the tactile sensation of rocks under my feet, and to know that the land is alive and prosperous and ours.

these kids are bad

Salt Lake City Kids, originally uploaded by ricko.

The boy on the left is just a fuckin' bruiser. Beats the crap out of the littler ones. Gets the crap beat out of him by the bigger ones. "Smiles," what a joke.
The towhead with the empty soda bottle? Future lush, eventual junkie.
White shirt's a whoremonger (as in he kisses girls constantly without ever saying "ew").
Pink hat logs onto her grandmother's computer and looks at Rotten.com all day. Grandma's too tech-stupid to know.
The kid in the capri pants looks on through closed fingers.
The little girl with the bob haircut? She's actually all right. But if she doesn't get a better group of friends, who knows where she'll end up?
And the lummox with no shoes beats up the first boy on a daily basis.

i'm so tall i'll have to take an elevator to the gallows

I love the trashy, stinky, spent -but-glamorous look of country stars from the 1970s.

Waylon Jennings is one of my favorites.

The U.S.'s strategy of bankrupting the USSR seems obvious in retrospect.

"Great Madmen of the 20th Century"

I would prefer if, in spoken conversation, we could use the form "ship's log" instead of "blog".

It reminds me of a waitress who served me beer this week: She had lines down the side of her face as if she'd slept on wide-wale corduroy. I kept expecting them to fade but they were still there each time she came back to our table.

It goes "bing" when there's stuff.

Depression Machines

Imagine we had access to reliable depression inducers: You'd strap one to your leg, just like a house arrest anklet, and it would modify your brain chemistry to keep you in a state of depression.

How just would it be to use such devices in criminal proceedings, as, say, an alternative to fines or prison time?

Garfield Minus Garfield

Another good way to think about this, is that maybe instead of John being completely alone, there's a kidnap victim bound and gagged just off screen.

Is there a word to describe that feeling that happens when you look at someone and want to protect them and nurture them and rape them and devour them and own them and share them and hoard them and eat them and worship them, all at once? I'm sure the Germans must have a word for it.

Until then I know it as Katie.

-Clayton Cubitt

fat horse

fat horse

one primary colour’s contrast is the mix of the other two – so, yellow’s is purple

dark purple and light gray

An appealing combination. I imagine wine and concrete and it gives me old-world shivers. Classicism (or its daughters and adherents) triumphs through quiet.

Cassette from my ex

Another "here's what I was left with" type aggregator.

For looking at later.

momento mori

I've been thinking about mortality a lot lately. This isn't specifically new, because I've always had a morbid fascination. What's new is the realization of finality and inevitability: I am going to die someday.

Saxifragales: Dr. Who alien, or flowering plant?

jet lag

You don't get jet lag when traveling on the North-South axis. If I were to fly ten hours (say, to Peru or Argentina), I wouldn't get jet lag.

Oh sure, you'll have nausea and lose your appetite. Be dehydrated and fatigued. All the effects of being in an airplane breathing recycled dry air for ten hours.

But jet lag? Nope. This is wrong.

"simultaneously really awesome and ridiculous"

also good simultaneous: "crazy and successful"

What methods of suicide are acceptable within the Amish faith?

Casino royale

If the bond movies are a night drinking, this is its hangover

Museum of Broken Relationships

Maybe it's actually the capitalist aspect of Exboyfriend Jewelry that bothers me, because this seems kind of sweet.

a suggestion

Albuquerque: Come see the premiere of Jake Leister's Front Door at the Guild Cinema tomorrow.
This is part of the NM Filmmakers' Showcase 2008, and I'm really happy I got to play a part in it. If you want to see my mug projected on the big screen, now's your chance.

“Front Door”- Jake Leister, Albuquerque, 21 min.
Plagued by a fear of public speaking, Johnny enlists the help of an unconventional therapist noted for his bizarre forms of treatment.

See you there (or not).

Ex-Boyfriend Jewelry bothers me immensely. It's so vindictive. So unwilling to let things go, in a very, very unhealthy way..

A few weeks after my ex-girlfriend moved out (this was years ago), I noticed she'd taken my cologne with her. Weird, I know.

Ex-Boyfriend Jewelery is that kind of weird.

fun-size bottles of mouthwash

I adore these things.

dracula

Dracula gets tons of girls! How come nobody ever talks about this?

Synchronous chronology

What does it mean that the traditional novel presents the story in (roughly) the reverse order that it was written in, while a blog presents it in the forward timeline?

The problem with trains is

They are too long and the ride is too short. For example, there is a really pretty girl getting on the other end of the train (the one without the bike area). In the time it would take me to get to the other end of the train, I'd have already arrived at my destination. And then I'd have to run back to get my bike.

This leaves no time to talk to the pretty girl in the scuffed shoes.

Solution: Board the train at an earlier stop (12 miles south in Belen).

Fred Durst

What if Mr. Durst was a totemic icon, one present throughout any culture occupying a certain type of environment?

Cannibal theory for locust swarms

They suggest that locusts combine into swarms because they are frightened of being eaten by each other.


yeaaarrrgh

District Judge Second Judicial District, 26th Division

The campaign placards for local politician Charles W. Brown use black text on a yellow background and a decorative zig-zag pattern festooning the bottom.

It is quite charming.

Natalie Portman

Why is it she had so much gravitas playing a child pretending to be mature in "The Professional" but now is only believable playing an adult pretending to be childish?

Leather sheaths for electronics

If people took the time to purchase well-made holsters for their cellphones and devices, they wouldn't look so cheap. Good leather applies a nice rosy patina of history and decorum that the bland neon casing of most machines lack.

Heartbeat Detector

Mathieu Amalric, who looks precisely like Roman Polanski, has a desperately searching face and a distinct lack of deliberation and certainty in his actions. In this film, he covers that up until he can't anymore.

Envelopes

Mail comes in a fairly standard format. Is this a result of some early globalization?

Lying motionless

Have you noticed that a child's defense against quicksand and T.Rex are basically the same?

"Trenes" in spanish

Besides riding the train i also like waiting for the train.

Modern conversational currency

At least for a certain set of middle aged people: It isn't the world and what we think of it, or even the weather.
It's how much your job takes out of you.

How enervated and depressed it leaves you.

Or wait

That HAS happened.

9-11 on buses

Seriously, why hasn't this happened? Or even a bomb left on an Amtrak?

Step it up!

"wet leprosy"

Steampunk

Has just about outlived its welcome. It's the worst parts of the pirate fascination blended with the most self-indulgent and non-intellectual aspects of goth plus a peppering of the gizmo geek.

Two things
It's an aesthetic culture. By that I mean it has no overt philosophy. This seems craven and egotistical in the worst way.

It's a culture that fetishizes technology. So what philosphy it does have is both a) expressed unconsciously and b) conservative (in that it reinforces existing trends).

This seems both Stupid and counterproductive.

And the god damn goggles.

Posting this from a train

The Railrunner doors make "meep meep" Warner Road Runner noises when closing.

Here is an idea

The Dept of Transportation can be divided into two factions: one that wants to use large-scale highway design as magical symbols to summon the Old Ones, and another that is against it. Because the factions are at odds, highway design is inefficient.

This is only if a) designs have magical power and b) you're really at a loss for a good conspiracy theory.

"Greetings, program!"

Senior citizens of the corn?

here are some unappreciated types of people

• Fattish, sloppily dressed men who are totally content with who they are
  
• Cobblers
• Dedicated service workers, (like grocery produce clerks and greenhouse employees)
• Parents who teach their kids engagement and curiosity
• Obsessives
  
• Crackpots who start successful businesses
  

papparazi

Also on the subject of paparazzi, I’m reading the WKPD entry on it and it turns out that the word origin goes to Italian for a particularly annoying kind of buzzing mosquito. Makes me think of futuristic surveillance technology when they can automate these kinds of things: little flying cameras that swarm after you and try to suck things out of your datawake…

link

This opens up a big avenue for me: what other modern professions will be automated or replaced by technology in the future? Many types of surgeon, I'm sure. Taxi driver. Pharmacist?

ironically (?), it took someone treating me like a bad person to make me realize i'm not actually a bad person.

Ralph Bakshi

This man is walking the streets of my hometown.

Look into his eyes and see anger. See spite. See the bitterness of one who must live with the knowledge that he released Thomas Kinkade upon the world.

Was P.G. Wodehouse's estate paid anything by the owners of AskJeeves.com?

The reason there is so much bad photographic retouching out there is because Photoshop is accessible and relatively easy to learn.

What happens when plastic surgery becomes as easy and accessible as Photoshop?

secret professions

What about "secret professions"? Jobs that the general public doesn't know about because they don't know a particular field well enough to understand that the specific conditions and needs which give rise to a certain job description even exist, let alone the job itself.

Almost by definition, I can think of very few of these secret professions. Maybe people who practice rather mundane professions in extraoardinary conditions, like crime scene cleaners, are a good example? Or people who practice relatively well-understood crafts with such skill and nuance that they appear more specialized and are more valued than their counterparts in other industries? Photo translators/whisperers are a good example of the latter.

Or "secret experts": people better at their secret profession than anyone else, but destined to a life of obscurity except amongst a specific few.

Funny Games

I really like the simplicity, abstraction, and pallor of the promotional materials for Haneke's 2007 version of Funny Games. They stand out in sharp contrast to most modern thriller/horror film posters, which are so often dark in pallet and direct in content. Having broken eggs and smudges of black dirt stand in for blood isn't a very subtle metaphor, but it does add a sense of the abstract to an otherwise visceral form.





Of course, the most widely used poster is the one using Naomi Watts' teary face. While this poster does use the standard "dark colors equal dark content" pallet, there's a great deal of unprecedented vulnerability in the choice to show a full-face shot of a victim in tears, rather than in physical duress or in mid-scream.



Compare the material for Funny Games to the material from other recent thriller/horror films:

Two from the Saw series:





The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake:



The Ruins:



And, probably the pinnacle (so direct it's now almost abstract), Hostel 2:

pill problems

I picked up, on a whim, an herbal supplement from the grocery store. It was advertised as being a "mood lifter," so I assumed it was full of stimulants.

That was Stupid.

It's full of kava kava.

No wonder I've been so unproductive lately.

incredible hulk

i want edward norton to morph into a giant green brad pitt

just to make it perfectly clear,

i fucking love libraries

Performing CPR on giants might require large prostheses or servo assists.

golden gate bridge

This plaque is on the Golden Gate Bridge, site of over 1,500 suicides since 1937. I think it's quite touching. "The consequences of jumping from this bridge are fatal and tragic" is compassion as expressed through a filter of government regulations.

1599: The Burmese king Nanda Bayin reportedly "laughed to death when informed, by a visiting Italian merchant, that Venice was a free state without a king."

What if this was an assassination?

With the existence of Venice as the murder weapon?

scorch the earth
burn the apartments
salt the soil
salt everything


jerusalem by rome

hamburg by the allies

iwo jima by the yanks

Tributes.com

This is interesting, it's social networking (social memorality?) for the dead.

Are we getting to that point again? Where we as a society start to worry about mortality and how it relates to technology?

more

a hurting heart does not have to be closed

a good thing about anger is that it's an energy source

umami

The fifth flavor (as yet unnamed in English, so we refer to it by the Japanese) is present in Parmesan cheese, anchovies, and ripe tomatoes, as well as in certain wines and most potato chips.

a parking structure requires power to operate.

Without ventilation equipment throughout each floor, car exhaust would collect and cause discomfort and injury due to pollution and carbon monoxide.

rather than recount my activities and regrets in detail i'm just going to say, for once, that i've got a lot of problems i need to work out.

now.
i'm going to shut up. at least until i've got something to write that's not self-indulgent moping.

it's beyond me how people find the strength of character necessary to love one another properly

I can still have fun while being blindingly unhappy. It's a sort of half-hearted and fatalistic sort of fun, but it's enjoyable enough to make me laugh and talk engagingly. It's misleading, but mature.

"Of course, the outer space in Alien is a very different place compared to Star Wars or Star Trek, where everything has seemingly been explored and identified."

Kyle Ryan, neatly reducing the difference between science fiction and horror to a simple difference in levels of colonization and taxonomy.

he was easily the best part of the film, more charismatic and more complex and interesting than brando by a mile.

http://strongcity.info/

Really interesting that the blog and comment-thread forms are in use here.

strong city's michael travesser

This is from the Strong City site.
It's captioned "Michael Pouring out the Fourth Plague" (which you may recall is a plague of "flies or beasts."

I'm unclear if he's releasing the plague or expelling it.

well holy shit

New Mexico police remove 3 kids from church compound

State police have removed three children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with some of his followers.

The two girls and one boy - all under the age of 18 - were taken from the northeastern New Mexico compound following an April 22 investigation, Romaine Serna, spokeswoman for the state Children, Youth and Families Department, said Wednesday.

She said a fourth child, a girl, agreed to be interviewed by the department. Serna said that girl had been at the compound but now lives elsewhere with her parents.

The three children were taken into state custody because of allegations of inappropriate contact between minors and the adult leader of the Lord Our Righteousness Church, Serna said.

"I understand that it was very calm, and (state police) did not meet with any resistance," she said. Serna said she wasn't aware of any other youths at the compound.

Serna declined to elaborate because of the continuing investigation by state police and the district attorney's office. No charges had been filed, she said. The church has at least 70 members, Serna said.

Wayne Bent, 66, who is known in the church as Michael Travesser, established the church at a rural site called Strong City, north of Clayton in extreme northeastern New Mexico. He said God anointed him messiah in July 2000.

link

Strong City site

When there are fires in New Mexico (or even Arizona or California), the skies in Albuquerque take on a pallid dirty quality that affects everyone's mood and health. On particularly bad days, those responsible for public health will advise the citizenry to stay indoors: children and the infirm are particularly susceptible to smoky air.

There is a good part, though. The weather has been dirty and smoky for the past week: in the light just after dawn, the mountains look less like masses of dirt and stone and more like a mountain-shaped absence in the sky. It looks for all the world as if someone had torn a jagged low hole in the fabric of the sky.

the tempest prognosticator

The Tempest Prognosticator, also known as the Leech Barometer invention, is a 19th century invention in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck.

wanna eat the arms

My theory is that the fascinated revulsion most people feel towards squid and octopuses* is because we instinctively want to devour them but social norms prevent us from doing so.



*This is the correct English plural form. "Octopi" isn't a word in any language: in the original Greek the plural is "octopodes",

Faceless creatures are the most frightening because they have no expressions that will signal their intent.

-from somebody else

I lack patience.