Monthly Archive for December, 2001

Christmas Eve Always used to Be Fun

When I was a kid, it was almost more excit­ing that Christ­mas day — we’d go to the grand­par­ents house, and there’d be lit­er­ally hun­dreds of pack­ages every­where. you couldn’t walk across the room. If by chance there were out­siders in atten­dance, they’d be shocked that a family of 6 could wrap so much… and each year we’d up the number. I remem­ber get­ting a my first trip to NYC in 1995… a sabres jersey (#89 mogilny) in 1989. there was a cab­bage patch kid in 1984. It was always a pic­ture per­fect com­mer­cial­ized Christmas.

anyway, yada yada yada… basi­cally I’m get­ting nos­tal­gic for the Christ­mas I never had.

Also, Pres­ley and I exchanged gifts tonight… and she bought me this amaz­ing book ret­ro­spec­tive of RayGun Mag­a­zine, pos­si­bly the best writ­ten and best designed music rag ever. Also, cause I get two presents… she bought me 3 harry potter action fig­ures: quid­ditch harry, ron, & malfoy. (fuck­ing malfoy) I can’t decide whether I want to play with them, or keep them in their packaging… oh and for my birth­day, Pres got me this old framed poster advertisement… some­thing about cold reme­dies. I will have to study it more when I get back to the city. Thanks sweet­ies! (too much AbFab)

Also, Jeffy and Jules…. where are you? I hear you are home for the holidays…

<3 you all, happy stuff.

December 25, 2001 » Tags: . » 4 Comments

Home

we’ve made it the 450 miles down­wind from boston to buf­falo. The 2 ‘B’s. I’m now sit­ting at a blue­berry imac, trying like fuck to get the hocky-​puck mouse to do what i need it to. i’m thrilled to see that suck­ahs tests well on Mac IE 5.0… i was totally wierded out when we went to visit 666 last week­end – the site worked ok on her imac (ie 4.5), but i made some minor changes to fix little bugs. i totally need an imac in my non-​existent design stoodio.

i love the mac­in­tosh OS inter­face – so lovely. But what on earth were they think­ing with the little keys and hockey-​puck mouse!!! and no scroll wheel??!

We’re going to some buf­falo wing / beer joint over in East Amherst, next to Doc’s family funhouse… is that still there albany dan? i’m on the look­out for a shoot -’em up video game. Romo the homo is meet­ing us, and i’m hoping that he’ll be a little nicer to me this time. that fuck was so rude last time…. and if you think i’m fish­ing for an apol­ogy here, you’re only par­tially right. i’m also look­ing for wings and beer.

Oh, and speak­ing of vis­it­ing 666 in brook­lyn this past week­end, she made me this won­der­fully crafty ‘cork board’, and gave me a great­est hits book of ramond carver sto­ries. I love the sto­ries – extra­or­di­nary tales of ordi­nary folks… reminds me of albany danno’s writ­ing style and sub­ject matter. Are you a fan, danno?

December 19, 2001 » Tags: . » 3 Comments

HOLY FOOK.

HOLY FOOK. I WILL BE   TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD ON SAT­UR­DAY, DECEM­BER 22.

December 17, 2001 » Tags: . » 4 Comments

PR Majors

I just proof-​read my subletter’s latest PR paper, and i would just like to say that she writes at a high school level. It is totally laugh­able to me that she get’s A’s at emer­son col­lege for these papers. This would be a C paper any­where else – maybe C-. And, in six months, she is going to be writ­ing public rela­tions drivel…

December 12, 2001 » Tags: . » 6 Comments

Do Linguists Have Fun, too?

Fresh Air is get­ting stale

ok, some random stranger person called me on my cell phone to tell me that NPR’s Fresh Air was doing a piece on blog­ging. (listen in Real Audio) This Nun­berg guy’s pieces always have this strange fatal­is­tic tone to them – as if the evo­lu­tion of lan­guage over the years has specif­i­cally con­tributed to the debase­ment of civ­i­liza­tion. err some­thing. But then, as if he hadn’t spent the past two and a half min­utes rip­ping up what­ever sub­ject he’s talk­ing about, he always has some hope­ful thought for the future of such-and-such… you get the sense that this guy doesn’t spend time enjoy­ing the here-and-now.

…the only thing blog­gers seem to have in common, is that they have a lot of time on their hands, and an exhi­bi­tion­ist streak…

god, his tone of voice when he says that betrays his elit­ism and, dare I say, his gen­er­a­tion. We know which side of the cul­ture war that he’s on.

Still, I’m not going to deny his points, nor am I worthy of mount­ing a com­pli­cated defense of ‘blogging’… I think that blog­ging is just another demo­c­ra­tic exten­sion of the spirit and free­dom that the inter­net offers. Nun­berg admits this, but you get the sense that he doesn’t see in it much inherit value. I know there are good blogs, bad blogs, depress­ing blogs, and joyous blogs.

Yet, there is some­thing inher­ently Amer­i­can in it, I think. In so far as any­thing can be such a thing.

December 11, 2001 » Tags: . » 3 Comments

:`(

Two of my favorite weblog­gers, Tina & Mary have both hung up their key­boards for the near future…

I’ve enjoyed Tina’s lay­outs and pho­tog­ra­phy for almost a year now. And, Mary… well Mary’s got a great eye for color, a bemused wit, and she’s been some help to me with the suck­ahs site. She even says hi.

December 10, 2001 » Tags: . » 3 Comments

I employ you

ok, so here is the funny story about an old friend that I promised–

About a month ago, I received this e-mail from our high school friend Matt:

John, hello. I just had a con­ver­sa­tion with Ruby (who is in town today), and she had men­tioned that she had a chat with you. She had said that you had just started your own graph­ics design company.

ok, that’s funny… because I haven’t talked to Ruby (who is the long-​time girl­friend of Matt’s twin, Eric), since high school, and never very often. back to the story:

My first reac­tion was envy (because I’m still in school and I haven’t learned any­thing that I am trully inter­ested in). But that was short-​lived, because I remem­bered the kinda person you were and the things I always knew you were cabable of. Best of luck to you.

wha?

I have a seri­ous inquiry that you may or may not be inter­ested in. If every­thing goes well, I will be grad­u­at­ing in Decem­ber with BA’s in Phi­los­o­phy and Com­puter Sci­ence. I have had enough of the mid­west, so I have decided that I will live and work any­where that is worth the hassle. I have been think­ing of the west coast a lot, but my mind is open. This leads me to the fol­low­ing ques­tion (which I hope you will take seriously):

at which point I am com­pletely dumbfounded…

do you need any help with your busi­ness? What do you say? Sin­cerely, Matt

What do I say?? My ‘graphics design company’ is a free­lance front for me, myself, and me. So, I said that I was an unem­ployed dot-​communist, and I don’t have any jobs to offer.

So very strange! I haven’t talked to him since that summer he came back to buf­falo, except for the occa­sional weird e-mail. So, I guess the more impor­tant ques­tion is, why the hell is Ruby Hardon (what is her real name?) telling people that she talked to me? I’m flat­tered, really, that she’d go to all the trouble…

December 10, 2001 » Tags: . » 3 Comments