CompleteBrekfast (11:48:20 PM): my friend just told me that he proposed to his girlfriend CompleteBrekfast (11:48:38 PM): and I was about to say (over email) something like, wow, yeah, also my other friend got engaged and my other friend had a kid CompleteBrekfast (11:48:46 PM): but then I realized it is not cool to minimize his excitement CompleteBrekfast (11:48:53 PM): that’s like the flip side of minimizing someone’s pain CompleteBrekfast (11:49:09 PM): like, “I just found out I have cancer and they’re going to have to remove my penis” CompleteBrekfast (11:49:55 PM): “Oh yeah that sucks, my friend has gangrene and so they’re cutting off his penis too, and my other friend has a goose stuck up his ass and can’t sit down except on big tires”

Several months ago, I started (and soon after ceased) to post essays on a little page. I had hoped that, if nothing else, having this forum on which to put my “completed” works would entice me to write more and more. It worked, for a little while (as you can see if you peruse the dates of the articles), but it has gone largely ignored for the past 9 months or so.

Earlier this week, 9 months to the day since I had last posted, I was tempted to write a piece, but I could not find anything to write about. But after going to my writing class this evening, I realized that my biggest problem as a writer is not in my mechanical ability (or lack thereof) to construct sentences, characters, and plots, but rather the fact that I am completely devoid of anything remotely resembling a work ethic. And for the first time in months, I was able to retain this feeling of wanting to write when I got home.

I’m hoping to be able to keep this up, and in the interest of doing so, I am placing a strict schedule on myself, where I must write something every day. I may not post all of these things, but hopefully more than a few will make it past my rigorous process of loathing and self-doubt and onto these pages where somebody, God knows, will actually read them. Or not.

Anyway, my latest piece is on politicians, gay marriage, and Uzbekistan. And if that doesn’t make you read on, then, well, I never really cared about you anyway.

For the first time in four years, I have a new keyboard! This is quite a big deal for me (as everyone in my office will attest, having been forced to try it out as I waltzed it around the office like my firstborn). But, really, folks…isn’t she a beauty? Like an ivory goddess!

Finally, at long last, I can ditch the old half sized keyboard that shipped with my original PowerMac G3 (along with the infamous hockey puck mouse which, to my surprise, actually serves pretty well as a hockey puck). This model has full sized arrow keys and F-keys (all sixteen!), forward delete and end keys, control and options keys on both sides of the spacebar, plus volume controls and an eject button. I’m in heaven! The only thing it lacks, sadly, is a power button, which the old keyboard did have. This will put a damper on my ability to turn my computer on from bed every morning. But it’s a small price to pay, my friends, for bliss.

As someone who spends a lot of hard work and energy pretending to be a writer, the keyboard is a very important instrument. I imagine that I feel the way about a keyboard that a painter might feel about his brush, or a chef about his favorite knife, or a bagpiper about his, well, bagpipes. And it’s not just a matter of composing words; computing for me is a largely tactile experience. I spend much of the time navigating via the keyboard, eschewing the mouse when at all possible. Even with two buttons, a scroll wheel, and an optical tracking mechanism, there’s only so much can do with the little rodent.

More than anything else, this baby makes me want to sit down and pound on its keys like it’s a Steinway. And that’s a joy which not just any keyboard can bring you!

Yesterday I was talking to my friend Nicola. I was about to tell her the little cockroach story below, and then I realized, wait, no, I can just make her go read it online and save myself the effort. I did just that, and left the room. When I saw her again later, she asked what the point was.

What’s the point? What’s the point? Ok, apparently we need to explain this blog thing a little.

Read More…

I just saw the biggest bug I have ever seen in my life (outside of maybe a zoo or Starship Troopers), and it was in my frigging apartment. It was a cockroach, probably about 3/4 of the length of my pinky finger, not including antennae. I wouldn’t say I have a long pinky, but it’s certainly not stubby or anything. This was a large insect. Like, it could probably take Jiminy Cricket in a fair fight, had it been alive. That was the fortunate part, I guess — it was lying on its back, just a few feet from my bed.

My first reaction was immediate terror (“Are there more?!”), disgust (“It’s the size of a small cat!”), and shame (“What’s so bad about my apartment that led this thing here?”). That eventually gave way to a sort of disturbed curiosity, however: what the hell is so bad about my apartment that it killed a creature famous for its ability to survive a nuclear holocaust?

…or Yet Another Weird Screenshot

…or Yet Another Weird Screenshot

A picture is worth a thousand words.

But not when it’s that ridiculous. This is probably the most disturbing publicity shot from a superhero film since the first image of Thomas Jane as The Punisher (described by Ain’t It Cool News: “[he] doesn’t look like he’s the Punisher, he looks like he’s a lead-paint drinking Punisher fan told he has to move out.”).

To be honest, nobody’s ever accused superhero costumes of being practical. But, don’t you think she’s going to be cold? I mean, cats have fur for chrissakes, not ripped leather pants. Also, that cat mask? Well, now we know the reason that the cops could never catch Catwoman: they were laughing too damn hard.