reason Number Two why i hate my cats

still buried like the wicked witch except that it's work not a house atop me and my shoes aren't nearly as cute. D off leading a XC ski trip somewhere where there is snow -- not here sob -- and whilst packing last night made a disturbing discovery.

- i went down to the basement to get my skis and while i was there one of the cats walked past the litter box, right by me, and then squatted in the corner of the boiler room and started to take a crap.
- right on the bare floor?!?
- on the bare floor. it wasn't the first time either. i've been finding the odd cat turd here and there, but i thought it was because the litter boxes weren't clean enough and the cats were pushing the old poops out. but it's not.
- fucking cats. oh i hate them. so what did you do?
- i picked her up mid-poop and threw her outside. she keeps doing this she's going to be LIVING outside. or in heaven.

i lobby for the latter, but if it's heaven she's going to i'll take the low road.

many thanks to E for reminding me that natalie dee loves cats too.

away from her

- you know this weekend would have been grandmother and pete's 66th wedding anniversary - my mom told me.

and 8 years ago we put down finley. the nice thing about grandmother though is that her tenuous grasp on reality doesn't include pedestrian constructs like days, months, years or the finer details of losing someone. the gross loss is still there, but an anniversary isn't.

- i took her to the dining room upstairs and she asked me if there was anything i wanted her to do. she asked the aide who brought her lunch the same thing. while i cut up her sandwich we looked out the window and she watched the wind in the big oak tree. i talked about the shapes of the clouds -- she usually likes that -- and she was sort of interested but she was in a different place, just a really bewildered place. her ice cream came and she didn't know which end of the spoon to use. when i took over she thanked me and said i was beautiful, that i looked like a good soul. and was there anything else i wanted her to do.

my mum isn't a crier, and here's her voice wavering delicately.

- i lost her. she's another person, finn. she's nice, but she's not my mother.

when i followed up a morning 4000yd swim practise with a run-bike-run-bike-run-bike-run brick in the afternoon D shook his head but didn't ask why.

reason #0500 why i love mac

last night on my way home from getting spindled, mashed and rebooted by denise the 90lb massage therapist i wondered whether the toxic bloom that'd closed the Y's pool that morning had been redressed and whether i should attempt to swim this morning, or sleep in. i want to call, but i don't know the number.

so:
1. i typed my Y's name into iphone's googleMaps, which by default searches around my current location.
2. gMaps delivered a local map with a red pin nailing my Y.
3. a touch of the "more" arrow alongside the pin showed my Y's info. if apple & gMaps were really on, they'd display the infestation level of my pool with a Tufte-worthy infographic, but i'll settle for a phone number i can call with a touch.
4. aaron answered, told me the pool's fine, and i was returned to the Y info, which incidentally enables me to bookmark the Y's URL, add the # to my Contacts, and get directions to/from there.**

all stuff that's useful, works the way i think and answered my question in <30sec.
that's one, or three, reasons.
here are more: 50 Reasons to Switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple’s Mac OS X.

of course, as SRess has made me aware, the Mac/PC argument is so very Stuff That White People Like, as are marathons, expensive sandwiches, asian girls and barak obama.

[StuffWhitePeopleLike]

have a white weekend.

**5. then i slept in.

as desperation increases so does the amount of desk crap

as i prepare my performing monkey routine for a 2pm pitch with a financial giant, i gather courage and strength from the fact that i have successfully unclogged the 4th floor toilet.**

this one's for the Major, in honor of his first book, The Order of the Phoenix Park. i sure hope fame doesn't change him.

**NOT MY FAULT.

nina is wise

called nina during lunch yesterday. didn't know where else to go.

- neens i got the dog - i said when she picked up.
- el per-roh neg-roh - she confirmed in an atrocious baltimore accent, then fell back on her raspy croon - it's february, finn. the dog always comes in february.
she's right of course. i'd forgotten.
- but it's bad this time. i spent the whole weekend in bed. even if i wanted to, i'm too tired to train. i haven't written in two weeks. and yesterday i came home from work and went straight to bed. it sucks, it really sucks.
- i know, hon.
she's kind and doesn't call me on complaining about a weekend taken away when she's lost years.
- and last night i had this dream. you know the dreams about flying and sex, right? well in this dream i was all bundled up with M - M is my soulmate who's utterly unaware of this fact and therefore crushingly uncooperative - and we were flying in the sky together and everything was great until until he shit in my mouth. like, IN my mouth. what the fuck. how do you read THAT. is that my future? my dreams? whatthefuckever. i just want to go home and curl up with jack.
- it's tuesday. you should go to the track.
- you can't be serious. i haven't been to the track in months. i haven't been doing any speedwork. i'm out of shape and TIRED, nina.
- so go slow. you always say you feel better after track, right? so - in the background i heard a loud crash - finn, i gotta go. chloe's trapped under a kitchen chair.
- oh. i hope she's okay.
nina snorted derisively and hung up.

so i went to the track, and she was right.

you suck at charisma

i am the tragic heroine in my own Jane Eyre - Office Space mashup right now so parDONaMAY if i come off churlish and grumpy. but this article - 8 Keys to Instant Charisma - just popped up in my Google Reader and as i am nothing if not charismatic, vivacious and specfuckingtackular, it needs a response.

for victims of ADD, PMS or CNN, i'll summarise. the 8 keys are as follows:

1. Mirroring
2. Remembering Names
3. Be Interested
4. Allowing Others to Talk
5. Intention
6. Offer Help
7. Smile
8. Authenticity

ghastly inconsistency in parallel structure aside, i have to say this list is utter shite. maybe for gutless pussies who've never been laid this is a good list. if you suckjd at photoshop, those 8 keys are all you. but for REAL people, if you want to validate yourself and be liked in MY shitty little world @MyCo here are 8 keys for you:

1. don't puke on the sidewalk outside the building and expect the office manager to clean it up before a client visits.
2. don't strew your nasty marlboro light butts around the entranceway and expect the same.
3. don't leave pubes on the seat of the crapper; don't piss on the floor; don't shit on the underside of the toilet seat; don't leave floaters. fuck sake, don't you notice these things as you're washing your hands??
4. wash your hands.
5. don't assume that a lack of planning on your part constitutes an emergency on mine.
6. does it look like i want to chitchat next to the fridge? i don't. move aside and let the man go through.
7. don't be a cunt.
8. know when it's Opposite Day. on Opposite Day nos 1-7 are sources of infinite amusement and joy. on Opposite Day one merry little bobber will entertain me and loucypher all afternoon. i felt like it was Opposite Day during the GOP debate on wed night when, in a response to janet hook, mitt romney spooled off a litany of objectionable things about john mccain. but it wasn't Opposite Day; romney's just a tard.

HTH. pls direct all questions here.

barak obama is muslim, or Why the Fuck Should it Matter

the NYT is running a comment thread inspired by a CBS poll which asked the presidential candidates to select ONE book they consider essential to take to the White House, **other than the Bible**.

readers are asked to propose their shortlist of books that a would-be president should read before tackling the country's economic and financial state.

my favorite response so far is the following:

A good start (for America) would be:

1. The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, &
2. God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens

All else follows…

— Posted by GC Ross

and look, you don't even have to read the book -- the cliff notes are in this 5min video.

warning: Time Machine may have unintended effects

i have to wonder how much Apple tests its new technologies before sending them to market. are they fully aware of the capabilities? for instance, whenever i use the iphone's pretend-GPS+googlemaps to get from point A to point B i end up in a dario argento film. the only person to recognise them for what they were, loucypher asked are those rope burns?

then there is leopard's Time Machine, which at the outset seems like a very clever idea -- backups in the background -- but the consequences can in some cases be dire. example: this weekend while cleaning up Horace, my 500G music harddrive, i dropped a folder intended for the trashbin onto the Time Machine icon instead, and look what happened. NKOTB is back.

i'm terribly sorry about this and don't know how to undo what i've set into motion: cmd-Z proved ineffectual. maybe i can atone in another way? so i've just dropped this pic onto the TM icon:


stay tuned.

btw, here's a short, poignant recollection of ledger from christopher nolan, director of the upcoming dark knight. if you've not seen the trailer, go here (you want trailer 2 in hi-def). nothing in his pockets but knives and lint.

"feeding time causes a great deal of excitement"

i thought my house was bad, but at least there you can sit down without 6 cats crawling on top of you. christ. a little mustard gas would clear that right up.

cormac mccarthy is sanguine

don't think that just because someone writes a book named All the Pretty Horses he's all rainbows and flowers and shit. look at No Country for Old Men. did you see that? did you take a shower as soon as you got home, and did you crack open the raspberry body wash, a christmas present from someone who thinks you're a girl?

Blood Meridian's similarly cheery. here's a taste, but first the context:
our "protagonists" (a posse of indian hunters in the 1850s west) happen upon a long line of mules picking their way along a precipitous, switchbacked path on a mountain slope. the mules are loaded down with bags of mercury for the mines. out of sheer boredom, our band of happy travelers begins shooting the muleteers, and while bodies tumble off horses into the abyss below, the men press on, shoving their way between the mules and the mountain.

now that the scene's set:

the laden packmules were beginning to clamber white-eyed at the sheer wall of the bluff like enormous rats. The riders pushed between them and the rock and methodically rode them from the escarpment, the animals dropping silently as martyrs, turning sedately in the empty air and exploding on the rocks below in startling bursts of blood and silver as the flasks broke open and the mercury loomed wobbling in the air in great sheets and lobes and small trembling satellites and all its forms grouping below and racing in the stone arroyos like the imbreachment of some ultimate alchemic work decocted from out the secret dark of the earth's heart...
(chap xiv, p195)

at the time of reading, i really didn't like Blood Meridian; i found the endless march through waterless places dreary and fruitless and the constant inexplicable cruelty was a real downer. but i pressed on because something had to happen at the end -- and did it evah -- and you have to admit that the man can paint a scene... though it might not impact you 'til later.

because during the ride on sunday, when big don clattered through deep cracks in the shoulder off barksdale and i joked - you riding through the grand canyon? - suddenly that image of mules plummeting off the face of a mountain to explode like piggy's head on the rocks far below and the lobes of blood and silver wobbling, all that came back vivid as bruegel.

combing through the book to find that passage above, i found myself reading pages here & there, scenes i remember from the first time through: the idiot's baptism, dogs for sale, the judge's sentence on the kid: sie müssen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen (they must sleep, but i have to dance). and i thought, i have to read this again, because sometimes after an initial recoil from a book, album or painting that artist becomes one of your favorites. but later, because i'm in the middle of The Ultimates vol2, in which thor loses that dorky winged helmet and becomes a total hottie and captain america isn't so ghey.

SOTU, florida, qtrax and my dog: predictions

big day today. let's see what's on tap, and my predictions.

1. Our Glorious Leader's FINAL state of the union thankfuckinggod. lemme guess -- the union is FINE and soze the economy. here's $600 to prove it -- but make sure you SPEND it quick. using it to pay down your credit card debt is un-american.

2. florida GOP primaries. will the giuliani faithful emerge from their foxholes and deliver their man to victory? my magic 8-ball says Cannot Predict Now, demonstrating that it is more even-handed and candid than your average media organisation.

here's one more reason to like rudy, though: tamper-proof ID cards that will allow you to "work, pay taxes, GET ONLINE, become a citizen, follow the rules..."



art is resistance, friends.

3. Qtrax, the record industry's answer to illegal downloading, goes live at midnite (for Windoze; macs wait 'til march). in the works for 5 years, qtrax is a gnutella-based peer-to-peer app that allows you to legally and for free download from a library of 25M songs. with the blessing of EMI, universal & warner, qtrax ponied up $30M USD to launch the site and hopes to run a profitable biz off selling adspace to the likes of ford, mcdonalds and microsoft. while supporting artists, of course.

prediction? i don't know, but i suspect the 10M users who patronise pirate bay aren't going to convert in droves, and qtrax's centralised, locked-down solution doesn't seem to address the new one-to-one relationship between artists and their fans. the radiohead and saul williams business model is much more fitting but admittedly risky insofar as it assumes people have the basic decency, and means, to support the artists they enjoy.

here's the qtrax deal-breaker for me:

Automatic updates and downloads
You agree that in order for QTRAX/QTRAXMAX to work properly, QTRAX/QTRAXMAX will from time to time automatically download updates to your computer in order to update the QTRAX/QTRAXMAX software. You hereby irrevocably consent to allow such automatic updates to take place.
(from the legal disclaimer)

here in the united states of amerika we don't "irrevocably consent" to anything, much less third-party control over our computurz.

4. afternoon run with the J-dog. my predictions? - he will wheel 360s in the air when i don my inov-8s and murmur "yessss"; he will bark like a maniac for the first 5min, poop out around 5miles and take a shortcut to cut out the final 200m right before the stream crossing. at 7pm D will wonder 'where is the dog?' and find him in my laundry basket where he will sleep through the State of the Union and polling countdown as, hopefully, will i.

UPDATE:
Free music downloads site in chaos as record giants pull out: Warner Music said it had not authorised the use of its tracks by Qtrax - and later Universal Music Group and EMI followed suit, saying they did not have licensing deals with Qtrax and discussions were continuing.

oops. who didn't get around to ironing out that little detail?

pee, poo and pshop

you suck at photoshop. you do. so let donnie show you how to suck less.



this is lesson 3; check out lesson 1 and lesson 2.
[update -- hot off the presses: lesson #4]

don't sprain your vagina has been absorbed into the MyCo core taxonomy.

and here's an analog version: alison jackson's shots use look-a-likes of celebrities and public figures to create a photographic or filmic image, which challenges the observers' perception of reality by creating a false reality. in this gallery you'll find bill gates dancing with an ipod, tom croooz proselytising to his daughter, Our Glorious Leader pondering a rubik's cube... good stuff.

finally, after a shite week, this cheered me up: the Turd Burgler. it's not only gratifying to say -- like cat butler -- but it can be a rousing game as well. the Turd Burgler game set includes an indestructible, rubber Practice Poopie®, and an official looking rule book, called, "Poop Dreams" filled with 9 poop related yard games, using the Practice Poopie® as the game piece. The uniqueness comes from the many different markets we serve. It's a yard and garden tool for pet poop, rotten vegetables, and shedding fruit trees and whacking retarded myopic snorgoyles that actually pee shit okay maybe i added that part but it's app-row-poe.

btw this comes from a collection of the 14 Best Poop Gadgets.
because it's been that kind of week. onward, burglers.

living for matilda

vicariously i have been following the heath ledger comment threads on the NYT and IDLYITW sites because i liked the guy and i'm a fucking ghoul, okay?? -plus it's a whackjob circus: the women are keening, the jesus freaks are leveraging the opp to convert some souls, and the dickweeds are wiping their hands and loudly proclaiming "good riddance" very dickweedishly.

here's one of my fave responses:

Wow. The vaginas have really been stricken with a good dose of insanity with this news. I haven't seen this many insane emotional women since Sex In The City was canceled.

Cheep up and live your lives, ladies....he didn't give a fuck about you.

By anonymous, on January 23, 2008 03:36:57

kinda puts it in perspective, don't it.

every 6th or so comment the same plaint arises: poor matilda will grow up without a daddy. what a selfish act. what kind of person would leave a child behind.

i'm not a parent so i don't see the whole picture here, but the expectation that you should stick around in a life you find unbearable SOLELY because you have a child raises my hackles.

my question to those of you who are parents is this: do you share this belief? and if so, is it something you consciously agree to when you decide to be a parent, or does it grow naturally once you're responsible for a dependent?

trailer for Macheads: the movie

we're not THAT bad.
i repeat: we're not THAT BAD.

nina loves her westie

dropped by nina's on the way home from work yesterday. haven't seen her in a month but last week she was unusually bad so i thought it my good christian duty to check in. when she opened the door in her bathrobe and polar bear slippers she looked like she'd lost 50lbs and gained 20years, but she cheered right up when she saw the carton of marlboro reds.

- you're a lifesaver, finn - she breathed, and as she accepted the offering a white blur shot down the stairwell behind her, skittered across the hardwood floor and slid into the doorjamb at my feet. the creature stood up, shook itself and fired off some barks that sounded like asthmatic coughs, then took off back down the hallway, missing the corner and careening into a kitchen chair. after a brief tussle with the legs of the chair, in which it seemed inexplicably tangled, it took off again. we heard the sound of nails chittering on wood floor, then another thump and staccato of hoarse coughs.

- is that a... dog? - i asked, tentatively. nina sighed.
- that's chloe. anna got her a couple weeks ago. she thought i needed something to care for.
- is she blind??
nina snorted.
- no. chloe's sweet and everything, but she's dumb as a fucking potato. in fact, i don't really know what her purpose is. her latest trick is to piddle whenever the doorbell rings, which is a couple times a day now that mrs. whackadoodle next door thinks her tuna casseroles will heal me. i don't know whether she's scared or just wants attention, chloe i mean, though that's probably true of mrs. noseynuts also.
- you two need that dude... you know, that guy on tv, the one that people call when they've tried everything...
- yeah, HIM - she agreed - god what is his name...
we both pondered. inspiration struck us at the same time, but i got the name out first.
- cesar millan. the dog whisperer.
nina shook her head.
- no. i was thinking of dr. kevorkian.

if it's brown, it's down

as of sat nite, pennsylvania's deer pop is one doe less, thanks to D.

he bagged it with a long bow right before dusk, when deer were venturing out in unusual numbers prompted by the canadian front rolling down from the hinterland.

when he shot her, the doe was quartering away, a perfect angle for hitting the vitals, and he was certain that if it wasn't a double-lung shot it was at least a single. a double-lung is ideal because the animal dies quickly, without any of the mess you get into if you puncture other internal organs like the stomach.

when shot in such a way, a deer will run, which is why you sit in your tree-stand for 30min to an hour before you get out to look for it. if pressured the deer will continue to flee, when you -- and it -- want it to follow its natural inclination and lie down to sleep.

so from his stand D watched the deer run 50yds then pause by the creek. her legs weren't wobbling yet, but he could see where his arrow lay on the ground below, having passed completely through her. it WAS a good shot, he told himself, she just needed to bed down in peace.

which is when the buck came. a little spike buck emerged from the undergrowth on the other side of the creek, saw the doe and crossed over, then began - as D said - "messing with her." as he tried to mount D's doe, he kept driving her up the creek and pressing her through thickets D said later he had to crawl on his belly to get through.

- oh that is just horrible - i exclaimed as he described what he'd seen, imagining the doe in distress, not understanding why she felt like this and why it was so hard to breathe and wanting to just lie down but she couldn't because this asshole was fucking around with her.

D was sympathetic, and puzzled.

- yeah, i don't know why. i mean, the rut is over, so i don't know what he was thinking. because during the rut, you know, they get crazy. in one of my hunting videos there's this doe who got shot and a buck was mating with her even though she's dead. the pheromones are that strong.
- i didn't need to know that - i told him.
- why? it's life. and you eat them.
- i do, but i couldn't kill one. i know they're overpopulated and what you're doing is, in the big picture, a good thing, but i could never do it.
- just like the cats. though you talk about it, you couldn't actually kill any of them.
- hrrrrr... - i prevaricated.
i'm pretty sure i couldwouldshould if i didn't think it'd put me on St. Francis' shit list and he'd drop me from his Friends on MySpace and then where would i be.

D found his doe sunday morning after 2 hours of tracking blood drops. she'd wandered about 300yds from where he hit her, then died mid-stride, he figures, as her legs were splayed, not curled to sleep. as he suspected, it was a single lung shot that also clipped the esophagus, explaining the green particulate on the body of the arrow. he saved the heart and is talking about preparing it for the game dinner this weekend. this time next week i may be back on the jameson.

TUAW intros the MB Air

here's a short real-world intro to the MacBook Air. the trackpad functionality i'm so chuffed about is shown briefly, and the MB Pro has a cameo role for comparison.

headlights on dark roads

after a shittyshitty day, my faith in man and good will toward most was restored multiple times yesterday after i was rear-ended at the signal behind pep boys on kirkwood highway.

first restoration of faith: it wasn't a hit-and-run. the guy who hit me dutifully followed me into a parking lot where we did the necessary bizness and waited for the cops to show. the snow continued to fall and a kid walked out of pep boys to a car next to mine. bundled up in a hoodie, only his face was visible. a cluster of scratch hairs on his chin was desperately trying to be a goatee. he looked about 15.

- yo'sup. youse all have a bender? - he asked us. i nodded. where at? - he wanted to know. i pointed to the signal.
- it's really slippery there. be careful.
- fuck yeah. he walked over to the other car, surveyed the crunched front bumper. radiator cracked? he pronounced the word with an emphasis on RAD as in dude, and he addressed me, assuming the young chick had run into the sad-eyed man in the ratty overcoat and not vice-versa. i shrugged, and he crouched and scrutinised the bumper.
- you kin go to a junkyard, git a bumper for 200 bucks. you know Big Daddy Autoparts? - i shook my head, playing along because the man with basset hound eyes was now taking notes as eminem drew us a verbal map to Big Daddy.
- i wuz there last week. my girlfriend drove into a tree, fucked the bumper, cracked the RADiator. she call me from the acme parking lot. "my chin is bleeding" she say, and i'm all like what the fuck, how is the car? and she driving with my daughter! - he shook his head in mock disgust. i take it his daughter's fine, because there wasn't a bit of rancor in his voice.
- and she's still your girlfriend?
he looks me in the eye and for the first time, smiles. his smile is perfect, genuinely bright and captivating, a renholder smile. i fall in love a little.
- yeah, she still my girlfriend. he ducks his head shyly then begins to clear the snow off his windows with his sleeve. this the ghetto way - he explains to me, then stops and examines a handful of snow, packs it together and hefts it experimentally. goddam - he exclaims - PERFECT.

bassetman and i are freezing and retreat into our vehicles. my windows fog immediately, for i've a thimble of gas remaining and don't want to waste it idling. 15min later a tap on the window rouses me in my igloo; bassetman reports the cops are still a dozen accidents behind, Nationwide doesn't need a police report to process the claim and am i okay with taking off. i am and so is my wee bladder.

now clear of snow, eminem's car is still parked alongside. i scan the parking lot for the 15-year old man with the world-winning smile, and i spot him lobbing snowballs over a chainlink fence, dodging returning fire from another child-at-heart seduced by the perfect snowball snow.

- i made a snap judgment on him with the first 6 words he uttered - i told my mom last night.
- sometimes you have to, finn - she told me.
- but there wasn't any meanness, or darkness that i saw in him. he was just HAPPY.
i get a marge simpson growl in response. she's not convinced, but she didn't see The Smile.

that was Restoration #2. #s 3, 4 and 5 were delivered from FMC, brian and laf, whose concerns were palpable in their emails and text messages as i shot off brief narratives from the igloo (reason #911 why i love mac).

finally, #6 came compliments of Liberty Mutual rep david spielvogel, who in the process of taking my claim information treated me like a human being and ensured the reporting necessaries were painless, nay, enjoyable.
- spielvogel - i tested the name he'd spelled out for me at the end of our convo - does that mean something? -spiel, like talk, vogel like... person??
- i think it means songbird - he answered.

am i dead?
am i bruce willis wandering amongst the living with a Quest i'm not yet aware of?
and, can i drink a bottle of jameson without any liver-y repercussions??

for kath, somewhere down the line

there's a clever new Apple/PC skit up on NYT.com. combine a skyscraper and banner ad?? whooda thunk?

and that's about all you want me to say because i am crumpy, granky and at odds with the world right now.

UPDATE -- the orig ad's down, but you can watch the Tubed version.

reason #011507 why i love apple

much digital ink has been spilled comparing steve jobs' keynote speeches with That Other Dude's. jobs' presentations -- and supporting slides -- tend to be visual and organic, bullet- and transfat-free.

take this graphic from yesterday's keynote (full pic deck is here). it compares the new MacBook Air's dimensions (in green) with those of the next-thinnest laptop on the market (in white).

with just a quick glance you get a sense of the relative dimensions. a second glance confirms that the thickest part of the Air is thinner than the thinnest part of a Sony TZ. so, for instance, if you're trying to conserve water, you should put the Sony in the reservoir tank of your toilet. for all other uses, go with the Air.

just how thin is the MacBook Air? instead of sleeping last night i did some research. my results summarised below.

	Things the MacBook Air is THINNER than	Things it is THICKER than
	A Tale of Two Cities	a campaign promise
	a PS3	a Twister mat
	a cat	the snorgoyles' IQ, combined
	a dead cat on the road	a dead cat on the road after a week
	the Hubble space telescope	pi
	E, after he eats too much pie	hot chocolate
	a thermos of hot chocolate	a fart after too much hot chocolate
	a taxi cab	the Wilmington subway (trick! no such thing!!)
	the asteroid belt	the sound of silence
	an aquarium filled with angelfish	love

there.
does that put it in perspective for you?