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Monday, July 29, 2002 - 02:46 p.m. -
Very nice Flash. (Thanks, Michael!)

Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 06:38 p.m. -
OK so I've finally gotten around to reading Ali Davis' brilliant True Porn Clerk Stories and it's just as funny as you've already heard.

The one thing that bugs me (so far) is her concept of Porn Trance - where folks stop talking, move slowly, tune out, and check every single box in every single row, ofen taking two or three hours. I don't doubt that this happens in the porn section, but it happens to me every time I go to a video store. If I'm with someone who's especially focused and bossy, we might leave in under an hour, but I normally spend way too much time in Non-Porn-Related Video Trance. I don't go to video stores very often for this reason.

So, anyway, yeah. It doesn't have to be porn to get the alpha waves moving. S'all I'm saying.

Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 02:17 p.m. -
"# Women can increasingly get away with wearing pants." From a what-to-wear-to-your-interview guide. I hate the world.

Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 01:08 p.m. -
Long, wonderful riff on a possible future of Google, online commerce, and the "Semantic Web." If you like Cringely, you'll want to take this home to meet Mom. Written from the perspective of 2009. Chewy stuff.

Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 01:23 a.m. -
I had a lovely walk and chat with Therese earlier today. Along the way we were talking up Big Issues (rights, censorship, you know) and I realized something that I've known for some time but had chosen not to articulate to myself: I deliberately hold myself back from belief.

It didn't come up directly in our conversation, but I had fallen back on my comfortable contrarian role, sort-of defending selling hate literature while (I think) sharpening arguments against it. I realized in mid-sentence that I had no real opinion on the subject, and that I didn't want one (well, unless one position just plainly had the better of the argument, which I don't think is the case).

This is probably of importance to nobody but me - I've long thought that my capacity for belief was impaired, but now it seems more likely that I just reserve that faculty for the extremely obvious: "I believe I'm hungry now" or "I believe you're frustrated with me."

Does this reservation of judgment interfere with my business of living? Not usually, I think, but I intend to watch it closely for a while and see what happens. Maybe I'll let you know.

Saturday, July 27, 2002 - 11:57 p.m. -
My self-esteem has been swinging up and down like an angry monkey lately, thanks mostly to the job search. I hate having it tied in so intimately with physical security, but I suppose it's ultimately beneficial. Lord knows I could be doing even less than I think I'm doing.

Writing a resume (a good one) is an excellent ego-building exercise, and I urge you all to do it, even if you have no plans to jump ship any time soon. Better still, make one up that's all the important non-job stuff that's happened to you:

1997-98: Overcame challenges posed by severe career burnout, changing residence, and first-time heartbreak. Strengthened friendships, tested the limits of alcohol-consciousness, began playing soccer, experimented with geographic transposition. Successfully transformed confused 29-year-old into confident, mature adult.

(Oh, come on - is everything on your resume reflective of your inner beliefs about yourself?)

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 - 08:33 p.m. -
The Weekly's Best of Seattle issue is out, and I have a bunch of short pieces in it. You can find my stuff here, here, here, here, and here. Try searching for "R.L." if you just want to read my stuff. I think Discovery Park is probably the best of mine, while The Mecca is the most offensive.

Jill has a bunch of stuff in there also, but she can make her own damn links. Bethany too.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 - 07:47 p.m. -
"We should cuddle up to war." Awesome story about a Silicon Valley anti-antiwar protestor.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 - 01:32 p.m. -
The Daily Howler just looooves Ann Coulter. You remember Ann - she's the fiery right-wing attorney/writer perhaps best known for her call to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." I think you know who they are. WIlliam F Buckley's National Review canned her after that one.

So anyway, this site picks apart her new-ish book Slander and shows in horrifying detail just how many of her facts are made up or at least wrong. I suggest starting with the 7/23 entry as it's pretty juicy.

He also hits some other, more mainstream, pols and pundits. Worth a look if you have a few minutes and some outrage to spare.

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 - 01:57 p.m. -
When I was a kid, just learning Sesame Street stuff, I decided that salt and pepper were opposites. Since I enjoyed salt so much, obviously I had to loathe pepper. Years later I learned that they're actually unrelated, and that each is fine and tasty in its own way.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my dislike for anise, bananas, beets, cheap beer, eggplant, grapefruit, ketchup, mayonnaise, mushrooms, olives, organ meat, seafood, squash, wheatgrass juice, whiskey, and all the rest I've forgotten. The explanations for those tastes are perfectly reasonable. What's the opposite of mushrooms?

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 - 01:31 p.m. -
HUGE collection of awful band photos from Europe and the States. Quite a time-suck, but worth every cringe.

Monday, July 22, 2002 - 11:54 a.m. -
Hello Kitty tests your sanity.

Sunday, July 21, 2002 - 02:56 p.m. -
I am super-angry at Qwest, for the first time ever. I'd write more, but I'm too mad to be articulate. As soon as I'm out of my contract (9/19) I'm dumping them forever.

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