User:	gdw
	Date:	2008-05-18 21:43
	Subject:	Family!
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	happy
	Music:	NIN - A Warm Place

I am a lucky guy.

	User:	gdw
	Date:	2008-05-18 21:39
	Subject:	Velvet Worms
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	curious
	Music:	Imogen Heap - Daylight Robbery

I spent no small percentage of my time at Berkeley studying various organisms, often worms, whose primary interaction with humans is to try and lay their young inside your flesh. So it's rather refreshing to find a interesting worm-like creature that at no point during its lifecycle will try and inhabit your body.




I'd actually read about these things before, but the description of their hunting methods never really gave me the image of their actual nature.

	User:	jholloway
	Date:	2008-05-18 23:31
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

( more game stuff )

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-18 14:20
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

It's impossible to lie in a restroom. Humans just aren't wired to think about deception when they're, you know, attending to simpler needs. We can talk, but we can't lie.

That's how I know that Johnny wasn't bluffing when we chatted in the movie theatre restroom this afternoon.

"You remember all those secret messages we wrote when we were young? Where we wrote in lemon juice, then cooked in a toaster to make the text come back?"

"Sure."

"After thirty years, all that visible text attains its next form, made all of lightning and screeches and half-remembered poetry and birds and flax and thunder. It remembers us, the ones who wrote it. It's chasing us now. We made a terrible mistake with that lemon juice, Ted. We tampered with forces we never understood."

If he hadn't said it in a bathroom I wouldn't have believed him. I was going to ask him more, but we hastled back to catch the movie and I forgot.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-17 18:52
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

We were all out there in the graveyard at noon, not feeling sad at all, doing bar tricks with matches. Then someone came by with a tea set, with silver tray and little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Everybody just couldn't stop talking; every story led to three more stories, and it seemed like the sunlight and the tea would last forever. The tea was genmaicha that left the air thick with roasted rice.

Somebody — and it might have been me — suggested that we invite some bees to come join us. Amanda was the only one who had a cell phone that could talk to bees, and so she called a local hive or two and invited them over for a picnic.

You would think it would be a mistake, since usually people don't want bees at a picnic, but there's a big difference between invited guests and partycrashers. The bees brought nectar, and stories, and picnic games. Nine-legged sack races are a hoot! Toward the end we were all kind of tired and silly and the bees would swarm up and lift people in the air one at a time.

Thanks, bees! We all had a blast.

	User:	akonken
	Date:	2008-05-17 22:46
	Subject:	Note to self:
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	accomplished

Write 'how to' guide on being cool.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-16 22:11
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

I was chopping onions while making dinner this evening, when one of them spoke. It had a little smiling oniony face and a squeaky, cheery voice.

"There is a special pleasure to be had in accomplishing something very important in a half-hearted way," it said merrily, "A pleasure you can find nowhere else!"

I set it free, and frowned, trying to find a remedy to its poisoned logic.

This is why we don't talk to onions.

	User:	greenpixiestix3
	Date:	2008-05-16 16:52
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

I shall be happy.

	User:	beatnikside
	Date:	2008-05-16 09:20
	Subject:	S U N N Y D A Y ; E V ' R Y T H I N G ' S A - O K .
	Security:	Public

Goofing around at the end of a Rat City Rollergirls photo shoot yesterday at Gas Works Park. Wile E. Peyote of the Sockit Wenches thought it'd be fun to emulate her erstwhile cartoon counterpart. Thankfully, she didn't smack into the side of a cliff after this was taken.

It's gorgeous out there. I'm at a Ballard coffeehouse, Avant, and the summer sun is blasting through the windows and "warming my writing hands." (Via con dios, Spalding Gray.) According to the weather overground, there should be a bright sun warming Seattle all weekend long. I feel ... well, you probably know how I feel.

By the way, John Richards is playing a helluva morning set on KEXP. We've had the Mint Royale, we've had the Waterboys and right now he's playing Siouxsie's "Dear Prudence." Yes, my dears, it's good to be here.

EDIT, 9:36 AM: Richards is playing Peter Murphy's "I'll Fall With Your Knife" and I'm fucking tearing up. This song+sunny day+being alive=too much.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-15 18:59
	Subject:	Today is a day of happy political news and increased choices.
	Security:	Public

"This," she said, "is the button that causes the United State to dissolve into hundreds of sovereign city states with no overarching government except for a body that guarantees the free right to enter and exit any city-state, and assists in the process. You know, to foster competitive innovation."

"This button here?" I asked, as I lifted the plastic cover.

She left from her chair and pushed it away, "Don't touch it! Do you have any idea what a bad idea that would be?"

I scowled, "How do you even know it works?"

"It's an untested prototype but the theory is sound. I spent four decades designing it and simulating it. It works."

"If you're not going to use it, why have it?"

"It's comforting to know I have a choice," she said, "It makes me like the current system better, flaws and all."

	User:	gdw
	Date:	2008-05-15 10:54
	Subject:	HaHa
	Security:	Public

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/15/BAGAVNC5K.DTL

It's sad that these troubled times, when America faces much more grave and deadly threats at home and abroad, conservative organizations are spending so much money to try and get this overturned via amendment come November. All that time and effort gathering a million signatures could have been used to help support those fighting (and coming home from) the wars, helping children or the poor. Instead let's pass a law to shaft homosexuals because well, aren't their lives are just so great and carefree already? Everyone is still free to beleive and preach that they're all going to spend eternity burning in hellfire - just because it's legal doesn't mean you have to approve of it. Frankly, gay people just aren't that scary guys.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-14 15:45
	Subject:	Eleven Options
	Security:	Public

"A free exchange of information can save the world," the cactus had told me, after the whole troubling afternoon was over.

Let's test that.

( LJ-cut for poll. )

I promise I won't sell your email address or IM screen name to spammers.

	User:	jholloway
	Date:	2008-05-14 10:24
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

( last night's bitter complaining dissected in tedious detail. Cam stuff. )

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-13 17:02
	Subject:	Madam
	Security:	Public

Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.

She is sorry to be delayed, but last evening down a time machine she strayed.

When she woke up and found that she was surrounded by dinosaurs, she ran to the machine that had led her so far astray, and from under her velvet gown, she drew a blaster and shot the time machine down.

Then the dinosaurs came and got her and dragged her across the swamp, and strung her upon the tarpits across the way. And the moment before she died, she lifted up from the time stream to fly.

Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-12 19:25
	Subject:	Questions
	Security:	Public

I was walking across the Golden Gate bridge today when I saw a man throwing eggs over the bridge into the water. He had cartons and cartons of eggs and he would pull one out, lightly toss it off the bridge, and lean over to watch it fall. Then he'd shake his head sadly, stand up straight, and do it again.

He had a big bushy moustache. I figured that if I asked a guy with a moustache like that what he was doing, he'd just answer that he was throwing eggs off a bridge. I decided to skip that question.

"Why?" I asked.

Those eggs were organic jumbo AA eggs. They must have been expensive, bought by the dozen.

"I don't know," he said, "but I'm going to keep going until I figure out why I'm doing it."

I watched him throw another one down. It was a clear, sunny day, so I could see the egg fall most of the way, but I couldn't tell if it splashed or cracked or both when it finally hit water.

"I'm delving my subconscious. The more I find out about my own motivations, the better my life is."

"Is that why you have such a bushy moustache?" I asked him, but before he could answer a bridge security guard approached and asked us to leave.

In retrospect, that was a rude question, so it's probably for the best.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-11 22:35
	Subject:	Evolution
	Security:	Public

"The thing about excellence is that people don't learn to be excellent by failure and negative consequence, ever," he said "They just don't - the neural patterns don't exist. People learn avoidance by negative example and nothing else. To compel action, people must get positive consequence for proper action. Even the most minute positive action and reward teaches a touch of excellent, when grave mistakes and punishment cannot. It's in our nerve cells. If you want to improve, pay attention to the catastrophes you've avoided, and how you did so."

"Holy crap," I said, "a talking cactus!"

The spine thing wasn't working out so they decided to try advice instead.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-10 20:51
	Subject:	A lesson in etymology
	Security:	Public

( I spent today researching the origin of the word hippy )

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-09 20:58
	Subject:	The backyard of the genius
	Security:	Public

I went into the backyard of the genius.

"I'm trying to build ostriches here!" she said, unconsciously pulling at her own elbows, "From the ground up! I'm still building lysosomes and mitochondria! I haven't even gotten to the nucleus yet!"

"That's why I'm here!" I said cheerily, "I'm here to help you build ostriches."

She looked relieved, then relaxed, and then even more harried, "I don't have time to give you tasks, either."

I smirked, and she shook her head.

"No," she said, "this happens way too often to be ironic. Uh, can you go get me an ostrich? A talking one, if you could?"

Anybody got a lead? If I can't do this, she won't take the time to give me more tasks.

	User:	beatnikside
	Date:	2008-05-09 10:59
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

That's Grant Olsen, of Seattle band Arthur & Yu, performing at the Ballard cupcakes 'n' java joint where I sometimes go to do writing work. Here in the Northwest, we like our musicians hirsute. He's totally in my chair.

Seriously, though: It's a fine thing, walking down the street and finding your neighborhood so alive and vital.

Boy, I was in a pretty bad moos last night, wasn't I? What a difference that 12 hours and a sunny morning can make. Hope you're getting some of the same fresh feeling, because it's absolutely fucking prime. I gotta bottle some of this for the sixteen weeks of sour feelings and shitty weather that will surely follow this (thus far) swell day. I'm happy. I will be punished.

	User:	merovingian
	Date:	2008-05-08 22:14
	Subject:	Honeydew
	Security:	Public

Late last night, I went down to Porlock and knocked on the man's door angrily. He came out to the door in a bathrobe and fuzzy rabbit slippers.

"What?" he said, rubbing his eyes.

"I want the rest of Kubla Khan," I said.

"No," he said, "I don't have it."

"You do too," I said, "You interrupted Coleridge on your dumb business and distracted him from his opium-filled visions and he forgot his poem. By the Law of Conservation of Beauty, the poem must have gone somewhere, and you're the most obvious suspect. So pony up, person from Porlock. I want the rest of Kubla Khan! Now!"

"First of all," he said, "that was over two hundred years ago, so I'm most certainly dead by now. Second, if I could give it away, don't you think I already would have done? Third, you don't even know where Porlock is. Last and most important, there is no Law of Conservation of Beauty. Beauty is limitless, and it is created and destroyed all the time."

I didn't go all the way to Porlock to get a reasonable deferral, or to have my irrational expectations go unmet!

I clenched my fists and stomped my feet and said, "I'm not leaving until you tell me the rest of the poem! Now now now now now now NOW!"

( Okay, okay, he said, I'll tell you. )