Deathlist 2012

So I've been formulating my death pool for next year, and right at the top of my list was a certain dictator. So much like the year Benazir Bhutto was killed a month too early for me to shamelessly exploit, this year starts with a strike-through name. If you like morbidity and taking odds on the mortality of famous people, drop me a line.

1.) Kim Jong Il

2.) Hosni Mubarak

3.) Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi (I was going to go with Assad, but he'll probably find a way to escape the gallows)

(notice a theme here?)

4.) Bradley Manning (sorry, they're gonna execute that dude.)

5.) Ron Paul

I'm only going with 5 this year. Rather than hedge my bets I want to demonstrate my conviction that at least one of these dudes (huh... no women. weird.) will die before the end of the world. Cheers.

Happy New Year.

What the hell am I doing?

This:

Pimpifying the new studio space with that Twelve guy.

HIgh above Nebraska

In the last week I've been all over this country and seen things that, while par for the course for me, would break you up into little fits of giggling and hysteria. I've driven over 2500 miles, flown at least four times that distance, and boggled my way through airport after airport. I managed to spend a grand total of 7 hours out of the last 192 in my own home. The most recent visit lasted approximately ten minutes and saw me tossing dirty laundry into a bag with vague hopes of cleaning said articles of clothing at a distant location. I stroked the cat's muzzle and apologized for being such a negligent parent before darting into the cool Portland evening to finagle new travel plans and inappropriate volumes of alcohol. I have slept - and by that I mean to say I have engaged the services of fever dreams - fitfully on the plane to the tune of 2 hours out of the last 30, and I am currently winging my way towards New York city. I am told there is a roof-top hot tub at my hostel/guesthouse/whatever the fuck it is. I've gone from a 30 year old plane to first class on a new plane to the back of the same plane inside of 6 hours and my spine feels like it's going to crawl out of my back and declare itself a sovereign nation. War has come to this body, and both sides are pushing the limits of their supply chain. Soon I will be in the Big Mango or whatever the devil they're calling it these days. I am told there will be beautiful foreign women, music, parks, and negronis. Negronies? Negroni (already plural)? There is not enough gin on this plane to put me to sleep apparently, so you get a disjointed blog. Where are you? Do you want to hang out? Let me know and I'll fly to your city next. Or drive. Or... fucking walk, I don't really care anymore. The will and the way is there, so. Let's. Go.

A treatise on the quality of first class air travel.

I'm druuuuuuuuuuuuuunk!

(and posting at 30,000 ft)

Bloggery in Absentia

I haven't been around, possibly because I've been afraid to write something that might screw up a good thing. For once I decided to fight my instincts and stay put because I was in what seemed to be the ideal space: loving, practical, fun, and devoid of drama. I still miss it. Or maybe I wasn't writing because I had no impotent angst to plaster upon the internet. Either way, it's over now because I can't be satisfied with a good thing. My attention span ever wanes and I'm looking for what's next. This will probably kill me eventually.

Enough.

In slightly less dreary news, I'm traveling again. I've decided to postpone my hunt for a new abode indefinitely and redirect the funds I would have spent on better housing towards plane tickets to exotic destinations. This week I went to the Bay.

San Francisco was a bit of a mixed bag. It was pleasant meeting a few new people and connecting with old friends I haven't seen in a while, but as for the city itself I was left wanting. Except for the last day here the weather gods seemed to be on an epic bender and flooded the streets with water, wind and a complete disregard for my desire to explore. Explore I did though when the high waters momentarily receded, and I walked my happy ass all over the Castro, Mission, and Haight districts. Granted that's not a huge portion of the city and I've visited them all before, but venturing too far from the hotel without a foghorn and life preserver seemed foolhardy. Everyone assured me that it had been 65 and sunny for weeks before I showed up. It appears that as I prepare to leave the weather gods are ready to lift their embargo on fun. Who run San Francisco?

Boy howdy, my writing muscle is seriously atrophied. Expect me to exercise it more frequently.

Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments for places I can go galavanting. I figure I'm saving 700-1000 bucks on rent so that's my travel budget. Yes I am still terrible with money. However, I make a metric fuck ton of it now so go screw. Foreign destinations are as welcome as US cities, parks, etc. Where do/would you like to go? Live vicariously through me.

Don't look at me while I'm performing.

The only true portion of that movie was the sex scene between me and LeVar Burton. That totally happened, and it was way hotter than Daryn Aronofsky was willing to put on screen.

I just wanted to clear the air. Now go rent 'The Social Network'.

Of Urine and the Universe

I love the fear inherent in the faith of so many "faithful." Stephen Hawking decides, after years of hemming and hawing and (more importantly) further discoveries in M-Theory, that God is not in fact required to bring something out of nothing. Pundits scoff, Lary King attempts the same "gotcha" questions as every pastor and wanna-be creation "scientist", and still the universe keeps on expanding. Hawking's answer to the not-at-all-novel question from King, "How can something come out of nothing?" was curt and unsatisfactory. Why? Because he doesn't have a decade or more to train you in the mathematics, conceptual frameworks, and underlying theories necessary to comprehend the mind-crumpling awesomeness and rigor of the theory. We're speaking of a fellow who is most likely too busy to call someone in to change his soiled diapers because his brain is swiftly analyzing data for problems we are, without being in any way hyperbolic, too fucking shit-tarded to understand. However, people like Hawking, Richard Feynman, and Brian Greene write lovely books that are designed to distill the most salient features of the Cutting Edge O' Science into words the layperson can wrap their noodle around. They try diligently to impart as much knowledge as you can gather without learning a metric butt-ton of math - and believe me, that is a difficult task. If you want to know what these fellows are on about, read their god damned books. Trying to "catch" one of the most renowned minds of all time is juvenile, impotent, pandering nonsense that makes good television for the self-assured, ignorant monkey nation we've become. Stephen Hawking doesn't care if you believe in god, he's just making a point about the fact that the universe probably doesn't need him, and we (by we I mean of course 'they') can back that shit up. Much as I can prove that fire is not magic only to the average english speaker with a high school degree, these dudes require you to know some herpes-serious shit before their arguments make sense. So read their books and decide for yourself, but remember that you and I don't actually have the chops to argue this stuff. There are thousands of people who do (ok, maybe hundreds) and you are welcome to go to college, get an advanced physics degree, and then poo poo on their party as loudly as you want.

So now to what you really came for. I got very excited about urine today. Since it's cold as hell (for Portland) I decided to find out just how cold it would have to be for your urine to freeze when it leaves your body. Could it freeze before striking the ground? Could it freeze at all? Did I have the tools to find out? I spent the next hour and a half combing two text books and the internet for data. Thankfully, many others had collected information on the content of urine and I began to look at different possibilities for solving the problem. I, like those smarter dudes I mentioned before, will spare you the math. Basically I finally found that the miniscule amount of contaminants in your urine (which is more than 95% water) will reduce the temperature required to freeze the solution by anywhere from 132 - 142 degrees C. To be clear, it would have to be several hundred degrees Fahrenheit below freezing to accomplish the task of writing your name in falling ice off the Grand Canyon. Now, my math could be off. I haven't been peer reviewed yet, but I'll be sending my work to a friend in France the next time I'm drunk, rest assured. However, I found afterwards that Mythbusters failed to freeze urine at -70 degrees F, which lends at least some minor element of observational weight to my theory. This is how science works. If you come up with an idea, you test it. Hopefully your test is fun and involves peeing, but sometimes it's boring and involves a lot of statistics. You back yo' shit up with observations, fool. You don't just proclaim inane fairy tales to be the everlasting truth about the universe and kill anyone who disagrees with your point of view. Well actually, I guess that works out pretty well for those guys.

On my numbers and other numbers: My numbers agree with other calculations I have read online, however research done around the turn of the century found the freezing point of urine to be between -.45 and -2.4 degrees Celsius. This was done with patients experiencing renal failure, and I am unclear on the freezing method. The Mythbuster dudes failed to freeze artificial urine at -55 degrees C, but the "artificial" part still bugs me. So! Science! I am currently trying to freeze my pee. If putting it in the freezer works, I will disregard my former method as flawed. If the sample fails to freeze I will begin looking for funding for further research. Basically I want a free Vacation to Alaska in the dead of winter. Anyone feel like supporting the progression of human knowledge? I promise a non-biased and rigorous experiment that will control as many variables as possible within a constrained budget. I will use multiple subjects, sample and analyze the content of their urine, and determine (if it does freeze) the heat of fusion of urine as well as a suitable conversion factor for this value based on the contaminant content in moles/L.

Pee!

Update: It's starting to freeze! Science!

Quotey McQuoteypants

"Of course, you only live on life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you." - Richard P. Feynman

Unless of course you manage to teach someone else how not to make them. I find myself perpetually unable to learn the most important lessons I've tried to teach myself, but perhaps I can impart them to someone with more aptitude, clarity, and character.

I wish

that there had been at least one child from almost all of my lovers. That I had punched Eric Kerr in his blond-curl-bounded face before the stout woman shoved him under her arm and dragged the little bastard away screaming like all hell. I can still see his face and flailing arms thrashing against her retreating buttocks, firm with purpose and stress. I wish no one knew my last name. That I had asked Alyssa Border out on a date when I was 17 even though she would have turned me down. That there was a better solution to the morning than waking. There is nothing more disappointing than realizing I did not actually teach myself to fly in a playground. I wish that most of my nutrients could be absorbed through your face. I wish that your face was her face. I wish that your brain was her brain. I wish that I wasn't quite so shallow. That I wasn't so damn pleased with and proud of myself all the time. That I could throw you from my mind like a Nazi from a dirigible. That I could go on and do what I really wanted. It would not hurt anyone, I swear. I just wish it would never stop. It will. That's alright as well.

The 14th ammendment.

I had this long rant planned about the lunacy surrounding the recent suggestion by certain pundits of questionable sanity that the 14th amendment to the Constitution of these United States is no longer relevant. Instead I thought I would just point out that this particular amendment was not just about recently freed slaves, but rather equal protection under the law. So here's the full text courtesy of wikipedia (the source, in case you were concerned, is the effing Constitution).

The 14th effing amendment to the god damned Constitution.

I don't support Democrats. I'm not a Republican, but we all need to be clear about one thing: the Constitution is an agreement among civilized people. It provides the framework that allows us to try and be reasonably sure that every single jackass who walks by us on the street won't attempt to kill us and rape our spouse. It doesn't always work, but it's better than relying on your jawbone club. Support the idea of rights by mutual compact. Support the concept of the rule of law. Support civilization, because this shit will not persevere forever, and I for one don't want to be part of that last generation. Equal protection. It's not about recently freed slaves you fucking dolts.

Persephone just kicked in the door, and she's armed to the teeth.

The phone rings again, and I'm confident without looking that yet another woman is wondering - completely innocently and without ulterior motive - what I'm doing tonight. It's sort of been a pattern this evening. The drinks continue to flow, the pretty young girls I'm currently laughing with smell very nice, and the night air is at that perfect gulf water temperature. I'll be going home alone, because I finally know better than to believe a single word any woman says. Last night I had a series of protracted dreams in which I took a half dozen girls I know out to dinner one after the other. We chatted, we flirted, we ate and drank and parted with a hug or light touch of the hand. Everything was cool and easy; I never felt that either myself or my guests were engaged in any disingenuous bullshit. So now, sitting with two women who are far too young for me and babbling on with them about nothing important I am feeling extremely confident, relaxed, and unconcerned with the future. Later we'll part ways and I'll go home to check my messages. I will chuckle at the feelers put out hours previous in increasingly drunken and brash voices. I will feel very good about myself and then I will fall asleep alone. For the first time in quite a while I will feel very good about that as well.

Portland is really something else this time of year. If you've never seen seen this valley during the month of May you might want to reconsider that tropical island getaway. Fertility drips from the strange legions of flora in great heaping gobs, soaking into the grass and pavement, pouring back out through the drinks and seating itself with authority in the multitudes of pretty young people lazing about in the sunshine.

I have finally given in and grown a beard, and my identity is in danger of being subsumed by the uber cliched Northwest Guy. I've got my hoodie and my secondhand pants, now all I need is a pair of Raybans, an ascot and a v-neck. If you see me doing this, murder is the only acceptable solution. The other day I found myself walking down the street and looking in a reflective shop window when the unbidden thought popped into my head: "Look at this fucking hipster."

Come visit me now. I will probably not try to sleep with you, but I can't promise anything. I'm feeling very confident again and I aim to ride that wave while I can.