Why I hate MySpace.

I hate MySpace. I'll tell you the reasons.

x. I do not want to know what has become of the people I graduated with.

I do not want to gauge where I am compared to where they are. That wasn't supposed to happen until the 10-year reunion that I, at one point, promised Maria I'd go to with her.

Those 10 years are when we all get our shit together and showcase the finish project at the end. We all work behind the scenes to pull everything together so we can show it off during the adult equivalent of open house night at our old high school. No one really knows what anyone else is up to unless they've kept in touch or someone makes the papers during those 10 years. Fame and infamy are the only ways you know what became of your classmates until the 10 year reunion.

Now, with teh_internets, it is like in pottery class where you all have two weeks to finish a bowl for Mother's Day. You're sneaking peaks at your neighbor's bowl, which is all smooth and nicer than yours. Then... oh shit! Are they already putting the glaze on and getting it ready to throw in the kiln? Dammit! Panic mode, realizing your coiling method is only up to the third row, and you still haven't begun to smooth the ropes out.

I hate that. I hate that twinge in my stomach when I see that all the people I'm finding from 2001 have graduated from a four year college with a degree, when I'm still floundering away for my fifth year at a two-year college.

I demand my ignorance back!


x. I'm sick of the all the booze photos.

These are the photos designed to show friends how much fun one has when they're drinking.

Oh, and boy howdy do we have fun when we drink!

I'm not talking about a photo with someone holding a beer bottle. I'm talking the photos of drunken DEBAUCHERY that people comment on about how much FUN they had when they were all DRINKING and OMG weren't we all so DRUNK? Usually the photos involve some vapid girl with her arm around a frat boy in a polo shirt. Or there's the two drunk girls up close, mouths hanging open, staring off-camera with glazed, make-up encrusted eyes. Hot stuff, man.

Best yet is the girl's night out at a bar, a photo take all blurry from far away because no one knows how to take decent photos anymore. The girls are all turned to the side and leaning in towards each other.
I like to call that the bridesmaid's pose. Seen here it is the most common girl pose ever. I think females are come hardwired to do that pose on command. I look at my little sister's photo album and 93% of the photos are my sister and various friend in that pose. Trust me, it is the least flattering angle for a group photo.

Anyway, back to the drinking photos.

Seriously. We get it. You're in college and you drink alcohol. Sometimes you do shots, and you're friends allude to "that thing" you did that "one night". Damn Gina, you SO crazy. But no one really cares whether or not you have a martini in your hand. If you had a photos devoid of liquor, no one will think "Gosh! What a conservative! Anyone wanna tell Ian MacKaye over there that Prohibition is over?"

Stop. Just stop.

x. Being a hipster is over.

As soon as celebrities started dressing in reconstructed t-shirts and trucker hats, it was over. Emo was over in 2001 when people used the word as an adjective.

Indie kids should note that Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo-Goo Dolls and Jon Bon Jovi had their haircut first. They look like cartoon baby chickens and ducks.

Club Beat It and Club Bang are over. This new wave of 18 year olds don't realize they didn't start the trend. So they keep going. It's over. I promise.

make- up and razored hair just stop please.

Oh you scene kids! You are so subversive and asymmetric!

x. "MySpace: where Passive-Aggressives reign!"

It's the new motto, I swear.

This site allows one to use up every drop of passive-aggressive behavior in your body. It's so easy. A snarky comment here, the dropping of a "friend" from the list there. You can filter journal entries so only a percentage of your friends list can read them. Wannabe home-wreckers leave flirty comments and innuendos to make the girlfriend jealous. Mad at your best friend? Add their sworn enemy to your own friends list!

Ahh, trying to hurt people without actually having to make contact, be in the same room, same state! It's so easy to do with MySpace!


NOTE: Some of my above statements may or may not be contradictory of my actions on MySpace. I'm just a slave to MySpace after all.
I'm a failure.

Add me?

we didn't start the fire-I dedicate this post to you.

Phone post.

Camel toe sock at walmart.

New Haiku Five-O project.

My Haiku Five-O project for the next 26 days is about fonts. Come on, fonts are awesome. So I'll be writing about a random one for each letter of the alphabet.
Here is the first one.

Alpha Woman Hair:
you are a freakish font hair
fetishists would heart.

[acid fonts.]


Font Freak dot com-I dedicate this post to you.

Inside the jukebox roars just like thunder.

So I still live with my mom, which is I admit is both bogus and sad. She's gotten the bright idea to renovate and/or paint every room in the house. Our bathroom floor is now torn up, leaving only tarred squares from the 1940's. We're walking on planks of wood to get to the toilet, and there is currently no sink. Now I know how rich people must feel when they get new things. I feel really sorry for them. What they go through.

On an unrelated note, I have unintentional Carol Brady hair today. It's sort of flat, and the bottom is too long and was flipping out at the bottom because it needs a trim. That'll teach me to look in the mirror first before I get out of my car.

My sister used the powers of DIY for evil. She stenciled and screened a very unironic "Barbie" logo. I was disappointed in her. I wish she would have done something rad. Wasting time and energy to make a straight barbie logo on a white t-shirt seems pointless. I would have respected her decision if she'd even done a stencil of an actual Barbie doll. But no. Just the damn Barbie logo. And to think I was so proud of her when she asked me where my X-Acto knife was.

I need some new perzines read. I like story-telling zines, but I also like the ones that use photos and backgrounds and arts and crafts class to make zines. Those are fun to read because you never know what will be on the next page. Plus each page can almost be a zine in itself.

I need to finish mine.

Rolling with the homies tonight. It should be good.

John Cougar Mellencamp-I dedicate this post to you.

Some reasons I feel bad.

These are some things I feel bad about, in no particular order.





x. I just got an album in the mail that I was really expecting to love, but half of the vocals sound like a cross between Joe Cocker and Ed Kowalczyk. I feel very bad for thinking it sounds like a cross between Joe Cocker and Ed Kowalczyk because I don't think it was intentional.

x. I haven't called my grandmother back from a week ago.

x. I still haven't gotten my step-sister a wedding gift and the wedding is tomorrow.

x. I kicked my cat Clay out of room last night because he was causing a ruckus.

x. Skeet Ulrich hasn't done much lately. I don't know why this makes me feel bad, but it does.

x. I'm not good at keeping in touch.

x. I didn't wash my car for, like, three or four months.

x. The girl who played Trini, the Yellow Ranger in the original Power Rangers series, died. I feel bad because I didn't bother following up on her career until recently.

x. My room is messy.

x. I spent 10 dollars on dice yesterday. [To be fair though, they're rad dice.]

x. I didn't know the Suicide Machines had a new album out.

The beast -I dedicate this post to you.

Music: "My Apology" by the Get Up Kids.

Melodrama and a bottle of wine.

Oh, Motion City Soundtrack. Your new album is great. Not as good as your previous, which is not as good as your self-released album/demo songs. Yeah, I'm that cool.

Motion City Soundtrack's music always reminds me of winter. The singer's voice goes well with a rainstorm.

One of their best songs is called "Perfect Teeth". It contains one of my all time favorite lines ever:

Now I work for the man and I'm drunk once again watching reruns of night court on cable TV.

Anyway. What I was really getting at was this:

Justin: please cut your hair. I mean, we get it. We get that you have cuh-ray-zee hay-er. We understand that you're a pretty zany kid and at times can be a little rapscallion. But you are starting to look like the love child of the Slim Jim guy and the lead singer of Static-X. I'd hate for it to progress any further.

A request in Haiku format.

Justin Pierre, lead
singer of Motion City
Soundtrack: new hair please.

[from Haiku Five-O.]

Eating pizza with the keyboard player from Motion City Soundtrack- I dedicate this post to you.

I'll fight you.

With a very timely Veruca Salt reference, McSweeney's brings us a list of Ways One Could, in Theory, Fight the Seether.

Challenge the Seether to meet you at high noon.

Knock over the Seether's tray in the cafeteria and tell it to meet you in the playground after school.

Take the Seether into the Thunderdome (although this might be difficult considering the "two men enter, one man leaves" rule, because, hey, it's not a man, it's the Seether).

Insult the honor of the Seether's dojo.

Kidnap a family member of the Seether to lure it into your lair for one-on-one combat. (Elaborate cat-and-mouse game involving leaving clues as to location of lair required.)

Respond militarily to the Seether's invasion of Poland.

-by Stephen Walsh

eight arms to hold you with -I dedicate this post to you.

On being an artiste.

Look, Thom York blogs just like all the "indie" rock kids an angsty teenager a complete moron!

is anybody there?
THIS IS A TEST.
-_______

ch
glu d
to a room
in a skyscrapER
idontSpeakTheLAnguage
no st
IMulAtion
the dust and flexs
too dangerous to v enture
out side nothin aliVe
nothin in th Microwave
isleep withthe screen on
noonec h anges the bed a ndth e war dr obe s ar e
empty
i want to walk on dry land get out of this fucking room
no
a ir

Rnm64 48th fl oo r

a knokin in above argu ing shuFFling

label on pressd shirt
complimenntryyy dryyy clleeeeaaning

Thom

- http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace.
This brings us a little closer to the man behind the eye. I think I'm starting to understand him more. It is like I'm seeing into his soul.

I hate Radiohead.

Curmudgeons-I dedicate this post to you.

Building Skyscrapers in the Basement.

Sometimes one just has an awesome, mind-blowing theme they want to present in the form of a mix-tape. But what happens when you get stuck three songs in? That's where Tiny Mix Tapes comes in. Hell yeah.
You can present a theme you want a mix-tape of and the tiny mix-tape robots will "generate" one for you. You can also sign on to be a robotronic "generator" of said mix-tapes, and interpret the themes for those in need.
Here are a couple I worked on:

All ska, all the time.

requested by: roddy
compiled by: Megan

note from Megan: Mostly third-wave stuff, submitted for your enjoyment.

01. Chris Murray - "F-Train" (Six Songs)
02. The Specials - "Monkey Man" (Self-titled)
03. The Pietasters - "Yesterday's Over" (Awesome Mixtape, Vol 6)
04. Goldfinger - "Carlita" (Hang-Ups)
05. The Aquabats - "The Story of Nothing" (The Fury of...)
06. Hepcat - "No Worries" (Right on Time)
07. The Slaves - "Losin' Hope" (Supporting the Scene/OC Ska Comp.)
08. The Hippos - "Lost It" (Heads are Gonna Roll)
09. For Pete's Sake - "Bend or Break" (Our Time)
10. Spring Heeled Jack (USA) - "Addicted" (Songs From Suburbia)
11. Franceska - "Tell Me Whatcha Gonna Do" (Modern Music for Dancing Lovers)
12. Reel Big Fish - "Hungry Like the Wolf" (Tribute to Duran Duran)
13. Suburban Legends - "I Want More" (Self-Titled, Chris Batstone vocal version)
14. The Siren Six! - "Get It Right" (Voice with a Built in Promise)
15. King Apparatus - "Michael and Anne" (Marbles)
16. Save Ferris - "You and Me" - (Introducing...)
17. Planet Smashers - "Surfing in Tofino" (Life of the Party)
18. The Decapitones - "A.K.A. Money " (Behind the 8 Ball)
19. The Scholars - "Superdollar" (The Last Great Record Of The 20th Century)
20. Suburban Rhythm - "Game Show" (Step On It: The Best Of Ska Parade)

I left my 'Everything' journal at a Vietnamese restaurant and I can't find consolation knowing that someone somewhere is reading my most private thoughts and schemes and probably having a gay ol' time laughing at my expense.

requested by: taylor
compiled by: Megan

01. Pedro the Lion - "Bad Diary Days" (It's Hard to Find a Friend)
02. The Ataris - "In This Diary" (So Long Astoria)
03. Cursive - "Making Friends and Acquaintances" (Domestica)
04. Ozzy Osbourne - "Diary of a Madman" (Diary of a Madman)
05. Stroke 9 - "Little Black Backpack" (Little Black Back Pack)
06. Bread - "Diary" (Best of Bread vol I)
07. Evergreen Terrace - "Dear Live Journal" (Burned Alive By Time)
08. Braid - "I Keep a Diary" (Lucky to be Alive)
09. E.L.O - "The Diary of Horace Wimp" (Discovery)

The mods will no longe accept requests for mix-tapes with themes like "I'm secretly in love with you" or "The bitch left me!"
Here are some of the themes they did accept:

Let's face it. You're a celebrity, so we'll never meet, so you can never fall in love with me like I'm in love with you. But even if we did meet, you'd probably think I'm just another obsessive fan, instead of your soulmate

I was a teenage Mexican mail-order bride.

Robert Propst, inventor of the office cubicle, is lucky he's dead cause if he wasnt I would kill him.


There will be no new Beulah album this fall(and there should be);a mourning mix tape.[i love beulah!]

I wish I could plug my headphones into my girlfriends mind. She's facinating. I bet I'd dance like a jellyfish on coke.
[awww!]

Tiny Mix Tape robots-I dedicate this post to you.

Oh to be a Bounty Hunter or Buffalo.

My boss and I are wearing the same outfit today. How embarassing. Granted it's only jeans and black t-shirts, but still. I suggested making this our uniform so we can look like a bunch of skiptracing bounty hunters, but I don't think that will go over well with managment. Plus casual day is only on Fridays and the rest of the company would talk and then it would have to be casual day, every day for everybody. It really isn't worth the hassle.
I tried getting a hold of this guy Albert whom I had a couple classes with about a year ago. He had given me a story for a zine project I was working on at the time, but never came into fruition [I hate that word]. Anyway, I wanted to ask him if I could use it in my regular zine for the next issue, but I haven't heard back from him. I only had his work email, so I presume he isn't working there anymore. Too bad. I think I'll use it anyway. I'm also thinking about putting Jake's [a former co-worker] story in this one too. Again it was supposed to go with the other zine project. I have no idea how to get a hold of that cat. So again, I'm just going to use it. They did, after all, both give me permission already.
Another project I need to jumpstart is getting some more up on the Tribute to Wham! section. I'll have to bug Bernadine and Jared for that though. I know there are some funny things that can be told by those kids. They know everything.


I've been thinking about it, and I really, really, really want a pet buffalo.

Tatonka-I dedicate this post to you.

No! Not Black Leaf!

Dang. I just started learning how to game, and I'm going to have to stop. One of the fella's friends, whose house we gamed at, is moving away to become a fancy lawyer. So that leaves three left. The third guy doesn't really drive, and he lives pretty far away.
So this Sunday'll be the last time for awhile maybe. Which is too bad. I mean, I'm only a level 8 Druid. I'm not even immune to poisons yet! Gosh.
I want to have a Dinosaur animal companion because wouldn't that be awesome? But no, the fella says the area we're in wouldn't have any dinosaurs.

I'm going to start a petition so I can get a dinosaur.

Please sign here:

x_______________________
x_______________________
x_______________________
x_______________________
x_______________________
x_______________________

To be fair I did get to have a Bison though. Which is pretty rad.

Now on to my favorite RPG- Kingdom of Loathing.
I love this game. I'm on my fifth ascension. Sixth incarnation really. Been playing a year this month. Sad or awesome? You decide. I'm on my way to beating the Naughty Sorceress again. I just put the bridge over the Orc Chasm to get to the Valley of the Baron Rof L'm Fao [I think that's French] and got the 64735 scroll after finding two more 334 scrolls. I used the first two to get the 668 scroll and I accidently summoned the Neighbor of the Beast. He bestowed upon me 11 papayas, which are incidentally useful in PVP. My familiar is a Personal Raincloud named Drunken Sailor. He renews my HP and MP so that I can keep summoning Cones of Whatever in battles against Sand Witches and Bonerdagons. Yes, I spelled that correctly. Bonerdagon.


Chick Tracts -I dedicate this post to you. [Dude, Debbie has an awesome jacket!]

I'm not the new Drug Czar, but...

In light of my GMR post yesterday, Jeff Harrel's post in his blog is very timely.

[Alright, so he wrote it before I wrote mine, but whatever.]

He talks about John Tierney's editorial in the New York Times, which can be summed up as "Hey, drugs really aren't a problem!"

Yeah, sure they're not.

Tierney does have some valid points wrought from statistics; however, the bottom line is that drugs fuck a person up, you know? You can't deny that. Meth may not make an addict out of everybody, but it does make addicts out of some, along with heroin, crack, and painkillers. And some is worse than none.

[Yeah, y'all can argue that so do cigarettes and alcohol. Nothing I can say to rebut that, really. But hard, illegal, drugs will gut and kill you swiftly, like a machete. You can't deny that.]

Tierney's paraphrased opinion that the "War on Drugs is like Prohibition" reads like a 15-year-old saying his "mom is such a Nazi!" because he can't go some "Skipknot" show. And we all know Godwin's Law.

Anyway, check out Harrel's expletive-laden rant because it's really awesome.

[as an aside, were you aware the word "blog" does not appear in Blogger's spellcheck?]

The Shape of Days-I dedicate this post to you.

It's a double-edged Vorpal Blade.

I got a phone call out of the blue from a friend I hadn't known since I was 10. She'd been trying to track me down, along with with another friend- R. Lisa and I talked and caught up on the things.
I used my Mad Skiptracing Skillz™ on ZabaSearch and tracked down some info I hoped led to R. Lisa did some calling around and eventually found R's mother, which I was happy to hear. Unfortunately Lisa had been warned by several people that R. was not doing so well.
On actual contact with R's mother, Lisa was informed that R. was married, had a child, and is hooked on drugs. When R's mom went to get her last night [R. doesn't have a phone], she was too strung out and her mom didn't want her talking to us in that state.

This is weird. I'd always wondered what happened to R. and was really sad to hear that she was like this. Her upbringing was pretty rough, so it's understandable in a way. But from what I've heard second- and third-hand, her mother got her act together pretty soon after they moved. But the damage was done, I guess. She just went the path she'd seen growing up.

I don't know how to deal with it. On one hand I'm elated to have heard from Lisa and located R. But on the other hand I've been feeling well-balanced recently, and I don't know if I want to be involved in "saving" R's soul. From what Lisa was saying, several family members said that perhaps Lisa and I could get through to R. somehow. I'd like to attempt to contact her again, but I don't have it in me to be one of the driving forces in R's sobriety.

I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch, but I figure if this girl took the time to find me, and the pieces fell into place to find R., then maybe I've got to pay attention. I just have a feeling this will test my limits. My goal is to live my life as drama-free as possible. So far I've been succeeding.

The noise a vorpal blade makes -I dedicate this post to you.

God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like round candy-coated chocolates.

I've gotta call bullshit on something. This is the biggest upset since The Transplants lent their song to Garnier shampoo.
What is it with M&Ms using Iron and Wine's cover of "Such Great Heights" in a commercial?
Admittedly I'm not an Iron and Wine fan. Not only that, but I'm a hand-me-down listener of the song [my friend played me the Postal Service version and I only heard the Iron and Wine cover in Garden State]. But I dunno. There's something that just gets under my skin about it being used for M&Ms. And I like M&Ms [I'm fat, it's chocolate; it's expected.].
I'm not calling sell-out...it just seems like an unexpected move. Oh well.

The Postal Service version is also in a commercial, but for something a little more expected. Don't remember what though.
[Ooh, it's a healthcare commercial. Still odd, but a bit different than M&Ms]

Oh well.

I like this comment from the StereoGum post:

Man, I remember eating M&Ms when you could only get them at, like, nationwide supermarket chains and 7-11s. Now you totally see them at Wal-Mart and Target. Just another example of commercialization of something that was once organic and authentic. Hey, does anyone have any coke?

Because it's true.

M&Ms commercial- windows media / quicktime

the color blue-I dedicate this post to you.

Co-Workers Say the Darndest Things, Part II

Woman #1 is a frosted blonde middle-aged woman. She is talking in a conspirational whisper to woman #2.
"Last night..."
The excitement in her voice is evident. She pauses for effect, and sounds like she is about to announce her engagement.
"Last night...I had the best salmon!"
"You did?" Woman #2 asks, with wide-eyed excitement. She is completely astonished at this crazy, breathtaking revelation.

Dude, it's just fish. You didn't discover the cure for ugly or something. Calm down, Turbo.


Miss Manners-I dedicate this post to you.