Geneffects: December 2004

One Final Kick in the Pants

It is just now 3PM, and today is already shaping up to be one of the worst in the year. Yay, 2004! Who's with me?

New Year's Resolutions Aught Five

Do I want a new job? Do I want to go to grad school? Do I want to just plod along doing what I am doing in the hopes that it will eventually develop into something great? Each (despite the "plod" verb) has its merits. There are the big goals like buying a house or starting a family... feh. Who knows there. Here are some do-able ones:

No - or significantly less - pornography
The internet is great and all, but wow, I think that it provides, much like drugs, stimuli which humans were never really supposed to experience. If your brain is used to the idea of "sex" as being five-way DVDA orgies, then that could, as my theory goes, diminish the enjoyment of actual sex. Not cool.

Be more artistic
When I was a kid I was all sorts of into art. I got really good really fast, but then didn't grow. Then it got to the point where every knew me as the artist and every present was some sort of colored pencil or something. That got kind of old. Still, that wasn't so bad. The main nail in that coffin was doing graphic design. That really killed it. Doing art for money is not something at which I am good. So maybe I should try to make a painting a week.

Start a band
I've been talking about it... Writing songs and fragments... I've got some people wanting to do it... What's the problem? I think I should also try to write a song a week. Maybe a song a day? That would be crazy, but un-do-able? It'd be crazy easy to do that if I had a new computer. Thanks a lot, G3 chip! (I still love you, Precious.)

Community Service
It has been a while. It really has. The last few times were kind of... taxing. but I think I'm ready again. I'll probably end up doing something with Volunteers for Youth.

Friendster

I just started doing this whole "Friendster" thing. Tell me what you think, should I set up "Geneffects" as a Friendster account so that all people interested in all things Geneffects could be linked in a network? Would that be cool?

Movies are Fake

I had a girlfriend who never missed an opportunity to remind me that porn is not real. "She's totally faking that, you realize?" You know what, I don't really care. Did I care that the actor playing Sloth in The Goonies probably wasn't a deformed mutant? Did I care that the T-Rex in Jurassic Park is really a computer graphic? Do I care that Tommy Lee Jones is a vinyl animatronic puppet? Do I care that Bart Simpson is actually a drawing? Why should I care that Tiffany Towers has fake tits?

So, yes, I know it's fantasy, but no need to spoil all the fun. When a girl makes me watch Sixteen Candles you don't see me nudging her saying, "you know this is all fake, don't you?" But you know, maybe I should. I think in some ways Sixteen Candles is more harmful to women than porn. Porn may alter men's expectations of women, but John Hughes will forever warp a little girl's expectations for the way life and love will play out.

Molly Ringwald would never have a chance in hell with that guy with the thick eyebrows. She should totally hook up with Duckie. Sure, Duckie may not be rich or handsome, but by god, the boy's got heart! That rich kid may be gorgeous and have deep, dreamy eyes, and, yes, he probably is dynamite in the sack and a caring lover who'll hold you all night and tell you you're beautiful and say it in a way that lets you know that he means your soul is beautiful and to hell with your dad who may not approve because he's older, but isn't dad like way older than mom?

Bad Pizza

Totino's Pizza has rarely let me down. Eating it is my first real memory after my childhood concussion/amnesia. Today it smelled a little bad while cooking, and I began to fear that perhaps I was loosing my taste for them.

I'm not sure which came first: burning then death or death then burning, but all I know is that my oven and a poor, unfortunate mouse were involved.

That can't be a good sign.

Mixed Feelings

I'll bet the band Tsunami Bomb is having mixed feelings about their website's sudden popularity.

WTF?

Again with the crapping of the blood... It seems to correspond with every time I get a hair cut. I have no idea what that means.

Thanks, but no.

Dear Chapel Hill / Carrboro Girl,

Thank you for applying for the Girlfriend position at Brian Risk, Inc. We have reviewed your experience and education against our current requirements and we feel that our current opening does not offer a close match to your background.

We wish you well in locating the opportunity you desire

Dryer Lint

Useless Jingle #49:

OOOh, it's a by product of clothes you dry. When cleanin' dryer lint, you'd better close your eyes.
When your father in law sez, "dry your shirt!" Beware the dryer lint or your eyes will hurt!
Oh, dryer lint! Dryer lint! Nothing could be worse than dryer lint!
Dryer lint! Dryer llint! Gonna put a curse on dryer lint!

Paid for by Fathers In Law Against Dryer Lint In Your Eyes (FILADLIYE)

Boner Machine

Lauren often brings her dog where she goes. This particular night, you could tell the dog was not happy with the music being performed. At one point he sat next to me on the bench and with a look in his eyes that said, "please kill me," he laid his head in my lap, covering his ears with his paws.

Now, we all know, that, in general, men are the sexual persuers. Women may make initial body cues, but, again in general, the guys take the action. Tonight however, under the freshly waxing moon, the girls were way hornier than the guys and it showed. Lauren's dog must have picked up on this, or was maybe just making a general political statement, and to my complete and silent glee he begins humping a poor dancing girl's leg. Seeing this unfold was quite a treat. At first there is shock. The girl, dancing by herself, suddenly finds that she has a partner. This shock quickly turns to awkwardness as there is not a predefined social protocol for this situation. Any other dog may have been kicked away without a thought, but this mutt has powerful connections. Lauren, the dogs owner, is also part owner of the club as well as a principal member in the performing band, Boner Machine. The final resolution was to keep on dancing as if there weren't a dog dry-humping her kneecap.

It kind of made me wonder. This girl whose leg was humped was pretty attractive, but do dogs really discriminate? Does a dog ever wake up in the morning, kind of hung over, then look over to the pillow next to him to see the ugliest leg he's ever laid eyes on?

ECHHS Battle of the Bands '04

The show last night was the East Chapel Hill High School battle of the bands. In general non-eventful, which sucked. I mean, if I'm only making 10 bucks in tips, I at least need some good stories. As it stands the only moment of excitement came when I broke up a fight while it was still in its "c'mon, man, let's go outside" stages. These kids were, in general, pretty well behaved as East, in general, has the wealthier families. Which made it all the funnier when one band covered some RATM song with "we gotta take the power back" in the chorus. Damn straight! Don't be suckered by NAFTA!

Apheresis

I gave platelets a couple of days ago (temp: 95.7 (!) , BP: 136/80 (kinda high), HR: 65). Did you know that if you donate any blood-based product and lead any sort of sexually active life, there's like a litany of questions you need to ask your partner - all of which which are awkward to work into normal conversation. Still let's give it a go:

I guess a goal of mine is to travel more... I mean the most exotic country I've been to is Canada. How about you? (...) Travel to anywhere cool like.. oh.. I don't know... Africa?
(...) My inhaler? Yeah, well, I've had asthma all my life. You ever have any health issues? (...) You don't say... Ever had a dura mater transplant? (...) Anything which required clotting factor concentrate?
Hey, let's play a little game... We each ask a question about something we may have done, and if you've done that, then you have to take a drink. (...) Okay, I'll go first. Ever have sex with a man who's had sex with another man? (...) No, we drink if we have done that.
You are really quite beautiful. Striking, really. I'll bet you've heard all sorts of pick-up lines. (...) Ya ever heard this one: If I bought you drugs or offered you money, would you have sex with me?
Knock knock. (...) Havyaeva (...) Havyaeva taken drugs with a needle? (...) No, seriously. Hey, where you goin'?

Benoit Mandelbrot

I love this Benoit Mandelbrot book, The mis(Behavior) of Markets! His writing is very approachable for the average Joe (which is a concern when reading a book by the father for fractal geometry). One thing I love is every once in a while he will make a statement that assumes the tone of, "look, I'm over 80 years old. I am the father of fractal geometry. You can believe what I just said or not... and frankly I don't really care because I know I am right." What a badass! More on this book later.

An Evil Wiener Christmas Show

Evil Wiener... is the Christmas spirit. They embody it. They are the one band that can successfully pull off Theremin Christmas Song Jukebox Requests, a filmstrip of A Christmas Carol with audience members reading the dialogue and going "bing!" when the reel needed to be advanced, then a rockin' show culminating with a dance-party group sing-a-long.

My own personal favorite part of the filmstrip was Billy reading the dialogue, and then, like we're all rappers, the audience chimes in on every third word. (Some frames we read in the voice of Satan, and though I feared this would solidify my name in the evil lord's dark book, I still did it.) I also enjoyed the crayons and coloring sheets provided. I flipped mine and drew a Hershey's Kiss and cigarette butts instead of the Halloween witch outline on the other side.

The truly remarkable aspect of the evening is that Chapel Hill is filled with shoegazers who'll be damned if they shoe any enthusiasm for anything, so getting them to sing along to anything, much less Feliz Navidad, is just short of miraculous.

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, some band names for Meredith:

Twisted Monkey Fist
The Barely Legal Teens
The Shoegazers
Hoppy's Bewildered and Blank Expressions

Brian Risk Chapel Hill Carrboro Cat's Cradle Blog

Oh, yeah, so I'm, like, Brian Risk, and stuff?? What-ever!

Conversations... of the Damned!

"Have you been helped?"

"I'd like a Miller Lite."

At that point, his order magically appears from one of the other bartenders. So quickly, in fact, that it is obvious this guy already placed his order.

"So you have been helped?"

"Uh... yeah."

"See, I was about to get you a Miller Lite. You would have had two; then what would you have done? Would you have given me a weird look and said 'hey, I only ordered one,' when, all truth be told, you actually ordered two?"

"Uh..."

"Oh, no, I mean I totally understand. Hedge your bets, right? If you tell two people to get you your beer the chances double that you'll actually get it. Or maybe you think the beer will get to you twice as fast, or cost half as much. Hey, here's an idea: why don't you just ask everybody you meet to get you a Miller Lite, because lord knows this whole asking-one-person-to-get-your-order kind of system just ain't cuttin' the kind of mustard you get in the back of a Rolls, now is it?"

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