Critical Marginalia

Star Trails above Oregon

2009-09-09T22:21:00.003-05:00

Oh so pretty. This image captures the "trails" that stars appear to leave as the earth spins on its axis. Imagine if we could actually see this...

This week on Etsy

2009-09-05T21:40:00.015-05:00

In honor of Labor Day, here are a few items I found on Etsy. I mean, who wouldn't want a crocheted hot dog set? Or a tshirt with a huge fork on it? Or...whatever that last thing is?

Crocheted Hot Dog Set

Giant Fork Tshirt

Quail Family Bottle

I would like to see this...

2009-09-05T18:09:00.004-05:00

although I will settle for just seeing the moai.

Archivist Humor

2009-09-02T21:33:00.002-05:00

Cause I know you want it.

This week on Etsy

2009-08-30T21:22:00.009-05:00

My favorite site on the whole of the internet is etsy.com. Its like window-shopping on the internet. I have always wanted to share my findings with interested parties (which, believe it or not, does not include Dave) but lamented the fact that none were to be found. Until I remembered...you! (And by "you" I mean my virtual audience of no one. Still, thats enough for me!)

Here is what I have found this week:

OMGLULZ

2009-08-30T11:13:00.002-05:00

A friend of a friend posted this on facebook. I have no idea what the original source is. Also, I have no idea what the title means. But still, this is hilarious.

Enjoy.

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

-I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-That's enough, Nickelback.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- Was learning cursive really necessary?

- Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

***- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

- I would like to officially coin the phrase 'catching the swine flu' to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: "Dave caught the swine flu last night."

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem...

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

-There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

-I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

Waaaaaall-eeee

2009-06-02T05:47:00.002-05:00

The space rover Spirit recently encountered softsoil on Mars and is no longer mobile. Scientists are unsure whether they will be able to manipulate Spirit's wheels to release it from the soil. If not, Spirit may just have to sit there and study what it can. Poor Spirit! Meanwhile, Spirit's robot twin Opportunity is having a grand old time on its two year trek to the Endeavor crater.

A return

2009-06-01T21:37:00.002-05:00

I'm back! Makin' a comeback! Its been a long, long while (ok, about a year, which in the grand scheme of things, is not that long) but I hope to make this run last a while. Although "a while" is really relative.

My goal is to post. Anything. Substance is not a criteria. Just to warn you.

So...here goes!

Perspective

2008-06-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

The pessimist complains about the wind
the optimist expects it to change
the realist adjusts the sails.

--William Arthur Ward

Naughty, naughty

2008-05-22T17:16:00.011-05:00

Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has a blog where they post "visual and textual curiosities" from their vast and diverse collections. My favorites so far of the items they've published are images of "naughty" novelty baseball cards from the early twentieth-century (circa 1910):

Particularly this last one:

Way to take one for the team. ;)

You can take the girl out of New York, but you can't take New York out of the girl

2008-05-15T18:52:00.002-05:00

Oh wait, yes you can.

In the 5 months that I've been in Hawaii, and thus the 5 months that I've left New York, the nostalgia pangs have hit me perhaps thrice, and I'm pretty sure two of those times I was a bit buzzed (making me more susceptible to irrational emotion). I definitely don't miss the rush, the noise, the pollution, and I don't even miss the perks of the world's best restaurants, artists and museums. In fact, I am much more satisfied to buy non-brand names, to use coupons at grocery stores, and to cook mundane meals consisting of the main dish, the occasional starch and the ubiquitous side of green salad.

Is this the "me" I've been looking for? The "me" I could never find in New York? The "me" that I left Hawaii to discover only to discover it was home in Hawaii all along?

Its been one hell of a rollercoaster ride. In my more idealistic days, I would carry the banner "Live without regrets," using it as an excuse to do what I pleased as long as I remembered to not regret whatever it was that I was doing. As if I actually had control over that. Now that I am older, and more realistic, I do regret. A lot.

Yet despite my regrets, I am spectularly happy to be where I am now. I am very excited about my future. I'm excited to go back to school, I'm excited to get 2! Masters degrees, and I am excited to marry Dave.

I guess I done growned-up.

Sometimes, irony just makes me want to spit.

2007-04-11T22:39:00.001-05:00

"If we pride ourselves on our humility we may end up like the man given a small medal as the most humble person in town. He had it taken away when he was seen wearing the medal in public."

To be alive

2007-04-04T21:36:00.004-05:00

To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but…

If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?

-by Gregory Orr

She is very beautiful.

2007-03-22T11:18:00.001-05:00

People are different ways with different people. Different people bring out different sides of other people, in ways other people cannot bring out those differences themselves.

She is very beautiful, and possesses a sort of rare elegance, despite her unkept hair and funny outfits. She glides when she walks, radiates when she smiles, tells quirky stories that makes everyone, especially herself, laugh. I watch her when I can; I wish I could just understand where it all comes from.

For me, she is champagne and roses.

"My hand would be the correct size."

2007-03-22T11:07:00.002-05:00

At airports everyone is more beautiful. Their clothes are new and they wear sneakers, which are more comfortable for travel.

There are no dirty people at airports. Sometime the people at airports are disheveled, from their travels, but they are never dirty.

My grandmother got in the coffin with my grandfather. It took fifteen minutes to get her out. She had just had her knees fixed--the fluid drained, a synthetic ball and socket installed, ligaments made of plastic and rubber. She had been a hurdler in her youth.

I saw a man today who had a fake arm. I was at the mall, not the airport, and I was riding the escalator up. I saw him, for a moment only, as he was walking on the level below.

It was a professionally manufactured prosthetic arm, and was cast in the peach color they use. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, so only the hand was visible. The hand was very small.

The man was about 5'10," medium build, perhaps 34, 36 years old. But the hand he had, which was resting diagonally across his midriff, just below his heart, was not the size a hand should have been for a man of his size.

It was a child's hand. Then he walked into a store.

The conveyors that people walk on in airports should be used on city streets. Everyone could walk to work, dozens and dozens of blocks, and it wold take not time at all. The city could even charge people to use such the conveyor. The conveyor could be called the ConveyorWalk. The ConveyorWalk would look fantastic--all these people, walking so fast they would seem to be flying, outside, on the sidewalk, under a sky with white clouds.

The hand was so small, delicate, the fingers almost wispy. But why? If one were to go to the trouble of purchasing a prosthetic arm, one for show only--for I imagine there are no medical benefits to a prosthesis--they why buy a small one?

My thoughts:

- He has had the prosthetic arm since he was a boy, and keeps it for sentimental reasons.

-He has had the prosthetic arm since he was a boy, and cannot afford to replace it.

-He does not know it is too small."

*************************

From Jokes Told in Heaven about Babies, by Lucy Thomas

What about Brian?

2007-03-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a dream about Brian. In the dream, everytime Kat and I ran into Brian (which was frequently), he was extremely rude to both of us, refusing to say hello or good-bye, or even acknowledge that we were there, despite attmepts on our part to strike up a conversation. In fact, he seemed extremely annoyed that we even tried to talk to him. In real life, I don't know Brian that well, but this behavior seems highly unlikely of him, leading me to believe the dream was more about Katherine than it was about Brian. But even more likely, I think the dream was really about the pet gorilla that was allowed to run wild around the office complex we were visiting, and about the escaped boa constrictor that looked alot like an extremely large sea cucumber. When the two animals happened upon each other, it was a playful game of "look what I found!" until the boa constrictor decided to bite the gorilla's leg. (Now I know boa constrictors don't bite, but this one did, and also, the gorilla looked alot like a horse.)

Library Lust

2007-03-07T11:30:00.001-05:00

"I long for labyrinthine libraries in which books disappear for decades and then suddenly surface like logs breaking loose from the murky bottom of a Scottish loch. I long to wander through subterranean vaults, plucking tomes, topped by a mat of dust (the remains of old professors, perhaps), that have not been read in 200 years of library residency: wallflowers waiting for me to choose them and use them as I please....

In 20 years, college students will regard books the way they now regard 33 RPM records: a quaint technology, warmer perhaps, but ultimately the province of musty antiquarians....

When that day comes, I suppose I'll be one of those dirty old men, white-bearded like Whitman, poking around in the stacks of derelict libraries, caressing the spines, perusing the neglected volumes, and contemplating how his desire for books only increases with age."

Excerpts from "Red Hot Library Lust," Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 February 2007:

Thought I'd throw this out there.

2007-02-27T01:02:00.001-05:00

I'm taken with a band called Nouvelle Vogue. I enjoy their sound--crave it sometimes--hollow percussions over a rather swayful rhythm. Its the kind of music you listen to alone, in the dark, imagining yourself to be something other than what you are; imagining yourself to be unhuman. During the in-between times, I need to go to places like this, these dark, abysmal places that somehow keep me grounded--removing my reality, replacing it with another perception. It is in these moments when I cherish my loneliness, my solitude--feeling empowered by feeling nothing.

I am reading a book called Anil's Ghost, taking place in Sri Lanka, written by the same author who did The English Patient. Perhaps those words are feeding these. Theres a sensuality to the book, derived no doubt from the inherent spirituality of the culture. Its very fluid, and sometimes leaves me empty. I like that. Closure can at times be so contrived.

The irony of what moves the human soul.

Ummmmm.....

2004-05-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

I'm lost. I think I'm in cyberspace. Does anyone know if theres a Starbucks around? Hello? hello?