But in case you have short term memory issues or don’t really care enough to remember the little incidentals about me or simply show up to look at the pretty pictures and don’t actually read anything…I am easily amused.

And I will proceed to prove that fact to you again in a moment.

But before I do, let me take you back to a time in the not-so-distant past. A time we thought the world was going to end because of some faulty computer programming written thirty-five years earlier.

A time when we all learned the word ‘hanging chads,’ something we now know to be a little scrap of paper that destroyed Al Gore’s soul, but left him an environmental guru (as well as inventor of the internet).

An era when a little boy named Elian showed up off the Miami coast clinging to an inner tube and captured America’s attention…shortly before being deported back to Cuba and spending the rest of his life bad-mouthing us, joining the Young Communist Union of Cuba, and currently training in Cuban military school. Remember Disneyworld, Elian? Do they have anything like that in Cuba? Mickey Mouse? Goofy? Space Mountain? Didn’t think so.

The era when O magazine first hit the stands, Katie Lee Gifford quit Regis and Kathie Lee, and AOL bought Time Warner, thus sealing both of their fates.

It was also, as you may recall or may just now be learning, a time when Jack Black did not suck.

In fact, he was pretty damn funny then, culminated by his somewhat ridiculous band (and related HBO show) Tenacious D. And there was an episode of Tenacious D that year where they meet their ‘biggest fan’ who has set up a website about them and seems rather obsessed – kind of like Mel on Flight of the Conchords (another great HBO show about a ridiculous band that you should be watching if you’re not already watching it.)

So anyway – and yes, I still remember the original point of this post and am slowly plodding toward it – this is the clip containing a character named Lee. To fill you in and spare you the lengthy version: They’ve met Lee the night before, checked out the website he set up dedicated to them, and become obsessed with him. Way to turn the tables on your stalker! Watch it and learn.

And that is relevant because of this rather hilarious ‘Muscle Milk’ ad (I’m not immediately familiar with Muscle Milk, but I have seen it for sale at the gym. I imagine it’s for babies who want to be really buff.) sent to me late last night, that is highly relevant because of its earnest celebration of the impending holiday known as Thanksgiving.

And because that guy is obviously Lee.

And because he vaguely reminds me of my friend’s boyfriend (kind of like how Bret of Flight of the Conchords reminds me of my other friend’s boyfriend.)

And because this is my first year of appreciating that Thanksgiving can be funny.

(And lastly, just in case you’re not already watching Flight of the Conchords, here’s one of their songs to get you started…)

Oh hell, it’s the holidays. It’s the season of giving. So in that spirit, here’s another one of my most favorite Flight of the Conchords bits:

You know when I’m down to my socks it’s time for business, that’s why they call it business socks…

Jermaine should have been on my list of freaky-looking dudes I have crushes on. If the show is accurate, he’s part Maori (because there’s an episode where they set up “New Zealand Town” in New York City and force him to play the Maori.)

p.s.

The entire time I’ve been compiling this for you, Fu Manchu has been nursing (and there really is no other word for it. There’s a strange, loud, and consistently-timed sucking noise emanating from his head) on my bathrobe. Now I’ve got to wash my bathrobe, Fu.

Thanks for nothing. Weirdo.

p.p.s.

So as to prove my point, there are little bits of bathrobe material caught under his nails.

Don’t commit any crimes, Fu, because those claws of yours are evidence magnets.

I’d buy your love.

I would.

I might.

Okay, you got me.
I wouldn’t.

I’d quite possibly buy a lot of stuff and most of it I wouldn’t need, but I’d probably take my queues from the super-rich Beatles (as in ‘Can’t Buy Me’ more than ‘All You Need Is’) over the probably-barely-getting-by-anymore Barenaked Ladies and forgo the love buying.

Meanwhile, I must confess that I feel bedraggled and borderline ill. I’m mainlining zinc and  considering another dance with the devil (AmbienCT, which made me puke about ten days ago) in order to get some much needed – if not necessary – zzzzs.

In the meantime, and in the spirit of compensating for over two weeks of doing for others, I spent the day indulging in three of my favorite, pointless activities:

1. Reading cookbooks

2. Watching old episodes of Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations

3. Window shopping online

And the critical word there is WINDOW because I’m not exactly financially solvent at the moment and because I spent two entire days purging a colossal amount of stuff from my closet…and it’s still brimming with a veritable shit load of stuff. Beloved stuff. Precious stuff. Cute stuff. Stuff I love. Stuff I (obviously) can’t part with. And yet the love of new stuff surfaces in the face of so much stuff…

On the surface you might think I’d make a really bad Buddhist, but that’s not the case. Nope. One can love their stuff so long as they maintain awareness that the stuff (both the stuff I have and the stuff I do not have, but would like to have) and I are one. Loving my stuff is self-love.

Allow me to make this a little bit more confusing:

In Buddhism, non-attachment (the ideal state) is the exact opposite of separation. To have attachment, you need two things:

1. The person who attaches
2. The thing the person attaches to.

In non-attachment, you’ve unified with the whole universe. There is nothing outside of you. Thus, there’s nothing to attach to and the notion of attachment becomes absurd.

However, because as a species we tend to believe that we are having an autonomous and intrinsic existence within our skin, and what’s outside our bodies is “everything else,” most of us go through life grabbing for one thing after another in an effort to be safe or feel happy.

And the rub there is that we ‘pursue’ happiness because we think it is an external quality, something that lies outside ourselves. And because we think it is ‘out there’ or external, we stress and worry about gaining it…and losing it. Whatever can be found can also be lost.

Which is, in the end, a long-winded way of saying that I am one with the items for sale at Urban Outfitters.com and thus looking at them and owning none of them brings me the same level of pleasure as owning them. Although, admittedly, if I had a million dollars, I would own a few of them.

Like this skirt:

And this wallet:

And this jacket:

And this jewelry holder stacked doll chairs thingamabob:

And this sweater:

But in a totally non-attached way…

Really.

Honest injun.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

I can’t get this to format how I want, so sorry about that. Sometimes (more often than not), Wordpress mystifies me.

Actually, I have nothing to say on the subject of rainbows and unicorns, it just sounded like a perfectly awful (and slightly terrifying) title. Unicorns are a’ight. I’ve never seen one, but if I did I think I would be worried it would gore me. I recently saw a photo where a rainbow ends right on top of an SUV. It would seem the pot of gold comes in many forms…

Me at seven months old. I think I was playing peek-a-boo. And I was damn good at it. Or so I've been told.

So without any proper intro, let’s get down to business and check out this little photo montage I lovingly prepared for you. And believe me, although I didn’t manage to get a post up in a timely manner, I invested time as if I had. There’s no need to rehash the hairy details; sufficed to say: Leopard, dammit, HP scanner, restart, 2004, ^$%%@!!!, even more drivers, eventual success.

At any rate, and as you can see (unless you are in blind, and in which case, how are you reading this? Probably text to speech. Okay, ignore that question. I figured it out myself.) I have put together a little “this is my life” for you based on some photos I found in the garage last month while searching for a tape player. Actually, and more accurately, it’s “this is the first ten years of my life” but I really don’t appreciate you taking everything so literally. Yeah. I said it. I’ve had about enough of your guff. Keep it to yourself, pal.

So, let’s see. What’s been going on?

From the size of my brother, I'd say I'm about 2 1/2 in this one. And no, I wasn't one of those genius babies that could read, I just had an early start on faking it until you make it.

First, as you probably know, I got a year older. That’s right. Despite my attempts to resist the march of time, time marched over me. What can I say? Time is a relentless bastard, and there’s just no reasoning with him. Believe me, I’ve tried.

In celebration of yet another candle on the cake, I had a low-key day that was pretty much like every other day: editing, going for a run, voodoo ceremony, more editing, goofing around on the internets, animal sacrifice, and some pizza with friends. In all actuality, my cake had four candles for some bad math/unknown reason (I think the explanation given was that it looked proportionate), and I successfully blew them all out.  (!!!)

I can’t reveal my wish, lest it not come true, but sufficed to say, someone living in a beach house in Kauai is going to start feeling strangely compelled to sign it over to me any day now…

Me (the ham. The only one paying attention to the camera) at probably my fifth birthday. I actually remember that cake. My mom's friend made it.

In other news, I filed a petition to enact the Modified Benjamin Button Effect. As we all know, I’ve been fighting the ravages of time pretty damn well (thank you god of looking younger than you are), but in another twenty years, I may not be quite as hot. Make no mistake, I’ll still turn some heads at the nursing home, but I also don’t want to be Cher. You know, 63 but carrying on like you’re 25. It lacks dignity.

That’s why I think the best plan is to get to 50, and then let the clock start running backwards. I have to imagine one’s 40’s are a lot more fun when you know your 30’s and 20’s lie ahead.

Nobody gets hurt, and I’m happy.

If you ask me, it’s win/win.

Now, I never saw that movie, but I know enough to know that what I’ve laid out isn’t QUITE the Benjamin Button effect. You’re supposed to start out old and get young, but seeing as I (obviously) didn’t start out old, I’m hoping for a pass on that small detail.

The Halloween of my 10th year (with my brother). My mother was the queen of improvising costumes out of nothing - with mixed success. Thank god I grew into my 'man hands.' What the hell was going on there????

Anyway, I haven’t heard back on my petition yet (bureaucracies. There’s so much red tape), but I’m hopeful. Plus, I’ve got a solid thirteen years until the backwards clock starts, so I’m not going to stress it too much just yet.

In conclusion, and in case you were wondering, I included these photos for you so you’d recognize me in the future. Assuming things go according to plan, this is how I plan to look during my ‘golden years.’

p.s.

Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes on the last blog post! It’s really a cool thing to think I type up this nonsense and multiple someones somewhere actually read it. You guys are the best!!!!

(Even if your first name is Frothy. It’s not your fault. Obviously it’s a family name or your mother was very young and not really thinking it through…)

Just for novelty’s sake, I thought I’d drop in and log a quick update that – after reading and editing the thing one more time, no doubt - I’ll be ready to turn over the first quarter of the book to my readers tomorrow. To my own shock and awe, I’m happy with it AND the last few days have gone well.

That’s right: Editing has NOT sucked!!!

I’m finally starting to get into some material that isn’t a discombobulated train wreck, and thanks to spontaneous faux interviews with both Larry King and Bill Maher, I’m feeling kind of pumped up. And now if Bill Maher starts the interview by stating that he knows I’ve written a best-selling book, but I’m also really hot, I won’t be stupid-shocked and say, “He wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t say that. He would not say that…” five times while my head spins and drool pours out of the corner of my mouth.

Not at all. In fact, I’ve been convinced that he very well could say that, and I will have a snappy comeback prepared.

Meanwhile, I saw that the new Nobel Prize for Literature winner has been announced, and I’m thinking that $1.5 million (SEK 10 million) would look mighty fine in my bank account. Or cashed out and dumped all over my bed where I can roll around on it naked.

Either way.

Thus, it’s important that I don’t get too famous, because the Nobel prize for literature only ever goes to anarcho-syndicalist playwrights who survived a pogrom or a pamphleteer from Moldova or something like that. The rule is that it will not go to anyone you have ever heard of. However, depending upon how insecure and/or pompous you are, you might pretend you have after he or she wins. The winner must be alive, per Nobel rules, at the time of the nomination, so hopefully I can hang onto until at least 2011 or 2012 (when we’re all outta here anyway).

So I just need to maintain obscurity (probably about as easy as it sounds) and stay alive. Add to that the possibility of using my grandmother’s maiden name (Takach) as a pen name, thereby tapping into the suffering Eastern European pity vote, and digging up some depressed poetry from my teen years, and and I could really be onto something.

In addition, there is the now-famous assertion (if you have any interest in anything literary, that is. If not, your general reaction will probably be something like “Huh?” in reference to my suggestion that this was a well-publicized gaffe) made by the previous permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy (the dudes that vote for the Nobel prizes), Horace Engdahl. So anyway, Horace pissed some people off when he said last year that “Europe still is the centre of the literary world” and the quality of American writing was dragged down because authors were “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture”.

In response, and as a ray of hope for my own nomination:  There are exactly no vampires in my book.

Not even one.

Oh, and that reminds me, in the spirit of laziness slash “I just spent nine solid hours editing and then worked out my guns for an hour and prepared a gourmet dinner. What have YOU done today?” here is this awesome (if not slightly harsh) list courtesy of Alan Mott of bookgasm.com.  There’s so much to love here, but I think #29 is my very favorite. That or #42.

#38 cuts a little close to the bone.

And #40 – RRSW, Did you write that? I’d recognize your work anywhere…

50 Reasons No One Wants to Publish Your First Book

1. Being innovative doesn’t justify writing a Civil War epic entirely in texting slang and emoticons: “ts u hor! i dnt gv dam :< !”

2. There’s this thing called punctuation. You might want to look into it.

3. They’re afraid your author’s photo is going to alienate readers. That’s right, dude: You’re too ugly for literature.

4. Where are the vampires?

5. No, seriously, where are the vampires?

6. The world isn’t quite ready for an illustrated children’s book called SOME MOMMIES ARE INTERNET PORNSTARS: “Mommy and Daddy’s door is always locked and your online access is completely blocked! You asked them why and they say, ‘Don’t worry, honey, we’ve just found a fun new way to earn some money!’”

7. It probably wasn’t a good idea to base the main character on yourself, considering how much most people seem to hate you.

8. The market for IRON CHEF slash fiction isn’t quite as broad as you may have assumed: “’Oh, Morimoto,’ Chef Batali sighed, ’stuff me like a pepper!’”

9. Submitting a manuscript handwritten in your own blood does indicate your passion for the material, but not quite in the way you might have hoped.

10. They liked it better when it was called Jane Eyre and didn’t suck.

11. Iambic pentameter? Really?

12. Funnily enough, a detailed diary of five years’ worth of bowel movements has already been done. Curse you, Kevin Smith!

13. If you’re going to try and sell it on OPRAH as a memoir, you probably want to cut the chapter where you go back in time, kill Hitler and make Stalin admit that he’s your bitch.

14. William Burroughs was a broken-down beatnik junkie genius; you’re a wannabe-hipster asshole imitating a broken-down beatnik junkie genius.

15. It’s not technically a novel until you’ve written it down first.

16. Yes, enclosing a bag of flour along with your manuscript and causing an anthrax scare will get people’s attention, but it’s the wrong kind of attention.

17. You’re not just being paranoid; there really is a vast corporate conspiracy to ensure that your revolutionary ideas never leave your parents’ basement.

18. They can’t quite understand why you felt compelled to write such nasty things about Kenny Loggins in what is otherwise a fairly standard legal thriller. Kenny knows, but to everyone else, it comes across as somewhat mean and arbitrary.

19. Most good books aren’t created with the sole hope that they might someday be adapted into a Martin Lawrence movie.

20. You’re actually the 139th person to submit a conspiracy thriller involving the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, entitled THE MICHAELANGELO CIPHER.

21. And the 78th to submit a chick-lit manuscript about an attractive woman’s sweet tooth and affection for footwear, called CHOCOLATE AND SHOES.

22. You know the part where the protagonist stuffs those puppies into the wood chipper? It’s not quite as funny as you seem to think.

23. Truthfully, THE EVANGELICAL GUIDE TO GAY SEX is actually a great idea. The problem is that its target audience won’t want to buy it in a bookstore, and they’ll be highly reluctant to use their own credit cards to buy it online.

24. The alternative-history genre has lost its appeal. Everyone knows it doesn’t matter what else would have happened if the South won the Civil War and the Nazis won WWII: George W. Bush would stillhave been elected president.

25. A young-adult novel set in the behind-the-scenes world of network reality television featuring over two dozen characters, graphic underage sex and dead prostitutes? Are you fucking kidding me? No, seriously, are you fucking kidding me?

26. Remember the shit Salman Rushdie had to deal with after he wrote THE SATANIC VERSES? Chances are your XXX hip-hop reworking of the Koran — MO’ MONEY, MO’ PUSSY — is probably going to inspire the same reaction.

27. You know the talented creative writing professor who told you your work showed so much creativity and promise? Turns out what he really meant was that he wanted you to blow him.

28. Because they threw away their annual budget on the new Lindsay Lohan autobiography, BOOKS ARE RETARDED.

29. Everyone who attempts to load a copy of the manuscript onto their Kindle is found dead three hours later.

30. Four years ago, you wrote a post on your blog about how MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE sucks ass. Stephen King found it during a Google search and exerted his influence to ensure you never get paid a cent for your writing ever again.

31. There’s a fine line between writing authentic regional dialogue and making all of your characters sound like stroke victims.

32. Just be thankful they refused to publish it, since the common accepted response to a novel that ends with the protagonist realizing all the terrible things that happened were in a dream (or was it?) is some stern re-editing of your face with a pair of brass knuckles.

33. Writing a book about vegetarian zombies kinda indicates you don’t exactly know why people like zombies in the first place.

34. Calling your book OPRAH WINFREY IS A BIG FAT CUNT pretty much guarantees she isn’t going to select it for her book club.

35. Sure, you’re an amazing poet, but you aren’t a hot blonde pop singer with big tits, so who really gives a fuck?

36. God may have told you to write this book, but he didn’t tell you how to give it a decent ending.

37. You may want to revise the query letter you’re sending to agents so it’s more about the book and less about how much you love kittens.

38. For the first 20 pages, everyone who reads it is certain it’s the funniest book they’ve ever read. Unfortunately by the 21st, they finally realize you’re actually being serious.

39. Do you honestly not see the crucial flaw in writing a book intended for commercial sale that argues against copyright law and in favor of free unrestricted distribution of all forms of media?

40. It’s never a good sign when a manuscript’s first sentence is “’Are luck’s run out,’ said the Princess, ‘there unicorns are to fast!’”

41. When writing erotica, you want to avoid graphic descriptions of acne, cellulite and back fat.

42. Life-affirming poetry written by a 10-year-old with a fatal disease is inspirational; that same poetry written by a 47-year-old housewife with a trick knee and occasional indigestion is really, really lame.

43. Writing a 97,236-word thesis arguing the inherent superiority of Wolverine over Batman is intrinsically flawed since no intelligent person could ever take it seriously. I mean, c’mon, Batman would kick that midget Canuck’s ass every single time!

44. If you’re going to make your main character a forensic coroner, you’re obligated to know more about human anatomy than what you learned playing Operation as a kid.

45. A general rule to follow when writing for kids: If you could go to jail for saying it to them in person, you’re better off not putting it into print.

46. Historically, books written solely to settle a bar bet seldom make it to print, especially if they were written during a seven-and-a-half-hour period in the same bar where the bet was made.

47. The entire point of your book has already been more satisfactorily made in a single strip of Family Circus.

48. Because the printed medium is a dying art, and it would be a tragic waste to allow its last pathetic gasp be polluted by your bullshit.

49. Does anybody really need the complete lyrics to “One Million Bottles of Beer on the Wall”?

50. Again, I ask one last time, where are the freaking vampires?

So the following headline caught my eye this morning: The Challenge of Making Real Robot Skin, which in turn led pretty much immediately to a “come again?” moment.

So I went to the article, and it started to come clear…and then more or less tanked straight into WTF land. Why’s that? Well, just so you don’t feel left out, here are a few excerpts to catch you up:

I don't know what this is, but the 1.5mm skin kind of reminds me of cake. Mmmmmm... Cake.

In a recent paper “Towards Humanlike Social Touch for Sociable Robotics,” John Cabibihan and his fellow scientists detailed the reasons for testing and developing realistic skin for social robots.

“Touch is important in social interactions. Social touch are all those instances in which people touch each other, when shaking hands, when giving a pat in the back as a sign of congratulations and even in high-fives. Yet, one should not easily assume that humans will be comfortable with the idea of shaking an artificial hand made from a stiff material. In addition to the appropriate controls for a safe handshake grip and other forms of social touch, humanlike skin softness would be a reasonable requirement for the sociable robots envisioned to directly interact with humans in a social setting. “

Human skin has properties that are not easy to replicate in synthetics. The authors created a skin testing machine to check out some of the current substitutes for human skin in robots – like silicone and polyurethane. Unfortunately, these simplistic skin substitutes were tested and found wanting; at present, there is no accepted substitute for the feeling of real human skin.

There have been a number of different attempts to produce more lifelike skin for robots, as well as skin that would properly feed sensation to the operator of the robot. There is, of course, one ideal solution to creating robot skin that is as human as possible. Recent work done at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft science institute in Germany has demonstrated that small swatches of actual human skin can be grown in petri dishes in a mass production facility.

It takes a lot of damage before you realize Arnold isn't actually a person, but a killing machine.

Ummm…what?

Who is doing human skin-covered robot development?
And WHY????

Clearly I missed some kind of memo. What the hell kind of robot is this?

I’m okay with Roomba and his stinky cousin, Scooba and anything that comes over to clean my floors or dishes (but no touching the laundry. I love doing laundry. It’s the only chore where I would even consider use of the word ‘love’ in association.), but I’m not so sure how I feel about robots that I can’t tell are robots.

At least even the iRobot robots looked like robots, so once they turned bad you could tell them apart. And WALL-E. Clearly a robot, and fine by me…especially because he never decided to destroy the humans who created him, which is a plus.

As for the explanation on this bad idea, I’m not buying the whole ‘people don’t want to shake hands with a robot’ excuse, either.

I would shake hands with a robot.

I shake hands with my dog (which has, in turn, taught him to flog me when he wants something, and I’m ignoring him, but that’s another story for another day). And if a robot wanted to pat me on the back with a metallic pitchfork hand, I’d be okay with that (so long as it was gentle and not a robot beat down that punctured a lung or whatnot. Punctured lungs are no good.)

My point here is I think there are only two reasons that they would want to put real skin on a robot:

1. To trick us.

2. To make robot prostitutes (or sex slaves or whatever).

See? Nothing but a goddamned robot.

And I don’t like it one little bit. And I suspect the robots wouldn’t like it one little bit. And this is where things go wrong. You create something in order to dominate it and use it as a slave, but you made it too smart so it collaborates with the others of its kind and overthrows you and the next thing you know we’re all hanging out in liquid cocoons and powering The Matrix.

Right????

So can’t we at least learn from our popular culture? Life imitates art and whatnot?

For instance,  in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (The Phillip K. Dick classic known more commonly as the Harrison Ford movie Blader Runner)? Replicants – or ’skin jobs’ as they’re not-so-ironically called – that think they’re human beings but later (and not exactly in the interest of their psychological health) find out they’re not.

Daryl Hannah as a 'basic pleasure model.' This gives me an idea for Halloween....

Nobody likes to grow up thinking they’re real and find out they’re not. It’s an identity crisis in the making.

How about Alien? You know, where The Company secretly sends a robot as part of the crew to ensure that a heinous monster will make it back to earth safe and sound? And nobody knew he was a robot until he tried to kill Ripley and then all that white foamy stuff started oozing out of him.

You can’t trust those robots that look like people. You think they’re a regular, reasonable person…but they can be wired as total traitors just like that.

And speaking of treacherous behavior, who can forget The Terminator? Imagine if The Terminator would have at least had the decency to look like a killer robot. Things might have turned out differently for all the other Sarah Conners in the Los Angeles phone book.

In closing, let me go on the record as not liking this petri dish skin human-looking robot stuff. I don’t know what it is, but it ain’t good.

And in the words of Ash, ”I can’t lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathy”.