Reading David Sedaris in a public place is never a very good idea...
This i discovered today, first as i was eating lunch in the cafeteria and later, more conclusively, when i was in the CyberCafe/Lobby area. I'm reading Sedaris' newest book of essays, When you are Engulfed in Flames, and it's good, though not as laughOUTloud funny as his previous offerings. I've been alternating back and forth between it & The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman the last few weeks at lunch. I generally eat alone here at Northwestern Mutual and, having learned my lesson from miron, i place a napkin on my lap before eating & reading...
Today i was eating a salmon cake
*** 6 December 2009 ***
Unfortunately, I don't recall what happened with the salmon cake. I'm sure it was really important and rife with significance, but alas, it's lost to obscurity...
31 July 2008
30 July 2008
i KNEW it
On my most recent trip to the men's room i was standing there peeing, when i got a whiff of something really strange. Not unpleasant, exactly, but just an unfamiliar (i'd call it almost alien) smell.
http://thephatbunny.net/blog/?p=135
* * *
February 2019
No clue really what this thing was... but i expect it's somewhere in here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080702230215/https://thephatbunny.net/blog/
In trying to discover this and some other (very semi-)related ideas for this post i learned that this symbol: # - which we today call "hash-tag" and used to call "pound sign" is called an octothorpe. I will refer to it as "octothorpe" from now on...
* * *
February 2019
No clue really what this thing was... but i expect it's somewhere in here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080702230215/https://thephatbunny.net/blog/
In trying to discover this and some other (very semi-)related ideas for this post i learned that this symbol: # - which we today call "hash-tag" and used to call "pound sign" is called an octothorpe. I will refer to it as "octothorpe" from now on...
29 July 2008
Happy 50th NASA!
Today marks the 50th Anniversary of Dwight D. (Dwight) Eisenhower's signing NASA into existence, and it's a good thing, too.
I've been a big fan of space since i've had the cognitive ability to be a fan of much
of anything... which perhaps hasn't actually been that long. Nonetheless, i love it. Space, the final frontier & all...
Of course Kelly has already commented & blogged & explained the day, but i really think this is something special.
Space and the possibility of space exploration has always been a sort of guilty fascination of mine. I like the fiction of space (Star Trek & Firefly and all the rest), but i also really like the reality of space exploration/travel. I was truly giddy when i heard the report of Richard Branson's new Virgin Galactic space tourism, which won't even possibly be ready till next year, and probably later than that, and it will cost $200,000 so i will never be able to go.
But there i sat, watching an awkward television interview with some fool reporter and the "rebel billionaire" and i was excited, truly excited in that kidd-ish way you don't often experience.
Which is kind of my point here. I really like space in an unsophisticated way. I like to stare up at the stars and learn about what makes them tick & all, (Astronomy was one of my favorite classes in all my time at Luther, and not just because the professor was cute...) but mostly i like space in the sense that i'd like to ride around checking out a host of new planets & solar systems... I want to cruise around boldly going where no one has gone before... i want to be a space explorer.
In fact, the potential of future space exploration (i mean the walking around on artifically grav-plated decks, not the squeezing tang into the air and catching the droplets while floating upside down variety) is one of the main reasons i'm exploring ways to become immortal. Whether it be downloading my consciousness into an android, cryogenically freezing myself for 2500 years, or going the undead route & coming back as a vampire (it's always dark in space, right?) i want to live forever... or at least a really long time... or at least later than now. And the primary reason for this is because i want to cruise around in space.
I've been a big fan of space since i've had the cognitive ability to be a fan of much
of anything... which perhaps hasn't actually been that long. Nonetheless, i love it. Space, the final frontier & all...Of course Kelly has already commented & blogged & explained the day, but i really think this is something special.
Space and the possibility of space exploration has always been a sort of guilty fascination of mine. I like the fiction of space (Star Trek & Firefly and all the rest), but i also really like the reality of space exploration/travel. I was truly giddy when i heard the report of Richard Branson's new Virgin Galactic space tourism, which won't even possibly be ready till next year, and probably later than that, and it will cost $200,000 so i will never be able to go.
But there i sat, watching an awkward television interview with some fool reporter and the "rebel billionaire" and i was excited, truly excited in that kidd-ish way you don't often experience.
Which is kind of my point here. I really like space in an unsophisticated way. I like to stare up at the stars and learn about what makes them tick & all, (Astronomy was one of my favorite classes in all my time at Luther, and not just because the professor was cute...) but mostly i like space in the sense that i'd like to ride around checking out a host of new planets & solar systems... I want to cruise around boldly going where no one has gone before... i want to be a space explorer.
In fact, the potential of future space exploration (i mean the walking around on artifically grav-plated decks, not the squeezing tang into the air and catching the droplets while floating upside down variety) is one of the main reasons i'm exploring ways to become immortal. Whether it be downloading my consciousness into an android, cryogenically freezing myself for 2500 years, or going the undead route & coming back as a vampire (it's always dark in space, right?) i want to live forever... or at least a really long time... or at least later than now. And the primary reason for this is because i want to cruise around in space.
The Pareto Principle states: “Most businesses know that 80 percent of their revenue comes
from 20 percent of their clientele.”
"Learn and capitalize on people's issues -- whether it be their children, health or career desires." (Wall Street ** Update 14 November 2009 **, I honestly don't know {and am too lazy to look up} whether this is from Wall Street the movie, or if I just hadn't typed "Wall Street Journal" yet, or what...
I have no clue what I wanted to write about here... but i'll leave these two quotes from "business types" to speak for themselves. And see what we might do with them.
from 20 percent of their clientele.”
"Learn and capitalize on people's issues -- whether it be their children, health or career desires." (Wall Street ** Update 14 November 2009 **, I honestly don't know {and am too lazy to look up} whether this is from Wall Street the movie, or if I just hadn't typed "Wall Street Journal" yet, or what...
I have no clue what I wanted to write about here... but i'll leave these two quotes from "business types" to speak for themselves. And see what we might do with them.
28 July 2008
Assume a Position
As part of my “academic review” at the end of last semester, Andrew Kincaid suggested to me that I write up a series of “position papers” that might function as 30 second – 10 minute summations of my areas of interest. The idea being that I needed to be able to define myself and an area of study, particularly with regards to the job market, but more generally as an academic, and so I present the first, perhaps most general of my position papers for your review. This is a sort of never-ending work in progress, so (as always) comments and questions are more than welcome, they’re absolutely fundamental…
*** *** ***
Why study death?
Death is an essential and fundamental part of all of our lives (one Walter Benjamin calls “exemplary”), but it is an aspect of modern life that we avoid talking about or even thinking about if possible. The modern need to overfill one’s life with events & stuff & people (the modern hyper-busy) is the need to distract one’s attention from death. Entire industries, such as life insurance and legacy investment planning create institutional denial of death by recreating a new, modern afterlife, namely the bank account – the trust fund.
The simultaneous wane of absolute religious authority and development of the ‘self’ in the modern era have created a situation where the game of life (& death) has become unwinnable. Previously, an individual who was dying was secure in the comfort of some version of an afterlife, or continuance, either a religious heaven, the promise of reincarnation or a more ecological dispersal of the body. Additionally, before the advent of the modern ‘self’ a dying person could trust in the continuation of the line through children and the tribe, or even the civilization. This isn’t to say that pre-modern man didn’t see any distinction of the self, but that modernity’s (and especially late modernity’s) emphasis on individual destiny and its insistence on splintering society, separating people from one another makes a collective immortality (or at least survival) less appealing.
There was an earlier time when death wasn’t seen this way. It wasn’t a horror in and of itself. It was scary, perhaps, but it was joked with, laughed at, and most importantly considered. I am interested in tracking these changes, both temporally and geographically and understanding first, whether some fundamental change has taken place and if so, what the implications might be.
*** *** ***
Why study death?
Death is an essential and fundamental part of all of our lives (one Walter Benjamin calls “exemplary”), but it is an aspect of modern life that we avoid talking about or even thinking about if possible. The modern need to overfill one’s life with events & stuff & people (the modern hyper-busy) is the need to distract one’s attention from death. Entire industries, such as life insurance and legacy investment planning create institutional denial of death by recreating a new, modern afterlife, namely the bank account – the trust fund.
The simultaneous wane of absolute religious authority and development of the ‘self’ in the modern era have created a situation where the game of life (& death) has become unwinnable. Previously, an individual who was dying was secure in the comfort of some version of an afterlife, or continuance, either a religious heaven, the promise of reincarnation or a more ecological dispersal of the body. Additionally, before the advent of the modern ‘self’ a dying person could trust in the continuation of the line through children and the tribe, or even the civilization. This isn’t to say that pre-modern man didn’t see any distinction of the self, but that modernity’s (and especially late modernity’s) emphasis on individual destiny and its insistence on splintering society, separating people from one another makes a collective immortality (or at least survival) less appealing.
There was an earlier time when death wasn’t seen this way. It wasn’t a horror in and of itself. It was scary, perhaps, but it was joked with, laughed at, and most importantly considered. I am interested in tracking these changes, both temporally and geographically and understanding first, whether some fundamental change has taken place and if so, what the implications might be.
24 July 2008
Evidently not everyone has brewer fever...
Last night as I was listening to the end of CC Sabathia’s dominant 3-hit shutout in my backyard, a strange voice kept cutting into the broadcast. Bob Uecker was announcing just the 3rd (& final) hit given up by CC when this nameless trucker (I would come to know it was one side of a CB conversation) says “you gotta be really screwed up to have your dad take off […] then yer’ mom to take off you gotta be screwed up.”
This was actually the second or third thing I’d heard the guy say & I’m not sure if he was breaking into just my broadcast or that of the entire AM620 listening audience, but I ran into the house to grab a pad of paper & a pencil. It’s times like those that I wish I’d taken a secretarial shorthand course back in the 60s (or had a Truman Capote-type memory), because I couldn’t keep up with the conversation & missed a lot of it, but what I did catch, I present here, for your…amusement(?).
***Note: Breaks between lines vary from a matter of seconds to as much as a minute. Any lines that are incomplete contain […] to indicate missed dialogue, again ranging from a few words to several sentences.
Trucker: “One day […] we’ll see a shrink”
T: “How many times we can see a shrink, Tom, eh?”
T: “[…] Sorry if I messed up your Christmas […]Heh-heh-heh heh”.
Something unintelligible about “whitewash”
T: “…almost 40 years old and you’re paying for his doctor and all that […] probably hold the door open for her and touch her […] but we’re all paying for it.”
T: “Well, you guys shouldn’t come up here then, you should stay in the south. Nobody gives a crap.”
An MGD commercial runs in what has now become the background.
Bob Uecker: “…Hard fought series here in St. Louis…”
Ryan Braun hits a solo homerun (25) in the top of the 9th.
BU: “Ryan Braun adds a Badger Mutual Insurance Run […] Prince Fielder with a walk, Hit By a Pitch and 2 Strikeouts […] 0-2 pitch…”
T: “Can’t know what any of these _______ are sayin’ right now.”
T: “What he got—let me guess. […] You got who’s hitting your […]”
T: “This guy is taking your money and you’re pissing and moaning about who’s taking your money […] you should be busting his door down if not, put in for new work.”
T: “More ambition than Tommy had in his entire life.”
T: “Yeah, he’s a fudge packer.”
Corey Hart hits into a fielder’s choice and Billy Hall comes up.
BU: “There’s a runner out there for Billy Hall […] 41,415 at St. Louis tonight […] 2-2, had a good cut […] Corey Hart almost got picked off. Corey’s got a couple of hits tonight and a run scored.”
Bill Hall strikes out.
T: “That SOB, it does not work. […] Hey, I’ll give you a perfect example. My son was 16, he’s ________ to work on the farm, worked the extra summer […] Tommy Sehry out there _________ a donkey or a goat. […] kid worked like a bugger today […] work ethic, ________ and health insurance that we are not paying for today.”
Pujols bats.
T: “Tommy got up there, Caballo’s up there. […] Yeah, I’m sorry for ______ you. You are in cahoots with Tommy. Well not cahoots, but whatever you two are in.”
This was actually the second or third thing I’d heard the guy say & I’m not sure if he was breaking into just my broadcast or that of the entire AM620 listening audience, but I ran into the house to grab a pad of paper & a pencil. It’s times like those that I wish I’d taken a secretarial shorthand course back in the 60s (or had a Truman Capote-type memory), because I couldn’t keep up with the conversation & missed a lot of it, but what I did catch, I present here, for your…amusement(?).
***Note: Breaks between lines vary from a matter of seconds to as much as a minute. Any lines that are incomplete contain […] to indicate missed dialogue, again ranging from a few words to several sentences.
Trucker: “One day […] we’ll see a shrink”
T: “How many times we can see a shrink, Tom, eh?”
T: “[…] Sorry if I messed up your Christmas […]Heh-heh-heh heh”.
Something unintelligible about “whitewash”
T: “…almost 40 years old and you’re paying for his doctor and all that […] probably hold the door open for her and touch her […] but we’re all paying for it.”
T: “Well, you guys shouldn’t come up here then, you should stay in the south. Nobody gives a crap.”
An MGD commercial runs in what has now become the background.
Bob Uecker: “…Hard fought series here in St. Louis…”
Ryan Braun hits a solo homerun (25) in the top of the 9th.
BU: “Ryan Braun adds a Badger Mutual Insurance Run […] Prince Fielder with a walk, Hit By a Pitch and 2 Strikeouts […] 0-2 pitch…”
T: “Can’t know what any of these _______ are sayin’ right now.”
T: “What he got—let me guess. […] You got who’s hitting your […]”
T: “This guy is taking your money and you’re pissing and moaning about who’s taking your money […] you should be busting his door down if not, put in for new work.”
T: “More ambition than Tommy had in his entire life.”
T: “Yeah, he’s a fudge packer.”
Corey Hart hits into a fielder’s choice and Billy Hall comes up.
BU: “There’s a runner out there for Billy Hall […] 41,415 at St. Louis tonight […] 2-2, had a good cut […] Corey Hart almost got picked off. Corey’s got a couple of hits tonight and a run scored.”
Bill Hall strikes out.
T: “That SOB, it does not work. […] Hey, I’ll give you a perfect example. My son was 16, he’s ________ to work on the farm, worked the extra summer […] Tommy Sehry out there _________ a donkey or a goat. […] kid worked like a bugger today […] work ethic, ________ and health insurance that we are not paying for today.”
Pujols bats.
T: “Tommy got up there, Caballo’s up there. […] Yeah, I’m sorry for ______ you. You are in cahoots with Tommy. Well not cahoots, but whatever you two are in.”
So, that’s the whole of what I jotted down. It provided an interesting counterpart to Uecker & Jim Powell. All in all, it was a good game and a surreal broadcast.
23 July 2008
a theory...
In 1988 Gore Vidal was supporting Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign.
At some point during the election year Vidal made a comment that amounted to something like this (apologies, i don't recall where i heard this and i'm too lazy to look it up... it might be a national press club event, maybe the 16th of March, 1988):
After 8 years of horrific governmental mismanagement, overstepping countless international laws and accepted practices, and borderline insane economic irresponsibility the NEXT 4 years might be quite ugly indeed.
as such... the BEST thing Republicans, who might be reticent to elect an African American as President, might do is to elect an undesirable
** Updated 14 November 2009 **
That is, of course, undesirable to the hypothetical evil conservative... I still sort of stand by this post, more than a year later, but perhaps it's not the case... My sense is that anyone who the corporate hates, things look bad for, anyone who the corporate loves gets a pass (eh?)...
At some point during the election year Vidal made a comment that amounted to something like this (apologies, i don't recall where i heard this and i'm too lazy to look it up... it might be a national press club event, maybe the 16th of March, 1988):
After 8 years of horrific governmental mismanagement, overstepping countless international laws and accepted practices, and borderline insane economic irresponsibility the NEXT 4 years might be quite ugly indeed.
as such... the BEST thing Republicans, who might be reticent to elect an African American as President, might do is to elect an undesirable
** Updated 14 November 2009 **
That is, of course, undesirable to the hypothetical evil conservative... I still sort of stand by this post, more than a year later, but perhaps it's not the case... My sense is that anyone who the corporate hates, things look bad for, anyone who the corporate loves gets a pass (eh?)...
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