Few recent movies have disappointed me more than A Scanner Darkly. It wasn’t bad, but for the first-ever completely faithful adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel it failed spectacularly to capture what’s compelling about his work. Dick’s novels are deeply unsettling — they leave the reader so disoriented that, two-thirds of the way in, you’re no longer sure of whether or not the characters even exist. Dick’s Scanner pulls the floor out from under you, leaving you as unsure of the protagonist’s identity as he is; Linklater, on the other hand, was content to let Keanu Reeves talk about how drugs are totally weird without ever showing it.
Half of the problem with the movie was that it hewed too closely to the source material. There was one scene, however, that was taken whole cloth from Dick’s prose and yet works perfectly. Better yet — it’s hilarious.
This Christmas brought me a number of wonderful gifts — not least of which was a Wii from Ben and Dave — but the most thoughtful had to be the one that came from my mom. I am told that when posed with the question of “What does my son really need?”, she thought long and hard, and after weighing all her options carefully and consulting the I Ching, she arrived at the gift pictured at left: the Sidewinder Hand-Cranked Cellphone Charger.
Since it may not be immediately apparent to you why this gift is absolutely perfect for me, allow me to elaborate:
I often allow my cellphone to run out of batteries.
Now, as long as I always carry this pocket-sized, hand-cranked cellphone charger with me, I’ll be covered in the event that I ever forget my pocket-sized, regular cellphone charger.
As advertised on the website, two minutes of cranking = six minutes of talk time! I dare you to find another hand-cranked cellphone charger with that kind of crank-time-to-talk-time ratio. Give up? Yeah, I thought so.
Ok, so picture this. Civilization has fallen, and you and I are both trapped underneath a burning library. The zombies are coming. They’ll be here in two minutes — what do you do? Well, never mind what you do, you die. I on the other hand, spend the first minute cranking my trusty Sidewinder, and the second calling for help. Of course, I can’t reach anyone — my family has long since been devoured — but the Sidewinder’s handy crank-powered LED allows me to see the hideous faces of my attackers before they tear my eyes from their sockets and crush them between their rotten, unliving teeth. And that’s a gift any mom should be proud to give to her son.
It doesn’t have an adapter for my cellphone. Well, fuck it, the light is still pretty cool.
According to some sources, my roommate Max is the best hammer dulcimer player in the country. He assures me that this title was officially granted by the various world bodies governing organized hammer dulcimer playing, but I have my doubts — on what grounds should I accept the imprimatur of any particular dulcimer-playing organization as legitimate? Regardless, despite the lack of demonstrable certification for his title, one must admit that he is fucking good, and people have started taking notice. Skip to about halfway through to see a display of incredible virtuosity:
To see more of this unbelievable shit, check out one of his upcoming gigs — your best bet is December 23rd at The Bowery Poetry Club . From what he tells me, it’s going to be “the dope shit.” If you can tell me what the fuck this means, I’d appreciate it.
I’m a few several months late on this one, but thanks to the kids at the OE Message Board for cluing me into the fact that Garfield is much, much funnier if you remove Garfield’s thought balloons; the strip’s original tired, empty humor is replaced by the simple pleasure of watching a deeply deluded man talk to his cat:
There’s a lot more where this came from, and boy is it worth it — hell, that one isn’t even my favorite. I’ve compiled some of the best after the jump.
The following image probably won’t mean much to most of you, but those of you who get it will understand the deep and lasting feeling of pride that it gives me.
My sister and I made this on my dad’s typewriter when we were six and eight years old, respectively. I love this, if only because I enjoy the thought of myself as such a precocious child. Only eight years old, and already playing with the medium!
Hi! As you can tell, there have been some changes around here. I decided I wasn’t really interested in keeping my last six years of posts easily available, so I’ve archived them elsewhere. Considering that the first four years of posts were written by a person who is now unrecognizable to me, and the last two were practically bare of content, I think this is for the best. In the event that you have a burning need to reread my freshman year essay about how seeing worms on the sidewalk after a rainstorm makes me sad, let me know and I’ll tell you where to find it.
In the meantime, I’ve installed WordPress on the site, a move which I had been putting off for awhile, even though I knew I would never post again if it meant logging in to Blogger. Now that it’s done, I intend to use this space in a bit more of a free-wheeling fashion than I had previously. When I started blogging, way back in January 2001, blogging was a new medium, and I was excited to be this new thing called a “blogger.” A few years later, professional and semi-professional blogging arose, and I lost interest, knowing it wasn’t my bag. Now blogging has become so ubiquitous that having a blog doesn’t require much — a blog is a space one has. So here’s mine. Don’t expect a regular format, or regular much of anything — this is just a Place To Keep My Stuff, so enjoy my stuff.
This Christmas brought me a number of wonderful gifts — not least of which was a 
