PunkAssBlog.com

A simple experiment.

I have come to the conclusion that I spend too much time surfing the web. It’s fun and can be enlightening, but often it’s just a procrastination tool, and done to excess (like, well, recently) I begin to suspect that there are probably more rewarding ways to spend my time.

I’m going to try an experiment. I am going to see what it feels like to go cold turkey for just one week. After I finish writing this and hit the “publish” button, I am not going to use my web browser for anything at all for seven days (with the single exception of e-mailing, which is necessary for my job). If I need to look up a word, I’ll use a real dictionary. No IMDB to settle arguments. No online train timetable searches. No losing myself in a dozen open Wikipedia windows. And most of all, no reading blogs! Not even this one.

There’s millions of other non-virtual ways to procrastinate, so it’s not I expect this to solve all my problems, but… I just want to try it and see what it feels like. If my will is strong enough to go the awful distance, then I’ll check in again next Sunday. (If it’s not, I guess you might be seeing me sooner.)

Bye for now!

Lisa and I would like to hash it out a bit and try to figure out constructive rules for engaging each other when we disagree. At least between the two of us. It may be relevant for others as well, too, though. I won’t provide a link, but I still vividly remember a great moment of shame in this blog’s history, when for the sake of a minor rhetorical ploy, a recently-deceased pet was virtually sodomized.

So what the hell, we can at least have a go at setting some ground rules for proper snarky manners. It’ll be a snoozer for most people, but for anyone interested, I hereby decree that this thread will be where we try to agree among ourselves just exactly how punkass a PunkAssBlogger ought to be. (Or at least how punkass me and Lisa ought to be.)

It’ll probably just be us two, but outside opinions are welcome.

(I’m off to bed now. When I wake up in the morning I expect there to be dozens of messages telling us exactly how unbearably snottily dismissive we are. Come on, people, don’t let me down!)

Today one of my students attacked me. He’s only six years old, so he couldn’t do any real damage, though he did leave a couple of satisfactorily bloody scratches on the side of my face. Funnily enough, I remember thinking earlier in the lesson, “That kid needs to cut his nails.”

I really wish I could share more details. The incident gave me some thoughts about working with children that I wish I could get out in the open. But I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement with my company, I’m not using a pseudonym here, and let’s put it this way: my boss is on Facebook, and he’s not afraid to use it.

After spending some extra time at work to deal with the aftershocks from the incident, I made it home. That’s when an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hit northern Japan. I was 350 miles south when it came, and it still felt pretty big to me.

Anybody else have an interesting day?

Why I hate capitalism, in one headline or less:

G8 summit: Gordon Brown has eight-course dinner before food crisis talks

No words. None.

Hat tip: lovableatheist

Hooray! It’s time for another edition of… STRAINED ANALOGIES!

You’re driving a truck full of your own loved ones– children, significant others, your mom, pets, and whoever else is important in your life– over a treacherous mountain road. You’re determined, at any cost, to get to the scenic village at the peak. Too dangerous for a family outing, everybody said? HA! You’ll show them. No backing down now.

Every tight corner features a thousand foot drop with no railing. At first you overcompensate by veering away from the edge, hugging the inner rock wall. You reconsider this tactic upon passing a low row of white scrapes along the wall, and then an outcropping where a pair of tire tracks bounce away into the void. The children’s eyes are saucers, and your mom’s lips are moving wildly as she beseeches her God in silent prayer. Even the pets are shitting themselves.

Your significant other clutches your forearm and speaks in hushed tones. “Listen, hon, let’s just slow down and turn around. We can just stay at that motor inn we saw at the base of the mountain, right?”

Ashamed of your selfishness, you realize that maybe that this trip wasn’t such a good idea after all. Just what were you trying to prove, anyway? You are just about to apply the brakes, when…

…your heart jerks in your chest… there is a massive shape in the road dead ahead, only yards away… time slows to a crawl… is that what it looks like?… YES, IT IS…

You are milliseconds away from colliding head on into an ELEPHANT and a DONKEY. Just sitting there, in the middle of this narrow mountain road. Who knows why they are there. Perhaps someone is filming a clever political ad. Does it really matter? The fact is, there they are. A donkey, an elephant, and the likely death you and everyone you love.

Moment of truth time. What is your reflexive response?

A. Swerve right and dive straight off the side of the mountain. Pretty much certain death for everyone, but at least you might have a fun ride for a few seconds on the way down.

B. Swerve left and take your chances with scraping the rock wall like the car whose tire tracks you noticed before. Thing is, there’s another left turn just ahead, so if you don’t regain control fast, you’ll dive off the mountain anyway. But come on, at least there’s a CHANCE of survival.

C. Aim to kill the animals by barreling straight into them, hoping that the impact of their destruction will stop the truck before it goes over the edge of the road. After all, there’s not only a donkey, there’s a frigging ELEPHANT in your way. Choose this way, and regardless if anybody is still actually remaining on the road at the end of it all, the highway will definitely be running with blood.

D. Take your hands off the wheel and shake your fist at the sky, screaming, “Quin, this stupid little story of yours sucks ass. What am I supposed to be gaining from it?” Now, now. Let’s try to be constructive. You can be petulant if you want, but that’s not going to save you and everyone you ever loved from horrible grisly ends, will it?

From the best of all possible worlds.

Funny how getting good news — even when it’s completely fabricated — can make you feel so… well… good.

Not safe for work:

It’s 2 in the morning, Kyso has been drinking since noon. Her friend drops her off at home, and she realizes she has a sore throat and headache and fixes herself a cup of Theraflu and goes to tell her roommate about her day.

Roommate:..uh-huh, hey what’s that?
Kyso: Theraflu.
Roommate: Nononononono (takes cup from Kyso and puts it far away from her)
Kyso (In a huff): What? Fuck you! (Flounces to bathroom)
Roommate (When Kyso returns): Well I asked [everyone on his World of Warcraft chat thing] and they agree: taking Theraflu while bombed is a terrible, terrible idea.
Kyso: So the fuck what? What are they, doctors?
Roommate: Well, at least one, yes. D (another friend of his) checked him out when he first claimed to be a doctor, and he is.
Other Roommate: What? Oh, wait, ThunderGod, of course.
Kyso: Grrr. [Goes to bed without mutilating her liver].

Generally I think that it is a bad thing that our current economy shoves our over-supply of articulate, overeducated people into wage slave customer service jobs that are expressly designed to squander the talents the articulate, overeducated people. On the other hand, thanks to the internet, we can all benefit from the combination of an aware mind and soul-gnawing tedium and or absurdity.

After I took you to the philosophy section to show you her absense in person, you began to explain your personal theories to me.

You explained to me that Ayn Rand is the first person to radically change philosophy in history. You explained to me, in a soft, intimate voice, that capitalism should in fact be called “liberalism,” due to the fact that it comes from the French word for “free,” and that capitalism makes us free.

I would like to apologize at this point for the fact that my employer prevents me from engaging in political or philosophical discussions with customers, because instead of nodding quietly, at this point, what I really should have done was point out that liber actually comes from Latin, from which both the French and English words are derived. I also apologize for not explaining that capitalism actually falls under the subject of economics.

I haven’t done much for Halloween (besides drinking) since my freshman year, but this year the office ladies are trying to whip up some enthusiasm among the students for a costume contest. This shouldn’t be difficult, but it’s a building full of difficult people. Now generally their attempts to bring some seasonal festivity to the department are smashing successes; but this one is different as it requires us to actually (*gasp*) actively participate as opposed to just showing up to a room at some certain time where food somehow magically appeared.

As you can see, I feel morally obligated to come up with an entertaining, kickass costume. I call upon the power of the internets to help me: if you have/seen/done/wish you could do something awesome, the commence bragging in the comments.

Please go visit ko htike’s prosaic collection. It’s a blog featuring photos, writing, and video from inside Burma. As you probably know, the junta has imposed a media blackout and cut off internet access, so the contributers to the blog face incredible difficulties getting their story out, and are risking their lives.

Just a warning: The photos are graphic and the stories are horrifying. But it’s important to see them.

H/T cuntgirl

Apparently, “I was just following orders” is once again a valid defense.

Future would-be war criminals, take note.