November 2005 Archives

The American citizenry's slide back to the stoneage is nearly complete. Driving along 99 today I saw, and I really wish I were making this up, a store called Things that Blink.

Now granted it was a small store, more like a kiosk, but it was just for blinking things. "Why sell cell phone covers and blinking antennas when you can just sell antennas?" I imagine the proprietor asking in some hideous rhetorical fashion. "And why stop at antennas when there's the wide world of novelty blinking buttons and badges!".

We're not completely gone, but once Shiney Things N' Fire opens up I'm moving to australia.

In what I now realize is an ironically related note, the xbox 360 launched today. Party was fun, I got a fee kit and some games. I spend most of my time playing a lemonade stand simulator. A Space lemonade stand simulator.

I watched American History X again tonight which always gets me thinking about racism. Not so much racism, I suppose, as where I stand in that whole spectrum. I like to think I'm enlightened, that I hold no prejudices, that all men are to be judged on their actions and character alone; but I know that's not true. I'm wary of all of the thugs on the street at night, but just a little bit more wary of those wearing puffy jackets. I worry about that. And when, as in the movie, someone talks about how innately unfair it is to give someone a position over a more qualified applicant simply because of their race - I think, yeah, why is that? Why isn't it "best man for the job"?

But then I'm also reminded that I don't really know. The only experience I can come close to having is to have a very few native american friends who have tried to explain just exactly what the situation is like, can be like. But I can't comprehend that, I try and it just doesn't stick. And the guy I work with originally from Zambia. Within the first month here after college he had is car defaced twice in ballard... in ballard. Home of snobby rich generally white people, yeah, but freaking ballard. Who the hell does that sort of stuff to someone just because they live there.

Maybe it isn't supposed to be clear cut. Maybe it's good to at least know that I have these little preconceptions so that I can be aware of them and at least try and change them. It's a lot to think about on a saturday night.

This is one of those times when this little journal is more for me to write things out and think on paper; and less for the amusement of others.

I've been asked before if I believe in ghosts to which my answer is always, "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure when I'm dead there are going to be a lot more interesting places to hang out than here." It's a pretty good answer. It's middling to no. However, when the sky is crystal clear and a full moon is shining, there's a fresh sheen of frost, it's 10 at night, you're in a cemetary and you keep hearing a little girl giggling off in the distance (and all around you) that answer tends to slip a little more towards yes.

Since I sometimes sing while walking alone, and tonight I was singing the theme to gilligan's island, I like to think it was an amused chuckle instead of the cackle of those about to feast on my soul.

Also, I saw the cayote that lives in the graveyard. Sweet, I hope she lives through the winter again. There can't be that many fattened squirrels around here.

About once a year an old camp song pops into my head and I don't know why. It's always the same song too: Great Green Gobs. Sing along, you probably know it.

Great green gobs of greasy grimey gopher guts,
marinated monkey meat,
chopped up parakete.
Fried up eye balls
dipped in a booger box
sold at your favorite store.

Only this time I stopped to think about the lyrics. What the hell is a booger box? Why is it my favorite store. I figured maybe there was some kind of story about it - similar to the eenie meenie miney moe song - but all google revealed was a list of variations on the lyrics. I like to think mine is the correct translation and all others are heretics that shall burn for all eternity.

But reminiscing about camp is always fun. The sailing. Letting little kids play with deadly weapons. "Building character" by scaling a three story wall using nothing but twigs.

Of course now I'm sitting at work with "Once an austrian went yodelling" stuck in my head. Better than having "I saw Esaw" there though... damnit.

Camping always involves the lamentations of gummie bears. Stretched, melted and charred in compromising poses. Gatherd around simmering strips of bacon atop charred logs, their plight is our amusement. It appears the bears have found this to be unacceptable, the gummies have begun to organize:


Secret Meeting

Others have grown more Desperate. Okay I just really like zapxpxau's stuff. She does good work. The fact that they lend credence to my gummie paranoia just makes for fun writing.