Find a captain and trust his or her musings

don't make the cars start driving themselves

2012-01-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

people, fish, oxygen-deprived citrus fruits of the world:

there are simpler ways to solve your problems than attaching beep beep beep mechanisms to everything that moves. and no, i do not need flashing lights. maybe a nice root vegetable or two? turnip and a dashboard clock. makes about as much sense as a sonic death ray that's supposed to kill you before you slam into the next parked car.

just stop trying to do what the other people are doing. yes, there's this nice line of four-wheeled objects squirmed as close as possible to the curb, but that means very little. it does not mean you are obligated, invited, recommended, or even permitted to flatten the vanillaberry milkshakes others have been carefully cooling by the roadside.

because what good is desert without a show?

Don't tell the worm farmers

2011-06-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's almost impossible to get decent soil these days. First you have the ever expanding olive oil lakes, then there's the commuters and their cheese skis, and the worst thing is the way everyone is banging chili peppers into the soil all the time. It's like for real there used to e this deep dark delicious mess under us and now it's a sticky, smeary, firework-spicy disaster.

Can someone just mail me a new box of cookies?

glub glub

2011-04-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

everyone wonders when the orange juice is gonna be drunk, but the truth is the orange juice has already been drunk.

pretzel attack

2011-04-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

some of us are twisted. you had better watch it.

the rules

2011-03-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

we received a complaint about our curtains. having stood on the sidewalk attempting to blindly throw snowballs at my roommate on the third-floor balcony, it surprises me that people can see our curtains. the curtains are taller than my roommate, however. perhaps one of the neighbors drove by in a double-decker bus.

don't get confuded

2011-03-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

zere are many places that sell disposable apes, but far fewer that offer the disposable toucan.

not like grapes

2011-03-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

here is an object. it is a small object about the size and weight of a stone that you might find on your lawn. that is, if you live in one of those places where your lawn is made up entirely of stones, or one of the places where stones are simply things that frequently pop into place between clumps of dying grass.

you have this object and you do not know exactly what it might be, however you feel that it was a gift. it's not a gift from anyone you know, but you have this sense that you can't really get rid of it without bothering the person who gave it. you decide to keep the gift, probably in a drawer or box that stores things with minor sentimental value or occasional utility.

if, later in life, you meet the gift giver, will you show them the object, or is it best not to mention the gift at all? or, when it comes to that chance meeting, would you remember the object was ever a gift?

naturally

2011-03-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

marc stopped complaining about the bottom of the barrel. an empty barrel was always an empty barrel. every time he tipped the lid off and ducked his head inside, the bottom was still a part of the barrel.

naturally, the following day, he found some new candies to add to the barrel. he tore at the paper sacks they'd been delivered in, and tipped them in one at a time. the echoing of the bouncing candies was mellowed with each load.

finally he stood and replaced the lid. on the table the shredded sacks waited. grabbing the first, he balled it up with both hands, then reached for another. when he had gathered them all, he had no idea where they should go. marc left the door open behind him, walking out to toss away the papers. he left the barrel standing where it had stood empty.

sorry grapefruits

2011-02-28T20:03:00.001-08:00

but you have passed your usefulness for this season

appladay

2011-02-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

a large backlog of apples at my disposal, i bit first with dulled knife, finally with sharpened teeth. slices, juices, shards of skin ripped between molars. stem and seeds cast off, fruit eaten.

the fight for five continues

2011-02-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

the people have begun to speak. some have embraced its value. soon understanding will spread wider. steady progress occurs daily. eventually, all happenings will become fived.

sort of like dust

2011-02-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

for one, two, three seconds it stops. then the snowfall returns and the atmosphere sparkles once again. the flakes hop through the sky, half rain. on every surface they cling in a thin sheet. icy steps, each flake tickles as it melts.

grape

2011-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

it's oppressive. humid and a hundred degrees outside, and i hear cheering. yelling, applause, the crowd seemed less a living thing than a collection of sounds.

i turned to a waiting bowl of fruit, finding it strangely empty. now the noises had taken both the peace of the afternoon and the remainder of my meal. as i looked back through the doorway to the other room, there was no one.

put a stamp on it

2011-01-28T21:39:00.000-08:00

if the world doesn't make any sense, what are the five most annoying things about that fact?

if the world does make sense, should anything be annoying?

better than six?

2011-01-24T21:11:00.001-08:00

it's time to launch an all-out campaign against the number five. originally, people thought that odd numbers were inferior to even numbers. such familiar digits as 1, 3, and 7 are just too popular. lonely 5 is stuck in a neglected backwater of single-digit sadness.

what is so bad about being five? it might seem easy for a number equal to the amount of fingers we have on each side of our bodies to be ubiquitous. the problem is, five is always stuck being half of ten. nearly all psychological milestones are thrown around in whole multiples of ten. our digital bias is manifest in decades, not pentads.

what can we do about this? well, clearly we need to ditch that awful food pyramid and bring back the five food groups. it's time for an expansion of 5k runs and a preposterous increase in the number of iconic pentagonal structures. we must stand while we still have five toed feet to support us.

step two is always the key

2011-01-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

clothes won't love you unless you hang them properly in your closet. preferably in a pattern.

cheeky

2011-01-21T21:56:00.000-08:00

the biggest problem with ideas is that they bounce off each other. although physical laws do not apply in the mental realm, there is a constant tension between both commonly understood opponents and fresh thoughts waiting for a slot in the title bout.

no more cornbread

2011-01-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

it's time to declare an end to the production and consumption of cornbread in this country. sometimes it can be hard to tell where a food went from side dish and occasional breakfast food to cultural scourge, but in the case of cornbread it was probably the issue of water raising that tipped everything.

before water-raised cornbread, there were a number of ways of baking and preparing this treat. it could be successfully baked in small and unusual ovens; it could be made with various flour types and mixtures, and the corn meal used could be light or heavy or thick or thin or nearly white.

since those simple days, when butters and lards and bacon grease went into cornbread, we come now to a strange reality where national boundaries are delineated by acres of oceangoing cornbread warehouses. these facilities, both costly to maintain and dangerous to defend, have proven to be more trouble than they are worth.

the first problem is the oven temperature. water-raised cornbread is baked at extremely low temperatures for immensely long periods of time, which gives it a sophisticated yet tender flavor. however, the ideal temperature for cooking these foods is still warm enough to severely burn orcas and surfers who stumble their way into the warehouses.

the second problem with oceanic cornbread raising is the low vitamin content of these foods. humans have always needed vitamins as a part of their daily routine, and ideally many people would prefer to get their vitamins in the form of cornbread. however, no one has yet perfected a system to distribute vitamin supplements evenly over the tremendous square footage, varied ownership, and international distribution of warehouses. some batches are as rich in essential nutrients as turnips and potato peelings, while others are so devoid of both nutrition and flavor that they have been ignored even by tge seabirds who normally harm yields.

the final and largest problem, a problem with the same origins as the vitamin issue, is that no one knows what ocean raised cornbread is any longer. it began as a tremendously innovative and well-defined food, like the shoestring potato or the yellow gum drop. unfortunately, what has happened in intervening years is that opportunists, innovators, mavericks, strategic thinkers, and hobbyists have evolved their own versions of the product simply by seeking to imitate, improve upon, and outwit their competitors. the sad state of today's world is that everyone knows what ocean raised cornbread is, but no one understands its evolution. what they actually know is that it has become nothing.

foundation

2011-01-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

anonymous reports relate that db moved last week, which is strange because he still seems to be living at the place. we've got twelve roommates there, but i have to think it was db i shared the last of my corn fritters with on saturday, because all the ordinary friends and drifters who come through on slow days at the place hate my cooking. that's just one of the things that made db special.

i'll be sad to see him go, if only because there is no other person at the place who shares my interest in well-woven carpets and serial purchasing. db and i have to walk barefoot, no matter what anyone says. i've never understood people's obsession with wearing shoes in their own homes. it's like buying a protective covering to put inside all your clothing.

no one hates clutter more than me; i realize it can be frustrating to stumble upon a stripe of mud or a leftover olive when you're walking around. the thing people need to remember though is that the best experiences in life involve a surrender to vulnerability. it is precisely the control over chaos and our need to minimize the risk involved in these cultivated vulnerabilities that has produced the main artifacts of our culture.

with db around, i could trade off mornings and nights vacuuming and sweeping the place, to keep the dirt-to-floor ratio at an ideal level. feet are forgiving creatures, but they never give up their dulled sensitivity until you've prepared a spotless environment for them. think of your feet as wooly little lambs that have just been shaved. they're used to the warmth and protection of their wool, but in the case of feet this artificial barrier of sock and footwear is denying everyone's foot lambs their true calling.

feet should be the sensory foundation of home life. the experience of a good carpet is something like drinking a hot beverage in winter. it provides comfort and warmth that outlast the duration of physical contact with the floor. just by taking a five-minute lap through the drawing room each morning, i warm myself for a day of asphalt and second-hand anger.

db and i could even tell when our carefully shod roommates had experienced a little of the foot massage provided by our prized imported carpets. we're not particular about hand versus machine woven, because the texture and uniformity of the fibers is more important than who's had their hands on them for how long.

with our roommates though, there are days when we see a careless footfall, perhaps a little glide of slick heel and wool fiber, that reminds us of why we work so hard to preserve the sanctity of our carpets. every one of our roommates goes through a careful education process, where we insist not on the removal but the proper cleaning of shoes. like a border protection agency, the roommates will do the work for themselves once they've caught a glimpse of the wonders offered by the apartment's floors. we used to think we had to drill the system in to them, but the purity of the system means that education is commitment. we've learned to live this way.

it's this thorough buy-in that puzzles me when it comes down to db's departure. i know he has other passions in his life, but most heresies are accompanied by firm declarations of new conviction, not silent departure and darkness.

secrets of the universe continue to topple

2011-01-20T19:23:00.000-08:00

the world's most important skill is not, as some might argue, the ability to operate the machinery of the internet age. for one skill to be regarded as more important than others, it must be both cross-industry and timeless. nothing is more harmed by the progress of time than that ability that is medium-specific, as innovation just refuses to halt.

to be brief, the crucial skill is and remains a facility with proper color selection. no matter how artificial or ephemeral our experiences become in this wide-open millenium, we remain visual creatures. ocular stimuli wave at us from behind a variety of trees, and we are most impressed by a color palette that is simple and evocative.

of course, once the bunkers have been raised and our lives revolve around basement dwelling and canned fruit, different skills will come to the fore. until then, whether it's picking an outfit or selling a film, you better pick your colors.

best case scenario is here

2011-01-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

i was just staring at this slime on my desk, and thinking 'well, i need to touch that and figure out if it has solidified.'

fortunately it was grapefruit pulp.

fast friends

2011-01-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

freezing rain and frozen beverages.

choose your own songs

2010-12-31T20:28:00.000-08:00

advertising presents a strange face to the world. on one level, it manages to introduce people to music that actual purveyors of music are unable to successfully share with large audiences. on the other hand, it has a remarkable ability to water down and declaw any genre whatsoever.

shut ins

2010-12-31T20:09:00.000-08:00

it's mostly language that causes problems. communication through nonverbal means is remarkably efficient, which is the main reason people need to declare a single day next month to be non-talk day. non-talk day will commence with a gala brunch, during which people will be free to fill their plates with french toast, omelettes, flaky pastries, and sliced fruits without any need to maintaint a polite level of vocalized noise. perhaps while eating they might wish to wave or salute fellow brunchees, but there should be no obligation for this.

the day will continue with a series of audiovisual presentations, including instrumental musical performance and silent film. on numerous occasions throughout the day, breaks will be given for the further digestion and rest people might need after the large meals and snacks to be distributed on a thorougly regular basis.

in the evening, though there will be no conversation, guests are welcome to partake in televised or broadcast entertainments, even if these should include speech sounds. a day of not talking should not chiefly involve non-listening, and certainly should not be used as an excuse to dismiss oneself from the many responsibilities of media consumption that may arise.

this would taste just fine

2010-12-31T20:06:00.000-08:00

why are certain people described as sarcastic? it seems that most people make a comment at some point during a typical day that expresses a skeptical or doubtful opinion in ironic terms. at this point, a sarcastic person is probably as common as a chocolate-eating person. are there people who are described as chocolate eaters?

oh man, if you've never met him--he really likes chocolate. so, you know, don't go waving those toffee bars around without thinking about the potential consequences. i had to warn you, right?

oh, just watch out anyway

2010-12-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

it's not important to be able to deal with chaos. chaos is much less important than the ordinary trouble that comes along a couple of times a day. the little steps to failure are more significant than the giant ones.

stop protecting stuff

2010-12-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

most things from the store are more fun when they're a little worn

familiarity as a science

2010-12-31T19:36:00.000-08:00

textbook.

open and shut.

dime novel.

between the lines.

what's with all these metaphors? it's as if literature is the dullest or least imaginative thing imaginable. perhaps it would be better to take movies and show them on the printed page, so that people would be convinced they are superior to the objects they view on screen.

this would solve a lot of problems. for one thing, it would eliminate a lot of the concerns about being condescended to. virtually everyone feels superior to a flimsy old book. the book has been on its way out for at least the past eighty years. when it's time to get a new perspective on some other artform, best to project it in the shape of a book.

never trust a bon bon

2010-12-31T19:29:00.001-08:00

When you hide your true feelings from people, it only invites them to pry even more. It's like a scavenger hunt. Everyone likes scavenger hunts, especially when they're the one who's set up the scavenger hunt and sent everyone else scurrying around the city looking for clues. Even better when the city is your mind, right?

For most people, the key to hiding information is to make sure the person looking for the information doesn't know what form the answer will take. It could be that someone is looking to figure out your favorite recipe or childhood food, but what they're actually going to discover is that you are three hundred dollars in to a novelty popcorn collection. These sorts of secrets are easy to hide, because the seeker is looking up the wrong barrel of candy.

What is more difficult is when the person asking the questions is acting like they know the answer already, and he or she is probably right. The best way to distract these people is to admit that the exact answer they have envisioned is in fact the answer, but do so in a confusing way that will throw them off the track. For example, if someone is convinced that you have moved your television to the attic because you are allergic to prime-time dramas, then you should tell them that you moved the television to the attic because those medical shows make you break out in hives. No one will believe you're a hypochondriac if they're the sort of friend who's convinced they already know what you're thinking. It's too confusing to them to discover something by being told the answer, rather than figuring it out themselves, and so the gears will start turning and their next line of questioning will veer far of the track. Just remember: one of the easiest ways to escape the truth is to admit it in a context that makes it seem overly simplified.

winter is tough on the whole experience

2010-12-31T19:11:00.000-08:00

it is extremely difficult to operate a computer while wearing mittens

milk bottles, for example

2010-12-31T19:08:00.000-08:00

what exactly is the deal with squiggles? i would think, after so many years of innovation in the writing instrument sector, there would be at least a couple of solutions available to default to the creation of straight, orderly lines. so many objects are better designed than the actual pens we use to design objects.

lalliopreten delbn excerpt

2010-12-31T18:57:00.000-08:00

In the future, far too many people are late for their pant fittings. Time and space may have been conquered with the advances in pan-physical technology, but that odesn'[t prevent folks from the usual needs: air, wather, power bars, and tight-fitting pants. Strangely, though, it seems that while most people stand in their ribbed cotton undershirts listening to the rhythms of their own galactic starboats, the humble tailors, stilll poorly ompensated in a neo-communicative economy, wait with stale plates of sstrawberry shortcake and tiny bank accounts.

this is a recipe for disaster

2010-12-31T18:23:00.000-08:00

eat chocolate chips until your eyeballs itch.

fire your third-favorite sneakers.

lie on the floor for seven hours a day and call it a job.

then, talk about your day.

really truly yes, but i hadn't realized it

2010-12-31T18:07:00.000-08:00

first year spent entirely in one apartment since 2005

bees, too, i bet

2010-12-31T17:20:00.000-08:00

computers have the following problem: when disconnected from other computers for an extended period of time, they become surly, lost, overtaken by feelings of inadequacy. after being reconnected, the urge to communicate so overwhelms the computer that it becomes temporarily a soul of its own, unwilling to complete any other task.

dreaming in miniature

2010-12-31T17:10:00.000-08:00

i constructed a fence from candy and nuts.

you cannot take things from me, only items

2010-12-31T16:52:00.000-08:00

watery mashed potatoes - really no worse than mashed potatoes

too many sweatshirts today might just be the right number of sweatshirts a year from now

your hats will never complain that you bought more hats

they will, however, die

when people ask you how much soda you drink, that might cause you to drink more soda

the sleeping bag lives another year.

and yes, they are making the pants shorter these days. how will the universe make up for this horrible plague of shorter pants?

the future asked for an iou

2010-12-31T16:36:00.000-08:00

three of my toes fell off in my sleep last night. i wouldn't ordinarily be bothered by this, but i had dreamed, as i slept through the tornado outside, that i would awaken with the ability to jump on one foot further than any living person. i dreamed it was just one foot that possessed this ability, but when i awoke, the one thing i couldn't be sure of was whether it was the left or the right.

remember

2010-12-31T14:58:00.001-08:00

emily haines doesn't have your back either

tomato style

2010-12-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

i remember when dinner was just a meal. now i find myself neck-deep in a bowl of lettuce, hoping there are no giant forks on the horizon.

lawn furniture sale

2010-11-27T20:00:00.001-08:00

we have three kinds. all prices final.

the first is clear, with a healthy coating of chalk dust to give that sense of depth and an academic feel.

the second is tree bark, sort of a camouflage for your home. a new look and texture for your yard or garden. not recommended for use with white or pastel shorts or polos. insect life is a natural part of the patina. coordinates well with wooden porches.

the third is licorice red. a sweet, sensual addition to any decor. not edible, no matter what your neighbor's children may claim.

return of recipes

2010-11-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

1 house
1 rabbit
1 food tray
0 cage

release rabbit into house. leave adequate food in tray. expect chaos.

shame time

2010-11-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

let's cast some shame on orange juice. one of the leading factors causing a national trend away from the consumption of citrus fruit, orange juice is taking over. it stains easily, smells odd, and combines poorly with many flavors. in other words, it's a perfectly horrid beverage. why drink orange juice? it fits better in our reusable mugs than a pile of orange slices. and i do not mean the candy kind.

who is worried about giant rabbits?

2010-11-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

i am not worried about giant rabbits. i am not even worried about normal or abnormally small-sized rabbits, both of which are harder to detect and more elusive than their humongous relatives. perhaps if i was a turnip farmer, a giant dog owner, or an animation studio executive, these things might be larger concerns.

it seems to me that people would be best to stick to the issues that affect their lives. i have more concern for the chocolate content of flavored milk than i do for the size and population density of long-eared hopping things that may or may not bring me candy in the spring.

the new old is the old you

2010-11-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

snap back in your mind to a time. any old time might do, but be specific for once. pick, let's say, three years ago. three or so years and seven dislocated vacation ends back. you may remember this as a time when working was less of a distraction from your ordinary existence. it wasn't so much the hours as the general sense that things were resolved within a certain time. physical presence in the workplace was the main dividing line between spheres of existence.

this isn't to say things are any worse these several years hence. you have a deep rut still in the carpet beneath your recliner. the fibers of the rug seem to hold up to the strain, even if there's an occasional liquid stain to darken what normally fades with age. outside, a vague sense of the world creating noises that are blocked by what are actually not four, but six walls. windows all around, not above or beneath. sun conveying images as it bounces through. birds spearing ripe apples.

Move over pumpkins

2010-11-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

you know who you are. you're the wormy oozing mess i scooped off the porch with a garbage bag. you're sprawled all over my fireplace in a fuzzed-out cotton blend. you're on the back of every boy and girl in town, except the changeover is now in sight, and something deeper seems to be on the horizon. you're stuck in groccery store clearance zones for two dollars off. it's over between us.

me and the pretzel barrel

2010-10-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

although i can no longer spell words like barrel and portentious, i have a good supply of ice cream in the freezer still. it's important to keep up with the times, and when the times suggest that what is important is the ability to mix frozen sweet and barreled salty snacks, i act. i walked to the store last night in a light mix of freezing rain and after-work perspiration. while i walked, i thought about the stars, and looked up to clouds and those falling shining dots that stung the bare skin of my face. i was in a footrace, though, me against the pavement, its inevitable icing over coming just after i stepped foot inside the store, rounded a man pushing a cart full of water bottles, and headed for the safety of the bakery aisle.

i've probably given this away already, seeing as i haven't mentioned french bread or twisted portugese loaves. with no baked-boiled bagels or pre-slit sub rolls in the cupboards i've already described, it's safe to say the bread aisle was a mere distraction. i was happy for the momentary look at the dollar-to-bread loaf exchange rate, failing to answer this decades-old question of inflation and relative wealth. it was too important for me to pick up snack foods and ride the storm out the old-fashioned way.

feet up, head rolling to one side as i watched the playoff game an hour later, i stared into the bottom of my melted bowl of ice cream. there were crumbs of salt and peanut bits, traces of the swirled foods laced into my dessert, and a reflection of my face, glaring back at me if only i could focus in carefully enough. i didn't want anything of the sort, though, and so i scraped once more against the plastic of the bowl. my spoon failed yet again to wipe away the grin looking up out of the wreckage.

the problem with beverages

2010-10-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

despite the many glorious years i have spent working in the beverage industry, i have to acknowledge some difficulty that exists when choosing the right thing to drink. first, there's the fact that water has to be modified with nutritional and flavorful additives to be even palatable, sort of the way older music regains its swagger when chopped, filtered, and pressed into service in the context of a new song. water, the kind from the tap or the filtration system, is that song you've heard ten thousand times on the morning drive show between six and nine am. no one's going back to plain water.

with that eliminated, there's always that american classic, milk, which now comes from cows treated with strange hormones. it seems they never make the promise to use zero hormones, just certain types of hormones will not be used. i am out on milk.

soda, while near and dear to my heart, isn't always a ten pm saturday with a novel type of beverage. declining in popularity, inevitably to remain a significant part of our culture as it takes on cigarette-like levels of high culture stigma, soda can't take us everywhere. it still does a lot, and of course if my career ever makes something of itself, it'll have a much bigger role than it's had in decades.

i do not trust the juice or essence of most fruits and vegetables. never having spoken latin, i feel uncomfortable in the way these items escape true description. their names not being their real names, i find it difficult to connect them meaningfully to any concept. as a compromise, i have told myself that i am willing to eat any and all juices of alphabetically shaped origin. bananas, however, are notoriously non-juiceable, and i have yet to decide whether things such as cherries and grapes resemble letters. there are those donut shaped peaches, but they lack an empty middle and thus are no more alphabetical than an orange.

other beverages are usually derived from elements of the above, and often require strange decisions regarding whether they should be consumed hot or cold. i find the idea of forcing heated water through a bag of dust to be frightening and thus will never bother with herbal or other teas and the like. by the time i have decided whether i am more comfortable washing the filth from the packet of herbs or letting the boiling water hopefully sanitize it, the desire to consume has inevitably passed me.

these options all leave me confined, confused, or crazy. i turn occasionally to sodas on multiple daily occasions, but since i trust the conniving swindlers in charge of public health policy at least somewhat, i have tried to reduce my own soda consumption, so i will soon schedule a doctor's visit where i will request that an iv be connected to one of those water carrier backpacks, allowing me never to drink again.

struggles ever tried

2010-10-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

yesterday was a bad one for my burr collection. i was standing just above and below this particular tree, finding myself stuck trying to superimpose my shadow on the shadow of the tree itself. the effect i wanted, so shadow of a shadow of a living thing, seemed delightful until i saw the nothing that came out of my idea.

in this whole process, as i implied, i was adding exactly zero burrs to my collection, as my corduroy shoes and wooly socks were unable to make contact with the hopeful seed pods of the forest while i stood there worrying about the layering effects possible in a clearing decorated with a single oak.

burr collecting is a pastime that can accompany numerous activities, from chasing butterflies to rolling around and past strips of exposed granite on a steep hill. i have collected burrs while fishing and while forgetting to call my mother. on my birthday, i had a solo picnic so the forest could give me some beautiful presents, and i found that it did.

the secret though is that the burrs pile up before and after the picnic, if not while you're sleeping off the seventeenth tiny slice of cake. there is no before and after to single-oak clearings though, because these islands draw you away from the rest of the trees and off into something burrless. the clearing has its own life, but it's shadowy in a disappointing way.

with all due respect to hats

2010-10-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

it's completely illogical that something so effective at keeping rain off my face should be damaged by that same rain. is the new national motto of hats "we'll take the hit so you don't have to?"

if only rain were bullets, it would make more sense. hats - the secret service for the rest of us.

all verification allowed

2010-10-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

it's hard to tell yourself things that no person would accept from someone else. you will eat this and only this for the next two days, some random fool insists. oh no, you reply, no, i never make a habit of eating the same foods for more than three straight meals. random fools are arrogant, but random fools aren't usually persistent enough to deny you that.

when you're in the driver's seat, though, you'll wind up tricked beyond your wildest imagination. though time travel will never allow it, some future self might visit you from the following week, a point comfortably distant from the two days in question. oh past self, you say, if only you understood. you're going to eat the same thing for the next two days because you aren't going to move one inch from that bed.

one cannot replace another

2010-09-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

there's a different quality in the air as summer makes its last exertions and the pressing urges of fall arrive. i took the garbage out with a sense of surprising contentment at the intersections between these seasons. the humidity, damp of fallen rain, and general temperature were such that i found myself almost exactly situated between these two seemingly incompatible seasons. compromise is here. let's work it out, folks.

i can't carry a conversation

2010-09-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

nothing seems to matter since i started selling scented oils. for most modern corporations, the bathroom is the one room that does have a corporately planned odor, and that speaks of a defeatist attitude we're out to change. colors, images, sounds, the touch of a hand against another body, all things about the world of the office have been packaged and regulated. it's time we got the aromatic issue more thoroughly covered. sticking on the edge of this coming changeover has not, distinctly not, been a pleasant thing. it's like changing your life for the worse in order to fix everything else. take sales calls, for example.

it's hard to talk to people when they don't listen to anything you say. it's even harder when you have no interest in correcting their indifference. for the past several weeks, i've been looking out the windows of rental cars and thinking of all the passing scenes i don't want described back to me when i get them wrong telling a neighbor or a friend about what i've been and seen. i can't get my head through this authentic experience i should be taking in. it's my luggage too, i want to say, there's always a smell coming from the back of the car, and i can't figure out how to see anything else until that stink leaves.

all the reasons nothing happened

2010-09-21T12:11:00.001-07:00

-someone was missing
-we got distracted
-no food
-the boarders weren't clear on price
-an engine problem of a sort
-psychologically, it was too difficult
-they had dogs
-all our supplies were gone
-no one said anything
-the map was wrong
-you told us it wouldn't happen this way
-we were tired and bored
-we lost touch with our core values
-the lights went out
-aliens
-street-level issues weren't prioritized
-no plan

a relationship with falsehood

2010-09-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

In teaching fiction writing, one central question is whether students are comfortable creating stories. Obviously everyone in such courses should have a desire to fabricate narrative, but some find this to be the central challenge while others are more worried about fine tuning stories that have been relativel easy to write. The question may be one of truth and falsehood. Anyone with a familiarity with lying should be a fantastic produer of rough drafts, because all they need to do in order to write is to connect to that spontaneous machine that builds walls around truths they wish to protect.

Those with more truthful personal lives should merely think of alternate versions of what exists in their minds. We all have idealized or imagined versions of our surroundings, I would think. What then must we do to bring these spaces into the realm of fiction writing? The first answer is simply to challenge the notion of what a story should be, fitting it to the concerns that naturally float through one's consciousness. The second is to grow comfortable with committing in the moment to what is already on the page, while being ready in revision to comb out the central elements and build structures to support them.

not for breakfast

2010-09-17T09:05:00.001-07:00

the explosion of taste that came with the arriving forkful of cake on his tongue could not be an explosion, jack told himself, because he was still alive. healthy, if slightly short of breath in the aftermath of a single bite of his dessert. looking down at the plate, he saw the remaining pile of frosted layers almost as a challenge to his continued existence on earth. there was this moment, the consumption of a sweet concoction that wrung his neck from the inside. there was the whisper of the softness and buttercream hitting his molars. there was a cake, a fork, and his mouth. once these actors had played their final scene, jack would continue living, but everything labeled future was already packed in gray dusty boxes in the furthest corners of his mind.

i've got it

2010-09-16T15:00:00.001-07:00

i've got, it i've got, it i've got it.

blueberry, raspberry, strawberry

blueberry - not yellow, not green, crowned top, never clean

raspberry - point, one, two, three, pop, more, soft, juicy

strawberry - slice, chop, cut off top

you have to be careful

2010-09-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

someplace or other, there may be another of your lookalikes, straigh off the siberian factory floor, nodding his head to the beat, but a little too gently.

forget stars, everyone's interested in cooking

2010-09-09T20:20:00.001-07:00

i got this idea the last week that i should start my own cooking channel. i know, it's easy to go out and say you have an idea and a lot harder to make it happen, but you have to give me this -- i mean my own channel. 20 hours a day, and the other four are going to be reruns of australian tv shows. do not send your infomercial time my way, got it?

there are forty people outside on my lawn

2010-09-09T20:13:00.001-07:00

i don't have a thing against people in general, or my neighbors, or the person who decided to invite everyone over to hang out in my yard, but it does seem like they're littering. litter is the most bothersome thing i have encountered in my years on this earth. i feel like debris should either be spontaneous or uniform, and litter is neither. litter stands out in a natural landscape just as it does in an artificial one like an outdoor basketball court. because people playing a gave of three on three don't want to trip over a dirty burger wrapper. just like i don't want people leaving their lottery tickets and crazy colored nail polish bottles on the lawn. there's a reason people want to see my yard, ok? i mean, who's going to bother looking at the seventeen inflatable picassos if there are footprints and soda labels breaking up the green moat that protects them?

lit

2010-09-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

one of my friends is currently searching for housing, and although a number of opportunities have arisen over the months, apparently none of them have been quite right. i realized, however, that a perfect situation might soon be opening up near me. i happen to be acquainted with the owner of the next-door property.

while there are tenants of this dwelling, i have also acquired a new habit of sitting on the front porch at late hours of the evening. only in the days just prior to my conversation about potential vacancies, the neighbors had begun a pattern of discovering me chatting on the mobile and slouching on the steps. this behavior, not familiar to the area, seemed like a possible cause of a rapid departure by the renting neighbors. i was dismayed, then, to discover that while they had seized upon the distastefulness of my evening presence, they countered it merely by turning on their porch light.

why toast is good

2010-09-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

toast is good because it is crunchy. it also requires a degree of finesse and patience in its preparation, and thus rewards the careful practitioner. then, as the toast emerges ready to be eaten, it is delightfully warm in addition to its crisp texture.

origins

2010-09-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

if i was a light, what type of electricity would run me?

your life should revolve around cereal boxes

2010-09-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

where surprise is always just a shake away

who needs a castle though

2010-08-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

i've been accused sometimes of having a strange level of interest in chocolate. essentially, people seem to think it's strange that i don't eat it more quickly. i'm not sure whether these accusations are accurate or not. it does seem that there are times when i could eat more chocolate than might seem normal or expected. on the other hand, why does that matter exactly? i suppose if i was taking all the world's chocolate and thus preventing other people from enjoying it, that might be a problem. it would be especially troubling if i built a castle out of it and refused to eat the chocolate i walked on, while others were left chocolateless, in a truly unfair distribution of resources.

Before you go

2010-08-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

He made his daughter sit in the back seat, because she was always asking questions about the things he did with his hands while he drove.
"Daddy, I can't see you."
"I'm right here, J."
"I know, but I can't see what you're doing."
Jack had few insights into the inner life of his little girl, but he knew one thing: she was highly concerned with the way other people spent their time. He sighed briefly as he came to the final turn. Two houses down, just past the fence with the peach trees. Oh yes. Margaret had left the door open, a welcome to April's warmest day.
"Okay, I'm parking right in the driveway and then you'll run up the steps and in the front door. See how your mother left the door open for you?"
"Are you going to give me a kiss goodbye?"
"Hey, don't worry, I'll be right here blowing you a kiss. I'll blow you a kiss again when I get back home and call you."
Little J was the easy one to beat in an argument. Still, without having to face his ex-wife, Jack was fairly certain he'd be able to avoid a confrontation on this day. There was still enough time to hit about ten buckets of balls before the lecture. So he'd be calling his little girl from the driving range. It was sort of becoming his second home anyway.
She was already gone, bouncing up the path to her mother's front door, and when she walked right in the house without looking back, Jack had also nearly forgotten about the kiss.

don't change the subject

2010-08-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

it's important for me to note that the single most overrated food item in history is the veggie burger with cheese. since i'm not a vegan, semi-vegan, ironic vegan, or pseudo vegan, i think it's pretty safe for me to judge. a good veggie burger is an achievement. putting cheese on it just masks the entire issue.

burst

2010-08-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

i am forseeing good things for the balloon as an icon going forward. perhaps it is best suited as a metaphor, but the balloon can make a great decoration as well. think about polka dots morphed into a nice reminder of childhood birthday parties. a couple large balloon graphics on a t-shirt. running shoes. embossed stationery. the sky is the limit.

i can see the signs

2010-08-15T18:42:00.000-07:00

due to the apparent lack of demand for traditional phone lines in the united states, i have decided to move to an apartment made solely of telephones. in the next five years, as i battle the escalating cost of a rent bill continuously being raised by a failing former monopoly, i estimate that my share of the local telephone market will rise to at least twenty percent. by that point, i should be able to call myself on any of my phones at any hour of the day or night and be comforted in knowing that, if anyone at the phone company is bored, they will probably be listening to my conversation. it's always nice to feel wanted.

not just syrup

2010-08-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

i just had to check to make sure i had already written about the waffles. it's important or it would seem important to know, if i had any way of knowing, why it is that certain ideas have a persistence that seems unjustified. of course, the key here would be to locate ideas on some sort of grid or axis, with relative importance on one side and persistence on the other.

i can understand that there are ideas that are persistent not because they are great but because they are simply amusing or memorable. i recently saw a film for the third time in the theater, something i may never have done before. when i left, i thought to myself that i would likely never make a habit of quoting this movie, simply because the material available does not fit any situation where i would use a quote. there are individual lines that were funny, but none i could see myself using. so i realized that it isn't just the number of times i have seen a movie and how good it is that will determine whether i end up quoting it.

the same is true with ideas. there are some that maybe don't 'deserve' to be memorable, but stick around anyway. then there are others that simply get caught somewhere and don't leave. now, i might be selling the waffles short. the concept of the waffles is more one of envisioning a reality where something can be effortlessly shaped into what you want. that, on a more abstract level, is an idea that appeals to me. so sometimes it isn't about waffles, it's more about what holds them together.

Thematic elements secondary

2010-08-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the process of reading anthologies slash essay collections by Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis, and Nick Hornby. In other words, the library has served up a splendid array of treats. There is also a book of David Foster Wallace essays I looked at but will almost certainly not continue reading. It strikes me as evidence that I am not particularly interested in essays so much as the specific authors listed above. Of course, Hornby writes almost exclusively fiction, but his nonfiction no less interesting.

In the prcess of reading, I am preparing a curriculum in fiction writing. It strikes me that the process of actually making things up is not the area to dwell upon, and this a steady diet of nonfiction seems to be helping as I work. It's just a matter of coincidence, but I plan on writing up anything that works. I suppose you could make a gimmick of a class like 'Fiction written like nonfiction,' but there's a danger in suggesting people write any particular way. Maybe something abstract would work. 'fiction written like a planted field?'

several noises

2010-08-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

i thought about making a pyramid or sort of triangle shape out of waffles today. some things are unnecessarily difficult. also, i have no waffles.

when people tell you 'there is no poison ivy' in a particular location, it's better to just pretend they said there is.

graduate school may have been invented solely to produce ridiculous situations.

april is a strange thing to visit on a summer evening.

and i still need to reorganize the library

2010-08-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

i was busy cataloguing shark records the other day when i was attacked by ice cream. then, i escaped, only to be ambushed by fierce rabbits while attempting to collect my thoughts over the previous incident. the rabbits ate greedily at the trails of butter pecan dripping from my pant leg while i kicked uselessly at them. i had holed up in a shed, leaving little room to manuever. i soon realized it was wishful thinking on my part to assume the ice cream had been alone in haunting me.

quickly, i gathered the records i had brought with me in fleeing the first confrontation, but i found that once they were all in my hand, the rabbits had left the shed. i followed after them, not to seek them out but merely as a precautionary measure. i had no idea what else was out there. suddenly, a torrent of frosting came up through the grass and overtook me as i ran, scattering papers and yelling for someone to wake me up. it seemed i had to be stuck in the strangest of dreams, but instead, i found myself plucked from where i stood by a seventeen foot sandwich, who was also screaming: "why in the world are you getting these desserts so worked up? i just want to eat breakfast, and you're out here fighting cakes! who wants to fight a cake?"

i had no intention of fighting anything, but i had even less of an idea what the sandwich was talking about. where was this cake, i screamed, all i see is icing and i don't know what that's got to do with me.

it was then that a roaring came and the sky was blacked out by lemon-scented towers of pastry that smashed us flat against my front drive.

"oh, and i suppose you want me to fix this," whined the sandwich, "because as far as i'm concerned, the cake has won."

i wasn't trying to argue that the cake hadn't won, but then my lungs, my ears, my eyes even seemed to be consumed with the moist flavor of the cake. i had no idea what to do. should i take a bite, or was the cake biting into me?

what is so bad about chalk?

2010-08-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

now that the nba has a new villain, chalk has lost just about its final positive association. People seem to dislike chalk, whether it is the sound of it on blackboards, its dust in the air, or the derogatory association it has in describing sensory experiences. With technology moving rapidly to change the classroom, will we soon have nothing left of chalk but empty associations with things we dislike?

I think it is time we asa society reviewed our anti-chalk stance. Would it be a terrible thing to embrace the texture of dry powdery foods as a good thing and reclaim 'chalky' as a positive adjective? I am not advocating that anyone eat actual chalk. Still, with markers having for decades come in scented varieties, why shouldn't we embrace the same technology in chalk? Next time you find yourself staring at a teacher's handwriting on a chalkboard, wouldn't the inevitable broken piece of chalk seem more pleasant when it released fruity aromas? As a nation, we can embrace this trend, forming a new area of market expansion and profitable international trade. No one will resist the scent of our chalk.

in which all is abandoned in favor of the mystical

2010-08-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

it's hard to keep track of anything once you've realized the way you're keeping track isn't actually tracking anything you care about. it's like those counters that they keep at galleries and that sort of thing. if you walk by the counter seven times, are you counted as one person or seven? does anyone particularly care? if you are counted as seven people, does that mean that your presence in the gallery is seven times more valuable than that of someone who has only walked past once? this is why the counting and tracking of things is soon going to end.

yes, like a million professed solutions to our problems, number-based living is a thing of the past. it's all about the experience, as far as most of us are concerned. these days, with the amount of figures being thrown around, i would say it's a safe bet that most people no longer care whether they're being tracked or counted or cajoled into thinking the numbers are actually in charge.

what is most important in moving away from these decades of numeric superiority is that we leave the past without bitterness. everyone should be aware of the problems of people who cannot move on with their lives. they poison the air around them, literally making it difficult to breathe in their presence. at the least, their toxic emissions cloud the ability of well meaning bystanders to keep track of their vital signs. everyone is better off if we can just forget this bitter resentment. just leave it out of your life. that way, none of you will be stuck with someone whose ex-girlfriend is a number. especially not the number six.

rock report

2010-08-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

there aren't enough rocks to go around these days. if only people would be more careful about what they use to knock holes in windows, we wouldn't have these problems. it's become more important with each passing year that we educate the public in the use of bricks as window-breaking devices.

though frequently featured in films, bricks have made up only nine percent of total hurled blunt hurled objects so far this year. rocks, at nearly eighty percent, have once again taken the top spot on the list. what no one seems willing to admit, however, is that there is a finite number of rocks available in most populated areas. as the legal system struggles under the weight of pending criminal cases for rock-throwing vandals, the actual rocks remain under police protection. once a rock is sealed in an evidence room, there's anywhere from a twenty to thirty-six month period before the case it is associated with makes it through the legal system.

in the past, rocks were generally thrown in the landfill once they were no longer needed as evidence in criminal trials. many cities have begun rock recycling programs, carefully cleaning and repatriating these natural projectiles. still, the rock shortage is significant and may lead to unexpected results as angry individuals have begun finding themselves without a stone to cast.

things i cannot take on the plane

2010-07-26T22:57:00.001-07:00

blueberry pie recipe that i modified

the original does not have whole wheat flour, sugar, cinnamon, or ginger, which is why i think this is essentially my own recipe at this point. original recipe used maple syrup, interestingly enough. besides the ingredient additions and modifications, i am also simplifying some of the directions.

blueberry pie

3 cups blueberries
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar

simmer for 20-30 mins or until thickened

add

1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp powdered ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

stir until sugar is fully dissolved
thicken with 3tbsp flour or corn starch, adding gradually as needed

crust:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup white flour
10 tbsp butter
1 tsp vinegar
5-7 tbsp water

combine dry ingredients; cut in butter
add vinegar and gradually add water

divide in half, roll out to make the top and bottom crusts

after assembling pie, cover the edges of the crust with foil - i did not do this initially and the middle was not satisfyingly done by the time they began to seriously brown, but a last-minute foil modification saved the day.

bake pie at 450 for 40 minutes or until middle crust is firm and filling (if visible) has the dulled glassy look of a nicely done pie

developmental notes:
additional butter can be dotted on top of filling before baking; i did not do this and was wholly satisfied with the result. the spice amounts are estimates, since i seasoned the pie to taste and would have to keep trying this to see how much ginger gives the best flavor. my pie had a delightful fruit flavor as expected with just a hint of the ginger's heat to add to the experience. i had to use less butter than required in the original recipe but found that i seemed to have about the right amount; throwing in a bit more (before adding water) obviously works if the mixture doesn't feel right. i sliced up my top crust to make a lattice, but the recipe yields plenty to do a full top crust if desired.

i was highly pleased with the results of my pie experiment. the whole wheat crust seems to go well with blueberry.

this is where the roof hits me

2010-07-24T23:45:00.001-07:00

i'm fond of lists. i think most people like lists. they're always useful as an organizing principle, and can easily be added to or modified to fit changing scenarios. lists have been making lives easier since at least a couple hundred years ago.

here are several things that are not out to get me:

the combination of pizza and root beer
bears (although the last bear i saw was just a baby, so it ran away)
flatware
stringed instruments
the summer
human beings
computer software
european mobile phone manufacturers

the divided and dividers

2010-07-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

i went to the library today and took books. i did not leave the property with the books, but instead i borrowed them from shelves and gave them to other shelves. i built pyramids and defensive barracks from books. the covers lined tables and aisles. patrons walked by and stared over their contraband beverages as my creations rose and fell in the silence of the second floor. whispered mobile phone calls to colleagues and loved ones made no mention of the chaos, but there was little enough reason for them to be calling in the first place. staff members remained stoic in the face of my challenge to the order of things. great chasms of literacy were bridged with jumbled collections of fiction. catalog records soon meant nothing, as shelves emptied and floors filled with the brick wall constructions of the afternoon. windows to nowhere leaned in and out of the accumulated writings of a thousand forgotten souls. looming above, the voices of public announcement stood ready to warn me from my tower. i stomped the outlines of my kingdom and watched for signs in the settling sky.

careful eating

2010-07-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

we had an extended discussion this evening about which desserts would be the worst to have smashed in your face. cookies were basically the most harmless, especially soft cookies. once they have rebounded from your face, you can even try to catch them and eat one.

i made the argument that a bowl of raspberries in honey would be a terrible thing to have shoved in your face. unfortunately, this does not qualify as a dessert as people do not eat it for dessert. baklava, however, is both a legitimate dessert and one that is sticky, greasy, and flaky. there is no way that would be pleasant hanging from your face.

also interesting would be creme brulee, which might cause some minor lacerations. the subtleties of its flavor would perhaps be lost in the moment, reducing the possibility that the victim might enjoy the residue left from the dessert attack.

finally, a milkshake would provide a gigantic mess and likely lead to considerable physical discomfort due to its coldness, while also significantly messing up the victim's clothes. although further research is necessary to prove the relative merits of these desserts, it seems clear that all pose significant dangers and should be regarded with a degree of caution. don't keep your guard up too much around cookies, but it might be good to watch your back around these other sweet menaces.

you make the rules

2010-07-20T22:30:00.001-07:00

i had this conversation yesterday where i misheard a friend's response and thought that she was skeptical about an important idea of mine. it has occurred to me that, with the spread of things like soda flavored syrups, we now have the power to reverse engineer popular beverages. of course, my friend agreed that this was a good idea. perhaps owing to my own doubts, i didn't properly hear her enthusiasm for the concept.

it's important to understand what is at stake here. i'm not discussing actually figuring out the recipe for any given soda product, because that would obviously be counterproductive advice for an insider like myself to give. rather, it's a matter of getting exactly what you want.

i've always been annoyed at those places where soda fountains include squirters that let people add a dash of lemon or cherry syrup to their soda. if people want to doctor up a beverage, they should be doing it on their own. it's almost disingenuous for a store to offer you the chance to purchase a valued, respected brand of soft drink but simultaneously attempt to hook you with the promise of convenient ways to ruin that drink's flavor. let me tell you something: the folks who make all their money off of this stuff don't just randomly combine essential oils to create flavors. you're undoing inspired work when you mess with the product like that.

now, though, people do have a chance to take a more proactive role in the creation of a soft drink. go out and buy one of those pre-concentrated syrups, and maybe have a little on your ice cream. then, get some seltzer water or something and start mixing things together. if you're less adventurous, just buy the soda and the identical syrup. combine these to get the best taste possible. have fun, run a few experiments. maybe take a poll of your friends with your top three creations.

see the genius in this? it's great when a product's marketing team is able to produce something new - like a syrup for ice cream - that can also change and enhance the consumer experience with the original product. people don't have to throw away the expert-crafted formula for any soda to take an active role in re-engineering it as a final product. it's just a matter of having precision control over the experience, while maintaining the authentic experience you paid for when you made your purchase.

go have a soda, folks.

...but there is plenty of chocolate

2010-07-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

is summer inherently a boring time of year? i leave that to others to debate, but i must confess i am swamped these days with tasks that i will or won't accomplish, plates i will or won't clean, bikes i will or won't take on a ride, and tiger videos i will or won't watch. it'll be a little while before i get bored, but i have to say that i'm slightly worried about how this might develop. will i find myself tied by the ears to a maple tree, struggling to drain a hydration pack full of honey while ants dance on my cassette collection? i don't know about you, but i doubt i'm getting the old auto-reverse deck one to play music that's been fouled by insects. at times i wonder if i've left myself too little space to stuff things in the refrigerator, since there are so many things that have to be prevented from ants, spiders, etc...

my cookie function is disabled

2010-07-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

i recently purchased a package of cookies to eat while i was camping. unfortunately, i did not eat the cookies during my time sleeping in a tent. now, i have a package of cookies i purchased essentially because they looked fantastically awful and were made by a company with a ridiculous name. they're not exactly your average bad cookies either-they're chocolate chip sandwich cookies.

these wonders of generic product development combine mediocre chocolate chip cookies with mediocre sandwich cookies to produce something that is uniquely unpleasant to eat. i would argue that bad sandwich cookies, being something of a known phenomenon, are somewhat edible. bad chocolate chip cookies i'm not so sure about; it may be that i have simply never had chocolate chip cookies this tasteless.

the short-term solution to the cookie problem is to de-sandwich them. i have found it is much easier to eat something that is only one type of bad cookie than something that simultaneously hits two categories of disappointment. removing the filling from the sandwiches also creates a sort of visual mess which might distract from the taste of the remaining cookies. despite this minor improvement in the cookie consumption process, a larger and more permanent solution remains elusive.

it seems to me that i may need to start my own generic cookie business. the only real way to ensure that products that meet my highest standards of road-weary fatalism have a reasonably decent taste is to become the person who tastes the cookies before they go into the package. i can't imagine myself as a quality control taster or hired cookie chef, and so it's the ownership angle that i need to pursue.

with a little capital and some ambition, i think i can make a big impact in the discount cookie arena. the four keys to proper generic product development lie mainly in marketing. now, you may think this is counter-intuitive, because generic products are not advertised via television or bulk facsimile. however, that is precisely why good branding is crucial.

a good discount brand should be memorable, because the consumer will probably only engage with the brand at an actual store. first of all, imaginary and whimsical characters should be clearly associated with the product. they should be pictured on the package in a variety of primary and neon colors. the product name may ideally incorporate these characters, or they can merely be placed on the package to create an attention-getting incongruity. 'what do these graham crackers have to do with a purple giraffe,' people are saying to themselves - and that is when they've been gotten by the generic machine.

building off of the character idea, it is important to focus on packaging. often, the market leader in the field of, say, tortilla chips has determined a look and feel for the category that many will imitate. while this is not entirely a problem, the use of unusual colors (and characters!) will help ensure that your product is noticed.

once you have the consumer's attention, the biggest remaining elements lie in the food itself. concept and execution are key here. yes, it may be a great idea to make chocolate chip sandwich cookies. that purely ridiculous idea certainly got my attention. generics should be adventurous, their bare-bones corporate backers willing to take risks that larger companies would not, creating flavors and designs that seem obvious to anyone working without the encumbrance of a massive corporate decision-making process. don't just imitate, but you don't need to innovate. simply give people what seems obviously like a good idea.

oh, and last of all: try tasting the product before it hits stores.

thursdays

2010-07-15T20:46:00.001-07:00

having no patience for the delicate microwaving process required to prepare the remains of the hot fudge that goes with a spanish sundae, i made the following, which made me a little happy for a brief period of time:

vanilla ice cream
chopped walnuts
broken up pretzels
hint of dried basil (though i'm sure fresh would be better)
chocolate syrup
whipped cream, with dash of nutmeg and small amt of sugar

there are just a few friendly surprises in that mixture, which are at least semi-likely to produce a smile.

campant

2010-07-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

what's the weather like in upstate new york? oh who knows, and why bother finding out. it's not like i'm going camping there tonight or anything.

i (heart) stickies

2010-07-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

i've always been a fan of not letting fear get in the way of spreading a good idea, so here goes:

i have recently decided that, as i own a large number of sticky notes and like to get excited about things for no reason, it would be useful to stick the notes on things, and write on the notes that i (heart) the things they're stuck to. this can then be documented photographically, and the notes can be reused and relabeled as long as they still stick to things.

it strikes me that this would be an incredibly fun office game, as a sticky note could be placed on virtually any object and blend in fairly well, being as natural to the office environment as a leaf is to a forest. right now, i (heart) boxes, and soon i may (heart) boxes and desks, as i arrived back in my room to find i had stuck the first note to my desk after removing the box to leave it for pickup.

that is all.

while you were busy with the leftover pie

2010-07-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

we are nearly out of control at my house, but due to extreme world cup circumstances it became necessary for me to make both german chocolate cake and spanish sundaes today. i'm sure many are familiar with german chocolate cake, but let me tell you briefly about a spanish sundae. the spanish sundae is very similar to an ice cream sundae you may have had, except that the whipped cream is flavored with almond extract and the hot fudge has cayenne pepper and cinnamon added to it. with the hint of cayenne, the entire product was far more delicious than most people can imagine.

i had to make my own fudge sauce by combining chocolate syrup, cocoa powder, and butter. the result was, i think, highly delicious and satisfying. also, i lacked the required almond extract and had to stir vanilla into the whipped cream like an ordinary sundae. i think it would be worth doing again with all the proper ingredients, but be warned that these sundaes are highly filling. i barely had room for cake, and today was a good day to completely forget about finishing that pie.

the hidden dangers of bananas

2010-07-06T18:41:00.001-07:00

i have had a few conversations recently about the coconut banana cream pie i made this weekend. it turns out that a cream pie with a meringue topping is delicious, and while whipped cream would of course have been a similarly attractive alternative, there is something to be said for what the meringue brings to the equation.

the problem, however, lies in the use of bananas in a pie that has to be baked in the oven. my recipe suggested i put the bananas on top of the bottom crust, then pour the hot pudding over them. the meringue goes on last, and the whole thing goes in the oven. as it turns out, this produces a slightly cooked, slightly strange quality in the bananas, which truly are better left out.
to make a proper banana cream pie, my sister informs me, one should cool the pudding, then pour it over the sliced bananas and top the entire thing with whipped cream and serve it immediately. she also recommends using a rich pastry crust with cream pies, with the goal of preventing the crust from becoming too soggy. i had done this anyway, and found that on the second day, the crust was fine.

eleven things i have the option of eating

2010-06-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

there's some sort of game tomorrow involving teams of eleven players. i thought it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to list off eleven items i was prepared to possibly consume during that event:

donuts
creme wafers
pretzels
cheese and crackers
chips and salsa
potato chips
fruit salad
peach pie
quesadillas
soda
cereal

technically, it is more likely that i will drink orange juice than eat a quesadilla or some cereal, but those fit the theme a little better. cereal, yes, is a stretch, but i didn't want to suggest i might eat a chocolate bar, which seems like one of the last things i would dig out and consume.

sweat stains are a dime a dozen

2010-05-24T20:26:00.001-07:00

as i was preparing a newly purchased hat for wear, i couldn't help but think of trot nixon, who famously wore a hideous looking hat and even kept it folder in his back pocket while he wore his batting helmet to hit. besides their glamorous jobs and high salaries, baseball players are privileged in other ways that ordinary americans can hardly fathom.

chief among these perks is their access to sticky substances that can be used to stain, darken, or gum up a baseball cap. resin, pine tar, dirt, and any number of contaminants permeate the baseball field, which allows adventurers like trot nixon to sail off into the furthest seas of breaking in hats. let us remember trot nixon, and greatly worn hats all over.

i hate surprises

2010-05-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

i'm surprised by things all the time. i just don't like surprises that relate to my inability to afford things. i hate surprises that relate to things getting worse, especially when it's taken me forever to accept the existing state of awfulness. it's like those weird surprises like when my shampoo smells like the wrong flavor of dessert for no apparent reason, or my computer is taking over two minutes to connect to a wireless network instead of a mere thirty to forty-five seconds.

once and dunce

2010-05-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

thanks to the impending disappearance of a certain streaming music site, i have thrown all care aside and begun a wild pattern of streaming albums for the first and only time. so far, i have focused on the past, verifying facts such as the talents of allison krauss or kruder and dorfmeister. i have also listened to:

the new josh ritter album
this was good, enjoyable, seemed to refer back to a few surprisingly classic songs/stories, and i wouldn't imagine buying it. the fact is that i have things like a grizzly bear album languishing in the forgotten reaches of my music collection. there are also exciting shiny toys like the latest neko case, which i haven't gotten around to. i can't buy things that are merely good.

white rabbits
i actually listened to a couple of their albums back a month or two ago. i was highly impressed with that first listen. nevertheless, i remain unable to purchase things just because they are highly impressive.

the hold steady - boys and girls in america
fun album; the sort of music i wouldn't mind acquiring through marriage. is that like a secret benefit of getting hitched? ok, honestly, secretly i don't care if i marry someone with impressive musical taste. that's a secret, right? because people have probably forgotten that and assumed the opposite even if i've told them. but anyway, i respect and enjoy the hold steady. i've seen them live; they were excellent; it was a great memory. thanks to rhett miller for opening, since i wouldn't have gone otherwise.

it's an alligator problem

2010-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

finally finally have it all figured out. shoes, t-shirts, cardboard shapes, everything that disappears or shows up half eaten.

i just need to call an exterminator.

time for a swim

2010-05-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

as summer is approaching and the heat and humidity are already causing air conditioners to engage, i am surprisingly unprepared for the change in the season. it's not so much the weather itself as the overall arrival of something new. i do not think i was overwhelmingly caught up in the status quo, but perhaps i would simply prefer to be wearing jeans and sweaters for a while longer.
overall, i do not think that this is destined to be a particularly notable summer one way or the other. i have plenty of work to occupy the few months off, especially if i want to avoid having a thesis crisis next year. i have even started reading a little more outside of class. yesterday i spent some time trying out a few books, the most interesting of which was james frey's novel about los angeles. he has a strange distaste for periods and semicolons, but overall it was engrossing and a little disturbing. there is an odd juxtaposition between the main text and brief historical interludes, which sometimes appear nearly every other page and leave a shocking amount of white space. it's the sort of thing normally placed only at the beginning of chapters. the book itself is hefty enough that i do not kniw whether i will finish it, but it was far superior to the other random novels i had investigated earlier in the day.

under construction

2010-04-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

like just about everyone these days, i probably check my email too often in the hopes that something exciting will show up. one friend several years ago discussed the literally addicting properties of text messaging--the excitement of receiving a new text releases endorphins--and email has to be the same way. this morning, i made the happy discovery that yo la tengo's 'i can hear the heart beating as one' provided the ideal atmosphere as i wrote up my comments on michael cunningham's 'the hours.'

still exhilarated from the satisfaction of an early and successful start to the day's work, i checked my email and was almost overwhelmingly pleased with what it brought forth. this, of course, led me to ponder what elements are most satisfying entries in one's inbox. in general, it has been a great couple of days, as i recently received word that i will in fact teach workshop in the fall.

1. unexpected good news
2. the promise of a new world
3. a surprisingly different sort of email
4. news from old friends
5. a recipe
6. highly anticipated information is finally released
7. a clever joke

i became a little frustrated last night

2010-04-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

when i realized how fun it would be to switch the topic of my folklore project on hipsters. i've done too much work already to make that a good idea.

coordination

2010-04-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

i may have disrupted one of my graduate classes yesterday by wearing shorts, a hoodie, and a tie to class. i didn't have my headphones on, which matched the color scheme of the tie. that would potentially have been even more distraction. so we ended up talking for a minute about the fact that i had this unusual outfit. really though, i was wearing it because i wanted to be in top condition for my presentation in my second class of the evening.

essentially, i dressed up for my presentation by picking attire that made me happy. i guess what was in my head when i chose what to wear was just that i should dress in a manner that would put me in a state of maximum serenity. on some level, the outfit was random, but it was organized not just by color but, believe it or not, theme. i had cartoonish animals on my tie and my shoes.

so after remember that i'd chosen the outfit as a method of preparing for my presentation, i thought about what people would wear to job interviews if they just made what made them happy or confident. i would probably wear something like i had for my presentation. i'd probably wear jeans and an awesome pair of sneakers, plus an awesome t-shirt and a jacket of some sort. if i still had a decent track jacket, that might be my first choice. so perhaps i would go out and buy one. after all, it's for a job interview.

accessories are probably key. i would have to consider reorganizing my keychaing for maximum effectiveness, and think about whether i could bring both a phone and a music device. most likely, i would wear my new watch. as i don't own a ton of other accessories, i would probably wear a tie, just as a way of having one more element to fit into the whole. i'd wear my dress shirt untucked with the top button undone.
temperature is also an important factor; yesterday it was supposed to be around the 60s, so i thought shorts and a hoodie was a good choice. ideally, i think a job interview would be on a day in the high 40s or low 50s, so i could wear my jeans and track jacket without getting sweaty.

fine, take my shoes

2010-04-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

due to a complex interaction between the assignment i was given this week and the contents of my brain, i am writing a story about a depressed penguin. i suppose it isn't the best depressed penguin story either, because the penguin in question was not necessarily depressed at the time that the key action of the story takes place. it is difficult, however, to cover such topics as penguin-human friendship, sock fashion, and the effect of french pop music on retail sales in the united states in the span of three or four pages. i almost expect to lose something in the process of writing this. i hope that will not be my mind. perhaps i could lose a t-shirt. or a pair of socks, or the watch i recently purchased but have struggled to accept into my life. if you're out there waiting for my moment of weakness, just take your best shot now. i'm sick of waiting.

there's always hope

2010-04-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

i hope my piano is not eaten by rabid cats
i hope guitars do not turn invisible during odd-numbered months
i hope the last carnivorous sock puppets have died out
i hope the neighbors do not hear me screaming in my sleep
i hope oatmeal is still good for you

chased by a cheesesteak

2010-04-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

like many vegetarians, i suffer from a horrifying dream where i am being chased through the streets of a city. it's dawn, and though the sky is overcast, or maybe because it is, there's a pink-orange mist over everything as if someone dumped a smoothie on the sky. usually, i'll be running, but in a suit, complete with shiny dress shoes that pinch my feet a little. i keep looking over my shoulder, and i can barely breathe from the pink-orange exhaust fumes, but for the first few minutes of the dream, all i know is that i'm afraid. slowly, it dawns on me that i am losing the race, and at first i think a giant pretzel is pursuing me. when it catches up, maybe i'm going to be dipped in a reservoir of hot mustard, and maybe left there until i've gone soft.
what gets me every time though is this corner. i'm running and looking back and wishing i could adjust the buckles on my shoes by a notch or two, and suddenly, i'll just sense that i have to turn a corner. so i slow down just enough to prevent physics from throwing me to the ground, and then i'll get this amazing second wind and just kick harder and move my legs faster until all i can think about is the blur of my limbs and the sweat building on my neck and forehead.
suddenly, though, i'll look back again, and realize there's something like a giant four-legged cheesesteak pursuing me. i don't mean a cow or a bull or animal of any kind. just an actual, living, humongous cheesesteak, losing a few grilled onions every minute, which seems only likely to speed its progress. i'll catch myself wondering if this is some sort of punishment for not eating meat. sometimes, i think to myself that if the cheesesteak catches me, the worst thing it could do is force feed itself to me. would it pull a smaller cheesesteak out of its pocket and made me take a bite? would it tie me to a chair and force me to eat cheesesteaks until i pass out? these thoughts linger, and they seem to be slowing me down, as if i've eaten too much mayonnaise. i start considering my options. can i yell at people to eat the cheesesteak? is that an appropriate action for a vegetarian, even in self-defense? perhaps my best option would be to simply give up and try to hold a conversation with my pursuer. it could be that human-cheesesteak relations are at a real bad stretch, and an impratial ambassador is needed--someone whose dinner isn't part of the debate. i could make life better, both for humans and for cheesesteaks. perhaps they'll leave us alone if only we learn how to cook and enjoy them properly. perhaps they just want to give us a new recipe. otherwise, what reason could they have for chasing me or anyone else? cheesesteaks might soon be our best friends. maybe then the real tragedy is that the giant pretzel seems to have vanished.