William’s Blog

To Whom It May Concern -

My blog has moved. You can now find my blog at:

http://martiwa0.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there.

Best,

Will

A question:

Since no one seems to be using Friendster.com blogs anymore, I’m considering moving this one over to one of the other blogs our friends use - probably blogspot. If anyone’s on there, I’d like to know what you think of it. I have yet to figure out how to post images on Friendster and I think, what with my new webcam (that right, daddy…I gotta webcam now), it would be better to move this to a venue where I can actually post photos and make hyperlinks within the text. Any comments on this would be greatly appreciated. I think it would be fun to post a picture of myself every day of what I look like in the morning when I get up (which is generally around 11:30, 12 p.m. - and I still feel like hot garbage).

I’ve recently developed a new way of calculating how far away the next subway train is from the station I am in. This works particularly well on late nights - best on late nights during the weekend - when trains here don’t run as often as during the weekday’s daytime hours. You can find yourself waiting on a train for upwards of half an hour and it can get frustrating. That said, I’ve started watching the rats. If you see rats in the pit just off the platform, it means a train isn’t coming in the next few minutes. But, because the rats can feel the vibrations of oncoming trains from where they are and how small they are, they disappear when a train is approaching the station. So, I sit and watch for rats or absence of rats. It’s a good strategy.

I just found out that one of the professors I work for as a research assistant, Barbara Lane (a Northern Renaissance person), is going on leave next semester and my work-study assignment will be changed since she won’t be there. I am now, according to Lane, going to be working with Sandy.

Has anyone seen those airbrushed t-shirt jobs they’re doin’ now? The ones where you "bling out" your t-shirt with sequins? I saw a guy walking in front of the Graduate Center the other day with a black t-shirt on. Blazoned upon it was an airbrushed representation of "Chucky" from the "Child’s Play" film series…Then, the guy had had the t-shirt customized with all these little bits of sequin "bling." Chucky was holding in his dextrous hand a 40 oz. of malt liquor. In his sinister hand, there was a diamond-encrusted 9 mm. handgun. He had a sequin "bling chain" around his neck, and was smiling. That’s the best part. The smile. His teeth were done up in sequins so it looked like he had a grill. It was awesome. If the guy wearing it didn’t look like he would’ve shot me, I would’ve asked where he had gotten it.

Basic 4. No doubt about it. I use to be into Crunch Berries real deep, but, then again, I use to think Jeff Koons was good art. Now, with a little maturity and a little development in my taste, I’ve decided that Basic 4 is where its at. I like it. A lot. I mean, it’s just that good. I also like its whole vibe. I mean, you can get it at ANY grocery store, provided I haven’t bought it all out of stock already (I was disappointed that the uber-bourgeois "D’Agostino ‘Fresh Market,’" or D’AG for short, had sold out two days ago when I went to pick up another box of it. Fuck Kashi. Fuck that elitist bullshit cereal. (in a mocking voice…) "Oooh, I eat "Kashi" - it’s SO good for me, and it tastes SO earthy!" Fuck that. Basic 4 has it all: it’s at any grocery store you can go to, making it, above-all, a populist cereal. And its the good kind of populism - good on the palate, good for you, good for everybody. I hate it when people accuse it of having too much sugar. Everything’s got sugar in it, and the food I eat isn’t some mystical ritual where I’m just eating it because of what’s on the "nutrition facts." That’s what I like about Basic 4 - it demystifies food because its just plain good and no one can deny it. I’d like to think the same for how I think about art. Crunch Berries are aight, I suppose, still, but if you think about an appreciation for Basic 4 like you do an appreciation for art, then I’d say you’ve got damn good taste in art. Count Chocula is like the Gothic - its been around for forever, no one disputes its benefits, but no one really eats it up anymore -  unless they’re really into the Society for Creative Anachronism or something. Crunch Berries are kind of rococo - they’re so over-the-top, I’ve gotta have a soft spot in my heart for them, but I don’t like to admit it. But Basic 4 is like an appreciation for something no one thinks about - like Pierre Soulage. Check it out. You’ll like Basic 4. What’s your favorite cereal?

A forewarning: this blog posting will either piss you off, leave you apathetic, or you’ll agree with me. I was told by someone we know whom I won’t name here, after a discussion on conspiracy theories, that recommended I check out a film called "Loose Change." Has anyone seen it? It’s the biggest load of bullshit I think I’ve ever seen/heard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about a dissenting voice - that is, when you have something worth saying and that it makes some degree of sense. "Loose Change" does nothing of the sort. In fact, it’s the kind of horseshit that crops up every so often from the likes of someone that probably votes like I do but I want to have nothing to do with when it all boils down to it. "Loose Change" is a pseudo-documentary produced by a gent named Korey Rowe (You’re name’s Korey? You mean, with a "K"? Credibility: Strike One) about September 11, which takes the tack of "everything you thought you knew about 9/11 is wrong" approach. That is to say that the makers of the film are the type that consider everyone but themselves to be totally in the dark and it’s their duty to set the record straight. It presents a series of arguments that, inevitably, just don’t hold water/make sense. Missiles, not airplanes; WTC having more gold in it than Fort Knox at the time, which mysteriously disappears before the shit hits the fan; something about United 93 being switched, passengers unloaded and a decoy crashed instead, you get the idea - a load of hyperbolic garbage that only people who live in a reality alternate to mine can consume, stomach, digest, then vomit back to you - and if you think otherwise, you get deemed a right-wing bastard that’s not willing to listen to their "cry for truth." "Cry for Truth"? How about "Cry Me a River," you petulant little Merrell sneakersandal shite. It’s actually such a farce, I’ve decided I don’t even want to write about it at this point and will just let the following (and equally-dubious, yet much funnier) cartoon by Maddox do the talking for me:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=911_morons

Scroll down for the true debunking of the "Loose Change" myth. Though I’m not adverse to conspiracy theories in general, I just can’t really stand conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, which is what "Loose Change" is all about. On that note, I’ll counter mindless drivel with some mindless drivel, this a quote on the subject of 9/11 conspiracy theorists from Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, as culled from the Wikipedia:

"…gives supporters of Bush an excuse to dismiss critics of this administration. I have no doubt that every time one of those Loose Change dickwads opens his mouth, a Republican somewhere picks up five votes." from "The Low Post: I, Left Gatekeeper," Rolling Stone, 9/29/06.

Seen it or not, comments please.

Have any of ya’ll heard about this new videogame that is coming out for the PC? Really pretty sketchy stuff. It’s a videogame spinoff of the now-in/famous "Left Behind" book series - it’s what’s called a "real time strategy" game, similar to that of "Warcraft" and "Command and Conquer" - but, instead of just fighting ogres and futuristic robots, it propels itself with Dominionist philosophy, putting you in command of the "Tribulation Forces" - extreme right Christian evangelical militants - who have to fight a war with the "Peacekeepers," a multilateral force that is clearly based upon the United Nations. This is really scary. Check it out. The apocalypse starts November 6, with the game’s release. You can Wikipedia it for additional information/links. I’d like to hear some comments. Here are the links…Warning, this will scare the living shit out of you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind:_Eternal_Forces

Has anyone seen this new television program, "Heroes"? (Raenie, I think you said you were downloading it - what are your thoughts?) I think it’s on ABC - maybe not, but it’s on one of the major networks. I came across it the other night and really enjoyed it. I didn’t watch the whole episode, though, but wanted to find out what was going on/what was going to happen next. It’s about superheroes, but they’re not based on any Marvel or DC, or any other comic publisher, for that matter, superheroes. In the episode I saw, it was just a bunch of disparate scenes involving young people (kind of an "O.C." target audience, if you ask me) who were just figuring out that they had incredible powers. So, they’re like proto-superheroes - they’re not "official" yet, they’re just going through some "life changes" or something; like puberty, except you grow thorns instead of hair…My favorite superhero on the show was this rather portly, definitely wimpy-looking Asian dude that can stop time. He was stopping time so he and his friend could clean up at card games in casinos. What a great superpower! Anyway, there’s another character, a girl, who has some kind of weird alterego that kills everyone in the room when she blacks out. She has conversations with this persona and she’s really mean and stuff - like her evil twin, or doppelganger, or something. Her boyfriend is this black guy that her doppelganger/twin really roughs up bad, but I don’t think she killed him - yet. Anyway, I was watching it and wondered - is this some kind of milestone for television? Bear in mind, I don’t watch a lot of television, but is this the first interracial relationship featured on network t.v.? In addition to my hagiography/saints poll, I’d like comments/references here - are there other shows with cross-cultural relationships in them? If not, "Heroes" is the first of its kind - I certainly can’t think of any…It’s a pretty good show, at least the little I saw, you should check it out. Wow, t.v., you’ve come a long way since "Amos ‘n’ Andy"…