The worst is the best of flickr

Do your worst face photos. My First place and second place pics. I can always rely on such simple brilliance from Canadians. Some of these people aren't trying hard enough. Ugly faces have to be intense. I think they figure- if they're ugly face isn't that ugly, than others will think they are just too good-looking to be able to make an ugly face.

I think I could do a really good one. I just don't want it to be in my photostream. I mean, I just started a set called, League of Extraordinarily Hot Men. How would that look?

Points of Interest

Last night I caught the tail end of the PBS show Guns, Germs, and Steel. Good Stuff. If I feel guilty for the behavior of my white colonizing people, how did they feel?

Mr. Wrong needs to foster the songs of a fledgling punk band with sentiments like: You think I got time to sit around and figure out about going bankrupt while I’m busy trying to earn a living out here? Huh? You know, to support my Grocery habit?

Emailed pics

Watermelon carving contest:


One of the Best Women Drivers:

decisionless

I have been encountering a plethora( my bros favorite SAT word) of irration towards the friends-with babies sets. I am starting to not take all the blame in my feelings that their lives are chafing my biological time clock and my video game playing lifestyle like a 25km katamari.

example 1:
Friend(s) who I haven't talked to in a loooong time (no blaming) call to tell me that they are having a baby.
I am genuinely excited. If I am not able to muster up a satisfiable gush in the 2 minutes of the 2 hours that have been set aside to call up all the long lost friends since venturing into the couple cave- I hope they forgive me. It seems they are disappointed by my reaction since I am not able to reach their level of excitement. Meanwhile, I am reminded that the friendship has died a bit. After the phone call I will fondly picture the friend (and how they can't even take care of their dog or keep their room clean) with newborn baby, and think, "Great for them. This will be a wonderful learning experience for them." But DONT ask me to engage in that sudden moment. Sorry. Its how my emotions work. They need a bit of foreplay.

For instance, if I am involved with a Fluid Movement performance, oh say in 9 months(actually 1), is it okay if I go to my dusty old address book wherever it is and call up everyone and devise some witty way to break the news? Yes it is. ok. well thats a bad comparison.

example 2:
After reading eebmore's funny post about vegetarians I was reminded of the comparison (geesh I compare a lot) I like to make of meateaters to smokers. They both tend to feel that the nonsmoker and vegger are passing judgement.They respond defensively or proudly to their decisions or secretly laugh among themselves at the others sensitivities. Deep down I bet my vegger friends think I am a stinky savage who can't resist bacon- as I think of my smoker friends.

This seems to happen with kids.Only its so much bigger of a choice. I was just reading the Mobtown Shank and saw an event for the Rock-n-Romp that said "No Childless", which made me feel like the wife of Abraham or whoever, as I read it. Like I was rendered choiceless in the matter PLUS I am excluded. I am sure it was an issue related to word-trimming but still, be nice to me or I will teach your child really dirty words people!

Now back to rolling up as many maidens as I possibly can.

double monkey duty

Photo courtesy flickr- WysG

Back on the flickr wagon. I have been indulging my trivial addictions, the newest being a Japanese playstation game called Katamari Damaci, which I have read and heard much about. So after I complete a level (or don't) I come into my computer room and check the comments panels I have made and received, my contacts photos, and my photo hits, then go back to the PS2 for another eye-riddling round of building up my ball. It feels soooo bad(in the good way) to behave like this. But here is the worse part:

This weekend during the thunderstorm, I was slated- even excited to attend a friends outdoor crab feast. I had just bought the game the night before, along with $10 worth of potato salad. I didn't make it to the crabfeast. Do you know where I am going with this story? thats right 5 hours and 5 lbs. more on the delightful game later.


but for now- look where my photo landed!

blogr -has pics now!

Its not the heat. its the humanity.

I didn't want to discuss my road rage tales, but I am going to expound a bit. Ive had a couple incidences where I have been glaring directly at other drivers mugs and articulating some ugly words. Its embarrassing. Today. In towson, the fury bore a wordy name, that had me laughing before I finished delivering it: "bag of dwarks on the back of a monkey". Some efforts to curb. suggestions?? walking? Driving with my grandmother at rush hour? Critical mass? no thats senseless.

I watched two guys working at Firestone catch a little hell from each other. The air conditioner wasn't working all that well and it was busy and of course a half and hour before they closed. Thats when I remembered something I learned over a discussion about the rise of the crime rate in Bmore in spring/summer. Apparently, in the movie that everyone else has seen; Do the Right Thing, they have a theory that when the weather goes up everybody gets riled up for a fight.

I just had a little revisionist history example about the Wild West, but it sounded like I was trying to be Chris Rock so. yeah. summertime.

flicker once. I turn my camera on.

I am going to spare you the my tale of road rage. They should never be told. Its a moment of private fury and don't deserve to be wasted on the internet or cellular phone convos. Even if they do involve screaming that someone is an 'a-fark'.

I recently wondered over this blog entry about winking. I didn't find it by searching for flicker if you happen to read it. I like the art of winking. It seems like a wise persons gesture. When storytelling.

I worry I am losing that flickr feeling. I went out with the camera the last 2 days and haven't had the fever for the flash. Even when I saw a crab painted with the face of William Donald Schaeffer. Just kinda, "ehh. I could take a picture. But its really not going to seem that interesting". My mom sent me this photo link that I was going to post but I decided it was too heinous to ever return to my blog.

In music relay: I did not win a shiny new ipod for my summer playlist but I will post it nonetheless. I was mostly hoping for the opportunity to call this, 'the blog that wins stuff except for lottery tickets'.

The word 'ideology' is just a cheap electric blanket from walmart

I was going to reserve comments on the events of the day, but Verizon has managed to render me powerless to work once again in its monster-size capacity to be unhelpful.

I just want to reiterate the comment of a caller on the Diane Rehms show this morning that really needs to be broadcasted at the same rate as the Presidents confusing sentiments have been aired. The message was a reminder to all people to not link this "ideology" to islamic faiths or people. These terrorist groups pervert it for their message. this is way less articulate than he stated it. Go check it out.

Last point. NPR should really just not play music between segments. Silence is stronger amidst saturation. Not a instrumental rendition of "is that all there is?"

Barbarianism aids technological advancement

I was reading the special Financial Times report on the international status of stem cell research in Scientific American. Besides the disturbing future of business (Financial Times) and biotech, I read this, here:

...But the Chinese scene is still dominated by adult stem cell work. "There is a very significant focus on clinical translation, which is much more palatable in China than in the US or Europe", says Stephen Minger of King's College London. "Treatments will be pushed ahead more quickly than in the West".

A colourful example is Jianhong Zhu of Huashan Hospital, part of Shanghai's Fudan University. He is working with adult neural stem cells, extracted from brain tissues exposed in patients who suffer open head wounds. (A classic local example is the "chopstick injury", in which a barbed bamboo chopstick is pushed--usually through an eye socket--into the head during an argument over a meal; when the stick is removed, enough brain tissue sticks to it to be a source of neural stem cells.) Zhu has obtained encouraging results from a clinical trial in which eight such patients had their own neural stem cells cultured and transplanted back into the site of their injury; they fared significantly better than eight matched controls who had open brain surgery but no cell grafting.

Is anything else spangled?

In these moments of heightened patriotism, amidst the retiring of Justice O'Conner, let's not forget the reason we celebrate this country, this flag, this freedom of blog and Sangria, by listening to the sage words of Roman Maronie from Johnnie Dangerously.