the rug really ties the room together.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/books/30lebowski.html?em

i needed to share this with you all.

Happy Holidays, Y'all

I liked it so I put a ring on it

Hey all,
I just wanted to let you know that Lauren and I got engaged last night. it was a pretty involved proposal with a limo and clues and presents and all that fun stuff. But I wanted to tell you all that it's official. Oh and she DID say yes, which is pretty exciting too.

So a no-so-quick rundown of the evening; She finished her first semester of law school finals yesterday at around 1pm and was totally brain dead so naturally... headed to the bars. She had some drinks, sobered up and then headed home. We had been planning to "go out to dinner" to celebrate this milestone so I suggested we head to Outback since I have some gift cards. At around 530 she headed over to my place to get to an early dinner and found that I wasn't there but there were two envelopes taped to my door. The first directed her to walk about 100 yards west of my apartment to a waiting car and then to open the second envelope. Once she was in the car she opened the second envelope and there was a clue to decipher that would lead her to her next location and the next clue. The clue included something cheesy and romantic about our first date and when I began to fall in love with her and all that mushy stuff. This clue led her to Ault Park which is a gorgeous hilltop park in Cincinnati. Waiting there with her second clue and a bouquet was my sister. After figuring out her next clue that was something about her favorite place to study she was headed back to her bedroom. In her bedroom on her bed I had a dress, jewelry and a third clue waiting for her upon arrival. After changing into the dress the next clue led her to Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati where I was waiting next to the giant Christmas tree and I got down on one knee and said the three things you're supposed to say when you propose; "I love you with all my heart, I will always love you, will you marry me?" So she says "yes" and then asks through tears and giddy laughter if I want some diet Dr. Pepper which she was clutching awkwardly as she didn't know what else to do with her hands (insert Talladega Nights movie quote here). When I stood up and we hugged the carriage drivers and other bystanders applauded and shouted their congrats. We then took the long way up to Mt. Adams to have dinner at the Celestial which overlooks the city where our waiting families were the final surprise I had in store. Everything went as well as I could have hoped and we finished out the night with a walk through down town and a drink at Rock Bottom.

We will be planning the wedding, set for March 2011, over the next year and three months so keep an eye out for inquiries about your current address, save-the-dates and invitations. I love you all and I can't wait to build my life with Lauren as my wife and family.
Holler at me
JH

Grill Lavash

This is a poster for McDonald's in L'viv. Lavash is a sort of pita-type bread. The caption is "Taste the flavor of the East!" I think this speaks for itself.

Intelligent sounding phrases

First...i must follow mike with thanks to Ali for that wonderful work. Second, i chuckled to myself today when i used the phrased mutually exclusive in an email...just wanted to share.

I think we need to have a winter camping trip...thoughts?

My new favorite song...

First off thank you Ali for that thanksgiving gem. It is indeed fucking fall, and now I feel that I need to get some gourds. Which also makes me think of a classic geoff quote. "I mean dude if you want me to throw the pumpkin off the roof i'll do it. I'll smash the shit out of it". Oh drunkeness.

So the girlfriend and I were in Louisiana for thanksgiving festivities and I have discovered my new favorite song. For those of you who do not know the south is notorious for the glorious rap songs, many of which come out down there well ahead of the rest of the country (sometimes years....it's weird). I have posted a link with said song. Don't hate till you hear the whole thing. It is wonderful. The video also has the lyrics so you can fully appreciate the creative genious of this lyrical working. Warning, this may not be appropriate for work (depending on how cool your coworkers are). But I feel that most of this blog is not appropriate for work. On that note I am done. Happy holidays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyBI4Y7Dz6c

Happy Thanksgiving

IT'S DECORATIVEGOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.
BY COLIN NISSAN
- - - --->
I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I'm going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, "Aren't those gourds straining your neck?" And I'm just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, "It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff'rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn't it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they're both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that's upsetting, but I'm not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore.

The next thing I'm going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I'm going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it's not summer, it's not winter, and it's not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it's fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well then you're going to fucking love my house. Just look where you're walking or you'll get KO'd by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you're going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/10/20nissan.html

A great way to wake up (especially if dave is singing it to you)

Enjoy this video gem of a song. This band has long been lauded for its extremely post-modern take on the challenges and issues facing over-privileged youth in suburban America, with tantalizing use of harmony to boot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d80J5ahfTCc

Art Revisited

Step 1: Check it
http://forbesavenue.com/2009/09/30/the-rape-tunnel-no-seriously/
Step 2: Discuss

SMASH!

It has been a long time since I've posted or looked at this blog. I've enjoyed catching up on the important news from the last couple months (I think my favorite Jesus figure is the football one where He is making a handoff and another kid is tackling Him). Unfortunately I can't share interesting photos like Ali because in an amazing space cadet move I have deleted all of my photos from the last nine months. Not really sure how this happened. Must have been an oversight.

I have played Smash recently which is ridiculous and amazing. My roommate managed to download an emulator for it in the city and bring it to me. It was a joyous night. Though I haven't really played any more because the controls are all wrong and it just isn't the same without the threat of someone throwing down their controller and running out of the room.

A small consolation....

Fellow rage-ers, me miss you long time and hope your journeys have been scenic and intriguing. That sentence was mandatory "chill time" before pursuing in an epic adventure (or in Ravi's case a small endeavor such as, well....anything). I am moving to Chicago. That is my upcoming adventure. Instead of the Olympics the windy city gets me. So unless I win the lottery tomorrow (keep your fingers crossed) that is where you shall find me. Still working out minor details for piecing together the commune. Mainly funding. Maybe grants? I mean a black man is president so who's to stop us from dreaming. Let the Rage rise again! (<- too lazy for proper font)

And now for Tom Cruise.

Funny Religious Things I Saw in Poland

This copy of the Last Supper is carved out of salt in a chapel hundreds of feet underground.

Fuck Akron

Last night I took a trip to Akron Ohio with 2 buddies (Puka and Ryan) to visit a third (Lee). Lee is a senior at the University of Akron this year. He invited us down for his first house party of the school year. It was all fun and games for a while, you know, drinking beers and telling stories and pretending I was still in college for a night. There was a major street/block party about 4 or 5 blocks away. Kind of like Lowesfest. We spent about an hour there because Lee really wanted to show us but we were back at his place about 9:45 or so. It's a decent sized party, about 40-50 people on the front yard and porch and about 10 minutes walking from campus. About 11:30 we start hearing talk about how the Akron po'lice broke up the block party thing with tear gas. Word on the street was that some drunk kids were throwing beers at passing cars and hit a cruiser. If that's true, they're painfully retarded and had it coming. About 10-15 minutes later, a cruiser speeds up to the house and slams on the brakes. 2 officers get out and one says "You have 3 seconds to vacate the premises...3..2..1" and on 1 they both threw canisters of tear gas into the crowd. Seconds later, a second cruiser stops and 2 more officers step out and throw 2 more canisters, followed by a fucking paddy wagon. At this point I turn and book through the neighborhood and head back towards the main campus area coughing most of the way. One choice moment during my escape was some drunk dude yelling "You can't spray that shit I'm allergic to it!"(duh, it's tear gas, you're not supposed to enjoy it). I make it back to the the campus and sit down in the shadows between 2 buildings near the main quad and start calling my friends to find out what happened to them. We all meet up on campus in about a half hour. Our eyes are red and watering and all coughing and/or sneezing, but fortunately none of us have been arrested (Ya'll about to go to jail!). Puka, Ryan, and I decide we're done with this bullshit and head back home. It was the coughiest, sneeziest car ride I have ever been a part of.

I'm trying to watch football now, but I can't really enjoy it. Thanks to Visine, my the color of my eyes has faded to a gentle pink, but they still water up frequently. My nose itches, my thoat is scratchy, and I can't stop coughing. Fuck you, Akron. I shan't be returning to see you anytime soon.

Let's go bowling

So steve-0 and my girlfriend are going straight to hell. This past weekend on labor day while we were lounging around the ladies' apartment in Chicago the door bell rings randomly. Not expecting any visitors kristen sends steveo to see who it is. Jack, her kitty cat, jolts out the door and heads for the basement of the apartment to explore. Steveo and kristen then proceed to go to the basement and retrieve the little devil. In the process they walk by and completely ignore the Jehova's witnesses (witni if you prefer) not once, but twice. Returning to the apartment they proceed to bad mouth the messengers of god with the windows wide open oblivious to the fact that they can here them. Which leads me to the the real reason for this post, a litte gem I stumbled upon today in my internet exploits. And remember, nobody fucks with the jesus.

http://www.allleftturns.com/jesus-playing-sports-gallery

This is mandatory viewing, and well worth the time. Another note of interest is that this website titled all left turns is a nascar website. Great title, poor choice in hobbies. I promise though the gallery has nothing to do with nascar.

A sad day

As some of you may have heard (I say some because our friends residing on the dark continent have limited access to the internet and must instead wait for their carrier pigeons) Ted Kennedy passed away today at the age of 77. To commemorate his life and works, I link this page detailing his many great accomplishments.

And now a word from chuck norris

I have recently been keeping busy by thinking of my own Chuck Norris random facts. Here goes, and please add any you have thought of yourself:

1. Chuck Norris once hit a walk-off home run...while batting for the away team
2. Chuck Norris once painted a masterpiece landscape in the time it took Bob Ross to pick up his paintbrush. He then waited until Bob Ross was finished with his painting of happy trees, stared at the trees for 5 seconds, and caused them to become scared trees. He lastly roundhouse kicked Bob Ross in the face. That is how he died, not from cancer.
3. When the doctor listens to Chuck Norris' heart with a stethoscope, (s)he hears machine guns and screaming.
4. Chuck Norris created February 29th to give one of his victims an extra day to run and hide, saying he would leave them alone if they were alive on march 1. They didn't make it.
5. Chuck Norris once impregnated a woman by winking at her. He then promptly aborted the baby by scowling at her.
6. Chuck Norris is the reason why Dentists have such a high suicide rate. He was once told he had a cavity. Now he pays dentists all over the world their last visit.
7. Chuck Norris created Madagascar by roundhouse kicking Mozambique.
8. When Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks the great wall of china, it can be seen from outer space
9. Chuck Norris can stare at the sun, and when he does, it causes a sunspot to develop.
10. The devil made a deal with Chuck Norris.

Ghost Ride, meet Ghost Writer

So I have not posted in many moons and this is not acceptable. First things first, I love that space cadet shenanigans extend to their corners of influence around the world. What is with people trying to kill wildlife though? I mean Steve O killed a duck and some other various animals en route to camping adventures such as Shakamak and pre-Shakamak wilderness excursion into PA. Ali almost takes out a hedgehog. Whats next. Just stay away from smokey the bear, he is way more intense in person. Which ties in perfectly to bears on the loose. Geoff thank you for sharing that glimmer of light amongst the clouds that almost makes cleveland news worth watching every once in a while. Instant classic. This is a reenactment of what the bear would have looked like......but real!

And now for some highlights that have entertained me lately...

We had a meeting the other day for our entire department at work. Jordans wet dream type of thing. And in the middle of it my supervisor gives me an elbow tap and says, "if he dies, he dies". It was beautiful. I could not hold in the laughter. This was beaten out as my favorite work moment recently by someone walking down the hallway today saying; "butt scratcher! butt scraaatcher!" Oh peter griffin.

And now for the real reason I was motivated to post on the board. I stumbled upon this job today while browsing employment opprotunities in the Chi. I highly recommend applying for this if you are at all interested. The application period may be closed, but don't let that discourage you. I present......Ghost Writer!

http://www.jobsinchicago.com/view_chicago_jobs.cfm?id=24796&start=31&searchit=no_search&jobtype=16

I stepped on a hedgehog yesterday

I was sneaking around the garden last night in the dark because I needed some grape and currant leaves for the pickles I was making (of course), when I stumbled over something soft.  Confused, I looked down and illuminated the lump with my cell phone, only to discover that it was a hedgehog.  I don't think I killed it though.  

Also, someone showed me this version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and I believe it is, as Geoff says, required viewing.  If you haven't seen the original Bonnie Taylor video, watch it first.

Bears on the loose

Came across this today and decided that it was necessary viewing material for board members. Fox 8 News strikes again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5C2gihnEkE

When are you gonna buy me some cookies?

Hello Former 421 residents and various other hanger-ons,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here so I thought I might take this opportunity to talk a little bit about my life for anyone who’s interested. I teach eight classes of chemistry which each meet twice a week for 45 minutes and two classes of ninth grade chemistry which have one 45 minute meeting and one 90 minute meeting each week. I also have a homerun. This adds up two 23 class meetings each week, but since I helped make the schedule I don’t teach on Fridays. So I have four sort of 5 to 6 classes straight which doesn’t sound like that much but sort of is. Oh and I teach in the afternoons. The school is a collection of several long buildings of classrooms, since it never really gets cold here they’re all more or less open and you walk outside to go between rooms. I recently organized a science fair for our school, which was an interesting challenge. However, it turned out pretty well so I’m pleased.

Also, a couple of interesting tidbits:

The other night I had just fallen asleep when I woke up to the sound of a motorcycle revving outside of my house. I quickly pieced together that there was a drunk man on a motorcycle outside of my neighbor’s house yelling at him. He carried on a tirade interspersed with engine revving that lasted about 45 minutes. He alternated a lot between Portuguese and Macua so I wasn’t able to catch everything but there was a lot of anger, “why don’t you come out here” type of stuff. Some of the best bits included “You fucked my wife, but that’s alright, she’s nothing, she’s just sex” and then a little bit later “You work at the secondary school, you have money, when are you gonna give me some, when you gonna buy me some cookies, you have money, buy me some cookies, they’re only a couple meticais.”

I also recently cut my own hair and am pretty proud of the result. I think it’s pretty stylish and the only reason anyone would disparage it would be when they recognize that, yes, technically, it is a mullet.

I'm being watched

It has long been a running joke at my house that it is in fact bugged. The reason for this is Kirky's incredible knack for predicting what TV commentators are about to say. This is easily explained by his love of sports and the mindless drones that tell him about the sports we're watching. However, this joke recently took a terrifying turn towards what I now believe to be a reality. My house is bugged. And not just microphones for audio eavesdropping, but cameras as well. I came to this realization this weekend. While watching the hockey game Saturday night, Kirky texted me to inform me that I was above the urinal in the Fieldhouse bathroom. Thinking it to be a joke, I began prodding for the punchline. I was informed that it was no joke, and that someone had placed a picture there with a disturbing resemblance to myself. I went to investigate, and found this...


I don't know where this came from or why it ended up in a public bathroom, but I'm terrified. Someone clearly knows where I live, where I like to go, and has the means to observe me in what I thought was a private residence. This feels like an introduction to what will surely be more convincing leverage. Perhaps they want something from me? Maybe they want me to do something for them? Maybe I've just been watching too much Burn Notice? I'm thinking about dropping off the grid now. Maybe I'll try to find Ali's neighbor. She seems pretty legit.

Trava

Ok, I need the expertise of those better schooled than I in the ways of botany, permaculture, and the buying, selling and growing of stock. I was behind my apartment building the other day when I noticed this plant in my neighbor's plot:

I was asking her the names of the other plants, so I just casually asked, "What's this one called?" "Oh, that. That's just grass," she responded. Two things, in addition to the plant's appearance, strike me as curious: 1. She didn't say it was a weed, and it has in fact been weeded around. 2. "Grass"--"trava"--is a slang term for marijuana here.

When I looked around, I found many more of these plants. I'm going to watch their growth throughout the summer. Is it true that there are female and male cannabis plants? Could these be of the impotent variety? Also, are there any other plants that look like this?

If He Dies He Dies

I was sitting at a bar the other day with some other teachers and someone mentioned that a lot of famous actors are from the US. Ok, I agreed, not really knowing what the point of this was. Someone mentinoned Arnold Schwarzenegger- ok, fair enough. The second person mentioned- Ivan Drago. That's right, Ivan Drago. I was speechless.

Also, as a late facial hair contribution I have a nice full on mustache which I plan on keeping for some time. With this black track jacket with a rainbow stripe on it that I just aquired I look like some sort of 1970's (gay?) porn star.

Happy Holidays!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj_rvYbeut4

Lateness

Yes, I realize that Facial Hair February has long since passed, as has Mustache March, but I'd still like to share my awesome seasonal facehat. I call this The Gladiator. Other suggested names include The Pornstar and The 1742. It's gone now, but I'm still sporting a pretty sweet 'stache. Pictures to come. Oh no, now I've left you people expecting a show...
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty!

With Great Mustache comes great responsibility

Hey guys. Here is my contribution to mustache march. I too procured employment while sporting this rather bushy monstrosity, and I actually had to cut it today because it was so overgrown it was housing bits of food and whatnot. The last straw was today at breakfast when I was drinking tea and after taking a sip my stache started to drip tea. Hope to see some of you sometime soon?!

Stevo says I look like a pedophile.

My contribution to Mustache March, with a bit of Zoolander flare. And I have attached a picture with the red tailed hawk and this giant nursery web spider we caught this summer. Enjoy.

Mustache March

At a recent job fair at St. Louis University (March 2 or 3?), one person at a table for the community radio station (KDHX, St. Louis) introduced himself to me with, "Mustache March, huh?" How soon I forget, "This is bigger than you." And bigger than Ravi, though really I thought I was just giving invisible, long-distance support through hair-growth to what I imagine Ravi's and Ravi's med school cohorts' arduous times to be. Evan Smith, long-time friend and Team America enthusiast, reminds us, "You will never feel a greater boost of self-esteem as the one you feel right after having shaved your mustache(s)." This certainly runs contrary to what Seth McFarlane purports in the mustache episode. Of course, I should never base any opinions - ethical, moral, or otherwise (mustaches?) - on a TV show, but I feel that, of all the shows, Family Guy is like diamonds. I still can't take myself seriously when I glimpse me in a mirror.

It's March now but it used to be Facial Hair February

So here's my picture as of the 28th of February, 2009. Luckily, Ravi talked with me just before this important month began, so I indeed lasted the entire month without a significant shave. However, I did adjust the neck once or twice right before looking for a job, as you might expect.

What is art? This is art biatch

And congratulations to Ali for being the first person to use a citation on the board!

This isn’t about you; this is bigger than you.

Consider this a retraction of sorts. Let us return to the well-known, well-loved “art” argument. Many of you may remember that I was engaged in a long and bitter struggle with Ravi et al. The principal contention was whether or not someone could say definitively that something was or was not art. I claimed that, yes, while I myself could not satisfactorily define art, it remained possible. Ravi and Michael wanted the pineapple bong to be art. I would like to clarify once and for all that I never said functional objects could not also be art—a lot of ceramic pieces seemed to fit in this category—I simply said that the (sort-of) functional pineapple bong was not art. This is not like that whole chicken-and-egg thing; it’s more like that whole square-and-rectangle thing.* In my opinion (to be more Ukrainian, I should say “to my mind”), nothing precluded functional objects from -status- [this is supposed to be slashed] classification (a nod to Heidegger, Lacan, and Derrida) as “art.”

Further, it is my belief that David and Patrick both used this as a proxy war of sorts in order to test out their own theories while reveling in the anger and frustration we bred among ourselves. In brief, David mostly stayed out of the argument except to flip-flop occasionally. He usually held that whatever was considered “art” was simply a reflection of the caprices of the ruling class. Patrick reiterated the opinion of his ex-boss whose husband was an artist, saying that art can never be functional. I’m not sure if this put him on my side or Ravi’s. Actually, I think he just wanted to say something he could get Ravi and I to disagree on.

I have come to the (belated?) conclusion that saying something is “art” is pure bullshit. Is that a bit strong? “What,” you might be thinking, “finally enlightened me?” Well, I’ll tell you. A combination of Chomsky—he’s been leading me to a lot of things lately—and the November 2006 “Art” issue of W. Incidentally, if anyone wants a peak into the lives of the super, super rich who benefited from all of the other W’s tax-cuts and the rather sad lives of the people who care about and strive to match the banal social trivialities of the elite —that is, “old money” and the nuveau riche, or neo-cons and neo-liberals versus the bourgeoisie, or the upper crust and their “yes” men. It doesn’t really matter what I call them, I guess—she should take a look at this rag. These are the people who get off on sentences such as: “A society fixture in Hong Kong steps out on her own with a new handbag line” (132) and “TeNo [jewelry, watches, and accessories] metaphorically stands for emotional TechNology—and thus for the modern quite contradictory times we currently live in” (166).

So, the Chomsky has led me to realize how much influence the elite members of our society actually exert over our economy and foreign policy. I particularly like the way that he emphasizes there is no conspiracy to expose or undermine. Basically, he says, thinking about it that way is the wrong way of looking at the situation. There’s no conspiracy, per se, there are just conversations and shared cultural assumptions among the super rich (i.e. We should always and everywhere use the government to secure our positions of power and comfort in society at the expense of others.) None of this should be surprising or shocking.

In fact, the idea that conspiracies could possibly exist is distracting and makes people complacently accept the “normal” order of things as long as conspiracies aren’t being executed. That is, if we can get a bunch of people worked up about Kennedy’s assassination, they won’t bother us when we make the income tax a little more regressive and shift money from education to the defense budget so we can bomb poor people in other countries. What does this have to do with art? Well, it helped me realize that I was idealizing the art world, taking exception to what I saw to be unacceptable infractions, but overlooking the fact that those “exceptions” were indicative of a greater pattern and that actually the whole structure is problematic.

Whereas Chomsky gave me the framework, W filled in the details. The magazine is ripe for Ravi’s files. There are all these articles about making new stars. It is actually embarrassing that I didn’t realize sooner what a game this all is, because it is no secret. The WArtFlash straightforwardly explains, “Though great talent may be innate, parlaying that gift into fame and fortune requires some combination of hard work, good luck and the all-important approval of a powerful few” (192). It goes on to explain that fifty years ago there was one critic who basically decided who was going to make it and who wasn’t. Now that power is more “democratically” spread among about 50 gallerists and various dealers.

I must admit that I am disappointed, if only because the rug has been pulled out from under my idea of art. It used to seem like such a noble endeavor before, but now I rank the artists who charges tens, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars for their work with CEOs and advertisers. There is a game they must play. If they don’t charge enough, they devalue themselves. If they charge too much, collectors could easily get huffy about their egoism. You know, I think it is lamentable, because the majority of painters, sculptors, carvers, printers, what have you, will never be famous or even able to eek out a living on their creations. Those people are not playing the game. No, I don’t think I should blame it on the artists; they are plunged into the deplorable world of speculation and career-making and –breaking.

There are still so many questions to consider. Does the art world always absorb its own critique (á la One-Dimensional Man)? Hence, a smart-ass comes along and decides to make a bunch of “post-modern” art making fun of art. With any luck, that person’s bandwagon is jumped on and she is hailed as the next big thing. When she makes her pieces, she gives them up and is at others’ mercy to see what will become of them. I believe that there is still the question of creativity versus formulaity, and perhaps it is here that we will find out what makes some artistic works powerful and meaningful and what makes others garbage (pronounced “gar-bahj”). I think we also have to come back to accessibility/proliferation. How could it be that something meaningful and momentous can reach a large audience, not just a wealthy audience, without losing the thing that made it interesting in the first place? I realize that I am still positing some values without defending them: uniqueness, momentousness, significance, materialism, democracy. Why couldn’t a vacuous, mass-produced ode to robber-barons be art if it was so declared? Have I dug myself back in? No, I must forsake art.

*Squares are both squares and rectangles, but rectangles are not also squares. squares : rectangles :: ceramics : art, that is, necessity and contingency. But ceramic pieces will not necessarily be art. So, I guess they’re both contingent.

tribute to the facehat

Hey guys. Just thought I would make sure everybody knew it was facial hair february. Here is what I carved up for myself. I call it: the Tusks. Enjoy and don't hesitate to grow our yours and also to enjoy mustache march.

checking in from Zambia

Alright, I can't quite recall if I've posted on here before or not, but I just spent about an hour reading everyone's posts. I would have been a more frequent visitor, but the internet went down for 2 months here and there is rarely electricity so I haven't had the chance until now. BUT I would like to update on some of the highlights/lowlights of time here:

Living Situation: I spent my first month and a half here living in a whorehouse (it was a guesthouse but run by women who well....you can finish this on your own). Then I moved in with a friend who works at the hospital named Mukuka (MukAka means "stupid" or "lacking knowledge" and I accidently called him this for about a month until I found out I was pronouncing his name wrong) and our other buddy named Alick. There were 3 grown ass men living in a place about the size of the cinema at 421, not cool. ALick is a farmer and half the week would stay at the farm, the other half when he was with us, he and I shared a bed. Now I am in another guest house that is letting me live here for free because of the work I do. You may wonder why I dont get a house of my own. I have wondered this as well, but the community refuses to allow me to live in one of the clay mud huts with the thatched roof. Apparently putting guests up at the whorehouse is a much more respectable option.

Unintentional Consequences of Development: Just before Christmas we celebrated Alick's birthday and had some drinks. Alick is a big fan of the shitty, awful, terrible way to sugary wine called Autumn Harvest that makes its way to our village from South Africa. However as far as getting people drunk it does the trick. Well after a glass or two I couldn't take it anymore so I poured some of the very strong orange juice concentrate into the wine. They were of course appalled at my action for ruining the alcohol. I objected and encouraged them to try. Predictably they loved the improvement and asked what we called this magical elixir back in the states. I thought about it for a moment and went with "Mimosa..I guess" Then everyone raised their glasses and shouted "Mimosa." I thought nothing of this. A few days later I'm walking through the center of town/village and a few guys stumble out of the bar (this being around 9 or 10 am, and when I say bar, I mean empty falling over building with a few benches that looks like a place where child abductors take their prey tie them up and molest them) and shout "mimosa" at me. I laugh at the hilarity of it, but now everyone is drinking Mimosa's and raising their glasses to me most days.

Encounters: The other night the power was off (naturally) and I woke up at about 2 am and really had to pee so I stumbled in the dark without my headlamp down to the bathroom and started to relieve myself when I heard a noise behind me. Now it's completely pitch black, but judging from the sound of the movement I already know that there is a snake behind me and I start to freak a bit. I decide to cut the pee short ( a painful process I'm sure you all know) and decide, because I am trapped inside this small room with nowhere to go, that my only option is to jump over where I think the snake is and then run like a school girl back to my room. I managed to do this but decided that it would be cowardly and not nice to leave the snake there for the next victim. So I throw on my headlamp, alert the guard grab a log from outside and head back in. The snake, once illuminated, proves only to be a foot and a half long, and really not all that intimidating, but since it could be poisonous and all the guard and I beat the shit out of it with our logs well past the point that this snake could possibly be alive. That's right I beat a snake to death.

I think this is enough for now, but other notes of significance are that I have lost 30 pounds, blinded myself for a week (i thought it was permanent) while trying to clean my drinking water with chlorine, and that I am running a trade school, which is ridiculous but fulfills my white man's need to assert authority over these dark skinned savages..........kidding

FIFA World Cup 2010

Hello everyone,

Today is now the third day that I have ridden this tidal wave of excitement that is FIFA World Cup 2010 mania. I hope you will join me in my anticipatory bliss. Important: TICKET SALES ALREADY BEGAN ON FEBRUARY 20 (FRIDAY). This means we need to get ourselves in gear and hesitate no more; we compete against all the others in this world who have money, an interest in soccer competition at the international level, and the means to obtain the same tickets for which we vie. Needless to say, that is pretty much everyone.

This post intends to address three things:

*Inspire jubilant anticipation about attending the upcoming World Cup finals in South AfriKa

*Inform those interested about my managerial interests in ticket purchase/orchestrating as large a group as possible to aforementioned soccer games

*Offer ways that you can lose yourself in this Tazmanian devilish whirlwind of foot sports

From the news source DW-World.DE Deutsche Welle: your link to Germany, here are a few things you should know.

"...ticket prices range from $80 (64 euros) for group stages to a princely $900 (715 euros) for the final..." The tournament "runs from June 11 to July 11 next year..." Brown Bear will be particularly excited to learn that these World Cup games will be the first finals held in the Afrikan Kontinent. Most importantly, "one person is allowed to apply for only four tickets per game for a maximum of seven matches. A ticket applicant may not apply for two matches on the same day. Tickets go on sale through FIFA's website www.fifa.org starting Friday at 1100 GMT." [6 A.M. Friday morning for those of you in the US eastern timezone]

I plan to personally apply for two different days. On each of these days, I will apply for four tickets. My hope is that I will get the four tickets for one of these games. If you are interested in joining me on one of these dates OR getting an additional game's group's tickets, perhaps we can communicate via this blog to orchestrate additional attempts at acquisition. Once I have chosen my games/dates and applied for them, I will post that information here. I am so pumped. I have already dropped this bomb of excitement on Big Truck Driva and G-Off. I couldn't contain myself.

For the news article I quoted above, go to the full news brief.

For the super zealous, go here to try to get some of your own tickets.

Night and Day

Hey guys! After my 2-3 week hibernation from life when I slept little and basically lived at school, now my exams are over (they resume in 3 more weeks...grrr). Yesterday I was completely worthless. I watched "There will be blood" and of course "the big lewbowski" and today I woke up at 3:30 pm. I will be going to UD tonight to tell the premeds about what med school is like (I almost don't wanna ruin the surprise ;) ) and saturday I will be going up to UD again to engage in some good old fashioned UD debauchery. If you are reading this and feel like you need to share in that saturday madness, please make your way to Disneyworld errr UD. Romanticizing the past. YEAH!

what I do on my lunch break

basically this; check and post on blogs, read and check out recipes, look at apartments (longingly), go to www.failblog.org and www.fmylife.com both of which you should check out and love and play on my ipod which is fucking sweet. That's all, I just wanted to post on here and maybe illicit what you all do on your time off...?
Oh, and Ravi, I have a birthday present for you... we will talk soon.

Holler,
JH

In the spirit of the Dayton Stock Exchange

So I was checking out my favorite online comic strip today (so I only read two, but this is my favorite) and it reminded me a lot of last year. Enjoy.

http://www.daisyowl.com/comic/2009-02-04

Remember to hold your cursor over the frames for bonus text.

Stuff White People Like

so I read this article today, and found a blog that you all might enjoy quite thoroughly. Its called 'Stuff White People Like' its great. Find a sampling below

People from many cultures like marijuana (South East Asian, Jamaica, India, Morrocco, Mexico, etc), but white people take it to an entirely new level.
To simply purchase, roll and smoke marijuana is not enough for white people. They need to make sure they know all the different strains, cultivation technique, and methods for smoking it. They even have an entire magazine devoted those where they actually have centerfolds of plants that people have grown.
White people are also willing to spend over $500 on smoking devices just to find new and more expensive ways to smoke weed.
It is worth noting that at every white person, at some point, has written a high school or college paper about the history of how the DuPont industry helped make weed illegal. This paper also teaches them about how hemp can be used to fuel cars, make clothing, create food, cure cancer, and solve every single problem on earth.
While you would assume that most white people smoke weed between 14-28 (and act as though they are the first generation to do so), the reality is that white people smoke weed well into old age. They also smoke weed with their kids! This is not a joke. White people love weed so much that they consider it a ‘gift’ to share with their kids. Leading to a generation that was not allowed to watch Power Rangers, but was allowed to toke up.
All white people believe marijuana should be legalized, and they consider the Netherlands to a pinnacle of enlightenment. Also, every white person has had their most profound weed smoking experience in Amsterdam, so it’s a good idea to fabricate a story about your own experience there so you can quickly forge a bond. Traditional tales uses the following words: hostel, brownie, girl/guy from Hungary, crazy, locked out, chill dudes from Ireland.
Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should ever imply that people just smoke weed to get high, they do it for medical/spiritual/social reasons, etc, or that there are any negative consequences. This will likely alienate you from white people.
On the plus side, white people are always looking for higher quality, more potent, more organic marijuana. If you promise to hook them up with a special selection from your home country, they will likely pay a high premium.


http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com continue there to find more of the same.

Bacon

so i know that I've always been a proponent of "hey wrap it in bacon, it can only get better"

but i think these guys took it to the extreme.

check this out

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/28bacon.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

synapsis:

2 pounds of sausage wrapped in 2 pounds of bacon

Change!

Hey guys. Just posting to let you know that today is the 36th anniversary of Rowe v Wade. This marks the 36th anniversary of women having a choice (or for you Reagan fans out there, it marks the 36th anniversary of legalized baby killing, which is different than the baby killing we do overseas). Sorry for being political, its just that with all this change happening so rapidly (CHANGE!!!!!) I can't help myself. Plus I think its hilarious we got free lunch today at med school to celebrate the day. Just gotta have a clean ass. That is all.

The Glad Game

Ok, if you've never read Pollyanna, go to Wikipedia right now, and read the plot summary for this book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna

Coals to Newcastle!

Hey guys. Remember when we thought this phrase was really funny (perhaps only Dave, Tyler, Ali and I did, but we did)? I found out what it meant. If something is coals to Newcastle, it is a pointless venture. Apparently Newcastle has an abundant coal supply, so sending more coal there is useless. In parting, I offer this gift that might help explain this phrase more clearly:

Steve-O cooking (meaning mass amounts of dirty dishes will accumulate) when the sink is already full is like coals to newcastle. Do your dishes. That is all.

Something to make small children cry

As some of you may know, my siblings ran the Chicago Marathon this fall. I made the trip to see the spectacle that is 45,000 crazy bastards who think that running 26.2 miles is a good time, and it did not disappoint. Highlights include what is apparently a somewhat popular activity called joggling, which is a combination of jogging and juggling. National pride was rampant, and from many countries of origin. Some dead musicians were present, as were many aerobic superheroes, including Batman, Robin, Spiderman (who was able to utilize his Spidey senses to elude photographic capture and thus preserve his soul), and what I can only imagine is called America Man (Fuck Yeah is purely optional, but encouraged). Saving the best for last, a slight Chinaman dressed as Minnie Mouse. That's not a typo. My brother in law took pictures and recently set up a photobucket type place on them internets to share them with the world. Here are my favorites. Enjoy.

America Man

Batman and Robin

Joggling (blue shirt)

The Horror!

Kristen got a cat

Cheers to me for an awesome title right? True story though, Kristen did get a cat. Although I am highy allergic and have a strong sinister hatred of pets of the feline variety the little bastard is cute. (my image is now permanantly tainted for using the word cute on the internet). I however will never trust him becase he is curious and ferocious and might acquire the taste for human flesh. They are afterall one of nature's most deadly predators. Well atleast before they were nursed like babies with milk and cozy indoor living spaces for the last thousand years or so and bred to be small, and cute. Plus who poops in a box. Lay of the catnip you little bums.

Now I have ranted. So Eli was here with my family for christmas and the such and all he wanted to do the whole time was play SMASH! He didn't really know what he was doing but he really liked jumping off the board and saying "me fall down again" and laughing. This was quite detrimental to our team play, although he was convinced we were winning. My parents were also quite speechless after I explained the history of Samus and her special suit from the bird people which makes her such an incredible aerial warrior. I like to make them proud. They did not appreciate me referring to my splooge ball either. Well I shall leave you with this video link. Hilarious monkeys talking about religion. Monkey Jesus, awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-tJKP1bWFw

Rage!

....

BURNS!!!!!!

Cuz someone had to do it. Seriously.