crude futures

Sugar of lead

Sugar of lead is a real thing.

Sugar of lead
Color of night
Quantum of solace
Milk of magnesia
Syrup of ipecac
House of tartan

Some books...

Some books encourage me to feel bad.

Some books get touched by bugs.

Some books get "foree," even though that word does not yet have a public meaning. That word ("foree") is copyright me.

Some books get thrown in the trash.

até o sol raiar

i think the first monday morning this vid (of a film!) came into my life was two weeks ago tmrrw. i need to start storing up motivational acorns like this for the oncoming fall/winter

world's tallest jpeg down-arrow

from the crude futures series "world's tallest jpegs"

Giant baby shower in a box

A big box from Brooklyn came to our house yesterday, and Katie and I opened it together last night just before we went to bed.

The box was filled to the brim with gifts for our unborn baby boy, whose due date is two weeks from today.

Thank you, everybody!

The box also included baby shower plates, napkins, crepe paper streamers, and a box of chocolate-chip cookies. (Nice touch!) Another nice touch was the pound of Gorilla coffee.

Please consider this blog post your last chance to suggest names for the baby.

We have not yet picked a name. If we pick a name you suggest, you'll get to tell people we don't know that you named some person's baby.

Such a weird official Obama T-shirt. I love it.

The official title of this official Obama T-shirt designed by Pharrell Williams is "Obama Stands Out From the Crowd."



I think a good unofficial title for the T-shirt would be "In a complacent sea of pretty much identical white Fisher Price people, Obama is the bloody plague."

I love it.

I'd love to have one of these and wear it around, but Katie would kill me if she found out I'd spent $60 on a T-shirt. This T-shirt costs $60.

two new verbs

prefuse (pre + refuse)
To decline instantly, before thinking.
My best friend invited me to join his parents for dinner — their treat — at my favorite restaurant, but I prefused. Hours later, at Taco Bell, I regretted my snap decision.

dewhaft (dew + haft)
To harness the ephemeral without discernible purpose, or with a false air of purpose.
He has dewhafted the dew, affixing a tool handle to the morning dew, as if to promote the wielding of the dew like a rake or a shovel. And for what? Who will use the dew like a tool like that? Nobody. Thanks for the dewhaft. Do you see what you've given us? Nothing. You have only frustrated and confused those of us who have tried to care.

Gentle Soldier

The gentle soldier wept a lot.
I shouldn't have told him that cryers get shot.

The gentle soldier wept a lot.
I shouldn't have told him that cryers get shot.

The gentle soldier wept a lot.
I shouldn't have told him that cryers get shot.

Shall we cash in Greater Toronto? No.

The number of dollars currently requested by the US Treasury: $700,000,000,000

The dollar value of a typical human life, according to TIME magazine: $129,000

The number of lives we'd need to exchange, if we could, to raise just enough cash for the US Treasury: 5,426,357

The number of people currently living in the greater Toronto area: 5,500,000

Shall we cash in Greater Toronto? No.

I'll pay $7,000 to keep the USA alive if everybody else will

WHEREAS: The US Treasury wants — and says it needs — 700 billion extra dollars right now.

WHEREAS: The US Treasury wants — and says it needs — taxpaying US citizens to provide these dollars right now.

WHEREAS: Roughly 100 million US citizens are taxpayers, let's say.

WHEREAS: 700 billion dollars ÷ 100 million taxpayers = $7,000.

WHEREAS: The price per taxpayer to "get the country outta this mess" would seem to be approximately $7,000.

WHEREAS: President Bush says the Treasury absolutely needs the $700,000,000,000 right now.

WHEREAS: President Bush says there's no time to dawdle, or talk, or think.

WHEREAS: President Bush's urgency can mean only one thing: that he believes terrible consequences will befall the USA if the Treasury does not get its way.

WHEREAS: The terrible consequences that will befall the USA have not been clearly described.

WHEREAS: The vague specter of terrible consequences naturally gets us thinking about the worst terrible things that could actually happen.

WHEREAS: One of the worst terrible things that could actually happen to the USA is that it could suddenly die.

WHEREAS: The concept of "sudden USA death" sounds both absurd and funny, but is actually neither absurd nor funny if we're thinking creatively.

WHEREAS: It's a safe bet that at least some of the USA's friendly neighbor nations are thinking creatively.

WHEREAS: You and I take for granted that we cannot know — and will not ever know — exactly why the US Treasury needs all this money right now, and where all the money will go if they get it.

WHEREAS: You and I have not been reassured that the USA will not suddenly die if the Treasury does not get the money.

WHEREAS: We, the taxpaying citizens of the USA, tacitly demand that the USA doesn't suddenly die.

WHEREAS: I, personally, superdon't want the USA to suddenly die.

LET IT BE RESOLVED THAT: I, for one, will pay $7,000 to keep the USA alive if everybody else will. I'll go get what cash I have out of the bank right now, okay? It'll be about $2,000. And I'll put as much of the rest of the $5,000 as I can on my VISA.

guy

big nostrils