Quote of the day, 6/30/09

“We begin to confront the thingness of objects when they stop working for us: when the drill breaks, when the car stalls, when the windows get filthy, when their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition, has been arrested, however momentarily. The story of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of how the thing really names less an object than a particular subject-object relation. And, yet, the word things holds within it a more audacious ambiguity.”

--Bill Brown, “Thing Theory”

via verbal privilege

this explains so much. frex, why I scream at my printer when the ink cartridge conks out on me the night before the paper is due. it's DEFYING me! bastard!

Happy Pride, yo.

I shall probably be celebrating by doing late papers, slouching about & popping Rolaids, but y'all don't worry about me, I'll just sit here in the dark...

no, seriously, I don't like crowds. Dyke March yesterday were awesome, tho'. I do love living here...

there is is again goddamit

that odd noise i mentioned a few weeks back, which, can't tell if it's a TV or the heater or...what. in the bedroom.

i mean...-if- it's a ha'ant or suchlike, it's a rather monotonous and specifically located one.

what it sounds like, is: someone reading a newscast, endlessly, from moderately far away. on a kazoo. is what it sounds like.

"Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by phones."

At the local Radio Shack, we learn: the phones that are on display without a price marker are thus displayed because they don't actually have any of those models in stock. This includes the model that I wanted, of the options that were presented, which were already not many.

So, okay: what phones DO they have. Guy checks in back. Emerges with two very basic models. I pick one. Guy disappears into the back again. Re-emerges a few moments later and explains that he'd been going to exchange the model he was showing me, which was defective, for a good one; but oops, looks like the recent flooding in the basement has ruined all the phones that were down there, sorry.

I'm sure there is a profound moral to this story, but I'm sure I don't know what.

So, without further ado: the Cheese Shop sketch.



Here is another post about cheese. No phones there either, though.

gremlins

Is there an "uncanny valley" for sounds?

Because, there's a distinctly -odd-...something...that's only audible in the bedroom, these last couple of nights. At first I was convinced that someone was playing the TV or the radio, because it sounded just enough like the rising and falling patterns of speech, with appropriate pauses, but--maddeningly!--just low enough to not be able to make out what was being said, or even what language.

Then I tried to figure out where it might be coming from, since at four in the morning it was getting a bit old. So I tracked it to where I -thought- it was coming out of--sure enough, someone on the floor above playing what sounded like the news in a foreign language, loud enough to be heard through the front door. I knocked and asked her politely to turn it down. She apologized and did. I went back home. No change.

So then I figure it must be the pipes or the radiator, after all. It's wintertime, or nearly, old buildings make a lot of weird sounds as they creak into warmth.

Except...I can hear the pipes. It's -not- the same sounds. They're going right now. They don't sound like that. And, I never hear that particular sound in the rest of the apartment, or during the daytime, like now. Only in the bedroom. At night. In the dark.

i'm sure it's nothing really

And no, it is not a steady pound-pounding coming from somewhere beneath the floorboards.
I'm fine.

That yellow wallpaper's really got to go, though.

I love my statistics and research methods class

At this point in my studies, I can confidently say that I feel almost as clever as these scientists.

Book Club

I haven't forgotten. I'm gonna be busy this next week, (please, if someone sees me online, tell me to get back to work, will you?) but after the 13th or so, I'd like to get this going.

i want to live in this website

Cream Puffs in Venice.

*sobs,* sulks, goes off to eat a dreary Subway sandwich or some such tripe...

Hot town, summer in the city

the air is heavy and the stench is shitty
pollution's blowin' and my eyes are all gritty
can't concentrate so i'm writing this ditty
i gotta eat something but i don't want a bit 'e
my brain is in meltdown and it sure ain't pretty

...eh, sod off.

foods that are tempting in miserable hot bloody weather.

name some.

i'm running low on inspiration here.

"Well, it's got -some- rat in it."

oh how i love the New York metro, especially in the summer. almost as much as strawberry tart.

"I like New York in June...squeak!...how about youuuu... squeak squeak!..."

i know the feeling

nice n fresh n coool

i feel SO MUCH BETTER today than i have in weeks. WEEKS.

damn. maybe i need to move to Seattle, or summat.

rrrrRRRRrrrrr

Okay, blogger users:

do you ever get that thing where you highlight something, click the "link" button and instead of doing what it's supposed to, it 1) deletes the word you've highlighted and 2) makes the bloggergif somethingorother code pop up at some random place in the middle of your text? Because, it happens to me fairly often, i can't figure out why (does it think i'm clicking the right button of the mouse?) and it's REALLY ANNOYING.

in other news, this morning i finally had enough and trundled my piece o'shit computer chair down to the basement, after the 37,898,6534th time i had to get up and replace the screw that kept falling out of the arm and making the whole thing fall apart. i gave it a few good solid -kicks- first, though, and let me tell you, it felt gooooood.

Victorians really had the best illnesses.

For instance, last week I was languishing with dyspepsia ("What the fuck is that?" asked my mom). Doesn't that sound so much better than "acid reflux?"

Now I think I feel the vapors coming on. someone unlace my nonexistent corset and bring me some eau de cologne, will you?

Summertime blues

Just so y'all know: I may be a bit more sporadic in updating during the hot months. I have a few posts I've been meaning to do; these past few days--and no, it's not even that hot yet, today was lovely really--I've been feeling kind of mlehhh. I, like, wilt. My brain wilts. 'Tis the mugginess, I think, really, and the introduction of canned air into indoor buildings, and...anyway.

Then again, I may perk right up again tomorrow. Just, right now? Don't wanna.

Just so y'all know.

meanwhile, note to self:

when attempting to persuade one's Wee Beastie to cease and desist from pushing objects off high surfaces and onto the ground (whee!!), the best choice of phrasing is not, in fact, "Knock it off."

gah. i hate that dream.

that one where my teeth keep coming out? or are about to come out?

i hate that dream.

how i'm feeling, more or less

ooooodeodeodeo. exactly.

i'm spacey and jittery and i have no attention sp

hey hey HEY hey hey HEY

and i have cramps.

i can't be bothered to do all that writing on whatever it was i was going to write about. or even the Serious Reading bits.

someone entertain me.

tell me a story. some goddam thing.

yeah, YOU, i'm talking to

--oo shiny

no, not even shiny, it's lint, i hate lint.

what was i saying?

o yeah: entertain me.

people who talk on their cell phones in restaurants, whilst actual other live people are sitting acros't from them

exactly damn right