nah pop, no style

It pains me a great deal that I do not have a scanner and that The Amazing Spider-Man has a lagtime in its online publication such that I can’t get an image of today’s strip up for you. If it’s available to you, do look at it. If you have an image/scan of it, please email it to me. I have to explain what’s great about it regardless: Rod Raymond returns, taking credit for being by Narna Lemarr’s side through her “ordeal” (which really of course involved her bodyguard trying to kill our beloved Mary Jane). The last panel shows MJ and Peter in bed, poppin’ popcorn (okay, I mean that they’re EATING it, not that they’re actually cooking it in bed) and watching the news. MJ says of Rod:

“That ham could smell publicity through a geodesic dome!”

Thank you, Stan Lee, for finally bringing your comic into the age of Dada poetry. California world will never be the same.

What’s good?

• Jackson Browne’s version of “Take it Easy,” which (as you may know) he co-wrote with Glenn Frey.
• The rain.
• Being busy enough with important things such that, for the most part, I don’t have time to dwell on unimportant things.
• Frida Hyvönen (album in America next month, can’t wait).
• Birthday upcoming

• Old mixtape from a friend from a couple years ago. Didn’t listen to it for a long time because of its connotation and the weird nature of our relationship. Busted it out the other day, and it’s really good.

What’s iffy?

• Having maybe TOO many things on my plate and not knowing what to take care of when.
• Five weeks to prepare for the GRE.
• Can’t quite shake the bad mood thing — every time I think it’s gone for good it reappears.

What’s up with you?

If you’re interested in internet communication and social networking sites and the such, do check out danah boyd’s short essay on the creepy newsfeed thing that Facebook enacted last week that had the youngers around me abuzz. It’s well put-together and a good example of a critical look at the weird issues inherent in online social networking with neither cheerleading nor a kill-’em-all attitude toward the sites. Nicely done.

Also, thanks to people for coming out last night — that thang ended up all sold out. I hope you enjoyed.

Busy busy busy here at Andybot, Inc.

For the record, my band’s last show (at least for a long time, likely forever) is tomorrow evening. The details:

• Sequoia - the sea, like lead - Allies
• At Roboto, Friday (9/8/06), 7pm
• $5, benefits The Big Idea

I’d like it a lot if you came.

Also, I’ve got a couple fun shows in the pipes, just gotta get a few details ironed out. They’re not for a while yet anyway. But I like to build suspense.

Also, I’ve had no takers on the aforementioned mixtape, still unfinished. Don’t be ungrateful, you fools. Trade me.

I’ve been feeling it coming. The cold. The sickness that the people around me have. Time to go to bed way early and try to sleep it off?

This is a “game” invented by Google to sucker us into helping them to make their image search more user-friendly (I say “sucker” somewhat facetiously . . . obviously in a way they benefit if it’s a better engine, and in a way we do, if we use it, which I do, all the time). You hit “Begin playing” and you’re presented with an image. You’re working with one other player somewhere else who is unknown to you, and you’re trying to come up with words to describe that image. As soon as you and the other player both pick one particular word, you get points and move on to the next image. If you’re having too much trouble, you can pass.

It honestly became slightly addictive to me when I discovered it yesterday, most likely because I am a nerd and like competitions that involve words. That having been said, I’m not sure it’s the best tool Google could be using for this pursuit. At least for me, when I get into the, er, heat of the game (I feel somewhat silly describing this game as something exciting, yes), I’m more interested in trying to figure out what an average user (who I assume my partner to be) might think of the picture than I am in trying to come up with accurate labels for the image. Thus, for example, when faced with a picture of ground pine moss, I started out with words like “moss,” then realized that the person on the other side would probably see that green mass and think “grass!” and so I typed in “grass” even though it wasn’t grass at all, and of course that was the word we matched on. And we got points, but it didn’t help to make Google Image Search any better.

But I guess if you’re really scared of Google you could use this to try to undermine their image search. It would probably be the least efficient way possible of doing this, but it’s a thought.

As of the moment, I’m having trouble sticking with any one subject long enough to really make a sensible point about it. Despite that, though, I’m enjoying myself — the weather is a wonderful Pittsburgh dreary. I’ve been reading, and working on a prototype of a chapbook I hope to produce in volume, and, currently, making a pretty good transition-to-fall mixtape. Which brings me to my proposal:

I’ve done this once before, and it netted me a sweet tape from Becky, who until then was unknown to me, and also acquainted me with her. Good deal. Now I’m doing it again, and expect you, my reader, to come through for me. I will trade the mixtape currently being made for one of YOUR making, if you are the first participant to send me an email about it. I’d prefer that my exchange partner be someone I don’t know and/or have not exchanged music with before, but if you don’t fit that category and still want to take part, send an email anyway, and if I don’t get any more appropriate offers, I’ll CONSIDER, MAYBE trading with you.

This tape is going to be pretty awesome, just so you know. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by, reader!

There’s something about naming and as a result anthropomorphizing storms that, despite its absurdity, appeals a great deal to me. It’s that part of me that, as a writer, wants to organize everything in life along the lines of literary devices. Maybe it’s not me as a writer, but me as someone who grew up watching lots of television and confusing it with reality. Or maybe it’s both.

Regardless, that part of me is thriving right now, as we have a named storm heading toward us, which I’ve already determined will be “that storm” that ousts the summer and brings the fall. At the same time, the mayor is on his deathbed and there are posters of support for him all about town and a 25 year old city council president waiting in the wings — talk about cinematic. Everything is rolling toward a boil. I remember this precise feeling a year ago (see here), only then I was headed out of the city; this time, my plan is to buy some groceries and stay in all weekend, making saag paneer and listening to the kind of music you listen to when the seasons are changing.