9:32pm One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,

One was blind and the other couldn't, see
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

A paralyzed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,

A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came to arrest the two dead boys,
If you don't believe this story’s true,
Ask the blind man he saw it too!

1:14pm From today's Writer's Almanac...
It's the birthday of Franz Kafka, born in Prague (1883). Many of his novels and short stories are about strange and terrible things happening to innocent people. The Trial (1925) begins, "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning." And The Metamorphosis (1915) begins, "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

Kafka thought that a mindless bureaucratic job would be the perfect way to support his writing, but the job he took at an insurance company exhausted him. He had to work 60 hours a week on endless boring tasks. His health began to suffer, and for the rest of his life he was in and out of sanitariums.

Kafka's best friend was a sickly, hunchbacked man named Max Brod, who worshiped the ground he walked on. He and Brod hung out at cafes, went to brothels, and attended séances together. Even before anyone had heard of Kafka, Brod wrote articles about him for literary journals, saying that he was a genius and the greatest writer of all time. Kafka didn't entirely agree, and sometimes Brod's enthusiasm made him nervous. Brod kept copies of all of Kafka's writings that he could get his hands on. Near the end of his life, Kafka asked Brod to burn all of his unpublished work. Brod refused to do so, and we have him to thank for preserving Kafka's novels.

Franz Kafka wrote, "A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us."

10:54am Ah, the startup life.

10:13pm In case you were wondering, it's not illegal to drink someone's urine without their permission.

9:48pm I love the world.
Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz writes about whether Grand Theft Auto IV is a work of art comparable to The Godfather or The Sopranos.

It's good to know that a Pulitzer Prize winner's as addicted to GTA IV as I am.

8:32pm Can you possibly trust a man with the last name Lung?

8:15pm Do you want the new Portishead record? You can have my copy. It's on CD. It was purchased from a legitimate American vendor and contributed to the American economy, creating jobs and providing wealth. If you want my CD you can have it in exchange for a CD that is currently in your possession. We will swap. There is one condition: the music on your CD must not suck as badly as the music on the new Portishead CD. Once this condition is met, the swap will be made at a location of my choosing. You must come alone.

8:56am Obama
Alas, Obama has begun the heartless march to the center. "Selling out" is probably too ridiculous a term to apply, but he's already reversed his positions on the FISA bill, the public financing issue, NAFTA (calling his own speech "overheated"), and even the Iraq war, telling the Iraqi president, "if there would be a Democratic administration, it will not take any irresponsible, reckless, sudden decisions or action to endanger your gains, your achievements, your stability or security." Which, of course, doesn't cohere too well with a seemingly unqualified promise to bring troops home within 16 months.

I'd say I am very disappointed, but I originally couldn't decide between he and Hillary - she who is pretty much in the center already- and though I ended up on Obama's side, I've never quite been able to swallow the PR campaign that presents him as the bright and shining savior. However, it seems that there are problems beyond that of the man's image- these are real, substantivie policy reversals that indicate, if not deceit, then certainly some pretty extreme political calculation.

Still an exciting politician, but sadly, obviously yet another politician.

So it goes!

9:25am By then, he was already dying of tuberculosis. He spent the last years of his life writing 1984 (1949), about a future in which England has become a totalitarian state run by an anonymous presence known only as Big Brother. He knew he didn't have much time left to write the book, so he wrote constantly, even when his doctors forbade him to work. They took away his typewriter, and when he switched to a ballpoint pen, they put his arm in plaster.

Dedication!

Happy birthday George Orwell.

11:46am I cannot fucking believe it.

Surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator that's flung miles through the air? Alright, I can stomach it. Oh it's a red flag, but I can stomach it.

Aliens? Cool. I can deal with it. More believable than arks and holy grails, easy.

But... but... Shia fucking LaBouf swinging through the fucking trees like fucking Tarzan with fucking CGI monkeys? Really? REALLY?

Getting recaptured by zany Russians EVERY TEN MINUTES?

Booo!

I pass.

I do pass.

10:32am James Frey has come out with a new book, Bright Shiny Morning about life in Los Angeles. It's getting a lot of good press and becoming quite a comeback story. Powell's talks to him in this interview.

1:18pm

9:30pm evidently chickentown
In North Carolina a man and a woman are in jail facing criminal charges because they tied their son, age thirteen, to a tree for being disobedient and they left the son out there for like two whole nights, and then the son went into cardiac arrest and died.

9:10pm the fucking cops are fucking keen
to fucking keep it fucking clean
the fucking chief's a fucking swine
who fucking draws a fucking line
at fucking fun and fucking games
the fucking kids he fucking blames
are nowhere to be fucking found
anywhere in chicken town

the fucking scene is fucking sad
the fucking news is fucking bad
the fucking weed is fucking turf
the fucking speed is fucking surf
the fucking jokes are fucking daft
don't make me fucking laugh
it fucking hurts to look around
everywhere in chicken town
the fucking train is fucking late
you fucking wait you fucking wait
you're fucking lost and fucking found
stuck in fucking chicken town

the fucking view is fucking vile
for fucking miles and fucking miles
the fucking babies fucking cry
the fucking flowers fucking die
the fucking food is fucking muck
the fucking drains are fucking fucked
the colour scheme is fucking brown
everywhere in chicken town

the fucking pubs are fucking dull
the fucking clubs are fucking full
of fucking girls and fucking guys
with fucking murder in their eyes
a fucking bloke is fucking stabbed
waiting for a fucking cab
you fucking stay at fucking home
the fucking neighbors fucking moan
keep the fucking racket down
this is fucking chicken town

the fucking pies are fucking old
the fucking chips are fucking cold
the fucking beer is fucking flat
the fucking flats have fucking rats
the fucking clocks are fucking wrong
the fucking days are fucking long
it fucking gets you fucking down
evidently chicken town
the fucking train is fucking late
you fucking wait you fucking wait
you're fucking lost and fucking found
stuck in fucking chicken town

10:25pm Fuck yeah

2:06pm Apparently absinthe is now legal in the United States. I can't find much corroboration, but my coworkers are swearing on it. Anyone have the truth here? What's a good brand? How can I get totally fucked up, man?

11:18am You are small and insignificant. Rejoice!
Earth, seen from Mars.

10:16am Here's a tip:

Never trade Carlos Zambrano for Felix Hernandez because you have mancrush on Felix Hernandez.

Just. don't. do. it.

10:07am Why are we making The Incredible Hulk movie when we just made The Incredible Hulk movie like two years ago? Have our attention spans disintegrated that much? Are we going to be seeing Hancock and Indiana Jones IV remakes next summer?

This is tiresome. I'd like to ban all comic book movies henceforth except those directed by Christopher Nolan and submit those responsible for violating this law to the most extreme sorts of punishments, like watching Joel Schumacher and Ron Howard movies over and over.

11:19pm My grandfather used to say: "Life is astoundingly short. To me, looking back over it, life seems so foreshortened that I scarcely understand, for instance, how a young man can decide to ride over to the next village without being afraid that--not to mention accidents--even the span of a normal happy life may fall far short of the time needed for such a journey."

- 'The Next Village' by Kafka

8:35am Ladies, gents, watch out. Apparently there are lesbians in Seattle. I urge you to take caution and watch your children.

6:46pm In my dream last night, I was having a conversation with two people about how their existence is contingent upon my dreaming of them, and that when I woke, they would cease to exist. I asked them if they felt this put upon me any ethical obligation to continue sleeping and dreaming of them. They look dismayed and did not answer, as though they had just been told of some terrible medical reality. I felt bad for them, but I had to wake up. I mean, mouths to feed...

I think now that dreaming is basically bringing to existence and then exterminating countless untold people, over and over again. Who will think of the rights of the dreamed?

1:32pm If you've ever wanted to play chess with the Wu-Tang clan, well, now you can.

12:09am seriously, this trans am track is where it's at, recently.

11:53pm I remember, I remember
32,000 maximum subdirectories in ext2 and ext3. Seiously, who woulda fucking thunk it?