Next time I'm pushing for Method 3 instead.



I like how he misspelt "wiener."

I'm throwing a few extra brain cycles here and there at repurposing my LiveJournal, since I've largely abandoned it. I don't get a whole lot of comments, perhaps because I don't say too much that prompts them. So, I'll try something new: Let's talk about you!

How did you meet your significant other? Or, if you don't have one right now, how did you meet your latest? Bonus points if you met them after the age of 22.

First came The Discovery Channel's commercials with the catchy song.

Then came the xkcd comic referencing it, which is how I found about that song.

Then I turned 30.

---

I loved my 20s
I love the friends I made
I loved the road trips
I loved the voicemails I played
I love the whole world
And all its messed-up girls
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada! Boom de yada!

I loved my Nissans
I loved New Albany
I love big cities
And my growing family
I love the whole world
And how much I've got left to see
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada! Boom de yada!

I love rewriting lyrics
I love photography
I loved 24 and Scrubs
And Dragon Ball Z
I love the whole world
And all the people I've yet to meet
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada! Boom de yada!

When I left work this evening, I saw a couple tourists taking a picture of the trash receptacle in front of my building, a square frame with cast-iron letters spelling out "Downtown Louisville" above it.

The last couple weeks, a small park, the size of a quarter city block, a few blocks away from my building has been unusually packed during the lunch hour, people laying out on the grass having lunch, sitting at tables, standing and talking, using their mobile phones, etc.

Over the last few years, we've passed a smoking ban, considered a trans fat ban, added bike lanes, and revitalized several old, abandoned, ruined buildings into upscale condos. With the gas prices going up, mass public transit use has gone through the roof--the buses are actually standing room only on a regular basis during rush hour.

It makes me indescribably happy to see my home city becoming more like New York, the other city I love, every day.

A preoccupied vegan named Hugh
picked up the wrong sandwich to chew.
He took a big bite
before spitting, in fright,
"OMG, WTF, BBQ!"

And with that, LimerickDB.

Cleaning out my inbox, I found an old comment I left, and laughed my ass off. I was talking about an overly-frank ad at the bus stop telling people to get checked for type 2 diabetes, and dudeitsawesome likened it to equally troubling prostate exam commercials. I responded:

If only they took the over-the-top ridiculously self-deprecating stance that the anti-flaccid medication commercials take... "Are you... male? Over 45? Like doctors' fingers up your ass? You're in luck!"

I crack me the hell up.

I've slacked so long on a web comics roundup, Firefox took it out of my recent entries for LJ post subjects. (I think Heather was the only one actually following the links anyway.) Since I'm sure most of the sites are blocked from work, I don't check them daily, and thus haven't been keeping up. I've lost two months of Dinosaur Comics, and caught up on the rest.

Bunny had a couple cute ones lately. Sinfest was also (a bit uncharacteristically) cute, celebrating New Year's Day in one of the more original ways I've seen.

Over in Questionable Content, Marten's balls dropped, and Dora made me laugh harder than I've laughed in a good long while.

Dresden Codak has been incredible lately, and updating more often too. Start reading at the beginning of the Hob storyline if you're new to it.

Due to an ad on Penny & Aggie, I found and read all the archives of a relatively new web comic called Marry Me. Like P&A, it seems targeted to people far younger than and of a dramatically different gender from me, and yet, also like P&A, it appeals to me anyway. Its writer has the lofty aspirations of getting it made into a movie when it's done, hence the domain name. The first web comic movie, huh? Good luck, but don't hold your breath; the domain name stands a better chance of getting bought by Hollywood.

On a different note, Three Panel Soul linked to Colin's Bear Animation, which is damn funny. The poster explains it best: "This is my friend Colin's bear animation. And this video is genius I can't stop laughing. So here you can laugh too. You have to listen to it with sound, and watch it twice cause the second time is way better."

And it is. It really is.

Peace.

It's 2008.

Let's... be careful out there.

Note to self: Don't buy/wear a shirt if people are going to ask what it means and you don't have an answer for them they will find satisfactory, preferably in 8 words or less.

Note to everyone else: You need to spend more time online. Then you'd find my stumbling explanation more rapidly satisfactory, and you'd trust Wikipedia to give you the answers to questions like this, provided you don't know them yourself from the additional time you spend online.

Add'l: Yes, we all know the idea of Wikipedia makes no sense, none of us more than fans of the US version of The Office. And yet, somehow, it works and is largely reliable anyway, more so than pretty much any other news outlet. (Right, FOX News?) Just because you don't understand why something works, doesn't mean it doesn't. The sky is still blue.

"I want facial hair, a stuffed monkey and a back rub."
- tinderboxheart

Coming not 24 hours after I took them are photos from last night's Hospital Holidays party at Dan & Laura's.

I shot these in JPG instead of raw, as I've decided to start doing when getting them online faster is more important than control/quality.

And now there's ANOTHER KT Tunstall CD to get? Sheesh!

It's apparently called Sounds of the Season: The KT Tunstall Holiday Collection. Music Choice just played "2000 Miles" from it, about, of course, long-distance relationships, apparently a Pretenders cover. Good stuff.

Edit: I've started YouTube-spelunking to catch up on her videos, and came across a couple where she uses her Wee Bastard Pedal. It's great--she's a one-woman band.



Stoppin' The Love. If only she could get the black guys w/ deep voices to chime in on the chorus like in the studio. And of course, thanks to YouTube for mismatching video/sound, and the annoying I-wish-I-was-an-iPhone popup links to other videos if your mouse hovers over the video too long after hitting play:


( More YouTube goodness )

Yep, it's going to be gorgeous. I love me some bright, bold colors.



Damn, Square-Enix. Not even a pointy hat with a crescent moon, like Refia got?
( Is that why you look all grown up now, Rydia? (potentially mildly NSFW) )

As long as they don't put Cecil in chaps, I'm fine.

For Lissa, and at the request of Melissa and Becky, another picture post. Not technically a bee, but hopefully it'll give Lissa the willies anyway.

This is from my brother's wedding, and my first official photography gig. After the wedding, I relaxed by playing around with Adam's macro lens a bit. I believe that's peach cobbler the yellowjacket is enjoying.



Title: Yellowjacket munching on peach cobbler
Location: Lincoln City, Indiana USA
Time: 10/13/2007 3:13 PM CDT
Camera: Nikon D50
Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D
Quality: Raw
Processing: Adobe Camera Raw 4.1
Post-processing: Minor levels, sharpening

©2007 Peter Johnson

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Courtesy qwantz comes NEWS TO ME that the Futurama theme song is based on some seriously old-school electronica from 1967, Pierre Henry's "Psyché Rock." It has the most badass bells solo ever.

And, because everyone can resist a link but no one can resist an embedded YouTube video (especially one featuring dancing jellyfish-powered transistors):

Oscar is one of my brother's three dogs, and one of a dozen or so Thanksgiving companions the last couple years. Al is the big black one being lazy in the back. Also pictured are my niece Laney and my newly-married brother Sam, who's currently sitting on a private island in the Caribbean. Not pictured, and probably hiding nervously in the dog kennel with her tail between her legs, is Jackie.



Title: Oscar
Location: Jeffersonville, Indiana USA
Time: 11/23/2007 8:12 PM EST
Camera: Nikon D50
Lens: AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
Quality: Raw
Processing: Adobe Camera Raw 4.1
Post-processing: Levels

©2007 Peter Johnson

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Just another quick, impersonal, meaningless post.

That Jeffrey sure can find some funny shit. A comment links to more at Something Awful (not safe for work), which, if you scroll to the second series of like-rendered images (the first is short & sweet), just might make you fall out of your chair laughing like it almost did me.

And I've learned that the Hollywood writers have been on strike for a week now. I only stumbled across that after almost all NYC theatre being shut down due to a stagehand strike. I can see me sitting down in a month to watch TV, wondering why it's been all reruns.



Maybe I'll get caught up on CSI:NY and ER after all.

At least I'm pretty sure the writers and stagehands aren't using paid protesters like the carpenters.

So, I heard this song on the radio once. And then I heard the lyric, "But if you're troubled and hurt/What you got under your shirt/Will make them pay for the things that they did", and realized what it was about, which made me sit up and notice. I really liked the song overall--it was catchy, reminded me a bit of a couple Offspring tunes.

Tonight, it came on again, and I cranked it. I also listened to the lyrics a bit more. And I'll be damned, but I can't make sense out of them. I know it's ironic, because "I'll be damned, but..." is something said by Old White Men that the song is... well, making SOME sort of statement about.

In case you haven't figured it out (and thus probably don't listen to any mainstream music, play Guitar Hero II, etc.), I'm talking about My Chemical Romance's song "Teenagers". Like many fight-the-man songs aimed at teenagers, it talks about "you" and "they" and so on, but I can't figure out who "you" and "they" and "me" is throughout the song. I can think of a way or two it almost makes sense if you/they/me changes, but nothing satisfying.

This excerpt from an article on the band, referring to the frontman, Gerard Way, further muddies the meaning for me: "But the Ways find that lately they can't always relate to teenagers. Gerard wrote the song 'Teenagers' after finding himself in a subway car with a bunch of high schoolers. 'That was the first time I felt old,' he said. 'I was nervous and I was a target. I felt like I had become a parent figure or part of the problem.' Still, the lyrics blame adults for engendering teenage violence. The MySpace nation will approve."

"Maybe they'll leave you alone/But not me" is one of the most confusing lines. The Man will leave The Teenager alone, but Way won't leave The Teenager alone, because Way won't let The Teenager get away with shooting people? The Man will leave The Teenager alone, but The Man won't leave Way alone? Teenagers will leave Scared Whitey alone, but Teenagers won't leave Way alone? And does Way consider himself The Man/Scared Whitey (per the interview quote), or part of the demographic he's targeting (despite leaving his teenage years behind over a decade ago)?

And "the murder machine"? If "they" is Teenagers, maybe this is referring to the shootings. If "they" is The Man (seems more likely given the rest of the verse), maybe "they" is the Iraq war, which doesn't fit w/ the rest of the song.

Does anyone get this? Could you explain it plzkthx?

I'm posting the most common, and seemingly the correct, lyrics beneath the cut, if you can help out.

( Maybe you get these lyrics/But not me )

"I am honored to be your 14,000th."
- the recently departed (again) eaten_by_mice

I haven't done a politics post in a while. I've been too tied up in personal stuff, and so haven't been paying nearly as much attention to it as I did in 2004, nor even 2006.

But I do know my new governor has got to go. For those not in Kentucky, Fletcher's government has been corrupt as hell. I'd forgotten that it had also been pretty homophobic--I think a couple years ago, he eliminated sexual orientation from the non-discrimination for state employees regulations, prompting a brilliant LEO cover with a photo of two drinking fountains, labeled "Straight" and "Gay." And now, he's gotten everyone's best friend Pat Boone (who incorrectly calls himself a Kentuckian) to remind us of what a limp-wristed pretty boy Mongiardo is (as Senator Bunning and Republicans in state congress called him when he ran against Bunning last year), and how he and Beshear, as potential lieutenant governor and governor respectively, will open the doors for the homos to overrun Kentucky.

Thanks, guys. Way to fight the southern state stereotypes. If you live in Kentucky, for the love of God (pun intended), vote tomorrow. Against Fletcher.

In happier news, Clinton's projected to beat every Republican in the running. Let's hope 1. the Democrats don't fuck up the primary again, and 2. she holds on to it for One More Year®™.

And the same poll says the country's shifted just a little more into realizing that gay people are indeed humans and deserve equal recognition of such.

Also: LOLGRIMS