February 26, 2003
Suddenly the sun remembered we live in the northern hemisphere this week and subsequently ceased all delivery of warmth. I could tell Monday night when the heater simply gave up kicking on and off and just stayed on. In my ancient little house it’s everything the poor furnace can do to keep the interior heated. Fortunately I am a benevolent and thoughtful renter, keeping the property at a mild 87 degrees.

Honestly there isn’t much to complain about from the northern Rockies this winter. All the snow’s back east, and the cold fronts have been keeping steady over all cities which I might be going to graduate school next year. This is the first week we got ours, waking up each morning to temperatures in the ones. (Minus 17 degrees Celsius to Canadian reader(s), but a brisk 255 Kelvins to my geek readers [um...me].)

I always feel so brave during the first major snow or cold snap. “Come on, winter! Is that all you’ve got? You can do better than that! Wussy.” That’s right. Six-foot-nothing, scrawny me. Calling nature a wussy. It has it coming, thinking it can break me. I have a heated house, blankets, and my yak-hair hat. But even with those niceties the cold always gets progressively more tiring as the season wears on and on and on...

December/January: “Winter is for real men, like me [spitting]. I actually kind of like shoveling the sidewalk, I’ve got four wheel drive. I drink lots of coffee and tea and cocoa, and that’s always nice. Snow really is beautiful at night.”

February/March: “Come on, engine, turn over...turn over...now I know why they used Ton-Tons instead of Toyotas on Hoth, and sleeping inside a dead one’s digestive tract is actually starting to sound pleasant. An extremely threatenting twenty-seven inch long icicle is dangling off my roof. Blah, need to shovel the walk again. The hell with it. My shoes are soaked through anyway and I can only feel eight fingers.”

April: “God, we’ve had our differences, but please make winter stop. I beg you. I can’t feel my face.”

May: [Endless, endless sobbing.]

June: Winter breaks. The icicle finally falls. I remember what the sun looks like (it’s bright). Feeling returns to all toes which I’ve managed to keep through the winter. With the glaciation receding, I finally emerge from my house and make my way to the store to re-stock cocoa and chapstick in preparation for next winter, which in the northern Rockies is scheduled to start in September.

February 23, 2003
If you've followed any of my links recently (I just updated them) you might have noticed that I mistyped the information for Flak Magazine (flakmag.com) as the link for Flag Football Magazine (flagmag.com). Sorry about that. Though if you have any flag football-related questions or are up for starting a team you'd be better off going there instead of to Flak anyway.

February 22, 2003
Blame the Blamable

Angry at many things, I cull the weakest from the herd and strike.

February 20, 2003
New feature here. It's kind of different for this site but maintaining variety is good, right?

Updated the indices and links. Default index is now categorical instead of chronological. Drop me a line if you find it obnoxious.

February 18, 2003
Today I continue to create a modern theory of writing. Or, at least document a very minute portion of an already-dubious hypothesis. Blah, maybe I should just forget the whole "tear down the walls of the establishment" angle and just roll with it. You can go ahead if you want, but I just got up and thought I'd grab a waffle or something.

Anyway, yesterday I provided an example of an unusual occurence written from a common viewpoint. Today I try the opposite, a typical experience written from an insightful perspective.

In doing so, I present the narrative of Square Sharpcorner, Hero to Mankind, as he tries to mix and mingle at the DMV.

February 17, 2003
This morning, after a dispute with my FedEx driver over the timely delivery of several Nepalese sherpan yak hats, I settled down by making some coffee and doing some meditation. However, I was still kind of tired and wasn’t concentrating very well so I actually ended up falling asleep on the floor.

After I woke up, I kicked over the since-forgotten coffee as I groggily walked into the bathroom, and during the time I subsequently spent scrubbing the carpet, it occurred to me that there are two kinds of writing. One might write about an unusual experience they have had, or one might write from a unique perspective on an ordinary occurence. Certainly other kinds exist as well, but these are two of them. It also occurred to me that I’m glad I don’t have to go through that routine every day just to come up with ideas. Though if I’m stuck, it always helps.

Before we rearrange our University-level English departments to conform to this half-baked theory we ought to hash it out a little more. So I’ll give you an example of standard viewpoint but an unusual experience. Maybe I don't really need to make it more clear. I mean, by definition there are many, many average people. They have experiences. Some are bound to be kind of unusual. But here's one possibility of standard viewpoint/unusual experience.

With that safely behind us, tomorrow I'll continue by covering standard experience/unusual viewpoint.

February 14, 2003
My brain has been crushed into a fine paste by a relentless pile of applications and forms. Creativity no here anymore. Back soon? Hope so.

February 11, 2003
A few oversights have been called to my attention, and I'd like to take some space today to clear up various factual and editorial errors that I've made over the past few months.

February 10, 2003
I want to thank you for your help. About three weeks ago I asked you to go see a movie which I had seen called The Two Towers, because I felt it was very good and wanted to keep the project supported. You responded. Boy, did you ever.

In fact, it has earned over $300 million in under two months of release. I know my readers are wonderful and attractive human beings, but the response to my request was really special. By my calculations, each one of my readers must have spent in excess of $10 or $20 million dollars to see this film! Wow!

Not only has this movie been a success, but I learned this morning that a sequel is now planned and will be released in the fall. Pat yourself on the back, precious. We've made a difference out there.

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This is no blog, but I thought I'd pass along something that finally qualifies as good news (from an AP article I just read):

"The tax plan proposed by President Bush is not the answer to these problems. Regardless of how one views the specifics of the Bush plan, there is wide agreement that its purpose is a permanent change in the tax structure and not the creation of jobs and growth in the near term. The permanent dividend tax cut, in particular, is not credible as a short-term stimulus," said the statement, signed by more than 400 economists.

Basically it goes on to explain why the whole thing seriously ought to infuriate anyone who has a job or breathes oxygen. Democrats are fighting this thing using math arguments. For example, if you have $2 trillion, then you spend $2.4 trillion, how much have you just put the federal government in the hole? Whereas Republicans are using philosophical arguments. For example, the President (who you should support or you are un-American) has submitted a budget that exists. Therefore it is good. It...um...provides economic stimulus. Yeah, that's it.

Eventually even people who voted for Bush are going to wake up to this, aren't they? They'll turn off "Joe Millionaire" and read that this administration wants to go to war despite much of the world thinking it's unnecessary, and that while we're distracted he's trying to pass a ridiculous tax cut for the people who need it least. They'll notice, right? Right?

February 7, 2003
I'm not a good political writer. As soon as I really start thinking about all the things that are happening that make me upset I get tongue-tied and eloquent commentary disintegrates into a violent spew of cursing and spitting. And I'm not an outspoken person. In fact, I'm technically asleep right now.

Nevertheless, items of a political nature are on my mind, which means they've ended up here. I've posted a new piece in the essays/satire section of the features called So You've Decided to Vote Republican. Pieces of this nature tend to be written in the heat of the moment, when something so mind-blowing happens that I do something that is the literature equivalent of putting my fist through the wall. In this case, I was inspired by the horrifyingly self-serving Bush (v.2.0) 2003 Budget, which cut spending for seemingly everything except the one thing that didn't need the help: the military. He still wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (which they like to call "ANWAR" because, as has been printed elsewhere, "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge" sounds like something clean and pure where cute white animals scamper about on crisp snow; whereas "ANWAR" sounds like something you wouldn't mind drilling for oil in). He still wants to eliminate the Dividend Tax to assist the poor, the needy, the 1% of Americans that derive most of their income from the sale of stock.

Let me also tell you that although I care a great deal about political matters, I won’t be writing about them too often. First and foremost, I am not about to compete with the competent, timely writing that is produced elsewhere in various media. So: Jim Lehrer, staff of The Onion, Tom Tomorrow, August J. Pollack, you can relax. Second, when I do write about them, I become utterly exhausted as I relentlessly check all of my facts (Fox News, for example, skips this step so they can maintain their torrid pace of political commentary). Third, my strict policy of allowing no more than 3.9% real life into my little realm. Fourth, this stuff is terribly depressing. Fifth, I am what you call “lazy.”

Anyway, I wanted to try and dispel some of the more common misperceptions about liberals while ripping into conservative policies. If you agree with me already, you’ll cheer and hoot along the way. If you disagree with me to start, I’ll just piss you off but that’s probably worth it.

The good news is that I got it out of my system and I can soon get back to my specialty: accomplishing nothing of consequence. Thank you.

February 4, 2003
Some of the following convey stances on cutting-edge issues, some serve as homages to earlier years of Republican rule. I've even taken the liberty of editing out most of the big words: Slogans for the Bush Administration

February 3, 2003
As must be obvious by now, I try and maintain a level of no more than 3.9% real life on this site. If you want to keep me in a good mood, I suggest you do not tamper with that, either. But for today I think I'll skip the banality.

From CNN.com, people in New Delhi doing what a lot of people were doing Saturday.

One of those events that glues you to the TV and makes the world seem kind of small and scary.

Past archives:

January 2003 - TV hurt brain, development as a writer, cooking with Josh, official launch propaganda, reflections on a crummy year

November/December 2002 - Mission Statement Q (no A), Republican pirahna, Preliminary grad school jitters, Josh Dollars and cursed sandwiches, being naked and screaming

2002-03 BuriedintheNoise.com
Permission for reproduction will be granted if you ask nicely.