Last year I learned the meaning of the word amalgamation, which means (not that you don't know) to merge 2 or more things into a single unit. I thought that this was a very nice word for it. Then I had this epiphany: I am going to create an alternative superhero called The Amalgamator, whose power would be to combine multiple things into single, more powerful unit-things. And he could like hybridize (actual word, no shit) things and stuff. After some rumination, I decided that the cause for his superpowers would come from his body's unique ability to absorb all the vitamins and nutrients and whatever from hard pills (like daily multi-vitamins)...cuz I'm sure you know that the human body only absorbs a small percent (less than 30%?) of the nutrient count in those hard pills... anyways, I could be in over my head here cuz I was a baseball card collector nerd when I was a kid; not a comic book collector nerd. So I don't have that base for creating a superhero...but I seriously think The Amalgamator could kick some ass.

Do you remember the name of the Wayans brother who DJed on In Living Color?

Fruit serving be damned: I know some people are huge fans of the old turkey and cranberry sandwich, but I think that is nasty business. I just don’t get it. There are plenty of things that are better than cranberry on a turkey sandwich (bacon, avocado, any 1 of 1000 cheeses, pesto, cream cheese, or any number of other things). If you wanna get your fruit serving on in a breaded environment, I'd go with the cream cheese and jelly sangy.

That fool was SW1.

Porn may cater to guys, but sex toys cater to girls. You go into Good Vibrations or some other respectable (or disrespectable, for that matter) shop and there just isn’t much at all for a heterosexual male to party with. The only thing they really got for us is those vagina-in-a-box things, and what is up with those? They ain't cheap, neither. Can you return them if they don’t work? Ew. I sincerely hope not. Plus I think you like plug them into an outlet or something, which sends up a red flag right there. I don’t really wanna insert my favorite part into something that is electrified.

Highlights of The Decemberists show: Before they came on stage they had the PA system blaring the old Soviet National Anthem, which is totally hot; they did behind the head guitar picking of havagh nagliah, which I don’t know how to spell; and they sang a new song that I'd never heard before, with these song lyrics: She's a salty little pisser/With a cock in her kisser.

The good thing about tattoos on the neck: they never go out of style (unless it is turtleneck season, but how many people with tattoos on their necks also wear turtlenecks? It's probably a pretty low percentage).

It takes a brave man to admit it: I still think that one Soul Asylum song is such a badass cigarette song.

Was at the Modest Mouse show and was lamenting how they never play Tundra Desert as their encore anymore. You see, back in the day, they always played Tundra Desert for like 15 minutes as their finale--the first 10+ times I saw them, this is how the show ended. These days, they usually end with Cowboy Dan, which is not an awful song, but is kind of annoying and far from their best work (though I love the middle, standing in the tall grass, part). So I was telling Allison that I wish they would play Tundra instead of Cowboy Dan and she said, "Take a look around. This is not a Tundra crowd." Merits mentioning that some KROQ DJ wanker announced the band...that is how "not a Tundra crowd" it was. PS I want a t-shirt that says, "Not a Tundra crowd," and I can make it happen.

I was eating dinner with Allison (before the show, in fact), and she ordered some meat plate or other, I think it was a pork chop or something, and when it came she did the most peculiar thing. She just started cutting it all up at the beginning, into little bites, mommy style. I asked her why she was doing this, and she said it was so once she started eating, she wouldn’t have to stop. That's a fucking strategy. Though I would fear the dreaded cooling-off-of-the-meat if I were to cut it all up first.

Last month I was at Costco with Brian and I bought a big bottle of multivitamins. This is the third time in the last 6 or 7 years that I've decided that I am going to start taking a daily multivitamin (like Centrum style). Each of the last 2 times I bought a bottle I took the vitamin less than 10 times over the 2 years or so before the bottle of vitamins expired. And yet I am trying again. So far it's been 4 weeks and I have taken the pill just once. The problem is not just that I forget to take the vitamin; the problem is that you are supposed to eat before you take it, and I don’t eat breakfast. Lunch comes anywhere between 12:30 and 3:00 and not always in the same location. It's just too damn tricky--there is not enough rhythm to my eating for regular vitamin consumption, and you aren’t supposed to take them on an empty stomach. Does anyone else have this problem?

Spell check is a beautiful thing (not everyone can be blessed with being as amazing a speller as I am). Grammar check, however, is not the gospel. If our computers had the Terminator's "learning computer" CPU it might be a different story, but until then, computers aren’t actually smarter than us grammatically. They don’t understand complex sentences--so they mark them wrong. They are human in that respect at least; they too fear what they don’t know or understand.

Which provides a lovely segue for the next grammar lesson: did you know that you can ask a question? and still keep going in a sentence? This too, the computer does not understand.

If I stop and think about it, it seems to be a predisposition as to whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. A pessimist can still try to be an optimist, but you see the sunrise or the ocean or the stars or whatever and think, this is beautiful, but the fact of the matter is that humankind had nothing to do with that shit. Look at poverty, homelessness, every -ism imaginable, heartbreak, ineffectiveness, ineptness, stupidity, ignorance, and hate. People’s seemingly inherent insensitivity towards one another. These things are far more representative of humankind. I would rather be real and be sad than be some fucking bubble. Furthermore, every time I allow myself to believe in some form of goodness (on faith) only to prove myself wrong, it makes me that much more jaded. Slides myself that much further into pessimistic, defensive, skewed me. Because, ideally, if I could be objective, I could let things go. I could see things as what they are, removed from my experience with them. But that is idealistic, and these days the only things idealistic are ideas. Why is it so much easier to invalidate than to validate? So much of validation is really pacification these days anyways. You nod to someone who is speaking, maybe you aren’t really listening at all. Maybe you are listening like you were skimming the words on a page. Maybe you wish they'd shut up. Maybe you are just waiting for your turn to talk. We've all felt like a fool for trusting. Why does some part of me trick the rest of me into thinking that I could really know or really trust someone? As if. I have no idea what they are thinking. I have no idea what you are thinking. To be honest, sometimes I have no idea what I am thinking. But oftentimes I do know what I am thinking, and I will never, ever know what you are thinking. No matter how hard I try, I will never get any closer than what you tell me you are thinking, and we all know how incredibly subjective that is. Besides, knowing hurts more. That’s why they say ignorance is bliss. As a young adult I feel like I have experienced every type of hurt. You put yourself out there and you get hurt. You do it in a variety of ways and you get hurt in a variety of ways. You think, "I have been hurt in every way, I know better now," but that endless plethora of human possibilities can always offer up something new and creative, yet at the same time old and foreseeable. All situations have been played out (and yet I wander seemingly blindly into the next situation. If that isn’t optimism, what is?). Wars are fought for no justifiable reasons. Divorces are the norm in a way that was incomprehensible in the past but not for lack of want. People get stabbed in the back on a daily basis. And knowing all this is what annoys me because I am not immune to hope, even grounded as I am in understanding of the way of things are. This is what makes me a putz. Self-loathing is easy enough. Now back to your regularly scheduled cocktail.

by Justin