New Dog Tail - The State of Dog
New Art Gallery
Beck's Art Gallery
THE ARSENAL!!!
...Starts to Cycling, and I'm filled with 2 Pis - could it be a trig function in me, or is this the way my personality's supposed to be???
Love having my personality, relative lack of happiness and thoughts reduced to trivial one-liners, gentle readers. How apt. Well, chew on this negative one:
This little sticker was affixed to a pack of 24 wooden old skool pencils I bought earlier this semester. Serves nicely as a little corporate decal of the apocalypse, methinks - like a dentist's office treasure chest of inane questions. Why the colon after "includes?" What makes these particular pencils "pre-sharpened" as opposed to just "sharpened?" I mean, I understand the notion of a "pre-approved loan" - approved before you even meet me - but was there any chance I wasn't going to qualify for pencil sharpening, that you're going out on a limb for me here? And what's with sharpening my pencils for me anyways? Is this a major effort-saving selling point, like I'm comparison shopping pencil packs and the 15 seconds you saved me is the deal clencher? And if so, once you make the purple print on shiny silver sticker step, why not throw a guy some exclamation points - are you implying that the inclusion of pre-sharpened pencils is some run of the mill every day event? Maybe my biggest qualm with this entire experience - why stop at 4? Aren't you just opening the door for your competitors to offer 6 of 24 sharpened pencils? Is there some kind of pencil shaving cartel out there? For sake's sake, why not sharpen all 24? Would that make this whole endeavor cost-inefficient? Would you need the sticker if all 24 were sharpened - I mean, it's pretty obvious that 4 are, and I understand your need to point it out to sell more packs of pencils, but it seems that having all 24 pencils sharpened might make the relative sharpened status of the pencils very obvious, and the sticker would be rendered moot. Is there some kind of under the table collusion with the silver sticker manufacturers happening here? Penultimately, can you imagine the corporate meetings that went into confirming the decision to include this sticker? "This pack of pencils is just missing something; something that screams "buy me." Have we ever tried sharpening the pencils ahead of time - you know, pre-sharpening the pencils?" Next meeting: "Ooh! Nice font! I like what you've done with the purple and the silver, but is there anyway we can get a colon in there? And I really don't like odd numbers; can we change that three to a four?" And finally, picture the poor enslaved Polynesian worker who knows just enough English to realize how ridiculous these 100,000 sticker she has to affix are - he has to constantly fight off the temptation to take a pre-sharpened pencil and pre-jab it into his pre-frontal cortex to relieve his pre-suffering.
Ah, the whole thing leaves me Nyetplexed:
Natch, I will now put that sticker somewhere clever and make smug sarcastic quips about it on a day to day basis.
Oh, this just in - the Beck and I have decided to forego wedding pics, and will instead go with these:
Those were drawn by amazing Walnut Hill artist Jean Kim as an engagement gift - you can see the full deal by clicking on either of our glorious mugs.
Relatively low-key weekend here - Ali Van Hoff and Dave stopped by on Saturday for their semi-annual dog food retrieval, so both Beck and I AND S & W were very psyched to see them. Watched some of the World Cup on parts of Saturday and Sunday, caught the first period of game 3 of the hapless Stanley Cup Finals (some of the most exhilarating hockey I've seen in some time) and watched some rather inept basketball from both sides, but more from the Miami Heat on Sunday night. Practiced guitar a fair amount all weekend and took a truckload of pictures on Sunday, hopefully some of which will make the new arsenal page look sweet. Now, if only I could play just as sweet...
As long as I'm up and writing, some quick hits... I don't think I caught this, but at some point sportscasters decided they were broadcasting to the LCD... it should be obvious why a sport like soccer, an epic battle revolving around a war of attrition designed to gain the slightest advantage for just a chance at truly rare treasures (goals), has trouble catching on with the ADHD pleasure-now principles in America. Not to say that no one in America loves soccer - people here read Pynchon on occasion, too - but such clean, obvious metaphors like Hockey and Soccer in America don't come along every day... Kerry Wood. Kerry Wood. His name is Kerry Wood. He does not play golf, and nothing belongs to him. Kerry Wood... I was told by Corrine that her husband thought I "seemed like a nice, smart sports guy - like I probably watch football and such." I don't know what that means... Speaking of the 'Nut:
From left to right, back row, that's Maria, Alanna, Jaime, Cerissa, Alden, Sae Seul, Hyun Ji, Kenny, & Rita, and the front two are Emily and Kathi. Jeanne and Marc couldn't make the picture day, I'll get them at some other point.
Week off until summer camp kicks up at the Nut - I'll do my best to be productive...
And if I'm not, I've always got this minor bit of nightmarish inspiration:
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