v, i took the survey...


Green - You believe that small economic units
should control the goods, and that the
government should be permissive of
"victimless crimes," respectful of
civil liberties and very strict towards big
business. You also believe in either a
socialist tax structure or more power to local
communities. You think that environmental
policies should be written into law. Your
historical role model is Ralf Nader.

Which political sterotype are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

and i mean... the universal "you" of all "you" readers... (i'm getting presumptious to the notion that there are really all that many.) hey! they butchered Ralphie's name (and misspelled, "stereotype").

it's soooo over...

r: (leaving a voice message) hey this is (insert name). at some point today or whenever possible, i'd like to pick up the rest of my stuff. i want to pick up my swimsuit, my shampoo, my earplugs, my goggles, my guitar and my amp. if you don't want to call me back, then you can e-mail me when i can pick those things up.

ten minutes later...

f: uh... "r"? it's "f." um... i'm going to be heading out soon and i'll be gone for a couple of hours, but what i did was put your guitar and amp on the table on the patio. and, i put the other stuff in a box. so, they're not getting wet or anything.

r: oh, okay. i'm not going to be leaving right now to get the stuff, but when i do i'll just pick it up from the patio. i'll leave you your mag light since i found it in my room. i don't think i have anything else of yours, right?

f: (pauses) i don't think so.

r: oh, yeah. can i have the picture back, also?

f: the big one in the frame?

r: yeah.

f: oh, okay. i'll try and fit it in the box. it might not fit... wait. i think it'll fit.

r: okay. thanks! (pause--a really brief pause because i'm oh-so-strong) bye! (CLICK)

oh, man... i'm still lingering on my mistake

i'm SOOOO not the candidate for their production internship. they even have a web page dedicated to "What is 'Libertarian.'" the description sounds so innocuous. then, why is it that i still have some of the most annoying dialogues with these people? UGH! for you libertarians, no offense. i just think those of my ilk and your ilk are better off smiling at opposite ends of the room flashing "thumbs up" signs that mean, "let's agree to disagree, 'kay?"

on the rebound: not from love, but from academia

i can't believe it. i just submitted an application for a film production internship provided by an institution founded on the ideals of a cornell university libertarian professor (in further online research on this fellow, i found the following description:

"Floyd A. 'Baldy' Harper was not bald. For two decades, 1950-70, he was one of the most important figures in the anarcho-capitalist wing of libertarianism."

this institute seems to believe that there are actually people out there wanting to a) "follow in the footsteps of JOHN STOSSEL," ABC "news" correspondent (his overly dramatic expressions and "gimme a breaks" during 20/20 interviews always seemed more suited to an Actor's Studio setting than a "news" show) and b) work on a film based on Ayn Rand's "We the Living." well, I guess there ARE people who follow objectivism, but i'm not one of them. (i believe in crystal lite, cuz i believe in ME!) hubba hubba. what have i DONE?? and now, even worse... they know where i LIVE!!!!!! UGH!!!!!!

rejection: i'll try and spare you the cliche morosity

i received my rejection letter from calarts today. i had just opened my front door and seen the "CalArts" envelope on the floor. i barely had the strength to open it because i was having one of my "gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now" urges for the bathroom. as soon as i read the first cliche line, "we regret to inform you..." i thought for a second, "an art school known for advancements in the creative realm would use canned language?" i immediately started to panic. i only applied to two film schools. now, i have to bite my fingers and wait for the outcome for the second program...

the gloves are off.
i must indulge myself and post my musings as to why i got rejected right now and you can mentally say to yourselves as you read the following, "but that's not fair," all right?

1. they reached their minimal quota for brown people on campus that's right. with a school 20 miles north of a predominately latino metropolitan center, their ethnic demographics "boast" of 69% caucasian, 10% latino (for a majority to still be the minority in major educational institutions is a sad, sad sign of things not changing for the better), 11% asian-american (and for my kababayan, we all know that not all asians are made the same with the same privileges or disadvantages), 6% aftrican-american, and 4% divided between native american and "other." let's just say that not too many people can walk around on that campus without sunscreen.

2. my dramatic ritual of asking the magic 8 ball for positive "you may count on it" or "without a doubt" answers to my, "am i gonna get in?" questions were all for naught--the readings i was given were just plain wrong.

3. god's trying to tell me something. s/he's saying, "honey, you really don't need to spend $30K a year for the next 3 years of your life, right now."

4. well? i think that's all i can think of right now before terminally falling into the abyssmal abyss of, "bitter? party of one? bitter? party of one? we got the back corner table facing the corner." (thank you, "a," for giving me this jewel of a joke. now, why the hell haven't you responded to my e-mail from 2 years ago? perhaps, the closure will come in a posting under "missed connections.")

so there. i will sulk for a bit tonight, march for peace tomorrow and then get on with the rest of my "unsinkable molly brown" life (minus the later-in-life outlandish behavior of the film's star).

note about the "cent(s)"

i've changed the font color of the comments window to black. i did this to show solidarity with readers (anyone? anyone? anyone out there? do i type in vain?) who suffer from color blindness. orange on light blue isn't contrast-y enough for the web. (Web).

OUCH!

just heard on "morning edition"on the radio--residents of a small community in missouri express their thoughts on the possibility of war with iraq. according to the correspondent, if war becomes a reality they will trust the president since, "he knows more than we do." i swear, instead of "freedom fries," the house of reps need to submit legislation on nationwide self-esteem workshops. YIKES! i don't know. did dubya get smarter or did we all get dumber?

my mom wanted me to watch, "bowfinger," for the "keep it together!" words of encouragement

today i met with a university professor to discuss the possibilities of collaboration between the fledgling no-operational-budget women of color media collective with which i work, and their academic program geared towards training college students in doing media work within "the community." (notice the ambiguity with which i discuss nouns like "university," "program," and "collective" in order to maintain my own anonymity?)

such a collaboration b/w a university with access to only-in-my-dreams resources and small grassroots orgs like the one with which i work can be really tricky. i never believed that the solution to anything like the "digital divide" would be to just give disenfranchised communities access to a computer and/or a camera. that would just be buying into the big fat myth that what the world needs now, is a cheap-ass gateway computer that will conk out within a year. i also don't think that a viable solution necessitates having some college kid from the 'burbs going into the "ghetto" to show off fancy computer technology, either. but, what should that look like and how do you say that to established academics in an easy-going, "nice to meet you for the first time" manner?

i did it my way
i arrived 20 minutes late to the meeting because i forgot to warn the people with whom i was meeting that i have a wonderful sense of dis-orientation. i can't seem to orient myself out of parking structures... STRIKE ONE.

i was also nervous that people wouldn't take me seriously because i looked a bit disheveled coming from a full-day's work with blotchy skin from stress acne. STRIKE TWO? no. BALL ONE. who cares what i looked like? the first half of the meeting consisted of watching video demo tapes in the dark! (it's not what they see; it's what i say.)

professional professional vs. professional comedienne
out of nervousness and out of shyness, i'm accustomed to resorting to quirky humor that oftentimes signals to people, "don't take me seriously," even when i want them to do just that. thank god i have a natural tan because i kept blushing whenever i spoke, but i could "raise my hand" cuz i was sure they couldn't see it underneath my melanin (d'ya see what you're missing, michael jackson? never let them see you red! now, go grab back that natural tan!). today, i did away with the stand up routine and told them like it is: this is what i do; so, is that what you do? how can we do, together? the conversation actually took over two hours, but i was able to "keep it together!" without resorting to a nervous witty quip or unbecoming guffaw. i'm hoping this is the beginning of a wonderful partnership (picture this: mr. university man and i are walking off in the distance while nodding and talking, and not once! does he see me red!)

i wish!

i know why people read their horoscopes. well, for me, it seems like my astrological forecasts sound more exciting than my current life right now. every morning, i have a brief moment of, gasp!, "this is gonna happen today!" by the end of the day, when it doesn't, i'll have already forgotten the forecast and moved on to, "i wonder what's supposed to happen tomorrow!"

de ja hue?

strange. i just realized that i have a scarf (that i have had for a number of years, now) that matches the same tricolor design of this blog template (and i got this blog template from the blogger public templates list). this tricolor deja vu keeps happening to me. a year ago, i was walking outside my house wearing a tricolored sweater (red, brown, and orange) that happened to match exactly my messenger bag from Timbuk2., which unfortunately, was dangling on my ass at that very epiphanic moment.

all right! i need to stop these extremely self-reflexive blogging posts! less eeyore, more pooh!
though, i may have linked to amazon.com, please check out the status of my favorite southern california bookstore (temporarily closed in santa monica, but COMING RIGHT BACK!), midnight special books.

re-writing history

i'm sorry, "v." i had to delete your comment from a couple of days ago ("The Arcane Art of Comments," orig. posted 3/9/03) and then re-post it. i did this to delete the test comments i posted--it was the only way to do it with backBlog.

i know this screws up a couple of things: 1) identity--just like a time traveler who prevents his/her birth by messing with the past, your post now says that "eye.8.this: eye=ME!" SORRY! 2) chronology--you posted this on sunday, i screwed it up on tuesday.

forgive this blogging neophyte!

THE ARCANE ART OF COMMENTS

ay caramba (i have been watching "the simpsons" way too much), for some reason blogger doesn't like me. it keeps eating my posts. oh well.

as for commenting, well, i have been on a magical quest for the holy grail of commenting systems, and unfortunately, a lot of them aren't the most user-friendly to install and require mucking around with php or perl. but there are a few that are supposed to be relatively painless. check out enetations, backBlog, and SquawkBox.tv. if you're feeling slightly more masochistic, you can try remotely hosted dotcomments. (i found all these sites from an entry on the blogger faq blog. how's that for recursion.)

so good luck. but be forewarned. i swear, blogging is a lot like heroin.

"Blogger is a wonder drug that I can't stop taking no matter how many clinics I goto. God bless your heart Blogger!" -Lesley

"Blogger is a drug. If I don't get a fix, I get itchy." -David V. Gagne

(from the inexplicable blogger quotes page)

i clearly have too much time on my hands. no, that's not true. i'm just seriously misusing the time that i do have.

screw it!

variety is the spice of life! yes, this cliche helps me in believing that it's okay that the fonts on this page vary. as time passes, our vision fades, so big fonts make it easier.

omigosh! i'm just hearing on kcrw how clear channel radio stations are organizing pro-war rallies! PUH-LEAZE!!! why don't they just stick to canned programming and virtual-reality disc jockeys!!! screw clear channel! isn't it enough that they make us suffer with their hokey dokey talk radio hosts and easy listening "quiet storm" programming? shit. buy more billboards, but leave us in peace! we're in hell.

uh... novice?

i've really messed something up, here. i tried to set up a third party comments section. instead, i have some serious font size issues. i don't know what i'm doing. i've really messed things up now. (btw, the only new skill i've learned is knowing how to bold and italicize.)

I LOVE THE MEDICAL ANALOGIES!
"V" (i'm trying to protect the semi-innocent). i love last days of the republic!



it's fan-tabulous!! it's magni-fantastic!

uh... by the way. is there a way to post comments on other people's postings? hey, victor. do you know?

R&R?
today was yet another productive day in unproductivity. my friend, "r" (i'm trying to protect the semi-innocent) and i had intended this day to be a day dedicated to catching up on our much neglected work of reading & writing. instead, we lived up to our first name initials and wasted the day away.

first stop?: tres LA. "r" needed a gym membership to a "premiere" gym in culver city. one hour... BAM! gone. it felt like my friend was joining a cult:

gym rep: please sign our guest list so that we can give you a tour of our gym.
me: i'm not going to join. i'm here for moral support.
gym rep: and how come *you're* not interested in working out? (U.N. TRANSLATION: hey, you cardiovascularly challenged schlump! drop a $100 down and $50 a month so that you can sweat with a bunch of strangers in an enclosed, artificial setting. screw running in the streets outdoors. you want to run on a machine simulator while watching television and comparing body parts with other strange fellows.)

i had to lie. i told him i was a member of a rival gym to shut him up. i still had to give my friend an hour of moral support, though.

they asked "r" ridiculous questions like, "what are your workout goals?" "do you want to work out to change the way you look or to just feel good?" DID THEY REALLY CARE? i thought they just wanted a minimum of $100 down and $50 a month. the world is in shambles with a dumb fuck like dubya in the white house. aren't there larger questions in life to ask? just give a good deal so that he can sweat in peace (and i stress IN PEACE) and let's get on with it! witnessing this noxious exchange made me think that there is some significance to people's desire to be couch potatoes. perhaps it's a conscious decision to not want to be a part of the underfed, overworked out masses that try to aerobicize their asses off to look like they don't eat a sandwich. shit! eat a sandwich! L.A. has too many skinny girls walking around in need of a sandwich! i eat sandwiches! give the skinny people a sandwich!

ok. here we go. for some reason, my very first post got eaten.

let see if blogger changed my name so that it's in lowercase. i will make an attempt to conform to the all-lowercase style.

isn't it ironic? whenever i have time to write (or if you want to be accurate, type), i never have anything good to write about, but whenever i'm doing something interesting and/or have something interesting to say, i never have time to write it down.

and now for some self-aggrandizement (this was initially a test to see if i could just type links directly into the editor, but i suppose i've sufficiently proved that. oh well.) [ congestive soul failure | last days of the republic ]

hmmm. why are do my posts not have the same leading. more exploring to do.

hrmm. did that last post make it? are my words just evaporating into the ether of the net? and finally, can i enter a link just like this: this is only a test

i have been posting like a bored extraordinarily geeky madman to slashdot.org. my comments have all been about molecular and cell biology, in an attempt to assuage the nagging suspicion that my bachelor degree is for all intents and purposes practically useless.