Spam and the Social Network

I have to admit this straight up: I'm a twitter-holic. Not as bad as some people I follow, mind you -- Stephen Fry (@stephenfry), for example, has practically reinvented himself as the most prolific tweeter in Britain, and on this side of the pond, people like Wil Wheaton (@wilw) regularly keep in touch with the masses, no matter the level of banality -- but for some reason, I find the 140-character update simultaneously convenient and challenging; convenient because I don't have to commit to a full conversation, challenging because my natural flow of speech is not conducive to such small chunks (as anyone who's read even one entry of this blog can confirm). That last sentence, for example -- double-dashes, semi-colons and all -- wouldn't have fit into two twitter entries, let alone one pithy statement exemplifying what exactly is on my mind at that exact moment.

I love Twitter. I love the celebs who feel that this is the "hip" thing to do, regardless of whether the rest of the world gives a crap who they are (I'm looking at you, @stephenathome!). I love the "real people" who happened to make a random MST3K search while I was watching "Prince of Space," and now I know exactly what they're doing at any given time (Hi, @devtony!). I love the people who started following me because I was super-excited about seeing "Beer Wars" one night, and I followed them because they were fairly interesting (@rumandcokefloat and a number of beer mags). I love the new art of Twitter satire, with fake public figures commenting on the deep shit they've found themselves buried in (@pac16conference, not to mention all that BP stuff). I love following friends, knowing that if I have something semi-urgent to say to them, I can just tweet and they'll get the message (when I lived with @darkcupid and @palintir, we communicated via Twitter more times than I would care to admit). I love experiencing world events in real time with people all around the world; where else can you talk to sports columnists about a USC game, Germans about the World Cup, and random Brits about their elections?

It's so awesome, my brain does this.

But I think what I love more than anything is that it's not Facebook. Good lord, I hate Facebook.

Excitement!! Loud Noises!! And an update!!

Far too many exclamations in the header, but what can you do?

First of all -- eight months from today, I'll be on a plane to London. I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know (as they say) when I'll be back again. I'm going to Britain, and I'm staying until I get bored (un-bloody-likely) or I get deported (much more bloody likely). It's really exciting -- or, at least, I'm excited -- and I want you, the viewing several, to share in the excitement.

No worries, I'll be maintaining this blog -- hopefully more than it's been maintained in recent months, my bad -- but I'll be phasing in a new blog, "Stranger in a Strange(r) Land," dedicated to the preparation, trials, and perils of my voyage. It's a wordpress blog, so everyone can comment (a problem with these blogspot ones), and I'll try and update that one at LEAST once a week. I'll probably even put a bit of my research on there, if you're interested in British History between the two World Wars. 

The New Blog (not completely live yet): http://thecore28.wordpress.com

You can also follow the adventure on Twitter or Facebook. Username? thecore28. I know, I'm super-original. But if you follow me on Twitter, I'm amusing AND I'll post updates to both blogs. 

...oh, and LOUD NOISES!!

Better than a pants party, I guess.

Postcards From the Edge of Sanity: "Do You Work Here?"

The worst part about working in retail, as anyone who has worked retail will tell you, isn't the shit hours or the pittance the company tries to pass off as a living wage. It's not the lack of a regular schedule, or the revolving door of turnaround for employees and management, or even the degrading nature of being attached to a brand name or a corporate Satan for the duration of your employment.

Nope, it's the customers. It's the cussing customers and the idiotic things they do to your store and to you as a person. It's the evolution of the phrase "The customer is always right," from "The customer has a right to be respected" to "The customer has a right to be the center of attention at all times, and can treat the people who work around them like second-class citizens." Most of all, it's the annoying passive-aggression that makes you want to slap them.

This guy probably shops at our store.

31 May: A "This I Dig" Audio Daily Double! (Er, triple)

I love game shows (see several entries). When I was a freshman in high school, I had the opportunity to audition for the teen version of "Jeopardy!"; I was one of nine people who passed the written test in my group (and the only girl), but my failure to distinguish between important knowledge (like rock band front-men, which I didn't know) and trivial horseshit (like US history, literature, or the New Testament, which I did) led to my failure to move on to the actual show. It's just as well, I'm guessing -- my little bit on the test which asked me if I had any interesting facts/anecdotes about myself was left essentially blank. It'd probably be blank if I took the test tomorrow, come to think of it.

Why do I bring this up? Besides the whole "Audio Daily Double" pun (if it is indeed a pun, which I'm pretty sure it's not), no reason. I just never know how to open these silly things. Maybe go blog-generic and post a cute picture or something. Sure, let's do that:

This is literally the first thing that came up when I 

did a google image search for "cute picture".

Now on to the wit, insight, and humo(u)r that you've come to hope for (but never quite get).

Postcards From the Edge of Sanity: The Fish Tanks

This is the first in a multi-part series, in an effort to remind myself that my job, while 200% more tolerable than it was just a few weeks ago, is still crap.

Wish you were here (so I wouldn't have to be)!

When I was told that I would be working the pet department at my store, I was originally thrilled. Firstly, and most importantly, I wasn't going to be a cashier anymore, and somehow, I felt that the idiots would magically disappear once I was out on the wide open space of the floor; alas, that was far from the truth, and the aforementioned idiots will doubtless be the subject of several of these little postcards, but that is not the topic for tonight. Secondly, I thought that it would be fun to fiddle around with dog and cat stuff, gain some muscles by schlepping the large bags of food everywhere, and basically have an all-around good time.

That was when I met the fish tank. I hate those damned things.

This I Dig of Thee: 23 May 2010

I think that's the name of a song -- "This I Dig of Thee" -- but I can't find any mention of it anywhere on the world wide interwebs, so maybe I made it up. I couldn't have, though; it sounds way too hip to be anything I created. Hank Mobley rings a bell... oh wait, it's "This I Dig of You," not "thee." I'm an idiot. But it's a good tune -- nay, a great tune:






To the jump!

Housekeeping, and a Birthday update!

First off, a few announcements:

1) In an effort to write regularly, I'll be doing two regular bits a week -- my always-disappointing "3 Things I Dig (this week)" on Sundays (that's today!), and a new(er), more ranty feature, which is tentatively called "Vignettes From the Edge of Sanity" on Thursdays, and will predominately feature crazy stuff that happens to me personally at work. In other words: if you read this, and you happen to work with me, reading the Thursday will be a high-risk, high-reward venture, hilarious and depressing at the same time. Again, I'll try and be as consistent with this as possible (more for me than for you, trust me), and you can all feel free to yell at me if I fail in this epically simple task.

2) The other bits of this blog will be, basically, one-off rants and philosophical musings which, I'm warning you now, may not be of interest to anyone. Suggestions for rants and general comments, as always, are welcome.

26 Things I Want (but won't get) For My Birthday: 1-10

And yes, I know that I did my countdown backward in the title; it just seems so weird typing "10-1," like it's a baseball game gone wrong or a police code or something. Anyway, it's time to get on with it, I suppose, but before that, a bit of an update: #24 on my list was something I actually got as an early gift -- not only that, but I now have a grand total of elven -- 11! -- followers, including my own dear mother (hi Mom! Love you!), which is about 11 more followers than I thought I'd get. So thank you, all eleven of you, and on with the countdown.

Incidentally,  I have been informed that, in some respect, my blog titles are purveyors of false advertising, as several of the items are things that I actually could conceivably get for my birthday (see: #24), and that I'm sort of letting some people down. Well, let me promise you now that this final ten will be all completely unattainable -- at least in the next month or so. This I promise you. On we gooooooo.....!!

$160 million Picasso painting: Not on the list

26 Things I Want (but won't get) For My Birthday: 20-11

Seriously, I'm having a hard time making this list, kids. Most things I want are, conveniently, things I'll never have, but they also tend to be things that no one else but me would want, which tends to make for a difficult time, if my aim is to bring people into my world through the tubes of the internets. Still, I started, so I guess I'll trudge on.

Not on the list. Seriously.

26 Things I Want (but won't get) For My Birthday: 26-21

On May 31st, I turn 26. Twenty. Six. It seems like only last week I was celebrating my 18th at my parents' old house, surrounded by high school friends -- and indeed, only yesterday since I was playing a gig, hung over from my hell-raising 21st on the UO campus. If I start to think about what I should have accomplished by this point -- what my contemporaries are doing, with proper jobs and families and 401ks -- it'll be altogether too depressing for words, so instead of focusing on boring unattainable things, I'll be talking for the next few posts about superficially mood-lightening, nay, fun, unattainable things. Although I don't particularly want (or expect) anything for my birthday, it's still fun to make a wish-list, yeah? I like to think of it as a subtle hint to my non-existent wealthy friends -- you can decide for yourself if the wealth or the friends are non-existent.

The countdown begins, well, now. Numbers 26-20 are after the jump.

How Not To Eat: The Double Down

Ok, ok, I've bored you kids enough with biting political commentary and non-fiction books. It's time to talk about a universal topic: food.

I have a very strange relationship with food. You'd only need to take one look at me -- for those who can't see me through the internet box, I've whipped up this handy MS-Paint guide:

 -- to know that I, obviously, enjoy my foodstuffs, sometimes in mass quantities. I'm not particularly snobbish when it comes to food (because, honestly, someone who looks like me isn't going to be picky, is she?), but that comes less from my waistline and more from the massive variety of good (and bad) food in my immediate area; I know I don't talk about my hometown very often in these pages, but really, food is where a place like Eugene excels. It's all the small-time diners and food carts of the big city -- my personal favourite being "Off The Waffle," a roving cart that I can mostly find near campus -- but without all the overcrowded awfulness of, say, a New York hotdog stand. 

Tape-Delay Liveblog: UK Leaders' Debate (Round 2)

Fight! I did a running commentary of the first debate on my twitter feed (www.twitter.com/thecore28), but decided to move it over here so as not to completely bore/spam the bots and randoms who follow me. So, come with me to the magic world of SkyTV, with Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, and David Cameron -- it's on! Entries are notated by time, so if you feel particularly nerdy, you can follow along at home. I wouldn't recommend it, but you're more than welcome to.

WARNING: What follows is highly charged (with observational wit! Bam!), non-biased, foreign political commentary. I'm guessing not many of you are going to read this, but if you do decide to hit the jump, you have been warned.

What I Actually Like (for now)

Off we go once more, to the magical world of things that don't suck!

3 Things I Dig (this go-round)

Well, so much for the bit about clothes -- I really have an idea for a post about fashion, but that'll have to be put on the proverbial back-burner while I continue my pursuit of the closest thing I get to normalcy, currently in the form of a Sunday "hey-look-what-I'm-into-this-week" blurb about, well, what I'm into. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a bit late (unless you think a week is equal to about twelve days), but better late than never, right?

I'm actually getting into a lot of stuff as of late, but here's my three wonderful things this week:

Rage Against The (PS3) Machine: Madden NFL '08

'Hokay, so here's the deal:



Nah, just kidding. The real deal is this: reading back on some of my previous posts, I feel some sort of irrational need to assert the fact that, despite the fact that I'm constantly making SkyTV references, linking to the Guardian and so on, I am an American woman. American. Woman. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but it's true. I swear like an American (because Goddammit is the star-spangled curse), I definitely eat like an American, I work at friggin' Wal-Mart, and occasionally I like to ogle attractive men and get my hair done all purdy. And what's more American than Madden football?? Nothing. That's only one of three or four reasons why I decided to fire up the PS3 and play a few games in Superstar(!) mode. What happened next (with a little inspiration from here) is why I decided to fire up the rage engine and get my blog on. I do realize that this doesn't help the "woman" part of my "American Woman" argument, but my next instalment will doubtless be titled "Clothes: What are they good for, and what do they mean?"

Caution: What follows is extremely football-centric, and by football, I mean American Football(!). If you don't like football, or don't have the first clue about football, continue reading at your own peril.

3 Things I Dig (this week)

Back in the dark ages, when I had my very own MySpace page (mostly because everyone else had one and in high school I was the type to cave into peer pressure), I began this series of love/hate mini-rants in order to feel like I actually used my MySpace page. As it stands, I probably only published about four instalments, leaving the rest of my homepage barren and allowing my comment section to serve as a halfway house for migrant spammers. I've decided to reinstate the format (obviously), not only because it's an easy way out when I want to write without an actual topic in front of me, but also because I actually feel like this blog is becoming a bit of a downer -- sometimes a comic downer, granted, but altogether a bit too negative for the tastes of the literally several people who occasionally read this slop. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I don't really want to do the comically angry bit of this, considering that the rest of my blog experience is ranting like a Tea Party member after a particularly moving episode of Glenn Beck, railing against the things in life that make me want to move to Mars. So, in the interest of sanity, this I dig of thee:

Wait, haven't I seen this before?

Whenever I teach middle schoolers the wonderful art of jazz improvisation, I always start by crushing all their dreams and telling them that there is no conceivable way that anything they do will be regarded by anyone who listens as anything other than derivative crap. Saxophonists, that obnoxious yet innovative group which happens to include me as a member, have this problem in spades. Play lots of notes in key? You are officially a Charlie Parker clone (or a Cannonball Adderley clone, who is essentially a Parker clone with a darker tone and less reliance on "I've Got Rhythm" changes). Don't play so many notes, but are still willingly playing within the chord changes? Then you must have erased everything recorded after 1950 on your iPod - I'm guessing you transcribed a lot of tenor players whose day gigs consisted of getting high/drunk and playing for one of the "big four" big bands (Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, Ellington, Basie, Benny Goodman - wait, that's five. So, "big five," then), unless your tone is so whispy the audience thinks you're using tissue paper instead of a reed, in which case you might as well be Stan Getz. Play lots of notes, but aren't so keen on playing the changes as they were intended on being played? Generic saxophonist, meet John Coltrane. Sporadic notes, no changes? Ornette Coleman. Going for your own sound? You will inevitably be compared to any one of a dozen saxophonists gigging today, who were in turn directly influenced by one or more of the preceding groups. Everything's already been done before, which is sad considering that jazz has reached this conclusion barely 100 years after its inception. And some 12 year old who discovered the joys of a 12-bar blues three weeks ago is supposed to turn the heads of the editors of Downbeat? Pssshhh.

In Defence of Idiots (before I eviscerate idiocy)

I'll be the first to admit that I am not renowned for my love of the human race. Although I may begrudgingly become fond of specific members of my species, on the whole people are awful. Most writers who cling to their clichés like one of those "Baby on Board" signs that come standard with every minivan will, at this point, tell you to simply look at the news to witness, second- or third-hand, the sheer barbarism of man: in the first world, politicians and bankers are paving the road to financial success with the despondent shells that used to be their co-workers and constituents; in the less fortunate parts of the world, war and famine rage without notice or care from the haves, leaving the have-nots to sort out their own problems by their own damn selves; countries invade other countries for reasons that give hippies aneurysms just to think of it -- in short, we're pretty messed up. I get it, we're a horrible, terrible species, and if the whole world were run by puppies or squirrels or dolphins or something we'd all be a lot better off. Maybe. But that's not what I'm arguing right now. Rather than focus on the cruelties of human nature, maybe we can find a more likely cause in examining the idiocy of the average humanoid, and to witness stupidity at its finest, you need look no further than your local retail shop - in my case, the Wal-Mart where, for four or five days a week, I labor under the delusion that escape is imminent, that I can become a teacher or a writer and make enough money with a real job that I can run from the store leaving a trail of petrol and throw a lit match behind me from the safety of the parking lot. You can take that last bit literally or figuratively. Reader's choice!