flyover state
Two days ago, an earthquake off the coast of Taiwan severed cables responsible for 60%+ of Asia’s Internet capacity. For the past two days, I haven’t had reliable access to any website outside Singapore.
Coincidentally, the past two days have been the most productive I’ve ever had… in my entire life. I mean, I’ve listened to “Dick in a Box” at least 35 times so far.
I was cleaning out my hard drive last night, and I found all these chat logs from my frosh years at Cal. Sniff, good times!
2003-May-02:
Me: A— says “hmm”
DL: about what?
Me: about you going home now
DL: well it’s boring here
Me: it’s more exciting at Stern?
Me: here you have all these sexy guys
Me: no sexy guys at Stern, just chubby women
2004-Feb-18:
Me: are you voting for Bush or Kerry?
AH: please
AH: why are you asking me this
AH: bush, duuuuuhhhh / i looooove bush
Me: lol… right?
AH: no
Me: what, you… bush?!
AH: oh, yeah, i meant yeah
2004-Feb-19:
RP: hey speaking of that can you send me those wierd asian songs
RP: like the shino one that roles the r’s
RP: and the other one with the dude that sounds like he has a vibrator in his ass
RP: you know
RP: there was like 3 of them
RP: who’s postal service?
Me: The Postal Service
RP: uh
Me: the lead singer is from Deathcab for Cutie
RP: who the hell is that
Me: shit R—–!
2004-Apr-05:
Me: may be 70 degrees at noon
MA: you should dl some HBK videos, the man is on fire, warm you right up
MA: i can send you some cool ones even if you want
Me: what’s hbk?
MA: damn, berkeley do this to you?
MA: you must’ve been studying too hard
Me: wait a second
Me: that’s that wrestler guy, right?
MA: THATS THE WRESTLER GUY!!!?!?!
MA: THE WRESTLER GUY!!!!!
MA: mother ku whats happened to you
MA: hes not some wrestler guy
MA: switch the uy to od on guy and you have it right
Me: Sean Michaels, right?
MA: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MA: thats like calling me M——!
MA: shawn, man like a knife through the heart
MA: dont they teach classes about shawns career up there?
2004-Apr-06:
Me: anyway, this will be an excellent opportunity for you to get some poontang
AL: poontang?
Me: yeah, you know, some rumpus
AL: eh?
Me: geez, some juicy… ah, nevermind
AL: …oh. OH. Oh my. Good heavens, no!
2004-Apr-08:
KA: Because think about it… these people are above average scholars
KA: So naturally they get bored with life easily (at the pace of everyone else)
Me: I don’t know about that argument
Me: you don’t have to be a scholar to be bored with life
KA: and naturally they synthesize an interesting situation with their lives
KA: no, of course not
Me: I mean, regular teens are hardly drama-less
KA: but I find that students who overachieve try to seek the same gratification that they get out of succeeding academically in other parts of their lives
KA: you know? they create tension to resolve it to get that feeling again
2004-Apr-30:
Me: yeah, it can be the next Ku Labs experiment
KA: I will pay you to do it.
Me: really?
KA: “Hi, I think you’re cute. Um, will you marry me?”
Me: man Kunal, you know how to sweeten the deal
KA: And just pull out a bag of plastic rings
KA: and ask them what color they want
Okay, I’m a bit late—this was news in September—but there’s more fun afoot down at ol’ Ground Zero!
“The developer of the new World Trade Center unveiled the designs this morning for three skyscrapers at ground zero, which in their gargantuan scale would reshape the New York skyline. Each building has a different renowned architect—Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, both of London, and Fumihiko Maki of Tokyo—and the result is entirely unlike the monolithic uniformity of the original trade center.” (NYT)
What the… seriously, WHAT THE FUCK is THIS? What is it about the Ground Zero site that makes everyone do their worst, most shit-tastic work? That pathetic crap makes uninspired, unintentionally ironic Freedom Tower look good.
Okay, I understand that we’re dealing with over five years of solid bureaucratic and public bullshit but still, COME THE FUCK ON. It’s like Silverstein has some kind of hard-on for Houston, like he rolled off his bed of bens one morning and said “gee, Manhattan has too much… too much character! I’m going to use my tremendous money and influence to remake it into a soulless, windswept, forgettable hellhole!”
I’m praying that these are just sketch designs that these otherwise talented architects were forced to come up with—at gunpoint, with nutcrackers intimate to their balls—at the very last minute for some inane political jerkfest. For fuck’s sake, how often does the opportunity to build a new skyscraper in Lower Manhattan come up, let alone FOUR of them? Freedom Tower is a lost cause, but it’s not too late for the other three! Norman Foster did 30 St Mary Axe, Richard Rogers did the Lloyd’s of London, and Fumihiko Maki did… uh, anyway, the potential’s there for great architecture on these really very damn expensive sites with these huge budgets. Personally, it’d be nice to move away from glass-and-steel and on to something, you know, colorful, but at the moment I’d settle for “not a lame embarrassment.”
Merry Christmas folks! Clearly non-Christmas-related cards will be on their way, say, sometime next week.
As for me, time to do pretty much nothing. It’s just not the same when you’re on a small tropical island in the Indo-Pacific.
Cripes, I really want to laugh at ___________’s jokes—you know, social lubricant—but they just aren’t funny. It’ll be stuff like “hey, you owe me $10!” and then they’re start laughing, or simple facts like “and I was _____ yesterday and the day before yesterday!”
I don’t point this out to be an ___, I’m just saying it’s plain bizarre, like something people in white lab coats should intently study. And, it’s not a total loss—sometimes ____ say genuinely funny stuff, or they do genuinely funny things. Then I laugh—a huge relief.
*Minimally censored!
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