Smiling Jack Apathy

So... anyone want some books?

I'm giving away some books, free to a good home. Or any home. Even yours.

Details here:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/isaac-thomas/hey-dave-wanna-buy-some-pegs-i-mean-hey-you-want-some-free-books/289632262716

So, I have a small blog where I wrtie abiout books I've read, pretty much to keep the blood flowing through my brain/typing fingers.

Here, I write about the book that Grant's father wrote.

http://somethingarchy.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/book-the-eighty-third/

Check it out.

My new favourite piece of lyric poetry - putting it here so I don't lose it...

(From this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ7w-z4BvMo - which I highly recommend...)

When I first got into magic, it was an underground phenomenon
Now everybody's like "pick a card, any card..."
If I shot my full load with the first hand I played
I'd be a monkey in a box hanging with the David Blaines
I'd be swimming with the sharks, mouths full of razor blades
But I'm not, I got out of that game. Escape Artist
I talk 'til I'm red in my face with strained polyps
I'll rock 'til I'm out of my range then raise octaves,

I play through the pain and remain conscious
Refraining from commenting on the lame compliments
And the petty criticisms from those who ain't accomplished
Even one-fifth of some of the shit I’ve made progress with
I'm leaving naysayers stumped like rain forests
After years of pulling rabbit ears out my pants pockets
I'm not revealing any tricks of the trade
It's just there ain't no magic in the breakdown baby

In an effort to make 'em all see what I found in my life I decided to give 'em a look
None of 'em gave it a glimpse and I guess I been sitting in the middle of an unread book
Letters are falling apart but the sentences stand on their own and the wording is permanent
Never been missed, I've just been misworded and misinterpreted, it's
Funny how serving a sentence of solitary confinement
Results in the death sentences filling my writing assignment
I'm just wondering where my time went, it pulled a disappearing act
And every single assistant I ever had got sawed in half

They  never paid attention But I can't afford to laugh
'cause I'm lookin' for my break and an autograph for my cast
but I'm short on staff so all I ask is volunteers in the crowd
show a little bit of audience participation now
When I say “hip”
You, you say “shut the fuck up we ain't sayin’ shit!”
And I'll respect it
Check it,
Got a flair for the dramatic exit
A fashionable entrance
Late to my own arraignment
The self-destructive things that I do for entertainment
My folks gave me this art, your broken heart is my pallet
While I was out honing my craft you was disowning your talent
That's why you still live at home and I bought this house off my parents
I'm getting ahead of myself

I see the hair on my back

I'm 'On The Road' reading Kerouac
It's poems versus better raps
I think to myself
What's worth remembering
Verses defending the size of my manhood or confessional canned goods?

In an effort to make 'em all see what I found in my life I decided to give 'em a look
None of 'em gave it a glimpse and I guess I been sitting in the middle of an unread book
Letters are falling apart but the sentences stand on their own and the wording is permanent
Never been missed, I've just been misworded and misinterpreted, it's...
Funny how serving a sentence of solitary confinement
Results in the death sentences filling my writing assignment
But none of this is getting told in confidence I reckon
I spin confidential records just to hold the listener's attention

I'm a veteran of spatial relationships
I clip your wings to fit you in, head-shrinking magician
Shape-shifting reptilian turned body contortionist
Orphanages started offering torches to abortion clinics
I lost acquaintances in a morgue of lady friends
I gender bent the heaven-sent angelic devil-boy. This God’s androgynous
I'm looking marvelous but looks CAN kill
And they're unsure about my sexual orientation still
Put me in a special kind of case that only breaks if
You hit it with a bouquet of flowers and baby-breath arrangement
The vault is vacant They're all looking for fault or blame
I called my agent The moment that I caught the train
I let him know I'm going nowhere, and he's invited
If he leaves tonight then he just might help me find it
But this is my burden to bear, not his
And I'm a psychic without a sidekick holding the future hostage
A loose cannon standing on the rooftop with
A new respect and understanding of bartenders and locksmiths
They call me daredevil but I'm not precise enough
Unprofessional on an amateur level, I love my life too much

Not to be too much of an attention whore, but you remember I'm still doing this

http://somethingarchy.wordpress.com/

right?

Doing a thing about books. You know, those things that I read...


http://somethingarchy.wordpress.com/

Further to the underpants thing: If the pajama-wearing person is a toddler, does that make any difference in whether he/she/it should be wearing underpants at the same time as pajamas or otherwise?

Alright, The Internet, time to settle an argument hat Alana and I are having:


When one wears pajamas to bed, would it be tradition to wear underwear underneath them, or to go, as they say, commando?

Weigh in on this, and help prove one of us right.

Go!

There seems to have been a thing on livejournal of late where people have been posting in reaction to Twitter and facebook, or posting substantive updates, and listing Twitter and facebook as the reason - essentially revolting against the short, impersonal nature of said.

Me, I like them. I'm not arguing in favor of them - the reasons people have raised for not liking them are all valid. I'm just saying: I like them.

I have this journal, which I never update, and a blog which I simailarly ignore. Twitter, though, I'm always on.  Rather than go into any more unecessary detail, I'll just copy and paste the thing I put on my poor neglected blog a week or three back, which I think explains my point of view well enough...

...

Here, have I mentioned that, like everyone else, I'm doing the Twitter thing that all the kids are into?

While at first I didn't get the point (I believe my exact words were "Wait, a place for you to upload life-updatey stuff that's even more pointless than the extant blogging technology? Why God why?" Only with more swears...) but thanks to my old Brain Stab compadre Josh - who pointed it out on his own Twitter feed - I do: "it's Livejournal for people who don't give a shit anymore."

I mean, I came home tonight with three ideas for blog posts relating humourous things that had happened at school today, but when I sat down to type them up here I realised that each of them could be summed up in fewer than 140 characters, so rather than spending a while crafting them and making them worth reading as blog entries, I could put them on Twitter and use the time and effort I saved to stare blankly into the middle distance...

So, will hop backwards and forwards between here and there, depending on whether my life can be summed up in three sentence or not. (Hint: it usually can be.)

Here, is anyone planning on going to the Keller Kinder gig on Sat? I'd rather fancy going (directly from Grif and Katherine's thingy, is the current plan) but I also don't want to be lonely.

So, anyone going?

Oh yeah, while I remember:

Go to johnnythered.com - me and a few people I know are doing a thing. We reckon it's funny. So do our mums.

Hey, who wants some free stuff?

In an attempt to free up some space, I'm looking to offload a self-standing hammock and a small tv. The hammock is a collection of tubes (much like the internet in that regard) that form a frame, and a stretchy hammocky thing to sling between it. The tv is, I dunno, small (I had it on my nightstand at the old flat) and while it needs a set of rabbit ears (the others broke in the move) it's all in working nick, as they say.

Free to a good home, or even a bad one. Basically, if you want either or both of these, all you need to do is come round to mine and get them. If there are no takers in the next few days, I'll just drop them to thre Sallies down 'road...

Lily, you have been missing something to do with Neil Young, so I give you my first experience with Young - when he performed with Peral Jam at the 1993 MTV awards. I had no idea who he was (although I figured he might have been Eddie Vedder's dad...) but I knew he was awesome.

What is also awesome is youtube - I haven't seen this clip since my video of it dissolved ten years ago...

So, about a month back, I got diabolically ill. Probably no more than a cold, but it knocked me around worse than anything I've had for a good few years.

While I got over that in a week, the next fortnight was spent trying, without success, to shake the lingering cough.

Last week, I was actually well. It was like some kind of miracle.

Today, I have a cold again.

I'm starting to think it's a conspiracy.

I demand outpourings of sympathy - I also demand voodoo rituals to make feel better - even at the expense of your own souls, and also that everyone who is not currently sick engage in a long period of rigorous self-flagellation in order that my misery might have company.

This is to begin in three... two... one...

Now!




Anyone?



Hello?



I don't hear the sound of whips hitting backs, people...!

I am online again.

I will be emailing people soon, as I feel disconnected from the world. Need to catch up on five weeks of social networking sites running without me first.

I know you don't care. Hush.

Offline for an unspecified amount of time, while I get an internet connection (or a phoneline) at the new place.

Still contactable via cellphone and email - so no excuse for not inviting me to things, you bastards - but away from various social networking nonsense.

I expect you all to miss me.







I don't hear mournful wailing!

Anyone want a bunch of videos?

Yes, videos.

I no longer have a working video machine, so the alternative is I throw them out.

(Normally, my plan would be to say "Hey, Brent, you want some videos?" but he tired to offload some on me a while back for much the same reason...)

The videos are mostly crappy sci-fi - I haven't even looked through them, so don't remember what I have, but they're free to a good home. (Or a bad home. Or that trash. Whatever...)

You know when comedy isn't funny, it's scary...?

So, I presume that, like everything on the internet, I came to this one late, and everyone already knows about this, but the internet has declared war on Scientology.

Here's another article about it.

However, for your honest-to-god living-in-the-future moment, you can't go past the video press release put out by the group (calling themselves "Anonymous"):

1) She has a job. (This may not sound like a big deal to anyone reading this, because, you know, you all have jobs, but I've lived with some fairly dire specimens of humanity recently...)

2) She cooked me dinner last night.

3) She mentioned her love of alone time, which she plans on spending not bothering people.

4) She talked about being antisocial and occasionally needing breaks from her filthy, stinking friends, which I get entirely. (Not you. You're great. My other friends. The crap ones.)

5) She's not an alcoholic, and is openly disdainful of people who are. (Yeah yeah, they have an illness and need our love and support - live with one for six months then come to me with that weak-assed shit...)

6) I mentioned she has a job, right? Because that can't be overestimated.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?:
Started a new job I actually thought I'd be good at.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?:
I don't make these - I've broken too many in the past to think it'll ever work...

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?:
Amanda.

4. Did anyone close to you die?:
Nope.

5. What countries did you visit?:
None so far, but, all going according to plan, I'll be in Australia in a few days...

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?:
A flame-thrower.

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?:
Eighteenth of May - last day of school.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?:
Destroying my old school.

9. What was your biggest failure?:
Destroying my old school.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?:
Well, I wasn't sick, but I wasn't well...

11. What was the best thing you bought?:
I have a cellphone with a camera now. I take pictures of things. Things rock.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?:
My Year 13s gave me a present that made me cry. That doesn't happen often.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?:
You. You know what you did...

14. Where did most of your money go?:
Books and DVDs. I have much stuff. I have no money. None. It's very sad.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?:
I don't do "really, really really excited".

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?:
Maybe Hosannas from the basement of Hell - the track I listened to a lot in my first few weeks at the new school (for no other reason than it was a catchy track on a CD I had just bought - keep your twisted Freudian analysis to yourself...).

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or hardened?: I don't really do "happy"...
ii. thinner or fatter?: Fatter - I like pies.
iii. richer or poorer?: I have no money. None. It's very sad.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?:
Burning.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?:
Not burning.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?:
With the parents, the girlfriend, and the girlfriend's kid.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?:
No, but the love I've been nursing for a while ended up working out pretty okay.

23. How many one-night stands?:
None.

24. What was your favorite TV program?:
Dr Who and Outrageous Fortune, which I'm pretty sure were my answers when I did this survey a year ago. Quite a damning statement on the quality of TV nowadays. Oh, and Heroes.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?:
I dunno - hate is such a strong word. "Am disgusted by..." on the other hand...

26. What was the best book you read?:
Gold by Dan Rhodes was bloody good...

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?:
Storm Large kept me amused for some time.

28. What did you want and get?:
Destruction.

29. What did you want and not get?:
A flame-thrower, dammit!

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I have seen many films this year. None stand out...

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?:
I went to the first day at my new job, and I was thirty.

32. Whats one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?:
A. God. Damn. Flame thrower!

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?:
I'm still rocking the hobo-chic, which I think was my answer last year, but if it ain't broke...

34. What kept you sane?:
All of the voices in my head telling me to calm down.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?:
Keith Olbermann. I would turn for him without a second thought.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?:
I care nowt for the pseudo-politics of this island, but America kept me angry.

37. Who did you miss?:
All of them.

38. Who was the best new person you met?:
Let's go with my new form class - they're lovely.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
Two-year-olds have fragile little joints...

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I have a couple, but they all sound unbearably pretentious - even to me - so let's just skip this one...