Antisocial Media

Whoa...Sitting here knitting and listening to the hip-hop, I just caught Talib Kweli reference Octavia Butler and her incredible book Parable of the Sower. I'm sure it will change, but at the moment it feels like the older I get, the more I understand, like there is hidden knowledge that ties the entire universe together. Of course, the search for that type of knowledge was what drove Smeagol under the Misty Mountains, what twisted him into Gollum. I think I'm up too late.

Pardon my French, but what the fuck? Joe posted on my mysterious boom entry below with this link to the most recent local article in regards to boom: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060427-9999-1n27boom.html Personally, I bet you could catch some hella big marlin out there in Whiskey 291. Or get shot to death and turned into chum. Tax dollars at work indeed. I just came from seeing Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Dir. Michel Gondry) at The Parkway Theater with Zsolt and Julia. If you're looking for a movie that's like the total Bizzaro-World mirror image of sub-sonic-boom-producing-US-military-black-ops-classified-top-secret-bullshit, go see this film. Dave Chappelle drives around southern Ohio inviting people to a concert in Brooklyn featuring all the extra-progressive hip-hop heads you care to name. Then he has lunch at HaHa motherfuckin' Pizza. I wish to God I still had that t-shirt. That was the best t-shirt of my life. The whole experience made ...

and it's a VW Jetta commercial. Theoretically the province of hot sorority chicks and gay guys (thanks, Joe and Derek), this commercial deepened my appreciation for the humble Jetta. I was watching an inning of the Giants/Mets game before walking to school for work, and it played during a pitching change. Or the inning break, whichever. I love the way it plays with expectations and complacency. A good reminder about the reality of driving.

So I mentioned about the play-by-play going silent when Bob or Jim weren't speaking. I think it must be some kind of bandwidth-saving situation (Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about yet?), where the broadcast of the audio cuts out based on the volume level picked up by the microphone. I'm guessing this because last inning, during a bases-loaded situation, the audio stopped cutting out during the pauses. I think the ambient noise in the stadium increased due to excitement, and also probably drunkenness, and so I was treated to the full auditory experience. Bliss! This seems like the kind of thing my Dad thinks about.

Boingboing.net has picked up on the San Diego mysterious boom issue . Validation! I'm telling you, mysterious booms, huge chunks of sky-ice, the guy in the fedora across the cafe carrying three turned-on flashlights and talking to himself... Are you ready for the end times? Look to the East! Get Jesus-ed up! Or, you know, don't. By the Way, our friend Amy has moved from near campus to just up Telegraph from us! She and Josh are moved from a two-bedroom apartment to one room in a house of six. Sounds familiar. Or, vis my typo, familial. At any rate, their new digs are right by Oakland's Bushrod Park, site of the famed ice fall of a few weeks ago! We tromped around the park looking for the crater last Saturday, to no avail. It's a pretty big park, mostly a huge overgrown field. We found a few small depressions that could have been craters, but more likely were just small depressions.

I am taking a little bit of a slow morning today. I had two presentations yesterday, and I feel like I've been running on full burners the past days preparing for them. So today, I'm sitting anti-socially at the Temescal Cafe on Telegraph Ave., knitting and listening to Jim Powell and Bob Uecker calling the Braves vs. the Brewers via the computer-internet. It's turning into a beautiful day outside, but I am very happy at the moment to be sittin' and knittin' and rootin' (and a little tootin', but don't tell the other patrons). I can't listen to baseball games without thinking about my family, whether it's Brewers' games as a kid with Mom and Dad and Aunt Julie, or talking about the Indians with Cousins Andy and Marty, or watching the Twinkies with Grandma Karlson... The very definition of bittersweet. Sometimes California feels very very far away, and listening to the familiar voice of Bob Uecker, describing a perfect spring day at the P...