On Random

I don’t know—it just seems that calling yourself a hacktivist is a way of ginning up what you really are: a dick.

Dave Grohl and Gwyneth Paltrow would make a perfect couple inasmuch as I hate them equally. 

The fact that so many people misread the New York Times article about WMDs in Iraq should depress me but I’ve decided to use this as my excuse to drink more.  So thanks, conservatives. 

Chicago is beset by beetles that look like ladybugs but are, I’m told, not ladybugs.  But they very much look like ladybugs.  I’m also told that I should not kill a ladybug.  It’s bad luck or something.  So I’m not sure if I should kill the beetles I have seen at work or the ones flying toward my face while I walk to the train.  What if they are actually ladybugs?  Think of all of the bad luck I might incur.  My life could spin out of control—more so than it already has—all because of this confusion.  Well played, beetles.

TBT—not a thing anymore? 

I’m happier in my 40s than I’ve been at any other time in my life, save for age 20.  Or maybe 6.  Still, it’d be nice to be 39 again so I wouldn’t have to think so much about what I eat and how it will likely kill me. 

Jorge Luis Borges said that he was more proud of the books he’d read than the ones he’d written, a sentiment echoed by his admirer, Roberto Bolaño.  Having published no actual books, despite being the greatest living poet (not counting Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Lynch, Medbh McGuckian, Dunya Mikhail, or Anne Carson), I can also claim pride over the books I’ve read more than the ones I’ve written, though when I say it the statement is diminished, isn’t it?  So now I have a new incentive to publish a book. 

In mechanized society, there are few things more decadent than eight hours of sleep.

What’s funny is that I’ve always liked long walks on the beach, dinners at home, a quiet drink, and cuddling on the couch while watching a movie, but I like these things all the more now that I have a dog. 

If you’re on the paleo diet, why not go all the way: no clothing, no internet, no plumbing.  #commit. 

Things I’ll never understand: the cult of Bob Dylan, most of science, why people would buy canned fruit over the real stuff, how we’ve let the system get so rigged.