In too deep now to ever swim against the current...

So this is it. I just pushed several keys on my keyboard and formed this sentence. Moments after the thought went through my mind, it gradually exposed itself on my screen. You see, the last time I spewed my stream of consciousness onto the world was in September of 2008 on this very blog. Or maybe it is on a different blog. I hate the word blog and I still haven’t quite figured out where I will be posting this. Regardless, minutes ago I tried reading through that last post. I got a good paragraph and a quarter in, and then I closed it. It was written by a 19 year old me, who had already figured out the world. And in that moment, I really had. I was enjoying life and making progress, so who can say that I wasn’t doing it right. Unfortunately the world has a bittersweet tendency to change.

I guess this is the future. Twenty-twelve, the year I could hardly put together in my mind’s eye just four years ago is here. There’s nothing particularly special about this year, but when the world is zooming by every second is the future, and every second counts. Biographers can articulate a person’s life in 600 pages, using a typeface no larger than this one here. It is an incredible feat when you consider taking just a single four year slice of your existence on earth and imagine the differences between these two points in time. The shear amount of things that has changed couldn’t possibly be chronicled in even the most expansive collection of volumes.
               Writing, in general, has always intrigued me simply for the vastly different dynamic it provides from other means of communication. As I sit here and type this, I am constantly going back and correcting my words. Fine tuning them, into the perfect combination of these 26 letters, and even going so far as to alter punctuation to encourage replication the specific tonality that I have in my head. This privilege, of having the time to go back and correct every aspect of your message, is not always afforded to us when speaking. Being able to hone in on what makes your sentence sound exactly the way you want it to can open a world of possibilities. In fact, although some of you already know me as this person, many others’ perceptions of me might be changing as they read these lines. Granted, it’s probably not for the better (I get it, I'd probably laugh at me too), but the point is that it works. It works, and I enjoy using it to my advantage in life, in business, and for entertainment (mine or yours).

Why don’t I write more? It’s mostly because I tend to harbor the “try everything once” mentality, and once I’ve completed a task there seems to be little reason to revisit. But what does that have to do with why I don’t write more? Because I’ve previously stuck mostly to blogging, (both here and on a few others, which are likely not known by anyone reading) and blogging means individual posts which are a job done and completed once they are over. Still, it seems like some of you actually liked those posts from back in the day. I wrote about Brighton, procrastination, touring around the country for work, and all the other awesome things that had entered my life back then. There’s a sense of closure at the end of each post (except for that Brighton one, which never did get its long-promised part 2) and, since there is nothing to “finish”, there’s little pressure to write more. The next step seems clear: a book. But even in my twisted, but pleasant, egotistical universe there isn’t even the slightest part of me which thinks that I have had enough exposure to the world, or tucked away enough experiences in my Facebook albums, to ever write a book about my life’s observations that would be worth reading. That doesn’t mean I can’t start. Seems logical enough that I will eventually lose the experiences I do have, much like I’ve already lost countless others, to the passage of time. Likewise, it seems plenty logical to start writing them down now, in the hopes that I will one day have enough to share with the world in a rich smelling, leather-bound, mahogany perfumed (for class) set of processed trees. I’m already practicing my autograph.

What Happened?

Look up. Up there under my giant Prada sunglassed face. See what it says? It says that this blog is updated when I feel like it. Well I feel like it now. I’ve felt like it before, but somehow the last time I got around to doing it was April 5^th 2008 and even that was just a lame ploy to attract visitors. It worked. Kind of. But then I gave up. I’ve said it many times before: I’m not the type to be consistent with things like this. I refuse to spend time looking for actual content and so if I don’t have anything to write about, I just don’t write. Here’s the thing: when life is exciting and I do have things to write about, I don’t have the time to write about them. Point is, don’t expect anything from me. Don’t expect me to write anything interesting, and most importantly, don’t even begin to expect me to be consistent.

If you’re sitting and giggling about how lame it is that I’m apologizing, you are very well justified. I am well aware that there is no more than one person reading this at any given moment in time, or in any given month for that matter. I write like this so that when I can look back on my life’s accomplishments I can fool myself into thinking that I had actual followers. Don’t smirk. You know you do it too. We all do it.  We are all guilty of distorting the past.  You drive by your elementary school and picture yourself walking out. You smile at the pleasant memory of a simpler time. What you don’t remember is how much you cried going in. You don’t remember how stressed out you were that you failed your spelling test and your parents were going to yell at you. You don’t remember these things because it serves no purpose to remember them. Warm pleasant events always get in the way of reality. We all have a pink filter in our brains which blocks out the things we don’t need to remember and pushed forward the things we do. This isn’t just true for childhood. Talk to anyone about the 90s. Most people will tell you it was an amazing time and they miss the decade. Really? Do you? Was it not just like any other time? Were there not genocides, terrorist attacks, a missile crisis? Was your family not just a bunch of dirt poor immigrants struggling to make their way in a backwards country where the only streets that are paved with gold are the ones lining the sidewalks of the very people that were exploiting you? Here’s the thing: nobody needs to hear that. Nobody wants to reminisce about how they shared a bathroom with 6 people or how they spent their first month in America living on their uncle’s couch. Nobody wants to hear these things unless they just a quick introduction to a story that ends with success and caviar. My point is this: stop looking for a point. Live your damn life, take in as much of it as you can, and do what you feel is right. In the end, when you’re sitting on a couch feeling the warm tea slip between your false teeth, you will always pick out the pleasantries of life and all the drama you have in your life right now will have magically seeped away.  You know this is true. You’ve even thought about this very fact yourself at one point in time. Sometimes there just needs to be someone to remind you. Of course I’ve chosen this role upon myself.

Wait, this isn't what the blog was supposed to be about. What the fuck just happened? So much for being entertaining.

Come to think of it, I have no idea what I was going to write about when I started today but, at this point, any words I get down are better then what I’ve been doing the past six months.

So now, after a long hiatus, I am back and once again ready to break the rules of grammar, invent words, offend people, and most importantly, entertain Esther.

Yes, I’m not naive. I am well aware you are the only one that reads this Estya. Enjoy.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. Just live your life. The alternative isn't all that more exciting.

Sweet dreams kids.

PS. Don't you dare comment on the image instead of the blog itself. =]

A new year means new bills and a new date to put on checks...

I just received the 19th txt message of the day wishing me happy new year. Sure, its sweet, until you realize it was a mass txt which is almost as touching as the penis enlargement pill emails in my spam box. Why is this even a trend? What compels you to congratulate everyone on the fact that they were able to successfully count off another 365 days and file them away as memories? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy celebrating things, I'm not trying to be negative, and I suppose successfully hurling through the solar system without smashing into the sun another year is indeed something worth celebrating, but why spam about it? What about the people that pay for individual txt messages? Why must they pay for your novel stupidity and the fact that you realized your Razr has the ability to send a txt message to more then one person at a time? Whats worse is that you taught your mother to send txts and I now received one from her this morning as well. I've sent and received random txts int he past too, and they were nice and sweet, but this New Years txting thing is just pointless. Just stop. Your txt messages are NOT inspirational, they are NOT cute, they are NOT touching, they are NOT original, and most impotently they are NOT worth neither the 10 cents it cost me to receive them or the 10 seconds it takes me to read them.

JUST STOP!

Sweet dreams kids.

PS. New York, your not helping with this.

This is whats wrong with the world...

I used to watch the morning news on Channel 11 all through high school when I would actually be awake that early. If you live in New York you may have seen, and possibly drooled over, the traffic girl Jill Nicolini. Even wearing the headset in the helicopter she always looked good. But that's not what we watch the news for right? We watch it because they tell us what we needed to know, like whether or not to take an umbrella, how long we'll be in traffic, and who our tax dollars are being used to bomb today. Well its been a few years since I've woken up early enough, and had the time to, catch the morning news and apparently that is not the only thing that's changed in the world. We've all watched morning shows, and I've appeared live on a few of them around the country for work, so I know they are not the most formal of news programs but these days not only does godawful music penetrate the speakers everywhere you turn, but today I'm looking through Digg like I always do and I find this gem of a video (keep watching, what you need to see is about halfway in):





So after watching the video I check the comments on Digg, like you do, and after siffting through comments from old perverts living with thier mothers having nothing good to say, I found comments from old perverst living with thier mothers who have links to Jill Nicolini's playboy pictures from before she became a new anchor. I won't post a direct link here, but if you want to google it, she did them under the name Jill Nikki.

What I'm trying to say is: even if our president doesn't inadvertently nuke us off the face of the Earth, we're still all going to hell. So in the words of my hero Tucker Max: "I hope they serve beer in hell."

Sweet dreams kids.

Update

FINALS ARE OVER!

I'll take the rest of this week off because I have work in Tribeca Saturday and in Long Island Sunday, but I promise I'll be back on Monday with bigger and better things. Expect more rants. A big picture post. And all that fun stuff throughout the next week.

Sweet dreams kids.

Snow may glow, but blow makes things flow.

The weather in NYC isn't very appealing and its that time of year again. The time when my theory on procrastination is comes to a screeching halt. Finals.

Here is my schedule of finals:
Mon. Dec. 17 -
10:00AM - English Lit.
3:30PM - Sociology
Wed. Dec. 19 -
3:30PM - Computer Information Systems
Thu. Dec 20 -
10:30AM - Microeconomics

Normally this wouldn't be bad at all, but this year, as an added bonus, I have to work 4 shows on Saturday and Sunday. English Lit. and Sociology are, without a doubt, my two hardest finals this semester and I won't even have the weekend to study for them. Add to that the fact that I already blew through my first day off (today) doing absolutely nothing, and intend on spending most of tomorrow finding somewhere to go to escape my housekeeper who likes to play 20 questions every time she comes over. Clearly Sunday night is shaping up to be an all-nighter. But what are you gonna do, its not like I go to college to be organized or do things smart. That would be too easy.

Hopefully the weekend at work won't be hard though. Last week was hectic. We had two photo shoots in one day in between two shows, and some guy from the Daily Show (no, not John Stewart) was apparently in the audience.

Yesterday someone told me they would be using one of my posts for an essay for one of their classes. Your plagiarizing off me? Really? Take as much offense as you want, but you have got to be so utterly dumb to copy my work that your child will grow up like this girl.

I'm hungry, and I lost my train of thought. If I come up with anything else I'll update. Till then...

Sweet dreams kids.

"I am an asshole but, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way. I share my adventures with the world." - Tucker Max

I just wrote a 5 page essay which I titled "A Future of Certain Melancholy" on how Salman Rushdie mocks the present and foreshadows the future in "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers". Exciting, I know. Non the less, the writing of this particular essay took so much out of me that I no longer feel able to write the blog entry I was so set on writing tonight. I was going to, instead, post a copy of my essay, but then I figured I'd rather not go through the process of explaining that it is my blog when my professor finds an exact copy of the paper I handed in on the internet with her god-forsaken plagiarism prevention tools. I never understood why plagerism is such a big problem. I mean, if somebody already wrote it, most likely better then me, then why should I bother writing something that has already been written? Its like re-inventing the wheel just to show that I can do it, pointless. But then again, that might just be the part of me talking that doesn't enjoy sitting for 4 hours in front of my laptop typing, editing, and revising.

What I'm trying to say is: you won't be getting anything interesting out of me tonight. So instead I'll give you homework. Yea, I give homework now. Its amazing what you could do with a little photoshoped header and a free acount from blogspot. So here is what you have to do:

Go to TuckerMax.com and read the few stories he has posted up on the website. Then come back soon when I'll have my review of his book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" up. Finally, comment away, buy the book, and do cocaine. Just cause you can.

Sweet dreams kids.

P.S. If I didn't think Bud Light was one of the worse beers on the face of the earth this would be an absolutely perfect paragraph:
--------
"Today we salute you stressed out college student during exam week. As you sit in your lonely cubical in the library, doped up on Starbucks & Adderall, you think to yourself, am I ever going to need to know this stuff in life? The distractions are tempting and you have suddenly diagnosed yourself with ADD along with advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage, I'm sure by now you know exactly what everyone is doing because you have checked your buddy list 800 times. Christmas is just days away, and your prozac prescription will be in tomorrow. So crack open an ice cold bud light after that last exam, because for most of us, the winter break will be spent in rehab."
---------
Stolen from Jackie's away message, but she probably stole it from someone else too, so its all good.

Part I: Ruskiy Narod, Eto Ruskaya Brigada

Brighton Beach. I grew up spending more time there then in my own neighborhood. You have probably, at the very least, heard of it and in some way, shape, or form link it to the Russian Mafia.

Years ago my dad described Brighton as a chunk of Soviet Russia frozen in 1982 and dropped on to South Brooklyn. Fifteen, maybe ten, years ago that was very much the case. Brighton was thriving more than ever and just unpleasant enough to be romantic. It's hard for anyone outside the community to understand what can be romantic about a fat woman named Fanya, with a slight hint of a mustache, pushing you out of the way to reach for a $2.99 box of Ferrero Rocher knockoffs at Zolotoy Kluchik. The romanticism is even harder to fathom when you consider that Fanya, who violently pushed you out of the way, isn't just a bitchy customer trying to skip in line, she's the cashier, and quite possibly the owner of the very store you're in. Customer service? Try a different neighborhood, that's not how we work around here. Vulgarness, lack of service, and even dirt on the streets were all somehow, almost magically and most definitely nostalgically, charming. Much like you were guaranteed no service (in the modern American sense of the word) in a Russian store, it was also inevitable that among the pushing, the shoving, and the cornucopia of Russian curses circa 1982, you would run into your friend Igor, your Cousin Alex, or your Uncle Borya, who would then join you for a walk on the Boardwalk, bag of sunflower seeds in hand. And what walk on the Boardwalk would be complete without dinner at Tatyana or Volna to conclude the night, and of course provide an excuse for downing a 1.75L of Smirnoff among 3 people.

The 90's were a magical time in America, and Brighton was no different. It was a time of prosperity and a time of unity. Russians from all over the world would flock to Brighton Beach to have dinner and a show at National, Arbat, Primorski, or Odessa. Men in leather jackets and women in fur coats from Le Monti could be seen exiting anything from a 1986 Oldsmobile to a brand new S600 Benz and entering the same restaurant to enjoy caviar, escargot, and just about any other delicacy most people in America only dream of. It was all there, it was all plentiful, and it was all accessible. Brighton bought people together. One restaurant would have the Sisters Rose singing, or Mikhail Shufutinski down the block, Luba Uspenskaya across the street, and Gulko two blocks down. It was like the Vegas of Russian New York, local celebrities were known internationally, and you could smoke right under a no-smoking sign and still be handed an ashtray. Designer Italian brands, leather, and fur were the norm, and it was not unusual to see people wearing them while paying for their bread and milk with food stamps. Behind the stores, in the park by the Boardwalk, you could find tables occupied by old men gambling their food stamps away playing dominoes. (My own grandfather being one of them)

Being an American lost on Brighton was an unpleasant experience to say the least. Russian signs permeated every inch of the highly valued land under the above-ground subway and Russian, not English, was the default language. In this little part of America, knowing English did you no good. Knowing English on Brighton was as worthless as knowing Japanese in Ireland, it just wouldn't buy you a pelmeni. Many people, who had spent 20 years living on Brighton, still couldn't speak a word of English. Many still can't because they never needed too. The 90's was a time when the Russian community took care of its own in their own language. Everyone wanted to empower Brighton almost as much as they wanted to make money for themselves, and the only way to do that was to empower its people. Somewhere along the line, however, the desire to make money won out the battle, and Brighton Beach began its slow decline.

Today, the Brighton of the 90s is a lingering nostalgic thought memorialized in the Brighton that is today. You can still find the vulgarity, lack of service, and even the occasional fur coat on Brighton, but the inspired young businessmen which used to fill its streets have since moved on to newer BMWs, Lexus SUVs, and in many cases Bentleys. With the new cars came the new houses. Some relocated to Jersey, some to Staten Island, and many to new luxury condos, much like my own, all over Brooklyn. Brighton has gone from the place to thrive, to the place to go when you need homemade Russian food without having to cook. The restaurants are still there, and the show still goes on, but it is no longer the celebrity-making congregation it once was. Those who made their money have found new, more exciting, and decidedly more expensive alternatives to Brighton's, now tacky, array of identical restaurants. These people only go back for the nostalgia of sitting at a lavishly plated table with 100 of your family and friends watching the girls dancing to the same 90's music blaring through the speakers ten years later. Neither the streets of Brighton, nor the wooden panels of the boardwalk are filled with young entrepreneurial Russians in furs and minks looking for a good time, but are rather filled with elderly women going for a stroll with their home attendants or buying potatoes while their husbands wait in line outside the store to be served perogi by the same fat, mustached, woman who's attitude towards her customers has never changed. With the exception of a few choice boutiques, which cater to the "Novie Ruskiye" tourist crowd of Russian millionaires, and the local millionaires who still visit Brighton to buy a new watch or pair of glasses, most stores are filled with the elderly who simply prefer a Russian voice when shopping, even if that voice is as condescending as a prison guard at Rikers.

To be continued….

Its my birthday and I'll blog if I want to.

Yesterday, December 3rd, was my birthday so you didn't get a post. I just have too much going on and need these days to myself. Expect a long one tomorrow for sure since there is quite a bit building up that needs to be excreted upon your innocent minds.

Until then I'd like to corrupt your minds a little more by ruining "Hey There Delilah" for you. You know the song, its been overplayed worse then "Where'd You Go". I'll admit, its not a bad song, sweet even, until you listen to it again and realize its the stalker anthem of the year. Yes kids if aren't an over-obsessive freak that does research on your music and thus haven't already heard,Tom Higgenson of the Plain White T's is a stalker. Read for yourself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_There_Delilah#Inspiration_and_composition
and when your done with that check out the other 9 Worst Hit Songs of 2007. Make sure you read the descriptions for each one.

Super Theory of Super Everything

Click to Enlarge

Procrastination. You do it. I'm doing it right now. This has been written about before, but these are my 2 cents. We are all constantly procrastinating. If its not homework or studying or buying holiday presents then its something more philosophical like death. Think about it, the human death rate is 100%, your going to die, so whats to stop you from doing it right now? (perhaps putting M1KEYGOD.ru in the suicide note) Your a procrastinator, a lazy procrastinator. You could be dead, but your putting it off. So why would you put off something so terrible instead of just getting it over with? Because your no ordinary procrastinator, your an efficient one. Quite simply, staying alive is efficient. You get more done when your alive as opposed to buried 6 bellow and mingling with Anna Nicole Smith. The trick here is to extend this efficient procrastination habit into your daily life. If your going to stay alive anyway, might as well make something of yourself.

Efficient procrastination begins with knowing what you like to do. This shouldn't be a problem since you probably already know, even if its contentiously, what you'd rather be doing instead of the work you have. Your probably reading this post because you don't feel like getting back to that paper on the Kafka story you read. I don't blame you, I have one just like it due in 2 weeks. But eventually you will have an even longer and more boring paper on something like Organic Chem. So the key here is to due your Kafka paper as an attempt to procrastinate doing your Organic Chem paper. Make a resume to procrastinate the Organic Chem paper, and do the Organic Chem paper to procrastinate paying your dear old Grandma Rosa a visit and having to look at her while imaging what she looks like chewing on bread without her dentures. (thats how bread pudding is made you know, with factories of old people) Ok, so maybe you should go see Grandma Rosa, for all you know she might decide to finally stop procrastinating and drop dead. The point is, if you procrastinate selectively and thus efficiently, you'll find yourself getting much more done then you used too.

This method isn't for everyone. Some people don't have the mental capacity to plan and organize. Those people usually follow my second, and arguably more efficient, idea: cocaine. Do a bump and by the time you start crashing all your work will be done and with more philosophical insite then you knew you had.

Sweet dreams kids.

Can You Hear?

Because not everything can be typed:

Do someting. www.stopglobalwarming.org

"In this world, time has three dimensions, like space."

It dawned on me about 30 seconds ago that in my post of top fives I neglected to make a list of my top books. I realized this only because I was going to recommend you read "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges. Its a short story I had to read for my English Lit. class, and if you know me, I'm the last person to enjoy, much less recommend, any book or story that gets assigned to me in class. There is something about this one though. Maybe its because its such a mindfuck, and anyone who knows me well, knows that I get a kick out of anything that will leave me questioning. My professor said today, in class, that this is a story that needs come with a joint to smoke before reading it. First though: "How amazing would it be to get high with a professor?" Especially with my English Lit. prof. who doesn't look half bad and has the whole hippie thing going for her. I also had a recollection of the time upstate when I spent 30 minutes trying to get through a stanza in a Yeats poem without cracking up, but thats a different story in and of itself. So this Garden of Forking Paths thing is the kind that needs to be read at least twice, maybe more, and interpreted. Its not a lay back and enjoy read, its an involved one.

If you get into it or even if you don't, I'd still like to recommend, what is hands down my favorite book of all time, "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman. I don't feel the need to buy many books after reading them, but I had Einstein's Dreams on order from Amazon before I even got past page 10 in the library copy. My high school photography professor once handed us an excerpt, about time being a series of images, from Einstein's Dreams. He said he hard recently begun reading it and recommended it to all of us. Normally a teachers recommendation means as much to me as my grandmother saying her friend's granddaughter is "tall and gorgeous". Tall and gorgeous most likely = freak who needs her grandmother to set her up on a date. Not happening. This, however, was a teacher I trusted. You know how you get this one teacher who is in touch with the world that exists post 1970s, which is coincidently the last decade most teachers stepped outside their home to go anywhere other then work. My high school was full of them, they were mostly ex-hippies, and some were still living the dream. This teacher wasn't a hippie, but he was part of the original punk movement. Apparently those punk kids often grow up to be normal functioning human beings if they don't slit their wrists before the age of 20, who knew. What I'm trying to say is that he was a great person who's opinion I could trust. So I listened to him, and he influenced me. He was the main reason why I still wake up at 4am on summer mornings to out with my camera looking for new images to capture, he is the reason I have blue holiday lights hanging in my room, he is the reason I have photo's I've taken hanging in my room, he is the reason I cary around a Moleskin notebook everywhere I go, and he is the reason I have read Einstein's Dreams at least 14 times. The book is essentially a collection of theories on time and space dumbed down and aestheticized to turn them into awe inspiring vignettes. Its impossible to explain without providing an excerpt. So read this for yourself, go buy it, read the whole thing, then get blazed and read the Borges story.

------------------------------------

19 April 1905

It is a cold morning in November and the first snow has fallen. A man in a long leather coat stands on his fourth-floor balcony on Kramgasse overlooking the Zähringer Fountain and the white street below. To the east, he can see the fragile steeple of St. Vincent's Cathedral, to the west, the curved roof of the Zytgloggeturm. But the man is not looking east or west. He is staring down at a tiny red hat left in the snow below, and he is thinking. Should he go to the woman's house in Fribourg? His hands grip the metal balustrade, let go, grip again. Should he visit her? Should he visit her?

He decides not to see her again. She is manipulative and judgmental, and she could make his life miserable. Perhaps she would not be interested in him anyway. So he decides not to see her again. Instead, he keeps to the company of men. He works hard at the pharmaceutical, where he hardly notices the female assistant manager. He goes to the brasserie on Kochergasse in the evenings with his friends and drinks beer, he learns to make fondue. Then, in three years, he meets another woman in a clothing shop in Neuchâtel. She is nice. She makes love to him very very slowly, over a period of months. After a year, she comes to live with him in Berne. They live quietly, take walks together along the Aare, are companions to each other, grow old and contented.

In the second world, the man in the long leather coat decides that he must see the Fribourg woman again. He hardly knows her, she could be manipulative, and her movements hint at volatility, but that way her face softens when she smiles, that laugh, that clever use of words. Yes, he must see her again. He goes to her house in Fribourg, sits on the couch with her, within moments feels his heart pounding, grows weak at the sight of the white of her arms. They make love, loudly and with passion. She persuades him to move to Fribourg. He leaves his job in Berne and begins work at the Fribourg Post Bureau. He burns with his love for her. Every day he comes home at noon. They eat, they make love, they argue, she complains that she needs more money, he pleads with her, she throws pots at him, they make love again, he returns to the Post Bureau. She threatens to leave him, but she does not leave him. He lives for her, and he is happy with his anguish.

In the third world, he also decides that he must see her again. He hardly knows her, she could be manipulative, and her movements hint at volatility, but that smile, that laugh, that clever use of words. Yes, he must see her again. He goes to her house in Fribourg, meets her at the door, has tea with her at her kitchen table. They talk of her work at the library, his job at the pharmaceutical. After an hour, she says that she must leave to help a friend, she says goodbye to him, they shake hands. He travels the thirty kilometers back to Berne, feels empty during the train ride home, goes to his fourth-floor apartment on Kramgasse, stands on the balcony and stares down at the tiny red hat left in the snow.

These three chains of events all indeed happen, simultaneously. For in this world, time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures. Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real. At every point of decision, whether to visit a woman in Fribourg or to buy a new coat, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people but with different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.

Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
---------------------------------------------------------------
(Excerpted from "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman | Vintage Publishing November 2004)

And of course the usual reminder that my birthday is indeed coming up soon and you should make all my dreams come true. Its true you know: [We are the dream, You the dreamer]



Sweet dreams kids

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

So today, after my economics test, my father picked me up and we sped down to Federal Plaza for my citizenship certificate interview. It went better then I expected, but what a fucking joke. Let me start out by saying, Federal Plaza is not a place I want to be wasting valuable Tuesday afternoon sunshine after I just sped through a test. (which I aced, of course) We get there, after spending $255 in application fees plus another $18 for passport pictures (which is a story I'll get to in a second), only to drop another $35 for parking. $35 for you to drive a car 5 feet and turn off the ignition? Really? This is the business to be in. Think about it, NYC parking lots probably pay the same amount for the land (if not less since they are usually underground) as say a Duane Reade, yet how many people walk in to a Duane Reade and spend $35? Some people don't buy a thing. Yet you have to order merchandise, stock shelves, clean, hire cashiers, and god knows what else. Now if you take the money you save doing front-end stuff and invest it in expanding your space and opening a garage you could be getting a guaranteed $35 per customer for holding on to their car while they wait for 2 hours to have a man with a rubber stamp who speaks worse English than them to decide if they are fit to be a US Citizen. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but kill me now and spare both of us this recollection. But before I continue I feel I should say that yes, I am well aware my garage business plan doesn't take into consideration a million and one things and might ultimately be flawed, but all I'm doing is proving a point and I don't need your nitpicky nose leaving comments just to point out that I'm wrong. Chances are I'm better then you are anyway, get over it.
Walking into 25 Federal Plaza felt like "Spybreak!" should be playing because it was something straight out of the Matrix lobby scene. Your greeted by an armed security guard talking about his girlfriend leaving him on his cell phone while trying to tell you to put your stuff in the x-ray machine. Already I wished I had a trench coat with an arsenal of automatic weapons strapped on my body which I could present to the security guard after the metal detector beeps just to watch his jaw fly open and the phone fly from his hand. Your guarding the fucking building with both Homeland Security and FBI offices inside it, put down the fucking phone and do your job before we all get blown up. He did manage to take my mom's nail file from her purse, which she was clearly going to use to file away at the immigration officer if he didn't give me my certificate. Why wouldn't she? Imagine that headline: [Angry Woman Uses Nail File on Federal Employee: Immigration Reform Imminent]. I'd buy that paper. Once we get upstairs we're greeted by another rent-a-cop. It seems they hired this one straight from the immigrant line. I've never heard a more confusing accent in my life. I think it was African, but thats only based on the fact that he was Black and had a flat nose. Eventually we figured out that he was trying to tell us to turn off our cell phones. Apparently if my mom's nail file plan fails her cell phone is just as dangerous. Just ask Naomi Campbell's hair stylist to tell you how dangerous a cell phone can be. We arrived at 12:10pm for my 12:00pm interview. The room was already packed, because according to the guy sitting next to us apparently we're the only ones with enough balls to show up late to something as important as a citizenship interview. I'm sorry if I don't enjoy wasting my time on something so pointless and redundant as an in person interview for a certificate which I am already legally entitled too. Don't get me wrong, I love and appreciate this wonderful country of ours, but I just don't approve of the way they get things done or its current position in the world.
After a 90 minute wait we are finally escorted to a nicely appointed office where we are told to raise our right hands. "Do you swear to tell the truth... bla bla bla bla ignore me here because there's no reason for you to give me any other answer then I do...so help you God" It took all my might to hold back from screaming out "I AM GOD". And weren't they supposed to get rid of the whole God thing from government? I don't have a problem with it, I mean I'd still say "I do" whether it was God, Satan, or Harry Potter "so helping" me if I lied, but I just think they could get a little more creative. Around this time I realized that the immigration officer has a greater accent then either of my parents. I wonder why the don't just outsource the entire naturalization process to India and save the taxpayers some money. The interview itself was more like him asking me questions to which he already knew the answers and the spending the remaining 1o minutes flirting with my mom after he saw her divorce certificate. I hope you trip, land headfirst onto a flagpole, and lay there penetrated with the American flag waving over your head while Bruce Willis stands over you singing The Star Spangled Banner. Yippie Ka Yay mother fucker. After another 30 minutes of waiting I finally got my citizenship certificate. Image that, almost $300 and 3 hours later, me, an 18 year old who's been in the country legally for over 14 years, as a citizen for the past 7, and speaks better English then everyone working at the immigration office, finally got a piece of paper confirming what I already knew, that I'm a citizen of this here US of A. God Bless America.

-------------------------------

I'm too lazy to go through my birthday wish list like I promised I would, so instead I'll just give the top 5 things I want you to get me:

1. "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" by Tucker Max (Which is a MUST READ if you find yourself laughing at my crude humor)
2. Cannon EOS 30D or any Digital SLR for that matter
3. XBOX 360 because COD4 on XBOX Live = LIFE
4. Brigada DVD Set
5. Sennheiser HD-595 Headphones

and for the few of you that need me too look good: Norelco Bodygroom. It could be your gift to both me and you. ;)

Get on it:

Sweet dreams kids.

Edit: I almost forgot about the passport picture story. I spent $12 on pictures when I sent in the application because they want THREE pictures even though the pictures are sold in pairs of TWO. So fine, I buy 4 pictures, pay $12 and keep one for myself. 4 months later I get the interview letter telling me I need to bring 2 new pictures. Vat Ze Fak? How much can a person have changed that you need new pictures 4 months later. And what the fuck do you need FIVE pictures of me for anyways? Do you give them to gay soldiers in Iraq so they have something to jerk off too when they are on their 3rd tour of duty? Long story short he hand's be back the three pictures I sent in and says they only need the two new ones. And then they wonder why so many immigrants are poor.

The Idle Age

Just now, I selected an entire paragraph and deleted it because I thought it didn't sound like me. After sitting through years of high school and college writing classes, and being taught the bullshit structure and organization that was all but abandoned with the post-modern era, its hard to just sit down and write whats on my mind. I can do it in conversation, I can even do it in IMs, so why is it so hard to make a fucking blog post that has my flare and personality in it? People tell me some of my posts are funny and thats nice, but if you kids had any idea what actually went on inside my head you'd be pissing your pants like a 3 year-old baby who's crack whore mom let her suck on the nipple a little to long. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but fuck it, I'm done making sense and I'm done sucking on the saggy nipples of outdated writing techniques fed to me by old fashioned professors who are too out of touch with 2007 to know that writing with style does not necessarily mean writing like its 1906. I just pictured one of my professors thrusting her nipple in my face. I'd slit my wrists if I wasn't so curious about what life has in store for me.

I was originally going to write about About a Boy which I saw last night. If you don't know by now, I live for quotes. They permeate my away messages, my Facebook status, my conversations, and my writing. But much like my writing style, I generally care as much about old outdated and over-cliched quotes as that same crack whore of a mother cares what will happen when her baby grows up and finds this article about how her mommy did lines of coke off her 18-week-old stomach while giving a trick head. Then again, who knows, maybe snorting coke off babies will be the next big thing, sort of like eating sushi off naked women. Why not? But back on the topic of quotes, what I'm interested in is the new stuff. The kind of stuff you pause Entourage or Californication for, just to make sure you write down the line. By the way, if you haven't already seen every episode of both shows, close this window, your banned from this blog, and I hope you have to watch your daughter do crack off an aborted fetus at the age of 13. Dark humor and vulgarity makes for good television, and for even better quotes. Its the wittiness, the truthfulness, and the cynicism that attracts me. (I just spent a good 2 minutes looking for the proper spelling of Cynicism. Though you should know) Take this line from About a Boy, said by Will when he's asked to be the Godfather of a soon to be born baby girl: "I'd be the worst possible Godfather. I'd probably drop her on her head at her christening. I'd forget all her birthdays until she was 18. Then I'd take her out and get her drunk. And, let's face it, quite possibly try and shag her." Granted this line is not characteristic of the movie any more then Britney's current public image is characteristic of her first album, but its still just too good to pass up.

The thing with interpreting quotes from British movies like About a Boy is that sometimes the accent throws you off. (For the record, British accents on girls = SEX, British accents on guys = long hot pink hooker nails on a chalkboard in a classroom they'll never be in unless its a schoolgirl/teacher porn shoot) Watching About a Boy, I became hooked on a monologue about what I thought was "the idle age". It turned out to be "the island age" which for all intents and purposes is essentially the same, but I like my idea better. (This was my first time using the phrase "intents and purposes" since I learned 3 weeks ago that it is not "intensive purposes"; the education of American kids really is going downhill, much like the stock market which plummeted again today. But thats for another post) I immediately began to think about the idea of an "idle age". It seems to me that for the moment, things are just... well... idle. I don't have too many complaints about life, but there's nothing supper exciting happening like there used to be. Every day was once an adventure, now its an attempt to create or grasp at adventure. Not that I'm complaining, I much rather be content then miserable, but some excitement would be nice. A Kylie in the backseat of my Accord at 4am with the alarm accidentally going off and old people waking up perhaps, or stealing an Esther to run away upstate with, or maybe even a trip to Kiev. It seems as if the smallest things bought so much excitement in the past, and now everything has either mellowed out, or I've just become jaded. Regardless, all that means is that we have to do things harder, faster, and stronger then ever before.

So my birthday is in exactly a week. Monday, December 3rd. I used to know exactly what I wanted for months in advance and have lists ready and memorized. These days its not so easy. I have everything I've always wanted as a child and just about everything I need now. In fact, I was just talking to Mia the other day about how we both enjoy chilling with spoiled kids who have more then we do, and I realized that I now have more then the kids I thought were spoiled back then ever had. Of course there's always room for more, but all I'm saying is that I'm content.

But that didn't stop me from making a wish list anyways. Why would it? I like stuff. Stuff is nice. Buy me stuff. Make sure you sort it by Priority, and I'll give a detailed description of what I want most in tomorrow's post.


Holy fuck its pouring out there right now. The rain is smashing against my skylight like I wish you were smashing against a 150 mph bullet train. What I'm trying to say is: but me a birthday gift of kill yourself. Put a link to the blog in the suicide letter.

Sweet dreams kids


Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money.

Happy Friday kids.

Please excuse my last post. It was made for Digg. Don't ask. Obviously I'm not pissed about tits on my Facebook. I wouldn't be pissed about tits if they showed up in an episode of Bob the Builder. Tits are awesome.

Now let me tell you about a holiday we call Thanksgiving. It is the day the Pilgrims sat down for dinner with the Indians. Then they raped them. Welcome to America. It is also a day where the whole country seems to forget its in the middle of what they call an "epidemic", and suddenly everyone supports obesity, including Russians. Since when do us Russians buy into American holidays? It only hit me this year that every Russian family I know is completely into Thanksgiving. I guess why wouldn't we, its a reason to take out the bottle. So lets see, your expected to overeat one day and go back to 100 Calorie Packs of nothingness and Diet everything the next. Or maybe you could lose the weight by trampling over people slightly more obese then you, Best Buy circular in hand, at 5am on Black Friday morning trying to score that HDTV you've been eying for $800, all but forgetting that your 3 months behind on the mortgage for your now devalued home, your 401k has tanked along with the market, you just lost $400 in online poker, and your job will probably be shipped off to India tomorrow.

So lets assess the situation:

1. Your getting fatter, but your TV is getting skinnier so you can still fit in the same room.
2. The room itself is worth 5 times less today then it was 4 years ago.
3. Channel No. 5 will soon be cheaper per gallon then gasoline.
4. A man named Arjun Gupta is going to be doing your job for 1/5th the pay tomorrow.
5. The Brits are taking over Woodbury and FAO Shwartz because 1 Pound can now get you 2 Dollars. Foreign buyers are even getting special private shopping times because they account for 1/3 of total sales at FAO.
   
6. Iraq... well you already know about Iraq.
7. Hillary Clinton had a lesbian affair with her Muslim aide while Barack Obama told kids that he did drugs.
8. Dumbledoor is gay.
   
9. You found out, after a year of wet-dreams, that Vanessa Anne Hudgens has a bush.
10. Japanese dolphin hunters are after Hayden Panettiere.
11. You could wear a t-shirt outside yesterday and still be in denial about global warming.
12. Did I mention the Brits taking over the first toy store I ever went to in America? SAVE FAO SHWARTZ!
    

The good news? My birthday is in a week, I just found out my new watch is on its way from Italy, and my stock portfolio keeps steadily climbing.

What are you gonna do? To quote Hank Moody quoting the Clash "should I stay or should I rock the casbah?"

I think I'll stay and I think I'll like it. C'est la vie.

I also just spent about 30 minutes looking for a good song to recommend only to realize that theres nothing good out there and you should really just keep listening to Don't Stop by Journey. If your in the mood to stop the world, try Let Go by Frou Frou.

Sweet dreams kids.

Facebook Porn

I recently read an article about how Facebook has become more popular then porn on the internet. Well it appears that Mr. Zuckerburg and friends at Facebook have taking this to heart and began offering porn on their site.

I was surfing Facebook today and happened to glance over at one of the ads they now put on the left hand side of the page. Here is what I saw, with the profile blurred for obvious reasons:

Click to Enlarge

Here is a close-up of the ad. Clicking on the image will open the uncensored NSFW version:
Click for NSFW image

Hot free cam on Facebook? Really? I understand that some of the pictures posted on Facebook can at times be rather close to porn, but at least those are not sponsored by Facebook.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for internet porn. I'll be the first to admit that it plays a vital part of getting through certain weeks for me, but I do not want it showing up anywhere I don't expect it to be. Even in the form of a small ad. I often use Facebook from school and work computers with professors, classmates, and co-workers often walking around behind me. While I'm sure most will understand that I am simply surfing Facebook, many of those who are not familiar with the site may think otherwise. Furthermore, I have an communications professor who often uses Facebook and was recently telling us about a presentation she did to her colleagues about the benefits of social networking. Imagine having a nice pair of round tits projected on a 10 foot screen in front of an audience of 300 college professors already skeptical about implementing social networking in their careers.

Its understandable that Facebook needs money, but please, try to be more tasteful.

Help M1KEYGOD.ru out. Watch the video and click to go to the website. Its like donating, but not.

What's with today, today?

What is it about certain movies that they can completely change your mood and leave you staring blankly in a daze after they are over. There have been many movies which have had this effect on me, the latest of which is A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I had absolutely no intention of writing about this movie when I started watching it. To tell you the truth, the only reason I started watching it was to waste some time; time that needed to be wasted because I'm too tired to go out, but can't quite fall asleep for more then 30 minutes at a time. Its weird having free time in my life after being so wrapped up in work and school for so long. I don't quite know what to do with it, but I love the fact that I'm able to do things I used to cherish. In fact, I just got a new roll of film developed today and I think it is some of my best work yet. I haven't scanned any of it in yet, but until I do you can check out some of my old stuff here, particularly the last 2 albums, since the first one is the stuff I did for basic photo back in 10th grade. The last album is from this summer upstate. But once again, I digress. Back to the movie.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is directed by and based on the memoirs of Dito Montiel, a kid from Astoria who went on to get a $1 million dollar record deal with his punk rock group and become described as "the most successful unsuccessful" record deal in history. He basically got a whole bunch of money, but the record flopped and was dropped by the label shortly after its debut. But you don't get to hear about any of that in the movie. The movie is about his life growing up in Queens. Anyone who's ever went to a not-so-safe urban public school can watch this movie and be halfway between a smirk and shivers.

No, I'm not saying I've had to suffer through half of what the movie depicts, not even a tenth. In fact, I had it pretty good. But what I did experience was getting up to move into a different train car when 30 kids in red would jump the one kid in blue and begin to beat the shit out of him as I sat 2 feet away. Or the day we got off the train with Eugine and saw the blood dripping from the kid who got stabbed in the next car. Or the countless number of times our train was stopped and delayed because someone was getting arrested two cars down. Or the stories from your friends about how they got robbed or they got jumped. Or our own fights in high school from which I watched my friends walk away bloody. Or even the time I got mugged myself and ran around with a black eye for 2 weeks. They're all experiences I would never want to have again, but would never want to give up. They are the experiences that pave the way for epiphanies, and the experiences that keep you smiling about the small things your friends shed tears over. What I've experienced in my life doesn't even begin to reach the point of being called "bad", simply because it could be so much worse, but when someone hasn't experienced worse, then even the small things seem like the end of the world. Much like I've talked to people and sat there thinking that I can't begin to imagine how bad their lives must have been, I've also talked to people who are crying like its the end of the world over something that in my life would be considered a minuscule disappointment. I can, off the top of my head, think of three people I've met throughout my life, who have come close enough to death to truly live each day like it was their last. These are the people who can't be bothered by anything short of death itself, and live life as if it is the most glorious thing on earth (which coincidently enough, IT IS). And on the other end of the spectrum you have the ones who cry over being called a bad name by a sibling or a parent, which is fine, until they tell me I don't know what its like without knowing my story first. Like I said, everyone has their own problems.

What I was trying to get at, is that we interpret the world differently depending on what experiences we have had in the past. That is the main reason why I would never trade my upbringing for one filled with money, luxury, and ease. With that said, I would also be reluctant to trade down for one of worse poverty then we experienced and greater hardship. Depending on your views and experiences, you will probably react to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints differently. Regardless, it is in my opinion a must-watch. Its not one of those movies which is shot by a big Hollywood director pretending to know what it was like. Its a movie about Dito Montiel, directed by Dito Montiel. I won't give away anything because I want you to watch it, but I will tell you that if your anything like me, this will quickly go up on your top movie list right along with Requiem for a Dream and Kids.

On a side note: when the fuck did Shia LeBeouf become a serious actor? Seeing him play Dito in the opening scenes quickly discredited the movie for me. But within 5 minutes he got all my respect back. My respect for him peaked after reading IMDB and finding this: "Dito Montiel was reluctant to cast Shia LaBeouf in the role of young Dito because Montiel was intent on casting an unknown. After the first rejection, however, LaBeouf pushed for one more audition. He came into the casting office, punched a hole in the wall, and convinced Montiel that he could bring a requisite amount of anger to the role." Even Stevens punch a hall in a directors wall during an audition? Good kid.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is the best movie of all time. It might not even be in the Top 5. It is surely Top 10 though and a definite must-see, especially for the NYC kids who have ever gotten over being scared to go to school.

Sweet dreams kids.

I am the internet, and you can too.

Blogger just deleted 20 minutes worth of typing. Fuck autosave.



All obvious jokes aside (and there are many, especially if your not enough of a geek to recognize all the YouTube starlets in the clip), net neutrality is in danger. Whether you heard something about it or not, its time to do something.

Imagine coming home after school, running over to your computer, and surfing over to your favorite blog on the interwebs to hear what Mikey will bitch about today, only to realize that you don't have the premium internet package and Blogger will therefor take 15 minutes to load (or worse, won't load at all).

All the major telecom companies are currently lobbying Congress to sign a bill which will eliminate net neutrality and therefor allow them to set up web packages much like you have cable tv packages. Imagine shopping for an ISP and looking through brochures like this:

[Click to Enlarge]

Eliminating net neutrality will mean that each ISP will be able to control which websites you get access too and at what speeds. They'll give you fast unlimited access to their e-mail but will slow or block access to G-Mail or Hotmail. Facebook my open normally, but Myspace will take 10 minutes.

Think its impossible? Think of all the 60 year-old Congressmen who are at this moment sitting in a 5-star restaurant having lunch or dinner paid for by the telecom companies who are lobbying harder then ever for this bill to go through. To the majority of these Congressmen the internet is nothing more then a new media platform, just like television, so why not price it like we price cable TV? Remember your dad calling his friend's friend Oleg who came over and installed the little black box which took off the cable company's filters and gave you all the cartoons you can watch (and later all the porn you can watch) for $100 and the price of your basic cable. Imagine the same concept of blocking certain channels applied to the internet.

The net neutrality bill is currently making its way through Congress and MUST be stopped. Whether your the type to bitch about every move the government makes, the type that likes protest but has been remarkably content lately, or the type who usually couldn't care less, this is the issue to care about. Just think about all the internet porn that will go to waste, or worse, the Myspace access down the drain. Then there's also all the educational aspects of the internet, things like Wikipedia, dictionaries, and all the other stuff you use for school or work (but we're clearly more worried about porn and Myspace, which coincidently may be one and the same depending on who's profile your looking at).

Do something kids. Stand up for your rights. Its 2007 and its easier then ever to help further a cause, especially one that hits so close to home. Go to www.WeAreTheWeb.org, click Take Action, and then Contract a Congressman to send your local Congressman an email. Then tell your friends, and help stop this before it becomes yet another government action for me to bitch about.

Rainy Day Top 10

10. Being able to find that one perfect Myspace song to put in your profile.

9. Rain gently tapping on your skylight on a day you can sleep in.

8. Christmas lights hanging in your room year round.

7. Chai, incense, and loud trance late into the night.

6. A small Moleskin notebook constantly in your pocket to write down random things that occur.

5. Being able to gloat about the just-complimented photographs on your walls being your own work.

4. The moment you realize your family dinners play out like a scene from a mafia movie.

3. Random Top 10 lists on obscure blogs.

2. The perfect song that gets your inner rhythm going at any particular moment.

1. Being able to come up with a blog entry just random enough to be amusing when you have nothing else to say.