JUST ME AND BOWIE. YOU KNOW.

They lured us to the carnival with the promise of free funnel cake, but didn't tell us about the long lines and lack of face paint. Luckily we'd brought our own. I was a catface meowmers:



And then in the kitchen--a potato was thrown at the batter, who wielded either one knife or two. The objective was to chop the potato in midair, and the players were surprisingly adept, slicing one potato into three perfect pieces with an ingenious dual-knife play.

And now I'm at home, ignoring phone calls from people who for some reason think I'm enjoyable to be around.

THE AMAZON.COM KNEE-JERK CONTRARIAN GAME

Here's a fun game... First, look up the most popular and critically-acclaimed books, movies, and music on Amazon. Click on "Customer Reviews," and sort them by "Lowest Rating First." Hilarity ensues! It's the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game!

Hoop Dreams (Steve James):

• What a snooze. A three hour documentary about kids goals of becoming professional basketball players.The subject matter might have worked for an hour long film, but at three hours this is strictly for die hard basketball fans ONLY!

Annie Hall (Woody Allen):

• Why is this movie a classic? The plot line was nonexistent, and the characters were completely unlikeable.The implication that Annie Hall was a lesbian didn't make any sense! Woody Allen's character was completely freeky and there was not a single purpose for him being there. Come to think of it, THERE WAS NO PURPOSE FOR THIS MOVIE!!!!!! So save yourself and never watch this film.

Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut):

• "Vonnegut is no better or worse than Daniele Steele!"
  
• "The novel is written in a childish absurdist style that becomes wearisome very quickly."
  
• "I read it, but I literally have no idea what this book is about. And I'm not reading it again to find out either."
  
• "A tangled mess of disjointed scenes and uninspiring ramblings."

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick):

• Slim Pickens riding the bomb is a reference that is part of the American culture. Other than knowing the origin of this reference, this movie is a waste of time.
• THIS MOVIE IS PRETTY BAD. GOOD ACTING THOUGH

The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka):

• If there were a 0 star rating that's exactly what I would have given this usless, worthless, example of wasted paper. I wouldn't read this work again if I were paid one million dollars. In my opinion, it sounded like it was written by someone on weed. I say he woke up trippin and saw himself as a bug and later decided to write about it.

The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoevsky):

• I hated this book. Whoever enjoyed needs a life. Read the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is a fantasy God!!

This summer I'm going to be interning at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.


Good god my vision is so swimmy.

OH HOW SADLY WE MORTALS ARE DECEIVED BY OUR OWN IMAGINATION

The sickness in theocon bioethics goes beyond imposing a Catholic agenda on a secular democracy and using "dignity" to condemn anything that gives someone the creeps. Ever since the cloning of Dolly the sheep a decade ago, the panic sown by conservative bioethicists, amplified by a sensationalist press, has turned the public discussion of bioethics into a miasma of scientific illiteracy. Brave New World, a work of fiction, is treated as inerrant prophesy. Cloning is confused with resurrecting the dead or mass-producing babies. Longevity becomes "immortality," improvement becomes "perfection," the screening for disease genes becomes "designer babies" or even "reshaping the species." The reality is that biomedical research is a Sisyphean struggle to eke small increments in health from a staggeringly complex, entropy-beset human body. It is not, and probably never will be, a runaway train.

--Steven Pinker, The Stupidity of Dignity

WALTZ WITH ME, HABIBTI

Last night was the most fun I've had in a long time. Besos y besos y besos y besos.


And then.

This morning I woke up on my bed, on my phone. Let us recognize the distinction between waking up in your bed and waking up on your bed.

YOUR APPEARANCE IS COMICAL TO ME

[via Eye On Springfield]

Here I capitalize proper nouns, words that begin sentences, the letter I, because no caps feels juvenile

(and I am twenty-one)

but really, I'm fooling myself.