Blogspot, beverage containing no less than two grams of taurine.

Having done no work over the weekend, crunchtime really does suck. I've consumed nothing today but a sip of a sample can of "Monster Energy Drink" which I got from my friend who got it off a dude on a street corner. She was too afraid to drink it and passed it on to me as a sign of affection and fealty, obviously.

I can imagine drink technicians intending to emulate the taste of Red Bull with this. For the first second it hits the tongue, they succeeded. However, about two seconds later, the fetid aftertaste of socks and aspartate creeps in. Oddly enough, a review of the ingredients label reveals that it contains neither sock extract nor aspartic acid, so I figure what I'm actually tasting are the waste products of a radically mutant, possibly extraterrestrial bacterial lawn that, fed by unnatural sugars, instantly overgrows and cripples my tongue like the virus does in The Andromeda Strain.

Girl, this shit is nasty. Normally, looking back on the tasting experience and noting its shady origins, I'd worry that the drink was just a bath of anthrax spores. In this case, I worry not--I don't believe spores of any extant organism could survive being immersed in this liquid atrocity.

*Based on this entry and the one about the cookbook, I think I should just start a blog where I just hyperbolically condemn things.

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Teflon Orchid

Nick Verreos' Barbie Dress

Blogspot, the keyboard, the eyes.

I present another papercut. It glows due to the magical nature of my artistry--also because I held it in front of a lamp.

Blogspot, chef and guru my ass.

I once watched a documentary about the human brain that couldn’t stress enough the mind’s limitless control over language. The word ‘limitless’, as used here, might range from a stretch to a lie depending on whose State of the Union speech you’re watching; but today, in the comfort of my own living room, I witnessed the precision of language firsthand.

Last night, Allison brought over a copy of Raw: The Uncook Book, which Justin, Annie and I read during lunch. Although complaints against West Coast demento-cuisine been lodged many times many ways, and in all cases the core concept being ‘I'd rather just eat a potato chip’, we managed to recombine expressions of outrage in wholly novel ways. Thanks a lot, human brain!

Written by a dude with a penchant for tank tops named Juliano, the book is “DEDICATED TO THE PLANET.” After a brief autobiography in which the author describes his awakening (“…in Palm Springs I began to understand that everything following nature’s natural order lives in harmony with the planet and in complete health) and touts his credentials (“My mentor was not some fancy cooking school, but the earth itself”), the book goes on to display strangely disturbing photos of him caught mid-leap like an impala foal or rising from the ocean foam like Venus--but this Venus is creepy.

If nothing else, this cookbook is a paragon of audacity. By page 13, it demands that your kitchen be stocked with:

1 bottle of extra virgin olive oil, 1 jar ground cumin, 1 jar ground curry, 1 jar ground cinnamon, 1 bottle Nama Shoyu, 1 bag Celtic sea salt, 2 pounds raw kamut, spelt or wheat berries, 2 pounds raw buckwheat, 2 pounds raw chickpeas, 3 onions, 5 heads fresh garlic, ¼ pound fresh ginger, 4 jalapeno chilis, 7 lemons, 10 oranges, ½ pound pistachios, 1 package golden miso, 1 bottle raw honey, 1 jar tahini, ½ pound raw walnuts, ½ pound raw sunflower seeds, 1 bottle marinated sun-dried tomatoes, 5 to 20 Nori sheets, 2 bunches cilantro, 1 bunch parsley, 1 head of red leaf or romaine lettuce, 2 bunches basil, ¼ pound mushrooms, 3 pounds tomatoes, 3 ripe avocados, 5 non-ripe avocados
1 bottle black miso, ½ pound dates, 1 pound raw carob

After being asked how Allison could possibly sustain such work-intensive gastronomical punishment for any length of time, Justin’s response: “She’s probably doing this short-term to cleanse herself” prompted my own response of “Why doesn’t she just fast?”

For those of you who have never shared spiritual communion with me: The idea of not eating anything but strained broth for two weeks was previously unfathomable. The fact that “Why doesn’t she just fast?” rolled off my tongue with all the ease of “Oh sweet, the milkshakes are ready” suggests nothing short of a paradigm shift, the idea of spending upwards of 13 hours preparing raw toast forcing me into a perverse alliance with Hunger itself.

Hence, I will not be preparing the 30-ingredient ‘Raw Stir-Fry.’

Reading this post, I feel like I just channelled a lot of Justin Sowa style rage. Such frightful power! It takes me back to my freshman days, when this entry would have been about my defeat in MarioKart.

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• From the Crotch: A Papercut
  This was inspired by a picture of Grace Jones in concert. Photo by Sarah Lim.
  

Blogspot, self-progeny hermaphordite.

Valentine's Day Cards!

• Dude Holding Flowers.
  I got the idea for that one from here.


• Dragons
  Thanks Wikipedia!
  

Blogspot, essence of meatloaf.

Although traction was probably terrible citywide due to the mounds of santorum-hued slush, most of the time people could hop over the meltwater puddles that collected at the corners of New York streets or, at the very least, go around--but not in Union Square. During lunchtime, there were so many people collecting at the corners waiting to cross the streets that jumping was largely impossible. So, like the wildebeest of Africa waiting to migrate to savannah pastures made lush by the rainy season, crowds waited for their turn to walk through ankle deep water. Had those urban myths about alligators in the sewers had substance (and had those alligators somehow evolved endothermy to survive life in ice water)(also, had those alligators been crocodiles), 14th Street might as well have been a Discovery Channel documentary hosted by a dryly voiced Brit who would flagrantly abuse the phrase 'survival of the fittest.'

Unrelated: I made a card for someone.

Blogspot, fire phallus.

From The New York Times:



The caption reads: Yuri Chechi, one of Italy's greatest gymnasts and a gold medal winner, swung a mighty hammer onto a bronze anvil. And so the pageantry began.

This is the second time I've ever sent Gawker a tip.

Blogspot, in command of the legion Scythica.

I made Joe a card for Valentine's Day and gave it to him thinking 2/14 was Friday and it would be a nice surprise two days early. Oops.

In anycase, inspired by a Citibank commercial, the card was a Chinese papercut of two identical dragons holding a heart mounted on white paper.

To make sure that I had the technical skill to execute a complex pattern, I decided to make a basic version for practice using printer paper and a paring knife. While the initial product proved that the project was doable, a certain quality was missing--quality, which can only be bought at a store for roughly six dollars (paper, glue, exacto-knife).

After taking notes for me while I slept through a lecture about imperial Rome, Myra accompanied me to Utrect Art Supplies. Sadly, the store only sold crafting paper (100 grams per square meter) in large sheets--sheets that do not comfortably fit in my bag. I was meeting Joe later that night, and it would be suspicious to walk around with reams of red and white paper sticking out. So, in the five minutes before Endocrinology started, I carved the sheet into roughly 8x11 pieces with vulgar slashes of my new exacto-knife.

Cutting up the paper the way I did, my fist clutching the handle of the knife like an assassin's dagger, reminded me uncomfortably of an A&E documentary I once saw about Michael Alig, wherein he explains how he injected a drug dealer full of Drano and proceeded to dismember the corpse.

On a note that is, at this point, secondary to how much I enjoy tooting my own horn: I was glad that Joe liked the card.


I don't have a picture of the card I made, but this is the motif I used to make the cutout. I imagine I'll get a picture up soon, but know that the product emulates the above to the hairs on his chinny-chin-chin.

Blogspot, Brown and Bubbly.

Liveblogging the Super Bowl

6:34
Whoops, I only start Liveblogging after the first half hour has passed. In that time, a grandiose Burger King musical ends with Brooke Burke topping a pile of girls dressed as condiments in a bun-shaped hoop dress. This adds a welcome element of cannibalism to my Whoppers.

6:35
The Associated Market was closed, so our household ended up going to KFC for our needs. Joe remarks that boneless original recipe was a good choice, which is untrue, since I’m a huge fan of ripping the cartilage off the ends of bones.

6:40
Although I figured that a Seahawk was a synonym for an osprey or some other fishing eagle, I’m told that it’s just a football team. Joe remarks how awesome it would be if the team was actually comprised of seahawks. This leads into a death spiral of non-sequiturs, ending with speculations about the supposed properties of the physical manifestation of the Miami Heat.

6:43
Justin cannot imagine life without the superimposed yellow line on the field. It becomes obvious that, much like wars are responsible for innovations like nylon and radar, the Superbowl is responsible for innovation in the field of little windows that pop up onscreen. I ask what the line means, for I do not know what a 'first down' entails.

6:45
Why yes, Nicholas. I would like another beer.

6:53
Joe looked-up the kid who shot up that gay bar in Massachusetts. It turns out he was a fan of Insane Klown Posse, apparently called a “juggalo.” Why is there a special name for them? I’m not sure how a conversation about a Pepsi commercial happened to spawn that conversation.

6:55
Our supply of wings is low. These football players have very appealing forearms.

6:59
Leonard Nimoy is in a commercial for Bayer. He does the voiceovers for Civilization 4, so I’ve already been hearing his voice for days.

7:01
Justin’s trying to explain the rules of football to Annie, which is a futile effort because she totally, like, doesn’t really care. Her attention is mostly fixated upon what the female sportscasters are wearing, and I’m not being sexist. They really look like they’ve been covered in cheap coffee ice cream and are wearing bicycle chains around their fat necks.

7:03
Joe kissed me about half a second after burping. He tastes of honey barbeque and acid.

7:06
My mom called to ask me if I wanted her to mail me immunization records. I told her I was watching football like a real man; whereupon hearing this she immediately apologizes and hangs up.

Annie just referred to me as both B-train and B-slice. I want to bang her so bad.

7:07
Our house is several weeks behind in our recycling, and our output of non-domestic beer bottles is mythical. Joe just joked that our kitchen table is like the Beer United Nations.

7:09
The yard-markers look like Roman Legion Standards in a fetching shade of international orange.

7:10
We are discussing the technical aspects of deleting our entire Tivo repertoire in anticipation for recording every single event of the Torino Olympics. Goodbye: Stella episode from mid-August.

7:14
In a commercial, a baseball player throws the ball and it strikes the camera. Reflexively, I draw back and raise my arms in defense. That is how good at sports I am.

7:17
Annie just got an update via cell phone that the Black Labs are winning the Puppybowl. A quick Google reveals that it airs on Animal Planet. Upon inspection, we find the cutest game ever—ever. There’s a camera at the bottom of the water bowl!

7:18
We realize that there is actually no way the Black Labs can possibly be 'winning' the Puppy Bowl, as the whole show is just puppies running around being mind-warpingly adorable.

7:27
Oh my God. It’s time for the Bissell Kitty Halftime Show!

7:29
After returning to the actual game, I was ignoring the television entirely until I heard the following. “They just pulled his pants down in order to tape up his groin.” Football hurts, I guess.

7:30
I contend that Ben Roethlisberger is attractive, but according to Joe, he’s ‘no Joey Harrington.’

7:35
The vaguely accented Overstock.com commercial lady becomes increasingly terrifying with each iteration of the franchise.

7:43
In a review of a disputed touchdown, the announcer says that this particular referee has only ruled to overturn an original call 23% of the time. It reminds me of the attention given to Samuel Alito’s ruling percentage in reference to employee discrimination lawsuits.

7:52
While the Burger King commercial was amazing, on the other end of the spectrum, is a spectacularly insipid hip-hop ode to Diet Pepsi. However, a brief romp on the 'rejected videos' section of brownandbubbly.com reveals a neo-dadaist interpretation of Diet Pepsi that has Joe dying of laughter.

8:02
Why yes, Nicholas. I would enjoy another beer.

8:06
Scrolling through the New York Times, I realize that I don’t much care for the Rolling Stones. Joe, whose eyes are still on the TV, refers to the halftime show as “flaccid.”

8:09
We’ve gone to Tivo for last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live to sustain us until the halftime show is over. Prince’s backup singers are great.

8:15
So much for my first liveblog ever. I've given up and started playing MegamanX. As of the time of my signing off, the score is

Seahawks: Whatever
Steelers: Some Multiple of 6 or 7

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Also: Leigh's sister got married!

Blogspot, even thinner than the Razr.

When I removed the iPod from my bag, flipped off the lock and pressed play, I expected a melody, or at least, pre-intro-static. Instead, what I heard was nothing more than the continued droning of early evening Little Italy. Fiddling with the locking switch for a few seconds, it dawned on me that my iPod was stuck in its own dream world, completely unaware of external command. In a way, looking at its screen was not unlike gazing into the eyes of a man with irreparable shell-shock. He understands your presence, but cannot respond in any way. Should my iPod fail to respond before its batteries die, I will have no choice but to give it up to God--cause of death: Strokes, The.

Wandering up 2nd Avenue alone and with no distraction, I am forced to concede that the magic of New York is all but gone. Passing a Wendy's, I remembered my first meal as an NYU student with Trevor. I looked down 15th Street and saw the playhouse where Leigh and I attended opening night of Yeardly Smith's one-woman retrospective on her dual roles as bulimic and as Lisa Simpson.

I have a tendency to romanticize the past. I am like one of Walter Benjamin's rear-facing Angels of History. In addition though, I am not only wearing rose-tinted glasses, but am drunk and stoned as well. Compared to yester-year, how can the present day ever compete? As for the magic of New York, regaining it would require a complete paradigm shift on my part or, failing that, a shitload of money.