Cafeteria-style

Here at Beancounters, the last few days have been an absolute bust, comments-wise. Not that I'm bitter. I mean, sure, I do publish so that other people will come here and read me and give me feedback and stuff. No feedback, no reason for living blogging. But whatever.

I don't know. I'm easy. Over to you: What do you want to talk about? Choose all that apply:

a) "I want to talk about my pressing need for a kicky and slightly ironic holiday-themed .jpg to add to my banner."

b) "The injustice of the fact that a few so-called researchers made names for themselves reporting that fat bottoms need longer hypos than skinny bottoms, when I am swamped at work and nobody here even knows my name, and my big claim to fame in this world is a blog where I am still forced to use a pseudonym."

c) "Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time re-written every line?"

4) "I just discovered the greatest passive-aggressive technique for blocking the voices of nearby cubicle dwellers at the office - I read aloud to myself! Whatever I'm reading, it doesn't matter - technical manuals, BCPs, anything I have to concentrate on. Sure I may look crazy to some, but the cool people will instantly realize I'm making a searing social commentary about the plight of marginalized wage-earners. Now, bottom line: is there any money in this?"

%) "I'm still waiting for your sestina to George Lucas, and I won't take 'oh I've got fiiiinals' for an answer."

f) Other (include diagrams)

Comments

[Anthony]

Topic #4 will work well UNTIL you start reading aloud excerpts from De Sade's "Juliette" (all 1100 pages of it) or "120 Days of Sodom" (betcha ya can't get past the first 100 or so pages without losing your lunch)...
Also guaranteed crowd pleasers:
"Mein Kamph" (like no white after labor Day, anti-semitism is timeless!)
"The Turner Diaries" (for those sheltered liberals out there, this is the really infamous white supremacist novel of race war in a future US that Timothy McVeigh was reputedly inspired by right before he decided on such a novel solution to office crowding at Federal buildings!)
"House of Leaves" (there's nothing offensive about this radically plotted meta-tale of a suburban house with some SERIOUS architectural problems [such as a near-infinite maze in the hall closet] but it's mind-boggling convolutions will make casual eavesdroppers queasy)!
"Tristram Shandy" (the 18th Century's ONLY cutting-edge novel, also so convoluted as to cause People Magazine afficionados severe inner-ear problems!)
"The Making of Americans" (Gertrude Stein's 900 page epic of an American family as only GS could tell it, which is to say as avant-gardely as can be imagined--if you can understand the last 250 pages, congratulations, you're a genius!)

PLease contribute. A sullen and angry Erisian Goddess is terrible to behold and fearsome in her wrath. And she's been known to feed housepets to anacondas when provoked. Other people's housepets I hasten to add....

[pops]

Does all this silence mean that Anthony's been out shopping for iPod Nanos?

I'll opt for the jpeg.

Why not just put a couple of Santa hats on these two?

http://theages.superman.ws/ProArt/swan2.php

[pops]

YO Anthony - you forgot An American Tragedy by Dreiser. Even the lit profs think that one is like hearing nails on a chalkboard.

BTW - I've read the Turner Diaries and Tristam Shandy and they were both real page turners!

Did you know that Karl marx wrote a parody of Shandy? That makes it official - Gummo was teh only un-funny one.

[Anthony]

Karl Marx IS a parody of Lawrence Stern, and really, nothing could be funnier than Das Kapital as interpreted by Lenin, Stalin and Mao...
As for the Ipod, yes I bought all of them. But now, you have to sign a document promising you will not think of them at all between now and Christmas. And I will require proof in the form of a written affadavit swearing (under oath) that you have completely wiped all thoughts of aforesaid Apple product from your minds until the moment you open the package containing your Ipod.
Start planning your downlaods now...!
Tristram Shandy has better characters but nothing beats the Turner Diaries for sheer and utterly convincing proof that evolution can, in fact, go backwards!

[scupper]

I read that UPI kindling and it's total tripe. Here's the kicker (not in the bum):

"Specifically, of six people in the study who were underweight, computer-assisted tomography (CT) scans indicated that the needles reached the muscle in only half of these patients, she said."

The point: Many of those folks administering the injection, well, suck. People are different anatomically. W/o sounding like some rapper, it's easy to make someone assume ceretain positions, bent over is one of the more popular ones, to get at the muscle.

If an "injector" is conscientious about getting at the rump, they have to get involved, move the patient around, use their hands, have the person flex a few times.

I'm still not sold on this, and this doesn't help:

"Chan said studies are underway to evaluate how missing the muscle impacts medical outcomes."

Just another gimmic to sell slim fat bars and Tony Little thing-a-ma-jiggers.

Hey, I bet they couldn't give that guy a shot, just holding him still..., they'd have to call a game hunter to shoot him with a dart.

[pam]

Scupper, I'll put you down for "B".

I agree - sometimes I think people conduct "research" on salacious things like bums and other body parts, chocolate, fetishes, and/or alcohol, just so their work is guaranteed to hit the papers. Even the Odd News column of the paper is considered being published, no matter how many variables they forgot to factor into the experimental model.

[scupper]

This brought back a hillarious memory...

""I just discovered the greatest passive-aggressive technique for blocking the voices of nearby cubicle dwellers at the office - I read aloud to myself! Whatever I'm reading, it doesn't matter - technical manuals, BCPs, anything I have to concentrate on. Sure I may look crazy to some, but the cool people will instantly realize I'm making a searing social commentary about the plight of marginalized wage-earners. Now, bottom line: is there any money in this?""

A buddy of mine years ago took me with his son to the opening of the Barnes and Noble in Birdcage. We had lots of snide banter as we purused through what we both thought was a pretentious and mind numbing bookstravaganza of mediocrity.

I ran over to get a cup of coffee, and this set my friend off, he had a lot of issues with book stores, poetry readings, spoken word illuminati (it stemmed, I think, from a Robert Bly trauma as a pre-teen).

So as I am standing in line, with a maze of journals and bookmark racks, personal thought/inspirationals surrounding those of us in line.......my friend emerges from the racks with a book about a young teenager titled something like "I am a fat girl, I am powerful".

He begins to read aloud passages from the book to the crowd waiting in line, unsolicited. Just a freak in the wild. The passages he's reading deal with caching junk food, and with the girl's sense of feeling possessed by the products, like demonic possession.

As he's doing this, he's gesturing to each person he walks by, as though he's a priest or rabbi reading scripture. I was freaked out. I wanted to run out of the store and his son was just giggling in the background, sitting in a beanbag with a Thomas Train book.

Needless to say, everyone was annoyed and really anxious to get the heck out of that Starbucks. Every time I go there, I still remember the "event". Reading aloud is an effective non-lethal technology.

[Anthony]

This is appropro of nothing, but as I'm BORED I might as well comment:
With the anticipated critical sucess (and we hope popular sucess) of Ang Lee's Pudding epic "Brokeback Mountain" we can possibly look forward to other "forbidden love" stories at the cinema. My suggestions:

Three Men and a Bobby: set in Scotland Yard, go figure the rest out yourself...

No Men On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown: Pedro Almodovar brings back former Almodovar heart-breaker Antonio Banderas and current Almodovar corazon-cruncher Gael Garcia Bernal in a sweeping pomo comedy of yearning, missed phone calls, terrorists and lots of gazpacho. And the greatest cab driver in European cinema...

Thong of Norway: the life and music of Edvard Grieg as re-imagined by the Pet Shop Boys, Ned Rorem and Peter Allen. Look for the scene where Edvard reveals his hidden passion for Liszt by writing the Piano Concero in A Minor...

Independence Gay: evil str8 fundamnetalist aliens wreak destruction on Provincetown and Fire Island and only the extremely well-dressed and sassy Top Guns of the crackerjack DA/DT fighter squadron of can save the world and still be home in time for the Met broadcast of Traviata...

What this has to do with anything Pam is talking about eludes me, but at least it keeps me off the street and out of trouble...

[pam]

Appropos of nothing, I just had my own brilliant idea: I could take all your non sequitors and create a blog on your behalf. An accidental blog, sort of. I wonder: would people show up for it? Maybe if you offered free Nan0s?

[pam]

Scupper, people who shop B & N / Starbuck's are secretly trying to soak up all that reduced-price intellectualism that is that chain's stock in trade. Being read aloud to about teen angst is no more than they deserve. :-)

[Anthony]

We tried the "accidental blog" thing, remember? Turns out I am utterly uncreative without your august prescence to riff off of...
(Isn't that what musicians say when they hear a piece of music too directly based on another: "what a riff-off"?)

[Daisy]

I'm laughing too much to comment. Sorry. I think it was the italicization on the Babs song that clinched it. YMMV.