There have been a few times in my life where I have been mistaken as an intelligent individual. Maybe someone sees me reading something that isn’t Hop on Pop (a rare occurrence – I read a lot of Hop on Pop), or maybe I accidently use a large word I heard in a video game.

These two very true stories are to dispel any myths about my intelligence.

Story One: The Toothpaste Incident

Brushing my teeth is something I do on occasion, and this was one of those occasions. While applying the toothpaste to the bristles of the brush, I was inadvertently pressing down a group of bristles with the tube. Moving the tube of toothpaste off of the bristles created a slingshot out of the toothbrush bristles, launching a small glob of toothpaste right in my eye.

Toothpaste in the eye is a painful experience.

Story Two: The Mouthwash Incident

Often after brushing my teeth, I’ll use mouthwash to really rinse the gunk out of my mouth. Since no one else shares my bottle of off-brand mouthwash I decided what the hell, I’ll go ahead and take a glug straight from the bottle. I sealed my lips over the opening, tipped my head back and took a mouthful. Well, my lip seal was too tight, creating a pressurized bottle of mouthwash. Removing my lips released the pressure, and with it a healthy splash mouthwash was projectiled straight up my nostrils. For a second I was worried. This is going to burn, I thought. After waiting a second, green teeth cleaning liquid dripping off my face, I breathed a sigh of relief for the lack of pain I was feeling.

I use a washcloth to clean off my face, when out of nowhere the stinging starts. My nostrils are on fire. At this point I consider suicide, but decide against it because I feel hunger coming on and killing myself on an empty stomach is an unattractive proposition.

***

In other news, two new articles I’ve written are up. My PS3 review for Fairytale Fights and a new edition of Comics That Don’t Suck. If you love me, you’ll read them!

We’ve moved into our nicer, larger apartment, which has been great so far. I’m still amassing furniture (I don’t have a mattress yet, although I do have a frame for some reason), but it’s coming along. We got some fish, thanks to the internet having places to get random stuff for free.

Nathan paid us a visit these last few days, so we made a trip over to the coast. Checked out the Heceta Head Lighthouse, a trip I can highly recommend thanks to the awesome tour guides. We saw some sea lions chilling out and a whale in the distance blowin’ water all over the place. The high/low point of the trip with the salt water taffy – high point because it was good and low point because I kept eating it. Finally we made our way over to the beach. Climbing to the top of the sand dunes, especially after that salt water taffy, was enough to make me consider suicide. But it was pretty, so I decided against it. As for the water? Balls cold.

I also wrote a new feature for N-Philes about Comics That Don’t Suck, you should read it because you love me.

I did a nice little interview with Tim Sievert (That Salty Air) for N-philes.

Is it pretentious to quote myself?

Let’s be honest: most comics suck. But so do most movies, games, TV shows, and so does most music. But with these mediums most people seem to think themselves pretty good at weeding through the trash to find the morsels of goodness. Why is it, then, that more people don’t sort through the horrible comics and find the good ones? Sure, every once in a while the mainstream will notice something likeWatchmen or Maus, but many great comics fly well under the radar. With Comics That Don’t Suck, which will be an ongoing feature here at N-philes, I hope to bring some attention to comics that you probably wouldn’t have known about otherwise. If you never read comics maybe something will catch your eye and you’ll pick one up. If you already love comics, hopefully I’ll show you something new. For the very first CTDS I’m talking about Tim Sievert’s first published comic: That Salty Air. I also had the chance to talk with Sievert about his book (among other things).

the rest…

His wife on the book he didn’t finish. 

 “I think he didn’t want to do the old tricks people expected of him,” Karen Green, his wife, says. “But he had no idea what the new tricks would be.” The problem went beyond technique. The central issue for Wallace remained, as he told McCaffery, how to give “CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness.” He added, “Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.”

From the New Yorker. The whole thing is worth a read.

I found this over at the Wall Street Journal. It’s adapted from a commencement speech he gave about three years ago, and I liked it enough to think it deserved a repost over here. It’s a tad lengthy, but worth your time.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

If at this moment, you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude — but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here’s one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it’s so socially repulsive, but it’s pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real – you get the idea. But please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called “virtues.” This is not a matter of virtue — it’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. (more…)

While in Austin this weekend I watched a few movies and read a comic. Let’s take a look. But before we do I think I need to make a statement about the movies, books and &c. that I talk about on my blog.

If you’ve been reading my this page for any amount of time you’ve probably noticed that I pretty much like everything I talk about on here. I’m always recommending something,  talking about how much I enjoyed something, or demanding you read something, or whatever. This might make it seem like I like just about everything and that you should ignore any suggestions I make because hey what’s the point if I like everything, right? Well, that’s not really true. The fact of the matter is I’m kind of an asshole about the things I like. I’m legendarily picky and kind of a snob when it comes to things like books and movies and music. The reason why I’m so generally positive on this site is because, well, I pretty much only write about the things I like. It would be really easy for me to primarily write about all stuff I hate, but someone else I know is already doing that and doing a better job than I could anyways. So while I’m sure to bitch about things from time to time usually when I’m going to talk about entertainment in one way or the other, it’s going to be positive. Anyways.

Happy Times by Yimou Zhang. Zhang is a pretty well known director nowadays for movies like House of Flying Daggers, Hero, and Curse of the Golden Flower. While I’m a pretty big fan of these, his best movie (that I’ve seen) is Raise the Red Lantern - a film so far away from kung-fuing and swording and daggering and flipping that the only way you could even start to guess that it’s the same director is the incredible (albeit much more subtle than his more recent stuff) cinematography. When I heard he made a comedy movie about eight years ago I knew it had to be the next on my list for me to see. The story starts out being pretty funny, but by the time it ends it’s much closer to sad than amusing. Describing it as bittersweet is probably overstating its sweetness, but it is there. It’s a good little movie and I’m glad I watched it.

Lake of Fire is a documentary about abortion by Tony Kaye (American History X). The movie is long – about two and a half hours – and NOT for the squeamish. Both sides of the issue are covered with a few mediating voices in between. It’s fair, disturbing, enlightening, and not easy to forget. If you’re undecided on the issue I recommend it. If you’re already solid on one side or the other I highly recommend it. It didn’t change where I stand on the issue, but it made me think a lot about it.

I read Good-Bye, Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson. It’s a sad comic about moving on in your life even when you’re not sure where you’re moving on to or exactly why you’re doing it. It’s about friends and the impact people have on each other before and after they’re out of each other’s lives and how there really is no such thing as “out of each other’s lives.” To make this a short review, the book is striking and brilliant and haunting, but in a non creepy way.

At the end of the weekend I realized that pretty much everything I read and watched was, at least to an extent, fairly depressing. If you decide to go after any of this stuff, I suggest spreading it out a bit.

Also of interest, Derrick pointed out to me that Google just announced a new web browser called Google Chrome. It sounds pretty promising, as outlined in this comic by Scott McCloud of Understanding Comics fame. Who knows if the final product is going to be any good, but I’ll be right there to mess around with it as soon as the beta comes out.

UPDATE: The beta for Google Chrome was just released and I’ve got to say… it’s pretty sweet. It’s faster, the interface is nice and logical and everything feels really open. There are some weird things about it and I do miss a few of my Firefox plug-ins, but hopefully with time people will make versions of those for Chrome. Check it out. I’ll have to play with it more before I decide if I’m switching permanitely, but so far it’s looking good. If you try it out let me know what you think.

Also not of interest, for some reason every time I write “each other” I want to write “eachother” like it’s one long word. It’s annoying and if you search the archives I’d be shocked if you didn’t find more than a few examples of this misspelling. Maybe someday the powers that be will decide that English should evolve (laterally in this case) and “eachother” is how the word(s) is/are to be written, but not now. Not today.

In writing this blog I’ve made a lot of suggestions of things to read, watch and sometimes listen to. I’ve said things were good, great, and sometimes even fantastic. I’ve told you I thought some things were worth your time, or that you might enjoy them if you have a passing second. I’m about to make a little more than just a suggestion.

Some of you may remember back in 2000 John McCain was making a run at the White House. David Foster Wallace, one of my favorite writers (and certainly the one I envy the most for the pure amount of skill he has oozing out of every orifice of his person), was commissioned by Rolling Stone to write a piece on the man during the primary campaigning. Wallace turned in a massive document (massive, at least, in comparison to most magazine articles) which was butchered down and a small piece published in said magazine. Later on the full essay was released in Consider the Lobster going by the name Up, Simba. Now a few of you diligent readers may remember me mentioning way back how much I enjoyed the abridged audiobook version of Lobster, although that version did not contain Up, Simba.

Anyway, this essay is beyond good and should be read by anyone with even a passive interest in American politics, and especially by anyone without even a passive interest in American politics. Not only is it bruisingly clever and funny (like everything Wallace writes), and not only does it give you a great behind-the-scenes look at the way a campaign is run, it also paints a brilliant picture of the pitfalls of American politics and the current generation in general. The essay doesn’t have any answers, but it asks some fascinating questions.

In a whirlwind of marketing sleaziness the essay has been republished in its own volume called McCain’s Promise, an obvious ploy to profit from the current election. I don’t understand why you would buy that, though, when Consider the Lobster is like a dollar more and has oodles of great, additional, content. There is money to be made off the ignorant, I ’spose.

I’m not suggesting you read this essay. I’m not saying you might like it or that if you get the chance you should check it out. It’s more than an urge, even. I’m practically demanding that you read this essay. If you know me personally I’ll let you borrow the book. If I don’t know you or live near you, quit being a cheap bastard and buy a used copy of Consider the Lobster for a measly five bucks already.

Afterthought: In case you’re worried about the essay being too pro or too anti McCain, don’t. It’s written neutrally. Some of it seems pro, some of it seems anti, but it’s all honest. And like I said, it’s about a lot more than McCain.

I think a few of you noticed, but my page was kind of goofy for about a day there. I guess I screwed something up pretty good. Thanks, Derrick, for coming along and fixing things like you always do. Anyways, here are some pictures from the convention for your viewing pleasure, or disgust, pick one. I’ve got a few of the city, some from the San Diego Zoo, a couple from Tim and Eric’s Awesomecon, and one of what my hair looks like in the morning. You can look through them here or virtually thumb through them over on my Flickr page. You get some more information on that page, and you can comment on individual pictures if you like, but there is an extra click involved. So I understand if you don’t want anything to do with that.

SUNDAY

The last day of the con. I made the last of my purchases today (rest assured the amount of comics bought over the weekend was far more than excessive), then headed to the world premiere of Sockbaby 4 with Doug TenNapel, Jon and Dan Heder, and Doug Jones (Pan’s Labyrinth). It was goofy and silly – certainly the best of the Sockbabies so far. After that the convention was basically over, so we took the bus to the beach. It was too chilly to swim, but we figured we should at least go to the beach, since we’re in California and all. From that experience my feelings of how crappy the Houston area beaches are were reaffirmed. Tomorrow we head back home, it was a fun trip while it lasted. Keep your eye out for my “Who I Met” post, along with a photo post and follow ups about if the comics I bought were any good or not. Sound exciting? No? Yeah, I understand.

MONDAY

I’m sitting in the airport terminal waiting for my flight. Good trip, all things considered. The fun stuff will be posted later.