Try harder than ever not to impress anybody. Soon you will evaporate and that will be wonderful.
12/16/2010
11/22/2010
Some wisdom just before lunch
- Love it or list it--just get it out of my hallway, before I kick it off the balcony!
- When a man is upset, cover his face with soothing lotions. When a man is on fire, do the same. This is a kind of consistency that few appreciate, least of all an angry burn victim.
- The word 'factotum' will be downsized from the dictionary, forcing the phrase 'snap-scrotum' to do double duty. Many will be confused, and none will be pleased.
- To avoid scandal, do not mix yourself up in any assassination plots. This is harder than it looks.
- Drive more slowly, chew more noisily, breathe more forcefully, whistle more relentlessly. You will lose a few friends this way, but have awakened a way of life.
11/02/2010
14 assertions you can take to the bank
[Don't ask me how I know, just know that you now know.]
- Colbert and Stewart will get out of the satire business and decide to craft America's perfect root beer.
- Petroleum proves to be made mostly out of leprechauns. The maxim "When you drill for oil, you disturb the Irish" will be in vogue. When you see a rainbow in your gasoline, remember where that pot of gold really is.
- A tragic mistake is made when fifty thousand drums of ketchup are sent on a ship bound for Rotterdam, where they dunk french fries in mayonnaise only. Asked to explain himself, the ship's captain will argue his only true mistake was erasing last night's episode of Jeopardy!.
- Things that melt in your mouth, not in your hand prove to be heretical to flamethrowers, but obvious to fire eaters.
- A drunk midget will control the levers of power in the European fashion industry. Those seeking access to top international designers must volunteer to stay sober and learn how to drive a tiny SUV.
- A quest to reclaim the Holy Land from yuppies meets unforeseen obstacles when Jerusalem office workers discover yoga mats make very plush seat covers.
- First Contact turns ugly when UFOs land at a CFO convention in Boston, demanding an audience with Earth's leaders. When the CFOs suggest the UFOs should meet the Earth's CEOs, the aliens scoff at the perceived mispelling, and threaten to melt the planet with an infrared pulsar bomb while shouting 'UEOs! UEOs!'
- The Seventh Sign is revealed when Boris Yeltsin returns to Earth as an offensive defenseman for the Montreal Canadiens. When Yeltsin smites Sidney Crosby with a devastating hipcheck, siamese-twin serpents spring from holes in the ice and devour the injured Penguin's mouthguard, creating a YouTube sensation and earning Yeltsin the nickname 'Boris SnakeBite'
- A madman races across the Sahara desert in search of free wifi access, stupidly unaware that the password is 'scorpion'.
- The ghost of Queen Cleopatra proves to be an excellent predictor of 2014 World Cup outcomes. A special section for necromancers is installed in every sports booking table in Brazil casinos -- while a backlash against Paul the Octopus and other invertebrate prognosticators means the vast majority of calamari are still sliced up and fried or pickled.
- Cartoon physicists cite evidence that Isaac Newton discovered gravity right before an anvil fell on his head, but tested his theories only after running off a cliff and looking down.
- DJs and rappers will be forbidden from using capitals in their name, or any intentionally misspelled words. The only people allowed to misspell their names will be inner-city elementary school teachers, who sadistically force students to write out the new names hundreds of times on electric chalkboards they call 'scratchpads'.
- Equal rights will be realized in an advanced society of sleepwalkers. Where you are from and who you know will not matter nearly as much how loud you snore, how padded your stairs are and whether your drool can be monetized.
- Justice is finally done when, after centuries of having it land on them, sidewalks win the right to chew our gum.
10/19/2010
Need change
I see what a mistake this has been.
I couldn't stop it though. It needed to roll all the way down hill.
I have set myself a deadline.
I will work toward it now.
There is no future in the social networks. The more they feed us, the emptier we feel.
Old things are best.
People need to figure that out for themselves.
Feel free to take advantage in the meantime.
No use bleating. How could any of us have known?
I couldn't stop it though. It needed to roll all the way down hill.
I have set myself a deadline.
I will work toward it now.
There is no future in the social networks. The more they feed us, the emptier we feel.
Old things are best.
People need to figure that out for themselves.
Feel free to take advantage in the meantime.
No use bleating. How could any of us have known?
9/21/2010
Zounds - 150 pounds
Unfortunately I find I'm unable to write. You never had that problem, never had to fight.
Swish in sandals, heavenly dreaded scandals singing overlong in temples gold and making men feel young and old. I was white and bored and black and cold and wired to fail. Magic muffins burn in brown and challah loaves from Chinatown did frown my friends and eleventy-ninety never-ending disco bending botany beauties - walnuts wild and other fruits, I did elope and pas de tout did you know that far below, the TSX, I wrote it down, a silver quote that make men rich. You want that cash, clutching savings in a book your advisors so much trouble took and bishops knights and castles rook which check you out of fortune.
Tralala, said Sherry Sweet, from 119 East Dover Street--her rubies slippers on her feet did flit and float on Sunday. I never saw her bottled hair, I always knew she'd never share, I couldn't care when her auntie crowed of how she'd hit the jackpot. The mother lode! My poor toad! It's nothing now to save a tree, when green is black and white is wrong. Of manic men we often sing, a quota on our list to fling, a fire into open arms, we spread a blanket warm but made of lead to cover all your good ideas?
Swish in sandals, heavenly dreaded scandals singing overlong in temples gold and making men feel young and old. I was white and bored and black and cold and wired to fail. Magic muffins burn in brown and challah loaves from Chinatown did frown my friends and eleventy-ninety never-ending disco bending botany beauties - walnuts wild and other fruits, I did elope and pas de tout did you know that far below, the TSX, I wrote it down, a silver quote that make men rich. You want that cash, clutching savings in a book your advisors so much trouble took and bishops knights and castles rook which check you out of fortune.
Tralala, said Sherry Sweet, from 119 East Dover Street--her rubies slippers on her feet did flit and float on Sunday. I never saw her bottled hair, I always knew she'd never share, I couldn't care when her auntie crowed of how she'd hit the jackpot. The mother lode! My poor toad! It's nothing now to save a tree, when green is black and white is wrong. Of manic men we often sing, a quota on our list to fling, a fire into open arms, we spread a blanket warm but made of lead to cover all your good ideas?
9/20/2010
Oh yeah, still here
Big burly buckets of beans in a soup canteen, asking me politely if I still was a has been.
Slow silence and sound screams, not knowing whether to dare or dream.
Minus my magic, married by logic into a silver blue suit, never ask Noah if he packed your flute.
Obvious analogies, fitting fallacies, tautologies, originalities, all the third-world nationalities gathered baseball bats in a banana tree and launched hysterical bees at a satellite tv, laughing so rude and scatologically.
Find me foolish, drink my wine. I don't bother to dress up swine.
Heaven men, best of 10, nothing to compare when we have no when.
I miss that season, the meaning, the simple dimension, when I got excited at a media mention. When running water's everywhere, do I give my friend a drink? When information is the air, well, don't ask me what I think.
Slow silence and sound screams, not knowing whether to dare or dream.
Minus my magic, married by logic into a silver blue suit, never ask Noah if he packed your flute.
Obvious analogies, fitting fallacies, tautologies, originalities, all the third-world nationalities gathered baseball bats in a banana tree and launched hysterical bees at a satellite tv, laughing so rude and scatologically.
Find me foolish, drink my wine. I don't bother to dress up swine.
Heaven men, best of 10, nothing to compare when we have no when.
I miss that season, the meaning, the simple dimension, when I got excited at a media mention. When running water's everywhere, do I give my friend a drink? When information is the air, well, don't ask me what I think.
8/18/2010
An Exercise in Foolishness
Part 1 – Scene with no figurative language:
I was at the front of the group of bicycles lined up behind the stoplight, which was red. The cyclists were one behind the other. A blue and yellow City garbage truck pulled along trying to make a right hand turn, but was stopped by the line of commuters who came from behind me and started pedaling before the light turned green.
The driver of the truck braked suddenly. The truck stopped, the driver rolled down his window and shouted a curse. “You filthy hippies!” I hadn’t begun pedaling, so I smiled at the driver and said, “Some people just don’t know how to drive.” I tried to sound apologetic. The driver of the truck spit out his window and it nearly landed on me. I spit my gum into the back of the truck as it went on its away.
Part 2 – Same scene with super flowery language:
An army of bicycles, buzzing hornets on two wheels, were lined up at the intersection of the throbbing urban jungle’s roadway artery, like unpredictable insects just asking to be swatted by the nearest metal death machine. The stoplight shone an ominous red: death would ambush those who might illegally trespass into the roadway before the anointed moment. From behind there rumbled the blue and yellow metallic Gargantua, the beastly transporter of refuse known as a garbage truck, intent on a turn to the starboard side of the road, to carry its stinking orgy of collected goo away from the pathetic consumerist citizens and their throwaway lifestyles toward the cursed burial grounds, degrading the nostrils of those who fell afoul of its sulfuric stench along the way.
The cadre of velocipedic ant-men did the unthinkable and began an assault upon the open intersection before the red lamp had given permission and ceded into a permissive green. The wheels rolled through like snakes slithering into a baby’s crib; it was Caesar crossing the Rubicon; it was a moment of pure effrontery to reason, goodness and the Highway Traffic Act.
The operator of the trash-vehicle was agog and forced to press desperate foot upon the stopping pads of the steel juggernaut, initiating an inhuman screeching blast that echoed across the roadway and ricocheted into every ear: the bicycles had put a stop to this truck driver’s sacred mission, for now.
The fuming man inside, who took the insult as though his fair mother had been debased by loutish buggerers, rapists and freakpeople, rolling down his Plexiglas barrier and unsheathed his anger in broad daylight. “You filthy hippies” was the reprimand, and it stung my soul as true, for I had not washed since the morning. I was overcome with remorse on behalf of my fellow bipedalists, although I had in fact done right by John Law and never an inch did move before my time had come and until the street lanterns above glowed green. Yet I spoke for my wayward compatriots with an entreating explanation: “Some people just don’t know how to drive.” But it inflamed the fellow’s wound all the more, and he let uncurl from his hateful gullet a sopping sponge-bath worth of heinous saliva, that rocketed past my brow and did despoil the road, as though marking the turf upon which Thomas of Canterbury himself had unjustly lost his neck.
Now I was hot, feeling caught unfairly between a man’s wrath and his target, and so did I then launch my counteroffensive, a Trudeauesque pirouette if there ever was one: I lobbed the mass of chewable gumstuff I had been working most diligently on for masticative purposes and it did so humourously tumble into the back of the villain's trash-machine as he mushed away like Achilles chasing down the armour of Patrocles.
I was at the front of the group of bicycles lined up behind the stoplight, which was red. The cyclists were one behind the other. A blue and yellow City garbage truck pulled along trying to make a right hand turn, but was stopped by the line of commuters who came from behind me and started pedaling before the light turned green.
The driver of the truck braked suddenly. The truck stopped, the driver rolled down his window and shouted a curse. “You filthy hippies!” I hadn’t begun pedaling, so I smiled at the driver and said, “Some people just don’t know how to drive.” I tried to sound apologetic. The driver of the truck spit out his window and it nearly landed on me. I spit my gum into the back of the truck as it went on its away.
Part 2 – Same scene with super flowery language:
An army of bicycles, buzzing hornets on two wheels, were lined up at the intersection of the throbbing urban jungle’s roadway artery, like unpredictable insects just asking to be swatted by the nearest metal death machine. The stoplight shone an ominous red: death would ambush those who might illegally trespass into the roadway before the anointed moment. From behind there rumbled the blue and yellow metallic Gargantua, the beastly transporter of refuse known as a garbage truck, intent on a turn to the starboard side of the road, to carry its stinking orgy of collected goo away from the pathetic consumerist citizens and their throwaway lifestyles toward the cursed burial grounds, degrading the nostrils of those who fell afoul of its sulfuric stench along the way.
The cadre of velocipedic ant-men did the unthinkable and began an assault upon the open intersection before the red lamp had given permission and ceded into a permissive green. The wheels rolled through like snakes slithering into a baby’s crib; it was Caesar crossing the Rubicon; it was a moment of pure effrontery to reason, goodness and the Highway Traffic Act.
The operator of the trash-vehicle was agog and forced to press desperate foot upon the stopping pads of the steel juggernaut, initiating an inhuman screeching blast that echoed across the roadway and ricocheted into every ear: the bicycles had put a stop to this truck driver’s sacred mission, for now.
The fuming man inside, who took the insult as though his fair mother had been debased by loutish buggerers, rapists and freakpeople, rolling down his Plexiglas barrier and unsheathed his anger in broad daylight. “You filthy hippies” was the reprimand, and it stung my soul as true, for I had not washed since the morning. I was overcome with remorse on behalf of my fellow bipedalists, although I had in fact done right by John Law and never an inch did move before my time had come and until the street lanterns above glowed green. Yet I spoke for my wayward compatriots with an entreating explanation: “Some people just don’t know how to drive.” But it inflamed the fellow’s wound all the more, and he let uncurl from his hateful gullet a sopping sponge-bath worth of heinous saliva, that rocketed past my brow and did despoil the road, as though marking the turf upon which Thomas of Canterbury himself had unjustly lost his neck.
Now I was hot, feeling caught unfairly between a man’s wrath and his target, and so did I then launch my counteroffensive, a Trudeauesque pirouette if there ever was one: I lobbed the mass of chewable gumstuff I had been working most diligently on for masticative purposes and it did so humourously tumble into the back of the villain's trash-machine as he mushed away like Achilles chasing down the armour of Patrocles.
8/17/2010
my little lady
works hard all day
much work no play
my little lady don't stray she's
wearing her silver blues and needing new shoes
and lying on the deck by the flowers at a quarter past
two - maybe just for an hour cause who knows who
will call the hotline?
do I buy red roses when asked to now
she still smiles at the power of flowers I
shush her now she calms right down she works so hard
and right downtown so proud I tell her that; how she is my
champion
much work no play
my little lady don't stray she's
wearing her silver blues and needing new shoes
and lying on the deck by the flowers at a quarter past
two - maybe just for an hour cause who knows who
will call the hotline?
do I buy red roses when asked to now
she still smiles at the power of flowers I
shush her now she calms right down she works so hard
and right downtown so proud I tell her that; how she is my
champion
8/16/2010
oops
There was some errors on the pungents.com hosting side, and PDFs of all my *books* (haha) online (right side links) got deleted. I'll have to reupload those, but in the meantime I found and reuploaded Hope is a Piano - easily the worst of the four. Read it! Ha.
UPDATE: PDFs of cupcakes restored!
UPDATE: PDFs of cupcakes restored!
7/29/2010
Metaphoria
[a word I could have invented but chose not to]
The ability to choose we rarely exercise; move an inch forward to look me in the eye. A wheel revolves until it stops, but inertia might mean the other shoe won't drop. And if we ever agree on progress then someone call the cops.
Omega man has a broken hand, which requires more thinking—the need to plan. You can't dig out of sand with just one hand. He tried it once on dry land. He dug sand too out from the ocean, but could not understand: When you dig something real, but have nothing to say, the sand creeps back in and fills your hole, and you just wasted the day. Toil is a cruel idea, invented by school so that we'd behave, and what exactly is the difference between me and a slave? You earn it while it burns you; to see the light you ignite the candle in your mind—which unfortunately means your head is on fire, spine is a wick, face is wax and there's no water by design.
The ability to choose we rarely exercise; move an inch forward to look me in the eye. A wheel revolves until it stops, but inertia might mean the other shoe won't drop. And if we ever agree on progress then someone call the cops.
Omega man has a broken hand, which requires more thinking—the need to plan. You can't dig out of sand with just one hand. He tried it once on dry land. He dug sand too out from the ocean, but could not understand: When you dig something real, but have nothing to say, the sand creeps back in and fills your hole, and you just wasted the day. Toil is a cruel idea, invented by school so that we'd behave, and what exactly is the difference between me and a slave? You earn it while it burns you; to see the light you ignite the candle in your mind—which unfortunately means your head is on fire, spine is a wick, face is wax and there's no water by design.
7/28/2010
Top 10 Cupcake Man Jersey Shore Nicknames
[inspired by Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino]
- Xupcake Man
- FREE-CUPPs
- Bloggzy
- TDottily
- BloodCuddler
- Ramblo
- MiSCter E
- Prose-Echo
- Misa Fred Moe Cupcake
- The Internast
7/07/2010
RIP Musa
I rode by on a Monday morning and
saw the police tape.
So many times served by the waiter
in the cowboy hat
I never minded the wait
French toast smothered in maple syrup
Red bricks eaten by flames
On a weekend with so many fire alarms
In a city that lives to blame
When power goes out in a heat wave
We rush to corners to direct the cars
But when Sundays are snuffed like a lit cigar
The police state's rather lame
And my daily pass through Dundas
and Euclid never will be the same
[See "Fire destroys Musa and several homes at Dundas and Euclid"]
saw the police tape.
So many times served by the waiter
in the cowboy hat
I never minded the wait
French toast smothered in maple syrup
Red bricks eaten by flames
On a weekend with so many fire alarms
In a city that lives to blame
When power goes out in a heat wave
We rush to corners to direct the cars
But when Sundays are snuffed like a lit cigar
The police state's rather lame
And my daily pass through Dundas
and Euclid never will be the same
[See "Fire destroys Musa and several homes at Dundas and Euclid"]
5/06/2010
10 reasons why the combined intelligence of 7 billion people = global stupidity
[Memorize these and you'll never have to accidentally implode the world economy.]
See also, Tower of Babel, problems during construction of
-Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money [based on Eliezer Yudkowsky, 'Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks', in Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic (eds), Global Catastrophic Risks (Oxford University Press, 2008)]
- Availability bias, which causes us to base decisions on information that is more readily available in our memories, rather than the data we really need;
- Hindsight bias, which causes us to attach higher probabilities to events after they have happened (ex post) than we did before they happened (ex ante);
- The problem of induction, which leads us to formulate general rules on the basis of insufficient information;
- The fallacy of conjunction (or disjunction), which means we tend to overestimate the probability that seven events of 90% probability will all occur, while underestimating the probability that at least one of seven events of 10% probability will occur;
- Confirmation bias, which inclines us to look for confirming evidence of an initial hypothesis, rather than falsifying evidence that would disprove it;
- Contamination effects, whereby we allow irrelevant but proximate information to influence a decision;
- The affect heuristic, whereby preconceived value-judgments interfere with our assessments of costs and benefits;
- Scope neglect, which prevents us from proportionately adjusting what we should be willing to sacrifice to avoid harms of different orders of magnitude;
- Overconfidence in calibration, which leads us to underestimate the confidence intervals within which our estimates will be robust (e.g. to conflate the 'best case' scenario with the 'most probable'); and
- Bystander apathy, which inclines us to abdicate individual responsibility when in a crowd.
See also, Tower of Babel, problems during construction of
5/03/2010
4/29/2010
Apart from the art
A loud cow, a lowly blow, she lows, she knows what into her stomachs go.
A sombre sonata, dove named Renata, driven away by lout in a Mazda Miata.
A Celtic shrew, witches' brew, believes in the Ark and two by twos.
A proud man, totally tan, trips, unplanned banana peel rips dignity from his twisted hips.
A festering welt, karate belt, repeating dropkicks until after the April melt.
A sombre sonata, dove named Renata, driven away by lout in a Mazda Miata.
A Celtic shrew, witches' brew, believes in the Ark and two by twos.
A proud man, totally tan, trips, unplanned banana peel rips dignity from his twisted hips.
A festering welt, karate belt, repeating dropkicks until after the April melt.
4/25/2010
4/21/2010
World Cup of Toronto 2010
A friend just reminded me of the existence of my 2006 Toronto World Cup blog.
In June 2010, I hope to resume my Toronto world football travels. Stay tuned.
In June 2010, I hope to resume my Toronto world football travels. Stay tuned.
4/12/2010
8 ways to brighten your mood
[requires a few basic supplies and a semi-permeable membrane]
- Fire hoses spraying elephant dung - yes.
- Win a Toblerone for every cheetah cub you save on the way to work. Has to be yelping in pain or flailing in a trapper's net somewhere. Double Toblerone for saving the mother cheetah
- Leave extra space between you and the next car, allowing room for your pumped up sense of self!
- Eat only raisins and tell yourself they are the shrunken heads of evil dictators
- Spar with a old man, knock him unconscious if you have to. He's reliving his glory days, which is awesome.
- Sweeten the mood of a loved one by extracting all of his or her salt content. You will need a semi-permeable membrane, lots of water, and patience.
- Marvel aloud at the racetrack how sweaty the horses are and how nice it would be to wrap them in a puffy towel.
- Motion toward a stranger. When he approaches, offer him a box of paper clips. If he refuses, note it well, plant a tracking device on his coat, and add him to your database of People who Have Enough Paperclips. When the paperclip shortage hits, you have the 'intel' you need to navigate the crisis.
4/06/2010
Every Tuesday
I go make lemonade for kids who were given lemons. They don't complain, and I am thrilled to bits. It shouldn't count as volunteering when you have that much fun.
4/05/2010
Aspirin(g)
[powered by pure wind]
Breathe what is better, borrow a letter, I knew Eddie Vedder's second cousin Bert Beethoven, massacred outside a 7-11.
Dramatic inches, Sidd Finch, the April Fool's Buddha, could throw 168 miles per hour wearing a hiking boot; could have had groupies in Bermuda or diamond-leather suit. The punchline: he didn't exist, but boy what a beaut.
Old guy with hot dame on arm got game, nobody remember his name. Crusade men, long swiss in leather, armed with big sharp spikes: we end up liking whatever they like. But I don't conspire in my spare time, which won't please the Dragon lords. We stood in back of church for Easter, punished for being bored.
We, like you, will pass, I don't think you mean to try. I'd shill like a midget on reality television; their happiness makes me cry.
Watered down in Twittered unison, nation known for barrels of bitumen, barnacles manifold, fructating cows, living like larvae on the cover of NOW. If Sid the Kid was a silver-haired Swede, I'd still love the way he leads; when we pot through five-hole those magic gifts from hockey gods the devil's eyes will bleed.
Overroasted toasters and sixty year old east coasters remembering their youth through the corner of a cover of Vogue, flattening wrinkles on foreheads 'stead of worrying about hospital beds -- we were lied to by the Mad Men, so I say AMEN - those merciful lies make life worth living; how else do we explain the continued employment of Jeremy Piven? [ok... stop]
Breathe what is better, borrow a letter, I knew Eddie Vedder's second cousin Bert Beethoven, massacred outside a 7-11.
Dramatic inches, Sidd Finch, the April Fool's Buddha, could throw 168 miles per hour wearing a hiking boot; could have had groupies in Bermuda or diamond-leather suit. The punchline: he didn't exist, but boy what a beaut.
Old guy with hot dame on arm got game, nobody remember his name. Crusade men, long swiss in leather, armed with big sharp spikes: we end up liking whatever they like. But I don't conspire in my spare time, which won't please the Dragon lords. We stood in back of church for Easter, punished for being bored.
We, like you, will pass, I don't think you mean to try. I'd shill like a midget on reality television; their happiness makes me cry.
Watered down in Twittered unison, nation known for barrels of bitumen, barnacles manifold, fructating cows, living like larvae on the cover of NOW. If Sid the Kid was a silver-haired Swede, I'd still love the way he leads; when we pot through five-hole those magic gifts from hockey gods the devil's eyes will bleed.
Overroasted toasters and sixty year old east coasters remembering their youth through the corner of a cover of Vogue, flattening wrinkles on foreheads 'stead of worrying about hospital beds -- we were lied to by the Mad Men, so I say AMEN - those merciful lies make life worth living; how else do we explain the continued employment of Jeremy Piven? [ok... stop]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)