Oh Alison, if only I can think like you can right now because I feel tired. I find it a positive signal when I start daydreaming of myself, lying back in a patio chair while my eyes take in a vast, deep blue ocean view. Maybe I'd be sipping on a tall glass of cranberry/rasberry juice while reading an amazing book that I knew for certain was amazing ahead of time; ignoring that tempestuous tsunami or hurricane racing towards me out in the distance. The bliss! I'd ease back into the chair, reassured - just for that brief moment - that my agnostic ways did not result in my fiery damnation. Ah...nothing like daydreaming.

hmm... my feeling of mild weirdness has progressed to nausea (though I doubt stomach illness is the cause of my introspection) excellent... so much for the pile of parties and bar bashes goin' on tonight.
hooray internet, my sick-night companion, where I can catch up on the ever changing world news and look up obscure things like how to preserve lemons for Moroccan cooking

This, however, caught my eye (from McSweeny's):

FURTHER EXCERPTS FROM THE DIARY OF AN ASPIRING DEATH-METAL
FRONTMAN. BY JESSE SINGAL

1/14/06

I am refreshed, Diary—refreshed and ready to finish my tale. I finally reached Richmond last night. Exhausted, I rang the doorbell, and my mother answered in a ratty nightgown and more curlers than she has strands of hair.

"Daniel," she said flatly.

"Deathblow."

"OK. Deathblow."

"I'm home, Mother."

"I can see that. Sorry I didn't accept any of your collect calls." She produced a cigarette, took a long drag. The smoke hung in the air like the singeing exhalations of a dragon (or perhaps a wyvern, if wyverns breathe fire). "But the important thing is that you're home." I brushed passed her, wanting nothing more than to collapse onto my bed.

"Oh, and Dan—I mean Deathblow?" I hadn't even reached the stairs.

"Yes, Mother?"

"I sold your guitar on eBay because it, uh, reminded me of you."

My world began to swim. I grabbed the banister for support, ready to spin around and deliver onto my mother a smorgasbord of invectives that would have left even the most scatologically inclined diner sated. But no. Not this time. Somewhere, there was a mountain of ash consisting of all the bridges I had burned since Sockhop Babykill Redux had gone down. I did not intend on adding to its sorry mass.

"That's ... OK, Mother. I guess I'll have to buy another one." And with that I trudged upstairs to the comfort of my room and the catharsis of my beloved diary.

yeah, way to go "centrallized bigness." another phrase that hit my list this week was "opportunistically nomadic" rather fabulous if you ask me.

did you know that the specific epithet for Emu is latin for "fast-footed New Hollander?" pretty funny if you ask me

and other randomness... if you would like to make preserved lemons, all you have to do is poke holes in lemons and surround them with salt. Who would want to do that? salty lemons??

I'm feeling mildly weird at the moment (perhaps an overdose of chocolate cookies and robins' eggs is responsible), but I've been thinking lately about what exactly I'm doing with my life... and, uh, I'm not sure! excellent. I mean, it's really no big deal, but I feel weird to have suddenly dropped all the activism and advocacy of my old job, run to the forest and then disappeared overseas for a bit to come back and work for a laboratory to then start my grad studies (I got in! - woo!) ... what do I want?? advocacy, academia, some weird combination of those, something else? how do I stop feeling un-genuine about this? I just don't know... what I'm doing, where I'm going, if this is right, or if I'm only doing the easy thing because it's, well, easy. ... not that grad studies is going to be easy, but it's systematic, logical, and that seems easy to me, somehow. Far less unfathomable than the rest of my future, granted we aren't expected to know what we're doing for the rest of our lives at the age of 23 (thankfully), but I really don't know. I have a semi-sure direction in mind, but that doesn't guarantee success... and it doesn't guarantee happiness either. and all I can think to say to this is "woo hoo!" how do you figure anything out from that? bah.

there's nothing more redeeming than an anus that's reaming

my penis is thrusting between us.

really? Sonic plays the Artex Monkeys and not like the Arctic Monkeys?
SUP internet indeed

That guy's an amazing skater. Seems well worth the trade at this point, but they've got to play him with Horcoff more often. They work so well together.

Read the numbers on your fruit:

"[T]he sticker labels on fruit: The numbers tell you how the fruit was grown. Conventionally grown fruit has four digits; organically grown fruit has five and starts with a nine; genetically engineered has five numbers and starts with an eight."

Holy christ that was an exciting overtime win! Samsonov skated circles around them to set up the game winner.

Artex Monkeys have been played on Sonic many times. I already heard all those songs.

A renewable option in Ontario:

[The Ontario Power Authority] argues that nuclear power is needed for security of supply. But it's not listening to people involved with renewable energy who say the opposite: that there's no security in centralized bigness because when something breaks, there's an immediate crisis. Moreover, the enormous cost of nuclear plants will financially starve other services in the province.
...
In Ontario, I wouldn't be surprised if ground-source heating and cooling could eliminate the need for an entire nuclear plant, simply by cutting electricity demand for air conditioners, electric hot water tanks and electric baseboard heaters.

The problem is that high costs and long payback periods are barriers to installations. Ron Dembo of Toronto, however, has a solution: His firm, Zerofootprint Inc., will arrange for installation at no added cost to property owners.

His new firm installs ground-source heating and cooling in newly constructed buildings at no extra cost to builders above what they would otherwise pay for conventional systems. In return, purchasers of the buildings agree to pay Zerofootprint a monthly charge that's slightly below what they would pay for oil or natural gas at the time of purchase.