kung fu grippe

Bass: how low have you gone?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:42:30 -0800

Bass: how low have you gone?

Mercury Rev - “Chasing A Bee” (1991)

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:30:48 -0800

Mercury Rev - “Chasing A Bee” (1991)

Steven Burns - “Mighty Little Man” (2002) Produced...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:03:00 -0800

Steven Burns - “Mighty Little Man” (2002)

Produced by Mercury Rev’s Dave Fridmann (prod. Flaming Lips, et al.). Cool record.

Just you.

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:12:00 -0800

ohheygreat:

Anyone who does THAT dance to THAT song is never, under any circumstances, EVER a jackass.

[Everybody go read that; It’s very cool.]

Thanks, for this, my friend. SO super-nice of you to share this. Means a lot to me.

Truth is, I’ve got a weirdly thick skin for most of the blunter electronic darts, and, as with nuclear war, genital warts, and doomed engagements, you only really have to worry about my feelings when I stop talking about them.

Still, thank you. Very very much.

But, yes. Just as a human art project, I’ll admit that I love the opportunity to try my hand at aping someone else’s attack-mode persona if that’s the game of Stratego they’ve elected to crack open. I’m no Monteiro, but, sure, I do like getting my troll on as much as the next guy.

All that said:

As long as I’ve nailed together this little soapbox, I will take a minute to share two bits of absolute jackass arrogance that I will own from nose to butt — and which I will recommend to any of my pals reading this in the event that it appeals. Just a couple unmerited swatches of unpopular, unstarrable, unfavoriteable self-confidence that will render you permanently incapable of ever being universally fake-admired. So, caveat emptor:

Remember you’re only as good as you never let strangers talk you out of being.
You’re the only one who gets to decide what’s “good” and who’s “a stranger.”

Parse that how you like, but I’ve both seen and dispensed enough unbelievable and unnecessary stupidity to know that, when it comes down the to the coffins and the floral arrangements, you will not get to do a rebuttal, you will not get to clarify yourself via a sober DM, and you will not get to copyedit whatever your black-suited survivors decide to put into that obit they threw together on deadline. Those are all people who — love you though they did — each has their own story, their own perception, and their own things to keep on doing long after you’re well and truly gone. Sorry, carbon balls. That’s how this story ends.

So, all we really have are these days here doing these things that we do. And the more things we try to do for more people in more places, the more likely it is that we’ll each find ourselves at odds with one or more of the folks around us. Sometimes for good reasons. Sometimes for bad reasons. Almost all of the time for no reason at all. That’s just how it is. It’s a junior high cafeteria and choosing to always pack a healthy and nutritious lunch is no bulwark against the inevitable food fights.

The thing I try to keep in mind — and that I certainly fail at in one way or another almost daily — is that who you decide you are and what you decide you’re doing today trumps every opinion, regardless of raw tonnage, page rank, or motherfucking follower count. All. On. You.¹

We mustn’t rely on the poll numbers and hourly emoticon counts to tell us whether we’re on the right track. It’s nice to be liked, but, especially as you get older, it’s really, really nice to be yourself. All the time. As often as you can stand.

This does NOT mean you can’t evolve, can’t be wrong, can’t be apologetic, can’t be sympathetic, can’t be sentimental, or can’t be any thing you choose. Contrary to astoundingly popular opinion, being yourself — really yourself — means you embrace the endless and chaotic number of options that avalanche into your life when you stop pretending you’re a professionally-printed poster.

And it happily, maddeningly happens every time you accept whatever the fuck you are without yielding to the persistent need to persuade everyone around you that you’re actually them. Unless, of course, that’s who you truly want to be.

So, yes. If you want to be a better human, I say, do it. If you want to be nicer and kinder and more cognizant of the tragedy in Haiti and the injustices in Iran and the travails of Conan O’Brien, go do it. Do it all. Do it, do it, do it.

But, YOU do it. You.

And don’t sweat whether I like it or not. Whether they like it or not. Our opinion doesn’t fucking matter. Remember? This is you. Living, here you. That’s all you got, my friend.

Anyhow. I gotta go play fire trucks with my kid, but I do want you — my happy band of brothers — to know that I am genuinely (really and non-persona-ly) grateful that so many of you are my pals and, yes, supporters and fans. It means a lot to me. Yes, me.

On a podcast the other day, I was bemoaning the way things like Google and Facebook have helped create a disincentive to leveraging the web’s traditional role as a place to just try things on. Used to be, there was way less obsession over “personal brand” and consistency and never saying anything that even potentially contradicted anything you’d said somewhere else. And, I miss that. It was easier to be weird. It was easier to be yourself. Even or especially if you were fucked up. ↩

Siri: Two for Three Siri Siriously? Stunning iPhone voice...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:59:00 -0800

Siri: Two for Three

Siri

Siriously? Stunning iPhone voice recognition → almost anything app.

I’m with Sippey; buy this, Steve. Buy this, now.

Why Merlin Mann (Whom I’ve Never Heard of) is a Complete Jackass Metafilter comment on...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:48:00 -0800

Why Merlin Mann (Whom I’ve Never Heard of) is a Complete Jackass

Metafilter comment on someone called, “Merlin Mann,” who had been declared a “complete jackass” upthread:

I’ve never heard of the guy, I have no idea who he is, and I’ve certainly never seen anything he’s done. But, personally, I don’t get him.

If he really cared what people who’ve never heard of him thought about the things he may or may not have ever said or done, then he’d have the sense to quit doing hard-to-explain bullshit we’ve never heard of, and just focus on more consistently doing or not doing and saying or not saying things that we’d never like anyway if we’d heard of them (which we haven’t) but which when we DID hear about them (which we won’t) would make it way easier to explain why we don’t like him to people who could care less who either of us is anyway. I mean, I know I do and, consequently, I don’t. Maybe that’s just me, and I’m fine with all of that.

Frankly, even though I’ve never heard of this guy and hate him already, I am so bored with his lack of interest in my boredom, disdain, and lack of interest that I have completely lost any interest in any part of this. Even in my own lack of interest and, to some extent — yes — even in my own boredom with his disdain, in my total lack of interest in his boredom with my disdain, let alone in my utter lack of interest in his disdain for my boredom with his stupid lack of stupid interest.

But, most especially irksome to me — just on a strictly personal level? — as someone who’s never heard of this guy and never liked anything he’s done anyway, I think it’s appalling that he has so little respect for the people who don’t know or care who he is. As a well-known person whom no one’s ever heard of, he has a very real responsibility to show proper respect to the people he damn well knows would hate him if they’d ever heard of him (which they haven’t).

If I’d ever heard of this guy (which I haven’t) I’d say he at least owes us that much. At least.

So, yes. Jackass.

Next.
posted by merlinmann at 10:12 AM on February 8

Wow. That commenter seems like kind of a jackass, doesn’t he?

"Monday is a man. It always comes too soon."

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:58:05 -0800

“Monday is a man. It always comes too soon.”

- Jeffrey Zeldman

Dinosaur Jr. - “Raisans” (Live at UMass, 1986) I...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:35:49 -0800

Dinosaur Jr. - “Raisans” (Live at UMass, 1986)

I will never get sick of watching this. So young. So loud. So not yet openly trying to kill one another.

Album cut from 1987’s earhole-melting You’re Living All Over Me:

Dinosaur Jr. - “Raisans” (Album Version, 1987)

Stbadih Guess there’s no autocorrect for trying to...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:43:07 -0800

Stbadih

Guess there’s no autocorrect for trying to touch-type “Sebadoh” as you cross Taraval Street.

Which I should probably regard as a teachable moment on any number of levels.

(via awkwardstockphotos)

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:01:52 -0800

(via awkwardstockphotos)

luckyshirt: Pumped about the Super Bowl party. Go Lakers!

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:29:51 -0800

luckyshirt:

Pumped about the Super Bowl party.

Go Lakers!

gist: 290059 Updated my Quix custom commands file. NB: if, like me, you’ve had trouble with...

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:18:00 -0800

gist: 290059

Updated my Quix custom commands file.

NB: if, like me, you’ve had trouble with the bookmarklet timing out on the iPhone, try the sexy “space” trick. Meaning, when the dialog box pops up, type a space before the desired command, and the results will open in a new browser window (and, for reasons that aren’t yet clear to me, skirt my time-out bug).

Jesus, this thing is amazing. Do try it.

Simplify fourteen harder I love, love, love, love love, love...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:45:00 -0800

Simplify fourteen harder

I love, love, love, love love, love the internet right now.

Public Safety

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:22:40 -0800

Public Safety

43 Simple Ways To Simplify Your Life Remove your doors Eat half of each pet Sit on a big, thick...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:11:00 -0800

43 Simple Ways To Simplify Your Life

Remove your doors
Eat half of each pet
Sit on a big, thick book
Something something keyring holder
Paint clocks cheery pink
Wear discarded food
Makebelieve girlfriend chair
Sleep in liquor cabinet
Embrace hug love hug meow meow
Small room to plan crimes
Hack your house key organizer
Mail a surprise toaster
Just stare more
Fourteen
Poke holes in paper things
Macrame shoelace tree
Scrapbook poop and pee
Euthanize even faster
Amputate favorite limb
Pencil shaving gallery
Immigrant coat rack
Shoebox of dangerous porn
Zen unicorn rainbow zen journal
Icepick to one good eye
Simplify fourteen harder
Aluminum foil swan cozy dryer
Smell your finger. All of it.
Resimplify your simplicity
Habitualize your zen
Remind your drapes, “I love you, Mrs. Textile”
Freeze your clutter
Couch fort dinner party
Nicene creed robot
Only sodomize things that forgive
Coaxial sweater vest
Transitive verb predicate clause
More crying but quieter
Inhaler nativity
Contact paper taxonomy binder
America’s Roast Beef: Yes, Sir
Breathe like no one’s dancing
Unbridled solo diaper play
Illuminated panty shrine

[via]

Mmmm…1993. Yum — Lynxlet: Lynx for Mac OS X

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:31:00 -0800

Mmmm…1993.

Yum — Lynxlet: Lynx for Mac OS X

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - “The Waiting”...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:52:29 -0800

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - “The Waiting” (1981)

gist: 296864 - GitHub

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:09:32 -0800

gist: 296864 - GitHub

After lunch, Ben took a few moments to explain some of the finer...

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:19:00 -0800

After lunch, Ben took a few moments to explain some of the finer points of how the VM image he’s setting up for me will make it easy to safely push changes to the production server while ensuring everything’s properly checked in to git as well as backed up off-site.

He explained it really well — still, some of the python stuff confused me.

Hope they got a good backup plan.

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:38:03 -0800

Hope they got a good backup plan.