End

Tonight I was moved to take a look through this blog after several years of neglect - not in its entirety, but an overview.  Spam comments just keep on coming.  If nothing else, when they land in my email inbox they act as a reminder that while some things end, anything you post on the web remains.  Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair; also, buy more Viagra.  (As a sidenote, I find it disturbing how many of the spam comments I deleted were links to incest porn.)

I realized I never posted a final post here.  I'm going to take a leaf from my colleague Tifanie's book (the link to her previous blog, and its last post, is in the blogroll to the left), and say that this blog represents a period that's now over.  This blog represents a life that I lived, and a job that I had, and friends that I thankfully still have, in great measure and with some few unfortunate exceptions.

I fed them to the zombies, of course.

The Editor still lives, however, and can be found pursuing an appropriate Editorial destiny writing about books at indiscriminatereader.blogspot.com.  I still maintain a zombie lab, relocated to Texas at great cost in financial resources and human life, and a remarkably unproductive custom spork factory.

End.

Fun Album Cover Game

This is very silly, and I'm really just posting it so that a friend can see the results of a game - similar to that in which you generate a porn name - that he posted on his blog.

You can participate here.

And my results, which will make no sense unless you've read the rules:


I believe this is the attempted 90s adult-contemporary comeback album of an 80s band with one hit, a single made popular through being on the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie.

Maybe Only Half a Sign

As the title of this post indicates, I'm not sure if this quite qualifies as a full sign of the coming Apocalypse:


This woman really looks like she's looking forward to flushing this piece of pizza from her already grotesquely overstuffed colon, n'est-ce pas?

Half a sign of the Apocalypse, folks. Half a sign. For a full one, she'd have to be doing the flushing in the photo, not building up the need for it.

My Mommy Is Ugly and Needs a Boob Job

A few posts ago, I found one potential sign that the Apocalypse is truly on its way - NASCAR themed Harlequin romances. (Just a quick note on that topic - a young lady friend of the Editor's saw one of these abominations on a used bookstore shelf, picked it up out of morbid curiosity, and reported to me that yes, it is just as classy as one might expect.)

And now, yea, I have seen the second sign, Hallelujah.

Some freak plastic surgeon decided that the big problem with cosmetic surgery in the United States is not the fact that it's dangerous, expensive, overused, and generally similar to Medieval torture except that you pay a lot for it (the Inquisition did it for free, at least). No, the issue really is that children are confused by the fact that their mommies go in to the doctor's office just fine and looking like they always do, and come out groggy, covered in bandages, and then - looking completely different.

FYI, Dr. Michael Salzhauer doesn't think that the best solution to this problem is, I don't know, getting less plastic surgery? No. The solution is to write a picture book explaining how Mommy's just fine, and once the bandages come off - she'll be pretty!

I shit you not. Of course, aside from the profit Dr. Wackjob is making from his wonderful book, he is doubtless hoping for a new generation of business from children who have been convinced along the way that no one is really pretty until they've had their nose broken, shaved, and molded. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

Time to Form a Cave

Inspired by my friend over at the Back of the Cereal Box, I've decided that it's time to share some of the stranger ways that internet users have found this site. The funny thing is that absolutely none of the keywords used to reach Notes From Overground have involved zombies - I guess I've succeeded in keeping the lab low-profile.

Regular readers may remember a post titled "The Love Poem of a Creepy Old Man" - that page has generated the most searches and the most hits, because apparently, despite the recipient of that poem having been both shocked and horrified by the experience, many people actually want to be written creepy poems. Is it that hard to get a poetic stalker? My friends' experiences would suggest no, but apparently it is for the type of people who end up on this site. They have searched for:

creepy love poems
creepy love poem
a poem of death and creepy
creepy poetry
love poem creepy
love poem+older man
love poems creepy
poem loose women
poem too old love
poems about creepy dream
poetry creepy

The first, "creepy love poems," generated 14 separate hits. That, I believe, is because this is the first site on the list for that search. Congratulations to me: I have become the internet's number one source for creepy love poems about/written by creepy old men. Cross that goal off the list!

Other noteworthy searches which lead to this site, and for which this is the first hit:

time to form a cave
astral kiss
joop necktie
your light forever trapped in the time and space

The very best search, however, is:

desperate christadelphians

This does NOT lead directly to Notes From Overground - in fact, this site is on the fourth page of a Google search. Which suggests, perhaps, that the searcher was truly desperate to find a desperate Christadelphian, for some sinister reason of their own.

Jungle Sex, Anyone?

Tonight's TV Guide feature: Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade.

The description: "Three beautiful explorers enter a jungle to search for an idol that turns women into sexual slaves."

As the zombie lab isn't profitable enough to allow me to subscribe to Cinemax, I may never know whether or not Alabama Jones and her intrepid (and busty!) companions retrieve the mysterious idol. But my bet is that at least one of them turns into a sexual slave by the end of the film . . . any takers?

Best . . . Restaurant Review . . . EVER

I'm not sure who wrote this review of the Nordstrom Cafe . . . it might have been Lerx in disguise as the sinister "jessica ann simon".

BAD COSTUMER SERVICE
Reviewer: jessica ann simon from (town deleted), ca
YOU HURT MY FEELINGS WHEN YOU GUYS DID NOT LET MY TEACHER SANJA HUNT BRING HER DOG PEANUT TO THE OUT SIDE TABLES YOU GUYS WERE VERY RUDE AND INCONSIDERATE OF MY TEACHER WANTING TO BRING HER DOG TO OUR LUNCH DESTINATION YOU GUYS WRE NOT POLIET i FEEL THIS WAY BECAUSE MY TEACHER loves her dog peanut. and her dog is a small dog she is a toy dog and it will nice if you can under stand that a small toy dog needs to be with her owner

I wonder if the staff would have been more "POLIET" had they known in advance that the dog's name was Peanut. jessica ann simon apparently thinks so.

Why I Hate Academia: Part I of Approximately MMM

While searching for some (probably equally ungodly) article titled "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular," I chanced upon this: "Organ Transplantation as a Transformative Experience: Anthropological Insights into the Restructuring of the Self."

Which, I think, means that the author has made the great discovery that having one's organs transplanted is somewhat traumatic.

New Feature!

In what may become a continuing feature in this forum, I feel compelled to note that there is one highly underappreciated type of writing out there: the movie description on the TV Guide channel (or alternately, the guide function on a DVR). Tonight's winner: HBO's description of The Highlander, which may be one of the best movies ever made, although I know at least one of my regular readers will disagree.

This film has everything: swords, Christopher Lambert, highly quotable moments ("He's in league with Lucifer!"), a bad mid-eighties easy-listening soundtrack, and Things That Are Scottish, not to mention a villain who looks like a goth/punk pro-wrestler who eats arsenic on the weekends.

This is how my DVR guide describes the film: "A New Yorker beheads a swordsman in a parking lot, continuing a battle of immortals."

There's something about the way it completely misses the point, while simultaneously perfectly capturing the film's essence, that makes it so great.

John and Megan

I don't know John and Megan. I just happened upon their blog a moment ago.


But the fact that they only seem able to create one facial expression each somehow struck me as funny, that's all.

Oh, No They Didn't . . .

As some of my gentle readers may know, I'm doing my English honors thesis on romance novels. Yes, I am, stop laughing, please.

Specifically, I'm studying how representations of masculinity in the Harlequin Presents series of romance novels have undergone a paradigm change since the seminal studies in the genre, in the early 1980s. See? Academia is awesome, because you can say very little in very many words. Gotta love it. (This project, fyi, accounts for my odd Shelfari picks, if anyone wondered.)

But. The point is, this pursuit leads me to spend a fair amount of time on Harlequin's website, looking at writing guidelines and press info and sales statistics and new releases. And, today, looking at . . . the most . . . okay, imagine the worst possible combination of masculine/feminine pop culture, like, say, a Cosmopolitan magazine written by Carrot Top, or something, and then . . . oh God, it's too horrible to contemplate. I give you:


Ladies and gentlemen, please place a paper bag over your head, as it will make the coming Apocalypse slightly less disturbing.

Cake or death? Only it's not a joke.

Just today, I discovered a sect of Christianity previously unknown to me - the Christadelphians. Wikipedia, the ultimate repository of all knowledge and wisdom (until I find a real copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, at least) informs me that there are only about 50,000 of these folks in the world, spread throughout 120 different countries. There are also break-off sects of Christadelphians, which may only have 50 members. Other Christians consider them insane.

On the other hand, the Christadelphians consider the Jehovah's Witnesses to be insane, and so the moral seems to be: no matter how fucked up you are, there's someone even more batshit crazy than you. Unless you're the Jehovah's Witnesses, of course - that's the bottom of the barrel.

Be that as it may, the Christadelphians take pride in their literal interpretation of much of the Bible. They espouse the idea of a second coming and a general resurrection of the faithful; as a result they draw a sharp contrast between what they call the Kingdom of Men and the Kingdom of God.

Eddie Izzard has a particularly good routine on the Anglican Church, in which he comments that were that institution to have an Inquisition, it would be a little wimpy - something along the lines of "Cake or death?" The Christadelphians apparently also believe in cake or death, only they represent it thus:
The intro I've just provided aside, this may be one of the most compelling images ever created. Please note the contrast between the flaming skull levitating above a lava flow, on the one hand, and the giant hummingbird, on the other. Giant hummingbirds or flaming skulls? The choice is yours.

Success!

I forgot to mention that there is a follow-up to the bureaucratic battle which was waged between the Editor and the dark forces of Mandatory Alcohol Education. Although no spears were finally used in the confrontation, the Editor did receive a moderately courteous email waiving the requirement.

Such are the anemic victories of this modern age . . .

The Meaning of Art - Solved at Last!!!

Going back to the honorable roots of this most honorable blog (I think I'm turning Japanese, or at least my adjectives are, can anyone help with this?) this post has no plot, points of interest, purpose, or anything else that does or does not begin with the letter p. Unless you include pointlessness.

To continue: the Editor has always been a staunch believer that art is independent of the observer, unlike particles that obey the laws of quantum mechanics. (This will not be a discussion of how art differs from quarks, but it's a point worth noting nonetheless.) In other words, a painting is good whether or not it is seen, a piece of music is good whether or not it is heard (although it is ideally more frequently heard when it's good), and a book, or piece of writing, is good even if no one but the writer ever knows it exists. Beauty, in short, is neither in the bloodshot eye of the potentially illiterate, moonshine-swilling scum of this world, nor in the jaundiced eye of the poncy, pompous, pretentious and ultra-pc ambiguously sexualized artistes of this world. So why the desire to post writing on the ultimate public forum (except the surface of the moon - if I were a corporation, I'd have an enormous billboard up there so fucking fast) - the internet? Not, of course, that I am implying that my writing is good. Nor am I implying that it's bad. That's not the issue. The issue is, no matter what the grammatical or philosophical quality of the writing, why post it?

See, if I had real confidence in my own ability, it ought to be just the same to me, typing into a word document hour after hour. It shouldn't matter whether or not it's accessible to anyone else, because its quality is unrelated to the reader or lack thereof. So my posting of this dubiously worthwhile material is completely illogical. It's a combination of either a) the assumption that somewhere out there there's a person who will just love my style, or b) the desperate, hoping praying longing for some person out there to just love my style. The first implies that I'm a narcissist. The second suggests that I'm an idiot.

Both are true in differing degrees. But looking at this from a non-Editor-centric position, everyone has this same dilemma. How much to believe in yourself, versus how much to beg for attention, is the most difficult dichotomy of expression. It's hard to go through day after day hoping that someday someone will give a rat's ass; at the same time, if you care, you're negating any natural pride in your own objective worth.

I think that this is somewhat true for everyone who embarks on an artistic endeavor. Of course, this is just the sort of drivel that I deplore when I hear it, but bear with me. Everyone creates for a reason, and it's somewhere between an inability not to and a need to show that you've got something in you that can be put out in a form not entirely incomprehensible to the world at large. I guess it's the fact that the Mona Lisa would be great even if it were buried in the center of the earth, much like the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand on the Planet of the Apes - but the fact that enshrining it in the Louvre is what has made it great, to the world at large, really gets me. Get me? Probably not, since this is drivel.

Let's try again. Did Leonardo daVinci plan for his painting to be gawked at and admired by millions of people? No, probably not. Would it provide him with validation to know that this is so? Possibly, since most artists are insecure. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that in order to create art in its purest form, the critic can't critique, or even see, the art. The creation of true art then depends on an artist who is so supremely egotistical that no one else's opinion could possibly matter, and an artist in the possession of such self-confidence wouldn't need to show their art to anyone. There would be no urge to seek an audience, because it would be a pure impulse to create, with no ulterior motives.

If anyone has read this far, go have a cocktail and send me the bill. You people are better than a fucking shrink, in a multitude of ways: 1) unlike a shrink, your brain does not obey the laws of quantum mechanics on a macro level, i.e. your emotions exist in either a positive or negative state but not both, even when you are not observed; 2) you are not a shrink, which makes anything better.

Bite Me, or I'll Bite You

This evening, in the zombie lounge, we took a few moments to step over to another blogger's space: The Ladies Lounge (UNCUT). The site features both lust and graphics by Tim StClaire.

In other, completely unrelated news, the Editor is suffering from a bout of the annual zombie flu, which manifests itself in sniffling, coughing, sneezing, cold toes, and an intense and almost uncontrollable desire to masticate the living flesh of others.

That last symptom, in all honesty, might simply be boredom, as I haven't been out of the house in a few days except to check the mail, and TV and the internet are starting to get a little old. I understand that the writers have some good reasons to strike, and all my sympathies and all that, but if I watch one more bad romantic comedy from ten years ago I'm going to actually kill and eat someone, no joke. I can't even fucking drink, which would usually be the answer when cooped up in the house with nothing to do. Drinking, more's the pity, has been shown to lower the immune system's resistance to zombie flu, whereas it in fact raises resistance to actual zombies: the alcohol numbs the pain of the gnawing.

Giving Thanks

You know what the Editor is fucking thankful for? That this miserable, flea-bitten son of a bitch of a motherfucking goat-balling holiday is finally over.

Happy Thanksgiving - I hope any of my gentle readers who see this had a lovely time. The zombies were likewise well pleased with the day; they dined on undead turkey, which is pretty difficult to get at this time of year, I can tell you. The stores always sell out by the week before.

The Editor, on the other hand, had good food but somewhat lacking company.

Once Again, It's Time For . . .

The Best of Blogspot!

Yes, folks, the Editor is once again ready to tackle the best - and worst - of Blogspot. We've had some real winners in the past, but the world has turned, the universe has expanded, and the butterfly, flapping its delicate little wings in the South Pacific, has caused an unstoppable hurricane of horrendous linguistic travesty. In other words, there are new blogs to be seen, and new bloggers to be honored with the dubious distinction of inclusion here - or possibly fed to the zombies.

As a worthy starting point, let us consider A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS purports to be:

"A journey into the world of The Occult - the hidden dimensions of the modern world including Myth, Magic, Alchemy, Kabbalah, Extra-terrestrial intelligences, UFO's, Divination, Healing, Astrology, Spirituality, the Mystic Arts - plus Current Affairs & of course 'The Conspiracy Theories'."

Features include word jumbles, Motley Crue and Kiss videos, and other paranormal phenomena. We also learn, from A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS, that you're never too old to write haiku. Actually, the Editor begs to differ - unless you're old enough to have the facial hair typical of a kung fu master (reference: the villain from Master of the Flying Guillotine), you're not old enough to write haiku.

Now, I would really like to be able to make fun of this fellow; and granted, his grammar leaves something to be desired. His site provides links to galleries of amusing images and other useless internet crap, and I expected to be bored, yet simultaneously annoyed. However, I must admit that most of his links are actually pretty fucking funny, or at least not laughable for the wrong reasons.

This next is, aside from its breakthrough feature, a fairly normal Bible-thumping blog. But on this site, and I'm not kidding, it's a miracle - is a "video that demonstrates the only way to salvation." Who would have thought that this guy would find Jesus, and simultaneously find THE ONLY way to salvation, and then - against all odds - film it so that we can all partake? I think I may be converted. Hallelujah.

The last blog of the evening, simply because the Editorial bed is calling me with sweet, sweet songs that promise delightful oblivion and possibly even zombie dreams, is WHEN WE WERE YOUNG. If, gentle reader, you choose to follow the link, please note that Roxy, the proprietress of the site, has demonstrated her desire to be Roxy forever, and has included this in her url. The blog is a showcase for some of the best of modern prose:

okeyy
hello! wassup all my fans out there! how i miss u soo much..
i noe u miss me too! yah0000000000! ok! last tuesday i had a terrible day.. noe why?? COz firstly i went out wif my horrendous, disastrous and all the Big words i can tink of rite nw..secondly, whenever i went out wif that particular frend, i tend to be persuaded to spent MONEYY.. oh dear!
i seriously need to save up!
after that, we went to a movie named RATATOULLE.. GUESS WAD? its a NICE show..
funny and hilarious! oh yah! someone[a stranger sitting next to me on my left] keep on farting and burping all along..! damn! it was a MUSIC to my ears.. im being SARCASTIC HERE..ok.

Although I am always the Editor, and this excerpt in particular begs and pleads for some Editorial attention in the truest sense of the word . . . I do not know where to begin. Perhaps her words should simply stand alone, without the mediation of an editor or an Editor of any kind.

I will leave you with something totally unrelated, a product description from the Bed Bath & Beyond catalog I got in the mail. It advertises a product called the Mangroomer, a "do-it-yourself electric back shaver." Its unique feature is that it is "fully extendable and adjustable to reach all areas of your back." This may be the most depressing object I've ever seen, except that the alternative would seem to be a nation of men actually asking someone else to shave their backs - as a lady friend of the Editor was once asked to do by a boyfriend. Apparently, that experience ranked on the trauma scale somewhere between "eaten by rabid elephants" and "sexually molested by the Easter Bunny."

Thog! Take Form to Cave Three and Carve Signature in Triplicate

Why, the Editor's rhetorical question of the day begins - why, I ask, do bureaucracies spend such inordinate amounts of time plotting nefariously - nefariously, I say! - to make the lives of anyone with whom they come in contact unbearably horrid?

This is a rhetorical question because it's probably been asked since the dawn of time, or at least from the dawning of bureaucracies; the Editor is forced, against my Editorial better nature, to believe that time and bureaucracy dawned simultaneously, simply because human nature is as black as tar. Or, people are just stupid. Take your pick.

Cavemen probably had paper-pushers, even though they didn't have paper; at least, I don't believe so, but as I regularly use my anthropology class as happy naptime, anyone who knows for sure please feel free to correct me. But the fact is, it's just a certain kind of person, and has absolutely nothing to do with the cultural or technological support available. For example: Thog is getting ready to hunt a mammoth. He picks up his spear, grunts, and starts to head out of the cave.

"Ooog!" cries Borg. "Your spear hasn't been checked out by the Spear Committee! You have to turn it back in for inspection, because if isn't properly tied at the end, it could get stuck in the mammoth."

"But Borg," replies Thog, "I checked it very carefully before planning to hunt. I've been making spears my whole life."

"Ooog!" cries Borg. "Your spear hasn't been checked out by the Spear Committee! You have to turn it back in for inspection, because if isn't properly tied at the end, it could get stuck in the mammoth."

Thog is now somewhat frustrated. "Borg," he begins as patiently as possible, "I am on the Spear Committee. The rest of the Spear Committee is already out hunting. I know that the spear is properly made, and if I don't hunt today, my children will starve."

"Ooog!" cries Borg. "Your spear hasn't been checked out by the Spear Committee! You have to turn it back in for inspection, because if isn't properly tied at the end, it could get stuck in the mammoth."

And so on. In a perfect world, this little morality tale would end with the doubtfully tied spear haft protruding from Borg's neck, and perhaps, for that reason alone, we can all nostalgically harken back to an idyllic hominid past. No such option is available to me, as I hear that the bureaucracy in prison is far more torturous even than that existing at the university.

Then again, it's probably worth it, as the alternative is a mandatory online First Year Alcohol Education Course. I know it doesn't sound that bad, but they don't teach you how to make your own beer - I already asked.

Beer.

There's no particular reason for this post. The Editor has a great lack of inspiration today - perhaps it was drained by the immense volume of library research on which I embarked earlier this afternoon, in a quest for a topic for the Honors thesis soon to be spewed forth by the Editor's alter ego, the Bedraggled Student Creature.

(Just in case any one of my gentle readers has doubts as to what a Bedraggled Student Creature is, it is that unfortunate species of wildlife, seen most often in University food courts, eating Panda Express while reading feminist theory. After it has consumed its orange-glazed prey, it typically lurks in a courtyard, chainsmoking and emitting little despairing squeaky sounds, while wishing it had gotten up early enough to take a shower and change into a shirt that doesn't have coffee stains on it. Its natural habitat is a couch, surrounded by pizza boxes and fantasy novels.)

In any case, once I came home from the library, the B.S.C. was shed, like a snakeskin, in favor of the Editorial personality - and the Editor, all things being equal, craves beer.

Let this be a paean, a song of glory, an epic cry to the gods, in the praise of beer. Beer is cold, and bitter; it foams and froths, overflowing with bounty. In its wake, the liver does a little dance of joy, the heart expands, the brain finds random and not entirely interesting conversation with strangers more tolerable than usual, and that moron at the bar who always talks about his pointless computer game programming business becomes less likely to make blood flow from your ears.

Beer is good, beer is pleasing. All hail beer.

English Handbook for Everybody

The Editor has a raging hangover. What do I do when I'm faced with a general malaise of this magnitude? I do what everyone should do under these circumstances - I turn to a book that truly holds, unlike other books that merely claim to do so (such as the Bible, the Koran, the Encyclopedia Britannica), all knowledge and wisdom necessary for life.

I refer, of course, to the English Handbook for Everybody, a small plastic-bound volume purchased for a dollar or two by the Editorial mom in Chinatown many years ago. This book has gotten me through some dark days, with its relevant and appropriate phrases, in both English and Chinese - at any moment, opening to a random page provides what purports to be a generally useful phrase, but which really has more utility as a Zen exercise in considering what drugs the translators might have been taking while writing the book.

I pity any Chinese immigrant who tries to get through a day in America using only these phrases.

An example: under the general heading "I'm So Mad At . . ." (every section has a heading, organizing useful phrases into categories) appear the following.

Our leader is more devious than your leader.
Auck, don't hit me! I'm an innocent bystander!
Snort! I didn't do anything wrong!
Cad! Cur! Beast!

In the section headed "A Shy Little Kitten," (???????) we find these gems.

Behave yourself, or I'll shoot.
Have a little wine, punk.
Losing her eyelash caused her to blush for shame.

I'm thinking there might be a slight cultural barrier, here. To continue, under "Do It, Now" we learn how to say these generally applicable things in English.

Fly me to Cuba. I hijack the plane.
Hi, thief! Would you stop that music for me?
Give me that rocket and boat, and I'll give you a sucker.

The very next section is called "Oh, No No, . . ."

No. Can't you see that rocket is almost falling down?
Stop it, Appollo!
You must go to the moon. It's your duty.
Make love not war.

Needless to say, all strange spelling/bizarre punctuation choices/generally incomprehensible verbiage can be attributed to the book's editor, and not to the Editor. I could never write anything this imaginative.

In the interests of science, and in honor of the fact that the Editor is now a full-time student once again, I will leave you with a list of all sentences and phrases under the section heading, "Oh, Young Friends!", since that section seems to be generally focused on the collegiate lifestyle.

Jesus freak
McGovern used to be a clergyman.
Hmm, I'm stoned.
Look, he's high.
Right on, Packers!
to smoke marijuana (dope, grass, pot)
freaky jocks
TV crazy
Do you know when the next exam is?
Oh, Mr. Student.
poli-sci major
math major
majorette getting mugged
mugger (no-good boy)
He looks gay.
purse
high-heeled shoes
Peace, baby!
to seek an alternative life styles
You guys are sexists.
Male chauvinist.
women's libbers
It's a B.Y.O.B. (= Bring you own booze) party.
cohabitation dorm

Good night for now, gentle readers. Or, to quote the Book - Farewell, my angel.