On a More Positive Note!

I'm really excited to see how much attention The Social Network is garnering from critics in the run-up to the Academy Awards. When I saw the movie with my mom earlier this year, we both left the theater quite impressed with its performance on all the traditional moviemaking benchmarks: Reznor's brilliant but not overbearing soundtrack, the cinematography and Sorkin's trademark wit sharpened by the lens of incredible acting.

More importantly, though, I left the theater feeling downright capable of doing something magnificent on my own. I felt empowered. Not over-empowered, like I could be the next boy billionaire. More like... I dunno. Like I might one day have an idea that could touch a lot of peoples' lives. And that felt good.

Hollywood (and art as a whole) has a social responsibility to warn us-- within reason-- of the dangers and tradeoffs that accompany wealth, fame, and an unchecked hunger for power. But they also have a responsibility to inspire us. The Social Network did both, and I think that's really, really cool.

How I didn't spend my summer vacation

If you've been in mourning for the past few weeks because you figured I was eaten by rats, fear not: I've not fallen prey to rats or fleas or vampires or anything in the complex ecosystem thriving under my floorboards. Instead I was swallowed up by the summer and a very fire-and-forget lifestyle.

For the past few months now-- summer, essentially-- I've been neglecting my blog and instead Tweeting my life away in 140-character blurbs. Every day I wake up, drive to work, and spend every moment of my downtime following Tweets about Houston restaurants, Billy Mays, fonts, social media, open education, and local drink specials.Then I throw my own two cents in to the mix. And since I'm the social media guy at work, I spend a good amount of my "uptime" perusing Twitter and Facebook. It's a job most guys would kill to have.

...except I can feel the toll it's starting to take on my personality (and my brain). I was built to do and reflect, not to do and forget. Twitter and other tools of the so-call social revolution put so much emphasis on the "now" that it's easy to forget to stop and smell the roses. Whereas I used to pause and carefully consider the implications of the respective past few days in my semi-regular blog posts, Twitter allows me only 140 characters to state the bare minimum before moving on to the next big event in my life. Or your life. So many lives, so much information.

If this blog has served any purpose in the past eight years, it's at least been a good place to sort the wheat from the chaff.

I have honestly reached the limit of how much data I can consume and regurgitate and sort in one day. I go to bed feeling like the 1997 New York Stock Exchange is trading Microsoft in my head. And for all this processing and grief, what do I have to show for it? Nothing. I retain little or nothing more than the ability to gloat about hearing news first, whatever that news may have been.

I've got to push something useless out of my head before classes start back up. Gotta make room for senior year in there, somewhere.

Texas secession reminds me of that show "Jericho"

Jesus, this whole secession thing is funny to me.

I like how Houston becomes "Galtville," which would probably rank #5 among Houstonians if you took a poll to rename the city.

1. Swishaland
   
2. Greater Montrose
   
3. New Shiner
   
4. Bill White's House of Chicken and Waffles
   
5. Galtville
   

Only one week of high-stakes shopping until my birthday

I require sweet, sweet stress relief in the form of bullet-point blogging and nicknack posting.

• Last night's show was interesting but not unfun. No one expected The Faint to take stage until after Ladytron (since the show was billed as "The Faint with Ladytron") so you can imagine the chagrin on the muted faces of all those tween-punkers and tiny, tatted-up scene girls who were still galloping to the show when Todd Fink took the stage. April 20th isn't exactly the best day for a dance-punk band to expect thrashing and skanking from the disaffected stoner youth: Most of the crowd was deathly still until the end of The Faint's set. Despite all this, I had a rip-roaringly good time watching all this musical nonsense unfold. I heard "Destroy Everything You Touch" and "I Disappear" live: That's all I needed. And The Faint's animated backdrops were pretty entertaining to watch.
  
• I got free ice cream today. Okay, fine, not free-- the aroma of baking batter assaulted my smellbuds and forced me to splurge on a $1.50-after-discount Cherry Garcia waffle cone. I figure if you're going to enjoy America's finest ice cream flavor, you might as well commit to a sweet, crisp waffle cone over the cardboard-based sugar cones they were peddling. I work next door to Ben & Jerry's but hardly ever visit. It's part of my "at least do one thing to avoid early onset heart disease" life plan.
• Still no word on a place to live come May. I'm still sticking to the guidelines I set for myself earlier this year, but I'm now open to house designs besides modern-neo-deco-rary. If you're moving out and need a tenant in the Rice Village area come May, give me a shout.
• I'm giving Twitter a chance. There, I said it. When I become incredibly engrossed into the whole idea and give up real-blogging entirely, you'll know why.
  

Finally, the best thing I've seen from SNL in years.

photo c/o Cristina

Ride all night yeah through heaven and hell

Remember Moby? He's that guy who was making highly-accessible dance(-ish) music with R&B samples and guitars and drum machines back when you were kickin' it to the Chicken Dance at the spring debutante. My long and strange decent into the world of 4-to-the-floor started back in 2000 when I bought a copy of Play at a CD shop in Sandestin. Before I knew it I was rocking di.fm and playing way too much Counter-Strike because that's all a 14-year-old kid can do with a head full of techno. Interestingly enough, my Moby intrigue eventually lead me to that other New York music act I've been known to love.

Ah, those were the days.

Moby is back again with "Shot In The Back Of The Head," and an accompanying video directed by David Lynch. And you know how much I love that guy. Goddamn Eraserhead is still giving me nightmares. This video, not so much. New album out in June.


Shot In The Back Of The Head from Moby on Vimeo.

[if:mv: Moby - "Shot In The Back Of The Head"]

Forget fishsticks, I've got a McBLT

Care of Jason Alexander.

This isn't the story I promised! It's pre-Seinfeld Jason Alexander singing and dancing! Lucky for you, I tore my knee up doing stupid things in boots Friday night so I've had plenty of time this weekend to craft my prose. It ended up being about twenty times longer than I had originally anticipated but, eh, these things happen. Now the question is whether to throw the entire thing up or post it as a series of Twitter updates.

Just kidding.

HAVE A COMPETITION!

I'm suffering from writer's dump.

See, I go through these magically prolific periods of writing-- usually during breaks from school, etc-- where I spit out like five moderate-length pieces of prose that make me moderately proud. Then I dry up like a librarian's poo-nanner and the words, opinions, and topics no longer come to me so easily. And finally I arrive here, back on the old CN, hammering away and trying to painfully rebuild whatever construct my mind requires to get back into the writin' mood.

I think I've actually written about this same topic recently. Oh well, fuck it, I'm trying to repeat history anyways and get back in the groove.

But now I have deadlines. While I'm wasting my time masturbating to Election '08 coverage and avoiding life outside my apartment, I told the Thresher opinions editor that I'd have another 750er out by next Tuesday. I don't want to write about the election (yet) unless it's overall commentary on, say, my own personal obsession. But that's self-involved and I'm trying to avoid that.

Did you know that was the best argument the the people back in Panama City could come up with regarding my Squall Line thing? That it was just a giant ego-boosting pill for some emo'd up, libertarian-hating college student? Gosh, you'd think these people would know me better than that.

Ha!

I should make my article topic into some sort of contest. Like, KYLE'S TOPIC-A-THON. And if I pick the topic you suggest, I'll write you into my article! YEAH! Just like that contest I entered back when I was five to get drawn into an episode of Bobby's World!

Here's a few examples of things I would write about.

• Election
• Things that affect me or you at Rice
• Things that should affect me or you at Rice but don't (sort of already did that one)
• How the Rice Standard had a year to prove its worth, and failed
• How the Rice Thresher needs to incorporate a few elements from the Standard to clinch that last 2% of the campus that seems unhappy
• Why I hate libertarians
• Why you should hate libertarians
• Why I hate Ron Paul. Nevermind, too dangerous.
• Why militant internet support for a candidate just makes them look crazy IRL
• ELECTION
• Who are these stupid looking people in my PHIL and RELI classes? They're too small to be athletes, but they sit at the back of the class and yell the stupidest shit. And they look at me with judgmental eyes and it makes me just want to Indian Chief them with a pillow while they sleep.

You know, things like that.

I feel like this contest is too self-involved, too. So I'll say this: I'll kindly take your suggestion and in return, you'll have my humble gratitude. I guess I can write you in, too.

Obligatory Chistmas Eve Junk

Does Bono know he needs a haircut?


Gotta make room for Andy Dick!


The curse of being a man.

From the Barnhart Compound to you, Happy Holidays. HAPPY HOLIDAYS. A very all-inclusive, wonderful, non-commercial, secular holiday season to everyone.

Kyle

Ego-inflating week!

I've been basking in the stench of my own petard for the past ten days. It's pretty ridiculous, really. Starting with that Standard parody and followed by my campus-uniting Thresher article, I've been getting five times the daily recommended dosage of positive hippie vibes. Random-ish people around campus are stopping to shake my hand and congratulate me on a job well done. Not-so-random people are even taking the time to berate me for being a total jerk on the Internet. Couple that with a hearty serving of, oh, INTERPOL last Tuesday and you've got a Big Kid's Ego Meal, complete with fries, a soft drink, and a little toy that tells me that I'm special.

I mean, I'm still lethargic and sarcastic and all those other, darker things you love about me. I'm just smiling ear to ear on the inside. And now I'm synonymous with Waffle House. Who could honestly ask for more?

I could and I will. I need a new laptop.

Look, I know my laptop works fine. But two years is a long time; everyone knows that after two years everything dies, including children and relationships and weblogs. My laptop is starting to spew and sputter. Nothing that a good memory replacement and maybe a new hard drive couldn't fix but, honestly, that's really not the only problem I'm having with it. The problem is that when I bought my laptop two years ago, I wasn't thinking about practical considerations such as, oh, size. My mindset has shifted from "I bet I can watch movies on this thing with COLLEGE GIRLS with BOOBS and FRUITY LIPGLOSS," to "I really wish I could take this thing to class and play on FACEBOOK so I can waste time until SUBSTANCE ABUSE." So the really bright, fifteen-inch screen isn't really necessary anymore.

And such is the story of growing up-- worrying more about practical considerations than how Secretary will look from the foot of your single-sized bed. This is why everyone over forty is sexless and hateful.

So what I need is a little thirteen-inch sumbitch. I was thinking that the newer generation of Asus W7S laptops look pretty fucking stellar. Something that will fool my friends into thinking I bought a Macbook Pro until I open it up and it's running some backfucked version of Vista. Something in glossy black. Or glossy white. I'm sort of up in the air on that issue.

Or I could tough it out. BE A MAN.

I had my entire way of life summarized as being "morally reprehensible" the other day. I better run to my blog and complain about it! Quick, someone, tell me I'm special!

Oh, wait, I have a button for that. It's called "Publish Post."

Rice has more magazines than Nobel Laureates

I was perusing Facebook earlier today when I noticed that in the past few hours, over a hundred students have joined a group in support of Open - Rices first literary sex magazine (Facebook members only, sorry) . For those who can't read it, let me just post the group's description in its entirety...

Open will represent the multitudes of Rice student’s perspectives about sex in addition to featuring informative articles, opinion essays, poems, fiction, photography, art, polls and interviews. The title Open conveys our goal of encouraging healthy dialogue and open-minded discussions about a topic that is too important and relevant to leave societal influence to pop culture and media alone. Open will fill the void and encourage students to learn from each other while stimulating the intellectually open environment that college is all about.

Join the group if you support Open!

For those of you who live in Fairmont, Washington and have no idea why this is strange, let me give you a little context. Rice University has more media outlets than it needs, including...

• The Rice Thresher: a student-run newspaper with interesting news
• The Rice Standard: an independent student magazine for pompous rich kids with better tastes in music than me, apparently.
  
• Rice News: a faculty newspaper with boring academic hullabaloo
• The Rice Review (aka R2): an annual literary magazine that hits you like Don DeLillo's cricket bat
• Other semi-annual publications that no one cares about.

I hate to rain on everyone's parade-- I really do-- but this is getting a little fucking ridiculous. It seems like if there's a group of ten people with similar interests these days, they have their own magazine. Today, Open. Tomorrow? THE RICE BOWL, for Rice's stoner population. Or maybe RICE MONSTER TRUCK QUARTERLY. And if you're going to argue that everyone cares about sex, I could just as easily draft up an issue of The Rice Ice Cream Review, because everyone loves to jam on some Ben and Jerry's. Sometimes it's better than sex.

It's fairly obvious why this is happening: People want to circumvent the editorial process. Maybe it's because they feel like the editors of the Thresher are closed-minded. Maybe it's because they feel more important than the editorial process. Or maybe, JUST MAYBE, they crave attention.

Here's an idea for the founding members of Open-- save yourself a couple grand and weeks worth of hard work and instead collaborate. Write for the Standard if you want to talk about something that the Thresher won't touch. They'll publish it. They love publishing shit like that. Or get a blog. Winners seem to have blogs.

I remember when the Thresher had a sex columnist. The founders of Open wouldn't remember this because it was last year and they're all ego eager freshmen. It ran for like two issues before interest dwindled to nil. News flash: No one wants to read about the great sex you're having with your boyfriend. Unless it's in Hustler Fantasies, in which case you're not exactly talking about Rice students anymore. Nor does anyone at this university care about sex tips. Either you're not having it because it's a personal (and moderately respectable, though not holier-than-thou) choice, or you're having as much as you care to have and you aren't going to take tips from someone else.

I shudder to think of how they're going to fill this publication, too. Unless it's less of a magazine and more of a folded 14" by 11" piece of paper. I mean, I actually know how they're going to do it because it's a student publication and it's going to be like a niche version of the Standard. They're going to get two students who consider themselves artists to fill about two pages with sexually-themed, "liberating" artwork. Then they're going to have at least two fiction stories about sex, editorial columns about sex, and then they'll publish the worst letters to the editor to refute dissenting opinions and glorify themselves. Maybe there will be funny cartoons on the back.

I'm not threatened by a magazine about sex, though I have a feeling that most (if any) protest to this up-and-coming publication will be from Rice's Christian/right-wing (same thing) population. Which is dumb. Someone could print a 30-page glossy about bestiality for all I care.

What I do care about is a flagrant misrepresentation of this campus's interests and students. The undergraduate population isn't begging for an entire magazine about sex. The public is going to interpret this as gross and unnecessary and it's going to reflect poorly on everyone. And all because a few people decided they want to express the sexuality that they've doubtlessly known for a few years of their life.

Like I said-- if you have something worthwhile to say about sex, hand it to the editor of the Thresher or the Standard. Don't just circumvent the process of editorial review because you think you're more important.

If you have to say something that no one cares about, write about it on your website.