Virtual Flaneurism

I Hate Capri Pants

My favorite love song...

Who is the cutest?

Lobster Dogs!

Video of the WEEK:

Not as impressive as the others, but the ending makes it worth it.

From my Prof. Also be sure to check out this song.

You will never know happiness like this.

“Harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.”

- Justice Antonin Scalia, concurring opinion, Doe v. Reed (2010)

Oh my lord, Scalia and I are on the same page. The sow drowning in my toilet finally explained.

I don't know what this says about me, but I have long adored this video:

This evening I looked through a collection of "rules for writing" by published authors that Pete had forwarded to me. As a creative writing student, suggestions directed towards aspiring writers was relatively commonplace (one of my favorite rules - and one of the more impenetrable I've come across - has been, "Write what you know about what you don't know." I have my own interpretation, but make of it what you will). The pleasant part of these "rules" is that they are anything but - published authors almost universally amend such lists with the fact that there are no rules for writing. Even so, one can usually find a novel thought among the lists, so they are worth looking through.

These particular lists of rules got me thinking about writing - or rather not writing, which has been my habit for the past nine months or so. The thought of writing seriously again got me a bit frightened: do I still (or did I ever) have a talent for this; when would I find the time; would it be a waste of that time? This immediately reminded me of something one of my first creative writing professors said on the topic of writers avoiding writing.

"Only bad writers think what they write is any good," he said (or so I now humbly paraphrase). "We avoid writing because it could be bad -- what we write -- and though usually it isn't, and though when we do sit down and do write we have moments of clarity and genius or maybe spend three hours on one simile that we ultimately erase, despite all that joy, we are constantly frightened that this thing we love to do, this thing that exposes a part of us is not going to work. Like one day we are going to sit down at our desk and, like a pacifistic Jack Torrance, find we can do little more than repeatedly peck ERROR ERROR CANNOT LOCATE TALENT onto a page. And this thing is so important that the thought of it not working is terrifying enough to make you not want to try. But then you write because it frightens you, because you want to create something good despite the risk that you'll break -- because if it didn't frighten you, if it didn't matter enough to scare you, then you couldn't be a writer."

Not only do I agree, but this is the Catholic guilt of writing rules. Write, or you're not a writer. Dance, or you're not a dancer. Teach, or you're not a teacher. I could go on and on. If only these thoughts got me writing, rather than digging through old short story compendiums and daydreaming about prospective projects.

Anyone not watching Archer on FX is doing themselves a serious disservice. Gotta love this English joke:

To compensate for clogging your internet toilet (because, let's be honest, this blog is about two feet north of the virtual septic tank) with hipster pot-ballads, here's a folk rock roto-router chaser.

I'm also hipster bopping out to this number. Reminds me of This is Ivy League:

And oldie-but goodie that you've probably seen but certainly should watch again:

I adore this poppy little number...though that might make me a hipster.

New Gaga song - though I warn you that this doesn't play properly through my speakers.

Vezi mai multe video din Animatie

Remember...this?

Stolen from Josh

Stolen from Kristie: Single-Serving Wine Glasses

Nothing says classy like booze under a jell-o pudding seal.

The Grilled Cheese Burgermelt from Friendly's

"The Grilled Cheese Burgermelt is 1500 hundred calories of magical yumminess. Two whole grilled cheese sandwiches replace the buns of this burger. Stuffed in between these sandwiches is a thick 100% Black Angus beef patty, served with lettuce, tomato and mayo."

NEED. NOW.

WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF THIS?

This panders to the basest, most immature part of my soul, and I love it. The "Rufus" being sung about is an infant-aged Rufus Wainwright, which just makes the song even sillier.

An oldie. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

Marmaduke is an asshole.

Fuck this.

Frank Gehry's design for a hospital for individuals with neurological brain diseases.