Thursday, May 24, 2007

lebanon.

lebanon... every summer, another war. please do butcher fatah al-islam. theyre a cancer to palestinian liberation (can we get rid of hamas while were at it?)... so kill the islamists, but for plo/pete's sake, watch out for civilians! mortar shells are flying everywhere, some missing the camp entirely! so to the lebanese army, keep going, but a take a deep breath and aim! (and by aim i mean instant message me, id love to talk.)

but heres a better idea... the reason for the seemingly indiscriminate shelling is the 1969 cairo agreement between the plo and lebanon that says lebanon can not enter the palestinian refugee camps. that was back in the days of black september, when arafat was busy creating a state within a state and the biggest threat was the host governments themselves. fatah under abu mazn has enough power within the plo to overturn that if they want to.

times have changed and the greatest threat to the plo these days is islamism. hamas, fatah al-islam, and whatever other religious fucks want to hijack the palestinian cause for islamic tyrrany. so to the plo and abu mazn, stop deluding yourself into thinking this agreement gives you control over the camps. it just gives the upper hand to the least honorable fucks that will sneak in (aka syrian intelligence). let the lebanese army into the camps, and get whatever remains of the plo to help them slaughter the islamists. all of them.

siniora, use un chapter 7 to unilaterally set up the hariri court. and tell syria to go fuck itself whilst wasting their proxies. its like cutting their penis off, only more fun. hariris ghost will be watching.

ok im going to go make two pieces of toast and throw one out for hariri. actually three because im hungry and hariri cant eat toast anyway because he got murdered. fuckkkkk.

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graduation.

so graduation was fun. i was definetly still a little sloppy from the night before and as i walked down i waved to random parents i didnt know and thanked them for coming to my party. and when we all go to our chairs i definetly stood up and yelled "i dont even go here!" at which point everyone fell dead silent and i heard some girl go "most akward comment of the day." and then someone was like "hey thats chris adell, he does go here!" and then everyone cheered. it was awesome.

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Friday, May 18, 2007

books.

and hey! ive been reading a lot so its time for smashkans book review... (i realized after writing the book stuff that i started rambling and typed way too much. ah well...)

player piano is ok... its pretty obviously vonneguts first novel because i can tell he probably sort of got lost in parts along the way, but its still pretty good. i didnt find myself laughing too often and people said i would... whatever. i did have a general smirk through some parts. the idea is what happens if humans actually have automated sustainment... like machines take care of everything. this book paints a yucky super stratified class structure where the elites are anyone who still has a job taking care of the machines, and everyone else is basically in the army. im not sure i agree that thats what automated sustainment would look like (like i dont see how having everything basically provided for free would lead to everyone joining the army...), but whatever. the book has a definite luddite feel to it... and if you know how i feel about luddites, then youll know why i dont like that... but it was still entertaining.

on the road is possibly one of the worst books ive ever read. it just talks in pain staking detail about the completely mundane travels of a bunch of worthless humans that drift around living so close to the edge that they cant help but view/use everyone around them as means to their ends. one part in the book comes to mind... he goes into painstaking detail about all his friends and theres this one part in the book where he gives like one small paragraph like "i ran out of everything again so i found a rich girl i knew and then (blahblah another stupid journey)". there are countless characters like these that kerouac devotes like one line too. like a guy who lets them wash dishes for dinner and that "rich girl". they glorify eachother and their friendship while shamelessly ignoring or underappreciating the people that benevolently decide to extend their worthless lifespans so they can take another pointless journey or trip where the conclusion of repetetive soul searching is to drift until desperation at which point they find one more person to use as a crutch (either through the persons benevolence or through outright theft) for yet another pointless journey... and repeat. had i met these kids, i wouldve probably punched them... then again they probably wouldve punched me first and stolen my money. (and then given me a single line in their stupid novel.)

nickel and dimed was surprisingly good... i expected ehrenreich to be yet another retard who thinks poverty can somehow be solved by wearing pins and calling corporations evil and chanting for unsustainable wage hikes. not so! ehrenreich has three phases of going different places and trying to make ends meet with a low wage job. you could get almost everything out of this first 3 quarters of the book by reading just one of these. the last quarter of the book though is the real good stuff... its a surprisingly rational discussion on the economics of low wage workers and why economic models fail when there is a shortage of these workers and their wages do not rise. i actually feel like i learned something from this... she talks about how sometimes the working poor are not the homoeconomicus (economic man) models are based on. they make irrational decsisions (and she admits making some too) like taking lower paying jobs out of strange oedipal complexes (like a maid company of all women and a strict male manager) or fear of losing and need for a community (as was the case with the cackling old wives that worked at walmart). also she goes into a discussion of asymmetric information about wages and how workers simply dont know that their coworkers are making more or the gas station across the street is paying more, because managers make purposeful effort at keeping this information theirs alone. blahblahblah. anyway... if all this bored you, this should help... down with capitalism! walmart is evil! what do we want? higher wages! when do we want them?! now!... feel better? good. go buy some pins, asshole.

freakonomics was pretty tight, but nothing mindblowing. its actually not much economics at all so much as a book that repetetively challenges people to "think like an economist" and look at causal relationships objectively... i think most economists are pretty familiar with how much irrationality goes into peoples beliefs/decisions, and how frequently people conflate causal linkages... like there is an example of how statistically letting your kid go to a house with a pool is much more dangerous than a house with a gun, but most parents emotional responses and such would have them send their kids to the house with a pool before the house with a gun. there is a nutty discussion of legalized abortions positive correlation with reduced crime... its much stronger statistically than any of the other stuff like police methods and politics and stuff... its another example of how people want to believe things and mix up emotions and thus miss the true causal variables completely. my experience with trying to reason with people about this "economic/unemotional/rational thinking" is that they completely agree with the statistics and models at the time, but the next descision they make is like the conversation or whatever never happened. so im not sure if peoples response to this book would be any different. good luck levitt, i think i know how you feel.

the god delusion (special thanks to aussie guerilla fighters) was good, but i already agreed with everything in there, so it got a little boring sometimes... i was just reading my own opinions kind of... i suppose that can help me in formulating them for communication later... some select parts were much better than others, mainly the philosophical arguments for and against and the psychological explanations of why people insist on personifying/deifying everything. the enumeration of just how much suffering and stupidity religion has caused was kind of depressing and thus got boring and i would usually skim past it... but yeh... atheists, read it for intellectual masturbation, nonatheists, read it because youre stupid.

right now im reading liberation biology, which is awesome. the book has two things going on, one is explaining all the crazy ass shit possible with biotech and getting into a shitload of detail on the biology that makes it possible. (i definetly am reading this book slower because this information is dense as shit) but like freakonomics and the god delusion, the more normative/opinion parts, like the invisible hand effects of natural selection and evolution, might get boring since i already agree. i suppose im just sharpening my blade. which can be nice.

did you notice i started almost all of those reviews off with "it was good." or "it was bad." fifth grader style... damn im awesome.

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dilemma.

so i always put truth above pride... and paradoxically ive made that part of my pride. is there anything wrong with that? i wont explain how, but that question is all wrapped up in a little dilemma i have.

so im torn between being the ascetic and disconnected wise ovserver, accepting idiocy and ignorance and hanging out by myself on mountain tops, completely objectively observing and not personally attached to anything, good or evil. (but that begs the question... what would be my motivation for even feeding myself?)

or... the other option... sitting on rooftops in iraq or palestine or afghanistan or sri lanka or darfur or mogadishu with an ak, unable to bear the idea of letting my fellow man fall to the slaughter of tyrants that have forsaken truth. defending each life as though it were my own... identifying and trying to make value judgements on the various factions and actors and personally attaching myself to greater causes and all that shit.

yeh... answer or not, i dont care. im probably just going to spend my life sitting in my room next to all my books and masturbate to free porn either way.

(uncontrollable sobbing.)

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feelings.

this part is cryptic because its about my feelings. (no i dont have feelings, fuck you.)

deer friends,

rumors are telling me i've been mourning and i haven't slept for several days. i've been turning inside out looking for reasons, and my black sorry eyes made me pale.

and i couldnt catch them, i couldnt be there, i couldnt help them at all.
it was cold.

everybody was laughing when they found us. then they let us go to hunt us down again... and still you refuse to see... why everything has to stay ugly.

love,
$mashkan

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court.

so remember that court case i had? well i schooled the cop in court so it was awesome and i would go into detail but im not sure who i am right now so youll have to be satisfied with this: i went to court and basically said to the judge everything i said in my blog about it (like 2 blogs ago). i was all like "that car that honked at me? yeh that was my friend andre picking up the same people and i tried to tell you at the time but you basically told me to shut up... and the law you charged me with has nothing to do with me." and i won and everyone (other defendents in the pews) were smiley mcsmilerson at me and i wanted to give them all high fives as i triumphantly strutted out.

dear government,
suck it.
love,
$mashkan.

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beach.

here is a little song for while you read because i love/hate you.

beach weak. i am weak from beach weak which is as it should be. i got back today and im feeling weak and hung over and miserable and awesome.

highlights? we saw 28 weeks later and then afterwards our apartment (me, paul, jason, aaron, jocelyn, chrissy, bethany, annie, helen) pulled a prank on the newdos apartment by rearranging and hiding all their stuff (in their own place) except for their hooka which we were smoking on our porch across from theirs and then like 7 people were scaling the walls and trying to bust in so we got squirt guns and fought them off like the dirty zombie fucks they were. although paul made it in through a window.in the confusion there was some friendly fire and civil war ensued.

it took awhile but after we got control back, we decided to set up a trap and 4 brave volunteers from team zombiekill went on a mission to place the hooka as bait and when they came to get it, squirt the shit out of them. we drew guns and covertly darted across the space between our buildings to execute the mission when the government, handcuffing some drunky across the street, got wind and gave chase. we totally got that kid out of trouble because scouts on our porch watching saw him let the kid go and run after us. he caught us and thought it was a bong and he was wrong so we went about our merry way... but the government foiled our mission. but i did get chased by police giving me a 2/3 ratio for police chases during beach week.

oh and we built a 4 foot tall ziggurat sand castle that was awesome. pictures later.

and in "chris adell has the wierdest digestive system ever" news (you may remember this from such episodes as "chris has the most predictable, frequent, regular bowel movements ever") there was this one night i made a drink with well over 5 shots of 35% bacardi and absolutely nothing NOTHING happened. i thought maybe it wasnt absorbing because i had a greasy dinner and the drink i made was thick... cookies and cream ice cream and a banana and 5 shots blended... so i tried to force absorbtion with carbonation and i had a few beers. nothing. any ideas? im starting to wonder if my body actually has some mechanism where if its getting too much of something, it literally just poops it out without absorbing. im still confused.

oh and i danced my face off at the spanish galleon. woot.

on the way back i stopped off in richmond and hung out with charlie and whitney and saw some old friends which was awesome because i found out they (casey and a friend) are opening up a small shop where harrison street book store used to be. badass. im getting more into the idea of returning to richmond... it was a pretty good time.

did i mention that word on the street is that im moving back to richmond? im going to try and get my mba at vcu... i have mixed feelings because i kind of feel like a fuckup... if i had better grades at uva, i could be going to a really awesome business school in dc or something saucy like that, but since i suck im going to go take more undergrad classes at vcu and even then there is a possibility that if i dont get like straight As first semester and rock the gmats, i might not be able to get guaranteed admission into vcu grad school. grmph. whatevs, live and learn. or dont... because ive definetly felt like this before. damn im awesome/retarded.

uva graduation is tomorrow. parties abound today. woot. i still have to take a summer class to really be done, but im going to pretend im done because i feel like it.

ok i hate you bye. see you next time... unless you suddenly realize that by reading this youre actually still listening to what i have to say. which is weird.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2007

jessie.

is going far far away...

my musical tendencies just got a lot quieter... and slower... and sadder...

... ... beach...! ... ... weak... ... ... ... ... ...

... ... ...fuck.

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an ode to beach weak.

an ode to beach weak...

i'm falling face first into a painting
of a hallucinogenic sunset
at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

well i'm the boy on the beach with the guitar
all the sharks' beretta's go
"click click click click click click click!!"
we're the band on the stage at the wedding
by the sea with frozen t-t-t-t-tidal waves

alright, she's a concubine turned trophy wife
he's a high profile ceo
all the seagulls mutter
"what'cha doing with your life?"
and vomit laugh tracks on your lead solos

brittle, brittle moon!
we're grieving for you
brittle, brittle moon!
held together with glue
and we sing
"everybody's waiting for you to drop!"
and fall face first into another painting

i'm falling face first into a painting
of a hallucinogenic seascape
at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

i'm the boy in the sharkskin tuxedo
all my friends are screaming,
"yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!!"
my agent said i should chew off my own face
i have no taste and anything could help

sing it again, "three cheers for opportunity!"
this is the year of speedboats and summer homes
still the seagulls mutter
"what'cha doing with your life?"
and vomit laugh tracks on your career goals

brittle, brittle moon!
we're grieving for you
brittle, brittle moon!
held together with glue
and we sing
"everybody's waiting for you to drop!"
and fall face first into another painting

at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

at vital beach, vital beach, vital beach, yeah!
vital beach, vital beach

Thursday, May 3, 2007

iraq.

yeh, i know i have a lot of iraq blogs.

whatever, screw you.

sooo you know whats annoying? iraq. sooo you know why? because everybody talks about the debate in terms of american lives. and thats just gay.

so about the all the withdrawal shit, as of right now, im pretty convinced that would suck for iraq.

all the liberal pussies keep talking about how starting the war was wrong. fine, i mostly agree... but for some reason everyone just assumes that means the us should withdraw... im not sure i see the connection. starting the war is a sunk cost... it doesnt have any bearing on what we should do now.

and all the conservative dicks keep talking about how we should support our troops... but for some reason everyone just assumes that means they should stay... again, i dont see the connection. just saying "support the troops" says nothing about what actions would "support the troops".

im going to post this now and go do some gymnastics and think about giving some more information on what i think... but for now ill leave you with this...

most iraqis agree that violence would be worse if the us leaves. furthermore, general petraeus is a badass. i like the outpost idea, its more dangerous for the us troops, but cowering on bases isnt exactly going to make it any safer. he has a sign on his desk that reads "how have you helped the iraqis today?" and makes everyone answer before they talk to him. when he was pulled in front of congress, he begged them for more time. i say we give it to him. along with whatever else he wants, including more troops.

and i say that out of my concern for iraq, not out of concern for the us.

so before you antiwar hippies start ranting about how terrible this war/america is, try sucking it. it tastes good... so fuck you.

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