March 2007
Apple's iPhone will be released on June 11 | CNET... →
Please excuse me while I go wait in front of my nearest Apple Store until June 11…
Criticism of film won't deter Cuban | Dallas... →
We need more guys like Mark Cuban in the business world. People who aren’t afraid to take risks and unpopular stances in order to promote freedom of speech and open debate.
For Athletes, the Next Fountain of Youth? - New... →
1) I find this type of medicine compelling, but totally creepy. It’s kind of frivolous to say it’s going to be used for athletes. What about everyday people with injuries and chronic problems? 2) Am I the only one that finds it somewhat funny that the the Orthopedist’s last name is “Rodeo?” I mean, if you’re going to go into a field where you treat a lot of...
P-Town & The Biz, Episode Two
P-Town: where would you say your writing style comes from?
The Biz: The voices.
P-Town: ah
P-Town: well, that was a much creepier answer than I was expecting
The Biz: I'm flattered.
P-Town: you mean, they're flattered
The Biz: They didn't hear you. I haven't read your quote out loud to them, yet.
P-Town: Yet
The Biz: They know what I let them know. When I deem fit.
The Biz: Why do you ask on the writing style?
The Biz: Are you writing me a letter of recommendation?
The Biz: Telling your friends about me?
The Biz: Are you writing the foreward to my autobiography?
P-Town: curious, I was thinking about where my own came from
P-Town: I am...but you're not supposed to know about it
The Biz: I think it takes a much smarter writer than me to develop a writing style.
P-Town: everyone has a style
The Biz: I think mostly subconscious urges, of stuff I think is funny and how I like to hear things phrased, comes together into a style that I personally don't recognize. But others might.
The Biz: I think I'm more of a storyteller than most people. Which lends itself to an accessible voice. I don't think I'm particularly smart, except to dudes who can't spell "clever."
P-Town: See, I think that there's this whole crop of recent writers and wanna-be writers that all maoldsadeyes@hotmail.comy have distinctive styles, even though for the most part, their styles are the same
P-Town: and I find it interesting, because I think that underlying style is one that is more of the inner-voice than ever before in the history of literature
P-Town: there's very little sense of propriety and prose, and it's all much more extemporaneous and spoken
P-Town: or, maybe that's just the people and things that I've been writing
P-Town: and reading
The Biz: Been writing people, huh?
P-Town: yes
P-Town: lots
P-Town: which is why I've been asked by a party to remain unnamed to write the forward for your autobiography
P-Town: in any case, I think it's becoming more en vogue to write in a more conversational style, less formal and structured
The Biz: I have a name. Don't overemphasize my writing gifts. I want you just to describe the contours of my face.
The Biz: Conversational is the way to go.
P-Town: see, and I started thinking about where my voice, my particular flow of writing cooldsadeyes@hotmail.commes from, because I'm curious by nature and also honestly couldn't remember
The Biz: It comes from FM radio waves intercepted by your teeth.
P-Town: and since I've read a vast amount of widely different books by monumentally different authors over the years, I thought it weird that I came out with what I have
P-Town: the only author that I've consistently tried to emulate over the years is Stephen King...
P-Town: I tried Kerouac for awhile after I first read "On The Road" but it sounded too forced...kind of like "On The Road"
The Biz: I'd like to write like Nick Nornby. That'd do.
P-Town: true
The Biz: I think my brother writes like Dave Eggers.
P-Town: I finally came to the conclusion that there are so many styles that I could be influenced by, but I'm not good enough to try to do that, so I write like I talk, or how I would talk
The Biz: That's the only way to go.
LiveScience.com - Study Reveals Why We Get... →
I started reading this…and then noticed a shiny silver pen on my desk. After that, I don’t remember a thing…
The “N” Word
This is a segment that nearly made me cough up a lung last night on the Daily Show. I usually don’t just post video without commenting on it, but I’m tired and mostly don’t think that I could do it justice.
But, for the record, I have never called ANYONE Ban Bakkedahl.
UPDATE: I actually watched the […] (via Stupid White Boy)
Prose
It was dark in the living room. The light from his laptop bathed his hands in a pale white glow. The fireplace, that gas insert monstrosity that it was, pumped out heat against the damp, windy night outside. He’d been sitting here, on the couch, long enough to create an indent in the cushion that […] (via Stupid White Boy)
P-Town & The Biz, Episode One
The Biz: I'm finally getting into the Shins album.
P-Town: I've been thinking that I should go back and listen to that
The Biz: Yeah. All the background vocals Mercer did on the Modest Mouse disc made me want to give it another chance.
The Biz: Chronologically, they should have released this album before their first, I think.
The Biz: Actually, maybe between their first and Chutes Too Narrow.
The Biz: But it's not a good step from Chutes Too Narrow.
P-Town: that's an interesting theory
The Biz: Cuz you like to see a curve across an artist's career, especially among the first five albums.
P-Town: that bands could pick and chose where their new album would be placed in their cannon
The Biz: The Deftones, for instance, should have released their self-titled one between Around the Fur and White Pony, and it'd be an upward arch, in terms of the balance of metal and experimental elements.
P-Town: i see
P-Town: this sounds like it needs to be expounded upon
The Biz: I'll have to think it out, exactly what it all means.
The Biz: See if it's column material.
P-Town: it is a very dense theory
The Biz: Artists like Nickelback don't have a curve. They drive a straight line that hugs the ground.
P-Town: they burrow, like bugs bunny
The Biz: Exactly. Cuz it's a curve of change, of evolution.
P-Town: right
P-Town: have they even progressed far enough to have a path?
The Biz: Not exactly.
P-Town: so, they'd be sedentary
P-Town: like a dead slug, or something
The Biz: Leaving a slime trail.
P-Town: i thought that we had established that they didn't move. So they'd be sitting in a pile of slime
P-Town: stagnant slime
P-Town: How about a band that has a real defining moment early, and never really reaches it again, but still is solid?
P-Town: like, say Radiohead
P-Town: or maybe even an Alkaline Trio
The Biz: It's always the person at work that you need to talk to before you can do anything else that is the most busiest.
P-Town: most busiest? you must be flustered
The Biz: I can't build this page I'm working on until I get the snippet from the blogs that we publish, and the guy who chose it wasn't here yesterday and, so today, he picked the exact same blog snippet that I put in the paper yesterday.
P-Town: nice
The Biz: And now he's a blur in motion, talking to everyone here but me.
...time passes....
The Biz: I blew a job interview cuz, when I went to write a thank-you letter for the interview, I couldn't remember the name of the person who interviewed me.
The Biz: OK, then.
P-Town: nice
P-Town: look at it another way, maybe they just thought that you were terribly under-qualified
P-Town: wait, that doesn't help at all
The Biz: It really doesn't.
P-Town: damn
The Biz: I took a guess at who it was I talked to, based on info on their website, and send that person a thank-you for talking to me.
The Biz: And I don't think I picked the right person.
P-Town: in a perverse way, that is kinda funny
P-Town: that someone at the company got a thank-you and had no idea why or who it was from
P-Town: you probably made their day...or just really confused that
P-Town: them
The Biz: Yeah. It was basically a secretary job at the Farm Bureau. So it all works out in the end.
P-Town: indeed
P-Town: I'm looking to buy a new bicycle...any ideas
P-Town: and don't say Unicycle
The Biz: Huggy?
The Biz: Huffy, sorry.
P-Town: no no, that's good, I'll go look for a Huggy bike
P-Town: U.S. sales for sleeping pills hit $3.7 billion last year
P-Town: that's a depressing stastic
The Biz: No kidding. I should be selling sleeping pills.
P-Town: I should be selling my services to hit people on the head with frying pans
The Biz: OK, so here's one of my quotables that requires some thought to get:
The Biz: "I eat peanut butter out of white guilt."
The Biz: Do you get it?
P-Town: no idea
The Biz: George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, along with multiple uses for peanuts.
The Biz: And that's what makes him prominent in the history of African Americans.
P-Town: right
The Biz: They keep a quote list here at the Trib, for when one of them accidentally says something clever.
The Biz: As you might expect, I own this damn list.
The Biz: “This is not at all professional behavior ... Here, smell this pen.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “There’s meat in there — just not any meat I wanna eat.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “I respect the hell out of myself.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “I need someone to keep me company, and since no girls will, I’m going to get a dog.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “I don’t like urine. It smells like pee.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “No matter what I get my mom for Christmas, if my brother gets her a grandchild, he fucking wins.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “This is why the American family is so dysfunctional. Fucking Santa Claus.”
— Kelly
The Biz: “I am the light of truth and hope in this world.”
— Bill
“Then go shine somewhere else.”
— Kelly
P-Town: wow, do you have these carved into your desk like talismans?
The Biz: Jeez, I'm clever.
The Biz: No, they're collected in a Quark document.
Casper and the Cookies →
Fun, quirky and well, fun. These guys opened for The Apples In Stereo when we went to see them last night and were definitely worth sharing. If you check out their “DIscography and Downloads” section, you can get over a dozen mp3’s, both live and from their albums.
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not...”
– Mark Twain
Truthdig - Reports - A World Where Lies Are True →
I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’…
bonkos.com →
This is a site run by some old friends of mine. They just post a bunch of odd and funny stuff that they run across on the web.
Modest Mouse was worth the crowding-Kelly Hagen →
This is a friend of mine who writes for the Bismarck Tribune. His columns run on Fridays.
Tournament Time
Every year, myself and millions of others grab our NCAA tournament brackets and fill them out, thinking that we know something that everyone else doesn’t. Diluted, we enter office pools and online contests with our picks, vainly thinking that we’re the smartest guy in the room.
Well, last night, with Texas A&M’s loss to Memphis, two […] (via Stupid White Boy)
My Thoughts So Far
I just started this little experiment with Tumblr a day ago, so it might be a little too early to come to conclusions. But, I’m going to anyway. Here’s some things I’ve liked and disliked. Like: The bookmark feature that lets you add new content from your Bookmarks Toolbar. As you can see, I use this a lot. Dislike: The extent to which you can add content to your page without...
Michael Wilbon - Pressure on Oden, Durant An... →
For those of you who watch ESPN’s “PTI” program and like what Michael Wilbon has to say, here’s his latest article in the Washington Post. I very much agree with what he has to say and don’t think that many could have put it better.
WatchKeeping on the whole video click, here’s my Splashcast.
WatchA sample of the new “This American Life” TV show, premiering on Showtime tonight. Video is via Slate.com
WatchOne of my favorite bands. Great to listen to, unbelieveable to see live. The Hold Steady, ladies and gentlemen!
ESPN.com: Page 2 : Bill Simmons Blog →
I read this guy all the time at work, at home, on the can, just about everywhere. If you like sports and pop culture and a smartass writing style, he might just be up your alley
Tumblr
In the upper right-hand corner of this blog, you’ll notice my “Links to Things” page is now accompanied by a “My Tumblr” page. I suggest you check it out. Both the service and my page there. Tumblr is a blog-like client that has some other, interesting features (which you can read more about on their […] (via Stupid White Boy)
Explaination
I realize that I’ve been a bit of a downer over the past couple of posts. I’ve strayed away from my uplifting, entertaining side (I know some of you are saying, “What uplifting, entertaining side?” Very funny.) and delved into somethings that have been getting me down lately.
But, truth be told, I’ve been down lately. […] (via Stupid White Boy)
1 tag
Use Your Words
I’ve been using the words “adorable” and “cute” way too often lately. Some of the things/people that I’ve been referring to in these terms are Maggie Gyllenhaal and the musical duo Matt and Kim, both seen below.
It’s hard, really, because how else am I supposed to describe a person like a Maggie Gyllenhaal when discussing her around my wife, who, although she is very understanding, probably...