Voodoo Time Dot Com

So I moved voodootime.com to a new hosting provider with every intention of starting back up with the blogging. This was months ago, and I still have not gotten started. Truthfully, I don’t know if I will actually revive this blog or just let it sit for posterity. I imagine at some point I’ll get a creative hair and write something, but I don’t see this being a regular occurrence.

If you happen to have me on your blogroll somewhere, I truly won’t be disappointed if you remove me. There’s no point in listing a site that only offers new material once a year or so.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

Remember that time about four years ago when you were tying your shoe and the shoelace broke? Or how about the time, that same year, when you were stuck in traffic behind the same car for an hour and you thought you’d never forget its license plate number? No..?

Remember that moment, about four years ago when you heard the Twin Towers were gone? I do, quite well. You might even remember what you were wearing at the time; which I do not. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what I wore yesterday. This is a memory gap that causes me some anxiety, as I occasionally get an uneasy feeling that I may have been wearing the same clothes for several consecutive days. And of course, you can’t trust anyone to tell you these things. A bizarre and comical quirk of human nature is that, for whatever reason, most people are reluctant to inform their neighbors of bits of twig in their hair, spinach between the teeth, or the conspicuous presence on the face of an errant nasal escapee.

(That last bit was just a fancy attempt to avoid using the word “booger”, which, now that I think of it, was rather out of character for me.)

So why is it that we remember some things for our entire lives while other things are forgotten almost immediately? Why can’t I remember my eighth birthday, but can still remember what our home telephone number was at the time? And why do some things that seem worth remembering at the time fade into oblivion while things I wish I could forget are seared into my cerebrum forever? The motivation behind this question is best illustrated by two similar experiences.

In college, I had a particularly difficult time with Finance 302. I came to hate that class. I would study nearly everyday, and when exams came around I couldn’t remember anything I had read. It was terrible.

Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Gum had a jingle they used to play in their television commercials (which you are now humming as you read this). I came to hate that jingle. I would hear it nearly everyday, but if there were an exam in which I was asked to write the lyrics to the Juciy Fruit jingle, I could do it. It’s terrible.

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if we could remember everything - every word we’ve heard or spoken, every e-mail we’ve ever written, every bowel movement - all as if they had just happened. Some people seem to have this ability to remember everything (my wife would have me believe she does). It seems like this would be an immensely useful evolutionary advantage if for no other reason than to cut down on the amount of smalltalk between acquaintances.

“Hey, remember that time when I ate that really big sandwich?”
“Yes.”
“Er… Of course you do.”
…
“Well, I’ll see you later then.”

Also, the game show Jeopardy probably would not exist.

In the interest of science, I’ve decided to try to fool my brain into memorizing a really mundane event, like clipping my toenails or washing my car, and see if I can still remember it twenty years from now. Or maybe I’ve already done that, and just don’t remember.

Bye for now.

As I mentioned several months ago — twelve (zwölf) months ago, to be exact — I am learning to speak German. My studies began in earnest only a couple of (ein Paar) months ago when I purchased a self-paced audio package. Even if you’ve never done one of these courses before, you already know how it goes.

“Viederholen Sie, bitte: Gunther habe kein Geld.”
“Gunther has no money.”

“Ich weiß nicht, wo meine Frau ist”
“I do not know where my wife is.”

…and so on.

By now I’ve logged something like twenty (Zwanzig) hours in my car repeating various phrases meant to teach me the fundamentals of German speech. The course is quite good, and already I am pleasantly surprised by the variety of phrases I can construct with only the tiny bit of the language I’ve learned so far. And at the same time, I am learning loads about German culture.

For example, in lesson two (zwei) I learned how to communicate my cravings for beer and wine. And the subsequent lessons have had me informing waiters, friends, hotel clerks, and whoever will listen that I would like to drink a beer. Or wine, please. Not until lesson seventeen (siebzehn) did I learn how to ask for water. But it is well known that the German people have a passion for beer. No surprises there.

There also seems to be an inordinate amount of socializing going on in and around hotels - especially between acquaintances of the opposite sex, and involving alcohol. Take, for example, this exchange from a recent lesson.

Hello, Gunther.

Yes, at the hotel.

If all goes well, I hope to visit Germany later this year and speak to the people in their language when possible. Unfortunately, I don’t see much chance of being able to sneak my most practiced phrases into casual conversation. Given my current marital situation, I don’t imagine I’ll have the opportunity to approach a young lady and ask, in my best German, “Excuse me. I don’t know where my wife is. Would you like to drink wine with me in my hotel?”

Auf Wiedersehen.

I received my annual web-hosting bill a couple weeks ago, which reminded me that I actually pay about $100 per year to keep this big blank page out there on the Internets. While my inner narcissist would never allow me to cancel my hosting service — thereby unfairly depriving the world of my alternating acerbic and saccharine witticisms — it occurred to me that financing this website for its own sake is hardly the sort of intelligence one brags about at Mensa socials.

Fortunately, this is a situation which can easily be remedied by my just sitting down and typing something already. I say “easily”, but the reality is anything but. To say I have writer’s block is to say that the sun is yellow. Technically, it’s the truth, but the description hardly captures the true intensity of the condition. Mine is a block that could prevent even the most prolific of Harlequin novelists from describing the heaving of another bosom ever again. Children the world over should pray nightly that J.K. Rowling never sees the likes of this block - lest Harry Potter languish as a Hogwart’s fifth-year forever.

But it is not entirely fiscal responsibility that again brings me face to face with the blinking cursor. I seek power. Afterall, if L. Ron Hubbard can start a religion after writing mediocre science-fiction, why can’t a blogger? Likewise, in a 2001 census, 0.7% of British subjects identified themselves as Jedi. And it is estimated that there are more Klingon speakers in the world than there are speakers of Navajo. The lesson here is, in a world of more than six billion people, if you speak loudly enough, someone is bound to think you’re a damned genius.

So there it is. My latent messianic complex is the hammer, and my keyboard the chisel that will chip away at this writer’s block until only the rubble of obscurity is left behind. Then shall I begin my ascent into fame, adulation, and my eventual deity. There will be statues and obelisks erected in my honor, and the streets shall flow with the blood of the nonbelievers.

Therefore, the question is, when the inquisitors arrive (and they shall), and they look through your bookmarks, will you be found wanting?

Bye for now.

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
Holy Torah / Holy Bible, Leviticus 19:18

The one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.
Holy Bible, John 3:21

Whatever good works ye send on before [death]… ye shall find with God.
Holy Q’uran 13:20

I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a friend unto him.
Bhagavad-Gita 9:29

Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth! Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
Dhammapada 223-224

Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men.
Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowfull, a sea for the thirsty,
a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.
Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts.
Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive.
Baha’u'llah - Prophet of Baha’i

In an effort to make our apartment look less like a dorm room, and more like a home of people approaching their thirties, my wife and I have decided to purchase a dresser, with drawers and everything. I hear that all the cool people are putting their clothes in dressers instead of cardboard boxes. It sounds kind of trendy to me, but my wife is into it.

So we took a trip to Ikea today. I normally hate shopping (especially furniture stores), but I have a particular affinity for Ikea. I like the contemporary / modern design sensibility for which Ikea is famous. I like that it doesn’t cost as much as “real” furniture. I like that if I accidentally spill something on my Ikea furniture, or nick the wood, I haven’t just ruined a $2,000 piece.

And they have Swedish meatballs there. Cheap.

As one might imagine, we own a lot of Ikea furniture. As I look around the living room, everything that can be sat upon, or can have stuff sat upon it is from Ikea. Our chairs, the TV stand, the bookshelf-thingie with the drawers and little wicker baskets - all Ikea. Even the computer desk from which I am writing this entry was assembled from a flat-pack with just a screwdriver and an allen wrench (included) by yours truly.

But as much as I love the whole idea of Ikea furniture, the reality is a real pain in the ass. I always begin with the best of intentions and following all best practices. I begin with a tradition handed down to me by my step-father. The ceremonial spirit (a fermented mixture of various grains) is consumed. I then utter the traditional invocation: “This box better not be missing any f***ing pieces!”

In typically manly fashion, the final step in the ceremony used to be the disposal of the instruction manual, but I have abandoned this final gesture. This is not to suggest that the manual is all that useful. There is no text, English or otherwise to give context to the simple graphics that fill each page. But, as useless as the instructions may be, I keep them around for reference - but mostly for a handy paper surface on which to catch the blood that will inevitably trickle from my hands before it stains the floor. Assembling Ikea furniture makes me bleed… and curse. This episode was no exception. In the process of constructing this chest of six drawers blood was spilled and expletives were spoken.

So after much bleeding and cursing, I sit here nursing a rum and coke held in blistered palms. The dresser is assembled and in place in the bedroom. It has been consecrated with liquor and blood, and various oaths were uttered over it. As a result, I suspect it is now imbued with voodoo magic. It is too soon to know whether this is scary or cool. I’ll be putting my clothes in it later tonight, including the pants I plan to wear to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving festivities.

That means tomorrow I’ll be wearing my voodoo pants. Oh yeah.

Bye for now.

So I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was interviewed for a newspaper article. It ran last week in the Washington Post (check the comments section of this post for a login and password). It was supposed to run yesterday and have photos (they contacted me last week for a shoot), but it looks like it ran early and was scaled back quite a bit. The reporter mentioned me by name but neglected to mention that my vote-selling offer was a facetious political statement rather than a serious offer. Now I’m probably on some Secret Service watch list.

Three cheers for journalistic integrity!

If I took all of my clothes off and started walking downtown, I wonder how far I would get before The Man intercepted me. And I wonder, if I painted a face on my rear end and was talking to myself, would I get any farther or would that get me picked up even faster?

I’ll let you know.

When I was out for lunch the other day, one of my coworkers picked up a penny. She was pretty pleased about that because she had been having a rough week, and found pennies are supposedly good luck. That is, pennies are good luck for the people who find them. But what about the all the people who lose pennies everyday? Is losing a penny bad luck?

Then I wondered if luck is karmic. What if our fortune depends solely on our ratios of found money to lost money?

I do know one thing though. If that is the case, I’m screwed.

Bye for now.

So I know I haven’t done much with this site in a while, which is due to several factors, foremost of which being lack of time, and a general feeling of waning creativity. I’m not sure when this will change, but I’ll add stuff here and there as I can.

Something happened today that brought this site back to the front of my mind. I received an e-mail from a reporter from a nationally-known newspaper, asking me to talk about a post I wrote several months ago as part of a story she is writing on the topic. She interviewed me over the phone this afternoon. I don’t know if I’ll make it into the finished article, but if I do, I’ll be sure to post it.

Update: The article was published on 7/22/04.