More Morbidity

So Saddam Hussein is no more. He wasn't devoured by a pack of wild dogs, merely hanged. I'm against the death penalty outright but what troubles me additionally about Hussein's situation is that it seems ultimately that we traded almost 3,000 of our soldiers for what, so far, seems to be one man. At present I don't see any other supposed fruit of this endeavor, nor a rationale for it.

What has resulted is that the Iraqi government is now more aligned with Iran than the U.S., the country itself has descended into civil war, the entire Mideast region will potentially destabilize as Iran and Syria side with Iraqi Shiites (al Sadr's Mahdi army and the Badr Brigades) and Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt and Jordan, financially and potentially militarily aiding Iraq's Sunni minority. There is also a possibility that Turkey will invade the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq.

So someone please tell me what glimmer of progress has resulted from this illegal invasion and occupation. Saddam killed 300,000 people in the early 80's (while the the U.S. government looked the other way -- there's that infamous picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand three months after committing the crime he was just executed for). International Red Cross estimates put the number of Iraqis killed since the American incursion somewhere around 600,000.

To put that in perspective, given Iraq's population is roughtly 10% that of the U.S., imagine six million dead American innocents.

By no means do I imply that Saddam Elizabeth Hussein was anything less than a monster, but I can't help but feel that the world would be better off were he still in power.

Now back to my game of Scrabble Blast.

Little Wooden Boy!

Paint me blue -- Blockbuster has shipped disc 1 of The Tick, which means disc 2 will follow shortly thereafter. I'd like to spend New Year's Eve watcing episodes. Spoooooooon!

I read a quote from George Jean Nathan (drama critic in the early 20th century). It goes "A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward."

The way I would want to die: Not an especially extended and/or painful death, which is probably exactly how the cancer will play out. I'd choose to die from a brand new disease that would eventually be named after me, that way stand-up comics fifty years from now could say, "Wow, Phillip Harmon dying of Phillip Harmon's Disease... who saw that one coming?"

My last words, whispered on my deathbed, wouuld be "no fat chicks." Then I would shit myself.

My tombstone would read, "My only regret is that I died."

Incidentally I want to be cremated and stored in a Folger's coffee can, labeled "Steve" with masking tape, or a post-it note. I leave that to the discretion of the bequeathed. But I still want a tombstone somewhere.

Speaking of which, I'm spitballing the idea of starting a website wherein you can list a deceased loved one's name as an homage, including some information about their life, pictures, surviving relatives, accomplishments, etc. It could also be a good genealogy tool if it were around long enough. Lots of possibilities. Although there's probably already such a site.

Currently Listening to:
Catherine Wheel

Happy Days (1995)

A Year in Half-Assed Review

An automated dialer calls our number saying "I have a very important message concerning your business account..." I love paradoxes, such as a message so important it's delivered via robot.

And now here's something we hope you'll really like. I omitted some questions because they were none's the cool.

2006 recap

JANUARY

1. Where did you spend New Years Eve?
In bed with the flu. Best. NY's Eve. Ever.

2. Did you have a new year's resolution this year?
I resolved to give up a resolution that I kept in 2005 to not eat sugar.

5. Have you ever been to Times Square to watch the ball drop?
I go to my bathroom to watch balls drop BOING.

FEBRUARY

1. Who was your Valentine?
Jesus Christ.

2. When you were little, did you buy valentines for all of your classmates?
Yes

3. Do you care if the groundhog sees its shadow or not?
Punxsutawney Phil! (my porn name also)

MARCH

1. Are you Irish?
I'm a little bit country.

2. Did you wear green on St. Patty's Day?
Probably, at least by accident.

3. What did you do for St. Patty's Day in 2006?
Contently forgot about it

4. Are you happy when winter is pretty much over?
No I am not.

APRIL

1. Do you like the rain?
I am only happy when it rains.

2. Did you play an April Fools joke on anyone this year?
I forget about April Fool's day until about June, and my pranks aren't appreciated then.

3. Do you get tons of candy on Easter?
As a wee lad, yes.

4. Do you celebrate 4/20?
I celebrate Michael Bolton's entire collection.

5. Do you love the month of April?
I love the mouth of April.

JUNE

1. Did you finish high school yet?
I finished high school about 3.9 years before graduating.

2. Did you realize nothing special happens in June?
Father's Day? My dad's birthday, Flag Day, the Summer Solstice, Festival of Popular Delusions Day (the 5th)... what lazy jackass wrote this?

JULY

1. What did you do on the Fourth of July?
Ate Chinese food.

2. Did you go on any vacations during this month?
Mental vacation -- year-round.

3. Do you blast the A/C all day?
Yes

AUGUST

1. Did you do anything special at the end of your summer?
Killed a wombat.

2. What was your favorite summer memory of '06?
Visit to New York Ci-tay!

3. Did you have a sunburn?
A little, once.

4. Do you go to the beach a lot?
Ne'er, although I'd like to.

SEPTEMBER

2. Who is your favorite teacher?
Parker Lewis. He never loses.

3. Do you like fall better than summer?
Yes

OCTOBER

2. What's your favorite candy?
Hot Tamales.

3.What did you do for Halloween?
Hid.

DECEMBER

4. Get anything special this year?
Video camera, known in the future as Exhibit A.

Favorite Albums 2006

Scattered thoughts about the music year 2006:

My infatuations of the year and future polygamous brides: Lily Allen and Chan Marshall. Congratulations ladies! Hey Cat Power, fetch me my TV tray and put it on my tummy!

The Rapture: you disappointed me but luckily The Infadels kinda put out the album you should have, so ne'er mind.

Why don't more people like Persephone's Bees? Because they're all too busy sucking The Hold Steady's balls, that's why. And on the subject of unwarranted nut-garbling, I'm not going to say I hated Silent Shout, but it sounds like any other electronica/rave album I've heard. Perhaps my ear isn't adequately refined or I'm just getting old and intolerant of albums I have to work at to appreciate.

It's supposedly lame to enjoy Muse because they're so Radioheadesque-ish (listen to Rock Kills Kid and tell me it's not Thom Yorke), but entertaining is entertaining I say. And if you're going to sound so similar to another band Radiohead isn't a bad model.

Happy ought-six everyone. Keep on rockin' and procreatin' in the free world (while it's still free). This was almost a top 100 list, but t'was overkill.

1. Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
2. Persephone's Bees - Notes From the Underground
3. Yo La Tengo - I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
4. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
5. Peter Bjorn & John - Writer's Block
6. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
7. Asobi Seksu - Citrus
8. Mates of State - Bring It Back
9. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
10. Cat Power - The Greatest
11. Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses?
12. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy
13. Figurines - Skeleton
14. The Oohlas - Best Stop Pop
15. Tap Tap - Lanzafame
16. The Decemberists -The Crane Wife
17. Lily Allen - Alright Still
18. Grandaddy - Just Like the Family Cat
19. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
20. The Pinker Tones - The Million Colour Revolution
21. Chin Up Chin Up - This Harness Can't Ride Anything
22. Ben Harper - Both sides of the Gun
23. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
24. Sean Lennon - Friendly Fire
25. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
26. Be Your Own Pet - S/T
27. Irving - Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers
28. Black Angels - Passover
29. Darker My Love - Oasis
30. The High Violets - To Where You Are
31. Calexico - Garden Ruin
32. Francine - Airshow
33. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
34. Johnny Boy - Johnny Boy
35. P.O.S. - Audition
36. Viva Voce - Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
37. Whitey - The Light at the End of the Tunnel is a Train
38. Malajube - Trompe-L'oeil
39. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
40. The Infadels - We Are Not the Infadels
41. Head Like a Kite - Random Portraits of the Home Movie
42. The Evens - Get Evens
43. Rock Kills Kid - Are You Nervous?
44. Editors - The Back Room
45. What Made Milwaukee Famous - Trying to Never Catch Up
46. Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things
47. Beck - The Information
48. The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
49. Clearlake - Amber
50. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
    

Honourable mention:

Feathermerchants - Last Man on Earth
Portugal. The Man - Waiter: You Vultures!
Centro-Matic - Fort Recovery
Cut Chemist - The Audience's Listening
The Knife - Silent Shout
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Robert Pollard - From a Compound Eye
Justin Timberlake - Futuresex/LoveSounds
Rainer Maria - Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
Broadcast - The Future Crayon
Brazilian Girls - Talk To La Bomb
Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love
The Fever - In the City of Sleep
Joanna Newsom - Ys
About - Bongo
The Mendoza Line - Full of Light and Full of Fire
Hot Chip - The Warning
Tilly and the wall - Bottoms of Barrels
Peaches - Impeach My Bush
The Sounds - Dying to Say This to You
Pretty Girls Make Graves - Elan Vital
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Sam Roberts - Chemical City
Iron Hero - Safe As Houses
Film School - S/T
Shonen Knife - Genki Shock!
Run Run Run - Long Winter
The Elected - Sun, Sun, Sun
Islands - Return to the Sea
The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
Home Video - No Certain Night or Morning
My Brightest Diamond - Bring Me the Workhorse
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - Sinner
120 Days - 120 Days
Greg Laswell - Through Toledo
Eagles of Death Metal - Death By Sexy
The Pink Mountaintops - Axis of Evol
I'm From Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends
Carina Round -Slow Motion Addict
Lisa Papineau - Night Moves
The Rogers Sisters - The Invisible Deck
Tunng - Comments From the Inner Chorus
Angie Reed - XYZ Frequency
Radio 4 - Enemies Like This
Amy Millan - Honey From the tombs
The Essex Green - Cannibal Sea
Creeper Lagoon - Long Dry Cold
Dirty On Purpose - Hallelujia
Pony Up! - Make Love to the Judges With Your Eyes
Devics - Push the Heart
Gomez - How We Operate
Elefant - The Black Magic Show
Psapp - The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Tresspassers William - Havin
Sing-Sing - Sing-Sing and I
Lake Trout - Not Them, You
Neil Young - Living With War
Guster - Ganging Up on the Sun
Elf Power - Back to the Web
The Great Depression - Preaching to the Fire
Pete Yorn - Nightcrawler
Brnside Project - The Finest Example Is You
UHF - All Our Golden Tomorrows
Smoosh - Free to Stay
Keane - Under the Iron Sea
Danielson - Ships
The Faders - Plug In and Play
Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
Erase Errata - Nightlife
The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That
Built to Spill - You in Reverse
Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control

Favorite Flicks of 2006 (I said "Flicks' perverts)

Since I rarely see movies at the theater my list is limited to what I've been able to rent on DVD, but end-of-year lists are fun! So here:

1. Thank You For Smoking
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Borat
4. An Inconvenient Truth

That list is lame. I need to get out more.

A Goldman Sachs stocking stuffer

The CEO of the Goldman Sachs investment bank was given a $53.4 million bonus this year, $27 million in cash. Say it with me: holy freaking god. And I was feeling so good today because our boss was kind enough to dole out bonuses for us. Not a huge amount by any means, just a little xmas cheer. Then I read about the Goldman Sachs bonus, and all I can think of is getting home to drink a case of xmas cheer.

When and if I ever reproduce all of my spermies will be investment bankers. I'll tell them, "bitches, it may be boring and not something you enjoy, but probably 95% of the world's population doesn't enjoy their job. At least get one that pays you the GDP of Canada."

In college I was naive enough to change my major thrice (Accounting, Finance, Marketing, General Studies) because I wasn't enthralled or captivated by those fields. Now I realize that I'm not enthralled or captivated by anything (that one could get payed for, at least) and I should have ground it out. Fucking hindsight.

What would you do with an extra $27 million in pocket change? I know what I would do but I can't divulge it.

Tan in your stocking

For Xmas George Bush has decided to send more troops to Iraq. Yes, more. If you didn't previously believe that this man is membrane insane, how's about now?

Over sixty percent of the country wants a drawdown in the number of soldiers in Iraq, Democrats won a majority in congress largely by opposing the war and calling for withdrawal, the (largely Republican) Iraq Survey Group recommended some form of a drawdown in personnel, and the president decides, after all this, to increase the number of fish in the barrel.

At this point you have to think he's taking his marching orders from tea leaves or his pet rock (who he named Bust-Ass). The 40,000 or so troops are being sent over there with no mission or focus or defined purpose. He's dumping more people in there, fuel to the fire, so he can say he's doing something differently.

He IS a child. When everyone tells him he should be doing something he does the opposite, regardless of the stakes. More people will die so he can fan his ego and spite the will of the American people, and so he can keep convincing himself he's right. There is so much I don't understand about many humans.

Bloody Bloody

Last night I watched a DVD called Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. Guess what it was about!

This guy lived with cystic fibrosis for over 40 years -- most people with the disease die in their early childhood. In one scene he nails his dick to a wooden board, hammering a nail right through the head. I knew it was coming and instinctively thought of fast-forwarding, but I didn't. Rare is it anymore that what I see or read or hear arouses any true emotion in me. Bloody war movies or horror flicks don't disgust me, and actually neither did this. Mostly I was awestruck by something I've never seen nor will likely see again. And I learned that an impaled penis bleeds like a hooker on the rag. Wild, wild stuff.

Then I watched Ice Age: The Meltdown. Manny the mammoth forced one of his tusks up the sloth's pucker and the sabre-toothed tiger raped then devoured one of the possums. Odd choices I thought.

Not-so long time loving

To myself I was thinking, "Phillip, your coffee is good," but it's not my coffee. All I do is put grounds and water in a machine and turn it on. It's tantamount to "hey I make great toast." Master an exorbitantly simple machine and you're golden, as is your bread. Although in the day of K-Feds and rich celebrity sluts (mmmm... redundancy) maybe that's not such a given. Cookies are too easily doled out.

Yesterday the BBC ran an article about Indian men not being able to find condoms that fit them, that 60% are 3 to 5 centimeters shorter than international standards. Males are embarrassed to ask a chemist (pharmacist?) for smaller sizes.

India's population is over one billion, about one-sixth of the entire world population. The population of China is also over one billion.

You have the stereotype about the Chinese penis (if you're not privy, guess), and, according to my limited exposure to them as portrayed in movies by Mel Gibson, the Chinese eschew "great shame."

This explains somewhat the tech-savviness of Indians and Chinese though, doesn't it? What do American males who aren't getting laid do in lieu? Get on the internet. Play MMORPG's on the internet (I'll save you the trip to Wikipedia -- massive multiplayer online role-playing game). Download porn on the internet. Chat rooms, cracking passwords, learning all things geek, on the internet.

I know these things because I'm one of said American males.

I'll point out the obvious irony of countries whose males have small penises being overpopulated, but also that the very real threat of global overpopulation might be a result of shame over something noone has control over. Tarnation. Zounds!

Also soy products make you gay, according to an article on WorldNetDaily summarily entitled "A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals." First SpongeBob and the purple teletubby, now soy?

Someone please think of the children. I could aver more concretely that Evangelism makes you gay.

Currently Listening to:
Malajube

Trompe-L'Oeil (2006)