ME AND SOME BANDS DO THINGS.

We visited Barnes and Nobles, and stumbled upon an uninhabited building. All very sophisticated business.

Check out our respective pages, my band here, their band there.

Tales of a Barista: The Swindler.

I'm actually proud of this one!

Obama vs. Bonzi Buddy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20027837-501465.html

"President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today."

This sounds like a national ID card!

"We are not talking about a national ID card,"

What. Government-controlled system then?

"We are not talking about a government-controlled system."

Oh come on. Give me something to get pissed about!

"What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

So the President and an entire government department are involving themselves in what is assured to be an intricate process involving the Internet...to save us from spyware and the inconvenience of passwords?


Me furiously typing in a password.

I'm pretty sure that's a banal excuse for such a grandiose project. This involves personally linking every American user on the Internet to a unique ID. That's 310,282,863 individuals. And we're supposed to assume that you're marginalizing anonymity because of Bonzi Buddy and how annoying it is to type out a phrase?

"I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to."

Because we're supposed to assume you'll undergo this massive project solely to provide an option?

I wonder who asked for this. Not which forgettable political lackey, but which citizen. Who were the regular ass people that asked for this? Which private user of the Internet really felt it necessary to have these security measures, after nearly two decades of a system for privacy that's clearly been satisfactory? Honestly, since when does anyone ever feel their information is vulnerable? And how often does anyone ever have their information stolen in proportion to the millions who don't?

"Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet."

If you ask all 310.2 million of us to use a universal alias, this would mean that every single website that requires personal information could have said information attached to the unique ID. How is that anonymity? It's like how the Japanese use the narrow-line tool from MS Paint on monstrous penises and call it "censoring".

Find your own picture.

Compound this with the increasing number of companies who encourage Internet bill pay by charging a fee for any other method of payment, and voila, the government knows precisely who you are and what your favorite 8thStreetLatina scene is on Youporn.

Critical information.

I don't even like bitching about politics. It's why I very seldom post about it. Everything about it seems so inexorably absurd, from its characters to the actual governing, that I feel I'd be more productive trying to get NME to shut the fuck up about the Foo Fighters.

Godlike genius, pictured here.

But this particular piece of information, one that has swept quietly through the news, seems a lot more incendiary than the media's whispering suggests. I just thought someone might as well stand on a soapbox and get mad as hell about it.

Smashing Cups of Oatmeal.

Writing about specific things doesn't interest me anymore; rambling seems something my words are more interested in doing right now.

Nothing new.

Which explains this blog's recent silence. That, and life has been pretty evolutionary for me as of late. Before I had enough quiet time to contemplate people and events; this created a sea of thoughts to fish for the blog. Now it's been overrun by rival fishermen donning green aprons and rock instruments.

Let's start with the latter. I've been in a band called Argonauts (I'm the drummer) for about 4 or 5 months now. Recently, we've finally gained some ground in our music and played our first show (Videos at the end). Practice and the myriad experiences that come with being in a band have been replacing any need for me to write clever whims about stupid people. All my creativity has been transferred into music and my drumming, leaving little for my poor intellectual side to scavenge for this blog.

However, it would be possible to drum up (Puns are always a good idea!) some bits of meticulous sarcasm if I had spare time beyond the band. But Starbucks replaces that, and does so ruthlessly. It's not just the amount of hours, but that Starbucks manages to stunt any consistent train of thought. This is new for me, because if ever you find me blankly staring into the distance, it isn't because my brain's matching my eyes. And yet the noise pollution of Starbucks, and how absolutely generic the level of thought is there, has been suffocating for me.

Don't get me wrong. The job, as it is, is still enjoyable. But when you add the variable that is humanity, the equation always ends up undefined. The customers/co-workers aren't rude. Okay, generally. But the conversations they have and what they deem important has me smashing my cup of Perfect Oatmeal from time to time.

"It's cold out there huh?"

"How was your [recent holiday here]?"

"Did you sleep well last night?"

Which leaves little room for any thoughtful answer:

"Yes."

"It was good."

"No (Implying: Because I seek caffeine like Velma Dinkley looking for her glasses and am unable to apply self-control)."

Then, like my favorite blogger Kate's mentioned, the back-and-forth tennis-like quality of most conversation means this entire mindfuck of an exchange happens again. With these exchanges happening multiple times. IN THE SPAN OF 10 MINUTES.

I don't want to misconstrue my hatred of shitty conversation with a hatred for human interaction or something. But when you have the same people coming in and conversing about the same bullshit, with thoughts about as deep and interesting as a baby's asshole, it gets incredibly grating after 5 months.

I think it's simply my age that creates this friction. I suppose these middle aged adults that swarm my Starbucks with particular fervor have gotten the swing of this shitty way of existing. Alright, that's kind of unfair. I just don't feel like having the same 5 conversations 10 times in 30 minutes. I think it's a sociological shame to do so.

So at some point I might end up transferring to a Starbucks where old people don't enjoy being old. Starbucks is still a great place to work at, and its highs are probably better than any job I've ever had, but I've never been as intellectually annoyed as this before.

So yeah, that's more or less what I've been doing lately. I'm going to find ways to create more time for things like this. There's a part of me that really misses it, and starves for it. I can't neglect it.

Oh and don't bother asking what constantlychangeshername is doing. Soy beans and kittens is a really underwhelming response.

Now here are the videos that blatantly yell "I hope this compensates for my lack of pictures."