Cardhouse Old Mastodon Twitter Otto EPS Links Default Shapes
2011 2013 Default

title

--- --- --- --- --- jun jul aug sep oct nov dec

Above: An excerpt of a large collage of a particular San Francisco view experienced during The Jejune Institute / Games of Nonchalance

2012 items of note: In a momentary lapse of judgment, the Cardhouse weblog was moved June 21st of 2012 to an external website creation site called "tumblr.com." This problematic platform was used until the end of 2014. The relevant "content" from this unfortunate time has been scraped off and dumped here.

2012jun21.

Baby, don’t be like that. Baby come here. Don’t be so distant. I tried to call you but I had the wrong area code. Baby please. Baby.

2012jun21.

Just a quick update vis-a-vis what the American Dream has mutated into recently: it’s a burger with avocados on it. Tasty. If you have children, you should probably go ahead and teach them to not throw themselves onto your BBQ ‒ hospital visits ruin backyard picnics. I know the whole tableau is supposed to be ironic, but just take in that fenceline. Inhale it.

2012jun24.


June 2012.

2012jul05. So, how has your 1.7 years been? Originally I took a year off and then I took some time off from that. Now I’m on this thing, because I don’t want to go through the massive fixdance with my program right now. This is a bandage, for now, though we all know how those things become systemic. Wow. What a reverie. Now I have to figure out how I did this for 17 years and why. Mebbe I’ll cook up a batch of this [drug name here] and see what developerates.

PS: The leading is just awful, awful!

PPS: Oh, I see, the preview, the thing you’re supposed to look at to actually preview your finished entry, has poor leading, but the final format is completely different and acceptable. It is a new world with new challenges and bonus fruit. Oooh, banana.

2012jul22. I’m going to try to explain an experience I had as a young youngster but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to frame it properly. In ye olden dayze, if you wanted to play an arcade game, you had to actually find a place that had the physical hardware. They called them “arcades” which is not the same as the Walter Benjamin Paris “arcades” which I would like to visit when time machines become readily available. Anyway, you had arcades, sure, but what you also had were travelling arcades, people who would put 8-20 arcade machines on a flatbed truck and park at the various county fairs and whatnot. So that’s pretty much it – playing Pac-Man on a flat-bed truck. I don’t know why, but the memory of doing this sticks out like a sore thumb wanting to be squashed and I’m just the guy to do it. It was very surreal. In Alameda, there is the travelling pinball trailer created by the people at Whatever Juju Pinball Arcade, but that was enclosed. This was just this platform plus video games. Do you see the difference do you.


July 2012.

2012aug19. I found a poem on my site (“Cardhouse”) just now because of thing which I will tell you about afterward.

everybody’s working during the weekend
everybody wants a new pair of pants
everybody’s going off the deep-end
everybody’s infected with the prions that cause scrapie and mad cow disease

Back in the day I thought I could save people by alerting them to medical dangers they may have not taken the time to think of, and then I wrapped that baby in a sugar-coated edible capsule for easy digestion. When I consider the lives I have already saved with this easy-to-remember refrain, my head swells large with pride or some kind of freakish prion-based fever.

I saw the poem on a disused area of Cardhouse called The Deck O’ Junk and I was reviewing it because someone actually sent in a card for the deck just the other day, even though that has happened never in the last ten years (and by "ten years" I mean "ten actual years"). So that was nice. I started it in 1999, which is also a song. All years should be songs.

Is there a way to do blockquotes without that blasted line? Probably. One day I will come in and nuke the layout, it’s wretched. Oh, when I finished that question Tumblr asked me if I should “let people answer this.” I don’t know, Tumblr, should I? Should I? I remember a time when weblog editors showed some sort of respect, they didn’t interrupt you in the middle of your post with some inane query. Let’s go back to that time. We can do this. Can we?

2012aug22.

I don’t know what gives with the “kid should hold some sort of short pole with both hands” trope as seen in this photo and the earlier one. I am decades too late to suggest that perhaps the children could be holding the ice cream bars that they, and everyone else on the planet, loved so much. This was a love for the ages. Eternal, true love. They grew old together, one of them died and the other one was sad with big ice cream bar tears. Could ice cream bar date again? After all they had been through together? Does OKCupid have a checkbox for ice cream bars? Checking, BRB

2012aug22.

Dr. Shabubu maintains a social media presence on Facebook. I have heard things about it. I do not use the Facebook so I miss out on all the richness. So rich. So moist. Facebook.

2012aug22.

Empanadas everyone, empanadas (this is a sign in SF for what I believe to be an empanada-type place called Empanadas). Again, Le Cave's mango empanadas in Tucson is what you want. I haven't tried the empanadas here at Empanadas if they have empanadas, I just like the sign. Also, I have been very patient with pineapple in baked goods, but it does not work. Other than pineapple upside-down cake. Otherwise forget it. Side note: pineapple on the BBQ straight up is amazing.

2012aug23.

The San Francisco Cable Car Museum has a variety of older street signs for your purchaserusual. I believe they cost $49 to $99. A family member purchased "CRESPI" for me so that one is not available to you at all. From what I understand, these stamped signs are from two updates ago. The previous update was an unstamped version of the uppercase lettering. Both are iconic and singular. But you know, the feds seep into everything … these signs are being replaced with mixed-case ones, the same sign type that will be in every other city/state in the union eventually. They are ugly and boring. I can understand replacing freeway signs, where if you miss a turnoff you may have to drive two, three miles to get back to a particular exit, but street signs are an integral part of cityculture and boo-hoo you have to drive an extra block or two because you forgot to get your prescription updated. Supposedly they’re being replaced as they’re cycling out worn/faded signs, but given the rate of change ("alarming/nauseating") I call bullshittery on that.

"But what about the ambulances?" Yeah, what about them. Tell me the drivers don't have GPS. Tell me the drivers don’t know the route 99.999% of the time. Why not just put everyone in the same building, then ambulances wouldn’t have to exist. How about that.

2012aug24.

2012aug24.

If you guessed that the "steamed old-timer sponge cake" is what put this extravagant meal's price in the realm of a relatively peppy PC, take a bow! Sponge cake was recently outlawed by the FDA in their yearly crackdown on "obscenely non-decadent after-meal food objects."

Shh the sponge cake is illegal

2012aug26.

Non-canonical

2012aug27.

2012aug28.

Tumblr has this cool "rotate photo" function that doesn’t exist.

2012aug29.

"It's Delicious" [c] Dr. Nut 1941. I wrote a small thing about Confederacy of Dunces and Tumblr ate it. More briefing. Anyway, I need to re-read it because it didn't do anything for me the first time around. I will probably never get to it, I have a two-foot high stack of People Magazine sittin' right here. Mmmmmmmmmmmm the intimate details of people I have seen via technology.

Apparently Dr. Nut went straight out of business in the early '50s and some other enterprising sop tried to bring it back, sans the almond kick. It did not last long, because duh.

This gives me a chance to talk a bit about Kona Brewing's Koko Brown ale, which features toasted coco-nut. I’d link to a review or two but Tumblr has also decided that that's not going to happen. Anyway, there are two sets in my beery universe –- one is Koko Brown ale, and the other set is all other beers. Perfect for my "forced scarcity" philosophy, it's only available seasonally, around February through May. I will probably use this as a hedge several times in the upcoming Thirsty Animals podcast, assuming said podcast is ever recorded and that's the title we stick with and I purchase microphones. Animals & Booze? Boozy Animals. Doing things: you have to do things first to do them.

Oh, I figured out how to trick tumblr into "saving changes"! All you have to do is click the "italic" icon right at the end of your text. It’s obvious.

2012aug30.

Art Nouveau And Art Deco Bookbinding – French Masterpieces 1880-1940 – Alastair Duncan & Georges De Bartha

2012aug31.

Love in the Buff. Buff.


August 2012.

2012sep01.

Art Nouveau And Art Deco Bookbinding ‒ French Masterpieces 1880-1940 Alastair Duncan & Georges De Bartha

2012sep02.

Finally got a good shot of the Fox News Tank.

2012sep03.

Art Nouveau And Art Deco Bookbinding ‒ French Masterpieces 1880-1940 Alastair Duncan & Georges De Bartha

2012sep04.

from the book French Modern Art Deco Graphic Design

2012sep04. My legal console (it looks like one of those bedside wake-up centers you see in Japan hotels, but more complicated, like a computer panel from the ‘50s) has informed me that "Sleepgel" is actually a trademarked name coined by Unisom to designate a brand of sleep-aid medication. Whereas their "Sleepgel" is something that you swallow and thus becomes internal, the Cardhouse Sleepgel Inert Non-Toxic Night Slurry is something that swallows you; a heavily-viscous liquid "sleep-aid." More like a glue. Totally different concept. But the "cease and desist" light on the console is blinking rapidly, so let's go ahead and move forward/upward and rename that bad boy to the Cardhouse Sleep-X Inert Non-Toxic Enveloping Night Slurry. I'll come up with something better later, it's not like these tanks are flying out the door right now.

2012sep05.

Children … come to me … come to me … your entertainment dollar is no better spent than on a one-handed headless clown swingset … aoooOoooOOOOOooooo

2012sep06.

3AM SHITTY TRAIN PIZZA LIVE AT THE SSL

PZ44 (did it jump out at you as well?) is a dough conditioner that consists of "Whey (milk), L-cysteine, and Hydrochloride" and I always laugh when something that usually has four to six ingredients suddenly has 400. My understanding is that these shitty pizzas (and etc throughout the processed food kingdom) must be preserved forever, but when you start adding ingredients to fight decay, these ingredients also require sub-ingredients to keep them in line and so on and so on. I have been thinking about pizza a lot lately because my favorite deep discount grocery store has this bi-annual Specific Pizza Rollout thing. A brand of slightly processed pizza you see at a certain upscale grocery store is dumped unceremoniously into the freezer vats at the discount grocery store because the expiration date is months in the past. Months! I buy many, many pizzas, whatever can fit around the dead animals in the freezer (I'll get to that someday). Also calzones, which tuck quite nicely here and there, under this dead animal, over that dead animal. The pizza is absolutely delicious, and I haven't expired … so what's the expiration date all about. This concerns me, because my housemate keeps threatening to prepare something called "Famous Fudge," a box of pre-prepared fudge mix sold to people for whom "adding an egg" was way too taxing. This particular box of "Famous Fudge" expired in 2009.

"Here's the culprit, chief." "Famous Fudge, you are under arrest for the double murder of these dead idiots."

2012sep07.

Art Nouveau And Art Deco Bookbinding ‒ French Masterpieces 1880-1940 ‒ Alastair Duncan & Georges De Bartha

2012sep08.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

we are the amalgamated shark group

we will nibble on your toes

nibble on your toes

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

just ate your liver

there it goes, there it goes

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

2012sep09.

Venice California 2009.

2012sep10.

Van, 2009. I have a photo from 1998 of a friend in front this guy's earlier van. Same cheery sentiment, not as in-your-face and sleek as this one. The bumper reads "You guilty, silent slobs." Passively insulting your audience always goes over well. You shits.

2012sep11.

Flowers, Angel Island 2009

2012sep12. divinenonchalance.tumblr.com:

"To the dark horses with the spirit to look up and see, a recondite family awaits." With this mystical promise—or perhaps sinister threat—that begins the gleefully unclassifiable The Institute, viewers are invited to enter a strange alternate-reality game in which the rules keep changing and…

2012sep12.

2012sep13.

Special Delivery 2012 (Endless Canvas)

2012sep14.

California coast 2009.

2012sep15.

Special Delivery 2012 (Endless Canvas)

2012sep15.

Special Delivery 2012 (Endless Canvas)

2012sep17.

[Cardhouse] At the very tail end of 2008 I slowly immersed myself in the Games of Nonchalance, an interactive fiction construct. Five days after I went through “Act I” I made the above graphic and put it on Cardhouse … then two minutes later I felt like some of it sort of functioned as a spoiler and I took it down. “I’ll just wait until the whole thing ends,” I thought, and I started squirreling away notes somewhere in this firetrap of a nest. [later that same decade] Now it’s a little over a year since the Games of Nonchalance ended. I finally shoved through that endless last 5% and got the big ole’ dorodango all shined up. Catch!


September 2012.

2012oct29. Today I was driving through Oakland and saw a large moving truck being loaded up. There was a tall standing lamp sitting in the truck; it had three lights, and the covers for the lights were clearly frosted glass. "Fragile," I thought with my mind. "That's not going to make the trip." I arrived at my destination, did destinationy things for awhile. Started driving to another location. I've gone halfway across town. I stopped at a traffic light, idly turned my head to the left, and there's the lamp, sitting in the street just behind the same moving truck. They're unloading. "Huh," I thought, again with my mind. "Guess I was wrong."

2012oct30. Today I was driving through Oakland and I stopped at a traffic light. Idly turned my head to the left, and there's a giant spider attacking a ladybug. Spiders are attracted to my car's external rear-view mirrors and enjoy making webs on them; it is a tradition that dates back to the 1920s. So I rolled down the window and shouted "Oh no, you get outta here!" and smacked the spider with a bit of its own nest. It scurried back into the gap of the rear-view mirror. I grabbed the ladybug (it had a bit of its wing sticking out from under its wing cover) and put it on the roof, then the light changed. I figured it would just fly off. Then three blocks later I pulled over, I felt bad about rescuing the ladybug and then immediately bailing. I looked on the roof, it was gone. I felt bad for about seven seconds, then continued on my journey. Many hours later I drove home, parked the car, looked over and there was the ladybug on the front seat. "Hey!" So I took it and put it in a nice big patch of foresty green plants that I'm sure have names.


October 2012.

2012nov08. Yesterday the rearview mirror spider was out and about, tending to its web, and then some big jagoff driver showed up to move its home. I grabbed an Altoids tin, rolled down the window, and shouted "get out of here you shitass!" or something. I have to be honest here, I tried to kill it. I tried to kill something 1/100th my size. Attempted murder. The spider scrambled into the gap between the mirror and the cowling and was not tinned to death.

2012nov15.

While noodling around Treasure Island the other day, a friend and I ran into a very strange, very large boat sitting at its own locked dock. We couldn't get anywhere near it. Amazing sounds of large-scale construction work were coming from inside it. I wanted to purchase it, and set about trying to locate the owner. Turns out it was just the usual Howard Hughes CIA-commissioned secret Soviet sub stealing submersible barge augmented by a spurious deep sea drilling ship used later to hide the construction of a Navy stealth ship. Same old.

2012nov21.


November 2012.

2012dec02.

2012dec02.

2012dec04.

I'd like to think that if I was a disemskullied tongue that I'd be a "Super Snarl," but maybe that's being a little too tonguebitious. Who am I kidding, I'd be a "Relaxed." Just taking it all in, tongue-wise.

2012dec05. LETTERS TO SANTA CLAUS 1960 (as printed in the Tulia Herald, Tulia, TX).

DEAR SANTA CLAUS: I am seven years old and I am in the second grade. Please bring me a baby dear doll, a barbie doll, horse racing game, toy clarinet, and a visible woman. We will leave some goodies for you.

Love, TANYA T.

DEAR SANTA: I want a fire truck and a bulldozer please.

Ted S.

DEAR SANTA: I want a golden brocade, mink, negligee set and dog, sweater and skirt set, evening ensemble, and some records. A deb-teen purse (white one) some jewelry a monopoly game, a career game, a balanced batone a drum majorette dress.

KATHY A. P.S. I love you so much that I will have some cookies and milk for you.

DEAR SANTA: I am a little girl 7 years old. I would like a doll, records, and a baton. I have a little sister, she would like a telephone, and a little piano, and a doll. We have tried to be good girls this year. Dont forget the other boys and girls.

We love you Jayleen & Diane W.

DEAR SANTA: For Christmas I would like a Put-Together Rolls Royce, and also a Learn-To-Draw-Outfit. Also I would like a Junior-Tool-Belt. Last I want a Fanner Shootin-Shell 45 pistol, made by Mattel. I would like a snub-nose 38 pistol with hoster.

With lots of love, Fred B. P.S. Please remember my brother and two sisters.

DEAR SANTA: Please bring me a snub-nose 38 pistol, learn to draw outfit, old timer Ford Pickup truck, trailer house with convertable, spelling and counting frame, and safety dart set.

Charles W. B. [brother of Fred B., above]

DEAR SANTA: I have been a bad boy, but would like these things. Please bring me the daisy smoke rifle, which cost $2.22. And the marine corps, walkie talkie, which cost $1.98.

Your old friend Kenneth N.

DEAR SANTA: I am in the second grade. I go to East Ward School. My teachers name is Mrs. Ramsey. I want a doll.

Love, Jean Adon Kleman

DEAR SANTA: I want a western rifle gun. I want a ready-mix concrete truck. Please remember all the other boys and girls. I am 4 years old.

Love, Alan P.

DEAR SANTA: I am in the second grade. Mrs. Johnston is my teacher. I would like for you bring me a doll, and B B gun.

Your friend, Ann

2012dec05.

2012dec06.

Does anyone know what this is from? Of course context will scare some of the magic away, but it's too late, I asked. Update: I have been informed that it is from MONDO, by Ted McKeever. Thank you, cuponoodles.

2012dec07.

2012dec08.

My favorite bits of graffiti-related street art are when the artists are talking to each other with paint, having conversations that usually end in strike-outs. Bold pink ones in this case. Oh and of course the ridiculous "jockeying for space" bit. There's only so many walls out there.

2012dec09. I need to start writing down things, in patricular, the wisdom that I am able to pass on to the younger generations of people who idly wonder how anyone survived pre-internet ("libraries. word-of-mouth. 'Capital of Angola'? You hear things."). So here it is, Wisdom Everything Up To And Including 2012.

1) Pineapple and pepperocini toppings on pizza. Together. I've covered this before.

2) When you pull your keys out of your pocket, watch to make sure other stuff doesn't fly out.

3) People lie a lot.

2012dec09. On April 28th of this year (2012), the Land's End Lookout Visitor Center was completed. Come on, let's go visit! Come on! COME. ON.

When I heard they were going to re-build the original visitor center, I was very excited, because the old visitor center had HUGE blow-ups of the area – Sutro Baths, the Cliff House, Musée Mécanique, etc. And they had large folders of photos mounted to desks, so you could sit at the desk and flip through the photos. So of course the re-do is going to be that much better.

Here's the first thing you see when you walk in. There it is.

Go on! Touch it! Do you see DO YOU SEE? They took the folders and split them up and made the photos smaller and put handles on them and then hid them in slots so it would be a complete pain in the ass to look at each photo! Remember when it took you just seconds to flip through a photobook to find the photos you liked? Kiss those efficient days of youth and yore goodbye in our new shared Fotohandel future!

But on the other hand, it's got that enticing caption at the top that is obscured by the handelfoto in front of it. The handelfoto is made of some sort of shiny plastic composite. I like the tactile -– big fan of the tactile –- but you know, some times, when two people really love each other very much tactile needs to get the fuck out of the way of my greedy, greedy eyeballs.

Wow, okay! "Choose a card, press the mystic swami's crystal ball, and find out what lies ahead." So … this is a re-appropriated/buffed/museumified Musée Mécanique arcade game? Even though Musée Mécanique packed up and moved to Fisherman's Wharf. "Here's a sterilized rammed-through-12-committees version of something that used to be here but is now about six miles East of here. Enjoy." Oh and they didn't just volunteer to move, they were moved by the National Park Service. They were supposed to return to the area in 2004, but that didn't happen ... and now, instead: this ... thing.

The swami predicts ... you will not engage with this display any further.

Good thing, too, my lawyer's on speed dial. Can you imagine how sad they were when they realized they hadn't completely human-proofed the exhibit? In the future photos will be enclosed in soft spheres which you can't directly see, but must nuzzle with your cheek to get a sense of the image. Or a docent can describe it for you.

Remember that movie introduction that became a "catch phrase" that quickly became "really annoying"? Also, do you remember photo cubes? "Turn the cubes to make a mosaic of Lands End's past, present, and future." What? Why?

"Maybe Fotohandel is too easy. Maybe we make them work a little bit more." Here are some photos of things. They have short captions. You can't see most of them. Some of the cubes have visitor comment cards.

We are learning so much about Sutro Baths now, it is obvious. The whole set up feels like it's geared toward children, but the exhibits are adult-height/clunky.

Wait, the swami is indicating that he has a vision ... oh ... OH ... he says it's just a place to sell coffee and trinkets, and then he made a rude gesture.

Sutro Baths is a worthwhile place to visit brimming with interesting history, most of which these exhibits deftly avoid. They'll probably get rid of the photocubes in 3-5 years because the employees will just stop swapping out visitor comments. Swami will be bumped around then as well. More floor space for trinkets.

Here's a great photo page for the Sutro Baths. Unfortunately not in cube form.

2012dec10.

Quad City Herald / Brewster, Washington / April 3, 1915. Chamley is still loose, from Nostrums and Quackery: articles on the nostrum evil and quackery reprinted from the Journal of the American medical association, Volume 2 (1921). Watch out for this guy, total jagoff.

2012dec11. A friend of mine recently inflicted Wonder Showzen on other mutual friends and while feeling both elated and sorry for them I thought more about Chauncey, the genial fuzzy be-top-hatted yellow hostpuppet of the show, shown here with mouth-breathin' Middle America.

He reminded me of someone …

Seymour, the genial fuzzy be-top-hatted yellowish puppet from The Hot Fudge Show (right on!), shown here with professional baseball player Willie Mays. I was a bit too old for THFS; the whole lesson-learning/moral-cramming thing didn't really go over well. Wonder Showzen, as it turns out, is the exact opposite of The Hot Fudge Show. Maybe the similarities between the two puppets is coincidental, but in the end we all learned to play nice, and that's what really matters.

2012dec12.

2012dec12.

Confectioners Journal July 1919

2012dec13.

The hell is that? Little repeated Sydney Opera Houses? THE HELL

2012dec14.

Reminds me of RBM.

2012dec15.

Filth.

2012dec16.

Get on the intertubes with Interac Intertube II (Creative Computing 1980)

2012dec17.

Tom Sachs ‒ Ten Bullets

Ten Bullets ‒ The Studio Manual

2012dec18.

I would have been a little more vigilant eating my vegetables in my youth had I thought I was going to go "missing" otherwise.

"You see now, don't you, how vegetable sales ensure that everyone gets a seat at the table, socio-politically ... yes, my little one?"

"YES YES JUST PLEASE MAKE IT STOP IT'S IN MY HEAD AHHHHH"

2012dec19.

Tom Sachs ‒ Nutsy's: McDonald's Industrial

I have linked to this before. Now I have linked to it twice. In the future, this "link count" will most likely increase. This is a good indicator that this action is MANDATORY and your Cardhouse Syndicate Consigliere Application Form will NOT be approved sans viewing. I don't make the rules, I just make the rules.

2012dec20.

Tom Sachs ‒ Nutsy's: Troubleshooting

2012dec21.

Tom Sachs ‒ Nutsy's: Kate Moss Teaser

2012dec22.

Tom Sachs in Milan (interview)

2012dec23.

Artists@Google: Tom Sachs

"So they used them … so it wasn't just embarrassing."

2012dec24.

Homemade Mission To Mars by Tom Sachs (Vice interview)

2012dec25.

Tom Sachs ‒ Nutsy's: The Booth and BHS

2012dec25.

Charlie Brooker ‒ Screenwipe (s05e02 advertising)

2012dec26.

Scientific American May 6th 1894.

2012dec26.

2012dec27. Now that I have consolidated all of my email from 1990-now, I have been running into bits of hilarity here and there. This is one, in which an advertiser was trying to suggest a slight change to an old article on Cardhouse.

Good Morning, / Thank you for your response, I hope you are having a fantastic day! The client is looking for a simple text anchor in form of a sentence, and for this they are willing to pay (We DO NOT do link exchange). The client is looking to place a link that points back to one of their pages. Please find all the information bellow.

Here are the details:

Your page which the link needs to be placed on: http://cardhouse.com/1990/x05/bushell.htm

Placement: Within content as shown bellow.

Your current text:

Boston Station Saturday 11:30 pm I drag my two bags into the station –- Scott with Way Too Much Hair, and his beau, Michelle, greet me. I blather out a hello and something about baggage, trundle off to the baggage area, turn in my claim tags, and of course the baggage isn't there. Dammit all, I ransack the area during the protestations of the Baggage Guy, find my baggage (which, unlike me, arrived at 6pm), and return to Scott.

As I mindlessly follow the both of them home, I notice there are a lot of cars with Massachusetts plates ... you don't see that much in Michigan.

With [new] anchor:

Boston Station Saturday 11:30 pm I drag my two bags into the station -– Scott with Way Too Much Hair, and his beau, Michelle, greet me. I blather out a hello and something about baggage, trundle off to the baggage area, turn in my claim tags, and of course the baggage isn't there. Dammit all, I ransack the area during the protestations of the Baggage Guy, find my baggage (which, unlike me, arrived at 6pm), and return to Scott.

Although I did consider staying a hotel, I did look into staying at a [motel/hotel consolidator website URL of advertiser deleted], but I had already decided to stay with my friends. As I mindlessly follow the both of them home, I notice there are a lot of cars with Massachusetts plates ... you don't see that much in Michigan.

[Advertisement details] For this my client is wiling to pay $80.00 quarterly. [More details] Let me know when the link is live!!!

My response.

Hello [name], my day is fantastic! I do have some concerns about your ad placement. [Your suggestion] makes no sense because [the article took place] before the world-wide web actually existed. So that would be a LIE. I do not lie. Some people do – I've seen it around – but I do not. Lying makes liars of us all, really, if you think about it a little bit … I know have.

Which is of course horseshit, I lie all the time. I just had a delicious piece of wood for dinner. See?

2012dec28.

Tom Sachs ‒ Space Camp

2012dec29. Casey Neistat ‒ thanks Van

2012dec30. I am going to tell you a story and perhaps you know the ending.

One day a person published a very large book on cardboard iconography, the designs that appear on cardboard boxes. It could have been called something like "Cardboard" or "Packaging Icons" or something like that. It was a foreign person! They were foreign. They spent a lot of time making this book, so there are a lot of icons in it! It cost over 200 American dollars (!!!), and this is back when that almost meant something, like 1998-2002 or so! It was written up in Wired, in one of their teeny-type columns wisely designed with hot pink type and a yellow background. Remember those days? Crazy times, and we all just whistled like this "phewwwwwww" when we saw stuff like that because what could you do? Chicken butt.

Then, in an exciting and unpredictable turn of events, another person wanted to know the title of this book, at the very least, so he could put it in his very large I WISH I HAD THESE BOOKS list. We all have one! If we don’t, we are dumb. Anyway, he searched and he searched! He was very experienced with searching, but he could not find it! Perhaps he is also dumb.

Maybe you know the name of this book! That would be a great end to this story! Otherwise this is the end of it right here. Now you can look at the next thing! I bet it's someone who has made art that was inspired by a tepid space opera, hot dog!

2012dec30.

This is a screenshot taken of a compromised computer secretly running Back Orifice in 1998 or 1999. If I remember correctly, there was another shot of the hapless user via webcam.

2012dec31.