Paris Hilton is my new BFF

In today’s media environment that centers around sex, drugs, and prescription drugs, it’s very refreshing when young minds take a stand against that kind of trivial focus. It shows us that young people today do feel passionately about the issues and that they will no longer take the blue pill of denial. An excellent example of this kind of youth activism can be see in Paris Hilton’s new series, Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. In this MTV sponsored reality show, 16 women and 2 men compete in challenges in order to become Paris' best friend, forever. This reality show takes a stand against the unbalanced emphases of society in two ways. Firstly, in a world where it is quickly being forgotten, Paris shows the value of friendship as more important than sexual relationships. Paris shows a dedication to friendship that extends past a transient case of codependence. Instead she feels that friendship is an institution that should last forever. Secondly, Paris places a firm emphasis on sincerity, both in implementing a challenge to weed out “fakeness” and correcting the girls when they don’t give the situation the weight it deserves as she scolds, “I don’t feel like you’re taking this seriously. You’re laughing right now.” In order to create a more genuine world, she encourages the girls to honest with one another, even to the point of hurt feelings, which is proven in Britney’s words to Kiki, “kiki. You can be a real b**** sometimes. Like (whistle). Like you know what I’m talking about. Like a really big b*****.” Truly, Paris is a revolutionary, and worthy of the title of Seminal Psycher. Kudos to you, Ms. Hilton.

Why Can’t I be me, at the DMV?

So you have your E-78 Change of Name Request form, your current drivers license, and your certified documentation that shows the change of name (i.e. marriage license, divorce decree, probate court documents.) You even have the sixty-six dollars cash. You’re feeling pretty pumped because you know you’ve met all the CT DMV requirements for a name change.

The hour and a half wait is no big deal. You expected that. You’re ready. The periodic yelling and swearing of patrons before you doesn’t even scare you- you know you did your research. Then finally its your turn. The moment you’ve been waiting for.

“And what is the name you’d like to change to,” asks the morbidly obese high-school dropout behind the desk, “Austin Marie Sena McCaslin, please.” His answer, and the answer apparently condoned by the Connecticut government? “No.”

No, a space is not a valid character in a first, middle, or last name. As for all the Da Vincis, San Pascuales, or Di Nicolas? Well, your name is not recognized by the American government.

I see three routes for sticking it to the man in this situation:

1. Letters, emails, and petitions. Maybe a protest? I’m not really a fan.
2. Every baby from today on is named the same exact thing, varying only in the placement of a space.
3. All children are named using wingdings font.

What I love: People who live off the grid

What I hate: People who don't

This week in...."This Story is About Real People"

Sometimes in war it is easier to manipulate circumstances rather than committing to all out confrontation. When you charge an enemy, their defensive measures can cause all kinds of complications. But if you make the enemy think they are acting of their own will, you might accomplish the same end with minimal effort.


Yes, the kung fu of the red-bearded dragon is strong. Tangled in the snares of the red-bearded dragon, the chocolate lab found himself captive, far from the baby brown bear. She knew he was tricked and therefore went willingly, but how long could the baby brown bear fight for the chocolate lab, when she knew he wasn’t fighting for himself? Will she stand by her lab? Or will she rack up all kinds of credit card debt as a passive aggressive plea for attention?

Stay tuned for the next installment of…This Story is About Real People

I am

A revolutionary

Sexually active in the community
Not willing to indicate my race on questioneers
Always very quiet, but when I do speak, I am profound
Frugally generous
Basically a doctor
An untainted journalistic voice
Anxious ambivalent, schizoid personality disorder
Generally sedentary
An aficionado and a connoisseur
prone to achieving and exaggerating academic achievments
Also prone to wordiness
Often the source of conflict
Not able to acknowledge skinny people
I don't always leave the bathroom a victor
Thinking about this video.
Seldom at fault
In it for better or worse
Consistently overestimating my popularity
Twenty-two today

Patrolin' and tryin' to catch me ridin dirty

Here is an excellent video-lecture about why you should never talk to the police about a crime under any circumstances: excellent advice. I feel very strongly about this issue, and would like to expand on this rule to say....you should never talk to the police about anything, under any circumstances.


Summary of why not talk to the police (from his lecture)
1. It cannot help you. Legally, what you say to the police can be used against you but not for you.
2. You may admit your guilt without anything in return. You can always confess later.
3. Any fallacy in your statement, even if unintentional, can be used to convict you.
4. Even if you're innocent you will always give the police something they can use to convict you.
5. If the police don't recall your testimony with 100% accuracy, their errors can be used against you.
6. Even if the testimony is videotaped, and the officer doesn't recall his questions accurately, it can be used against you.
7. Even if your statement is true, it can be used to convict you if they have any evidence anything you said was wrong-even if their evidence is not reliable.

Not from the lecture:
8. Cops are lame
9. and uneducated
10. and cost me 90 bucks

Sometimes it’s hard to let go...

Back in my home state of Connecticut- land of cold winters, Martha Stewart, and a bitter distance that resides between men - an interesting precedent was set by a brother and sister pair. These trail blazers, John and Diane Simmeck, were questioned when police discovered the remains of their mother had been decomposing in her home for approximately seven years. This wasn’t a surprise to John and Diane however. They had been visiting on a regular basis, paying the utilities in her stead, and tending to the estate. Why didn’t they report her death? Diane Simmeck couldn’t explain why she didn’t report it; she simply chose not to. And, according to Todd Fernow, a professor at university of Connecticut, school of law, she didn’t have to. There are apparently no laws in place that require family members to report or dispose of dead bodies. So take your time. Say goodbye. Or, don’t. Maybe there's a third option that we choose to overlook in our rush to decide.

The moral of this story is clear. Legally, and otherwise: It is okay to hold on.

The full story

Man, this water tastes like crap

Well, city of Decatur, Avondale, Chamblee, and Doraville….that’s because it is.

“At approximately 6:50 p.m., DeKalb County Watershed Management officials were notified that the Scott Candler Water Plant lost power due to severe weather in the area”(7/22). The untreated water that began flowing through our pipes was “not suitable for bathing, drinking, or cooking.” However, officials did not begin to warn the public until 8:25 this morning, by publishing a website no one checked. Most people (myself included) didn’t find out until about 3pm today. Bummer man. You just drank poop.

For those of you reading this, while smugly sipping your non-recalled water, you might want to take a look at National Drinking Water Regulations. Long story short: the allowable amount of feces in water is greater than zero.

Can I keep him?

The more I think about it, the more I think a "river otter" would be an ideal pet for me- or for anyone who loves both dogs and fish, and is conflicted by the two very different habitats. I envision hours of watching my sea otter swim and play in the tank. I'd sprinkle some fish on the top of the water and watch him come to the surface and eat it, then I would use a hand signal to tell my otter it was time to come out, and it would jump into my arms. I'd towel it off, and we'd go take a nap on the couch together after a quick game of fetch.


Amazing Otter Video


It's just kind of a pain that Animal Planet has to spread so much negativity about such a beautiful creature. Any animal can be domesticated. Don't let anyone tell you different.

Animal Planet and their "can't do" attitude

Campaign Update

I would like to thank all my fans for the overwhelming show of support. I would just ask that you refrain from playing "Hail to the Chief" outside my home after 10pm.

http://www.news3online.com/index.php?code=6hO2QW159ps144iqD5z1

But most of all, lower taxes

In light of recent political debauchery, I would like to announce my candidacy for United States president. And because I am all about transparency, here is a look at my future cabinet:

Vice President
Albus Dumbledore

Department of Justice
Secretary Bruce Wayne

Department of Defense
Secretary Gandalf the White (formerly “the grey”)

Department of Education
Secretary Charles Francis Xavier PhD

Environmental Protection Agency
Captain Planet

Department of Transportation
Secretary Hiro Nakamura

Other advisers to include:
King Aslan, King Aragorn

No shoes, no circ, no problems

Today’s politics are all about choice: a woman’s right to choose, black people’s right to vote, Burger king’s “Have it your way” slogan. Unfortunately, there is one group that is being drastically overlooked. Today, millions of male-Americans are being violated without consent in a process known as circumcision. A source that wishes to remain unnamed confided, “I wake up at night sometimes in a cold sweat fearing for the safety of my foreskin, only to realize that it’s gone. No one ever asked me. They just took it.”

Awareness about this problem is crucial. Visit www.nocirc.org for more information.


















"Circumcision denies a male's right to genital integrity and choice for his own body."


Freedom: it begins in your pants.

Dude, your hate is like, so phallic

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), an Austrian “physician” who founded the psychoanalytic view of psychology, lacked credibility and support both during his time, and after. Some argue that he played an important role in the history of psychology, bringing science into…the Sciences. But, his ideas were pseudoscience at best. He’s famous for the same reason that I read books by Toni Morrison: Sex sells. It doesn’t even have to be pretty.

There’s the Id, Ego, and Superego: a constant struggle between drives and the influence of society, the Oedipal and Electra complexes: children want to have sex with their parents, and the idea that sexual desire is what motives all of our actions in one way or another. Not all that legitimate.

But then, your completely innocuous google search of “God” + “fags” reveals the website Godhatesfags.com, a site owned and operated by the Westboro Baptist Church, headed by Fred Phelps in Topeka, Kansas, and you start to wonder. You read on to discover that their group leads daily protests in Topeka (supposedly six per day, and fifteen on Sundays, “Lord Willing’), and then you discover a link to their other website GodhatesAmerica.com (because they have fags there, of course). Suddenly, Freud ceases to be the “peepee doctor” and his contributions to science climb to the level of the Jarvik heart or the lamb-skin condom. Maybe that’s why people get so horny in church.

What I hate: Fags

What I love: God

I think she's italian, or maybe some kind of spanish

In an effort to avoid taking you away from your televisions on this, the day of the Dark Angel marathon, I will leave you with only one thought:

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence, he is just using his memory.

-Da Vinci

What I hate: The wiles of the red-bearded dragon

What I love: SciFi

Story Time

One day, in East Atlanta, basically Decatur, but still totally inside I-285, there lived a baby brown bear and a chocolate lab. They were happy and played video games, and liked to bike together. They also liked to pursue academic interests such as getting degrees and high gpas. Then one day, the sun went away almost as quickly as it came. A giant red-bearded dragon/raccoon hybrid singled them out. It was jealous of their happiness and wanted to take it away. It wanted to kill the baby brown bear and eat the chocolate lab. It hated that two animals that were so different could love each other. The baby brown bear and the chocolate lab decided the only way to make themselves stronger would be to get married. That way, the red-bearded dragon/raccoon hybrid couldn’t do anything to hurt them. Or could it?


Stay tuned for the next installment of…This Story is About Real People

Take a Number

One thing that constantly gets me down is how we’re always trying to define ourselves. Black, White, Asian? L,G,B,T? Schizotypal Personality Disorder (NOS)? You know, then what? What’s in a name? And maybe, you’re one thing one day, and something else another day.


I’m inspired by the Bristol Stool Scale, developed by Heaton and Lewis at the University of Bristol in the 1990s, as a way to classify human feces. This morning you might have been a 2, but later on you might be a 6. In the end though, its all just poop. I suggest we learn to see ourselves and others with a continuum perspective. Always changing, but we’re kind of all the same.

What I hate: Labels

What I love: Burning Man

Burning Man

Burning Man is an eight-day annual event that takes place in a “temporary city” located in Nevada, on the playa of the Black Rock Desert. (A playa is the dried up remnants of a lake.) It’s based on several key principals, which provide for its unique atmosphere. “Radical Inclusion” is a central tenet of the event, and holds that anyone is welcome at Burning Man and you don’t have to do anything or be anything to take part. Another favorite principle of burning man is “decommodification” of goods, which requires that no cash transactions take place during the Burning Man festival. The principals of “Radical self expression” and “communal effort” encourage participants to express themselves by way of art, music, and other projects, and to work with other to accomplish goals. The principals of “Civic Responsibility” and “Leaving No Trace” require all participants to follow state, federal, and moral laws and to leave the area cleaner than it was before they came.

At the closing ceremony, a wooden effigy of a man is burned by all the members, signifying the personal independence gained from “the man” during that week. I really appreciate the concept of Burning Man, and I have already marked it on my to-do list. However, I would argue that one does not have to travel to the playa of Black Rock Desert, Nevada to practice these principals of enlightenment. I believe that the spirit of Burning Man should not be confined to the time between August 25th and September 1st. I believe that we should burn “the man” in our hearts every day.

What I hate: Conditions of worth

What I love: People who love people

Burning Man