Cats Quote Charlie Sheen: Is Charlie Sheen the new King of the Internet? I dunno, but I’m glad my cats aren’t crazed prostitute-smacking Hollywood legacies. (That I know of?)

The Last Photograph of Cat: A beautiful eulogy for Cat, in sincere but not overly sentimental style. I read this, and then I almost immediately got something in my eye.

It’s not ready yet, but I’m splitting the gaming and genre movie stuff from P&V to Prolixity. I wanted to give those topics the potential for a wider audience, and I just feel a little bogged down by years of personal musings on this domain whenever I ponder properly promoting it. Also, I have some very clever friends who have offered to write for a blog and I figured that deserved its own domain.

This is still the place for Jessica news and weird little internet bits like those above. Games and genre movies and probably technology go to Prolixity!

An Open Letter to Stephen Fry, by the adorable Molly Lewis. I think Molly sings for many a smart woman out there.

The Japanese unlocked the secret to cat placement technology! Kawaaaaaaiiiii!

I’m pretty sure television executives in Japan are all toddlers. It’s awesome.

I don’t know how my Mom discovered Spy, but she did some time in the late 80s and she and I both devoured every issue that came in the mail. I was probably the only 14-year old this side of the country who was conversant with frequent Spy targets Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, and of course Si Newhouse and Conde Nast.

Even the ads, which looked strange at the time and even more out of place now, spoke of some weird urban jungle, this island of Manhattan where everyone looked fabulous and boys kissed and anything could happen. It was pretty exotic to a girl growing up in a small fishing town.

Plus, you know, all the witty writing and fascinating exposes and clever page design. My reading list for the next month or so just got very full!

Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus! Okay, so this site was created as part of a weird experiment to test how much people believe nonsense they read on the internet, but that did not stop me from ordering one of these amazing posters.

The interesting thing for me about this particular depressive fugue was that unlike when I was younger, this time I knew what was going on. I knew that my brain was sending me the wrong signals and there was nothing to be despondant or anxious or paranoid about. On the other hand, awareness is massively outgunned by brain chemicals.

It actually kind of reminded me of one of the few times I tried LSD. (Oh, youth.) Right now, for example, without looking I know I’m sitting in my office chair. I know that the rest of my desk is behind me and roughly how far away it is. When I was, as the kids say, trippin’ balls, I lost comprehension of any part of my environment that I couldn’t see. Instead of knowing that I’m sitting in my office chair I could be sitting on an elephant or a stack of pillows or a throne of skulls. I could look down and confirm that I was sitting on a chair, but looking away would make me unsure again.

In this recent depression I was unable to trust the things in my environment that I usually took for granted. If I thought about it and examined the situation I could understand that I was in fact the same perfectly adequate human I always was with good attributes and bad habits and people who love her. But the minute I stopped actively examining it I would become unsure. Maybe I’m the most boring, unlikeable person in the world. Maybe I’m worthless. Maybe people are just pretending to like me so they can dump a bucket of pig’s blood on my head later. Maybe I’m riding an elephant right now.

Anyway, I was kind of at the point where I didn’t think I could feel much worse about things, and then.. I don’t know what happened. It got better. I spent Saturday night drinking Chilean plonk from the bottle, watching YouTube video guides on cosmetics and slathering my face in creams and colors. I think at one point I also tried to give the cat a fauxhawk. I woke up the next morning on the couch with half a dozen clogged pores and a slightly better outlook on life. It gets a little better every day.

I feel like I should wrap this up with some statement on what it all means, but your guess is as good as mine and mostly I just felt good writing about it. Sorry it wasn’t very funny. I suppose if nothing else we can always rely on the Princess Bride for some final wisdom: “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

——————–

Health Month is this neat new site that tries to take health and wellness goals and incorportate them into social media (oh, I like social media!) and gaming techniques (oh, I like games!). I actually already had the idea of setting a few reasonable wellness goals for February, but this way I get ACHIVEMENT POINTS for them and as we all know gamers are morons for achievement points.

Z-Type is the best typing game ever. No, really, finally someone made a great game that you just happen to control by typing words. The first time one of the big carrier ships released smaller word bombers at me, I knew this was something special.

I’m not sure what’s more amazing: Denzel Washington’s propensity for hats, glasses, and facial hair, or the fact that Maxim magazine is occasionally astute and funny.

Part of the problem I think is that shows on this side of the pond are expected to run for too long. It’s hard to maintain perfection over a lengthy period of time, not to mention adequate character development. Look at Fawlty Towers — two seasons of six episodes, and they’re almost all perfect. Compare that to the Simpsons, which has been on television for 22 seasons: some seasons have been magnificent while others were utter crap. The overall impression is pretty mixed, though, which personally would knock it off my list of favorite shows of all time despite points of brilliance.

The only show I can think of that doesn’t stick to the “longer run = worse show” formula is Seinfeld. Seinfeld was on the air for nine seasons, but was saved in part by the fact that the characters really never developed and the plots were about nothing. The episodes were pretty self-contained with few callbacks to previous events, and “Jerry is a jerk and steals a marble rye” was fairly interchangeable with “Jerry is a jerk and makes out during Schindler’s List”. (As with all the best shows, having exceedingly good writers helps.)

So I guess being canceled early or being British are your best bets for television greatness.

Okay, links:

* The TV Tropes page for Community’s amazing Modern Warfare episode. But didn’t I link to a Community-related thing just yesterday? It’s almost like I’ve become a huge Community fangirl and am trying to convince people to watch it on Thursday nights on NBC (or the internet)!

* What’s Alan Watching covers The Wire for newbies. I just started this series last night, and I can already tell that it’s going to be amazing. I adore Oz** and loved Homicide: Life on the Street, and both of those shows supplied much of the on- and off-screen talent. It’s really big and confusing and interwoven, though, so a viewer’s guide like this can be handy.

* The 8 Best Running Jokes in Arrested Development. If you are one of my friends who does not watch Arrested Development: a) god, just watch the damn show already; and b) viewing these videos might explain a number of my verbal idiosyncracies. (Me: “Steve Holt!” Friend: “What?” Me: “Steve Holt?” Friend: “No, you’re Jessica.” Me: *exasperated sigh*)

* Also, a random news article unrelated to television: Police alerted to superheroes patrolling Seattle. I liked the description of one of them driving around in his godmother’s Kia, doing good deeds.

** Well hell, as I was writing that I realized that Oz also bucks the shorter is better rule. Harumph. It also would be one of my favorite shows ever.

I think I spend too much time agonizing over style and not enough on content. “Oh, that’s too short to post. That’s too long to post. That’s too personal. That’s not interesting enough. Needs more links.”

There is a certain amount of ego that goes with writing anything online. You have to assume that you have communication skills, and that anyone would possibly be interested in anything you have to say. You have to believe that you have something to contribute to The Conversation at large.

I think traditionally people gain self-esteem as they get older. No longer a teenager, adults are, apparently, supposed to have more confidence in who they are and what they are doing. It’s the opposite for me, though, in many ways. In my late teens I was the goddamn Jessica, and everyone get out of my way because I was taking over the world. The older I get though the more I feel like we’re all just humans stuck on this rock and no one has more or less to contribute than anyone else.

I cannot even begin to convey the number of times that I have sat down to write something and given up because who cares what I think? I mean that kind of rhetorically — no one is supposed to tell me that they care — but why is my opinion worth sharing any more than my neighbor’s or that dude walking down the street? It’s not. It’s not more interesting, it’s not more valuable.. I just happen to know how to buy a domain and install WordPress.

I don’t know. I guess when I was younger I had this drive to communicate and be understood because I felt my thoughts were worth something. I thought I had something important to say. But now I sit down in front of the blinking prompt and I often can’t think of anything.

After weeks of fighting with proxies I got Boxee working and now I have proper awesome internet television. And I’ve decided to try and work “prude-shaming” into discussions with Internet Feminists as much as possible, because I am tired of being given second-hand lectures about slut-shaming. And I really really really hate the new TSA xray scan nonsense. I could write about any of these things, but why? Do you care? Would I care if you posted a blog about that?

I dunno, I just find myself saying, “Eh, what do I know about anything?” and closing the Add Post window more often than not.

PS: Ah mah gahd, such a self-indulgent post. I’m sorry. Go watch Steve Porter work his techno remix magic on Community. Donde esta la bibliotheque?

Update: Clearly I am just in a mood. After writing this I decided I needed a lot of comfort food for lunch. Then it started to pour rain, so I just stopped at the nearest eating place. Then I read something really sad about moms on my phone while I was eating. So if you saw a big damp white girl today at the scary half-abandoned Asian mall crying into her large MexiFries, that was me. Man.

Anyway, just a few links, mostly picked to provoke outrage because I’m in that kind of mood:

Mother Jones on the new TSA backscatter scanners. I have a flight to the US coming up next month, and I am excited to be able to choose for myself if I want the pornscan or the groping.

Maxim magazine in 2003 on how to cure a feminist. If you have ever wondered if feminism is still necessary in our modern decade, the answer is in this headline: “Turn an unshaven, militant, protesting vegan into an actual girl!”

Hark a Vagrant takes on Dracula. This will probably not provoke outrage unless you are a Stoker purist or hate root vegetables.