Drowning...

By Thanh Christopher Nguyen

Hmmm? I don’t feel like reading, for some reason. I don’t feel like writing, and there isn’t much to do after seven in the morning, except Re-Q a couple of tapes for a cut-in tease for the noon news, and wait for the 25 and 55 minutes, to go punch something into the teleprompter. When I get there, I feel like I should be snorting coke like it’s free, and after seven in the morning, I feel like I should OD on the stuff, because there’s nothing better to do.

<p>Everyone asks me if I like my job, and I say, I don&#8217;t dislike it.  It&#8217;s like saying you&#8217;re dating someone because there&#8217;s no one better to date, or something like that.  It&#8217;s a definate indication that I should be doing something else.</p>

<p>I&#8217;m still waiting to hear back from Nova.  I&#8217;d like to go work in Japan, teaching English for a couple of years and working on a screenplay and a TV show portfolio.  I just may become an RA in Limestone for a year, just to get the other side of the coin, and to refresh things in my mind for a story I&#8217;d like to write based on the experiences.</p>

<p>My friend moved out to Seattle, and didn&#8217;t even call to say goodbye.  That sucked. </p>

<p>My sister and Kellee (www.kelleeart.com) are getting along well.  I&#8217;m glad, and I hope Manda moves to Florida, because I bet the two of them would raise hell together, and I could go visit and the three of us would most likely cause the end of the world.  If Kellee were my soul-mate, and Amanda were my twin, then the three of us combined would be f&#8217;n Voltron or something.</p>

<p>You know what I love?  The thick smell of lilacs as I drive down the Georgia highway.</p> 
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WaSP Survey

By anders pearson

at the Web Standards Project, we’ve been in the process of reinventing ourselves. originally formed to pressure browser makers into supporting web standards, lately, we’ve been changing our focus to developer education. all the browser support in the world will mean nothing if 99% of the pages on the web use invalid markup. to help shape this new mission, we’ve put up a survey to find out a little more about the web developer community. if you are a web developer, please go fill it out and send us your comments.

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another weekend

By anders pearson

lani finally made it up for a visit this weekend. just in time for new york to be cold and wet. coming from texas, it hadn’t even occurred to her to bring anything warmer than a t-shirt, so she had to spend the weekend wearing my sweater, which is practically a dress on her.

met up with jP and tamara for dim sum saturday morning followed by gooey sweets from the chinese bakery and music shopping. on our way back to the subway, we took some side streets to avoid the crazy throngs of tourists clogging canal street. on one of them, we stumbled across what must have been a DJ’s wet dream. there is a music library, which gets two copies of every piece of vinyl that is released plus lots of radio stations donate their extras. twice a year, apparently, they go through their inventory and sell off their thirds. most of what they were selling had probably never even been played but it was all cheap. i think jP could have easily spent the rest of the day there (and all of his money) if we’d let him.

back at my place, we watched Bubba Ho-Tep, and a few hours of VH1’s “100 Most Metal Moments of All Time”, which was remarkably entertaining.

sometime around 10, i was tricked into going out to williamsburg. i could have sworn that lani asked if i wanted to go to brooklyn “tomorrow” and i agreed. next thing i knew, she was dragging me to the subway. it was a fun time though. we met up with jP, tamara, and julia at blair and daphne’s, ate some falafel and zaater, drank some PBR and played Barbie, the board game. then we watched Blood Diner, which was absolutely hilarious.

on sunday, i dutifully followed lani around while she went clothes shopping and unsuccessfully shoe shopping. then we had some pastries with Sky and Masha and finally watched The Dead Zone (Sky and Masha have been attempting to watch every movie Christopher Walken has been in).

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GENERATION OF SWINE

By Thanh Christopher Nguyen

I’ve been reading Hunter S. Thompson’s GENERATION OF SWINE. It’s very entertaining. It is a collection of his articles from the 80’s, mostly surrounding the political world, but branching out with a strong mechanic’s hand towards everything that puts fear into the hearts of fathers and revelry into the rest of us. I recommend it to almost all readers. It is good in many ways, and for those of you that cannot read for lenghier periods, either because you are too busy, or your attention span is without you, each article is short – articulate. Here are some examples to entice you, you bastards…

<p>&#8220;Tenure is short in the fast lane.&#8221;<br />

&#8220;There is no need for the president of the United States to be smart. Year-end polls show him always to be the &#8216;best-dressed,&#8217; the most popular, and the most-desired donor to all sperm banks. They laughed at Thomas Edison, but they whimper like dogs when they come to the gate of the White House.&#8221;<br /> &#8220;The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.&#8221;<br /> &#8220;The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.&#8221; </p>

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Literary Data Base...

By Thanh Christopher Nguyen

I’ve been building, for years, journals and journals of quotes and passages from my reading. I was thinking, at first, about building a large search engine that would bring up quotes on various topics. I’m sure someone has already done this, and that you can get book after book on quotes with a Topic based Index. But I want my very own. I think I can easily do it with a spreadsheet program. How, Anders, do you have your little keyword thingy set up? If I were a programmer, I’d steal the code, but I’m not a programmer, and I’m well out of the stealings&loans business.

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FYI

By Miguel Diaz

When I hit “Reply to This” I get ‘Error occurred while processing this directive’ above the little reply box…

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21:44

By Thanh Christopher Nguyen

“We are all slaves to the water… It is the last pure thing in the world.” -Skinner

<p>&#8220;Writing is a hard dollar, but it is a lot better than reaching up inside some maddened cow and grabbing a breeched calf by the legs.&#8221;  &#8211; H.S. Thompson</p> 
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Everything you thought.

By Thanh Christopher Nguyen

Anchors do wear pants behind the desk, but as soon as the camera is turned off – at every commercial break, and every pre-taped package – they crack jokes, and thoroughly destroy their aura of professional unbiasedness. They sound like high-school trendy people, but they’re awefully nice to my face. Some even draw silly cartoons while delivering the news – yes, on the papers they constantly shuffle (which do actually have things written on them that they seldom pay much attention to). I edit their video. I make them look good and bad, depending on how good or bad the photographer was, and how motivated I feel at three in the morning.

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