Because really, it's been too long since I've posted something here, & nothing fills up space like navel-staring. Stolen from [Levoton].
TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A drawing of a yogi in the lotus position with a symbolic representation of the chakras & prana channels.
Q. Most visited website?
A. Apart from Gmail, Elftown.
Q. How many televisions are in your house?
A. Two, neither of which I watch.
Q. What kind of cell phone do you have?
A. The best kind, which is non-existent.
Q. How many songs on your mp3?
A. About 400.
BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. Right-handed.
Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. When was the last time you had a cavity?
A. I probably have one right now. I am determined not to let the superstition that is modern dentistry affect my lifestyle.
Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A. The laptop from which I answer these questions.
Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. No, although I have come very close to losing consciousness due to extreme pain, mostly related to a dislocated limb.
RANDOMOLOGY
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. Yes.
Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. I'm rather fond of Hakim -- otherwise I would also like to change it to Jasmain, which is the name my mother initially intended for me.
Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. Green & red.
Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. I suppose I must have, though I can remember neither when nor what.
Q. Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. Someone has said that I have, though it would be much better for him to think he saved his own.
Q. Has someone ever saved yours?
A. Of course -- many people, several times. I rather resent them for it.
Q. What color is your front door?
A. White.
Q: Do you smile often?
A. I think it is more properly called a grin, & it is never full-toothed.
Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: Yes & no. I am told I am polite, well-mannered & approachable, but I'd say I have very few friends.
Q. Do you hold grudges?
A. Absolutely. They're very practical.
Q. Who do you tell your secrets to?
A. I don't have many secrets in that I have many loquacious friends & acquaintances. Then there is my religion, which is mostly secrets, & I don't tell anyone about it.
DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. It depends on the said member of the same sex.
Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A. No.
Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. Yes. I figure there are better ways of communicating, online or otherwise, & $50,000 could get me places.
Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. It depends which magazine.
Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. No.
Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. It depends whose life. Probably not.
DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
A: I am not currently wearing pants. AH!
Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. No. I have too much humanitarian sympathy to watch such films without feeling ashamed, both for the protagonist & for the human race being so cruel.
Q: Do you have a hardwood or carpet floor in your house?
A: Hard wood.
Q: Could you live with roommates?
A: Yes, but could they live with me?
Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: One.
Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A: Late last summer.
Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: I am all grown up, & I suppose I am a lot of things.
Q: Who is number 1 on your top 8
A: I have no idea what this question is supposed to mean.
FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
A: It depends on the occasion.
Q: Season?
A: Autumn. It's a bit of a love-hate relationship.
Q. TV show?
A. Though I never watch them on television -- Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar: The Last Airbender & Full Metal Alchemist.
Q. Flavor of gum?
A. I'm not picky. I don't chew gum habitually.
CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
A: Old friends from highschool, especially the geniuses.
Q: Mood?
A: Trust me, you don't want to go there.
Q: Listening to?
A. My baby nephew crying sporadically.
Q: Watching?
A. The computer screen?
Q: Worrying about?
A: Research work I need to catch up with, losing my soul to the corporate ethic.
Q: First place you went this morning?
A: I am, actually, still in bed. I get a lot of stuff done from here -- reading, writing, & research work.
Q: What cant you wait to do?
A: Quit one of my current jobs.
Q: What do you dread?
A: Dread? Dread is too ambiguous.
Q: What will you do when you answer this question?
A: First, correct its spelling, then type my answer. It seems rather straightforwar
Friday the 13th cemetery walks after dark are so goth; as for spending half an hour arguing that Christianity isn't (or at least, shouldn't be) the cult of suffering & failure, that was just plain weird.
We have had a poem featured (for the second time: hurrah!).
Here it is in case you missed it:
Questions - A Song (It really is a song, it is performed by der Doppelgänger Effekt, although infrequently, & we wrote it with a friend in mind).
While the grammar rends asunder
will my number still remain
part of your mental congestion
on defeated westbound trains?
While the chimneys – brazen, bloated -
cough up the flood of their pains
when your memory lashes at you
will you turn to me again?
I was not so innocent & those murders were real;
I don't need your sympathy to tell me how I feel.
When you found your inner sanctum
laid to waste by ghosts & dreams
did you probe your disposition?
Is it truly what it seems?
While I do suppose they noticed
all the mismatched colour schemes
could they weigh you down to ask you
what those flights of fancy mean?
We are all so broken it's a wonder we still try.
I wish I could walk your ways but I'm too old to fly.
While the letters rot unopened
on my windowsill I think
Is your number finally up?
Is your boat so hard to sink?
Did I ask too many questions?
Have my rhyme & reason failed?
Won't they weigh you down a little?
Will you run to me again?
Will you run to me again?
Will you run to me again?
Hurrah for perpetuating memes!
OO1. When's the last time you ran?
Mere minutes ago. We run to keep in shape. Human shape.
OO2. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them?
We do not wear jeans.
003. What are you dreading right now?
Work on Friday, the power-vaccuum created by the imminent collapse of the American Empire, the conquest of global economy by a Maoism-based ideology.
OO4. Do you celebrate 4/20?
No.
OO5. When is the last time you saw your significant other?
All others are significant.
OO8. Do you get the full 8 hours of sleep a night?
Sometimes, albeit not recently.
O11. What's your current favourite song?
Si rien ne bouge by Noir Désir, we think, although we have also been mumbling Modest Mouse's Parting of the Sensory quite often recently. "Someday you will die somehow & someone is going to steal your carbon."
O12. If anyone came to your house on your "lazy days" what would you do?
We do not have lazy days.
O13. Who last grabbed your ass?
That person likely ODed years ago. This should serve as a warning to anyone else who tries.
O14. Have you ever been in your school's band?
Yes, although not as a musician.
O15. Do you own a pair of Converse?
We are not sure. We have many pairs of sneakers we never wear sleeping in our closet, dreaming of world conquest.
O16. Did you copy and paste this survey?
No. We asked our minions to translate it into Mekashefan, which is a long & tedious process. After several weeks, we answered each question in code, inscribing our answers on golden plates to be translated by future generations of mystics, interpreted wrongly, & turned into religion.
O17. Do you eat raw cookie dough?
Only in self-defense.
O18. Have you ever kicked a vending machine?
We've even mugged a few. Some are most obliging.
O19. Don't you hate when the radio ruins good songs by playing a slow one right after it?
Not really, no.
O21. Do you watch Trading Spaces?
We have watched places where trading happens, but otherwise no, we do not watch television.
O23. Have you ever stayed online for a very long time waiting for someone?
We are training in "waiting" for when it becomes an olympic sport.
O24. Are you cocky?
We have been told we are more ophidian than avian.
O25. Could you live without a computer?
Of course. Not that our life wouldn't be significantly altered.
O26. Do you wear your shoes in the house?
No.
O27. At what age did you find out that Santa wasn't real?
Santa is real.
O28. How many phones, house phones and cell phones are in your house?
Five that we are aware of.
O29. What do you do when you're sad?
Slay demons.
O30. Who would you call first if you won the lottery?
We would keep it a secret for a little while, making random anonymous gifts & donations until people figured it out.
O31. Last time you saw your best friend?
We have several best friends & see them daily.
O32. Who or what sleeps with you?
Acarian hordes, indubitably.
O33. Are you in high school?
No. The school we attended is rather close to sea-level.
034. Is anyone on your bad side now?
We do not actively pursue vengeful objectives at the moment.
O35. What jewellery are you wearing?
Presently, none. We usually wear a silver band on our ring finger, as well as a pentacle signet ring on our middle finger when the stars are right.
O36. What's the first thing you do when you get online?
Check e-mails, Elftown, apply for jobs, read webcomics, play Diablo, read copious ammounts of Wikipedia.
O37. Do you watch Grey's Anatomy?
We have examined the anatomy of grey extraterrestri
O38. Would you wear a boy/girlfriend
Probably, although not their underwear.
O39. Where do you work?
For a NGO, which means: all over the place.
O40. What are you doing Friday?
Working for the said NGO.
O42. Favourite name for a girl?
Vashti, Leucothea, Thetis...
O43. Favorite name for a boy?
Hakim, Lionel, Auaran...
O44. Will you keep your last name when you get married?
If we get married (big "if") we probably will, if only because we are male & that is the convention.
O45. When is the last time you left your house?
Minutes ago, to chase our canine familiar around the said house.
O46. Do you return your cart?
We don't usually take one. We carry everything in our pocket dimension.
O47. Do you have a dishwasher?
Yes.
O48. What noise do you hear?
Modest Mouse, birds outside, rustling of leaves, radio downstairs, vague city noises.
O49. Would you survive in prison?
If we can survive corporate slavery, I think prison shouldn't be much more difficult.
Now I'm terrified.
http://seattle
Yersternight we dreamt that we were attending a very strange learning instution. The outside court was set up like a labyrinth, with lockers for walls. Some of the lockers would open up to a new sections of the labyrinth -- it seems that there was a colour code of some sort, as each locker was painted bright red, yellow or blue.
The older students would not help the freshmen, so we were very confused as to how to get to class. We decided to climb on top of the lockers and walk on the walls to the centre -- something which the older students vociferously disapproved.
When we made it to the main building we met the same kind of puzzle: row upon row of brightly-colou
Last night I dreamt that I was part of a secret organization in charge of infiltrating a totalitarian regime somewhere in Asia. My partner (a tall, seductive, black-leather-
We obtained the desired information from the bureaucrat. He had just opened the door for us to leave when he noticed the corridor was gone. He seemed rather disturbed by this. He went into the space that should have been the corridor, & I began to see from his perspective. It was an empty square room with mouldy, dilapidated walls. On the wall opposite to the door hung a faded photograph of the bureaucrat & Mao Tse tung. The bureaucrat looked up, & there was a hole in the ceiling -- more like a tunnel in fact, filled with important and confidential-l
My partner also went into the space, & I began to see from her perspective as well. She landed in an eighties' kitchen & met an Asian equivalent of Martha Stewart who was happily chopping vegetables. She was absolutely horrified to see this, despite the Asian Martha Stewart's politeness.
Then I decided I'd rather wake up than go into that room.
Recently I dreamt that a radical student organization staged a coup and "liberated" my university. The campus turned into a commune where a kind of anarchistic economy of knowledge ruled. Teachers were still welcome to give lectures, but credits were abolished. The radicals also began to teach what they knew, like anarchist microeconomics
I continued to attend school as though nothing happened, even though there were spontaneous theatrical productions and interpretative dance shows. The army came and the teaching kept on going in the face of tremendous repression -- I was even conned into giving a lecture on demonology to an auditorium gradually filling with teargas. Despite the State's best efforts, the security perimeter around the campus was constantly breached and "teaching" persisted. Even some of the old teachers and staff still went to school whenever they could sneak in.
University. Guerrilla style.
This morning, Aeolus -- or is it Tempestas? -- decided to bombard us with... SNOW. Again.
The French saying "En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil" remains true, even though its consequent ("En mai, fais ce qu'il te plaît") doesn't really rhyme.
From the Basement -- Down Is The New Up
http://www.you
Lately, we have been in a very Placebo sort of mood
(although, we don't feel particularly emo or bisexual).
The Bitter End
http://youtube
Peeping Tom
http://www.you
But this one is our favourite, oddly enough:
My Sweet Prince
http://www.you
(there's something to be said about the second gay love song to make it into the charts).
This is the kind of evening when we wish Sheol could open as it did for the Korahites.
It turns out Nerdism is a religion:
http://en.wiki
This is a winter like we remember them as a child: larger & whiter than is conceivable, & unspeakably cold. It is winter even in the minutest detail -- down to the cristalline formation of snowflakes & the striated arrangement of snowbanks.
Yes,this winter is unmistakeably wintry -- though an unpoetic soul might find this statement tautological, it nevertheless carries myriad implications.
We wish we could write on top of our presentation page:
"This house may contain artistic nerdity. Do not look if it offends you."
Yesternight we had a rather peculiar dream.
Our mother was driving our sister & ourself to Montreal, where we were supposed to go to an amusement park. Somewhere along the way we got separated & wandered in a touristy shopping district, & all of a sudden all our friends were there. We were just about to buy expensive exported jewelry made from nuts when the clerk said they were about to close. It was taking us forever to count our change, so the clerk eventually got tired & asked us to take care of the transaction ourself, entrusting us with the cash register & even leaving the shop & turning off the lights on his way out. Somewhere along the line our friends thought it was a good idea to leave an art piece in the store, so we plastered the walls with comic book pages with empty speech bubbles. We proceeded to fill the speech bubbles then & there, & then ran in the rain after the shop clerk & assistants, for no apparent reason.
I'd like to see Freud deal with this one.
Misreading Psalms can be (somewhat) funny.
Psalm 119:153, as misread by Ha[Mekashef]:
"Behold my affliction and deliver me,
for I do not forget your claw."
Yesterday night was one of the most interesting concerts to have come to Bandeen Hall. Pieces by several local composers were performed, & if we can find any information on said composers we will likely post it here.
Tonight Doppelgänger Effekt won a (rather low-profile) battle of the bands.
Recording time! Yippee!