UNIVERSAL DONOR: MA VIE EN CROUTE
|
||
|
Universal Donor
We can ill afford another Klendathu  feed it up!
| UD email
You are just a number to me! And that number is: PAGES UD MADE: My Books Page My Reviews Page My Reference Page My Music Page My Pictures My Store UD-RELATED PAGES: My LiveJournal My MySpace music page My Flickr page My del.icio.us page My Last.fm page My Amazon Wishlist HEAVY ROTATION Dan Deacon: Bromst Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes BLOGS ETC claude le monde nuncstans rock 'em stock 'em tomato nation postmodern drunkard tuckova 22 ghastly mess constintina total virility fuzzysquid drunken bee stacey nightmare elyse from ANTM stereolabrat dark side points jf_franklin 123 i love you READ NOW brotherhood 2.0 NOT BLOGS ETC qwantz (dinosaur comix) go fug yourself the burg cat and girl book of ratings married to the sea icanhascheezburger fire joe morgan fivethirtyeight.com READ NOW hospitality on parade WEIRD LOVE dead amusement pks craters! all content © 2002-2010 Jeremy Broomfield 
Hosted by: HostRocket.Com Comments by: YACCS PRAISE & REVIEWS "[UD] is a genius." --Christian Oates "[Claudia] is fucking awesome, and [UD] is a genius. And vice versa. You should all buy Fear Not." --Tricia Howey MOTTO egeo huic vigorum MY WRESTLING NAME Titan Gently MY PUNK NAME Razor Ection 
WHO LINKS TO UD? • from Technorati • from Google • from Yahoo and here's something weird: my place in Humor 3-space |
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Sometimes it seems so goddamn impossible to write a post, but the fact is that if I sit and try to write, thirty parpagraphs will spill out of me at once. I spend most of my lengthy posting process deleting text. I'm sorry for huge delays, but sometimes I just want to look at Wikipedia pages all day (So! Much! Information! Erich Honecker! Pancho Gonzales! The Free State of Fiume! A fucking hole in the ground!) Also, sometimes the shit that I write is just not appropriate for public consumption. I don't mean pornographic Battlestar Galactica fanfic or like that. I mean I was about to write -- or rather I half wrote and then stopped -- a rant about how a passive agressive acquaintance is driving me crazy, when I realized how unbelievably passive aggressive it would be to complain about her behavior on the fucking internet instead of talking to her about it. What the fuck? So instead I will tell you about something my dad said the other night that made me want to chew nails. I can bitch about my dad.
I was talking to him about how I get really stressed when the driver of a car I'm in doesn't use their turn signal before they turn. He knows that I feel this way because we've spoken about it in the past. My feeling on the matter is summed up easily with the following point: a) use your fucking turn signal. Gah. I realize there are probably some of you who don't like signaling every time you turn or whatever. Maybe you like to decide on a situation-by-situation basis. Maybe you think signaling when you can't see a car behind you is stupid. Well hurrah for you! You're awesome! Wheee! Let's all punch babies! I don't care. Whatever your reasons for making a choice out of something that would be automatic if it could be (viz the way some new cars turn on the headlights if you turn on the wipers) they can't compare to the following arguments my dad has used to defend his non-use of the turn signal in situations where (for starters) the law requires it: ARGUMENT #1: (abandoned years ago, but vividly recalled by me) "They make car parts to certain specifications, and certain parts are designed to break after a certain amount of time. I had a friend who was an engineer who said that he designed a door handle for a car company, and they told him that it was too sturdy. It broke after 500,000 uses. They wanted one that broke after 100,000. So I'm just saving wear and tear on the signal. It may be designed to snap off in my hands, but I can delay that day if I don't overuse it." ARGUMENT #2: "At least I'm not as bad as some people, like [name withheld], who, if she forgets to signal a certain amount of time before a her exit comes, won't make the turn at all, because god forbid she makes a turn without signaling. Or she'll signal late and turn late as a result, sometimes too fast, which is dangerous." ARGUMENT #3: "If you always use your signal, you might expect the same kind of behavior from everyone else, and that could create a very dangerous situation; some people don't signal before changing lanes, or before turning, or -- worst of all -- they signal right and go left! If you're not ready for that, you could easily get killed." Oh yes he did. So I waited briefly for the "just kidding" that I knew wasn't coming, took a deep breath, and said something to the effect of: "I understand the desire to use the tools and language of reason to justify one's emotions, because god knows I do it too, but an important part of that is mentally testing one's arguments before speaking them aloud to make sure they are not UTTERLY FUCKING INSANE. Simply mimicking the structures and cadences of logic is not sufficient. "Allow me to summarize the meaty parts of your two latter points: #2: I may not always use the turn signal, but I know people who use the signal in a really retarded way! I don't seem so bad now, do I?"Can you really not see how FUCKED FUCKED FUCKED up those are? "Now let me anaolgize them in a hyperbolic but hopefully illustrative way. The first is like saying "I may be a rapist, but at least I'm not a murderer!" The second is like saying "You shouldn't go around not killing people because it might train you to expect people not to kill you, and you won't be ready if someone does." I'm not entirely sure how I stopped ranting at him, but it something to do with futility and a sense that he had tuned out as soon as he detected a note of criticism coming his way. Or maybe he tuned out when I screamed "FUCKED FUCKED FUCKED" at him. Or when I called him insane. Hmmmm. So I never got to say the next part, which was going to be something like "You are not a special magic man who doesn't need to use your turn signal, just as you are not a special magic man who doesn't need a seat belt, or who can decide for himself whether it's safe to talk on the cell phone while driving. When your wife and tweenage daughter are in the car, your responsibility is to more than your petty rebellions. You can be a goddamn authority-flouting brat when you aren't hurtling down the road at somewhere between 10 and 20mph over the speed limit. You cannot overcome the physical reality of the world through sheer will alone." Glaarrgle, people. Fucking gllllaaargle. 0 comments |
OTHER REVIEWS: Scrabble NEW! LATEST BOOK REVIEWS: The Game Moneyball One-Upsmanship Siddhartha You need the Fear Not Guide to Life. Buy it already. ($4) Now available! The Broomfield Variations CD ($10) or go to The UD Store 
MY IMAGINARY GIRLFRIENDS Chan Marshall Rotem of the IDF Eleanor Friedberger Amy Goodman Bernardine Dohrn ('69) Maya Rudolph Joanna Newsom Imogen Heap Caroline Dhavernas Shana Rae Ray DISALLOWED FOREVER "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!" - "from whence" - "...the exception that proves the rule" - any use of the question "spit or swallow?" - the phrase "drop trou" - fake-o reviewer verbs: "penned" for wrote "helmed" for directed "lensed" for whatever - "expat" - the euphemism "passed away" - pronouncing merci beaucoup as "mercy buckets!" (see also: "grassy-ass!") PET PEEVES "confinscated" - trying children "as adults" - "drownded" - misuse of reflexive pronouns, as when someone says "Please talk to Bob or myself." Come on people now. "Myself" is not just a fancy version of "me"! LEARN IT. - tattoos in the Courier font - any use of Comic Sans |