and stuff

cj and tavis arrive tomorrow so i should be cleaning the house and what not, but there’s some other shit going on that i won’t discuss here that is making it difficult for me to do anything. either way, odds are i’ll be quiet at least until the muppets leave and quite possible for a little while after that.

if you need me you know where to find me, if you don’t… well then there’s a reason for that.

let there be light

on a brighter note, i went to see glenn wool at toomler again last night. i got mocked and name checked all over again but also got a few good hugs in, cause he’s good for that too.

after seeing stanhope in san jose and then seeing mr. wool again last night, i’ve decided i actually enjoy seeing stand up comedians perform routines i’ve seen before. it’s interesting to see how routines get tweaked over time and, because you’ve already seen it, you do get more of a sense of how the routine is set up.

there was a dutch guy on as well, who was actually very good but whose name escapes me, despite the awkwardness of performing in english in front of a dutch crowd. and then there was phil nichol, who is just plain awesome and we all ended up singing along to the following. i can’t remember the last time i sat in a dimly lit room full of strangers and we all sang along, but it felt good.

free falling

i just finished watching the documentary the bridge about the world’s most popular suicide spot, the golden gate bridge.

basically someone set up a camera roughly in this area and spent a year filming people contemplating, hoisting themselves over the railing and then jumping, or not.

while you could question the ethics of filming jumpers, who sometimes spent up to an hour pacing the same area of the bridge and looking out across the bay and to the tourists surrounding them, without interfering. it’s really interesting to see the candid interviews with the people who were left behind. while some friends and relatives were, despite their anger and sadness, very understanding. others were a lot less sympathetic or even ignorant, to the point of being cold.

either way, even if you haven’t walked over golden gate bridge by yourself in the past month or so, this is a very impressive piece of film.

csi: auschwitz

a sunny sunday morning, the perfect time to watch mr. death: the rise and fall of fred a. leuchter, jr. about the man who improved the design of the electric chair, to make it more humane, and then became somewhat of an execution equipment specialist. the only one in his field (at the time at least).

i was curious to see how someone could put the words humane and killing into one sentence. closely associate it with his life’s work and not feel even slightly discomforted. yes, the electric chair is now the quickest way to kill people, but you’re still involved in killing people, some of whom could be innocent.

what i wasn’t expecting is that mr. leuchter is apparently the man who provided holocaust deniers with ‘evidence’ that there were no gas chambers at auschwitz.

thankfully though, watching the footage of him rooting around in auschwitz taking ’sample’ (which is downright offensive), i think thanks to shows like csi: where ever, it’s blatantly obvious to anyone that the man doesn’t have a clue as to what he’s doing.

i can’t even begin to understand why someone, 40 years after the fact, would disregard the design of the ’supposed’ gas chambers (as he keeps calling them) by saying they were impractical and he would’ve built them differently, and that all sorts of bits and bobs that should’ve been there weren’t. and that the whole extermination project didn’t seem sensible to begin with. as if sensibility had anything to do with it.

someone should hand the guy a copy of equally autistic rudolph hoss’s memoires excuses. maybe that will shed some light on the shoddy construction of it all. not that it matters.

domestic bliss

pretty much since i moved in here, i’ve been meaning to change the shady dysfunctional blinds in the bedroom to something that would keep sunlight out of my bedroom. so tonight, after we had dinner at het prentenkabinet and i had my first lobster thermidor and my mom had some amazing cuts of iberico pork, my dad put up new blinds.

supposedly the fabric blocks out the light. i’m hoping this will put an end to my inability to sleep beyond 6am.

either way, from the inside the room looks a lot more like a white box now and reminds me of what i’d imagine solitary confinement in a nuthouse would look like. not that i was ever there of course…

besides my evening out to see glenn wool at toomler again tomorrow night, i plan to spend the rest of my weekend in bed and running around naked inside the house. to test my new blinds, of course.

it would help if the bar across the road could stop playing crap like this though…