on being gwyneth

1. Every Penguin for himself.
2. Except where the needs of some other penguin would preempt the needs of Morty.
3. Greed is Good. Commerce is our business. Business is our pleasure.
4. Business before pleasure.
5. Except where the business of another would prempt the pleasure of Morty.
6. I Got Mine, You Get Yours.
7. Then give it to Me.
8. If you can’t do it inebriated, it’s not worth doing.
9. The Small and Ornery shall not inherit the Earth.
10. But We shall be awarded it upon contesting the Will in Judgement Day Probate Court.
11. Schadenfreude is the best flavor of Haagen Dazs.

watching the news, the remote camera pans across a crowd of protesters and police, the latter garbed in fluorescent green vests. the data flow breaks for a moment and the remaining digital still image begins to degrade, pixelating and shifting until all the bright green fragments lose their firm boundaries against the browns and greys of the people and the city, and the last instant before the flow picks up again looks like it was painted by monet.

while walking, i observed a woman sitting on a low wall, speaking into her empty palm, raised and turned closely toward her mouth. it took me a moment to realize that she was wearing a bluetooth device on the ear i couldn’t see.

it dawned on me that, while this ran counter to the supposed purpose of such “hands-free” devices, it made practical sense. first, it probably improved the sound by buffering the surrounding street noise, by reflecting her own voice back into the device… and by the same token masking that voice from passersby, offering a hint of privacy.

second, and more immediately apparent to me, it made her look a little less insane, as bluetooth users often do when they walk down the street holding a conversation with the air.

as we walked to the grocery store today, we saw several clutches of what alison described as some sort of religio-bund on the sidewalk corners, identifiable by their uniform yellow shirts, generic literature and expectant gazes.

as we approached the last group, their anticipated lunge was interrupted by a man in “crazy homeless dude” regalia who lifted a cardboard box in his arm, brandished a sign with “robert frost” scrawled on it in heavy magic marker, and bellowed “robert frost! you want to hear some real poetry? there ain’t no one better!”

whatever it was the yellowshirts wanted us to know, i never heard it through my laughter.

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excerpt from a cellphone conversation overheard while waiting for the elevator:

“hey… how’s my rat?”

“…”

“it’s not black, is it?”

“…”

“you guys really freaked me out when you dyed it pink.”

upon entering the mall we were immediately assaulted by a small, smiling asian woman wielding pork.

from the warranty information printed on the sleeve of a cd, accompanying a recently purchased book on database management:

“Neither the authors nor … has any liability to you or any other person with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to have been caused by the Software including, but not limited to, direct, indirect, incidental and consequential damages, personal injury, wrongful death, lost profits, or damages resulting lost data, loss of service or business interruption.”

wrongful death?

can you get bird flu from a computer virus?

on my way to work this morning, i passed a man playing a homemade theremin in front of my apartment building.
he was actually pretty good.