Those of you who don’t live in a big city should know that bike messengers are cooler than you. They don’t care about getting hurt, they don’t care about getting dead, and they don’t make eye contact with anyone but the brethren. Their style is a sort of studied rejection of trends: Frayed jeans hacked off at the knee, old T-shirts, gravel-conditioned helmets, and the standard tattoos and piercings.

Imagine my surprise then, when I saw vanilla-collegiate guy sporting a Timbuktu bag with several messenger tubes protruding, and the identifying walkie-talkie attached to its strap. He was wearing a navy blue polo shirt, a pair of short-leg Gap khakis with cargo pockets, and some Van-like biking shoes. Beh? I had to resist approaching him. “Excuse me sir, do you have a tattoo on the inside of your lower lip? No? Perhaps a tongue stud? Some faint facial scars? No… Sweet mother of God. Is that gel in your hair?”

12:13 p.m.

We just launched Web Techniques Daily (ie: the Web Tech Blog). I’ll be posting there pretty frequently, so if you want to see what I look like in semi-professional mode, head on over.

2:45 p.m.

This has been around for awhile, but have you seen Heavy Metal Parking Lot? This guy took a video camera into the parking lot of a Judas Priest concert in the ’80s and interviewed concert goers. The best part is when a girl tells the camera that she’s 13, the guy standing next to her says he’s 21, then he gives her a deep, tongue-intensive kiss for the camera. I’ve rarely experienced something so simultaneously chilling and hilarious. Well, maybe that “Making of Growing Pains” thing I watched a few days ago, but still.

10:39 a.m.

Astute observation from Strangebrew:
“If I can only give you one piece of advice, it’s this: don’t put a unicorn lover in charge of the decorations.”

2:52 p.m.

There are good people and there are bad people: Thief steals man’s $15,000 artificial leg out of car. Also, teachers are citing 6 year olds for sexual harassment now. Ow. Someone make it stop.

9:55 a.m.

EMAIL MOMENT!

From: A guy who reads my blog

Subject: Bloggers say the darndest things

qt_freak:

Damn, I like your site, it’s pretty funny. If only you had more substance to it. A better lay out would be cool too, but yeah, just saying you have a fan.

Me:

Hi, thanks for the note. I clicked around your site a
little bit. Just like you, I’m a big Slurpee fan.
Jesus, we’re like the same person. Well, except that
I’m not big into “dressing up like a ninja and tagging
your mother’s bearded biscuit from the back.” But I’m
funny that way.

[Now he's plugged me, and I've plugged him. I'm sitting back and saying a little prayer to the absurdity gods that I get audience overlap with a site that has a "Bitch of the Week" feature. Rad.]

2:14 p.m.

My knee is knee shaped again. When I stand, I no longer feel extraneous fluid rush down my leg. These are good things. For those of you who don’t care, here’s some Etch-a-sketch art. Callous bastards.

9:18 a.m.

“I’m a sensitive guy. Some guys drink beer and write their name in the snow, I drink herbal tea and write haiku poetry in the snow.”
(The Very Strange World of John Saleeby)

12:46 p.m.

Mark’s friend had just interviewed Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours. Mark was kind enough to send me the interview, soon to be published in Abercrombie and Fitch Quarterly (Beh?), and it had one line that particularly struck me: “I still find myself walking on a street I walk every day, looking around and
thinking, ‘My god, it’s like this.’”

9:20 a.m.