Famous among dozens
Bryan and Charlie Brown
Originally uploaded by MaggieMason.
This is Bryan celebrating his 37th birthday with Lt. Colonel Charlie Brown, who is running for Congress in California’s 4th District. Charlie Brown is, I shit you not, running against a guy named Doolittle.
If your life is too hectic for you to keep a cactus alive, you have bigger problems than a lack of greenery in your environment.
The March/April edition of Mental Floss has an awesome article on parasites. One kind attaches itself to the tongue of a fish, feeding off the blood supply until the fish’s tongue drops off. Then the parasite serves as a surrogate tongue..
Just as good is the female Sacculina, which starts out as a sluglike thing floating around in the water. It finds a crab, and then stabs one of the crab’s joints with a dagger-like appendage. The Sacculina ooooozes into the crab through the hollow dagger, leaving an empty shell outside. Once inside the crab, the gooey parasite takes root, wrapping around the crab’s eyestalks and legs, growing until a little bit of it pops out of the crab’s shell. Then it begins to steer the crab wherever it wants to go. (“Sacculina! You’ve just successfully overtaken over the body of a crab, thereby ensuring propagation of your larvae! What are you doing next?”)
Sort of makes intestinal worms seem cuddly.
-We should have brought some Trivial Pursuit cards with us.
-Ahhh. We don’t need the cards, you can do that shit impromptu. It goes like this: “What the fuck was that one movie, the one where the guy had the sled?”
-Ha. All the Trivial Pursuit cards should start like that.
-Geography, “Where the hell was that one place where…”
-Literature, “Shit, who wrote that thing about…
-Sports, “Who won that fucking series? Why can’t I remember this?”
As we’re leaving the car rental place, a guy at the gate stops us. He nods and hands Bryan a large clipboard with a form to sign. Taped to the bottom of the clipboard are two photos. One is of gate guy holding a giant sea skate and grinning, and the other is a woman in soft focus. She is slightly overweight, her hair has been recently curled, and she is busy seducing the camera. Her lips slightly parted, her eyes uncomfortably intimate.
“Uh, where do I sign?” Bryan asks. The gate guy touches his pen to a line that is just left of his girlfriend’s ample cleavage.
“Thanks.” Bryan says, and we drive away.
We’re at a panel where Jason Fried is talking about “building small.” Nothing too complex. Reduce the feature set as much as possible. Build as little as you can.
I turn around in my seat, and whisper to Amy:
-Behold! I have built�nothing.
-Ha! Someone just sent me that exact message over IM.
-Hive mind. (Adopting robot voice.) I-like-your-glass-es.
-I-en-joy-your-graph-ic-tee.
-Where-did-you-find-those-awe-some-Cam-pers?
I have been asleep for two days. That is, except for the five minutes I spent gasping in terror when my nose-phlegm met my lung-phlegm, thereby creating a perfect storm of suffocation.
But, anyway, how are you?
I’d hoped to give you more up-to-the-moment reports from SxSW, but because I was dulled by a potent mix of Dayquil and Bloody Marys, I didn’t do much. Among the things I didn’t do:
– I did not charm Jason Kottke into sarcastically calling his fianc�e Yoko.
– I did not start an intriguing new photo project.
– I did not play air guitar to Aerosmith power ballads.
– I did not give the Threadless guys noogies.
– When I waited an hour for a thimble of box-Chardonnay at the Frog Design Party, whilst the show-choir-duet band played TV show theme songs, I did not punch the lead singer in the teeth.
But only because I lacked the energy, my friends. Never the will.
Next year, I plan to wear a pink cowboy hat and hot pants, and swig tequila from the bottle while I dance flamenco on the bar with Ben Trott. Ben looks awesome in hot pants.
A highlight from Merlin’s 5ives:
“Five things you can bring along to help make the party all about you
Are you going to SxSW? Hey, me too!
If you’re not busy waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room, you should come say hi. I’m moderating a panel with the guys from Threadless at 3:30 p.m. on Monday. And who doesn’t love to engage in friendly conversation about user-driven business models?
Mighty Girl 