Fuck.

God damn this stupid fucking place i'm in and god damn these stupid sentiments. Fuck memories and fuck the remembered and fuck being a good person. Fuck time spent and fuck investments and fuck foundations and fuck everything that goes along with them.

Fuck not being listened to and fuck being taken for granted and fuck taking things for granted. Fuck the future and fuck expectations and fuck a lack of faith and fuck all the things you say and don't hold yourself to. Fuck unequality and fuck unconditionally and fuck two paragraphs of fuck.

Well, i got them. The package was destroyed by customs, they tore it to shreds looking to see what was inside. heh heh. they very kindly re-packaged it for me in loose plastic.

The long, black Wismilak Diplomat boxes had ten packs in each, the packs also black. The back of each box is solid black with logos, and the front has some sort of car onit with the logos. The cigarettes themselves are white with grey pinstriping, both horizontal and vertical, with a short filter.

They smell amazing in the pack, very similar to Djarum Blacks. The pull on them is extremely smooth, almost airlike. The smoke is heavy, but not as heavy as blacks, and so easier on the lungs. Its difficult to tell if the crackle is any more than a regular cigarette, though the blacks are definitely much louder.

The smoke taste, like the pull, is mild. Still much better than a regular cigarette.

Personally, i like the Djarum Blacks better, as i am used to a bolder taste and smoke. These however a obviously fine cigarettes, and behave as such. The clove to tobbacco content leans more in the tobbacco direction than Djarums, and i find these hit me less.

All in all, they seem like a milder version of Djarums. They would probably still be considered harsh to a typical smoker though.

Blacks will remain my favorite, but these are definitely a great kretek.

Now this is news.

This is a post by someone else. but it begs to be read.
like: http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70717-0.html?tw=rss.technology
Post below.

Committing MySpacecide


Briefly, on November 13th, 2005, I was a friend of Tom. I'm talking, of course, about Tom Anderson -- male, 30-years old, based in Santa Monica, California, and founder of MySpace. The man with $580 million and nearly 50 million "friends."

The iMomus MySpace page was online for just 48 minutes. Barely long enough to tell the world my relationship status, sexual orientation, body type, ethnicity, religion, zodiac sign, smoking and drinking habits, income and company affiliations. To receive a message telling me to "read the FAQ and give Tom a break." To upload the most flattering photo I could find. To notice that Tom had been added automatically as my first friend, and that Tom's favorite music included Billy Joel, Oasis, Guns & Roses and Whitney Houston ("particularly The Bodyguard soundtrack").

I don't know what made me delete it. It just looked ugly: the page layout, the blue writing. I felt like a sheep, letting social pressures, memes and fads herd me around. I wondered why I needed yet another social networking website to check: After all, I was already on Friendster and Japanese network Mixi, not to mention LiveJournal, a network organized around daily content rather than mere profiles and links. Mostly, I just wondered why I needed to affirm tenuous affiliation with a new set of ghosts.

I didn't know at that point that just four months earlier, on July 19th, MySpace had been bought by Rupert Murdoch's News International. That's where Tom's $580 million came from. I think if I'd known that, the MySpace iMomus page wouldn't even have lasted 48 minutes. Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, isn't my favorite guy.

I do have something in common with him, though. We both have spoof MySpace pages impersonating us. The Spoof Murdoch page says "I aspire to become the most powerful man in the world.... There are many important benefits to fascism."

The Spoof Momus page automatically loads a song I deleted from one of my albums, a song I've signed legal agreements never to play again.

The real Rupert Murdoch has presumably left his fake pages up to show that he supports freedom of speech. I've left mine up because I can't really do much about it.

But it is pretty annoying seeing all those people thanking "me" for adding them, or telling "me" how much they love my music, unaware that they're talking to someone merely pretending to be me. I can't even leave a message on the page telling people it's not mine; I'd have to join MySpace to tell MySpace users I'm not on MySpace. So the page stays, with a banner advertising Napster, a bad photo of me in a lilac shirt snapped at some ancient concert, and the lie that I'm based in Metropolitan France.

A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with an old friend of mine, an early pioneer of multimedia who used to be a kind of digital exhibitionist. He once put online a highly provocative autobiography. After falling victim to identity theft, he's had a change of heart.

"The thing to be now is untraceable," he told me. "Wipe every reference to yourself off the internet. Make yourself ungoogleable. Why tell criminals, corporations or the government all that stuff about yourself? Why do the spies' job for them?"

A bit later, I heard about someone who'd committed "Friendstercide." He'd killed his Friendster page, announcing that from then on he'd only be contactable by phone and e-mail. So I guess you'd call what I did last November "committing MySpacecide."

It sounds radically self-destructive, but the opposite situation would be much worse. Imagine dying for real, dying physically, but lingering on as a digital ghost, a presence on a MySpace page collecting obituaries and tributes. It's already happened to quite a few MySpace users. A website called MyDeathSpace, for instance, collects dead MySpace users' pages. It has over a hundred, and adds more each day.

There are gaps in the MyDeathSpace collection. Indie rocker Nikki Sudden hasn't yet shown up there, despite dying recently after playing a show at New York's Knitting Factory. (His MySpace page lingers on, attracting digital tributes in the form of embedded YouTube video clips.)

Neither have the Seattle rave kids who died in the Capitol Hill massacre, whose MySpace pages collected a series of incongruously casual high fives and "peace outs." See you on the other side of the internet, dude!

The sad fact is that more and more of us, as we invest ourselves in the web, entrusting intimate personal information to garish pages, are destined to leave hastily-constructed, poorly-designed memorials online when we die, trivial shrines whose guest books and comments sections will continue to grow even as we rot, puffing up slowly with hackneyed, repetitive, ghoulish, unintentionally funny tributes.

Eventually, of course, these pages, too, will follow us into oblivion. Tribute activity will level off, some administrator or relative will delete us, the networking brand itself will fall out of favor, its elderly owner will also die, and even his satirists will stop maintaining their spoof page about him. Out of fashion, replaced by new technologies as yet unimagined on infrastructure as yet unbuilt, the network will change hands a few times and close.

Then, thank God, that wretched novelty song we threw up in a whimsical moment will stop loading. Then, finally, our digital ghosts will find peace, and escape the great cycle of humiliation.

There's a short cut to the same nirvana, though: You could make today the day you commit MySpacecide.

480 small chances to kill myself.

They will be here tomorrow. My box of Wismilak Diplomats, all four packages. 10 packs per box. 12 gorgeous kreteks per pack. 480 little tiny happinesses, all there for me.

and whoever i sell them to.

Its sort of a sad jump, going from the Djarum Black (by far the most fitting kretek for me to smoke) to the Diplomat. Why? Well... diplomats are not black. damnit.

However, i plan on ordering a shitload of the Djarums as well, so i'll have both to enjoy. Blacks in public, and just whenever i want to smoke. Diplomats (which cost roughly $8-10 a pack here in the states, about $90 a box) i will smoke in the company of friends, and when i just fucking need a damn good kretek.

I can't help but love kretek cigarettes. I smoked them for a long time, stopped, and then started up once again. Well, these beautiful cigarettes put every fucking white camel to shame. They burn longer, they taste better, they (in the instance of blacks) look much more unique, and they just plain do the job.

I ordered this particular brand straight from indonesia, so the shipping was a bitch ($40 for 1.5 kilo!) but from what i understand, its worth it.

The black connoisseur i am, switching from a pure black cigarette to a... white one with grey stripes... ah what the hell.

anyways, i'm all excited over fucking smokes. man i'm bored.

-

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible"

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-1274) Philosopher and theologian

Another eighteen ways to skin a cat.

Well, lets see...

meeting up with Sara today. Interesting to see how that goes. Then i am going to sit my ass down and create something interesting, dunno what. Then... er... eh who knows.

Life has been brilliant, albiet odd without the previously everpresent Sara. I'm making my way, though. I have good friends, and plenty of support. I have a slew of them, and i appreciate each of thier points of view.

Work is good. no problems. I asked tony if he could transfer me to a subway in Pittsburgh, and he said he could probably help me out. Very cool. This means that during my off time from bradley next year, i can move to pitt. During the school year, i'll live in York or East Pete.

I watched hitchhikers guide to the galaxy twice this week. kickass movie.

uh..

the new slogan around the Brandon home has become "Boobs, beer, and bullets." Not bad.

Steve's birthday was yesterday. we got him a cake, and susan gave him a chocolate record. Then we watched "under seige", which kicked ass in a cheesecake sort of way.

alas... i run out of bullshit to spew into this blog. this is really just a filler post so you know i'm not dead.

meat and potatoes in a while.

post i mean.

fuck.

disclaimer

ok, about sixteen people have called me, texted me, or (in steve's case) left a comment about me leaving.

Come on folks. you know me. how often do i actually end up doing this big shit i spout off in here?

Remember the post about running people over with a tank that had machetes duct taped to the front?

damn.

i wanted to do that, too.


Pitt rocks, but no one needs to freak out.

thank you steve for the comment. you are right. no need to rush to a big fuckin city.



yet.

Now hiring

Ah yes, life in the midst of the bullshit. Man its great. I'm so freakin' happy today its not even funny.

I went to pittsburg a day ago, and it was incredible. The city at night is gorgeous. The four hour drive would have been worth it even just for the view. We cruised around town looking at all sorts of shit, and then ended up at my friend Byron's place. He pays $600 a month for it, everything included. Its two level, overlooks part of the city, and is MASSIVE. he couldn't even fill the whole thing with furniture. the top floor are his sparring rooms.

I decided i'm going to move there in a few months, i can transfer to a subway from here. Peice of cake man. I can get a one bedroom with a view and pay $350 solid for it. fucking right. Get me the hell out of this shithole, man.

Sara is... gone. gone-o. As far as i know she doesn't hate my guts yet, so things are at least a little ok. Me, i have more freedom and time and money than i've had in a looooong time. my bank account actually has five numbers in it. wow. Unfortunately, its all going to the vicle.

My car is finally registered, and will be inspected soon. Custom plates, too. I'm not sure what i'll get, but i had these three choices. whichever is available, i get, by order of preference.

1. Noir
2. Black S1 (originally just Black, but i figured it would be taken. Then Black DC, but i didn't want to get shot up by some angry brothers.)
3. S1DC

so it'll be cool. sorta.

On one hand, i hate being alone. On the other hand... heh, it kinda rocks. Its nice when dudes point out a not so bad looking girl, and i can say "yup. she's hot." and not feel like a douchebag.

I'm let loose on the world once again, and i'll be damned if i'm not going to kick its ass.

Or at least sound like a prick and blah blah blah my way through this post.

I think i'm heading more in the prick direction.

oh, and i heard this cool set of rap lyrics while i was in pitt. dunno why i liked them, but it went like this:

Wipe
them guns off
get
the money money
wipe
that nigga smile
off
ain't nothin funny

yeah. uh. not a rap guy myself, but bloody guns and money and people looking all stoic and pissed and shit? Sounds like fun.

eh whatever. douchebag i remain.

I'm lonely. its almost 3am, and typically i'd be wide awake all day till now. I went to bed early, just woke up... been lonely all night. Now i have ice cream, and lonely.

And its cold.

This sucks.

I'm sad.

...

Well, she stopped by just a few minutes ago.

Its hard not to be happy when she's around. I felt good just talking to her a little.

So... my last post was letting off some steam, but in reality i really do feel ok.

Its tough, but i still love her, and i just can't bring myself to be mad at her. I just hope she's happy.

...

FOr the record, this post was a bit angry. I really do understand why whats happening is happening, and i don't blame her. We will see what happens.

She left me.

For nothing she can explain, apparently.

If i had left her every time i'd been afraid, this would have happened a long time ago.

I guess i'm a fool for thinking we could work through the tough shit. Nope, once it gets bad enough, lets just break the fuck up! good idea! Build an entire, solid, beautiful relationship... and then let it die. Now she has the freedom to... do... uh...

something.

Thing is, she never really told me what exactly she was leaving for.

Makes me feel really great, lemme tell you.


*sigh*

fuck me.