I’m foul! I’m vile! I’ll curse and curse and then, like Muhammed Ali, I’ll lull you to sleep with my left hand while I say the f word in sign langauge with my right!

(fuzzy gerdes took this picture)

I don’t kiss my mother with this mouth! I’m rude like Delmon Young is a five-tool player! I’ll poach fowl on propriety’s property!

Everything must go! Bugger off! I hate it here! I hold you in the same regard as I hold much of Phil Collins’ solo work!

(james cridland took this picture and licensed it through creative commons)

Screw you and your uproar, your bile, your impatience, your impertinence, your poor fashion sense and ill-thought-out tattoos, and your incessant pilgrimages to Suckland.

(twm took this picture and licensed it through creative commons)

I’m making cut-out paper dolls of politicians and movie stars and anyone who has a lame cause so I can throw darts at the genitals! Don’t count on the good times rolling!

(NiteLynx took this picture and licensed it through creative commons)

Bollocks and a sigh!

I have been tinkering some with del.icio.us lately, as I find myself increasingly adding links there. At some point, I’d like to do two things in this blog: 1. Show you my favorite links from like a month’s worth of demeted link surfing, and 2. Go through an review every Triangle blog listed on ncblogs.com.

But that’s not the point of this post, this is: I tagged Julie Klausner’s website and Julie Klausner’s Animal Party. And no one else has tagged them. Is it true that the rest of the world– the people who have somehow managed to tag Hippo Noodles– has missed out on Julie Klausner’s demented and wonderful genius? I am so angry at you, rest of the world. Jump on it, now!

Keep in mind, my anger towards you is in no way relegated to your failure to visit Julie Klausner’s site. I’m quite steamed at several of you for other reasons! This anger led to me express the following sentiments to a friend on IM a few minutes ago, and I have edited out the gratuitous use of the f word for my loyal and sensitive readers (that is, for Smalls and my mother). I have also left out the name of the person(s) who have earned my ire though I know they know who they are:

“f– them in the collective face”
“she deserves the maximum amount of face f—ing allowed by law”
“If I want to know about people, I’ll go f–ing ask them”
“more bags of dicks should be sent directly to her face”

A bonus thought:
Katy Jack: basically, we’ve totally f—ed the planet and thats going to cause humans to go extinct and its going to suck
Ross White: it won’t suck so bad when we’re gone, but while we’re going, that should be painful and shitty

It’s an idyllic Monday night, and I am making the trip from Chapel Hill to Greensboro. I’ve just had a beer at Zog’s while polishing off a powerpoint for a presentation that I have to do at the Closing the Gap conference at the Koury Center. I’m going to be staying at the good ole Holiday Inn Express (where, little do I know, I will end up having to get a room from the night guy who apparently just started and doesn’t know what the “state government rate” means). I’m zooming down I-40. The Decemberists are playing. I pass familiar billboards for Replacements Ltd., whatever gun show is coming up, and Maryland basketball.

**record scratch sound indicating things have gone horribly awry, a la every commercial on the UPN** Maryland basketball? As in, the University of Maryland has a billboard for their basketball teams on I-40, just outside Greensboro, not far from their hated rivals Dook and my own beloved University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? As in, between those great basketball schools (plus NC State) and Wake Forest, another ACC rival? Am I seeing this right?

Hey, Maryland, I know that your women won a big game and are now in the Final Four, but so are Dook and UNC. So you don’t really have gloating rights there. And your men didn’t do so well this year, so it’s not a strategically-place f-u to North Carolina basketball in general. So, what’s the deal?

Then it occurs to me that perhaps, like UNC-P (Pembroke State University to you hard-core old-schoolers), Maryland is trying to recruit students by placing an ad for its basketball team in the middle of ACC country, where North Carolina basketball teams are a religion. I really do liken it to placing an ad for Columbia in the Charleston local paper during the Civil War.

Is anyone going to buy this? Are there disaffected youth in Gibsonville thinking, “Hey, you know, I was going to go get the Personal Touch at UNC-P, but these Maryland fellows, they have chutzpah! I should go there! What a fantastic way to express my individuality. I’ll go tell the whole gang at Dairy Queen”? Or are they assuming that since everyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line drives to High Point to buy their furniture, placing a Maryland ad in North Carolina would be a good way to entice them to buy season tickets?

Well, this one, I might believe. Imagine you’re from Rockville or Silver Spring and you just want a hand-crafted ottoman. You’re in your SUV hauling ass at 75, and you see billboard after billboard with shit you don’t want. “Gun show… nah… Swiffer… I have one of those… Dockside Dolls… damn, it’s closed for renovation… Gentleman’s Car Wash… too lowbrow… Maryland basketball… maybe… ‘We need to have a conversation. –God’… I’m not buying that… McDonald’s next exit… not organic…. fuck it, I’ll buy the Maryland basketball tickets.”

Still, I would love to know what the thought process was. Even Pedro doesn’t have signs in this section of the country. (He also lacks political experience.)

By the way, if this guy tries to give me his personal touch, I’m screaming “rape.”

Once again working on the theory that there’s nothing worse than firing up a web browser and opening RossWhite.com, only to see pictures of your engagement staring you back in the face:

Congratulations Bill Rudert! I have every confidence that you will be a much better husband than John Thompson will be.

The next time I see you, I will buy you a NASCAR poop-steak.

Today is draft day for Matt Pack’s Fantasy Baseball League! I’ve agreed this year to become a whipping boy for this league, since I am now armed with widgets like the Major League Baseball standings widget and the Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball widget. I expect that I can finish no higher than 11th of 12, but I plan to be the league badass by polishing up some of my old CSBL skills and sending crazy-ass press releases about my team. Sadly, I cannot find any remnants of those old press releases, though I believe them to exist in some electronic format, somewhere. I do remember some of my favorites, such as:

• Vladimir Guerrero Makes Tasty Pie
• Manny Ramirez Concerned With Creation of Comfortable Workspaces
• Bruce Chen: “I Swear, I Am Not Asian”

Man, this is how f–ed up the world is right now:

We put all kinds of dollars into nanotechnology so researchers at Cal Tech can make the world’s smallest g.d. smiley. We can’t cure AIDS or cancer.

Our news outlets consider it news that we think the news sucks. Meanwhile, the news continues to suck.

Who the hell is in space to see Apple’s iPod ad? If you’re a damn astronaut, you should already have an iPod, because you have to be playing Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” on repeat.

I don’t give a damn that Randy Quaid was screwed by the producers of Brokeback Mountain. How the fuck does he command a seven-figure salary in the first place?

Oh, and our President still thinks he’s the fist of God. Newsflash: God wouldn’t pick a former cokehead for her fist! She’d pick someone cool and ironic, probably one of those dandies from Belle & Sebastian. I vote for the one with the ears.

Every now and then, the Internet sends you tumbling into one of its remote corners, and you find something truly wonderful. I was looking at which phrases lead you to this blog, and of course, “JJ Redick girlfriend” has been a big one this month. With his picture all over the teevee and all those hopeful 15-year-olds in Wyoming, how could it not be? It might even be the #1 search term of the month on Google!

So I searched on that term to see how high I rank– a paltry tenth!– and I followed one of the other links when I saw this:

WTF?

Seriously, how can you not follow a link that promises you that? I did, and here’s the whole message:

My dear God. I had to click the link, which took me to this guy’s blog, which is also a work of art! The past month has gems like the prank on a USC basketball player, a slam at T.O. (we know how I feel about T.O.), and the conspiracy to let 30-something nerds take over EA Games’ soundtracks. Sure, none of that measures up to the Danny Ferry thing, but I’m a fan.

I have thoughts on all kinds of subjects! Really! Here are some of my thoughts from the world of SPORTS!

Man, am I glad to see that Dook is out of the NCAAs. I hate Dook, I really do, but this year’s crop of Dookies has a special place in my black, black heart. JJ Redick annoys me some, but that has more to do with the flood of “JJ is Gay” “No, JJ dated MEEEE” posts in my blog. Shelden Williams also annoys me, but that’s because I hate seeing his “pumped up” face on TV– it’s hideous. But the part that stings me the most is that this is the first Duke team, mostly because of the aforemetioned players, that I had to have some respect for. Before, abject hatred was enough. This crew… well, they earned some respect, because Redick and Williams are damn good basketball players who seem to play the game the right way.

The Carolina Panthers have apparently tossed out the concept of team chemistry and signed Keyshawn Johnson. The man is a cancer. I guess since T.O. got all the ink this winter, they figured Keyshawn couldn’t be that bad. But he is. He’s that bad. (He’s also in decline.)

Alfonso Soriano is an idiot. He won’t go to left field because he thinks his value is higher as a second baseman. The Nationals threaten to disqualify him. He goes to left field. He has a horrible second day. Everyone makes a big deal about it.

How would it have gone down if he’d just quietly gone to left field? He has a horrible second day, no one cares.

Christ almighty, if you paid me what he’s making, I’d play both positions simultaneously.

This giant photo of Adam Morrison crying is really, really unsettling. I almost feel bad for the guy that it was published on a major website like ESPN. I don’t feel bad at all that a rinky-dink-ass website like mine is pointing people to it.

Roy Williams is awesome. This should be a bigger story than it is, and since it’s not, I am assuming that is because everyone knows Roy Williams is awesome.

Seriously, do you care that much if JJ is gay?

I’ve complained before about Acrobat Reader. Man, do I hate that thing. So, when I saw PC World’s daily update today, I was a happy, happy dude.

I got a letter back from my superviser today and I am as jazzed as I can be about my MFA program. Not only do I have the concrete sense that I am learning a ton, I also feel like the work I’m doing is enjoyable, if unpolished. It’s often hard for me to evaluate how well a poem is working until I have let it sit for six or eight weeks, even though I’ll often revise it heavily right at first and then tinker after it’s cooled. So to have another pair of eyes excited about my work is thrilling.

I’m currently reading two books simultaneously, which is something I don’t usually do. Zbigniew Herbert’s Selected Poems is a thing to behold– one of the best things I have read in graduate school so far. Even if you aren’t a great fan of poetry, you would do well to dig up a copy. The other book I am reading is Andrew Zawacki’s By Reason of Breakings, which I am also enjoying thusfar, but I haven’t yet turned enough of a critical eye towards it. If all goes according to plan, I’ll also read Wislawa Szymborska and Jennifer Grotz over the next two weeks.

I’m less concerned about generating new work right now, but I do want to bust my ass and really challenge myself with revision. I had hoped to become fearless about revising this semester, but so far, I feel like I have been hesitant. I think some of that stems from feeling like there’s not much left in the tank when I finish the first draft. I’ve cut stuff, mercilessly at times, but I haven’t done any extensive rewriting of poems once the first draft is done, because I just don’t have a whole lot left to say on the topic. I know that some of the poems would benefit from the addition of new and seemingly unrelated topics, but so much of what I have done completes some sort of game or pattern, and the really anal piece of me doesn’t want to revise out of the constraints I’d initially set. Which I know is stupid, since I know I’m likely to discover even better stuff when I turn the corner. I don’t know if it’s intellectual stubbornness or simple sloth, or perhaps a combination of both.

Now for the non-poetry thoughts, all of which will astound you and amaze you:

• Callie Peck confirmed for me that I am a puss because I admitted that I enjoy James Blunt. I can’t help it– there’s nothing quite as satisfying as singing “Goodbye My Lover” in a whiny squeaky voice. But thanks for the confirm, Cal.
• Hey there, software pirate! Don’t copy that floppy! (Seriously, watch all 9 minutes of the man that the Doctor calls “MC Fashion Disaster.”)
• Robin, what have I done to you? It’s so not fashionable to blog links on the same day they’re BoingBoinged, but oh well. This was my favorite of the Superdickery panels.
• Can someone suggest a nice shade of blue to put behind quoted material on my site… one against which links will still show up? Or should I not bother, and add a real style for quotes? And if so, any suggestions?
• OK, so last week I bought two monitors. Then one had a dead pixel, so I had to take it back. I wanted to exchange it, but they didn’t have another in stock. So I returned it, they ordered another, and I told them I would be in to buy it when it arrived. Except, by the time it arrived, the rebate was no longer happening, and they couldn’t guarantee that I would be able to get that rebate from the manufacturer. So, I went somewhere else, found a display model of a better brand, and ended up saving about $35 with no pesky rebates. Hurrah for multiple monitor support!