chuck klosterman wrote a piece for esquire magazine this month in which he described the difference between a nemesis (a hated, but close friend) and an archenemy. the key point in determining whether someone represents an archenemy is as such:



"the satisfaction you feel from your own successes pales in comparison to the despair you feel at this person's triumphs, even if those triumphs are completely unrelated to your life."

despite klosterman's hairy-chested prose, this collection is more than a mensa edition of maxim magazine. "the lady or the tiger," his essay on the metaphysics of breakfast cereal, is a clever parsing of what coolness is all about. he notes that most advertisements for kids' breakfast cereals rely heavily on the tantalus myth: the cocoa puffs bird has been driven "coo-coo" by his unfulfillable dream of digging into a bowl of chocolatey goodness. then there is that silly rabbit, whose peculiar pathology cannot admit the a priori fact that trix are for kids, or the faintly homoerotic obsession barney rubble has with fred flintsone's forbidden fruity pebbles. "they're the first step to indoctrination of future hipsters," writes klosterman. "cereal commercials teach us that anything desirable is exclusionary."



he hits here on "exclusionary cool," the device subcultures rely on, mostly through various signifiers -- purple mohawks, hot pants, split tongues, neil young's discography. these are designed to separate the cool from the uncool, and to cultivate the psychology of belonging to a club. and it all starts with the most important meal of the day.

it's a traveshamockery! how do girls do it? how do they wear tight ass clothes and not feel weird? specifically pants. isn't it constraining? i'm trying to imagine a thin piece of cloth that hugs every curve on your body. ugh. that must be very uncomfortable. i guess i can sort of relate to wearing a tight top or something (tube perhaps?), since guys can wear tight t-shirts or muscle shirts sometimes. but pants that cling? how does that work? i feel like ride up would be a problem. and sitting down and walking/running from mall store to mall store, or dancing even. is there some secret to wearing tight pants that i am not aware of? should i go consult my FOB brothers? should they make super tight pants for guys the way they make fake baby stomachs, so that guys can know what women go through?



and for girls, everything is mad tight so on display all the time -- not a huge complaint -- but doesn't that just feel weird? imagine being a girl who wears baggy clothes as a youth, only to transition to tight ass clothes later. it must be a shock. the body must wonder what it did wrong to deserve lifetime imprisonment. what would the world be like if all humans, male and female, were clad in spandex tight clothes? scary right? i guess the system is fine the way it is. thank heavens -- for you gentle reader -- that my knees, thighs, arms, body in general, are never exposed to the outside world. people might drop dead.

ten things you will like about me. when walking around, people should really carry a list of the most interesting talking points about themselves. like a paper-based profile page, a physical, friendster to go if you will. you meet someone, you exchange lists, politely turn away from each other to read them, then engage in conversation. "oh i see here that you mountain climb, tell me about that. oh! we both like little bo peep? that's so cool!" this would really cut out the idle chatter and skip the whole fishing around for interesting things to connect on part of the conversation. and if nothing really interests you about them, you can give the profile page back and say "thanks, it was really nice meeting you, best of luck with your animal mutilation hobby, please, don't call me to hang out."



and notice how sometimes, in sometimes conversations, you have to giftwrap something to talk about? something that you know the other person just has to ask you about? you are essentially providing them with an irresistible hook from which to set up a conversation bite. "and last week, me and my twin sister went to a wedding." i know that by slipping in the fact that i have a twin sister, the other person will probably ask about her and i'm inviting them to do it. and i'm oh so ready to present the asker with my stock answers to questions like "how far apart were you born? who's older? are you close? are you guys identical? are you telepathic? was it fun to have a twin? do you look alike? is she single and available?" i've answered these questions many times in my life, i'm ready to go there, it's effortless. by using this method properly, in a see saw manner, you enable an exchange of information -- as well as experience the joy that must come from "getting to know" someone. it's also a good way to kill a few minutes and useful in delaying the delivery of the essential "i'll be right back, i have to use the bathroom" line.



sometimes, when i'm feeling particularly feisty and very evil knievel, i purposely avoid the hook just to see if they'll try to re-hook me. "and last year i rappelled mt everest!" "um, that's nice, hand me the salt please? how do you like your french fries?" by totally sidestepping the obvious hook, i am able to amuse myself by seeing if they will somehow bring it back up again. "so, this stairmaster exercise is really similar to my experiences RAPPELLING DOWN MT EVEREST." okay already, i'll ask about everest, shit. some people try too hard.



most times you talk to people, you are pretty much trying to present your more interesting side anyway, trying to subtly (or not so subtly) work in facts about yourself. why not just cut to the chase and present a type written, well organized list? streamline the process. this would be a major breakthrough in modern day communication don't you think? you can also put down -- in small print and under a red fonted heading of "caution" -- a list of things that you do not want to talk about or items that stand a high chance of offending you. "i am not comfortable discussing bodily functions, only talk about these things if you have a good joke. thank you." or "i am easily offended by comments that disparage the mentally challenged, i have an uncle who is retarded so please watch what you say." we cannot wait around for love to make the world a better place. we must pin our hopes on, and utilize, advance scouting and a comprehensive system of information exchange.



hell, we might as well go all out and add testimonials too. it would be really affirming (not to mention intriguing) to know that the person i'm talking to is "the hottest little biznitch in san diego", or that i am currently engaged in talks with "the absolute essence of masculine diva-dom". it would be good for down times too since you could just look at your little laminated card whenever you are sad and be reminded that you are loved by all. even if your friends only said nice things in an effort to troll for reciprocally nice comments.



is this not the greatest idea since lusting after unrequited loves? i'll make my card if you guys make yours and we can start to better the world right now. vive le revolution.

eliza 3.0. i have a friend who likes to think of herself as a "cyber girl". no, she is not a techno punk skating around on suped up roller blades, with wires flying out of her cranium, ready to hack into the nearest computer. she is instead, semi-jokingly convinced that she is everyone's preferred internet female of choice. she is also not a porn star by the way. sickos. as a cyber girl, she is "better" online than in person. more vibrant, more interesting, more engaging, more everything. regardless of whether this is true or not in this particular case (it's not true), it's kind of interesting.



what if somebody is really interesting via text, aims and emails? but loses all semblance of excitement as a flesh and blood person? i would generally think that people who write interestingly would be interesting in real life. but this is probably not the case. maybe a person is shy, maybe they stutter, maybe they tic nervously, whatever it is, the online persona translates much more effectively than the real one. by taking away the social exchange vibe and the physical distractions, you get to just concentrate on people's words. yet another reason to retreat to the world of text-based information exchange.



assertion numero fifty three: nobody can be boring on aim, nobody. if you are, ouch. i mean c'mon, you get time to fully prepare your responses and you can research anything relevant on google. the only boring aim-ers are the slow typers, those kill me. type f.a.s.t.e.r. learn to type, it's good for you. it's even given me the secretarial career that i have today! i'm done griping.



is this lying or misrepresenting yourself? should we strive to be the same online as we are offlline? then again, that ruins part of the appeal of the internet. i remember when chatrooms first became popular and the biggest thing was you could pretend to be a thirteen year old girl and talk to people and "teehee" and "heehee" through your conversations. i never did this, i just watched. honest. people in the chatrooms would ask "age/gender/location" all the time and you could say anything you wanted. a giant game of pretend, that was the internet. but now, people are all trying to establish authenticity, presenting their personalities online with icons and fonts and colors and "who am i" pages. strange how that works. all this work put into separating yourself from the bland html masses. "generic webpage layout? heavens no!" it's like a blade of grass standing (on tippy toes) among the other billion blades of grass screaming "look at me! i'm different!" i guess in this respect the internet mirrors real life most accurately. we all just want to be convinced of our uniqueness.



is it wrong that i feel like i can oftentimes find out more about a person in three minutes of web browsing than in three hours of actual conversation? (secret embedded message to jon g, i found this site with your 13-ish year old picture on it, made my day. i will refrain from posting it, because you might hurt me.) if you have a good web prescence i've probably already googled you and found random tidbits about your other lives you don't tell me about. it's a hobby, it's a fascination, it's a sickness, i google people for kicks okay? what do you want me to do? feel bad about it?



invariably, if you blog stalk as much as i do, you have to wonder what these people you are reading about are really like. are they disappointing? cooler than cool? are they just as funny? funnier? socially inept? what are they? even reading friends' blogs, you get this sense of "hum, totally didn't know any of this about them. why does this never come up?" this is why i prefer to follow blogs that don't really detail what people do -- because really, i don't care what my friends do -- but what they thought about due to a certain event or what they think period. stories are always good too. the "i made my three pm fedex deadline today" blogs do nothing for me.



back to cyber girl/guy-dom. actually, i have nothing left to say on the subject. but i'm compiling a list of cyber girl/guy-isms. "how to tell if your friends think you are more fun electronically." number one: they avoid physical interaction with you but always part with the words "i'll see you online!" number two: when you hear this a lot, "no no, don't call me, write me an email." number three: when someone always says "so, what'd you blog about today?" before asking you a normal question.



there must be more to this list but i'm still working on it. i'll try the rest on you in person, unless you want me to give you the email version instead. bastards.

this past weekend we judged a random someone, somewhat favorably, by her use of the word "predisposed" in conversation and mid-sentence. are we too easily impressed, setting our expectations too low, or on a high horse and full of it? when did i become an asshole?



don't answer that.

infultrated!! this is a new post. i'm not anachronic. i'm someone different and i'm here to shed some different light on the subject of blogs. for years and years i've read, watched, followed mr hyperwest here. and now i've infultrated. i decided to come strong and give the most boring, mispelled, and unreadable blog the world has ever known. yes i am the anti-bloggar. notice that after this intro i will type what i had for breakfast, why my black shoes are my favorite, and how much anger i have towards that red light on main street. blogs around the world have been suffering from my disease, but this blog. no this blog, has withstood the test of time, however today, the first month of may, i have found my arch nemesis's weakness and decided to take full advantage....



beweare, be very weare.



"so today i had mcdonalds for lunch. i hate how they look at you when you're deciding. like you've memorized the menu or something. i hate ronald mcdonald, he was in a few of my early child hood nightmares. and grimace, what's up with him? he's like a pansy oscar the grouch. horrible. then i drove home, it was cool cause i rolled the window down and put my arm out the window, but a stupid bug hit me on the arm while i was on the freeway. sucks. luckily i had some extra mcdonalds napkins in my pocket, so i wiped what i could of the beetle like remains. yuk.



since it was saturday (still is saturday) i took a nap. i love naps cause you just sleep. and sleeping makes me feel so much better than when i'm at work, like a normal weekday. i'm on a tangent, but that's ok.



i don't know what to do today. my car is dirty and my hair needs to get cut. what do i do? why don't you leave a comment and tell me, the comments with the most votes will win, and i'll go and do that thing, you know, car wash, or hair cut. and then you'll waste 10more minutes (if you read slow like me) reading about my experience doing those things! well that's all for now! go lakers!"



muhahahha anachronic = infultrated!