My mind tends to wander and so I find myself typing this backwards (the ending was typed first) and without any real direction for what to write other than to expunge the boredom drilling a hole through my head like I've got a energy-lobbyist standing on top of me and I'm the Alaskan Natural Wildlife Reserve.

Cex is right. Food is disgusting; it is what they make shit from.

Is it low self esteem or just paranoia that makes one question why good things are occurring to them?

I've been having an ongoing discussion on this, but what do you call the equivalent of a female boner? I mean, guys have a nice convenient one-word noun to describe it, but for women I can't think of anything. So, I put it to you, my more intelligent than me audience.

Oh, and happy New Year, bitches! I know, I know, it's technically not until tomorrow, but I have internet now. Go eat a steamed fish.

-Thomas

Bacon with a Butter Garnish

Oi, I've been a terrible blogger.

I like to think I'm a mostly harmless sort of person. That's not to say I won't retaliate harder than "Safe From Harm" should the situation arise, but rather that I don't really mean to be offensive.

Now, I suppose you're wondering, "why didn't you just say that in the first place?" To tell the truth, I don't really know. Probably because I wanted to talk about how I retaliate harder then "Safe From Harm" which is probably a sign I'm a collection of fetid, rusty artificical legs (useless and stinky), but I stand by my choice.

Where was I again? Oh, yeah.

I tell a lot of jokes that are in questionable taste. But, I mean, who doens't find that one about walking on babies HEE-LARIOUS? I don't know, I always worry that somebody will not realize I'm kidding when I make a chink joke and my fate will be sealed, sealed I tell you!

I never get tired of getting asked what I think about the Current (competing public radio station run by the evil empire itself: Minnesota Public Radio). By, "never get tired of," I mean, "stop asking me, you fools!" I don't know, how would you feel if someone made a richer, lamer, and greedier version of you?

I guess the only thing I love more than being asked about how it makes me feel or what I think of it is hearing about how my friends gave it money. Thanks guys. Hey! I know! Let's go find a person who wants to kill me, except they don't have any bullets. Then, you can hook the cash up to buy them said ammunition because, hell, that'll be faster than funding the people taking money out of my pocket.

Or, hey, maybe you could support the station that does what that lame-ass pile of wealth claims to do. Seriously, give people a softer, more accessible version of what they say they want and instead of complaining, they eat it up. I'm sorry Radio K actually plays that variety you keep saying you're after. I'm sorry my poor little station plays that edgy stuff you claim to be all about.

Bitches.

-Thomas

Insert Other Act of Anger

Man, do I love tea; sweet, delicious, soul-warming, tea.

Patterns of words always intrigue. For example: why does, "sweet, delicious, soul-warming," sound better than, "delicious, sweet, soul-warming," or, "delicious, soul-warming, sweet," when you say it?

Shameless Plug: I just wrote the best story of my journalistic career, which is nice. You can hear it shortly (6:00 PM CST) on Radio K and then for the next ten days or so on the Daily.

When you like music that everyone seems to hate, does that make you a no-taste hack, an elitist snob, or awesome?

-Thomas

Always a Fuss and Fight

Lawless Monkeys! Lawless Monkeys! Lawless Monkeys!

Sorry, but I don't think it's possible to be bored by the idea of

Lawless Monkeys! Lawless Monkeys! Lawless Monkeys!

I mean, how could you not be excited by that phrase? Barring sheer excitement, you should at least be filled with fear.

I have on-site laundry in my building, which is pretty fucking sweet. I don't have to haul crap to a Laundromat, I can do laundry in my pajama pants, and I can do it whenever I get around to it. Those are all fine features, but the best part is: I don't have to camp in front of a washer or drier to fend off potential laundry thieves. My building has an awesome machine to occupant ratio, where there is almost always at least one open washer or drier variety and so nobody is going to flitch my machine or my laundry. That fucking rules. I can go back to apartment, cook, read, watch a DVD, whatever, and get up after the appropriate interval and either move to a drier or bring the laundry back to my room as needed.

So, all and, a perfect setup for cleaning my garments. However, there is one guy who closes and locks the door to the laundry room while he does his laundry. This isn't really a huge problem, as the door can be opened with a building key, but it is soul-shiving obnoxious to be carrying my hamper only to the do my wash only to have to walk back and get my key. I want to grab him by his shiny, balding head and scream, "NOBODY IS GOING TO STEAL YOUR FUCKING LAUNDRY! EVEN IF WE DID HAVE A LAUNDRY THIEF IN THIS BUILDING NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD STEAL YOUR HIDEOUS COLLECTION OF KHAKIS AND CARDIGANS!" I'd probably finish it with a kick to his nuts, just for good measure.

The worst part is he always seems to be doing laundry when I am. So every week for the past month I have made a quite a spectacle of myself carrying my white plastic bin of dirty laundry towards the laundry room, noting the closed and locked status of the laundry room, turning around, and heading back to my apartment with a look of pure rage that grows more fierce as the weeks grind on; I actually scared a women last night.

Well, that also could have been due to how much profanity I was unleashing. Oh, old ladies! You're so prude!

-Thomas

Choke on the Flesh of the Sick and the Young

I thought I woke up screaming this morning. It turned out I had just left my CD player on and it got stuck on a metal scream. Actually, I'm willing to believe both occurred, but I try to ignore things that could possibly indicate any deep psychological problems.

Every so often, something will actually rattle me. I'll feel like someone actually ran up and shook me and then ran away; leaving me partially in shock, somewhat confused, and thinking things like, "ow, my brain." I'm not good in those situations, and - just like when waking up screaming - I try to ignore that they happened at all.

On a lighter note: Last night, I saw someone standing outside of the liquor store near my apartment building. What made this notable (I mean, let's face it, people standing outside of a liquor store is not exactly an uncommon occurrence), was that the liquor store was decidedly closed (Sunday 3:20 in the morning - I know it was technically Monday, shut up). He might have been waiting for a ride, but he definitely had the look of someone that was confused to be where he was; as though his expectations were decidedly not met and he was trying to decide if he should just camp out and wait until the place opened up or if he should meander elsewhere. As I'm waiting for the light to turn so I could stumble into my abode and collapse into blessed slumber, he sort of shuffles his feet, takes a swig from his paper sack, and then hurls the - presumably empty - bottle into the road, right into the windshield of a cop car that had just turned towards the on-ramp. The car screeches to a halt, flips into reverse and tries to navigate around the median to get at the guy.

Needless to say, the gentleman booked it and was gone before the cop got close. The cop gets out, obviously swearing, and brushes off his car. He then climbs back in and returns to his original objective of getting the hell out of uptown.

-Thomas

No, it's Not, "We're With the Liver Balls." That Would Be Dumb; Funny, but still Dumb

A person's behavior and personality are derivations of what expectations have been placed on them. Which is to say: everyone reflects what is expected of them. Be it a conformance to those expectations or a direct refutation of them, people's actions are tied to expectation.

Maybe that doesn't apply to hermits, but for the most part, I've found that philosophy to hold true. I just wish I wasn't so lame and could remember who it was who formulated it.

Shameful confession of the day: I love having this dialouge with people:

Wŏ: "No, I'm not going to reactivate your internet service because you owe us $[Amount]."
Tā: "Sir, I am going to send you a check."
Wŏ: "That's fine, and we appreciate that, but we'll reactivate it as soon as we get the check."

Yeah, I'm a dick, and I hate that I feel good saying, "screw you because I can't trust you."

-Thomas

A Fine Evening Spent Watching Curb

Not really a big surprise to any of you, but I love rice. Yeah, yeah, I know, me and a whole continent of people, but I really love those succulent puffy white bundles of starchy heaven. So, given that, I can't figure out if I like Mochipet because he is awesome glitch-core goodness or because his mailing list is called The Cult of Rice.

I believe that it's quite easy to get blood from a stone, it simply requires one to understand that stones don't have the same sort of blood most animals do. I mean, they are stones after all.

School starts soon, I'm dreading it already. I get into a routine over break that involves me relaxing a lot - although, today, I am really stiff and sore pretty much all over - and I am loathe to return to my pattern of slaving over hot textbooks.

I don't even know why I'm complaining about school. College beats working in the real world.

-Thomas

Grinding My Soul to Buy Enough Bread

I'll keep this short: all religious organizations should immediately have their tax-exempt status revoked. They want to be a non-profit, fine, they can follow those rules. Oh, and the Catholic church shall remain cursed with my eternal disgust for all enternitity (I apologize to the Catholic readers).

-Thomas

Dead Baby Sea Turtle

Yeah, I wouldn't click on that.

Have you ever met someone that makes you depressed no matter what? I'm not saying they aren't fun to be around, or that you always feel like shit every time you see/talk to them, just someone that inherently makes you sad.

My roommate is awesome. Nice guy, reasonable about bills and such, good to talk to, and all around a great guy. That said, every time I think about where he's going with everything, I get less and less optimistic about my odds in getting a job in my field of choice. I mean: here is a guy with a double major in journalism and political science, a clip file longer than my arm, and a ton of connections. Despite all of that: he's going to grad school because he can't get a job in journalism.

If he can't, what the fuck am I going to do?

-Thomas

I've Got the Ultimate One-Up for Such Conversations with Straight Men, Bisexual Men, Bisexual Women, and Lesbians

An Open Letter to All of Humanity

Dear All of Humanity:

Don't buy old people internet access. They don't really need it or want it and all it does is make technical support people eradicate their entire genetic line in hopes of eliminating incompetence from the human gene pool.

They're going to die soon anyway, don't make people like me suffer because you think it would be cute if grandma or grandpa could send emails.

Mr. Thomas Kwong.

I'm not kidding. Well, maybe about the mass murder bit, but not by much.

-Thomas

Blessings Upon the Throne of Tyranny

Dimmu Borgir has the weirdest song titles sometimes.

I wasn't really going to mention this stupid bull shit, but I get more enraged every day I read something about it.

How is it that one of the most flagrant abuses of governmental power in recent months is being investigated not for the abuse itself or the questionable legality of the whole thing, but, rather, for how the media got a hold of the information.

What the raped baby Jesus is wrong with you bitches?

I'm terribly surprised by any of this, but, as a journalist, I am mortally terrified of this kind of shit. This isn't the sort of thing that should happen in a democracy. The NSA can already get away with a whole lot of stuff, so why make this a big deal? Hell, why not put it in the Patriot Act? My biggest concern is the, "our enemies now know something they shouldn't," attack. Excuse me? So, the media - trying to do it's duty to expose governmental abuse and excesses - is compromising American security by saying, "hey, this thing might be illegal, and there's no real oversight," and then pressuring for answers? That's bullshit. I am now being told, by my government, that I should not do anything that makes them look bad. Welcome to fascism.

I don't know if it's illegal or not (I hope it is found to be illegal because this scares me), but I fail to see how this program has actually helped. Maybe that's a good thing, but I think the best thing we can do is take the more free society route and just accept that we may get attacked and people might die. I hope that it doesn't happen, but maybe, just maybe, freedom is actually worth dying for in ways that fall outside of that jingoistic nonsense.

I will close on this note: China, USSR, and a host of other countries have or had the same sort of powers that the FBI et. al. are clamoring for and they are no closer to stopping their, "problems". China still has Falun Dafa, the triads are still going strong, Russia wasn't able to stop the Russian mob, and the Chechens are still causing hell. What makes this country think we'll fare any better?

-Thomas