The People of Trader Joe’s

Browse through People of Walmart for a bit. Pretty scary stuff.

The universe needs balance, though. Enter the yuppies of Trader Joe’s, a force countering the grizzled mass that comprises Walmart’s patronage, not in looks, but in sheer pomposity.

Last Friday, I witnessed a 40-something male, clad in snug, halfway-down-the-quad navy blue short pants and a tight pastel plaid shirt, shaming an elderly woman that may have been his mother, lover—or through some sort of strange sci-fi twist, daughter—for suggesting that they buy frozen corn.

Picture that: unfettered fury, arising from the mere mention of produce stored below thirty two degrees Fahrenheit.

The situation played out like this:

Mother, daughter, or lover: “They have some corn in the freezer.”

Man, through gritted teeth, with a vein protruding from his forehead, talking very slowly: “What did……..I tell you……..about frozen…………………… products.”

Then he stood, glaring at her in silence, as a look of genuine terror overtook the woman’s face.

I feel like I should have intervened, but I got the vibe that this would have earned me a room temperature organic daikon radish stuffed into one of my many unfrozen orifices, courtesy of short pants.

 

Here is a List of the Books I Read in 2015

Here is a list of the books I read in 2015.

Armstrong, Karen—Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time (2006)

Barrett, Deirdre—The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, And Athletes Use Dreams For Creative Problem-Solving—And How You Can Too (2001)

Bonnett, Alastair—Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies (2014)

Bowden, Mark—Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw (2001)

Bradbury, Ray—The Illustrated Man (1951)

Bryson, Bill—Notes From a Small Island (1995)

Bulgakov, Mikhail—The Master and Margarita (written from 1928-40, not published until 1967)

Chamovitz, Daniel—What A Plant Knows: A Field Guide To The Senses (2012)

Christie, Agatha—And Then There Were None (1939)

Cooper, Douglas—The Cubist Epoch (1970)

Danielewski, Mark Z.—House of Leaves (2000)

Didion, Joan—Play It As It Lays (1970)

Fernandez, Oscar—Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All Around Us (2014)

Funke, Cornelia—Inkheart (2003)

Gaiman, Neil—The Graveyard Book (2008)

Heath, Chip and Dan—Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (2010)

Heinlein, Robert A.—The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

Kaku, Michio—Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension (1994)

Moore, Alan, and Lloyd, David—V For Vendetta (1988)

Ohle, David—Motorman (1972)

Percy, Walker—Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983)

Powers, Tim—On Stranger Tides (1988)

Pratchett, Terry—Thud! (2005)

Pynchon, Thomas—Inherent Vice (2009)

Stoker, Bram—Dracula (1897)

VanderMeer, Jeff—Annihilation (2014), Authority (2014), Acceptance (2014)

Walker, Barbara G.—The Secrets of the Tarot: Origins, History, and Symbolism (1994)

Watts, Peter—Echopraxia (2014)

Here Are The Books I Read In 2014.

This is a list of the books I read in the year 2014. I only read three pages from 50 Shades of Grey, which is why it is not listed here. See? I’m not hiding anything.

Burgundy, Ron—Let Me Off at the Top! My Classy Life & Other Musings (2013)

Camus, Albert—The Stranger (1942)

Chandler, Raymond—The High Window (1942)

Dick, Philip Kindred—The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)

Dixon, Chuck/Moench, Doug—Batman: Knightfall, Part One: Broken Bat (1993)

Egan, Jennifer—A Visit From the Goon Squad (2010)

Evans, Colin—The Casebook of Forensic Detection (2007)

Everett, Percival—Assumption (2011)

Frissell, Bob—Nothing In This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are (1994)

Taken from http://www.bobfrissell.com

Greene, Graham—The Third Man (1950)

Haldeman, Joe—The Forever War (1974)

Harris, Thomas A.—I’m OK—You’re OK (1967)

Heinlein, Robert A.—The Puppet Masters (1951)

Kafka, Franz—The Trial (1925)

Kakalios, James—The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics (2010)

Larsson, Stieg—The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2005), The Girl Who Played With Fire (2006), The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest (2007)

Le Guin, Ursula K.—The Dispossessed (1974)

Moore, Alan—Batman: The Killing Joke (1988)

Petersen, Penny A.—Minneapolis Madams: The Lost History of Prostitution on the Riverfront (2013)

Pynchon, Thomas—The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Bleeding Edge (2013)

Reed, Ishmael—Mumbo Jumbo (1972)

Rowling, J.K.—Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

Slater, Lauren—Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century (2004)

Stokes, Philip—Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers (2003)

Swartzwelder, John—The Time Machine Did It (2002)

Vonnegut, Kurt—Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Westlake, Donald E.—The Ax (1997)

Wilson, Robert Anton—Prometheus Rising (1983), Quantum Psychology (1990)

Wong, David—John Dies At The End (2009)

Yeager, Jeff—The Cheapskate Next Door (2010)

A Simple Request

I think my relationship is on the rocks.

I recently told this chick I’m seeing that it’s unacceptable for her to have dated anyone before me.

On every trip to her house since then, I can’t help but notice the lack of effort she’s put into obeying my command—travel through time, and change the past. One day, when she was in the restroom for a really really long time, I poked around a bit. An investigation of her internet search history came up with exactly zero schematics for a flux capacitor. The ‘Recently Watched’ category on her Netflix showed she hasn’t viewed Quantum Leap, Timecop, or the episode of Family Matters where Urkel invents a time machine. On the bookshelf, there was nothing even close to the subject of physics, let alone the theory of relativity, knowledge of which is essential to transcend linear time.

How I interpret this: she has not even thought about travelling back in time to change her relationship history in order to make me happy.

Next time I’m visiting, when she’s passing the laxative-laced Taco John’s meal I will have brought for her, I think I’ll use the alone time to inspect the shed and see what’s going on in there. From the outside, it doesn’t appear big enough to house a DeLorean, or even a circular metal pod that is thick enough to withstand the sparks and zaps that occur when space-time is warped, but we’ll see.

If the shed doesn’t turn up anything, the excavation of her yard then begins, in search of a large elliptical disc that she maybe recovered from aliens and is using to reverse engineer their technology in hopes of making the buttons and gears more useful for human hands.

If that doesn’t work, I don’t know.

 

 

 

Here’s a List of the Books I Read in 2013

Adams, Douglas—Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Boortz, Neal & Linder, John—The FairTax Book (2005)

Brown, Dan—Angels & Demons (2000)

Burroughs, William S.—The Ticket That Exploded (1962)

Cameron, Julia—The Artist’s Way (1992)

Colum, Padraic—Nordic Gods and Heroes (1920)

DeLillo, Don—White Noise (1985), Mao II (1991)

Dick, Philip K.—The Divine Invasion (1981)

Gallwey, W. Timothy—The Inner Game of Tennis (1974)

Geary, Rick—The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti (2011)

Gerrold, David—Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (2001)

Gray, Frank—Scoremanship (1969)

Hawking, Stephen—The Theory of Everything (1996)

Hodgkinson, Tom—How to be Idle: A Loafer’s Manifesto (2005)

Hughes, Jonnie—On The Origin Of Tepees: The Evolution Of Ideas (And Ourselves) (2011)

Karnazes, Dean—Run! (2011)

Macdonald, Ross—The Moving Target (1949)

Marx, Karl (and Friedrich Engels)—The Communist Manifesto (1848)

Mieville, China—Embassytown (2011)

Moore, Alan—The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999)

O’Brien, Flann—At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)

Palast, Greg—The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2002)

Pynchon, Thomas—V. (1963), Slow Learner (1984), Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)

Rand, Ayn—The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Vonnegut, Kurt—The Sirens of Titan (1959), Cat’s Cradle (1963)

Watts, Alan—Tao: The Watercourse Way (1975)

Watts, Peter—Starfish (1999), Maelstrom (2001)

Wells, Dan—I Am Not a Serial Killer (2010)

Wendig, Chuck—Blackbirds (2012)

Wilson, Robert Anton—Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)

Dream Interpretation

I saved this message on my phone while I was half asleep:

“Put dog in box and threw it into tree dream.”

The overall theme of the above text would lead you to believe that I had a dream where I put a dog into a box, then threw it into a tree. Sounds simple. On the other hand, dreams are riddled with arcane themes and symbolism, which may or may not be the subconscious trying to send a message or solve a problem.

Let’s break it down into component parts to see what it means.

Dog—I don’t like dogs.

Box—I don’t mind boxes, you can use them for storage.

The act of throwing—Also something I don’t mind, but also an activity I’m not gonna go out of my way to do.

Tree—I like trees.

We have here two things that I am indifferent to, one thing I don’t like, and one thing I do like. What a bizarre mixture of symbols. I already figured out what the dream means, though. Saddle up:

The dog is obviously a reference to the 1980 novel The Sirian Experiments by Doris Lessing, in which a planet very similar to Earth has been influenced and tinkered with behind the scenes by distant visitors from Sirius. Sirius is also known as the “Dog Star.”

The first message is clear: I must smoke out the Dog Star race, and “box” them up before they start inserting their instruments of science inside of us, if they haven’t already.

The box must then be thrown into a tree. Just any old tree? No. In Jewish mysticism, the Tree of Life represents the interconnectedness of all things, as well as the harmony of all creation.

Summary of interpretation: If I put the Dog Star people in a box and throw it into the Tree of Life, their conniving ways will come to an end and balance will be restored. That would make me the most important person on the planet at this point in Time.

Peter Watts – Starfish

This is the story of mentally disturbed people living on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, tending to a geothermal station. Their bodies have been altered, enabling them to withstand the pressure of the briny deep. Like any good story, things get all messed up—one lady loses her marbles, some guy dies, a pedophile goes off to live among the fish, a couple people have sex, and some sort of sentient gel starts running the show.
And one lady even appears to have Google Glass already(this book was published in 1999).

At first, I wanted to give this book a “Five Star(fish)” rating, but that was lame.

In lieu of a number or object based rating system, I’ll say this—Starfish is a good book.

Here’s A List Of The Books I Read In 2012

Adams, Douglas—The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (1979)

Atwood, Margaret—The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Brown, Dan—The Da Vinci Code (2003)

Burroughs, William S.—Nova Express (1964)

Capra, Fritjof—The Tao Of Physics: An Exploration Of The Parallels Between Modern Physics And Eastern Mysticism (1975)

Carlin, George—Last Words (2009)

Castaneda, Carlos—The Teachings Of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge (1968)

Chandler, Raymond—The Big Sleep (1939)

Collins, Suzanne—The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), Mockingjay (2010)

Dick, Philip K.—Dr. Futurity (1960), Ubik (1969), VALIS (1981)

Dickey, James—Deliverance (1970)

Eco, Umberto—Foucault’s Pendulum (1988)

Graves, Robert—I, Claudius (1934)

Hammett, Dashiell—Red Harvest (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Thin Man (1934)

Hannity, Sean—Let Freedom Ring: Winning The War Of Liberty Over Liberalism (2002)

Heinlein, Robert A.—Stranger In A Strange Land (1961)

Hoobler, Thomas and Dorothy—Confucianism (1993)

Hunt, Laird—The Impossibly (2001)

Jung, Carl—Modern Man In Search Of A Soul (1955)

Jurek, Scott—Eat And Run: My Unlikely Journey To Ultramarathon Greatness (2012)

Khan, Pir Vilayat Inayat—Awakening: A Sufi Experience (1999)

Lama, The Dalai—Stages Of Meditation (2003)

Le Guin, Ursula K.—The Left Hand Of Darkness (1969)

Lessing, Doris—The Sirian Experiments (1980)

Lovecraft, H.P.—At The Mountains Of Madness (1936)

Malesky, Kee—All Facts Considered: The Essential Library Of Inessential Knowledge (2010)

Miller, Frank—The Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Moore, Alan—Watchmen (with Dave Gibbons) (1986)

Ozaniec, Naomi—Initiation Into The Tarot (2002)

Pynchon, Thomas—The Crying Of Lot 49 (1966)

Ramsey, Dave—The Total Money Makeover (2003)

Sacks, Oliver—The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat And Other Clinical Tales (1985)

Thompson, Hunter S.—Hell’s Angels: A Strange And Terrible Saga (1966)

Toole, John Kennedy—A Confederacy Of Dunces (1980)

Tzu, Lao—Tao Te Ching (circa 600 BC)

Ventura, Jesse—Democrips And Rebloodlicans: No More Gangs In Government (2012)

Wangu, Madhu Bazaz—Buddhism (1993)

Wellstone, Paul—The Conscience Of A Liberal: Reclaiming The Compassionate Agenda (2001)

Wilson, Robert Anton—The Illuminatus! Trilogy (The Eye In The Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan) (co-written with Robert Shea) (1975), Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy (The Universe Next Door, The Trick Top Hat, The Homing Pigeons) (1979), Masks Of The Illuminati (1981), Prometheus Rising (1983)

2012 Half-Over Book Review

We’re directly in the middle of 2012. Here’s what I’ve read so far, with a brief summary of each book.

William S. Burroughs – Nova Express – Don’t let people or machines or language control you.

Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale – Women are stripped of freedoms to ensure their “protection,” and are forced into a very awkward mating ritual with an old guy and his wife.

James Dickey – Deliverance – It’s okay to murder a hillbilly who sodomized your friend.

Robert Graves – I, Claudius – Weak simpleton becomes emperor of Rome.

Dave Ramsey – The Total Money Makeover – Guy who used to be rich, then went bankrupt, then got rich again tells you that if you don’t spend money, you’ll have more money to spend.

Frank Miller – The Dark Knight Returns – Batman, now 55 years old, comes out of retirement.

Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49 – Oedipa Maas searches for the Trystero.

Robert Anton Wilson – Prometheus Rising – Widen your reality tunnel.

-The Illuminatus! Trilogy (co-written with Robert Shea) – An 800 page philosophical, psychological, historical, mythical, science fictional, psychedelical trip through various conspiracy theories.

Philip K. Dick – Dr. Futurity – A doctor is transported to a future where death is glorified and saving lives is frowned upon.

-Ubik – People search for Ubik as they uncontrollably travel backwards in time.

Robert A. Heinlein – Stranger In a Strange Land – Man with human parents who has been raised by Martians is brought to Earth. Mucho grokking ensues.

Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching – It’s all about the art of non-action. My kind of book.

H.P. Lovecraft – At The Mountains of Madness – Weird alien things found in Antarctica.

Hunter S. Thompson – Hell’s Angels – The Strange And Terrible Saga Of The Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs – Thompson hangs out with the Hell’s Angels for a year.