Update

OK, OK. I begrudgingly updated my ‘About‘ page to include a picture of me and of each of my dogs.  My picture is from 2005 anyway, when I was like 20 pounds lighter so I’m not worried, though my dogs’ pictures are recent. 

I also decided to confess my love/hate (actually, more distrust/distrust) of Facebook…. The gist is I’ll be your ‘friend’ if you be mine.  And no, I will not bother you with wall scribblings or shit like that unless you’re into that. I just want to see how many people someone like me could actually get to become my Facebook friend… (though, if real life is any indicator, not many).

Above: Yes, it’s me, Jsmn.

Literati

Art for artists’ sake

The latest, February issue of Elle magazine includes a short article on how many artists these days are catching on to the shady practice of ‘flipping’ (The Art of Revenge: Why Some Artists Won’t Sell Out, Literally, to Deep-Pocketed Collectors by Megan Deem, page 138).  Like ‘house flipping,’ artists today also face buyers ready and willing to ‘flip’ their recent purchase for much more.  The article mentions a few notable artists, namely Damien Hirst and Ryan McGinness, and how they’re now in the habit of either being more selective with regards to whom exactly may bid on their work, or drafting agreements that would ensure a split of the profits should the buyer indeed decide to sell. 

I’d like to think that people rich enough to drop thousands of dollars at a time for art work are classy enough not to do something like that but a little voice in my head keeps telling me to stop being naive: even wealthy, hipster art-buyers are just as capable of being greedy and being total jerks, if not more so.  Though I don’t imagine they’d post it up on eBay; they’d probably sell it for cash, under the table, to a friend of a friend of a friend of the owner of a vintage, mid-century furniture store, or something uber-hip like that.

It’s good to know artists these days are becoming more pro-active and business-minded; the stereotype is that art and commerce can’t mix, but the reality is that they do.  Besides the named artists, who, are already wealthy (compared to most artists) and well-established, I’m sure there are scores of ’starving artists’ who are starting to really think about the business of art, to whom their work will go to and where it may ultimately end up.  I know that I’ve thought about my work retaining its character and integrity, regardless if I ever sell a piece or if it simply stays with me, but I’ve never thought about art ‘flipping.’  It seems so silly to do so because how can a buyer/”flipper” be sure that the artist is well-known or respected enough to garner more interest and, therefor, higher bids?  In addition to being a wealthy jerk, I guess you’d also have to actually know a thing or two about the current art world. 

“Men will fuck mud.”

…In the same issue of Elle magazine is a feature article on Heidi Fleiss, the former ‘Hollywood Madam’ (the article is also available online for a limited time on the Elle website under ‘In the Magazine’).  Before I realized it, I got sucked into Fleiss’ strange and, arguably, distorted world.  These days, she’s managed to escape the meaty fists of Tom Sizemore and has set up camp in some shithole in Nevada called Pahrump (no offense, Pahrump-ians but you do have legalized prostitution and you’re way the hell out in the desert – sorry, that doesn’t sound like paradise to me).  Her new business venture?  A male brothel in the sex-for-money-friendly county where nearby Crystal, NV is located.  I honestly don’t know where a pimp would find all the dough to buy the land, etc., and I don’t think I’d like to know, but Fleiss is placing her hopes in a laundromat she’s named ‘Dirty Laundry’ – apparently, it’s the only one for miles and will help bankroll her stud farm (her estimate is $30K a month – do laundromats take in that much a month???).

Besides pimping, Fleiss is now enjoying single life with her parrots and many, local-area, quasi-friends, many of whom she personally helps out financially, which I guess is a little redeeming.  But what really drew me was how funny the article is: without trying whatsoever, the article really is hilarious.  Granted, the context has humor already built-in (a pimp living alone in the desert with her parrots  decides to open a male brothel – the next, big sitcom?), but Fleiss herself is surprisingly entertaining, pointing out things in such a matter-of-fact way.  

She refers to another, aging, smarmy brothel-owner as a “the 200 year old pimp” (this guy owns 3 brothels himself, one of which is called ‘The Cherry Patch Ranch’), and, when trying to justify her belief that Crystal, NV, can transform itself with the introduction of just “four or five fancy houses,” leisurely remarks “They’re all kind of weird here, but these people will go. Like this guy here, someone needs to kill him.” 

I should probably credit the writer here at this point as many of her descriptions added to the laughs: I’m not sure if Ariel Levy meant for her piece to be so funny, and either way, it was well-written.  I don’t know but the thought of a brothel joined alongside a prostitution ‘museum’ is even funnier when Levy describes how the said ‘museum’ consisted mainly of “old newspaper clippings about prostitution.”  The absurdity makes me laugh out-loud.

I should note that there was a news blurb sometime back about how Mike Tyson was hired to be one of Fleiss’ studs: forget it, it was a total hoax, though I actually believed it when I first heard about it.  Maybe it’s because Tyson is a convicted rapist of a meathead….?  But no, he’s not one of studs for sale for those crazy few who would actually want to be anywhere near him…

And this just in from the Land of the Lonely…

Hmmm, more evidence that being lonely is not good for you.  Loneliness not only ‘breeds [a] belief in the supernatural,’ telling, related, linked-article titles also proclaim that ‘Loneliness kills‘ and, on the up-side, that ‘Anger is good for you.’  What if you’re angry and lonely….?  When you think about it, one could inform the other, but they’re just as uncomfortable to deal with…

Wish you were here

This is probably the longest I’ve gone between posts.  Well, I’ve been busy.

My big heart.

According to the results of my echocardiogram, my heart muscle is slightly enlarged.  Without going into the details, I should note that is not a good thing.  I’ll be telling a lot of people, besides all of the doctors I ever complained to about my rapid heart beat, ‘I told you so.’

‘You shave? Youhavesomehairthere.’

I went to another doctor today, an endocrinologist, and during the exam, as I lay almost naked (I only had my underwear on underneath that paper robe) on the table, my doctor took a look at my crotch and quickly muttered, in his broken English, ‘You shave? Youhavesomehairthere,’ before covering me up.

Geez, I’m no Sasquatch down there, but then again, I didn’t realize he paid such close attention to such things.  I’m sure he’s seen much worse.  But I laughed anyway as this doctor was older, in his late 60s, and the English language, both literal and conversational, is apparently not his first language.

My ‘monthly visitor.’

How do I go about talking about such an icky topic?  Well, for one thing, I’m not going to directly reference it.  But I’m sure that besides children, virgins, and those addicted to computers and the Internet, you’d know enough to know that I’m talking about female genetalia issues - otherwise, don’t worry about it; for all mentioned, I just advise you to ask your parents, or look it up online.

But today, my ‘monthly visitor’ finally arrived, after on and off spotting for the past 4 weeks.  Starting on December 21st of last year, the day I found out that I had been officially kicked off from my work email access, I was experiencing some really weird, irregular ‘visits.’  They weren’t at all consistent and did not conform to my regular schedule.  But this morning, things finally evened out.  I’ve never been more happy to welcome my ‘monthly visitor.’  I have not been feeling well at all these past few weeks and I think this will help me get back to an even keel.

Why do I feel the need to mention it, you ask?  Besides the mental/emotional and physical relief, the moon was almost full last night and there’s always been that myth or old wive’s tale about how full moons bring on the ‘monthly visitor…’ 

When I was throwing the trash out last night, I remember looking up and seeing the moon so bright in the sky and wondering what it would bring with it.

Wrestling with IVAR

This weekend, I finally set up the IVAR shelves I bought at IKEA; I bought it for only $59 like 8 months ago and it had been gathering dust ever since.  But I thought I’d be productive and just set the damn thing up. 

I originally purchased the shelves to fit into my bathroom closet, and it did indeed fit but not without a lot of struggle. 

To begin with, it’s cheap for a reason: I didn’t see the need to anchor it to the wall as it would reside within an enclosed space, but I imagine that at some point, it would become a liability.  Unfinished, the wood is simple, lightweight pine, the shelf held together via the actual shelves, though flimsy looking, metal cross-braces are available for separate purchase.  They don’t help, unfortunately hindering construction more than anything. 

Because the braces were so troublesome, I eventually just decided to remove them and move on.  But that still didn’t ensure a smooth assembly for me.  Several times, the damn sides collapsed, a couple of times falling right on top of me. 

When it was finally time to put the shelves in, I was disappointed to find that in many places, the wood was not cut or routered to match.  There has never been more chipped and dented wood than when I was trying to squeeze the shelves to fit; my hands and forearms bear small cuts and bruises from the effort.

If you’ve bought anything that required assembly from IKEA, you’d know that the instructions aren’t much help, if any. Made on the cheap and meant to communicate to as many people as possible, they’re brief and to the point, omitting most if any text, preferring instead cartoony or generic depictions.  When IVAR was delivered, it actually didn’t come with instructions, but I was able to track them down on the IKEA website.  Mine included the friendly little, gender-neutral thing found in many of IKEA’s instructional literature. 

Above: Without any text, this is best interpreted as ‘See this? Now, see this.  To get this, put these 4 things in here.’

Price check

• I didn’t know they still did this but today at the drugstore, besides requesting a price check over the loudspeaker, the cashier actually described the product as well for everyone in the store to hear.  Lucky for me it was only a bottle of hair conditioner, but I thought they only did that kind of thing in movies or t.v. shows, for comedy…?  It also got me thinking as to whether or not she would have done that if the item, were say, a tube of KY Jelly, or a value box of magnum condoms…???

Above: It probably wouldn’t be this funny in real life…

• This coming week is National Pizza Week in America.  The holiday was celebrated last November in the UK for the purposes of “…increas[ing] awareness of pizza as a mealtime favourite…,” according to their Pizza, Pasta, & Italian Food Association.  Since when was pizza not a ‘mealtime favourite’?  Too bad I gorged myself on Pizza Hut earlier this week – I got so sick that the thought of eating pizza, at least for now, just does not sound good to me.  Still, it’s a hell of a holiday.

Above: An actual e-card for Pizza Week: is it just me or is that cup of soda full of sexual innuendo…?

Above: The first part of another e-card….

Above: …this one highlighting mental health awareness alongside pizza celebration (check out the mushroom).

• Maybe it was the aforementioned, pizza-binge, or maybe it was the surprisingly painful renal ultrasound I had the very next day, but I felt sick this whole week, suffering from a lot rare migraines.  It was probably the ultrasound as it left my whole middle sore; I felt like I’d gotten beaten up.  Those ultrasound technicians push down hard – I didn’t know if she was trying to get an image of my kidneys or if she was trying to straight up cut them out of me. 

• I’m sincerely considering getting a personal loan from Virgin Money.  Obviously, I wouldn’t get a loan to pay off other loans or bills – that just continues a vicious cycle of debt.  I would definitely use it to get myself started and self-employed, but any kind of money lending is always suspicious to me.  That’s weird as my father works as a loan broker – I think I know too much of what actually goes on and how things really work.  But Richard Branson’s cheery, forward-looking outlook helps.

Above: How can you not when Richard Branson is this psyched about it???

No, I don’t have a life

Shopping for underwear on Amazon is fun:

Above: For when you can’t get it the natural way - by sitting on your ass, blogging about crap all day, while eating Doritos.

Above: Duuuuuddde!  What. The. Hell. (go to the link to find out exactly what this is – or don’t)

Above: Could a girl still be considered ‘hot’ if she farted while wearing this thong?

You’re just asking for it

If you look on the sidebar, you will see that I’ve rejoined the dark forces and decided to continue on with my puny Facebook account, going so far as creating a widget.  Don’t worry – I have yet to send anyone any ‘gifts’ from their totally ridiculous and totally virtual marketplace giftshop (you give money to ’send’ a little icon to someone – I know, WTF).  But I’m opening up to at least maintaining a presence there, for example, possibly adding some cool apps to my profile (yikes, listen to me: “Apps,” like I know what I’m talking about). 

From what I remember from my last job, this whole apps-for-Facebook thing is pretty popular, with a lot of amateur developers submitting their own apps alongside the big boys (read: guys who actually get paid to make apps); a couple of my direct supervisors mentioned it a few times and now that I see the list available, I could see why the public and companies and businesses are embracing it as a new form of expression and marketing. 

As I write this, there are well over 12,000 apps available on Facebook for all your personalizing delights.  I’ve seen a few other profiles and you can get pretty creative and complicated with them, setting up your own little world, not unlike the spread of the daily newspaper.  I was thinking of just adding a simple astrology app first, nothing too heavy or involved – just something for fun.  But as I went through the list of apps, I became increasingly tense as a lot of the apps listed almost seemed to exist just to set up a giant, ironic trap for me; honestly, someone like me is just asking for it if they decide to put the ‘Are you a bitch?’ or ‘Are you hot or not?’ apps on their profile.  If you give the public a choice between marking you as something good or something bad, chances are, if you thought about it enough to actually seek the answer out, you’re probably going to end up as something bad (a bitch or totally not in the case of my examples).

Since there were thousands of apps to sift through, I knew I would have to stop at some point, and stop I did on page 64 (I don’t know what number that put me at).   Still, I managed to gather a pretty good list of Facebook apps that I personally could not add because the answer would be too obvious and too sad.  Note that the titles listed here are the exact titles and exact spellings; nothing was paraphrased or censored – I just added my commentary.

• HOT or NOT
• What fruit are you?
• Have Sex! – The short description says “Browse profiles of hot looking people and Have Sex! with them in different positions and places! Put a “Have Sex!” button on your profile so your friends can Have Sex! with you.”  I’d consider this for laughs, if it weren’t for the fact that the text ‘Have Sex’ is totally off-center inside the circle (I’m sorry, but it just makes it look even cheaper).  The highlight of this particular app is one particular discussion topic suggested by one, lonely dude titled ‘[H]ow we can make it real???????’ (only one other guy responded - sad).
• Are you color blind? – Funny only because how sad would it be to find out, on Facebook no less, that you’re fucking color blind?
• Reputation – Apparently, your friends and family can rate you based on your “…[t]rustworthiness, [i]nfluence,
  [i]ntelligence, [h]appiness, and [c]oolness.”  Phew! That was a close one!  I have neither close friends nor close family – what does that mean?
• Human Pets – I think this got lost in translation somehow.
• What’s your stripper name? – Dude, my mother named me Jasmine.  End of story.
• Circle of Trust – The dev describes this app as gathering “…trustworthiness ratings across your network and tells you who you can trust and who you can’t.” Fuck, man.  What are they trying to do – get me to spend more money on therapists and anti-depressants??
• SexyPoke! – A variant on the standard, Facebook ‘Poke’ function, this app is supposed to allow you to “[t]ie them up, do a strip tease, eat whipped cream out of their bellybutton, and many more… “  Why don’t they just cut the crap and make a ‘Penis Poke’ app?  Because that’s what I’m reading here: ‘Hehehe, let me poke you with my penis. Heheheh.”
• Dope Wars – So sick and subversive, I was sooo tempted to get this one.  I especially love how the dev sells the app: “Deal 4 kinds of dope in 5 parts of town. Buy guns, trucks, boats, and warehouses. Fight your friends, the cops, and the DEA. Get hotties, and become a cartel boss.”  Fuck yeah motherfucker!
• How Sexy Is Your Name? – My name is Jasmine.  I’m betting it’s sexier than yours.
• Popularity – ‘Nuff said.
• Which Disney Princess Are You? – Which one do you think I am?
• Make A Baby! – With this app, you can “[m]ake babies with your friends! Fill in your skin color, eye color, etc. and see if your baby gets those looks. You can also make a baby alone or adopt someone else’s. Add a baby to your profile and let your friends hug, cuddle and scold it.”  I’m usually really cool with babies but not virtual babies.  This is just another reminder of how I’m pretty much wasting my eggs and will never pro-create.  I love life!
• Are you a bitch? – We’ve met, right?
• Marry Me, Sex Me, Kill Me – A possible relative of the aforementioned ‘Are you a bitch?’ app.  I already know what the answer will be – it involves me getting run out of town, as the townspeople hurl their torches at me.
• What Mental Disorder Do You Have? – OK, way too close to home. 
• Would You Date Me?
• Are You a Hottie or a Cutie?
• FaceDouble Celebrity Look-alike – Troublesome for me because I just know this app will somehow be a total bitch and, first of all, compare me to a dude, and secondly, the dude will be someone like Lionel Ritchie, or, at the very best, Johnny Depp. 
• Are You a Sex Machine or a Love Doctor? – Neither – from the looks of things, I’m a ‘Ball Buster.’
• Good vs. Evil – Described as an app to see if you’re good or evil, based on what your friends say.  I know this is meant to be cute but for me, it’s just too dangerous.
• What Animal Are You? – I imagine I’d get the more rotund animals like a panda or a hippo or a pig.  Bitches.
• Are You Normal? – This does not deserve a response.
• What Drug Are You? - I’d probably get something with less status cache like some over-the-counter one like Midol or exLax.
• How stupid are you? – Insultingly enough, complete with a picture of Albert Einstein (I’d sue if I were his estate).  As for me, ‘Stupid enough to be working on a blog on social networking on a Friday night.’
• How will you die?
• What serial killer are you?
• What disaster are you? – A very judgmental app as it already assumes, right off the bat, that you’re some schizo virago….
• What dictator are you?
• What crime are you?  – This app would fucking break.
• What sex toy are you?
• Are You Porn Star Material? – I repeat: my name is Jasmine.
• How fat are you? – If the fact that you’ve been on your ass for several hours tending to a virtual life doesn’t tell you anything, you’re probably fat as hell.
• Poo Fight – Where you can “[f]ling poo at your friends!”  OK, I was just going to TP their house but this takes it an extra step further.
• PENIS or VAGINA? – I’ll just bring my own, reusable bag, thanks.
• Are U CrAzY?
• What Simpsons character are you? – I’ve actually, seriously thought about this question on my own and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a strange mixture of half Moe and half Marge, if you can wrap your head around that one.
• Date of Death Calculator
• Addicted to Boy Meets World – What kind of world do we live in where there are actually people who are addicted to that lame-ass show??
• Love Me – Touted as the app that lets you “[s]hare your love and affection with friends,significant others, mistresses, partners, crushes, and secret admirers by sending them some virtual love!”  ‘Mistresses’??
• Are you a loser? – Back off, jerk.
• How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take In A Fight? – Whoever wrote this app should not be allowed near children.
• How ghetto are you? – Dude, if you managed to get on the Internet, if you especially know what an ‘app’ is, I guarentee you are not very ghetto as I’m thinking there aren’t a lot of Computer Science majors in the ghetto.
• What’s your Pornstar Name? – Nothing new here but the app picture is particularly interesting….
• Paris or Britney? – I’ll take ‘PENIS,’ please.
• What’s your Gangsta Name? – The same one I have now, except spelled ‘GazMyyn.’
• Am I Cross Eyed… – If you were able to read the title, I think you’ll be fine.

Here is where I stopped, ironically enough, at the ‘Am I Cross Eyed…’ app, right when my brain was starting to boil and when I started seeing double.  I’m sure there are more apps to blow your mind but I can’t take staring at the screen for too long so I’m just going to leave it at that.

In short

• Iowa, you surprised me.  No, not the Republican side, the Democratic side.  I definitely did not expect that.  Thank you!
• Oh, Britney Spears – what is up with you?  I’m sorry, but I can’t feel sorry for someone who’s got all of the resources in the world to better herself.  If I feel sorry for anyone, it’s her kids.
• Phew!  I’m glad I held off on asking the fake, Bilawal Bhutto to be my Facebook friend.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have the time for Facebook these days…
• OK, I changed my mind: now I’m freaking over the weather here.  Just going out this afternoon to run a few errands was a death-defying feat.  But apparently, according to one meterologist I heard on tv, ‘the worst is over’ (what a beautiful phrase).

Above: Photo of a rainy, downtown SF from Yahoo/Reuters.

Your calling is calling

Monster.com is airing a new commercial with a really great concept.  In it, people are moving about on tracks while one guy is just walking however which way through them.  At the end, the following words come up: ‘Find your own path.  Your calling is calling.’ 

The irony is that if you’ve ever actually used Monster.com, or any job search site for that matter, you’d know that a lot of the jobs offered are just the same as those most people who would identify with the commercial would find crappy, such as administrator or clerical type jobs, or jobs that are so strictly cookie-cutter that you wonder why companies just don’t start cloning people anyway, just to fill such soul-sucking positions.  I’m not knocking Monster.com; sites like that are still important and vital, but I think it’s just funny to sell their services as somehow being ‘different’ or pioneering - it really isn’t. 

The problem really lies with employers still operating in that out-moded way of thinking that the employee will do as they’re told so long as they’re paid – businesses and companies, for some reason, have yet to acknowledge that a happy person is a happy worker, and that offering the same old, shitty-ass jobs is only going to hurt their profit margins in the long run.  Oh, and that in addition to money, a happy life consists of many more intangible things such as recognition and respect for the individual.  Maybe they can try offering that too?

Having said that, I wanted to add another concept to the Monster.com commercial: show people like Plinko chips, bouncing to and fro from one peg to another, only to end up in pre-ordained, designated slots (Plinko is, by the way, a cheesy-ass, brainless game on the Price is Right – you don’t need any skill or fore-thought to play it as all you do is drop your puck and hope for the best, kind of like job hunting).  How depressing. 

You’re damn right my calling is calling and I’m answering it.

You could stand under my umbrella

• Compared to the rest of the country, it’s been a pretty mild winter here in Northern California, but today, a storm is expected to arrive, lasting over the weekend.  Still, I’m not worried.
• Speaking of rain, how corny was it when I went to my local pharmacy to hear the song “Rain” (sung by Madonna) over the loudspeakers…?  I’d like to note this song was from before Madonna was ever with any child (pre-Lourdes/Lola, whatever her name is now), and before she realized she had gone from edgy and youthful to Top 40, easy-listening ‘ballad’ (I think it’s safe to say she’s back to edgy and youthful now).
• Fun times!  Besides the rain, guess what’s in store for my weekend??  Check out the picture: part of my on-going treatment for high blood pressure (thanks, former job!):

  
  Above: Lookin’ for catecholamines…