Ok Justin! I see you!

My last post underneath this one got me to thinking. I posted it at lunch time and then was sitting here at the school in the lobby zoning out, trying to think a complete thought without interruption from the students...I'm thinking I clicked around on the jpod website and no less than three links came up for skateboarding stuff, and I'm wondering what Douglas Coupland's deal is with that, and if it's explained in the book jpod. What does an old guy like D.C. care about skateboarding so much?

At this point someone was trying really hard to get my attention, so I snapped out of my stupor to see Justin in my line of vision, "hi teacher!" He's wearing this shirt today that says, "SKATEBOARDING IS ON MY MIND" and there's a picture of this guy that looks kind of like my ex in contemplative thought. Yeesh...it reminds me of my post on my MySpace blog regarding the conspiracies of the universe.

So, Theresa, You got jpod?

All this eluding to Douglas Coupland and the links on the side of your blog to Douglas Coupland news, what's really going on? Who is this person? What can you tell us?

Well in college I had to read Shampoo Planet for English, my introduction to the writing of D.C. We didn't discuss it much in class, and then had to write a final exam essay on it, and didn't know what the questions would be in advance. My essay kicked butt. The teacher used to teach at Stanford and holds a PhD. The college is located in a nice area, so teachers like to live there. This results in having an astounding local small college staff. Anyway, she wrote on my final, "you are the only one that really got this book."

And I did, Douglas Coupland writes for me and he reminds me of my friend Dave. He coined the now horribly misused term Generation X, that was the book title. He's an artist type that can't see things drably, even the drab he romanticizes[see Souvenir of Canada].

When my thinking gets too literal I need a Coupland antidote, or anecdote...whichever. Not that he isn't literal, but his windows have the right dressing. It's permission to be me, and there's not much media entertainment out there issuing these slips at the moment, especially to females. (Thank god for gay guys? -huh?)I need a hall pass to surreal thinking patterns that are so concrete they could be plans for a futuristic skyscraper (that doesn't scrape anything). I'm an accidental futurist so often and pained souls like me need the kindred spirits.

I'm in need of jpod and The Gum Thief, but I don't know if I can get them out here in the Phils.

BUT the reason for this post is to send readers to a very cool web page that must be played with and clicked, it's really fun and evil. Enjoy.
http://www.jpod.info/ The image of the cat is something I stole from the page ( you have to click around on there) title..."God is a Xkb state indicator"

There are also links on the page that pull up a google search for how to flip a skateboard, and one link to http://www.skateboardingis.com/ and pretty funny http://www.skateboardingsucks.com/, this is rude joke on skateboarders (commercialism) but at a quick glance and scroll and my super speed reading abilities, it looks well written, and there are probably some suckers out there that don't get it, just a guess. It's interesting, but not my sense of humor. I don't know, I don't really care if things go commercial. And certainly the people that write this website, however intelligent in their own areas of expertise, seem pretty standard in keeping with the currently misogynistic times. Even if it's parody, it's likely just reinforcing their readerbase badbrains. I'm tired of jokes at the expense of women. We're not animals, we're people.

I'm a misogynist-o-meter in that if society is currently extreme in women hating and exploitation and control, I become more of a feminist automatically, which normally I'm not.

This is the thing about Douglas Coupland, is that all his media sends me on a thinking carnival ride.

Douglas Coupland Quote

I lifted this from another blog.
"I think cynicism is lazy thinking posing as depth and coolness." - Douglas Coupland

Hee hee.

Microserfs and Sake

CR=Comfort Room=Restroom

There is no toilet paper in the bathrooms here at the college. The management refuses. In the lobby of the school there is a cardboard box where sometimes there are methodically folded up squares of tp inside. The secretary folds them. In fact she was just doing a whole batch now when I asked her if she'd made the photocopies that I'd requested and she told me no, because the management said the students should pay for the copies. Scrap (flush) that idea, then.

Anyway. I just noticed today that the cardboard box I've been taking toilet paper from for the last 6 months (when management finally agreed after many student complaints that they might provide toilet paper sometimes) is a Japanese Hakushika Sake box.

I think I just noticed that today because I'm re-reading microserfs by Douglas Copeland. He makes life seem more interesting, thereby perhaps increasing my observational powers.

Even though I'm re-reading this, I don't think I ever read it in the first place. Two reasons. One: I don't remember it. Two: I distinctly remember not liking it. I'm reading it now, and I like it just fine. It's very entertaining and strangely current (current enough).

This book came out in 1995. 12 years ago. That's a decade plus. (Gotta remind old folks like myself that think that was last year.) Here's an excerpt.

There was a weird moment at the end of the night when everyone was pixelated. Ethan was carrying two flaming Sambucas, and tripped over a Planet of the Apes lunchbox somebody left on the floor next to a backpack, and the drinks sloshed all over the back of Susan's T-shirt, and she was on fire, like the "Flame On!" guy from the Fantastic Four.


I don't know, I mean that's no big deal I guess, but it seems strangely current to me. A book with so much technology in it should be absurd anymore. But this book isn't at all like an 8 track cassette. Douglas Coupland just has a way
Douglas Coupland really super cool interview.