Heroines and Heroin

So, I started watching the sci-fi television series Heroes recently. It’s dark. It never really lets up; I find myself making a lot of comparisons between Heroes and Lost, and one major difference is that the latter tends to have more heartwarming and optimistic moments (though it seems like this has decreased as the show has progressed). One similarity between the two, which makes both of them more enjoyable, is the broad spectrum of personalities in the shows and how we are supposed to (and how we do) feel about them. The thing I noticed about Heroes, is that when being introduced to a character for the first time, they sometimes ostensibly seem like “the bad guy,” but over time, after getting to know this character, I find a place for the character in my heart (see Brain). The only character that Heroes marks as actually completely, objectively, and entirely evil is Sylar. Characters like Nathan Petrelli and The Man with the Horn-Rimmed Glasses I found to be complete jerks at the start, but now I feel sympathy for them, cognizant of their suffering. This is also true for me in regard to Lost‘s Sawyer and… just him, I think. Sawyer seems less like a douche than he was in Season 1. But as I just have realized, there are more set-in-stone evildoers in Lost I think; Charles Widmore and Ben will never get too much sympathy. There were maybe a couple episodes that by revealing Ben’s background made me feel sorry for him, but it just wasn’t enough to warrant perpetual sympathy.

Perpetual emotion machines.

Recently I finished reading Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels, another chapter in the Dulouz Legend. It was amazing, and definitely more depressing than the other Kerouac I’ve read. He lives on a mountain in Canada as a fire watchman for two months at the start of the book, and while he’s on ground-level for the remainder of the book, it feels like he left something behind. Kerouac both questions and embraces Buddhism, Christianity, and religion throughout the book, while he travels with the Beats & Co., through America, Mexico, Tangiers, France, Dictionopolis, etc. There are a ton of Beats and writers in this book compared to his other work that I’ve read, and you really get to know each one pretty well (they hang out with Salvador Dali, too, it’s sweet).

One such writer you get to know pretty well is William S. Burroughs, famous for his obscene novels, heroin abuse, and the bullet he put through Joan Vollmer’s face. I have already started re-reading Naked Lunch, a terrifying journey through Burroughs junk-infested, political, depraved vision of the world. Terrifying is no exaggeration. In Desolation Angels, Kerouac talks about having nightmares from reading it (called Nude Supper in the book, due to some lame publishing issue which made him change the names of people, poems, etc. in his books).

So ya.

My favorite crayon as a child was Vivid Tangerine.

Materialism and Song

Materialism

Today my Swiss+Tech Utili-key 6-in-1 came in the mail:

Swiss+Tech Utili-key 6-in-1

Product Features:

- Flat Screwdriver
- Phillips Screwdriver
- Micro Eyeglass Screwdriver
- Straight Blade Knife
- Serrated Blade Knife
- Bottle Opener

At first, I was skeptical at the utility of the contraption (despite its name) when I took it out of the fine gift box it came in. It seemed to be a hassle to slide it onto my keyring… until I realized that loop on the key actually unhooks so you can easily snap it onto any keyring.

It seems to be fairly well-designed, despite how minimally all the features were added to the key. I intend to do a series of tests over the next few days to test all the functions of the machine. I will blog the results.

In other news, my roommate’s dvd player is now region-free, thanks to how easy it is to hack it. All I had to do to hack the LG DN191H was burn a text file with gibberish (“jalksdj” or something) named LG36868.IMG to a CD and put it in the dvd player. When I booted up the player, the player allowed me to select any region code I wanted. I selected “0″ for region-free, and then proceed to watch Dylan Moran’s stand-up routine, Monster on a region 2 DVD.

Song

Radiohead’s “Cuttooth” has to be one of the most moving songs I have ever heard. The lyrics are great too ->

I will leave the wallpaper life and run away to the foreign legion…

And as the tanks roll into town… as the tanks roll into town…

A little bit of knowledge will destroy you… a little bit of knowledge will destroy you.

And as the tanks roll into town… as the tanks roll into town…

A little bit of knowledge will destroy you… a little bit of knowledge will destroy you.

I don’t know why I feel so tounge-tied,
I don’t know why I feel so skinned alive.

Moan until your lungs are sore, until you cannot feel it anymore…
Moan until your lungs are sore, until you find an open door.

I’ll build you up to pull you down, tie you to your feet and watch you drown,
A little bit of knowledge will destroy you… a little bit of knowledge will destroy you.
I’ll build you up to pull you down, tie you to the stake and watch you burn in hell…
In hell…
I don’t know why I feel so tounge-tied,
I don’t know why I feel so skinned alive.

I’ll find another skin to wear.

It shares the same chorus as “Myxomatosis” from Hail to the Thief.

Well, I have to go hail to some thieves; later.

- The Soup Nazi

Dr.Pepper and Annelids

I desperately tried to think of something worthwhile to write about for a first entry, but this is all I came up with.

Yesterday at work I realized for the very first time that the encircled 23 found on a Dr.Pepper can is because the taste of Dr.Pepper is apparently made of 23 unique flavors. (This is explained in the words along the circumference of the “circle.”) I’m not sure what actually constitutes as a flavor to satisfy this claim, but I say with confidence that Dr.Pepper is probably the most flavorful soda out there.

23 is considered either lucky, unlucky, sacred to the goddess Eris, sinister, sacred to the unholy gods of the Cthulhu Mythos, or strange.

After a quick glance at the “Origins” section of the Wikipedia entry, I turn to William S. Burroughs, heroin junkie of the Beat Generation, for the answer to the 23 flavors. (This means I need to give Naked Lunch a reread and read Junkie.)

-Yash

P.S. The Pizza Hut in north Fargo never has Dr.Pepper.