create your space

Lord,













create your space...

why does everyone drink it all up?

it seems
all of the time
we get the right all wrong.
yet we speak of the truth
in our no spin zones.

when will we understand-
a broken bowl
will never hold any holy water,
and a shattered mirror
will always distort a perfect image?

still we take these distortions and package them up in groups of eight or ten
and create memos, lists, and adorable acronyms.

and to everyone who doesn't swallow, we say oxymorons-
because all morons hate it when you call them a moron.
and everyone else
is just a moron.

and those that don't swallow wonder,
"why does everyone drink it all up?"

they breathlessly await
the day a mustached oil baron and a young evangelist can share a perfectly situated milkshake

don't forget me

One of my favorite songs off of the new Neko Case album, Middle Cyclone, is a cover of Harry Nilsson's "Don't Forget Me." Here is what Neko (aka Ms. Golden Pipes) says about the song:

I had been toying with the idea of doing the Harry Nilsson song for this record, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm not going to sing it as well as Harry Nilsson, and I'm not going to play piano as well as Harry Nilsson, and I'm definitely not going to have an orchestra behind me. So I decided to go from the ground up rather then the top down: If there's going to be Not Harry Nilsson playing piano, maybe we could have six Not Harry Nilssons playing piano at the same time in a barn. We played all at the same time, and we did low, middle, and high octave. I think there's like 21 pianos total playing on the song. Garth [Hudson] is playing lead. I thought Harry Nilsson would approve of Garth Hudson playing piano on his song. I was the idiot who kept forgetting to let go of the sustain pedal. And I really like at the end how you can hear people letting off the pedals, and you can hear the wood. You can hear everything. There's an actual room there. It was either going to fail miserably or it was going to work, and I think it worked out. I like the sound of it.

Neko Case - Don't Forget Me (mp3)


Harry Nilsson - Don't Forget Me (mp3)





In the wintertime keep your feet warm
But keep your clothes on and don't forget me
Keep the memories
But keep your powder dry too

In the summer by the poolside
While the fireflies are all around you
I'll miss you when I'm lonely
I'll miss the alimony too

Don't forget me - don't forget me
Make it easy on me just for a little while
You know I'll think about you
Let me know you'll think about me too

And when we're older and full of cancer
It doesn't matter now, come on get happy
'Cause nothing lasts forever
But I will always love you

Don't forget me, please don't forget me
Make it easy on me just for a little while
You know I'll think about you
Let me know you'll think about me too

what does a trilion dollars look like?

Gosh, the economy... right guys? It's pretty bad and stuff. AMIRIGHT???? Man!

So anyway, we kept hearing about a few billion dollars over here and a few hundred billion dollars over there back in the fall. Going to banks and insurance companies - no big deal. Just nationalizing THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY, that's all. And at this point, we might as well attach a large General Motors sign to the front of the capital building. Wait, I think I can do that real quick.


And Ron Paul promised us that was not all we were going to see. We would soon see a trillion, he promised, begrudgingly.


So, let's see what one trillion looks like. (I am shamelessly copying and pasting the following images from a guy who used the Google Sketchup app):

This is a $100 bill. It's the largest denomination in general circulation:




A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily.




Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.




While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...




Next up, $1 Billion. Now we are getting somewhere.




Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros.


You might have to click the image to enlarge it and get a clear view - (notice that those pallets are double-stacked)...

CLICK HERE FOR IMAGE

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars" - that's what they're talking about.

the office just got good again (i hope)

The past two episodes of The Office have thrown in some much needed wrenches. Stringer Bell showed up and started calling the shots. Jim was finally at an awkward loss for words. Michael unexpectedly quit and aims to start his own paper company. My favorite part is at the end of the most recent episode when Pam and Michael throw reason and intuition to the wind and walk away from Dunder Mifflin looking proud and happy. Sortof. I couldn't help but be reminded of Ben and Elaine at the very end of The Graduate. Reality sets in pretty quickly.