Friday's Birdie Blogging.. from last Weekend's walk..

Depression - It's the new Melancholy

An idea came into my head while reading the awfully strange 2blowhards website and then I got all Googlasoured (half Googled, half soured, and half dinosaur making, in all, half a wit) trying to track it down.

What happened? I googled melancholy to see what it really is and I came across a piece of academic half-wittedness which makes clinical schizophrenia seem like the only logical way to deal with life:

The history of melancholy is the history of a double significance: at once
individual and societal, subjective and historical. Melancholy is first of
all a specific and individual experience of a particular kind of psychic
suffering, rendered at different moments in its history into the languages
of humoural theory, psychiatry, psychoanalysis and aesthetics. It is also a
concept under the sign of which poets, philosophers and historians have
sought to understand their own historical epochs.

First off, the math confuses me -- it really seems like they have two double significances (whatever that is) in the first sentence.

Second, anyone who feels compelled to note that individual experiences take place at different moment in history? They're being paid by the word, even if that payoff is nothing more pathetic than a Master's Degree.

Finally, it makes me very melancholy to realize that the author is probably allowed, by some state that should know better, to operate a motor-vehicle.

Which is the long way ino the question of depression and its role in day-to-day life (other than subsidizing legalized drug dealers like Pfizer and Glaxo Smith-Kline -- who you can tell are not a US firm by the hyphenated name). It seems like the Buzzcocks lied and everyone is not happy nowadays.

But now people are now happy to be depressed (or happy to pretend to be depressed)... it has become a badge of courage, a proof of creativity that does not require actual creation of anything, and, for lack of a better phrase, a comfortable winge.

Christ, look at the MySpace page of every adolescent in the world and you'll see it was never a more depressing time to be young and healthy and the only response is rebellion 101. In the "old days" however, if you were dumb enough to tattoo every square inch of your body with sub-jailhouse-tat quality ink and then pierce any part of your body that did not contain a vital organ? Well, you'd quite sensibly have been burnt as a witch. Gave the folks something to do on Sundays (pre-football) and kept the gene-pool quite a bit cleaner.

Jesus, I never thought I'd long for old-days I didn't even live through!

But when did depression become desirable, and when did it become a justification for acting out (from black eye-liner to multiple homocides at the old High School?)

And where is my dinner?

I dunno... I guess I got derailed by the internet...

And that's kind of depressing, really...

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Signs of End Time? -- "Punching someone in the nuts is not a first-class way of doing things."

So sayeth George Mason (unlikely final-four resident) Assistant Coach Chris Caputo.

I am not sure that using the word "nuts" is a first-class way of doing things, but I am very impressed that GM actually suspended a player for the first round of March Madness for doing something this asinine. A much more typical approach is the offseason, or, start of next season suspension. Or worse, just playing the swine who did it. I mean look what it took for Marcus Vick to finally get the boot.

I'm either happy, or I'm scared that everything I understand about college sports has been overturned. ;-)

Best Bass Lessons EVAR! Musician University....

Man...

in the two weeks I've been taking the basic bass course from musicianuniversity.com I've been ignoring the website, not doing many lessons, and generally not doing what I should.

But my tab-reading and fingering skills are advancing faster than they ever have.

online ed baby.. the way to go.

Messages From Above (received without comment)

03/27/2006 16:44:13 Original attachment (SJC_sced0106A.pdf) was Deleted. The original attachment was blocked from delivery due to current attachment blocking rules. You can safely save or delete this replacement attachment.

Diet plan; Deity Plan; Die Plan

New Design

whew... spent Friday doing a redesign just so I get a header on this site... learned a lot more about the templates than I wanted to.. still, I prefer the current look to the old one.. though more changes will come to make it a bit closer to the old one..

Diversity, Thy Name is Photoshop

Ho hum... diversity and graphics, always a dangerous intersection..

I found the first one on some site or other:



Nice, the black guy not only has dreads, but front teeth that wouldn't be out of place on a rabbit and a chipped tooth at that (oh.. and he has the white wimmins as well. Right on bro!).

Perhaps this an artifact of compression but, please.. wouldn't someone look at this before posting it?

These second two are a classic bit from somewhere in the Wonkette factory. Two entirely different advert campaigns which, tragically, used the same royalty-free provider - and that distinguished black guy defintely lives in NYC :

The Names just Keep on Coming!

More lovely spammer names...

Faultiness F. Swab Runs insurance scans on mom-and-pop stores that don't have security cameras capable of detecting his fake "fall and holler" tactics. Faultiness works with a partner...

Burgess G. Oilcloth who visits the stores in advance to spray oily surfactants on existing water puddles to ensure they don't dry up. Sometimes Burgess also works as a witness.

Accommodation G. Firefights is a self-described "odd cat" who likes the color red and sirens. The recent shift in fire-truck color from red to light-green has left Accommodation a bit lost and depressed. He is no longer employed at the Toys R' Us and spends most nights at home with his red wine and Wellbutrin

More Great Spammer Names

Pebbling T. Israels - Ekes out a meager living selling rocks with artificially sharpened edges to willowy Palestinian youths. Has a sideline business as an informant to the Israeli army.

Behooves G. Appalled - Runs an unpopular right-wing blog dedicated to accusing opponents of the president (about 67% of the populace, if current polls are to be believed) of treason and hatred of "America"

well.. actually they both want to sell me pharmaceuticals... but what splendid names!