~ annoying phrases: ‘bleeding edge’, ‘teach-in’, and hearing terrorist attacks referred to as ‘911’ and/or ‘nine-eleven’.

~ one tie to the west coast has been cut by the angry red planet upon the discovery of a trader joe’s accessible from manhattan via the lirr. stockpiles of ‘vitality’ and ‘rice-um’ were acquired.

~ even though it is hotter than a two dollar pistol in this town, sore throats have ravaged the offices of the angry red planet; fevers and allergies followed to tag team any survivors. the quickness with which the diseases infested the offices can only be attributed to the lack of fortification which has arisen from both ‘vitality’ and ‘combat’ having been removed from our daily regimen. we do not seek pity from our gentle readers; rather, we merely offer this information as a complement to our recent lack of news. with the knowledge of this set of varied conditions, the reader may perhaps be able to deduce our most immediate histories, and he or she may forgive our lack of prolificacy accordingly.
   before this epidemic, however, we enjoyed an exciting weekend forays into the city:

~ our primary issue of locating a somewhat decent comic book store finally has been addressed; though the back issue stock is found to be wanting, and though a large portion of the store is devoted to toys and movie memorabilia, the girl behind the register—after giving us the elevator eyes—informed us that we did not need to check our bags, as did the suits before and after us. hence, “forbidden planet” at union square is our place to go, especially as vegan pizza is offered in a mediocre selection and presentation at ambitious prices just around the – well, a few – corners…

~ secondary issues of employment and habitation are still in need of being addressed. rather than expend any energy on these endeavors, we instead accompanied [k] from 1440dpi.com [w] to the most beautiful twin towers in lower manhattan, where we were free to discuss brilliant and moving issues, such as the regrettable misfortune that no one with the power has seen fit to build three or four more—pairs, of course—world trade centers in the immediate vicinity, before moving on to less crucial, but nonetheless justifiable concerns, such as which directors of the graduate program at sci-arc are most out of their league and which coordinator of the history and theory department is beating the deadest horse.

~ all this talk of ghosts in los angeles reawakened our homesickness, so, after a few minutes of looking away from a public act of fellatio on the metro, we arrived at a movie theater with the intent to assuage our nostalgia for the left coast with an intimate viewing of ‘crocodile dundee in los angeles’. this expedition ended in the dual disappointment of seeing no footage of the west side and the loss of $10 per admission. we were able to note, however, that the loew’s theater on 13th and broadway is no longer worthy of our support, as a 15-foot screen is not exactly what we expect in the second or third greatest city in the year ‘2001’ for—let’s be clear about this—$10 per admission.

~ the amounts of time and effort which sprint is spending to messages on our phones is becoming a little interesting. perhaps they have noticed that we have not responded to their literature since january, and they would like to ask if we are no longer interested in seeing paperwork from them. perhaps that is why they leave two messages a day for us. perhaps we will return the calls?

~ the discrepancy between the promise of the subheading ‘fine beverage’ and actual degree of enjoyment derived from a 28-cent can of ‘richfood birch beer’ is actually staggering.

~ ‘we don’t anyone to mind us, so…’

~ with our body partially rested, mind partially addled, and stomach fully loaded with butterflies and black russian bagels, we sit out the remaining five hours…

~ the angry red planet is wrapping up a cold and rainy week in georgia by catching colds and fevers. much holiday junk food was devoured, many comics were researched and archived, and several gore vidal tomes were reviewed. despite the suffering caused by ice and wind, the imminent return to los angeles and to the work is the closest thing to mind and farthest thing from desire.

~ unspoken thesis quote: ‘cold bean medley and tepid stewed cauliflower tastes like pain’

~ though we ended up investing far greater than one hour into the project, the angry red stool (v1.0) is now complete. the reviews are in: ‘your rendering looks better than the real thing about tenfold’.

~ if we can scratch up one five cent piece, there will be enough coin in the angry red planet coffers for the second black russian bagel this week.

~ we all got a lot of sleep last night, but *yawn*…is there a president-elect yet?

~ we still wonder what it was like to listen to guns’n’roses when they were still popular.

~ recently uncovered in the the angry red planet coffers are three american quarter dollars. these shall be exchanged for one black russian bagel as the first public act of tuesday morning!

~ it has been decided that one good, solid hour will be put into working on the ‘real’ – tangible(?) – version the angry red stool. whether or not this extraordinary amount of effort seems excessive, we feel that the importance of the piece justifies the event.

~ it should be evident that this is not a weblog. nevertheless, if it was a weblog, it certainly would not be a ‘blog’. as it happens, though, it is neither.

~ a drift:
a thanksgiving day of photoshop 5.5 and netscape 6  =>  a meal of lentils and pumpkin bread with citizens of los angeles  =>  the angry red planet again victorious in ‘trivial pursuit, genus edition’  =>  fueled by delusion, barreling a 1973 ford thunderbird into the chocolate mountain night  =>  freezing by the salton sea at 03:30  =>  guided by raw eyes, barreling back to los angeles at dawn.

~ the angry red planet vacation continues with the latest media consumed:
‘the mission’ with robert deniro
‘starship troopers’ with neil patrick harris
‘the stranger’ by albert camus
‘the road to wigan pier’ by george orwell
‘the thin red line’ with sean penn and nick nolte
‘mystery men’ with paul reubens
and ‘4, a universe x special’ by jim kreuger and brent anderson.

~ also consumed were a few dozen figs straight from the branches of a pair of fig trees discovered by an abandoned house we were inspecting; sickness followed.

~ judging from experience, i would say that i have only two minutes of a connection to the internet before the network server at my school [w] crashes again. in the meantime, please don’t tell anyone i live like this.