My E-mail is a Wimp

Today I sent out a mass e-mail to my friends alerting them I have redesigned and updated my Web site. And like with any mass e-mail, I received some bounce backs. What I thought was strange was the bounce back message my e-mail client sent to me:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at server289.com. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

Sorry it didn't work out? Are you breaking up with me or something? The wording of error messages can be a tricky business. How can you say it in such a way that's professional and straight forward, but not too friendly as too lose credibility. I think this message gives the impression that my e-mail client is a touchy, feely wimp who was last picked in gym class. I've given up? Since when were computers allowed to use contractions?

Book vs. Movie

I just finished reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, and like many other books, this one was turned into a movie. Now, sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, the latter is true. The movie completely misrepresented the book to the point of being laughable. To summarize, the novel is about a young man in college up east who comes home to his weathly parents in L.A. for Christmas break. Clay, the main character, falls back into his old life of drinking, drugs and apathetic behavior. He is a morally bankrupt wanderer who drifts aimlessly through his life witnessing and participating in deviant behavior. When the book ends, Clay is still apathetic to his emotions and the evil that surrounds him.

Now the movie completely screws everything up. They portray Clay as the "good friend" who is out to help his drug addicted friend Julian get out of debt. Let's just say the movie missed the entire point of the book. They completely changed characters, added plot points that didn't happen in the book and and turned the ending into an Aesop fable.

Book: Two Thumbs Up
Movie: Two Thumbs Down

GitoGito Hustler

A few months ago I made a trip down to the Creepy Crawl to see this great new ska band I discovered named Streetlight Manifesto. As I walk in, the door man says "Streetlight is not playing tonight." Fuck. I ask who is playing, but it's loud and I can't quite hear him. Still disappointed, I decide to stick around. Then after a while, I see these four, very short Japanese girls get up on stage. Each one picked up their respective instruments and the lead singer yells into the microphone "Are wu weady to wock and woll?!" The band breaks into the crazy-loud punk song all sung in Japanese. It was so loud that I don't think I would have been able to understand the words even if they were in English. They later introduce themselves in their broken english as GitoGito Hustler. I really couldn't believe that this hardcore music was coming out of these tiny women. Eventually their set ended and The Spunks came out and brought the house down. Long live GitoGito Hustler!

Nudity at the Grocery Store

I was about to stroll through the door of my local Schnucks on Saturday afternoon to pick up a few groceries, when all of a sudden this nine-year-old kid comes bolting out the exit door with two Schnuck's employees in hot pursuit. One of the employees was screaming "You may as well stop kid, we're gonna catch you." Now, apparently this shoplifter, who had about four or five items on him, had smuggled his loot out by stuffing it down his pants. And I think he may of had to unbutton his shorts to get everything to fit. So, as he was running away from the Schnuck's gestapo, his jean shorts began to fall off with each step. Unfortunately, the kid also decided not to wear any underwear that day. They eventually cornered him and it was all over. There were about ten customers, including myself, standing around watching this whole thing go down. What's funny is that no one was scared or tried to help chase the kid down. Everyone was too busy laughing.

Book Report: Survivor

I once heard a comedian do a bit about how after people read a book, they always find a way to work it into a conversation to make themselves sound smart and refined. So, I recently finished reading Chuck Palahniuk's novel, Survivor. The book is about a former religious cult member, Tender Branson, who has hijacked an airplane that is two hours away from crashing into the Australian outback. Alone, he records his life story into the airplane's little black box so that it will live on forever, even if he can't. Very dark at times, Survivor was full of interesting and absurd characters including a psychic, barren surrogate mother, a despicable agent and a weathly couple obsessed over the proper way to eat gourmet food in social situations. I highly recommend Survivor to all those who are looking for a good read. See, now don't I seem smarter now?

While I was looking for a picture of the book's cover on the internet, I must have found at least four different cover designs. I feel like I need to read it again with each cover and see if the ending turns out differently.

Paul Shirley, Bench Warmer

Paul Shirley, bench-warming small forward for the Phoenix Suns, kept an online journal during a five-game stretch. Apparently, the diary caused quite the stir in the media. It tells the interesting and somewhat bleak story of what it is like to be an NBA player. I guess no job is not without its problems.