Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

bloggish

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I couldn’t make that last post funny … really, i tried. For three days. It wasn’t gonna happen.

There’s a quote posted across from my desk: “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.” Mark Twain put it well; sometimes when i try to capture my feelings onto this page it comes out long and rambly and saying, yes, exactly what i meant, but not in a way i’d expect you to want to slog through just for a few easy punchlines. So i edit, i whittle, i carve, i tweak, but this time i came out with a humorless lump of coal rather than the snarky diamond of wit i so often aim for — neither concise and well-done or rambly and gleeful.

I think what i’m trying to say is that if you could giggle, titter, or chuckle just once or twice as you read it i would feel a lot better about it. It was supposed to be funny; give me the benefit of doubt. Just this once.

Please?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/08/106138668774033306/

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I don’t write, i don’t call… you’d think that I don’t like the internet. Really, it is sometimes what keeps me awake, alert, and alive. Especially because of coffee.

I have discovered that I cannot ingest anything more than the most minuscule amount of caffeine. This falls somewhere between inconvenience and embarrassment when it comes to the caffeinated peer pressure that in inherent in the corporate environment. Each morning my co-workers invariably fuel up on coffee, breezing through the coffee station at the breakfast stand like a stealth bomber quickly refueling in the air. Coffee keeps them going, it makes them sharper.

Coffee does not make me sharper. Not in the least. Coffee fuzzes my edges, as if my body is a camera trying unsuccessfully to capture a subject in motion. An afternoon trip to Starbucks leaves me feeling drugged, unable to control myself or stop talking or just think clearly for a single second. Is this what it’s like, i think, to be on speed? Moving without even having to think about it.

I have resigned myself to empty-handed trips to the cafeteria at ten fifteen, when they are just heading for a reload. As they return, sipping their caramel-colored drug, i slip into my cube, surreptitiously loading Little Yellow Different or bluishorange or Wockerjabby and getting my fix and then, reinvigorated, re-attack my work.

You have so much energy!, is what they always say. I always extol the virtues of eight cups of water and a bottle of cranberry juice a day with no red meat and only a touch of liquor. I guess i should really just own up and tell them to get a blog.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/08/106095459601423923/

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Which is funny, in an ironic way, because this weekend i was telling someone about Crushing Krisis, and i had this overwhelmingly clear moment where i remembered my original conception of it, how everything in the world is pressing against me and that i am in the middle slowly asphyxiating but at the same time slowly pushing back against it all with all the pressure i can bring to bear, and how it is all just crushing in both directions, and whatever is still breathing in the end wins.

So maybe it was a dream about blogging.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200316301/

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Coolness

Meet Ariel Meadow Stallings. She is a blogger of some note and repute, but i really only know her as a commenter on Little Yellow Different. Apparently, she’s also an occasional contributor to the (now defunct?) Shift magazine, which i had never even heard of before today. Her latest contribution was an article about small-time blogger Helen-Jane, who was hired (yes, hired) to blog on the behalf of a movie starring real famous people!

How, you ask, did a little-known blogger get flown across the country to do such high-profile weblogging? Simple: star on Ernie Hsuing‘s reality-based Blind Date Blog this past year, which i ostensibly served as a color commenter on, along with Cyan Pictures president Josh Newman. That makes Helen and i both alum of the same fantastic blog empire! So, theoretically i connect to Helen-Jane here. However, let’s keep moving…

The movie, I Love Your Work, stars Christina Ricci, Vince Vaughn, Jason Lee, and Elvis Costello. The index page of its website, to my vague disbelief, is literally Helen-Jane’s daily log from the set (which is also covered in this Salon article). The move site provides a link to Helen’s personal webpage and there, in her top-left-sidebar box she highlights what she is currently “listening to.” And, what, you ask, is she listening to?

None other than Peter Mulvey, my personal favorite folk-rock hero and my mainstay musical influence — not to mention being one of the few people on earth who owns both of my demo cds as well as occasionally talking to me from on-stage about his bottom-end. So to speak.

The internet: a small damn world afterall.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/02/90368335/

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You know, it’s amazing how little actual blog reading i do. I mean, i could argue that i just don’t have the time, especially since i hardly get around to visiting the folks on my sidebar on a daily basis. But, two years ago i recognized the names of blogs, any blogs, even if it was only vaguely. It was like hearing the names of players from other city’s football teams, or teachers from another department. There was recognition, though, a vague flash of comprehension.

I definitely have lost that sense now, and reading through the Bloggie nominations i realize just how out of touch i have become with this community that i used to be involved with daily. It’s a little sad — if they are irrelevant to me than surely i am irrelevant to them. And, well, i deserve it, because i slacked off like a sorry ass all last year. I can still not like it though.

What is truely gratifying is this: usually i come to this realization and then surf around for about ten minutes before proclaiming that i don’t surf for a reason: all blogs are shit. This year… not so. In a fit of surfing, so far i’ve found a lot of gems, and i’m posting them as much for my sake as for yours (whoever you might be). You could spend the time sifting through all the nominations yourself, but since i am obsessed with only voting for things i have something to say about, i’ve got to do it anyway. Though, after reading a well-reasoned post from nominee A Small Victory, an editorial at Centrs.com, and seeing the full nominee list, i can say that i honestly don’t know if i care to vote one way or another. Still, some of these people are blogalicious…

UltraMicroscopic (well designed, professional, funny), Loobylu (an actual graphic arts professional sharing wonderful illustrations; up for best merch, best australian, & best designed), Bazima Chronicles (really masterful writing, hilarious, nominated for best merch & best american), Whedonesque (tasty news catchall for Buffy fans, best topical & best new), Picture Yourself (user submitted self-portraits, best non-blog content), How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons (who uses the word “heterosexualists” and teaches you how to speak swedish (and who i would gladly save from being hosted on blogspot), up for best european blog), 30 Days to a More Accessible Weblog (incredibly thought provoking and impeccably well written, up for best essay), longtime fav Torrez (most humourous), Kuroshin (not my favorite group-weblog, but check out the amazing recount of natural child-birth currently adorning the main page!), the mindbending design elements of Acerbia & Empty Bottle (best european and best asian, respectively) as well as SnazzyKat (best design, which is quite dazzling), blogging all-star and really nice lady JillMatrix (best GBLT), not to mention, of course, old standbys Kevin (best programming, MinJung (best GBLT & best tagline), and Erndawg (Best). Also, if you’re looking for fuller coverage, hit up EastWest Magazine for the E-Channel-style send-up!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/01/90219098/