The Great Tunnel of 9050

Posted on 1st February 2011 in Something Daily

First of all, the last orange juice I bought only lasted two days. This is why I need to start stockpiling. Otherwise, I’ll buy a gallon on Sunday and it’ll be depleted by Tuesday morning. I’m going to dig myself a subterranean tunnel network beneath Coral Towers, put in a secret dumwaiter entrance behind the bathroom mirror, and connect the far end to the floor under the Food Emporium juice section. I’ll be able to use the tunnel when nobody’s around and just walk underground to the store, steal all the orange juice I want, store it midway through the tunnels, and then slip back up through the bathroom mirror without anyone noticing. Another plus is that I won’t have to spend any money to do this (apart from the initial capital investment that’ I’ll need for the actual building of the tunnel system. Or I could just pull a Shawshank Redemption and do it myself with a spoon. That way, it’ll be made with love, not with the money, sweat, and tears of greedy corporations.) This is a pretty good plan…it’s totally going to work. There’s no way anybody’s going to have a problem with me digging a tunnel network with a spoon through the New York sewers and two buildings, or with me not going to classes for months as I work on its completion. By the time it’s done, I probably won’t even live in the same building anymore.

This will not stop me – it’s like when the Chinese were building the Great Wall of China: the construction took so long that it spanned several generations, and noone who was alive when it was started was also alive when it was completed. That’s why the dynasty system was useful – they could have one common goal that spanned numerous lifetimes. They did it in sections as a morale boost to the foremen – once they were tired and soul-sucked from working on a section of wall for 5 years, they could go back home and pass by all these other sections of wall being completed, seeing the momentous progress their great civilization was making (at least this is what Kafka tells me). The time it would take me to dig my tunnel is probably comparable to the time it took several thousand Chinese to build a big wall, so I may need to get in touch with the residents of 9050 next year and get this dynasty started. It may take some convincing – I could resort to burning their women and raping their churches. Be that as it may…I will have my orange juice.

Let it be known that I’m awesome at Diddy Kong Racing for N64, as I beat the walrus, the octopus, and the dragon all in one sitting, with two other guys playing. I was the only one to actually finish any of the bosses, although my friends both fought valiantly. The octopus is such a jerkface…there were so many different times when I was within feet – nay, inches of the finish line and he shot a bubble in front of him and entrapped me in the nick of time. What a goofus.

I’m A Hunger Artist

Posted on 25th January 2011 in Something Daily

I haven’t read Kafka in a while, at least not until this morning. I don’t think there are any authors in whose life and work I’m more interested, and I used to read his short stories all the time. I have the complete compilation of his stories, which includes all of his known works minus the few novels that he published or started (one of which I’ve read). That was The Trial, which is about a guy named K (who I think it’s safe to assume is essentially Kafka himself) who wakes up one morning to find himself being arrested for a crime he can’t remember committing.

Jemand musste Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet.

That’s some good stuff. It’s not an intrigue about how he eventually uncovers this big conspiracy of memory erasement or anything like that; rather, it’s an expression of the helplessness Kafka experiences in his interactions with the bureaucracy. K. can never figure out who he’s supposed to see or what he’s been convicted of, but eventually (spoiler alert) is killed for an indiscernible reason. Actually that’s not a spoiler at all if you’ve ever read any Kafka. Some of my favorite short stories of his are In the Penal Colony, of course The Metamorphosis, The Great Wall of China, and A Hunger Artist, among many others. Those especially, though, are all fantastic examples of Kafka’s tendency to represent his own feelings of isolation and separateness from the rest of humanity. I just read one where the narrator is a bridge, sitting alone stretched across two cliffs for ages, when this traveler comes along and destroys him without a word, sending him to his rocky death. Classic Kafka. I love how accepting Kafka is of defeat; so many of his stories end with the narrator dying quietly, becoming less of a burden on his peers and/or family. Why am I drawn to these stories? I hope I don’t find out.

Other news: I’m trying to finish every SNES game I have (14) before I buy any more. Last night I succeeded at completing Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers after trying the final Megazord battle about twenty times. I had been writing down the level passwords in my notebook, and decided to just get it done. Here’s proof (the game’s one “cutscene”, where the five rangers transform into the Megazord)

Oh yeah, and I spooned my roommate Justin last night while he was spooning his girlfriend Melody. Thus, I am King Spoon. Bow before me presently. And then leave my dominion.