There is a certain sort of cold which goes beyond mere cold. A prickle in the nostrils on every breath reminds me that nature is really trying to make me dead. Any bare skin aches. The wind is a viscious cutting force. Garrison Keillor once said that the severe cold makes one feel alive. I doubt it. All this cold has done for me is give me thoughts about Cozumel.

That would be -6F (-21C) with a wind chill of
-30F (-34C). Or, for the cryology buffs, a mere 252K.

British army chicken vindaloo. A 7000 mile road trip. A 2:00 am drive all the way around I-465. Carving my initials in the lawn with the lawnmower. New Year's Eve at the Lafayette Brewing Co. Descent 2 'till dawn. Stumbling across the footbridge after too many great imported beers at the Knickerbocker, the night before Installfest. Opening time at the Sunrise Diner, and the night before at the courthouse fountain. Kissing tag. Dinner with the Jacobys. Closing down Bucks on a friday night. Motorcycling across Ohio and Pennsylvania. Hanging upside-down on the monkey bars. Sleeping in the undergrad library. Climbing on the roof to look at the stars. Writing poetry. Pen-pals with grubbbk@vaxa.dlu.edu. Singing "Wonderful Tonight" to no one in particular underneath the stairs. Skeet shooting. Shooting pool at Nick's with Shuey and Fox. Designing Lode Runner levels on an Apple II. Dumpster diving for Sun monitors at Salvage. Running a webcam. Using dumb-terminals as furniture. Growing sunflowers. Vodka tasting. Burning the most hated textbooks. Smoking a pipe. Waking up from a finals nightmare to go take finals. Graduate. Watching Red Dwarf. Signing my name in all lower-case.

According to this test, I may be suffering from a sleep disorder. I am almost certain that the name of my sleep disorder is 'marriage'. (But I am gradually coming to accept the fact that it is, without a doubt, always my problem.)

I have so many frustrations today that the mere task of expressing them all would make me apoplectic with rage. Honestly, I don't even know where to start. So I don't think I will start, and instead just say that I am very, very, very frustrated. And it is much worse than cardboard.

I still want to cry.

I recently asked my wife why it seems that every time I want a simple service (i.e. telephone service, cable TV, power, credit, banking, apartments, etc, etc) there is always a choice between two or three gigantic mega-corporations who own the entire industry for that service and that are bent on screwing the customer at every turn. It seems that no matter how much I complain, the customer service just gets worse. The obvious solution, to change service providers, isn't even an option anymore because I would just change to a different giant faceless corporation with the same lack of simple morals. The discussion led us to the matter of trust.

One hundred years ago, people shopped at locally owned grocery stores, bought locally manufactured goods, and received services from local companies. Customer service was important because the customer is your neighbor. If you fail to serve the customer, your business fails. If you fail to engender trust among your customers, your business fails. Advertisement was much less prevalent, and often was of the form of news. People wanted to see advertisements about products and services because they could trust the ads to give them useful, truthful information about those products and services. Businesses which were not trustworthy did not survive.

If this were still the case, certain properties would be evident. For instance: Customers would not be faced with endless phone-mazes designed to keep them from talking to operators. Giant corporate scandals, such as what happened to Enron, would not happen as often. Lifestyle advertisements would not exist; Companies would sell products and services, not lifestyles. Consumer complaints would be addressed and corrected rather than ignored. Companies would be subjected to fewer lawsuits stemming from advertisements displaying their product used in frivolous, excessive or impractical ways.

It should be clear that now companies are not concerned with trustworthiness. This metric of business success has been replaced with a new, more dubious metric-- shareholder value. If it makes the stock price go up, it is good for business regardless of the societal, political, economical or moral consequences of the action. A point came, some time the twentieth century, when advertisement stopped being information and started being instruction.

People now are being given instructions (around 300 each day!) in the form of television, radio, print, billboards, fashion, and any other method by which an advertiser can put the message into your brain. The message is simple; You are not complete without our product. It comes in many forms, but the message is the same. The instruction is that in order to live a happy, satisfied, fulfilled life you must wear Nike shoes, Right Guard deodorant, and Polo cologne. To be a well-balanced person you must drink Coke, Pepsi, Coors, Miller Lite, and Mike's Hard Lemonade. In order to attract other people you must smoke Marlboro's, drive a Tahoe, wear Wranglers, and eat at Hardee's, McDonald's, Arby's, and Taco Bell. These instructions rarely give any information at all; they merely deliver the potent message of the viewer's inadequacy, then slip into subconscious memory.

People don't bowl anymore. Social interactions are at an all-time low. We are paranoid, concerned about the dangers around every corner, and lulled into a false sense of security by our powerful, dangerous vehicles. We worry more than ever what our neighbors think, but we never speak to the neighbors, much less spend time with them. Our insecurites are fed by a hyperactive youth media, advertisements focused on the increasingly disillusioned and untrusting generation. Our society has been lied to so many times that we are numb to the lies. Corporations invent bigger and bolder lies to try to get our attentions.

The end result? Culture has been replaced by advertisements. Even television programming is an advertisement in itself. "For thirty minutes each week we'll be your best friend, your old companion, your trusted comrade, in exchange for a few moments of diversion-- these few words from our sponsors." So they use your desire for familiarity to bring you back for more ads, again and again. Conversation is filled with buzzwords. Consumerism is the new religion. Those who don't subscribe to sports are ostracized, left out. Missed this week's episode of Seinfeld? You get left out of the coffee break discussion. If you didn't listen to Bob and Tom this morning, you won't understand why people keep repeating that stupid joke all day long. If you don't subscibe to their mindset, you are an outcast.

Must see TV. Just do it. Girls gone wild. Welcome to flavor country. You deserve a break today. Always the low price. Expect more. Less filling. Have it your way. Are you ready?

Surprise. Your culture has just been replaced with Folgers crystals. Let's see if you notice.

Journalling has always been strange and unnatural for me. It seems I take keen interest for a few days, then go for eternal stretches without any writing at all. Web-journalling doubly so. Anyone who has witnessed my chicken-scratchings in the past will recognize it. I have this strange duality playing- I don't want anyone to read it, but if no one reads it then what's the point? In the past, revealing my web page address to anyone else has resulted in a dramatic, immediate, and unfortunate change to the content and style therein. Perhaps the mere knowing that someone, anyone besides me, is reading this gives me cause to change it. Maybe I'm afraid of the sensitive bits getting around to someone who might care. Or it could be that I'm worried about giving away "too much." I want someone to read it, I suppose, or I wouldn't be doing it. But I don't want anyone to read it, because if I knew someone was reading it I would have to change it. It makes me think of Heisenberg, but on a grander scale.

Too much thought. Time to go home.

Yesterday, I picked up a small english ivy ( Hedera helix, 'Walthamensis') for my desk. Out of the selection of ivy plants at the local garden shop, this one in particular looked to be virile. I knew it was the plant for me when I saw the way it was wrapping a tendril around its neighbor, a sickly looking dracaena. It is a plant clearly bent on domination. As I lifted it from the grow-light illuminated stand, I noted that it had even put down roots in another plant's pot.

I repotted it into a larger container (more room for root growth). Now it is on my desk. I have named it Winston, and certainly hope it is as resistant to the Philodendron invasion as its namesake. I plan to use a system of paperclips and desk pins to help it cover the cubicle wall. When it is strong enough, I'll send it over the wall to explore.

Excellent. *wiggles fingers*

In german, they use the word "Ohrwurm" to describe that feeling which in English we call "having a song stuck in your head." This has been mine all week long.

I Hate Cardboard.

It was a fairly typical morning today. I woke up after the expected five hours of sleep, stumbled through the usual morning processes, then bruised my leg on a bundle of corrugated cardboard. You see, it's a crime in this city to throw away cardboard. Should one find oneself with excess cardboard, the only way to be rid of it is to take it downtown to the recycling center. At first, this seems like a good idea. On closer inspection, it is revealed that the center is:

• In a bad part of downtown.
• Only open from 8 to 4, tuesday through friday which effectively ensures that I will be at work whenever it is open.
• Only willing to accept cardboard if you take the time to cut it into pieces smaller than two feet (60 centimetres) on a side.
• Only willing to accept cardboard if you put it into bundles no larger than two feet (60 centimetres) on a side.
• Perfectly happy to send you away, cardboard in hand, should you fail to meet their requirements. It seems they take some bizarre pleasure in sending recyclables back.

So, after moving in, my wife and I were blessed with a surplus of cardboard, which over the course of several nights was painstakingly cut, stacked, and bundled by myself personally, into neat little bundles no more than two feet on a side. If you have ever cut cardboard, you will most likely agree with me that it is one of the most tedious tasks associated with the cardboard industry. It would seem that there is simply no tool effective for the job. Using a box cutter, or any sort of blade for that matter, only ensures a sore hand and a dull blade after the first twenty cuts. Scissors of any sort likely to be found in the home have similar dullness issues and further compound the hand-cramping. I resorted to a score-and-tear tactic, which was only better in that I could let my mind slip into wild Conan-esque barbarian fantasies wherein I tear my foe asunder with bare hands. This did little to ease my frustration with the cardboard, but provided an interesting diversion. Several bundles went this way. At this point, I was sick of cardboard, but not filled with hatred towards its mere existance.

And then, one night, I ran out of twine. Twine is essential for bundling just about anything. Given that I don't often bundle, I lack the requisite standard warehouse equipment (strap bundler) for anything more sophisticated. So, after performing my duty as heavy industrial machinery and reducing the cardboard to a neat, orderly pile, I took a night's rest, planning to deal with the actual bundling the next day, when twine would be available again.

Needless to say, this is not actually how the situation has played out. No, instead my loving wife, attempting to ease my corrugated burden, found yet another empty box, and stacked the neatly cut bits into that box while I was asleep. She then left the box near the door. On my return, I was asked to take the box away.

On the surface, this seems like a brilliant plan.

Then I tried to pick up the box full of cardboard. When all of the neatly stacked cardboard fell out of the bottom of the box onto my feet, I suspected something was amiss. For whatever reasons, the bottom of the larger box had not been taped shut. No matter, I think, and look for some packing tape. My wife informs me that there is none. So I fill the box again and decide to try again another time.

This box has been in my way for weeks now. Every time I walk by it taunts me. I stub my toes and bash my shins on it. There is still no packing tape. I've been too busy doing things like working, paying bills, and fighting with my spouse to actually take care of it. This morning I decided that the cardboard would plague me no longer. So I gingerly picked up the box from the bottom and carried it downstairs to the garage.

When I tried to put the box into my car, the side seam of the box came undone, spilling the cardboard all over the garage. Given that I was already late for work due to not getting to bed until 2:00am and sleeping a bit past my 'normal' wakeup time, and that I was only asleep for about five hours total, I was also disoriented and emotionally brittle. I shoved the bits into my car and drove off.

Later today, I will take vacation time from work to go drop off the cardboard. Yes, vacation time. Time that I should be spending sipping margaritas on a white sand beach somewhere in Fiji or heading down the slopes on a 12 inch powder base or at the very least asleep in bed at home with my wife will instead be spent driving past two tobacco outlets, an adult entertainment store, and the "Kum & Go" gas station, for the sole purpose of being sent away with a pile of cardboard in the back of the car and a taste for blood. I sincerely hope that the fellow who normally watches to make sure all cardboard is appropriately bundled is small enought that I can knock him unconscious with a tire iron should he interfere. Those who know me say that I'm generally not violent or prone to fits of rage. Those who know me even better know that when I get really angry, there's a vein in my temple which throbs, and that my right eye starts to twitch uncontrollably. Cardboard has made me irrational.

I hate cardboard. I want to cry.

Here we sit in dull, dank little cloth-walled caves illuminated by the grey-blue glow of dim CRT's and harsh overhead lights. The only source of oxygen is a tenuous symbiosis with a sadly abused creeping Philodendron. It sent its tendrils to me through the crack in the corner of the cubicle wall; a slow, relentless conqueror preparing to overtake yet another desk. I keep it back, for now, with binder clips and push pins. Its varegated leaves remind me of war paint. It offers me oxygen in an insulting gesture of restitution; it has conquered, now it offers sustenance. More than once I have wondered if the lush green foilage is toxic.

Frequently, jarring electronic blasts come out of the phone, reminding me in real-time that someone is demanding my attention. I can only ignore it for so long before desperately seeking a pair of wire cutters to silence that infernal device. But for now, I lack the motivation to even take that small effort. So I sit in my hole, surrounded by my neighbor's flora, and sip Folgers: the weak, burnt, watery, soulless coffee of the damned.

Foo.