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March 25, 2002
And, on top of everything else, they cut down the fucking trees in front of my apartment. Most have been uprooted and taken away, and the others have had their branches burned off and will probably be removed in time. I really liked those trees. Most of the branches weren't strong enough to support squirrels' weight, but squirrels would try anyway, and my cats liked watching it. The trees in the fall at night with the pale orange courtyard lamps was what drew me to rent there. You can't just go in and take out the trees and act like it's the same place. That has to be a violation of the lease. God damn it. It seriously looks like the end of "Full Metal Jacket" out there.

It's snowing today. I want to go outside and use my new lomo for snow by the lake. By the time I get home from work, feces will probably be falling from the sky instead of snow, and I do not wish to take photographs of that.

THINGS THAT HAVE GONE WELL RECENTLY

1. That Dismemberment Plan is a good plan. They play the hits.
2. Long-time friends got engaged. They are cute together.
3. Got to see the Journey arcade game. It's from 1983. They digitized the heads of the members of Journey and put them on tiny bodies, and then each band member has to go to a different planet to recover his instrument. The piano player's level is really hard. Tinkling MIDI versions of many Journey hits run while you play, such as "Who's Crying Now" when you die.
4. Have not had to wait long for trains.
5. Cats like the tree thing I bought for them.
6. Food has tasted good.
7. Have time off coming up.
8. Made out onstage twice on Saturday. Hottest action since the Clinton era.
9. Slurpee made my tongue blue.

THINGS THAT HAVE GONE POORLY RECENTLY

1. Fucking cold.
2. Guy I knew in high school died. His name was Pete.
3. Held up at gunpoint.
4. Oscars crap as usual.
5. Have to listen to idiots talk about Oscars. "I won't see movies with that Russell Crowe. He hates America. Show some gratitude!" "(hushed tone) Denzel just won because he's black."
6. No access to money for a few more days while I wait for new cards to arrive. Only have a dollar.
7. Friends' favorite basketball team lost.
8. Long-standing sore throat.
9. Hottest action since the Clinton era was had onstage.

It's an oddity in my perception - or perhaps it's not unusual - that, on an instinctive level, I think of these things (the trees, the gun) not as the acts of lone individuals or small groups, but as the consensus decision of the world, arrived at through due democratic process. For the first few days after I was mugged, I felt as though everyone was looking at me strangely, wondering what I was doing out again, as if I didn't get the message.

STRATEGIES TOWARD THE FRUSTRATION AND CONSEQUENT THWARTING OF MUGGERS

Civility has failed. The police have failed. Batman has failed. My shit is being taken by unauthorized motherfuckers with guns. Here, then, are methods by which we can frustrate muggers to a point at which the consequences of their work will outweigh the benefits, and they will stop.

1. Carry a second wallet as a ringer. This wallet can be given to the mugger instead of the primary wallet, which will have money, IDs and such. The second wallet will be empty, save a piece of paper where the money would be, which will say "Sucker." Hence, nothing of value will be lost.

POSSIBLE DRAWBACK: The mugger opens the wallet while victim is nearby and takes offense to the insult, reacting irrationally.

2. Carry a second identity as a ringer. This is somewhat more complex to assemble but solves the problem posed by the first solution. The second identity should have its own identification cards and money, but it should be Canadian money, forcing the mugger to go all the way up to Canada if he wants to use it. Also, the second identity should be that of a very sad man, so the mugger is stuck with the existential emptiness, which will come as an unpleasant surprise, seeing as how he was expecting money.

POSSIBLE DRAWBACK: Frantic, the victim mistakenly switches the wallets. Now the victim is the sad man, and must go all the way up to Canada even if he only wants to buy some gum.

3. Carry a fierce bear as a ringer. The drawbacks and practical difficulties of this strategy are numerous, but its upside is too great to be dismissed.

(news) Forward Eddie Robinson, who has been sidelined with a sore big left toe, got cleared to play. The point became moot when Robinson, who has appeared in just 23 games, succumbed to bad fast-food chicken and food poisoning and didn't dress.

He succumbed? Do not go gently into that good night, forward Eddie Robinson. Rage, rage against the bad fast-food chicken.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY FUCKED UP HIS MOST FAMOUS POEM, "OZYMANDIAS"

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

BETTER VERSION OF THE POEM

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my 180, ye Mighty, and despair!
Shit! I am a powerful bowler."

Then, instead of yammering on about sand and decay, the observer would say, shit, that king was a good bowler. I've only ever bowled a 150. Boy, you can extrapolate a lot about the grandeur of his kingdom from the words on this pedestal.

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