Signifying nothing

A few years back the Spiral Jetty reemerged from the Great Salt Lake that had inundated nearly since it was completed in the early 1970's. In fall of 2002 , a couple of friends and I went out to Rozel Point and I took many pictures. I also made a video of the experience (which is not shared anywhere on the Internet, simply because it is long and probably not all that interesting to anyone but me.) If you go to my Spiral Jetty flickr set and look at my pictures, you can see my friends and I had quite the time out there, and I was able to take some of my best pictures ever, despite my shoddy digital equipment, and a propensity to be a poor self-editor and post everything I took to flickr. While we were there for most of the afternoon, we actually started on to the Jetty itself just as the sun was setting. I have never witnessed in my entire life such a sunset with vibrant color. The sky flared up in a raspberry/orange firestorm. I had no idea how to capture such color on...

I won't be able to attend this event, but perhaps some of you kind readers will be able to: Join HEAL Utah at the Division of Radiation Control tomorrow to speak out against EnergySolutions’ plan to dump 20,000 tons of Italian nuclear waste in the U.S. While no Utah public official has spoken out against this proposal, tomorrow the State Radiation Control Board will decide if they should be the first to take a bold stand. Let’s pack the room and encourage them to protect Utah and the U.S. from becoming the world’s nuclear dumping ground. The Board has agreed to hear comments from the public before they make a decision on this issue. If you plan to speak (and we urge you to!), please let us know so we can sign you in . What : Utah Radiation Control Board Hearing Where : Department of Environmental Quality (Bldg #2), Conference Room 101, 168 North 1950 West, Salt Lake City, Utah When : 2:00 – 4:00 PM, Friday, February 1, 2008 ***** On a different note, thank you to everyone who...

Here you go: Shout Out Louds . They're kind of like Matt and Kim meets The Vines meets Bright Eyes . You'll like them. They have nice energy. Play 100 degrees. You'll never been unhappy again.

I thought I would use my lunch hour to renew my driver license, given that it expired on my birthday. Now, granted, I don't have a car these days, but I rent the occasional one or end up driving some one else's for them. One also needs a driver license (or state sanctioned I.D.) to travel by air these days, so I am forced into dealing with the bureaucracy. The last time I renewed in-person (ten years ago) the process was about an hour total with a bit of waiting time. Ultimately it was made entertaining by my cousin who worked at the DMV then, and whom I had not seen in a very long time. This time around, however, I took one step into one of three Driver License Division offices and turned right back around and went back to work: the place was packed and there was very little evidence of movement. People were hanging out on the counters, it was so back-logged. There were also quite a few people who were obviously huffy about the egregious wait-time. I didn't get hu...

Will Self takes on McDonald's, but not in the usual way: Good food and jobs are still off the menu at McDonald's | Evening Standard . It is about time someone stood up for the workers at places like McDonald's and WalMart. Funny how none of the bigots who scream about illegal immigration ever scream about the companies that hire the folks who enter the States without proper documentation. Well they may scream about them, but that sure doesn't keep them from stuffing their gluttonous gullets at said places. Huhrumph.

It is good to see that the Jazz are finally pulling it together again: Salt Lake Tribune - Jazz: Ill-timed technical ruinous for Spurs . Despite the Spurs onslaught at the opening of the fourth, the Jazz held true. Only a month ago they were still folding whenever even remotely pressed by their opponent. Good to see they're getting some defensive gumption back.

Hasta no la vista, SugarHouse Originally uploaded by Theorris The yellow building which was Sugar House Coffee is gone now.

Aside from the grand old Internet, I feel compelled to more fully answer Dr. Write's challenge by telling you what else I love. This will not be one entry, however, as I can't be assed to think that much about the topic. The love of today, however, is a simple one: I love beer. Ode to Beer Beer, how do I love thee? I shall not count the ways. Your hoppy goodness thrills me on the coldest night Or the hottest day You are lovely in your yellowness Slake my thirst Make me giddy Leave me enlightened And oh so good looking Beer! I sing to thee the highest of praise Full of the true, the sallow Hippocrene Oh for a draught of your brew That hath been cool'd a long age in the deep-delved fridge Oh for a beakerful of the cold North! To pee! to pee! To whiz, piss, or slash. It is all the same. What goes in, must come out, But, lovely beer, you leave us Better and happier. Did you know one of the first poems ever written was about beer and onions. (I also love onions.) I tag Kendr...

Dear Utah Legislature, Stay the hell out of my refrigerator: Utah's strict liquor laws might get stricter . Yours in Christ, Theorris Boonasty

An excellent unsigned band: Sanna - Edinburgh, UK . You should sign them.

hanging out with chewy Originally uploaded by Theorris Word.

Beats out Bobby Goldsboro by a fucking long shot: CONWAY TWITTY :: Home :: Official Website

The Internet is also apparently 90: Eddy Arnold Welcome To My World

= Originally uploaded by catinlap My fitting response to Dr. Write's challenge to write about what I love.

TV on the consciousness Originally uploaded by Theorris If you want one with your very own visage, let me know. I'll swing you a deal. If you want one with mine, piss off. It is mine.

Fascinating: trackingtransience.net . The artist, Hasan Elahi was detained by the FBI after 9/11 under suspicion of being a terrorist. He was turned in by someone unknown. He eventually cleared his name, but felt compelled to always tell the FBI where he was particularly when traveling so that he would not be mistakenly detained again. Tracking Transience is an art piece that grew out of his experience.

ksl.com - Two men arrested for sex crimes

Since moving SigNo to blogger.com, I've been able to avail myself of the advanced template features which allow a simple-minded blogger like myself to easily add layout components to her or his blog. Such components are things like blogrolls or image slide shows. (You can seem them to the right.) There is also a RSS feed discombobulator, that allows you to put a feed on your web page from another blog source. I've decided to make use of these handy feature to link to a "Commenter of the week." Such a commenter is someone who caught my attention usually by making me laugh out loud. And our first featured commenter is......Dr. Write for her wry comment on my post about the extremely weird MP3 player/Tazer[TM] combo . My response, I fear, might not have been taken as comedy. I wrote several mocking moral outrage, but none seemed as good as the deadpan response I gave. Who will be our next winner?

Super cool this is: Julie Blackmon Photographs . I have no style as an amateur photographer. I need to grow a style, I think.

I can't wait until they work this Taser[TM] product into the iPhone[TM]: TASER C2 which has a built-in MP3 player. Shocking. Absolutely shocking. Of course this product is causing a pun field day out there. My favorite has to be my own, but I think "Killing Me Softly With His Song" is far more clever. The worst pun has to be a belabored effort trying to work Frank Zappa into the story. I ain't even gonna search for "Shock the Monkey" in regards to this horrific piece of modernity. Oy. Oh and for you Panopticon fans out there, Taser[TM] also has a Taser[TM] with an optional camera !

What the hell? , originally uploaded by Theorris . I have no idea what is in this strange birthday package. The cat popping out of the top leaves me no clue.

Rasputin and I apparently share a birthday. Please insert joke here. UPDATE: apparently there is some dispute as to Rasputin's birthday. Stop the presses!

I had a former girlfriend told me that orange was the worst color ever. Apparently it represented male dominance to her. Why do I fear this post?

I used the term "bedclothes" recently and was greeted with astonished confusion.

New England somehow recovered their running game and that was that for San Diego. I was hoping for another upset, but I think the quota was run out last week.

This is almost as good as the demand a few years back that BYU coeds stop wearing backpacks that have across-the-chest straps (since it emphasized their cleavage): Deseret Morning News | Orem, Provo groups demanding changes at 2 gyms . Almost.

I was probably a bit too cruel to a one-hit-wonder in the previous post. If I were you, however, I would steel myself with a belt of whiskey before you visit his site.

"One of the most influential singer/songwriters of our time-- Bobby Goldsboro :" I wonder how all those memories of where Honey played and Honey lived played out in the most craptastic paintings I've ever seen in my life. (Then again, click on the links and you'll know that Mr. Goldsboro is living fully up to his potential.) Wow. I really thought I had seen it all. I feel fortunate to know that I hadn't until this moment.

The past in a laundry basket , originally uploaded by Theorris . Friend Counterintuitive recently worried about floppy disks that he keeps. I've done him a gigabyte better with my collection of hard drives from the many, and dearly loved, computers I've owned over the last 20 years. How did hey end up in my laundry basket? God only knows.

This is probably my best entry every: Signifying nothing: journal I think I need to add a cousin Oliver to my blog.

My friend Richelle has one of the best blogs that I've ever neglected: Beamships Equal Love . Now I'm not talking shit about my fellow bloggy collegio-companions, as I enjoy your work too, but Richelle is out of your regular milieu. You should be reading her stuff. Get to it, damnit. I insist. I'm boring. She's definitely not. While I'm at it, I should plug everyone else, but I've done that over there, already -->

This is not the most fancy template I've produced, but it will do in a pinch (q.v. the pre-Blogger archives). I got a bug up my ass today and decided to move good old SigNo to blogger.com enitre, rather than having it hanging out at the old Comcastic! site (trust me, it was not a comcastic experience over there.) I can now take advantage of all the buttery goodness that Blogger offers to folks who use its servers, such as dynamic templates, consistent page elements, and--w00t!--a slide show. This meant that I had to say adios to the old template "Simple living" that served for a solid year, but moving the furniture around has alleviated the malaise I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I'm sure when I get up enough gumption, I'll gahdunk out a nice new graphically pleasing template. Until then, hold the presses!

Funny enough, I actually learned something.

Mic check. Test.  Test.

Nothing much to say about the Jazz loss to the Nuggets. That's sad. Sad, I say. Sad. Not their loss or the game, but the fact that I have nothing to say about it. Sad. Well maybe that really isn't all that sad because all I would have said was the Jazz still show their early potential, but fail to deliver. It doesn't look like the promising season I predicted way back in November. But that's just negatorino talk, neighborino (think Flanders*). Shit, I said something about the game. Now that's just even sadder. *Why did the Simpsons Movie make Ned Flanders a rather sympathetic character? I rather like it, in all, given that he has been portrayed as a crazy zealot with a very complicated past in the TV show. He is probably the most developed character in the Simpsons oeuvre , in fact. Then again, all extraneous characters on the Simpsons have been show in various lights, save the Bumble Bee guy. I'm sure for season 20 they're working on him.

I wrote this the other night, but didn't post it, as I was certain the malaise I was feeling was temporary: After 6 years in this bloggy medium, I've pretty much lost interest. Do we count the 7 years of non-Web2, Web1 stuff too? that makes 13 years. Thirteen. There is, to add on top of that the 6 ambiguous years of whatever the hell that was. 19 years. 1988. And even then, even, 1987 I was toying with what was to become the Internet. 20 years. 20. And, by god, all the other shit that came before. Oh my. My recent break from the Internet left me cold. I suddenly realized that I had left the Internet far behind, and I liked it. I could also say that the Internet left me far behind, but I still I liked it. Perhaps we're all just hitchhikers on the way to nowhere. 1987. Do you remember 1987? I do. I loved fucking around with various pre-Internet gizmos but very much connected programs. I liked the idea. I liked the connectedness. Now? Now? I need a break....

Star Trek (2008) ? Kahn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hightouchmegastore writes: 1. Is there someone who's planning to take my Christmas tree down for me, or help me decide what to do about the poinsettias, or who plans to enfold my shiny little Christmas objets in tissue paper? Because I could use some help with that. 2. When will there be a movie (preferably a comedy) that I can watch without effort and still feel happy at the end of it? 3 . Is Bruiser lonely? He seems lonely. 4. Am I missing something, or have I eaten at all the restaurants in SLC and now they seem stale and unimaginative? 5. Is the world more full of incompetent people than it was just a couple of weeks ago? Or is it that all the systems they have for doing practically everything have taken a turn and become really, really bad? 6. Why is it just pasta polenta rice polenta pasta around here? 7. Why did the people at Wild Oats let me leave without the butter, the cheese, and the mushrooms that I paid for? 8. Is it just me? Because it seems like maybe it's just m...

This is just hypnotic. (And you think your traffic is bad, where ever you are.)

I think I've written about this song before, but the video makes the best use of the spaces (empty) we inhabit. The dog just adds to the tension. PoMo melodrama for sure.

Now how's that for a return to the Internet for you?

I can't say I learned much from not accessing the Internet for 20 days other than that email stresses me out far more than I knew. After day 2 I had totally forgotten about it and, in fact, t hat I have a job. Accomplishments while being unplugged: Books read: 5 Movies watched: 10 (!) Songs listened to: over 1,000 Podcasts listened to: 0 I'm sure there's more to report, but I can't be bothered to think about it nor do am I compelled to Google anything. Ah, vacation: now it is done. I have over 200 in work emails alone. Joy. I'll probably keep the Unplugged website and post things to it on the off chance. I never really got into the swing of it.