Category: stardate

SAMIR: i’m finding it harder and harder to relate to “normal” problems.
BRAIN: now you begin to see
SAMIR: what do you do when someone complains that coffee is too far from their house?
SAMIR: I want to say “kill yourself” but I think that will alienate them too much
BRAIN: and that would do what
SAMIR: they wouldn’t complain to me. and the coffee problem would be less important
BRAIN: this doesn’t sound so bad
BRAIN: maybe they’d go have their non-problem somewhere else
BRAIN: you could be like jesse jackson and just tell them

COFFEE GUY: Coffee is too far from my house!
JESSE JACKSON: Every six seconds an American child dies from starvation

SAMIR: wow… yes. And I spend like hours a day cultivating information on suffering and despair!
SAMIR: ok
BRAIN: now lose like 50 pounds and you’ll be danh
SAMIR: we have a strategy! if the problem is meaningless,
SAMIR: i’ll bring up bleak things until they shut up or change the topic
BRAIN: every 20 seconds another child is diagnosed with autism

ASPO: you get a bean and cheese burrito
ASPO: quick: does it come with rice?
RAND: yes
ASPO: you sick sick bastard

BRAIN: *reading TOS doc* No SPAM, no SPIM… what the hell is SPIM?
JOSH: I had to look that one up too. The lawyers said it’s spam over IM
BRAIN: that’s lame
JOSH: meh
BRAIN: what’s spam over SMS then, SPSMS? (“spissimiss”)

Maybe a better question is, why is SPAM all in caps?
Is there a backronym or something?

No I don’t know what you mean.

Your allusion is ambiguous: are you saying your endurance is unnaturally high right now, and thus likely on methamphetamines, or are you saying you could have sex for an unnaturally long time, and thus likely on esctasy?

Or perhaps you are saying the more generally-assumed “I could have a lot of sex” as a general case, making a clumsy double entendre as a sort of a come-on.

I got lotsa style with my gold diamond rings
I can go for miles if you know what I mean

So no, I guess I don’t Know What You Mean. All your songs are kind of smug in a childish way; it seems like your audience are little skater boyz. At least you aren’t pretending to be black anymore.

In other news “Feed the world” and “Eat the rich” seem very similar right now. Lyrics and song concepts both.

…feel kinda groggy oooooohmahghad it’s 4:30.

Someone left a grocery cart on the street about a block away from my house. I looked at the handle and realized it was one from Berkeley Bowl! I live on the south end of Oakland, so it was very far from home– over 10 miles as the crow flies, 13 miles by the freeway.

I called the grocery store and they sent a dude with a pickup truck to retrieve it. I guess a street personality must have taken it and used it to shuttle their crap all the way over here…

Hello Gwyneth [Julian’s widow]-

I am a computer programmer and independent filmmaker living in the San Francisco bay area. I grew up in Palo Alto, and like many well-educated, liberal parents, my parents provided me with a bunch of hand-made wooden toys as an alternative to the plastic toys that were becoming more popular in the 1970s.

While on a break from editing a movie today (June 10th 2008) I was idly playing with one of these toys I still have, a hand-cranked music box, and I turned it over to see the Creative Playthings logo. On a whim I surfed on it and found your late husband Julian had designed it. I also learned of his passing in 2005.

I am now 33 years old and I still love my music box. It’s such a simple design, and apparently rugged with long-lasting “repeat play value,” since I still have it and use it. I’m a bit sad I couldn’t thank Julian while he was still with us, but a close second is thanking you.

Thanks again

Dear Brian
Since my beloved husband died I have had several emails from folk in USA who still have a working model of the music box and such fond memories of it. I don’t know if Julian had such emails before his passing — maybe he did. I do know that he would be pleased that something which he created has brought pleasure to so many AND that it is still in working order. I have the original on my shelf here– it plays ‘Sur le pont d’Avignon’ as well as the model which was produced for retail which plays an excerpt from Swan Lake I think. I guess that is the one you have. It really is something to realise how long since its creation and how durable. Guess you parents choice against the plastics was a good one!

Thank you for taking the time to email.

Go well.

Gwyneth Evans

So it looks like they all play Swan Lake. It’s such a great design; maybe I should make my own based on the shape.

BRAIN: check this out
STEPHANIE THE DESIGNER: ummmm, why did you send this?
BRAIN: you’ll find out!
BRAIN: keep it
BRAIN: you’ll need it real soon
STEPH: I’m reading it and it’s boring
BRAIN: save it for later
BRAIN: trust me on this one
STEPH: i don’t ever use corel draw
STEPH: ever
BRAIN: I know
BRAIN: that’s why you need this
STEPH: why would I ever use it?
BRAIN: you’re not very good at this game
STEPH: I don’t even have it
STEPH: I don’t get it
STEPH: is this a joke?
BRAIN: no
BRAIN: well… sort of
BRAIN: I’ll walk you through this
STEPH: like the end of the world is coming or something?
BRAIN: assume for the moment that I sent you this for a reason
BRAIN: and I know you don’t use Corel anything
BRAIN: now why would I say you’d need it real soon now?
STEPH: the end of the world is coming?
BRAIN: be serious
STEPH: ummm
BRAIN: (where do I sit?)
STEPH: you overheard someone who is going to give me an assignment
BRAIN: getting warm
STEPH: we got some files from a client
STEPH: and they’re
STEPH: corel files
BRAIN: very very warm
BRAIN: but not hot
STEPH: something to do with [client name]?
BRAIN: dunno which client actually
STEPH: ryo just sent me an [client name] style guide
BRAIN: someone wants something in corel draw
STEPH: that someone is tripping
BRAIN: and I happen to know no one here has corel draw
STEPH: who is it????
STEPH: joel?
BRAIN: someone JFi is talking to apparently!
STEPH: sprint maybe?
STEPH: damn them
STEPH: they can go right to hell
STEPH: in a handbasket
STEPH: who uses that?
BRAIN: I’ll quote you on that one
STEPH: corel
STEPH: please
BRAIN: ha ha, that is what [CTO] said
BRAIN: “who uses Corel Draw?!”
STEPH: I’m not sure why it can’t be made in photoshop
STEPH: it must be for some ass backward red neck client
BRAIN: draw is the illustrator equivalent
STEPH: who lives in the woods
BRAIN: so I think they want a vector
STEPH: so they will get illustrator then
STEPH: do they live in the woods?
BRAIN: time to bust out Live Trace
STEPH: deep in the woods?
STEPH: get to the 21st century people!
BRAIN: you rule
STEPH: sounds like an annoying project
STEPH: when are they going to talk to me??
STEPH: I have never even set eyes on corel draw
STEPH: is it like mac paint?
STEPH: DEAR GOD
STEPH: he is on his way now
BRAIN: ha ha this is so funny
STEPH: funny for you
STEPH: how about if you had to code with sticks and stuff?
BRAIN: a magnetized needle

SAMIR: now i have this weird image of hillbillies using old macs
BRAIN: isn’t that awesomely cranky?
SAMIR: I’m just seeing some guy named cletus making moonshine and like running WordPerfect
BRAIN: yeehaw!

Happy Happy. He’s this old Chinese man with thick glasses and a grey moustache, wearing a straw coolie hat. He says repeatedly “happy happy happy!”

He is usually seen standing on a stepladder holding an enormous sign. The sign is made from a thick posterboard, like you’d use to make a project in grade school. It’s generally covered with all kinds of incoherent ranting about news stories.

Happy Happy used to hang out on Sproul when I was at Cal. For some reason, he and a number of other “street personalities” moved to San Francisco (including Frank “12 Galaxies” Chu). Nowadays Happy Happy stands on Grant in the middle of Chinatown.

Back in those days (the late 1990’s) he’d switch between “Happy Happy Happy” and “*evil celebrity* no good for America!” Example:

HAPPY HAPPY: Tonya Harding– no good for America! Michael Jackson– no good for America!
BRAIN: you may have a point there.

So the other day I was walking around Chinatown and I saw him there, so I thought I’d say Hi.

HAPPY HAPPY: Happy happy happy!
BRAIN: Happy happy happy!
HAPPY HAPPY: Happy happy happy!
BRAIN: Tonya Harding no good for America!!
HAPPY HAPPY: ?!?
BRAIN: Do you remember Tonya Harding?
HAPPY HAPPY: Yes!!! Tonya Harding!
BRAIN: Tonya Harding no good for America!
HAPPY HAPPY: Tonya Harding no good for America!
BRAIN: Yeah!
HAPPY HAPPY: Good to see you again! Happy happy!

He was beaming– I doubt he actually recognized me, but he seemed to key that phrase with something he’d said in the past.

Maybe he was just thrilled someone remembered what he was saying over ten years ago.

SHAC: putting on warm jeans straight out of the dryer is better than sex

BRAIN: woah there

SHAC: you should try it

BRAIN: it’s too hot these days

SHAC: put some jeans in the dryer then have sex

BRAIN: in the winter that’s pretty good

SHAC: then as soon as you’re done run over to the dryer and put on the jeans
SHAC: just dont tell your wife what you’re up to or that i suggested it

BRAIN: I think a double blind experiment is in order
BRAIN: we’ll take two identical twin porn stars
BRAIN: and one will have sex
BRAIN: and the other will put on jeans from being stark naked
BRAIN: and then we’ll ask them both questions while they are just fucked
BRAIN: and only wearing jeans respectively
BRAIN: and we will film all of this
BRAIN: it will be very scientific

SHAC: make it so
SHAC: but i already know the answer

BRAIN: that’s not good science there shac

SHAC: its not always about the science
SHAC: its a spiritual thing

BRAIN: the church of pants
BRAIN: I think danh is part of that one

DANH: let’s play guess how many days I’ve been wearing these pants

Do not ignore me please,
I found your email somewhere and now decided to write you.
Let me know if you do not mind. If you want I can send you some pictures of me. I am a nice pretty girl. Don’t reply to this email.
Email me direclty at

I imagine what looks like a girl with only her face remaining of her head, and a ton of cables and optical fiber coming out the back… the cables end in a server in the corner.

She sits, slumped in a chair, smiling attractively at the ceiling.