Halfway done with: "120 Days of Sodom" by the Marquis de Sade. Easily the grossest book I have ever read. I don't go out of my way to read gross books. I do go out of my way to read stuff that challenges me, and this book certainly is doing that. Laughing last night as I read some of it sitting in a Carl's Junior. It's my habit to read while eating (if I'm alone) and this is a pretty poor choice of book to read while eating. Almost barfed again last night. I'm laughing cause I remember this happening several times while eating and reading this book. It's not that the book itself makes me want to puke, it's the combination of reading it while eating. Like I said--pretty gross stuff...

Basically it's about four horny guys that hole up in a chateau in Switzerland with a bunch of old prostitutes, women, men and children. They've all either been kidnapped or paid to satisfy the warped desires of these four perverts. The bulk of the narration revolves around stories told for the titilation of the four "libertines". One of the old whores will tell a true story from her past and if it inspires the perverts, they'll act out what they've just heard. A laundry list of perversion is what it amounts to. Most of it sick stuff. As I recall he died in prison writing this. One of many sprung from the bastille during the french revolution, when the new government figured out who he was and what he was writing they quickly put him back in prison where he died.

Pretty tough reading. I remember trying to read it when I was a kid. I'd found it in the public library. Got about as far as where he starts enumerating the size of the four libertine's genitals--not very far.

I can only think of a few people who could handle reading it. Here are some excerpts from passages I found interesting:

"I have no need to thwart my inclinations in order to flatter some god; these instincts were given me by Nature, and it would be to irritate her were I to resist them; if she gave me bad ones, that is because they were necessary to her designs. I am in her hands but a machine which she runs as she likes, and not one of my crimes does not serve her: the more she urges me to commit them, the more of them she needs; I should be a fool to disobey her."

"Furthermore, beauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity the extraordinary to the commonplace. Beauty, health never strike one save in a simple way; ugliness, degradation deal a far stouter blow, the commotion they create is much stronger, the resultant agitation must hence be more lively; in the light of all this, there should be no cause for astonishment in the fact that an immense crowd of people prefer to take their pleasure with an aged, ugly, and even stinking crone and will refuse a fresh and pretty girl, no more reason to be astonished by that, I say, than at a man who for his promenades prefers the mountains' arid and rugged terrain to the monotonous pathways of the plains. All these matters depend upon our tastes in this connection than it is in our power to alter the form of our bodies."

"The quatrains that evening featured certain sexual changes: that is to say, all the girls were costumed as sailors, the little boys as tarts; the effect was ravishing, nothing quickens lust like this voluptuous little reversal; adorable to find in a little boy what causes him to resemble a girl, and the girl is far more interesting when for the sake of pleasing she borrows the sex one would like her to have."

"...according to my belief, there is one essential thing lacking to our happiness. It is the pleasure of comparison, a pleasure which can only be born of the sight of wretched persons, and here one sees none at all. It is from the sight of him who does not in the least enjoy what I enjoy, and who suffers, that comes the charm of being able to say to oneself: 'I am therefore happier than he.' Wherever men may be found equal, and where these differences do not exist, happiness shall never exist either: it is the story of the man who only knows full well what health is worth after he has been ill..."

Kind of the cliffnotes version of the philosophical aspects of this book. For those who would be curious about some of the grosser parts I will excerpt a few of the descriptions--each of the participants are described at length. Be warned! I read this stuff to some of my friends and a few got mad at me. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! (hehe, as if this will stop you--just don't blame me...) If you're still curious after these copious warnings, click more below...

"Hairy as a satyr, flat-backed, with slack, drooping buttocks that rather resembled a pair of dirty rags flapping upon his upper thighs; the skin of those buttocks was, thanks to whipstrokes, so deadened and toughened that you could seize up a handful and knead it without his feeling a thing. In the center of it all there was displayed - no need to spread those cheeks - an immense orifice whose enormous diameter, odor, and color bore a closer resemblance to the depths of a well-freighted privy than to an asshole; and, crowning touch to these allurements, there was numbered among this sodomizing pig's little idiosyncrasies that of always leaving this particular part of himself in such a state of uncleanliness that one was at all times able to observe there a rim or pad a good two inches thick."

"Her ass, withered, worn, marked, torn, more resembled marbled paper than human skin, and its hole was so gaping, sprung, and rugose that the bulkiest machines could, without her knowing a thing, penetrate it dry."

"Her ass was peppered with wounds, and her buttocks were so prodigiously slack one could have furled the skin around a walking stick; the hole in this splendid ass resembled the crater of a volcano what for width, and for aroma the pit of a privy; in all her life, Therèse declared, she had never once wiped her ass, whence we have proof positive that the shit of her infancy yet clung there."

Watched most of "The French Connection" again last night. Been years since I saw it last.

I noticed this time that Gene Hackman's character has a boot fetish. A couple scenes make this clear. In one he's on a stakeout in front of a restaurant. A woman walks by wearing knee high boots and he tells her: "excuse me miss, can I talk to you about those boots?" She walks faster as she passes him.

In the other he sees a girl riding a bike while he's on his way home--she's wearing pink boots. This is followed by his partner trying to get into his apartment. He's knocking at the door and Gene Hackman's character tells him to let himself in. He does so by slipping a credit card through the doorjam and jimmying the lock. As he enters he finds a bike blocking the door and after moving it to get in he sees a pair of pink boots on the floor. Gene Hackman is handcuffed to the bed. The girl is running around the apartment naked.

This has always been my favorite scene in the movie. It's not clear what happened. Somehow he managed to get some girl he found attractive into his apartment and get her clothes off. Whatever it was he did, I want to know the secret...

Broke the security screen on the internet station I was using in the library. My hour was up and I was getting up so the next person could use the station, and when I grabbed my backpack it pulled the security screen off the front of the monitor. It landed on the chair I'd been sitting on and shattered. I didn't realize they were made of glass. Guess I hadn't thought about it. Makes sense, I guess it's some kind of polarizer. The stated purpose of having one installed is to protect the privacy of the person using the station. The real use though is to keep the other patrons from being offended by what some people are looking at. The porn in other words. It's been my experience that a great number of the people using these internet stations are using them to look at pornography. It's kind of an interesting dilemma that they face in the library.

They don't want to censure what the patrons are doing, and on the other hand they don't want to offend the other people (children among them) that are using the library for more conventional things. A tough situation. When I go in and ask for a station they take my name from my drivers license--I always ask for a station that's in the back cause it's quieter there (though it can get pretty rowdy back there as well) but I soon noticed that this is exactly what the people who are using them for looking at sexual material were doing. I was laughing to myself one morning as I approached the desk to signup--I was going to tell the librarian: "give me some internet love", but realized that this could be taken the wrong way, and might give them the idea that I was using the station for something other than what I was using it for.

Not that it would matter to them. I asked one of the librarians if they didn't see a lot of weird stuff working this internet station gig. He laughed and told me: "it comes with the teritory". Then I told him about the time that I noticed a guy looking at a beaver shot as I came into the department. He had had the security screen removed and his face was about an inch from the screen. Anybody walking into the library at this point would have had almost as good a view as he did. I asked the librarian if it wouldn't have been wiser for this chap to sit in the back where there was more privacy. He said: "if I was going to look at something like that, that's what I would do...".

Anyway, one can see the need for these "security screens". They _do_ get very annoying though. Depending on the monitor one uses they can make it quite difficult to see what you're viewing. Even when seated in the "sweetspot". Several times they have fallen off of the monitor of their own accord. A safety issue.

I felt bad about breaking the screen. I know everybody is kind of tapped out for funding (myself included). The head librarian gave me a hard time: "those cost a hundred dollars" she told me quite sternly. Then asked me how it happened. I forget everything she said though our conversation was brief it was clear that she was attempting to make it seem as though it had only happened because of my negligence. Clearly I'm at least partly to blame. I shouldn't have been in such a big hurry to clear out for the next patron, or I should have put my backpack in a better place. I'm a little worried about leaving it behind though when I leave and since it's got my laptop in it I sure don't want to do that.

I told the head librarian: "perhaps they should be fastened more securely..."

Her reply was that some patrons like to remove them, but everywhere there are signs that tell you not to. I feel bad about breaking the privacy screen. But I also feel like I have been the victim of a safety issue that they have at the library. I've had these screens fall off on my as I was using these computers. If I had realized that they were breakable I would have been a bit more careful. They're not labeled as such, and they are very poorly fastened.

Got the comics working again. In a rather rudimentary fashion but working enough to make it available as a feature on the site. To check it out, click the comic thumbnail on the right. I'll try and update them everyday but we'll see how that goes. I may not be around an internet connection everyday.

My friend Anthony stitched it together from shots he took with his digital camera. Makes a nice banner. Too tall though in my opinion, but still a cool picture. Maybe use it on the site for a while but look for something that's not quite as tall. The way the site is setup now all the elements are made to float around and resize when the browser window resizes. Thus accomodating different screen resolutions. The banner however is pretty wide and really only works at higher screen resolutions. I'll probably want to go with something like the banner on my first site. Three elements that float and resize.

The banner is too tall because the top of the screen is prime real estate since it's where the eye is most comfortably at rest. That's why programs have all their menus up there. Putting something that looks cool when you first see it but isn't the primary reason you're going to the site in the prime real estate zone is a poor design IMO. I'll probably change it later. Hard to do a good banner though.

Did the text on the banner by laying down black text and then using the
dropper to set the orange from a dominant color in the photo for
the offset text that lays on top. Kind of a drop shadow effect.

Also flipped the image left to right. Western people read things left to right so it's natural for the eye to move left to right--even when not reading (at least in the west. ) I think the horizon works best on the right cause that's where the eye ends up.

Images tell different stories when you flipped left to right.People making woodcuts quickly learned that you had to carve the image in reverse since it will be reversed when printed. Naturally people would prefer to carve things the way they see them, but when they were printed the scene would flip. People noticed right away the difference this made in the way the image told a story.

Been reading a lot lately. Some really good stuff. Feel like I should be keeping track of what I read and what I think about it. This could seem kind of pretentious though but then I guess the whole idea of having/doing a weblog can be seen in the same light. Having a weblog can be pretentious. But I don't think it is.

Finally finished reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke". Worth reading I think but more for fans. Not as good as "Fight Club" but it had a lot of good stuff in it. Some great quotes. I've kind of been reading a lot of books all at once. Some really good ones:

Bukowski's "Collected Short Stories" William S. Burroughs' "Junky"

They're both pretty good. The subject matter could get a little raw but the writing was pretty cool. Tried reading "Naked Lunch" and got only about half way through it. I don't understand why that book is as popular as it is. "Junky" was way better IMO.

The Bukowski stories were just great. He's a pretty vulgar writer. I guess that's the way most people would characterize his writing, I think it's just honest and that's what I liked about it. Besides, he has a way that he spins his vulgarity that always seems to make it very funny.

Been reading a lot lately. Some really good stuff. Feel like I should be keeping track of what I read and what I think about it. This could seem kind of pretentious though but then I guess the whole idea of having/doing a weblog can be seen in the same light. Having a weblog can be pretentious. But I don't think it is.

Finally finished reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke". Worth reading I think but more for fans. Not as good as "Fight Club" but it had a lot of good stuff in it. Some great quotes. I've kind of been reading a lot of books all at once. Some really good ones:

Bukowski's "Collected Short Stories" William S. Burroughs' "Junky"

Were both pretty good. The subject matter could get a little raw but the writing was pretty cool. Tried reading "Naked Lunch" and got only about half way through it. I don't understand why that book is as popular as it is. "Junky" was way better IMO.

The Bukowski stories were just great. He's a pretty vulgar writer. I guess that's the way most people would characterize his writing, I think it's just honest and that's what I liked about it. Besides, he has a way that he spins his vulgarity that always seems to make it very funny.

After getting on the bus the other night it's stuck in traffic in front of the gym on Wilshire. The one in Westwood. It has this big glass window so that people can look in and feel jealous of all the hard bodies working up a sweat. Or is it the other way around? Maybe people like to be watched when they're working out. It's the kind of thing you see a lot though so it must work, whatever the reason is.

Anyway, there's this crazy guy sitting in front of me. We're all sitting up close to the driver--in the chairs reserved for the handicapped. The crazy guy is spouting off about how this guy working his lower back is a marine. I join in by mentioning my idea of recruiting a bunch of friends to gather in front of this window to eat cheeseburgers, frys and shakes; twenty people should do it (it's my fantasy...) Crazy guy goes into a laughing fit. He sounds like one of those african animals. A hyena I guess. People are looking at him funny, I guess they were doing that before I got on the bus though. He's laughing so hard that he sprains a muscle in the back of his leg. He starts cussing: "shit! it really hurts! hey mister can you just put your hand right there!"

At the same time the bus driver has stopped to collect the extra 50 cents you need to pony up to ride the bus on the freeway. He's telling crazy guy: "you need to get off the bus". To which crazy guy (still screaming about his pulled muscle) replies: "you can't tell me what to do, this is america I can ride this bus as far as I want".

Crazy guy limps over to the fare box and drops in 50 cents. The bus driver has resumes driving and crazy guy launches into a rant. One of the things he says is: "the only way he can get me off this bus is to stop fast and and then I go crashing through the window. He could do that, he's got the power. That would be ok with me too as long as nobody got hurt."

When he says this I know the bus driver is probably going to call the cops or whatever bus drivers do when they have a maniac on their bus. Panic button... whatever it is. Crazy guy has just done the equivalent of mentioning the b or t words in an airport. On top of all the other crazy stuff he's doing.

The bus pulls onto the 405 southbound. Crazy guy is standing at this point. I guess cause his leg is bothering him. But it just makes him more appear more menacing to the other passengers. Most people are sitting within a seat of him--we're all at the front of the bus. Crazy guy towers over everybody. He's got this can of peachs that's rolling around on the seat next to him. Behind him there's a woman in one of those electric wheelchairs. Shes strapped into the bus to keep it from rolling around. She has that look that animals get when they are trapped.

After getting off the freeway, the bus driver just stopped the bus. We waited about ten or fifteen minutes. Crazy guy was the only one that didn't know we were waiting for the police...

Mostly right now I'm working on getting this laid out and setup as something I can use. The comic there on the right is just a place holder for layout. It will eventually be linked so you can click it get the day's comic.

Just trying to add features back to kind of restore my weblog to it's former glory. I will try and continue posting each day as I do this construction work...

I'm sitting in front of the library in downtown Los Angeles. Breaktime. Just bought a coke from a street vendor who's there on the sidewalk selling hotdogs. Kid next to me has a coke, hotdog, and a bag of chips. Skinny kid in a baseball cap, large white t-shirt, and extra-large pants that gather around his ankles. He looks mexican, but later tells me he's half chinese and white and that he likes mexican girls. When I point out that they tend to put on a lot of weight as they get older he agrees.

I ask: "hey man, how big are those pants?"

"Size 48 in the waist and 36 inches long" he tells me.

"How do you keep them from falling off?"

"With a belt", he lifts up his oversized white t-shirt to show me the elaborate system he has for keeping up his pants. 3 inches of red boxer shorts show above the pants, "I tie them 'county style'", he shows me how the belt is assisted by something that looks like a a heavy black shoelace.

I can't figure what the shoelace is doing that the belt doesn't but figure he can't give me more detail without losing his pants. Later someone exlains "county style" means with a shoelace, cause they take your belts away when you're in the county jail. Guess they don't want you hanging yourself...

"You been in county?" I ask, "how long were you in there?".

"Six months... for robbery, but I'm not a gangster... I got two brother in there right now, one of them fighting 20 to life."

"What's he in there for?"

"Two counts of armed robbery and one count of rape."

He continues to tell me how he smokes methamphetamine, opening his backpack to show me a roll of aluminum foil he uses to smoke it with.

"Stayed up once for 10 days straight", this is when I notice how skinny the kid really is.

"See that guy there" the kid points at a black man in front of us who's fussing with a 10 speed, "he steals bikes, that's why he has that wrench in his back pocket".

As we watch the man, he unlocks the ten speed bicycle and rides away, steering the bike he's on with one hand and a 2nd bike with the other. Homeless guy with two ten speed bicycles.

"All this silver I'm wearing I bought myself" the kid gestures to the bracelet, an oversized crucifix and diamond earings he's wearing, "These earings were $400 each."

"What part of town do you live in?" I ask.

"No where, just on the streets".

He points to a destitute man that walks by: "I'll never end up like that."

I'm using the internet kiosk at the public library in downtown El Lay to make this post. Each floor here has eight to ten internet stations and there are seven or eight floors. You can sign up for an hour on each floor. I guess if you got here early enough you could spend the entire day online, just moving from floor to floor each hour. You see some weird stuff when you're using these public access terminals. Seems like most of what people are doing is looking at porn.

The guy in the next internet station is rocking out looking at some kind of online music videos. He's wearing those open style headphones, the music is really loud. "OH WOW!" he says to himself loudly. He's singing to himself and voguing while seated. The music he's listening to is some really bad pop. Something akin to Tony Basil's "Mickey". He has badly chipped chocolate nail polish. The librarian comes over to ask him to keep it down. Usually I would be pissed but I'm starting to get used to the internet kiosk vibe, and I'm in a humorous mood. Absurd.