entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Ash and Ethel Thorn, conjoined twin typographers.

This week has absolutely blown.  Lots of problems at work for me and Kimmy; yesterday i was helping her out after hours and i managed to slip on some steps and whack my forearm pretty bad.  No structural damage, but the bruise hurts at the slightest touch.  I've not gotten much sleep due to going to bed late thanks to work, and halfway through today's second half of our soccer game, i was completely winded.  We managed to not lose today (5-5 tie), but there was an ugly moment where after a struggle for the ball, the opponent fouled our guy, who fell; the opponent then saw fit to toepoke my teammate in the back.  If it had happened to me, i don't know if i'd held back, but my teammate managed.  It reminded me of a similar moment some months ago where my team was playing like shit, and i was tired from running and flopping around, and as a guy broke away towards me, i tried to beat him to the ball and failed, so i ended up checking him into the boards.  It was mortifying to me, but when i apologized to the guy after the game, he said it was no big deal and even laughed it off.  Anyway... it's easy to lose your shit when you're playing if you don't keep a lid on the adrenaline.  At least it's easier than when stuff and people at work are full of fatuousness.

I'm also grumpy because i'm in a creative slump.  I'll see what i can do to shake myself out of it.

Michael Lewis is a very good writer.  I loved Moneyball, but i'm a big baseball fan.  palecur loved it even more than i did (he read it in a day or two), and he's not.  Lewis's writing is compelling and cogent, and he has a knack for getting great conversation from his subjects.

Lewis has written a follow-up to his first book, Liar's Poker, in which he talks to people to find out how our current financial crisis happened, and why it was, perhaps, unavoidable.  It's a fantastic read that will probably leave you clutching your head like a stunned monkey at times.  It's longer than your typical article, but it's worth reading.

Some of you talk.bizarre types might remember Laurence Simon; i do believe it was hwrnmnbsol who brought him along.  He runs is_full_of_crap, a 100-word story Weblog and podcast from various contributors, including t.b's Alan Scott.  The quality varies, but i found this one especially enjoyable.

I've seen a few people link to the gene_weingarten story about having Joshua Bell play incognito for 44 minutes in a DC Metro station (use bugmenot if you don't want to register).  I'd also like to point you to the subsequent Weingarten chat, and the complete audio of Bell's performance (requires Flash).

Weingarten's also the guy who wrote the story about the Great Zucchini which i mentioned some time ago.  His normal stuff seems to be jokey, Dave Barry-style columns, but he does seem to write some great stuff when he's serious.  It's fascinating to see the variety of reactions he publishes in his chat; i confess getting a little misty-eyed when i read the story, and again when i listened to Bell's work, and then again when someone mentioned the Vedran Smailović story.

And your wedding night thighs
kept me alive

I heard this lyric from Catherine Wheel's "Crème Caramel" as "wedding knife eyes" for the longest time.  Googling for "wedding knife" sadly gives me tons of hits for wedding cake knives (even if i add -cake), and not anything interesting.  I know there's a story somewhere in 'wedding knife eyes'.

Warren Ellis linked to The Peekaboo Paradox, an article written about a child entertainer who is incredibly successful at his job.  The article is superbly written.  I don't want to go into more detail because i don't want to spoil it in any way.

... check out rustylantern.  We've just gotten started and there are 4 empty benches.  Read the rules, then join the community.

schwa242 forwarded Smile! from MetaFilter. It reminded me of something i wrote, Smile for me. It's one of the few things i look back on and wonder, "Where the fuck did that come from?"

Via bryant:

Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it's something that's never happened. Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.