I ♥ Jason Schwartzman

A funny ad for The New Yorker.



I'm kind of bummed to miss Bored to Death on HBO. It wasn't even that great but I loved seeing Zach Grkjdsfshgjk and Jason Schwartzman.

Creepy Mandatory Fun

Glad I'm not the only one who finds "fun" culture of companies kind of creepy. A while back I saw a video of Zappos and how "fun" it was to work there and found myself slightly horrified to be in similar environment where I not only get to be my cooky self with my co-workers, but it's expected of me.

This cult of fun is driven by three of the most popular management fads of the moment: empowerment, engagement and creativity. Many companies pride themselves on devolving power to front-line workers. But surveys show that only 20% of workers are “fully engaged with their job”. Even fewer are creative. Managers hope that “fun” will magically make workers more engaged and creative. But the problem is that as soon as fun becomes part of a corporate strategy it ceases to be fun and becomes its opposite—at best an empty shell and at worst a tiresome imposition.

The most unpleasant thing about the fashion for fun is that it is mixed with a large dose of coercion. Companies such as Zappos don’t merely celebrate wackiness. They more or less require it. Compulsory fun is nearly always cringe-making. Twitter calls its office a “Twoffice”. Boston Pizza encourages workers to send “golden bananas” to colleagues who are “having fun while being the best”. Behind the “fun” façade there often lurks some crude management thinking: a desire to brand the company as better than its rivals, or a plan to boost productivity through team-building. Twitter even boasts that it has “worked hard to create an environment that spawns productivity and happiness”.

Part of this whole "fun" phenomenon is that many people have forgotten how to be a adults, another form of the prolonged adolescents syndrome. Look, I like acting goofy and being in touch with my inner child...just not at work. Give me a cocktail in the afternoon and the expectation that I work with other adults and suddenly work won't be so

Strange Criteria

It has been a good week because I had no doctor appointments. It's also been a cheap week because of that.

To Love and Courage

I think this perfectly describes what I've come to know about love and what I'm still learning how to do (minus the ball scratching). It's not honesty, but courage that you need when it comes to love. To trust that the other person will take you just the way you are, that you're worth it.

I was mistaking sincerity for honesty — a young man's mistake, really. And I could not access honesty, because that would have called for courage. I needed to tell her what I really thought: that we were in my bed, in my apartment, that it was clear she hadn't heard a word I'd said since ball scratch No. 1 and ball scratch No. 2, and that she couldn't stop herself from insulting me and my family, all because her sensibilities were offended by the thought of my fingernails coming in contact with my own scrotum. And me — feckless, cringing me — the only work I was doing was working to access a more believable tone of voice.

I'm all for compromise, but I should have shown a little courage and told her what was what. But I know I was afraid of what she would think, what she'd tell her friends and my friends, and I'd be known forever as a ball-scratcher. I should have just told her what I was thinking, that it might not be her business at that point. But even then, on that very first morning, I wanted to love her, and I wanted to be loved. I believed then that love was simply a matter of submission and apology. What a dope.

The only thing that matters in love is courage. Everything that's good about love is borne out of it. The truest revelations of self require it. There is no honesty without it. It takes courage to put the needs of another above your own. You can't tell the most important stories about your past, can't reveal your imperfections, without it. You can't see the flaws in your own expectations of love without being brave enough to admit they are misguided, damaged, even boneheaded, then do the work to adjust them to the love you come to discover. It is courage that allows you to step into the jaws of trust.

For years now, I've thought of that moment with the ball-scratching — a small incident, magnified by years of the same pattern on my part. Why did I apologize? Why didn't I object? I can only say this would have saved me years of desperately trying to please this woman, and women in general, by apologizing for what I am — a talky, generous, misguided ball-scratcher. A guy who, also for years, worked under the assumption that apology represents a desirable form of intimacy in itself, a guy who lacked the fortitude — the courage — to risk a little loss in the declaration of self.

I still have a lot of trouble telling people, loved ones, how I really feel. The fear of rejection, of being wrong, of need for apology being something the other craves has been ingrained in me. I want more courage and slowly with the help of people who love me I've been gathering it up, slowly but surely.

Read the whole article: Why Love Takes Balls

Basically The Best Thing I've Seen In A Long Time

This is quite fantastic, I keep looking at the synced hands. Also I adore Italian songs with the word Americano. Something so sweet and sexy about the way the word is said.

Please Explain The Difference To Me

Daniel Greenfield at Solomonia sums up my confusion at the reaction to the proposed Cordoba Center versus the reaction to some dude wanting to burn the Koran.

In the weeks leading up to the anniversary, the media had been sanctimoniously lecturing Americans that their sensitivities regarding Ground Zero were irrelevant in the face of a Muslim desire to put up a massive and completely unnecessary Islamic complex in the area. Constitutional freedoms, real or imagined, trumped any sensitivities. But when a Gainesville pastor proposed returning a couple of copies of the Koran back to the environment by way of lighter fluid, suddenly freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and all that other stuff created by dead white men before the age of Walter Kronkite and CNN, were irrelevant in face of Muslim sensitivities.

By the way I don't give a shit about the center being built two blocks near Ground Zero. Do I think it's distasteful and wrong for someone who proclaims to want to "build bridges" and then do something that offends a whole lot of people? Yup. But there is nothing I can do about it because it's their right as Americans, no matter how much I disagree with them, to do so. But so is the right of this idiot pastor to burn those books. Do I disagree with him and find it insulting and stupid? Yup. But just like the Mosque being build in NYC, that is his right as an American, to be offensive as he wants and exercise his religious freedom. And no it's not like Kristalnacht, last time I checked he is not going into Mosques, and burning their Korans and the US government is not sponsoring the burning. Ugh.

Learning About Myself

While hanging out with toddlers:

1. I like coloring within the lines, a lot. (Although, my bf's niece makes it look very cool when she colors with a totally red marker and makes Cinderella look like she belongs in a Kiss show.)

2. Playing in the sand is fun. I like to make my castles nice and neat and fill the dump truck to the brim with sand.

I wonder if I was that anal retentive when I was little kid.