Why North Korea Hates Democracy

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Because we have cooler uniforms. I mean, seriously. The South Korean soldier on the left looks like he was dressed by Gaultier. See that look on his face? He knows he’s a badass. Now check out his North Korean counterpart. He looks like he’s guarding the monkey cages at the Pyongyang Zoo. If they had better uniforms, maybe they wouldn’t have to announce that they’re making more nuclear bombs in order to get some cred. Come on, Designers Without Borders, get to work!

Everybody’s Doing It, So Do It Too.

After five long years languishing beneath a decreasingly-believable “under construction” banner, Plooble finally has a home on the web. “As soon as register.com stops being wonky, you’ll be able to get here by typing www.plooble.com.” My thanks to everyone who has said, “You should have a blog,” and again, I hope that didn’t mean, “Stop sending me all those emails.” Special thanks to Adrienne, who helped me with the set up and design, and to Rebecky, Jesse, Myküll and Pinky for providing me with daily inspiration to get one of my own. “The fact that the title of this first entry is a song lyric is an homage to Pinky. But I’m not going to keep doing that, because that would be crass and derivative.”

And now, to begin polluting cyberspace with my pointless observations, not to mention bitchin’ ‘n’ moanin’.

This blog was created on my new laptop, obtained thanks to the combined efforts of State Farm and Some Crackhead. “I hope you’re enjoying my old laptop, Mr. Burglar. And I love that I’m still paying for it.” I brought the new machine “should I name it?” home from Best Buy last night, and at first I was excited. I soon realized it was possibly the least enjoyable technology purchase I’ve ever made. As Primo pointed out, “It’s just like your old laptop, only without your stuff on it.” What I’ve actually purchased is two solid days of transferring files, installing software and cursing Microsoft. Still, it is very fast. Of course it’s fast. It doesn’t have any of my stuff on it. I’ll soon take the wind out of your sails, missy.

I interrupted HMS Thighburner’s shakedown cruise to go to my homeowners’ association annual meeting. Big mistake. Before I knew what was happening, I was on the frickin’ board of directors. Two people “one of whom I’d never met” asked if they could nominate me. Despite the fact that I purposefully gave the lamest stump speech in electoral history “I basically said, “Uhh, I’ll do it if I have to”” I was elected in a landslide. I have no idea why. Perhaps it was my new sweater. I considered demanding a recount, but that would have been crass and derivative. Oh, and, joy of joys, because I was one of the top three vote getters, my term lasts three years. Perhaps I should rename this blog “Adventures in Petty Authority,” because I’m sure my tenure will provide lots of blog fodder. I can’t wait to get into a heated argument about deck truss replacement, or spend my time listening to the complaints of the lady from Long Island, whose tone of voice makes it clear she considers the board of directors to be somewhere below Carlo Ponzi in terms of character and honesty.

Things peeving me at the moment:

Microsoft

my unstoppable electability

my enduring unemployability

the fact that I actually watched all of “Mr. Deeds” on Monday, instead of doing, um… anything else

songs with noises in them that sound like something is wrong with my car “there’s a Portastatic song with a sound like a wheel bearing going bad, and one by the Fruit Bats with an off-tempo percussion line that sounds like someone is locked in my trunk”

Speaking of car trouble and CDs, yesterday on the way to Best Buy I started hearing a crackling noise coming from my CD player, which, along with the rest of the car, is 1500 miles out of warranty. I’m glad I realized it was actually the plastic bag in the back seat fluttering in the wind before I took the car in. I’m still rebuilding my cred after last month’s visit when I complained about catastrophic handling problems, which were solved by letting some air out of the tires.

Okay. That looks like a blog entry. But man, I can’t believe I linked to a picture of a sweater.