highfireDANGER!

incendiary wit from a perpetually curious techfemme... and the crap I find on the interwebs.

if you ask me, the mosquitos won.

happy saturday!

sorry about the delayed slash skimpy posting--
i will have some better content up later in the day.

the reason for the neglect
is that i am currently exausted from playing with
BlackLight Company Team Paintball.
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woohoo!

they are sooo much fun!

i know, such an emaciated little post; i even disappoint myself.

but i promise you more hot stuff later.

meanwhile, off to the bat cave!

OkCupid! is for Lovers... On a Budget.

if you are like myself, you've tried online dating sites.
...aaaand quit them as hastily as you signed up.

reasons?

could have been the money:
EESH. more than 10 dollars a month
for anything that isn't definite is too much.
that eHarmony in particular is STEEP.

could have been the selection:
no amount of cute graphics or fun features
can make people who are wrong for you right.
it's also not your fault that you don't live near
one hundred men who look like jake gyllenhaal, have IQs over 135,
and a sense of moral and emotional accountability.
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oh yeah. brains are the number one priority here.

therefore, i love free sites.
and not only is
OkCupid! free,
it's sooo easy to love.
if you have facebook you can try out
their app.
it's their introductory quiz,
which is a blast to take.

i heart OkCupid because:
the whole site is tongue-in-cheek and takes itself only half seriously.
love should be whimsical.
it is based on some intense matching system that uses
statistics to improve your match scores
as you answer more and more questions.
therefore, you can obsess about your identity while you weed out the crazies that don't match up with
your personal, endearing (hopefully) brand of crazy.
love should teach you about yourself.
the matching system was
thought up by some Harvard grads,
is impressive and genius, but what's more fun than explaining that are the cute quizzes, the many ways to interact with people and the fact that it's
SOOO FREEEEE...
the site is also pretty!
and who doesn't like things that are pleasing to view?
love should be pleasant.
plus it's easy to use.
love doesn't need to be more difficult than it is!

here's my result for the first quiz you'd take as an OkCupid member,
to give you an idea of the tone of the site:

You are
THE MAID OF HONOR.
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Deliberate Gentle Love Master (DGLM)

Appreciated for your kindness and envied for all your experience,
you are The Maid of Honor.

Charismatic, affectionate, and terrific in relationships, you are what many guys would call a "perfect catch"--and you probably have many admirers, each wishing to capture your long-term love. You're careful, extra careful, because the last thing you want is to hurt anyone. Especially some poor boy whose only crime was liking you.

We've deduced you're fully capable of a dirty fling, but you do feel that post-coital attachment after hooking up. So, conscientious person that you are, you do your best to reserve physical affection for those you respect...so you can respect yourself.

Your biggest negative is the byproduct of your careful nature: indecision. You're just as slow rejecting someone as you are accepting them.

take the test yourself!

my conclusions?

love should be fun, love sites should be free.
because movies are like, 9 dollars a shot and dinner for one date is up to 50 bucks, which is more than one month of dating sites. you shouldn't be penalized for being good to your potential love interest.
so click here to okcupid yourself silly!

maybe you'll find love.

if not, you won't be any less in debt than when you started.

advertising goes crunch munch munch...

it starts out in the dead of night.
soothing music starts in the background... "la la la la..."

using light, some young people draw progressively changing shapes, which metamorphose again and again into new forms as a narrator describes the process...

"imagine all that you could create and have and connect to..."
i barely notice what the voice says, because the visuals are so cool!
there's a house, a sun, all manners of prettiness.
...and then all light goes into a mobile phone.

OH.

LAME!

the art is suddenly less cool because it's selling something.
it's been stripped of its authenticity.

advertising killed it for me!
stupid sprint!

how can we keep consumerism from killing everything we love?!

will consumerism eventually consume every bit of us all?

i have to say no, for the sake of preserving my optimism,
because i believe we won't lose ourselves completely.
but how can we start to make peace with the crunch munch beast?

in the mean time, keep drawing...

dearest (enabler) facebook,

this is one of the many letters i will be writing to you in this blog.

today, i ask you:

why are you only blue and white?

i have nothing against these colors.

after all, i really like what God has done with clouds and the sky.
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very nice.

it's just that, as a friend (stalker) of yours for what seems to be a lifetime,

i am sick of staring at you.

alternately, i can make my myspace puke green and neon pink if i want my eyes to bleed from exposure to fug, but instead, dear fb, i am bored to catatnoia by a lack of color options that leaves me instead with your endless spew of sterile blue and white.

*sniff*

you've just let yourself go...

in this age where the consumer revels in customization,
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whether for good or evil...

instead of throwing a cupcake at my friend in Australia,
or giving another an egg that hatches into a penguin,

can a girl just get some pink or red or purple
to match her gender construct?


please think about what i've said.

sincerely,

HFD.

chris taylor: keep your eye on this star.

ifyoucan.
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i am so fortunate to know so many talented musicians.

all of them are very good.

so, not only do i get entertained, do i get to collaborate with other talent, i never have to lie to them and say that they're good when they're not. 'cause they really are!

i'm just kidding.

but this person is awesome:
















go here or here if the player isn't working.

that's my old friend chris taylor.

UGH, LISTEN TO THAT VOICE. GORGEOUS.

he's currently in the popular philly cover band, the rockets. i mean, seriously popular. he's the lead singer and anyone who gets to hear him is lucky! i just love listening to him perform and he is just incredible live. i've even had the honor of playing with him. his talent is immense and i can't wait to hear more.

what is adorable for me is that i was there when he first started learning guitar. we were in a band together for a little bit and now lookit where this kid is.

remember this name. keep your eye on this star.

but in the short term, wish upon another star tonight that he makes more music so that i can put something up that wasn't recorded in 2005!

it will make all of our lives a little brighter.

click here to listen to the rest and to harass him to make more!

not what i promised, but still awesome...

okay, so it's not la salle high school in pasadena, but it's still glorious.

The Hand That Feeds, by Nine Inch Nails, by the Washington Court House Senior High School Marching Band.
go blue lions!

CAVE IN : FLAWLESS.


it's my goal to share with you all of the bands i encounter who are incredible live performers.

it's a testament to their TRUE skill because the live performance, to me, is where real talent is.

oh, cave in are perfect, they are perfect.

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beautiful son (quieter of the two, acoustic):
Beautiful Son by Cave-In

seafrost (rock, but spacy and mellow, starts out slowly):
Seafrost by Cave-In


if you want to listen to more, antenna is my favorite, jupiter is next, then moons of jupiter, creative eclipses & tides of tomorrow. the latter three are small eps but they are often my favorite parts of a band's body of work!

a majority of the rest (like perfect pitch black and until your heart stops) is metalcore and contains a lot of screaming, which the lead singer does well, but i can't get into it as much as i try! although my friends who like screamage says he's good at it. ;) happy listening!

cave in myspace.

girls, boys & their (virtual) guns

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oooh halo 3...


if i got together, in one gigantic rhetorical room, all of the people who are excited about halo 3 coming out on tuesday, it would be millions of gamers.

mi-lli-ons.

the gender composition of that room, however, would be overwhelmingly male.

how intriguing.

i play halo online with my brother, and accordingly, i rarely get matched up with other women. when i do, it's this little victory for us! we acknowledge each other, we virtually wink at each other: like it's a party we've adeptly crashed with skills other than sex appeal and we're crafty for doing this.

additionally, the men are usually angry when a female beats them at a game, as though a woman winning somehow violates something sacred, something uniquely male.

is gaming uniquely male? obviously not, since women do play. but it is mostly a male past-time. why is this?

boys, why is this? what is it about gaming that you like? why don't you like it, ladies? or, why do you?

another interesting thing is the overuse of the fa-word: that obscene, unnecessary slur for homosexuality. i won't waste your time by saying it because you hear it enough, even if it's one time. this is meant as a subversion of another's masculinity, as an attempt to dominate another, to break down another, and i think it's really crude. but i hear it all the time.

what is going on with that?

in my opinion, this is an example of how closely males are expected to police each other's masculinity. it's like: don't you dare let each other slip into something other than your very stiff gender constructs!

as marginalized as women still are, (lack of equal pay, for example), we can get away with a wider range of emotions. though, we're usually called 'hysterical' or 'weak' for it, we can get away with it and from woman to woman, we see it as normal, and actually, as an advantage. being socially aware and adept is VERY useful. but i digress.

so, is gaming just another place to reify and police and define and redefine masculinity?

hmm, is that the sound of most boys *shushing* me as their eyes glaze over as they stare at the screen and tap their codes that make them win...? am i just interrupting their games or could i be on to something?

what i'm saying is this: it's okay, guys. it's okay. you can totally cry when i beat you at a game.* ;)

but i could do without the fa- word.

unless you're talking about this:
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or you're british, and you're talking about these:
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*seriously, lots of gender constructs are oppressing and you have my permission to make up your own!

dancin' with the girls

this band is FUN!

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better than any contrived pop album out there!

meet, the girls!