Sure to be a Popular Thread: Ask Dell

dere dell,

PIX PLZ

yrs,

Dear dell,

What is a fun romp of a book I can read?

signed,

the Abbott

are you looking forward to being sold in tesco?

Dear dell,

Do you have any pets? Do you like pets?

yours,

Abbottron 439

dere dell (2)

also u r a dude, don't let anyone else say different

yrs,

Jgo, ASAP...YTMND's be damned!

Abbott,

To be honest, as of late I read mostly books about Buddhism/Psychology. Whether any of them can be considered "fun romps" is debatable. Outside those categories, I posted on the Noise Board not long ago about an excellent book called "Strange Piece of Paradise"

frum Amazon customer reviews (I know, but...I swear this is an amazing book):

"Strange things happen to people in America. Some bitterly cruel. And some so beautiful that faith is retired forever.", June 17, 2006
By Jessica Lux-Baumann "LaGizma" (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Strange Piece of Paradise (Hardcover)
To Terri Jentz, Oregon is a dark and strange piece of paradise. After her freshman year at Yale, Jentz and her roommate Shayna set off on a summer 1977 Great American Journey--crossing the country from Oregon to Virginia on a BikeCentennial route. On Day 22 of the journey, Jentz and Shayna separated from a couple they had met on the road and then decided to stop for the night in an unapproved campground. They awoke that night to the unimaginable horror of a pickup truck driving through their tent, and then a handsome phantom of a cowboy striking them repeatedly with an axe.

Jentz was physically damaged by the event, but she moved on with her life as a woman unafraid of telling her story, unafraid of the dark, and still willing to tent-camp. Her companion Shayna had amnesia about the night and barely survived with limited vision. She distanced herself from Jentz and the memories of that night as much as possible.

Fifteen years later, Jentz returned to Cline Falls, Oregon to investigate her past. "Could I ever apply meaning to what had long seemed a senseless act, one that happened without pattern or reason?" "Who was the man who emerged that night in a desert park, bent on destruction?" The statute of limitations on attempted murder in Oregon was a mere three years, so Jentz's adult odyssey was truly a personal exploration, not a formal legal investigation. In Orgeon, Jentz teamed up with victim's rights advocate Dee Dee, who puts it best: "We kind of reward you because you're not very good at what you do. The only difference between attempted murder and murder is that somebody was inadequate in what they tried to do. Their intent was the same. That person is as great a danger to society as the person who completed the murder. Maybe they're a bad shot. Why would you reward them?"

It was the lack of formal legal recourse that allowed Jentz access to the close-knit community of Cline Falls. Over the course of a decade, she traveled to Oregon repeatedly to chase down leads, interview police, talk to witnesses, and re-unite with her rescuers and with the hospital staff who cared for her. The girls "who got chopped up at Cline Falls" were ingrained in the collective memory of Oregonians and the nation, and everyone had a flicker of recognition when Jentz identified herself. She quickly discovered that the town had long suspected one of their own, an alcoholic, abusive sadist with a long history of domestic violence, as the perpetrator. He even had a nickname--Dick Duran the Hatchet Man. In candid prose, Jentz describes the bureaucratic mistakes made in the investigation of her case (it became a turf war between three local agencies), as well as the 1977 public relations nightmare of talking about two girls who "asked for it" by camping alone in an unapproved area, and the face of crime in the 1970's (the term serial killer hadn't even been invented yet, and there were no crime tabloids and TV shows).

Despite the inconsistencies and missteps Jentz discovered in the official investigation, nothing about the case is open and shut. Jentz finds witnesses who contradict one another, who contradict previous statements, and people who made claims but have been influenced by the gossip around town in the two decades since the crime. Her research is exhaustive, and she accepts nothing at face value. The author should be commended for her dedication to factual accuracy (she refused to accept hearsay); however, the extreme detail does weigh the action down partway through the book. As an armchair detective, I would have gladly accepted a more condensed version of interviews. This is still, without question, a 5-star narrative that succeeds both as a personal memoir and as a criminal case study.

As a kid I liked Freddy the Pig...

why is yr name dell

are you looking forward to being sold in tesco?

I don't live in U.K... but stateside, if Walgreeen's, People's Drug, CVS, Rite Aid, Eckert, or any other chemists' chain wishes to profit off of me or my likeness, I would welcome such an opportunity. God knows I could use the dough and would "sell out" in an instant.

Dear dell,

Do you have any pets? Do you like pets?

yours,

Abbottron 439

A439:
No. Yes.

It should be stated for the record, though, that I love "animal companions", and am esp. biased towards cats. At the moment, a friend of mine needs to move one of his cats to someone else's place (for various reasons which I won't go into here). I haven't even researched my current landlords' pet policies, but I am very seriously considering bringing in his cat. It would probably be a good situation all-around.

dere dell (2)

also u r a dude, don't let anyone else say different

Aw, shucks...thanks, J-go. One day a virtual Taj Mahal will be built in commemoration of our mutual admiration society.

If only I were joking...

why is yr name dell

-- mookieproof

m, I don't even know rightly myself, to be honest. I would imagine that it sprang to my mind out of laziness and lack of imagination. In retrospect, I'm sure that a degree of strategic anonymity and maybe even gender-ambiguity figured into the decision. I almost wish that I could say that I stared at my laptop and saw "DELL" and then thought "duh...", but I have some other whatever kind of pc.

It was likely born out of drunkenness?

weren't we all

Dude dell, that would be awesome if that was how your name was made, because the kid who pretends to be a secret millionaire in "Blank Check" names himself Macintosh after looking at his Apple IIe.

A,
a quick glance at IMDB reveals that my life is sorely lacking by virtue of never having seen that movie.

Also opening up a new tab on my browser brought up this:
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:AfN0MN9TniY1tM:http://www.homeworship101.com/images/satanic_killers....jpg

which would seem to indicate that my life is sorely lacking by virtue of overindulging in absurd GIS activities as of late.

mookieproof,

yeah, I was gonna make some joke about so many peoples being conceived as a result of drinkies, but, ya got me beat.

dear dell my computer is not computing can u help me?????

dear libcrypt,

your computer would seem to be computing just fine, as far as i can tell, but if you continue to have problems, maybe try http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/?~ck=ln&lnki=0&nav=true

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I mean, how can you go wrong w/MoneyGuyBK?

Dear Del -

I hear you're putting out two albums this year, one as '...the funky homosapien' and one as "...tron 2020" Why the different handles?

Dear dell,

What is a fun romp of a book I can read?

Also, the Abbott,

this book I can recommend w/o reservation. Out-of-print true crime book, but amazing.

http://homepage.mac.com/kia/images/carsons.jpg

Cry for War

Fascinating book by Richard D. Reynolds about Suzan and Michael Carson, the so-called San Francisco "Witch" killers.

Follow the adventures of these nomadic killers as they make their home in abandoned cabins, live out of dumpsters, deal marijuana and preach their own version of Islam. They saw themselves as Hassassins, tools of Allah. Most people saw them as insane. Ric Reynolds gets inside their heads and tells it from their point of view.

You are prepared to hate them after the first chapter which is from the point of view of the victim's friends. Then, as we accompany them on their flight from justice and enter their minds, we find ourselves seduced into liking them and actually rooting for them. Such is the power of this book.

This is a book of the streets and the people who inhabit them. It's a book of punk rockers, welfare mothers, Golden Gate Park, pot farms, nomads crashing in abandoned cabins, and murder. Suzan and Michael are pot dealers (and smokers) who are high on their own insanity. They see themselves as Moslem assassins and their lives as a holy war against "Witches" and other "infidels."

Oh holy shit dell I love that shit. I like to read books about psychology, but it's hard to find ones that aren't full of it (ie more "self help" if that makes any sense). I like books about weird trials and books about "repressed memory" because it always means weird, horrible stuff. I also like books about ecosystems or various animals. Hard to find good fiction; pretty much only been reading short stories. Not sure why I'm telling you this. The End.

I best of all love books about the history of treatment of the mentally ill (though I certainly do not love impassioned screeds for or against psychopharmaceuticals). I have pretty much exhausted all the ones in my library.

i NEeD to know

-- dell, Monday, 17 September 2007 22:42 (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

^^^why the weird capitalisation in this post?

One of my biggest influences in life, I kid you not, was my mom's "Abnormal Psychology" textbook from her college yrs (circa '59?) It's not the same as Foucault or whatever, but at the time I first read it (hs) it kinda blew my mind.

I also think this book is criminally neglected:
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:mFE9kIfFOlcZUM:http://www.gibsonbooks.com/shop_image/product/4477.jpg

(Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s son's tale of reckoning w/mental illness first-hand)

Dear Dell,

What is something to do on the internet besides ILX??

W.E.S.

^^^why the weird capitalisation in this post?
-- Dom Passantino

Hi Dom,

big fan...for a pommie, your ILX search skills are to be most commended.

Perhaps on the same page w/most of your thread revives, (at least from my layman's perspective) that particular post was could be said to have been an ill-disguised cry for help addressed towards M. Raggett. . (Particularly as a possible means of alerting him to future acronym mix-ups of "LZBC" and "LBZC"...the former of which rubs me wrong to no end))

(not that he has authority in such matters, but I figured that it couldn't hurt)

Dear W.E.S.,

I recommend keeping in touch w/friends and family via email, or possible even "chat" if you feel up to it.

The rest I leave up to your imagination and particular inclinations as a unique human being (assuming your postings here are not the cumulative effort of your office dept.'s softball team* or what have you)

*insert U.K., Aussie, NZ, South African, Finnish, etc., equivalent here

like to read books about psychology, but it's hard to find ones that aren't full of it (ie more "self help" if that makes any sense). I like books about weird trials and books about "repressed memory" because it always means weird, horrible stuff. I also like books about ecosystems or various animals. Hard to find good fiction; pretty much only been reading short stories.

I like "self help" genre...pretty much everything there! I like to sort out which ones actually have stuff I can use. Like, I would gladly take advice from Joel Osteen if I genuinely felt that it would help my life. At worst it's at least interesting from a sociological standpoint.

Also I like to check out stuff from people I instantly feel repelled by (e.g., Dr. Phil; to investigate if maybe I am just hating because he is speaking truth to some neurotic part of me that is instantaneously resistant to his message b/c I have hidden agendas or self-sabotaging stuff at work (which of course I do, but...))

Anyway, I just happened to have opened up a box of books which were in storage...some gems (I think):
Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness, and the Spirit of Nature
ed. Ralph Metzner (self-explanatory)
Perils of the Soul: Ancient Wisdom and the New Age
John Ryan Haule (Jungian psychologist examines "New Age" shit from grounded perspective)
The Far Side of Madness John Weir Perry (re-visioning of schizophrenia '74)
Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind
Christopher M. Bache (Stan Grof territory)
Turning the Gorgon: A Meditation on Shame Sandra Edelman (more an academic examination than the self-help that the title would lead one to believe)
Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature ed. Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams (cannot argue much w/)
Angel Dust: An Ethnographic Study of PCP Users
Harvey W. Feldman, Michael W. Feldman, Michael H. Agar, George M. Beschhner (wau, '79)

I also like lots Carl Rogers, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and others I could list whom I guess skirt too much along the lines of "self-help"...

I can't read much fiction these days; not sure why. I regrettably have nothing to recommend along the lines of animals/ecosystems (unless above angel dust ethnography book counts!)

dere dell,

PIX PLZ

special preview:
in the past, complete strangers have variously told me, w/o solicitation, that i resemble damon albarn; dominic monaghan (on one occasion a forty-something woman did a double-take and exclaimed "I saw you on tv last night... on PBS!"...I later ascertained that she was talking about his character on the Hetty Wainthrop show...on another occasion years later some woman said I looked like his hobbit character); anthony perkins as norman bates; kurt cobain...and i'm sure there are others, but i can't remember right now.

right now i think i look like underfed guy who needs a shave!

holy shit, i just remembered i got the dominic monaghan thing again a few months ago...this guy was like, you look like that actor!!, and then finally he and his friend figured out that they were talking about his character on Lost.

I don't see it, though.

Also, Matthew Shepard.

.

which is probably most accurate

Dear Del -

I hear you're putting out two albums this year, one as '...the funky homosapien' and one as "...tron 2020" Why the different handles?

I'm still new to this rap game, so your guess is as good as mine, Oilyrags. "Double L"

dere dell (3)

your html playground threads are like some sort of weird, brilliant art installation

plz keep it up

yrs,

That's kind of you to say... really I'm standing on the shoulder of giants.

Will try to keep up w/it until I am hounded out of town by the locals.

heave ho's moved out. patch is up for grabs. you might as well stake a claim.

What even is the way to play there, I cannot find it, and my dog will only sniff it down if another dog has peed on it. Apparently this has not happened.

http://www.dick-blick.com/items/212/15/21215-OF3ww.jpg
Do you have a favorite?

xpost

Oh there's pee there, alright. Not sure if it's dog pee, but still, there's pee. Yesiree...

Do you have a favorite?

Teddy bear flavor.

hai

dell where are u

Dell what is your favorite kind of computer?

I mean phlegm

GRÜN-- made by a german firm, eco-friendly, decomposiert schnell, the st. pauli girl of 'puters

grün-- made by a croatian man iso an affordable chinese restaurant, eco-friendly, raspada se brzo, the pivovara ličanka of 'egm-a

Dell will you please craft an alternative punchline to the "why was 6 afraid of 7" joke?

the st. pauli girl of 'puters

lol

hey del why did karl marx prefer herbal tea?

Dell will you please craft an alternative punchline to the "why was 6 afraid of 7" joke?

i knew you'd "half-doz" ask!

cause proper tea is theft

hey del why did karl marx prefer herbal tea?

nah because his theory of dialectical materialism 'tisane!

yours is good, though, too

Dell wd you rather sashay or chanté?

dunno, but i'm way into potpourri these days!

just for reference, RuPaul defines "chante" as "to weave a bewitching spell".

you have to get her book

The new one or the old one?

new one

i'm only into shante, like roxanne. and potpourri. and faux boboli.

dell, how do you feel about non-metal items patterened suchly:

http://www.photoshoptextures.com/metal-textures/metal-pattern-texture.jpg

And, if I may, a follow-up:

what is, iyo, the best way to prepare tempeh?

Hey dell, I read Eden Express because of this thread. It was pretty decent.

that pattern's milf-scarry faux boboli juice newton pride

s.d, i don't have a best way. i like on sandwich sliced in half, fried slowly in some oil, in a pan. onions? tomatoes? sesame oil? ginger?...or fried w/vegetables and eaten with rice. fucking shitaake mushrooms, i don't know. i haven't tried making any traditional indonesian dishes that feature it, but i will. also, "the book of tempeh" is available in its entirety via googlebooks if i'm not mistaken

abbbottt, i'm glad that you read that book. only "pretty decent", though? yipes

s.d., also, you got that steve winwood song stuck in my head. love you for that. jackass. :D

ERIC EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

CALL ON ME

Also I can't stop saying "faux boboli" to myself

IT'S A GOOD PHRASE LIKE THAT

Dear del ---

Did you know about this?

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1271446851l/7816284.jpg

I want to read it. I am guessing it will have fewer cranky Canadian hippies than his 1st book.

Hi Mr. Pepei,

thanks for cluing me into that book! i am definitely interested in reading it. the excerpts available on amazon are pretty choice, but no surprise there, as eden express is one of my all time favorites

"If you don't have flights of ideas, why bother to think at all? I don't see how people without loose associations and flights of ideas get much done."

haha, awesome

eden express is good

a friend of mine tried to option it from him, said he was p weird

a friend of mine tried to option it from him, said he was p weird

wow, i would love to hear more about that.

yeah, i discovered some youtube videos of him speaking a few years back, but i didn't have the patience to watch them at the time, and also in part i think b/c i found him to be kind of off-putting?? but, again this was a few years back, so maybe i should check it out again. but like, there is too much stuff on youtube. and the internet. i think.

also, ice crubs i can only lean on you once but man you should stop by tom and jerry's on sat. evening if you can. entertain the troops.

i would love to but im in vermont! i dont think i live in ny anymore, its unclear, thought u guys were going to monas anyway

i dont remember anything of the optioning attempt story tbh except he was like that guys is irl kind of crazy for sure - i think he just went to his house and drank some tea w/him or w/e - i dont think he really had any money to buy the option or particularly knew how to get a movie made he was just really into the book lol

cool, i hope you are having fun in vt! that state is named after the drink "vermouth", i don't know if you know that.

those other losers are going to mona's, but i'm going to hang out at tom and jerry's. apparently it's just like shakey's pizza, but without cartoons.

that's awesome that yr friend did that. i have thought about doing that w/some books before, like probably including that one... that's really cool!!

you should do it then at the v least youd have some stories abt the time you attempted to option some books, and thx for the tip re the origin of the name vermont i did not know that

ha, yes, good advice

yr welcome! say hi to ben and or jerry for me. many thanks

a flavor named after me is slated for next september. fyi. it's on the decks. a dell-themed treat.

cool man can not wait to savor, say hi to tom and jerry

a dell-themed treat.

redundant?? yes. but even our own american language has its limits/

wrd.

Abbott, I began reading that Vonnegut follow-up book today. Even just the introduction where he talks about practicing pediatrics and how effed up healthcare is these days is pretty heartbreaking stuff.

I was looking at photo of his dad holding him on his shoulders when he was a toddler. Wow, Kurt was a really handsome guy. I have never read any of his books! Not a one

I read and finished that book a few months ago –– one of the best I have read this year, and it's been a year of pretty great books for me. There are some pretty heartbreaking critiques of healthcare/insurance in there, it's true. But at least the last chapter is about his hobby of wild mushroom picking!

I agree Kurt was handsome – also easy to caricature in that anytime I see any cartoon with a stache and curly hair I think it is Kurt Vonnegut Jr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVDUYJo3CjU

Hah!

Once, my parents went out to dinner and on the way home they went
to King’s to pick up a mop and some lightbulbs. My father noticed that
the music being played over the PA was a waltz. He asked my mother
to dance, and they waltzed in the aisle. Before the song was over the
music changed to a fox trot, which they handled no problem. The music
changed again. Fast, slow, rumba, tango, whatever, my parents danced
to everything that was thrown at them. After fifteen minutes of trying to
stump the dancers, whoever was watching them through the shoplifting
surveillance system gave up and the PA went silent. My parents paid for
the mop and the lightbulbs and came home. When they walked through
the door they were laughing so hard they were crying.