what's up brandon? it's sunday, midnite, central time even. where's your post, fakesta?

got nothin? well we're sick of you're lying fakin ass.

let me be the first to start up a poll, i vote we kick brandon off killoggs.

that's right, ya heard me beeeyatch.

Mmm. It's late night, and I just got back from a great party where I saw a lot of faces, old and new.

But now, I feel a bit hungry. Could be from all the lemon soju I drank.

Which brings me to this: what are your favorite late night foods? I often crave some wonton noodle soup from Oakland Chinatown. Oh, and curry... yum. Pie is also quite good... a la mode, of course. Does anyone ever have their apple pie with a slice of cheese on top? I see that on the menus sometime.

P.S.: Josh, note to make "poll or quiz" category.

I have absolutely NO idea what's going on. What's the deal with Brandon? I just don't get it!!!!!

Dear Killoggs:

It is with the greatest regret that I write to you today. After having discussed these goings on with many, many souls, I have come to the conclusion and I have been advised that it would be best if I not in any way fulfil or provide deliverables that could reasonably satisfy the expectations the hype created by me and my agents during the past three days.

I do not deny that this must be a most disappointing turn of events but, iIn retrospect, very few of you had very little invested in such an announcement, moreover, the SEGWAY was much worse in that regard. And when you consider the fact that Josh still includes the SEGWAY as an item on his Amazon WISHLIST. Well, I'll let you be the judge.

However disappointing this may have been for you, this has been the very essence of satisfaction for me, a (s)quid pro quo, if you will, of negativity that began months ago when a curious, sudden silence abruptly ended by an IM announcement that seemed so absurd on the face of it, that the shock of the utterance impacted me so hard the second time around that I was rendered stupid and unable to leave my apartment for days as the nature of this bizarre and wholly unexpected truth continued to sink into my brain.

These are the days that I lost on account of you. I've given them back to you here, with interest, in this forum in which you chose to rub my nose in your fickleness which, to paraphrase, was a feast coldly furnished forth with the affection gleaned from the wake of our plans. Despite your exterior, despite your ego, despite everything you've ever said before or say after, these past three days and a half days have caused you some discomfit. If even a smattering of the anguish I went through has infected your thoughts and your moods, I'll rest comfortable tonight.

Yes, Killoggs, I used you. Just as I've used you before. But probably never again. We've grown up these past four years. Most of you are strangers to me now. All of you are savvy in the ways of on-line community.

For my cohort, as we begin to exit our middle and late twenties, Killoggs has preserved that distrust, hate, irony, apathy and associated but dissonant empathy most of us suckled on or, at least, observed as a major component in the perception of us as consumers and agents of culture, products and ideas.

What has Killoggs done for me? I've asked this myself recently. It's kept me in touch with a few core good people. I suppose. It's also facilitated some of the most painful and humiliating moments in my life -- not on-line -- but off-line in off-line interactions with people I've met here. Even as it has set the stage for these humiliations, it has nurtured some of the memories that I would be a lesser person, less actuated, to be without. It's stalwart presence has never once left me lonely. And, to my satisfaction, when I leave it alone, Killoggs becomes lonely for me.

But enough of that all ready. This is not about self-reflection. This is about comeuppance. This is about my scrotum - by metonymy. This is about my entire erotic architecture and the reverse heat pump its became, subverting the impetus behind my ability to care for people into mere projections of how to make damn sure that I am made no less a fool than they when things fall apart in whatever way it is that they inevitably do. More than anything this is the final shake (here of course) with this head, with this persona, with these needs: an empowering "No"

I no longer choose you, Killoggs. No, I no longer choose to compare my self to strangers who sat in classes with me, took drugs with me, shared my bed or even an apartment, or worse yet, strangers who merely knew the people who were the abovementioned things to me once in a past life.

Most of you read today looking for a humiliation of some sort. How callow? How disgusting are you people to make such a thing into a voyeuristic treat, something between ESPN stats, Kara's Playground (not that Kara), or some "freelance Reality" artist's site with scatological acrylic nipples and bop, cut-and-paste text during your daily surfing habits. What kind of a monster am I for even bringing this up in the first place. I'll tell you: I'm a damn good looking one.

A few of you accused me of pandering for attention. This is fine. I certainly pandered for attention. But, discerning what is pandering, what is art (we all know where art is, he's in Maine), and what is neurosis from the web is a fool's errand.

In the end, what did I have to present here today:

I'll tell you:

I had a bus itinerary and stub, which in itself doesn't prove anything.
I have a number of pictures (nothing naked), which, of themselves lead to no certain conclusions. They are mundane in the extreme.
I have a Valentine's card, received by me, the language of which makes mplications most perplexing.
I have some emails, some IMs
I have collected points, here, that are as telling as the Burgess Shale or the KT-boundary, when firmly placed in a matrix of off-line events.

But nothing makes sense without the framework.

The truth, honestly, was in the story. And the story, well the story has been lost. Overcooked on my heated brain for months. The story, the beginning and the middle were gone. All the colors mingled, and the spice has gone flat.

What I have reads like a recipe, since those things that went in to it cooked together for too long into a homogenous melange that is scalded and burnt around the edges. And maybe I tasted it from time to time, to see how it was doing, and added Salt or pepper? Or may be the odd leek? But I forgot to write down those changes.

I just know that I started with a bus ticket stub, some photos, a valentine's day card, some IMs, some emails, some curious points in time recorded like polarized iron grains in strips along the ocean's ridges, and that's exactly where I'll end it.

It's been a long time since you've been a friend, (am I talking to you, KIlloggs?). I assume it's been a long time since you've been anyone's friend, (Killoggs, am I talking to you?) I guess, in my ignorance, I assumed that you had merely grown into more of what you were, Killoggs, since nothing really ever changes or has the ability of itself to transform itself, Killoggs. If you couldn't have been a friend. At the very least you can be honest, Killoggs whom I address and have been addressing. Have you been honest, Killoggs, to whom I speak, sure you were honest with me, time and time again, brutally so, Killoggs.? That's not my concern, anymore, Killoggs, the addressed, your honesty, your etiquette, your sense of decorum. A true friend, with real love in its heart both for others and itself, O' Killoggs, the accused, would not behave in a manner so callous, so ruthless, so priggish. Perhaps, Killoggs, its not too late for you in your dealings with others. Are there redemptive moments, decisions to be made at so late an hour, Killoggs, that might preserve that which you think you value, while creating a better, more comprehensive set of values for the future? I seriously doubt it, but I would be glad to hear that it is in fact possible. That, Killoggs, has done it and feels better, or worse, or at the very least, feels at all.

And you, the you reading this, the everyyou general, who look to Killoggs as the starling looks to the sun, if you were to ask Killoggs, perhaps in killoggs's search box, or the old-style search box, Killoggs, what is this thing of which he speaks, and Killoggs were to spit out a long line of dave chappelle search terms, or the phrase "it was nothing; smaller than nothing." Then what has Killoggs become? What have you become to live a life so unexamined? For what substantive gift beckons that scratches and life's blood spilled could not provide, that compells your grizzling face to avoid chewing over the facts? For Killoggs, today,has brought forth Deserts to the REAL.

Does Killoggs feel? Can a web-site feel? Am I talking to you Killoggs? Yes, I am.

NEGATIVITY IS THE NEW AWESOME here, indeed. Has it ever not been?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

And remember to DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.

What follows here is the enharmonic changeup, the non-change from sharp to flat, Killoggs, the enthalpic heuristics:

I'm better off without you.

I'll be off burning mattresses and such.

I am currently extremely interested in this situation...your feedback would be appreciated. take a minute and scan.

Freed From Captivity, (exerpts)
Japanese Return to More Pain
By NORIMITSU ONISHI, The New York Times

The three hostages' arrival in Japan was met mostly by disapproval.

TOKYO, April 22 The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned
home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a
disapproving nation's cold stare.

Three of them, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of
Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing
kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they
landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.

"You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at the airport where
they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of
the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government,
not to be outdone, announced it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air
fare.

Beneath the surface of Japan's ultra-sophisticated cities lie the
hierarchical ties that have governed this island nation for centuries and that, at
moments of crises, invariably reassert themselves. The former hostages' tra
nsgression was to ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a vertical society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to
defy what people call here "okami," or, literally, "what is higher."

Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three former hostages twice
since their return, said the stress they were enduring now was "much heavier"
than what they experienced during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name
their three most stressful moments, the former hostages told him, in ascending
order: the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the
knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show the morning after their return here and realized Japan's anger with them.

Pursuing individual goals by defying the government and causing trouble for
Japan was simply unforgivable. But the freed hostages did get official praise
from one government: the United States.

"Well, everybody should understand the risk they are taking by going into
dangerous areas," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "But if nobody was
willing to take a risk, then we would never move forward. We would never move our world forward."And so I'm pleased that these Japanese citizens were willing to put themselves at risk for a greater good, for a better purpose. And the Japanese people should be very proud that they have citizens like this willing to do that."

In contrast, Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese government's spokesman offered this
about the captives' ordeal: "They may have gone on their own but they must
consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action."

The criticism began almost immediately after the first three civilians were
kidnapped two weeks ago. The environment minister, Yuriko Koike, blamed them
for being "reckless."

Even as the kidnappers were still threatening to burn alive the three
hostages, Yukio Takeuchi, an official in the Foreign Ministry, said of the three,
"When it comes to a matter of safety and life, I would like them to be aware of
the basic principle of personal responsibility."

Defying the okami are young Japanese people like the freed hostages,
freelancers and members of nonprofit organizations, who are traditionally held in low esteem in a country where the bigger one's company, the bigger one's social
rank. They also belong to a generation in which many have rejected traditional
Japanese life.

Some politicians proposed a law barring Japanese from traveling to dangerous countries; even more of them said that the hostages should pay the costs incurred by the government in securing their release.

"This is an idea that should be considered," The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's
biggest daily newspaper, said in an editorial. "Such an act might deter other
reckless, self-righteous volunteers."

When two freed hostages mentioned wanting to stay or return to Iraq to
continue their work, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi angrily urged them "to have
some sense."

The comment was revealing, one that would not likely be heard from the United
States government. Here, the government is now trumpeting "personal
responsibility" for those going to dangerous areas essentially saying that travelers shouldn't expect any help from the government to secure their safety or get out of trouble.

Again, no Japanese politician dared to speak out against this idea.