Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Thoughts”

Famous Literary Addicts

January 27, 2010 |

About Writing, Thoughts and Writing

This story is making the rounds today, but I thought it was cool enough to share.

There’s no secret that substance abuse has always traveled hand in hand with people in the literary world. It’s just a thing. It doesn’t make it ok, but it’s fascinating nevertheless. For example, did you know that Ayn Rand was addicted to speed? No, neither did I. But here she is, looking a little crispy around the edges.

It's the eyes, man.

Intense.

Life has posted a gallery of famous literary addicts. I knew that Burroughs was a junk addict, but I had no idea that Louisa May Alcott (of Little Women fame) was too. Wild!

Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts

Check it out.

> Continue reading...Famous Literary Addicts

The Black Laser enters MEAT SPACE.

January 20, 2010 |

Thoughts

Dearest Deegan,

Thank you for the incredible birthday gift. I know that I actually received this a while ago, but I felt like today was a good day to post it. There’s only one, and I’ve got it. Fuck yes.

The Front.

The Back.

To be perfectly honest, it took me a while to start wearing it out mostly because it feels like being in a band wearing its own t-shirt—a serious no-no in the metal community as we both know. But then I started to think of it as determined self-promotion and thought, “You know what? Fuck anyone who’d bust my balls for wearing this awesome shirt of my own equally awesome website.” And there you have it. Interestingly enough, a post yesterday on Invisible Oranges called “The rules of metal t-shirt wearing” confirmed some of the things I’ve already been feeling.

But you still won’t ever catch me wearing the band’s shirt to the show.

Anyway! Thanks for the shirt, dude. It slays.

Sincerely,

The Black Laser.

> Continue reading...The Black Laser enters MEAT SPACE.

Redesign of The Black Laser

January 19, 2010 |

Thoughts

So, I’m growing bored with the utterly awesome design I have here on The Black Laser. It’s basically just a customized version of the freeware theme Pixel. I tweaked the colors and the fonts and whatever quickly, just to get the site up and running. If I had spent a million years fucking with the design, there would be no Black Laser for all of you to read. That would be horrible, wouldn’t it.

Well, now more than a year has passed since I made this place public and it seems to me like it’s time to really go super duper with this place.

There are a few elements I think are critical.

  • Lasers.
  • Bright pink.
  • Black.
  • Comments than differentiate me (the admin) and you (my loyal readers).
  • Good search engine optimization (which I know nothing about).
  • Unicorns.
  • Serif fonts.

I like my color scheme. I think that black and pink are basically the perfect colors for this place. But there are some problems, like the huge empty space at the top. Or the black bars on either side. It feels like my text is floating in space and I think it makes it a little hard to digest the sometimes quite large blocks of text I post. Yes, Tiffany, I know, TL:DR. But for everyone else, I’d like to make it easier to read on this site.

Some people have complained about how reading white (actually light grey) text on black hurts their eyes. Personally, I think it’s more tiring to look at black text on white on the computer, but different strokes, right? I could play around with that, but it probably won’t change.

Another thing, I’ve got a jumble of boxes on the side with very little delineation between them. I’m not even sure how useful that stuff on the side is to anyone. Do any of you even read it? I update that stuff fairly regularly or when appropriate. It could definitely be laid out more smartly.

Other than that, I don’t really know. I have some pictures in my head of what it should look like, but nothing definite. I should also probably finally do something with josephdillingham.com.

Anyway, thoughts? Suggestions? Fears? Concerns?

> Continue reading...Redesign of The Black Laser

Are you guys fucking kidding me?

January 15, 2010 |

Thoughts

See this?

Do you know what this is? If you’ve been keeping up on all the blogs, you do, but let me illuminate you in case you haven’t. This magical little turd is the new SARCASM PUNCTUATION MARK which you can buy from US-based Sarcasm Inc., whose site is down right now, for use on the Mac, Windows, the iPhone, Blackberry, whatever.

Seriously, guys? Are you kidding me? That is the stupidest fucking idea ever. I’m not even going to indulge these people by posting sarcastic remarks in this post. Do we really need to dignify sarcasm with a brand new punctuation mark? And do we really need to BUY IT? I’m pretty sure I get all my cues regarding whether or not a statement is sarcastic from context, just as people have done it since the beginning of verbal communication. No doubt sarcasm has been around that long.

What’s next? The irony mark? Maybe a schadenfreude mark? How about a mark to indicate that I’m writing something in an e-mail to someone that I don’t really care about but feel obligated to explain so that they’re not confused even though it would only take them two minutes to research it on Google? Give me a fucking break. As David Lynch said, “Get real.” How about you learn to insert the proper clues into the text to indicate that you are being sarcastic? If you can’t do that, it’s probably best to leave the fucking sarcasm out of your work e-mails. Stick to declarative statements and everything will be just fine.

> Continue reading...Are you guys fucking kidding me?

Sixpoint Craft Ales, perhaps the greatest American beer

January 13, 2010 |

Thoughts

Dear America,

New York City has been holding out on you.

I’m not talking about musical theatre or the nightlife or whatever things people come to New York from all over the country to experience. No, I’m talking about what might be the single greatest beer in the entire history of the universe, Sixpoint’s Righteous Rye. Never before has a beer so tasty, so dangerous, exerted such pressure on me to drink it. It makes most other craft beers seem like the cans of Hamm’s sitting in your trunk while you’re at summer school when you’re 16.

Brooklyn Brewery? I love you, but no.

Dogfishhead? No!

Smuttynose? How I adore your IPA, but, still, no.

Europe? Your dogged adherence to tradition is commendable, but no.

Asia? Not in a million years.

Africa? South America? Australia? No! No!! No!!!

And while I would love to recommend that you fine folks around the country go to your local purveyor of fine beers and purchase a six pack of this mighty beast of a drink, you cannot. Sixpoint does not bottle beer. You can only get it on draught. It’s even difficult to find sometimes in Manhattan, but it waits for me like a patient friend when I come home to Brooklyn. Always there. Always happy to see me.

Sixpoint, you have brightened my life with the Righteous Rye and I thank you for it.

To the rest of America, when you’re in town on vacation, take a break from the tourist crap, take the subway across the East River, find yourself a nice little bar, and get a Sixpoint. You will thank me for it.

Check out their site: Sixpoint Craft Ales

> Continue reading...Sixpoint Craft Ales, perhaps the greatest American beer