pinchy dot org.

I stole this idea from my brother, who in turn stole it from someone else. But it’s far too brilliant not to steal.

Jeff Williams is…

Jeff Williams is obviously one of the most important contributors, him and Karl Auerback.

Mr. Jeff Williams is a Teenager.

Jeff Williams is 30 years old.

Jeff Williams is attempting to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated consciousness of all people.

Jeff Williams is one of the people who have been with Expression from the beginning.

Jeff Williams is the only person barred from sending to the list.

Jeff Williams is a multi-instrumentalist whose virtuosity has acclaimed him international appeal.

Jeff Williams is free to express that sorrow in the most literal sense, because he will not be charged with any crime, even though it was his gun that was used by his son.

Jeff Williams is recognized by current President Craig McCurry as a Distinguished President.

Jeff Williams is ready to be activated from the DL!

Jeff Williams is lying.

In preparation for a potential new hairstyle, I bought a jar of something called “molding putty.” Can I just say how much that name frightens me? Putty is not for styling hair; it is for caulking, or silliness.

My plan is to try the deliberately messed-up look, as demonstrated by an extremely confused Ed Norton. Ideally, this hairstyle will turn me into an exemplar of geek chic and an all-around sexy bitch. But I’ll probably stick with it as long as it doesn’t make me look like an idiot. My hairstyle hasn’t changed much for at least six or seven years, and it’s long past time to try something different.

A house near mine has a sign up in its window, obviously dating back to September 12 or so, that reads as follows:

God Is In Control

and He is
mourning with us

Are we to understand that God was not in control on the morning of September 11? Had He stepped outside for a quick smoke break? Should we be mad at Him?

You’ve probably heard the expression “put a spanner in the works” or “throw a monkey wrench in the works.” Either version creates a vivid image, but not a particularly disturbing one.

And then there’s the developer at my company who sometimes says that a problem has “thrown a monkey in the works.” Now that’s a metaphor.

Click to add title.

Ari Fleischer, President Bush’s press secretary, has a breathtaking ability to ignore the truth whenever it fails to serve his employer’s interests.

It could be worse, though; he could be Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s press secretary. Timothy Crouse describes Ziegler well in The Boys on the Bus:

[A]t thirty-three, Ziegler was the compleat flack. He started as a press agent for the Southern California Central Republican Committee and later, as an executive at J. Walter Thompson in Los Angeles, he touted Disneyland. In 1968, he had watched public relations men win the election for Richard Nixon, and now he saw them beginning to rule the world. …While many flacks were former journalists who secretly loathed themselves for sinking into the whoredom of press agentry, Ziegler gave every sign of considering public relations a profession superior to journalism; after all, journalists merely wrote what flacks told them. …

Ziegler was the perfect spokesman for the Nixon Administration. He was totally loyal to his boss and he treated the press with a bland contempt that was quite genuine and unaffected. At the briefing lectern, he was smug, condescending, and relentlessly evasive, often refusing to answer the simplest and most innocuous of questions. He talked in a kind of flackspeak that would have given Orwell nightmares. He sometimes accused reporters of “trying to complexify the situation,” and he reversed White House positions by the simple expedient of announcing that he had “misspoken” himself in the past.

He’s a maverick shark-wrestling farmboy who hangs with the wrong crowd. She’s a wealthy red-headed archaeologist with a knack for trouble.

They fight crime!

An open letter to Sunnyvale city officials:

Okay, so you felt it necessary to hold your Mediocre Art and Indifferent Wine Festival this weekend. Fine. Not my cup of tea, but it seems to be popular.

But was it really necessary to cancel the Saturday farmers’ market just so you could fill another street with worthless crap? I could really use some fresh cilantro and a loaf of olive bread; however, I have no need for neon-colored children’s clothes, soft-focus pictures of sea otters, or a ceramic jar with the words “Dad’s farts” etched into the side.

Thanks for your time.