The Useless Critic 2.0

I spend the morning at Caroline, working on fliers for The Useless Critic (hey, that's this site!). If you’re in NYC, you might spot them floating around. The internet at the Collective is terrible, but the relative quiet is nice. I also meet some of Caroline’s members, all of whose names I’ve completely forgotten. Sorry guys and gals! Later that night, Caroline hosts this party for Houston’s Ted conference. Have you heard of Ted ? Check it out if you haven’t. I scurry around the party, trying my best to not be a wallflower and failing most of the time. There are some interesting people there, but most of them seem too involved in their own importance. This one guy reminded me of one of those Nigerian scam emails (only he wasn’t Nigerian, and he didn’t ask for money, but the feeling was still there). After a while I left the party and hung out with Snacktimehighfive, who did a good job straddling the line between cute and infuriating. I read some more of the book I ...

Last weekend, I spent some time in sunny Houston, in the great country of Texas (Texas is its own country, right?). Here is part one of my chronicle. I fly out of Pittsburgh on Thursday afternoon. There’s something about airports that I find both wonderful and awful. I love the constant chaos, all the people in a panic to get where they need to be. But do we really have to take our shoes off? The answer is FUCK YOU WE’RE AMERICA. As much of a hassle airport security is (let me tell you, I cried when I had to pack all my lube away in my checked luggage), I get it, okay, it’s for the good of the nation, or something. Did you know they have those weird scanning machines at the Pittsburgh airport? The ones that scan your whole body and peep at your naughty bits? You know someone somewhere is jerking off to those images right now OH GOD IT’S A PORN CONSPIRACY I HOPE I DON’T GET BLACKLISTED FOR THIS. Should I be sad I wasn’t asked to get scanned, or relived? (Just wait for my return flight ...