Peter Hunt Welch's Blog, page 5

This Is Not About Tinder

I didn't exactly throw my heart into trying Tinder. After eight years out of the dating pool, during an explosive evolution of technosocial perversion,((I'm not quite 40 yet, but after seeing the pace of culture these days, I decided to get an early start on referring to anything I don't wholly understand ...

Assholes in Paradise

Sea Level

I know where to start, thanks to David. I have just enough time to drop off my semi-dinner (good bread seems hard to come by) and get to the top before sunset.
The first part of the trip is the first real road I've driven, and I'm not sure what the driving culture is like. I use a ...

Startup Culture Has Jumped the Shark

I've worked in basements, fluorescent-lit midtown dungeons,((Not the fun kind.)) and had a boss who, upon designating the lightless, cold, boarded-off section of a shared office as the development area, turned to us and said, without enough irony, "You guys don't need light, right?"
The flippant ...

Sick of Your Shit, Apple

You know, it's my fault for not reading the microtext on the AppleCare plan. If I'd read it, I would have taken my three hundred dollars and used it to make little bonfires in the cupboards to keep the mice warm in winter and surrounded them with little hot chocolate marshmallows on toothpicks because ...

How to Write a Novel

Well, that old novel of mine is about to come out and bring peace on Earth, so, as is officially required of anybody who writes anything longer than 50,000 words and receives at least two pieces of hate mail, it is time to impart my hard-won lessons upon the masses. As usual, my insights will ...

Cat Drinking Water

(Best if read as Verner Herzog or Christopher Walken. I can't decide.)

The furtive licking belies the intensity of his desire; the need to merge with water made crass by honest thirst. To fully reveal the moment, we use slow motion.
As time expands, the tongue ceases to be a blurred, simple ...

An Unscientific Analysis of Jet Lag

I don't get jet lag. I just don't. I never have, and after flying through two sunrises, three meals, two glasses of wine, and three airports on three islands over 30 hours from Osaka to JFK with no ill effects, I'm pretty sure I never will.
I've been warned about jet lag since I the first time I ...

What to Do in Case of Nukular Sharknado

Nothing. You're fucked.
It's a nukular sharknado. It doesn't listen to reason: It's an unreasonable thing. It can't spell, and it's a radioactive tornado made of sharks. Or possibly a tornado made out of radioactive sharks. It doesn't matter; if you have to shout, "Look out for the nukular sharknado," ...

Stop Telling Me to Feel Worse

Because the social struggle for understanding and inclusiveness is inherently pacifistic, its adherents have little outlet for the goblins of their personalities. Luckily, we have self-righteousness and passive aggression to fill the void, and if nobody of an alternate political persuasion will ...

Protect Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen from 2016

Okay people. It's been a long goddamn year. Almost 365 days of goddamn longness. Our heroes are dead or disgraced. Our villains are stumbling into power. Our sex alien rockstars have returned to their home planets to tell Elvis he was right to get out early.
As far as I'm concerned, civilization ...