The Situation

Noun on/in/under a Noun

2012-01-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

We've had "Snakes on a Plane". Now, there's "Man on a Ledge".

I'm so glad Hollywood has finally found a formula that really works for them. We need to give them a little help, though. I'm sure there are versions of the formula that we could try out, and perhaps even develop plots for them.

"Frog in my Throat"

"Mom in a Meat Factory"

"Furby in a Baby"

I dunno. Just a few ideas. They'll need developing.

I've been hearing more and more about new derivative films being made from TV shows I watched when I was a kid, like Big Valley, and so on. Couldn't possibly be worse than the original, but might, if they try really hard.

By the way:

How to be a Retronaut has wonderful fake posters from the Golden Age of Socially-Conscious Hollywood (i.e., the 70s) that includes such casting concepts as William Shatner and Natalie Wood in Avatar (has to be seen to be believed).

Shiva looks up

2011-11-27T11:40:00.001-08:00

Shiva looks up,
originally uploaded by wireout.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, November 25th, my wife and I took our dear little old Shiva to the vet to have her put to sleep. Her kidneys were pretty much gone, and we were told that we could keep her alive a while longer, but she wouldn't have been a happy cat.

I lost my little old lady cat 16 years to the day I brought her home from the vet. She was the most wonderful little psycho angel, who (even with only three legs) terrorized almost every other animal she ever encountered. With humans, she was sweet, purring and generally friendly, though she could turn on you pretty quickly if you bothered her too much.

RG and I will miss her. She has been my best cat friend ever, and I already miss her snuggling into my armpit at night.

So long Shiva. I hope wherever you are is sunny, and the local birds are slow.

Stupid Collectibles & SPAM

2011-10-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This post was originally titled The Art of Stupid Packaging. I have been receiving SPAM on this as commentary for the last two months, so I assume it's being directed from the Slipcover Collectors website, which is why that link is no longer an active link. Because, you know, I sure wouldn't want folks who think owning slipcovers as a collectible to be mad at me.

Original Post:

So, I'm reading my daily dose of Consumerist to find out the latest in consumer news, since (though I'm opposed to excessive consumption), I buy things sometimes, and I ran across an item where a man is lamenting the fact that he is unable to purchase Blu-ray DVDs with slipcovers at his local Target, since Target discards custom slipcovers in order to cram the Blu-ray packs into the hardshell plastic anti-theft cases they use to display Blu-rays. This seems rather sad to me. The poor fellow goes out every week and buys the new releases, because he collects the slipcovers. Who can he contact at the movie studios or distribution places to tell that, what Target is doing to the Blu-ray packaging, because it's really important -

Wait, what?

He collects DVD slipcovers?

I guess I'm a little dense. Why would you do that? Do you watch the films? Do you realize the cost of buying a limited-edition slipcover is often a $30 movie? How much stupidly disposable income do you have?!?

Sure, I get that the Criterion Editions are often packaged in really interesting covers, and often come with cool booklets and extra information. But who gives a flying fuck about the latest Justin Bieber concert movie slipcover???

It gets better. There's a website: Slipcover Collectors

I understand, this comes under the heading of other people's money, and who cares what these oddballs decide to blow their hard-earned cash on, but still. This is so freaky-weird I don't even know where to start. Well, okay - try the FAQ page. I notice there are no comments at the bottom of the FAQ page. Perhaps I should help...

There's a wonderful book, originally published in Japan in the early sixties, called How To Wrap Five Eggs. It's kind of a sourcebook/inspirational guide to thinking about packaging design. Of course, being Japanese, there's a certain something about it that I find endlessly appealing: the uses of natural materials, especially, but also the eminent practicality of some of the designs: how do you transport 20 small fish to market with a only a short length of rope? You can't bundle them up, as the friction would ruin the look of the fish, destroying any "curb appeal" they might have. Plus, they're slippery. So, you link them together with a series of slip knots, so that each fish has it's own little loop of rope, none touches any of the others, and you can sling the whole thing over your shoulder or over your back. Simple, neat, practical, and looks kinda cool. Of course, the Japanese fisherman doesn't give a hoot about cool, he just wants to sell fish.

But slipcovers? Slipcovers...

You're collecting a mass-produced item, whose sole function is to make you want to buy an expensive movie, 90% of which are crap, where no particular artisanship is required, other than to get you to buy the movie. Most people who buy movies are buying them either because they want to watch the movie over and over again, or because their kids do. The slipcover itself, is, of course, the first line of attack by any marketing person, and it's gotta be a grabber (and I'll admit, the slipcovers for the Alien series of films are pretty arresting). But buying the film so you can own the slipcover for the Denzel Washington/John Travolta version of Taking of Pelham 123 (a trainwreck of a movie, and I'm not taking about actual trains, here), along with the latest Hannah Montana and the Superman Batman Apocalypse video - I'm not sure I understand which medication is required to make these people stop.

It's a hobby, I guess. Beyond that, I don't know what to make of it.

In the Land of Nightmares

2011-05-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

Sin City, baby, Lost Wages, yeah, hepcat! Sinatra, Elvis, and...Wayne Newton?

What do you mean it's weird and it sorta sucks?

I understand that Las Vegas is designed to get people walking long distances past rows of slot machines, and that convenience of access and egress is something they've physically designed out of most venues. The non-stop need to persuade you to sit down, put your feet up, have a drink, it's just a nickel to play, is everywhere. Gas stations, hell, gas station bathrooms probably have slot machines over the urinals. Would you get your winnings from the bottom of the latrine, please?

We hassled a bit about where we were going to stay. I was originally interested in the Vdara (if vowels are optional, what else is?), and I was really interested in their rooftop pool - until I started reading about their "rooftop" pool. It's on the roof of the 3rd floor above the valet parking station. That leaves the other thirty or forty floors above the pool to look down on you. It also created an interesting physical effect, and I haven't heard whether it's been fixed yet.

Known as the Vdara Death Ray, it came about as something discussed (then blown past) in the design period: what would the sun do if it hit the huge mirrored surface of a concave hotel shape with a pool at the bottom of the lens? And the answer came back after they opened: singed hair, melted plastic drink cups, and a feeling of being microwaved if you happened to be in the path of the marauding sun. Remember ants under magnifying glasses? Scale it up a bit, and you have the Vdara's pool. They couldn't get the interior surface of the pool to seal, and all the plants died because the heat in Vegas isn't as bad as the heat on Venus, which apparently was inadvertently achieved by the Vdara's architects.

So, anyway, we stayed at the Aria, one of the only non-smoking hotels on the Strip. Very pretty, all dark woods and modernist designs, none of the excessive Art Deco or Art Nouveau nonsense of places like the Bellagio (where things can always have extra unnecessary flourishes and gilding, lots and lots of gilding). The TV was controlled by a remote that also managed the lights & curtains (imperfectly), and relations with the hotel staff. One could, theoretically, order every service in the hotel and have it delivered to the room through this console system, except for the actual touch of another human being. If you didn't bring one, and you don't fancy drinking alone in the bars, you'll have to call for take-out from the local hookers. Or you could go out and get a massage at the Spa, though that costs extra, too (though less than a hooker).

We had wanted to see a show, but unfortunately, the shows we wanted to see were all sold out months in advance. You can wait on an interminable line for folks who've decided not to show up, but there are few guarantees of a seat, and no guarantees of two seats together. So we contented ourselves with $5 worth of the nickel slot machines downstairs (which lasted about four minutes), a little eating, and a little shopping, as well as time in the spa. Since the bartender from a local pub helped us find the check-in counter (a mile from our parking space in the free self-park structure), we decided to try the food there. Really good fish & chips and some pretty decent beer.
We spent an hour or maybe a little more in the Aria pool. We were warned against any sort of "rough-housing", like families tend to do when they play in pools, by folks who had already been warned about their rambunctious behavior. Ooooookay. Then there's the folks still wearing sunglasses in the pool. Then there's the one hipster doofus wearing sunglasses AND A HAT in the pool - not a baseball cap, but an actual trilby-type hat. I saw one older lady wearing a very tight bikini that really showed off her mottled, leathery tan. And from probably fifty feet away, and not wearing my glasses, I could tell that the woman in the sparkly white bikini had really big, totally fake boobs. MY EYES!!!

The other restaurant was the Buffet at the Bellagio. As with any buffet, the food was hit or miss. I had some spicy lamb ribs that were tender and amazing, RG had beef short ribs that were equally tender and amazing. I went to the macaroni and cheese bar (a MACARONI AND CHEESE BAR) and had my mac and cheese made to my personal specifications, including fresh crab. The cute thing about this particular buffet is that most of the food is portioned already. When you go for lamb ribs or the beef short ribs, you could pick up as many as you wanted. But almost everything else comes in little ramekins or mini saute pans, just to remind you, "hey, it's a friggin buffet, and you don't want to fill up on starches, now do you?" My largest complaint was with the desserts - does everything that has chocolate also have to contain passion fruit puree? What if someone doesn't like passion fruit?

RG really wanted to visit the Miracle Mile, a shopping mall we could see from our window that is on the other side of the Strip from our hotel. A mile of covered shopping mall covering a single city block, of the over a hundred stores within, we only found a few that we hadn't seen anywhere else. One was the Bettie Page store (with "official" Bettie Page clothes). RG tried on a few pieces, but the sizing was so ludicrously small that nothing fit her. I imagine a Petite at this store fitting, perhaps, a child of seven, but then no child of seven should wear this sort of clothing. We also tried Allsaints, Ltd, a swanky clothing store based out of England. Same thing there. I am not a small person, I am willing to admit I have a weight problem, but when I try on something marked XXL, the one thing I don't expect is for the sleeves to be so tight that I can barely get my elbow past the armhole. Couture sizing: it's all about being six foot three and weighing around 130 pounds. I gave up in disgust pretty quickly. Another was a piercing and tattoo place (where you can get that drunken tattoo experience you'll always regret) where I managed to find a pair of spiky earrings that I've since had to discard (couldn't pass through my kitchen curtain without it grabbing my earlobe). At one point we passed by an enormous fiberglass statue of a stripper. A stripper. Forty feet tall. In a shopping mall with kids. And you may ask yourself, "well, how did I get here?" I'll tell you.

From the Aria check-in counter, take a right out the door, and walk all the way around until you find a staircase leading to street level. When you hit the street, walk across the ambulance entrance (ambulance entrance?!?) and make your way down the narrow sidewalk until you see a sign that has a big "no Pedestrians Past This Point" and an indication to "Cross the Street". Which we did, all six lanes. Then cross another wide intersection, taking you to the back of the base of Crystals, a different high-end shopping mall attached to the Aria. This area is a large concrete pad in front of a black building with Keep Out signs plastered all over the doors, and a woman in a security guard uniform sitting on a folding chair under one of the sparsely-placed lampposts. She seemed to be guarding the back entrance to the lower floors of Crystals, which appear to be unoccupied and/or under construction. Guess it's nice to be employed. From the dark Crystals, walk around towards the street you think you want to cross until you find the staircase that leads to the overhead crossing (pedestrians should never, ever be on sidewalks unless they absolutely have to). Up two flights of steep stairs, across a very long catwalk past at least three different sidewalk buskers, turn right, and cross the Strip from above. By the way, you are now surrounded by hundreds of people. Down the stairs, only to be accosted by guys and gals handing out flyers for hookers by SNAPping them at you. It's an interesting trick to get your attention, but these folks don't seem to realize that the pregnant woman with the stroller probably doesn't want a hooker later. I said "probably"... Then walk through the mall.

We came out into the night, past the Michael Jackson impersonator, the Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp) impersonator, and all manner of costumed freaks hanging out on the street corner, surrounded by people wanting their photos taken with these bizarre apparitions. We walked across the street (again, surrounded by a huge, starchy mass of humanity), to get to the Bellagio. We wandered amongst the beautiful flower gardens and the Chihuly ceiling, past the endless rows of gamblers, past the incoming guests who've just arrived and are trying to find someone helpful while dragging fifty pounds of luggage through groups of chattering girls and hooting, drunken frat-boy types, hoping to be able to rest their weary heads on the front edge of a craps table, really, really soon. RG at this point was certain that if I didn't find my way back to our own hotel soon, I was likely to expire in front of her, and she didn't want to have to drag my sorry ass back through all those crowds. So we looked up on our smart phones, "how do you get from the lobby of the Bellagio to the lobby of the Aria, without the detour to Pyongyang?" The answer was deviously simple: walk to the back of the Bellagio, down a hallway to the lobby of the Vdara, out the front door, and turn left. You will find yourself on the walkway mentioned above that lead to the stairs which lead to the ambulance, Crystals, etc. In other words, a walk that originally took nearly fifty minutes would have taken ten, had we looked it up in advance, rather than relying on the advice of the staff at our hotel. Never trust the staff if you mention that you want to leave their establishment, because that's not something they want you to do for any reason at all.

Ever.

Various strange sightings:

a fellow walking in the revolving doors at the Bellagio yelling "whoop, whoop, whoop" in a sort of howler-monkey yowl. His friends join in. Other people join in. Everyone in the lobby joins in. I SO regretted not having my little recording device here. Even without the zoo atmosphere, the level of jibber-jabber by everyone was astounding. I've been to rock concerts that were quieter.
Standing in line for O, the big water-based Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellagio (which we didn't get to see), I was watching the poker tables. Mostly young guys wearing shades and trying not to get fleeced by the guys with the massive gold wristwatches. One woman sits down, wearing a loose-but-clingy gold gown that barely covered her various naughty bits, being given a stack of chips by a house elf (hers or the hotels I didn't know). She knew a few of the players already, so I guess she (and they) were fixtures.
When RG and I were playing the slots, I ambled down the line to a slot next door, and noticed the woman on the slot next to me. She's playing a nickel slot, running the maximum bet per play, and she's losing on every single play. The dollar amount on the machine started at $9,956 when I started observing her, and went down into the upper $8,000 mark when I turned away. A thousand dollars or so on a nickel slot machine in a matter of minutes.
We did get to see at least one Vegas stereotype walk by. A man wearing black leather pants and jacket, with a black shirt, open almost to his waist, with a gold chain and heavy gold wristwatch, dark skin, very hairy, medium length black hair all gelled out and tousled, probably in his forties. Could have been Arabic, could have been Italian, Spanish, maybe French, but just SO perfect.

We hit the Spa for a couple hours, clothing-optional and gender-separated. I opted for no clothes, since I'd never had that experience. I spent a long, long time in the wooden sauna waiting for the temperature to rise. It was probably hovering around one-fifty, which, for a dry sauna, is actually not that hot. I was the only guy that afternoon who went from being in the hot room to dropping into the cold plunge. Everyone else went from the hot room to the steam room to either hot tubs or the lounge chairs. I kept wondering, don't they know the point of going into the hot room in the first place?

I realize that this post does not appear to be in any sort of order, and that's appropriate. I don't remember terribly well what even happened on which night, though if I put enough effort into it, I could probably figure it out. RG would help, as well - she remembers everything.

Vegas was, to put it nicely, a surreal place in which to spend a lot of money.

Taking a break in our regularly scheduled programming...

2011-05-16T11:24:00.001-07:00

For a funny:

"Windbag prophets reap windfall profits"

From the appropriately titled Ironic Times.

Just thought you should know.

Rocks and Christians

2011-05-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

Back to the big, bad old Bryce Canyon, and the willingness to actually hike down all the way, and then hike back out, hopefully without the need for a helicopter airlift. Down, down, down the Queen's Garden trail, so named for the figure of Queen Victoria formed by a zillion years of slow erosion way up on one of the various parapets of sandstone, down in the depths of the canyon.

Happy Trails

You walk around and occasionally though these massive formations that look both very solid and impossibly balanced, huge chunks of rocks and whole trees with their roots waving pitifully upwards, testifying to the results of the constant, yearly freeze/crack style of erosion these walls go through. One of the trails had fallen off the wall, and the forestry guys were there rebuilding a chunk of trail. Most of the trails have been cut out of existing erosion paths, or are simply an angle carved out of the side of a really big rock, but then they have to buttress them up with concrete and rebar, and I just want to tell them how lucky I think they are, for having such great job security. This place is always falling apart, otherwise no one would come here. So, always fixing, always conditioning, clearing debris, tree bits, building up trail sections that are just as vulnerable to the vagaries of good old-fashioned erosion as all the non-man-made rocks in the park.

The hike down the Queen's Garden trail is a bit precipitous and could use a few more switchbacks, though I'm not sure where they'd put them. You drop down the 320 foot elevation change in the first half mile or so, and I'd say the first hundred feet of that is over in less than a tenth of a mile. In other words - steeeeeep.

Funny, funny shoes

We were stopped repeatedly by folks coming up the other way to ask RG about her shoes. She was wearing her pink FiveFingers hikers, and no one could imagine them being comfortable. I was wearing a pair of hiking shoes I'd bought in case I didn't like my own red FiveFingers, and I was so sorry I hadn't worn my Funnyshoes. I ended up with blisters and RG really only suffered from a sort of general fatigue (from, you know, hiking).

Big damn rocks

So we got to the bottom of the trail, into a kind of cul de sac where the formation that looks like Queen Victoria with her bustle appears high above you (and once someone points it out, it's hard to see anything else). The queen is on the left in this picture.

So we're down here, enjoying the amazing formations, when a fellow walks up with his three sons, and says, "doesn't look like Queen Victoria to me. I think it's a wise man bringing gifts to Jesus."

Not amused

Well, isn't that nice.

The hike out was, at first, no big deal, lots of gentle ups and downs. As we got closer to the base of the main incline, RG and I were both stopping at every switchback to catch our breath, swig a little water. As we went up the final ascent, it wasn't until afterwards that we both admitted to feeling not a little lightheaded, and possibly suffering from tunnel vision at one point. My heart felt like a jackhammer and my lungs were wheezing (to quote Salieri) "like an old rusty squeezebox."

I can't wait to go back and do it again.

Filmland

2011-05-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

Day after that Kodachrome Basin. Originally named Kodachrome Flat, the name was changed to Chimney Rock State Park, due to fears of the Wrath of Kodak. Kodak turned out to be Amused by someone naming a State Park after their film (gee, I can't imagine why), so eventually it became known as Kodachrome Basin State Park.

On a side note: if you stay at Ruby's Inn and want to buy groceries, I'd seriously recommend driving nine miles down UT-12 to the small town of Tropic and go to the grocery store there. A larger variety of food, and certainly more reasonable prices. We had a burger at the restaurant part of the restaurant/grocery store/gas station. Pretty darn good food. Beer selection's limited, but hey - it's Utah.

After lunch, we hit the Shakespeare Arch, a half a mile through very very dusty environs, lots of ups and downs and ups and downs. The arch itself is far overhead, and is quite an impressive structure.

A nice boulder

Then we hit the upper half of the park. Longer hike, flatter, up close and personal with some pretty massive sandstone formations. My understanding of sandstone is that it was once plain old sand or dirt of one kind or another (mostly sand), that got layers and layers of crap laid onto it over the years, eventually concreting into a single mass, and then a lot of the crap ended up weathering away, to give all of us the appearance of giant rounded lumps of stone with interesting erosion marks all over, strange formations that appear to be teetering on the edge of collapse (which they are, but very, very slowly).

The other odd things are the holes in all the walls, in some cases in neat little rows, way up the side of a massive formation, that speak to tiny imperfections becoming larger and larger erosion pits. More fun occurs later (after a few hundred years) when rain slowly pulls the sand off the sandstone and forms little mud castles inside these same erosion holes. It's been pointed out by smarter people than I that any natural formation at its edges looks like a smaller version of the bigger formation, and this fractalization extends all the way down to the molecular level. The tiny sandstone formations in these holes is awesome proof of that.

Another thing, which my pictures don't do justice to, (but some of the digitals might) is the ridiculous variety of color within the sandstones. There's iron for red, manganese for purple, and yellow for straight feldspar (which is common in sandstones). Then there's the white limestone intrusions everywhere.

After the hike, swimming and something akin to a buffet at Ruby's. Overcooked carrots, undercooked pork, properly cooked beef (in "cowboy" gravy - didn't taste like cowboy to me), roasted chicken parts, mashed potato paste, Rice-A-Roni (really), decent mac'n'cheese, and corms. The dessert pile consisted of a lot of stuff that might have been Sara Lee, and a frogurt bar. Back to the room and into a food coma.

Red Rock West

2011-04-25T15:25:00.001-07:00

Title of one of my favorite movies and the appearance of Bryce Canyon and the peculiarly-named Kodachrome Basin. We drove out to Bryce after our mildly harrowing experience traversing the airport in Vegas. We stopped maybe once to take photos along the way, but once you enter the southern end of Bryce Canyon (known as Red Canyon), you realize how far off the map you feel, even though the map is really well-drawn.

Strange formations, produced by thousands of years of slow erosion, begin small and grow and grow and grow until they nearly blot out the sky. And (just like everyone told me) the sky looks bluer than it does anywhere else. So pretty. Between RG and myself, we shot nearly four hundred photos in Bryce. From the 6x7 camera, I had one of our local labs scan in all my negatives. A small sample, and you can get to the rest via Flickr:

We stayed at Ruby's Inn, a Best Western property that's been there for nearly a hundred years in one form or another. The discoverer of Bryce Canyon (Ebenezer Bryce), in laconical cowboy fashion, described Bryce as a "helluva place to lose a cow." Reuben "Ruby" Syrett built a small Tourist Rest lodge at the outskirts of the Park, and it has since morphed into a place where you can bring an RV, stay in the lodge, eat at the buffet, and so on and so on. Very tourist-tacky and yet quaint, RG and I found ourselves relatively happy with the accommodations (nice pool), and with a short ride to various jumping off points to hike into the canyon.

So, RG and I took ourselves down one trail, and it became apparent immediately that we were in no shape to do what we were trying to do. Either acclimation to the altitude or our own general torpidity back home had not prepared us for the steep climb back out of the steep, downward climb we first attempted (after walking the canyon rim for about a half mile). End of the day, we wuz tired.

Airport Conditions in Vegas? Diseased

2011-04-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

RG and I went off to the Holy Land of Utah last week, by way of Sin City, America's Playground, Disneyland for Adults (or are they?). First comment on McCarran Airport? Lousiest airport design I've ever encountered.

Here's an airport that's supposed to cater to probably hundreds of thousands of people a day, and you still have to walk a long ways to everywhere (except when you have to take the tram - more about that in a minute). Between the gate (slot machines) and baggage claim (slot machines) were at least four choke points where foot traffic had to slow to a crawl, because there's only one escalator, and it only fits two thin people per stair (not counting their luggage). To get from the gate to baggage claim, you also have to take a tram. Exiting the tram are hundreds of people; waiting for the tram are hundreds of people (slot machines). As people exit the tram, they enter an area and veer off to the left of the people who are entering the area from the opposite side who also have to veer off to the left, thus crossing through the stream of people exiting the tram.

Collisions galore.

While the folks exiting the planes are enthusiastically giddy about arriving in this playland with a (fake) gilt edge, the folks exiting the tram are desperately seeking a fucking aircraft and really, really want to get on the goddamn plane and go home while they still have two nickels to rub together. This is a natural devolution of the Vegas version of joy: you arrive empowered by that last viewing of Rounders, certain you'll be able to beat the odds in a Vegas casino, playing against a bunch of yokels. Clue - you're the yokel. By the end of your trip (which may only last for a long weekend), you're tired, slightly inebriated from all the free drinks and the alcohol just won't leave your system, somewhat poorer, and completely overwhelmed by the crowds, the yowling, the fake breasts, the klassiness of it all, and the oversized cost of everything, since it's all entertainment, but not always entertaining.

And that's just getting to the rental car. Tomorrow for the beauties of Bryce Canyon and Zion.

And Another Interesting Moment in Mirth

2011-04-01T09:15:00.001-07:00

It fixes your startup by doing a pivot.

Humorous Thingies

2011-03-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

While other people aggregate links, I aggregate their aggregations.

Have to come up with a new word for that. The Awl has become yet another place for me to get my geek on. Their humor links are as splendid as anything I've yet seen. Here's a few from them, and the bOINGbOING crowd:

Flying While Brown

Mandelbratwurst

Ten Sexy Ladies

Drunk Hulk

Personally, I'm not sure why no one thought to do the Drunk Hulk Twitter feed years ago, except that Twitter didn't exist yet. Who wouldn't want to know how Hulk feels about his latest date after a couple of Cosmos?

The Circus is Coming, the Circus is - OH MY GOD

2010-11-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

I just lost all respect for Cirque du Soleil. I've been a fan for a while, and actually went to one of their big-top shows live, and it was extraordinary. But now there's this:

Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour

I mean. What the F**K?!? He's dead. He's been dead for a good long while. While I assume they're going to do some sort of tribute to his talent and so on (he was a fine dancer and had a pretty phenomenal voice), he was a bit of a freakshow in life and, frankly, kind of icky as a human being.

Now, if they're planning on attaching strings to his wrists and ankles and head and doing some sort of marionette thing with his corpse, THAT I might go to.

Movie Time!!!

2010-08-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

So, with me still recovering from a bad bout of bronchitis, the little woman and I decided to spend the weekend trying to do as little as possible. Thus, we rented flicks that we had been wanting to see. As follows:

"Kick-Ass"
"It's Complicated"
"Mary and Max"
"The Men Who Stare At Goats"

Kick-Ass
Interesting premise: a comic-book geek decides that there's no reason why someone shouldn't, you know, dress up in a concealing costume and fight crime, like a superhero. His friends put it succinctly: "No one has superpowers, so no one can actually be a superhero." He argues back with Batman, they argue back with billionaire, and it's pretty funny. So he goes and orders a green wetsuit, buys a couple of sticks - and promptly goes out and gets beat up to the point of hospitalization. In the meantime, video of his exploits ends up on YouTube, especially the part where refers to himself as Kick-Ass, and other "superheroes" pop up out of the woodwork. Big Daddy and Hit Girl, specifically. Big Daddy is Nicholas Cage doing a bang-up Adam West impersonation, and Hit Girl is a little eleven-year-old girl with a mouth like a sailor and a knack for butchering people or blowing their brains out that has you sitting there going oh my God, oh my God. She's f**king ELEVEN.

Directed by Matthew Vaughan (of Layer Cake fame), and based on comic books that are apparently way worse than the film.

It's Complicated
No it isn't. Rich people have difficulties we can only dream of, and to watch all these twits with their problems is to make me think more and more that it's time to line 'em all up and use them for soup. Meryl Streep gets talked into having an affair with her ex-husband, played by Alec Baldwin, and as soon as she says the line "I'd forgotten why you're such a good lawyer" I stopped believing anything he said. She's getting an addition onto her house that would probably cost as much as any of us little folks pay for our current houses, he drives a new Porsche and a used supermodel, Steve Martin (as the bland architect who's designing her addition) is the third wheel in all of this and looks uncomfortable the entire time. All of their children are doing just great, don't need any help from Mom & Dad.

Just like everyone you know, right?

Anyway, not an entirely fair review, as we stopped watching it about a third of the way in. I started it up again, and became even more annoyed when Baldwin starts doing the whole peeping through the window, doing pratfalls off of poorly-mortared bricks thing, while Martin is having appetizers and drinks with Streep in her "too small" kitchen (which is bigger than my living room). Urgh. Scroom.

Mary & Max
A funny, sad, very very odd claymation movie from Australia, purportedly based on a true story about an eight-year-old girl leading a pretty solitary and unhappy life in Australia, who takes it into her head to begin writing to a middle-aged, anxiety-ridden Jewish man in New York City, beginning in the late seventies. I won't go into details, as they are what make the film such a wonderful experience, but suffice to say that the voice performances are top-notch (and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is completely unrecognizable - how does he make his voice do that?), and the animation is as funny and inventive as anything done by Aardman.

I leave you with a quote from Max Jerry Horovitz: "Do you have a favourite-sounding word? My top-five are 'ointment,' 'bumblebee,' 'Vladivostok,' 'banana,' and 'testicle.'"

The Men Who Stare At Goats
Not sure how I feel about this one. The premise is really great, as it's based on actual people and actual behavior. The cast is fantastic (though I have to feel a little sorry for Jeff Bridges - is he to be typecast as The Dude forever?). Kevin Spacey is wonderfully oily as a psychic spy on the make. George Clooney comes off as a man who is sincerely believing all of his hippy-dippy training while at the same time something of a sadistic idiot, and possibly insane. With all the references to "Jedi warriors", the casting folks must have had Ewan McGregor in mind from the beginning for the part of the journalist in need of a good story to win his wife back.

The psychic spy thing is, of course, true. The Russians began their psychic spy training when they thought we were doing it (we weren't). So, in order to not be behind the Russians, we began a psychic spy training program. "Remote viewing" (essentially being able to "see" a place or situation from a great distance using the power of the mind only) is a technique that I've been hearing about for a very long time, most notably in the compellingly bad film, Suspect Zero.

Funny, but a little too detached. McGregor is likeable, but swings between completely convinced that Clooney's nuts, to totally convinced he's onto something, and back again. It's not the film I expected, and could have used a better director than Grant Heslov. As a first feature, it's not terrible, but I had high hopes for this.

10 of the Best Herd Mentality Movies of all Time

2010-06-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

I got the idea for this post from the unfortunately titled Linkbait Generator. Though I typed in the words "herd mentality", I would never have thought of this idea on my own.

Which tells you something about why I'm not a successful (i.e., paid) writer - yet.

However, here goes with the content side of it, in no particular order (who am I to judge how people are most herd-y?):

10. Starship Troopers
In some ways, the herd I'm thinking of is the audience, not the characters in the film (though they're a herd, too). I went to see this wonderfully subversive movie, and, while getting caught up in the dumb soap opera that is the human characters' lives, what I didn't do is fall for the militaristic machismo of all the warfighting. On the other hand, the audience was cheering and applauding the whole facist enterprise, apparently forgetting for a moment that the whole thing resembled the Nazi propaganda movie that Tarantino made for Inglourious Basterds.

9. Night of the Living Dead
I'm not talking about the zombies, here. Good ole boys wandering around shooting anything that moves ("in the heead") and then worrying about whether they were alive or dead , maybe, later.

8. 1984
NewSpeak and doubleplusungood thoughts that get you nowhere, and then everyone starts wondering how long we've been at war with EastAsia...

7. Metropolis
Do I have to explain this one? Fritz Lang's ability to make people look like the machines they maintain (operate? feed? have sex with?) is terrifying.

6. Animal House
While widely seen as the ultimate (well, ultimate for the time) kick in the nuts of the Establishment, when one character starts saying "toga - toga - toga - toga" and everyone else joins in - even knowing it will likely get them all booted out of college - it's not the lunatics running the asylum, it's the sheep. And of course, the famous "band unable to turn around" scene because they've been led down a blind alley by someone not their drum-major indicts the other 95% of the crowd. Still one of the funniest films of all of their careers. The fact that Tim Matheson now plays a psychopathic ex-spy on Burn Notice just seems like the natural extension of that character (had he been inducted into the military right out of college, that is).

5. Black Hawk Down
This movie took a lot of critical hits for portraying the Somali fighters as bug-eyed crazies who fought in endless suicide waves to kill the hundred or so American Rangers and Deltas who were simply trying to get the hell out of the middle of Mogadishu with their captives (high-up lieutenants in Mohammed Farah Aidid's militia). If you read Mark Bowden's excellent book of the same name, you realize that perhaps the filmmakers weren't too far off. Doped up on Khat (a local stimulant), these folks believed themselves invincible, and also became erratically energetic, even in the face of large-caliber machine gun fire. After all, we lost 19 guys - they lost over 4,000.

4. The Wizard of Oz
Everyone in this movie is desperately looking for answers (to quote Ulysses Everett McGill). And they will turn to damn near anyone to get them. I know - it's a musical, everyone's supposed to sing together and at the same time. But they let this one doofus take over the whole Emerald City, based upon his ability to project a weird face and use a microphone, and frankly, some of the cheapest smoke effects ever seen outside of a Whitesnake concert. And the moment Dorothy does in the Wicked Witch, all of the Witch's minions turn to Dorothy as their savior. Had no one told them about the "bucket of water" trick?

3. Endangered Species
A little-seen conspiracy theory movie about the infamous cattle mutilations of the 70s and 80s (once the X-files started, no one thought about cattle mutilations anymore). Robert Urich plays a New York cop with a bad temper and a drinking problem, who's dragged his thirteen-year-old daughter on a very long road trip in the family camper to a small town in cattle country. He's paying a visit to an old friend (who also left the mean old "big city") who runs the local paper and has lots of pithy things to say about cows and cattle mutilations. There's lots of neat not-really-sci-fi stuff about testing bio-weapons on cows, and the "black helicopter that makes no noise" thing is done really, really well. All in all, poor cows, and poor people. Oh, and one person spontaneously turns into meat pudding on the side of the road.

2. Triumph of the Will
Ostensibly a documentary about the wonderfulness that was Nazi Germany, Leni Riefenstahl's documentary of the German Heimat prior to the beginning of WWII still resonates for pure imagery, which manages to not devolve into the awful cheesiness the way that so many pro-America movies suffer from, even now. It works, and it shouldn't work. Only thing wrong is still that damned moustache.

1. Life of Brian
This can be summed up by John Cleese's favorite lines: "You must all figure it out for yourselves." "WE MUST ALL FIGURE IT OUT FOR OURSELVES."

"TELL US MORE!!!"

Another Sign of the Coming Apocalypso Festival

2010-06-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't had enough fish in your vodka lately, your prayers have been answered:

Smoked-Salmon Flavored Vodka

Traditional Russian drinking habits (as opposed to the modern form, which is simple alcoholism in the face of a completely dreary existence - would you look into Putin's eyes and get all warm and fuzzy like the Shrub did?) involve at least as much eating as drinking. Have a bite of something tasty, drink a shot with a friend. Have a bite of something else tasty, have a shot with a stranger. It's all good, you're putting away a lot of protein and carbs to absorb the booze.

(I've heard that Georgians - ex-Soviet Georgians that is, not the US version - can drink like big fishes; is that true?)

So now we have the flavor of the appetizers in the booze. Who needs smoked salmon with sweet butter on black bread when you can have smoked-salmon-flavored vodka? Tastes great, less filling, more drunky more quicky.

This took a long time, and lots of work. So now we have smoked salmon vodka and bacon vodka. I have a really delicious bottle of tarragon-flavored vodka (a traditional Georgian flavoring). There are many more flavors out there, but most of them are sweet flavors such as vanilla, various berries, etc. There is also Pertsovka, the chili-pepper vodka (which is painfully, volcanically hot, by the way).

What's next: Pizza-flavored vodka? Swiss chard? Liver-and-onions?

Next up, the Kosher Pastrami on Rye vodka, just in time for Passover. Gotta work up a label for that one. I wonder what you'd call it?

Sans Vie Is Playing STIFF!!!

2010-05-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

Tickets for Sans Vie for those that can attend. They'll be going fast, and if enough people want to see this, they'll play it again. Check out the award. We got a STIFFY!

I Killed Someone

2010-03-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

I hit my neighbor's cat, driving home from work. She darted out in front of my car from behind a trash can I think, and she must have bounced off my fender, because I didn't hear a thing. I hoped I missed her. I slowed down and looked behind me, and she was trying to stand up, biting at herself. I pulled over, and ran back to pick her up. She was growling and hissing, and breathing raggedly. Blood coming out of her mouth, blood on one of her paws, just a little.

A woman, another neighbor, was right behind me on the road. She told me, "It happened so fast, there was nothing you could have done." And, "can I give you a lift to the vet's down the street?" I was a wreck, crying in front of total strangers, this cat screaming in my arms, trying to get away, probably making her own internal injuries worse. Another neighbor says she thinks she knows who the cat belongs to. She'll tell them where we're going.

We go to the vet, and as I'm getting out of the car, the cat bites into my thumb, hard, down past my thumbnail, it hurts like hell, and I'm not letting go. This last act of rebellion against death takes it out of her. The cat has calmed down a little, but still struggling to get away from me, from the pain. The neighbor helps me get the cat into the office, opening doors, asking if she needs to stay with me. I tell her no, I'll call my wife, she'll come pick me up. The vet's assistant takes me into a room right off the lobby. I lay the cat down on the table, and her breathing slows way down, almost stops. The vet comes in and takes her away. I can't stop crying. I've killed someone's friend. I call my wife to ask her to come get me.

Someone knocks, and it's the owner. He's a nice man, fiftyish, with a sad expression already formed. I tell him what happened. He's in shock. I don't know how long they've had this cat, but there's definitely a history. I lie to him about whether the cat suffered, because I think she did, quite a lot. I mention that he seems to be taking it better than I am, but he says, "I'm still in shock." The vet comes back in and tells us she's gone. The owner asks to take her home, so they can bury her in the back yard. At this point my wife comes in, and she starts crying, too. The vet brings the cat in, wrapped in a towel. My wife asks to see her. The owner starts to break down a little. He leaves with the little bundle.

I've killed someone's friend, and I don't know how to come back.

Now It's Personal

2010-02-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

They used to be called "icebox melons" or "red jewel" watermelons. You know the kind - they're very small, seedless (or at least the seeds are edible and less offensive than the usual hard black variety you see scattered all over parks during picnic season).

They've recently changed the marketing on these little globes of sugary goodness, and are now known as "personal watermelons."

"Personal"?

I'd like my personal whale, please.

"Personal" usually means for an individual. Or perhaps something one does in private, like a "personal massager." So I don't get this. Am I getting hypersensitive to language? Am I, perhaps, becoming curmudgeonly, and easily irritated by mild alterations to my mother tongue.

I almost used the word srsly the other day, and had to stop myself. Because how do you take anyone serious who uses a word like "srsly"?

Another important question to be asked about a personal watermelon - how much vodka can the little devil absorb? Because I'd like to get my personal drunk on, and I could bring one of these green spheres to work, loaded to the gills with Grey Goose, and no one would be able to tell without a watermelon breathalyzer. I might even be complimented on my improved diet.

I might go for "purse" melon, or something like that, implying a very small size, but personal implies that this one is just for me.

Oh, and our cat, the Muzzle, likes watermelon. Leading me to quote one of the great movies of all time, Reuben and Ed: "My cat can eat a whole watermelon!" I think Muzzle could.

Ruined My Day, While Making It Better

2010-01-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

This is the title of a typical incendiary blog post

More Dead Young Cute People

2009-12-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

There's another one. ANOTHER ONE. This one's called "Frozen." Three people take the last ride on the ski lift on a Sunday night, when no one will be back until Friday, and it gets stuck too high for them to jump, and the temperatures are goin' DOWN. Oh, yeah, and wolves. There are wolves. Frostbite. Astonishingly, no one gets their tongue stuck to anything.

Idiots in jeopardy. Or is it rude people in jeopardy? (there appears to be some good reason for these youngsters to be abandoned by the guy controlling the ski lift - they were, um, rude-ish)

Has this happened? Can it happen? Could someone please point me in the direction of newspaper info on this subject? I live near a bunch of ski areas, and one hears about people wandering off in the wilderness, or getting caught by avalanches while snowshoeing (which is, of course, the only winter sport I am currently doing). But I've never heard of anyone being "left behind" as it were on a ski lift.

Come on people: "Closed For Christmas". I'm waiting. I need to see this movie. But I don't want it made by the idiots who do "Meet the Spartans" or "Scary Movie 4." It needs to be done by someone who knows how to make it funny but not stupid.

Legal Folderol

2009-12-15T14:03:00.000-08:00

This came via a layered set of sources. Cory Doctorow of bOINGbOING fame blogged about the Comical Case Names on the website, Lowering the Bar.

Linked next to that is, of course, the Case Law Hall of Fame. These are all PDFs that will download to your computer, should you have the sterner stuff required to get through them.

Personal favorite so far is Fisher V Lowe, which begins thusly:

A wayward Chevy struck a tree
Whose owner sued defendants three.
He sued car's owner, driver too,
And insurer for what was due
For his oak tree that now may bear
A lasting need for tender care.

I mean. Come on. (Almost) the whole damn thing is written this way.

Milestone

2009-12-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

It finally happened. My name is in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb for short) for a real flick. Now all that has to happen is for someone other than the director and all his best friends to see it, and then perhaps other movies can be made.

The movie is called "Sans Vie", and I am currently listed under Film Editing, Sound and Visual Effects.

Never thought I'd make it.

New Blog to Stare at in Wonder

2009-11-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

Pale is the New Tan

The Friendly Boegle

2009-11-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

RG & I hit Portlandia this weekend to visit our dear fiends Boegle and Ler, at least paritally to view Boegle's first foray into directorhood. Might I add, successful foray.

The writer did a very good job of throwing dramatic bits into an otherwise comedic evening. The final lecture of a dying theatre critic. A strange take on Bruce Springsteen's influence on the Brothers Grimm, and why copywright laws are a bitch. And the one Boegle directed, How to Have an Argument, which was a Monty Python-tinged piece of absurdia involving a lecture that never quite gets off the ground, and some very upset theatre patrons. Great fun, well-acted and generally a wonderful way to spend an evening. Especially since they tagged along afterwards to our hotel and ate and drank with us till the wee hours.

They are our best buds. There, I said it.

In many ways, having the new house is going to be the most fun, cause if they want to come up, we'll probably have room for them. Of course, if it's NW Folklife, they get first dibs on the best guest room.

(we only have one, but don't tell them)

Life improves daily. My job is gradually morphing into a day job, where even though I do have plenty of responsibility, it is keeping well out of my evenings. I'd like to think that when the house closes, I will be able to move everything that is currently in the basement of our little cottage into the garage of the new place without too much difficulty, while the contractors rid us of our sparkly popcorn ceiling.

Other highlights of the trip to Portland - Powell's Bookstore: A Reader's Mad Fantasia of Too Many Books. A lovely consignment shop where RG found a couple of items, and near which Ler and I found slices of heavenly pizza. There was the purchase of pastries.

And for another thing, I bought beer.

The Roulette Wheel of my Mind

2009-11-12T12:50:00.000-08:00

Watching as the wheel goes spinning, spinning, and then waiting for the ball to drop, skitter, bounce it's way around, until it finally settles on --

a blank spot between numbers.

That's not right...

My creative juices have dried up like last year's cat barf.

Tonight, we finally see the DVD release of the movie, "Sans Vie." It will be at a bar/restaurant in Capitol Hill. I will probably meet people I haven't met before (like most of the actors), and I will have to come up with a plausible excuse as to why I haven't been able to help one of the actresses come up with a promo reel for herself. I have a few already worked up that are both plausible and accurate, so it won't be difficult.

I'm working on creating an animated logo for Post Production From The Id. I have my Mixtec death mask and the type that I want to use (though it's a little hard to read), but I'm trying to come up with a way to express it in movement that I haven't seen before, or haven't seen very recently, at least. The guys who did "Blair Witch Project" did a wonderful job with Haxan Films, with the old-style jittering film look and the German Expressionist font. Mine will look more Pre-Columbian.

Why is that, exactly? the death mask is a piece of Mixtec stone carving, the name is taken from Forbidden Planet ("Monsters, John - monsters from the Id!!!"). The typeface is Copal, which has a decorated version that looks really cool, like a Peruvian stone carving. I'm Scots, Irish, maybe German, maybe Norwegian. Not a drop of Hispanic or native blood in me anywhere. Why not go for a Norse image? That would make some sense, plus they have a nice brutal look to them.

Anyway, I don't have a good 3D program any more, and my animation program is Motion. I have Photoshop Elements and an old copy of Illustrator. Good sound program (for the musical side of it). Great to have tools, but no fun to not have an idea to use them on.

Perhaps things will improve when I can hide and work.

Sort of Not Out of Sorts

2009-11-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

This last weekend was spent doing a little relaxing, a little shopping, and a little blowing stuff up (virtually). I also re-watched "Bob Roberts," which I may have to comment on in that other blog thing I do. Suffice to say, it made me feel all deja vu all over again.

Very tired of working and worrying about the house all at the same time. Christmas is coming, and while I'm trying to find gifties for RG, I have nowhere to hide them that she won't see when we move. Well, except maybe at work, but I hate using my desk as storage.

Anyway.

Trying to plan for this new house, which we don't have yet. Sort of foolish, but keeps one's mind occupied. Thinking about flooring for the basement spaces in terms of deadening the sound a little (already equipped with acoustic ceiling tiles), but I hate carpeting. I know I'm going to line my computer cave with sound absorption panels (which I will have to save up for, since they aren't "essential" - yet), but the main downstairs room is going to be the movie room and general entertainment space, while the living room upstairs will be the room with the other stereo, the buffet table space, etc.

So for the movie room, I'm thinking shelving across the back wall to accommodate the movie collection, and darkish walls, lined with drapery panels and can lights along the walls. Some other kind of flat panel lighting for the ceiling (the ceiling is a bit low, so I don't want light fixtures banging people in the head), but not the hideous fluorescent things they have now.

And I can't decide between a flat-panel TV (we have a relatively small one at the moment), or a projector system and a big screen. Pros? Cons? Bueller?

OK. Nap time.

A Series of Knobs and Tubes

2009-11-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

Got the inspection report and we will be suffering from a case of knob & tube wiring, along with potential asbestos in our ceiling (blown oatmeal with sparklies). Neither of these things are totally earth-shattering, and we will be getting that nice fat $6,500 from Uncle Sam for selling a home after living in it more than five years, and then immediately buying a new one.

Some things take care of themselves.

Other issues include re-drywalling the garage with proper greenboard, re-siding same with newer, non-rotten siding, and fixing up the roof of said garage, which has essentially been tar-papered, but not shingled.

As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of adding another eight feet out the left side of the garage as a studio space for RG, so she has a nice outdoor space to do crafty-arty things in.

Small projects I can do myself.

Get your drink on in time for Labor Day

2009-11-05T06:33:00.000-08:00

Today: drink recipes!

Killer Kool-Aid

1-1/2 oz vodka

1/2 oz peach schnapps

1/2 oz amaretto

3 oz cranberry juice cocktail

In a lowball glass full of ice cubes, pour the ingredients in, in the above order. Do not stir. It's not that they won't mix, but most of the cranberry juice will stay on top, and not seem alcoholic (though there will be a pronounced peachy aroma). So, it's a nice juice drink that will knock you on your a$$, especially if you're a lightweight like my wife and I. Also helps if the vodka is very top shelf. One of the better craft-distilled vodkas from Idaho or Washington state will do very well, and they won't break the bank the way a Grey Goose or Belvedere will.

As far as I know, there is no such thing as top-shelf peach schnapps.

Cuba Libre

Juice of 1/2 lime

Shot of dark rum + a tablespoon float

Coca-Cola

In a highball glass mostly full of ice, squeeze in the lime juice and drop in the shell (making sure there's room for the poor thing). Add the shot of rum, then fill with Coca-Cola. Float a tablespoon of the same dark rum on top. Serve.

This is not your Mom's Rum & Coke mixup. The lime juice adds a pleasant tartness to cut the cloying cola flavor, and the float on top gives you fair warning of what you've let yourself in for. DO NOT USE DIET COKE. You're drinking alcohol, for cornsakes' - why cut out a little sugar when the alcohol is way more fattening and bad for you? Oh, and the alcohol itself: Gosling's Black Seal from Bermuda. A splendid sipping rum, I also like it for mixing where a dark rum won't make the drink look like mud (never use dark rum in a mojito, for example, unless it's a chocolate-mint mojito). Black Seal has tons of flavor, feels more hearty than Meyers', and it's relatively inexpensive.

Therapeeyootic

2009-11-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

I'm seeing a shrink. A real one. Not a therapist, but a real Psychologist, dealing with cognitive-behavioral stuff. Working our way through my tangled mindfield, I have met two others of me, and they are not quite the enemy. One is my adolescent self, a bit of an anarchist, an anti-authoritarian type who lives for fun, for play, and for whining. The other is my authoritarian father, the critic, the one who knows the "right" way to do things, who suffers in grumpy silence or yells at those who transgress against the "rules." They are both useful to me, but they have each been known to take over.

He asks me to talk to them directly, and then move to their chair and talk back to me in my (now empty) chair. It's a weird experience, talking to an empty chair, and then going and occupying that space, and becoming that person. The work was awkward at first, but I'm/we're getting better at it. At first, it felt like acting - fake. But when you say something to that other person within you, what that person wants to say back is almost always right there, waiting to come out, and it can be quite surprising to find out what these people who live within your brain think of, well... you.

Not sure who I expect the end result to be.

We Encourage Home Invasions!

2009-11-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

So Thursday, our potential new home will be inspected by a fellow who can point out everything that needs fixin'. And either we say, "Fix it," "pay us to fix it," or "screw you, we don't want this pile of poop".

Big decisions.

While I like buying a house as much as the next guy (especially when the next guy is a masochist with a toilet fetish), some of this stuff really starts to wear me down. The level of paperwork is astonishing. I think wars have required fewer forms.

Anyway.

So this house has a decent little lot, a view (who knew we could afford a view?!), a garage that smells funny (might kill the sale), fireplaces and bad carpeting. We will probably live in the upper floor while the lower floor gets a cosmetic upgrade, and we'll need to keep the cats out of the lower floor until I find every little access to out of the way weird areas that they might hide themselves in. Not that I don't want to give them the opportunity to hide from us when they need their space, but I also don't want to accidentally wall them into the space under the stairs, or the funky storage area next to the electrical panel.

Keeping them from pooping in out of the way areas is also of paramount importance. Muzzlepuff in particular seems to have bathroom issues, though he's getting better all the time.

It's a pretty big house in a very nice neighborhood that is isolated from the rest of the city. Hard to get out, hard to get in, which keeps the neighborhood very, well... neighborly. Or is that Mayberry? My commute will be loooooonger. There are buses, though, that will take people right to wherever in the downtown, and for our yearly folklife visitors, plenty of room in the basement to play in.

Die, Yuppies, Die!

2009-11-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

While I love a good horror jolt as much as the next person, why is it that many horror films coming out these days are of the "get yourself in a bad situation, then die slowly and painfully, until you're dead" type? I ask this, because I've just seen the trailer of yet another one, called "The Canyon." Yes, folks, you heard it here first: the Grand Canyon is a deadly wilderness of fear, terror, snakes and wolves. You're gonna die if you don't follow the rules, and maybe even if you do.

So, what have we had: "Deep Water" (death by accidental tourist abandonment); "The Descent" (death by poor cave choice and cannibals); "The Ruins" (death by carnivorous plants surrounded by multiple warning signs); "Turistas" (thanks for the liver); and so on, and so on.

While many real-life wilderness adventures are pretty grisly (the guy sawing his arm off with a Leatherman in order to not die of thirst and hunger whilst trapped by a big boulder is pretty harrowing), why do we have to continually invent stories of a) people behaving slightly stupidly, which leads to b) un- as well as necessary mutilations of various pretty young bodies, leading further to c) terrible death? Horror stories used to end with at least one person making it out alive, who then has to suffer for the rest of their lives with survivor guilt, but we don't have to watch that part... "28 Days Later" was an overall grim little movie, but it wasn't totally devoid of hope.

We're going to have slow grim death in a shopping mall one of these days, because a group of kids decide to throw a party in the shopping mall, get locked in, accidentally kill the security guard in a horrible escalator accident, and then slowly die of thirst and hunger over the next thirty-six hours (with one or two possibly trying to survive by eating the dead security guard) because the mall is - "Closed for Christmas."

Other News

2009-10-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

The house closed. RG and I live in a small cottage with all four cats.

Phrases That Stick

2009-10-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

"What is the word I'm looking for?"

RG used this peculiar phrase the other day, and I had never thought about its meaning before, but what does it mean? I know what the person means when they say it, but is there a deeper meaning?

Or am I just jerking off?

What word? How can you look for a word, when the word is in your head? Do you have a catalog of words that display in your brain? I think that's how my brain works, but what about a blind person? If they can't see, how can they see what a word "looks" like? Is it the braille version? Do they see a series of dots? Or do they see a conceptual image of what they think the word for the thing they're looking for looks like? If a blind person is hunting for the word "squirrel", what is the word they see? What is the thing they see?

With me, there's comparison: "looks like a rat, but with a fluffy tail and cuter."

To a blind person, the comparison might be: "looks like an eggplant, only moldy, with the stem still attached."

Yes, I'm making that up, but what would the comparison be? I don't know any blind people, but I'd love to hear what this phrase means to them.

What For?

2009-09-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've come back from vacation to work. The house is almost (but not quite) sold. I need the money. But I'm not doing anything useful or purposeful in my job. As a matter of fact, my job is not what I signed up for, and even if it was, I'd still be having an existential crisis.

I work to maintain a status quo that is misguided at best. My job is to aid and assist in creating more landfill and waste. I make it possible for people to buy large amounts of stuff that they fill their homes with, and consequently have to throw away packaging, the previous thing that the new thing replaced, and ultimately, the thing itself, which must then be replaced later with new versions of the previous thing.

On top of this, the decisions I make are ignored by folks higher up, since they don't jibe with maintaining a different status quo, the nature of which I can't go into without getting myself fired, and solving the problem. Suffice to say that, when presented with a better mousetrap, my bosses are only looking at the brand, and cook the results of the test to reflect their views. So much fun doing R&D when the conclusion is foregone (which we should have known).

Toilet paper will always be a best-seller.

As a codicil to the previous statement, my stomach is currently running circles around my spine, and I can't keep food down. Something must be wrong. I can't keep doing this, and I'm not sure what I should do.

Scraping Away The Pain(t)

2009-08-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Never hiring another handyman again without first going to Angie'sList. This guy took all week to paint three spaces and a bunch of molding. We also paid for him to uncaulk and re-caulk the tub; he did the former and told us that we could do the latter as soon as the space was completely clean. Never caulked a thing before in my life, and this caulk that I bought is NASTY. I had no idea that nothing cleans it up, except maybe gasoline.

Anyway, I made it look alright, but I'm not terribly happy with the results, and I wish I'd used something else (assuming anything else exists to do this sort of work).

But the painterman. After chiding us about our ridiculous precautions of taping the drop cloths to the floor in our living room and kitchen (which came out great, and spotlessly clean), he paints all of his spaces with no drop cloth at all, leaving us dried paint on our linoleum kitchen floor, on the sealed tile in the laundry room, and on the unsealed stone floor of the bathroom. We spent half Saturday just cleaning up after him. I became suspicious of his experience with spray-painting when I found the box for his spray painter in my back yard, just-opened.

Growl.

However, except for a couple of details, the house is ready to go on the market. Stagers are coming today to throw in furniture. I will be going back to replace a window in the attic (already got the piece of cut glass), and shaving off the bottom of one door that has always been a little tight. Seal the front deck and I'm DONE! Pictures by the end of the week and on the market before Monday. Yowch.

Now we just need to clean up the space we've moved to.

Owwwwwww....

2009-08-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

Painting hurts. All of me is slightly achy and my walk looks like something out of Night of the Living Dead - and not in a good way.

So, we've painted the kitchen and the living room and we're awaiting our handyman (who is a stickler for "smooth" paint) to finish the bathroom, laundry room, fridge alcove and bedroom. My basement looks HUGE, now that I've moved most of it out. If I could figure out how to distribute what I have more evenly, perhaps there would have been more room.

Computer says "no".

I have managed to throw out eight bags of trash from my basement, more than any other space in the house (actually, more than the whole rest of the house). Part of that has to do with finally being done making the floor correct in the bedroom. I didn't exactly overbuy - it's kind of like the bun/hotdog packaging joke: "Why do they sell hot dogs in groups of six and hot dog buns in groups of eight?" Well, why do you have to buy 21 sq. ft of laminate flooring and 32 sq. ft of laminate floor padding?

I threw away four pieces of board and a bundle of padding scraps the size of a St. Bernard dog.

And then there are the paint cans, which I've been told I must get rid of (even though I inherited half of them from the previous owner). Latex paint is not HazMat. However, it must be dry before it can be tossed.

Do you know how long it takes for latex paint to dry just by taking the lid off? Or (as my handyman suggested) spread a bunch of cardboard out over your lawn and pour it all out. Wait for it to dry, then pack all the paint-covered cardboard into trash bags and voila! With my luck, there will be a leak in the cardboard, and I'll end up with a variety-swirl-pattern lawn. Or it will rain, and it won't matter that there's cardboard, the whole lawn will be redecorated in new, vibrant color!

And finally (in the trash department), Apple ADB cables, SCSI, extra three-prong power supply cables (they multiply, don't they), floppy disks, books about Pagemaker, software that only runs on OS 9. I finally gave away my old Mac IIci (after removing the hard drive) and my old Apple 12" RGB monitor, which probably originally cost someone a thou. I also got rid of my 19" CRT monitor, which originally cost me over $1500. Getting all misty-eyed...

Anyway, we're almost completely out. I will be changing my e-mail soon, so that I can cancel cable in the house. My last act will be stickering all of the reusable plastic tubs that we've bought to move stuff in to indicate which tubs are light, which are heavy, and which will give the lifter a hernia. RG stays away from those. And then move them all out of the basement of this house into the basement of our temporary domicile, a lovely cottage with a view of the Sound and the Needle.

And then, relax...

(actually, HouseHunting!)

The TV Machine

2009-04-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

More and more TV shows are capturing my brain, and fortunately, they're on DVD, so I can (instead of defining a moment wherein I must devote an hour of my day not only to programming but the detestable commercials that come all too often) waste an entire weekend watching one show from beginning of season to end.

That doesn't sound good, does it?

These shows are, in no particular order, Deadliest Catch (crab fishermen in the "Vast Bering Sea"with ice and death!), Burn Notice (ex-spies, Miami Babes, and Bruce Campbell!), and The Wire (for all you Homicide fans, same original writer, David Simon - drugs, cops, cop humor). Last year was the year of Monk and House, this eyar we've moved on to darker fare.

With Deadliest Catch, you'd think it would get dull watching guys do endless repetetive work in a crappy environment, and crustaceans desperately trying to escape their really delicious fate. But these guys are real characters, two or three ex-cons, so far one arrest, and greenhorns, who you'd think would have the humility to realize that what they're about to embark upon is hellish hard work, peopled with testosterone-fueled crazy people, who think nothing of chopping the new guy down to fishbait for simply trying to be one of the boys. When the fishing is bad, you feel the pain coming from every downcast face, knowing that they're risking their lives for a catch that might not be worth the effort. When the fishing is good, the joy comes off the screen in waves. When a boat goes down, or a man goes overboard, these men act as soldiers in war - nothing is too good for a fallen comrade.

Burn Notice is a different animal altogether. The basic premise is that Michael is a spy who has been "burned" i.e., cut off from the mothership, and left to his own devices in, of all places, Miami. This is where his mother & brother live, his ex-girlfriend (a gun-runner and explosives expert with an overactive trigger-finger), and his old pal Sam (Bruce Campbell, in what must be one of the most fun roles of his career). So Michael uses his talents to help people he comes across (to keep himself alive - all of his bank accounts are frozen when he's burned), with occasional help from the ex, from Sam, and from his mother (a cigarette-raspy Sharon Gless). There is a bit of MacGyver-esque stuff that you can learn (like destroying a car engine by melting through it with a coffee-can load of thermite, or attaching the antenna of your cellphone to an ethernet cable to use the Internet as your antenna), and overall the performances are solid. Lots of pretty girls to look at, too.

And the Wire. What can I say about this show, except that in one scene in Episode Five, two detectives work their way through a crime scene, and not a word passes between them except variations of the F-word.

For. Ten. Minutes.

You have to wonder what the actors thought of those pages. They like to start each episode off with some sort of joke, and the most memorable one so far is also in Episode Five. Two guys trying to get a desk through a door, and the darn thing won't budge. More guys join in. No progress. The LT shows up, looks at them like, "what a bunch of idiots," and puts his muscle to the task. Still no progress. Everyone gives up. Finally, the guy who was trying to get it through the door in the first place says, "It must have gotten jammed up when I was trying to bring it in." One of the guys who was on the other side of the door says, "IN?"

Classic...

Dread of Mice

2009-03-25T09:16:00.001-07:00

One of our cats caught a mouse the other day. It was (apologies to The Princess Bride) mostly dead. RambunctiousGrl FREAKED OUT. In her world, mice are indicative of a feelthy household. And while we are kinda feelthy (the occasional stack of dishes in the sink and too damn many books everywhere), I don't consider mouse visitations (especially in the singular) to be anything other than a stroke of luck for the kittehs. We have indoor kittehs who never get to experience the thrill of hunting their food (except of course, when persuading RG or myself that it's TIME FOR EFFING BREAKFAST GET UP GETUP GETUP GETUP).

Kitteh staff understand breakfast time. This daylight savings nonsense is actually more irritating, not for the lost sleep, but for the fact that cats take a very long time to adjust.

I took the comatose mousie outside and buried him under a patch of loose sod. I'm putting a humane trap in the basement to see if I can catch any more. And we're on a hole-hunt, hoping to patch up whatever ingress the little buggers might find in the future.

And the movie's almost done. Really.

The Life-Changing Nothing

2009-02-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

There is a neat website, Making Light, that repurposes or originates their own content, and I was led to it by another interesting website, bOINGbOING.net. The article that led me to Making Light is by a fellow named Peter Kleisler. I really hope his American Cargo Cult gets wider dissemination, because it takes an excellent look at the American Way of Not Thinking Too Much, and articulates it all really well, and in nice, short, punchy sentences that I can use for my own ends.

But that's not what I'm writing about today. Making Light also had a story about how a small thing can change your life. The story is about a guy (speaking to a high school audience), how he killed his best friend while driving drunk. And that when he got back to school, he was pretty much shunned by everyone. At a point where he was thinking of ending it all, one of his fellow students casually offered him a stick of gum. "The gum," he said, "saved my life."

So Making Light suggested a topic: how did something small change your life? For me, it was a movie. I was living with two guys, paying a tiny rent to stay in a small bedroom while I worked my way from $4.10/hour all the way up to $4.35/hour as a gas station attendant. I was twenty-five years old, no prospects, not much education (on paper), and neither ambition nor any sort of belief in myself. I wasn't suicidal so much as terrified. I wouldn't have had the courage to pull the trigger, any more than I had the courage to go out and do something with myself.

The Cotati Cinema ran two screens and charged a $1. Which, even in the mid-eighties, was a bargain. On my two days off (in the middle of the week), I went to see Runaway Train, with John Voight and Eric Roberts as escaped convicts (in Alaska) who get themselves locked in the back end of a four-engine stack, whose conductor has a heart attack after opening the throttle up. The engines basically go off on their own, and the two convicts are stuck trying to figure out what to do, and how to get off without being recaptured. Rebecca deMornay does a decidedly non-sexy turn as Sara, the Hostler Helper, and she's the only one on the train with any knowledge of how they work. The movie is preachy in many ways, but I hadn't heard any of these sermons before.

Manny (John Voight): Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

And

Sara: Hold me. I don't want to die alone.
Manny: We all die alone.

I don't know why, but a lot of this stuff that Manny spouted during the movie really inspired me to re-think my own capabilities. To look at myself, not from my father's perspective, but from no perspective in particular. To come out from under the layer of filters I was living in.

I paid my fare to see that film four times in the next week.

Unenthusiastic Exclamations of Delight!

2008-11-26T13:01:00.000-08:00

So, today, I read in Ironic Times (required reading of the staff at The Situation) that the word "meh" has entered the dictionary. (and yet my spellchecker still annoys me)

So glad you asked.

This is apparently a word used to describe a lack of interest or enthusiasm for a thing or task.

Yes, folks - the English language has evolved yet again. We've moved from "whatever" to "meh." Not that I mind, it's certainly easier to say:

"We need to do laundry." "Meh."

"Bush is still in office." "Meh."

But it does speak of deeper meanings. The word "w00t!" made it in, and I happen to think that's a good thing. Made-up words are finding their way into the actual lexicon of English. Unlike the French, who decided some time ago that not only was creating new words beyond their capacity, but that using other people's words for them ("television," "sexy," etc.) was also bad.

The French don't "watch TV," they "look at the box with lights," or something like that, I guess. At least the Germans (not what one would think of as a country known for it's flexibility of thinking) came up with a cool name for TV: Fernsehen, or far-seeing.

And while we're willing to come up with new names for things we already had names for, we still don't adapt well to change, unless it's something everyone has either done, or seen on das Fernsehen.

Oh, well.

Or in other words, meh...

Class-y

2008-11-17T11:11:00.001-08:00

I'm in college again. And even my College is changing it's name to University. Which is sort of odd, but perhaps I get better props for going to an on-line University than just an on-line College.

Ah, well, a degree in journalism is worth little, but it will be nice to have the alphabet soup after my name. In three or four years. I did relatively well in my math class, while pretty much hating it. A 3.4 for not communicating much with my fellow students, and doing my proofs incorrectly. Hard to know what the prof wants, when you don't get to see them in person. Biology is probably next.

How to dissect a frog via the Internet...

I have lately made contact with old odd friends. John H. (+ Sheila) from Sonoma and Santa Rosa Junior College, hiya! It's interesting to communicate with people who've grown a long way apart from one, but you never know, we may still have the old spark of friendship that existed so long ago. I've gone back once or twice to visit old friends, and it never seems to be the same from the way it was before, but I always have hope. Fortunately, I still have Boegle and her Ler, as well as Lemur and Chickenfeet, and Daubentonia. I miss all of them, and occasionally I get to see them, but it's way too rare.

And I'm jealous that Boegle got to see 007 before me...

Inappropriate Spokesperson Name

2008-06-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

One of those things. When discussing a particular aspect of your business that you find distasteful, try to find a spokesperson whose name doesn't immediately make you think of that distasteful issue. In this case, iPhone porn and its proliferation onto the new iPhone 2.0. In an issue of Time magazine (possibly the one on newsstands now), this quote really, well, sticks out:

"Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock says..."

As I said, maybe you could find someone whose name doesn't, well... you know...

Steve Klein

2008-06-09T09:11:00.001-07:00

Steve Klein 01,
originally uploaded by wireout.

Finally found a pic of the fellow who owned Lansdale. I have at least one more I'll be posting in the next coupe of days. This wasn't the one I printed for the show.

Larkspur Train Drawbridge

2008-05-30T06:23:00.001-07:00

Larkspur Train Drawbridge_01,
originally uploaded by wireout.

More images from my dark past.

Little Girl and Dog

2008-05-26T20:54:00.001-07:00

Little Girl and Dog,
originally uploaded by wireout.

Fun, some of the memories jumping out at me. I'd never forgotten this picture, one of my best with humans in it. As you will see from my other pictures, I was usually better with inanimate objects.

Lansdale Station

2008-05-25T07:00:00.001-07:00

Mark A.,
originally uploaded by wireout.

This guy contacted me after twenty years, so now I'm scanning in and posting every photo I can find from Lansdale Station, and probably all my old photos as well.

Slippery Slopes

2008-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

The floor is coming to get me...

My friends Boegle and Tyler have told me the story of consulting with their real estate agent before moving to Portlandia. This real estate person suggested that if they want to buy an early craftsman or late Victorian house (of which there are quite a few in Portland), then they should first pick up a nail gun, and drive a few nails through their hands.

This would approximate the pain they would go through in terms of the work needed to bring that house up to anything resembling modern life.

So Saturday, I had my nail gun up and running, and was firing it into the lovely quarter-round I was using to hide the edges of the laminate floor I had just put in, all the while thinking how our contractor had screwed us up with their innovative solution to our problem of bizarre wall-covering laid over mdf (instead of drywall): more drywall on top. Yes, they pretty much matched it against the old moulding, which was simple 1x4s or 1x6s, but jeebus, what was wrong with what we agreed on, which was "strip everything off and start from bare studs?"

Now I have to be creative in terms of putting in new door moulding, and trying not to make the door jambs look a foot thick, and also adding enough embellishment to the floor mouldings, because the old moulding doesn't absorb paint the way that drywall does - there's a distinct difference. Plus you want at least a little arteestical effort. Which we've solved, but will take a good bit of (extra) work to achieve.

One element of fun in all of this is the Muzzle. AKA Georgie Muzzlepuff, the new cat. He has zero sense of his surroundings, so when we play with him, we have to be careful not to direct his play towards anything he might land on after one of his spectacular, devil-may-care leaps while going after the Feather or Lasermouse. It's a not uncommon sight for him to run full speed after the red dot of lasermouse, slamming headfirst into a door. The new floor is a slick as an oily steel plate, and he can't stop himself easily. So when we play with Feather overhead, he runs, jumps, lands on his ass, slides halfway across the floor trying to stop and turn. Pure, 3-Stooges joy.

So anyway, I was looking at my nail gun...

Lama Llama Lama

2008-04-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Went to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Saturday. That's what the lady from our local TV station kept calling him. "His Holiness." Said it five or six times in short sentence. While I think the guy is friggin' brilliant, and talks about a lot of important stuff, this woman sounded like the worst kind of fawning idiot. I mean, even he doesn't think he's all that great.

"I don't know."

How refreshing to hear that from the mouth of one of the most revered people of our time. After he had spoken (for what seemed like a very short amount of time), he allowed for three questions to be asked from thousands submitted. The first one concerned how we c an possibly get our leaders to finally turn away from war as a political policy to something more like diplomacy. He said something to the effect of. "That sounds like very serious question, coming from a very serious place. Truthfully, I don't know."

You don't know?!? How can YOU of all people, not have that one figured out yet?

He followed it up. "I had an idea, back in the 1980s, that perhaps what was needed was for the leaders of all of the superpowers to go on vacation together with their families. And not to talk business! Just have a good time, relax."
There you go! Simple, brilliant, and of course, never gonna happen, but still...

He did speak about nuclear arms at one point in his talk, and made a couple of profound suggestions. First off, he acknowledged that at one point, maybe we needed nuclear arms so as to prevent other bad guys from using them; but now, we just don't need them any more. He suggested that one way to begin was to disarm ourselves internally. To react to violence or conflict with the first thought being, "how do I deal with this situation non-violently?"

Golly. Where has my mind been?

I started writing this post before I left on the business trip mentioned in my previous post, and here I am, back after a week, I can look back on this day with a hazy fondness. I've been reading a book by Pema Chodron (there are umlauts and I'm not sure they'll work here), who is a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (technically a Nun, but who's counting?), and it's all about leaning into the point, or embracing chaos.

In other words, when you are in pain, or in fear, that is when you are at your most authentic. That is when the outside world is exposing you to yourself. So, instead of trying to hide from the fear, embrace it, revel in it... just deal.

This will be a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it.

That Old Technology Trip

2008-04-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday - 5 am - SeaTac Airport

The boss sits next to me, texting. I feel like a Luddite, or a corporate Kerouac, writing in my tiny journal. I'm (obviously) not as good a writer as Mr. Kerouac, but I am on the road to Chicago.

I have brought three books to read. One is a book on Buddhist philosophy about embracing chaos and pain (how perfect is that?), another is a book of humorous essays, and the third is a book is by a famous novelist in conversation with a famous film editor.

I am beyond tired. Last night was a flurry of activity after a day of relative goofing off. I began Saturday by roto-rootering the sewer, as the shower wasn't draining the way it's supposed to. During my shower I realized that it hadn't helped. So I sent some drano down the drain, and it appears to have finally worked.

We're about to board the plane, which seems to be somewhat empty.

Wrong.

The plane is "full," but not full next to me. I sit with an empty seat between me and the young lady who looks minutes out of college.

I snoozed, I think. Woke up a few times to various forms of turbulence until I couldn't (or didn't need to) sleep anymore,

Read stuff.

Landed.

Hotel has a TV in the bathroom, which turns on automatically when you turn on the lights, but with just enough delay that you might already be sitting down when someone starts talking to you from outta nowhere.

Really only bad when the person talking to you is a sports announcer.

And for another thing...

2008-04-08T12:43:00.001-07:00

Whatever happened to our two local weekly rags publishing movie times in the back section? My wife and I were out after our Banya experience (and having had a little lunch at the local Whole Paycheck), and I picked up a copy of The Stranger. The only movie times I could find in the whole issue were an ad for the independent movie chain.

While I understand that the entire hip world of Seattle has cute little PDAs or iPhones or whateverthehell kind of cell-phone/pager/browser/blender gizmos, I f**king don't.

I do understand that print space is costly. But won't the theaters pay you for informing the public about what times their movies are playing at? If not, why not? And better still, when did this change?

The movie we went to see was In Bruges, with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. Bloody as all getout. Much more somber tone than the trailer suggested. I kind of liked it, but RG (besides having to hide her eyes for quite a bit of the movie near the end) found the plot a bit too contrived and not nearly as funny as hoped for. I, on the other hand, liked the extreme twistedness of the whole thing, as well as the rather shocking aspect of Where Things Went Wrong. The film ended with me, grinning a nasty grin. Not perfect, and I sure wouldn't pay full price (as we did); but the visuals are worth seeing on the big screen - the scenes in Bruges itself, not all the blood.

Relaxed to near death

2008-04-07T12:11:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Boegle mentioning the death of a hot-tub spa-type place in her neighborhood, RambunctiousGrl got it into her head that we had to try the local schvitz-place, AKA Banya 5.

We now expect to be going there twice a month.

First off, it's a Russian/Turkish bath. So there's the HOT room. the HOT STEAM room, the C-C-COLD p-p-pool, the (I'll stop doing the funny embellishments now) cold shower, the salt pool, and the hot tub. Which is just a hot tub.

The hot room (parilka) is supposed to be running around 200-210 degrees fahrenheit and low humidity. There was a fella there who kept dragging the poor front-of-house girls back to show them that the humidity was hovering around a constant 50%, which means that actual overheating doesn't happen.

Coulda fooled me.

So you spend about ten minutes in the heat, and then drop into the cold pool. Jump right out, sit for a minute, and then go back into the heat. Your basic sauna, right? Well, not quite.

I had a sauna growing up. Thought it was goofy. Now that I'm an adult, I f**king want one of my own!

However, if you have your own sauna, you won't get to see the contingent of the Russian Mafia having a nice sweat right in front of you. Old guys with big white bellies (with zero self-image issues) lying right on the hot boards of the sauna's top tier, while they whack each other with towels in order to increase the heat, and boost their circulation. Also in evidence were the young bulls, with the complicated tattoos that look like they might have happened in prison, but who knows, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. All of the traditional guys were wearing funny little felt hats (chapka) which supposedly keep your head from overheating too much.

Russian Smurfs.

Anyway, best way to begin the day once breakfast has been consumed, and I imagine if one has a nasty hangover it works really well. Specially if you get that shot of vodka in your system before you go to the baths.

Permenent slackerdom

2008-02-25T09:02:00.001-08:00

As further proof of my inability to write anything down unless actively prodded by a sharp stick, I give you today's entry:

Enjoy.

No really, that's it. There's no movie. It's just the internet equivalent of dead air.

Sneezing Panda

2007-12-02T14:55:00.001-08:00

What can I say? Watch the baby, and watch Mom's reaction. Reminds me of my sneezes.

(you know who you are)

The seven odd things

2007-11-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

Tagged by RambunctiousGrl

Here's how it's done:

a. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

b. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.

HATE being it...

(in no particular order) things that are me about odd:

1. I have a large number of characters in my head, each with their own voice (many of them British), and they come out at what, to them, seems like the appropriate time. I have little control over this, and if surrounded by British people, I have to use all my powers of concerntration NOT to talk like them. I really can't help it, and I'm sorry.

2. I require order, yet am a complete slob. I do things in as orderly a fashion as I can. I know where everything is. If one little thing gets moved, I know it, and it drives me crazy. Dishes pile up, but I know where my socks are.

3. I think of dried fruit (most especially raisins) as smellyawfulBADnasty.

4. I prefer shoes that are very heavy - not just clunky, but heavy.

5. I work with computers and complex computing systems (both for work and for fun), yet believe that these things are destroying our lives. I think many new technologies are really cool, but are also making most of us slaves to them, rather than the other way around.

6. I can break an encyclopedia volume (or a hardwood floor) with my head. Yes, it hurts a little. I've been hit in the face with a baseball bat, I've been through at least one windshield, and I've done one of those pratfalls onto icy asphalt, and hurt my back more than my head. Never needed stitches or even a band-aid.

7. If I could wear only clothing made of leather, rubber and/or cast iron, I would.

I'm sure I could come up with weirder stuff than this, but my cow-orkers sometimes see this, and I'm afraid of spooking them. More than usual, I mean.

c. Tag 7 random people participating in nablopomo at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

Tag others? I only know those who have tagged me. And I'm not really participating in the NaBloPoMo thing, as I am too busy writing about Modern Journalism in my Modern Journalism class...

But here they are, from the Blogroll list at NaBloPoMo (randomly picked for the cleverfoodiness of their names):

Bowl Of Cheese

Dimsumthing

EGGO Project ALREADY BEEN TAGGED.

Indecisive Peach ALREADY BEEN TAGGED.

just a little radish

Mommy Wants Vodka

Soup to nuts

d. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

Who am I?

2007-11-21T09:01:00.000-08:00

You Are The Turkey

The center of attention, the meaning of it all.

Too bad you put people to sleep!

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

The Furnace Maze

2007-11-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

Now that I am warm at home.

Windows in December. Excavation pretty soon. New paths.

What does one do with dirt one doesn't want?

My cow-orkers are pushing me at my mazes again. When I was young (oh, so much younger than today) I drew mazes. My father once asked me why I was wasting my time with them (and then later apologized, which was nice of him). These were intricate, strange things with no dead ends and an infinite number of solutions. The idea was, you draw a bunch of spirals with many arms, and connect the spirals together. Each spiral center (or "valve" as I heard Greg Bright describe them once) has multiple exits. Each valve you pass through multiplies the odds against ever finding a way out. Technically, all the valves lead out. They also lead back in again.

But now there are computers. I could draw one of these things, and scan it in in phases, mapping the shortest route to the exit, but then keeping that information to myself. Proof that it's posible to finish the maze.

Perhaps I will draw one, and post it. A small one, so I don't spend an eternity doing it.

Crap and Holy Crap

2007-10-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

Sewer goes again - thank god for Rapid Rooter. Fixed in an afternoon.

The very next morning, RG starts getting really really dizzy, which she later describes to me as a feeling of wanting to go to sleep. Also, the house smells kind of like burning. She's telling me this on the phone, so I suggest she turns off the heater now now now.

The oil company man comes in this morning and gives me a quote of $4,000!!!! for a new oil heater. So this, since I don't necessarily want to kill off prospective buyers of this, our beautiful but toxic home, seems fair.

We had a nice weekend, except for my cold. Spent in the lovely Edgefield Inn in Troutdale, OR (just outside of Portland), where I drank too much, we both ate too much, and we found a place on our way out of town called John's Marketplace, way out on Multnomah Blvd.

Every beer ever.

A large cooler of nothing but large bottles. Another large cooler of foreign brews at the appropriate temperature. Yet another large cooler of nothing but six-packs. Shelf upon shelf of excellent beers that they didn't have room for in the coolers. I am working my way through them.

Siletz beers won in the popularity contest: the Spruce Ale (made with real spruce tips, so it smells a little like a Christmas tree) was not what I was hoping for. A little weak. The Siletz Oatmeal Cream Stout (made with oats and lactose - hence the "cream") is a rich, chocolatey brew with undertones of coffee and an overall thumping in the back of the head feel. Last but not least is an organic fresh hop ale from a brewery I can't remember (I'll post it later). Yummy. Similar to the Sierra Nevada Fresh Hop Ale in body and nose. I have the Hair of the Dog Double IPA, a Deschuttes brewery Hop Trip Ale, and Siletz Chocolate Porter (made with real chocolate) left to drink. I suspect I'll be done by Friday, though I may reserve one for Saturday night, as I expect Saturday will be a day of pain and heavy lifting.

To explain: the poetry appreciation chair must be moved into storage. A 1920s antique optometrist's chair, it's really cool, but large, heavy and currently only used for hanging things off of. Then there's everyone's favorite futon and frame, which must also find pride of place in our storage unit, until we have a larger home to put them into. Then, to accommodate the fellers installing our new furnace, I need to move six sheets of drywall from the top of the stairs to somewhere they won't be in the way.

Then drinking.

Then dinner.

Then dirnking.

thndrknvdfof

Somehow Made A Film

2007-10-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Sans Vie is a French film I've been working on ad nauseum, except that I enjoy it, and was shown to a relatively large audience last Friday night.

I think I stopped breathing once or twice, and I know for a fact that my hands went numb while I was watching it. It wasn't so much that I wanted other people to like it, I was entirely concerned that the software used to create the whole thing had barfed somewhere and I hadn't noticed.

Just my luck it worked out OK. And people liked it, to boot, which was gratifying.

Matthew Morris, the director, was calling people up onto the stage, got the lead actors, the cinematographer, the cameraman, the key grip, and couldn't remember who else to call up. He and I had spent all summer in my basement, editing and fighting over little points of continuity and other things. RG pointed at my head, and you could see the palpable embarrassment. Which was gratifying.

The way he explained the "why a French film?" question was intriguing to me. It had to do with someone who told him how to learn guitar, and it had something to do with the learning process, i.e, if you learn from a particular person, you will end up sounding like them, so he decided that he wanted to make movies, and French movies are more like the blues, and since he learned the guitar by learning the blues, he learned to make movies by making a French movie.

Foux de fa fa

Still, a worthwhile project, if I say so myself, and a huge learning experience for me. And it's not over. He plans to finish the movie as a feature, shooting from next weekend, through February. In the meantime, I will be spending a lot of time in my basement learning the tools I've been using for the last four months, including the cool Color program Apple released.

And I kind of need to finish my basement. And the back yard. And the front porch. And the windows. And the plumbing.

Breathe....

On The Rude Again

2007-09-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2007 Tracy, CA

Barnes & Noble cafe, with coffee and cheesecake from that Factory where they make Cheesecake.

Why doesn't the "Factory" thing clue me in a little? Tastes just like a factory.

Wearing an earwig for my phone has turned out to be a really good thing. I can better hear the person I'm talking to, and they can hear me. On the other hand, having Tom D saying "You've got something in your ear" over and over gets a little wearing...

The Last Depot September 11-17, 2007

A long time to be on the road. Nice people, all of them: Tom D, Robert W, Gail G and Mark S, with a Special Guest Appearance by Chris S (AKA, the Big Boss).

I arrived on the anniversary of the Big Bang in New York City. I'm not sure why but my flight was full. I was hoping a few people would stay home, but no such luck. I arrived before my teammates and began my work, unboxing what seemed like an endless parade of dumb terminals and big printers.

Fire Drill

While we all hang around outside a building that would have considerable difficulty in catching fire. Concrete, steel, metal studs and modern drywall. Oh, yeah... the Desks. Big Goddamned Desks. Crammed up against walls so that it's impossible to find the ethernet jacks.

Not without getting a shiny new hernia, anyway.

Desks made of thick, solid wood. Excellent burning profile. So I guess, don't smoke at (or under) your desk.

Back to unboxing. For all of my company's attempts to be and do Green, everything I unpack is made stable with lots and lots of Styrofoam. Enough to fill a 6' x 6' x 8' dumpster.

Once I'm done for the day, I go to the hotel to await my comrades-in-nerd. Dinner is at Chevy's, a mildly authentic Mexican chain. The beers take for-f**king-ever. The food is acceptable. Road food. What is it, exactly, that makes us choose the restaurants we do? The food almost invariably seems canned (even the rice).

The Wednesday From Hell

Everything going relatively smoothly, though I've misled myself about how many terminals I have to deploy. We thought we had world enough and time, but found ourselves at 5:15 PM (45 minutes from when we said we'd be done for the day) with issues out the kazoo. We end up working until 8:20 PM (nearly 14-1/2 hours), which put us at 9 hours between meals. And Chris S is just arriving, so we wait for her to join us in this new food adventure.

We go to a restaurant called Texas BBQ. As soon as I get past the blare of country-western music (yep - both kinds) at the door, across the floor with the used-peanut shell coating, I was presented with what looked like a butcher's case. Row after row of steaks.

Thick

Juicy

Meat

We didn't talk too much. Too tired. Chris S was subjected to Tom D and Robert W's drinking habits (endless Coors Light). I'm usually annoyed by my cow-orkers' insistence on drinking cheap, weak beer. But Gail G had something I'd only read about in horror novels - the Red Beer. Beer and tomato juice.

That's just wrong.

Thursday in the Cold

Work, work, work. I'm the only one crazy enough to work in our refrigerated buildings without a jacket. I dunno, they're bulky, they get in the way, and I tend to overheat in them, which makes me sweat, which freeeeeeezes to my body. Lots of workstations, and it all comes together pretty quickly. We eat breakfast at the International House of Carbohydrates. And again, I think about why we eat where we do on these trips. In this town, the choices are admittedly limited, but surely there must be something better...

Wound up at 6 (on time) and everyone wanted to go to the Olive Drab Garden. Italian food created by a marketing department trying make Italian food more "acceptable." Less "unusual."

You know - bland.

I begged off.

My cow-orkers are mystified by my antisocial behavior on these trips. Part of this has to do with the restaurants that seem to be popular with everyone else, but a big part of it is my own peculiar psychopathology. As I've told every therapist I've ever been to, my feelings about this are based on a joke by Groucho Marx: "I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me for a member."

Funny, but also sick.

It's not like I feel like I'm above these people; snobbery is only called for when you can look down on someone. And I only get really condescending when I'm drunk (on really good beer). I am in awe of people who do the kind of work we do and gain a measure of satisfaction from it. You plug the cable into the switch and the light changes from off to yellow to green. Happiness!!!

Which I do feel, but for such a fleeting moment it's not enough to base a career on. I meet people who've been working at my company for over twenty years, and are moving very slowly up the food chain. I used to think it would be easier for me to do some sort of menial job for a straight eight-hour workday, so I could free up the little grey cells for the creative stuff after work. I'm usually so wasted after that kind of day, that all I can think about is beer, food and TV.

Friday, Near the Edge of Done

Again strange food.

The work moves along smoothly, not much for us hardware folks to do. I feel a bit bad for the boss, as until the network is perfect, the hardware part is as far along as it can be.

She leaves after lunch. And I'll I can think of is "nap time."

Dinner at Texas again. More meat. And this time, bourbon - Woodford Reserve, gotta get me some.

Got it all Did

Saturday morning cleanup. Spent an hour and a half, carefully moving one cable after another to create a neater appearance and better organization in a network hub called an IDF box. I still don't know what that stands for.

Intermediate Data Fuhhhhhhh....

No food til noon.

As soon as Tom D saw the PBR tap, he knew this was the right place. We waited for a table. Waited for beer. Waited for beer. Waited for beer. Got wings. GOT BEER. Got wrong food. Everyone else got right food. Stopped waiting. GOT RIGHT FOOD. Tom D was not going to have another beer. Neither was Robert W. Robert W orders more beer for him and Tom D. I order more beer.

Everyone else leaves.

Nothing much to do do until the next morning. Play on the internet, nap, watch bad cable. Bought a bottle of Woodford Reserve, but won't open it until I get home.

Resident Men In Evil Black Blade 2

Work on Sunday lasts about four hours. Lots of cleanup, lots of packing. Back to the hotel, and on to Barnes and Noble. Which is where I write this diary up. Off to a very good, bloody movie, called 3:10 to Yuma. Terrific performances from Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Dinner at a brewpub in Manteca (Lard?) California, called Kelley's Brewery. Lightish beers and lightish Fish & Chips. Not terrible, just not much to write home about.

Monday starts at 6. Ends at 6. Including a flight home, more cleaning, and an epileptic seizure in the airport.

Just like every other day.

Enough is too much

2007-09-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

Off to yet another delightful bit of corporate travel tomorrow. RG hates it when I travel, and I'm just dumb enough to be persuaded to fly on Sept. 11. I'll be gone for a week, attempting in my spare time at the location to work on another screenplay. This one's about a disfunctional family gone tragic.

I mean, how hard could that be?

Meanwhile, I'm feeling like a major dumb f**k, since I scheduled the meeting for the travel for the week after I've returned. Holy Jeebus. What's missing from my brain this year?

Tired, sad, and tired.

Also completed yet another class in my "BA while-u-wait" college. Waiting to see my final grade, as I'm none too convinced of my abilities in this department. I'm a good writer, but literary criticism has always struck me as a lot of intellectual masturbation. Unless I really like the piece, and then of course, it suits me fine.

Too many poems out there about God.

Anyway, meetings, bloody meetings.

Move on the 28th at the Seattle Art Musem. If you want to come, you need an invite, so send me an e-m,ail address (just in case I've lost it) and I'll get the deirector to send you an e-vite.

Oh God Oh God Oh God - I'm SUCH AN IDIOT

2007-08-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

noooooooooooooooooooo - I'm SO DUMB

A man in Colorado has had his thumbs altered so he could use his iPhone better. NO, he DIDN'T

The procedure is known as "whittling." Actually, it ISN'T.

OK

I get that with new technologies, sometimes you have to adapt - slightly - to a new interface, or a new behavior system associated with them. My favorite Jargon Watch word from Wired magazine was "beepilepsy" - the jerking, surprised motions of someone who's beeper has been set to "vibrate." However...

This is not mental adaptation. This is beyond the usual physical adaptation. Forget about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Tennis Elbow. Now we're talking, "I had my thumbs whittled down to work on my new phone!"

I HAD MY THUMBS WHITTLED DOWN TO WORK ON MY NEW PHONE

That sentence shouldn't ever come into existence. This is a $500 gadget that should allow any sort of user to adapt themselves to it, and not require whacko surgery that then prevents the end user from being able to open a jar of spaghetti sauce.

That's the only side effect that he's noticed, anyway. Stay tuned for more.

Oh, my gentle Jeebus. The doctor involved in the surgery glowingly spoke of this as being an improvement over the usual reasons for plastic surgery. He's not getting pec implants, or a nose job - that's just vain. No, we're improving his workplace efficiency. Yeah. That's a great reason to alter your body. So you can be a better tool for someone else.

GET A F**KING TATTOO. It might improve your self-esteem, and might even persuade you that your money is better spent on a phone that can be used to call people, not one that connects you to everyone and everything, and even kind of knows where you are all the damn time.

See, I'm an Apple FREAK. I love all products Apple. I've gone somewhat drooly over one of my colleague's iPhones. He gets his thumbs reduced so he could use it better? I'd be calling the guys in the white coats with the butterfly net. I'd buy a gun so I could beat him to death with it. Or maybe an old AT&T phone.

The DSM IV needs a new entry: "iPhone madness."

Ahwell... punk'd again. This story was mad eup and posted ina semi-reputable newspaper. Maybe I shoudl start distributing not news as news and see what happens. Be another Joey Skaggs.

OK OK OK

2007-07-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

Friends and RG are telling me to blog more, post more, more more more!

Fine.

The final installment of Harry Potter (and the Deathly Hallows) was certainly a wonderful, entertaining read. It's kind of a shame Ms. Rowling isn't better with her prose. The plot and the thought behind the plot was pretty dang wonderful, but her waffle-stomping prose often subjected those ideas and plot developments to the worst kind of abuse. I can see how this book will make a great film, in the hands of a competent director and screenwriter (where are you, Alfonso Cuaron?). There is much flashbacking and twisting, but there are also long stretches where our dear friends are waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

If there's one thing that's hard to write about, it's what people do and think when they have nothing to do at all. And Ms. Rowling doesn't quite have the chops for that.

On the other hand (lest anyone think this is all just one big HP bashing session), when she does have something for these folks to do, it gets interesting, and it gets complicated. I like complicated. There are many legalese twists of wizard logic in this story, and she handles those threads quite deftly. Harry has many trials to deal with, and some highly adult choices to make. He fulfills the series' promise of a brave, reluctant hero. And the humor (which there is less of in this installment, as it's basically wartime) is quite well done. My favorite being an exchange between Ron and Harry, where Ron is essentially saying that he didn't do anything particularly spectacular. Harry then enumerates the achivements Ron managed in a single act of bravery. Ron's response is "well, when you tell it like that, it sounds a lot cooler than it was." Harry says something like, "I know. It always sounds cooler than it was. I've been trying to tell you that for five years."

Which sums a lot of it up, and in many ways, is probably what soldiers go through. You do your job well, occasionally save a friend, and afterwards what you did seems to be far removed from what you remember having done, and certainly sounds better than when you were actually doing it.

In other news (and speaking of Alfonso Cuaron), I saw Children of Men while ill. I have to say, as an editor, I envy the bugger that got to do that movie. Aside from about ten scenes that involve actual cutting, there are many very very long single takes that are so completely immersive, you can't stop watching. You know that bad things are likely to happen, but you don't want to turn away. One of the most moving film experiences I've had in a long time.

Also saw Rataouille and the new Harry Potter film. In a theatre!!! JOY!

Gotta do that more often - makes my day every time, even if the film doesn't.

Slow on the outflow

2007-06-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

RG has already blogged about the Maui trip, and said pretty much everything I wanted to say about it, so there you go.

Except for...

Is my current existence only for the furtherance of other people's bulls**t? The movie work is worthwhile, but the regular job...

Maui cut through a lot for me. Made me look at what the hell I think I'm doing. Made me think that it's time, that no matter what, I have to find something else and soon.

Otherwise, you might as well laminate me to my chair and call me a fixture.
Pictures of the grand vaca soon!

Traveling with Crazy People for Fun and Profit!

2007-05-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Friends, Romans, Countrymen -

Get me the F**K outta here!!!

I digress...

I traveled to a lovely garden spot on the east coast of our dear Nation. I'm not revealing names or places for the protection of the innocent.

And if you can find anyone innocent in this crew, I'll give you money.

The Flight In

First of all, it takes forever. You start fairly early in the morning, just to show up. Then the flight is meant to last five and a half hours. During which (if you're willing to pay) you can have a burger-y thing or canned tuna and applesauce. If you're not willing to pay, a cookie and pretzels are what you have to look forward to, along with all the free water or soda or juice they can stock on the plane. All of which sounds OH, so appealing. There's also five dollar beer or wine or cocktails. Which I should have had, except I'm trying to do homework or entertain my brain with a fairly kinky novel set in the sex-trade industry of Thailand. Bangkok 8. Great mystery novel, and darn weird.

So, as we're approaching our destination, the pilot comes on to tell us (in faint, static-y wisps of english that still required translation via the stewardess) that we would be circling for a little while, as there was terrible wind shear, and an attempt at a normal landing might end up with all of us nose-down in the Atlantic ocean. So we circled.

And circled.

And circled.

And circled.

Then an approach was begun, from waaaaaay far out there.

The flight ended up being about an hour longer than originally anticipated.

We then split up into our respective cars, me with Robert W, Tom D with Amy G, and Heidi G with Jim R. (I think - I may have the dance cards mixed up) I immediately misdirected Robert (who was being closely followed by one of the other cars) onto the wrong offramp from the airport. We quickly recovered, and found ourselves on the right turnpike, heading south. Got to the hotel, checked in, showered, scoured, and headed out for the evening to a restaurant called Charlie Brown's (which I'd never been in). Drinking begins in earnest for the trip.

Food and Drink

Jim is the teetotaler of the bunch, and speaks of his drinking days with a certain fondness. Heidi dives into a watermelon (I think - pink for sure) martini. Amy orders water?!? I order a guiness draft. Robert and Tom order a pitcher of pee. AKA Coors Light. And proceed to drink it down in less than five minutes.

Another pitcher. Then large slabs of meat.

The work we do at the location, well, the less said the better, since it only makes sense to those of us doing it, and to outsiders it might sound like a big yawn. Or a big clusterf**k. Except that it all went pretty well. There was, however, flatulence - hence the above link.

Our first breakfast (the next day) is at a strange little countrified place that used to be someone's living room, or maybe their sunporch. The food involves various remakes of eggs, pork and velveeta. Comfort food for people who want to become uncomfortable. We actually eat here more than once.

We also eat at a little Italian place that appears to make a dozen different types of pizza, grinders, and salads, and they bring the food out to you. Genuinely Italian, the food has depth, subtlety and FLAVOR, and I could have easily gone through twenty slices of pizza without getting bored. I might have died, but I'd have died happy. We only manage to eat here twice.

Dinner conversation at TGI Fridays: "Throw her nuts on mine," "Put it in my mouth, now," the Dessert Exchange, "Open up." And my favorite, a new band name: "Jerry Springer Spaniel." Severe drinking. Margaritas, mojitos and beer (oh, my!).

The next evening, on our way to the best food of the trip, the conversation gets, well... a little of the old TMI. Nipples referred to as "party hats," certain sexual practices, High-Def pornography, "a** pimples," small hands, "a little head is OK"...

You get the picture.

The food is fantabulous! It's a BYO restaurant, so we first hit up the little tiny liquor store down the strip mall for six packs and airplane bottles of liquor. I find a beer called Hopnotic IPA, which is pretty darn tasty. Others are ordering Coke and adding booze to it. The food... the food...

Raw oysters and clams on the half shell, a ceviche of squid, scallops, and crab claws. Shrimp with a very decent cocktail sauce. And deep-fried rock shrimp with some kind of hot sweet sauce. Everyone orders large entrees, too. One order brings up yet another strange quote of the day, possibly the best one of the trip:

"Easier to get rid of veal than crabs."

I can't top that.

We leave a day early. Another long day full of sleep and homework, and a lovely novel called Clowngirl, by Monica Drake, whom Chuck Palahniuk refers to as his "Arch-Enemy." Which is quite a compliment, coming from him.

Goodnight for now.

Comments, please...

2007-05-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of adding the AdSense thingie to my political blog.

I fear adds for mAnn Coulter. However, perhaps that would be an indicator of my open-mindedness. Or at least public open-mindedness. Privately, I can still be a close-minded bastard...

Has anyone done this, or known someone who's done it? Is it worth it?

Racism is a thing of the future

2007-04-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

At least the kids are trying, fer cornssake!

Un believably in this day and age, a high school just managed their first "integrated" prom. Some of the white kids didn't go because their parents disapproved. And they still had the "White kids prom" on the side, for those folks who wanted to attend the private prom. Black kids were welcome, but none came.

Gee, I'm all surprised...

School bullys. Racism. Talk of "sissification".

No wonder people go on shooting rampages. Not that I condone that sort of thing, but if we still hold fast to that which is rotten, how can we ever get a handle on some of these really deep-seated psychoses? Is it just easier? Are we truly that unevolved?

Sorry - undesigned...

If God is so wonderful, why did he give us the capacity for such hatred? Such ignorance? Perhaps he prefers us ignorant. His hard-core followers certainly seem to. Talking vegetables indeed! It's shame that the talking vegetables are more articulate than some people. Try this little magazine, which is apparently very popular amongst the Christ-tween set.

Yes, people have beliefs and one should respect those beliefs. It's not even about beliefs any more, it's about dogma, ritual, specifics. How tall is God? How hard does Satan really work to tempt his minions? Does he have to work that hard with Pat Robertson and his law college? Or Oral Roberts and "call me home"?

How many angels would even want to dance on the head of a pinhead?

A wholly owned subsidiary of me...

2007-04-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

"Mark Levinson is a Registered Trademark of Harman International Industries."

Really, he is.

The Lexus website offers the Mark Levinson audio package (as part of a larger package which includes Collision Avoidance, Radar enhanced Cruise Control, etc.). As part of the description of the Mark Levinson audio portion of the extra $x,000 pile of cash you'll have to fork over to get one of these very pretty cars, this little line (above) of throwaway legal verbiage is included.

Which gets me thinking. or not

So Harman owns him? Do they own his name? His abilities? Everything he touches?

How does his wife (assuming he has one) feel about this ownership thing? Does she only have access to a percentage?

Looking at Luxury Cars (which I rarely do - it's more of a "damn I'm jealous of other people with money" thing than a more enlightened "who needs that pile of status" attitude), I begin to wonder about the whole concept of skilled labor, or in this case, super-skilled labor. To be so skilled in one aspect of existence that someone can actually Trademark your name, your skill, your style. I seem to remember Tom Waits suing Pepsico for stealing his vocal/musical style for an ad without his authorization. I also remember wondering, "so no one else can sound like Tom Waits without paying royalties?" Creeeeeepy.

It's not like the Les Paul series of Signature guitars are actually made by Les Paul. He's getting a little old to be cranking out that many guitars in his garage anymore. He just signs 'em. Sorta...

I need to develop such a skill, but I have to wonder what it would be. Something desirable, high-paying, peculiar to the tastes of the wealthy (or at least those with a very active credit history).

Not sex, obviously. My wife won't even pay me for that. (and yes, I've asked)

I used to fashion high-end bondage gear, but it was very time-consuming, and one can only nail in rivets in so many different configurations before you run out of the mathematical permutations, and then how unique can you be? And human bodies only bend so far in any individual direction so...

Then I think - couch surfing! Perhaps I can be an IKEA couch-certifier. Only I watch TV in the way that I do, while eating and drinking, in my slippers and underwear, and I can be certain to be the worst thing that will ever happen to a sofa. stEn's Butt certified, a registered Trademark of the IKEA corporation! All my food and beer would be a write-off, as necessary tools of my profession!

No. I need something more creative. I need something that says "stEn" without requiring "stEn" to be there for every minute of its creation. Specifically something that will make me lots of residuals, but that won't make me cringe if I ever see it in the street. I don't want to be ashamed for foisting some piece of crap off on an unsuspecting public with my name glued to it in shiny, faux-metal plastic letters.

Personally, I'm mostly sorry I didn't think of the whole Flying Spaghetti Monster thing first.

Going, going, going...

2007-04-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

CRAZY!

Remodeling. I have friends who have done this sort of thing. Now I'm looking at the problem and there's too many notes.

We're getting the house jacked up (slightly).
The front porch needs to be overhauled.
Then the windows need replacing.
Then the plumbing. (PEX?)
Possibly a new water heater.
A new oil furnace.
Old drywall (of some sort) and wood paneling removed and re-drywalled. The ceiling, too.
A parking pad in the backyard.
Three trees removed.
A hedge installed (100' of it!).
A fence in the backyard. With a gate.
A new walkway to the front door.
A new walkway from the back door.

Some of which I can do myself, except that I never seem to have time.

Plane rides with eeek!

2007-03-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

Another trip, another trippy experience. This time, from Seattle to New Jersey to Salt Lake to Sacramento to Seattle.

In three days.

50 people unwrapping a snack.

Folks next to me yelling things like "peeing in public" or "do I need to loan you some Trojans?"

Whatever happened to "indoor voice"?

I'm lost in Clinton, New Jersey, and thankful I got a lousy car from the rental agency, because I'd be expecting to get carjacked. OH MY GOD! I'm a f**king racist after all. Just because they're black and possibly not living quite as well as you do, does NOT make these people criminals. Not all of them, anyway.

Jeebus...

Anyway, perhaps it was the fact that it was taking me over an hour to get to my hotel (situated less than a quarter mile from the airport), thanks to a single wrong turn on my part. Yes, it was my fault, but dammit, I'm a victim of improper sign-posting (no, not really), and poor directions from Hertz (well, sort of). So I got to the hotel just in time to go to the bathroom for an HOUR.

Then, bad food followed.

Next day, walk through a warehouse, staring intently at girders and wires, then run to the airport for the next flight. To Salt Lake, then to Sacramento. And they gave me a Mustang convertable (wooo hoo!). Nice ride if you have a lot of driving to do, which I did that day.

Stuck in the airport again, this time with only a Gordon Biersch(itt) and a magazine stand for food. I had the sausage. (and a LOT of beer - how else do you kill four hours in an airport?).

WHERE ARE THE SALTED PEANUTS?!

Say what again...

Bad blogger, no biscuit!

2007-03-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

We just had our employee agreement meeting today, in which I learned that I could not say anything bad about the company I work for, nor any of its employees, directors, officers, etc., in this blog space.

We also found out that if we're on Medical Marijuana, and we test positive for it. out on yer ass! Even if a doctor has said we should have it. (because it's against "federal law")

Hmmm.......

I guess I won't mention where I work. Of course, everyone I know knows where I work. And some of my coworkers read this blog (you know who you are). And some of them are dorks (you know who you are).

Actually, the main reason I stay where I am is the people. The work itself has never been terribly inspiring, and there are definitely days when I feel as if all I am is a giant rubber-stamp (giant because of the weight problem, really). But my coworkers are generally very decent people with a mostly twisted sense of humor.

Higher up the food chain, there is what I would call a lack of transparency. Decisions are made and no one knows quite why. They show you how decisions get made, but usually only well after the fact. Some times they claim they asked for suggestions (and if you're in town and get your e-mail in time, you'll find out); some times the suggestions are based on "informal interviews with particular managers". Ahhhh, the silent minority.

Outside of it all, I am pretty happy. The house is still too small, the cats still too... insane. The yard large, imposing, and there's always the sense of where the hell do you start? I mow the lawn. Occasionally, I water the lawn. I take out the trash. Soon I will have to dig out and level a large area in the back for a parking pad. We're looking at jacking up the house to accomodate potentially a new foundation. I also need to replace the old stairs and the little walkway behind the house leading to the basement door. I'm working on a film shot in French, which is mostly getting decent reviews by everyone who's seen it. The feature version is soon to be into shooting.

And meanwhile I am studying Kant, Mill, Aristotle and dwarf-tossing.

Is, too...

2007-03-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

Kant, mustn't, won't.

I (have already mentioned this) am in college again, or near it, or something. How do you describe an experience that feels just like work, without the attendant lectures, seminars, hot angry discussions, etc? No cheerleaders either. So last week it was Aristotle and Nichomachean ethics. This week it's Immanuel Kant and a Grounding for a Metaphysics of Morals.

oy..............

Normally, once our professor begins the week with a reading assignment (usually some contemporary or near-contemporary news story), even if they haven't done the reading yet, everyone weighs in with both feet in the discussion forums, yakking about The Golden Mean, or whether gambling can be considered an ethical act by Aristotle's standards, etc.

This week - zilch. No one is saying nothin'. I can understand why. We've been given a simple text by Immanuel Kant (who uses one very long word where eight short ones would do - apologies to Len Deighton) and an article about a European Union MP who wants to ban dwarf-tossing. But mostly it's about a particular dwarf and the pub owner who gets him tossed every night of the week. But the reading... Jeebus... from what I can tell, Kant was a rather dull fellow (you could set your clock by his daily walks) and a major effing egotist to boot. From what I'm reading, it's like he's thought this stuff up and has to write it down, and then proclaims himself an authority on this particular thing because he has arrived at these conclusions by using Pure Reason. And as I'm reading it, I keep thinking:

Spock Spock Spock

Not that Kant is wrong in his conclusions (who the hell am I to say that anyway, I've barely read the one little volume?), but damn. Lighten the f**k up a little! I can't tell if he thinks that art in and of itself is a good thing (as it is not derived from pure reason). He does mention that now that many types of labor (including the arts) have been divided between various skilled craftsmen that excellence is a more likely result than when one person tries to do everything, and bungles the job. I guess he's never worked on a government project...

The one thing that struck me that I thought interesting was the idea of Universal Law. Basically, don't do anything unless you think it would be a good idea if everyone did it. Do not make it a law for yourself, unless you think everyone should obey that law. It's not the Golden Rule deal "do unto others..." etc. It's more like, if everyone did it, would that be a good thing for everyone (including you)?

the GOD plane

2007-02-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

I sat next to two ladies on the plane from Seattle to Cincinatti, Ohio.

Both of whom were very God-oriented. The older lady is your basic Catholic. A believer, nice, friendly. Nothing terribly wacky.

The young one is, wellll....

Talks about the plans God has for her. Wherever God puts her is God's will. She's traveled everywhere, Europe, Africa, sees God's hand in everything, including helping poor children find God in Africa, even though they're starving. That, of course, is not God's fault.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's Choke. A book about a sexual addict, who talking about how he's gotten or getting laid in pretty explicit detail. Also about working as a fake Irish indentured servant in Colonial Dunsboro (like Williamsburg, only the name has been changed to protect the innocent), where his friend spends much of his work week in the stocks for being modern in some way, and where pretty much everyone who works there is an addict of one kind or another. And also about his upbringing by a mother who keeps kidnapping him away from all his foster parents every time she gets out of jail (where she has to go for doing various odd little annoying misdemeanors).

Ultimately, it's all about not letting yourself get brainwashed by society, and here's two nice folks filling the hours of the plane ride talking about how they've let themselves be brainwashed. Hell, they've been active and happy participants in the cleansing experience.

I got to hear Chuck read once, from the very book I'm reading, at the University Bookstore in Seattle. People had brought their kids to this reading. Little kids. And he reads from the second chapter, which is essentially about how the main character, Victor, goes to a support group for recovering sexual addicts, where he hooks up with a woman who's been released from prison to go to this support group, and they have sex on the floor of the Ladies... Palahniuk is a great believer in being a bit confrontational. For his book tour for Haunted (yeeeeeeeeesh), he would read from the chapter entitled Guts, which is beyond disgusting. People would faint.

Not sure where I was going with all this, but I'm still jet-lagged after four days in Toronto.

Vietnamese food with a side of HOLY S**T

2007-02-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

So, me and the RG are sitting in one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle, the Moonlight Cafe, and we hear something.

Something familiar.

Truth be told, RG and I have a particular language that borders on the infantile. We sing silly songs about the cats, we're affectionate towards one another in ways only a three-year-old could appreciate. One important word in the lexicon, however, is "beedoh". Or, in the long version, "beebeedoh." As in, don't be such a beedoh. Or, upon seeing a particularly cute cat moment, "BEEBEEDOH!"

Sickening, huh?

So, here we are in a fav Viet restaurant, and we hear the word "beedoh" in the next booth. Then, "bedoh bedoh."

Holy guacamole, batman! Someone has either gotten access to our brains, or we're sitting next to a major coincidence.

An out-of-body experience at the Moonlight Cafe.

This weekend, a trip, a prize, a moment of fun - a long weekend in Portland. One of my coworkers asked if he could come along, and I was thinking... ummm... I'm going to Portland for a couple of DAYS. With my WIFE. Why would I want to bring a coworker?

I'm getting concerned.

In more unfortunate news, RG got her eyelid scratched by one of the furry monsters this morning. We had to make a quick trip to the Emergency Room to have it checked out. As it turned out, it was nothing too bad, though it was bleeding pretty profusely at first. And her eyeball was untouched. We are now debating over the possibility of locking the cats outta the bedroom, or will we miss them, and they us, to the point of dischord. Robie, of course, will wear a hole in the bedroom door with his scratching.

More people better than me

2007-02-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

I tell ya. Doesn't pay to chew through the straps, some days...

We got another memo. Basically saying look, look, other people are being promoted.

I really don't want to know, unless it affects me personally, like, this person now has the Power of Life and Death over you. Then I'm concerned.

I realize they send these emails to everyone in the whole division (and in some cases, the whole damn company), I guess I wish there was a better filter for the info. Do I really care that some guy I've never met is going to be promoted from Assistant Front-End Manager at one store to Assistant Manager of another store, both of which are over two thousand miles away. Congratulations! Who are you, again?

Yeah, other people making more money than I do.

In other news, the French film I'm working on is being potentially converted to a feature length film. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA It should be fun. Still trying to nail down the contact lens effect, while trying to clean up the sound.

Cats. I have three. They have me. Don't know why.

Screwed up royally

2007-01-25T13:22:00.000-08:00

I am such a dimwit.

I really thought that one had to create different blogs using different sign-ons or different passwords.

Not reading the carefully written text of the dashboard on this website that allows one to create as many blogs under the same sign-on as you like.

DER! (or is it DOY!?)

Anyway, I created my political blog (P-blog?), and then promptly lost it. I used a misspelled version of my actual email address, and cannot figure out how I misspelled it. It exists, there is one posting, and unless the nice folks here at Blogger choose to, I will never be able to access it again.

I may just start a slightly different version of it under this login, and call it something slightly different. The other one was Ugly Bald Liberal. Maybe the new one will be Old Bald Liberal.

Anyway, in other news, we get these nifty promotional announcements via corporate e-mail, and I don't know why I should care, but it kinda bugs me: "Here's a bunch of people who are doing better than you are. Work harder!" or something.

Slowly

2007-01-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

I have been told to start my own blog by the polite lefties here at work. I suppose I could tell them I already have my own blog, I just don't blog about politics.

Well... not much anyway.

It might upset them to discover that what I blog about is the job I don't like. And that they do.

Anyway, Rambunctious Girl and I are going to look at a BMW tonight. Apparently it's important that we raise our insurance costs. It IS cute, black-on-black, 2-door, hatchback. Then again, I guess I'll have to sell my truck. But then I can drive Cori's Honda. (but what if I need to haul something?)

Rent a truck from Home Despot, I guess...

Mouseketeers

2007-01-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

I wear my Mickey Mouse ears with pride.

(I know - attention whore)

Looking to get that degree thing. I am actually seeking input from anyone with knowledge concerning on-line degrees, and whether it's worth pursuing. There was one institution I looked at that was actually offering a a Journalism degree, but I worked out that it would cost $51,000 for me to complete all the course credit requirements. At the end of which, I would have a Bachelor's degree (a B.S., I believe - a B.S. in Journalism?).

Anyone know anything about these sorta things? I haven't seen much research on-line, mostly it's all just propaganda, and people seeking advertising dollars for linking you to the on-line colleges' websites.

This isn't happening

2007-01-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

And neither am I. So far, I have had two system crashes (on a fuckin' MAC, fer cornsakes).

I have discovered the pleasures of Shake, but unfortunately not the skills. Yet.

Shake, for the less initiated, is a fairly powerful compositing program that folks like Daubentonia use (or used - I realize that ILM has made significant changes to this software for their own purposes). I am simply trying to cause a pair of contact lenses to follow a person't moving face around a screen, and then disappear as that person closes their eyes. Not the easiest thing, admittedly, but it should be possible.

BAD, BAD COMPUTER. NO BISCUIT.

Sitting here at work

2006-12-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

doing absolutely nothing worthwhile.

Not that this is different from other days. Situationist ethics aren't working for me here - I should be out graffitiing the world.

I am currently editing a film, entitled Sans Vie (Without Life, for those undereddicated folks who don't SPEAK Spanish).

Strangely enough, a film made in Seattle with a mostly English-speaking cast who were forced to learn their lines in French for this odd concept. Set in the future, a woman who can literally spend her life in her PJs, does, and this is seen as a bad thing, except that she really doesn't have much in the way of human contact (other than cyberstuff). I recognize this girl, I even sympathise. I was much like this, and had I been able to do my job from home, I probably wouldn't have left my apartment for much of the year (except for the occasional weird-ass movie). So in some ways, I identify with this girl.

The movie itself is providing me with several challenges, such as lousy sound (not the fault of the actors entirely, the location proved to have two railroads [one on either side], a major auto corridor downstairs, and airplanes flying overhead), minor continuity issues, and a special effect that I am currently struggling with. (her eyes have to go a kind of yellowish, milky white, and they shot both shots with a hand-held camera - growl)

But it's something I've wanted to do for quite some time, and will, perhaps, get me work other than my job. Maybe even enough to not do this job anymore.

AAAAAAAAAAAAACK! At the end of February (though this may change), I am off to Toronto for 9 days. Actually Brampton, but you folks know what I mean. Not that I dislike the Canadians, but the beer sucks. And Montreal was a bit on the snooty side (everyone's smarter than me, if only because most of them are bi-lingual).

I have to debate with myself whether I should get the new computer when they announce the new models at MacWorld next week. I will then need to turn over the laptop to the wife (it's meant for her) and I will have nothing upon which I can edit or entertain myself in the coming trips. Perhaps I can also buy myself a smallish laptop, like a MacBook. The black one is sure pretty...