Lost in Transmission

Yaay! Gadgets! Boo! Blatant Inconsistency!

2007-10-25T21:05:00.000-06:00

So, thanks to bOING bOING, I found the supremely geeky Wired Test special section is available online as a PDF. Hooray! But there's a rather glaring inconsistency that makes me really wonder how much, if any, editorial oversight went into it.

On page 58 of the PDF (Page 81 in the print version), they endorse paying $130 for a 4-foot Monster HDMI cable on the grounds that the ends fell off the cheap Chinese cable they compared it with (and found no difference). It's clearly a bit tongue-in-cheek, but okay. Then, just 7 pages later, they review a $100 Belkin HDMI cable, and complain that it's too pricey, albeit more rugged, and they'd rather save $80 and get a cheap $20 no-brand cable. Er, what? How is the Belkin cable too expensive, but the Monster one worth it?

I'm not taking a position on whether either of these cables is overpriced (not here, anyway), but I don't see how you can take seriously a review from a magazine whose editors can't even maintain a consistent editorial position for 7 pages.

Don't Take Pictures in Japan in Summer

2007-10-25T01:14:00.000-06:00

My nifty little HP927 has a handy feature on it that gives you advice about the picture you just took-- if it was out of focus, or if you should try shutter priority or aperture priority or the like. Because of it, I learned something new-- that CCDs are fairly temperature-sensitive, and if you take pictures too far outside their ideal operating temperature, you'll get poor (usually grainy) results. Unfortunately, that temperature range apparently does not include "Japan in the summer", because about 80% of the outdoor pictures I took there caused that warning to pop up. It's a bit frustrating, because there's only so much I could do to cool things off, and pouring cold water over it (my personal favourite method of cooling down) was probably a warranty violation of some sort.

The Street of Plastic Food

2007-10-25T00:58:00.000-06:00

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that every restaurant in Japan is in need of plastic food to put in a display case in its front window. On the 27th of August, we visited Kappabashi-dori, where Tokyo restauranteurs go to buy their plastic food replica pieces. It's an amazing place-- full of restaurant supply stores where you can buy anything from a small ceramic rice bowl to a full kitchen's worth of pots and pans..

Walking around, I found a knife shop that had some of the most impressive knives I've ever seen. The proprietor seemed to be very flattered that I wanted to take pictures of the knives; from what I could tell, one of his assistants actually made them. I particularly like the crab. :)

Walking My Feet Off In Japan

2007-08-28T06:09:00.000-06:00

Since I got to Japan a few days ago, I have done nothing but walk everywhere. For a place as teeming with trains as this one, that may sound surprising, but in fact there's very little else to do to get around here besides walk. Taxis are godawful expensive, and buses are confusing, a bit. Anyway, my feet are SORE.

When we got in on Sunday, we first checked into our hotel, a Japanese-style place called Kikuya Ryokan. Well, we tried to. As a matter of fact, I ended up going almost exactly the wrong way until a very nice gentleman with very poor English pointed us in the right direction. Then we headed over to Yotsuya for Mass-- we were late, a bit, but it was okay. A very nice church it was, with a design in the roof that echoed the imperial chrysanthemum.

Yesterday, we found out that pretty much nothing in Tokyo is open on Monday. So, um, avoid Tokyo on a Monday if you're sightseeing is the lesson here, I guess. Instead, we visited the National Science Museum, and saw some very cool exhibitions on the history and peoples of Japan. Then, out of sheer boredom, we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagano, more or less because it was there. We took in a very gorgeous shrine, the Zenkouji Shrine, and then headed back. The train was about 100 minutes or so between Tokyo and Nagano stations-- look that up if you want to see how far that is. It's pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Today we started off with a tour of Asakusa's most famous temple, the Sensoji Temple. The street leading up to it、Nakamise-dori, is full of shops just ready and waiting to part the unwary from their vacation cash.　Then we headed over to Harajuku, and saw the Meiji Shrine, created by Emperor Meiji, who opened up Japan to the world shortly after Admiral Perry made it a moot point anyway. From there, we took in Tokyo Tower (3m taller than the Eiffel Tower, but only because of its antennae mast. ;-) A brief stop in Shinjuku for dinner, and then back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is still up in the air a bit. We'll just have to see how it goes.

No pictures yet, I'm afraid; we have to use the hotel's computer, and I don't know if I can use it to upload (anyway, this keyboard is a pain, as it keeps shifting randomly into Japanese-- which I could probably type, but you probably couldn't read. :).

All this needs is a book...

2007-07-19T08:05:00.000-06:00

All this needs is a book to combine all my favourite hobbies:

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/circuitsnacks

-=Eric

Bujold, and Zen Christianity

2007-04-10T18:28:00.000-06:00

Having been a fan of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books for some time now (read: Since I found "The Vor Game" on clearance in a used bookstore in the late '90s or so), I was a bit nervous about her fantasy books. It's been my experience that generally a good SF author doesn't do fantasy well, and vice-versa, but then Bujold's strength has always been her characters, and a good novel of any genre (or no genre at all) needs those. But who wants to read Miles-in-some-vaguely-medieval-land? But maybe she can write more than just Miles...

Anyway, last night, wanting something to read with my dinner (at Pho Duy... if you're ever in Fort Collins, CO, check it out, it's cheap and fantastic), I dropped into the library and checked out The Curse of Chalion, and as usual, I was being an ass. Although Miles still has first claim on my reading attention, I think the land of Chalion will be chomping very strongly at the bit behind him, to mix a metaphor or twelve.

I was struck mightily by the protagonist's discovery that his sainthood (one of the nice aspects of a fantasy world is you can define a saint to your liking-- and incidentally, remove all doubt as to whom the word applies) is dependent not on action, but emptiness, of telling the gods, "Here I am, use me as you will." Cazaril says, when trying to explain sainthood to an ex-saint,

It has to do with the shape of your soul, not its worthiness. You have to make a cup of yourself, to receive that pouring out. You are a sword. You were always a sword. Like your mother and your daughter, too-- steel spines run in the women of your family. I realize now why I never saw saints, before. The world does not crash upon their wills like waves upon a rock, or part around them like the wake of a ship. Instead they are supple, and swim through the world as silently as fishes.

.

This is a very Daoist idea right there. And if Bujold weren't clear that gods were involved, I might let it go at that, but it strikes me that this very thing is also a very historically Christian idea as well-- Empty Bell gives several examples. One Monk of St. Benedict tells us, "Prayer unveils its own emptiness before God." If I were less lazy (see below), I'd find more quotes, but you get the idea.

More thoughts ought to come later.

(p.s., I said "Zen Christanity" rather than "Daoist Christianity" mostly because I'm lazy, and I thought it sounded better.)

Steampunk Star Wars

2007-04-02T13:19:00.000-06:00

I can't find it now, but there was a very funny blogpost about how you can invent your own genre by taking a generic noun, and adding the word "punk" to the end. Mostly, it was a complaint about how ubiquitous "steampunk" is. That said, here's a great re-imagining of Star Wars in a steampunk style:

http://ericpoulton.blogspot.com/search/label/steampunk%20star%20warsmp

Go cry, emo bird.

2007-03-26T13:35:00.000-06:00

The title, of course, refers to this picture.

Apparently, there is now a breed of moth that lives on the tears of birds. Wow.

Supergirl on the Web

2007-03-21T19:09:00.000-06:00

Because StumbleUpon rocks, I found this awesome Internet art meme from early February 2007. The discussion started with a few rants about Supergirl in her latest incarnation, and ended up with a challenge (as well as the first, and extremely worthwhile entry in what ended up being a pretty huge drawing meme). I'm a sucker for things comic-book-y (which is why I read Chris' Invincible Super Blog), so I looked through all of them to find the ones I liked the best. I present the list here, with commentary.

http://dryponder.livejournal.com/105356.html - The first entry in the meme, and my current desktop background. Simple, clean lines, with a coloring technique I don't know the right name of, but it reminds me of '60s issues of Highlights For Kids.

http://everyueveryme.livejournal.com/59918.html -- Supergirl as Little Red Riding Hood. The eyes remind me a bit of Tintin.

http://lesmcclaine.livejournal.com/19418.html -- Supergirl as hipster. This Supergirl will save your life, and then make a snarky comment about how come she needed to, but you won't mind because she's pretty cute.

http://aimo.livejournal.com/123746.html -- Do Not Piss Off Supergirl. She will kick your ass.

http://uminthecoil.livejournal.com/276124.html -- Supergirl taking a break. The coloring reminds me, in style at least, of the first entry. This Supergirl looks, not innocent exactly, but like she hasn't had all of it squashed out of her by the daily grind of saving the world.

http://whirringblender.livejournal.com/83309.html -- Supergirl is Not In The Mood. Okay?

http://psychotronik.livejournal.com/2720.html -- Supergirl and her cat, Streaky, just blissing out. There's something very appealing about this Supergirl. Looking at her, I get the sense she still really believes that people are good inside, and that the world is a beautiful place.

http://adora-spintriae.livejournal.com/321254.html -- This Supergirl looks a lot like Utena Tenjou, for some reason. I don't exactly like it, but I think it's a pretty cool look for Supergirl, at least.

http://deconcentrate.livejournal.com/317438.html -- Nice action shot. Supergirl from above, as she's apparently rising and spinning in the air at the same time. A little rough sketch, but this only accentuates its dynamic tension.

http://mr-cow.livejournal.com/32136.html -- Supergirl if she was an extra in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.

http://chad-thomas.livejournal.com/855.html -- I'm not sure why I picked this one. The face is good, but the torso seems a bit too elongated somehow.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/48582460/ -- Supergirl looking very grown up, sexy, maybe a little butch, but what I want to know is-- what did they use to tattoo Kryptonian skin?

http://dryponder.livejournal.com/104315.html -- Wow. Just... wow. Young, strong, determined, maybe even a touch of wistfulness in her eyes (I'm probably imagining that bit). The art reminds me of... geez, I'm not sure what, but it's very familiar. Derek Kirk Kim cross with Genndy Tartakovsky maybe?

http://little-teacup.livejournal.com/441670.html -- Whee! Supergirl, maybe 10 years old, having the time of her life! Looks like she's just about to jump into a puddle or something.

http://ryclaude.livejournal.com/52344.html -- Her ears are a bit weird-looking, but Supergirl is, like, up, up and away already. Seriously. I mean, GOD, boys are SO dumb.

http://dichiara.blogspot.com/2007/02/um-para-o-feriado.html -- I think the artist is Portugese, so I can't tell what he meant to do with it, but his Supergirl looks kind of like a very powerful and yet somehow still very cheerful flight attendant. Maybe she's a robot, I don't know.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/49108393/ -- Kinda punk, kinda preppy. I think the barrettes make this picture.

http://conga-chili.livejournal.com/113615.html -- If Supergirl dropped into Riverdale one day and had lunch with Archie, she'd probably look like this. Betty and Veronica would be itching to claw her eyes out, but they couldn't, because she's Supergirl. And they're not.

http://starline.livejournal.com/262923.html -- I can't put my finger on why I like this one, but I really do. She looks a little spacy, but kind and thoughtful a bit as well.

http://capitan-kozmo.livejournal.com/23485.html -- Supergirl as a blonde bombshell. She was probably just at a fancy ball, dancing with all the guys and drawing looks from the other women there that would have flayed any lesser mortal alive. Also, rereading that previous sentence, I am apparently totally a girl.

http://www.zitaspacegirl.com/art/supergirl2.jpg -- looks like a Supergirl from a 1920s or 1930s illustrated girl's magazine, I think. Don't quote me on that, but it's a very cool retro look of a kind you don't see much of these days.

http://thechrishaley.livejournal.com/379893.html -- Kind of a Kim Possible look, maybe? Crossed with Nancy Drew? Any way you slice it, stylized, but wearing clothes a teenager might well wear today-- including a super hoodie!

http://pikakao.livejournal.com/494672.html#cutid1 -- She's a little embarrassed, I think, but this Supergirl has no reason to be. Proportioned in a way that resembles an actual a teenage girl, dressed like a hipster scooter vigilante.

http://inkboy.livejournal.com/18231.html -- Supergirl has no time for nasty-ass skanky costumes. Get out of the way, so she can get back to kicking butt!

ttp://anydoppelganger.livejournal.com/18240.html -- This looks like a scene from a Disney movie about Supergirl, about 5 seconds before she starts singing a sad, yet still optimistic song about how hard it is to be Supergirl, but she really likes helping people anyway, and someday she'll be just like every other girl. Except she can fly, shoot heat rays out of her eyes, travel through space without a spacesuit.... yeah, okay, maybe it won't work out. But don't tell her that. She looks so innocent.

http://superrobotmonster.blogspot.com/2007/02/supergirls.html -- two looks for Supergirl, in a very Genndy Tartakovsky style. If he ever did a Supergirl cartoon, Tartakovsky should hire this guy to do character designs.

http://carrot-rope.livejournal.com/132115.html -- Can something be subtle and radical at the same time? If so, this Supergirl's boots certainly qualify. I also really dig her pose-- just chilling out after a long hard day of keeping the world safe from supervillains.

http://rudeboyzach.livejournal.com/305874.html -- Look at me, I'm Supergirl!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luclatulippe/406269787/ -- Again with the wow. This Supergirl probably works in a library, and is all business in her private life. (You can tell, because she wears glasses.) She looks a bit weary; maybe too many teenagers were asking her where the National Geographic back issues are, or maybe she had to foil the same bank robber for, like, the 43rd time in a row. Is he ever going to figure it out? She's Supergirl. He's not. Do the math.

http://alienspermanentrecord.blogspot.com/2007/03/darkseid-vs-supergirl.html -- Darkseid might be a New God, but he's definitely a jerk. Give Supergirl back her lolly, or I'm telling Mom!

http://mooncalfe.livejournal.com/26981.html?view=175461 -- There were a lot of punk Supergirls, and for some reason, they all had black hair. This one was the best of the lot, I think.

Blogs I like

2007-03-15T22:34:00.000-06:00

These are blogs I follow on a regular or semi-regular basis:

* Chris' Invincible Super Blog -- because every day that you can start with a kick to the face (or, for variety, punching out a bear) is a good day. Also, because I'm a geek.

* Contrary Brin I'll never be as much of a fan of David Brin as David Brin is, but i do like to make sure I expose myself to views I don't always agree with.

* Naked Villany -- this guy writes about politics from a more or less conservative viewpoint, but has strong libertarian tendencies, which I can sympathize with. Also, he writes well.

* The Hatemonger''s Quarterly -- these guys are so completely over the top it's usually entertaining to figure out what godawful synonym they'll use for a perfectly normal word. This blog is solely responsible for the fact that I know the word "animadversion".

* The Corner at NRO. These guys are way more hardcore than I'll ever be, but most of them write fairly well, and it's a decent source of commentary.

* University Diaries -- an English professor at GWU commenting on sports in higher education, plagiarism, and mail-order degree mills. Very funny, usually spot-on even when I disagree with her, and of course, very well-written.

* Easily Distracted -- a very low-volume blog by a history prof at Swarthmore; He'll comment on everything from comic books and movies to posting a syllabus for his fall class on postcolonial sub-saharan Africa. A polymath of sorts; you never know what sort of post he'll make next.

* Andrew Sullivan's blog, of course.

* Boing Boing -- because they have their pulse on the psyche of the average geek in a way hardly anyone else manages. Very cool links, and a regular podcast that will rock your geek socks off.

* Slacktivist -- this guy is a liberal Protestant evangelical (I know, I didn't believe they existed either) who writes a weekly column on Fridays basically ripping the Left Behind books to complete and tattered shreds, both literarily and theologically. His politics and mine couldn't be more different, but I try to read his other posts as well, just to remind myself that my perspective on religion and Jesus isn't the only one, or even necessarily the best one.

* Amy Wellborn's blog. Her commenters frankly scare me at times-- I posted once about a thing my parish does during the collection, which is really lovely: Father and the deacon (if there is one, and there usually is) stand in front of the main aisle and all the children who want to walk up to them and get a hug and sometimes a blessing. The commenters went absolute batshit on me for some reason; maybe it's because they're mostly east-coast Catholics, and you guys have had a harder time than we have out West about the abuse issue, but they acted like he was a complete nutjob for doing what I think is a sweet and wonderful thing that can only help kids feel better about the Church and more open to talking to a priest about whatever. Still, Amy posts a lot of links that help me keep up on what's going on, and I think she even pointed me at your blog.

* Whispers in the Loggia-- because, well, this guy writes well, speaks well, and knows more about the Church hierarchy than most priests, and probably several bishops. Also, he's a U2 fan, so he can't be all bad.

* What Does the Prayer Really Say? Fr Z is way more hardcore than I am about a great many things, but then again, he's a priest-- it's his job. I'll say this for him-- he's definitely expanded my knowledge of what Catholicism has been and what it could be. I wasn't even remotely interested in a Latin Mass before I found his blog, and now I am looking into whether or not there's an indult parish relatively nearby.... turns out there is, but it's about 30 minutes away. Still, given that some people on Fr Z's site post about driving 2-3 hours for an indult Mass, I shouldn't complain, I guess. Fr Z also posts some absolutely gorgeous pictures of Rome and the Vatican from time to time that just blow me away and make me want to visit Italy now. :)

* ruhlman.com, because Michael Ruhlman writes about food the way I dream about it. He's an excellent chef and food writer, and his friend Anthony Bourdain-- of Kitchen Confidential, No Reservations, and A Cook's Tour fame-- has begun posting there.

If Glen Campbell reinvented himself...

2007-03-12T17:44:00.000-06:00

In a recent discussion about county employees, and how they got that way, I came up with the following titles for country songs about database administrators:

"You Broke Up With Me, And I Made You A Felon"
"The Ballad of the Poorly Optimized Query Engine That Could"
"She Wasn't Normal, But I Normalized Her"
"I Told the Truth, So Help Me Codd"
"SELECT wife FROM people WHERE upper(sex) = 'F' AND looks='beautiful' AND heart='kind'"

I'm sorry.

Funniest Legal Document Ever!

2007-03-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

Iggy Pop has the funniest concert rider in history. No joke.

You gotta like this guy

2007-03-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Fr. Z has been reading St. John Chrysostom, and came to this conclusion after reading one of his homilies:

CONCLUSIONS: If anyone tries to give you bad wine or, worse, no wine, or says anything bad about the wine you have (or don’t have) then punch him in the face right away! Moreover, make sure that Father always has very good wine at hand, so that he can give greater glory to God and have the wherewithal to serve the flock properly.

Who can argue with logic like that?

Boing Boing gets a bit silly

2007-02-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

I love BoingBoing; they often have some interesting articles, and usually make fun of people and things I think ought to be made fun of. In particular, in this article, they mock the police in Santa Fe for blowing up two CD players that were spewing profanity in a church during Ash Wednesday, but kept the third to check for fingerprints and the like. I mean, how stupid is that-- they'd no way of knowing they picked the only one that didn't have a bomb in it, and if they knew none of them did, then why blow them up? Did they have some explosives that were too close to their use-by date? Wouldn't more evidence against the people who did this juvenile stunt be a good thing?

"Nah," thought the police, "let's just blow stuff up."

But then BB just gets downright stupid. They cite a new story about a tape dispenser found outside a railway station in Northern Ireland that was blown up:

The Army carried out a controlled explosion on the object which was declared safe. Traffic in the town was severely disrupted for several hours while the operation took place. A police spokesperson said: "As with any object that cannot readily be accounted for, we have a duty to be wary in order to ensure the safety of all in the vicinity," they added.

For some reason, BB editor Mark Frauenfelder apparently thought this was silly. I mean, really! Who would expect an unknown object left in public-- in Northern Ireland, no less-- to contain a bomb?

Who, indeed.

Nifty papercraft Link from Zelda

2007-02-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

I found this papercraft link elsewhere, but the one I found didn't have the assembly instructions you can find here:

http://hylianhd.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/papercraft.php

It's extremely cool! Here's a couple of pictures of the one I made:

Longest alphabetical word in English

2007-02-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a list of 50 bogus "facts everbody should know" I found on what turned out to be a spammer's site, I decided to find the longest word in the English language where all the letters are in alphabetical order (the site claimed it was 'almost'). I whipped up a quick Ruby program:


#!/usr/bin/ruby

File.open('/usr/share/dict/words') { |f|
        f.each do |word|
                word.chomp!
                word.downcase!
                ordered = true

                last = ''
                word.split(//).each do |letter|
                        last = letter unless last.length
                        if letter > last
                                ordered = false
                        end
                        last = letter
                end
                puts word if ordered and word.length > 6
        end
}

It's been a while since I wrote Ruby, so originally I had "ordered = 1" and set it to 0, instead of false, in the if statement in the middle. This is wrong, because Ruby distinguishes between the number 0 and false, unlike C and many other derived languages (Perl distinguishes between them, but allows 0 to mean false in a conditional).

Anyway, as it turns out, the answer is 'billowy', at least according to /usr/share/dict/words. In case you were curious.

3 Types of Virgins

2007-01-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

There are three types of virgins:

Virgins by choice

Virgins by way of poor social skills

People who should be in group B, but claim otherwise, for reasons of prestige

Le Grand Content

An Open Letter to Jay Nordlinger

2006-11-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

(This is in response to Jay Nordlinger's column, in which he complains that if Democrats win, problems with voting machines will not be followed up.))

Though I don't doubt you're correct that the media won't pay attention to voting machine irregularities if Democrats win, that doesn't mean they're not worth paying attention to even if Republicans win. The right to a fair vote is fundamental to our democracy, and if it's abrogated, it will most probably encourage even more people to not vote. I fear that too many people, after reading your column, will dismiss any reports of voting problems as partisan bickering instead of evidence of a real problem with electronic voting machines. Here are a few problems that have already been uncovered with electronic voting machines so far this election season:

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the county Board of Elections commissioned two separate investigations into problems they had during the May 2nd primary. They
found that the voting machines weren't even internally consistent-- the voter-verified paper audit trail reported one set of votes, the summary printed at the end reported a different set, the memory cards used by the machines reported a third, and the election archive reported a fourth! That's four different totals, from one machine! How can we possibly trust our democratic process to voting machines that can't even agree with themselves?

Also from Cuyahoga County: most people aren't aware of this, but it's crucially important that the voter-verified paper trails mentioned above must be marked so that they can be checked against the machine they were drawn from. Otherwise, they're not a meaningful check. But poll worker were either poorly trained or provided with the wrong equipment, because many paper trails were stuffed in random, unlabeled canisters, rendering their crucial use as a check on unauditable databases (see above) meaningless.

Again from Cuyahoga (this is the last one, I promise!): after the primary election, 29 machines just vanished. *poof* A few officials took them home with them, but most simply dissapeared. You are likely not aware of this, but a team at Princeton was able to develop a vote-stealing computer virus based on having *one* machine at their disposal-- no source code, no manuals, no documentation of any kind, just the machine. Somebody has enough machines to run an entire precinct election; maybe they don't intend fraud, but there simply aren't any controls in place to prevent that.

In Texas and Florida, people have already reported that although they pushed the button on the screen to vote Democrat, the screen showed a Republican being elected. Even though poll workers were called over to help, nobody could figure out how to stop this from happening, so the person in question had to go ahead and vote for the wrong people-- or did she? (See Cuyahoga County, above.)

Although Diebold gets a lot of grief over their machines, other vendors are not immune from problems. A voter can vote an arbitrary number of times on a Sequoia voting machine using only a Post-It note. This is not a theoretical vulnerability, this is something easy to do with a pen and a Post-It. I don't know about you, but this scares the pants off me-- imagine what the old Mayor Daley could have done with technology like this!

There are even more examples at Ars Technica if you're at all interested, and I pray and hope that somebody out there is. The root of all these problems is that electronic voting machines are, at bottom, networked computers, and most election boards don't understand this. This is not to their discredit-- they weren't sold a bunch of networked voting computers, they were sold independent machines. They were also under the gun of the Help Americans Vote Act, which encouraged them to buy what was not even beta-tested software, and after they discovered this (and most of them have by now), they had spent so much time and money training volunteers that there was no way they could go back to a non-electronic solution.

As a computer scientist, if somebody asks me if I voted, all I can tell them, at this point is, "I think so." I don't consider it a nice thing if I can say "yes" after the next election; I consider it essential.

Getting more music

2006-10-25T22:13:00.000-06:00

I love to confusing people building consumer profiles. I just signed up with BMG in my periodical quest to get more music, and got the following CDs:

1 Queensr�che Operation: Mindcrime II
2 Neville Marriner Mozart, Requiem
3 Iron Maiden Dance Of Death
4 Rush Roll The Bones (Remastered)
5 The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos Noel: Chants for the Holiday Season
6 David Bowie Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust (Remastered)
7 Original Broadway Cast Avenue Q

Okay, I can kinda see Queensryche, Maiden, and Rush, but musicals? Mozart? Chant? WTF?

I'm torn...

2006-10-18T12:58:00.000-06:00

On the one hand, I don't agree with a lot of Rick Santorum's positions. His opposition to gay marriage, for instance, is one I have a hard time with. However, it's hard *not* to like a guy who is so geeky:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

...

In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, sister paper of The Intelligencer, the 12-year Republican senator from Pennsylvania said he's “a big "Lord of the Rings' fan.” He's read the first of the series, “The Hobbit” to his six children.

("Santorum and Mordor", from The National Review Online)

Okay, so clearly at least some of his priorities are in order.

SF must be getting better

2006-09-06T17:43:00.000-06:00

So, I was thinking; I've read a few really good SF books in the last couple of months. More good SF than I've read in a very long time. Here's my top 3 of the last five years, easy:

1) Old Man's War by John Scalzi -- Sort of like "Starship Troopers", except you get eternal youth, not citizenship, and the volunteers are all senior citizens.
2) Red Thunder by John Varley -- "Rocket Ship Galileo", only they're going to the Moon, instead of Mars. And the ~~Nazis~~Chinese are reasonably friendly.
3) Survival by Julie E. Czerneda -- A scientist just wants to be left alone to study genetic diversity in salmon, but is drawn into a galactic mystery as entire planets are stripped bare of all organic life.

I'm not sure it's a coincidence that two of the three are obvious Heinlein homages (to be fair, there's more sex in "Red Thunder" than "Galileo", but the analogies are obvious). Still, they're all fantastic. Heck, I'll even add in another one:

4) Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns. Definitely fluffy space opera, but Anderson has an extremely sneaky ending to the first book that, while not totally unexpected (to me; a friend was pleasantly surprised), was nicely evil.

Which army should you have fought in?

2006-09-05T16:40:00.000-06:00

What can I say; I'm easily amused.

You scored as United States. Your army is the American army. You want your home front to support the G.I.'s in their pursuit to liberate world from more or less evil tyrants.

Italy

69%

Finland

69%

Poland

69%

United States

69%

British and the Commonwealth

56%

France, Free French and the Resistance

56%

Japan

50%

Germany

44%

Soviet Union

31%

In which World War 2 army you should have fought?
created with QuizFarm.com

Traveling Wilburys

2006-08-29T09:14:00.000-06:00

Er, I meant Traveling Mercies, a very funny and touching book by Anne Lamott, who no doubt has written other good stuff-- I haven't read anything else by her, but this is well-written enough, I find it hard to believe her other stuff sucks.

I'm much less than halfway through the book, but I had to blog this because of the very funny exchange she has with herself when trying to decide whether or not to let her seven-year-old son go paragliding for his birthday:

So what I needed to know up there in that beautiful valley was would a normal person—if there is such a thing as a normal person—feel that it was a good idea for a seven-year-old to paraglide in a harness with a tandem expert off a mountain fifteen hundred feet up.

Needless to say, there was no one around remotely fitting the description of a normal person; I was at a writing conference.

Lamott, p. 81

While she does write of her experience of converting to Christianity, it's handled carefully and thoughtfully, much more so than many others I've read. Fred Clark says, about writing about conversion experiences,

Stories of religious conversion -- or "testimonies," as we evangelical types call them* -- can be tricky. The convert wants to tell this story because she is convinced that it is important. Very important. But also deeply personal and, at some level, ineffable. Attempts to convey the ineffable often come across as kind of effed up.

He goes on to quote Lamott's description, a very quiet and almost resigned one, of her decision to become a Christian:

I hung my head and said, "Fuck it: I quit." I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in."

Lamott, p. 50

It was this that made me want to read her book (this scene comes relatively early on in it). As in all effable descriptions of ineffable events, it either grabs you or it doesn't; somehow, for reasons I can't articulate, these two sentences said more to me than C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity or Augustine's Confessions. It's a moment of surrender, of giving in, that touches my heart in places I hoped I still had. Lamott says about her life prior to this moment:

I'd been like one of the people Ezekiel comes upon in the valley of dry bones—people who had really given up, who were lifeless and without hope. But because of Ezekiel's presence, breath comes upon them; spirit and kindness revive them.

Lamott, p.44

This process happens slowly; she doesn't immediately become "saved". I suspect she might claim she still isn't-- she describes continuing her alcoholism and drug use for a while afterwards, and even when she does become sober, she continues having affairs with married and unmarried men, and has a child outside marriage. Nowhere does she claim these are good things, though she doesn't explicitly condemn them as evil; they appear simply as steps along the path she's dimly beginning to see open before her.

I could probably recommend this book highly enough, but I don't think I could maintain my life whilst doing so. Lamott is an excellent writer, able to lay herself bare before her reader, with just enough humor and attention to detail to prevent that reader from feeling uncomfortably intimate with her. She also provides a great counterpoint to a lot of right-wing conversion stories, showing that it is possible to be a liberal Christian-- although she herself says several times that she doesn't consider herself a very good one-- which is something I, as someone who sympathizes more with the right wing than the left, am glad to see out there. Please read it.

We DO need some education

2006-06-07T22:28:00.000-06:00

I wonder, what did they call the classes where you were supposed to do physical activities? Mine were often called "physical education", but I can't think of one time I ever was educated in them. The first time I ever played flag football, the other kids told me to play "safety" (the 'teacher' just said, "you're playing flag footabll today"), but nobody would explain to me what that was; the most advice I got was, "Stay in the back and try to grab somebody's flag if they have a ball." I was 26 before I learned the offsides rule in soccer (known everywhere else as football). Nowhere did anyone ever teach a sport; it was always assumed that everybody knew how to play it already, even a "weird" one like field hockey (at least, to a kid growing up in rural Appalachia, field hockey is a weird sport).

I hated gym class, by whatever name it was called, as a kid, but I think I might have liked it better if someone had actually tried to teach something, instead of having everybody run around and just do something.

Thoughts of sports

2006-06-07T21:46:00.000-06:00

I was thinking today of the time when I played Little League as a child, and the transition from T-ball, where the baseball sits on a nice stationary stand, a little over waist-high, and you know exactly where it is, and how to hit it, and even have a reasonable guess as to where it's going, to where the other team starts pitching to you. I had very poor vision (still do), and so I had really poor depth perception as a kid (heck, it's no better *now*). As a consequence, my hand-eye co-ordination was atrocious (except for videogames, but I mostly started playing those after I got glasses).

No matter how hard I tried (or my dad tried), I could not convince myself that the pitcher was not going to hit me with the ball. He was throwing it in my general direction, and I knew if *I* was throwing the ball, there'd be at least an 80% chance it wouldn't go anywhere near where I was aiming. Every time somebody pitched a ball at me, I ducked. I think I may have lasted an entire week after we started getting pitched at.

Even now, I'm terrible at most sports that involve throwing something, though I can essay a passable spiral with a football if somebody held a gun to my head. I'm really worried about if any of my kids (I don't have any yet, but I'm getting married in a couple of months, and so
these thoughts do pop up) get interested in sports, because I actively avoided them as a kid, and as a consequence, I know almost nothing about any of them. I think I was 26 before somebody finally explained the offsides rule in soccer, and while I can explain the icing rule in
hockey, I'm still a bit hazy on the reason for it.

TV is your friend... you love TV...

2006-06-06T09:47:00.000-06:00

I completely agree with The Smallholder about the insidiousness of TV. I finally broke down last year and got cable, and then built myself a TiVO clone, at which point I found out that there is just too darn much TV I will watch out there. And a surprisingly high proportion of it is good. Given the choice, I will watch:

Any show where somebody builds something:

Any show involving power tools. especially if women are wielding them. This overlaps category A) above, but also includes:
1. Home remodeling shows
2. Home decorating shows

Any show which features large, heavy equipment requiring more gallons of gasoline per minute than my car uses in an entire year.

Any show where the cast could conceivably die.

Mythbusters

Almost anything animated, especially:

This is the problem: there is way too much good stuff on TV now, and there is even more stuff I want to watch, and further more that I will watch anyway. I found that trying to do so meant only that I got nothing done that I actually wanted to do-- learning woodworking and cabinetmaking, for instance, or practising music, or learning to operate the ridiculously expensive home recording equipment I bought a few years back. In other words, I was sacrificing my life, just so I could watch TV.

As a consequence, in my new house, we are not only not getting cable, or satellite, or HDTV (except perhaps in display-only mode), we are actively eschewing TV as anything other than a DVD playback mechanism. As my fiancee and I both have Netflix, that's a great rate-limiter-- we can never have more than 3 DVDs at a time to watch, so there's a lot of time that we can both use to devote to our hobbies and interests. In other words, to have a life.

Note: I'm not saying TV sucks-- quite the opposite: I'm saying I'm weak. If it's there, I will watch it, so the only alternative that gives me any chance at life is to not allow it there, or to severely restrict it. This doesn't mean that watching TV is evil; it's just not the choice I'm making.

Why I Don't Get Paid to Opine

2006-05-17T14:57:00.000-06:00

Cliff May wrote a post on National Review's The Corner group blog that contained a brief note complaining about how hard it is to immigrate to Brazil. I wrote him a brief note explaining why that was the case (as it turns out, he knew this): Brazil has a law that states that whatever Brazilian citizens have to go through to get to a given country, that country's citizens have to go through to get into Brazil. Cliff pointed out in his personal reply, quite sensibly, that Brazil has nothing near the security considerations that the US does, and therefore it can rightly be considered a rather childish tit-for-tat response.

All this is well and good, but here is where I develop a great deal of respect for Mr May: I responded (still correctly) that if security were our reason for implementing those measures, then we needed to take another look at them, because they were (by and large) ineffective at accomplishing the stated goal. Instead of getting tied up in what had become a rather off-topic rant (I tend to get a bit... animated... when it's a subject I care about), he simply (and politely) responded something to the effect of, "Good points."

I wish I had been as courteous in my emails to him.

A similar event occurred earlier, when a now-departed talk show in Denver was hosting a show on the Columbia disaster, and I called to mention that some friends of mine had done the math and proved there was no way it could have gotten to the International Space Station, and that even if they had, it would have condemned them to a slow death instead of a quick one, as we couldn't have rescued them in time anyway. The problem was, all I had was my friends' word on it, and there was no reason for the host to trust them, even if I did. He very deftly let me speak my piece, and then moved on. I can't convey (it's been so long) how classily he did so, but let me assure you that it was very well-handled. This is why I don't get paid to do stuff like that-- I would have gotten into an argument, rather than handled a crank (which is all I was, to him) politely, and moved on.

Godsmack singer ambushed by Arthur Magazine for supporting US military

2006-05-04T11:17:00.000-06:00

I found this article via http://www.boingboing.net/ -- Jay Babcock, editor of "Arthur Magazine" basically did an ambush interview yesterday with Sully Erna, lead singer and lyricist of rock band Godsmack. It starts off fairly normal, but quickly degenerates into a nigh-incoherent rant by the interviewer about Godsmack's letting some of their songs be used by military recruiters in TV advertisements.

I don't necessarily endorse a lot of what the US military has done, and especially in cases like Abu Grahib and other sites where our military has tortured prisoners under the pretext of extracting information from them (as if anybody is fooled by terms like "coercive interrogation techniques" or believes that useful information is extracted that way). We've also made some relatively bone-headed decisions in the past. But Erna is, in the interview, being fairly respectful of the military, and acknowledges the existence of some problems (though he wasn't prepared to talk about them, since he thought he was doing some publicity for the band's new album).

A relatively mild snippet (some profanity, but I can understand it, giving the amazingly one-sided interview technique):

Jay Babcock: [incredulous] YOU DIDN’T THINK THE MEDIA WAS BEING CONTROLLED BY THE MILITARY?!?

Sully Erna: Well, it could be. I don’t know.

JB: YOU DIDN’T LOOK INTO IT?

SE: Listen. Are you a fucking government expert?

JB: I’M NOT TELLING PEOPLE TO GO JOIN THE MILITARY AND THEN NOT KNOWING WHAT THE MILITARY IS DOING.

SE: I don’t tell people to go join the military!!
JB: YOU DON’T THINK USING YOUR SONGS –THE POWER OF YOUR MUSIC, WHICH YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT—HAS AN EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE THAT HEAR IT WHEN IT GOES WITH THE VISUALS THAT THE BEST P.R. PEOPLE IN THE WORLD USE?!

SE: Oh man, are you like one of those guys that agrees with some kid that fuckin’ tied a noose around his neck because Judas Priest lyrics told him to?

The full interview is at:
http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1244

Read it, and weep.

Review: Dracula [audiobook]

2006-02-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

I recently finished listening to Dracula, by Bram Stoker, as read by Alexander Spencer and Susan Adams, released by Recorded Books Company. I'm mostly going to review the audiobook production here, though the book itself is of no small interest in its own right.

First, the voices: As the story is told almost exclusively through increasingly improbable journal entries (given the choice between writing down much of what was written, and getting some sleep, I think I'd almost always get the sleep), there is almost no narration. As a result, both Mr Spencer and Ms Adams are almost always speaking in the voice of one of the characters, and by and large they both do an excellent job with managing the multiple voices, even in heated conversation. There is one glaring exception, however-- the American, Quincey Morris.

Let me be the first to say that, if asked to do any sort of British accent, much less an identifiably regional one (say, Brummie or Cornish), I would do a horrible job. But then again, I'm not an actor, so I wouldn't put myself in that situation in the first place. Spencer's Morris seems to wanter all over the landscape, accent-wise, from Texas (which is where he is supposed to be from) to Georgia, Louisiana, a brief jaunt up the Appalachians to Virginia, and at least from time to time could well have been mistaken for a Yankee. This should just be a minor quibble, but every time Quincey spoke, or wrote, I was hugely conscious of the fact that I was listening to a British actor read the part. I suppose it's a compliment, in a way, that the rest of the readings were so transparent (though, as an American, I cannot comment on the various accents of the British characters, other than to say they were distinct and not obviously bogus) that I found this one exception so jarring.

Next, the presentation itself. I think that, as an audiobook, Dracula works far better than as a book. The book's plotting and pace have rightfully been derided as pedantic and slow, but when read aloud, I got a much better sense of how the characters felt, and the way they missed clues which were obvious to the reader seemed less implausible. The story still lagged towards the middle, and the ending still felt far too abrupt, but overall, the pacing held up better when read aloud, I felt, than when read from a book. Also, several characters felt better-drawn-- Renfield's psychosis, and occasional transformation to sanity were clearer and easier to follow when you heard his voice change from low-class to a very refined RP-style delivery.

If you felt disappointed by the book in the wake of the very sensational movies based off of it, I can wholeheartedly recommend this audiobook version.

Shoggoth Girl

2006-02-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

As I'm listening to the audiobook version of Shopgirl, I'm unable to shake the conviction that Steve Martin, as a writer resembles no-one else so strongly as H.P. Lovecraft. In no way is the similarity so superficial as what they write about, their characters, or their language. No, it's something oddly meaningful, and significant only in its absence. This is that they both avoid dialogue in such a way that is can only be deliberate.

Unlike Lovecraft, Martin is actually able to write dialogue, but he does not seem to take great pleasure in doing so, avoiding it in the main. Conversations between his characters are less often recounted as described: "And then he told her about his life", instead of him actually telling her (and the reader) about it. The whole story takes place from an almost aggressively third-person viewpoint, the distance of which seems to reflect the distance all the characters feel from each other. Maybe that was his point, I'm not sure, but it seems at times that every scene, every action is narrated from a curiously personally impersonal viewpoint. Here's a sample:

Where his insight comes from as he courts her, even he doesn't know. It might have been that he was ready to grow up, that the knowledge was already in him, like a dormant gene. Whatever it is, she is the perfect recipient of his attention, and he is the perfect recipient of her tenderness.

I don't want to dislike it-- and in fact, I don't dislike it, not really; I just feel, like the characters in the book, vaguely unsatisfied; not displeased, just not fulfilled. I just wish Martin would show me these things, not tell me. I almost feel as if, listening to the audiobook, that Martin is summarizing the actual story, as if I'm getting the Cliff Notes version of the novel he was afraid no-one would publish. But then he will come up with a small, but simple line that is all too representative of life as some have lived it, a line that rings true enough in its banality that it comes as close to touching something meaningful within me that I wish he'd spend more time exploring it and less time writing it:

How is it possible to miss a woman that you kept at a distance so that, when she was gone, you would not miss her?

A movie of this came out a while back; I suspect I might enjoy it more than the novella it's based on.

Google Maps are SchWEET

2006-02-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

I had absolutely nothing useful to do at work today, so I learned something new (always a good thing to do, if you ask me-- a day you learn nothing is a day wasted). I taught myself the Google Maps API, and produced a map of the churches in the diocese of Colorado Springs. The maps API is really easy and fun to work with, and I was surprised at how much it reminds me of X11/Motif programming, both in terms of how you respond to events, and how you create graphical objects.

Lots of fun!

Artificial is sometimes better than Natural

2006-02-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

I just read an article at Inside Higher Ed about two sites-- Ratemyprofessors.com and Rate Your Students. But I'm not interested right now in the article itself, though there is plenty of meat there, both in the use of sites like Ratemyprofessors.com and in the (perceived) need of professors to respond in kind. No, I'm interested most by this comment, by Larry:

While, indeed, it is pathetic, the combination of these two sites should us the truth about humanity. This is the way most people really talk when they are not forced to pretend to be enthusiastic about everything. Perhaps if people didn’t see the need to be “congenial” or use “social skills” all the time, humans could interact with each other on a much more meaningful level.

This attitude-- that social skills or congeniality suppress meaningful interactions-- is by no means an attitude that is exclusive to Larry, and in fact at one time I shared it. But over time, I have come to the conclusion that those social skills and occasional forced congeniality are precisely what enable meaningful interactions in the first place. It's not by accident that nearly every etiquette manual I've read describe them as social lubricants. They grease the wheels of interaction so that we don't spend all our time fighting about the precise definition of "is", and can get on to the more substantive matters we originally intended to discuss.

This is not a new idea, and I'm certainly not claiming any originalty in expression for myself here. I find it more interesting how my own perspective on this has changed over time than any real or imagined deficits in Larry's argument.

Let the Flamefests Begin! (Firefly vs. Buffy)

2006-01-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

So, having just recently finished watching Firefly, I have come to a realization about the fundamental difference between creator Joss Whedon's two major TV creations: Buffy and Firefly. I'm sure this observation has been made many times, but as a semi-determined avoider of some sorts of fandom, I haven't seen it before, so I will dispense my wisdom forthwith:

Buffy is, at its roots, an adolescent show. The characters are adolescents, even when they have putatively become adults, and the problems presented them (and their solutions) are fundamentally adolescent. When Buffy was based at Sunnydale High, it worked pretty well, somewhat less so once it left. Buffy herself did, eventually, learn to work with others, but even in the end, I would argue, her perspective was that of the lone wolf, the single Slayer, who may have used others in her work, but fundamentally did her work on her own. This idea, that one can exist on one's own, even when taken in an admirable direction ("I will suffer so that you don't have to") is an adolescent mindset.

Firefly is, by contrast, a fundamentally adult show, even though some of its characters are more childish than others (I still want to be Jayne when I grow up). The characters are not only interdependent, but recognize that (well, except for Jayne, who is still my hero, but not because of this), and try and live within that interdependence, instead of striking out on their own. Even for Jayne, the most independent of the bunch, independence is largely presented as a weakness, and the one time he tries to exercise it, it almost gets him killed. Life in a relatively small ship like Serenity is almost by definition an exercise in interdependence, and Whedon nails this, both in the attitude of his characters, and in the tone of the whole all-too-brief series.

Fullmetal, Full story

2005-12-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

I can't agree enough with Timothy Burke that Avatar is one of the best shows on TV right now. It's a great mix of kid's escapism, combined with realistic drama that takes itself seriously, but doesn't treat itself too seriously, if you catch my drift.

I cannot stress enough that if you like Avatar, you must check out Fullmetal Alchemist. It's hard to convey just how good this show is without sounding like Gene Shalit reviewing Sleeping Beauty, but the last four or five episodes broadcast have convinced me it deserves a place in drama next to Faust and Macbeth.

The subtlety with which the characters are drawn is masterful. In fact, there is no such thing as a minor character in this show-- this show puts Chekov's dictum about drama to shame by making even the anonymous bartender you meet in episode 1 serve at least double duty. The plot-- ye gods, every time you think it can't get any more complicated, it does, but it never feels artificial. All actions are drawn directly from the personality of each character, and I've yet to see a scene that didn't ring true (except for one very wrong explanation of the human body, but that's another story, and may yet be salvageable).

I'm going to have to buy the DVDs and watch each episode at least twice, I think, to grasp all the subtleties, but this is clearly one for the record books.

In Support of Hypocrisy

2005-09-16T12:46:00.000-06:00

To the proverbial alien, just arrived on Earth, it would seem that our biggest ethical problem today is hypocrisy. Any proposed standard, normative or descriptive, is instantly scrutinized and criticized for hypocrisy and consistency-- one could easily come to the conclusion that the measure of an idea is not if it has any merit, but whether or not it is self-consistent. But to that, I reply, "Bah!"

Actually, I just like saying, "Bah!" But in this case, it's also how I feel.

The pursuit of hypocrisy above all else is the occupation of those little minds who are incapable of judging whether or not an idea is worthwhile on its merits. Instead, they pick it apart like buzzards, looking for any flaw they can find, any slight gap they can wedge their beaks into and shatter it like glass. If they can't have an idea, they feel, why then, neither should anyone else!

Not only do I obviously abhor this position, I contend that hypocrisy is not only good, it is necessary to the adult mind. Whether or not you are a fundamentalist Christian or an atheist, I believe you will concede that human beings are imperfect-- one look at the Top 40 charts should lay to rest any lingering doubts you may have-- and that we also should nonetheless strive to improve ourselves. This will inherently set one up for charges of hypocrisy, and a darned good thing it does. If we can always live up to all our ideals, then as far as I'm concerned, that's a sign we've set our sights too low. We must always strive to improve, and the only way to do that is to set our goals past where they are now-- otherwise, all we do is stagnate and decay.

We must always hold ideals we cannot match, but we must concomitantly refrain from berating ourselves for not living up to them. Instead, we must take time periodically to soberly reflect on our ideals, and our shortcomings, and attempt to address the latter to achieve the former. For most religious people, once a week services provide an ideal environment for this sort of reflection, buoyed by a sense of community support. Atheists can meditate and reflect in communities as well, though I confess to ignorance about what sorts of communities are out there to support them.

Sure, there are evil kinds of hypocrisy-- the father who preaches pacifism while abusing his family at home, for instance-- but I think there are always more fruitful avenues to argue against an idea that mere hypocrisy on the part of any of its proponents. And if not, why then I would argue that that hypocrisy is itself irrelevant.

Thoughts on modern Evangelicism

2005-08-05T16:45:00.000-06:00

My friend Natalie just posted about this article about Ted Haggard and the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. I read the article, and her thoughts about it, and I have a few of my own to offer in reply.

First, about the pastor himself. Though it wasn't mentioned in the article, one of his more odious events was where his church baptized a few dozen Jewish kids whose parents left them at a church-run day camp-- without their consent, or that of their parents. A few kids were scared they weren't Jewish any longer. Personally, I was struck by his claim that Catholics, and countries dominated by Catholicism, look backwards, and don't innovate or create new things. And I suppose he has a point, so long as one ignores almost all the history of Western civilization, which was largely dominated by the Catholic Church, even after Luther, for hundreds of years.

That Gallileo fellow, always looking to the past, you know. And Copernicus-- might as well have been a historian for all the new discoveries he encountered.

As for the free market approach to spirituality, I read it as saying that where faith is freely chosen, and information about it is freely available, then that's a benefit for evangelical Christianity-- drawing a parallel between a free market allowing the best product to come to the fore, and a free market in spirituality allowing the best faith to rise to prominence. I didn't see that he suggested compromising the tenets of evangelicism; in fact, the article specifically mentioned more popular pastors who were more popular specifically because they watered down their message.

Humility as an attribute of Christianity seems to come and go over time. Matthew 6:2 says,

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

A quick skim of the Pauline books of the New Testament shows him very strongly urging his followers to not claim any glory in themselves, but rather to lay it all at the feet of God, for much the same reasons as those Natalie lays out. I went looking for a real firebrand cite from him, along the lines of "convert those unbelievers now!" and frankly, haven't found anything quite so strong.

The key to understanding evangelical Christians for those who aren't them is to understand that, at base, they're motivated by love. That's not to say they can't do some monstrous things-- some of the stories I've read of gay "re-education" camps a truly terrifying-- but the core of their religion is a knowledge that they're going to heaven, and unless you believe what they do, you're not. And given the choice between letting you burn for eternity or enjoy the bliss of Heaven, well, the choice isn't really a hard one to make.

The problem, of course, lies in cases where what they say conflicts with what science is teaching us about the world we live in; in those cases, they claim that science is wrong, and their theology is right. Ironically, it was St, Augustine who first (to my knowledge) proposed that God might have created the earth's creatures first as a sort of "primal seed" that later evolved into the flora and fauna of (then-) modern times, but try and tell that to the kids today, and they won't believe you.

One thing I really appreciate about having been raised Catholic is that we were taught to question everything-- within limits, but those limits appear to be broader than any other religion allows. Heck, even with my strongly agnostic leanings I was allowed to get the Agnus Soli Dei, the Boy Scout's Catholic medal (not for any achievement; it's more like a merit badge in religion). I didn't lie about my questions, and I didn't claim I believed anything I honestly didn't, but I also openly disagreed with some of the things I was taught. I can't imagine that happening in an Evangelical church. We were also taught that God gave us minds for a reason, and that we were meant to use them to discover the wonder and mystery of the nature of the universe we live in. In the case of an apparent conflict between science and religion, the error was generally held to be in the person perceiving the conflict, as clearly God wouldn't deliberately tell us one thing (religion) and do another (nature).

The writer's biases, or possibly just ignorance, do come into play now and again; in one passage, he bemoans the broadening of the term Spritual War into a context that includes not just the church, but the overall society. Perhaps he didn't know that the Jesuits were originally referred to by their founder as a "battalion for Christ", and were themselves known as "Soldiers of Christ" (the title of his article) for many years.

The blog I am a Christian Too has a different analysis, and one perhaps better grounded in theology than mine.

Will Blogs Replace TV?

2005-07-22T13:23:00.000-06:00

One of my favourite blogs, University Diaries, recently pointed out a short article on George Gilder's recent prognostication that TV will die, and be replaced by blogs. While it's a nice idea, sorry, it ain't gonna happen.

Blogs, as a rule, comment on existing things; rarely do they create on their own (though the exceptions, such as Hitherby Dragons are among my favourites). This isn't a criticism; we have a need, in our hyper-aware society, to have commentary to set events, both fictional and real, in a context so that we can understand them for what they are meant to be.

TV, though Lord knows it has some serious problems, does create some wonderful new shows (though I confess sometimes that I'd prefer to watch them on DVD), both fictional and non-. Of course it creates a lot of drek, but Sturgeon's Law applies everywhere.

I digress. The point is, blogs can perhaps replace the Sunday morning pundit shows, and much of the commentary on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, et. al, but they won't replace, say, Picket Fences, or Monk, or Fullmetal Alchemist-- the experiences they create are so totally different in character, I just don't see how it can happen. Frankly, most Americans do not read for pleasure (incredible to believe, I know, but it's true), so why would they all of a sudden start? People want more than the passive, couch-potato-oriented entertainment they've had in the past, but that doesn't mean they're going to run to books or blogs.

No Room to Hide

2005-07-21T18:25:00.000-06:00

I have ranted before about the over-partisanization of politics, but I thought I'd just like to take a short moment to whine about the difficulty of being a moderate in today's political climate. Not the difficulty of making up one's own mind about issues without the benefit of a party to tell me what to think-- no, the problem de jour is conformity. I t hought high school was bad, but man, that's nothing compared to politics.

It seems as if I cannot agree with one position of one party without having all the others imputed to me, regardless of my actual beliefs. "You believe in limited government? Then you must be anti-abortion, you unfeeling conservative SOB!" "You think the war in Iraq has been mismanaged from the start? You must believe in tax-and-spend big government!" It's as if we have collectively lost all ability to separate out various positions, and can only relate to politics in terms of "Republican" or "Democrat".

Not that I'm a fan of Balkanization of political parties either, though I do think a few healthy third parties (or fourth, or fifth or... you get the idea) would do us good. The situation we have in the US is not perfect, but neither are parliamentary systems such as Canada's, where a minority party can form a government after building a large enough coalition with other parties. The main difference is that in the US, we build our coalitions before the elections; in parliamentary systems, they build them afterwards. I fear that too many parties, on the other hand, would lead us into an increasingly fragmented society. Perhaps that was the framers' intent, when they defined powerful states and a relatively weak federal government, but it's not what we've lived with these past 6 or 7 decades, and I think the dissolution of our national identity is a shame.

I don't have a solution; all I can offer are platitudes such as, "Have lunch at least once a week with someone you disagree with politically" (which I highly recommend; it's easy to forget your opponents are human). I beg you, at least try to honestly consider the concept that the other side has real and valid reasons for what they believe; they're not just rapacious corporate barons/elitist intellectual Marxists.

Here, Sir, Please Have Another

2005-07-01T16:47:00.000-06:00

Tycho's recent rant on the topic of subscription software has a lot to do with why I haven't gone for MMORPGs. The fact that, when you get right down to it, they're really fancy GUI MUDs is another, but I digress. I like the social aspect of them. I like the fact that that social aspect is not geographically-limited. I even like the properties they represent-- I'm a shameless whore for anything with the words "Final Fantasy" or "Dungeons and Dragons" on the box. I just can't get over the idea, foolish and outdated though it seems these days, that when I buy a game, that means that I can play the game whenever I want, without having to cough up even *more* money.

This isn't just gaming's fault-- Anti-Virus software, as he noted, is just as evil, and large enterprise customers have been renting their software for decades now. What worries me, though, is the DRM built into new computers and consoles that comes right out and says to my face that once I've bought a title, all that means is that I have entered a brave new world of financial torment.

Now, I'm mostly not worried right now-- I don't run Windows at home, and most of my gaming these days is console-based, by which I mean I own a PS2 and a Gamecube, neither of which have any significant chunk of online gaming. I worry, though, that with the PS3 and Xbox 360 (and somebody should REALLY point out to Microsoft that 360 degrees takes you right back where you started, which is maybe not the IDEAL sort of association you want for a brand-spanking new console) the default assumption will be that a disc is just the install process for a virtual vacuum hose extending into your wallet.

I dunno-- maybe it's possible that consumers will revolt against software rental as a generic way of life. Perhaps MMORPGs are inherently the sort of games that lend themselves to a subscription
model. After all, while Halo is nicer with Live, you can still have plenty of fun with it completely disconnected from everything. If it's a matter of, "Here's your game, have fun with it, oh and by the way, you can give us $$$ and we will let you have even MORE fun", then
I'm all for it. And hey, maybe consumers will revolt-- after all, DivX (the pseudo-DVD format, not the codec) failed because consumers didn't like the idea of buying something that they didn't really own.

No matter what happens, I have my Legend of Zelda disc, and nobody can take that away from me. Now all I need is Super Mario Brothers for the GC, and I'm set.

Goin' to Da Movies

2005-06-28T18:02:00.000-06:00

I love movies, but I hate going to them. Costs are skyrocketing upwards ($9.50 for one adult ticket? Please, people, this is insane!) and the quality isn't going up at the same rate, to put it mildly. So naturally, I found myself more than a touch confused to discover that there are not only one, but two movies out now that I not only wanted to, but actually went out to see. So here are a few thoughts:

Howl's Moving Castle

I don't remember who I'm ripping off by saying this, but I feel kinda heretical saying this movie is merely pretty good. The plot meanders about uneasily, and without a great deal of speed, but it's so very pretty, and most of the voices are very good -- Billy Crystal in particular, failed spectacularly to offend with his portrayal of the fire demon Calcifer. I enjoy everything Miyazaki has ever done, but this is not his best work by a long shot. I strongly recommend reading Diana Wynne Jones' excellent book instead, and catching this one on video (assuming it's even still in theaters, which is unlikely by the time anybody reads this).

Mr & Mrs Smith

I like a lot of things Brad Pitt has been in, but I can't offhand think of a movie Angelina Jolie has appeared in that I really liked-- except maybe this one. It was smart, sassy, fun, and all around a ticket worth buying. You know the story from the trailers, I suspect-- wealthy suburban couple John and Jane Smith are slowly spiraling towards divorce when they each discover the other is a highly-paid assassin and start to kill each other, which naturally rekindles the ebbing spark in their marriage.

Hang on a second, I need to pause to assimilate the idea that I'm recommending Angelina Jolie over Hayao Miyazaki.

Okay, I'm over it. Anyway, there are a few relatively glaring continuity errors, but the movie itself moves so fast that unless you're incredibly anal like me, you'll hardly notice them-- heck, even *I* didn't notice all of them-- and some of them have rationalizations that aren't too big of a stretch to overlook. Most importantly, it's a movie where a lot of shit blows up. And by a lot, I mean that if this couple are having problems, you want to move to a nearby continent until it all blows over. Also, it doesn't wildly insult your intelligence, and the comic relief is almost always impeccably timed. I do wish they hadn't given away all of Eddie (Vince Vaughn)'s good lines in the trailers, but they were still funny in the movie, though less so than they should have been. It's probably the best summer movie I've seen in a long time.

Yes, Virginia, the World is Still Ending

2005-05-24T22:13:00.000-06:00

If you needed further proof the end times are nigh, the best heavy metal I've seen on TV in years was from a musical episode of Codename: Kids Next Door about a psycho lunch lady and her giant magical sandwich, named "Slamwich". I'm not kidding-- I almost wish I were, except that some of that was seriously crunchy metal. And frankly, it's been too long since I heard a really blistering guitar solo, and this episode had 'em in spades. Iron Maiden, where have you gone?

The Right Kind of Monster

2005-04-26T12:28:00.000-06:00

Hello. My name is Eric, and I'm a metalhead. Yes, when my peers were listening to Morrisey and the Cure, I was attending Van Halen concerts and buying Iron Maiden tapes. As a consequence, my reactions have been very mixed watching what's happened to Metallica in recent years. Sure, Lars Ulrich has had a reputation as a whiny bitch for a while, but while his crusade against Napster, as he put it, made him "the most hated man in rock and roll", there is a more nuanced position to see there-- if you don't overlook, as many did, Metallica's explicit policy for over a decade now of allowing, even encouraging, fans to bootleg their live shows. The irony there, of course, is that for most bands that aren't Metallica, the live shows are the ones that make them money, and the CDs are usually a net loss.

But I'm not talking about the causes and effects of piracy on content producers and middlement, I'm talking about Metallica. The band that played music to make your ears bleed by. The band that kicked so much ass in the '80s that they were practically synonymous with hardcore metal (Poison fans can go sit in the corner-- they were early '90s anyway). After "Metallica" (a.k.a. the Black Album), a lot of people, myself included, felt they'd lost their edge; they were heading in a more bluesy, melodic direction. James Hetfield was singing on this album! WTF!

Since that watershed album, they released Load and Reload, two albums that definitely continued the trend, going even further outside Metallica's traditional territory. None of this was bad, mind you, and I applaud them for daring to be experimental, but it wasn't the Metallica we all grew up with, the one that was badder-than-thou to, well, pretty much everybody. This was a kinder, gentler Metallica. They then came out with Garage, Inc., a mixed collection of covers "Stone Cold Crazy" rocked, and even "Whiskey in the Jar" wasn't bad-- but Metallica covering an Irish drinking song?!? WTF?!?), and S&M was an interesting take on a Greatest Hits album, recorded with the San Francisco Symphony. The only sad part was that given their direction, it wasn't anywhere nearly as surprising as it might have been had it followed "And Justice for All", or even "Metallica".

But now we have "St. Anger", and hot damn, Metallica is BACK, motherfucker! This is the album I've been waiting for all these years, and it's why I loved Metallica in the first place. Though it's sadly devoid of ultra-bitchin' guitar solos from Kirk Hammett, this is the hardest disc I've heard in a LONG time. There are a few missteps-- the lyrics for "The Unnamed Feeling" just sounds like they're trying too hard-- but songs like "Shoot Me Again", "Some Kind of Monster", "Dirty Window" and my favourite, the lead-off song "Frantic", hit me right where I live.

This is a Metallica that's angry again. But they're not teenagers anymore either-- they're not just angry, lashing out indiscriminately. James Hetfield went into rehab shortly after starting this album, and came out with a clearer vision, I think, than he's ever had as a lyricist. This is a healthy anger that isn't directed at himself, nor even the world in general, but specifically at the parts that get in the way of what he wants. It's hard to put into words, but if there's any Metallica fans out there that haven't got this album, do. You'll see what I mean.

You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can regulate it anyway...

2005-04-18T18:43:00.000-06:00

I recently read an article about the dichotomy between how we act and the entertainment we like to consume. The author, David Brooks, points out that though our entertainment choices are becoming increasingly more coarse, our actions have gone the opposite way-- fewer teenagers are having sex, and from those that are, fewer are getting pregnant.

Even Eminem, once you strip down the bluster and look past the foul language, is really complaining about having come from a broken home, and is just trying to find a chunk of suburban paradise to raise his daughter in.

If this doesn't encourage us to look past the simplistic associations of "violent movies make violent kids", then I'll eat Grape-Nuts for breakfast tomorrow. Because, unfortunately, opportunities for government intervention like that are rarely given up for such inconveniences as fact.

It's Alive, I Tell You, It's ALIVE!!!

2005-04-15T02:27:00.000-06:00

I just finished reading Mendel in the Kitchen, by Nina Federoff and Nancy Marie Brown. I have to say, entering into this book, I had a vague idea, like most Americans, I think, that GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) were a sort of necessary evil, but if you had the money, organic food was the way to go. Now, I'm not only seriously considering boycotting organic food, I'm also thinking about agitating for mandatory GMO labeling, so I'll be able to buy them preferentially.

Why the change of heart? For one thing, Federoff and Brown go into some technical detail (perhaps too much for a popular science book, but the detail is itself reassuring) on how exactly crops are naturally (and unnaturally) bred. Now that I know how they do it, it just doesn't seem bad when I hear about genes being added to corn or wheat. It's a very specific and targeted effort-- it's not like you just grab some random shit from a whale and blend it with some swiss chard and see what happens, like, for kicks, man. It's not a simple process, by any means, but it's also not a complete mystery either.

Another thing the authors point out is that it's not as if GMOs exist in a vacuum-- artificial foods of one kind or another have existed for most of the past century. Hybrid corn, for instance, is an artificially-created organism, and it comprises over 90% of current US corn production. And it's not as if we can somehow magically not need them. The main reason Paul Erlich and his thematic ancestor, Thomas Malthus were wrong (well, okay, one of many) is that they didn't account for the dramatically increased crop yield we've enjoyed since the "Green Revolution" started in the 1960s. This yield is the direct result of messing with our food's genes by hybridizing it with sometimes surprising combinations. We certainly wouldn't have enjoyed it if we had stuck to techniques and crops of pre-1961.

Organic farming isn't a solution either. The authors cite an economist, Indur Goklany, who estimates that if we reverted to the mostly-organic methods of pre-1961 farming, we'd need to use approximately 82 percent of the earth's land surface for farming, instead of our current 38 percent. When Sir Albert Howard essentially invented the organic farming movement in 1940, he was operating in an environment that even then was rapidly becoming obsolete. In the world Howard grew up in, the US population increased some 40 percent between 1870 and 1920, while the total arable land grew by 75 percent. In an environment like that, where no concern was given for environmental factors or preserving species habitats, organic farming is not an unreasonable approach. But the organic approach to agriculture requires, when considered as a whole system, at least twice as much land overall compared to conventional farming. That simply isn't an option in the world we live in today. When considered in terms of wildlife habitat preserved, organic farming does the earth far more harm than good. Unless you don't mind destroying the habitat of the Asian Elephant to grow more rice, that is. Personally, I can't stand the inscrutable bastards, but I must respect other people's opinions, even when they're wrong.

One detail that I didn't know before is how far the limit to which you can artificially tweak plants with no oversight whatsoever-- apparently, you can generate new organisms by irradiating them with gamma- or x-rays, or expose them to mutagenic chemicals to get the specific mutation you want (there are a number of behaviours you can't get this way, but play along for now), in addition to unknown others that may be neutral, or possibly harmful, and sell the stuff tomorrow. You can even sell them as organic foods, if you are an unethical bastard. But if you were to splice in one specific gene that generated the precise protein you wanted (and this is do-able; the hard part is knowing whether or not that protein will work the way you want it to), with every other gene in the plant being otherwise normal, you might be lucky to get it on the market within three years. So, the one that has completely unknown properties we can sell, but the one with known properties has to pass a complex array of tests and certifications that vary depending on which of the FDA, USDA, and/or EPA decide your crop falls under their jurisdiction. Yeah, that makes sense.

Allergies are certainly still a problem-- we still don't know everything about how they work, and why, but we are learning. Some research is going on now to reduce the effects of allergens, as well as to understand more about how they work, and more importantly, how they don't. So it's definitely still important, I think to let people know if their foods contain genes from commonly allergenic plants or animals. Even so, GMOs are a net win, I think.

The book covers a large number of other topics, including biodiversity, food safety concerns, the real meaning of sustainable agriculture and more that I don't have the room (or right now, the energy) to discuss. At the end of the day, though, my conclusion is that organic farming, while it feels good to be kind to Mother Earth and all, is harming her more than it helps, by requiring more land to support it than mainstream agricultural processes, and also by giving its consumers (wittingly or no) the impression that what they're eating is worth paying more for. At some point, and we've already hit this point in many third-world countries right now, we're going to have to realize that we either start eating GMOs, we start killing off even more wildlife, or we stop eating at all. Of the three options, well, I like eating, and I like birds. So pass the Roundup-ready corn, and don't forget to grill it with artificially-generated canola oil!

A little hypocrisy is a healthy thing

2005-04-05T16:16:00.000-06:00

I hate to admit it, but "One in a Million" is a great rock and roll song. It's also racist, xenophobic, and fairly nasty. I've been struggling to reconcile this, but I've come to the ultimate conclusion that I can't. It's a great song, and it's a nasty, disgusting one at the same time. Sometimes consistency must sacrifice truth to remain intact, and given the choice, I'll ditch consistency in favour of truth.

I'm sick and tired of idealogues who, having nothing concrete to say against their opponents' arguments, attack them on the basis of hypocrisy, as if that were tantamount to proving them wrong. It's the worst sort of ad-hominem attack, if you ask me-- it in effect concedes the argument, or at best avoids it in favour of pointing out how bad the person making it is.

And the worst is that the accuser isn't even doing that, oh no! Why, that would be absolutist, and wrong. It is, after all, just as morally valid to mutilate women's genitalia as it is to educate women and raise them to be independent, critical thinkers. No, we're just pointing out how our opponent is being inconsistent.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

- R.W. Emerson

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes

- W. Whitman

Little minds are consistent amongst foolish hobgoblins

- My Favourite Misquote of Emerson

Things I Wish I Could Believe

2005-04-05T15:38:00.000-06:00

Don't ask what you are not doing,
Because your voice cannot command;
You see, in time we will move mountains,
And it will come
Through your hands.
John Hiatt, "Through Your Hands", Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan

Old Calendars

2005-04-04T17:20:00.000-06:00

There's something melancholy about throwing out an old calendar. While it does make room for new calendars, and the fun quotes from Get Fuzzy and all, throwing out an old calendar is a clear and definite step that acknowledges that the old year is gone. All those plans, hopes, and dreams for that year are gone-- you'll never get the chance to climb Pikes' Peak in 2004. Maybe 2005 is your year, maybe '06, but 2004 is shot. You blew that chance, bucko.

Government and Health

2005-03-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've been waffling for quite a while on the idea of whether or not government has a place in an individual's health. On the one hand is the free market, which I'm on balance in favor of. On the other, there's the simple fact that we currently subsidize, either directly or via tax breaks, the emergency care of indigents to the tune of millions, if not billions, of dollars each year, money which could probably help more people if applied preventively.

Then I read this article by Frank Furedi. Not knowing anything about him (as of this writing, I haven't even visited his site), I found that his essay echoed, sometimes eerily, some incohate feelings I've had for years now, and not known quite how to put into words.

His basic point (and I encourage you to read the article, because I cannot do it justice here) is that Western societies have become medicalized; that is, they have turned problems which were formerly inherent to the human condition into medical maladies. This has several interesting consequences, according to Furedi, but the one that caught my attention the most is this:

We are not simply making a virtue out of a necessity; rather we are consciously valuing illness. From a theoretical standpoint, we might view illness as the first order concept, and wellness as the second order concept. Wellness is subordinate, methodologically, to the state of being ill.

Furedi overstates his case a bit when he equates social phobia with shyness, but he has an interesting point: when we all have some illness, be it cancer, addiction (and therein lies a whole other can of worms), loneliness, or even not having had those diseases ourselves, but having to live through someone else's illness (friends, family members, et. al), when we in fact use those illnesses as a lens through which to view our lives and our experiences, what's the value in being healthy? When 'wellness' is not viewed as a default, but a condition to which we can only hope to aspire, how can we ever be healthy?

Consider our fundamentally marketing-oriented society: unless we are ill, how can we be sold products to make us well? Unless we are deficient, how can we be sold products to make us whole? I'm not condemming capitalism-- far from it! I think it has done wonders for our physical comforts. But when we change our focus from what we need to live to how we should live, we first must consider who we are. And society, it seems, is telling us we are bad, we are broken, we are unclean.

(Note to self: tie this in with a planned review of Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books)

To bring this entry full-circle, until we can focus our lives and ourselves towards health, and not illness (and, sadly, a direct approach only confirms the supremacy of illness; this is a very hard problem), I don't think a direct government health policy makes much sense. After all, if we're all sick all the time, how can government-sponsored health care be anything but a spiralling balloon of ever-increasing expenditures?

Another Sad Internet Experience

2005-03-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

I just saw an ad for a dating service that prclaims proudly, "We screen for felons and married people". I can't decide if this is a great or a pathetically sad day for the Internet.

The End is Nigh

2005-03-07T02:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, the end of all civilization is here. For proof, I give you... MANSQUITO!

Because, you know, flies are SO 20th century.

Rediscovering Books

2005-03-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

You know, I haven't really read in a while. Oh sure, I'll go to bed with anything, as long as it has printed words on it, and I can't manage to sit still for longer than five minutes without at least a cereal box to keep me company, but there's a difference between that and really reading, sitting down with a good book and getting your teeth into it.

Enter: Discover Card. Thanks to the fact that I was going to buy stuff anyway, I ended up with about $160 in Cashback Bonus awards, and I spent almost all of it on books (except for $40, which went to help buy me a Dremel Tool).

You see, to save money, I'd been checking out library books for the past year or two, so I guess I'd forgotten what it was like to have new books that were mine, all mine! Muhahahah! It's pretty nice having a stack of five or six brand-new books that are brand-new, just lying there, waiting to be read, full of promise, full of imagination, full of stories yet untold, each of them a time machine where the start of the book is always now, and the actors within, be they real or imagined, are waiting, frozen, upon the stage for your pleasure.

Yaay, books!

Keep Your Day Job, Honey

2005-03-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, another book review!

Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain, is a book that you've probably already read, if you're at all into food. So sue me, I'm slow. It's an entertaining, if somewhat rambling, look at the ups and downs of the life of a chef, and how he got that way.

It's a testament, I guess, to Bourdain's claim that the restaurant world is a world of rejects, misfists, thieves, junkies and losers that he was able to survive as long as he did while doing heroin, cocaine, and probably more grass than I've ever mowed. If you've ever seen my lawn, you will not be surprised at this. Admittedly, it wasn't until he cleaned up that his career finally took off, but I don't know many other industries where you could function at all doing that much dope for that long. Maybe I'm just naive.

There is a chapter in there that reads as if his editor said, "Goddamit, you're a chef, writing a book, if you're not going to give us recipes, at least put in some cooking tips already!" that actually has a few useful tips (use a good knife, shallots, maybe some demi-glace and for chrissakes roast your own garlic-- it's not hard, show some respect already), but most of it is biography. Fortunately for you, it's by turns, funny, brash, interesting, and astonishing (mostly astonishing that he got away with that).

Details

Author: Anthony Bourdain
Title: Kitchen Confidential
ISBN: 0060934913
Publisher: Ecco

God help me

2005-03-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

I'm so ashamed. I was just now searching for A/V components, and I typed "Pioneer Eleet".

It's a cry for help, I know it.

Amelie

2005-02-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, I give up. Go ahead and grab the pitchforks and the torches, because you've got me. I'm a heretic. I didn't really like Amelie all that much. I don't blame it for not being deep or meaningful-- it wasn't that sort of film, and it's not fair to expect anything like that of it. And maybe no movie could have lived up to the hype it generated. It's just that for a lighthearted, silly comedy, it didn't seem all that terribly lighthearted or silly.

Amelie herself seems more like a creature to be pitied than one to be admired. Growing up in an essentially loveless household, her life doesn't seem so much grown inward, as most of Roald Dahl's young heroes and heroines do, as stunted altogether. She has managed to become a reasonably cheerful adult, but her life seems rather lonely. Instead of going out with friends or seeing a movie or perhaps a show, she spies on the old painter across the alley from her. Her love interest (he's not really a boyfriend for any appreciable amount of screen time) is, frankly, more autistic than artistic. Her job is filled with unpleasant people-- occasionally a few that aren't so bad, but those seem more the exception than the rule. All in all, she seems to spend about as much time playing tricks on her obnoxious neighbourhood grocer than in her quest to do nice things for people.

The message of the movie, to me, seemed to be, "Come to terms with your limitations and find what little happiness you can in there, because life will suck all the same no matter what you do. Oh, and don't try to expand past your limitations, because you can't. Get used to this life, it's all you get."

I fully appreciate that I am a Philistine, a Neo-Luddite, and a Bad Person(™). I just can't enjoy this film. It's not that I don't like European, or even French, cinema. City of the Lost Children is one of my favourite movies, as is Run Lola Run. Though there does seem to be a slightly darker current of existential despair and resignation in most European movies-- even the comedies are darker-- than in most American films. This is okay for most movies, because, frankly, most movies could use a slight dash of anti-pollyanna-ism. But for this movie, which appeared to want to hard to be light and fluffy, it just weighed it down, rather than grounding it.

Respect in Radio

2005-02-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

I know I'm getting older. One reason? I spend more time listening to AM radio these days than FM. I'm not even sure why; it's not like they aren't making any good music these days or anything. I just find myself wanting to listen to talk more than music. The problem is, most of it infuriates me. Especially on the political shows (most of 'em), the host has little respect for opposing viewpoints-- the best you can hope for these days seems to be a host who will at least let callers with different viewpoints get their opinions out (a few hosts even help their less coherent opponents, though I doubt the callers would view it that way).

The goal is always to prove one's own position, and demolish one's opponents'. Most radio personalities will admit this, if asked-- they resort to the theory of the Hegelian Dialectic. "Our job is to present our point of view," they might say. "It's our opponents' jobs to present theirs." And that's true enough, as far as it goes. The problem is, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes both "right" and "left" are wrong, and the end result is that the truth gets sacrified for the sake of making a point. Most often, I hope, this isn't a conscious decision, but that doesn't make it any better.

These shows, both radio and tv, are less interested in uncovering the truth, as subjective and difficult as that concept is, and more in theater. Jon Stewart made that point, ironically, in a very dramatic way when he appeared on Crossfire, but nothing has really changed.

I don't just blame the hosts here-- most of the listeners are equally unwilling to listen to dissenting or contrarian viewpoints. A lady called up a local Denver show a few weeks ago insisting that the entire Iraq war was a front so that the US Army could test biological weapons, and used as her proof the number of babies born with birth defects after the war. Never mind that in most wars, you want to kill the opposing army, not cause them to have miscarriages, or that she didn't actually have any support (or even any idea of a source) for her claim of birth defects and miscarriages, she believed it, and wasn't going to be dissuaded by the host's surprisingly patient explanation of the relative uselessness of such a weapon.

This was really all meant to be a setup for me to whine about the passing of my favourite radio show on KHOW a month or two ago. Redmond and Newman was a show with a vaguely left-leaning guy (Scott Redmond) and a fairly right-leaning guy (Bob Newman). The difference between them and most shows is that they were friends, or at least faked it extremely well on the radio. There was a distinction on that show between things which were facts (the number of troops in Iraq, how much money was spent on the Whitewater investigation), and which weren't (should we be in Iraq, was Whitewater worthwhile). They disagreed on a number of topics, but they nearly always managed to convey that they respected the other person's opinion, and that it was a reasonable opinion to hold. The other nice thing about the show was that each of them would restrain their counterpart from going too overboard in their opinions, which kept the tone of the show a bit higher than most of talk radio.

Contrast that with their replacements, Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman. Both of those guys are lawyers, and argue their points like it. They ignore or gloss over points which counter their arguments, and generally act as if their counterpart's opinion is stupid or indefensible, instead of examining their own position and deciding that it doesn't hold up in some respect or other. Plus, and I know it's shallow of me, but listening to Craig Silverman is like listening to fingernails scraping on a blackboard. Caplis' voice is more palatable to the ear, but alas, his attitude isn't.

And the sad part is that Bob Newman now has his own show, and without Scott Redmond to ameliorate his more aggresive tendencies, he comes across as a great deal more hardcore right-wing than he used to, and I regret that, because the two of them really had something special and unusal going on on the radio, and now we won't get to hear it anymore. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that, I suppose-- but I don't have to like it.

Partisanship in America

2005-01-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

I know it's trendy to decry partisanship these days; heck, I've even done so myself. But hey, I figure, why not flog a dead horse while it's down, and mix other metaphors while I'm at it?

Andrew Sullivan has a nice piece today about partisan blogging, and while I'd love to disagree, about all I can come up with is a weak, "So, what did you expect, exactly?"

Andrew points out that one of the benefits of blogging (I hereby vow to never use the word "blogosphere" unless a gun is held to my head, Or I change my mind.) is that individual voices can be more easily heard. This is so true, and is one of the reasons I love the Internet, because on the 'net, everybody is a publisher (though some companies seem to want us to forget this. What he doesn't seem to account for is that:

1. Nobody has to listen
2. Most individuals aren't terribly individual

The fact is, I can go to nearly any bar in El Paso county, Colorado and get Rush Limbaugh's opinion from nearly anyone on any world issue I care to name. Or maybe Michael Savage's; it would depend on the bar. But if I try to engage those people in conversation as to why they believe it, they tend to have the same rationales as their talk-show heroes, and are about as willing to listen to dissenting evidence.

Not that the Left is any better-- that's one thing I really noticed after moving to a much more liberal area of Colorado. They're just as shallow as their right-wing counterparts, just with Michael Moore and Al Franken instead of Limbaugh and Savage. Just try explaining to a random selection of people up here that we are doing good things in Iraq, and that the entire populace is not, in fact, lining up to kill themselves just to get at us. Heck, try pointing out that the "insurgents" (read: "terrorists") are targeting Iraqis more than they are us these days, and what that implies about their goals, vis-a-vis "liberation".

Or try pointing out to people in Colorado Springs that we badly bungled the postwar occupation, and that Rumsfeld should be fired for his criminally negligent understaffing of the occupation. You'll always get some people on all sides willing to listen to reason, and debate honestly and forthrightly on any subject, but the vast majority of people-- and I include myself in this, right up front-- are less interested in arriving at the truth, and more at winning, whatever that may mean to them. Why this should be any less true on blogs than in real life, I can't imagine.

A Somewhat Unfortunate Movie

2005-01-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

Last week, I went to see the A Series of Unfortunate Events movie. Having written about it earlier, I owe both my readers at least a brief summary of my impressions. The executive summary: not as good as I'd hoped, but better than I feared.

The story follows the Baudelaire orphans as they discover their parents have died, and are shuttled off to a series of different (but all, sadly, incompetent) guardians. The children learn to trust each other and work together, but also learn that sometimes, bad things happen to good people. There is no happy-ever-after ending, and the characters endure silly and heart-wrenching adventures along the way.

Nothing was particularly bad-- the characters were, on the whole, pretty good (more on that below), and the story was not bad, just too cartoony for my taste. There were some truly fantastic moments such as where Klaus Baudelaire (Liam Aiken) expresses his anger at his parents for dying-- something I don't recall having seen in a children's movie before, and a feeling that anybody who's ever lost someone they cared deeply about knows all too well. The stark honesty of that moment, and the raw feeling of Violet's (Emily Browning) emotional discovery in the wreckage of their family home at the end of the movie redeem it from the "kiddie movie" status it might have otherwise enjoyed (and deserved).

Jim Carrey's Count Olaf was overblown and overdramatic, but his character is a bad actor, so it fits, if you think about it. The problem is that you do have to think about it, which kinda defeats the purpose. But then again, were he not in the film, it quite possibly would not have been made. Thankfully, most of the time his histrionics are appropriate. He was, however, not the star. The stars were the Hoffman twins, who played the baby Sunny, Liam Aiken, who played Klaus, and especially Emily Browning, who is already an actress to look out for, and will hopefully go on to even better things. Jude Law's narration (as the "author", Lemony Snicket) was spot-on.

Is this, like, the best movie EVAR? No. Do I hate myself for watching it? Thankfully, no. But I kinda wish I'd waited until it came out on DVD.

Battlestar Kickassica

2005-01-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

I've just watched both the 2003 miniseries and the premiere of the new Battlestar Galactica miniseries, and I can not emphasize enough how incredibly good they are. Even as a wee lad of the '70s, the first series was just plain not that good. The characters were underdeveloped, at best, and the stories were lame. What saved the original Galactica was not so much any inherent qualities it posessed (save perhaps the visual effects, which were first-class for the time), but the possibilities it suggested. It was so almost-great, that the actors were able to barely carry off what could so easily have been pure drek.

This new series, on the other hand, excels in every category. It's so hard to pick a single element that singles out what makes this series great, but if I had to pick, I'd say it's the art direction. This show succeeds, in a way no tv series save Babylon 5 has, in creating a "used world", a world that feels not only real, but old. The ships, the uniforms, even the civilians, everything seems... ordinary. Fantastic, excellent, amazing, but it's all remarkably unremarkable.

The acting is similarly impressive-- Edward James Olmos' Commander Adama is more military and less avuncular than Lorne Greene. Greene's Adama was more presidential; Olmos' is a career military man that wasn't looking for any of this, and in fact wanted to leave the civilians behind so that he could retaliate for the Cylon attack. It's not that he didn't want to save them, but he was so focused on a military approach that he had to be talked into saving the human race. This was a lovely touch of realism.

Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck was the most surprising character. At first, I wasn't entirely sure about a female Starbuck, but she's sold me several times over-- I doubt she'll be Dirk Benedict's ladykiller (I suppose it's possible, but I think she may have a thing for Apollo), but she's at least as arrogant as Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and probably twice as good.

I could go on, but time constraints force me to move on to the cinematography. The show's documentary-style filming adds to the realism of the show, makes it seem more like a film crew happened to be stranded on the Galactica and are filming the struggle for humanity's survival for posterity. The camera is unsteady, but not shaky-- I'm sure it's a steadicam, but it gives the impression of a handheld camera, and adds strongly to the realism.

Finally, the stories. Unlike the original series, the new BSG respects the military aspect of the Galactica and her crew. The first Galactica was more like the Love Boat than a military vessel, crewed by soldiers fighting for the very survival of the human race. In fact, sometimes, it was easy to forget that we weren't watching a relatively well-done Lost In Space. These guys, on the other hand, are continually aware of that very thing-- the President even keeps a running tally of the number of humans left alive. So far, we haven't seen many civilians, but that's going to come up soon, and I have no doubt they'll be handled as well as the military has been.

I'm running long, so I'll try to continue and expand on this later. Bottom line: fantastic show. Watch it. (Then again, if you're reading this, you are most likely to have already seen it-- Hi, Sam!)

Mazel Tov!

2004-12-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

So, apparently somebody thinks I'm Jewish, which is a bit odd to me. I guess it's because my last name is Schwartz, and apparently all Schwartzes are Jewish, or at least we all look like that (I am probably the least stereotypically Jewish-looking person I know). Or maybe it's that my name is Schwartz, and I live in the suburbs. I don't know. All I know is that Ed Koch, of all people, invited me to join the Republican Jewish Coalition this past election season.

I must admit, I was tempted. I have been fascinated by all things Hebrew since, well, a long time. There's something deeply attractive to me, at a fundamental level, about Judaism. Maybe it's the traditions. Maybe it's the way Jews seem to combine fatalism with telling God off when He pisses them off. Maybe it's that wacky Jewish sense of humor, I don't know. My father was interested in Judaism, as well. He once said that if he hadn't been born Catholic, he'd probably have converted to Judaism, simply because he loved the historical traditions and culture. He may have also had a weakness for potato latkes, but we never discussed it.

But the RJC? I don't know. I hate to affiliate myself strongly with a political party-- though I really miss not registering Republican this year, so I could have voted against Marilyn Musgrave twice (not that it would have mattered much, but this woman really chaps my hide, as the kids today like to put it). If I were to join a party, it would be the They're All Bastards Party, and we'd get together every four years to heap invective and scorn (I love that phrase) upon the well-deserving heads of politicians of every political pursuasion. It would be a new, more political Algonquin Round Table, where we sit on chaise lounges, drinking highballs and whiskey sours, and other such intellectual drinks, and discourse upon the sorry state of the nation.

So, uh, you busy in '08?

Christmas: Scourge or Minor Nuisance?

2004-12-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

Once again, my friend Natalie has prompted this post. Her recent announcment of detente with the Christmas holiday got me thinking about my own Yuletide issues.

For the two of you that actually read this drivel I'm arrogant enough to call a blog, my father died on Christmas day in 1987. As I was a whopping 13 years old at the time, you can imagine my feelings towards Christmas were, thenceforth, less than salubrious. About a year or two ago, I came to my own detente of sorts, though my reasoning is slightly different: I realized that my being angry and bitter about Christmas wasn't doing me any good, and was making the people around me at least marginally less happy than they would be otherwise.

I have retained at least one issue, howeve, upon which I refuse to compromise: 90+% of all Christmas music is drivel, at best. The only Christmas music I will countenance is unconventional, or unconventionally arranged-- Dolly Parton doing bluegrass-style carols is okay, Englebert Humperdinck doing anything, really, is right out. The only exceptions I will make are for Tony Bennet or Frank Sinatra. Okay, maybe Mel Torme, but that's where I draw the line.

As far as the overcommercialization, well, that's an easy thing to get self-righteous about, but ultimately, all you end up doing is upsetting your friends and family; the message (if it was ever really about the message, but that's another rant) gets lost, and you just look like a jerk. But there are options-- as much as possible, this year, I'm trying to give experiences, not physical gifts. I can't do it for everyone, but most of the people in my life have too many things already-- what they could use more than anything is (say) a whitewater rafting trip, not another nonstick cookware set.

Besides, I think it's easier to personalize an experience than it is to figure out what to get my brother this year. I just think of what he and his family enjoy most, and most of the time it's something like a sailing trip, or a fun time with the grandparents. When lying on your deathbed, will you remember the Transformer you got for Christmas in 1986[0], or the time you went trekking around Japan on your own for two weeks?

On a side note, I must have a ~~sick~~ sixth sense for gifts, or something. At least in my family, it seems that whenever I get disgusted with the whole shopping process and just say "The heck with it, I'll give them this piece of crap", it turns out that's EXACTLY what the recipient wanted-- sometimes whether they knew it or not. (I got my brother a nutmeg grinder, of all things, for Christmas a few years back, and he still tells me how much he loves it!) I'm afraid this year, my ideas are going to get me in even more trouble that way-- I don't know how I'm going to follow this up next year.

[0] Yes I do, actually. Omega Supreme, TYVM. And it rocked beyond belief.

Gimp splash screen contest

2004-12-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

For those of you not involved in the Free Software community, the GIMP is a free image-editing program. Recently, they sent out a request to artists to donate artwork for a new splash screen.

Here's my personal favourite.

This is a close second, though.

Signs you're getting old...

2004-11-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

I love A Series of Unfortunate Events to death. They are everything children's books should be: smart, funny, and most of all, not condescending to its audience. It's some of the best writing around these days, and manages what is probably the hardest trick in the book-- being self-aware without being self-conscious about it. I'm not sure if the author is singular or a committee (a la the Hardy Boys books or Nancy Drew I treasured as a preteen), but whoever it is, the stuff is brilliant. It's like Rocky and Bullwinkle: something parents can read with their kids, and neither feels talked down to or ignored. Of course it helps to have a rather dark sense of humor, but I find being a parent has already done that to most of my friends.

Anyway, what brought this on was my friend Natalie's bemoaning the fickleness of pop culture as regards the Care Bears. You see, a movie is being made of the first three books of this increasingly traumatic series, and I was browsing the IMDB message board on the movie, looking for tidbits, and found out that teenage girls were hoping there was a SoUE clothing line at Hot Topic, so they could buy them and wear them to the premiere.

Wait a minute! I thought. How come they seem so young?, and then I realized I was probably more than twice as old as most of them. Eek! When did that happen?
I guess it shows I'm still hep with the kids today. Plus, I'm learning invaluable things, like this tidbit from one moviebuff27:

I REALLY hope the clothes come from Hot Topic, that'd be much better than instead of - dun, dun, dun - LMITED TOO! EW!

Better not!

Who knew? If I ever have kids, this stuff will be key, I'm sure.

Paarfi does Tech Support

2004-11-13T01:49:00.000-07:00

No shit there I was, having an absolutely terrible day. The sort of day you're glad the universe didn't put a small puppy in your path, because people look at you funny while you're strangling it. The solution?

The Viscount of Adrilankha, of course.

Well, that wasn't my original thought, but I was depressed, and at the library, and one thing lead to another, and, well... it just happened. Then I thought, "Hey, it's 6pm, and I don't want to go home, because my net connection is teh suck right now, why not head to a coffeeshop with wireless? They're all the rage with the kids these days, I hear!"

Book and laptop in hand, off I went.

Upon arrival, I ordered a large chai, paid far too goddam much for it, and sat down, unsure of whether or not to read Brust, or hang out on IRC and update my computer to the latest Ubuntu bits. As fate would have it, I decided upon "both". And thus was born a very odd evening, with my hanging out on #ubuntu, and sounding like a tech support drone in a very bad Regency romance novel. Unfortunately, that was a couple of weeks ago, so I can't bring the genius back, but I highly recommend it, always assuming, of course, that anyone ever actually reads this.

He Got It Right The First Time

2004-10-08T17:48:00.000-06:00

I'm reading Return to Mos Eisley: The Star Wars Trilogy on DVD, and so should you. The basic thesis is that Lucas' original approach to the movies had a thematic integrity that his CGI fixes to it do not, and more importantly, that they do not preserve.

What made "Star Wars" so great in 1977 was Lucas' creation of a "used world", where things had been happening for centuries before the cameras showed up, and would continue long after. The sets, the props, everything was designed with that used look; Luke's speeder even looked third- or fourth-hand. But the CGI, mixed with that gritty realism, is too clean, too perfect. CGI props don't seem to move right, CGI characters (Jabba, among others) don't either, exactly. This isn't inherent to CGI, but it is, I think, the current state of the art.

This ties in interestingly with a lecture I sat in on the last half of at Nan Desu Kan this year, about 2-d animation techniques vs. 3-d ones. What I took away from that lecture was that 3-d animation is, in many cases, too perfect. It can be made better, but that takes a lot of work that isn't always practical to do.

An example: push your index finger into the palm of your other hand. Notice how when your finger contacts the skin, the knucles and skin deform, and the cuticle turns white around the tip. This isn't impossible to do in 3-d, by any means, but it's very easy to forget, and just have the finger touch the surface and not deform properly. Likewise, I think, the CGI in the revamped Star Wars movies detracts because the movie wasn't filmed with it in mind, so it jars the suspension of disbelief, because the world is gritty, and the CGI is not.

Anyway, while I realize and recognize 100% that George Lucas doesn't owe me a thing, I still would like to add my voice to those asking (not demanding, those people scare me) Lucas for a release of the original theatrical cut.

Nobody to vote for, again

2004-10-06T17:34:00.000-06:00

I tried, really I did.

After a history of voting for third parties for President, based mostly on a dislike of both major party candidates, I proclaimed that this year, I was going to vote for one of them. The motivator for this decision was the realization that politics is inherently all about compromise-- that the very act of voting, no matter for whom, is a declaration of compromise, given that no candidate will ever represent my views exactly. At that point, it's much like the famous quote, apocryphally attributed to Dr. Jonson: "Madam, we've settled that. Now we're haggling over the price."

The problem is, both major-party candidates have gone out of their way, it seems, to tell me they don't want my vote. Leaving the foreign policy realm out of the discussion for now, President Bush has initiated one of the most disastrous fiscal policies I've ever seen out of a Republican, and John Kerry is naive enough to believe that technology can somehow save us money by instituting a national health care plan. (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on that one; I'd rather not believe he's intentionally planning on wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars on a boondoggle.) Bush believes that gay couples don't deserve the same social and legal protections straight couples do, and Kerry apparently sees no ethical problems whatsoever in using the stem cells from aborted fetuses for research purposes.

How am I supposed to vote for either of them, when they both tell me, "Your core beliefs aren't important to me" ?

And before y'all go all third-party-candidate-y on me, let me just point out that one does not generally start one's political career with the Presidency. Even the current President Bush spent some time as Governor of Texas, after all. So no, sorry, I will not entertain seriously any candidate who hasn't even been elected to the position of Junior Assistant Dogcatcher.

Staring at the Mountain

2004-09-25T21:59:00.000-06:00

While reading this Chuck Lorre vanity card, I had a bit of a realization: I have no ambition. None at all. If I had an ambition, I suppose it would loosely consist of "don't lose what you have, because you'll lose it anyway, but if you try not to, it'll take longer."

Well, that's crap. That's nothing to work towards, nothing to tell your kids, should you ever have any. "Well, son, your daddy's dead now, but he worked all his life to not lose his pathetic material trappings." So, instead, I'll list all the things I've ever wanted in my life, but have given up on:

Becoming a rock star. Writing a comedy TV show. Eating fugu. Directing a play. Running sound for a rock and roll tour. Proving the Reimannian Conjecture. Getting over this goddam cold. Doing something truly original with a computer.

Millenium Actress

2004-09-22T17:01:00.000-06:00

I was over at my friend Dragon's place last Sunday. We were going to go see Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, but by the time we got off our lazy butts to leave, it was too late. So we watched Satoshi Kon's Millenium Actress instead. All in all, it's a great choice, and highly recommended.

Millenium Actress follows an actresses' reminiscences of her life and career. When she was a young teenager during the Sino-Japanese War that preceeded World War II, she fell in love with a Japanese activist opposed to the Manchurian occupation. After giving her a key that he said unlocked "the most important thing there is", he disappears. She then takes a job as an actress in a movie that is being filmed in Manchuria to find him, and thus starts her movie career.

The conceit that makes the movie work is that as FUJIWARA Chiyoko slips between the present and the past, between reality and her films, the documentary crew goes with her, sometimes even taking part in actions that occurred before they were born. This technique blurs the lines between reality, fantasy, and history, rendering them indistinguishable, and in some sense all equally fictitious.

This movie is well worth a rent for the non-anime fan, and fans who don't own it by now probably should. It's a revealing look at the lies that underpin our definitions of ourselves, and their necessity.

Bend it, Baby

2004-09-17T10:59:00.000-06:00

Just watched Bend It Like Beckham, which has just become one of my favourite movies of 2002. The plot is fairly simple: Jess is a second-generation British immigrant from Punjab who's amazingly talented at football. Her parents, however, are very old-school, and do not approve of her doing un-ladylike activities. Hilarity ensures.

This movie is hilarious, not because of its gags-- there aren't really any to speak of-- but because of its characters. Sure, Jess' English friend Jules has a mother who declares, with a straight face, that there's a reason Sporty Spice is the only one without a man, but there are people like that, after all. In one of the extras on the DVD, the actor playing Jess' father declares that after 10 minutes, you believe in the characters. I don't think it takes nearly that long.

The DVD also has a recipe for Aloo Gobi, which looks really tasty. :)

#$(*&!ing cats, and home repair

2004-09-14T20:22:00.000-06:00

I just called around, and it sounds like I'll have to pay anywhere from $300-$360 to have my carpets cleaned. Freakin' cats. The problem, of course, is that the carpet in the basement has been pissed on six ways from sunday, so:

my cats think it's okay to piss there
piss soaks through the carpet and into the pad
you clean the carpet, and it just wicks the piss smell back into the room.

The only REAL solution is to move into a hotel for a week, pull up all the carpet, paint the floors with Killz, put down new carpet, and then move to Scotland.

But last week I put a hardwood floor in my walk-in closet, and it is nice. And was very easy to put in. But damned expensive. I probably spent > $200 on materials alone, and I still haven't even put in the new baseboard. At least I enjoy this sort of thing, or I'd be bonkers by now.

Getting started

2004-09-11T14:13:00.000-06:00

This is more of a placeholder than anything; I'm relatively new to blogging. I've given some thought in the past to writing my own blog software, but decided to give blogspot a try, for at least a while. Mostly, this will be my random blatherings on my life, things I care about, people I care about, and so on. Fasten yer seatbelts, folks, this is going to get very lame very fast. :)