BLOGGITYBLOO

In which I experience three different kinds of natural disasters in one week

2011-09-02T08:19:00.002-04:00

Worth noting first off that unlike the people whose lives have been turned upside down by these events, my experiences were more tangential, while still very real.

Event #1 - hey, was that some kind of shaking going on?

Magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits Virginia, and at some point shortly thereafter I turn to my coworker and ask, "are we having an earthquake?' The sensation was subtle but noticeable, a bit like the dizzy feeling one gets from a head rush, or perhaps the spins one gets when drunk.

Event #2 - that seems like one big campfire, oh wait, that's a wildfire.

Joining the Marabellas (dad, sister and significant others) in Yosemite National Park (more about this in a subsequent post) we learn on our second day there that an RV's propane tank has exploded and started a wildfire just a few miles from where we're staying. Later, the power goes out and we begin to speculate about the reasons and the timing - we also begin urinating outside because the plumbing system is fed by by a pump that is no longer operating. Even later, a park ranger shows up (armed) and takes our names before informing us that there's a good chance we'll need to be evacuated and if they come back we should be prepared to leave immediately. We pack things for our escape, and wonder what the fuck we're going to do then.

Luckily, through the quirks of weather and the work of the Park Service, we did not end up needing to evacuate and even got power back, such that we were able to enjoy the last couple of days in and around the park as if nothing was going on. We did get some impressive evenings of smoke enhanced sunsets, and some impressive views of the fire from above (pictures in a subsequent post).

Event #3 just like Planes Trains and Automobiles, minus the train and with less sleeping.

Attempting to return from Yosemite on a flight from San Francisco to Boston ended up as quite an adventure. The flight was canceled due to IRENE! and all attempts at getting back to Boston proved fruitless (if your flight is canceled due to weather the airline has to get you home, but isn't required to do it at any particular time, so it was really looking like it would be 4 days spent in airports hoping to fly standby). They could get us to Chicago, which seemed like a better bet for getting a flight to Boston, and if worse came to worse was within a plausible driving distance, so off to Chicago it was.

Mechanical difficulties kept us on the ground in SF for an extra hour and a half (I think the black box box was having software problems) and so meant getting to Chicago after 11:00pm. All of the United customer service desks in Chicago were closed by the time we got in so we called the airline to see if our chances of getting home had improved. No. This was Sunday night. The earliest they might be able to fly us home was Thursday. And because it was weather related, they owed us nothing, so we were faced with the prospect of spending hundreds of dollars a day for shelter and food, while also spending every waking hour at the airport trying to fly standby. Talk about a shitty vacation. So we went to a Best Western by the airport to get a night's sleep and then resolved to rent a car and drive home.

Rental cars are expensive if A) you want to drive it one way, and B) there is an insane amount of demand to do A. Still cheaper than staying in Chicago for four days, but it meant we were going to drive it in one day, 1100 miles and approximately 17 hours (and this was to the Boston airport so we could get our own car and drive home).

Drive out of Chicago, across Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and into New York (almost all of which is toll roads, so we're $30 poorer for that) with little problem (2011 Ford Fiesta proves to be both pretty comfortable over long distances and a decent little gas sipper). Soon after driving into New York we see a sign proclaiming 'all traffic must exit at Exit 34a'. Where the fuck is exit 34a? Why do we need to exit? Asking various toll collectors finally found out the why -Irene caused flooding had closed the road, and eventually we learned that exit 34a was just east of Syracuse. Not terrible, that's pretty far across the state, and we assume that the detour will be localized and quickly dealt with. Wrong. The detour involves driving more than an hour out of the way, down I81 almost to Binghamton, and then east on I88 to just north of Albany, and even this detour contains it's own sub detour, around some fallen power lines on local roads. It's now midnight and we've been in the car for 14+ hours with 3+ more to go.

After a recent conversation with someone who had tried one, I drank a 5 Hour Energy so I could make the final leg home through the middle of the night (they really do seem to work, without the jittery stomach rot of too much coffee or soda). Down into the Hudson Valley, over the Berkshires in western MA, and the long slow decent into Boston. There's no easier time to navigate Boston than 3 am and dropping off the rental car, getting our car, and getting home was generally uneventful. We walk in the door at 5:00am, 19 hours after leaving Chicago. It is Tuesday, we were supposed to be home late Sunday night, so roughly 30 hours of our lives has been sacrificed to IRENE!.

And so it was.

Irish are Elves?

2011-04-12T13:01:00.002-04:00

Using the expiring streaming queue to guide some of what I watch on Netflix had me watching Michael Collins recently. He was one of the leaders of the Irish rebellion after WWI that lead to a deal between the Irish and English that created the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.

I've been pretty ignorant of both the timeline (centuries of conflict) and details of this famous feud, and the movie helped on at least a portion of that front. A particular detail that I wasn't aware of was upon achieving the deal with England (voted for by a majority of Irish) the rebels split and immediately began a civil war that lasted until Michael Collins was assassinated, at which point everyone seemed to decided - oops, yeah that was too far. Then it reverted back to just fighting with England via the IRA - the conflict we know a bit better.

For some reason the story reminded me a bit of the Elves from the Silmarillion, not necessarily for any specifics, but more in the self-inflicted tragedies that follow on tragedies from without. Ultimately the elves were responsible for all the bad shit that befell them, but occasionally they did rally to deal with a common foe, only to betray one another almost immediately after.

Always a good time to smack down the Elrond, "men are weak" comment. "Yeah? Fuck you elf."

Brushes with greatness...

2011-03-22T11:22:00.003-04:00

We attended a memorial service this last weekend for a man whom we'd met at Christmas brunches and the occasional Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's over the last 6 years or so. He died last November at the age of 86 but for various reasons the family had put off the service until now.

I'd had a few conversations with him at those events we attended together (I am terrible at engaging people in small talk), but never anything of substance and certainly never anything that would have clued me into the fascinating character that he was. I talked to his wife more. She was a woman of Japanese descent who had been interred as a child during World War II in Idaho, after being relocated from Seattle. Later she attended the Graduate School of Design at Harvard and was one of the first woman to graduate from there, and had done so while simultaneously pregnant with at least one child. Despite her diminutive size, this was clearly a very strong woman.

Our connection to them got slightly more interesting as it turned out one of the couple's daughters had married a gentleman from SW Iowa and their son was looking to attend ISU's architecture department. I'm not sure what influence we had on any of this, but they were certainly always forthright in thanking us about whatever that role had been and to tell us the latest news from their grandson. Also interestingly, the other grandson had attended West Point and was serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but only interesting in the sense that the military trajectory is not one you'd expect from such a family (though it gets more interesting).

But back to the gentleman who had passed. The impression I'd gotten from him over the few interactions we had was one of a lovely gentle soul, but nothing by way of his history or even much about what he had done as a profession, though I'd gotten the gist that he was some sort of engineer or physicist.

I learned vastly more from the memorial service, including some probably more important details about his interactions with others and his remarkable nature, but the story of his life was fairly mind blowing.

He was the son of a renowned classical pianist.
After spending one year at the California Institute of Technology he was recruited by the army to be part of the Manhattan Project, for which he first got a year of special training in PA before moving to Los Alamos at roughly the age of 20 to be part of developing the atomic bomb. This had a profound affect on him (as it seems to have had on most involved and as you'd expect) and was not something he apparently talked about much.
While later working for the Army near Boston he started two companies to develop speakers. KLH where he was the H to Henry Kloss' K and Advent, both names that my run ins with stereo equipment had planted in my head.

My point here is not to drop names or wow anyone with my fortune of having known this man. It's really a wistful lament that my lack of social skills meant that I missed out on learning what such a man could say about the world, and perhaps a bit of realization about the things hidden in unexpected places.

Carry on.

Who Knows

2011-03-04T13:35:00.001-05:00

Not sure if the new look (inspired by wandering into Stephen's blog) will cause me to write more, but maybe...

Sore losers, racists and their alternate reality: a stem-winder.

2010-07-26T13:19:00.000-04:00

(This one is for TClog, who apparently has been missing my rants)

I have the good fortune of not knowing many lunatic Republicans, and that’s saying something given how they seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days. Perhaps the ones I know are smart enough not to get me going, but I don’t think that’s true. Mostly I think it’s that New England has driven most of the lunatics out. There are certainly the libertarians holed up in the backwoods with their guns, and plenty of truly conservative people, but the apoplectic crowd that dominates the political news these days is largely absent.

But, even though I don’t have the chance to ‘converse’ with these fucking idiots very often, I read and see what they say. I’m aware of all their talk about ‘taking the country back’ and ‘not recognizing the country they grew up in’ and all their blather about big gubmint, out of control deficits, and the like. I’m here to say that, while their may be a teeny tiny kernel of actual belief buried deep in the dark heart of their statements, 99.99% of it can be attributed to sore-loserism and latent racism. And to avoid the inevitable loss of credibility by playing the race card, I’d say the racism part is the lesser of the two, but it’s not some fringe motivation that can be attributed to only the nuttiest of the nutty.

The easiest things to refute are their concerns about big gubmint and the deficit/debt, for you see, when their chosen leaders were in charge (Saint Ronny and W – they didn’t like HW because he raised taxes to fix the deficit) , both of those things grew at an amazing rate.

I may not need to remind you that W inherited a budget surplus, with the debt on track to be paid off (this as the result of a vibrant *tech-bubble* economy and some efforts by the Clinton administration to get things on a better course – partly taxes, partly pay-go, partly other stuff). They were so concerned about the ‘negative’ impact of the surplus that they thought we should return to a deficit and ultimately to an enormous national debt. They did this through three principle means: huge tax cuts for the wealthy ($1.6T worth – keep in mind the so-called stimulus bill was less than half of that), Medicare Part D (the prescription drugs for seniors bill – which they lied about the cost of to congress, and specifically forbid Medicare from negotiating drug prices) and ‘emergency’ funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (this despite the years and years they dragged on). I think you can make the case that some of this spending was for the right reasons, but nonetheless it exploded both the deficit and the debt. These are very fiscally responsible people….

They created a terrifying enhanced role for the government through large chunks of The Patriot Act (the very name of which cowed legislators into supporting a draconian surveillance state). Medicare Part D required an army of people to manage, and the number of ‘contractors’ toiling in our various wars and spy agencies is truly mind boggling. Those that claim to desire keeping the government out of their lives should have wanted nothing to do with any of this.

So, their concerns about big gubmint and ‘out of control’ deficits are rank hypocrisy and ultimately tied into them being sore losers. It’s not their guy running the government, so now all of a sudden they are deeply concerned about all of this. They’re liars. They don’t give an actual shit about those things, they only want to be running things again.

The racism charge is a bit trickier, because almost inevitably when you talk about racism people start imagining the Ku Klux Klan and lynch mobs. But racism is far more subtle and insidious than that. Recall from Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia (spring 2008) the story of his white grandmother crossing the street to avoid black people. This is racism. It’s an innate fear/unease of people different from you. You may not want them beaten or hung, but you don’t want them living near you, and you most certainly don’t want them ‘in charge’. Racists (perhaps xenophobe is the more accurate term – and no, not the Nintendo game, although clearly I showed some deep expertise on the subject) assume people different than them have different motivations than they do. Somehow the commonality of the human condition, the hopes and aspirations that they themselves feel, are more noble than those experienced by ‘the other’. ‘The other’ is always looking to take from you, is always looking for the easy way out, is always looking for a way to change the life you know and are comfortable with. ‘The other’ eats strange food, talks funny, etc. Of course, ‘the other’ is really just trying to get ahead, trying to make it so their children have a better chance than they did, pretty much aspiring to all the same things that everyone else is. But the racist/xenophobe sees the world in a very primitive zero-sum way. If someone else gets ahead, then they must be getting it from me (or people like me), as if there was only so much ‘ahead’ to go around.

The interesting thing is that most of ‘the other’ that they fear are poor people, but they attribute their stereotypes to ethnicity rather than economic circumstance. They miss the commonality among those at the bottom – that they are poor and have very few opportunities. They also have no where to go but up, and since the xenophobe thinks there is only so much up, they feel threatened.

But the racism moves to a different level when it comes to Obama (though this mostly affects the fringiest), for he is as much like ‘us’ as he is like ‘them’. He and his family resemble everything that white middle-America strives for, but they’re black. Church going (more actual church attendance than W), lovely well-mannered children, a dog, well-spoken, well-dressed, well….pretty much everything America claims to want you to be. Just by being black (and maybe having a funny name) they somehow have nefarious intentions, particularly as it involves changing things that have served white people. It seems fairly clear to me that he’s a champion of reducing inequality and the simple fact is that non-whites are disproportionately worse off than whites may make it appear that there is some sort of favoritism. But the fear is bereft of facts and amplified by the latent racism.

And through it all the country is mired in an economic catastrophe, and nothing amplifies people’s innate fears like the stress that comes with not knowing how things are going to turn out. I’d bet money that there was a spike in racist sentiment during the Great Depression, for none of these fears are new or novel.

So when your asshole neighbor or coworker complains about how Obama is a socialist and that things were better before, tell him/her to suck it (arguing actual facts with assholes gets you nowhere).

Great stuff...

2009-08-31T15:50:00.002-04:00

Animal cams!

This would be easier if Mighty Clog were on Facebook.

Movies

2009-08-07T14:55:00.002-04:00

Yojimbo - 1961 Akira Kurosawa movie that was the inspiration for the Clint Eastwood character in the 'Dollars' movies.

Masterless samurai comes to town on the brink of collapse as two rival gangs fight for control. He uses his skills to help the regular townfolk rid themselves of the gangs and the strife that comes with them. Toshiro Mifune stars, as he does in most of the Kirosawa films you may have heard of - Seven Samuria, Roshomon.

A really good movie with some great cinematography. A great early scene features a dog carrying a human hand in its mouth to indicate the level of decline the town has experienced.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - 1966 Sergio Leone movie featuring Clint Eastwood as The Good, Eli Wallach as The Ugly, and Lee Van Cleef as The bad. Wallach really gives the stand out performance of this movie.

Not sure how I managed to live to 38 without seeing this in its entirety, but I can admit that it's true. I watched the new 'Expanded Edition' courtesy of Netflix streaming, a 2:58 minute whopper of an epic. (The original version was still pretty freaking long, at 2:41)

Lots of great things, both from an acting point of view and a directing point of view. Very surprised by the scope and epic nature of the movie with huge sets and cast of thousands. I think I'd always assumed this was more like the austere 'Dollar' movies, but it's really more in line with either the bible epics of the day or it's young grandchild, Dances with Wolves.

Clint is good as the pretty boy 'blondie', and the hair, so luxurious....

Both highly recommended.

HP and the HBP

2009-07-27T12:33:00.002-04:00

The movies (as with the books) continue to get better (and clearly there is some correlation). Once we left behind the sucktastic world of Chris Columbus, we've been treated to a pretty solid series of movies, each remaining true to the general feel while allowing the influences of the varying directors. So it is with the latest, number 6 of what is now 8 - yes they opted to split #7 into two, with the last coming out in the summer of 2011, ten years after the first. Holy crap.

Other than to say it is worth your while, especially to experience on the big screen, I have only a couple of nits to pick, and then a return to the meta narrative that has framed these conversations from the beginning. Spoilers ahead...

The biggest little nit in #6 regards the manner in which Harry witnesses the death of DD at the hands of Snape. In the book he was an entirely reluctant (having been frozen in place under his invisibility cloak) witness, while in the movie he has been compelled by DD to watch and do nothing. This choice, while somewhat understandable given they chose to forgo all plot points related to silent spell-casting, is completely at odds with the very nature of Harry. While he was able to abide DD's wishes in the cave in order to secure the alleged horcrux, there is no way in hell he would stand by and watch Snape kill DD without being restrained. Harry hates Snape about as much as he hates inaction. Harry's constant willingness to throw himself into the fray, despite the misgivings of all around him, is part of what makes him such as appealing character. Harry is selfless to a fault. Showing him otherwise is an affront to his character.

The second nit regards the lack of pageantry surrounding the death of DD. The song of Fawkes the phoenix, the respect shown by merpeople and centaurs alike, and the general sense of gravitas that should go along with his passing has been left out. Perhaps this becomes the beginning of #7 or finds a home in an expanded DVD edition, but either way, that seems wrong. After 2:33 minutes, another 5 showing the importance of this event should have been included. They could have still returned to the discussion amongst Harry, Hermione and Ron in order to allow the audience to leave buoyed by their resolve, but DD should have had his moment.

Third nit: burning down The Burrow? I understand that the whole wedding plot in #7 could be difficult to make sense of, and could possibly be left out, but good grief, burning down the Weasley home really seems to have been unnecessary.

And now for the meta. No one seems to have read or found interest in the previous posting about how HP would have been better as TV, but I think the idea of a denser, more serialized HP would have been great. So much has to be left out of an 800 page book to fit it within the running time of even a long movie, stuff that matters, and stuff that helps put flesh on the bone of the detailed world that JKR created. Dozens of minor characters and the little details of their lives. all of them helping to round out and make Harry Potter real; most of it flushed down the toilet. It's a bummer. 7 years of 22 episodes (or perhaps combining books 1 and 2 into one season) could have really been magical.

The other meta is the decision to eliminate Harry's inner voice from the movies. So much of the books is in Harry's head, and while Daniel Radcliffe (along with all of them) is really coming into his own as an actor, you simply can't get all the details across with a look. Perhaps it would have been hokey, but it seems like it would have been worth a try, in some form or other.

And none of this to say that I don't like the movies. I do.

Harry Potter the TV show?

2009-07-20T08:25:00.000-04:00

Good post here.

More on the latest movie coming soon.

Ends justify the means: what ends exactly?

2009-07-15T09:18:00.002-04:00

We all know that the Bush administration stretched or broke the law in the supposed interest of fighting the War on Terra(tm). The latest seems to have Cheney specifically ordering the CIA to not tell congress about some secret program they were operating, possibly with the express intent of assassinating top al Qaeda leaders.

Since they only ever seem to kill/capture the supposed #3 (the most dangerous job on the planet), can we definitively say that Bush et al were the most incompetent boobs in history? If Cheney sees only ends and cares little for the niceties of means, and he consistently failed to achieve those ends, what does that say?

I'd actually bet money that this latest intrigue involves a program far more sinister than assassinating bin Laden...something done by the CIA on American soil, or creepier.

Good stuff here

2009-06-22T12:25:00.001-04:00

14 minutes of your time...

Next up: Tomacco

2009-06-05T16:22:00.002-04:00

Bad ideas all around.

At least Tomacco was hilarious.

Some movies

2009-05-20T09:02:00.002-04:00

Watched some movies over the last week or so...

Star Trek (theater) - implausible (but perhaps perfect for the franchise) plot but still pretty great. Characters/actors are excellent with Karl Urban pretty much channeling Deforrest Kelley (I barely recognize him from his flaxen haired Eomer days). Pretty emotional almost from the first scene, something most of the previous movies have lacked. The reset/origin story is often the easiest (though perhaps not in this case). I look forward to future installments assuming they can keep the core together. Highly recommended even for Trek cognoscenti.

Prince Caspian (Netflix streaming) - having read the book series several times in my childhood, my only recollection of this one was that it took most of the book to bring the principle characters together and that it was frustrating to have Narnia be in such dire straights. The movie was ok, but nothing to go out of your way for. The characterization of the Telemarines as swarthy Spaniards was a little much, though they certainly came across as unique and homogenous. The main character was a bit of a dud.

Slumdog Millionaire (Netflix snail mail) - I was a little surprised by the grittiness of this movie given its characterization in trailers/commercials/etc. It was nicely woven together and generally feel good by the end, but the adversity along the way is pretty extreme (and realistic given the origins of the main characters). Highly recommended.

YPF (Netflix streaming) - a totally random selection among the 12000 streamable titles. YPF is shorthand for young people fucking, and while there's plenty of nudity and sexual situations, the dialogue wins the day. This is a very funny movie. Basically it tells the simultaneous tale of four 'couples' (one is a three way) in differing stages of their relationships on a night that centers around each couple's sexual encounter. Also recommended.

Tell No One (Netflix streaming) - a French adaptation of a novel by an American (originally set in NJ) about a guy whose wife is killed 8 years in the past. Current events begin to unravel the threads that bound the original explanation for the murder and the man's life is turned upside down. Pretty much an excellent thriller. You'll have to deal with subtitles, but that gets to be second nature pretty quickly. Highly recommended.

Holy crap

2009-05-17T18:39:00.001-04:00

The Onion versus Star Trek

2009-05-05T17:53:00.001-04:00

Hitting most of the right notes...

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Wild

2009-04-17T13:57:00.001-04:00

A Great Notion

2009-03-30T15:22:00.001-04:00

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."

From this, which I know nothing about.

En See Double Ugh (updated yet AGAIN!)

2009-03-23T10:50:00.005-04:00

For the first time in 25 years (at least) I filled out no bracket. I did watch some games on Saturday. Most of them were ugly. Power teams beating up on the also rans.

And the sweet sixteen is made up of all four number 1s, 2s, 3s, two 4's, a 5 and a 12 (and the 12 is Arizona? yuck).

It may say a lot about the ability of the selection committee to pick the seeds correctly, or it may say that men's basketball has devolved to women's basketball, where there are the teams that always win and there is everyone else. What a dispiriting state of affairs.

3/27/09
Glad to see Duke and Memphis go down. Duke, for obvious reasons (long standing irrational hatred), and Memphis because they always strike me as one of those teams that doesn't even pretend to care about the players being students. That may be unfounded, but that's how it strikes me.

What I saw of MO was impressive. Add in my Big 12 loyalties and I think I have my favorite.

3/28/09
OK - yeah.
Louisville - boo. Pitino and Calipari are really my least favorite coaches.
NC -boo, though any love I had for the erst-while insurgent Gonzaga is long gone.
MSU - yeah.

Go MSU, MO, OK, and....Pittsburgh? Truly Pitt vs Villanova is a battle against apathy for me.

3/30/09
MSU - woo!
OK - good lord, such terrible 3-point shooting I've rarely seen. Nerves or intimidation is the only answer - the defense from NC wasn't that good.

So, I guess that leaves me hoping for an MSU - Villanova final, anything to keep the perennial favorites out. My irrational hatred of Roy Williams is strong, as is my dislike of Tyler Hansbrough (Mary Poppins - "we are not a codfish" - close your mouth dude!). CT, with their near total domination of women's basketball, just needs the smack down.

Can MSU beat CT? They certainly played well against a Louisville team that strikes me as similar to CT, though not the same. CT has a better half court offense and defense.

Can Villanova beat NC. Hell yes. Even if OK had shot poorly from 3 (as opposed to abyssmally) they could have won the game. NC is just not that good. They are solid, but like all Roy Williams teams, they lack heart.

A lovely little short film

2009-03-07T17:00:00.001-05:00

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Yeah - one more. Resistance is futile.

2009-02-18T12:12:00.004-05:00

This from a partial script of Blazing Saddles.

More Wordle - you know you love it!

2009-02-17T08:50:00.003-05:00

Gettysburg Address

My recap of my visit with Dan last May.

Wordle CMC edition

2009-02-16T09:29:00.002-05:00

Wordle

2009-02-16T09:25:00.002-05:00

Obviously featuring my recent and very limited set of posts...

From Dan.

Crunchy AND Chewy

2009-02-13T13:21:00.002-05:00

Some of the best foods in life are both.

Bagels - crisp skin and chewy insides, shouldn't feel like a thick piece of sliced bread.
Chocolate chip cookies - not too dry, not too doughy
Pizza crust - like bagels above
Loaf bread - not that pre-sliced crap, real hearth-baked loaves of misshapen, crusty goodness.

A few candies have a hard outer shell and gooey interiors.

Yum.

Something here...

2009-02-11T09:26:00.002-05:00

Somehow the diffusion of my 8 year political outrage has made my current need to blog recede - even if many of my Bush-era posts (nearly all of my posts are of that era) had nothing to do with the outrages.

Even still, it generally feels like a giant sigh has escaped and things are trying to return to 'normal'.

As for non-political items, life is in a not especially turbulent state for me, unlike several others in the crowd likely to read this. Dan (and others) got me onto Facebook and I am ambivalent about its purpose and my participation in it. We'll see where that goes.

A few political musings-

So grateful to have a competent president again, one who can elaborate on tricky political questions from accumulated knowledge rather than simply parroting nonsensical talking points.

Republicans remain a blight on the national soul, almost universally hoping Obama fails so they can return to power. They are an evil, cynical bunch.

Democrats (except for Obama) remain almost entirely terrible at getting their message across. They continue to bring the metaphorical knife to a gun fight with Republicans. Harry Reid needs to be replaced with someone who doesn't sound like your milquetoast-y fifth grade science teacher. This is important shit...speak like you care.

Rock on!

Live blogging a bit...

2009-01-20T11:33:00.010-05:00

John Boenher looks like someone killed his dog.

HW looking much older than Jimmy Carter (they're both 84).

!!!Dick Cheney IS Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life.!!! Or Dr. Strangelove...or maybe a combination of the two.

Let the tears flow...

Rick Warren....blech....but not horrible....so far. Seems like they're running behind schedule...
What happens if he's not sworn in by noon?

Shot of Biden and Obama sitting at what looks like a little table, possibly playing Ms Pac Man....

At this point Biden's been sworn in, so I think he's the president if they don't make the noon deadline. Maybe that was his clever plan all along.

Itzhak Perlman looks like Antonin Scalia.

Quartet playing in front of a large group of heavily armed men...

It is accomplished....

Revered Lowery was awesome.

And Obama gave a tough speech. This was not a namby pamby bit of stagecraft.

OH YEAH!!!

2009-01-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

This image will remain until inauguration day - unless I find a better one - new posts below.

Crazy Stuff

2009-01-15T21:40:00.000-05:00

Blow your mind - read this.

Cool Stuff

2009-01-13T16:46:00.003-05:00

The Prado (art museum in Madrid - sort of Spain's Louvre) teams up with Google Earth to put 10 GIGApixel images online of their collection.

Some great stuff there, though not much available yet - check out the Goya when you get a chance (here or anywhere - astonishing ability to depict light).

Initial page here.

Kept the home fires burning...

2009-01-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

(I started writing this several weeks ago but haven't gotten back to it until now - pictures will be posted in a separate post)

So, as a couple of you know, we got smacked by the ice storm that wandered through last month (12/11), and boy did it suck. We lost power Friday morning about 2:00am and it was restored Monday night about 11:00pm - about 4 days of total outage. (lots of people in MA and especially NH were without power for weeks)

The full details follow...

Thursday night was drizzly and cold, and around 9:00pm I went outside to see what was going on. It was bad and seemingly getting worse. The rain was freezing to the trees and other vegetation and starting to make the trees sag. I glanced up at the imposing pine that stands next to our house (it's well on its way to 80 feet tall, possibly more) and noticed that the top of it was sagging over towards our house. Back in the house, I suggested to Faith that we not sleep in our bedroom as I feared something bad might happen during the night with the pine. She was highly dubious of my fear, but I convinced her to sleep in the guest room on the other side of the house (a few short feet away, but seemingly less likely to suffer a direct hit). I went down and laid on the couch.

I can't recall a more terrifying night in my life. Shortly after turning off the lights the sounds of the suffering trees started. Big loud cracks followed by a shimmering crash like a brush on a snare drum. The trees had begun to lose their the battle with the ice. I got up regularly and looked out the bathroom window, especially after one sounded especially close. Nearly every time I saw the small pine at the top of our driveway drop a limb. A pile of them had been started over the steps/walk that lead down to our house. And often in the distance sounds of more and more limbs cracking under the weight.

Needless to say, sleep was impossible. Between the eerie cracks and my fear that the big pine would drop some major chunk of itself directly on us. Every time there was a groan nearby, I waited with a sense of dread for the giant crack that I thought would proceed the catastrophe. And eventually it came, sort of. Some decent sized chunk of the pine broke of, glanced of the house and make a humongous racket. Everything seemed ok, but my fears had been justified. The threat was real.

The next big event was the power going off, proceeded by what seemed like a pretty big boom in the distance. Whether they were related, I doubt now in hindsight, but it seemed pretty reasonable at the time. This was about 2:00am. Little changed with the loss of power - I was laying in the dark anyway - and the trees continued their ominous demise. There was one other chunk of the pine that came down against the house, again without significant damage. Things calmed a bit as 4:00am rolled around and I managed to doze off until about 6:30am.

Friday morning dawned wet and ominous with clouds. The forecast was for heavy rain most of the day. I threw on some clothes and headed outside to survey the damage. The walk up to the street was entirely blocked by branches and a thick coating of frozen pine needles. I grabbed the camera and took some shots with flash (it was still dark out) but it loses some of the impact. I then proceeded to throw the branches into the driveway and shovel the icy needles off the steps. Once I could get up to the street I could survey the damage a little better. The little pine mentioned above was decimated, and large chunks of it were suspended amongst its brethren and the power/cable wires that run through it. Trees were down everywhere, and my neighbors were out so I wandered over to find that one of the trees between our yards had fallen entirely over and poked a hole in their house. In the scheme of things it could have been much worse, but still, a full sized tree had fallen over at the roots and landed on their house. On the other side of me, the former home of the rope swing, a large maple, had also fallen over from the roots, though this time into the lake. It was not a healthy tree, and the ground at the edge of the lake is not the most stable, but still - it was one of a very few deciduous trees that suffered major damage.

With no power, but thankfully no holes in the house, I decided to go to work. I figured that I'd leave early and try to track down some means of keeping the house warm for whatever period of time we remained without power. News radio (NPR) painted a pretty bleak picture, with hundreds of thousands of people without power in MA and NH and the prospects for a quick return of power pretty slim.

Work was uneventful, spent finishing up some issues and checking the status of the power restoration. Our local utility maintains a website listing the outages by county and city. At the start of my checking my town had about 2000 households without power and over the next couple of hours it steadily dropped before rising again. It continued to rain all day and I dreaded the coming freeze and wind that was forecast. It seemed like unless the trees could shed most of the built-up ice before the wind came, another round of disaster was coming.

I stopped at Home Depot on the way home to get either some sort of propane heater or generator to help to keep the house warm. Of course, everything was gone, which left me with my backup plan, namely to hook up an old wood-burning stove that had been in our basement and which I had recently lugged outside so a neighbor could take it away. Lucky for us, he had been too lazy to get it done. I got home about 4pm with a little bit of daylight left to get the stove hooked back up, though prepared with headlamp and candles if things didn't go as planned. Faith and Primus were headed to warm and lighted environs while I kept the home fires burning.

The stove is insanely fucking heavy, made entirely of cast iron. It's so heavy and dense that I can barely slide it across the floor. What I have to do is remove as many parts as possible (doors, grates, internal fireblocks) and flip the thing end over end back into the house and into place. The parts I got at HD were the wrong ones, but luckily HD had power, so out I went. Back with the right parts, hooking up the flue was a relative cinch and getting the fire started would have made an Eagle Scout weep (1 match, no problem). Thus began the endless night...

Being without power is similar to camping, it always seems later than it actually is, and my job was basically to keep the fire going as well as possible until the power came back on. It was about 50 degrees in the house and I had hopes of maintaining it that way as long as possible with the temperature outside set to drop into the teens with a stiff breeze. Simple physics might indicate that keeping the house above 32 degrees would be enough, but that doesn't account for the wild variations is insulation throughout the house. One little break in the thermal envelope allowing 18 degree air hit a water pipe and boom - catastrophe. Add to that the fact that our heating system is radiant tubing running under all of the floors in the house and you've got a lot of piping to worry about. Thus the goal of 50 degrees.

I set up a makeshift bed on the floor and begasn my vigil. Having slept almost zero the night before, going to bed early was no problem, but I needed to wake up fairly often to check the fire. So, I'd sleep an hour or so, wake up and stoke the fire back to life. Luckily we'd accumulated a decent amount of firewood (used outdoors in the summer) from various limbs that had fallen and scraps of remodelling projects. It was all outside and wet from the days rain and snow, but entirely usable. Every few hours I'd go outside and get another batch of firewood.

And what a glorious night it was. Crisp and cold, with a humongouns full moon. It was extraordinary, except for one major detractor. Half a dozen of my neighbors had generators humming, creating an unbelievable racket on what could have been a magical moment, even given the circumstances. Had it been as quiet as it is when the power is on, but without the distracting street lights, it would have been amazing. Even with the racket, it was pretty remarkable.

Keeping the fire going strong was a pain, and meant another night of horrible sleep. Truly, the lesson of Castlevania proved true again (day has come to vanquish the horrible night). But I did manage to warm things up a little in the house, up to as much as 55 at one point. Still, night was a drag, and I was hoping for a little morale boost from the coming of dawn.

Saturday morning meant a visit to Faith and Primus, a shower and a warm meal. Good stuff, but I couldn't be gone long lest the temperature drop. Saturday was the worst day for weather that were supposed to face, with temps in the 20s and strong winds. Sunday was supposed to warm to the 40s and Monday was also supposed to be good as well. This was going to be the real test.

Almost a month later I really don't remember what I did all day. Primus and Faith stopped by, Primus spending a good portion of the day dozing in front of the fire. I also dozed, my body trying to catch up on lost sleep. Things stayed on target in the house, evening loomed, and Primus and Faith returned to warmer/brighter environs. Another evening spent camping in the house.

One interesting wrinkle to our specific situation...most people have plumbing systems that do not rely on electricity other than to create hot water perhaps. Water and sewer are gravity systems. While our water is a gravity system (all the cold water I could ask for), our sewer is via a pair of pumps in a septic chamber in the front yard. It has some capacity, but its not unlimited, so my flushing had to be greatly regulated. I basically 'let it mellow' and tried to avoid #2 altogether. Not great for a man who is as regular as an English train. Luckily, I had almost no appetite.

Saturday night wasn't as 'glorious' as Friday night had been, and I struggled to wake up often enough to keep the fire going. Even going two hours meant I woke to embers (since it's a wood burning stove you can't put giant logs on it and walk away - plus it's indoors) and had to stoke it back to life, usually a 20 minute ordeal, before I could return to sleep. I had also made a more comfortable bed on the floor and that made sleeping longer easier for better or worse. Even still, the temperature in the house stayed near 50.

Sunday was supposed to be relatively warm - well above freezing. After a respite from the house for a shower and hot meal I returned to fan the flames. In between monitoring the fire I spent time gathering, dragging and piling up the limbs and brush in the yard. The limb poking out of our shed was frozen in pretty well so unless it got a lot warmer, it was going to stay. Luckily, almost nothing in our shed was likely to be significantly damaged by getting wet, because it was we in there. The shed has always been a project on the list anyway, now it just moved closer to the top. This spring would likely bring a tear down and reconstruct - and like the Six Million Dollar Man, it would be even better than before, minus the sound effects.

Sunday evening I snuck out again for a warm meal, but returned to continue the saga. Looking out the window at one point I was sure that there were lights on up a nearby street, or maybe it was just the consequence of someone's generator. It wasn't clear. At about nine pm, after a few more times looking at that light in the distance I decided to take a walk through the neighborhood and see if things were different.

My block is pretty short, and there are about 6 lots to the first cross street that runs up and over a hill and out of the neighborhood. In stark contrast to the houses on the lake itself, the houses up that hill are McMansion-y, with big lots, big garages and big houses. As I drew near to the corner it was clear that the street lights were on up the hill, and once at the corner I could see actual house lights, and yes, even Christmas lighs shining brightly just a few hundred yards from my dark and cold house. Oof. But maybe some hope. Could it be that they were working in the neighborhood? Is it possible that our power comes from the street?

I headed out of the neighborhood via the other street that leads to civilization, and it remained dark. Dark until I got to another of the newer developments, a little tangle of streets tucked in between the hill mentioned above, and the original access to our neighborhood. The streets were brightly lit and the Christmas lights were twinkling. Even worse than my situation, people whose houses were back to back were in very different situations. A few dozen steps separated the world of light and the world of dark. And those damn Christmas lights. A word of warning to future power outage-ees. If your power comes back on, and your neighbor's doesn't....leave your Christmas lights off. It's a slap to the face of those who would kill for a light to pee by, let alone the luxurious lights of celebration.

So it was clear now how the power got to my house, along several dark streets leading to the artery street that feeds this part of town. It was fully lit, but turn down the road towards me and all remained dark, and even worse, there was no evidence of utility workers at all, so I resigned myself to another night of darkness (though with some hope for tomorrow) and returned to my quiet and cool basement eistence. It was still warm though, and not forecasted to drop below freezing all night, so my fire vigil was even slacker than the night before. I even slept part of the night on the couch upstairs.

Monday came, and I schlepped to work with hopes that I might return to the light. Towards the end of the day I heard via Faith from a neighbor that we remained without power but the neighbor was back on the grid, and several of the neighbors were invited over for dinner and some commiseration. So from work I headed home to check things out and then over to the neighbor's for a nice meal and a few beers. No one had any real information about when we might get power back, but it seemed like they were zeroing in on our little enclave. At nine o'clock I was back at home to grab some stuff, but was planning to spend the night with Faith and Primus back in civilization. Again the weather was cooperating and it was forecasted to remain above freezing all night and into tomorrow.

As I got home I noticed a utility truck down the street and wandered down to chat up the workers. I inquired innocently as to their schedule, and the guy came back joking about weeks. HILARIOUS! Lucky for him I was understanding enough to know he'd probably been working almost non-stop for days and so was not deserving of my spite. That and the beers and the prospect of light returning to the neighborhood buoyed my spirits. These guys were charged with basically making sure that everything was in place, clearing the easy limbs, and preparing to put power back into the grid. I was a bit nervous that they weren't going to be able to finish our neighborhood as the little pine at the top of our driveway really needed some work, and the limbs were a tangled mess and laying directly on the wires. They did what they could and drove away. At this point I didn't have much hope for that night and headed off to join the family.

Once ensconced in the glow of humanity I couldn't resist the opportunity to call home on the off chance that our answering machine was back on - the sign that civilization had returned to our house. And holy shit, it answered! We had power! 11:00pm Monday night, after 93 hours (3 hours short of 4 days - which somehow sounds longer) we were back on the grid. I threw some clothes back on and headed home (not to sleep) to make sure that everything was as it should be. What lights were on? Was the heat back on? Etc. I'd actually taken the opportunity of the power outage on both Saturday and Sunday to replace some light switches in the house - both to kill time between fire stokings and to take advantage of the powerlessness.

Once convinced that what was on that should be on, what was off should be off I returned to the family (it was still very cold in our house and we might not have hot water by the morning) and got the best night of sleep that I'd had since Wednesday night the previous week. Ahhhhhhh. I returned to the house first thing the next morning and things were humming fine. And after work that night, life returned to normal....

Advantage of losing power in the winter - food in your fridge doesn't spoil as long as you stay out of it.
Disadvantage - mostly the potential for frozen pipes, something that we got super lucky avoiding, especially since other than Saturday the weather was pretty warm.

Another project to add to the list - adding a generator and transfer switch so that we can join the ranks of the loud, but bright and warm. (actually the newer generators are not especially loud).

Quite an adventure. Much more pleasant than catastrophic flooding, and never did I feel threatened other than the night of the ice storm itself. The rest was just inconvenient, but also occasionally fun.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Alive and rehashing

2009-01-08T19:28:00.003-05:00

Courtesy of old D.

1. Where is your cell phone? cupholder
2. Your significant other? knitting
3. Your job? buildings
4. Shoes you are wearing? socks
5. Your father? missed
6. Your favorite thing? laughing
7. Your dream last night? ephemeral
8. Your favorite drink? beer
9. Your dream/goal? hmmm
10. Room you're in now? comfy
11. Your fear? heights
12. Where you want to be in 6 years? happy
13. Where you were last night? upstairs
14. What you are not? macho
15. Muffins? meh
16. One of wish list items? hybrid
17. Where did you grow up? college
18. The last thing you did? shat
19. What you are wearing? flannel
20. Your TV? large
21. Your pet? superlative
22. Your computer? indipensable
23. Your life? ongoing
24. Your mood? contented
25. Missing someone? sure
26. Your car? Matrix
27. Something you are not wearing? thong
28. Favorite store? pizzeria
29. Favorite color? varies
30. Favorite place? Itlay
31. Last time you laughed? car
32. Last time you cried? recently
33. Who will/would repost this? Stephen
34. Four places I go over and over again? (a) work (b) airport (c) home (d) out
35. Four people who email me? (a) hucksters (b) Dan (c) coworkers (d) you?
36. Four favorite foods?(a) pizza (b) Indian (c) peaches (d) chocolate
37. Four places I would rather be right now?(a) exploring (b) hoopin' (c) Italy (d) visiting
38. Four people you think will respond?(a) Stephen (b) Dan (c) Aaron (d) MT

More content here coming soon...

The Days After

2008-12-06T20:51:00.002-05:00

Along with everyone who reads this blog, I was extremely invested in the outcome of the election, and with it having turned out as hoped for, I haven't had much to say in this forum.

With no real desire to scrutinize or criticize cabinet appointments (and not out of some irrational deference for the president elect) and nothing especially insightful or urgent to say about the financial collapse, I really haven't had anything to say. Call it the pause after a deep and satisfying sigh.

With that said, I might as well throw a couple things out there...

More than anything about the next four (or eight) years I look forward to competent people acting in good faith running our country. They'll fuck up and do things I don't think are right, but at least they won't be doing so out of specific desire to screw people or because they think that government can't work and that they should just do as much selfish shit as possible before someone catches them. That is how I regard the last eight years.

People need to be held responsible for this financial disaster. This was ENTIRELY avoidable. Assholes that spent the last decade earning 8 figure salaries, predicated on a house of cards built on a cliff in front of a raging wildfire - they need to fucking go to jail. The assholes that facilitated the dismantling of the regulatory framework that protected us from this sort of calamity need to be discredited, or publicly apologize for being so FUCKING wrong.

The world is a pretty fucked up place. Human civilization, when measured across the long scope of our history, could be charted as a slow steady advance toward greater fairness, inclusion and tolerance. Zoom in and you'll see some periods of negative growth, significant setbacks, and amazing disregard for lessons readily available to anyone paying attention. We're at the bottom of one of those periods (I hope at the bottom), having let people with no regard for anything good about humanity in charge or in conflict with one another run the world. Hopefully a return to people that are capable of learning the lessons of history and allow for the decency of humanity setting our course again with put us back on the path to advancement.

We all deserve as much.

Star Trek vs Star Wars: The Battle Continues

2008-11-29T07:55:00.001-05:00

Great Beer Names

2008-11-22T15:47:00.002-05:00

Ale Mary Full of Taste
Slam Dunkel

From a New Yorker article on 'Extreme Brewing'.

Worth Noting

2008-11-06T17:24:00.004-05:00

Primus: nine years old as of November 1, 2008. Not to be lost in the shuffle of election excitement. Showing no evidence of slowing down and a source of unimaginable joy every single day.

On a related note, the story is that the puppy that the Obama children were promised (win or lose) is to come from a shelter. Another fine act.

My friends

2008-11-04T23:20:00.000-05:00

You make me proud.

Black Hawk County - Obama.
Johnson County - Obama
Vigo County - Obama
Hennepin County - Obama
Essex County - Obama

And the rest of my family...

Tama County - Obama
Boone County - McCain (not for lack of support)
Chafee County - ? (not reported as of the time of this writing)

Woo Hoo!!!

2008-11-04T22:26:00.001-05:00

2008-11-04T00:01:00.002-05:00

VOTE BITCHES!

T-minus 29 hours 13 minutes

2008-11-03T12:45:00.002-05:00

Polls close at 6:00pm EST in most of Indiana. We will begin to know very early.

Go Hoosiers go!

It'll be fascinating if all the states my brothers and sisters live in - IA, CO, IN, and MA all go for Obama. Sanity will have returned to the world.

The Mighty Tom Experience (MTE) - Recapitated

2008-10-29T19:04:00.003-04:00

Friday started early for me (3:50am waking) with a flight at 5:50am EDT.

Arrived Indy about 10:00am EDT (yes, we're in the same time zone - it's insane) and without any attempt at organizing a pick-up location we still 'hooked up' on the curb of the arrivals area, MT cruising in the black Windsock - our chariot of choice much of the weekend.

The hour drive back to TH and the house, followed by a tour of said house and then out for lunch at local Mexican (Real Hacienda featuring freakishly fast service - less than 5 minutes from ordering to eating). Two beers consumed by me (Dos Equis Dark), one by MT.

Friday post lunch was a general tour of the TH metropolitan area in the Windsock with special emphasis on the campus area, and picking up Molly from school. Molly, secured and reintroduced (it had been a long time) we returned to TV and took Mr Tumnus for a walk through the neighborhood. Molly was critical of my fashion sense, referring to my habit of tucking my shirt in as being 'casual' (this derisively and clearly not in quite the same sense as the rest of us use the term) and whatever initial shyness there was disappeared and she began her relentless assault on my fashion and hygiene (hilarious from the daughter of MT).

I learned of the fabled Cornacho (or is it Corn Nacho?), a nickname attributed to the many nicknamed one, after a brief flirtation with Corky - dismissed quickly one assumes for fear of Life Goes On references. Various nicknames for me floated through the weekend, starting with Second Pat, merging eventually into 2Pat and then generally fading away. Apparently nicknames don't stick to me the way they stick to others. And, of course, my last name works as a nickname quite ably.

Friday afternoon drew to a close and Trista returned from work. Some catching up was done, with me providing the soundtrack via the MTE iPod dock, and then we were all off to Mogger's for some dinner. This seems to be one of the principal food themes amongst participants in the MTE, and for good reason. Good pub food and a good tap beer selection is really almost more than one can ask for. The Gibbys stuck with Franzenkeiner (sp?) Hefeweizen (in a bottle) while I partook of a 5 beer sampler including:

Barley Island Brown (this may have been Dirty Helen as it turns out - more on 'her' later)
Brugge Black - wild stuff not unlike barley wine, though less sweet
Upland IPA - from the same folks that bring MT Upland Wheat
3 Floyds Alpha King
Breckenridge Avalanche Ale
All local Indiana brews except that last one.

There is a small side story related to an abandoned sandwich finding itself under the tire of a parked car, the result of which could only have been a flatter, sadder sandwich. The world may never know.

We returned to TV for some more low-key familial merriment, with MT, Trista and I consuming some beers as Molly continued her assault on my appearance. The beers included Upland Wheat Ale (apparently an MT favorite - the man loves his wheat ales) and a Michelob Pumpkin Spice Ale (not especially spicy, but also popular with the Gibbys - ok by my standards). The Upland Wheat was tasty, with a color almost exactly like Mt Dew. The ladies retired and MT and I continued our conversation past midnight, exploring politics and religion and assorted buffonery of days past and present. Then to bed, for some long overdue rest for me.

Saturday began with waffles, later than I'm used to getting up. The sun rises around 8:00am in those parts, at least an hour later than I'm used to, plus I had a long day the previous day. That said, waffles are done with full pomp and circumstance, including syrups of various fruit flavors and Redi-Whip. Perhaps not the breakfast of champions, but damn damn tasty.

Once sated with waffles and coffee, MT and I headed off for some frisbee golf where I was determined to sort out my difficulties with the 'new fangled' discs. MT offered to let me throw two for every one of his (we didn't keep score regardless) in order to sort out my technical difficulties. We headed around the course, with me slowly modifying my technique to adjust to the physics of the hard small discs. Still, there were many wild throws at the beginning (from both of us, though MT was pretty consistent on his drives - the man is consistent) Things went reasonably well until one hole with a big bend around some woods. My throw was long, but seemed to be fading hard into the trees by the time it came down. It's a big dog leg, so we couldn't see where it landed. 30 minutes of searching through every conceivable trajectory that would find the disc in the woods was for naught. It turns out my throw was nearly perfect, landing well away from the woods and within 25ft or so of the goal. We pulled out Occam's Razor and found it to be a bit sharper than our imaginations.

We finished up our round of golf and headed back to TV for a bite of lunch, to be followed by the real activity of the day, a trip to Turkey Run State Park for horseback riding. Both Molly and I were new to horse riding - she had ridden on ponies, I had ridden a camel - and so there was excitement in the air (and more than a hint of manure).

The paddock was empty when we arrived (the last group had not yet returned) but it wasn't long before a line of horses made their way to their clearly accustomed spots. One (MT's future mount) let forth a torrent of urine, mixing with the mud and creating a toxic muck. We were assigned our horses...MT first, then me, then Molly, then Trista followed by a dozen or so others with MT given the responsibility of leading us all (or at least riding the horse used to leading us all). He was given a stick to lightly tap the rump of his mount, the rest of us were given basic instructions in horse control and we were off, up hill and down dale, meandering along a path through the park.

Molly was a little overwhelmed by the scale of the horse, very nervous at first, but by the end of the hour she barely squeaked when her horse decided it didn't want to walk through a big mud puddle. None of them did. Almost right off the bat, MT's horse let fly a toxic tube of horsey goodness, which I of course had a front row seat for. Very smelly. I'm not sure if it was how my stirrups were configured, but almost immediately my knees were very painful, seeming to be twisted in a way that was both unnatural and unresolvable. Luckily we were only on the trail for an hour or so, otherwise I would have been in some serious pain. As it was my first step onto the ground was a bit dicey. MT has a good shot of me on the horse Dusty (pictured above, alone), but I was in no position to photograph myself.

When we were done with the horseback riding, MT had a sudden urge to follow in his horse's footsteps, as it were. After too traumatic false alarms at park amenities that ended up being locked, the three of us saw MT scampering off down some trail, seemingly into the woods to relieve an overwhelming urge. As we were to learn (or so he claims) there were indoor facilities along that path, and he was satisfied.

The trip home was uneventful, and it was decided we should have pizza (!!!), though Molly is a picky pizza eater so we opted for Little Caesars. MT and I got the pizza, it was consumed, and another evening of beer drinking and low key activity was begun. We did make a run out for more beer as IN does not allow alcohol sales on Sunday and we did not want to be without. This resulted in the acquisition of Dirty Helen Ale, a somewhat surprising ale with strong notes of coffee, but in no other way like a Porter. Dirty Helen elicited some wise cracks from the check out staff of Baesler's, another icon of the MTE.

MT and I settled in with beer and a DVD of Green Street Hooligans, a movie featuring Elijah Wood as a fish out of water amidst the violent hooligan culture of English premiere league soccer. We had planned to make copious Hobbit and LOTR references, but the movie was actually good enough that we were caught up in the story. The story was written by a former hooligan, and boy, there's good reason that they have a bad reputation. They are turds.

The evening finished up watching SNL, the first I'd seen an entire episode in a decade or so. Some decent stuff, including a commercial for John Hamm John Ham, a rolled meat product intended to meet your dietary urges while on the toilet. It definitely had a Bass-o-Matic or Super Colon Blow vibe to it. Obama Variety Half-Hour also had some moments.

Sunday was canoe day. We were headed east of Bloomington into the dark heart of Brown County, IN to canoe on the 'tributaries' of Lake Monroe. We had some cereal and stopped at Java Haute on the way out of town. It was a fair way to go, 2 hours as it turns out, skirting the edge of the IU campus and heading into the fringes of Hoosier National Forest.

We turned off the highway onto a road labeled Dead End, and we drove on. And on. And on. Pavement gave way to gravel. Various turns were made, but the dead end road went on. It may be the longest dead end on earth. At the end of that road (or nearly the end) is Brown County Canoe Rentals, run by Uncle Jesse and one of the bad guys from Deliverance (and that was a canoe trip gone horribly wrong). I shit you not. Uncle Jesse was sporting half a dozen teeth and his sidekick was almost unintelligible. What they thought of us two can only be imagined.

Uncle Jesse was having trouble with his cable, so while he was on hold Cletus put a canoe in the back of the pickup truck (a new pickup with nice graphics on the side) and organized all the paddles and life jackets. Cody, the dog, wandered about. He was referred to as CodyDog, perhaps to keep from confusing him with CodyCat. Once freed from his cable hell, Uncle Jesse gave us the low down, including two full explanations of how to exit a canoe - something that would come into play later. The put-in spot for canoeing was a little farther down the road and required the passage through a mud hole with a 'good bottom'. Uncle Jesse thought we would be up to the challenge.

Everything loaded, map in hand, fee exchanged, we headed off to the put-in. The mud hole (we were following Uncle Jesse in the Windsock) seemed innocuous enough, but watching Uncle Jesse's pickup sink to the axles AND surge up and down over clearly treacherous terrain we decided to walk the rest of the way. Uncle Jesse promised to return to pick us up, but we could see the put in spot and eventually declined, after Uncle Jesse dropped the canoe off and returned. All we had to do was leave the canoe at the put in and leave. No more contact with the hillbillies was necessary.

So there we were, bladders emptied, canoe loaded and ready to go. Always willing to let MT show off his scouting skills, I left him the rear position in the canoe for steering, while I took the power front spot. It was a big canoe, aluminum and maybe 14 ft long, probably the same size as those used on the Des Moines River trip all those years ago - though TCLog was not riding in the middle of the canoe, and MT and I were not wearing our life vests. The entry was a bit sketchy - MT pushing off and things a bit tippy as we got fully into the 'river'. The bank was steep, so the canoe tended to pivot on the points until enough of the bottom was in contact with the river.

We paddled off, down a 'river' seemingly brought into existence by the flooding of Lake Monroe. There was no current, and the channel was filled with dead trees poking menacingly above the water. The weather was cool and cloudy, but pleasant enough, and we paddled on speaking in hushed tones of the orc menace on the eastern bank, occasionally referencing that 'too clever waterman'. The only menace we saw were a small deer, great herons, some ducks, and other miscellaneous wildlife.

Salt Creek (the 'river') meanders a fairly sinuous path, with one significant branch heading to Lake Monroe and another bending back on itself and leading to what was promised as dramatic topography and a beaver dam. We headed to the beaver dam first, and while the land on either side of the river rises 250 feet it was by no means dramatic. The beaver dams started popping up everywhere. Every pile of twigs was deemed to be a genuine beaver dam, until of course, we found THE beaver dam, complete with smoking chimney and cockney accented beaver couple. Then, of course, even more things were referred to as beaver dams, which may or may not have led to more LOTR references, and discussions of Gimli's gift from Galadriel, which we decided were pubic hairs. (imagine Gimli taking a deep sniff and shaking after - Silence of the Lambs fava bean style)

We'd picked up some Fig Newtons, peanut butter filled pretzels and water to sustain us through the day, in lieu of actually planning a meal and packing before hand. That woiuld have required more forethought than we could muster. So as we paddled, we nibbled, and once beyond the beaver dam to a blocked portion of the creek, we opted to double back to the fork and head off to Lake Monroe. It was along this stretch that we saw the fabled half-man/half-canoe (manoe) and his more conventional companion headed the opposite direction. It was also here that we saw the remains of the once fabled civiliation of the Hillbilloreans in the form of the stone foundations of a once great bridge across Salt Creek.

The sun had come out and brought a stiff breeze with it, but we paddled on to Lake Monroe. We never got there. It just seemed that the topo map we had was not quite right with respect to the water level. We should have gotten to a wider portion that would be lake-like, but it never happened. If only we'd gone around one more bend.... But we turned back, encountering the fable manoe again and retracing our steps back to our starting point, and this is where the fun really began.

As we rounded the bend to our destination (the actual bridge featured above), and after debating in my mind for a while, I opted to put my camera back in the zip-lock bag we'd brought for that purpose. After our shaky entry into the creek I just didn't want to risk the possibility of a calamity destroying my camera, and OH BOY was I right to listen to my inner pessimist. As we neared the spot, we swung wide and gave mighty strokes so as to get as much of the canoe onto the shore as possible. I'd say we got a good 5 or so feet onto land, including me in the front. And then we started to tip left. I mangaged to step out and onto the ground in an effort to right things, but it was still going over and a quick glance back showed MT completely out of the canoe and thrashing in Salt Creek. I was in mud but otherwise dry. The canoe wasn't underwater, but it was pretty full. MT thrashed himself ashore with a mighty yell and climbed up the bank. I gave a shout of 'BUFFOONERY!!!' that echoed through the forest, and then got down to rescuing the few items we had in the canoe. Thankfully, the camera was both safe in the zip-lock bag, and also in the dry end of the canoe. Almost everything else was floating in the back.

MT was drenched, head to toe. We got everything out of the canoe, speaking in amazement about what had transpired, and reflecting back on the words of Uncle Jesse. We hadn't even had a chance to implement his strategy for exiting the canoe. Damn fool city folk. We got the water out of the canoe and all of the items provided to us arranged in way that might mean they'd dry before our foolishness was made legend, and headed back to the Windsock, MT in shock about finding himself in the creek and unable to touch the bottom, and perhaps worse, getting a mouthful of the creek.

View Larger Map
All told, we did about 10 miles of canoeing in 4+ hours (using the measurement tool in the map above)

The Canoe Terminator.................Witch.......T & Mr. T.......Fire___Gooooooood

Mostly the ride home was occasional amazement of MT about his recent watery predicament, though we had a stretch of work talk and the usual dose of iPod on shuffle. The shuffle provided us with no end of Paul McCartney (as you might expect from the collection of MT) but also a surprising large amount of Peter Gabriel over the 4 days. We got back around dinner time and trista cooked up a fine meal of pasta and salad. Molly showed us off her witch costume and we all got ready to sit around the fire pit in the back yard.

MT whipped up a roaring blaze, then helped Molly track down some materials for a project for school (moss, twigs, etc). Everyone was outside for a while but the wind whipped up and a little rain started to fall. The girls went in and MT and I stuck it out for a bit, beer in hand, and a little multimedia project to work on (more on this from MT at some future date). We eventually retired to the indoors and wasted the night away doing some history of rock and roll watching, and beer drinking of course.

Monday started with no real plan. The thought was to squeeze in some athletic activities (basketball, football, maybe some more frisbee golf), some more pizza, retrieving Molly from school, and then off to the airport. We succeeded at all of the above, but not without some tangents, starting with our lack of frisbee golf discs, those having been left in the Windsock which Trista had taken to work leaving MT with the borrowed Taurus (so we might travel the roads of TH incognito, free from the terrors of Brown). We decided to start with bball and fball and deal with the missing frisbee discs when the time came.

MT and I have a long history of playing basketball together, but very little history of one on one matchups. Without much of a tradition we opted for the game to 30 by 2s and 3s. It began pretty evenly, with neither of us showing any spark, but soon MT launched into a solid lead around 15-8. I managed to get it back to a one point game but MT ran away again amassing a 27-18 lead. Things looked bad for me, and a bit worse after MT gouged a good chunk out of my right ring finger. We took a timeout so I could staunch the bleeding, but that proved generally unsuccessful. It slowed at least to a point of allowing uninhibited play (I basically stuck my finger in my mouth between plays and during transitions). The timeout proved a boon to me as I stormed back to win 30-27. Woo hoo! We grabbed the football after that and threw for a while as MT's ball slowly lost air. It seems to have a slow leak that needs some attention. Football didn't last long and then we decided to retrieve the frisbee discs from the Windsock, forcing MT to enter the lair of the dragon (he'd called in sick).

We drove onto the campus and checked out the easily accessible parking lots, the ones MT thought Trista would have parked in. No luck. MT sent me on foot to look in a more 'dangerous' location closer to the heart of darkness, but again no luck. After doubling back through the lots we headed home thinking maybe Trista had gone home for lunch. She had not. So MT called her and found out the actual location of the car and we were off again. The number of trips I made to and from the ISU campus is beyond comprehension, and this day we were really racking up the miles. We secured the discs and decided to get some lunch before hitting the links. We struck out at two local pizza places and ended up at Pizza Hut, a place of much historical buffoonery to be sure, but not quite the local flavor we were hoping for.

Too much cheese and bread later we were finally back at the course, but with only 35 minutes until we had to get Molly. We played the first half briskly, with little in the way of drama. I had really sorted out the worst of my throwing problems, but my short game is still pretty weak. By the last 5 or 6 holes we were jogging between throws, and by the last whole there were some good sprints. Nonetheless we got done in time and made our way to the pickup, collected Molly, and returned home so I could shower and collect my stuff.

All that was left was the trip to the airport, back in the Windsock, and our farewells. The rest of mt trip was the usual airport nonsense, though I did end up on the same plane as a coworker and her husband from DC to Manchester. They had been in Ohio for the weekend. After some maintenance issues and the drive home from the airport I got home around 1:00am EDT Tuesday morning, with few short hours before I needed to rise for work.

Worth every tired minute that followed.

NSFW but very funny

2008-10-28T18:00:00.002-04:00

Royal Shakespeare Company reads celebrity sex tape dialogue.

The stock market

2008-10-28T15:57:00.001-04:00

The recent ups and downs of the stock market remind me of this line from Airplane:

He's all over the place, 900 feet, up to 1300 feet . . .
what an asshole.

Stock traders - yes you are the asshole.

Next Up...Haute Cuisine

2008-10-21T12:02:00.002-04:00

Terre Haute that is...

Friday begins the 4 day Mighty Tom Experience (from here on MTE).

Hiding from functionaries and eating Sunday dinner with the family may or may not be on the agenda - unless he saves that sort of stuff for the Clog.

Hilarity will ensue.

The Trip

2008-10-20T09:13:00.003-04:00

Beautiful weekend for a drive - crisp, cool, sunny - everything that fall aspires to be.

Lots of good food was consumed, from the ridiculous to the sublime, mostly leaning towards the latter, and taking advantage of a streak of local food culture in VT.

Much beer was consumed, though spread out over the three days, so no real drunkeness was involved. See almost complete beer list below - check out the ABV on some of the Stone Brewery options. That's some heady stuff.

Burlington seems to be the nexus of all the stereotypes of Vermont, minus the cows. Between the upwardly mobile NJ/NY parents and seasonal guests, and the great unwashed pseudo-hippy masses, it makes for an interesting cultural dichotomy. I was missing a scraggly beard and dirty knit cap to make myself fit in, since I really don't sport the upeardly mobile parent look.

Various Beers:

These consumed at American Flatbread in Burlington, VT.
Stone Brewing (San Diego)
Ruination IPA
Arrogant Bastard Ale
Imperial Russian Stout
Vertical Epic 2007
American Flatbread is almost exactly like the place we had our rehearsal dinner at, for those that participated in that pizza fest. I'm not sure why they feature a San Diego beer with so many local options available, but it was tasty stuff.

Magic Hat - consumed at the brewery itself after a tour.
Lucky Kat Irresistible Pale Ale
Roxy Rolles Amber Ale
Pre-Prohibition Lager
Magic Hat is a local favorite, with their Circus Boy Hefeweizen being my favorite hw.

Other miscellaneous beers consumed:
Dogfish Head IPA (not sure if I had the 60, 90 or 120 minute version)

We stopped in Montpelier on the way home. It feels like a state capital circa 1840. It's a tiny town nestled in a narrow valley, with the most prominent building by far being the state capitol with its glittering gold dome. The town is smaller than the ISU campus, and features a small satellite pseudo-hippy culture.

Primus got several trips to a great dog park, an experience unavailable to us here, where she was overwhelmed by her canine options. She has a funny habit of acting as the referee in other dogs interactions - running up to two dogs that are tussling and barking at the dog that seems to be dominating. On Sunday morning before the drive home, she had her last opportunity and after about 45 minutes of running around she'd had enough and willing got back in the car for a nap.

Debatabloggin' - kickin' it live!

2008-10-15T20:33:00.022-04:00

27 minutes until it begins. What will we see? Do you have the constitution to make it into a drinking game?

Every time McCain says 'My Friends' - sip.
If he says POW - drink.
If he looks Obama in the face and says Wright or Ayers - chug, and hold on tight.

If Obama says 'look' - drink
If he mentions his Kenyan father - chug
If he brings up Keating - switch to whiskey.

More soon....
...
Sort of sleepy...this better be EXCITING!
...
What if it were a presidential masturbate?
...
John McCain settling in oddly - may have ants in his pants...also his weird shoulder thing is awkward in EVERY position. Going for the black and white look - maybe a bit of nostalgia on his part.
...
Obama sporting a flag lapel pin. McCain soft out of the gate - perhaps trying to out Obama Obama.
...
None of these candidates will ask each other questions - that would be INSANE.
...
Some plumber in Ohio will be saved by McCain. With McCain's help perhaps Joe the Plumber will be able to get pants that stay up.
...
Sitting that close, I'd be drawing distracting doodles on my note pad to try to get in the other guy's head.
...
The Ireland cannard - why aren't all businesses moving there? They have good beer, bad weather, and far fewer bombs than before.
...
John McCain reflects on life during the depression...across the board spending freeze is INSANE...the effects of doing so mean tons of job losses.
...
John McCain knows how to do stuff, he just keeps it to himself. I seem to remember futile discussions in elementary school that ended in someone claiming to know stuff but otherwise refusing to give any details, thuse rendering their claim somewhat dubious.
...
John McCain is actually looking at Obama. Too bad this is the last debate.
...
McCain getting a little pissy. Not mentioning one economic policy he opposed of the Bush Administration.
...
Oooh...are you willing to say the same crap to their face...ohhh but it's all Obama's fault because he wouldn't debate him all summer long. What? John Lewis...McCain as George Wallace...brings a tear to JSM's eye. Public financing...Obama spending most money since Watergate? What?
...
Obama pivots to the American people rather than bitching. Good move. Taking the high road, though perhaps some might think he's avoiding the issue. All seems like the right thing to do to me.
...
McCain is completely unable to sustain a point over the length of his time limit. He is a TERRIBLE debater. He bounces from idea to idea hoping to score points.
...
AYERS!!! Boo YAH! ACORN!!! zang! It's all out there now.
...
Obama comes back with facts...McCain comes back with 'facts'. McCain is throwing all of the nasty out on the table...but then whiplashing back to some nonsense about his campaign being about the economy and Obama raising taxes. My neck still hurts.
...
Running mates...McCain is bound to mention her Maverickness, and possibly in those terms...wait for it...Obama stalling puffing up Joe Biden.

Sarah Palin is NOT POPULAR with 'Americans'. She has a net negative favorability rating, and not even close. But she does know autism is a problem...WTF? Man my neck hurts. How does he make these changes of direction without stopping for a drink?

Obama pivoting to spending issues related to healthcare vis a vis autism funding.
...
RAISE YOUR TAXES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
...
Onto to energy and climate change/control whatever
NAFTA!!! Canadian oil EH?

Clean safe plentiful - nuclear powered ships.

Clean coal - so clean you can whitewash a fence with it. Take it away Tom Sawyer!

Obama comes back with rationality. McCain mostly sputters, shooting out as many points as possible - incoherently or not.

Drill baby...ok maybe not. We'll look at it NOW!

Free trader or free TRAITOR?

The fist is out. Columbians are teh awesome, helping us keep drugs from the unwitting youth of America, who apparently are being strapped down and forced to use drugs by people who are not Columbians. DAMN YOU non-Columbians!

And back to energy...and then back to restricting trade and raising taxes.
...
Healthcare: controlling cost and increasing access are not mutually exclusive.

Screw this healthcare crap - more on the Columbian Free Trade Agreement.

Now for the McCain bamboozlement...we need to have each of you facing down the insurance companies on your own...and buying insurance as a group of 1. And more from Joe the Plumber.

Joe the Plumber will be the best boss ever.

And now explaining the bamboozlement...you're all screwed.
...
Big government at its BEST! Who doesn't want that? What we don't like is big government at its worst.

I have good insurance. No one at my employer has taken advantage of the non-existent hair-plug benefit.

John McCain will screw you - really. Listen to the otherwise insane US Chamber of Commerce.
...
Roe vs Wade...ugh..litmus tests bad...though a litmus test by any other name would still give you Alito/Scalia.

The gang of 14 was a terrible idea. The filibuster is a terrible idea. John McCain is a bad idea.

'Strict adherence to the constitution' is the world's loudest dog whistle. And another name for the Republican litmus test.

Obama going into the difficult place of abortion. Not explaining it well, but giving it a college try.

Lilly Ledbetter - that's a good one. Yellow Ledbetter is a good Pearl Jam song. Apparently treating women fairly is a trial lawyer's dream.

Oooh...McCain going into the born alive controversy...wow...he truly is leaving it all out there.

Obama up to the challenge...again.
...
Once again, goes for the high ground with reducing unwanted pregnancy. McCain on the other hand goes straight into the gutter, demeaning the 'health of the mother'.
...
Next question...education...why do we suck?

hard for the bad typist that is me to type and watch McCain's goofy looks when Obama is talking, so I'm essentially listening to this on the radio...just a 47" radio!

McCain - education is a civil right, but he will likely place all of the blame on the Teacher's Union. Let's send all kids to school in the suburbs. If you can't fix schools, don't even try.

McCain really has almost no concrete plans, or at least doesn't know many details of 'his' plans.

Bad teachers? Or just more mediocre teachers, like virtually all of those that taught at WHS.

Parents don't want their children to suck. On this we can degree. DC is another one of those places, like Alaska, that isn't like anywhere else.

McCain managed to remain lucid on the education issue, inexplicably. Though he still veered into Palin/special needs with little regard for sanity.

VOUCHERS!!!

CHARTERS!!!

Because of McCain's shoulder issues, watching him write is like watching someone in theater performing in front of a huge audience, weirdly exaggerated and melodramatic.
...
Closing statements.

McCain is disliked by everyone in both parties - on this we can agree.

You cannot trust this shifty dark guy sitting next to me.

There's a long line of McCain's, and maybe one too many.

Obama - Washington sucks, but W and JSM suck more.

Fundamental change. The fundamentals of our change are strong. Or in crisis. Or something.

Much better about talking to the camera than JSM.

Appealing to everyone's better angels, just like a terrorist. Shifty bastard!

Good night...and good lunch.

Bob Schieffer's mom grew up in an era when women couldn't vote, since Bob is 6000 years old.

Tonight's Debate - NOW!

2008-10-15T12:55:00.000-04:00

Something new here...part 27

2008-10-15T09:43:00.002-04:00

Nothing especially new going on...though we are headed to VT this weekend to celebrate our anniversary, and taking the dog along. A surprising number of hotels in the Burlington area allow dogs with no fuss. I actually didn't believe the website, so I called yesterday to confirm with an actual person. Her response was the functional equivalent of 'duh', as if asking the question was bizarre. Should be fun. Burlington has tons of cool stuff, including Magic Hat Brewery, and Ben and Jerry's, along with a funky/hip college town vibe, and even several dog parks. The leaves that far north will be passing or past their peak and it's supposed to be cool (low 50's but sunny) all weekend.

Alas, we're not likely to experience the infamous 'pizza button', but we'll make up for it somehow.

My friend Miles (who never updates his blog) created a map of his favorite VT places to help define an agenda.

Note the sign to the right

2008-10-08T08:26:00.002-04:00

Photo without caption

2008-10-07T10:22:00.002-04:00

It's worth seeing it as large as possible to see the content of the raft.

Big honkin' TV

2008-10-06T12:12:00.003-04:00

We pulled the trigger on our TV purchase, a 47" LCD. The size is staggering, but man, seeing the beginning of FOTR (I haven't had time to sit through the whole thing...yet) HOLY CRAP.

In our larger remodeling project we had set aside a chunk of wall for this thing, and I've done everything feasible to make all of the wires go away. Right now it's just hooked up to our super-basic cable ($11/month which apparently includes some basic digital channels, which I didn't know) and a DVD player, but at some point will also be hooked up to a computer, giving us the ability to watch streaming Netflix, YouTube yada yada yada. No wires are visible.

I did hook up a computer in a less than permanent fashion to it and streamed a portion of the third Pirates of the Caribbean from Netflix and while the image didn't fill the whole screen it was easily the equivalent of a 37" screen or so, and looked great.

The clarity of actual high definition channels I find a bit disconcerting at this point, but seeing some of the various nature shows on HD PBS last night was sweet. God help my free time.

This beast replaces a 12 year old 27" tube tv, which will continue its existence in our household, but will likely get little use. When we had one tv (every minute of our life together up until Saturday), we rarely found a reason to wish we had two. Nothing on tv was so important that we NEEDED to each be watching something simultaneously.

The beginning of the end and the end of the beginning

2008-10-01T10:12:00.003-04:00

Five weeks from yesterday we vote. Things are looking good. Almost unbelievably good after the two weeks that followed the Republican National Convention. Thanks to an economy on the verge of collapse and the vaudeville act that has been the McCain/Palin campaign we are on the verge, though of course things could change again.

What will happen over the next 5 weeks?

A shit storm of nasty overt and covert attacks, increasing in their intensity right up to election day. McCain and his supporters are going to scratch and claw up to the last minute. It is going to be ugly. Really, really ugly.

There are entrenched interests that see their free ride coming to an end and they have nothing to lose throwing everything onto the fire.

Hopefully the 5 weeks will pass quickly.

Trancript of Palin Debate Prep

2008-09-27T13:00:00.004-04:00

R FBI Agent: I'll tell you what sir, from now on you'll be uh, Homer Thompson at Terror Lake. (Homer nods) When I say hello Mr. Thompson you'll say "hi."

Homer: Check.

R FBI Agent: Hello Mr. Thompson(Homer stares blankly at him.).....remember now, your name is Homer Thompson.

Homer: I gotcha.

R FBI Agent: Hello Mr. Thompson(Homer stares blankly at him. Agents look at each other.)

(Much later, the conversation is still going on.)

R FBI Agent: Urrrh, now when I say, "Hello Mr. Thompson" and press down on your foot you smile and nod.

Homer: No problem.

R FBI Agent: Hello Mr. Thompson (RFBI presses down on homer's foot.)

Homer: (leans over to LFBI.) I think he's talking to you. (RFBI hits his forehead.)

I'll say right now - there will be no debate with Biden and Palin. I'm not sure the mechanism for avoiding it, but there will be some sort of justification for her not being able to participate.

Nothing to see here.

2008-09-26T15:36:00.001-04:00

What the fuck?

2008-09-24T21:09:00.003-04:00

John McCain suspends his campaign.

Barney Frank calls it the longest hail Mary in the history of football...and Marys. (I'm hoping he included the pregnant pause)

And so Bush wastes 15 minutes of time 'explaining' the situation, mostly placing the blame on stupid poor Americans who got themselves wrapped up in mortgages they couldn't afford.

He also says that he doesn't believe in principal that bad companies should be saved from their own bad decisions. Correct. He does believe that the people that RUN bad companies should be rescued from their mistakes. He has to. It's the story of his entire life.

David Letterman does a nine-minute spit take...released early from tonight's broadcast.

Words

2008-09-24T08:09:00.002-04:00

Fascinating podcast here talking to a guy who read the entire Oxford English Dictionary, all 59 million words, in a year.

Several great words from the podcast.

For those of us that participated in various acts of collective buffoonery:

constult - to act stupidly together

To describe the George W Bush

bayard - confidence due to ignorance

What a vile woman.

2008-09-23T23:01:00.000-04:00

Republican Platform 2008

2008-09-23T22:59:00.002-04:00

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself.

Really. That was agreed to less than one month ago.

Too...much...irony......brain shorting...

The Turtle Saga

2008-09-22T10:41:00.006-04:00

The people who read this know about the snapping turtle that lays eggs in our yard every year. This year, I thought she had checked the place out, but it didn't appear that she had actually laid any eggs. Well, apparently she did, and yesterday afternoon they emerged from their buried home of 90 days and made their way to the lake.

If you're a 2 inch long snapping turtle, the path from nest to lake is a mind-boggling one, comprised of death defying drop after death defying drop, and one presumes, some threat of predators. Lucky for this batch, a pair of benevolent humans felt sorry for them and helped them on their way.

Less content, more linking

2008-09-15T11:27:00.002-04:00

Podcast talking about why music from the 80's was so bad...

They do get into bands that were good from the 80's, and an hour is not enough time to cover them all, but still, a funny discussion with plenty to entertain and annoy.

Especially for those of us whose musical taste evolved during that era...

Not just the look, but the voice...

2008-09-14T12:00:00.001-04:00

Tina Fey IS Sarah Palin, without the downside.

And for something meatier...

Palin is the love child of Dick Cheney and W.

What to watch...

2008-09-07T09:42:00.002-04:00

If you've got a good internet connection and some time, check out this week's Daily Show available for streaming online here. It'll cost you 90 minutes to watch all four episodes.

I'm not sure I've seen them hit on all cylinders for an entire week of episodes like this batch.

They make hay of Larry Craig, 'small town values', 'choice', and uncountable layers of hypocrisy. Amazingly, both Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee come on to face down the hypocrisy.

The small town values report that ends the week is hilarious, with Republican delegates almost universally unable to define what that phrase actually means.

As a former resident of Iowa, and someone who considers himself 'from Iowa', the notion of small town values for me is definitely filled with contradictions. Many of things that epitomize small town values - hard work, helping your neighbor, etc - are worthy of praise. Others carry with them a very strong caveat, mostly that small town values are reflective of a deep homogeneity. So long as everyone thinks and does as everyone else does, small town values avoid the traps hidden in the minds of the most vocal advocates. As soon as you step outside the bounds of that stark homogeneity, watch out. The movie Pleasantville was a great rendition of this particular phenomenon.

Clearly Republicans are strong proponents of homogeneity, just look at the 8% minority attendance among delegates of the RNC (though every minority was featured prominently in the TV coverage). People who spend their entire lives in places with little or no diversity have reason to be skeptical of people who are 'different'. It's certainly natural to fear change, but to define an entire ideology around the notion that change is scary is deeply flawed.

Republicans (and Americans of all sorts) have mythologized the immediate post war era as the epitome of American greatness. As if the image of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver were the height of human aspiration. I find this concept both painfully simplistic and deeply disturbing. And much of that thinking is what is at the core of 'small town values'.

Biden smacks down

2008-09-06T12:25:00.001-04:00

Buggin' me

2008-09-05T15:21:00.005-04:00

And The Daily Show hits it out of the park.

And if that's not working...

Little livebloggin'

2008-09-04T22:50:00.015-04:00

JM - I know how the world works, just not 'the google'.

......

After 2 decades in the Senate, having given thousands of speeches, having spent 4 years running for president, I still cannot use a teleprompter.

.....

This may be the most boring night of speech making ever.

Tom Ridge delivered an exceedingly boring speech well.

Cindy McCain talks with the voice at the other end of a sex line.....and is boring.

......

"When I was young, I was a dick." like most of my audience.

......

John McCain paid a terrible price serving his country, and should be honored for all time for that service. But, he is not owed the presidency because of it.

.......

Is it the lighting, or makeup - McCain's tie and face match. That is not an accident.

.......

If last night was red meat, tonight was the lima beans required for a balanced meal.

......

Some dude in the crowd was just holding a sign that said MAVRICK.

One Child Left Behind.

.......

Fight him! Fight him!

......

Ending with a bit of energy...I suppose he has a limited amount. Cindy takes a lot out of him.

......

Spoke for 49 minutes? Said 20 minutes worth of nothing.

......

Cindy McCain is sporting her third hair style of the week.

.....

Custom written country song, from the man with 4 ABBA songs in his top ten.

Raisin' McCain

Subtract that apostrophe and you're on to something.

His 96 year old mother is impressive. More limber than he is.

......

Celebrating the Sarah Barracuda with Heart. Wonder if they got permission - they've been having some trouble with that. Now onto Kool and the Gang - more McCain's style.

(update - nope, Heart not happy - that makes 5 or 6 musical artists telling the McCain camp not to use their songs)

......

PBS seems to think it was a good speech. It was ok, but man that is not his strength.

Not sure how the 'town hall' style made a shit's bit of difference - he was still standing at a podium reading from a teleprompter. The camera angles were almost universally tight shots of him in front of some colored background.

.....

And even crazier was how it started....with a Fred Thompson voice over (..in the criminal justice system....) with the lights completely out and something out of the beginning of a boxing match. There was a sort of weird rousing music ala Rocky, and then McCain standing in a spotlight. It was all downhill from there.

Goodnight.

Convention livebloggin'

2008-09-03T20:50:00.037-04:00

Cuz all my chores is done...

The impulse is simply too great to MST3K this bitch...even if for only my entertainment.

Meg Whitman..."The spirit of John McCain is the thread that runs through the history of this country..." he's that old.

Carly Fiorina, another Republican who used executive power inappropriately, KILLED. Possibly literally. The audience is barely moving. Ohhh, there was a twitch. Taking 10 point plans to new levels of boredom. John McCain will bring your favorite childhood pet back to life. He really will.

Two goons interviewed by Gwen Ifill, one a Romney goon, the other a Huckabee goon, both practically asleep in their enthusiasm for McCain/Palin. Trying to make the issue about how the Clintons are still important.

Oh...wait...black Republican...just back from being hunted by Dick Cheney...a rare prize indeed. You can hear Cheney say it, "tonight boys we taste man flesh!" And not in the wide stance way.

........

I'm thinking Obama can take Steele in hoops any day.

........

Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! A suit is walking onto the stage under its own power..oh wait, it's Mitt Romney. Here we go....god people in MA were stupid to elect this jackass, though he was LESS of a jackass, but not enough less to get me to vote for him. Sun metaphors...rising in the west? Is that another Mormon weirdness?

LIBRULS!!!! GOD DAMN LIBRULS!!!!

Liberals are responsible for stopping nuclear power? Cheese and rice! Maybe as the most expensive source of power in the history of MAN FUCKING KIND we liberals were being fiscally conservative.

........

No teenager wants to go to a school free of pornography and promiscuity.

........

Not the party of big brother? HELLO warrantless wiretapping.

........

And why did mortgages go off the rails you fuck? Ask Phill Gramm, stupid whiner.

Romney is actually one of the otherwise harmless villains in a Scooby Doo episode. He's actually the giant pterodactyl the hapless farmer rigs up to fly, succeeding where generations of engineers have failed. Inside the suit is some guy in bib overalls and a seedcorn hat. He would ahve been elected president if not for you meddling voters!

......

Romney done...PBS trots out the historians....more boring than their usual filler....

David Brooks...give him credit for not being his normal right-apologizing self through these two conventions. He's truly providing a reasonably balanced commentary.

Huckabee coming up....oooh.......

.......

HUCK!

LIBRULS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somewhere in America tonight, bricks are going through windows, pitchforks are being sharpened, and torches are being dug out of the basement (who has torches in their basement?)

"Witnessed racism"... mostly by people like you in the audience.

How truly bizarre it is that the two single greatest issues facing Republicans are taxes and abortion. Both cause ripples of excitement to flow through the crowd. It's creepy.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Lower taxes!

God forbid that the rest of the world think highly of our president.

Apparently socialism is contagious.

Most Americans want as much government as they benefit from. It can be big as hell as long as their on the good side of things. Thus Alaska, a place that benefits most from government and claims to hates it more vocally than anywhere.

He was in college before he knew showering didn't have to hurt. One phrase - soap on a roap.

Not the tire inflation thing again. Why is that a point of ridicule? IT'S RIGHT YOU WILLFULLY IGNORANT FUCKS!

Jokes from cheap lies about Biden's vote totals.

Nothing Republicans like more than tearing other people down - not even screams of lower taxes get them as thrilled.

.........

Did you know John McCain was shot down?

.........

Teacher refuses children desks until they answer the riddle of the Sphinx, or something. Batshit insane. Demands children fight in war to be able to sit down in desks, or something.

John McCain bought my freedom. Cindy McCain bought John McCain his senate seat.

.........

RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!1

not yet.

..........

Governor of Hawaii. Wonder why she's not on the ticket? Another firebrand, that's for sure.

Interesting...many stereotypical traits of a lesbian...and no wedding ring. Wonder what the crazies in the room know about her. Actually per Wikipedia, twice divorced, no children.

Between McCain, Rudy and the governor of Hawaii you've got six seven marriages right there. Thems some good family values.

With a name like Linda Lingle, she ought to be in porn.

With a look like Linda Lingle, I'm glad she's not.

.......

Maui - 117,000+ residents. Wasilla - 6000.

Obama-Biden no executive experience....along with McCain. Damn senators, not running shit.

John McCain has NEVER been the head of anything either stupid twat.

........

North to the Future!

Alaska and Delaware = small, just in different ways. 250 x Delaware = Alaska.

That's math you can believe in.

"Sarah has 'broad' appeal" - sure did to McCain, whose real desire is to be sultan.

..........

Diane Sawyer walks in with the 'first dude'.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO great vice president WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

back to the historians...introduced every freaking time they talk to them. I feel like Richard Norton Smith and Michael Beschloss are members of my family already. Not sure about that Pineal Smith cat.

Michael Beschloss has an odd habit of extraneous nodding.

RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

9119119119119119119119119119119119119119119119911........

Another Republican the Republican base HATES.

MCCAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're hiring someone...you're a Republican...you could hire a good American worker...or you could hire Mitt Romney's groundskeeper....

John McCain is GI JOE!

As a young man he joined the military, his father was an admiral, his grandfather was an admiral....

And now for some Obama bashing.....

.............

Mocking Chicago machine politics...from the party of Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff.

Rudy Giuliani + $60,000,000 = 1 delegate

Now that's getting results.

Celebrity senator? Really? Jeez these clowns are pathetic.

At least Rudy knows enough to say 'he's never run a military unit'

Never led anything, except a $150M start-up with 500 employees that beat the equivalent of Microsoft.

...............

3am? John McCain takes sleep aids.

At least Giuliani speaks with emotion.....

But man, the degree of nasty attacks, while not surprising, should turn people off.

Ch ch ch changes...turn to face the strange...AHHH Rudy!

............

Welcome Mighty Tom!

.............

According to my sources in Terre Haute, John McCain is on his way to the arena!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

I mean energy center.

..........

MT and I are now liveblogging simultaneously - he in the comments....

.......

67% of Americans think Iraq was a mistake! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Who are you trying to appeal to you jackass?

John McCain gamed the public finance system! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

We're all Georgians? HUH? Should we have attacked the Russians? That's what the Georgians did.

Multilateral institutions SUCK!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry Truman's UN SUCKS! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

..........

"Let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby...and get ourselves a snack!"

MAYORS!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Rudy bringing all the smears out.

...............

Palin's daughter looks riveted!

MAVERICK!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

How many politicians in American history have a 4 month old, either men or women?

Not a single mention of 911?!!! Holy crap, he must be medicated.

...........

PALIN!!!!!!!!!

NAUGHTY!!!!!!!!!

Not going live blog this - going to actually pay attention....

But one thing...her accent....oy...so much like the cartoon MN or ND accent. Someone ask her to bring a hot dish!

What the pollsters and pundits forgot was how fucking pathetic the rest of the Republican candidates were. John McCain was 'none of the above'.

OK, I can't stop now.

EYE Rack.

Hopefully she'll say newkyular.

............

The service of your children and relatives is quite honorable, and so is the service of Beau Biden.

As the recently outed insemenator of a seventeen year old girl, I am NOT loving being on national tv.

...........

Special needs! WOOOOOO!!!!

From the party that fought every piece of legislation making life easier for the disabled!

Since when are snowmobiles snowmachines?

Only one husband. She's got most of them beat, though i think Cindy McCain has only been married to JM. She was 8 when they were married.

CHUCK AND SALLY!!!!!!!!!

Young farmer and haberdasher? How many people watching tonight know what a haberdasher does? That is NOT the language of small town America, at least not since 1955.

PTA!!!!!!!!!!!

Very cute smallest children.

Followed by close-up of tight shirted Republican hussy.

Ooh protestor!

Clinging to religion and guns. The next slogan of the Republican Party.

Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he's gonna come through it together....

Not in good standing of Washington elite, whose president is......John McCain!

COUNTRY!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

STATUS QUO!!! oops, not supposed to cheer for that one....

Possibly the first woman on Mt Rushmore...at least based on the visuals I'm seeing.

From the Simpson's Movie - "Welcome to Alaska, here's your oil money."

EBAY!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

VETO!!!! of course Bush exercised NONE until the Dems took over in 2006.

Lying about the Bridge to Nowhere! WOOOOOO!!!!

NATURAL GAS!!! oops that was me.

Hello St Cloud!

GAS!!! me again

Alaska has lots of gas!

Drill baby drill? Oof

Layin' more pipe in a McCain/Palin ticket. OH YEAH, the hair's coming down!

Lying about Obama's legislative record!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Sarah Barracuda has arrived. Zing! Zing! Zing!

Oooh, ascribing delusions of grandeur to Obama. Parting the waters? WOW

MIRANDA! BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

She's proving definitively that she should not be taken lightly, she's just as big an asshole as any Republican in my lifetime.

She's better at using the teleprompter than McCain.

Palin/McCain!!!! Swap the ticket.

Of course, she supported Buchanan in 1996 and 2000. WOOOOOO!!!

Man her speech is NASTY. She didn't write it, but man, her willingness to speak it with such zeal speaks volumes. She's an asshole.

Only veterans can be president in 2008. 2004? not so much. They mocked veterans that year.

God they are assholes.

Nearly 20 million people voted for Obama. She and her handlers just shat on every one of them. And possibly every black person in America.

If America is watching this, I hope they see this as the nasty naked face of modern Republicanism. Contempt, spite, and nothing positive to say about anyone except themselves.

Assholes.

Assholes.

Assholes.

McCain's pulling an Obama.

Man, you know the kid that got the daughter pregnant was NOT buying into this. Jesus Christ. I'm guessing he's on his third pair of underwear.

According to David Brooks this was an occasion of 'unalloyed Republican joy.'

Out fucking standing.

She did a fine job. Consider the gloves fully off. Anyone that nasty deserves both rhetorical barrels. Nothing below the belt, but full blast, no nonsense. Biden needs to tear her to bits.

Good night.

Funny

2008-09-02T20:48:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite things from coverage of the conventions is references to the vice president as #2.

"What does he want out of his #2?"
"Minimal wiping?"

And man, having Michele Bachman come on and say 'welcome to the land of Minnesota nice' is not a good thing. Does she NOT understand that 'Minnesota nice' is a bad thing?

And Norm Coleman referred to McCain as 'the man whose face says yes' (part of some likely apocryphal story about Thomas Jefferson). To me McCain is the man whose face says 'you've had enough novocaine'.

Updated - can't listen to most of this, no matter how hard I try....for as bogus as most of the filler at the DNC, significantly less of it was empty stupid platitudes.

Of course, 80% of the folks in attendance think W is just peachy.

Fred Thompson describing McCain being 'tortured', something I'm not sure Bush/Cheney/et al would describe as other than harsh interrogations. Give Fred some credit, despite what might charitably be called a lackadaisical campaign, he's feeding raw, red meat to the small crowd in attendance.

more update...Droopy Dog Joe Lieberman seems unaware that he's speaking to a rabidly partisan Republican crowd. Bringing up things like McCain's views on campaign finance (hated by R's), immigration (beaten down by brown hating R's), climate change (what climate change?) and to top it off, mentioning Bill Clinton in any positive way. I'll be surprised if he's not beaten senseless backstage. We certainly won't see him again the rest of the week.

Weekend Triple Feature

2008-09-02T12:44:00.002-04:00

Taking advantage of some streaming Netflix and finally watching No Country for Old Men after having it for several months.

First up:
Omega Man (something I think Dan reviewed somewhat recently but could not find - maybe just via e-mail)

Charlton Heston plays the survivor of biological weapons gone wrong, as the scientist who developed the antidote. He lives in constant threat of being killed by a group of plague-ridden luddites. Much classic mid 70s camp ensues. The recent Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, is the most recent version of this story presumably made with vastly higher production values, but less nudity - boy the 70s were an anachronism in cultural norms.

Entertaining, and certainly a good premise for a movie, but so much of the feel of the film is painfully dated and hard not to MST3K.

Next
It Happened One Night

Clark Gable plays a irascible reporter who gets hooked up with a 'young' rich girl (Claudette Colbert - 31 at the time of release) running from her father for defying him with her choice of husbands. Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life) directs.

As with the best of the movies of this era the writing is great and the interaction between the two is sharp. As with other Frank Capra films, the scenes of 'everyman' are a great window into the times. The only thing that's tough to get past is (and common with many movies of this era) that the actors are vastly older than the characters they're playing. Not true with Gable in this case, but Claudette Colbert seems way too mature to be playing this young rascal.

Far better than Omega Man, though not to be judged by the same standards. Perhaps not a classic, really good nonetheless.

And finally....
No Country For Old Men

The Coen brothers' Oscar winning story of senseless violence on the west Texas plains.

Whatever penchant the Coens have for portraying violence, they manage to get mesmerizing (and subtle) performances out of their actors. Despite the violence (or perhaps partly because of), the tension ratchets up and up and up and then....well, saying anymore would ruin it.

I've had this movie waiting to be watched since some time in May, and for some reason couldn't bring myself to send it back or watch it. Clearly a sensible person would have done one or the other. I am not that person, not this time anyway. I'm glad I finally watched it. Many of the people I know that had seen it have given pretty mixed messages about it, but other than the very end, I think it was pretty great. This is a story about senseless violence, in the least glorifying portrayal possible.

Could it be?

2008-08-29T00:18:00.001-04:00

The one black man in America that has U2 on his iPod will be the next president of the United States?

Surely Revelations says something about this.

The president that might have been...

2008-08-28T20:00:00.001-04:00

It struck me watching Bush at the Olympics that he finally got to live out his presidential dream. Namely, attending sporting events with great honor and getting to meet all sorts of famous athletes.

This from the man whose dream job is/was to be commissioner of major league baseball. If not for September 11, I think we would have had a far less destructive (though still destructive) Bush presidency, and perhaps even more likely, a one term president, as without the fear I don't think he could have won round 2.

Now, just so this doesn't come across as letting the asshole off the hook, he will go down as the worst president in history, but he might have just been a footnote in history.

(the story of that picture is hilarious)

2012 - The Rock and Roll Olympics?

2008-08-24T23:13:00.002-04:00

Anyone see the part of the closing ceremony featuring the hand off to London? The part featuring Jimmy Page and some other British music star singing Whole Lotta Love? The song with these lyrics?

You need coolin, baby, Im not foolin,
Im gonna send you back to schoolin,
Way down inside honey, you need it,
Im gonna give you my love,
Im gonna give you my love.

Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?

Youve been learnin, baby, I bean learnin,
All them good times, baby, baby, Ive been yearnin,
Way, way down inside honey, you need it,
Im gonna give you my love,
Im gonna give you my love.

Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?

Youve been coolin, baby, Ive been droolin,
All the good times Ive been misusin,
Way, way down inside, Im gonna give you my love,
Im gonna give you every inch of my love,
Gonna give you my love.
Yeah! all right! lets go!

Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?

Way down inside, woman,
You need love.

Shake for me, girl
I wanna be your backdoor man.
Hey, oh, hey, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Keep a-coolin, baby,
Keep a-coolin, baby.

AWESOME!

Beijing may have had unimaginable scale and precision, but London's gonna give every inch of its love, possibly through the back door.

Dogs are great.

2008-08-23T09:17:00.001-04:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7577275.stm

Most amazing prank ever...

2008-08-21T16:57:00.000-04:00

http://www.someguywithawebsite.com/blogarchive/week_2008_08_17.html#002614

Too lazy (busy) to actually post anything real

2008-08-20T11:02:00.001-04:00

Eerie, if still not quite 'real'.

Especially for CF Bear

2008-08-18T08:16:00.001-04:00

Coming soon to a lake near....me

2008-07-21T19:00:00.002-04:00

Back to the future

2008-07-13T09:47:00.003-04:00

If you can't read it, the caption below says - " Women of the future will make the Moon a cleaner place to live."

Hilarious in so many ways.

This is pretty great....

2008-07-09T12:50:00.000-04:00

From here.

Happy Birthday America (belated)

2008-07-07T13:02:00.001-04:00

A little lake fireworks to start the week.

Wild stuff!

2008-07-01T11:12:00.001-04:00

Chronotopic Anamorphosis from Marginalia Project on Vimeo.

What they're up to...http://www.vimeo.com/1163538?pg=embed&sec=1163538

Fun with graphs

2008-06-17T16:42:00.003-04:00

I've been keeping accurate records of gas mileage in an Excel spreadsheet I made (exciting!). It dawned on me that Excel can poop out graphs fairly easily. Of course, I couldn't help embellishing with Photoshop.

Not a good curve going on there at the end. Not good at all.

Consider this a thread for bitching about gas prices or imagining a future where gas prices don't matter.

Sports bloggin'

2008-06-09T10:19:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I don't watch sports most of the year, until the various sports get to their playoffs, so I'm hardly an authority or someone to look to for sports knowledge, but I know what I know.

And what I know is...officiating in the NBA is the worst in any sport I've ever watched. It's not that it's lopsided, though maybe it's that too, but good freaking googily mooglily is it bad. Wildly uneven, inconsistent, seemingly filled with make-up calls. Unbelievable.

My remedy? Hard to fix a system so broken, but here's a couple...

Players don't get to talk to the refs. No little happy chats while the opposing team shoots free throws.
Anything more than 2 steps is traveling. One of the eastern Europeans playing for the Lakers took FOUR freaking steps on an almost uncontested break away. You could see it on a replay where only his head and torso was visible. It was the most shameful display of traveling I've ever seen.
Some sort of post game analysis by the league, with punishments/bonuses to those that are the most consistent, enforcing of the rules.

Other sports bloggin' - lacrosse is like hockey, only better. Two sports with nearly identical rules, the principle difference being lacrosse features almost constant displays of skill, while hockey features wild frenzy punctuated by rare moments of skill. I happened to see some 'professional' lacrosse on TV recently, and while I'm not liekly to become an avid follower of the sport, I would much rather watch it than hockey.

A single teardrop

2008-06-06T08:51:00.002-04:00

Relief
Released
Swimming in a sea of amber
Low dark clouds above
Waiting
Flushed

Completely different

2008-06-02T17:01:00.000-04:00

Prime Directive

2008-05-31T20:01:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure if you saw it, but a group dedicated to the plight of uncontacted peoples in the world released some pictures of a 'tribe' in the Amazon yesterday.

It's fairly mindblowing to imagine a bronze age culture surviving nearly intact to today.

Story here.

Truly, truly mindblowing.

Active Hedonism (updated)

2008-05-27T22:14:00.003-04:00

Also known as 3 1/2 days with Dan.

The recap:

Saturday -

light rail to downtown and a walk around the new bridge construction and miscellaneous urban sites
drive to Surly Brewery to pick up growlers (oh yes, they were open!)
Papa's pizza - drink beer
check out Workhouse Theater, meet Dwayne, drink beer
Drink some beer at Casa Hylton (CH), watch Looney Tunes
minor trail run along Mississippi
back to Workhouse for 'Night Mother - really great.
strike set, sort of, then wrap party - only beer for Dan
back to Casa Hylton, drink beer watch Looney Tunes (the mad plumber is still there!)
sleep

Sunday

up for breakfast at Steamworks - waffles and coffee
down to Hyland Regional Park for a hike to the pine forest, saw deer and wild turkey
over to Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for more hiking
Big Buy to look for wallet (Dan....) and b-ball (Dan 2, Pat 1)
TB for lunch
Surprisingly no beer yet
Buy frisbee golf driver (again!) and Dan beats me badly at fg...still don't have the throwing of those other discs down
Back to CH - Sharon and 'the girls' return from camping - meet Rose.
Out to Rix/Sauced for dinner - at last beer?
Read bedtime story to Lucy
Music and Mockomentary Volume 3, Part 1. Beer, of course (finishing the growlers)

Monday

Walk Lucy to school
Breakfast at Emily's
Various trips around local metro including into Surdyk's for mini keg of Paulaner (5L)
Back to CH with lawn games (croquet and bocci) and beer
Beer and lawn games in back yard around fire, lunch of blackened veggie burgers
Steamworks for coffee and chess with local 'ute'.
B-ball at park (Me 2, Dan 0 with shortened second game due to injury)
Dinner at Papa's (yes again, and again with beer)
Back for Mockomentary Volume 3, Part 2. Beer (finishing the Paulaner)
I think more Looney Tunes in there somewhere.

Tuesday

Up for breakfast at McD's
Good trail run at French Regional Park. Still able to run them hills.
Warm down walk around park
Back to CH to clean up
More frisbee golf - Dan still dominating
Bocci to kill some time before lunch
Lunch at Townhall Brewery near UM. Beer
Drop at rental car and end of excellent visit

I think I got the outline right. Amazingly, despite drinking nearly 500oz of beer, neither one of us was ever really drunk. Some light buzzing, but otherwise we kept up a slow and steady pace over the course of the weekend, like troopers.

A good time was had by all....

Pictures coming soon.

China

2008-05-15T12:47:00.002-04:00

Some truly astounding coverage of the earthquake in China on NPR this week. They had two of their regular news personalities in that province preparing for a week of shows from there starting next week. They were conducting an interview at the exact moment that the earthquake happened. Since then they have been following grieving parents and capturing the emotional toll of the tragedy.

Sadly, the effects of the catastrophe in Burma are not as easily conveyed.

One additionally staggering thing about the China situation, especially relative to the school where 900 children died (among many places that children died) , is the effects of the One Child policy. It's unquestionably devastating and unimaginable to have any of your children killed by any means, but to have that be your government mandated only child? That's a whole other world altogether.

Listening

2008-05-08T20:55:00.003-04:00

There was a time, and not necessarily too long ago, when the act of buying a new album (call it a CD if you'd like) would involve me hunkering down next to the stereo, usually smack dab between the speakers, listening to the album in its entirety and reading the lyrics as I went. Even on those occasions when I'd rejoined BMG and was faced with the 12 disk bonanza that marked the beginning of all of those adventures, I'd generally get through them in basically the same way, just over several days. Until my current car (2005) I never had a cd player in any car I'd ever had, not including balancing a portable player on MT's lap or the passenger seat when he was unavailable.

The advent of the iPod has, of course, radically altered my music listening experiences. My principle concentrated listening is now done on dog walks. I do listen at work, sometimes to my own music, sometimes to various streaming stations, but because of my pesky responsibilities - phone calls, people asking me stuff - I don't often consider that good listening.

With the iPod has come the urge to rip the CD as soon as possible so I can get it into my iPod for my next walk around the neighborhood. I'll browse through the liner notes and lyrics as it rips, but the scale of time associated with that is so accelerated as to not make for good liner reviewing. And once it's ripped, the CD goes on the shelf, and it's all iPod from there. I now learn lyrics to songs by listening to them, rather than reading them, which perhaps takes longer, but is still satisfying.

I dabbled in the iTunes thing minimally and fairly long after its arrival, eschewing the instant gratification for something solid in my hand. I also harbor a fear of catastrophic data loss, but I now back up my music files so as to minimize that risk. I bought a few songs here and there, and even an album or two because my urge was so great, or I thought the liner notes were unimportant for that particular album/collection. All in all probably less than 50 tracks.

I do, as Dan likes to mock, have an urge to find new music, though I was never particularly cutting edge or adventurous by any reasonable standard. I was raised on FM radio, and remained a fairly mainstream musical fan for nearly my entire life. My tastes remain basically the same, encompassing a variety of genres but overwhelmingly centered on the nebulous notion of 'alternative'. I think that term stopped being especially useful in about 1990, but I suspect all of the readers of this know more or less what I'm talking about.

Buying physical CD's is not an especially cheap endeavor, since other than the mail-order music clubs, the prices have remained essentially unchanged or have gone up since I bought Outlandos d'Amour about 1988. It seems fairly insane to me, and a bit of a racket, but it is what it is. The costs have kept me from expanding my music collection more than I might have otherwise, being reluctant to plunk down $15 for an album I've heard little of.

The opportunities to learn about and be exposed to new music have exploded even while FM radio has become an insipid and flavorless ghost of its former self. Even in our prime listening years FM had gotten far less experimental than it had been even ten years earlier, but by today's standards it was not bad at all. But other than a few stations scattered hither an yon in more enlightened markets, FM is now a steaming shitpile. Thankfully the internet arrived and offered up opportunities for exploration and exposure never before heard.

Prior to that explosion I did try out an interim method, one that is the diret progenitor of the lacksadaisical CMC, namely CMJ: New Music Monthly. This was (and remains - though without my subscription) a monthly CD and mini-magazine filled with all manner of 'alternative' music, a sort of higher general quality Flywheel Sampler. It was a good way to learn about some artists and bands that I'd never heard of without becoming a record store goon. The economics of CD's kept me from buying many of the artists, but I did follow through on a few, and it satisfied my irrational need for new music.

About the time that I found myself not keeping up with that subscription we moved to MA and my new music listening went into a fairly deep lull, placated by a generally excellent local station out here that kept me (along with my own music collection) satisfied. I still bought the occasional album, often by a band already in my collection, but some new ones as well, though all fairly 'mainstream' - played on the radio station above which tended to be about 6 months ahead of the rest of FM radio.

It was really the birth of the CMC that got my interests revived towards seeking new music, along with a weekly podcast about music (yes it's of NPR origin and mentioned prominently in my CMC entries, but good music is good music) and various other sources of musical information that exist among the billions of such places on the vast internet. It didn't really resolve the economic issues, but at least (as with CMJ) I was hearing new good music, stuff that I was unlikely to ever hear spinning through the dial on the radio. It was clear to me that there was a LOT of good 'alternative' music being made, but the distribution scheme had completely changed.

Enter E-Music...a subscription based source of downloadable music. You won't find lots of well-known, major label artists and bands there (though more all the time) but you will find lots of bands like Yo La Tengo and others of that 'toiling in popular obscurity' ilk. For $10 per month you get 30 downloads (all to own and all of higher bitrate than iTunes). It's a bit weird to run out of monthly downloads and be three songs short of an entire album, but for $0.33/song, it's a price I'm willing to pay. I generally work my way around the problem by being very careful about what I download, or fill in the gaps with singles/novelties.

For the equivalent of <$4 for the average album, I'm free to indulge in more experimentation than I've ever felt capable before. I'm still somewhat conservative in my choices (almost always having heard one song by the band) but I've done a couple without hearing a single song, simply based on recommendations and comparisons to other bands I like. What you give up, circling back to the beginnings of this post, are physical things, and especially liner notes. It seems like technology could easily overcome this, but either because of fear of copyright infringement or a lak of interest in the general public, no one seems to offer up their liner notes as part of the purchase, as a pdf or whatever. That bums me out, though I'm buoyed by an infusion of new and interesting music.

I still opt to buy an actual CD for the bands I have a long history with, but I seem to have come to terms with the digital world we live in.

While I typed this I listened to:

Shearwater - unlikely you would have heard anything by them
She and Him - also unlikely
Peter Bjorn and John - they have a song called Young Folks with a catchy whistling part that has gotten some mainstream play

Other great stuff
M. Ward
Bon Iver
Andrew Bird
Arcade Fire
New Pornographers
Belle and Sebastian
Cat Power
The National
Neko Case
Okkervil River

If anyone finds themselves interested in joining e-Music (no long term contract, just by month), I think I can get a bonus for getting someone else to sign up.

Happy listening...

Cool photos...

2008-05-08T13:03:00.001-04:00

Here.....

From the volcanic eruption in Chile.

Something new here...

2008-05-07T08:55:00.001-04:00

Recalcitrant spring
Keeping your wonders hidden
But once you get the notion, explosion.

Blast from the past...

2008-04-25T09:43:00.001-04:00

Oh....boy...everything old....

2008-04-23T21:32:00.002-04:00

Reading through a post about the racist element of our voting patterns I came across this little nugget:

[A]t the time, people believed that jazz was the forerunner of the decline of Western civilization. The anti-jazz crusade was motivated by an apocalyptic fear. The anxiety that jazz was "endangering our civilization," as the populist William Jennings Bryant put it in the New York Times in May 1926, was the subtext to many of the voices. People felt, in other words, that the dawn of the Jazz Age heralded the decline of Western Civilization. An assessment in the New York Times pronounced: "The consensus of opinion of leading medical and other scientific authorities, [is that jazz] is harmful and degrading to the civilized races as it always has been among the savages from whom we borrowed it."

Really mindblowing. I for one believe lots of people harbor irrational racist/misogynist/xenophobic leanings, far more than would admit to it publicly, so it's not especially surprising that 16% of Pennsylvanians counted race as a factor in their vote and 54% of that subset said they would vote for McCain rather than Obama. That tells me that more than zero, but less than about 9 percent of people in PA are against electing a black man. Chances are a similar number are against electing a woman. Either way, they need to get the fuck out or wise the fuck up. Old white men have been both a blessing and a curse of this nation, there's no reason to let them have all the fun.

But back to the quote. It is really hilarious to think of jazz as the end of western civilization, and had it not really been a facade hiding a deep streak of racism, it would be laughable. But that was 1926, and the Brown vs Board of Education was 30 years off and The Voting Rights Act was ten years after that. We were hardly an elightened country. Hell, women only had the right to vote for a few short years at that point. And lynchings were still a relatively common event down in teh Bible Belt. Those were the glory years of old white men, and the beginning of the end.

The end can't come soon enough.

Indiana...

2008-04-22T22:54:00.000-04:00

America turns its lonely eye to you.

End this....PLEASE!!!!

Ugh...

2008-04-16T22:26:00.002-04:00

ABC's debate tonight was a shameful exhibition, mostly on the part of Stephanopolous and Gibson. It would be charitable to call the questions insipid. Does ABC hate America? That is my question. Yuck.

That said, Obama did best when attacked, and Clinton did best on policy. I'm not sure why the question of registering and licensing all hand guns is one that needs to be danced around - who is arguing otherwise - but they both danced like it was 1999. Boy it will be nice when the primary is over.

And what a weird day in the news...on one hand you have the supreme court delivering its verdict on a case of whether it is cruel and unusual to impose the death penalty on child rapists and on the other you have Texas raiding the compound of a Mormon cult marrying off 12 year old girls to men of all ages. Girls who then are bearing children at 13 and 14 years old. One girl they mentioned on NPR was 16 years old and just had her 4th child. Holy fucking shit.

Now back in the old days it was probably fairly normal for females to be married off and begin their job of reproducing (yes, notice the satire) once they passed the age of puberty. That's what puberty was a signal of, and quite common throughout the animal world. Those societies, such as they were, may have also allowed polygamy (or possibly even polygyny) as a acceptable practice (just as with apes and the dominant male) and no one was the wiser for it.

But that really seems beyond the pale at this point. We've generally made the decision that while our parents and adults in general get to tell children what to do, there are some clearly drawn lines in the sand, at least in western society, beyond which parental control can not pass. Arranged marriages are a thing of the past, and coercing naive teenage girls into acting as baby machines with no sense of other possible paths that their lives could take is really sickening.

So, as the TX solicitor general was arguing for the ability to execute child rapists (though different from LA in that TX actually has restrictions on the practice) will this issue bring those two sordid tales together?

For the record, I oppose the death penalty for nearly every crime (excepting perhaps genocide), for a whole host of reasons starting with the practical - more expensive, no evidence of it acting as a deterrent, wildly discriminatory and impossible to administer fairly across racial and economic lines - to the moral - basically that society is not very trustworthy when handing out that degree of justice and a tiny benefit of the doubt (life in prison) seems quite prudent given the possibility of fuck up.

That is all.

Random song

2008-04-15T13:34:00.002-04:00

Listening to a show about the music that grew up around Memphis and was significantly responsible for the birth of rock and roll, they played this song...

My Gal is Red Hot by Ronnie Hawkins

My gal is red hot - your gal aint doodley squat!
Yeah! My gal is red hot - your gal aint doodley squat
Well she aint got money, but man she's really got a lot.

Well I gotta gal, six feet four, sleeps in the kitchen
With her face at the door but,
My gal is red hot - your gal aint doodley squat! (repeat)
Well she aint got money, but man she's really got a lot.

Well she walks all night, talks all day
She's the kinda woman gotta have her way, but
My gal is red hot - your gal aint doodley squat! (repeat)
Well she aint got money, but man she's really got a lot.
Oh rock it...

Well she's the kinda woman who's a lounge-around
Spendin' my business all over town,but
My gal is red hot - your gal aint doodley squat! (repeat)
Well she aint got money, but man she's really got a lot.

Well she's a one mans woman which is what I like
But I wish she was a woman change her mind every night, but
My gal is red hot - your gal aint doodley squat! (repeat)
Well she aint got money, but man she's really got a lot.

A version here.

Gotta love the lyrics. Is this the only song in history to use 'doodley squat'? Fantastic.

Left Turn at Albuquerque

2008-04-08T12:29:00.003-04:00

Funny, or not funny?

Discuss.

(note - I can't remember the last time I had to spell Albuquerque - it's a total bitch)

For my money, that Bugs Bunny gag is funny mostly by virtue of its repetition. It would have been far less funny if it only showed up in one episode.

The Nine Circles of Political Hell

2008-04-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

Inspired (of course) by Dante.

Circle Number One
Inhabited by those truly unaware of the effect politics has on their lives. They spend eternity circumnavigating a large cylinder, always surprised to find themselves back where they started but never realizing why.

Circle Number Two
Inhabited by those who know what is wrong but believe themselves powerless to change it. They spend eternity a stumbling around in the dark, through an ever changing obstacle course they will never be capable of understanding.

Circle Number Three
Inhabited by those that vote against their own best interests, whether because of a single issue, or because they believe they are something they are not. They are presented with a series of choices, only one of which will truly satisfy them, while the others seem to offer bounties, but provide only pain. Every time they chose poorly, an extra poor choice is added to their next set of selections.

Circle Number Four
Inhabited by the politicians who do little but protect their own little fiefdoms, showing no compunction to do anything but that which is most politically advantageous to themselves, but having little general effect on the world. This circle is so crowded that the residents are unable to find space for themselves. They spend eternity searching fruitlessly for vacant space that is filled instantly upon their seeing it.

Circle Number Five
Inhabited predominantly by journalists who have abdicated all personal responsibility to inform the masses and instead focus on the trivial and tawdry. They spend eternity alone and ignored, unable to even hear themselves speak.

Circle Number Six
Inhabited by those that knowingly screw their constituents for personal gain and power. Many pundits also spend eternity here, separate from the journalists above, for they assumed the role of expert when that title was not warranted. All residents of this circle are tormented by bees who fly into their mouths and sting whenever they open them to speak.

Circle Number Seven
Inhabited by the cynical and ruthless enablers. Not politicians themselves, but the mudslingers and scorched earthers. Lee Atwater is the king and Karl Rove is his prince. The effluent from all the circles above them rains down perpetually and they can find no shelter nor means of cleaning themselves.

Circle Number Eight
Inhabited by politicians who achieved their position through no effort of their own and proceeded to exercise power in ways that indicate otherwise, to the great detriment of the many. George W. Bush resides here with a look of complete surprise. He and the rest are to spend eternity toiling, and at the end of each day, all that they have achieved will disappear and they will have to start again from scratch, every day, forever.

Circle Number Nine
Inhabited by Dick Cheney, Richard Nixon, and their ilk that use political power in the most cynical ways possible as part of an actual elected office. Tom Delay also resides here. They spend eternity holding up the weight of all the circles above, never able to relax lest they and the rest of them be crushed.

NYC Redux

2008-03-20T12:31:00.002-04:00

The quick recap:

Conan

more fun than expected
studio way smaller than it appears on TV
band great
warm-up guy very funny
Conan sings song at the end that isn't on TV
ticketing process insane (INSANE!!)
more business-like than expected
recommended

Museum of Natural History

so much information...so much
in 2 1/2 hours of intense museum going, saw maybe 1/10 of what was available
lots of great anthropological stuff from all over the world presented well
Rose Planetarium building cool
recommended

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

depends on exhibit whether most people would like it

General wandering

the subway is great, so great
so many accidental discoveries possible (oh look Carnegie Hall)
so much diversity - somewhere every American should be forced to experience to get over their fear of 'furriners'.
food not as expensive as you'd expect - lots of ways to each cheap if desired, or not.
lodging not insane if you're willing to use the subway to get to the heart of things

Like Washington DC (though DC is dominated by great museums rather than more generic 'culture') NYC is great and not intimidating in any way. The people are much more friendly than they get credit for - much friendlier than Boston. On two separate trips complete strangers have come up to Faith to complement her on some aspect of her appearance. Both women. Crazy.

Get there if you can.

Watch this...

2008-03-18T17:48:00.002-04:00

Don't do anything else while you watch...or just listen, and close your mind to everything else.

This is what gives people hope. This is what makes everyone better. This is transcendent.

NYC

2008-03-12T15:40:00.003-04:00

Headed to NYC this weekend to meet up with Faith's sister and to engage in general merriment.

Thursday night we'll be in the audience for Conan (did Gibby do this or Letterman?) I'm not super excited by this, but it'll probably be entertaining. Too bad the guests are uninteresting - Meredith Veira and Harland Williams plus TBA.

Friday night is dinner in Brooklyn at a cousin's.

Saturday night an attempt to score some day of tickets for some sort of show.

Sunday home.

All the other time filled with general sightseeing and related shenanigans. Monday is St. Patrick's Day, so maybe they'll be some craziness associated with that.

And while I'm thinking of it, no one makes a song about suffering more raucous than the Irish.

Quick movie hits

2008-03-11T08:22:00.003-04:00

King of Kong - great. (Netflix WatchNow)

A surprisingly emotional look into the world of competitive video gaming.

Ratatouille - ok. (Netflix)

I'm generally a fan of the Pixar movies but this one and Cars I found to be pretty mediocre, or at least not living up to their high standards. The Incredibles remains the gold standard for me of the Pixar oeuvre.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - great. (Netflix WatchNow)

What can you say: Jimmy Stewart + Frank Capra = great entertainment. There's a lot of subtle great acting in this one, particularly from the president of the senate. And while good does triumph in the end I'm not sure if it makes me feel any better that the shenanigans in our government haven't changed at all in almost 70 years.