Event horizons

I was watching the SOI burn on NASA TV today. The JPL mission page has a lot of info as well. So after 7 years the Cassini probe has started slowing down on its way to orbiting the ringed giant.

And speaking of robotic probes, the Mars rovers are still going strong, well past their 90-day mission plan. It is a great day for science, indeed.

The weird part about all of this is that the probe has already done it's thing. All we're waiting for is for the signal from Cassini to travel from far orbit around Saturn to our receivers here on Earth. It makes one long for an ansible.

Level!

One college semester, I discovered MUDding. During the week before finals.

Yeah, in retrospect it was a bad idea. (For those young people playing at home, think EverQuest only with no graphics and more drinking.) I didn't do horribly that semester, but I could have done worse. Like my friend Carlos, who quickly collapsed into living in the computer labs, drinking machine urine coffee and eating Dunkin Stix out of the vending machines.

Carlos never returned for his sophomore year.

While playing KoL today, my Disco Bandit finally made level four. So, I give him the traditional 'gratz!'

In other news, Cheney was booed while at a Yankees game last night. Maybe he should tell them all to go fuck themselves like he did to Leahy.

(I think Cheney looks rabid about 90% of the time. Somebody needs to adjust his meds.)

When the DNC operatives canvassing for donations ask if I want to see Bush out of office, I reply, "With the fury of a thousand suns," or "I would rather see him in prison, but out of office is a start."

Keep Portland Weird

I see bumper stickers with that logo sometimes. I think it has to do with shopping locally, but they could be a wee bit more specific.

Anyway, I am walking downtown for lunch, and coming up on me is a pasty, fat white guy with no shirt on. He's wearing a hat, rolled-up camo pants and combat boots. He had a tattoo on an arc above his right nipple, but I couldn't make out what it said through the bouncing of his flesh. Anyway, as he approaches me, the conversation goes something like this:

Pasty White Guy In Camo Pants And No Shirt: Brother, do you know where Smith Hall is?
Giant Fighting Robot: Um, it's that way. (points)
PWGICPANS: Two blocks?
Me: No, more like two and a half or three.
PWGICPANS: OK. Thanks.
(pause)
PWGICPANS: Do you invest in the stock market?
Me: (lying as it's a total non sequitur) No.
PWGICPANS: Would you like to?
Me: No thanks. (Heads off)

Because, you know, the person I most want to invest with is a pasty guy with no shirt. Screw that EF Hutton guy.

Fahrenheit 9/11 addendum

OK, I should have mentioned this yesterday, but I was tired and stuff. (I'm also tired this morning--I simply have to stop staying up until 11:30 and then stumbling out of bed at 6:00 am.)

As we were talking back to the car, every single conversation I overheard, from people sitting at Starbucks, to a couple walking the other way, to our own chatting, all of the people in Portland that evening were talking about F 9/11. Particularly the bit where Bush is reading My Pet Goat. For ten minutes. Just sitting there.

People (like Mark Luther, the resident dittohead on the O'Franken Factor) claim that the film is just there to make Bush look bad. The man does not need any help. Take the bit at the end of the trailer, where he's proclaiming that terror is evil, then takes a swing at the golf tee. Or his repeated cries of "Let me finish!" when being interviewed by the Irish press.

The sitting-and-staring-blankly footage was at The Memory Hole about a year ago, so I saw a lot of it then. But if you don't seek out actual news, this was probably new to you.

But in any case, here are some links that might be of interest:

• Michael Moore's suggested list of things to do


• MoveOn.org


• The Democratic Party


• John Kerry

Note that I am not linking to Nader or the Greens, mostly since I think the former is a fucking crazy, egotistical nutbag (Steve Gilliard has a good article about this) and the latter are more suited to local races than national.

Fahrenheit 9/11

(You know, I took German for years and that still looks wrong to me. Maybe it's being around computer programmers too long--their misspellings rubbed off on me.)

Anyway here's my review. I know there are others because it broke all box office records for a documentary and was the #1 movie last weekend.

The film does sort of seem like two, two films in one. The first half is about 9/11 and how the Bush and Bin Laden families have histories going back years. The 2000 election gets some interesting treatment. (Since I'm a bit of a political junkie, there was not a ton of stuff in the film that was new to me, but the fact that Bush's limo got egged on his inauguration day was new to me. Funny how that didn't get much coverage that I can recall.)

The second, and more powerful by far, segment of the film deals with the invasion of Iraq. There's a side-trip to Afghanistan, of course, but it could have been longer and talked about how there are more drugs there now than before we overthrew the Taliban. But that might be for the DVD. Anyway, there are some truly gut-wrenching scenes of civilian casualties, interviews with the troops that make me cringe (one guy talks about how their choice of music during a battle is "House on Fire," since they wanted Iraq to burn), and a devestating scene of a woman who's lost her son being shouted at by some Republican woman that she should blame Al Quaida for his death in Karbala. As if Osama had given the order to ship him there.

When you go, either take a drink beforehand or be prepared to drink heavily afterward. Mrs. GFR said that "this is the angriest I have ever been in a long time." This is how I feel almost every day when I read the news and look at what the Bush administration has done to this country. It's a travesty. Words fail me when describing how far we have fallen from the ideals we hold so dear.

It's a powerful film. I can think of several ways it would have been more powerful, such as showing Powell at the UN with a vial of... something and saying "We know he has this toxic chemical." Another release with Cheney saying "Fuck you" to Patrick Leahy. The "early" handover of Iraq to the transitional government with Bremer fleeing like a thief in the night... The list goes on and on. As long as this film is, as enraging as these actions have become, there are still so many things we can list, not to mention what we don't know about. Like what's really going on in Guantonomo. Cheney's Energy Task force minutes. The Plame Affair. Etc. Etc. Etc. Still, baby steps. Go see it.

At the movies

Off to go see Fahrenheit 9/11 this evening. It's not like I'm the Bush administration's biggest fan as it is. Though there are always things that even politics junkies like myself miss.

More later.

Oh, and note to self: lobotomize lib-loaner03 and lib-loaner04 tomorrow. And maybe do the same to lib-utility01 and lib-utility02.

I wish I left more exciting notes to myself. Like this:

Go to the Spooky Forest and find the Spooky Sapling so you can enter the Spooky Temple. An adventurer is you!

Disco State of Mind

The weekend wasn't too bad. Played a lot of games, messed about with the house, saw a lot of people at two separate gatherings. We figured out that we have something going almost every weekend until the end of August. There are worse problems, I suppose.


Here, in a nutshell, is the image quality of Kingdom of Loathing.

And here's another item in the game. I am hooked, looking up new ways to get adventures and wondering when the reset is. It's a lot like MUDding, which is what people who now play EverQuest used to do before things like DSL and video cards and these... graphic thingies.

In other news, we gave Iraq over to the interim government and Bremer fled like a thief in the night. Hands up, everybody who thinks Iraq is going to be just peachy keen from here on out. If you believe that, allow me to tell you about this $131 million I found in Nigeria the other day...

Kingdom of Loathing

Binder pointed me to the Kingdom of Loathing. It's a little like Button Men, a little like Progress Quest, with a tiny bit of Munchkin thrown in.

I adore it. My current character is a Disco Bandit. How can you not like something that gives you messages like:

You're fighting a Knob Goblin Barbecue Team

This is a deadly combination of a neophyte Knob Goblin Chef and a magically animated barbecue grill.

Sometimes these things are friendly, but this one appears to be pretty aggressive.

You hit for 4 damage. BOOF! BIFF!

You win the fight!

You gain 9 Meat.
You acquire an item: bowl of cottage cheese
You gain 2 Smarm.

Here I've run through all of my turns for the day and I want more.

In other news, we were at a party this evening in a cute little house in St. John's. The neighbors made me realize that my own neighbors could be worse. The ones behind the house with the party were screaming at each other constantly. Me, I would be calling the cops every day.

We live in a society, people. A pity it's not one where you can study to be a Pastamancer in college.

A screenplay in the making

Last night, whether it was the influence of Zupan's take-out chicken, the Welsh cheese we picked up to accompany it, or the half-pint of ale, I had a particularly vivid dream, even for me.

I was watching a movie that looked like a Jet Li/Stephen Chiao/Jackie Chan co-production. It had elements of all of their sensibilities and was set in the HK version of the old west. Jet Li was an inept wushu-master hero in training, and he was trying to infiltrate a gang of cattle thieves. They were robbing a supply store, asking the clerk first for six hats, then five shirts, then four filing cabinets, then three cases of dynamine, then two rifles, and finally settling on one hat.

Then the clerk lost it and said, "I know who you are. You're the cattle-rustling gang," and got beat up. The gang started robbing all the other people in the store, before Jet Li's character got fed up, then said, "Here, I know you came for this!" and grabbed... something. In the dream it was important. But the gang went nuts since he'd been lying to them all this time. So they started chasing him.

Eventually the fight led to this tunnel where, through the power of kung fu, Jet Li was going hand-over-hand down the tunnel by climbing this pipe. He'd kick people and fend them off as the gang also climbed the pipe. The Stephen Chiao part of the dream kicked in because there was a second pipe set right above it, and people going the opposite way down the pipe were screaming obsenities at Jet Li's character for nearly causing a traffic pile-up in the tunnel.

Cut to another scene with Karen Mok and Michelle Yeoh trying to figure out the location of a tunnel entrance. They were in a science lab that looked a lot out-of-place in the Old West setting.

Cut to more chasing and then Shu Qi, I think, in sort of a Swordsman II role but that is fairly hazy.

Then Mary Tyler Moore was walking down the street under the guns of other gang members, telling them that if they wanted to get into the tunnel, they had to dig up this driveway.

Back to Jet Li in the tunnel, throwing knives at his pursuers. But since he's kinda inept at this point, he just grazes them. And then I woke up.

Prior to that I dreamt of playing Monopoly at Jon Meyers' house, only it was using a board from some other source and I could not figure out which element corresponded to the Monopoly board. There were also various power-up cards and something about drawing a card to force sex scandals on other players.

In the words of Harry Zell, I should write it. If I don't want to write it, I could direct it. If I don't want to direct it, I could produce it.

More BloggerAd messing

Apple computer. Airport Express.

These are on my mind as my daily job involves working with Windows XP. And because it's Microsoft, it's irritating. Adding a printer, for example, is kind of a pain. And we've been printing far longer than we've been using a computer, so you'd think that some day we'd make it less annoying than it is.

I out-clevered myself, too. I restricted the normal classroom user so they cannot add, rename, or delete printers. So what do I want to do now? Delete one printer and add another one. So I can either mess with policy files (itself another reason to hate Windows with the fury of a thousand suns) to remove this restriction, or I can update the Ghost image I'm using and re-image all the machines.

The latter might be be faster, assuming I don't have to mess with the Ghost image all that much. I think it's vulnerable to one of the more recent worms, so patching that might be fun.

I have this wish that the next round of replacements will be iBooks. It would make me a lot happier.

Blogger Ads

I've never quite figured out Google's algorithm for calculating blog ads in the banner up there.
So far it's advertised cookbooks, robots, books by authors I've never heard of, and the conservative book club.

The first two, I can see that. But the conservative book club? Other than "know your enemy," I can't figure that out.

Hrm. Let me test this.

L. Ron Hubbard. Microsoft. Disney. Proctor and Gamble. Apple computer. Sony PlayStation 2. Nintendo GameCube.
TAKE THAT, BLOGGER!

Note to Kevin

On the Goats.com t-shirt page, you will find another monkey-related t-shirt you need.

It is almost better than the Diesel Sweeties monkey shirt.

Goats is a damn fine strip, rocketing to the top of my list.

No gonadal politics here

So a while ago, Nader had a nominating convention here in Oregon, and they had to call it after a while because they could only get 731 signatures. This probably won't happen again, thanks to the fine folks in the GOP. The Citizens for a Sound Economy wants GOP folks to attend the next convention so he'll get on the ballot. Who the fuck are they, you ask? Their Media Transparency entry shows that their major donations come from:

• Phillip Morris


• US West


• Exxon


• A bunch of Florida sugar companies


• Microsoft

Somehow I doubt that they're helping Ralph get on the ballot in a swing state out of the goodness of their hearts. Call me a cynic, but to me it seems like maybe there's an ulterior motive here.

Five days until we give Iraq up. The world will be so much better then! Woo!

My sarcasm sequencer is out of alignment this morning because I managed to forget some documents, the checkbook, and my cellphone when I left the house.

You don't know that chimney

Spider-Man comic remixes

Go there now. This is my favorite so far.

It is quiet at my work as all the coworkers are at a conference. It is not quiet in Iraq or Turkey, where bombs have killed almost a hundred people and wounded three hundred.

But that's a sign that they're desperate. Because, as David Cross reminds us, they hate our freedom. Freedom-haters. (Why they don't hate the freedom of other, arguably more free countries, that's too hard a question for the president to ask.)

Patton Oswalt

Found Patton Oswalt's diary this afternoon. What a funny, funny guy.

june 11th

FATTY LIKES FOOD IN HIS TUMMY

The first show tonight, Thursday the 11th, was great. Or maybe it sucked. I couldn’t have cared less, ‘cause I got dinner at Andalu in the Mission beforehand.

I’ve been coming to this place ever since Melissa Burnley from the Punchline introduced it to me two years ago. It’s like someone taking you to a store where they hand out free lemonade and the lemonade gives you a blowjob.

It’s a “small plates” place, and the co-owner is this cool guy who grew up five minutes from me in Northern Virginia, and we’re the same age, so we have the same nerd-ass references, only he knows wine the way I know comic books. In other words, way too goddamn much. They have an amazing wine list full of by-the-glass and half bottles, and it’s always stuff you’d never hear of unless the co-owner hadn't gone out and discovered it. The same way I can show you where to find Alex Ross’ early comics work. But does that get me laid like the Andalu guy’s wine know-how? Not yet. Did I say “not yet”? I meant, “no” and “never”.

5 bucks gets you a plate of bread-crumb-crusted mac and cheese. Ahi tuna tacos with mango salsa, Coca-Cola braised short ribs, polenta fries—Hardwick had a messy, public food orgasm and I had to switch tables. The most expensive plate on the menu is 13 bucks. Heaven will be me eating at Andalu, and every time I take a bite of the food, a biker punches someone from Creed.

His CD comes out next week. I should probably listen to the new David Cross before then, but I'll definitely be picking this up.

Cats for Kerry

OK, so I thought it was funny.

As we were at the funeral the other day, one of Mrs. GFR's relatives said of Bush, "At least Nixon was fun to hate. This guy just makes you so mad."

In other news I had some dream about the book I'm currently reading, and then we changed the passwords at work to something new. Now if only I could remember what it was...

Oh, I almost forgot...

The reason I called Laws and Devil was to tell them about this show I saw on TV: The Brini Maxwell Show on the Style Network. She was making a fun decoration out of plexiglass, a mirror, and PILLS.

Because nothing says fabulousness like a display of Flintstones vitamins and Viagra. TEN MILLION STRONG AND GROWING.

Weekend trip report--Chapter II

Once we finally made it back to the hotel, we watched TV for a bit and then went to bed. Getting up in the morning was a challenge, as our budget hotel did not include such frivolities like a clock, shampoo, or this thing I've heard of called a "towel." There were tiny pieces of cloth intended as such, but they were quite sad. Dishtowels, more like. (As you may have guessed, I am less than thrilled about this chain.)

We ate a fine breakfast where I refrained from throwing pieces of bacon to my stepfather-in-law's guide dog.

Then we navigated the back roads/main drag of a tiny southern Oregon town to the church where Mrs. GFR's uncle has been pastor for years. Now I'm not... the most religious-themed unit in my manufacturing group. So a full-on Baptist memorial with lines like, "This is a celebration of her homecoming," or, "Isn't it great that she's with Jebus now?" or whatever do not sit very well with me. I had no idea there was such an alternative world for Christian media. They have books, magazines, videos, posters, dating services, etc., etc., etc. So it's a new world to me.

Then it was back to the middle of BFE for yet more eating.

After we finished eating, we looked at pictures. And looked at pictures some more. Then it was off for more eating.

Devil, when I called him later, told me that a wake was mandatory.

"What's the nationality?"
"We've been thinking about that all day. English, Dutch, a little French."
"If it's European at all, a wake is mandatory. Go find some booze."
"I am in the middle of nowhere. There is no booze to be had on a Saturday night."
"Go find some booze. Some of the best vacations I had recently involve gas station beer."

Alas, no beer was to be had. However, I did get to see the clerk and manager of the hotel interrogate a prospective lodger as to the size of her dog. Luckily, he was smaller than she thought and they were able to let her stay the night.

We woke up to Clinton talking about his book on C-SPAN. Booknotes is a fascinating program to me. I must be getting old. But it was interesting to hear him speak again. I'd forgotten what a coherent president could sound like. Then it was off to an aunt's house for (what she termed small but other people would call "gargantuan") breakfast. We met a cat named Spot who weighed something like 18 pounds. He liked us.

We eventually hit at Dutch Brothers coffee stand on our way back to the Rose City. I gather they're making inroads to this part of the state. I gather the store is named after the Dutch heritage of the family that started the company, but it also reminds me of "pass the Dutchy on the left hand side," if you know what I mean. There's a factory somewhere that stamps out slacker dudes to work there, I think.

Eventually we arrived home, where we examined the progress made on painting the house. We took off for the Kennedy School and then off to the airport. Yes, more eating. But at least there was booze.

That's mostly how we spent our weekend. Now that I'm back, I'm going through new employee orientation (even though I've been working here two years.) But hey, I have all my insurance coverage started. And that excites me more than it should. I really must be getting old.

Meme du jour

Athenais writes:

Name a book you love no matter what anyone says.
The Amazing Screw-On Head. The best comic of 2002, hands down. I hear that the Sci-Fi Channel is turning it into an animated series.

Name a book you loathe no matter what anyone says.
The Princess Bride. Love the movie. Hate the book with a passion. I hate the narrator so very, very much.

Name a book you think is undeservedly obscure.
Sir Machinery. Somebody reprint this, now. Lest I go and plunk down $200 for a copy.

Name a book you think is undeservedly famous.
Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein at his most didactic. Well, that and Snow Crash. Everything past the first 16 pages is crap.

Name a book you think you ought to read.
There was that list from a while back. Jane Eyre, The Sound and the Fury, Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick, etc.

Name a book you think I ought to read.
Carter Beats the Devil. If you haven't already, that is. I've given this book as a gift at least three times and I will probably will again.


I'll get back to the trip report as soon as my headache goes away.

We interrupt this trip report

To bring you the following words of wisdom from Beaucoup Kevin.

This is a dead-on comparison.

Speaking of the Big Dog, there's an interview with him in the Guardian that I found interesting. It explains that bracelet I spotted on him yesterday on C-SPAN. (Somehow I thought it was a friendship bracelet from Chelsea, but it's actually even more touching than that.)

I should head down to Powell's and check out his book. I miss a guy who can, you know, string words together and make sense and not endanger the entire world with a megalomaniac war and turn the country one step closer to Orwell. But that's just me.

Weekend trip report--Chapter I

Grants Pass - June 18, 2004

Part One: In which we drive for four hours
Driving south on I-5 is somewhat monotonous. Not as much as traveling west on I-80 through Iowa and Nebraska, but still. There are mountains, but it's mostly a valley with little to see. Boatloads of allergens, though.

Driving for any amount of time is an eternity when you don't have much to do but drive. Nobody wants to listen to music, so I kept hoping that Mrs. Giant Fighting Robot would keep folks in the car talking so I didn't drift off into slumber and end up driving off the road. Obviously she was successful as I am typing this.

Part Two: In which we attempt to check into a hotel
I didn't make the reservations for the hotel. Neither did the Mrs. It was her uncle, who just picked something close to the road, a chain where they promise to keep the light on for you. Evidently the wattage to keep that light on burned precluded hiring competent staff.

See, we show up in the hotel and we ask for our reservations. It is not under my stepmother's name. Her brother is listed, but not her. It is not listed under her husband's name. It is not listed under my name. It's not listed under my wife's name. Are we sure we're not [her brother]?

The conversation went something like this:

Us: We want two rooms for four people. My name is Mrs. GFR's mother-in-law.
Clerk: I don't have a reservation for that name, but I do have one room for [uncle-in-law.] Two adults and two children.
Us; That's not us.
Clerk: You want one room for [uncle-in-law]?
Us: No, we want one room for us, and one room for them.
Clerk: OK, we'll get one room for [uncle-in-law].
Us: DO NOT SAY THAT NAME ANYMORE. THAT PERSON IS NOT HERE.
Clerk: I took the reservation. You are [uncle-in-law].

We call the person who made the reservation. We put the clerk on. She refuses to admit that we have no reservation. Eventually they decide to just bite the bullet and issue a room to my in-laws and then a room for us.

So we give her a card and an ID and then she checks out a room with one adult to Mrs. GFR's parents. Then she turns to me.

Clerk: So the other room is for [uncle-in-law]?
Us: NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

We explain that while we have four adults, none of whom are in their system, she swears up and down that she has a reservation for us even though it's not in the computer. Even though she keeps thinking my name is [uncle-in-law].

Eventually we get a room. Well, we sign some papers. "Which room am I in, I ask?"

Clerk: "I can't say it out loud."

Of course, I think. If you say it out loud, the gang of ninjas lurking outside the office will know where I am, go to my room, and set up a trap to kill me! Thank goodness for her quick thinking!

Part three: In which we attempt to find BFE
Another of Mrs. GFR's uncles lives in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I thought my grandparents' old cabin was hard to find, but this house? Off the highway. Take a turn. Take another turn. Go up the hill, around the corner, take a right, around the three-headed dog, through the lake of fire, avoid Scylla and Charybdis, and bend space and time.

Why are we in Grant's Pass? Funeral for Mrs. GFR's grandmother. Only there's the family stuff. So we're at the uncle's house, which I think is marked somewhere on my map as "Here there be dragons." We sit around, and eat. And eat. And talk. This has been a bad year for grandmothers in our house--I'm vaguely familiar with the routines after my own grandmother's funeral in April.

Addendum: I am exhausted after driving all weekend so I will continue this later...

HaloScan

Switched commenting systems. Lemme know what you think, puny humans.

OK, Red Robot #C63 moment over.

Catnip bus ahead

OMG! Cat rave! Look out, El Guapo. Those glowsticks are poison!

Trying to prepare myself mentally for a lot of driving in the next few days. I should probably stay away from games like Simpsons: Hit and Run and GTA: Vice City. Kevin is hooking me up with some driving music, looks like. And the rule in the car is the driver picks the music. At least in my mind.

So it turns out that Rumsfeld told the Army to keep a prisoner off the books and away from the Red Cross, violating a ton of treaties and rules for treatment of prisoners. I don't know if you saw the bit where Joe Biden ripped Ashcroft a new one as to why we have treaties, but he's exactly right. Bush makes us less safe. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? I would say that I am not.

(Speaking of Reagan, I hear the Club for Growth has a new ad comparing the Gipper to Bush Jr. And if you remember their ad about Dean where he was compared to bin Laden, you can imagine how good it must be.)

Gardening at night

Wolves lower. Wait, there are no wolves in this neck of the woods. Raccoons, though I hear distemper is thinning their numbers this year.

Having a difficult time concentrating this week, what with the heat and the actual sun and our upcoming trip to Grant's Pass. Family stuff. I would say that I have had my quota of family stuff for the year but that would be a lie, as I have at least one more planned visit before mid-July.

The 9/11 Commission finally said what most of us have known for three years--there was no connection between Iraq and al Qaida. You'd think it was the moon landing from the coverage CNN is giving this little tidbit. Hello, there are over 850 dead and 4500 injured since this idiocy started, and they're just now figuring this out?

The Fourth Estate: Regretting doing our jobs since 1972.

A nod on the steps

It's been a long day and I had a two-and-a-half hour meeting right before going home from work. So forgive me if this does not make much sense.

I've been cogitating a bit (fun word, that, loaded with a bit of nostalgia for what-might-have-been for me but a long story as to why) about how people drift in and out of your life.

The parting starts with a little thing, like not saying hello when you have a chance. People change, people move on, and someone who was once the center of your life, the woman you dreamt of every night or the friend you shared your deepest secrets with is now half-remembered. Somebody you might think about as you hear a certain song, smell cooking waffles, or read the novels of PG Wodehouse. What at one point was just a nod on the steps or in the hallway is the last contact you have with them, until you look them up in Google or something. And then, as friends of mine have learned, you must be careful what you wish for. (Another long story.) Looking back later, you may ask yourself, "Why did you let this happen? What were you thinking? Don't you remember the good times?"

When I was younger this process was a mystery to me. As I've aged and moved halfway across a continent, it becomes more familiar. Daily e-mails fade into quarterly summaries of how your life is, then after a while you look at old web page archives and wonder just who the hell X was and why they got an entry. Once it was a phone number you sweated over asking for--now it is an ephemeral scrap of paper in a desk drawer, destined for recycling or reclamation by future archaeologists.

The hardest for me is the lost potential of what might have been. If only that tenuous connection had not faltered, if only she'd made up her mind differently, why did he decide to take that path. Had the stars not been aligned that way, Mercury not been retrograde, the New Cruelty not so en vogue. I'll never know what kind of software we could have made as a team now, since the bursting of the dotcom bubble and the new jobless recovery we are scattered to the four winds.

Then there's the self-recrimination. What did I do wrong? Was it something I said? Something I did? Will nothing mend what was broken? Though you never can cross the same river. It's not the same river, you're not the same robot. Accept that last glance on the steps, though you didn't know that's what it was at the time.

May cause drowsiness

After a weekend of driving around Vice City, working on web pages and playing with Access isn't really a thrill-a-minute like it used to be.

OK, I am lying as working with Access is never thrill-a-minute. Though I used to get some entertainment value out of making fun comments for my field names. Make fun when and where you can, I guess. (My comment for the table ID field was almost always I am not a number, I am a free man!)

My trick elbow appears to be acting up again. Given that the weather is going to move from overcast and 65 to sunny and 90 by the end of the week, it isn't entirely unreasonable. Still, given that this is the aftermath of an hour-long session of hapkido over ten years ago, it is a little bothersome. This unit is also experiencing some hazy operating conditions--possibly I am not getting enough oxygen.

Daddy's Got His Hat On Backwards

Back in the day when everyone on the Internet was an axe murderer, some folks took time out from their stalking the playgrounds to make fake reviews on Amazon. I wish I could find more of them--they should be archived elsewhere.

I've spent the weekend running around Vice City destroying the populace and trying to find unique jumps. The GTA Warehouse has been somewhat helpful in this, though I swear their fonts make it look like a Sim managed to escape the clutches of Wil Wright and blow off some steam with the PS2. Oh well, even Sims need to relax.

GTA should really be subtitled Monsters from the Id with hookers and motorcycles substituting for Walter Pigeon and Robbie the Robot.

Technical difficulties

First Blogger died, and since I was getting zero feedback the same post was entered five or six times.

And then the fire alarm in our building went off. And went off. And went off.

I am enough of a geeky robot that my first action was to fold up the laptop, place it in my bag, and head out the door. Then I went for coffee and returned. Only to find we had intermittent fire alarm. It would go off every couple of minutes, because there might be a fire. It wasn't sure.

Then after getting home, our house phone is wonky. It hung up randomly, I can't get a connection faster than 12.4K baud (man, I remember when that was BLAZING FAST OMG OMG), and it is just weird.

I suppose I could blame the New Cruelty.

Clockwatching

Sometimes it's better to laugh to keep from crying. New ads for Diebold.

Mourning in America

Retrocrush has the top 50 coolest song parts of all time up. They give props to Biz Markie. Good for them.

There's a trailer up for the Hellblazer movie. It's like the director said, Hey, I have Keanu Reeves. You know what would be cool? If I ripped off The Matrix a lot! That would rock! I tell you, they need to make a third Bill and Ted movie, since I think Alex Winter needs the work and Keanu would probably like to do something with more range.

Bush's latest campaign event Reagan's public funeral is about over. Traffic on the road was very light today as well--I guess people are all taking the day off to pay tribute. I did dream about it last night, actually:

I had a dream about visiting Reagan's casket last night. It was totally cheap plastic and was sitting on a furniture dolly. Somebody had affixed "RONNIE" to the dolly with plastic letters.

The review on the O'Franken Factor was that "No one was goofing around." So I guess that's all you can hope for. I was kinda hoping for a joke about not recognizing his own son, at least.

Hesiod appears to be off the air, as is Media Whores Online. It's not like there's a lack of material to work with at this point, but I can understand their burnout. They will be missed.

We begin zombing in five minutes

This is why the internet was created.

I'm a little surprised Bush hasn't called for 93 poor people to be buried with our fallen hero, one for each year of his life. They would be enshrined in his massive, taxpayer-funded sarcophagus which would be available for rentals for a mere $100,000 donation to the RNC. Bush's website now features all Reagan, all the time. Prior to that it had more pictures of Kerry on the front page than of him.

The Farenheit 9/11 trailer may be the best political ad I've seen in a long time, even better than the "Heart" and "Lifetime" pieces the Kerry campaign was running a while back. Now I don't always agree with Moore (mostly because "Canadian Bacon" should have been a lot more funny) but this looks well worth watching.

I think the best thing to do to honor Reagan is to donate to the Kerry campaign or the DNC. But that's just me.

In other news, I finally finished Ventus and I'm now reading Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds. I really do wish his publishers would find a way to package some of his short fiction into an anthology--the Clavain stories were hinting at such in the last Dozois anthology but I'm not sure I've heard anything more about it.

Currently pondering coffee and whether I need to re-invent the wheel again. Josh mentioned to me the other day that he'd been re-introduced to the Humna Humna. Hrm. I know the game works (somewhat on System 8.6, but what about OS X?

Gift ideas

Oh, I know I have months to go, but I really like the new AirPort Express.

It's the bat signal

As we're playing La Pucelle Tactics, one of the things that amuses us is the recruiting of enemy monsters. After recruiting them, you can train them to become more powerful and get them to like you more. One of our Tiny Bats said that it loved us and it was the bat signal. Not quite sure what that means, but that was one excited bat.

The sky looks a lot like rain this evening, almost the shade of green-yellow that precedes a tornado in the Midwest. There was a tornado warning in Klickitat county last night, even. (Though that's a ways away from here.) It's nice to be back in some ways, though I will say that I did not get sinus headaches while we were in Denver. Lightheadedness and exhaustion from lack of air, that is another story.

Denver is certainly a lot more... busy than Portland. It's a bit older, of course, and they had a lot more money during the Dynasty era of oil. Walking around a mall with valet parking, I was reminded slightly of a city where all the prom queens and homecoming kings went to live, climbing in their SUVs to drive across town to the store. Granted, they have mountains and stuff, but I was reminded of an article from the New Yorker that appeared some months back. My favorite quote:

Ford's S.U.V. designers took their cues from seeing "fashionably dressed women wearing hiking boots or even work boots while walking through expensive malls." Toyota's top marketing executive in the United States, Bradsher writes, loves to tell the story of how at a focus group in Los Angeles "an elegant woman in the group said that she needed her full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and onto lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills." One of Ford's senior marketing executives was even blunter: "The only time those S.U.V.s are going to be off-road is when they miss the driveway at 3 a.m."

Denver claimed to brew the most beer of any city in America, but I'm not sure I would call Coors beer. Of course, if you don't know any better. (Not everybody has access to Terminal Gravity IPA.) On the other hand, I did get a nice black-and-tan at the Cherry Cricket.

Perhaps I would have enjoyed Denver more under better circumstances. Application of more Bookers, for example.

I hope nobody cool or famous is watching me

Today there was a new Strong Bad e-mail and a new-to-me Teen Girl Squad. And there was much rejoicing.

Spending the day trying not to re-invent the wheel. And revising stuff. The usual post-vacation stuff.

I slept a lot yesterday, so there's not much else to report.

Oh, go watch the trailer for Combover: The Movie. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll either curse or bless your mom's dad's genetic legacy.

While the Canucks gently weep

Calgary lost to Tampa Bay, 2-1. I somehow didn't think that Calgary would pull it off.

The colors we are thinking of right now are called Green Tea and Bananas and Beans. And then something called Shiraz for the door.

However, I'm still getting used to the yard--we had a guy come and trim the hedge and he decided to help us by clearing out all the lungwort, hostas, bee balm, hollyhocks, and columbine as well. I am... less than pleased.

In many areas, come to think of it.

5280 to 52

Back from Denver, trying not to watch hockey at the moment. Calgary has looked awful most of the game.

And once again, I dreamt of work last night. Good thing I'm going back tomorrow since at least then I'll get paid for it. This is such a pain. I'm even trying to relax and it's not working.

Started picking out colors for the house this evening. Still not sure of an accent color, though.

New stuff from GameFly. We're finally playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and La Pucelle Tactics. Both of these may be KeepIt material.

The cats missed us. There was at least one good thing about this trip today--despite the screaming babies and turbulence, at least we didn't have to watch them sanctifying Ronnie.

Potpurri

Tampa Bay won Game 6.

Steve Gilliard writes about Reagan. It's a fairly extensive list of why I think the hagiography can stop any time now, even if he does leave out the abysmal reaction of the Reagan administration to the AIDS crisis. (They pretended it didn't exist, which is another reason I never will understand Log Cabin Republicans.)

I feel... very weird. I don't think I dreamt about work last night, but I can't be sure. If so, it's the first time in a long while where I haven't had a dream about screaming or things catching on fire or whatever. Americans have some of the lowest rates of vacation in the industrialized world, and here I am frittering them away. On the other hand, it's not like this is a paid vacation for me.

I had hopes that I would be able to do some writing during this time off, but so far not at all. Going back to Stumptown tomorrow. I hear it will rain.

Long live Saint Ronnie

Kevin called me to say that Ronald Reagan had died. I nearly cried out in excitement, until I remembered that I was walking around Colorado.

I feel like Hunter S. Thompson's eulogy of Nixon is somewhat applicable.

The family opted for cremation until they were advised of the potentially onerous implications of a strictly private, unwitnessed burning of the body of the man who was, after all, the President of the United States. Awkward questions might be raised, dark allusions to Hitler and Rasputin. People would be filing lawsuits to get their hands on the dental charts. Long court battles would be inevitable -- some with liberal cranks bitching about corpus delicti and habeas corpus and others with giant insurance companies trying not to pay off on his death benefits. Either way, an orgy of greed and duplicity was sure to follow any public hint that Nixon might have somehow faked his own death or been cryogenically transferred to fascist Chinese interests on the Central Asian Mainland.
It would also play into the hands of those millions of self-stigmatized patriots like me who believe these things already.

I remember "Morning in America" and what a hollow lie it was. I fully expect more revisionist history from the conservatives, as they name everything in sight after him. Some people are nostalgic for that era--many of them are in the current administration--but I am not one of them.

Glenwood Springs

Greetings from the Hotel Denver in Glenwood Springs. So far we've been to the hot springs and Glenwood Caverns. There are a lot of little houses here that remind me of the housing in Iowa City, actually. And mobile reception is pretty good, thanks to the cell tower on top of Lookout Mountain.

I need to never read work e-mail on vacation, though.

An oxygen mask will drop down

Currently on vacation in Denver. It's a mile high, which I had forgotten. As we were on final approach, the display of our swank new AirBus showed our height and speed. We were still 6,000 feet up and I was not sure how we were going to make it all the way down. Then after we landed and we were still 5300 feet up, I remembered just how high up we are.

I grew up at 600 feet above sea level. Stumptown is basically sea level. I'm not used to this whole "lack of oxygen and moisture" thing.

Plane reading is Ventus by Karl Schroeder. Highly recommended, as is his second book Permanence. Both books are all about nanotech, distributed systems, and longevity of design in a world in flux. Fascinating reading and some great characters.

We should go to bed but it's hard when we're watching this biography of Robert Capa, which is intriguing but also depressing as hell.

Oh, and it has come to my attention that I haven't really told anybody about this blog of mine. My apologies for keeping people in the dark about this, but as usual I mostly wonder if there's any audience for anything I have to say. It's not intentional to mislead.

Why I should not get up at 5 am

Woke up this morning with a start about 5:10 am. This is not good.

I post the following transcript from my favorite BBS in the world as an example why:

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 06:14:57 AM, from Styrofoam

A friend of mine bought an El Camino. When he was describing it, he mentioned the big ass engine, the flat black paint job, the big fat tires, the tinted windows, and the bullet holes. To a man, everybody that heard about it thought that bullet holes were the coolest option EVER. Which is
kind of odd, as that seems like it should be a turnoff to the general populace.

I kind of want to know if there's Yogi/Boo Boo slash out there. Or any involving that dog and his son that were also in the laff-o-lympics.But not enough to actually look. Because I'm scared that it might be there.

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,137 (11 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 06:22:46 AM, from Stephen

We could always write it for you.

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,138 (10 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 06:28:19 AM, from Styrofoam

I don't want it. A mention of slash the other day made me wonder if there was any pairing of characters in the pop medium that have escaped the treatment- and those were the candidates that popped into my head as 'least likely', I'd hope.

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,139 (9 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 06:31:08 AM, from Beaucoup Fish

"Yogi woke up one morning with a big bear erection..."

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,140 (8 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 07:09:06 AM, from Jet Jaguar

"Oh Doggie Daddy, I've been a bad little boy."
"Oh son of mine, you know I'm going to have to spank you! A-ha-cha-cha-cha!"

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,141 (7 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 07:12:57 AM, from Navy Vet

...as Yogi bent Boo-boo over the picnic basket, the Ranger slowly unbuckled his belt...

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,142 (6 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 07:20:03 AM, from Tsaiberia

*cowers*

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,143 (5 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 07:18:01 AM, from Jet Jaguar

Blue Falcon put a restraining hand on Ranger Smith's arm. "Let my friend here show you why he's called Dyno-Mutt."

A robotic dog in a cape extended his flexible neck from the mouth of the cave. "OK, BF! Here goes! I call this my 'Overfiend Mode!'" Robotic tentacles extended toward Boo-Boo, who quivered with anticipation.

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,144 (4 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 07:21:07 AM, from Navy Vet

Damn.

We all need intensive therapy, or something.

I fear the guest appearance of Snagglepuss.

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,145 (3 remaining) > Read Next

Wednesday, June 2nd 2004 07:25:02 AM, from Jet Jaguar

"Bukkake! Stage left!"

[666 Prattle Doesn't Live Here Anymore] msg #81,146 (2 remaining) >

Oh, and enabled Blogger comments again, though I know they are not everyone's favorite.

La la la

This is me not thinking about painting my house.

La la la. *holds hands over ears*

OK, who am I kidding? I'm thinking about it right now.

On the other hand, as I was looking for weblinks for the music I'm listening to, I notice that Pepe and the Bottle Blondes will have a new album out this fall. Pink Martini, I am looking in your general direction. New stuff, already. Please.

And then on a sadder note, Richard Biggs, who played Stephen Franklin on Babylon 5, died this weekend. This saddens me quite a bit, as I loved the show--even though it ended after five seasons, I've dreamt enough about it that I could probably storyboard out seasons six, seven, eight, and nine. Heck, it's how I met Binder--he came over to my apartment to watch it.

Rumor has it that all of B5 will be out on DVD in the fall--the five seasons, all the movies, the 12 episodes of Crusade (of which maybe 3 are watchable, alas). Just in time for my birthday, maybe.

Coffee talk

Back at work today, though it's dead week before finals and things are pretty quiet. Though last night I did find this great song about Libertarians off of dKos. A sample:

I am the very model of a modern Libertarian:
I teem with glowing notions for proposals millenarian,
I've nothing but contempt for ideologies collectivist
(My own ideas of social good tend more toward the Objectivist).
You see, I've just discovered, by my intellectual bravery,
That civic obligations are all tantamount to slavery;
And thus that ancient pastime, viz., complaining of taxation,
Assumes the glorious aspect of a war for liberation!

[Chorus:]
You really must admit it's a delightful revelation:
To bitch about your taxes is to fight for liberation!

I have a feeling I will be humming this a lot in certain situations from now on.

I need to make some phone calls today. Unlike some folks, I don't hate the phone. I take after my maternal unit in that I am sometimes difficult to remove from conversations, actually. Still, all things considered, I'd rather be at home playing Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.