Rol's Rants

Why Does Every Internet Provider Suck Ass?

2012-01-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

Like I said on my Tweeter, the choices available for companies to provide my internet connection are pretty uninspiring, to put it mildly: Century Link, Comcast, or Verizon. 3-way tie for last! There hasn't been a choice this shitty since Romney/Perry/Bachmann! *rimshot*

Seriously though. Pretty much the top 3 companies I don't want to get involved with for any customer service type of issue ever.

To wit: My online chat with Comcast attempting to set up cheapo internet service at my new apartment. Basically I filled out an online order form to start service, and then as part of the process it directs you into an online chat type thing so they can "schedule your service connection" (i.e. try to sell you other crap you didn't order). Read it and grasp the essence. If I'd known it was gonna be that ridiculous, I would've been in full-on ridiculous mode from the getgo. "Hey there Ever, that's an interesting name; are you in an exotic and faraway land?" As it actually played out, you merely have my fairly mellow but increasingly annoyed and sarcastic protestations, culminating in cancelling the order outright and aborting my initiation of a relationship with them.

user Roland has entered room

analyst Ever has entered room

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:54:03 PST 2012)>Hello Roland_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Ever. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:54:08 PST 2012)>Thank you for contacting Comcast Chat Sales where our top priority is making sure you are set up with the Comcast services that meet your needs. I will be providing you the best customer service experience with the best services in the market. How are you doing?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 15:54:24 PST 2012)>Pretty well, and you?

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:54:39 PST 2012)>I am glad to know that you are fine!

[Did I say fine? -R]

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:54:46 PST 2012)>In order for me to set up an account for you, I want to verify I correctly received the information you entered into our system. Please review and confirm the information below is correct:

[I deleted it all below. -R]

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:54:51 PST 2012)>First Name:
Last Name:
Email Address:
Day Phone:
Evening Phone:
Service Street Addr:
Service Addr Apt:
Service Addr City:
Service Addr State:
Service Addr Zip:
Billing Street Addr:
Billing Addr Apt:
Billing Addr City:
Billing Addr State:
Billing Addr Zip:

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 15:55:12 PST 2012)>Correct.

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:55:26 PST 2012)>Thanks for the accurate info, that will make my job easier!

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:56:25 PST 2012)>How long have you been at this address?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 15:57:03 PST 2012)>I move in on January 7th.

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:58:12 PST 2012)>My system shows me that there is an active account under [NAME REDACTED! -R].

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:58:28 PST 2012)>And it has a pending disconnection.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 15:59:19 PST 2012)>Is it possible to do a transfer rather than a disconnect/reconnect?

Ever(Wed Jan 4 18:59:51 PST 2012)>Absolutely, is even cheaper with the installation fees.

[3 minutes goes by as I mistakenly assume he's busily making that happen. -R]

Ever(Wed Jan 4 19:02:57 PST 2012)>Roland, do you rather to transfer?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:03:28 PST 2012)>Yes. What happens next?

Ever(Wed Jan 4 19:04:26 PST 2012)>In order to do I may transfer you with the transfer department.

Ever(Wed Jan 4 19:04:31 PST 2012)>Would you allow me to do that?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:04:43 PST 2012)>Yes

Ever(Wed Jan 4 19:05:00 PST 2012)>I will transfer you right now.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:05:28 PST 2012)>Thanks

Ever(Wed Jan 4 19:05:32 PST 2012)>Please wait, while the problem is escalated to another analyst

analyst MarySharon has entered room

analyst Ever has left room

MarySharon(Wed Jan 4 19:06:23 PST 2012)>Please wait, while the problem is escalated to another analyst

analyst Kristine has entered room

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:06:26 PST 2012)>Hello Roland_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Kristine. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:06:31 PST 2012)>Welcome to Comcast! I see you are moving; that can be a very exciting and busy time. Please give me just a couple of minutes to review the information you have submitted.

This is a great day here in Comcast Movers' Edge! It is a pleasure to have you on chat! We appreciate your time and decision to continue our partnership in your new home. My name is Kristine. You can call me Tin for short. My guarantee is nothing but your satisfaction. I am more than happy to complete the transfer of service process for you.

analyst MarySharon has left room

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:06:50 PST 2012)>Hi Roland! How may I be of service to you today?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:07:50 PST 2012)>I'm moving, trying to set up an account; the apartment I'm moving into has a current account pending disconnection; would rather do a transfer instead of disconnect/reconnect.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:08:31 PST 2012)>Fantastic! Congratulations for your new home Roland! Let me help you process your transfer.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:08:33 PST 2012)>Just to set your expectations, this chat is the preliminary step of your transfer request. I will first check the status of your account as well as the serviceability of your new address.

The date and time that you've chosen a while ago is not yet the final available date.

I would like to request for your response in a timely manner so your transfer request will be processed smoothly and quickly.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:08:39 PST 2012)>For security purposes, may I please have the following?
* Phone number associated with your account
* Your Full Name
* Last 4 digits of your SSN ( for verification purposes only)
* Your current address ( House number, street name, apartment, city, state, zip code)

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:09:35 PST 2012)>

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:09:36 PST 2012)>

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:09:40 PST 2012)>

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:10:03 PST 2012)>

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:10:20 PST 2012)>Thank you very much!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:10:32 PST 2012)>May I also ask for your old address?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:11:04 PST 2012)>

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:11:15 PST 2012)>Thank you very much!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:11:23 PST 2012)>Please give me 2 to 3 minutes to access your account information and check for the availability and serviceability of your new address.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:11:24 PST 2012)>While waiting for your new address to show up in our system, may I ask for the following, for notation purposes:
1. Nearest cross street intersection from the new service address
2. One or two contact numbers for our technician to call 15-30 minutes before his arrival

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:12:27 PST 2012)>Are you still there, Roland?

[At this point I'm trying to figure out a polite way to say "Do I fuckin work for you? Look it up!"]

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:13:28 PST 2012)>Please acknowledge that you are still in front of your computer. Our system will automatically close this chat after 1 minute due to inactivity.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:13:52 PST 2012)>1. Cross street is available on Google Maps

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:14:32 PST 2012)>2. Front office of apt. building: [phone number redacted -R]

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:14:53 PST 2012)>Perfect! Thank you so much for that information!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:15:58 PST 2012)>May I also ask for your account number, because I can not pull up your previous account using any of the information you have given?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:17:12 PST 2012)>It's a brand-new account, probably not in the system yet.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:17:24 PST 2012)>Thank you very much!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:18:18 PST 2012)>By the way, since this is a new account, Comcast has recently adopted stricter Federal guidelines to protect our customers from identity theft. In order for me to create your Comcast account, I am required to do a Credit Check. Would that be fine with you?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:19:13 PST 2012)>Yes

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:19:21 PST 2012)>Thank you very much!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:19:27 PST 2012)>May I ask for your full SSN?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:20:12 PST 2012)>

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:20:28 PST 2012)>Perfect! Thank you very much!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:20:34 PST 2012)>Great News! You are eligible for the HD Premier XF Triple Play promotion. This amazing package is only $199.99 /mo, regular price. But if you sign up now, you can get this for only $159.99 /mo for 12 months.

It includes the following:

* Free HD DVR
* no HD access fees or HD DVR equipment fees.
* Sports Entertainment Package.
* Over 200 digital cable channels, including HBO®, Starz®, Cinemax® and Showtime®.
* Over 17,000 On Demand movies and shows that you can watch on your TV and now online.
* Faster Internet speeds.
* Constant Guard™ - a $360 value of top-rated security software, including Norton™ Security Suite and much more.
* Unlimited nationwide calling – rated #1 in call clarity.
* Voice mail and 12 popular calling features, including Caller ID and Call Waiting.

Shall we process this instead, Roland?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:21:16 PST 2012)>No, thanks. Nice try heh.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:22:15 PST 2012)>How about our Double Play Promotion, Digital Premier with Performance Internet. It includes the following:
$119.99/ mo for 12 months
- Over 200 Channels available.
- HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Showtime and Sports Channels for free
- Up to 15 Mbps Download Speed and 2 Mbps Upload Speed.
- Equipment fee (modem cable box) and tax are not yet included in the price

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:22:22 PST 2012)>Shall we process this instead, Roland?

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:23:24 PST 2012)>Are you still there, Roland?

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:24:24 PST 2012)>Please acknowledge that you are still in front of your computer. Our system will automatically close this chat after 1 minute due to inactivity.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:24:36 PST 2012)>No, thanks. And a pro-active no to any other up-sell offer that costs more than what I've requested.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:24:57 PST 2012)>I perfectly understand. Perhaps if you change your mind, you can always chat back with us. We are here for you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Or you may call 1-800-XFINITY (934-6489) for more information. Let me go ahead and continue the transfer process for you.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:25:10 PST 2012)>Just to confirm, we are going to process this:

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:25:33 PST 2012)>Global Name: Performance - Special Offer
Total Monthly Price: 29.99
Product Option Name: Internet Modem - OWNED - $0.00

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:25:41 PST 2012)>Is this correct?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:25:52 PST 2012)>That's right!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:26:00 PST 2012)>Thank you very much!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:26:14 PST 2012)>I do see here as well, Product Option Name: Internet Installation.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:26:56 PST 2012)>Yes that was the default from the online order form. If we can remove that in lieu of the transfer, that would be nice.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:27:48 PST 2012)>Thank you very much for the confirmation. About the waiving of the installation fee, I do apologize, however we do not have authorization to do that. But no worries.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:28:03 PST 2012)>I was able top make it down to $25.00 for you.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:28:16 PST 2012)>It will be included in your first bill in your new address.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:28:47 PST 2012)>By the way, upon checking our system, Jan 10, anytime between 10Am-12PM, is the earliest available schedule. Would you like me to reserve this now for you?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:29:34 PST 2012)>Can you describe what the $25 is for explictly?

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:29:51 PST 2012)>Installation fee is also for the replacement of some wires. Of course, we need to make sure that wires are still in good condition before we install your service to prevent fire or any accidents caused by faulty wirings.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:30:48 PST 2012)>Are you still there, Roland?

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:32:06 PST 2012)>Please acknowledge that you are still in front of your computer. Our system will automatically close this chat after 1 minute due to inactivity.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:33:18 PST 2012)>I don't think you need to do that. (If you do, then you wired it wrong before.)

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:33:32 PST 2012)>No, Roland.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:34:16 PST 2012)>We need to reinstall everything because we need to make sure that it is safe to have the services again to the address.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:35:00 PST 2012)>And upon checking the status of the new address as well, I can see here that the connection of all the services were previously disconnected from the post.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:35:27 PST 2012)>Thus we need to install again the wires from the Post to the house - which is included in the Install fee.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:35:37 PST 2012)>Also I wasn't aware this kind of cable had sufficient voltage/current to cause fire. Coincidentally though, the strict attention to safety results in additional revenue for Comcast!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:35:38 PST 2012)>That is why it is originally $34.99.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:35:55 PST 2012)>Upon checking the status of the new address as well, I can see here that the connection of all the services were previously disconnected from the post.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:35:59 PST 2012)>Thus we need to install again the wires from the Post to the house - which is included in the Install fee.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:36:07 PST 2012)>And since the previous analyst already stated that it was a PENDING disconnection, you can see I'm a bit skeptical.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:36:50 PST 2012)>I do apologize, however, I do not see any PENDING ORDER here.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:37:01 PST 2012)>I can only see here TAP DISCONNECTED

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:37:02 PST 2012)>.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:37:26 PST 2012)>That is why we need to re install all the wires back again from the TAP to the House.

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:38:36 PST 2012)>I think maybe what I'll do is live without internet forever, how does that sound to you? Sounds quiet to me. Peaceful.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:39:15 PST 2012)>That would be your choice, Roland. I am here just to help you process the account for you.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:40:33 PST 2012)>Are we going to proceed with the order, Roland? I can give you ANOTHER OPTION for the installation fee. However It will not be on my side. That would just be form another department which I will be endorsing you.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:40:34 PST 2012)>?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:41:52 PST 2012)>No, I think I'll cancel this order. Thanks for all your help. Sorry if I sound testy.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:42:43 PST 2012)>That would be fine. I do understand your point as well for the installation fee. Too bad that we really don't have authorization to completely waive it for you.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:42:46 PST 2012)>Please let me know, would there be anything else that I can assist you with, Roland?

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:43:46 PST 2012)>Are you still there, Roland?

Roland_(Wed Jan 4 16:44:23 PST 2012)>Yes, no nothing further, just delete all my info from your system would you please?

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:44:33 PST 2012)>Sure.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:44:53 PST 2012)>I will delete all the information you have here.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:44:59 PST 2012)>Thank you so much.

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:45:09 PST 2012)>Have a pleasant day ahead!

Thank you so much for your time and patience while we're in the chat room. If you need assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us through Live Chat or E-Mail (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Comcast also offers great FAQ and Help forums located at www.Comcast.net to help you solve many issues on your own. You can also reach us through our Hotline 1-800-XFINITY (934-6489). I hope that you will take a moment to complete the 4-question survey that will follow our interaction when you close this chat. It's been a pleasure helping you today. Thank you for contacting Comcast!

If you want to watch full TV shows and movies online, you can visit http://www.xfinitytv.com. Bye! Take care!

Kristine(Wed Jan 4 19:45:56 PST 2012)>Analyst has closed chat and left the room

He Makes A Good Point

2011-12-03T16:46:00.000-08:00

Several months ago I found, and finally just recently read, an online "e-book" typical of those written by self-help bloggers who quit their jobs to earn a living telling people to quit their jobs and become self-help bloggers. Although this guy doesn't recommend doing that, he just rehashes a lot of old self-help ideas the world has seen many times before. Actually that might be the province of the self-help author or blogger at this advanced stage of the game... repackaging old ideas from all the old-school motivational authors who have already said those ideas (and most people didn't heed them back then either).

This e-book is of the sort widely ridiculed by real authors (of actual books to which companies have dedicated actual paper, ink, and money): double-spaced, in large font, with lots of white space, and a lot of inelegant repetition of the same points with slightly different wording, sometimes right there in the very next paragraph, sometimes a chapter or two ahead, or sometimes said chapter is basically a rewrite of that whole chapter. All of which is done, I presume, to make it come out over a hundred pages like a "real book," when in fact the same ideas could be much more economically delivered, in say 50 pages, with no shame over that fact whatsoever, by someone who prioritized the truth rather than sales pitches with agendas behind them. But of course much of the self-help and motivational field is essentially sales... both by an author or speaker selling a book or talk or workshop to the audience, and by the audience itself, selling those ideas to themselves, ideas about what they should be or want to be (the agenda), instead of accepting what they are (the truth). I attach no moral judgment to that (or most things), because everybody involved might have only the best intentions. I only point out that the whole thing is a sales/persuasion/convincing process, which cares less about how things are (the truth) than about how they could be (the agenda).

Anywhoo, among the foibles of this particular e-book was the following:

(actual size was a whole lot bigger)

I agree, if you want to feel peak energy and be a top performer, probably good to avoid eating deserts. What's that you say? You think maybe he means desserts? I don't think so, because only a few pages earlier he demonstrates that he knows how to use the word right:

Or maybe you're right, I dunno. In which case I think he means there's a big crossable dessert somewhere in Algeria. Yum! And it was abandoned by the French, so it's like, way available!

Saw This at My Favorite Store, Fred Meyer

2011-11-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

Waiting in line at the pharmacy I had ample time to consider this poster fully:

This bit in particular is supposed to horrify you out of smoking:

This is just plain weird. The actual packs of smokes cost like $150 a month. And you get cancer. Both these are apparently just fine, but the WORST part, the REAL HORROR of smoking is that $30 of your $150 goes to the federal government! Must've been Republicans who wrote this, since paying their goddamn taxes just like everybody else does is their favorite topic to fucking whine about.

Another Scandal, Another Face!

2011-11-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

I can barely keep up!

First Day in the New Cube

2011-11-14T21:17:00.000-08:00

Yeah so I got this job and stuff. The first thing I did was to clean the rather small cubicle of all the prodigious amounts of stuff left behind by my predecessor in his hasty departure.

Yes, you see, apparently, he just, like, disappeared one day. Just up and stopped coming to work, didn't even tell anybody. They were wondering if it was like maybe a missing persons case, or maybe even a Missing Persons case. But no, somehow they were able to ascertain that he's fine, he just didn't want to work there anymore. I've said too much already. But yeah, anyway, HAHA SUCKA, GOT YOUR JOB!!!

So what can you tell about a guy by the stuff he keeps in his cubicle? It's like a little glimpse into his psyche.

Well there were tons of useful lookup tables on the walls -- which I'll probably end up keeping as a matter of fact. But I took them down and currently they're sitting in a folder until I learn what the heck they are and why they're useful. In other words I'm too dumb to need them right now. But from this you can tell he's a practical sort of guy who likes to have information close-at-hand.

Also on the wall, a leftover inspirational quote: "Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." -Rumi That was posted near the door, which tells us: This guy hates people.

He even left his gum:

That tells us, he likes to have minty-fresh breath.

And then there was the hidden cache of Panda Express fortune cookies. Eight of them. Never trust a man who, rather than eating his fortune cookie at the end of the meal, saves it for later.

Well, since I was, and you are, dying to know what the fortunes were, here they are (since they are now MY fortunes... HAHA SUCKA, GOT YOUR FORTUNES!!!):

"Smile! A frown may turn others away." I had already struck up a jovial conversation with my cube-neighbor by this point, and joked around with my new boss & co-workers, so I figure I had this one covered pretty well.

"You enjoy playing to a crowd." This is true, because in fact I am a performer of the musical stylings. I read this one after getting the news that an upcoming gig had been cancelled. Which I was relieved to hear, frankly, but this reminded me that, yes, I do enjoy it.

"Wise men learn more from fools, than fools from the wise." I guess that's why they're so goddamned wise. Because there are plenty of fools to learn from!

"Yes. Do it with confidence." Based on this, I went ahead and dumped a bunch of this guy's old crap without bothering to ask whether we still needed it.

"Business and health matters around you will blossom." I take this to mean "You just got a job and somewhat better health insurance." Thus, this may actually be another recession fortune.

"You will receive some prestigious prize or award." Don't know what that could be, but since I am pretty dang excellent, I can't wait to find out what it is!

"You will receive an unexpected gift from an acquaintance." Better not even try to guess at this one, because if I start to expect something, that one won't be it.

******
UPDATE 11/19/11: I did in fact, receive an unexpected gift, from my girlfriend: Foot deodorant spray!

"Thanks" honey, I think! Well, I *had* been complaining that my feet smell funny. Which is a sure indication that the old athlete's foot is beginning to get a "foothold" CHORTLE CHORTLE CHORTLE! Well, it's the wet-ass Pacific Northwest, so athlete's foot is pretty much a fact of life. But I usually keep it at bay by just standing in a basin of bleach-water for a few minutes. Kills it right dead, and usually keeps it from coming back for a good month or so. None of this spraying Desenex on there twice a day for 3 weeks only to have it come right back. So yeah, handy lil' tip there for ya.
******

"Today will be lucky and memorable for you." I dimly recall that it was!

Discuss

2011-11-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

The architecture of this church is a tribute to ugliness and ungodliness. Discuss.

"It's no Sistine Chapel... [shrug]" --God

More Scandal Faces!!

2011-11-08T22:56:00.000-08:00

Jeez, what do you think, should I just go ahead and grab scandalface.blogspot.com? Actually never mind, I just did it. Too late, suckaz!

Three more Scandal Faces posted today here!

Two-Banger! Jack Abramoff Scandal Face!

2011-11-06T23:13:00.001-08:00

This one's a real hoot!

Tom DeLay Scandal Face from 2005

2011-11-06T21:37:00.000-08:00

Republicans catching up in the scandal-face-race!

Herman Cain Scandal Face!!!

2011-11-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here it is, you know you want it.

It's amazing isn't it? The media I mean. Like guard dogs of democracy! (If the dogs were trained to lie down and lick themselves incessantly at first sight of a burglar.)

Ripping to Shreds a Well-Meaning but Poorly Written Stroke-Identification Email Forward/Spam

2011-10-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry but spam-disembowelment is like a sport for me. Everybody hates unsolicited emails on topics in which they're not particularly interested, and everybody hates to have their time wasted. This is a fine example of both, so I'm sure you can "get on board."

Interestingly, there are actually a couple kernels of useful information buried in all the tedious blather, especially if you haven't been out of diapers very long and don't know what a stroke can do. SO READ ON and LEARN! "It only takes a minute!"

If you're an employer busy Googling me and you don't like all the grown-up words in this post, just keep in mind, I will obviously just be constantly yelling those words really loud all day long in the workplace and in all my business-related communications because I have no self-control whatsoever.

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters... S.T..R ...
My friend sent this to me and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree. If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a party, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. (they offered to call ambulance)

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Ingrid... Ingrid... have I made the acquaintance of this Ingrid? A second ago you were talking about a friend who stumbled. Now suddenly we've switched over to this Ingrid person. Who the fuck do you think you are, Thomas Pynchon?

Also, weren't you fixing to share some simple, useful shit that involved the letters S.T.R.?

Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm , Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the party. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.

OKAY yeah, got it. Strokes are bad and aren't always immediately obvious, I get it. Thanks for the fictional story to illustrate "a stroke." What about the S.T.R. thing?

Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead. It only takes a minute to read this...

It's been a minute already. You could've told me by now. Can we get to the point please? I might have a stroke in the time it takes to read this.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim...

"A neurologist" says something? A neurologist walks into a bar. "Have that removed," he says to an orderly, pointing to the bar and rubbing his bruised forehead.

...within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally.

Oh totally!

He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

Yes, it's tough; that's why it's "the trick." You think "the trick" is ever the easy part? No my friend, "the trick" always "is tough." Anyway what about the S.T.R. thing, god dammit?!?!?!?

RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Remember the '3' steps, STR . Read and Learn!

Ah, OK here we go, finally.

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster.  The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage...

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Still disquieting us with these harrowing tales of how strokes are "bad" and stuff? Once upon a time children, old Baba Yaga lived in the forest and BLA BLA BLA.... WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THE S.T.R. THING???!!? Whatever it is, it's now going to have to be the most awesome thing in the world to live up to the annoyance of this protracted slow-motion trainwreck!

...when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.  Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S * Ask the individual to SMILE ..

Holy shit, here it is, the S.T.R. thing finally! IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!

T * = TALK. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (eg 'It is sunny out today').

Just one sentence, or should they first ramble on and on about some bullshit and THEN the sentence?

R * Ask him...

WHAT IF IT'S A WOMAN?!??

...or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS .

If he...

WHAT IF IT'S A WOMAN?!??

...or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call the ambulance and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

NOTE : Another 'sign' of a stroke is
1. Ask the person to 'stick' out their tongue.

So to speak. "Stick" it out, as it were.

2. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.

"If it goes to one side" is sufficient. "Yeah but what if it goes to the OTHER side?"

The thing is, do you think someone as vain, fussy and easily embarrassed as that fucking Ingrid, who couldn't even admit she'd had a stroke, blaming it instead on her shoes, is going to just voluntarily agree to stick, sorry "stick" her tongue out at a party?

A prominent cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

Sure, sure, I have the option of betting that. Though I actually could bet that right now without forwarding a goddamn thing. In fact, I can bet that silver-plated bricks will come out my ass. But yeah anyway first of all what the fuck is "a prominent cardiologist" even doing here? Is he a refugee from the same joke as "a neurologist?" Anyway I don't recall talking about heart attacks, so run along now Dr. Prominent Cardiologist.

Secondly if you're calculating how many lives will be saved per email forwarded, you're actually more of a statistician, perhaps an actuary or something like that. Assuming you actually exist. You cardiologist actuarial motherfucker you.

Third, if "everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people," everyone on earth with an email account will get a copy after 10 iterations. (10 to the 10th power being 10 billion which is more than the human population. That's a little thing we call math.) And the reward for all the work? The ability to bet that at least one life will be saved. Great! Hopefully it's not the life of some bastard who's gonna be competing with me for food in the next few years.

And it could be your own.

Oh, good, cuz all this caring about other people was starting to make me be all like "Whats teh point?"

Good Or Bad?

2011-10-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

I felt pretty good about this Chinese fortune for about 4 seconds. Overcoming adversity, yeah, that's awesome! But then I realized that in order to overcome difficult times, you have to HAVE difficult times. Things are going okay for me right now, all things considered. I mean I'm kinda broke I guess, but I have the basics, and anyway I'm sure my grandparents lived efficiently & happily on less than this. But then here comes this fortune cookie trying to CURSE ME!!! Why can't I just sail along through easy times? HUH, FORTUNE COOKIE?

Fine, whatever. What it giveth with "overcoming," it taketh away with "difficult." Fair enough... a mixed good/bad fortune cookie. But then I realize a few seconds later that, no, it's taking away more than it's giving. Because overcoming difficulty is a foregone conclusion. I already do that. I mean, what other choice is there? When difficult times come, what else can you do but to keep going until things improve? There is no other response. Well I suppose you could blow your brains out. So I guess what the fortune cookie is really telling me, is "You will have difficult times. And you will not escape by blowing your brains out." GREAT, THANKS!

That's what happens when you start making recession-themed fortunes. What's next... Iraq-themed fortunes? "Don't let the IED of life blow up under the armored patrol vehicle of your soul." Or maybe a Libya drone-attack fortune. "Sometimes the drone finds its target; other times it crashes in the desert. Either way it is lost forever." Or one about bank failure or Occupy Wall Street or the Yankees? No... Do me a favor and stick with the timeless wisdom of Confucius and the like, okay?

Besides, anybody who can afford to eat out at a Chinese place is not having "difficult times" in my book. Difficult times would be having to make the same food at home, but not being able to because you can't afford food.

The Hotly Anticipated Followup Article: Sergei's Conundrum

2011-10-08T18:29:00.000-07:00

I know you guys have been losing sleep and going crazy waiting for the conclusive, wrappy-uppy, summy-uppy follow-up to this article, and I apologize. I just want to say, your heroic and stalwart patience, your seemingly inexhaustible good cheer throughout this time, will not be forgotten!

This is what you get when you Google "heroic sacrifice."

By way of explanation...Read more »

Cascadian Farm Organic Whatnots are Bullshit

2011-09-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

All right, hey, great, a big ol' box of granola bars. That ought to keep the old blood-sugar up when I'm being active. Big box too, and five of them in there... these must be some good-sized bars that a guy my size can count on to stave off hunger for a good long while.

I'll just open the top of the box here, and... HEY WAIT A MINUTE.

Okay, yeauhp, yeauhp, there's 5 bars in there, like they said, but there's also a full 2 inches of empty space.

Hmmm, a bit disappointing. Well anyway let's open one up, I'm hungry.

OK what the hell's going on -- the bars are a full 1.5 inches shorter than their wrappers:

That would be disappointment #2. Can any product afford to twice-disappoint the customer like this? A quick volume calculation reveals they could've fit about 4 more bars of that size into that box. What message is being sent here? I guess that depends on how you look at it:

If you view it as "the packaging's too big for the product" then the message is "We don't give a shit about excess packaging or the environment. We squander." Not really the message a marketer of organic granola bars would want to send.

If you view this as "the product's too small for the packaging" then the message is "We don't give a shit about ethics. We will totally deceive you." Not the kind of message ANY company wants to send.

There are many such products lurking in the supposedly eco-friendly hippie grocery store, including produce shipped halfway around the world out of season, excessive plastic packaging, the whole bit. It all amounts to the same old greenwashing... a phenomenon that's been going strong in America since about 2008, that basically amounts to just another type of upscaling. Because for a "consumer" to make a sacrifice (i.e. pay more) because of an ideological stance (organically grown stuff is better for the environment and therefore it's a good thing for a buyer to try to help stimulate demand for it even though it's not the cheapest) is something the marketers of America don't feel confident they can sell. Rather, it has to be about upscaling, like always. The problem is, everything truly "green" always tends to involve LESS, and DOWNSCALING, and (horror of horrors) NOT BUYING. So they're trying to compromise. And compromising on ideas leaves your ideas inherently compromised. See also: electric cars, the Democratic Party (with its millionaires). Hey people: you can't have it all. Make a sacrifice or just admit you're part of the problem.

Operation Facebook: So Cute!

2011-09-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Just caught wind of this: Supposedly a hacker group called Anonymous is advising people to close their Facebook accounts before November 5th, presumably because on that date they are going to unleash the Mother of All Hacker Attacks and bring down the Facebook site or some such. Here are two variations of the message:

My first thought was "Golly." My second thought was, I bet there's not gonna be any hacking attempt at all; rather this message itself is the extent of the plot, and the goal is simply to social-engineer as many people as possible into voluntarily closing their Facebook accounts before November 5. That in itself would be a big blow to Facebook.

Cuz I mean, why would a hacker group advertise, weeks ahead, the date they were planning on conducting an attack? Completely giving up the element of surprise. You think Hitler ever did that? You think "blitzkrieg" would've become a dictionary term in English if they had telegraphed the attack weeks ahead? No, in 1939 you had to deduce there was an attack going on by looking at the tank tracks going up one side of your ass and down the other. (And even then you were like "Really?! Really?!?!?!?")

Then again, hackers tend to be some combination of young, naive, arrogant and/or clever, so maybe they think no one can stop them, and maybe they're even right, I dunno. Don't care... closed my Facebook account a while ago!

Anyway, so far I've only seen these two versions of the Anonymous message, but they both seem a little quaint or naive in a certain way: They both seem to completely overlook what constitutes the true and actual problem with Facebook. It's the Facebook business model, plain and simple. In one message above, the apparent worst thing that can happen to your data is that it can leak all over the Internet. In the other, your Facebook info is supposedly being sold or given to government agents. Maybe so, and yeah sure, that would be bad, but the far more clear & present danger isn't the rare case of something juicy leaking out, or finding yourself on a terrorist watch-list or whatnot, but rather the routine way in which Facebook handles your data every day, as part of its actual mission.

As a Facebook user, you are essentially being sold to corporate marketers. Facebook isn't a social networking site; it's a data mining operation for advertisers. It's an "audience aggregator." The service they provide is to get the attention of a large group or groups of people. Corporations interested in reaching those groups can then buy access to them. Thanks to the lavish personal data and conversations people willingly share, Facebook can brag of a pretty high accuracy rate in targeting any type of consumer. Their product is you, and access to your attention. Their customer is the advertiser. And THAT -- not a conspiracy, just simple ordinary capitalism -- is why they don't care about your privacy. After all, you're not the customer; you didn't pay a cent, so why should they cater to you? And in fact, your privacy stands directly in the way of their mission.

Now you understand why their privacy policy and its many re-writes have been so convoluted (i.e. "twisting and turning"... from Latin convolutus: coiled, interwoven). They're walking a line, trying to appease the users enough that they don't stop sharing their data, but also, and mainly, trying to protect themselves legally from any future challenge to their use of the information. The fact of the matter is that there is no privacy in that policy. Facebook has access to everything. And you can pretty much assume their advertisers do too, certainly in aggregated form if not individual.

So if you quit Facebook, do it for that reason!

Wrong On So Many Levels

2011-08-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

This quote about Portland from the London Times is on the wall, all huge, at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer. If you would like to be annoyed more acutely, click on it to view a bigger version in a new window.

Let me now attempt to catalog the many different ways in which this is bullshit.

1. When blaring an unsolicited message at ACTUAL PORTLANDERS who just came there to get some goddamned toilet paper, it's helpful to have a Londoner author it. Oh yes, didn't you know, ALL the really knowledgeable experts on Portland live in London, 8 time-zones away from Portland. It simply wouldn't do to have people from the same continent talking about it; they don't have enough "distance."

Not Portland.

2. The best person to select a quote about Portland is someone from the marketing department at Fred Meyer. Why? Because they're totally out there experiencing Portland, drinking it to the lees all the time! Not sitting in a cubicle all day, driving their SUVs to lunch at Burgerville (a block away across Powell from Fred Meyer HQ) and then home to Beaverton every night, oh my heavens no!

3. The best store in which to put this quote about Portland, is Fred Meyer. Why? Because they're all about Portland values! The millions of dollars their parent company Kroger contributes to Republican political campaigns in their nationwide territory is just one example. There's also all the many fine products that help Portlanders stay so vital-yet-non-precocious, such as -- I'm sorry could you tell me again, where's your 5-foot-wide organic produce section, you know, the one that so flagrantly and amply displays, via its miniscule selection of mostly bruised and fruit-fly-ridden produce, why your big-ass centralized corporate operational logistics are ill-suited to the task of properly handling and marketing organic produce yeah thanks. And also they have a cheese counter, which is a total Fred Meyer Portland innovation.

Then there's the quote itself. Well "fuck me gently," let's take a look!

4. "Portland is a bracing mixture..." (must be talking about the rain)

5. "Vital without being precocious..." Thank goodness we're not precocious, since THAT TERM IS RESERVED FOR LITTLE CHILDREN. Anyway, doesn't it just mean "exceptionally smart or good at something?" Welp, I guess we're not smart or good at anything. Or at least, not beyond what would be expected for our age. London though, London is just ADORABLE, how precocious it is!

6. "Laid-back without being starry-eyed..." Mmmm, I beg to differ. In recent years due to the influx of young people from across the USA, the median age of Portlanders has gone steadily down... I think it's around 4 yrs now. Some characteristics of this age group: naively enthusiastic, overoptimistic, romantic, unrealistic, idealistic... all of which are synonyms for starry-eyed. There, I win. But yeah, why do you think every motivational self-help blogger quits their day job, moves to Portland, becomes a motivational self-help blogger and starts telling people to quit their jobs, move to Portland and become motivational self-help bloggers? As for laid-back... yes that's true, and don't ever try to get across town in a hurry. Plan on leaving early.

7. "More than that, Portland is funky." Oh yes, tear the roof off the sucker. They probably should've continued their litany of opposites here, e.g. "Funky without having that many black people."

8. "...not in a self-conscious way..." EXCEPT WHEN MOTHERFUCKERS OUTRIGHT DECLARE IT ON A 20-FOOT-TALL WALL SIGN. Or on a bumper sticker. "Dig, man, the true funk comes from just being yourself, not from TRYING to be funky." --George Clinton. (not actual quote (or maybe it is))

9. "...but as a reflection of how the locals choose to live." Here they wrap it up and tie a nice little ribbon around it by lumping everybody into one big monolithic group.

I think I'm done now, judging from the fact that I'm bored. Though I'm sure there are still a couple other bothersome things about this. Take it from here, readers!

**

2011-08-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Finding A Drain Clog -- The Engineering Way

2011-07-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

So I know it's been a while since my last post, and that's because among the things that happened in between, I moved. Moving is pretty exciting so I'll be sure and go into a lot of detail about it in a future, lengthy post. NOT

Anyway the house I moved into, has a very slowly-running tub drain. And that, I WILL bore you about.

Not what the tub looks like.

This drain is almost totally clogged. And of course, water collects thereupstreamfrom when you're showering. Now while this water would perhaps be fine for you to stand in during one shower, it becomes fairly nasty after multiple uses. This is due to this simple fact of fluid dynamics and/or fluvial geomorphology: sediment (a.k.a. nasty crap) is more readily deposited (i.e. not washed away) where the water velocity is low. Thanks to the clogged drain, the water velocity is pretty goddamn low in this tub. Hence, all the stuff that would ordinarily be washed down a properly-functioning drain, settles out of the water and stays in the tub. For infinity. All the dead skin cells and who-knows-what-else from an infinite number of showers... they're all there.

Now we have defined the problem. Here are the solutions contemplated:

Solution 0 - The Do-Nothing Option) My first couple showers were accomplished by simply tolerating/standing in this ever-rising flood of murky waters as I showered. Not as bad as the travails some people go through in this world, but still, clearly a bit, shall-we-say, sub-optimal.

Solution 1) The next couple showers were accomplished by standing on TOP of the tub, one foot on each side, straddling the polluted lake between. If it weren't so unsafe I could've done this indefinitely. Just aim the shower head a bit higher and you're good to go. Disadvantage: You cannot turn around to face away from the shower stream, or even really move. So you have to rinse your back and ass-crack by squatting a bit and bending forward like a deadlifter so the water goes over your head and down your back. Advantages: Encourages short, efficient showers.

Solution 2) Dump Liquid Plum'r down the drain. Didn't work. Liquid Faily'r more like.

Solution 3) Run a plumbing snake down there. Unfortunately, as I found out shortly thereafter by going down to the crawlspace and inspecting the pipes, the drain path from this particular tub is so crooked it might as well be Lloyd Fucking Blankfein. Not counting the drain trap which is a 180-degree sweep, there were FIVE, count 'em FIVE, right-angle bends as well as two 30-degree bends, in this obviously cobbled-together, multiple-vintage, jerry-rigged drain path. Try and get a plumbing snake through THAT. I can't go for that, no, no, no-can-do.

Solution 4) Try the plunger. Didn't work, even after sealing off the overflow vent and really going at it.

Solution 5) Keeping the overflow sealed and using duct-tape as a gasket, try to FORCE water down the drain with the garden hose. Didn't work.

Solution 6) As it becomes increasingly obvious a plumber will be required, I resume focus on the "above the floodwaters" approach, taking a small 16" x 16" homemade table I have, and shortening the legs to 6" to use as a platform, an island in troubled waters, so I can stand in the tub without being IN the tub. This also, I could probably do ⁽¹⁾ indefinitely, or rather for the duration of my stay in this house.

Solution 7) ... came to me like all great ideas, whilst sitting on the toilet. Which works fine, by the way. (I'd be so outta here!) Actually this isn't really even a solution; it's more of an information-gathering exercise to enhance the success of Solution 2, Solution 3, or Solution X (i.e. "get a plumber"). Namely: TO LOCATE THE CLOG, USING MATH AND CLEVERNESS. Here's the deal: When you turn on the shower, the drain will accept a certain volume of water. This causes my optimistic side to leap with glee, only to be smacked down by the inevitable crushing blow as the water backs up shortly thereafter into the tub. Leaping and smacking-down aside, this presumably means the clog is kinda far down. How far down? That is what we want to know. On the crapper I thought of this:

Pour a measured amount of water into the drain until it backs up to the top. Note the volume of water poured in. Then, proceeding down the drain path, note the shapes and measure the relevant dimensions of each piece of the cobbled-together plumbing, such that you can calculate HOW MUCH WATER EACH PIECE WILL HOLD. Add those up and keep a running tally of the volume as you go downstream, and when that number equals the volume you poured in, you've found where the clog is. To model this drain path I only needed 3 shapes:
- cylinder, which is what pipes are, and if they're standard Schedule 40 pipes, you can measure their outer diameter and then look up their probable inner diameter
- torus, i.e. doughnut shape, which is what a bend is (a 90-degree bend is a quarter-torus and the drain trap is a half-torus) and you can look up the volume formula for that on Wikipedia
- frustum, which is an abbreviated cone, which is another look-up-on-Wikipedia deal, and frankly could've been ignored since it was really just a small volume at the very top

Here's the calcs, bitches! All you haters suck my balls.

(1) And may very well end up doing, since my roommate/landlord is a) kinda broke, b) definitely ADD, and c) always sleeps/showers at his girlfriend's house, and hence may never get around to hiring a plumber! back

Here's What I Did While On Hold Today

2011-06-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

Eat Pray Love, the guy version

Ginger Lee Scandal Face!

2011-06-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

The pouts just-a-keep on comin'!

Thoughts from the Laundromat

2011-06-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

Something about watching your laundry (in this case a blanket too big for our washer) spinning in a machine gets me thinking. Today it was this: You know how some people are like "treat your body as a temple" and "my body is my temple" and whatnot. I call bullshit on this analogy. My body's not a temple, it's a house. I live there, and keep it accordingly. Even the devout go to the temple only once a week. But you're at your house every day.

A lack of care will soon make itself noticed in a place like that. Although it also probably won't kill you, at least not right away. It'll just slow you down slightly, make you a bit less focused. And each thing you neglect ends up slowing you down and distracting you a little bit more. If you ignore things long enough, you can even start to lose the use of various parts of the house. Things can even get so bad that they become hazardous, and one freak incident ends up killing you.

Obviously you can always spend some time & effort to do a little sprucing up. Generally speaking, the sooner you do it, the easier it is. The better you are at keeping up with that work, the less work there is. Or even BETTER would be not to make that kind of work for yourself in the first place. But there's some leeway. You can let things slide. And it won't kill you. Not right away.

UPDATE: Weiner's Wiener

2011-06-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Captured a real gem, that has now been added to my post from a couple years ago about "Scandal Face!"

Why Is This Awesome?

2011-05-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

I dunno, but it is.

Behold the $3.50 Monitor

2011-05-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

Pretty proud of myself over this one. Instead of spending money, I spent time, and converted that time into a new computer monitor. Starting from a place of not knowing jack-squat about it, except for the fact that my father taught me how to solder when I was a kid, I basically read some crap on the internet, bought $3.50 worth of capacitors, and fixed this broken monitor that I got for free.

This enables me to replace my old monitor, that I also got for free in 2003, courtesy of a friend's employer who was getting rid of it. Come to think of it, the one before that was free too... in fact... HOLY CRAP, I realize I have never paid for a monitor in my life! Until this: This is the costliest one, at $3.50. Worth every penny too, since normally my freebies have been achieved by lagging the technology curve (i.e. using obsolescent technology), whereas this one is pretty close to the state of the art.

Here is how you doo waet:
Step 1: Go out to Beaverton/almost-Tigard on the bus to pick up a monitor some lady's giving away on Freecycle. Apparently it slowly crapped-out on her... at first it would refuse to power on for a couple seconds after hitting the power button. Then that interval gradually got longer and longer until finally it wouldn't turn on at all. Eventually she replaced the monitor, and now that she was moving she wanted to get rid of the old one. Glad she didn't toss it in the landfill, since it only needed $3.50 worth of parts. So I lied, it's actually a $5.80 monitor, since the bus fare cost $2.30. Let's keep a tally of the money & time then, shall we?
2.5 hrs, $2.30 (bus fare)

Step 2: Read some stuff on the internet, including this, and find out tons of stuff, such as: The symptoms described above, are a common sign of failing capacitors or "caps" as electronics alpha-nerds call them. There has apparently been a veritable plague of bad capacitors in electronic devices in recent years because of this. Manage to convince self that you can replace a few capacitors, what the hey.
2 hrs, $0.00

Step 3: Take the monitor apart and look for bulging capacitors, which is a telltale sign that they've gone bad. Sure enough, there are 5 of them like that. Pull out the circuit board that contains those caps. Tools needed: a Philips screwdriver, and a flat one for prying the outer case open.
1 hr, $0.00

Step 4: Read the capacitance and voltages off the bad caps so you can replace them. Locate a local electronics dealer, go there by bike, and buy the replacement caps.
3 hrs, $3.50 (5 small capacitors)

Step 5: After consulting ye internets again for any cautionary notes etc., gather up ye soldering iron, solder, grabby tool, wire cutters, glue gun, etc., and get down to it. Remove the old capacitors, which maybe you can't tell from the blurry-ass photo below, are totally dome-topped and bulging, not flat-topped like they should be. Solder the new caps in place, maintaining the correct polarity. Be totally confident about it, even though you've never done stuff like this before, because the monitor was free, so you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
2 hrs, $0.00

Step 6: Put everything back together, and voila, WORKING 22" WIDESCREEN LCD MONITOR.
0.5 hr, $0.00

Total time: 11 hrs
Total money: $5.80
Side benefits:
- I know how to do this now. Could even start a business doing it.
- Saved highly complex and toxic device from landfill.

In my opinion this experience was vastly superior to working at a job (using skills I already know) to earn money to buy a new monitor. This despite the fact that in purely time/money terms, the job would've been more "efficient." With the particular skill set that I market to employers, it typically would only take me about 5 hours to earn enough money for this monitor, not 11. But look closer: My 6 hours of "inefficiency" was actually an investment. I invested time in myself, to learn something new. And if you don't think it can be considered an investment, consider that the next monitor, if there is one, will probably only take me 4 hours. And if I were to sell that monitor, I might even get close to my usual hourly rate. So based on that, I'd say this viably competes with the global monetary economy on its own terms. Winning, anyone?

But even aside from that, I reaped all sorts of other benefits, the likes of which aren't even considered in most economic analysis. In fixing this thing myself, I exceeded what I previously thought I was capable of, which means I get to feel a sense of real ownership and pride over this monitor now, the kind of pride I've never felt from just being a consumer. Also, at no point was I overwhelmed with excessive consumer choice or comparing prices or narrowing-down options. This is the monitor that was available, so this is the one I have. And since it was almost free, I'm automatically grateful for it, whereas if I had paid full price, it would've been just another routine transaction, time for money and then money for goods, all at expected market prices. Not that that's a bad feeling... it's just no feeling.

The Metric System

2011-05-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

1 cubic centimeter = 1 milliliter, and that volume of water weighs 1 gram. The rest is just multiplying or dividing by 10. How much simpler can it get?

Or you can go around (like an ass) remembering that water weighs 62.4 pounds per cubic foot, and that 1 cubic foot = 7.48 gallons (that's US liquid gallons, not dry gallons, and not UK gallons) and that there are 12³ = 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot, and all kinds of shit like that.

Provocative postulate: The transformation of America into a provincial back-ass-wards backwater began with the failure of the 1975 Metric Conversion Act, which failed quietly for years and decisively in 1982 when Reagan disbanded the Metric Board.

Also In That Batch Of Old Papers

2011-05-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

I'll have you know I am the owner of one of the infamous, heavily lesbian-double-entendre'd Girl Scout Tagalongs boxes from the 90s, on which I, at some point, oh-so-helpfully underlined all the relevant phrases in blue pen. Click to enlarge!

My favorite part, obviously, is the photo at right, the girls in the water, faces just inches apart (maybe one of them is Russian?), bodies all a-tingle with strange and exciting new feelings... "Go for it!"

Also note that "on our backs" isn't just a weak double-entendre, it's the name of a lesbian erotica magazine that was in publication at the time. Starts to seem like an embedded code, does it not?

And yet, I still wonder whether all the lesbian subtext was
...completely unintentional and coincidental?
...subconscious (i.e. unintentional but secretly, deep-down, maybe intentional)?
...or the intentional work of a mischievous underling or graphic designer?

Likewise, the fact that this got past the Girl Scouts leadership, presents the same three-way (ha!) fork of possibilities: Were the leadership...
...just naïve/un-perverted enough not to notice (being maybe older and raised in a more sheltered/innocent time)?
...secretly (subconsciously) in favor of it, despite their official (conscious) gatekeeper roles (being maybe lesbians themselves, dying to come out and be accepted)?
...or just "going for it" and endorsing a little mischief?

Dunno, but the box design was changed shortly thereafter, and there too, it's not clear whether they found out and rushed to change it, or just moved on to the next redesign!

You Mean Like This?

2011-05-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

Found this in some old papers. At some point years ago, I guess I went to some sort of interpersonal communication seminar or class, WHEREIN, they tried to give us a technique to break a common habit of miscommunication, NAMELY, people tend to overmuch blame the person they're bitching at, and ascribe way too much power to them, FOR EXAMPLE, "You make me so mad, you make me so sad, you make me this you make me that, you control my emotions it's all your fault I have no control I'm a powerless pawn who has no choice but to react mindlessly to you and all the terrible terrible things you do." INSTEAD, they wanted us to practice phrasing things according to a template that made it more blame-neutral:

When you _____
I feel _____
because ______
and I wish you would ____

If you can fill in those blanks then you've probably got a good idea what you want to communicate to the person, and doing it in this way is less likely to rouse their defenses. You're talking mainly about yourself instead of getting all up in their face. Or so the thinking went. Since it was a class, I of course had to be a smart-ass:

Ha ha always with the humor jokes. I still absorbed the lesson though. Although I'm quite sure I still don't do this properly today, but I think it was because I never quite bought it. I mean you're basically still blaming the person... the only difference is, you're not quite coming out and saying it. You're only saying there's a correlation between their behavior and your emotions that just happen to occur at the same time. I dunno.

Electric Cars Are Bullshit

2011-05-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone in the so-called "leadership" of this sinking enterprise from Obama on down claims we can build a bunch of windmills and convert the whole auto fleet to electric cars. The laws of physics are just not in line with this "rosy" scenario. (In quotes because I actually don't find the prospect of continued domination of the landscape by 2-ton automobile behemoths and pavement to be all that desireable.)

The Lexus CT 200h, a hybrid so awesome they needed Kylie Minogue to hawk it. So big/heavy I bet they'll find cobwebs in the electric motor when they replace the gas engine at the end of its service life.

Assuming we even have sufficient asphalt, liquid fuels, and most importantly, capital, to keep all those miles and miles of pavement paved (a hell of an assumption in itself, and I don't believe it holds), this business of electrifying the fleet is bullshit. That's right, electric vehicles are bullshit, and here's why:

1) No matter how it's powered, using a 3,500-pound object to accomplish your daily errands (i.e. hauling 3,500 lbs with you wherever you go) wastes a ridiculous amount of energy per unit of distance covered. (Trucks and trains are somewhat more efficient in weight-of-cargo vs. weight-of-vehicle, but still.)

2) Electricity is not an energy source, it's an energy conveyor. When you hear the phrase "electric vehicle," train yourself to hear "coal-powered vehicle" or better yet "Fukushima-powered vehicle." Because half of the energy in America's electrical grid comes from coal, and another 20% comes from nuclear. And it's all connected to the same grid; you can't pick and choose.

3) Nobody seems to have any bold suggestions for where the staggering amounts of additional electricity would come from if somehow we did manage to convert the whole vehicle fleet over. How staggering? Using rough numbers, let's do the math. As you can see here, the US used a total of 94.6 quadrillion BTUs of energy in 2009, 28% of which was for transportation. Applying the percentage and doing a units conversion, that's 7.76 x 10¹⁵ watt-hours. That's how much electricity it would take if all that transportation were accomplished electrically. But according to this, we only generated 4.34 x 10¹² watt-hours nationwide in all of 2008 (the latest year listed). Dividing the one by the other, we get 1,790. So to run our transportation sector from electricity, we would have to generate almost 1,800 TIMES as much electricity as we currently do.

OK, there are some disclaimers. For example an electric motor is more efficient than an internal combustion engine, i.e. a greater percentage of the energy is converted to useful work rather than wasted in the form of heat out the tailpipe etc. So the same amount of work could be done with less energy input. Also I suppose it throws things a bit out of whack that air transportation (the most energy-wasteful form of transportation per mile traveled) is probably included in that 94.6 quadrillion BTUs, whereas nobody's invented the electric plane yet. Kind of a revealing fact, by the way. I'm sure the batteries are too heavy and short-lived, and the power requirements of aviation too outrageous. (Only something incredibly energy-dense like fossil fuels will work for something so energy-extravagant.) But since I'm partly trying to illustrate that very sort of waste and extravagance, let's leave air transpo in there for the sake of argument, and let's pretend there is such a thing as an electric plane.

So what does this even look like, 1,800 TIMES the generating capacity? Think of your nearest generating facility. Now picture 1,800 plants that size. Instead of 14 dams on the Columbia, there are 25,000 -- one every 300 feet. That doesn't even make sense! Or instead of 20 coal plants in Texas, there are almost 36,000. If arranged in a square grid covering the whole state they'd be spaced 2.7 miles apart. Instead of 3 nuclear plants in New Jersey, there are 5,400, or one every 1.2 miles.

Obviously this isn't going to happen. Even if you take out air travel, and adjust for motor efficiency, it's not likely you're going to account for that whole factor of 1,790. Let's say the aviation sector uses fully half of the transportation energy (generous) and motor efficiency gets you another factor of 2 (VERY generous). OK so we "only" need to multiply our current electricity generation by 450, and by the way, we still have to power aviation from fossil fuels, AND, find some way to generate enough electricity to power all the rest of the stuff like "turning on the light bulb" and stuff. Does that seem any more realistic or likely?

If nothing else, I hope all this helps to cultivate an appreciation for the sheer amount of energy contained in liquid fossil fuels, and how cheap and abundant they have been for the past hundred years, to the point where we've been able to take them for granted. Here's another handy factoid to that end: A gallon of gas is equivalent to about 13 days of continous hard labor by a human being. Since a lot of cars get 25 miles to the gallon, I guess that means it would take roughly 13 days to transport that car 25 miles by pushing it. Or maybe you could disassemble it and make multiple trips with as many parts as you could carry in a wheel barrow. Not a trivial task. In the absence of cheap & available energy I don't think you would even bother to waste 13 days of food and toil on that. You would walk the 25 miles with your groceries... shit it'd probably only take you 6 hours, or 1-2 hrs on a bicycle. And you would get sensible and move so that the 25 miles between you and your food source (for example) wasn't 25 miles but 1 mile. Assuming some other people hadn't crowded into that area first, that is.

Anyway, I think we ought to get used to the idea of using, not MORE energy, but rather LESS energy. Not because some sort of voluntary conservation or cutting-back, for the sake of carbon emissions or whatnot, would be the "right thing to do," but because it's inevitable. Mother Nature is going to take care of that transition for us, on the supply side, "like it or not." So it would be wise and more pleasant, to "like it." There's a lot to like... I think a lower-energy future holds the promise of rejuvenating close-knit local communities and solving a whole host of societal ills brought on by our hyper-energy economy.

But that's probably a whole 'nuther topic. As for today, I'm here to tell ya, electric vehicles, massively heavy, complex, technology- and energy-dependent conveyances, have a lot more to do with the past than the future.

Sorry Sergei

2011-05-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my "couple years later" timetable, it's time to talk about food carts. Actually, I mostly wanted to tell the story of an old Russian guy whose name I don't know, so I'm calling him Sergei as a shorthand.

Backing it up a bit, once upon a time they invented a thing called a food cart. Kinda like a mini mobile restaurant in a truck or trailer. They've been around a long time. Hot Truck & Louie's Lunch shout-outs! And actually I seem to recall a time not so long ago when such an establishment (if you can call parking a vehicle "establishing" something) was derisively referred to as a "roach coach." Nonetheless, in recent years they've seen quite the explosion in Portland, ballooning from around 350 carts registered with the county in 2008 to something over 500 now.

Usually in Portland they're clustered semi-permanently in "pods" on random vacant pieces of land near other regular brick-and-mortar businesses. There's one of these pods at N Mississippi & Skidmore, and this is where I first saw the curious sight of Sergei, making his way from cart to cart. He was at least 60 years old, and wore one of those red & black plaid hunting jackets if I recall, and a hat. Not the same hat as at right. That's the late Bob Jones of Upstate New York BTW.

I saw Sergei apparently reject one cart and go from there to another one, but I didn't really take notice until I saw him go from that one to a third. What the hey? There were like 10 carts in the pod and it kinda looked like he was on a mission to visit every one.

He would wait patiently in the line at each cart he visited. Though he probably seemed pretty impatient to the proprietors and other customers (and to me too, initially) due to his always standing way too close, like uncomfortably close (like literally 6 inches away), behind the person in line in front of him. Each such person could probably feel the heat radiating off him, warming their backs... hear that curious barely-perceptible deadening of the background sounds that can only be caused by some sound-blocking obstacle situated close by... maybe even hear his breathing... or actually sense his aura... or maybe SMELL HIM... and would inevitably turn around to see what the hell?!?!? and then shift position unnervedly.

Anyway, he'd eventually get to the front of the line, speak to the proprietor, and every time, turn and walk away to the next cart. Finally either he approached one close enough to where I was sitting, or I started paying sufficient attention, to hear him speak. He had a thick Russian accent and he was saying, "Do you khev khemberger?" This was just so cute. Russian has no H sound, but it does have kind of a KH sound. And it really has no flat A sound (like in cat, or "have hamburger"), but it does have an E sound (like in pencil).

Well so that explained the standing-so-close. I remembered what I'd heard from my buddy who had lived in Kazakhstan: Russians, especially the older ones, have an interesting concept of personal space. They will stand practically right on top of you, or what feels like that to an American. Doesn't matter if it's behind you in line, or frontwise talking to you, they are all over and up in your action!

So yeah, apparently all the poor guy wants is a hamburger. He's in America right, the land of the hamburger? But he cannot fucking find one. I hear him deliver his query at three different carts, and watch him visit most of the rest, but no dice. Unfortunately for him, he is at the Mississippi food carts -- at the time (not anymore) the newest pod in town, and I daresay the most precious.

Here are some of the carts that have done, and/or are still doing, business there:

Garden State - exquisite Italian sandwiches making liberal use of ciabatta and cured meats
Nuevo Mexico - can't tell whether this is a new take on Mexican food (i.e. "new" Mexican) or specifically a style of food from New Mexico, and the internet doesn't help matters, but one thing's for sure: It's owned by the old drummer from the Shins! SHRIEEEK!
Native Bowl - "global fusion flavors" is what their Twitter feed says
The Ruby Dragon - sounds kind of like Asian flavaz combined with old-skool vegan vittles
Sushi Tree - HAMBURGERS... just kidding, vegetarian sushi
The Sugar Cube - cupcakes (put a bird on it)

And so, no, out of ten carts, NOBODI KHES KHEMBERGER. This makes me sad for Sergei, and causes me to stridently indict this particular food cart pod and the whole food cart trend, bellyaching and complaining of prissy, douchey hipsters and their over-wrought fancy foods and gentrification and so forth.

However, many months later I am forced to roll over and be the food-cart trend's bitch. The reasons have nothing to do with eating at them per se... I generally don't much. I'm too fiercely independent (i.e. broke, not a particularly picky eater, and actively trying to become a better cook) to eat out much these days anyway. Although I do enjoy now and then a lovely waffle from the one cart that's close to our place, Flavour Spot. But if we owned a waffle iron, I wouldn't even do that. Hence, I'm really not enough of a food-cart maven to even write this article, but I'm still going to.

Anyway, the reasons I had to become the food-cart trend's bitch, have to do with parallel trends you can observe elsewhere in the culture. I shall elucidate and amplify said points in a subsequent post. This one had to be dedicated to Sergei and his conundrum, which I now dub and subsequently refer to as Sergei's Conundrum.

Also, now is the time (before anyone corrects me about it) to point out that as of this past January (well after Sergei's & my visit), this particular food cart pod DOES now, in fact, have a hamburger cart: Burgatroyd. But it offers a slight twist, and I'll cover that next time too.

From the Archives: TileJob's Last Show 6/30/99

2011-05-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

From a fairly detailed gig diary I used to keep on the website of the band I was in from 1997-1999:

Date: 6/30/99

Club: Satyricon

Bands: TileJob, Fadeout, Tripleswift, Mobius

Tape: Dragged along the same boom box and mike we use for practice tapes, thereby achieving "reliability." Good sound for a boom box tape, although because the tape was only 30 minutes/side and nobody flipped it over, we missed part of the last song. (Like you care.)

Notes: We were originally scheduled to go on first, but one of the other bands turned out to be under 21 and therefore had to play first to comply with Oregon law of being out of there by whatever time. The only spot nobody wanted was last, so straws were drawn for it, and Soren pulled the short one. Commence waiting around for 3-4 hours. First I left the club, walked to work (only couple blocks away) and read my email. You know it's a bad sign when you're at a club and you'd rather be at work reading email. Then I went back and sat around bullshitting with various folks. Then, like other headlining bands, we retired to our tour bus for cocktails, cokelines and blowjobs. After that, we sat around at one of the tables in the restaurant part of the club. Egan the bouncer felt sorry for us and was making up for it by giving us free fries and drinks... nice chap. Usually, I go watch at least a few songs of the other bands' sets and make sure to find something complimentary to say afterward, but this time I pretty much ignored the other bands completely. At some point I think I may have heard some electrified twangery of some sort, but all that modern music sounds the same to me these days. Give me the good old days of Benny Goodman. Anyway we went onstage and played our set, and actually managed to get some smidgeon of a crowd interested in it. I think we projected that certain "don't give a damn" abandon so important to the rock experience. Why? Because we didn't give a damn. Apparently the assembled throng liked us, because when we told them the band was breaking up, they tried to talk us out of it. That was nice of them, but too late.

My Favorite Feedback

2011-04-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I talked about the "Guitar Moo," and how it might've evolved as a means of avoiding feedback. Well here's something I've been meaning to cover ever since then: My favorite examples of guitar feedback!

"Ow, my fuckin' ears!!" --Jimi Hendrix

It occurs to me that with all these many posts about music (a total of 35 tagged that way so far), and the lavish number of audio clips included, it might be better to just be a DJ, podcaster, or "vlogger" (shudder) and not a blogger. Maybe I'll look into that.

Anyway. Guitar feedback. For the musically non-whatever'd, that's that high-pitched noise you hear when the sound of the guitar coming through the amp, is so loud that it's actually vibrating the strings or the pickup coils of the guitar, which makes even more sound come out of the amp... and it's a feedback loop. Hmmm I wonder if that's where the name comes from. OF COURSE IT IS! Feedback can be intentional or unintentional, or it can start out unintentional but then when you hear it played back you like it so much you keep it, and it becomes intentional. It can be horrible (including deliberately horrible) or you can tame the beast and use it melodically.

So anyway, here we have five clips exemplifying feedback of various sorts. The selection process for these was rigorous, involving 4 decades of listening to music, and then one day thinking of some examples off the top of my head. Turned out there were 5 of them. In other words, it wasn't scientific, nor anywhere close to complete. So if you have a favorite example that you think should be included, leave a comment and I might add it to this post. Thus it will bloat and expand outward until it is a veritable museum of feedbackery!

The Michael Jackson Moonwalk Award for Best Backward Feedback goes to George Harrison's guitar solo in "Tomorrow Never Knows." Actually the feedback is right after the solo. Which, since it's backward, actually means it occurred before the solo. I picture him picking up the guitar or being too close to the amp initially, and it fed back for a bit, before he got it under control, and then he played the solo bits. Or the feedback might've just been mixed in randomly, I dunno... never know with those wacky Beatles. Anyway I've included the whole solo, but the feedback is pretty brief, and comes near the end of this clip, after the singing has resumed. I like how it puts a nice little exclamation point on the backward solo.

The "Talking Guitar" Award for Best Lyrically Relevant Feedback goes to Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground with "I Heard Her Call My Name." I'm told this has been mentioned by Lester Bangs as being one of his favorites as well, so I'll just concur with that. The best thing about this is that Lou says "...and then my mind split open" right before flipping some switch or other, and unleashing the kind of feedback that threatens to split YOUR mind open, starting from the ears.

The George Burns Feedback Longevity Award goes to Terry Kath of Chicago (the band) for "Listen." His guitar note is the very first one of the song, and because of carefully manipulated feedback of just the right frequency, this note lasts through the whole intro, and only stops when the first verse starts. But it seems pretty clear he could've held it indefinitely... or at least as long as he was able to stay awake and keep pressing the string down on the guitar neck. Also for anyone out there who thinks of Chicago as being what they were in the 80s after their ah, what... makeover? then you may be surprised to find out they ever sounded like this here. (This is off their first album, recorded in 1969.)

The Meat Loaf "Glowin Like the Metal on the Edge of a Knife" Award for Best Balanced Feedback, i.e. for a guitar tone that teeters just perfectly on the very brink of feedback, goes to Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult for his work on "Don't Fear The Reaper." Honorary Mention for his indirect role in helping to make possible a legion of cowbell jokes. This one too, at the end it seems like he could've held it indefinitely. It also sounds like they did something funky to the sound... maybe put it through a Leslie or something.

Finally, the Kanye West "Getting In On The Act" Award for Best Bass Feedback goes to Jared Warren of the band KARP, for this sludgy masterpiece ("Lorch-Miller") from 1995. Yes, a bass guitar can feed back too, if sufficient overdrive is applied to it. But it's often (as in this case) a much lower tone. Listen for the weird midrange tone that sounds when everything else stops, round about the middle of this clip. That would, incidentally, have been a great place to "moo," but to his credit, he just lets it feed back...

Anyway, leave your favorite feedback examples in the comments m'kay. (The 5 of you out there reading!)

Battle of the Nasty-Ass Yeast Extracts

2011-04-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

So yeah my would-be brother-in-law (would-be if I would be marryin' my girlfriend) (hencefth. abbrev. WBBIL) sort of like emigrated to Australia, I guess? I think he's planning on staying there for a good long while, or at least until a wallaby chunders a bunch of doodles in his larrikin.

the wallaby, a kangaroo-like fellow (but smaller)

Anyway I don't recall if it was because of that, or just a coincidence, but I've been quietly developing a taste for their nasty-ass yeast extracts. Namely Marmite (initially all the rage in Oz but now kind of relegated to New Zealand and England and whatnot), and its more successful (in Australia at least) competitor Vegemite.

You see, when a brewery finishes brewing a batch of beer, and all the yeast kind of settles to the bottom of the brewing tank forming a disgusting slime, you're inevitably faced with one nagging question: How can we figure out some way to eat that?

Well rest your worried little heads, because the scientists, looking out for us as usual, have figured out a way. First they mix the yeast with water and lots of salt. This makes the yeast cell walls burst, so far as I understand it, such that their digestive enzymes start to operate on each other's dead carcasses and/or cell contents, breaking the whole mess down into simpler and oh-so-much-more-savory... uh, compounds. Then, somehow, the cell walls are removed, and you're left with a black, sticky, salty, savory goo.

Sounds great, right? But no, it would be too intense to just eat straight yeast extract like that. Too intense. So they reach into their proprietary recipe-card file and add blends of vegetable matter (you know, celery and carrots and shit), and probably like uh, texture enhancers, hell I don't know! But the finished product is, behold, only 97% as nasty!

So yeah I tried both Marmite & Vegemite. I didn't even have to go to Australia, because the local stores carry both of them for some strange reason. It was a mother truckin TASTE-OFF or whatever!!!!

We love confrontation, don't we?

Marmite was first up. Actually I had tasted Vegemite years earlier, and found out first-hand how INTENSE it was. So this time, knowing Marmite to be similar (but still having enough of a masochistic streak to actually BUY the stuff), I knew enough not to dive in and try to eat too much the way many uninitiated Americans do. (And sorry, Australians, looks like you can't fool me with the old "Give the American a big ol' spoonful of the stuff for his first time" trick either, "mate"!)

So I tasted ever-so-small of a fingernail of the stuff, and hot-damn if it wasn't even more intense than Vegemite! Fine, but what the heck am I gonna do with this kind of a thing? So it was back to the cupboard with you, Mr. Marmite, where it sat untouched for several months, while I puzzled.

sad Marmite

UNTIL I discovered the secret! The seeeecreeet! The secret is, you make toast, and butter it, and then you spread a ridiculously small amount of Marmite on it, like just enough to slightly discolor the bread. THAT, is how you avoid getting grossed out. THAT, is how you turn ordinary dull toast into a goldang savory taste sensation full of B-vitamins!

So yeah, believe it or not, over the course of the subsequent month or two, I'd gone through the whole jar of Marmite. And actually, toward the end, when there was plenty of room in the jar, I tried mixing some butter into the Marmite in proper proportion, to achieve that "lazy-ass American-style single-spread" effect, and it worked out great!

sloppy PhotoShop job

Having done this, it was now imperative to give Vegemite a chance. I mean heck, it was mentioned in that Men At Work song and everything.

The "Vegemite sandwich" they're referring to probably consisted of buttered (or not) bread w/Vegemite, and cheese as the "main ingredient." i.e. more like what I would call a "cheese sandwich," wouldn't you think? But I don't suppose "cheese sandwich" sounds very Australian in a song about Australia now does it?

Tangent: So far did their Australian patriotism/fanaticism go with this song, that...

1) They issued the 45 rpm single in this fashion:

2) The flute part, little did you know before now, quotes the Australian children's song "Kookaburra."

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry merry king of the bush is he
Laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra
Gay your life must be

So yeah, the flute part alternates one line of original melody with the first two lines of the Kookaburra song. The only reason I recognized it is because, for SOME UNFATHOMABLE REASON, my own parents/sisters would sing this song to me as a wee tyke. Even though none of us, to my knowledge, has ever set foot in Australia. Anyway, compare:

3) Countless other Aussie-specific references.

To make an already long story only slightly longer, here are the results of the TASTE-OFF! And bear in mind, I am probably risking being placed under the Australian version of a fatwah. Because, at least if the internets are any indication, there's at least one thing Australians are even more opinionated about than the awesomeness of Australia, and that is: their spreads.

Nonetheless here are my findings: Vegemite has a milder flavor and a nicer texture. Marmite is kind of syrupy and tends to create stray strands running from the jar to the knife. Whereas Vegemite is thicker and creamier. But I like Marmite's slightly more intense flavor. And actually the syrupy texture makes it easier to spread super-thin. Overall winner: Marmite!

They're For People

2011-04-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

Saying "Roads are for cars" is like saying "Food is for forks."

boo/yay

2011-04-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a band called Santana. It was led by a man named Carlos Santana.

Long ago, in a time known as "the early 70s," Santana, the band, released a song, or rather a pair of songs, called Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen.

On classic rock radio they often play the two together since one segues right into the other. I've always loved Gypsy Queen, but Black Magic Woman is bullshit.

Let's start with the lyrics.

Yes I got a black magic woman
Got me so blind I can't see
That she's a black magic woman
And she's tryin to make a devil out of me

So the whole premise of the song seems to be that said woman is a master of the Black Arts, and capable of casting spells that, I guess, have power over the singer. Voodoo Lady! Even in the early 70s it seems like that stuff would've been a touch out-of-date. And a bit boring somehow, too, I dunno, maybe it's just me.

Also there's a bit of a gender issue. It's one thing to poetically portray the wiles of woman as being some sort of magic (which they are), and as having a certain power over men (which they do). But as soon as it goes into the realm of like, "I can't help myself," it starts to sound a bit silly from the practical side. Oh yeah, women are totally like, evil witches! They're out there casting spells on you! And you can totally shirk responsibility for whatever happens after that, because of said black magic!

Ah, no, it's called, you're thinking with your dick, hello, that's what's clouding your thinking and making you "so blind I can't see."

Oh no, what I mean is, you're right, you've got a blank check to do whatever you want! It's totally HER fault. Yeaahhh, tell that one to your wife, mister!

It's the same story with Sinatra and "Witchcraft," by the way.

I've got no defense for it
The heat is too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do?

I dunno, try using some and see what happens, buddy! You hapless victim you. And again, see what your wife has to say about it in between being slapped and fetching drinks for you and Dean!

Ahem, anyway. Santana. Moving on to Gypsy Queen then. Hardly a song at all per se, but rather, a full-on balls-out jam that truly combines Latin and rock music seamlessly and is totally badass. Percussion straight outta Africa/Caribbean/South America... everybody in the percussion basically just playing the shit out of it. Carlos and the timbale player, soloing like champs over the insistent driving rhythm, I mean this is what good music's made of, isn't it?

Too bad, then, that it has to be preceded by that contrived, half-assed, watered-down, minor-key pop song "with a bit of Latin flavoring" like a novelty act, known as Black Magic Woman. Although on the other hand, I'm almost in favor of the pairing, because the preceding dullness heightens the elation when you hit the transition.

I wonder if the band was as bored recording B.M.W. as I am driving down the road in mine, just kidding, listening to it. Bored out of their minds as they play tamely and with strained patience through some crappy chore of a song that the producer is hoping to get on the radio. But once they finally get that over with, they get to REALLY PLAY and the fun can begin. Listen to it and tell me you don't pick up on that. I dunno, maybe I'm projecting my own feelings onto the band. Fair enough.

I just Wikipediwhatever'd this, which maybe I should've done at the outset, and it turns out, guesswhat, Black Magic Woman was written by Peter Green, captain of the shitty era of Fleetwood Mac, so no wonder. That's totally where the contrivance and half-assedness are coming from! And I don't mean to say it's Peter Green's fault per se (though I still fault him for the lyrics). Rather, I think it fails due to inherent structural defects, namely they're trying to graft something onto something totally other, in order to get it on the radio. Maybe even trying to make it "less Hispanic" and therefore more palatable? I'm conjecturing. But I'm quite sure it would've been better to just let each thing be its natural self.

Quit Joshin', Debbie!

2011-04-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Here's an actual email I got on April Fool's Day, and my actual reply! (click to enlarge)

KI

2011-03-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

So today I learned all about potassium iodide. Someone mentioned it in the context of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear scare, so I had to look it up. Turns out it's supposed to prevent your thyroid from absorbing iodine 131 (a product of nuclear fission and one of the most common and dangerous radioactive isotopes likely to be released in a nuclear accident).

I then went looking for a map of nuclear plants to see where the closest one was. It used to be Trojan, which was a scant 40 miles from Portland, and was (his publicist denies but I still maintain) probably Portlander Matt Groening's inspiration for the plant where Homer Simpson works, with its notoriously poor construction quality and shoddy safety practices... all of which resulted in the real-life plant being decomissioned in 1993. Eventually the cooling tower was spectacularly demolished as seen in this video:

Notice how the structure collapses more or less vertically down onto its own footprint, as with most controlled demolitions, such as this one.

ANYWHOO, my thoughts next turned to the DOE site in Hanford, WA. Which this map confirms, is now our nearest reactor (excluding small ones at universities for research... and of course the dead one at Trojan):

Still within a couple hundred miles of us, and located near a fault, but on the other hand pretty well out of tsunami range. Assuming no sea-level rise from global warming.

That potassium iodide wiki also mentions that prophylaxis isn't recommended for those over 40 because with increasing age the side effects & health risks begin to outweigh the prophylactic benefits. The exception, according to this World Health Organization document, is if the radiation dose is expected to be enough to cause deterministic (i.e. direct cause & effect) disruption of thyroid function. Which, they say, is at about 5 grays, which is equivalent to about 3,600 medical X-rays (I did the math). But that's (according to this) probably enough to kill you in 2 weeks anyway! So, just read yesterday's post, forget all this stuff, and ride the lightning!

Cosmos / Chaos

2011-03-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

I think in the attempt to understand human behavior we presume (or at least there's a deep-seated desire to believe) that people do things for some "reason." We want to believe they've gone through a rationale to arrive at a conclusion. Or failing that, we look for some sort of rational third-party explanation, i.e. some set of rules or body of knowledge, to which people's behavior conforms, or in terms of which it can be explained.

That guy punched me; I wonder why? Was it something I said? No, I didn't say anything out of the ordinary. I guess (turning now to the third-party explanation) he's just overly aggressive / had a bad childhood / bla bla bla.

We so very much like it when rational explanations are readily at hand, since it helps us maintain our sense of the world as an orderly place with rules and predictable causes & effects... a cosmos in the Greek sense. Whereas it seems to me the world is at least equally as much (and lately, increasingly) a chaos, where decisions happen instantly, for trivial reasons, or no reason. You might personally end up dead (or merely punched) for such a reason or non-reason. Pretty chaotic if you think about it.

And by the way, I'm not even including the randomness/chaos injected into the system by non-human factors... for which I obligatorily cite the example of this week's awful events in Japan, but I could also mention the upcoming tribulations of climatic change or resource depletion. Or on the flipside, the remarkable good fortune of 4.5 billion years' worth of Planet Earth, giving birth to this vast plethora (S.A.T. word) of life, and culminating in Lady Gaga. <-- irony

Anyway yeah, it seems pretty much anything could happen at any time. Actually there's a certain air of excitement about it when I put it in just those words. But since you could just as likely get punched as, let's say, be handed a steaming warm delicious pie, confronting the "anything" that supposedly could happen, doesn't feel quite as warm & snuggly as having a nice insulating "belief" about things.

For example, even with the "fist or pie," dichotomy above, I find myself "believing" the fist to be more likely than the pie. But that belief only reflects something about me, and nothing whatsoever about reality. And that's the problem with those insulating beliefs. They rarely reflect anything even close to how things "are," and even worse, they tend to put a severe limit on how things "could be."

So what's an appropriate refuge then, when on the one hand, you suddenly realize life is a chaos, and on the other hand, you don't want to get sucked back into limiting patterns of belief? Honestly I think the solution is, as with so many other things, to JUST DROP IT. The problem arose from excessive thinking anyway, so the solution is to do less. Less is more. Do more by trying less.

Just remember the one important thing, which is that extremely good and "unlikely" (according to your previous belief system that you're trying to shrug off) things can happen just as likely as bad (And I mean, why not?). Beyond that, I think it's honestly, just too damn distracting, trying to second-guess it or plan around it. I generally just return to myself. Focus on what you're doing. You're here to do what you were put here to do. Whatever that is. So go do it. Don't be out tryin' to please hataz, and be ready to be scraped off the pavement at all times. Don't worry about it, just be ready. Be complete at all times.

More Fun With That Clip

2011-03-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

Remember the last post wherein we messed around with that J.P.J. bass break.

Now I've gone and combined it with a snippet from the Pink Floyd song "Dogs" (all sped-up and pitch-shifted of course, since who the hell wants to plod along at Pink Floyd tempo?)

Righting the Wrongs of Wrong Rightness

2011-02-27T18:47:00.000-08:00

Everybody loves "Good Times, Bad Times," right? Sure they do.

But why oh why, have I never heard the bass break at 0:54 sampled anywhere or nothin? You'd think somebody'd be all over that. Japanese DJ Cornelius came close when he sampled the very beginning of the song.

Read more »

For Your Consideration

2011-02-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

(click to enlarge)

A Wee Video

2011-02-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

This just came to me one day, so I made it. Unfortunately the normal reaction to this video will probably be to become profoundly uncomfortable or maybe even cry. Or to attack me, which means you're in denial.

It's Cold Out There

2011-02-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'll say it right up front, it's not actually all that cold. Portlanders are wussy when it comes to cold and especially snow. Which there is none of also.

Shuffle Does Some Funny Things, Man, Funny Things

2011-02-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here working on my taxes. So what strangely and comically appropriate music comes up on shuffle? Oh nothing, just the fight music from "Amok Time" which I happen to have. (Yeah I know.)

Here's good-quality audio:

And here's video for those of you not nerdy enough to immediately recognize the phrase "Amok Time":

Interesting Piece of Advice

2011-02-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

"It's more important how trusting you are than how trustworthy someone else is."

A Murder of Crows

2011-02-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

What the hell? I'm sitting at the computer here a while ago, just a-mindin' my own biznis, when I hear a weird unidentifiable racket coming from outside. I go open the window, and see that there's like a hundred crows raisin' a fuss, about a block away. Had to record the sound for ya. You can also hear the low, rumbly, and somewhat unremarkable-to-us, sound of the freeway, about 3 blocks away in the other direction.

I characterize this as a Crow Party but ~n thinks they seem pissed about something. Admittedly there's something a bit ominous about that many crows in a group, otherwise they wouldn't call it a murder. Only the crow with its coal-black feathers and jeering call gets this collective name.

Crappy Lyric time again: Big Freaking Secret

2011-02-10T19:56:00.000-08:00

Back to the 80s again, for the song "Talking In Your Sleep," wherein the dude from The Romantics says:

I hear the secrets that you keep
When you're talking in your sleep

What secrets be these? Well fortunately for us, he reveals some of them:

You tell me that you want me
You tell me that you need me
You tell me that you love me
And I know that I'm right
'Cause I hear it in the nigh-ee-yight

Ignoring the creepy imagery of this video for a moment, and assuming this song was actually written "to" a certain person, I guess my main question is: How could you be sleeping with someone, and not be able to tell -- without eavesdropping on their sleep-talk -- whether they wanted you/needed you and such? Applying the most basic rules of logic to this song results in confusion. Hence it might not be a crappy lyric we're dealing with per se, but rather just a case of faulty underlying logic affecting the whole song.

But anyway. She wants/needs/loves you, eh fella? You heard it in the nigh-ee-yight? Good job genius! How come you didn't manage to deduce that from the fact that she's there in your bed, sleeping with you?

Or at least I assume that's what's going on. You didn't break into her apartment, did you? You could get in a lot of trouble for that. So no, we'll assume she actually, willingly, decided to come sleep with you. (And you're merely acting like a stalker.) For some reason you didn't get the message while she was awake, and you had to wait for her to fall asleep, to find out her "secrets." So stealthy and mysterious! Meanwhile, the whole time she was drifting off to sleep, she was probably thinking "Oh my GOD is this WUSS ever going to F*** me or what?"

Well, at least you finally did get the message. The manly thing to do now, would be to roll over, put your head between her thighs (if your hairdo can fit) and get to work! Hopefully this thought will occur to you.

Or maybe you guys have a little arrangement. Maybe consent to "get it on" has been explicitly withheld... like she was all, "I'll come sleep with you in your bed, but no funny business, buster!"

Or maybe she's a mute?

Or maybe you guys have actually been married 40 years, but because you pay more attention to your coiffure than to her, you've simply failed to figure her out after all this time!

When you close your eyes
And you fall asleep
Everything about you is a mystery

Oh yes, a mystery indeed!

Another pesky question: What form do these supposed revelations take? How does she articulate the secrets that she keeps, when she's talking in her sleep? When she tells him that she wants him, and tells him that she needs him, etc., what words does she use? Does she simply say "I want you? I need you? I love you?"

Cuz if so, how does he know she's talking about him? She could be dreaming of David Hasselhoff fer chrissakes.

I Was Laughing & Tripping Out Dude

2011-02-08T01:01:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time (1960s) there was a counterculture. It was called, "hippies." From this counterculture there did arise a musical. It was called Hair (1968). This begat a whole new genre of theatrical production, the Hippie Musical.

Why not, right? You can't ignore what's going on all around you. (Even if you're the notoriously insular and out-of-touch world of Broadway.) The times they were a-changing.

Meanwhile the world keeps turning, and the sun rises and sets each day upon billions of souls. Each of whom has hundreds of thoughts in that day's time, only to get up the next day and do it all over again. So it was no surprise that somebody started to notice the many commonalities between said hippy culture, and Jesus. Jesus was, in fact, probably the first hippie. Is it hippy or hippie? Ahh fuck it, I'll use hippie. Anyway, it was all about loving yer fellow humans, being pacifists, and not caring so much about money, or necessarily constant bathing, and so on. So you can see there really were a lot of common threads. In fact, (hippie) minus (drugs and free love) approximately equals (Christian).

Some hippies lived essentially quasi-Christian values, without acknowledging or maybe even noticing the connection. Others did so and proclaimed it openly, thereby becoming known to others by colorful monikers such as "Jesus Freaks," or subsequently found themselves in the top 40 via C.W. McCall's "eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse micro-bus". Which also captured the CB radio trend on wax. And, I suppose, the deregulation and ascendant dominance of the trucking industry. And the concurrent, ruinous and tragic nail-in-the-coffin of America's formerly great railroad system... one of the things that will come around to bite us in the ass when the oil stops a-flowing. But I'm getting ahead of myself and this post isn't about that.

OKAY. Whereas, there were hippies; And whereas, there were hippie musicals; And whereas, there were Jesus-oriented hippies; THEREFORE, it was again not surprising, and in fact downright inevitable, when lo, unto the land, came yet another even smaller sub-sub-genre of theatre: The Hippie Jesus Musical. Which was ushered in forcefully by the wildly successful (and controversial) Jesus Christ Superstar (1971).

This post is not about that either. Do you see how I toy with you?

My brain is full of trivia and shit though, so I can't resist ALSO mentioning that the part of Jesus was at one point (on the Jesus Christ Superstar album) sung by Ian Gillan, who also happened to sing for a little outfit they call Deep Purple, which I later wrote about. Ain't it funny how the world works?

Anyway no, this post is not about that. It's about a DIFFERENT Hippie Jesus Musical, Godspell. And specifically, the film version of Godspell. And in fact, irritatingly, even more specifically, a less-than-one-minute segment of said film. Which does NOT include the following image:

The guy in the Superman shirt is Jesus. On his left, the guy who could've stepped right out of 2010 Portland, or Portlandia, is John the Baptist AND Judas. I dunno, you figure it out.

Anywhoo. Godspell is loosely based on the gospel of Matthew, with some stuff from Luke. They cavort around through modern (in 1972) Manhattan and sing and dance and act out parables. I also have to mention, trivia-wise, that on Jesus' right in the photo above, is Lynne Thigpen, who later went on to play the DJ in the 1979 cult classic The Warriors which fully deserves a post of its own and should be tagged "awesome."

"Waarrr-iorrrrs, come out to playyyeeayayyyyyy..."

But I'm getting ahead of myself again, and no, this post isn't about this either.

Godspell even generated a top 40 single, which I'm pretty sure I must've heard on the radio when I was just beginning to be aware of music (roundabout 1973), called "Day By Day." (Hear it here. "A festival of 7th chords both major, minor and even dominant, caresses the ear like a four-handed massage therapist.")

Anyway. Here is what this post is nominally about. (Or maybe it really was about all the crap I told you it WASN'T about. Or maybe it's about nothing-at-freekin-all!) Regardless, here is the part that made me laugh and trip out dude. I want you to play this, and if you like, you can watch the whole thing (mind you, it's cheezy as heck), or you can just skip to 4:20 (yeah brah). No but seriously, pay attention starting when you see the Empire State Building at around 4:20. The song's message as I see it, is that there will always be rich people taking your share, and that's just how the world works. "It's all for the best!" And it schmaltzily and happily concludes on an interesting note. Remember, "It's all for the best!"

When you feel sad or under a curse
Your life is bad, your prospects are worse
Your wife is crying, sighing and your olive tree is dying
Temples are graying and teeth are decaying
And creditors weighing your purse
Your mood and your robe are both a deep blue
You'd bet that Job had nothing on you
Don't forget that when you go to heaven you'll be blessed
Yes it's all for the best!

Some men are born to live at ease, doing what they please, richer than the bees are in honey
Never growing old, never feeling cold, pulling pots of gold from thin air
The best in every town, best at shaking down, best at making mountains of money
They can't take it with them
But what do they care
They get the center of the meat, cushions on their seat, houses on a street where it's sunny
Summers at the sea, winters warm and free, all of this and we get the rest
But who is the land for, the sun and the sand for
You guessed it's all for the best

You guessed it's all for the - You must never be distressed
Yes, it's all for the - All your wrongs will be redressed
Yes, it's all for the - Someone's got to be oppressed!
Yes, it's all for the best!

Durchfall

2011-02-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

I have just been made aware that the German word for diarrhea is "Durchfall" which literally means "falls through." I love Germany. Germans build a word to suit, from smaller words. They staunchly resist the Latin and Greek (for instance, "diarrhea") influences that infest English. I admire that. And lest you think the Greek/Latin says anything special that the German doesn't, click that link. It means "flows through." Charming, right?

Lateral Consolidation

2011-02-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

Question: Is the rice cake industry owned by the vacuum cleaner industry?

Portlandia Moments

2011-02-02T23:07:00.000-08:00

Been having a lot of Portlandia moments lately. Namely, suddenly feeling like I'm in a parody of Portland. Ever since Portlandia came along, the routine act of moving around Portland almost always results in seeing at least one thing that's either straight out of the show, or deserves to be on the show.

Today's Portlandia moment: Two hipster girls are on the train, still yawning at 2pm, talking about how drunk they were last night, giggling that Kevin Bacon was in a movie about bike messengers... later I gather they're from Omaha and have been in town just 6 months. The Portlandia moment was when a woman got on with a little girl maybe 4-5 y.o., and the two, and the mom, all agree, that they envy the little girl's clothes and wish they could get Hello Kitty in their size.

Happy Imbolc!

2011-02-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, in keeping with my newfound... I wouldn't call it a "fascination"... more like just a mere "paying-attention-to"... of ancient pagan holidays:

Today is Imbolc, which is about midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and thought of by some as the true beginning of spring. Or as we know it in Portland, the beginning of two more months of rain. But still, one could get started digging in a garden today, loosening and prepping the soil, and it would be timely.

From the Archives: Sayre PA Freight-Hopping Story October 1991 - Pt. 3

2011-01-29T02:23:00.000-08:00

Padre (now noticeably angry): "How did you get in?"
Rol: "The door was open. I think you guys were having Bingo or something."
Padre: "Did you turn the heat up too?"
Rol: (pause) "Yeah."
Padre: "You heated this entire church overnight?"
[Oh shit, huh! Didn't occur to me how much air is inside a church. Anyway this is part of why I have that disclaimer at the top of all these posts, though I guess I should update it to include boneheadedly selfish energy-wastage!]
Rol: "I'm sorry. I'm willing to work if you have anything that needs cleaning or..."
Padre (still pissed): "No, I think it would be best if you just use the same door you got in through. You should have come over to the rectory, there was someone there all night, we could've given you a bed."
Rol: "I didn't know..." (thinking to self: "What's a rectory?")

So I got yelled at by the padre and kicked out of church. He was pissed. You could tell.

This is what you get when you Google "angry priest."

So I wandered around some more, exploring the "downtown" such as it was, and over by the railyard. Funny, the morning light made it look like a totally different place from the one I'd been in yesterday.

7:00 AM: Finally got my ATM card to work. Breakfast at the diner, yeah!

How to get home though? From experience living in Ithaca, I knew there wouldn't be any train going up that way for another few days at least. And though Sayre seems to have lots of churches for its size, somehow I didn't think there'd be much chance of indoor sleeping arrangements. A bus would be a nice option, except it doesn't stop in Sayre.

7:30 AM: Started walking north toward the highway.⁽¹⁾

8 or 8:30: Found out from a sign, that Elmira was a mere 16 miles away. I bet the bus stops there. But even if not, at least it's not Sayre. Made a little "Elmira" sign from some dumpstered cardboard and a drugstore marker, and started off hitchin' to Elmira on Rte. 17 westbound.

Except for my t-shirt I'm dressed in black; and I'm over 6 feet tall, but nonetheless, after no time at all, "Don" picks me up in his rickety truck. He proves not to be a murderer at all. Rather, just being nice, as rural folk probably do on a routine basis. Took me as far as Chemung, NY.

Walked for a while and then "John" [What a coincidence, another male! Wasn't picked up by any hot scantily-clad women like in porno movies, FYI. I think porn might be slightly inaccurate!] picked me up in his big, tough, bouncy-suspensioned truck [Jeez, after that last aside, this part sounds like I'm in a GAY porno.] and took me all the way [oh yeah baby] to Elmira, where, in addition to writing all this shit, I managed to find the bus station and get a ticket on the 3:45 bus back to Ithaca. How convenient! A timid end to what started as a bold adventure, but what the hey.

[Still, when I got back to Ithaca, I definitely felt like some sort of bad-ass.]

(1) Maybe a mile before pulling into the railyard the previous day, the train had passed under a highway... one of those standard D.O.T. 4-lane, divided, limited-access affairs, of the type which I would probably call a freeway nowadays. But the absence of that word from my story reminds me that they don't say "freeway" back East; they say things like highway or thruway or turnpike or interstate. Anyway this large east-west-running jobbie, I correctly deduced must have been Route 17, the main east-west route through that part of the Southern Tier, and also known as Interstate 86. back to story

From the Archives: Sayre PA Freight-Hopping Story October 1991 - Pt. 2

2011-01-26T17:54:00.000-08:00

So I proceeded to walk around for about FIVE HOURS. Lots of walking. Lots and lots of walking. Seemed like a nice town, but basically boring, except for an unsatisfying encounter with an ATM that would give me no money. Meanwhile I now had one dollar in cash. (I had spent $2.81 on smokes and grape Crush, and 45 cents for a doughnut.) So I lied, I actually had...

...1 buck + 74¢ in change, 50¢ of which I blew on a Payday® bar. [Gotta love that healthy eatin'!]

I called NAME REDACTED and NAME REDACTED, and even tried to call NAME REDACTED at work (calling card). NAME REDACTED congratulated me for finally catching the train, but it was ironic, like, congratulations on finally getting to Sayre!

9:55 PM
Right about the time when I noted that I was gonna need a place to sleep⁽²⁾, I saw a church. Hmmm. Hey, house of God, right? Helping people, etc.? Well, the lights were on in the basement, so I tried the doors, and one of them was unlocked. I walked in and sat in a pew for a bit. I heard voices from the darkness.
Quiet muffled gibberish: "Bla bla bla, hello I am quiet muffled gibberish"
Loud stern man's voice: "That's one, are there any others?"
Q.M.G.: "bla bla bla, mutter mutter"
Loud stern man's voice: "That's two, are there any others?"

It was a Catholic church, so I figured/imagined, I must be overhearing a confession going on! Like as if the quiet muffled gibberish was saying, "And I stole money, Father." "That's one, are there any others?" "Yes, I raped my dog." "That's two, are there any others?"

So I start feeling a bit uneasy, like maybe I shouldn't be there, in case I hear something I shouldn't. But I can't really hear the muffled gibberish anyway, so I keep there. It continues.

Muff. gibb.: "yadda yadda, I can't tell what this is because it's muffled gibberish"
Loud stern man's voice: "That's three, are there any others?"

There's a long pause at that point, and everything is very quiet.

Then the next thing I hear is a booming voice: "O 21"

(pause)

"G 65"

(No, it couldn't be!)

"N 55"

Ah fer chrissakes, it was a friggin' bingo game going on in the basement! I didn't think people still did that, but I guess they do. Thursday night bingo in the church basement.

Well, they were done by 10:00, probably a late night for most of them. And I heard cleaning-up sounds and quiet voices for another half-hour or so, and then two car-door slams, engines starting, and then silence. Nobody came upstairs or even locked the door I'd come in through. The whole time, I had been sitting there trying to be as silent and motionless as possible. Although at one point I brazenly walked right up the creaky center aisle to sit closer to the front (and further from the light coming in the doors).

I was torn between being stealthy like this, and just being open and direct. I knew if I went and found someone (or they found me) in a church, they wouldn't turn me away. But for some reason I thought it simpler if no one ever knew I'd been there. Leave no track across the ground of another's mind, sort of thing. So I kept quiet until everybody left. At that point I explored a little and eventually went to sleep on the carpeted floor.

[Read the next part here.]

(1) Based on a quick look at Google Earth now that it exists, it appears I followed the tracks clear down to Athens PA a couple miles south. I remember coming to a bridge where the tracks crossed a river. I now know, thanks to the existence of the Internet, that this was the Chemung River, at a point close to where it joins the Susquehanna.⁽³⁾ Shoot, if I'd had a canoe, I could've made it to Chesapeake Bay! Actually come to think of it, I knew a guy at school who always talked about canoeing home (to Baltimore) for breaks and stuff. But yeah anyway once I reached the bridge, the view looked a little something like this:

Now if I were to try to come up with the thousand words corresponding to this particular picture, there might be various clusters of ideas such as "the town ends here" and/or "no more buildings" and/or "total desolation" (especially on that wet cloudy day... I mean you could practically smell the trees' farts) and/or "rural backcountry survival-style camping for sure" (and I had left my pack behind). So that's when I turned around and headed back into town. back to story

(2) Actually, as we saw in note 1 above, the question of "where to sleep" had occurred to me earlier than stated, in an embryonic form, to the extent that I answered it with "not the woods." back to story

(3) Yes, this is a footnote within a footnote. You can tell all sorts of things from Google Earth. Like how the railroad crawls upstream from Ithaca on Cayuga Inlet, crosses a low divide in Spencer NY (which is a dry town... I know because I used to wait on their drunks when I tended bar at the first bar you hit when you enter Ithaca from the south), and follows Cayuta Creek down to Sayre, Athens, the Susquehanna, and GLORY. Actually you can't tell most of that from Google Earth because their labeling of, and attention to, waterways is pretty scant. But anyway... back to note 1

From the Archives: Sayre PA Freight-Hopping Story October 1991 - Pt. 1

2011-01-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

[Written by hand in a park next to the Chemung River in Elmira, New York, when I had attained the ripe old age of 22 -- still basically sheltered and wet behind the ears, in my privileged life as a student at a fancy-pants college, so please excuse how goofily dramatic and/or naive a lot of the "musings" are. Actually I'll probably selectively omit certain things as I re-type this!]

[Click here to start this story from the beginning.]

Thu 10/3/91, 4:00 PM
I'm at the laundry at Community Corners with NAME REDACTED. We're just sitting in the car talking, with all of my dirty clothes still in the back. We hear the whistle of the train.
Rol: "You hear that?"
NAME REDACTED: "Yeah."
NAME REDACTED seems to understand that I need to go down there and chase the train, and I can sense that, but I still can't help but feel a little stupid.

Anyway we do drive down there... this time we've got internal combustion! We spot the head of the train as we overtake it going south on route 34/96. We drive ahead a bit and pull off. Oh, I forgot to mention that it's pouring rain at this point, starting almost immediately after we first heard the train. Yay. But Rol, crazy man, presses on.

Well, I don't have my train kit with me, I only have $5 on me, and my credit card is charged up to within 50 cents of the credit limit. Also, the only clothes I'm wearing against the elements are my cut-off jean shorts and my free Jägermeister t-shirt.⁽¹⁾ I, Rol, stupid, probably would have got on the train like that, but NAME REDACTED, genius, says pick some warm clothes out of your dirty laundry. I'm so glad for that. I also grabbed one of the free umbrellas we got from "Joe" the friendly Italian guy from PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANY when he showed us some apts.

So, we're well south of town at this point, so the train has picked up speed and is coming at a pretty good clip. I carry my clothes and umbrella to the far side of the track.

NAME REDACTED: "You going?"
Rol: "Yeah I think so."
NAME REDACTED: "How will you get back?"
Rol: "I don't know."
NAME REDACTED: "I'm leaving town so I can't come get you."
Rol: "Well I might not get on. If it's going too fast I won't get on. I'll probably see you in 5 minutes."

I guess I really didn't think I'd do it, but I sat & waited.

4:20 PM
Big, spooky train comes by. I don't wave at the trainman, and he gives me the little backhanded whisking motion anyway. Must seem strange, my standing in this particular spot, nothing else around, on the side of the tracks opposite the road. I put on my black shirt, stuff my arm through one leg of the black jeans I grabbed, and shove the umbrella up this "sleeve." [So that both my hands are now free.]

After the engine rounds the curve and nobody can see me, I start running, y'know, just to see if I can keep up, not thinking I'll jump on. Not too bad, so I grab one of the ladders on a car, just for the heck of it, still not thinking I'll jump on. So I'm running there for kind of a while, and I can feel myself getting lighter as the huge beast starts pulling me along. And then, I just... did it. What the heck, I figured, I can always jump off again. No problem.

I kind of just lifted my feet off the ground, but I had to land them on the train. One foot extended, I jumped for the bottom rung, and TOTALLY missed it, almost amputating my leg under the wheel of the train or something. But I got on okay.

I climbed behind the ladder and sat down on the flat metal, earning myself one fukkin' wet ass! After a minute I took off my shorts and put on the pants. Just ridin' along on a train standing there in my undies, changing clothes! Meanwhile the speed had increased beyond what would be safe to jump off at.

4:25 pm
As I pass a crossing, I look left, but at the last minute I turn and look right, and see NAME REDACTED's car parked at the crossing! Must've driven ahead to see if I had gotten on okay. I tried to wave, but the crossing receded so quickly and the woods closed round again, such that an instant later we couldn't even have seen each other.

Suddenly I was overcome with emotion and burst out crying. The familiar receding so fast and dramatically, no time to even wave, and no way to go back even if I had wanted to. Hurtling away, whisked away, and now feeling sort of small, powerless and cold. Unsure of where I was going or how I would ever get back. Maybe I'd never see NAME REDACTED again! What if I died? I could easily just slip and get crushed to a bloody mess under the wheels. Or what if I got caught and thrown in jail? I realized I was sort of fucked... wet, cold and alone and headed into the unknown. [It's still raining at this point BTW -Ed.]

After some reflection it occurred to me that I had never set out anywhere before without a certain destination and a guaranteed return. I had led a pretty safe life, I guess. And the sense that there was no turning back amplified things. Still, I thought it would be good for me. But I cried anyway. For another 10 miles I kept watching at the crossings for NAME REDACTED but it was obvious I was on my own now.

I wished NAME REDACTED or NAME REDACTED were there. I sort of wished my girlfriend were there too, but I chauvinistically couldn't picture her jumping on a train. Nor would I want to deal with the guilt of having her cut off her leg the way I almost did. Good ol' male protective instinct.

[Read the next part here.]

(1) I got this Jägermeister t-shirt, along with several other Jägermeister t-shirts, and several Jägermeister caps, Jägermeister shot glasses, a Jägermeister poster and a bunch of other free Jägermeister swag, in a big-ass box, shipped to me for free, simply by calling the company that imports Jägermeister and asking about some damn thing I don't even remember anymore. I guess they figured -- savvy marketers, then as now -- here's a golden opportunity to have a drinking-age college student give all this crap to his peer-group and influence them in favor of Jägermeister. The heavily New-York-accented guy I talked to said this: "Tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna send ya the Jägameista pahty pak, it has t-shurts, postiz, awl sohts a cool stuff." And pahty we did. I did in fact, give most of the swag away. I think we

might've even bought a bottle or two because of it, so hey! At the time, Jäger was still sort of a novelty, and hadn't become such a "thing" yet. Their marketing gimmick was the "so smooth" guy... making fun of how it tastes like cough syrup... almost reverse-psychologizing people into buying it. The t-shirt featured more-or-less all the elements you see at right, though arranged a bit differently, and "So Smooth Guy" was a line-drawing and not a photo. Remember this for later, it's important. back to story

From the Archives: Sayre PA Freight-Hopping Story October 1991 - Preamble

2011-01-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

Well... For those of you just joining us, I finally fulfilled my hobo-ass freight train obsession maybe 2 1/2 years after conceiving the idea. I remember quite well the time I told NAME REDACTED about it when we were pulling one of our many all-nighters studying for some stupid-ass math prelim, sophomore year in the study lounge (swelter pit) of Cascadilla 5th floor. Of course it makes sense that I didn't actually do it until now, after I'm "done" (or pretty close) with college. I wasn't "free" then. Not that I am now, by any means, but a lot closer.

It occurred to me today though that the seed for this idea was planted a long time before that. I remember around age 6 or so riding around with my mom in the cream-colored Chevy Vega with the green vinyl interior, doing shopping and stuff, and we would sometimes see the train going through, and she would drive us down to the tracks and we'd watch it come across the bridge and turn north up river. And I remember thinking, even at that young age, "Wow, that thing's going pretty slow. I bet you could run alongside and jump on."

Good ol' mom. I don't know if it was me who was fascinated with watching trains, and persuaded her to go down and look, or if she loved it just as much as I did. I think everyone likes trains, to some small degree. I've already seen people on this trip who seemed like they had brought their own kids down to watch the train. And to wave at the engineer (proper term: trainman). That's another thing. Everyone waves at the trainman. You can tell it must happen a lot, because you can see the bored, nonchalant way he waves back at you. And even if you don't wave, he'll still give a little backhanded whisking motion at the last second as he rolls by.

So, this past summer and up to now, I've been seriously and earnestly trying to catch a ride on that coal train either up to Milliken Station⁽²⁾or down to Scranton or who knows where. But I kept missing it.

Before school started, I was hoping I could get NAME REDACTED and/or NAME REDACTED to come along, and they were pretty game for it. I even got on a train once, but when it stopped for a bit I got off to call them, and NAME REDACTED was out, and NAME REDACTED had "plans." And by then the train had pulled out. So, missed it.

Then school started and I knew I had to go alone if I was going at all. One day I heard the whistle during an alert moment, hopped on my bike and raced down there, chasing it south with no possible hope of keeping up, much less catching up. Missed it.

Same thing again, guessed correctly that it was headed north, pedaled my ass off in driving rain. Just as I was ready to give up, I spotted the back end of the train as it rounded a curve ahead of me. Pedaling with renewed fury, finally catching up somewhere on East Shore Drive. Didn't think to build up a lead, got off the bike and chained it up, found myself light-years behind. Got back on the bike to try again, but by that time the road was starting to go uphill and I knew I'd never catch up. Missed it again.

Even so, I went down to the beach [on Cayuga Lake] and watched the little blue [Conrail color] speck trailed by a line of brown specks chugging up the lake shore as the sun came out from behind a cloud. By now I realized I was obsessed with this foolish idea. And I did feel foolish, believe me. But life was good.

The next time: Heard it again, biked down, mistakenly assumed it was going north, realized my error, but no longer possessed sufficient naiveté to try to catch up. So basically, missed it again.

During the down-time, I packed myself a little survival kit, with everything I might need for a lengthy trip to "wherever," including:

waterproof tarp
rope
work gloves (for climbing on)
knee pads (for jumping off at speed)
long underwear
wool socks
can of tuna
bottle of water
fork
Swiss Army knife (of course)
flashlight
matches/cig lighter
pad of paper
pen
big sharp knife
can of "Off"
toilet paper
bandages
maps
camera
film
water purifying tablets

...which is sitting in my room back in Ithaca right now, which brings us to...

[Read the next part here.]

(1) Classes at that time, and maybe still, always started at 8am, 9:05, 10:10, 11:15 and so on, and ended after 50 minutes, hence you were always guaranteed 15 minutes between classes, in which to make your way across campus. Unfortunately the campus was so big that it actually took more like 30 minutes to cross it end-to-end on foot. (On the days when it wasn't encased in treacherous packed snow and ice, that is.) Luckily for most folks, it was pretty rare to have... whatever, Artificial Insemination of Cattle 101 in the Ag school followed immediately by Comparative Viking Literature way the hell over on the Arts Quad 15 minutes later. But still it was often hard to get places on time. Which just added to Cornell's mystique as a difficult, unforgiving, suicide-inspiring hell-hole of higher learning. I solved the time problem by using a bike. That's when I started the adult phase of my bicycling life. back to story

(2) Namely the coal-fired generating plant owned by New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) located on the shore of Cayuga Lake in Lansing NY at the time... I hear it's since been decommissioned. Twice a week they'd bring a mile-long train of coal hopper cars north through town to fuel it, and then bring the empties back south again. It was a dead-end spur. A trip back from the northern terminus would've been a fairly trivial matter, since my girlfriend's parents lived near there, and I could've asked them for the favor of the 10- or 15-minute ride back to town. That was initially the way the trip was conceived, but at some point it occurred to me that I also had the option of going south to destinations unknown. back to story

Just Tomatoes Etc!

2011-01-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

Definitely probably only tomatoes, mostly!

Bold New Look, Wow

2011-01-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

I went ahead and changed my blog template. Because I can do that. The old one didn't have all the new functionality bla bla bla, and we simply MUST have new functionalities. Old functionalities are beastly. We always throw away old functionalities. Ending is better than mending. (What the hell am I talking about?)

So that's why there's a "new look" around here. "Check out our great new look!" Actually I kind of get annoyed when companies feel compelled to redesign their packaging with a "new look" every five minutes. Because I tend to practice brand loyalty in my repetitive purchases. Only for one reason: pure expediency. It's just quicker. I don't want to hang out in the store any longer than absolutely necessary, and having a certain brand that I look for and always buy, lets me be done with the whole miserable business that much quicker. If I sat around and tried to like, debate the comparative merits of various brands, or actually give a shit, I'd be in there all day.

Of course there are certain exceptions... like I'm always up for trying a new bread. And there are certain cases where I really do trust only one brand (e.g. Best Foods mayo, a.k.a. Hellmann's east of the Rockies, is the only one I don't find gaggingly disgusting). But as for, let's say light bulbs or toothpaste... "Hmm, I wonder if fucking Colgate with its tooth-besparkling whatever-shiner is better than Crest with the yaaaaaaaawwwwn what time is it?"

So yeah, brand-loyal, that's me. Treating them to my continued and repeated business. Something for which they should feel gratitude, right? So how do they repay me? By changing their goddamned packaging, to confound me! By making me search the shelves actually reading the names of stuff, instead of being able to zoom in on their brand and pick it out by color or whatnot. The more drastic the redesign, the worse it is. Well guess what jerkos, you're making me look at, and read the names of, your competitors' products! Ever think of that, dipshits? I'm reading THEIR outrageous claims and coy come-ons now! Never before have I been so likely to change brands! In fact, since you've gone and annoyed me now, I'm thinking of switching just for spite!

But that would involve putting even more time into it, so I eventually find the newly tarted-up version of my usual brand, and obediently buy it with a sigh. Which I guess is what they're counting on when they do a redesign. "We'll shit on our loyal existing customers a little bit, and we may even lose a few, but the really loyal ones will go to the extra effort, like good little punk bitches, to find our product. And anyway, any losses will be sooo worth it when all those throngs of new customers come flocking, irresistibly attracted to our bold new redesign that we spent good money on! We are totally gonna 'capture market share', brah!" Whatever, ya got me. I don't have the time or the will to say no.

Hopefully that's NOT how it is with you and this blog.

It's Amateur Night! / Misheard Lyrics vol. 4

2011-01-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

That's right, yessirreee, it's total amateur night! Because I (essentially a novice blogger even after 8 years of having a blog) just figured out how to do a jump break. What's a jump break, you ask breathlessly, quivering with anticipation? It's not something from basketball, it's when I make you click on a thingy to read the rest of the thingy. I give ya the first little bit, just enough for you to tell whether you're interested or not, and if so, you can click on over, otherwise you can bloody well sod off and go about your affairs. So I'm gonna try it out, okay? OK great. Probably won't use it every time from now on, but I want to see it in action.

So actually the REAL topic of this post is another misheard lyric. It concerns John Lennon. And possibly (but probably not), Paul McCartney. And right about now you're thinking, OH MY GOD YES, SIGN ME UP FOR READING ABOUT MORE BEATLES CRAP RIGHT NOW! I know, I know.

Read more »

Ideational Gentrification

2011-01-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

All right fine, I said in my last post that I'd tackle this topic. Besides the physical signs of gentrification that I talked about, there's another interesting dimension, that I might call "ideational gentrification." Actually someone in the field of sociology probably already has a much better name for this phenomenon, but I don't know it.

Anyway there's a funny effect where newcomers can sort of out-vote the old-timers, in terms of what's "true." This is how numerous myths about Portland are propagated, and can, of themselves, become true. If whatever people elsewhere are told about Portland, whether true or not, is believed fervently by sufficiently many newcomers, it basically becomes the new truth, either subjectively or even sometimes objectively.

Read more »

...

2011-01-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

L to R: Toppers, Chopper, Copper Top

Red Gold and Green, Red Gold and Green

2010-12-29T16:17:00.001-08:00

You might, especially if you read the New York Times, get the idea that Portland is some kind of mecca of awesomeness that you should, like, totally pay attention to, or something. It's pretty good I guess, but sometimes I wonder whether it can survive its own reputation. It was already being talked-up 18 years ago when somebody succeeded in selling it to me. And of course it's been a continuous drumbeat of PR since then, such that there's always a pretty good chance someone shopping for a city (new graduates, anyone changing careers, anyone starting over) will pick Portland.

Now when that kind of PR is sustained for 18 years (plus however long it was going on before that), and when that many people, and their businesses, keep moving here, you can imagine there's gonna be a cumulative effect. As the years have gone by, I've seen Portland slowly transformed by that continuous, inexorable onward march of people and capital. (And in the minority neighborhoods, of white people and capital.) In short it's been gentrifying. Which means, among other things, that it's been slowly getting all tarted-up and becoming all nice & neat, and losing whatever funky edge it once had.

Portland when I first arrived was kind of run-down in places. Not a chaotic, dangerous shithole mind you, just a bit ragged around the edges. The architecture was just dingy and dumpy and unattended enough, in places, to suggest that people were off enjoying life, or doing other more important things besides caring about primping foofery like using stucco or making sure everything looks perfect or that it's painted one of the, seemingly, only 3 allowable colors that you inevitably see on every new project.

(Those being olive green, brick red and kind of a butterscotchy pukey yellow I don't even know the name of... hence it's probably a "chick color." Even saying "olive green" or "brick red" borrows from the chick color chart. There are only 11 "guy colors": red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black, gray, and brown, all of which except black & white can be modified by adding "light" or "dark," or by adding the name of another color and the suffix -ish, at which point presumably the other guy you're describing something to, is able to find whatever it is in the truck, get his fucking chainsaw working again, and get the fuck back to work. This passage dedicated to shitmydadsays.)

The other thing about being someplace a bit cruddy, as opposed to being in a place that's all groomed & perfect, is that it seems to hold some promise that something might actually happen that wasn't planned ages since. You get the feeling maybe no one's watching or cares, and you could get away with actually being yourself. (Which for the self-regulating, and the non-sociopathic, presents no problems for anyone.) In contrast to that, what usually "re-places" such places when they're demolished is a place where "the eyes" are always upon you (sometimes literally in the form of surveillance cameras), and all the usual rules apply.

Freedom from that scrutiny, and from those rules, is the same promise offered by a pristine wilderness or, say, an abandoned industrial wasteland alike: freedom; a relatively blank canvas; the relative scarcity of the human attention and artifice associated with civilization. Thoreau said a man can suffer from an excess of civilization, just as anything else.

Are you with me here? Maybe it's useful to discuss my take on the glass-half-empty/glass-half-full thingy. People who like to classify people, say that you're either the kind who thinks the glass is half-full, or the kind who thinks it's half-empty. I'm fond of sidestepping/subverting the question like so (although this also happens to be what I actually believe): I think it's half empty, but I also think the empty part is the INTERESTING part. The empty part is the part that could be filled with anything in the world. The full part already is what it is, it's perfected, complete, static, dead. If you fill the glass with water, that's all it can ever hold: water. If you empty it of water, it's ready to receive water, milk, juice, Brawndo, whatever.

Thus, what sounds at first like pessimism, is actually a more far-reaching optimism than what all the happy little optimistic liquid-hoarders have. (And P.S., what will become of them when the glass is undeniably 100% empty? They can't say it's half anything anymore.)

Anyway, the same applies in a parallel way, to places. I mentioned wilderness and abandoned industrial land. What they have in common is the relative absence of civilization in the Thoreau sense. In wilderness, civilization has never before taken root; in a place that's being or has been abandoned (like say West Oakland in the 90s or NW Portland in the late 80s, or most of Detroit, or any of America's formerly busy industrial areas, which over the past 40 years the corporate overlords have neglected, opting to have China handle the work, a fact that is now biting all of us except said corporate overlords, in the ass), civilization was there previously, but then receded. (Relatively speaking. Usually not all the way. An abandoned warehouse undeniably has less human activity in and around it, than one that's in use, but it's still probably patrolled by police or guards for example... but maybe not even that.) So those "glasses" are both relatively "empty" if you will.

Meanwhile, a place that's inhabited but a bit cruddy, like a battered old storefront, is a place where civilization still is, but there's evidence no one has tended to it in a while, so it's a little decayed. Maybe you're witnessing some space starting to open up to make room for something else, which is an exciting prospect.

Although even if there's nothing else, or you ignore the whatever-else, the thing itself is worth appreciating on its own merits. How about the decrepit old Hung Far Low sign before they "restored" that and tarted it up? Sometimes there's history to appreciate in a thing. If you've ever been to downtown Klamath Falls, Oregon, it's like going on a time warp back to the 50s or something. It's cool. But I haven't been there in a while, so who knows, maybe they too were affected by the short-lived real-estate "boom" and felt compelled to replace everything.

Another angle: When things are old and ordinary-looking, you get the feeling maybe the ordinariness holds a gem and you just have to find it. This in contrast to when everything is brand-spanking-new and has to be spotlessly clean and well-lit and perfect and tidy, and has clearly been fussed-over. Under those circumstances it becomes apparent pretty quickly that whatever, or whoever, is within, is being SOLD to you and therefore probably doesn't live up to the over-hyped expectations. A thing is more honestly a thing, when it presents itself to you all beaten and battered, showing all its history, than when it presents itself to you with its makeup on, or worse, is entirely replaced with something brand-new for sales purposes.

The mom-and-pop store that's been there forever, gets away with looking dumpy amongst newer fancier businesses, I suppose because it has a history and actual friends and ties in the community. But the corporate chain store (or the newcomer entrepreneur from Chicago determined to make it) that inevitably ends up replacing that mom-and-pop store, has nothing like that to fall back on, and so must rely on looking externally perfect. Pretty interesting. And of course that has an appeal too... people like it when things are nice & neat.

Anyway that's physical gentrification. Maybe I'll tackle what I could call "ideational" gentrification in the next post.

Stop The Presses!

2010-12-28T21:08:00.000-08:00

Your daily hate! More like how this blog kinda used to be:

An urgent article from Yahoo News via my sweetie-pie: 8 Rich D-Bags Have Non-Life-Threatening Accident While Wasting Money!

Two things I like about this article:
1) It goes on and on, in mind-numbing detail, about the lifts and their planned replacement and their certification and bla bla bla, like it was an FAA inquiry into a crash that killed hundreds of people.

2) Twice they make sure and call attention to the fact that children were involved. WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?!? Except, yeah, if they're tough enough to be taken skiing (i.e. hurtling down a sloping sheet of snow & ice) then they can just take some lumps along with their idiotic parents!

Mexmas

2010-12-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

For some reason, or actually maybe no reason, ever since that time we were kinda snowed-in over Christmas 2008, we've adopted a new tradition of listening to Mexican banda music on Christmas. Banda is Spanish for "band"... well THAT really narrows it down eh? But no, apparently when you say banda, everyone knows you specifically mean those big-ass brass bands that are sort of polka- or waltz-tinged but still distinctly Mexican.

I guess the polka & waltz influence is from the many Germans and other Europeans who emigrated to Mexico in the 1800s. My USA-centric public-school education never told me anything about such things, but there it is. So that must be why banda is basically the sound of Europe from the 1800s, pickled in Mexican sauce.

(Is anyone else getting annoyed with my italicizing banda every time? It's a foreign word so I'm supposed to. But I feel like a douche, kind of like if I were meticulously and insistently and repeatedly putting the é's on résumé, or using phrases like "with which" so I don't have to end with a preposition.)

Well I dunno if it's because of my family roots in the land of the polka (a.k.a. Central & Eastern Europe) or my current home in the land of the Mexican (a.k.a. The Western United States), or just the fact that it sounds so dang festive and big and loud and... BRASSY... or what; but, I am deeply susceptible to this music. I don't know how anyone could not be put in a good mood instantly. Let any such song come on the jukebox in the burrito joint and I no longer even care if my food ever comes. Although the time that REALLY made me realize I love banda music éé with which whomsofore, is when one such song came on the radio when I was stuck in traffic. I didn't realize until the song was over, that I was having such a great time I no longer cared that I was stuck in traffic.

Anyway, obviously that alone makes it the perfect music for Christmas, but there's also the added bonus that it carries absolutely none of the baggage of "regular" Christmas music, which I find to be, at best, merely "boring"; most often, "hackneyed and grating"; and at worst (depending on who's the latest no-talent hack trying to "update" an old Christmas standard), "hackneyed, grating, tacky, AND opportunistic." I mean seriously... Jingle Bell Rock.... again? Oh, this time it's by Beyoncé, or something. Beyoncé can add that to her résumé. SOMEONE SHOOT ME IN THE FACE NOW!

Anyway here's a lil' "banda montage," to give you the flava of Christmas around here. It's a good solid 1.4 MB, so give it a sec.

The first selection is way polka-like.
The 2nd is too, but with vocals, and a bit more mariachi flavor.
The 3rd is a waltz, featuring what sounds like the Eddie Van Halen of the tuba... also the lyrics seem to be addressing some unkind things to some woman... but since I can't really tell, Mmmeeeerrrry Christmas!

Merry Eve To Ye

2010-12-24T22:03:00.001-08:00

Happy holidays to everyone out there. Food shopping on Christmas Eve is pretty funny... everyone's out. They all come out of the woodwork to stock up on food, cuz lord knows, the store's gonna be closed for A WHOLE DAY tomorrow! But then once you get home you can crack open the egg nog, build a fire, finish those last-minute finishing touches on the tree and the gifts and whatnot, and/or check your email and get a lot of stuff done (if you're ignoring the holiday), maybe curl up on the couch and watch one of what Fred Meyer apparently thinks are holiday favorites:

Anyway Happy Jesus-Day and thanks for reading. The days are already getting longer.

Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now!

2010-12-21T18:29:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you've heard the 1979 song Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now. Here it is, if you haven't, along with some of the lyrics.

There've been so many things that have held us down
But now it looks like things are finally comin' around
I know we've got a long long way to go
And where we'll end up, I don't know
But we won't let nothing hold us back
We gonna get ourselves together
We gonna polish up our act
And if you've ever been held down before
I know that you refuse to be held down any more
Don't you let nothing, nothing
Nothing stand in your way
And all we gonna do
I want you to listen, listen
To every word I say
Every word I say about it
Ain't no stoppin' us now
We're on the move

So yeah, basically just sounding an optimistic note for black people on the path toward equality. "We've made progress, we're not there yet, but we're on the way, we've got momentum, and... ain't no stoppin' us now." Cool.

Though of course, the song has broad appeal because it's sort of a universal theme, and it's written vaguely enough that you can interpret it to be about anything. Your team is doing well in [sport]. Your relationship with [person] seems to be over the rocky part. You're all fired up and on the way to your job interview at [Dress Barn]. You can see how the meaning can change depending on the context... all hinging on who you imagine the "us" to be.

Wikiped'ing it, I see that it's the theme song for the University of Arkansas/Pine Bluff, and was the theme song for the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, 76ers, AND Eagles. (So there's the sports theme confirmed anyway.) And also, maybe getting back to the racial equality theme, it was played at the 2008 Democratic Convention after Obama accepted the nomination.

Personal tangent: I never managed to hear this song when it came out, even though I guess it had some "crossover" success.

Tangent to personal tangent: Ohhh Billboard, you ancient institution of the music biz, you saw fit to create segregated music charts, with a separate chart just for "black music" and stuff. So crossover, yeah, that was the term for when an R&B (black) song dared to be successful in the general (mostly white) community. Do people still use that term?

Returning to personal tangent: Funny thing, when I did finally hear this song, it was as a sample in a rap song in 1989. This has happened to me a quite a few times over the years. I usually end up preferring the original and getting retroactively annoyed with whatever artist sampled it, but then again at least they helped introduce me to the song.

The rhymes here develop the racial equality theme even further. Though judging from the cover art, maybe that doesn't include bitche... I mean women.

Aaaaanyway... so yeah so there's this song. So okay, so okay so NOW imagine this: You're white and you live in a gentrifying, formerly close-knit black but now somewhat shattered part of town. And you hear this song being played as background music in the high-priced organic food store -- the one whose success or mere existence you can't help but think is owed to the suddenly large-enough concentration of white people now living in the area. Suddenly in that context the song comes off sounding like a theme song for WHITE people, as they invade the neighborhood! It's like, sorry black folks, I know the rents are getting high, but AIN'T NO STOPPING US NOW! WE'RE ON THE MOVE! Makes me feel a little bit icky.

I know, I know, presumably the song was only on the playlist at the tree-hugging, veganish, lefty grocery store because they just love those "old school 70s jams" over there. The ones on that particular satellite radio station. Or music service. That they pipe in. They do, they love those, as I'm sure their 30-40-ish tree-hugging veganish lefty target demographic does too, myself included.

Even so, in that context -- i.e. forgetting about gentrification for the moment and only focusing on being in the store itself -- my "icky" meter only goes down to about "moderately icky" and not all the way down to zero. Because while it no longer sounds like an outright declaration of war on the black race, it now comes off as sort of an anthem of liberal smugness. Don't forget the Obama connection too. "Ain't no stoppin' us now, cuz yes we can." Which of course is ironic, because if I know my Republican obstructionism, there's actually quite a bit of "stoppin' us now" going on there.

Who the hell knows, maybe the only reason this song made the cut was because it makes people spend more money. Certainly I would never put the lyric "ain't no stopping us now" in any song designed to encourage financial restraint. I would write something more like "Stop! Now! That's enough!" Maybe the song has been hijacked to sell stuff, because its optimism, its expansiveness, its upbeat outlook, have a tendency to make people feel confident and optimistic, upwardly mobile, maybe a bit luxurious and disinclined to worry about money. Especially after that previous period when they were 'held down before.' Now they can 'refuse to be held down any more' and treat themselves to lots of quality [goods and/or services] without concern. Ain't no stoppin' us now!

Sorry to ruin the song for you. Listen to the song right now and just think about the civil rights movement... that should cleanse your brainhole of any unsavory residue!

Multi-Tasking Pt. 2 - THE RECKONING

2010-12-19T22:59:00.001-08:00

Yeah so apparently this happened: A guy was telling me, he was on his scooter, out in Beaverton, stopped behind a line of cars, and was bumped from behind by an SUV.

He turns around and the lady has a phone in one hand and a sandwich in the other. This hand's using the phone, this one's feeding her face, so what's she steering with... her dildo? She got out and wanted to see if he was okay, but he was just too pissed to talk to her so he waved her off, volunteering to fix his cracked tail-light and fairing at his own expense!

Twisted Fortunes

2010-12-15T18:23:00.001-08:00

Another bit from the archives! Had to post these somewhere cuz they're too good to be just sitting there languishing on my hard drive. Posted these to my Facebook once, so Facebook will probably claim they own them now and forever. Anyone want to go ahead and look that up in Facebook's privacy policy for me? Bring a sack lunch.

Although since I severed my relationship with them, I suppose their steeenking privacy policy no longer applies to me now does it? Anyway please enjoy this copyright-indeterminate material that I made.

Wanted: Real Conservatives

2010-12-14T23:08:00.001-08:00

[This is recycled content from a discussion with my would-be father-in-law (would-be, if my would-be missus and I would-be married). I spent all that time typing it; why not get some mileage out of it here? I've added some further edits though.]

Conservatives are few & far between these days. We need more. That's right, you heard me, I said we need more conservatives. I'm not even being sarcastic, I'm totally serious. Sounds like a 180-degree flippity-flop doesn't it.

"It's here... in my BRAIN..."

Okay I'll resolve the cognitive dissonance that has taken hold of the minds of the 5 people reading this. The catch is, I think most of what passes for conservatives and conservative commentary these days is anything but.

Conservatism is an ideology, with pretty consistent principles... remember those days? I respect actual conservatives. People who have at least thought things through. I think this is what Obama's thinking of when he wants to sit down at a table with the Republicans and hear their viewpoints, have a give-and-take. But this newest species don't really seem like that. There's no unifying ideology holding it all together. It's just whatever's expedient.

For example you have ostensibly conservative people shouting "no socialized medicine" yet also "keep your hands off my Medicare." Why the sudden enthusiasm for Medicare, one of the costliest and liberal-est programs in the government? Well I think for those propagating and orchestrating that "messaging," it was just a mask, just like "death panels" and all the other misinformation were just masks, to conceal the truth.

Namely, that it's all about the money. I think you can say it with a reasonable probability of being right, on this or almost any other issue currently or recently being considered & debated by what's left of our government. It's all about whose profits will be increased or decreased.

And so for example, the modern "conservative" will champion the principles of the free market (in accordance with real conservative ideals), right up until precisely the moment when the free market ceases to make him richer. Then he'll suddenly come out in favor (usually secretly) of all sorts of regulations and back-room deals to take all the freedom out of the market. So much for that!

So, I think the people putting the words in the mouths of the people who put the words in the mouths of the people who got all fired-up at all those town hall meetings, oppose healthcare reform, not for any reason having anything to do with healthcare reform. Not wondering whether it would be good or bad, not trying to appreciate or evaluate the question at all. Rather, they oppose such a reform because it would probably entail a reduction of their profits and fortunes. (Insurance companies leap immediately to mind, and the huge financial conglomerates that own them, but I'm sure there are others, and who knows exactly which companies 'n' rich folks have purchased the government? There are so many, it's more like a consortium or class-action buyout.)

Yet they apparently still support Medicare. [My w-b f-i-l attributed this optimistically to an acknowledgement on their part that taking care of old people is morally right, and that therefore acknowledging it for other disadvantaged people was inevitable just like gay marriage is inevitable. I hope he's right.] The cynical view is that Medicare must be making some of them rich somehow... and in fact it is: It's actually an excellent mechanism by which public money (extracted from relatively many & relatively poor people) is funneled into (relatively few and wealthy) private hands; therefore they're all for it.

And by private hands, I don't mean to say the patients, by the way! If only the patient could be made to be the true "customer" in our healthcare system, a lot of the reform would take care of itself. Instead the insurance company is the customer, the one paying, and hence makes all the important decisions.

Another great mechanism for wealth concentration is the Pentagon. Rein in that spending, folks! No more tax-and-spend liberalism around here! We're conservatives, not some bunch of dirty liberals! We're so conservative we're gonna spend every dollar we can find (and by "find" I mean "borrow," because taxing is so liberal... even though borrowing is several times more costly) to go to war in both Afghanistan AND Iraq. Yeah hi, that's not conservative. Makes no sense, right? Until you consider the, once again, small number of already pretty fat wallets that are being stuffed thereby... military contractors, Halliburton, Cheney's energy-industry buddies, I don't know who-all, because the whole thing's too nauseating to delve too far into it.

Anyway those relatively few, wealthy private hands seem to be the ones pulling the strings whenever you see scurrilous ideas bandied about. And the common everyday "Tea Partier" who thinks himself entitled to a voice in public affairs but has done no preparation and has little qualification for such, and who hasn't looked into what conservatism actually means, etc., doesn't seem to be in a position to do anything but parrot what's fed to him by "conservative" radio talk show hosts and so on. None of whom are actually real conservatives either, but rather, radicals. Radical corporate anarchists, I would say, bent on dismantling as much of the government as possible and replacing that authority with corporate authority, and/or oligarchy.

All the Tea Partier "foot soldier" really knows is that he's angry... angry and scared, because he sees he's slowly getting screwed out of what's left of the pie. But the anger and fear are precisely what make him such an easy dupe and mouthpiece for -- ironically enough -- those same interests who are screwing him.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!

2010-12-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

In Portishead (not that Portishead, the town in England) they tried switching off the traffic lights on their main street. It was such a huge success, they're leaving them off permanently.

article

video

I'm glad someone's finally questioning the idea that a senseless machine can do a better job of it than we humans can. Something bugs me about traffic signals. I think it's the fact that human authority and responsibility are being delegated/ceded to a robot. If science fiction has taught me nothing else, it is this: THE MECHANICAL ONES ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED! Haven't we learned anything from 2001 or The Terminator?

Nobutseriously. There really are, two kinds of rightfully human responsibility being delegated to traffic signals:
1) The authority of the law (i.e. a robot is doing the job of a cop).
2) The responsibility and choice of the people using the intersection (i.e. a robot is doing the job of deciding who goes and when).

All in the name of efficiency and throughput, those two commandments of our culture and economy. I don't deny for a second that for large, senseless, insane, suburban intersections of overbuilt multi-lane roads with high traffic volumes (and they are always high traffic volumes), a signal might be the best way to allocate the resource of that intersection. But I think, particularly at intersections between normal, sane-sized roads, there's no reason people would need the robot. I'm guessing most of the intersections in Portishead are that type.

And yeah by the way, I say all this, not as someone who blows through every stoplight like a total douche, but as someone who stops for them. I have to include this disclaimer because of people's prejudices/conceptions/misconceptions about people who ride bicycles. Though I will also say, that both in a car and on a bike I've been tempted to run lights, particularly on those occasions where I know fully well that I'm smarter than the robot. For example, when it's 3am and I'm stopped waiting to cross a totally deserted street, for a minute or more until the senseless robot tells me it's safe to cross. And has to stop the one car that finally arrives from the crosswise direction, to make it happen, you know what I'm saying?

More Craigslist Shenanigans!

2010-12-07T15:53:00.000-08:00

From: tommy mark [mailto:tommy4blessing07@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 4:35 AM
To: [yours truly]
Subject: Re: [thing I'm selling on craigslist]

Thanks for responding, I'm ok with the price. I would like to send payment asap. Please let me know if a certified check is ok. After my check clears my shipper will come and pick it up at your location would have loved to come and take a look but I can't. My shipper will though. If you can get back to me with your details I'll get the check out asap. Need your full name and address, and your telephone number.

From: [yours truly]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 12:33 PM
To: tommy mark
Subject: [thing I'm selling on craigslist]

ok. Here is my contact info.

Rahm Emanuel
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-1111

From The Archives: Imagine A World Without Cancer!

2010-12-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

Anybody who befriended me when I was on Facebook (and who actually paid attention to me) will remember this one. I got a piece of mail from the, I dunno, probably the American Cancer Society, asking me to "Imagine a world without cancer!" Pretty sure they're imagining this to be a GOOD thing. But they managed to put me in a contrary mood such that I think I became a fan of cancer for a sec.

Because first they went and pissed me off by sending me dead-tree spam in the first place. Second, they misspelled my name. Third, they included "FREE address labels, certificate, and handy notepads," thereby compounding the magnitude of their dead-tree spam deployment, which by the way, and Fourthly, forces me to take responsibility for re-using, recycling or otherwise responsibly disposing of the unwanted products of their recklessness.

Fifth, and perhaps in summary: Someone is missing the point entirely. Maybe the forests that were cut for this mailing, could've cured a few cases of cancer. Or looking at it the other way, maybe the factory that makes the parts to build the machine to extract the oil to feed into the refinery to make the fuel to run the machine (made in its own factory of course) to cut the tree to feed into the mill to make the paper, might have some effect on cancer rates, hmm? Especially considering that every element of that little chain of origin has its own resource stream and waste stream, and a level of allowable emissions into air and water? And its own electricity requirements and energy requirements. No one suspects that this whole industrial infrastructure itself, with its staggering complexity and inter-connectedness, might have anything to do with cancer rates?

Yeah, maybe we can cure cancer if we just kill a few more trees! Just a few more! Maybe if we just fuel and run one more benzene-spewing US Mail truck, maybe THEN we can finally stop cancer in its tracks! Just a little bit more toxic ink, a little bit more bleach for the paper, a little bit more adhesive, more formaldehyde-contaminated office furniture for our employees, more Big Macs for their lunch break... MAYBE THEN CANCER WILL GO AWAY!

We're at the forefront of the effort I assure you! Imagine a world without cancer! If you would just send us some money, so we can cover the cost of ALL THIS PAPER, and future paper, that we'll be sending out, to ask for money to pay for more paper, maybe THEN we'll cure cancer! Just a little bit of help, that's all we need! A little bit of help, and of course a nice salary for our top executives to live outside the Beltway in a toney suburb, and commute by carcinogen-spewing automobile to the office where they "work" on "curing cancer!"

All this flashed through my head in like ten seconds. Suddenly I remembered there's too damn many of us humans as it is. That coupled with the contrary mood I mentioned, produced these:

Make your own:

Quadri-Taskin'!

2010-12-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

I saw a woman, already doing a poor job of tri-tasking (walking, pushing a stroller, and talking on her phone), attempt to "go for four" by reading & responding to a text during the call. She had to take a long pause from walking and talking, to accomplish texting. A fact which would have seriously annoyed me if I were on the other end of the call!

Hey, you sure you don't want to maybe apply some makeup or something, while you're busy creating awkward pauses in your conversation, misspelling every word in that text, ignoring your child and blocking the sidewalk?

Crappy Lyric ONE-TWO PUNCH!!!!!!

2010-12-05T13:51:00.001-08:00

Coming right on the heels of yesterday's deal. Never stopping. Never letting up. Relentless. In your face. Like a cherrybomb baby. [yeah I dunno where that came from either] You beg for mercy but there is none.

et cetera.

But anyway. As someone who plays in a live karaoke band, I get exposed to a lot of crappy lyrics, as you can well imagine. This is one of those. It looms particularly large in my mind because people choose it from the songlist so often -- probably about half the time. Meaning, about twice a month I'm playing this song. And since the particular line I'm thinking of occurs three times in the song (one of which is totally a cappella and impossible to ignore), I'm hearing this line about six times a month, on average. If I could find some way to charge about $150 for each repetition, indefinitely, I could retire at my current modest level of expenditure.

But enough about me, how are you?

All right fine. The line I'm talking about is actually from a lady who made no small contribution to rock, in the sense of helping to show that, golly, women can actually rock too, which somehow managed not to be fully self-evident back then.

heck yeayuh, it's Pat Benatar

Nontheless, despite her contributions, we're here to talk about a crappy lyric. Otherwise you, my reading audience, wouldn't get that sense of pathos so crucial to the proper appreciation of a tragedy. So the lyric in our spotlight today, is none other than this one from Pat's song "Heartbreaker." Click it word!

"You're the right kind of sinner
To release my inner fantasy"

Presumably the "kind of sinner" she's talking about has something to do with sex, like everything else out there, but I like playing dumb on this. "What kind of sinner is she talking about?" This always cracks me up because I imagine her interviewing sinners, trying to determine if they're the right kind to release her inner fantasy. A guy comes in, splattered with blood... "Hi, I'm a murderer." "Oh sorry, wrong kind of sinner. Thanks for coming down." Next guy is fat, comes in covered with chicken grease and ketchup stains... "Sorry, no gluttons. We'll call you if anything changes."

Basically my mind always drifts off in 7 different directions on this scenario. Actually more like 14 different directions, because there's 7 possibilities on her end too. She doesn't come out and say what her "inner fantasy" is, and precisely which kind of sinner is the right kind pertaining to the release thereof. So in one variant, of 7 possible, her "inner fantasy" is to lay around the house all day not doing a damn thing, and a guy walks in who's clearly unkempt and Slothful, so he gets the job.

It's funny... "Sinner?" As late as 1979, someone is still using or cares about the word "sinner" in a pop song? It seems so quaint somehow. Yeah I know, there are people who, even today in this otherwise godless age dominated by techno-faith and dollar-worship, still adhere to the idea of "sin" as a guiding principle. I must say it doesn't figure highly in my thoughts... this "sin." Sure, there are all sorts of ways of "being a dick" and there are "bad" things you can do, and there are "self-defeating" or "unproductive" things you can do, but there's no "sin" per se. I dunno, maybe it's just semantics, and maybe it's just me.

Crappy. Misheard. THE NEXUS

2010-12-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

Now that the freekin' acorn post is out of the way, I can get back down to the usual, crucially important matters to which this blog is dedicated.

One thing that's been waiting around to be said is that back in August when I wrote about Steve Miller's song "Jet Airliner", I neglected to mention that in addition to its being a misheard lyric, I also could've tagged it as a CRAPPY lyric, and I'll tell ya why.

He's all "Ohh, big old jet airliner, don't carry me too far away."

Suggestion: Maybe if you're someone who doesn't want to be carried far away, getting on a jet airliner might not be the best choice. Especially since "carrying people far away" is pretty much the essential reason jet airliners exist.

It's like saying, "Big old tractor trailer, don't carry large amounts of freight."

Or "Big old Alaska grizzly, please don't defecate in the woods."

You get the idea.... riff on it in the comments!

Without Further Ado: Acorn Bread

2010-11-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

All righty. As promised last week, and introduced yesterday, here it is now, the post, the one where I tell you, about A Bit Of The Old Urban Foraging, And Thence A Lovely Bread, and How Ye May Accomplish It.

Normally my favorite thing to gather in October is the delicious English walnut, good old Juglans regia.

English walnut

Generally you have to be persistent, visiting a tree multiple times over several days or weeks to pick up windfalls as they come. There are always a few that escape the squirrels' notice -- or that they'd rather not mess with since it means coming down to the ground and braving dogs, cats, cars, etc.

Like I said, walnuts are "normally" my thing, but this year I found no frickin walnuts whatsoever. Pathetic. Even my friend who has a big tree in his backyard said he didn't get any. So I wonder if it's just a "not every year" thing, or if this year's long rainy spring is the culprit. The cold & wet sure kept everything stunted that we tried to grow in the garden. Insert standard woeful speculations about climate change here.

Anyway since there were no walnuts, I decided to try acorns. I've known for about 15 years you could make flour from them, but never tried it. SO HERE IS HOW IT WENT DOWN.
* Featuring the latest CIA technology! (Crapfone Image Acquisition)

First you gotta find some oak trees. Everybody knows what an oak looks like, right? It's the one with the acorns! BAAAHAAAA!!! And those "deeply lobed" leaves.

You might commonly find, in this barbarous and benighted country, some species of red oak, which includes the California Black Oak (confused yet?). Those acorns taste super bitter -- more bitter than a divorcée, more bitter than a failed actor, more bitter than Pete Best -- due to high concentrations of tannins, which you have to leach out. I'll get to that.

Lucky for you, if you're in Oregon, what you'll probably find is one of the white oaks, namely the Oregon White Oak, or Garry Oak (which due to the spelling, I have to assume is named for Garry Shandling.

the Shand

White Oak acorns reputedly have less tannin and taste less bitter. Like only as bitter as someone who got passed over for a promotion they didn't even want anyway. So you might even be able to eat them straightaway with no further processing. White oak leaf lobes are rounded (like the pic above at right), while the red oak leaves are more pointy (on the left).

Anyway so yeah so I found these two magnificent specimens side-by-side in NE Portland:

twin oaks

Notice the guy waiting for the bus.

As I was, at various times, bending or stooping over or squatting, and making my way around collecting acorns, this guy kept looking at me nervously in between talking on his phone, and always kept an eye on me. Even in this photo you can see he's sort of watching. Maybe he thought I was the EVIL ACORN MAN, COME TO TAKE HIS SOUL!! and that at any moment I might POUNCE!!!!!

artist's conception of Acorn Man attack

Acorn Man's theme song:

Regardless, I got me a big ol' bag a acorns. Dumped 'em in some water so I could tell my sinkers from my floaters. The ones that sink are good; the ones that float have likely been hollowed out by worms and whatnot, so you should toss 'em.

a mess a acorns

Then with your nutcrackers and picks (or pliers and anything pointy if you're all redneck about it), remove the shells.

shelled acorns (left); empty shells (right)

Then, after tasting an acorn and noticing that, yep, it's as bitter as the runner-up in a beauty pageant, you have to leach out the tannins. Now there's two ways of doing this, but you CAN'T MIX METHODS. One way is to soak in water at room temperature for a week or two, replacing the water about twice a day.

Back in the day, the Indians would just tie them in a woven bag and anchor them in a running stream, where the constant supply of clean water would do its magic. Maybe the capitalists of this continent will be so fucking considerate as to leave a few streams running with clean fresh water, for you to try this someday.

The other method is to boil them. Boil for about 10 minutes until the water turns dark brown. Then transfer the acorns to another ALREADY-BOILING pot of water. Do this about 3-4 times or until they're no longer bitter, like a 12-Stepper on the 12th Step. Don’t transfer to cold water, or switch to the cold water method midway, because it apparently has this funny way of "locking in" the tannins such that they won't leach out no matter how long you soak them.

By the way, you can save the water as an astringent, antiseptic, poison ivy remedy, or anything else tannin is good for, including tanning hides, which it's named for. Hippy!

Okay so once that's all done, chop the acorns, or crush with a mortar & pestle, or get all modern and put them in the food processor like so:

Get them to roughly the size/consistency of Grape Nuts like so:

...and then spread them out to dry -- in the open air, in the sun, or in the oven on very low heat.

spread out to dry

...and now dry

From there, grind further using a mortar & pestle or a flour mill...

...until what you have starts to resemble flour!

acorn flour: believe it!

At that point you're ready to use it in a Lovely Bread. But apparently the acorn flour is pretty heavy, and/or has no gluten, so if you use straight acorn flour you're gonna wind up with a rugged loaf indeed. So I used it about half-and-half with some wheat flour, and produced this here:

The bread takes on an interesting vanilla-like flavor from the acorn flour. Which I suppose doesn't surprise me, since don't they age Chardonnay in oak barrels for precisely that reason, to give it a bit of tannin, a bit of vanilla/buttery flavor? Pretty cool.

Here's the recipe I used, which yielded a rustic but unspectacular bread, but acorn flour would presumably work in any bread or (especially) muffin recipe. Just make sure not to replace ALL the wheat flour. Either that or use it in a gluten-free recipe (where they're actually planning around the lack of gluten).

Acorn Bread

2 cups acorn flour
2 cups wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup maple syrup or sugar
1 egg
½ cup milk
3 tbsp butter or olive oil

Heat oven to 400º.

Combine wet & dry ingredients separately, then mix.

Bake in bread pan for 30 minutes or until done.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one hip to acorns, or foraging for that matter. A reader sent this link to an article in the NY Times, with lots of examples of chefs using foraged stuff, including one from Portland who uses acorns. (Not sure if that strictly counts toward the Times' lengthy tally of lavish fellatios given to the city of Portland in its pages, but nonetheless, it's yet another mention.)

A Bit Of The Old Urban Foraging

2010-11-29T22:58:00.000-08:00

Right then,

Ooh that was British of me wasn't it? Right then, chuff-chuff, and that. Blag a fag?⁽¹⁾

Right then, as promised the other day, here it is, a document of A Bit Of The Old Urban Foraging, And Thence A Lovely Bread.

I guess that was pretty British too. I guess I'm British at times. So bugger off.

So. You didn't know, that in addition to being partwise British, I'm into A Bit Of The Old Urban Foraging, too? Yes'm, I've taken it up. Portland is just pullulating (my new favorite word) with fruit and nut trees, all just begging to have their reproductive organs stolen and eaten by hairless apes! The following trees (in addition to most other types of trees, honestly... I mean heck, it's the Pacific NW) grow like weeds around here, i.e. the place is lousy⁽²⁾ with 'em: walnuts, chestnuts, gingko nuts, plums, apples, pears and figs.

There are other things too, including lots of greens and stuff that I'm not terribly interested in at this stage. But the above fruits & nuts are so plentiful that the people who have them on or near their property often don't bother harvesting them... maybe cuz they're sick of them, or maybe they simply prefer to shop at the store like total dicks. Some even consider them a nuisance, especially in the case of the gingko nut, which comes in a fleshy sheath that literally smells like ass. Or puke. Or ass-puke. If you could puke out your ass, it would smell like a gingko nut. It's quite potent when the whole ground is littered with them. My daughter once christened them SLBB's: Smells-Like-Butt-Berries.

And yeah, chestnuts have a spiny outer covering, figs are slippery, plums dry up on the sidewalk and stick to your shoes, bla bla bla, a whole litany of whiny ingrate complaints against Mother Nature's bounty. All of which means people generally don't tend to mind if you come grab some, since you're essentially just helping with their stupid lawn/sidewalk cleanup. But if you're going to do A Bit Of The Old Urban Foraging yourself, it's still a good policy to ask permission from Ye Lande Owner if something is on private property. Don't ruin it for the rest of us, jerk!

Collecting nuts or fruits is a fun thing to do in fall when you would otherwise be tempted to start sinking prematurely into your easy chair for a long winter of sitting around watching the Channel and eating way more calories than you need. Also it feels good, once in a while, to actually have the rare pleasure of obtaining something yourself, "off the grid" as it were (even though such trees are all human-planted, and ironically within a grid of city streets). And as an ancillary benefit, you're practicing and preparing yourself for when the "grid" inevitably goes down, i.e. something I casually yet over-dramatically refer to as "the Apocalypse."

OK so finally I'm ready to launch into my tale of making A Lovely Acorn Bread. But you know what, this post is already pretty long. I want to do what the writers of blogs who make money telling people how to make money writing blogs would tell me to do, which is to keep it short & SNAPPY! So the actual details of the Acorn Bread will have to wait, once again, til next time! THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING YOU!

[UPDATE: "Next time" is NOW!]

(1) "Bum a smoke?" back

(2) Not trying to say we're "bad at" chestnuts or something. That just doesn't make any sense! Lousy means we have an abundance of them, as if they were like lice, which tend to reproduce prodigiously and then crawl all over your hairy bits. back

Procrastinations of the Common Blogger

2010-11-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

So you might've noticed autumn is in full swing, unless you're some kind of dullard and/or Southern-Hemisphere-dweller. In fact things are at a way more advanced state than that, since, at least in Portland today, there's fucking SNOW on the ground. Which many of us, especially those living below let's say 50º of latitude and 3,000 feet of elevation, have the luxury of associating with "winter."

You'll also notice, unless you're some sort of dullard again, and/or don't give a shit about this blog (which is most people), that I've been slacking a bit this month on the ol' blog. Not exactly the rigorously bedrock-solid, consistent, regular poster-to-the-blog, have I been, no sir. The scads of people who make a living writing blogs that tell other people how to make a living writing blogs, would say that I'll never be a successful, happy, wonderful, professional blogger if I don't learn how to be a consistent and reliable presence for people, always creating new "content" (or some even go so far as to use the word "copy.") I will always be miserable and lonely, and will probably die homeless with a case of 'swamp butt' and/or 'chiggers.' OH MY GOD, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (sarcasm) My take on it is, a) anything truly good doesn't have to sell itself or beg constantly for attention, and b) what the hell do you want for free? Fucking freeloaders! In fact, get the hell out of this blog right now!

Just kidding. Love me. So gliding in now toward the topic in a roundabout sort of way not unlike how a skydiver having deployed his parachute kind of makes a spiraling arc toward the target: Earlier in the fall, when it was still fresh, I did, and had intended to write about long before now, a thing which we'll call, A Bit O'The Old Urban Foraging. Specifically I collected a bunch of acorns, and made acorn flour from them, and thence a Lovely Bread.

At this point you're probably like "What the eff?" But yes, that's what I did, just like the Jamestown settlers during the winter of 1607-8, and just like Warshington's troops at Valley Forge would've done if they'd known what was good for them. Next time, real soon now: A detailed step-by-step showing what I did and how you doo-waeht!

[Update: "Next time" arrived on 11/29/10!]

Whoa Dude Trippy.

2010-11-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

Looked up some guy on Wikipedia, m'kay, and here's a screenshot of what came up. Click on it for a closer look, and notice the eerie resemblance 'twixt the two men pictured, one from nowish, one from the 18th century. REINCARNATION IS REAL, DUDE!

Always Something Interesting to Overhear at the DMV

2010-11-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

So I was at the DMV again today. Matter of fact it was for the same reason & purpose as last time.

Totally classic: The DMV clerk had to explain in small words to a newly-arrived foreign student, what it means to be an organ donor. "If you die, and I lose my eye, you give me your eye. I take your eye. Or your heart. But you're dead." Strangely enough, the kid answered no. Go figure!

Kinda says something about auto safety, when you go to get permission to drive, and they start asking for instructions for after you're dead!

Anyway, since the explanation was so loud & clear, everybody else got to have a lovely chuckle. I should go to the DMV more often!

Sign Of The Times

2010-10-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Check out this list of Multnomah & Washington counties' fastest-growing occupations, from the State of Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. I willingly repeat their use of the word "occupation" with a probably even-fuller idea of its meaning than the sense in which it's used: i.e. yep, these sure do seem like things you could occupy yourself with. Click to enlarge.

My Very Un-PC Attempt At Captcha Art

2010-10-26T01:13:00.000-07:00

So yeah there's a whole blog dedicated to people's attempts to draw renderings of those goofy and nonsensical "captcha's" everybody's always making you type. (And here's a particularly good batch of someone's collected favorites.)

Anyway yeah, I apologize in advance, the first thing I thought of when this captcha came up today was the eternal conflict in Israel/Palestine. I'm not taking sides.

F--- YEAH CORN MAZE!!!

2010-10-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

You know how athletes when they score a goal or win a race or whatnot, and they're celebrating, sometimes they go a little over the edge, like instead of regular happy celebration it seems to go into, what would you call it? Something that seems like they're almost PISSED OFF, or maybe just too charged up on testosterone, or like they think they're this guy:

Well that's what I was going for here with my celebration of being in Kruger's corn maze on Sauvie Island (a fact which I was genuinely happy about):

PS: Kruger's is the place to go. There are other pumpkin patch type deals on Sauvie Island, all of which are some combination of: bigger, crasser, more crowded, and/or shittier. I'll always be a Kruger's loyalist.

And speaking of Kruger, Kruger National Park in South Africa was apparently the site of what has to be the world's greatest nature video ever. Lions (speed & fangs) vs. cape buffalo (horns & numbers), with crocodiles (stealth & jaws) gettin' in on the action, all being commentated on by humans (insipid & twats)!

Watch below, or here's a link to open it in a new window: poot

Is The Election Over Yet?

2010-10-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

The mailbox today was jam-packed full of no less than NINE election-related glossy bullshits. I wish I could tell them I voted already, so I don't have to recycle their stuff for them. Oh and also there was one "World's Greatest Vacations" glossy bullshit. Wish I could tell THEM that I don't go on vacations. Though maybe I should start. You know, to get away from the 9 political mailers.

Crapbringer

2010-10-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

Hello, is that a rainbow pegasus?

Listening to Deep Purple's Stormbringer album. Released in 1974, which comes AFTER the years widely regarded as their peak, when they had the legendary "Mark II" lineup (Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord & Ian Paice, all great).

Succumbing in 1973 to the pressures of overmuch-touring-and-shit, vocalist Gillan and bassist Glover had walked out, and taken with them the balls of the band. Okay, one ball of the band. (Drummer Paice was the other.) So the band got a new bassist (Glenn Hughes) & singer (David Coverdale), and sort of started to change direction.

1973's Burn album was still pretty kickass... as if coasting on the momentum of earlier ass-kickage. But some of the riffs and songs are slightly uninspired, and there's a creeping hint of DISCO, which is just plain weird.⁽¹⁾

Now I don't want to get down on the hyper-macho vocal stylings of David Coverdale because they're pretty kickayuss. Not "kickass"; KICKAYUSS! There's a difference, and I think you know where I'm coming from with that. Later on he would form Whitesnake, which is probably the epitome of kickayuss:

And then there's Glenn Hughes... I think that's where a lot of the soul & funk influence was coming from. Roger Glover had always been an architect and an advocate of the earlier Deep Purple hard rock sound... in fact didn't he have a hand in producing a lot of the records of the Mk II lineup? Fact check please.

Anywhoo. So yeah, by the time they hit 1974 and Stormbringer, the coasting momentum of Burn has bled off, and the riffs & songs are even more uninspired, and there's even MORE of a disco type thing. Though I also hear an Allman Brothers ripoff in there:

("Holy Man")

Anyway, if I haven't made it obvious, my opinion is that by this time the band is well past its prime. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore must've agreed, because he quit the band right after this record. And after one more album with another guitarist (the horrid "Come Taste The Band") they disbanded and called it quits.

So, yeah... it's a unique experience listening to the work of a band that's past its prime or near its end. I happened to have a long bus ride, and had time to hear this whooole album. There's something brutally, yet exquisitely depressing about listening to a lackluster album all the way through. Sitting there I feel like I've got it pretty rough as the listener, but then it occurs to me: AT LEAST I'M NOT THE BAND. Having to, for example, go on TOUR with this material, and play it over and over, and believe in it, or pretend to, for the audience, and put your back into it and put your heart and soul into each limp riff, each over-compensating vocal ornament, each stupid lyric. Rock & roll is a self-powering machine when you're on, but it's a harsh taskmaster when you're running on fumes.

(1) One of these days I'm gonna do a podcast about 70s bands not known for being disco, who went disco. Whether because of temptation or market pressure or drugs or failing inspiration or what. Not that disco itself can't be inspired. If you're a disco band. But when a band like Deep Purple for example, goes from this to this, you've gotta wonder. back

I Take It Back, Bring Back The Hold Music

2010-10-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I complained about the Oregon Employment Department's use of hold music. Specifically that it's just the same 30 seconds of a song (specifically the beginning of it) repeated ad infinitum in between various recorded announcements.

Well, I am now prepared to make a full retraction. Today I called the Oregon Dept. of Human Services, Northeast Portland Processing Center, and soon became aware ("like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond, a diamond bullet right through my forehead"... henceforth to be abbreviated LIWS,LIWSWAD,ADBRTMF) of two things:
1) Music IS preferable.
2) The short 30 seconds previously complained-of is actually a luxuriously, extravagantly, almost deliriously long time.

And the best part: After about 20 of those, it simply HUNG UP ON ME!

What Is It About This View?

2010-10-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

From the upper deck at the Interstate Fred Meyer...

(click to embiggen)

A Little Bit of Extracurricular Ranting

2010-10-14T15:20:00.001-07:00

Read this article by an overprivileged, entitled-feeling white person, and then if you like, read this mild-mannered reaction, and THEN, read this, wherein the steam is coming "toot-toot" out of my ears!

Nasal Decongestant, P.E.

2010-10-10T19:59:00.001-07:00

Last week ~n caught a cold. In response thereto, and symptomwise for-to-alleviate thereof, she bought a box of this stuff:

Yep, good old Kroger ( = Satan ) Nasal Decongestant PE. Looking at the label, I'm guessing the PE stands for the phenylephrine HCl proudly stated as being contained therein. And NOT for the pseudoephedrine that is clearly disavowed as being absent therefrom. No, if you want pseudoephedrine, you'll have to buy Nasal Decongestant PE (which stands for pseudoephedrine), instead of Nasal Decongestant PE.

Anyway, so yeah Kroger's not so hot (aside from being Satan and residing in a hell hotter than any tandoori or anything you've ever sprinkled on your burrito my friend, let me tell you), and ~n, being the sensitive type that she is, can tell when Satan is in a thing. It's like she can smell the Satan in there. Perhaps that's why, instead of just doing the expected thing, i.e. opening the box and taking the medicine therein, her cold for-to-alleviate the symptoms thereof, she left this box just sitting on the dining room table for a long time.

It is at this point, during the course of several days of my repeated traversals past said table, on the way to/from the kitchen, bedroom, and/or bathroom, that a thing I like to call "my mind" enters the story. Repeatedly I passed within easy reading range of this box. So:

Whereas in the field of engineering, particularly in civil engineering, it is possible, customary and/or necessary to obtain one's Professional Engineer (PE) license;

And whereas, once you do that, it is customary to append PE to your name, e.g. John Doe, PE;

And whereas India, for whatever reason, seems to churn out more than its share of civil engineers;

Therefore, be it noted, that in my own little world, "Nasal Decongestant PE" started to look to me like someone's name. And here is how you pronounce it:

I called him, but all I got was his voicemail...

Hey There Champ

2010-10-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

Whore Island

2010-10-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

I had a dream the other night that ~n and I went to a tiny little island called Whore Island. It was located off of the southwest side of Hayden Island, which is a real island in the Columbia River. (My perspective kept shifting between the normal view you have as a person walking around, and an overhead view à la Google Earth; hence my excellent geographical knowledge of the Whore Island area.)

Apparently Whore Island is quite the tourist attraction nowadays, because back in the 40s it was the site of, y'know, a bunch of whoring activity, hence the name, and Jack Kerouac himself had come through Portland and had written about visiting there in On The Road. My dream-self either recollected all this, or perhaps learned it from an interpretive placard for tourists. Somehow I also knew it wasn't actually called Whore Island back when it was "in service" as it were, but it was definitely renowned as the place to go.

Things have changed since then of course... whereas Kerouac and Neal Cassady -- a.k.a. Dean Moriarty -- had had to make the journey to Whore Isl. by rowboat from the river shore, now it's connected to Hayden Island by a road built on fill. And speaking of Hayden Island, the west end of it -- in real life a no-man's-land of marsh & forest owned by the Port of Portland and, I assume, kept in reserve for future expansion of their port facilities -- had been developed into a neighborhood with a street grid and shops and mature trees and everything. You can just ride your bike to Whore I. and get ice cream afterwards.

Whore Island itself was loaded with tourists, and was essentially very tiny, flat & wooded, with tall tree trunks and a big clearing that had a view of the river. I recognized this scene from a black-and-white photo that my dream-self had apparently seen somewhere in a book or web site devoted to documenting the real-life locations visited by Kerouac & Cassady during their On The Road travels.

So weird to have a dream with so many layers & levels of knowledge about stuff outside the time & place of the dream itself!

Outside Fred Meyer

2010-09-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

First word on the obese beggar's homemade sign: "HUNGRY"

Reactive Bumper Stickers

2010-09-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite "things I'll do someday." Stickers intended to be placed as a prank by someone other than the owner of the vehicle, saying things that refer to, retort to, or subvert/pervert the meaning of, whatever existing sticker is next to it, above it or below it.

Some examples:

Also a couple of specific targets:

Carter

2010-09-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

Something I did in 2006, and it's even more applicable today:

Let's hear it for this guy though, seriously. His main flaw, as far as I can tell, was his inability to lie to the American people. To tell us the kind of sweet little lies that carried Ronnie Reagan into office. The kind of lies that necessitate various economic shell-games and strategies for postponing today's labors until tomorrow. Which only work so long as tomorrow never arrives. But today is the tomorrow we've been putting things off until.

"Oh Heck Yeah" I Want This Job!!!!

2010-09-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

If only I could figure out what the HELL the job actually entails. But that requires penetrating this stinking incomprehensible run-on barrage of BORING, and distilling its secrets without blowing my goddamn brains out! Duties include:

Act as the primary source of information and support to Administration in the management of clinical resources to meet member demand through the design, coordination and maintenance of schedules for departments, services and clinicians; by assisting with the development of and compliance with the scheduling policies and procedures to meet patient care needs considering varying provider schedules, deadlines, timelines ad contractual agreements through the provision of first-line problem solving for clinical scheduling issues, which includes research and investigation, interpretation and resolution.

There's only one thing that sticks: Administration is capitalized sort of like God. The rest of it sort of just washes over my cerebral cortex like a greyish-black wave of dirty water and flows quietly away, away...

I'm tagging this post with (among other things) the word "fascism" because fascism is just like this: involved, rigorous, difficult, yet incredibly boring.

That Said

2010-09-17T21:18:00.001-07:00

It may be officially time to retire "that said." The volumes upon volumes of empirical data that I rigorously gathered and analyzed to reach this conclusion are basically: I'm sick of hearing people say it. Yep I just came out and said that.

That said, if you want to keep saying it, go right ahead, I can't stop you.

But I hear a lot of people saying it lately and it makes them sound self-important, particularly when they misuse it. Like correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it supposed to be the sort of thing you stick in between two things that seem contradictory? Like "Bla bla bla liquor is bad, m'kuy, and it's gonna ruin your life etc. etc. That said, you should totally come to our party tonight and get totally wasted with us!"

Or: I hate clams. I fucking hate clams bla bla bla I sure do hate clams. That said, if you happened to have some chowder right now I would totally hit that shit, HARD.

Right? But people just stick it in there when it doesn't really belong. Like this exchange I witnessed:

Mr. Tool: We should schedule a meeting with him.
Mr. Douche: Yeah, I'm thinking tomorrow. Tomorrow's schedule looks the best and it's the only time George is free too. That said, I think we should have it tomorrow.

YR DOIN IT RONG, JACKASS.

Like he's making up excuses to say "that said." Trying to sound important and shit.

Even if you use such an expression properly, you're still risking being associated with Mr. Douche. And, just to remind you, you can always just say "but" or "on the other hand" or something, like in the olden days.

Granularity (i.e. detail), is another one, a piece of management-speak that needs to go away, but I'll save that for another time.

Tom Jones: Obsessed With Pussy

2010-09-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

How many times does Tom get away with saying "pussy" right out loud in 1965 in "What's New Pussycat?" A lot.

Behold.

Had to include a couple trombone blasts in there, just so that a trombone player can be surrounded by pussy for the first time in history.

Also notice how all the pussy's come (he he) right on the "one" beat along with the bass drum. BOOM BOOM BOOM, JUST A-HAMMERIN' AWAY AT YO' PUSSY!

Business or Hobby?

2010-09-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

Anyway yeah, I was originally thinking of making bicycle frame building a full-time business. But I'm proceeding with it as a hobby for now. Because getting it off the ground as a business is gonna take a bigger investment of time & money than I have available to devote to it right now. The time will basically be practice time, refining all the various parts of the process that involve craft. And the money, or a good chunk of it anyway, will be for certain multi-thousand-dollar machine tools and fixtures that, while far from essential if it's a hobby, are fairly necessary productivity-enhancers if it's a business.

Framebuilding actually seems pretty similar to another thing I do: playing music. The music world is a lot like the framebuilding world in many respects. Large pool of hobbyists, few pros, something people generally do because they enjoy it, something you can do poorly right off the bat, pretty well with some practice, or take a lifetime to master. Something you can learn from a book or from a teacher or by trial & error. Something at which there are certain people who seem to be "naturals," while others have to work harder. Something at which most will probably make very little money, except for a small minority. Something where "everything's been done" and mass-produced etc. and yet there's still room for innovation and craftsmanship.

I guess I have an especial knack for getting into activities of this nature. Or maybe (ding ding ding) every human endeavor is like that!

Regardless, all these things I do... I like them. Would I want to do any one of them full-time as a job? I would probably accept it, but would I like it? I tend to think that doing a thing part-time, for a "portion" of my income, actually has a better ring to it, but for some things the practicalities don't necessarily pencil out too well. But I guess there's a part of me that's wary of doing ANY one thing, all the time. I don't think there's any one thing I enjoy that much. (Same reason I don't have any tattoos.) Anything, no matter how enjoyable, can become drudgery if you're forced to do it over and over, day in and day out, to make your living. But then of course, on the contrary, there are always ways to find the new within the same-old.

Anyway, one nice thing about a hobby is the freedom. Let's say you have one hobby, and a day job, and the day job has absolutely nothing to do with the hobby. So yes, okay, you're not "following your dreams" 24/7. BUT, in a certain way it frees you to treat the hobby as you please: take risks with it, or make mistakes, or just do nothing at all. Whereas if you were doing that same thing as a job or business, you'd have customers, and they don't generally tend to appreciate any of the above. Yet they are all necessary at various times when dealing with anything creative that's subject to the whims of a "muse" as it were.

I can't believe I said something about a "muse." I am so out of here.

Hold Music v. 2.0

2010-09-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

As a followup to today's earlier post, can you imagine something like, ohhh, I dunno, how about this version?

Hold the Hold Music Please

2010-09-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

Well guess what, I was lucky enough to be selected at random to apply for the Oregon Health Plan! So I'll have some semblance of state-paid health insurance. But as a condition of the application, I had to apply for unemployment. Even though I always figured I was probably ineligible. We'll see what happens I guess. But yeah, so that's how I indirectly chanced to hear and record the following sonic gem of gems.

This goes out to everybody who's unemployed in Oregon. (It's an MP3 about 2.7 MB in size.)

awwww yeah

Two notes:

1) Sassy, sexy, soprano sax! It's the 90s and I've gone to Kenny G heaven! (Except it's not a flurry of senseless notes like Kenny G but you know what I'm sayin.)

2) I love the utterly mechanical artlessness of the deployment. (This is only apparent to the CONNOISSEUR who listens to the WHOLE MP3, not all you LAZY CHEATERS out there!) The spoken messages don't come in OVER the music, or INTERRUPT a "song" per se, that continues after the announcement. They are simply spliced between the same 30 seconds of music. So the song begins, and plays for 30 seconds, and is interrupted, and starts again... over and over. Which fills me with questions...
"Is it normal to be annoyed by the repetition?"
"...or by the interruptions?"
"What's that next chord they're about to transition to when it cuts off? Cuz it sounds like it's about to be totally SWEET!"
"Is this configuration in fact, arguably not music at all?"
"Whether music or not, is this superior to silence?"
"If music is called for in a given context, is ANY music sufficient?"
"What is music for?"

Serial No. 0000

2010-09-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

As you may know, about a year ago I decided to get into building bicycle frames. In February I took a class at UBI to learn the basics, and in the course of that, built a steel frame for myself. One of these days, I'll post a photo sequence showing all the steps of the build. But for now let's just have a look at the finished product:

This is custom-fitted to my measurements, which is pretty sweet, since in the past I've had a bit of trouble finding bikes that fit right. I'm tall, sure, but it's not terribly hard to find a bike that's tall enough. But apparently a lot of my height is in my torso rather than my legs... at least compared to the hypothetical "average person" for whom the typical cookie-cutter mass-produced tallish-sized bike is designed. So I've never had a frame that was both the right height AND the right length front-to-back. (movie trailer guy voice) UNTIL NOW.