It just keeps going and going and going.....

Jesus, three consecutive blog entries. It's worse than the whole Robot vs Zombie postings....

Needless to say, I am finding far too much amusement in this. Worse, there are slightly different version.

The original one, http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf seems to max out in the low 323's. Miller says he got 324, but I am skeptical.

However, this version is the same game with slightly tweaked parameters, allow you to hit the penguin muuuuuuch futher. I've hit as high as 593 on this version.

And there's something wonderfully poetic about hitting the penguin over 400 (meters? feet?) in a single arc, don't you think? There's just something inexplicably Zen in the way his limp, broken body just nose-dives...

I'm at work. Six/seven inches and I'm at work.

My co-worker, Laura, called me at 6:47--I had just gotten up and was looking outside to make up my mind, and she offered me a lift to work (she's got an Explorer). She picked me up about an hour later and we were in the office at 8:15.

3/4 of the production floor didn't come in--that's some 50 people. There's only six people here in the office proper--though that's also because Mike and Pete are down at Fiberconn in Hanover. Matt almost closed things down but Sana said she'd be coming in and could work with the few people in Production that made it in.

The roads aren't bad, really. the highway's are clear. Montclair is decently plowed, though the roads in Bloomfield are still a bit messy. Forget about my complex. I haven't decided if I want to dig my car out when I get home tonight or just wait until tomorrow morning.

So here we are in the office. I've got a few things to keep me busy, but nobody's in the mood to work. And God only knows how the snow will delay shippments and any business in the area that I'll need to contact.

Bloody hell.

Ten to one says Sean didn't go to work today. I think I'm gonna call him and wake his lazy ass up.

I got this from Sean first, though it was also sent by Eric Tow on the Southern Group E-mail List. This means its undoubtedly making the rounds through whatever channels you might normally recieve these things, but I've been plaything this thing for ten minutes straight without getting bored.

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

If anyone gets over 320 feet, let me know.

I was purusing Yahoo New's at work, checking out the Entertainment/Music section, when I came across this:



Obviously Yahoo has stumbled onto politic's best kept secret--Wesley Clark is actually Britney Spears!! It makes perfect sense, really: I mean, haven't you noticed that Britney is never around when Clark is, and vice versa? And how ironic that Madonna endorsed Clark only after kissing Spears at the 2003 VMA's. I, for one, am completely shocked. I mean, who knew Clark could sing that badly??

Obviously this revelation would have lasting consequences. Undoubtedly Clark's campaign team will probably want to surpress the story, so spread the word before it's too late.

(Though, if the story does slide down the memory hole by the time you read this, you can still see it here.)

I've heard of 'Rock the Vote" but isn't this just a tad extreme?

Sean ordered me to make this a blog entry, but I think it's funnier for him because he's involved in the real-life stuff the dream referenced. Still, it was a funky dream so that the hell. This is what I dreamed early Saturday morning, recovering from the party on Friday:

It involved the whole Rob-Christine-Judi-Alan-Sean grouping. The six of us were . . . I dunno, on a quest. there was a real Lord of the Rings kinda vibe, in so far as we were on this journey in this land. No hobbits, no Rivendell, but it had the same "feel" as that story, if this makes sense.

What's clearer is that at some point we took a break from this journeying because I was at an awards show. It may have been the Emmys, or maybe the Oscars, I'm not sure, though I know it was supposed to be one of them. Christine was sitting either behind me or on my left. Jack Nicholson was on my right. At one point Micheal Eisner and Roy Disney were presenting an award together, and you could feel the hatred between the two, even though they did their best to deliver the scripted banter. I think the audience applauded them for being such good sports and going through the bit even though they hate each other. And at one other point someone in a wheelchair straddled Jack Nicholson (straddled him while still in the sheelchar) and started quoting the Angel's dialogue from her grand entrance in Angels in America. Jack laughed. The audience laughed; it was a good bit, apparently.

We left the award show at this point--or some point; there could have been more to the show but I don't remember. But I think we were all back in "journey" mode. Except for some reason, at one point there was a flashback. You know how in TV shows, espeically long-running ones, they have a flashback to see how everyone met and what they were doing right before the show-proper started? Well, this was that kind of flashback, and in involved the one and only Rob Duane.

Basically, we were back in Rob's high school, even though it also had a college-vibe to it in that it was a big place and there were lost sof activities. Rob was a popular guy. And he still had hair. I was there with a group of people. It could have been Christine and Sean et al, or it may not have been. But I was there to meet people and tell them about Montclair State. And the people showing us around and introduced us to Rob. I shook his hand and exhcanged pleasantries--I think I had even heard about him, prior to this introduction--and I think I asked him if, or told him that I knew that he was coming to Montclair in the fall. So I told him when he gets there that he should come check out Players,m that it'd be a group he'd be interested in. He smiled and said he'd definitely do that.

At this point the flashback ended, and I was joking around with everyone and made a joke about Kevin Schwobel where I said something about "I dream of Kevin" or "I dream of Schowbel" and started singing the theme to I Dreamof Genie.

It was at this point Rob called and woke me up. Which is a shame because, whatever was going on in my dream, it wasn't finished. But there it is.

Friday I didn't get to bed until 5:30 in the morning. Last night I got to bed around a quarter to three. It's four in the afternoon now, and I actually wish we'd get the accumulations they were saying we'd have earlier in the week because at least that would mean I could spend tomorrow sleeping

Friday was supposed to be a "semen on the walls" night, which is Christine's wonderful phrase to describe an evening, not so much of wanton debauchery, but of a wild and crazy time. It didnt start out that way. Rob came by around 7:00. He, Sean, and I played HALO for a bit and shot the shit. Aimii came over first, and it was good to catch up with her. Dawn and Aline were next, though I forget the order. Judi came by, too. The company was good, but the energy was low.

Jay and Sarah arrived--sometime around 10:30, I believe. Alan got to us by 11:00, which was pretty surprisng. Sean's friend Andrew was also here. Christine arrived last, not 'till close to midnight, I think. By then Aline and Dawn has left. If Sean hasn't started the game of Texas Hold 'em, things would've been a bit sorry, soiree-wise.

Like college, it was the alcohol that saved us. The card game was fun--and the alcohol made up for the fact that we weren't playing for any kind of money. Sean stole Jay, Alan, and Rob at varying intervals to play a little NHL 2004 on the X-Box and have them set up their own teams. But I think Christine bringing her own 375ml bottle of JD and drinking over 3/4 of it is what helped make for a fun time.

By 2:30 it was just me, Rob, Sean, and Christine. And conversation went the way most 2:30 Am conversations do--Rob and Christines dissemination of 80's and 90's horror movies was intriguing, I must say. Around . . . hell, I dunno, say 4:00, Christine and I attempted to play Chess. Between her ebing drunk and me being tired, the game was rather pathetic and took us twice as long to play as it should have. At 5:30 I finally checked in.

Rob woke me up around a quarter to one Saturday afternoon. If he hadn't called to let him back into the apartment--he had aparently left sometime in the morning to do errands--I know I would've slept a good hour more. He helped Sean and I do a little cleaning up from the night before; beyond the mess by the front door from everyone's dity shoes--the place really wasn't too bad; a few beer bottles and empty cups was the worst of it.

The three of us played HALO some more then Rob treated us to lunch. By the time we came back it was already after four in the afternoon. We got back to the apartment, Sean and I made some calls to finalize the evening plans, then the three of us played some more HALO.

(If you're sensing a pattern here, you're not far off.)

At 7:30, Rob went to find his cousin and Sean and I went to see Don't Dress for Dinner a farce being performed in Nutley that Raine was in. Extremely funny show. Your basic farce, story-wise, but some good lines and a very strong cast so the show was a good one. Alan and Judi joined us for the play, then the four of us, and Raine, met up with Rob at the Verona Inn. Christine came by just after 11:30 and we stayed there until one-ish, then headed to the Pilgrim Dinner to unwind.

Rob, Sean, and I stayed up a wee bit to chat, play a game of HALO, then call it a night.

I overslept this morning. I meant to get up at my usually 8:00 wake-up so I could do laundry, but I forgot to set my alarm when I went to bed. Luckily my body woke me up at 8:55, so I jumped out of bed, put on some clothes and ran to the laundrymat. After that I came back home, showered, and Rob, Sean, and I realized that we were fucking exhausted from the weekend.

Rob left around 1:00. Sean's off doing the family thing. I did some errands--returned some of the clothes I bought last week, and got some needed coat/pant hangars, and that pretty much brings us to now, which is 4:22 in the afternoon.

I am sooooooooo crashing.

But I've got things I want to do: clothes to iron, work to do for the V shrine, not to mention I should probably do some cooking.

The Golden Globes are on tonight, but I just don't seem to care.

Fun weekend, though. Can I have another to recover from this one?

Moo hoo ha ha ha ha!!!


tuo ti kcehC.

I watched most of the Democratic Presidental Debate tonight. And my first thought was . . . well, my first thought was that Al Sharpton is an idiot. He spoke in classic double-speak and barely answred questions. My second was that Clark was the only person capable of answering questions within the sixty-seconds alloted to each candidate (though by the end of the debate he was going past it well enough).

There's a reason Dean, Kerry, and Clark are ahead in the polls, and I think this debate perfectly encapsuled why: they are the strongest in apperance. Edwards was OK, but the man is more verbose than I am, and prone to hyperbole and sound-bites. Kucinich had big ears. And nice graphs showing how NAFTA and the WTO is taking jobs away from Americans, but otherwise all I could think when I saw that he's from Ohio is the CSNY song. (which, all things considered, is rather appropriate.)

This was the first time I saw everyone in action. edwards seems a bit too young. Good ideas, but his enthusiaism--which is nice to see--betrays the fact that his inexperience is a factor.

And don't get me started on Lieberman.

The funny thing was I started to rather like Dean. I know much has been made of his post-Iowa outburst, but I saw that clip--out of context--and I have to say I don't see what the big deal was. He just had a major loss, his campaign is in trouble, and I thought it was a bold move to rally the troops with some geuine bravado. Or maybe it was calculated, I don't know for certain, but I don't see what the problem is. I rather like the idea of a candidate that isn't afraid to be emotional and show the public a side of himself that isn't carefully manicured PR.

But the thing I found watching the debate, at least between Kerry and Dean, is that there really wasn't anything to distinguish themselves from one another. They were both eloquent and passionate--I think Kerry was actually a little more emotional the Dean, but I also found his hand movements to be a bit rehearsed so I'm not sure how genuine they were--but ultimately they didn't seem to say anything that really stood out to me.

Actually, strike that. What I liked was Dean admitting to all the things he'd do that you generally don't hear from politicans--he says he would raise taxes, he said he would keep NAFTA and the WTO, and I was impressed by at least hearing that he'd do this, because you know these things will happen, and they'll be unpopular with people, but ratherf than lie about it at least he admitted it. (Of course, if Bush was saying this then I'd slam him for openly admitting how he's going to screw people; I have to read up more on Dean to find out about him. Which might well be moot in a few more weeks.)

But in terms of really, objectively, setting themselves apart from the rest, nobody seemed to do that in a positive way. I['d like to see Edwards again in four or eight years, actually, but right now he didn't sell me that he really knew what he was doing. Sharpton came across as stupid and cliched, Libermann seemed a bit dottering and cliched, Kucinich looked like he was just trying to convice people he belonged at the Grown-Up Table.

Clark radiates poise and stability, which, being a career military man one would expect. He stumbled a bit when asked about his Iraq flip-flopping; there was a question about an article he wrote for a London paper, and I think he didn't explain himself as smoothly as he could. I was also surprised to learn he had served as an advisor to the company that created the CAPPS II program, which he said he knew nothing about which clearly was a lie.

(An aside: every candidate went over their alotted time, but I noticed that if they cut out theb rhetoic and speechifying, their real answer--the part that they spend on actually answering the question and not grandstanding--almost always ended up under the time alotted. It was amusing, there was one bit where you could tell Libermann knew he had answered the question, but because he didn't want to give up his timel continued to ramble, found another geuine point to make, but had spent so long bullshitting that he ran over the time and went for another half a minute to finish his point. Had he gotten to the point first, he wouldn't have run over so badly. I say this to all politicans: Fuck rhetoric, just answer the damn question!)

Kerry was OK. He looked like someone took all the muscle out of his body and left the skin to hang on the bones, but he was OK otherwise. Didn't make me roll my eyes as badly as Sharpton or Libermann, but he didn't inspire much confidence in me either.

Good Christ, did I really come away from this thing liking Dean the most of all the candidates? Brrrrrrr.

Quick, to the Libertarian website; gotta find me some third party candidates, STAT!!

So I'm going through Mitch's blog because for whatever reason his "update" e-mails have stopped, so now I have to make the effort once or twice a week to check out his stuff. And I'm scrolling down his entries and suddenly I see that my good cousin as blogged one of my blogs! How cool is that? You can check it out here and being the cyclical cycle (as opposed to a rectangular cycle) of self-referential cross-blogging.

The redundancy in the preceeding statement is so redundant it makes me proud.

Anyway, Mitch had written me a while back about how I should have a comments option on this blog. I'm pretty sure I told him in the e-mail, but for the benefit of all--I personally think comments in a blog are rather silly. It seems to me, as blogs are mostly a source of vanity, that the whole point of a blog is simply to point something out to people. There's no need for feedback because the presumption is that what you have to say is important and poeple should listen to it; therfore, why give up your space just so someone else can air their opinions--let 'em get their own damn blog! Personally, if I wanted a an online forum to listen to other people's opinions, I'd host an online forum like The V or Sk8J. But I'm lazy and far too egotisical for that. :)

Nonetheless, as Mitch as forgone e-mail, using his blog to comment on my blog, it only seems fair that I respond in kind. (See, Blogs actually impeede conversation, not enhance it. Comment options are an after-thought, a half-hearted apology once people ridiculously thought it was a mistake not to have conversation. It's like applying a band-aid to an accidental gunshot wound--sure, it might help, but it doesn't really cover up the mistake, you know?)

The point is as I trully am trying to get to but seem to be in one of those rare moods when my tangential thoughts are properly being transcribed as I tangentalize them . . . what was I saying? Oh yes!

THE POINT IS, Mitch, that while I think your blog's "Drafts" and "Looks interesting" features are quite nifty, for me, it doesn't quite solve the dilemma of half-composed or uninterrupted thoughts. You mentioned in your blog that: these sidebars move this blog closer to the blogging essence: spontaneous writing, direct from writer to reader, without polishing or editing But if the point of the exercise is to illustrate psontaneous writing, why have the "draft" section at all? Why not simply post them as regular entries--make it an presentation on the evolution of your thought-process: people can literally read how you start with a germ of an idea and develop it to a complete entry. And since each step will be a blogged entry, there will be a permanent record, rather than displaying only the latest stage of development.

But I do thank you for showing that I'm not alone out there when it comes to composing blog entries, and the difficulties in them.

My cousin, Mitch Wagner. Smart guy. Visit his blog.

In the Days Before The Internet, I rather enjoyed libraries. There were so many books. Rows and rows of information and fiction. Especially when I was writing fiction, it was a treasure trove of resources and inspiration. Even during college, there was something about walking down the aisles and scanning the spines of books, admiring the aesthetic of jacket design as much as the information glued to the spine.

But the Internet came and these days if I want to find something I just hit Google and take what I need. Of course Google isn't the end-all-be-all of resources; inevitably tied to the Net it is woefully deplete of information written prior to its creation. But for my purposes, and my ficitional writing days well behind me, it services quite well. I haven't been to a library in years.

I saw on The Dent a link to The Onion AV Club's review of Tori Amos's Tales of a Librarian CD. It's her "best of" collection, and the format is ingenius--it's presented as a library, with the package design demonstrating where each songs fits along the Dewey Decmil System; I think beyond that, the choice of library as metaphor for a "best of" collection is self evident.

The AV club's review had this to say about Tori's compilation:


Alongside highlights from later albums and some re-cut B-sides, the tracks from Earthquakesand Pink still stand out most. Maybe it's because they're sung with the intensity of someone who needs to be heard, not the confidence of a singer who knows a built-in audience is hanging on her every word. Many cult artists are fated to be loved too much by those who love them, and to grow content with that love alone. Librarian suggests just how sad it would be if Amos dug into that niche for good.


It's not hard to disagree with the sentiment. I wouldn't go as far as to say Tori's gone up her own ass when it comes to her persona and her following, but I think, at this stage, there's a certain . . . formula at work. Tori has her shtick, the fans have theirs, and everything self-perpetuates nicely.

I know part of this is a result of OD'ing on Tori this past year. From November 2002 to August 2003, I saw the woman six times in concert. And I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's time to move on. I'm 28 years old--ironically, the same age Tori was when Little Earthquakes was released--but I have to say that at this point in my life, the majority of her best work relates to a time that I'm past.

The beauty of Tori's early work, beyond her raw honesty, was the simple appeal in hearing someone speak about all the fears and insecurities a person has while gorwing up. tori, understandably, has abandoned that type of song now that she herself has matured and grown, but to be totally honest, the artist Tori has become isn't half as interesting to me as the artist she was. And the artist she was only appeals to me in a nostalgic sort of sense. I listen to something like "Silent All These Years" and I think of those emotions in the past tense. I hear the song and think "I know how she felt", not "how she feels."

It's not that the connection is severed completely--I still love her music--but, as time goes by, that connection isn't reinforced. The resonance stays rooted in the memory of the inital experience/identification. New layers of appreciation haven't emerged. To put it another way: When Librarian came out last November, it stayed in my CD player about a week. By comparison, the Rush in Rio album stayed in my CD player for about three months. When both albums supposedly represent the best of your favorite artists, to listen to one album for a few days and the other for several weeks, I think the disparity is too glaring to miss.

I agree with the AV's observation that if Tori can step back from being "Tori", she's capable of creating great music. I hope she can accomplish that; her library is one I'd still like to visit from time to time.

Debbie's birthday is always the first "friend" birthday of the year for me. She and I don't hang out very often, once every two or three months at most. But I've known her since high school and since college I've always made sure to show up to whatever birthday celebration she throws for herself.

Yesterday was one of the tamer ones, all things considered. There were five of us at diner--me, Deb, Miller, Pete, and Sandi. We spent a few hours at diner then went back to Deb's place where we were joined by Deb's roommate Matt, and Deb's friend Sharon and her fiancee Aaron. At which point everyone but Sharon and I broke out the beers and played Asshole for a while. The game fizzled out and we were left with watched a trully appalling episode of Saturday Night Live. It was so bad it literally killed the mood of the party, and most of us headed out around a quarter to one.

SNL aside, much fun was had. Diner was great--we all had a good time, and for whatever reason there was a woman making balloon art, so we got her to make an utterly obnoxious and over-the-top hat for Deb which wound up being the "asshole" hat for the game. And while I didn't drink I was much amused by the game, espeically Debbie who drank about half a gallon of Long Island Ice Tea and became beyond shitfaced.

Below are just some of the pictures I will be holding onto for future blackmail (in case my life as a professional gambler doesn't pan out, of course.)


 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Debbie. :)

So here's what's been on my mind almost all day:

There's a scene in American Beauty where Jane (Thora Birch) and Angela (Mena Suvari) are in talking in Jane's room when they see the next door neighbor, Ricky (Wes Bentley), is standing at his window, staring into hers, and videotaping them. They laugh at him, repulsed by his behavior. Jane goes to her desk to sit, her back to the window. Angela, meanwhile, begins vamping it up for Ricky, posing playfully and seductively. The POV then switches to what Ricky sees on his videocamera, and he zooms in, right past the vamping Angela to the reflection of Jane.
This scene has been playing non-stop in my head for hours.

This was supposed to be yesterday afternoon's post. I started writing it and got sidetracked trying to find a specific quote that related to the post. It took me forever to find it. And I finally did find it, Miller arrived at the apartment, so I couldn't finish the post; I saved it and decided to write it the next day. Only I'm in a completely different mood from yesterday, and I'm finding that I just can't write the post anymore.

Am I alone in this? I know inspiration is a capricious thing, and when it strikes you often have to follow through or lose it completely. But I'm writing a blog, not Ulysses, how hard is it to keep a thought in one's head? I dunno, maybe I'm just being moody.

Still, the quote I was looking for (because how can I not use it after how long it took for me to find it?) is from an episode of The West Wing where John Spencer's character, leo McGarry, is talking about his alcoholism. It's a brilliant bit:


I don't understand people who have one drink. I don't understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don't understand people who say they've had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer? My brain works differently.

The quote related to the impromptu AC trip Christine, Sean, and I took on Friday. We left around 8:00, got there at 9:30, left around 12:30. I won at the tables, rather nicely. Not enough to pay off any college loans, but enough to pay for a much needed wardrobe update. And the first season of The West Wing on DVD.

Something's on my mind, and I think I'll post another entry for it because this seems to be more of a "what happened this weekend" kinda post. And then I have to sort through all the clothes I bought and put them away and decide which old clothes are getting the heave-ho. And I'd like to get some work done on The Vendetta Shrine as I've been blowing it off for another few weeks. Somehow it's already a quarter to four in the afternoon. And it's fucking snowing.

Just completed Act III of Diablo II. This means nothing to (almost) all of you, and that's OK. It's a computer game, one of the few I enjoy, and I don't think everyone has to like computer games, especially hack-and-slash ones like Diablo: II. But it's significant--within context--because part of the appeal of the game is the ability to play it with other via modem. My friend Dave (who I doubt ever reads this thing) is a big fan of the game, and there were many-a-night, a few years back when Dave lived in other states, that he and I would get online and join forces to kill things.

Much carnage and vicarious stress-relief ensued.

With Diablo, you can play different types of characters with unique skills and abilities, thus allow you to play the game several times but winning it in completely different ways. When Dave and I began playing the game again about a year ago (after a hiatus of two or three years), I picked a Barbarian to use when I played with Dave. The Barb is the epitomy of hack-and-slash, because, as you might expect, he's all about the hand-to-hand combat, not to mention he can weild two axes at once which is quite cool. Anyway.

As that character, Dave and I, along with a friend of Dave's, we completed the game on "normal" level, and are currently getting our asses kicked on "nightmare" mode.

In the meantime, I've been building up a Necromancer who, among various things, has the ability to summon monsters from the corpses of his enemies and use them as minions. It's quite fun because, in theory, you get to have your own little army to do your dirty work and you can just sit and watch. I play the Necro alone he's significantly weaker a character than my Barb, or any of Dave's characters. So I play him now and again, slowly building him up in power until he's ready to play on the same level Dave's characters are at. (As one cannot play to characters at once, when Dave and I go online I have to choose eith the Barb or the Necro; can't do both. In case you were wondering. And I know you were.)

Thus, to bring this post full circle, by completeing Act III of the game, I am now that much closer to the above goal. At the rate I play the Necro, I should be ready to join up with Dave sometime around June. Not to mention it just feels good to be completeing the game on my own, as opposed to doing it in a group.

It's 2004 and one derives a sence of accomplishment via completeing a computer game--something that, essentially, only required me to sit in a chair, stare at a screen, and click a few buttons for hours on end. Who knew?

Would you believe this is a real building?

It's an art gallery in Austria. This link leads you to several pictures (don't worry about the "royalty" and "charge" distinctions; you don't have to pay to look at the pictures) and this is the website for the structure proper.

Because you demanded it: Elvis Presley translated into Sumerian, the way it was supposed to be!

This sounds worse than it is: BallDroppings is a game where balls fall from the top of the screen and bounce off the lines that you draw with your mouse. The balls make a percussive and melodic sound, whose pitch depends on how fast the ball is moving when it hits the line. It's a neat little game. You'd think, though, that if they were smart enough to make this game, they'd be smart enough to think of a name that doesn't sound like a euphamism for feces.

It was only a matter of time: Gollum raps. It's, um, different.

First there was Mickey. Then there was Donald. Then came a Disney film about Venereal Disease. And you thought Minnie fucking goofy was just a punch-line....

This one looks like it never went through as it's past Dec 20 and the site only has preliminary information, but apparently someone got the brainstorm to hold a virtural beauty pageant. And if you're about to make a joke about the size of her "pixels" you are far, far too late.

Apparently on January 1st, it was Public Domain Day in Canada. If you died by Dec 31, 1948, all your works are belong to Canucks. And don't forget, in America it's still not to late to party like it's 1790

This one's for my role playing frineds: a book on how to properly roleplay sex and sexuality in games based on the d20 system. Complete with stats, feats, classes, skills, classes, and, um . . . . people actually thought this much about it???

Put on your #-D glasses, boys and girls, because now there's Stereo Images from the Spirit Mars rover! It's like you're actually there!!

Ok, that's it. Must join Dave to kill things now. Later.

It was very slow at work today. It was so slow I got to e-mail Ye Olde E-Mail Gang (Sean, Christine, Judi, Alan, Rob) and talk e-mail. Of course, Christine's on vacation, Rob can't e-mail from work and Alan's on the late shift, so it was just me, Sean, and Judi; the others will shake their heads once they get around to opening their inboxes.

I could have filed. Pete was working. I was slacking. I know it; they know it. I'll be better tomorrow, scouts honor.

I spent most of the day reading another politcal go-around at SK8 between Travis and, well, everyone else. It started off with a picture he found of someone who photoshopped a Nazi armband onto one of the soldiers featured on Time's cover of the year, but the bulk of the thread was about racism.

(I know you don't visit Sk8. For God's sake, have I led you astray yet? Click in as a guest and read the thread. Trust me.)

But beyond that, you'll have noticed a new link that is Worth Your Time (that you don't visit anyway). BoingBoing has been around for a while now; you may have already heard of it. As the website states, it's a collection fo wonderful things. Basically people submit sites they find interesting. It can be political, economical, scienftiic, cool, inspid, whatever. I've only started getting to the site on an even semi-regular basis. But I got to raid the January 2004 archive at work today and I've got all sorts of goodies to share. So much so that I've officially placed BoingBoing on my list of Sites worth Your Time. So, come on, give us a kiss and go check it out, willya?

It's fun to make your roommate paranoid.

He swears he got sick from his father and not me, but I'm not so sure--who lives with him, eh? The point is, ym dear roommate has become afflicted and spent yesterday in recovery. He's such a wimp. It took me four days before I finally took a day off, and that was on doctor's orders. He gets a tickle in his throat and takes the very next day off. Wimp.

The point though, is that obviously his poor constitution has gotten the better of him--or perhaps four years of living with me has sufficiently warped his brain beyond any chance of redemption, for when I came home--having gone to work still feeling slightly under the weather, unlike some people who live in this apartment--he showed me the fruits of his convalesence:





Truly a thing of beauty. It warms the cockles of my heart to see children's toys debased in such a manner.

If you're at work this might be a good time to change your screen. Just in case.

In the midsts of my researching Bauhaus links for the music section of my Vendetta Shrine, I stumbled across a website that gave a succinct--if brief--history on the Goth culture.

You can check it out here. It's completely barebones, visually. The link gets you to the table of contents and you can click around from there. I have no idea when it was last updated. As is, the site concerns itself with the UK movement, where it started--because almost everything cool first started in Britain--so there's no mentioning how things went transatlantic. But it gives you a great feel for how things got going and where it went. It certainly made me nostalgic, and I was just a hanger-on. :)

No serious critic will give Tolkien a place in the literary canon, because his characters generally are stick-figures speaking in stilted declamation. But that is beside the point. He has little time to waste on the petty concerns of the sort of character that populates modern fiction. His concern is the doom of peoples, or, to coin a phrase, the decline of the West.

Not sure I agree with it completely, but it's a hell of an article.

I'm gonna get killed for this, but it's my blog and if people stop talking to me then at least I'll know they've read my blog:

If you go to Spielbergfilms.com and scroll down to the January 3rd entry, the webmaster has a bit of a rant how Universal is planning a "contemporary 'MTV-Style' In-School Programming [that] Targets the Massive Teen Audience". The webmaster then goes off on a rant how the movie is too sober and serious a peice of work to present to teenagers in the type of format that MTV uses for it's programming.

Now, skipping aside completely the presumptions of what "MTV-Style" means and how it would be used to shill Schindler's List to teens, not to mention the arrogance and elitism inherent in the criticism, can I just say how absolutely amusing I found the mental image of touring Auschwitz in "MTV: Cribs" style?

I can see it now: the quick-cut editing, the 4x-speed-up as the camera's walk from the main gates to the gas chambers. Instead of $50,000 dollar automobiles you check out the box cars they shipped people in. And the guy giving the tour would be an emaciated Jew speaking in some sort of hip-hop/ebonics kind of slang, of course: "Sure, rock stars have double-king-size beds that fit ten people; true dat. But here in da camps we could fit fi'ty people to a bunk; beat that, yo!"

Yeah, I know. It's tasteless. I'm sick. But it's still funny.

This one was sent to me via David Herrle's mailing list. Dave's a good guy--we became e-mail buddies thanks to my Vendetta Shrine. In fact, you can read our initial correspondence here--and a published author. Go to his website--if nothing else than because I told you so and you should want to broaden your horizons, dammit.

The point is, he sent me the folliwng link. It's an article on CBS's new's site about a interview 60 Minutes II has with Robert Duvall.

Dave sent me the link for the following excerpt, which appears at the bottom of the artcle:


No subject is off limits for Duvall – and his politics are no exception. Fiercely libertarian, he’s always eager to weigh in. At his favorite café in Buenos Aires, one topic was Steven Spielberg’s recent visit to Cuba in 2002 -- and Spielberg's widely reported meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Duvall says Spielberg should never have gone in the first place.

“Now, what I want to ask him -- and I know he's going to get pissed off – ‘Would you consider building a little annex on the holocaust museum or at least across the street to honor the dead Cubans that Castro killed,’” says Duvall. “That's very presumptuous of him to go there … I'll tell him that. I'll never work at Dreamworks again, but I don't care about working there anyway.”


The article does mention Spielberg's rebuttal:


Spielberg's spokesman, in a statement in response to Duvall's comments on 60 Minutes II, said the Hollywood director's trip to Cuba was authorized by the U.S. government as a cultural exchange program: "His trip to Cuba in 2002 was cultural, not political. It was an opportunity to share his films and his values with the Cuban people. In addition to screening eight of his films for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, he visited with the Jewish community, paid his respects at the Holocaust memorial in Havana, and met with U.S. diplomats stationed there."


Except the rebuttal completely side-steps the issue of Castro having authorized the deaths of not a small few amount of people, countless human rights violations and, you know, being a dictator. Not quite up there with Hitler, but he's not exactly going to be sitting at the same table as Martin Luther King, either.

And let's face it: yes, Spielberg wasn't there for political reasons, he was there to talk about what he loves--film making. He went to talk to Cuban filmmakers, not stage a counter-revolution. So I fully understand the context. But, for a guy who got so worked up over making Schindler's List that he went out and co-founded Shoah, don't you find it just a tad odd that he had no problem hanging out with Castro?

(And, as a closing shot, I give you the article Rethinking Schindler's List to enjoy and think about. )

I feel good. even though I accidentally delteed this post and have to start all over again, I still feel good.

I've been feeling good since last night, when I finished my Music Section of the Vendetta Shrine, which I finished at just before midnight, but I wasn't tired so I stayed up and went to bed shortly before one, even though I was getting up at 6:45 that morning. And I woke up and I was a little tired, but I felt good. And I felt good at work, giddy and goofy and happy, all day.

I hadn't been feeling good. I've felt like shit all week. I took Wednesday off I felt so bad. But the cold is lifting. And Sean god me Ben Fold's latest EP Sunny 16 for the holidays and it arrived yesterday and it's really good. Two songs in particular: "There's Always Someone Cooler Than You" is this bopping, up-tempo, devil-may-care song that gets you on your feet. And there's "Songs of Love" which, I think, is a cover because it's someone else's song but I never heard of it before but it's positively beautiful. It has this rolling, airy, meoldy, the kind you can waltz to, but you can't, the timming is off slightly, I checked. But it's definitely one of those take-a-girl-and-glide-across-the-dance-floor kind of song. It's a wedding kind of song, but different from "The Luckiest" which is more somber and serious than "Songs of Love". The point is you should buy the damn EP.

And I got home with no real plans and I spent half an hour taking pictures of a fake head, they cmae out pretty cool. And I'd kinda like to go out but I'd kinda like to stay in and some people I've called aren't in, but it doesn't quite matter, I still feel good, even if I stay home tonight. I have other things I'd like to post, I have essays to write for the Shrine.

ooh, and there's a Beatles tribute band playing Carnegie Hall. I think I have plans tonight afterall.

It is unfair to judge Art Frahm by these illustrations. He did many that were much, much worse. (And better, too.) But the falling-panty theme is a staple of his work. These pictures aren't taken from a calendar he did when hungry and desperate, chafing against the dictates of some gnomish pervert who wanted a year's worth of falling-panty pictures. These date from throughout the 50s. It's a theme to which he returned again and again - and you have to wonder why.

As long as you're comofrtable with your co-workers viewing pictures of completely clothes women--albiet with their panties resting at their ankles--and the almost-ever present celery--then this site is completely work safe.

Admittedly, after the first five or six pictures the whole bit gets old, but the simple fact that one artist kept drawing, essentially the same picture so many times is amusing enough. Enjoy.

I have no idea what that means. But that actually gives you a good idea of where this post is heading.

Alannis Morisette's 'Hands Clean" is ending. I'm currently at song 123 in my MP3 player. Make that 124, now. the main theme to "V: the Final Battle".

Speaking of V's, let it note for the record I am blowing off working on my V site. Put nose to the grindstone on Sunday andfinally put my conversation with David Herrle on the site. Minor edits are to ensue, but something I've been meaning to do for nearly 3 and a half years is complete. On a site no one knows exists. It's a start.

My voice is shot. I hate being sick. It's all Mike Zav's fault, as he was just getting over a cold when I hung out with him this past Friday, and now his cold has taken up residence in my throat. Do you know how hard it is trying to perform a job that's 70% talking with people only to have your voice squeek out of you like oxygen escaping a balloon? It's not pretty. Amusing to some, but when you're throat suddenly goes dry and you feel like your dry heaving every time you try to form a word, it's hard to see the beauty in it. Brenda laughed at my pain. Bitch. (That's sarcasm, folks. Chut up.)

Work was hell, and not just because I'm under the weather. I am planning on seeing the dcotor tomorrow. I was going to try and go today, butthe only appointment was at 2:30, and I wasn't about to leave work mid day just to go to the doctors. I hate being sick. It gets in the way of doing things. OK, granted, I have no problem writing in my blog and blowing off my web work, but in terms of making a living, I take my responsibilities (relatively) seriously. And having taken off a day and a half over the last two weeks to do car crap, I am not looking forward to taking more time off. Especially, in reference to what I wanted this paragraph to focus on, considering that work has gone to hell.

My boss, Mike, quit the Monday before Christmas. It was a surprise to me--and to everyone else. Now Matt's dealing with people directly, which is good because Matt's a good General manager, but he's also seeing how fucked up things had been wheas before Mike would run interference for us. (Which he did partly because that was his job and partly because if he didn't Matt might see how much Mike was slacking off his own job.) Right now the big focus, or one of them, is Morocco. We're making progress. Slowly. I actually almost finished a report that estimated the total amount of materials we'd need to supply Morocco with so they could produce the next three month's projected assemblies. Except I forgot to save the file and lost the whole damn thing when I shut down for the night. It was a long day.

Have any of the last three paragraphs had a single subject?

My voice is shot. I've been o.d.ing on tea since about nine this morning. It seems to have settled into this utterly raspy, gravelly, only occasionally squeaky timbre; I can't tell if that's a good thing or bad. Right now I feel fine. I felt like shit for most of the day, I feel oddly better now, and I am so tempted not to go to the Dr's appointment I have scheduled for 8:30 tomorrow. Because, if I go, the throat will be OK and I'll get generic antibiotic I could live without, and that will be that. If I don't go I'll get strep throat or bronchitis and die. I hate being sick.

OK, I'm going to post something else now.

Now, you'd think, given that this story is about five days old, that one of my frineds would've been ribbing me about it by now, but noooo, I don't find out until today that Alex Lifeson, guitarist for Rush, was arrested on New Year's Eve. there's six charges against him, and he could face as much as 30 years in jail on one of the counts alone. (The article doesn't specify which charge; I'm betting it's the one dealing with his alleged assault on one of the police officers.)

Interestingly enough, the article quotes Alex out of context. The articles writes: Asked whether he felt the arrest was fair, [Alex] replied: "Absolutely not. That is a matter of opinion. They didn't like the way we were dancing, apparently."

However, according to a video clip of the interview, Alex was actually referring to how the arrest was handled, not the arrest itself. This bit of info comes via The blog at The Rush Fanlisting website. There's some other thoughts on the reporting bias in the same entry. Of course, the blog itself is biased--guess which way--but that's the beauty of journalism for you.

I dunno. I wasn't there. Rush's been a rock band for 30 years and none of the members have ever been involved in anything like this, and given that none of the articles mention it, I'm presuming Alex's son has never done anything like this either. So it's certainly atypical, and at the very least sounds like a situation that got way out of hand. Whose to blame depends on who you want to believe.

Still. Fucking hell.

On the last day of the year I bought my new (used) car.

I apologize again for the sparse updating. Monday was a mess, mostly, and after the mess I headed out to celebrate Christine's birthday with a few rounds of pool, so by the time I finally had time to downshift it was after 11:00 at night.

I don't remember what the hell Tuesday was.

Wednesday morning was spent dusting the living room and my bedroom. Things really do look neater when the four inch layer of dust is removed from the furniture. As you may know, I hate dusting. It stems from when my mother made me dust the house. I had two chores when I was growing up: I cleaned the bathroom and I dusted the furniture. For some reason I enjoyed cleaning the bathroom and hated dustng. I can't remember why, but I did. It carried over to this day--I can happily do whatever cleaning needs to be done, except dusting.

Anyway, I cleaned, and in the processes finally threw out some knick-knacks that served no purpose. This bizzare money-drink holder Patti got for me when she went to AC for Memorialday--in 1999. I thre out the "Bag of Shhh" Hannah got me when I lost my job back in '02. There was a plush baby chick (as in"chicken") theresa DiFrabrizo got me God-knows-how-many-years ago which was half yellow and half-grey from all the dust it accumulated which was also tossed. I kept the vampire parakeet Alex got me for my birthday in '98, but I did throw out the stylized fruit-jar that it came in.

There's symbolism in this, but I leave it to you to dsicern it.

Getting back to the topic on hand (there was one?), in the midst of this New Year's Eve Spring Cleaning, the check from Liberty Mutual arrived. At ten o'clock I called the dealrshiup to let them know I'd be there at eleven. Then I dropped off the car at Enterprise and was at the dealership by 11:00.

Where I then proceeded to wait two hours. Apparently, it being the end of the year, everybody and their mother was closing deals on cars. I had originally told the sales rep I worked with that I probably wouldn't be there until noon at the earliest, so he had scheduled me for 1:00. With so many other people there, there was no way he could squeeze me in earlier. He had tried to call me to tell me this, except I had turned off my cell phone.

So, two hours later, I signed the papers, paid for the car in full, and am now the proud owner of a 2000 Honda Civic Ex. It has all the trimmings--CD player, sunroof, power-everything, cruise control, ABS. Save for the rims and the multi-disk changer, it's almost identical to my previous Civic, just two years older. And the color is black.

I'm amused by the seredipity, but not half as much as my friends are.

There's also a car alarm, which is becoming less annoying each time I use it, but is definitely a mixed blessing. It saves me a few bucks a month in insurance payments, which is nice, but there's something obnoxious about car alarms--the way it beeps when you arm or disarm it (there is a silent mode, but you have to get the timing right)--the way it automatically arms when you're still in the car and when you open the door to get out of the car the alarm SCREAMS; but what the hell. The dealrship was supposed to disarm it as otherwise the car would cost more, but the sales rep kept it in for free, so I can't complain too much.

The one other amusing thing is that I am just now learning the ancient and secretive art of CD-changing while driving. It was so much easier before--I loaded ten CD's, popped 'em in the box before even getting into the driver seat, and I'd spend the next few months cycling through them. But now, when one CD is done, I actually have to take it out, put it away, and pop in a new one; and I have to accomplish this while driving and not crashing into anything in the process. It's certainly something you can't do instinctively.

Well, this one went on a tad longer than I anticipated. I didn't even touch on the whole negotiating experience, or the mixed blessings of having a very good car that I enjoy and yet putting myself further into debt in the process. But there will be time for that down the road. Off to the obligatory New Years Day Diner run, and then my third showing of Return of the King. At this rate you'll get my New Year's Entry sometime in February.