The Roost

Dungeons & Dragons & Dropped Calls

2009-07-15T00:27:00.002-04:00

Well, that was a bust, albeit a fun one. The first play session of the JPAG D&D campaign was plagued by internet issues -- Skype dropped the call constantly (probably because we had six people on at once), and we couldn't get our initial choice of game mapping software up and running appropriately.

There was, of course, plenty of smartassery, however. It was fun despite the stupid problems with technology, and Marie did a great job setting us up to have a practice combat encounter. We just never got to finish it because of tech issues. But I did get to use my kewl dice!

So for next time we are using Ventrilo, which is a favorite among online RPG players of all stripes, I understand. Now to find a better whiteboard/map application.

It would be nice, however, if some people in the party bothered to learn how to play the damn game, rather than show up with no clue of how their character functions. Yeah, I'm talking about you, JPAG Show co-host! Time to fish or cut bait, pal.

Podcastapalooza

2009-07-13T23:38:00.003-04:00

I've fallen way, way behind in editing podcasts. As in, I had to publish two episodes of the JPAG Show last week, and am on track for publishing two more this week.

It's a weekly show, mind you. Not zesty.

I also am fighting with encoding tricks to get the first episode of the podcast I'm hosting/producing for work up and running. What's tricky about it, you ask? Well, the show is destined to be published in the context of our online course management platform, and specifically in the context of a built-in podcasting application that instructors can access. It's partly to show what can be done, and partly to set a solid example, and partly because it will be edifying, and lastly because it's fun. Trouble is, the built-in app has to have .spx files, and if you upload an .mp3 or a .wav file, it converts them to the former format. And quite apart from the sound degradation that inevitably ensues upon conversion, the .spx format is a pain to work with -- very few programs have any kind of support for it, and none of which I'm aware have any kind of intuitive or full-featured options. It's a tricky process of trial and error.

What makes it even dumber is that the podcasting app in the CMS has a filesize limit on uploads of 10MB. You can imagine what a 30-minute podcast with multiple voices and music sounds like after crunching it to that size.

Since the D&D campaign starts tomorrow (well, tomorrow's really a test run through a combat encounter to make sure we don't shoot each other), I have to figure out a recording solution for that, as well. I think we'll be using Skype, so I think the usual JPAG Show recording method will serve.

But I'm seriously considering switching hosting solutions. Podomatic, where the show currently lives in all of its 44-episode glory, is not a cost-effective host, once your backlog of episodes gets high enough; more terrifying is how quickly bandwidth usage spikes when new people subscribe (because they go back for the earlier episodes too). We need a host that doesn't meter bandwidth, and the more I look the better Podbean looks. We'll have to see, but right now it looks like I could essentially halve the cost of running the JPAG Show, have better support, and more intuitive control of publishing options. Probably try to make a move in the next month or so.

Many Partings

2009-07-08T01:09:00.002-04:00

Continuing the Tolkien references, but in a wholly different direction, I got a haircut the other day. I realize now, looking back, that every time I've gotten a haircut -- and I mean every time for the last two decades -- I have had to tell the stylist that no, I actually part my hair on the other side. I part my hair on the right side, which is apparently unusual because every stylist assumes I part it on the other.

When I have my wits nearby I remember to voice this important detail early in the haircutting experience, and the chances of a satisfactory coiffure dramatically spike. When I adopt the pollyannish perspective that my longtime stylist will remember for once which way the part goes, I end up with a haircut that goes the wrong way. You know, it does make a difference.

Now, thanks to my most recent haircut, my hair doesn't quite know which way it should part. I'm trying to decide whether I should let the natural part reassert itself over time or try to adopt the common side approach. Meanwhile, I have both parts, or neither, and look somewhat monkish when I stop paying attention.

There and Back Again

2009-07-06T00:09:00.003-04:00

So we met Eric and Sarah Catherine today for lunch and hangtime. They've returned from a two-year stint in London with Eric's job at PWC.

They are dealing with reentry issues, not least of which is what seems for all the world like a version of the archetypal journey of the hero. If you've never been subjected to Joseph Campbell, it goes a l'il somethin' like this:

Home community discovers a great need or impending disaster.
Help and/or requisite knowledge to heal the land lies beyond the borders of the familiar home community.
Our hero decides to go get that help/knowledge/Holy Grail/Golden Fleece etc.
The hero crosses the threshold of initiation into mystery and the unknown.
The hero performs various feats of derring-do, gains the favor of the gods etc., and more or less labors in obscurity, finally gaining the sought prize knowledge/item/etc or addressing the threat to the home community. In the process of seeking that outcome, the hero has been changed, irrevocably.
The hero returns to the home community, where he is no longer as he left. Sometimes he is praised; other times he is seen as a threat; still other times he is simply misunderstood and ignored.

Basically, some trips out are one-way tickets. You may save the Shire, but not for yourself, as Frodo says.

I don't know how well that applies here, but I think E and SC are feeling a lot of displacement, particularly since they are returning to old environs and finding themselves utterly changed.

Yes, I suppose it has

2009-07-05T01:12:00.002-04:00

Several weeks ago I attended my 20th-year high school reunion. Out of a graduating class of 50+ students, I was one of nine or ten to attend the get-together. I was petrified going in. Flying back to Birmingham, all I could think was "this was a huge mistake. What am I doing here?" In fact, I stood indecisively for several minutes on the curb outside the wine bar where the first of the two evenings was being held (this one with all alumni, the next just with my particular class). With my suitcases.

But I took a breath and drove myself in.

It turned out that as soon as I had a drink in my hand I was approached by three people from my class -- two of whom I disliked during school -- and they were great to see. All of them were a delight to talk with, and as a few more of our classmates showed up, I was surprised to find that I hadn't a single negative thought about any of them. We had grown up, I guess, and each of us looked like an adult (except for me, of course, who still looks like a kid). I found myself talking to people I'd never spoken to, and who wouldn't have given me the time of day in school, and wouldn't you know it, we had things to talk about.

In fact, the weirdest part of the weekend, all told, was the effect that familiarity had on me: specifically that I began to lose sight of all the intervening time. This was nowhere more true than out at Richard Cusick's parents' house. I stayed in the upstairs garage apartment, as I had done many evenings two decades before, and it felt like I had never left. I sat in Pia and George's kitchen, and relaxed with Richard over beer, and tromped around the woods at the farm, and it felt like I was in high school again, and that I could be that guy so easily, and now without all the messed up crap that high school kids deal with all the time.

And Mara was there. That scared me, a bit, because things didn't end well, back then. Yes, it was high school, and what kind of relationship does end well when you're figuring out life for the first time, but nevertheless Mara left a deep impact on my heart as a young man of 17. She had exactly the same mannerisms, exactly the same voice, and the same eyes. She seemed happy; just married a year ago, to a gentleman who coaches aspiring pro tennis players, I think. Seeing her wasn't like slipping back into my younger self. I was conscious initially of the distance there, but still welcomed her with a hug. I wish Shel had been with me, frankly.

So, not that night but the next I had the opportunity to sit down with her and find out what she's been up to since then, and it's been a lot: tried a career as a singer/songwriter, learned to play guitar and piano, collects guitars, works all kinds of odd jobs, was a webmaster for some years, learned to translate Greek at St. Johns, traveled to Japan to play music for a while, etc. etc. I found myself overwhelmed somewhat, and I exclaimed "When did you manage to do all this?"

Her reply made me realize how dangerous the feeling of familiarity was: "It's been twenty years, Randall."

Twenty years since those formative days of my life, gone. I've now lived longer since those days than I had lived up to and including them.

If I think too hard about it I feel like I'll fly apart. Is this what it is to get old? Do you lose yourself as you leave the places and people who were there in your making? I'd like to think they actually come with me, but that feels untrue. There's an exchange, maybe. I leave something of me there, and take something of them and that place with me. What does it mean to be whole again, as memory accumulates?

Maybe I should try reading Proust again.

Because my hair is not worth it

2009-07-03T20:20:00.005-04:00

I got the amazing haircut yesterday, and was also tasked by Shel with getting more product: shampoo, conditioner, and I needed some hair schtuff. I collect the three items after I'm shorn, and make my way confidently to the counter. The woman at the register happily cha-chings up a three-digit sum, a reaction to which I only barely managed to conceal by dint of actor training. Good god! What happened to two bits? I didn't even get a shave!

Lazy day in Oak Park

2009-07-02T23:56:00.003-04:00

So today was a day off. I did a whole bunch of nothing, including:

Sleep in.
Get a haircut (Got 'em all cut!).
Talk to all the Wunder Women, somehow.
Commence editing what I understand to have been a technical trainwreck of a podcast in the form of JPAG Show Episode 42. I was out of town, obviously, and a friend agreed to record the show. One of the guests had serious connection problems, though, and it also sounds as if the overall focus of the show slipped here and there. I've been putting it off, but I have to work on it. I have a whole 'nother episode waiting for editing after that, and we record Episode 44 in two days. Ugh.
Play some more Prince of Persia, and then some Rock Band with my wife. That game is so fun.
Scored a free download of a Fallout 3 expansion pack, from a fellow JPAGer. Woot!
Took a nap with Shel and kittehz.
Watched a few episodes of Arrested Development, which I cannot believe I have missed until now. David Cross and Will Arnett are beyond hilarious.

And now I sit down to write. Really, I'm just putting off doing more work on that podcast episode.

I've adopted the habit of solving technical glitches with elevator music, or with the sound of white noise cutting in and out. I wonder, however, if I am going to have to take more drastic measures here.

Nah, those guys are probably just being self-deprecating.

I hope.

R getting some R & R & GTD

2009-07-01T22:52:00.006-04:00

So since Saturday is July 4th, our school is closed on Friday, and I am taking tomorrow off too. Great Success! I do have one pesky inescapable conference call, and likely several people running around panicking will contact me tomorrow, because I do a lot of, er, wiping in my job. That's okay, though, because I am thoroughly looking forward to a four-day weekend.

Shel is already trying to engage me on things to be done re: home improvement during this time, but I've been careful to point out the need for serious planning well in advance, and also to suggest that Sunday night might be the best time for such a planning conversation.

I don't think she's buying it.

In other news I'm once again considering the prospect of getting a degree in counseling. I'm a little tired of being an armchair psychologist, and several folks have suggested I look into further developing this skill (coincidentally, usually while sobbing, and just before hurling themselves from this or that bridge or skyscraper). So it turns out that one option is to go through one of the partner schools my own college works with, since one such school is actually quite distinguished for graduate degrees in the field. I'm talking to my boss now about it.

The whole GTD methodology that I posted about a year ago is still very much in mind. Lately my approach has been to adopt/adapt Merlin Mann's¹ Inbox Zero approach with my work email. The biggest challenge is keeping my inbox literally zeroed out on a daily basis. When I started, I cleared out 17,000 messages in one day. But I literally get hundreds each day, and staying on top of sorting them demands CONSTANT VIGILANCE! My latest innovation has been to follow a set of Lifehacker tips regarding toolbar shortcuts for an Inbox Zero approach. You can check them out here. The best tip so far has been the one about the Copy and Move toolbar commands.

¹Merlin Mann is well known for his productivity work. But what he should be most known for is his work on You Look Nice Today, quite possibly the greatest podcast evar. Just subscribe to it already.

2009 Bulwer-Lytton Winners

2009-06-30T17:08:00.006-04:00

Yes, folks, that famous strike-a-single-sentence-blow-for-purple-prose challenge has been decided once more. The 2009 results are in!

If you don't know it, the Bulwer-Lytton is a contest that has been sponsored and run by a professor at San Jose State University since 1983. The rules are simple: in one sentence, compose something in the most florid, turgid collision of low concept and high style that your wits will allow. Then drink a few Red Bulls, try again, and submit that, too.

Personally, I still don't think anyone has topped the 2005 winning entry:

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.

-Dan McKay, Fargo, ND

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, keep moving

2009-06-29T13:21:00.003-04:00

So I've been recollecting myself over the past week or so, following my trip to Seattle on family bidness. Oddly, only yesterday did I start to tell Shel about the trip, and how it went. Too busy and/or exhausted before that to talk about all that went down. But, the weekend was full of good sleep and loafing, and we finally caught up on our Naruto Shippuuden episodes. I played a little Prince of Persia but not too much, and recorded Episode 43 of the JPAG Show. We took a walk last night because the weather was so nice.

And I finished my character for this sure-to-be-amusing Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I am undertaking with a few members of the JPAG. The DM is a hardcore tabletop RPG aficionado, and I think we're in for a treat. Too bad all the players are smartasses like me. Or maybe that's actually way better. I tend to think so.

It's funny, since I had all that D&D stuff when I was 12 or so, and had no one to play with. Going back through all of this stuff again, getting dice, and building a character has been great fun. The idea that we can play for real and still have a fun time being stupid has a lot of appeal to me.

And I got some sweet dice that look infernal. Black with red elvish runes all over them. Have a look here!

If I am encouraging others to write...

2009-06-29T13:17:00.001-04:00

Then I guess I better keep up. This is me putting one claw forward, Hayumbone.

GTD?

2008-06-26T11:52:00.003-04:00

Or trying. Just got my annual review at work, and it was fair and accurate. As such, it was unsurprising.

Strengths: Technical acumen. Job knowledge and ability. Idea super-collider. Schmoozer. "Best written communicator in the company."
Weaknesses: Poor planner. Procrastinator. Ineffective delegation. Lone-ranger mentality. Poor at taking amazing ideas and translating them into practical project plans.

No surprises, folks. I have to get the planning piece down, and am trying to figure out a way I can do that here at 36. Can I really learn to do it differently?

Anybody Getting Things Done?

2008-05-19T15:17:00.002-04:00

I'm seeing more and more references to David Allen's methodology commonly called "Getting Things Done," much of the thought of which is found in his book of the same name.

Any of you read it? I've been looking at some desktop apps that adhere to the principles of GTD, and they seem like they could be of great use to someone like myself, who has the attention span of an overstimulated housecat.

I don't have a damn thing to say

2008-05-16T15:58:00.003-04:00

Dad recovering from back surgery, in-laws 50 miles from epicenter of earthquake in China. Shel working at Anthropologie. Playing GTA IV and Rock Band.

Blah de blah. I needs to find me some inspiration.

Wait -- here's something I've wanted to ask: any ideers for a visual makeover to this blog? It's been more or less the same thing for two years now.

I already got rid of blog and external site links. After all, who really cares? I never use them -- I use browser bookmarks (or Google Reader) instead.

Four More Years!

2008-03-26T20:59:00.003-04:00

Yes, Gentle Reader, it's hard to believe, but you and I have been walking down this lonesome blogging road for four years now. Can you believe it? We started this whole dealio back in March of 2004. Boy, that seems like an eternity, but it's clear that some things are as true now as they were then: the ineluctable, inexorable attraction of the immediate distraction.

Yeah, that's right. What I just said.

Also, LWB: videogames. Booya!

Yes, I am a twit

2008-03-26T13:44:00.002-04:00

...terer. Check it out on the sidebar now.

Also figured out how to post from my Blackberry without the standard hoop-jumping. Anytime you see a post with the sig line "What Oft Was Squawked but Ne'er So Well Expressed" you know that it's from my handheld.

Now you can look forward to non-updates more frequently!

Homeward?

2008-03-24T09:38:00.003-04:00

TJS is getting married this weekend. Hayumbone and I are driving down to Birmingham on Thursday morning. That's going to feel really weird. I can't remember when last I was there. It must have been to visit TJS after his wreck. Not sure whether I will go see any old haunts (ISS, the Cusicks, the house on Crossvine). I think the being away so long makes it weirder.

I've often imagined what it would be like to roll up to the Cusicks' house, after so long, and walk in the kitchen door like I used to do 3 times a week, and find Pia chopping eggplant, or something more Finnish and unsettling, and sit at the table and drink beer with Richard.

I wonder if everything's okay with them. I feel guilty about my relationship with that family: guilty for disappearing, guilty for becoming a fundy all those years, guilty that Richard wasn't a groomsman in my wedding, and for losing out on the joy that family gave me.

Last I knew, Richard was recovering from a brutal divorce, and studying law again, somewhere in Louisiana -- Shreveport, IIRC. That was probably seven or eight years ago.

Every now and then I remember that I've been out of high school for nearly two decades now. The prospect of attending a 20th-year high school reunion looms.

Anyway, the happy day is for TJS, and I get to play Best Man. I'm brushing up on the duties!

You can never unsee this

2008-02-12T14:53:00.000-05:00

Excessive fanboyism + inside joke = graphic disaster.

2008-02-05T14:26:00.000-05:00

I am the juiciest rock star EVAH

2007-11-14T17:13:00.000-05:00

Subject line says it all. Somehow, though, the link says more.

Click Here!

For Paul, and all comic lovers

2007-11-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

Subscribe, and read thousands of Marvel back issues online.

Marvel Subscription Service!

Halo 3 Macro of the Day: ESB

2007-11-01T11:58:00.000-04:00

Dumb, but irresistible. This is from a Capture-the-Flag match TJS played.

Screw Halloween -- It's NaNoWriMo Eve!

2007-10-31T11:20:00.000-04:00

I am so very very tempted to try this.

Between tomorrow and 11:59 November 30th, write a 50,000 word novel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaNoWriMo

Halo 3 Macro of the Day

2007-10-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

From my jaunt with TJS down the Tsavo Canyon road. Yeeeeeeeehawwwwwww!

Halo 3 Macro of the Day

2007-10-16T09:37:00.000-04:00

Here's TJS trying to reach a ledge to claim a bonus item. He didn't make it.

Myriad Reasons to Do the Dew

2007-10-02T18:31:00.000-04:00

Check out the emergent fame on the Myriad, why doncha! And while you're there, vote for them, too.

Click to help catapult the Myriad into immortal music fame!

Ya know, there's a limit

2007-09-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

...to videogame-themed merch.

For most people, anyway.

Not for this guy.

In line for Halo 3

2007-09-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

With like 10 minutes to go. A time zone ahead of me, Dorito Icee went and grabbed his an hour ago. He's at home now, checking out multiplayer, waiting for me to get mine so we can get some late-night co-op campaign action going.

We're also both taking tomorrow off, to play the holy schpoopie out of that game.

Now I just need to pop a few Excedrin and chug some Mountain Dew - er, "Game Fuel."

Wow, there are a lot of people here, and not many of them bathers.

And who would have thought nearly all of these people would be male? The only woman I can see is clearly here with her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. She is clearly aware of the smell. She's not a fan.

Three minutes left...

Aaaand...the door's open. Booya!

The Heart Knows Its Own Sorrow

2007-08-10T09:57:00.000-04:00

And a stranger does not share its joy.

Thank you, thank you, ye gods of Bungie

2007-07-31T18:16:00.000-04:00

Halo 3 will feature online cooperative campaign play now: for up to four players!

Check it out!

You Rappin' Good!

2007-07-25T12:11:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah: the planets are aligning, people. You can almost hear "Also Sprach Zarathustra" in the background.

Cult hit of the past meets cult phenomenon of the present, as Threadless is now soliciting t-shirt designs with a Parappa the Rapper theme. If you never played Parappa (literally, "paper-thin," referring to the 2D nature of the characters) on the Playstation, you missed a fantastically quirky, funny rhythm game that in many ways was a forerunner to games like Frequency and Guitar Hero.

Check out the Threadless Parappa page here!

Parte The Seventh

2007-07-19T13:44:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow night at midnight, we'll be there at the Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park to pick it up. Note that the seventh book comes out in the seventh month, on the 21st of the month. That number is of course a triple seven, and more importantly, it's the birthday of magical me.

Piers and WH are coming up tomorrow to help celebrate magical me, and they may also say hello to Hambone, the cats, and this whole HP thing in passing. But seriously, when magical me's on the scene, what more do you need?

Nothing, that's what! Bwa ha ha ha haaa!

Boy, are we looking forward to it. Our friends are coming to town! Our books are coming to town! I'll shortly be 36! I have Two Hearted Ale in the fridge!

It almost all makes up for the part in Deathly Hallows where Remus betrays Snape and Harry. I, for one, did not expect Fenrir Greyback to have that kind of control over his progeny. Talk about a twist end!

All the eUniverse is composed of net elements

2007-07-17T16:48:00.000-04:00

Which you can reference on the Periodic Table of the Internet.

The netiverse is at your command, young scientists!

Maa-Cuuuu-Roooossss....Maa-Cuuuu-Roooosss!

2007-07-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

Wow. 1/500-scale transforming model of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross.

SDF-1!

Back in Blak

2007-07-04T02:00:00.000-04:00

blakbuzzrd

At long last, I picked up an Xbox 360: largely to play the greatest game ever made, Guitar Hero II. And I'm back on Xbox Live, after a hiatus of a few years.

I actually got the Xbox 360 Elite, as it's got a 120 GB hard drive, and comes with HDMI video support. Too bad my TV's nearly 15 years old now. Saving up!

Happy Father's Day!

2007-06-17T21:03:00.000-04:00

This goes out to all the dads out there. Jerry, JB, Paul, Piers, and of course, my own father, JFS.

Love you guys. Happy Day!

Edited to add: EW, JK, NP, WH, and AM. Dang my impatience!

Happy Eleventh, Hon

2007-06-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

Hambone and I have been married eleven years today. Wheeeee-eeeeew! We're going to a super-nice dinner tonight at our favorite Italian restaurant, La Piazza.

Note: That there picture is really, really old. I was much thinner then. Hambone's just as bee-yootiful, though.

Beyond Awesome

2007-06-07T08:37:00.001-04:00

Click Here!

Flight of the Conchords -- Streaming!

2007-05-22T15:07:00.000-04:00

Fantastic!

http://www.hbo.com/conchords/

As ye go forth out of that house

2007-05-09T11:32:00.000-04:00

...shake the dust from your feet.

I hate not having my own woodshop

2007-04-18T23:24:00.000-04:00

Remember how I mentioned I've been building and redesigning the same joystick for a year now?

That's because I keep screwing the damn thing up. I keep gluing pieces together out of square and such. I did AGAIN last night at the "class" I'm attending, despite my best efforts to achieve a square right angle on a flat surface. Checked the dry joined pieces today on a table, felt the noticeable wobble, and ripped the pieces apart in exasperation.

Maybe I'll just go buy a single block of wood and whittle it down.

Tales of the Tarmac Boy

2007-04-18T16:07:00.000-04:00

From the General forum on RHP, in a thread called "Easter":

Originally posted by huckleberryhound:
After 10 beers, i am sitting in front of the Chocolate easter bunny i was given last week.

The question is this....where do i start eating ?

Do i start chomping on it's little ears ?Do i bite it's ass? or do i bite it's face off ?

You do realise i've probably munchied my way through this bad boy by the time you replied...right ?

blakbuzzrd's reply:
Man. I'm jealous -- somebody already bit the head off of the chocolate Christ I got.

What really gets me is how this kind of thing is always hollow, instead of solid chocolate. I got a chocolate tomb last Easter, and of course it was all empty inside too.

That was pretty much the end of that thread.

No, I haven't

2007-04-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

...posted in a long time. I'm working on redesigning a few people's blog templates, and am very busy and important.

I started a woodworking class. It's not so much a class, in that there's no curriculum, so much as weekly scheduled access to a wood shop. Which is just fine. I'm working on the same freaking joystick I've been building and redesigning for the better part of a year, now, and should finish before too long. In fact, I should have some time left afterwards, and am considering building the bookstand you'll see here.

Hambone's still trying to decide whether or not she likes it, but we have to have something on which to rest that lately acquired holy grail of lexicography, the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Notice the word "Compact." What that means is that the whole 20-volume collection is reproduced in a single binding "micrographically": that is, in one unwieldy tome weighing in at sixteen stone and boasting print roughly the same height as your average paramecium. Fortunately, it comes with a fat magnifying glass, though.

Anyhoo, the book is big, and really requires a dedicated form of display. I briefly considered a few options:

Tasteful inclusion into some sort of dining table centerpiece.
Suspension from ceiling via virtually invisible threads, to create divine ambience. Perhaps it could be lowered in at appropriate moments from a panel in the ceiling, to an orchestral arrangement of "Dream On." Either that, or a fun slide whistle sound.
Schroeder-sized faux-piano facade, into which book can be neatly tucked. I got this idea from watching The Myriad in concert, incidentally.
Large glass covered cake stand, with translucent red Batphone-style slipcase. It could light up in vocabularic emergencies.

In the end, though, I think maybe we're better off with the boring ol' Arts and Crafts style bookstand.

Allow Me to Inspire You: Game Over, Yeah, Part Deux

2007-01-26T11:54:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I rejoiced to acquaint you, Gentle Reader, with my finding the much-sought "Game Over, Yeaaaaaaah!" soundclip from the ancient racing game Sega Rally Championship. Lest my exuberance over this bit of electronic archaeology earn the wounding-but-typical "Nerd alert! Nerd alert!" comment from the rarely-in-the-gaming-know LWB, I'd like to now help you understand more thoroughly what an impact that soundclip has had not just on your humble servant, but on this our popular culture.

You see, recognizing that soundclip for the golden nugget of gaming trivia it is ranks with grasping such esoteric mysteries as:

The origin of "Hyper-Fighting" in the Street Fighter II series.
Where the sound "Toasty!" comes from in Mortal Kombat II.
Why playing Final Fantasy Tactics looks and feels so much like playing Ogre Battle.

The illuminati of gaming cherish and preserve these morsels of lore and more, but such are not commonly appreciated by the public at large, who in general prefer attention to clearly ancillary concerns like personal hygiene, disposal of takeout containers within a week of acquisition, and the outdoors.

Jerks.

Perhaps the most convincing evidence that the legacy of this soundclip lives on is in the ways it is reinvented and folded back into our popular culture. Countless¹ reviews of the game itself and its successors make a point to reference the announcer -- many of them written long after the time when the reviewers could expect their primary audience to have seen or played the game firsthand. Their collective accounts afford us a synaural record of the true impact of this soundclip's first advent.

I therefore encourage you, Gentle Reader, to go out now and read everything you can about the cultural detonation that was "Game Over, Yeah!"

No, I mean go now. Just go read that stuff, and then come back. Go on.

(Cue research montage clip, perhaps with tasteful inclusion of "Eye of the Tiger" music or similar)

Back already? I should also have mentioned that there's even a website now called "Game Over, Yeah!" It's about videogames, of course. Go back and look at that too, okay?

(Montage reprise)

I'll bet you're inspired and invigorated from that, aren't you? And well you should be, Gentle-and-Newly-Informed Reader. And so I'll leave you with a personally transformative video that further testifies to the enduring power of this soundclip, courtesy of Fenslerfilm:

Click Here!

¹Meaning I didn't bother to count. There were definitely a lot of Google hits.

Game Over YEAAAAAAAAAH!

2007-01-19T11:49:00.000-05:00

Way back in the dawn of polygon gaming, back before the first analog controller was released for the Sony Playstation, there was a phenomenal rally racing¹ game for the Sega Saturn.

Yeah, that's right, I owned one of the ill-fated Sega Saturns. A darn good system too, I might add, were it not for Sega's hamfisted marketing. It coulda beena contenda.

Back to the rally racing game: it was called Sega Rally Championship, and despite the fact that you had to use a digital pad to tap-tap-tap your way around turns, the game had one of the most amazing feels of any rally racing games before or since. It also was the first game, IMO, to have a replay function worth actually watching.

Being a Japanese product, though, it was not immune from the cultural peculiarities of its design team. Perhaps the most notable non-racing feature in the game was the fact that it had this full-cheese announcer who, when the race was finished for whatever reason and the phrase "Game Over" appeared on the screen, would sing "Game Over, Yeeeeeeaaaah!" in a voice that sounded like an indie Seattle-scene vocalist doing some moonlighting. It was freakish, and instantly became part of the vocabulary shared between my brother and I.

So I've been looking for that soundclip for probably five years now, and nothing's come up. This is made harder by the fact that the game is so old, and also because until recently there weren't any good emulators of the Saturn system I could use to capture it.

But last week I found it. It's a crappy recording, clearly done by someone with no attention to detail, but who cares? It's good enough for a telephone ringtone, much to my officemates' annoyance.

Listen to all its gloriousness yourself: Click Here!

¹Rally races are auto races that take place offroad, the most famous of them being the Paris-Dakar rally.

Wuxtry

2007-01-14T18:07:00.000-05:00

Things happening down 'round our way:

Painted the living room. Finally, we did it. A lovely shade of green called "Hellebore." Got to play with my power sander and breathing mask, as well. We decided to replace the ancient sconces (think 1/4 giant ping-pong ball), and that meant dealing with the fact that they had been painted and painted around for the last few decades. There was a crater left when I pulled them off, and so I had some sanding and filling to do to get things flat again. Now, though, even though we are waiting on the sconces to arrive, it's like we have a whole new room.
Stayed home for Xmas. Yep, we had planned to go out to Stanford to hang with Shel's sisters and their husbands, as well as our baby niece. Nothing doing, though, thanks to a decision to play it smart financially this holiday. Tough decision, but the right one.
Got a Bosch router. This has been on my wish list for years -- ever since I started goofing around making arcade joysticks. This will let me make some nice custom sticks, and maybe even some other less geeky bits of woodcraft. Now all I need is a router table. And a table saw. And that drill press I was looking at. And lotsa bits. And a place to put it all. And a million bucks.
Taken up GBA playing again. Specifically, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. What a great game. Also playing Mario Golf and Virtua Tennis again. Every time I play Mario Golf, though, I hear Piers' Mario impression: "Nice Approach!"
Still playing online chess; still sucking. Let's just say that improvement is a long-term prospect. I really enjoy it, though. I feel like my only hope for absorbing all the chess knowledge out there is through some kind of electronic osmosis. I am using a program to practice tactical motifs, though: CT Art 3.0. It collects over a thousand real situations from historical games and groups them by difficulty and theme, so you can work your way up over time, learning to recognize certain combinational possibilities when they appear. Or that's the theory. Did I mention I still suck?
Out with crap phone, in with BlackBerry. Now I can work all the time, and answer annoying emails when they are in fact most annoying. Nothing says speedy communication like typing an angry message at top speed using only your thumbs. You can sit around doing nothing, with your thumb up your rear, and you can get mad and put a foot in someone else's rear; with the advent of BlackBerry, though, you can now put a thumb up someone else's rear.
Learning to wiki. Going to build a wiki that serves as a platform for user-oriented communication with my instructors. I want to give them access to needy information in a much more intuitive way, and I want them to have the opportunity to respond to it and improve it. Gonna be cool.

That's about all for now. Later!

Wii Collateral Damage - SWEET!

2006-12-11T16:07:00.000-05:00

This site is a collection of all the ways that new Wii owners have damaged property, each other, and themselves. Fantastic!

www.wiihaveaproblem.com

This can't be a good sign

2006-12-05T16:16:00.000-05:00

Saw the above on Friday when a colleague was trying to send me a couple camera pix. The phone froze with the message above, and stayed that way until it ran out of power. Couldn't terminate, couldn't turn it off, nothing.

I hate my cell phone.

Redesign Ideas-a-Go-Go

2006-11-28T16:58:00.000-05:00

So as the end of the year fast approaches, I'm once again contemplating the possibility of blog redesign.

Don't get me wrong; I like my blog, and the look and feel it has. I'm wondering, though, what if anything I might do for a change.

Anybody out there have suggestions? New graphics, new color scheme/tones, layout, etc.?

Can't freaking write

2006-11-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

I have plenty of great ideas for blog posts in the shower or while driving. When I'm here at the laptop, though, I have nothing to say of value. In fact, the thought of writing depresses me utterly.

Someone asked me today: "Are you a writer?" I had to think about that. I guess the answer is yes, in very limited contexts. In ways like the AMAKS posts I referenced in my last posting. In the kind of badinage in which I indulge on the Red Hot Pawn forums. In stupid but carefully crafted email postings I send to people.

I guess that's why the Google Groups feature was so delightful to discover. I felt like a part of my writing was recovered.

My writing style has always been more or less exploratory, and I've long subscribed to the old E.M. Forster question: "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

But when I find myself with nothing to write, it makes me think that I'm not really thinking, either. Reminds me of the old joke about Descartes walking into a bar: the barman asks him if he wants the usual. He replies, "I think not," and instantly disappears. Har har.

I recently joined a new clan on RHP -- the Guttersnipes. You might recall my mentioning them in a post some months back (July 15 2006) for a funny comic they wrote. So far it's been a treat to get to know the biggest smartasses on the site. And to join their ranks, of course.

Google Groups: Past Lives Revisited

2006-11-17T13:48:00.000-05:00

I just found out that Google Groups lets you read archived usenet postings dating back to 1981!

Back in the mid to late 90s, I was heavily involved in Shotokan karate, and participated regularly in the usenet group alt.martial-arts.karate.shotokan. It's where I really cut my teeth in terms of how to argue online and debate topics in an electronic forum. I went and ransacked the archives for my old posts, and I wanted to sit down and cry reading some of those old exchanges. I don't get much of that anymore, and it made me remember a fire I walked away from a long time ago. What fun!

Below is one of my favorite old posts from that time. The context is that some noob came on and started talking about karate in defensive, wearing-blinders-about-what-karate-is fashion, and I pretty much beat him down online. Enjoy!

Subject changed: ^v^ Emperor's New Clothes; was ^v^Akira Kurosawa Films

Date: Tues, Sep 22 1998 12:00 am
Groups: alt.martial-arts.karate.shotokan

On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Kyle Charity wrote:
> Karate and the like also teach about winning
> an encounter without resorting to violence.

No "they" don't. See Shawn's reply to Sensei Viper. Karate doesn't teach you anything. Karate is an amorphous concept that floats around in the cultural unconscious of martial artists. Karate doesn't really ever show up in the fabric of reality; it's an idea label we slap onto some regimented physical movements to give them meaning and to keep ourselves from feeling the natural silliness that comes from wearing Japanese pajamas in public.

People -- your instructors -- teach you things. They teach you what they know, and what they hold to be true. You will not get a clean transmission of either technique or ideology from a person -- at best you get a deflected impression of what karate "is" and what it's "about" or "for." Usually what you get is dimestore Zen.

Think about it: we like to say that karate is
a system of self-defense
a path to perfecting/completing character
a way of life
a method of learning to win barfights
But all of the above are founded on the idea that we can isolate what is and isn't karate, that karate has boundaries and is somehow a whole, a coherent thing. It is not, as a quick look at other dojos will tell you.

And we hate that, don't we? We don't like the thought that what we call karate is only karate because we call it that. That's why we train in groups: training by yourself, it's hard to keep believing in the dream of karate. It's difficult to keep telling yourself "this extension of my arm and focused muscle contraction coordinated with turning my clenched hand at the last second -- that's actually a punch, and it's part of the way/method/path/system of karate, so I can quit feeling stupid."

That's why traditional m.a.s cling to tradition and the exploitative systems of organization that govern them -- without them, what gives these physical movements meaning? In that situation a person can't afford to wake up and smell the coffee; too much is at stake.

"Karate" and other such signifiers are the emperor's new clothes. Because of the baggage we load onto these names, we can't see what the rest of the public sees when they see karate players: weird goofballs who have some kind of hangup regarding lumber and other breakable materials. There's a reason people walk past strip mall dojos and mock the sweating students inside with Bruce Lee sound effects. And guess what? It's a good reason.

> Also, I suspect that any Karate Sensei worth his salt would
> tell you that Karate and Self-Defence is not about
> "Beating People Up".

That's right. He would. And you know why? Because we think that karate senseis should be measured by their ability not to teach karate, but to "foster the spirit of karate"; that is, to promulgate the mythos of karate. So somebody who can drop you in two seconds is not necessarily a karate sensei, even if he can teach you to do so using physical motions reminiscent of Asian martial arts. However, if he suddenly becomes pensive, takes you aside and solemnly says, "this technique I'm teaching
you? Never do this to another living soul, but live in harmony with all people, plants, and minerals," suddenly the Sensei emerges.

Rant is over.

-blakbuzzrd
Performer of physical motions that are fictionally informed by the term "Karate," and made comparatively superior to other groups of strange physical motions by the modifier "Shotokan"

(Wipes tears away) Wheeew! That takes me back.

Sitting in a Damn Marriott in Eden Prairie, MN

2006-10-10T21:11:00.000-04:00

And that's all. Got up in Chicago at 4:30 this morning, caught a cab at 5, caught a plane at 6:30, rented a car at 8:15 in Minneapolis, drove with Dave to Brooklyn Park, and dealt with transitional shit all day. Then, back to the hotel in Eden Prairie, over to a "Don Pablo" mexican theme hell restaurant, where much beer and liquor was downed (actually, embarrassingly little liquor was downed, due to sheer exhaustion).

As my boss says, you know it's a good restaurant when they have pictures of the food on the menu. Shit.

Then back to the Marriott, log on to Red Hot Pawn, make a few moves, try to contact Hambone.

Auburn VS. South Carolina, Part Deux

2006-09-29T09:47:00.000-04:00

Well, that sucked.

Auburn VS. South Carolina

2006-09-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

Go Big Blue!

And, to help get in the mood, check out the coolest video ever of a pre-game flight by our eagle Spirit! This is from the LSU game.

Spirit takes flight!

Do NOT miss the second lap -- lucky camera guy!

Lostheads, feast your eyes on this!

2006-09-21T12:38:00.000-04:00

What's DHARMA about? Why the island? What is the significance of the number sequence 4 8 15 16 23 42?

All of these questions are answered -- sort of, in a compilation of snippets collected from ancillary sources, in this video:

Lost DHARMA video

You been gone so long; where you been for so long?

2006-09-18T14:27:00.000-04:00

I left Hambone in Tucson Saturday a week ago to help Monkeyboy (who has a new blog) move all of his family's stuff to Stanford.

Life without you sucks, Hambone. The cats and the plants agree, BTW. I've been lying around like a sloth for days on end, only to realize this morning that part of why is that I haven't taken my prescriptions regularly! Stayed home from work today, because I was feeling puny in body and soul.

Finally got my resume updated, and am really happy with it. Thanks to my sis, EW, SCW, and Hambone for looking it over with/for me. Fired it out to one opportunity, and am looking to send it a couple more places in the next day or so.

Haven't posted regularly because, well, I feel behind in life, I guess. You know how you get when there are way too many things to stop and talk about them. Or maybe it's that there's a serious shame factor in not having it together.

The Old Bear has now had four operations on his retina, which keeps detaching. This last one required the doc to remove his lens. Argh. He's in tremendous pain, and has to do things like sleep face down for weeks on end, as well as become a couch potato during recovery. That's what Hambone's helping with now. She's taking care of him in Tucson. I'm so glad she's there, and am proud of her fortitude and endurance. But I miss the fire out of her.

Believe in me, and I in you

2006-08-26T10:46:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm fine. My muse simply took a vacation this week.

Several of you have asked about work: has my new state of mind persisted, am I okay, etc. The answer is yes, more or less. I discovered, once the initial elation subsided, that at root this perspective was one that required a daily dose of will to maintain. I don't mean the one-finger-left-on-the-crumbling-cliff-but-must-hang-on kind of will, but rather seeing the connection between that overall perspective and the daily activities that either fuel or sap it, and making the right choices on a micro level.

I'm working on a particular database project at work, and I discover that another person, one level up from me in position and respect, is working on the same thing from a different angle. This is a faculty evaluation database -- where we can track folks' teaching over time. This data is of course used in hiring, development and retention decisions. Now, I'm working on it from the online perspective, which is complicated and requires a subtlety to the design of both the back end as well as the user interface. This other person is coming at it from the traditional face-to-face perspective, as we have multiple campuses with traditional classes.

You'd think that this person would approach me to talk about this before starting in. You'd be wrong, Gentle Reader.

So my initial reaction was of course bitter resent and anger. This person is known to be presumptive and condescending, and this is coupled with managerial incompetence. We aren't actually clear on what it is that the person really does. I sent my scope document to my boss, who told me that it was more or less identical to what Person X had done in scope. My document has more detail, however, and serves as a better framework for our IT guys to work with. So my boss says that I should contact Person X and we should work together to get this done. He then proceeds to send what I'd written to Person X.

I get an email from Person X, saying that my boss had sent the documents to them and that Person X looked forward to discussing them with me, and that Person X would be at such and such a location and that I should call to discuss them.

Now, I want to simply kick Person X's opinion to the curb, because I find Person X is amusingly unable to speak with authority about how to actually do anything around here. There's a danger that what I have done could be absorbed by Person X, and Person X gets the recognition for it.

Nevertheless, the fact is that at the end of the day, the project desperately needs doing, and that's where I'm choosing to put my focus. My life will be made better by the project completion.

I realized yesterday morning that I've fallen into the habit of believing the worst about colleagues without much evidence at all. It's as if my initial response is suspicion and cynicism. Not that cynicism is alien to me at all, but initial suspicion and distrust is. I didn't used to make snap judgements about people. Person X above is a case in point. Why do I think that person is incompetent and disingenuous? The fact is that all of my interactions with Person X have been fine, even pleasant.

I'm awakening to the need to have some faith in folks. It isn't native to the work environment I'm in, outside of ridiculous slogans and company mission statements. But it has been native to me. And it should be, again.

Master and Commuter

2006-08-16T21:28:00.000-04:00

For the last of the free Audible downloads (and stuff to listen to on the way to and from work), I chose the first of Patrick O'Brien's series of Jack Aubrey novels, Master and Commander. Set in the Napoleonic era, they follow the naval career of a man from leftenant to Admiral. In this first book, Jack Aubrey -- your archetypal everyman of His Majesty's Navy -- assumes his first post as the captain of the Sophie, a sloop of war. Also introduced is the man who will serve as his intellectual companion and erstwhile foil, Stephen Maturin, a former Irish rebel who serves as the ship's doctor.

I must say that O'Brien nails the dialogue and overall ambience of the book -- as I've read a great deal of the period literature, I can recognize hack work when I see it, and O'Brien is nonesuch -- you can expect the genuine article. His characters think and express themselves in a manner wholly suited to their respective stations in life, whether they are Irish leftenants, Danish sailors, or British powder monkies. At no point is the veil of fiction lifted.

And such descriptions of the vessels -- as exact and neat as ever the heart of man could desire. O'Brien doesn't make it easy on the reader -- I spent several hours on Wikipedia working through the various nautical terms and phrases particular to the Age of Sail -- but the result is a surpassing richness of detail and immediacy to the descriptions that put you, Gentle Reader, right on the damned quarter-deck yourself, shouting "fire!" for all that you are worth.

If you choose to get the audiobook version, let me recommend that you insist on the unabridged version read by Patrick Tull. His voices are spot-on, his accents thick and salty, and you'd swear on your life that the man was himself reading the books while at sea.

I heartily recommend it. The only danger for me now is that I get carried away on the way to work, and my road rage gives vent to hoarse shouts to "bring her about and prepare to rake the stern" of this or that commuter vehicle.

So That's Where We've Been, and Where We've Been Headed

2006-08-16T12:02:00.000-04:00

Almost as soon as I posted the posting below, I began to feel a completely unexpected sensation: relief. As I tried to articulate for both Dr. C and Hambone yesterday, I'm not sure exactly whence it comes, but I feel better than I've felt in half a year.

I wrote my previous posting with my usual sardonic perspective, and fully expected to bear up under the added weight of the depressing realization that I work in a system.

As I sat in my boss's office Monday morning, though, I walked through my thinking on the subject with him, and in the course of conversation I discovered just how much of this company's operational direction and how many of the decisions of the previous three years seem to fit this model.

Instead of being enraged at managerial disingenuity, I found myself...well, feeling grounded again, or that I had finally gotten my bearings. I know why things happen here the way they do, even if -- and I think this is true -- very few others outside of executive management do. That doesn't excuse management from responsibility for not coming clean with us, of course. I attribute that to inept people managing, though, rather than the system itself.

So back to the point: three things seem to have occurred right around the same time as this shift in my perspective. What they fundamentally have to do with the positive change I can't yet determine with any measure of exactness, but here they are:

Brilliant training in Baltimore. It was, as I said elsewhere, perhaps the best training I've done these two or three years -- in the same class as some of the world-beater UNC sessions back in '03. It reminded me of my own strength and talent, and I demonstrated both to all present. It was a right fitting swan song.
Epiphany of career education company as engineered system, and as ongoing work of systems engineering. Suddenly, I do not feel that every disappointment is a personally marginalizing moment, that every choice to invest in new courses rather than faculty development is a statement of greed. It's that the company has chosen a certain tack. When it doesn't work out, they'll choose another. For some reason, I feel differentiated from my putative identity as the avatar of instructional quality, such that I can calmly observe such directional changes without blowing my top.
My performance review as confessional. My review was hardly surprising -- it was rather a statement and restatement in multiple ways of the obvious: that I've taken a lot of hits this year and am having trouble getting back on my feet. During one pivotal moment in the review conversation, I actually had the guts to say "I've never been so demoralized at any job I've ever had as I am here." To which my boss simply nodded his head and said, "I know."

Those are the pieces to which I can point as in some way formative of my present state of mind.

And what does that state of mind look like now? I woke up yesterday morning with my mind full of ideas, full of the prospect of accomplishing needful things, full of the sense that I could make them happen. In the past 24 hours I've done more planning and productive thinking about work projects than I did in the entire quarter previous.

I feel...present, again.

The System is Down...The System Is Down...

2006-08-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

I trained a bunch of engineering faculty this weekend, as mentioned in a previous post. Four out of the six people in the group are systems engineers, and they are designing and developing systems engineering courses for the online environment.

One of the struggles their incoming students face, they tell me, is that they all come from very specific engineering backgrounds: there are mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, mathematicians, physicists, etc. Each student enters the program having already worked in his or her respective field for years. As a result, he or she is well-used to thinking in certain processes. Any problem is approached instinctively from the perspective of his or her own field.

Trouble is, a systems engineer has to look at things as an interrelated whole, rather than a collection of disparate parts. When trying to troubleshoot systemic problems, then, it is extremely difficult for a longtime engineer to break out of his or her habitual thinking patterns and to focus on the system health as a whole.

What's more, when faced with the prospect of designing a system, it is excruciating for them to let go of the goal of designing the best components (something they would do in their respective fields); for in SE, the goal is to devise the cheapest, fastest, producible solution that achieves the client-determined performance standard. Whereas in a focused area of engineering the goal is quality, in SE the three salient factors are time, cost, and performance.

Breaking out of that "Quality is Job #1" mindset is terrifying, liberating and probably somewhat depressing at moments. You no longer think of your work as scaling the next mountain, or trying to hit the very center of the bullseye; you now think of yourself as the high jumper who would be foolish to expend energy jumping any higher than just above the bar.

It occurs to me that I am an area-specific engineer, and I work in a company that approaches education from a systems engineering perspective. My frustration with quality and stupid management stems from my failure to realize the difference in overall management priorities.

Cost, time, and performance. I think that's what matters, regardless of the product here.

For those of you who recognize this post's title, though: Enjoy!

Job Description: Living Dead

2006-08-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I go to deliver training (Friday and all day Saturday) in Baltimore for a partner institution, for the bazillionth time, despite empty promises to get us out of this stupid work. My boss is going with me, and he's pissed about going himself. Also, my performance review is due. Here's a snippet from a chat about it with Hambone.

Braaaaaaiiiiiiinss.....

Todd Likes Pie

2006-08-09T17:39:00.000-04:00

Me, I like puppets. But then, so do all clowns.

On Treaties, Trowels, and Teaching

2006-08-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the Quote of the Day was from William Pickering, our ambassador to Russia. He said:

"In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known."

Now, in this context he's clearly using a very specific meaning for "cover" and "uncover." With respect to archaeology, his meaning is literal: archaeologists unearth artifacts. Concerning diplomacy, he still focuses on unearthing or burying something, but the something in question is conceptual (information) rather than physical (object).

I'd like to expand the idea somewhat, however, including the meaning we intend when we say that a runner "covered the miles to the finish line at a record-setting pace," or that a teacher "covered a great deal of material during this class session." That is, there's a sense of displacement involved: you end up somewhere other than where you began.

And that's of course a desired outcome in education. People are drawn out from where they started in their thinking, and led out into new thinking territory (that's where we get the word educate, in fact). You finish school with more skills than when you began, and (to extend the displacement motif further) you approach any new problem or situation from a different angle.

Now, here's the question: in terms of covering and uncovering, what is the teacher's approach to the known and unknown?

Consider Pickering's quote as laid out on a two-axis graph:

If the green dot represents diplomacy and the purple dot represents archaeology, where would you put a dot (or dots) for teaching?

Complete and Utter Pwnage

2006-08-08T09:25:00.000-04:00

Since LWB a) doesn't know the difference between blackmail and extortion, b) just published an email I sent privately to her, and c) apparently doesn't negotiate with blogging terrorists, I'd like to share with you now a little note from her:

Wasted.

Some Wireless Networks Demand Connection

2006-08-07T23:46:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while, there's that wireless network that has so much panache to the name that you simply must try to connect. The above network was found nearby a coffee shop today.

Wasted, Parte the Umpteenthe

2006-08-07T13:42:00.000-04:00

I'm only posting this because my pathos-inspiring in-laws can't find a better way to save face than to change the name of the devsite we use to develop LWB's blog. Nobody ever sees that website, but I didn't feel that it was fair to so publicly pwn LWB (see her website Fashion Kitty) without receiving some kind of comeuppance.

Everyone, see how effectively I was wasted by LWB and Monkeyboy.

Don't worry if you hadn't previously seen it -- see, they posted this on a private testbed site. Before my post, here, only myself and LWB could even view it.

"But why," you may ask, Gentle Reader, "haven't they just changed LWB's profile settings to change her avatar picture, and thereby put a stop to the complete and total pwnage you laid on them Saturday, blakbuzzrd?"

Hmmm. That's a good question: say, why is that, LWB? Haven't you tried changing your pic yet?

Nyuk nyuk nyuk ... wasted...

Mis-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE

2006-07-30T21:47:00.000-04:00

I'm numb as I write this.

A few hours ago, in an email discussion concerning an aspect of medical ethics, I took it upon myself to tear into a guy who posted what I consider to be one of the most smug, unexamined, self-righteous, fatuous articulations about God's sovereignty I've read in years.

And when I say I tore into him, I don't mean that I refuted his assertions, or rebutted his arguments. In fact, I did neither of those. I mean I ridiculed him; I tried to humiliate him. I wanted him to be the butt of every witticism I could devise in the 10 minutes I spent composing my response.

That's right, Ladies and Germs: I committed the cardinal mistake of electronic communication: I wrote and posted while enraged.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Now, this guy had something coming. He was going to get taken down a peg or ten. But not this way, and maybe not from me at all.

I've been boiling both about his initial posting and my response all day: mad at him, and mad at myself.

Sometimes I don't feel like I know who I am anymore.

Rollin' With the White Wolf

2006-07-28T11:00:00.000-04:00

I've been hunting the first Elric of Melniboné novella for a couple of years now. Used book stores, library fire sales, regular chain stores, you name it. The dang thing is only available in a large omnibus edition.

Come to find out that the book has recently made an unabridged trip to audioland. I used a freebie subscription to Audible.com to get the thing for free (normally it's like $30). Burned it to disc, bunged it in the car cd player, and now on the way to work and back, I get to enjoy really hackneyed prose accompanyed by a clumsy arrangement of background music and sound effects.

Now, Michael Moorcock himself actually reads the introduction, and he does a great job of it. He is succeeded, however, by Jeffrey West, who neither enunciates clearly nor quite grasps the distinction between drama and drammer. You can almost hear Snidely Whiplash snickering in the background.

That said, I'm still loving it. For those of you unfamiliar with Moorcock's Elric saga (or the larger Eternal Champion collection, Elric is in many ways the complete inverse of the archetypal adventure hero. Instead of a plucky young nobody who fights his way to glory aided only by a strong moral conscience, a bit of cleverness, and a slice of mickle might, we have a guy who

Isn't human. Melnibonéans are related to dragons, or something. Kind of elvish, too -- best not to inquire too closely of Moorcock here.
Doesn't really have qualms about committing what we'd consider atrocities.
Starts off as the emperor of the greatest realm on earth, and its greatest living sorcerer. Not much room to go up, eh?
Is physically weak, and an albino with some kind of deficiency in his blood. He's dependent on heavy doses of drugs to have the strength to even move.
Swings an evil sword. That sounds pretty good, right? Except that when I say "an evil sword," I mean the sword itself (dubbed "Stormbringer") is sentient, and actually a demon from another dimension. That feeds off the souls of those it slays. And forces Elric to kill more people periodically, when it gets the munchies. And Gentle Reader, that doesn't bode well for friends and family.

So our non-man Elric is a problematic, if eventually sympathetic character. It's great fun!

Six Hours to Tranquility

2006-07-25T12:03:00.000-04:00

Hambone and I spent the weekend with Piers, WH, and JH. A relaxing, beer-soaked time was had by all.

Friday saw us eating beercan chicken and Coca-Cola cake. Eeeeeeyummmay!

Saturday was nothing but loafing -- that and seeing some of historic Martin. One highlight was a visit to the former former Wal-Mart, now known as Rural King. Interesting fact about Rural King is that they keep all of the ammunition just to the left of the front door. Yes, you could grab an armload and run for it before they even realized what was happening. And yes, they had real ammo -- I found hollow-tip bullets.

Sunday was about skipping church and stuffing ourselves at the local catfish restaurant, named -- wait for it -- The Catfish Restaurant. I guess when you are the only one in town, you hardly need an inventive moniker.

Wonderful to see the little boy again, as he hits two years old. He's talking now, and counting, and even beginning to read.

And he has a backyard to play in that made Hambone and I jealous. In fact, she spent a good part of her time relaxing in the outdoor swing, breathing in all that country air and relaxing in the breeze.

Why do I live in Chicago, again?

Off to Martin as Bon Jovi Enters; Exeunt Severally, Pursued By Beers

2006-07-21T11:54:00.000-04:00

We're about to leave to go visit Piers and fam in Martin, TN. They're firing up the grill; we're bringing the beer in mass quantities (my favorite, actually). Woo hoo! On the hunt while we are there for Silver Queen corn and honest-to-god grits.

Coincidentally, Bon Jovi is playing in Chicago tonight, which makes leaving the city especially nice. I hated his music in high school, and time hasn't improved it. Redneck anthems -- bleargh!

Today I am 35.

Dwight Dreams the Impossible Dream: Battlestar Galactica / Lost Crossover!

2006-07-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

Okay, so if you've watched the U.S. version of The Office, you know Dwight Schrute, the Assistant (to the) Regional Manager. On a fictional blog, the character begins theorizing what would happen if the Battlestar Galactica crew were suddenly also marooned on the island in Lost.

As both shows involve ridiculous amounts of aggressive sexual tension, Dwight's, er, fantasy includes lots of making out, apparently.

Check it out here.

ISP Switcheroo - Stay Tuned

2006-07-17T12:20:00.000-04:00

We've switched ISPs, and I haven't moved all the files to the new space yet. Stay tuned.

The King Who Would Not Be The Man

2006-07-15T18:12:00.000-04:00

First: I play online correspondence chess at Red Hot Pawn.
Second: Most subscribers to the site belong to one or more clans, as is often the case with online games of any sort.
Third: A clan to which I do not belong, the Guttersnipes, just celebrated their 1st anniversary of play on RHP.

To commemorate the moment, they wrote a little story in pictures about a White King who is insecure about being white.

Hilarious (if explicit) stuff -- check it out here.

Championship Crap Prose

2006-07-13T10:54:00.000-04:00

Well, the results for this year's Bulwer-Lytton Prose Contest are in. Check 'em out here. My favorites:

From Christin Keck of Kent, Ohio:
She looked at her hands and saw the desiccated skin hanging in Shar-Pei wrinkles, confetti-like freckles, and those dry, dry cuticles--even her "Fatale Crimson" nail color had faded in the relentless sun to the color of old sirloin--and she vowed if she ever got out of the Sahara alive, she'd never buy polish on sale at Walgreen's again.
From Chris Harget, of Campbell, CA:
It was a day, like any other day, in that Linus got up, faced the sunrise, used his inhaler, applied that special cream between his toes, wrote a quick note and put it in a bottle, and wished he'd been stranded on the island with something other than 40 cases each of inhalers, decorative bottles, and special toe cream.
From Christopher Backeberg of South Africa:
While Hector and the heroes of Troy trembled behind the ramparts as cowboys below the walls raced up and down the beach, six-guns blazing and cries of "yee-hah!" filling the air, other cowboys across the sea were laboring gamely but in vain to throw a palisade around Wichita, Kansas, thereby adding veracity to the old homily of history that it is easier to cow a fortified city than to fortify a cow city.
And finally, from Dennis Barry, of Monkeyboy's hometown, Dothan, AL:
Despite the vast differences in their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.

Gentle Reader, you have to work hard to craft something that damaging. Yee-hah!

All in the Family

2006-07-09T22:22:00.000-04:00

My esteemed brother-in-feathers Vulturus Lyricus arrived today, for a few days R&R between legs of The Myriad's tour. With both him and Ma Pesky visiting, it feels almost like a holiday or something.

Except for the part where I have to sleep on the couch for the next three days.

Just finished repainting the kitchen and butler pantry - this time we chose a color that is unfortunately very close to the hue of Booberry cereal. Unfortunate by comparison, but quite attractive in its own right.

Next up is the living room and the dining room, both of which are likely to be painted a shade of yellow. Boy do I love painting. In fact, that's kinda true. Ever since I finally invested the money in a couple of nice Corona brushes (and a brush comb), I've really enjoyed painting. It's calming, you know -- put the Shuffle on, listen to some tunes, drink some beer, and do some precision trim work and smooth coats. I learned to love painting while painting alongside Piers, now based out of Martin, TN.

Wuxtry

2006-07-08T22:01:00.000-04:00

Job sucks. Depressed.

Mother-in-law visiting. Delightful to have around. Indefatigable shopper.

Rock star brother-in-law visiting tomorrow through Wednesday. Looking forward to it.

Bands I'm into now:

Tapes 'n Tapes - The Loon
Calexico / Iron and Wine - In the Reins
Mute Math - Reset (EP)
Jose Gonzales - Veneer

Shows I'm into now:

Veronica Mars - this show totally rocks. Nancy Drew, Chloe Sullivan and Philip Marlowe all in one. Can't freaking get enough of it -- and now it's been picked up for a third season.
Babylon 5 - early 90's sci-fi that I missed seeing at the time. No cable at the time it was aired, I think.

Podcasts I'm into:

The Sound of Young America - Jesse Thorn's amazing weekly radio show about things that are awesome. Last week's interviews included a chat with Dave Foley of the Kids in the Hall.
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me - the weekly news quiz. I usually miss it on Saturdays, and listen while walking on my lunch break.
Le Show - Harry Shearer's weekly commentary on the week's news. Lately he's been doing a lot to raise public awareness concerning the Hurricane Katrina devastation.
Ask a Ninja - Completely hilarious. Todd turned me on to this.

Playing a lot of online chess recently. My rating at RHP is now mid-1300s, which is a definite improvement.

Beginning to try to think outside the box on a new job.

Arise, my new hard drive!

2006-05-23T12:30:00.000-04:00

$150 later, I have 80% of the data back. All of my pictures, so far as I can tell, and all of my music. The other stuff still needs verifying, but we are looking good so far!

As you might imagine, Gentle Reader, I went out and bought a really nice enclosure for the replacement drive. Even so, Hambone and I are working out exactly how much travel that new drive should be subjected to.

Me? I'm just happy to have my 30GB of music back. That was a harsh three weeks.

Hard drive disaster...

2006-05-19T16:27:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I dropped my external hard drive from chest height, onto office floor (thin carpet over concrete). Dead as a doornail. Cost to recover data: average estimate from multiple sources in the thousands. Finally found a guy (brother of an office colleague) to extract data from the drive, for a few hundred smackers. Supposedly, he can get 80% of the data back.

What data, you ask? All of it. For instance:

All of my graduate writing, dating back to 1994, including my ill-fated dissertation in its multiple forms. All of Shelley's too.
All of the pictures I've taken for the past three years
All 30 gigs of my music, purchased and otherwise
All of my arcade building designs, plans and templates
Our entire financial history and records -- Quicken going back to 1996, and electronic tax returns for four years or so

Yeah. It sucks!

Generous Thinker?

2006-04-03T12:04:00.000-04:00

Here's my latest psych profile, using the personality test du jour:

Generous Thinker

If you mouse over the various blocks, you'll see the characteristic traits to which they correspond. Hmm: to put it in Princess-Bride-speak, does "slightly functional" mean "mostly dysfunctional"?

We'll see how this changes over the next few months, as I work with Dr. C.

Monkeyboy to Swing Through Palo Alto

2006-03-30T14:53:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to my brother-in-law Monkeyboy. He was just accepted into Stanford's MBA program!

Looks like he and LWB will be headed out west, rather than to U of Chicago (which also accepted him). That sucks for us here in Oak Park, but it does mean that we have one more friendly pad in the Bay area (AKR of course being our first).

Monkeyboy, I'd suggest that as your first bidness deal out there that you work on getting In-N-Out Drive-In to expand northward. You'll see a lot of us then. ;-)

Shin to the O to the Bi

2006-03-22T22:23:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed how totally freaking awesome ninjas are? I dunno what it is lately, but a seemingly random confluence of events has brought ninjas into my life. Consider:

Hitotsu! Just the other day, Dorito Icee sends me a link to the best ninja video podcast to be seen anywhere (or seen at all, for that matter): http://www.askaninja.com. DI says: "My face is hurting from laughing so much." My own laughter is annoying Shel this very evening!

Hitotsu! Just other day before the other day in the previous bullet, I took my Xbox to work to show a few of the guys, and we end up playing some Samurai Shodown on my MAME engine. And who did I play as? Was it Wan-Fu the Chinese warrior, or Jubei the samurai? Noooooooo! I played and dominated others as the legendary (and actually historical) neeeen-jaaah Hanzo Hattori, finishing my opponents off with his spinning inverted pile driver. That's the kind of special move you can only do if actually born a ninja, folks.

Hitotsu! As a fair trade of amusing links with Dorito Icee, I sent him the link to one of my all-time favorite sites: http://www.realultimatepower.net. Supposedly authored and maintained by a 9-year-old kid named "Ryan Hamburger," this site is a perfect realization of the world of ninjas as seen through the eyes of a 9-year-old kid. Just reading it made me want to flip out and kill people. Because that's what I call real ultimate power! In an interesting sidenote, the guy has a book out now, which comprises much of the material in the website. The added material mostly comes in the form of footnotes and explanatory marginalia, which I understand actually portrays some respectable adolescent angst on a level clearly unperceived by the narrator, Mr. Hamburger (or is that Master Hamburger?).

Hitotsu! Lastly, I offer the following site as yet another example of how the master shinobi has a death grip on our imagination, even in animated form: http://www.fuggyfuggy.com. Favorite moment in the 5-minute film: in the "Disguise" vignette, the sounds of the goat guy performing the Valsalva maneuver. Hilarious!

What can I say? I'm a sucker for ninjas. I look forward to killing you soon!

Fargo-a-Go-Go

2006-02-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

Whew! Spent Monday through Wednesday in scenic Fargo, ND. Never been there before, outside of the virtual tour afforded by the Coen brothers.

It was odd.

They call it the franchise capital of the world. I did indeed see the most theme restaurants I have ever encountered in one place. And we stayed in the lovely Holiday Inn Fargo.

It was odd, by God!

This particular Holiday Inn boasted a Holidome, a considerable selling point. And what was in the Holidome, you may ask? Why, Shipwreck Island, a fabulous pool/mini water park for the kiddies, with a booze-serving tiki hut nearby for the adults! Here's a pic -- as you can see, it was packed.

Odsbodikins!

And wouldn't you know it -- I forgot my swimsuit! Dangit. Fortunately, there was the "Spirits" lounge. They do not spend money on names in this joint -- they get franchises for cute names, I guess.

What they do spend money on is gambling. The Spirits lounge actually had blackjack tables, with real dealers and real cameras -- like a little slice of an Indian Reservation. Cheap drinks, too!

Unfortunately, I don't gamble. Still, the unreality of the whole situation was worth witnessing.

Matchmaking?

2006-02-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

On Valentine's Day, a card came for me in the mail from Minnesota, hand-addressed. I was a bit worried that I had made the wrong impression with one of my faculty, but upon opening it I discovered that instead of a secret admirer I was being notified by the National Marrow Donor Program that I was a marrow match for a person with leukemia.

Let's just say that that brought me up short.

Hambone and I talked about it for a while. What to do? The card said that I should call a number right away and tell them if I was still interested. A rep had personally written in the card to tell me her extension and to explain that I was a match.

So we did a little looking on the web, trying to find out more. The last time I heard about marrow donation, it involved excruciating pain. I think they used an augur, pliers, and an ice-cream scoop or something. I wasn't really thrilled at that prospect.

Turns out now, though, that it's a better deal. You get an epidural or a spinal, and then they stick a needle in your hip bone and extract marrow that way. Coupla weeks of being sore, and you're back to normal.

So I called and told them I was interested. I answered a coupla questions, and the person on the phone told me that I was going to be contacted in a week or so.

Interestingly, these people had me on file from the time in 1992 when I opted into the program. I was a college kid in 1992, with the most transient lifestyle. My folks still lived in Birmingham! They must have done a lot of digging to find me.

Anyway, more info as I get it myself. Exciting!

Attacking the trim on two fronts

2006-02-12T18:02:00.000-05:00

Hambone and I have been going back and forth about the trim in our house. As Piers will attest, there's probably a half-inch of solid paint layered over what used to be bee-yootiful trim in this place.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't be such an issue, except that in this case the bonehead who lived here before us did things like paint the trim "congealed blood red" and other ghastly hues. So there have been some places in the joint we simply don't like going.

I took the tack that we should strip all the trim, and we tried a chemical stripper without much luck. We then went to work with a heat gun which does amazing work, except for the fact that it releases noxious paint fumes as it melts all that old paint, requiring a respirator for each of us, and creating a pile of messy paint scraping. Still, it's the way to go.

Except that it's sloooooooooooowwww work, and tedious.

In two months of using the heat gun, I've stripped most of one doorway, and part of one window in the bathroom. We have a boatload of trim.

So Hambone came up with the idea of painting the rest of the trim, so as to make it inoffensive in the meanwhile. After all, it could be a year or more before I make it around to the trim we paint.

And that's what we're doing this weekend -- covering up all the pig's-blood-colored trim with semi-gloss white. It's already making a huge difference in the way the entryway and hall feel.

That is, they feel inviting now, instead of like rooms in the hotel in The Shining.

I'll post before-and-after pics once we have an "after" to post.

Blog Template in Redesign Phase

2006-02-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

Bear with me folks -- working on a few design ideas. All items in progress.

Counseling Courageous

2006-01-25T20:10:00.000-05:00

So I've been in the dumps for months on end now -- no desire to blog, as you will note, Gentle Reader. Started seeing a therapist, and one that Hambone has gleaned great benefit from seeing. What with the holidays, though, I haven't seen him in a month or two. So I go in yesterday and we start talking about my work.

Like I don't get enough work talk at work.

Anyway, we just started on this, but I get the distinct impression that he suspects my depression is my body's way of saying it really hates

my job,
living in Chicago, or
both.

I gotta tell ya, this job is gettin' old. I am starting to really understand why JFS went into business for himself. Working for money guys and deal guys all day long and dealing with Whimsical Executive Behavior (WEB) in the name of educational goals is infuriating. And, frankly, I'm tired of seeing a never-ending string of shitty decisions made for the sake of the almighty dollar.

Man, it just wears on me.

Anyway, back to the counseling. The good Dr. C. proceeds to tell me several anecdotes of patients past who hated their jobs and were depressed. These patients had the guts to quit what they were doing, pick up, and go where they wanted to be to do what they wanted to do. Presto! No more blues.

I'm sitting there thinking "Holee shit -- this again?"

Because it isn't the first time I've just stepped out of line and gone to do something else. That's what I did when I left grad school to come here.

But the thought of doing it again: energizing, terrifying, perplexing.

Again, we are just getting into this topic in therapy. I'm spending many of my free moments mulling it over, though.

Christmas 2005

2006-01-01T23:07:00.000-05:00

The Hambone and I went down to Atlanta for Xmas, to spend time with my family. This Christmas was notable for several reasons:

My siblings and their significant others were all there, as was my grandmother. It was a full house.
We stayed with my brother Dorito Icee for the most part, as he moved to Jonesboro last year. So it was the first time I've ever stayed at his place for more than a night. And we hung out for a while, and went shopping to boot at IKEA, which I've never been to before. Dorito Icee and S got a new puppy: a border collie named Lexie. She was a marvelous little pooch, and renewed our desire for a doggie.
We got another gander at EAB, our new niece. That is, I got an extended look, as Hambone and LWB went shopping and I got to stay home with Monkeyboy to take care of the kid.

Enough talk! Now, for some pics!

Xmas day with the folks >>

Hanging out with Dorito Icee and S >>

Little EAB in the football carry >>

To Podcast or Not to Podcast

2005-12-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

That is the question, Gentle Reader. I've been doing some research recently about podcasting (as in, the past twelve hours), and it looks like Yours Truly may be supplementing The Roost with a podcast in the near future.

I've actually gone through the steps to do it before, with the exception of using an RSS feed; I used the same technology for a course I taught online.

Okay, I used the same technology to do three podcasts. I wanted to do like six or seven, but it nearly killed me figuring all of the tech stuff out at the time. I never managed to get it nailed down completely.

But all that's changed now! See, the main holdup was that I had nowhere to really store the podcast files, and as you may or may not know, audio files can get a mite large on the memory. My dinky 10 MB of storage on Earthlink won't cut it. Now, though, an increasing number of sites are hosting storage online for free. Places like Gcast.com and Ourdomain.org are all about helping people get the voice out -- for free.

As in, cash money none.

I'm already trying to get Hambone to start one herself. She says she needs time to think it over. I guess I need to do the same: I'm not sure exactly how comfortable I am making that switch to voice. I flatter myself that I manage fairly well with text, but voice is another matter altogether. You can edit and emend text much more easily than you can audio. Okay, so I can do a fair job with audio files too, but even so, it takes a lot more to make an audio recording sound polished.

Hmm. Have you an opinion, Gentle Reader?

Rediscovering the Game of Kings

2005-12-02T22:56:00.000-05:00

In the past few months I've gotten hooked on playing chess. My dad taught me the moves when I was young, and we had a chess set around the house, but TJS and I were untrained and uninterested in really doing much more than goofing off.

A colleague at work was helping me unpack a box I'd had since our office's move, and inside the box he found an old travel chess set I had. He suggested we start an ongoing game, and before I knew it I was hooked. After a few weeks of playing in the office (getting up from my desk to survey the tiny board, making a move, and then watching him do the same a while later), I was kicking around on the internet trying to find ways to improve when I happened upon an amazingly well-designed online chess playing site.

Let's just say that my descent into geekdom underwent a terrifyingly rapid acceleration. Now, my Amazon Xmas list is full of books on chess, I have a bunch of sites bookmarked, and I just today received in the mail a tournament-sized chess set, complete with--wait for it--a carrying bag with a shoulder strap.

Shel nearly laughed me right out of the house.

But who cares about ridicule, Gentle Reader?! Not I! I've now found a hobby that doesn't get outmoded by technological advances (videogames, anyone?) and isn't impeded by my body's inability to withstand injury indefinitely (remember karate?).

For those of you interested and secure in your non-geekitude, I now have a little button on my page here that you can use to take a peek at some of my ongoing chess games online. Currently, I'm in the middle of a trash-talking game with Dorito Icee, otherwise known as TJS.

Thanksgiving Day, 2005

2005-11-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

Boy am I full. This year Yours Truly and Hambone flew down to Atlanta to see the new kid in the family. I'm an uncle now, and got my first look and chance to hold the baby yesterday. EAB looks like her father, Monkeyboy, and is undoubtedly the center of attention. You can see pictures of her at her mother's blog.

I had a meltdown a week and a half ago. We went to a friend's b-day party, and I got hammered. We came home, and I was sick almost immediately. It was one of those sicks, though, that makes you feel torn up emotionally too. Nothing quite like being the blubbering drunk. Shel asked me, "Are you sad?" And I answered truthfully, actually: "How can I not be? I live in a world where there is no god."

You'd think that that sort of thing wears off with the booze, but instead, it unlocked something, and it wrecked me for several days. Gentle Reader, if you are one of those who know me well, and have known me for a long time, you will know that I generally don't cry. About anything. Ever. Sure, I whine and moan, and complain about virtually everything; but I don't lose it, folks.

I lost it that day, like I haven't done for eleven years. Something welled up inside of me, and I realized that I'm pretty much at the end of my rope when it comes to managing my spiritual shipwreck. I've been holding myself together with duct tape and baling wire since the term that I taught that link course, and I'm burnt up.

Shel has a fabulous counselor, whom I went to see this past Monday. I started talking about spiritual stuff as what set some of this off, and explained a few of the past episodes in my life. I also explained what happened in the hours and days after that guy's birthday party. I told DC (as I will henceforward reference him) that I was at the end of managing it, that I was able to put on a good face, but that I wasn't all there.

He then said, "well, while you were talking I took a few notes. I wrote here, 'strong separation between rational and emotional selves.'" Let me tell you, folks, that hit home. He continued:

"The rational side of you knows that there is no god."

"Yes." (To be honest, I was relieved to finally say it out loud.)

"But the emotional and spiritual part of you won't accept it. Why not?"

That, I had no answer for.

In fact, Gentle Reader, I've been mulling over his words for the last few days now, and everywhere I look inside me I see evidence of that schism between the rational and the emotional. And the more I look, the more I see evidence of how much I hate my emotional self. I contain it, I sequester it, I put it in a vault when I can. It represents the stupid Randall, the trusting Randall, the guileless Randall, the goofy kid with buckteeth. That Randall extends his hand and gets it burned.

And so I hate it and hide it, I guess. I try to lose it.

The upshot is that I have cauterized the part of me that can offer love. What I call love now often seems like an act of the will, or affection, or fun. But where is my heart?

I think that's the expedition I'm embarking on with DC: to find and reclaim it.

The Myriad Rocks Judson College

2005-10-23T23:23:00.000-04:00

Inasmuch as Judson College was rockable, the guys did. I know they were exhausted, but they didn't play like it. Played through most of the hard rockin' songs, which ST tells me is their set every night, without variation. The sacrifices you make to get a fan base -- I'd be bored out of my gourd. Anyway, I tried to grab a couple of pics, despite the lousy lighting.

It was terrific to see ST again, and the guys in the band as well. I understand that they get to go home from touring in two weeks; Godspeed, fellas.

Catchup, sort of

2005-10-18T19:48:00.000-04:00

Many things afoot, as usual.

Often I find myself looking for the most important thing that I could say in a blog post, but that is a conceit that usually turns out to frustrate me. There are simply too many things that happen to a body during the day to write them all down, or even to pick the most important ones.

I stayed home from work today, feeling unwell. I'm not sure how much of it is psychological versus physical. Very much job-related, I'm afraid.

I decided that I won't waste space in this post on work-related bullshit. Suffice it to say that I am worn down from my time at this company. I feel stale.

Shel's been looking around for work, for both of us. She periodically forwards things my way. Tonight I'm sitting down to look at a few of them.

We started watching Battlestar Galactica -- the new series, starting with the miniseries. I'd heard both good and bad about it, and while I initially had misgivings about some of the more radical departures from the original design, after watching it, I can honestly say that it is some of the best sci-fi I've seen since Joss Whedon's Firefly. You, whoever you are, geek or not, need to go watch yo'self some BG in a hurry. C'mon already. I mean, Commander Adama is played by Edward James Olmos, who we know kicks @$$ as a boss from his days in Miami Vice.

Our friends CAH, WH, and JH came to visit this weekend, and it was a great time, albeit exhausting. We went two places Shel and I have talked about visiting but hadn't as yet followed through: Brookfield Zoo and the Shedd Aquarium. Both were worth every penny. Zoo-wise, I'd only been to lame versions, like the Birmingham Zoo. Consequently, I was in no hurry to visit another. It was, however, a terrific place. Wolves, Bears, Snakes, Elephants and a terrific Primate house. What was best about it was the carefully scripted way in which the visitor encountered the animals. The entire zoo seemed a calculated presentation to encourage wildlife conservation via thoughful edutainment. In this project it was a great success. I sure wish I'd had this kind of experience as a kid.

Hanging out with our friends made me miss, well, hanging out with our friends. We've got one pair of Chicago-native friends 'round here. Although I will say that Shel has been doing a great job in the past couple of months of meeting our neighbors.

We have to move on with life, somehow. I can't stay in this job forever, though I don't know where to go next. CAH suggested that I look into the IT job that will be coming open at his institution. But he can't even get the words out of his mouth before he follows up with a firm statement that I would be miserable in a place like the town his school is in. It's a one-ATV town.

Okay, I'm off to read some job descriptions.

The buzzin' Buzzard

2005-10-10T22:28:00.000-04:00

Well, the doctor and I decided to do some switcheroos on the meds. I had been on Effexor and Strattera for two years now, and they lost their effectiveness. I guess the body adapts, or something. So about two months ago, we scaled down on the Effexor slowly and got me off it. The week I went totally off it was hell. I took a sick day to stay home and turn my face to the wall.

Once that fun was done, we decided to switch off the Strattera and go with Ritalin.

Yes, Ritalin. The fabled drug beloved of young ADHD cases everywhere. It's the Ovaltine of ADHD.

I've been on it a week now, and it's okay so far. What's just joyous about the whole affair is that, for those of you who don't know, Ritalin is an amphetamine -- it's speed, really -- and it can be really addictive. Which is just peachey for me, given my pre-existing tendencies toward addiction. I mean, just look at my stupid toy and anime collection.

Anyway, we're still fiddling with the dosage -- I go back to the doc in three weeks to report.

The Buzzard Swoops in on a Sweet Deal

2005-10-03T22:29:00.000-04:00

Today I scored big on Ebay. I've been looking for this one particular scale model of Captain Harlock's Arcadia Spaceship, as seen in Arcadia of My Youth, which BTW is one of the all-time great anime feature-length films. Anyway, so the film came out way back in like 1982 or so, and Bandai of course swiftly produced a model kit of the ship, at both 1/1000 and 1/1600 scale.

This model has been next to impossible to find, as it went out of production quickly. Anytime you see the thing available in online overseas hobby shops it's going for several hundred dollars.

A couple of months back we spotted a 1/1600 version on Ebay, but by the time we got near the finish, it was up near a hundred dollars, and I gave up the ghost. Shel, BTW, was actually supportive of my bidding to win the thing.

So I just happen to do a quick check on Ebay today on a couple of things, and what the hey?! There's a kit some dude in Japan is selling, for like 19 bucks! And what's more the thing is at 1/1000 scale: it's the big one, people! And somehow this thing slipped under the radar -- nobody had bid on it. I checked it and there were 23 minutes left in the auction.

I bid the minimum, and lo and behold I win the dang thing! Here's hoping that the auction was for real after all; I have an email into the seller requesting a total price and other sundry items. Here's hoping!

Quote from Arcadia of My Youth: "At the faraway point where the rings of time come together...we shall meet again."

China Tour Report 4: Shanbing, The Perfect Breakfast

2005-09-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

Last time Yours Truly visited Beijing I was introduced to a kind of street food that I have since never forgotten. Called a shanbing, these things are full of all the hearty goodness that keeps a body running. Or a peasant farming, all day.

Well, I fell in love with them, and vowed to eat my fill when I returned. There was construction going on in J and S's neighborhood, and so it was a good bet that there would be a cart nearby in the mornings that made them. Apparently, in this neighborhood there's one guy, and he's a fixture. S refers to him as "the little man with the cart," and you'll soon see why. Anyway, after about 20 minutes of driving around looking for him one morning, we found him off the road on a walking path. Paydirt! Five minutes' worth of halting Mandarin later, I was once again tasting the cheap delight of Beijing po' folks food.

Here's how they make 'em:

1. The guy has this cart with a gas powered griddle on top. He spreads a thin batter over the top, cracks a couple of eggs on it, and sprinkles on some fresh green onion.
2. Then, he flips the thing over and spreads on a savory sauce -- probably some kind of soybean paste or sauce. If you like (and I do), he'll also spread on some hot pepper sauce.
3. He puts a fried, er, fritter or something in the middle (like a big flat potato chip), and uses the spatula to break it into foldable pieces.
4. Lastly, he folds the thing up with a spatula,
5. And serves it to you piping hot in a napkin. Eeeeeeeeeeyummmmmmaaaaaaay!

I mentioned above that we called him "the little man with the cart"; and you may notice that all of the shots above were taken from an above angle. See, we weren't really kidding about that nickname. See the picture to the right for a sense of relative scale.

All jokes about hilariously short asian cooks aside, I encourage you now, Gentle Reader, to drop what you're doing, get yourself to China, and eat shanbing in copious amounts. I did!

Lovely Week at Work

2005-09-26T22:50:00.000-04:00

So last week we had a layoff at the company. This despite projected revenue growth for this fiscal year of 20-30%. Why, you may ask? Because of poor financial planning, and blowing flipping great wodges of cash on new buildings, new office space, and hiring an entire phalanx of administrative assistants, not to mention having hired a number of people into imaginary roles in the first place (Office of Organizational Development, anyone?).

Despite the fact that our little group is way, way, way in the black on our budget this year, we were asked to cut back our budgeted expenses by a painful amount, which at the end of the day amounted to gacking somebody. So we ended up losing this lady who worked for me. There are other circumstances that surround this woman, but let's just say that she got sacked because the Director wanted to end up with the best team after the cut (meaning, the group of people most likely to be team players).

The whole affair was bloody, partly because of the person's personality, and partly because she was going through a difficult personal time anyway (sick and dying relatives), and because she was physically ill during the two days we were going to let her go. Because the CEO wanted all layoffs completed quickly, the Director was more or less ordered to complete the layoff over the telephone.

Ugh. Ugh, I say.

So I called my ex-employee the next day to check in and see how she was holding up. She then proceeded to hold me up over the phone for the better part of an hour, reaming virtually everyone at the company in absentia and spewing bile and venom all over the mouthpiece. Turns out that everybody else in the department deserved to get sacked instead of her, and that the Director was and is an idiot, a liar, and an all-around bad person. And we should be ashamed. And she hopes we fail.

Oooookeydokeeeeey.

In case you are wondering, Gentle Reader, Yours Truly spent the duration of this call punctuating her rant every minute or so with a well-timed "ohh.." or "tsk...gosh, (employee's name)," all in the name of tea and sympathy. Man, being empathetic sucks sometimes!

Later that afternoon she called back, this time in tears, to thank me for my earlier call, and to melt down on the phone. This time it wasn't hard to feel sympathy.

But I sure earned my big beer at the end of the day. Layoffs are just nasty business.

China Tour Report 3: Pedicures!

2005-09-22T14:41:00.000-04:00

Shel and I had to adjust our plans multiple times because we ran out of time to do things. One thing that we planned to do and which we got in early in the trip was a trip to get pedicures!

Yeah, I said pedicures. And hey, I got a manicure while I was there, too! See, I'm comfortable in my masculinity.

What?

Fine, think what you want. Anyway, the cool thing about this place is that because A) they wanted our money, and B) the place was on the fourth floor of a big market, we were able to walk in, sit down, and have them bring us cold beer while they worked on us. Sweet!

See, I had beer. In a can. That's manly!

And Shel and S got some great designs on their toesies. Look, lilies!

China Tour Report 2: At the Chaoyang Open-Air Market

2005-09-18T17:02:00.000-04:00

On another day in Beijing, we went a-questing for knickknacks, gewgaws, and other baubles at one of the largest open-air markets in Beijing. From pottery to brass figurines to teasets to souvenir soldiers, this place crams it all in under a single sprawling covered square.

Here are a few pictures of the market as a whole:

Lining this square are various shops and such, which typically carry more expensive items of the sort that a collector might be interested in. We visited one such shop that sells shutter frames salvaged from wooden screens and friezes. These shutters, as you will see, are typically hand carved jobs, over which gold paint, gold leaf, or any of a number of different varnishes and stains are applied.

The shutters and the shop:

It may appear, Gentle Reader, that all we did was shop. Never fear: though we certainly did a lot of that, we did do other things, as you will soon see. Also, because we hit the big tourist sites during our last visit, you won't see any pics of the Great Wall, The Forbidden City, or Tianenmen Square here. But stay tuned for pics of our tour of the hutongs, my love affair with Chinese street food, and our trip to lovely Shanghai.

China Tour Report 1: At the Wu Mei Mini-Mart

2005-09-17T15:01:00.000-04:00

While in Beijing, we visited the Wu Mei Mini-Mart, which is like the Chinese folks' equivalent of a Wal-Mart. By which I mean that's where the everyday folks go to buy their food and necessaries. It ain't neat, and it ain't pretty. But oh, the things you can buy!

Outside there's a kite market, along with people cooking and selling a few items like ice cream and cold drinks. JW spent some time practicing his Zhongwen with a guy who was making noodles.

Inside, there was a market-type place, where people brought in their produce to sell. We got some pears and grapes, and some candy as well. Unfortunately, lychees are out of season, so I tried to get some lychee-flavored gummy candy. What I bought tasted like sweetened car joint grease.

1. The guy has this cart with a gas powered griddle on top. He spreads a thin batter over the top, cracks a couple of eggs on it, and sprinkles on some fresh green onion.
2. Then, he flips the thing over and spreads on a savory sauce -- probably some kind of soybean paste or sauce. If you like (and I do), he'll also spread on some hot pepper sauce.
3. He puts a fried, er, fritter or something in the middle (like a big flat potato chip), and uses the spatula to break it into foldable pieces.
4. Lastly, he folds the thing up with a spatula,
5. And serves it to you piping hot in a napkin. Eeeeeeeeeeyummmmmmaaaaaaay!

The Roost

Dungeons & Dragons & Dropped Calls

Podcastapalooza

Many Partings

There and Back Again

Yes, I suppose it has

Because my hair is not worth it

Lazy day in Oak Park

R getting some R & R & GTD

2009 Bulwer-Lytton Winners

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, keep moving

If I am encouraging others to write...

GTD?

Anybody Getting Things Done?

I don't have a damn thing to say

Four More Years!

Yes, I am a twit

Homeward?

You can never unsee this

I am the juiciest rock star EVAH

For Paul, and all comic lovers

Halo 3 Macro of the Day: ESB

Screw Halloween -- It's NaNoWriMo Eve!

Halo 3 Macro of the Day

Halo 3 Macro of the Day

Myriad Reasons to Do the Dew

Ya know, there's a limit

In line for Halo 3

The Heart Knows Its Own Sorrow

Thank you, thank you, ye gods of Bungie

You Rappin' Good!

Parte The Seventh

All the eUniverse is composed of net elements

Maa-Cuuuu-Roooossss....Maa-Cuuuu-Roooosss!

Back in Blak

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Eleventh, Hon

Beyond Awesome

Flight of the Conchords -- Streaming!

As ye go forth out of that house

I hate not having my own woodshop

Tales of the Tarmac Boy

No, I haven't

Allow Me to Inspire You: Game Over, Yeah, Part Deux

Game Over YEAAAAAAAAAH!

Wuxtry

Wii Collateral Damage - SWEET!

This can't be a good sign

You are here

Redesign Ideas-a-Go-Go

Can't freaking write

Google Groups: Past Lives Revisited

Sitting in a Damn Marriott in Eden Prairie, MN

Auburn VS. South Carolina, Part Deux

Auburn VS. South Carolina

Lostheads, feast your eyes on this!

You been gone so long; where you been for so long?

Believe in me, and I in you

Master and Commuter

So That's Where We've Been, and Where We've Been Headed

The System is Down...The System Is Down...

Job Description: Living Dead

Todd Likes Pie

On Treaties, Trowels, and Teaching

Complete and Utter Pwnage

Some Wireless Networks Demand Connection

Wasted, Parte the Umpteenthe

Mis-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE

Rollin' With the White Wolf

Six Hours to Tranquility

Off to Martin as Bon Jovi Enters; Exeunt Severally, Pursued By Beers

Dwight Dreams the Impossible Dream: Battlestar Galactica / Lost Crossover!

ISP Switcheroo - Stay Tuned

The King Who Would Not Be The Man

Championship Crap Prose

All in the Family

Wuxtry

Arise, my new hard drive!

Hard drive disaster...

Generous Thinker?