It's a blah blah blah kind of week. Thankfully it's Bullet Sunday with some good things to the rescue!
• Music! One of those shows that I wish I could quit, but can never seem to stop watching is Grey's Anatomy. They just keep doing things to keep it interesting, and the stories are (usually) pretty good. But the best thing about the show is the music, and I've lost count of the number of great songs I've found from watching Grey's. This week it was Mackintosh Braun (a band I had never heard of before) and their song Could it Be. Turns out the entire album is great, and now I'm a fan...
Well done Shonda Rhimes and the rest of the people responsible for Grey's Anatomy not sucking too badly. Now please fix Christina and move past the whole "hospital shooting" crap which has been lingering for far too long.
• Pooh! This caught be completely by surprise... Disney is coming out with a new Pooh movie on July 15, 2011 called (appropriately enough) Winnie the Pooh!...
Beautiful! Thank heavens they didn't feel the need to recreate the look of the series in 3-D or use computer animation or some other stupid shit like that. The Keane song is perfect, and just the icing on the cake. I hate seeing movies in theaters any more because people are assholes, but I'll make an exception for this.
• Veterans! Thanks once again to Applebee's for treating veterans to a free meal on Veteran's Day this week. It seems as though they were making money hand-over-fist from all the people who were there with veterans that were not veterans (like me!), so I can only hope that it's a win-win event for them.
• High! I've mentioned plenty of time that I have a paralyzing fear of heights, and always have to psych myself up when traveling because all the good touristy stuff seems to be up high. Recently I watched a television program about the "Grand Canyon SkyWalk" which goes beyond scary for somebody like me...
Photo from the official Grand Canyon Skywalk Site.
While searching for a photo on the internet which shows the glass floor, I came across this shot...
Shiiiiiiit! Photo from GloboTreks.
The GloboTreks article is called "7 of the Most Impressive Skywalks in the World", and I've only seen one of them in person: the Sears Tower "Ledge" in Chicago...
Yes, it's just as scary as you'd think it would be.
They might as well call this list "7 Places Guaranteed to Make Dave2 Crap His Pants"... because, damn... just look at some of these terrifying things. Of course, if I should ever visit any of these instruments of torture, I'd definitely force myself to experience them. I always do. But I'm sure my "experience" would consist of me crawling on my hands and knees while crying for my mommy. After crapping my pants. Because, damn...
• TV on DVD! Tonight I found out that one of those long-forgotten television shows I've been begging to come out on DVD, Palace Guard, actually DID get released on DVD back in July! Apparently all nine episodes are included on some kind of massive 10-disc retrospective called Prime Time Crime: The Stephen J. Cannell Collection. It seemed a total bargain at just $22, so I scraped together the money and ordered it immediately. I previously described the show thusly...
The best role of D.W. Moffett's versatile career, and a show that I find impossible to understand how it failed... The Palace Guard certainly seemed like a crowd pleaser, and was mindless fun in a way people usually respond to. PLOT: Moffett is a career jewel thief who is caught and imprisoned. As a part of his parole, he gets a job as a security expert in a megalith hotel chain. A Moonlighting-like twist is thrown in when he starts to fall for his boss (Marcy Walker) who pretends to despise him but, of course, is falling for him as well.
I can't wait to watch the show again and see if it holds up as well as I remember it. If only television studios would get off their asses and release some of my other favorites (even selling them on iTunes so they don't have to go to the expense of pressing DVDs would be great)...
Now it's back to blah blah blah...
Rain is pouring down so hard that it seems as if there's a waterfall outside my window. Gale force winds are howling so loudly that it sounds like somebody is screaming into a megaphone outside my door. I fully expect the roof to be blown off any minute. I hope the windshield wipers are still on my car. Assuming my car hasn't been blown away. Seriously, I wish I could record this, because it's like the apocalypse is going on right now and I have a ringside seat.
And just now the lights started flickering, so I can only guess it's a matter of time before the power goes out. Yay.
Looks like I picked the wrong night to give up insomnia.
Last night I got a grand total of two hours sleep. Tonight is shaping up to be worse.
The good news is that at least I have something to look forward to tomorrow. At least according to Apple's website...
Rumor has it that The Beatles are finally coming to the iTunes Music Store. This is kind of stupid to be getting this excited about, because anybody who's a Beatles fan has already ripped their CDs into iTunes long ago.
I hope it's something more... memorable.
And... the lights just went out and my internet just died. Guess this isn't getting posted tonight.
UPDATE: Internet and power are back! Who knows for how long, so I won't waste any more time getting this nonsense posted!
As predicted by just about everybody, The Beatles have finally come to Apple's iTunes Music Store. Yes, at long last, one of the greatest bands of all time (if not the greatest) has their music for sale by the world's largest music retailer.
As a huge Beatles fan, this is the moment I've been waiting for. When I first "discovered" The Beatles (thanks to my Beatle-loving uncle), I ended up buying all their albums... but on compact cassette tape. Any audiophile reading this blog just started laughing their ass off, but I'm from the cassette generation, and that's just how we bought music back in the day. Not to mention the fact that a Walkman was far easier to carry around than a phonograph and a stack of records...
I had super-awesome yellow Walkman Sports cassette player like this. (Photo by Stephen McFall).
Laugh all you want but, in my defense, at least it wasn't 8-track.
Since you can't rip a tape into an MP3 file without some trickery, I borrowed CDs of all The Beatles albums that I owned on cassette and ripped them to iTunes that way. Technically, I did already own the music, so I didn't consider it to be stealing (so go fuck yourself, RIAA). The problem is that I eventually threw out the cassettes (no way to play them!), and I always felt funny that I couldn't point to the music on my shelf and say "yes, I own them."
Hence, the reason I've been waiting for The Beatles to be sold on iTunes... I want to be "legal" in the eyes of the law. And here was my chance, because I had a $75 cash rebate card burning a hole in my pocket!
But let's back up for a minute...
Last year, every Beatles fan's dream came true when beautiful remastered boxed sets were released of the entire Beatles catalog. Of particular interest to me was the limited edition Mono Box Set. In my humble opinion, mono is the only way to listen to most the first ten Beatles albums* because they were designed to be listened to that way by The Fab Four Themselves. The stereo versions were nothing more than a cobbled-together afterthought that usually sounded hollow and freakishly incoherent in my headphones. Some of the albums are so badly separated into stereo (even on the remasters) that they don't even seem like the same songs. My guess is that stereo was kind of a novelty back in the beginning, so they separated the recording as harshly as possible into distinct left and right channels with no middle in an attempt to make you really notice the technology. Well, you do... and it's overbearing in places... so I don't like it and would rather listen to those gorgeously crisp and brilliant mono tracks the way that God (and The Beatles) intended.
The Limited Edition Mono Box Set looked fantastic, but it was selling for $250 (at discount!) and I couldn't afford it, as much as I was dying to own it...
At the time of release, I said "Hopefully when the songs make it to iTunes, you'll be able to buy the mono versions there."
Which brings us to today...
Much to my profound disappointment, all the tracks in the iTunes Store are from the stereo remasters, which are exactly the versions I don't want. This shocked the hell out of me, because it was my understanding that Steve Jobs Himself is a massively huge Beatles fan, and I assumed he would be a stickler for at least offering the true fan's preferred mono versions of the songs. But, alas, they are nowhere to be found.
Shit.
Assuming that the Limited Edition Mono Box Set would have long-since sold out and only be available on eBay for thousands of dollars, I went to Amazon and nearly wet myself. Not only was the Mono Set still available, the price had actually dropped to $129.99! This was mind-boggling. That's almost 60% less than the original retail price of $300!
Score.
Without hesitation, I bought the set.
On the down-side, I won't be getting all the cool iTunes LP extras that you get when you buy from Apple... and I have to spend hours ripping the CDs... and I still have to buy the three remaining stereo albums not in the set (which I will be getting from iTunes)... but, on the up-side, I'm getting the actual music I've been dying for. At last. No thanks to Apple.
And, where The Beatles are concerned, it's their music that's important.
* The possible exception being "The White Album" which sounds amazing in stereo.
Today was a whirlwind of pain and suffering.
Okay, not really... but it was a very difficult day. After a night of absolutely no sleep, I had to be ready for a trip to Seattle at 6:00am. Fortunately, I wasn't driving, so at least the danger of me passing out and causing a twenty-car pileup on the highway was lessened by 74%. The drive over the mountain passes was mostly uneventful. A lot of rain, but clear sailing from start to finish.
After nine hours of work, it was time to turn around and go back home.
To say road conditions had changed would be a massive understatement.
The snow was dropping so heavily that you could barely see the road. Let alone the cars in front of you...
Despite chains or all-wheel drive being required, I counted two semi-trucks skidded into the ditch, a half-dozen accidents, and police cars everywhere. As we got across the pass, we saw that the East-bound lanes had all been closed...
Since it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in that photo... it's a police car closing the road with miles and miles of traffic stacked behind him. Since there's no way to turn around and go back, all the people in that line would just have to sit there until the pass re-opens, which was probably hours.
Anyway...
Made it home safely, where I promptly took some sleeping pills and climbed into bed.
Then remembered I hadn't blogged, so I climbed back out of bed and wrote this. You are welcome!
Tonight I couldn't decide what to eat for dinner so I made waffles. They were tasty.
That was the most interesting part of my day.
In many ways I'm okay with my total lack of excitement this fine Thursday because tomorrow I'll be traveling all day, and we all know what an adventure that can be.
In the meanwhile, it's just waffles...
Waffles and dreams. Waffles and dreams.
I hate... HATE... Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
And this is coming from somebody who lives according to a belief system that advocates not "hating" anything. But SeaTac brings it out of me almost every single time I pass through. Which is a lot, as you might imagine, given the amount of travel I have to endure.
Before I get into today's edition of Yet Another Reason I Hate Seattle Tacoma International Airport, a warning...
Given that this is SeaTac we're talking about, I fully plan on cursing like a drunken sailor. Heck, the situation practically demands near continuous use of the word "fuck" in new and creative ways. If something like that offends you, then you should probably not read the rest of the entry.
Instead, look at the picture of this cute kitten and I'll see you tomorrow...
For the rest of you brave souls, this nonsense continue in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
"The venom of a black mamba can kill a human in four hours if, say, bitten on the ankle or the thumb. However, a bite to the face or torso can bring death from paralysis within 20 minutes. Now, you should listen to this, 'cause this concerns you. The amount of venom that can be delivered from a single bite can be gargantuan (you know, I've always liked that word... "gargantuan"... so rarely have an opportunity to use it in a sentence). If not treated quickly with anti-venom, 10 to 15 milligrams can be fatal to human beings. However, the black mamba can deliver as much as 100 to 400 milligrams of venom from a single bite."
— Elle Driver, Kill Bill Volume 2
When I travel, it's often for a job that occurs at a specific time whether I am there or not. Because of this, I often fly in a day early, just in case my flight is delayed or some other problem rears its ugly head (like yesterday!). This is especially necessary in winter, when travel problems pop up all the time. The bad news is that I lose a day back home where there's tons of crap waiting to be done. The good news is that if I do make it to my destination on-time, I have a day to goof off.
Like today.
I awoke early so I could get my work done and head into the city for some much needed time off. Unfortunately, things didn't get done as quickly as I had hoped, and I couldn't leave until noon. But half-a-day in Atlanta is better than none. Except I had to go all the way up to the Lenox Mall to buy a new power adaptor for my MacBook when I discovered the one I brought had mysteriously died overnight. With delay piled on top of delay (not to mention waiting 35 minutes for a train!), I missed my opportunity to visit ICE-Atlanta, and instead decided to wander around downtown Atlanta to see if I could find something new to do.
I couldn't.
So I decided to do something I haven't done in a while... go to the top of the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere: The Westin Peachtree Plaza. Given my fear of heights it wasn't exactly the funnest thing for me to do, but it was a nice day and I hadn't been up it since my first trip to Atlanta ten years ago. I probably would have gone up earlier, but was scared away by all the scaffolding as they replaced windows that were damaged by the tornado that hit Atlanta in 2008.
Anyway...
After ascending the 73 stories, this is what I saw...
That turquoise-looking dome is the top of the Hard Rock Cafe
After wandering around adding stamps to my Gowalla collection, it was time for pumpkin beer at 5 Seasons Brewing Co. with The Muskrat, Whipstitch, and Geeky Tai Tai and friends!
Which is really the best reason to come to Atlanta.
And now it's off to work...
Welcome to a very special The Walking Dead edition of Bullet Sunday!
As I mentioned yesterday, when I travel for work I have to go a day early to be sure I arrive on-time. What I didn't mention is that I also stay an extra day later just in case my work time has to be moved. Like it did today. Instead of starting on the job this morning, I'm instead starting tomorrow morning... leaving me with a free day to do whatever. So after getting caught up on some other work, I decided to explore the beautiful rural Georgia countryside... which just so happens to be filled with locations from The Walking Dead comic book! I've been meaning to do this for a while, but work always comes first and I've never had the time.
• Map! Luckily for me (and every other fan of The Walking Dead comic), somebody has created a very cool Google Map overlay with updated information of location from the series (WARNING: MAP CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!). This makes it easy to plan a trip to see some of the sights. I decided to focus on those around the Thomaston area where I'm staying...
I could have gone a bit further north, but many of those locations are private residences and the like, so I restrained myself to the more public locations.
• Woodbury! Introduced in issue 27 of The Walking Dead, Woodbury is a critical location where a lot of stuff goes down (for those watching the television series, this is a ways off). While the town in the comic book is quite a bit different than real-life Woodbury, it's still worth a visit. Seeing the actual place makes the comic come to life. Like many places I've seen in the area, the Woodbury Police Dept. was decked out for the holidays, which is kind of nice...
But the most interesting thing about Woodbury to me was to be found in front of the Woodbury Pharmacy...
Soda pop machines! (in the Pacific Northwest we say "pop" but I'm originally from California where it's "soda" so I usually merge the two... here in Georgia, everybody says "Coke" for most every soda pop type beverage). And it wasn't just any kind of soda pop they were selling... there was a lot of really cool flavors, some of which I have never heard of before, including "Grapico" and "Sunkist Peach"...
But the best part? The sodas were cheap! Fanta cans were 40¢! Pepsi product cans were 50¢! Bottles were just $1! I haven't seen it this inexpensive in a very long time. Interestingly enough, there was a steady stream of cars stopping at the pharmacy to use the soda pop vending machines... even though the pharmacy itself is closed on weekends. As I sat there drinking my peach and grape fizzy drinks, I saw some pretty interesting people show up for their non-Coke Coke fix.
Woodbury has a rather sad number of empty (abandoned?) buildings, some of which were very cool to photograph...
• Gay! As I headed to my next location, I stopped off in Gay, Georgia, home of the Cotton Pickin' Fair twice each year...
The city of Gay has a very small population, but they still have a Town Hall building...
• Concord. I had no intent of stopping along the way to my next destination, but as I passed through the small city of Concord, I saw something that changed my mind...
It's the Concord United Methodist Church facing off with the Concord Baptist Church at high noon! It was a bit strange how they were built not facing the main road... but instead facing each other. I'm sure there's a story there, but I can't guess what it might be...
• Zebulon! I remarked on Twitter that "Zebulon" sounds like a town that has been taken over by space aliens. Because, seriously, doesn't "Zebulon" sound like an alien overlord right out of Planetfall or something? Despite the rather odd name, the town itself is quite nice, with the beautiful Pike Co. Courthouse Square and charming shops. But I was not here for Zebulon, I was here for "The Prison"... AKA "West Central Prison"... AKA "West Central Pre-Release Center of the Georgia Department of Corrections"...
Introduced at the end of issue 12, "The Prison" is arguably one of the most important locations in the entire run of The Walking Dead so far (and is probably going to be introduced in the second season of the television show). The sheer volume of story that happens here dominates the first 50 issues of the comic, and to see it in person... even just from the outside... is kind of chill-inducing...
I drove next door to a sports park so I could see the location from the vantage point of "Hershel's Garden." Again, it's quite different from the prison in the comic, but seeing the location still adds atmosphere to the story...
That's it for The Walking Dead Bullets... but I've got more in an extended entry!
I am staying all alone. In a huge house. On a dark street. In rural Georgia.
What's the worst thing I could do right before bedtime? Watch the latest creepy episode of The Walking Dead... which is taking place just 15 minutes from my bedroom, that's what!
Now, I am not one to scare easily. I could sit through a marathon of horror flicks before bedtime and not give it another thought. But tonight every creak in the floorboards... every leaf scuttering down the roof... every branch tapping on the window... every noise in the night... it all added up to make me, well, not scared really... but uneasy.
Needless to say, last night was rough going in the sleep department.
There may not be any real undead wandering around Georgia, but I certainly feel like a zombie today...
In other news, LEGO Harry Potter (Years 1-4) for iPhone is pretty sweet. And I don't even like Harry Potter! But I do like the LEGO games (LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, and LEGO Indiana Jones are awesome!). In the game you can play Harry and dozens of other characters you unlock, then run around solving puzzles and collecting LEGO studs to buy stuff. Just like all the other LEGO titles, you can play through each level multiple times as different characters to unlock even more secrets with their special abilities.
The game looks
Get used to this load-screen, you'll be seeing it a lot.
A lot of work went into this London cut-scene!
LEGO humor in full force: note the Harry Potter mini-fig on his keychain!
The game screens are no less detailed, but you're viewing them from rather far away, so you're not seeing game elements at their fullest. Still, an impressive picture...
Zooming in, you can see the clarity of the hi-res Retina Screen graphics (I'll bet the game looks incredible on the iPad!)...
Despite the fun I'm having with it, there are some problems, however. First of all, the load screen comes up A LOT, and scenes take a while to transfer. This results in a lot of staring at the load screen over and over again. It gets old in a hurry. But the biggest (and only major) offense is the control system. You control characters and interact with objects by dragging your finger across the screen... effectively covering up what you're supposed to be looking at! It's tough to solve puzzles when your finger is obliterating them. It's hard to control Harry when your finger covers him up. It's a heinous oversight that I don't understand. I can only hope that they eventually update and give you the option of controlling things with an
All-in-all, you can't beat the mind-boggling price of just $4.99. It's a fraction of what you'd pay on the Nintendo DS, Wii, XBox, or Playstation versions! If you have a supported device to play it, LEGO Harry Potter (Years 1-4) is well-worth the download.
I just wish I had the time to actually play it. :-(
And lastly...
These "It Gets Better" videos just keep flooring me. The crushing despair, fear, and pain that people go through every day just for being "different" is almost impossible to believe. If we weren't seeing the tragic consequences of the bullying in the news, it would be impossible to believe. I just can't fathom how somebody could intentionally make another human being feel as though their life was worth so little that death is the only option left. It's sickening on a level that makes my heart ache just to listen to it. But we must listen to it, because things have to get better. For all of us.
This video from people at Disney/Pixar is pretty amazing and hopeful...
I wish I wouldn't have to keep wishing that all the bigoted assholes who make this world such a horrible place would hurry up and die so we can have a world I'm not ashamed to live in.
Because, in truth, it makes me no better.
But I'm somehow okay with that.
Work was supposed to end at 10:30 last night. I finally finished at 4:40am this morning. It's not a big deal... just the way the job goes sometimes... but it left me in a seriously debilitated state when my alarm went off at 7:00am. That's two nights in a row with no sleep.
This did not bode well for my drive back to work to turn in my badge and car. Especially since a nasty fog had descended on the Georgia countryside...
But I survived the trip so no harm, no foul.
When I arrived back at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, I checked into my hotel, did not pass GO, did not collect $200, and collapsed onto the bed. Nothing would have made me happier than to sleep the next ten hours, but the last thing I wanted was for my sleep schedule to get screwed up, so I forced myself to stop at just two.
Then it was time to head downtown and see what kind of trouble I could get into.
And eat dinner.
And get really, really wet.
When I exited the MARTA train stop at Peachtree Center, I was immediately assaulted by pouring rain. This caught me by surprise, because there was no hint of it when I left my hotel. After just five minutes I was soaked to the bone. This made for a miserable dinner, but I didn't want to waste the 35-minute trip so I wandered through Centennial Olympic Park. World of Coke Without Lime looked kind of cool in the dreary Atlanta rain...
It's John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola!
Since I was already wet, I walked around town for a while and ended up back at The Westin. With nothing better to do I decided to take another trip to the top and see the city at night, which I had never done before. Unfortunately, the windows were covered in rain, but the photos I took looked kind of cool anyway...
Then across the street to see if the Hard Rock Cafe had any cool pins I couldn't live without...
And that was all I could manage. Mostly because my feet were getting all wrinkly.
Back to the MARTA train...
...and my warm, dry, comfy hotel bed.
Tomorrow I'll be flying on the busiest travel day of the year. I wonder if I'll end up with anything to blog about?
Today was declared "No Fly Day" by some ass-hats who think that punishing the airlines for something they have no control over is a good way to send a message to the TSA. Evidently, somebody finally told them that this was pretty fucking stupid, so they changed tactics and "No Fly Day" became "Opt-Out Day" where everybody is supposed to decline being scanned by the new intrusive airport scanners which display your junk on TV. Instead, we're supposed to opt-in for the new heavy-petting pat-down where the TSA makes sweet, sweet love to your fun zones. Personally, I don't see this as an upgrade, but hey... whatever floats your boat.
When I was flying out of Atlanta this morning, the TSA was indeed using the new intrusive
It's not that I am opposed to security measures which make us safer when flying. On the contrary... if I thought a shot of radiation to my balls and a sensual massage would make us safer, then by all means sign me up for both!
The problem is that neither does shit to make us safer.
Since my previous attempt at explaining why was confusing because I was vague, this time I'll spell it out with pictures. For the sake of argument, let's say that the TSA decided that both a porn show and a crotch-rub were now required to fly...
Now, clearly this is an exaggeration (they'd never let a monkey fly unaccompanied), but my points here are these...
In other words... THESE NEW PROCEDURES ARE FUCKING BULLSHIT DUMBASSERY, AND WHOEVER IS MAKING THESE INSANELY EXPENSIVE AND INEFFECTIVE DECISIONS SHOULD BE PUNCHED IN THE FACE THEN KICKED THE FUCK OUT OF THEIR JOB!! I'm so not kidding. I can only guess that the idiots who set these polices own stock in intrusive scanner companies, or are getting some kind of massive kick-back from them. Nothing else makes any sense.
People are quick to say "If there was ever another terrorist attack, then you'd be screaming that the TSA didn't do enough... at least they're trying to keep us safe! To which I say "bullshit."
BULL. SHIT.
In my humble (ha!) opinion, the question should be "What happens when another terrorist attack occurs because some morons smuggled a couple pounds of plastique explosives up their asses and it wasn't detected by intrusive scanners (which don't penetrate skin, apparently) or getting felt-up? You've blown your totally-ineffective safety wad, so what then?"
Look, metal detectors and private screenings (when warranted) are basic security measures that I don't have any argument with. Even though they can be thwarted rather easily by somebody who is intent on thwarting them, they probably discourage general dumbassery, so fine. Go ahead and take our bottles of water and look at my shoes in an X-ray machine. Really, knock yourselves out. But until somebody can prove to me that these ridiculously stupid "enhanced security measures" are worth the cost, inconvenience, violation, embarrassment, and time... then what the fuck?
Until then, I understand people's frustration with the stupidity we're being forced to endure, and support thoughtful, respectful objections when directed to the place they're deserved.
Which does not include the TSA agent employees who are just doing their fucking jobs.
To wit...
After clearing Atlanta security in a mere 20 minutes (way to go ATL!), I gathered up my stuff and wandered off looking for Auntie Anne's Pretzels (she's in Terminal A, if you're curious). As I was walking back to my gate hoping that the crack-cocaine they put in the pretzels to make them so darn addictive wasn't at a dangerous level, I overheard a woman going off about how the TSA agents are all just a bunch of disgusting perverts and "gate rapists." This had me curious, so I followed her for a bit (I had two hours to kill) so I could listen to her ranting. After I had finally had enough, I resisted the urge to explain a few things to her...
In the end, I don't know what the answer is. As should be obvious, I am fully against these stupid new "enhanced security measures" which do nothing to better keep us safe. Since I travel a lot, I don't want to expose myself to radiation whenever I travel... no matter how small the amount because that shit adds up. And I really don't want some guy feeling around my junk whenever I have to catch a flight. Otherwise I might not care.
But I do. I have to.
There's probably an answer out there somewhere. Maybe it's a new technology we haven't discovered yet. Maybe it's an old technology we can use differently. So let's get to work on that, because this is some seriously important shit. What we shouldn't do is waste our time, privacy, and money on the crap that doesn't work.
Like porn shows and erotic massage.
Which is not nearly as much fun as it sounds (in this case, anyway) and should be stopped.
Like yesterday.
I'm thankful for a lot of things. Today I'm most thankful that I'm not a turkey...
I drew this three years ago, and it still pretty much sums up how I feel about the holiday. While I am a vegetarian, I am not a militant vegetarian who tells people not to eat meat, because I feel it's a personal choice everyone has to make for themselves. But meat is just so dang easy now-a-days, and I don't think people truly appreciate the creature that gave up its life for their meal. I wonder if people had to kill the poor turkey with their own two hands how many of them would still feel like serving one up for Thanksgiving dinner?
Anyway... I hope everybody has a happy Thanksgiving! And I hope everybody is just a little thankful for that slice of turkey on their plate. After all, he was a happy little bird at one time...
Baby turkey photo from Wikimedia Commons by Kristie Gianopulos.
And now I get to be thankful that I've got a suitcase to unpack.
Which I definitely am because the alternative is packing a suitcase and, with all the snow and ice that's landed, I'd just as soon stay home for a while.
One of my favorite blogs is Letters of Note, which is a fascinating collection of letters by famous persons which have been nicely transcribed. I happened across it a year ago while researching Alan Moore's work on Marvelman, and have been a huge fan ever since. Pulling a few recent entries from the webfeed, there's a letter from John Lennon saying Yoko Ono doesn't sweat, a speech for President Nixon if the moon landing should fail, John Byrne's introduction of Kitty Pryde to X-Men, and a letter from J.K. Rowling to a young fan about her plan for seven Harry Potter books. The site is addictive, and there's some amazing stuff to be found in their well-organized archives.
It's all good stuff, but this morning's entry "To My Widow," is particularly touching. It's a letter written by doomed South Pole explorer Robert Falcon Scott to his wife when he realized the expedition party wouldn't survive the journey back...
I became interested in the so-called "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration" after visiting Frammuseet (The Fram Museum) in Norway, which is home to a ship used for expeditions to both of earth's poles... including the Amundsen Antarctic expedition which beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole by 35 days...
It's a fascinating period in history, and one which has been continuously reinterpreted since it began. Historians have alternately praise Robert Falcon Scott as a hero, then dismissed him as incompetent. Despite all that, Scott's journal (which has been brilliantly reproduced in blog-form!) makes for interesting reading. Humans are at their best and worst while on the cusp of discovery and high adventure, and first-hand historical accounts are a treasure.
In other news... it's Black Friday today! A magical time for our consumerism culture to run amok!
I try hard not to buy something "just because it's on sale," so this day isn't particularly special to me. But I do need to get a new television to replace my ailing one, so I'll keep my eyes open and see if anything interesting turns up. Hopefully I'll find something before mine dies completely, because television is where humanity finds itself on the cusp of awesome discoveries and high adventure
Or at least it will be until the last episode of Hannah Montana airs early next year.
For some reason I thought that I had already written in my blog today, but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was I had written about. So you can imagine my surprise when I clicked through to Blogography and found that the reason I couldn't remember was because I hadn't written anything.
Well crap.
It's not as if anything blog-worthy happened, as I spent my entire day working. This means I'll either have to dredge up something from my past, bitch about something going on in the news, or bow out gracefully with a monkey cartoon.
I'll choose door number one. Because, let's face it, a rant about all the bullshit that's filling the news now-a-days could take pages. And Bad Monkey is still recovering from his run-in with the TSA.
The above photo is of me and my Valentine Love Rocket. At this point in my life, I still had delusions of becoming an astronaut, so most of my time was spent thinking about escaping my earthly confines and going into space. Even when it came to making a Valentine card box for school. Surprisingly, I remember most everything about this scary craft project, which is odd considering I can't explain why I'm wearing that headache-inducing shirt. Nor can I explain why my hairstyle was stolen from Mr. Spock.
I remember that the body of the rocket is made from ice cream tubs. The top capsule is made from a small coffee can (I think it was Folgers, but I remember it being green, so that's probably not right). The rockets on the bottom are plastic cups that should have been spray-painted silver, but I ran out of time (then, as now, I tended to procrastinate until the last possible moment).
Not that I want to critique my younger self, but that "rocket" is pretty much crap, isn't it? No wonder I couldn't ever get into NASA.
Well that was fun. Tune in tomorrow as I procrastinate Bullet Sunday.
It's a crash-and-burn kind of Bullet Sunday. Every time I get started on in on a project, something comes along to bring everything to a screeching halt.
• Goodbye. Leslie Nielsen, who will forever be Lt. Frank Drebin to me, passed away today. I've lost count of the times I've watched his Police Squad! episodes and movies. Absolute classics in every sense of the word. Thanks for the many, many laughs over the years, sir! You will be missed.
Oh, and one more thing... I faked every orgasm!
• Alcohol. There's a meme going around encouraging people to share an uncommon alcoholic beverage that they've enjoyed. Since the only thing I drink now-a-days is Jägermeister in Red Bull or Vodka with cranberry juice, this is a tough one. About the only "uncommon" drink I can remember would be "POGaritas" which was a favorite with my friends and I on our trips to Maui, Hawaii in the late 80's and early 90's. "POG" is a popular juice-like drink (POG standing for "Passionfruit, Orange, Guava") invented in Maui (but is now sold State-side as well). For a POGarita, just mix a decent tequila with POG. Instead of a slice of lime for garnish, you use a wedge of pineapple. You can put sugar on the rim, but it tastes best when simply blended and served plain in whatever clean glassware you can find...
You have to be careful though, because the fruity flavor of POG camouflages a multitude of tequila-rooted sins. You can drink one after another and not really notice you're getting bombed until it's too late...
Don't judge my drunken ass too harshly. When it rains in Maui, about the only thing you can do is drink. I think this was from a trip in 1987... which was 23 years ago. If I had tons of money and no responsibilities, this would be how I spend my life today.
• Radiation Check. Holy crap... it just keeps getting worse. Why you should never submit to the airport porn-o-scanners.
• Bottom Gear. Just about every attempt by American television networks to recreate a popular British television series has resulted in total failure. With the possible exception of The Office, I can't even think of a show that's managed not to suck. Hard. I guess you could include American Idol in there, but I can't watch that show, so I don't care. The latest travesty is one of my most favorite British shows, Top Gear. It's tremendously entertaining on just about every level, mostly thanks to the awesome presenters...
Richard "Hamster" Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James "Captain Slow" May
The big picture here is that the show doesn't need to be re-made. It translates perfectly to American audiences with almost no confusion, and BBC America should have just made a deal with one of our major networks to air it "as-is"... I think it would be a big success. Heck, it's already a big success for BBC America (which, unfortunately, not many people have here).
But oh no... instead we've got The History Channel (of all places) doing a re-make.
And it sucks.
I watched the first episode and hated it. But I chalked that up to having an emotional attachment to the original, and felt I probably wasn't giving it a fair shake. So I watched a second episode.
And it still sucks.
They're copying absolutely everything from the British original, but somehow failing at it. The presenters just aren't entertaining. They have -zero- chemistry. They're definitely not funny. All the "humor" on the show is badly forced and not even worth a chuckle. It's the exact opposite of what Jeremy Clarkson and Co. have going on the REAL Top Gear. Thankfully, my cable package includes BBC America so I can see it. I'm just pissed that many Americans will see the shitty re-make and think that "Top Gear" is terrible when they're not even watching Top Gear.
• DaveToon Redux. I rarely laugh at the cartoons I draw for Blogography. I'm usually too embarrassed over having slapped together yet another crappy piece of Colorforms art. Given the time constraints I almost always have, there's not much I can do about it, but it still bothers me. And yet... every once in a while something comes out of it that gets me to smile. This time it was the TSA cartoon I made for Bad Monkey. Specifically, one piece of one panel of that series...
I have no idea why, but seeing this makes me laugh my ass off every time. I'm laughing as I type this. I think it's because that one panel sums up who Bad Monkey is. He's once again gotten away with something he shouldn't have, and his smug victory stance as he walks away from all consequences of his actions defines his personality perfectly.
I need this on a T-shirt.
And, on that note, I guess it's time to put the computer down and see if I can get my crap together so I can get back to real life tomorrow. But first? Waffles.
This was not the best day.
Usually Mondays are no different than any other day for me. Probably because I work seven days a week. But the drama which other people attribute to Mondays can definitely fuck up my day. Kind of like The Black Death fucked up the 14th century, but on a much larger scale. Well, larger to me, since I'm the one who had to deal with it. To the best of my knowledge I wasn't alive during the 14th century, so it's not like The Black Death was any skin off of my nose.
Things started off bad when my electronic key fob wouldn't unlock my car. This is really embarrassing, because it means having to unlock the door with my actual key (how quaint!) and possibly setting off the alarm. An alarm which will blast the horn for two full minutes. Which doesn't sound like a long time, but when all your neighbors are staring at you with death in their eyes, it's an eternity. The trick is to get the key into the ignition very, very quickly so you can use some off/on trickery to deactivate the alarm manually. Fortunately, I managed to get the sequence right and avoid being assaulted by an angry mob... but still.
A minor victory, but things just went down hill from there.
The good news is that it's almost midnight and tomorrow is another day.
Hopefully a better day.
Despite living with snowy winters most of my life, I can never seem to get used to that first snowfall.
Eventually I become accustomed the weather and it doesn't bother me that much. But today?
In the morning when going to work...
At night when going back home...
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
Why can't they make no-stick snow coatings for cars?
Though I knew about AIDS far earlier, I first learned about AIDS from the TV show 21 Jump Street on February 7th, 1988. In the episode "A Big Disease with a Little Name" Johnny Depp's character is assigned to protect a student with AIDS at a local school that doesn't want him there. As the story progresses, they did a pretty good job of explaining what was known about the disease but, more importantly, they were careful to put humanity above all the clinical details and cold facts. It made for a compelling story which has haunted me ever since.
Because when discussing H.I.V. and AIDS, it's essential not to forget that what we're actually talking about is real people with hope, dreams, and fears just like everybody else on earth.
So on this World AIDS Day I encourage everybody to not only review the facts, but to also show their support for those who are living with AIDS. Through the miracle of modern medicine, AIDS is not the death sentence it was back in 1988, but the prejudice has never truly faded away...
Educate yourself. Protect yourself. Educate others.
But above all, be a compassionate and caring human being. That's the way they handle things on 21 Jump Street, and the world is a better place because of it.
If you're so inclined, you can have an 80's flashback and watch A Big Disease with a Little Name by visiting this Hulu link or this YouTube link. Prepare yourself for acid-wash jeans and mullets!
As a television addict, there's three things that make me a homicidal mess.
1) Television networks canceling great shows before they have a chance to find an audience.
Television advertisers are Grade-A assholes who want to grab your attention at any cost. Even if it means hearing loss. Is it any wonder people want to record shows on their DVR and fast-forward through the crap?
Well, today Congress approved legislation that will hopefully fix this annoying bullshit. The Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act will force advertisers to adopt technology which prevents overly-loud commercials within one year. Now the bill lands on President Obama's desk so he can sign it into law.
And he had better fucking sign it.
If some Hollywood special interest group blows him so he'll take a pass, I will be very disappointed.
Very.
Next up on the bullshit list? DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!
Today I was late getting home from work because my backup decided to crap out and start over from scratch. Not wanting to sit and watch the blinky lights on my backup drive flash for a few hours, I decided to clean my office then walk down the road to get some dinner.
That was a mistake.
Not because the dinner was bad. The dinner was fine. I had a grilled cheese on sourdough and highly recommend it.
No. The reason it was a mistake is because this is a small town and you run into some crazy-ass people once the work-day has ended and everybody's running loose on the streets. Now, don't get me wrong... I fully confess that I am about a crazy-ass a person as you'll find here... but that doesn't mean I'm in a mood to tolerate it in others. Especially when I have to go back to work tonight.
But it's small-town America so whatcha gonna do?
And so I return to work after a nice meal and full dose of street-crazy, collect my freshly-minted backup drive, and go home.
Where I turn on my television and find out that I only thought I knew what "crazy" was about. Turns out I don't know Jack-shit about "crazy" because there's currently somebody cornering the market on bat-shit crazy, and he doesn't live anywhere near me...
Photo of Senator John McCain courtesy of the AP Newswire... and Geritol.
Now, I've already said my peace* on McCain and his false concern for the brave men and women honoring us with their military service (which you can read here). McCain doesn't give two shits about the people in our military... he's just exploiting his self-proclaimed "concern" so he can pander to his fellow homophobes when it comes to Don't Ask Don't Tell (assumably for political gain, but who knows... he may just be a gigantic bigoted asshole and I'm over-thinking things here).
Fortunately I don't have to unleash a new rant on what a piece of shit McCain is** because John Stewart has got that covered. Beautifully...
Sigh. Just get over yourself or die already old man. Or... or... hop in a time machine and go back to the 1920's or whenever it was people were okay with your delusional ramblings.
The rest of us are trying to move on.
* Please don't try to tell me that it should be "said my piece." I don't care what the dumbass hoards on the internet say, at a wedding you "speak now or forever hold your peace." Holding your piece means something entirely different, and I need both hands to type (no matter how much fun holding my piece may be). In any event, I've not held my peace... I've said my peace... so deal with it.
** Sorry for the potty-mouth, but I ran out of what tiny measure of respect I had left for Senator McCain when I realized that he is responsible for unleashing Sarah Palin's dumbassery upon the world.
Just a friendly reminder to everybody... BACK UP YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS!
I have now had one person in Real Life, one person on Twitter, and another person on Facebook all lose their photos because a backup failed or something went wrong with their computer. This is such inconceivably horrifying event, that it makes me even more relieved that I am so dang paranoid about backing up everything.
One backup simply isn't enough. My Apple backup solution "Time Capsule" has died once, and become hopelessly corrupted twice (Dear Apple, YOU SUCK! FIX THIS!!). I have had drives go bad on more than one occasion. I've even physically lost a backup drive (and still have no idea what happened to it).
So I have four backups. One external dual-drive RAID set to mirror all data to both drives. Two external backups for my RAID backup that I rotate off-site. And an account with Amazon's Web Storage Services. Because even though I was on vacation just two months ago, the memories are already fading, and the photos are all I have...
Arriving in Valletta, Malta at Dawn
A Side-Street in Sidi Bou Saïd, Tunisia
Overlook from Villa Rufolo Gardens, Ravello, Italy
Looking up at the Mountain Village of Corte, Corsica, France
Oh how I love "Vivid Color Mode" and "Active-D Lighting" on my Nikon D-90! Everything looks like a postcard.
I cannot imagine losing the 40,000+ photos that have documented my life... so I make no apologies for being an annoying doom-sayer paranoid freak when it comes to advocating backups. It's an investment that is well worth the cost.
Welcome to a very special TRAVEL edition of Bullet Sunday!
Yesterday I received my billionth email asking me where I'd recommend as a travel destination "for an American who (FILL IN THE BLANK HERE)." I kind of hesitate to comment on questions like this because, while I have traveled to quite a lot of places, there's tons of places I haven't been. Like India, most of South America, most of Africa, and a bajillion other awesome places are unknown to me. But I'm always happy to encourage my fellow countrymen to travel, so here's a list which is confined to only those places I've been (click on the name to visit a Blogography link)...
• For an American without a passport: Maui, Hawaii. Hawaii is one of the most exotic and wonderful places to vacation on the face of the earth, and I never hesitate to recommend it as a travel destination. I've been dozens of times, and usually find the weather to be terrific (only rarely has it rained my entire vacation). Of all the islands, Maui is my hands-down favorite but, if you've got time I definitely recommend island-hopping, as there's something wonderful on all of them.
Runner-Up: New Orleans. Easily in my top-ten favorite world cities, The Big Easy is an experience for the senses.
• For an American without a passport who hates the beach: South Utah. I have seen a multitude of amazing places around the world, but when it comes to breathtaking scenery that's not to be missed, some of the best you'll find is right here in the USA. Arches National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park, Canyonlands National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Goblin Valley, Lake Powell... the list of astounding attractions in South Utah is never-ending, and every one of them is worth a visit.
Runner-Up: Washington State. Maybe I'm biased, but my back-yard has some of the most beautiful scenery on earth any time of the year. Anybody with an appreciation for the Great Outdoors should have Washington State on their short-list.
• For an American who has never traveled outside the USA: Italy. This answer is kind of vague, but I'd be hard-pressed to pick a single part of Italy as being better than any other. If you like culture and history, try Rome. If you like romance and a touch of the exotic, try Venice. If you're a foodie or a wine persons, try Tuscany. If you are obsessed with art, try Florence. If you just want to be overwhelmed with beautiful scenery, try the Amalfi Coast. Regardless of where you go, you're assured of amazing food and culture... and you're probably not going to have and language troubles or culture shock.
Runner-Up: The United Kingdom & Ireland. Again, I'd be hard-pressed to pick one area over another, but if you're looking for low culture-shock and an amazing vacation, the UK & Ireland are worth a visit. If you want shopping, theater, and art, try London. If you want history and beauty, try York or Bath. If you want to visit my favorite city on earth, try Edinburgh. If you want to see lush green countryside, try Wicklow and Ireland.
• For an American who wants to get away from it all: Bali. Of all the places I've ever been, the one place I would want to go to get away from it all would be Bali. The Balinese people are some of the most wonderful, kind, and sharing people, which is attraction enough... but they also happen to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. There are numerous resorts (including a Hard Rock property, natch!) if you wish, but there are also a lot of smaller villas and inland locations if you really want to escape. Every time I'm reminded of anything Bali, I yearn to return. I can't give it any better endorsement than that!
Runner-Up: Santorini, Greece. Now, a lot of people will tell you that Santorini is overflowing with obnoxious tourists and should be avoided. That's a shame, because it's only partially true. Yes, a lot of tourists come here... the place is beautiful in a way that will make your head explode, so who can blame them? BUT it's only part-true. In the late morning, tourists landing from cruise ships flood the island in staggering numbers. But then they leave and things settle down so you can wander through amazing cities like Fira and Oia or explore the countryside in peace, away from it all.
• For an American who wants to experience a foreign culture: Thailand. Where to begin with the country that changed my life? It was Thailand where I was first exposed to Buddhism and a culture so wonderful that I've spent my entire life trying to apply it to my life. And, as if the wonderful Thai people aren't reason enough to visit, you'll find a multitude of experiences unlike any other. Stunning temples and architecture. Beautiful beaches and sights. Fantastic shopping and attractions. From the bustling cities of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, to the amazing resorts at Pattaya and Phuket, to the wonderful small villages of Pai and Chiang Rai... there's something for everyone in Thailand, and it's a destination I can't recommend highly enough.
Runner-Up: China. Even in larger cities like Beijing and Shanghai, China is unlike anywhere on earth. Head out into the countryside, and the culture-shock grows exponentially.
Runner-Up: Japan. If ever there was a shining example of ancient traditions embracing a modern world, Japan would be it. Tokyo is probably my favorite mega-city on the planet, and much of what makes Japan such a mind-boggling place can be found here. But for the adventurous, heading out into the smaller cities and village in the countryside can be a cultural revelation you'll never forget.
• For an American who wants something completely different: Warsaw. I fully admit that the reason I travel to a great many places is because there's a Hard Rock Cafe there I haven't been to. The benefit of this is that I am often exposed to amazing places I would have never seen otherwise. Warsaw was such an unexpected and mind-boggling city that I am haunted by it still. Despite having a truly tragic history that will make your heart break over and over again, Poland has to be one of the most inspirational and wonderful places I've ever been. For weeks after returning I could not shut up about my trip. You will have to work for it, however, as it's not overly tourist-friendly. I usually avoid going on organized tours because I like to explore on my own, but Warsaw is a place that cries out for more than just seeing the sights. You have to get a good guide who will walk you through not just the things to see and do, but the history behind it. An unforgettable experience, but not for the usual reasons.
Runner-Up: Romania. As hard as it is to believe, the Romanian Uprising was just twenty short years ago. As the only Eastern Bloc country to overthrow its government by force and execute its leaders, a trip to Bucharest will definitely be different than your average vacation. For a taste of even more "different" you can head out into the countryside for touristy destinations like Transylvania or charming cities like Braşov
• For an American who wants monumental bragging rights: Giza. Um, yeah... of all the places I've been, the one that most gets people's attention is having been to see the pyramids in Egypt. And while the pyramids may be a bit less impressive in person in an age of skyscrapers and mega-malls, I assure you it's an experience you'll hang on to for the rest of your life.
Runner-Up: The Great Wall of China. Another ancient wonder, walking along The Great Wall is not only one of those life-defining moments, it makes for great bragging rights.
Runner-Up: The Eiffel Tower. There are many, many reasons to visit Paris, but any time I even mention Europe, people seem to be obsessed with wondering whether I've been up the Eiffel Tower. To me, it's a wonderful experience in a wonderful city, but not something that captures my imagination as much as it does for everybody else. Oh well, it seems to be something worth bragging about, so here it is.
And there you have it. A mini "sampler" of places to go from the places I've been that I highly recommend. But it's important to know that there are literally hundreds of other places I've been that I'd also give my heart-felt endorsement to. Ultimately I can only speak for myself here but, if that carries any weight with you, I have archives full of my other travel adventures...
Travel 2003 • Travel 2004 • Travel 2005 • Travel 2006 • Travel 2007 • Travel 2008 • Travel 2009 • Travel 2010
Safe travels!
Windows of Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy...
Well, apparently it's totally winter now.
Don't you hate it when it's snowing so hard that by the time you get to cleaning off the back-end of your car, the front-end where you started is covered in snow again?
Yeah, me too. But that didn't stop this from being my post-work super-fun activity this evening...
Snow blows. But it sucks too. It pretty much sucks and blows.
Which, unfortunately, doesn't cancel each other out as you'd expect it too.
I don't want to live in a universe where stupid snow doesn't adhere to the laws of physics.
If I wasn't so enamored with one-word blog entry titles* this post would probably be called something like "Give Peace a Chance" or "WAR IS OVER if you want it" or some other John-Lennon-inspired genius to set the stage for my upcoming rant.
If I really wanted to get descriptive, I suppose I could have gone with something like... "A wish to be included in holiday festivities on my part doesn't constitute a war on your part." Though, since this is me we're talking about, it could have just as easily been "Take your stupid war and go fuck yourself with it."
Which sounds like something John Lennon would have totally said if he was a creative person like me. Alas...
But before we mix it up, here's a calendar for December...
From a holiday standpoint, it's a pretty packed schedule as you can see. And I'm sure there's a bunch more holidays that belong on there that I don't know about.
But since this is the United States of America... AKA The Land of The Free... AKA The Melting Pot... where people of all ages, races, creeds, colors, sexes, sexual orientations, gender identities, national origins, and religions come together as one, it's not a big deal. Because while we may celebrate separate holidays, we can certainly come together to celebrate each other's happiness during the season! This is the USA, after all.
Right?
RIGHT?
Errr... apparently not.
Apparently there's a "War on Christmas" of which I was previously unaware. Apparently, some people feel that all of December belongs exclusively to the Christian holiday of Christmas, and the mere existence of other holidays is some kind of attack. Apparently communities wanting to have public festivals which are inclusive of all faiths by calling them "Holiday Celebrations" instead of "Christmas Celebrations" have declared war. Apparently any time anybody wants to do anything for the holidays that's not Christmas-specific, they're ruining Christmas. Apparently.
It is, of course, a complete load of horse shit.
This is nothing more than a scheme by hateful people who benefit financially by keeping everybody divided and miserable. THEY create a war, then sit back and laugh while other people fight in it. How very Christian of them.
I remain dumbfounded that there are people who actually buy into this crap. Is their faith really so weak that it takes the threat of imaginary war for them to feel anything for their beliefs? Is their faith really so shaky that they think Christianity will disappear if they don't go into meltdown when somebody puts up a stupid billboard that questions it? Really? Because that's just sad. I question whether you can even call it "faith" when it's more like lack of faith. Because anybody who is strong in their beliefs and confident in their God wouldn't be the least bit threatened just because a parade was renamed so everybody could come together and celebrate their holidays... including their Christmas.
Oh well. I'm not a Christian. I don't celebrate Christmas. I do enjoy celebrating the holidays with my friends and family of ALL faiths during the season though. I haven't declared war on anybody. So, seriously, from the bottom of my heart... "Take your stupid war and go fuck yourself with it."
It's what John Lennon would have wanted.
*I didn't used to have one-word titles for my blog posts. It's just that one day I had an entry where one word was all I needed. The next morning I woke up and got an email telling me that I was "stupid" for not using more descriptive titles on my blog entries so that they would be better indexed by Google and improve my search engine ranking. Obviously, I needed their web consulting services because I was too big an idiot to figure this stuff out on my own. Since I don't give a crap about my "search engine ranking" I thought this was pretty funny. And very, very rude. So I wrote back and told them to blow me.
I've been using single-word blog entry titles ever since. I'm stupid that way.
I am not offended by foul language. If you've read my blog, met me in person, heard me interviewed on web radio, or listened to my live comedy album, you probably already knew this.
Even so, I try to be very careful about not using curse words in mixed company. Just because I have no problem swearing like a drunken ten-year-old doesn't mean I want to force my potty-mouth on innocent people. I'm a fucking saint that way.
So... when a public conversation calls for a profanity-laden explicative, what to do?
Well, if you're me you wing it.
Unfortunately, I'm not good at "winging" anything, so my improvisational cursing never goes well.
Today in a rushed search for a replacement word for "crap" I somehow came up with "crackers." Yes, crackers. And that's not even my worst offense. A couple of weeks ago I managed "frog" for "fuck."
Clearly this is a big frogging problem.
Isn't there a translation dictionary for stuff like this so I can faux-swear properly? If not, there really should be.
This morning on the way to work I stopped by the mini-mart so I could pick up a package Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. For some reason, I woke up craving Reese's, and I knew that I'd spend my entire day being distracted by my desire if I didn't just give in and buy the dang things.
But since it's kind of silly to be eating candy first thing in the morning, I decided to hold off a bit. So I set the Reese's aside and started work. Sure enough, all I could think about all morning was eating those dang peanut butter cups. I finally relented around 10:30 so I could get on with my life...
Except...
The delicious peanut butter centers of my Reese's were dried out. So instead of rich, creamy peanut butter, I ended up with some kind of chalky peanut butter-flavored residue in there. Blech. Now not only did I have to force myself to eat this crummy excuse for a candy bar, I was still craving a good Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
This got me to thinking about Star Trek. Well, not the the REAL Star Trek, but the Captain Picard-infused Next Generation version of Star Trek. On this show they are blessed with an amazing bit of technology awesomeness called a "replicator." You simply tell it what you want, and it materializes it out of thin air...
But that's not even the most amazing part.
When you think about it, the amazing part is that whatever you get out of the replicator is going to be perfect. Every damn time!
Because when they program the thing, they're not going to program it with a crappy cup of hot Earl Grey tea... they're going to program the most amazing fucking cup of hot Earl Grey tea ever made. And that's exactly what you're going to get each and every time. Because, technically, you're getting the SAME cup of tea each time.
And, of course, when they program in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, they'll program a freshly-made bar right off the line with a flawlessly delicious and creamy center.
The list goes on and on. Ever grab a handful of almonds only to have one of them taste like it's going rancid? Not in Star Trek! Ever take a big bite out of an apple only to find it has water-core and tastes like crap? Not in Star Trek! Ever burn the toast? Not in Star Trek! These people not only know the miracle of getting food to appear out of thin air... they don't know what imperfect food tastes like! Everything they ever eat is sublimely perfect. There's never any nasty surprises.
It's like the most amazing thing ever... consistently perfect food.
After flying cars and lightsabers, I'll take a replicator please.
And a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
It takes me 5 minutes to drive home. I ended up stopping half-way because the snow accumulation on my windshield was so thick that the wipers stopped working. That's pretty bad. Then again, on the way to work I saw one car in the ditch and two others smashed on a street corner. That's really bad.
Once I finally made it home, I was done with snow.
Until I decided to walk to the cemetery and see if there was enough light to take a few photos...
And now I'm done with snow.
It's Bullet Sunday off the rails, baby! OFF THE RAILS!
• 'Tis the Season... for GOOD! So many potentially wonderful things are happening all the time all around us. Even when we least expect it. Even when we receive terribly sad news that makes it impossible for us to believe it. At least I hope so. Clinging to that is about all that's keeping me sane right now.
• 'Tis the Season... for PAIN! Heaven only knows that there is some truly awful people out there... and, unfortunately, sometimes you marry them. Yes, it sucks. Yes, you need to get yourself a dang good lawyer to take care of business. Yes, there is going to be hard feelings and resentment. But having shit-bag lawyers add to a terrible situation is disgusting on levels so heinous that it should be grounds for getting your slimy ass disbarred...
I've been seeing this local television ad run every holiday season for years, and I get more pissed off every time it airs. Nothing quite like taking a season of good will and good cheer... then shitting all over it by encouraging people to solve their problems by becoming bitter, vindictive douchebags like this bitch. For all we know, SHE was the problem. A total whore that cheated on her hard-working, faithful husband by fucking anything with a penis. Thanks a lot, asshole lawyer.
• 'Tis the Season... for CONFLICT! Speaking of divorce... my eternal love and devotion for Elizabeth Hurley has been well-documented on this blog. Which is why I was so horribly conflicted when I saw the following on her twitter feed this morning...
I am genuinely sad that things didn't work out for Elizabeth Hurley's marriage. Not just for her, but for her husband Arun Nayar and her son Damian. As somebody who has been mildly obsessed with Elizabeth Hurley for fifteen years, of course I am upset for her. How could I ever want anything except for her to be happy? But... on the other hand... as somebody who has been mildly obsessed with Elizabeth Hurley for fifteen years... I've felt equally awful over having coveted another man's wife. But it's not like I can help myself here...
I totally have a chance here. Right? Right?
• 'Tis the Season... for TOAST! Google is starting to really push their browser-based operating system (called "Chrome OS") with rather shocking videos like this one...
WTF?!? NO! OH GOD, NO! NOT THE TOAST!!!
What a sad, terrible waste of perfectly good toast. I could watch crappy Chrome netbooks being smashed all day long, but did they really have to sacrifice innocent slices of toast to make their point? Toast has never done anything to us but taste great with butter and jam... surely they could have used some useless food product like broccoli or cauliflower in the making of this video? I mean, sure, we can always make more toast. It only takes a few minutes in a toaster. But is this kind of violence against helpless bread products really necessary? This is sad. Sad and wrong. Why does Google hate toast?
And now it's time to get back on track. There's only so long you can go off the rails before Real Life calls you back.
There's only so many disappointments you can take in a single day before life kind of loses its luster.
Fortunately I have chocolate pudding to take the edge off or I don't know what I'd do.
Probably cash-in what's left of my retirement and buy chocolate pudding. Costco has 36-count Snack Pack on sale for like $8.50, which means I could probably afford to buy a dozen cases or so. That's enough pudding to take the edge off just about anything. Well, except the fact that my retirement savings is now worth a mere dozen cases of pudding. There's not enough chocolate pudding in the world to take the edge off that...
This kind of circular pudding logic messes with your head.
Ever feel like all you ever do is move side to side... never forward?
Yeah, that's me lately. Or forever. I get those mixed up.
I'm a vegetarian.
Because I'm a vegetarian, I am not a huge fan of McDonald's. The one thing McDonald's made I could eat... the TOTALLY AWESOME McVeggie Deluxe... should have been expanded to every McDonald's in the world. Instead they removed it from the menu at the one place you could get it: the wonderful Times Square McDonald's. Oh well. I still stop by for McFries every once in a while, because they're some of the best fast-food fries you can get. They used to have the best fried pies you can get, but now they have shitty baked pies. Bummer.
Anyway... despite my not being a fan of McDonalds (nor being a fan of the subsidized cheap beef they use which is destroying the planet) I still believe they should have a right to sell whatever they can get people to buy. Even if it is unhealthy dead cow products. I may choose not to eat their vegetarian-hostile crap, but a lot of people like it so good for them. If eaten in moderation, there's nothing wrong with treating yourself to a Big Mac every once in a while.
And then today I read in The L.A. Times that McDonald's is being sued because "The Center for Science in the Public Interest" feels the toys in their Happy Meals unfairly entice children into "eating food that can do them harm"...
The lead plaintiff in the case, a mother of two from Sacramento, goes one step further by claiming McDonald's "uses toys as bait to induce her kids to clamor to go to McDonald's."
Uhhhhhh...
The word you are searching for, YOU MORON, is "no."
That's right... if you don't feel McDonald's is healthy for your kids and don't want them eating there, JUST SAY NO! When I was a kid I clamored for a flamethrower. My parents, WHO ARE ACTUAL FUCKING PARENTS THAT CHOSE TO RAISE THEIR KIDS INSTEAD OF HAVING A RESTAURANT DO IT FOR THEM, felt a flamethrower could be detrimental to my health and told me "no."
Idiotic bullshit like this drives me fucking insane.
Kids "clamor" for all kinds of crap that can "do them harm."
It's the job of the parent to read labels and research products and do all the stuff parents do to protect their kids from harm. Yes, the parent! If a frickin' cheap-ass toy is enough to totally usurp your parenting authority, you've got bigger fucking problems than a stupid Happy Meal. I hate to think what lawsuit is coming next. Are you going to fucking sue
The word you are searching for is "no."
If you don't know how to use it to keep your children from harm... or use your brain to figure out a healthier alternative to placate your kids over a frickin' toy... you might want to consider putting your offspring up for adoption. Odds are they'll be a lot better off.
As somebody who endeavors to take the high road in most things, I ended up deleting the blog entry I hammered out for today. Sometimes it's better to just let sleeping dogs lie.
At least for now.
As always, I reserve the right to unleash my righteous fury at a later date.
When it comes to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, my personal opinion is that this is a good thing. People who do us the honor of serving in this country's military deserve to serve as who they are. But I'm not in the military, have never been in the military, and don't plan on serving in the military in the future, so my opinion has always been based on my personal belief of "respect an equality for all" rather than any kind of practical knowledge. And yet... all the people I've talked to who are in the military seem to feel the same way. So, yay, it's time to move on.
And yet the opinion of those serving in the military TODAY has been shoved aside by opportunist politicians catering to their homophobic voter base...
Original Senator John McCain photo by Wigwam Jones via Flickr
Which is disheartening because the attitudes of crotchety old men like John McCain isn't keeping up with the progressive attitudes of modern society...
Fortunately, this country is moving forward despite those who would hold us back.
Sometimes.
Unfortunately this is not always the case. This country seems to have a history of shitting all over those who would serve to protect us... and, just when you think things are changing, something comes along to prove you wrong. Like the politician assholes who are currently working to filibuster the Ground Zero First Responder Health Bill. Or assholes like (surprise!) Senator John McCain who thinks the lives of our heroes is some kind of game.
I am trying... desperately trying... to understand the mindset that would cause somebody to deny much-needed monies for health care to those who risked their lives to save others when this country was attacked. The most common complaint was something like: "Well, that's what they're paid to do! They signed up for a dangerous job and are now crying for more money TO DO THEIR JOB? We shouldn't have to pay for that! I wish somebody would give ME a bonus for doing MY job!"
Give me a fucking break.
YOU TAKE CARE OF THOSE WHO TAKE CARE OF YOU!
There's nothing more to be said. Because if you don't take care of those whose job is to selflessly save lives, GUESS WHAT? Nobody is going to save lives! These heroes accept that they could die doing their job. They know that what they do is dangerous, yet choose do it any way. The least we can do is make sure their sacrifice doesn't ruin the rest of their lives if they should be fortunate enough to survive their service.
And now that first responders continue to suffer horrendous long-term respiratory problems and other health issues from being exposed to the wreckage of Ground Zero, they need to be taken care of when their insurance and worker's comp runs out. Again, it's the least... the very least... we can do for those who boldly go where angels fear to tread. So a bill was drafted, money was found by closing a tax loophole on foreign companies with U.S. subsidiaries, and all we needed to do was pass it. Sure it's expensive, but you do what you gotta do when it comes time to take a stand for what is right. You find a way and you do the right thing.
Except a bunch of asshole politicians think the lives of our heroes really is a game and decided that filibustering for political gain was more important than doing what is right. Despite an impassioned plea for them to do just that...
And so heroic first-responders are left hanging for no other reason except they're apparently not politically important enough to be worth saving. At least until it's politically advantageous to do so. Or some unfathomable tragedy befalls us and it comes time for them to have to run in and save our ungrateful asses.
Typical. So mind-bogglingly typical. Just politics as usual in Washington DC.
If only there was a way to mark all these politicians as "not worth saving" when tragedy pays a visit to their house...
Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Bennett (R-UT), Bond (R-MO), Brown (R-MA), Bunning (R-KY), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Gregg (R-NH), Hatch (R-UT), Hutchison (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Kirk (R-IL), Kyl (R-AZ), LeMieux (R-FL), Lugar (R-IN), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Murkowski (R-AK), Reid (D-NV), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME), Thune (R-SD), Vitter (R-LA), Voinovich (R-OH), Wicker (R-MS).
What repugnant pieces of shit.
Without regard to their own safety, there were people who worked tirelessly to search for survivors and help where needed when America was in its darkest hour. Now it's their turn. Their darkest hour has arrived. These people are facing health crises and financial ruin as a direct result of their service. It's time to return the favor and help them now that they need us. It's time to do what's right.
It's a wacky kind of Bullet Sunday on this cold December day...
• Pink. Genius writer Blake Edwards passed away this week. He was the creator of a number of important works such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Days of Wine and Roses, but will forever be best known as creator of The Pink Panther series of films he made with Peter Sellers. Out of the opening title sequences from those movies came one of my favorite cartoon characters ever... The Pink Panther...
I used to love those cartoons. For the longest time I've wanted to purchase the DVD sets so I could watch them again, but could never justify the rather high price ($60 at Amazon!). Fortunately, they're also available for rent at Netflix (alas, no instant streaming), so I'll have to get on that one of these days. As for Mr. Edwards... thank you for the laughs. May you rest in peace sir.
• Larry. Call me a hater, but I have never liked Larry King. I found his interviews to be to absolute crap. Half the time Larry seemed completely unprepared and left me wondering if he even knew who he was talking to. The rest of the time he was just plain boring. I never understood why he was so popular... except that he somehow managed to attract popular guests on his show. Probably because doing Larry King is so easy and risk-free since his interviews were always so embarrassingly superficial. Definitely not because he was any kind of appealing personality. He always came off as either a creepier version of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons...
... or a freaky alien...
Needless to say, I'm not sorry he's now retired. And while I'd definitely say that Joy Behar is a step up from Larry, I don't think she's particularly winning when it comes to interviews either. So I don't know what CNN is going to do now. Hopefully find somebody who knows how to give a decent interview.
• Shaun! A couple years ago when I was in Germany, I was introduced to a new television series starring Shaun the Sheep... a character from the Wallace & Gromit short fim A Close Shave. As you'd expect from an Aardman Animations production, the show was fantastically funny and clever... and dialogue-free!
Well, after waiting and waiting and waiting, they finally released the complete first season on DVD...
Highest possible recommendation. Seriously, you've got to see these short episodes. I bought it from Amazon, but episodes are also currently available for Instant Stremaing from Netflix!
• Lens. Every once in a while you get a glimpse of where technology is taking us... a little peek at what's coming down the pipe. This week it was something called "World Lens" for iPhone. It uses the iPhone's camera to "read" an image for text. Then, depending on the filter you select, the app will process it for translation or some other trickery... like reversing the letters in any words it finds. It then pastes the output onto the original live image...
The app is free from the iTunes Music Store. Currently there's $4.99 English->Spanish and $4.99 Spanish->English filters with more promised. To see it in action is pretty spectacular...
One day, they're going to be able to put stuff like this on a contact lens or as a chip implant in your brain so you can just look at something and get it translated directly. And I'm guessing audio translation isn't that far off. The future is all magic from here on out. Or it could be. If we let it.
And there you have it, Bullet Sunday begone!
Yay! It's a lunar eclipse!
Boo! I live in shitty Central Washington where it's overcast and snowy.
So when I run outside to look at the fabulousness occurring, this is what I see...
Which sucks, because THIS is what everybody else gets to look at...
It reminds me of the "super spectacular" total solar eclipse that happened when I was in Middle School... probably, oh I dunno... 1979 or 1980. Our school didn't have fancy tinted plastic viewers so you actually got to LOOK at the sun being eclipsed. Oh no... we got to poke a small hole in a piece of paper and hold it up to the sun so a beam of eclipsing light shined on a piece of paper. This is how I got to see the awesomeness of the "once in a lifetime big event"...
Which sucks, because THIS is what everybody else got to look at (right before they got super-powers)...
It's like I'm in Middle School all over again.
Middle School so totally sucks.
UPDATE: For anybody who missed it like me, there's a fantastic video over at Vimeo!
If you'd rather read a much more literate, intelligent, and less profanity-laden missive about net neutrality than you'll even find here... I urge you to read an open letter written by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in The Atlantic.
Otherwise? You've been warned.
And so... the FCC's "net neutrality" proposal has been passed.
Except it's not true net neutrality at all. It's a loophole-ridden pile of crap that's woefully inept and incomplete. I'd go so far as to call it "useless" but a bunch of Republican politicians are losing their shit over the mere suggestion of a free and open internet, so I guess it's not entirely useless. Though I must admit to being shocked that these same politicians stopped sucking special-interest penis long enough to notice. You'd think that fellating all those telco/cable/wireless company heads and stockholders would occupy all their attention.
In the meanwhile, internet freedom takes a hit and we all get fucked...
I am sick and tired of these bullshit fantasies that consumers will somehow ultimately steer the internet regardless of any restrictions that are put upon it. I keep reading things like "Well, if an Internet Service Provider (ISP) adds restrictions their customers don't like, then those customers will get a new ISP. And if ISPs don't provide what their customers want, they'll go out of business. The internet is self-regulating, and doesn't need any 'net neutrality' forced upon it! All that will do is inhibit ISPs from investing in services they provide but don't control. The internet is already" neutral without government intervention, let's keep it that way!"
It's such a laughable load of crap that I could barely bring myself to type it, but that's the argument anti-net-neutrality proponents keep pushing, so there you have it.
Except REALITY teaches us that this simply is not the case. History is replete with examples of big business fucking over people to make a buck. In fact, it's so commonplace that anybody who believes companies will be net-neutral of their own accord when there are billions of dollars to be made as internet services continue to convergence must be insane or clinically stupid.
Look, I understand that companies want to make money. That's the American Way, and the reason anybody goes into business in the first place. I get that. I support that. And if Internet Service Providers want to have tiered data plans so that heavy users pay more than infrequent users, then I would probably be fine with it. "Pay for what you use" and all that.
But this is not what we're talking about. It's about ISPs controlling access to information. It's about ISPs giving preferential access to their networks for wealthy companies willing to pay for it. It's about back-door partnerships and secret agreements which define how we live our lives. So yes... if a SINGLE Internet Service Provider started restricting access to say... Google Maps... and instead redirected you to MapQuest against your will... that ONE provider probably would go out of business as everybody moved to providers with unrestricted access. But we know that's not how it will happen. One company will start doing it. Then another. Then another. Then another. Soon, you may find all your internet options restricted because there won't be any net-neutral ISPs available. Or maybe there will be, but they won't be available where you live.
Remember when checking a piece of luggage used to be included in the cost of an airline ticket? But then one airline started charging for checked luggage. And before you knew it ALL airlines were doing it? Sure there are exceptions... Southwest, I believe, still hasn't given in to temptation... but does Southwest fly to my local airport? No. It's the same way with ISPs. Inevitably there may be some independent ISPs that choose to remain neutral and say no to the massive amount of cash they could make... but do you want to risk that they'll be one of the choices servicing your community?
Do I trust our government? Not really. Do I want our government running our lives? Definitely not. But there are roles the government was built for... like promoting the general welfare... by making sure companies don't sell things containing toxic substances... by making sure companies aren't polluting the environment... by making sure companies conduct business fairly... by making sure companies don't exploit their workers... and so on. Not that I'm saying the government does any of those things exceedingly well (ha!) but many of the more protective regulations we have in place serve a purpose and, generally speaking, we seem to be better off because of them. The internet has become such a critical, intricate part of our lives (both directly and indirectly) that it deserves the same attention. Not promoting the general welfare by protecting the internet's very existence through net neutrality could have horrific consequences for the citizens of this country and the world.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Net neutrality is freedom.
Allowing companies the option to take away this freedom under the banner of "freedom" is a mockery of the very foundation this country was built upon.
Not that this is anything new now-a-days, but I'd rather things not disintegrate completely right this minute.
Fight for net neutrality.
While you still can.
And so I was craving a cheese sandwich.
But I didn't have any bread or cheese at home, which meant a trip to the grocery store after work. This was a huge mistake for oh so many reasons. It was crappy outside because it snowed today... Then the roads were crowded because it was 5:00... Then the store was packed because everybody was off work...
Then I got in the wrong checkout lane.
And I mean seriously the wrong lane. And things only went downhill from there.
All in all, a pretty shitty day for Dave2.
The cheese sandwich was awesome though.
What the deuce?
As anybody who has read Blogography for any amount of time already knows, I positively loathe Pat Robertson. The bastard is bat-shit crazy, and regularly says stuff so outrageous that you have to question his sanity. Except I don't question anything. I know he's insane.
He's so insane that I put him at the very top of my "Are You Insane?" self-diagnosis chart back in 2006...
And "crazy" is the least of his sins. In January of this year, I wrote "It's not just that Pat Robertson is a stupid, hypocritical, uncaring, opportunistic, lying piece of shit, it's that he's just plain evil." This was in response to him saying the Haitian people made a pact with the devil in order to end French colonization, and that's why God decided to devastate the country with an earthquake. Like I said, evil. He's right up there with Nancy Grace and Ann Coulter...
Then today something astounding happened.
Pat Robertson took a time out from being an evil lunatic, and actually had a moment of lucidity...
Like I said, what the deuce?
Much like Pat Robertson, I don't condone drug use. I honestly think it leads to more problems than it will ever solve for the vast majority of the population. But, so long as people don't abuse it by driving while high... and so long as they smoke their marijuana in the privacy of their own home where I don't have to inhale it... who gives a shit? Should we really be spending billions of dollars to incarcerate those who would rather get high off pot than drunk off alcohol? If people want to get high and aren't harming anybody else, then they should be able to do that. It's called "freedom."
And who knows? Not only might the legalization of marijuana save us on prison costs... it might also save us tons of money in the "war on drugs." Maybe if people can get legally high, they won't have a need to turn to harsher drugs that are harmful. That would be swell.
And let me tell you... if pot were legal, I'd be buying some right now.
That's about the only way I can deal with the fact that I am actually agreeing with something that Pat Robertson said.
If Christmas is your holiday, I hope it's a happy one for you!
Oh great. Now I want a candy cane. Doesn't that sound tasty?
Not just today, but every day...
...and good will to everybody.
If Boxing Day is your holiday, I hope it's a happy one for you!
Oh great. Now I want to pummel somebody with padded gloves. Doesn't that sound fun?
Thanks to the holiday weekend, I saved my ammo for a rare "Bullet Sunday on Monday" edition!
• Wallpaper! I had forgotten to convert my DaveToon iPhone wallpaper backgrounds to the iPad, so thanks to my friend Göran for the reminder! They're free for your personal use, but cannot be sold or used for any commercial purpose. Just click on the version you'd like and it will open in a separate window. From there, you can drag the image to your desktop, or right-click (control-click for Mac) and save it wherever you like.
If you want to know how to get the pictures onto your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, Apple has a helpful support document.
If you are using Android or any other mobile platform, you can still use the wallpapers... I recommend grabbing the iPad version and cropping it to your display resolution.
Eventually I'll get more wallpapers converted and come up with some new stuff. Until then, enjoy!
• Ask Dave! I would be remiss to not mention that the remarkably awesome FREE Ask Dave! app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad is still available! It hasn't been optimized for Retina Display yet, but still looks pretty awesome. Hopefully I'll get around to creating new custom versions for next-gen iOS devices like iPad,
• $3.99 No More! I've decided to stop buying Marvel Comics. Marvel blows. DC Comics listened to comic book fans and dropped their cover price of ongoing series to $2.99 ($1.79 at discount) back in October. Whereas Marvel is STILL soliciting their titles at $3.99 ($2.39 at discount). And I'm simply not going to pay over $2.00 for a comic book because nothing coming out of Marvel is worth it. Even though the stuff that's going on in their books is pretty awesome...
Seriously, the time for digital comics is here. Offer comics for $1.00 each direct with no printing costs, no shipping costs, no storage costs, no distribution costs. I would by at least double the books I do now... maybe even triple. Not only that, but I would be ten times more willing to try a new book for a buck than I would paying $3.99 for a printed copy. Assuming that there are a lot of comic book fans like me who set a monthly budget for comics, the net would be a win for comic creators and fans alike. Sure I'm going to miss having printed copies that I can hold and flip through... but if I'm going to stop buying them anyway, surely this is better than nothing?
And I'm afraid that's all she wrote for this week. Next week we'll have a very special New Year Edition of Bullet Sunday. Hope to see you then!
Tonight I'm going to discuss the hot mess of a film Black Swan.
I never intended to see this movie because A) I don't like ballet, and B) I find Darren Aronofsky films to be very hit-or-miss (
Sooooo... tonight was the night...
Needless to say, this review will be riddled with spoilers. If you haven't seen the film and are planning to, you might want to bookmark this page and come back later.
For the most part, I found Black Swan to be pretentious crap with fantastic performances and some admittedly disturbing scenes. Despite wanting to enjoy it, I was mostly bored through the predictable story and unimpressed with the heavy-handed presentation. The only reason I can honestly say I'm glad I saw it is so that I can knowingly roll my eyes into the back of my head when people start talking about what a fantastical work of art it is.
And I suppose I should get that problem out of the way first, because THEY NEVER LET YOU FORGET IT...
30 minutes into the movie I wanted to stand up and scream "OKAY, IT'S ART! WE FUCKING GET IT!" because I was so sick and tired of the massive film grain that was so obviously meant to give the picture an art-house cinema look. I mean give me a break... usually when movies are this bad, they're deemed to be in need of restoration. Studios spend millions trying to get rid of abusive grain when re-issuing old films because modern movie audiences are accustomed to a cleaner picture. But Aronofsky is apparently so desperate that Black Swan not be mistaken for anything but art, that he takes it to an entirely new level.
And I get that. As somebody who started out in photography using a film camera, I totally miss the beautiful, warm, classic "feel" of film that's been lost in the digital age. But there has to be limits. When I spend more time trying to ignore the grainy haze obstructing the picture than I do on the story, you've failed. Artistic visual choices I totally understand. But, just like JJ Abrams' absurdly stupid overuse of lens flair in nearly every fucking scene of Star Trek, I didn't agree with the choice here, finding it more "distractive" than "artistic."
That's kind of a shame, because if there's one thing that truly shines here, it's the actors. Natalie Portman's wooden and shitty performance in the heinous Star Wars prequels can forever rest directly on George Lucas's shoulders, because she is genius working with Aronofsky. Her vulnerable and damaged brand of crazy is nothing short of remarkable here. And it doesn't stop there. Barbara Hershey played her abusive-obsessive mother with such beautiful restraint and subtlety that it was disturbing to watch. There was nothing forced or synthetic about it, which makes me look at her work in Beaches in an entirely different light. Mila Kunis turned in an unexpectedly great performance as well (SHE'S MEG ON FAMILY GUY FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!). And then there's Winona Rider. I have no idea what it is, but every time I see her on screen I am inexplicably mesmerized, and her tiny role in Black Swan was no exception.
Sadly, none none of the awesome acting can save the story, which was remarkably unremarkable despite special effects and bizarre pandering to make it appear that way.
Natalie Portman plays Nina, an aspiring prima ballerina who hammers away at her dancing with a fury so intense that she's borderline crazy before she goes literally crazy. Nina's golden ticket arrives when she is given the lead performance in Swan Lake. It's then that her never-ending drive to achieve perfection ultimately consumes her, and the movie takes us along for the ride right to the bitter end (which, if you know the story of Swan Lake, is exactly what you'd think it is).
As I mentioned, Nina has serious psychological problems... assumably brought on by her controlling and equally crazy mother, but amplified by her overwhelming obsession to perform flawlessly at the ballet. This eventually starts to transform her with ever-escalating psycho-delusions which are meant to echo the transformation she undergoes from White Swan to Black Swan within the performance of Swan Lake (even though they are different characters, they are played by the same dancer to illustrate the mirrored duality of good vs. evil, or so I'd imagine).
The reason we know this is because THEY BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!
I gave up on counting the direct references, which usually go something like this: "Oh Nina, we know you can play the graceful White Swan perfectly, now you just need to let yourself go so you can transform into the seductive Black Swan!"
And let herself go she does... falling deeper and deeper into her transformation until she destroys herself getting there.
The film tries some trickery to make you wonder how much of Nina's world is real and how much is just her twisted delusions. It's very cool at first, but it ultimately goes over the top and fails. At one point Nina goes into her mother's room where dozens of mommy's painting self-portraits come alive to torment her. Until this point, you only get flashes of crazy, but now it's bluntly spelled out for you. Nina is fucking insane. Any blurring of the line from this point onward is pointless because you've already got The Big Picture. Even worse... it doesn't matter from then on what's real and what's not. It doesn't matter if her dancing partner Lily is trying to be a friend or is instead a vicious, conniving rival who is intentionally messing with her head. It doesn't matter whether her director is just trying to get her best performance or is instead manipulating her in some kind of seductive game. It doesn't matter whether her mother is just concerned and over-protective or instead an abusive, crazy oppressor. It doesn't even matter if her mother is even real or instead just a delusional invention. None of it matters at a point when it very much should matter.
But it doesn't, and so I stopped caring.
Instead I was just bored. If I liked ballet even a little bit, I could have at least found entertainment in the many beautifully-filmed dance sequences. But, alas...
I truly wish that Aronofsky would have had a lighter touch when crafting this movie. Something tells me that it could have been so much more had only he not tried so damn hard to make "art" and just let it become art.
As an example...
At one point Nina goes out with Lily for a wild night of clubbing with drugs, alcohol, and men — all in defiance of her mother. The evening culminates when Nina brings Lily home for some hot lesbionic sex — also in defiance of her mother. In order to make sure they're not disturbed, Nina props her bedroom door with a wood board so Mommy Dearest can't open it. The next morning she oversleeps and awakes to see the board has been moved, the door is ajar, and Lily has gone. NOW... since the board was moved, the only assumption you can make is that Lily was really there and Nina didn't imagine it. EXCEPT... when Nina arrives late to the theater, Lily acts as if she never went home with her (delivering the movie's best line in the process). This leaves the viewer wondering... "Did Nina imagine it all and never prop the door, or is Lily lying to make her (more) crazy and steal her role?"
Had the film continued down THAT road, we could have had a beautifully fucked-up ending where the viewer is left to decide what was real, what wasn't, and what that all means to them... instead of what it means to Aronofsky.
Except, as I said, it ended up not mattering what's real or not when you've got over-the-top scenes of Natalie Portman literally becoming the Black Swan at the end (an "homage" to Jeff Goldblum in The Fly?). Way to spell it out. I would have totally missed the symbolism if you hadn't done that. So instead of letting Portman's performance stand on its own, we get special effects to take the audience by the hand and lead them to the only conclusion possible. In my humble opinion, this sucked all the power out of her character, but c'est la vie.
Black Swan ultimately fails as a film and lost my interest. Still, I give it a C- for the awesome performances.
Darren Aronofsky has been hired to direct Hugh Jackman in Marvel Comics next Wolverine movie. Granted, he has no choice to be fairly direct with such a mainstream film, but I'm hoping he can elevate the material to something worth watching. He is, after all, still the guy who made Requiem for a Dream and Pi, so he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Though Black Swan leaves me with more doubts than I had before I saw it.
I'm fickle that way.
2010 -> AUDIO -> VIDEO -> DAVE
All things considered, 2010 was a bitchin' year for 80's music whores like myself because OMD, a-ha, and Duran Duran all came out with awesome new albums. Then 80's throwback Goldfrapp dropped an album straight out of Xanadu. Two of my indie favorites, The Weepies and Matt & Kim came out with some great new stuff. And I discovered an amazing band (new to me!), Mackintosh Braun, thanks to Grey's Anatomy (of all places). As if that wasn't enough, Daft Punk managed to put out a soundtrack for TRON that didn't suck. It all added up to a lot of music purchases for me this year.
Here is a list of my favorite albums from 2010:
#1 History of Modern by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
As a long-time fan of OMD who was overwhelmingly underwhelmed by their "last" album back in 1996 (titled Universal), I was almost dreading the announcement that a new album was coming out. The last thing I wanted after 14 years was another disappointment. But a part of me was hopeful, and that hope was rewarded in spades with History of Modern. Easily one of their best albums, it's a return to glorious form for original members Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys. Each song feels like a love-letter to their fans and serves as a reminder as to just how good OMD's music is. I love every track save one (the badly misplaced New Holy Ground) and would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite, as it changes with each listen. Right now I'm in love with Green and History of Modern, Pt. 2, both complex and haunting tracks that stick in your head. Last week it was Sometimes and Sister Marie Says. All I can do is hope that they tour the USA and bless us with an equally-awesome follow-up album in 2012.
#2 Sidewalks by Matt and Kim.
When I first heard Matt and Kim's debut album, I remarked that it was if I had discovered music again for the first time. Then they broke into mainstream with their brilliant follow-up, Grand, and my love for Matt and Kim was sealed. They have a... joy... for music that you just can't find anywhere else. When I heard they were coming out with something new, Sidewalks, I was prepared to be blown away once again. Oddly enough, that didn't happen. The once raw and unrefined sound that made Matt and Kim be Matt and Kim had been replaced with something more polished which had worn away all the rough edges I came to love in their sound. Kim's wildly unapologetic brashness when banging on those drums had been subdued to levels so small that it was almost as if her kit had been put on half-mute or something. And so I spent the first week being mildly disappointed. But I never stopped listening. I played it again and again and again. And fell in love with Matt and Kim all over again. From the minute I hear the opening bars of Block After Block, I'm hooked. This is an amazing album in its own right, even if it deviates from the Matt and Kim sound I had grown accustomed to. For their next effort, I'm hoping they take a half-step backwards while they're moving forward.
#3 Foot of the Mountain by a-ha.
For reasons I cannot understand, a-ha is relegated to one-hit-wonder status here in the USA (they're the Take On Me guys!), even though they went on to create some of the most amazing music I've ever heard. So when the boys announced they'd be breaking up after their Foot of the Mountain album and tour, I was more than a little upset. The first thing I did was get my hands on the CD as an import since a-ha doesn't get their stuff released here in the US. The next thing I did was buy a flight to New York and tickets to their farewell show. All I can say is that if the band simply had to retire, they couldn't have picked a better album or tour to go out on. Much like OMD's effort, Foot of the Mountain is a true return to the sound that made everybody fall in love with a-ha. With the exception of the mind-bogglingly bad final song Start the Simulator (WTF?!?), every track is gold. My favorite song is Mother Nature Go to Heaven which has the band firing on all cylinders... Morten Harket's haunting vocals being lovingly tempered with Magne Furuholmen's keyboards and Pål Waaktaar's guitar and lyrics. It's everything I love about the band summed up in 4 minutes, 9 seconds. Add the beautiful title track and seven other amazing songs and you're left with my third favorite album of 2010, but it's probably the one I'll remember the most since it's their last.
#4 Where We Are by Mackintosh Braun.
This album came out of nowhere from a band I had never heard of. I was watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy and, not for the first time, found myself Googling to find out what the awesome song was that was playing. Turns out it was Could it Be by Mackintosh Braun. A quick trip to the iTunes Store and I was running through the tracks like mad, floored by the dreamy sound that was oozing out of my speakers. I bought the album without hesitation, and it's been in heavy rotation ever since. The following week, Grey's featured another track Made For Us, which is yet another winner. Hell, every track is a winner. My favorite is Familiar which is not only plays like something out of a dream, but has a stunning musical progression that builds and falls like waves cresting in your mind. I kept hoping that I'd get tired of Where We Are so I'd be moved to purchase their debut album The Sound from 2007. Mostly because I wanted to appreciate each work separately. But I never got tired of it, and ended up buying The Sound anyway. It's a less mature album (and surprisingly simple in parts), but still an enchanting listen. Where We Are one-ups it, and I expect great things from the band in the future.
#5 All You Need is Now by Duran Duran
Back in 1985 Arcadia dropped "the best album Duran Duran never made" with So Red the Rose... 25 years later, Duran Duran is back, and managed to come up with a last-minute 2010 miracle: All You Need is Now... easily their best effort in 17 years. With this release Duran Duran is back in full-form, giving us a great title track plus gems like Leave the Light On and Being Followed. It's no Rio or Seven and the Ragged Tiger, but it made this fan very happy that it wasn't another Liberty or Thank You either.
(Honorable Mention) Tron: Legacy (Soundtrack) by Daft Punk.
While electronica house music has never been a favorite genre, it would be hard to ignore the works of the French duo Daft Punk. They're crossover success on YouTube with Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger made them an overnight sensation back in 2007. Even so, I had serious reservations about them doing the soundtrack for Tron: Legacy. The last thing I wanted was some house dance music fucking up an otherwise amazing film. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. From the moment the first track Derezzed was leaked, I knew in my gut that Daft Punk was a truly inspired choice to score the movie. Turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg, and the entire album was filled with mind-bending electronica that listens like nuclear-infused ear candy. While I may not listen to it often, Tron: Legacy makes my "honorable mention" for having the good sense not to fuck up the movie it supports (any problems that movie had were not due to the soundtrack).
It's not over yet! Albums 6-10 are in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
2010 -> AUDIO -> VIDEO -> DAVE
I'm going to split my list of top ten video entertainments for 2010 between television and movies. I'm only including stuff I've seen, which is why films like True Grit (which I understand is great) aren't showing up.
Here is a list of my favorite television shows from 2010 :
#1 Raising Hope.
As perfect as a television show gets. Flawless cast. Priceless writing. Endlessly entertaining. Hysterically funny. Nothing I could say would do the show justice... just tune in and watch it.
#2 The Human Target.
To be honest, I don't quite have the words to describe how much I love this show. Loosely based on a comic book of the same name, The Human Target is the story of Christopher Chance, an ex-assassin who now works as a bodyguard for hire. His dark and mysterious past is always coming back to haunt him, but with help from his business parter (an ex-cop named Winston played by Chi McBride) and fellow rogue assassin (Guerrero played by Jackie Earle Haley) he tries to make up for past wrongs. Part of what makes the show so great is that it has a low bullshit factor. Bad guys die when the shit goes down. This is a welcome change from the unrealistic approach taken by other shows in this genre. Two new characters were added this season, which is a little annoying since it messes up the dynamic of the show, but it's not a deal-breaker for me.
#3 Castle.
It's Murder She Wrote for the 20th century! Smart, clever, and funny, Castle stars Nathan Fillion as famous mystery writer Rick Castle who gets inspiration for his novels by helping out the police, led by the brutally hot Kate Beckett (played by Stana Katic). Hilarity and murder ensues.
#4 The Walking Dead.
Somewhat based on the comic book of the same name, this show is about a small group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse of unknown origin. It's totally brutal and kicks copious amounts of ass.
#5 Tower Prep.
I started out as a big fan of Lost but eventually grew tired of the show meandering without purpose because the writers didn't know what the fuck they were doing. Enter Tower Prep. Billed as a school for kids with special abilities, students are recruited for some mysterious purpose with no memory of how they arrived. With no escape possible, a small group of students make it their mission to figure out the secrets of this mysterious place and find a way back home. Unlike Lost, the writers behind Tower Prep actually seem to have a plan for what's happening. Don't let the fact that it airs on Cartoon Network and stars a bunch of kids fool you, this is a great show.
ALSO GOOD IN 2010: The Big C (smart, smart, smart television), 30 Rock (Consistently funny. Thank you Tina Fey), Community (Defining excellence in television comedy), Grey's Anatomy (Still managing to surprise me), Modern Family (Isn't running out of steam yet!), Fringe (I initially didn't care for this show, but am really digging it now), Breaking Bad (Um. Wow), Mad Men (Declining, but I can't help watching it), Cougar Town, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Burn Notice, White Collar, Psych, Project Runway, Graham Norton, Top Chef, On the Road with Austin & Santino, Rules of Engagement, Hot in Cleveland (BETTY WHITE!!), Doctor Who, Hawaii Five-0.
DISAPPOINTING IN 2010: Outsourced (Holy crap. Take a movie a really liked, strip it of everything that made it great, and you get this pile of FAIL!), The Event (Boring, plodding, meandering, bad television).
COMPLETE SHIT IN 2010: Survivor (Look, the formula for this show is dead-simple... find interesting people, make them play games. The end. Stop fucking up the show by having Jeff Probst inject himself into the drama at Tribal Council. Stop influencing the natural progression of things with producer-meddling bullshit. Stop picking boring-ass people to be on the show).
Here is a list of my favorite movies from 2010 (with ALL the films I remember seeing this year):
#1 Iron Man 2.
Look, I know that this was a massive drop from the sheer awesomeness of John Favreau's original Iron Man. I know it didn't crack the vast majority of "best of" lists this year. I know a lot of comic fans criticized the movie. I know. I know. I know. So how DARE I have it as my #1? Simple. I just don't care what anybody else thinks. I loved this film. Robert Downey Jr. embodies the role of Tony Stark so brilliantly that he's easily my favorite movie version of a super-hero ever... even surpassing Batman, my favorite comic book character. Add in yet another great performance by Sam Rockwell, plus Scarlett Johansson in her skin-tight Black Widow costume, plus an over-the-top Mickey Roarke as the villain Whiplash, and you've got a movie I am compelled to enjoy. I've watched Iron Man 2 on Blu-Ray no less than a half-dozen times, and will undoubtedly watch it dozens more.
#2 Toy Story 3.
It always amazes me how Pixar manages to pack such heartfelt emotion into a computer-generated cartoon, but they never fail to deliver. Near-perfect, Toy Story 3 is an amazing finale to two of the best films ever made. I love how Lasseter & Co. are not afraid to keep moving things forward as opposed to constantly re-treading the same stories over and over again. And, when you consider the fact that all the human characters are computer generated and could stay the same age forever, it's even more remarkable. This sequel sequel has the toys treading waaayyy outside their comfort zone and finding the value of friendship in even the worst of circumstances. Touching and funny, it makes me hope there's more Toy Stories to come.
#3 Kick-Ass.
Yet another comic book adaptation, and one that still surprises me it was ever made at all. Kick-Ass is the story of an ordinary teenage kid who decides to become a real-life super-hero. Things quickly get out of hand when he gets tangled up with Big-Daddy and Hit-Girl's mission to take down crime kingpin Frank D'Amico. Things also get more interesting. As a hyper-violent, foul-mouthed, and deadly "hero" of entirely another kind, Hit-Girl ends up stealing the movie. Assuming you can stomach all the bloodshed, it's bloody good fun.
#4 Inception.
In many ways, I'm not 100% convinced that I even liked this film, which is just part of the reason it's so darn compelling. Another reason would be that the story wasn't dumbed down for the typical movie-going audience. There was real complexity and ambiguity that you just don't find in the dreck that usually comes out of Hollywood. Even putting aside the mind-bending special effects, Inception has a lot going for it.
#5 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
This is one of those rare instances where I am very glad I saw the movie before I read the book... for one reason only: Noomi Rapace's absolutely brilliant portrayal of troubled punk-rock hacker Lisbeth Salander. Being able to picture her as I read the novel made it that much better. Easily one of the best movie characters ever, Lisbeth gets embroiled in an investigative reporter's quest to unwrap a mysterious murder in the powerful Vanger family. Since the film is Swedish, of course there's an American remake underway, though I can't for the life of me understand why. Maybe too many Americans are just too damn stupid to have to deal with subtitles? In any event, I genuinely pity whatever actress they get to fill Noomi's shoes on this one. There's just no way they can measure up. Dark, disturbing, violent, and wholly wonderful, I can't wait to see the two sequels (which, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were released in 2009 in the rest of the world, but are flowing like molasses here in the USA).
ALSO GOOD IN 2010: The Social Network (A much better film than the subject would imply, I loved it), The Illusionist (Wonderful animated feature from France that's a bit depressing but ultimately rewarding), Salt (Angelina Jolie brings it in this taught action-thriller), The Kids Are All Right (A much-deserved slap in the face to assholes everywhere who think their definition of "family" is the only one that matters), Exit Through The Gift Shop (surprisingly smart and entertaining), MacGruber (Go ahead, mock me, but this film was funny as hell), Red (Actually improved a bit over the comic book it was based upon. Not great movie fare, but highly entertaining), Despicable Me (Clever, fun, animated delight that ISN'T from Pixar... who'd a thunk it?), Last Train Home (Brilliant film from China that's guaranteed to move you), TRON: Legacy (As a fan of the original, I am compelled to enjoy this flawed sequel with lots of eye-popping visuals, but little character), Let Me In (Color me shocked. A fantastic remake of a fantastic Swedish vampire film that puts that Twilight shit to shame).
DISAPPOINTING IN 2010: Black Swan (My review is here), Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (It had such awesome potential but Michael Cera IS NOT SCOTT PILGRIM!), Alice in Wonderland (It has Tim Burton and some excellent production values... but didn't click with me for some reason. Maybe if I see it again but skip the 3D this time?), Jonah Hex (I have no fucking clue what in the hell they were thinking. While not a huge fan of the comic book it was based on, the source material is literary GENIUS compared to this bullshit, The Ghost Writer (I struggled not putting this film on my "GOOD" list but, despite some tense moments, I think it ultimately falls a bit flat).
COMPLETE SHIT IN 2010: The Last Airbender (What. The. Fuck. A joyful, fun, exciting, amazing cartoon had the very life sucked out of it to create this horrendous pile of shit. Shameful. Just shameful.), Skyline (Who greenlit this crap? HELLO, YOU NEED A STORY BEFORE YOU SHOOT THE MOVIE!).
2010 -> AUDIO -> VIDEO -> DAVE
JANUARY
• Realized the right tool for the job won't actually get me a free date with Elizabeth Hurley.
• Opened my big mouth and got the entire wine-connoisseur world pissed at me.
• AND NOW, FROM THE BLOGGER WHO BROUGHT YOU PENIS SALAD...
• Found out that somebody stole my monkey.
• Found a vagina on the sidewalk.
FEBRUARY
• Discovered that Canadians are responsible for the pussification of America, and showed them how REAL AMERICANS GET SHIT DONE!!
• Seattle FINALLY got a Hard Rock Cafe, and I got my 125th visit.
• Released my medical findings on a cure for the common cold to Twitter (and so much more).
MARCH
• That Crasher Squirrel has been showing up everywhere...
• Just like Lindsay Lohan's cootchie...
• Took my annual Birthday Vacation and ended up in Dutchyland, and Brussels, and Bucharest, and Transylvania, and Prague.
APRIL
• Explained why Roger Ebert is WRONG about video games not being art.
• Attended THE blogging event of the year... TEQUILACON 2010 VANCOUVER!
MAY
• Went to New York for a-ha's farewell tour and to hang out with awesome people while Betty White made her Emmy-winning SNL appearance.
• Got the tackiest phone call ever.
• Took a dump on Lost and then went out for pizza with RW, which ended up having far-reaching consequences you'll find out about later this year.
• Summed up my position on the BP oil spill.
JUNE
• Saw the Worst. Movie. Ever.
• WAY TO GO BLACKHAWKS!!
• Had more fun than should legally be allowed at Bitchsterdam 2!
• Rush Limbaugh is a vile piece of shit.
JULY
• Saw one of the best episodes of television ever (thank you Steven Moffat, The BBC, and Dr. Who!). I can honestly say that I think this is the only time I cried in all of 2010.
• Sarah Palin is a fucking idiot.
• Went on a tour of the USA with stops in Hollywood, San Diego for Comic Con, and Atlanta for Watermelon Beer, and Tulsa, and Kansas, and Chicago.
AUGUST
• Explained to haters who don't like being referred to as a hater that they kind are.
• Paid a visit to mah Hilly-Sue and FooDiddy in Sacramento.
• Got a visit from Muskrat and Whit in Seattle.
• Was inspired beyond my ability to express by the final words of a legend.
SEPTEMBER
• Took a Mediterranean vacation and saw such remarkable places as Barcelona, and Malta, and Tunisia, and The Amalfi Coast, and Rome, and Portofino, and Corsica, and Monaco. As if all that wasn't enough, I got to have breakfast with Mickey Mouse!
• Remembered The Golden Rule and became the biggest evil dumbass inhuman monster of them all.
OCTOBER
• Nearly crapped myself watching a television show.
• Partied down in rural Wisconsin... a good place to be!
• Got all poitical for a minute.
• Wore purple for a very important cause...
• Went to Albuquerque to gamble away my money at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino there.
• Found out my iPhone can take some pretty decent photos if I bother to stop and look around because there's an app for that...
NOVEMBER
• Went back to Atlanta, this time for Pumpkin Beer and good friends... then a tour of THE WALKING DEAD!
• Took a look at porn and handjobs in the interest of airport security.
DECEMBER
• Want to know where to go on vacation? Here are some of my suggestions!.
• "Take your stupid war and go fuck yourself with it."
• Took some pictures in the snow.
• Took on stupid bitches and the law, and went ape-shit over net-neutrality, and was shocked as hell by a moment of lucidity from Pat Robertson.
And that was pretty much what happened with me in 2010. How about you?
Hope your 2011 is a good one, and thanks for reading!
I am posting this at 11:11 on 1-1-11 because it seemed like a good thing to do.
When it comes to New Year's resolutions, I'm pretty boring because I have the exact same New Year's resolutions every year. The same five goals going on for heaven only knows how long. This year is no different, except I am working on some projects which will definitely add some excitement to my 2011. More on that later.
Here's my score card for fulfilling my resolutions in 2010...
Here's hoping that the Pop-Tart people keep making new flavors so I can fulfill my resolutions again this year!
And now for what's new this decade...
I work. A lot. And while it's work I love, the fact that it's non-stop and never-ending has sucked most of the joy out of what I do. This year I am trying to rediscover the joys to be found in creativity by coming up with projects just for me. Five new projects to go with the same five resolutions I do every year. Five projects centering around stuff I like to do, but don't get to do so much any more...
And here we go...
DAVE'S FIVE PROJECTS FOR 2011
• The Hard Rock Project. I owe the Hard Rock Cafe a huge debt for continuing to inspire me to travel to new places. When I think of all the awesome cities I've discovered that I would have never visited if not for a Hard Rock being there, my gratitude knows no bounds. Coming up with a project to celebrate my love of Hard Rock collectibles wasn't easy, but then I saw my closet packed full of their T-shirts and the HARD ROCK 100 PROJECT was born. For 100 days I'll be wearing a favorite Hard Rock T-shirt from my collection and sharing the photo both on my DaveCafe fan site and my DaveCafe Flickr feed. Here is Day One (which you can read about by clicking on it)...
• The Artificial Duck Project. After losing my T-shirt printer, twice, I kind of let the Artificial Duck Co. store languish for a year. That's going to change. I've been working on some new T-Shirts and will be getting that set up at yet another printer soon. But that's not all... more totally sweet crap you can't live without is being planned and should be appearing this Summer.
• The Writing Project. After being invited to RW's house for pizza and plenty of good conversation, I realized that I wanted to start writing again. I used to write stories all the time, and loved the escape I got from it. But then my blog kind of took over all my writing time and I stopped. This Spring that's going to change in a big way. You'll be finding out all about it sometime in March.
• The Drawing Project. Before computers took over all my design work, I used to draw, paint, and even sculpt. Don't get me wrong, I love designing on the computer, but it's not the same as "getting your hands dirty" with a pencil and a drawing pad. Proving that one thing leads to another, The Writing Project led to me finding The Drawing project. It's been a lot of fun, and should also be debuting in March.
• The Secret Project. Yeah, this one is going to take a while... most of the year, in fact. I'm waaaayyyy over my head this time. And loving every minute of it. So far.
And that's it. Plans are already in motion.
Here's to an interesting 2011.
"You're not dying... you just can't think of anything better to do."
— Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off
I've had cheese pizza for dinner three times in the past week. It's not that I'm particularly craving cheese pizza, I just can't think of anything better to eat. Well, I can, but flying to Amsterdam for a cheese sandwich or jetting off to Rome for Fettucine Alfredo seems a bit excessive. Oh well, pizza and bullets it is then. Welcome to a Very Special NEW YEAR Edition of Bullet Sunday!
• NEW CHANNELS! I relented and purchased an expanded cable television package because my sister got me hooked on The Big C which you can only get on the Showtime Channel. Unfortunately, The Big C was just the beginning. Now I'm hooked on Dexter again... PLUS Boardwalk Empire on HBO. What an amazing show that is. I've always liked Steve Buscemi's acting, but damn...
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The other actors in Boardwalk Empire are great too ( ZOMG! Erik Weiner?)... along with the writing, the directing, the production values, and everything else associated with the show. I guess with Martin Scorsese involved I shouldn't be surprised, but damn...
• NEW HOTNESS! Well, okay, Summer Glau is not exactly "new," having appeared as "River Tam" in fan-favorite Joss Whedon awesomeness Firefly. And then she did a smattering of guest appearances in television shows meant to appeal to a sci-fi geek's wet dreams, including The 4400 and Dollhouse... along with playing a FRICKIN' TERMINATOR in the sweet Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles...
And now she's moving into comic book geek territory by taking a role on The Cape, a super-hero series debuting on the 9th...
I can only guess that her next role will be as Wonder Woman, because that's about the only thing in the genre left for her to play! Hopefully her new show will be worth a crap, and not some lame knock-off of a lame show like Heroes.
• NEW AWESOME! As a huge, huge fan of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, the movie I am most looking forward to this year is... PAUL! The movie looks entertaining as hell and, since it's Frost & Pegg, you know it's going to be funny. AND THE CAST! It's got Kristin Wigg, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, AND SIGOURNEY WEAVER IN IT! I can't for the life of me understand why the buzz on this film isn't bigger than it is...
• NEW SHIT? Last year Steve Ballmer took the stage of the annual Consumer Electronics Show to show off Microsoft's revolutionary new tablet version of Windows 7 to be released on an upcoming "slate" hardware device.
THIS year Steve Ballmer will be taking the stage of the annual Consumer Electronics Show to show off Microsoft's revolutionary new tablet version of Windows 7 to be released on an upcoming "tablet" hardware device.
See, "slate" was the old shit. "Slates" ended up sucking ass and nobody bought them because "slates" don't have the power necessary to run a resource-sucking pile of shit like Windows. But then Apple unveiled the "iPad" which everybody made fun of because it sounded like "maxi pad" (or whatever). Everybody in the industry also made fun of iPad because it wasn't a "real" computer at all but just a "big phone that can't make calls" or perhaps a "grossly underpowered computer that can't do anything."
But then Apple had the last laugh (as usual) because iPad went on to sell a bajillion units.
So now Microsoft is recycling the same fucked-up bullshit that nobody wanted the first time around and pretending it's new because apparently, thanks to Apple, everybody came to their senses and decided they want a tablet computer all along. Microsoft was just ahead of its time last year, and THIS year will be totally different!
Except that's not what happened at all. People didn't all of a sudden embrace tablet computer... they embraced the iPad which, as everybody in the industry was so quick to point out, IS NOT A COMPUTER. Sure it has some computer functionality, but it's more an "appliance" that becomes different electronic devices as opposed to a traditional computer. The fact that it's NOT A COMPUTER is what makes it so compelling. People who need a computer aren't going to be satisfied with a stripped down, crippled, slow tablet device. It's people who are looking for something simple and functional who are the iPad's target customer, and Apple understood this.
Microsoft (as usual) is playing catch-up and doing it all wrong. Again. I'm sure after the "tablet" fails just like the "slate" failed, Balmer will be standing on the stage in 2012 with the "new" Microsoft "pad" device running the tablet edition of Windows 7 because THAT'S what the problem was... it was the NAME that sabotaged the previous two attempts!
That same name that everybody made fun of when Apple unleashed it last year.
Oh how I loathe Microsoft. They have access to unlimited money and unlimited technology, but there's nobody there with any kind of vision to make any use of it. I'M STILL WAITING FOR MY FLYING CAR, STEVE BALMER, YOU DEMENTED FOOL!!
• NEW OUTLOOK! I promise myself that I will be 50% less critical of Microsoft this year, because I know everybody it tired of
That will be really fucking easy to do, because this year Microsoft will be 50% less relevant to the computer industry, the mobile phone industry, and the electronic industry in general, just like they were last year (KIN PHONES FOR EVERYBODY!).
The only place Microsoft is holding any ground is with their Xbox 360 video game console. You know, their SIX YEAR OLD ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY?!? Of course, six years in electronics years is like SIXTY years in human years, so heaven only knows how long that gravy train is going to last. Hopefully they've got an
Of course, it's not inconceivable that Apple won't come out with iPlay (or whatever) and swipe the gaming market as well. Thanks to iPod Touch, iPhone, and now iPad, they've pretty much sewn up the portable gaming market already. What's one more area of global domination to Steve Jobs?
• NEW INSIGHT! Well, not really. Despite Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back being two of my most favorite movies of all time, I found the "prequels" to be massive piles of shit. Not only were they boring as hell, but they barely made any sense. When I initially wrote my thoughts on Revenge of the Sith after it was released, I ranked it as "okay" even though I fully admitted it sucked. Probably because compared to The Phantom Mencace and Attack of the Clones it was utter genius. I was so desperate to like Star Wars again that ranking it "okay" was more of a cry for help than any acknowledgement of cinematic greatness...
This got me roundly despised by many of my fellow Star Wars fans who thought Revenge of the Sith was the best thing ever. Not that I can blame them... if you've been eating nothing but vomit and fond memories for decades, a plate of moldy bread is going to feel like dinner at the Ritz.
Now that time has passed, perspective has only managed to take the bloom off the rose. Or, in the case of Mr. Plinkett, to shred the rose into pieces, cover it in raw sewage, then fart on it as you toss it into a nuclear explosion. His biting, scathing analysis is horrifyingly accurate. He not only addresses all the problems I had with the film* but expands upon them with some insight I hadn't considered.
If you're okay with lots of profanity and a shocking lack of taste and morals masquerading as a movie review, then this is something you must see.
And there you have it. The first Bullet Sunday of a new year. Let's hope I survive the week to do a second one.
*Well, one thing he DOESN'T address is the bullshit about "midichlorian count" being an indicator as to how powerful somebody is with The Force. If a massive number of midichlorians determines your strength, how can Darth Vader be so fucking powerful when he lost both legs and both arms? That's an ass-load of midichlorians to lose. And can somebody who has low midichlorians inject a bunch of them and instantly become a Jed Master? ARRRGH! Like everything else in the prequels, this shit doesn't make any fucking sense!
I have never told the whole story of how my blogging mascots, Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey, came to be. I thought perhaps I would save it for their tenth birthday in 2012, but something has come up to change my mind. Thanks to an offer too good to refuse, I managed to purchase a custom Gowalla stamp featuring the DaveToon Duo. For those not familiar with Gowalla, it is a location-based social networking game where you can follow where your friends go, collect location stamps, find interesting new spots, and keep track of the places you've been.
Until recently "custom stamps" were only available to "landmark" spots like The Eiffel Tower or to spots that the Gowalla Team liked (usually in Austin, where they are based). But there was an entry-price stamp test program I signed up for and, voilà, Blogography has it's own stamp...
My logo on the left, the Gowalla stamp interpretation on the right (enlarged 250%).
And now the story of how I cam up with Bad Monkey and Lil' Dave. So I can do a good job of it, I've got back through all my old file archives and pulled out all my early sketches and drawings, so you can see how things came together from the very beginning.
Surprisingly, Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey were not created for Blogography. They were originally drawn up to solve a problem at my other blog, DaveCafe, which is a travel journal and review site for all the Hard Rock Cafes I've been to.
The problem was that I love the Hard Rock, and I felt really terrible when I had something bad to say about one of my visits. Trying to distance myself from my own criticism, I came up with the idea of having an alter-ego who would talk about anything "bad" which would leave me to be the hero and talk about all the good stuff from my visit. Since I've long been fascinated by monkeys, I thought that it would be cool to have a kind of "Curious George" sidekick... but wicked-crazy instead of curious to deliver the bad news.
And thus the idea for "Dave and Bad Monkey" was born while I was in New York on July 13th, 2002.
When starting out on a project like this, I often fill an entire page with a "base" element (in this case, a head-shape) then draw up numerous variations around it. At this point, I was mainly concerned with getting the hair right, but was also working on the eyes and nose. The mouth was always going to be a simple slit from the very beginning, as the Dave character was supposed to be "neutral" when delivering his review...
As I drew more and more variations, I was refining the hair to be more styled. In the beginning, it's simple shapes and pen-tool scribblings, but ends up having curves to look more realistic. Once I got to the last head, I thought the hair was getting a little too perfect. Which doesn't really look like me at all. My hair is a perpetual mess, and so I went back and redrew the last row to have a more spikey look in the bangs.
Below is a close-up of some of the characters above. Originally, the eyes were all round, but I went back and started trying ovals. I wasn't sure of the right size so I played with that as well...
After filling the page and getting to a hairstyle I liked, I realized that my head-shapes were too vertical. Computer screens are wider than they are tall so I wanted a character which would economize height. Working on a copy of the file, I turned all the heads horizontal and rearranged the hair and facial features to fit...
The wider head made Dave look much, much younger, so I toyed with the idea of adding a five o'clock shadow so he'd look more like an adult.
At this point, I thought the round eyes made Dave look stoned so I changed everything to ovals. Then I became convinced that the oval head-shape was lazy, and started playing around with the idea of using more of a squashed-egg look instead. Once I did that, the rounded hair was starting to look "over-styled" to me again, so I went back to my original concept and started messing around with simple pen-tool spikes for hair...
After a number of head-shape iterations I decided to go back to an oval. The egg-shape made his cheeks look pudgy, and I liked the simplicity of an oval better. Wanting to simplify things further, I removed the lines in the ears. I had abandoned the five o'clock shadow for a while but eventually came back to it because I thought it made my character more unique...
It was around this time that I became obsessed with the nose. Up until this point they had all tapered at the bridge in order to add depth to the shape. But I disliked having something so pointy on the face. The only thing spikey was supposed to be the hair, and so I re-drew the nose with a consistent pen width. It still bothered me, but at least it looked "right" on the face now. The last thing I worked on was the hair. Since Dave was flat I liked the idea of making the hairstyle two-dimensional. That way I could just flop his hair to make him point in the other direction.
After roughly two hours of sketching across six Adobe Illustrator pages, I had narrowed down the design to two choices...
At this point, my decision was easy. The rounded hair looked like a strange comb-over and seemed a bit ordinary. The spikey hair was more cartoony, interesting, and reminded me of one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. So all that was left was to create a Bad Monkey sidekick. There was no sketching this time around. I removed the hair and face from Dave, shrunk it, then just drew a monkey face on it. The total design time for my monkey pal was probably five minutes...
The problem was that he didn't look very "bad" and came across as kind of sedate. I thought the beady round eyes would add a little crazy, but it wasn't enough. Thinking I was over-thinking things, I went ahead and published the cartoon heads at DaveCafe and went to bed.
Then couldn't get to sleep. It really bugged me that Bad Monkey was getting short changed, since using him as a scapegoat was what caused me to create the cartoons in the first place. Rather than do variations of a dozen different monkey heads, I just kept tweaking and fine-tuning the drawing I already had. I remember adding spikey fur on his head, but he looked too much like Dave. Eventually I thought I'd just draw him screeching with his mouth open because it was the only way I could think of to make him look a little insane...
And just like that, I had found Dave and Bad Monkey!
Except not quite.
When I reduced the heads down to size, Dave's mouth looked a bit like a grimace, so I redrew it as a smile. And hated it. His nose, which had always bothered me, looked like a blob when outlined in black, so I changed it to something more subtle. I wasn't terribly happy with the end result, but it was getting very late, so I went ahead and published them anyway...
And that's how the characters would stay for nearly a year.
Tune in tomorrow for the exciting finale...
Can you feel the excitement? Can you? Well I'll see you tomorrow then!
Here it is... PART TWO of the story of how my DaveToon blog mascots came to be! If you haven't read Part One yet, you'll probably want to do that first.
Right off the bat, I'm going to have to apologize for lying to you yesterday. I had promised that I'd be sharing NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN images of Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey in 3-D but, alas, I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow so I can get a few problems with the 3-D to 2-D rendering sorted. It will be worth the wait though, I promise!
Anyway, getting back to the story... Bad Monkey and Lil' Dave had been languishing on my Hard Rock fansite, DaveCafe, for just over a year. Then, in September of 2003, I was preparing for a trip to visit Hard Rock Cafes in Reykjavik and Stockholm. A fellow Hard Rocker in Japan had once given me his "Hard Rock business card" and I decided that was a handy thing to have. I could put my email and website address on it and hand it out to Hard Rock fans I meet. My cheap-o ink-jet printed cards ended up looking like this...
At this point, the DaveToons had (literally) become my calling card for DaveCafe. But it was this humble blog where most of my time and effort were going. Finally, inevitably, on February 11th, 2004, worlds collided. I had written a Blogography entry where I mentioned a monkey showing up at work with an ebola virus, and it occurred to me that I could make Bad Monkey be that monkey. But he and Toon-Dave were only heads, so I had to slap together some bodies for them. Since I thought it was important for people to know where they came from, I put the DaveCafe logo on Toon Dave's shirt...
You'll also note that I had to figure out how to make Toon-Dave's head turn, which was a lot more complicated than you might guess. It took hours for me to figure out how that might work, since he's so firmly rooted in two dimensions. Eventually, I just slapped an ear on the side of his head where I thought it should go, then worked the hair around it.
Now that Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey had more than just heads, it was time to redesign my DaveCafe site. I announced the coming change around the end of February, 2004...
And the site went live in April with Toon Dave doing all kinds of interesting stuff...
For the next couple of years, Toon Dave continued to make dozens of appearances at Blogography. Bad Monkey made zero appearances. He was meant to embody negativity over at DaveCafe, and I made a conscious effort to keep him there. About the only thing new to happen was that Toon Dave got a very important addition to his anatomy in January of 2005 (I thought it was pretty impressive, but Avitable would take it to an entirely new level a few years later)...
While not really "new," in June, 2005 I decided I wanted to try my hand at animating DaveToons. With absolutely no experience, I started studying what it would take to make them speak. The idea was to create a cartoon talk show called Dave's Bad-Ass Blogography Show...
The following month I played around with the idea of making them move using Flash...
It was a fun experiment, but proved far too time-consuming for me to take seriously. Maybe one day I'll find the time to actually make a complete animation. Maybe.
2006 was the year things started changing. First of all, Bad Monkey made the first of many, many appearances in January. I finally found a use for him where he could be as bad as he wanted to be...
Granted, it was a pretty crappy appearance. Bad Monkey's body was just Toon Dave's body colored brown. Still, it was a start.
And then things really changed.
When DaveToons first started appearing in Blogography, they were specifically designed to be as fast and easy to draw as possible. Toon Dave didn't have hands, he had mittens. Fingers take time to draw. Bad Monkey didn't look like a monkey, he looked like a person dressed as a monkey. Lanky limbs and tails take time to draw. Everything was colored flat and boring. Shaded color takes time to draw. I was perfectly happy with all the DaveToons looking crappy because they took almost no time to slap together.
But eventually it started to reeeeaally bother me. The more appearances they made on my blog, the more upset I'd get that they didn't look as good as they should. So on May 6th, 2006, I spent a couple of hours and started over from scratch. With a DaveToon I titled Best Friends, Toon Dave and Bad Monkey were reborn...
It took about a year for the transition to fully take effect, but the look had finally been fixed. Now that the look was fixed, it was the name "Toon Dave" that was bothering me. Toon Dave was no longer just a toon version of myself. He was an entirely different character with an entirely different life. Fortunately, when I guest-blogged over at Hilly's Snackiepoo blog in August of 2006, the solution was at hand. She called her mascot "Lil' Snackie" and so "Toon Dave" became "Lil' Dave" and the name stuck...
After that? Well, I briefly played around with animation again...
...but Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey would stay pretty much the same throughout their many new adventures over the next two years.
The next "Big Thing" wouldn't happen until the end of 2008.
And it was SO big that nobody ever saw it. Until tomorrow. Tomorrow, at long last, NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN images of Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey in 3-D! And exactly WHY were Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey in 3-D two years ago? Well, that's a very good question. And I'll explain that tomorrow too!
I have to warn you though, it's a very sad (and very expensive) tale, so bring a hankerchief.
At long last... PART THREE of the story of how my DaveToon blog mascots came to be! If you haven't read Part One yet, you'll probably want to do that first... and then Part Two is right here.
Okay. Okay. I know. I made a promise that yesterday I would reveal for the first time anywhere NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN images of Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey in 3-D. But, because of some kind of technical problems with a software upgrade, I couldn't render them into 2-D pictures. So last night I made a few phone calls to get that sorted, and here we are.
But before I reveal the images, you're probably wondering exactly WHY Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey would be rendered into 3-D in the first place. That's a very good question. There's actually two reasons...
Now, you have to admit that either of those reasons were awesome enough for me to want to get 3-D models made. Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey dolls? AWESOME! A Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey video game? AWESOME!
And so I paid a very talented computer animator a lot of money to make the models.
Unfortunately, neither of these awesome projects came to be. I'll explain what happened in a minute, but let's get to the 3-D renderings, shall we?
First up... BAD MONKEY! Note that his tail is sticking straight out. This is on purpose, because it would be animated bouncing up and down as he walked in the video game, and it was easier to do this if it were starting from a straight position. The animator would curl it when he defined how it would move in the walk cycle...
Pretty sweet, huh? It took a LOT of back-and-forth with the animator to translate a
And then there's Lil' Dave. Who needed to start out naked with no hair for video game reasons I'll explain later...
And here he is with clothes. The hair wasn't finished exactly right at this point, but it was getting close...
So the models look great, what's the story?
THE DOLLS.
The dolls were going to be very cool. VERY cool. Their arms and legs would move. They would have fun accessories. They would have awesome packaging. They would come in three versions (called "Colorways" in the biz)... 1) Classic Dolls, 2) ZOMBIE Dolls, and 3) Limited Edition BLANK "Paint Your Own" Dolls. Unfortunately, the company handling the job went out of business. My dream of having Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey vinyl dolls (along with an $800 deposit) vanished overnight.
THE VIDEO GAME.
If the loss of the vinyl dolls was tough on me, the loss of the video game was devastating. In addition to being out the money I invested in having the models made, I was out hundreds of hours in pesonal time. I wrote the game story. I helped design game levels. I designed the level maps. I drew hundreds of concept sketches. I painted hundreds of object textures. I invested time working on things like "walk cycles" and "cut scenes." Then one day I got The Call. The school was converting to some kind of learning internship agency. The theory was that this would be better for the students because they'd be getting hands-on experience at real gaming companies. The reality was that there wasn't enough internship positions to go around. So even if the guy working on my game could get an internship, he would then be working on the company's projects and not mine. Instead he lost his education financing and had to stop working on the DaveToon game so he could find a new school.
This was a real shame, because it would have been a pretty cool game. It was designed to be relatively easy, so young kids and adults with no gaming experience could play. But it was still funny enough that even a gamer would want to play to see what happened. The story revolved around Lil' Dave trying to avoid an invasion of robot monsters and solving puzzles so he could find his way home. Along the way, Bad Monkey would show up to help... and sometimes hinder... his progress. Lil' Dave replenished his health by finding chocolate pudding cups hidden around in the game. You couldn't really "die" while playing, but you could get thrown into "Zombie Mode" if your health ran out. If you couldn't get out of "Zombie Mode," you'd turn into a ghost (with no hair or clothes... just a glowing outline), fly back to the beginning of the level, grab a new body, then have to start over.
And there you have it. The NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN images of Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey in 3-D!
And the really sad story as to why you never saw them.
Maybe one day somebody will come along and want to work on the game again. Or maybe I'll get bored sometime and write a blog entry with the NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN sketches, paintings, bits and pieces that I spent a big chunk of my personal time working on in 2009. The good news is that you might finally understand what I was trying to say with this entry. And this entry.
So what's next for Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey?
Well... there are always possibilities. I definitely plan on new T-shirts. There will absolutely be more DaveToons on Blogography. And there are other things... secret things... I've got ideas for which may or may not happen.
When it comes to Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey, you just never know.
Welcome to a totally unexpected... PART FOUR of a series detailing the evolution of Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey over the years. I say unexpected, because I thought yesterday was the end of it, but I got some emails and questions, so I thought I would extend another day.
First of all, a look at what could have been with the "colorways" of the DaveToon vinly dolls I was working on before the company closed-up shop. Here's the painting instruction sheet I made for the manufacturer (I removed the paint color notations so you can see the characters better)...
The dolls would have come as a set in a custom-designed box with a clear plastic window in the front and various "accessories" tied to a background card behind them. I hadn't actually drawn the box, because I was waiting to get the final shape, but I had sketched out some concepts based on an old G.I. JOE box I had found. The idea was to make it look slightly "vintage" and show all the features and accessories as EXCITING FEATURES on the back and sides. The box would be the same for all the versions, but a space would have been reserved to sticker the three variants...
And that's as far as I got. I was supposed to get prototype dolls and a bunch of other stuff for the deposit I payed, but I never saw any of it. For those who asked, the pricing is a tricky business, because I hadn't gotten information on duties and taxes and shipping fees. My goal was to sell the "Classic" dolls for $15-$17, the "Zombie" dolls for $22-$25, and the "Custom" dolls for $30-$35... but that could have gone up or down depending on how everything ultimately got costed out. Considering a single 6-inch doll usually sells for around $40, I thought my pricing was pretty good. The idea wasn't so much to make money, but to simply cover the costs of making the dolls... just because I wanted them! Oh well.
One of the most popular questions I continue to get is "How do you draw your DaveToons?" I had answered this question in a smart-assed way back in September, 2006 (NSFW!)... but it's probably time to give a serious answer. While I don't have time to create a comprehensive "How-To" showing every last detail as to how things are done, what I CAN do is run through all the steps it takes to draw one of my characters...
BUT FIRST, FAIR WARNING: I will absolutely concede that this will look a heck of a lot easier than it actually is. If you are not familiar with Adobe Illustrator, then you should understand that this is a program that takes years to master. I have been drawing with Illustrator most every day for over twenty years and there are still things I have problems with. I just want to be sure that somebody reading this doesn't think "Wow, this is simple! I'm going to draw cartoons too!" then run out and spend $600 on Adobe Illustrator only to find out that it's not quite as easy as all that.
With that having ben said, you can see the basic concepts that go into how I approach the "DaveToon Look" in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
"You obviously have no concept of how this works."
"And you obviously have no concept of how little I care."
When you are as massively intelligent as I am, nothing seems to make people happier than pointing out the things you don't know. Oh yes. It's not enough that I am burdened with genius-level intelligence beyond mere mortal's ability to fathom... I have to be punished for it as well.
The simple fact is that while my mind may be mind-bogglingly vast in its capacity for knowledge, there are some things that I just don't give a shit about, and have no desire to learn.
Like engine repair.
In all seriousness, I couldn't care less about how to fix a frickin' engine. When something goes wrong with my piece of shit car, I take it to the auto repair shop.
Problem solved.
Well, at least until the bill comes.
I mean, in general terms I get the concept. I understand the principle behind internal combustion and comprehend the physics which enable it to work. I know the various major components of an automotive engine and have a general idea as to what their function is. I even know a vague history of engine development thanks to a PBS special I watched years ago. But do I really have to know how to repair one? No. Do I even want to know how to repair one? Fuck no. There are trained professionals who already have that covered. I'm good.
And yet...
There are times it would be nice to know how to fix my damn car when shit happens. If for no other reason than I wouldn't have to endure the sheer glee from people who become overjoyed when they find out it's something I can't do. As in really can't do. Car doesn't start? Checking under the hood to confirm that the engine isn't missing is the extent of my ability to diagnose the problem. If the engine is present, then I've basically done all I can do... and I'm fine with that.
At least I am until some asshole tries to make me feel like I'm a complete failure at life because I don't understand how to determine a problem with the fuel injection system... or a dead starter... or a busted ignition coil... or whatever else the fuck causes these kind of things to happen.
Look, if you want some of science's most impossible questions answered, I'm your man.
So don't be giving me any shit because I have no desire to learn how to replace a bad injector or pinpoint issues with the electrical system, or recognize a bad ignition switch. I just don't deserve it.
Living on this backwards planet is punishment enough.
Today can just go away now. My thoughts are with Gabrielle Giffords, her family, and everybody affected by the terrible events in Arizona.
Even though "bullet points" are very different from "ammunition bullets," yesterday's horrifying events have depressed me so badly that there will be no bullets here today. And while I could type out an angst-filled rant over efforts on both sides of the political spectrum to unleash blame and hatred over something so tragic, I just can't do it. A man and a little nine-year-old girl are dead. Others are seriously injured.
I'll think about it tomorrow. I just can't do it today.
In an effort to put my mind as far away as possible from the heartbreaking events in the news, I'm going to get as far away from them as possible in my blog.
Look! I'm Batman!
This awesome Bat-shirt was my gift from the "Bloggy Gift Exxxtravaganza 2010 Remix" over at Josh's blog!
I already had the Bat-iPhone.
And so, as promised, here I am commenting on the tragedy in Arizona after a day off from thinking about anything. I suppose I should preface this entry with a disclaimer in the hopes that my comments and email inbox won't explode with hate, which is about the last thing I need right now...
This blog post is in no way an attempt to tell people what to think. I am not trying to change anybody's mind. I'm not trying to get people riled up. I'm not trying to send a political message. I'm not trying to do anything except write down my thoughts in the hope that it will help me to move past this dreadful act of violence that has broken my heart and put me in a state of despair that I haven't felt in quite a while. I ache inside when I think of a little nine-year old girl being gunned down before she's even had a chance at life. I know that this isn't new... I know that unspeakable violence against children happens all over the world every day. But every once in a while an event like this brings all the pain forward and suddenly you're overwhelmed by something you try to forget... something you try to deny even exists. Then the reality of it all beats you down until you don't want to exist in a world where something so senseless and stupid can happen to somebody so innocent...
The shooter, Jared Lee Whatever, is clearly a seriously disturbed individual. Even a cursory look at his writings and YouTube videos reveal that he is mentally unstable with a tenuous grip on reality, perhaps even full-on schizophrenia, (as if gunning down a child wasn't proof enough that something is wrong). It's not in the scope of a simple blog entry to go into the peticulars of mental illness and my experience with those inflicted by it... except to say that trying to explain why they do the things they do and what causes them to do the things they do will make you crazy. I don't pretend to know what punishment is fitting for someone so clearly disturbed but, thankfully, it's not my job to decide that.
Anyway...
A lot has been written blaming Sarah Palin's "target list" (which clearly names Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords as a political enemy) as a contributing factor to what happened...
Coupled with her Twitter comments telling her followers "Don't retreat, RELOAD!" it understandably paints her in a bad light. And, since everybody is always looking for a villain whenever something terrible happens, she's a very easy person to blame.
Except...
Except... I don't for a single second believe that Sarah Palin honestly wished that somebody would pick up a gun and kill these people. Like me, she comes from a place and a culture where guns and gun terminology are just a way of life. I know this because I have been around guns all my life. Many, many people where I live own guns for hunting, for sport, and for protection (yes, we have a police department, but that's not going to be much help if you live ten miles up a canyon somewhere and somebody is breaking into your home or you're being attacked by a bear). When I was young I got my firearm safety card. I know how to use a gun. I've shot guns in the past. And even though my beliefs forbid me from handling a gun today, I could certainly do so if I had to. It's just part of the culture where I live and grew up.
As is the gun-based terminology that Sarah Palin is currently being crucified for.
But I'll get back to that in a minute.
First I want to go a bit deeper into "gun culture" and what that actually means. Because, whether or not it's prevalent in the area you're at, if you live in the United States of America, you're a part of it. And it starts from an early age.
If you're anything like me, a very early age...
This is the kind of stuff I grew up watching. If you're my age (or Sarah Palin's age) odds are, you did too. And for me to say that it affected her and not me would be pretty hypocritical. Here is a panel from a DaveToon from 2004...
And here's a full DaveToon strip from 2006...
And, just to show that I'm not above gun violence to myself...
Heck, I use guns ALL THE TIME in my DaveToons. And it's not always Daffy-Duck-style blasts to the face either. In a DaveToon from two years ago there were actual bullets involved...
Now, granted, the vast majority of times nobody actually gets hurt in my DaveToons. Just like with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons, in context the guns are used for comedic effect, not to actually kill somebody. Even when I finally used bullets in my gun, the worst I could manage would be to shoot off somebody's hat. And yet, I have occasionally shown somebody riddled with bullet-holes. Like the time I tried to show the results of somebody "Happy Slapping" a random person in Britain vs. somebody "Happy Slapping" a random person in the USA...
And, of course, registering my displeasure with George Lucas over his stupid Star Wars prequels and screwing up the Indiana Jones franchise...
In context things like this are mere fantasy ramblings. Even though I don't use guns in real life and think that the world would be better off without them, I'm not above using them for entertainment in a cartoon on a blog meant for adults. Or enjoying them for entertainment value either. I regularly watch all kinds of action movies where people are getting shot left and right. In the context of entertainment, I don't find anything wrong with that. And neither should George Lucas... he has "Indiana Jones" shoot a lot of people in his movies. Heck, he even massacred a bunch of kids in Revenge of the Sith!
All that being said, I'm not against people owning guns in our gun-based culture. That ship has sailed. In the USA the guns are here and they're here to stay. If we were to all of a sudden ban guns, it would have very little net effect. Since the majority of people mis-using guns are criminals anyway, you'd be removing the ability for non-criminals to protect themselves against them. For better or worse, we have a gun culture and that isn't going to change.
But, given the seemingly never-ending tragedy involving insane people with guns, it's not like we shouldn't at least attempt to figure out a way to keep things like this from happening. The problem is that nothing we try seems to work. Things like "waiting periods" and "background checks" may stop some senseless tragedies from happening where they exist, but the shootings are still going on. Because the crazy people always seem to find a way. Just like when an alcoholic gets behind the wheel of a car while drunk and ends up mowing down innocent people in a sidewalk somewhere. It's illegal, we have laws against it, we have court-mandated rehab to try and prevent it, and yet it keeps happening. This doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying, but there doesn't seem to be a foolproof solution at hand. At least not here in the United States where guns are everywhere. Just like prohibition with alcohol, there will always be a way for people to get their hands on something... even when it's been made illegal.
The perils of people having of guns is an issue that requires a lot more thought. And I'm not going to claim to know how that chestnut can be cracked.
But what about the perils of people talking guns in their language, communication, and entertainment?
Is somebody like me who draws cartoons glorifying gun violence for entertainment partly responsible for escalating gun-based violence in this country? What about cartoons, video games, television shows, comic books, movies, YouTube videos, websites, and all the rest?
Probably.
And yet... not really.
Taken in context, someone would have to be insane to look at one of my DaveToon rants or a Daffy Duck cartoon and think that they're being instructed to go get a gun and shoot somebody.
Unfortunately, as we are sadly aware, these people actually exist.
So, like I said... probably.
And yet... not really.
Even though I loathe Sarah Palin, abhor her politics, despise her lies, deplore her half-truths, and find her messages of hate and bigotry to be disgusting on every possible level... even though I find her partisan hackery and unfounded attacks to be reprehensible... even though I think she has a lot to answer for when it comes to her irresponsible manipulation of people with fear, uncertainty, and doubt... even though she is one of the most useless, incomprehensibly stupid people I have ever seen in the political arena... even though she disgusts me in ways I can barely enunciate... her saying "Don't retreat, RELOAD" and drawing targets on her political rivals is just a part of our gun-based culture. Sarah Palin is being strung up for something most of us are guilty of in some way.
Even Daffy Duck.
When I was in high school I remember a pep rally poster where gun targets were painted over drawings of mascots from other school's sports teams. Above that, something like "WE'VE GOT YOU IN OUR SIGHTS" was painted. Did our school literally want to hunt down rival schools with guns? Of course not. Was our intent to incite others to hunt down these rival schools with guns? Of course not. But that's the culture where I come from. No sane person would attach heinous acts of violence to something like this because In context it's simply communicating team spirit in words and images everybody here understands.
In the wilds of Alaska where Sarah Palin is off shooting moose and clubbing fish, I'm sure it's much the same. Words like "RELOAD" are just colloquial parts of speech where she comes from, and a means of expressing her seriousness in the idea of confronting opposition head-on. I totally get that. The USA is filled with violent imagery just about everywhere you look, and she's just latching onto that as a way of stating her opinions. In that respect, she's no different than Quentin Tarantino making violent films like Reservoir Dogs or the people at Rockstar Games who make the Grand Theft Auto video games.
Except...
Except... as a political leader, Sarah Palin should know better. She should act better. She should be a better example. She should inspire better. And she should lead by a higher standard. But she never has, and I don't expect her to start now. When your message is one of division and hatred, there's very little room to maneuver. Sudden pleas for respectful debate and intelligent compromise would be seen as a huge weakness by her fan-base, and an implausible reversal by everybody else. She's trapped in a prison of her own making, and though she may temporarily tone down her rhetoric, it's only a matter of time before she's back to form or else she knows that she's finished.
And that means we ALL have a problem.
Because while I have every confidence that Sarah Palin never in a million years intended for anybody to be shot because of her gun-speak and infographics... when taken in context she should not be the least bit surprise that the accusations are being laid at her doorstep. You can't viciously attack your political rivals with such unbridled vitriol and expect nobody is going to take your extremes to an extreme.
Whether that's what happened here, we may never know. As I said, trying to understand the mindset of a disturbed person like Jared Lee Loughner will drive you crazy. But... so long as Sarah Palin continues down the road she's on, she should expect to be taking more heat down the line.
Hopefully you can now understand why I choose to forgive... even defend... Sarah Palin using language and imagery that's a part of America's gun culture to communicate. It would be hypocritical of me not to.
But I hope you can also understand why I choose to believe that context is everything when it comes to something like this, and hers is hardly a message or method I can support. Respectful debate has been replaced with vicious attacks when it comes to political discourse in this country... on both sides of the political spectrum. That this will lead to violence is not surprising. That people in this country will stand for it is surprising.
Or not. I mean, you've got kids watching Elmer Fudd blow off Daffy Duck's head seventeen times for heaven's sake.
And so... to the surprise of nobody possessing an internet connection, Verizon announced that the iPhone will be available on their CDMA network on February 10th at long last.
As I usually do when faced with a difficult decision, I decided to make a PRO vs. CON chart in order to figure out whether switching from AT&T would be a good move for me...
| PROS | CONS | |
| Might actually be able to make a phone call that doesn't drop! | Would have to pay out my contract with AT&T plus buy a new iPhone. $$$ | |
| I get 3G coverage instead of shitty EDGE in my podunk home town! | 3G may be more widespread, but is slower than AT&T's 3G. | |
| Data might actually be usable in my podunk home town! | No coverage outside of the USA for most of the countries I usually travel to. | |
| Possibly don't have to pay for tethering to data I'm already paying for?! | You can't talk and surf at the same time, which is VERY handy. | |
| MIGHT ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO MAKE A FUCKING PHONE CALL THAT DOESN'T DROP... I MEAN, SHIT, IT'S A FUCKING PHONE! | I've had pretty good customer service from AT&T, but had HORRIBLE customer service when I was with Verizon Wireless. |
When I first switched from Verizon to AT&T, I was actually very happy. I rarely had dropped calls, and the data service was pretty good over their EDGE network. Then something terrible happened. iPhone became a raging success, and the AT&T network couldn't keep up. The release of the 3G made the problem even worse. By the time I upgraded to the 3GS, things were so bad that I thought my new phone was broken because I kept dropping calls. The 4G came out and I actually got better signal than I ever had (despite "Antennagate")... but AT&T's network was still so shitty that it didn't help.
Because I stil have a year on my AT&T contract and Verizon has shitty coverage outside the USA, I am not ready to switch just yet. And if AT&T wants to keep it that way, here's three steps they could take...
Ultimately, this announcement doesn't affect me all that much. But, if AT&T doesn't DO SOMETHING over the next year in order to improve the shitty state of their network, it could very well be a very big deal in 2012.
ZOMFG! I am so much cooler than you are right now. And let me show you why...
This crappy photo doesn't do it justice... the printing is incredible. Bright, vivid, accurate color.
My new MacBook Pro GelaSkins arrived!
Because these things are printed on demand, I was expecting the quality to be pretty crappy. I couldn't have been more wrong. These things are super-sweet, and look just awesome!
My one disappointment is that they don't give you a template to construct your art on. I ended up taking a screen-shot of their "skin-maker" and blowing it up so I could try and get the Apple logo right. Except there was no way of getting the placement exactly how I wanted because the screen-shot is just a blurry mess. Even worse, the "screen proof" they show you is shockingly inaccurate. This is pretty harsh. If they are going to offer a cut-out design, they should provide a way of getting a decent template to work on. Sure registration isn't going to be dead-perfect, but having a LITTLE bit of accuracy would go a long way.
Because this is what I was expecting to get...
But, as you can see from the above photo, the Apple cut-out ended up being considerably larger than their website depicts... this caused the thick outline around the Apple logo to end up way too thin. I mean, it doesn't look BAD by any means... and people would probably never notice if I hadn't pointed it out... but, for a guy who is hung-up on good design, things like this drive me bonkers.
Anyway, if you are looking to skin your electronics, I can't recommend GelaSkins highly enough. They're a big pricey, but the quality is definitely there. I just wish that they offered a proper template so people can have the artwork look as they intend it to be.
Most days, I don't really have time to goof around the internet because I've got work piled up to the rafters. I do try to keep Twitter running in a corner of my desktop, however. That way when I'm on the phone or have a minute between tasks I can catch up with everybody and see if anything is trending in the world that I should know about. Today was particularly heinous, work-wise, so I pretty much ignored the outside world altogether.
Then all of a sudden I noticed that people were going nuts on Twitter. Apparently, news broke that Astrologists had the constellations all wrong, and an Astronomer was trying to set things straight. In doing so, the dates for the Zodiac had shifted considerably, and a NEW constellation had even been added! Madness!
When I went to bed last night I was an Aries... THE RAM...
But now all of a sudden I was a Pisces... THE FISHES...
That totally sucks! I don't even like fish! If my Zodiac sign simply had to change, why couldn't I get something cool like the new sign, Ophiuchus?!? I mean, seriously, just look at this magnificent bastard...
Bitchin' drawing by Johannes Kepler!
Wrestling a giant snake with your dick hanging out while crushing a massive pubic louse under your foot... all while fending off an attack by some guy with a club in a bear hat?
How bad-ass is that?
So totally me right there.
Alas, a while later it was all revealed to be a boatload of crap and a lot of gross exaggeration by the media (big surprise).
And then I remembered that I don't believe in horoscopes and Zodiac stuff anyway, and was able to move on with my life.
Barely.
I mean, I was a frickin' FISH there for a few hours!
w00t! The Seattle Seahawks have made the Divisional Playoffs in the race for the SuperBowl!
Which is kind of crazy given their losing record of 7-9, but who am I to argue with the wacky rules of the NFL?
Anyway, Tacoma's Truman Middle School here in Washington State was having a "Seahawks Spirit Day" today, where students were allowed an exception from their mandatory dress code in order to wear a Seahawks jersey. If a student didn't wish to participate in the "Seahawks Spirit Day" festivities, they could just wear the regular school uniform.
One kid, who is a Pittsburgh fan, asked if he could wear a Steeler's jersey instead. He was told no, but did it anyway, then got sent home because of it.
And rightfully so.
I mean, you break the rules, you pay the price. That's the way life goes.
Even if it's a rule that's monumentally fucking stupid.
Let's break this down...
Let's say your choice is the same one given to the students at Truman. You can stick with the school uniform you wear every other day, OR you can wear a Seahawks jersey...
Well, if you're a Seahawks fan, then this is a no-brainer. Not only do you choose to wear the jersey, you do so gladly and with a smile on your face. If you're not a Seahawks fan... or not a football fan... or not a fan of team the colors... or whatever... you may or may not choose to wear the Seahawks jersey, depending on how much you hate the school uniform option.
But what if you are not a Seahawks fan?
What if you hate the Seattle Seahawks?
Well, then the choice is a no-brainer too. You don't wear the jersey no matter how much you dislike the school uniform, because the idea of supporting the Seahawks fills you with disgust. You'd rather die.
Let me try to put this in terms that non-fans can understand.
Giving a Seahawks-hater the choice between a school uniform and a Seahawks jersey is the same thing as giving somebody the choice between a school uniform and a pink bear hat with pink shoes, pink pants, and a pink shirt that says "I (heart) Pink"...
Unless wearing something like that appeals to you, in which case it would be like giving somebody the choice between a school uniform and a hat with a giant penis on top with no pants and T-shirt which says "JUICY!" on it...
In other words, no choice at all.*
And that's why the rule was so stupid. It was presented as if the students had a choice... but some of them weren't actually getting a choice. Not really.
If you're going to have a "Spirit Day" for NFL playoffs at school, then the students should be able to wear a jersey from ANY of the teams that are in the playoffs. It's just that simple. If football is "America's game" then anything less is pretty un-American when you stop and think about it.
And that just ain't right.
* If BOTH the pink bear hat uniform AND the penis hat uniform appeal to you, then there's really nothing I can do to explain this to you. Carry on.
And soooo... my sister called up yesterday and wanted to know if I was interested in going up to Lake Chelan for their Winterfest celebration. Her husband would be driving, so we could take full advantage of all the festivities they had to offer.
And so we did. A lot.
Chelan is a summer resort town at the end of Lake Chelan in central Washington State. During the summer months, the place is absolutely packed with everybody converging to hang out in the city's ample sunshine. There's tons of stuff to do, including swimming, boating, water-skiing, a water-slide park, loads of wineries, and so-on and so-on. During the winter, however, the place is pretty much dead. To remedy this, they came up with Winterfest, which has live music, ice skating, parades, fireworks, and drinking...
My Winterfest Badge, surprisingly right-side-up.
We didn't listen to live music or go ice skating or watch the parade or even see the fireworks. Which left only one thing left to do...
Started with a mini-bottle, finished with a maxi-bottle!
Luckily, we ran across a back-up driver if we needed one...
Spider-Car! Spider-Car! Does whatever a Spider-Car does!
Or I suppose we could have hitched a ride on a horse and buggy...
Unfortunately, the drive-in was closed, so they had no money for some Budweiser.
The bank in town had constructed a bar out of ice, which was pretty cool. If you bought a badge for $7, your first drink was free!
And so the night of drunken debauchery begins!
My sister bought us light sabers. We were already well on our way towards getting smashed, so these were about the coolest thing in the world at this point...
After a delicious dinner at Tin Lilly's, we started bar-hopping...
Any guess as to what I might be drinking?
Bar mats are getting more and more awesome. If anybody from Jägermeister is reading, I want one of these pretty bad. Since my annual budget for your product could fund a small country and provides a significant chunk of your annual profits, I think it's the least you could do to send me one (UPDATE: As Kathairna points out, this sweet bar mat is not the Jäger stag's head logo, but instead the very cool Bacardi bat logo, which is still awesome despite my devotion to Jägermeister!)...
The best back for a shot of Jäger? A Jäger Bomb, of course!
The Jägermeister is a critical component to enjoying your evening when karaoke is your night's entertainment...
You're Horny. Let's do it! Ride my pony!!
And while I'm not going to lie and say that we didn't have entirely too good of a time. We didn't have such a good time that I ended up passed out on the floor where six rescue guys had to come collect us...
You can't see him, but the guy is on the floor. Happy. Or perhaps not.
And that's pretty much it. That heavens I had photographic evidence or else I wouldn't have remembered most of this.
Until next year!
You know you had a good time the night before when your stomach hurts from laughing too much.
And drinking way, way too much. But that's besides the point. Unless you're curious as to why this week's list of bullets is fairly skimpy... I think I might be dying.
• Globes. Surprisingly, I was pretty much okay with all the Golden Globe winners. Sure there were a few places where my favorites didn't win, but I can't argue that the people who did win weren't deserving (except Glee. I really, really, don't understand why people like that show). Highlights? Most of the ladies, who were looking pretty incredible. And Robert Downey Jr.'s presentation speech and Jane Lynch and Robert De Niro's acceptance speeches. Quick and entertaining is the name of the game, people.
• Seahawks. Okay. Entirely not surprising how that all turned out, but there's always a part of you which holds on to a sliver of hope despite it all.
• Schwarzenegger. And so Arnold Schwarzenegger might start making movies again. Please please please let it be true. People can diminish his films all they want, but there is no denying that they are, for the most part, highly entertaining. From his small cameo in The Expendables, it would seem he's still got it. What I wouldn't give for another True Lies or The Terminator or Predator or Commando or Total Recall or many others.
• SNL. Almost every week I find myself asking myself "Self, why in the hell are you still watching Saturday Night Live?" There are exceptions, of course (BETTY WHITE!!) and there are always bright spots no matter how crappy the show gets... but, for the most part, it's been so mind-bogglingly awful for the last several years. And then last night's Gwyneth Paltrow episode comes along and it's actually not that bad. The SNL Short with Pee-Wee Herman was awesome. Even Weekend Update was more good than bad. It would be nice to think that there's a corner being turned here... but, sadly, that's probably not the case. As usual, I'll keep watching just in case.
And now I suppose that I should try to eat something. A bit more difficult than it sounds.
I started today the same way I start every Martin Luther King Jr. Day... by listening to his brilliant and beautiful "I have a Dream" speech in its entirety. It never fails to inspire. I actually had the day off from work on this holiday, but chose to get some things done at the office anyway. Somehow, no-pressure work days are always more productive than they have a right to be.
After work I needed bread and milk, so I was off to the grocery store. As I was walking down the aisles, a box of crackers started screaming at me. After investigating, I found out it wasn't actually crackers, it was something stupider than a box of crackers. It was a motion-sensor voice-recording of this asshole...
I always wondered if there could possibly be anything more annoying than Fran Drescher. It turns out there is, and it's "Chef" Guy Fieri. I have no clue what the appeal is here, but he's showing up everywhere. Just look for the ridiculous "I CRAVE ATTENTION" bleached hair and listen for the manic "YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME" screaming.
Tonight was the premiere of SyFy Channel's rip-off remake of one of my favorite shows... the UK's awesome Being Human from the BBC...
The original is a funny, yet sublimely dark, drama/comedy about a Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Ghost trying to live a normal life under anything but ordinary circumstances. It is surprisingly entertaining despite the schlocky premise. But, for reasons that continue to escape me, SyFy (in collaboration with Canada's Muse Entertainment) feels that they need to cash in on the vampire craze and remake the show for North American audiences instead of just airing the Real Thing or trying to come up with something original.
The resulting Being Human do-over is... interesting...
It is in no way a "bad" show. I think the actors do a pretty good job with the material considering they're basically re-treading territory that has already been deftly explored on another continent. And there's the problem. If you've seen the original, this is going to feel like an inferior copy by comparison. Because it is. It's less subtle, less charming, and (surprisingly) less... human(?)... at least from what I've seen so far.
And yet I will be watching next week.
Something tells me that the show holds promise of becoming something more than a copy. If the people involved want it badly enough! Just like The Walking Dead is making some interesting diversions from the comic book source material, Being Human has a chance to grow into a show of its own. And I want to see that show. There's definitely room for me to enjoy both of them if our revision should prove worthy.
Which is exactly opposite of the reason I will not be watching MTV's remake of the shocking BBC program Skins which takes a scary look at what teenagers are doing with their lives. In that case, one show is more than enough.
Right now. Right this minute. I want nothing more than to assault a Kate...
I know this totally goes against the new anti-violence sentiment that is sweeping the Nation...
...but I've always been an aggressive eater when it comes to dessert.
And she totally has it coming for being so gosh-darn delicious.
GAAAAAH!
Next week I'm leaving the country for a bit. As the clock is ticking down, I've been working day and night so that I can get all caught up before I go. This way, I avoid a bunch of last-minute stress. I also avoid having to take loads of work with me, which is the ultimate goal.
Unfortunately, The Universe is not cooperating, so I decided to bail for an hour and get my hair cut.
I wish something interesting had happened so I'd have something cool to blog about.
Alas...
I didn't get a bad haircut...
I didn't get my ear cut off...
And I wasn't abducted by aliens and anally probed...
Nope. I got a great haircut with no bodily harm and no bodily foul.
Sorry about that.
"Dude, that's pretty fucked up. She's the worst person ever."
Ordinarily, I tend to ignore hyperbole. Exaggeration is such a huge part of everybody's vocabulary now-a-days that you pretty much have to. Not that you can really blame people. When you're inundated by sensationalism in movies, television, music, advertising, and the news, it's only natural that it's going to migrate to everyday conversation. This can sometimes make it difficult to accurately gauge the severity of a situation, but it certainly makes a phone call a heck of a lot more entertaining.
And yet there are some people who are not prone to hyperbole at all.
Like my friend Sam.
So when he declares that somebody is "the worst person ever" it gets my attention.
And who is this woman who has become the subject of his ire? Sarah Palin? Judge Judy? Ann Coulter? Hillary Clinton? Nancy Grace? Michelle Malkin? Elisabeth Hasselbeck? Paula Deen? Tyra Banks? Martha Stewart? Paula Abdul?
No. None of the obvious suspects. Turns out it was Cathy Cruz Marrero.
"Who the fuck is Cathy Cruz Marrero?" I ask.
"She's that dumbass that fell into a fountain while texting," Sam says, his words dripping with a loathing usually reserved for telemarketers, mimes, and serial-murderers. "She's hiring an attorney because she feels humiliated that the surveillance video of her was put on YouTube..."
"Soooo... she was a dumbass, and now she wants to get paid for it?" I inquire, trying to use a tone that won't escalate the conversation.
"YES!! NOBODY EVEN KNEW WHO SHE WAS UNTIL SHE STARTED TALKING TO THE PRESS!" Sam screams. "Why can't she just laugh it off like any normal person would and consider it a lesson learned? Why is she fucking suing people for her stupidity? Worst person ever."
"Yeah, I can see where tha--"
"WORST PERSON EVER! EHHHHHHVEEEEEEERRRR!!!" I hear Sam screech into the phone. "She DESERVES to feel humiliated!"
And so she does.
It's things like this that make me wonder if there's no limit to people's shame or lack of personal responsibility. This woman claims that mall security should have dropped everything and come running to make sure she was okay when she fell into the fountain (instead of standing around laughing). Well, WATCH THE VIDEO, MORON! You hopped out of that fountain almost immediately, then walked off. Obviously you were okay, so there was nothing more to do except stand around and laugh at your stupid ass. I'm sure if you laid there unmoving face-down in the water, their reaction would have been completely different. But that didn't happen. Your ridiculous antics were entirely your own fault, the mall doesn't owe you a damn thing for being a dumbass, and your humiliation is entirely your own fault. So suck it up and stop being the worst person ever.
Because if Sam says it from the bottom of his hyperbole-free heart, that's exactly who you are*
*Hitler and sharks notwithstanding, I'm sure.
Kill me. Kill me now.
I am dealing with a raging migraine headache just now, and that's no fun to blog about. Instead I think I'll just steal The Stupid Evil Bastard Meme I just saw over at Erik's blog.
Prepare yourself...
Oddly enough, this "Stupid Evil Bastard Meme" seems to have evolved from another meme that I did six years ago. Some of the questions are the same. Many are different. I guess over the years people just changed a question here or there that they didn't like, and this is where we are now. I wonder what it will look like six years from now when it makes the rounds again?
Ooh! There's lots of new television happening lately!
And though I've got work piled to the rafters, I'm watching it all so I don't risk missing something great. Well, not all of it, but a lot of it. Here are the shows I found that are worth talking about...
Episodes • Showtime, Sundays @ 9:30pm.
A long time ago in a magical far away place known as "Hollywood," I worked for nine long months on a project that was doomed to failure from the very first minute I arrived. Of course I had no idea. That's because nobody told me, even though they knew it all along. On the contrary, most everybody I ever met told me the exact opposite of what was really happening at any given moment, because keeping you happy with a fog of sunshine, half-truths, and lies is the horrifying reality of how things work in Hollywood. Not for everyone, of course, but for most people. Including me. Episodes is a 7-part series about Sean and Beverly Lincoln who are a husband-and-wife team responsible for a wildly successful British television comedy about the headmaster of an upper-crust English school. They are lured to Hollywood with bold promises and tempting perks to create an American version of their hit series. The show is, of course, doomed to failure from the very first minute they arrive. Their witty and smart headmaster played by a respected British actor is re-cast as a hockey coach played by Matt LeBlanc ("Joey" from Friends) and things just get worse and worse. There are some laugh-out-loud moments, but the show is so eerily accurate to my "Hollywood Experience" that I spend most of my time having nasty flashbacks and can't enjoy it properly. Still, it is surprisingly good despite it all, and I can't wait for each new episode. Watch it from the beginning if you can.
Onion News Network • IFC, Fridays @ 10:00pm.
Started as a satire newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Onion is most widely known for their scathing parodies of popular news. I first discovered it in Milwaukee back in the 90's, and became an instant fan. This was made a lot easier in the late 90's when took their brilliance online. The crazy news stories were quickly eclipsed by even crazier news videos that were funnier than most anything else you could find...
It was only a matter of time before The Onion got a television show to string together all their hilarious videos, and here it is. Packed with plenty of laugh-out-loud bits and "I can't believe they did that" moments, The Onion makes no attempt to cover actual news and instead invents plausible events that could be true but, thankfully, are not (much like most news organizations now-a-days). This is must-see essential television viewing.
Portlandia • IFC, Fridays @ 10:30pm.
Anybody familiar with Portland, Oregon knows that the city is ripe for parody, thus Portlandia was born. Pegged as a place where the ideal of the 90's are still alive and well, the show features interconnecting sketches staring SNL's Fred Armisen and Portland guitarist/actress Carrie Brownstein as an assortment of unrelated characters. Over the course of a half-hour, they poke fun at the Birkenstock-and-granola culture of the city with a loving, yet brutal touch. The result is kind of hit-or-miss but, overall, I found it funny and plenty entertaining. The trick will be keeping things fresh once the novelty has worn off. There's only so many jokes about soy lattes, feminist book stores, and organic food you can make... and most of them are in this first episode.
Harry's Law • NBC, Mondays @ 10:00pm.
It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another one of David E. Kelley's quirky legal shows (which it is) except for one big thing... it stars Kathy Bates. The incredible Kathy Bates who can appear in absolutely anything and be brilliant no matter how bad the material may be. Here she plays "Harriet Korn" a patent lawyer who gets fired from a posh law firm and ends up opening up her own practice in a former shoe store. The quirky gimmick being that her assistant insists on continuing to sell shoes, so the shop ends up being a combo law-office-slash-shoe-store. Ha ha ha. Ultimately, there is nothing new here. David E. Kelley is being David E. Kelley with his typically over-the-top stories and dialogue that shoehorn legal drama into alternating wacky and heart-breaking situations. Meh. Kathy Bates will keep me tuning in, but I'd watch her in a 30-minute infomercial for laxatives, so that's no big feat. Ultimately Harry's Law has a lot of room for expansion and improvement, and I am hopeful we'll see both. But I would be deeply saddened if Kathy Bates was pulled down into the lunacy that Ally McBeal and Boston Legal became, so this necessary move may end up ruining the show. Time will tell. I would probably rate this a C- if not for Bates, which knocks it up a grade.
Fairly Legal • USA Network, Thursdays @ 10:00pm.
I will preface this review by saying I have fallen in love with series star Sarah Shahi. Very few people could elevate the rather flat and uninteresting story to be found in Fairly Legal to anything worth watching, but Shahi has an infectious energy that does just that. Kate Reed is a competent lawyer working at her father's law firm, but decides she's had enough and quits to become a mediator. Then her father dies, her step-mother takes over the law firm, and suddenly Kate is having to keep a lot of balls in the air as she juggles her professional and personal life (including an ex-husband who happens to work for the District Attorney). That could be a great concept for a show, but it doesn't work as well as you'd hope. The writers seem to think that having Kate rush around town perpetually late for appointments in her overloaded schedule is charming, but it gets very annoying very fast. It's as if they just don't know what to do with her when she's not mediating, so they pile on a bunch of crap in a failed attempt at filling space with frantic humor that doesn't quite gel. I can only hope that things will eventually settle down so they can focus on Shahi's performance instead of her running shoes.
Man I wish I didn't love television so much, it would open up a lot of free time.
I'm a little depressed tonight because Hannah Montana is over. I'm also a little stressed because I'm leaving the country later this week. I'm also a little hungry because a slice of toast doesn't make for a very fulfilling dinner. And I'm also a little tired because I've been sleeping even less than usual. Life can be so hard.
• Forever? After putting it off as long as I could, I finally decided to watch the very last final forever episode of Hannah Montana. I fully maintain that it's one of the funniest shows on television, and always enjoyed it as an entertaining distraction from life. Though it definitely lost something in the last season (especially after Miley retired Hannah and revealed her secret to the world)... I think they wrapped it up on a high note. The cameo appearances by Amber & Ashley and Jesse & Oliver were a nice touch. Jackson and Rico had a great moment. Miley and Lilly had a terrific send-off. I honestly can't think of a way they could have ended the show any better. Good bye, Hannah...
• Incomprehensible. When it comes to organizations like The Trevor Project which was created to prevent suicides among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth... I never know how to feel. Part of me is saddened to the point of despair that such organizations have to exist. Part of me is angry to the point of blind fury that such organizations need to be formed at all. Part of me is relieved to the point of anguish that such organizations do exist for youth who desperately need their help. Because when I read about all the violence against kids who are different and just trying to get through life one more day... and when I read about yet another suicide from some poor teenager who couldn't take the abuse any longer... and when I remember back to when one of these kids reached out to me for help because he had nowhere else to turn... there is no emotion inside of me that is not affected. I simply cannot fathom how anybody could torture a young life to the point where The Trevor Project needs to be there to talk them out of taking their own life. Even more incomprehensible is how we live in a society which would allow such a thing.
But it gets worse. Entirely too many people are happy to write this off as "a gay problem" and ignore it. But anybody paying attention knows that this just isn't true. Bullying knows no boundaries. Earlier this week a young girl in Pennsylvania may have committed suicide because of bullying... and there's nothing to indicate it had anything to do with her sexuality. At some point people are going to have to stop treating youth suicide as "a gay problem" and start treating is as everybody's problem. Thinking your kid is excluded is the first mistake. Get involved.
• Olbermann. I never watched Keith Olbermann's Countdown for the same reason I never watch anything on FOX News... it's all just destructive partisan bullshit rhetoric designed to tear this country apart. What kills me is the outbreak of sheer joy by Conservatives across the blogosphere now that Olbermann and MSNBC have retired Countdown. I mean, who gives a shit? It's not like any of them watched his show. Keith Olbermann was just somebody to hate. As usual, the venom being unleashed by the hardcore Right is baffling. The general consensus seems to be something like "HA HA! I'M SO HAPPY OLBERMANN'S DISGUSTING LIBERAL TRASH IS OFF THE AIR!" which is ironic on so many levels. I mean, as opposed to what?!? The disgusting CONSERVATIVE trash that's being unleashed daily from shows like The O'Reilly Factor and The Sean Hannity Show and The Glenn Beck Program?
If FOX News is where somebody chooses to get their information, more power to them. This is a free country, and people can believe what they wish (at least for the time being). But saying FOX News is some kind of "fair and balanced news source" instead of the partisan propaganda machine it obviously is... then crucifying Olbermann for doing the same thing on the opposite side of the fence... it's just plain stupid. All any of these people ever do is keep Americans at each other's throats because it makes them money. I choose to repudiate such reprehensible, anti-American behavior in the hopes that we can all be respectful of each other's opinions and beliefs and work together to make this a great country FOR ALL OF US. Granted, this is even more delusional than somebody believing FOX News isn't partisan hackery, but at least I don't go around hating people because somebody tells me to. I hate people because of their actions... just like our Founding Fathers intended.
• Limbaugh. And one of the people I choose to hate for their actions is Rush Limbaugh. This absurdly stupid pile of shit apparently has an amazing talent to make people turn off their brains when they listen to him. Unbelievable, I know, but it's the only explanation that makes any sense when you hear the vile bullshit he spews every time he opens his mouth. His latest racist rant against the Chinese offends me on so many levels that I couldn't even listen to his fucked-up crap until Steven Colbert injected jokes into it...
I mean, seriously. What the fuck?
How could anybody listen to such utter idiocy and take Rush Limbaugh seriously? Who could hear this bullshit and think Rush Limbaugh is not a complete dumbass? He doesn't comprehend how anybody could possibly communicate in any language except English? He doesn't understand that waiting until a somebody finishes speaking to a live audience before interrupting with a translation is just extending respect and courtesy due a WORLD LEADER? He doesn't think that if there was a major mis-translation of the speech that anybody would notice? He thinks making fun of a language spoken by over a BILLION people with "ching chong chung ching chang" isn't offensive? He honestly feels that President Obama being polite by paying attention to Chinese Paramount Leader Hu Jintao is stupid because Obama doesn't understand Chinese? (what the fuck would Rush Limbaugh do? Take out a Q-Tip swab and clean his ears?). What am I missing? How do people not see that Rush Limbaugh is nothing more than a moron with a severely diminished mental capacity and a microphone?
It's one thing to be upset over China's sad record on human rights. Or to be upset that the USA owes China such a staggering sum of money. Or to be confused by the customs, languages, and laws of foreign countries. But it's another thing entirely to think that being a self-important, xenophobic, rude asshole to a visiting foreign leader is how we should be conducting foreign diplomacy. It is painfully obvious that the people of this nation desperately need to travel outside our borders (not necessarily physically) and see more of the world so that disgusting voices like Rush Limbaugh's don't define our ignorance. Sadly, it may already be too late.
And, on that sour note, I think it's time for bed. Just maybe I'll actually be able to get some sleep tonight.
Today just sucked. It sucked hard.
And at every point I thought that it couldn't get any worse, it did. All day long I kept telling myself that it would all get better once I headed home. Everything would be okay if I could just get through the day.
I was wrong, of course.
This is what happened to ME today after work (I'm in the blue car)...
It was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Somebody ahead of me changed their mind about where they wanted to go. Rather than continuing down the road and making a legal turn later on... they cut back in front of me. Had I not slammed on the brakes, I would have crashed right into them. I still don't know if they saw me and didn't care, didn't see me and didn't care, or didn't care and didn't care.
Just goes to show... once things start to suck, they just go on sucking until somebody dies.
So long as it's not me, I suppose I can live with that.
They're just words.
Whether you support President Obama, don't support President Obama, love President Obama, loathe President Obama, agree with President Obama, disagree with President Obama... in the end they're just words.
Some good words in there to be sure, but words just the same...
And yet... words can be very powerful things. Words can inspire. Words can bring comfort. Words can bring hope.
Words can also bring pain, fear, and discord.
And while I don't agree with everything President Obama says or does when it comes to his presidential politics, in the end I think that his words paint him as a true patriot. A patriot who is trying his best to inspire, comfort, and bring hope to a desperate nation in difficult times. He believes that the ideals of his administration are the best hope for this country and the citizens who call it home. And even though there are those of us who may disagree with his politics, I think it is a mistake to paint him as anything except a man trying his best to do what he feels is the right thing for our country.
That being said, I am neither inspired, nor comforted, nor given hope by President Obama's State of the Union address this evening.
Because I know... I know... that right after President Obama's speech... and after Representative Paul Ryan's response to his speech... and after wack-job, dumbass, crazy-ass, bat-shit insane Representative Michele Bachmann's response to Paul Ryan's response to President Obama's speech...
... it's back to politics as usual.
Because there is simply too much money to be made on both sides of the political spectrum in keeping pain, fear, and discord alive in this country.
Money that the vast majority of us will never see.
It's not a Republican thing. It's not a Democratic thing. It's not a Liberal thing or a Conservative thing. It's not Right or Left or Blue or Red thing.
It's a money thing.
That used to be a people thing.
And really needs to be a people thing once again.
One day.
Hopefully sooner rather than later.
But those are just words too.
Annnnnd... I've avoided it for as long as I possibly can. Time to pack my suitcase so I can get up at 3:30am and catch my 6:00am flight.
I really hate packing.
See you on the other side of the Atlantic...
For those who don't fly very often... i.e. people who jet off on vacation every other year and make an occasional trip home for the holidays... air travel can be a mystifying, frustrating, and altogether torturous experience. I try to keep this in mind when people feel the need to say something like "OH GAWD! YOU'RE TRAVELING AGAIN?!? I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT! I WOULD DIE IF I HAD TO FLY AS OFTEN AS YOU DO!" To which I usually reply "Well, eventually you get used to it."
But the truth of the matter is that the travel experience for a frequent flier can be considerably different than that of somebody who doesn't travel much.
It would have to be, or else those of us who fly 180,000 miles a year would be blowing our fucking brains out.
Fortunately, most airlines understand that frequent travelers have a different set of needs and an entirely different mind-set from the huddled masses, and work really hard to make their travels as pleasant as possible. Mostly in the hopes that their best customers stay their best customers.
So now I am going to give a list of the top-five reasons my constant travel isn't quite as horrible as it might sound. I've only gotten "elite-plus" status at Alaska Air and Delta (two airlines I love more than chocolate pudding), but I'm guessing the experience is similar for other airline's frequent flier programs...
MY MINI-MUFFINS!
The last couple of years have been relatively "light" travel years for me, which means I only accumulated around 150,000 miles annually. That's still a lot, but pales when compared to those heady days of 2002-2006 where I flew over 200,000 miles annually and held top-level elite status at three airlines. But I still get treated very well, so that's the real reason I don't mind flying so often. It's just difficult to explain all that when somebody says ZOMFG! I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU CAN STAND TO FLY SO MUCH!!"
Though today I was kind of lucky to be flying at all because of the weather. Fog blanketed Seattle this morning, which added an air of eerie spookiness when we landed...
Things weren't looking too much better after sunrise...
It's not so bad out now, so hopefully I won't have any problems getting to Europe today.
Well, unless the airplane should explode into a massive ball of flames and fall in the ocean as I'm crossing the Atlantic. That kind of thing can totally put a damper on your trip no matter how many frequent flier miles you have.
As I type this, it is 12:30am Saturday, January 29th in Cologne, Germany.
Since I woke up at 3:30am Thursday, January 27th in the US Pacific time zone, this means I have been awake for 37 hours straight. And yet I am still not tired. I tried to sleep on the plane, but ended up watching The Social Network again (a little more boring that the first time, but still awesome), Salt again (liked it even more the second time around), and Scott Pilgrim Saves the World again (which sucked even more the second time around, because whiny, dorky Michael Cera is NOT lady-killer slacker hero Scott Pilgrim... AT ALL. This movie could have been sheer perfection if the lead role weren't so hideously miscast).
Anyway...
The flight from Seattle to Amsterdam via Delta Airlines was bliss. I wasn't upgraded, but the plane was so empty that I had almost an entire row to myself, which was super-sweet. Except for the not-being-able to sleep thing, it truly was a flawless experience. As was my connection at Schiphol, as usual. Looking out the plane-window at sunrise, it was looking like a glorious day in DutchyLand...
Except... it was freezing cold. Even after the sun was out. Much like it would be when I finally ended up in Cologne. As I landed, I noticed that Gowalla had rolled out their new flight-tracker status updates, which is wickedly cool...
Not shown is my flight from Wenatchee to Seattle... probably because Wenatchee hasn't been considered an airport yet?
Anyway... after checking in at my hotel and then getting some work done, it was time to head up to Essen for some dinner with friends. While waiting at the train station, I ran across an awesome poster... I just love good advertising! That's the hugely tall Cologne Cathedral buried in snow there...
"Ihr Beitrag zum klima? Mehr Bus & Bahn fahren!"
Dinner was with my fellow Hard Rock Cafe fans, Marc & Mechthild... with vegetarian pizza hand-made by Mechthild herself, which was as beautiful to look at as it was delicious...
Easily the best pizza you'll find in all of Germany. You may commence being jealous now.
But the truly unexpected surprise of the evening was the beautiful salad that was served. I still have no idea what kind of greens these were... or even if there's a US equivalent... as I had never seen them before. Marc & Mechthild called them "winter salad," as there doesn't seem to be an equivalent name for it in English (they looked!). The greens appear to be some kind of thick four-leaf clover type-thing, tasting buttery and sweet. There's absolutely no bitter notes in the flavor at all, which made the whole thing taste like frickin' candy when tossed up with a lovely vinaigrette. I shit you not, CANDY...
If all salads tasted like this, I'd be eating a lot more fucking salads!
After-dinner conversation was all Hard Rock Cafes and world travel (two of my favorite subjects!). The time went flying by and suddenly it was 11:00 and time to take the train back to Cologne. The evening was loads of fun, despite the fact that I really should have been dead from lack of sleep. Praise be to the power of the internet for continuing to find me wonderful friends around the globe!
And now it's 12:56am here in Cologne, which means I've been awake for 37-and-a-half hours straight.
Still not tired.
I have no idea what my deal is, but I sure don't want to be around when this lack of sleep catches up to me!
Alas, I have no choice...
Work ended a senses-shattering three hours early, leaving me a little free time to goof around Cologne today. Having been to the city many times, I'm very much at home here, and so it's an entirely different experience than visiting a place you've never been before.
But before I get to that, I'd like to observe a moment of silence for my newly-dead Kenneth Cole dress shoes. Tonight I pulled out all my work clothes so I'd be ready to go in the morning. As I was shining my shoes, I noticed that one of them had somehow split in the back (I'm guessing my suitcase must have been crushed in transit? Or perhaps when the TSA opened my bag to inspect it, they really, really hated my shoes?). Anyway... all attempts to repair them were met with failure. So now I guess I'm going to attend work in sneakers. That'll look special.
On to my favorite things in Cologne!
KÖLNER DOM!...
No matter how many times I see the massive Cologne Cathedral, it still takes my breath away.
SPRITZRINGE!...
The light, airy, doughy inside makes "doghnuts" taste like shit by comparison!
I could eat this delicious bits of deliciousness until I asploded!
PATATJES MET! POMMES FRITES!...
While not the same as the Dutch patatjes met, my favorite, they're still inanely delicious!
The line was crazy-long... it took me 8-10 minutes to get mah frites!!
KÖLSCH!...
The delicious and refreshing regional beer... usually served in tiny glasses, not steins, so you have to order lots of them.
And, lastly, since you have to pay for all this shit...
GELDAUTOMAT!...
My photo turned out blurry, so this is not me. I found a photo of Neil Patrick Harris using a Geldautomat at Wincor Nixdorf.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've had my fill of doughnuts, fries, mayonnaise, and beer for the evening, so I'm going to go to bed and hopefully get some sleep this time. Last night I managed to nap a mere two hours after being up for 38 straight hours, so I'm thinking I kind of have to sleep or I'm going to turn go brain-dead. ZOMFG! Do you think that's what happened to Sarah Palin?
Previous adventures in Cologne...
I just realized that I blew past my 4-year anniversary of Bullet Sunday back in October. NO CAKE FOR YOU!
• I DO COCAINE! Today was not the best day. I'm still not sleeping properly, which has me wondering why I haven't collapsed from exhaustion. Must be all that cocaine Coke I'm doing drinking. It all started when I woke up at 4:30am (after falling asleep around 1:00am). On the way to the bathroom I smacked my foot into the cupboard closet. Getting into the shower tub, I smacked the other foot. After getting dressed, I walked hobbled the five nine minutes to the tram stop... where I just missed my tram. Since there's a limited schedule on Sunday, I had to wait 22 minutes for the next one. In the cold. And of course I didn't wear gloves or a coat over my sport jacket, so I froze. To get relief for my busted-ass feet, I sat down on the bench... which is metal. Cold metal. Worried that my ass might freeze to the seat, I decided standing was better no matter how painful. My troubles weren't over once I boarded the tram, however, because when we got to the next stop there was a delay. Which means I missed my connecting tram. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
• I TAKE PICTURES! Trying to take my mind off my frozen ass, aching feet, and the fact that I was now going to be ten minutes late to work instead of twenty minutes early, I took pictures of the frost that had accumulated on the tram stop glass. It's kind of strange... kind of beautiful...
• I MOURN CHOCOLATE CHICKENS! On my way back from work at the candy show yesterday, I spotted a very cool giant chocolate chicken that some company had put on display. I wanted to take a photo, but my iPhone was somewhere in my backpack and I was too lazy to retrieve it. Instead I made a mental note to go back today and snag a shot. Much to my horror, THIS is what awaited me...
"HOLY CRAP!" I shrieked like a five-year-old girl, "THE CHICKEN... SHE'S MELTED!" And then, realizing there were other people in the room, I looked at my feet and whispered "I will avenge you, my fallen chocolate comrade." Apparently, shining a nice hot bright light on a hollow chocolate chicken is paramount to disaster. Oh well, it's sadly comforting that somebody is having a worse day than I am.
• I WORK LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR! Though my day may have personally sucked ass from walking on two aching feet for the better part of 8 hours... from a work standpoint it was quite rewarding. I was busy all day long and the hours flew by. But then I stopped to grab a sandwich for lunch and the world came to a halt when a man and a woman sat down at the table opposite me.
They were the single most perplexing and rude eaters I have ever encountered.
I am not exaggerating when I saw hogs have better manners.
At first I was mortified. The display was so horrendous that I lost my apetite and could barely choke down my sandwich. But, after a while, my revulsion turned to fascination. How in the hell does something so anti-social and balls-nasty ever develop? Such filthy manners simply cannot occur in nature... it's as if they were trained to be this nasty. Despite myself, I used my iPhone "Voice Recorder" to capture the sheer horror of the sounds (I'd have recorded video, but I never want to re-live that terror). This is what I witnessed...
Scarred for life, I eventually had to walk away. There's only so much of this you can take if you ever want to eat again.
• I CURSE LIKE A BEE! My iPhone has the ability to roam globally on the world's GSM network. AT&T partners with a number of different carriers in most places and offers (relatively) affordable data-roaming packages that work extremely well. EXCEPT IN GERMANY! As I blogged previously from Berlin, data and voice service on my iPhone with AT&T's roaming partner "E-Plus" sucks copious amounts of donkey schlong. When I got a call from Marc yesterday at the train station, the call quality was so bad that I couldn't make out what he was saying. Data is an absolute joke, because I've used up 75% of my megabytes and have nothing to show for it. Web pages don't load. Emails get stuck while downloading. 3G drops constantly and won't re-connect... I usually have to end up rebooting my phone two or three times just to make a Gowalla check-in, because a reboot is the only way I've found to get data back. And all the while you are struggling to get any kind of data connection, your expensive allotment of megs is running like water. I know that AT&T's is not responsible here (I have zero problems in every other country I've visited), but I still blame them. They shouldn't advertise that you can roam in Germany when, for all intents and purposes, you can't. I have screenshot after screenshot after screenshot showing the problems, so hopefully I can get my money back...
• I EAT SOMETHING I CALL DINNER! Instead of making the long trek to my favorite fried-potatoes-and-mayo place (again) for dinner, I stopped at a nearby kebob shop for greasy potato goodness. Unfortunately, they tasted awful, and I had my fill half-way through. I thought I might go drop my stuff at the hotel then go back downtown for a proper dinner, but I was tired and the trams run infrequently on Sundays. Soooo... I ended up eating candy samples for dinner (since I'm not a buyer, I generally don't take any samples at the candy show, but some companies give them to you anyway). Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how much sleep I get while fighting this sugar-high and nightmares of food-smacking whores. Anything over two hours would be a gift.
And that's all she wrote.
Tomorrow. Cologne. I'll go to Cologne, and I'll think of some way to get my appetite back. After all, tomorrow is another day!
One of the down-sides to working in a time zone eight hours from home is that you essentially put in two full work days. First there's eight hours on-site, then there's another eight hours as your original time zone gets to work and you're inundated with another round. Mondays, as you might imagine, are the worst. And so I do what I've been doing for years now, knock off work early on Mondays so I can decompress for an hour or two before starting in again. It may not cut down on the amount of work to be done, but at least it keeps me sane.
While at the candy show today, I dropped by to see if the chocolate chicken had been replaced but, alas, she hadn't. If anything, she's gotten much worse now that the beak and eyes have melted away. This is what I'd imagine a chicken with the ebola virus would look like...
I'm meltiiiiiiiiiinnnng!
Today was yet another busy day working, which was nice. The problem is that I am so exhausted by the end of it that there's really no time to see much of Cologne except the inside of my hotel room. It would be sacrilege to not pay a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe here, but I just don't have it in me. Tomorrow is my last day in the city, so I suppose I'll force myself to make the effort. In the meanwhile, I find a great deal of money can be saved on meal expenses by accepting kind offers of food samples from the vendors at the candy show. To avoid going into a sugar coma, I pass up the vast majority of opportunities, but how can you say no to a freshly-made Dutch poofenwafel? You can't...
A hot and delicious Stroopwafel fresh from the grill and filled with warm caramel goodness.
While wandering back from lunch, I happened across a vendor with this piece of awesomeness splashed across the outside of their show booth...
It looked like some kind of sweet metal band cartoon for kids, which is exactly what the world has been missing.
Turns out it's an animated show based on a wildly successful film franchise and book series here called Die Wilden Kerle (which translates into "The Wild Soccer Bunch"). From what I could understand, it's basically a German version of the American Bad News Bears movie but with soccer instead of baseball. All I know is that I want one of those awesome one-eyed monster logo
Annnnnnd... time to try and get some sleep.
Hopefully.
So very tired...
The weather in Cologne today was odd. It was dreary and cold, but not the kind of cold that lands on you... it was more a general cold around your immediate vicinity. Sure I could see my breath and needed a jacket, but wearing gloves was too much, and my hands were perfectly fine without them. I'm a real weenie when it comes to having cold hands, so this was kind of freaky. In a good way.
What was decidedly not freaky was that they finally replaced the chocolate chicken! Isn't she awesome?
As today was my last day in Cologne I had intended to try and wander around a bit, but I was just too exhausted and had entirely too much work to do. So instead of eating dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, I just bought some pins and a T-shirt while breezing through after work...
It's a fairly small property, but has all the classic Hard Rock fixin's so I really like it here.
Alas, I didn't have time to hang around, so dinner consisted of glorious Patatjes Met "Pommes Frites mit Mayo" with a delicious Spritzringe and a Coke back at my hotel room for dessert...
While I was walking to the tram stop so I could get "home" I noticed some interesting things:
ONE: HINDENBURG! After the movie Titanic made a gazillion dollars, I remember asking when somebody would get around to making a modern movie drama about the Hindenburg tragedy...
Apparently they now have, as I've seen the posters around Cologne...
"Ein Traum von Ruhm" - "A Dream of Glory"
TWO: MADONNA! I've lost count of the number of times I've walked through Neumarkt, but this is the first time I can ever recall seeing this Madonna & Child statue glued to one of the buildings on the Eastern loop. While I'm sure it must have been beautiful at one time, it's kind of creepy now that pieces have fallen off and it's been partially eroded by pollution and the elements...
THREE: BANNED! I never take food or drinks onto the tram anyway, but I found it funny that fries and mayo are specifically banned on the signage (along with coffee and Kölsch/beer)...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
And now I suppose I should probably pack my suitcase. I've got a long, strange journey ahead of me tomorrow, and the last thing I want to have to do when I wake up is pack before rushing off to the airport.
It must be karma. I write about how travel really isn't that bad for me just six days ago... then today I proceed to have one of the single worst travel days I can remember in twenty years. Seriously, I sit here wracking my brains trying to come up with something that went right today... just one little thing that I can cling to... and there isn't anything.
• I check out of my Cologne, Germany hotel and have to pay nearly $100 for internet over 5 days. $100 for something that was supposed to be free...
And yet, no amount of discussion when I checked in could dissuade them from charging me for internet. Even calling up their own website did nothing to forward my cause. Since I had to have internet for work, there was nothing I could do but pay it.
• It snowed last night. My suitcase wheels keep getting gummed up with slush, so I end up dragging my suitcase for ten minutes to the tram stop. On the plus-side, this cleared the sidewalk for everybody else.
• It's foggy at the airport, and so my flight out is delayed. This is very, very bad, because...
• I have flown into Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport once. Every other time I've visited the city, it's been by train. I have never had to transfer planes there, so the total nightmare that ensued was entirely unexpected. After landing, LATE, the plane ended up racing around the airport for a good twenty minutes before we got to the gate. My arrival into Terminal 2-G necessitates exiting security and taking a long bus-ride though the French countryside so that I can get to Terminal 2-D and go back through security. By the time I finally got to the gate, they were already boarding the plane. So much for a bathroom break on my nonexistent 1-hour-40-minute layover. I can't wait to do this all over again on my way back.
• You know those flights that are so bad that having the plane go down in flames would actually be preferable to enduring it? Yeah.
• It will come as no surprise that my luggage was lost when I finally made it to Málaga, Spain. I can only imagine that it's still making the trip from Terminal 2-G to Terminal 2-D at Charles de Gaulle. Here is the "Passenger Kit" I got to survive on until my bag (hopefully) arrives tomorrow...
• I try to arrange pickup from my airport hotel's courtesy shuttle only to find out that there isn't one. This comes as a bit of a surprise, because it clearly stated that this is a feature of the hotel on their website...
I guess hotels can write whatever the fuck they want to on their website and not have to deliver.
• Since there's no shuttle, I end up taking the bus. Except the bus driver ignores my stop request and so I have to back-track with a 25 minute walk along a busy highway.
• This same noisy highway runs directly by my hotel. Which would ordinarily be a problem, except there's a major construction project next door with trucks, bulldozers, and lots of other heavy equipment, so I can barely hear the highway noise. Since it's now 7:00pm, I can only guess that the construction runs around the clock. As if all that weren't bad enough, the hotel is apparently trying to "camouflage" the noise by blasting elevator music in the hallways at full volume. Thank heavens I have earplugs, though I sincerely doubt they'll do much good against the full-on audio assault in this room.
And there you have it. A day where absolutely everything went wrong. I can only hope that things improve tomorrow or else I may never want to travel again.
It should come as no surprise that I love Spain. Since I've started this blog I've been here in 2005, 2007, 2009, five months ago in 2010, and now today. It's probable I'll be visiting again next year because there's still so many places left I want to see.
This is my first visit to the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain, and it kills me that I am only here for two days. Tomorrow I plan to explore Málaga proper, but today was spent down the coast in Marbella. I had hoped to get on some kind of tour so I could go in-country and see a bit of beautiful Ronda but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. Maybe when I eventually get around to visiting Seville and Granada I can manage to see the city then.
Anyway... I awoke to a weather map that looked like this...
Coast of the sun indeed. Just yesterday I was schlepping my suitcase through the snowy sidewalks of Cologne.
Marbella is a major vacation city of the Costa del Sol, and home to many famous and extremely wealthy people. As a playground for the über-rich it also includes a marina complex, known as Puerto Banús, which was my ultimate destination today because it's home to the Hard Rock Cafe Marbella...
The rest of the day was a delicious mish-mash of good food and cool places to walk though in Puerto Banús...
And onward to Marbella...
Just a few photos from a beautiful day in a beautiful city!
And now off to bed before my legs collapse. I spent entirely too many hours walking today.
P.S. My suitcase was at the hotel waiting for me when I got back from dinner. As always, everything seems to work out in the end. Though all I really know for sure is that I'm glad to have clean underwear again...
Another flawless day on the Costa del Sol with blue skies and a slight breeze to keep it from getting hot.
I had some work to do in the morning, but rushed through it so I could make it out to Málaga proper for lunch (TAPAS!!).
After lunch I decided to climb up to Gibralfaro Castle then work my way down to the Central Historic District. The climb itself was kind of nuts, and I was wishing I had just taken a taxi or tour bus to the top. Instead I ended up tired and with blistered feet. Oh well. The city was a lot of fun to explore, and the perfect weather didn't hurt either.
Just a few of the hundreds of photos I took...
Would have been nice to have even one more day... but I'm grateful for the few days I had.
Today was a "wasted" day spent traveling. It all started when I woke up early so I could catch the hotel courtesy shuttle to the airport for my 7:00am flight. Except the hotel LIED about having a courtesy shuttle, so I instead paid a taxi €15 ($20) for a three-minute ride to the airport. I would have walked, but it was pitch-black and I'd have to travel over two ditches and through a construction site to get there. When I had attempted it previously, I had barely made it there alive in broad daylight, so I figured my life was worth the $20.
The flight from Málaga to Paris was uneventful except, of course, having to deal with Charles de Gaulle airport once I arrived. Since I was avoiding the dreaded Terminal 2G this time, I thought it would be smooth sailing. Except it wasn't. Getting from 2D to 2F still required exiting and re-entering security, which is stupid as fuck. At least I had time to use the bathroom this time. Barely.
If forced to choose between a kick to the balls and having to transfer planes at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I'd have to give it some serious thought.
And then choose the kick in the balls, because that's a pain which will eventually end.
Weather at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam was mostly gusting winds, which had been canceling flights all morning. Fortunately, I made it out and arrived only 20 minutes late because...
PATATJES MET!!!
DutchBitch drove to the airport for a quick meet-up, where she bought me some DutchyLand deliciousness...
Since I had missed meeting up with Dutchy when she was last in Florida, it was nice to get caught up for an hour-and-a-half. I also had to tell her about the sphincter-puckering landing my plane made into Amsterdam. I've flown in some pretty crazy shit and don't scare easily, but the wind was so bad that I thought for sure we were going to crash into the runway and explode. What an awesome way to die that would have been. DutchBitch promised to toss some patatjes met out onto the flaming remains of my plane if the worst were to happen, so at least I would have died happy.
Alas, our chat was over far too quickly, and it was time for me to catch my flight back to Cologne. This time the flight was fine. My luggage didn't get lost in Paris. And my airport hotel which promises a courtesy shuttle actually has a courtesy shuttle. So I guess it's all good in the end.
Until tomorrow when I fly back home...
Blargh. Two days of travel have left me more dead than usual. On to the bullets while I still have a will to live...
• TequilaCon. Unfortunately, there will be no TequilaCon event in 2011. In previous years, we've been extremely fortunate that the stars have aligned and everything has come together to make for an awesome event... but it just isn't happening this year for one reason or another. So rather than forcing together something mediocre, calling it "TequilaCon," and leaving people disappointed, we've decided to take a pass this year. The last thing anybody wants is to go to the time and expense of attending TequilaCon only to have it not live up to the high expectations set by previous years. As for the future... who can say? So long as there is tequila somewhere out there in the world, the possibility for a new TequilaCon will always be there. In the meanwhile... thanks for all your support. May your limes be juicy and your salt be salty until next we meet. Jenny, Brandon, Dave2, Vahid, and Mr. Tequila...
• Mayo. One of these days I'm bringing an extra suitcase with me so that I can pack it full of creamy delicious Dutch mayonnaise. I would have tried to smuggle a jar back this trip, but US Customs are real tight-asses when it comes to bringing superior food products into the country. The bastards.
Please note that I was NOT the person who opened the jar of mayo on the right, ate a few spoonfuls, then put the jar back on the shelf. Not that I could blame this person, but it wasn't me.
• Seriousness. But in all seriousness, who the fuck would open a jar of mayo in a grocery store, eat some of it, then put it back? If I looked, would there be slices of bread, cheese, and ham missing too? Did somebody make a fucking sandwich at the store? What the hell?
• Honestly. I mean, truly... honestly... what the bloody fuck? Did somebody obsessed with the creamy deliciousness of Dutch mayo realize that smuggling an entire jar was impossible... but smuggling a handful down their pants might work?
• Obsessive. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm honestly not getting all obsessive over this, but these are the things that keep me awake at night, people. WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT MAYO?
• Foreigner. This morning as I was waiting to board my flight home, I made my way to some website where a video was available. After clicking on the video, I got an error message saying "I'm sorry this video is not available in your country." This left me dumbfounded and more than a little pissed off. I don't think that people should get to put videos on the internet unless the entire internet is allowed to look at them.
• Easy. One of the many movies I watched on my way home was Emma Stone in Easy A. It wasn't that this was a film I was dying to see, but it was one of the last things available that I hadn't already seen at least twice. Much to my shock and horror, I actually enjoyed this movie. It unapologetically borrows from a lot of those great 80's flicks like Sixteen Candies, Pretty in Pink, Say Anything, and the like. And does so pretty well. It always shocks me that quality films of any genre end up being made in this day and age... but for something in the teen angst/romance genre that doesn't completely suck? Miraculous.
Olive Penderghast is a forgettable nobody high school student who decides to embrace her newfound infamy as "school harlot" once a false rumor about her losing her virginity spreads throughout the school. Hilarity ensues. Not only is Emma Stone flawless as the witty and lethally unflappable lead, but they somehow managed to assemble a genius cast including Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Malcolm McDowell, and a surprisingly appropriately cast Lisa Kudrow. If you're looking for some mindless fun (that's actually fun), here's your film...
• Hard. As opposed to the total shit-stain of a movie called Life As We Know It. I mean, holy crap, does Katherine Heigl actively search out the shittiest, most pedestrian, predictable, ridiculously stupid scripts in the gutters of Hollywood to find her movie projects? How many sublimely idiotic spit-take reactions to the foul smell of baby poop do we really need? Wasn't Three Men and a Baby enough? Are we doomed to see it replayed in a movie every three years until the end of time? Granted, I fast-forwarded through most of this film as redundant pap, so perhaps some of the nuance was lost on me... but what the fuck?!?
Annnnnd... I'm spent.
There are plenty more bullets left in me, but my fingers stopped working about ten minutes ago. Just three more hours layover until I get to go home and (hopefully) sleep.
Annnnnd my suitcase was beat to shit this past trip... zippers busted off, a nice gash in the side, and a handle half-way torn off. So now I am faced with the unenviable task of buying new luggage. This rates somewhere between getting a root canal and having chronic diarrhea on my Fun-O-Meter, so I'm really not looking forward to it. There's just something awful about spending big money on something the airlines actively try to destroy that makes me want to scream. I've toyed with the idea of buying cheap-ass bags, but the idea of having them fall apart so I end up chasing my underwear and toothpaste around a luggage carousel scares me more than the high price tag of the good shit.
As I am not an overly-sentimental kind of guy, I am trying my best not to get too sad over losing my travel companion from the past seven years. My faithful Samsonite roller bag has been around the world with me a dozen times, has been lost and recovered way too often, and always seemed to hold more crap than what physics would seem to allow.
=sniff!=
Anyway... I have narrowed my choices to the folowing pieces...
Nickelodeon Spongebob Squarepants "Smile Face" Roller Tote...
Disney's "Pop" Mickey Mouse Rolling Travel Bag...
Sanrio Hello Kitty Pretty Pink Polkadots Wheely Suitcase...
Briggs & Riley "Transcend" Expandable Upright Suitcase...
Right now I'm leaning towards the Briggs & Riley bag because it comes highly recommended as a tough and durable choice for the frequent traveler. A pity it doesn't come in a more exciting design, but I guess that's the trade-off you make for getting a suitcase that's going to last a while.
I've got a couple of weeks to decide, so my fingers remain crossed that I can find Batman luggage before I have to purchase. I'd imagine there's few things cooler than pulling a Batman suitcase through the airport.
I have an absurd amount of things to be thankful for. I've been so blessed in life that it seems as though I should be on my hands and knees thanking whatever gods there be every minute of every day for my abundance of awesomeness. Even the days that suck are still a paradise compared to those endured by scores of people less fortunate. Truly I am one of the luckiest people on earth.
Which is why it always catches me by surprise when the waves of depression wash upon my shore.
This morning I awoke with such a massive feeling of dread and despair that it was all I could do to climb out of bed. "What an asshole!" I tell myself. "You haven't got anything to be depressed about! You were just in frickin' SPAIN a few days ago for heaven's sake!"
Didn't matter. No amount of rationalization could make me feel better. No amount of self-analysis could reveal what had me feeling so down. No amount of chocolate pudding could erase the depression that swamped my every thought. I'm sure there's all kinds of pills available to fix stuff like this... but, alas, I don't have any of them, so all I could do was force myself to face the day.
Which sucked, of course, because the despair never truly went away. All I wanted was for the day to finally end in the hopes that I wake up feeling better tomorrow. And so I'm taking a couple of sleeping pills and going to bed at 7:00pm to speed up the process. I'll probably wake up at midnight, but no matter.
This past Sunday evening as I was flying home there was a beautiful sunset in The Cascades...
I keep thinking that if I stare at these photos long enough the world will come into focus, but the forecast remains cloudy.
When I was visiting Tunisia last year, our tour stopped at a parking lot in Carthage where our guide had us exit the bus and look in one direction... towards a Islamic mosque. Then he had us look the opposite direction... towards a Christian church. He proudly told us that while Tunisia was predominantly Muslim, other faiths were welcome to worship there, and everybody gets along with their neighbors just fine even though they may worship in different ways. He then went on to say how Tunisians welcome and even encourages those of the Jewish faith to make an annual pilgrimage to their island of Djerba, where there's a famous synagogue housing one of the oldest handwritten copies of the Torah in existence. He was intent on getting across that Jews and Muslims aren't always enemies, and mutual respect goes a long ways towards a peaceful coexistence between faiths in Tunisia...
Looking one way... El Abidine Mosque
Looking the other... La cathédrale Saint-Louis de Carthage
It reminded me of when I was visiting Istanbul (in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country) and the guide there remarked that it was not uncommon to have a mosque, church, and synagogue all within a short walking distance, with people of different faiths all living together peacefully in the same neighborhood.
Which in turn reminded me of when I was in Bali (in Indonesia, another predominantly Muslim country) and noted that a mosque, church, synagogue, and even a Buddhist temple could literally be built side-by-side with nobody thinking anything odd about it at all. The Balinese people may worship differently, but they can work, live, and play together just the same.
Not to say that some hateful morons don't occasionally come along and try to fuck up the peace for everybody. It seems there's always sad news about religious violence happening somewhere. Whether it be radical gangs torching a synagogue... or a mosque getting burned down by religious extremists... or a government committing violent acts in the name of a religion and a people they don't truly represent... or some other tragic event that undermines peaceful coexistence. But this is an unfortunate element that's present in all societies, and is contrary to the vast majority of people who simply want to live and worship in peace, regardless of what religion they adhere to.
Turns out that people are people wherever you go and, despite fundamental differences in our beliefs, it's an underlying desire to coexist in peace which unites us as humans...
Click to embiggen Scarboro Missions' excellent Golden Rule poster.
And that just reminded me of how Egyptian Muslims formed a human shield so Egyptian Coptic Christians could worship in peace at Christmas Mass after a recent bombing... just as Egyptian Christians formed a human shield so Egyptian Muslim protestors could perform their daily prayers without fear of attack during the recent uprising. In the end, these people have decided that they are all Egyptians, and banding together in unity despite their differences was their strength...
Christians form a human shield in Egypt... photo copyright Nevine Zaki
Which brings me to the entire point of this blog entry and how it relates to my country.
Kind of.
Because I find it alternately amusing and disgusting that the same people who feel that the USA is a "Christian Nation" and should be governed by "Christian principles" are completely losing their shit over the idea that "Islamic Nations" like Tunisia and Egypt may form new governments where "Islamic principles" play a part. As if freedom is only freedom and democracy is only democracy if they are governed by "Christian beliefs" at their core.
Personally, I think governments should be free of religious dogma and let religion function as an independent entity of personal choice (sound familiar?) but the hypocrisy of some Conservatives in the USA dictating that groups like The Muslim Brotherhood should have no voice in the government of Islamic nations is laughable. It's like if Muslims in Turkey suddenly dictated that Christian Conservatives should have no voice in the US government. Americans would lose their minds. Rush Limbaugh would fucking explode. And then he'd probably say we have to eat chicken at Thanksgiving because Turkey is anti-American or some stupid shit like that (you laugh... but remember Freedom Fries?).
And people wonder why The Middle East is so unstable. I don't want to get overly-political or analytical here, but from what I've seen with my own eyes, experienced in my own travels, and have confirmed by making Muslim friends both around the world and here at home... Islam having a voice in politics is not the problem. Forcing a country to adopt a system of leadership and government that is not representative of its peoples or serving their best interests, however, is a very big problem.
So let these countries find their own way. Encourage them to find their own way.
Because that's real democracy in action. Because that's what's going to produce a stable, prosperous country. Because that's what's going to make an ally not only for the United States of America, but for the world. People, at their heart, just want to worship as they choose and live in peace. Let this be the guiding force that rebuilds these countries. It worked pretty well for the USA.
At least in the beginning.
Yes, this may result in a government which is not in step with America's interests. Yes, there's no way of knowing where it will lead. Yes, there's a risk that some radical group might commandeer the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and get their peoples into a bigger mess than they are already in... but give the people a chance. Trust that in their heart they just want to worship as they choose and live in peace.
Just like most everybody else on this planet.
One of those days...
On the bright side, even heartache means you're feeling something.
And just in time for Valentine's Day.
It's the twentieth anniversary of Twin Peaks! And it's being celebrated with an art show today in Los Angeles. Oh how I wish I could be there.
One of my favorite shows ever, David Lynch's epic story of secrets and murder in a small Pacific Northwest community was about the most fascinating, bizarre, beautiful, and altogether brilliant programs to ever air on television. While there have been a few shows that have tried to emulate its quirky genius over the years, there will likely never be anything quite like the strange saga of Laura Palmer ever again.
"She's dead... Wrapped in plastic..."
Even if the show wasn't spectacularly entertaining, I probably would have still been interested in watching it. Most of the exterior locations used in the series are about an hour-and-a-half from my home. David Lynch wanted to create a series that took a glimpse into the shady underside of small town living, and what he came up with was so convincing that I often felt that I could be living in Twin Peaks.
"My log does not judge..."
The tragedy of Twin Peaks is that it was canceled right in the middle of a massive cliffhanger at the end of its second season. David Lynch eventually released a movie called Fire Walk With Me which was eagerly anticipated by fans, but it ended up being more of a prequel than a sequel, and fared poorly at the box office. Even worse, it did very little to address all the lingering questions from the series.
"There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge..."
I haven't watched the full series in sequence since I revisited the first season five years ago, so I suppose it's time. The problem is that I'll just end up getting all sucked into the world of Twin Peaks again, knowing that it's going to be chopped off in middle of the story. I suppose it's futile, but a part of me still hopes that Lynch will get together the cast and wrap up what he started. Sure you run the risk of being disappointed, but at least you get closure.
"I'll see you again in 25 years. Meanwhile…"
Will we see another Twin Peaks project in 2015/2016 just as Laura Palmer promised? Who knows. That would certainly be awesome.
In the meanwhile... there's Fringe which is about the most messed-up show on television right now. Last night's episode approached a near Twin-Peaks-level of freakiness, which is no easy feat. It's so odd to me that J.J. Abrams shit-pile of a mess, Lost, got so much attention and blockbuster ratings when the real interesting stuff is happening over at his other series, Fringe.
Oh well.
Time for some cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee at the Double-R Diner.
"Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds... fire, walk with me."
At 2:30am I ended up playing chauffeur to the hospital ER. While I was waiting, I saw a guy walk in holding one of his fingers that had gotten cut off. Holy crap. I could so not work the reception desk at an ER. I do not do well when people show up holding body parts. Or The bubonic plague.
• Debloggered. I've been noticing for quite a while now the long, slow, steady decline in blogging. It's a little depressing, but I didn't know how depressing until I was bored in the hospital waiting room and decided to edit my feed reader. It turns out twenty-eight of my feeds ended up getting deleted because they haven't been updated in over six months. Twenty-eight! I can't be sure, but I probably deleted close to that many a year ago. A few of the deleted bloggers I keep in touch with via Twitter or Facebook, so I guess that's okay. But there are others who apparently dropped off the face of the earth. A few left with a sad "this is my last entry" post, whereas others just... stopped.
A classic example is an expatriate who decided to move to Korea for a year so he could experience life in another country before getting his PhD. I found his blog during my third trip to Korea when I was Googling for... something... and kept reading because he was an interesting guy living an interesting life who had similar thoughts and hobbies (comic books!) to mine. Eventually he fell in love with a Korean girl, got married, ended up staying in Korea five years, got accepted at a school back in the USA, moved into a new apartment here with his wife, and then the entries just... stopped. It's so strange to have been a part of somebody's life for years and then =BLAM!= you have no idea what happened to them or how they're doing. I ended up doing some Google-stalking, found the guy on Twitter, then sent a request... but since I never commented on his blog, he doesn't know me and will probably ignore it.
It's the same story for a few other blogs I once followed. You get caught up in somebody's life, feel like you know them, then one day they're gone and you're left wondering. Now, granted, it's not like a blogger owes anybody anything. If they decide that blogging is no longer something they want to do, then that's all there is to it. But, even so, it's a little bit cruel. And a little bit curious. I wonder how many people would notice (or even care) if tomorrow I just... stopped?
• Fosterized. Last summer a song called Pumped Up Kicks by an unknown band called "Foster The People" was creeping through the blogosphere, infecting people wherever it landed. The song was contagious in a way that's truly rare... slamming through a catchy beat and even catchier nonsense lyrics that still haunt me months later. The odd thing being that the band was practically invisible, and finding any new material past their one song was nigh impossible. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only did they finally release a video for Pumped Up Kicks, they also unleashed an EP with three songs on iTunes (including Houdini, which has become permanently implanted in my head). Apparently an album is on the way. I'm hoping it sucks, because I don't know how I will be able to function with more than three awesome Foster The People songs constantly looping through my head...
• Branded. And so Russell Brand hosted Saturday Night Live last night. Compared to most recent episodes, it wasn't bad. But with the exception of Brand's monologue, Jay Pharoah's flawless Eminem impersonation, and a faux ad-spot for an offensively British movie called Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro, it just wasn't that funny to me. By the time we got to the heinous A Spot of Tea sketch, I wanted to impale myself on my remote just to end the suffering. Surely even the people involved can't think this crap is in any way funny? Here's hoping Miley Cyrus manages to somehow have a good show in two weeks despite all evidence pointing to doom. Wow. If Hannah Montana can't make for a good episode of SNL they might as well hang it up.
• Weathered. Well, poop...
• Microsofnokia. Nokia, once the final word in mobile phones, has been sliding into irrelevance for years. First Blackberry skewered them in the business market. Then iPhone and Android served them their head in the personal smartphone market. In every way that matters Nokia was dying a slow death, never to be heard of again.
And then... Stephen Elop, a former Microsof employee (and Microsoft's eight largest shareholder), became CEO of Nokia. After a brutally honest critique of Nokia's complete lack of ability to compete in the market, Elop announced that Nokia was dumping pretty much everything and hitching its wagon to the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 train. It was spectacularly brilliant and evil. For all intents and purposes, Nokia was now a hardware division of Microsoft. For which Microsoft paid nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero dollars. When I first mentioned this, people called me a wingnut Microsoft-hating conspiracy theorist. And now another former Microsoft employee of sixteen years, Chris Weber, has just been installed as CEO of Nokia USA.
Get out your tinfoil hat!
I'd congratulate Microsoft for dropping to an entirely new level of evil, but I don't think this is going to make much difference. All they've done is ensure that what few manufacturers were making Windows Phone 7 handsets will now be embracing Android 100%. Good thing Microsoft has a lot of money, because that's about the only thing that's keeping them in the smartphone game. Alas, the same can't be said for Nokia. Since Microsoft has no financial interest in the company, they also have no risk. If this massive gamble doesn't pay off, Nokia is done for.
And let's not fool ourselves here, Nokia is done for.
UPDATE: Or billions. Whatever... this doesn't end well.
And on that sad note, I suppose I should try to get some work done before this weekend is over.
If only I could wake up...
Happy Valentine's Day... one way or another...
Sometimes in matters of the heart, it's best to have high-caliber protection.
For my twisted valentines from previous years, visit the Blogography Valentine's Day Cards Page!
I've been watching the current IBM Jeopardy! Challenge with great interest.
For those not in the know, the game show Jeopardy! has invited its two greatest champions... Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter... to come back for a special tournament where they will match wits with IBM's super-computer, "Watson." It's an interesting challenge, because Watson has to stand on his own... parsing the language of the questions and using an internal database (no internet) to formulate his answers. He then has to physically press a ring-in button, just like a real opponent would...
After the first game, Watson is destroying the competition with a $35,754 total over Rutter ($10,000) and Jennings ($4,800)... even though he missed the Final Jeopardy! question. There's another game to go, but it's pretty clear that Watson's immense collection of data and clever programming has given "him" an unbeatable edge.
What I like best about Watson is his "face" which displays a beautiful animated avatar designed by The Hype Framework. It pulses and moves with a lovely array of line-work to reflect his "thinking" in various ways...
But, as interesting as Watson is at playing Jeopardy, it's OTHER games he might end up playing that worry me. Like... say... GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR?!?
I, for one, welcome our new Jeopardy! Champion Overlord.
I'm not sick, but I'm feeling like crap.
Probably because I made the mistake of taking a nap when I got home. That never works out well for me, but I was half-dead from the crazy events of the past week and couldn't help myself.
And so now I'm three-quarters-dead and have nobody to blame but myself...
Tomorrow's going to be a fun day.
In television news... Survivor sucks more and more each season because Jeff Probst tries and makes the show be about Jeff Probst. Sorry, but this show is supposed to be about the contestants. Stop trying to influence the game and manipulate Tribal Council to put the spotlight on you. It's not making the game any more interesting... it's making the game less relevant to the outcome. Just announce the challenges, initiate the conversation, snuff the torches, and SHUT THE FUCK UP. Also? Those "Redemption Island What-If Moments" are truly stupid and wasting valuable time we should be spending... oh... I dunno... WATCHING THE GAME.
In other television news... Mr. Sunshine has to be the biggest waste of television talent in recent memory. Matthew Perry, who was not only genius in Friends and Studio 60, but near-inspiring in his guest-appearances on The West Wing is wasted on mind-numbingly boring material. Allison Janney, who's run on The West Wing is legendary, has been given a one-dimensional joke of a character that's about as appealing as salmonella poisoning. They can't even get a guest-spot right, as they bring in somebody with real character like Kathy Najimy, then have her do... absolutely nothing? WTF?
In even more television news... Justified Season Two... wow. Just wow.
In Twitter news... SWOOOOOON!
BROOKE ALVAREZ! Guess I better hose down that goat's blood off my altar and take that photo!
And, on that stalker-ish note... it's almost midnight, so I suppose I should see just how big a mistake that afternoon nap was.
What an astoundingly horrible day. Seriously.
No matter where I went all day long, I was stepping in somebody's shit.
Why can't people just clean up their own messes so responsible people don't have to deal with their crap?
Without change, something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens.
—Duke Leto Atreides, Dune
I've been struggling this week. A couple weeks, actually. Ever since I came back from Europe it seems as though I've been hit by one horrible thing after another and I'm starting to lose faith that things are ever going to get back to normal. Whatever "normal" is. It's like I left my life for a while, then came back to find all the things I recognize about it... missing.
Almost like it never existed and I'm just remembering it all wrong. Except I have pictures. And this blog. I'd blame the travel, but I know that's not true.
Now.
Because today as I was skimming the news sites, I figured it all out. And this is what did it...
Nooooooo! Not Giordano's! They say they'll stay open as they declare bankruptcy, but who knows how long that will last? Their cheese supplier could decide to stop delivering cheese tomorrow and where would that leave us? How can you make pizza without cheese?
And there it is.
I haven't eaten at Giordano's in quite a while... even though it's kind of a quintessential Chicago experience... but that's not the point. The point is that I always know I can go to back to Giordano's for a pizza and a beer if I wanted to...
Except...
Now I don't know how much longer that might be true. Giordano's could close tomorrow and I'd never get to have pizza there again. I don't know how much that would actually bother me if it happened, but the thought of it weighing on my mind is crushing me.
And if that's true for a pizza restaurant 1650 miles away then it's true for everything in my life.
Anything I do... anyplace I go... anyone I see... could be the last time.
I don't fear change. Really, I don't. In many ways I embrace change and welcome the new adventures it brings. But sometimes change makes you question the things you know... the things you believe in... the things that are true. And with all that doubt floating around my head lately, it's no wonder I don't want to get out of bed in the morning.
I suppose I should do something about that.
Or go to Chicago and have a Giordano's pizza and a beer while I still can.
Well today sucked.
You know your day sucked when the best part of it was a tub of Snack-Pack once it was all over.
More and more it feels as though life is just the shit you're forced to eat...
So you can have your chocolate pudding dessert...
Well screw that.
This morning I had waffles for breakfast. Isn't that what Sundays are for?
• Spy. A couple of people brought to my attention that Google Books has put some issues of Spy online for your reading pleasure! One of my favorite magazines of all time, Spy was the ultimate repository for satire writing, and had some of the most biting pranks and hoaxes ever committed. But this did not preclude Spy from tackling some serious matters in pop culture and politics as well. Hopefully Google will continue adding issues until all of them are online... that would save me from having to dig mine out of storage. If you want to take a look at what all the fuss was about, click here to visit Spy on Google Books!
• Endangered. It's that time of year when television shows are reaching their do-or-die point in the ratings. If not renewed soon, some shows I like are in danger of being cancelled...
Sadly, odds are that most of these shows are not long for this world. They'll probably be replaced with shitty "reality" shows that are inexplicably popular with the public at large. Heaven help us all.
• 18. After seeing the Mars landing hoax conspiracy movie Capricorn One on VHS rental sometime in the 80's, my mind was pretty much blown. It encouraged me to think about what actual cool stuff our government might be keeping from us. Area 51 was a good start. But the various moon landing conspiracy theories floating around became my obsession. Not so much that the landings were faked... but about what happened while we were up on the moon. And there were a lot of theories. Everything from alien encounters to extraterrestrial artifacts to weapon installations to secret missions. It was a tin-hat wearing dream come true. And now a new horror movie, Apollo 18, is being released to reveal the secret of NASA's "cancelled" final moon mission... and why we've never gone back...
It's been shot "documentary-style" (think Blair Witch Project) which I usually loathe in movies, but I just might make an exception this time if the reviews don't suck. The cheesy but intriguing trailer is on QuickTime, and the release date is March 4th.
Annnnd... I only have time for three bullets today. There are many things to be done yet today.
Today is Presidents Day, a public holiday meant to coincide with the birthday of the first president of The United States of America: George Washington. Except his birthday isn't until tomorrow on the 22nd. But since that would be an inconvenient date from a retail business perspective, they move it to Monday every year. This way stores can have Presidents Day Weekend Sales to encourage people to spend whatever money they haven't already spent for Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's Day. And if you don't have any money left, I guess you're expected to use your credit card and go into debt (or, more likely, more into debt).
I had no intention of doing my duty and fulfilling my retail obligations today, but on my way over the mountain passes this afternoon I was told that Helly Hansen was going out of business in Seattle. Needless to say, I was compelled to drop by. I love Helly Hansen gear and since everything is 40%-50% off, I didn't have any choice in the matter...
Me in Edinburgh 1999, wearing my favorite Helly Hansen jacket.
I bought it in 1997 and am still wearing it today, 14 years later. THAT'S QUALITY!
Unfortunately Fortunately, they didn't have much left in size Large, so I didn't get the massive spending spree I was expecting. Still, I found a nice windbreaker, a couple hats, and some awesome gloves, so it was worth the trip. I also stopped for a meat-free burger at Johnny Rockets (woooo!) while I was there, so I guess it was a win-win Presidents Day for me after all (even though I had to work this morning).
And so now I'm in Seattle for a day.
Perhaps longer. A winter storm hit in the mountains tonight and is expected to dump a shit-load of snow and ice on the passes. Since my car can't use chains (no, I didn't know that when I bought it) I may be stuck.
My thoughts are with the people of Christchurch tonight. The shocking images coming out of the earthquake there are just gut-wrenching. I wish everybody a speedy recovery from such tragedy, and hope to visit your beautiful country one day.
Last night I got -zero- sleep.
It seemed like all the horrors of the world just wouldn't let my mind slip into oblivion... instead I was endlessly occupied with the events in Libya, The USA, New Zealand, Yemen, Bahrain, and the rest. There seemed no way to let it all go. Instead I just laid there feeling restless and helpless all night long.
When all I really wanted to do was go home.
But I was slammed with work all day long and, when it was time to leave, I found out I couldn't. The passes were either closed or a hellacious mess, and the weather was just getting worse. After four people at work started Googling maps and pass reports, the general consensus was that my best option was to drive to Portland and make a run up the Columbia Basin tomorrow.
So here I am in Portland, feeling exhausted and destroyed...
My hetero life-partner suggested I have pizza and beer at Rocco's... where philosophers & aliens meet!
Then it was time for the awesomeness of Powell's City of Books, where I spent WAY too much money,
Not on this particular book... though I wanted to. Badly.
Then Vahid just had to remind me of Mio Gelato. The bastard.
Stracciatella gelato and Powell's Books... the perfect combo.
Classy third-floor entertainment for gentlemen!
Time for... VOODOO DOUGHNUTS!! Where good things come in pink boxes.
A maple bar and voodoo doll doughnut for dessert!
For those who have never had the orgasmic pleasure of eating at Voodoo Doughnuts, here is the carousel of awesomeness which awaits...
And so now I think I will take my aching head and tired body to bed even though it's only 8:30.
Please please please let me get home tomorrow...
And so my journey home continues... this time with pretty pictures!
Since it would still be less time to drive back to Seattle and go over the mountain passes, the first thing I did when I got up this morning was check the pass reports. One was closed. The other was "chains required" (and my car can't wear chains, even though I am legally required to carry them). And sooo... I had no choice but to continue the massive detour I was on...
This is how I usually get home. Travel time: 2hr 10min...
This is the detour I had to take. Travel time: 9hr 15min...
Well... technically it's 9 hours and 15 minutes. With my overnight stop in Portland, it actually took me 16 hours and 35 minutes to get home.
And thought the long, long drive sucked ass, there were some cool things to see along the way. My first stop? THE BRIDGE OF THE GODS! In ancient times, there was a natural stone bridge that crossed the Columbia River. Native American legend says that the bridge was put there by Manito, The Great Spirit, because he was sympathetic to the hard time people had crossing the river. A mural at the foot of the bridge shows what this looked like...
But due to a jealous rivalry between mountain gods, the bridge was destroyed (you can read all about it here). And so in 1920 we had to build our own bridge, which looks like this...
From there, I continued onward, eventually crossing the Columbia River into the small region of Maryhill, Washington. The place is kind of famous because of a World War I war memorial here... STONEHENGE! And unlike the old and busted Stonehenge in England, the Stonehenge here in Washington is new hotness...
There are a lot of wind turbines in the area...
The drive up through the Columbia Basin's county roads was pretty lonely. Most of the time I was the only driver on the road. Still, there was some nice scenery to be had...
And then, before I knew it, I was home. Exhausted and wanting to die... but home just the same.
Pretty as it was, I don't want to do this drive again any time soon.
A while back I got a phone call from Charter Communications, my cable company. It was a sales guy telling me that I could lock-in a great rate for more services than I currently had at less money than I was currently paying! "Wow! How can you do that?" I asked. "You're a good customer, and we want to keep you!" they said. "But what's the catch? How can I get more for less?" I asked. "No catch!" they said... "You just have to agree to a two-year contract!" I kept asking questions but, at every turn I was assured that my total bill would be less money.
Confident I had covered all the bases, I said "Sign me up!"
It ended up not being true, of course.
The first time I called because my bill was higher, I was told the increase was temporary because I made a change in the middle of a billing cycle. Today when I called a second time because my latest charge was still higher than I had been paying, they said the amount was correct. They didn't give a crap that I was promised something different. The situation was all my fault, and if I wanted to change my services, I'd have to pay $190 to get out of my contract or just suck it up and pay the extra $40 a month that I had "agreed" to.
They obviously don't know me very well. This wasn't some case of "buyer's remorse" over an agreement I made ten months ago and suddenly had second-thoughts over. This was a second complaint over an agreement I just made. I was LIED to. Twice. So here was MY plan...
I may have to pay $190 to get out of the contract of lies Charter had trapped me into... but they would be the ones paying for it. And I started my dissatisfaction campaign by posting this on Twitter:
Which was almost immediately replied to by a Charter Cable Twitter rep...
And... problem solved. Everything was fixed.
This was astounding. Somebody at Charter actually gets it. Somebody at Charter knows the value of customer service. Somebody at Charter understands that righting a wrong and keeping a customer happy is in the company's best interest. How? Let's take a look at my value as a customer to Charter Communications from the perspective of PHONE support vs. TWITTER support...
| MY CUSTOMER VALUE... CHARTER PHONE SUPPORT | MY CUSTOMER VALUE... CHARTER TWITTER SUPPORT |
|
| AFTER ONE YEAR | $190 | $1,529.16 |
| AFTER TWO YEARS | $190 | $3,058.32 |
| AFTER THREE YEARS | $190 | $4,587.48 |
| AFTER FOUR YEARS | $190 | $6,116.64 |
| AFTER FIVE YEARS | $190 | $7,645.80 |
The customer service agent in phone support would have gotten the $190 early termination fee... and nothing more. Ever. On top of that, they would have had a very unhappy ex-customer who would spend their every waking hour thinking up ways of telling everybody and anybody how they had been lied to and cheated by their company.
The customer service agent on Twitter, however, now has a happy customer worth thousands of dollars to their bottom line over the next several years.
That's a $190 one-time payment vs. $1,529.16... ANNUALLY.
How do companies like this stay in business when parts of their organization don't understand the long-time value of a customer? All they see is policy regardless of consequence. They don't care what promises were made, they only care about what excuses they can make as to why they were made. They don't care about solving a problem, they only care about passing blame as to who is responsible for it.
I was told my bill would be less than I was paying.
And, in the end, it wasn't even the money that was important to me. It was the principle.
I'm not some whack-job trying to weasel my way out of an agreement I made. I'm a customer who was made a promise that was not kept. Every attempt to rectify the situation was met with more broken promises or outright defiance. Until I posted a complaint to Twitter and somebody at Charter saw it and decided my value as a customer was worth saving. And it's refreshing to know that somebody at Charter gives a crap about saving their revenue stream.
Because it only takes 131 customers.
Saving just 131 customers like me over a 5-year period is worth over a MILLION DOLLARS to Charter Communications. With money like that at stake, it's just a pity that George Vick isn't in charge of all customer service at Charter.
Because after what I've been through today with their phone "support," I have to seriously question whether the company will even be around in five years.
UPDATE: For those who asked, the problem was solved by removing all the extra "premium" channels and taking me back to the package I used to have, which is fine by me. I never cared about having the extra channels, and the only reason I added them in the first place was because I was told my monthly charge would be less money than I was currently paying (with two-year contract). Am I happy that Charter has a sales force which lies as a matter of policy? No. But I otherwise like the service I had at the price I was paying, so getting me back to where I was at is all that matters to me.
Pig in Boots? How about Monkey in Boots?
When working at home I often have a DVD playing to drown out any background noise. Most times I pick a movie I've seen a bajillion times so I can focus on my work. It doesn't always happen though, because some movies I can watch over and over again without ever getting tired of them.
One of my favorite movies of all time is the Kevin Costner & James Earl Jones baseball-themed masterpiece, Field of Dreams. It's an astounding work on just about every level. The characters are rich and fully-formed. The story is deep and reflective. But it's the philosophy behind the film that is
"You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening."
— Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, Field of Dreams
Ever since then I've been obsessed with recognizing my significant moments while they're happening.
Today I completed a big part of a project I've been dreaming of for a long time. Right after clicking the "SAVE" button, I went and made myself a big salad with all the fixings and began to eat.
It was then that I realized I had just experienced a significant moment in my life.
ZOMFG! HAVE YOU TRIED THIS NEW KRAFT MEXICAN CHEESE BLEND WITH A TOUCH OF PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE?!? IT'S FRICKIN' DELICIOUS!
Take THAT Archibald "Moonlight" Graham!
Welcome to a fabulous OSCARS EDITION of Bullet Sunday!
• Intro! This new tradition of inserting Oscar hosts into scenes from the nominated films just keeps getting better and better. Using technology from Inception, James Franco and Anne Hathaway go into the mind of former Oscar host Alec Baldwin to learn the secrets of hosting the show. The fact that they managed to work in Back to the Future at the end was just the icing on the cake...
Oscar telecast ©2011 by ABC Television
• The Winners! Not surprisingly, there were a few awards passed out that I felt could have gone elsewhere, but overall I was happy with the winners. Here's my break-down...
• Wrap-Up! Though James Franco faltered a bit at times, overall he and Anne Hathaway did a surprisingly good job hosting the show. The musical performances were mercifully short and half-way decent (including Gwyneth Paltrow, who I thought did a pretty good job considering she's not a professional singer... it was crazy seeing all the online haters unload on her while she performed). I also thought the presentations went very well. It will be interesting to see who hosts next year.
Annnnd... I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow, so I guess that's all she wrote. See you at the movies.
It's a tale as old as time, really.
Nine months later, a son is born.
The happiest day of their lives has finally come.
Except in this case the happy couple in question is two Belgian guys living in France, the surrogate mother is in the Ukraine, and homophobic red tape has left a nursery empty for two years while the child is stuck in an orphanage...
In the above photo the biological father, Laurent Ghilain, is on the left. His husband, Peter Meurrens, is on the right. The empty crib in the middle is where their son, Samuel Ghilain, should have been.
A while back I read about their struggle to get a passport issued for their son so they could bring him home. I made a comment about how fucked up it was that a baby was in an orphanage when he had two perfectly good parents who were waiting for him. Literally begging for him. But nobody would hear their plea.
Then today I was emailed a link to a follow-up story.
Little Samuel is home at last...
And despite the fact that such insanity is nothing new, I watched this footage and wondered all over again how anybody could be so fucked up as to believe this child belonged anywhere except with his father. Later on, there was one part of the story that caught my attention. It was a set of still-photos showing Laurent and Peter visiting Laurent's newborn son...
And that's when it kind of hits you.
Breaking the situation down to its base elements, you end up with this...
And this...
Two images of fatherhood that would tug at the heartstrings of just about anyone, anywhere.
But put the two together, and a segment of the population inexplicably loses their fucking mind...
A child lucky enough to have two daddies who will love and cherish him forever is unacceptable. But a child who is orphaned, unwanted, or unloved is somehow better off.
A kid in a loving home is a bad thing when his parents are gay. But shoving that same kid in an orphanage somewhere is what's "best for the child."
How can anybody think this way and not be seen as anything less than a monster?
How can we tolerate a society that justifies such heinous treatment of children?
How can we live knowing that anybody could look at an image like this...
...and not see it as anything but a joyous and wonderful event?
Sometimes the people on this world we live in fill me with such depression and despair that my heart feels as though it can't take it any more. I get to the point where all I can see is the hatred that plagues humanity day after day and the weight of it crushes me so I can barely breath. All the pain, the suffering, the sadness, the death, the destruction... so many senseless horrors... they wear on my mind so heavily that I don't even want to exist anymore.
But then I watch something beautiful like this and it's all forgotten...
I like to think that one day all the bigoted assholes of this earth will be dead and forgotten to the betterment of all humanity. Indeed, some days it's the only thing that keeps me going.
In the meanwhile, welcome home, Samuel.
It's on. Bring it.
My DaveToon character, Bad Monkey, was created to be the crazy-ass evil alter-ego of Lil' Dave (which you can read about here). From the beginning, he's done everything to live up to his name... he drinks, he swears, he smokes, he kicks people in the nuts, he smuggles cocaine, he smuggles weapons, he even craps his pants. And, while there's no photographic evidence, I'm pretty certain he does drugs while partying with hookers and porn stars.
And then today as I was surveying the latest damage by Charlie Sheen, it suddenly occurred to me...
Holy crap! My monkey isn't "bad" by accident... his role model is Charlie Sheen!
He's got tiger blood and Adonis DNA! And that's okay.
Because I'm tired of pretending like my monkey isn't special. I'm tired of pretending like my monkey's not bitchin'... a total frickin' rock star from Mars... and people can't figure him out, they can't process my monkey. I don't expect them to. You can't process Bad Monkey with a normal brain.
Charlie Sheen is Winning. So, hello... BANG! Winning! Bad Monkey is obviously winning. Duh!
I've to get me some of that new Charlie Sheen drug and sprinkle it on my corn flakes in the morning so I can be winning too. Apparently it doesn't show up on a drug test, so it's not like there's any down-side.
Well, unless you're a fan of Two and a Half Men.
Today didn't feel like a Tuesday at all.
Oh... that's because it's actually Wednesday.
Well that sure explains a lot. The problem is that I'm about two days behind in my work, so I should have spent my day wishing it was Monday.
Except I hate Mondays, so I guess that means I really should have spent my time wishing it was Sunday. But then I'd be dreading that tomorrow was Monday, so I guess that doesn't work either.
I suppose I could go for it being Saturday, except the day is almost over, so there wouldn't be much point wasting a Saturday like that.
Friday it is then.
Except it's going to be Thursday in about two minutes, which means tomorrow is going to be Friday by the time I finish this blog entry.
Wait. How in the hell did I just end up losing a week, and what the fuck happened to Tuesday?
For a day that had so many things going oh so terribly wrong, something unexpected happened to make all the suffering worthwhile.
But, alas, it has not yet come to pass. Every time they've played in Seattle, I'm away. Any time I'm in a city other than Seattle, it seems as though I've just missed them. And any time I've made plans to see them, life gets in the way. I've purchased tickets to see them perform three times (once in Seattle, once in Austin, and again in New York)... but every time I was diverted and couldn't make it.
Either somebody up there really doesn't want me to see Matt & Kim, or I'm just horribly unlucky.
Or both...
Lil' Whall PC has no sympathy for Lil' Dave Mac's pain. And people wonder why I hate Windows!
So you can imagine my non-surprise when I went through their brand new Sidewalks tour schedule and saw that no dates for Seattle were listed. But then something caught my eye. There were still some dates left in their current European tour. Including March 23 in London...
Which happens to be the day I have an overnight layover at London's Heathrow Airport on my way back home.
And so now, after years of chasing them all over the USA trying to catch them live, I have a ticket to see Matt & Kim in the UK because I just happen to be in the neighborhood.
Bloody hell.
I wonder what's going to go wrong this time?
Show canceled? Trip canceled? Weather delay? Public transportation strike? Venue closing? AIRPLANE EXPLODING?
I guess we'll see. Maybe this is finally my moment. But if something does go wrong, I'm pretty sure I'll be blaming Matt & Kim. Surely after years of effort on my part, it can't be my fault that things are going so terribly wrong.
Can it?
As I've said a couple of times now, I have no use for an iPad. My iPhone and MacBook do everything I need, and an iPad would just be one more thing to carry. Sure I bought one. I kinda had to. I'm an iOS developer and needed to update app graphics for some of my clients so they work on iPad. But after I was done, I gave it to my mom. She loves it. For her, it is truly a "Magical and Revolutionary New Device," just as Apple said.
Except...
I recently started composing music again.
I used to write quite a bit of music when I was in video production. It saved me lots of time over collaborating with a REAL musician, which meant I could move on to my next project faster. Alas, eventually digital editing tools came along that made my kind of video work redundant. I stopped doing video projects, which meant I stopped making music as well.
But recently I got bit by the music bug again, and have been using Apple's "SoundTrack" and "Garage Band" apps to bang out some tunes on my Mac with an old keyboard I have. It's far from an ideal solution. I have to "fake" instruments like guitars, drums, brass, and woodwinds by "playing" them on the keyboard or using pre-made loops because I can't play them very well in real life. I can play keyboard decently. Electronic drums I'm okay at. I have played bass guitar a few times and can manage. Barely. Sax and clarinet I used to play well, but suck at now. Given my menial musical talent, I don't have much choice but to faux compose on a computer. But I manage and it works.
And then I saw Apple's "iPad2 Event" and nearly crapped my pants.They demoed the new iPad Garage Band app, and it's jaw-dropping amazing. I'd go so far as to say "fucking astounding," but I don't want to oversell things here.
Except it really is fucking astounding...
For $4.99 (FOUR DOLLARS AND NINETY-NINE CENTS!) you get such a jaw-dropping array of musical tools with such unprecedented interactivity and functionality that you would have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on real life instruments and gear to even get even close to what Apple is offering. But they don't stop there. For instruments you might not play very well, they include "smart instruments" which assist you in working with them. PLUS an amp with stompboxes (for incorporating real guitars) AND a frickin' eight-track recording studio...
The most amazing part is how much thought went into it. It's like Garage Band was designed by actual musicians who would know what's needed to make an app like this useful. Like using the iPad's accelerometer to sense how hard you're tapping a piano key or a drum. Like using iPad's multi-touch surface to do things you couldn't even do with a real instrument. Like including properties of actual instruments so their virtual counterparts play as expected (chord dampening!).
For the music hobbyist who wants access to a "home studio" full of instruments and multi-track recording equipment (like me!) the iPad is more than a frickin' bargain... It's almost free. $500 for the hardware plus $5 for a crap-load of exceptional instruments AND a recording studio? I mean, holy shit. How can I NOT want an iPad now?
It's like the Mac version is just a clutzy imitator, and THIS is was what Garage Band was meant to be all along.
Of course, me talking about it can't possibly explain just how wonderful the app is. If you're an amateur musician... or even somebody who just likes the idea of giving music a try, you owe it to yourself to watch the Apple keynote video here (the Garage Band stuff starts
As for the iPad2 itself? It's nice. It finally includes the front-facing FaceTime camera THAT IT SHOULD HAVE HAD ALL ALONG. There's other good new stuff too, and the bump in speed and graphics will make more complex apps function better (as well as opening the door for even more incredible stuff in the future). But the miraculous thing about the iPad is not its specs. It's the extraordinary experience of using one that gives Apple the edge. This is something that competitors simply don't seem to understand. It doesn't matter if you have a tablet with a faster processor or more memory or more ports than iPad... you're not going to make a superior experience to iPad in hardware alone. It's the tight integration of hardware to software when married to truly brilliant apps like GarageBand that makes an iPad an iPad.
It's almost frightening to think of where Apple maight take us next.
Today started out pretty crappy at work. Then I switched to a project I actually enjoyed and things were looking up. Then I received an email with the most incredible news you can imagine and was overwhelmed with awesomeness. Which means this has ended up being one of the best days ever. Now I don't want to go to sleep and have the day end, because tomorrow can't help but be crappy by comparison.
Unless... I don't suppose it's too much to hope that this trend continues?
Because if Elizabeth Hurley shows up tomorrow morning with a million dollars and a can of whipping cream, I just don't know if I could take it. 2011 has been a pretty shitty year so far, and being inundated with amazing things makes it seem as though anything is possible...
Here's wishing you days filled with awesomeness too!
After the sheer awesomeness of my Saturday, I did the best I could to get through Bullet Sunday.
Meh.
• She's a Wonder. And so the most perfect woman on earth, Elizabeth Hurley, has been tapped for a role in David E. Kelly's Wonder Woman project. Apparently she'll be playing Wonder Woman's far more beautiful and classy arch-nemesis, Veronica Cale. I, of course, think she would be perfect as Wonder Woman herself, hard as it will be for anyone to fill Linda Carter's red boots. She was Wonder Woman. Even with Elizabeth Hurley, I have to say I am still very, very nervous about the show. If David E. Kelly can resist the urge to add his stupid-ass Allie McBeal craziness to the mix, it might have a chance...
• Pretty Cool. Gotta hand it to Miley Cyrus, she handled her guest-hosting on Saturday Night Live like a champ last night. She not only managed to get in a few digs on Lindsay Lohan, but spent a lot of time poking fun at herself as well. Of course, what every SNL fan was waiting for was seeing if she would make an appearance on Vanessa Bayer's ongoing "Miley Cyrus Show" skit. Surprisingly, she did... as Justin Bieber!
I was secretly hoping that Billy Ray Cyrus would make an appearance as himself here, but Jason Sudeikis did his usual hysterical impersonation. A couple sketches fell flat for me (The Sound of Music, really?)... but overall it was a pretty funny episode and Miley did a great job. I still miss Hannah Montana.
• Upgrade. Microsoft has an entire website devoted to killing off their piece of shit web browser, Internet Explorer 6...
Their suggestion is to have you upgrade to Internet Explorer 8.
If I may be so bold, a suggestion: bypass Internet Explorer 8 and upgrade directly to an even better browser...
Or, don't stop upgrading there... get rid of Windows and step up to Macintosh! It's so much nicer up here!
• Downgrade. Meeee-ow! My review of the latest "upgrade" to Twitter for iPhone...
Developers always seem to play the victim by saying things like "Well, nobody wants to pay for apps anymore, so we use ads. SOMEBODY has to pay, so cut us a break!" — And that's a very good point... except you can't expect people to be happy when the app's functionality is impaired by the ads. Either find a way to insert ads in a way that's not going to shit all over your app, or just charge for the damn thing.
• Go for the Gold. One last thing before I go... this morning I discovered Rold Gold "Everything Bagel" Pretzels. Deeeelicious. They kind of reminds me of Chex Mix, but more subtle and without the fishy Worcestershire sauce to mess things up. Still really good flavor though. This is a great find because it's really tough to find the Snyders of Hanover flavors I like around here...
And there's Bullet Sunday for you. Until next week... stay classy, blogosphere.
I live on a rural road with no sidewalks. It's not very pedestrian-friendly, but its home.
Tonight as I was heading home from work, a jogger was running towards me on my side of the road. Since there was a car coming in the other direction, I had two options... 1) Run over the jogger. 2) Slow down until the other car passed and I had room to get around the jogger.
Foolishly, I chose option two.
Foolishly, because as I slowed down the jogger ran by and spit on my car.
Clearly, I am doing this angry driver thing all wrong.
I've been keeping tabs on the Kilauea Volcano eruption in Hawaii quite closely. Not because I own property there or anything, but because in the three times I've been to The Big Island I drove up the volcano and didn't see shit.
Well, that's not entirely true. The last time I was there, it was venting vog (volcanic fog). Which I guess is kinda cool. But it's a far cry from lava shooting 80 feet into the air like what's happening now.
Here's a photo I took when I last visited in 2008...
And here's the Kilauea Volcano today...
Okay, I exaggerate. That's a photo of a nuclear explosion. But still, why can't the cool shit happen while I'm there? How awesome would it be to be standing on a volcano when it erupts?
Maybe one day I'll get lucky.
One week.
Just one week left.
A part of me wishes I had an extra week to work on this project. But that would lead to another week. Then another week. Then another. At some point, you just have to let go and move on to the next one.
Sometimes deadlines are good.
There's never enough time to do all the stuff I want to do.
I've got a pile of DVDs that go unwatched because I don't have the time. I've got stacks of comics which sit unread because I don't have the time. I've got a shelf full of books which are gathering dust because I don't have the time. My DVR is full to bursting with television shows because I don't have the time. And so on. And so on.
But the worst offense of all is the eight video games that sit shrink-wraped and unplayed because I don't have the time. And now I'm told that my copy of the awesomeness that is Dragon Age 2 is arriving. This wouldn't be so bad, except it's going to be really hard to toss it on the pile when A) I loved the previous game, Dragon Age: Origins, and B) It looks incredible...
But, alas, I don't have the time.
And it gets worse.
One of the greatest games ever made is Portal. I love that game so much that I would marry my in-game Weighted Companion Cube tomorrow if it were legal to do so...
And in April, Valve is releasing the most eagerly anticipated game ever... Portal 2! As awesome as the first game was, the sequel looks to be taking things to an entirely new level. There's all kinds of new challenges to be found, and the game looks amazing...
How can I not play that?
I wonder if I can get a note from my doctor to get out of work on April 19th? Because, obviously, not playing
I wish I had time to go to the doctor.
It's now 2:00am. As I have dozens of friends in Japan, I've been staying awake scouring the internet for information on what might be happening. Since communications have been interrupted or cut-off, only a handful have gotten the word out that they are okay. The news makes it sound as though Tokyo is just shaken, but eyewitness reports from the city tell another story. Some buildings are badly damaged or even collapsing. Traffic is at a standstill. People have been seriously hurt from falling furniture or debris.
And then there's the Miyagi prefecture north of Tokyo which is under siege by tsunami. The images are horrific and heartbreaking. I know of a family living in a small city south of Sendai, where the damage has been extensive. I have no idea what's happening with them. All I can do is hope that they are okay.
I sit here waiting, and the dread is starting to pile up.
Partly because I know that a lot of people have lost their lives today. Partly because tens of thousands of people are most certainly unaccounted for. Partly because my friends undoubtedly have family and friends they can't reach. Partly because people are going to be rebuilding their lives during a world-wide recession. Partly because the effects from such tragic events will take years... if not decades... to recover from.
But my dread mostly comes from wondering how the evil fucking people on this earth are going to take advantage of this terrible situation.
Is Pat Robertson or some other opportunistic piece of shit asshole going to go on television and say that the earthquake is the fault of the Japanese people because they're not Christian enough? Because they don't condemn homosexuality strongly enough? Because they have temples built by faiths that don't have Jesus in them?
Given Robertson's reprehensible remarks about Haiti, New Orleans, and a multitude of other people and places, I suppose it's inevitable that he attack the Japanese as well. I guess this is how he makes his "followers" feel superior so they'll send him money for his "ministry." Send Pat Robertson money to do "God's work" and God will spare you from a fate worse than the evil people being punished in the news today.
People suffering in the midst of great tragedy deserve more than to be vilified and crucified by some crazy-ass piece of shit with a false-prophet complex who claims he speaks for God. This evil, manipulative, disgusting, vile, lying bastard can't die and go to his "hell" fast enough.
So we can move on to an even more evil, manipulative, disgusting, vile, lying bastard.
Because the opportunity to exploit tragedy for money never seems to go out of style.
UPDATE: Now this is how a religious leader should react... as a voice of compassion...
Dharamsala, H.P., India, 12 March 2011 - In a letter sent on 12 March to H.E. Naoto Kan, the Prime Minister of Japan, His Holiness the Dalai Lama expressed his shock and sadness on hearing the news of yesterday's earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan. His Holiness offered his prayers for those who have lost their lives and offered his sympathy and condolences to their families and others affected by it. He expressed that we must all be grateful that the Japanese Government's disaster preparedness measures have prevented the death and destruction from being much worse. Finally, as a Buddhist monk who daily recites the Heart Sutra, His Holiness felt it would be very good if Japanese Buddhists were to recite the Heart Sutra on this occasion. Such recitation may not only be helpful for those who have lost their precious lives, but may also help prevent further disasters in the future. Prayers to recite the Heart Sutra one hundred thousand times were being organized in Dharamsala for this purpose.
More crazy Pat Robertson crap on Blogography...
August 23, 2005. I try to figure out why Pat Robertson is such a fucking moron.
January 6, 2006. I tell Pat Robertson to shut the fuck up.
June 25, 2007. I surmise that it's actually Pat Robertson who is a tool of the devil.
January 10, 2010. I wonder how people allow themselves to be manipulated by the clinically insane.
December 23, 2010. I consider therapy because Pat Robertson actually said something lucid and intelligent.
I don't have time to blog tonight because I have to change all my clocks as I "spring forward" for stupid fucking Daylight Saving Time...
It's the year TWO-THOUSAND-ELEVEN... isn't it time that we step out of the Dark Ages and stop dicking around with the clocks? We've got like... ELECTRICITY and THE LIGHT BULB now.
Wasn't President Obama supposed to revoke this shit?
In 2012 I'm voting for whichever presidential candidate promises to get rid of Daylight Saving Time. And I don't care if it's a stupid whore like Sarah Palin, a bigoted whore like Mike Huckabee, or a hypocritical whore like Newt Gingrich. I DO care if it's a fucking brain-dead whore like Michele Bachmann... but I'd still vote for the dumbass if she'd stop this idiotic DST insanity. Sure the country would be irreparably fucked up for four years, but at least I wouldn't have to adjust my internal clock twice annually while waiting for armageddon.
Annnnnd... now it's time to lose an hour MORE of sleep.
I've got a suitcase to pack, so this is going to be a quick one.
• Arigatou Gozaimasu Thanks to everybody for their kind concern for my friends in Japan. All but one has been accounted for, though it's likely they've got other things on their mind right now. The situation is pretty dire over the Pacific right now, as you might imagine. Fortunately, Doctors Without Borders (my favorite charity) is assisting in Japan (and around the world). If you'd like to help, you can visit the Doctors Without Borders website and donate. Even $5 will make a difference.
• Countdown. The final part of my project was completed this afternoon. Just three days until all will be revealed...
• Not a Cooking Show. The most important thing you're probably not listening to? That would be Hey! That's My Hummus! a podcast by my friends Faiqa and Shiny! She's Muslim. He's Jewish. Together they are welcome voices of reason in a world of insanity. It's well worth your time.
Delicious hummus photo by Paul Goyette
Annnnnd... next week they'll be a Very Special Bullet Sunday from Europe!
Ask any web developer what the worst part of their job is, and they're almost certain to answer "writing hacks so pages display properly in Microsoft Internet Explorer." For years, Microsoft had a pile-of-shit browser that failed to render standard HTML properly. This means that every time you come up with a new design, you have to do a bunch of freaky shit... hacks, work-arounds, bug traps, etc... specific to Microsoft so that people using their crappy browser could view your web pages.
In recent years, Microsoft has gotten more proficient at making their dumbass browsers work better with web standards, but there are so many people using older versions of their bullshit software that it's still a problem even to this day (which is why Microsoft is begging people to upgrade).
Eventually, web designers built up a library of hacks that they could pop into designs that would handle all the Microsoft dumbassery. It wasn't an elegant solution, but it works. It works so well that I don't even think about it any more.
Nice, right?
Except...
I never, ever thought that I would run across something that would be worse than the days I spent pulling my hair out at 2:00am trying to get a web page to display in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
I was wrong.
Welcome to Apple's iBooks...
Yes. Apple.
When they first released iBooks, a lot of people were relieved to know that Apple had decided to use the existing ePub standard for their file format. This meant that the bazillion eBooks out there that were already in ePub format would work just fine in iBooks.
Or not.
BECAUSE APPLE HAS SO HOPELESSLY FUCKED UP THE WAY ePUB DOCUMENTS ARE RENDERED THAT I FIND MYSELF LONGING FOR THE "GOOD OLD DAYS" OF DICKING AROUND WITH MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER CODE!
I am not joking. Apple iBooks has so much incomprehensible shit going on that they should aspire to be Microsoft. In fact, Apple's iBooks team of 2011 could take lessons from the Microsoft Internet Explorer team of 2001 on how to comply with internet standards.
I have just spent SEVEN HOURS trying to get an ePub document to render properly in iBooks. And I'm still not there yet. I'm getting closer, but thanks to the totally fucked up way that iBooks dicks around with text when the "Full Justification" setting is on, I've still got a ways to go.
Apparently Apple has some magical document called iBookstore Asset Guide that is supposed to help, but the only way you can get it is to become a publishing partner with Apple. Yes, you read that right, in order to force Apple's piece-of-shit software to comply with OPEN STANDARDS, you have to get some kind of "secret document" not available to the general public.
It sure would be nice if Apple got the same kind of hatred-fueled uproar that Microsoft gets when they fuck up. Maybe then Apple would start listening to people, just like Microsoft was forced to.
In the meanwhile... fuck you, Apple. I thought I was done with this kind of hackery bullshit.
"WHY DID YOU PULL IN SO CLOSE?!?? she screamed over the train siren.
"BECAUSE I NEED GAS, AND SINCE YOU PULLED UP BETWEEN PUMPS, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I CAN REACH MY CAR WITH THE HOSE!" I screamed back.
"BUT NOW I CAN'T PULL OUT!!!" she yelled, pumping gas with one hand while putting her free hand on her hip in disgust.
"DOESN'T YOUR CAR GO IN REVERSE? IF IT DOESN'T, MAYBE YOU SHOULD PARK IN FRONT OF ONE PUMP INSTEAD OF TWO NEXT TIME!" I said, rolling my eyes into the back of my head.
"YOU DON'T GO TELLING ME HOW TO PARK!" she bellowed, wagging her finger at me.
"♬ FEELINGS! NOTHING MORE THAN FEELINGS! TRYING TO FORGET MY FEELINGS...
OF
"YOU SHOULD HAVE WAITED BEFORE BLOCKING ME IN!" Now she's really mad. I guess nobody appreciates Morris Albert anymore?
"♬ FEEEEEELINGS! WHOA OH OH FEEEEEELINGS! ♬"
I'm sure everybody at the mini mart thought I was crazy, but singing "Feelings" at the top of my lungs was the only thing I could think of to keep me from telling this stupid bitch to go fuck herself.
I finished filling up my tank, grabbed my receipt, hopped in my car, then pulled away. She was still filling up her gas-guzzling SUV as I was pulling out of the parking lot. I'd like to say that she got to leave without learning how to drive in reverse, but another car was pulling in right after me.
It's stupid crap like this day after day that makes me want to stick my head in an oven.
Or sing "Feelings."
One or the other.
And the day has finally arrived.
Way back in May of last year, RW kindly invited me out to his place for a dinner featuring his delicious homemade pizza. Under a flawless blue sky while drinking beer and talking about nothing and everything, he mentioned his past work in the “zine scene” and his love of writing fiction. On the train back to my hotel that evening, again on the flight home the next day, then again on a near-daily basis for the next six months, one thought consumed me... I used to love writing stories, what happened?
Thus Thrice Fiction magazine was born. And since it was all RW's fault, I made him sign-on as co-conspirator and editor. It was, after all, the very least he could do.
That was back in November. Nearly five months later, and with the help of some great people (and good friends), we finally launched our first issue today...
You can learn all about it over at ThriceFiction.com! (and download it for FREE!)
You can also LIKE us on Facebook!
And now I have to finish packing my suitcase. One of my "favorite" things to do...
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Thanks to everybody for their kind comments and support of Thrice Fiction. It was a lot of fun (and a lot of work!), so it's nice to see people enjoying it.
When it comes to my "literary" contributions, I wrote two stories.
One, called "Too Many Days" was written after everything else had been completed, as I wanted something to tie-in with the cover I had made. I've always been fascinated by the rise of the Roman Republic and the days before the Roman Empire, so it was a good opportunity to play around in that arena.
The second, called "The Exit Interview" was written just four days after RW and I had decided on a theme for the debut issue of Thrice. The first draft was very different than what eventually got used. Originally, it was about a genetic scientist who planned to come up with a toxin which would rid the world of anybody carrying any genetic traits she considered "undesirable." I worked very hard to make the lead character a woman which people would absolutely loathe. She was vile, evil, racist, bigoted trash. She discriminated against absolutely anybody which didn't fit the mold of what she considered to be an "acceptable" human. The twist at the end would be when some aliens came to earth and found her genetic makeup didn't live up to their standards.
Eventually, I decided I wanted a more complex story, and the whole "genetic master race" plot was streamlined to a simpler world domination plot. That way, I was able to add more elements and play with the idea of telling the story in reverse-order. I still left in hints of how the geneticist character was originally written... she seems to have an obsession with genetic defects, for example... but the more obvious "she is evil" elements were removed.
The idea for the story came while watching some health debate on television. In it, there was a woman who remarked that she was tired of her tax dollars going to pay for other people's health problems. To some extent, I agree. If somebody does something stupid and breaks their leg, why should my tax dollars have to pay for their dumbassery? But this woman wasn't talking about that. She was saying she "didn't want to pay for other people's sick kids because she was paying for her own kids."
Which is all fine and dandy when the extent of your kid's sickness is the flu or something.
But what about kids that have devastating health problems that your average family can never pay for... even if they have insurance? Should these kids be tossed aside to live miserable lives of pain and suffering for something that's not their fault? Or should society say "We're better than that!" and try to lend a hand and give them the best life they can have?
I would hope that everybody would vote for the latter, but I honestly don't know. Some people simply lack compassion (which, ironically, I consider to be the ultimate genetic defect).
The woman who "didn't want to pay for other people's sick kids" has apparently been blessed with (relatively) healthy children. But what if one of her kids had cancer? Or muscular dystrophy? Or cystic fibrosis? Or any number of other tragic diseases? I'd think that if her children had catastrophic health problems which she couldn't pay to care for, she might be singing a different tune.
For my story, I took this woman's argument to the extreme and concluded that, if she had her way, all these "sick kids" would be wiped from the face of the earth. She only wants there to be "perfect" healthy kids like hers so she doesn't have to pay extra taxes.
Sometimes reality is so much scarier than any fictional villain.
In a perfect world, charities and foundations, not taxes, would provide all the money needed to help people when they're struggling with overwhelming health problems. But we live in a far from perfect world, so sometimes society has to step up and say "We're better than that!" and pick up the slack.
Because the next "sick kid" may just be your own.
Because I'm traveling on a restricted ticket, I ended up with an extended layover in London. Not that I'm complaining... I love London, and visit every chance I get (which would be a lot more often if the US Dollar wasn't rubbish against the British Pound). It's just that it's tough to be here when I don't have any personal time to hang out with friends that live in the area.
Hopefully next time.
Thanks to a patient taxi driver and London's excellent public transportation system, yesterday I managed to get a big chunk of the city's "Featured Spots" stamps collected from Gowalla. Then today before dinner I finished off the two remaining spots I needed. Some of the fringe locations (such as Wembley Stadium and the Prime Meridian of the World), will have to wait for next time, but I got all the biggies from the city and surrounds (you can click on them to see what they are)...
I maintain that Gowalla makes for an excellent travel guide when visiting larger cities, because the most popular tourist spots always seem to get "Featured" status. Out of the above stamps, I've been to these places multiple times. I admit it was kind of nice to be visiting them again not as a tourist, but as a collector! Thanks, Gowalla!
One place I haven't been to multiple times is the new Apple Store in Covent Gardens! It's the largest Apple Store on planet earth (at least until the New York Grand Central location is built). It's also incredibly beautiful, as Apple did an amazing job refurbishing the building. What I love most is how, from the outside, you can't really tell its an Apple Store at all...
Somebody just bought a new iPod!
No giant sign or anything... not even a glowing Apple logo... just elegance and class through and through. They discourage picture-taking inside, but Apple's official site has some beautiful photos you can look at.
The exact opposite of elegance and class would be the massive outpouring of tacky souvenir crap that's been unleashed in "honor" of the upcoming royal wedding. The stuff is everywhere. Plates, cups, notepads, stickers, cards, books, pencils, platters, postcards... you name it. I would not have been at all surprised if you could buy hemorrhoid cream with Prince William and Kate Middleton printed on the tube...
Something tells me this stuff doesn't have Her Majesty The Queen's approval.
I started out my day with the best breakfast in London at Pret...
It's heaven on a baguette!
The Egg & Roasted Tomatoes Baguette is so amazing that I ate a very light dinner last night so I'd be hungry enough to eat two. My biggest fear is that one day I'll come to London and they won't be making them anymore. For lunch I went back so I could have the Carrot & Humous Crunch Baguette. For dinner I went back yet again so I could have a Mozarella & Pesto Toastie. As usual, every single thing I've ever eaten at Pret has been delicious. And I love that they have so many vegetarian-friendly options. I keep hoping that Seattle will get a Pret, but in the USA it's just New York, DC, and Chicago for now.
Every trip to London I rave about how much I love the Johnston typeface which is used on all of the city's public transportation logos and signage. It's highly readable, yet somehow manages to be sublimely beautiful at the same time. Every time I see it, I fall in love all over again...
You can read more about ohnston at Wikipedia!
Hands-down my favorite sans-serif font of all time. If I ever redesign my blog, this is the typeface I'll be using.
The weather in London has been pretty much shit. It's been windy, cold, and rainy all day long. Seattle has a reputation for rain, but I've found London to be a much drearier place, weather-wise...
Still surprised when I hear tourists call this "London Bridge"... IT'S TOWER BRIDGE, YOU GITS!
The good thing about this is when the sun comes out in London, it's glorious (just like Seattle). I've had my share of beautiful London sunny days, so the weather hasn't bothered me too much.
Look Left. Look Right. Look Left. Look Right. Look Left!
And that's all she wrote from London. Tomorrow morning early, early, early I head back to the airport for my connecting flight. I'm hoping for better weather at my final destination. If I wanted cold, windy, and wet... I would have stayed at home.
British Airways gave me the best that I could possibly hope for on any trip: an uneventful flight.
And so here I am in Venice, Italy for a few days. Partly because there's a new Hard Rock Cafe here. But mostly because I watched a television program on New Orleans where some scientist guy reminded everybody that Venice is sinking into the sea and could be wiped out if a big enough flood were to strike despite our best efforts. This freaked me out a little bit, because last time I was here the city was just recovering from a small flood. With all the recent natural disasters plaguing the world, I thought it a good idea to see Venice again... just in case.
It breaks my one rule for my annual birthday trip (to see a place I've never see before), but I love Venice, and heaven only knows when I'd find time to visit again. Besides, I've already been someplace I've never been to this year, so I guess it's all good.
And I managed to get that 136th Hard Rock visit too...
The cafe itself is small. Very small. Tiny even. But it is beautifully appointed, and I was thrilled that the new "hipster-lounge" decorating style that's been plaguing new Hard Rocks around the world has been mercifully downplayed here. It's decorate more like a "classic" Hard Rock, which is nice. The location is superb, just off the Piazza San Marco, so hopefully the tourist trade will keep this property alive for a while.
And I'm off to watch the sun set from the Rialto Bridge. That's an experience that never gets old.
It's Bullet Sunday from Venice, Italy!
• Merger. Apparently AT&T and T-Mobile are merging. How could this possibly be a good idea? One shitty network plus one crappy network does not make a good network. It just makes a shitty network crappier. And here I thought things couldn't possibly be any worse with AT&T.
• Foo. I have never understood people's infatuation with Glee. But even more inexplicable is being made to feel crazy because I don't like the show. Now, at last, I'm not alone. Just when I think that Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters couldn't possibly be any cooler than he already is, this happens. Thank. You.
• Lunar. I haven't been able to see the SUPER MOON from here in Venice despite having clear skies. I don't know if I'm looking in the wrong place or if the moon doesn't shine in Venice or what. I'm a little sad about that, because I was looking forward to getting a photo of it. MOON FAIL!
• Venice. Speaking of Venice, it's absolutely stunning here. Clear blue skies and cool air. A big improvement over my previous trip where it rained every day...
You can never have too many statues on a building!
St. Mark's Square is under construction.
>
But the beautiful frescos are still available for viewing.
Climbing up the balcony of St. Mark's Basilica.
GAH! THE SHIT IS FALLING APART HERE! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!
>
The Bridge of Sighs... now disgustingly brought to you by Toyota!
Look! It's TRON!!
Honestly, it's one McDonald's too many...
The Church of Health!
Pretty pink street lights.
A naked boy and his dead frog statue. Awesome?
Visiting the neighboring island of Murano.
Cracking angel statue.
Mustard-colored building in Murano.
Sunset over the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge.
Rialto's nighttime view on the Grand Canal.
Annnnnd... I'm spent. No more bullets left this fine Sunday. Time for pizza!
The quintessential "Venice Experience" is to take a gondola ride. I've never done it because the cost is outrageously expensive... about $120 for 35 minutes. For that kind of money, I'd rather take a ride of an entirely different kind.
But, alas, Venice is sinking and all that, and I didn't want to regret that I never rode in a gondola when I had the chance. So I didn't think about the money and decided to go for it.
Worth every penny.
It may be touristy and trite, but it really is the best way to experience this remarkable city...
The gondoliers have a fairly tough job that requires quite a bit of skill...
If you're ever in Venice, save some money for a gondola ride, it's worth the price.
There are two problems which plague a photographer in Venice. 1) Everything is leaning or warped or crooked, so trying to line up shots can drive you a little crazy. And 2) The stupid pigeons are everywhere and mess up a surprising number of shots you're trying to take. I've got dozens of photos that ended up being bird photos...
When I was last in Venice, I went to the top of the Campanile Bell Tower where I got this incredible panorama shot of the city. But it was rainy and dreary, and I longed to take another panorama in better weather. Like today. Which was sunshine and blue skies as far as the eye could see.
The problem is that something has changed since I was here last. There are heavy metal grates in place, so I couldn't really move my camera enough to take a panorama. I don't remember how I did it last time. Perhaps the grate is new? Or maybe they used to allow you to climb the stairs up past the observation deck and that's closed now? I can't figure it out. I guess I should be thankful that I've got one, even though it's in bad weather. Oh well. It's still a nice view...
After goofing around St. Mark's Square for a while, I decided to explore the area north of Rialto. It's there that the only McDonald's in Venice is located, and I wanted to use their free WiFi. Except the WiFi wasn't working, so I ended up going to Mickey-Dees for nuthin...
Annnnd... I'm done playing tourist for the day. Time to seek out the perfect Venetian restaurant for dinner.
In an effort to "go somewhere I haven't gone before" while on my annual birthday vacation, I decided to head to the small island of Burano today. I've never gone before because there's always so much to do in Venice that it doesn't seem worth the trouble. But I've heard nice things about the place, so today was the day. First I walked to St. Mark's Square so I could find a water-bus to take me to North Venice. Then I found a ferry to make the 40 minute lagoon crossing to Burano.
The total journey took me about an hour, and ended up being well worth the trip.
Burano is mostly a fishing village, but it's heavily geared towards tourists. Just like Murano is famous for its glass, Burano is famous for its lace. I thought I might pick up a tiny sample as a souvenir, but even a 4-inch doily of authentic Burano Lace was $50, so I took a pass.
Instead I wandered around looking at all the pretty multi-colored houses on the island...
And, of course, have some stracciatella gelato...
Apparently the house colors are strictly regulated by the city government. If you buy a house on Burano and decide you want to paint it, you have to ask for permission. After getting permission, you are given a few color choices which are selected for your location. Hopefully one of these colors ends up being something you like, or else you're shit out of luck.
Tonight I really need to get caught up on some work, so there'll be no more fun for me until dinner. I really should try and get some sleep as well.
Seven years ago, I received an email from a young man because he had nobody else he could turn to. It saddened me that somebody so young had such an unnecessarily difficult life... but it broke my heart that a stranger on the internet was the only place he felt he could turn to for a friendly word. Hurting and alone, his entire existence was that of suffering and hatred just because he happened to be gay. Through no fault of his own, for something he could not change even if he wanted to, he was mercilessly teased and bullied day in and day out.
His story changed me in a way I can never explain. But hearing somebody's hopes and dreams revolve entirely around escaping their miserable life is a soul-crushing experience that should change you.
Sadly, since that time, things have not gotten better. The rash of suicides among gay youth making the headlines these past years is a constant reminder how even being perceived as gay can have tragic results. At a time when just being a kid can be confusing and painful enough a burden, being bullied can be that final straw that removes all hope from a young life... maybe even one you know. And, sadly, it doesn't end there. Even if they manage to survive their youth, the violence, intolerance, and hatred never disappears.
This has to change.
And it will change if we want it to. And a big piece of the puzzle that's been missing is to change the attitudes of those that often end up doing the bullying: young straight men.
Enter Straight But Not Narrow...
It's wonderful that there are organizations like The Trevor Project available to assist after the damage is done, but it's organizations like Straight But Not Narrow which will (hopefully) start to change the way society views our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends and neighbors. And it's about fucking time...
Some of the bravest, kindest, most decent and honorable men I know happen to be gay. Who they date or who they fall in love with makes no difference in their moral character. None. But anybody who would persecute them for who the are has serious character deficiencies regardless of what justification they try to use to back-up their hate...
Everybody has their own beliefs. Everybody has their own opinions. And that's fine. That's America. But if what you say fosters hatred towards somebody so vicious that it can lead to their death... then you have no place in a society which was built specifically to insure the pursuit of happiness for all its citizens.
I can only hope that the voices of those in the Straight But Not Narrow project (and other organizations like it) can eventually drown out the voices from hateful pieces of shit whose only goal is to tear us apart because of our differences. It's these difference... and the right to be who we are... which should be binding us together.
Make a difference. Make your voice be heard.
Best.
Birthday.
Present.
Ever...
I'm covered in sweat and hoarse from screaming... that's how you know it was a great show!
Yes. That's me. Drinking Champaign with MATT AND KIM!
When I arrived at London's Restless Garage, I though my biggest surprise of the night would be when my friend and fellow Hard Rock Cafe aficionado Perry showed up with his girlfriend Sarah to the concert.
That was just the beginning.
The concert, as expected, was amazing. Matt & Kim so clearly love music and love their fans. They give absolutely everything they have to their performance, and this lets you appreciate their songs on an entirely new level...
Hello London!
Matt takes it down a notch...
Balloon Armageddon!
That's Kim dancing ON the crowd!
And there's Matt crowd-surfing!
After trying to catch them in concert for literally years across the USA, I finally managed it by accident while on a Layover in London. How fucking crazy is life?
Apparently not crazy enough.
Because Matt & Kim's manager stumbled across my blog and sympathized with my numerous failed efforts to see the band live. Being the incredibly kind and generous human being he is, he arranged for a back-stage pass, for which I will be forever grateful. Because meeting Matt & Kim is kind of one of those life-defining moments...
My musical tastes are firmly planted in the 1980's. But when I first heard Matt & Kim's stuff, I fell in love with music all over again. They have a passion that you just don't see much anymore, and it comes across in every song they make. Seeing them perform those songs live lets you feel it.
After the show, Matt & Kim jumped into the audience and made their way around the show floor, saying hello to everybody. Kim stayed and signed autographs and had pictures taken until they literally kicked everybody out of the club. They just love their fans.
But the icing on the cake is that they are truly grateful for their success. They love what they do, and realize that it's their fans that make it all possible. When I was back-stage waiting to say hello, Matt & Kim were talking with various people that were there. And the topic of their conversation wasn't what a great show they gave... or how hard they rock... or how awesome they are... it was all about their fans. They went on and on with how thrilled they were that the London audience was so welcoming and so hyped to see them. They loved that everybody was having a great time. They were genuinely humbled that people showed up to watch them play. They said again and again how great it was to have such enthusiastic fans. If I wasn't already a massive fan of the band, I would have become one right there just listening to them... even if I hated their music.
And then I got to meet them, which is about the greatest thing ever.
Then the night was over, and Matt & Kim were off to Paris so they could thrill their fans in the City of Lights.
I wanted so badly to hop on a train and meet them there.
But, alas, I am flying back home today, so I had to pull myself away... content knowing that I had just met one of my favorite bands of all time.
Thanks to Matt, Kim, Kevin, Perry, and Sarah for the best birthday ever!
I don't celebrate my birthday, which is part of the reason I like leaving the country every year... it's a lot harder for your friends and family to throw a party or make a big deal over it when you're not around. That being said, the outpouring of birthday wishes from everybody is such a wonderful thing that I wish it could be my birthday every day! It's hard not to be happy when your email in-box, text messages, Facebook, and Twitter are jam-packed with well-wishers wanting to congratulate you on surviving another year. My hetero-life-partner even wrote a blog post for my birthday which, considering he almost never blogs anymore, was a really great end to an amazing day.
Which, oddly enough, was 31 hours long, since I started the 24th in London (7 hours ahead) and flew home to re-live a big chunk of my day all over again. I guess if it can't be your birthday every day, crossing time zones to make the one day you get last longer is the next best thing.
The flight home was somewhat torturous thanks to The Most Boring Man In The Universe sitting in the seat behind me. Seriously, this bastard rambled non-stop for nine-hours-and-twenty-minutes, loudly (LOUDLY) going on and on about mundane shit that even my iPod at full volume could not obliterate. Since he had an English accent, it was if I were trapped in the most horrifyingly boring documentary ever. I still have no idea how the poor person he was talking to the entire time kept from killing herself. I would have dashed my brains out on the seat-back tray after the first hour.
Coming back the USA was about as painless as it's ever been. I used to loathe going through border control and customs because the agents were always such assholes. But they truly have been improving over the past couple years, which makes foreign travel so much nicer. It's as if they knew people hated them and their hostile, shitty attitudes and decided to try being more pleasant. This time, I actually felt welcomed back to my own country, which would have been impossible for me to even dream of just five years ago. Having to wait less than ten minutes in line was also a nice bonus... especially after having suffered through Heathrow's 25-minute wait at border control twice. You'd think that one of the world's busiest airports could have more than two measly desks open for plane-loads of passengers, but apparently they just don't give a fuck. I kept looking for the sign saying VISIT THE UNITED KINGDOM AT YOUR PERIL, YOU FILTHY FOREIGN BASTARDS! But, being British, they're much more subtle about it. They just make you suffer a long wait in silence to show their disdain for your existence and their contempt at your desire to set foot on their soil.
But at least I didn't have to give my fingerprints, retina scan, and a stool sample like foreigners visiting these United States of America. I guess that's something.
My birthday also happens to be the birthday of Mac OS X, which turned ten years old yesterday! It's odd how Apple's OS is so young, but seems to have been around forever. I usually celebrate the occasion by booting up an antique Macintosh running an old, old, old version of Mac OS, just so I can appreciate how far we've come. The problem is that last year when I did this I actually came across some old features that I miss in the "modern" OS, so I'll probably skip this year. Nothing quite so sad as longing for technology advances from twenty years ago. What I wouldn't give to have each of my fucking folder windows remember their fucking Finder view selection and fucking sorting preference every fucking time I fucking open them... but, alas, that's only possible with technology from fucking 1990. Nothing like taking giant steps backwards as you head into the future, eh Apple?
And now I get ready to face my Friday, knowing full-well that there will be no Matt & Kim concert at the end of it. It's times like this I wonder how I manage to go on day after day, but I've got another birthday coming up next year where people will (hopefully) take the time to once again send happy thoughts my way... so I'll just hang on to that for the next 365 days* and see where that gets me.
Thanks everybody!
*Usually, I'd be waiting 364 days, but 2012 is a leap year, giving me a whole extra day before my next birthday. How much does that suck? Thanks a lot crappy flawed Julian calendar system!
"Women. Can't live with 'em. Can't kill 'em!"
— Albert "Gib" Gibson, True Lies
I have every reason to despise, distrust, and demonize women for being the heartbreaking angels of despair they sometimes turn out to be. But I don't. I simply know too many women who are remarkable and amazing people to believe in such lame generalities... despite my extreme bad luck in holding on to any kind of long-term relationship with any of them. Like most guys, I've had my share of women troubles. I've been taken advantage of. Cheated on. Lied to. Mistreated. Wronged. Abandoned. Abused. Lead on. Left out. Shafted. Screwed... well, you get the picture. The list goes on and on.
But I've also been in love with women, which somehow offsets all the pain and heartache I've suffered at their hands.
Which brings us to this...
Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, recently wrote a blog entry that was supposed to be an article about "men's rights." But he came across as a sexist asshole, thus infuriating every feminist on the internet. His ultimate advice to men was "Don't be pussies!"... or, at least it would have been if he hadn't turned around and deleted his post.
Gee, Mr. Adams, why not take your own fucking advice?
In the end, I don't necessarily disagree with some of the things that Scott Adams wrote. He actually had some insightful commentary about what it's like for us. He goes completely off the rails several times and makes absolutely no effort to look at anything from any viewpoint except his own, but the end-summary of his rant is not without merit in some instances.
And yet...
While his treatment of women was pretty shitty, it's his characterization of us men that ended up offending me most.
Because his perspective on things is from that of a famous millionaire. Sure he may be a geeky dweeb (like me!), but he's a geeky dweeb with a lot of money (not like me!). He's also married to a hottie, but it's worth noting that he married her well into his meteoric success as a cartoonist...
Photo by Drew Kristal, taken from People Magazine
Now, before I start getting hate-mail of my own, I should say that I'm sure he's a wonderful guy and she didn't marry him for his money. I'm sure she totally fell in love with him for his... err... charming demeanor and sense of humor. Or something. I mean, I don't know her, but just looking at this photo I can tell she's absolutely the type of person who would totally give a 49-year-old dweeb like Scott Adams the time of day even if he didn't have a bajillion dollars and world-wide fame. So there. I said it. She's totally not a gold-digging opportunist, okay? No need to attack me for being a misogynistic asshole who believes that beautiful, intelligent women are only capable of having millions of dollars if they marry into it. I am so not that guy.
Indeed, it's my fervent belief in this very ideal that allows me to get out of bed in the morning.
Anyway, if you care to read it, I've gone through Scott Adam's rant line by line in an extended entry. Not because I feel women need defending in any way, but because Adams turned out to be such a total dick that I feel the need to defend my gender.
And because stupidity makes me crazy.
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Back to reality for a super-hero-fashion episode of Bullet Sunday! But, before we get there, I need to remind everybody that the best podcast on the internet you're probably not listening to is now on iTunes! Cannot recommend it highly enough: Hey! That's My Hummus on iTunes. And for baseball talk, don't forget Just Talking to the Cornfield on iTunes.
• Wonder Woman! I've had very strong reservations over the whole David E. Kelley Wonder Woman television pilot from the very beginning. From everything I've read, it seems as though he's dead-set on putting his personal stamp on the material, which means we're not going to get Wonder Woman... it's going to be Ally McBeal in bad latex. The first episode's villain is perfume company CEO Veronica Cale (WTF?) which is being played by the incomparable Elizabeth Hurley (who arrived in L.A. a while back to film her scenes)...
©2011 Michael Wright/WENN (from AceShowbiz)
Since Elizabeth Hurley is in it, I'm pretty much obligated to watch the show now. Which is a shame, because the official Wonder Woman costume photo looks like crap...
In all seriousness, I've been to comic book conventions where the fan costumes looked better than this cheap-n-glossy joke. She looks like a badly-dressed dominatrix or something. Such a horrible departure from the classic Wonder Woman uniform that was worn so perfectly by Linda Carter in the original TV show...
Call it cheesy if you want, but THAT'S what Wonder Woman is supposed to look like.
• Spider-Man! And speaking of truly terrible costumes... I loved the first two Spider-Man movies. The third one was awful story-wise, but had really good action sequences. Still, I was hoping for another Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire installment because I liked the "feel" they gave the character. Alas, it was not to be. So now we've moved on to something new which could be good or could be bad. And if the costume is what we have to go on, this is going to be as bad as it gets...
Even if he didn't have an inexplicably black crotch, this would be a horrible interpretation of an iconic costume.
• Captain America! The modern-day Captain America comics have never interested me very much. Sure there are good stories that pop up from time to time but, overall, it's a one-note concept to me. But I have to say, everything I've seen for the upcoming Cap film looks flawless. First of all, they set the movie in World War II, which is faithful to the character's origin. Second of all, it seems as if director Joe Johnston is going out of his way to make it a fun and entertaining film to watch...
What's so killer about Cap's costume is how you can see they're clearly building up to his modern-day outfit by starting with a WWII era interpretation. He was designed to be a symbol for the guys in the trenches, and its coming across perfectly. And just look at the Red Skull! Cannot wait for this movie.
• Thor! Other than Walter Simonson's brilliant run on the character in the 1980's, I've never been a big fan of Thor. He just never seems to work in the context of the super-hero genre very well. But this film has Kenneth Branagh directing, and the trailers look to be pretty epic in scope, so we'll see...
I am the first to admit that translating Thor's costume to the big screen is no easy task... but this looks all cheesy and plastic to me. I'm guessing it's supposed to be metal (maybe it is!), but I'm still not impressed and think it would have looked better with a brushed metal? This is probably going to appear much better on-screen when lit properly, so it's hard for me to be too critical. It is, after all, pretty faithful in "feel" to the original.
• Green Lantern! This is the hardest movie of all to figure out. I think my hetero-man-crush Ryan Reynolds was flawless casting for Hal Jordan, but the movie is looking like a George Lucas CGI party instead of a film of any substance. The special-effects generated costume in the preview trailer looked so bad that I couldn't fathom how the movie could possibly work...
But then I saw this shot of Mark Strong as Sinestro and thought "maybe"...
Green Lantern was one of the first comic books I ever read, and so I continue to hope that everything comes together. Out of all the super-hero projects underway, it has the most potential for greatness... or disaster.
It's pretty hard to get a feel for how the costume works from still images. On Hal Jordan, all the crazy lines look just plain stupid. On Sinestro, they look awesome. I'm guessing that when they're in-motion they'll be all glowing and stuff, which will probably look cool. Or corny. I have no idea. I do think it would have been better to not go with 100% CGI though, which seems like a recipe for disaster.
• X-Men! I should probably get this out of the way... I loathed all of the X-Men films. They were SO BORING. The X-Men were never really given any battles. Sure there were some silly little scrapes here and there, but they didn't have any scope. Everything in the movie seemed so much smaller than life. And while the costumes weren't anything to write home about, I thought they were okay. Sadly, the costumes weren't the problem. And so now we're re-booting the franchise with a prequel...
From what I can tell, the costumes here are pretty good. They are a faithful (albeit upgraded) interpretation of the "original" X-Men costumes, which was no easy task. All we can do is wait and see if the movie has the scope and story to make any use of them.
That's a lot of super-heroes. And it doesn't even account for the new Superman movie reboot, the third Iron Man film, the third Batman film, The Hulk reboot, The Avengers, and whatever else that's coming up. I hope that people don't get burnt out on comic book movies.
You may remember me writing about the plight of a man and his husband to get their child a passport so he could come home. Happily, after two years of fighting, it was all sorted and Samuel is now where he belongs.
I just got an email that an update has been posted (you can turn on English subtitles in the Flash (original) Player if they're not on already)...
Yeah, how horrible. The kid really looks like he's suffering.
And yet I'm sure there are people who still think he's better off in an orphanage somewhere than in a family with two fathers. Because everybody knows that having gay parents will hopelessly ruin a child's life...
I wonder how long it will be before all these people up in arms over "protecting families" and "protecting marriage" finally get a clue. They are the ones causing problems for families. Everybody else is doing just fine...
I shudder to think how many kids around the world are stuck in orphanages and foster care waiting for a loving home. And yet we continue to debate the worthiness of families to adopt them based on the ratio of penises to vaginas in the home. Didn't we get past this crap in kindergarten? If we didn't, shouldn't we have?
And... here I am in L.A. for one day only.
Though the city has not-so-pleasant memories from when I was working here, I do still love it quite a lot. Probably because it's one of those places I've been to so many times that I've long-since worn out all the "touristy crap" and can just relax and do the things I like to do.
The trip got off to an ominous start. After the cabin door had been closed on the small aircraft, some guy yelled for the flight attendant because he wanted off the plane. He claims the reason was a text message from his lawyer. But the pilot was new to the job, and those of us at the front of the plane could hear every word of her pre-flight conversation with the co-pilot. Phrases like "You know what I'm doing, right?" and "How do I fly out of here?" don't exactly inspire confidence.
And so we were delayed while the guy got off the plane, which was too bad for him because the take-off was unlike any I've ever had from our small airport. Rather than doing a high-banking turn as usual, she did a lovely, lazy spiral. This afforded us an amazing view of the valley that I have never seen in my 25 years of flying out of here...
After a transfer at SeaTac (Seattle) I was off to the City of Angels. After working all morning in my hotel room, I knew exactly where I wanted to go for lunch... PINK'S HOT DOGS!
After all, it comes Betty White recommended...
And their "Patt Morrison Baja Veggie Dog" smothered in fresh guacamole, onions, and tomatoes is worth the effort to get here. The veggie dog itself is better at America's Dog in Chicago, but the fresh California toppings at Pink's are fantastic...
The reason I came to L.A. was located in Hollywood, so I passed the time walking the Walk of Fame. A couple times ago when I was here, Michael Jackson had died. This time, it was Elizabeth Taylor's star that was covered in flowers...
The weather was flawless. A cool breeze with flawless blue skies...
Right up until nighttime, when the sunset was pretty amazing on Hollywood Boulevard...
But the real awesomeness was yet to come...
To be continued...
Last night I saw an amazing show by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark at The Music Box L.A.
All the expense and trouble of getting here melted away as the band slammed through a sensational set list of their incredible music. And, because I had bought a "VIP Package," I got to attend a soundcheck and meet the band before the show even started. This was an incredible experience, and made a great thing even better...
The soundcheck ended up being fantastic, but the concert itself was amazing. One of my favorite new bands, Mackintosh Braun, opened up for them, which was like extra frosting on your cake.
I thought it would be impossible for any band to even get close to the energy from the Matt & Kim show I attended last week in London, but Andy, Paul, and Co. played their guts out for an enthusiastic crowd that absolutely loved their performance...
When I met the band, I gave them crap for not playing Seattle. They said that they had been asked to tour the States again, and Seattle would definitely be included next time. Which is like chocolate pudding on top of your extra frosting on top of your cake. I can hardly wait!
Since this was the final show on their tour, Andy took a minute to send out some thank you's. One of them was to their record label, Bright Antenna, for sponsoring this tour in the first place. Apparently no concert promoter would back OMD because they didn't think people would show up. Of course, the band went on to not only sell-out every single show, but they even added an extra one. Which also sold out...
Congrats to Andy, Paul, Martin, and Malcolm on a great album, a great tour, and for having such great fans.
And now it's time for how I got here...
Along with Depeche Mode and the Thompson Twins, the holy trinity of my favorite 80's bands is completed by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (more often known as "OMD"). Other bands like a-ha, Pet Shop Boys, and Duran Duran came along to snag my attention, but my DM, TT, and OMD came first.
As a massively huge fan of their work, I was thrilled when OMD released a new album last year, History of Modern, that was as good as anything they've ever done. It ended up being my pick for "Album of the Year," so you can imagine my delight when I found out that they were touring the USA in March.
Except there was no stop in Seattle, and I was gone for a big chunk of the shows because I was in London and Venice. A part of me was gutted that I'd miss the tour, but a part of me was also relieved because I'd be flat-broke when I got back from Europe.
And then they added an extra Los Angeles date six days after I returned from London.
I was sorely tempted but, the cost of the flight, hotel, food, and tickets was more than I could spend, and I've already seen OMD live several times.
But then Mackintosh Braun announced they would be the opening act.
Keep in mind, THIS is what my favorite albums list looks like for 2010...
With Mackintosh Braun added to the ticket, there was no way I could miss this show. I had just seen Matt & Kim. I had flown to New York for a-ha's farewell tour. The chance to see tracks from four out of five of my favorite albums of 2010 performed live was too much.
And so I decided to throw responsibility to the wind, spend a chunk of money I don't have, and fly to L.A. for one night only for an opportunity to listen to some great music. And since I was already going for broke, I went ahead and got the VIP deal. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.
What was especially cool was that Ian and Ben (Mackintock Braun) hung around in the lobby after the show so I could tell them that they were the reason I flew to the show. They were genuinely grateful, and a couple of really nice guys. If you haven't listened to their stuff, I highly recommend it.
And so now I fly home. Poor, but happy.
Which is as it really should be, I suppose.
I just came back from London & Venice, then left for Los Angeles.
Now I'm back from L.A. and am heading off to Las Vegas.
Apparently my travel layovers are no longer in airports, they're at home. It's like I've gone back in time twenty years and I'm living out of a suitcase again. Except now I actually have a suitcase and can afford to stay in accommodations where I don't have to worry about getting stabbed in the middle of the night because somebody wants to steal my socks.
Though I did have my personal shampoo stolen while staying at a Holiday Inn just five years ago.
I suppose it was all my fault for stepping out to Taco Bell so I could try the new "Crunchwrap Supreme" that everybody was talking about. Except I had them substitute rice for the beef, so I guess it wasn't actually the same Crunchwrap Supreme that everybody was talking about after all. Still tasted good. Though it's probably impossible for anything with this much saturated fat content to taste bad. Especially when it's cheese-flavored saturated fat...
NOTE: Actual product will bear no resemblance whatsoever to this photographic fantasy.
Purple background is optional, and my not be available at your local Taco Bell.
I'm sure there's a life lesson here somewhere. I just can't decide if it's that you should never eat at Taco Bell... or you should never travel with your own shampoo and instead just use the crappy free stuff they give you at the hotel.
All I know is that they will let you take a full-size Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme through airport security. Try that with a full-size bottle of shampoo and you'll end up having it confiscated.
I'll leave it up to you to decide which is the bigger threat to National Security... but something tells me that the TSA has it all backwards.
It seems like only yesterday I was on my way to Vegas for the TequilaCon 2010 Planning Posse Event. But time, she flies. That was September, 2009. Seventeen months ago.
Alas, Vegas is calling once again...
I can't even guess what kind of crazy crap will be posted here while I'm in Sin City (if anything) because I plan on drinking 96% of the time. The other 4% will be spent sleeping. Or puking. Or both (hopefully not at the same).
That leaves only 2% of my days for blogging and 8% of my time for trying to figure out where I just went wrong with the math there.
Running at 110%, that's me.
It's all a blur so far.
Except when I stopped drinking long enough to go to a show.
For years I've managed to avoid the horrors of Cirquel Jerque de Soleil. Circuses and clowns and crap are not even remotely entertaining to me, and mixing them with acrobats only makes things worse. But, alas, free tickets were included in our travel package, and so tonight was the night. We went to The Beatles' Love because I figured that even if I hated it, I'd at least be able to enjoy the music...
As expected, I thought the entire show was boring as hell.
I simply don't "get" Cirque de Soleil. A song will start and a bunch of different people will come out and start doing inexplicable crap. Somebody's pulling a cart across the stage. Somebody else is jumping on a bed. Somebody's smashing a wall. Somebody is yelling. Policemen go by on roller skates. A woman in a window frame floats down from the ceiling. Eventually the Ku Klux Klan shows up (no joke). It's just a bunch of random shit going on while Beatles music plays, none of it making much sense... even when the connection to the music was obvious.
Sure, the technical side of the show is amazing. The stage changes and moves in a wide variety of different configurations. There's a part of the show where parachute silk flows out over the audience like billowing waves. Some of the set-pieces are very cool. But none of this was entertaining enough to keep my interest.
I guess I should have kept drinking. Maybe then it would have all made sense.
One more day left in paradise...
It's a Vegas-infused edition of Bullet Sunday!
• Classy. The most interesting aspect of Vegas is the people who show up here. People-watching is so good that could almost be a full-time activity. Hang around long enough, and you'll see it all. Drunks walking out into traffic. People puking in trash cans. Women walking through the casino in a bikini. A pickup full of cats that says "Pussy Wagon"... it's all going on in Vegas. But the best thing I saw this trip was a woman walking down The Strip in leopard print pants, a halter-top, hooker-high heels, and makeup so thick it was probably put on with a spatula. This alone wasn't unusual because half the women here look like that. But throw in the fact that she was nursing a newborn baby, and it doesn't get any classier!
• Cups. I swear, every time I come to Vegas, the drinking cups are bigger. First there was the "Big Gulp" cup. Then there was the long-neck cup. Then there was the "Yard Glass" cup. Now there's the 100-oz. Cup which is SO long (over 4-feet) that it comes with a neck-strap. I suppose next time I come to Vegas, there will be 200-oz. cups that come with a pull-cart to lug it up and down The Strip...
What I love is the little "Always Drink Responsibly" signs displayed where you buy these things. How could you possibly drink anything this massive responsibly? The entire purpose of buying one is to be irresponsible.
• Gambler. I'm usually pretty lucky when it comes to gambling (even though I don't believe in luck). But not this trip. I won a grand total of $17. On an "investment" of $200. I am officially poor now.
• Fremont. I'm always surprised when somebody comes back from Las Vegas, I ask if they visited Fremont Street in the "old town" and they say "no." It's such a shame, because it's such a fun experience. A lot to see and do in a rather small area...
And, of course, there's the giant-screen ceiling of the covered-walkway that spans a big chunk of the area. This time we got to rock out to Queen and Kiss, which was very cool because the sound system is great. If you ever end up in Las Vegas, don't miss a chance to visit. It's worth the $20 cab ride...
• Stargate! They will make just about anything into a slots game. TV Shows like Survivor and Sex In The City are popular, and this time I saw one I hadn't seen before based on Stargate SG-1...
Seems a little sci-fi geek esoteric for Vegas, but it ended up being a good game (even though I didn't win any money)! There really needs to be a slots game based on Top Chef or Project Runway!
• Bloody! The perfect Bloody Mary is a difficult beast to track down. Usually because so many place make such bad ones. Imagine my surprise when it was suggested to go to Rainforest Cafe if you want a good Bloody Mary... and they were absolutely right! It's a good mix that's not too spicy and not all watery. AND it comes with potato chips on top! Genius!
• Eat! The best place to eat in Las Vegas? EARL OF SANDWICH at the Miracle Mile Shops in the Planet Hollywood Resort! The franchises are hard to find unless you live in Texas or Florida, and the shop in Las Vegas is the only location in the Western USA. Probably the best sandwich I've ever had. So good I went both days...
Right next door is Pink's, which is funny since I just went there when I was in Los Angeles this past week...
Annnnnd... that's a Vegas weekend in bullets. Well, the parts I can talk about anyway. Because what happens in Vegas...
And, just like that, my weekend in Vegas is over.
It would have been nice to have a few more days just to kick back at the Bellagio's pool and relax but, alas, I have to go back to work since I didn't win a million dollars gambling.
But this morning there was time to do Just One More Thing before heading to the airport, so it was decided we would go to the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay Resort. This was a good call, because I haven't been there in nearly ten years (when it first opened, I think) and love me a good aquarium...
A fun way to spend a morning, to be sure.
And now I get to sit at the airport for three hours on layover while I wait for my flight home.
Not such a fun way to spend an evening, to be sure.
But, knock on wood, I get to stay home a full three weeks before heading out again, so that's something.
It's snowing like crazy in the Cascades. Again.
I am so done with snow now. But it sure makes flying over the mountains pretty...
But my concern is driving over the mountains. With the passes all messed up, I'm cut off from civilization.
By car, anyway.
Stupid expensive plane tickets.
And so I had a few spare minutes and decided to update my blog software.
Things haven't quite gone as planned, so now I'm having to restore from a backup and try to figure out what went wrong.
Bad Monkey is on the case...
I finally managed to figure out what was wrong with my blog. It had to do with the database not having the right password or something. So that's all been fixed, but now I'm too tired to actually sit down and write a post.
I'm actually too tired to do a lot of things.
I'm too tired of the rancid politics and non-stop dumbassery in Washington DC to care if the government shuts down.
I'm too tired of the long wait between television episodes to give a crap what happens on shows like Fringe.
I'm too tired of the insane cost of going to the grocery store to want to eat anything.
I'm too tired of my massive workload to want to get any work done.
I'm too tired of being broke from vacation to want to pay my bills.
I'm too tired of not sleeping to care if I go to bed.
I'm too tired of traveling to figure out my upcoming travel schedule.
I'm too tired of feeling tired to complain anymore about how tired I am.
All I can do is hope that tomorrow I feel different.
If not, I guess I'll have to drink a can of Red Bull or something.
Graphic design is one of those fields that makes almost no sense to those outside of the practice. On the surface, it sounds simple... graphic design is the process of using images and/or words to communicate a message or story in an engaging manner. But the reality of it is far more complex. Often times, the true role of a graphic designer is that of mediator... finding a way to combine very different elements by very different people into a single cohesive piece. Sometimes you get lucky and everybody involved is on the same page. All the pieces of the project come together effortlessly, and everybody walks away happy.
But not always.
Sometimes its a battle from start to finish to just find a solution that pisses off the fewest number of people.
Projects like these are incredibly stressful because at some point you have to accept that not everybody is going to walk away happy. And since it's your job to make everybody happy, you can't help but feel like a failure even when the project ends up a success.
One time I was called in on a project which had been dragging on for months because the two previous graphic designers couldn't come up with an acceptable compromise. The client was a large-ish company which had a president, a board of directors, an art director, and an advisory committee... all of which had to be appeased before any design could be signed off on. On top of that, there was also a photographer and an artist involved, and they too needed to have a voice in the project. All told, there were fourteen people I had to work with. Fourteen people who each had opinions as to how the project should be handled.
No wonder all previous efforts had failed. Getting fourteen people to agree on something as arbitrary as a design concept is nigh impossible. I certainly had my work cut out for me this time.
The first thing I did was hold meetings with all the entities to find out their goals for the project.
Secondly I met with the creative people to find out what they felt would reach those goals.
Thirdly I reviewed the rejected works that the two previous designers had done.
Unfortunately, there was no clear direction for me to follow. So I decided to do something a little crazy. Instead of coming up with a single design that addressed everybody's goals, I decided to come up with five different designs that specifically addressed individual goals. I then made five separate presentations and got the five approvals I needed.
I then created a new design by carefully combining elements from all five projects which I had crafted to work together from the very start. Then I went around to everybody to present the finished design. At each stop, I placed emphasis on the pieces that they had contributed while de-emphasizing everything else. In this way, everybody felt as though their part was the most important.
And that was the key to getting approval on the project. NOT by trying to make everybody feel as though they were equally represented... but instead by making everybody feel as though their part was the dominant, most critical piece of the puzzle. Human nature dictates that everybody wants to feel more important... more special... than everybody else. I was just providing the illusion that this was the case, even though the reality was that everybody played an equal part.
Obviously, I am more talented a negotiator than the politicians in charge of the US budget.
MAKE YOUR FUCKING COMPROMISES TO PASS A BUDGET, THEN CONVINCE EVERYBODY THAT THEIR CONCERNS WERE THE DOMINANT, MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF THE PUZZLE! YOU'RE POLITICIANS, THAT'S WHAT YOU DO!
For crying out loud. Democrats want a 30 billion dollar cut. Republicans want a 60 billion dollar cut. Just call it a 45 billion dollar cut and declare victory already! All this stupid shit about shutting down the government makes me want to nuke Congress. Yo! Dumbfucks... it doesn't matter what you do... it's how you sell it. Any politician worth their salt can spin shit to sound like victory no matter what happens. But the egos here are massive, so declaring victory is apparently not good enough.
Which leaves us with name-calling and finger-pointing.
And a potential government shut-down.
I say put Tim Gunn in charge...
Photo by Bravo TV
Make it work, people. Make it work...
Today I finally found a minute to file my taxes. I pretty much had to file them because I need my refund check to cover the three vacations I just took. This was made abundantly clear to me when I went to the cash machine and it refused to give me any money.
I hate it when that happens.
Life would be so much better if cash machines gave me money without checking my account balance first.
Anyway... with no money to be had, it was time to rummage through pants pockets, couch cushions, travel bags, car ashtrays, and the like. After a half-hour of digging, I managed to scrape together
But that's okay.
I wouldn't trade my wonderful time in Venice... or seeing Matt & Kim in London... or seeing OMD and Mackintosh Braun in Los Angeles... or celebrating my sister's birthday in Las Vegas... for all the tea in China. There are some experiences you simply can't put a price on. So I'm content to be poor for a little while and live on fond memories.
And who knows? Everything could change tomorrow.
Heck, in one day I've gone from being flat-broke to having all the money in the world. Anything is possible!
It's a relaxing kind of Bullet Sunday today.
• Scamberry? I don't know if many people realize it, but my home state of Washington is famous for more than just apples. We're also the fifth-largest producer of cranberries in the USA. There are "cranberry bogs" on the coast in an area off Grayland Beach, which is south of the Ocean Shores resorts. I'm reminded of my visit there every time I see one of those beautiful and awesome Ocean Spray commercials on TV...
It's Henry & Justin... the Ocean Spray Cranberry Guys!
Justin says "Did I err?"
I think the commercials are shot on the East Coast somewhere, but it's still eerily familiar.
Except it kind of gives the illusion that cranberries are grown in 4-feet of water, which they're not. The fields aren't flooded until harvest time and then it's only about 6-inches of water. What the commercials show is the holding ponds where the cranberries end up flowing after they've been taken off the vine. It may be a bit misleading, but it sure looks pretty.
And speaking of misleading... today I got reminded of Washington's cranberry country for an entirely different reason. Apparently there's a cranberry war going on between Ocean Spray and a rival company, "Decas"... which has been trashing Ocean Spray over alleged no-cranberry-content in one of Ocean Spray's cranberry products. They created a site called "Scamberry.info" under the pretense of being a consumer advocacy site (but didn't reveal their association with the site until six days later).
What I find fascinating is that social media has become a weapon in corporate warfare. And now that I've had a taste of it, I find myself questioning every single "advocacy" site I've ever seen. Well... except for those sites slamming high fructose corn syrup. That shit is in everything and made of pure evil.
• Service! I can complain about AT&T's mobile service (because it pretty much sucks anymore), but it's impossible for me to complain about their customer service. Every single time I've had a question or problem, they've gone overboard to set things right. AT&T customer service is so good that I'd be a customer for life if only I could make calls in major cities and use data in my home town. As it is, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when my contract is up. If iPhone 5 is dual-band CDMA (for domestic) and GSM (for international), then Verizon might just steal me away.
These are the kind of problems that keep me awake at night. Well, that and a raging case of chronic insomnia.
• Mirren! Last night's Saturday Night Live hosted by Helen Mirren was a terrific episode...
I can't remember it being this good since Betty White hosted, which has me wondering... what other "golden ladies" should they have host to make SNL not suck so bad? After seeing her on William Shatner's Raw Nerve, one name keeps popping in my head. How frickin' cool would it be to have Carol Burnett host?
She would be perfect for this. Perfect. And a Google search reveals that Im not the only one who thinks so. If you're on Facebook, you can LIKE a campaign to get her on SNL here.
• Bing! I know this may sound impossible... but Microsoft has created a product I love. Yes... you read that right... Microsoft. Their Bing! app for iPad is a remarkable interface for the web that completely buries the competition...
I don't use an iPad much, but have to admit that it's apps like Bing! that make me want to use one more.
Annnnnnnnnd... scene.
Tomorrow promises to be a hectic day, so I suppose I should try and get some sleep. Or at least go lay down and pretend that I'm going to get some sleep.
There's so much horror in the world today that we're pretty much conditioned to accept it as normal.
The problem being that it isn't normal, and I'm growing more and more despondent over the fact that people seem perfectly content to let it slide. We've become a society ruled by hatred and fear, and any joy we feel is tempered by the knowledge that somebody, somewhere hates us for what we think... for what we believe... for who we are. Even worse, we're constantly reminded of it. Keeping everybody in a perpetual state of fear is apparently the easiest way to control them.
This was made painfully clear to me earlier in the evening when I got a call from the National Rifle Association...
"I'M CALLING WITH A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE NRA WHO WANTS YOU TO LISTEN TO A SHORT ONE-MINUTE MESSAGE AND ANSWER A QUESTION ABOUT HOW CONGRESS IS TRYING TO STRIP US OF OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS AND--
"I'm not interested."
"IT WILL ONLY TAKE A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME AND--"
"I support gun ownership, and am disgusted that you are trying to scare the crap out of people with absurd threats like this. Nobody is taking our guns away. So no thanks."
= click! =
Now, he could have called and said "I'm with the NRA, and I'm calling to ask for your support as we work to ensure Second Amendment rights are protected for all Americans." But oh no... the asshole had to call and say "THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS AND STRIP YOU OF YOUR RIGHTS! BOOGAH BOOGAH BOOGA!!!"
Well fuck that. And fuck the NRA for being such fear-mongering dicks. While the particulars surrounding gun ownership will always be debated, there's not going to be a repeal of the Second Amendment when the majority of Americans support it. And how do I know the majority of American's support it? Oh... IT'S ON THE NRA'S FUCKING WEBSITE!
I suppose now I'm going to get a call from the anti-gun lobby saying "THE NRA WANTS TO FORCE YOUR KIDS TO CARRY GUNS IN SCHOOL!" or some other fear-encrusted bullshit.
It never ends.
And here I thought somebody telling me my handwriting was "stupid" because I don't drop the descenders on my p's and g's and y's and q's was the worst thing that could happen today...
... but instead I had to be reminded that the world sucks ass.
And that sucks ass.
P.S. My handwriting is terrible because I don't hand-write a lot. I mostly type on a computer. And when I do write, it's usually in all-caps. Sometimes I have to use lower-case letters, but I still like everything to fit between the lines on a paper so I move up all the letters that have descenders on them. Is that so wrong?
This is what I look like watching the news on television...
I cannot believe how fucking insane this world is right now. The vast, unfathomable amount of dumbassery unleashed in a single day on this planet makes my brain melt. The vortex of stupid is so dense that it's like a black hole from which even light (and sanity) cannot escape. And just when you think it can't get any worse, a politician will pop up and prove you wrong.
At this point, I think it's time to accept the fact that we're all doomed.
If the world is ending, I'm having an extra serving of Snack-Pack with dinner.
Every time you turn around, something is responsible for turning everybody gay.
Show gay characters kissing on television, it turns people gay. Play gay lyrics on the radio, it turns people gay. Allow two dudes to get married, it turns people gay. Let gays serve in the military, it turns people gay. Anything that's gay is turning people gay. "Experts" say that this is because "validating the homosexual lifestyle" makes people think "it's okay to be gay" and, as a result, "kids turn gay because they think it's acceptable behavior."
Well okay then.
This would explain the drama unfolding over a J. Crew advertisement where a mother is having weekend fun with her young son by painting his toenails pink...
This caused a contributor over at (wait for it) FOX News, "Doctor" Keith Ablow, to declare that this kind "gender identity" confusion will require "psychotherapy for the kid." In other words, painting his toenails pink is turning him gay. Or, best case scenario, causing him to be confused about being straight.
Apparently whether he ends up liking vagina or penis is inconsequential to his sexual identity. It's the color of his toenails for one day when he's five years old that determines whether he's into clam or sausage.
Well okay then.
I guess it was a mistake to put Bad Monkey is charge of makeup around here...
Now, I'm no expert but maybe... just maybe... all this stuff isn't turning people gay at all. Perhaps they were gay all along, and seeing that "it's okay to be gay" on television and in music and in the military and in marriage just means that they can be honest with everybody about who they've always been.
Or... or... all their mothers painted their toenails pink for a day when they were five years old.
Because who am I to argue with a "doctor?"
But hold on a second...
If homosexuality is a product of gender confusion and pink nail polish, then how do you explain somebody like Gareth Thomas? He grew up in working-class Wales. He didn't have any gay influences and felt alone and different in his environment. He's a total badass in one of the toughest, most "masculine" sports on earth. He even got married because that's what was expected of him. And yet... he's gay?
Um. Yeah. Something tells me that he never got his toenails painted pink or wore a dress or played with dolls or did any of the "girlie" things that would make some poor, young, impressionable kid turn gay. On the contrary, his environment should have been enough to insure that any gay demons he had were duly excised.
So what the fuck happened?
And what about those kids who grow up in liberal hippie communes like Portland, Oregon where being gay is not only "okay"... it's embraced as an essential character trait and roundly encouraged by society? How the fuck does anybody growing up in that gay-friendly utopia ever turn out straight? What about straight kids who grew up with gay parents? Holy crap... those kids are around people being gay EVERY DAY!
Well, I'm no expert but maybe... just maybe...
Seriously. Am I the only one who goes insane when I see this stupid crap? Does logic play absolutely no part in our thinking anymore? Are people so poorly conditioned to believe the fucked up shit they see in the "news" that they will believe something no matter how outrageous and unlikely it sounds? I know I've been harping on this very subject all week... but WHAT THE FUCK?!?
I'm not going to lie. Continuous bombardment by teh stupid is really starting to mess with my head. But there's no escaping it. This is all I see anymore. At some point, I'm going to have to take a break from the news, the internet, and society in general.
Or just stay the course and end up in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Which might not be so bad, because I'll finally be isolated from the news, the internet, and society in general.
Avitable recently wrote a blog entry titled "What's Better Than That?" (which was a continuation of a blog entry he made in 2010) where he asked his readers to contribute a "greater than" chain of items. I came up with a few random topics, but felt uncomfortable just tossing them out without any explanation, so I decided to make a blog entry of my own.
For reasons I will never understand, I have a big problem with drinking out of anything made of plastic. I hate drinking from plastic containers of any kind. The feel of it is wrong, and the idea of it touching my teeth freaks me out. For this same reason, I don't use plastic drinking straws. Unless I've got a plastic cup, then I use a straw because it's a lesser amount of plastic touching my mouth. Ideally, I want to drink out of something made of glass. Paper cups are okay too. Of course, just about anything is okay compared to plastic. Hideous plastic.
I'm not talking about a style of cuisine. I'm talking about food in a country. With this in mind, Italy is the country where I most love to eat. Pizza, pasta, gelato... all my favorite foods are Italian. The problem is that Italian food seems to always diminish (or outright suck) outside of Italy. Take my favorite dish, for example: Fettuccine Alfredo. At the original restaurant where it was invented in Rome, it's made from impossibly thin noodle ribbons mixed with lots of butter and parmesan cheese. THE END. Go to Olive Garden here in the States and suddenly "Fettuccine Alfredo" becomes these thick, gummy noodles covered in a weak cream sauce that's got some garlic and other shit in it. THAT'S NOT FETTUCCINE ALFREDO! It would be like ordering a hamburger and getting a slice of chicken between two slices of turnip. After Italy, I like eating best in Spain and right here at home in the USA. The worst place I've been to eat is Korea. Not because the food is necessarily bad, but because vegetarian options are severely limited. After four days of kimchee and pickled vegetables, I didn't want to eat anymore.
All of my favorite music is stuck in the 80's. That's when Depeche Mode, The Thompson Twins, OMD, New Order, The Smiths, Erasure, Duran Duran, and loads of other bands I love were at their peak. No other era of music even comes close. Though I have to say that I've really been liking the latest stuff I've been hearing from the likes of Matt & Kim, Foster the People, Mackintosh Braun, and such. Add in the awesome new album by OMD, and the 2010 decade is off to an exciting start. Then comes the 1990's, which I like pretty much because the earliest parts were a continuation of the 80's, and a lot of bands I love continued to release new stuff. That was also when the "Seattle Sound" exploded and I loved being in the middle of it all. After that I'd have to go with the 1960's, simply because that's when the Beatles were dominating. From there on out... meh. I thought the 2000's were pretty lame for the kind of music I like. And the 1970's were polluted with really bad disco, which I hated, so badly that I took refuge in the emerging punk rock scene. As for the future? If the great stuff I've been loving recently continues, I'm looking forward to the decade.
Here's the deal. I love Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. These two movies alone are more beloved by me than all other sci-fi in the universe combined. But then Return of the Jedi came out and fucked up everything because George Lucas wanted to sell cute Ewok toys more than he wanted to tell a compelling story. Even so, The Star Wars Trilogy sat at the very top of my list... until the prequel trilogy was unleashed. Thanks to Jar Jar Binks, Annie Skywalker, and stupid-ass shit that reduced Star Wars to idiotic burp and fart jokes, the unthinkable happened. Star Wars was ruined for me. As much as I tried, I couldn't un-watch The Phantom Menace. It was then that my love of Star Trek (the ORIGINAL cast series and films) grew brighter, eclipsing Star Wars in a way that was previously unthinkable. Sure I thought that the sequel series kept getting worse and worse (Voyager was so awful I stopped watching), but the bulk of the Star Trek Universe is pretty good stuff. Even so, everything else in sci-fi falls way, way behind Star Wars.
I understand why most of the world thinks Disney is the premiere source of animation on earth... honestly I do. The golden age of Disney spans decades, and has given us some of the most breathtaking animated features ever seen. But the films of Hayao Miyazaki are mind-blowing. They use animation as a way of telling stories that are truly revolutionary and remarkable. Animation allows us to break the bounds of reality. But Miyazaki breaks the bounds of imagination. I dearly love and treasure his every work, and when you take his entire oeuvre you get something unmatched in brilliance, eclipsing even Disney. Then along comes Pixar, whose work I also love. They simply don't know how to make a bad film, and may eventually overcome Disney in terms of masterworks. No list of animation favorites would be complete without Aardman, responsible for Wallace & Gromit and other genius. If I were to continue, I'd have to put Satoshi Kon on the list. Possibly Dreamworks. I'm sure there are many others.
You simply cannot exceed the greatness that was the original "Bond Girl"... Honey Rider as played by Ursula Andress. She set the benchmark for everyone that would follow, and has one of the single best entrances into a film ever made. Over the years new Bond Girls would come and go... some of them cool (Pussy Galore), some of them hot (Mary Goodnight), some of them bizarre (Xenia Onatopp), some of them boring (Octopussy), and some of them just plain bad (Christmas Jones). But the ones I always liked best were the Bond Girls who were beautiful and badass. I loved Melina from For Your Eyes Only because she was ruthless in her revenge, and equaled Bond in smarts. Jinx was played by Halle Berry... so enough said there. And Michelle Yeoh's turn as "Wai Lin" was so kickass that I found myself praying that the character would be reprised in the next Bond film. When compiling my list, I was surprised that there were very few Bond Girls I actively disliked. Most of them rose above the typical "damsel in distress" crap that women usually get relegated to in films like this, which I didn't realize until now. Interesting.
Shocking, I know. But seriously... nobody can touch them. Nobody comes close. For now.
And now?
I can't believe it's the two-hundred-and-twenty-seventh episode of Bullet Sunday! That's like 60% of a full year's worth!
• Needle! Today is the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking for Seattle's Space Needle. Originally created for the 1962 "Century 21 World's Fair," it quickly became a symbol of the city (if not the entire Pacific Northwest). What I love about the structure is that it doesn't look dated despite its classic 1960's styling. On top of that, it's a beautiful cornerstone of the Seattle skyline and a cool tourist attraction...
I've visited dozens of times, and the view from the top still takes my breath away. If you'd like to read more about the history of Seattle's landmark, there's a nice wrap-up at Wikipedia.
• Happy! What's kind of a mash-up between Friends and Coupling but somehow manages to be uniquely hilarious television in its own right? It's Happy Endings! I have to admit, I thought the whole "group-of-six-friends-half-girls-half-boys" sitcom concept had been played into the ground (usually to horrible effect). But I was dead wrong. Happy Endings is funny, funny, stuff. The premiere episode is available for FREE on iTunes and well-worth your time to check out...
• Proof? On the other end of the spectrum... the new television drama Body of Proof is just so bad. Dana Delany is great as a surgeon-turned-medical-examiner, but just about every other character on the show is total crap. The writing is so lame that it's almost comical. It's as if they set out to make everybody be intentionally annoying and unwatchable. I was hoping for another
• Collectorz. If you're a Macintosh whore who wants to enter your comic book collection in a computer database, you're pretty much screwed. Years ago I used a program called "ComicBase" which was originally created for Macs, but then they switched to Windows and dropped development for the Mac version (nice!). Over the years there's been a few new programs for Mac, but they haven't been very feature-rich. Enter "Comic Collector for Mac OS X" which is coming May 17th. It looks fairly complete and very affordable ($29.95 or $49.95 for a "pro" version)...
It pulls data and cover images off their web server, and allows for quick and easy barcode entry. In anticipation of its release, I've been using a trial membership for their companion "cloud" service: "Comic Book Collector Connect." It's a little cumbersome for adding comics, but still very cool. What's sweet about this company is that even if their OS X software sucks, I can still use the online Connect service to index my collection (unlimited access and database size for $19.95 a year!). If you're a fellow Mac whore with a comic book collection, check it out.
• AirPrint. One of the more serious omissions from iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, etc.) was printing. Apple finally addressed this a while back with a technology they call AirPrint. The problem is that this "feature" is half-baked at best. First you either have to buy an AirPrint-Enabled printer or find a 3rd party solution which makes your non-Airport printer be recognized by the iOS. And then the fun begins... figuring out which apps can actually print worth a crap. Most don't. Apple's "Photos" app, for example, doesn't allow you to fill the page with your photo when you print it. Instead, it prints a tiny image in the middle of the page. Other apps print okay, but the lack of control over orientation, scale, and placement is a serious detriment. Only apps which are specifically designed for printing (like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) seem to produce expected results. This is kind of embarrassing for Apple. Usually they don't release something until it's polished and functional, and AirPrint isn't there yet. Still... it is a promising glimpse of the functionality that devices like these will need in a "post PC world."
Annnnnd... now it's time for the new Burn Notice movie... The Fall of Sam Axe! As a huge fan of Bruce Campbell, it's must-see TV.
A long time ago in a land far away, I took a temp job because I didn't want to go hungry from the lack of hours on a project I had. It was a unique job because it was task-based instead of time-based. Each day you'd get a list of tasks that added up to around 7-1/2 hours (each task having a time value assigned to it). The problem was that the time values were almost always wrong. Most of them in a good way. One of your tasks might have 2 hours assigned to it, but actually only take 30 minutes to complete. The up-side to this was that they didn't care how much time you spent at the office so long as you got your task-list done. If you could show up and finish everything in an hour, you could go home and still get credit for a full eight hours.
Pretty nifty, huh?
One day a co-worker was heading out and said "I'll be ten minutes late coming back from lunch." It was a totally unnecessary statement, since there were no "hours" to keep track of... just tasks. Nobody cared how long a lunch hour you took. They only cared that you finished your tasks. I assumed somebody was going to be looking for him after lunch or something, but that wasn't the case. The guy was new and wasn't used to how things worked.
But... that wasn't the end of it.
From then on, any time somebody left the office for whatever reason, they'd announce that they'd be coming back late, even though there was no earthly reason to do so.
"I'll be fifteen minutes late coming back from break!"
"I'll be thirty minutes late coming back from lunch!
"I'll be an hour late coming back from HR!
Pretty soon it became a contest as to who could be the most "late" coming back to the office. After a couple weeks, it got pretty crazy. Finally, one guy came in, distributed his tasks to friends, announced "I'll be eight hours late coming back from the copy room...
He, of course, got paid for those eight hours because his task list got finished and that's the only thing that mattered to his employers.
Genius.
It may sound crazy, but it was a results-driven workplace which is actually kind of refreshing. Sure the example I'm using is flawed because the tasks weren't attributed the correct time values... but, other than that, I think it's a great system in theory. You get a reasonable set of goals and then get paid for achieving those goals, regardless of how much time it takes. If you are an efficient, productive worker, you are rewarded with a short work-day. If you are an unproductive, inefficient worker, you have a long work-day ahead of you.
But that's not how the real world works. Well, that's not totally true. Some jobs are paid on commission or by assignment, which is kind of the same thing. But it doesn't seem as though that's how most 9-to-5 jobs work. Fast, efficient workers are just given more work to fill out their eight hours. Slow, inefficient workers put in just enough effort to not get fired.
And why do I care? Why am I rambling on about the past and whining about unfair work hours for efficient, productive workers like myself?
BECAUSE, ZOMFG!, PORTAL 2 IS AVAILABLE FOR EARLY-SALE DOWNLOAD NOW!! AND ALL I WANT IS TO SPEND AS MUCH OF MY TIME AS POSSIBLE PLAYING IT!
How badly do I want to show up to work tomorrow, announce that I'll be thirty-two hours late coming back from the supply closet, and then spend the rest of the week playing Portal 2?
So bad that I don't dare buy a copy tonight.
I've been waiting over two years for this day. I shouldn't be bothered over waiting a few more weeks.
But I am. I am.
As I write this, it's 8:11pm on April 19th, 2011. Thanks to events in Terminator 2, Skynet has just become self-aware and we're all doomed. I, for one, welcome our machine overlords.
Anyway...
You know how when you go to eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup how you have to go through all the hassle of removing that stupid brown paper cup? What a horrible waste of time! Who wants to mess with that crap? I buy Reese's Peanut Butter Cups because I want to eat them... not because I want to play around with stupid paper!
Well, the people at Hershey must have felt my pain and frustration, because they've released NEW Reese's Minis. Tiny little peanut butter cups that are UNWRAPPED, just like God intended...
So now there's no time blown on futzing with that stupid paper cup. You can just tear off the top and pour them into your mouth directly...
Now THAT'S how I eat a Reese's!
Annnnnnnd... SHIT! My entire website is down. Either Media Temple is dicking around with things AGAIN, or Skynet really has become self-aware, and I will never be able to post this entry!
Looks like Blogography has been terminated.
UPDATE: Annnnnnnd... we're back.
This morning after my daily toast and jam, I checked my email and saw a new one pop up with the subject line "How does it feel?" which came from an email address I didn't recognize. Naturally, I thought this was some kind of creepy spam that was advertising male "enhancement drugs" or some other crap, but I was also curious because usually one of my two spam filters manages to intercept stuff like this. So I opened it.
Much to my surprise, it wasn't spam. It was a reader(?) who was overjoyed to be telling me that "Your hero Steve Jobs is spying on you" and was asking "How does it feel to have your privacy raped by Apple?" Then there was a link to a website for an application called iPhone Tracker.
Apparently, your iPhone is constantly keeping track of everywhere you go and "secretly" saving this data. Then, when you sync your iPhone with your computer, iPhone transfers this information to your backup file. It also transfers the data when you migrate to a new iPhone or restore your data for some reason. Two guys names Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden stumbled across it and decided to write a program that allows you to display the data on a map, like so...
Everywhere in the USA I've been for the past ten months.
The tracking is surprisingly deep. This is a drive I made out of Chicago last July.
Three or four trips to Europe, all tracked!
The dots are obviously not actual locations in Corsica I visited... probably just cell towers iPhone signaled.
A drive down the Amalfi Coast in Italy.
Now, my first reaction when I opened the program on my Mac was THIS IS SO AWESOME!! I mean, heck, I actually bought an iPhone app called "Trip Journal" to track my travels... I could have saved some money if I had known the feature was built-in! My only disappointment was that the data only goes back to June 30th, 2010 and I wish it went back further.
But then the implications began to sink it.
The iPhone Tracker developers don't believe that this data is transmitted to Apple in any form, but that doesn't mean that Apple couldn't take a look at it in the future. This alone doesn't scare me much since AT&T already has a record of everywhere I go (they log call locations for billing purposes). What does concern me is that Apple doesn't disclose that this data is being collected. If somebody were to steal my laptop, they could potentially see everywhere I've been and I'd be none the wiser because nobody told me it was there when I bought my iPhone. Not that I really care... I always blog where I'm at and log my every move with Gowalla anyway, but still... this is not a good thing.
Mostly because this data could be used in devious ways now that everybody knows about it. Want to know if your wife is cheating on you? Pull up iPhone Tracker and you can see exactly where she's been at any point in time. Want to know what your kids are up to? Run iPhone Tracker and know everywhere they go. Want to stalk somebody? Break into their house and run iPhone Tracker on their computer so you can track their movement patterns. The list goes on and on.
Obviously I don't think there's any evil motive behind Apple logging this information. They're probably working on some cool new feature for iDevices which will use the data in an interesting way. But they really, really should have warned people that their location is being tracked and definitely give people the option to turn this "feature" off if they should so desire. At the very least they should be encrypting it so that it's not so ridiculously easy to view.
I'm not very paranoid by nature, but every time something like this pops up, I can't help but wonder what other aspects of my life are being analyzed and collected. Then I conclude there's probably no part of my life that isn't on a computer somewhere, and just accept the fact that very little of what we do or say is private.
If you want to spy on yourself, you can download the Mac app to view your iPhone tracking data here.
Time for another BEHIND THE SCENES episode of Blogography!
Thanks so much to everybody who has supported the debut issue of Thrice Fiction magazine! RW and I have been surprised... shocked even... by the number of people who have been kind enough to take a look and give us some nice feedback. In all honesty, I thought maybe 40-50 people would bother to download the thing. Sure it's free, but time is valuable, and I didn't think many people would give it a chance. Even more surprising, a good chunk of you actually bought the printed magazine from MagCloud. We don't make any money off of those sales, but knowing people like the magazine enough to buy it... well, that's better than money!
Okay, probably not... but when you combine all the downloads and printed issues, we've "sold" around 320 copies. Considering we haven't done any promotion outside of our blogs and Facebook, this is pretty remarkable.
Some of the nicest comments I received were saying good things about the artwork, which is really special to me considering most of it was a last-minute addition. Though, considering most people only see the crappy cartoons I slap together for this blog, I guess anything would be "good" by comparison! A few people had asked about the "medium" I used for the pieces, so I thought I'd do another "behind the scenes" entry to explain how the front cover came together...
I suppose the first thing I should say is that this is not a painting. The painted "look" is just a couple of Photoshop filter effects. So what is it? Just a bunch of photo pieces that have been blended together to create an image based on this sketch I made to show "The End" of the earth...
The first step was to find me a good star-field image. Fortunately, our tax dollars have funded the Hubble Telescope, which has provided thousands of hi-res images to choose from. I ended up rearranging the stars a bit, but this was the image that was most like I had in mind....
All the other photos were taken from my extensive collection of travel photos. That way, I don't have to worry about obtaining permission to use them or get in trouble for copyright infringement or whatever. "The earth" is just a photo I shot in Southern Utah that has been turned upside-down and warped into the shape I needed...
The water was some tricky business. I found a photo I took on Kauai's north shore which made for a pretty good start...
Kind of rough there, but I didn't want to start painting the pieces together until I had the waterfall in place. Fortunately, that was made easy thanks to a photo I took at one of the Walt Disney World resort hotels (don't ask me which one)...
In my original sketch, I had wanted a metropolitan cityscape in the background. The problem was that I couldn't make it look good. And believe me, I tried. I spent a good hour cobbling together skyscrapers in an attempt to get it looking right. But it never did. Rather than waste the rest of my life trying, I tossed everything out and started over. But this time I thought I'd go for something less urban, and found a shot I took last year at Portofino in Northern Italy. Cutting the city out, it fit perfectly. All I had to do was add a reflection in the water and paint in a shoreline, and I was set...
I also cobbled together some photos of flat red rocks in order to make a better surface for the waves to sit on. I thought it looked a little more realistic. Though I suppose "realistic" is all relative when you're talking about a city floating in space.
Anyway... next up was the sky. I wanted a bright, almost surreal sky so that it would contrast nicely with the darkness at the bottom. So I went back to Southern Utah and found exactly what I wanted at Bryce Canyon. Well, not exactly. I had to do a bit of touch-up and color adjustment, but it's still a really cool sky...
After I popped it in the shot, I added a little bit more coastline waaaayyyy in the background to help add some depth.
Time elapsed: 1 hour, 15 minutes. It would have been less, but I wasted time trying to smoosh New York and Chicago into a new city.
Then the fun begins. Hours of Photoshopping all the pieces together so they look like one cohesive scene. In particular, the ocean edge and waterfall. They never really "fit" together, and so it took extensive painting, warping, and blending to make it work. It's kind of hard to see in these tiny images just how much work I had to do, but at full print-resolution size, it's a big mess, and required a lot of time to make happen. I also had to adjust the colors of all the individual pieces so they look like they were in the same shot. It's only a subtle alteration, but it makes a big difference in the overall "feel" of the image.
Time elapsed: 3 hours, 30 minutes.
After that was all finished up, I ran a couple of Photoshop filters on the photo to make it look like a painting and, voilà, a cover was born...
Most of the other stuff in the issue was drawn in Adobe Illustrator, then ran through the same "painterly" Photoshop filters so I had a kind of "look" going on...
And there you have it! Join us in two months for issue #2! And if you haven't checked out issue #1, you can download it for FREE at ThriceFiction.com!
Today is Earth Day! And it's also Good Friday!
It's Good Earth Friday! And I've gone green...
Guess I'll go plant a tree or eat a salad or something.
The past two weeks have been a blissful whirlwind of not traveling.
I had thought that I would be starting up again next Thursday... but just found out I got the date wrong. It's the Thursday after that. Ordinarily this would be a good thing. I've been killing myself to get caught up with life, and now I can relax a bit because I've got a whole extra week. Except... now I've got to be in two different cities on the same day, so I've got to reschedule a bunch of stuff. That's always makes for good times.
Guess I'll worry about that on Monday.
Anyway... today was set aside for Spring cleaning. I took absolutely everything out of my bedroom so I can dust, wash, vacuum, and scrub. It's a lot of work, but it makes living with allergies a bit more comfortable. My intent was to put everything back after cleaning, but now I'm tired and don't feel like it. This means there's crap piled everywhere. Except in front of the television. I cleared a path so I could watch last night's episode of Fringe.
And, of course... NEW DOCTOR WHO!!
I never much cared for the latest incarnation of The Doctor until that wonderful, magical, touching, amazing episode with Vincent VanGogh, then I became pretty much obsessed with the show. Again. It doesn't hurt that Steven Moffat is running the series now. I've been a huge fan of his since Coupling.
They filmed some of the episode here in the USA and it was a very good... albeit slightly disturbing... season opener...
Something about aliens which you can only remember seeing while you're looking at them (then forget about them the minute you're not) is a frickin' fantastic concept. The cliffhanger ends with a question... "How can you fight an enemy you can't remember?" A very good question! I'll be watching to find out next Saturday.
And now I suppose now I had better go at least put my bed back together so I have a place to sleep tonight.
What a fun way to spend a Saturday night!
Well whadda ya know, it's an EASTER edition of Bullet Sunday!
• Like! Bad Monkey is now on Facebook. Heaven help us all...
If you want to see the mayhem for yourself, here you go...
• Kubrick! The holy grail for Stanley Kubrick fans (outside his movies, obviously) is a copy of a book called Full Metal Jacket Diary by Matthew Modine, who was an actor in the film. The reason it's such a big deal is twofold...
Just looking at the few amazing behind-the-scenes photos on the official website should have any Kubrick fan dying to own it...
Jayne, errrr I mean Animal Mother never looked so badass as when getting light metered!
But... to do the iPad app right is going to cost a lot of money. $20,000 money. In order to fund the project, Rackoff has put it up on Kickstarter so people can donate to get the work done. Anybody chipping in $5 or more will get a 'special thanks" credit on the app's credits page. If you've got money to burn, there are bigger rewards for bigger pledges. If you're a Kubrick fan... or a Matthew Modine fan... or a Full Metal Jacket fan... or just a movie fan... head over to Kickstarter so we can get this funded!
• Blows! Microsoft has been (rightfully) bragging about crossing the 350 million license milestone for Windows 7 in only 18 months. Except... I can't help but wonder how much of the rapid adoption rate is thanks to its predecessor, Windows Vista, being such a steaming pile of shit. Even with the Service Packs (mostly) fixing all the crap that made me want to take a flamethrower to my PC, I maintain that everybody who purchased a Vista license should have gotten Windows 7 as a free upgrade. Because anybody forced to suffer through Vista after updowngrading from the (relatively) painless Windows XP experience deserves to be compensated. Instead, we were forced to add billions of dollars to Microsoft's bank account to get out of a shitty OS that was never ready for release in the first place (after SIX YEARS of development). Any doubts I had about being an Apple Whore were eradicated by the release of Windows Fucking Vista and subsequently having to pay for Windows 7. I long for the day I never have to use Windows again.
• Bunny! If you celebrate the holiday, hope it's a happy one for you!
Annnd... time to start hauling all this crap back into my bedroom. Spring cleaning blows.
Most people cite Thanksgiving as the "leftovers holiday" because they end up eating turkey for days afterwards. Others say Christmas is the "leftovers holiday" because they end up eating ham for a week. Neither of these work for me because I'm vegetarian. A vegetarian who eats dairy and eggs. Which is why Easter is my "leftovers holiday." It's hard boiled eggs, egg-salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, and potato-egg salad from here on out...
Not that I'm complaining. I love egg-salad sandwiches!
What I hate? Being the last person to hear a joke.
Which is why an email I got this morning made me a little depressed. I had to actually Google That Shit in order to even realize there was a joke in the first place. How did I become this out of touch with the world? I guess I'll ponder that while having another egg-salad sandwich...
When I was younger, I loved to cook. I loved to bake. I loved experimenting in the kitchen to come up with something new. But, as the years went by, I had less and less time available for messing around with food. Home-baked bread was replaced by bread-machine bread. And when that got to be too much trouble, I went back to store-bought bread. Things I used to make from scratch were soon replaced by mixes. And when that got to be too much trouble, I just started buying pre-made stuff in the freezer section. It's not as good for me. It's certainly not as fun. But I just don't have the time any more.
But then I got addicted to cooking sites like Foodiddy and baking sites like Joy The Baker, and was assaulted with goodies so amazing-looking that I simply HAD to start baking again. Last night I brought a shit-load of work home with me, but then I happened upon a recipe for Cinnamon-Sugar Pull-Apart Bread from Joy The Baker. It looked too delicious to ignore, so I dropped everything and baked a loaf.
So there I was, eating mind-blowingly delicious Cinnamon-Sugar Pull-Apart Bread while Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was on... all while my pile of work sat there unfinished. And as I thought about how much trouble I was in, I began wondering how many other lives have been ruined by people getting all distracted because of blogs like Foodiddy and Joy The Baker...
If you would like to ruin your life too, you can visit the most excellent cooking blog Foodiddy here. And if that's not enough of a distraction, Joy The Baker can be found here. And you can go here if you want to make that stupidly-awesome Cinnamon-Sugar Pull-Apart Bread.
You're welcome!
Well bummer. Looks like I won't be going to London tomorrow after all.
I don't know whether to be more upset that I cannot attend the Royal Wedding on Friday... or that they used Comic Sans as the font for the names on the invitations...
Oh don't be surprised that I got an invitation! As a Knight of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and a personal friend of Her Royal Majesty The Queen, of course I received an invitation!
If only my dental cleaning appointment hadn't been moved up. I was really looking forward to meeting Kate and Wills. I was especially looking forward to the wedding reception. Her Royal Highness knows how to throw down a buffet, yes she does!
But we all know how important dental hygiene is for our health so, alas, I'll be sending my regrets.
As anybody who follows me on Twitter is aware, I have been futilely searching for falafel here in Redneckistan. No local restaurants seem to make it. When I ask for it at the stores, few people even know what it is ("What's a floppal?") and I worry that I'm going to be put on a terrorist watch-list when I try to explain it ("Middle Eastern? LIKE IRAQ?"). A couple stores carry a falafel mix that's kinda okay, but it doesn't taste very falafely when I make it. I'd make my own falafel from scratch, but the recipe for it is huge and complex and I'm just not that smart in the kitchen. Yet.
So, basically, if you have a falafel craving in the valley here, you're kinda fucked.
Perfect Falafel Sandwich taken from Joy of Kosher.
Alas, as a vegetarian, I'm used to getting fucked (in a culinary sense).
Take Olive Garden, for instance. Every time I turn around, they're advertising some new special dish that could be vegetarian, but they screw it up some how. A couple weeks ago, it was Cheese-Filled Soffatelli. Yummy-looking pastries filled with cheese and herbs and junk. But the only way to get them? Served with your choice of beef or chicken...
Of course I could always order them without the beef or chicken, but you pay the same price. I tried negotiating an extra Soffatelli instead of the beef or chicken, but "it doesn't come that way." Oh well.
And now their latest creation is Four Cheese Pastachettis. Yummy ribbons of pasta filled with cheese and herbs and junk. But the only way to get them? Served with your choice of sausage or chicken...
I dunno. Maybe next week I'll go and try begging to see if I can get and extra Pastachetti substituted for the meat. Then prepare for the waiter to stare at me like I'm from outer space and tell me "it doesn't come that way."
Meh. Whatever.
But, you know... I'd kill for some good Indian food.
Of course, you can't get Indian food in Redneckistan either.
Guess I'll just have a salad.
I suppose it's a good thing we didn't go to the Royal Wedding...
How embarrassing would it have been when Bad Monkey showed up wearing the same stupid-ass toilet seat hat as Princess Beatrice?
Well this blows.
As I attempted to finish up my Spring cleaning, I threw my back out while moving some boxes...
Now I don't feel much like cleaning anymore. On the contrary, I don't feel like doing much of anything.
And how has your weekend been treating you?
It's a "Holy crap it feels like somebody shot me in the back!" kind of Bullet Sunday this week. Fortunately I have really good drugs to put me out of my misery so I can (hopefully) get some healing sleep tonight. Let's see how many bullets I have in me before I drop off...
• Quandary. As somebody who attempts to live my life according to Buddhist precepts, it is not possible for me to take joy in the death of any living thing. So call me unAmerican if you wish, but all I can think of today is the chain of events which began on September 11, 2001 and the horrific loss of life which continues to this day because of it. One more death on the pile... no matter how much one believes it was deserved... is not going to suddenly make everything better in my head. And I'm not sure how I should feel about that. About the only thing I can feel right now is regret. Not that an asshole terrorist and mass-murderer is dead, but that humanity has failed so badly for us to have gotten to this point.
• Accomplished? I keep running across people on the internet who are amused that today's news falls precisely eight years after a banner above former president George W. Bush's head declared "Mission Accomplished"...
Am I a tin-hat wearing conspiracy nut if I admit that the first thing that came to mind after first reading this was "Wow. That's really convenient!" Because, seriously, if you wanted to (further) embarrass President Bush over the failure to capture Public Enemy #1 on his watch, wouldn't this be the ideal way to do it? Hmmmmmm. Nah, it's most certainly just a coincidence. Especially when you consider Hitler's death was also announced on a May 1st. Irony can be so ironic sometimes.
• Who? Can I just say that Dr. Who under the brilliant mind of Stephen Moffat has evolved to one of the single best shows ever to air on television? I'm not kidding. The two-part season opener was jaw-droppingly amazing in every possible way...
If you have even a passing interest in really good sci-fi, this show is a must-see.
• Magnum! Another import that's well worth checking out? Magnum ice cream bars! It was just over two years ago I mentioned their advertising featuring Eva Longoria when I was in Germany...
And now they have arrived here in the USA! If you happen across the "Almond" variety, which is covered in chocolate with crazy-delicious large chunks of almonds, it is about the best-tasting thing you'll ever eat. Unless you're allergic to nuts. Then it's about the most deadly thing you'll ever eat.
Annnd... my meds are starting to kick in. That's kind of a bummer, because I didn't get to all the bullets I had jotted down. Oh well. Something to blog about tomorrow, I guess.
My best friend right now is my heating pad.
And my pain medication.
Between my two new best friends and being very careful, I'm slowly recovering from whatever it was I did to wreck my back this past weekend. Today I was able to sit at my desk for six hours, which is almost double what I managed yesterday. And now I am going to see if I can get through the night on a half-pill instead of a whole one. Hopefully I am mostly recovered before my plane-ride on Thursday, as it would be nice to not be suffering all the way through it.
Though, according to some people, my suffering is not long for this world.
I got an email from an old co-worker telling me that they ran across a motorhome which had "Awesome news! The end of the world is May 21st! The Bible guarantees it!" painted on it. Since he knew I have studied many of the world's religions, my friend asked me if I had any inside information as to whether this was true. If it were true, he joked that he wouldn't bother going to work in the morning. I wrote back and explained that The Bible specifically says in Matthew 24 that nobody but God knows when the end of the world is coming... so anybody following The Bible who says that they've "decoded" some kind of definitive date is gravely mistaken.
But then I got curious, so some Google research led me to a website for the people driving around in that motorhome...
They're claiming Judgement Day is May 21st, which is technically not the end of the world... it's the beginning of the end if you believe what The Bible says.
The website itself is pretty dope and a wild read. They provide their "proof" by doing some whiz-bang calculations about one day for God equalling a thousand years for us, and how seven years after The Great Flood is when the earth is ending. They further back this up by revealing "a sign" that The End of Days is upon us.
And what is this sign? What is this undeniable proof that the end of the world is nigh?
Wait for it...
Gay Pride.
Yes, once again it's the gays who are to blame! These people have an entire section on their site devoted to it...
Of course, if you've been reading my blog for a while, this is nothing new.
Oddly enough, my interpretation of The Bible is such that "reading signs" and using hokey math to predict Judgement Day is paramount to divination, which is condemned by The Bible is no uncertain terms, but whatever. The Bible is interpreted a million different ways, so who am I to judge? I'm not even a Christian for heaven's sake.
In many ways I feel sorry for people like this. They sell everything they own and drive around the USA in motorhomes warning everybody that the world is ending real soon now because May 21st is Judgement Day.
But what happens to them on May 22nd when it turns out to be just another day because their God had other plans?
Oh well.
Personally, I think the world already ended back in February. How else can you explain THIS...
THERE'S your sign!
Well... I woke up with my back feeling far worse than it was yesterday. This really blows, because I've got a long drive followed by a long flight tomorrow. Guess I'll be spending my day mostly medicated. Yay.
Of course I still haven't packed a suitcase. Given the excruciating pain throbbing in my lower back, it's probably a better use of my time to lay in bed with a heating pad all night. Which means I'll be packing when I get up in the morning. And doesn't that sound like a bucket-full of laughs and good times.
The problem with laying as still as possible for hours-on-end is that there's not much else to do except think. The even bigger problem is the stupid crap I think about, most of which makes me want to scream my head off.
Things like... how fucking bat-shit-crazy is it that the same people who freaked out and thought armageddon was nigh because two dudes kissed on Glee are all gung-ho to see photos of Osama Bin Laden with his head blown off? I mean, seriously... a sign of love and affection between two people can't be shown on television because its paramount to a complete breakdown of society if they both have a penis... HOWEVER an image of graphic violence and horror is perfectly okay. In fact, let's make popcorn and invite the neighbors over the watch!
And it only gets worse from there.
I long for those magical days of yore when I was too busy to think such horrible nonsense.
The best I can wish for now is that I fall asleep soon.
Hopefully before I start thinking about how dumb-fuck asshole Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean called beloved author Neil Gaiman a "pencil-necked weasel" that he "hated" because he's too damn stupid to bother getting all the facts before resorting to name-calling and accusations of stealing. What a worthless piece of shit. Is it too much to ask that ANY of our elected officials use even a half of their brain before they open their idiot mouths?
Dang. Now I'll never get to sleep...
I always hesitate to tell people when I'm working in Hawaii.
Because nobody ever truly believes that it's actually possible to "work" in Hawaii. Their idea of "working in Hawaii" involves a Mai Tai on the beach or something. I know this, because any time I am forced to tell somebody, they always end the conversation with "Have fun!
Um... sure...
Except Bad Robert. When I mention "Hawaii" to Bad Robert, the only thing he has to say is this...
"Dude! Hawaii? I'm never going to Hawaii. It's out in the middle of NOWHERE! Have you ever looked at Hawaii on the map? There's nothing out there, man. Just ocean. Shit could happen and nobody would know. The island could sink or get blown up by a volcano, and ain't nobody coming to rescue you, because there's nobody out there. Good luck, man. I hope you make it."
All drama aside, he's absolutely right. Hawaii is one of the most remote places on earth...
And one of the most beautiful.
Which is why I'm not just flying over for work, then heading right back. I'm staying the weekend and goofing off a bit. Because it would be downright irresponsible to come all this way and not try to have a little fun.
In the meanwhile, there's work. So I suppose I should try to get some sleep so I can function in the morning.
Hope your Cinco de Mayo was a good one!
Aloha!
Today was mostly a work day, but I did get some time to goof off in Honolulu and do some of the things that made me not mind dragging my ass across the Pacific to be here. This pretty much boils down to three things...
#1 PUKA DOG!! Originating on Kauai, Puka Dog eventually opened up a shop in Waikiki (UPDATE: Puka Dog is now Hula Dog in Oahu, still Puka Dog in Kauai. UPDATE 2: Hula Dog in Waikiki was CLOSED when they tore down the International Marketplace! SUCKS!! Check Hula Dog's website for their locations). I can say without reservation that this is my favorite meal in all of Oahu. Just like Chicago, which has a hot dog to call their own, Puka Dog is a hot dog done Hawaiian-style, and they are amazing...
Don't let the line scare you... Puka Dog is worth the wait!
They are also very different and uniquely Hawaiian in oh so many ways...
The way you order is kind of "Soup-Naziesque" but they don't treat you too badly if you goof it up. But it's pretty hard to goof up if you follow the steps on their menu board. For example, I order like this: "I'll take a Veggie, Hot, Mango, Lilikoi on White, please!" But, no matter how you order, you're getting an amazing meal that's unlike anything else on earth... in a very good way...
Left is a dog in the hole. Right is down a few bites so you can see all the condiment goodness within!
#2 KISSES!! Everybody loves Hershey's Kisses. Those little foil-wrapped pieces of deliciousness are truly a treat to behold. And then Hershey's took it to The Next Level and introduced Kisses with almonds, caramel, and peanut butter in the middle (among other things). BUT... only here in Hawaii can you get Hershey Kisses with Macadamias in the middle! They are everything you'd dream they'd be. And at $5 a bag, they'd better be...
#3 NEW HARD ROCK!! As anybody who follows this blog already knows, I am incredibly disappointed with the "new-style" Hard Rock Cafe properties. Instead of the old-school method of cramming every available surface with awesome Rock-n-Roll memorabilia, they instead put a few meager pieces in glass cases and scatter them on a few walls. So when they moved Honolulu's Hard Rock from the old location to the new one in Waikiki, I was horrified at the idea of it being a shitty "new-style" cafe. And it is. Kind of. Because while there isn't a tremendous amount of memorabilia, it is more than usual. And they DO have this awesome ribbon of guitars running up the wall and across the ceiling of this beautiful, beautiful restaurant...
Approaching the all-new dual-level Hard Rock Cafe at Waikiki!
Pretty sweet, eh? And, on that note, I am about ready to pass out, so I'm off to a night of (hopefully) sweet slumber.
BUT, BEFORE I FORGET...
I ran across proof positive that President Obama was BORN AMERICAN, BABY! Because if it's in a children's book, it must be true, right?
Good night!
Honolulu is just a big city like most big cities except it has a really excellent location.
If you're into big cities then you really can't do much better in Hawaii than here, and I recommend it highly as a place to eat, shop, play, and (if you're lucky) work. The problem is that a big city is not really what people want to see when they visit beautiful Hawaii. Myself included. For this reason, I avoid Honolulu like the plague. I'd much, much rather spend my time just about anywhere except here. This usually means I end up on my favorite island, Maui, or taking side-trips to Kauai or The Big Island of Hawaii. I only come to Honolulu when work brings me here or I am changing planes or something.
Except...
For a very long time I had been treating the entire island of Oahu as if it were Honolulu.
All that changed one year when a colleague drove me to Oahu's East Shore for dinner and I was shocked to see that after you get outside of Honolulu, it's an entirely different world. Oahu is just as beautiful and amazing as the other islands... it just happens to have a big city on it.
So this trip I decided to not bail on Oahu the minute my work was over. Instead, I decided to stay here a few days and explore a bit.
And what better place to start than iconic Diamond Head?
It was a nice cool overcast day... perfect for hiking up Diamond Head!
These cool thistle-like things were everywhere.
Looking down at Honolulu from the top.
The websites I looked at for Diamond Head had me worried to hike it with my messed-up back, but it was actually a pretty easy hike. I rewarded myself with a bag of fresh-cut pineapple spears when I made it back down to the visitor center...
Yes, it was insanely delicious, just as you'd expect.
Almost as cool as Diamond Head itself is how you get into the crater through a tunnel bored into the side...
It reminds me of the Big-Foot alien's tunnel on The Six Million Dollar Man!
After that, it was time for fresh-n-hot malasadas at World-Famous Leonard's Bakery...
Kind of a Portuguese version of a doughnut... but without a hole.
After stuffing my face with malasadas and getting sugar all over my rental car, I was going to go find a comic book shop for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, but decided to consult Gowalla to see if there were any cool spots to visit. First on the list? Beautiful Byodo-In Temple...
The rainy weather actually made for a prettier visit with the fog in the mountains.
Then I decided to continue driving around Oahu's North Shore. Here I stopped at a number of different lookouts and beaches, with one of the more interesting being Chinaman's Hat Island...
The island is that blip on the right-hand side there.
A better view of Chinaman's Hat.
Despite being fairly close together, the many beaches each seem to have their own personality...
One of the more famous stops was "Sunset Beach" which was fairly empty now but, during the Winter, is overflowing with surfers. That's when some of the biggest and best waves on earth arrive...
Eventually I got tired of beaches and made my way to world-famous Matsumoto's General Store... one of the best places on the island to get a shave-ice treat...
I got "The Hawaiian" which had a colorful variety of tropical syrups on top.
The shave-ice wasn't enough cold sugar for me, so I stopped off at the Dole Plantation for a Pineapple Whip. If I were hungrier, I would have got for the Pineapple Whip Float, which is drenched with delicious Dole pineapple juice...
Even though it was still fairly early in the afternoon, I was getting tired and decided to head back to my hotel for a nap. But then I saw The Bishop Museum was on the way, so I had to stop and take a look. It's a beautiful, beautiful museum which does a great job of documenting Hawaiian history...
The Bishop Museum is SHARK EXTREME!!!
Once back in my room, I suddenly realized I was hungry. Since I was dead-tired I thought I might just order in room service, but decided I couldn't resist the urge to have yet another Puka Dog! This time I downshifted to "Spicy" garlic-lemon sauce instead of "Hot" because I wanted the Maui Sweet Onion Relish to shine through. This made a good thing even better...
Delicious Puka Relishes on tap!
And now... I'm done. Time to kick back and read a few blogs before bedtime. All-in-all it was a pretty great day. Despite the off-again-on-again rainy weather, Oahu treated me pretty well, and I'm glad I took the time to get to know her a little better. Hopefully tomorrow will be just a fruitful.
Hope all the mothers out there had a great Mother's Day.
Today's bullets will be fired from Part Two of my "Get to Know an Island" series: OAHU EDITION! Since yesterday was spent exploring the North Shore and Central Valley, today I decided to head West and take a look at the Leeward region of the island...
• End of the Road. Rather than having to continuously cross back and forth across Highway 93, I decided to head all the way to the end of the road, then stop at all the spots I wanted to see on the way back. And when I say "end of the road," I mean that literally. The pavement stops and, though a dirt road with craters in it goes on around the point, it's pretty much inaccessible unless you've got a really tough 4-wheel drive rig (which I didn't)...
• How I Roll. And what rig DID I end up with? A KIA Soul. It's not a bad ride, per se, but it does have one horrible flaw that can make it a terrifying thing to drive. MASSIVE FUCKING BLIND SPOTS IN THE BACK CORNERS! So not exaggerating here...
Yes, you've got mirrors, but if you want to confirm that there's nobody sneaking up behind you in your mirror's blind-spot, you can't. I guess those giant hamsters that they use to advertise the Soul on television must drive using The Force or something.
• Kaena Point State Park. Anyway... at the end of the road is Kaena Point State Park, which is actually a very nice place to visit. There's a beautiful aqua-colored tidal pool there...
And a pretty sweet beach...
• Kane'ana Cave. About two miles outside of the park, there's a giant cave you can wander into. When I visited, there was a hot dog stand across the street...
It's not very deep... but it is pretty darn big.
• Beach Culture. I stopped at a few different beaches along the West Coast of Oahu. Many of them were absolutely beautiful. As I understand it, the waves get pretty insane during the winter months, but things were fairly calm today...
• Pearl Harbor Historic Sites. On my way back to Waikiki, I decided to stop at Pearl Harbor to see the new visitor center there. When I was here last time, they were just starting construction, and I decided to make a donation. They ended up putting my money to good use, because the new center is just beautiful...
If you ever make it to Honolulu and have even a passing interest in history, this is a must-see.
• USS Bowfin. As I arrived around 4:00, there was only an hour until closing time. This meant there was no chance of visiting the USS Arizona Memorial... or the Missouri... or the film center. This didn't bother me, because I've already been through them more than a couple times (and with much better weather!). But I didn't want to leave without doing something, so I toured the USS Bowfin Sub Museum and Park. The submarine itself has been beautifully restored, and has a very cool steampunk look about it on the inside...
Annnnd... that was enough for today.
Except a stop at Ala Moana Center so I could visit their awesome food court and get me some falafel. As expected, it was totally delicious and worth the wait.
A second day of bullets for double damage!
Today's bullets will be fired from Part Three of my "Get to Know an Island" series: OAHU EDITION! Since yesterday was spent exploring the Leeward side of the island, today I decided to head East and take a look at the Windward region of the island...
• Nu'uanu Pali Lookout. I had just been here two years ago but, since it was along the way, I decided to stop again. This is actually a pretty gruesome place... it's where King Kamehameha the 1st and his army drove a bunch of their enemies off a cliff into this here valley...
It's a lot nicer when the weather is good, but I was still glad I stopped.
• Kailua Beach State Park. And here it is... the best beach I've seen on all of Oahu: Kailua Beach. It's absolutely stunning, and on-par with my favorite Maui beaches. The surf seems fairly mild, which is why a bunch of para-surfers and wind-surfers were out and about...
The sand is powder-fine and beautiful...
The park is in a residential area, which is kind of a nice surprise. The lack of hotels and resorts means that the beach isn't completely overrun like Waikiki. I'm guessing it's pretty crowded on the weekends, but on this Monday morning there wasn't a lot of people there. All I know is that if I wanted some beach-time when visiting Oahu, it would be Kailua and nearby Lanikai Beach all the way.
• Makapuʻu. Across from Oahu's "Sea Life Park" (where you can swim with dolphins and stuff), there's a strip of rocky beach that's a great place to look for crabs, fish, and other critters that call the place home. Typical of Hawaii weather, I was able to look North and see a rain storm moving in...
Then look South and see sunshine...
It was kind of nice to see blue skies, because it's been on-again-off-again raining my entire trip.
• Halona Blowhole. And so now I've finally seen a blowhole. This is a geological formation where a sea cave has an opening above it. When waves flood the cave, water is blown out of the hole. Hence the name...
The volume of water that can shoot up is huge and makes a big impression in person. But in photos it's the smaller plumes that look more interesting.
• Lanai Lookout. I'm guessing the reason that this place is called "Lanai Lookout" is because you can see the island of Lanai from here. This seems odd, as I would expect that Molokai would be in the way... but whatever. I didn't see anything. Except interesting land formations and some pigeons chilling out and watching the waves...
• Hanauma Bay. This is the only place other than Pearl Harbor and Nu'uanu Pali that I've been to in Oahu outside of Honolulu/Waikiki on one of my previous trips. If you like to snorkel, this is an amazing place to do it...
Unfortunately the bay has been ravaged by the masses of tourists who flock here. I'm surprised that the damage hasn't ruined the place completely, but there's still an abundance of marine life to be found. Park rangers are trying their best to educate people about how to minimize their impact, but the thousands of people who show up every day (except Tuesday) do take their toll. I worry that eventually they'll have to close down popular places like this in order to let nature recover a bit, but I suppose that's better than the alternative.
• Diamond Head State Park. This is a very nice park, but parking is crazy. Even on a Monday afternoon. Cars are piled everywhere, so eventually I just waited for somebody to leave and got a spot next to the Amelia Earhart memorial that's there...
A lot of surfing going on...
And here's the lighthouse I was looking down upon from the top of Diamond Head two days ago...
• Puka! Since I had a late 9:00pm flight, there was time for one last dinner in Waikiki. Despite having eaten there three times already, I could think of only one place I wanted to go... PUKA DOG!!
Despite the $7 price tag, it remains my favorite meal on the island. Soooo good and a fitting finale to my trip.
Annnnnd... that's it for my trip to Hawaii. I am really glad I took the time to explore Oahu and see some of the many great things the island has to offer. Unfortunately, one thing it doesn't offer is free wi-fi at Honolulu International Airport, so I'm afraid this entry won't be posted until I get home. Stupid airport.
I flew out of Honolulu last night at 9:30pm and arrived back in The States at 6:30am this morning. I think I got a short nap in there somewhere, but most of my time was spent watching iTunes episodes of my favorite new television show... Happy Endings... even though I've already seen all of them a dozen times. The show is so good that I just can't help myself.
The lack of sleep wouldn't have been a big deal if I didn't have a three-hour drive home followed by a five hours of work. Alas, I did have a three-hour drive home followed by five hours of work, which meant I spent most of my day being mostly-dead.
And, now that I am home and fully-dead, it's time to put the blog away and go to bed.
A fucking piece of shit named Meredith Attwell Baker took a job with our government as an FCC Commissioner. In this position, she was trusted to make decisions that were in the best interest of the American citizens she represented.
One of the decisions she made was to not impose any restrictions while approving the massive merger of Comcast and NBC. This was a somewhat shocking stance to take considering that the resulting mega-corp would have unprecedented control over what information people have access to on the internet and television. Critics said that this merger would have no benefit for consumers, and would likely result in nothing but bad things. But Attwell Baker shoved it through anyway.
And after the Comcast/NBC merger went through, what did this fine public servant do?
She quit her position at the FCC to take a job as a political lobbyist for Comcast/NBC! And why not? Mission accomplished! There's no reason to pretend she gives a flying fuck about us anymore, she's off to cash in on services rendered!
This grotesque mockery of government service has me once again wondering why American citizens aren't rioting in the streets.
I don't care which side of the political spectrum you're on, what Meredith Attwell Baker did was fucking disgraceful and disgusting. This is such a thorough betrayal of public trust that she should be thrown in prison. But that's not going to happen. This is what America has become. And American citizens have become so accustomed to this bullshit that they're just numb to it all. So things just keep getting worse and worse. Our government is bought and sold every day, and we all pay the price for it.
Yet nobody seems to care.
So fuck it.
I'm going to get a government job approving dumping sites for nuclear waste... in the public water supply.
Then I'm going to quit and get a high-paying lobbyist job with Exelon, the largest nuclear power producer in the USA. Because, hey, they'll owe me one.
What a fucking joke.
Anarchy... it's only a matter of time.
I was going to write a rant over how much I hate hypocritical bullshit, but I don't have the energy.
Most of my energy tonight was spent being delirious with relief that David E. Kelley's totally stupid "re-imagining" of Wonder Woman wasn't picked up by NBC. Yes, I am positively thrilled that the project was killed off. If you're not going to make an actual show about Wonder Woman, then don't make any Wonder Woman show at all. That would just set the character up for massive failure, dooming any chance of the "real" Wonder Woman ever ending up on TV or in a movie.
As I've said a billion times now, translating comic books to other media only works when you're faithful to the source material. Deviate from what makes the character iconic and beloved in the first place, and you're just fucking everything up...
Maybe one day they'll stop dicking around and get serious about fulfilling my childhood Lynda Carter Wonder Woman fantasies with something new, but I'm not holding my breath.
I don't have the energy to hold my breath, and should probably just go to bed.
For some reason I am a bit jetlagged after my short trip to Hawaii. On the surface, this seems ridiculous. It's a measly three hour time difference, which is nothing compared to a lot of my travels. My guess is that my crazy work hours are messing with my sleep schedule, and Hawaii just exaggerated everything.
If there's an upside, it's that I'm actually sleeping more than my usual 3-4 hours.
Unfortunately, this additional sleep is happening at 5:00pm.
Which means I am wide awake from 10:00pm and don't get tired again until 7:00am when it's time to get ready for work. This morning I was so tired that I forgot to zip my pants up as I headed out the door. They fell down just as I was opening my car door, leaving me pantsed in the parking lot...
Luckily I also forgot it was Commando Friday, or else I could have been arrested for indecent exposure.
All the television shows I watch have had their fate announced. Since I am a total television whore, this is important stuff. Since most people are not total television whores and couldn't care less, I've put my thoughts about it all in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Bleh.
It's at times like this when I have absolutely nothing to write about that I regret having a blog. Guess it must be time for a meme...
There! Are you happy now, internets?
It's a rainy kind of lazy Bullet Sunday and I'd really rather be in bed. Let's do this shit!
• Foodie. I'm not much of a "shopper" and really don't enjoy going to the store... but the crazy-ass prices of food now-a-days makes me downright depressed to go grocery shopping. Just pulling into the parking lot of a market is enough to make me lose my will to live. Mostly because I know even a small bag of groceries is going to run me $50 or more. I never used to worry about stuff being "on-sale" or bothered to clip coupons or anything... I just bought what I wanted to eat. But now? I only buy something when it's on-sale. This means I am eating not what I like to eat, but what I can afford to eat. I can't even fathom how people with families manage to feed everybody. What even worse is that good food... like fresh fruits and vegetables... are beyond expensive. Far easier to eat crappy foods or blow through the McDonald's drive-through than even think about trying to eat healthy. This is a scary, scary state of affairs, and I worry that things are only going to get worse. Soylent Green may not be too far off.
• PATATJES MET! While having a conversation with a Twitter-friend, it was mentioned that when they did an image search for "Patatjes Met" a photo of me came up as #4. When I went to check for myself, I saw that a LOT of the images were mine! Apparently, I am obsessed with Patatjes Met. Who'da thunk it?
• Border. I was saddened to learn that most all of the Hard Rock Cafe properties in Mexico were "de-authorized" last week. I can only guess that their franchise payments weren't made to Hard Rock International, and so now they're no longer "official" Hard Rock properties. This kind of sucks, because now I won't have the opportunity to visit them. To make matters worse, two properties I also haven't been to in Ocho Rios (Jamaica) and San Juan (Puerto Rico) were closed outright. I hate it when that happens! I suppose that I should be grateful since I now have fewer destinations to check off on my Hard Rock list... but all I can think of is the missed opportunities.
• Maru. With all the sad and crappy stuff going on, it's always nice to have something good to hang on to. For me, that would be Maru the Cat! Maru loves to climb into boxes and bags and is always entertaining...
The site is in Japanese with some English, but you don't need to know Japanese to enjoy the fantastic photos and movies! The next time you're feeling a little depressed, click on over to I am Maru. It always puts a smile on my face... and hopefully yours too.
And if you've got some time to kill, you could easily spend a whole day watching Maru's YouTube Channel...
• Passing. IT'S A SIMPLE FUCKING CONCEPT... DRIVE RIGHT, PASS LEFT! And yet, despite bunches of signs saying "Keep Right Except to Pass," people still clog up the passing lane with their stupid asses. Finally... AT LONG LAST... Washington State troopers are starting to pull these idiots over for violating the law. I have little hope that this is going to do any good... people out on the highways usually have their heads up their asses anyway... but it's comforting to know that law enforcement is starting to take this shit seriously. I still think it should be legal to pop a cap in somebody's ass if you end up passing their slow asses on the right-hand side...
Or follow them home and explain their error to them...
This has been a major pet peeve of mine for decades. I don't suppose it's too much to hope that the idiots on our roads will finally start to pay attention? Nah. Probably not.
And thus ends another Bullet Sunday... time to go be lazy, at last.
I've been fact-checked!
First thing this morning I got an email from Bad Robert calling "bullshit" on the meme I filled out on Saturday. Question #55 was "WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CD ON THE SHELF?" I answered with this: "I don't have CDs anymore, they've all been ripped into iTunes. I'm not really embarrassed by any of it."
Bad Robert had this to say...
"Dude! You still listen to the Millionaires! You're not even a little embarrassed by that?"
To which I could only answer "Oh gawd... you're right!"
The Millionaires is a girl-band duo (formerly a trio) that sings mostly about drinking, doing drugs, and having sex with every guy they meet. So... basically they're drunken sluts who kinda sing. And it IS embarrassing that I would be into listening to that crap, but I just can't help myself. I mean, it's pretty much just catchy beats with filthy lyrics, but it's fun. One of their least offensive videos (which is still a little offensive) is Stay The Night...
Yes. Yes, I know.
But if you want to know what the Millionaires are really about, you need to listen to Party Like a Millionaire, which is probably offensive and most definitely not safe for work...
Their parents must be so proud.
And yes, I am embarrassed to have Millionaires in my music collection. So thanks, Bad Robert! Oh well. If you want to experience the full horror, here's their MySpace.
You. Are. Welcome.
Anyway...
Today I had to run to the craft shop to buy some posterboard. Well, they call it posterboard, but it's really just big wimpy sheets of paper now-a-days. It stopped being "board" years ago.
As I was pulling into a parking space, I had to slam on the brakes. A woman in a giant pick-up truck was driving through her parking space to exit through the one I was entering. She waited a second, then honked her horn so I would move. But I just sat there. She can back out of her parking space just like everybody else has to.
This did not make her happy.
She started slamming her fists on her steering wheel and laying on the horn.
I just sat there. Fuck her.
She finally realized I wasn't going to move, so she started screaming at me with crap I couldn't hear because my stereo was on. After a minute went by she finally backed up, then went screeching out of the parking lot.
I guess she was in a hurry to go off and party like a Millionaire.
But seriously. What IS it with people?
All I wanted to do was park in an empty parking spot... none of this situation was my fault, and yet there she was acting like an asshole and blaming me for it. Well kiss my ass, I'm sick of this shit. Be a bitch on your own time and leave me out of it.
People suck.
But the world is ending in five days, so there's that.
Letting go of the past hasn't really been a problem for me because I am not a very sentimental person. Stuff happens (for better or worse), I learn what I can from those events, then try my best to move on. This is not to say that I discard my past completely. Far from it. I just don't dwell on things so long that they take over. Life is too short, and there's so much more out there to learn and experience without the past holding me back.
As a side-benefit, things like "recovering from heartbreak" and "moving past mistakes" a bit easier.
And yet... there's always something there to remind me...
This was made perfectly clear over the past few weeks while I've been cleaning out a storage unit I've been renting for the past 18 years... and haven't opened in 16 years.
A lot of stuff I had thought was dead and buried has suddenly come back to haunt me, figuratively speaking.
Which means I was sentimental at one time to have kept all this crap... but ended up losing my sentimentality sometime in the mid-90's.
Thank heavens.
95% of my stuff in storage is going straight to the dumpster.
Where it probably belongs.
I'm too exhausted to get excited about the season finales of the TV shows I watch. I fell asleep ten minutes into Big Bang Theory tonight. I woke in time for Grey's Anatomy, but was nodding off at the end. Day after day of nothing but work is finally catching up to me.
Either that, or this season's finales just aren't very exciting.
Probably both.
Anyway... the new 2011-2012 television schedule has finally been announced. This means I can make the chart I'll use to program my DVR this Fall. If you don't give a crap about television, then you'll probably want to skip the extended entry. Otherwise...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
THE END IS NIGH?
The Rapture isn't one of those things I believe in, per se. I mean, I believe that it's something that many people believe in, but that's as far as it goes. Which means that I'm going to be one of the people left behind if it ends up being the real deal, I guess.
And it all happens tomorrow, if you believe the wacky secret Bible code that Harold Camping claims to have uncovered. There are different interpretations of what actually happens in The Rapture, but I'd like to believe it involves Blondie, a big party, and plenty of champagne...
Though none of those things appear in Scripture when it comes to what is supposed to happen.
THAT is something entirely different. Though just how different is difficult to interpret, even for people like me who spent years studying The Bible. The most common belief is that millions of Christ's followers will disappear from the face of the earth, then a timeline starts which has oceans turning to blood, mountains burning, the Antichrist popping up, the ultimate return of Jesus to rule for 1000 years, followed by the eventual end of everything we know... replaced by a new heaven and a new earth.
Presumably an earth that's nowhere near as messed-up as the one we have now.
Of course there are other Christian scholars who have an entirely different opinion as to what happens. Some believe that nobody literally disappears during The Rapture. Others believe that The Rapture is just a teaching tool, and not an actual event that happens in real life. Still others believe that The Rapture has already happened. Harold Camping believes that after The Rapture happens tomorrow, the earth will be destroyed five months later on October 21st. He doesn't specify a time zone (that I know of) so I have no idea when we're supposed to start drinking...
In the end, nobody has a definitive answer, just something they believe is correct.
Personally, my studies lead me to believe that The Rapture can't take place until after Oprah airs her final show on the 25th. After that, it's anybody's guess.
Anybody except Harold Camping. This will be the second time he screwed-up when picking a date (September of 1994 was the first)... so he can just go fuck off and die now. NO RAPTURE FOR YOU!
Sometimes my many years of theological studies can be more a burden than a blessing. I'll see some person proclaiming to be of a certain faith in one breath... then turn around and say or do something that violates that faith in the next. And though they don't realize their hypocrisy, I do.
And it burns.
I see this crap and my brain feels like its on fire.
As I mentioned in a previous entry, The Bible is quite clear that nobody but God knows when the end of the world is coming. Furthermore, it is my interpretation that by claiming to know for dead-certain a Rapture date, Harold Camping was declaring himself a prophet. Because if he claims to know a date that God's Word specifically states only God knows, then he is claiming to have divine knowledge... thus making him a prophet.
And now that his prophesying is obviously not true, not correct, and not divinely given by God... well, I'm afraid the future doesn't look very happy for Harold Camping...
"But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.
Deuteronomy 18:20 (New International Version)
Since God Himself has set the punishment for being a false prophet to death, Harold Camping's followers will have to kill him now won't they? At least I guess that's how it goes. I don't really know how they will reconcile that with the whole "Thou Shalt Not Kill" thing. As with everything in The Bible, that's open to interpretation.
Or I suppose I should say selective interpretation.
Because how many times have we seen people use a fragment of their holy text to justify their actions... all while violating another fragment mere passages away? They pick-and-choose what they want to believe and act upon while ignoring others because they don't really want to live according to their doctrine. They just want to live however they want to live and use pieces of doctrine to justify it.
Which is the very height of hypocrisy.
And it burns.
But suffering for other people's faith is an unavoidable consequence of humanity. And it doesn't take a prophet to see that this isn't going to change any time soon.
ZOMG! IT'S BULLET SUNDAY!
• Stars. I swear, if there is a single thing in this world you can count on outside of death and taxes, it's that any time Justin Timberlake hosts Saturday Night Live you're in for one hell of a show. The May 21st season finale was no exception. Not surprisingly, I haven't laughed this much at an SNL episode since the last time he hosted. What was surprising is that musical guest Lady Gaga made a couple very funny appearances throughout the show. I may not be the biggest fan of her music, but she killed it last night in the sketches. As if that weren't enough, we got another The Barry Gibb Talk Show installment too...
Your eyes do not deceive you... that's Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson
making cameos on the funniest SNL Digital Short since Dick in a Box!
Can I just say that I long for the day that the real Barry and Robin Gibb make an appearance on The Barry Gibb Talk Show? I think the universe would probably explode from so much awesomeness.
• Dogs. As I was spending my entire paycheck on a bag of groceries last week, I noticed that MorningStar Farms Veggie Corn Dogs were back. I used to love them, but they were recalled and discontinued a couple years back because of of a heinous contamination at the manufacturing facility. Apparently that's (hopefully) been all sorted out, because I've discovered a new magical formula...
Is there anything that Grey Poupon Mild & Creamy Mustard doesn't taste good on?
• Bears. One of the single coolest people on earth would have to be Bear Grylls. The guy has racked up so many amazing feats that he makes ordinary men look like hamsters by comparison. It all started when he was the youngest person to climb Mount Everest at age 23. Since then he's continued to make awesome expeditions, and even went on to become a best-selling author and (somewhat controversial) television star...
And yet, this morning as I was watching television, I heard something which puts all of Bear Gryll's astounding adventures to shame. His ultimate feat of coolness has to be naming his three kids Jesse, Marmaduke and Huckleberry...
"Holy shit, dude! My name is MARMADUKE!" (Photo by Rob Loud - Getty Images)
I don't know how to feel about Jesse. On one hand, he side-stepped a landmine by not being saddled with a name like Marmaduke or Huckleberry. On the other hand, he doesn't have a kick-ass moniker that guarantees him a reality TV show. Oh well. Goes to show that just when you think Bear Grylls can't possibly be cooler than he already is, something comes along to prove you wrong.
• Trains. Dear iOS developers... I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR GAMES, SO STOP MAKING AWESOME NEW APPS I WANT TO PLAY! Especially all these terrific new board game apps for iPad. As a board game addict, it is really cool to see great games like Neuroshima Hex and Carcassonne being released, but now Days of Wonder has gone and dropped the awesome Ticket to Ride game for a mere $6.99 (my board game version cost $25!)... and it is stellar. It's better than stellar. It actually improves on the original by making it easier and more straightforward to play. But they didn't stop there, they made it Game Center aware, so you can play against other people anywhere in the world...
The object of the game is to build railroads. You do this by drawing Destination Tickets which give you two cities to connect. You then play colored Train Cards to build your routes, with longer routes being worth bigger points. It's easy to learn, but the strategy is where the fun is. Do you complete your own route, or block your opponent from completing theirs? Do you risk drawing another Destination Card to increase your score, or do you play it safe because you're running low on train cars? The variations on play are endless but, just in case you get bored, you can add expansion sets with an in-game purchase.
This is the future of board games right here. You can play against your friends no matter where you are, or connect with other players online when you don't have somebody to play with! Granted, it can be tricky to get a Game Center game started up, but other than that it's a flawless app. About the only thing I miss is the socializing that happens when playing a "real" game in person (talking smack over chat isn't the same!), but that's a minor detail when you consider how hard it is to get people together to play in "Real Life." For iPad users, Ticket to Ride gets my highest possible recommendation!
• Trolls. This past week my blog was linked to by some kind of newsletter from a wacky organization seeking to "protect marriage." Since the post they linked to has me supporting marriage equality and calling equality opponents "weak," I suppose it was only a matter of time. I got around a dozen comments, all of which were deleted because they were nasty or didn't contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way. Apparently, their only argument against marriage equality was to bad-mouth me, which is not commenting. It's just name-calling. Somehow I am not surprised that this is all they have left, considering a recent Gallup poll now has the majority of Americans supporting gay marriage for the first time...
This has me envisioning a future where Americans look back at this point in time and think "What the fuck was that all about?" Which will be nice, because I can't for the life of me understand what the big deal is over a person's sexuality not restricting their rights. If somebody writes left-handed, you don't see right-handed people demanding lefties can't get married... so who gives a fuck about two consenting gay adults getting married?
A lot of very insecure people who are worried that they are going to be tempting into getting gay-married, apparently. Which brings me to something of sheer awesomeness tweeted to me by @Galaxyfighter (Not Safe for Work)...
And on that note, I suppose I should be getting back to work.
Tomorrow I leave for Chicago. And, despite having work piled so high that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull, I just spent the last 90 minutes playing Ticket to Ride. That game is SO addicting. Like crack cocaine. Or so I've heard. If I didn't already have an iPad, I'd probably end up buying one just to play this game.
I finally had to pull myself away from playing with trains so I could write in this blog.
Thanks a lot, blog.
In the interest of full-disclosure, however, I should tell you that I am not really concentrating on whatever it is I'm writing here. Most of my brain is still playing Ticket to Ride.
For example, when I typed the words "Tomorrow I leave for Chicago," I immediately started thinking of what route I would take to get to Chicago if I were playing the game. In case you're curious, it would probably look something like this...
Then I find myself compelled to count how many cities I haven't been to (Six: Winnepeg, Sault Ste. Marie, Duluth, Omaha, El Paso, and Helena). And note which are the most connected cities (Helena, Denver, and Pittsburgh). And worst connected (Vancouver, Las Vegas, and Boston). And calculate which route would be the most disastrous if your opponent blocked you (Seattle to Portland, which goes from one train car to fifteen).
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Like I said, my brain won't stop playing.
Maybe it will stop if I play just one more game?
Or ten.
As I was driving over the mountains to the airport, I got a call from Bad Robert asking if I was going to be around this weekend since he was planning on coming into town. "Nope, sorry, I'm off to Chicago today," I said. "Chicago?" Robert replied. "I hope you're not staying in any hotels while you're there!" Not able to figure out where he was going with this, I decided to just ask him. "Of course I'm staying at a hotel! Why shouldn't I stay in a hotel?" After an uncomfortably long pause, he said "Oh... nothin'... I just saw on the news where hotels are having all kinds of bed bug infestation problems."
So...
Any guesses as to what I've been thinking about as I type this from my hotel bed?
That's all I need... yet another excuse to not sleep.
I swear, I can FEEL the little bastards crawling all over me.
Help.
My day in pictures...
Yes. They are real. They are delicious.
"Hey Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!"
So shark extreme I just can't stand it.
Of all the times to be a vegetarian...
Just don't put it in the microwave.
BODDINGTONS!!! (oblique Friends reference).
Not my photo. Not my inappropriate dessert.
There's something profoundly sad about being in an amazing city like Chicago and having to be stuck indoors working all day long. Even though the weather outside was pretty crappy.
Though I did manage to escape for an hour so that I could have falafel for lunch at a place that Farnsworth recommended last night called BenjYehuda (which, as Mr. Shiny points out, is undoubtedly named after the famous Ben Yudea Street in Jerusalem). It was fantastic falafel to be sure... BUT, it was the greasy bag of super-crispy fries that made this a lunch to be reckoned with...
As I mentioned, the weather during my lunch hour was pretty crappy. Cold, windy, misty, and a little rainy all at the same time. This made for a miserable walk to the falafel shop from the L-stop, and an interesting conversation as I waited for the crosswalk signal to change...
STRANGER: Geez, man, where's your coat?
ME: Eh, I don't need a coat when I'm walking.
STRANGER: Well, you're stopped now! Are you crazy?
ME: Maybe. But what about that guy across the street? He's in a short-sleeve shirt.
STRANGER: Yeah, but he looks cold like he's supposed to. You don't. That's crazy.
No more crazy than any other pedestrian in Chicago, I'd argue.
Mostly because you have to be crazy to be a pedestrian in Chicago in the first place.
Yesterday on our way back from the candy show, the shuttle bus had to make a detour because a woman was laying in the middle of the street. Presumably because she had been hit by a car. I was not the least bit surprised after I was nearly killed while crossing the street five years ago... the drivers here can get pretty dangerous. I didn't see anything about it in the morning paper, so hopefully the woman was okay.
Anyway...
After work it was time for dinner at my favorite pizzaria in Chicago, PIZANO'S! They have a thin-and-crispy buttercrust pizza to die for. As usual, I ate too much, and am now a little bit miserable. Which is no fun when I've got another 4-5 hours of work to do.
Especially when I'd rather be going to the opening night premiere of The Hangover 2. Sure it looks like it's going to be more of the same, but The Hangover was one of my favorite comedies in a long time, so I'm okay with that.
Alas, back to work I go...
When you walk through downtown Chicago, there's yellow banners on the streetlights saying "GODO GOOD" along with giant banners on buildings... and I even saw a metal "GODO GOOD" sculpture in a sidewalk planter. It's all part of an urban art installation that's a collaboration between artist Kay Rosen, the Chicago Loop Alliance, and the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago...
What's a "Gohdoh?" OH... that's supposed to be GO DO!
An unfortunate font choice... all I see is GOOO GOOO!
As an art installation, I think it's kind of boring and obvious, but I do like the overall message behind it, which is encouraging Chicagoans to do 100,000 good deeds by summer (which you can read about at their website).
The only problem is that I'm a cynical bastard at heart. So every time I see all those banners, there's just one thought that goes through my head. How awesome would it be to hijack the installation to at least try to make things a little more interesting...
It's just as fun as it sounds!
This would at least make people feel good.
Meh. I just think this sounds funny.
It's what he does.
Our country's only hope, really.
It's 2:30am and my brain is mooshy... if you can think of a better hijack with your fresh brain, feel free to leave it in the comments...
I had plenty of work to get done today, but what fun is that? Especially when there are awesome people in Chicago who are willing to hang out with me on a Saturday.
So I finished up what work I could, then headed out to meet with @kapgar for big fun in the city. We started out by going to the Chicago Art Institute, home of an incredible variety of priceless works of art...
After bumming around the galleries for a couple hours, we headed our for lunch with @ChicagoLeah. The weather was a bit foggy, but at least it wasn't raining...
Lunch was, of course, at America's Dog... home of the delicious Chicago-Style Veggie Dog...
From there it was off to the LEGO Store to see what's new. As it turns out, there's all kinds of new stuff, including the awesome ALIEN CONQUEST series. The sets are all about capturing humans and doing all kinds of horrible stuff to them. Like eating their brains...
From there it was time to meet up with @HotCoffeeGirl, a long-time blogging friend I've never met in person... until today... so that was a lot of fun.
And now it's back to work for a little while as I kill time before going out to see a movie.
Not a bad day to be me, that's for sure.
It's Bullet Sunday from The Windy City!
• Forecasting. And when I say "windy" I actually mean "stormy with torrential rains." This afternoon there was thunder, lightning, black clouds, and a literal flood pouring from the sky. What's so odd is that the forecast for tomorrow is "mostly sunny" which is almost impossible to believe. But, then again, looking at the extended forecast, impossible weather seems to be a continuing event here over the next week...
Make up your mind, Chicago!
• Thor. Back in the 1980's I was mostly reading DC Comics, with only occasional dalliances with Marvel Comics' stable of characters. All that changed when I got hooked on Walter Simon's absolutely brilliant work on Mighty Thor. His critically acclaimed run on the book was the stuff of legends, and I instantly became a massive fan of the epic stories he was telling there. Eventually Simonson left the book and my interest in the series waned, but I never lost my love of Thor as a character...
Fast-forward to earlier this month, and Marvel has released a massive tome which collects Walter Simon's work and called it the Thor Omnibus. It runs 1200 pages and is almost too big to hold comfortably (it should have been a 2-volume set!). The interior is absolutely stellar, having been completely recolored. They also added 50 pages of bonus material including drawings from Simonson's sketchbook...
If you are a Thor fan, this is essential. If you are not a Thor fan, this book will make you one. Highest possible recommendation.
• Thorified. Which brings us to the brand new Kenneth Branagh-helmed film Thor, a faithful and wholly amazing adaptation of the comic book series. It is a massive, brilliant, totally EPIC film that I simply didn't want to end. Everything from the acting to the special effects to the design to the story was near-flawless...
If I have one complaint, it's that the story seems oddly rushed. What should have taken months to unfold seems to happen in mere days, providing an unrealistic edge to the character development. I don't care who you are, you don't completely change your entire outlook on life in two days, and yet that's exactly what we're given.
Anyway... the movie tells the story of an ancient race of Norse gods who live in Asgard, one of the "Nine Realms" of our universe. One of these gods is Thor, a vain and arrogant warrior who is due to succeed his father Odin as king. But all this changes when Thor makes a big mistake and ends up being banished from Asgard to "Midgard" which we know as earth. Love, loss, and adventure ensue.
I gotta hand it to Marvel Comics here. First Iron Man came along and blew me away. Now Thor. Next up is Captain America, which looks even more amazing. And then there's X-Men: First Class which looks like it's going to kick all kinds of ass and finally make up for the totally shitty X-Men films that came before. All this will culminate with The Avengers in 2012 which has the potential to redefine the word "epic"... especially with Joss Whedon behind it. All in all, this is a great time to be a comic book fan.
• Bridesmaids. Even with all the critical acclaim and internet love, I was still wary of going to see Bridesmaids. Too many times the things other people think of as being "funny" I just think of as being "stupid" and a big waste of time. And then along comes Kristen Wiig's answer to The Hangover. And it's actually funny. And more than a little touching. But mostly entertaining...
Wiig plays Annie whose best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting married and wants her to be her maid of honor. Hilarity ensues. And while there are moments where it felt like an SNL skit that goes on way too long had been shoehorned into the plot, overall I really enjoyed the story. Probably because it went for "funny-smart" instead of "funny-stupid." Add to that a really good cast, and you've got a movie actually worth your valuable time.
Assuming you're an adult who can appreciate an R-rated movie with occasional lapses into gross-out humor.
• Pasta. I seem to be going through a ravioli renaissance. I stopped eating the stuff (despite it being one of the things on an Italian menu I could eat) because it always ended up being gummy and squidgy. The last Wednesday I had some of the best cheese ravioli in my life at Piccolo Sogno... followed by an amazing dish of butternut squash ravioli tonight at Prasino. Apparently the greater Chicagoland area knows how to make the stuff. Which is little help as I head back home where nobody seem to know how to make it very well at all.
And speaking of home... I suppose it's time to finish up my work, pack my bags, check in for my flight, and post this blog entry so I can fly out tomorrow. Hopefully in better weather than today.
As I cruised through my blog archives looking at what I've written on past Memorial Days, one thing leaps out at me right away... I spent the past two Memorial Days being really pissed off...
MEMORIAL DAY 2010: I wrote about ignorant assholes politicizing our fallen heroes to attack President Obama with blatant lies. Rereading my rant, I think I probably went overboard just a bit.
MEMORIAL DAY 2009: I wrote a scathing rant against dumbfuck Baltimore Sun contributor Paul Marx for his disgusting take on POW-MIA activists (such as myself). Looking back, I think I probably wasn't harsh enough. My blood still boils over a newspaper publishing such horrendously ignorant trash on Memorial Day.
This Memorial Day, I'm not pissed off at all, which is a nice change of pace.
Instead I'm grateful. Incredibly grateful for those who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms we have. Grateful for those who once put their country above themselves by serving in our armed forces. Grateful to those who are even now risking their lives and serving to protect so many precious things we seem to take for granted.
And though this momentary lack of rage will most certainly wear off... my gratitude will never waiver.
The flight from Chicago last night was relatively uneventful. My connecting flight out of Minneapolis had some kind of seat-map fiasco that caused a bunch of drama, but I was oblivious to it all because I was focused on playing Ticket to Ride and listening to Foster the People's new album, Torches.
The drive home over the mountains this morning, however, was a drama-fest of epic proportions. There was driving rain, road construction, car accidents, traffic jams, and never-ending dumbassery that lasted three hours and fifteen minutes. A full hour longer than usual.
Now that it's all over, I just want to sleep.
And ride a unicorn.
When the person accusing someone of inappropriate behavior has a history of being wrong (and is a total douchebag), why do people continue to listen to them?
Perhaps because the evening news has to compete with Jersey Shore, so propagating lies, fabrications, exaggerations, and bullshit is considered "journalism" now-a-days. I honestly don't know.
What I do know is that Bad Monkey's favorite feature of the iPhone 4 is its front-facing camera. This makes it easier than ever to get your junk perfectly centered within the frame...
Adding a 3-D camera to mobile phones seems like a natural.
I fear the future.
Sometimes when the sheer vastness of my greatness overwhelms me, I like to stop for a minute and get grounded. I look past all the amazing things that make me "me" and take notice of those little things that make me feel less "me."
Which would be a humbling and amazing experience if I could actually think of anything like that. But I can't, because I am overflowing with awesomeness right now. Not much can bring you down when you're high on being me.
Which is not to say that people haven't been trying...
But whatever...
Maybe tomorrow the assholes, dumbfucks, trolls, losers, morons, and haters will take me down a notch...
...but not today.
"Well, technically she was correct..."
"Technically, you're an idiot."
If there's one universal truth you can count on, it's that anything... no matter how outrageously stupid... can be spun. Anything.
It's a Saturday night...
It's a Bullet Sunday alright...
• Stevenote Tomorrow is the kickoff of Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. But it's not just developers who get excited, because this is when Apple customarily unveils new and cool stuff. And since nobody know what new and cool stuff there might be, Apple Whores such as myself tend to get a little bit excited. Will there be a new iPhone? What's this "iCloud" all about? Will the latest Mac OS (codename "Lion") be released? Will we finally get iToast?
Only Steve Jobs knows for sure. The rest of us have to wait until tomorrow. I'm counting on it being fabulous.
• Nutritional Redux. It would seen that the US government is going to take yet another stab at promoting healthy eating. Since their previous "pyramid" attempts were stupid as shit, I had high hopes that they'd get it right this time...
And while I'd argue they didn't "get it right this time," I can say it's an improvement...
The previous schemes wanted you to eat tons of breads and grains. The new scheme wants for at least 50% of your diet to be fruits and vegetables. That's very smart. What's less smart is saying that fruits and vegetables are exclusive of protein content, which appears to be discouraging a vegetarian diet. The dairy being on an optional saucer is nice... but I dunno. a part of me is wondering how much of this "new and improved" meal plan is geared towards supporting American farmers over promoting good nutrition. Of course, it's fairly obvious that a growing number of people are ignoring nutritional advice of any kind, so I guess this is all kind of a moot point. In any event, speaking design-wise, it sure looks better... and is a lot easier to understand. I guess that's something.
• Scarry! One of my favorite series of books when I was a kid came from Richard Scarry. In celebration of what would have been his 92nd birthday, Google was nice enough to use his "Busytown" characters for their search page today...
Very cool! What would have been even more awesome would have been if you could zoom in and search for "Goldbug"... which was kind of a "Where's Waldo" search that Scarry worked into his storybooks.
• Who? I had exactly two guesses as to who the mysterious "River Song" might end up being on Dr. Who... one of my theories was right...
A part of me is very unhappy about that, because it would have been a lot more fun if they had come up with something totally out of left-field that I wasn't expecting. Oh well, the show is great fun, as usual.
Annnnd... that brings this episode of Bullet Sunday to a close. Now I get to spend the next several hours preparing for one of my busiest work-weeks of the year. Yay.
Well smack my ass and call me Sally... it's Bullet MONDAY?!? Given all the crazy crap that's gone on since yesterday, I guess it's going to have to be!
• STEEEEEEVE! I don't know what it is about a Steve Jobs keynote event that brings out my maternal instincts, but every time I see one I end up thinking about how much I'd like to have Steve Jobs' baby. Today's spiffy keynote from Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference was no exception. So much cool stuff in the pipeline for all my Apple Whore toys... including Mac OS X Lion... iOS 5... and the all-new iCloud service...
I could spend the next half-hour writing about the many new features which had me soiling myself with happiness, but that's a full-load in my pants that nobody wants to hear about. Might be better if everybody just watched the Stevenote for themselves and decide which features are worth freaking over.
• WEEEEEEINER! And so Representative Anthony Weiner now admits he's a freaky-ass pervert who likes to send shirtless photos and pictures of his schlong to young ladies. A few thoughts...
If I was in this good of shape, I'd send photos like this to everybody I know. Everybody.
So... to sum up... whatever. Color me disappointed, but not surprised. These asshole politicians don't seem to know how to act any other way. About the only positive thing I can say is that at least he wasn't a total hypocrite here. It's not like he railed against homosexuals and was then caught trying to hook up for gay sex in a bathroom somewhere. In any event... way to stay classy, Representative Weiner.
• LEEEEEE! In much sadder news... Lee J. Ames has died. You may not know who he was, but I assure you that you've undoubtedly seen the result of his efforts. In fact, since you are looking at this blog, I can guarantee it! Mr. Ames is famous for his art instruction books, of which I am a massively huge fan...
He has an uncanny knack of being able to effortlessly break down objects to base elements, and his "Draw 50" series of books taught me to see things this same way. Lil' Dave... Bad Monkey... and most everything I've ever drawn here... it's all using techniques I first learned from studying Lee J. Ames. As with all things which are done well, his books still hold up even today. If you know a kid who is interested in learning how to draw, you could do a lot worse than to track down these wonderful publications at your local library or art store. Rest in peace, Lee... and thank you.
• BULL SHEEEEEET! So much for the separation of Church and State. Such fucking bullshit.
• SLAAAAAAAAYER! It's the International Day of Slayer today!
♫ The root of all evil is the heart of a black soul... a force that has lived all eternity! ♫ A never ending search for a truth never told... the loss of all hope and your dignity! ♫
Annnnd... now I have to spend a couple of hours preparing for another long, hard day of work in the morning.
I'd add a long, hard photo here to drive that point home, but I think we've all seen enough wieners for a while.
Last night while wandering around downtown Seattle so I could find something for dinner, a nice young lady outside of Pacific Place was gathering signatures in support of Planned Parenthood. With a smile on her face she would politely ask passing people if they supported Planned Parenthood so she could get them to sign. Most people were ignoring her.
Except the man walking ahead of me who decided to be a total dick and scream "NO!" at her so loudly that she was startled.
Naturally I decided to be a bigger dick and scream "YES!" at the back of his head, followed by "YEAH, PLANNED PARENTHOOD... YEAAAAAAHHHHH!!" And to totally drive my point home, I was fist-pumping and waving my arms while continuing to scream YEAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
Because, seriously, what is it with people?
Did he really have to be such a total asshole to scream at the girl? Couldn't he just have said a polite "no thanks" or even ignored her?
Apparently not.
The polarizing politics of this country have created such overwhelming hatred in our daily lives that just walking down the street can be both horrifying and depressing. People aren't even pretending to be respectful, kind, and decent to each other anymore. Even the smallest disagreement seems to be grounds for all-out assault.
I try not to care, but I'm so damn tired of being caught in the crossfire.
Work managed to crush me today, so I decided to step away for a while and recharge. The plan was to go back to my hotel room and read a book, but I knew if I did that I'd just end up checking email and getting sucked back into work all over again.
So I decided to go to a movie.
And despite my raging hatred of the first three crappy X-Men movies, I went and saw X-Men: First Class.
I thought that the "first class" in the title was referring to the first class of students in "Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters" from the comics... but it would seem it's actually referring to the movie itself. Because this film was one classy affair from start to finish.
I loved it.
From the retro 60's styling and amazing cast to the cohesive story and terrific special effects... this movie has it all...
The plot revolves around the formation of the mutant super-hero group, The X-Men, and the initial friendship of Charles Xavier and Erik Leshner, who would eventually become deadliest of enemies as Professor X and Magneto. The story begins with Xavier working with the US government to help mutants help humans so they can be better accepted by humanity. Along the way he meets Leshner, who is tracking down the Nazis responsible for the death of his mother in a Polish concentration camp. This eventually leads to a confrontation with The Hellfire Club, who is attempting to kick-start World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis and rule the earth.
Awesomeness ensues.
What made the previous three X-Men films fail so stupendously, was that there was ZERO attempt to make any of the characters kick the copious amounts of ass that the X-Men are known to do in the comics. They were just pathetic dumbasses who wandered around in lame stories and not really doing much of anything.
In the original X-Men, there are minor scuffles between the team and Magneto's henchmen, but the only real "fight" the X-Men get into is fighting army men. Lame. In the sequel, X2: X-Men United, the filmmakers make a half-assed attempt to start up the "Dark Phoenix Saga," but failed on every possible level. Even worse, the only real "fight" the X-Men get into this time is with water. Yes, fucking water! Super-lame. After watching the previews, I thought that finally things were heading in the right direction with X-Men 3: The Last Stand. They hinted that there would be an all-out battle between mutants, which would have kicked all kinds of ass... if it would have actually happened. Instead they pussed out again and gave us a watered-down fight with mutants mostly just running around. Not only did we get no fights worth watching, but there wasn't a decent story either. Hella-lame.
X-Men: First Class isn't overwhelmed with the mutant-on-mutant special effects battles I was hoping for, but it does do something we've never seen before in an X-Men film... have compelling characters and a good story. And when it comes to ass-kicking, Michael Fassbender's brilliant portrayal of Magneto delivers the goods. I can only hope that if (when we get a First Class sequel that they continue with the brilliant set-up in this film and add tons of cool action sequences that will finally depict the X-Men the way we see them in the comics.
That would be a movie worth waiting for.
In the meanwhile, there are a lot of potentially awesome comic book films in the pipe, so it's a really good time to be a fanboy right now.
After I got out of the movies last night I was wanting ice cream, but it was really late and so I decided to ignore my craving for the vile stuff and dream about it instead.
This morning when I woke up my ice cream obsession still there, so I decided to drop by a mini-mart on the way to the studio. I ended up buying a Chocolate-Almond Magnum Ice Cream Bar and a bag of "Original" Taco-Flavored Doritos for breakfast. When I got to work, I tore into them so fast that I think I broke the sound barrier...
So there I was eating ice cream and Doritos when I look up and see that a little boy waiting for the school bus is looking at me through the window and screaming "HE'S EATING ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST!!"
Soon a bunch of kids were pressed against the window pointing and staring at me as I sat there with Dorito-breath and ice cream smeared on my face. Not really wanting to be children's entertainment so early in the morning, I waved goodbye then retreated to the back of the studio so I could eat in peace.
As I was sucking the last remaining bits of chocolate off the ice cream stick and dumping the Dorito crumbs in my mouth, I was starting to feel guilty for being such a bad influence on kids... until I remembered that they were going to public school where they would undoubtedly be snorting cocaine off the bathroom toilet seats, looking at porn in the computer lab, and getting wasted off cheap liquor on the bus-ride home. I'm guessing at least one of the kids was having an affair with his teacher or had gotten a fellow classmate pregnant. All of them had probably been to rehab, and half likely had a police record.
Sure they looked eight years old, but the little bugger grow up so fast now-a-days.
Ah the innocence of youth.
After my breakfast fiasco yesterday, I decided to set a good example and have a bowl of fruit with a croissant this morning. The kids outside waiting for their school bus were not nearly as impressed and mostly ignored me. Which is probably for the best, though I have to admit that I was tempted to build a massive ice cream sundae topped with candy bars and gummy bears for breakfast just because I could.
But anyway...
The last day of a project is always the longest. And since I'm mentally and physically exhausted, it's also the toughest. I spent most of the time at work wishing I could curl up in the corner and go to sleep but, from a job standpoint, that probably wasn't the best use of my time. Instead I worked my guts out and just waited for it all to end.
Which it did.
Eventually.
But then I had to suffer through Seattle's horrendous traffic, which is like somebody kicking you in the balls after you've just been kicked in the balls.
No amount of ice cream can fix that.
Though I suppose ice cream spread on your crotch would make you feel better after an actual kick in the balls?
The healing power of ice cream is undeniable.
Home at last for another edition of Bullet Sunday!
• Debatable. I won't know for certain until I tune into the debate tomorrow night, but I'm pretty sure I'll be longing for the good ol' days when it was George W. Bush running on the Republican presidential ticket. ...
The candidates that the Republicans are trotting out for 2012 quite literally scare the shit out of me. It's so bad that I have no need for laxatives. If I'm constipated, I just envision a future where Michele Bachmann is President of the United States of America and run for the toilet. Which means I should probably be picking up some adult diapers after work, since I don't have a television in my bathroom.
• Roadshow. This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the Hard Rock Cafe. To celebrate, they've been traveling around the USA with a collection of memorabilia honoring rock history. This past Thursday, I was lucky enough to be in Seattle when they stopped by...
It was a lot of fun... and FREE! If you're on one of the city-stops, I highly recommend checking it out (a list of dates is here).
• Crap. When I got home today, one of the first things I did was watch the South Park mid-season finale that was waiting on my DVR. It was shockingly meta. Instead of being a brilliant commentary on some current event, it ended up being brilliant commentary on South Park itself. And it scares me because it looks very much like they're setting up the show to end. And now that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the toast of Broadway with the nine Tony Award wins for their play, The Book of Mormon, I guess it's understandable. They've been doing South Park for 15 years, and maybe they feel it's time for something new...
Even so, I will miss South Park when its gone. It's a consistent voice in satire that never fails to entertain. As a fan, I don't think its run its course yet, but maybe that's a good thing.
• Reboot. I reserved comment on DC Comics massive "reboot" of their entire universe until all 52 titles had been announced. Now that they have, and everything DC is being reset to issue #1, all I can say is huh?
I mean, there are some things I'm excited about... Jim Lee penciling a monthly title again (Justice League) for one. There are some things I'm curious about... like the two new Legion of Super-Hero books. Other things have me intrigued... like a drastically different take on Supergirl. Still other things have me puzzled... like Barbara Gordon's return to being Batgirl. And a few things have me ambivalent... like Superman's drastically altered uniform (both of them)...
I'll give it a look... but all I can really do is wonder how long the reboot will last before there's another reboot.
And now it's time for me to reboot. It's going to be a long week.
And so tonight was the big Republican Presidential Debate.
For the most part, I thought it sucked ass. The whole format was stupid and I didn't feel I learned much of anything new. We needed fewer questions with longer, more in-depth answers so an actual debate of ideas can take place. As it were, there simply wasn't a lot I could take away from it. Except that Newt likes American Idol and Herman prefers deep-dish pizza. Or whatever.
Anyway, here's my take on the contenders...
In summary... I'm not seeing it. With the exception of some glimmers of presidential material from Romney (possibly Pawlenty)... and some ridiculous saber-rattling from Bachmann (OBAMA IS A ONE-TERM PRESIDENT!) there was nothing to get excited about.
Yet.
It's still very early.
And anything can happen.
ANYTHING...
If nothing else, it will be an entertaining ride.
Today is the fortieth anniversary of the Hard Rock Cafe.
On June 14th, 1971 in London, England, Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton opened up a cafe serving American food with a rock-n-roll sensibility. One day Hard Rock fan Eric Clapton gave Tigrett a guitar. When Tigrett told him that he didn't play guitar, Clapton said he should hang it on the wall. When Pete Townsend found out about it, he wanted his guitar hanging on the wall too. Thus began the tradition of adorning Hard Rocks with rock-n-roll memorabilia, turning them into mini museums with some of the most astounding rock artifacts on the planet.
With the sole exception of Apple (and possibly Sony), I can't think of a company which has had more of an effect on my life than the Hard Rock Cafe. Since 1990 I've been to 137 properties around the world. Many of those places I would have never visited if not for the Hard Rock Cafe. In addition to encouraging me to see the world, it was the Hard Rock which first got me to share my life online. It was also the Hard Rock which is responsible for Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey coming into being...
As if that weren't enough, I've met dozens of fellow Hard Rock fans from around the globe who have become my friends.
To say I owe a lot to the Hard Rock Cafe is a bit of an understatement. I quite honestly don't know what my life would be like today without the place.
Undoubtedly it would be a lot less interesting.
So happiest of anniversaries and many thanks to the Hard Rock Cafe!
For people like me who believe that everything happens for a reason, life can be a bit puzzling from time to time. Especially when something bad happens. A part of you is going "Well this sucks! But it apparently needed to happen, so here we are." While another part of you is going "What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this shit?"
Today I was saying "What the fuck?" quite a lot.
Which is to say that I understand that everything happens for a reason, I just refuse to accept it (albeit temporarily).
Hoping for a better day tomorrow.
So the reviews are in and Green Lantern sucks. Crap. I was really looking forward to it.
Almost as much as I'm not looking forward to buying new headphones to replace my recently trashed pair of earbuds.
Which brings us to the top three things I most hate to buy...
So I guess my nightmare scenario would be having to prepare for a night of protected sex in the back seat of my new car while listening to music in my new headphones.
But how often does that happen?
Not nearly often enough.
* Hey, it could be true**... according to Debbie Downer, feline AIDS is the number one killer of domestic cats!
** Except for the fact that I don't have a cat.
One thing I've been noticing lately is a lot of cars being pulled over by the police. In an age of labor cuts and dwindling budgets, it seems like even the cops are having to justify their jobs and increase revenue. This means a lot of tickets are probably being issued where they once were not. Because of this, I've been driving a lot more conservatively over the past year or so... but not everybody has gotten the message. When I was driving over to Seattle last week, I was twice passed by cars going way over the speed limit, only to catch up with them down the road after they had been pulled over.
Today it happened again. The police are not playing around. At least not in Washington State.
A part of me is happy about this, because there are people on the road who are downright dangerous and should be pulled over. But another part of me is concerned at the thought that the police may be going too far. If people are being pulled over for going 65 in a 60, for example, I don't consider this to be ticket-worthy. Even a temporary passing speed of 70 in a 60 should not be a ticketable offense if somebody is passing safely. Hopefully, things are not getting out of hand, because there's a fine line between "To serve and protect" and "To humiliate and harass."
Personally, I'd rather pay more taxes to the police so that they don't have ticket quotas and can focus on public safety and dangerous drivers... like the assholes who are slow-driving in the passing lane AND AREN'T PASSING ANYBODY! It may cost us more money, but at least it's not affecting our insurance rates, so we're saving in the long-run.
In the meanwhile... watch your speed, citizens!
Oh... for those of you who were asking which headphones I ended up with after my rant yesterday...
Blogography's Bose AE2 Audio Headphones Review
Bose is one of those companies that usually gets massacred at review sites because most everybody seems to think they are overpriced and have poor sound. This is kind of surprising because every time I've stopped at a Bose kiosk and given them a listen, I've been relatively impressed. No, they're not going to win in a contest against $1500 studio reference cans (obviously) but, for the most part, I think they're worth the money they charge.
I have four sets of earbuds, with my favorite being the Klipsch S4i. The problem is that earbuds become uncomfortable for me after a while, and I was wanting something that went over my ears like a traditional headset. Unfortunately, the three pairs I tried at the mid-low-end (JVC, Sony, and Skullcandy... each $50 or less) were not at all comfortable. It finally got to the point that I didn't even care about the sound, all I wanted was something that didn't squeeze my brain or dent the top of my head. A Google search for "most comfortable headphones" eventually led me to Bose. Target had a listening station and AE2's in stock for $20 off ($130 total). They were about $60 more than I wanted to spend, but oh well.
My thoughts on my new cans can be found in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Oh look... it's I Don't Give a Fuck Day!
Which is kind of uneventful, because every day is "I Don't Give a Fuck Day" to me.
So Vancouver made a good play for the Stanley Cup, but ultimately lost to the Bruins.
This, of course, was reason to riot in the streets... demolishing everything in sight and setting everything else on fire. In other words, to be complete and total dumbasses trashing their beautiful city. It's kind of difficult not to give a fuck about that, because I love Vancouver.
Anyway... by now the entire world has seen the striking photo of two people kissing in the middle of the Vancouver riots. When it was first released, the general consensus seemed to be that these two crazy kids got horny by all the violence and destruction then decided to drop in the middle of the street and make out...
Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images
Personally, I was thinking "Now there's a guy who has his priorities straight!" The world is going to hell around him in a maelstrom of stupidity, and he decided there was a better use of his time than smashing a window or smacking a police officer!
Eventually the couple was tracked down and told their story. Turns out they weren't making out in the middle of a riot. They said that the police overran them, beating them down to the ground with riot shields. The girl was hurt and understandably freaked out, so the guy laid down next to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek... assumably to calm and comfort her. If you can get the image of a total player out of your head, it's actually kind of sweet.
The internet, skeptics all, decided they were horny liars. Some were saying the entire thing was staged. But eventually the CBC released footage that showed they were telling the truth. the police actually did beat them down and overrun them on the street...
Naturally, this is the internet we're talking about, so people started Photoshopping the kissing couple in all kinds of outlandish situations. I decided to take another approach. Since the riots were so fucking stupid, I decided to Photoshop them in other incredibly stupid situations...
Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images
Photo by CNN Images
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to not giving a fuck.
It's a busy busy Bullet Sunday!
If I were smart, I'd blow off blogging today so I could get caught up with work. Oh well. Blogging is a tough habit to break. Even when it's bad for you. Especially when it's bad for you.
• Holiday. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Including mine...
• Cheesy. I think it aught to be a law that companies who make low-fat and fat-free cheese products should be REQUIRED UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH to label their products with giant warning labels like they put on cigarettes...
I am tired of accidentally buying the wrong cheese at the store because I'm in a hurry and don't notice the beautifully-integrated low-fat declaration. If there were an offensively large warning label requirement, I'd be less likely to mistakenly purchase this crap.
• Batmobile. Batman is my favorite comic book hero. By far. He doesn't have any super powers, so the stakes are always higher for him than say.... Superman. How Batman compensates for being merely human is those wonderful toys he uses to fight crime. The most famous of which would have to be the Batmobile. As Batman's vehicle of choice, it's taken a lot of different forms over the years. Some good. Some bad. Some meh. Kind of like the latest Batmobile designed by Gordon Murray(!) for the new Batman Live touring show. In the right light, it's kind of sexy...
But in the wrong light... such as, say... DAYLIGHT... it looks kind of boring and lame...
Still, it is a step above the massive tank-like "Batmobile Tumbler" from the current Batman films, I guess. I mostly didn't care for the theatrical and goofy nature of the Tim Burton movies, but I think he had the best Batmobile on the big screen so far.
• Flush. I am sick of all these commercials touting "Flash" as an awesome "feature" on the Android Tablets. Flash sucks. It's battery-draining, crash-happy, annoying bullshit and I hate it. Apple choosing to dump the buggy shit from its iPhone, iPod, and iPad was one of the best things to happen to the internet, because it's forcing web developers to stop using Flash and turn to modern HTML 5 elements instead. I am reminded of just how smart Apple is every time I visit a Flash site on my MacBook and it either crashes or sucks my battery dry.
My favorite thing to do is fill out crash reports whenever Flash crashes (which is a lot)...
Not that it's any news to Apple... hell, they're trying their best to kill Flash. But I'm easily frustrated and a total smartass.
• Cloudy. Speaking of Apple competitor suckage... why is buying music from Amazon such a frikin' joke? It's an awful, awful experience. It's so mind-boggling horrible that I'd rather pay $1.29 for a song from Apple than to suffer through buying the same song for 69¢ from Amazon. And now that they force you to go through their "Cloud Drive" for everything, a bad situation is even worse. Partly because their "Cloud Drive Player" is shit and stutters and stalls every time I try to listen to a song. But mostly because you can't just download your music when you want. You still have to use Amazon's unbelievably crappy downloader utility, which is just fucking stupid. Apple's iCloud service won't be ready until July (Mac) and September (iOS), but it's bound to be worth waiting for given Amazon's terrible solution. Guess I'm in no danger of turning in my Certified Apple Whore credentials any time soon.
And now I think I'll eat cookies and watch episodes of The West Wing. After all these years, it remains some of the best television ever aired.
Now that groceries are so obscenely expensive, I'm far less confident and creative in the kitchen. I follow recipes exactly as they're written because I'm too worried about something turning out bad and having to throw it out. I just can't afford that kind of waste when a sack of food costs $50.
So when I got a hankerin' for potato salad this past weekend I needed to find a recipe because I've never made it before. After a recommendation and research, I settled on "Myron Mixon's Killer Potato Salad." Apparently the guy is a famous chef and his potato salad is award-winning and stuff.
Anyway, as I was following the recipe to the letter, a number of questions popped up.
Like... the recipe says to boil the potatoes whole, then cut them up after cooking. This sounded silly to me. Potatoes are oddly-sized and cook unevenly. Wouldn't it be better to cut them into uniform pieces BEFORE boiling so they all cook at the same speed? But I didn't want to goof up so I did as the recipe instructed. The bigger ones ended up a bit tough in the center and the little ones were a bit mooshy, but whatever.
Like... the recipe says to add a tablespoon of salt to the dressing. This seemed excessive for two cups' worth of dressing. But, I didn't want to question an expert on how to season potato salad, so I did as the recipe instructed. My expensive potato salad ended up tasting like a salt lick, but whatever.
I spent a lot of money on the ingredients ($6.79 for a tiny bottle of dill alone!) so I didn't want to throw it out. But eating it was out of the question because my lips were burning from all the salt. My solution was to make another batch of salt-free potato salad and mix the two batches. But this time I cut the potatoes before boiling. And I seasoned to taste instead of by measure. Now it tastes great!
And now I've got a shit-load of potato salad in the refrigerator. I'm going to be eating the stuff every day for a month. And yet, I'm okay with that because I didn't have to throw anything in the garbage...
I guess sometimes when the ingredients are expensive, it pays to question the recipe.
I guess sometimes when the stakes are high, it pays to break the rules.
I guess sometimes when the situation is bad, you have to start over.
I guess sometimes I need to be reminded of that.
Yesterday evening I managed to find some falafel at Costco, so I needed to drop by Safeway and get some pita bread. For whatever reason, Costco doesn't carry pita bread, which is probably for the best since I didn't need 150 pieces of the stuff.
So there I am walking to the bread section when some asshole comes whipping around the corner pushing a shopping cart without looking. I literally had to jump out of the way to avoid getting nailed. Of course I didn't get an apology... I barely got an acknowledgment... but whatever. That's modern society for you.
After finding the pita bread, I headed to the check-out counter where the guy ahead of me was unloading his shopping. The last item he put on the belt was a sack of limes...
CLERK: How many limes you got here? Do you know?
DUDE: Six. There's six.
CLERK: (holding up a big bag of limes) This looks like a lot more than six.
DUDE: THERE'S SIX!
CLERK: (counting out limes) No... there's thirteen!
DUDE: Yes, that's what I said... thirteen!
Uh huh.
Now, in his defense, he might not have been a dumbass scammer... he could have very well been incapable of counting to thirteen and was embarrassed about it. But, whatever the case, it was a little bit awkward for me to be standing there watching it all go down. Then it was my turn, and here's what actually happened...
CLERK: Is this everything for you?
DAVE 2: Yes, ma'am, thanks.
CLERK: That'll be $2.99. Do you want to make a donation to fight prostate cancer?
But this is what happened in my head...
CLERK: Is this everything for you?
DAVE 2: Well, that and the twelve other packages of pita bread I've got shoved down my pants.
CLERK: (chuckles) Ooh... sorry, but I can't give you Safeway Club Card Points for that!
DAVE 2: Not even if I whip it out?
CLERK: Depends on whether I get dinner first.
DAVE 2: You just made yourself a date!
CLERK: (swoons) I get off at 7:00.
And this is what probably would have happened had I actually pulled a stunt like that...
CLERK: Is this everything for you?
DAVE 2: Well, that and the twelve other packages of pita bread I've got shoved down my pants.
CLERK: Security... SECURITY!!!!
Because life isn't like the letter columns in Penthouse Forum, much as we might all wish otherwise...
"He's got a huge erection."
"Sure. Great. Wait a second... what?!?"
"He's got a huge selection."
"Ah, that makes more sense. I thought you said 'erection' there."
"I did say 'erection.' You didn't sound like you were paying attention."
Getting a call from Bad Robert during daylight hours means one of two things... 1) He's farted and/or taken a crap and/or done something so outrageous that he's dying to tell somebody about it... or 2) He needs me to do him a favor of some kind. Usually it's the former but yesterday (thankfully) he needed a favor. Since he's helped me out lots of time, I'm happy to do him a solid when I can.
Turns out his internet was down and he needed help looking up some car parts for a restoration job he and his friend were working on. The problem was that every time I'd read off the info they wanted, they'd take five minutes to discuss it before telling me the next part to look up. Since I was completely buried, I would try and get some work done while they jabbered away. Inevitably I'd miss out on some critical part of the conversation, so Robert decided to toss an erection into the equation to teach me a lesson...
A lesson about what I have no idea.
The battle for marriage equality in New York has the attention of the entire nation on both sides of the spectrum. If it passes, this will be a major step in ending the institutionalized bigotry against committed gay and lesbian couples wanting the same right to marry that everybody else has. Or the end of the world, depending on your views.
A week ago while trying to figure out a way to lend my support to such a worthy and important cause, it occurred to me that Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey were "born" and "raised" in New York. They're New Yorkers! This led to a DaveToon modeled on the "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality" campaign...
But after I finished, I decided not to publish it out of fear that it might give the appearance of mocking something I care deeply about. The fact that my gay friends are seen as lesser people in the eyes of the law and their rights are up for debate is disgusting to me. I simply cannot fathom how this is even an issue in 2011. Even more disgusting is how the people most opposed to "big government" interfering in our lives are the same people pushing to have laws which strip tax-paying citizens of their rights. I guess "big government" is perfectly okay if it's persecuting people you don't like. This is the very definition of hypocrisy. It is anti-American. It has no business being a part of a country founded on the principle of freedom. It is just wrong. If you don't believe in gay marriage then don't marry somebody of the same sex... that's your decision. But you have no right to make that decision for everybody else in the United States of America. End of story.
So as the New York Senate reconvenes today to debate whether homosexuality is grounds to relegate somebody to being a second class citizen, I remembered the cartoon and changed my mind. People can look at it however they want, but it sums up my feelings on the matter completely: Government has no fucking business telling consenting adults who they can love and marry. And it's no less true if it's coming from a cartoon.
I apologize for those who feel offended. I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is, the same rights that I have with my wife."
—Senator Mark J. Grisanti, New York State District 60 (Republican)
And so, on a weekend where many cities are already celebrating for Pride, New York goes and legalizes marriage equality! Congratulations to all those who fought so hard to make it happen... may this be the first of many victories for freedom and diversity across the nation!
As happy as I am to see the tide of bigotry and hatred turning at long last, a part of me is heartbroken that there are so many who didn't survive to see this moment. Too many kids whose only crime was existing in a world where being different is cause to be persecuted...
Though it has sadly come too late, this win is as much theirs as it is anybody's.
And now, the future...
Sunday is the word, Sunday is the word, is the word that you heard. It's got bullets it's got meaning. Sunday is the time, is the place is the motion. Sunday is the way we are feeling...
• Pudding. A couple of people on Twitter were nice enough to let me know that today is NATIONAL CHOCOLATE PUDDING DAY! Not that I really need a reason to celebrate. For me, EVERY DAY IS NATIONAL CHOCOLATE PUDDING DAY! It has been for as long as I can remember...
And doesn't look to be changing any time soon...
Even Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey love chocolate pudding...
But really, who doesn't? Here's wishing you chocolate pudding dreams on National Chocolate Pudding Day!
• Columbo. As a huge, huge, massively huge, mega-fan of television's Columbo, I was very sad to learn that its star, Peter Falk, had died. For anybody who hasn't seen it, Columbo was a murder mystery show with a twist. The twist being that the audience knows exactly who the murderer is and how they did it. The fun was watching Lt. Columbo putting the pieces together. It was formula, but it worked. And the reason it worked was because Lt. Columbo in his rumpled trench coat and simplistic manner was never taken seriously by anybody... even though he was always the smartest person in the room...
Several episodes are available on Netflix via Instant Watch, and I can't recommend them highly enough. Many of them are quite dated, but still a fun watch. For an even bigger treat, rent the DVDs of the television movies that came after the show ended. Columbo just got better and better as Peter Falk got older. A part of me was always hopeful he'd do another movie one day, but, alas... rest in peace Mr. Falk.
• Cap. I swear, the more I see of the upcoming Captain America film, the more I want to see it. The latest trailer is beyond epic...
Between the awesomeness that has been Iron Man, Thor, Incredible Hulk, and now Captain American... the very idea of the upcoming Avengers movie makes me giddy as a schoolgirl. Why, why, why can't DC Comics get their shit together like Marvel has with their characters?
• Colan. Speaking of death and comics, I was also very sad to learn that longtime comic book artist Gene Colan had died. The man had drawn dozens upon dozens of books over the years, but the one I most associate him with was a short-lived series called Night Force. It was just so... different... from other comics of the day, and everything about it was interesting...
Colan was probably best-known for being the artist on Tomb of Dracula and Daredevil, but it's Night Force which I liked best. Rest in peace, Mr. Colan.
And... I've still got bullets, but it's time to get back to work. Hopefully bullets don't spoil and will keep for a week? Otherwise, look forward to stale bullets next week.
God-like powers in some hands would be a mistake.
Not mine, of course... but in some...
Despite the bad reviews, I simply had to go see Green Lantern after checking into my hotel.
The reason I had to see it was because Green Lantern is one of my favorite super-heroes (after Batman, of course). In fact, an issue of Green Lantern was the first comic book I ever bought. I've been a fan through thick and thin ever since...
Sadly, the movie itself is pretty bad. Several elements are good, but the big picture is a hot mess with too many inexplicably boring bits. Since I really have no idea how to review such a scattered film (let alone attempt to sum up the story!), I guess I'll just run through the bullets...
The Good
• Casting. Ryan Reynolds was perfectly cast. He captured the cocky charm of a fearless test pilot effortlessly. Likewise, Peter Skarsgard playing Hector Hammond and Mark Strong's turn as Sinestro were shockingly good. Blake Lively as Carol Ferris seemed a little forced and awkward at times... and her character had really lame similarities to Pepper Potts from the Iron Man films... but it wasn't as disastrously bad as say... January Jones in X-Men: First Class.
• Scope.I really enjoyed that they went a little "cosmic" with the movie. Green Lantern is at his best when he's out amongst the stars, and having him mixing it up with aliens and other worlds was a very good thing. If, by some miracle, a sequel happens, I hope that they ignore earth completely (especially since that's where most of the boring bits happen).
The Bad
Parallax. As far as villains go, Parallax was probably not the best choice. His comic book back-story is rather long and complex, and the way they dumbed it down to fit in a movie was kind of lame and dismissive. On top of that, he just wasn't very compelling an opponent in the film, because his powers weren't really defined. He could be almost god-like one minute... then surprisingly weak the next.
Pacing. As I mentioned, there's unnecessary stretches of sheer boredom plaguing the film. It's totally amateurish, and I'm guessing the writer(s) simply didn't know how to edit for a streamlined story... so they just threw in as many bits as possible in the hopes that something would gel together and "stick." It doesn't.
The Fugly
• CGI Uniforms. I understand the logic of the Green Lantern Corps uniforms being pure energy, and the concept of computer graphics being the best way to show this is sound... but it failed on every possible level. Ryan Reynolds looked like he had been Photoshop-painted, badly in every scene he's Green Lantern, and it took me completely out of the movie. You can tell that the effects team knew the uniforms looked like shit because they went back and added "energy crackles" and "energy glows" here and there in an attempt to camouflage them. If anything, it just ended up making things worse by drawing attention to how tragically bad they looked. I simply cannot fathom how anybody could look at test footage and decide this was the best way to go. I mean, they did render test footage of the uniforms, didn't they?
Case in point... ONE of these photos is fake. I spent two minutes slapping on some green pixels in Photoshop. Can you spot it? Guessing isn't as easy as you'd think since they're all pretty shitty...
• Internal Logic. I understand that you have to suspend disbelief in order to accept a movie universe where people are flying around playing super-hero... but, even so, there has to be an internal logic to the story and plot so you can suspend disbelief. Green Lantern has so many inconsistencies and gaps of internal logic that I found it impossible to get into the film. There was this whole deus ex machina thing going on where plot points existed not because they made sense, but because it was the only way the writers found to move the story forward. This caused me to constantly question the characters, which is a very bad thing from a story standpoint.
• The Story. Green Lantern has a classic origin story... dying alien gives hotshot test pilot Hal Jordan a ring with amazing powers and inducts him into the Green Lantern Corps, which is a kind of intergalactic police force. This part is handled fairly well in the movie, but things go off the rails really quickly afterwards. The problem is that there's just not a story you can grab ahold of and be taken away by. There's only fragments of different stories woven together seemingly at random. This didn't hold my interest because my attention was never focused on one thing long enough to give a crap about the stuff happening on-screen. For me, at least, the film can never overcome this deficiency, and comes out totally mediocre because of it.
And this updates my whole "Y2K Super-Hero Comic Book Renaissance" scorecard as follows...
Batman Begins... A
Batman Dark Knight... A+
Blade... B
Blade 2... B
Blade Trinity... B-
Catwoman... F
Daredevil... B-
Daredevil (Director's Cut)... B+
Elektra... D
Fantastic Four... C
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer... D
Ghost Rider... C
Green Hornet... D
Green Lantern... C+
Hellboy... A
Hellboy 2: Golden Army... A
Hulk... C-
Incredible Hulk... B
The Incredibles... A+
Iron Man... A+
Iron Man 2... A
Jonah Hex... F
Kick-Ass... B+
Punisher... C+
Punisher War Zone... C
Spider-Man... B+
Spider-Man 2... A
Spider-Man 3... D-
Superman Returns... C+
Thor... B+
Watchmen... B
X-Men... C
X-Men 2: United... D
X-Men 3: Last Stand... F-
X-Men Origins: Wolverine... D
X-Men: First Class... B
Things did not go especially well for me today.
It all started this morning when I woke up and realized that I had packed my reading glasses instead of my glasses glasses for my trip to Spokane. Blind as a bat, I stumbled to my suitcase for a fresh pair of disposable contact lenses only to find... nothing.
My worst travel nightmare had just come true.
I was sure I had packed a bunch of lenses, but they were nowhere to be found. This meant I was, for all intents and purposes, blind. I would be unable to drive. Unable to work. Unable to do much of anything. About all I could do was call my office back home and have some lenses FedExed to me, then sit in my hotel for another day waiting for them to arrive.
Disaster.
How in the hell could this have happened? I travel professionally! I am way past this kind of amateurish bullshit!
Except I have been working day and night for the past two weeks and am completely exhausted both mentally and physically. Something eventually had to give and, unfortunately, this was it.
So what do I do now?
The only thing I could do... completely disassemble all my possessions. Unpack every last item from every last piece of everything I had. Sometimes I stick a spare lens somewhere "just in case," and now was the time to hope against hope that a stray contact would somehow be found. And it was. At the bottom of my suitcase rattling around with an old camera memory card.
Half-blind would have to be good enough.
But luck favors the foolish, and I managed to find another stray lens tucked in my notebook pocket after I got to work.
So it's all good, right?
Of course not. Work was extended another day. And while I had extra clothes packed "just in case"... I was fresh out of lenses. Which meant I had to go buy a lens case and some saline so I could re-use my only pair. All I can hope is that I don't accidentally drop one down the sink or something.
But it wasn't all bad news today. I did get to have the best pizza on planet earth...
That just about makes up for everything.
Even when the power adapter for my laptop blew out.
After getting off work at 1:30am this morning, I drove back to my hotel half-dead. Not from the hour, but from having to work in-between work while working on work. It wears on you after a while.
So I get to my room, flop on the bed, then take out my disposable contact lenses and drop them on the nightstand so I can toss them in the garbage in the morning.
Then, after an unknown length of time, I suddenly remember that I don't have any replacement lenses or eyeglasses with me. Shiiiiiiiiiit! Adrenaline pumping I lunge out of bed and scramble to find the lamp. I somehow manage to retrieve my shriveling lenses and run to the bathroom where I oh-so-carefully attempt to rehydrate them with the saline I had bought earlier. Are they going to be wearable in the morning? Who knows. All I can do is let them soak overnight and hope.
I then headed back to bed so I could...
... STAY AWAKE ALL NIGHT ON AN ADRENALINE HIGH WORRIED THAT MY CONTACTS ARE RUINED AND I WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE TO DRIVE HOME.
And how was your night?
Eventually I give up on sleep and roll out of bed at 5:30am.
Heart pounding, I make my way to the bathroom and put my contact lenses in.
The are not at all comfortable, but they work.
So I get caught up on still more work for the next six hours with my scratchy eyes, then call in an order for a giant-size Da Vinci pizza from David's for my drive home. Yes, I've been eating pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... but it's the best pizza in the universe, so what can you do?
Half with tomatoes to eat now. Half without for later so they don't get slimy.
The 3-1/2 hour drive home was agonizing*, but delicious...
Mmmmmm... yummy road pizza!
And so here I am. In eyeglasses at last. Blogging about my day.
Because I just can't help myself.
* Seriously, agonizing. I'm trying to recall a worse road trip I've ever taken, but I can't think of one. 3-1/2 hours driving through the middle of NOWHERE with burning eyeballs on NO sleep while physically and mentally exhausted? All the pizza in the world isn't going to fix that, no matter how amazing it is.
This past week the Mad Magazine blog has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of their most enduring and beloved features... Spy vs. Spy! Sadly, the strip's original creator, Antonio Prohías, died in 1998, but his brilliant creations have lived on. When I was a kid, I loved Spy vs. Spy. It was clever and, even more important to me at that point, extremely well-drawn. It was also one of my favorite parts of Mad and I collected every Spy vs. Spy book, sticker, toy, and game I could find.
And last night, in celebration of the anniversary, I read through my copy of Spy Vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook. The cartoons never get old, and hold up very well from even their earliest days.
Apparently, Ron Howard is developing a Spy vs. Spy movie! I have no idea how that would work, but I admit to being intrigued. Animated? Live-Action? COMBINATION?!? Only Opie knows for sure.
Oh, wipe your tears away... Sunday, bloody Sunday...
• Plus! Annnnd... Google debuted their "Google+" social media services this week. As a so-called "Facebook killer" it's pretty interesting. I like that its smarter at controlling who sees the things you post. I like being able to organize people into my "Circles"... which are kind of like old rotary phone dials...
Of course, if you have a hundred friends, you can only see thirteen in your little dial until you click on it, but I guess that's better than nothing.
Except...
I've already got Facebook, Twitter, and this blog sucking up my time. Do I really need another "thing" cutting into my already mega-packed offline life? I mean, I suppose I can give up sleeping and going to the bathroom, but is Google+ really worth it? Time will tell.
• Colbert. This past week Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's Colbert Report received approval from the FEC to form his own Political Action Committee. But, unlike regular PACs, he formed a Super PAC which has no restrictions on the amount of money he can raise. I'm absolutely fascinated at the prospect of a comedian having access to a PAC, and can't wait to see how much he can raise and what he's eventually going to do with it.
So I donated some money. And got an autographed photo for my trouble...
Whatever he does with his money, I'm betting it's going to be a heck of a lot more interesting than what Sarah Palin has been doing with her PAC monies.
• Roundabout. I noted an article link over on Neil Turner's Blog about how the British roundabout is conquering the US. This is something I can confirm as true. Years ago, the only roundabouts I'd ever seen in the USA were in Massachusetts. But now they are popping up everywhere. The first I remember seeing in my home state of Washington was at the I-90 interchange in North Bend...
Image taken from Google Maps
And now, even small local cities like nearby Wenatchee are getting roundabouts.
The problem is that nobody here seems to know how to drive on them. Most of the time I've seen people encounter a roundabout, they full-stop instead of yield. And, even then, they don't know what to do, preferring to just sit there for a while until they get up the courage to enter. Hopefully this will change as they become more prevalent, but right now they're more trouble than they're worth.
• Arrietty. The next film by animation genius Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli is called Arrietty, and is based on the beloved book The Borrowers by Mary Norton. As with everything Miyazaki touches, it looks stunning...
My loved of all things Miyazaki is well documented. He has been a massive influence on me for decades, and his works are without peer in the animation world (the people at Pixar practically worship the man, for example). That he has continued to work after his "retirement" in 1998 has been a source of absolute joy to me, and seeing yet another film with his fingerprints on it makes me happier than I can possibly express. And while his role at Ghibli seems mostly supervisory now (though he appears to still be doing some writing and drawing too), he seems to have good people (including his son) carrying on his work...
Arrietty was released in Japan almost a year ago and I have yet to see it. Today I learned that it won't reach the USA until FEBRUARY, 2012!! And while I would prefer to see the movie with the original Japanese soundtrack and subtitles, the North American release is certain to be an English dub (as usual). I don't even care. I just want to see it! Then hopefully the Blu-Ray release will preserve the Japanese version like Ponyo did. In the meanwhile... I wait.
And that's all she wrote since I have to get up early for work in the morning. Here's hoping all my fellow USAsians have a good holiday tomorrow!
"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the spot of every wind. With such persons, gullability, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck."
— Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822
Of course, the people who most need to learn from that quote are the same people who will have no fucking clue what Jefferson was talking about, but that's America for you! Because reading is hard! Thinking is hard! Learning is hard!
Despite it all, our Founding Fathers did manage to get this country off to a pretty good start (well, the real Founding Fathers... not the fictional characters that so many politicians are using like magic bullets now-a-days). Sure there were a lot of inequalities, injustices, and other problems back then, but we were young. We had a lot of shit to work out. We had a lot of growing to do.
And, for a while there, things were going pretty well. Not everything got solved that needed to be solved, but we were moving in the right direction. And, while plenty more mistakes were made along the way, one could argue that we were trying. If nothing else, our hearts were in the right place.
But then things got fucked up. I don't know if its because we let success go to our heads... or starting looking at things as money issues instead of people issues... or maybe we just put the wrong people in charge of speaking for us... whatever the case, we seem to have lost our way. Businesses are more important than citizens. Wealth is more important than justice. Dogma is more important than freedom. Differences are more important than similarities. Ignorance is more important than truth.
And while I cling to minor victories in the face of the tempest of absurdities that tears at this country, I am slowly giving up hope that we will weather this monstrous storm. Entirely too many people have fallen to gullibility, idiocy, and hate. Many of them under the guise of faith in a country where faith is supposed to be tempered by reason.
Alas we have surrendered all reason and are now like a ship without a rudder.
Because reading is hard.
Because thinking is hard.
Because learning is hard.
Far easier to have people simply tell us what to believe.
Unfortunately, a great many of these people don't read, think, or learn either. They just make shit up... rewrite history... misrepresent people... ignore science... shun fairness... pass the blame...
At least I trust that's what's happening. Because intentionally making shit up, rewriting history, misrepresenting people, ignoring science, shunning fairness, and passing the blame... that would be evil wouldn't it?
And so here I sit on the 4th of July, our Independence Day, contemplating the stupidity and/or evil that challenges this nation. It makes it kind of difficult to celebrate the holiday, but a part of me is holding on to hope. Hope that eventually reason will prevail and we'll find our rudder...
Because when dumbfuck politicians continue to trot out our Founding Fathers to support their ridiculous arguments, people are going to eventually get curious as to who these people actually were. And let me tell you, Conservatives and Liberals alike are probably going to be surprised at what they find... especially when they start weeding out all the misquotes and fictitious garbage that's been attributed to thest historical figures throughout the years.
As always, the truth is far more complex and interesting than the out-of-context bullshit we're handed.
If only people would read, think, and learn to discover it.
Myself included.
Maybe one day.
Happy 4th of July, fellow United States of Americans!
My doctor-prescribed diet consists primarily of... shit.
I eat shit for breakfast. Shit for lunch. Shit for dinner, and... if I'm really good... shit for dessert. And it's not so much that I mind eating healthy shit in an effort to actually be healthy, it's that there are other factors at play. Like the heat. It's been crazy hot lately. I am laying in bed right now at 10:30pm with a fan pointed at my head and two ice-packs under my neck. As if that weren't enough, my workload has been insane. From 5:00pm Friday until 8:00am this morning I logged 37 hours. Some three-day weekend.
Which is to say that the prospect of coming home to a shit sandwich* for dinner was unacceptable. At least tonight it was.
So I decided to ignore my doctor and go out to a restaurant so I could eat actual shit, filled with all those things I'm supposed to be avoiding.
And it was delicious.
Even if it was just the Olive Garden.
* I'm not meaning a literal shit sandwich here... mostly because I'm not allowed to have bread.
I've been mostly out of touch for the past several days, which is what happens when you spend every waking minute trying to get caught up with work before leaving for a week.
So I can then get behind all over again.
Two of my favorite lovely ladies in the blogosphere are celebrating milestone birthdays!
Becky turned 40 yesterday! I first met Becky at TequilaCon 2008 in Philadelphia. Since then we've bumped into each other at blogging events such as Avitaween and ConFab (where I learned that Becky packs a knife, and will totally cut a bitch for reals). By the time we first met that fateful day in May, I had already known Becky for months (thanks to the power of the internet) and thought she was awesome. But her online awesomeness pales when compared to her in-person awesomeness. Meeting Becky is not just a happening, it's an event. An experience. You fall in love with her instantly and become insanely jealous when she's talking to somebody who's not you. Despite turning you into a psychotic stalker, I highly recommend The Becky Experience if you even have the opportunity.
CRAZY-ASS BECKY TRIVIA MOMENT! For years on the internet, Becky was known as "Hello Haha Narf." When she first started appearing, I remember people asking me what in the hell that meant. I told them I didn't know. But the truth is I really did. Pinky and the Brain is one of the greatest cartoons ever made, so of course I know that "Hello Haha Narf" was how Pinky started his letter to Santa in the Christmas episode. To this day I have no idea why I lied. Maybe because I thought it was Becky's story to tell. Maybe because I liked the idea that I knew something about Becky other people didn't. Maybe I thought it was funny. Or maybe in addition to turning you into a psychotic stalker, Becky also turns you into a lying liar who lies. The world may never know.
Suebob turns 50 today! Unfortunately, I haven't met Suebob in person yet. I came really close in 2007 when she was going to come to Dave L.A. but didn't for some reason. Probably because after she said she was planning on coming, she took a minute to actually read my blog and decided for her personal safety and sanity that she shouldn't. And that's okay. I totally understand. If I read the crazy crap I write on Blogography, I would be afraid to meet me too. So no hard feelings. You go ahead and have a happy birthday, Suebob, and try not to think of me sitting at Lucky Strike sobbing quietly while asking everyone that passes "Where is Suebob? Have you seen Suebob?" Because I will be okay. Eventually. =sniff!= For the past 50 days, Suebob has been featuring charities on her blog where people can make a donation in lieu of a present (including my favorite charity). They are worthy organizations all, so please drop by and donate to somebody on her list if you have a few bucks to spare.
CRAZY-ASS SUEBOB TRIVIA MOMENT! Suebob's blog is called The Red Stapler. I actually have a red stapler at work! It's a beautiful Swingline 747 stapler that I bought way back in 2002 and it still operates perfectly today. I think Swingline made red staplers specifically because Milton had one in Office Space, and it looked so cool that everybody wanted one. At least I know I did... but I had to wait three years before I could buy one.
Happiest of birthdays to you both!
My blog died last night.
And a part of me was wanting to let it go.
That lasted about fifteen minutes. Then I started freaking out at the prospect of eight years of Blogography being flushed down the toilet. So I started going back through all the steps I took to upgrade my database to see if I could figure out what went wrong. When that didn't pan out, I started pouring over my backups to see if I could reconstruct the data. No luck. So I gave up.
Today I looked at it on my lunch hour, but gave up again. Then after work I finally called tech support.
An hour later, everything was back to normal.
Just in time for me to start packing my suitcase...
I've got a loooooooooong day ahead of me tomorrow.
Despite delays, more delays, and a 55-minute wait for my luggage... it was pretty much smooth sailing...
I love it when cool stuff like this goes viral.
Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person alive.
Had a fantastic evening with some fantastic blogger friends here in Atlanta...
And though I tend not to use the word "adore" very much... Anissa Mayhew, whom I adore and love more than chocolate pudding... was in attendance after too many Davelantas past. We missed you.
Missed you bad.
It's hard to believe that it was two whole years ago you were nibbling on my balls* at The Cheesecake Factory you naughty minx you...
And then this year, as if to prove that we can't have an Atlanta blogger meet without somebody being in the hospital, Geeky Tai-Tai decided to get pneumonia.
Hope you're feeling better, Geeky Tai-Tai!
*Deep-fried macaroni-and-cheese balls... get your mind out of the gutter, people!
Tonight's the night!
I don't know that I believe in ghosts. Though I am certainly open to the possibility.
Which is why I was thrilled when my good blogging friend, Heather (aka Coal Miner's Granddaughter), invited me to an investigation last night with the Paranormal Georgia Investigations team to "one of the most haunted places in the world"... Waverly Hills Sanatorium! And while I'm not sure I witnessed anything paranormal, it was a heck of a lot of fun. Especially since Avitable and The Muskrat were there too.
The place is most definitely creepy at times. Even when illuminated...
So you can just imagine what it looks like when it's dark.
For October, the place is dressed up for Halloween to make a haunted house. There's plenty of spooky paintings on the walls left over...
I tried my best to be a good investigator by putting all my energy into my senses so I could best seek out anything unexplainable. This is kind of overwhelming, and resulted in my mind going all fuzzy for the first couple of hours, but eventually everything kind of mellowed out and I was able to maintain focus and be hyper-observant of my surroundings without too much effort...
Along the way, there were plenty of "what was that?" moments. Including an extended conversation with a spirit that was messing around with a flashlight (though it was entirely possible it was just an extended conversation with a flashlight). I wanted quite badly for ghosts to be involved in our hunt (and maybe they were!), but even putting that aside, the actual technical side of the investigation was absolutely fascinating.
And, as if that wasn't enough, I got to see my very first lightning bug!
I was bringing up the rear of our team, hanging back in the shadows looking for anything out of the ordinary. As I was walking down the hall, I saw a green blinking LED light. At first I thought it might be one of the K-II EMF meters we were using but, when I got up to it, I saw it was actually a little bug blinking on and off! I wasn't able to get a photo of him glowing, so I've Photoshop-simulated what I saw...
Now, for people who live in the South and see this all the time, it's probably not a big deal. But I was over-the-moon thrilled since I had never seen one before. And it was different than I expected because I had no idea that they would be so bright! As the night went on, I saw quite a few of them blinking on-and-off, which was very cool indeed.
When I got back to the hotel at 4:00am, I was entirely too tired to do much of anything. But this morning I started looking at my photos. Very, very carefully. I was looking for any odd shadows or (gasp!) faces and apparitions like I had seen in the photos we were shown at Waverly. For each photo I would use Photoshop to open up the shadows and then examine each of the RGB channels for anything mysterious. It was a tedious process, but I took the time to go on the trip, so I wanted to put the time into doing things right.
As I got to the photos where the sun was going down, I found this image...
Kind of nifty composition and contrast, but nothing terribly special. I then opened up the shadows and suddenly noticed two green spots. Naturally, I was thrilled, thinking that I had managed to catch two lightning bugs in mid-glow...
But when I zoomed in, it wasn't lightning bugs at all. It was just flawed pixels on my camera sensor. As anybody who has done work on digital photos knows, occasionally you get spots in Red, Green, or Blue because those are the colors which camera images are broken down into so they can be recorded. The spots are usually so small that they go unnoticed and, if they are noticeable, I just fix them in Photoshop, so it's not a big deal. My camera's most noticeable sensor flaw is a red dot which appears along the bottom-center in every image I take... even going back months...
But, when I scrolled around this particular image, I started noticing RGB spots everywhere...
The spots were so numerous that I thought I might have damaged my camera sensor somehow, because in all the time I've owned it, I've never seen so many of them. But, when I went to earlier and later images, the new spots were nowhere to be found. It was only on this image. And while they show up most everywhere, I picked out some random spots to enlarge here...
I just spent the past two hours going back through image after image of everything I have on my laptop, and the new spots never appear in any other photograph. It's as if the number of flaws on my camera's sensor increased fifty-fold, then went back to normal. Or not. I dunno.
And while I would never claim that this is any kind of evidence of paranormal activity... well... it is something that I cannot explain. Maybe it's a natural phenomena which happens under certain lighting conditions. Maybe some camera function I had in place is to blame. Maybe it's dust. Maybe somebody has a perfectly good non-paranormal explanation. But a cursory Google search turns up nothing. So, again, I dunno.
Because even more so than before I went ghost-hunting... my mind is open to anything.
UPDATE: I was asked if the "RGB Snow" formed a pattern of any kind. If it does, I certainly can't see it. Below is the image where I've enlarged the spots by placing a dot on top...
Some of the brighter white spots I put a grey dot on top of. Those are probably dust, but they are brighter than any any spots I saw on other photos. There may be pixel problems in the bright areas, but I think they'd be masked by the light.
Yeah, yeah, it's Bullet Sunday ON TUESDAY! What can I say, this has been a crazy week with a lot going on. Fasten your seat-belts...
• Billboard! Speaking of Sunday... we left Atlanta, Georgia around 8:00am for the long 6-hour drive up to Louisville, Kentucky for some ghost-hunting. It was, for the most part, an uneventful drive. I spent most of the trip watching for billboard signs. This may seem crazy-stupid to most people who try their best to ignore billboards, but I'm from Washington State where they are illegal, so I find them fascinating...
A huge number of signs are for fireworks stands. Often times these places are open 24-hours, which is even more inexplicable than the fact that you can make a living selling fireworks. How often does one have a fireworks emergency at 2:00am?
Billboards for Jesus were also very popular. These I don't understand... they give you a message, but no follow-up? No church you should visit? No advice to read The Bible? Nothing? I guess these are just reminders in case Christians forget or something?
Just in case you're driving down the highway and decide you need a gun on the spur of the moment? Or maybe you left your firearm at home and need to pick one up along the way to grandma's house? I'm guessing it's more likely there for men on their way home to a cheating wife or women on their way home to a cheating husband.
Some billboards need a little extra attention. A life-size dinosaur apparently does the trick.
While technically not a billboard, I thought this was kind of nifty. A Christian cowboy who wants everybody to know that he's a Christian cowboy perhaps? Note that the horse is not kneeling down. Obviously he's some kind of satan-worshipping atheist or something.
• MEGA! On Tuesday morning, our group decided not to rush back to Atlanta and instead decided to hang around Louisville for the day. First stop? MEGA CAVERN! It's an impossibly massive man-made cavern that has actually been back-filled so that the ceiling isn't 90-feet in the air and they can actually run a business there. Tourists, of course, can also go on a tram ride around the place...
Into the mouth of the MEGA CAVERN!!!
Before going on the trams, there are signs like this to make you feel safer about descending into the bowels of the earth.
At one time, MEGA CAVERN was designated a massive fallout shelter in the event of nuclear war. The dioramas they had depicting life underground was so depressing that I'd rather run to ground zero and die a quick death.
But, if you think a miserable life underground would be better than death, then you're in luck! For $10,000 per person, you can reserve a spot!
• Slugger! And, of course, what would a visit to Louisville be without a visit to the Louisville Slugger factory and museum?...
My, what a big bat you have!
Just like MEGA CAVERN, the museum using dioramas to help explain their history.
SEATTLE REPRESENT! Even if it is just a creepy lifelike statue of Ken Griffey Jr.
You can see famous Louisville Slugger bats from all kinds of baseball players old and new... including Babe Ruth!
• Balls! If you ever find yourself in Louisville at Fat Jimmy's Pizza, his Hot Buttered Balls are highly recommended!
And that catches me up through yesterday. Tomorrow? PART TWO! Which will hopefully get me caught up through today. Or one would hope.
And here's the finale of my "Bullet Sunday on Tuesday" post from yesterday...
• Corvette! One of my favorite museums on the planet is the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. While I am not a gear-head nor am I a Corvette owner, I have had a long-time love affair with these rolling works of art for as long as I can remember. This is not my first trip to the museum, but my fourth, and they seem to have added on since I was here last...
If you're ever in the area, I give the National Corvette Museum two thumbs up.
• Wreckage! On the way up to Louisville this past Sunday, we saw two wrecks. One was quite severe, with the car flipped completely over the guard-rail, standing almost vertical. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how it happened, because it appeared that the car hit the railing head-on, which was impossible. Coming back yesterday afternoon, we saw another vehicle run off the road at a bizarre head-on angle. This time a fuel tanker!
Since you could smell the gasoline, I was shocked that they were still allowing traffic through. It seemed as though the truck could have blown at any minute (though that might be something that happens in the movies more often than real life). But however it managed to hit how it did, I can't help but wonder how it happened. Are people playing video games on their iPhones while they drive? Texting? Sexting? What?!? All these weird accidents are making me near-terrified to drive anymore. If they can hit the guard rails so hard to bust through or flip over, heaven only knows what would happen if they ran into my car.
• Work It! I spent my entire day locked-up in my hotel room working. The only time I left was to eat dinner, which was at the hotel restaurant. As expected, it was awful. For some reason they just can't seem to put good eateries in hotels. This is borderline-tragic for frequent travelers who don't have time to go hunting for an outside restaurant, since it means you're eating a lot of crappy food over the years. I know I've certainly had my share. I'd like to promise myself that I won't make this mistake ever again, but I know better. Pepto-Bismol here I come...
And now I'm caught up to today. Sometimes miracles happen.
Lack of sleep is starting to have an effect...
Lack of sleep is starting to have an effect...
Lack of sleep is starting to have an effect...
I write this knowing full-well that I won't be able to publish it until Monday since I don't have internet. Oh well, I guess it's bullets on delay.
• Marriott. Playing Priceline Roulette for an airport at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Aiport South region almost always results in one of two properties... Westin or Marriott. Though I seem better suited to the Westin, the Marriott has a lot going for it (best hotel shuttle ever!), so I wasn't at all disappointed I ended up here on Friday night. About the only thing I don't care for is the hotel restaurant. Not that it's bad... I've never gotten sick there or anything... I'm just not partial to the food. So I Yelped for nearby restaurants, and found one right at the back of the hotel. In fact, I could see it out my window. Pulling it up on Google Maps it looks like this...
Simple, right? Just walk out the back of the hotel, cut through the tennis courts, then cross a street.
Well, no. Not really.
• Entrapment, Part One. The tennis courts were closed and gated off for some reason. No big deal, I'll just walk around. But, no, the back gates to the hotel were locked off completely...
Irritating, but I guess that's how you keep random people who are not hotel guests from using your pool, so okay.
• Entrapment, Part Two. Since I can't go through the hotel, I'll just go around it, right? WRONG! There's a big ol' locked fence at the back of the hotel lot!
• Entrapment, Part Three. So this means the ONLY way to get to a restaurant that's within spitting distance of the hotel, is to completely exit the hotel property and walk all the way around...
Which sucks, right? But that's not even the worst part. Not only does the Marriott block you from leaving their property out the back... THERE'S NO FUCKING SIDEWALKS SO YOU CAN ESCAPE OUT THE FRONT EITHER!!
Here's your sidewalk, muthafucker! All six inches of it, bitch!
What the fuck? I mean, seriously, WHAT THE FUCK?!? All I can think of is that they don't want you to leave unless you drive out. Any attempt to walk out of the fucking place means you either have to climb a fence or walk down a dangerous driveway with no sidewalks and cars bombing up and down at reckless speeds all day long. How fucking stupid is that?
• Dinner! And so I finally manage to get to the restaurant... Joe's on Sullivan... after wandering around the Marriott's property for a half-hour trying not to get run over and killed. How was it? Well, the service was decent. The food was okay, though my "black bean burger" was falling apart so badly it was hard to eat and the potato salad tasted like it came from a can. But, overall I was happy to have made the effort to get there.
Until I started getting cramps on my way back to the hotel...
• Distress. By the time I managed to get back to my room, my stomach was in turmoil and I was sweating so bad that it was dripping down my face. All I wanted to do was lie down, but I had to take a quick detour to the bathroom so my intestines and stomach could explode... FOR THE NEXT SIXTEEN HOURS! In all honesty, I have no idea where it all came from. I'm confident I crapped and puked my entire body weight three times over, but it would not stop. Any attempt to keep down medication was futile, because it would just come right back up. And then, just as I was considering calling for a ride to a hospital... I passed out. When I woke up, I was really queasy, but at least I wasn't leaking bodily fluids any more.
• Stung. Since I got off work early and had an entire Saturday free, my plan was to spend the day in downtown Atlanta goofing off, then go to Johnny Rockets for dinner. Around noon yesterday, I pulled myself together and took the hotel shuttle to the airport so I could ride MARTA rail into town. But I didn't make it any further than the airport. I was feeling so awful that just the thought of 25 minutes on a train was enough to make me want to die. So I got a mini pizza from the airport atrium, then went back to the shuttle stop... WHERE I WAS STUNG BY A BEE! Right on my hand. Which caused my finger to swell up like a baloon. Could things get any worse?
• Worse. Why yes, things can get worse! I get back to my hotel room so I can finalize the next issue of Thrice Fiction Magazine (which is amazing... you have no idea) only to find that typing with my bee-stung hand is excruciating. On top of that, lunch seems to have made me sick all over again, because I can barely sit upright without feeling like I'm going to puke my guts out. So there I am... laying in bed rolled in a ball, typing one-handed on my laptop on a Saturday night.
• Worser. I could go into greater detail, but suffice to say that my Sunday went like this... 1) Wake up sick. Still. 2) Find out my headphones are broke. 3) See that my finger isn't swollen anymore, but it aches worse than ever. 4) Have to sit next to a gum-smacking whore on the hotel shuttle back to the airport. 5) Find out my flight is delayed, and I might be missing my connecting flight in Seattle. 6) Somebody opens a can of fish on the plane, which already smells like somebody peed on the floor. 7) Arrive with time to spare to catch your connecting flight, but find out it's clear across the airport. 8) Finally make it back home, but find out your luggage didn't. 9) Arrive home and find out that the internet isn't working. 10) Finally get to my own bed after a week of very little sleep, only to find that I can't fall asleep. Best. Sunday. Ever.
And on that happy note, I suppose I should take some drugs to see if I can force myself to sleep. That aught to make for a fun Monday-morning at work...
The second issue of Thrice Fiction Magazine was completed this weekend. There are a few small details to wrap up that we're trying to get resolved as quickly as possible, but hopefully it'll be ready to launch in a day or two. Everything turned out seriously awesome, so RW and I can't wait for everybody to get their retinas on it.
In the meanwhile, I'll go ahead and tease you with the cover like RW did yesterday...
Yes. Yes, I know. Beautiful, isn't it?
The incomparable Echo Chernik allowed us to use her amazing art on the cover. Just like the theme for the issue, it's perfect.
Getting a whole six hours sleep last night (pharmaceutically-induced, alas) was everything I dreamed it would be.
Anyway, just a few things I keep forgetting to review...
• Chilly Pad! A while back I was shopping for a soldier at AnySoldier.com (which I talk about here and here) when I was told about a product by Frogg Toggs called "Chilly Pad." It was billed as some kind of "cooling towel" that sucks the heat away via evaporation. That sounded like a load of crap to me, but who am I to deny a soldier something to make his life easier... especially if it only costs $12? Just for kicks, I ordered one for myself too.
Imagine my shock when, holy crap, it actually works!
Just pour some water on it and be amazed as the super-evaporation cells go to work, causing the darn thing to become cool to the touch! Amazing! For the ultimate test, I wore one around my neck on my trip to Waverly Hills where there was a heat index of 105° and was pretty darn comfortable the entire time. I now keep one in the trunk of my car and will always have them on hand to send with my AnySoldier care packages. Worth checking out! I got mine at Sports Authority, but I'm sure they're available other places too.
• Spotify! Europeans have been enjoying the music mega-service Spotify for years, but Americans have been left out. Until now. For those unfamiliar, Spotify has a massively huge database of music available for streaming. In order to get at it, you have to sign up for an account. Free accounts are ad-supported and have a song limit. Unlimited accounts ($4.99/mo.) are ad-free, allow unlimited songs to be streamed, and have added sharing and organizational features. Premium accounts ($9.99/mo.) have even more features (like the ability to listen offline and stream to your mobile phone) and better sound quality. Free accounts weren't available yet, so I went for the $4.99/mo. Unlimited package.
The biggest selling point of Spotify is that they have a plain crazy-huge collection of songs. They pretty much boast that they have any track you want...
Except they really don't. There are many songs both obscure and popular I wanted to listen to which aren't available. That alone is a bummer, but what makes it unbearable is that a big chunk of their library is karaoke versions of songs, and every frickin' search you make is literally overwhelmed with karaoke crap I have absolutely no interest in.
Here's an example. Today I wanted to listen to Miley Cyrus's The Time of Our Lives (don't judge until you listen to it... it's a nice song!). Spotify doesn't have it available. What they do have is four karaoke versions...
WTF? And it gets worse when you do more generic searches like "Hall & Oates" where you get all kinds of karaoke shit mixed in. After a while, I figured out that you can do restrictive searches to cut out karaoke. Well, most karaoke... not all karaoke songs are described properly...
This should be an option in preferences to get rid of karaoke tracks if you don't want to see them, but I couldn't find one so I have to instead add "-karaoke" to every search, which is a pain in the ass. Other irritations? The Spotify app is clutzy and unintuitive compared to the iTunes interface I'm used to. I've also experienced "outages" of a sort, where certain artists simply will not play. Today I tried for quite a while to listen to Weird Al's new Alpocalypse album without success.
As you might guess, my final verdict is more negative than positive. I will be happy to keep my free account for occasional ad-supported listening, but I'm going to cancel my $4.99 "Unlimited" membership. Perhaps eventually they'll address my issues and I'll find it worthwhile, but for now I'm giving it a pass.
• Suits! Burn Notice. White Collar. Covert Affairs. Fairly Legal. Psych. When it comes to successes, USA Network has a pretty good track record for airing some really good television shows. Because of this, I'm willing to give any new show they come up with a shot. Their latest, Suits, sounded good on paper... but I wasn't sure how it was going to play out on the screen...
The story premise is that of a very smart guy with a photographic memory, Mike Ross (played by Patrick J. Adams) who tries to escape his dicey past by going to work at a prestigious law firm. He passed the bar on a dare, but doesn't have a law degree. His new boss (played by Gabriel Macht) is impressed enough to hire him anyway. The result is an uneasy partnership that is beneficial to both of them, even if they have to hide Mike's true nature from everybody at the firm.
And it works.
It works very well.
The cast is fantastic (Gina Torres!), the writing is sharp, the stories are smart, and the show as a whole is entertaining. My only concern is how long they can keep the premise interesting. Will people eventually find out about Mike? Will his scary past catch up with him? In all honesty, it doesn't really matter, and I hope they don't keep hanging the show on them when there's no need to do so.
Right now? Highly recommended. Only time will tell if they can keep it that way.
• Fotopedia! If you're a fan of travel photography and have an iOS device, run... don't walk... to the iTunes Store and grab everything you can from Fotonauts. Their Fotopedia apps have always been great, but the new stuff they've been cranking out has been amazing. North Korea (free) and Dreams of Burma (free) are well worth your time... but their latest collaboration with National Geographic, Above France ($2.99) is stunning...
They work on iPhone but, obviously, have a better presentation on iPad. Highest possible recommendation.
And now... bed. And hopefully another night of half-way decent sleep.
And so Apple released the latest iteration of their Macintosh operating system, MacOS X 10.7 "Lion."
As a Certified Apple Whore, I am compelled to blog about it. But it's kind of a silly prospect, because other sites have done such a comprehensive job of going over the features. What I think I'll do is just go over some of the things I really like and really hate. Starting... NOW!
• Installer. In a move that harkens back to the day that Apple decided to abandon the floppy disk with the iMac... then abandon the CD drive with the MacBook Air... Apple has abandoned the media for distributing Lion at $29. No installation CDs or DVDs... you buy the upgrade directly from the Mac App Store (though apparently there's a USB thumb-drive version coming in August for $69). This gave me some pause, but I had TWO full backups, so I just rolled with it. Everything went flawlessly. There's even some wizardry in the background to give you a "magical" partition on your drive so you have an emergency backup available if something goes wrong since there's no DVD to boot from. Nice! Eventually I probably will burn a DVD and do a clean install just to clear out some junk I've accumulated over the years, but overall, things couldn't have gone better.
SIMPLICITY FACTOR? 9.9 (out of 10)
• Fuller. One idea that I've historically hated is the idea of an app taking over the entire screen. It just "feels" wrong to not be able to see and manipulate stuff in other windows while you're in the current window. But after playing with iPhone and iPad for a while, you just get used to it. And now I actually prefer it. Yes, it makes things like "drag-and-drop" impossible, but the tradeoff is that you get maximum screen real estate to work with. On a cramped laptop, that's gold! Lion provides developers the ability to make their apps go full-screen with the click of a button. As of now, only Apple seems to have the feature baked in, but hopefully other apps will be getting the ability to go full-boat soon. HOWEVER... there is one small, yet highly frustrating, problem. When you go full-screen, the menu bar disappears. To get it back, you put your cursor at the top of the screen... AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT! Well, that's an exaggeration, kind-of, but if I need my fucking menu bar, I NEED IT NOW, dammit! I have no idea if this is because of some animation going on or what, but it completely sabotages the usefulness of going full-screen.
It is absolutely ridiculous that you don't have an option to "Always Show Menu Bar" for full-screen apps! There's some useful shit up there... like a clock... and your battery level... and all kinds of stuff I want to be able to look at. But you can't until you shove your mouse up there and wait. And wait. And wait.
IDIOCY FACTOR? 10 (out of 10)
• Gestures. The "new school" way of providing computer input is "gestures," which is done by swiping, pinching, rotating, and performing other motions on a touch-screen or touch-pad or track-pad or touch-mouse. The iPhone and iPad have used stuff like this since day one. Want to shrink a photo? Pinch it! Want to enlarge a photo? Stretch it! I find such input to be natural, intuitive, and efficient. Apple obviously agrees, because they've expanded the use of gestures in a very big way. There's lots of them...
And, let me tell you, once you get used to gestures, you will never want to go back. Just having the ability to swipe with two fingers to go backwards and forwards through browsing history without having to move the cursor up to a button you press... well, it's genius...
I am adapting to the gestures very, very quickly. I love them. A lot. So much, that I will be buying a "Magic Track-Pad" for my desktop Mac.
AWESOME FACTOR? 9.9 (out of 10)
• Mission Control. Apple has done a really cool thing in combining "Spaces" (virtual desktops), "Dashboard" (widgets), full-screen apps, and open windows into a single interface called "Mission Control"...
And, thanks to gestures, it's always available! Just swipe up with three fingers and BLAM! there it is! In theory, I like it a lot. In practice? Not so much. Partly because its kind of a mess to take in all at once... but mostly because YOU CANNOT FUCKING REARRANGE YOUR "SPACES" VIRTUAL DESKTOPS! They're just stuck there. This sabotages the usefulness of another gesture I love... swiping right and left with three fingers to switch between your full-screen apps and your virtual desktops. Have ten Spaces open and want to arrange them so that you can swipe between them with the most efficiency? TOUGH SHIT! You can't! You have to swipe through nine fucking screens to get back and forth between two that you'd really like to have next to each other. Your only choices when configuring the arrangement of Spaces in preferences is whether you want them auto-arranged or not. NO option to manually arrange them.
DUMBASSERY FACTOR? 8.8 (out of 10)
• Save Me. The "Save File" dialog box is now hopelessly fucked for productivity. It used to be that you option-clicked on an existing filename in the dialog, and you would get that filename automatically populated in your filename save field. This is handy for overwriting a current file... but more useful as a way of modifying an exiting filename into a new filename (e.g. clicking on "BigFile_001.jpg" so you can save a file as "BigFile002.jpg". ANYWAY... now you just click on the filename instead of option-clicking, which is no big deal. But in MacOS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the system highlighted the filename automatically (sans extension) so you could very quickly overwrite the name OR hit the right-arrow to add/change characters at the end to create the new filename. Now? Not so much. No text is automatically selected for you, so hitting the right-arrow key inexplicably sends you into whatever folder you're on. But even worse than all that? It takes FOREVER for your files to show up in the browser. (UPDATE! See below)
TIME-WASTING FACTOR? 9.2 (out of 10)
• Lag. UPDATE: Apparently the horrible performance lag was due to two things... my Mac re-indexing the drive for Spotlight searches and the presence of MacFUSE on my system (which is supposedly not yet compatible with 64-bit Lion). In addition to the delays you find when waiting for the menu bar to appear in full-screen apps and the file browser to be populated in the save dialog box... there are several other areas. So many things just seem... slow. It used to be you'd press the space bar to preview with QuickLook and a window would appear instantly. Now? There's a huge delay. A delay so long that I'd argue it's probably faster to just double-click on the damn thing to open it in an app. It goes on and on (just try opening a Finder window so you can count the SECONDS it takes for the files to show up). Again, this may be due to the fancy animations going on, I don't know, but it is absolutely UNFORGIVABLE. Why the fuck would you make an operating system slower so people are waiting around all the time? It's a productivity killer on a massive scale because all those wasted seconds add up. This alone has me hesitating to recommend the Lion upgrade... if, like me, you YOU WANT TO GET SHIT DONE! This is so very, very frustrating.
STUPIDITY FACTOR? 38.6 (out of 10)
• Dock. Some freaky-ass stuff is going on with the way applications are run. Part of this has to do with the way Lion is taking control of your apps to better manage resources. If it's running low on memory, it can now tell an app you aren't using to quit itself. Then, when you need it again, Lion will reopen it exactly in the state it was in when it told the app to quit. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but... it's not working right. You now have a choice whether the Dock displays a little light under running apps, but it's lighting up under apps which I've quit before a logout. Other times it refuses to light up apps I've just run. It's irritating. There's an option to turn off the indicator light, but I like to have it... when it works.
CONFUSION FACTOR? 5.7 (out of 10)
• Login. I have no fucking clue how Apple ended up with one of the ugliest login screens I have ever seen... and I'm including DOS-based logins from the 1980's. How the fuck can Apple, who is so sensitive to beauty in design, botch something so badly?
This is a crappy photograph of a crappy login, because I can't take a snapshot of it directly.
Everything about it is off. The circular pictures with the high-gloss reflections are tacky as hell. The "linen" background is boring as fuck. The Apple logo is wandering and distracting. The buttons are diminutive and lost. Everything about this piece of shit design screams amateur hour, and I cannot believe that His Holiness Steve Jobs okayed this. I've come to expect shit like this from Microsoft. But I am both disgusted and deeply saddened to see it coming from Apple. And so THIS is what I have to look at every morning when I start my day at work now? Why? WHY, LORD, WHY?!?
UGLINESS FACTOR? 18.2 (out of 10)
• Backwards. In an effort to make window scrolling act more like an iPad, Apple has introduced "natural" scrolling in Lion. The idea is that you click and pull window content in the direction you want it to move... just as if your mouse pointer was your finger. It seems like a smart idea, but it doesn't work... at least not for me. On an iPad, my finger is moving the actual content. On a Mac, my finger is moving a pointer which, in turn, moves scroll bars. From this perspective, using "natural" scrolling is backwards from how it should be and is, in fact, not "natural" at all. I turned it off after only an hour because I could not see myself getting used to it, nor training my brain to make sense of it. If I ever get a touch-screen on my Mac, then sure. But now? No thanks.
BIZARRE FACTOR? 8.0 (out of 10)
• Dash. Apple's widget repository, which they call Dashboard, is a nice feature that I use all the time. My "Dashboard" is filled with widgets which do everything from give me the weather forecast to track packages to taking notes to dozens of other things that widgets let you do. But not is all wine and roses in WidgetLand. The first time you open Dashboard, you have to WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT for the widgets to activate. Subsequent access is still slow, but not horribly so. It's always been like this but, for some reason, I really thought they would address it in Lion. I'm sure it's a memory thing (why waste resources if somebody isn't going to even use Dashboard?) but I am ALWAYS using Dashboard, and the waiting drives me insane. If that wasn't enough, Apple changed some of the widgets so they're uglier. The font in calculator doesn't even frickin' fit in the display properly.
BOREDOM FACTOR? 5.1 (out of 10)
• Mail. If there's one program in OS X that I borderline hate, it's Apple Mail. It sucks on so many levels that I end up wanting to punch my computer at least once a day. It's slow. It's illogical. It's stupid (functionality-wise). It's unbearably frustrating for anybody who does more with email than just the basics. Well, Lion's new-and-improved Mail is, in fact, new-and-improved in many ways... but still kind of stupid in others. You get a new GMail-inspired "conversation view" but it ONLY displays your replies if they were written on the computer you're using! It doesn't matter if you have IMAP and store messages on a server for ALL your computers... Mail completely ignores anything you replied with when using other machines. This is almost laughable in just how fucking stupid it is. At first I thought it was my fault... I had stuff configured differently between them so Mail couldn't figure it out. But I use iSync, so that can't be the reason. So why? Did nobody TEST for this? Inexplicable bullshit like this drives me fucking crazy. Hopefully I'll eventually get it figured out, because right now "conversation view" is less than useless when it's incomplete. And yet... there are other things. Other cool things. I LOVE LOVE LOVE being able to flag mail with different colors. That's been a LONG time coming since I had this in every MacOS 9 mail app I ever used in the 80's and 90's! I still have a lot of exploring to do but, in the meanwhile, color me half-impressed.
INDECISIVE FACTOR? 5.0 (out of 10)
• Miscellany. I've only been using Lion for half-a-day, so this is going to be a really incomplete list. Some things I haven't experienced yet... like auto-file-versioning, AirDrop file sharing, and some of the security features. Other things I've run across have been cool, but not yet explored. Like the new three-finger-double-click to get a contextual dictionary...
And the hold-key character-picker...
And the three-finger-pinch Application Launcher "Launchpad" which is SO much nicer than digging through the Applications Folder...
Still other things are just plain crazy... like the new-and-unimproved tiny-ass window control buttons...
Annnd... there's a lot more... I really like the new "All My Files" view available in the Finder windows. The whole-disk encryption is a godsend for somebody who travels all the time like me. There's additions to iCal and Address Book that help them not to suck so terribly. There's tiny little improvements everywhere that are nice. For the most part. I just wish Apple had taken a little more time to get rid of those frustrating changes and omissions that can make the OS less than what it could be.
AND FOR FUCKS SAKE, GET RID OF ALL THE LAG-TIME THAT MAKES ME WANT TO PULL MY HAIR OUT EVERY TIME I OPEN A FUCKING WINDOW!
FINAL SCORE? 7.5 (out of 10)
I am writing my Thursday post on Friday morning.
Not because I wanted to or I ran out of time... but because I had to. After a full day-and-a-half with Apple's new "MacOS X Lion" installed, I started experiencing one catastrophic system failure after another. For no discernible reason, the program I was using would suddenly lock up, followed shortly thereafter by the entire system. I'd then have to do a complete power-down and reboot. Again and again. I have tried disabling every extra system extension I can find, but nothing I try does any good.
I have no clue what's going wrong. I think it had to do with the file system crashing at random and taking my entire computer with it. Most crashes happen when I am trying to load/save, but not always. This morning my MacBook crashed when I was adding an attachment to an email. I pulled up the file browser to select the files and... nothing...
After a few minutes of Mail going non-responsive, the program fails...
After a few more minutes, the Finder and everything else goes non-responsive. The system has died.
I've got a 2.53 GHz Core Duo MacBook with 4 GB RAM, so my machine is more than capable of upgrading to Lion. And yet... something is going wrong. Some hidden extension that I've got installed somewhere is not compatible. Or so I'm guessing. All I can say for certain is that I have lost an entire evening's work because of this crap.
Guess today I get to do a Clean Install.
My hope is that this will not only stop the crashing... but also solve the riddle of my slow-to-respond file system that I was bitching about yesterday.
I guess sometimes Apple doesn't "just work."
Still having MacOS X Lion issues. By getting rid of all the system extensions and preference panes I can find, everything is a lot more responsive... but I am still getting random errors and crashes. The problems hit hardest when using Adobe Creative Suite apps, particularly with loading and saving files. It's entirely possible that it's nothing related to Adobe... it just seems that way since that's what I'm using 95% of the time... but it's a serious enough problem that I would advise anybody using their Mac for serious work to hold off with Lion until things stabilize a bit.
Anyway... it's come a little later than we had hoped, but the second issue of Thrice Fiction has just been released. You can learn all about it (and get your FREE copy!) at the Thrice website.
And here's a peek at the visuals from the great stories we're featuring this issue...
Intrigued? Then go grab a FREE copy and check it out!
People can make fun of Amy Winehouse and mock her death as much as they want. It won't change the fact that she was a remarkable artist who created music that a great many people, including myself, really loved. A month ago I was lamenting that she hadn't come out with a new album in five years and was crossing my fingers that something would be released soon. Now, it saddens me greatly that anything we get... if anything at all... will be released posthumously.
I am not going to deny that she had serious problems and did some crazy shit. Amy was a very troubled and tortured person, and dealt with it the best way she knew how. Unfortunately that involved a lot of abusive behavior that would be tough for anybody to survive. But not one bit of it made me enjoy her music any less. Because no matter how out-of-control and batshit crazy she was in her personal life, in her songs she made perfect sense.
I'd say that I will miss her music, but the truth is her music isn't going anywhere. I just wish so badly she would have stuck around to make more of it. And, on that note, my favorite of so many favorites...
The rest of my day was $600 in repair costs for my car's brakes.
Hanging out with my sister on a flawless afternoon.
Meeting up with some remarkable Pacific Northwest bloggers.
Life is the bittersweet joy and hurt of it all. I am so incredibly blessed to have friends and family to make even my worst days good again.
Oh how I wish Amy Winehouse could have found the same.
It's Bullet Sunday on rails, baby!
• Oslo. I can't really find the words to express my deep sorrow for the people of Norway and the beautiful city of Oslo during the recent tragedies there. I was lucky enough to have visited the city back in 2008, where I met up with one of my long-time blogging friends and spent some time seeing the sights. I dream of returning one day so I can visit the fjord-laden coast and have some more of the best guacamole I've ever had.
My hopes are with Norway as they recover from such senseless tragedy.
• Comic Con. While I love the idea of Comic Con, the reality is just not something I can enjoy. The drastically over-sell the event, so you spend most of your time in massive crowds waiting in lines. HOWEVER... the idea of Joss Whedon making The Avengers film fills me with such happiness that I think I would have totally endured the trauma in order to sit in on that panel. But seeing the beautiful interlocking poster set Marvel has released is really the next best thing...
So cannot wait until May, 2012. This is literally a fanboy's dream come true.
• LEGO Heroes. And SPEAKING of super-heroes... earlier this week I saw that LEGO now has licenses to make sets for both the Marvel and DC line of comics! Is it too much to hope that a LEGO Heroes video game is in the works?
More images can be found over at Comics Alliance!
• Thriceful! Just a quick thank you to everybody who has made time to take a look at the latest issue of Thrice Fiction and send such nice comments! It makes all the hard work worthwhile. See you again in November...
(and if you haven't grabbed your free copy yet, what's stopping you?)
• Lovely. And lastly, before I go, a big congratulations to New York for taking a huge step towards equality for all. Some people have been waiting their entire lives for the opportunity to be married, and I couldn't be happier for them to have their chance at last...
It's been a long, long time coming. And yet there's still so much further to go.
Good night, Sunday.
And so I'm driving home after a very long day when some dumbass zips out in front of me, causing me to slam on my brand new brakes. After they pull their head out of their ass and realize what they've done, they stick their hand out their car window and wave. Like that makes everything all better. Except it really doesn't. I am sick to death of people NOT PAYING ATTENTION WHILE DRIVING! An automobile is a deadly piece of equipment that demands a driver's attention... why people are unwilling to do this is a mystery to me. It's only a matter of time before somebody ends up dead, so WTF?
What's so bizarre is that my 115-mile drive home this morning in the pouring rain was without incident. It wasn't until I made the 1-mile drive home from work with no rain that I had to deal with this crap.
Typical.
Now that the debt ceiling fiasco is approaching meltdown, I suppose I should form some kind of opinion on it. Which is kind of difficult, because I just don't give a flying fuck. Shit is going to happen one way or another, there's nothing I can do about it, and so I'm like... whatever...
All I know is that President Obama has caved so badly that he might as well be running as a Republican in the upcoming election... and House Speaker John Boehner won't compromise on anything. Which is why I didn't bother to listen to the speeches tonight. All I needed to know was summed up on Twitter by Deus Ex Malcontent, Chez Pazienza...
So nothing has changed then?
Typical.
In science news, A group led by Professor Shengwang Du at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, claims to have proven that a single photon can’t break the speed of light in a vacuum. This was accomplished when they "generated a pair of photons, and passed one of the pair through a group of laser-cooled rubidium atoms, taking advantage of an effect called electromagnetically induced transparency." This apparently allowed them to observe the “optical precursor” that is shoved ahead of the photon, determining that it was limited by the speed of light and could not surpass it in a vacuum.
Of course, all their thinking and supposition is based on a model where universal laws remain constant, and doesn't consider that a vacuum environment can be created where Einsteinian causality doesn't apply, but whatever. Go ahead and make baseless claims about how the universe works without even the tiniest of understanding of how it's constructed. No big deal.
Typical.
There are four streets I drive on to get to work.
Two of them are closed for construction. This basically means that I have to take two detours twice a day. For the most part, I don't mind, because it's (supposedly) going to make it easier to get from
As inconvenient as the detours were this morning, that wasn't the most irritating thing about my commute. That would be the mommy-jogger-walkers.
These inconsiderate morons jog down the street THREE-WIDE pushing GIANT STROLLERS. One of them on the sidewalk, two on the street. This alone blocks both foot and auto traffic in one direction... but they don't stop there. They are also WALKING THEIR DOGS, which are wandering all over the place, making them even more of an obstruction.
I didn't have my phone handy as I was forced to follow them down the road. Instead I had to take a picture of them down the street after I parked...
Now, in this photo, the two on the left are jogging single-file because a car was revving up behind them wanting to pass. But when I was behind them, they were side-by-side, effectively blocking the entire lane and not even attempting to share the road. I ended up having to wait for a break in oncoming traffic so I could go around them.
Far be it for me to berate somebody for trying to stay fit... but what a bunch of assholes.
It wouldn't be so bad if they were all jogging single-file on the side of the road... or if they were JOGGING THE SPEED LIMIT... but oh no! They totally don't give a shit that they are taking over THE ENTIRE STREET and causing a backlog of traffic. They're more important than people trying to get to work in the morning, so they just say a big FUCK YOU to motorists and do whatever the hell they want.
Which makes me wonder how long it will be before some pissed off person who's late for work runs them all down in the street.
Hopefully it won't end up being me.
Some people aren't happy unless they have all the bananas.
This kind of ambition doesn't bother me.
It's what they're willing to do to get all the bananas that bothers me.
I am mostly bored now-a-days.
Which is odd, because I am never lacking for something to do. Most of my waking moments are spent working, but in-between I still watch an occasional television show or catch up with the internet or view a video or read a book or something. How can I be this bored if my days are so packed? What else am I looking for?
I honestly don't know.
But it explains why I am constantly taking on new projects even though I don't have time for them. It's why I got RW to join me in creating Thrice Fiction. It's why I went ghost-hunting in Kentucky. It's why I do volunteer work that sends me to Hawaii. It's why I fly around the world visiting Hard Rock Cafes.
It's why I blog.
But despite all my efforts, it never seems like enough. Now even the crap that used to excite me is starting to become boring, which sucks. Maybe I need to start skydiving again or something?
Only time will tell.
If I don't end up bored to death, that is.
I had a nice long rant written, but decided to scrap it. I just don't need the aggravation.
This left me with nothing to write about tonight, so I went to FridayFive for a meme. Since this felt like kind of a cop-out, I decided to do all ten weeks that were displayed on their home page, which actually makes this a FridayFifty. I'm a total glutton for punishment like that...
Friday 5 for July 29: Public Options
Friday 5 for July 22: Similes, Part 2
Friday 5 for July 15: Long Journeys
Friday 5 for July 8: Rock Star Treatment
Friday 5 for July 1: Five for 5′s Fifth
Friday 5 for June 24: Summer Blockbusters
Friday 5 for June 17: Around the House
Friday 5 for June 10: What Goes In
Friday 5 for June 3: Summer!
Friday 5 for May 27: In the Mood
Well crap.
How can it be "one of those days" if it's a Saturday?
Sometimes I just get really tired of the battle. It never ends.
But you can't win if you don't play.
BLAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRRRRGG!
I'm irritable this Bullet Sunday. But that's not surprising, I've been irritable all week. I really need to plan a vacation soon.
• Debt! As I type this, President Obama has announced an agreement has been reached on a deficit deal. It hasn't been approved by the three-ring-circus clown show we call the US Congress, but, well... formalities and all. Personally, I don't pretend to comprehend the political strategy of a president folding like a wet tissue yet again with an election coming up, but, well... politics and all.
• Runway! I am not a "reality television" fan. So many of them are nothing more than spoiled assholes acting like douchebags which I don't find entertaining at all. I still watch "the original" reality show, Survivor because the challenges are creative and fun... but "Housebitches of Beverly Hills," "Jersey Whores," (or whatever) and the rest are just garbage I have no interest in. And yet there are exceptions, as I kind of like the creativity to be found in Project Runway and Top Chef. Usually, these are kind of throw-away shows that I half-watch while working, but sometimes they surprise me.
And the new season of Project Runway has a big surprise... former Miss Trinidad and Tobago from the Miss Universe Pageant, Anya Ayoung-Chee, is competing!
Photo by Ian M.S. Royer (public domain)
It's surprising for a few reasons... 1) She only learned to sew four months ago, and yet is easily one of the most talented contestants. 2) She's rocking a mohawk and yet still looks brutally hot. 3) There's a sex tape floating around online.
Oh... and some of the other contestants are interesting too. And Tim Gunn is still there.
• Plus? I am a very casual Netflix customer. I rent maybe one DVD plus two or three Instant Watch shows a month... if that... which averages out to around $3 a rental ($9.99 a month), which is fine. But now the same plan is going to cost me $15.98 a month, or $5 a rental, which is absurd. Which is why I'll be "downgrading" to their "limited" plan which allows one or two DVDs a month and two hours of Instant Watch for $4.99. Problem is that a measly two hours of Instant Watch isn't going to cut it when I'm traveling and want to watch a couple movies. So I decided to test-drive Hulu Plus (also $4.99 a month) with a free trial membership to see if I can supplement my Netflix plan to get where I want to be.
Um. Yeah. Hulu is a steaming (streaming?) pile of shit.
First of all, they CONTINUE TO FORCE YOU TO WATCH ADS, EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE NOW PAYING THEM FOR THEIR SHIT! Ads to finance a FREE service, I get. But paying for ads? I don't think so. What's so high-larious is that Hulu has the balls to position their shitty ads as entertainment. Every time I clicked on "NO" when they asked "is this ad relevant to you?" (because no ad EVER WILL BE), they say "Thanks! We'll use your input to improve your ad experience." Shyeah. Right. "Experience." Though I guess getting kicked in the balls is an "experience," so whatever.
Isn't the giant Verizon ad intrusive enough without being forced to watch a video ad too?
Guess I'm going with iTunes video rentals. Non-HD movies are $2.99 ($3.99 for new releases) and TV shows are 99¢ which seems about right. And since I pay only for what I watch, I may end up saving money. Nice.
Netflix could have saved my business entirely by offering an option for $1 per hour streaming past their $4.90 plan. Now half the money (or more) I used to give them is going to Apple. Genius economic business plan, Netflix. Truly genius.
• Miley! It's no secret that I am a big Miley Cyrus fan (probably because I am such a huge Hannah Montana fan). Some of her songs are pop gold (The Time of Our Lives and Liberty Walk are beyond gold!). But here's the thing. The thing is this. Miley isn't just big poppy fun. She's also smart, compassionate, respectful, and open-minded.
On Twitter the other day, she tweeted about getting a marriage equality tattoo on her finger. One of her fans tossed up Bible verse to say that Miley was wrong about gay marriage. Miley replied that only God can judge people, and love was love. This (naturally) caused Miley's fans to attack the Bible quoting fan (who calls themselves "@MileyCyrusLuver"). To which Miley replied thusly...
Dude everyone lay off @MileyCyrusLuver Love u! Everyone is entitled 2 opinions! 'if u don't stand 4 something you'll fall for anything.' :)
I mean, seriously. Miley Cyrus has a better head on her shoulders than most adults.
With each passing day I grow more horrified at the polarization of this country. People don't respectfully debate any more... they just hate. And it just keeps getting worse and worse. Then here comes Miley who, with a single tweet, completely restores my faith in the future of humanity...
Could not possibly be a bigger fan right now.
Though, given my luck with celebrities, she'll be arrested for burning down a church while high on meth after kicking a puppy in front of the paparazzi, so there's that.
And, on that happy note, I get to go back to work!
I've been thinking a lot about the past recently, which is very much not like me. Usually I dwell on past events just long enough to learn what I can for them, then move on.
But before I get to that...
To all my Muslim friends, peace and prosperity be unto you during the holy month of Ramadan!
Ramadan is a time for reflection and rejuvenating ones soul, which is kind of where I'm at right now.
Because slipping into the past has given me a sense of being grounded at a time where I am feeling anything but grounded. I look through old photos and it's all chocolate pudding and good times. And the further back I go, the more comforting life seems...
It's hard not to be grounded in Hawaii — Maui, 1992
The ultimate place to get grounded — Phang Nga, Thailand 1998
Mona knows something about being grounded — Paris, 1999
In the past, friends and family I love who have now died are still alive.
In the past, I took things less seriously and knew how to have fun.
In the past, the world made sense and life was easier to understand.
In the past, the universe was at my feet and nothing seemed impossible.
In the past, I had overreaching goals and my path was clear.
Now? Not so much.
And yet... when I stop and really think about it, nothing has changed.
My friends and family who have passed on are still with me. I can set things aside and have fun while still being serious. Things don't have to always make sense for me to find my way. Something is only impossible if I lack the imagination to achieve it. Realistic goals can still show me the path I need to follow.
It's always been this way, I just need to remember.
Because we so rarely take photos of the bad times, hindsight is 20/20, and its all too easy to view the past with rose-colored glasses.
Which means that one day I will look back on this moment and see that life was actually pretty amazing.
At least I sure hope so.
I didn't get to bed until around 2:30am this morning, so I had it in my head that I would attempt to sleep-in until at least 7:00am. This plan was foiled when iPhone decided to beep with a text message at 6:30am. It was Bad Robert saying "Ever have to poop but not want to get out of bed? This is America. We should have a solution for that."
This lead to a texting debate as to whether it would be cheaper to develop the "Bed Toilet" or simply hire a maid to clean up after you each morning. I was firmly in the "Bed Toilet" camp because I can't fathom paying somebody to clean my poop from the sheets. Bad Robert says he'd wear diapers to avoid embarrassment, which speaks volumes for his mindset on such matters.
This is my dream bed, obviously.
Now, you would think that coming up with the toilet bed would be the highlight of my day.
But this afternoon I got an email with photos from a friend-of-a-friend's wedding in New York. One of the images was of the groom and groom holding up the wedding invitations I designed for them. They looked incredibly happy. And the fact that I was a tiny part of making that happen had me walking on air.
For about ten minutes.
Then I was looking through my news feed and ran across presidential candidate Rick Santorum being a complete and total asshole. Again...
“States do not have the right to destroy the American family. It is your business,” Santorum said. “It is not fine with me that New York has destroyed marriage. It is not fine with me that New York is setting a template that will cause great division in this country.”
Then I look back at a photograph of two guys on their wedding day with smiles as big as the world on their faces.
They're not "destroying" anything.
They're not the ones "causing a great division" anywhere.
They're just living the American dream by pursuing happiness. And they're doing it without hurting anybody. It's piece-of-shit Rick Santorum that's causing a great division in this country. He's the one destroying marriage by thinking so little of it that gay matrimony could possibly have any effect on it.
The only person "destroying the American family" here is Rick Santorum.
Which, of course, means that he loves cock.
"YOU MUST BE THIS BIG TO RIDE"
Why else would he so vehemently attack the gays if not to distract people from the fact that he's craving a big ol' cock sandwich? As history has shown us again and again and again, those who lash out the hardest against homosexuality are those people who end up being homosexuals.
But whatever.
Because two guys in New York who love each other very much are starting a new life together.
To them, Rick Santorum's self-loathing hater idiocy doesn't mean shit.
"YOU'VE NEVER TRIED IT! WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW?"
Most of the time, this is a correct statement. No, I haven't eaten pig knuckles. I don't plan to ever eat pig knuckles, ever. So, yes, I know nothing about them (except that I don't ever want to eat them).
But pig knuckles are not really the kind of thing I'm talking about here. No, it's always over something I've expressed a favorable opinion on. Usually something Apple-related.
If I say that I love my iPod... "YOU'VE NEVER TRIED A ZUNE! WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW? iPODS SUCK! ZUNE RULES!!"
If I say that I love my Mac .... "YOU'VE NEVER TRIED DEBIAN LINUX! WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW? MACS SUCK! DEBIAN RULES!!"
If I say that I love my iPhone... "YOU'VE NEVER TRIED ANDROID! WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW? iPHONES SUCK! ANDROID RULES!!"
But sometimes the assumption is wrong. In the above cases, they're all wrong. I was given a Zune as a promotional item (which I hated and donated to a charity auction). I have not only used Debian, but Ubuntu, Red Hat, SCO, and several other UNIX flavors. And, as an interface designer, I've owned one Android phone and have goofed around with several others.
So whatever. People can make all the unwarranted suppositions they want. That's not my problem.
My problem is that I just don't understand why absolutely everything has to be a competition now-a-days. We're not allowed to like something unless we've tried every conceivable alternative? We can't like two things at the same time? We can't like something because it's not popular? We can't like something because it's too popular?
Maybe it's decades of bombardment by advertisers that have conditioned us to be this way. Or maybe it's just social evolution since we can't challenge each other to duels anymore. Whatever the case, it kind of sucks.
Because I like to love things.
After a week, I can't say that I'm a big fan of Apple's new "Lion" OS.
At least not yet.
So far for me it's been a buggy, slow, crash-prone pile of crap. But so many people are raving about it that I'm sure it's just some legacy stuff from four years ago that's lurking on my hard drive and causing problems. Doing a clean install tomorrow should fix things right up.
At least it had better.
Because I am sick to death of having to reboot a minimum of twice a day... and if I get one more "Application Not Responding" freeze I'm going to go all homicidal...
In the meanwhile I've got one last task left to do tonight before I wipe my hard drive. After that? Say good night, Gracie.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to a Very Special Episode of...
...
...
... nah, that would be telling!
UPDATE! Wheee! In the 35 minutes it took me to complete my project, my MacBook froze twice, had to be rebooted once, and started sporting really odd behavior in the Finder with files popping up which could not be deleted unless I restarted it...
WHY THE #@$% NOT?!? IT'S NOT BEING USED... HELL, IT DOESN'T EVEN REALLY EXIST!!
I hope everything goes well tomorrow so I don't have to set my laptop on fire.
As I've mentioned several times to anybody who will listen, my favorite podcast is Hey! That's My Hummus! which is a creation of my most excellent blog friends, Mr. Shiny and Faiqa (both of whom are on a blogging sabbatical while they're working on the show, so I linked to their Twitter feeds).
If a Jew and a Muslim walked into a podcast you get, well... "Hey! That's My Hummus!" It's an awesome show filled with respectful discussion of numerous topics with a humorous slant. If you're not listening to it, you should be.
Anyway...
With Faiqa being in San Diego for BlogHer, Shiny asked if I would like to "virtually guest-host" a
So I agreed, and you can listen to my episode right now by clicking on this link!"
It's an awesome show because it has both me and Batman in it.
Oh... and Faiqa and Shiny too.
BONUS! BEHIND THE HUMMUS SECRETS! (spoilers! listen to the podcast first!)
Wheeeeeeee!
The waiting is the hardest part...
YEEEEEEEEE-HAW! It's a rootin' tootin' six-shootin' Bullet Sunday!
• Masked! I am not such a big fan of the new TNT series Franklin & Bash. Nobody likes a smart-ass more than I do, but the lead characters all too often cross the line from smartassery to dumbassery, and I spend much of each episode rolling my eyes back into my head...
Judge: You're asking to bring a corpse into my courtroom?
Franklin: No! That would be ridiculous!
Bash: We want to bring the court to him. Jury field-trip to the morgue!
Prosecutor: A field trip. Really. You sure you got signed permission slips from your moms?
Franklin: Actually, we got one from yours.
Bash: Last night!
Bwah ha ha ha! From your mom... LAST NIGHT! How high-larious is that?!
Who wants to listen to lame, cliche, stupid-ass dialogue like this? However, the show has Malcolm McDowell in it, which is one of my favorite actors, so I keep watching.
This dedication to Franklin & Bash was rewarded in their season finale which featured a guest-appearance by the delicious Tricia Helfer! But the bigger surprise was a guest-star playing a masked Mexican wrestler named "Ultimo" involved in a lawsuit...
Until he removed his mask at the end, I had no idea who it was. And this drives me nuts, because I should have known! I'm a big fan of the actor! (SPOILER! Highlight the inviso-text if you want to know: Danny Trejo). Oh well. The series has been renewed, so I'm hoping that the writers go more "smart-funny" in season two.
• Roar! I finally did a clean install of Lion on my crippled MacBook. I was going to attempt this with the "recovery partition" that Lion makes on your hard drive, but decided instead to start over from scratch by making a bootable Lion Installer on a USB drive. Cut to a half-hour later, and my computer was operating "normally" again. I still have some real problems with the way Lion does certain things and some of the choices that Apple made, but at least I have a useable computer. Now starts the scary task of reinstalling my software in the hopes that one of the programs I rely on wasn't what was causing all the problems.
• Hidden! And speaking of installing my software... I ran into something new in Lion that I can't figure out. Why has Apple decided to hide the "library" folder in a user's home directory? At first I thought it was to protect all the settings, preferences, and support files from being tampered with... which I kinda get... but then why wouldn't they hide the "library" folder for the System? In any event, this makes it tough for people to transfer their prefs or delete faulty prefs when there's a problem. Fortunately, you can show hidden files in the terminal with...
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
killall Finder
And you can hide them again with...
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false
killall Finder
• Wrong! Since I haven't installed Photoshop back on my laptop yet, I started up Apple's photo manager/editor Aperture 3. All I needed was to crop that wrestler photo, so it wasn't a big deal. Except it was. I cropped the image to 500 x 330 like I wanted...
But when I open it... not so much...
Which finds me once again wondering who in the hell is beta-testing Apple's shit. The more I use their software lately, the more problems I run across. Problems which should have easily been caught during beta testing. I mean, seriously, if you were in charge testing of testing the crop tool, wouldn't you VERIFY that it actually crops to the size that it said it cropped to? Wouldn't that be job one? This is beyond lame and has me wondering if Apple has gotten too big to give a fuck anymore (see: Microsoft).
• Reed! A while back, a company called "Black Pixel" bought out the awesome feed reader I use, NetNewsWire. They promised to give us a road-map of future released after WWDC back in June... but... nothing. So I decided to check out the Mac version of the feed reader I use on my iPhone, Reeder. It's nice. It's polished. But I couldn't find a "next unread" shortcut when reading through my full list. This is a pretty basic feature, so now I'm looking elsewhere. Sometimes "progress" can really suck.
• Cloud! I have entirely too many computer files. So many that I could never store them all on my laptop. So I went and signed up for DropBox, thinking I would be getting a magical hard drive in the sky where I could remotely access my files without taking up local hard drive space. WRONG! DropBox doesn't have a cloud storage option... anything you put there is mirrored on your hard drive which, while useful in some cases, is the opposite of what I wanted. Sure you have the ability to not sync certain folders, but then you have to either sync them when you want to use them (a huge waste of time and bandwidth) or use their web browser interface (slow and inconvenient). Enter ExpanDrive! Available for both Mac & Windows, this nifty app can mount remote volumes (such as FTP or Amazon S3) as a local drive which acts the exact same as a drive plugged into your computer. It works shockingly well, and assures me that I can have easy access to my files even if I don't have room for all of them on my Mac. If you have a need for such a thing, there's a free 30-day trial available for download.
And, on that happy note, I now get to sort through a batch of crap that I took out of my storage unit a couple months back. That aught to be a boat-load of fun.
"Some men just want to watch the world burn."
— Alfred Pennyworth, The Dark Knight
In total seriousness, why can't I block incoming call numbers on my iPhone?
Or, to be more accurate, why do I have to "jailbreak" my iPhone to block incoming call numbers on my iPhone?
How "smart" can a "smart phone" be if you can't tell it to block calls you don't want?
Last week somebody had my mobile phone confused with a FAX machine. For two hours. After the first hour, I added the caller to my address book so I could assign a "silent" ringtone. Because that's the absolute best you can do with an iPhone. For the past couple days I've had to once again ignore my phone because of a number I don't know keeps calling. Today I couldn't stand it any longer and answered. It was a company wanting me to take an opinion poll. My opinion was that they could shove their fucking poll up their ass since the call was eating into my minutes.
Pathetic.
The fact that Apple doesn't allow people to manage who has access to them is pathetic.
In other bad news, this is London...
The above map shows incidents of "rioting" in The City and its surrounds.
I can pretend to understand the thinking that would cause somebody who feels poverty-stricken, oppressed, and abused by The System to resort to violence and destroy the property of innocent people who are just trying to make a living... but not really. Especially when people are being endangered and hurt.
"London shops that survived the German blitz bombings and fires, now being burned to the ground by their own in 2011."
— @felix85, via Twitter
Sadly, this kind of mentality feels like a sign of things to come. And it's only a matter of time before it reaches our shores. With each passing day, US citizens grow more and more tired of the fucked-up political bullshit that's destroying their lives and this country. There's no respect, compassion, understanding, or compromise any more. Just hate. And all that hate has to go somewhere.
It's just a matter of whether the world can survive it.
"No, I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one."
— Adrian Veidt, Watchmen
Though right now, I'd settle for a smarter smart phone.
Today's "Word of the Day" over at Dictionary.com is "amaranthine."
1. Unfading; everlasting. 2. Of or like the amaranth flower. 3. Of purplish-red color.
I'm a big fan of "word of the day" type sites, and bounce between Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.com to get my fix (M-W's word today is "diluvial"). Not that I ever remember these words again after I read them, but it's fun for the moment.
Anyway...
I bring this all up because "amaranthine" is a word I actually know in the context of "everlasting."
As in, I have dyslexia, which is amaranthine in nature.
When I was very young... 1st or 2nd grade in school... I was tested for dyslexia because I exhibited some of the symptoms. After a couple weeks evaluation it was determined that I did indeed have dyslexia, albeit a fairly mild form of it. This meant that I had to attend special classes with Mrs. Patton to teach me how to compensate for my problem. After a couple months they decided that the classes weren't doing me any good, and I was doing a better job of teaching my brain how to handle it by myself.
And eventually I got a handle on it.
I "read" more by the shapes of words and their context rather than the letters they contain.
I "type" more by memorizing patterns of keystrokes instead of punching the alphabet.
I "write" using visual clues that help me to keep the letters going the right way.
It works automatically after all these years and I don't even have to think about it. Which is not to say that I don't still run into trouble from time to time. Usually I start mixing things up when I am tired or the the words are printed on something really distracting. Single words out of context can be problematic if they're written in a typeface that doesn't maintain common letterforms. Numbers sometimes have to be looked at two and three times before I'm confident enough to act upon them. And so on.
I can go weeks... even months... at a time before I "remember" that I have dyslexia. Something will happen to draw my attention to it, and then I'll spend a couple days not being able to forget it, which is always fun.
And this morning I was "reminded" of my dyslexia again. But in a good way.
A company in the Netherlands has developed a typeface called "Dyslexie" which is specially designed to help dyslexics...
Sweet!
Unfortunately, it's not priced for public consumption (yet), nor does it seem to be available in the USA (yet), but it's still pretty exciting news. Being able to install it on my Mac for web browsing and email reading might make my day a little less mentally tiring.
And every little bit helps.
Because life isn't amaranthine at all.
I remember what it was like to sleep. Good times. Good times.
Except I rarely sleep anymore. I just don't seem to get tired...
...until the minute it's time to get up and go to work, then I'm totally tired.
But then the night comes and the cycle repeats all over again...
I really don't like taking drugs if I can help it, but this is getting ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous when you fondly remember the good ol' days when you were only complaining about getting four hours of sleep instead of no sleep at all.
Four hours seems like something from a dream now.
If I could fall asleep to have it.
If you happen to have a monkey with a sledgehammer available, I highly recommend them as the perfect solution for insomnia...
Of course, a handful of Nytol will do the trick too...
Looking at old photos from the 1960's & 70's is always guaranteed fun times because of the insane mainstream fashions that were prevalent in the day. There wasn't a color or pattern too crazy to be used, and it's only now that we can look back and say "What the fuck was everybody thinking?
Here's just a few examples of the awesome couture du jour from my childhood...
Pretty deranged, right?
Except...
More and more while watching Project Runway I feel as though the stuff I was wearing back then was actually more fashion-forward than the ridiculous shit than some of the contestants seem to come up with. Last night's "Stilts Challenge" was no exception...
And then there are times while watching the show that I seriously think that Heidi Klum should just take out a gun and shoot the "designers" for the sake of all humanity. I mean, I'm no fashion expert, but holy shit...
Somewhere out there, Tim Gunn is weeping for the future...
This week was the kick-off of the Republican presidential primaries at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. This is important because, by now, you'd think that we'd finally start to get some insight as to what conservative presidential candidates are going to do to pull this country out of the death-spiral we're in. And I, for one, am anxious to hear about it.
So where is it?
All I heard out of the candidates every time I watched the television or clicked on a news site was three things...
Now, the first two I get. It's easy to point to the man in charge and blame him for everything... and nobody likes to pay taxes. But it's this third one that has me completely baffled. Why in the hell are the Republicans so fucking obsessed with the gays? What do they have to do with jobs, the economy, the debt crisis, or the price of tea in China? NOTHING! And yet the candidates just can't seem to shut up about them. Hell, Rick Santorum has based his entire fucking campaign on attacking marriage equality. First it was something about gay napkins wanting to be paper towels... then he was talking about a glass of gay water wanting to be a glass of beer. And it just gets crazier from there.
For the life of me, I can't understand how conservative politicians preach 'til they're blue in the face about wanting a smaller government that stays out of our lives... only to turn around and say that our government should regulate what two consenting adults do in their bedroom or who churches are allowed to marry.
I can only guess that this wacky bullshit is what their supporters want to hear (no matter how schizophrenic and absurd it sounds). Though it's hard to see how people can take them seriously when anti-gay conservatives keep getting busted in gay sex scandals (ooh... look... yet another one just broke the other day!).
But what truly mystifies me is how Republicans seem to want to tie themselves to a voter base that's diminishing with each passing day. How can you win an election that way? Are they really all so clueless about changing attitudes in this country? Do they really not understand that people are quickly becoming tired of hearing about the "evils of gay marriage" when they're jobless, broke, and have lost their home? Really? Really?
I dunno. Maybe they really are this clueless, and nobody has bothered to tell them?
Well, okay then. Candidates, I'm here to help. I help because I care. But mostly because I'm sick and tired of having this homophobic bullshit getting in the way of addressing ACTUAL ISSUES FACING THIS COUNTRY.
So here's a rundown of why we don't give a shit about your anti-gay agenda. And, because I am seriously worried about your being to grasp these very simple concepts, I'm including clips from my new favorite television show, Happy Endings, to help explain them. Enjoy!
(If you can't see the clips, you may need to open this entry in a web browser or install Quicktime, sorry!)
1) PEOPLE SUPPORT THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY.
There is a growing majority of people who are sick and tired of watching their gay friends, family, and neighbors being used as your political punching bag. And we vote. And we just want our gay friends to have a shot at happiness like everybody else...
2) ACTUAL STRAIGHT PEOPLE AREN'T AFFECTED BY WHO GAY PEOPLE MARRY.
The more you keep hammering away against equality, the more we have to question why you give a shit. The only reason you should give a flying fuck about somebody's sexuality, or what they do in bed, or who they marry is if you want to date them, sleep with them, or marry them...
3) YOUR BELIEFS DON'T GET TO DICTATE HOW TWO CONSENTING ADULTS LIVE THEIR LIVES.
This is a free country. You can believe whatever you want to believe. If you wish to believe that God would make it so somebody can to "choose to be gay," then turn around and send them to hell for it, that's your business. But, since this is a free country, your beliefs don't get to dictate how two consenting adults live their lives. Your attempts at making homosexuality "illegal" are antiquated, backwards, and sad. And a little funny, given that this is the year 2011 and all...
4) HANGING OUT WITH GAY PEOPLE DOESN'T MAKE YOU GAY.
When you talk about gays ruining society at every opportunity, but then want to pretend they don't exist if they're in the military, we have to question your sanity. Gay is not contagious. Sleeping in the same room as somebody who's gay isn't going to convert our entire military into an army of homosexuals...
5) THERE'S MORE TO PEOPLE THAN THEIR SEXUALITY.
You seem inexplicably fond of making it sound like homosexuals are somehow removed from society. As if who they sleep with is all they are. As if America is so small an idea that there couldn't possibly be room for anybody who doesn't think or act exactly like you do. But when it comes to jobs, the economy, our homes, our safety, our relationship with the world, and our freedom... we're all in this together. We live together. We work together. We play together. We rise together. We fall together...
So there you have it. And you're welcome.
Now you can abandon this doomed crusade against all things gay and focus your energies on telling us what we really need to know. Like how you plan on dealing with the real problems we face.
Or not.
Given President Obama's popularity right now, it's your election to lose.
I threw my back out. Again. This is profoundly disappointing given that I just went through this four months ago. Hope you like your bullets pain-killer-induced.
• Shower? And so the Perseid Meteor Shower peaked this weekend. Despite fairly clear skies, I saw none of it. Needless to say, I'm disappointed. But it's not like an insomniac such as myself has a better way to spend their time than looking for it, so I guess that's how it goes. My failure was somewhat offset by this amazing shot of what it looked like from space...
That shot was tweeted by astronaut Ron Garan from the International Space Station. If you're on Twitter, you must follow this guy, because he's always posting cool stuff like this. If you're not on Twitter, he makes it worth checking out.
Also tweeting from space? Astronaut Clayton Anderson. And that's just the tip of the Twitter iceberg. Goddard Space Flight Center... plus dozens more cool NASA-related tweeters are waiting for you.
• Race? Few discussions can become polarizing and nasty quicker than talking about race relations in America. And yet it's a discussion that must be had. Lucky for us Kelly is willing to lead the charge, again, and this time it starts off (oddly enough) with a cake. Essential reading for the human race.
• Really? Yesterday I blogged about the blatant homophobic insanity that seems to be dominating Republican politics, and how a growing majority of Americans are sick and tired of anti-gay policy attacking our friends, family, and neighbors. The worst offender is Rick Santorum, who can't seem to open his mouth without spouting some kind of stupid homophobic crap. Second runner-up on the homophobia bandwagon is Michele Bachmann, who doesn't necessarily want to destroy the gays... she just wants to strip these "barbarians" of all their rights until they have no choice but to enroll in one of her husband's Christian counseling clinics to "pray the gay away."
And now we learn that she won the Ames Straw Pole in Iowa.
If she wins her party's nomination... if she somehow ends up as President of the United States... I can't fathom the ramification for human rights in this country. Hell, I can't fathom the continued existence of our country under her reign of batshit crazy...
At this rate, it looks like I'll be voting for Spongebob Squarepants for president.
• Dead? One of the bigger television surprises for me last season was The Walking Dead. As a loose adaptation of one of my favorite comic book series, it was almost too good to be true. A part of this was because they got the original creator, Robert Kirkman, to be a producer... but the lion's share of the credit could undoubtedly be dropped on the doorstep of Frank Darabont. He was the genius who developed the series for television and became executive producer for the series. Which went on to become a massive hit... with viewers and critics alike. So what does AMC Television do with their new-found pot of gold? Cut the budget and fire Darabont. Which just goes to show... television executives can be enormous douchebag dumbfucks regardless of which network they helm. How this will affect the quality of the second season is anybody's guess.
Photo by Greg Nicotero for AMCtv.com © 2011 TWD Productions, LLC
• Eureka? In more sad geek news, the SyFy Channel has cancelled EUReKA! This bizarre turn of events signals an end to original sci-fi programming on a network created for sci-fi programming. The best originals they have to offer now is supernatural drama like the Being Human remake or paranormal fantasy like Warehouse 13. "SyFy" is mostly reality television and pro wrestling now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised... MTV Music Television rarely plays music any more, why should this be any different?
And that's all the bullets for this week. Be sure to tune in next Bullet Sunday for more drug-indiced ramblings.
Nothing quite like losing 15% of your retirement fund in less than two months. So happy I pay a bunch of experts to manage my money! Something tells me I would have been better off investing my money in hookers. Sure it uses my long-term asset for a short-term investment with no long-term payoff... and comes with some really heavy risk factors... but at least I would be stimulating the local economy.
And my penis.
What's odd is that my retirement plan is fairly low-risk. I can't imagine how much I would have lost were I still in the high-risk/high-yield program I was in just five years ago.
And don't think I'm not grateful that I at least have something left in my retirement account. There are many, many people out there who are not so lucky. Stupid economy.
So, yeah, I'm a little worried about my retirement.
But that's quite a ways away. And, as of today, is even further away than it was last month.
The more immediate concern is my upcoming vacation. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but if the US dollar gets much worse, my travels are going to take a turn for the worse...
On the other hand, I would be meeting new and interesting people.
To the person who asked, the cartoon character you see on Blogography is indeed a visual representation of me. Or rather, a representation of my inner child. The story of how the design came about is here. But the design itself is based on a photo of me as a kid. I don't think I've published it before, so here you go...
The hair is based on many, many other photos of how it looked through most of my childhood (and a and a big chunk of my adulthood)...
And there you have it. Thanks for the email!
The drive to Spokane is not a particularly pleasant one.
It's long, it's boring, and it's filled with more nothing than a person really wants to deal with. So whenever I have work there, a wave of dread washes over me. Don't get me wrong... Spokane's a terrific city... I just hate the drive.
But there is a reward at the end of this tedious journey. Because Spokane is where the Best Pizza in the Universe can be found. The mind-numbing hours of driving through vast open spaces isn't so bad knowing that a couple slices of my favorite pizza ever will be waiting for me. It's pretty much all I can think about the entire trip...
David's Pizza's Masterpiece... The DaVinci!
But there would be no pizza waiting for me today.
After nearly three hours of mind-numbing boredom, there would be no reward for the drive.
As usual, I don't pass GO, I don't collect $200... I don't even check into my hotel room... I head straight for David's Pizza only to find...
This...
It's gone.
It's just gone.
And as I sat there in my car staring at the mounds of dirt and rubble that used to be one of my favorite places on earth to eat... I just didn't know what to do with myself. Life had suddenly become meaningless and impossible.
Apparently they will be opening up at a new location "soon," but that doesn't do me much good now.
Now that I am abandoned and pizza-less.
Now that all I have to console me are memories.
Before we do this, GO GET FREE MATT & KIM!! Yes! FREE! And not a bad track!
Last night after my complete mental breakdown over losing David's Pizza, home of my favorite pizza on earth, I decided to drink a lot of alcohol and go see Captain America. While neither eased my pain completely, I was a lot better off at the end of the day.
I'm going to review Captain America: The First Avenger now, because I'm a total comic book geek like that but, if that's not something you care to read about, I'll just sum it up thusly: This film is pretty close to flawless. Not just for a comic book movie, but for ANY movie. Even if you're not into the whole super-hero thing, it would be worth your time to watch. I love, love, loved it...
Before we get into the movie itself, a little background on me and Captain America.
Growing up, I was a total DC Comics fan (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.)... and not much of a Marvel Comics fan (Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, etc.). That being said, Cap was the first Marvel comic that I got into. It all started with Captain America and Falcon #211-213 by comics giant Jack Kirby. The stories were originally published in 1977, but I got ahold of them as a poly-bagged set the early 1980's (I'm guessing they were re-prints?). These issues were a great read, having plenty of action and featuring the quintessential Cap villains The Red Skull and Arnim Zola. Unfortunately, my new-found infatuation with the Captain America universe was short-lived, because the current issues of the title were a drastic step down from the Kirby reprints I had just read. After that I pretty much ignored Captain America unless he was in other Marvel titles, like The Avengers.
All that changed in 2004 when Ed Brubaker came onboard for a Captain America relaunch. Since then I've been a fan of the character, snapping up most of the graphic novel collections as they are released. Far from being an exercise in one-dimensional blind patriotism, Burbaker's treatment of the character was a fascinating exploration that actually had some depth to it. Even though he eventually ended up killing Steve Rogers, then bringing him back (of course), the book remains an excellent read.
Which is why I was terrified over the Captain America film despite the awesome set photos that were released. There was just too much to lose.
Fortunately, I had nothing to worry about. The First Avenger is near-flawless, and works on so many levels. As a straight-up action movie, it's a good time. As a war-movie, it's an immediate classic. As a super-hero film, it's faithful to the source material. Like Iron Man and Thor before it, the character just works on film. Beautifully.
It all starts as the USA has entered World War II and weakling Steve Rogers wants to join the fight. Unfortunately, a multitude of chronic illnesses makes him unfit for duty. Never one to be discouraged, Steve keeps trying until he has the good fortune to be noticed by Dr. Abraham Erskine. The good doctor is secretly working with the US Army to develop a new "super soldier" serum, and Steve Rogers has the qualities of heroism, bravery, and kindness he's looking for. The experiment is a complete success, and Captain America is eventually born... becoming the "Sentinel of Liberty" for the American war effort. Lots of cool action sequences ensue.
The Good Great
• Casting. I'm not the biggest Chris Evans fan, but there is no denying that he is Captain America on-screen. Unlike his previous role as The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four films, Evans actually has to project something more than cocky aloofness here. He has to be a living, breathing icon, and he nails it. The early scenes where special effects have turned Evans' perfect physique into wimpy Steve Rogers is where he really shines as an actor, and his every scene is exceedingly good. Other roles are equally well-cast, most notably the incredible Stanley Tucci as Dr. Erskine, Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Phillips, and an absolutely amazing Hugo Weaving as The Red Skull.
• Story. Usually origin stories are notoriously superficial and boring on the screen, but director Joe Johnston and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely somehow managed to make Captain America work perfectly. The set-up is just right, telling the viewer everything they need to know about the world they'll be visiting. The progressive origin of Cap is both logical and entertaining. The action is full-on excitement without becoming comical. It's everything you want in a comic book movie... or any adventure movie, really.
• Costumes. Captain America's garish outfit would be a really easy thing to screw-up on the big screen. That didn't happen. The evolution of his costume is handled incredibly well, with everything making perfect sense. The period-specific costumes for all the other actors were equally amazing, and really made you feel you were back in time. Somebody should win an Oscar here.
• Rewards. There were clever moments with some of the characters which hinted to their futures (as shown in the comic books). They were clever enough to reward comic fans, but subtle enough not to confuse newbies. My favorite? Arnim Zola's intro. Genius.
• Effects. The tough thing about having futuristic energy weapons showing up in the 1940's is that it just doesn't work logistically. But the integration was so deftly handled and so logically explained that it just didn't matter. And, again, mad props to the people responsible for turning Chris Evans into wimpy Steve Rogers at the beginning of the film...
I know special effects are good now-a-days, but this is a-m-a-z-i-n-g.
The Not-So-Great
• Set-Up. I love the way that the Marvel Universe films are all fitting together (ultimately culminating with The Avengers movie next Summer)... but Captain America goes overboard. Having Tony (Iron Man) Stark's dad be the leading scientist of the war effort? Cool. Having the Cosmic Cube come from Thor's dad's treasure room? Great. But having the so much of the plot being a set-up for future films? Dangerous. Especially at the very end of the film, which seems a little tacked-on and artificial. In the future, let the movies stand on their own... if they're well-made and faithful to the source material, they'll still fit into the Marvel film universe and get people excited to see more.
• Bullets. Near the beginning of the film, a Hydra Nazi is being chased by Steve soon-to-be-Captain-America Rogers. Along the way he fires like a bajillion bullets from his gun... without re-loading. Man, how I hate that.
So overall? Fantastic and faithful film with a lot of action, honesty, and heart.
And this updates my whole "Y2K Super-Hero Comic Book Renaissance" scorecard as follows...
Batman Begins... A
Batman Dark Knight... A+
Blade... B
Blade 2... B
Blade Trinity... B-
Captain America... A+
Catwoman... F
Daredevil... B-
Daredevil (Director's Cut)... B+
Elektra... D
Fantastic Four... C
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer... D
Ghost Rider... C
Green Hornet... D
Green Lantern... C+
Hellboy... A
Hellboy 2: Golden Army... A
Hulk... C-
Incredible Hulk... B
The Incredibles... A+
Iron Man... A+
Iron Man 2... A
Jonah Hex... F
Kick-Ass... B+
Punisher... C+
Punisher War Zone... C
Spider-Man... B+
Spider-Man 2... A
Spider-Man 3... D-
Superman Returns... C+
Thor... B+
Watchmen... B
X-Men... C
X-Men 2: United... D
X-Men 3: Last Stand... F-
X-Men Origins: Wolverine... D
X-Men: First Class... B
Today I had to make the long drive back home from Spokane.
WITH NO DAVID'S PIZZA FOR THE ROAD!
Oh how I used to love road pizza. Remember road pizza? I remember road pizza. Nothing makes a long drive fly by like road pizza. Except perhaps Jägermeister and cocaine. But Oprah says you shouldn't drive while drunk and high, so I guess that wouldn't work.
Except Oprah doesn't drive at all. She has a chauffeur drive her ass around! So who the hell is Oprah to tell me that Jägermeister and cocaine is a bad substitute for road pizza? She's probably drunk and high in the back of her stretch limo all the time! If I had Oprah-money, I know I would be.
Sigh.
I really miss road pizza...
Mmmmmm... yummy road pizza!
Don't miss Oprah though.
Last night I went to Famous Ed's, which is a sports bar run by the same people that run David's Pizza. They had my beloved "Da Vinci" pizza, so I ordered up a pie...
It looked kind of like David's. It had a taste that was reminiscent of David's, but... not so much.
For one thing, they added clove garlic to it, so the subtle flavors in the pesto were destroyed. For another thing, the feta cheese had too many crumbs, so it was also too salty. Something was off with the crust too. Not that it was a bad pizza per se, but it just wasn't David's.
Oh well. Better than nothing, I guess.
Hopefully they'll re-open at their new location soon and the universe will go back to normal.
And I can go back to having my road pizza.
I spent my morning working.
I spent my afternoon and evening simplifying my life.
My goal is to throw away, give away, or sell half of my stuff. It's all stuff I want, but it's nothing I need, and I'm tired of boxes upon boxes of junk cluttering up my space. And though I never much thought of myself as a sentimental person, getting rid of so many things from my past has been tough. Some of this crap I've kept since childhood, and knowing it isn't going to be around anymore is sad for some reason. I rarely look at/use/play with any of it, so it really shouldn't be this hard, should it? I mean, it's just stuff sitting in boxes.
I'm lessening the blow by taking photographs of everything.
I'll probably never look at the pictures, but knowing that they're there will help with these senseless feelings of attachment I seem to have.
Hopefully once I'm done I won't replace the stuff I'm getting rid of with new crap I don't need. I really don't want to go through all this again in ten years.
It'll have to be a short Bullet Sunday today... I've got a big mess to clear up in my living room...
• Diiiiiiiieee! A new study shows that single people die younger than married people. The bottom-line being that I would live (on average, I guess) 8 to 17 years longer if I were to get hitched. I don't really know if I want to live 17 years longer on this sick sad world, but I suppose I should start investigating mail-order bride options just in case.
• Millionaires! Everybody's favorite drug-endorsing, alcohol-gorging, sex-addicted, party-obsessed melody-makers are back and asking for your help to finance their first album! That's right, Millionaires (one of those bands I hate to love) has opened up a project on Kickstarter to raise $10,000 in funding...
People can say what they like about the girls, but Millionaires know how to crank out addictive pop tunes that infest your brain unlike any other. There's just something inexplicably appealing about their unique blend of nasty-ass lyrics and thumping beats! Here's one of the least offensive songs from their last EP...
If you want to donate to the cause, visit their Kickstarter page! Thanks to Adam for the link.
• RIP HP Mobile! The big news in tech this week was Hewlett Packard killing off their "WebOS" products... namely their phones (like the Pre) and tablet (the "iPad killing" TouchPad).
Personally I don't give a crap. Nothing in these products was overwhelmingly more compelling than what you can get from an iPhone or iPad, so why bother? Why waste everybody's time? I want real competition for Apple so they are forced to keep innovating and moving forward... HP was obviously never serious about challenging iOS dominance, so good riddance.
Though it's kind of stupid to pay 1.2 BILLION DOLLARS for something you're going to piss away. And I feel really bad for the people at Palm who thought that getting bought out by HP was going to rescue all their hard work. I mean, hey... their commercials may have given me nightmares, but Palm was a decent company at one time. It's all a shame, but not surprising though. HP has a history of fucking things up.
• Comic Collector! At one time, Macintosh users who were comic book fans had a nifty solution for keeping track of their collection. It was called ComicBase, and made it a snap to catalog you comics. But then the people behind the program abandoned the Mac and went full-on Windows, which was pretty shitty to do to their fans, but I guess you go where the money is. For years, there hasn't been a really serious alternative if you're a Mac Whore. But all that changed with Colletorz.com decided to make their "Comic Collector" software available on the Mac...
I've had a few crashes from time to time... and adding a bar code scanner can cause a few problems... but, overall, I'm very happy with it. Finally Mac users have a serious comic book database utility which pulls from a vast repository of information and images. If you're a Mac or Windows user looking to keep track of your comics, you can download a free trial at their website.
And now? Time to throw away another couple bags of crap I've been collecting before bedtime. I feel my life getting less complicated already!
Years ago I was invited to listen to a presentation for a very large, very expensive project. It was rather technical in nature, and the people in charge of paying for it wanted my opinion.
So, after politely listening to the presenters, I gave my opinion. For free.
I pretty much said that the entire thing was shit. It was impractical, ill-conceived, and didn't account for substantial costs that would be associated with supporting it. I ended my observations by saying that the people in charge of the presentation had no business acting as consultants since they obviously didn't know what in the hell they were talking about.
Thanks to my "opinion" the project was dropped, and (luckily) no further money was wasted.
Fast forward to today, and I find out that not only was I blamed for the project's failure then... I am still being blamed for the project's failure now. Apparently it's my fault that the consultants were dumbasses. It's my fault I was smart enough to see they were dumbasses. It's my fault the people in charge listened to me tell them that the consultants were dumbasses. It's all my fault.
Typical.
Far easier to blame me than the dumbasses.
Ultimately this has -zero- effect on my life. But it still pisses me off.
It's quickly getting to the point where if somebody actually has the balls to take responsibility for their own bullshit, I may die of shock. Which would actually be preferable to dealing with stupid shit like this
It's pretty tough to blog about my day when all I did was work from the minute I woke up until, well... now... when I really should be trying to get some sleep.
And hope that I'm not awakened by an earthquake.
After the quakes in Virginia and Colorado, it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that the Pacific Northwest will be hit next. We are, after all, sitting on the infamous "Pacific Ring of Fire," where 90% of the world's earthquakes happen...
Map taken from Wikimedia Commons.
Seattle (and the rest of Washington State, I'd imagine) is actually considered to be one of the more likely locations for a major earthquake in the USA (along with San Francisco and Los Angeles). Mostly because we've got some mountains with major volcanic activity (one of which is Mt. St. Helens, which has already blown its top in recent years).
I've experienced four "seismic events" in my lifetime (that I know of). The first was the afore-mentioned St. Helens eruption in 1980 which was felt throughout most of the state. The second was a tremor while visiting San Francisco in the early 90's. The third was a minor quake while walking through Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan. The last was also the worst... the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake that struck while I was at the top of the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. Tiles were ripped from the ceiling, people were knocked over, and we were forced to evacuate the building as the aftershocks continued hammering away. Apparently it was one of the worst quakes to hit Washington State in recorded history... and, lucky me, I just happened to be over to the coast where it happened.
To be completely honest, I'm not bothered by the idea of a massive quake rocking my world.
Shit happens, and there's no sense worrying about it until it does.
Because it's not like there's anywhere you can go that guarantees your safety. No matter where you land on this earth, there's bound to be some danger of catastrophe. Heck, Hurricane Irene is even now making her way towards North Carolina. So why stress about it?
Especially when it's time to go to bed.
Hero worship is a strange thing.
Mostly because people who don't have the same hero as you will never understand it. And believe me, I get it. I have a friend who worships the singer Adele. Can't get enough of her. Listens to her music constantly. Would sell their should to attend an Adele concert. Of course, I don't understand it at all. Sure Adele seems to have some talent, but I can't stand her music. Every time Rolling in the Deep is playing, I just roll my eyes because listening to it makes me want to stick my head deep into a microwave.
So when I tell people that I worship Steve Jobs and they roll their eyes at me, that's okay.
I've been getting the same reaction for 27 years...
Of course I knew of him before then. He (along with Steve Wozniak) was already famous in 1979 when I got my hands on an Apple ][ plus. But it was his legendary introduction of the Macintosh on January 24th, 1984 that make me such a big fan. This was a man who believed in changing the world but, unlike so many, he actually did stuff to make it happen.
And my hero worship of Mr. Jobs never abated. No matter where he ended up. Even his time away from Apple while heading up NeXT was an amazing era to be a Steve Jobs fan. And, naturally, things only got better from there...
Now that he's stepped down as CEO of Apple, my feelings haven't changed.
His legacy there will touch every product that comes out of the company... and untold other companies... for decades to come.
Speculation is that Steve Jobs left his position because of his continuing health problems. I can't imagine him leaving otherwise, so all I can do is reiterate my best wishes for his recovery. And be grateful that he'll still have a voice at Apple as Chairman of the Board for the company.
Because I am now, as I have been for most my life, an "Apple Whore to my Core."
Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of Pluto being demoted from "planet" to "dwarf planet."
It all happened because astronomers are finding a shitload of planetoids orbiting the sun beyond Pluto's orbit... some of which are bigger than Pluto. Rather than declare that they're all planets, they decided instead to demote Pluto so none of them are planets.
Personally, I think it was a monumentally shitty decision. Yeah, it makes sense from a scientific classification standpoint, and I get that. But Pluto should have been grandfathered in and kept the planetary status it's had since 1930. The planetary status it had when I made my science fair project in Middle School...
What drives me a little nuts here is that a group of people made this awful decision with no involvement from any of us. There wasn't a vote. there wasn't any conversation. One day Pluto just wasn't a planet anymore.
Which made yesterday the fifth anniversary of SUCK!
Or not.
Because yesterday was ALSO a monumental day for fans of the best new show from this past television season... Happy Endings!
ABC finally decided to bless us with the long-lost mysterious "missing episode" of the show. It wasn't the best of the bunch, but it was still better than most of the crap on television, so I have no idea why they skipped it in the first place.
In any event, it has me really looking forward to new episodes come September. As does this promo shot they've released...
And speaking of photos... the stuff leaking off the set for the new Avengers movie looks amazing...
If only DC Comics could get their shit together the way that Marvel Comics has. To see a Justice League movie that teams up Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash would be freakin' insanely awesome.
Or insanely stupid, if they got the wrong writer and director.
Perhaps I should be careful what I wish for.
My favorite novel of all time is Noble House by James Clavell. It's a story of contemporary 1960's Hong Kong that weaves a fictional story with actual history in a way that only the author of Shōgun could manage. It's beautifully realized, filled with dozens of interesting characters and locations. It's remarkably complex, having several intertwined plot threads and story elements. It's richly satisfying, overflowing with tiny details that come together in fascinating ways (I've read it over a dozen times, and still feel like I'm missing something). To me, Noble House is about as close to perfect as a book can get...
For the most part, people either love the book or hate it. The people who hate it usually end up griping about it's high page count or complexity, which I immediately dismiss. Mostly because I think it's funny how people choose to review a book by saying they were too lazy or stupid to get into it, but I'm judgmental like that. Other negative comments I've read make no sense. My favorite "review" of Noble House ever written is this one...
"The weakest of Clavell's Japan novels. I didn't enjoy it near as much as Centennial and Tai Pan, but still rich history, characters and plotting as well as the usual healthy dose of foreign culture. This one takes place in modern Japan."
The reason it's such a great review is that the book takes place in Hong Kong not Japan (as did Tai-Pan). And, though "modern" is subjective, it takes place in the 1960's. Furthermore, the book Centennial was written by James Michener not James Clavell (who wrote The Asian Saga... not "Japan novels"). Did this dumbass even bother to read the book, or did he just review it sight-unseen so he could look smart? We may never know.
Eventually the book was made into a television mini-series starring Pierce Brosnan. They moved the story from the 1960's to the 1980's and jettisoned dozens of plot points, but it was still darn fine entertainment...
Anyway... the reason that this novel has been on my brain today is because we've got Hurricane Irene happening on the east coast, and Noble House opens up with a "tai-fun" (typhoon, or "supreme wind").
When I first read the book decades ago, I remember wondering how a typhoon is different from a hurricane and how both are different from a cyclone.
Turns out they're all pretty much the same, it's the location which determines what we call a massive tropical storm in English...
It's not a perfect map, of course... but it basically boils down like this: Historical British colonial regions like India and Australia use "Cyclone." The Americas use "Hurricane." Asia uses "Typhoon." There are variations on all those. And, of course, local languages have many different names in their native tongues.
My thoughts are with those in the path of Hurricane Irene. Indeed, it's difficult to think of much else.
Stay safe everybody.
Noble House on Apple's iTunes Book Store — Noble House on Amazon's Book/Kindle Store
For the first time in... well... months
... I didn't do any work today.
Instead I continued on with my Life Simplification Plan. The entire day was spent cataloging my DVDs, books, comics, and CDs to see what I can get rid of.
Unfortunately, the answer was "not much." But at least everything is organized now.
I also made time to watch Dune while I was going through all my storage boxes...
I don't care how many times I see the film, Alia always freaks me out.
The Spice must flow.
And I really must get to bed.
It's lunchtime. I can haz veggie burger while blogging?
• Irene. I suppose we should be grateful that New York passed same-sex marriage... obviously God was pleased with this since he reduced the hurricane down to a tropical storm before it struck the state. Oh... wait... you mean it doesn't work that way? Well that's odd. Because you know damn well that dumbass fucktards like Pat Robertson (or ChristWire) would be falling all over themselves to blame same-sex marriage if New York were devastated by a Category 3 storm. I don't know what it says about their followers that they would much rather take glee in God's wrath than His grace, but there you have it. UPDATE: Well, no surprise there.
• Irene Deux. In other hurricane-based commentary... better safe than sorry...
• Levine. It's nice to know that rock stars are starting to act like rock stars again and using their powers for good. Now it's Maroon 5's front-man Adam Levine, using his newfound jump in popularity from The Voice to slam MTV...
From his Twitter feed...
the VMA's. one day a year when MTV pretends to still care about music. I'm drawing a line in the sand. fuck you VMA's.
Spot. On. MTV "Music Television" is a joke. They rarely play music videos anymore... it's all The Jersey Shore and other stupid reality show crap. The only time you see music is when they think a cheap publicity stunts like the Video Music Awards will get them attention. They truly don't give a flying fuck about music and haven't in a very long time. And now people within the industry are starting to call them on their bullshit. Here's hoping it's just a start.
• Endorsement. Stay healthy, ladies!
• Ultimate. I travel. A lot. And I'm really grateful for the opportunity to do so. But when it comes to those "ultimate dream trips" I'd love to take, they're all out of reach. That National Geographic Expedition to the arctic... that Abercrombie & Kent trek to Nepal... that Windjammer cruise in the Indian Ocean... they're just not an option financially. For the cost of just one of those trips, I could take five if I watch my pennies.
So my dreams have to remain dreams. But Abercrombie & Kent have released a beautiful new iPad app that makes those dreams a little more real...
If you've got a lot of empty space on your iPad (the app is huge!) I highly recommend downloading the A&K Travel app to spark your travel dreams.
And that's a wrap! The veggie burger was delicious, by the way.
Twenty-some-odd years ago, Pontiff-hating songstress Sinead O'Connor was on fire as she released her second smash album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. I remember thinking at the time what a great title that was. As somebody attempting to lead a life guided by Buddhist principles, not wanting what you haven't got is an important concept to buy into.
But it's also a crock of bullshit, because human nature is all about wanting the stuff you don't have.
And I don't mean material goods either (though here in the United States we've built an entire culture around that). What I'm talking about is wanting health when you're sick. Wanting peace when you're in conflict. Wanting calm when you're in turmoil. Wanting love when you're mired in hatred. That kind of stuff. Wanting those things isn't really a bad thing at all.
Or so you'd think.
Apparently wanting something like food when you're hungry is wanting too much.
At least according to the conversation I overheard. Two women were discussing school starting up again and started railing on the free-lunch program. Such chatty gems as "Those kids need to learn that there's no free lunch in life!" (ha ha ha) and "We already pay for their food stamps, we have to pay for school lunches too?"
I can only guess that these pathetic excuses for human beings follow the Rush Limbaugh Theory of Child Hunger.
And I can't for the life of me understand what makes these people tick.
If they were talking about adults, I guess I could attempt to rationalize such callous behavior... but hungry kids? Like a child has any control over their situation. Like it's their choice that there's nothing to eat for whatever reason.
Look, I totally get not wanting to pay taxes for crap that you don't approve of. As a vegetarian, I highly object to the meat industry getting billions in subsidies for a substance that I feel ruins the planet and makes people unhealthy. Yadda yadda yadda.
But, I ask again, hungry kids?!?
You don't need to go to a horror movie to see monsters anymore. They're all around us.
As I was looking through my email in-box this morning, I happened across a message that, from all appearances, was spam. After all, how many real emails do you get where somebody is offering you an all-expenses-paid trip out of the country? And all I had to do in return was write articles about my journey and take some pictures (i.e. what I always do when I travel). Talk about sounding too good to be true! Free travel would have to be at the top of my dream list!
Amazingly, the offer turned out to be legit. They found my blog, liked my travel writing and photography, and wanted me to be a guest corespondent for them... all to a really cool destination.
Alas, I couldn't work the trip into my schedule.
Damn.
Needless to say, I was bummed the rest of the day.
Not that I have cause to complain, mind you. I already travel quite a lot... it's just having to pass up on something FREE that's bothering me.
Argh.
I'm a comic book geek. I have been most of my life. So, for those of you who are not into comic books, I apologize, but I really must talk about the "New 52" event happening at DC Comics. I'll return to my regularly-scheduled chocolate pudding coverage tomorrow.
And so it begins.
In a desperate attempt to make comic books relevant entertainment in their own right instead of mere fodder for creating super-hero movies, DC Comics has decided to relaunch their entire line of comics from scratch. Again. They did something similar back in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths. Basically, the idea is to strip away all the crap that's been saddled on the characters for the past couple decades and start fresh. This way new DC Comics readers can start enjoying these books without having to know all the complicated back-stories they missed.
To put it another way, idiotic editorial decisions like having Superman marry Lois Lane and renounce his US citizenship never happened.
As a comic book collector, relaunches like this piss me off. It's maddening to collect 200 issues of a book only to have it be canceled so you have to start all over again. Even worse, all that time you've invested in following the continuity of the stories and watching characters grow and change are lost.
As a comic book fan, relaunches like this are a good thing because it's a breath of fresh air being breathed into characters so stale that even their biggest devotees are getting tired of reading about them. Of all the comic titles I collect, I read maybe half of them because so many just aren't interesting any more.
Ultimately, I think the good outweighs the bad though, so I've decided to give DC's 52 new titles a shot. Starting with their flagship title, Justice League, written by Geoff Johns and beautifully illustrated by Jim Lee with inks by Scott Williams...
It's a super-hero explosion!
For those who care about this kind of stuff, I've written up my comments and a review in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it was still a good game. You'll get 'em next time, Sox!
And, before I forget... SALTALAMACCHIA!!!
I woke up feeling nothing today.
Then this morning as I was driving to work, I saw a mother and a little girl waiting to cross the street. Nobody was bothering to stop for them of course.
I stopped because I always do. And because it's the law. The woman was strolling leisurely while the little girl was in more of a hurry, tugging on her mother's hand the entire way. Just before she got to the other side, the little girl waved at me. This made me smile, because it reminded me of a good day.
I waved back because you pretty much have to.
It was then I started thinking about much we lose as we leave childhood behind.
I can't tell you the last time I rushed across the street not because I was in a hurry but because I was excited to get to the other side.
I can't tell you the last time I waved at a stranger just because I was so happy that I had to share it.
I can't tell you the last time I had so few responsibilities that wondering if a car would ever stop so I could cross the street was the extent of my worries.
I can, however, tell you the last time some asshole cut in front of me in a line.
That would be at lunch today when I was waiting to get some potato salad and fries. There I was, next up to place my order, and this dickhead crowds right in front of me. I guess he felt entitled because he had called in a take-away order over the phone. I thought this merely made him entitled to have my foot broken off in his ass... and was just about to say so... when I stopped.
Instead I waved at him with all the enthusiasm I could muster.
Not because I was forgiving him for being a FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT LINE-CUTTING DOUCHEBAG, but because I didn't want to let this QUEUE-JUMPING DONKEY-RAPING SHIT-EATER spoil my good mood. So fuck him. FUCK THAT RUDE BASTARD! I chose to be happy instead.
Until I found out they put too much salt on my fries.
What a horrible day.
One of the projects I worked on this morning required that I access some old design files from 1996. And while 15 years may not seem like a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, in "computer years" it's positively ancient. This poses a number of problems.
The first problem is that the files were on an Iomega JAZ disk. This is a hard disk cartridge drive that was discontinued almost a decade ago. Fortunately, I have one of these drives... and it still works.
The second problem is that a JAZ drive uses a SCSI interface to connect to a computer. Apple hasn't had SCSI ports on any of their machines since 1999. Fortunately, I also have an old Power Mac which can handle a SCSI peripheral... and it still works.
The third problem is also the biggest. SCSI sucks ass. It never worked very well, and just getting a drive to mount can be a long and frustrating experience... back in the 1990's. Today it can be almost impossible. The drivers are incredibly old, and so the OS you run it on also has to be old. Needless to say, there's no technical support. Fortunately, after hours of goofing around... I got it to work.
What a wake-up call this has been.
Legacy format obsolescence happens all the time. 8-inch and 5-1/4-inch floppy disks were replaced by 3-1/2-inch floppy disks. Floppy disks were replaced by CDs and ZIP disks. ZIP disks were replaced by DVDs. CDs and DVDs are being replaced by large-volume hard drives.
Now hard drives themselves are being replaced by solid-state drives.
And it would seem that online "cloud" storage is eventually going to be replacing everything.
Guess it's time to get all my data off of CDs and DVDs. Apple has already eliminated these drives from their MacBook Air and Mac mini machines. I'm betting that MacBooks will lose them any day now. Will the desktop computers be next? Since Apple has distributed their latest OS upgrade online and seems intent on selling their software that way too... I'm guessing yes.
How long until we just plug this stuff directly into our brains? Most people don't seem to be using their heads for much anyway... might as well put them to good use.
This morning I woke up, decided life wasn't worth it, then went back to bed. But after I realized I didn't have any bread to make toast, I had to get up so I could go to the store. Without toast, life isn't worth living.
• Star Redux. I've been in a real renaissance with the original Star Wars films lately. I've been re-watching the real movies on LaserDisc... taking another look at the amazing "Making of" books... re-reading the novelizations... going through the comic book adaptations... that kind of thing. This is probably in anticipation of the movies coming out on Blu-Ray later this month. And even though there's a lot of controversy raging over George Lucas once again crapping all over the films, I still can't wait to see them in high-def. I especially can't wait to have all the deleted scenes with one of the more interesting characters in the entire franchise... Biggs Darklighter...
Now, if you've only ever seen the original movie, you might remember Biggs being mentioned in passing when Luke is whining to Uncle Owen... and again when the Rebels are off to attack the Death Star... and then again at the end where he gets blown up by Darth Vader. But, in the original Star Wars script, there is more to the character than that. Unfortunately, those scenes got cut (though some snuck through to the novelization). And while these cuts were probably a smart move story-wise, they're disappointing fan-wise... especially for fans who have read Biggs' back-story in the "Expanded Universe" books and comics. These rumored "never-before-seen scenes" will help add yet another dimension to an important character we only thought we knew (or didn't know).
• Dance Redux. On a list of things that I couldn't possibly give a crap about, Dancing with the Stars would be near the top of the list. As far as entertainment goes, it's right up there with Pauly Shore movies and diarrhea. But once I heard the controversy over the casting of this season's contestants, I decided to investigate who would be on the show. After taking a look, I admit that I am very upset. I simply cannot fathom how such a popular program would intentionally decide to attack this country's sense of decency and our respect for the Natural Order. I am disgusted at the thought of children tuning in and being exposed to a total freak show and abomination towards God. I am mortified that this "person" will be given even more media exposure so they can further destroy all that is good on this earth with their reprehensible behavior. I am, of course, talking about Nancy Grace...
This vile, disgusting, evil, pathetic excuse for a human being has absolutely no business being on television. And it only goes to show that the people behind Dancing with the Stars only care about one thing: stirring up controversy to get ratings. Just like Nancy Grace, they obviously don't give a fuck how many people they hurt in their effort to attract viewers. For once I agree with the lamestream conservative media... this is absolutely disgusting, and just one more reason I won't be tuning in for this stupid shit.
UPDATE: Oh. Some readers have pointed out that all the controversy isn't about Nancy Grace after all (as one would expect)... it's instead over Chaz Bono?!? I don't get this at all. So he used to be a woman. Big deal. I'd argue Chaz Bono is more of a man and less sexually confused than Marcus Bachmann or "Doctor" Keith Ablow, yet you don't see anybody complaining about them being on television...
What a crock of bullshit. I have to wonder if all the people in an uproar over this are just confused about their sexual identity, and are taking it out on Chaz Bono because he has the balls to get it all sorted out. Or they are sexually attracted to Chaz Bono and don't know what to do with their self-loathing. Or they really, really hated being subjected to Cher's auto-tune travesty, Believe, being constantly blasted on the radio in the late 1990's (if that's the case, I guess I see their point... Cher's not on television much anymore, so I suppose torturing her offspring is the next best thing?). Whatever the case, I find it fascinating that people are still freaking out over this kind of stuff in the year 2011.
• TV Redux. I have more than a couple friends who are "periphery Apple fans." Meaning that they're not Mac users, but they do like their iPods, iPhones, iPads, and whatnot. This morning I got a call from one of these friends with an Apple TV. He knew I had one, and was wondering why I haven't blogged about it...
I explained that my older television didn't seem to support it because the picture was all fuzzy and jumpy. And since I'm unable to use it, the thing has been collecting dust in my closet for over a year. That's when he drops the bomb and tells me that the Apple TV firmware had been updated a while back which fixed the video display problems for a lot of people. So I dig it out, plug it in, and apply the latest software. Now it works perfectly. And it is awesome.
I love being able to use "AirPlay" to stream stuff from my MacBook, iPhone, and iPad. I really love how much easier it is to use Netflix Streaming (compared to using my Xbox like I do now). And iCloud makes it dead-simple to stream all the television shows I've purchased right to my TV without having to download them to my Mac first. It's an amazing little device and, now that I can use it, worth every penny of the $99 price tag. If you've got an HD television with HDMI, it's worth a look.
• Mercury Redux. In anticipation of his new novel Mercury Rises being released next month, Thrice Fiction contributor Rob Kroese has unleashed a FREE Kindle eBook short story... Mercury Swings...
You can get your copy at Amazon and have it sent to your Kindle or any device with Kindle Reader installed (like Macs, PCs, iPhones, and the like). It's funny and it's free, so what are you waiting for? Go and get Mercury Swings today!
And that's all she wrote for this edition of Bullet Sunday. Tune in next week when all my bullets will be double-jacketed.
I labored six hours on Labor Day, which is pretty much the opposite of how I should have been spending my time.
It happens.
Like the weather.
Last night it was so chilly that I had to close my window and add a blanket to my bed for the first time in months. Tonight I'm combatting the heat by wrapping an ice pack around my neck. The week is only supposed to get worse from here, with temperatures escalating to 97° by Thursday. I don't know why, but this year I am really ready for summer to be over. I just don't want to spend any more days sweating it out in temperatures like this.
Until the snow comes, of course. I'm sure then I'll have a different attitude entirely.
Now let's see if I can manage to get a couple hours sleep while it's still a holiday, shall we?
Not the best day.
And yet, I should probably be grateful because it wasn't the worst day either.
It was just long and busy and difficult and ended too soon for me to get caught up on the mountains of work that never seems to go away. This puts me in the odd position of wishing that a long, never-ending day was even longer. Which is wholly depressing and surprisingly encouraging at the same time.
I leave on vacation in a couple weeks, so at least there's that to keep me going...
Though, given the absolutely heinous exchange rate for the near-worthless US Dollar, I may have to declare bankruptcy by the time I get back. So even vacation is not exactly the drama-free escape I was hoping for.
Is anything ever?
My favorite foodie treat is a glass of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid and a plate of saltine soda crackers with butter. There are very few things that can top that. Maybe chocolate pudding, but I always think of that as more of a meal than a treat.
Whenever I mention my love of Kool-Aid and crackers, most people immediately label me as uncultured and uncivilized. Once I was even told that it sounded "white trash," which is what I get for mentioning it at a fancy wine and cheese party.
For a while there, I stopped drinking Kool-Aid and eating soda crackers in an attempt to "grow up."
But when I was at the store the other day, I decided that enough was enough and I should eat what I enjoy instead of worrying about what other people think. So now I'm back to being "white trash" again which is fine by me. They're a better class of people anyway. Probably because they don't try to embarrass someone over the food they like. Or the car they drive. Or the job they work. Or the clothes they wear.
And this got me to thinking.
What is it with people who feel the need to crap all over others for something which has no bearing on their lives whatsoever? I can take good-natured ribbing as well as anyone, and that's fine. But when people are just being mean and dismissive I don't understand it. What do they get from humiliating and belittling other people? Does it really make them feel so much better about themselves?
It reminds me of the time I was on a cruise and overheard somebody making fun of a couple who were assigned a cabin on a low deck. Never mind that the cabin might have been all the couple could afford after saving their money for years to take their dream vacation... somebody felt the need to shit all over their happiness for no reason at all. I guess it was too difficult to find common ground and be happy that everyone was on vacation and having a good time. Or at least trying to have a good time.
There are people out there who are just plain mean and hurtful. I don't know why I find it so difficult to accept that.
A part of my doesn't want to know.
Which is fine, because right now I've got a plate of crackers and a glass of Kool-Aid that deserve my complete attention.
After all these years, I still can't decide if I am a Star Wars guy or a Star Trek guy.
I guess I love them equally. Though they are very different at their core, the two franchises have followed similar arcs... both starting out with sheer brilliance, then descending into utter crap. Though Star Trek did make a stunning recovery with its 2009 film reboot, which had me leaning to Trek for a while. I don't suppose it's too much to hope that Star Wars will get a similar break? I dunno. There's talk of a television show and wacky rumors of a third trilogy, so one can only hope.
In any event, we've reached the 45th anniversary of Star Trek "The Original Series" which is pretty much the only Trek series that matters to me (as any long-time reader of this blog already knows)...
Though even the Next Generation was in the mix from time to time...
So happy 45th anniversary to Star Trek and thanks for everything!
Now if only JJ Abrams would get off his ass and give us another amazing movie real soon now.
After I made my way back home from a late dinner, I was getting out of my car and noticed that I was bathed in a golden pink glow. The sunset was a magnificent display of muted colors and everything in sight was flooded with it. My first instinct was to grab for the pocket camera I've always got stashed in my backpack. But ultimately I fought the urge to attempt to capture an experience that you can't really capture at all. Far better to just live in the moment and enjoy it.
So I did.
And it was glorious.
And I've been regretting it ever since.
Those photos would have been great source material for some future art project but I pissed away the opportunity. Now it's dark out and all I have left is a memory that will also fade away. Eventually.
But not just yet...
Bet you never expected Bullet Sunday on Saturday! NOBODY expects Bullet Sunday on Saturday!
And didn't I just do a Bullet Sunday a couple minutes ago? Time, she is a flying. Probably because I am leaving for vacation in ten days. It's going to be a real struggle to get caught up with work and get myself organized by the time I leave.
• Adapt. And speaking of getting organized for my trip... for years there's been this one plug sitting unwrapped and unused in my Apple World Travel Adapter Kit...
I know this sounds kind of silly, but unwrapping the cellophane from that plug was a pretty emotional experience. This shit is about to get real, yo.
• Heroine. A couple weeks ago, the "Great House" on Sir Richard Branson's private island caught fire. Apparently a storm created by Hurricane Irene caused a lightning strike that burned the place to the ground. Nobody was hurt, but it was a beautiful structure and it's sad that it was destroyed. Sad, but not very interesting. I'll get to the interesting bit in a minute, but first a few photos from Necker Island...
Yes. Yes I know. What a shithole.
If you've got tens of thousands of dollars, you can rent a room for a night. That would put you in good company, because it's a coveted hangout for celebrities, royalty (Princess Diana was a guest), and the über-wealthy. One famous visitor who was there when the fire struck: Kate Winslet. Who, after making sure her kids were okay, ran back into the flames so she could carry out Branson's 90-year-old grandmother...
Beautiful, talented, and heroic.
But that's not the interesting bit. Winslet's ex-husband, director Sam Mendes, was supposed to be on American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked on 9/11 and crashed into The Pentagon. For some reason, he wasn't on the flight. One month later, Winslet was on a plane where somebody claiming to be a terrorist stood up and said that everybody was going to die. It apparently turned out to be a hoax of something. After that moment, Mendes and Winslet made a decision never to both be on the same flight together so if something happened, their kids wouldn't be left parentless.
I swear, just when I think there's nothing about the 9/11 tragedy that can surprise me, something utterly surprising comes along to prove me wrong. Until I read about the fire on Necker Island, I had no idea that Kate Winslet's life was touched by the terrorist attacks to this degree. But, then again, I suppose all our lives were in one way or another. Has it really been ten years?
• New? As a huge fan of Zooey Deschanel, I have been eagerly anticipating her new buzz-heavy TV show, New Girl, set to debut later this month. So imagine my surprise when I downloaded the first episode from an iTunes "sneak preview"... only to find that it is complete and total shit...
Holy crap did I hate this unbelievable turd of a show. Hate it.
How in the fuck they managed to take an infinitely adorable and likable person like Zooey Deschanel and turn her into a pathetic, annoying, unwatchable character is simply beyond my ability to fathom. She plays Jess, who is advertised as "Simply Adorkable" but I sure wasn't seeing any of that. When she gets dumped by her boyfriend in the first two minutes I was barely surprised. I was already annoyed with her after the first ONE minute. The story then takes the laughable (but not funny) "surprise turn" by having her move in with three single guys. Hilarity most definitely does not ensue.
Zooey's supporting players aren't much better. Deputy Leo (from Veronica Mars) plays a douchebag. And I'm not being judgmental here... he's literally a douche. His character is such a big douche that they have to make a "Douche Jar" for him to donate a dollar every time he does douchey things. Which is all the time. One of the douchey things he does is take his shirt off when he meets a girl because he thinks he's God's gift or something. His character's name is "Schmidt" which is used in place of "shit" in conversation to be funny. Ha ha ha. Not. Next up is Damon Wayans Jr. who plays "Coach," a fitness trainer with rage issues. The character has zero depth and is given nothing interesting to do. I can only guess that Wayans gets down on his knees every day and thanks the television gods that the brilliant Happy Endings got picked up for a second season so he doesn't have to come back to New Girl and play such a pathetic one-note character. I pity whomever they get to replace him. The last of Zooey's new roommates is "Nick" (played by Jake M. Johnson) who is somewhat likable and interesting (mostly because he's the only character with any depth to him) but ultimately not enough to compensate for everything else going wrong with this horrible show.
I cannot imagine that New Girl will last a full season. Even with Justin Long coming on-board as Zooey's romantic interest. It is so awkward, annoying, and blatantly not-funny that I have no idea who is going to want to watch it. Personally, I am hoping for a quick cancellation so the amazing Zooey Deschanel can go on to something better. Something much, much, better.
• Indebted. Is it possible to hate a movie to the point of despair, yet still love it at the same time? That pretty much sums up my take on The Debt, Helen Mirren's new film as directed by John Madden...
The movie is based on a 2007 Israeli film called HaHov ("The Debt"), which I can find nothing about, because any attempt to search for it on IMDB redirects to this version of The Debt. The story revolves around a former Mossad Nazi-Hunter named Rachel Singer (Mirren) who's past comes back to haunt her 30 years after a mission in East Germany went terribly wrong. The movie jumps back and forth between 1966 and 1997 as Singer recalls past events that changed her life, and their consequences on her future.
The problem with the film... the only problem, really... is that it is boring. Mind-numbingly boring. Stick your head in the microwave boring. Gouge out your spleen so you have something to do boring. I was dumbfounded at how incredibly slow, unnecessarily plodding, and just plain BORING this movie was. Far, far too much time was spent rehashing the past for no particular reason at all. Yes, there's a nice twist in there, but the set-up was so hideously drawn-out that I just didn't give a shit when we got there. They could have easily cut 75% of the hot boring mess from 1966 and used the time to make an interesting film about Rachel cleaning up that mess in 1997. That would have been an amazing, thrilling, exciting film. Instead you get mere glimpses of Mirren being kick-ass cool, which is simply not enough to save The Debt from the bland, banal, repetitive disaster it is.
Except...
Holy crap was the acting good. Helen Mirren didn't get nearly enough screen time, but her every second in the film is amazing. And it doesn't stop there. Jessica Chastain, who played the 1966 Rachel, had a role that demanded her to be tough and capable, but with a dark vulnerable side that defined her. She was absolutely mesmerizing. The biggest surprise had to be Sam Worthington, whom I had dismissed for his not-so-engaging performances in films like Avatar and Clash of the Titans, but he really got his shit together for this film. His accent kept lapsing into Aussie casual from time to time, yet his performance was rock-solid. Jesper Christensen's turn as a Hannibal Lecter-ish Nazi war criminal was also worth watching.
So there you have it The Debt is a boring-ass film you hate to love because the performances were too damn good.
• Fini. And now, after two bullets filled with disappointment, I'm going back to organizing my crap so I can be ready to pack my suitcase next weekend.
I deleted my blog from ten years ago so I can't tell you with any certainty what I was doing back then. I might have a vague idea over a span of some weeks or months but, if you were to pick an individual day, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what was happening.
For every day save one, of course.
I was working as a consultant and running late for a meeting on the morning of September 11, 2001. I didn't have time to turn on the television, nor did I have time to turn on my computer. I went directly from my bed to the shower to my car for the 20 minute drive to work. When I arrived, I vaguely remember some talk about an airplane crash as I walked through the lobby. But, for all intents and purposes, I was completely unaware of what had happened three hours earlier at the World Trade Center.
It wasn't until I walked into the conference room and saw the television replaying footage of The Twin Towers collapsing over and over again that I knew of the horrific events unfolding in New York.
And, like most everybody else on the planet, that news coverage became my life for the next several days.
As the tragedy would become our lives for the next ten years.
Because those iconic structures may no longer be with us... but they're not gone either. I watch a rerun episode of Friends, and there's the Towers in an establishing shot. I pop in my DVD of Eddie Murphy's Trading Places and the Towers are there. I read an old Spider-Man comic book and there they are again. I look through old photos and...
But that's me.
For those directly affected. For those orphaned or widowed. For friends and family of those who lost their lives. For those who now suffer from the debilitating effects. For those whose lives were forever changed. For so many people, I'd imagine it's quite different. They don't need a TV show or a movie or a comic book or a photograph. Their reminder is everlasting.
As is their pain.
I'm sure at some future date when all the people who were alive to remember the world before 9/11 are gone, perhaps the nightmare will start to fade.
In the meanwhile, we remember.
Because we need to remember.
Because it's impossible to forget.
Because our hope for peace must prevail.
Holy shit.
HOLY SHIT!
Photo by Reddit user fybpm
Time for a trip to Taco Bell. Three Doritos tacos, substitute rice for beef please!
I do not have much luck with automobiles. And none of it's my fault.
My previous car was rear-ended once. It also had a quarter-panel destroyed in a hit-and-run while I was stopped at a red light. It was ultimately totaled when an industrial work truck slipped into gear, ran across the street, and turned my car into scrap while I was at work.
My "new" car (purchased in 2000) hasn't fared much better.
I've been rear-ended twice. A bicyclist ran full-on into my hood while I was at a McDonald's drive-thru. Then today, something new.
A huge mobile home trailer was backed into my parked car. The driver "didn't see it at all."
It's not heinous, but it did scrape up my front panel, my car logo, and the edge of my hood a bit.
Apparently I have a super-power which renders cars I drive invisible. It's incredibly frustrating. I mean, it's not like I'm a major gear-head or anything, but I do want the car I drive to look nice. I don't want to drive around in a vehicle with a big scrape on it... especially one that wasn't my fault. Especially after I just sunk big money into having the brakes fixed.
Bleh.
My schedule is completely full with crap I have to do before I leave the country next week. And now I have to deal with this. And I'm sure other stuff will come up too, because I'm lucky like that.
Some days I just want off the merry-go-round.
One week and counting.
After a boring two-hour drive to the coast...
Dinner... just pump it!
Dessert... just fry it!
Well that was a great evening.
I have to say... Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, and the rest of Heart still got it. As does Def Leppard... which made last night's double-bill especially amazing...
As for today? BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, BABY!
It only got better from there.
The other day I was descending a stairwell at the mall which, I admit, doesn't sound like a very exciting event. At least not at first. I got almost to the bottom, realized that I must have missed the store entrance, and started heading back up.
While I was climbing, I saw a guy with a baby coming down the stairs carrying a bunch of crap. As I moved aside so he'd have room to pass, I saw him stumble as he rounded the corner. Once I realized he was losing his balance I jumped up the steps to grab one of his shopping bags that was going to fall.
But somehow ended up with his baby instead.
I don't know exactly how it happened. As I reached for the bag, I must have saw the baby was slipping and changed my target. The guy still had a half-hold on his kid, but who knows if he would have been able to keep from dropping it down the stairs if I hadn't been there.
After I made sure that the guy had a grip on his kid again, I remarked how surprising it was that the baby didn't make a sound. Not a peep. Didn't cry. Didn't yell. It just had that kind of dazed look that babies get.
And then the young father burst into tears.
Not being a very emotional person myself, these kind of situations are incredibly awkward for me.
I picked up the shopping bag that had fallen, got it back into his fingers, then put my hand on his shoulder and told him that his baby was fine and that everything was okay. I then joked about how much easier it would be if they had more elevators in these crazy places (hoping that next time he might go looking for one before bouncing down the stairs carrying a baby with his hands full like that). He nodded, which was more than thanks enough for me, so I started climbing again.
But slowly, so I could see if he was able to carry on down the stairs after such a nasty scare.
He was, and so I went on about my business and didn't give it much thought...
...until I was driving the two-and-a-half hours back home this afternoon, at which point I found it difficult to think of much else.
What if I hadn't gone back up the stairs? What if I hadn't been paying attention? What if I wasn't fast enough? What if I had opted for a parking spot somewhere else and never ended up in that stairwell in the first place? What if? What if? What if?
I have little doubt that the baby could have been seriously hurt. Perhaps even permanently hurt. Perhaps worse.
If I hadn't been there, the kid's life could have been changed completely. And once I started thinking about that, my mind went racing with all kinds of strange crap. What if the kid grows up to be somebody famous? What if it grows up to cure cancer? What if it grows up to be a homicidal maniac? What if? What if? What if?
Fate is just such a crazy damn thing.
Which is why I'm going to try and not think about it.
And I really hope that poor guy is able to not think about it too. I can't fathom the kind of mental torture going on in his head the rest of that day.
It's my last Bullet Sunday before vacation! I'd be happy about that, but there's just such an obscene amount of stuff that has to be done before I leave. Guess this is going to be a short one.
• Impostor. The number of people getting their Facebook and Twitter accounts hacked is reaching epic proportions. Today there was a run on Twitter, where SEVEN people I follow got hacked and are now sending me spam.
Sooooo... if you are sent link FROM ANYONE... EVEN PEOPLE YOU KNOW... where you get a login page, DON'T TRUST IT! Always question these pages. Because while they may look authentic...
All too often they are not. See that extra "j" in there?
• Doom. The bees are attacking, tons of space junk are falling from the sky, and beavers are going to inherit the earth... but the good news is that Pop Tarts keeps coming up with new flavors, which has allowed me to finally fulfill my annual New Years resolutions!
Here's hoping next year is as adventurous and delicious as 2011!
• Emmy. I'm pretty sick of crappy awards shows... especially award shows like The Emmys which get it all wrong more often than not. This year, of the major nominations given, here's my take...
Of course, the real problem is that they can't even get the nominations right (best comedy should have been Raising Hope, for example). But it is what it is, and everybody's entitled to their opinion. Even if it's wrong.
And now... back to packing my suitcase. That'll be big fun.
I spent my entire day wishing it was tomorrow so it would be my last day at work before vacation. All the while secretly wishing I had just one more day to get caught up with life before I leave.
But the simple truth is that there's never enough time no matter how many days you have. Wishing for one more day would only result in me wishing for yet another day when my one more day is up. And so on. And so on. And then I'd never get a vacation. Unless somebody drugged me and shipped me off to parts unknown...
And so I've decided to ignore life and be happy that tomorrow is my last day before vacation.
I can totally ignore stuff good if I put my mind to it.
I spent most of my evening last night looking for my swim trunks and spare laptop battery... and waiting for the United States to be destroyed by floods, earthquakes, fires, and hurricanes because Don't Ask, Don't Tell had finally been repealed at midnight.
But the disasters never came, which must be a big disappointment to assholes like Pat Robertson who just love to attribute everything bad that happens to "God's wrath" against homosexuals... or whomever the target of their hate is that day. It's an odd stance to take when they don't seem to believe that absence of disaster is God's approval, but that's bat-shit-crazy for you.
Though we all know perfectly well that the next hurricane or earthquake or tornado that hits... whether it be one hour from now or ten years from now... will be blamed on the DADT repeal by somebody. These claims of delayed-reaction-vengeance by an all-knowing, all-powerful deity never make much sense but, again, that's bat-shit-crazy for you.
In any event, congratulations to those honoring us with their military service who no longer have to worry about losing their job because they're a dude who likes dudes or a girl who likes girls. It's nice to know that the freedoms you so bravely protect can now actually apply to you.
And heartfelt thanks to everybody who honors us with their military service... no matter who they are or who they like...
Here's hoping that there's not too much bat-shit crazy in the last day before my vacation.
And so it begins...
Nothing like having the crap scared out of you at 2:30am.
Since it seems impossible for me to sleep more than three hours anymore, I decided I might as well check in for my flight to Sydney. I go to the airline website check-in page, as usual. I log in and pull up my flight, as usual. I verify my passport info and enter my emergency contact, as usual. Then I get an error saying that I can't be checked in because travel to Australia requires a visa.
Well, no shit. I paid my $20 AUD to get an Electronic Travel Authority, which is a nifty kind of "electronic visa" that doesn't require a visit to an Australian diplomatic office to submit an application. An ETA is able to be pulled up by airlines directly, so there's no need for a visa stamp in your passport.
In theory.
Except apparently Delta's online check-in system can't access ETAs.
At least I hope that's the problem. I'm going to try and stay optimistic that I can go to the airport ticket counter and they can pull it up there. If they can't, then hopefully they can use my ETA receipt to get me processed, or else my vacation is over before it begins.
Wheeee! The travel drama has already started, and I'm not even at the airport yet.
Catch you on the other side.
Literally.
I hope.
UPDATE: Well, it took some computer trickery, but they finally managed to find my ETA visa. Guess that means I get to go to Australia now.
Hello from the future.
I am posting this entry a day early because most of my September 22 will be spent in a metal tube being hurled across the Pacific Ocean.
And not in a good way.
To understand why the flight to Australia sucks so bad for me, it's helpful to remember that, despite what you might have heard, the earth is round. Airplanes use this little-known fact to their advantage when plotting a course so that they fly the least amount of miles in the shortest amount of time. This kind of thing is known as "The Great Circle" routing. As an example, if I were flying to Amsterdam over in DutchyLand, the pilot would fly over Northern Canada and Greenland like so...
Awesome map courtesy of the The Great Circle Mapper!
The above journey is about 4900 miles (7890 km) compared to the over 6000 miles (9650 km) it would take to fly along the latitude lines straight across a map...
Map courtesy of Google Maps!
The problem with Australia is that there's no "Great Circle" route to take. This can be confirmed on The Great Circle Mapper by typing in my SEA-LAX-SYD route like so...
Since the curvature of the earth can't help us here, it's about 7500 miles (12050 km) from LAX to Sydney direct.
Which is a 15 hour flight.
And considerably longer than my previous longest flight of 5030 miles (8095 km) from Istanbul to Newark.
Blehhhhhhhhh.
I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if you were flying in "World Business Class" with lay-flat seats you can sleep on... but to buy an upgradable ticket would have cost me three times as much money plus a big bundle of airline miles. So I booked a coach ticket and used my frequent flier status to get a free upgrade to Delta's new "Economy Comfort Class" seating. It apparently offers 4-inches more legroom and 50% more recline over the "Economy Discomfort Class" seats you get from a regular coach ticket.
Still not a fun way to spend 13-1/2 hours, but it's better than nothing.
But the important thing to focus on is that I'm off to Australia, which is someplace I've never been.
That plus a handful of sleeping pills might just keep me sane for the flight Down Under.
Better living through chemistry, I always say.
In theory, adjusting to the 17-hour time change in Sydney is a piece of cake. That's such a huge amount of time that you can quite nicely compress a full day into it, which means your internal clock doesn't need much of an adjustment. Just force yourself to stay awake a bit longer than you normally would, get a full night's sleep in the middle of your flight, then arrive in Sydney the next morning as if nothing happened.
I took a fist-full of sleeping pills just to be sure.
And ended up getting five hours of quality sleep, which is two more than I normally get. So not only did I land in Australia fully acclimated to the time change... I also felt better than I have in months.
For the past week I have been checking the weather forecast in Sydney. As the day of my trip got closer and closer, the weather outlook got worse and worse, ending with overcast skies and rain for the entirety of my stay. So imagine my surprise when I land to beautiful blue skies and an abundance of sunshine. So instead of spending my first day relaxing, I met up with my long-time blogger-friend Kazza and headed out into the city.
First stop was Sydney Tower for panorama views of the city...
Then it was off to the Opera House (of course)...
From all the photos I had ever seen, I had thought that the Opera House was smooth concrete painted white. It's not! It's tiled. Beautifully tiled...
Next it was off to walk across the world-famous Sydney Harbour Bridge...
You can climb up one of the pylons for terrific views of the harbor...
Amazingly, you can pay big money to climb up and over the bridge like these guys...
Across the harbor and under the bridge is Luna Park, made famous by its scary clown-face entrance...
We wanted to kill time until dark for some night photography, so we ate dinner at a really good tapas restaurant...
And then back to the harbor at night...
By the end of the day, the clouds and rolled in and the weather turned cold and incredibly windy, so I was grateful that I had at least one perfect day in Sydney.
I'm sure tomorrow will be perfect too... but with less nice weather.
Well, the crappy weather I was expecting yesterday finally decided to make an appearance today. Not that I am in any way complaining... I am so very grateful for yesterday's unexpectedly beautiful weather that I'll gladly suffer through a little rain.
After meeting up with Kazza we headed east to visit St. Mary's Cathedral. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the beautiful interior, but the exterior is quite nice as well...
Impressive. Most impressive.
The nun looks pretty bitchy, but...
...she gives all the kids an iPad, so she can't be all bad.
From there we were off to Mrs. Macquarie's Point. There's an interesting story behind the name, and it's a great place for spectacular Sydney Harbour views, even in the rain...
Yes. Mrs. Macquarie's Chair is just as comfortable as it looks.
A Rainbow Lorikeet... they're everywhere.
Still a pretty sight, even in the rain.
Heading back towards the city you run right through the Royal Botanic Gardens...
Leaving the Asian Gardens section of the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Inside the Royal Botanic Gardens Greenhouse at the Tropical Center.
The Fern House atrium at the Royal Botanic Gardens.
It's Springtime in Sydney, so all the flowers are blooming.
Bats are hanging around everywhere... mostly sleeping, fighting, or drying their wings.
This is called a "Cockatoo," but I call it "Fucking Bastard Bird"... vicious, nasty, and total destruction with wings.
From there it was time to take a ferry across the harbor to Manly...
It's the world-famous Manly Ferry!
Cruising by that Sydney Opera House. Again.
Walking down The Corso towards Manly Beach.
Manly beach. Where only manly men dare swim in the rain.
Everything in Manly is pretty manly...
...especially the Manly menus, where they make cute little kangaroos into fajitas.
After returning to Sydney, it was time to visit the Queen Victoria Building, which is a real jaw dropper. Certainly the best-looking mall I've ever seen...
Not wanting to get drenched, it was time to visit the Queen Victoria Building!
Seriously beautiful everywhere you look. This is an entryway.
Center atrium at the Queen Victoria Building.
Awesome diorama clock at the QVB.
The sexiest damn mall you'll ever see.
It was as we headed toward Darling Harbour that the rain decided to get serious...
Rain pours down on the bridge across Darling Harbour to the Harbourside Mall.
But that's okay, because I was more interested in visiting my 138th Hard Rock than the weather. Unfortunately, Sydney's new Hard Rock is yet another "Hipster Lounge" travesty, but it's massive size means you get to see a lot of memorabilia even though it's pretty spread out...
Hard Rock Cafe entrance.
Welcome to the cheesiest hipster lounge you ever will see!
The Hard Rock Cafe Sydney's so-called "shrine" to INXS.
Not the most intimate and cozy Hard Rock property I've been to. The place is massively huge.
Leaving Darling Harbour at night.
Something I didn't know: Sydney has a monorail. It was a convenient way to escape the rain and head back into the city...
Hey, it may cost $5, but that's still cheaper than a ticket to Disneyland.
Another perfect day Down Under... albeit with police horses waiting in my hotel lobby...
No. They weren't there to arrest me. I think.
And.... I guess it's time to log-off and go charge every piece of electronics I own. It's shocking how much gadget crap it takes to be civilized now-a-days.
Today was finally my chance to take it easy, which meant visiting a few museums instead of walking all over Sydney again. Luckily Kazza was kind enough to head back into the city to map out my morning, so all I had to worry about was keeping dry until the rain finally let up this afternoon.
The Australian Museum is a massive repository of the critters which inhabit the continent. There's also a special exhibit for Aboriginal art that's pretty great...
The way Native Australians "see" the world is endlessly fascinating to me.
Seal vs. Penguin... FIGHT!
Not a happy kitty. Probably a little upset about being shot and killed.
Most all the exhibits are dead, mounted, and stuffed... but there are some exceptions.
What would a museum be without dinosaurs?
A pity dinosaurs are extinct... some look like they'd make a fun pet.
Yeah, seeing one of these monsters would have me totally losing my shit.
Not all the insects shown are some scary shit... just most of them.
Fun with dead people in the "Skeletons" exhibit.
Ride 'em cowboy. The most disturbing thing about this? No ears on the horse.
The Art Gallery New South Wales is a fairly traditional art museum with a smattering of impressive works by popular painters... but it also has a beautiful selection of Aboriginal art which makes it uniquely worth visiting (alas, none of it photographical)...
It's amazing how museums never seem to run out of paintings.
Ape Girl with scary hand monster. How charming.
Demon angel with bat wings, snake, and lizard. Rock on, little dude.
Rabid Dog Pack vs. Wild Boar... FIGHT!
The National Opal Museum is a small exhibit which is mainly a front for an opal jewelry store, but it does still manage to give some insight into how opals are created and crafted...
Apparently dinosaurs made the opals. Or became opals. Or something.
Now dinosaurs help you purchase beautiful opals from the many jewelry showcases!
Pretty! As in "pretty fucking expensive."
And thus an early end to my last day in Sydney. I was just too drenched and tired to do anything else. Maybe when I swing back this way I'll have some better weather.
Alas, there's no wi-fi at Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) to upload any photos. Guess that gives me something to do when I get back.
P.S. If you never hear from me again, it's because I was carried off by an army of bugs in the middle of the night. One thing they don't tell you in the travel brochures is that The Outback is overrun by bugs. Lots of bugs. A massively huge number of bugs. A vast array of bugs in astounding numbers. Bugs!
Alrighty then. Now that I'm back to civilization, bugs didn't carry me off, and I have internet once again... I suppose it's time to start getting caught up on my trip to Uluru (aka Ayers Rock).
After a 3-hour flight from Sydney I landed at Ayers Rock Airport, then hopped the bus to the Ayers Rock Resort where my tour group was waiting. After purchasing my $25 park ticket, we headed out.
Surprisingly, the first stop we made was not Uluru, but Kata Tjuta... another giant rock formation in the neighborhood...
A photo can't do it justice, but that's all I got for you.
Yes, it's really that red. My camera is set to "vivid color" and has a polarizer, but this isn't Photoshop trickery.
The trail for the "Valley of the Winds" walk.
Saying goodbye to Kata Tjuta as we leave the area.
Next it was at last time to head to Uluru for the sunset...
A dingo ate my baby! Then boarded this bus...
Uluru as the sun is low. Note the haze in the background.
That haze is actually smoke from bush-fires in Central Australia. Scary, but makes a pretty sunset!
Uluru turns purple after the sun goes down... which doesn't show too well in this photo.
From there it was back to camp for dinner and an early bedtime. Tomorrow, it's time to get up-close-and-personal with Uluru.
At this point, I'm into day two of being covered with flies all the time. No mosquitoes, thank heavens (I was told that's the biggest problem when visiting Uluru), but more bugs than you'd ever care to encounter. After a while, you kind of get used to them swarming you constantly, but you never get used to the flies crawling on your face. Particularly up your nose and on your eyes (where I guess they're searching for moisture or something).
On more than one occasion I found myself regretting that I didn't get an Aussie Cork Hat or a Bug Net Hat... no matter how stupid they make you look. They exist for a reason.
Anyway...
As the tour had us viewing Uluru (Ayers Rock) at sunset last night, they had us viewing Uluru at sunrise this morning. For which I had to get up at 4:30am. It was nice, but not 4:30am-worthy spectacular...
And to prove I was there at that godawful time of morning, a photo of me ready to go back to bed after sunrise...
And then it was time to hike all the way around Uluru, which was a fascinating 2-1/2 hour journey. The rock looks completely different depending on where you view it. Some areas are sacred and not allowed to be photographed, but I picked out a few of the hundreds I was allowed to shoot...
Once my blisters had blisters and I had made my way around the site, it was time for a visit to the Uluru Visitor Centre which was a look into some aspects of Aboriginal culture. Most of their way of life is highly complex and secretive, but even the basics are fascinating. What I found particularly interesting is how their stories and teachings are place-sensitive. Meaning that you can only speak of some events at the place where they happened. If a story takes place at Uluru, but then moves to a different location, you will only hear about the part that's at Uluru. In order to hear the rest, you have to travel to the place where the story continues. Also, men and women live completely separate lives, so all aspects of a story can change depending on the sex of the person telling it. Remarkable.
The tour ended after lunch, at which time I decided I hadn't spent enough money (ha!) so I signed up for a helicopter flight over Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Uluru (Ayers Rock). It was kind of a bummer, because most of your time is spent getting there and back, but what precious little time you do spend at the sites is pretty impressive...
Some cloud cover had rolled in, which made the already deep red color even deeper. Those are some very sexy rocks.
This area of Central Australia is known as "Red Centre" which is not quite an accurate description as of late. Over the past two years, unprecedented rainfall has caused the ground to really green up. This makes the rocks look even more foreign and strange, but in a good way.
My original plan was to take in some kind of sunset dinner at Uluru tonight, but I am pretty much Uluru-ed out now. I'm also thoroughly exhausted with blisters in places on my feet I didn't even know I had.
And so... my vastly overpriced bed in my massively overpriced hotel room is calling...
My flight didn't leave until late afternoon so I took the opportunity to sleep in late, explore the resort, and have a nice lunch.
Mission accomplished.
I didn't really need a third day at Uluru, but seeing this area was so important to me that I booked it anyway... just in case the weather was bad, my flight was delayed, or some other unforeseen circumstance interfered with my plans. I've been traveling way too long to expect everything to go perfectly (even though it really did). Even so, I actually wish that I had more time so I could visit Kings Canyon and see Alice Springs, but there's more to Australia I have yet to explore.
Before leaving for the airport, I went to the hotel lookout for a last glimpse of Uluru...
...and said my goodbye to that magnificent giant red rock.
After an early-morning flight sitting next to a little French kid so adorable that I wanted to take him home with me, I arrived in sunny Cairns (which is a pleasant change from the crap weather in Sydney).
After checking into my hotel, it was time to meet up with my friends Wes and Karen, whom I haven't seen in over a decade. They drove down from Port Douglas to have lunch and wander around a bit. This made for a nice afternoon since I had done -zero- research on the area, and had no idea what Cairns was about. First surprise was that the city proper doesn't have a beach. It sits on a mud flat...
As you head north, a beach does appear...
But it's not like you'll be doing any swimming there...
Luckily, the people of Cairns have an awesome water park right off the mud flats to compensate...
In what little I've seen of Australia so far, I've fallen in love with the "no worries" laid back atmosphere. But Cairns takes it to an entirely new level. The city is so laid back that it's almost as if even the locals are on perpetual holiday. And it's completely contagious. Right now I'm finding it very hard to give a crap about anything. Far easier to just be happy and see where the day takes you.
This attitude could be a real problem if I don't find a way to turn it off once my vacation is over.
Not quite the awe-inspiring experience I was hoping for.
Even before I became a certified diver, I've longed to dive The Great Barrier Reef. It just seems like one of those things that everybody should have on their bucket list. And while my actual dives were nice, it was a fairly underwhelming day. At first I thought it was just me, but my German table-mates felt the same way. I guess we can chalk it up to overly-high expectations?
Or maybe not. Because when I spoke to the dive master, he had mentioned that our first dive site "Coral Gardens" used to be amazingly beautiful. But it was wiped out by a cyclone eight months ago. This begged the question "Why in the heck don't you dive someplace else then?" but I don't know enough about the region to even know how widespread the damage was*.
But oh well. Not every dream is going to turn out as we had hoped, and I've been luckier than most.
Anyway...
I still had a good time. I haven't been diving in well over a decade, but it all came back to me really quickly. I don't know how, but I had forgotten what a wonderful experience diving is. It's about as close to flying as mere humans can get, as you are neither sinking or floating... you just are.
I bought a new underwater camera for the trip, but didn't end up taking many photos. After I almost missed seeing a turtle because I was concentrating on my camera, I thought I'd put my attention to better use. There's just so much to see.
Here's a few snapshots I took before retiring my camera...
Sadly, no sharks made an appearance.
I know people think I'm joking but, having swam with sharks before, I was really hoping to see one. They are absolutely fascinating to watch. And, no, I'm not saying I wanted a man-eating Great White to drop in... just a regular shark would have been fine.
Though the nachos I had for dinner tonight were so bad that I found myself kind of wishing I had been eaten by a shark so I could have avoided the suffering.
For some inexplicable reason, Aussies mix the salsa into the chips & cheese when they make nachos (instead of serving it on the side). This makes absolutely no fucking sense, because the chips on the bottom end up a soggy, inedible mess...
Seriously, what the fuck? I've been testing out a lot of unusual dishes since I got here, like this delicious pumpkin-feta pizza from last night...
But the terrible "nachos" have been my first disappointment. Blargh.
No worries. I'm sure tomorrow's dinner will be awesome.
*Speaking of damages... I was shocked... shocked... at how many people were sick on the boat-ride out. No less than six people were puking their guts out non-stop. Thankfully, I don't get sea-sick, but the sight of so many people hurling was not an easy thing to take in. Fortunately, there are barf-bag stations all over the ship...
And while I really do feel sorry for those people whose day was ruined because of sea-sickness, I find it odd that people don't find out if they are prone to getting motion-sick before paying big money to head out on the open ocean like this.
No worries. I'm sure the rest of their vacation will be great.
While trying to fall asleep as American tourists were fighting on the balcony below mine last night, it suddenly occurred to me that I have no idea what's going on back in the USA. I haven't once bothered to look at a news site, glance at a paper, or watch TV news since I got here. For all I know, President Obama resigned after declaring war on Canada, and Lindsay Lohan did her patriotic duty by stepping up to run the country after staging a military coup where she firebombed Montreal*.
I'll bet Seattle never gets a Tim Hortons' now. Thanks a lot, President Lohan.
Anyway...
I had just three goals here in Cairns.
There are quite a few ways to visit the rainforest. Most involve tours, and I really, really hate tours. I also really hate renting a car, getting lost, and driving into a crocodile den where I get eaten as an appetizer. So I decided to split the difference by ignoring my fear of heights and taking the "Skyrail Buckets of Death" up over Daintree...
The controlled-burn fires in the area really smoke up the horizon.
Skyrail is (of course) the longest tram line system in the world. Which means the terror never seems to end. Indeed, you can't even see the end of the damn thing from high up in the buckets...
WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIEEE!
Along the way there are stops you can take to see the local sights. Like Barron Falls...
Apparently during monsoon season the falls overflow and is quite an impressive sight.
But the main attraction once you reach the end of Skyrail is the village of Kuranda. There's all sorts of stuff to see and do here with plenty of eateries and shops to keep you busy. I was told more than once that the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary was worth a stop. I thought it was included in my Skyrail ticket cost, but that's not the case... it costs $18 AUD to get in. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS! I very nearly skipped it, but had four hours to kill, so I bought a ticket. And wow, was I ever glad I did...
Some of their wings were so raggedy that I was surprised they could fly at all. Poor butterflies.
After lunch I got a little bored with Kuranda and headed back to the train station for my trip back to Cairns.
And so there I was waiting to board the train back to Cairns when I hear this shrieking coming down the stairs. It's a woman dragging her offspring down the steps to the station. The little hellion is obviously not hurt, he's just being a little brat. But that doesn't stop a woman on the platform next to me from saying "Oh, the poor dear, I wonder what's wrong?" Whereas my first instinct is to douse the little shit in holy water and scream "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" in an attempt to perform an exorcism. On the brighter side, the station is pretty nice...
Established 1891... and still going strong.
Probably the best-maintained rail station I have ever seen, which is very cool.
I think that's a representation of the giant snake that the Aboriginal people believe carved out Barron Canyon?
I paid extra money (too much money, probably) for the "gold service" which allows you to sit in the luxury compartment with free drinks, free snacks, and a souvenir gift (a pin and a pen). The car itself was quite beautiful, and very probably close to 100 years old...
The chairs are probably new, but the interior is carved wood. They don't make 'em like that any more.
The train ride down is pretty special. Most of the time you're clinging to the side of a cliff where the onboard entertainment system beguiles you with awesome facts like "This section of the railway was the most difficult to build because the rock kept crumbling away." Not exactly something you want to hear, which is why I wanted to scream "HOLY CRAP! WHY ARE YOU TELLING US THIS NOW?!? But I just gritted my teeth and enjoyed the views...
The train makes a quick stop so everybody can look down Barron Canyon... from the West this time.
In all honesty, this photo doesn't do it justice. This canyon is SUPER MASSIVELY HUGE!
Stoney Creek Falls, which seems like it's at the half-way point to Freshwater Station.
The bridge over Stoney Creek Falls on the opposite side of the train.
Once I got to Freshwater Station, my Skyrail ticket included a transfer back to my hotel via bus, which was nice. Now I'm hungry, but don't dare risk a dining experience as crappy as my "nachos" last night here at the hotel. Since I have an early, early, early flight, I guess I'll just go hungry.
And dream of Tim Hortons doughnuts.
*And don't think that they didn't have it coming. Lindsay Lohan may spend most of her time drunk off her ass in a cocaine-fueled frenzy, but she knows the strategic importance of a first-strike scenario where the French-Canadians are concerned.
**Okay, I'll admit that visiting the Daintree Rainforest was not actually on my list of goals. But you can't fly after diving for at least 24 hours, so I had to do something.
I have ranted endlessly over how stupid Daylight Saving Time is. In this modern age of electricity and fanciful inventions LIKE THE FUCKING LIGHT BULB, there is no reason to be docking around with the clocks. Just split the difference, have everybody move forward by a half-hour one final time, then leave the clocks the hell alone.
Never was the dumbassness of stupid Daylight Saving Time made more clear to me than this morning when my iPhone woke me up at 3:30am so I could get ready for my taxi to the airport at 4:15am. Except when I got down to the reception desk to settle my account, they were all confused because it was only 3:15am. Why was I an hour early?
Well here's why... in their infinite wisdom, Queensland, the state where Cairns is located... does not practice Daylight Saving Time. Bravo for them. Well done. Except New South Wales, where apparently my iPhone is getting its time data, does observe stupid Daylight Saving Time, which went into effect at 2:00am this morning...
Maps taken from Wikipedia, where you can read about the whole damn tragedy
And I thought the USA was a mess.
The upshot of all this is that I lost an hour's sleep for nothing.
And the best part of all? I get to go through all this bullshit yet again when I get home. Because stupid Daylight Saving Time in the USA ends November 6th and stupid Washington State still practices stupid Daylight Saving Time... unlike more enlightened states like Hawaii and Arizona.
When I am Supreme Ruler of the Known Universe, stupid Daylight Saving Time is the first thing to go.*
*After the entire cast of Jersey Shore, obviously.
After finally making it to my flight out of Cairns, I landed in Brisbane two hours later. From there it was a 35 minute ride to my hotel, followed by another hour and 10 minutes on a train, followed by yet another 30 minutes on a bus... before I finally made it to the Gold Coast and the Hard Rock Cafe Surfers Paradise.
The Gold Coast has a feel very much like Miami Beach, with loads of high-priced properties and plenty of beachfront. When I arrived, the weather was flawless, with blue skies and warm sunshine tempered by a slight breeze...
The cafe itself is a beautiful older property with loads of cool memorabilia to look at...
After having lunch and looking around the cafe for a while, I headed to the beach only to find that the clouds had started moving in...
By the time I had wandered around for a while and made it back to the Hard Rock, the weather had taken a drastic turn...
That's quite a difference considering it happened in under four hours!
Luckily, the skies were clear once again when I made it back to Brisbane.
And now that Hard Rock #139 is out of the way for me, I suppose I'd better see about unpacking my suitcase.
Today was doubly lucky for me as I got to meet with one of my long-time blogger friends, Mooselet, and visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!
Koalas, like most animals, are adorable when they're babies. Unlike most animals, koalas stay adorable no matter how old they get. So, as you can imagine, visiting a sanctuary which has 104 koalas on the premises is guaranteed cuteness overload.
And it didn't disappoint.
I've seen koalas in zoos before, but at a distance and in a very different setting. The experience you get at Lone Pine Koala sanctuary is something entirely different...
Koalas are mostly nocturnal, so you see a lot of sleepy guys in the daytime.
Baby koalas are, as you'd expect, a veritable explosion of cuteness.
This guy is about as relaxed as you can get when it comes to sleeping in a tree.
Everybody starts to wake up.
Baby koalas get to hitch a ride wherever they go. Must be nice.
Looks kind of like he might be koala surfing on momma there.
Koala pals.
Koala cuddle cluster. You find yourself saying "Awwwwww!" a lot at this place.
Talk about cute overload! (I'm the one on the left).
Lone Pine has more than just koalas though... they've got all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds around...
Crocodiles have a killer smile.
RUN, TURTLE! RUN YOU FOOL!
Tasmanian Devils, which I just love, are highly endangered and will be extinct in the wild soon.
Wombats are too adorable. Like fuzzy piglets or something.
Feeding a kangaroo. They're amazingly polite about it.
A wallaby and a kangaroo hanging out.
A momma kangaroo with a joey in the pocket!
Joey on the lookout.
I CAN HAZ CRUNCHY FOOD PELLETS? NOM! NOM! NOM!
Soggy bats try to sleep through the rain.
After rain broke out at the koala sanctuary in yet another bizarre weather change (there were flawless blue skies when I arrived this morning), Mooselet was nice enough to drive me up Mount Coot-tha for a look over the city...
After lunch, the rain started letting up, which made for a nicer view of Brisbane...
Pretty much the perfect way to spend a vacation day... thanks for coming along, Mooselet!
Despite every single day being jam-packed, I can honestly say that this is one of the most relaxing vacations I've ever had. Then today I ended up in Fiji, which somehow ends up being even more relaxed and laid back than Australia.
And why Fiji? Well, there's a Hard Rock Cafe here I haven't been to... but I've actually wanted to visit ever since I first heard Lister wax poetic about his dreams of Fiji on Red Dwarf.
So when it came time to plan my vacation, some hard choices had to be made. And because I didn't have six weeks available to see everything on my wish list, I eventually drew a line through Sydney and split my vacation options into two choices, North or South...
Not that I don't want to see Perth and The West, but that's another ballgame entirely.
Ultimately, I went with the North itinerary because it fit better into the two weeks I had available and was quite a bit cheaper. Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, and New Zealand will have to wait until next time.
And so Fiji it was. It's a short three-hour flight out of Brisbane, so why not?
Especially since Hard Rock #140 was within my grasp...
It's a really nice old-school two-level property that's pretty impressive. I look forward to visiting again when I have a little more time to explore their memorabilia collection.
In the meanwhile, it's time to put a little vacation into my vacation...
I walked out of my apartment this morning and had sweat pouring down my face before I could take a half-dozen steps. By the time I had walked across the road to meet some friends for breakfast, I was soaking wet. The heat and humidity were already a lot more uncomfortable than I'm happy with, and the day hadn't even started.
Luckily, I'd be spending most of my day at sea, where at least the wind would keep me from melting...
Arriving at the reef...
Time for a snorkel...
After snorkeling, we headed to "Plantation Island" for lunch and to goof off at a resort. By the time we got there, clouds had moved in and it was overcast. This caused a couple people to be quite upset... saying "THE CLOUDS ARE RUINING OUR HOLIDAY!!" I just smiled politely while being secretly thankful that the clouds would muffle the direct sunlight that was killing me. It was still hot, but at least I wasn't melting.
After lunch it started raining, which caused even louder protests from the peanut gallery. I just secretly laughed to myself because, at last, it was cool enough to be comfortable again. Besides, Fiji is so fucking beautiful that it still looks amazing... even in the rain...
Unfortunately for me, the cloud cover did nothing to filter out the burning rays of the sun. I should have reapplied sunscreen after I was done snorkeling, but with the rain and all, I thought I'd be safe.
Er... Not so much...
I am frickin' Lobster Boy here.
Oh well. I'm in frickin' Fiji, and it's going to take a lot more than a sunburn to ruin that.
Yesterday's rain decided to continue all through the night and, when I woke, it was still going strong. This put my snorkeling trip into doubt, as first I got a call saying it had been canceled... then I got a call saying it was clearing up and was on again.
And thank heavens.
My second trip out was even better than the first.
When I arrived at the dive shop, I was greeted by SCUBA-Cat, who was not very impressed to see me...
The tide was still out. This meant a lengthy trek out to the boat. Our guide had a little extra equipment to carry, but he was a real trooper...
This snorkel had quite a bit more interesting things to see than my last one. Like a SEA SNAKE!!!
SHARKS!!!
EEL!!!
FISH!!!
After two really good snorkels at some impressive locations, it was time to head back. But guess who decided to show up...
A dolphin!
A LOT of dolphins! They were racing along with the boat for a good while...
Doesn't get much cooler than that! Quite a send-off, really.
The tide had come in quite a bit, but there was still a long walk back to the SCUBA shop...
Back on dry land, I decided to have some lunch at the resort restaurant. Look who finally decided to get interested in my presence...
Unfortunately, neither my toasted egg & cheese sandwich nor my fries were cat-appropriate. But the sun was shining again, which was kind of nice. But really, really, melt-your-head-and-set-your-hair-on-fire hot. That's the tropics for you...
And now its time to pick up some souvenirs and crap so I can head back to Australia tonight. Three days in Fiji... no matter how much you fill them... is hardly enough. I could have easily spent my entire two weeks here and never been bored.
Sigh. Yet another awesome place I have to find time to get back to before I die.
This morning I woke up and realized, just like that, my vacation is over.
Well, not really, because I had today in Sydney... but since I've been going balls-out non-stop since I arrived, this day was set aside to decompress and relax before my flight home tomorrow.
My loooooooooong flight home.
Though since it was blissfully cool outside (despite the beautiful sunshine and blue skies) I did go say goodbye to Sydney Harbour...
Yeah, yeah... they're iPhone photos! I'm done lugging around my camera gear for a while.
I also stopped by the Vintage Cafe (where Kazza and I ate my first day here) for some more of their mind-blowing marinated peppered cheese and bread...
The rest of my day was spent unpacking everything I own, then re-packing it in a way that wasn't insane (as it quickly becomes if you're living out of a suitcase for this long).
Looking back, this was a pretty darn spectacular vacation. I crammed in quite a few awesome things into two weeks. Probably more than I should have. I also got to spend time with some really great people, which is about the most awesome thing of all.
And now I wish I didn't have to go home.
Not because Australia and Fiji have been so great I don't want to leave (though that's also true), not because I don't miss my friends and family (which I absolutely do), and not even because I don't want to go back to work (I'm actually anxious to start working again)... it's because of the awful political hate parade that I know is awaiting me back home.
I dread coming back to it so much that I feel physically ill just thinking about it.
Over the past two weeks I can't tell you how nice it's been to not be inundated with all the bickering, hatred, lies, disrespect, persecution, and general asshattery that's become typical of our political landscape in the USA these past couple of years. I am just done with it.
At least as much as I can be.
See you on the other side of the Pacific.
As I write this, I am sitting in the beautiful Air New Zealand lounge at Sydney International Airport. Very soon now, I will be hurling back across the Pacific Ocean to go home.
But I'm not thinking of my impending trip yet to come, my mind is set on October 6th. Which was still October 5th back in the USA. Time, like all things we experience and attempt to describe, is relative to the observer.
Previously...
After a run with the dolphins the boat headed back to Fiji and dry land. As we approached the shallows, my mobile phone came into cellular range and I heard a muffled "beep" telling me that a text message had arrived. I ignored it while I loaded up my gear and went trudging to the shore. I had intended to check my new text as I waded back, but the sandy floor was squishy and slick with plant growth. This made the risk of slipping and dropping my iPhone into the ocean a bigger risk than I was willing to take.
So inside a waterproof pouch which sat inside a waterproof bag, my iPhone waited.
As did I.
And it was a torturous wait because I rarely get texts. Especially when people know I'm out of the country. On those rare occasions when I do get such a text, it's almost always bad news.
My mind was not in a very happy place when I finally got back to the Scuba Bula shop. A part of me wanted to continue ignoring the text for fear of what it might say but, as you can imagine, this is really impossible.
Of the hundreds of nasty scenarios that went through my head, a text from my brother telling me that Steve Jobs had died never entered my mind...
As I said, texts always seem to bring bad news.
One of my heroes for the past 27 years was gone.
As anybody who has read this blog for any length of time can probably guess, I was devastated.
I tried to avoid the crush of chatter online, but you couldn't be online without reading about it. And so much of it was beautiful and touching and everything one would expect. But not all of it. A common thread emerged mocking those who were grieving by saying "How can you be so sad and pathetic? You didn't even know him!"
Which is wrong, of course. So very wrong.
Just as you can come to know an artist by their art... Steve Jobs was probably one of these easiest people on earth to get to know through the products Apple makes. And though a great many people contribute to the design, manufacture, and experience that makes these products intrinsically "Apple"... Steve Jobs' fingerprints are on everything. It's his beautiful, singular vision that drove the company to it's massive level of success and created legions of fans worldwide.
As I type this blog post on my MacBook Pro while uploading television episodes for the flight to my iPad and charging my iPhone, I know Steve Jobs. He surrounds me every day. I spend more time with him than I do anybody else.
And so I grieve as I would for any friend who has passed on.
And I remember, because it's impossible for a Certified Apple Whore to forget.
I'm sure this is not the last thing I'll have to say, but it is the only thing I can say right now.
I've got a plane to catch so I can travel back in time.
Goodbye Steve.
Oog. Bullets will have to wait a day since there's only ten minutes left in my Sunday.
Just got back from Foster the People's sold-out gig in Seattle. I've been a fan ever since Pumped Up Kicks first starting going viral on YouTube. Of course, back then they were practically unknown, but that's far from the case now... heck, they were even on Saturday Night Live last night (with special guest Kenny G!).
The band puts on a really good live show, I just wish the venue had been better.
Oh well. I had a good time, so I guess that's what really matters.
Foster the People has teamed up with the Do Good Bus, which was parked out front.
Tomorrow it's back to reality after two-and-a-half weeks of big fun.
Wish me luck.
FINALLY!
A presidential candidate I actually want to vote for!
I swear, nobody else can do what Betty does. If you missed her on Craig Ferguson tonight, this is a must-see...
Love Betty. Would vote for her in a heartbeat over any other candidate running.
After skipping two Bullet Sundays while I was on vacation, my plan was to get back on track this past Sunday. Alas... it wasn't to be. So here we are with a very special, never-before-seen, extremely rare, hopefully never-to-be-repeated BULLET SUNDAY ON TUESDAY!
And I think I'll make it easy on myself by going back through my comments and emails from the past couple weeks to do a Q & A kind of thing from the questions that I got asked. If I missed one, let me know.
• Isn't it awesome that you have blogging friends as far away as Australia? Yes. Oh heck yes. Since the vast majority of my travel is done alone, I can't overstate how grateful I am that I have friends to keep me company no matter where I go. Any time I feel like giving up on my blog, I remember all the great people I've met through blogging and just can't. It's the reason I keep going.
• Certified diver? Is there anything you don't do? That's what I asked myself after taking skydiving lessons! I like to try cool stuff, and SCUBA diving was just one more thing to check off my list. I really do love it though, so I wish I could afford to do it more often.
• Why aren't you being paid to take vacations and photos, yet? I dunno! Somebody should be paying me to go on vacation! But then I worry that vacations would become all about work, and I'd need a vacation from my vacations.
• I want to hold a koala! What does their fur feel like? Is it soft? Koala fur is thick and kind of coarse and wooly... but still kinda soft. For really soft fur, however, you want to pet a kangaroo. Kangaroos have baby-kitty-soft fur! This is actually kind of bad news for them, because they get made into glove liners and slippers and such.
• Do they sell Fiji Water in Fiji? Oh yes. The bottled stuff is everywhere, and no cheaper than if you bought it here. Of course, you can get "Fiji water" from the tap for free, so that's where I drank all of mine from.
• Loving this trip. Now please tell me about that boat ride. The sail from Fiji was on a 50-foot yacht called Pelorus Jack. It was most definitely not a calm day at sea, which meant a couple people got pretty sick. Call me a sadist, but I actually enjoyed the rough ride, as it made for a more exciting trip! In my opinion, the boat was overcrowded, but it still beats those giant catamarans that head out with so many people that they're practically hanging off the edges. Surprisingly, they allowed me to stand on deck despite the choppy seas after I explained that I had been on sailboats before and was comfortable doing so. I was expecting them to say that I had to stay seated for insurance purposes (or whatever), but they were completely cool with it. For that alone, it was an awesome sail.
• Aren't sea snakes really venomous? So I'm told. But, like so many things in the wild, they really don't bother you unless you bother them first. So long as they are not provoked or feel threatened, they'll pretty much just avoid you. That being said, our dive guide picked one up and held it for a bit before letting it swim off. He later said that a bite wouldn't have been fatal to him, so maybe this particular snake has a weak venom or doesn't make very much of it. When diving, I never touch a damn thing. There are a lot of things that can seriously hurt or kill you. As an example, the cone shell is said to be so poisonous that that the venom in just one of them is enough to kill 700 men. Fire Coral isn't lethal, but it is so painful that you'll wish you were dead. The biggest threat to people on Australia's coasts are deadly Box Jellyfish, but they weren't in season when I was there.
• Nothing BAD happened this trip? Who are you and what have you done with Dave2?? Well, sure, problems came up... I just didn't want to dwell on them while I was on vacation. If forced to make a list, it would go something like this: 1) The V-Australia checkin at Sydney's domestic airport is fucking insane (even though I like the airline itself) and I had to seriously resist the urge to kill on several occasions. 2) The people on my first Fiji sailing cruise had -zero- respect for the ocean, and trampled everything they could stomp their fins on. 3) I hate... fucking hate... Brisbane's airport, easily one of the most traveler-hostile airports I've ever experienced. 4) I paid ridiculously high prices for internet access, yet it sucked most everywhere I went. 5) I need to remember that late-night flights are are so much better than early-morning flights, and the $25 I saved only to be exhausted two days in a row just isn't worth it. Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful trip... at least where bad things are concerned.
• How expensive is "expensive?" As in Australia? Very expensive. At least if you're using the US dollar. When I go on vacation, I don't go crazy with spending money... I don't have that kind of bank... but I do budget generously for expenses. The last thing I want to do is fly all the way to Australia and not be able to afford to do or see stuff. So I save money and then set a budget. But this vacation was one of those rare times where my budget was totally inadequate. I blew through my initial funds before I even left the USA while booking airfare and hotels. So I dug deeper into my savings and increased my budget for the actual trip. But it still wasn't enough. When I got home I had a whopping $1300 in credit card debt. It's depressing, but it happens. My consolation is that I had an incredible trip and definitely got my money's worth.
• Now that you've crossed both Greece and Australia off your "list of places you most want to visit," where to next? It won't happen right away (I'll have to financially recover from Australia/Fiji first!) but eventually I need... need... to visit India. And I'm not quite "done" with Australia, as I want to do a Melbourne-Adelaide-Canberra-Tasmania run with New Zealand at some point. But I'm not picky, really. Anywhere I haven't been yet is somewhere I want to go.
Annnnd... that's a wrap! Hopefully next Bullet Sunday will actually be on a Sunday. Fingers crossed.
Where to start.
Well, I don't know about anybody else, but Apple's release of iOS5 and iCloud have proven to be an absolute and total failure on every possible level for me. My Apple TV is dead. My mom has lost all her photos and her MobileMe/iCloud/Apple ID is so hopelessly fucked up that she can't even send email. My computer is in some kind of hybrid MobileMe/iCloud state that doesn't seem to work with either. My keychains are no longer syncing. Every single device has some kind of problem.
Here's the rundown of my day...
MobileMe to iCloud Migration...
UPGRADE? Failed. "Cannot be completed at this time."
UPGRADE, TAKE TWO? Failed. "Cannot be completed at this time."
UPGRADE, TAKE THREE? Failed. "Cannot be completed at this time."
UPGRADE, TAKE FOUR? Failed. "Server connection lost."
UPGRADE, TAKE FIVE? Failed. "Cannot be completed at this time."
UPGRADE, TAKE SIX? Success.
Mac OS X Lion Update...
UPGRADE? Success?
NOTES: Converted MobileMe crap to iCloud crap, but kept me subscribed to both, forcing me to manually go through and delete all the old MobileMe crap that wasn't going to sync anyway. But it's still trying for some reason. iCloud no longer syncs Keychains between my Macs, which was one of the major reasons I signed up for MobileMe in the first place.
iPhone 4 (Mine)...
UPGRADE? Failed. No explanation, just a reboot.
UPGRADE, TAKE TWO? Success.
NOTES: Lost all my app data and have no idea how to recover it.
iPhone 4 (Mom)...
UPGRADE? Failed. Unknown error occurred (-18).
UPGRADE, TAKE TWO? Failed. Unknown error occurred (-18).
UPGRADE, TAKE THREE? Success.
NOTES: Apple ID is now hopelessly screwed up.
iPad (First Generation)...
UPGRADE? Failed. Some kind of "update can't be verified" error.
UPGRADE, TAKE TWO? Success.
iPad 2...
UPGRADE? Success?
NOTES: Deleted all images from Photos with no warning and no way to recover. Apple ID is now so hopelessly screwed up that she can't send email.
Apple TV (Second Generation)...
UPGRADE? Failed. Generic "Update Failed" message.
UPGRADE, TAKE TWO? Major failure. Unit goes dead with rapidly-blinking light. Trying to restore direct from my Mac (with unsupplied cable) doesn't work.
UPGRADE, TAKE THREE? There is no Take Three. I now have an Apple TV paperweight that will have to be sent to Apple to be fixed. Or whatever.
So, in the end, Apple is running 0 for 7, and I've got days of troubleshooting, recovery, and research to do in order to get things running properly again.
Starting with my poor mother's screwed-up Apple ID. The problem being that I have no fucking idea where to even start. Probably with a call to Apple because I don't have an Apple Store handy, but I have no idea how to approach it or who to call.
She registered her Apple ID with an Gmail address, but now Apple doesn't like that, so she switched over an Apple me.com address. Except now I can't get rid of the Gmail address. When I try, I get a nonsensical error message...
Well, dumbass, if THAT'S now her Apple ID, then why the fuck can't she actually USE it as her Apple ID? Why is Gmail stuck there? And why can't she use the iCloud SMTP server to send email? Oh probably because it will only send for an Apple email address, but there's no way of defining that address as the sender address because I can't change the Gmail address.
What a clusterfuck.
Apple is the new Microsoft. Nothing works right.
The only difference being that once you finally get all the myriad of problems solved, at least you can enjoy using the Apple products.
Apple had better get their shit together before somebody comes along and does it better. There's only so long that people will put up with stupid crap like this.
Even me.
It took several hours, but I managed to un-brick my Apple TV and fix all my iDevices. There's still some issues (Apple ID is a creation of Satan... except, unlike the devil, Apple doesn't give you tech support in exchange for your immortal soul), but at least everything is mostly working as it should.
Yay.
Now I need a drink.
Sometimes being a Certified Apple Whore is a lot more work than it should be.
So there I was loading up my camera bag on my second day in Sydney when I realized "Holy shit, I'm carrying a purse!" Because when your camera content drops below 50%, I think it pretty much ceases to be a camera bag. I had sunscreen, aspirin, my wallet, room key, iPhone, cash, stamps, passport and all kinds of other assorted crap that I need to get through the day.
Oh... and my camera.
Now that I'm back home, I'm missing my "camera bag." It's kind of handy having all your stuff with you all the time. I'd just start carrying it again, but it got a little dirty as I was hiking around Uluru in the Outback.
So now I'm in the market for a new "camera bag." The problem is that there's so many awesome designs to choose from that I can't make up my mind! After a week of looking, I think I have it narrowed down to five choices now...
Yes. Yes I know... the Hello Kitty "camera bag" skews a little young for me. But I totally think I can pull it off!
The problem is that my Batman Chuck Taylors don't go with it very well, so I don't have the right shoes. So I guess that means I'll be buying some new footwear once I decide on the "camera bag" I like best.
The life of a photographer ain't an easy one.
Because you never see the other side of the story...
Hey, look! Bullet Sunday is actually on a Sunday this time!
• New 52. I was on vacation when my copies of DC Comics' 52 new books arrived, so I am only now having time to read them. So far I'm a bit underwhelmed. Sure some books have a decent start and are offering good bang for your buck, but most of them just more of the same. Not that they're all "bad" per se, it's just that they don't seem worthy of a company-wide relaunch like this. Sadly, I'm not surprised. What is surprising to me are the books which have surprised me. #1 on that list was All-Star Western featuring Jonah Hex...
As I have no interest in Westerns or lead character Jonah Hex (and didn't appreciate the $3.99 price tag), I almost passed on All-Star Western. But I ended up buying it anyway so I'd have a complete "New 52" set. And thank heavens, because this is easily one of the best titles of the bunch. What the writing team of Gray & Palmiotti have created is more a brilliant murder-mystery story than a Western. But even better is that they have found a very clever way of giving the reader insight into Jonah Hex that makes him a fascinating and fully-realized character. The art is a bit more crude than I usually care for, but Moritat's style is perfect for this book and I loved it. If you were a fan of Baker Street, this is the book for you.
• Steve Jobs Day. After too many false starts, I've pretty much given up trying to write down my thoughts about Steve Jobs. I'm at a loss for words, and I'm never at a loss for words. Ordinarily, I'd be kind of worried, but somehow I'm okay with it...
Flowers left at the Sydney Apple Store in remembrance of Steve Jobs after his death.
The governor of California proclaimed today to be "Steve Jobs Day" which was kind of nice. But to anybody with an Apple product, every day is "Steve Jobs Day."
• Televised. Am I missing all the good new television shows? I set my DVR to record everything fresh, but pretty much hate every single new show I've seen. The lone exception would be 2 Broke Girls, but not hating something is a long ways from actually liking something. On one hand, I'm grateful for the time this will free up, but on the other hand... I'm a television whore, and this really sucks. Here are the only shows I'm interested in this season...
I'm also buzzing through Gossip Girl because Elizabeth Hurley is on it, Survivor when it doesn't suck, and a big chunk of the awesome USA Network shows when they bother to air new episodes (Psych, White Collar, Burn Notice, Suits, and Fairly Legal). Ditto for the excellent FX series Justified which starts back up in January. Still addicted to Dexter, The Big C, Boardwalk Empire, and Game of Thrones... but since I don't get HBO and Showtime, I've been buying them on iTunes (when available) or waiting for the DVD.
I know that sounds like a lot of television but, considering how much TV is out there, it's pretty pathetic.
And now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to stare at the television and wonder where my weekend went.
People offer to send me free things all the time in the hopes that I'll review their stuff on my blog. I always say "no" because if somebody gives me something, then I feel obligated to say something nice even when it's a lie. Sure it means I have to pay for crap that I could get for zero dollars, but at least then I can say what I really feel.
So when my blogging pal Rob "Diesel" Kroese said he wanted to send me a preview copy of his new book, Mercury Rises, I was torn. On one hand, I really liked his first book, and so I'd probably like the sequel too. But, on the other hand sequels can be bad, so what if it sucks ass like REVENGE OF THE NERDS II: NERDS IN PARADISE? What then?
I'll tell you what.
First you make a donation to my favorite charity Doctors Without Borders in Rob Kroese's name so you don't feel bad about what you're saying about his book...
Then you sit down and write a review on your blog because you promised you would.
Mercury Rises is a story about rebel FBI agent Bruce Willis protecting some autistic kid who has unwittingly discovered the key to cracking a top-secret government code. Because of this, the government wants him dead, and only Bruce Willis can save him. Formulaic absurdity ensues. About the only bright spot in this entire mess of a book is villain Alec Baldwin, who manages to deliver some of the cheesiest dialog ever written in a way that makes you not quite want to kill yourself. Which is about the best thing I can say about Mercury Rises.
What I want to know is what Kroese was thinking. I mean, his first book, Mercury Falls, had memorable characters, witty dialogue, and some genuinely funny situations. Why did he jettison all that this time? I guess the pressure of writing a sequel to a successful book was more than Diesel could take, so he traded in his unique and humorous voice for big budget stars and a by-the-numbers action-thriller that fails to deliver. Overall, a big disappointment.
If you're a die-hard (heh) Bruce Willis fan, this might be worth a look. Otherwise I'd skip it.
UPDATE! Umm... it was just pointed out to me that I was confusing Rob's book Mercury Rises with the film Mercury Rising. I could say this is my fault, but honestly... it's easy to see how I would get the two mixed up. Quick suggestion to Mr. Kroese... name your next book something more clever (like Mercury Rises: Nerds in Paradise or Mercury Rises: The Phantom Menace or Weekend at
Anyway, here's me reviewing the BOOK version of Mercury Rises...
It's a pretty darn good read.
IF you've read the original book Mercury Falls. Otherwise, the sequel won't make much sense because there's noooooo hand-holding here. The story picks up right after the original with absolutely no recap or explanation as to what's going on.
But if you HAVE read Mercury Falls, then you're in for a treat, because The Apocalypse is back on and only rogue angel Mercury and recently-out-of-work reporter Christine Temetri can save the world. Again! Along the way we get a peek into the distant past with the origins of Tiamet's Apocalyptic scheming and even more of Kroese's crazy characters and outlandish situations. But past, present, or possible future, it's all wrapped up in the same witty, pop-culture-infused trappings that I enjoyed the first time around.
In more ways than one, Mercury Rises is a more challenging read than the first book. There's a lot going on, a lot to process, and a lot to wade through as the plot moves along. I kind of appreciate this, because it gives me something interesting to latch onto now that the "newness" of Mercury and his heavenly bureaucracy has worn off. But you do have to prepare yourself for some uninterrupted reading time to fully appreciate where the story is taking you. Try to read this one during commercial breaks in Dancing with the Stars and you're in for a tough time of it. Still, it's worth the effort.
I'm giving Mercury Rises ★★★★☆. If you enjoyed Mercury Falls (★★★★★), then you'll probably enjoy the sequel as well. It's available in paperback by following this link to Amazon (or you can buy it for a mere $2.99 by getting the Kindle Edition).
And now a warning.
SHIT! Just a second...
About the only thing I didn't like about Mercury Rises is that it's not complete. It is, in fact, a cliffhanger set-up for the third book, Mercury Rests.
I really, really hate it when this happens.
What if Diesel dies before he can finish the tale? What if Mercury Rises only sells five copies and the publisher doesn't want to print the sequel? What if the ACTUAL APOCALYPSE happens before the third book is released? What if I die and never get to find out how the story ends?
A part of me wants to say the same thing I say whenever I talk about a book with a cliffhanger "ending"... wait until the actual ending is released before you buy it so you can be sure you'll be able to read the complete story. But, in this case, that would be a shame. Mercury Falls is one of those books that leaves you wanting more. Well, here it is. If, like me, you've been waiting... I begrudgingly say take a chance and pick up a copy.
Mercury willing, the grand finale of the trilogy will find its way to us soon enough.
LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLE!
Well that was entertaining. I wish I would have had some popcorn.
The only consolation I have after watching the CNN Republican Debate is that the odds of Michele Bat-Shit-Crazy Bachmann or Rick Piece-of-Shit Santorum becoming president are effectively zero. But try telling them that. You'd think the person in charge of the Republican party would cut them loose, but apparently a few more weeks in Crazy Town is on the agenda. Along with four more years with President Obama.
Because if there's a challenge to the Democratic ticket here, I'm not seeing it.
Time to drag out the Don't Fuck It Up Presidential Matrix to pit the candidates head-to-head and see which has the best chance to screw up the country even worse than it is now...
And now the run-down...
Rick Santorum (SCORE: 0)
Rick Santorum is a piece of shit. He's worse than a piece of shit. In fact, I would rather have a literal piece of shit... a turd that fell out of my ass... in the Oval Office than Rick Santorum. It might smell bad, but it would do far less damage to our country. After his wacky ramblings about "gay napkins wanting to be paper towels, but they can't be paper towels because they're napkins" I pretty much wrote him off. How in the fuck could this lunatic possibly represent this country?
Michele Bachmann (SCORE: 1)
Certifiable. The fact that this particular flavor of crazy has made it this far in a frickin' PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION is just mind-boggling to me.
Herman Cain (SCORE: 2)
I admit, I was a fan when the guy first got started. He had straight-talk and a policy of sticking to his guns. Then he went nuts. I mean, seriously, have you heard the goofball shit that has come out of his mouth lately? It's almost as if this is all a big joke to him. But when you crunch the numbers, this guy has a serious chance to be tapped for Vice President on the ticket. Scary.
Ron Paul (SCORE: 3)
Despite his low score, there are some things that Ron Paul has to say that I actually like. But the guy is simply not presidential. We desperately need a president who can inspire and give people hope at a time when there's not a lot of hope to go around. But Ron Paul is not that guy. His doom and gloom crotchety old fart routine may be "telling people what they need to hear" but there has to be something positive in your persona to make people want to follow you. Couple that with his horrifying take on foreign policy, and Ron Paul shouldn't be anywhere near The White House.
Rick Perry (SCORE: 4)
Yikes. No. Just no.
Jon Huntsman (SCORE: 5)
On paper, the guy has presidential credentials that look pretty darn impressive. He's sane. He's good on foreign policy... especially in China. He's not wacky religious. He seems pretty open-minded and forward-thinking. AND he shares a name with the very scary Huntsman Spider. You don't fuck with a Huntsman Spider. Where he fails as a serious candidate is in full effect at the debate... he's just bad at it. His own party seems to hate him. How is he going to get anything done?
Newt Gingrich (SCORE: 6)
The guy has so many scandals in his past that it seems impossible to understand how Republicans tolerate him as a candidate. But he does seem to have a very clear vision for how things should be. Sure this vision is hard-core Conservative to its core, but at least it seems solid, which is something both Conservatives and Liberals can cling to in uncertain times. I don't really like the guy, but I can't deny he seems like a candidate that has his shit together (if not his campaign) when it comes to being a president. I admit that his high score surprised me quite a lot, but head-to-head he just kept winning when I factored in all the pieces.
Mitt Romney (SCORE: 7)
Out of all the Republican candidates, he's the only one I could bring myself to vote for. Mostly because I don't know much about him yet. Granted, it would take a lot for that to happen, but there it is. And while I don't think he would make a great president, I do think he could make a good president. If nothing else, he seems more presidential when stacked up against the other hopefuls. He certainly seems the most respectful and the least crazy of the bunch (with the possible exception of Huntsman). In this crowd, that's saying a lot.
In all honesty, I am not against voting for a Republican candidate. If the right one came along, I'd absolutely consider them in a race against Obama. But I'm just not seeing it in this bunch. So what happened? I just don't know. Looking at how this debate went, maybe all the good ones are too smart to jump into such a volatile race. Maybe they think they have a better chance if they wait until President Obama has his second term. Perhaps they don't want to take the reigns when things are so bad. There could be a hundred reasons.
In the meanwhile, it is what it is.
Today was a pretty rough day at work. When it was finally time to pack up and go home, I was mostly dead and half-way falling asleep. But then I noticed Lex Luthor climbing out of a car as I passed the parking lot and was suddenly wide awake.
ZOMFG! IT'S LEX LUTHOR FROM "SMALLVILLE!" I squeed. I wonder what Michael What's-His-Name* is doing here in Redneckistan? At some point I realized that I was driving really slow and staring, but I couldn't help myself...
Silly Lex Luthor! Bullets can't hurt Superman!
Eventually I realized it wasn't Lex Luthor after all... it was just some guy.
Great. Guess that makes me a creepy stalker who hunts down bald dudes in his car.
Typical.
*Michael Rosenbaum. Thanks, Google!
Seven years, six months, and twenty-six days ago, a young man wrote to a stranger on the internet out of desperation because there was nowhere else he could turn. All he wanted was a friendly ear to share his dream of escaping from the horrific life he had to endure. Escaping to a place where he wouldn't be bullied, teased, or beaten just because he existed.
And since then not a day goes by that I'm not reminded of how this poor kid woke up each morning trying to find the strength to make it through life just one more day.
How can I forget? Victims of bullying are killing themselves in record numbers because they can't see any other way to end the suffering.
And we as a society continue to let it happen.
Homophobic activists spare no expense in screaming to the world that gays are filthy perverts who are ruining civilization, destroying marriage, corrupting children, and causing God to plague us with hurricanes and earthquakes. They waste no opportunity to tell us that homosexuality is an evil abomination that should be driven from our community. They advocate sexuality to be nothing more than a "lifestyle" that only the most horrible people choose to embrace. They preach hatred and intolerance to the masses and feign shock when their words inspire an environment so hostile that people would rather die than be forced to live in it.
And while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'd argue that such ruthless persecution falls outside merely "voicing one's opinion" and could more realistically be described as "inciting violence."
Not that there haven't been steps in the right direction.
Since I got the email that changed my life back in 2004, there have been a number of organizations started to help troubled LGBT youth find inspiration, hope, and help. The It Gets Better Project is a shining example of how people can combat the hatred, lies, and fear that the truly perverse elements of society use to make innocent kids think that their life isn't worth living. Happily, other such amazing projects are arriving all the time. Society is starting to use tolerance and truth to reclaim ground lost by discrimination and lies.
And today is Spirit Day when millions will be wearing purple as a sign of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. It's a way of telling them that despite everything they have to endure, there are people out there who care about them. That they matter. That they are loved. That there are people out there who are fighting for them...
Seven years, six months, and twenty-six days ago a young fan of my blog wrote to me because there was nowhere else he could turn. Such a heartbreaking tragedy is unforgivable. Fortunately, it's also fixable. It's just a matter of caring enough to want things to change.
Then doing your part to make it happen.
Help out when you can.
Speak up when you're able.
Create a world in which LGBT youth are celebrated and accepted for who they are.
Broked again.
I was looking at internet news sites this evening to see what was happening in the world, and came upon a story about the "Occupy Sydney" protest in Australia. As soon as I saw the photo, I realized "hey, that's next door to the hotel I stayed at!
If my vacation was two weeks later, I might have been mistaken as a protestor and got the shit beaten out of me by the police! How brutally cool would that have been?
Thank you Google Maps Street View!
And then later on this evening I read where an American diver was killed in a shark attack near Perth.
If my vacation was two weeks later and had taken place across the country, I might have been mistaken as an appetizer in shark-infested waters! How lethally cool would that have been?
And then.... then... even later this evening I read where a woman outside of Ballarat, Australia had drunken sex with four underage boys.
If my vacation was two weeks later and had taken place in a time paradox whereas my 12-year-old self were thrust forward to the year 2011, I might have been victimized by a piece of shit alcoholic pedophiliac sexual predator with low self-esteem problems! How disgustingly cool would that have been?
Guess I really did have the perfect vacation.
Given the alternative.
Another week, another Bullet Sunday.
• Colder. The weather is definitely taking a turn for the worse. This week I started having to scrape frost off my car windows in the morning, which is never a good sign. This means that snow, crazy-ass winter drivers, travel delays, and freezing my balls off any time I step outside can't be too far behind. On the bright side, doesn't this mean that Santa will be coming soon?
• Accessorize. I'm not much of an interior decorator, but my kitchen now looks about 210% better thanks to the addition of a Jägermeister bar mat next to my sink! Thanks to Lynne for thinking of me when she ran across it. How totally cool is this?
• Peel. Despite constant moisturizing, my sunburned skin finally decided to start peeling... three whole weeks after getting burned. Like Judgement Day, I guess you can only delay it, not stop it altogether. Such a bummer, BECAUSE IT ITCHES! IT ITCHES SO BAD!!
• Annual. There's a meme floating around about what you were doing a year ago. It asks a lot of complicated questions about relationships, diet, work, and other stuff I'm not interested in answering... BUT it did get me curious as to what in the heck I actually was doing a year ago. Fortunately, I have a blog so I can look that up.
Apparently, on October 23rd, 2010, I was recovering from being run down in the street. All while blogging about flying to Albuquerque and not masturbating. Good times. Good times.
• Annual Redux. Ah, you may ask, but what were you doing two years ago today? Well, okay, you probably didn't ask, but I was curious. Turns out I was SWIMMING WITH FRICKIN' DOLPHINS!
Wow. This year kind of sucks compared to that!
And now, speaking of things that suck, it's time to mentally prepare for tomorrow being Monday... by swallowing a handful of sleeping pills and letting nature take its course.
I'm kind of late to the AppleTV game. Unlike just about every other Apple product, I didn't jump in with AppleTV 1.0 because it was something I simply had to own. For one thing, there just wasn't much content available. For another, it was basically just a big hard drive with video output. Not very compelling considering hard drive space eventually fills up. Or, worst case scenario, the hard drive fails and you lose everything.
But then AppleTV 2.0 came along. It most decidedly wasn't a "hard drive with video output" because it didn't even have a hard drive. It streams everything from the internet, including any television shows you've purchased from the iTunes Store, streaming video from Netflix, Vimeo, and YouTube, streaming photos from Flickr, Podcasts, and even iTunes movie rentals. As if that weren't enough, you can use Apple's "AirPlay" technology to stream video, photos, and music from your computer, iPad, or iPhone.
All in a tiny, tiny little box...
Thanks to Apple's new "iCloud" technology with "iTunes Match," AppleTV is becoming even more useful. Soon you'll be able to stream all your music not from your computer or iOS device, but from the internet. I am hopeful that eventually digital movies you purchase will also be able to be streamed.
What Steve Jobs once described as "just a hobby" is quickly becoming a core Apple device as it matures.
And, apparently, the game isn't over yet.
The internet is abuzz with juicy details coming from the Steve Jobs biography about his plans for an actual Apple Television. As told to biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs said "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."
Just one look at Job's philosophy for remote design should explain exactly why this is such a tantilizing prospect...
My Logitech "Harmony One" remote on the left, AppleTV remote on the right.
I, for one, welcome our new television overlords.
First of all, I'm excited about the idea of just paying for what I want to watch. Right now, if you have cable or satellite television, that's not an option. You purchase "bundles" of channels that includes crap you may never want to watch. For example, I have an "Expanded Basic" package bundle so I can watch Food TV, USA Network, and some other channels I enjoy from time to time. But that same package also includes stupid shit that I would NEVER want to watch (like FOX "News") but I pay for it anyway because I don't have an option to remove it from my bundle. The cable company controls where the money goes, not the consumer. If Apple's plans for television change this, I would be thrilled not having my hard-earned dollars going to support crap I hate.
Second of all, I really like the idea of not having to pay for shows when there's nothing new being produced. In other words, I don't want to pay to watch reruns. Now when you purchase a show via the iTunes Store, you can re-watch it as often as you want on any of your Apple devices at no charge. You've already paid for it, and you don't have to pay again.
Thirdly, I am really, really freaking out over a the business model which could arise from all this. Rather than advertisers paying networks to pay studios to pay for television content, you'd just pay the studios directly. Voilà, no more having your TV shows interrupted by annoying ads.
But the biggest bonus of all? Apple could take down the whole television network system.
Think about that for a second.
Let the ramifications of that really settle into your brain.
No longer will networks control what shows make it to air... which shows are renewed... which shows are canceled. Consumer purchases decide! Sure Apple is going to get a cut of the money that studios take in, but you're purchasing from the studios directly, so the majority of the purchase price goes to the people producing the content. All of a sudden, the fate of amazing shows like Veronica Mars aren't being sabotaged by network execs who require a massive profit margin so they can get paid to sit on their stupid asses and ruin television. The studio either gets enough money to produce the show and continue doing so... or they don't get enough money and the show is canceled. And I'd like to thank that it would be more profitable for them with only one middle-man in the mix (Apple) instead of the dozens of greedy assholes with their finger in the pie now. Suddenly, smaller shows and smaller studios actually have a chance at survival. Instead of competing against stupid reality show juggernauts and network money-makers for ad revenue, they instead compete for viewers directly.
This will require a radical shift in how television is produced, but I think it will be worth it. Perhaps television networks can reinvent themselves as television investors or something... I don't know. All I do know is that putting the consumer in control of the shows they want to watch and giving control of the content back to content producers is a very good thing.
Though there are many problems to address. How does a new show get noticed? Maybe by giving the first episode away for free? Perhaps Apple's "Genius" technology can be used to recommend shows you might like based on what you watch. And how are advertisers going sell their shit? Well, maybe through sponsorships. Choose to watch an ad, and maybe you get the television show for free for your trouble. Consumers get to decide how to spend their time and money. And when they do decide to watch an ad, they can get ads tailored to them so advertisers are getting the most for their money too. Win-Win.
Not that there won't be losers, but there are always losers.
So long as I win in the end, I'm okay with that. Ask consumers, and they'll probably agree.
But a part of me thinks there will be a lot of other winners if this plays out the way it should. Technology can not only be used to deliver a better experience for television viewers, but for advertisers and content providers as well.
I want my Apple Television! It's long overdue.
Well, somebody backed into my car. AGAIN.
It seems like only yesterday a motorhome backed into it (actually, it was 42 days ago, but who's counting?), but at least that guy gave me his insurance card once I explained the damage. Whoever hit me this time knocked my license plate and frame clean off the car and then just left. The plate used to have a small buckle in it, but now it's completely bent to shit. I have no idea if I can hammer it out so it will fit on the car again. I don't know if I can repair the frame either, which is now cracked and warped out of shape.
Typical.
Just my luck the police will give me a ticket for not having a front license plate.
Assuming they can even see it. Apparently my car is invisible.
Like Wonder Woman's plane...
Let's see if I can escape tomorrow relatively dent-free.
In all honesty, I don't know what commentary I could possibly offer that could add to the brilliance of the season premiere of Beavis and Butt-Head tonight.
Any concerns that Mike Judge might have lost his edge in the fourteen years that the show has been off the air were washed away almost immediately. The savage, near-brutal wit that made two such stupid characters transcend to genius is as sharp as ever. Sharper even.
And I knew it would before the show even aired because of the preview footage released by MTV. Watching Beavis and Butt-Head tear into the shame of the nation, Jersey Shore, was near glee-inducing. It was so good that I didn't even mind that the secondary "story" component was kind of weak...
I still feel that South Park is the more critical voice when it comes to smart commentary on pop culture and current events, but I'm happy to say that there's definitely room for what Beavis and Butt-Head are serving up.
Here's hoping the 23 remaining episodes prove as entertaining.
Which may be difficult now that MTV no longer airs music videos for Beavis and Butt-Head to comment on. Fortunately, there's enough other stupid crap on television to fill the void.
It turns out the entire front bumper has to be removed from my car in order to re-attach my license plate frame. Since I have neither the tools nor the time before heading to the airport, all I could do was strap the license plate directly to the car with zip-ties. Hopefully it will stay attached long enough to get me to Seattle and back, because I really can't afford the $125 fine. And since the po-po are handing out tickets like candy in order to keep paying for their jobs, the odds of getting fined now are higher than ever.
Not that my luck gives me very good odds to begin with.
Anyway...
I've got 15 minutes to pack a suitcase and hit the road.
Where it will be raining. Just like it's raining in Seattle. Just like it's raining at my layover. Just like its going to be raining at my destination.
Guess I'd better take a jacket.
And so it's time for my annual late-October trip to Orlando.
Except I begged to have my meeting relocated to Tampa, because it's home to the only Hard Rock Cafe in the USA that I haven't visited yet. Fortunately, my begging skills are unparalleled, so I got my wish and here I am.
The last time I was here was to visit the new Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in May 2004 (and to see some friends in the area). The following year I virtually visited the city when I tried to figure out where a mystery photo had been taken, but that doesn't really count. So... it's been a while.
Anyway, for some odd reason the hotel/casino complex launched without a Hard Rock Cafe. That was remedied in December of last year when, after nearly seven years of waiting, a cafe was added and opened its doors. Or maybe it wasn't added and just ended up replacing some other restaurant, I don't know. What I do know is that it's big. 17,500-square-foot big. I also know that it's one of the "new-style" cafes with very little actual rock-n-roll memorabilia, which is a shame. All that aside, it's still pretty cool...
At the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino!
The new cafe has its entrance off the casino's main floor.
You actually walk through the bar to get to the dining room.
The bar itself is very cool... despite having no rock memorabilia.
The dining room is massive, and even has a stage.
A big restaurant has a big kitchen! The horseshoe above says "Who Do You Love?"
But even cooler than checking another Hard Rock of my list? I got to meet up with the amazing Blondefabulous for lunch!
After my adventures in Hard Rock Land, I returned to the airport to finish up work stuff, then went back to my hotel so I could take a nap before dinner.
At which point I then risked my life to eat at Earl of Sandwich.
In a day and age when places are sued because they don't have handicap accessibility, I am regularly shocked at how many places have no pedestrian accessibility at all unless you drive there by car. Like so many places now-a-days, The International Plaza (home of Earl of Sandwich) can't be reached by foot... even though it's pretty much across the street from my hotel...
A) I walk to the end of the road... NO CROSSWALK.
B) I see there's a crosswalk on the other side of my street, but there's NO CROSSWALK to get over to it.
C) Once I survive running to the other side of my busy street, I can finally cross over to The International Plaza... except the sidewalk stops, and there's no place to walk to get there.
D) Miraculously, there's a crosswalk to the Northeast, so I cross back across my street so I can climb through bushes to some grass and not have to walk on the road. But eventually I have no choice, because there's nowhere else to go. I then nearly get hit by traffic... twice.
E) After dinner, it's dark. I don't want to risk walking on the road, so I exit on the other side of the mall where there's a sidewalk.
F) The sidewalk doesn't go out to the road, so I'm screwed again. I once again climb through the bushes to grass so I don't have to walk on the road.
G) Once again, NO SIDEWALK and NO CROSSWALK. I end up having to walk along the shoulder of a dark, busy road so I can get back to the only crosswalk I know.
H) Still no crosswalk on my street, so I walk down the road to cross in the hopes I might be more easily seen if a car comes bombing down the road. Nearly get nailed by a motorcycle.
Sheesh.
I mean, seriously, this is insane. Why in the hell can't we WALK anywhere anymore? Do they really expect me to get a taxi so I can just cross the street? That's just stupid. Public places should be legally required to be publicly accessible by pedestrians. How hard is it to add a frickin' sidewalk when you put in a road?
But whatever. As I have blogged many, many, many times, Earl of Sandwich makes the best frickin' sandwich on earth (which only makes sense considering their family invented the thing back in 1762). Their Veggie Sandwich (hold the Roasted Red Peppers) is pretty much worth risking your life over...
And now that work is over, the Hard Rock & Blondefabulous have been visited, and I've eaten Earl of Sandwich, I guess my work here in Tampa is done. Tomorrow I fly back to Seattle...
Don't you just love crossing the entire country for a single day's adventure?
This has been a pretty bad day, travel-wise. And since I pretty much spent the entire day traveling, that pretty much sums it up. But, rather than bitch about it, I decided to go elsewhere looking for bullets.
• Early Flights.
• Late Departures.
• No Gate Crew.
• Sitting on the Tarmac.
• 15-Minute Layovers.
• Rude Assholes.
• Undisciplined Children.
• Broken Escalators.
• Out-of-Service Elevators.
• Ugly Weather.
• Nasty Traffic.
And... that pretty much sums it up.
Hope everybody had a safe and happy Halloween!
As this is November 1st, it's time for MOVEMBER, when a lot of guys will be trying to raise money for prostate cancer research and other men's health issues. They will do this by asking people to sponsor them as they valiantly use their ability to grow facial hair for the betterment of all mankind.
Since I am already sporting facial hair out of sheer laziness, I've decided to have Lil' Dave take up the challenge, and I'll post his progress throughout the month...
But, since cartoon characters can't enter the fundraising bid, I'm asking that you please sponsor everybody's favorite sometimes-inappropriate dad blogger... Michael "The Muskrat"...
Photo taken when I went ghost-hunting with The Muskrat. He's the one on the right.
You can visit his MOVEMBER page by clicking this link. Please consider making a donation if you can... every little bit helps!
And then...
So I wouldn't have to drive home, then turn around and drive all the way back to Seattle for work today, I crashed at my sister's house last night. And while I did shave an hour off my commute, I still had to battle Seattle's horrendous traffic this morning. This meant over an hour in my car listening to the radio.
Big discussion of the day? Kim Kardashian deciding to get a divorce after 72 days of marriage...
Now, I fully admit that I don't know much about this woman. Probably because I don't give a flying fuck about the idiotic "reality television" garbage that's taking a shit all over my television. All I know is that her and her sister get paid millions of dollars to act like morons on TV, and Kim Kardashian got paid millions more for some kind of two-part "Wedding Special" that aired on the E! Network.
Then, a little over two months later, she decides that she doesn't want to be married after all. I'm assuming she gets to keep all the money from her "TV Special." I'm also assuming that this crap will guarantee that her reality show gets picked up for another season so she can whore out her divorce for even more millions.
Well, more power to her, I say. If people are so fucking stupid that they want to watch this shit on their televisions, then you go, girl. Get yourself paid. I have no problem with Kim Kardashian exploiting her excessive messed-up "life" for profit.
But what had me screaming my head off at the radio as I was driving down I-5 is how this "One Man, One Woman Union"... despite being a complete sham and a cash-grab... is considered the "only acceptable form of marriage" by hate groups like The National Organization for Marriage. Whereas a committed gay couple wanting to get married is not.
In all seriousness, I am sick to death of this stupid shit.
All these assholes who have nothing better to do than crap all over other people's happiness by dictating whether two consenting adults can or cannot get married in a country founded on freedom can just go fuck themselves. Sideways. Then die.
Nonsensical stuff like this gets me so angry I can barely see straight. I spent most of my morning in an absolute rage. While I was working I was composing a blog entry in my head... ranting endlessly about how full of crap people like Maggie Gallagher and Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum are for their hypocritical lunacy. It was going to be my most profanity-laden, explosive blog post ever.
But then I checked my Twitter feed while on a break and saw that somebody had re-tweeted this gem from Star Trek's Lt. Sulu, George Takei...
Exactly.
EXACTLY! Thank you Mr. Takei.
So-called "traditional marriage" between a man and a woman has been doing a great job of fucking up things for decades all by themselves. With a skyrocketing divorce rate now exceeding 50%, blaming the gays for ruining things is about the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard.
Which makes sense, because the people cramming this bullshit down our throats are about the stupidest fucking people I've ever heard.
Here's hoping they all die out real soon now so the rest of us can move on.
Exhausted after a long day at work, our intrepid hero decides not to drive home in the dark while it's raining and snowing. Far better to drive home in the daylight tomorrow morning when it's raining and snowing and the mountain passes are crowded with people who have no idea how to drive in the winter.
At least with the sun out, the aliens won't be out looking for people to probe in the dead of night.
Good night fellow insomniacs!
Dear Hollywood Movie & Television Studios,
I give up... you win!
For decades you have been trying your best to keep my from buying your movies and shows, but I've resisted. You've treated me like a criminal, you've crippled your products so that they don't work, you force me to watch advertising, you've even flat-out refused to sell me stuff I want to buy... but I persisted. The more you abused me, the more products I bought. The more you hated me, the more money I spent. The more you betrayed me, the more of your stuff I added to my collection.
You have done every shameless, dirty, despicable, evil, horrifying act you can think of to get rid of me, but still I kept coming back. Which is not to say that I wasn't tempted by those glorious DRM-free, advertising-free, menu-free, illegal copies available at no charge on the internet...
Except now you've finally done it. You've finally lost me as a customer after years of trying so hard.
Congratulations!
Just in case you're wondering, it's your new piece of shit "UltraViolet Digital Locker System" that was the last straw. Just like your DRM-crippled Blu-Ray disks that are so fucked up that I can't get them to work on my Blu-Ray player, your "UltraViolet Digital Copy" bullshit is so fucked up that I can't get it to work on...well... anything. I jumped through all your hoops, put up with your violation of my privacy, and agreed to terms so one-sided that I think I agreed to be your sex-slave for life, but still your stupid shit doesn't work.
And so I'm done.
Those thousands of VHS Tapes, LaserDiscs, S-VHS Tapes, DVDs, and Blu-Ray Discs I purchased are the end of the road.
For the most part.
With television shows, I can buy them digitally from Apple's iTunes store and stream them to my AppleTV or download them to my iPhone. At least their shit actually works... but the iTunes digital copies cost a lot more than DVDs/Blu-Rays for some reason (and don't come with any extras), so that's rarely an option. Hopefully Hulu and Netflix Streaming will allow me to watch TV shows I want, but who knows how long that will last.
When it comes to movies, I guess I could buy them from iTunes, but you don't allow Apple to stream them. This means I've got to keep the copies (and backup copies) myself, which is too big a hassle. I guess I could buy DVDs and rip legal "digital backups." That way I can always re-rip if I lose the file or don't have hard drive space. But that's an even bigger hassle (and the files aren't even hi-def!). Perhaps renting movies via iTunes or Netflix Streaming is how it'll have to be from now on... assuming they're even available.
Or maybe I should just become a pirate and download everything illegally? This does, after all, seem to be what you are wanting. If you didn't want people to acquire your product illegally, wouldn't you strive to treat your customers well, sell them product that works, and make legal purchases be the most user-friendly, easiest, most desirable, best way to own TV shows and movies ever? I mean, people are fucking paying you here, after all.
But I have no desire to go to jail or be fined for something that's not critical to my well-being, so it's not a pirate's life for me.
Guess I'll just have to learn to get over your product the same way I am now over your bullshit.
Congratulations again on your victory.
It's hard for me to be upset when you've worked so fucking hard to win it.
Well today was a vicious shark extreme kind of day.
And not in a good way.
Guess I should start taking a spear gun with me everywhere I go.
And here we go again.
If you live in any of the antiquated backwaters of the USA that observe Daylight Saving Time, tonight before going to bed you get to move your clock back an hour.
And speaking of DST ending... a while back, Coal Miner's Granddaughter sent me an awesome video link about Daylight Saving Time and said it sounded like something I would make. It's well worth your time to watch...
And she was right. It does sound like something I would make. Except I would have used the word "fuck" at least twenty times. Because it's impossible for me to talk about stupid fucking Daylight Savings without going fucking insane over how fucking idiotic it is. Let's just split the difference, move our clocks back a half hour... AND THEN NEVER FUCKING TOUCH THOSE FUCKING CLOCKS AGAIN!
Ahem.
In other news, HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY everybody!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to celebrate by occupying my bed for a nap.
It's Bullet Sunday! Now coming to you from Pacific Standard Time!
• Missed. And so Miss Venezuela, Ivian Lunasol Sarcos Colmenares, was just crowned Miss World. An interesting bit of trivia: she once studied in a nunnery and dreamed of one day becoming a nun herself. Don't know what happened there but, I gotta say, the wardrobe for Miss World is a vast improvement...
Photo from the AP Newswire.
Well, most times...
This hot look can be yours at The Latex Lounge!
I dare say that Miss World could totally pull off that look.
• RIPeed. Andy Rooney died! I have to admit that I was never a big fan, but did find his crotchety old curmudgeon act to be annoyingly entertaining from time to time. Like this one on Bill Gates, which is the 60 Minutes segment of his I best remember...
But most of the time I found his little rants to be inexplicably stupid. Like this one where Andy goes off on how vacations should be abandoned or some crazy shit...
But it's not like this blog ever aspires to be anything more than inexplicably stupid, so who am I to complain? Rest in peace Mr. Rooney.
• GOPeed. Holy crap. The three-ring circus known as the "Republican Presidential Candidate Pool" disintegrated even further this week. Sometime soon Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich should announce a combined ticket then shut the fuck up for a couple months. Given enough time, the remaining candidates will just implode. Or end up in a gay sex scandal where they're photographed with a cock in their mouth (the clock is ticking, Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum!).
• Smoked. We've now reached that awful time of year when everybody and their dog is either burning brush or lighting up their fireplace. The problem is that the temperature here is constantly in flux, which means the smoke can't dissipate properly and gets trapped. So I spend my days in misery, barely able to breathe for a couple weeks. If I'm crankier than normal, that's probably why. Well, that and the fact that the clocks just got fucked up by Daylight Saving Time ending.
• Flooded. Unless disaster is happening to you, it's difficult to appreciate just how tragic the consequences can be. Even looking at the horrific photos of massive flooding coming out of Thailand, it doesn't seem real. And now even Bangkok is threatened as floodwaters encroach to the north of the city. This morning when I checked, I was surprised to see that places I've visited in Central Bangkok are also being affected...
The blue is reported flooding. The pink dot near the top is the Hard Rock Cafe Bangkok.
With 500 people having already died, I can only hope that the water subsides and is gotten under control before all of Bangkok is underwater. And with these natural disasters happening at a frighteningly increasing pace, I can't help but wonder where is going to be hit next.
Now it's time to give up the bullets and eat pizza!
And to all my Muslim friends, happy Eid al-Adha!
Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays!
And that somebody is me, which means I have no desire to blog tonight.
I do have a desire to eat crackers and drink Kool-Aid, however.
I worked 16 hours today. I should have worked 16 more. Except that would be 32 hours in a day, which is only possible if you are a government contractor.
In many ways, the long hours are comforting because they take my mind off of things. Things I'd rather not have to think about. Things that fill you with the kind of hopelessness and despair from which it is difficult to escape. Or impossible to escape.
And I don't have time for that now.
Quite a while ago I read that you can have power over such bad feelings if you write them down each night before you go to bed. That way, you've gotten everything out of your head and can move on to happier thoughts.
This never worked for me. If anything it made things worse.
What were once only figments of my imagination became very real after they had been organized into a list of horrors. Horrors that can't be dealt with just before bedtime.
If ever.
And so my worries, failings, and fears stay bottled up in my head where there belong, and that notepad next to my bed stays empty. Which is probably for the best since you really don't want to provide your enemies with a checklist to your destruction.
Unless I'm your enemy, then you definitely want to do that.
Well, poop.
I was reeeeeally looking forward to Eddie Murphy hosting the Oscars. They might have actually been worth watching next year. Now its not going to happen.
Anyway...
Last night after a marathon work session, I decided to check my news feed one last time before bed. The breaking story of the night? Adobe is killing Flash Mobile.
Which is sweet vindication for Steve Jobs and Apple, who recognized a turd when they saw it. Now if only we could kill this stupid crap on our desktops and laptops, I'd really have reason to celebrate. I am beyond tired of my MacBook's battery bleeding out and the fan kicking in every time I come across a website running Flash content. I tried disabling it and using "Click-To-Flash," but there are sites I use for work which require it, so until it just DIES (or web developers wake up) I'm stuck.
And speaking of dying, the Republicans had yet another debate and this happened...
Rick Perry, who actually had a chance at one point, crashed and burned hard when he said he was going to get rid of shit, but couldn't remember which shit he wanted to get rid of. The media firestorm over this flub has been kind of harsh, but the guy is just nuts when it comes to speaking in public (in general) and debating (specifically) so I guess it was only a matter of time. He's done.
Jon Huntsman actually did quite well, I thought. But boy is he the bastard red-headed step-child of the Republican party. It's a real shame too, because he is a level-headed guy that seems to steer clear of the radical side of the GOP pool. If he had some real backing and was given half a chance, I think he might be a good opponent in the 2012 election. But he doesn't. He's done.
Ron Paul continues to alternate between insightful commentary and crazy-talk, which wouldn't be a show-stopper at this debate if it weren't for the fact that he turns into Debbie Downer every time he opens his mouth. He just can't seem to inspire people, which is kind of an important part of being president. Even worse? It's a critical part of winning elections. He's done. Unless he is tapped to be the Vice Presidential candidate on the ticket. As Joe Biden has repeatedly shown, inspired leadership is apparently totally irrelevant to the VP position. Plus... Paul has a fanatical following which could make him an asset to the race.
Michele "Bat-Shit-Crazy" Bachmann and Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum were always done. Their continued presence is turning the GOP into more of a joke every minute they're allowed to have a seat at the table. I can only imagine that this is some kind of strategy by whomever is running the show. No matter how badly The Chosen One (=cough= Romney =cough=) messes up, people can still point and laugh at Bachmann and Santorum's ridiculous antics. Talk about the living embodiment of a lightning rod... they make excellent distraction fodder for Democrats to focus on. But what happens when they go away?
Newt Gingrich continues to impress me despite the fact that I still disagree with most all of his politics. And the reason he impresses? The guy is a top-notch politician. And I think he is absolutely correct when he says that he would be lethal in a debate with President Obama. But, as much as I would love to see that, I just can't imagine it actually happening. Gingrich keeps holding on because he's garnered a lot of respect in his arena. But he can't hold on like that forever. Ultimately, he has to sway his party and, despite having one of the more articulate, non-wavering, clear voiced visions I've seen here, he's not doing that. Maybe it's his numerous past scandals holding him back. Maybe it's his reluctance to speak in 30-second soundbites. Maybe he just isn't what the majority of Republicans want in a candidate. I honestly don't know. He's almost done. Personally, I think he's make a good choice for the VP slot (can you imagine him debating Vice President Biden?).
Herman Cain keeps losing ground with me but, not surprisingly, he keeps gaining ground in his party. Even putting aside the current sexual harassment scandals swirling around him, I just don't get it. Tonight he proved that not only is he crazy, he's also a disrespectful piece of shit (and quite possibly a sexist asshole...Princess Nancy?!? Seriously? THIS is a presidential candidate?). Look, you will get no argument from me -none- that our tax system is fucked up and needs a complete overhaul. But this
Mitt Romney is all but assured of the nomination. He would have to kill a puppy with his bare hands while receiving oral sex from a donkey during the Super Bowl Halftime Show in order to be passed over at this point. A part of me gets it. The guy feels presidential. He may actually have a decent shot in the election. But what the hell? The Republicans crucified... crucified... Barack Obama over his occasional flip-flopping, yet Mitt Romney is the fucking king of flip-flops. You literally never know what the hell the guy stands for because the only consistent thing about him is his inconsistency. Even worse? He then proceeds to lie about it. Badly. It's as if he doesn't realize that people record everything he says. As if all that weren't enough, he's a Mormon, which would usually be the kiss of death. A lot of Christians refer to Mormonism as a cult for heaven's sake (Google it and stand back in awe!). Given the Christian Conservative backbone of the GOP, Romney's high standing in the race is surprising to say the least. In all honesty, I don't think he's a challenge to President Obama in 2012. Well, unless Obama kills a puppy with his bare hands while receiving oral sex from a donkey during the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Then he might have a chance.
My hopes of a candidate emerging to present a serious challenge for the presidency are diminishing quickly. The last thing I want is for President Obama to go unchecked and win the election in a cake walk. He's caved or backpedaled on a lot of things I really care about, and my frustration levels are growing (despite progress made in other areas I also care about). I want his feet held to the fire on his continuing lobbyist connections. I want answers on what happened to this "transparency" we were promised. I want some of his decisions challenged in a way that only a strong opposition candidate can provide. I want a real debate.
Apparently, I want too much.
How is it I can work 13 hours straight and not feel like I've accomplished a dang thing?
And now it's time for a MOVEMBER UPDATE!
If YOU would like to support research for curing prostate cancer and other health issues affecting men, won't you consider making a small donation to The Muskrat's Movember Fundraising Page? Every little bit helps, and you'll help justify his burgeoning porn-star looks to his wife...
Yeah, baby!
And now I suppose it's time to get back to work.
But first? TACOS!!
Thanks to my Mom, Dad, and all the other veterans out there! Your service to your country, whether past, present, or future, is greatly appreciated!
Another day, another Republican debate... this time on foreign policy. Kinda.
It was my plan to hash out a blog post over the debates that were held in South Carolina tonight, but that proved impossible. First of all, CBS News/National Journal did a shitty, scattered, wholly incompetent job of running things. Second, only the first 60 minutes were actually televised. To see the rest you had to watch on the CBS website, which was grossly ill-equipped to handle the traffic. I tried again and again and again, but the video either wouldn't play or had so many drop-outs that I couldn't watch it. This is pathetic, and I think the candidates should only agree to debates when they will be aired in their entirety.
From what I did see, the only guy I would want handling foreign policy is Jon Huntsman. This isn't surprising... he has extensive foreign relations experience and tends to be more moderate in his thinking. Everybody else seemed a little naive when it comes to how things work and what the consequences would be for the ideas they propose. Granted, this is probably because their answers are time-limited and designed to pander to their party base, but it's still very scary.
But "very scary" is how I'd describe most of the debate this time around.
At least the part I was able to watch.
Wah. I have a stomach ache this Bullet Sunday.
• Treat? I realize I'm probably late to the party on this one, but I am just now hearing about Pox Pops. Apparently, some parents are so opposed to vaccinating their kids against chicken pox that they are going to extreme measures to purposely infect them. They do this by having the parents of pox-ridden kids lick a lollipop and mail it to them... SO THEY CAN HAVE THEIR KID SUCK THE POX OFF OF IT! The idea being that once you get chicken pox, you're immune for the rest of your life...
I don't pretend to know about the benefits/dangers of vaccinating children (because I don't have any)... but this sounds pretty fucked up to me. Gawd only knows what was sucking on that pop before your kids get their hands on it.
• Leat? I can't adequately summarize the horrors of this story I just read about growing laboratory meat (leat?), so you'll just have to go read it for yourself...
Photo by Francois Lenoir of Reuters
As a vegetarian, I honestly can't say which disgusts me more... dead animal flesh... or this abomination of nature. Holy crap. Is a soy burger really that awful an alternative?
• Sweet! After his surprisingly brilliant appearances on Saturday Night Live, I've become a bit of a Justin Timberlake fan. He's incredibly talented and funny as hell. But it's good to know that he's a nice guy on top of it all. Earlier this year, he received a public video invitation from Corporal Kelsey DeSantis to attend the Marine Corps Ball...
Much to everybody's surprise, he agreed to go...
And then... he actually went! And if there were any doubters out there thinking that he was going as some kind of publicity stunt, he wrote a really nice recap of the experience on his blog they should read...
The lucky bastard! Justin ended up with a sexy Marine that can kick his ass. Talk about your dream date! Semper Fi, Marine. Semper Fi.
On that happy note, my stomach demands I call it a night.
Sorry, but this is a geeky computer post most of you will probably want to skip.
And so Apple finally unleashed their iTunes Match service today. I say "finally" because we were told that it was going to be released on October 31st, but then it wasn't. I can only guess that it wasn't ready yet, and Apple wanted to take some extra time to make sure everything was working perfectly before launch.
Or not.
Because, from my experience, iTunes Match is mostly crap. For now, anyways.
The idea is that you pay Apple $25 a year, and they manage all your music for you via iCloud. Songs in your iTunes library that Apple sells in the iTunes Store, regardless of how you acquired them, are immediately available online from Apple's servers. Also... no matter how poor quality your music files are, Apple automatically upgrades them to high-quality 256-kbps DRM-free files. You can then either A) Stream these files from iCloud over the internet to your computer or iOS device any time you want... or B) Download them to your computer or iOS device any time you want for offline listening.
If the song is not sold by Apple, it will be uploaded to iCloud so you can access the original file via streaming/downloading as stated above. It will not be upgraded in any way, however, because Apple doesn't have it for sale.
When it works... it's pretty special.
For example, I bought the CD Cruel Summer by "Ace of Base" years ago and ripped it into iTunes. Since the album is also sold by Apple, I am supposed to get the full benefit of iTunes Match. But not really...
Above you see iTunes Match in action. Or not.
The songs with NO cloud icon after them have been recognized by Apple as being sold in their store and I can stream or download them immediately to any device or computer I have registered with iCloud (but my original ripped file is left untouched on this computer). The songs with a dotted cloud icon after them are in-process and may or may not be recognized... if NOT recognized for some reason, they have to be uploaded. The songs with an exclamation(!) cloud icon after them have some kind of problem and return an undefined error when iTunes attempted to match/upload them...
What's the cause of the error? Who the fuck knows! This is APPLE we're talking about!
Usually re-processing them will work, but not always.
Anyway, to demonstrate how iTunes Match is supposed to work, I am going to delete the Ace of Base song Adventures in Paradise from my library (since it's one of just three measly songs iTunes Match has recognized off this album as being sold by Apple)...
Note that I am net telling Apple to delete the song from iCloud. I'm guessing that I would lose it permanently if I did this (assuming I hadn't backed it up). From what I can tell, ONLY songs you purchased directly from Apple are permanently available from iCloud (whether your membership is current or not).
After the song has been deleted, the file is no longer on my MacBook, but the song is still listed as being available. I can then click the standard little "Download from iCloud" icon to the right of the title and get it back. Here it is downloading to my MacBook (a little "progress pie chart" is on the left there)...
Now here's the cool part...
On the LEFT is the new high-quality Apple file I just downloaded. On the RIGHT is the original low quality file I dragged from the trash. iTunes Match is working as advertised. I just traded my old "low-res" music file for the fresh "hi-res" one that Apple sells in their store. Assumably, since the file was uploaded direct from the record label, it's the best possible version of the song available in a condensed digital format. To do any better than this I'd have to rip the file from CD in a "lossless" uncompressed format... but I don't have room on my MacBook for large files like that and, given that I'm not an audiophile, probably wouldn't notice the quality improvement anyway.
BUT... what if you don't want these audio files hogging up space on your hard drive? No problem! Apple allows you to "stream" songs to your computer for listening without downloading. KINDA. Technically the files are downloaded to your computer to a temporary buffer. This way, you can fast-forward, rewind, and skip around instantly... which is something you can't usually do with streaming music. As to how big this buffer is and how long it lasts, I have no clue. But it's a very nice way to handle streaming audio. To "stream" music that's not on your computer/device just click play or double-click the song anywhere except on the "Download from iCloud" icon.
So, yeah, when it works, Apple's new iTunes Match is pretty darn cool.
But, for a huge chunk of my library, it most definitely does NOT work...
And here's where it gets strange.
Just for kicks I deleted a song that I know Apple does not sell... The mono version of Baby's in Black from the album Beatles for Sale (2009 Mono Remaster). Apple only sells the Stereo version (which is not the version I want because true fans know that The Beatles only cared about the mono tracks on their early albums... stereo releases were considered a novelty at the time, and the band was rarely involved in making them).
After deletion, I immediately clicked the "Download from iCloud" button to get it back. Now, since Apple does not sell this song, I should have gotten the same mono version file I just uploaded. But, as you can probably guess, I didn't. I got back the stereo version that Apple sells... but they left the song label the same...
A quick look at the graphic equalizer confirms that this really is the STEREO version with two unique left and right channels...
Just to be sure, I also took the graphic equalizer to my original file so I could confirm is really is the MONO version with the same channels...
So, to sum up my iTunes Match experience...
Sometimes it works as advertised and it's all good. But an alarming number of times there are problems...
Needless to say, this is a bit frustrating. Whether or not Apple can fix this is anybody's guess but, for me at least, I just paid $25 for something which is fatally flawed.
What Apple has to do is find some way of letting customers manually correct the iTunes Match information. The problem is that I can't even figure out when Apple has made a match... or when there was no match and they had to upload my files (UPDATE: Actually, I can, see below). So even if I could correct the data, I wouldn't know which files needed it. Unless I delete each and every one and downloaded it back. Then matched files would be flagged as "Matched AAC Audio File."
In the meanwhile, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Like... what happens to all my downloaded "Match" files if I don't renew my membership? Do they evaporate? What happens when a record label jerks their music from Apple's store? Do you lose your music? And so on. And so on. Since this is only my first day with the service, maybe my questions will eventually be answered. But Apple is Apple, so I've resigned myself to the fact that they probably won't be.
As for iTunes Match?
The potential is there... but I can't recommend it. Yet.
Check back in a bit.
UPDATE: iTunes does have a column you can turn on which will show you the iTunes Match status of your music...
Still no way I can figure out why some tracks are recognized and others are not on the same frickin' album. You'd think that once Apple figured out I own the album, they'd recognize ALL the tracks. But, alas, no.
Finding this feature lead to my discovering something very interesting...
a-ha's amazing final album, Foot of the Mountain, was never released in the USA. I had to import the CD and rip it into iTunes. HOWEVER... iTunes Match totally recognized and matched it! Apparently, iTunes Match gives you access to ALL of Apple's music stores worldwide. This is very cool, but is it intentional? Time will tell.
UPDATE: One of the reasons I was so keen to sign up for iTunes Match was that I could finally get rid of all the DRM-Protected music I bought and replace it with fresh DRM-Free downloads. I had already upgraded most of my music to "DRM-Free iTunes Plus" but there were some songs that never wanted to upgrade for some reason. Such as the album Play by Moby. iTunes Match recognized all but one song (even though I bought it from Apple!), but I deleted them all anyway so I could test whether songs I uploaded were still intact when I downloaded them. Sadly, the answer is NO! Trying to download the DRM-Protected song I had uploaded fails completely...
Needless to say, this is a load of shit. I BOUGHT THIS SONG FROM APPLE AND YET APPLE CAN'T MATCH IT? WTF?!? Just goes to show... buying DRM crap will only end up punishing paying customers instead of the criminals it's supposed to.
UPDATE: And things just keep getting worse. Holy crap is iTunes Match a mess! Take a look at this...
This is an album I bought from Apple's iTunes Music Store. Note that all songs are recognized as having been purchased. Note also that the status of the songs in iTunes Match is "Matched" or "Purchased" or "Uploaded"... seemingly at random. ALL OFF THE SAME ALBUM! They should all be registering as "purchased" but are not. If Apple can't even get the stuff THEY SELL YOU right, how in the hell can they be trusted to figure everything else out? And who do I talk to about getting all this straightened out?
UPDATE:I was hoping that re-importing a CD directly into iTunes with Match enabled would make it so that the entire album was recognized instead of just random songs. No such luck. iTunes is apparently matching by digital fingerprinting... and doesn't have very accurate fingerprints from CD rips to match against. Crap. I can only hope that their service will get smarter in time.
UPDATE: Despite a few minor bugs (like skipping to the next track when the current song isn't buffering fast enough and iTunes runs out of data to play), I have officially deleted (almost) all my music files from my Home Mac, my Work Mac, and my MacBook Pro. The only files I keep are unmatched protected songs, which won't play from iCloud for some reason. Since I mostly only use these devices when I have internet, it seems crazy to waste the hard disk space when I can just stream everything. For plane rides sans WiFi or other situations where I don't have internet, I'll just listen to the music I've got loaded on my phone (which is always with me). I gotta say... if Apple could just do a better job of recognizing the 800+ songs that are currently "unMatched" in my library, this whole iCloud thing would be absolutely killer. Until that day, it's just merely awesome.
My car has always been a piece of shit.
But thanks to Saturn going out of business a couple years ago, it's now a worthless piece of shit.
Considering I'd probably have to pay somebody to take it off my hands, I'd even go so far as to say it's less than worthless. And now even more things are starting to go wrong with it. The latest is that the alarm goes off when somebody farts in the vicinity of my car or I have to shut it down. Not all the time... just some of the time. Like tonight.
The first thing I do is look around and see if anybody is around to notice.
If somebody IS there to notice, I look around for somebody else I can blame.
If there's nobody I can blame, then I brace myself for the inevitable nasty looks I'll get.
Yeah.
Tonight I not only got a nasty look, I got a head-shake and finger wag.
This is a really crappy situation because my car isn't valuable enough to even have an alarm. I thought it was something I could just unplug or remove, but apparently it's not that easy. The alarm is built into the electrical system, so it's actually kind of a complex ordeal to get rid of it. I guess this makes sense, because if car alarms were easy to disable or remove they wouldn't be very effective.
I suppose my simplest option would be to just shoot the fucking car, but my Buddhist sensibilities prohibit my firing a gun. Fortunately, I live in the heart of Redneckistan, so finding somebody else with a gun to shoot my car would be no more difficult than walking into the local tavern (or church) and saying "Anybody packin'?"
The problem is that I just don't want new car payments, and my piece-of-shit Saturn is already paid off. This means I'm just going to have to ignore the defective alarm for a while longer.
Like until my car falls apart and explodes.
And speaking of "Redneckistan" and "exploding"...
Washington State now has a website to promote marriage equality in our state.
The more liberal West Coast voters can probably be convinced. But across the mountains in my
And speaking of "heads exploding"...
HOLY SHIT! NBC HAS PULLED COMMUNITY FROM THE SCHEDULE! There goes one of the funniest shows on television, as the odds of it getting picked up for a new season are now effectively zero. Poop.
I hate snow.
Actually, that's not true. Snow is pretty. And you can do fun stuff in it.
What I really hate is the people who make me hate the snow. Which is just about everybody... but mostly the people who are driving in it. Like the moron I followed home after work who was driving 5mph in a 25mph zone. Never mind that the snow wasn't even sticking to the road and the biggest danger was getting your tires wet... IT'S SNOWING! SO YOU HAVE TO DRIVE 20MPH UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT OR EVERYBODY DIES!
But worse than those people are the people who drive 45mph in a 25mph zone when the snow is falling like gangbusters and the road is so slick with ice that it's all you can do to keep from sliding off it. Inevitably these are the assholes who end up behind me, grinding on my bumper as I try to survive the drive home.
Too slow for conditions. Too fast for conditions. You just can't win when it comes to snow.
Anway... can you guess what happened today?
Couldn't this have waited until AFTER I fly out on Friday?
Of course not! You just can't win when it comes to snow.
And so tomorrow I'm flying to Atlanta.
Assuming the snow that's been forecast doesn't close down the airport. That would be a huge problem for me. On the bright side, being stuck at home would mean I could stay in bed all day. I've been working from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed every day for the past three weeks, so I could use a break.
Hopefully all will go as planned, in which case I'll just have to take my break on the plane. I've become addicted to digital comics, so I've got a bunch of those loaded up on my iPad... along with episodes of the Hey That's My Hummus podcast... so I should be good to go.
Well, maybe not "good" to go... probably more like "good enough" to go.
In other iPad news, one of the best iPad games ever, Ticket to Ride, has been shrunk down to fit on the iPhone with Ticket to Ride Pocket. It only has the USA map, and internet play is absent, but it's a very good translation (and you can still play against somebody on iPad/iPhone/iPod locally via Wireless or Bluetooth!). I thought the game would be hard to play on the small screen but, thanks to the iPhone's Retina Display, it's actually quite easy...
If only I had time to play it.
And now it's probably time to pretend I don't have insomnia and go to bed.
I've got a long day tomorrow.
What...
...an incredibly crappy day.
My biggest fear when flying out of the valley this time of year is that the weather will turn bad and close the airport. The forecast called for snow, so I went to bed last night not knowing if it were going to be enough snow to crap all over my travel plans.
Then this morning I woke up and saw that not only was there no snow falling, but we actually had blue skies! Sweet! No worries then!
Until I got to the airport and found out that Horizon Air canceled my flight to Seattle because "the inbound plane was experiencing mechanical difficulties."
Uh huh. The far more likely scenario is that a plane on a much more popular and profitable route experienced mechanical difficulties, and so our plane was pulled to service that route. Thus screwing everybody in Wenatchee trying to get to Seattle for their connecting flights.
Typical.
I used to fly out of Wenatchee for all my trips... probably two to five flights a month. But eventually I gave up because I got sick and tired of the numerous delays and cancellations. Without reliable service, how the fuck can I plan for anything? Far better to drive over to Seattle so I can be confident of making my flight than to rely on Horizon Air to get me there. They've failed too many times. But I didn't want to miss getting back in time for Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house, which meant I needed to fly.
So for the first time in a long time I booked a ticket on Horizon Air and, naturally, got completely and totally fucked for my trouble.
Weather cancellations are understandable... expected even. But mechanical? AGAIN?
And so I had to haul ass over the mountains in an attempt to make my flight.
Which I did. Barely.
So much for an easy and relaxing travel day. Usually one has to be taken hostage during an armed bank robbery to experience this kind of stress.
It's all my fault of course. This is what I get for living on the outskirts of civilization.
I'm in Atlanta 3-5 times a year now, so I stopped doing the whole "Davelanta" blogger meet-up thing. I was getting paranoid thinking about everybody going "Shit! Dave's going to be here AGAIN? Wasn't he just here a couple weeks ago?!?" So instead I just Blog/Tweet/Facebook when I'm going to be in town and let people "opt-in" if they feel like meeting up... or "opt-out" by pretending they never saw it.
Except I found out that some people never saw it for reals and got left out, so I feel bad. Maybe if I sent out an email telling people when I'm here and asked them NOT to come, they wouldn't feel obligated to show up, but would come anyway if they really wanted? I dunno. Miss Manners doesn't offer any advice for this kind of stuff.
Anyway... I did end up having a terrific evening with The Muskrat, Whipstitch, and Coal Miner's Granddaughter tonight. We did the usual catching up and talking about what's going on in our lives, but this time there was an entirely NEW activity... reading aloud your favorited tweets. That ended up being good for all kinds of laughs because, apparently, the tweets that most people mark as a favorite are the funny ones. Good times.Muskrat, that magnificent bastard, showed up sporting his Movember mustache. This means it must be time for an update as to how Lil' Dave is doing...
As always, if you can donate a few bucks to a very worthwhile cause, please visit The Muskrat's Movember Donation Page. Every little bit helps!
And now, I get to revel in the joy of doing nothing, because my work has been moved from Sunday morning to Monday night. Sweet! Doing nothing is one of my most favorite things to do!
Though I think everybody knows the odds of me actually doing nothing are fairly slim.
Sometimes I hate being me.
Except when I get to have dinner with awesome blogger friends like tonight. Then it's pretty awesome being me.
Today is Bullet Sunday.
But I'd rather take a bullet than pay the $12.95 plus tax that my hotel wants for internet, so I guess that the Bullets will have to wait until tomorrow.
For the life of me I can't understand why cheap-ass hotels offer FREE internet, whereas nicer hotels make you pay... and pay dearly... for it. I guess because they can get away with it.
Well, fine. But not from me tonight.
It's Bullet Sunday on Monday from the great state of Georgia!
• Hurt! After arriving at the gate of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, I was pulling my backpack from the overhead bin when some guy decided he simply couldn't wait for me to get out of the way... and pulled down his pack right into my face. He had some kind of wooden easel or tripod attached, which ended up scraping across my eyelid. So now I've got a good cut there that's nice and swollen. His excuse to being such a dick? "Sorry, I've got a tight connection." And if my eye would have been poked out? Well, he's got a tight connection, so sorry about that. I swear that manners and courtesy go right out the window when people get on an airplane. The really terrible part? This is not the first time somebody has nailed me while retrieving their crap.
• Dino! Since my work was pushed back until late Monday, this left me all day Sunday to goof off in Atlanta. I started out by visiting The Fernbank Museum of Natural History, as suggested by Coal Miner's Granddaughter and The Muskrat...
It's a very cool museum... though a bit expensive at $17.50. As a holiday bonus, a group of young girls were dancing Christmas-themed ballet amongst the dinosaur skeletons in the main atrium. I wish I could say that was the oddest thing I've seen in a museum but, alas, no.
• Shop! From the museum I went to the Lenox Square Mall so I could go to The Apple Store. Along the way, I passed the shameless PC-based copy that is The Microsoft Store. Inside there were a handful of customers and a small group of employees. Once I got to The Apple Store, however... madness. Dozens of employees were helping wall-to-wall customers. The place was packed. And while there were a lot of people just looking, a good chunk of them were buying, as customers were leaving the store with Macintosh computer boxes and Apple-logo bags at a steady clip.
This is kind of an odd turn of events given the sorry state Apple was in just fourteen years ago. I remember a time when there was a very real possibility that Apple was going to fail...
Microsoft isn't going to lose their massive PC market share over Apple any time soon, but it's nice to see how well Apple is doing now-a-days after being an underdog for so long.
• Pig! In previous years coming to Atlanta during the holiday season, I was introduced to Priscilla The Pink Pig. It's a train ride for kids that is put on by Macy's each year. As you might imagine, it's a very big deal. And, if you must know, I'm kind of obsessed with The Pink Pig...
One of these years I'm going to ride that pig. Probably because my love of Invader Zim demands it...
• Eat! Copasetic Beth and Houston's Problem were kind enough to join me for dinner at The Varsity. For anybody unfamiliar with this Atlanta institution, it's "The World's Largest Drive-In Restaurant" located near Georgia Tech. Their menu is pretty limited and not very vegetarian-friendly, but they have a "Frosted Orange Drink" that I love, so I end up eating there every once in a while...
What makes the place interesting is that employees accepting orders will start screaming "WHAT'LL YA HAVE? WHAT'LL YA HAVE? WHAT'LL YA HAVE? at the top of their lungs when they're ready for their next customer. The first time I ate here (again with Copasetic Beth and Houston's Problem), the woman at the counter yelled "HAVE YOUR ORDER IN MIND AND YOUR MONEY IN HAND" at me as I approached the counter. For people not accustomed to it, this can be a little intimidating. But, given the sheer volume of customers streaming into the place, they have to do what they can to keep the line moving...
With practice, I now know to pass over my $5 while saying "GIMME A REGULAR F.O. AND FRIES!" so I don't get an eye-roll by not being ready and not knowing how to order properly...
It's like an Orange Creamsicle in a cup, and oh so delicious!
• Sew! When I was fairly young, my grandmother taught me how to sew. She figured I should know how to hem a pair of pants or repair a tear if I had to. I was never really good at it, but I did manage to use what skills I had to make Halloween costumes and stuff...
Since sewing is a handy thing to know how to do, I've always wanted to take a class so I could be better at it. The problem is that enrolling in a class requires you to be at a certain place at a certain time and adhere to a class schedule in a way my work and travel makes impossible. Enter Whipstitch and her e-courses, which allow me to take a "virtual class" which is a lot more flexible. The reason I bring this up is that you can now pre-purchase any of the 2012 courses (including the Sewing Basics class I'll be taking) for just $99... which is up to 45% off the regular price! If you've ever wanted to bone up on your sewing skills... or learn something new with the skills you already have... you can get all the details over at the Whipstitch Blog!
And now I should probably try and get some rest since there's no telling what time I'm going to be woken up for work.
Work ended hours earlier than I thought it would at 8:45pm. This was a pleasant surprise, and meant I could drive back to Atlanta tonight and not have to worry about heading back tomorrow on the day of my flight. But my injured eyelid was killing me... I had been up since 4:00am and was exhausted... and it was raining hard with lightning strikes... so I decided to just grab me some dinner and go to bed.
At least this was the plan as I pulled into a 24-hour restaurant.
After being ignored when I walked in the door, I was finally told to grab a table and they'd be right with me. But nobody was right with me. Everybody wandered off. I tried to get the attention of the one girl who was left, but she just rolled her eyes at me and walked away. I'm a fairly level-headed guy, but After TEN FULL MINUTES of being completely ignored, my anger was at the boiling point.
I said "SCREW THIS!" and walked out.
Which I have only done twice in my entire life.
Fueled by rage, I was no longer hurting. No longer tired. No longer giving a shit about the pouring rain. I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.
So I packed up my shit and drove the hour-forty back to Atlanta.
One of the reasons I love The South is the genuine Southern hospitality here. These people aren't faking it. Most of the time I feel like family when meeting total strangers because they're just so dang nice. I expect to walk into a restaurant and feel like I'm at home because that's how it's been every other time I've eaten at a restaurant here.
So when bullshit like this happens, I'm understandably pissed off.
On the way back I stopped off at a Waffle House in the city of Griffin and had me a couple fried egg sammies, which were delicious. And served by a friendly, attentive, hard-working staff...
I tipped well. Not being ignored puts me in a generous mood. And now I am taking my generous mood to bed, where hopefully I can sleep-in tomorrow morning.
I'm taking an Excedrin PM, so my fingers are crossed...
And so this happened...
Sitting next to a gum-smacking whore for 5-1/2 hours is the flight of my nightmares.
When the Delta Airlines Lady in the safety video is telling everybody what to do in case of emergencies, somehow this wasn't covered.
I have entirely too many things I take for granted that I really should be more thankful for. It's just too darn easy to lose sight of the myriad of blessings that surround us every day.
Today, however, I am thankful that I'm not a turkey...
Hope everybody has a good one!
If you've been following this blog, then you know that my good blogging friend The Muskrat has been participating in Movember to help raise money for prostate cancer and other cancers which affect men.
In order to help him get even more donations, Avitable and I are having a contest with FABULOUS PRIZES!!
All you need to do to enter is go to The Muskrat's Movember Page and donate $5 (or more if you want!) and leave a comment below letting us know you contributed. That's it!
After Movember has ended, we'll draw a winner for the following prize package worth well over $100...
• A CUSTOM DAVETOON and AVITATOON!
That's right! If you're our winner, Adam and I will each draw a cartoon just for you! Both toons will be printed on high-quality paper and sent to you ready for framing You can see a previous DaveToon winner here. ($ priceless!)
• A 12-MONTH AVITABLE WALL CALENDAR!
Adam has filled a calendar with twelve whole months of Avitable hotness for your monthly viewing pleasure! Contains profanity and partial nudity, so you know it's good! ($12)
• ARTIFICIAL DUCK CO. STUFF!
I've still got some hats, T-shirts, and playing cards left... and I'll assemble a nice selection of Artificial Duck Co. merchandise chosen especially for you! ($50+)
• THRICE FICTION MAGAZINES!
As if all that wasn't enough, you'll get two beautiful printed copies of the first two awesome issues of THRICE FICTION magazine! ($15)
• SHIPPING!
Whatever gift package you choose, it will be shipped free of charge within the USA. If the winner is outside the USA, they are responsible for any shipping charges over domestic shipping costs (you can just PayPal it to me after I get the pricing from the post office and email it to you).
And there you have it! Please donate to this very worthy cause and you might just win!
REMEMBER! All you need to do to enter is go to The Muskrat's Movember Page and donate $5 (or more if you want!) and leave a comment below letting us know you contributed. That's it!
Hey! Avitable and I are helping The Muskrat raise money to fight prostate cancer during Movember... and giving YOU a chance to win an amazing prize package! Read all about it in yesterday's entry!
The weather on the mountain passes was so good this morning that I headed home a day early. Seeing "no restrictions with bare roads" on the WSDOT report was a far cry from the winter storm warnings that were in effect just a few days ago...
And I'm home.
Hopefully that will be my last trip of the year.
It's a dreary gray-sky kind of Bullet Sunday...
• Donate! Please help Avitable and I fight prostate cancer by sponsoring our blogging buddy, The Muskrat, as he participates in Movember. We've teamed up to give YOU a chance to win an amazing prize package... including custom-draw cartoons made just for you by Adam and myself! Read all about it in Friday's entry!
• Eat! As I was passing through the city of Barnesville while in Georgia last week, I snapped a picture of a painting in a restaurant window...
Now, I am by no means a militant vegetarian. Not eating meat is a personal choice, and I have no problem with people who enjoy eating dead animal flesh. However... having animals inviting people to eat them is one of those things that freaks me out. And I couldn't quite figure if that's what's going on here. Is the cartoon suggesting that people eat LIKE pigs, or actually eat THE pig. It's ambiguous to me, unlike like this cow and pig I found in Korea who are totally asking people to eat them because they taste so good...
Sick! I cannot imagine that any animal would be thrilled at the prospect of being devoured, so when they get portrayed like this it is utterly bizarre to me. I guess it's more appetizing than having cute cartoon animals begging people not to eat them, but still...
• Time! There's a YouTube video burning up the internet called It's Time. I was given a link to it from a bulk email sent by a friend of a friend. Since the video link was formatted with QuietTube, it was presented on a blank screen and I had no context or distractions while watching it...
Keeping in mind that I had -zero- context while watching a video I knew nothing about, I was initially confused as to what it was supposed to be. For the first half of the video, I thought it was promoting tourism in Australia. But then it took a darker turn, and I wondered if it was some kind of "Occupy Australia" type video. Near the end, I thought it was going to be a commercial where the guy asks the girl to marry him then "It's Time" that they buy life insurance or something.
I had assumed the entire time that the person behind the camera was a woman. And that's what makes this video so astoundingly powerful. It very clearly shows how there is not one damn bit of difference as to how two people meet, fall in love, and want to get married. None. The fact that it turned out to be two guys that were falling in love through life's ups and downs doesn't make their commitment to each other any less special or deserving of recognition.
It's Time wraps everything up using the term Marriage Discrimination as opposed to Marriage Equality, which is far more appropriate. How can there be equality between gay and straight marriage if there isn't a gay marriage in the first place? It really is time that everybody have an equal shot.
• Equality! The marriage discrimination video from Australia reminded me of this clever marriage equality video from Ireland...
I gotta say, the organizations that are coming up with these brilliant commercials are doing an amazing job of presenting their case to the court of public opinion.
• Repugnant! And then, at the other end of the marriage discrimination spectrum, comes a video from the opposition which I saw posted on a blog the other day...
This repugnant freak-show is the best that these people have to offer?
Look, I understand how there are people whose deep religious convictions preclude them ever accepting same-sex marriage. And you know what? This is America where we have religious freedom and so they are entitled to their opinion. But, by the same token, This is America where we have religious freedom, and so their opinion doesn't get to dictate whether or not two consenting adults can celebrate their love and commitment to each other with marriage.
After seeing her name pop up again and again, I was compelled to Google lopsided hair failure "Maggie Gallagher" to find out what she's all about. And, of course, this "bastion of morality" once had a child out of wedlock, which should surprise no one. It's always the "do as I say, not as I do" crowd who are the ones dictating how people should live their lives. Well go fuck yourself, because we're ready to move past your stupid hypocrisy.
• Sorry! My sister and I are big game-players, and needed to get a new Sorry! game to replace the battered old set that she had. It's the perfect game for people who like a little vindictive streak in their entertainment like we do. When I opened the game, I was shocked to see THIS...
That's right, THE GAME TOKENS ARE HOLLOWED OUT NOW! Holy crap! This game cost me $22 and we get HOLLOW TOKENS!! Those Parker Brothers people are some cheap bastards. So... fair warning... before tossing out your old Sorry! game for a new one, salvage your tokens!
And now I should probably try and get some work done since I've been gone for a week. It's a tough call to make when all I really want to do is eat some chocolate pudding and take a Sunday nap.
Or even a regular nap, for that matter.
This is it! The final stretch of Movember is upon us!
First I'll update with how Lil' Dave is doing, then I'll tell you how you can enter to win AMAZING PRIZES for a mere $5.00 donation to help fight prostate cancer!
Hey! That filled in there pretty good! Surely that's worth a donation to The Muskrat's Movember Page, right? AND IF YOU DONATE NOW, YOU CAN WIN AN AMAZING PRIZE PACKAGE!
All you need to do to enter is go to The Muskrat's Movember Page and donate $5 (or more if you want!) and leave a comment either below or on the original contest page letting us know you contributed. That's it!
After Movember has ended, we'll draw a winner for the following prize package worth well over $100...
• A CUSTOM DAVETOON and AVITATOON!
That's right! If you're our winner, Adam and I will each draw a cartoon just for you! Both toons will be printed on high-quality paper and sent to you ready for framing! ($ priceless!)
• A 12-MONTH AVITABLE WALL CALENDAR!
Adam has filled a calendar with twelve whole months of Avitable hotness for your monthly viewing pleasure! Contains profanity and partial nudity, so you know it's good! ($12)
• ARTIFICIAL DUCK CO. STUFF!
I've still got some hats, T-shirts, and playing cards left... and I'll assemble a nice selection of Artificial Duck Co. merchandise chosen especially for you! ($50+)
• THRICE FICTION MAGAZINES!
As if all that wasn't enough, you'll get two beautiful printed copies of the first two awesome issues of THRICE FICTION magazine! ($15)
• SHIPPING!
Whatever gift package you choose, it will be shipped free of charge within the USA. If the winner is outside the USA, they are responsible for any shipping charges over domestic shipping costs (you can just PayPal it to me after I get the pricing from the post office and email it to you).
And there you have it! Please donate to this very worthy cause and you might just win!
REMEMBER! All you need to do to enter is go to The Muskrat's Movember Page and donate $5 (or more if you want!) and leave a comment either below or on the original contest page letting us know you contributed. That's it!
Hey!
Can you believe it? There's a new issue of Thrice Fiction out! I wrote a short story and made a bunch of pictures for it! And a lot of other cool people contributed awesome stuff too!
Want to take a look? You can download a FREE copy right here. Yes, that's right... FREE!
Thanks to everybody who has supported Mr. RW Spryszak and myself with our little project here. I continue to be amazed at how well it's done as we close out our first year. I thought maybe a few dozen friends would be interested... but we just keep growing. Even bigger things are in store for 2012, so stay tuned!
And speaking of big things, a couple people have asked me how to get our magazine on their iOS devices since we don't have an app for that (yet!). Fortunately, Apple makes it really easy to read Thrice Fiction eBooks on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch! Here's all you gotta do in three easy steps...
STEP 1: Start up Apple's Safari browser (other browsers might work, but Safari has been tested) then navigate to our website at
STEP 2: Click on the Thrice Fiction eBook download link then tap OPEN...
STEP 3: The book will load into your browser then ask where you want to open it. Select Open in iBooks...
And that's it! Your issue of Thrice Fiction will automatically be added to your iBook library (be sure to check out previous issues in the ARCHIVE tab!)...
Just tap the magazine and you're good to go...
Thanks for supporting Thrice Fiction! Tell your friends!
So there I am driving home from work when all of a sudden a pickup truck down the street ahead of me screeches to a halt and starts backing up!
My first instinct was to do nothing. This would be the THIRD time in FOUR months that somebody has backed into my invisible piece-of-shit car. I might as well pick up another insurance check out of the deal.
But then two thoughts hit me at once...
So I honked my horn. They screeched to a halt again (one car-length from my bumper) then pulled forward into a parking spot so I could pass.
And I bet you a million dollars they were cussing me out for daring to honk at them, even though I saved THEM from hitting ME.
The dumbasses.
I tell you, the only thing keeping me from wanting to be abducted by aliens right now so I can leave this shithole planet behind is this...
I read the first book of George R. R. Martin's epic "Song of Ice and Fire" series, A Game of Thrones, because of a glowing employee recommendation at Powell's City of Books. I liked it well enough that I bought the follow-up, A Clash of Kings when it came out a few months later. A couple years after that, A Storm of Swords came out. It was supposed to be the last book of a trilogy, but Martin decided he wanted to keep going. I then gave up because it took FIVE years for the fourth book, A Feast for Crows to come out... and frickin' SIX years after that for the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, to come out (this past July).
The reason I gave up was because the last thing I want is to get all invested in the series only to have George R. R. Martin up and die before he finally finishes the story (presumably with book seven)...
Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin — ©2011 HBO/Helen Sloan
But thennnnnnn... HBO unleashed an Original Series based upon the books that has been getting rave reviews and awards. Whenever I travel, I always try to catch it when my hotel has HBO. I've seen roughly half of the ten episodes...
Love it.
I was thinking I'd watch the rest of the episodes when the DVD set was released, but HBO isn't releasing it until frickin' MARCH (and it's priced like EIGHTY DOLLARS or something) so I went ahead and ordered HBO. Now I've been watching it via On Demand, and am pretty amazed at how faithful they are to the book (or what I remember of it).
But now I am back to worrying over whether George R. R. Martin will die before the HBO series can be concluded. Even worse is the thought that Martin will complete the books in a timely manner, but HBO will cancel the series before they've adapted all of them.
The dumbasses.
RW was interviewed over at Fictionaut for our efforts with Thrice Fiction magazine. It's RW being RW like nobody else can, so you definitely want to check it out.
And then...
I seem to be running out of time for so many things lately. But, with luck, I'll manage to get caught up with all kinds of stuff this weekend... including doing the drawing for Avitable and my Movember prize package. Can't wait for that!
Today was a day of trying to do too much. This left me completely exhausted by the time I made it home. But do I ever learn? I thought I could manage a couple episodes of Game of Thrones while getting some work done after dinner, but the show is so amazing that you really have to give it your full attention. So now I'll have to re-watch the episodes again. Hopefully soon, because holy crap do I love that show.
The show I am definitely not enjoying is the three-ring circus that has become the Republican presidential arena. I am approaching near-desperation waiting for a candidate to emerge who can seriously challenge President Obama and give the American people the debate on issues and ideals that we deserve. An Obama landslide victory benefits none of us... even his more staunch supporters.
Herman Cain is almost certain to bow out of the race tomorrow. He simply cannot escape the massive level of scandal that's been escalating around him for months. But, then again, this is Herman Cain we're taking about.
Rick Perry seems perfectly content to keep reminding people how stupid he is by ridiculing himself at every given opportunity. Yes, you have to laugh at your mistakes, BUT THEN YOU MOVE ON. Who in the hell is advising him? IS ANYBODY?
Mitt Romney, who at one time "felt" the most presidential of the bunch, is now whining like a little bitch because the press is asking him the hard questions about his historical legacy of flip-flopping on every talking point in the history of politics. And we're not talking the tired old Republican go-to whining about the mythical "Liberal mainstream media" they've fabricated so they have somebody to blame whenever they say or do stupid crap... he's whining about the Conservative agenda mouthpieces at FOX "News"! There's little doubt that the candidacy is his to lose... AND HE'S LOSING IT.
Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum has now reached a level of insignificance that approaches navel lint. His never-ending attacks on the gays leaves little doubt that he is overcompensating for his massive craving for a big ol' cock sandwich. I wish he's just take a bite and shut the fuck up already.
Michele "Bat-Shit Crazy" Bachmann recently said she thinks that Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum would be the ideal vice-presidential running mate on her 2012 all-homophobe-all-the-time fantasy presidential ticket. As if that's not enough, she continues to dazzle us with misrepresentation and lies so bold that it's hard to figure out if she even knows that most everything she says is bullshit. This has gone from amusing to hysterical to sad to pathetic. At some point the Republican leadership is going to realize that her non-stop parade of idiocy is no longer a handy tool for making the rest of the candidates look good... but instead a raging embarrassment that makes them all look bad. Anybody who's seen Old Yeller knows how this one ends... it's just a matter of time.
Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman have virtually no support within the Republican party. At least not enough to matter. And that's a shame, because Huntsman in particular seems like he could pose the biggest threat to President Obama in an election. If only he could somehow convince The Right that a "Conservative Light" candidate is far more appealing to undecided voters than the radical Conservative hard-asses they seem to rally behind.
Newt Gingrich gave me hope for the longest time. Sure I disagree with the bulk of his politics but, despite his many scandals, he seemed the most capable of making a serious argument for change and taking it to President Obama's front yard. He's got the vision and drive to make a serious impact, even though I don't think he has a chance of winning the election. But all of that is for naught if he can't reign in his rich bitch arrogant asshole mouth. Newt is almost joyous in his enthusiasm to kick the poor and unemployed when they're down, not seeming to realize that there are plenty of Republicans in that very situation. Who is going to listen to your ideas when you're shitting all over them? You can lighten up your demeanor without compromising your ideals... LOOK INTO IT! Because at some point you have to convince more than just your fan base that you're worthy of being their president.
And that's it! That's all she wrote! Unless somebody crawls out of the GOP woodwork to revive the run for the nomination, it's looking like Gingrich or (perhaps more likely) Romney is what we're going to get. This has me almost hoping that Sarah Palin swoops in and grabs the nomination, because at least that would be an entertaining disaster.
But oh no. If things keep going this route, President Obama is going to win in a cake-walk without having to answer for much of anything. It doesn't get much sadder than that.
Unless you're President Obama's campaign manager.
If you're President Obama's campaign manager, you absolutely live for this shit.
It's a Wonderful Life is playing on television. I loathe that movie. It's one of the single worst films I've ever had to endure. For the life of me I can't figure out why people are so in love with it. Is it the crappy, boring-ass story? The cheesy over-the-top acting? The nausea-inducing predictably clichéd happy ending? What?
Of course, I haven't ruled out that it's because I'm a soulless bastard. I'm totally open to that as a possibility.
It would certainly explain my joy at watching Herman Cain's presidential campaign implode.
I was really hoping he would just shut up, drop out, and go away... but apparently that's not his plan. It would seem he wants to fade into irrelevance like Sarah Palin did. Of course, she managed to make millions of dollars along the way, so there's that...
It's odd thinking back to the days when Cain was on the rise and I was actually a fan. Not so much politically, but because he had such a fantastic personality. Back then I was always tuning into his interviews because he was so darn entertaining. But then the crazy started to set in, and there's was no stopping the downward spiral that ensued.
Have to say I didn't anticipate an alleged mistress and all those sexual harassment claims hurrying things along though. If they're not true, as Cain claims, you'd think that dropping out of the race would only make him look guilty... so who knows how that's going to play out.
Guess I'll have to wait for the book.
Or the next Pokémon movie.
Well poop. I am unable to get my video uploaded, so I guess that Bullet Sunday and the Movember contest winner will have to wait until tomorrow. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but I have troubles with YouTube EVERY TIME I try to send something.
But there was good news today: I made the final payment on the expenses I ran up while I was in Australia! Accumulating high interest charges on credit card debt drives me a little nuts, so this is a huge weight off my mind. I'm still mad at myself for having spent more than I could afford on vacation... but I ran out of money, so it was either break my budget or sleep on the streets and starve to death.
Fortunately it didn't take an act of Congress for me to raise my debt ceiling during a time of emergency.
Except now I'm behind on saving up money for my next vacation.
Perhaps I should make it a staycation to my bathtub, since that's about the only thing in my price range right now.
Being financially responsible sucks ass.
Technical difficulties dictated that this edition of Bullet Sunday air on Monday. Now it's Tuesday morning where I pretend that it's still Monday. And since YouTube has been in "Read Only Mode" ever since I filmed it this morning, maybe it's actually Wednesday and I'm pretending it's Monday pretending it's Sunday? Sheesh.
• Winner! A huge "thank you" to everybody who donated to The Muskrat's Movember campaign. I appreciate it more than I can say.
Originally, I had filmed a video of me cutting up the names and putting them in the container on Sunday night. Then I had a dramatic "TO BE CONTINUED" come up so I had time to verify everybody's entries before drawing. But since I couldn't upload that video (thanks, YouTube!), I'm just going to skip to the drawing I had with the verified tickets (Monday Tuesday morning)... and hope that I can upload it...
Oog. I'm backwards! Congratulations, Remled Delmer! I'll get an email to you so we can get your AvitaToon and DaveToon under way!
• Martians. The Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs are among my favorite sci-fi books of all time. That's pretty amazing considering the first book, A Princess of Mars was published in 1917. Needless to say, I've been anxiously awaiting the big-screen adaptation by Andrew Stanton called John Carter. The new trailer for the film looks promising...
It's especially nice that Woola makes an appearance. He's as ugly-cute as I always imagined..
Here's hoping the movie doesn't suck. Given Stanton's incredible resume at Pixar, it shouldn't.
• Goose! Well, the geese are back again. Yesterday morning I got rushed in the parking lot while trying to get to my car. The vicious little bastards are fearless. When I got home they were gone from the parking lot, but a quick look out my back window AND THERE THEY WERE...
Look at them... out there plotting their next move. If you never hear from me again, alert the authorities. Or the Fish & Wildlife Department.
• Nowalla. And so Facebook bought out Gowalla. I've been using Gowalla to keep track of my travels for quite a while, but that's not the worst part. I invested a lot of time creating/updating/managing checkin spots for the service so, needless to say, this kind of sucks ass. Though, to be honest, it's not as devastating to me as it should be. They gutted all the things that made Gowalla so cool over the past couple months, so it's more of a relief than anything else. After shitting all over their users with unwelcome changes that nobody asked for or wanted, then ignoring people's pleas to fix major problems, I guess the writing was on the wall that they'd turn around and sell us out in the end...
=sigh= I will miss my custom spots for Blogography and Artificial Duck Co. though.
Annnnd... that's all she wrote this fine Sunday Monday Tuesday!
A second blanket has been added to my bed today. A third is probably not that far off. It's December now, so this is to be expected... yet I find myself wishing that winter was ending instead of just beginning. I suppose I could turn the heat on and pretend that winter has abated for some reason, but the illusion would be shattered the minute I walked outside tomorrow morning. And not just because I'll be attacked by geese in the parking lot.
By choosing harsh reality over fantasy, I'm probably not doing myself any favors.
That day will come when I finally break down and buy an electric blanket.
In the meanwhile I'll keep bundled up at night and think warm thoughts...
...assuming I can find any warm thoughts to think.
Dear Pizza Hut,
I love Pizza Hut breadsticks.
When I travel, I often times go from Pizza Hut to Pizza Hut so I can have your delicious breadsticks with their oh-so-crusty buttery tops covered in parmesan cheese that I love to dip in that rich, thick, sweetly flavorful red sauce. It's deliciousness I can count on no matter where I go... from London to Sydney to Tokyo to locations all over the good ol' USA. I write songs with Pizza Hut breadsticks in them. Most days I can honestly say that I'd rather have an order of Pizza Hut breadsticks than chocolate cake...
I wish I had Pizza Hut delivery in my small city, but I don't. My local Pizza Hut is thirty-five minutes away. I don't eat there very often because it's inconveniently located and usually requires a special trip. But tonight I was craving breadsticks, so I made a detour to get some.
Let me start out by saying that my server was excellent. She didn't just make me feel good about eating at Pizza Hut... she made me feel good about life. She was capable, friendly, helpful, energetic, enthusiastic, and knew exactly how to provide flawless, attentive service without being smothering. It was delightful.
But then the breadsticks came and I noticed something was wrong.
The sauce wasn't that luscious rich red color. It was kind of brownish-orangeish-red. It looked sad.
Then I went to dip a breadstick in it, and saw that it was thin and watery... not thick at all. This had the disastrous effect of turning my crispy breadstick soggy in the middle no matter how fast I took a bite after dipping.
And then I tasted it. Bland, uninspired, boring.
What happened?
Are you now serving regular-old pizza sauce with your sticks instead of that sweet, succulent, scrumptiously zesty red sauce I know and love? Is that what's happening?
I sure hope not.
I hope this was just some terrible, terrible mistake. A temporary lapse of judgement, perhaps.
In this world gone mad, there's very few things people can count on. Delicious Pizza Hut breadsticks with red sauce is one of them. If that's no longer the case, then shame on you for taking a little happiness out of the universe at a time when we so desperately need it.
Right now all I can think about is my next visit to Pizza Hut and whether or not my beloved breadsticks will come with that wonderful sauce that makes life a little more bearable. I'm actually scared to go to Pizza Hut again in case it doesn't.
In happier news, there was a wonderful Google Doodle tribute to one of my all-time favorite artists, Diego Rivera, today...
If only I could Google up some real Pizza Hut breadsticks. Instead I'll just have to dream about them.
Unlike most every other day, I didn't bring any work home with me tonight. I'm dangerously close to a major case of burn-out, and just needed one night... one night... away from work. And so I took it!
And then spent all night worrying about the work that I'm not getting done. I knew I should have picked up a fifth of Jägermeister on the way home.
Last night on the way home, I went to Costco and bought cheese. There's not a lot of foods I eat enough of to buy in bulk. Cheese and chocolate pudding are about it. Though, thanks to Costco contributing
I think we can all look forward to that.
In the meanwhile, I think I'll eat some cheese.
The weather was not pretty today.
It was one of those hazy/misty/foggy days that made me think that my eyes were defective every time I looked out the window. Much like my life, things in the distance are a blurry mess. All I can do is focus on what's in front of me.
Not the view out my window... it's Glacier Bay in Alaska!
Unfortunately, what's in front of my right now is the possibility that telemarketers will be able to call me on my mobile phone thanks to the new "Mobile Information Call Act" that dumbfuck politicians whose mouths are permanently attached to special interest dick are trying to fuck us with.
And, I'm not going to lie to you, the very thought of having to pay for somebody to harass me is close to pushing me over the edge.
I hate... HATE... unsolicited calls of any kind. They enrage me so badly that I turn into an unbelievable bastard when somebody dares to disturb me with them. This includes charitable organizations, politicians, activist groups, credit card alerts, fraud bulletins... ALL of that shit. I don't like to talk on the phone with people I know... being bothered by people I don't know causes me to go into a thermonuclear meltdown.
The dumbfuck politicians behind it claim this is needed to modernize our laws so that critical information we need to survive is allowed to be robo-called to mobile phone customers.
Fuck. That.
There is no information... none... delivered by an automated dialer that I need interrupting my life on somebody else's terms. And, regardless of what the dumbfuck politicians say, you just know that eventually the law will lead to telemarketers being able to call. They'll exploit some loophole or bullshit technicality like they always do, then everybody with a mobile phone gets screwed.
The only law that I want on the books is one that says "YOU DON'T GET TO FUCKING CALL ME EVER!" And it should apply to everybody except those I've given my expressed permission to dial me. Permission which can be revoked at any time. Period.
This whole mess is how we know that politicians no longer serve the people they claim to represent. They serve special interest groups, lobbyists, and their wallets. Because, honestly now, who in the hell would ever want this law except special interest groups, lobbyists, and the politicians being paid by them? NOBODY! That's who. It's like asking somebody with an email account if they want spam.
Obviously our political system is very, very broken when stupid-ass shit like this sees the light of day. It's not a Democrat or Republican thing any more... that ship has sailed. Now it's just people with political power fucking over people without it. Again and again.
And we're told we have no choice but to sit down, shut up, and take their abuse.
Riiiiiiight.
Anarchy. It'll be here sooner than you think.
Meh.
I woke up at some ungodly hour this morning so I could watch the lunar eclipse.
I was expecting to see something like this...
Instead what I saw was this...
Clouded in again. Story of my life.
Can't catch a break when it comes to eclipseses eclipsees eclipses.
The latest Republican Debate that aired tonight was PRICELESS. Seriously, unless you saw it you just don't know. I didn't think it was possible for the entertainment value on these things to go up with Cain no longer in the picture, but there you go. It was like the nomination was pinned to a piece of raw meat that was thrown into the middle of the room and they all had to fight over it. Some of the attacks and in-fighting were so delicious that I found myself wanting to lick my television screen.
Usually, I'd run a recap of all the candidates and how they did, but it really wasn't that kind of debate. The only thing that surprised me this time around was how questions were designed to attack Gingrich in a kind of passive-aggressive way. I mean, when you ask about the importance of marriage fidelity when Gingrich is on his third marriage and everybody else is on their first, it's pretty obvious. I guess this means the honeymoon is over, and the Powers That Be have decided it's time for Newt to take a powder.
But despite it all, I'd say that Gingrich still came out on top (even if he likes to invent invented people). It wasn't hard to do when Mitt Romney was getting slapped around the entire time (and reminding everybody that he's sooooooo rich that a $10,000 bet is not a big deal didn't help his case much).
Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum and Michele "Bat-Shit-Crazy" Bachmann can't drop any lower than they already are, so I'd say the big loser of the night was Rick Perry. His folksy form of Christian exploitation and poor grasp of even basic issues makes him sound like he's mentally deficient. But what do I know... maybe that's what Republicans are looking for in a candidate. Has he had his turn as front-runner yet?
Personally, I don't want to wait for a Republican candidate to emerge victorious before debating President Obama. The entire panel seems to to nothing but attack the guy, so why not invite him to the next debate? That would be all kinds of awesome.
In the meanwhile, getting a good night's sleep would be all kinds of awesome.
If I were as insanely rich as Mitt Romney, I'd wager $10,000 it ain't gonna happen though.
I'm sitting here watching television when it suddenly occurs to me that I haven't blogged yet today. Since Bullet Sunday was late last week, I'd better get a move on...
• Closet! And so we can add Rick Perry to the list of political assholes and religious nut-jobs who are most-likely closeted homosexuals. Why give a shit about the sex lives of consenting adults unless you've got serious sexuality issues of your own that you're working through?
Perry's disgusting new ad attacking brave men and women in our armed services is nothing more than pathetic pandering to a dwindling segment of homophobe voters. As if that weren't enough, it's also a gigantic pile of bullshit. Still, I'd love to see the outtakes from that shoot...
RICK PERRY: Not the Mormon guy, got it.
Wasn't he in the Air Force? You'd think he'd know better...
So THAT'S what he was digging around for in that pocket!
• Flash! And so this happened...
Which isn't really a big deal considering Lindsay Lohan doesn't display her downstairs business in the magazine, but has flashed her cootchie all over town for free...
In her Playboy shoot, Lohan decided to pose dressed up as an absurd Marilyn Monroe impersonator and be air-brushed beyond recognition, so I guess that's something. Or whatever.
• Whitened! When I get offers to endorse products on my blog, I always refuse so that when I do endorse something people will know it's for reals. And I gotta say, Colgate's new OPTIC WHITE toothpaste is certainly worth endorsing. It may taste like crap, but it actually works...
BEFORE OPTIC WHITE is on the left. AFTER OPTIC WHITE is on the right.
If you want whiter teeth but don't want to waste time with a whitening kit or pay tons of money for professional whitening, you might give Colgate OPTIC WHITE a try.
• New 52! Now that I'm three months into DC's "New 52" company-wide reboot, I'm still reading 35 of the 52 books. My guess is that this will drop to 30 by year's end, but that's still pretty remarkable. I would have never imagined that I'd like over half of these books considering I was buying only a dozen DC titles before the reboot.
If you'd like to see my scorecard for all 52 titles, I've put that in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
I caught some crap for this old blog post today.
Some people are really serious about their wine, I guess. I thought I could get out of it by saying "I was only joking," but then I re-read the entry and realized that I wasn't. Oh well.
When I got home from work I was hungry but nothing sounded good to eat. Well, nothing here sounded good to eat. I would have killed for some Patatjes Met from the Netherlands. Or a Puka Dog from Hawaii. Or a plate of authentic Fettucini Alfredo from Rome. Or Pizano's Pizza and an America's Dog from Chicago. Or even just a Johnny Rockets veggie burger from Seattle...
But what I really wanted was something I can't even have any more... even if I went to Salt Lake City to get it... I WANT BIG CITY SOUP!! But it closed down years ago...
I hate it when that happens.
I hear they're making a Big City Soup Cookbook or something, but it wouldn't be the same.
I ended up having Peanut Butter M&M's and a Svenhard's butterhorn with a can of Coke...
Yo! Svenhard's... BUTTERHORN is ONE WORD, NOT TWO!
Delicious.
Relatively speaking.
Don't you hate it when there are tons of things for you to blog about but nothing you can actually post? That's me today.
And now I'm tired and want to go to bed. But since I have to blog about something, I just decided to go for it. Post all the crap that's been wearing me down and be done with it.
Hopefully.
So here goes nothing...
Got a panda from my bag of Fritos and ended up stapling over the whole spaghetti stain. At first I thought "bless my credit card" but then I wonked about Latvia and thought "two seahorses on that dog vomit!" So now I say folding box the whole cheesy bread and poop waggle that burrito sauce. I'm just not blarg on that swamp cooler (if you know what I balsamic vinegar). I wish I wasn't so pirates about the electric razor, but what can I pillow case? She's such a whore.
Fonzie collated my banana clip, but I was raving with the bugle in a gift box. That undressed the whole glovebox, which meant the sunglasses had to reverse engineer Willie Nelson. Needless to pickle chip, that wasn't skipping the video tape on that blanket. So now summer squash is plunging the futon and plastic bag is vacuuming the entire moon base. This has fleegboggled the beer headphones and pencilled a sound of my spice rack. If things were any mason jar I'd have to ski to hockey jersey or I'd violin their oil filter. You can't fishing trawler this bunny puppet and expect doggie treat for my force field. What an asshole.
So there was bonsai peppercorn and Tupperware bowl on slippery feet. It was taco seasoning. But then revolver the nuclear waste and all I could newspaper was my gummy bear. I iron the butter lettuce to shark tank but the paved Zamboni never pup tent or revenge. This has subway the stairwell... and not the flushable parrot cage. FOR CHARCOAL FILM CANISTER!! What romper kitten hoe wanders that?!? Fedora grout? sandwich collar? I have no fucking clue.
Hand sanitizer. Air sickness plumber lightbulb. Carrot. Who cares?
Loading dinosaur every souvenir retro-banana, which Cozumel the finger-paint. Now muddy water tarantula the foomlargo ALL THE ANGELA BASSETT! Fall the microphone damage, because penmanship has no plaid internal. Now rubber brake crying, if marble staple poison would ever magnification warp drive into crisis hand swamp. They're pressure celery, but it's not like I can do anything about it.
Whew! Feels great to get that all off my chest. Maybe now I can get a decent night's sleep.
So.
Frickin'
Tired.
In other news... Bad Monkey has a new job opportunity...
Granted, the scientists are only trying to find out if the radiation from the Fukushima meltdown is having an effect on the local wildlife, but it always seems so unfair that innocent animals have to pay for the mistakes of humans.
Though sometime, humanity manages to help out our furry friends instead of harm them.
A couple days ago there was a story about four deer being rescued from freezing waters by an Alaskan fishing charter. I can't get it out of my head, because it's such a great story...
If you haven't heard about it, you can find the story on Facebook. It's a heartwarming tale and well worth your valuable time.
And on that happy note...
I'm not a very material guy. At least not anymore. I'd rather spend my money on traveling than on "things." As long as I have my MacBook Pro, my iPhone, and my camera, I'm pretty indifferent about any other stuff I've accumulated. So much so that for the past several months I've been getting rid of the clutter in my life by the box-full. About the only thing I want to buy is a new improved MacBook Pro, new improved iPhone, and new improved camera.
And then...
It's a frickin' onesie! It's baby pajamas for adults! How genius is that?
Even the name is genius... FOREVER LAZY!
Who doesn't want to be forever lazy? Sitting around the house eating junk food and watching television. And when that gets to be too much for you, you can just take a nap right there on the couch because you're wrapped in a blanket already. About the only effort you have to put out is when you poop. But wait... they even made that easy!
So now I'm torn. If I want to eventually upgrade my MacBook Pro, my iPhone, and my camera, then this isn't an option. It's not like the money to do all that is going to fall from the sky once I stop working to be Forever Lazy.
I need to find a way to make money at being a lazy asshole that doesn't have to think or make sense and can sit around being stupid as a hell all day long...
Hmmmm... wonder where I can find a sweet gig like that?
I have no idea where the week went. Lately it seems as though I jump from weekend to weekend with everything between being nothing but a blur of non-stop work.
While working at home, I like to have some background noise going on. Usually it's the television or a DVD I've seen a million times. My current drug of choice is "The Science Channel" which is now called simply "Science" and which I have renamed "The We're All Going to Die Channel"...
There's actually quite a variety of shows on the network, but it seems a lot of them are sneaking in a deadly surprise. I'll be sitting in front of the television working, half-paying-attention to some show that's on, when all of a sudden I hear "...ending all life on earth" or "...destroying the planet" or ...devastating our world and everything on it. I'm guessing because 2012 is just around the corner and a lot of people have armageddon on their mind.
It usually goes like this:
Science tells us that INSERT INNOCENT HISTORIC SCIENCE FACT. If this CONTINUES/HAPPENS/HAPPENS AGAIN, then INSERT SCIENTIFIC THEORY, which would mean INSERT GLOBAL CATASTROPHE and we're all going to die!
Some examples...
Science tells us that the moon is drifting from earth. If this continues, then the earth's axis of rotation could become unstable, which would mean extreme catastrophic shifts in weather all over the planet and we're all going to die!
Science tells us that earth has a violent history of collisions with asteroids. If this happens again, then the resulting impact could cause firestorms across the planet, which would mean soot and ash blanketing the earth and blocking out the sun and we're all going to die!
Science tells us that earth has a number of "super volcanoes" just waiting to blow. If this happens, then huge sections of the planet could erupt in a chain reaction, which would mean global earthquakes and tsunamis ravaging the earth and we're all going to die!
And it goes on and on. Everything from "man-made super viruses" and "nuclear winter" to "running out of clean water" and "Mars leaving its orbit and crashing into the earth"... but, no matter how you slice it, we're all going to die!
And it will be a spectacular and awesome event.
I, for one, am totally psyched! Who says science can't be fun?
Verily!
Virtuous Victims Vying Vivaciously for Vindication...
When I was a kid I remember reading the story of Sleeping Beauty. Not the Disney-fied movie version, but the messed-up Brothers Grimm original (did those guys ever write a children's story that wasn't totally messed up?). In that version, the princess is cursed to fall asleep for 100 years. Not wanting the princess to wake up and find out that everybody she knows is dead, a good fairy puts the entire castle asleep for 100 years too, then seals off the castle so nobody can disturb its slumbering occupants. Eventually a prince arrives just as the 100 years is ending and the princess wakes up when he kisses her.
Two things bothered me about the story.
First of all, why didn't the princess completely freak out when she woke up to have some strange guy kissing her?
And second, how sad was it that some poor servant boy in the castle has to sleep for 100 years just because some princess got cursed? What a bummer for that guy, especially if he has family living outside the castle. Now HE'S the one who gets to wake up and find everybody he knows is dead.
Like most Grimm Fairytales, Sleeping Beauty was totally depressing.
Then Disney came along.
In their version, the princess is cursed to sleep not for a hundred years, but until some handsome prince arrives and makes out with her, delivering "true love's kiss." They also added a totally bitchin' fight at the end where the prince battles it out with Queen Bitch of the Universe, Maleficent. After emerging victorious (spoilers!) the prince then kisses the princess, she wakes up, and everybody lives happily ever after.
All things considered, Disney obviously has the "feel-good" version of Sleeping Beauty.
Or do they?
All this weekend I found myself wishing I could just crawl under the covers and fall asleep until the year is over. But why stop there? Wouldn't it be great to fall asleep for an entire century when all your problems and worries were 100 years behind you?
More and more, I'm thinking the answer is "yes."
Now all I gotta do is piss off an evil witch and find somebody to guest-blog for me over the next 100 years.
Hyperbole is so rampant now-a-days that figuring out the actual seriousness of a situation is almost impossible. Even with people you know. Especially with people you know. Just this morning I heard somebody say "After 15 minutes of being ignored, my head LITERALLY exploded!" And yet her head was intact, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I'm guessing she just doesn't know what the word "literally" means. I run across this a lot.
So when I say "This has literally been the worst day of my life," I can understand your scepticism.
"It can't be that bad," you say, "he's blogging after all. If this was the worst day of Dave's life, he wouldn't be blogging. Maybe he just doesn't understand what the word
And yet, sadly, I do. I literally know what "literally" means, and it's still literally the worst day of my life today.
When having the worst day of your life, I think it's only natural to compare it to other times where you were having the worst day of your life.
My previous worst day is burned into my memory and still makes me upset to think about it. The worst day before that is also very clear to me. But as I go backwards from there, the worst days of my life are fading. I'm having a hard time picking them out from the crowd. If they were truly so catastrophic, shouldn't I remember them? Maybe those earliest "worst days" weren't so terrible after all? I mean, come on... when I was five years old, the worst day of my life was undoubtedly something pretty silly... like being told I couldn't have a toy I wanted.
Needless to say, things have escalated since then.
As I sit here on literally the worst day of my life, all I can think of is what's next? What will come along that's so gut-wrenchingly awful that it replaces this day as my new "worst day ever?"
It would have to be something pretty big.
That would be a terrifying thought if not for the fact that having new "worst days" means that eventually this worst day will start to fade from my memories.
Life. It's pretty fucked up.
Maybe it's because this has been one very tough week, but I've had it with stupid-ass bullshit. I am done. And I mean done. What keeps me going is seeing other people who are tired of stupid-ass bullshit actually taking the time to confront it. And today I ran across a doozy.
As I've reiterated many, many times now on this blog, I automatically assume that anybody who makes personal attacks against someone is probably overcompensating for their own problems.
Anybody who attacks a person's sexuality probably has a problem with their own sexuality. Anybody who feels the need to attack somebody's religion probably has a problem with their own faith. Anybody who attacks how somebody looks probably has a problem accepting how they see themselves. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
Oh... and lest we forget: Anybody railing against gay marriage probably has a problem with their own marriage...
That would be Amy Koch.
Amy Koch is the Minnesota Senate Majority Leader. She coauthored a bill to amend the Minnesota Constitution so that "Marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in Minnesota." Thanks to her efforts, Minnesotans will vote next November as to whether discrimination gets shoe-horned into the State Constitution.
At least she was the Minnesota Senate Majority Leader. She recently resigned in disgrace for having an "inappropriate relationship" with one of her staffers.
In other words, a dirty cheating whore had the balls to dictate marriage morality to her constitutes.
Obviously we should blame the gays for this.
Fortunately, they have accepted responsibility and are making an apology...
Dear Ms. Koch,
On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an "illicit affair" with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.
We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.
It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of "adultery."
Forgive us. As you know, we are not church-going people, so we are unable to fully appreciate that "gay marriage" is incompatible with Christian values, despite the fact that those values carry a biblical tradition of adultery such as yours. We applaud you for keeping that tradition going.
And finally, shame on us for thinking that marriage is a private affair, and that our marriage would have little impact on anyone's family. We now see that marriage is more than that. It is an agreement with society. We should listen to the Minnesota Family Council when it tells us that marriage is about being public, which explains why marriages are public ceremonies. Never did we realize that it is exactly because of this societal agreement that the entire world is looking at you in shame and disappointment instead of minding its own business.
From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please accept our apology.
Thank you.
John Medeiros
Minneapolis MN
Brilliant.
And which politician or religious leader will get the next apology? My money is on Rick Santorum. Anybody who hates homosexuality that badly is bound to have a few dicks in his closet.
Dear Hollywood...
... ENOUGH WITH THE WILHELM SCREAM!!
Look, I realize that there are always going to be traditions and nods to the past in a creative endeavor. I understand that there's an urge to honor that which has come before by echoing it in the present. But it should be subtle. It shouldn't be a distraction.
And the Wilhelm Scream has been so overused that it can't help but be a distraction...
The turning point for me was The Lord of the Rings films. Until then, I was able to ignore the Wilhelm Scream. But once Peter Jackson decided to force it into Middle Earth, I could not. And what a waste that was. Jackson and his team took painstaking care to draw you into the film and make you feel as though you were in another world. Only to rip you out of it because of a stupid, obtrusive sound effect.
And don't get me started over how Joe Johnston fucked up the best movie I saw in 2011, Captain America. There I was, basking in the glory of one of the best comic films I had ever seen and then... HeeYAAAAAahhAAAAAH!!!
Blargh.
Enough is enough.
May your holidays bring you peace and good cheer.
When I was a kid, Christmas was a pretty big deal.
And even though it's not much a part of my life now, it's fun to look back on my early days to remember why I enjoyed... why I still enjoy... the season so much. Despite all the headaches, craziness, idiocy, fanaticism, and commercialism, it's still a time of year when you see a lot of happy people. Especially when it comes to stupid kids who don't know any better...
If you celebrate the holiday, here's hoping your Christmas is filled with goofy smiles too.
A week and a day late with a Bullet Sunday... on Monday!
• Toys! The LEGO DC Superheroes site is finally live. Not a lot there yet, but it's a start. The good news is that some of the sets are starting to leak out... including an awesome Superman & Wonder Woman vs. Battle Suit Lex Luthor. Kind of lame how Superman and Wonder Woman look scary-mean though...
All I can think of when I look at this set is how much I want a LEGO video game with these characters in it. I swear, the LEGO Star Wars, Batman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Pirates of the Caribbean games are the most fun I've had with a video game.
• Who? The Dr. Who Christmas Special was really done this year, as usual, even if it did drag in the middle with the silly trees and stuff. All things considered, the ending was surprisingly touching...
It's been confirmed that The Doctor's companions, Amy and Rory, will be leaving the series next season. Given that they're the most entertaining thing on the show right now, this is kind of depressing. Even worse, show runner Steven Moffit has said that their relationship reaches a tragic end. I'm sad already.
• Fabulous! I don't know why, but the new AbFab Special is available in its entirety on Vimeo...
Not surprisingly, it's pretty darn funny. If you're a fan, it's worth checking out now since it doesn't "officially" air on BBC America until the New Year.
• Pano! When I went to Australia, I started taking panorama photos in HDR. The results have been pretty amazing. The HDR equalizes out the tones so that the individual photos blend a lot better...
The above pano took 33 photos to assemble at full-resolution, but I think it was worth the trouble. Now I'm kinda psyched about finding new panoramic scenery to shoot!
• Scrivener. My favorite writing app, Scrivener, was updated to version 2.0 a year ago, but I never remembered to install it until this past weekend. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it's an even more valuable tool than ever before. The upgrade to the notecard cork-board alone was worth the small upgrade fee. If you do any writing at all, you owe it to yourself to take a look at this amazing program. You can download a free demo for Mac or Windows at the Literature and a Latte website.
As if that wasn't awesome enough... an iPad version of Scrivener is being developed for release in 2012.
Annnnnd... back to work. This is going to be a crazy week.
I used to take absolute joy in crushing my enemies and destroying people who have wronged me. I was also very, very good at it. If somebody was deserving of my wrath, I would do almost anything to make it happen. I would call in favors long forgotten. I would orchestrate any needed scenario. I would facilitate any action. I would pay any price. And while I'm not saying I would ever be the cause of any physical harm, my vengeance could be terrible and have horrifying consequences for anybody who dared to screw me over.
But then one day after a particularly nasty revenge scenario, I realized the only person I was hurting was myself.
Ha ha... just kidding. That's lame.
Actually what happened was that I took a moment to do a victory dance after a particularly nasty revenge scenario and suddenly realized I was genuinely afraid of myself.
The person who was capable of what I had done was not somebody I wanted to be.
Which means that I actually was hurting myself after all. Which is still lame, but at least it's lame for a cool reason.
That was twenty years ago, give or take.
Since that time, I've had exactly one relapse.
I'd like to say that I'm not proud of what I had done, but that would be a total lie. The only thing I'm proud of is that I didn't go any further than I did. Because, heaven only knows, they certainly would have deserved it.
But I didn't deserve to have to live with it.
Except now I've been working my guts out while catching up on the past couple episodes of ABC's Revenge starring the brutally hot Emily VanCamp, and I'm starting to have second thoughts...
On television, everybody is having a great time dishing out wrath and vengeance.
That could totally be me!
All I have to do is sit back and wait for somebody truly deserving to come along. Given my luck, they'll be here soon enough.
Darnit anyway.
Time for my annual wrap-up of movies that came out this year.
THE TWELVE BEST...
These are my favorite movies from this year that I actually saw. Now, I fully admit that most of these were seen on an airplane or via iTunes rental on my iPad. That's about the only way I can find time to see movies anymore. Still, I don't think the small screen influenced my decision any. Stupid crap like Your Highness isn't going to suddenly become brilliant if seen on the big screen...
#1 Captain America. Captain America in the comics has been a mixed bag. When played as the American icon he was created to be, he seems cheesy and dated. When played as a straight super-hero he seems flashy and lame. But they somehow managed to sidestep both of these obstacles to not only make an awesome super-hero film, but an awesome film period. My review of the film is here.
#2 Thor. My only problem with this film... only problem is that the timing was way off. It seemed to take place over days when the events pretty much dictated that it should have taken place over months. That being said, director Kenneth Branagh and Co. did the impossible: film a magical super-hero film in a realistic way without having it turn into a big joke. Loved this movie more than I ever thought I would.
#3 Paul. Reaffirming my belief that Simon Pegg & Nick Frost can do no wrong (seriously... Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead!) they turn their engaging comedic talents to geek sci-fi. As if that wasn't an intriguing enough premise, Seth Rogan was cast as the voice of titular alien escapee "Paul." The result is a new take on the buddy comedy movie with a sci-fi twist and plenty of surprises. Genius.
#4 Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol. Brad Bird, the mastermind behind such animated genius as The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, makes an effortless leap to live action in one of this year's most exciting and stylish films. Ghost Protocol is the best M:I installment yet, with the entire IMF team being disavowed and having to clear their name in one awesome action sequence to another.
#5 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While I'm not sure that I liked this David Fincher remake as well as the Swedish original, I can say it's a great film in its own right. Dark, disturbing, beautiful, and wholly engrossing, this movie is the whole taco. Disgraced reporter Mikael Blomkvist sets out to solve an old family mystery with the help of brilliant anti-hero Lisbeth Salander. The journey is more interesting than the ultimate end, but Fincher gives us one heck of a ride.
#6 X-Men: First Class. FINALLY! After three increasingly shitty films, we finally get a decent X-Men flick. Check that, it's more than decent... it's brilliant entertainment that fully captures the promise of what an "X-film" could be. Showing the early beginnings of the Marvel Universe's most famous mutants, First Class gives us engaging characters with enough super-hero action to keep things interesting. I am hoping beyond hope that they continue this story in future films instead of sliding back to the Bryan Singer franchise shit-fest.
#7 Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Make no mistake, the Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's films is not the Sherlock Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels. He's a sad imitation that happens to be entertaining as hell. So if you can manage to leave the "real" Sherlock behind, this is a highly entertaining film with nice stylistic touches and a decent story to boot. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are both note-perfect for the material, and the addition of Jared Harris as arch-nemesis Moriarty has me liking "Game of Shadows" even more than the first film.
#8 Horrible Bosses. By all accounts, this movie should have been an embarrassing mess. The previews assured me that it was one of those "so stupid it's stupid" flicks instead of one of those "so stupid it's funny" treasures. But my sister wanted to see it, so off we went... to one of my favorite films of 2011. I loved the way all the various plot-threads resolved themselves at the end. I loved that the characters were funny and felt three-dimensional and unique. I love that the "horrible bosses" were note-perfect in every way. Kevin Spacey was given room to be pure evil psycho genius. Colin Farrell was plain reprehensible. And then there was Jennifer Aniston... holy crap. Jennifer Aniston was not only brutally hot, but hysterically funny.
#9 Source Code. Duncan Jones, who gave us the utterly brilliant sci-fi film Moon, now gives us a thinking man's time-travel sci-fi thriller as a follow-up that doesn't disappoint.
#10 Bridesmaids. You will note that The Hangover 2 does not make my list. That film was just a pathetic retread of the original movie in a different location. The worthy successor to the R-rated comedy crown of The Hangover is actually Bridesmaids, which takes a similar idea to all new territory.
#11 Attack the Block. This flawless British sci-fi horror flick was a complete surprise as I was trying to kill time on the long, long flight back from Australia. It's action-sci-fi thrills that don't disappoint. Aliens are descending on street gang's turf in London and the war is on.
#12 Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I have no idea where this redneck-buddy-comedy-horror-movie came from, but it was a guilty pleasure that was worth watching from start to finish. The film is more inline with the genius that is Shaun of the Dead or Evil Dead than stupid crap like Scary Movie. As if that weren't enough, it's got an actual message to it.
THE HONORABLE MENTIONS...
Winnie The Pooh. Go ahead. Laugh. But as an animation-lover who has been a fan of Pooh for as long as I can remember, this movie was amazing.
THE UNSEEN...
Here are some movies that might have made the list had I the time to have seen them...
Miyazaki genius Arrietty; Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed 3D epic Hugo; Cancer buddy comedy 50/50; Cold War LeCarre thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Romanian black comedy Tales from the Golden Age; Johnny Depp animated madness Rango; Monkey armageddon in Rise of the Planet of the Apes; Disease outbreak thriller Contagion; Classic cartoon adventure with The Adventures of Tintin; Heavily-praised chase film Drive; Silent B&W art flick The Artist; and Planet-demolishing mind-bender Melancholia.
THE SIX WORST...
There were quite a few disappointments in 2011 (like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) but there were few movies I actively loathed (though none of them as badly as the steaming pile of crap called Black Swan from last year)...
#1 Green Lantern. One of my favorite comic book characters was completely butchered on the big screen with a hot mess of a story and an over abundance of shitty CGI effects. Yeah, It's probably not the worst movie of the year, but such a crushing disappointment made it feel that way. You can read my review here.
#2 Sucker Punch. Zack Snyder is a fascinating director. His take on 300 was genius. And, despite my disgust at the unnecessarily altered ending, I thought his take on Watchmen was also excellent. So when I saw the jaw-dropping visuals in the trailer for Sucker Punch, I was understandably excited. Finally Zack Snyder was giving us a world he wrote instead of reinterpreting what he'd seen in a comic book. Unfortunately, the film was absolute garbage. Sexist, convoluted, trite, boring, senseless, asinine, garbage. Abused girl is dropped into a mental institution to be lobotomized, but "escapes" into her imagination in sequences that alternate between pole dancing and super-heroics. This film is the epitome of style over substance and failed on just about every level. Let's hope Snyder doesn't bury his Superman movie under such a huge layer of idiotic crap like he did Sucker Punch.
#3 Tree of Life. This was a beautiful turd of a film. Wonderful to look at, but ultimately a pile of self-indulgent bullshit that was so pointless and boring that I was praying for it to just END already, even if it took the destruction of the entire earth to make it happen. I keep seeing this movie on people's "Best List" and am completely clueless over what I missed as I was being bored to tears.
#4 Cars 2. Holy shit... a Pixar film made my "worst list?" What is the world coming to? Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of the original Cars, but it had enough charming moments to make me ultimately like the film. The sequel tosses all that out the window and instead gives us an extended Larry The Cable Guy comedy routine that is stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! How in the hell this film ever made it out of the storyboarding room at Pixar is a complete mystery to me. An obvious cash-grab by Disney if there ever were one.
#5 Arthur. If you would have ever told me that I would have a movie with Helen Mirren end up in my "Worst List" I would have bitch-slapped you so hard your teeth would fall out. It's inconceivable that an actor of such renown would ever agree to be in such a film. And then the shitty and embarrassing Arthur remake happened. Holy crap what a soulless pile of shit. I guess my sole consolation is that Helen Mirren was the best thing in this worst film.
#6 Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Chicago is one of my favorite cities on earth, and the opportunity to see it blown to shit was too good to resist. Even if it meant having to suffer through another crappy "Transformers" movie with crappy Shia LaBeouf as the crappy focus instead of the fucking cool Transformers as it should be. Shockingly, these movies continue to be successful, so I'm guessing a fourth one will be crapped out of Michael Bay's ass any day now.
THE HONORABLE MENTIONS...
The movie so bad it couldn't be saved if Cameron Diaz was nude the entire time Bad Teacher; The "OMG I can't believe I watched it even if I was bored on an airplane" Mr. Popper's Penguins; So stupid it's stupid medieval farce Your Highness; This year's sci-fi answer to last year's absurdly stupid "Skyline" is the absurdly stupid Battle: Los Angeles; Shameless retread of a terrific original The Hangover 2; Insanely stupid and disrespectful adaptation of a great character in The Green Hornet; Scary trailer for a not scary and totally shitty movie with Apollo 18.
Time for my annual wrap-up of my favorite TV shows this year.
THE TWELVE BEST...
I am a total television whore. Anybody who has read this blog for any length of time already knows this. But this year was particularly bad. I watched more television than ever before, and have no idea where I found the time to do it. Though I'm usually working while it's on, and a lot of time I save it for when I'm traveling (thank you, iPad!), so that's something I guess. I sincerely hope that 2012 has a lot more crappy television so I can spend my time on more worthwhile pursuits (though I don't know what those might be yet).
#1 Raising Hope. I simply cannot express how much I love this show. It is flawlessly cast and the stories are always winners. Jimmy's family still has their hands full with baby Hope (who's starting to grow up!) and the outlandish situations just get more imaginative with each new episode.
#2 Happy Endings. This was hands-down my favorite show this past year. Now that we're in the second season... something is missing, and I can't put my finger on it. Yet it's still a fantastic series that's laugh-out-loud funny.
#3 A Game of Thrones. Peter Jackson's brilliant film adaptation of Lord of the Rings proved that adapting richly complex fantasy novels is not impossible. So I had a little hope when I heard that the Song of Ice and Fire novels were being brought to television. Then I found out it wasn't TV, it was HBO, and I was really hopeful. The result? George R. R. Martin's epic was faithfully brought to the small screen with a series that was literally too good to be true. Not to say that I don't have my worries for the future of the series, but I can't wait to see what they do next.
#4 Shameless. Well, wow. Nothing I can say about this show will do it justice. It's based on a British series I've never seen, and stars William H. Macy as a non-functional poverty-stricken alcoholic who has a family of six kids that have to raise themselves. The show is sometimes shocking... always interesting... and captivating in a way that I never expected.
#5 Dr. Who. Matt Smith didn't "sell" me as The Doctor until the absolutely flawless episode called "Vincent and the Doctor" (which I lovingly review at length here). It opened my eyes to the show in an all-new way, and the magic sucked me back into the wonderful adventures of our favorite Time Lord. I've since re-watched the last couple series and am now a bigger fan of the show as I've ever been. Really great television.
#6 Revenge. Yeah, it's a guilty pleasure... no question about it. But it's such a good guilty pleasure. When girl-done-wrong comes back to town in a new identity and decides to take down the people who contributed to the death of her father, delicious revenge ensues. And it is delicious. I admit that I'm not a fan of how the "vengeance of the week" awesomeness has died down, but the overall story is just too good to resist.
#7 Castle. Nathan Fillion and über-hot Stana Katic have chemistry that never diminishes. Sure this is basically Murder She Wrote for a new generation, but it's done really well. Even better, the supporting cast isn't just comic relief or incompetent foil for the leads... they are fully-functional and three-dimensional characters who contribute to the story in a meaningful way. And it just works.
#8 Sons of Anarchy. This brilliant biker gang drama did not get off to the greatest of starts this season. Indeed, I was worried that it had jumped the shark in the worst possible way. But then... something happened. The show took a turn for the better in a really good way. We were rewarded for our patience with some of the very best episodes ever to air on television, largely thanks to... Katey Sagal? (PEG BUNDY? SERIOUSLY?!?) As a fan of the show, I am glad to see that it is actually heading somewhere. As a fan of television I'm positively thrilled.
#9 Homeland. Damian Lewis, who I loved in Life, was the only reason I checked out this "homeland security" CIA love-fest. Surprise, it's an amazing show. It's just such a deep and rewarding investment of my time that I can't help but love it.
#10 Archer. This deeply disturbed cartoon series about the most self-centered (but capable!) spy in the world is so wrong. But it's addictive in a way that most shows only dream of.
#11 The Big C. A show where the lead character is dying from inoperable cancer. Hilarious, right? Oddly enough... yes. I still can't believe that this show manages to bring a smile to my face every episode.
#12 Fringe. This series is just not firing on all cylinders right now, but its past greatness has me holding on. In any event, it's still great television and well worth my time. I just hope that the show-runners have some ideas up their sleeves that will return the show to greatness. We need it so badly.
ALL THE REST...
And here's all the other noteworthy shows I am watching in some capacity or another. Sad, I know.
Rules of Engagement. I can't give up this show because I've grown overly-attached to the characters. The only problem is that the prolonged engagement between Adam and Jen that was meant to show the before/after contrast with Jeff and Audrey is growing increasingly unrealistic. They need to finally get married so the show can go to wherever it's heading after Jeff and Audrey's baby is born.
Community. As I've said every year since the show began, this is the most consistently funny comedy on television.
Breaking Bad. Easily the most messed-up show on television, it's also one of the most engrossing. You just can't wait to see what happens next. And it's usually even more messed up than what happened before.
30 Rock. I love... love... Tina Fey. And Alec Baldwin plays his role like nobody else ever could.
Louie. Surprisingly funny look into the life of a stand-up comedian (played by the brilliant Louie C.K.) that actually has some depth to it.
Justified. This show fascinates me with just how great it works given the "Lawman of Redneckistan" premise. The acting talent alone makes this a must-watch.
Parks & Recreation. I thought the shake-up this season would be the death-knell for the show. But adding Rob Lowe and Adam Scott was a ploy that actually worked.
Futurama. I like this show a magnitude better than The Simpsons because it never seems to get old. Probably because the setting allows for a lot more imaginative stories than just keep getting better.
Suits. Now this was a pleasant surprise. A new lawyer show that's actually a NEW lawyer show! I enjoyed the series quite a lot, though it's getting a little predictable near the end there.
The Big Bang Theory. Speaking of predictable... but they added Amy Farrah Fowler (played by Mayim Bialik) to the mix, which is good for all kinds of laughs. Th brilliant Wil Wheaton guest spots don't hurt either.
Boardwalk Empire. Remarkable show, but I'm losing my enthusiasm for it as time goes on.
2 Broke Girls. This show is really uneven in laughs, but it has its fair share so I keep watching.
Grey's Anatomy. Do not know how they keep this show fresh as long as they have. The problem is that they are running out of interesting medical problems, so they're focusing more on the drama, which is bad.
How I Met Your Mother. Still not tired of this show even though I should be because the premise has been worn paper-thin. A part of me really hopes that they'll just reveal the damn mother and end the show already. It's really time. But damn if I don't keep hanging on in the hopes of another Robin Sparkles episode!
Psych. The episodes kind of all blend together for my now, but every once in a while they do something that makes me love the show all over again.
Hot in Cleveland. Betty. White. What else can I say?
Modern Family. Not as fresh as it was. Growing really sick and tired of the "Stupid-Ass Phil Dunphy Dumbass Act of the Week."
Fairly Legal. I was really mixed on this show at the beginning, but grew to love it when I re-watched all the episodes in reruns. Really looking forward to a new season to see if they can keep it fresh.
White Collar. I may be growing a little tired of this one now, but they continue to come up with interesting cases, so I keep watching.
Episodes. Matt LeBlanc came back from the (career) dead in order to parody himself in an unexpected but very funny way. Two highly successful British television writers are seduced by the lure of Hollywood and a remake of their popular series for American audiences. AS one would expect, disaster (and LeBlanc!) ensues.
Burn Notice. This show wore out its welcome a couple years ago. But I love Fiona (played by Gabrielle Anwar) so hard that I cannot give up the show. In all honesty, I wish that they would spin her off in something new.
Dexter. Losing its charm with each new year. If next season doesn't have anything interesting to grab me, it's over.
Whitney. And not for Whitney Cummings, who is a little too annoying... it's the rest of the cast that makes this show worth watching.
The Walking Dead. One of my favorite shows of last year was completely trashed this year. SO not the series I fell in love with now. But the comic book is such an awesome source material that I can't stop watching.
Top Chef/Project Runway/Survivor/Cupcake Wars. The four "reality television" shows I can tolerate. Note that the "reality" is a competition and/or creativity, which is why I can enjoy them.
AND THE SIX WORST...
The biggest disappointments this past year.
#1 New Girl. How in the hell they managed to make one of the hottest, most remarkable women on the planet (Zooey Deschanel) become unbearably annoying is beyond me. And the secondary cast is even worse. This show is like nails on a chalkboard to me, despite how much everybody else seems to love it.
#2 Harry's Law. They jettisoned everything I like about this show... then kept all the things I hated. It's just more of the same now.
#3 Terra Nova. How in the hell can a show that has both time travel and dinosaurs be this bad? There is not a single character on this crapfest that I don't want dead. Horrible, horrible television.
#4 House of Lies. This show has Don Cheadle, Josh Lawson, and KRISTEN FRICKIN' BELL... WHAT HAPPENED? It is mind-numbingly boring between the good bits, and never seems to end... that's what. Yes, the good bits are really good, but it's SO not worth the shit you have to sit through to get there. The "time-freeze" moments which allow Don Cheadle to interrupt the show to explain terms and back-story DO NOT WORK. They are an interruption that actually interrupts the show in a horrible fashion. EPIC FAIL!
#5 X-Factor/American Idol/TheVoice. I have yet to hear anybody on any of these shows that I would want to listen to in real life.
#6 The Bachelor/The Kardashians/Jersey Shore/Whores Love Money For the love of God, please get all this "whores will do any stupid shit for money" crap off my television.
2011 was an interesting time for music. I swear that I spent more time rediscovering old stuff than trying anything new. When I did try something new, it was usually to get hooked on an awesome single only to be disappointed by the rest of the album (I'm looking at you, Grouplove!). This got really tiring after a while, but that's what happens when none of your favorite bands release an album that year! Still, there were some noticeable highlights on the album front, and I've got my top six right here...
#1 Torches by Foster The People.
It's odd when you've been following a band only to have them hit the big time. I remember heading to Seattle to see Mother Love Bone (which morphed into Pearl Jam) and Nirvana play before the whole "Grunge" scene exploded, and it was both wonderful and horrible at the same time. On one hand you're overjoyed that a band you like has found success... on the other hand, you have trouble finding tickets to see them perform! Foster the People kind of flew under the radar for a while, but I became a massive fan from the very first time I stumbled across them on the internet. And look where we are now. Sold out shows everywhere they go. In the end, I can't really blame people for loving the band, because the eclectic influences Mark Foster incorporates into his music makes everything sound so new and fresh. Their debut album incorporates the songs from their awesome EP and adds even more musical genius to make Torches my favorite album of 2012. Yeah, it's overplayed, but Pumped Up Kicks is such genius that it never gets old.
#2 Holy Ghost by Holy Ghost.
Holy Ghost hit my radar last year when they did a "Battle EP" vs. Friendly Fires. In my humble opinion, they won hands-down with their cover track Hold On despite my being a big fan of Friendly Fires. But who in the heck was "Holy Ghost?" I'd never even heard of them before. Then their self-titled debut was released and the only thing that mattered was that I know who they are now. This album is lethally infectious and jam-packed with catchy 80's-flavored pop singles that never leave your head. As if that weren't enough, they got Michael McDonald(!) to collaborate on one of the tracks! The only real criticism I have is that some of the songs have repetitive bits that can drive you crazy. Slow Motion is almost unlistenable it's so bad. Hold My Breath has fucking amazing music, but the ever-repeating "I took some money from the joint account" line is irritating as hell and makes little sense. But, that's Holy Ghost for you, for better or worse. Regardless, the minute I start up the album and hear that intro beat for Do It Again, I'm hooked all over again... which is why this is my #2 album for 2012.
#3 Wasting Light by The Foo Fighters.
My favorite FF album is their self-titled debut and I played the shit out of it back in 1995. Alan Wilder had just left my favorite band of all time (Depeche Mode) and it was the Foo Fighters who came to my rescue in a time of musical crisis. Seven albums later, along comes Wasting Light to remind everybody what a rock album sounds like. While not quite on the level as the more commercial tracks I love, it's nice to hear Grohl & Co. moving forward. Sure there's catchy favorites like Walk and Rope as you'd expect... but there's also raw, blistering tracks like White Limo to keep things interesting. I've come to assume consistently great work from the Foo Fighters, but it took something different to make me really appreciate them as a band all over again. In addition to amazing music, Foo Fighters have some of the best videos ever. The intro for Walk goes on a little too long, but I love it anyway because it sets up the song so wonderfully.
#4 Last Night on Earth by Noah & the Whale
I'll be straight with you, this album isn't going to set the world on fire. It's an acceptable blend of pop and folk that is a pleasant diversion from the standard radio fare, and that's about it. Except... some of the songs are so beautifully executed that I find myself playing Last Night on Earth far more than I normally would. When I was preparing this list I was plenty shocked at the play counts I'd racked up in iTunes. It's almost as if I play it non-stop, which I probably do when I'm working. Reason enough to have this as my #4 for 2011.
#5 Panic of Girls by Blondie
Their last album left me sick with disappointment, so I was reluctant to hop on the Blondie bandwagon again... but boy did they deliver with Panic of Girls! This is a terrific album and a decidedly more mature effort than their early works. I love that the sound for each track is subtly eclectic and interesting... but also so uniquely "Blondie" sounding. Nice to know that Deborah Harry can still belt out a song with the best of them... I'll take her over Adele any day of the week.
#6 Days by Real Estate
Bordering on "easy listening," this album filled with hazy dreamy drifting songs that sparkle just enough to keep you awake. That may sound like a bad thing, but there are times when I'm working or driving that this is exactly what I need in the background of my life.
And before I go...
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR!
The Murf by Rendezvous.
Though, quite honestly, this could very well be the best music video of the decade...
Amazing. Just amazing. I've watched it dozens of times and see something new each time. BOW DOWN BEFORE THE ALMIGHTY SQUID YOU WHALE-WORSHIPING BLASPHEMERS!
SINGLE OF THE YEAR!
Midnight City by M83.
This innovative musical dreamscape that combines a lot of distinctly different elements into a really sweet track had me really excited for the album it came from, Hurry Up We're Dreaming. Unfortunately, the other songs there didn't grab me enough for the album to make my list. Still, the video is pretty darn cool...
I could have just as easily dropped Tounge Tied by Grouplove here. Amazing single, not so amazing album.
And that about sums it up. I'd list my "Worst Albums of 2012," but I never really latched on to anything truly bad this year. I suppose I could ask "What happened to The Decemberists with their new album "The King is Dead?" What's with the twang? Have they gone country? Have they gone INSANE? A huge misstep that may have cost them a fan... but still, there were nice bits too, so it's not like I could even label it as one of the "worst" I had heard this year.
I guess Lady Gaga could get the honor since Born This Way was pretty shitty. It was supposed to be some kind of gay anthem, but she ended up mocking the people she professed to be helping by putting bones on her face and shoulders then giving birth to herself from a giant egg. Well, baby, nobody is fucking born THAT way. All you did was turn yourself into exactly the kind of freak that simple-minded morons already label the gays with, which means the people who could have been influenced by your music were turned away. If you truly wanted to make a difference, you should have put your "art" on the back burner and sang the songs in jeans and a T-shirt or something. But still, her heart was in the right place and I'm guessing she managed to touch those she intended to lift up with her music, so I guess it's not so terrible after all? I dunno.
Anyway... here's hoping that next year all my favorite bands are back with new material in 2012 so I'll have an easier time making my list next December.
For those who only read one of my posts each year... or anybody wanting a recap of the past year here at Blogography... this post is for you! I've jettisoned loads of the usual junk so this entry is "mostly crap" instead of the "total crap" they usually are.
Overall, it was an okay year. Launched a new magazine. Got to escape the country and go to Venice, Spain and Australia. Got to meet one of THE BEST BANDS IN THE WORLD, Matt & Kim, in London. Didn't kill anybody. And any year you don't have to kill somebody can't be all bad, right?
JANUARY
• Did a three-part series on the evolution of Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey, including a look at what could have been.
• Wrote an essay on Violence and America.
• Decided that I needed a new zodiac sign.
• PENIS!
• Explained why it doesn't suck to be me when it comes to travel.
FEBRUARY
• Had an amazing day in Marbella, Spain.
• Ate some PATATJES MET!!
• What the world needs now is Unity and The Golden Rule.
• Had to take an unexpected detour that ended up being worth the inconvenience.
• Was horrified by the monsters who believe that a child lucky enough to have two daddies who will love and cherish him forever is unacceptable... but a child who is orphaned, unwanted, or unloved is somehow better off. Little Samuel is home at last.
MARCH
• One of the biggest events of my year: launched Thrice Fiction Magazine.
• Took a break for a vacation in Venice, Italy.
• Had the absolute best birthday of my life when I got to hang out with Matt & Kim in London!
• Oh yes. Now that he's home, it sure looks like having two dads for parents is ruining poor little Samuel's miserable life.
• As if meeting Matt & Kim wasn't amazing enough, I got to see OMD in concert AND got to attend their rehearsal before the show!
APRIL
• Gave a behind-the-scenes look at how the cover of Thrice Fiction came to be.
• Speculated that I'm not the only one whose life has been put in danger by a baking addiction.
MAY
• Went to Hawaii for work... and my Puka Dog addiction.
• Wondered for the hundredth time why Americans aren't rioting in the streets when they have so many good reasons to do so.
• Everybody panic... IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!
JUNE
• I'm corrupting America's youth, one breakfast at a time.
• Had some Photoshop fun in the face of a riot on "Don't Give a Fuck Day."
• Showed some love for National Chocolate Pudding Day.
JULY
• This year, a Very Special Davelanta.
• Went ghost-busting at the most haunted place in America.
• MEGA CAVERN AND HOT BUTTERED BALLS!
AUGUST
• Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum loves cock.
• My sleep routine leaves a lot to be desired.
• Decided to help out the Republicans with political advice via Happy Endings.
• Was traumatized to find out THIS happened to one of my favorite restaurants on earth.
• Took a short break for some hero worship.
SEPTEMBER
• Saved a baby and pondered the fickle finger of fate.
• Finally managed to take that Trip to Australia that I always wanted.
• Hiked around Uluru (Ayer's Rock) as the Lord of the Flies in the Australian Outback.
• Fulfilled a life-long goal of diving The Great Barrier Reef.
OCTOBER
• Got to spend the morning with Mooselet and Koalas.
• Um, yeah... went sailing in Fiji.
• Took time out for some EXTREME snorkeling with sharks and sea snakes in Fiji... then hung out with dolphins.
• Went purple for a very good reason.
NOVEMBER
• STUPID DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME explained on Guy Fawkes Day.
• WHORE!
DECEMBER
• DEATH TO THE WILHELM SCREAM!!
• A deer tale... a feel good story if there ever was one.
And that about wraps up 2011. Not a bad year, I guess. And you?
Hope your 2012 is a good one, and thanks for reading!
Happiest of New Years to you!
And I'm starting it out with Bullets on the very first day? It's almost too good to be true!
• Resolute! My New Year's Resolutions are the same every year. I passed 2011's with flying colors...
And what am I looking forward to this year?
• Travel! Where am I going in 2012? I have no idea. But I've got some ideas rattling around in my head that I'm excited about.
• Movies! In a list of things I'm looking forward to in 2012, the awesome number of cool new movies coming up is near the top. We've got the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation with John Carter, Bitchin' Joss Whedon super-hero fare with The Avengers, Brilliant zombie apocalypse book adaptation of World War Z, New QUENTIN FRICKIN' TARANTINO with Django Unchained, The latest James Bond flick Skyfall, The final Christoper Nolan Batman movie The Dark Knight, Peter Jackson LOTR Middle Earth followup The Hobbit, the Ridley Scott "Alien" prequel Prometheus, and loads more. Good stuff, Maynard.
• Music! It ain't going to be a bad year for the music I like either. Macintosh Braun, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Matt & Kim, and OMD are all reported to be working on new albums in 2012... just to name a few.
• Fiction! I am really looking forward to putting out three more issues of Thrice Fiction Magazinethis year. To go a step further, I am really looking forward to developing a Thrice Fiction iPad app. The details are ever-changing and murky, but it's something I really want to happen in 2012.
• Comics! Now that I've managed to build shelving for my collection and get everything organized, I'm looking forward to buying all my comic books digitally. I just don't have room for any more printed books (much as I love them), and the value of any new stuff can't hold when everything new is available online at any time (presumably) forever. I am slowly getting used to reading comics on my iPad. It's not been difficult given all the great digital sales they keep having over at Comixology.
• Apple! And, of course, there's whatever Cupertino has up their sleeves this year. iPhone5? iPad3? New MacBook Airs in MacBook Pro sizes? Whatever ends up being released, this is one Mac Whore who can't wait to find out.
Here's hoping 2012 is at least a little better to me than 2011. With so much to look forward to, I certainly hope so.
A couple months ago I was in an auto parts store.*
While waiting in line to pay for whatever it was I was buying**, the guy behind me announced "I gotta take a dump like nobody's business, so can we hurry the line up?"
Naturally, I found this fascinating.
Not that the guy had to take a raging poop, but that he felt comfortable sharing such information. It had me curious to know why this was, and what other personal business he'd be sharing with us that day. Fortunately, I left before finding out.
And then I remembered that the internet is so much worse. People are forever talking about their bodily functions, their health problems, their relationships, and other personal crap online. I always thought that it was the abstraction... having a computer (or phone or whatever) in-between the person and their audience... that made this possible, but I guess that's not the case. People just like to share. Misery loves company, and all that.
People also love money, which explains shows like Jerry Springer, The Bachelor, Judge Judy, and the rest. For me, the bigger mystery would have to be Why do other people care enough to tune in, but whatever.
ANYWAY...
The reason I bring this up is that I am still getting email because of my "diaper problem."
Never mind that I don't actually have a "diaper problem" and it was a joke comment left on another person's site, people follow a link back to my blog, find my email address, and are compelled to write. Usually with suggestions of diaper brands... but also to share tips & tricks or to let me know about diaper support communities or (worst-case scenario) diaper fetish sites.
That's all well and good, I guess. Most of the people are simply trying to be helpful.
But today's email had photos attached.
And now that my retinas have stopped burning, I can see that there are times when the sharing goes too far. Waaayyyyy too far.
Though, now that I think about it, I really should have printed those photos before deleting the email. That way, the next time somebody announces they need to take a dump while I'm waiting in line at the auto parts store,*** I can show them a way to avoid such an uncomfortable situation in the future.
Or get punched in the face. One or the other.
*Don't ask me why. I wouldn't know what to do with an auto part. Any auto part.
**Seriously, I have no idea what I was buying. I'd say it was replacement wiper blades (that's the only thing I'd know how to fix) but the blades on my car are shit, so that wasn't it.
***Though I still have no clue why I would go back to an auto parts store. WHAT IN THE HECK WAS I DOING THERE?!?
"Holy crap it's dark out tonight!" I said to myself as I strained against the darkness. This was surprising because I left work only a half-hour later than usual. I wanted to see if the moon was obstructed, but didn't want to take my eyes off the road, so I gave up. I've driven the route home hundreds of time so there wasn't a problem, but it was still kind of freaking me out. Do I have glaucoma? Am I night-blind now?
Nope. When I got home I noticed I had my sunglasses on for some reason and didn't realize it.
I wear my sunglasses at night. So I can... so I can... see the light that's right before my eyes!
And speaking of stumbling around in the dark...
Who still listens to this disgusting fraud?
I don't know what's more surprising... the fact that Pat Robertson can command "God" to show him stuff... or that he seems to feel that the crazy shit he says doesn't contribute to the "internal stress that's tearing this country apart." And, of course, "God" says it's all President Obama's fault, so there's that. Seems kind of silly. I mean, Robertson says that "God" causes earthquakes because He doesn't like the gays... why can't He just put a tornado on The White House front lawn? Robertson's "God" sure sounds wishy-washy. But fictional delusions can be that way.
I'd say when it comes to the wholesale blasphemy of putting words in God's mouth, it looks like Pat Robertson has the market cornered. What a hateful piece of shit.
He can't roast in hell fast enough.
When it comes to the Republican merry-go-round of candidates, I'm getting pretty tired of hearing "THIS is the best that the Conservatives have to run against Obama?!?" And, yes, I'm as guilty as everybody else. It's a natural reaction to the buckets of crazy that the GOP has been pouring over the American populace as they attempt to get somebody elected president in November.
The reason I'm getting tired is that the answer is already very obvious. "No, this is NOT the best that the Conservatives have to run against Obama, they're just the only players willing to do so." And it's true. All the smart, powerful, respectable potential candidates didn't want to throw away millions of dollars for a loss when they'd have much better odds in 2016 once President Obama is out of the picture. They know that an Obama victory in 2012 is pretty much assured, so why bother? Besides, it just gives the Obama-disillusioned Independent populace (like me) four more years to rage over the stupid crap that clings to his presidency like a pair of Tiberian bats.
And so now the second-tier candidates (like Huntsman, Gingrich, and Paul) are starting to fall away just as the tenth-tier loser candidates (like Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum) are starting to drop... paving the way for Romney to take the nomination. Like what was supposed to happen all along.
And here's the point where all the Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum supporters start banging out emails to me saying "TENTH-TIER LOSER?!? RICK SANTORUM CAME IN A VERY CLOSE SECOND IN IOWA, YOU DUMBASS!"
To which I'd have to respond "What did you expect?" Every waking moment that Santorum hasn't been fantasizing over the cock sandwich he obviously wants so badly, he's been campaigning in Iowa. He's gone to every county in the State. He's practically gone door-to-door to every house begging for votes. He's put all his eggs in one Iowa basket, so of course he's done well. But he still lost. And now? IOWA IS OVER! Santorum has to move on to places where he's invested no time and very little money. Places where he has no real chance of winning.
Which, of course, brings us to Michele Bachmann.
I am so ready for a woman to be president. I am not lying or even exaggerating here. But I have to be given somebody to vote for who is worth a crap. That person was not Hilary Clinton. It couldn't be Sarah Palin. And it sure the fuck isn't Michele "Batshit Crazy" Bachmann. Or I guess I should say it wasn't Bachmann, because she's now suspended her campaign. For all intents and purposes, she's out of the race.
Which is a darn shame, because her being certifiably insane made the rest of the Republican candidates seem far less crazy by comparison. No matter how much Romney, Gingrich, or Paul screwed up, they could always point over at Bachmann and say "Sure, but at least I'm not THAT hot mess over there!" But not any more. I suppose they could point at Santorum, but he's (hopefully) not going to be around long enough to be worth it.
And so now I am left with one burning question...
When people like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann who tell everybody that "GOD CALLED ON ME TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT!" end up getting dismissed in disgrace or utterly pummeled before the race even truly begins... how do they reconcile this?
Did God set them up just to watch them fall? Do they now believe that God was lying to them all along? Did they do something wrong in the eyes of The Lord to make them lose His favor?
Wouldn't it be ironic if it was their lack of support for Same-Sex Marriage that made "God" displeased with them?
The scenarios I come up with, approaching things as best I am able from theological standpoint, are as follows...
You can probably guess which of these makes the most sense to me.
Despite studying The Bible more thoroughly than most Christians ever will, I am not a Christian. But I still have strong ties to the Christian Faith because there are many people I cherish and love who are Christians. Just as there are people I cherish who are Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, and other religions you might name.
For this reason, you will understand my disgust and frustration with people like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum who make a mockery of Christianity by speaking for God. They force THEIR ideals onto other people with persecution and hate, say it comes from GOD, then use their interpretation of The Bible to justify it in a way that makes me wonder if they ever actually read The Bible in the first place.
As an outsider looking in, I can honestly say that this doesn't seem very "Christian" to me at all. My opinion is entirely supported by empirical evidence when I see Michele Bachmann giving up on her bid for president. And... until Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum is elected president in a landslide, then goes on to lead this country to its greatest period of peace and prosperity ever... well, it will probably continue to be my opinion.
As always, I reserve my admiration and respect for those who use their Faith as a way to enrich their lives and be happy while allowing others to do the same with whatever Faith they hold true. Sadly, more and more I see Faith being used as a weapon. For this reason alone, I won't be shedding any tears now that Michele "batshit crazy" Bachmann and her Jesus Sword won't be our president... despite the avalanche of material it would give to The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live.
I guess we'll just have to wait for her FOX "News" contributor gig to happen for that.
It used to be that when I heard somebody say "I'm my own worst enemy" I would reply "THEN STOP FIGHTING WITH YOURSELF, YA MORON!"
Not out loud, of course. I'd say it in my head. But I always thought this was the stupidest saying ever because anybody who has themselves as an enemy and is still alive must be really bad in a fight. If I were MY own worst enemy, there'd be no survivors.
But lately I've had a change of heart.
Sometimes enemies are so lethal that they are at a perpetual stalemate. Which means there doesn't necessarily have to be death and destruction when facing off with an arch-rival...
That's pretty much me right now.
Except all the fight has been beaten out of me over the past month, so it's not that I'm too lethal to battle myself, it's that I'm too tired to put up much of a fight.
Which means my own worst enemy is badly in need of an ass-kicking.
If only I cared enough to give one to myself.
I used to love going to the movies.
I rarely go anymore.
Roger Ebert recently wrote an editorial commentary called "I'll tell you why movie revenue is dropping..." In it, he dissects why people aren't going out to the theater anymore. I thought I'd go through point by point to figure out where I fit in.
I remember several years ago... like ten years... maybe more like eight years ago... I was on a movie date watching Spider-Man 2. About 20 minutes in, some idiot's mobile phone goes off... and he answers it. My date dug into my arm with her nails because she knew this is exactly the kind of situation that causes me to go off. But somebody else beat me to it. "HOPE THE MOVIE ISN'T DISTURBING YOUR PHONE CALL, BUDDY!" he yelled. The man who took the call screamed back "MY WIFE WENT INTO THE HOSPITAL THIS MORNING, SO I HAVE TO TAKE THE CALL YOU ASSHOLE!" At this point I couldn't take it any longer and screamed "YOUR WIFE IS IN THE HOSPITAL AND YOU'RE AT A MOVIE THEATER? WHAT A DICK!" This cause the crowd to start applauding and the idiot with the phone left never to return.
It was at that point I realized that movie theaters were doomed.
Moviegoers have always had to deal with people who talk during the film and smack their popcorn and kick the seats, but mobile phones? This was a disaster. Who the heck is going to want to pay a stack of money for movie and overpriced refreshments if they're going to have to listen to people talk on the phone while they're trying to watch a film? Hell, escaping from having to listen to people on their phones is one of the best reasons to go to the theater!
Clearly movie theater companies would have to do something about this.
But other than those lame "turn off your mobile phone" messages that are flashed for a second after the previews, they don't seem to give a crap.
And now it's even worse because people are texting during the movie. Theater companies seem to care even less about texters because they "aren't disturbing anybody." Except they ARE. All those glowing screens are a huge fucking distraction when you're trying to watch the film...
Though SOME theaters have the right idea about that...
...but most don't.
And since I don't have an Alamo Drafthouse nearby to kick the rude assholes out of the theater, I just stopped going. Now the only time I'll go is when it's a movie I'm just dying to see... and even then I usually go to mid-day showings and wait for as long as I can so the crowds will have died down.
So attention theater companies: Stop your whining about falling revenue.
Because if you really wanted to lure me back as a customer, you'd start doing your part to make it a worthwhile experience. Which means kicking out the talkers, seat kickers, phone callers, and texters so people can actually enjoy watching the movie they paid to see.
Until that happens, I'd rather watch a movie on my iPhone than in your stupid, annoying theater, even though David Lynch will eat my soul...
Maybe I won't be "experiencing the movie" but at least I won't be "experiencing movie theater hell."
For the past couple weeks I have been feeling badly dehydrated all day long. I'd say it was the dry winter air wrecking havoc on me, but I've never had this problem before. The upshot is that I am constantly drinking fluids, which means I can't stop peeing. I have to pee right now and I just went pee a half-hour ago. I'd run to the bathroom to pee, but I'd just end up having to pee again once I got back to my computer. So now I'm dancing in my chair with the hope that I can put off peeing for just a little while longer.
Except all this talk about going pee has just made things worse.
DAMMIT!
And now I'm back.
This would all be a lot easier if I just stood in the bathroom all day long while somebody kept me permanently saturated with Gatorade...
Or somebody just has to start manufacturing my Dream Bed with a Toilet...
Alas, I'm not going to hold my breath.
What I am going to do is reach for my water bottle since I'm parched again.
Drinking all this water is supposed to be healthy, but it sure doesn't feel like it when I have to go pee every 20 minutes.
Maybe it's time to start looking into those adult diapers after all?
It's Bullet Sunday in the middle of Winter... except the sunny days and complete lack of snow makes if feel a lot more like Spring. I'm seriously starting to wonder if we're ever going to get a winter. Hope everybody in the Valley is fond of water shortages come Summer.
• Doodle! The "Google Doodles" are always interesting, but the Charles Addams birthday doodle from yesterday hit it out of the park...
The original cartoons were genius. Still are. And this was the perfect tribute. If your only experience with The Addams Family is the old television show and the Barry Sonnenfeld movies, then you owe it to yourself to check out the original cartoon collections. Not only are they funny as hell, but the artwork is absolutely beautiful. Even the most simple drawings have lush details and textures...
Besides, who doesn't love Uncle Fester?
• Taco! As the Doritos flavors keep getting more and more "extreme" I find myself liking them less and less. Nacho Cheese Doritos are so caked with cheese powder that you can barely taste the corn anymore. Which is why I'm such a big fan of the "retro" re-release of the original-flavor 1960's Taco Doritos. I thought they were going to be a temporary thing, but they keep showing up at the grocery store...
The flavor is nicely "taco-like" but not at all overwhelming. You can still taste the corn chip. They also make an incredible topper to a veggie taco salad. I have my fingers crossed that they continue to be popular so Frito-Lay will keep making them.
• Ojo! I've worn glasses for what seems like forever... but it's the "vitreous floaters" that are the real problem with my eyes. For those lucky enough not to know what "vitreous floaters" are, they're tiny particles floating around in the goo that's in the middle of your eyeball. They cast shadows on your retina which makes little blurry spots that move around your field of vision. Most of the time I don't notice them. But, as I get older, more and more of them are forming. This makes them more noticeable more often.
Every once in a while, I do an internet search to see if there's any new technology for dealing with the problem. Maybe they've found a laser than can vaporize the floaters. Or maybe there's a new medicine that can disintegrate them. But, alas, no. The only solution seems to be to suck the goo out of the middle of my eye and completely replace it with saline water. It sounds horrific. And dangerous. And I'm not nearly desperate enough to let somebody suck goo out of my eyeball. At least not yet.
But now the reality is setting in that one day I may actually be that desperate.
Holy crap.
• Firm! I'm a fan of nearly all the early John Grisham books. They're not deep by any means, but they are darn good entertainment. The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Runaway Jury... all good fun. But it's The Firm (the first Grisham book I read) that I like the best. It was a really good story that had some genuine suspense built-in. Sure the Tom Cruise movie fucked all that up, but I still always wondered what happened to the characters in the book. Instead of that, I got this...
NBC Television has a new series called The Firm which picks up ten years after the FILM ended (not the book). And, despite starring the talented Josh Lucas, it's kind of a mess in the way it bounces around. Mitch McDeere is no longer on the run... he's just a lawyer with a sketchy past doing regular lawyer stuff (like most every other lawyer show on TV). In other words The Firm has become boring and unoriginal. Sure there's hints that things are going to ramp up, but in a totally redundant way. Mitch is involved with yet another evil law firm! Not enough of a retread? Oh yeah... here comes the mob. Again. What the hell? Oh well. It's not like I had time to fit a new show in my television-watching schedule anyway.
• Debate! The Republican Debate last night was... interesting. You get the sense that the candidates reeeeeally don't like each other. At all. Indeed the only thing they seem to hate more than each other is President Obama. I guess this is understandable, but they blow it way out of proportion. I'm not Obama's biggest fan by a longshot, but the level of blame they lay at his doorstep is categorically absurd. In many respects, President Obama is practically a Republican, so it's kind of senseless too. But I guess they gotta play to their voter base however they can, and demonizing Obama is a quick and easy way to do that.
The debate itself was pretty lame... but also a bit enlightening. Mitt Romney comes across as a huge dick when he fails at being clever, which is often. Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum bounces between being a disgruntled idiot and a whiny baby. Newt Gingrich is just plain bitter all the time. Rick Perry is just fucking stupid. Ron Paul is entertaining, but not always in a good way.
And then there's Jon Huntsman. The only current Republican candidate I can even fathom voting for. He's got Conservative sensibilities. He's got loads of experience in the international arena. He's personable and inspiring. He's smart, quick on his feet, and not overly-reactionary. In short... I honestly believe that he's the only GOP candidate that could move independent voters in a race against Obama. And yet... his own party seems to hate him. Probably because he's not Conservative to crazy enough extremes. It's a real shame too, because nobody else on that stage is going to woo the much-needed middle ground. If things keep going like they are, I guess we're getting four more years of ObamaNation.
Annnnd... I'm spent. Sometimes bullets can really take it out of a guy.
Today while heading home from work I had to slam on my brakes to avoid being hit by somebody pulling out of a parking lot. I stopped so hard that I strained my neck. It was a crappy end to a crappy day... though, now that I think about it, there's still two hours left for something new to go terribly wrong.
In better news, today is the fifth anniversary of the original iPhone...
It hardly seems like it was five whole years ago. Partly because it still looks more beautiful and modern than the majority of mobiles on the market... but mostly because I know people who are still using their original iPhones to this day...
And I'm fairly certain I'd rather have a first-gen iPhone than anything I've tried from Android, Microsoft, or Blackberry (are they even around anymore?). Sure I'd miss the speed, the 3G data throughput, and the ability to run the latest version of iOS... but at least it's still an iPhone. Such is the price you pay for being an Apple Whore, I guess.
So happy birthday iPhone, and many more.
Now I'm taking a pill for my neck so I can go to bed. Yay.
And so this happened...
Now that Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum has come in a pathetic fifth place after Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich, is it too much to hope that he drops out of the race?
Because please, Rick, please drop out of the race.
I am just done with your stupid fucked-up racist, homophobic, sexophobic, anti-woman, anti-college, anti-poor, anti-environment, anti-gay, anti-diversity, anti-American bullshit, and there's no place in this country for your disgusting hate-filled rhetoric.
Just be content that you took a big ol' dump on the USA and move on.
Then never show your face in public again. The only thing I ever want to see of you is the giant shit stain that's left once you've been scraped off the face of America and tossed in the garbage where you belong.
Oh, and before I forget... fuck you for shitting all over my country. That stain is not going to be an easy thing to get out. Even with some Oxi-Clean and a bottle of Clorox.
I was kinda raised Catholic. And while I had already started pulling away from the church by the time Pope John Paul II came along, I was a big fan. He spoke dozens of languages and worked tirelessly to travel the world to use those skills to build good relationships with other faiths. He had respect for all people and believed strongly in the basic concepts of dignity and human rights. And while I may not have agreed with some of his more antiquated, traditional, and fundamental views, I always admired his attempts to find common ground in the face of disagreement. He was a remarkable man and I'm still a fan today...
Which is why I am so disheartened with his successor, Pope Benedict XVI...
He's systematically destroyed much of the good will that Pope John Paul II had built up between Catholics and the rest of the world. And while I have respect for Pope Benedict's position as Supreme Pontiff, the way he's hurt the church with the crazy-ass shit he says has been heartbreaking. He lays the groundwork for abhorrent Catholic radicals to have the power they do. Even though their hateful crap contradict polls which show that most Catholics are fairly progressive on issues like same-sex marriage.
So what benefit is it to everyday Catholics when these extremists decide to force their faith-based interpretation of "morality" on the rest of the world?
I wonder.
When I see the news of kids committing suicide because they are ruthlessly persecuted and victimized by the environment created by the likes of Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum and Maggie "Repugnant Hypocrite" Gallagher ... my view of Catholicism is badly tarnished.
And when I see the continuous stream of shocking headlines associated with the church, I have to wonder if these hateful morons shouldn't be casting a judgmental eye on their own house before condemning the houses of others.
Headlines like this one...
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH'S PEDOPHILE INVESTIGATOR JAILED FOR POSSESSING THOUSANDS OF CHILD PORN IMAGES
Oog.
The Catholics Come Home television commercial I just saw (which caused me to write all this in the first place) is supposed to be reaching out to former Catholics by letting them know that their church is waiting for them. That they are wanting to help them return to a faith-based journey of true peace, happiness, and purpose in life.
They are speaking to people like me...
...who is someone that would never in a million years return to the Catholic Church as it exists today. Not when the people who so prominently represent the church are people who repulse me.
Well... not all of them repulse me.
There is at least one prominent Catholic today I admire quite a lot: Stephen Colbert. More on him in tomorrow's entry.
Picking up from where I left off in my last entry where I started talking about Stephen Colbert...
Yesterday morning I went to the Colbert Nation website so I could take another look at a particularly outrageous video showing just how huge a piece of shit Rush Limbaugh is. The footage hadn't been posted yet, but I did find something equally interesting. All of the heroes who donated money to the Colbert Super PAC could type in their name and see a video clip where Stephen Colbert thanked them on his show. Sweet! Here's me...
Oh... and last night I checked again and the video I wanted to watch again had been posted...
Yes! Such is the irrefutable integrity of FOX "News" and Rush Limbaugh. And do you think they'll even consider issuing a retraction? Or even a clarification? I suppose it depends on how big of a fallout there is from a fucking COMEDY NETWORK SHOW fact-checking the Conservative agenda at FOX. As I've said a dozen times, I don't give a shit where anybody chooses to get their news. But be honest about it. Anybody watching FOX "News" (or any network, really) who believes that they're getting a "Fair and Balanced" look at politics and current events is hopelessly deluded. Go sell that bullshit somewhere else.
In any event... I, for one, am thrilled to see that my tax dollars are actually going to a good cause for once...
Trick-or-Treat! — Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Ever since we first had a White House, our presidents have held extravagant events for all kinds of reasons. President Reagan once held a massively pricey State Dinner for Princess Diana (and invited John Travolta for heavens sake). But because this is President Obama we're talking about, first he gets eviscerated for throwing some military families a Halloween party, then gets accused with lies of having covered it up?
Seriously?
Spending crazy amounts of money on a visiting princess from a foreign country doesn't register outrage, but spending money to treat American heroes who have sacrificed so much for our country... well... they're just not worth it.
But regardless, you'd think that Fox "News" would have brought up some of the expensive White House events from the past in the interest of being "Fair and Balanced"... but no. And it's not like anybody would expect that sack of shit Rush Limbaugh to ever utter a single fucking word that wasn't in some way attacking this country's president. His listeners would probably have an embolism if he were to tell them that Ronald Reagan also threw expensive parties at the White House during a time of economic crisis. Even if he didn't relate LIES that the government then covered it up. Because you can make up whatever outrageous crap you want about President Obama, but don't you dare say anything even remotely disparaging about President Reagan! He was a Founding Father of this great nation and a True Christian... not some kind of Secret Muslim Socialist like Obama!
I swear, sometimes the dumbfuckery of the gullible American public is so overwhelming I have to sit back and marvel at the fact that half the populace has the brain power to even breath... let alone think for themselves. And why should they do that? There's a bloated asshole on the radio manipulating them with bullshit and lies they're too fucking stupid to ever question. Because thinking is hard.
GAH! It's enough to drive you crazy.
I really need to start drinking more.
I don't really believe in old wive's tales and superstitions and stuff. Sure I feel that most superstitions are probably rooted in a grain of truth since they keep getting reinforced through the ages. But time has a way of warping the truth, so it's not like I think that "stepping on a crack will break my mother's back"... or "wishing on a shooting star makes your wish come true"... or that "Friday the 13th is is an unlucky day."
But boy was my belief (or lack thereof) tested today.
Because if I believed in luck, this would have been a horribly unlucky day. So many things kept going wrong that it felt as if my world had been turned up-side-down...
But now that the day is over, I've decided it was just a coincidence. Bad days happen from time to time, mine happened to be on Friday the 13th, and now I - - -
Uhhh... ow.
Just as I was typing that last sentence, I got a wicked leg cramp.
Guess it's probably best to stop writing... post this entry... and then go to bed before my living room explodes or something...
Stupid Friday the 13th.
Lately I've been looking at some of the "Voter Guides" that are put out by various organizations. They are meant to dissect the candidates on the issues so you can be "an informed voter." Some of them are kind of funny. Some of them are kind of sad. A few of them are kind of disgusting. But most all of them seem to be more "instructions" than "guides." These organizations have an agenda, and they slant everything towards their candidate of choice... all while claiming to be "presenting the facts." But whatever. If it helps like-minded individuals figure out their vote, I guess that's better than voting with no information at all.
But, thanks to the internet, there are also "Voter Guides" that are actually trying to be guides. They allow the voter to input how they feel about various issues, then calculates candidate scores based on how they have campaigned on those same issues. Assuming that the data used for the calculations is faithful to the candidates' views, it's a really helpful tool.
Like this one from Voting Aid, where you move sliders based on how you agree (or disagree) with a statement, and it finds your candidate...
Unfortunately, they show the scores as you answer the questions which is kind of defeating the purpose. This allows the user to adjust answers based on any predisposition they might have towards the candidates. I know I was certainly tempted to try and adjust my answers so that Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum got the lowest score possible.
But it turns out I didn't have to bother. Even when answering the questions as honestly and accurately as I could, the asshole still came in dead-last...
The surprising thing here is not that Jon Huntsman is the candidate who is most compatible with my views. That was totally expected. The surprise was that Ron Paul ranked so low. I'd have thought he would have come in much higher. Certainly higher than Rick Perry if I were ranking them manually. Probably higher than Mitt Romney.
Anyway...
My results were accurate from the standpoint that the only candidate I would consider voting for in a race with President Obama would be Jon Huntsman.
But, alas, it looks like I won't have to worry about that contest.
And since none of the other candidates have a chance of wooing the independent voters needed to defeat Obama, I'm kind of pulling for Gingrich to win over Romney because at least then we'd have some good debates.
But, alas, it looks like I won't have to worry about that either.
In all likelihood we're getting Mittens as a candidate followed by four more years of President Obama.
Yay.
It's Bullet Sunday and I'm so happy I could crap my pants!
• That Dog Won't Hunt! So Jon Huntsman, the only Republican candidate that I might have voted for, is dropping out of the race. And since the remaining candidates will be hard pressed to sway independent voters to their respective agendas, I guess that we're in for four more years of President Obama. Unless he punches Betty White in the face while wiping his ass with the American flag during a televised White House press conference or something.
Now, if you will excuse me, I shall now go and mourn the loss of what could have been our three First Daughters...
Sadly, Mitt Romney has no hot daughters (that he knows of, I'm sure). Though I'm starting to wonder if he'll even be a factor now that Stephen Colbert has entered the race in South Carolina and these wicked attack ads are airing...
Genius. And it's funny because it's true!
• It's a Fucking Frog! Just when I think that it's impossible for nature to shock me more than it already has... along comes The World's Tiniest Frog...
Photograph by Christopher Austin, Louisiana State University
How?
How in the hell is this even possible? That's a DIME! And that's an actual frog sitting on top... not even half the size of the coin. How does its lungs function when they must barely be the size of the air molecules they breathe in? Unbelievable. And cute. Lookat da iddybitty froggy!
• ZOMFG it's Music! After one of my favorite bands, The Shins, kind of imploded... I worried that we'd never hear from them again. Shins mastermind James Mercer appeared to move on to a new collaboration called Broken Bells with DJ Danger Mouse, so I figured that was the end of it. But lo and behold this last week I got an iTunes pre-sale notice for a new band line-up and a new album called Port of Morrow...
My expectations are high. Fortunately, the preview track Simple Song didn't disappoint. Can't wait until I get to hear the rest of the album in March. You can pre-order your own copy at the iTunes Music Store here.
• Eggxactly Right! Because groceries are so stupid-expensive, I find myself buying foodstuffs not because I necessarily want them, but because they're on sale for cheap. Most of the time, this comes back to bite me in the ass, but every once in a while I stumble across something so delicious that I wonder how I ever survived without it. Such was the case with Crystal Farms' "Three Cheese Chef's Omlet" from the freezer case...
Holy cow. It's the perfect omelet. Light, fluffy, and loaded with quality, flavorful cheese... from a frickin' microwave! When served on buttered toast with a little ground pepper... it's a quick and easy breakfast that's so good. Which means that it's probably being discontinued and the reason it was on sale was because they were clearing out their inventory. Crap.
• Well I'll Be! And so Washington State is dangerously close to passing Marriage Equality legislation. Color me pleasantly surprised. Despite the fact that "The Coast" is decidedly liberal... the view from Redneckistan here on the other side of the mountains is often cloudy when it comes to gay marriage. Oh I'm sure there are many people here who have no problem with everybody getting their fair shot at happiness (as promised when our country was founded). And there's undoubtedly a growing number of people here who are tired of their gay friends and family being relegated to second class citizens. And it's certain that more and more heterosexual couples are realizing that same-sex marriage has
So maybe.
It just comes down to whether enough politicians will do the right thing and move forward in a way that an increasing majority of Americans want to have happen. Here's hoping.
And now I have to get back to work. And Dune, which is playing as background noise here in my living room. THE SPICE MUST FLOW!
I started today the same way I start every Martin Luther King Jr. Day... by listening to his brilliant and beautiful "I have a Dream" speech in its entirety. In my humble opinion, it's probably one of the best-known speeches that most people never bother to listen to. That's a real shame, because it's famous for a very good reason.
Anyway...
I spent the entirety of my day at work, so I don't have anything to blog about.
What I do have is this awesome video for one of my favorite songs from my second-favorite album of 2011... it's Wait & See by Holy Ghost!
What's so awesome about it is that band members Nick Millhiser and Alex Frankel only make cameo appearances... they let their fathers be the stars of the video! That's right, they got their dads to stand in for them as aging pop stars who still act like they're in their twenties. Freakin' hilarious...
Always nice to see a music video that can surprise me.
I first became a fan of Betty White while watching reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her character of Sue Ann Nivens was about the most beautifully messed-up thing I had ever seen on television, and any episode where she appeared was guaranteed to be a laugh riot.
This led to me watching game shows where Betty might appear, and her guest-spots on Match Game, Password, and many others became the stuff of legends.
After that, Betty became a bit of an obsession, and I'd watch anything she'd appear on. And yes, this included 180 episodes of The Golden Girls plus twenty-some-odd episodes of The Golden Palace. Probably because of all the things Betty has done, playing naive and innocent Rose Nylund was the most bizarre. It was not only opposite of what Betty White was like in real-life... but it was also opposite from most other characters she had played. The easy route would have been for her to take the role of man-obsessed sex-fiend Blanche Devereaux (which she was originally offered), but instead she went for the role that would be more of a challenge.
Though, I dare say that playing one of the sweetest, kindest people on earth wasn't too much of a stretch. Betty's tireless efforts on behalf of animals and other worthwhile organizations sets the bar for others to follow. And despite her having always been a bit raunchy, the fact that she is so widely known to be incredibly kind, caring, and generous makes it easy for me to be a huge, huge fan...
As you can imagine, I was very happy when she made such a huge comeback in recent years. Though, in reality, she never really went anywhere (as her massive IMDB page will show). To see legions of people loving on Betty as I had for decades is pretty amazing. That this newfound popularity led to even more fantastic appearances... such as her groundbreaking guest-hosting gig on Saturday Night Live... not to mention a new television show with Hot in Cleveland... is a Betty-fan's dream come true.
So Happy 90th Birthday to one of my favorite people on earth!
Here's hoping for many more birthdays, and many more years of doing what you do best... entertaining the world in a way few people have ever done!
If you want to help her celebrate, I can think of no better way than cruising YouTube for Betty White videos. That can bring a smile on even the worst days!
Today my blog has joined with thousands of other sites that are going dark in protest of SOPA & PIPA legislation, both of which have the scary possibility of destroying freedom of expression on the internet.
Of course since my site is dark you can't read this... but, if you're in the future now, you can take a look at what Blogography looked like today by clicking on this link (thanks to Zachary Johnson for the awesome code!).
If you are so inclined, you can read more about SOPA & PIPA here.
If you would prefer not to get into the gory details, suffice to say that SOPA & PIPA are trying to do a good thing (crack down on internet piracy) badly (by destroying the internet). It basically boils down to politicians sucking up to lobbyists at the expense of the people they are supposed to be serving.
I absolutely support fighting piracy. I work with industries which have been damaged by people stealing their property, and I know the havoc it causes. So when idiot politicians who have been duped (or bought) to defend SOPA & PIPA are saying "we're fighting to save American jobs!"... they're actually talking about people like me. But they're not speaking for people like me. Because I would never support this kind of stupid shit which would do nothing to actually stop piracy. Ultimately SOPA & PIPA are more about censorship than justice, and I'll have no part of it.
The only internet that matters is a free and open internet.
Anything less, for better or worse, is unacceptable, and nobody should be given the power to change that.
ZOMFG! I have a cold y'all!
I'm fairly lucky in that I rarely get hit with colds or the flu. After going back through my blog, I see that the last time I had a cold was in February of 2009... or three years ago. Not surprisingly, everything I'm feeling now was pretty much summed up when I wrote about it then. LOL! LMFAO! ROTFL!
I say "not surprisingly" because my "cold routine" is always the same...
DAY ONE!
SYMPTOMS: Sinus tickle... beginnings of a sore throat.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You're coming down with a cold!
PRESCRIPTION: Overdose on Vitamin C, Spirulina, and Excederin PM for sleep.
DAY TWO!
SYMPTOMS: Runny nose, congestion, sore throat.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You totally have a cold now!
PRESCRIPTION: Overdose on Vitamin C and Spirulina. Take DayQuil to survive the work day. Take NyQuil to go comatose at night. Go on a Pine-Orange-Banana juice fast. Zinc lozenges throughout the day.
DAY THREE!
SYMPTOMS: Congestion so bad your head will explode, very runny nose, sore throat.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You are dying!
PRESCRIPTION: Same as day two... PLUS chocolate pudding.
DAY FOUR!
SYMPTOMS: Minor residual symptoms... little bit of a runny nose left.
DIAGNOSIS: Dude! You're gonna live!
PRESCRIPTION: Regular doses of Vitamin C and Spirulina. NO cold medications.
Now... if I'm lucky, Day Four is the end of it. I wake up on Day Five and am pretty much cured. But every once in a while, I get "The Cold Cure Fake-Out" which means your cold comes back stronger and harder than ever on Day Five. In which case I'm screwed. Colds like that can hang on for weeks.
Right now I am at the end of Day Three. I can already feel my cold breaking, and have stopped taking all cold medication (I find it's good to stop as soon as possible, because cold meds seem to prolong a cold if taken too long). Which means tomorrow I'll start recovering. That's awesome, because two days of misery is more than enough.
But then there's Day Five. Where I'm either cured or screwed.
Now there's a Saturday to look forward to.
I love the music of Etta James.
And even though the concert I attended with Ms. Sizzle ended up being one of the most bizarre events of my life, I feel incredibly blessed to have seen her perform live. Truly, there are few talents that can even approach that of Ms. James.
My favorite song of hers is the one she's most famous for. And while I could have easily tracked down something more obscure, I wouldn't have found anything more beautiful...
Rest in peace, Etta. Your amazing voice will live on forever.
Last night as my cold was ending and my sinuses were draining out, I was aching too much to sleep. Instead I wrote today's blog post. This morning I went to read it and couldn't understand what in the heck I was talking about. At first I was going to try and edit it into something cohesive, but decided to delete it instead.
Luckily Kim came along with a meme to blog about this fine Saturday (which Marty also did). It's ELEVEN RANDOM THINGS ABOUT YOU!
And now I'm answering Kim's Eleven questions...
I think I'm supposed to ask eleven questions of my own now, but I'm wiped out. Kim has good questions... answer hers!
THE SNOWPOCALYPSE IS UPON US! SNOWMAGEDDON IS HERE! Grab that special someone and bundle up tight, because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Depp! People can say what they like, but nobody in cinema amazes me like Johnny Depp. The guy is absolutely talented... absolutely fearless... and absolutely brilliant. He can disappear into a role unlike anybody else, and owns any character he takes on. And this time it's yet another Tim Burton collaboration where he will be playing Barnabas Collins in the movie adaptation of Dark Shadows. This one image that's been released is enough to make me want to see this movie...
Just like it only took one image for me to want to see these movies...
I'll be the first to admit that not every film Johnny Depp signs onto ends up being great. But his performances are always interesting. It's hard to ask for anything more than that, so I'm always looking forward to his next performance.
• Sniffle! I tend to look at everything as a learning experience. Even having a cold. This time around I learned about a new tissue... COOL TOUCH KLEENEX...
It is awesome on a sore nose because it is, in fact, cool to the touch. And it feels great on your nose. I think it must be some kind of scent-free menthol-like substance that is body-heat activated. Or not. But however they make it happen, it's a pretty sweet advance in tissue technology, and the only tissue I'll be buying from now on.
• Must-See TV! I have to say, I am loving the new FOX television series The Finder, and that was totally unexpected given that it's a spin-off of Bones, which is a show I can't stand...
I could tell you what a terrific, quirky character Walter "The Finder" Sherman is (played by Geoff Stults) and how entertaining the stories are, but all I really need to say is that it has Michael Clarke Duncan in it. If you're looking for something a little different to watch this winter, this show may be worth a look. You can catch the last couple episodes streaming on the official FOX site.
• Netflix Streaming Movie of the Month! Lately I've been on a foreign movie binge and discovering some real gems. The latest is a wonderful French film called The Grocer's Son now streaming on Netflix...
After his father has a heart attack, a guy living in Paris returns to his family home in the countryside to help his mother with their store. His job is to drive a grocery van to small villages and remote homes so that the elderly people there can buy foodstuffs. After a while he begins to form a bond with his customers and his outlook on life starts to change. If you're looking for some "comfort cinema" this sweet story is worth watching.
• Netflix Streaming TV Series of the Month! The contemporary re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes by Steven Moffat and the BBC is currently streaming on Netflix. It is beyond brilliant, and I highly recommend giving it a look if you haven't already...
Like most shows from across the pond, Sherlock has stories, acting, and production values that are leagues above what typically passes for American television. Probably because each series only has three episodes. They put all their good ideas into small number of shows rather than trying to stretch everything out over 22 episodes like they do here.
• Cinematic Anticipation! There's been a movie hovering on the horizon that has me pretty excited. Now Robot and Frank has been unleashed at Sundance and the reviews have been pretty great...
I mean, come on, it's got Frank Langella playing a retired cat burglar who is given a robot to help around the house. But Frank discovers a much more interesting use for his robot pal... crime. As a premise, it doesn't get much better than that!
Annnnnd... scene. I need toast and jam.
What a freaky-ass day.
I can only guess that this has something to do with the Chinese New Year beginning. It's The Year of the Dragon, after all. And while I don't put much stock into the Chinese Zodiac, I do think it's a pretty entertaining and well-thought-out concept. Especially since Dragons have Rats and Monkeys as bestest friends, which is kind of cool if you ask me...
My day started when I went to get into my car and drive to work. And found that I couldn't. There was a sheet of ice a quarter-inch thick covering everything... including the door. This meant fifteen minutes of scraping ice out of the door seams with the bottle opener on my keychain. Then another ten minutes chipping ice off the rest of my car with an ice scraper before my vehicle was fit to drive. It wouldn't have been all that bad if not for the fact that my bottle opener broke, giving up its life so I could go to work. I've had it for over a decade and used it often, but don't think I ever actually opened a bottle with it.
Once I finally made it to work, I was plagued with a series of inexplicably bizarre phone calls (and here I was just saying how much I hated talking on the phone!). The bad news is that it wasted entirely too much of my time. The good news is that I got to alleviate my boredom by getting caught up on Facebook and Twitter.
I also got caught up with entertainment news and learned that Seal and Heidi Klum were breaking up their marriage after seven years. I dunno why, but I was pretty sad to hear it.
And speaking of marriage... I then got caught up on news news and learned that Washington State's Legislature has enough votes to pass marriage equality. Whether this actually happens remains to be seen, but I am really happy that my gay and lesbian friends here in The Evergreen State are one step closer to being able to celebrate their relationships in marriage just like opposite-sex couples can!
Of course, all is not big gay smiles here in The Pacific Northwest...
This is Pastor Ken Hutcherson who is heading up some backwards anti-equality organization had this to say about Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire... "She might as well change her name to John Wilkes Booth because what she’s doing now is trying to put a bullet in the head of one of the greatest traditions that has ever existed and has built our society, and that is marriage between one man and one woman."
Far be it for me to speak ill of a man of the cloth... but what a fucking idiot.
What "puts a bullet in the head of marriage" is DIVORCE you dumbass. And why drag President Lincoln into this? Perhaps you hadn't heard, but the man eventually ended up fighting for equality of peoples in kind of a big way. Not really the best example you could have used.
But whatever.
What's important is that dinosaurs like Pastor Ken are slowly and steadily becoming a thing of the past as new generations of Americans understand that FREEDOM means that you sometimes have to accept shit you don't want to. Don't believe in same-sex marriage? Then how about you don't fucking marry somebody of the same sex?
But I guess I should know better than to try and apply logic to situations like these. To entirely too many people, it's only "freedom" when everything goes your way.
My online sewing classes have started!
I learned to sew when I was pretty young. My grandmother thought it was important that I be able to mend a hole in a shirt or hem a pair of pants, so she taught me the basics. Over the years I've made use of my sewing skills from time to time. Usually to fix a piece of clothing I've ripped up, but sometimes to do something interesting. Like make a Halloween costume...
But I've grown rusty over the years, and the last thing I want to do is embarrass myself in front of my grandmother the next time I have to use her sewing machine.
And sew (heh heh) I signed up for an e-course over at Whipstitch Modern Sewing called "Essential Sewing." It sounded like exactly what I needed to get my confidence back and hone my skills for whatever sewing-related emergencies might come up. The itinerary is surprisingly comprehensive, and takes six weeks to complete (all for the ridiculous bargain price of $179!).
The e-course started with an intro video yesterday.
It's nothing like I thought it would be.
It's actually fun.
That's because Deborah isn't content to just throw out instructions, her videos are all about getting everybody excited about sewing. And she's funny...
NOTE: Deborah doesn't actually say this. I'm paraphrasing.
Students started out by introducing ourselves, talking about our sewing experience, then telling everybody our "sewing fantasy"... what we aspire to do once we've completed the course. My fantasy is to be able to neatly extend sleeves on shirts and jackets when I can't find them in "Tall" sizes (which is all the time). Fingers crossed that Deb will make all my fantasies come true!*
Tonight was the second video where Deborah starts digging into the tools you'll need. Like scissors...
NOTE: Deborah doesn't actually say this. I'm paraphrasing again.
Apparently, when it comes to scissors, ideally you want eight long hard inches of steel. I was kind of embarrassed when I had to tell everybody in the class that I'm packin' two inches of soft aluminum... with pink plastic handles...
What I didn't have the guts to share is that my grandmother's sewing machine is like... sixty years old or something. Oh well. It totally works...
From there we went on to learning about irons...
NOTE: Deborah doesn't actually say this. She SHOULD though, right?
Oh yeah!
When I signed up for the class, I was excited about becoming a better seamstress seamster(?), but kind of dreading having to do the work to actually get there. But now? After only two videos, I am completely psyched to dig in and learn to sew stuff good!
I've decided to post my progress on Tuesday of each week. THAT aught to be interesting.
In the meanwhile, if you want to join in on the class (or take a look at the classes offered for all experience levels)... click here to visit the Whipstitch e-course page! Then prepare to have your world rocked**.
*I'd be dubious, but she wouldn't be the first woman putting videos on the internet that have promised to make my fantasies come true, then delivered on that promise!
**Or at least nicely tailored.
When you wake up to the sound of snowplows scraping the street, it's more difficult than usual to get out of bed. Obviously it snowed last night, could still be snowing, and that means the roads are going to suck.
Except it turns out it wasn't snow, it was rain. Which was freezing over the snow and ended up creating an icy crust all over the roads... and my car. This made driving to work a bit of an ordeal because everybody was sliding on shards of ice...
Tonight it's snowing again, so tomorrow there will be snow on ice on snow.
That's something to look forward to.
In other news, I've put my good-bye letter to BlackBerry and RIM in an extended entry...
Newt Gingrich is a moron and let me tell you why.
At a campaign stop at Florida's Space Coast, he promised that there will be a permanent American lunar colony within eight years if he is elected president. As if that weren't bad enough, people seem to be crazy in love with the idea.
Putting aside where we're going to get the money to pay for all this when taxes are going to be cut to the bone under a Gingrich presidency, I have to say that this is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard.
HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING FROM SPACE:1999?!?
For those not in the know, SPACE: 1999 was a 1970's science fiction show that told the cautionary tale of what happens when you build a lunar colony on the moon.
In the series, the founding of Moonbase Alpha leads to earth storing their nuclear waste on the far side of the moon. One day, a strange magnetic radiation causes the waste to go into meltdown and a massive thermonuclear explosion ensues...
And do you know what happens next?
Do you?
THE MOON IS BLASTED OUT OF EARTH ORBIT AND HURLED INTO SPACE, that's what!
Never mind that having our moon gone missing would be devastating for all life on earth because of it fucking up the weather and tides and stuff... that's not even the worst part. No, the worst part is that the humans stuck on the moon will eventually encounter freaky-ass space monsters... freaky-ass space bitches... AND freaky-ass space bitches that turn into freaky-ass space monsters!
And there you have it. Vote for Newt Gingrich if you must, but only if you want to lose our moon and have American citizens face space bitches that turn into space monsters (which, admittedly, would be a terrific candidate for the fourth Mrs. Gingrich... COINCIDENCE?!?).
As for me? I choose to REMEMBER MOONBASE ALPHA! SAY NO LUNAR COLONIZATION! SAY NO TO NEWT GINGRICH!
It's at times like these that I truly fear for this country. Spread the word. Save us all.
I think most everyone has experienced a time when they feel very small and alone.
The last time I remember truly feeling that way was in the 1990's when I was doing a lot of traveling by myself. Nothing makes you feel more small and alone than wandering in a strange country where you don't speak the language and don't really know what you're doing. Many times it was just me, my backpack, a map, and very little money.
It was a different time. Blogging hadn't quite arrived. Social networking as we know it now didn't exist. Sure the internet was around, but it wasn't something you carried around in your pocket like today. The way I can best describe life back then is disconnected.
Now I'm never alone. Not really.
Even when I'm alone.
Thanks to the internet, I have friends around the world. Somebody I know somewhere is online at any given time and all it takes is a Tweet or a Facebook update to reach them. I'm hardly ever disconnected... even when I'm traveling in foreign lands far from home. I just pull out my iPhone and the entire world is at my fingertips.
Feeling "alone" for me now-a-days has radically changed.
It's no longer so much about me so much as it's about things around me.
Last year a movie came out called The Eagle. It was roundly savaged in the reviews. People really disliked the film. This was disappointing to me because I'm a fan of Roman Empire era books and movies and was looking forward to it. But I ended up skipping it. Who has time for bad movies?
Tonight I wanted some background noise while working so I turned on the television. As I was whipping through channel after channel of nothing, I saw that HBO had The Eagle playing, so I left it there and went back to work. At least I wouldn't be distracted.
But slowly the movie sucked me in. I ended up really liking it.
And knowing that so many people hated it suddenly made me feel very alone.
I just didn't get it. Yes, the story was simple and straightforward, but it's well-crafted. It's beautifully shot. Good and evil aren't spelled out in black & white, but are subjective and interesting. The film is entertaining overall and even a bit touching in places. So... what's the problem? In an effort to understand what I had missed that was so loathsome, I started reading the bad reviews. I didn't agree with much of them.
A big deal was made over how Romans were played by Americans speaking English where the Brits were played by actual Brits speaking Gaelic. I guess it's odd, but it had an internal logic that was consistent, so I wasn't bothered. Many reviews criticized Channing Tatum's performance as "uninspiring." This was puzzling to me. His character at its core was disgraced and dejected, and I think that came across. Maybe he could have been a little more passionate as his quest came to a head, but even then I though his emotional detachment worked in the context of the character...
Tatum plays Marcus Flavius Aquila, a Roman Centurian whose father disappeared with the famous Ninth Legion in the wilds of Scotland, taking the the famed Eagle Standard (a symbol of Rome) with them. Aquila chooses to be posted in Britain in the hopes that he can regain his family honor there. But his military career is cut short when he is badly wounded by a hoard of invading Celts. While recovering, he hears rumors that the Eagle Standard has been seen in the North in the hands of the enemy. The film then becomes a buddy flick as Aquila and his British slave Escra (Jamie Bell) go on a quest to recover The Eagle so Aquila's family name can be cleared and Rome's honor can be snatched from the jaws of defeat. Some fighting and an encounter with "Seal People" ensue...
So I liked the movie and I'm pretty much alone in that.
Oh well.
Maybe I can commiserate with fans of the television show Chuck which aired its last episode tonight because not very many people liked it*.
Being alone together makes being alone not so bad!
*Including me. I frickin' hated the show Chuck. The only thing that could get me to watch an episode would be if the whiny little bitch Chuck Bartowski was killed in some horribly gruesome manner.
There's new products.
And then there's dangerously new products.
After I got home from work, I saw a commercial for "Krave," which kind of blew my mind...
Because, seriously... IT'S CEREAL FILLED WITH CHOCOLATE CANDY! Isn't it glorious?
Pour a shot of Jägermeister on top, and you've got a party.
Anyway...
My work Mac has been dying for a while now. It's been in near constant use for six years, so this isn't surprising. I'm just happy that it has worked so well for so long... and especially pleased that Apple supported it all this time. So far as I know, you can still run all the latest software on the latest version of MacOS X, which is pretty remarkable. Sure it runs slow, but not prohibitively so. If the video and hard drive controllers weren't flaking out, I probable could have gotten another year or two out of it. But, alas, the video gets jittery even when I replace the video card, and I keep losing files and having crashes, soooooo... I guess it's time.
At first I was looking into getting another Mac Pro. But then I noticed that Apple seems to be distancing themselves from their desktop computer line. It's rarely updated and no real innovations have been happening there for a while. Where the action is at is in the iMac line...
The top-of-the-line iMac is over twice as fast as my current computer. That's not as nice as a new mid-level Mac Pro, which would be four times faster, but an iMac is half the price, so there you have it. It's also pretty. So I ordered a tricked out a 27-inch iMac and we'll see how it goes.
Nothing quite like adding even more profit to Apple's bottom line to make you feel alive.
Buckle up and strap in, another edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Fight! As Florida's Republican Primary draws near, the battle between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney is really getting nasty. Partly because the attack ads flying back and forth are pretty harsh... but mostly because nasty-ass Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum is still hanging on the election like a nasty-ass used condom stuck on the side of a nasty-ass trash can...
Heeeeeeere's Santorum! — Photos by Scott Olson/Getty and ABC
I wonder how Gingrich and Romney are going to get rid of him? Maybe they could look into how to get shit stains out of underwear and give that a try.
• Hobbits! LEGO announced that they have a license for new sets based on The Lord of The Rings. I dare say that I am actually more excited about this than I was when they got the Batman license (if such a thing is possible)...
Photo taken from Brickset!
When the LEGO Lord of the Rings video game comes out, I will be deliriously happy.
• Noooooo! It's not all good news in the world of LEGO though... the incredible LEGO UNIVERSE massive multi-player online game is shutting down at the end of the month...
The game is really well done and a lot of fun but, unfortunately, I rarely had time to play it. I wish that they would take all the game assets and release it as an offline adventure game, because there was a lot of good stuff in there.
• Mode! A friend sent me this video of a guy and his two kids performing Depeche Mode's awesome song Everything Counts. So epic it hurts...
Here's hoping that they take on People are People as a follow-up.
• Render! My work requires that I be able to render 3-D images from time to time. 3-D itself is fairly easy, and there are apps that make it dead simple to do basic stuff. Where the challenge comes is doing 3-D rendering well. This requires some very good tools that usually come with a steep learning curve. I started out with a program called Electric Image Animation System to render, because that's what Industrial Light and Magic used when they re-did the special effects for the Star Wars films. I needed a 3-D modeler, so I had to learn Form-Z. Eventually EIAS got its own modeler, so I learned that. After a while EIAS dropped their modeler. This pissed me off, so I dumped EIAS and learned Cinema 4D. But Cinema 4D didn't render as nicely as EIAS, so I went back to EIAS and learned how to use modo for my modeling. Eventually I got sick and tired of jumping back and forth between EIAS and modo and dumped both of them for NewTek's all-in-one package called Lightwave 3D. Lightwave was moving to a cool new technology called CORE, and I wanted in. But then NewTek dumped CORE so I dumped Lightwave 3D. Not wanting to start all over again, I went back to EIAS and modo. But then modo started adding its own rendering and animation tools that were really sweet, so I dumped EIAS. Now I use modo for everything and love it.
Except... in the background there has always been Maya, a hideously cool 3D package that I've always lusted after but could never afford. For even a basic Maya setup, you're paying $3500 minimum (and the license upkeep is equally pricey). But yesterday I was offered a Maya license for a project that's coming up. So now I'm torn. Do I really want to take the time to learn a new program all over again? The answer to that is ABSOLUTELY! I have never shied away from learning something new, and this is a dream come true. The problem is that I don't have time to take the time to learn Maya, so I had to decline this most generous offer.
Nothing quite like watching Reality walk into the room and crush a dream right in front of you.
And on that happy note, the weekend is over.
Wah!
My lunch today consists of a 5-Hour Energy Shot and some oatmeal-raisin cookies. I'm hoping that they will keep me awake while I make my way through the heap of emails that took a dump on my in-box this morning.
One of the emails I got was regarding my mention of traveling in the 1990's, and was asking if I had photos of what I looked like back then. I suppose I have lots of them. But that was from the pre-digital era, so I don't know where the photos are. I do have this one of me from 1994 stuck on my bulletin board though...
And here's one from 1992 that I had posted earlier...
Yes, yes I know... I was so damn hot back then! What happened? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm willing to bet that Jägermeister is involved.
The strange thing about looking at these photos is realizing how different things are for me when I travel now vs. how I traveled twenty years ago. I've hinted about it before, but back then I was redefining the meaning of "budget travel." All my money went into just getting there. I remember times of having to decide between such luxuries as "eating" or "having a place to sleep at night." Heady days of having $25 to last three days, so I'd sleep in a train station and try to find a bakery selling day-old bread for cheap so I could eat... then rationing the loaf so it lasted for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Absolutely every move I'd make would have to be weighed against the cost, and many days were spent just scraping by as I went from place to place.
Looking back, I should have been miserable... but I truly wasn't. I wanted to travel to as many interesting places as I could, so I'd take a new trip the minute I had enough money for airfare. I didn't care that this left me with nothing to live on once I got there, I was compelled to go. And being hungry and trying to find a safe place to sleep because I blew all my money on a museum ticket was just the way things were.
Yet... I was having the time of my life.
And nothing anybody could say would convince me otherwise.
Of course today I look back on some of the more dicey days and am both horrified I put myself in those situations... and amazed I survived them... but that's youth for you. I can honestly say I wouldn't change a thing. Life is good.
Now I should probably get back to work. The rest of these emails aren't going to answer themselves.
But one more thing before I go... congratulations to one of my favorite people on earth, BETTY WHITE, for her SAG win last night! Big buckets of awesome...
Photo from Kevin Winter, Getty Images
I wish Betty had time to do a guest appearance on Raising Hope, Happy Endings, or The Finder... her cameos are always legendary, and it would be sweet to have her appearing on my favorite shows.
I thought I lost my passport, so I'm recovering from a total meltdown right now. I hate it when I misplace important stuff like that.
But enough about me.
And so, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Mitt Romney won the Florida Primary in a cake-walk. Congratulations, Republicans! You might as well have selected President Obama to be your candidate...
In all seriousness, Hello Kitty would have a better chance of winning against Obama than Romney...
The only way Romney is going to win would be if President Obama punched Betty White in the face while crapping on a bald eagle and then wiping his ass with an American flag during the Super Bowl half-time show as he denounces NASCAR and declares himself an atheist.
And with that mental picture firmly implanted in my brain, I'm off to bed. I probably won't sleep much (as usual), but I've got an incredibly busy day tomorrow, so I might as well pretend to get some rest.
Right after I make sure my passport is still where I think I left it...
ZOMG, YOU GUYS! PEE-WEE HERMAN WAS ON TOP CHEF TONIGHT!
I'm a huge fan, and he did not disappoint. Have to say though... Tom Colicchio saying "I've gotta agree with Pee-Wee..." is something I never thought I'd hear.
And speaking of things I never thought I'd hear (at least in this decade)... Washington State's Senate passed a Marriage Equality Bill tonight, which means we're one step closer to becoming the seventh state to allow same-sex marriage. That's a pretty big deal for a lot of Washingtonians being able to fulfill this country's promise of pursuing happ...i...ness...ss... and... HOLY CRAP THERE'S A SPIDER CRAWLING UP THE WALL!!!!!
GAH!
Poor spider. He probably came inside to get out of the cold and I had to catch him and throw him back outside. Probably not a lot of food for him out there. Wah! I wonder if it would have been less cruel to smoosh him than to let him starve to death. But I can't bring myself to kill anything if I can help it. Argh.
I hate it when stuff like this happens.
Anyway...
My new work computer arrived today (thank you for the speedy delivery, Apple!). I admit that when I ordered it I was a little worried about how an iMac would fare for professional use. But, now that I've had a chance to play with it for a while, I have to say that I am very happy with the machine...
For anybody who's interested, I've put my thoughts on the iMac in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
After work I had to go to the grocery store.
And while I hate shopping of any kind, I'd have to say that shopping for groceries is the worst. Probably because, unlike the joy of shopping for sayyyyyy... a flamethrower, nobody likes to shop for groceries. They're expensive and boring. What's to love?
But I needed hamburger buns and chocolate milk, so off I went.
Where I had a more miserable time than usual thanks to some really bad parenting going on.
Usually when I see parents who don't seem to know what they're doing with their children, I refer them to my best-selling book, Minding Your Kids in Public for Dumbasses...
But, because I am feeling generous this evening, I am going to provide an excerpt with some critical insight on child-rearing for FREE! Yes, that's right... I'm giving away FREE PARENTING ADVICE! Just one of the many benefits of being a Blogography reader, yo.
CHAPTER SIX: SHOPPING
Here is a blueprint of a typical grocery store. And here's you shopping for frozen pizza back in the frozen foods aisle...
And here are your kids way over here going ape-shit in the bakery aisle...
GUESS WHAT? YOU FUCKING FAIL AS A PARENT!
NOW PUT DOWN THAT DAMN PIZZA AND GO MIND YOUR FUCKING KIDS, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!
Otherwise they might get abducted.
Though this is probably not a bad thing. Then at least somebody would be watching them.
No need to thank me. Knowing that I'm making civilization a better place is enough for me!
I live in a small rural community which, from all appearances, is a throwback to simpler times. Visitors passing through town undoubtedly describe it as "quaint" or "idyllic" when they get home to their friends. In many ways, I'd have to agree. This is classic small-town Americana, and living here is quite different from life in the big city. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes in a bad way.
And tonight after Fringe was over, Seattle's Q13 News from over the mountains informed me that a student from our local Middle School committed suicide after being ruthlessly and relentlessly persecuted and bullied.
Because he was gay.
Which only reinforces what everybody already knows: no community is immune from this vile poison that's killing our youth. Including my community. And now yet another child is dead...
All because killing himself was the only way this young man felt he could find peace from a society so filled with hate that there was no place in it for him to live...
To say I am horrified and disgusted is an understatement beyond measure.
His school is two minutes from my home.
And now I have to live with the fact that two minutes from my home, a kid was being brutally abused day-in and day-out. And it was so bad that death was considered to be the only way to escape it.
So congratulations to Rick Santorum's vision for a gay-free society!
Job well done to Michele Bachmann's war on gay teens!
Praise the Lord for Pat Robertson's slaying of gay abominations!
And a hearty round of applause to everybody who got their wish when yet another "filthy homosexual" was purged from this earth! Your never-ending quest to create a society that is savagely hostile for anybody different from yourselves is working better than you could have ever dreamed! I'm sure that this freedom-filled American utopia you're working so hard to build for your children will be a paradise unequalled!
Unless your children turn out to be gay, of course.
Or if people just think they're gay.
Or if they happen to wander into the line of fire being taken by another kid who is gay.
Then I guess your kids will have to take their chances just like everybody else. I mean, it's a pity that innocent
Right?!?
One day... hopefully one day very soon... we will look back at this period of history with a shame and horror that is woefully missing today. In the meanwhile, all I can do is say that I'm deeply sorry that we as a society failed you, Rafael Morelos. You deserved far better by our hands. I truly hope you've found the peace you couldn't find in life.
And so it goes...
I do not intimidate easily.
When you travel as much as I do, you really can't intimidate easily... especially when visiting abroad. Because if you don't speak the language and don't know much about the culture, you just have to dig in as politely as you know how and hope for the best. Otherwise you'll end up hungry... or lost... or worse.
As I mentioned previously, I am taking an awesome basic sewing class from Whipstitch. Up until now, it's been basic stuff like cutting fabric in a straight line and practicing stitching on a sewing machine. But now we're starting to sew actual projects, which means I have to go buy material and thread and supplies and stuff.
Which means a trip to the JoAnn Fabric & Craft Store.
A place that intimidates me more than just about anywhere else on earth.
Mostly because I don't really understand the place or how to shop there, but also because the people there are mean. I don't know if it's because I'm a guy... or because I'm a newbie... or because they just don't like my face... or what. But every time I've gone to JoAnn I end up feeling stupid and embarrassed because everybody there (employees and customers alike) seems annoyed with my questions and total lack of knowledge. To them, sewing is important business, and I guess I'm just wasting their time.
So, after what few projects I've taken on, I've learned to not ask questions when I go to JoAnn.
Instead I just blindly wander around looking for stuff I think I need and hope for the best. Until now I've been sewing for myself, so it doesn't matter if I goof up and I really don't care if my Halloween costume is made wrong. But this time I'm sewing for a class, so I wanted to do things right. When you don't know what you're doing and are too afraid to ask questions, this can take a while.
The first thing I had to do was buy fabric for upcoming projects. The problem is I don't know what kind of fabric to get... and there's tons of it to choose from. Since I don't know any fabrics by name, I decided to shop by feel. "Well this kind of feels like a placemat" or "I guess this is what a tote bag should feel like," I'd say to myself. Who knows whether I ended up getting the right stuff... but I do like the colors I found, so I guess that's something.
After that I tried to buy the accessory stuff that's on my supplies list... and failed miserably. The lesson says drawstring and elastic, but there's like a gazillion different kinds and I have no idea what to get. So I get nothing. I guess I'll have to write the class for help and make another horrible trip to JoAnn next week.
Next up I had to buy thread to match my fabrics. I thought this would be easy, but thread spools come in all kinds of different sizes and shapes. I decide to go for the "traditional" spools that I recognize, but the colors don't match very well. So instead I get these tall skinny spools that have designer colors. Hopefully they fit on my grandmother's machine.
Lastly I wanted to go drool over proper 8-inch Gingher dressmaker shears and see how they match up to my 2-inch pink Fiskars. My intent was to just look. But they were on sale for 30% off, so I decided to go ahead and get them. The sale shouldn't have been an incentive since it seemed as if EVERYTHING was on sale at JoAnn, but I do love the sexy bastards, so I guess it was worth spending money I don't have...
And now it was time to have my bolts of fabric cut. This meant interacting with JoAnn employees, which I dread. The last time I needed some fabric cut, the woman started asking me questions I didn't understand and couldn't answer. Not knowing what to do, I told her "I'll just take the fabric please" which only seemed to piss her off. Apparently the stuff I was buying required special handling or something, and the fact that I didn't know this made me stupid.
This time the lady behind the counter seemed very nice, which was a relief. She didn't pitch me any crap while taking care of my fabric, so I felt confident enough to ask her questions like... "Will these scissors work for a right-handed person when it doesn't say so on the box?"... and "Do you know what in the heck 'Wonder Under' is and where I can get it?"... and "Is this 'Sulky' stuff on my list something I can buy here?" She answered me without eye-rolling or a condescending tone, which was a pleasant surprise.
And so tomorrow I can (hopefully) get caught up with Friday's tote bag project and make me a placemat. Though I didn't buy any of this "interfacing" stuff that I apparently need for the placemat, so I might be screwed there.
Oh well. Tonight I'm going to sleep with my new shears and dream about stuff I can cut with them...
...which may or may not include cutting a bitch. Though I'd then have to worry about how tough the bitch was, because I don't want to dull the blades.
Nothing ruins a sexy pair of new scissors like dull blades.
Blogography is locked and loaded, so Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Buzz! When my hair gets so long that I have to blow-dry it, something has to be done. But since I spent all my money on new Gingher shears yesterday, I couldn't afford to get a haircut. Fortunately, a Google search convinced me that this was something I could do myself.
And, because I'm me, I live-Tweeted the whole thing...
And this is how it all turned out...
Not bad for free! I should totally give myself my own medical advice now.
• LEGO! The more I see of the LEGO Lord of the Rings MiniFigs, the more I realize that my life will not be complete until I possess them all. I mean, come on! Has there ever been a LEGO MiniFig cuter than LEGO Hobbits?
And has there ever been a LGO MiniFig scarier than LEGO Gollum?
I mean, seriously...
SERIOUSLY!!...
I can't wait for The Preciousses to be mine!
• Miley! Yes, as I've said a number of times now, I'm a fan of Miley Cyrus. She was funny as hell in Hannah Montana, and she's had some good songs come out of her music career. But the thing that fascinates me most is how she's unapologetically taken on a role in leading her generation towards acceptance and equality...
"We all should be tolerant of one another and embrace our differences. My dad, who is a real man's man, lives on the farm and is as Southern and straight as they come. He loves my gay friends and even supports same-sex marriage. If my father can do it, anyone can. This is America, the nation of dreams. We're so proud of that. And yet certain people are excluded. It's just not right."
—Miley Cyrus, Glamour Magazine
This is what scares the shit out of the backwards, crazy-ass, hard-core anti-equality crowd... the future is coming, and their antiquated bigotry is not a part of it. Game over. It's only a matter of time.
• Sweet! I swear, at a time when our horrible society has me convinced that we all deserve to be extinct, something like this comes along to restore my faith in humanity. I love it...
• Network! Today I dug out an old "Airport Express" unit for my new computer at work. Since the iMac only has one ethernet port, I thought perhaps I could use WiFi for my second network connection. Ten minutes later, I found out I could. Apple has a "Bridge Mode" which allows you to put a WiFi interface on an ethernet connection. Simple!
Since this is an older model, it can only do 802.11g. If I want the speed increase of 802.11n, I'll have to shell out $99 for a newer model. But the IEEE just released a draft of the even faster 802.11ac standard back in November, so maybe I'll wait for that.
Even though iMac won't be able to take advantage of it, who wants to buy old technology?
Of course, all technology is old technology when you think about it.
• Avengers! Holy crap. Seriously, HOLY CRAP...
A super-hero team movie done right is the dream of every comic book fanboy. Given what I've seen so far, my expectations are impossibly high for this film. May 4th cannot get here soon enough.
And now... PUPPY BOWL!!!
The amount of hate-mail/hate-comments dropping on my blog have reached new highs lately. It had died down to one a week for the longest time, but now I'm getting at least one a day. I'm guessing it has to do with Washington State getting ready to pass marriage equality and the court decision coming up on Prop 8, because most of the mail/comments are from entries where I talk about that kind of stuff.
Not surprisingly, nothing I've been getting adds anything remotely interesting to the conversation. Instead it's just anonymous profanity and/or insults directed towards me, which is immediately deleted.
The thing that upsets me about all this is not that people are compelled to toss a little hatred my way... but that they're so bad at it. Their profanity is just pathetic and funny, and their attempt at insults aren't even vaguely insulting. It's all just so amateurish and lame.
So, in an attempt to improve the level of hate-mail/hate-comments on my blog, I've decided to help out the haters by giving them some tips on how to hate better. First I'm going to list the five most common "insults" they use... then I'm going to give them a far more insulting alternative...
Ur Gay.
I can see how bigoted homophobe guys might take it as an insult when somebody calls them "gay" (or some slang approximation thereof) but, since I'm not a bigoted homophobe, this has zero impact as an insult. You might as well be calling me "left-handed" or "short" or "blue-eyes"... they're all wrong, but it's not like I give a shit. On the contrary, being called "gay" is pretty much a compliment in my book. Many of the gay dudes I know are some of the most kind, strong, interesting, hard-working, honest, decent people I've ever met. They also tend to be better-looking and better-groomed than me. To be lumped in with a group like that (even mistakenly!) is not something I mind one bit. No, I'm not into guys, but I have plenty of gay friends that mean more to me than any crap I take for standing with them. So unleash whatever homophobic bullshit on me you want if it makes you feel more secure about your own sexuality. I'm here to help!
MORE INSULTING ALTERNATIVE: "Ur Thoughtless." The very foundation of my beliefs is based on being thoughtful towards others... even if they're being assholes towards me. I am not always successful (especially when I am angry) but I do try. Being told that I'm not trying hard enough is about the most hurtful thing somebody can say to me.
Ur Liberal.
I get labeled as a "liberal" all the time. I'm the first to admit that my political sensibilities do tend to fall in the liberal spectrum, but it's almost always having to do with human rights and environmental issues. Yes, I think the very poor (particularly children) shouldn't have to go hungry or be denied medical care. Yes, I support humanitarian foreign aid efforts. Yes, I am 100% onboard for citizen equality issues such as same-sex marriage. Yes, I believe in a woman's right to choose (even though my personal beliefs may be otherwise). Yes, I am totally supportive of anti-discrimination legislation. Yes, I think the government should have some oversight when monitoring food safety, education, and environmental matters. Etcetera. Etcetera. And if somebody wants to call me "liberal" or "progressive" or "socialist" because of my beliefs, then so be it. But even though I don't consider myself a "liberal," that doesn't mean I'm going to be gravely offended in being labeled one.
MORE INSULTING ALTERNATIVE: "Ur a Hippie." I value hard work highly. So having somebody equate my humanist beliefs with a drugged-out, love-bead-wearing, guitar-strumming, ponytail-bedecked, do-nothing hippie squatting in a park somewhere is pretty damn insulting. I'm about as far away from a hippie as I can get considering I'm not a millionaire but, when it comes to unfounded name-calling, this one gets me riled every time because I Just. Loathe. Hippies. So. Darn. Much.
Ur Conservative.
I get labeled as a "conservative" more often than you might think. Usually by "liberal" friends who simply don't understand how I could possibly agree with anything that any conservative might ever say. Ever. But... there are areas where I absolutely do. Usually when it comes to fiscal responsibility, the folly of entitlements, the one-sidedness of subsidies, and the overall concept of getting government the fuck out of every aspect of our lives. True conservatism promotes personal freedoms as a cornerstone of our society. The fact that so many self-proclaimed "conservatives" completely ignore this fact is not the fault of conservatism... but the hypocrisy of morons who don't know what they're talking about. So go ahead and call me a conservative, because I actually do know what I'm talking about.
MORE INSULTING ALTERNATIVE: "Ur Heartless." It's not my fault that so many faux conservatives come across as heartless bastards, but being lumped in with these people is something that truly stings. I was once called "heartless" because my lack of support for government beef subsidies "hurts small cattle ranches." But I know full well that it's the massive conglomerates with cruel livestock conditions and horrendous pollution that are the biggest beneficiaries of the billions of dollars that our government hands out. Not to mention the health risks that come from cheap beef production. But even knowing what I know, the thought of somebody thinking me heartless is pretty hard to take.
Ur Stupid.
Being called "stupid" is about as popular as it is laughable. Because what I am, in fact, is a genius. Not just a self-proclaimed genius, but an actual certified genius with the IQ test scores to back it up many times over. And when one of my ass cheeks is probably smarter than the dumbass calling me "stupid," it's not like I can ever take their crap seriously. Odds are that they call people "stupid" because they're too fucking brain-dead to debate the issue with any kind of discourse. They read something here and think "I disagree with this statement, therefore the person who wrote it must be stupid!" and away they go. Want to contest my opinions and observations? By all means please do. I love a healthy debate, and think that everybody can learn from other people... even somebody as smart as I am. But call me stupid? All that does is confirm to me that you're the one that's a fucking moron.
MORE INSULTING ALTERNATIVE: "Ur uninformed." Before I form an opinion on anything, I really do try to examine the issue from all sides. I can't learn everything, obviously, but I want to at least have a grasp on the generalities before I go spouting off. So if I've overlooked something obvious and am truly uninformed on some aspect of an issue... then bringing that up is about as big a slap in my face as you'll manage (well, verbally, anyway).
Ur Untalented.
This usually comes from somebody commenting on one of my DaveToons. Now granted, if my crappy cartoons were all I had to go on, I'd probably call myself untalented. They're crude, amateurish, and repetitive, so I get it. But to judge the entirety of my talent (or lack thereof) based on one cartoon you happened to run across is really shortsighted. I don't get paid to blog, so they're supposed to be crude, amateurish, and repetitive... they're designed that way so I can create them quickly and move on to something that's going to pay me! But, whatever. I do a lot of work with a lot of people and a lot of companies who like my work and respect my professionalism, so calling me "untalented" over a stupid cartoon will fall on deaf ears.
MORE INSULTING ALTERNATIVE: "Ur boring." My blog isn't always as exciting as it could be. But since I don't write about work, friends, family, or relationships, there's a huge chunk of my life that's not going to end up on Blogography, so this is something I have to live with. But just because I'm blogging about this new brand of toilet paper I bought, that doesn't necessarily mean that this was the most exciting thing that happened. It just means it was the most exciting thing which I could write about. So even though I know my blog is boring at times (and can't be helped), it doesn't make it any less hurtful when somebody reminds me.
And there you have it, haters! Here's hoping the next round of insults I get from you will be much better than the weak-ass, anonymous, pussified, dumbassery you usually send my way.
Continuing my adventures with the Whipstitch Essential Sewing E-Course...
TOTE BAG! TOTE BAG, YO!
Last week my sewing class moved past learning what you need to know to sew... to actually sewing stuff. Our first project was a napkin. Mine turned out okay, but it was pretty boring because my grandmother's machine doesn't have any fancy decorative stitches on it. Not content to eat using a boring napkin, I decided to practice sewing in a straight line all over it. After that, the napkin wasn't boring... but it was a little scary, so I threw it away.
The second project we got to tackle was a tote bag.
At first I thought Deborah was insane for expecting her students to go from a napkin to a frickin' tote bag... but her video made it look easy so I was excited to try it.
My first tote bag was made from a light stripey denim-like material with a blue flannel interior. Our instructor can whip out a tote bag in eight minutes... this one took me nearly two hours. Mostly because I had stupidly used stripy fabric which took quite a bit of time to line up perfectly so that everything looked right. Despite how long it took to make, I have to say that it turned out pretty darn sweet. It looks great and is comfortable to carry stuff in, just like a tote bag should be...
Last night I decided to make another tote bag out of "Duck Canvas." At first I was worried that the sewing machine wouldn't be able to punch through the stuff, but it was no problem at all. This time it took me only a half-hour to finish. The outside is pretty plain... but when you look inside? FANCY!!
I think it turned out even more awesome than the first one.
And now we're learning all kinds of stuff about fabric which I never knew... stuff I never knew that I needed to know. Things like "grain" and "bias" that I've previously ignored.
What's kind of cool is that I'm learning not only how to make sure future sewing projects will be successful... but why my past projects have failed. I was doing everything all wrong and didn't even realize it.
Who knew?
Now, if you'll excuse me... I've got to make some CONTINUOUS BIAS TAPE! And yes, I actually know what that is now.
I woke up with a massive headache. Things only went downhill from there. For one thing, it snowed last night. For another thing, I got an email that made me want to slam my already-aching head into a wall. There really should be some kind of law which forbids being assaulted by dumbassery before 9:00am.
Especially on Wednesday, because that's New Comic Book Day!
Though I'm a lot more excited by the Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum victories in the Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado Republican primaries. Do I even dare hope that he'll actually win the nomination? Because that would be the single most mind-blowingly awesome entertainment America could hope for. Time to take a look a the top contenders...
MITT ROMNEY
What happens if he wins? The presidential contest will be relatively boring. Other than breaking out in song with America the Beautiful and trash-talking President Obama, Mittens doesn't have much else to actually campaign with. The guy has flip-flopped on just about everything you could possibly flip-flop on, and President Obama will use that to positively massacre him in any debate. Not that he has to... Romney is legendary for sabotaging himself with the stupid-ass crap that flies out of his mouth. All Obama really has to do is stand back and watch Romney hang himself with his own words.
NEW GINGRICH
What happens if he wins? We will have quite possibly the most lively and interesting debate in the history of presidential politics. Speaker Gingrich may be a raging hypocrite when it comes to integrity and family values, but he will unapologetically rip into each and every one of President Obama's failings like a honey badger, putting Obama on the defensive in any debate. He can't win the election, of course. His past scandals are tied to his ass like a boat anchor. But for people like me who have reservations about another four years of Obama, Gingrichh is the only one who can make our president actually work for his re-election.
RICK "PIECE OF SHIT" SANTORUM
What happens if he wins? Oh so many wonderful things. The guy is so astoundingly misguided on so many topics that he'll be like a one-legged mouse that cool cat President Obama will bat around and play with for weeks before finally ripping his fool head off. It will be the Super Bowl of presidential elections where the only position Santorum is fit to play is towel boy. Or maybe tight-end, if his homophobic over-compensation is any indication. In any event, you can't buy entertainment this good, which actually has me contemplating a donation to Santorum's campaign.
RON PAUL
What happens if he wins? I have no clue. A Ron Paul nomination is so far outside the realm of possibility that I can only guess that the Apocalypse shifts into full gear and the world ends. Kind of a shame, because I think the unpredictability of such a contest against President Obama would be worth watching. Some of Ron Paul's ideas are very good. Others are bat-shit crazy. It's entirely possible that Obama would have no defense against that, which could be extremely interesting. Or pathetically mundane. Either way, I think the presidential race would evolve into something entirely different than we've ever seen before.
And there you have it. I never thought the "Not Romneys" would get this far against the wishes of party heads who clearly want a Mittens nomination. But it's somehow fitting that Romney is going to have to pay big... massively big... money to secure his party victory before he gets anywhere near President Obama. He's got money to burn, so why not?
It's not like he's got anywhere better to spend his millions.
Holy crap, dude.
It doesn't matter who wins big come the November elections, there's going to be a lot of unhappy people. It's unavoidable because the level of venom being volleyed back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats has reached critical mass. We're mere seconds away from a full-on thermonuclear explosion of hate, and you just can't come back from that.
And every time I watch the news or catch up with current political events on the internet, a part of me wonders if we should just carve up North America in a way that will keep us from destroying each other.
I'm talking about the establishment of Jesusland and The United States of Canada...
This has been a joke and internet meme for a long time. But the thing is... there's a very serious truth beneath it all. Why not create political divisions that make sense? Wouldn't people be a lot happier if their government more closely represented their beliefs and values?
And while I don't know that Canada would agree to be dragged into this mess, I'm thinking that the majority of Americans might actually go for it. The hatred is just so overwhelming, relentless, and balls-nasty that I'd do just about anything to make it stop.
Except...
Here in my home-state of Washington, we've got a scary level of hatred all our own to deal with. And now that same-sex-marriage is going to be signed into law next week, I can only imagine that it's going to get even worse...
Though I really do hope my fellow Washingtonians over here in Redneckistan will do the right thing and help same-sex-marriage pass if it ends up being put to a vote. With acceptance of gay marriage reaching new heights every day, you just never know.
But that's just one issue out of hundreds.
In the end, even if we were to establish Jesusland and The United States of Canada, Washington would still be divided. I'm sure other states would have similar lines of separation. So while the majority of people would probably be happier eventually... there's still going to be a large segment of the population who are angry, bitter, and unhappy.
So what to do?
A pity we can't just all cling to the things we have in common and work from there...
But, alas, those things are getting to be few and far between.
Remember the good ol' days when being "Americans" was enough to unite us?
If I have to listen to Mitt Romney mangle the lyrics to American The Beautiful one more time, I'm going to fucking lose it. The lyrics are NOT "for purple mountain's majesty..." it's "for purple mountain majesties." Those are the lyrics. Those are the words in the original poem upon which the song is based. If you're going to pander to the lowest common denominator with a bullshit smokescreen masquerading as patriotism, you should at least put the effort into doing it right.
Gee. I'm in a bit of a mood tonight.
That's what happens when you start working at 4:30am.
And you have to read about George Lucas telling the world that Greedo always shot first... that everybody is just "confused" and bad people want Han "to be a cold-blooded killer."
I saw the original Star Wars dozens of times... and by "original" I mean the actual film and not the Special Edition crap. I watched it again dozens of more times on LaserDisc. And not once during any of those times did I ever think that Greedo fired first. But, more importantly, I never once thought that Han Solo was a cold-blooded killer. Greedo had a gun pointed on him... he was acting in self-defense...
And, as we found out in The Empire Strikes Back, the guy was a scoundrel.
Which brings me to my point...
If I have to listen to George Lucas mangle Star Wars one more time, I'm going to fucking lose it.
HAN SOLO SHOT FIRST! I'd also go a step further and say that Greedo never shot at all... but I must be confused on that too.
Or sane.
There was a time that Whitney Houston's voice was widely regarded as being in a class untouchable by mere mortals. It was thus almost from the beginning.
Sure she had fun and poppy hits like How Will I Know and I Wanna Dance with Somebody... but they were nicely balanced by stunning R&B tracks like Saving All My Love for You and I Will Always Love You. The woman had pipes. The woman could sing.
And never was this more apparent than when she belted out The Star Spangled Banner at the 2001 Super Bowl with an unforgettable performance. The rumor that it was lip-synced did nothing to detract from the magic because Whitney nailed it. Our National Anthem is not an easy song to sing. On the contrary, it practically begs to be screwed up by anyone attempting it... live or otherwise. And even when singers get it right, it doesn't always sound that great. With Ms. Houston's talent, it was a different story entirely...
And today, at the age of 48, she's gone.
Whitney admitted to using drugs (but not crack, which she felt was "whack" because it was beneath her income level)... and odds are it was her drug use which contributed to her death. This is all kinds of tragic because a part of me always expected that she'd make some kind of come-back one of these days.
Alas it was not to be.
Perhaps not meant to be. All that's left now is a legacy. And a lesson.
Her voice may have been beyond the grasp of mere mortals but, in the end, it was wrapped in a body that was all too human. Hopefully her fellow humans will remember that at a time it would be all too easy to forget.
Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen... Bullet Sunday starts... NOW!
• Magic? It used to be that whenever I saw some sports figure scream "I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!" after a big victory, I'd scream back "WHORE!" I mean, it's such an obvious attempt to score Disney ad money. But the more I think about it, what better way could there be to celebrate than to have a party with Mickey Mouse at the most magical place on earth?
And then I see the happy photos of Eli Manning at Disneyland after his Super Bowl win and know that I would totally celebrate all my most important victories there. Of course, should I become victorious at conquering the earth, I'll own Disneyland, but still...
• Restart? I'm not a very emotional person. Which is why my nearly being driven to tears by a frickin' Chipotle commercial was about the most shocking and disturbing thing that could have happened to me while watching the Grammys. So called "factory farming" of animals is about the cruelest, most destructive, and unhealthy way to create "food" you could think of. To have somebody step up and say "enough" is so very encouraging...
There's no Chipotle anywhere near me but, if there were, I would patronize the hell out of that restaurant.
• Shop? Speaking of patronizing a worthy business... I'm going to have to start shopping at my local
And to the bigoted asshats at "One Million Moms"... go fuck yourselves. You obviously all need a good fucking if your idea of "values" is to spend your time attacking somebody as generous, inspiring, and remarkable as Ellen DeGeneres. And may your God have mercy on any of your children who happen to be gay. Because if they're not going to get your love and support, being able to turn on the television and see somebody like Ellen may be all they have.
• Krave? After hearing about "Krave," the breakfast cereal filled with chocolate candy, I simply had to try it. How could I not? It's cereal. WITH CHOCOLATE CANDY INSIDE!!
The verdict? Awful. Just awful. Both the "Chocolate" and "Double Chocolate" varieties taste like chemical waste. The texture is bizarre (in a bad way) as well. I can't fathom why anybody would eat this when they could just sprinkle M&Ms over a bowl of Golden Grahams?
• Confusion? I'm a Mr. Potato Head fan. I'm a massively huge Batman fan. But I honestly don't know what to make of this...
Why? It doesn't look like Batman or Mr. Potato Head. I'm not saying it's a bad concept for a toy... but surely they could have just dressed Mr. Potato Head as Batman instead of coming up with this hunk of plastic monstrosity.
• Protest? It seems like only yesterday I was walking through Syntagma Square in central Athens, Greece (actually it was five years ago). Despite a somewhat disappointing visit to the Hard Rock Cafe there, I very much enjoyed my visit to the city. Which is why I am very upset to see it erupt in flames...
Photo taken from ABC News.
Photo taken from Reuters.
I'm all for the right of free protest when you disagree with something, but this is horrific. Do the people who own the shops and cafes getting firebombed deserve this? And while I admit that I don't know if the police crack-downs have been overly-violent, I have to question whether firebombing them could ever be a justifiable act. Greece is in serious trouble... to see violence drive it even further to the brink is profoundly sad. Come together, people... I very much want to visit your country again one day.
And now... back to the Grammys...
Sweet! Today my home state of Washington passed marriage equality into law!
Now it's a waiting game to see whether the anti-equality brigade can get the signatures they need to force a ballot vote. Because it's totally appropriate to put equality to a vote, right?
Argh. I don't even want to think about it.
Because it's not like I've already got some things I'm trying not to think about today.
A friend sent me a video that had an interesting take on political issues from a purely humanitarian point of view. Some of the thinking seemed grossly simplistic and unrealistic but, taken as a whole, it was a fascinating look at how political policy doesn't change as much as you'd think from administration to administration.
In the video there were links to other videos. Which had links to other videos. Which had links to even more videos.
But it was the comment threads that were where the addiction lays. Most times they're so incredibly awful that you're compelled to read them. And just when you think you've read the most horrific thing that somebody could possibly say on the subject, you go to the next comment and it gets even worse. The bigotry, ignorance, racism, lies, and raw hatred sucks you into a vortex of stupidity from which not even light can escape...
And if you don't let go before the Point of No Return, you become just as stupid as the animals who are commenting and are compelled to comment yourself. From there you cross over the event horizon and are doomed to destruction.
Don't believe me? It's SCIENCE, people!
Though I don't know that even science can explain why so many people think that the road to destruction is the best course to follow. Maybe if more effort when into studying stupidity, we could find out why they just can't seem to let it go.
Or why there are people who think that the freedoms this country were founded upon demands equality for its citizens be put to a vote.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Sometimes the best Valentine's Day presents are the ones you get for yourself. And since I know you'd want what's best for me, I hopped right on that.
So thanks so much! I couldn't have asked for a better gift! I absolutely love it!
To see Valentines from previous years, visit the Blogography Valentine's Day Cards Page!
Yesterday afternoon I had to make an emergency trip up to Chelan which, for the uninitiated, is pronounced "sha-lann" (but is spoken by locals more like "shell-ann")... and means Deep Water in the Salish Native American dialect (from the words "tsi-laan").
The city is named after Central Washington's premiere summertime attraction, Lake Chelan, which is indeed some deep, deep water. Like 1400 feet deep, making it the third-deepest lake in the USA, 24th deepest lake in the world. It's also very long... as in 55 miles long.
When I was a kid, I spent many summer days up at "The Lake," and have some great memories from my time there. In high school I spent many summer weekends up at "The Lake," but for entirely different reasons. All my memories from those times are fragmented and hazy.
Anyway... I haven't been here in a while and, despite making the trip for a very sad occasion, there is no denying that waking up to this view is anything but unpleasant...
From Chelan this morning, I drove back to work. Then drove three hours to Spokane this evening...
Where my first stop was Famous Ed's so I could enjoy some David's Pizza (now that David's Pizza has been destroyed)...
Still not authentic David's Da Vinci pizza, but it's a step above what I had last time. I just wish they could get the crust the way David's used to. This crust is kind of tough and chewy... not the wonderfully crusty crispy crust I loved on the original. Oh well. I remain hopeful that they'll eventually open a new David's and make the best pizza I've ever tasted once again.
=sigh=
And now I'm comfy in my hotel bed watching the latest episode of Happy Endings
I want cake.
As I started my three-hour drive home from Spokane, I noticed that my passenger-side rear-view mirror was shaking a bit. As I drove on, it got worse and worse.
"That's odd," I said. I don't remember my mirror being wobbly like that." So I stopped at the next gas station to take a look.
Turns out somebody side-swiped me last night in the hotel parking lot. And, like the asshole they are, they didn't bother leaving a note. Not to offer to pay for repairs. Not even to warn me that my mirror and might drop off my car at any minute. Nothing.
My only consolation is that they scraped a nice swatch of paint off their vehicle...
All I could do was pop my mirror back in the housing the best I could and drive on. I don't even know how I would go about fixing the thing. Take apart the door, I guess. It's still a bit wobbly, but feels solid enough that it's not going to be a safety risk.
And here I thought I was joking when I said my car was invisible.
The first three times.
Now I'm pretty much convinced that the piece of shit does actually possess some kind of stealth capability. How else can I explain getting hit again and again and again and again and again?
Hmmm...
Speaking of "again and again"... my blog is down again. Guess I won't be posting this entry tonight after all.
Typical.
When DC Comics rebooted their entire universe with "The New 52," my intent was to buy the first couple issues... be underwhelmed... then stop collecting comic books once and for all. I had already given up on Marvel Comics for being insanely expensive, so dropping DC seemed inevitable. Heck, 90% of the books I bought I never even read anyway. My thirty-three year relationship with comics was at an end.
Except it wasn't.
Against all odds, "The New 52" rejuvenated my love of comic books.
And once I learned that the previous issue of DC's digital titles would drop by $1 when the new issue when on sale, I switched to reading comics on my iPad and never looked back. I am now reading more comics than I ever have before... a full half of DC's entire line-up (impressive even though it's down from the 35 I was reading three months ago).
In fact, four of the titles are so good that I can't wait a month for the $1 price drop... I buy them the minute they are released...
• BATMAN
No lie... Writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo have created one of the best Batman series I have ever read. The current "Court of Owls" storyline is dragging just a bit six months in, but it's so fascinating that I can't feel raw about it. The tale has weight to it. A lot of history is being woven into the plot, and it's a fascinating look at Batman that's as good as it gets.
• WONDER WOMAN
My favorite Wonder Woman books were from the George Pérez era where he took her back to her Greek mythology roots and made her into something so much more than a female Superman. Now writer Brian Azzarello and artist Tony Akins have taken those mythological ties to an even deeper and more bizarre level, and I absolutely love it. Sure, it can be a difficult read... the climactic battle in #6 was so confusing that I have no idea what in the hell was going on (and neither did the person setting up the "Guide View" in the digital comic, because it skips some stuff!)... but I can't get enough of this book.
• AQUAMAN
If you would have told me six months ago that a book headed up by Aquaman would be in my "must read" pile, I'd have called you crazy. And yet here we are. I felt that Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis' conclusion to the whole "Trench" storyline was a bit wimpy and anti-climactic... but the journey to that finale was so rewarding that I wasn't bothered. Aquaman has gone from a D-list joke of a character to a truly critical part of the DC lineup. Whoda thunk it?
• JUSTICE LEAGUE
Geoff Johns and Jim Lee are serving up a terrific team book that's larger than life. And though the story has been a little uneven, the beautiful artwork goes a long way towards my enjoyment of the book. And enjoying it I am.
The other titles I'm buying (albeit after a month delay for the $1 price decrease) are...
• Action Comics
• All-Star Western
• Batgirl
• Batman & Robin
• Batwoman
• Birds of Prey
• Blue Beetle
• Flash
• Green Lantern
• Justice League Dark
• Justice League International
• Legion of Super-Heroes
• Legion Lost
• Nightwing
• OMAC (cancelled)
• Resurrection Man
• Stormwatch
• Superboy
• Supergirl
• Superman
• Swamp Thing
• Teen Titans
Entirely too many comic books. But I just can't help myself.
Yesterday's drive over the mountains was about as uneventful as it gets. No snow. No insane people. No terrible motorists. No accidents. No drama. Nothing. Everybody even drove the speed limit! At first I thought that hell might have frozen over... but then I realized that I was just playing the odds. After hundreds of such drives in the past, the stars somehow aligned to give me the stress-free journey I've always dreamed about. Guess I was due...
In order to take photos of my road-trips, I modified an old GPS mount to stick my iPhone to the windshield and use a time-lapse app to snap pictures as I drive. That way, I'm not one of these people who can't stay on the road because I'm dicking around with my phone and crashing into people.
There are a few problems with this...
And now... I should probably get back to my glass of Jägermeister. It looks very lonely up there on the table. Staring at me. Demanding I show it some love. Such a demanding drink, it is.
Get out the Jägermeister and Red Bull, we're dropping bombs, and Bullet Sunday starts... now!
• Tragedy. Yesterday I wrote about my drive over Stevens Pass. Then today I heard that three skiers were killed in an avalanche up there. Whenever something like this happens, there's a mad scramble to track down all your skier friends to make sure they're okay. Then temper your relief with a grief that comes from knowing while it wasn't anybody you knew this time... it could most certainly be so next time. It's a stressful and horrible time, now made worse because you have fucked up shit like this circulating...
I know this dumbass bitch's "church" is nothing more than a huge scam made up of lawyers who do their best to piss people off so they can get attacked (then sue everybody and make piles of money)... but I don't even care. They are vile filth who victimize families at their most vulnerable and should be put in prison. Shame on people who keep defending these assholes' "freedom of speech" when they are nothing more than vicious bullies who ruthlessly violate the rights of others.
• Babeu. The interwebs are abuzz on both sides of the political spectrum with the outing of hard-core anti-immigration activist and Mitt Romney campaign co-chair for Arizona, Sheriff Paul Babeu. And now the poor guy is being attacked from all sides in a clear demonstration of just how fucked up this country is...
Photo taken from Reuters
First of all, I have to say that yes... if Babeu abused his authority to intimidate and threaten somebody, then he was wrong and should be held accountable for that. But until this is proven, shame on everybody.
Shame on Liberals who are screaming "HYPOCRITE!" because he's gay and Republican. Why the fuck should his sexual orientation dictate his political beliefs? Yeah, Republicans are not very welcoming of homosexuals... and hard-core Conservatives are outright hostile towards them... but if Babeu can set that aside because his politics are more aligned with a conservative viewpoint and that's what's important to him, why the hell should you care? If you disagree with his stance on immigration, fine. But if you think a man can only be a Democrat if he's gay, then it's you who are the hypocrite.
Shame on Conservatives who are now screaming "HIS CAREER SHOULD BE OVER!" because he's gay and Republican. Why should his sexual orientation dictate what job he can hold? The guy served with honor in the National Guard where he spent a tour in Iraq. He is a decorated law enforcement officer. He has faithfully protected our borders from drug trafficking. He is consistent with Conservative views on immigration. He has demonstrated over and over again that he's your fucking DREAM CANDIDATE in his plan to run for U.S. Congress... and yet you would discard the guy because he's into dudes? What is he supposed to do... give up the sexual aspect of his humanity and be unhappy just to make you happy? That is one of the most stupid fucking things I've ever heard.
This type of crap drives me insane. The guy is just doing the best he can to be true to the man he is in a world that attacks him for doing so. I may not support his politics, but I support him in his pursuit of happiness... just as all Americans should... Liberal and Conservative alike.
• Horror. And just because my disgust is already running at an all-time high here... might as well tear into one of the biggest assholes on the planet, Nancy Grace. I've written many times about how much I loathe this disgusting excuse for a human being, but she just keeps getting worse and worse...
If there's anybody out there who still thinks her "crusade for the victims" is anything more than a shameless money-grab by one of the biggest fucking exploitation whores on the planet, Salon has an article for you.
And now... back to my three-day weekend...
Yesterday the television weather dude was forecasting doom and gloom on the mountain passes. He even went so far as to recommend that you drive home from your holiday weekend early (on Sunday) if you could. This scared the crap out of me because I simply had to get back home before Tuesday.
Unfortunately, I had been drinking, so driving home yesterday wasn't possible. Instead I decided I would drive home early today before the weather got too bad. So I woke up at 7am and left just before 8am.
Only to find that the passes were JUST FINE, and I worried for nothing. I also got up early for nothing, which sucks ass.
Oh well. Once I got past all the skiers driving to the summit, I had the road entirely to myself, which was nice...
The GPS mount that holds my iPhone kept sliding on my windshield, which was annoying, but I got some nice shots of my trip. One of these days I'm doing that time-lapse movie... it's quite a nice drive.
Anyway... home safe and sound.
It's been a really tough week to keep up with my sewing classes but, since I ended up coming home so early yesterday, I spent most of last night getting caught up...
...AND PLAYING WITH MY BRAND NEW SEWING MACHINE!!
My dad saw my sewing struggles on my blog and decided to give me an early birthday present... a Brother SE400! It's pretty sweet, does just about everything you could ever want, and sews like a dream with dozens of computer-controled stitches. As if that weren't enough, it can do embroidery as well...
It's going to take a while to figure everything out, but I'm digging it so far!
The first project I had to work on was a "Drawstring Tote Bag." I thought it looked kinda like an army duffle bag, so I decided to buy some cammo fabric and make something I could use in one of my AnySoldier.com care packages. It holds three rolls of toilet paper perfectly...
The next project was a "Relaxing Eye Mask" filled with rice that you can microwave or freeze. I had a big problem trying to get the tie-straps turned inside-out, so I ended up having to make them really huge so I wouldn't get stuck...
Still works okay though...
The last thing I had to do was practice stitching around shapes appliqué-style. My new sewing machine makes stuff like this a snap because it feeds fabric so beautifully and can make such perfect stitches...
I may have went a little too dense on the stitch-length though... I burned through a spool of thread in no time flat.
Our next project is an apron with ruffles on it. I have given up all hope of making it look like something a guy like me could wear, as I am not nearly macho enough to pull off ruffles. Oh well... you don't need an apron to heat up a microwave TV dinner, so it's all good.
Now I really should unpack my dirty clothes. Otherwise my next sewing project will have to be a suitcase, because my current one is starting to smell.
Yesterday morning was a mad rush to get to work. I had been attacking my to-do list since 4:00am, and really need to get to the office so I could get everything sent out. This meant skipping breakfast, throwing my crap into my backpack, then storming out the door.
Where I proceeded to drop my iPhone on the pavement.
And then accidentally kick it across the parking lot when I bent over to pick it up.
So now my beautiful iPhone has a giant crack running down the front along with assorted chips in the glass...
Not a pretty site.
What's odd is that this is the first time I've damaged an iPhone in the five years I've been buying them. Over the years I've dropped them numerous times... I even dunked one in a waterfall... but they've never been worse for wear. Which is odd, because before I got my first iPhone, my mobiles were breaking all the time.
I'm rough on phones, yo.
So, after drop-kicking my current iPhone, I honestly did expect to pick it up and have it be fine. To see that big-ass crack there shouldn't have shocked me, but it really did. Oh well. Given the abuse I heap on these things, it was bound to happen eventually. The good news is that everything is still working fine.
And now my iPhone is off to the good people at iResQ so they can replace his face. Don't ask me how I'll manage without it until Friday... I honestly don't know... but I'm sure plenty of comfort chocolate pudding is in order.
= sob! =
I should know better than to keep watching the Republican debates.
But like the glutton for punishment I am, I tune in with the faint hope that I'll hear something new... or interesting... or inspiring... or even just a tiny bit smart. This country has big problems, and I'm still waiting to hear from somebody who can figure it all out.
But that person sure ain't one of the Republican candidates for president. So not only am I wasting my time, I'm also exposing myself to near-fatal levels of bullshit.
Like listening to Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum once again vomit up some of his outrageous crap...
President Barack Obama actually went to France a year or so ago and was with Nicolas Sarkozy and said that, "Here I am with the French Prime Minister, our best ally in the world." Now think about this. Name one time in the last 20 years that the French stood by us with anything. But in Barack Obama's eyes, that makes them our best ally, because they fought what was in the best interest of our country.
The levels of stupid here are just too legion to even contemplate. Fortunately, I don't have to, as Politifact did an excellent job of debunking this fucked-up statement. The truth is that France has been a true ally to this country for a very long time. They deserve a lot better than to be diminished and dismissed by a piece of shit politician looking to score cheap points.
In a time when the USA has too many enemies in too many places, we need to remember who our friends are...
Despite my loathing of Santorum's never-ending hypocrisy, hate, exaggeration, and outright lies, a part of me still wants to believe that a candidate for President of the United States of America surely must want what's best for this country in their heart. But how can I in this case?
Either Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum is so evil that he would purposely damage our relationship with a long-time ally just to get votes out of people too fucking stupid to question his lies... or... he himself is so fucking stupid that he doesn't even know when he's lying any more...
Photo taken from Reuters
If you want to find somebody fighting what is in the best interest of our country, Rick, all you have to do is look in a mirror. Everything that's wrong with America is staring back at you.
This morning when I woke up I reached for my iPhone... remembered it was gone... then burst into tears.
Well, okay, I didn't actually burst into tears. But I felt like I should have. iPhone is always with me no matter where I go, and to not have him by my side felt like a part of me was missing. Dejected and alone, I headed off to work... trying my best to face a cruel future while cut-off from the world.
But then my repaired iPhone was delivered and everything was okay again.
Until I found out that Washington State has introduced a bill to add even more fucking taxes to our cell phone bills. Never mind that our state already pays the second-highest mobile phone tax in the nation, our legislators have decided that we should pay even more to cover their budget shortfall.
This stupid shit is getting out of hand.
It would be different if we had taxes lower than the national average or something... but increasing taxes on the second highest rate in the nation?!? How can these asshole politicians think that this is a rational solution to their problem? Though I suppose it's only slightly less stupid than the non-candy candy tax bullshit they tried last year.
Look, I appreciate that we need to meet our budget obligations and be fiscally responsible and stuff... but why shift the burden to people's cell phone bills when they're already paying through the ass? It's not like my iPhone is causing the budget shortfall... so stop punishing me as if it is.
Maybe cutting the salary of the dumbfuck politicians who keep attacking us instead of balancing the budget in a way that makes sense is the solution. Where do I vote on that?
After having a meltdown over the latest disgusting crap flying out of Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum's mouth, I decided to step away from the internet and watch some "safety television."
Usually this is old episodes of Veronica Mars or Friends or Buffy The Vampire Slayer... but Animal Planet was airing episodes of Too Cute! which is about as adorable as television gets...
AWWWWW! A baby sloth and his Teddy bear!
AWWWWW! Baby sloths hanging around!
AWWWWW! A baby sloth has a bath!
AWWWWW! A baby sloth goes for a walk!
AWWWWW! A baby puppy looks around!
AWWWWW! A baby newborn kitten tries to open his eyes!
AWWWWW! A baby puppy playing in the leaves!
AWWWWW! A baby puppy chewing on a pumkin!
AWWWWW! CUTE BABY PUPPIES!!!
AWWWWW! Baby kitten takes a walk!
There! All better! How can I not feel all warm and fuzzy after watching cute baby animals for hours!
So go fuck yourself Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum!
Don't touch that mouse, Bullet Sunday starts... now.
• Higgs Boson. For science geeks like myself, Saturday was kind of a special day, as we were granted an audience with Professor Peter Higgs via a rare interview in The Scotsman. Fresh off of winning the Edinburgh Award, he made the bold prediction that the stupidly nicknamed "God Particle" that bears his name will finally be found this summer after 48 years. Bring on the Nobel Prize.
• Joke. Really? Attacking President Kennedy now? I gotta hand it to Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum, he's got balls the size of watermelons to be trash-talking one of this country's most beloved presidents. Especially when Santorum is so petty and insignificant in the grand scheme of things...
Santorum's tiny, insignificant, flea-like body from Ambro
How embarrassing. At some point even the craziest of crazies who are supporting this moron are going to wake up and say "What the fuck?!?"
• Astronomical. Apparently there was a spectacular alignment of planets happening in the heavens this weekend. Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon are all lining up to some kind of cool visual. I wouldn't know, of course, as the sky was totally overcast...
I swear, no astronomical events ever happen here. I get screwed by the weather every time.
• Finally. One of my favorite actors ever, James Earl Jones, was finally given his due with a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award...
Photo from Luke Macgregor/Reuters
Can you imagine any of his movie appearances with somebody else in the role? Field of Dreams? The Lion King? Sneakers? The voice of CNN? THE VOICE OF DARTH VADER?!? No. No you can't. He's and incredible talent, and seeing him get an Oscar makes the award almost relevant again.
• Oscar. I am not a fan of the Academy Awards. They so rarely get it right when it comes to those deserving of a win. Case in point?
Captain America: The First Avenger — Best Picture.
Robert Downey Jr — Best Actor for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
David Fincher — Best Director for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Stanley Tucci — Best Supporting Actor for Captain America: The First Avenger.
Meryl Streep — Best Actress for The Iron Lady.
Jennifer Aniston — Best Supporting Actress for Horrible Bosses.
And how many of those trophies were correctly awarded? One. Congratulations Meryl. You're amazing as always.
And now... I've got to pack a suitcase...
Tonight I had a loaf of garlic bread and a glass of Kool-Aid for dinner.
If you can't tell, I've given up on life.
Probably because I have to get up at 3:30am tomorrow so I can make my plane. Usually I wouldn't fly so frickin' early, but the price difference between the early flight and the not-so-early flight was $800, so there you have it. If only I were made of money, I wouldn't have to deal with crap like this.
But I'm not. So I do. Welcome to my world.
I guess I should take a shower and go to bed... or do whatever it is that people do when they have to get up in six hours for a flight. Ooh! What if people eat chocolate pudding and watch Batman cartoons?
Yes. I think that must be what people do.
And so shall I.
So shall I.
What a wacky day!
3:00am
I was hoping that staying up until 11:00 last night would mean I'd sleep until my alarm went off at 3:30 this morning. This was, of course, the wishful thinking of a chronic insomniac. Wide awake at 3:00am. Apparently anything more than four hours sleep will have to stay a dream... a short but wonderful dream.
3:25am
Shower. Get dressed. Pack up my crap. Check my email for flight cancellations (for the third time this morning). Then stare at the clock until 3:50am when I head off to the airport.
4:20am
Arrive at the airport, which won't open for ten minutes. Wasn't stopped by the police for accidental speeding, which is always a plus. Now I'm bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. I surf the internet on my iPhone for twenty minutes to pass the time, then look up to see this:
Since I just added oil last weekend, I can only guess my car is burning oil like a muthertrucker. Yay! I totally have a pile of money back home just waiting to throw at an auto mechanic!
4:45am
The security screening agent asks me if I want to remove my sweatshirt or go for the pat-down. I explain that it's a bit too early for me to have been drinking, so I'll pass on the pat-down and strip off my hoodie. He seems a little too relieved. I'm offended because I am totally grope-worthy this morning! Since I buzzed my head, every day is a good hair day right here! Now I sit and wait to see if my flight will be cancelled because of "mechanical difficulties"... for the third time in a row (=cough= BULLSHIT! =cough=).
5:35am
Oh my dear and fluffy Lord, we're actually boarding the plane! The cabin attendant announces that the weather in Seattle is currently clear, but clouds with a light rain will be moving in later this morning and is "projected to last until July 5th." This gets him a courtesy laugh because it is funny for being (mostly) true... but anybody familiar with Seattle already knows this. I stifle the urge to give him a golf clap because I like to encourage smart-assery whenever I can.
5:40am
My name is "David Simmer II" instead of the more common "David Simmer Jr." because my dad didn't want for people to call me "Junior" (as so often happens). I'm guessing this was because he had hoped I'd become rich and famous so he could sponge off the glory that was my his name. But when you think about it, this was a huge risk because what if the opposite happened? What if I instead became an infamous drug addict? Or a serial killer? Or a politician? But luckily (unluckily?) the only meager fame I have is as "That Blography Guy," so my profanity-laden rants on this blog aren't too damaging. Even so, I still get a little excited when I notice somebody else with "II" instead or "Jr." after their name. We're rare, and our dads were notorious risk-takers, so there's a bond there...
Looks like Milton G. Kuolt II's father totally scored...
Sorry, dad... if the only way I can get a plane named after me is to start my own airline, I'm afraid you're out of luck... OR ARE YOU?!?
6:30am
Wheeeeeeee!
Landed in Seattle after taking off as scheduled. Will wonders never cease.
6:35am
And now I start my four-hour layover. Yes, that sucks, but since the flight I was on is canceled ALL THE TIME, I have to allow enough time to drive over to Seattle in the event of "mechanical difficulties." I briefly contemplate hauling ass to SeaTac's South Satellite to catch an earlier flight for my connection in Salt Lake City. But I only have 15 minutes, and this is SeaTac we're talking about, so I sit down to a Qdoba Egg & Potato breakfast burrito instead...
It's like heaven in a foil wrapper, I tell you what.
8:05am
Argh. Screaming kids wherever I go. As if that weren't bad enough, SeaTac is BLASTING this fucking awful music at full volume. So I reach for my... my... HOLY CRAP I'VE FORGOTTEN MY HEADPHONES!!! It's always something. Since this is a common event with me, I go to a kiosk and buy the almost-cheapest ear buds I can find. They're Skullcandy "Smokin' Buds" (HA! a thinly-veiled marijuana reference! How clever is THAT?)... and... they are so bad. The bass is ridiculously harsh and there is precious little definition or clarity, so everything is a muffled mess. I set iTune's equalizer to try and compensate, but the sound is still pretty terrible...
UPDATE: While these ear buds do totally suck for my MacBook Pro, the sound coming from my iPhone with them is actually pretty decent. Still muddy, but at least it feels a little more balanced.
8:35am
Just as I receive an email telling me that my flight out of Seattle has been delayed, my iPhone rings to tell me the same thing. Naturally this screws up my connection in Salt Lake City since I am now arriving 10 minutes after my flight leaves. I wish I could even pretend to be surprised. I'm just lucky that there was room for me on a later flight. And that my First Class upgrade transferred. When I scan my ticket to get a revised boarding card, a "courtesy coupon" spits out... it's a $10 meal voucher. SCORE!! I wonder if Jägermeister would be considered a "meal?"
9:00am
Dear Seattle-Tacoma International Airport,
I'm not shy by any means, but would it fucking kill you to add some privacy screens between the urinals? The damn things are so frickin' close to each other that I worry I might get confused and pee into a neighboring john by mistake...
Sounds unlikely, I know, but when you have people using their free meal vouchers to start buying Jäger shots at 9:00 in the morning... well, crazier shit has been known to happen.
9:05am
My flight has just been delayed again. I may die of un-shock. On the plus side, Delta Airlines has set out some drinks and snacks for delayed passengers (something I've never seen before). Circumstances aside, this is pretty darn nice of them.
10:10am
Flight delayed for a third time. I didn't think it was possible for me to be even more un-shocked than I was, but here we are.
11:15am
My flight is finally boarding! For everybody except me. When they scan my boarding pass, they get an error. The gate agent reprints my pass a couple times but to no avail. Finally they just rip it in half and tell me they'll figure it out later. I certainly hope so.
12:50pm
Wondering what's happening with my ticket back in Seattle, I buy 15 minutes of inflight internet for $1.95. When I login to Delta, everything looks okay and my new flight shows up, but who knows? With 10 minutes of internet left, I Tweet pictures and stuff...
Wheeee! I'm totally flying here!
2:40pm (Mountain Time now)
Arrive in Salt Lake City. My original connecting flight left nearly an hour ago... my new flight doesn't leave for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I need alcohol badly, but settle for some Sun Chips I took from Delta's snack table while I wait to board my now-delayed (SURPRISE!) flight to Kansas City.
7:30pm (Central Time now)
The turbulence is balls-nasty. Either that or we're crashing. As much as I dislike the idea of going down in a ball of flames, I do like the idea of not having to go to work tomorrow. In case we DO crash, here's my plane's last known location. Please send a search party. And beer...
8:30pm
Arrive safely(!) at Kansas City Airport 3-1/2 hours later than planned. Pick up my car. Drive the 40 minutes to downtown. Check into my hotel. Life is good again at last.
10:00pm
Sit in bed finishing up this entry as gusting winds are howling and a torrential flood of rain is pelting my window. It's like a monsoon out there! Looks like I won't be getting any sleep after all now that Armageddon is going on around me. Such a pity.
10:30pm
I finish. Then I click "publish"...
Work started early and ended early, so I was left with four-and-a-half hours of free time to explore Kansas City. And since there's probably only ten minutes worth of crap to see here, that would be plenty of time, wouldn't it?
Ummmm... no. Not by a long-shot.
I had been here a couple times before, but assumed there wasn't much going on, so I never really made an effort to see what KC had to offer. Now I know this was a huge, huge, mistake.
And I found this out pretty much by accident.
On a previous trip, I had been to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. This time I wanted to go to the The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which is kind of famous for the three giant shuttlecocks planted in front...
Inside, there is an impressive and varied collection from many different genres. I was particularly impressed with their European works, which has a terrific impressionist room. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
As I was driving to an art supply store, I saw a sign for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I like baseball, so I thought it might be worth a stop. I did keep my enthusiasm in check, however, because how great could it be? Probably just a bunch of glass cases filled with old stuff, right?
Ummmm... no. Not by a long-shot.
This has to be one of the most impressive shrines to the great sport of baseball that I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of them. I was completely and utterly blown away by the amazing story they tell, and the incredible way they tell it. It's a beautiful, important, and wholly wonderful museum that manages to do a lot within a little space...
I expected to spend 20 minutes here. I ended up spending an hour. I could have stayed for another. The only down-sides are
"If colored clubs were admitted there would be in all probability some division of feeling, whereas, by excluding them no injury could result to anyone."
— Raymond J. Burr, Philadelphia Pythians Representative
That's right... no injury for anyone! EXCEPT THE BLACK PLAYERS YOU RACIST IDIOT! I swear, a good chunk of the museum is very, very difficult to explore. You get to learn all about the things that these sportsmen went through just to play. Like going without food on road games because there was no place to stop that would serve "coloreds." But lest you think that the experience of being a player in the Negro Leagues overshadows the game of baseball here... it doesn't. There's loads of amazing baseball artifacts, trivia, and stories. Like I said, one of the best baseball museums you'll find anywhere. Best $8 I've ever spent. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!
As if having The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum wasn't enough... the same building houses The American Jazz Museum! I enjoy some jazz, but am not the biggest fan of the genre. But... the ticket was only $2 extra when bought with an NLBM ticket, so I went for it. I expected to spend 5 or ten minutes here. I ended up spending a half-hour, and could have easily stayed longer. The place is amazing. Just amazing. It's beautifully constructed with vibrant, exciting interactive displays and plenty of awesome memorabilia. All the greats are here from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and everyone in-between. Wish I could have taken photos to share, because it's that well done. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Looking for something else to do, I spotted a pamphlet for the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. They have a visitor center with a massive presidential coin collection plus you get to look inside the vault to see the people working with the money there! SOLD!
Except I took a wrong turn and ended up at something called "The National World War I Museum." Oops. But since I'm here, I might as well take a look. Probably just a bunch of old junk sitting on shelves or something, right?
Ummmm... no. Not by a long-shot.
I have been to a lot of museums around the world. Seriously, a LOT of them. I can tell you right now that this mind-bogglingly amazing museum can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the very best of them. It is frickin' incredible. AND I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE IN MY LIFE! I am sick at the thought that the only reason I came here was because of a wrong turn...
I spent two hours here. I could have spent two days. This museum is the very definition of "destination-worthy experience." You will not only learn a lot about The First Great World War, but you will see a lot of amazing stuff from that era. I first went to "The Main Hall" which is actually underneath that tower you see there. The displays are nothing short of jaw-dropping, both for how beautiful they are and how informative they are...
You enter the museum by walking across a glass bridge over a field of poppies
From there I went up "Liberty Tower" to get a view of the city...
And then I went to the "Memory Hall" exhibits (that's the building to the left of the tower in my first photo)...
Then I went to the "Exhibit Hall" exhibits (that's the building to the right of the tower in my first photo)...
The sheer depth and breadth of the story they tell here still has me reeling. It's truly a world-class museum right here in Kansas City... and you get to see all of it for a bargain-basement price of $6. YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT, SIX DOLLARS! Just go. Book your plane ticket and go. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION.
After forcibly tearing myself away from the National World War I Museum, I made my way to my original destination... the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank Money Museum. It's a small museum, but impressive and fun. The only place you can't take pictures is in The Vault (which is a shame, because the money robots are cool!)...
After getting screened at security and going through a metal detector and such, you can walk through the exhibits and see the Presidential Coin Collection... featuring all the coins issued during the terms of all our presidents...
Coins from President Washington all the way to President Obama!
As if all that wasn't enough, they've got a really nice hard-bound souvenir book for just $16 plus a bag of FREE MONEY! Yep! Everybody who visits the museum gets their own bag full of money...
...which has been shredded into the tiniest possible pieces.
But still, pretty cool. And well-worth a visit. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
After getting caught up with work, I decided to hit one more museum... The Hallmark Cards Visitor Center!
It's not very comprehensive, but gives a decent overview of the company and the stuff they make... from cards and bows to Keepsake Ornaments and gifts...
Though my favorite part was the bow-making machine which creates a souvenir you get to keep!
Overall a fun diversion... but not a critical one. I almost wish I would have gone back to the National World War I Museum.
And I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface of what Kansas City has to offer the wayward tourist. For example, I know there's a Harley Davidson Museum north of here (though it looks similar to the ones I've already been to in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).
If only I had more time to see it all.
Anyway... I've got to get back to work now. Hopefully I've done my part to encourage you to take a trip to KC now that you know of some of the really cool stuff that's here waiting for you.
Yesterday I forgot to say a big "thank you" to everybody who emailed/tweeted/commented to see if I was alright after the storms and tornados which descended on the area my first night here.
Yes, I am perfectly okay. Though a bit sleep-deprived because the howling winds, torrential rains, and lightning flashes made sleep next to impossible. But, thankfully, there was nothing more severe than that. Unlike the poor people in Harveyville, which is a mere hour-and-a-half away from Kansas City...
Half the city was pretty much wiped off the map when a tornado dropped there Tuesday night. And, from the sounds of it, more tornados are on the way.
Today is all about work and flying home, so I'll leave you with a photo I took last night on the way back from dinner...
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Yourself...
So. Very. Tired.
After dealing with ten buckets of crazy on my flight back to Seattle last night, I caught my connecting flight, hopped in my car, and arrived back home a little after midnight. Which doesn't sound late until you realize that's 2:00am in Kansas City. This made for a long day today that no amount of 5-Hour Energy could fix. At least not an amount I could afford.
And now that I'm completely wiped out? NO BLOGOGRAPHY FOR YOU!
Except...
Yesterday I had to rush through my blog entry to make my plane, so I didn't get to explain my participation in the 30 Days Drawing Challenge. Pablo Calle over at You Are The Danger provided a list of 30 things to draw in 30 days which was found by Lee over at Quit Your Day Job, and I'm playing along. Because I like to draw. And here's my second drawing:
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Animal...
After having visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, I fell in love with Koalas, because they're just that adorable. But I really fell in love with the Tasmanian Devil after having learned how endangered they are. Much of the population in the wild has been plagued with facial tumors that grow until it becomes impossible for them to eat, leaving the poor critters to starve to death. Yes, they can be a bit foul-tempered, but they're tough little guys that have to scavenge out an existence and pose no harm to humans. If you want to learn more about these wonderful creatures, there's a site devoted to saving them.
Blargh.
I know that the current round of stupid politics won't be over until November, but I'd settle for the Republican primary being done and gone. Instead they keep dragging out the inevitable Romney nomination for no good reason. And now it was my turn, since our state straw poll was held today.
Google is showing that the AP has Romney walking away with the win with 91% of precincts reporting here in Washington State...
| Mitt Romney | 17,275 | 36.6% |
|
| Ron Paul | 11,767 | 24.9% |
|
| Rick Santorum | 11,496 | 24.4% |
|
| Newt Gingrich | 4,995 | 10.6% |
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| Other | 1,636 | 3.5% |
|
I'm not surprised that Ron Paul did so well, since he seems to be quite popular here... though I am surprised he came in second. Sure he's only a half-percent higher than Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum, but that's pretty huge when you think about it. I have no idea what is going on with Gingrich. Either delusion has finally taken up residence... or he's gone crazy for Cocoa Puffs.
And speaking of chocolatey goodness...
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Food...
My favorite "real" food is Fettucini Alfredo... but my favorite snack food is chocolate pudding. It has been for as long as I can remember...
And probably will be for the foreseeable future...
Because, really, is there anything more delicious than chocolate pudding? NAY! NAY, I SAY!
Don't touch that dial... Bullet Sunday starts... now!
• Visionary. I was sad to learn that genius illustrator Ralph McQuarrie passed away this week. As a mega-huge Star Wars fan, one can't help but admire the conceptual designer who designed Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, and loads of locations throughout the film. It was his visuals that helped sell the film in the first place so, in many ways, anybody who loves Star Wars loves McQuarrie...
Still amazing. You will be missed.
• John Carter. My favorite science fiction novels of all time are the "Barsoom" books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Starting with A Princess of Mars, the series is packed with action and adventure that set the benchmark for a lot of sci-fi that was to follow. After decades of waiting, we finally get a movie. It looks promising, even though Disney seems to be dropping the ball with the advertising. The latest trailer is pretty good though...
And if you're REALLY ambitious, there's a 10-minute chunk that's been posted online that shows John Carter before he was transported to Mars...
Oh yes. I want to see this one pretty bad. Arrives March 9th... mark your calendars!
• Television. If you're not watching NBC's latest show, Awake, you're missing out. There's nothing I didn't like about the premiere episode starring Jason Isaacs as a man who can't discern between dreams and reality after tragedy strikes...
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Thursdays at 10/9c... and if you missed the first episode, you can get it from iTunes FREE!
• Whore. Apparently all Rush Limbaugh knows how to do is lie and attack people. And why not? It's built him a huge audience and made him a millionaire many times over. But, seriously... what a gaping asshole.
• 30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Place...
This was a difficult challenge, because I have dozens upon dozens of favorite places on this earth. But I am always wanting to go back to Maui. Especially now when it's cold outside. The nice thing about The Valley Isle is that I've been there many times, so there's no pressure to see or do anything. I can just park myself on a beach somewhere and kick back. What more could you want for a happy place?
It's the storm before the calm!
Tomorrow afternoon I leave for a couple weeks vacation. I am not even close to being ready. Between non-stop work and a couple of unplanned trips, there hasn't been time to do much of anything. Even so, I managed to get a suitcase packed, eat dinner, get my ducks in a row, and make sure I've got a bunch of comic books loaded on my iPad for the flight. I'm as ready as I'm gonna be. And if I forgot something? That's what a credit card is for.
So there's not much cause to go into a panic, is there?
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Best Friend...
In the context of this blog, Bad Monkey is my best friend.
When it comes to real life, I'm blessed with a multitude of "best friends" that I love more than chocolate pudding. And let's not forget my blog readers, who I love more than Taco Doritos. My life is better because of all of you!*
* Well, okay, most of you. But especially you.
Ugh.
Really tough day. I'll have to write about it tomorrow, because now I just want to go to sleep for a couple hours.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Book Character [Can't Be a Movie]...
I was going to answer "John Carter of Mars" but that's now a movie (opens Friday!). After that would be "Tarzan" but that's been a lot of movies. "Sherlock Holmes?" Movie. "Ian Dunross?" Television Movie. "Zaphod Breeblebrox?" Movie. "Batman?" Movie. "Paul Atreides?" Movie. "Aragorn?" Movie. Well, crap. And then there's books I love which have characters I like that require more thought and energy to draw than I have right now.
Ultimately I had to go with "Dream" from The Sandman... Neil Gaiman's epic comic book series. Though it was a tough choice between him and his sister, "Death," who is about as amazing as a character can get.
Yesterday was the very definition of chaos. Probably because I didn't get any sleep the night before, and was running on fumes all day long.
The day you leave for vacation is always like that, I guess, no matter how much you try to make it otherwise. There's always too much to be done and time is running out to do it. Oh well, it's over now. Even though I was pretty much dead by the time I got to my hotel at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last night.
The one bright spot was the drive over Blewett and Snoqualmie passes, which nearly killed me in my exhausted state, but what a beautiful way to go...
Always amazes me what you can pull off an iPhone that's been stuck to your windshield after you've cleaned, cropped, and sharpened up the mess of photos that were snapping away during your drive. Makes me wish I had time to pull off the road and take some photos with my real camera!
I'd say "there's always next time" but how can I be sure?
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Word...
Not so much that I would care to live for an eternity... but because I like the idea of something that is infinite and never-ending. Something that is bigger than the sum of everything. It's a terrific word that encompasses so much with so little.
Greetings from onboard the mighty Island Princess.
Embarkation was a breeze... a pleasure even... which is not something I can say about most cruises I have taken. Not only did everything go quickly with a minimum time spent waiting in line, but the stateroom was ready before I even stepped foot on the ship.
After a nice buffet lunch, a safety drill, and smooth sailing out of Port Everglades, we were at sea, sailing away from grey skies towards a sunnier climate...
Dinner, as usual for a cruise ship, was excellent. They have a decent Fettucini Alfredo as a standard menu item, which is pretty sweet. And then, before I even realized it, the sun went down and the night was here...
Tomorrow is a "day at sea" which is not my favorite thing, but I'm sure I'll manage doing nothing just fine.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Animated Character...
This was a complete no-brainer. There are a lot of animated characters I like (Batman, Sully Monster, Stitch, etc.)... but my hands-down favorite is GIR from Invader Zim. His crazy antics crack me up every time, and they managed to give him a personality that is something really special. Oh how I wish that they would make more Zim cartoons. I've seen the existing ones so many times I'm starting to memorize them.
Sea day. Sea day. Just a boring sea day.
As I'm not much a fan of laying around and eating until you puke, sea days aren't my favorite thing on a cruise. Though the weather was pretty amazing (if a little windy)...
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Television Show...
Easily my favorite show to have ever existed was Jeremy Piven's Cupid. I'd tell you to go buy it on DVD so you could see just how amazing and magical that television can be but, alas, it's not available. I keep hoping though.
I'M TRAPPED! TRAPPED LIKE A RAT ON A BIG BOAT!!
Sea days on a cruise are tough. Two of them in a row is really tough.
The highlight of my day was watching some chefs cut fruits and vegetables into a variety of interesting shapes, then assembling these shapes into various birds, fish, and animals...
Yep, that was my day.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Candy...
I love U-NO bars. The texture is sublime. They're sweet... but have little salty almond bits. I could eat them morning, noon, and night, but only seem to find them around Halloween where I live.
Probably a good thing.
But a little boring to draw.
If it's going to rain in The Caribbean, it's usually just for a bit in the morning until the sun comes out and burns the clouds away. Which is why I'm at a complete loss as to why the ship's itinerary has it docking in Oranjestad, Aruba (an independent part of the Netherlands) at FRICKIN' SEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING when it was pissing down rain... then leaving at 12:30, just as blue skies were arriving. If I were a sun worshiper coming to enjoy one of Aruba's magnificent beaches, I'd be pissed.
But I'm not, so I don't get all bent out of shape. Heck, cloudy days with a little rain make for some beautiful photos, so I'm perfectly fine with that kind of weather.
Which didn't come until 9:30am, meaning I spent a couple hours getting drenched. Because the rain rolled in just moments after docking...
Visiting the "California Lighthouse" (named for a ship that sunk off the coast here) was a wet experience indeed...
But after a while the sun started breaking through and even the dogs were coming out...
By the time I arrived at "Baby Natural Bridge," the rain had completely stopped and the skies were clearing...
"Baby Natural Bridge" is a land formation where the water has eaten away at the base of a big rock, creating a bridge...
The original "Natural Bridge" was bigger than "Baby Natural Bridge," but it collapsed into the ocean back in 2005. It's the black busted rocks you see on the right there...
And here's a better view...
In the above picture, the waterline used to extend all the way up onto the sand there. But when Natural Bridge collapsed, it blocked off the ocean. Apparently, tourists used to walk across the bridge all the time so, luckily, it fell apart in the early morning when nobody was around to get hurt.
There's a few places on the island where giant boulders randomly appear for no reason that geologists understand. This makes them a tourist attraction, and you can even climb on top of one like a mini Stone Mountain!
And, of course, my last stop had to be the Hard Rock Cafe Aruba, so I could pick up a shirt and a few pins...
AT LEAST I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT A T-SHIRT IF THE SHOP HAD ANY OF THEM... ABSOLUTELY ANY OF THEM... IN A SIZE LARGE!! How incredibly stupid do you have to be to run out of the one souvenir that everybody wants in the most popular size on earth? It's as if the management at this Hard Rock just said "Fuck it! We don't want the cash!"... and then set a huge pile of money on fire in the middle of the fucking restaurant. I mean, seriously, selling souvenir shirts and pins at a Hard Rock is like printing money. You get guaranteed sales at a massive profit margin, and so it makes zero sense why any Hard Rock would ever... ever... run out.
Unless they were purposely trying to run themselves out of business.
Oh well.
With an hour left to kill, I wandered down the colorful streets of Oranjestad...
And, as you can see, blue skies struck with a vengeance... just as the ship was leaving port.
And that was the first port excursion on my cruise. A welcome event after two days trapped on a giant boat at sea.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw the Turning Point in Your Life...
While there are many turning points in my life, the biggest would be a visit to Thailand back in 1998. My entire outlook on life was completely changed. Suddenly all the things that once seemed so critical to my happiness became trivial and petty. Some of this came from studying Buddhist teachings... but mostly it came from the beautiful example set by the Thai people themselves. It was as if I had been sleepwalking for decades and suddenly started to wake up as to what was important in life.
It doesn't get to be more of a turning point than that.
It was a roasting 90° F in Columbia today. I thought I'd melt under the flawless blue skies of beautiful Cartegena, but instead I just got a little red.
Some random shots of the day, because I'm too tired for much else...
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Most Recent Accomplishment...
Getting six full hours of sleep last night was a major accomplishment.
Even if it was artificially-induced.
Since this ship didn't go all the way through the Panama Canal, I took an excursion that would continue onward to the Pacific. Kind of boring, but I didn't come all this way to only go through half the canal.
It was pleasant enough, I guess, except I ended up burned again... even though I piled on the sunscreen...
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Comic...
And by "comic" I'm assuming a comic book hero will work?
At long last the excursion I've been waiting for finally arrived: SLOTHS!
I've been a huge fan of these little mammals for a long time. And watching sloth television shows on Animal Planet and sloth videos on YouTube has only made me like them more. As if all that weren't enough, baby sloths are about the cutest things you'll ever see.
The Sloth Sanctuary is located about a half-hour's drive out of the ship's port of call in Limon. They take in baby sloths who have been abandoned and adult sloths who have been injured. They also have a nature walk and canoe float to see even more wildlife species of the rainforest.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Fairytale...
Most fairytales in their original, non-Disneyfied versions are totally messed up. Far from being perky stories to brighten your day, these children's tales by the likes of The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen are filled with death and depression. For a classic example, get your hands on the original The Little Mermaid sometime and see how twisted a story for kids can get. The Little Match Girl is no less fucked up than other fairytales, but it's got a base element that rings true, and so it's kind of stuck with me over the years...
A little girl is out in the cold trying to sell matches on New Years Eve. She's close to freezing, but she can't go home because her father will beat her if she doesn't sell the matches. With nowhere to go because she hasn't sold anything, she seeks refuge in a nook and lights a match to keep herself warm. A shooting star appears and she remembers how her kindly grandmother told her before she died that this was a person going to heaven. With the next match she lights, the girl has a vision of her grandmother... the only person to ever love her... in the flame. She continues to light the matches one-by-one so she can keep the vision of her grandmother alive. But, sadly, eventually she runs out of matches and freezes to death. Her grandmother then shows up as a spirit and takes the little match girl to heaven.
So, basically, life sucks and then you die. Such a great lesson for kids.
Another sea day.
Which is kind of a relief, as it gives me a chance to recover from the hideous burns on my face after cruising through the Panama Canal. As in... HOLY CRAP! MY FACE HAS BEEN BURNT OFF! Thanks a lot, stupid sun-screen lotion that didn't work! Actually, the burns aren't quite so bad now. Only my forehead blistered, so it's pretty raw... the rest of my face has settled down to a rosy glow. In another couple of days I should be back to quasi-normal-looking, but with a slight tan.
Anyway...
With nothing better to do, I started placing the artwork for the latest issue of THRICE FICTION. I know I say this every time, but this is probably our best issue yet! RW has found some mind-bogglingly good stories for numero quatro, and I can't wait for everybody to get their hands on it. Which will probably be the end of next week, once I've had a chance to code the eBook editions.
And so now I take my leave of you with this gorgeous sunset that's happening out my balcony...
Thank you "VIVID SUNSET MODE" on my pocket Canon camera!"
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Family Portrait...
Hello from the land of rum and pirates.
As a Hard Rock fan, Grand Cayman has been on my list of places to visit for a long time. I almost visited years ago, but a hurricane in the area changed my travel plans.
But here I am at last.
I wasn't going to do the whole "excursion thing" so I could just bum around George Town and hit the beach, but my face is still burnt to a cinder, so I thought "What the hell?"
Which is ironic, because the first stop was... literally... Hell. Hell, Grand Cayman...
I wouldn't have expected it, but there are chickens in hell. Chickens who like eating coconuts...
And here's a shot of Seven Mile Beach taken from the bus window. Sigh. If not for faulty sun-screen and a massive burn on my face...
Then it was time for a turtle farm. The idea is to preserve and protect the species, but the poor turtles looked incredibly bored swimming around in circles within their small, crowded tanks. I felt pretty sorry for them, as it didn't look like much of a life...
There were also other critters wandering around the place...
After the tour dumped everybody off in George Town, there was only one place I really wanted to go...
The cafe is a small, old-school property that's located at the end of the main shopping district downtown. It would probably do a lot better business if it were more centrally located near the cruise ship dock, but there you have it.
I would have eaten lunch at the Hard Rock, but I don't really care for their veggie burgers and fries. Since that's what I was craving, I decided to wander down to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.
What a huge fucking mistake that turned out to be.
First of all, they didn't have Boca Burgers like every other Margaritaville I had ever been to. Oh well, I decided to have nachos and a Coke instead. Not a big deal.
EXCEPT THEY WERE THE WORST NACHOS I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY LIFE! And I am including the time I had Australian nachos where the crazy bastards mix the salsa into the chips for a soggy mess. Because, hey, at least their nachos use actual cheese and are... you know... WARM! Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville nachos are inedible shit. And COLD! They take roasted chips... pour in some FUCKING DISGUSTING COLD IMITATION CHEEZ-WHIZ-LIKE CONGEALED SUBSTANCE... put a small puddle of melted real cheese on top... then add some shriveled olives, jalapeños, and crap. What you end up with is a bunch of soggy tortilla chips coated in this grotesque oily mess. And did I mention that they were COLD? They weren't "not hot" or "merely warm"... but FUCKING COLD!
Yes. COLD! I couldn't even bring myself to eat them they were so bad...
If that wasn't bad enough, the Coke was watered down and flat. I only drank it because it was something cool. I would have complained to my waiter... but I rarely saw him. The poor guy was given way too many tables that were too far apart. I did tell him when I hunted him down to pay, but his response was to give me a "souvenir glass" I apparently paid for but never wanted, and tell me he would tell his manager.
I'd chalk this up to a bad experience, but the table next to me didn't get hot food either, and the buns on one of their burgers was stale. So... lesson learned... when you're hungry in George Town, Grand Cayman... avoid Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville like the fucking plague. Which is such a shame, because all the other Margaritavilles I've eaten at have had excellent food and service.
Jimmy should be ashamed to have his name on this place.
And, thanks to my pricey souvenir glass I never wanted, I have something to remember one of the worst meals I've ever had for the rest of my life! Or until I throw the shit in the garbage.
Anyway...
Couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Lovely sunshine and a nice breeze to keep things pleasant. And then there's that amazing Caribbean Blue water here that looks like some kind of Photoshop hack, but really isn't...
Sweet! As I was writing this, I heard somebody telling bad jokes over a loudspeaker ("WHY DIDN'T THE SKELETON CROSS THE ROAD? HE DIDN'T HAVE THE GUTS!"). I thought it was coming from the ship, but it was instead a small touristy pirate ship thing floating by my balcony...
Yo! Ho! A pirates life for me!
And, just like that, my last excursion was over. We set sail for Florida in a couple hours.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Inspiration...
This should come as no shock to anybody who has read Blogography for any amount of time. Steve Jobs takes inspiration to an entirely new level. But he did that with most things. I know it probably rings hollow for somebody to gush over a person they've never met... but I miss Steve Jobs terribly and think of him often. What I wouldn't give for just one more keynote speech... just one more thing.
Wah!
The last day of a cruise is usually a "Sea Day" so that everybody can pack their suitcases, settle their onboard account, arrange their disembarkation transportation, and have one last chance to stuff their faces with all the food they can get their hands on.
For me, 10-14 days is about the right length for a cruise. Any shorter and you barely have time to unpack, get used to the ship, and start relaxing. Any longer and you start to go insane over the idea of being trapped on a boat one more day. And that's where I'm at right now. I see these cruise itineraries of 30 and 45 days (and up!) and just don't know how people do it. Maybe if I had a larger cabin with a shower that was bigger than a bread box I'd feel different, but I doubt it. And so I've started to mentally prepare myself for dealing with the reality of post-cruise life. And when you've been living in an "unreality" bubble for ten days, that's not an easy thing to do.
For anybody who is interested in all the gory details, I've put the particulars of my Panama Canal cruise onboard Island Princess in an extended entry.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Plant...
I love tomato plants because tomato plants give us tomatoes and tomatoes give us pizza sauce.
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
When I booked my cruise, I found that flying home today would have cost an arm and a leg. And since I would rather spend an arm and a leg seeing cool stuff than trapped in a metal tube, I decided to extend my vacation a few days so the airfare would be cheaper.
The problem is that Ft. Lauderdale is the #1 destination for Spring Break that's going on now, and I really didn't want to be caught up in that craziness as I attempt to take a vacation from my vacation. So I decided to get as far from Ft. Lauderdale as possible... Key West. I haven't been here in ages, so why not? sure it's a long drive, but it's a nice drive too...
And boy was it a stunningly beautiful day to be in Key West...
Until I found out that Key West is the #2 destination for Spring Break that's going on now...
Oh well. Key West is absolute magic no matter what's going on, so I really don't have much choice but to enjoy it. And speaking of magic...
In a wild coincidence, the Disney Magic was in port... the same ship I cruised with in The Mediterranean back in 2010!
From there it was time to visit one of my most favorite Hard Rock Cafes on the planet. It's an amazing property that's built into a grand old house and crammed full of great memorabilia the way a Hard Rock should be...
And don't forget a slice of delicious Key Lime Pie...
Then back down South to watch the sunset...
Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, that's for sure!
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Just a Doodle...
After spending a week in the Caribbean, I guess I have pirates on the brain! Kind of tough to draw it on my MacBook's trackpad though.
The forecast was for overcast skies and eventual rain. Key West got blue skies and sunshine. I celebrated my good fortune by getting another sunburn and eating key lime pie.
I also did a number of touristy things because I felt kind of touristy. The last time I was here I didn't feel like doing anything, so I guess it all balances out in the end.
First stop? The Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory. I had such a good time when I visited the one in Australia that I couldn't pass it up. This one was smaller, but just as nice. And it had birds in it. Overall a very, very cool experience...
Then I was of to the Key West Lighthouse and Lighthouse Keeper Quarters Museum where I confronted my fear of heights to climb the 88 steps to the top...
Then I decided to give Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville a chance to redeem themselves after the awful, awful experience I had in Grand Caymans. It was just as delicious and great an experience as I've had at other Margaritavilles I've been to, so I was happy again...
Then a stop at the Oldest House in Key West...
Then a visit to President Truman's Little White House...
Then a world-famous Conch Train Tour...
Then a stop at The Ernest Hemmingway House and Museum. I had been here before, but love all the cats (some of which are six-toed!), so I had to stop again...
But most all the houses in Key West are special in some way... even if they never belonged to somebody famous...
Then off to the Key West Aquarium...
And the Highway 1 Mile 0 marker...
Then it was time for a refreshing Stewart's Key Lime soda!
And the historic Southernmost House Inn... supposedly the second-most photographed house in the USA after the White House...
And then I wandered around Southernmost Point... went back to see a few more butterflies... then dropped by my hotel to put my feet up and blog a bit. Not bad for seven hours in Key West!
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Something Orange...
The official fruit of Florida... ORANGES!!
My flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Detroit was blissfully uneventful.
My flight from Detroit to Seattle was easily in my Top Five Worst Flights of All Time list. There was two-and-a-half hours of nausea-inducing turbulence that had people puking their guts out from North Dakota to Idaho. I don't get motion-sickness, but my stomach was telling me that it wish I did. And now that I'm finally in Seattle, I just want to climb into my beautiful plush-top hotel bed and sleep.
Except I have to do my drawing for the day.
Not that it matters though... I won't be posting this until I get home because I'm not paying $17 for internet.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Something New...
Before I went on vacation, I bought a new pair of Nikes. And filled them with new Dr. Scholl's Massaging Gel Insoles. So I was totally gellin' on my vacation.
And isn't that what vacation is all about?
I had meant to drive over the mountains early this morning so I could get back to work first thing.
But it snowed last night and the passes were a mess every time I rolled over and checked WSDOT on my iPhone. Then around 8:00 things started improving. The overcast skies were breaking up and the snowplows were out. At 8:30 it was time to go.
By the time I got to the top, it was kind of a glorious day. That fresh snowfall sure looked pretty...
And now? Time to get back to life.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Something You Want...
STILL WANT MY FLYING CAR! WHERE'S MY FUCKING FLYING CAR?!? I wouldn't have to worry about snowy, messed-up roads if I had a flying car.
Juuuuuuust enough time to pack my suitcase. Again.
And draw a new 30 Day Challenge entry. Again.
Then I'm off to The Coast. Again.
It's a vacation from my vacation... just like I always dreamed about!
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Something You Miss...
I miss lots of people that aren't in my life anymore. I miss a few television shows that are off the air. There's even some foods I miss that aren't around anymore. But this morning when I went out to my car so I could go to work... and found snow and ice covering it... I missed Maui most of all.
The drive over Stevens Pass was blissfully without incident. No snow on the roads. No accidents. No crazy-ass people. Just a few drivers who couldn't seem to go the speed limit to damage my calm... but road rage was kept to a minimum, which is always nice.
Just before I left, the final pieces for the latest issue of THRICE Fiction fell into place, so I managed to get it uploaded for your reading pleasure. As always, it's totally FREE to download at the THRICE Fiction website!...
This issue is packed with great stuff, so be sure to check it out (did I mention that it's FREE?).
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Something You Need...
What I need... NEED... is to get drunk off my ass on Jägermeister for my birthday tomorrow. Fortunately, that will be happening a day early in 3... 2... 1...
It's my birthday!
It's my birthday!
It's my birthday!
I don't really celebrate my birthday, but here it is. My non-celebration is taking place at the Tulalip Resort Casino. It's a very nice casino run by the Tulalip Indian Reservation that's 45 minutes north of Seattle. And, unlike tribal casinos I've visited in some states, it's a real casino with real casino games and (more importantly) real slot machines... not just a bunch of slot-looking-machines that are just a fancy facade for a BINGO game (or however they circumnavigate gaming restrictions).
Anyway... at one point I was up $220... but eventually walked out just $40 ahead. That's not as great as winning a couple thousand dollars on my birthday, but it beats ending up with a loss.
As usual, I drank too much, but what's a non-celebration without too much alcohol?
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Couple...
Don't ask my why. It's my birthday and I've had too much to drink.
And now that I've driven home (again) my vacation from my vacation is officially over. Sadly, I am in more of a need of a vacation now than when I got back from my first vacation. So validate your passport, my permanent vacation (and Bullet Sunday) starts... now.
• Thrice Four. When RW and I started THRICE Fiction magazine, I honestly thought that we'd be lucky if we got our friends and family to read it. Which is why once our first issue passed 100 downloads, I was walking on air. Eventually that number climbed to over 300, which exceeded my every expectation. Subsequent issues dropped a bit as the buzz died down, but we were still getting hundreds of downloads. I remain shocked to this day.
The newest issue just passed 2500 downloads only two days after release. It's kind of difficult to know how to react to that...
The cover for THRICE No. 4 is something I worked up while I was on vacation, though I had the idea months earlier. For some reason I always think of forks as being "evil" because they violently stab food, while spoons are "good" because they gently scoop food. After watching the amazing video for Rendezvous' The Murf where one culture rises to worship a squid and another a whale, I had an image of one culture rising to worship a fork and another a spoon. And now I finally had an outlet for it... composing them to be mirror-images of each other. For being a last-minute creation, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Though I still prefer the original idea. Let's face it... that video is nothing short of genius...
As always, you can download the latest issue of THRICE Fiction for free at our official website. Apparently we'll be sticking around a while. From the bottom of my heart, thanks to my partner in crime and everybody who has supported us these four issues.
• Trayvon Martin. As I've been on vacation, I haven't been keeping up with the news. Or blogs. Or much of anything. I tend to ignore everything and everyone when vacationing because that's what makes it a vacation. But it was impossible not to hear about the horrific death of Trayvon Martin...
Welcome to "Post-Racist America" where you can kill a black child just because you consider him "suspicious," and not even notorious "crusader for justice" and ratings whore Nancy Grace seems to give a shit. Now if somebody can just explain to me how a person can claim "self-defense" when they fucking profiled and stalked the victim... I'd appreciate it. That would go a long way towards explaining why no arrest was made and how a thorough investigation apparently wasn't worth the effort.
The word "disgusted" is so severely inadequate to describe my feelings here that I am disgusted with myself for even alluding that it could. Will there ever be justice for Trayvon Martin? I suppose that depends on whether people ultimately decide that gunning down a child because he was wearing a hoodie while being black is something worth getting upset about.
• Worship. While I do not consider myself to be a Buddhist, it is Buddhist teachings that form the basis of my belief structure. After decades of wandering when it came to matters of faith, it was Buddhism that "spoke true" to me, and integrating it into my life has done amazing things to contribute to my happiness and understanding of the world. I fully accept that it's not a "religion" for everybody, but that's perfectly fine. It doesn't mean we can't all get along. I respect the religions of others in the hopes that they will respect mine.
Unfortunately, this is increasingly not the case...
And he has ties to presidential hopeful Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum. Shocking.
And, just like Santorum, this vile piece of crap has -zero- interest in respecting the beliefs of other persons. If you're not Christian like him, you can just get the fuck out of America, and that's all there is to it.
But it's not his intolerance that bothers me.
It's at the one-minute mark where he says "We don't worship Buddha! I say we don't worship Buddha! We don't worship Muhammad! We don't worship Allah! We worship God!" Well, whatever, asshole. Nobody is telling you that you have to worship anything. America was, in fact, founded on the idea of freedom of religion so you can worship whatever the hell you want. But you don't get to speak out of ignorance about an entire faith you stupid fuck.
BUDDHISTS DON'T WORSHIP BUDDHA! THEY DON'T "WORSHIP" ANYTHING.
Buddha was not a saint or a prophet or a god or somebody to be worshipped. He was a teacher. He discovered a way to find enlightenment and happiness, and chose to share it with people. And that's all. So when you see statues of Buddha and people bowing before them, it's not out of worship. It's merely a way of showing respect to a great teacher.
And now you know why I can never be a true Buddhist. Buddhists don't believe in "wrong-speaking." But I can't help but call an ignorant asshole an ignorant fucking asshole, so that's the way it's going to have to be. In any event, morons like this glory-seeking piece of shit are the ones that can get the hell out of America. You are betraying everything we are.
• Blueberry. One of my artistic inspirations, Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius), passed away on March 10th. His stories and artwork remain a triumph of the imagination, and I cherished everything he wrote and drew...
Goodbye Mr. Giraud. You've left us a beautiful legacy.
• Prometheus. Holy. Shit.
Looks like Ridley Scott hasn't lost his touch. To say I'm hyped to see this film come June 8th is a gross understatement.
• LEGO BATMAN!!! And as if Prometheus wasn't enough to get excited about. The sequel to one of my favorite video games of all time is coming later this year...
This looks incredible. If it's even half the game that the original LEGO Batman game was, I'll be very happy.
And now I suppose I should try and get some sleep since I didn't bother this weekend. Such is the peril of going on vacation.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Scenery...
Already done, man. Already done.
Yesterday on the way home from The Coast, I stopped at the grocery store because my cupboards were bare. On the way in, I noticed a table stacked with Girl Scout cookies being attended by sweet, smiling Girl Scouts. "Hello!" they said cheerfully as I walked by. After shopping, I went to pay for my groceries and realized I forgot my wallet in the car. "Hello!" said the Girl Scouts once again as I rushed out to my car. I grabbed my wallet and dashed back into the store. "Hello!" said the Girl Scouts as I ran past.
After finally paying for my groceries, I was pushing my cart out to the parking lot when the smiling Girl Scouts once again gave me a cheery "Hello!" as I rolled past. "OKAY! I'LL BUY A BOX OF COOKIES!" I bellowed.
It was then that I noticed the Girl Scouts were wearing jeans and T-shirts. "Hey! Where are your Girl Scout uniforms?" I asked. I was then shown that the girls were wearing an official "Girl Scouts Pin" and told that uniforms are now optional. "Optional?!? Then how can I tell you're real Girl Scouts? Maybe you mugged some Girl Scouts and stole those cookies! This got me some nervous laughter, but apparently they didn't care about my being a smart-ass so long as I was buying their cookies. That's just good business sense, I suppose...
It's probably only a matter of time before other uniforms go the way of the dodo bird. But so long as that police officer is wearing his official "Police Force Pin," he still has a license to shoot people and drive really fast with his lights flashing... even if they're wearing a pair of Hawaiian board shorts and a lime green tank top.
Oh well. I guess we'll still get to see uniforms on Halloween...
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Something You Don't Like...
And I'm liking Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum less and less every day. That being said, he would be hysterical opponent for President Obama in a debate. The entertainment value would be so amazing that I'm almost tempted to donate to his campaign.
What a dreary, life-sucking day.
A week ago I was in sunny Key West with warm breezes and sunny skies. Today I'm back home where it's cold and overcast.
This blows.
But, then again, six months ago I was hiking around Uluru in Australia...
...so I guess it's all relative.
Except it just started raining. Again. Which means my life is relatively shitty right now.
Guess there's nothing left to do but go to bed.
Ooh! And make my drawing!
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Someone You Love...
I LOVE YOU, KERMIT THE FROG!!
So... I'm guessing we're a step closer to Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum getting caught in a gay sex scandal. I mean, if you can't even be photographed next to a guy holding a pink bowling ball, you've gotta be dangerously close to having some kind of repressed gay meltdown (which is probably the most fabulous, glitter-induced meltdown you can have). The only questions remaining are A) Where will Santorum get caught putting his pink balls, and B) Will it happen before or after the Republican presidential nominee has been decided?
For maximum comedic effect, I'm hoping it's A) In Rush Limbaugh's mouth, and B) After he wins the presidential election.
Because I'm pretty sure that's what would make Jesus laugh.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Anything You'd Like...
This drawing actually goes seven levels deep... even though you can only really see four of them. At one point I was going to try and animate this in a zooming endless loop, but decided my sanity couldn't handle it.
After my dentist check-up this morning, I went to meet friends for lunch. When we arrived at the restaurant, I noticed my iPhone was missing. I knew that I had it when I left the dentist, but had no idea how I could have lost it. Using the "Find my iPhone" app on my friend's iPhone, I saw that my iPhone was back at our initial meet-up point. I don't know how, but I dropped/left it there.
I was relieved, but also... a little freaked.
How would I explain losing my iPhone if I actually lost it?
OFFICER: What do you mean you lost your iPhone?
DAVE2: I dunno! I had it, then suddenly it was gone!
OFFICER: Gone? You don't lose something so precious as an iPhone.
DAVE2: I did! I swear it!
OFFICER: What are you hiding? Did you kill your iPhone?
DAVE2: No! I would never! I love my iPhone!
OFFICER: Why don't I believe you, Mr. Simmer?
DAVE2: =sob!= A DINGO ATE MY iPHONE!!
Wikipedia dingo photo by Benjamint444
And speaking of iPhone, there's some kind of bullshit going on concerning a new SIM card standard that Apple is wanting. From what I can tell, it's a much, much smaller card than usual, which will give Apple more room to add cool stuff to their phones or make them smaller.
But competing phone companies like Motorola, Nokia, and RIM are crying foul. They want THEIR new idea for a SIM card to be the standard, and are saying Apple's idea isn't as good. So they're all appealing to some kind of ruling body for SIM cards to try and get Apple's card blocked.
I can tell you right now... if I were on that ruling body, I would totally have one thing to say to Motorola, Nokia, and RIM... SHUT THE FUCK UP! IF IT WEREN'T FOR APPLE, WE'D STILL BE USING YOUR OLD SHITTY MOBILE PHONES, INSTEAD OF THE APPLE-INSPIRED PHONES YOU'RE MAKING NOW...
Mobile phones BEFORE and AFTER the iPhone... Image taken from Digeratii
In all honesty, any "ruling bodies" should give Apple whatever the hell they want. Apple is the company that's driving the mobile phone market now, and everybody else can just get out of the way. Then Motorola, Nokia, and RIM can go back to copying what Apple does next instead of fucking up where Apple is wanting to take us.
Ooh! I'm more of an Apple Whore than usual today!
I guess that's what the trauma of almost losing your iPhone can do to you.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Place You'd Like to Go...
THE MOON, BABY! But I'd settle for Antarctica. Or India. Or even Cambodia.
I was pretty indifferent when I heard that they were making a movie from The Hunger Games books. Sure I liked the novel quite a lot, but I was in no hurry to see it in the theater. Maybe because I thought the second book wasn't as good... and the third book was disappointing... and I felt done with The Hunger Games.
But here it is, and I felt compelled to see it. I'll be vague and fairly spoiler-free, but if you really want to avoid any discussion of the film until you've seen it (or read the books), I'd skip down to my final "30 Days Drawing Challenge."
In summary... an enjoyable enough film, but a big step down from the book upon which it's based...
In the future the US has collapsed, sea level has risen, the world has been reshaped, and civilization has been replaced with "Panem" a new nation divided into twelve districts. As punishment for having risen up against the government, each district holds an annual lottery where a boy and a girl are offered up as "tributes" in a battle to the death where only one shall survive.
Which sounds kind of familiar if you've read/seen Battle Royale, but whatever. The long and short of it is that the plot of both works is pretty fucked up, seeing as how young kids are going around killing each other.
Anyway... the tribute from District 12 is Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to take the place of her young sister who "won" the Hunger Games lottery. She is offered up along with a guy who's a vague acquaintance from her past, and the game for survival is on. Death and destruction ensue.
The thing that made the book such a good read is that it regularly punches you in the gut as you made your way through the story. It's edgy, personal, disturbing, relentless, and violent. It has mad pacing and a plot that drives ahead like a sledgehammer. By comparison, the movie falls flat. Most of the events are there, but they've been smoothed out until they lack any sort of edge. The sense of danger never feels very high. The second half of the film where the action should be coming to a head was actually kind of boring. And, worst of all, it never felt very personal.
As expected with a film adaptation, stuff was changed and left out... some of it inexplicably so. But what really pissed me off was how they altered the ending. The filmmakers were clearly more interested in setting up a sequel rather than following the disheartening end-beat of the source novel. This sucks ass, because it completely sabotages the story and robs a major character of their emotional journey. It was a cheap trick and a lame way of trying to make a more "likable" finish.
As for the casting, I didn't think it was as bad as many Hunger Games fans felt it was. I thought Katniss and Peeta were well represented. I thought Woody Harrelson and Lenny Kravitz were great casting choices. Stanley Tucci gave a great performance for a character that didn't really have a great performance in it. Elizabeth Banks frickin' WAS Effie Trinket, even though the character had a chunk missing from her back-story. Cinematography didn't seem as epic as I would have thought, but the film didn't really suffer from it. Direction and editing were capable, if nothing exceptional... probably stemming from the watered-down PG-13 script.
Ultimately, I recommend the book, and half-heartedly recommend the film if you've read the book. I don't recommend the movie if you haven't read the book, as it's missing too much to really hold up on its own (so read the book first!).
And... it's all downhill from here. The second book has some interesting stuff to draw from, but I don't think the third (and final) novel will adapt well at all. But, given the amount of money this flick has been making, that's not going to stop anybody from trying.
30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Congrats Banner for Finishing...
Well that wasn't quite the big bucket of fun that I thought it would be... I guess I probably shouldn't start stuff like this when I have a vacation in the middle. Oh well. It gave me something to blog about a few times when I didn't have anything to blog about, so there you have it.
Today I got in a conversation with somebody where I mentioned that Canada is killing off their penny. They bristled at the idea. I said that not only do I wish we'd kill off our penny... I wish that we'd do away with cash altogether. In addition to saving us bajillions in production costs, we'd also do away with counterfeiters, hamper drug dealers, and reduce who-knows what other problems plaguing society. Money truly is the root of all evil, ya know. The person I was talking to admitted that they had never thought of it that way, and could see my point.
That's when I had to drop the bombshell that it's never going to happen in the US in our lifetimes because the Christians would revolt.
"Huh? Wha-? I'm a Christian, why would we revolt?!?"
"Well, a lot of you guys believe that the advent of a cashless society is a sign of the impending Apocalypse and the End of Days."
"Wha-? No we don't!"
"Some of you do. Among the freaky imagery in Revelation 13 is the idea that the Anti-Christ will do away with cash and you'll need the Mark of the Beast to buy stuff."
"Mark? Like a tattoo? That's in the Book of Revelations? "
"Err... Book of RevelaTION, yeah. I guess it could be a tattoo... like a barcode. Or maybe a brand. Or a computer chip or something... sure. Could even be a credit card... The Bible isn't always literal about things."
"Weird. Guess I don't remember Revelations much."
"Perhaps if you started by remembering the title correctly the rest would come easier..."
"Huh-?"
And then I had to wonder for the millionth time how it is that I, a non-Christian, have put in more time studying The Bible than most Christians I meet. And then I had to wonder for the billionth time how it is that somebody can choose to live their life and base their faith on a book (The Book) that they don't know much about and don't really understand. Maybe going to church and listening to somebody else tell them what they should think about their most sacred texts is enough. It wouldn't be for me. But to each their own I guess.
Anyway...
It snowed last night and was cold and rainy all day, so I was looking for something warm to eat for dinner. But after having worked all day, I didn't want to cook. So I decided to make a salad and see how that goes...
My dinner salad recipe for tonight (all measures approximate)
It was delicious. Though I do wish tomatoes were in season. With an additional vegetable (or a fruit masquerading as a vegetable), it might actually be considered a "salad" instead of an excuse to eat loads of dressing and cheese. I suppose I could have tossed some frozen peas in there or something.
But then I had Eggo waffles for dessert, so I guess it doesn't really matter how many vegetables I dump on my bowl of dressing and cheese.
Now I wish I had some ice cream.
Oh man... how awesome would ice cream be on Eggo waffles?
Time to grab your bullet-proof vest, because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Fool. I am not a fan of "April Fools' Day." Most of the pranks are pretty lame, stupid, and usually too obvious to "fool" anybody... especially the ones you find online. But Google has once again hit it out of the park with not one, but two amazingly well thought out and executed joke videos. Sure it's unlikely that anybody is going to be fooled, but they're still genius if you haven't seen them already...
• Leyner. I am not a fan of audio books. If I'm going to invest time in a book, I want to read it myself instead of having somebody read it to me. But I had a friend who was addicted to them, so every time we'd take a road-trip, he'd bring a bunch of them. I was never impressed enough to pay much attention. Except once. That would be the time that he popped in Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner into the cassette player and blew my mind. It was the single most awesome and bizarre thing I had ever heard...
After that, I was a diehard Mark Leyner fan, and kept up with all his genius that I could get my hands on... Tooth Imprints On a Corn Dog; I Smell Esther Williams; The Tetherballs of Bougainville; My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist; and now his latest... The Sugar Frosted Nutsack...
It's pretty insane... even for Leyner... but I still liked it. There's just nobody out there doing what he does the way he does it. But here's the thing... YOU HAVE TO GET THE AUDIO BOOK! Leyner reads all his books himself, and half of what makes his stuff so damn funny is his performance of the material. The shame is that Et Tu, Babe, which remains my favorite, is not available anymore. I keep hoping that Audible will add it since I only own it on cassette, but it's never shown up. Leyner is absolutely not for everyone... the guy is crazy-ass bizarre... but if you're looking for something different... really different... then the audio book might be worth a listen at your local library.
• Amazement. The season two debut was everything I was hoping for and more...
And if you're a fan of Tyrion Lannister on the show, you need to read an interview with the actor who portrays him, the amazing Peter Dinklage, in the New York Times.
• Eggo2. For the person who said Eggo Waffles were "gross" after I mentioned them yesterday, I would have to agree. Usually. Except... the NEW "Thick & Fluffy" Eggos that just came out are an entirely different animal. The honest truth? I prefer them to a lot of waffles I've had in restaurants...
So delicious. So not kidding. If you like waffles, give 'em a try.
Annnnnd... SCENE. No more bullets for you!
My "big plan" for the year 2012 was to visit my 150th Hard Rock property.
I'm at 144 now, with concrete plans for two more through December. Thus leaving me four short. I was planning on dropping in on a few cafes in Asia this Fall, but that's looking less and less likely. So now my plan is probably scuttled. When the realization of this sunk in while I was in the shower this morning, I tried to be upset about it. But I just couldn't for some reason.
Oh well.
It's not like I haven't got bigger things to worry about.
It's not like I haven't had more important plans fall through.
It's not like the world is going to end.
But...
I sure want to feel at least a little upset about it anyway.
And so my new plan is to drink a six-pack of beer and get depressed.
If I can't manage to get that done, I might as well give up.
What a bunch of fucking scumbags.
Back in February I purchased a GoGo Inflight Wireless monthly pass.
Last month in March when I saw the charge, I just thought "Wow, they're really late to bill for their service!" and, just to be sure somebody hasn't stolen my credit card number, I go to my GoGo account and verify that only one charge has been made...
Yep! Page one of one. Just the one charge for February 28th! Guess they are really late in billing.
But then today I look at my credit card statement and see the charge again in April. Then I go back and confirm that the previous charge was, in fact, new service for March because they billed me in February too. So I call and find out what the heck is going on, only to be told that all monthly plans are auto-renewing, and they're sorry I missed that when I signed up.
I don't ever recall seeing that on the sign-up form. But, then again, it was probably easy to miss on my tiny iPhone screen.
Oh well, I explain the error and am told that they can't retroactively cancel my account, but they will put in a request for a refund on the latest (third) charge. Which means that I'm apparently out of luck on getting money back on the second charge.
What a bunch of fucking scumbags.
Look, if you're going to automatically bill people for some kind of renewable service deal, there are three things you need to make sure of...
Which brings me to my point... GoGo is OBVIOUSLY TRYING TO DO THEIR BEST TO HIDE THE CHARGE!
I check my credit card statements every month and still managed to fall into their scam to the tune of $70.
What a bunch of fucking scumbags.
And you just know that they don't give a fuck, because if you want to use internet while flying, they're the only game in town. They get to be scumbags because there are zero consequences from screwing people over.
Which begs the question...
Why in the hell can't I dream up a business philosophy like that?
I really need to make a concentrated effort in becoming more evil.
It's been a tough day. It's been a tough series of days.
And everybody knows that when the going gets tough, the tough get going... so I'm going to get going on this bottle of Jägermeister.
But before we start drinking:
This happened...
Am I the only one who thinks that President Obama should consider himself very, very lucky that he met up with the Regular Universe Uhura instead of the Evil Mirror Universe Uhura?
She would cut a bitch for reals.
I have to admit... I love having a cool guy as president. Regardless of how I feel about Obama's politics, the idea of going back to having a wooden, tense, socially awkward president fills me with dread.
And I suppose that's my cue.
Drink Jäger and Prosper my friends.
I've been so busy that I haven't had time to play with the new iPad (third generation) much. That's a darn shame, because it's kind of expensive to just have sitting around on my nightstand. I had to get one for the apps I help develop, so what can I do but sink even more money into Apple's ample coffers? The latest iPad has an all-new hi-res screen, and I have to be sure that stuff I design looks good on it. Otherwise, the iPad3 didn't look to bee much different than the iPad2, so I probably wouldn't have bought one otherwise.
Except, now that I've had a chance to read my comic books on it, I would totally have spent the money on it. I've read a few reviews in the press bitching about how iPad3 wasn't enough of an improvement over iPad2 for Apple to have bothered... which I now know is a huge load of bullshit. If you do any reading on iPad, this is a complete game-changer. Four-times the pixels make for a hundred times better screen, and I am loving it more than I ever thought possible.
The screen is so crisp and clear that I can now read ComiXology "CMX-HD enhanced" pages full-screen without having to zoom in on the individual panels...
Now, when looked at on a "regular resolution" computer screen, the change may appear subtle. But when reduced four-fold, the "SD" panel on the bottom becomes a blurry mess that's a bit difficult to read. The "CMX-HD" panel on the top, however, is razor sharp on iPad3.
So now the iPad is a real option for reading comics. Yes, the screen size is smaller than a "regular" comic book, but it's bigger than a digest, which is perfectly acceptable. And, unlike a digest, you can zoom in and see details if you want without having to find a magnifying glass.
So, my hat is once again off to Apple for once again making an awesome product even more amazing. iPad2 was already leagues above any of the competing "tablets" I've had a chance to play with, but this is entering a whole new dimension, as this snapshot from Apple's website demonstrates...
A few things...
Otherwise, for the most part, iPad3 is pretty much the same as iPad2. Which is not a bad thing at all, because iPad2 was so kick-ass. Indeed, when it comes to comparing it with all the tablets I've seen, Apple has the only game in town. Sure iPad is a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for, and what you get is pretty darn amazing.
It's products like iPad3 that make it so dang easy to be an Apple Whore.
Waaaaah! I'M SICK!
I felt sick when I got home from work, but had to go into Wenatchee because I was out of Eggo Thick & Fluffy Waffles and had a Jo-Ann coupon that was close to expiring. Eating dinner just made me sicker, so now I'm sitting here in front of the computer trying not to puke my guts out.
Though I'm guessing vomit hitting the keyboard would probably do a better job of making a blog entry than I am now...
As fun as that sounds, I think I'm going to down some Alka Seltzer and go to bed.
Oh wait... I don't have any Alka Seltzer. I wonder if Jägermeister would work?
Was still feeling sick all day long. This does not bode well for my upcoming travel.
The good news is that I felt well enough to buzz-cut my head again. This time I went even shorter so my haircut will last longer. Because not having to waste time messing with my hair each morning is great. Traveling with short hair is awesome. It's so frickin' convenient that I wish I would have started doing this years ago. Who knew the military had such a good thing going on with their hair style of choice?
Tomorrow is Easter. Hopefully I will follow in the example of Jesus and rise from my almost-dead existence. I've got some work that really needs to get done, so being sick is not an option.
And while I'd really like to fight through the nausea to draw something nice for the holiday, I love what I drew last year so much that I'm not even going to try to top it...
Cute.
It's just a shame that the poor eggs have to be boiled alive in order to get dressed up for Easter Sunday.
Put down that Cadbury Creme Egg because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Eggaxctly. I'm rather fond of eggs. I'll eat them just about any way you can fix them, but my favorite way to eat eggs are in a an egg salad sandwich. Which is why Easter is always an awesome holiday for me. Plenty of hard-boiled eggs means plenty of sammiches. But when I think about it, I'll eat eggs just about any way you can cook 'em...
As a vegetarian, I had given up on eggs benedict, but last year I had it made with tofu bacon instead of ham, and it was awesome. Of course, the thing about eggs is that you can't tell if they're a raging salmonella bomb just by looking at them...
Which is why every time I'm served undercooked eggs I wonder if I'm going to get the plague. The last time I was caught in a salmonella outbreak, I spent two days with non-stop diarrhea and vomiting. Which isn't the worst thing that can happen... unless you're on the toilet when you have to vomit. And trying to puke between your legs is something nobody should have to experience twice in their life.
• RIP. And so Thomas Kinkade the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light" has gone dark. And while I feel bad that the guy is dead, I can't say I'm too broken up that his output of shitty paintings will stop. Yes, I understand why his unchallenging and mediocre work was popular... it was pretty and required zero thought... but his raging success never ceased to surprise me. I mean this boring crap is what people want hanging on their wall?
Painting ©™® Estate of Thomas Kinkade
I don't get it. But Kinkade obviously filled a need, so more power to him. Hopefully they have plenty of alcohol and things to get drunk and piss on in heaven... rest in peace you crazy bastard.
• Oppression. I don't normally post other people's cartoons and stuff, but this is absolute genius...
In four panels, the artist (whoever they are) has managed to perfectly summarize the disgusting hypocrisy that is running rampant through the Hard-Core Right. I am so sick and tired of hearing their whole "persecuted Christian" nonsense. Fighting back against lies, hatred, and persecution is not oppression so get over it. Believe what you want to believe and live your life... then let others do the same. Oh... and at some point you really should read that Bible you keep beating people over the head with.
• Nasty. Early this morning I received a nasty(?) comment on an old blog entry that made no sense. It was just a bunch of curse words followed by the words "I love your blog!" Much to my surprise, the commenter left what looked like a real email address. So I wrote and asked what the deal was. Almost immediately I got an automated response asking me if I wanted to make money commenting on blogs. I can only guess this means the company is trolling for trolls? Nothing on the internet surprises me anymore.
Now I've got to get back to work... so no more bullets for you!
Some people are smarter than others... whether it's genetics, environment, conditioning, education, or whatever. That's just the way it is, which means that some people don't have the brain-power that others do. And, just like other traits that are intrinsic to a person, you can't really fault people for something outside their control. So long as they're trying their best with what smarts they have, they're doing right by themselves and their society. That being said, I deplore it when people of limited intelligence are called "stupid." That they lack the ability to understand something simply means that it's outside their skills,... they don't deserve derogative labels because of it.
The same cannot be said for ignorance.
If you are smart enough to speak about a subject, you are smart enough to make sure that you have your facts straight.
But, even more importantly, you have to be smart enough to accept when you are wrong... and be ashamed enough over being wrong that you to try not to be wrong again.
Alas, this is getting increasingly rare. Too many people are saying too much stupid crap not because they are, in fact, "stupid"... but because they're ignorant. They don't give a crap about accuracy, validity, authenticity, or truthfulness... they just talk out of their ass and don't give a flying fuck what might come of it.
That's stupidity.
Case in point: my recent trip through the Panama Canal, which went something like this...
The ship traveled from the Caribbean into the Gatun Locks (1). After going through the locks, it anchors in Lake Gatun to let some of us off, where we take a tender to shore (2). From there, we take a bus trip to Gamboa (3). It's at Gamboa where we hop on a boat and continue our journey through the Panama Canal (4), including the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks, before taking a bus to Colón where our ship is waiting for us to continue to Costa Rica (6).
It was while waiting to go through these locks that a guy from a group of people next to me started going off on an ego trip. He was great. He was a successful businessman. He was going to continue to be a successful businessman because his customers were forced to deal with him and him only. Nobody is as smart as he is. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I tried to ignore him, but then he piped up with this little gem to thrill his audience with how smart he is: "We have to go through all these locks because the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are different heights."
What I should have done was mind my own business and stay silent. But, I think we all know that's not what happened. Instead I explained that the oceans are at the same height... which we call SEA LEVEL, and the reason we go through the locks is because Panama is not flat. Gatun Lake is 85 feet above sea level, so we climb locks up to it... sail across... then descend locks back to the ocean. Like this...
Now, it's pretty apparent that I know what I'm talking about here. The land we're sailing through is obviously not flat... just look around. And the concept of "sea level" is pretty basic knowledge that just about everybody has at least heard of before. So there shouldn't have been any room for debate, right?
Of course not. This is where that ignorance problem comes in. Not wanting to look "stupid" in front of his friends, he decided to pitch me some shit instead.
"HA HA HA! YOU'RE WRONG. IF THE OCEANS ARE THE SAME LEVEL, THEN WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST CUT A PATH BETWEEN THEM? WHY ARE WE GOING UP AND DOWN, HUH? YOU'RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE."
I didn't feel like trying to explain the insanity of blasting a channel 51 miles long so you could remove up to 85-feet of earth... so I said the same thing I always say in situations like this... "Uhhh...yeah. You might want to fact-check that when you have a chance."
Which, when I'm proven correct, will make him look ten times more idiotic than if had he just accepted that he didn't know what he was talking about, had no facts to back-up his outrageous bullshit, and should be smart enough to accept when he's wrong.
But some people are just too damn stupid to do something about their ignorance, so the rest of us have to put up with their dumbassery (and any consequences that come out of it).
And I'm getting really sick of it.
But not half as sick as I am of politicians manipulating ignorant citizens with their outrageous bullshit (either through lies or their own ignorance). And, before anybody starts going all partisan, this is a serious problem on both sides of the political spectrum...as one can easily ascertain at PolitiFact.
Now, I'd hardly say that PolitiFact is a bastion of impartial scrutiny when it comes to the "facts" they investigate. Republican candidates tend to get only their more outrageous statements investigated, while Democrat candidates seem to get equal attention paid to all their statements ( thoughprobably the opposite is true when there's a Republican in The White House). But, party affiliation aside, you can still gleen an interesting picture when analyzing the data. For each of our candidates I attributed +2 points for every "true"... +1 point for "mostly true"... 0 points for "half true"... -1 point for "mostly false"... -2 points for "false"... and -3 points for "pants on fire." This means a perfect score would be 2x the number of statements investigated. I then added a "truthiness" rating which divides their actual score by their perfect score. Here's how that shakes out (click on a name to see their page)...
| Candidate | Perfect Score | Actual Score | Truthiness Rating |
| GINGRICH | 122 | -51 | -42 |
| SANTORUM | 90 | -28 | -31 |
| ROMNEY | 246 | -28 | -12 |
| PAUL | 72 | -3 | -4 |
| OBAMA | 716 | 87 | 12 |
Remember, this can hardly be considered an impartial comparison because PolitiFact can't possibly investigate every single statement made (they certainly make mistakes as well). And, even if it was perfect and impartial, don't be getting all excited about President Obama's apparent victory in truthiness. 12 out of 100 points is still complete crap. The bigger picture here is that all our politicians are full of shit. Which everybody already knows. No big surprise there. We've pretty much come to expect it, right?
And I'm getting really sick of it.
Ignorant and/or dishonest politicians are shoveling bullshit and telling lies all the time. And the populace at large doesn't seem to care unless it's a candidate they don't like. And even then, it's hardly outrage if you turn the other cheek when it's a candidate you DO like whose doing the lying.
I don't get outraged anymore. I just can't sustain the non-stop 24/7 anger that would require.
But I do get embarrassed by the complete lack of shame that all these asshole politicians have for propagating ignorance... whether intentional or not. I no more understand how we allowed things to get to this point than I understand how somebody can deny sea level.
Apparently ignorance truly is bliss, and everybody is just too happy to be ashamed.
Or to care.
And I'm off...
Despite having been to the Netherlands dozens of times, I've never gone out to the bulb fields when they're in bloom. Usually I've been here at the wrong time... but other times when they've been in season, I've had to work or didn't have transportation or something goes wrong.
Today The DutchBitch finally fixed all that. I have to say though, they're not quite as impressive as the postcards lead one to believe...
I lie. They're everything you'd imagine and more.
And while a photograph can only partially communicate just how beautiful it is to be standing in front of flowers that stretch out to the horizon, the thing that really got to me was the smell. I don't know why I never thought of it before, but the bulb fields smell incredible. In particular the Dutch Hyacinth, which is almost other-worldly.
The bright colors don't record that well on a digital camera sensor, which makes photographing the field a bit of a trial (where is film when you need it?), but it's still a great subject to take pictures of.
Eventually all the flowers are cut down so the bulbs can be harvested then re-used or sold...
And thus the Circle of Life begins again.
Half the time when I am traveling I'm working. The other half of the time I am playing tourist and have a schedule of things I want to see. The wonderful thing about being in Amsterdam today was that I didn't have work or an agenda... I could just wander along the canals and soak in the city.
And when it comes to aimless wandering, Amsterdam is pretty hard to top. I could do that for days and not get bored, because it's just so dang beautiful...
After a while, I came across the Anne Frank House Museum. I've tried visiting here at least three times, but the line is usually absurdly long...
But when I checked, it wasn't even around the corner. So, 35 minutes later, I finally got to see it...
It was both fascinating and heartbreaking, and now I know why people are willing to stand in line for such a long time to see it. After that I started wandering the canals again and saw this...
It didn't say anything about humans not being allowed to poop there, so I took a dump in the planter. And then... then... I saw something really bizarre. A boat dredging up bicycles from the bottom of the canal. You'd think that they might find one or two from careless people accidentally dropping them in, but you'd be wrong...
A HUGE pile of bikes. They brought up a half-dozen just as I was standing there watching...
The DutchBitch tells me that people get drunk and drive their bikes into the canals all the time, so they have to clear them out every couple of years. Scary.
I stumbled across Amsterdam's brand new Apple Store. It is absolutely glorious, featuring a glass spiral staircase that's mind-bogglingly terrifying for people like me who are afraid of heights (if only they would let me photograph it). Apple does a good job of finding beautiful buildings to build into, and this one is no exception...
After lunch with some friends in the city, I was given a coupon for Het Scheepvaart Museum (Maritime Museum) as the rain came in. It's a pretty fantastic place...
The displays they have there are incredible. I mean really incredible. I wish they had more of them...
You can also go out on an old ship, which is pretty nifty...
By the time I had finished and headed back to the train station, the sun was out again...
All in all, a perfect day of new experiences for me in Amsterdam. How sweet is that?
Today I visited the world-famous Keukenhof, "The Garden of Europe."
It is so famous that I had never heard of it before The DutchBitch suggested that we go there this morning and take photos of flowers.
Here is my assessment...
If somebody were to say "It is one of the most amazing fucking things I've ever seen in my life..." they would be underselling it.
It's that good. Huge grounds filled with meticulously maintained flowers and walkways...
Annnnnd... I'm going to have to stop before I post the entirety of the hundreds of photos I took. All of them amazing. It is impossible to take a bad photograph at The Keukenhof.
After a couple hours, all of Europe turned up at the gardens, so we decided to leave while we still had room to walk out. With time to kill, The DutchBitch drove me to the city of Leiden. Where they have a citadel!
And then it was time for PATATJES MET and an OLD CHEESE SANDWICH! Two of my most favorite things to eat.
Which makes the day just about perfect.
And so it was that we came unto the Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam for the merriment of Bitchsterdam 3 and a grand time was had by all. The DutchBitch was there, of course, along with Breigh and her husband Xander. And I finally got to meet Invader Stu as well...
Unfortunately, the battery on my pocket camera was dead, so I only have these few photos from my iPhone. If any of us had thought to take a group photo, it would have looked something like this...
I can't wait until Bitchsterdam 4!
Today The DutchBitch says "It is a beautiful day to visit Zaanse Schans!" And, like the fool I am, I believed her. Though I suppose if you ignore the freezing winds and overcast skies, it was a beautiful day to go exploring.
Zaanse Schans is a tourist attraction north of Amsterdam with various shops and interesting things to see. But it's best known for its collection of preserved and functional windmills...
Among the attractions is a "Klompenmakerij" or "Wooden Clog Workshop" where you get to watch them make shoes...
They also have a "Kaasmakerij" or "Cheesemaker Shop" which has all kinds of delicious hand-made cheeses...
It's a nice shop... but you can't bring your chicken in with you...
And there's a gift shop with... Miffy!...
Eventually the sun started to come out a bit, so we walked down the row of windmills...
Once we were tired of goofing off in Zaanse Schans, it was time for PATATJES MET and OUDE KAAS!!
Never mind that I have eaten fried potatoes with mayo and an aged cheese sandwich every day since I've been here... you just can't get enough of a good thing.
And, just like that, my adventure in DutchyLand has come to an end. I'm off to the airport in an hour.
And so I am in Hamburg now.
Though I have been to Germany many times, this is my first trip to the northern part of the country. I was actually supposed to go to Bremen, but there's not a shiny new Hard Rock Cafe in Bremen, so I decided on a detour. This ended up being quite a nice excursion, because Hamburg is a lovely city... if a bit hostile to the non-German-speaking traveler. Unlike Cologne, Berlin, Munich, there's not a lot of signage or help available in English. I'm guessing that this is due to Hamburg not being a big foreign tourist destination, but it's puzzling that the touristy advertisements and touristy spots don't have at least something in English.
As an example, here's a poster ad in one of the most touristed train station in the city (Landungsbrüken) for a very popular attraction: "The Hamburg Dungeon." ...
All that space, and they couldn't bother to put even a line of English to help a brother out? NEIN!
But I wasn't here to play tourist so, after my work was through at 11:00, I headed directly to the Hard Rock Cafe. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200...
For being one of the "new style" cafes, I was surprised to find that they actually did a decent job of packing in the memorabilia. Far from being the sparse rock museum wasteland we've been getting, there was a nice and varied assortment. This is not to say that there are not oddities, however. Marc warned me about the mirror-finish of the bathroom urinals, but it's not something you can truly appreciate until you have actually pissed in it...
Having an entire audience watching you pee from a photograph is borderline-traumatic. But, sure enough, my junk was clearly reflected for all of Hamburg to see. On a busy Saturday night, I can only guess that somebody walking into the urinal would be greeted by a giant wall of dicks. I'm not exactly shy, but THAT'S traumatic!
On my list of things to see was St. Michael's St. Nicholas' Cathedral... which has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, only to finally be destroyed for good during WWI and WWII. You can buy an elevator ticket to the top of the one remaining tower, but my fear of heights coupled with my FEAR OF BEING ON TOP OF A BOMBED OUT TOWER WHEN IT COLLAPSES meant that wasn't going to happen...
From there I walked to City Hall, which is a really beautiful building...
I then went to a man-made lake area called "Aster." It has a really beautiful view but, as if that weren't enough, it also has an Apple Store...
From there it was time to visit the ONE "must-see" attraction on my list... MINIATUR WUNDERLAND! It appeared on a Travel Chanel show a while back and really appealed to the model-train lover in me. Of course, the trains are only a small part of the experience. There a multiple dioramas created from famous places in the world that are painstakingly detailed...
And the closer you get, the more details you see...
And the details are not just in the models. It seems that every scene is telling a story. You might see emergency vehicles lit up in one area... only to turn a corner and see that they're headed to a house fire or something...
They sneak in little jokes and pop culture references sometimes as well. As I was examining model cars involved in some kind of countryside race, I found Herbie the Love Bug in the lead, having to stop for some sheep...
Another interesting bit is that all the dioramas cycle from daylight to dusk to night to dawn and back to daylight... with computer-controlled lights providing the appropriate sunlight simulation and the lighting in the buildings, cars, trucks, and such. Here's the airport, going from evening to dawn as I walked around it...
As the airport is one of the newest additions to Miniatur Wunderland, it's fairly complex. The planes move around and everything. Even better, they give you an underground view to the U-Bahn (subway) station...
One of my favorite sections was the rock concert diorama, complete with performers, working video screens, and a massive audience...
No detail is spared... right down to the portable toilets...
The USA is represented, but it's been boiled down to Las Vegas and some kind of red rocks diorama that looks more like Disneyland than the American Southwest, but it's still pretty cool...
Miniatur Wunderland is also kind of educational. In the diorama for Hamburg, the building where the new Hard Rock is now located was apparently home to a skating rink on the roof at one time...
From there I headed to the central part of the city so I could visit the famous Hamburger Kunsthalle Art Museum but, alas it was closed on Mondays. I can only guess that tourists in Hamburg don't go out on Mondays? Oh... no... when I was there I saw other tourists leaving in disappointment too. Not the smartest move on the museum's part, but it's their money to lose, I suppose.
And speaking of the Hard Rock...
When I mentioned a while back that I was sad I wouldn't be reaching my goal of 150 Hard Rock property visits this year, I got a comment from Katharina telling me I should come to her city of Hamburg where they have a new cafe.
Little did she know...
"I WILL BE THERE IN TWELVE DAYS!" I replied.
And she was kind enough to meet me for dinner tonight! Which is why I will have a hard time ever giving up Blogography no matter how passé blogging becomes. Because of blogging, I really have made friends all over the world. No matter where I end up, there's always somebody I can hang out with.
And now I'm back at my hotel packing my backpack for the journey back to the Netherlands tomorrow morning.
Good bye, Hamburg.
The problem with mid-day plane schedules is that they pretty much kill your day. My 12:30 flight was too early for me to run into Hamburg and do something... but too late for me to arrive into Amsterdam and do anything. Which means I was kinda stuck.
So I decided to sit in my airport hotel room and get caught up on work. Which was a great idea... until I fell asleep. Usually when I feel there's that possibility, I set my alarm clock. But today I didn't for some reason. Which was pretty stupid.
Nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of getting to the gate with a mere ten minutes to spare.
But it all worked out in the end.
I made it back to DutchyLand in time for one last order of PATATJES MET and an aged cheese sandwich with the Dutch Bitch.
Not the worst way I could have spent the last day of vacation.
For a long flight, my first concern is always comfort. With my 6'2" height, it can be a pretty big deal to be cooped up for 10-1/2 hours in a steel tube being hurled across the Atlantic Ocean when my legs are cramped up. But my frequent flier status allowed me a nice upgrade with plenty of legroom, so this wasn't an issue.
My second concern is time. 10-1/2 hours has to be spent doing something and, since I can't sleep on planes, it ain't going to be sleeping. Usually I just watch whatever movies they have available, but they were all films I'd already seen or wasn't interested in. Fortunately, I had purchased some iTunes programs to occupy my head during the trip.
And here's where I go bananas over television shows.
The Dutch Bitch and I were watching The Daily Show when Ricky Gervais was a guest. I'm a big fan of his, so I was really looking forward to his interview. Turns out he was there to pimp two shows... The Ricky Gervais Show and An Idiot Abroad. Much to my surprise, The Ricky Gervais Show ended up being animated. They took funny podcasts that Ricky made with his friends Steven Merchant and Karl Pilkington, and made them even funnier by turning them into cartoons...
Now, here's where things get interesting. The show does not really revolve around Ricky Gervais. It is totally centered around Karl Pilkington. And this frame from the intro tells you absolutely everything you need to know from the show...
Ricky and Steven get Karl to start talking about something, then wait to hear what hilarious things comes out of his mouth. And while Ricky and Steven waste no opportunity to tell Karl how stupid he is for how he thinks about stuff, I can honestly say that Karl Pilkington may be one of the most intriguing thinkers on the planet. His every word transcends logic to reach a level of genius that is absolutely mind-boggling...
I can't tell you how many times I had people staring at me because I kept busting out laughing at the show. It has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and is easily one of the most entertaining shows ever made for television (well, not television, HBO).
I bought both seasons iTunes had available. The first season is gold. The second is even funnier. They are a steal in Standard Definition for $20 each (Hi-Def is a waste, as the cartoons are low-res). If you'd rather spend $0 to get a taste of the show, you can subscribe to The Ricky Gervais Show Podcast. New episodes from the third season start airing on HBO come this Friday.
But The Ricky Gervais Show was just the beginning.
Turns out that Ricky and Steven also created a travel show for Karl Pilkington where they send him around the world to see stuff so that he can "broaden his mind." The first season is all about having Karl visit the Seven Wonders of the World...
And here's where I get confused, because Karl Pilkington is exactly the kind of traveler I usually hate. He complains about everything and isn't happy with anything that isn't the same as it is back home. Ricky and Steven take full advantage of this by getting him into situations they know will freak him out. That's where the funny bits happen, though sometimes I just end up feeling sorry for the guy. Because even with the camera crew following him around and taking care of him, there are times he is clearly out of his depth. The culture shock is overwhelming to him, and forcing him into more and more crazy situations seems almost cruel. Like force-feeding him something he just can't fathom eating...
While he was in India, Karl got to experience something I long to see... the day of Holi. It's a remarkable Hindu festival of sheer joy and celebration that I have been dreaming of for decades. Brightly colored powders fill the air, and people of all ages, social status, and wealth join together in a giant two-day party. If I had a bucket list, Holi would easily be in my top five.
Karl, of course, didn't like it at all...
Instead of focusing on what a unique and amazing experience he's lucky enough to get to join in on, he focuses on his £70 trainers (sneakers) getting ruined. This immediately pisses me off, because people like this should just stay home. Stop traveling, because all you do is make it hard for the rest of us who love it.
All the complaining, disparaging comments, and idiocy would ordinarily turn me off in a big way. It's the reason I fucking hate the show The Amazing Race. But I find An Idiot Abroad to be absolutely fascinating. Karl Pilkington may be a crotchety Englishman who sums up his entire time in India by saying "I hated it"... but he's also decent, kind, and caring at heart. He so obviously doesn't mean to be offensive or irritating that it's hard to stay mad at him. There are several moments throughout the series where you catch glimpses of Karl trying his best to give it a go and embrace the culture, and it's what has me loving the show so much. In the afore-mentioned Holi celebration, people are pelting him with colors while he protests. But then you see a little girl who can't reach him, so he bends down and lets her dump color on his head...
I am guessing that there are a lot of moments like this but, since they aren't "funny," they get edited out of the show. Yet somehow they manage to keep just enough of Karl being a decent bloke to keep An Idiot Abroad from being a total disaster.
And then there's the sights...
On the flight home, I devoured all of Season One plus half of Season Two, and the time (literally) just flew by.
I give both An Idiot Abroad and The Ricky Gervais Show my highest possible recommendation...
And so ends my week of vacation and the wonderful thing that was Bitchsterdam 3.
Airplane food is never going to raise any bars for stunning cuisine. Not to say that it can't be good... I've had some amazing meals in-flight... but that most of the time it's just there and something to eat when you're hungry, not something to be enjoyed.
My first meal yesterday was a nice rice dish with some kind of pea mash that I thought sounded great, so far as vegetarian options go. But the peas were inundated with so much mint that it was like chewing a stick of gum with all the wrong textures, so I didn't end up eating it. Instead I ate a small roll that was on the tray.
The second meal I got was a bag with a tiny sandwich and an apple in it. By this point I was pretty hungry, but the roll on my sandwich was sopping wet and disgusting, so all I got was a small apple.
After 8-1/2 hours with nothing but a piece of bread and a dwarf fruit in my stomach, I was hungry enough to eat just about anything. So when my third (and final) meal of a roasted vegetable sandwich was put in front of me, I tore into it. The bread was actually nice and crusty... but the vegetable mix in the middle tasted metallic and kind of funky. That should have been a red flag, but I ate it anyway because I was famished.
Then proceeded to be sick to my stomach almost immediately.
So instead of driving straight home over the mountains yesterday, I instead crashed at my sister's place so I could recover and drive directly to work this morning.
Where, despite having two (nearly) back-to-back vacations, it felt as if I never left.
If not for the photographs I took, it hardly seems as though I were gone at all.
Which means now I need a vacation.
Today is usually the day that I post some kind of DaveToon showing solidarity with those students taking part in the National Day of Silence. It's a worthwhile demonstration (in its seventeenth year) which calls attention to those who would silence the effects of anti-LGBT bullying in schools.
But I'm just too saddened to stay silent this year.
Maybe it's because the epidemic of gay youth suicide hit very close to home earlier this year when a guy going to my high school alma mater killed himself as a result of bullying.
Maybe it's because I learned that friends of mine have a brilliant, funny, amazing child who is being so badly bullied at school that they're only option is to home-school him because they are starting to fear for his life.
But probably it's because I came back from vacation and one of the first news stories I read is how 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. comes out as gay, immediately became a target of unrelenting bullying, and is dead a month later by his own hand...
I look at this photo and my heart breaks at the thought of him waking up each morning trying to find the courage to get through just one more day. I look at this photo and try to fathom just how bad his life was that killing himself was the best solution he could think of to escape it. I look at this photo and wonder for the millionth time how somebody could be so cruel as to torture somebody over something that's not their fault, something they cannot change, and something that shouldn't matter. I look at this photo and die a little bit more inside because we live in a society where kids are killing themselves because they're different.
Was there nobody who would stand up for this poor kid?
If not for hearing this same story play out dozens of times before, it would be inconceivable.
New videos are being added to the It Gets Better Project all the time, and yet telling these kids over and over again that they're lives will be okay if they will "just hang in there" doesn't seem to be enough. In some cases, it doesn't matter how great things will be in the future, life is just too difficult for them to go on right now. And never was this made more clear than when looking at Kenneth's "When I Get Married" Pinterest page. He lived in Iowa where same-sex marriage was legal, had envisioned a bright future for himself where he would be married and happy, but didn't survive long enough to see it.
Which means that things need to BE better right now.
Kids need to know that they are accepted and valued right now.
Which is tough to get across when every time you turn around there's yet another attack on LGBT persons. Religious leaders screaming that being gay is an abomination... politicians saying that gays getting married will doom society... news pundits saying that gay soldiers will ruin our military... hate groups saying that if kids see gay people in public they'll turn gay... the dumbassery never seems to stop. It's all fucking bullshit, of course, but that's the kind of environment which is corrupting today's youth and turning them into bullying hate machines. It's horrifying how something so grotesque could ever become acceptable to society, but history is replete with examples of this kind of hatred going "mainstream." We just never seem to learn from it.
And yet... in small steps, things are moving in the right direction.
High school athletes are stepping up to befriend and protect their bullied classmates, and it's a step.
Organizations are forming to foster acceptance of gay youth by their straight peers, and it's a step.
Schools are adopting "No Bullying" policies to curb aggression towards students under attack, and it's a step.
And more steps are being taken every day. Sadly, some of them are steps backwards, but ultimately we are inching ahead. Which means we're making progress. Which means things are getting to be better for school kids right now. But not nearly fast enough. Because Kenneth Weishuhn deserved to live to see the future he saw for himself, and any society which would deny him that doesn't deserve any future at all.
Rest in peace, Kenneth. And forgive me for not being able to stay silent on a day where silence is meant to improve things for people just like you... innocent kids who deserve far better by our hands.
I spent my morning unsuccessfully catching up on work. I was off to a good start, but then shooting pains started ripping through my left leg. At first I thought it might be a heart attack, but then I remembered that is shooting pains in your arm. Googling a self-diagnosis brings up all kinds of doom and gloom, which I've decided to ignore. Except the pain is still there and that has resulted in massive cramping. I'm guessing this is all because a pinched nerve from 10 hours on an airplane, but who knows? I suppose it's time to get a check-up with somebody other than Dr. Google.
In the meanwhile, I'm doped up on painkillers and Quinine, which makes working kinda difficult.
So I'm blogging instead.
Except I'm drowsy and can't seem to keep a thought in my head, so I'll just draw a DaveToon and be done with it...
There we go.
My dedication to my blog astounds even me sometimes.
I'm droppin' bullets like Benjamins, yo, because Bullet Sunday starts... now.
• Bitchsterdam. An overdue thank you to The DutchBitch for an awesome Bitchsterdam 3 blogger event. I've been to the Netherlands many times, but she managed to find some fantastic touristy stuff that I've never seen before... including a visit to the amazing Keukenhof gardens. Easily worth a ten-hour flight. Here's hoping she can be convinced to have Bitchsterdam 4! If, for no other reason, than I can attempt to use words like "geesteswetenschappen" in a sentence again...
It apparently means "humanities"... OR DOES IT?!? You just don't know!
• Superiority. And speaking of DutchyLand... I fully accept that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world and all those other freedom-hating backwater countries don't matter and have nothing to contribute. I mean... I kind of have to don't I? The minute an American even implies that other countries are relevant to world affairs and have wonderful cultural contributions to be made, FOX "News" will brand them an American-hating traitor. And heaven forbid that you happen to be the president and have an appreciation for other countries' contribution to the planet. That's enough for FOX "News" to demand your impeachment!
However...
Call me a traitor if you must, but creamy and delicious Dutch mayonnaise is so fucking superior to the gelatinous glop we call "mayonnaise" here in the U.S. that it's not even funny. This trip I checked a suitcase, which meant I was able to bring home a bunch of the stuff. So now I can fry up some fries for PATATJES MET at home...
PATATJES MET!!! Amazing. Whoever decides to market a superior Dutch mayo here is going to make millions. Millions!!
• WHAT?!? And speaking of fries... have you heard that browning potatoes creates a cancer-causing chemical called "acrylamide" that makes them deadly to eat? Can you believe this shit? Why is it that everything that tastes good ends up killing you? This is so not fair. PATATJES MET OR DEATH?!? I can't answer that.
• Earth! Ooh! It's Earth Day! That one day out of the year where people pretend to give a shit about our planet! Including me. Despite it being 82° out today, I rolled down my window instead of turning on the air conditioner in my car. That totally counts, right?
• Television. Kind of gutted that two of my favorite new shows, Awake and The Finder are not getting the ratings they need for renewal. Instead they'll be cancelled and replaced by a reality show or some other stupid-ass crap that doesn't require thought from the American viewing public. And who knows what's going to happen to Fringe, which had a game-changing episode on Friday. It's almost to the point where I'm afraid to get invested in good television anymore...
And, on that sad note, I've gotta go tempt death by having another plate of PATATJES MET!
I should have left the Dutch mayo back in the Netherlands. Because now I'm going to have to start a cocaine habit in order to break my Patatjes Met addiction. Cocaine I think I have a shot at shaking... but Dutch mayo? Not on your life. Dutch mayo is the new chocolate pudding, and I want to eat in on everything all of the time.
That can't be good.
Well, it is good, it just can't be healthy.
The weather has taken a decidedly warmer turn here, with temperatures reaching a ball-scorching 86° today. This is kind of depressing, because I don't remember getting a Spring. We went from cold days a couple weeks ago to hot days this week. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. Just freeze your ass off one day, then sweat your ass off the next.
In other news... DEATH TO PENNIES!!!
Despite all the objections, I am for a cashless society. I buy everything... everything... on my credit card to get airline miles anyway, so it wouldn't be a big deal to me. And while I don't see the USA getting rid of money any time soon, I think killing off the penny is something most people could get behind once they are informed of what a stupid waste they are.
Or not.
Here in these United States of America, we seem to be addicted to stupid waste.
Today was one of those days that was lacking thrills. More than once I found myself wishing I had a package arriving. Because don't you just love it when you order something and receive a tracking notice saying that it's out for delivery? Isn't that just the greatest? The anticipation of knowing any minute the FedEx delivery guy is going to walk through the door carrying a parcel with your name on it? The item doesn't even have to be something major... I'd be excited even knowing that it was new socks on the way.
Just something to look forward to.
Instead I left work early to go to the eye doctor.
After removing my contact lenses for the exam, I saw THIS staring up at me...
It wasn't until I put my glasses on that I figured out what was going on there...
And that was the most thrilling thing that happened to me today.
Thank heavens for a dirty mind. Otherwise I would have had nuthin'.
We were hit by a deluge this afternoon, with the rain falling so hard that leaves were being ripped from the trees. This made it really difficult to drive on the highway because the water was piling up faster than it could run off the road. Some cars started hydroplaning and losing control, so everybody slowed down to a more appropriate speed and everything was fine.
Until some dumbass came ripping down the highway at top speed, skidding through the water while weaving in and out of traffic. As he attempted to pass me, he slid so close to my car that I thought I would lose my side-mirror, but I managed to turn and brake quickly enough that I didn't get hit. That I nearly ended up in the ditch didn't mean anything to the asshole, and he sped off to even more dangerous encounters as horns were blaring around him.
The hospital was in the opposite direction, so I have no idea why he was in such a hurry, but I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually ended up killing somebody.
Oh, excuse me, murdering somebody.
Because driving like a psychopath in such bad weather conditions is an intentional bid to kill someone... there would be no "accident" here. And yet, even such a reckless regard for safety (including his own) didn't seem to register as he was skidding all over the road.
Which makes me think about the old "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you do it?" question. No, this asshole driver probably isn't going to end up responsible for killing millions of people... but do the numbers really matter when murdering even one person is a tragedy? Everybody is important to somebody.
And so there I am behind the wheel watching in horror as some dumbass is skidding all over the place while other drivers try their best to avoid him. And it occurs to me that I don't have to go back in time to kill this asshole and save lives... I could follow him home and kill him right now!
Not that I would actually do it, of course. But what about the person that would? Like me, they come to the whole "kill Hitler" quandary and then, unlike me, decide to do society a favor and eliminate the bastard driver. What about them?
So drive safe everybody. It's not just an accident that can kill you.
And speaking of something that can kill you...
Pizza Hut in the Middle East has introduced "Crown Crust Carnival Pizza" where cheeseburgers or chicken nuggets are baked into the crust!
GENIUS! It almost makes me wish I wasn't a vegetarian. And I lived in Kuwait. And I had a deathwish.
It's only a matter of time before they start putting chocolate cake in the crust so you can have pizza and dessert at the same time. I can't tell you how happy I am to be alive during an era of such magical culinary innovation. But it's pretty happy.
Are you American? Have a computer? Congratulations! Your elected officials are working overtime to make sure you have no privacy and no rights... all in the name of your security! The House of Representatives just passed CISPA, affording the government horrendously invasive powers over its citizens. And it gets better... the bill that was passed ended up being far worse than originally thought.
The Obama administration has threatened to veto CISPA (apparently the Special Interest groups they suck up to don't have a problem with it)... but forgive me for failing to be shocked if this ends up getting turned into law anyway. In an election year, President Obama can be only be counted on for doing only one thing... doing whatever he has to do to get re-elected. If that means CISPA gets passed, I'm sure CISPA is going to get passed.
Look, I fully support tracking down cyber criminals, cyber terrorists, cyber pedophiles, and cyber stalkers. Criminals should be brought to justice, end of story. But not by completely trashing the privacy, security, and freedom of American citizens! CISPA gives the government a grotesque amount of power over its people. Power that's just begging to be abused. Because if history has taught us anything, it's that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely... no matter what the original intent. The fact that 248 politicians in the House of Representatives were either too fucking stupid to learn from history or too fucking evil to care speaks volumes about where we're at as a country. Forget about whether its Obama or Romney that's going to destroy America... THIS is where we start to fall, and it's a bipartisan effort!
Though what passes for "freedom" these days has me wondering if I should bother being this upset.
It's been tough for me to keep up with my online life this week as I've been dealing with crushing headaches, but Anissa (one of my favorite people on earth) mentioned a YouTube video where a guy with family ties to a Catholic high school was asked to speak at graduation... but got subsequently un-invited when they found out he's gay. In his video response, the guy mentions that he was "found out" because people at the school saw photos on his Facebook page.
And so I tracked down Dominic Sheahan-Stahl's page where I was expecting to see images of him having gay sex in the middle of an elementary school playground during recess. But instead I found this...
Oh yes. We just gotta protect society from that.
We simply cannot have two happy people in a relationship. What kind of example would that be for the children?
I tell you what... most days I find myself thinking that dying at age 50 would be just about perfect. I've done more in my life than most people ever will, so that should be enough for me, shouldn't it?
But then I hear about stupid bullshit like this and find myself hoping I live to be 100 years old so I can look back at this period in history and just laugh my ass off at how stupid and backwards society was. I mean, seriously, who gives a shit whether this guy finds his happiness in life with sausage or taco? The only people who should care are people interested in his sausage.
While everybody else should just be concerning themselves with is what's in his heart...
What a shame. Sounds like this is exactly the kind of person you want speaking to a graduating class.
Anybody who has ever said "FREEDOM ISN'T FREE!" is absolutely right. We paid for our freedoms dearly, and continue to pay for them every day. Which is why it's always shocking to me how people can be so quick to just piss them away. Whether it's by supporting a society where people are not allowed to speak because of what genitals are on the person they love... or by supporting a government that would steal their freedoms away in plain sight.
I just don't get it.
Which is why I'm no going to exercise my freedom to post this blog entry... while I still can.
For years... decades, really... I've been collecting travel guides. Most of the time I would buy the old editions on sale when the new editions were released. The only thing that seemed to change were the hotel and restaurant listings, so it didn't make sense to pay full price for information I wasn't going to use. Because back then, actually getting to go to all these places was nothing more than a dream. I bought the books so I could pretend that I was planning a trip to exotic locations around the globe.
Then I stopped pretending and started actually going. Which is when my travel library came in handy.
But then the internet started taking over and I was referring to guidebooks less and less. And once the iPhone was unleashed, I had the entire internet in my pocket and stopped using physical travel guides altogether.
So why keep them?
Sentimental reasons, I guess. I look up at the bookshelf and it's a reminder of my travel dreams and all the places I want to go. But then this morning I actually started looking at them. Out of seventy-two books, only three of them were places I haven't yet been: Peru, India, and Cambodia...
There are plenty of other places I want to visit, but these are the three that are left staring down at me from the shelf. So I'm keeping them... for sentimental reasons, I guess... and throwing out the rest.
Hopefully one day I can visit Peru, India, and Cambodia so I can toss those books in the trash bin as well.
At which point I'll have to buy new books that I can aspire to throw out.
Years ago I was wandering around a residential neighborhood in Osaka, Japan looking for a restaurant that was recommended to me. Far away from places that tourists might frequent, the natives were shocked and dismayed at this tall foreigner in their midst. I had been to Japan often enough that the double-takes, stares, and whispers didn't bother me anymore, but the feeling of "not belonging" was always there.
As I tried my best to navigate Japan's bizarre address system and find the building I was looking for, I ran across a young boy standing outside a small group of people. Not wanting to alarm anybody, I smiled at him and picked up my pace a bit so I could pass by. But escape wasn't so easy. Mouth agape, the boy asked if I was a "gai-jin" ("foreign person") as I approached.
All conversation by the group of people stopped immediately as they turned and looked at us. A couple of them had faces frozen in horror, as if I were going to eat the kid or something.
"Yes," I replied. "But I'm a friendly monster, so it's okay."
Hearing a foreigner speaking Japanese is usually cause for confusion. But once that wore off, a few smiles and guffaws escaped the crowd. Then a 20-something man piped up in his wonderful Japanese directness and asked "Why are you here?"
"I am looking for a restaurant," I said, as I held out a slip of paper with the address written on it.
After a quick look, the man replied "It's there!" and pointed across the street, one block down.
I thanked him for his help, retrieved the address with a slight bow, then started to walk down the street... only to have the man walk alongside. Apparently he decided to accompany me to my destination and make sure I arrived safely. But that wasn't all. When I glanced behind me, I noticed that the entire group was following us. Albeit slowly... and at a distance.
It was a surprisingly uncomfortable situation but, fortunately, it didn't last long. A few minutes later we arrived, so I thanked the man again and said goodbye. Across the street, the group of people were waving at me, so I waved back with a quick bow and escaped into the restaurant.
After dinner I poked my head out to see if they had waited for me, but they were gone.
I guess even friendly monsters end up alone eventually.
Time to check your bandwidth, because a special All Video Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Punisher! President Obama once again killed it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. I didn't think he could top his awesome performance last year, but he came really close. Except... was I the only one who kept seeing a skull shape when his shirt was eclipsed by the microphones? At first I thought that it was proof positive that he was, in fact, not a Secret Muslim... but instead a Secret Satan Worshipper! And then... then... it came to me. it's not Satan... it's The Punisher!
If only.
I may not always agree with his politics, but I really do like our president. He's a good guy doing a tough job the best way he knows how... all while under constant attack by people who have no respect for his office or our country. If you haven't seen his speech, it's pretty damn funny and well worth watching...
• Election! I don't think there's any question that Mitt Romney will most definitely not be getting my vote. What is in question is whether or not President Obama will get my vote. Right now, I honestly don't know. If he starts caving on things like CISPA and equality, I have no problem with a write-in vote like I've done before when both candidates suck. Otherwise, it's kind of his vote to lose. All that being said, I am kind of enjoying Obama's latest round of ads: "Mitt Romney vs. Reality" where he takes his old footage to address Romney's bullshit pandering. Genius. Romney comes off looking either uninformed or a liar, while Obama dings him without going negative...
It will be interesting to see where Romney's campaign goes now that he's running for president instead of candidacy. Because, I gotta say, his ads always seem more embarrassing than informative or compelling. The guy is so awkward and detached that his every appearance seems to be a reason why he shouldn't be president. He needs an ad team that can work this out... fast.
• Houdini! I stopped watching MTV a long time ago. They used to be all about music, but now all they give a crap about is stupid shit like Jersey Shore which I wouldn't watch if my life depended on it. The upshot being that I don't see many music videos anymore. Not that it's a big loss... most music videos suck ass these days. But I do follow Foster the People, and their latest video for my favorite song (Houdini) off their last album (Torches) is really good...
Creative, funny, well-executed, and fitting to the song. Doesn't get much better than that.
• Old! A year ago, somebody asked a question that has been burning up the internet this past week... "What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for?" Since I was around when computers went consumer mainstream, I remember all too well about things like modems, data cassettes, BBSs, and yes... floppy disks for your A: and/or B: drive. I also remember VHS tape, Pong, record players, and... heaven help me... rotary telephones...
It's not that I feel particularly old over it all... the technological advances over the past 30 years have been astoundingly fast... it's what we're in for over the next 30 years. Just as the iPhone bears -zero- resemblance to the rotary phone, I'd imagine the "phone" of the future will be an even bigger departure from iPhone. It's at that point that I really start to feel my age. Oh well. I honestly think that the limitations that my generation had to put up with from technology made it more fun than the sheer magic we get from technology today, so there's that*.
• Ridley! When it comes to movies this year, I'd have thought it would be impossible to top my excitement for The Avengers, but Ridley Scott's offering, Prometheus, does exactly that. The new international trailer has me aching for a good science fiction movie...
June 8th can't get here fast enough.
And now I suppose it's time to put away YouTube so I can get some real work done.
*Oh who am I kidding? I would have killed to have had an iPhone back in the 80's, and everybody knows it.
This is one of those times where every cent of my paycheck was already spoken for.
Which would usually be upsetting, but it's a direct result of spending a week goofing off in Europe after having just gotten back from two weeks vacation, so I'm perfectly okay with it.
Even so, you can imagine my excitement as I was rearranging books on my shelves only to have a 1000 Korean Won note fell to the floor. It had apparently been used as a bookmark. Or maybe I just stuck it between some books because it was pretty and I wanted to flatten it out for a souvenir...
However it got there, the only thing running through my mind now was... MONEY!
But how much? Maybe $20... probably more like $10... but wouldn't it be cool if it was $100? I had no idea, so I rushed to fire up a currency conversion app on my iPhone.
Only to discover that 1000 Won is 89¢ in US money. Which, coincidentally enough, is almost exactly the same as when I was last in Seoul back in September 2004. That's not as good as the $1.10 I would have gotten in November of 2007... but certainly not as bad as the 64¢ I would have got back in March of 2009.
In any event, whether it's $1.10 or 89¢ or 64¢, that doesn't do much for my cash on hand. Especially once exchange fees are paid.
Thank heavens for credit cards, because it's time to shop.
With the exception of grocery stores, it's getting to the point where I rarely shop at brick-n-mortar stores any more. Everything I need to buy is purchased off the internets. But I got a $10 coupon back when I paid for my eye exam at Shopko (where everything is always on sale!) and it's expiring today, so I decided to stop in and see if I could spend the $50 required to use my coupon. Sure I'm poor just now, but you gotta spend money to save money!
I ended up buying new bed sheets (on sale!) and a PUR water filtration pitcher (on sale!). This was just enough to get my $10 savings, so I was pretty happy.
Until...
Just for kicks, I checked pricing when I got home... only to find that even with the $10 coupon, I ended up paying $1.30 more than if I had bought online (and that includes shipping!). Add in money for gas and my time and I definitely lost-out on the deal.
Oh well. Live and learn.
But I'm pretty sure I learned that already.
Was Diane Keaton frickin' high on "The Colbert Report" last night?
Because that had to be the single most awkward and embarrassing interviews I've ever seen. Despite numerous efforts by Colbert to get her to talk about her damn book, she just would not stop being a complete jackass. I don't know if she thought she was being funny with her bat-shit hostility or what... but holy crap...
The fact that Colbert managed to keep the interview going... and stay funny under the onslaught of Keaton's insanity... speaks volumes as to his talent...
I really don't know what I'll do once Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart decide to retire. It seems as though The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are the only "news" programs I can stomach now-a-days.
I've always liked The Hulk, because I think that he's a character everybody can relate to. Many-a-times while reading Incredible Hulk comics I thought about the rage monster inside of every one of us that's barely contained and ready to burst out at a moment's notice.
Then I have to wonder what it would take to push me over the edge and unleash the beast.
Watching FOX "News" and their near-continuous stream of exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies to push their agenda would come close. Not so much because they do it... they're hardly unique amongst news organizations for that... it's more because they claim to be "fair and balanced" when clearly they're full of shit...
I mean, WTF?!?
Hulk not mad. Hulk confused...
A fucking COMEDY CHANNEL is having to fact-check one of the most popular news organizations on the planet?
Something has gone very, very wrong. And that makes Hulk angry...
And you won't like Hulk when he's angry.
UNLESS... you are watching The Avengers movie, which opens nation-wide on Friday! I mean, seriously, with the exception of a few douchebags writing negative reviews so they can get some attention, everybody is LOVING this film!
If only DC Comics could get their shit together. Because, with the exception of an awesome-looking finale to the Batman trilogy with the upcoming Dark Knight Rises, they got nuthin'. To think that they could have built on the success of Batman and unleashed amazing Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash films... culminating in a frickin' JUSTICE LEAGUE movie... well, it's almost heartbreaking. Green Lantern was lame, and what little I've seen of Man of Steel is looking awful.
Oh well. Between Marvel Comics movies and FOX "News" I guess we've got enough popular fiction to keep us occupied for a while.
Eh oh!
Remember back in 1999 when religious leader Jerry Falwell declared that the purple member of The Teletubbies was a homosexual role model for children because he was carrying that red handbag everywhere? Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but he was totally serious about it.
Since that time, other religious leaders and groups have been in an uproar over things they consider to be bad role models for children... and, more often than not, it's because they are gay (e.g. Chris Coffer on Glee) or assumed to be gay (e.g. Tinky Winky and SpongeBob SquarePants)...
Whatever the case, these morons honestly believe that even the mere sight of something they perceive to be gay will causes kids to embrace homosexuality.
And what can parents do when their child has been infected by The Gayness? According to Pastor Sean Harris of the Barean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, N.C., you beat the gay out of them, of course!
"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, 'Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,' you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed."
"Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch, okay? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting too butch you reign her in. And you say, 'Oh no, sweetheart. You can play sports... play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.'"
Who is this sadistic moron?
And we wonder why gay youth are committing suicide in record numbers.
I'm straight, but heaven only knows I'm not the most masculine guy in the world. I most certainly wasn't the most masculine kid in school. And because of that, I should have been abused and beaten just to be sure any non-masculine behavior wasn't a sign that I might be "turning gay?"
When the furor over Pastor Sean's remarks hit earlier this week, I started writing a long rant about how we're quickly becoming a society that is hostile... sometimes fatal... to children who are even a little different than what is considered "normal." But as I was re-reading it, I decided that it would do more harm than good, and tossed it.
Then today I read where Pastor Sean is retracting his statements of persecution and violence, but not really. He still feels totally justified in telling people to beat their kids based on scripture that he obviously doesn't understand.
And now I'm wishing I hadn't tossed out my rant, because I concluded it by calling Pastor Sean "a fucking asshole that should be arrested for child endangerment who then gets the shit beaten out of him in prison so he can fully understand the violence he is advocating."
Some would say that such a wish for violence against Pastor Sean makes me no better than the asshole himself. They would be right.
But then I think back to the child I was. The child who wasn't good at sports, who didn't like hiking or fishing, who wasn't popular with girls, who loved art and music, who wasn't like most of the boys... and I say "fuck it." He would have advocated my getting beaten, so it's only right that he be on the receiving end of the same sentiment. Eye for an eye and all that.
And since I'm pretty sure I read that in The Bible somewhere, it's totally justified, right?
HOLY CRAP WHAT A FRICKIN' AWESOME MOVIE!!
I don't want to spoil it for anybody, so I'm not going to give away anything. Except to say that The Avengers is a comic book lover's dream that even people who don't care for comic books will enjoy.
Which is not to say it's perfect. There are definitely some moments where it dragged a bit. But, unlike the crappy trio of original X-Men films which wimped out in every way possible, The Avengers attempted to show the brutal reality of what it would be like when a super-hero team come to life. And it totally worked...
Writer/Director Joss Whedon just eclipsed every other comic book super-hero film ever made. And I loved, loved, loved it.
With one small exception.
Which I can't talk about without RUINING THE FILM FOR ANYBODY WHO HASN'T SEEN IT.
So absolutely DO NOT read the extended entry until you've seen the movie. Seriously, you just can't go any further if you haven't seen the film. Even if that's going to be on DVD two years from now. Which it shouldn't be, because this movie is screaming to be seen on the big screen.
But before we get to that, time to update my whole "Y2K Super-Hero Comic Book Renaissance" scorecard as follows...
The Avengers... A+
Batman Begins... A
Batman Dark Knight... A+
Blade... B
Blade 2... B
Blade Trinity... B-
Captain America... A+
Catwoman... F
Daredevil... B-
Daredevil (Director's Cut)... B+
Elektra... D
Fantastic Four... C
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer... D
Ghost Rider... C
Green Hornet... D
Green Lantern... C+
Hellboy... A
Hellboy 2: Golden Army... A
Hulk... C-
Incredible Hulk... B
The Incredibles... A+
Iron Man... A+
Iron Man 2... A
Jonah Hex... F
Kick-Ass... B+
Punisher... C+
Punisher War Zone... C
Spider-Man... B+
Spider-Man 2... A
Spider-Man 3... D-
Superman Returns... C+
Thor... B+
Watchmen... B
X-Men... C
X-Men 2: United... D
X-Men 3: Last Stand... F-
X-Men Origins: Wolverine... D
X-Men: First Class... B
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Happy Cinco de Mayo! Happy Super-Moon!
Today when I dropped by YouTube, I got a notification that I had Google Videos that can automatically be transferred over. I think they had mentioned sometime last year that they were shutting down their video services, so the end must be nigh.
I didn't even remember using Google Video, so I clicked through to find that I had just one... my very first vlog entry! Apparently I gave a quiz, and the video was my way of providing the answers. But it's me we're talking about, so I had to take time to be a total nut-job first...
Interestingly enough, my original entry for it had a full transcript, which I don't even remember writing.
Anyway, you might want to check and see if you have any wayward videos hanging around Google before they cut off access completely.
Put down that margarita, because Cinco de Mayo is over and Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Wonder! Now that Joss Whedon's The Avengers has broken box office records and made $600 MILLION DOLLARS in only twelve days of release (with only three of those days here in the USA), my mind wanders to another project he was attached to a while back... Wonder Woman. Except Warner Bros. screwed him out of the film, which he very much wanted to make. Now, I'm not so deluded to believe that a Whedon Wonder Woman film would do The Avengers box office... far from it. But I do think that Joss could have made it successful if he had just been given a chance...
Wonder Woman perfectly rendered by the incomparable George Pérez
Whedon has a history of writing amazing female characters (Buffy, anyone?) and his take on Black Window in The Avengers was flawless, so one can only fantasize what he would have done with the most popular female comic book super-hero ever.
If every person at Warner Bros. responsible for fucking up Whedon's Wonder Woman film hasn't gotten their ass kicked and been fired, it needs to happen. Stupid shit like this is the reason that DC Comics' only success with movie adaptations in recent years has been Batman.
• Repeat! Speaking of The Avengers, am I the only one who saw it and now all they can think about is seeing it again?
The movie was just so... big... that I know it's going to take at least a dozen viewings before I manage to process everything that happened.
• Beastly! Sadly, Adam "MCA" Yauch died on Friday at the much-too-young-age of 47. Like everybody else from my generation, The Beastie Boys were a pretty big musical force in my life. And, apparently, other musicians feel the same, because the tributes are already rolling in. Like this one form Chris Martin and Coldplay at a recent concert...
This rendition of the Beastie Boys' most famous song is completely contrary to the brash "in your face" intent of the original song, but it's so beautifully crafted and heartfelt that it still works. Rest in peace, MCA.
• Comedy! I didn't necessarily agree with all the winners at the Second Annual Comedy Central Comedy Awards... but what a frickin' hilarious show. If you missed it, keep a look out. Comedy Central usually reruns their crap fifty times a week, so it should be popping up soon.
• Let Us! Why is it whenever I buy a bag of shredded lettuce for tacos and hamburgers that the shit goes bad just one day after opening? Oh... hold a second... the answer is staring me right in the face...
So now I'm conflicted. On one hand, I appreciate that my lettuce doesn't have any chemicals on it to make me sick or give it a funky taste. But on the other hand... I'M SICK AND TIRED OF THROWING MONEY IN THE GARBAGE EVERY TIME I BUY A BAG OF LETTUCE! I'd be happy if I could get a bag of salad that would last a full week. Hell, I'd be fucking thrilled to have a bag that last three days. But it doesn't exist, so one of two things needs to happen...
And now... back to my post-Cinco-de-Mayo reality.
For years now I've been buying ridiculously expensive bedsheets under the impression that they were better to sleep on. Egyptian cotton. 1200 thread count. Sateen finish. Etc. Etc.
But last week as I was sweating my balls off during a surprise heatwave, I had an epiphany. Say! These fancy sheets aren't really more comfortable! For one thing, the high thread count and sateen finish seems to trap the heat, making me sweat, which then also becomes trapped. Blech.
Then I remembered back to the sheets I had as a kid. Back then, I didn't give a crap about thread count and finish... the only thing I cared about was what was printed on them. I had Snoopy sheets. Star Wars sheets. Lots of different sheets. They were cheap, shitty, and I slept like a rock...
So when it came time to spend my Shopko gift certificate, I went looking for the crappiest sheets I could fine. They're like... 15 thread count... or whatever. And the finish is rough... almost sandpaper rough. I don't know where the cotton comes from, but it's probably not Egypt. It's probably from like... Trenton, New Jersey or something. Overall, it's like sleeping on steel wool. But they breathe more and feel a bit cooler, which is probably the most important factor for me.
And maybe after a hundred more washings they might just get softer.
Where the Wild Things Are.
Who read that wonderful book and didn't want to be Max, King of All Wild Things? I'm guessing nobody.
Which is why I was very saddened to learn that creator Maurice Sendak had died today...
“Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!”
Remarkably, Mr. Sendak was more than just an enourmously talented author and illustrator... the guy was funny as hell. And, lucky for us, his last interview was with Stephen Colbert. If you haven't seen it, this is something well worth your time...
And part two...
Rest in peace, Mr. Sendak. Your works will be inspiring kids of all ages for generations to come.
"I don't hate gay people, I'm just supporting the sanctity of marriage."
And while I don't think I will ever understand how two people with the same genitals getting married affects anybody else's marriage, I admit to being a bit puzzled that President Obama picks now to come out of the equality closet. While I'd like to think that he's doing it because it's the Right Thing, I harbor no illusions that it's politically motivated in one way or another.
Still... it's a start. And it is the Right Thing.
This video that's been burning up the internet explains why...
And here's where the whole tired excuse of "I don't hate gay people, I'm just supporting the sanctity of marriage" completely falls apart.
Regardless of a person's beliefs (religious or otherwise), the only "attack" on "traditional marriage" that cannot be denied or argued is divorce. Using same-sex marriage as a scapegoat for any matrimonial failures is just an excuse to discriminate.
And a poor one at that.
My neighbor seems to spend most of his free time detailing his car. Every time I see him he's washing it... waxing it... buffing it... touching it up... polishing it... or otherwise taking care of it. And it's not like it's a vintage Corvette or anything. It's just a Ford Explorer. But he takes real pride in making sure it's kept in the best shape possible. Even if he doesn't drive it very much.
And then there's my car.
I would just as soon set the piece of shit on fire than wash it.
In fact, I have no idea when the last time I washed it even was. It's been years, I'm sure. The only time it ever gets clean is when it rains. Or it snows and the snow melts. All other times it's dusty and dirty and looks like it's been abandoned. Which it pretty much has.
Oh sure... I think about driving through the car wash every once in a while. Usually after just having seen my neighbor working on his rig. But the thought is fleeting and I've forgotten all about it the minute I turn out of the driveway. What's the point, after all? It's just going to get dirty again.
When it comes down to it, I don't care about my car. I never have. So long as it gets me from place to place, I don't care what it looks like or how it runs or what people think about it. If I believed that material possessions defined me in any way, this would be a major point of embarrassment. But, well, ya know... attachment leads to suffering and all that.
And then I saw a review of the 2012 Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet cross my feed reader today...
Gorgeous photo by Porsche, taken from Motor Trend
Dream car.
Some possessions possess you. I know this one would certainly possess me.
Which is why I'm glad I don't have $108,950 burning a hole in my pocket. There are so many more things I'd rather do with my time than to rub my Porsche with a diaper every waking hour of every day that I wasn't driving it.
Unless, you know, somebody wanted to give me one.
I can buy my own diaper.
There's a family of quail that live along the road where I turn into my place. So every time I round the corner onto that road, I slow way down. You never know if the quail will be wandering around, and I don't want to squish one. In my heart I know it's probably going to happen one day, I just don't want to be the one responsible.
Today when I turned, there were three of them bobbing along the side of the road. As usual, they got all panicky with a giant car heading towards them and started dashing around. One got really lost and turned in front of me, so I stopped and waited for him to find his way back.
Which is when a car rounded the corner behind me and screeched to a halt.
I couldn't see the little quail yet, so I didn't budge.
It couldn't have been more than 10 seconds, but the car behind me hit the gas and swerved around me, horn blaring.
This caused the little quail to run back to the bushes on the side of the road, so I continued on.
And then spent the next half-hour trying to figure out how one would go about convincing quail to relocate to a new, less dangerous, home.
My life would be so much easier if I didn't mind grinding a few quail into the pavement from time to time.
Ever feel like you've been singled out for a special destiny?
Like you've been marked for a fate that you just can't escape?
And not in a good way?
Yeah. Me too. I knew I should have never subscribed to InStyle Magazine. But 12 issues was just a dollar, yo, so what choice did I have?
Happy Mother's Day! And word to your mother, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Bank! The Avengers just blew past ONE BILLION DOLLARS at the worldwide box office. Not bad for a movie built for comic book geeks. The only way things could get much better would be if Marvel could get some cooperation between the various movie studios that have the rights to their characters. It can only benefit everybody involved. A cameo appearance by Spider-Man in an Avengers flick would only raise interest in Spider-Man's movie, for example...
But the meeting I most want? X-Men vs. Avengers. Not the cheesy, shitty X-Men from the crappy original trilogy... but the real X-Men we saw in the X-Men: First Class movie. Because the current Avengers vs. X-Men comic book is killing it, and that would make for one incredible flick. But nobody ever accused movie studios of being very smart, so it's probably never going to happen. Such a shame.
• CS6! And so Adobe Creative Suite 6 was unleashed this week. So far... I'm kind of digging it. As somebody who shoots a lot of wide-angle photos, the new "Adaptive Wide Angle" correction filter in Photoshop is worth the upgrade alone. Illustrator gets variable-width strokes and some really nice gradient tools. InDesign gets some really cool layout tools. And everything seems to be a bit snappier thanks to their new "Mercury" graphics engine. I also like the "pro" interface overhaul (even though it doesn't utilize the "full-screen" feature of OS X, which is just stoopid). Overall, a pretty decent upgrade.
Except for the cost. I bypassed Adobe's insulting and absurd CS5.5, so all my pricing is for upgrading "CS5 Design Premium." Except there is no "Design Premium" any more, so I have to get "Design & Web Premium" to get everything I previously had. Price? $749. Bullshit. In 2010 it was only $599. So I guess I skip "Premium" and get "Design Standard" for $549. It only has Photoshop (NOT Extended), Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat... which is lame bullshit.
The high prices are meant to push people to join Adobe's "Creative Cloud" offering, which gets you everything they make for $50 a month. This would be a bargain if I actually used everything they make. As a previous customer I get a year at $30 a month (introductory price), which is still too pricey for what I end up using, but it will give me time to figure out what I'll eventually end up buying. Hopefully Adobe will realize that people don't want to pay for what they don't use and offer an option without the video production tools at a more reasonable cost. As it is, "Creative Cloud" is more a rip-off than anything else.
• Iconic! I've written before about the carousel of progress that's been the evolution of Adobe Creative Suite icons. It went from an inexplicable WTF? in CS2... to a nice white on tone in CS3... to a very classy black on tone in CS4... to a pleasing tone-on-tone in CS5. And now in CS6? I don't even have an opinion...
Except to say that they feel clunky, amateurish, and look like shit in my Dock...
Not even color coordinated? Really? Pathetic. And the document icons are even worse. I'd be embarrassed for Adobe, but it's not like they'd give a crap. They're the only game in town now and they know it.
• DVR! Back when I had satellite television, I had a TiVo DVR. It was heaven. The best possible way to watch television. But I had to give up satellite for cable because my location wouldn't let me get HD channels by satellite. Unfortunately, Charter Cable doesn't have TiVo. I was stuck with a HEINOUS PIECE OF SHIT called a "Moxi" DVR. It was a poorly-designed, constantly-over-heating, featureless, stuttering pile of FAIL! It had to be replaced twice. Then the third one died this past week. So Charter gave me a generic Motorola DVR that's a heck of a lot better than MOXI, but still a featureless piece of shit (you can't even hide channels you don't get!).
Which begs the question... Why is TiVo the only company who can make a DVR that's worth a damn?
Charter Cable has been promising TiVo to their customers for ages. It was supposed to arrive next month. Now the rollout has been delayed. Who the hell knows if it will ever be released. What I do know is that I am sick and tired of the sub-standard DVR bullshit they keep shoving down my throat. Maybe it's time to ditch cable altogether and buy all the stuff I want to watch with AppleTV?
• Hooray! From the television up-fronts we now know that Person of Interest, Revenge, Castle, Suburgatory, Happy Endings, Scandal, Raising Hope, and Grim have all been renewed for another season. In somewhat good news, Community, 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, and Fringe got partial final season orders for them to finish up their shows. While better than a flat-out cancellation, this still sucks pretty hard. Community is essential television viewing.
• Crap! The Finder and Awake... two of my favorite shows were canceled. Awake I kinda get. The show was a bit esoteric and didn't have a huge amount of mainstream appeal with the whole "two worlds" concept. People aren't that smart. But The Finder?!? Such a frickin' amazing and entertaining show. I simply do not understand how it failed to build a huge audience. To add insult to injury, they ended the season with a massive multi-character cliffhanger. I can only hope that Hart Hanson will use a couple episodes of his other show, Bones, to wrap things up. Damn. Fucked by FOX again.
And now? I should probably back-up my laptop now that I've added a bunch of crap. That's a good Sunday project.
If it weren't for the one good thing that happened today, I'd be a complete wreck.
Because there's only so long you can beat your head against the wall and scream in frustration over all the bullshit that piles up over the course of a day. In other words... it's a Monday.
And that's the Big Picture, isn't it?
Nothing happens over the weekend, so everything that could possibly go wrong will come to a head on Monday. Perhaps the problem might have been spotted last Friday, but nobody wants to think about anything on Fridays except the upcoming weekend, so Fridays might as well not exist. Which brings us back to Monday. Again.
And Mondays always get me thinking about those awful Garfield cartoons that I loved at first... but eventually grew to loathe because they got so repetitive, lazy, and boring. Garfield the cat has thousands of reasons to hate Mondays, and the people writing and drawing Garfield for Jim Davis have reiterated this a billion times in a zillion different ways...
And every damn time they came up with yet another stupid-ass "Garfield Hates Mondays" joke I wanted to scream at the newspaper "YOU'RE A FUCKING CAT, BITCH! HOW IN THE HELL IS MONDAY DIFFERENT FROM EVERY OTHER DAY OF THE WEEK THAT YOU DO NOTHING BUT EAT, SLEEP, AND SHIT ALL DAY LONG?!?"
Which, I suppose, is the genius of Garfield, because releasing that kind of frustration is exactly what comic strips are supposed to do.
Irony can be so ironic sometimes.
I overheard something yesterday that made my head explode.
After I calmed down I thought "Well, at least I have something to blog about tomorrow!" and moved on. Except writing about the situation has proven impossible, so now I don't know what I'll do. Probably sleep on it for a while and see how I feel next week. Perhaps time will provide the proper perspective I need to express my thoughts without going into a profanity-laden meltdown.
Or not.
Right now it's difficult to think clearly.
So I guess I'll just wish everybody a Happy Hummus Day and move on...
And, speaking of hummus, did you know that Shiny and Faiqa have started up with NEW episodes of Hey That's My Hummus? Totally worth your time to take a listen.
Ooh! You can WIN FREE STUFF in this entry! Read on, fair reader...
Since starting this blog, I've refused at least a hundred offers to review crap, promote crap, or sell crap. So when a guy from Moo Printing emailed me with an offer of free business cards,. I was going to say no. But then he also offered to let me GIVE AWAY free business cards if I'd review my Moo experience. So I said "okay!" because I love my readers more than I love not lying.
And because I had a good experience with Moo in the past for my clothing tags, I figured there was a good chance I wouldn't have to say anything nasty in my review. That would be really awkward.
So I'll skip to the good part first. I LOVE MY NEW BLOGGER CARDS!
Moo makes it ridiculously easy to create great-looking cards, stickers, postcards, and other cool stuff.
Once you've selected what you want to print, all you have to do is decide what you want for a design. I created new DaveToons to upload, but you can easily import images or graphics from Flickr, Picassa, SmugMug, Facebook, and even Etsy...
And here's the thing that makes Moo so frickin' awesome... you can have a separate design for the front of EACH individual piece! Ordering 100 business cards? All 100 can have a different photo on them! If you use less images than the number of pieces you're ordering, Moo will attempt to evenly divide the cards between the designs.
What's cool about this is that I was able to make cards for both my blogs in the same box to save money over ordering two different cards separately. I made Bad Monkey cards in four different colors for Blogography, then made Lil' Dave card for DaveCafe (which I uploaded twice so I would have extra...
Then you turn the card over to design the back. You can select colors, type what you want, then have Moo do the rest... or you can design something from scratch like I did...
And that's all there is to it, really. The whole process is dead-simple, and Moo lets you see what your finished cards are going to look like before you place your order. Once you're happy with things, all you have to do is checkout and wait.
When my cards finally arrived, I prepared myself for disappointment. Because the colors never seem to turn out like what you wanted... especially with the crazy, unprintable bright colors I used. But, surprise surprise, the printing was pretty darn good. The shading on Lil' Dave's face usually comes out all banded when printed, but the Moo printing had gradients that were smooth as butter. My "impossible to print" colors turned out much brighter than I was expecting (though not quite as bright as this photo from my iPhone shows)...
What really great is the paper stock Moo uses. The "Classic" paper I selected is a really nice 16pt thick stock with a satin finish that's soft to the touch. They also have a "Green" (as in eco-friendly, not color) stock that runs a bit higher. They "feel" good in the hand, and are sure to make an impression when you hand them out.
As shown in the first photo, Moo packs your cards in a classy but sturdy black box. It has tabbed dividers for "MINE" and "THEIRS" so you can even use it as a case if you want.
About the only complaint I had was that the cards were not centered in the cutting die very well when they were punched out. They're a couple millimeters offset. This doesn't seem like a big deal but, on something as small as a business card, you definitely notice it. I would think that Moo would be a little more careful given their high-quality standards, but there you have it...
Does it "ruin" the card? Not really. I stayed within the "safety margin" I was given, so nothing got cut off. Most people probably won't even notice. But to an anal-retentive designer like myself, it's kind of a bummer. And yet... they're still the best business cards I've ever had.
Moo has generously offered to let me give away a box of 100 "Classic" business cards (a $39.98 value) plus free domestic shipping (a $7.75 value). If you want extras like "Green" paper... or the nifty rounded corners I have on my cards... or rush shipping... or international delivery... or whatever... you'll have to pay the difference yourself.
To enter in the drawing, just leave a comment telling me your favorite sandwich. I'll draw a name at random from all the commenters in one week on May 23rd (so get your comment posted by May 22nd!). Be sure to leave a valid email address so I can contact you if you win (it won't be shown). GOOD LUCK! And thanks to Moo for not only my beautiful business cards, but for thinking of my readers too!
Wanna Moo too? Here's a direct link to their business cards page!
Okay... Okay... Okay... THREE EPISODES of Community tonight?!?
The first of the three was my favorite episode to date, which is really saying something considering the slew of frickin' amazing episodes that came previously. Not only did they faithfully represent the Age of 8-Bit Video Games perfectly, the characterization of each cast member in pixels was flawless...
The fact that the show is only getting a paltry 13 episode order next season is a travesty. But I suppose they have to make room for what ever shitty reality television crap they've bought to stink up the airwaves come Fall. I know that television is a business, and ratings and ad revenue are the only factors that really matter... but come on. Given the quality, critical acclaim, and rabid fan base of the show, NBC owes it to humanity to at least get Community up to 65 episodes so it can be syndicated.
But the network seems intent on killing it off.
And speaking of premature deaths...
This morning I got an email from somebody who stumbled across my blog from a Google search and wanted to thank me for writing about whatever it was they were looking for. It was a really nice note, and it's good to know that this blog has useful content squeezed in-between all the stupid crap I usually write about.
The interesting bit came at the end of the email when they said "I hope you've made arrangements to keep you blog around after you're dead because it would be a shame for it to disappear."
To which I replied "Nope. My guess is that Blogography will die shortly after I do, but thanks for the kind words!"
Then I got to thinking about how I really should be more distraught that nine years of my life will soon evaporate if I get hit by a bus tomorrow. But I'm not. Not really. I've toyed with the idea of deleting my blog a half-dozen times in the past, so why should I care if it happens after I'm dead? I suppose it's a little depressing to think that a domain scalper will undoubtedly come along and grab "blogography.com" so they can use it to link to a bunch of websites selling "generic viagra" or something. But that's life... and death... on the internet for you.
Eventually I'll be gone and forgotten just like 99.9% of everybody else on earth, and that's probably how it should be.
Unless somebody wants to finance that monument to my greatness I so totally deserve...
I've become a little obsessive-compulsive trying to pinpoint that exact moment where things started to go horribly wrong. You'd think that having a blog would make this easy but, since I never write about the more personal aspects of my life, it really doesn't. The blog entries are a terrific walk down memory lane, yet woefully incomplete. Superficial ramblings rarely provide any clues as to what was going on below the surface, and that's where the answer lies.
But then I spotted a picture of myself when I was in Portland on August 29th, 2008.
This triggered something in my head, but the image was too small to figure it out. So I spent a little time going through backup archives and tracked down the original photo.
Sure enough, after looking into my own eyes, I was able to put the pieces together and figure out exactly where the turning point was...
It was three days before this picture was taken. Even if I didn't realize it at the time.
And now?
Time to let go of the past and move on.
Yay.
I've been craving Oreo cookies all day long.
Which is tough when you don't have any Oreos in the house. I had hoped the craving would go away, but it never did. So at 9:00pm I drove to the grocery store for a bag of cookies. When I got there the place was pretty much empty. This made shopping so nice that I ended up spending $50 on food I didn't even need*. Good thing I have room in my freezer.
Anyway...
I ended up eating a half-bag of Oreos, so this is me now...
At least my cookie craving is gone.
*A pity I didn't bring my shopping list so I could have bought the food I actually do need.
Put down those eclipse specs, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Goodbye. I was sad to learn that Robin Gibb passed away. Make fun of me all you want, but I always thought The BeeGees were musical geniuses. So many of their unique songs couldn't have been made by anybody else, and it's a testament to this talent that they were so successful for so long. And as if the idea of not getting any more BeeGees music wasn't bad enough, I'm betting we won't be seeing any more Barry Gibb Talk Show skits on Saturday Night Live either...
Rest in peace, Mr. Gibb, and thanks for the music.
• SNL. Surprisingly, Mick Jagger made for a funny guest-host on the season finale of Saturday Night Live. The episode itself was a farewell to Kristen Wiig and her seven seasons with the show. I had read somewhere that Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis were also leaving, but you'd never know it, because it wasn't even hinted at. What's most disappointing is that we didn't get a final "Two A-Holes..." sketch with Wiig and Sudeikis, which I was absolutely expecting. As close as we got was them dancing together while everybody sang their goodbyes...
Oh well. I suppose it could happen upon Kristen Wiig's inevitable return hosting engagement. Until then, I guess there's always Hulu clips...
• TED. Despite being almost painfully obvious, I've never heard this argument presented in such a compelling way...
Apparently there was some controversy over this clip. TED originally thought it too partisan to unleash upon an unsuspecting world... or something like that... but I'm not seeing it. Furthermore, how can you hope to solve a problem without approaching it from every conceivable angle? Even if Hanauer's belief is entirely wrong, discussing it may lead to worthwhile conversation. When you're desperate, nothing should be off the table, and I hope to see more of this kind of talk from all sides in the future.
• Avengers. I had purchased The Art of Marvel's Thor after seeing the movie. Production design on the Asgard sets and costumes were really well done, and I wanted to see how they were developed. The book was pretty amazing, which made me regret that I hadn't purchased the two Iron Man books. They were out of print and cost a fortune on the secondary market, so I gave up on getting them. Fast forward to the The Avengers, which was production design on an entirely new level, and I simply had to own The Art of Marvel's The Avengers. It did not disappoint. The book is a stunning chronicle of bringing the comic book to the big screen. Then I discovered something very cool... Marvel had assembled books for the previous four Avengers movies (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Captain America, and Thor) in a boxed set... The Art of Marvel Studios. SCORE! All the books are fantastic...
If you wanna take a look inside, JamesTalkALot has a video on YouTube for the Art of Marvel Studios set. He also has a separate video for The Art of Marvel's The Avengers. If you have even a passing interest in these movies, all the books are highly recommended.
Annnnnd... I'm spent. Did I black out some time this weekend? Because it doesn't really feel like I got a weekend at all. Such a bummer. I should probably get my crap together so I can go to work in the morning. If there's any justice, I'll black out again through the entire work week so I can have a real weekend.
Some people...
Because I like learning new and interesting things, one of my favorite blogs in my feed reader is Today I Found Out. Every day they've got something cool or weird to share, but today's entry is beyond bizarre because it's packed with fascinating facts about... ants. These are some freaky-ass critters, yo, so prepare to get your mind blown and click on over.
And speaking of interesting facts... here's just another example of why scum-sucking record labels need to die a violent death. Thanks to Wikipedia I found out that the Beatles missed their chance to be immortalized on the two Voyager spacecraft...
Astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan had wanted Here Comes the Sun to be included on the Voyager Golden Record, copies of which were attached to both spacecraft of the Voyager program to provide any entity that recovered them a representative sample of human civilization. Although The Beatles favoured the idea, EMI refused to release the rights and when the probes were launched in 1977 the song was not included.
I can't help but think that V'ger wouldn't have been such a bastard in that Star Trek movie if he had Here Comes the Sun in his programming...
But, alas, V'Ger could not merge with The Creator of Here Comes the Sun because EMI didn't want to give up their song rights... IN FUCKING OUTER SPACE!
The stupid. It burns.
Congratulations to Foo at Foodiddy! She just won my drawing for a pack of awesome business cards from Moo!
But don't despair if you didn't win... you can still get 10% off your first order at Moo by following this link!
I apologize for not posting this earlier, but technical difficulties got in the way when I tried to upload a video of me drawing the winner's name like I usually do (format error?!?). Rather than wasting another day trying to figure it out, I just snapped some screen captures from the movie...
Thanks to everybody who entered!
Well that was fun! Kind of gets me psyched for my TEN YEAR BLOGIVERSARY CELEBRATION next April... it'll be crazy-delicious!
"Astigmatism is an optical defect in which vision is blurred due to the inability of the optics of the eye to focus a point object into a sharp focused image on the retina. This may be due to an irregular or toric curvature of the cornea or lens."
—Wikipedia
I know that 40 is just a number but, when it comes to how old you are, it's a pretty important number. Because that's the age most people notice things starting to go wrong. I've been luckier than most... except when it comes to eyesight. My eyes went very bad very quickly in my teens and then just kind of stuck there. My prescription has been the same for decades.
And then I hit 40 and astigmatism struck.
Well, not really... it had been happening for years... but it was 40 when it started to be a problem. Things were blurry and I couldn't focus well. Straight lines weren't quite straight. And it was all because my cornea was no longer shaped to focus properly, instead scattering the light on my retina...
And so it was finally time to do something about it.
Long story short? I'm wearing glasses more often than contact lenses now. In addition, through trial-and-error I've found a contact lens I like for those times I don't want to wear glasses. If you're dealing with astigmatism and care about the details, I've put my notes in an extended entry.
Otherwise... try to avoid turning 40, if you can manage it.
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Gotta have priorities, yo.
Sometimes I regret that I'm a "daily blogger."
The reason I write daily is because I know my blog would die a long, slow death if I started skipping days. First I'd skip once or twice a month... then skip once or twice a week... and then, before I even realize it, I'm struggling to write two entries a month. At which point Blogography is dead. I've seen it happen with other blogs many times before. And so I continue to post something every single day, even if I don't have anything to write about or I'm going through something that can't be blogged.
Like today.
I got nuthin'...
Fortunately, I can totally blog about nuthin'. You're welcome!
Put down that barbecue fork, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Fresh. Three Bullet Sundays ago I was lamenting how crappy it is that the bagged lettuce I buy goes bad after just one day. Abigail then left a comment telling me about the "Salad in a Jar Method" of keeping salad fresh (using a hand-food-vacuum). It looked like a good plan, so I ordered me a FrashSaver handheld Vacuum. And, since it comes with a deli container, I didn't even have to buy a jar topper. It arrived a couple weeks ago and I've been trying it out not just with salad, but Oreos, crackers, cheese, and all kids of stuff. Miracles of miracles, the thing actually works...
It worked so well that I ended up buying more deli containers! Two complaints though... 1) The deli containers are kind of tough to close... and 2) You have to use an attachment to turn the round vacuum head into an oval vacuum head in order for the unit to be able to suck the air out of the deli containers, which is fucking stupid. Why not just make the valve on the deli containers round? With the attachment on, you can't fit the unit into the charger, and I can see the stupid thing getting lost eventually. Stupid, stupid, STUPID.
• Innocence. Back in April the New York blogosphere was blowing up because the police tracked down the "well-dressed guy" who was groping women on the subway...
Except they didn't.
The guy was completely innocent. Karl Vanderwoude had alibis for when gropings were taking place. Which means the vague resemblance he had to some security footage as well as being picked out of a lineup didn't meant shit. An innocent man was hauled off in handcuffs.
But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part would be having his photo plastered all over the internet with headlines like "Finance creep arrested for groping women in Manhattan!" and "Cops Say Finance Worker Karl Vanderwoude Is 'Well-Dressed' Groper!" And, naturally, those stories aren't updated or revised or amended to explain he was totally innocent... nope, they will live on forever and haunt him until the day he dies. Somebody years in the future could Google his name, click on an outdated story, and easily be led to believe he was the perpetrator. EXCEPT HE WASN'T!
This is equal parts horrifying and disgusting. The first thought that runs through my head is "Holy crap, could I be next?" followed by "How in the hell could this happen?"
He had alibis, for heaven sakes! But nobody gave a shit until his attorney bothered to ask the guy where he was when the incidents took place! I'm no police detective... but should that be JOB ONE before you fucking arrest somebody? Especially knowing that arresting an innocent man WILL RUIN HIS LIFE?
I feel so horribly bad for this poor guy that my mind can't even grasp what he went through. Surely I can't be the only one? Surely all the people who wrote the headlines that crucified Karl Vanderwoude on the internet feel bad for him too?
Apparently not. None of these "journalists" seem to be rushing to update their original stories... they just print a new story and forget about the old one. But the internet never forgets, those old stories are still there. Innocent Karl Vanderwoude may be, but in all those online archives he's guilty for eternity. He deserves better than that... we all do.
• Prohibition? Thanks to Marty for letting me know that my home town was in the New York Times today! Washington State is in the process of switching from government-regulated alcohol distribution to private company distribution, and this has created a booze shortage throughout the State as government shops try to clear out their inventory. Not a popular situation with Memorial Day Weekend partiers. And apparently my small city was the perfect way to dramatize this point to NYT readers. Heh.
Oh well. If there's one thing we love here in Redneckistan, it's our alcohol, so it's not like I can get upset about it.
And... it's been a long day. I suppose I should at least try to get some rest before an even tougher day hits in the morning. I'd tell y'all to be good and obey the law during the holiday tomorrow, but Karl Vanderwoude has shown us that this doesn't necessarily guarantee a clean criminal record now-a-days, so I don't know what to say now.
Except "good night."
Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day.
Our local cemetery certainly lives up to history every year...
Thank you from a grateful nation.
The bad news is that my entire weekend was completely packed, so I didn't have any time to spend on the internet.
The good news is that my entire weekend was completely packed, so I didn't have any time to spend on the internet.
It's times like this that make me realize how much of my day I spend online. It's really getting out of hand, and I can't help but wonder what I've been missing in Real Life. Not that I want to give up the internet altogether... a big part of my life is here... but maybe I should be less obsessed with keeping constantly connected to it.
Internet addiction is a hell of a drug.
Which is a pretty deep thought considering I'm not even supposed to be here today. I'm guest-posting over at Christopher's blog...
This blog entry could self-destruct at any minute, so go check it out!
I've been working pretty much constantly for four days now. My brain feels fuzzy and I think it stopped working properly around 6:30am this morning. This was confirmed 90 minutes later when I arrived at work and didn't remember how I got there... despite the fact that I was sitting in my car.
And now, fifteen hours after that, my brain is starting to melt. So I figured I should probably write a blog entry while I still have a few neurons left.
Sooo... if somebody can tell me how to work this toaster, I can get started on this here broccoli Cadillac.
Taco rhapsody.
When I shop for home furnishings, clothing, or luggage now-a-days, my first stop is JC Penney. I support companies which embrace equality and fairness for everybody, and JC Penney is leading the way when it comes to being inclusive.
And they're not being subtle about it. Their recent advertising campaigns celebrate diversity in a very obvious way. Which is causing no end of drama with bigoted organizations like "One Million Moms" who seems to think that showing "non-traditional families" in an ad is the end of the world.
Sorry, but I don't see the end of the world.
I see a happy family with a couple of kids that are lucky to have two dads who love them...
Father's Day ad from JC Penney • First Pals... What makes Dad so cool?
He's the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver—all rolled into one.
Or two. Real-life dads Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children Claire and Mason.
And somewhere out there, a gay kid who is being ruthlessly persecuted day-in and day-out for something he has no control over, will see this ad and realize that he has a future. That the hurt and despair he's feeling is temporary and he has a shot at happiness just like everybody else. That even though he's labeled as "different," he can have a normal life if he just hangs in there long enough. That the world is changing and there's a place for him in it where he will be valued and embraced for who he is.
And maybe this will be the light he needs to keep from doing something tragic in a world that has more than enough tragedy in it already.
And I seriously don't give a fuck if a million bigoted bitches have their panties in a bunch just because they don't want to talk to their kids...
"It doesn't have any effect on your life. What do you care? People try to talk about it like it's a social issue. Like when you see someone stand up on a talk show and say "How am I supposed to explain to my child that two men are getting married? I dunno, it's your shitty kid, you fucking tell them. Why is that anyone else's problem? Two guys are in love but they can't get married because you don't want to talk to your ugly child for fucking five minutes?"
— The ever brilliant Louis CK
JC Penney is setting an example with their advertising that is helping to make this country a better place. And not just for gay kids... for everybody. They aren't sitting on the sidelines of this so-called "culture war," they're in the game fighting the good fight.
And I'm supporting them with my business whenever I can because it's a fight that needs to be won.
Let's get ready to rrrrrumble... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Dawson. Game show host, game show player, and actor Richard Dawson passed away. While best known as the host of Family Feud, I remember him best for his funny appearances on Match Game. And, of course, as one of the most genius film role castings ever... Damon Killian from The Running Man...
Ahnold says "I'll be back!"
A movie that was "The Hunger Games" before there was The Hunger Games, and far more entertaining. Rest in peace, sir! You'll be back... in reruns.
• Joosten. Continuing the sad news, Kathryn Joosten, who played Mrs. Landingham so brilliantly on The West Wing has also passed away...
West Wing fans know that killing off Delores Landingham at the end of the second season was one of the most memorable and emotional moments from the entire series, and nothing was quite the same after she left. This was all due to Joosten infusing her character with a charm and dry humor that never ceased to steal any scene in which she appeared. Though I wasn't a fan of Desperate Housewives, I was looking forward to seeing Joosten in another series after it ended. You will be missed.
• House. As the primary European airline partner for Northwest Airlines (later merged with Delta), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines got a bit of my business back when I was flying to Europe regularly. On one of my trips, I was bumped to "World Business Class" and given a gift... a miniature Dutch house filled with gin. I thought it was kind of cool, but gave it away when I had forgotten to buy a gift for my (then) girlfriend. I think it was this one...
Photo taken from KLM Dutch Houses
What I only recently found out was that KLM has been coming out with a new house every October 7th for 92 years! The house I got was not a one-time event for the airline, but a tradition that had been going on for decades. On top of that, each house is based on a real house somewhere in the Netherlands.
You can read all about the 92 houses that have been released on KLM's website... but the coolest way to explore the collection is by getting the KLM Houses App for iPhone. With it you can even get a Google Map with directions to the actual house that the miniature is based on.
Something else I learned today, "KLM" stands for "Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij"... which is Dutch for "Royal Aviation Company." Try saying that ten times fast.
• Fresh. Speaking of DutchyLand... TULIPS!
Hard to believe this was taken just 50 days ago.
• Fresh. Congratulations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee and 60 years on the throne...
One of the most hauntingly beautiful portraits I've ever seen... by Annie Leibovitz
NOW can I get my knighthood?
And... time to pack my suitcase. It's going to be an interesting week...
Last night as I was sitting down to dinner, I had some unexpected pains shooting through my groin. "Well, this can't be good!" I said out loud to nobody in particular.
And, sure enough, it wasn't... because a couple hours later it felt as though I was pissing razor blades through my urethra. "That's funny," I mused... "I don't recall buying a diseased crack-whore recently!" Though, to be fair, my memory isn't quite what it used to be, so I went to bed wondering if I was going to end up with a prescription for penicillin and a frowny-face in my medical record next to some exotic STD.
Then, sometime around 4:00am, I awoke to agonizing pain shooting through my John Thomas.
Seriously, it felt as if my unit had been sliced open... turned inside-out... and then had lemon juice poured on it.
Hobbling to the toilet, I was fully expecting my wanger to explode into shredded streamers like a party popper...
Image from Yatego Shopping.
But instead... a kidney stone dropped out, and the pain instantly subsided.
Yes, somehow I had a kidney stone and never even knew it. That's because usually a kidney stone starts causing excruciating pain long before it gets to the end of the line...
Usually, I am in total agony as the stone travels from my "Dual Water Filters" (kidneys) to my "Water Bucket" (bladder) all the way through the "Sensitive Tubing" (urethra) and out my Massive Nozzle (wiener)... which can take days. This time I didn't feel a damn thing until the bastard made it to my "Sensitive Tubing."
Which is very odd (but totally welcome because it saved me several pain-filled days in bed). Guess I'm just lucky that this got cleared up in time for me to take an early drive over to Seattle for work this morning.
But was it alone? Or can I be expecting a buddy to start causing hideous amounts of pain any minute now...
I am way, way too tired to be blogging.
Even worse, I have absolutely nothing to blog about. Well, except this meme I ran across...
From SoBadSoGood, here's "30 questions that will change the way you think about the world."
Well this ought to be exciting...
San Francisco!
It used to be that I came here two or three times a year. But then things changed and I haven't been to "The City by The Bay" in... oh... I don't know how many years.
No. Check that. I have a blog. So actually, I DO know when I was last here... that would be three-and-a-half years ago. Still, no matter how many years it's been, my many trips to San Francisco in the past means that I don't have to play tourist. Instead I can wander around doing mostly nothing... which is my favorite thing to do in a city. Especially when the weather is like this...
I think the last time I walked by the St. Peter and Paul Church, it was undergoing renovations. Nice to see how well it cleaned up.
There's a lot of interesting places in San Francisco, but the only must-visit on my list is the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company where you can buy freshly-made cookies and get a taste hot off the griddle. I've been coming here for decades...
While I generally tried to avoid touristy areas, I did go down to Fisherman's Wharf to see what's new at the Hard Rock Cafe and to have a sourdough bread sandwich and mini donuts for dinner...
From there it was back to my hotel so I could get some work done.
Which proved difficult, because this was going on next door...
Serial Bassoonist by Pearson Scott Foresman/Wikimedia Commons
Some guy or gal was practicing their bassoon* for hours. It wasn't even music, but just musical scales up and down and up and down. Apparently there's a whole bunch of musicians staying at the hotel, so I guess I should be lucky it was only a bassoon and not the rest of the orchestra. Eventually I went to the bar because I couldn't stand it any longer. My hope was that A) alcohol would have me not caring that someone was practicing the bassoon next door, and B) the bassoon player wouldn't feel the need to practice at 5:00am or something.
When I got back, the noise had stopped. Thankfully.
And so now I am trying to blog and get some work done, which is still difficult. Not so much because I've been drinking, but because I am excited for tomorrow. It's a rather big day for me...
*To be honest, I don't know if it was a bassoon... could have been a French horn or whatever... but the point is that it was irritating as hell.
As far back as I can remember, I've had a bit of an obsession with pirates. This led to an infatuation with their "skull and crossbones" symbol, which I've been drawing on my stuff for decades. Ultimately, it kind of became my personal symbol, and was even part of my signature at one point.
So, on a trip to Maui 26 years ago when the idea of getting tattoos was floated, I knew exactly what I wanted... the skull and bones.
It never happened, but the idea of getting a tattoo was planted.
But there were always excuses. "What if I change my mind in five years and regret getting skull and crossbones?" or "What if a total stranger gives me a crappy tattoo?" So I never got one.
And then I slowly came to realize that I hadn't changed my mind in 26 years as to wanting a skull and crossbones for my ink, so I probably wasn't going to change my mind five years from now.
And then I started seeing the amazing stuff that my Facebook Friend Michael DeMatty was posting to his wall, and all my excuses vanished. So today was the day...
Now, I'm not nearly macho enough to pull off a badass "realistic" skull and crossbones... but a DaveToon skull and crossbones? Definitely more my style...
Done!
I couldn't be happier with it...
And so at long last... after 26 years of dreaming about it... I finally have my first tattoo. Thanks to Michael at Black & Blue San Francisco for working so hard to make it happen!
ZOMG! WHAT HAVE I DONE? WHAT WAS I THINKING? I CAN'T BELIEVE I MADE SUCH A TERRIBLE MISTAKE!
How could I have forgotten to pack my lucky boxer shorts?
This will be a tragedy that haunts me for the rest of my life. If my plane goes down on the flight home Monday, at least now you'll know why.
And now for some questions/comments that have popped up since getting a tattoo yesterday...
• Why not Bad Monkey? Six year ago when I was joking about getting a tattoo, I thought it would be funny...
But the only serious option I ever considered was the skull and crossbones. Bad Monkey would make for a cool tattoo, and maybe one day that will happen. But first it's got to be what I've been wanting for 26 years. In any event, I think Lil' Dave and Bad Monkey would approve...
• Where'd you get that design? I drew it. Which is kind of odd, because I was pretty dead-set against designing my own tattoo for the longest time. But Michael encouraged me to send in my ideas, and eventually he kind of led me to where I needed to be. Ultimately, it kind of makes sense, so I'm glad things ended up that way. But it was not an easy process. I drew dozens of different versions before I had answers to the questions that were keeping me up at night... Bones behind or bones under? Eyepatch or no eyepatch? Cheek bones or no cheek bones?
No eyepatch. Yes to cheekbones. Bones under so it would fit better on my skinny arm. In the end it couldn't have been any other way.
•It's bigger than I thought! I get that a lot, thanks. OH... YOU MEAN THE TATTOO! Yeah, at first I had pictured something around 2-inches tall. But Michael said that I should take a look at something bigger, so I made cutouts at my hotel that morning and played around with how the sizing would look. I quickly found out that he was absolutely right... the bigger I made it, the better I liked it. This was the opposite of how I thought it would work on my bony arm, but it felt right. Eventually I printed out four different sizes of big and let Michael pick which he felt was the best fit. It turned out so badass awesome that now I can't imagine I ever considered it having it inked so tiny.
• Did it hurt? No. Not even a little bit. I was the first person to think that I'd be sobbing uncontrollably and screaming like a little girl, but it never happened (at least not during the tattooing). The outlining felt like somebody was dragging a needle across my skin, scratching it. The filling-in felt like somebody was dragging a popsicle stick across my skin. It didn't hurt at all. I was told that eventually it would feel like I had a bad sunburn, but that never happened. Then I was told it would sting in the shower when water hit it, but that never happened either. If it weren't for being able to look down and see it, I wouldn't know that I had it done. I chalk it up to my mutant healing factor, because this is apparently not typical.
• Weren't you nervous? No. And I wasn't excited either. The whole time it felt like this was something that had already happened and I was just reliving the moment. I can't explain it any better than that, but it was a bit surreal how unaffected I was over getting something permanently marked on my body. I guess I knew it was meant to be all along.
• How long did it take? One hour, forty-five minutes after we decided where it should be placed and got the stencil applied.
• Will you get another tattoo? It's strange... after wanting this so badly for 26 years, I thought that finally getting my skull & bones would get it out of my system and I wouldn't think about tattoos anymore. But now that I have it, all I can do it think about how I would like to add something to it and expand the design down my arm just a bit... or try something different somewhere else. Maybe the feeling will pass but, as of right now, I can't imagine not getting another piece of ink.
Annnnnd... it's time to get out and enjoy the incredible weather going on here in the Bay Area...
Take time to be kind... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Prometheus. After getting caught up with work I decided to take a break and go see genius director Ridley Scott's return to science fiction... Prometheus. It's the story of mankind's quest to find the origins of life by following an "invitation" from our "engineers" to another planet. Chaos ensues.
Michael Fassbender as synthetic person "David," the only interesting character in the entire film.
I still don't know quite what to make of the movie because almost nothing made sense. I simply could not figure out how characters knew what they knew or why they did what they did. But, worst of all, there was no payoff story-wise at the end. Everything seemed totally pointless... even when somebody died. Especially when somebody died. And though there was an effort to tie the film to Ridley Scott's brilliant Alien... any effort to use what happened in Prometheus as a back-story doesn't reveal anything particularly interesting. Maybe that comes in the sequel, for which this movie was an obvious setup.
Overall I give the movie an A for the stunning visuals (which I experienced in IMAX 3D, and it was amazing)... but knock it down to a C when you factor in the mostly boring characters and a weak story with few thrills. And while it was nice to see some sci-fi on the big screen, I was mostly disappointed with Prometheus.
• Super. Well, I finally managed to eat at Super Duper, which is where some of my friends swear the best veggie burger on earth resides. And while I still prefer the vegetarian fare at Johnny Rockets, I have to say it's a good-tasting burger if you happen to be a vegetarian in San Francisco (it's got hummus on it!)...
• WWDC 2012. Tomorrow is the start of Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference here in San Francisco. In the past it's been a big event for the release of new hardware and operating system updates, and this year will probably bring us more of the same. New
I wish I could stick around for the event, but tickets sold out in 2 hours and my flight leaves tomorrow morning. Oh well. Guess I have an excuse to buy internet on the plane now so I can keep up with things while I'm in the air. I'm hoping for an iPhone update that finally makes my "smart phone" into an actual smart phone... with features like AUTO RE-DIAL and SELECTIVE CALLER BLOCKING and TIME-SCHEDULED BLOCKING and all the other stuff that makes my iPhone a not-so-smart phone. Time will tell.
And with that... good bye to the City by the Bay.
As I catapulted off the runway of San Francisco International Airport this morning, a kid in the row across from me shouted "WOW! THIS IS JUST LIKE ANGRY BIRDS!"
This was good for a laugh, which I desperately needed. Because as we were taking off at 10:10am, I knew that I'd be missing out on all the cool stuff happening back on the ground in San Francisco's Moscone Center. It was there that Tim Cook would be taking the stage to introduce some of the cool new stuff that Apple had been working on, and I was going to miss it.
After landing in Seattle, I drove 2-1/2 hours, went to work until 7:30pm, then (finally) made it home so I could plop in front of the television and watch the Apple WWDC Keynote stream from my iPad to my Apple TV box. What follows is the deranged ramblings of a Certified Apple Whore, so proceed at your own peril...
• WELCOME
The Siri intro was pretty darn funny. Tim Cook was suitably channeling his inner Steve Jobs. The crowd was enthusiastic and the energy in the room was high. Then Tim ran through the astounding numbers touting the unprecedented success of the company and its products. After that, it was time for one of those heartwarming videos that Apple does so well... informative and inspiring without being sappy or tacky. And then? Off to what people really want to see.
• MACBOOKS
I need a new laptop to replace my aging, banged-up MacBook Pro, so I was understandably excited when Phil Schiller took the stage. I wanted so badly to have a machine with the power and 15-inch screen-size of a MacBook Pro, but the thinner form, lower weight, and fantastic SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE from the MacBook Air. At first, I didn't think I was going to get it, because Phil just rambled off expected bumps in speed and features for the existing models. But then something happened...
Introducing the MacBook Pro with Retina Display... AND ALL THE STUFF I WANTED IN A NEW LAPTOP! Thinner? Lighter? Faster? Quieter? SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE?!? Yes please. I am now officially poor, as there was no way I could pass up on something that will save me a lot of time, money, and agony when trying to work while on the road...
• MAC OS X - MOUNTAIN LION
Call me jaded, but it seems as though innovation is coming a lot slower to Apple's desktop products than their mobile products. In fact, the features shown for OS X that interest me most were those that make it easier to go from my laptop to my iOS mobile devices. Where are the compelling new OS X features that are redefining the non-mobile user experience? I dunno. Instead we get tighter integration with Twitter and Facebook. Whee. Don't get me wrong, any improvements or new features are appreciated)... especially for a jaw-dropping $20 price tag... but come on. This was kinda lame. Especially when you take a look at what Microsoft is up to for their next OS.
• iOS 6
Uhhh... yeah... it all sounds great. BUT I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THIS FALL?!? I'm assuming that this release date will coincide with the release of a new iPhone, but sheesh.
In any event, the new features really do sound great. The new maps look fantastic (and apparently the data is served up by TomTom, so they're be functional too!). Siri just keeps getting better. FaceTime over cellular and Mail "pull-to-refresh" are long overdue. Passbook is going a long way towards helping people lighten their wallet. The new integration with Twitter and Facebook is nifty. And the Accessibility enhancements are GOLDEN when configuring iOS products for non-techies.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE "PHONE" PART OF iPHONE?!?
I still think it is embarrassing (and fucking stupid) that there's no auto-redial on my iPhone. WHY?!? Why in the hell would such an obvious and useful feature keep getting the shaft at Apple? Insanity! But at least they are addressing my long-standing complaints regarding having some control over your incoming calls. They call it "Do Not Disturb"...
FINALLY... AT LONG LAST... I will be able to block unimportant calls and mute non-essential notifications when I don't want to deal with the shit. LIKE WHEN I'M SLEEPING! And, from what I can see, it looks pretty smart. Apparently you can one-touch do not disturb AND have an automatic do not disturb schedule going... hopefully both at the same time.
And that's all she wrote. No new iPhone... yet. No new desktop Macs... yet. No new iToast... yet.
I guess there's always next year.
This morning began with me staring into the mirror in horror as I saw that my once-beautiful tattoo had started smearing as I put on some healing cream. "GAH! IT'S MELTING!" I shouted to the world as I grabbed the tube of ointment. My first thought was that I had somehow used too much of the stuff and I was reading furiously to see if I had missed any warnings in the instructions. But then I noticed that my fingers had flakes of inked skin on them, and realized that it wasn't smearing at all... the dead skin was just mixing with the ointment to make a smeary mess on my arm. Jester said that would happen, so I stopped freaking out and just left it alone.
By this evening, most of the blackened dead skin had rubbed off when I put more ointment on, so everything was back to normal.
Well, not everything was back to normal.
My Blu-Ray copy of John Carter had arrived so I decided to take a look. Since it was based on one of my favorite books of all time, A Princess of Mars, and the preview footage looked awesome, I was always mad that I had missed it in the theater despite all the bad reviews...
Now, I should start off my "review" by stating that I had extremely high hopes for this film. Director Andrew Stanton was a self-professed fan of the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, and his track record for telling a story with Finding Nemo; Toy Story; Monsters, Inc.; and other amazing Pixar flicks was solid. So when the bad reviews rolled in, I was unconcerned. And when Disney announced they had a massive flop on their hands and were going to lose 200 million dollars on the film, I was even more unconcerned. Obviously Andrew Stanton had created a movie that was so faithful to the source material that the idiot masses of the movie-going-public-at-large were too stupid to appreciate it. And I also blamed the shitty film title and horrible marketing that did nothing to explain the concept of the film. It couldn't be the movie, it was everything else that was bad... right?
RIGHT?!?
Um. No. This movie sucks balls and has to be one of the biggest cinematic disappointments in the history of the movies. If you are sensitive to sporadic graphic language, a warning...
My spoiler-filled "review" is in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Years ago (I forget how many) there was a gas crisis which caused fuel prices to skyrocket. Nothing like what we're going through today, but it was enough to really put a dent in my wallet. At the time, I had to drive 25 miles roundtrip each day for work, which ended up being around 550 miles a month, 6,600 miles a year. When I sat down to calculate my car's gas mileage, it ended up being around 28-31 mpg for my daily commute. That works out to my buying 200+ gallons of gas each year just to get to work and back (give or take). Factor in that I was also driving to work on many weekends... and sometimes making the trip twice in a day when I had an appointment or something... and it was a lot of money being spent.
So I made the decision to move closer to work.
Now I drive 2-1/2 miles roundtrip, which is a tenth of the gas being burned and the money being spent. Even when gas prices (eventually) returned to normal, I was thankful to be saving so much bank. Now that gas prices are astronomically high again, I'm even more thankful that my commute is so blissfully short. The time saved is just icing on the cake. I wish that I didn't have to drag so much crap back-and-forth, because I'd love to start riding a bike to work and using -zero- gallons of gas. But I'll take what I can get.
For the longest time, I was kind of an asshole whenever people would lament how much money they wasted driving to work each day. "Why don't you move closer to work or get a different job?" I'd say. This would usually result in excuses like "I can't afford the housing near where I work!" or "I love my home!" or "My wife doesn't want to move!" or "I don't want to quit my job!" or whatever. I was pretty unsympathetic, and would always say something along the lines of "Well, then it's your choice to spend the money on gas, so don't cry about it!" And though I was saying it as a joke, deep-down I really meant it. Don't like spending money on gas? Then move closer to work. If it's more expensive to live there, then you have to decide where you'd rather have your money being spent. Granted, our public transportation options here in Redneckistan suck, so there's not a lot of alternatives to driving... but, still, don't whine to others about what you've chosen from the options available.
Now-a-days, however, things have changed.
Gas prices are high and the job market is horrible and the bottom dropped out of the housing market. Those who may want to move cannot do so because there are no other jobs or their home's value has dropped so badly. Even if they managed to sell it, they'd have to pay the bank to get out from under the loan they took out. People are in the horrible position of owing more on their home than their home is worth. They have no choice but to ride it out... no choice but to keep their expensive commute.
And so now there's really nothing I can say to people who complain except "I'm sorry."
I'm saying that a lot now-a-days. Somebody loses their job... loses their house... complains about the cost of their commute... it's always "I'm sorry"... "I'm sorry"... "I'm sorry"...
And the words feel completely inadequate, because these have all become devastating blows that end marriages... destroy careers... ruin lives... and otherwise makes a lot of very good, honest, decent, hard-working people end up miserable, alone, and afraid. And then, just when things can't get any worse, they get used as a toilet in a political pissing match between asshole candidates who don't give a flying fuck about anything except getting elected and burying their opponents in the process.
Somehow we let this become our new normal.
It's no longer about how we can come together and build something that's great, it's all about how we can divide people and let hatred mire us in something that's failing. We've bought into a system that's more interested in destroying than creating, and now all of us are paying the price.
And I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of having to say "I'm sorry" because there's nothing else I can say.
Fortunately, this is a system which is ultimately unsustainable, and that's what gives me hope to carry on.
It's only a question of when.
And if I'll be lucky enough to see it happen in my lifetime.
It's Flag Day today!
I may be having serious issues with the polarizing state of this self-destructing country, but I still think our flag is a pretty one.
According to Wikipedia, Flag Day in the United States of America commemorates the adoption of our flag on 14 June 1777. Want to know even more? Wikipedia also has a really cool entry with all kinds of information on the American flag.
One week later and still lovin' it.
My morning routine is five minutes longer now...
Waaaaahhh!
This blog entry is brought to you by... DIBS!
What makes ice cream taste better than ever before?
DIBS!
What makes ice cream unhealthier than ever before?
DIBS!
What is so addictive that crack addicts use it to wean themselves off the pipe?
DIBS!
What consumes your life so completely that it's known as "Satan's Candy?"
DIBS!
What snack is so overwhelming that even Charlie Sheen won't touch it?
DIBS!
What did I have with every meal today?
DIBS!
Yes, that's right... it's DIBS! Delicious bites of ice cream that's been covered in chocolate and rice crispies, then frozen in tubs for your eating pleasure!
And now... I'm sure I had something I wanted to write about today, but who can blog at a time like this when I've got DIBS left in the freezer!DIBS!
Put that Father's Day barbecue on hold... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Meh-crosoft. The big news in technology is that Microsoft will be making a major announcement tomorrow... probably some kind of tablet... and nobody cares! Tablets have been done. So unless they've got a tablet with a 3-D holographic display and free unlimited satellite internet connectivity, stop wasting our time! You want to really impress me? I'm still waiting for my flying car. Why not announce that shit tomorrow?
But noooooo... odds are we get yet another tablet. Which probably won't be as good as an iPad anyway. Yawn.
• Glass According to the Seattle PI Blog, The Space Needle is getting "glass window box" upgrades. As if it wasn't already scary enough...
The glass window boxes at Chicago's Willis Tower, known as "The Ledge," were enough to make me nearly wet myself. And they were on a building. These are going to be on a frickin' tower. Guess it's still not as bad as The Grand Canyon Skywalk though.
• Holes The movie Prometheus was a beautiful disaster that looked stunning (especial in IMAX 3D) but, unfortunately, had so many story problems that I had a hard time enjoying it. Red Letter Media has encapsulated many of those problems in an amusing, SPOILER-FILLED, chat...
If you haven't listened to the amazing "Mr. Plinkett Reviews" of such films as the Star Wars prequels, and various Star Trek films, and other flicks like Avatar and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull... you're really missing out. Yes, they're meant to be funny, but the insight Red Letter Media has into the art of filmmaking is brilliant.
• Nowalla So much for Gowalla's promises of being able to download your check-in data and stamp collection from their now-dead service... Gowalla.com is down and the domain doesn't even resolve any more. So glad that I spent huge chunks of my time adding spot data, correcting spot errors, and spending my money buying custom stamps. But, hey, they got bought out by Facebook and got paid... so screw all the people who helped build their service! You'd think they'd AT LEAST allow you to import your check-ins and stamps into Facebook or something.
And... I'm prematurely out of bullets. I'd be embarrassed, but I hear it happens to every guy from time to time.
I've been working 18-hour days since Wednesday, straight through the weekend, and into today.
This afternoon it finally caught up to me. I haven't felt this bloody awful in a very long time.
So now I am attempting to make up for some much-needed rest by taking some sleeping pills and heading off to bed at 10:00pm. Maybe if I force myself into a chemically-induced coma for eight hours, I'll snap back to my normal self... or at least get close enough that I can function.
The only problem is that all I can do is think about the work I'm not getting done, and the idea of getting so far behind is keeping me up at night.
All I really want in life right now is an off switch.
It's an interesting time to be living in Washington State.
For one thing, you can walk into a store and buy hard liquor. Tequila at Safeway... Vodka at Wal-Mart... Rum at Costco... when it comes to buying alcohol, our choices are overwhelming now. This is a radical change from the old days when only government liquor stores were allowed to sell such beverages. And by "old days" I mean "last month." It's going to take a while before I get over the shock of walking into the grocery store and seeing booze for sale. Of course, having such easy access to said booze will probably help.
But the bigger change is yet to come.
Maybe.
Back in February, Washington lawmakers passed a marriage equality bill which legalized same-sex marriage. This mobilized the anti-equality brigade, because some people feel that basic human rights and freedoms should be put to a vote. Signatures against equality were collected... enough to force a ballot measure... so now we wait until November to see if an entire group of tax-paying citizens get the same right to marry that everybody else has.
Current polling shows marriage equality winning out, but I'll believe it when I see it. Sadly, you can never underestimate the power of disinformation, fear, lies, and ignorance when it comes to the public at large. And I'm sure that we're going to be seeing plenty of that in the coming months.
Which is really disheartening when you consider the consequences for people whose lives are affected.
Last month I shared an incredibly moving video which explained why marriage equality is so important. Today that video is now a Kickstarter project to become an actual film BY LINDA BLOODWORTH-THOMPSON (of Designing Women fame)...
If you can spare a few bucks to help counter the disinformation, fear, lies, and ignorance, head over to Kickstarter and donate, won't you?
Me in Iceland.
After 18 hours traveling.
"You've had insomnia for as long as I've been reading your blog. When was the last time you remember getting a good night's sleep?"
This afternoon I barely managed to escape death when I jumped out of the way of a car that tried to run me down in the parking lot.
Well, maybe not "death"... but certainly "injury." And probably not really "tried" but more like "accidentally"... but the big picture is this: The car that nearly hit me had a big ol' bumper sticker on the back which said "SEE BICYCLES."
Which has me wondering if I should slap a big ol' bumper sticker that says "SEE PEDESTRIANS" across my ass...
And now for something interesting... that bright yellow "SEE BICYCLES" bumper sticker that's popping up everywhere was actually created by a guy in the city just down the road from me. Apparently he is a cyclist who was injured by a pickup truck back in 2004, and is now trying to raise awareness and make the roads safer for cyclists.
There's something to be said about a guy who takes personal tragedy and uses the experience to try and make life better for others.
If only there was a way I could turn the tragedy of this crappy frozen burrito into making life better for others.
I was an hour late getting to work because I was having a bit of a waffle crisis this morning.
Once I finally got there, it started dumping down rain. This was very bad timing on the weather's part because there's a parade going on downtown this evening. Apparently the rain eventually realized its mistake, as it retreated before the festivities began. Since I had no plans to attend the parade I shouldn't have cared about the weather one way or another, but was kind of glad I didn't get drenched going out to my car when it was time to go home.
I live just five minutes from work. But Since I had three errands along the way, it took me two hours to get home.
I should say that usually I live five minutes from home. Thanks to half the town being closed off for the parade, tonight I lived fifteen minutes from work. I guess this means my errands lasted only an hour-and-forty-five minutes, but it sure seemed like two hours.
Now that I'm home, it was time for inevitable frozen pizza dinner.
I say "inevitable" because frozen pizza takes no thought or effort. It's the microwave popcorn of Saturday-night dinner. Or it would be if microwave popcorn wasn't already the microwave popcorn of Saturday night dinners. If only I had microwave popcorn I wouldn't have had to settle. But the idea of fighting parade traffic for a trip to the grocery store was more than I could bear after the nearly two hours I spent just getting home.
It's at times like this when I'm safe at home while people are fighting for their lives in a parade that I think about how Katy Perry totally ripped off her Fireworks super-powers from the X-man formerly known as "Jubilee." Somebody at Marvel Comics should sue...
And by "sue" I mean "ask Katy Perry to appear in the next Avengers movie." Because, seriously, everything that Katy Perry touches turns to gold!
And now I suppose I should finish polishing all those imaginary trophies I won in that desert submarine competition. Tomorrow I have to do this all over again (sans parade) and that tarnish isn't going to remove itself.
Please remind me to pick up some microwave popcorn so I can have a decent dinner tomorrow night.
This morning I got my bajillionth email asking me how I manage to take all the trips that I do. My best answer is usually "Find a job that requires a lot of travel." But most people are asking about leisure travel, which is something entirely different. And though I can't speak for everybody, I can say what works for me. With that in mind, a special All Travel Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• SET MY PRIORITIES! I drive a crappy car. I will continue to drive the piece of shit until the wheels fall off because it's paid for. It's not that I wouldn't like to have a nice car, it's that I'd rather spend the money traveling. For some people, their priorities would be exactly opposite, and that's fine. I take two vacations every year because that's where I choose to spend my money. You don't have to be obscenely wealthy to travel the world, you just have to make it a priority in your life.
• SAVE MY MONEY! I save up the money needed for a trip before I take it. Sometimes this can take years, and I'll take smaller vacations while I'm saving for the bigger ones. When it comes time to buy plane tickets and hotel rooms, if I don't have enough money saved then I do not go on vacation! It's un-American I know, but the stress of having credit card interest build up on debt I have to pay back would completely negate any fun I might otherwise have. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to have enough money during my Australia holiday once the plane tickets had been purchased and the hotels had been reserved, I was in a near-panic. I couldn't cancel my non-refundable fees for a later date to save up more money. I certainly wasn't going to fly all the way there and do nothing because I couldn't afford it. My only option was to run up $1300 on my credit card. I chose not to worry about it while I was on vacation, but it bothered me badly when I got back. Some people don't have any problem paying for their trip after they take it... I've found it makes for a better vacation if I do the opposite.
• CREATE MY BUDGET! My first real trip "on my own" was to New Orleans when I was in high school. I had won a DECA competition at Washington State Finals and went on to compete in Louisiana for Nationals. My mom and dad paid for airfare and hotel, so the only budget I had to worry about was food. To pay for my meals I was given money by my parents, and also had some meager funds I had saved up... it was more than adequate, but hardly extravagant. My "system" for maintaining a budget was to split my money into the number of days I had. After paying for my meals of the day, I took whatever money was left over and saved it for souvenirs and crap. This gave me a big incentive to eat cheaply so I had pocket money to spend. And since the drinking age of 18 was rarely enforced on my 17 years of age, most of that pocket money went towards alcohol... the best souvenir money can buy! And even though I now have credit cards, ATMs, and whatnot, the money lessons I learned in New Orleans back in 1983 set the pattern for every trip I've taken since.
• INCREASE MY FLEXIBILITY Believe it or not, most of my vacations are based not on where I most want to go... but instead on what's on sale. I subscribe to dozens of email newsletters (Airfare Watchdog is my favorite) that have all kinds of travel deals (and most airlines, cruise lines, hotel chains, and travel sites have newsletters too). When I see something that's affordable and appealing, I grab it. I've taken ridiculously cheap vacations this way. By being flexible I can easily halve my travel costs (or more!). I once flew to Copenhagen for one day to attend a birthday party. It was finding an airfare deal for $298 roundtrip that made it possible. I once took a four-day vacation to New York because I got an airfare/hotel package deal for $400. I flew to San Francisco once because of a $89 roundtrip airfare introductory special. I once got a last-minute roundtrip Hawaii ticket for $199. My airfare for the trip to Venice I took last year was FREE (+ $120 in fees) when I signed up for a credit card (which I immediately turned around and canceled before I had to pay the annual fee). If you have an open mind and can be a little flexible on dates, you can get deals that are almost too good to be true.
• DO MY RESEARCH! Back in the 80's and early 90's travel was very different than it is now. The way you saved money was to find the cheapest alternatives for stuff you needed. For me this meant sleeping on trains or finding hostels instead of staying in hotels. It meant buying food at the market instead of going out to restaurants. It meant a lot of research and a lot of planning. It meant a lot of calls to a travel agent. All this changed when travel sites like Orbitz came along. Easily being able to find and compare cheap airfare and hotels meant my travel dollar went further. I could stay longer and do more than ever before. Everything change again when bidding sites like Priceline came along. Now I could stay at fantastic hotels cheaply. Kayak arrived and suddenly finding the best price on airfare was a snap. Today I am traveling in sheer luxury compared to how I used to travel... and yet paying budget prices. Thank you, internet!
• MAXIMIZE MY REWARDS! I purchase absolutely everything on my rewards credit card. Everything. $35 in gas? Credit card. Cable TV bill? Credit card. Phone bill? Credit card. $3.50 bagel? Credit card. Whenever humanly possible I buy everything on credit card because each dollar translates into reward points. Points that I can then spend to get free airline tickets. The only thing you have to do to make this work in your favor is to pay off your credit card balance every month (I pay mine every week). How can I afford to attend Bitchsterdam in the Netherlands each year? Free airline ticket. And it doesn't stop there. I have frequent flier cards for every airline I fly. I have hotel stay reward cards for every hotel I stay at (even though you don't get points for discounted Priceline stays, you still get perks for visits). I enroll in every loyalty program that's free even if I don't think I'll ever use it again... you just never know.
• PLAN MY VISIT! Once I decide where I'm going and what I'm doing, I plan for the trip. Not necessarily down to the last detail, because I don't like having to be on a schedule... but enough to know what I want to do and what I'll be spending to do it. I research how much meals cost. I research what activities there are and how much they cost. I ask questions of people who have already been there. I pour over travel websites. I do everything I can to anticipate every dollar I'll have to spend so I can save for it. Most of the time I'm very good at this because I'm well-informed before I even get there. On rare occasions, shit happens and you go into debt to pay for it, but imagine how much worse it would have been if you had gone in with no planning at all?
• FOLLOW MY BUDGET! I use the same strategy now that I did for my first trip when it comes to a budget. I divide the money I have available for expenses into the number of days I'm away. Anything I have left over at the end of the day is then used for souvenirs and crap (but mostly alcohol... some things never change!).
And that's pretty much it. Other people have their own way of traveling, and that's great, but this is what works for me. Happy travels!
So this is what the weather is like at End of Days.
Since Saturday we've been flipping between gorgeous blue skies one minute... followed by thunder showers just minutes later... followed by gorgeous blue skies again soon after. And while the changes are shockingly rapid, they're actually really cool to watch. Today on the way to work I watched a rain shower crash down from the mountains like a wave. As I was driving home I saw a thundershower retreat to the horizon like smoke in the wind. It's weird. It's wacky. It's wonderful in a way that only Mother Nature can deliver.
Which leads me to...
The Newsroom premiered Sunday on HBO. It's weird. It's wacky. It's wonderful in a way that only Aaron Sorkin can deliver.
Remarkably (for HBO anyways), they've just made the first episode available on YouTube in its entirety. Because of Sorkin's near-flawless run on The West Wing, his totally-flawless run on Sports Night, and his mostly-flawless run on Studio 60, I had no choice but to give it a watch... despite the rather shocking number of poor reviews it's been pulling.
Unsurprisingly, I really liked it.
Partly because it stars Emily Mortimer, whom I love more than chocolate pudding, but mostly because Sorkin's commentary on the state of "news" in this country mirrors my own to a scary degree.
Not to say there aren't problems. First of all, this first episode felt exactly like the first episodes of Studio 60 and Sports Night. Twice on the opening similarities I could forgive... but three times feels like Sorkin is fresh out of ideas on how to start a new show. Second of all, too many situations go too dramatic too fast. Not every little thing in life has to end in high drama (except if you're Aaron Sorkin, apparently). Lastly*, the show takes place not in present-day... but back in 2010. This means every show is going to be re-living news that already happened (starting with the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster this episode). I can only guess that this is due to Sorkin wanting to run the news as it really went down instead of approximating news events that are currently going on. Yawn. The West Wing handled a kind of "faux current" reality so beautifully, why is The Newsroom stuck in the past? I'm hoping this doesn't end up boring me.
Regardless, I'm just happy to have Sorkin back. Nobody writes television like he does, and anything he's involved in is bound to be worth watching. You can decide for yourself by clicking over to YouTube.
*Well, not lastly. "Lastly" would be that The Newsroom is so overrun with placement advertising for Dell Computer that I have to wonder if Michael Dell is secretly blowing Aaron Sorkin in addition to handing over sticky wads of cash. It's downright embarrassing, and a huge distraction.
During the "Dot Com Explosion" of the late 90's I knew more than a few people who amassed considerable wealth in a very short amount of time. This did not include me, however, because I was becoming increasingly involved with the Buddhist studies I had stumbled upon a decade earlier. Material wealth was something that took a distant back seat to my spiritual wealth back then, so chasing the buckets of money was not a priority. Even so, it was an interesting period in my life precisely because of all the money that was to be had.
And the randomness of where the money went.
Some people I knew stumbled into shit-loads of money almost by accident, but were smart enough to turn it into a personal fortune while the gettin' was good.
One guy... a kid, really... was pulling down thousands of dollars a week just making simple banner ads in his spare time. He not only earned enough money to completely pay for his college tuition, but had enough left over to pay for a bug chunk of his sister's education as well.
Another guy got a full-time job with a massive salary working from home on a corporate website. This occupied so little of his time that he ended up getting two additional "full-time" work-at-home-jobs... all of which he held at the same time. After six months he had enough money saved up that he started his own business, which he ran successfully for nearly a year before selling it for a staggering amount of money. This would be a cool story in itself, but it's made all the more incredible when you know that he kept all three of his "full-time" jobs that whole time!
Still another guy made huge, huge money because he owned a "worthless" low-rent office building that his family had purchased decades earlier. He inherited it after his dad died and had tried to sell it several times without success... until the neighborhood became a hotspot for dot-com start-ups. Luckily for him, he quickly learned the value of what he had, and was able to milk it for incredible profits... before finally selling it to a big company that bought it only so they could tear it down and build their new headquarters on the land.
Money was raining down from the heavens at an incalculable rate, and a lot of people became incredibly wealthy chasing it.
But not everybody.
Some people, try as they might, could never manage to get their piece of the pie no matter how hard they tried. They would start up one failed business after another trying to figure out where the money was... but never managed to find it.
These were some of the most bitter, angry, resentful people I've ever met. And the most educational, as they clearly confirmed that my embracing anti-materialism was the right path to be on. This was never made more clear to me as when I joined a group of them at a housewarming party thrown by a guy who was making bajillions of dollars in dot-com cash. He proudly showed off his incredible new home, only to be cut-up from one end to the other the minute he left the room. At one point some guests were discussing the "horror story" that was the kitchen decor. I found this funny... and said so, which lead to this conversation...
"You actually like that ugly mess?"
"Well, it's not my taste, but he's clearly happy with it. Since he's the one that has to live with it, what should it matter to anybody else?"
"Because he has the money to hire a decent interior decorator and still chooses to have an ugly kitchen!"
This was good for a group-laugh, which was fascinating to me...
"Well, fortunately the only thing wrong with him is something that can be fixed by a coat of paint... we should all be so lucky."
The implication of that statement went right over their heads (thankfully), but stuck with me for a very long time. Even when I strayed off the path of anti-materialism because I realized that some "stuff" made my life much more fun. Like a
Eventually the dot-com bubble burst. Some people who made a lot of money ended up losing a lot more.
This, I'm sure, was a time of glee and much rejoicing by all the bitter, angry, resentful people who were so tortured by the monetary success that eluded them during those heady days. Finally, at long last, those who succeeded where they had failed were "getting what they deserved!"
The irony being that all the bitter, angry, resentful people were getting exactly what they deserved, even if they didn't realize it.
...
Which is why I am trying hard — so very hard — not to be bitter, angry, and resentful that Justin Bieber's new album, Believe, has just become the year's top-selling debut... despite being filled with songs that I loathe so badly that I can barely listen to 10 seconds of the 90-second preview snippets on the iTunes Store without gagging.
Fortunately, Matt & Kim, a band I love more than buckets of money, just released a new single to keep me on my path...
Life. Is. Good.
This morning as I was walking towards my car, I heard loud ruffling... then felt something smack me on the side of my head. When I looked up, I saw a large quail flying up to the carport roof. "Help. I'm being attacked by a giant quail." I yelled.
Nobody came running to rescue me.
The bird just sat there glaring at me as I slowly backed away.
So I got into the car... slowly... then drove off.
Things just went downhill from there. And when I finally came home from work, I admit I took a good look around, thinking that the big quail would be there waiting for me. But he wasn't. Apparently he had other people to terrorize.
As if the evil geese weren't enough to worry about. I swear, sometimes living in the wilds of Redneckistan is enough to drive me crazy. I may be a vegetarian, but right now I'm wondering which is more delicious... quail or goose. Forget Turducken, it's time for Gooquaiken.
Assuming they don't get me first.
So... I worked straight through all day and have been completely out of touch with the world. Anything happen while I was gone?
Well, other than Olive Garden's 2 for $25 Italian Dinner Special... WITH UNLIMITED SALAD AND BREADSTICKS!
I just wish they didn't mandate that you have to pay for the dinner in order to get the unlimited salad and breadsticks. Why should I be forced to pay for something I don't want just to be able to get unlimited free access to something I do? I mean, it's nice they made it cheaper and easier to get, but who knows when I'm going to eat that breadstick... I may end up never eating it! And that means I was forced to pay for dinner for nothing!
Sure, I still get all the benefits of dinner that will get me all the salad and breadsticks I need if I ever end up needing some... and, yeah, it wouldn't be fair to just wander into Olive Garden and demand unlimited salad and breadsticks when I didn't pay for any dinner... and, certainly, it's the money that's coming in from the dinners that allows Olive Garden to provide the unlimited salad and breadsticks in the first place... but forcing people to buy something is totally un-American! It's like a socialist plot invented by... oh, dunno... the Italians or something!
I should be able to refuse to buy dinner and instead fucking starve to death because I can't afford to pay the $200,000 for a salad and breadstick emergency... which is how much something like that costs when you didn't purchase the dinner plan. I mean, it's my right as an American to gamble my life away! That's why we're the best country on earth and leaders of the free world!
And it's also my right to decide I don't want to die... and to change my mind at the last minute if an unexpected salad and breadsticks emergency happens... and to then shame this country for killing its citizens just because they made the mistake of not getting dinner when they had the chance. Would Jesus allow a man to die just because he had no dinner and couldn't afford emergency salad and breadsticks? I think not!
I dunno. I just don't get it. What's next... is Olive Garden going to force me to buy Justin Bieber albums? Or force me to do some other random thing that sounds crazy but has absolutely no bearing what-so-ever on Americans' access to unlimited salad and breadsticks?
Probably.
Bad enough that I am forced to buy dinner... but the fact that some of my dinner money is going to provide salad and breadsticks for the poor is what really pisses me off. Because they're poor. They should just be allowed to starve to death because feeding the poor is socialist. I'm pretty sure that's in The Bible.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat AT TACO BELL. Where real Americans eat American food like American Nacho Burrito Supremes... just like our American Founding Fathers did.
U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!
And so Apple has made me poor.
Again.
Except not really. Yes, their new MacBook Pro with Retina Display has put me in debt, but it's also replacing my aging and busted MacBook Pro which I use constantly for my work. And replacing it beautifully. It is without question the most remarkable laptop... most remarkable computer... I have ever seen or had the privilege to use...
And while the "Retina Display" alone would make this machine a quantum leap beyond any other portable, Apple didn't stop there. They have adopted many of the same features which make their beautiful MacBook Air line so revolutionary. It's the crossroads of power and portability, and hands-down the ultimate laptop for graphics work like I do every day.
Except it's gonna cost ya. The cutting edge always does.
I'm going to run through all the specific features in an extended entry, but the bottom line is that the minimum baseline configuration for this machine costs $2,199. For work like I do, you really need the next step up, which runs $2,799. But I felt I needed something stronger, so I customized a machine that has the faster 2.7/3.7GHz CPU (+$250) and a maxed-out 16GB of RAM (+$200), which totaled a whopping $3,249. I stuck with the 512GB Flash Storage (Solid State Drive) because it was enough for me (it's bigger than the 320GB hard drive in my old MacBook Pro!) and I couldn't justify the additional $500 to bump that up to 768GB.
Now, when I look at that $3,249 price tag, a part of me wants to start screaming. But this isn't a toy that I use to just read email and surf the web... it's a critical work tool which I use to make a living every day. For me at least, it's a bargain. And every time I sit down to use it, I know exactly where that money went. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display is a boon to my productivity and a pleasure to use. I love it passionately, and can't imagine going back to a "regular" laptop.
If you want to know why, all my notes are in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Here in the wilds of Redneckistan in Eastern Washington, nice surprises do happen.
Though, in the political arena, this is quite rare. We are the Red half of the state by a wide margin, and Conservative politics dominate the region. Heck, I usually end up voting Republican locally, because it's nice to have some representation in the state I live in. Otherwise, we would be completely forgotten as the Democratic-dominated politicians over on "The Coast" pander to their mostly-liberal voters...
My biggest problem with political representatives in this country is that a good chunk of them don't actually represent all all the people they are supposed to represent. They choose to represent only those people who think and believe the same as they do. A lot of the time, that's what got them elected, that's what is going to get them re-elected, and they don't really give a crap about anybody else. You can't really blame them for their attitude since it keeps them alive politically... except I most definitely do because that's NOT the way it should be.
And yet, as I said, there are surprises.
Like when Representative Maureen Walsh, a Republican from Walla Walla in Washington's very Conservative 16th District, made a rather touching speech in support of our state voting to legalize marriage equality...
Unsurprisingly, her support (fueled largely by her daughter, I'm sure), put her on a political hit-list here in Redneckistan. She's now running against an opponent whose opposition to marriage equality is the cornerstone of their campaign.
And then something interesting happened. Rep. Walsh started getting contributions to her campaign from gay donors that were not only out of her district, but out of the state. This has sparked strong criticism from her opponent, Ruth Edwards, who says taking money from out-of-staters shows that Walsh is out of touch with her district. A district who reelected Walsh after she supported extending benefits to domestic partners in 2009, even though the measure itself failed miserably in that same district. Surprise!
I guess we'll see if Edwards stands on the same principles if an organization like the equality-haters from "National Organization for Marriage" decide to dump money on her campaign.
In any event, even though I don't agree with all her politics, I just made a contribution to Walsh's re-election bid. She seems to be one of those rare politicians who makes representing the rights of all the people in her district a priority... even if supporting their right to equality may not be politically in her best interest. Because, with all due respect to Ruth Edwards, it's not just people out-of-state that want to see Washington on the right side of history.
There's a heatwave plaguing the nation! Well, not here, really, but most places in the USA. Though it is supposed to get up to 90° next week. Guess that means it's time for my American readers to park themselves next to an air conditioner... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Canada! Happy Canada Day to our lovely neighbors to the north!
• Hadia Gwaii! And speaking of Canada... one of my favorite travel blogs, Everything Everywhere, recently landed on a place I have long wanted to visit, Hadia Gwaii. Gary's 8 Things You Might Not Have Known About Hadia Gwaii just makes me want to go even more. Sure it's less than 600 miles northwest of Seattle, but getting there is not easy. There's a ferry that runs out of Prince Rupert, but you've got to drive 1000 miles to get there...
Map courtesy of Google Maps.
That's a 7-hour ferry ride after a 21-hour drive. Not really a great option for me. I'd rather fly to Vancouver, then transfer to a connecting flight to Sandspit... at a cost of about $1000. Yikes. Maybe an entire day driving wouldn't be so bad if I did a stopover in Prince George or something. But, given the price of gas, maybe the $1000 flight isn't so horrible after all? I dunno. If you want to see a little of why I want to go there, here's a Hadia Gwaii info site.
• Oatmeal! Matt Inman, creator of some of the funniest stuff on the internet you will ever see over at The Oatmeal, has been embroiled in a stupid, stupid lawsuit. What's particularly stupid is that he was first sued because somebody STOLE HIS WORK... and then again BECAUSE HE TURNED THE DUMB-FUCK LAWSUIT INTO AN OPPORTUNITY TO RAISE $220,000 FOR CHARITY. Yes, he was sued for raising money for the National Wildlife Foundation and the American Cancer Society with OPERATION BEAR LOVE GOOD, CANCER BAD...
Now, as somebody who has been threatened with absurd legal action more than once for the crazy stuff I've published on my blog, I have a low tolerance for ridiculous crap like this. If there's any justice in the world, douchebag lawyer Charles Carreon will end up paying all the legal fees for filing this bullshit in the first place... right after his lawsuits are dismissed for being STUPID. Anybody wanting to see what's going to cause the downfall of this country need look no further than our legal system's frivolous lawsuits.
• Pot! Kettle! And speaking of stupid... "Nancy Pelosi is a dingbat!" —Irony's Official Spokesperson, Sarah Palin.
This may be a true statement. Nancy Pelosi may indeed be a dingbat. But anything that comes out of the mouth of this vapid joke regarding the lack of smarts IN OTHER PEOPLE just makes her into a bigger fucking idiot than she already is. If that's even possible. It just proves that Sarah Palin isn't even self-aware. Or able to learn. As in lacking sentience. Like a rock. A stupid, stupid, stupid rock.
As much as I loathe John McCain for betraying our POW/MIAs, the fact that he unleashed this monster on us is beyond unforgivable.
Blargh. Guess I'd better stop shooting bullets and go into work since I'm running an hour late and all. This coming week is going to be a rough one...
I cut my foot. My car is making a funny noise. My wireless router is dead and my network is down. I had to re-book my upcoming flights because of a schedule change. The zipper on my new suitcase is broken. I just found out that Tower Prep is most definitely not coming back for a second season. I lost the $40 I got from the ATM yesterday. I'm way behind in my work. And I'm out of chocolate pudding.
It's a Monday.
And since I don't feel like re-living my pain by blogging about it, I'll just share a cool sale I found on an app I like. If you'll ever need to access your Mac or PC remotely from an iPad or iPhone, there's a great solution that's currently on sale. Read on...
Ooh... look! I'm working in Photoshop on my Mac...
Well, kinda.
Actually I am on my iPad at home working in Photoshop on my Mac back at the office...
This is nothing new. I once assembled, designed, and sent an email campaign on my office Mac from my iPhone while standing in line at Disney World 2500 miles away. Remote access from computer-to-computer or device-to-computer has been around for quite a long while. What's different is how much better the tools are getting. For somebody like me who travels a lot, this has been a Very Big Deal. And now the cream of the crop in remote access has released a new version, the amazing Splashtop 2, and it's on sale for a limited time...
Works as advertised. If anything, they under-sell it. You'll need to pay for an "Access Anywhere" account to use the automated login connection... it's a total bargain at $9.99 a year / 99¢ a month.
Here's a link to the iOS app for iOS-to-Mac or iOS-to-Windows. (Reg. $9.99 NOW $2.99 for a limited time!)
Here's a link to the Mac app for Mac-to-Mac or Mac-to-Windows. (Reg. $19.99 NOW $2.99 for a limited time!)
If you need to remotely access a Mac or Windows machine from an iOS device, I give Splashtop 2 my highest recommendation.
First of all... Matlock? NNNNOOOoooooo!
Tomorrow promises to be a special day for the Standard Model...
Cool images courtesy of CERN
Except...
Anybody with any respect for particle physics who still thinks referring to the Higgs boson as "The God Particle" should read this. Oh how I loathe that incredibly stupid nickname...
And though I have already recommended it, this rare interview with Professor Peter Higgs is an especially appropriate read now.
And now... onward...
Happy Birthday, USA!
Despite my complete and total disgust over the heinous political divide that will probably be your downfall, I still love you.
Oh... and good luck with that whole election thing come November. You're going to need it.
The good thing about taking those late, late-night, red-eye flights? Well... if you're connecting to another flight, sometimes you can save a chunk of money because you're connecting to a cheap, early-ass flight that nobody wants to bother with. You're also saving money because you don't have to get a hotel that night, and can just sleep on the plane. Also, if you have premium flyer status, your odds of getting upgraded to First Class are scary-good. On the surface, it's a good deal all the way around. The only penalty being that you are flying overnight at a late hour, which can be a bit rough on a person mentally and physically.
Well, that's not the only penalty...
So, do the positives outweigh the negatives?
Well... right now I'm tempted to say no. Waiting here for my delayed flight with total insanity going on around me is the stuff of nightmares. And I have never been able to sleep on a plane no matter how tired I am.
Except... I am getting three days vacation at an insanely cheap cost before I have to fly to work, so I'm not sure.
Guess I'll know once it's all over.
I'm not a sun-worshipper. I'm not one to lay around on a beach all day. I'm not a fan of high heat and humidity. So I'm the one who experiences a secret glee when I hear that there will be overcast skies and scattered thundershowers when I'm headed to a tropical destination. It'll still be hot, of course, but at least I'll be shielded from the sun and the rain will make it so there's a reason for the humidity.
Except the forecast was a lie, and so here I am in the Bahamas with blue skies and unrelenting sun in full 95° heat. If I was into this kind of weather, I'd describe it as "perfect."
The view from my room pretty much sucks, doesn't it?
Oh well. At least the flight down was surreal... but nice...
The reason I am here is twofold...
I'm staying at a resort on Cable Beach, which is a pretty stretch of sand west of Nassau...
I was able to contain myself all of an hour before I hopped a taxi to Nassau, and Hard Rock #146 for me...
It's a nice, old-school cafe with plenty of memorabilia covering the walls. In other words, it's exactly what a Hard Rock should be...
The town of Nassau is kind of nice, if a bit touristy with all the cruise ships stopping by. I didn't feel like doing any of that kind of thing, but couldn't resist when I saw there was a PIRATE MUSEUM!!
They recreate a pirate village you can walk through along with a pirate ship and various dioramas to show what pirate life was like. They also have a bunch of trivia you can play along the way, which was pretty cool...
I have no idea what's going on here. I hope it's some freaky-ass attempt at surgery to alleviate back pain...
From there I wandered down to Junkanoo Beach...
One thing I've noticed so far is that the kids who live here are really well behaved. This adorable tyke was content to play quietly by himself while his family was swimming, which was a big contrast to the tourist kids who were screaming and yelling and going bat-shit insane as they terrorized the beach...
If I knew that the weather was going to be this beautiful, I would have brought my "real" camera instead of relying on my iPhone and my pocket shooter. Oh well, something is better than nothing...
My plans for tomorrow? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Though I'll probably venture away from the resort for a little while... especially if those overcast skies ever show up.
My big plans to do nothing today were destroyed at 9:26am.
But in a very good way.
Because that's when I got an email from a Blogography reader who got a text from her brother who saw that I was in Nassau... "DAVE! You're in the Bahamas? Come visit us in Atlantis! We promise to make it worth the trip!"
"Atlantis" is a resort on Paradise Island (formerly Hog Island) that's just north of Nassau. I investigated it when I was looking for a hotel here, but photos of the popular water park on the resort grounds showed that the place was overrun with kids, so I put it on my list of places to avoid.
But the idea of getting away for lunch was oddly appealing, so I got cleaned up and hopped in a taxi. Destination: Atlantis...
Now, usually, non-guests can only enter the Atlantis grounds by paying for a $135 day pass. It's a lot of money, but you do get to use the water park, pools, beaches, and all the other facilities... IF they have any passes available, since the number they sell depends on occupancy of the hotel. Fortunately, I didn't have to pay the money because my new friends just handed me one of their room keys, which is like a Golden Ticket to the grounds.
You don't have to have a pass to enter the Atlantis casino, of course. They're happy to take your money for free. And it's totally worth the trip, because they have four pieces by one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly!
Here's the Temple of the Sun...
And the Temple of the Moon...
And the Crystal Gate...
I couldn't find a name for this very cool chandelier. Perhaps it's "Temple of the Alien Intestines" or "Chandelier of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" or something. In any event, this photo doesn't do it justice. The piece is absolutely magnificent, and a little terrifying...
Using the magical powers of my friend's room key, I then got to see the water park, which features a giant water slide...
But the coolest thing I saw was the Atlantis Lazy River tube ride, which ends with a float through a big tube... THROUGH A GIANT SHARK TANK!!! Now, this the very definition of SHARK EXTREME!!
But the SHARK EXTREMENESS doesn't end there. Much to my amazement, there are sharks swimming around in the fountain pools on the resort grounds! No fences. No barriers. No nuthin'. You can just walk right up and look inside...
I guess the sharks are well fed by drunken tourists who accidentally fall into the predator-infested waters. But not everything is deadly at Atlantis. They have giant balloons in the shape of donuts and cupcakes too...
From there we wandered down to the Paradise Island marina. If you've got billions of dollars for a giant yacht, you can probably afford to berth here...
And then we got to the reason my blog friends thought that a trip to Atlantis would be worth the trouble...
ZOMG! There's a Johnny Rockets here! AND they had my vegetarian burgers in-stock! How amazing is that? Now I was really glad I decided to drag my lazy ass out of bed this morning!
After a great lunch, it was time to bid my friends goodbye and get back to my scheduled plans of doing nothing. The passenger ferry was just around the corner, so I decided to save money on a pricey taxi and just take a jitney bus from Nassau back "home" to Cable Beach. The ferry itself is an odd experience. The "ferries" are actually just rickety old boats that charge $4 to cross from Paradise Island to downtown...
It's not exactly a pleasant trip because it's sweltering hot, you can't see out very well, and you've got a "tour guide" screaming the entire trip (who expects to be tipped for "entertaining" you). I managed to get a few pictures off, but the boat wasn't exactly conducive to photography...
With three cruise ships in town, Nassau was beyond packed, so I bolted for the jitney stop and my $1.25 ride back to my hotel.
And here I am, hurrying through this blog post so I can put the excitement of my day behind me and get back to the important business of doing nothing.
Well, not exactly nothing...
A few more of these and it will finally be a vacation...
Well... uhhh... that was an interesting night. Or so it would seem. Things are a little... fuzzy... right now in my brain.
After I started drinking, I apparently decided not to stop. I totally blame the group of enablers I hung out with at the bar. Well, that and the fact that this KALIK beer they have here is pretty darn tasty. I cannot, however, offer any explanation for the two shots of tequila that were on my bar tab. Except to say that it was probably because they didn't have Jägermeister...
At some point I noticed the sun was setting, so I decided to run down to the beach and take a photo. I ended up tripping in the sand and crashing into a palm tree, but I still managed to get the shot...
As I was limping back to the bar, I saw people eating popsicles. Since I hadn't eaten dinner yet, I decided that was the perfect thing to have.
And since I was a good boy and totally finished all my popsicle dinner, I rewarded myself with another beer for dessert.
I don't know what I was rewarding myself for with the four beers that followed... but they were on my bill, so I'm sure I must have totally deserved them.
Eventually everybody decided to go to the casino. It sounded like a great idea at the time, but I was completely drunk so I probably wasn't in the best shape to be making decisions. Fortunately, I also wasn't in the best shape to remember how to get money out of a cash machine, so I only lost the $20 I had on me. At least I think it was $20. Let's see... I started the day with $50... minus $24 taxi to Paradise Island... $4 for the ferry... $1.25 for the jitney bus... so yeah, $20 pissed away (give or take). I can live with that, I guess.
When I finally dragged my drunken banged-up body back to my room, I took this picture of myself...
I'm not sure why. Probably because I was surprised to have gotten so sunburned considering I was only wandering around Atlantis for a little over three hours. Guess the sun here is mighty powerful.
The time-stamp on the photo is 12:47am, so I'm guessing I was in bed by 1:00am.
I woke up around 7:30 this morning with quite a lot of pain in my knee and shoulder, but barely a hangover. I was going to chalk this up as a WIN! until I saw my shorts laying on the floor with the back pocket half-way ripped off. Which means my right ass cheek was exposed for heaven-only-knows how long last night. I hope I was wearing boxers underneath, but that's debatable considering I was buck-nekkid when I climbed out of bed. I'm pretty sure it didn't happen when I fell into the palm tree, so I have no clue when... or how... it happened.
Anyway...
The only thing I really wanted to do in the Bahamas (other than nothing) was to go diving. Unfortunately, I am still poor thanks to buying my new MacBook, so I knew early on that it wasn't going to happen. This trip may have been ridiculously cheap, but it was no excuse to rack up debt on my credit card with some dives. The plan was to use my "resort credit" to pay for most of my meals, and not spend more than the $150 I brought with me ($50 a day) for everything else.
Never mind that I blew past my entire resort credit by $62 because I ran up a massive bar tab last night... I'm sticking to the plan, dammit! I now have -$12 to spend on for my last day. I guess this means I'll be selling myself down on the beach tonight so I can afford dinner. Here's hoping some sugar-momma (or sugar-daddy, because you can't be picky about these things) likes men with their ass hanging out of their shorts.
In the meanwhile, I suppose I'll see what I can do with my -$12.
There's still no sign of the scattered thundershowers I've been promised three days in a row now... so maybe I'll lay by the pool and read a book. The sun is just now peering over the East Tower, so I'm sure the courtyard will be flooded with an ungodly amount of sunshine any minute now...
Because, hey, I've already got the start of a really good sunburn, why not take it all the way?
But first I have to drag my lazy ass out of bed so I can make my way down to the lobby and post this to my blog*. It's 8:40 now, so I'm hoping to make it by 11:00.
*I'd post this from my room, but the internet here is wired. Since the new MacBook Retina doesn't have an ethernet port, I'm sans internet. Technology: it's not always all it's cracked up to be.
And here we are with a Very Special Edition of "Bahamian Bullets on Monday" where I answer questions and write observations from my time in the Bahamas. So don't flip that calendar... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Money! Bahamian dollars are completely interchangeable with US dollars, since the currency of the Bahamas is tied to the US exchange rate... until you leave the Bahamas... at which time any Bahamian dollars you might be carrying are practically worthless. Not that you'll see many Bahamian dollars. Thanks to the massive tourist trade with the States, you'll see a lot more US money than anything else. A friend asked me to get her a Bahamian $3 bill as a souvenir, but I couldn't find one...
Eventually I managed to trade for a $1 bill that a jitney driver collected, since it was the only currency of the Bahamas I ever saw. I don't understand why the Bahamian government doesn't just print a bunch of $3 bills that souvenir shops could put in a plastic sleeve and sell for $5 each. Everybody would win. The government would be printing money that would rarely be circulated (thus bringing money into the country for nothing), and shop owners are getting a big return on an investment that never loses value.
• Jitney! I have no idea about "the jitney that the Sex and the City characters rode to The Hamptons"... but the "jitney" here in the Bahamas is a nickname for the local shared bus service (the name "jitney" having migrated from the US). From what I can tell, anybody with a bus can get a permit to run designated routes around the islands. Since I was staying at Cable Beach, I rode the #10 each day which runs from there to Downtown Nassau and back. In my case, they were a cheap ($1.25) alternative to a pricey taxi ($15.00+tip). But you do get what you pay for. Jitneys are almost always older vehicles, and many are busted to shit...
And I mean that literally... some of them are falling apart. The one I rode to dinner last night didn't have working air conditioning. But that's okay, because the door was broken and wouldn't close, so we had plenty of fresh air blowing in...
Despite being a bit dangerous, it was a beautiful old broken-down door with a lot of history...
And speaking of danger, you could literally be taking your life in your own hands when riding. When I stepped into my seat, my foot went through the floor. The plate snapped back up, but I spent most of the trip wondering if my seat was going to fall through...
Jitneys are a cheap way to get around and are everywhere. They're also fairly convenient, stopping many places along their route. But since the bus doesn't leave until full (and I mean really full, since seats fold down into the aisles), you sometimes have a bit of a wait at a start-point, but it's a small price to pay for the money you save.
I heard a few stories about how jitneys are not very well regulated, and it's not unheard of for drivers to be drunk or on drugs while operating their vehicles. Even worse, there have been incidents of violence and rape reportedly involving jitney drivers. It's probably not a good idea to ride in them at odd hours or in remote areas, but I had no problems at all the half-dozen times I rode them. Scary, broken vehicles aside, the drivers I saw were always courteous... helpful even... and seemed competent in their jobs. But I was on a major tourist route, so I can't really speak to what things are like around the rest of the island.
• Mural! I was asked about the little pirate guy who closed out my post on day one. He's not mine... he's part of a mural downtown...
It's called "Hello Nassau" by "Thundercut" and is part of a public murals project sponsored by Coke...
There are a few of them around that I saw...
Pretty cool, huh?
• Resort! While I was in the lobby of the Sheraton using the wireless internet (since my new MacBook Pro Retina doesn't have an ethernet port for the wired internet in my room), I watched a guy have a complete meltdown because he went to pay his bill and found out there was a $40 per day "Resort Fee" that was due. I had gotten a discount rate, but even then I was notified about the fee. Sure, it's kind of a bait-and-switch deal to be reeled in at one price and then have to pay a huge add-on fee, but it was clearly stated, and so I knew to expect it.
Then I got to wondering if Sheraton doesn't tell you about the fee if you book from their site, because that would make me pretty mad. But, nope, they absolutely show you the final price (and if you click on the total, you see the $40 fee added)...
But what if the guy booked at a third party site? I usually book my hotels at Orbitz, so I gave them a try. Nope, they too show the "Local Charges Due at Hotel" right after the price, which works out to be that $40 per night...
Then I checked Expedia. And here's where things get strange. They don't show any fees or taxes attached to the rate at all when you are reviewing what they have available...
But then you scroll down and see something remarkable... they claim the resort fee is already included in the rate! The same $159 rate that Sheraton and Orbitz are adding a fee to!
Thinking that this is a trick because the "total price" isn't displayed until the next page, I clicked onward...
There we go! They add the $40 resort fee in with their "$68.62 a night Taxes and Fees." Which means that their "Best Price Guarantee" is bullshit at $682.86 when Orbitz would total $679.35 (even though $120 of that would be paid directly to Sheraton at check-out).
I can't check all the hotel booking sites, obviously, but it really doesn't matter. If the guy booked through Sheraton, Orbitz, or Expedia... he knew the total rate. If he booked at some other site that didn't warn him about the resort fee, he should be yelling at them... NOT THE POOR GIRL AT THE RECEPTION DESK!
In any event, it's word to the wise to always always always check the fine print whenever you book a hotel, car, cruise, or whatever. Shady stuff like this is getting more and more common as companies use hidden fees to avoid paying taxes... or to make their rates look better.
• Return! When you land at Nassau's airport (which isn't anywhere near Nassau, curiously enough... it's on the other side of the island), there are at least a half-dozen signs telling you that when you return to the airport, YOU NEED TO ARRIVE THREE HOURS EARLY IF YOU ARE TRAVELING TO THE UNITED STATES. There's even a sign posted on the baggage carousel where you wait for your luggage that's staring at you in big letters.
When it was time for me to fly back to the good ol' USA, I followed instructions and arrived THREE HOURS EARLY. I was kind of glad too, because the line at customs was quite short, but still took me 35 minutes to clear. Had the line been all the way to the door, it could have easily taken me two hours to get through it.
So there we are sitting on the plane when an announcement is made. There's 15 people still stuck in customs, so they're holding the plane.
EXCUSE ME?!?
Why in the fuck did I bother showing up three hours early then? If I would have know that I could have just ignored the signs and showed up whenever the hell I wanted to, I would have slept in an extra hour!
Then, after a half hour, they announced there were still eight people in line for customs, and it was moving slow because there was only one counter open... so we were just going to continue to wait for them.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?
Everybody who arrived at the airport THREE HOURS EARLY... AS INSTRUCTED... was already on the plane. Why in the hell are we still waiting on people who couldn't be bothered to get to the airport on time? How is this our fault? I don't give a shit if customs decided to close ALL the fucking counters... people who showed up on time made it through... BECAUSE THEY SHOWED UP ON TIME!!! Stop blaming customs for the problem... they weren't the ones who made the people show up late to the airport. AND STOP PUNISHING THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED INSTRUCTIONS AND MADE IT TO CHECK-IN THREE HOURS EARLY LIKE THEY WERE TOLD TO!
I am sick and fucking tired of companies pandering to the lowest common denominator. All it does is remove consequences for idiots who can't be bothered to follow the rules like everybody else. Well, guess what? If you keep removing consequences for being stupid... people are going to continue to do stupid shit. Do you think any of the people that showed up late to the airport will bother to be on time next time? Of course not! And why should they? You're just going to hold the plane for them!
Is it any wonder that this country is going down the crapper and American companies are going bankrupt? Keep rewarding stupid often enough, that's all you're going to have left.
And, on that tragic note, I've got a couple hours work that needs doing before I can turn in for the night, so I must bid you adieu...
And so Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson has gone and messed up their airport.
Back in May, they opened up their new "Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal" which handles all foreign flights. In theory, it's great, because it means you no longer have to claim your bag, then re-check your bag, then re-claim your bag again if Atlanta is your final destination on an inbound flight. Instead you just grab your bag and waltz directly out of the building to your car and... voilà!... you're on your way.
Assuming you drove your own car to the International Terminal and paid their hideously expensive parking rates.
If you didn't, Atlanta International Airport has just screwed you and you don't even know it.
But you will.
Since I (obviously) didn't drive to the International Terminal (my car is back in Seattle), I had to get back to the main terminal so I could catch a hotel shuttle. But there is no train to take you back. Instead you have to wait 5 minutes for a bus... wait another 20 minutes for the bus to fill up... wait another 15 minutes to drive all the way back to the Main Terminal... then wait for your luggage to be unloaded... then wait for traffic... then walk to the hotel shuttle area where you needed to be all along SO YOU CAN WAIT EVEN MORE for your shuttle.
Which, needless to say, IS A HUGE FUCKING WASTE OF TIME!
So now I absolutely HATE flying into Atlanta on an International flight, and will avoid it at all costs. Or at least UNTIL THEY BUILD A TRAIN LOOP TO TAKE YOU BACK TO THE MAIN TERMINAL LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE! I mean, they can build a damn train FOR MILES out to the car rental center, but extending the EXISTING terminal train A MEASLY 500 FEET and adding a secure car to take exiting passengers back to the Main Terminal was too difficult? Apparently so. Or maybe they were too damn stupid to think of it.
But Seattle... frickin' SEATTLE... has figured out how to do this. It's EMBARRASSING that Atlanta... ONE OF THE BUSIEST AIRPORTS IN THE WORLD... has their head up their asses by thinking this absurd "bussing" idiocy is anything other than COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT.
It's like the stupid-ass city I live in. The one thing we need where I work? More parking spaces. The one thing they made sure to eliminate when they re-designed the street? THAT'S RIGHT... THEY GOT RID OF PARKING SPACES!
Everywhere you look... from city planners to airport designers... the people in charge don't seem to know what in the hell they're doing. Nor do they give a crap. And why should they? They can just start screaming some bullshit about "saving money" or "having to make hard choices" (or whatever) to justify their short-sightedness. No more taking the time and money to do things right... it's all about making sure there's enough money in the project to pay their huge salaries, and everything else is negotiable. And the consequences? Well, for Atlanta-bound international travelers who just want to take the damn train into the city? FUCK 'EM! JUST FUCK'EM!! They can waste their time riding a stupid-ass BUS for a half hour to get to the MARTA train station! Who gives a shit about THEM?!?
And welcome to Atlanta!
Ever since getting my new MacBook, I've been increasingly fascinated with the pixel density of its beautiful "Retina Display." Everything looks so frickin' amazing on it that I have a really hard time looking at non-Retina-enhanced visuals now... especially when browsing the web. Most websites are built to deliver 72dpi graphics, which end up look pretty bad. And so I've been experimenting with photos here on my blog, trying to figure out how to delivery hi-res images without breaking things for readers who don't have Retina-type displays.
The easiest way is to just double-size all your images. I tried this in my last entry with the picture of the jitney door. It's actual size is 800x1200 pixels, but I define it as 400x600 in the HTML. So now Retina displays get a sharp image to look at, and non-Retina displays just toss out every-other pixel...
Detail of Non-Retina low-res on the Left... Retina double-res on the Right
The problem is this... visitors who don't have Retina displays are downloading much larger images with no benefit at all. Since their browser is just tossing 3/4 of the data, this seems wasteful of their time and bandwidth. And, unlike Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, I give a crap about the people who spend their time visiting me.
This has led me to experiment with Javascript and CSS to deliver regular graphics for everybody except those visiting with a Retina-type display... they'll get the super-res versions. Sure they'll take longer to download, but at least all the pixels sent will be looked at.
And so now I just have to figure out the best way to approach this. All the easy solutions have serious drawbacks in one way or another, so it'll probably take some time and research to get it sorted. But hopefully, if you're visiting with an iPhone 4, New iPad, MacBook Retina, HTC One X, HTC Rezound, etc. - it will be worth the effort.
The weather started out hot with blue skies today. I know this because I saw it with my own two eyes when I went out to lunch.
Around 5:00 it started raining. Hard.
This killed what little ambition I had to go out for dinner, so I decided to just keep working in my room. Since I had a packet of Chips Ahoy! cookies, I knew I wouldn't starve. "On the positive side, maybe the rain will make the cicadas shut up and I can fall asleep easier tonight," I thought to myself.
But then the rain stopped around 8:30 and the cicadas came out louder than ever. Boy am I glad that these noisemakers haven't made it up to Washington State yet.
So now I'm going to try and fall asleep knowing that Walking Dead zombies AND thousands of creepy bugs are screeching to get inside and eat my face off.
Because I'm just that delicious.
Bleh. Now I'm hungry. I guess a packet of cookies can only do so much.
What I need right now is an off switch.
Whenever anybody outside of Washington State asks where I'm from, I just say "Seattle" because that's pretty much the only place in Washington that anybody has ever heard of. Seattle, of course has a reputation for rain (which is true... but not quite to the extreme as people might believe).
Anyway, it's been pouring down rain here in Georgia, which has people who know I'm from "Seattle" saying "thanks for bringing the rain with you!" But not sarcastically, as usual! Apparently, there's been quite a dry spell, and farmers are glad to be getting some moisture this summer.
Though, if the forecast is any indication, they'll be happy I'm leaving this weekend...
In the meanwhile, it is crazy wet outside, so I'm doing my best to stay indoors.
Which is good because I need to be working, except... Adobe has a big problem with their software running on the new MacBooks and MacBook Airs. For example, Adobe InDesign (the program I use to do page layout for things like THRICE Fiction Magazine) crashes a horrible death almost constantly. I've scoured for tips on how to make it happen less often, but it's still an impossible situation. So now I am in the horrible position of having to wait until I get home before I can finish a number of projects that are due... including the latest issue of THRICE Fiction Magazine.
This sucks so hard.
Almost as hard as the length of my work day. Right now I am so exhausted that the only thing that keeps me going is 5-Hour Energy shots and cookies. But the cumulative effect of downing three 5-Hour Energy shots to stay awake the past 15 hours is starting to make my brain haze over. The fact that I've got another four hours left to go doesn't bode well for my sanity.
Now, if you'll excuse me, a sea urchin just waddled up to my desk and asked me if I want to go see a movie with him and his friend the kangaroo (who, oddly enough, is named "Mr. Camel"). Since I could use a break, I think I'm going to accompany them... though I hope it's not another art-house cinema festival, because last time I never did manage to get the smell of popcorn out of my ferret.
Problems arise when I travel all the time. But I'm not accustomed to having problems when dealing with those problems. I have a stack of loyalty cards... frequent guest cards... preferred guest cards... etc... which make dealing with problems not so problematic. When something comes up, the airline/hotel/rental-car/whatever takes a look at my credentials and makes it go away. It's one of the perks of being a frequent traveler, because your repeat business is something these companies value. They do whatever they can to keep you coming back.
But every once in a while...
This morning after a 45-minute nap, the only sleep I'd had in 23 hours, I had to get back to the airport to turn in my rental car by 10am. My plan was to then go directly to the hotel and get an early check-in so I could catch up on some sleep.
But the hotel was having none of it. No matter how great a customer I was.
They were overbooked with a convention and, unlike previous times I wanted a room early, there was nothing they could rush to clean so I could get some sleep. In fact, they had no idea when I might get a room... even at their usual 3:00 check-in time.
Well this was something new.
After wandering around the lobby in a daze for ten minutes, I eventually decided to drop off my suitcase, drink my fifth
The movie I decided to see? TED! The story of a teddy bear that comes to life and the life-long friendship he has with the kid he grows up with.
It wasn't as funny as I expected.
It wasn't as raunchy as I had been led to believe.
But it hits far more often than it misses, and I really enjoyed the film. Yes, it's reminiscent of director/star Seth McFarlane's other work (namely, Family Guy) but it has a surprising amount of heart, some genuine laughs, the creepiest dance scene ever recorded, some great 80's-related homages, and (most importantly) a lead character that's about as real and believable as he could possibly be (despite being a teddy bear). Definitely some R-rated stuff, but worth your valuable time to check out.
Lunch was at Johnny Rockets, because I just can't help myself.
Then I took a train back to the airport at 2:30... finally got my room at 3:15... then got dressed and took another train back into the city so I could have a last-minute dinner with some - bloggers - of - great - importance, which is my favorite thing to do in Atlanta.
Despite having 45-minutes sleep in 38 hours, I was never really tired. I guess that's the power of keeping active with fun stuff to do... and loading-up on energy drinks.
I'm going to keep this in mind as I try to busy myself before my 7:30pm flight home tomorrow...
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a woman at the airport trying to "secretly" take my picture with her mobile phone. "Well that's odd, I thought to myself," as I started waving at her frantically. Then I raised up my iPhone to take her picture, which caused her to disappear like a fart in the wind.
I tried to think back to what I was doing that was so fascinating that it merited a photo. Was I scratching my balls or something? I couldn't recall. Possibly? Probably. Hell, there really is no privacy now-a-days.
You can even spy on me in mid-air if you want.
Or I can spy on myself.
According to FlightView, I'm flying over Nebraska at 34,000 feet right now...
And while I am not currently scratching my balls, I've been thinking about it ever since I wrote about wondering about scratching my balls two minutes ago.
Guess now I'll have something to do at baggage claim while I'm waiting for my suitcase to arrive.
Get your cameras ready...
Take time to be kind... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Rude! About an hour after I posted from 34,000 feet above Nebraska yesterday, the flight turned to crap because of the asshole sitting across the aisle from me. He was argumentative, belligerent, hostile, and otherwise douchey towards the flight attendants... and it was just awful to have to sit there and watch him treat the hard-working cabin crew so badly. It took every ounce of my will power to keep from punching him in his stupid face and telling him to shut the fuck up, but I had no choice. Had I even just told him to calm down and stop being a jerk, the consequences for me could have ended up being tragically bad if he got violent. Because then I would have punched him in the face. I may be a wimpy guy, but there is no question I could have beat the ever-loving' shit out of him. The turd was in really bad shape and I'm guessing he would have had a heart attack in short order had he squared off with me. So my hat's off to the flight attendant who managed to keep the situation under control. That is absolutely something I could not have done. I know I've said it before, but I am seeing this kind of self-entitled assholery more and more in the First Class cabin and, if it weren't for the extra leg-room and space to work, I'd be longing for the days I never got upgraded and always flew coach.
• Family! After dinner on Friday night, we were all passing by a van that had a very unique take on the whole "stick figure family" fad on the back window...
Sick! And so very, very disturbing and wrong. And yet... funneh. I cannot figure out how I feel about this from one minute to the next.
• CAAAAAAAHHHN! Every year I read all the reports coming out of Comic-Con, I am dying to attend. And yet, the two times I did attend, the crowds and lack of planning had me swearing never to return. If only they would videotape all the events... I would gladly pay to watch them online. What I don't understand is why they're passing on this obviously lucrative revenue stream. I doubt it would affect attendance in any measurable way... especially if it were offered up on pay-per-view after Comic-Con was over. Talk about your win-win scenarios... what am I missing?
And... I've got a very early drive home in the morning, so I guess three bullets it is then tonight.
I was very sad indeed to learn that beloved children's author Donald J. Sobol has died. When I was a kid, I was positively obsessed with his Encyclopedia Brown books... so much so that I would re-read them over and over again, even though I already knew how the stories would end. I pretty much had to, because there were less than a dozen of them at the time. I also remember reading Sobol's Two-Minute Mysteries, but I think there were only two of those books.
Even after outgrowing Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, I would still revisit the books on occasion... like when I saw them in the library or something. I think the last one I read was just two years ago. Because they're just that entertaining...
And orange. So very, very orange.
The drive back home this morning was relatively uneventful.
If you discount all the screaming I did when people were driving in the passing lane... WHILE DRIVING TEN MILES UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT WITHOUT PASSING ANYBODY! Could not possibly explain in mere words how badly that pisses me off.
What I need now is a chocolate chip cookie...
It is really thundering out there. Here's hoping the walls stay standing.
And so the final rushes for THRICE Fiction No. 5 have been sent off to the Editor in Chief. Once RW has had a chance to approve everything, I'll start running out all the various files needed to unleash our fifth issue on the world.
This has been a rougher ride to completion than usual thanks to a bug with Adobe InDesign on my new MacBook. I ended up losing a full week of work-time while I was in Nassau and Atlanta, so... instead of being able to get ahead while I was traveling, I ended up getting way behind.
It's always something.
And right now... it's lightning and rain to go along with the thunder...
Gotta love a summer storm.
I love LEGO. I love comic books. I love video games. And I really, really love Batman. So when you find something that combines all these wonderful things into a single product, you'd pretty much assume that it was the most awesome thing every made. You'd almost be correct.
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time, LEGO Batman: The Videogame. Unsurprisingly, the company behind the magic, Traveler's Tales, has attempted to make it a bigger, badder, better sequel in every way. They mostly succeed because of two things... 1) The game is huge, and has the entirety of Gotham City available as an open-world zone, and 2) Batman & Robin are joined by a bunch of other heroes from throughout the DC Universe. The end-result is far from perfect, but so much fun that it's easy to overlook the flaws...
And speaking of flaws, I might as well get the bad news out of the way...
First of all, there isn't much new here. If you've played the LEGO Star Wars games, LEGO Indiana Jones games, LEGO Harry Potter games, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean games, or the previous LEGO Batman... you've played this. But you already knew that would be the case.
Secondly, the "driving" levels are still just as pointless, shitty, and impossible to control as ever. Why Traveler's Tales ignores the criticism from, well, everybody, when it comes to the sloppy controls, redundant gameplay, and overall frustration on every LEGO driving game they've made is a complete mystery to me.
Third, the new "open-world" that allows you to explore a sprawling Gotham City is a fantastic addition to the game (especially when you are flying above it all as Superman!)... but navigating it is a hellish ordeal because there's no HUD or mini-map or decent navigation tool to help you get around. I have no clue whatsoever as to why Traveler's Tales ignored this basic video game staple, but it's an oversight that seriously undermines the fun to be had.
Putting all that aside, there's some new stuff that's kind of cool...
In addition to the "open-world" that I can't shut up about, Batman and Robin each get a new specialty suits, which is always cool, but the addition of characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, and others, mix up the game even more. That's beyond cool.
As expected, the stories are funny, the visuals are fantastic, the levels are nicely designed, and the puzzles are really well done. What was unexpected was the characters talk! No longer reduced to pantomime for communication, the LEGO mini-figs have entirely new appeal now that they can actually talk. Bonus? The voice talent they got was perfect.
But the biggest improvement? I didn't find myself falling off things nearly as often as I did in previous LEGO video games. I still have nightmares of dying again and again and again as I tried to jump from platform to stupid platform with the insane precision required in LEGO Star Wars, so this is a welcome relief.
Everything else is pretty much more of the same as all the other LEGO games. Team-play is still available so you and a friend can battle together. You still have to button-mash your way through redundant combat as you solve puzzles. You still have to collect LEGO studs, red bricks, gold bricks, and other stuff so you can unlock characters and features. You still can't really die. And once you finish all the levels, you still have untold hours of gameplay left as you obsess over collecting every last prize and achievement to be found by replaying levels as different characters.
Needless to say, I love it.
Next up? LEGO Lord of the Rings... I can't possibly imagine how awesome that game will be.
Unusually humid and 90° Fahrenheit with more thunderstorms on the way?
Not my favorite weather.
And so another episode of THRICE Fiction has been put to bed. This issue has some amazing stuff in it, arrives wrapped in a beautiful cover by Kyra Wilson, and it's absolutely FREE to download, so what are you waiting for? Head on over to our official site and grab a copy!
As I was on a conference call this morning, I took the time to write up some "Art Director Notes" which discusses my thinking behind all the visuals that are in this issue. If you're interested in that kind of thing, I've put it all in an extended entry. Needless to say, SPOILERS abound, so you might want to go read the issue before you click through...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Much to my shock, The Local Strangers... a band I actually like, took the time to stop by my little corner of Redneckistan to play a show. Things like this doesn't happen here very often. Which is not to say that we don't have any good local bands or that no musicians ever come to Wenatchee, far from it, it's just that the stuff I like rarely stops by. I mean, I don't see Matt & Kim or Depeche Mode adding us to their tour plans or anything.
I first heard of The Local Strangers last year when I was working in Seattle. I was hanging out with some friends who decided they wanted to go out. I didn't, but they said there was a really good local band playing, so I had to ask "who are they?" One of my friends Googled the band and said it was Aubrey Zoli... and Matt Hart, who was from Chicago. This rang a bell, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And then something clicked... "Wait... Matt Hart from Chicago... as in Matt Hart from Cobalt and the Hired Guns, Matt Hart? Well this I gotta see."
Cobalt and the Hired Guns is a local Chicago band that a colleague introduced me to when I was working there a while back. He was a big fan, and I ended up catching their show twice. Cobalt is a great band that makes some really fun music (they have a new album out that's worth a listen!), and I became a fan as well.
Turns out it was indeed that Matt Hart, who was now in Seattle making incredible music with the beautiful voice of Aubrey Zoli as The Local Strangers. Who I got to see again tonight...
A really great show from an incredible live band.
Not so long ago, Ms. Sizzle made me aware of a Kickstarter campaign to fund The Local Strangers' first full-length album. I immediately signed on for a Lifetime Membership, and was thrilled when the campaign was successful. Then last night Aubrey and Matt announced a release date of November 9th for the album and I can't wait.
If you want to listen to what the band is all about for FREE, just go to their website and sign up for their email list so they can let you know when they're playing in your area... you'll then get a link to download their two EPs which is a terrific sampling of their music.
Needless to say, if they're performing near you, it's a show well worth checking out.
I don't want to see a world that's so bleak and devoid of color right now.
Fortunately, there are other places to look...
...or so I would imagine.
Put down that beverage... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
Or maybe not. Maybe you should pick up that beverage again and order another. That's what I'm going to do. Right after I edit out all the nastiest bits of this nasty Bullet Sunday in an effort to make it be not-so-nasty. I've had enough nasty for the week.
• Rewarding Failure. Despite being a total Mac Whore, I don't hate Microsoft.
• Unfathomable Stupidity. I've never hid my disgust and loathing of Rush Limbaugh as everything that's wrong with this country. He incites hatred by telling lies to a huge audience who never questions the bullshit he's peddling. This week he hit an all-time low by calling a near-twienty-year-old Batman villain, Bane, a conspiracy by the filmmakers behind The Dark Night Rises to undermine Mitt Romney's presidential bid by reminding people he worked for Bain Capital.
• Darkest Night. The horrible tragedy in Aurora, Colorado is a horrific reminder of the world we live in.
• Chik Chuck. When a successful company proudly announces that they support organizations which fight for inequality, bigotry, and hatred... you kind of have to wonder why they're a successful company.
• Political Animals. Sigourney Weaver is one of my favorite actresses because she's appeared in so many of my favorite movies... Ghostbusters, Galaxy Quest, Alien, Aliens, Dave, Paul, The Cabin in the Woods, and WALL-E
to name a few. So when I heard she was going to be appearing on television(!) in a new show called Political Animals, nothing could keep me from tuning in. And I wasn't disappointed. Such a deliciously good show with a really good cast.
• Two Birds. My favorite email client is called "Sparrow." It is beautifully simple yet very powerful, which is everything you want when it comes to your software. Unfortunately, Sparrow was bought out by Google, who promptly stopped development on the Mac and iPhone apps. While I can't blame the developers for taking the Big Google Payday, I'm still a little bitter about it. Just like Gowalla before them, it seems as though surprisingly little consideration was given to all the customers who got them where they are.
• Michele Bachmann. Surprise surprise. This weeks' installment of bat-shit crazy comes courtesy of the Queen of Bat-Shit Crazy.
Annnnnd... I want a fresh start in a fresh week now.
Yeah!
There's a moment at the end of every episode of the Perry Mason television show where defense attorney Perry has the real killer on the witness stand and starts hammering away with the Horrible Truth of what actually happened. With unrelenting escalation, he details the murderer's dirty deeds step by step and concludes with angry words that lash out at their lies like a bullwhip... "Isn't it true? Isn't it all true?"
Then the murderer breaks down as Perry thunders "I have no more questions! The defense rests!"
I am so sick and frickin' tired of the non-stop LYING that I am being bombarded with in all these damn political attack ads that I'm about ready to vomit.
I honestly feel that every time that a candidate LIES in one of their ads, they should have to defend their bullshit to a Perry-Mason-type-honesty-advocate so he can can get to the truth. Then, after they are exposed as being filthy LIARS, the polticians have to issue a new ad with a full retraction that airs on every channel the lie was told on, and double the number of times that the original LIE had aired.
Maybe with a punishment that severe, all these filthy, disgusting, scumbag, asshole LYING politicians would think twice about running ads they know to be false.
Then we should then move on to doing the same thing for LIES told in interviews and at campaign stops. Every damn time a politician goes somewhere and tells a LIE, they have to go back to that place, apologize, then admit to everybody that they are nothing but a piece of shit LIAR.
Of course, if Perry Mason was chasing down these LYING LIARS, we'd be hip-deep in apology ads well into October.
But, alas, there don't seem to be any consequences for being a douchebag LIAR politician, so I guess that's what we're stuck with from here on out. Oh happy day.
UPDATE! And here, two days later, is exactly what I was talking about...
Genius. And right on the money.
I worked from the moment I got up at 7:00am to this very minute where I've climbed into bed at midnight. I am so hopelessly behind that I should be working still, but there's a limit as to how long you can stare at a computer screen without going crazy. Though I did take off a half-hour for dinner and an hour to go Gold Brick hunting in LEGO Batman 2... so there's that. I probably shouldn't have wasted time with a video game, but flying around Gotham City as little LEGO Superman is too amazing to pass up...
And every time you take off for the sky, that brilliant John Williams theme song from Superman: The Movie starts playing, which is awesome in twenty different directions.
Here's hoping LEGO Batman 3 is not far off, because it will be very interesting to see how they plan on topping this game.
And now I should probably at least try and get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another insane day.
My first three installs of Apple's latest OS X update, code-named Mountain Lion, went off without a hitch.
But the fourth time was not a charm, and so now my iMac is randomly crashing then rebooting every half-hour or so. Needless to say, I'm thrilled. Turning off everything I've got installed (even if it works fine on my other Mountain Lion Macs) didn't help. A clean install didn't help either. So now I'm wondering if it's a firmware update I missed, but nothing is showing up for that either. Blargh. I really don't have time for this crap...
I guess I need to sacrifice a goat to Steve Jobs or something. This really blows.
And so Apple's latest release of Mac OS X "Mountain Lion" has turned out to be a festering pile of shit. Which I admit is a pretty unfair comparison, because at least I could fertilize the flower bed with the festering pile of shit and get something beautiful out of it. With "Mountain Lion" it's just misery on top of misery, making this the first OS upgrade in the history of Apple Computer that I deeply regret having installed. Despite Apple's claim of over "200 more features"... the number of features I'd actually use are incredibly small, making this a pretty much featureless upgrade for me anyway. The fact that it has hopelessly fucked two of the four computers I've installed it on is just icing on the shit cake.
As I mentioned yesterday, my new iMac is randomly crashing and rebooting for no reason I can figure... even with a total re-install. This makes getting work done incredibly stressful, and I find myself saving documents every two minutes just in case. To add insult to injury, waking iMac from sleep is horrible because the whole computer is lethargic and non-responsive. It's faster to shut down completely and start cold than even attempt putting the thing asleep. This is opposite of Mountain Lion on my MacBook, which wakes faster than ever. My older Mac is only half-working, sometimes acting a little schizo when it's asked to do something. On top of that, USB dongles, USB ethernet adapters, Samba networking, and a half-dozen other things I rely on are either not working at all... or only partly working... which is a huge bummer.
But, on Macs that ARE working properly, how has Apple done? Well, let's walk through Apple's big "feature list" shall we?
Apple's big catch phrase has been "It just works" and, for the most part, this is very true. Especially compared to Windows which mostly doesn't work and causes me overwhelming dread every time I have to walk over to use it. "I wonder what's going to go wrong this time?" I always say. But Apple has finally caught up to Microsoft because iCloud most definitely does not "just work." For one thing, it is actually lacking features of the iSync service it replaced! Want to sync your Keychain between all your Macs? Tough shit! You can't! And that's just the tip of the embarrassment iceberg for Apple, because the list of shit you can't sync with iCloud positively dwarfs what you can actually do with it. I have more apps syncing their stuff through DropBox because iCloud doesn't/can't/won't work for them. Even worse? It doesn't work for Apple either. You're supposed to be able to sync Notes and Reminders across all your Apple devices. Despite playing around for hours trying to make this happen, it doesn't work At least not completely. Some notes are just... gone... and even deleting them and recreating them does nothing to bring them into the iCloud so they can sync. Which is only half the problem, because one of my four Macs won't sync notes at all for reasons completely unknown. I have "Notes" checked to sync in iCloud, so what in the hell else is there for me to do?
This is amateur hour stuff, and if a Certified Apple Whore like me can't figure it out, what hope do everyday users have?
This is that on "killer feature" that was supposed to make Mountain Lion worth my trouble. But it has been the single most frustrating problem that I have yet to solve. Now, to be fair, a big part of what's going to make iMessage so compelling won't happen until Apple released iOS 6 this Fall... namely, tying your phone number to your iMessage account so you can actually get your iMessages on your Mac. Because right now, iMessages sent to your phone only go to your phone. In order to get your messages anywhere, you have to ask people to iMessage your Apple ID, which is pretty useless. If iMessage is going to take the place of texting, this is a critical piece of the puzzle. BUT ANYWAY... I was still looking forward to at least initiating iMessage conversations on my Mac. That way, when somebody replies, they're replying to your Apple ID and everything works as you want. Except... IT DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. Messages is just an epic pile of FAIL! that I fucking hate with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Because in order to get people to REPLY to your Apple ID, you have to actually be able to USE your Apple ID email. And, for reasons that make ZERO sense, it won't work on all my Macs.
Right now I am sitting here at my new iMac with my new MacBook Pro Retina next to it. They are running the same Mountain Lion OS. They are on the exact same network. They are plugged into the exact same router. They are set up the exact same. They are, in essence, the same damn computer. And yet... the MacBook will accept my Apple ID email address. My iMac won't accept it. No fucking clue why. But here it is...
Now, seriously, what the bloody fuck? I can sign into my iCloud account with my Apple ID email address on this machine with no problem... but when it comes to verifying the same damn address for use with Messages, you can't do it?!? WHY?!?? IT'S MY FUCKING APPLE ID, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!! And of course the address works fine on three other Macs, two iPhones, and an iPad, so I don't even know what to say here. Except that since I cannot set my "Caller ID" to be my Apple ID, Messages isn't going to work worth a shit for me and I might as well just use my iPhone for messaging.
Now, this is one of those little "extras" that's just mind-bogglingly cool. Basically, even after you put it to sleep, your Mac will still be working for you... checking email, syncing contacts and documents, even downloading software updates if you're plugged into a power source. So very smart. Or so I would imagine. My brand new iMac doesn't support it. My brand new MacBook Pro Retina does... but not yet, because the Firmware Update isn't available...
Something to look forward to, I guess.
UPDATE: That was quick. The MacBook Pro Retina firmware update was released on July 28th, so now I have the option of enabling Power Nap on my laptop.
Siri, Apple's "voice activated assistant" is a mixed bag that people either love or hate. Personally, I love Siri on my iPhone. It is an amazing tool that allows me to accomplish a heck of a lot with very little effort. Being able to say something like "Remind me to call Ronald McDonald in an hour"... and then have Siri ACTUALLY DO IT is a kind of magic that fulfills the promise of technology. And Apple keeps making Siri better and more accurate, so I have little doubt that within five years it will be a primary way that people interact with their Apple products. But right now it's still a bit rocky. And while iPhone gets the full "Siri Experience," Apple is moving their Macs into that realm with baby steps. Namely, "Dictation" which will take what you say and type it into words. The good news? For me at least, it's shockingly accurate. The bad news? It only works for snippets of text and you have to have a live internet connection... so no dictating your 500 page novel while on the beach. The worse news? "Dictation" is completely brain dead compared to "Siri" when it comes to actually typing out shit.
Here's a line of text dictated to Siri on my iPhone...
I am dictating a love letter to Taco Bell right now.
Here's that same line dictated to Dictation on my Mac...
I am dictating a love letter to cap taco cap bell right now.
I guess when working on a Mac, Apple thinks you'll never need to capitalize a word? Oh well... at least Dictation does seem to understand "period" and "question mark" so at least you can kinda type sentences.
Now, at first blush, this would seem an awesome idea. Any app can add a "share" button to automatically send some content to a specific app for further handling. For example, click the "Share" button in Apple's "Safari" web browser, and you're given options to add the page to your Reading List or Bookmarks... or email it... or send it as an iMessage... or even Tweet about it...
But there are some problems. First of all, you're only sharing a link to the page... which is fine for Twitter and such... but what if I want to email the actual page?? Well, you can't share that. There's no option to output a PDF or screen cap of the website and send it that way. You're restricted as to what Apple wants you to do instead of what you want to do. But it gets worse... you can only "share" with apps that Apple allows. If I wanted to "share" a link to that website with my blogging app, for example, I can't do that with the "share" button in any way. There's no global registry for apps to tell Mountain Lion what data they can handle, so Mountain Lion doesn't share unless Apple says it can. This is just a hopelessly flawed approach that I'm hoping Apple will fix very soon.
UPDATE: Oddly enough, other apps, like "Reeder" (my web feed reader) DO allow sharing with other apps... including my blogging app. I am guessing that this is something specifically coded into Reeder, so having some kind of global registry that works universally is still important.
No longer having to open a web browser every time you want to update your Facebook status? Great! But... oh... no... wait a second... Mountain Lion can't do that. The feature is listed as "Coming this Fall." Well how stupid. Why advertise it as a feature NOW if it's MONTHS away? You could say that about anything! "Mountain Lion will wipe your ass after you shit... coming August, 2027!" One thing I love about Apple is that they don't deal in vaporware. Most everything they announce is available that day... or very shortly after. This is a return to bad form and should have never been announced as a Mountain Lion feature. Just add it later when its ready and let people be thrilled to get a new tool. Anything less than that is not Apple.
Gatekeeper is an idea that's long overdue... helping users to be able to trust that a program they download isn't going to ruin their computer or damage their data in some way. And while a lot of times I think Apple goes too far in locking things down, when it comes to "Gatekeeper" I honestly don't think they went far enough. First of all, it's really just a warning device. It doesn't actually do anything to stop malicious code from running on your machine. Second of all, once Gatekeeper lets an app through, it just sits there like a dumb shit waiting for some new app to come along. Even if Apple finds out that an app contains a raging virus that will delete everything on your computer, Gatekeeper will only warn you if you try to re-install it... it won't in any way warn you that you've got a problem already installed. This is insanity. At the very least Gatekeeper should monitor the apps on your Mac and be able to alert you if one of them has been found to contain a problem! Oh well. At least the technology has been given a name that reflects its shortcomings. As for me, I'm waiting for fucking DungeonMaster to come along and watch more than just the gate.
Web browser competition is some serious shit. Every company wants to control your portal to the internets, and Apple is no different. Safari was developed specifically to counter the dominance of Microsoft's crappy Internet Explorer browser and, on Macs and iPhones at least, it has been working. But there's always a better browser being built, so you can't really rest on your laurels or savvy internet users will leave you behind. Apple knows this, so they've always been improving Safari so people won't move on to Google Chrome or whatever the flavor of the day is. With Mountain Lion, Apple takes a couple steps it should have taken a long time ago... #1 would be offline browsing. Nothing pisses me off faster than loading a web page to read, getting interrupted for boarding a plane with no WiFi, then opening my laptop to find that Safari has stupidly erased the page and is trying to reload it. Whomever made that fucking stupid decision should be punched in the face. #2 would be a unified address bar/search box. Having them be two separate fields for so long is an affront to the simplicity that Apple is supposed to be all about. So, bravo Apple for fixing two problems you really needed to fix.
But all is not wine and roses for Safari. Unfortunately, it remains one of the stupidest fucking browsers on the planet. And I don't mean "stupid" in that the whole app is bad... I mean "stupid" in that the whole app is ragingly unintelligent. A big example of this is something called "data detectors" and it used to be something Apple was really good at. Now? Not so much.
Let's take addresses, for example. If you get an email with an address in it, Mail will kindly detect this and allow you to add it to your Contacts (address book). Safari, on the other hand, doesn't know what the fuck it is, and just throws a kitchen sink's worth of crap at you when you right-click on it...
Now, you may look at this and say "Hey! You're WRONG! Apple has an option to look up that address in Google Maps, so it DOES know it's an address after all!" — And you would be right. Except not really. Because if Safari actually did recognize it as an address, I'd be able to add it to my Contacts (address book), which it doesn't. Nope... I have to copy and paste it. Except not really. Because Contacts is just as fucking brain-dead as Safari is... AND IT'S SOLE FUNCTION IS TO HANDLE ADDRESSES! Try pasting that as an address into Contacts and it fails miserably. Instead, you have to copy the street, paste the street... copy the city, paste the city... copy the zip, paste the zip... copy the phone number, paste the phone number... which is just a huge waste of time when Safari should be able to handle all this automatically like Mail does. And that's just one example of many I could give. Apple needs to do more than just fix problems they should have fixed a long time ago... they need to make Safari much, much smarter. Otherwise, they're just going to be left behind.
As for the other features on the list? Well, Twitter integration is pretty basic (you can post and receive mention notifications only), but works as advertised. AirPlay works great with AppleTV... just like it does from iPad/iPhone... but I'll rarely use that. GameCenter and new "China Features" I won't be using at all (I have a Wii and Xbox for gaming and don't speak or read Chinese).
So... all in all... Mountain Lion has been a massive disappointment. Coming from an unapologetic Apple Whore such as myself, that's saying quite a lot. It would be easy to pin this on the fact that Steve Jobs is gone, but I think the problem is much bigger. Apple's main focus is no longer Macintosh. Sure the division makes them a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the revenue generated by the whole iPhone & iPad phenomena, so that's where they concentrate their efforts. And if this sad, bad, and wholly disappointing update to their Mac OS is a sign of things to come, then Apple needs to take drastic action... perhaps as drastic as splitting the company apart... for the Mac to survive. Because Microsoft is just aching to steal the computer spotlight from Apple, and their latest Windows 8 OS offering looks like they're taking a serious shot at doing just that. This is something Apple simply cannot afford, because there's no Steve Jobs to bring them back next time.
And with that happy thought, I am actually worrying about Macintosh again for the first time in a decade.
Now that Mountain Lion has been more of a whimper than a roar and there's no more Big Cats for Apple to label their OS with... what's next? Hopefully an animal that's much bigger and badder than a Lion, but I have no idea what that might be.
Insert Honey Badger joke here.
What a horrible day.
Never have so many disappointed so thoroughly in so little time.
Guess I'm going to tune into the Olympic Games opening ceremonies and be done with it.
To all Olympiads from all nations all over the world, best of luck in your competitions!
And to London, one of my favorite cities on earth, thank you for hosting what is most certainly going to be a wonderful event (DANNY BOYLE?!?). It could not have been easy to find the finances during such trying economic times, but Britain Will Prevail... and God Save The Queen!
Friday, February 12, 2010. 7:20pm.
"So... for the first time in a very long time, those of us living on the West Coast of these United States of America are in the SAME TIME ZONE as the Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Finally, we get to watch events LIVE and see competition outcomes AS THEY HAPPEN. How cool that we won't have medal results spoiled on the internet hours... or even days... before we get to actually see them taking place! Sweet!"
— David Simmer II, getting ready to watch the last Winter Olympics
Friday, February 12, 2010. 7:35pm.
"FUCK YOU, NBC! FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!"
— David Simmer II, after realizing NBC time-delayed their Pacific Coast broadcast anyway
Saturday, July 28, 2012. 12:05am.
I am not a huge sports fan, but I admit to being a fan of the Olympic Games because there's just something wonderful about the way the world comes together to participate in them. And nowhere is this more evident than the Opening Ceremonies, where all the athletes are full of hope and dreaming of gold.
This year the task of planning the start of the games fell to one of my favorite directors, Danny Boyle, who is responsible for one of my favorite movies, Millions. He had the daunting task of following China's widely-praised and celebrated Opening Ceremonies, which would be enough to break most men. But Boyle decided that since nobody would expect him to top China's spectacle, he would just "do his own thing" and try to entertain people.
And entertain people he did.
The show was a wholly bizarre affair, but not in a bad way. I actually really enjoyed it. So congratulations, Mr. Boyle, on rising to the occasion with creativity and wonderment.
AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool
And congratulations to NBC for fully living up to expectations and CRAPPING ALL OVER THE OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONIES WITH YOUR HORRENDOUSLY SHITTY COVERAGE!
I'm guessing the rest of the world's news organizations paid proper respect to the ceremonies and covered the opening in a dignified and complete presentation. This was not, of course, the way that NBC decided to go. "Dignified" and "Complete" are just not words that enter into their fucking heads.
No, we Americans go to see a butchered presentation that was fucking time-delayed (again) then interrupted by constant commercial breaks and laughably bad commentary from Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and (heaven help us) Bob Costas. The commentary was so bad that I wanted to turn the sound off, but then I would have missed out on the music, which was excellent. Except I couldn't really enjoy it because Lauer, Vieira, and Costas kept TALKING OVER IT ALL! And this brings me to the big question... WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?!?? I realize that your typical American television audience is about as intelligent as a box of rocks, but do they really need to be talked through a performance? And if you simply must open your stupid fucking mouths, did you really have to shit all over the spirit of the games by pointing out embarrassing, controversial, or otherwise derogatory things about the participating countries? What assholes.
And here I thought the pre-show interview where Bob Costas Ryan Seacrest embarrassed one of the gymnasts over her love of Justin Beiber was going to be the lowlight of the evening. Not even close. First Mitt Romney humiliates the USA with his non-stop parade of stupid fucking comments... then, because we haven't insulted the Brits enough, we decimate their Opening Ceremonies with NBC's profoundly bad coverage. But why stop there? Let's insult the whole world during the Parade of Nations! USA! USA! USA!
I realize that NBC has to pay the bills with advertising and be sure to pander to the lowest common denominator of their viewers... but that in NO WAY excuses what American Olympic fans had to suffer through tonight.
Saturday, July 28, 2010. 12:20am.
"FUCK YOU, NBC! FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!"
— David Simmer II, realizing nothing has changed since last time
Time to put down that Olympic remote... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Negative. When it comes to living in the USA, I cannot help but question the society we have evolved into when there's this incessant need to tear people down. This was made very clear to me as I watched NBC's continuing shitty time-delayed coverage of the Olympic games yesterday. Ryan Lochte had just won the gold in a swimming event with a very impressive performance. But this wasn't the focus of the coverage. The focus was on how Lochte had just "delivered a beating" to reigning Olympic champion Michael Phelps, who came in fourth. Once I heard this "beating" mentioned for a third time, I had to turn the channel.
Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images
Just four years ago, Michael Phelps won 8 out of 8 gold medals in the 29th Olympic Games in China. He was America's pride and joy and the media couldn't gush with praise often enough or fast enough for "the greatest swimmer of all time." And now? The media is using those 8 medals around his neck to strangle the guy by pointing out what a disappointment he is for not getting another medal. And, putting aside how crappy it is that they are so horrible to Michael Phelps... how shitty is it that this is how Ryan Lochte's friends and family watching at home get to experience his moment of triumph?
And why? Why? Why? Why? How hard would it be to say "Congratulations to Ryan Lochte for winning the gold, and way to go Michael Phelps for a terrific effort in snagging fourth place!" Because, seriously, even putting aside his Olympic championship status... out of all the athletes from around the frickin' WORLD, Phelps came in fourth! That's still an amazing achievement. And what the hell have you done lately?
But this, apparently, is not what the American public wants to see or hear. They want Michael Phelps humbled and humiliated. Building somebody up is great, but tearing them down is better. Yes, it's surprising that Phelps didn't medal. Shocking even. So say it's surprising and shocking... don't "give a beating" to somebody who trained hard and did their best. Even if it is somebody as accomplished as Michael Phelps, who still has a bunch of Olympic medals back home.
• Clarkson. And, speaking of tearing somebody down, this happened on Twitter...
Now, as a massively huge fan of Top Gear, I should post a disclaimer which says that I am a massively huge fan of Jeremy Clarkson. He's a total bastard in the best possible way, and one of the most entertaining television personalities ever.
So when he tells Mitt Romney to "fuck off" it would be easy to write this off as Jeremy Clarkson being Jeremy Clarkson. Except... Mitt Romney made a disastrous visit to the UK where he pretty much had his head up his ass the entire time. First he tells London that he didn't think they were ready to host the Olympics and questioned whether the Brits can "come together" and celebrate the games properly... then a quote from his book No Apology was widely circulated in the UK press: "England is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions." Nice. Not only does he show he's fucking ignorant about the country ("England" is not an island. "Great Britain" is an island that includes the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales) he seems to think the way to make the United States look good is to put other countries down. What an asshole.
So yeah, tear somebody down and you deserve to get torn down in return. I guess that works.
• Hey Jude. And speaking of something that England produced that nobody wants...
In my alternative history fantasy world, the Beatles reunited for the first time in 42 years to perform at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
As happy as I was to see Sir Paul McCartney close out the Opening Ceremonies... the mega-Beatles-fan in me will always want more...
• BILL! BILL! BILL! There's a funny YouTube video making the rounds called Mr. Wizard's a Dick! that compiles a bunch of snippets from the 1983 revival of Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert's television show which shows him...uhhhh... being a dick...
I was never much a fan of Mr. Wizard, but I was a big fan of Bill Nye The Science Guy. And now there's hope that he might start making new episodes of his awesome science show straight from the horse's mouth via Reddit...
Yeah, I really should be too old for a children's science program... but I would totally watch that show.
• Rotten. Let's recap my recent experiences with Apple, shall we?
So, basically, over the past week I've had more horribly bad experiences with Apple than I have had over the past 35 years. This hurts. It physically hurts me.
And now... time to see if I can un-brick an iMac...
Well that sucked.
A part of me is wanting to say that I need a do-over. But who in the hell wants to repeat a Monday?
So I will just go to bed and hope for a much better tomorrow.
For the past two hours I've been trying to schedule the things I want to do in-between the things I have to do... and failing miserably. There aren't enough hours in the day. There aren't enough days in the month. This is a problem that only massive sums of money could ever fix (nothing opens doors and makes things possible like a wad of cash)... but, alas, I only have $23.00 to my name just now.
Ah to be obscenely wealthy! I'd love to have unlimited piles of money to throw at problems so they go away.
On an entirely unrelated subject... I was watching the Olympics on television when Mitt & Ann Romney came up because their horse, Rafalca, will be competing in "dressage" later this week. I don't know much about the sport except it looks like a hideous amount of training is involved to get the horsey to trot around in exactly a certain way like that.
But putting my lack of "dressage" knowledge aside, watching the news had me dead-curious to know how the Romneys managed to get Rafalca to London. I mean, seriously, it's not like they just walked the horse onto the plane and plopped him down in a First Class seat between them... something seriously crazy has to be involved in flying horses across the Atlantic. And what about jet lag? Do horses get jet lag?
This burning curiosity resulted in my Googling all kinds of crap about horse transport.
Apparently, horseys are put into special "stall containers," then loaded on a cargo plane which has a horse-care specialist onboard. Owners can choose from "economy" (three horses to a stall) or "business class" (two horses to a stall)... but I suppose since cost is no object to Mitt, he could insist on a private stall if Rafalca doesn't play well with others. In any event, the horses are well cared for on their journey, getting plenty of hay and water as needed. No mention was made on what they do with all the horse doo-doo and pee-pee to keep the plane from stinking, but I'd imagine it involved giant pairs of Depends made especially for horses...
Oh... and in case you're curious, horses can get jet lag... but it's often not nearly as serious a condition as humans can get.
Since I don't get jet lag much either, I guess that makes two parts of me that are horse-like now.
With apologies to Nathan Adrian and everybody else in these United States, I was not rooting for us to take the gold in the 100-meter Olympic freestyle competition. Not that I am unhappy he won... far from it... many happy congratulations to Adrian and Team USA. It's just that I had a different favorite for winning the race.
Two months before I landed in Sydney last September, James "The Missile" Magnussen had become the 100m Freestyle World Champion at the FINA competition in Shanghai. This made him a very popular fixture in the world of Australian sports, and a lot of predictions for Olympic gold were already being talked up...
James Magnussen World Champion 2011, Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images AsiaPac
One evening while re-packing my suitcase (in Cairns, I think?) with the television on, I caught some kind of documentary/interview with the guy, and he was everything you'd want a world champion to be... kind and generous with his words, brilliant in his skills, and extremely confident in his abilities.
But the thing that struck me most is how it was repeatedly stressed that he was the best hope for the Aussies bringing home 100m Freestyle gold, which hadn't happened since Michael Wenden won it 1968. Not even the "invincible" Ian "The Thorpedo" Thorpe could manage it in 2004.
That's when I stopped packing for a minute, and tried to fathom how a 20-year-old guy could sit there with the hopes of an entire country heaped on his shoulders and not crumble on the spot.
How does one even deal with that being in their head?
And so I wanted James Magnussen to win gold, just so the lofty expectations set for him... and by him... would be fulfilled and maybe he could have a short time without all the pressure he usually has to endure.
Unfortunately Team Australia didn't medal in the Freestyle Relay earlier and, even more unfortunately, Magnussen didn't get a gold medal in the 100m Freestyle tonight. He lost to American Nathan Adrian by one-one-hundredths of a second...
So now I was even more worried for the poor guy. He missed his dream by - literally - less time than it takes to blink an eye. Though shattered, he was taking it as well as one could expect... "It hurts. I did my best tonight and and it was not quite good enough. To lose by that amount stings but I've had a lot of great support the last few days from people from back in Australia."
I hope so.
He's young and he'll be back in 2016 at the height of his game (and with Olympic experience!), so that'll be something to look forward to...
In the meanwhile, the press is having a field-day with tearing Magnussen down, just as Phelps before him. If I have to read one more "The Missile was a Dud" headline I'm going to scream. The guy is still a World Champion swimmer. He has a silver medal from the Olympic Games. If that makes him a dud, then the rest of the world might as well give up right now.
As for me? I'm just going to get some sleep.
"Get used to disappointment."
—The Man in Black
No matter how many friends you have... no matter how large your family... no matter how hard you work to build relationships with everybody... the number of people you can actually count on when the chips are down is almost always shockingly small.
Fortunately, I am not speaking from personal experience, but am merely an observer of a situation that's driving me insane. Everybody who should be jumping in to help just... aren't... for some reason. Which means somebody is being left to twist in the wind all alone who deserves much better.
I am far too removed from things to jump in.
And yet I did so anyway, sending a small gift with a note that said "Hear you're in a tough spot. Keep your head up and don't let the bastards get you down."
Today I got a reply which was filled with heart-felt thanks... and an interesting perspective on the situation.
"When you're on the rise you're happy to have friends who can share in your success. But a part of you knows the day will come when you stop rising and start falling. What you don't know is how many of your friends will choose to share the ride back down. Those are the true friends you know you can count on no matter what. I never expected that I would end up having no true friends."
It's enough to make you want to jump out a window. But then he mentioned that he's finding new friends he didn't even know he had, which has made an otherwise horrible experience somehow liberating.
We should all be so unfortunate.
And by "unfortunate," I mean "lucky."
Because you never know when your liberation is at hand...
Watching these Games of the XXX Olympiad in London as I have been, it's been pretty easy to overestimate how much of the world I've seen. Every time a medal is won, I'm running through a list in my head and going check, check, check, as I mentally mark off all the countries I have visited.
But then I start thinking of how American television is obviously going to show mostly American competitions. And how the majority of those competitions seem to be won by the same handful of nations over and over again. Which led to me wonder exactly how much of the world's countries I've actually seen.
Turns out... not a lot...
See my map or create your own by visiting TravBuddies!
Not even a quarter of them. Even so, 22% is nothing to sneeze at, and I feel extremely lucky and fortunate that I've been able to see as much as I have. And yet... there's something discouraging about knowing how, in the grand scheme of things, I've made such a small dent in a big world.
To make myself feel better, I went back to the Olympic medal-count winners' list and checked off the countries I've visited for the top ten nations...
Sweet! 70% is totally more like it!
But how about on a list of all the medal-winning countries (so far)?
Hmmm... 27 out of 52 would be 52%... not bad at all. That's putting a pretty good dent in the world!
But, so long as we're making country lists, my favorite would have to be the countries represented by pavilions at Walt Disney World's EPCOT World Showcase...
91%... how awesome is that? Using this list means I've almost seen the entire World (Showcase), and can probably see all the countries in the entire World (Showcase) in my lifetime!
And now we return you to our regularly-scheduled Olympic broadcast.
Unless you're watching on US television, in which case NBC will return you in 12 hours or so.
Yesterday morning I went out to my car only to see a cricket perched on my rear door. Worried that he'd be leaving his cricket family and his cricket friends if he went with me to work, I tapped near him so he'd move. He didn't budge. I blew on him so that he'd jump off, but he just got irritated and turned away. So I poked him gently thinking that would do the trick, but he just took a couple steps and re-planted himself. Apparently, he was dead-set against leaving. I thought surely getting in my car and slamming the front door would convince him to bail, but no. "Okay then, little buddy, I guess you're taking a trip downtown."
The drive is only five minutes, but it seemed a lot longer because I was always checking on my passenger in my rear-view mirror. Surprisingly, he hung in there all the way to work and was still clinging to my car when I exited it. So I pulled out my iPhone to take his picture, and that's when he decided to jump off.
Of course. They always move just as you go to take a photo. Why didn't I think of that to begin with?
My guess is that he caught his cricket girlfriend cheating on him and just couldn't bear to be around her neighborhood one damn minute longer. Perhaps he thought a change of scenery would do him some good, and my car was the fastest way to get out of Dodge. No wonder he was so determined.
In any event, I hope he's happy in his new home. There's a tiny park across the street, so maybe that's where he ended up. Maybe he'll find himself a new cricket girlfriend and live happily ever after.
There are times I think I'd like to jump on a car passing through town and set sail for a change of scenery myself.
But I get bored on long car trips.
Guess I'll look at the television for a while and see where that gets me.
Stop your melting and embrace the heatwave... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Heat. I wasn't kidding. It was so hot today that the air conditioner couldn't keep up. Which means that even with the unit on MAX COOL and turned to COLDEST it was still like a sauna in my home all day. Even now the temperature is 100° outside... and it's 5:30 at night! Unless you live in the San Francisco Bay area, looks it's going to be another scorcher tomorrow...
Not a good day to be living in the pink.
• Landing. As I have written before, I have a terrible tendency to attribute human qualities to inanimate objects. Especially robots. It's always been a problem but, after watching WALL-E, I'm pretty much a hopeless case for looking a little robots as something more than "just machines." I was a wreck when I heard that the Mars Rover, Spirit was stuck and couldn't move around the Martian landscape any more. All I could picture was a little robot trapped and all alone far from home...
So, as you can well imagine, the impending "drop" of a new Mars Rover named Curiosity is making me pretty nervous. The landing procedure is scary as hell, and I'll be glued to my MacBook tonight to hear if he makes it so I'm not worrying all night...
Damn. Good luck to you, Curiosity!
UDATE: So happy to know he has landed safely and his cameras are operating! Here's hoping everything else is working properly and he can start rolling around Mars soon! WAY TO GO, NASA!
• Fairies. I hate television commercials. Hate them. 99% of the time they are stupid, loud, annoying, and disruptive pieces of crap that make me want to kick in my television screen. Which is why I don't usually watch live television... I record it on my DVR so I can fast-forward through them. But there are rare exceptions. Like Direct TV's series of "Football Fairies" commercials starring Deion Sanders and Eli Manning. Really smart, well-done, and funny as hell...
Genius. If all commercials were this entertaining, I wouldn't want to fast-forward through them. On top of that, this commercial makes me wish I could have Direct TV. I hope the agency that came up with this is getting some serious bank for their efforts.
• Album. The initial reviews for Linkin Park's fifth album, Living Things, weren't very positive, so I held off buying it until I had a chance to give it a listen. I was not a big fan of their previous effort, A Thousand Suns, which made me hesitant to rush out and buy something new...
And then I caught the video for BURN IT DOWN and liked what I heard...
Then I was finally compelled to buy it after previewing the tracks on iTunes Music Store. Turns out I really like it. It's kind of a return to classic Linkin Park via a new kind of 80's-influenced sound direction. If you're an LP fan scared off by the bad reviews, I recommend giving it a listen. Even though every track title is SHOUTING AT YOU IN ALL-CAPS, it's a really good album.
• New New 52. Last year DC Comics cancelled all of their comic books and rebooted their "Universe" to start over from scratch with the "New 52"... so named for the 52 comic titles they released at launch. Overall, I consider it to be a success. I'm still reading 18 of the titles, which is more comics than I've been reading in a long time. Eventually, some of the books were canceled due to low sales (including OMAC, which I loved) and replaced with new books. The two most interesting involve Earth-2, an old "alternate earth" concept that DC abandoned back in 1985...
Surprisingly, World's Finest and Earth-2 were immediately put on my "Top 10 Must-Reads" list... and World's Finest (Starring The Huntress and Power Girl) is vying for the #1 spot. It's just great comic book fun! I love the writing (by Paul Levitz), and it features two of my favorite artists, (George Peréz on the "current" story thread, and Kevin Maguire on the "flashback" story thread). If you're a fan of all those great comic team books from the 80's, before everything took a turn towards being all dark and all gritty and all confusing all the time...I highly recommend giving these two titles a look!
Annnnnd... it's 9:30pm and just one hour until Curiosity starts his seven-minute descent. Now I'm wondering if I can bear to listen to the broadcast...
Going to be in Portland, Oregon this Saturday?
If so, then be sure to drop by the THRICE Fiction table at the Portland Zine Symposium from 10:00am until 5:00pm at Refuge on 116 SE Yamhill. Admission is free, and I will be there representing the magazine and selling copies of our new THRICE Fiction 2011 Black & White Annual for just $7... over half-off the $14.95 retail.
It's pretty...
Copies are limited to how many I can fit in my backpack, so show up early if you want one!
Or just stop by and say "hi" to me even if you don't want one!
NOTE: I will be at the show SATURDAY ONLY! If you show up on Sunday, I won't be there. I'll be wandering aimlessly around Portland on a Voodoo Doughnut sugar high.
Back in April, I wrote about a Kickstarter project that I desperately wanted funded...
"The holy grail for Stanley Kubrick fans (outside his movies, obviously) is a copy of a book called Full Metal Jacket Diary by Matthew Modine, who was an actor in the film. The reason it's such a big deal is twofold...
I was over the moon when the project was successfully funded.
Today the app was finally released. And it doesn't suck...
The menu system is fantastic, and disappears when not needed.
The photos change as you scroll the text, which you can have author/actor Matthew Modine read to you.
All the amazing photos have been scanned at hi-resolution and can be zoomed in on at any time.
On the contrary, it is a stunning app. Not only do you get the entirety of the original diary book, but you get complete audio narration by author Matthew Modine. All of which means nothing if the app is bad and hard to use... but it isn't. This project was a labor of love through and through and it shows. Everything is really well thought out... and optimized for Retina Display, which means if looks fantastic.
If you have any interest in film and want some insight into the mind of a true artist of the medium... or you're a fan of Full Metal Jacket... or you're a fan of Kubrick... or you just want to see the kind of apps that iPad was made for... click here to go get a copy. It's just $14.95, and worth every penny.
Since I have never even attended a "zine show" I'm a little nervous about exhibiting at the Portland Zine Symposium this weekend. Part of the problem has to do with a sentence out of the tabling guidelines...
"In order keep the Portland Zine Symposium focused on zines and to maintain the DIY spirit of the Portland Zine Symposium, at least 51% of merchandise at any table must be handmade zines and/or independently published materials."
Sure, THRICE Fiction is independently published... it's just Bob and myself... but we're hardly "Do It Yourself" when it comes to the actual production of the magazine. Digital copies are given away for free, but anything people want to physically purchase is professionally printed. So... the question becomes "Will we be welcomed with our slick printed magazines and books?" or "Will people stop by just to slap me in the face and set our table on fire?"
I honestly don't know.
So last Wednesday I went to Flickr and did a search for Portland Zine Symposium photos.
Oh crap.
It's just table after table of handmade books that looks like they were copied at Kinkos and stapled together in somebody's living room.
So now I've gone from being "a little worried" to being "a lot worried." I considered canceling, but I had already bought a non-refundable airline ticket and spent a lot of money printing a book to sell. "Oh well," I thought. "Guess I'll just show up and hope we're 'indy' enough that I don't get slapped and set on fire."
And then realized I don't want to risk getting slapped, so I decided to hand-make a zine instead (which is something Bob had suggested years ago... go figure).
This was easier said than done, as there wasn't time to hand-draw a new zine from scratch. Not knowing what else to do, I figured I'd just assemble some stuff from my blog and see how that went (which is something else Bob had suggested years ago... go figure). Ultimately I decided to make a zine filled with Bad Monkey cartoons. I figured since everybody loves monkeys, this was my best chance of not getting our table set on fire.
Then I spent the next couple nights cobbling together a zine. Then I ordered a booklet stapler and a stack-cutter. Then I printed copies (in color, because I'm That Guy). Then I spent the next couple nights saddle-stitch stapling everything together. My stack-cutter never showed up, so today I had to go bother a print shop to trim my books for me.
And so now I have a hand-made zine for our table...
To make them seem more "hand-made," I worked hard to get them looking beat up and aged. All the interior pages are yellowed and textured. The cover has wear and tear marks printed on it. Then I took each copy and rubbed it on a gem cutter's cloth to add a little bit of scuff. They're as hand-made as I can get, given the time constraints I'm under...
Overall, the experience of making this zine sucked. And I'm still not 100% convinced that the DaveToons will even make sense out of the context of my blog. Oh well (again).
But... it definitely has me anxious to try making more zines in the future. With more time and less anxiety, it seems like this kind of thing would actually be something fun to do!
In the meanwhile, everybody cross their fingers that my first zine show doesn't end up with my getting slapped and a visit from the fire department...
Portland is a real toss-up when it comes to travel. Driving there from my home is about 5 hours. Flying there is also about 5 hours... once driving to the airport, getting through security, waiting for boarding, flight time, and layovers are factored in. So what to do? Usually it comes down to money. If it's cheaper to drive, I drive. If it turns out it's cheaper to fly, I fly.
This time it was not only cheaper to fly (thanks to a rocking' airfare I found with Alaska Airlines) but I honestly didn't feel like driving for five hours.
Unfortunately my flight was at 6:00am, which means I had to get up at 3:30am. This makes for a very long day.
But a good one.
Eventually.
Because it started off terrible. After checking in with my airport hotel, I took a shuttle to the MAX light rail station. After buying my ticket I went to look at the schedule and saw a poor little moth trapped behind the glass and unable to move...
I tried tapping the glass to try and knock him loose but, even if I got him un-stuck, he'd probably just climb right back up again while trying to find a way out. I then contemplated smashing him to put the poor little guy out of his misery, but couldn't bring myself to do it. Calling the TriMet emergency line was my last option, but something told me they wouldn't rush right out to release a trapped moth. So I left the poor bugger to his fate.
From there I was off to meet fellow bloggers Vahid and Sarah for lunch. Which was at E-San, one of the best Thai restaurants I've eaten at outside of Thailand. I had fried pineapple rice (which they serve in a hollowed-out pineapple half...
It. Was. Awesome.
Then my Portland hosts decided to show off by taking me to Salt and Straw, which is an ice cream parlor SO GOOD that Oprah has it on her "Favorite Things" list. The line ran all the way out the door, which only confirmed that Oprah knows her ice cream...
I had Almond Brittle with Salted Chocolate Ganache mixed with Sea Salt Ice Cream with a Caramel Ribbon. And, yes, you read that right... it's not "salted caramel in ice cream" it's actually SALT-FLAVORED ICE CREAM which happens to have caramel in it. Needless to say... it's pretty damn salty. But also pretty amazing. What's even more amazing than the flavors are the staff... you'd think serving all these rather pretentious and upscale flavors from a hugely popular parlor would give them attitude. But it absolutely doesn't. They are all as nice and fun as can be... happy to let you try flavors and make recommendations so that you're thrilled with your dessert. And I was.
And here's where our day takes an unbelievable turn...
Portland, Oregon is a city so filled with freedom and American spirit... THAT THEY HAVE CUTE GIRLS HANDING OUT FREE HUMMUS ON THE STREET CORNERS! Yes. You read that right. This is NOT a dream. This is NOT an imaginary story. Free. Hummus. FREE HUMMUS ON THE STREET!!
"Is this heaven?"
"No. It's Portland."
Unbelievable!
And then, because only Batman can top free hummus, Vahid and I went to see The Dark Knight Rises...
Loved it.
Not quite as much as The Dark Knight, but it was a very good end to the Nolan-directed Batman series of films. The only negative was that I had completely figured it all out well before the ending. Anybody who religiously follows the comic books would. But... it didn't diminish my enjoyment one bit. Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle (an unnamed Catwoman) totally steals the show. Bane was a much better villain choice than I gave him credit for (thanks to an amazing performance by Tom Hardy)... and Christian Bale once again ruled the cowl in a way no other Batman has ever done. Genius. Here's hoping that whomever takes over the Batman movies will do even half as good a job as Christopher Nolan.
And now... I'm pretty much dead, and tomorrow is going to be a long day.
My day started exactly the way every day should start... with perfect toast.
Vahid (from The Iron Fist and Sarah (from Sarah Joy took me to Milo's City Cafe where, I kid you not, they have a guy whose only job is making perfect toast. He has a pair of wooden tongs that he uses to check your toast, flip your toast, and make sure your toast is toasting evenly to just the right toastiness. It's amazing, and his dedication to awesome toast is epic. He's the Toast Master! And perfect toast is what he does. Given my love of toast, I couldn't have been more impressed. I wanted quite badly to go shake his hand after breakfast was over, but I was too star struck. If only every restaurant took toast this seriously.
And then I was off to the Portland Zine Symposium...
Overall, it was a very nice event... though I'm still not sure that THRICE Fiction was a good fit. The majority of the stuff there was DIY hand-crafted works, and that just isn't us. But, even so, we did pretty good for the day. I originally ordered 40 copies of our new 2011 Black and White Annual, 20 for each day... even though I never expected to actually sell that many. Since I was handing out flyers to let people know that we give our magazine away for free on our website, who would spend money to buy it? But, even after telling people how to get THRICE for free, I still ended up selling 14 copies and trading 7 more. So... worth it, I think.
The only real problem with the event was the heat. It was insanely warm at the venue. At the 2:00 half-way point, I had sold 12 copies. The two remaining copies were sold by 3:30. Which means I did nothing from 3:30 to 6:00. It was just too hot in the afternoon. You could see people coming inside... wandering for a bit... then leaving while fanning themselves before ever getting to my table. Only the most dedicated zine fans stuck it out, but they were the ones least likely to buy a book, as they were after the home-grown DIY stuff.
Stuff like tiny little hand-folded, hand-draw books that a guy was selling for 50¢ each. He made me one with monkeys that he traded for a copy of Bad Monkey Comix, and I love it...
And there was a lot of cool stuff at the show. One of my favorite zine tables was near me and called Everything Waffles, a monthly magazine dedicate to a guy who takes photos of himself with his cat, Waffles. Sounds boring, I know... but these aren't ordinary photos... they're costume photos that are really well done...
"American Pride" (with Waffles) by Justin Schwab
Genius. The guy has videos and a podcast too.
I ended up only booking a table for just the one day instead of two... for which I am now grateful. I don't know that I could survive a second day of non-stop sitting in 100° heat. But I am really glad I came, and seeing all the incredible creativity that people have in creating zines has me really, really interested in creating some of my own.
UPDATE: For everyone who has been asking, YES! I am happy to sell my extra copies of THRICE Fiction 2011 B&W Annual and Bad Monkey Comix. When I get home I'll find out the cheapest way to mail them, then let you know how much it costs. And, of course, I will honor the show prices for the THRICE annual ($7, which is just 5¢ more than I paid for them, so it's a pretty good deal!).
Put away that razor and pull on those socks and Birkenstocks... because Bullet Sunday LIVE from Portland, Oregon starts... now...
• Olympic. I would have paid serious money for Bob Costas and Ryan Seacrest to shut the fuck up during the Olympic Closing Ceremonies. Seriously, nobody wants to hear your inane and unnecessary banter. People who don't already know the artist and/or song being performed, or what the British flag looks like, or when the "comedic part of the show" starts, or whatever... isn't going to give a shit, so just stop because you're pissing off the rest of us that do.
Anyway... the mix of musicians was interesting and the performances were top-notch, so I guess that's all you can really hope for. As an 80's music whore and pop music fan, seeing Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Annie Lennox, Bond, Spice Girls(!), Queen, ELO, and Take That... all in a single event... all with a giant octopusmobile AND ERIC IDLE... was pretty great (alas, no nod to punk?).
Spicey Olympics Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP
So congratulations to London and the U.K. for delivering a big "fuck you" to Mitt Romney by being the perfect host for the games... I'm just sorry that here in the Colonies, NBC felt the need to butcher your event and slap bad commentary over everything while injecting "human interest" stories that (for the most part) were neither human nor interesting. Hopefully we'll have better luck in 2016...
...but I doubt it.
• Rozilla. While I still find the Comedy Central Roasts entertaining, it seems like it's more washed-up celebrity than heavy hitters in comedy any more. I mean, it's Rosanne for Pete's sake...
The opportunity to roast her should have brought out some of the biggest names in comedy. Instead we get Carrie Fisher, Ellen Barkin(?), and Seth Green(?!?). A completely missed opportunity. The surprise appearance by Tom Arnold was (surprisingly) a good thing... and Amy Schumer keeps getting funnier, so I guess there's that. But this pale imitation of the glory days of the Friar's Club Roasts is just kind of sad. If they can't do better than this for somebody like Rosanne then they should just hang it up.
• Totally. And so I went to see Total Recall (the Total 2012 Remake). It wasn't bad. It had good action, good special effects, and a nice Blade Runner-esque environment that pretty much sold the future. And there were a few nods to the original film that were great (TWO WEEKS!)...
The problem? It just wasn't any fun. On the contrary, it was essentially joyless, and I'm not sure how it ended up that way with so much going for it. Kate Beckinsale was delicious, as usual. And I thought Colin Farrell did a great job. So I dunno. Maybe the Arnold Schwarzenegger original was just too well done? Paul Verhoeven really knocked it out of the park, creating a film that totally holds up and doesn't need a remake. But it's not like that has ever stopped Hollywood.
• Kubert. I was very sad to learn that comic book icon Joe Kubert has died. Talk about somebody who made a mark in his field. The guy was a true artist and comic book master. I remember his Hawkman stories very well, and always enjoyed it when he popped up in unexpected places.
Rest in peace, Mr. Kubert.
• Crazy. As much as I try to ignore the freak show, Pat Robertson seems to be echoing the same bullshit that I keep hearing from other homophobic morons who are twisting The Bible to justify their hate, so here he goes...
First of all, IT'S NOT ABOUT A CHICKEN SANDWICH OR A MILKSHAKE, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT. It's not even about some rich asshole's right to give money to groups which fosters an environment so horrible that gay youth are killing themselves. It's about people choosing to not support a company whose profits support such un-American ideals as DENYING EQUALITY TO EVERYONE. Why is it that hate groups like "One Million Moms" can call for all kinds of boycotts against things you don't like and that's okay, but when somebody else calls for a boycott against something you do like, they're "attacking freedom?"
Second of all, cherry-picking only those things out of The Book of Leviticus which you think supports your hateful crap makes for a laughably hypocritical and ignorant "Christian." Where is your outrage for all the other antiquated and ignored parts of The Bible which get violated every single day? Where's the righteous hate towards those wearing an article of clothing woven from two different threads, for example? Not that it matters. Here in the United States of America people don't have to live by the warped, edited, and totally biased interpretation of a religious document that's been butchered by an addle-minded old bigot with a television show. YOU live by it if you want to, that's your right. But keep in mind that it's everybody else's right to tell you to go fuck yourself and live the way they want to. Freedom. You may want to go look it up sometime.
And, thirdly, I defy... I defy an infertile woman married to an infertile man to bring forth a baby from that part of the anatomy which they concentrate on. I also defy you to comprehend that you can't categorize somebody's relationship eligibility by whether or not their body parts can make a baby. Not according to Christianity, and most certainly not according to the law. It's a very simple concept, and yet you keep avoiding it because the alternative is to come out and admit the truth... you just "hate those filthy homosexuals" and don't feel they deserve any rights because they don't live the way you want them to. Holy crap what a pathetic coward you are that you don't even have the balls to come out and say it.
So why don't you be the one to shut your mouth? People here in the 21st century are getting sick and tired of religion being used as an excuse for intolerance and hatred. This country is starting to move past your tired old message of bigotry and exclusion. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion, and this country was based on that ideal. If you can't handle that, feel free to get the fuck out of the USA and go start a country of your own. That way, I won't have to keep seeing your stupid America-hating, freedom-defiling, equality-bashing ass pop up any time you say something new and crazy. Which, apparently, is constantly.
• EXTREME! Dude! SHARK WEEK STARTS TODAY!!
I wish I knew who created this beyond-awesome fruit carving, because they totally deserve recognition for crafting the most shark extreme watermelon ever. The gummi-fish are a nice touch.
And now? Seacrest out.
At last.
After hearing that KOMO 4 News co-anchor Kathi Goertzen died after a long battle with brain tumors, I tried to think back to a time before the news had her in it.
I couldn't do it.
Tonight when I got home from the airport, I found out why. I didn't start watching the local news with any seriousness until Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18th, 1980. After that I was glued to the television, wondering if lava was going to start rolling down my street. Coincidentally, this is when Kathi Goertzen joined KOMO 4 News. I probably skipped around all the local channels at first, but it was Kathi that I liked best, and I've been a KOMO 4 fan ever since...
Which has not been easy, because I positively loathe Ken Schram, a commentator on KOMO 4 whom I've wanted to punch in the face more times than I can count (he became a nationally infamous douchebag when he compared breast-feeding to public urination).
But thanks to Kathi Goertzen, her co-anchor Dan Lewis, and the coolest weatherman ever, Steve Pool, I've stuck with KOMO 4 through good times and bad...
Over the years, I got a sense of just how amazing Kathi Goertzen could be. Not only was she astoundingly talented and professional at her job, but she was a genuinely good person. She worked tirelessly to support her community and the many charities which touched her heart. She even started a foundation to help others who were diagnosed with brain tumors. Kathi was much-loved by a lot of people, and I can't fathom anybody watching her on television who didn't come to love her as well.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you so very much to Kathi Goertzen for her courage and dedication. As somebody who can't remember what the news was like before she came along, I'm greatly saddened by her passing, and my thoughts go out to her family, friends, and co-workers at KOMO. Rest in peace, and good night.
Yesterday I returned home only to find that the air conditioner stopped working while I was in Portland. A day later and it's still not working. Which means I'm typing this in 94° heat. Which wouldn't bother me so much if I were lounging by a pool or getting ready to swim in the ocean... but at home? Teh suck.
So continue at your own risk, because I may be suffering from heatstroke and unable to form coherent sentences. Guess that's as good excuse as any to talk about politics.
And so this happened...
Bwah! Ha! Ha! We're rich and white... how can we lose? — Photo by Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo - EPA/Landov
If you're into the news, Mitt Romney choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate is being hailed as a "bold choice."
Which could be true, if all you're wanting to do is make a bold statement. But, if you are actually wanting to win the presidency, I'd be more likely to hail it as a "crazy choice." But wait wait wait... before anybody starts stepping up to defend Ryan and call me nasty names... I am talking about perception here. I fully admit that I don't know much about Ryan yet (other than he voted for massive government spending under Bush, then changed his mind and now hates government spending under Obama) so I'm not going to comment on what he's about until I actually know what he's about.
Fortunately, internet memes popped up almost immediately after the announcement, so it should be easy to get a handle on Ryan's politics...
Oh dear.
Yeah, I know that the conservative-leaning crowd have the same kind of thing for President Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, et al... but they are usually humorous commentary on known quantities or old gossip (Obama is a secret Muslim!). But this? This is commentary of a different kind. Issues like the economy are a toss-up because they're such a big mess that, deep down, everybody knows there's no magical fix, and it doesn't matter whether the candidate is Republican or Democrat. Politicians are politicians on both sides of the fence, and Americans are used to getting screwed over by politicians. We are conditioned to expect that we will get screwed over by politicians. So whatever, because it's all the same.
But start telling women how Paul Ryan is going to take away their birth control and right to choose? Tell seniors that Paul Ryan is going to take away their medicare and social security? Tell gays that Paul Ryan is going to take away (even more) of their rights? Tell the middle class that Paul Ryan is going to take away affordable health care? Tell the poor that Paul Ryan is going to take away the programs they need to survive so he can give tax breaks to the wealthy? Oog. Nothing mobilizes voters faster than telling them that a politician is going to take something away that matters to them. Just ask the gun lobby when they told everybody that Obama was going to take away their guns.
Ryan's problem (which is now Romney's problem) is that he's quickly emerging as the guy who is going to take away that thing you like. This is going to be exploited by every single political opponent the Republican presidential ticket has, because it's just too easy. This is not some esoteric thing that people can't really wrap their heads around (like the budget)... this is real.
When it comes to politics, perception becoming reality is nothing new.
Now we get to see if Paul Ryan is a strong enough politician to shift the perception people have to create the reality he wants. In the end, that's all that ever seems to matter any more.
Given the horrible wildfires burning near Cle Elum (just an hour away from me), I loathe to complain about something so relatively petty... but holy crap does coming home to a 94° home suck ass. Since the air conditioner broke, evenings are just miserable, and trying to sleep in this heat is nigh impossible. But at least I still have a home to come home to. Dozens of people in Kittitas County are not so lucky. I try to remember this and be grateful... but it's just sewww hawwwt!
Which once again makes me realize just how badly I take for granted all the wonderful luxuries I am privileged to live with.
Like air conditioning.
And a place to sleep.
I have air conditioning again.
This is, of course, fantastic. There's nothing quite like coming home to a cool house on a hot day.
The only down-side being that I no longer have an excuse to eat chocolate ice cream cones for dinner...
Except the excuse that I have a strange disease I picked up while traveling abroad which requires me to eat chocolate ice cream cones for dinner or else I'll die.
Yeah. That.
This morning I had grandiose plans to wake up early, unpack my suitcase (from four days ago), and do some chores that have been piling up over the last several weeks. Instead I read a really cool book about the Batman movies and ended up being 20 minutes late to work.
Sometimes things just don't go as planned.
Which is okay... except I'm going to be working all weekend, so my luggage and list of chores is going to be put off until next week. Heaven forbid I should get up early on a weekend to take care of stuff before a Toxic Biological Event starts growing in my suitcase...
And speaking of Toxic Biological Events...
What in the hell is happening over at Taco Bell? These new Cantina Bell items look fantastic and they have vegetarian options...
I haven't been this excited for shitty Mexican fast-food since Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes debuted!
And, just like that, Shark Week is over.
I have to say that this year was pretty amazing. Discovery Channel pulled out all the stops for Shark Week's 25th Anniversary, giving us six new shows about the world's most elegant and fascinating killing machines. The only disappointment was the inexplicable choice for this year's host... Philip DeFranco?!? I mean, yeah, he's a funny guy and really popular on YouTube... but hardly the star caliber deserving of Shark Week! I mean, IT'S SHARK WEEK for crying out loud!
You know who would make an awesome host for Shark Week? George Clooney. Clooney would totally rock Shark Week, and give it the EXTREME clout it needs to be one of the year's premiere television events.
Maybe next year.
And maybe next year Discovery will come up with an iPad app that has more content than advertising. Because while I liked having extra info while watching Shark Week programming, and think the potential here is monster, the app was mostly chum to lure you into watching a bunch of shitty ads. So not EXTREME.
Looking forward to 2013!
Get over your post-Olympic depression... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Sexytime. Remember the good old days when a teacher would sleep with one of their students? Well, technically, those weren't the "good old days"... but now it's looking like they could be. Because a teacher in Texas has been convicted for having a FIVE-WAY GANG BANG with four of her students at the same time ON VIDEO. Plus a fifth student separately (I guess he was late to the party?)...
At least the students were at the age of consent this time. Though the truly shitty part is that the woman is married... with three kids. Which makes her eligible for the grand trifecta of Teacher of the Year, Wife of the Year, and Mother of the Year. I don't pretend to know anything about her marriage or her life (apparently her husband was also into the group thang), so it's not really my place to judge her for the things she's done. But holy crap. Age of consent or not, parents should be able to trust that their kids aren't going to get invited to a gang-bang by their school teachers. Military husbands should be able to leave for their service and trust that their wives aren't going to cheat on them with a bunch of teenagers in their own home. Kids should be able to trust that their mom isn't going drag them into the media spotlight by having a sex video where she's sport-fucking a high school football team. If you want to do this kind of crazy shit, more power to you. But don't make it a contest of how many lives you can ruin along the way... stay single and go fuck the Dallas Cowboys or something. Otherwise you're just making choices to intentionally hurt people you should be caring about... and that makes you selfish garbage. I am so sick and tired of hearing about kids having to live through this this crap. If you can't fully commit to having a spouse and family... don't get married and have kids! And if you do it anyway, then at least have the decency to stick by your choices instead of dragging your innocent kids into your shit.
• Douche. There are some actors I love so much that I am compelled to watch absolutely everything they do no matter how bad it is. Morgan Freeman comes to mind. I don't care how crappy the film, you can count on him to be absolutely brilliant in it, thus making the movie worth your suffering. Of course, the opposite is also true. There are actors I loathe so much that I avoid absolutely everything they do. And at the top of that list would be Shia LaBeouf, who has to be one of the shittiest actors on the planet...
Photo take from a douchetastic interview over at Details Magazine
I mean, this guy played a huge part in fucking up an unfuckable movie franchise for The Transformers! How do you fuck up a movie about giant robots fighting evil giant robots? You hand it over to Michael Bay and put Shia LeBeouff in it, that's how! And how do you fuck up the Indiana Jones movies, one of the most beloved franchises in cinematic history? You have George Lucas write it and put Shia LeBeouff in it, that's how! Everything he touches turns to absolute crap. And, as if that weren't enough, he's a colossal d-bag as well... screwing other guy's girlfriends, trashing the people and studios that gave him work, and squaring off with security guards who kick you out of Walgreen's for smoking. He probably thinks that antics like this make him some kind of "Hollywood bad boy," when it actually just makes him a total dick.
Which is why it makes total sense that he is swearing off big-budget films forever, and is just going to do little indie films which have artistic "vision." First up? He's making a porn flick called Nymphomaniac with Lars VonTrier. Because making a sex video is totally visionary. Well, whatever. Anything that makes it easier to avoid seeing this complete douchebag's shitty acting in another film is something I approve of.
• Closure. I am always gutted with a Hard Rock Cafe closes that I didn't get to visit. And the worst closings are those that keep me from collecting a complete set of country visits. Like Aspen, the only Hard Rock in the USA I didn't get to visit. Or Oasis, the only Hard Rock in the UK I didn't get to visit. And now... Narita, the only Hard Rock in Japan I didn't get to visit. It really blows that Hard Rock Corporate doesn't warn fans when a cafe is going to close so they have some time to see the property before it's gone forever. If I had known that Narita was going down, I would have found a way to get there, even if it meant selling a kidney so I could afford it. Stupid Hard Rock Cafe hobby.
• Patrik. A Swedish movie was suggested to me called Patrik, Age 1.5, and I finally got around to watching on Netflix Streaming. It's the story of a gay couple who set out to adopt a baby they think is 1.5 years-old... but is actually a 15 year-old homophobic delinquent. Hilarity ensues...
Well, maybe not "hilarity," but it is a pretty funny movie. And kind of touching. And a little sad. But ultimately uplifting. Thanks again to my blog readers who keep digging up these fantastic obscure films for me to watch.
• Deadly. And so this happened...
When I first heard that Avitable had turned the "Interviews with Dead Celebrities" feature of his blog into a book, the first thought that came to mind was... I'll bet it wasn't entirely written by Adam. I'll bet that those "15 brand new, never-before-published interviews" were farmed out to some out-of-work writer... or outsourced to India... or copied off the internet or something. No way did he actually fabricate all new interviews with dead people just for a book. And look at that cover! It's a dead giveaway! Avitable is drawn wearing PANTS! Avitable never wears pants. Well, okay... he wears pants when he's out in public... but it's always short pants. This book is obviously a fraud and not entirely by Adam at all. And since I had already read all the real interviews on his blog, I was just going to take a pass. Who wants imitation Avitable? Not me. But then... then something incredible happened. I was reading the book blurb and saw this...
HOLY CRAP! The interviews were written ENTIRELY BY AVITABLE!! No ghost writers... no outsourcing... no plagiarism... the guy actually wrote every single interview himself! At first I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Nay, I WOULDN'T BELIEVE IT! But there it was... staring me right in the face. The interviews were indeed written entirely by Avitable. He didn't even have any help or anything. So I was compelled to read the book. Partly because Adam is a friend... but mostly because I could read it for FREE with my Amazon Prime membership. And, yep, he may be wearing pants now, but it's still Avitable. If you enjoy the "Interview with Dead Celebrities" on his blog, then you'll probably enjoy this, seeing as how there's new content and all. Consequently, if you hate his Dead Celebrity interviews, you will really hate this book. You will be so outraged by this book that you'll want to buy a copy just so you can burn it. Except you can't, because it's only available electronically for Kindle. So you would have to buy the book, download it to your Kindle, then burn your Kindle. Which is kind of pointless, even if you've got the money to burn, because it will only encourage Avitable to write a sequel. In any event, you can buy a digital Kindle copy for $2.99 (or borrow it FREE with your Amazon Prime membership) by clicking this link over to Amazon.
Annnnd... back to work.
So let me get this straight. A young girl who gets pregnant because she was raped at... oh, let's say NINE YEARS OLD... cannot be considered to have been "legitimately raped" because rape victims are somehow incapable of getting pregnant? Wow. And here I was thinking that a little girl of NINE YEARS OLD wouldn't even understand what "CONSENSUAL RAPE SEX" means considering she's UNDER THE AGE OF CONSENT.
Who could possibly come up with the phrase "Legitimate rape" while spouting such absurd bullshit? Oh... it's this guy... Representative Todd Akin from the great state of Missouri...
I contemplated writing a long-ass blog entry which attempts to explore Akin's religious convictions concerning the sanctity of life... you know, make a real effort to understand him and such. It would be an interesting topic for a blog entry, because my personal beliefs on the sanctity of life and how abortion fits into those beliefs is a difficult and controversial topic... even when it's just me discussing my views with myself.
But I keep running into a road block whenever I try to reconcile how somebody can use the phrase "legitimate rape" when talking about women who have been violated and victimized. I jump from there... directly to a conclusion of WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT!... and just can't go any further.
People like this are abhorrent to me.
And he can recant his idiocy and apologize for "misspeaking" all he wants, but it's not going to change the fact that he honestly feels that there's science which justifies forcing his personal beliefs on other people... even when it's all a load of crap.
I wonder what the political trigger will be that finally pushes women too far. Will it be defunding family planning centers? Will it be eliminating women's health services? Will it be outlawing abortion? Will it be outlawing birth control? Or will it be a bunch of old men telling them that THEY will be the ones to determine if a woman has been raped or not?
I honestly don't know.
But with each passing day I fully expect women to start marching in the streets in response to how they're being treated by those who are elected to "represent" them...
Again.
UPDATE: And, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, crazy-ass Pat Robertson has come out to support Akin...
It's astounding how these stupid assholes keep missing the point completely. The phrase "legitimate rape" is just an indicator of Akin's underlaying belief in "magic vaginas" that can reject sperm when a woman is a victim of a sexual attack. This is a belief that is categorically false, and the kind of thing that a FUCKING RAPIST would say to justify their actions. THIS is why Akin is a douchebag that is unfit to hold public office. Categorically STUPID people have no business representing anybody.
Being a woman-bashing sexist piece of shit that uses the phrase "legitimate rape" (even when "misspeaking") to describe such an act of terror and extreme violence is just the cherry on top of your ignorance sundae.
I finally made it to Taco Bell to try their new "Cantina Bell" menu... which is supposed to be a "gourmet" selection of Mexican dishes.
My expectations were understandably low. This is, after all, Taco Bell.
I ordered the Veggie Cantina Salad with a side of guacamole and chips. The salad consisted of a bed of warm cilantro rice topped with black beans, lettuce, guacamole, roasted corn & pepper salsa, pico de gallo, and a cilantro dressing.
All I can say is bravo, Taco Bell... bravo...
The salad was excellent. All the ingredients were tasty, fresh, and of good quality. The guacamole was creamy and had good flavor. I loved the roasted corn & pepper salsa. The beans and cilantro rice were cooked to perfection. The dressing had a nice "tang" to it and tied everything together nicely. I would have liked to have had a little cheese sprinkled on top, but it wasn't a deal-breaker.
I can't wait to try the Cantina Veggie Burrito, which takes all the salad ingredients and wraps them in a flour tortilla that looks to be toasted. I'm betting it's even better than the salad...
This photo (taken from Cantina Bell) shows dead chicken in the burrito, which I'd skip.
Any one of the three sides (guac, salsa, pico de gallo) with chips and a Pepsi can be added for just $2!
The recipes for all this great stuff are courtesy of Lorena Garcia. Not only is she a famous chef who comes up with good recipes... she's totally hot and is a contestant on the current season of Top Chef Masters as well...
I can honestly say that my Cantina Bell meal at Taco Bell... YES, TACO BELL!... was as good as I've had at some finer Mexican restaurants, even though you're eating it with a plastic spork from a crappy plastic bowl. I will absolutely be eating at "Cantina Bell" again, and hope that the menu sticks around for a while.
Or forever.
If you need a quick meal and feel like some pretty good Mexican fare, give it a shot!
Spanky is a name I've given to a cat that hangs out around the complex where I live. Nobody knows where she comes from or who owns her, but she's always hanging around. She's a very friendly cat, so everybody is always happy to see her. Some of us have kitty treats on-hand in case we run into her. I keep treats in my car, because often times she'll follow me as I head to work in the morning... or greet me when I come home.
But the thing about Spanky is that she's kinda become lethargic and unmotivated. Sometimes she'll be walking across the parking lot to see me, but plops down for a nap half-way there. It's like she's pretending he just got shot or something. The first time it happened I went running up to him to see if she was hurt. She wasn't. She just decided she didn't want to walk any more, and the middle of the parking lot was as good a place as any to drop for a rest.
Most mornings I stop to pet her for a minute, only to get a scornful "That's all I'm going to get, mutherfucker?" look of derision when I walk away.
This morning she actually meowed at me as I turned to go, which was new. She used to follow me if she wanted more petting. I can only guess she gets no attention at home, which is why she's always around our complex. And now that Spanky's accustomed to all the attention she gets here, she complains when she doesn't get as much attention as she would like.
Much like bloggers who are upset that commenting and reader interaction are at an all-time low. Their readers are spending their time Facebooking and Tweeting instead of commenting, which has convinced more than a few bloggers to hang it up (or drastically cut back). And that's fine. I get it. Despite having more traffic at Blogography than I've ever had, I don't get more than a handful of comments any more either. But that's not excuse enough for me to close-up shop. Because, as much as I've enjoyed interacting with my readers and finding new friends through blogging, I've always blogged for myself first. Blogging is an outlet for being creative and keeping track of stuff that happens in my life, and I'm not going to give that up just because I'm not getting as much comment attention as I would like.
But, just like Spanky, I fully admit that I have become a bit lethargic and unmotivated.
I put in 18 hours at work yesterday. And that was after having worked the entire weekend. This morning I had to get up at 4:00am for more work. It's quickly getting to the point where I don't even know anything else. Work is all I have right now.
And that's okay. I'm really not complaining about it. Better than being out of work, certainly... and it's not going to be this way forever. But coming home and trying to find something to blog about after you've been doing nothing you can blog about is not easy.
It's getting harder all the time.
And I'm not sure what to do about it.
Maybe I'll just drop down and take a nap in the parking lot while I wait for people to come along and feed me treats while they rub my belly. It seems to work out okay for Spanky.
Sometimes sensationalistic headlines are justified.
EBOLA VIRUS KILLS EVERYONE IN ITS PATH: HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.
It's both horrifying and fascinating to me that something like this exists. I just spent the past two hours going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole over all the crazy crap that can kill us humans horribly... and it's all stuff that we can't even see (well, without a microscope anyways).
We are such astoundingly fragile creatures. We really are.
I've never felt more alive.
Apple sued Samsung because Samsung copied the iPhone.
Samsung claimed that they totally didn't copy the iPhone... even though it was kind of obvious that they did. But, then again, Samsung copies most everything from Apple. There are even blogs dedicated to showing all the stuff they copy.
Today the jury dropped their verdict, which supports Apple's claims and totally called Samsung out for being fucking tracers...
And now all the hand-wringing has started because Samsung is crying that this verdict will stifle innovation. That companies won't make smartphones anymore because they'll worry about being sued by Apple. That consumer choice will be limited in the US because only Apple will be making phones.
Which is all a load of crap. Anybody can make a smartphone... just stop fucking tracing over Apple!
Instead, why not make your own damn smartphone design? Like the Nokia did with their Windows Lumia phone...
Looks nothing like Apple. Nobody's going to confuse that with an iPhone.
Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S...
Just admit it, Samsung. You're a fucking tracer!
And, because I just can't stop myself...
Such an awesome movie.
A lazy weekend on the other side of the mountains.
Golf at Newcastle is a beautiful course overlooking Lake Washington... with Seattle, Mercer Island, and Bellevue off in the distance. And, while I'm not much of a golfer, they have an 18-hole natural grass putting course that's perfect for a group of friends to hang out and have some fun while enjoying the stunning views...
A perfect day, really.
Enjoy the final dog days of Summer... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Astronaut. I'd like to take a minute to chime in with the rest of the internet to say "thank you" to American hero and space explorer Neil Armstrong. His service to his country and pioneering spirt have been an inspiration to the USA and the world...
As the first human to step foot on the moon, he's left a mark in history the likes of which few will ever accomplish. Rest in peace, Mr. Armstrong.
• FaceTime. And to the tin-foil-hat brigade who still believes that the moon landing was a hoax and decides to carpet-bomb my blog with stupid-ass comments I will only end up deleting... you deserve a punch in the face from Buzz Aldrin...
Now go look at these new 2012 photos of the Apollo Moon Landing Site and marvel at the things we mere humans can accomplish.
• Isaac. And so Hurricane Isaac is going to be attending the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Which has resulted in Monday's festivities being canceled as a precaution. Which means Ann Romney, who was scheduled to speak on Monday, has been rescheduled to Tuesday. I'm kind of bummed about this, because my anticipation is running high. Not because I give a shit about anything Ann Romney has to say ("We've given all you people need to know!")... but because I am banking on a SURPRISE GUEST APPEARANCE by Rafalca, her dancing Olympian pony! I'm a huge fan...
Photo by doe awesome photographer at Reuters
• Wrath. Still no word from self-proclaimed "Man of God" and total bat-shit insane televangelist Pat Robertson on how God is endorsing President Obama by sending a hurricane to the Republican convention. I mean, I can only assume that this will be what he says, since he's attributed every other "act of God" to some kind of crazy wrath-inspired divine intervention...
And now God is telling me that you should send me money!
Guess I shouldn't hold my breath though.
• Wrathja Vu. And speaking of zany wrath-inspired divine intervention... I hear that there were earthquakes striking Southern California this afternoon. I can't even guess what God's reason for this will be. Though I'm sure Pat will let us know...
And now God is telling me that you should send me mo- mo-... oops I crapped my pants!
You're as nuts as ever, you crazy old bastard, you!
Another weekend bites the dust...
Tonight I had a craving for a cheese & potato chip sandwich. And since I didn't have any cheese, potato chips, or bread (not to mention toilet paper), I decided to go to the grocery store. Something I most definitely did not want to do, but at least it wouldn't be crowded at 8:30 at night.
As usual, I found tons of other crap to buy... meaning a $10 run to the store ended up costing me $60... but whatever. I had my ingredients for a cheese & potato chip sandwich, so I drove back home.
Where I almost ran over Spanky the cat.
As I mentioned last week, she likes to plop down in the middle of the parking lot for no reason. But I always assumed she went home at night (wherever that is). Now I know she doesn't. Spanky totally hangs around the complex in the evenings too.
This is a very bad situation, because the cat is the exact same color as the pavement and very difficult to see after the sun goes down. I was practically on top of her before I realized she was even there. And she never bothered to move. I eventually had to back up and drive around her.
After grabbing my bags of groceries I went over to tell her that she needs to move so she doesn't get run over, but she was having none of it...
Spanky did not like the flash from my iPhone... nor does she like to have her picture taken.
And then she started rolling around in an attempt to get a belly rub...
Cat aerobics. On the pavement. In the middle of a parking lot. At night.
And since it is impossible to resist giving a belly rub to a cat, I had to drop all my groceries and give her one.
And now I know I'll be losing even more sleep because I'll be worrying about Spanky getting run over. Some of the people living in this complex are not the best drivers.
Stupid kitty. =sniff=
Well this sucks...
One shitty wank-fest of a political convention down, one to go.
I just hope that the Democrats don't end up with Clint Eastwood acting like he dropped acid before talking to a chair on their last day. How nuts was that? I mean, I know the Republicans felt they had to do something to top Sarah Palin, but this?
Though, I have to admit, President Obama's response was frickin' hilarious...
But his real response will come five days later at the next shitty wank-fest of a political convention.
I sure wish that the people who schedule these things would give me at least a month between events. It would be nice to recover a few sanity points before jumping straight into the next one.
Full Moon...
Blue Moon...
Turns out that bullet points are not as rare as a blue moon... because yet another Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Astronomy. Considering how amazing the news, the official NASA press release appeared relatively boring... there are millions of supermassive black holes hiding behind a veil of dust that's mucking up the universe. Other news sources decided to take the NASA news and make it pretty. Forbes ran the story's talking points alongside this photo...
Unsurprisingly, this stunning image is from NASA.
I could look at stuff like this all day. Fortunately, NASA has a site for that...
Again, this stunning image is also from NASA.
I swear... every time the latest Astronomy Picture of the Day hits my web feed reader, it makes me glad I'm not in charge of the US budget. Because, if I were, I'd give NASA more money than they could spend. I'd be rolling up dump trucks full of cash to Jet Propulsion Laboratory and every other division that NASA has. I'd shower them with such massive loads of funding that they'd have to reach into their wildest dreams to find ways to spend it all. I'd probably be branded a traitor and shot for spending public money in such an egregious and irresponsible fashion... but I wouldn't care. As the stunning success with the Curiosity rover has shown, nothing can inspire quite like the USA's forays into space. Alas, reality dictates we have to put the bulk of that money elsewhere, but I can dream. NASA makes it so damn easy.
• Holy Crap. If you're not watching Breaking Bad, you are seriously missing out on one of the most depressingly brilliant shows ever to air on television...
I was a latecomer to the show... I didn't start watching until half-way through season two. But now that the show is on its fifth and final season, I am trying to envision life without it. Especially when I turn the channel and see the utter shit that's splattered across my television. And speaking of amazing television...
• Toby. Even though I just finished making my way through all seven seasons of The West Wing six months ago, I started in again last night (IT'S TOTALLY BLAIR'S FAULT!). I enjoy the show. And, at a time when politics on both side of the spectrum are so dismally disappointing, it makes for better background noise while I work than the news. The only problem is that I HATE HATE HATE HATE the character of Toby Ziegler with the burning passion of a thousand suns...
I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. Starting with you.
He was an arrogant asshole from his very first appearance on the show. It seems like creator Aaron Sorkin intended Toby to be some kind of "moral center" he could use to inject his personal politics into a story where they otherwise wouldn't fit. And it was a good idea... except Toby was a total condescending dick most of the time. I don't think actor Richard Schiff is totally to blame, but he certainly didn't infuse much likability into his character that I could ever find. Even when he was being likable. And so now any time I watch an episode, I cannot help but think of how much it would be improved if Toby weren't in it. Or how much fun it would have been to be a writer on The West Wing and kill him off.
• Charlie. On the other hand, with each new viewing of The West Wing, I appreciate the subtle genius that Dulé Hill brings to his role of Charlie Young...
When people talk about how astoundingly well-cast The West Wing was, I think that "Charlie" is often-times overlooked, and this is a shame. The character had a very fine line to walk, and the more I re-watch the show the more I am convinced that Dulé Hill is one of only a handful of actors that could have pulled it off. This is made even more apparent when I see the complete 180 he did when he jumped into the role of Gus on Psych. And while I still like Psych, I admit that I'm very interested to see where he jumps next.
• Eat. I want nothing more right now at this moment to eat a really good pizza. Alas...
And... I should get to bed since I'll be working on Labor Day tomorrow. I guess for me it actually is Labor Day, whereas for most everybody else it's No-Labor Day. Or something like that.
Several years ago a chef at an upscale restaurant asked me what kind of cheese I wanted on my fancy sandwich. I said "Oh, I dunno... American is fine."
I got yelled at. "AMERICAN IS NOT A REAL CHEESE! IT CAN BARELY EVEN BE CONSIDERED A FOOD!"
Which was confusing, because the American cheese I always buy says "cheese food" right on the label.
But even so, I was embarrassed for having been so classless and ignorant as to have asked for "American cheese" on a sandwich, so I stopped eating the stuff. Instead I started buying cheddar cheese at home and always asked for cheddar, swiss, or whatever "real" cheese was available when eating out.
Because I'm classy and smart like that.
But then the recession happened and I started buying groceries not based on what I wanted, but what was on sale. If it isn't on sale (or I don't have a coupon), I don't buy it unless I absolutely have to.
And last week it was Kraft brand American cheese food that was on sale...
I had forgotten how much I absolutely love the stuff. I don't care if it's chunks of cheese that's been blended with fat, milk, and artificial chemicals and crap... it's creamy, delicious, and melts over a veggie burger like a dream. So now I'm undergoing a kind of "American Cheese Renaissance." I'm eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And snacks. I can't help myself.
And now I'm keeping an eye out for a sale on White American...
I'm not trying to sound racist here, but I'm thinking that White American is probably better to eat than "regular" American because it won't have any stuff in it to make my insides turn orange. Unless... you don't think that they add bleach to American to make it turn into White American? That wouldn't be a good thing at all.
And now a piece of sad news concerning a black American... Michael Clarke Duncan, a wonderful actor I came to love in his role as Leo Knox in The Finder, passed away this morning at the age of 54...
Such a horrible loss. Michael Clarke Duncan was a truly amazing talent who could steal any scene with one flash of his million-dollar smile... or one word from his wonderful voice... which means that he stole every scene he was ever in. And I can't overstate my love of his character on The Finder. Leo Knox was achingly real while still being endlessly entertaining. I always hoped that the cliffhangers left when The Finder was cancelled would be wrapped up in an episode of Bones, where the show originated. But that will probably never happen now. How could they possibly wrap up anything without Leo? I'm just crushed. Rest in peace, Mr. Duncan, your work made me very happy at times I needed a little happiness, and I will miss you.
Well Michelle Obama sure knocked it out of the park with her speech.
How do I vote for her?
Because, unlike her husband, I can actually envision Michelle Obama personally kicking the piece of shit lobbyists out of the fucking White House. Unlike her husband, I can actually picture Michelle Obama demanding that fucked up bullshit like ACTA be hauled out from behind closed doors and be made public and transparent. Unlike her husband, I'd like to think that Michelle Obama would tell people to go fuck themselves before she caves into opposition pressure and moves her address.
Michelle Obama is a woman who doesn't take shit and gets stuff done!
Or so I'd like to imagine...
Photo from the Associated Press
Maybe it's just wishful thinking because I'm not thrilled with the idea of re-electing President Obama... and I'm even less thrilled with the idea of having Mitt Romney in the White House for four years.
Or maybe I'm just tired.
Sick and tired of politics in this country.
But I watched all of the Republican National Convention... so I guess I'll watch the rest of the Democratic National Convention just to be fair.
If nothing else, it gives me an excuse to put off packing my suitcase for a while longer.
GAH!
While looking through some old photos, I ran across one that scared the crap out of me. How is it that any parent could possibly think that these heinous "Raggedy Ann and Andy" dolls make a good toy for kids? I mean, seriously, JUST LOOK AT THESE THINGS...
Trauma inducing.
If I had these minions of satan staring at me from a shelf in my bedroom, I'd probably end up permanently scarred from the nightmares.
And from pissing myself.
Because clearly Raggedy Andy is the inspiration for Pennywise the Clown in IT...
Put a sailor hat on Tim Curry, and there you have it...
I guess some parents just enjoy the idea of tormenting their kids.
Welcome to my nightmare...
It was a night of performance art tonight. Here are some of my favorites...
• Gabrielle Giffords "The Pledge of Allegiance" at the DNC. Tell me this isn't one of the most amazing things you've ever seen. The woman survives a frickin' assassination attempt... a gunshot to the head... says "fuck you" to the bullet, and is on-stage leading the DNC in the Pledge of Allegiance a year-and-a-half later. I don't care what your politics are, this kind of raw courage demands respect. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, making Gabrielle Giffords the performance to beat tonight.
• Pink "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" at the MTV VMAs. I have yet to see Pink in concert so every time I see one of her beautifully orchestrated live performances, I'm a little pissed-off. Tonight's VMA blow-out has her singing yet another amazing track from a string of amazing tracks... "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and it was fantastic. Once I got past her dopey hair-do, Pink had me completely captivated as she did her whole "Cirque du Soleil" act better than Cirque du Soleil.
• President Obama "Acceptance Speech" at the DNC. My candidate for the upcoming election was Jon Huntsman. I thought he was smart in all the right ways, and the person most likely to bridge the icy divide between Republicans and Democrats to fix our fucked-up country. But Republicans seemed to truly hate the guy because he wasn't bat-shit-crazy-Right, and you can't get anywhere when your own party doesn't support you. So Huntsman was shoved off the stage and we got... Mitt Romney. Who has the personality of a wooden board wrapped in a wet blanket. He does not inspire me in the least, and I abhor most of his politics when it comes to personal liberties... an area TRUE Conservatives should be getting the fuck out of in the name of less-invasive government. Oh well. So Barack Obama it is then. His acceptance speech was good. Very good. And as the consummate politician, our president delivered it in a way Romney can only dream about. He makes me forget that he wasn't my first choice. He makes me forget that he did some things I am really upset about. He makes me remember that he is a good man, a true patriot, and a decent president who is doing his best to get us out of a horrible situation. And while Obama is not my dream candidate, his speech makes me feel better about voting for him in November, which is what it's really all about.
• Jennifer Granholm at the DNC. Talk about your rousing performances... Granholm descended on the DNC like a tsunami and belted out a speech that was so unabashedly pro-Obama that it made other speakers look like they lacked support for the president. And I'm including Barack Obama. She waxed so poetically about the president's auto-bailout that it almost made me forget that it was President Bush who got the ball rolling by approving monies that would keep our auto-makers in business until Obama got in office. Granted, this was probably at least partially inspired by the Obama transition team laying groundwork for the new president... but it's still a glaring omission in giving credit where credit is due. Whatever. Granholm was there to rally for the president, and she got the job done by delivering a wake-up to the convention that was a much-needed slap in the face.
• Taylor Swift "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" at the MTV VMAs. In stark contrast to some of her previous televised live performances which were, for lack of a better word, "bad"... Taylor had a terrific (and impossibly cute) performance of her latest hit that brought down the house.
• Zach Wahls at the DNC. Zach is a great kid with a great story and a speaking presence that is really going to take him places. When I first saw his speech in defense of marriage equality at the Iowa House of Representatives, I was blown away. The guy is 19, but connects with an audience like a seasoned pro. The only problem is that all his speeches and talk show appearances are starting to sound the exact same. He's got two moms. His family is as normal as any other. Yadda yadda yadda. I know that's why he was at the convention, but Zach needs to mix it up a bit. Still, he did a great job, and you really have to admire his tireless efforts to get people onboard the equality bandwagon.
• Eva Longoria at the DNC. Seriously... who knew?
Annnnnd... after traveling all day, it's time to unwind and prep for a busy day tomorrow.
The story burning up the internets today is about a letter written by Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe in support of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo (who is vocal advocate of marriage equality).
Making a long story short, Maryland Democratic politician Emmett C. Burns asked the Baltimore Ravens football organization to make Ayanbadejo shut up about marriage. Kluwe (also a supporter of marriage equality) thought this was bullshit, and decided to write an open letter to Burns to tell him how he felt.
The letter is sheer genius. Go read it immediately.
I'm guessing this image of Kluwe is a team photo, courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings?
As you might have noticed, the letter is filled with colorful language which has raised some criticism of Kluwe's choice of words.
This really hit home with me, because I struggle with whether or not I should use swear words most every time I write in this blog. When I first started blogging I swore constantly and didn't think anything about dropping
It was a practice that was destined to be short-lived. I use swear-words in real life when I'm fired up. So it's unavoidable that I'm going to use swear-words on my blog when I'm fired up. For a while I tried to disguise it... typing out things like "F#@%!" and "B#LL$H!T!," but comedian Suzy Soro commented that this is kind of stupid. Since absolutely everybody knows what you're trying to say anyway... why not just come out and say it?
She was absolutely right, and I've been cursing in my blog ever since.
Though I admit that most times I do regret it.
Somebody once told me that swearing is a sign that the writer is unintelligent. They don't know how to express themselves properly, so they foolishly have to resort to curse words to make their point. In some respects, I agree with this assessment.
In other respects, I'd argue that there's no word that can adequately take the place of "fuck."
And so I use it. Probably more often than I should... but definitely not as often as I want to. "Fuck" (and dozens of words like it) are forms of expression that I find helpful in communicating exactly what I'm feeling in a way that "shucky darn" doesn't quite reach.
Anyway...
Today I managed to get in my essential visit to America's Dog so I could get my Veggie Chicago Dog...
It was, as always, delicious.
Oh... and speaking of delicious food... I never check a bag when flying into O'Hare so I can grab a veggie burger at Johnny Rocket's before I exit through security. But yesterday as I approached the restaurant, I was horrified to see that IT WASN'T THERE!
WHAT THE FUCK?! Shucky darn!
I hate it when that happens.
I make it a point to keep up with every Hard Rock Cafe that opens in the USA so I don't risk having a property close before I can get there (like Aspen). The latest cafe to open is located inside the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, Michigan. Lucky for me, it's just a short hour-and-a-half drive from Chicago, which made it ridiculously easy to rent a car and drive on over.
The Hard Rock Cafe Four Winds is directly off the main casino floor on the west side of the building...
I was shocked at how big the place is. Larger properties always worry me because the capacity can be hard to fill, which means it's more likely to close down...
The style of the cafe is kind of hard to pin down. It has elements from the shitty "new-style" cafes that look like some kind of hipster lounge... but it's been mercifully toned down to a more classic look. Even better, there's quite a bit of rock memorabilia, which has been badly lacking in the "new-style" properties...
Overall, a pleasant surprise. Not as great as the older properties which helped to define the "Hard Rock look," but a drastic improvement over the later properties that have been popping up.
As for the Four Winds Casino itself... it's absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous wood construction and accents make for a warm, earthy feel. They then artfully blended in some very nice stone work and tribal decorations. I was very much impressed...
The rest of my day was spent doing something I absolutely hate... shopping.
But I don't have much choice, because my tennis shoes are falling apart and I need some clothes for my upcoming trips. My favorite place to shop for shoes is a Nike Factory Outlet, and my iPhone told me there just happened to be one in nearby Michigan City. A mere 20 minutes from the casino (but not actually in Michigan as the name would imply, instead it's in Indiana).
Pulling into town, I was greeted by a big surprise...
Holy crap! That's really close to civilization for a nuclear power plant! But then I recalled a trivia question asking which states don't have nuclear power, and remembered that Indiana was one of them. Turns out it's a cooling tower for a gas & coal plant.
Anyway...
The selection at the Nike store was pretty bad. Almost every style I'd be willing to wear was in crazy colors I wouldn't be caught dead in. This was really disappointing because I love the way that Nikes feel on my feet. Instead I ended up going to the Adidas Outlet Store, which was a blessing in disguise because they were having a store-wide 30% off sale. This was in addition to the already discounted close-out prices, which meant I got two really nice pairs of shoes for $60 instead of the $170 they originally retailed for. Heaven only knows I love a bargain, so this was a great start.
Unfortunately, my plan to buy a bunch of shirts and pants was doomed to failure, as most everything I found that I might wear was either not in my size or more money than I was willing to pay. After four hours of looking at two different malls, I finally gave up after finding only two shirts. This sucks ass, because it means I'm going to have to go shopping again when I get home.
I eventually got back to O'Hare around 6:00, which would have been a perfect opportunity to head into town for some awesome Chicago food. But I was so exhausted that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd blame my tiredness on all the driving, but I know darn well it was the stupid shopping that wore me out. I just cannot fathom how there are people who actually go shopping for fun when, to me at least, it's the ultimate torture.
Much like the KIA Soul I was stuck with from the rental car company. This is the third time I've ended up with one, and they make me insane. Not because they're bad to drive... on the contrary, they handle just fine. It's the BLIND SPOTS in the rear corners that are fucking insane...
Just like the KIA Soul I got when I was in Hawaii, I was constantly freaking out over not being able to see in one of the most important places that a driver needs to be looking when changing lanes. An entire car... hell, an entire semi-truck... could be hiding there and you'd never know. So instead you have to be overly-reliant on your rear-view mirrors and tiny back window, which is hardly the safest way to drive. It's as if KIA fucking wants you to crash into another car... it's the only thing that explains such idiotic design.
I can't believe that these things are legal. I have an even harder time believing that car rental agencies actually buy these things knowing how difficult and dangerous they are to drive.
And now I suppose I should try and get some sleep since I have to fly out early tomorrow morning. Oh how I wish I could have taken a later flight. But the price was quite a bit higher, so it is what it is.
Here's hoping the pilots are more awake than I'll be.
Save your pity over my being stuck at an airport for four hours... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Know. I so rarely just toss a link up on my blog... that's what Twitter and Facebook are for... but I read an article titled "25 Things I'd Like My Sons to Know" and was inspired to do just that. Much of it applies not just to sons, but to people everywhere...
Photo from Tom Matlack's wonderful article.
If you want to have a little more hope for the future, follow that link. And to prove that Tom Matlack's genius isn't a fluke, here's another: "Raising Boys (A Dad’s Advice for Moms)."
• Sleepless. Any attempt to get some sleep last night was futile seeing as how there was a party going on down the hall until 2:30am. As background noise, I probably could have ignored it is not for a screaming cackle by some drunken hag who could just not shut the fuck up. Absolutely everything was funny to her, and I had to listen to her continuous screeching laugh for hours. This alone would have made my final night in Chicago unbearable, but when I got up two hours later there was no hot water at the Hyatt. I don't know what it is about me, but I seem to attract hot water failures.
• Aero. But there was good news from my travels today... when I got to the airport, I was totally psyched to see that, ZOMG!, I would be flying on the Mickey Plane!!
And just when I thought things couldn't get much better? UPGRADED TO FIRST CLASS! As a Delta elite flyer, this rarely happens on Alaska Airlines, so it was a complete surprise. As always, the best part of flying First Class is the warm nuts...
• Livery. This trip was lucky for planes, because my flight to Seattle on Thursday was on the Horizon/Alaska Air Huskies Plane...
Alaska Air has so many cool liveries on their fleet, but the one I'm most dying to fly is their "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon"...
Has to be one of the coolest planes ever made. One of these days I need to see how I can track it down for a ride.
• 'Cago. As Chicago is one of my favorite cities on earth, it sucks pretty hard to go there and not be able to spend any time exploring the place. And since I've been there dozens of times, seeking out the frivolous non-touristy stuff is where the fun is at for me. And the only frivolous thing I made time for was visiting the new LEGO store at Water Tower Place...
Kinda a disappointment. I mean, sure, they carry a large line of wonderful LEGO products, but it's kind of a boring layout compared to the old one. Oh well. It does have the benefit of being located next door to that obscenely popular American Girl store that makes those creepy little dolls I want to burn with fire.
• Coverage. Every time I get to Chicago, I can't help but marvel at the shitty data coverage AT&T has there. Seriously, it's so bad as to be unusable. If you manage to get anything from the internet at all it takes fucking forever, but most times the connection just times out...
How in the hell can the third largest city in the United States have such embarrassingly bad cellular service? At least I can make a phone call here. In Las Vegas (one of the largest tourist attractions in the country) not only is the data shit, but every call I make gets dropped. Every. Damn. Call. I have no idea why AT&T doesn't get off their stupid asses and fix this shit, because it's frickin' embarrassing. If I didn't have to travel outside the US, I'd switch to Verizon. I dunno. Maybe Verizon's international iPhone coverage is something I should look into.
• Limits. And lastly, from the "It's About Damn Time" file, Texas is raising the speed limit on a 41-mile stretch of highway between Austin and San Antonio to 85 MPH. Yes, I know that this is a real cause for concern when it comes to safety. Yes, I realize that there will still be idiots who drive 45 and hold up traffic. Yes, I understand that there are few roadways straight and flat enough to handle 85. And, yes, I get that there will still be people that will only use this as an excuse to go 95. But, dammit, I just don't care. Upping speed limits is something I approve of...
Photo by Ricardo B. Brazziell from AP Photo/Statesman.com
Mostly because I think it's fucking insane that you can get pulled over and ticketed for going 10 miles above the speed limit when there are murders running around free. Yes, dangerous drivers should be stopped and fined. No argument there. But is ticketing someone going 65 in a 55 really the best use of police resources if the driver is handling the speed safely? I'd argue the moron driving 40 in a 55 is the bigger danger. In any event, There are stretches of highway in Eastern Washington that could really benefit from an 85 MPH speed limit, I'm just sayin'.
And... my flight starts boarding in 15 minutes, so I guess I should wrap this up. Good thing too, I'm just about out of bullets...
They say that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, but in my case it's just not true.
The batteries in my Mickey Mouse wall-clock at work died at 7:28 while I was in Chicago. And since I arrive both after 7:28am and before 7:28pm I don't see the clock being correct even once. And since I don't even know if my office exists when I am not there, I'm not going to make assumptions about what happens when I'm gone. Logic would dictate that the clock does indeed read correct at 7:28am and 7:28pm, but I'm not going to drive to work to find out.
Because I have more important questions on my mind...
Which means nothing has changed, because that's what I'm going to be doing right now.
Well, that... and planning a trip to Bahrain.
Honestly, I tried to come up with something better than I wrote last year. I tried last night. I tried this morning. But I just couldn't do it. Everything I have to say I said 365 days ago, so I'm just going to reprint it and hope that the me from the past can speak where words are failing me in the present.
Originally Posted on September 11, 2011
I deleted my blog from ten years ago so I can't tell you with any certainty what I was doing back then. I might have a vague idea over a span of some weeks or months but, if you were to pick an individual day, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what was happening.
For every day save one, of course.
I was working as a consultant and running late for a meeting on the morning of September 11, 2001. I didn't have time to turn on the television, nor did I have time to turn on my computer. I went directly from my bed to the shower to my car for the 20 minute drive to work. When I arrived, I vaguely remember some talk about an airplane crash as I walked through the lobby. But, for all intents and purposes, I was completely unaware of what had happened three hours earlier at the World Trade Center.
It wasn't until I walked into the conference room and saw the television replaying footage of The Twin Towers collapsing over and over again that I knew of the horrific events unfolding in New York.
And, like most everybody else on the planet, that news coverage became my life for the next several days.
As the tragedy would become our lives for the next ten years.
Because those iconic structures may no longer be with us... but they're not gone either. I watch a rerun episode of Friends, and there's the Towers in an establishing shot. I pop in my DVD of Eddie Murphy's Trading Places and the Towers are there. I read an old Spider-Man comic book and there they are again. I look through old photos and...
But that's me.
For those directly affected. For those orphaned or widowed. For friends and family of those who lost their lives. For those who now suffer from the debilitating effects. For those whose lives were forever changed. For so many people, I'd imagine it's quite different. They don't need a TV show or a movie or a comic book or a photograph. Their reminder is everlasting.
As is their pain.
I'm sure at some future date when all the people who were alive to remember the world before 9/11 are gone, perhaps the nightmare will start to fade.
In the meanwhile, we remember.
Because we need to remember.
Because it's impossible to forget.
Because our hope for peace must prevail.
I started the day with a flat tire. That would be bad enough, but we're on fire again.
I thought my hometown would make it through the summer without a massive wildfire outbreak in the area but, alas, it was not to be. The flames they are a ragin' in the canyons throughout the valley. Fortunately, things aren't nearly as bad as they were back in 2004, but the skies are filled with a smokey haze and the smell permeates everything...
This is bad news for me, because strong smells like smoke and incense make me sick. I get bad cramping that makes me feel like I have to poop 24 hours a day, on top of having a sore throat and headache. Sleeping is almost impossible. Working is a struggle. Eating makes me sicker. If things get much worse, I'm going to have to flee to the coast just to be able to function.
It's always something. Some cities get earthquakes. Some cities get hurricanes. Some cities get flooding. We get wildfires.
C'est la vie.
And in Apple news, this happened...
As a Certified Apple Whore, of course I want a new iPhone 5. I love everything about it.
Even though its improvements are not quite as drastic from the 4S than I had expected.
My main gripe with iPhone is that it just isn't as smart as it should be for a smartPHONE. With iOS 6, we're getting a new feature called "Do Not Disturb" which will help with some of my complaints...
My phone will be on "Do Not Disturb" 24 hours a day. Because 99 times out of 100, the calls I get are ones I don't give a shit about. Today while I was on my way to get my tire fixed, I got a robocall from a fucking furniture company wanting to give me a free wine rack for attending some kind of stupid event. After screaming FUCK YOU! at the recording, I was so enraged that I very nearly threw my iPhone out the window. "Do Not Disturb" will make this kind of bullshit a thing of the past.
But there's four more things that need to happen after that...
These are basic features that have been around forever, and are things that anything claiming to be a "smartphone" should be able to handle. Except the iPhone can't. But, hey... the new model is 18% thinner! Or whatever.
Maybe one day, when Apple has given us an iPhone that has artificial intelligence, a 3-D holographic projector, and fits on your fingernail, they'll finally get around to the basics.
Until then, I'll be sitting here watching the world burn.
And so the smoke was even worse today.
I woke up with a raw throat, swollen eyes, and a stomachache so bad that I had to crawl... crawl... out of bed. After force-feeding myself a handful of antihistamines and a box of antacids, I crawled back into bed where I stayed for another four hours.
Needless to say, this is not the best place to be for somebody like me right now...
And so I peaced-out of the valley and fled to the coast where I can actually breathe.
Hopefully sometime soon the wildfires will get under control so I can go home again.
Funny... I don't feel super lucky...
No... wait a second... I totally do feel super-lucky!
Have a safe and fun weekend everybody!
Looking at photos of back home makes me even more glad that I've escaped to the coast. Can't believe how bad the smoke has gotten... apparently our air quality has been rated "hazardous" now. Hope everybody back in the valley is staying safely indoors.
Because we just can't get enough, we took a trip up to Newcastle again. I absolutely love it up there. The day started with beautiful clear skies, but eventually ended up being even more beautiful overcast skies...
The first time I went to Newcastle, a man standing at the urinal had his pants all the way down to his ankles. It makes me worry that one day I'm going to walk in and see a guy stripped down to take full advantage of the body moisturizer they inexplicably offer at the sink...
It may be mostly smoke-free over here, but the air pollution is making its way over the mountains up high, making pretty pink skies...
Here's hoping I get to go home tomorrow, though I admit it'll be tough to leave.
Tonight will be my last night of refuge on the coast.
Tomorrow morning I bite the bullet and head back to my smokey home. So put on your gas mask... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Five. I stayed up until midnight so I could pre-order my iPhone 5 on Wednesday...
It was precisely the cluster-fuck I knew it would be. Couldn't order at Apple because my AT&T billing address is a PO box and they won't deliver to a PO box. Have no clue as to why I can't enter a separate street address for delivery... but whatever. And so I had to pre-order at AT&T's site, which is an even bigger mess. Every single time you press a button, you have to re-press it dozens of times in order for the site to do anything. Every time you fill out a form, you have to re-fill it out and submit it dozens of times in order for the site to accept the data. This took TWO HOURS AND FIVE MINUTES. Insanity. And I have no idea when I'm even going to get it. I may have stayed up until 2:05am for nothing. I understand that these sites are getting completely slammed by thousands of people... but come on. There has got to be a better way of handling this.
• Carrier. Make no mistake. The only reason I renewed with shitty AT&T was because I could grandfather in my unlimited data plan. The very minute that AT&T tells me that I can no longer have unlimited data is the minute that I switch to Verizon. AT&T call quality just keeps getting worse and worse, and now data service is in the shitter as well. In cities like Chicago and Las Vegas, my iPhone is practically useless. Hopefully having 4G-LTE will help in cities where 3G fails, because... damn.
• Bacon. In what can only be considered a boon to all humanity, you can now check a star's Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon directly in a Google search...
• Trek. Speaking of Google... they had a genius interactive doodle for the 46th anniversary of Star Trek last week...
So awesome.
• Alcoholic. The news broke that Disney will be offering beer and wine for sale at their new French restaurant in Walt Disney World's "Magic Kingdom." Unsurprisingly, people are losing their shit. They're saying everything from "Walt Disney is turning in his grave!" to "BOYCOTT DISNEY!!" Never mind that the three other Disney World parks (Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot) have all been serving alcohol for years... somehow serving it in the Magic Kingdom is going to DESTROY DISNEY WORLD! And never mind that visitors can just get shit-faced in the parking lot before they even enter the park... oh no... WE'RE ALL DOOMED! And never mind that the alcohol Disney's going to be selling at heinous prices is only available in the evening and must be consumed before leaving the restaurant... WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
Give me a break. I am so sick and tired of people going bat-shit crazy over things that will ultimately have -zero- effect on them. Like a glass or two of wine with dinner is suddenly going to turn Walt Disney World into a drunken brawl where kids will have to stumble over hookers and heroin addicts on their way to "It's a Small World." I never thought I'd be saying that there are people too fucking stupid for Disney World, but here we are. Oh well... more beer for me then.
Blargh... time to start thinking about my last smoke-free sleep.
So this is what hell is like.
The inversion that was trapping smoke in our valley lifted on Saturday, which means the air was clearing up yesterday. Unfortunately a new inversion descended last night, which means all the smoke was back by the time I got home this morning. The minute I rolled over the mountain pass, my heart sank as I saw a massive haze obliterating the countryside.
So here we go again.
Misery. I knows it. I sit at a desk staring at a computer screen with eyes swollen, watery, and itchy. My throat is raw because my nose won't top running no matter what I do. I spend every other moment trying to decide if I need to run to the bathroom. The moments in-between are spent trying to figure out what I do when I get there... puke or poop. I am doped up on everything from ibuprofen and Pepto Bismol to antihistamines and Imodium. When all I want to do is take a handful of sleeping pills and go into a coma until it's all over.
Why I react to smoke this way, I have no idea.
Hopefully I can last six days until I blow this popsicle stand.
And so on top of everything else, I have laryngitis now.
The icing on the cake of my day, really. Pretty much just want to climb under the bed and stay there. But the show must go on. And on. And on.
And on my way to work...
And on my way home...
You'd think that Washington would be running out of stuff to burn by now.
Though, even if it's not... for the sake of all those people whose homes are in danger here (not to mention all the animals that are being displaced by the flames)... it would be great if the state would stop burning for a while anyways.
Being able to speak again would be nice too.
And so Apple has (finally) unleashed the latest version of there iPhone-iPodTouch-iPad operating system. Unlike the Mac OS X updates which get cool names like "Mountain Lion," iOS updates get a boring number increment, which means we're at "iOS 6" now.
I had no problem updating my iPad 3, iPhone 4, & iPhone 4S and, so far as I know, everything is working perfectly. I'll get to my thoughts on the bulk of the iOS 6 new features tomorrow. But tonight I want to focus on Apple's controversial virtual assistant software named "Siri."
Siri is considered "controversial" because "she" is a feature that sparks a lot of strong feelings amongst iPhone users. Some people I know love her. Some people I know hate her. Most people I know ignore her and rarely (if ever) use Siri. Personally, I love love love Siri and use her constantly. For the most part, she understands me and interprets my instructions correctly. And there's just something magical about being able to say "I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 3pm" only to have Siri add it to your calendar without you having to type a thing. Welcome to the future!
Kinda.
Because, unlike the computer on Star Trek, Siri can be one fickle bitch. One minute she will understand something odd that you never thought she would get... the next minute she'll completely blow a simple instruction for reasons you can't fathom. Fortunately, Apple is improving Siri all the time, so she's getting smarter and more capable with each new release, but life with Siri is far from perfect.
One of the new thing Siri understands with iOS 6 is movies. I had thought this would be limited to displaying showtimes at local theaters, but she's much smarter than that. Want to know what the last movie Gene Hackman appeared in? No need for IMDB, Siri has got you covered...
Interesting that Siri knows to capitalize "Hackman" but not "Gene"... even though she spelled "Gene" correctly. But she still knows how to answer, which is pretty darn cool. Unfortunately, she's less smart for other queries. For example, Siri will still ask you "Which one?" when asking about a movie title that's been used for multiple movies, even if you specify the one you want...
With the new iOS 6 update, Siri also knows sports. As I type this, the Mariners are playing a game. When I ask how they are doing, Siri responds with a score and some stats...
Nice! One of the things Siri also knows about is players. At the Apple Event where iOS 6 was introduced, they showed how you could find out "Who is taller, Kobe or LeBron?" just by asking. This seemed very cool... until I found out that the number of players Siri knows is severely limited. If I want to check up on how Jarrod Saltalamacchia is doing, Siri goes brain dead. She doesn't know who Salty is no matter how I pronounce his name... or even if I ask for him by number. And she doesn't seem to know what "stats" are, even if you say a player she recognizes. This seems crazy given that she will bring up a player stats card when you ask somebody's height, but oh well...
Siri does have Saltalamacchia listed as a player, so I guess there's that...
Siri is supposed to have a handle on international sports, so I thought I'd try a name that wasn't as complicated as "Saltalamacchia." Like Chelsea footballer Frank Lampard...
Lampard is a hugely famous player. He's been with Chelsea for ten years now. How can Siri not know who he is? I dunno... maybe if I were in the UK this would be different, but overall I find player stats to be a hugely underwhelming feature (unless you're wanting to know about Kobe Bryant or LeBron James!). Maybe I'm asking wrong or something. But I tried dozens of questions about Frank Lampard covering everything from his height to goals and still nothing.
One area I was hoping Siri would get smarter about is travel, because she doesn't seem to know a damn thing. Train schedules, bus routes, flight times, or whatever... Siri is clueless. And nothing has changed in iOS 6. This would seem to be a no-brainer. I would love to get to the train station and ask "When does the next train arrive?", but I guess that's too complex for Siri to figure out. And she knows it...
When it comes to alarms, Siri can still be inexplicably stupid. She can't even recognize alarms she just made for you...
You can't set, change, or find an alarm for a specific day? Why the fuck not? These are the very basic things a virtual assistant should know how to do. And you set the alarm just fine, so why is deleting the alarm with the same language I used to set it a problem? It's things like this that make me understand why some people are not Siri fans.
One of my favorite things I use Siri for on my iPhone is setting reminders. They are frickin' genius because they are location-based. Tell Siri to remind you to make a call when you get to work, and she will do exactly that. So now that Siri is available on third-generation iPads, I was excited that I could add reminders from there too. Except... turns out you can't...
Can't create location-based reminders on this device? WHY THE FUCK NOT?!? You DO realize that any reminders I make on my iPad will be synced to my iPhone, right? I mean, I know that my WiFi iPad doesn't have a GPS, but I'm not expecting it to remind me of a damn thing... that's what my iPHONE is for! Siri should just create the damn reminder and warn you that it will only work for iPhone or something... not flat-out refuse to do something that makes total sense.
With iOS 6, Siri now knows about dining. You can ask her about restaurants in your area or types of foods or whatever, and she'll link with Yelp! to help you out. This is a very nice feature for travelers like me who end up in cities they're unfamiliar with. It can also be a very depressing feature when you're hungry for falafel and the nearest place to get it is over 70 miles away...
Added coolness points to Siri for being able to link up with OpenTable so you can make reservations in the restaurant you find.
Another new feature is being able to post to Twitter and Facebook as easily as you can send texts and emails. Siri will even warn you if you need to set this up before she can take action...
As always, Siri dumps anything she doesn't understand into a catch-all "Wanna look that up in a web search?"...
Not that I was expecting Siri to get into a deep discussion over how Mitt Romney has been so terminally fucking stupid every time he opens his mouth lately... or how utterly fucking tragic it is that politicians are screwing the men and women who risk their lives to defend this country... I just wanted to show how Siri does a bang-up job of figuring out what I'm saying, even if she doesn't know what to do with it.
And so there she is... the new and improved Siri virtual assistant.
Slowly getting smarter, but still in desperate need of an intelligence upgrade.
Which pretty much describes every person on this planet, so it's hard for me to fault Siri. Most of the time I still love her more than buttered toast.
To be continued...
And now... continued from yesterday... my observations on Apple's iOS 6 update. For everybody who hates Apple stuff, sorry... but you have one more day to go.
• Messages. If there's one feature I was most excited about when it comes to iOS 6... it would be Unified Messaging. This means that whether I am on my iPhone, my iPad, iMac, or my MacBook... any time somebody texts me via Apple Messages it will appear on all of them. And I can reply from all of them using my mobile number as the return address so it's seamless to the person I'm communicating with. As if that weren't awesome enough, all my devices archive the complete conversation so it's seamless for me to move between them too. This feature alone makes the upgrade to iOS 6 worthwhile.
The only problem is setting it up. I thought it would all happen automatically but, when it didn't, I finally figured out that you need to log out and log back into your iCloud account on your iPhone, THEN do the same on all your other devices and computers. Works like a charm. All you have to do is choose which email addresses you want people to message you at... and whether you want your mobile phone number to receive messages on that device. Easy.
• Mail. Apple always seems to be hesitant to adopt things they didn't invent. Even when those things are superior to what they've developed. Which is why you could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out that Mail has adopted "pull to refresh"... a feature I've loved ever since I first saw it in Tweetie. Not only that, but they added a really cool widget that stretches and snaps when you pull. It's awesome. And I've been begging for it to happen in Mail for a long time. Another new feature is a VIP Mailbox which collects important email from Very Important People you designate. This can be tied to VIP alerts which will let you know when VIP email arrives. It's quite cool...
AND DID I MENTION THEY FRICKIN' ADDED PULL TO REFRESH?!? HOLY CRAP DOES THAT MAKE ME HAPPY!
• Do Not Disturb. It's a bit tough for me to dig up praise for a feature THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED ON iPHONE FROM DAY ONE. but I'm going to try. Because being able to have your iPhone or iPad shut the hell up during the middle of the night is something worth praising. Even if it's years overdue. Suffice to say that being able to selectively (or automatically) make your iPhone ignore everything but calls from critical people you designate is part of what makes a smartphone a SMART ... PHONE! Long overdue and much appreciated.
• Passbook. One of the buzzword technologies hitting mobile phones is "NFC" which is "Near Field Communication." This allows you to buy stuff or unlock stuff or transfer stuff very simply over very short distances. It sounds kinda cool. No more fumbling for your credit card or airline ticket or room key when you've got your mobile phone! Except... not many people are using it. Yet. And, like all new tech, we don't know if it will really catch on. So Apple is conveniently ignoring it. For now. As a stop-gap, they've come up with Passbook. It's kind of like a wallet for your cards and tickets and stuff. Except instead of using NFC, it relies on good old-fashioned bar codes...
The above image comes from Apple, because Passbook itself hasn't really caught on yet. I think it will. It's just too good of an idea to be ignored. Especially since the cards/tickets/whatever are "location aware" and will pop up automatically when you are near the place they can be used. I look forward to using it. Eventually.
• Facebook/Twitter. And so now you can Tweet and Facebook directly from the Notification Center. You can also Tweet and Facebook stuff from other various apps like Photos and Safari courtesy of the "Share" button. It's kinda nifty...
• Maps. There's no subtle way to say this... Apple's replacement for Google Maps (titled simply "Maps")... sucks. And sucks hard. First of all, there's NO Public Transit Directions. This is just awful for somebody like me who travels to new places a lot and uses public transportation. Second of all, the map data is often good, but sometimes pretty terrible. Things are missing or on the wrong place. Satellite views for some locations are so bad as to be indecipherable. It's just a mess, and even if Apple starts throwing millions of dollars at the problem, it's going to be a while before they are even close to Google Maps.
The good news is that when Maps works, it's pretty frickin' incredible... and so very very pretty. PLUS YOU CAN MAKE THE LABELS BIG SO YOU CAN ACTUALLY READ THEM! Sweet! But the feature that sets Apple Maps apart is their amazing "Flyover" feature that allows you to swoop around some cities in beautiful 3-D. I could play with it for hours...
Turning off the satellite gives you the geometry for Flyover...
There is some freaky imagery with Flyover in places... but when it works, it's pretty great. Like the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago...
Some famous places like The Coliseum and The Vatican are well-rendered...
Others, like the Eiffel Tower? Not so much...
I have no doubt that Apple is going to invest the time and money to keep improving Maps to the point that it eventually eclipses Google. The question then becomes... how long is that going to take? Could be years. Which means I really need my Google Maps back for serious use. Hopefully Google will give us an app for that... but, until then, I guess there's always their mobile maps site. Sure I'll lose the "turn-by-turn directions" that Apple has... but I'd take time-tested, reliable maps over flashy add-ons any day.
• Photo Stream. One of the things that drives me insane is how difficult it is to transfer photos. Transfer to my iPad. Transfer to my Mac. Transfer to friends. Transfer anywhere, really. At first I just emailed them to myself. Then I bought an app that had a klutzy way of setting up a link between my iPhone and my Mac. Apple's "Photostream" technology came along, but YOU don't choose what gets put there. Enter "Shared Photo Streams" with iOS 6. Now you can create your own custom streams, invite whomever you want to view them, then post photos until your heart's content. Bonus? You and others can COMMENT on the photos. Pretty sweet. It's not direct, instant transfer to somebody you're talking to, but it's good enough.
• Facetime. And so FaceTime over cellular is now possible with iOS 6. Unless you're unwilling to give up your grandfathered unlimited data plan. Then AT&T decides they're going to FUCK YOU JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN... THEY ARE GOING TO DENY YOU THE ABILITY TO FACETIME OVER CELLULAR LIKE THE GREEDY BASTARDS THEY ARE. Data is data. How they can differentiate how you use that data is pretty fucked up and should be illegal. And what about their customers that are deaf?!? A deaf person could really make use of this technology... but only if they want to sign up for a data plan that AT&T decides they can make money off of. Holy crap do I loathe cell companies.
That's not all the new features in iOS 6, but it's the ones that matter to me. Sure there are loads of other niceties... like being able to dismiss calls with a text... and the nifty panorama camera feature that's head and shoulders above the third-party apps for shooting panos... and shared iCloud tabs across devices from Apple's Safari browser is sure handy... etc. etc.
Any downside?
Well, as I said, Maps is a problem. It can be pretty, but it's not nearly as usable as the Google Maps it replaces. At least not yet. I wish Apple would have waited a while longer until their Maps were more functional. Other than that? Not a lot. My older iPhones don't seem to run any slower, which is always a concern. All the features that are available on each of my iPhones seem to be working as advertised. I suppose I could nitpick on little things, but the truth is that I am very happy with iOS 6... despite the fact that it's not much of a leap over previous iOS versions when it comes to the experience. Probably because Apple got it right the first time, but I fully admit I'd like to see a few more bells and whistles in the way things work. The iPhone 5 that's coming out tomorrow is leagues faster and more powerful than the original iPhone... why doesn't it have more whiz-bang visuals to take advantage of that? Not enough to distract or slow-down the gadgets running iOS, but something to make it feel a bit fresher than the original iPhone.
Because other mobile OS's like Windows 8 and Android may be behind the curve... but they're closing in a lot faster than Apple is willing to admit. Publicly. Hopefully behind the closed doors of Cupertino it's a different story.
Happy iPhone Day everybody!
May the blessings of Steve Jobs and the Almighty Apple be upon you this day!
And may Maps lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Android, amen.
Of course I'll be back with my comments on the iPhone 5. I just can't help myself...
ROBERT: "Bottom line it for me, dude."
DAVE2: "Well, if you have an
Having owned or used every model Apple's made, I can say that the
And with that out of the way, here we go...
• Design. iPhone 5 is crafted out of aluminum and glass. I picked the black version, but a part of me now regrets that decision. The dark anodized aluminum looks like it's going to scratch quite easily. I don't think this will be a problem with the white iPhone 5, because the aluminum was left uncolored. Hopefully I'll find a cool case for it that will help me keep it looking pretty. The iPhone itself feels really solid despite being thinner than earlier models. It's also noticeably taller than other models, but still very comfortable in my grip. But the biggest change I notice is this... it is so frickin' LIGHT! It feels almost weightless and ethereal. Even when compared to my previous iPhone, which was already pretty light-weight. I'd give he design an A+ if it weren't for my fear of scratches.
• Cellular. Much to my shock and delight, my small rural city has 4G coverage. Note that I did not say
• Speed. Everything on iPhone 5 is fast. Very fast. The ultimate test of speed comes from goofing around with Maps Flyover, and it screams...
Everything feels snappier and more responsive. It's the most awesome iOS experience I've had.
• Display. Gorgeous. It's a Retina Display, so it's tack-sharp. It's got one less layer of material, so it's lush, saturated, and has less glare. And now it also has a larger 16x9 HD ratio, which makes modern television programs and movies bigger since there's no letterboxing. This extra space also allows for an extra row of app icons on the home screen, which is nice. I admit that at first I was worried I wouldn't like the taller screen (the old one felt perfect), but it's grown on me and I love it. Thankfully they didn't go wider so I can still operate the thing one-handed.
• Camera. I've pretty much ditched my pocket cameras. The iPhone cameras just keep getting better and better so there's really no point carrying two pieces of hardware. The new camera on the iPhone 5 is remarkable for a number of reasons. The light sensitivity is much improved. The video quality (1080p at 30fps!) is amazing. And the built-in panorama mode, which previously required a third-party app, is incredible. Not just because it works so amazingly well and is dead-simple to use, but because the resulting image is fantastic...
Given how smokey it is here, that's pretty darn good. But what if I told you that pano photo shown there is only part of the full picture I captured?
The full width of the image is 5400 pixels, all with terrific detail. I can't wait to try this somewhere with great scenery... and no smoke.
• Sound. The built-in speakers are urprisingly good for a frickin' phone. Louder and clearer than you'd think. Enough to fill a small room, really. And now Apple has new "EarPods" headphones that they're bundling with all their new gadgets...
The big selling point on these is that they've been designed to fit the widest possible variety of ears while still sounding great. Well, they got half of that right. They do sound pretty good... better than the previous Apple earbuds. But they don't fit my ear very well at all. The weight of the cord is enough to eventually dislodge them if you start moving even a little bit. If I were to dance around with them, they'd fall out immediately. This either means that I have mutant ears... or Apple is full of shit. Oh well. I didn't plan on giving up my in-ear headphones anyway. I guess my EarPods will make a good backup or something.
• Lightning. There's quite an uproar over Apple's decision to ditch the bulky and antiquated iPhone "dock connector" for their new, smaller "Lightning connector" which comes with digital goodness baked in. Needless to say, everybody who is sitting on a load of iPhone peripherals that require the dock connector are now sitting on obsolete technology. Apple has a "dock converter" which can help (in most cases) but that adds big bulk and big bucks ($29). Personally, this isn't a problem for me. The only dock connector peripheral I have (my car charger) also has a USB port. No big whoop. All that being said, I love the new Lighting port. It's tiny, but fits securely. What I don't understand is why Apple didn't design this to be a "MagSafe" type connector which attaches by magnet like a MacBook. Seems like a no-brainer if you ask me. Well, it is what it is. Since the only reason to plug in my iPhone is to charge it, I guess it's not a big deal. Wireless charging would have been nice, but I'm sure this would have added size and weight to the phone, so I'm okay that Apple didn't go that route. And I really don't give a crap that they didn't go with stupid "micro USB" either, because I don't have anything else that uses it.
• Battery. I've been using iPhone heavily all day... whether it be goofing around with it non-stop... or waiting for it to download all my apps and photos and crap. Still have 17% battery left. Given how much thinner the thing is, this is kind of surprising. If I can get away with using it all day and only plugging it in each night, I'll be very happy. With my previous iPhones, I've had to buy an external battery.
• Una Problema. As I've written about more than once, using your Apple ID for all your iCloud-based services is a handy feature that's implemented badly. If Apple is going to force you down this road, they really need to be on the fucking ball, but they aren't. Not by a longshot. Just as I get one problem with Apple ID fixed, another takes its place. And, sure enough, upgrading my iPhone caused my Apple ID to get all fucked up. Again. Now my iMac isn't registering for Messages again. AGAIN! I have no idea why Apple can't get this shit so it works reliably, but it's pissing me the hell off. So now my Macs aren't registering all my Messages conversations like they should. Random Messages are missing on my MacBook. They're gone completely on my iMac. No idea why this is happening when they were working flawlessly before I upgraded my phone. Guess I'll be calling AppleCare again. AGAIN!
• The End. No bones about it. I love the iPhone 5. Everything about it screams quality. Apple sweated the small stuff and it shows. I have my pick of any mobile on the market, and this is the one I'd pick every day of the week and twice on Sunday. None of the current competitors I've seen or worked with come close. Yes, there are a few features on other phones I wouldn't mind having... but I would be sacrificing too much on the features I use every day that Apple gets so perfectly. And that pretty much sums thing up... for me at least, iPhone 5 is perfect.
I've once again escaped from the smokey side of the state! To celebrate, Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Move! I have tried for decades to understand how the car ahead of you will drive 10 miles under the speed limit... until a passing lane appears... at which time they'll start driving 10 miles over the speed limit so you can't pass... until the passing lane evaporates, at which time they'll drop back to their previous 10 miles under the speed limit again. What is wrong with them? How did they get a license? Don't they deserve to die for that? I know I'd certainly like to kill them for that. Where is Judge Dredd when you really need him?
• Case. Once Seattle-side, I stopped by the University Village Apple Store so I could get a case for my new iPhone. I worry a bit about the anodized black aluminum getting scratched, so it seemed like a good idea. Except... The Apple Store didn't have any cases. Which has to be one of the stupidest marketing decisions I've ever seen. Not even a frickin' bumper? By bypassing the add-on sales, it's as if Apple is saying "we don't need the extra revenue." Which, they probably don't... but this still seems outlandishly stupid. It's just as insane as if Apple had stacked up a huge pile of money in the parking lot and then set it on fire.
• Johnny? After surviving the shock of the Apple Store not having any iPhone 5 cases, I stumbled outside so I could visit the University Village Johnny Rockets. Except... The Johnny Rockets didn't exist! Which makes me wonder how long it will be until all the Johnny Rockets are gone. They seem to be disappearing at an alarming rate. Losing Pike Place Market was tough. Then Chicago. Then O'Hare. Now University Village. I don't know what my go-to restaurant will be if this continues. I would like it to be Earl of Sandwich but, alas, they're still pretty rare. Guess it'll be Pizza Hut or whatever.
• Soft. Across the parking lot from the heinously busy and totally packed University Village Apple Store is the mostly empty University Village Microsoft Store. From the looks of things, Microsoft copied quite a lot from Apple when they made their "retail experience" (except the crowds, of course)... right down to the name tag lanyard hanging around the necks of the T-shirt-wearing employees. As I drove by I saw one poor bastard whose job it is to stand at the door and ask (beg?) people to come in and look around. I felt like making a pity visit just because the whole situation was so sad... but I was just too hungry. Helpful hint to Microsoft: Start serving chocolate pudding and cookies at your stores so you might get some visitors.
• LTE. Having never experienced 4G LTE on a mobile phone before, I was pretty shocked to find that it seems faster than my WiFi back home. At least in Seattle it does. Web pages are loading almost instantaneously on my iPhone 5. Entire albums download in two minutes. Internet-powered apps are shockingly fast. Welcome to the future. Of course, it'll take ten years before I get it over in Redneckistan, so I suppose it will have to remain a treat for those times I'm in the big scary city.
And... I'm falling asleep. I'd post this, but I'm afraid it's not worth the $15 it would cost me. Holy crap do hotels get away with murder on internet pricing. Maybe they should be the ones policing our highways for slow drivers.
After a series of horribly early flights that forced me to get up at absurd hours not fit for man nor beast, I decided to make a change this trip. No flights before noon.
This would allow me to stay in bed until late, have time for a leisurely breakfast, and even goof off a bit before having to head to the airport. And it's a good plan, really. Except I have to fly out a day early to make my appointments... and add a day at the end because my flight gets back too late for the three-hour drive home. I didn't think this was a big deal... until I started calculating how much extra money that adds to a trip. Two extra nights in a hotel plus a slew of extra meals... not to mention the extra parking fees... turns out to be about $300-$350.
Well, crap.
That's a lot of money just so I can climb out of bed at a decent hour.
And so now I'm wondering if perhaps that 3:30am wake-up is worth it after all. Sure I'm a zombie for the day, but at least I'm saving over $300.
But try telling that to me this morning as I sat down to a plate of scrambled eggs and toast with a side of fresh strawberries... after having stayed in bed until 9:00. I probably would have paid $600.
Sometimes you just can't put a price on a great piece of toast.
Well, you can, but I just don't care.
At least until the credit card statement arrives.
The nice thing about having to be in Orlando for work is that at the end of your day you can wander over to Walt Disney World for fireworks...
The show was called Halloween Wishes.
Or maybe Halloween Dreams.
Or it could have been Halloween Magic.
Or Magical Halloween Dreams.
Or Dreamy Magical Halloween Wishes maybe?
How about Magical Halloween Dreams and Wishes?
Or perhaps Halloween Wishes for Magical Dreams?
Hell, I don't know. It was Halloween... something. And there was probably Magic, Wishes and Dreams in there, because there's always Magic, Wishes and Dreams stuffed into everything when you're at a Disney park.
And now it's time for me to start wishing for magical dreams... hopefully with some sleep attached.
Because of my many, many trips to Orlando, I've been to Walt Disney World eleventy bajillion times. Which means I'm pretty bored with the place. Sure "Pirates of the Caribbean" is great the first five times you ride it... but the twenty-fifth? Not even adding Johnny Depp can fix that. But it's the place everybody wants to go, so it's the place I usually end up.
Which means I'm always looking for something new and interesting to do at the Disney Parks. Usually it's by staying in a Disney hotel I've never stayed at before... but every once in a while there's something truly new and interesting to do.
Enter the Wild Africa Trek in Animal Kingdom, which lets you explore the "African savanna" there in an entirely different way from the "Kilimanjaro Safaris" you'd normally take...
You know it's going to be different once they suit you up in a safety harness. This allows them to clip you to a track so you don't fall to your death when leaning over a cliff to see hungry hungry hippos up close and personal...
But the main reason for the safety harnesses (and the highlight of the trek) is a "rope bridge walk" which takes you high over the forest...
Being a Disney experience, it's all incredibly safe... but, being a Disney experience, they try to give the appearance that your trek is fraught with danger. Some of the wood boards on the bridge are broken or just plain missing...
And, as if that weren't enough "danger" for you, they walk you over a bunch of crocodiles... just like in an Indiana Jones movie...
The biggest problem with the "Kilimanjaro Safaris" ride that you would normally go on is that you don't get to stop. If animals are hiding, you don't get to stop and wait for them to show up. If you spot a really cool animal on the savannah, you don't get to stop and observe it for a while. Disney has quota of people they need to shove through the ride, so they have to keep moving.
But with the "Wild Africa Trek," it's completely different because they stop the truck and pull over whenever they want. This gives you a much better opportunity to look at the animals roaming around...
Along the way you get to stop at a camp on the savannah to have a snack. A snack that's actually more of a meal...
You get a terrific assortment of Africa-inspired foods (I got the vegetarian meal) and absolutely every bit of it was delicious. If there was a restaurant that was serving this meal, I would totally eat there. Frequently.
Overall, I enjoyed the Wild Africa Trek experience quite a lot. It's fun. It's exciting. It's educational. It's different. It's Disney.
The cost varies depending on whether you are at Disney World during the high season or the low season... and whether there's a special running or not... which means somewhere between $160 and $250 per person. I don't know that I would pay $250... but it's a bargain at $160.
Each trek is limited to 12 people and they have a limited number of treks per day. So... if you are planning to give it a try, you'll definitely want to book ahead to make sure you get in. Here's a link to Disney's website for Wild Africa Trek with the number you can call to book it. You can also visit the "hidden" trek kiosk next to Tuskers Restaurant in Animal Kingdom and take a chance that there's a spot available (get there early!).
As of this writing, the site above is actually kind of crappy in that they don't give you much information. They don't tell you that you need closed-toe shoes (I took boots and was glad to have them)... they don't tell you where to go (Animal Kingdom entrance 1/2 hour before your trek next to the ATM on the right). This is essential info to have, because Disney employees look at you like you're from outer space when you try to ask questions about it.
And now I'm off to have a magical day... working.
You know how once things start to go downhill they continue to go downhill... but faster and with less control?
Yes. That.
I found myself saying "Are you kidding me?" quite a lot today. I am amazed how people seem to have -zero- sense of responsibility anymore. They just don't seem to care how their actions affect other people. They break promises at the drop of a hat and never seem to give it a second thought... no matter how many people were counting on them.
And now I'm thinking of joining the irresponsibility party. Why should I continue to honor my promises and obligations if nobody else is going to?
Oh yeah... I'm not a piece of shit. That's why.
Second verse, same as the first.
Monday really can't come fast enough.
This trip to Orlando I ended up staying at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge... a pricey but very nice hotel that's located directly on the Walt Disney World Resort property.
Meant to compliment Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park, the lodge is an African-inspired masterpiece that has something you won't find in most any other hotel... animals wandering around outside your balcony. Depending on which savanna your room overlooks, you can see giraffes, zebras, okapi, antelope, gazelles, eland, ostrich, and more!
My room in the main lodge (Jambo House) overlooked the "Sunset Savanna" (the other two being "Arusha Savanna" and "Uzima Savanna"). Throughout the day I managed to see all kinds of animals...
The hotel itself is pretty amazing... which is no surprise since it was designed by Peter Dominick, who also designed the Wilderness Lodge. The showpiece of the hotel being the lobby, which is a towering four+ stories...
The standard rooms are not overly-spacious, but they are nicely appointed and comfortable...
ANIMAL KINGDOM LODGE PROS:
ANIMAL KINGDOM LODGE CONS:
SUMMARY:
While it isn't going to dethrone Disney's Wilderness Lodge as my favorite Walt Disney World resort property, it comes very, very close. The Animal Kingdom Lodge with its cool Savanna views offers a unique experience that I really enjoyed, and would be happy to experience again (despite some of the cons that go along with staying here). Highly recommended if you don't mind spending huge sums of money.
Be sure all loose items are securely stored under your seat and remember there's no flash photography, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Halloween! 'Tis the season for "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party" once again. Taking place after the normal park hours, the party has a special parade "Boo to You!" and a really nice fireworks show in addition to trick-or-treating throughout the Magic Kingdom park...
It seemed a lot more crowded than the last time I did Mickey's Halloween, with the trick-or-treat lines being absurdly long. So totally not worth waiting 15-20 minutes for a handful of the cheap candy they're handing out.
• Star Tours! The last time I was in Orlando I didn't have time to do the whole Disney thang, so I missed seeing the "new and improved" Star Tours ride. Much to my surprise, it actually is "new and improved!"...
You get a completely randomized experience every time you ride. Two different openings (Darth Vader and Millennium Falcon), three different adventures (Kashyyyk, Hoth, and Tatooine), and three different endings (Coruscant, Naboo, and Death Star 2)... which makes 54 different possible combinations. I kept riding until I saw all the pieces I wanted to see. The only two I didn't experience were the pod race on Tatooine and the Trade Federation battle on Naboo (since I don't give a flying fuck about the shitty Star Wars prequels. Overall, very well done and a lot of fun!
• Safari! Even though I went on the much more extensive and interesting "Wild Africa Trek" through the Animal Kingdom savanna, I still managed to get in a ride on the canned "Kilimanjaro Safari" they offer. Much to my surprise, the "ride" has changed. No longer is there a story element about chasing poachers and rescuing a baby elephant... that's all gone! Instead, it's "just a safari" where you may (or may not) see many interesting animals. The poaching story was kind of lame, so this is probably a smart move... but it was still kind of shocking that the ride wasn't the way I remembered it.
• Beignets! No trip to Walt Disney World would be complete without a trip to Disney's Port Orleans' Resort for breakfast beignets!
• Dining! This trip I was sure to eat at two of my favorite Disney restaurants... both located in their Hollywood Studios park, both of which I highly recommend (assuming you can get reservations or manage to get in without them... they're really popular). First up is the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater restaurant, which simulates an old-time drive-in theater playing crappy old sci-fi movies and tables shaped like cars...
Next up is the 50's Prime Time Cafe, which is set up to look like a house from the 1950's, complete with sassy waitresses bringing out "mom's food" and reminding you to "KEEP YOUR ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE!"
A new restaurant to me this time was "Via Napoli" with authentic Naples pizza. Their White Pizza was amazing, and I will definitely be back...
And, of course, there's always Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney, which makes the best sandwich you will ever eat...
It's surprising that I don't gain 50 pounds every time I come here. I spend most of my time eating.
• Hunter. One of the best shows nobody ever saw was called Oh Grow Up! which was a short-lived comedy by Alan Ball (of American Beauty, True Blood, and Six Feet Under fame). I was a huge, huge fan, which is why I was very sad to just now learn that Oh Grow Up! lead actor Stephen Dunham died back on September 18th. His character of Hunter Franklin was not an easy role to pull off... but Dunham managed it flawlessly...
Oh how I wish they would honor Dunham by releasing Oh Grow Up! on DVD or even iTunes download!
Annnnd... I could probably shoot off another dozen bullets here, but I've got to be able to get caught up on sleep sometime!
Last night I went to a show by the Blue Man Group at Universal Studios CityWalk here in Orlando. I had seen them previously in Las Vegas and new this show would be smaller... but it was still pretty darn entertaining. Don't know if it's truly worth the high ticket price, but I was happy I got to go...
What I am NOT happy about is paying for internet here are the Universal Studios Hard Rock Hotel and having it be so damn slow that I can't update my blog. Guess I have to wait until I get back home before I get to post my entries for the next couple days.
Nothing quite like paying for shitty internet. Sure Disney's internet wasn't anything to write home about, but at least it was free.
And speaking of color... Blogography will be going PINK for October again this year. Be safe, ladies!
I have never, ever felt that I got my money's worth any time I've visited the Universal Studios Orlando & Islands of Adventure theme parks. This is the opposite of visiting Walt Disney World where I always leave satisfied that my money was well-spent.
The problem begins from the minute your plane touches down in Orlando. If you're staying at Disney hotel property, they have a "Magical Express" bus that will whisk you to your hotel for free AND take care of your luggage for you. If you're staying at a Universal hotel property, it's a $50-$60 taxi ride and you have to go to baggage claim to handle your own luggage. Ditto for when it's time to fly home. Disney is free with luggage transfer included. Universal is another $50-$60 and you're checking in your own luggage.
Then there's the internet. Disney hotels offer it for free (at least in the resorts I've stayed at)... Universal hotels charges you $10 a day.
And don't get me started on how messed up Universal is on their bundling. Because I had Blue Man Group tickets in my bundle, I wasn't allowed to get my theme park tickets at my hotel... I had to go to the Blue Man Theater box office, which is crazy. And then I had to go to a machine for my Express Passes, which is even crazier. With Disney, everything you bundle is waiting for you at your hotel when you arrive. So much easier and less stressful.
Then there's the parks themselves.
The reason I even bothered with Universal Studios was because of their new "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" area they dropped into Islands of Adventure. They have a ride there called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey which uses an insanely great new robotic arm technology that I simply had to experience...
And, sure enough, it's pretty spectacular. Even if you can't stand Harry Potter like me.
What makes it so revolutionary is that the robotic arm attached to your seat isn't bolted to the floor like other rides which use robotic arms. The robots on this ride move!
So, not only are you being flown all over the place, you're moving at the same time. It's kind of like they merged Star Tours with Soarin' and then made the whole thing mobile. The result is one of the more fascinating theme park ride experiences available today... even if I thought the Harry Potter material was kind of weak.
But that's about it for Islands of Adventure. The only other ride I give a crap about there is The Incredible Hulk Coaster which is one of my favorite roller coasters on earth. So... $88 for two rides then? Yeah, that's about it. Jurrassic Park River Adventure is boring and lame. A poor imitation of Disney's Splash Mountain with shitty rubber dinosaurs that gets you completely soaked for no reason. Amazing Spider-Man is actually a good ride (especially now that they've upgraded the visuals to HD), but it just doesn't hold up to repeat visits. Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls is okay, I guess, but it too pales in comparison to Splash Mountain at Disney.
Then there's Universal Studios itself, which is also $88. It fares only slightly better with five rides I like... Despicable Me Minion Mayhem (a new Star Tours-like ride that's really great... mostly because I LOVE Despicable Me)... The Simpsons Ride (which was far better when it was Back to the Future: The Ride, but still entertaining)... Revenge of the Mummy (a slightly more intense Space Mountain that's far more comfortable to ride)... Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket (a decent roller coaster with a 90° high-rise that allows you to pick your own soundtrack)... and Terminator 2 3-D (which is badly dated and gutted — NO MORE TERMINATOR ARRIVING ON A MOTORCYCLE! — but, hey, it's the Terminator, so of course I have to like it).
You can get a two-day ticket that allows one park per day... but it's kind of a waste, because I can never find enough stuff to do for an entire day. Better instead to do this...
Two last things...
You actually don't have to stay at a pricey Univeral Studios Orlando hotel property to get an Express Pass. You can buy the Express Pass outright at the parks. HOWEVER... the only way to get the hour-early admission into Wizarding World of Harry Potter IS to stay at an on-site hotel, so I recommend it to save yourself hours standing in line for Forbidden Journey.
And, if you want to ride absolutely everything in each park no matter how lame it is... getting the two-day single-park pass is probably the way to go. You won't be quite so rushed as you go from ride to ride. But, just as an FYI... using the steps I outlined above, I could easily ride just the stuff I want in one day... but it's up to you.
And that's about all I have to say about Universal Studios. I probably won't be back unless they come up with something so spectacular that my life won't be complete unless I experience it... like Elizabeth Hurley Land (where you get to ride Elizabeth Hurley!) or something equally awesome. Otherwise theree just doesn't seem to be enough bang for the amount of bucks you have to spend.
Goodnight and goodbye Orlando. See you next year.
Probably.
Photo taken with my iPhone 5, which has some wonderful new capabilities in capturing low-light situations. Other than being reduced in size, this picture of the Hard Rock Cafe Orlando is completely un-retouched.
I swear, sometimes my frickin' PHONE shoots better images than my actual camera.
Orlando was ridiculously hot and humid. Any time spent outdoors was miserable.
Which is why a part of me was actually happy to come back home.
At least until I went out to my car this morning and found frost on the windows. And started wearing a jacket. And threw a couple of blankets on my bed. And swapped short-sleeve shirts for long-sleeve shirts in my closet. And made sure my boots and gloves were unpacked.
So now I'm wondering if I was a bit too hasty in wanting to leave Florida.
In another month I'll be certain of it.
One year ago today I was in Fiji. I had been out snorkeling with sharks, sea snakes, and fish. I had been on a boat following a pod of dolphins. I was heading to shore when my mobile phone beeped with a message. I didn't look at it because I rarely get texts when I'm traveling, and usually when I do get a text it's bad news.
Eventually I looked. It was a text from my brother. Despite the fact that I had prepared myself for something less than good, I was completely unprepared for what I saw...
Steve Jobs was gone.
And because of the time difference, I was hearing the news while in the future and half a world away.
It would have been nice if this cheat in time and space would have lessened the blow, but here I am a year later and it still hurts. One of the people I most admire on this earth and whose work has had a huge impact on my life isn't around anymore.
There's never going to be "just one more thing" ever again... and some days it's more than I can take.
Flowers left at the Sydney Apple Store.
Maybe next year will be easier. But today I can't imagine that there's any amount of time and space that will make me feel better about waking up and remembering that Steve Jobs is no longer here.
At some point, we became a society that embraces a world where facts are no longer indisputable truth.
I know this, because every time I look at Facebook or Twitter I see loads of bullshit and lies being presented as "facts." And nobody seems to care. Not the people posting them. And certainly not the people blindly reposting them.
For the longest time, I really didn't give a crap because the people who believe the bullshit and lies are the people who need the bullshit and lies to create whatever reality it is they're living in.
But lately I've come to realize that there is a rapidly growing number of people so damn stupid that they believe the bullshit and lies because they're too lazy to bother verifying what they see. And they're being encouraged to vote based on this information.
And suddenly I realize that Depeche Mode had it right all along with the song New Dress on their brilliant album Black Celebration...
You can't change the world,
But you can change the facts.
And when you change the facts,
You change points of view.
If you change points of view,
You may change a vote.
And when you change a vote,
You may change the world.
We have better, faster, and easier access to information right now than at any time in history. And yet a Google search is apparently too much effort to verify that the "facts" people are reposting to Facebook and Twitter aren't actually bullshit and lies.
Oh well. I guess we get the world we deserve then.
And that's a fact.
Find your happy place, because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Debate? I thought I was missing something by being in an airplane during the first presidential debate. Now that I've seen it, I realize I didn't miss much at all. President Obama was uninspiring, passive, and boring. Mitt Romney was artificial, creepy, and a dick. Neither was looking very presidential tonight... though at least Romney seemed to have some passion to him. That being said, I don't think either of them changed any minds. The biggest loser of the night had to be moderator Jim Lehrer, who couldn't moderate wiping his own ass. Pathetic. The next person who puts him in charge of moderating a debate should be shot. Then fired. I guess downsizing Lehrer is one thing that Mitt Romney and I can agree on? I just don't think that Big Bird should go with him...
Given the dearth of stupid shit on television for kids, I'd say that supporting entertaining educational programs like Sesame Street is essential for the survival of future generations. Especially when you consider that Big Bird gets 1/100th of 1 percent of the congressional budget (PBS as a whole gets less than 1%). So, yeah, that'll make a fucking dent.
• Maries! If crack cocaine and mayonnaise had a baby, it would be Marie's All-Natural Salad Dressings. For the longest time I ignored them on the shelf because they were too expensive compared to the other salad dressings available. But last month I was bored and decided to try one. It was so frickin' amazing that I've been slowly working my way through every flavor available. Now that I've tried them all, I have narrowed my favorites down to Chunky Feta Cheese and Asiago Peppercorn...
Anything that can make lettuce taste this good is worth every penny. And so now I'm going to be poor because I spend all my money on salad dressing. If you're looking for a pricey but delicious way to liven up your salad, I highly recommend giving Marie's a try.
• Television! Ooh! New TV shows! As a total television whore, this is a happy time for me. At least it was until I realized that there have only been four new shows worth watching out of all the stuff that looked intereting to me so far this season...
It will be interesting to see how Arrow, Nashville, and Chicago Fire fare, as I think they're the only new shows left that I want to see which I haven't seen.
Annnd... apparently I can't post this because my internet just went down. Guess I'll be late. Again.
Current polling shows that Washington's Referendum 74 is running 15 points ahead for approval. If this holds up come voting day, Washington State's marriage equality law will be upheld and it will be legal for two consenting adults to marry... even if they both have a penis or both have a vagina.
This would make me happy for friends of mine who have been wanting to get married... but can't because the person they love has the same genitals. Apparently this is reason enough for a couple to be deemed unworthy of marriage, which feels kind of petty considering that Washington State has one of the highest divorce rates in the nation (we're #15!). But, whatever. It would seem that some people feel the way to "save marriage" is not to work on keeping their own straight marriages from failing at such an alarming rate... but to instead prevent others from getting married.
The mind boggles.
All I know is that there will be much bitching and crying in Redneckistan if Referendum 74 passes.
Which is good enough reason for me, so here's hoping.
Today when I checked my grandmother's mail, a small DVD package fell out. The interesting thing about it was not that she doesn't own a DVD player to see it... but that it's a movie promising to fill you in on "what the future holds."
And what a future it is...
I don't know about you, but I am totally stoked that the future is going to look like a heavy metal album cover! How fucking awesome is that? A bunch of cool stuff that doesn't even exist today is going to be coming soon!
Needless to say, I ran to my DVD player to pop this bad boy on my television. I didn't even make popcorn I was so excited.
Unfortunately, there were no dinosaurs and winged lions to be found. It's just a recording of a guy giving a sermon on the same world-ending Bible prophesies that people have been sermonizing for the past 2000 years ("No, seriously! This time it is REALLY happening!"). Having read The Bible and studied The Book of Revelation, I found the movie to be pretty boring, so I turned it off and watched The Avengers again. That movie is so kick-ass that I can't watch it enough times!
Which made me realize that they really should have gotten Josh Whedon to direct Revelation Unleashed. Maybe he would have put The Hulk and Iron Man in there to fight the bears, dinosaurs, lions, and leopards. And that future? I would totally watch that.
Today is my Friday this week!
And so here I am in Atlanta. Again. Just a week ago I was passing through the airport, but this time I'm going to stick around... for one whole day!
It's the start of a little four-day "mini vacation," which means I have nobody but myself to blame that I'm stuck traveling all weekend. And, as happy as I am to be flying to two really cool events, a small part of me is just tired of traveling. Tired and wanting to stay home.
In other news, Representative Paul Ryan did a photo shoot for Time Magazine which included workout photos. And who could blame him? He's in fantastic shape. If I was in that good of shape, I'd have gone to tonight's debate shirtless. Hell, I'd go everywhere shirtless. So it's kind of lame to see all the nasty comments being sent Ryan's direction when he's probably just being himself. Give the guy a break. He obviously works out, so who cares?
Which is not to say that the whole backwards cap thing isn't douchey. It's 100% douchey. All he needs is a soul patch and some sunglasses... and he's Poochie...
My contribution to the Photoshop mashups exploding on the internet. You are welcome!
And now I can't look at Paul Ryan without thinking back to a joke that Demetri Martin drew up...
Oh well. That wouldn't be the worst thing we've had take office in American politics.
And now... sweet surrender to some sleep at last...
Matt & Kim remain the best live show I've ever seen.
And though it would be hard to top seeing the band in London on my birthday last year... I had an absolute blast here in Atlanta tonight!
Totally worth flying across the country! If you ever have the opportunity to see Matt & Kim play live, it is something you absolutely cannot miss. It's like an amazing concert and a big party all rolled into one!
If not, you can still listen to their brand new album Lightning, which dropped just last week!
And... it's 1:40am. Guess I'd better at least attempt to get some sleep before flying out tomorrow morning.
This morning I boarded a plane for Cincinnati, Ohio so that I might rent a car and drive to Lexington, Kentucky. I would have flown to Lexington directly, but the cost of the ticket was hundreds of dollars more expensive, so I took a pass. The two-day car rental was a fraction of the price and a much better bargain.
The reason I was off to Lexington was to attend a party being thrown by The Couple Formerly Known as Mr. Fabulous and Turnbaby. I hadn't been to the previous two parties (despite having a fantastic time at their ConFab event back in 2009) so I knew I had to get to this one. Because, hey, how many parties can you go to where snorting heroin off of Secondhand Karl's ass is a topic of conversation?
Well, okay, lots of them. But not in Kentucky.
The theme of the party was "Hollywood Nights" and every attendee had to show up dressed as a recognizable movie character. As I was trying to decide what in the heck I was going to be one night, The Princess Bride was playing on television. So... The Dread Pirate Roberts I was to be...
As you wish! Photo by Adam Heath Avitable
I bought the head-scarf, mask, gloves, collapsible sword, and boot toppers... but sewed the shirt myself, and it turned out great. Luckily I had taken a sewing e-course from Whipstitch, so I already knew how to do the tricky bits required for constructing a poofy shirt. Good thing too, because you never know when that kind of knowledge will come in handy.
Anyway... it was all worth it, because the party was great and a good time was had by all.
And I got to dress up like a pirate.
Time to deal with that hangover... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Flip! While I was trying to come up with things to do to kill time before the Matt & Kim concert last Friday, I found out that The Muskrat was flying into ATL that same day, so we decided to meet up for lunch. He took me to "Flip" which is an upscale burger "boutique" restaurant created by Top Chef: All-Stars winner Richard Blais. Their vegetarian choice was a "Fauxlafel Burger"... which is a kind of falafel patty topped with marinated vegetables. I fucking hate burgers with non-burger crap on them, so I asked to have a "Classic Burger" but substitute the "Fauxlafel" patty. They were happy to accommodate me, and the resulting burger was fantastic! Wished the bun was a little bigger... but other than that it was really flavorful and delicious. Flip's claim to fame is their "Krispy Kreme Shake" which has a doughnut blended into it...
Absolutely amazing. It really did taste like a Krispy Kreme, and I was definitely left wanting more. Overall, a great experience at Flip, and I would absolutely go back.
• Pre✓ And so there's a new program from the TSA which gives frequent fliers the ability to receive "Trusted Traveler" status. I had never heard of it before today, but am happy that it exists. I'm even more happy that Delta Airlines opted me into the program...
Going through the Pre✓ line meant that I didn't have to take off my shoes. I didn't have to take off my light jacket. I didn't have to take off my belt. I didn't have to remove my baggie of liquids & gels from my bag. I didn't even have to remove my computer from my backpack!
Well... if I didn't have a big block of cheese given to me by The DutchBitch, I wouldn't have had to remove my computer. Turns out that cheese looks like organic explosives or something, so they actually did have to remove my laptop for a second scan.
In any event, this is an awesome perk for people who have to fly a lot. It's a much better program than the stupid "Regular/Family/Experienced" lanes that they had tried earlier... those programs were doomed to fail because everybody piled in whatever lane was shortest. Many, many times I got behind somebody in the "Experienced" lane who didn't know what the hell they were doing. With Pre✓, it's invitation only to "experienced" travelers, so newbies can't get in to fuck everything up.
In all honesty, I don't know how effective all the crazy security stuff is that the TSA has in effect. What I do know is that Pre✓ goes a long way towards making me not mind it so much.
• Holy Crap! I've been skydiving. And, even though I have a fear of heights, I didn't have any problems because there's a point where the scale of the height is so big that you don't really recognize it as something to fear. But then there's this...
Photo by Felix Baumgartner himself
I'm pretty sure that I would lose my frickin' mind if ever I faced a jump of 28,000 feet. That's 24 frickin' miles! And yet... Felix Baumgartner took it on like a boss. Kind of makes skydiving look like a walk in the park. Next up? Lunar jumps!
• Frothy! It would appear that everybody's favorite gay-sex obsessed piece of shit, Rick Santorum, is still in Washington State drumming up hate against equality...
It used to be the only reason I wanted marriage equality for my home state was so that my friends here who want to be married but are unable to will finally be able to fulfill their dreams. But more and more I want it to pass so that ridiculous, bigoted, homophobic idiots like Rick Santorum will fail utterly... thus sending a message to other ridiculous, bigoted, homophobic idiots that their time has passed. And good riddance.
• Lawdy! And, speaking of ridiculous, bigoted, homophobic idiots... I think this one is my favorite one of all...
Oh horrors! The law will apply to everyone... not just the well-adjusted, well-educated, sophisticated, wholesome, gays... it'll also apply to the gays with drug problems and who are mentally unstable! Well, shit! We simply cannot have that! Can you imagine if there were straight couples with drug and mental problems having families? What would we do then? Clearly, this is the strongest argument against marriage equality ever.
• Nemo! Please tell me you saw the wonderful Google Doodle celebrating the 107th anniversary of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland...
Absolutely brilliant... just like Little Nemo, which remains one of the most imaginative things to come out of human history.
And... I suppose now that it's 2:00am I should see if I can get some sleep. It's been a long day.
This will be an entry in two parts.
This is Part One.
On my way back to the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport yesterday, I stopped off at The Creation Museum. For those not in the know, this museum was built to explain the origins of life on earth as interpreted by a literal reading of the Book of Genesis in The Bible, which contains this pertinent bit...
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so.
God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning... the sixth day.
So... all living creatures were created by God on the sixth day. Including man.
And dinosaurs, of course...
This may sound crazy given that science clearly shows that dinosaurs actually existed millions of years ago and became extinct long before man even entered the picture... but... if you believe in a literal reading of The Bible, well... science is clearly wrong. God's own Word tells us that all living creatures were created by Him on the sixth day mere thousands (not millions) of years ago, and there's nothing more to be said...
Now, before I go any further, let me be perfectly clear... this is not the belief of all Christians. There are many, many Christians who have different belief structures based on different interpretations of The Bible. One belief, for example, says that what God considers a "day" could be very different from what man considers a "day" to be. Perhaps a "day" for God consists of millions of years. This would mean that our flawed perception of time and our "science" doesn't necessarily negate God's Word.
And it goes on and on. There are as many ways to look at Creation from a Christian perspective as there are Christians on earth.
When I was in the middle of my initial Christian studies, I came up with a kind of sliding scale that had a "Sample Christian" loosely defined at each of five points. It was not meant to define people directly, but an attempt to understand how a single group called "Christians" could be composed of such vastly diverse perspectives... even amongst the different branches...
5. I Believe That The Bible is the ONLY Word of God. It is without flaw or error, and its every passage is to be followed exactly without any deviation from what is literally written. All events in The Bible transpired precisely as recorded and are historical fact. Its authors were directly controlled by God to transcribe His exact thoughts, and no part of it can be contradicted or ignored. Every word is of God, so everything within must be given equal weight and no part or parcel of it is to be given precedence over any other. The Bible is perfect and complete, thus there is nothing more for God to say on matters... all answers can be found within. Any translations to different languages were likewise directly controlled by God, so they are also without flaw or error. Any variant of The Bible which is different from the version/translation that I have accepted as God's truth is a false document. Any interpretation of The Bible which is different from mine is not of God and must be dismissed utterly as non-Christian. Anyone not accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior is damned in the eyes of God and doomed for all eternity.
4. I Believe That The Bible is the LITERAL Word of God. As above, everything written in The Bible is correct and true and must be taken exactly as presented. It is historically accurate and there can be no deviation from the texts since they are recorded facts. However, as God is a Living God who still speaks to our hearts even today, He directs us to those parts of The Bible which are most applicable to our lives. God continues to inspire people to explain and teach The Bible in new ways so that it can more easily apply to the modern world. While The Bible is the ultimate authority on all things, God's grace and gift of free will means that His truth will reach people in different ways... thus there will be a variety of versions/translations/interpretations of The Bible. But, despite our different approaches to God's Word, we are all one under Him. I embrace anyone who has accepted Jesus to be their Lord and Savior as a fellow Christian, even though the way they believe in The Bible may differ from mine. We are all following different roads to the same destination and that's God's plan. Those who have not yet given their lives over to Christ are potential Christians who must open their hearts to Him to be saved.
3. I Believe That The Bible is the INTERPRETED Word of God. While everything in The Bible is correct and true, the contents have been interpreted by man and are thus imperfect. Yes, events recorded in The Bible actually happened... but they've been colored by the writers of the day to fit into the world as they understood it. Because of this, people living in the modern world can't take things presented in The Bible literally. It is more a tool to know God and learn about the life and teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ rather than an exacting historical account with rules to be followed implicitly. Non-Christians who accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior... even if it's after their death... are saved in the eyes of God.
2. I Believe That The Bible is the INSPIRED Will of God. While the overall message of The Bible is correct and true, it was written by man, thus cannot be considered the literal "Word of God." It is more "parable and allegory" to learn from rather than exacting truth, and it is up to individuals to decide how to best use The Bible to define their faith. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and his teachings are the way to salvation, but those teachings are not first-hand accounts and open to
1. I Believe That The Bible is a Book About God. I don't actually believe everything in it to be true, but The Bible contains some things that resonate with me spirituality. In this respect, The Bible is merely one of many tools that a person can use to help them better know whomever or whatever God may be. I call myself a "Christian" because that's what people who believe in God are called, and Jesus as the Son of God sounds like he is a wonderful person I'd like to emulate.
Now, one would assume that The Creation Museum is gunning for "Sample Christians" from groups 5 and 4 whose world view coincides with their literal read of The Bible. But then you see their motto... Prepare to Believe... and you get the feeling that they're reaching deeper.
Then you step foot into their beautiful museum, and you're certain of it.
To Be Comcluded!
Yesterday I took a look at a sampling of various Christian archetypes. This was a preface to talking about how The Creation Museum is making a concentrated effort to reach all Christians with a literal interpretation of God's six days of Creation. It's an ambitious goal to be sure. Our modern understanding of the universe and "how things work" are more often than not in direct opposition to Scripture, so it's a hard sell. But, I'm here to tell you, the people behind this museum give it their best shot.
Before I go any further, I am compelled to admit that I am not a Christian and believe absolutely none of it. When it comes to life on earth, I put my faith in science and evolution. I fully believe in scientific methods like "carbon dating" to reveal the true age of the earth and when it was that various creatures lived upon it. I do not buy into The Flintstones world-view where dinosaurs and man existed at the same time. I do however, believe in God... though what constitutes "God" to me is radically different than what can be found in The Bible.
That being said, my studies of various world religions over the decades have me concluding that it's not my place to judge others for their beliefs, just as I would hope that they don't judge me for mine. For all I know, we're all plugged into The Matrix and none of this is real anyway. So who am I to say what is the absolute truth?
And so...
I have wanted to visit The Creation Museum ever since I saw this photo...
Photo by Mavra Chang on Flickr
I love dinosaurs. And my favorite thing about dinosaurs is that there were so many of them that were brutal killing machines. I've watched Jurassic Park dozens of times because seeing those nasty velociraptors hunt down people is pretty darn cool. So when I saw this image, I was freaking out. Why in the hell isn't that dinosaur ripping that little girl to shreds and eating her for brunch? "RUN LITTLE GIRL! RUN AWAY... EVEN THOUGH IT WON'T DO ANY GOOD! YOU'RE DEAD! D-E-A-D, DEAD!!! BWA HA HA HAAAA!" I'd say out loud to nobody in particular.
Curious to know how this insane photo could exist, I tracked down The Creation Museum and was mesmerized. Here was everything I didn't believe in... all in one building! I made a vow to visit. And this past Sunday, I finally did...
Now, don't let this boring exterior fool you. This is hands-down one of the most beautiful museums I've ever seen. It is a thorough exploration and explanation of a literal interpretation of The Book of Genesis unlike anything you could imagine. And, even though I think it's all fiction, I fully admit it is really well done. Exceptionally well done, even. And you feel that the minute you walk inside...
The continuing theme of the museum is "Same Facts, Different Conclusions" and they often times meld science with Scripture to support their arguments. To that end, they create scenes like this to establish that they are not disputing facts in evidence...
Dinosaur says "Oh this crick in my neck!"
"Anybody seen a little girl feeding carrots to a squirrel around here?"
And then ease you into a "debate" of Scripture vs. Science with nice displays that pits Man's word vs. God's Word...
After that they explain how silly an idea it is that we have a common ancestor with monkeys, complete with holographic evidence over a model of Lucy, the famous Australopithecus...
The single most important piece of Biblical Scripture used to explain how dinosaur bones got to be where they are and why scientists are mistaken as to how old they are is The Great Flood. The museum posits that the flood was practically instantaneous and provided such massive pressure that things like coal formation happened in weeks instead of millions of years...
This is not an easy pill to swallow given the geological evidence. But over and over again the museum claims that their Biblical truth is no less valid than other scientific theories. They just have a radically different starting point for the beginning of life on earth. Science = ~14 Billion Years... Scripture = ~6,000 Years...
You're hit with a lot of information before you even enter the exhibit space. God's plan for Creation has been fully laid out and supported as truth by their interpretation of scientific evidence. I may not agree with that interpretation, but I can respect their viewpoint. At least I did... until I got to this...
Really? Really? Playing the victim never really sells me on your position no matter what it is. If you're going to whine about separation of church and state, save it for your newsletter. It doesn't have a place here. This one section completely undermines the entire museum, in my humble opinion. Let your arguments stand on their own without this kind of bullshit.
Anyway... off we go to the exhibits, which is preceded by a series of videos showing just how awful human beings are today...
I guess the films are supposed to set the stage for what we lost when you turn the corner and get dropped into a really nice recreation of the Garden of Eden...
It starts out with the creation of Adam who is naming all the animals while a dinosaur eats a pineapple nearby. There was no death in The Beginning, so animals didn't eat each other...
Then Eve comes along, which results in some steamy scenarios worthy of high-budget porn...
All is not perfect in Paradise, however, as that nasty serpent is hanging around, ready to doom us all...
And here it is... Eve convincing Adam to eat from the Forbidden Tree. What a bitch!
Adam gives in to temptation, and then what happens? You turn a corner and... ZOMFG! IT'S HITLER!!!
Now THAT'S Shark Extreme!
God is most displeased, so now Adam has to work for everything instead of having it handed to him. What was once Paradise, is now a horrible place filled poisons, diseases, and weeds... DAMN WEEDS! But just look at how ripped Adam gets from working in his garden...
And, of course, dinosaurs are prancing around Adam's house. Though, it's after The Fall now, so I'm guessing they're no longer going to be satisfied with eating pineapples. LOOK OUT, LITTLE CAIN AND ABLE!!!
It's right about here that the museum explains how all of humanity is descendant from Adam and Eve. Their children married each other and had kids who married each other, which was not considered a bad thing back then. Apparently their DNA was so pure that inbreeding didn't cause The Hills Have Eyes-type genetic defects like you get when brothers and sisters reproduce today (even though science dictates the "purity" isn't the problem... it's the lack of genetic diversity).
But even God-approved inbreeding didn't work out that well for humans, who ended up becoming people so horrible that God decided to wipe the earth clean and start over again. Time for Noah's Ark!
Now, of all the stories in The Bible, Noah's is probably the hardest to believe. The guy really gathered up two of every animal, insect, bird, and creature from the entire earth? Seriously? And, now there's dinosaurs in the mix as well. How in the heck did he manage that? Well, the museum would argue that God was involved, so all things are possible... and the dinosaurs Noah found were probably just babies, so they could actually fit in the boat. A construction project which took poor Noah and his sons around 100 years to complete. Still, he ended up looking pretty good for someone of his advanced years...
In addition to being beautiful and well-crafted, the museum also has a good sense of humor about things, which I got a kick out of...
And... scene! End of the exhibits.
We now move on to theaters featuring films that further explain the museum's position on Creation. They play on continuous loop, which makes it easy to catch them all in your visit.
By far the most fascinating was a movie about dragons. The Creation Museum fully endorses the idea that dragons were actual creatures, and support this by saying how dragons are found in literature and stories around the globe by numerous disconnected civilizations. Coincidence? I think not! But why? Why would the museum drag magical creatures into their story? Well, it's because they claim dragons were actually dinosaurs (Pterodactyls, perhaps) which were embellished over the ages to breath fire and stuff. And if dragons were, in fact, dinosaurs then this means dinosaurs existed at the time of man. Ergo, everything in Genesis must be true, and God created everything at the same time on the sixth day...
Yes, it's a stretch, but... hey, I wasn't there.
At the end of your tour, there's restaurants and a really nice gift shop. Sadly, as it was a Sunday in the off-season, I didn't get to eat at Palm Pizza, which was located in a really cool little plaza...
So...
It would be easy for me to write-off The Creation Museum as a wacky pseudo-science museum which shoe-horns Scripture into facts. And logic dictates that their wholly unbelievable and unscientific exploration into life on earth should be dismissed as outright fraud and a futile attempt to support a faith-based worldview. Many other people have said just that.
But...
That's taking the easy way out. The truth is that I greatly enjoyed the museum, and was grateful to be given such an amazing look into how some of my fellow humans see the world. The reason I have spent such a great amount of time studying the earth's religions is to better understand humanity. And, much like the beautiful Holy Land Experience in Florida, this Creation Museum is just another piece of the puzzle for me.
And it's a piece that's really well-done.
The cost of a 2-Day admission ticket is $29.95 for adults and $15.95 for children with free parking. Even with the jaw-dropping quality of the museum, I think this is a bit high. $19.95 feels like it would be much closer to the mark. Admission to the museum's planetarium is an addition $7.95 per person (I skipped it, because I didn't have an extra $8 to spend, and I've been to planetariums before). Moms get free admission on Mother's Day, just as dads do on Father's Day (all the more reason to be fruitful and multiply!). US Veterans are admitted free on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day. Everybody gets free admission on Christmas Eve.
In Summary...
Despite my being a non-Christian, I had a really good time at the museum... even if I can't get behind the content. The staff were very nice and helpful. The exhibits are top-notch and near-Disney-quality. The organization and "flow" of the layout is well-planned. There's plenty to see and do and a lot to think about. A lot of love went into crafting The Creation Museum, and it shows in even the smallest detail.
For fundamentalist Christians who believe that Creation took place over six 24-hour days, it's a no-brainer to come here.
As for other Christians who struggle with "the Creation myth," well... it's hard to say. You might very well be convinced after visiting. As somebody who believes in science, it's tough for me to recommend you come here and possibly lose your grip on what I consider to be reality, but... eh, I still do.
For everybody else, it's a toss-up. Maybe, like me, you want to understand the fundamentalist Christian world-view better... it's definitely worth visiting for that. Maybe you are a non-believer who just wants to mock people's faith... well, I could think of cheaper ways than spending $29.95 to do it, but there's a lot of material here for you to mock (but, honestly, making yourself feel better by belittling other people's beliefs is pretty pathetic). Maybe you just like really good museums... in which case this one certainly qualifies and is worth a trip. Or maybe you just want something to do on your way to Cincinnati Airport for a couple hours... then this might do the trick if you can get past what they're presenting.
And Lastly...
To the creators of The Creation Museum, this property isn't the end of the story. The museum has been wildly popular, so they are looking to build something even bigger. Enter... ARK ENCOUNTER! A new exhibit which will recreate a full-sized Noah's Ark...
Not ambitious enough for you? How about the ark being merely a small part of an entire theme park?
Pretty amazing. If it's anywhere near the quality of The Creation Museum, I'd visit that! They've purchased the land and hope to have "Phase One" (the ark itself and a petting zoo) completed in 2014.
I try not to get bogged down by the bad things in life. Shit happens to everybody, it's a part of living on this planet, and there's nothing you can really do but accept it, deal with things the best you can, then move on to better times.
But then you have a day where so many things are going wrong at the same time that you can't help but feel defeated.
Last night I felt a cold coming on. Sure enough I woke up this morning in miserable shape with a hell of a cold setting up shop in my sinuses.
Things just went downhill from there.
After work I had to drive into Wenatchee to pick up something for my grandmother. There I was driving down the road... I go to shift into third gear and... there is no third gear! Apparently my transmission just blew, so I pull into a restaurant parking lot to call AAA.
And now I'm without a car...
You will note that there are three tow trucks in that photo (a dark grey one is hiding behind the yellow one jacking up my car). This is because there was a FRICKIN' TOW TRUCK DRIVERS MEETING going on in the restaurant where I parked my car.
What a hilarious coincidence!
But the best part? Of the half-dozen trucks that showed up for the tow truck convention, the guy who came to tow my car wasn't there for the meet-up! Maybe he went back there to join in the fun after having towed my piece of shit to the garage, I dunno.
And now I get to wait for the repair shop to open in the morning so I can find out how much it will cost to fix my pile of junk. I'm guessing at least $1000.
Which means I will probably end up buying a new vehicle since the last thing I want to do is sink more money into the heap of crap that is my car. So much for living in a paradise without a car payment. I suppose it was good while it lasted.
Time to take some cold pills and veg out in front of the television while I wait for something new to go wrong.
The night, after all, is still young.
Washington State is vote-by-mail, so I was able to get that out of the way when my ballot arrived today.
As I do every time I vote in a general election, I go back through my ballot and tally up how many Democrats and how many Republicans I voted for (not including unopposed races, where I don't vote). This year surprised me a little bit because it was right down the middle, 50% Democrat to 50% Republican. Last time it was more like 75% Democrat to 25% Republican.
Either I'm getting even more Conservative in my old age... or the Democratic candidates weren't very impressive this time around.
I won't go into the boring details, but I will elaborate on how I voted on the two most controversial items on the ballot...
Referendum 74, AKA "Marriage Equality" — APPROVE!
The government has no fucking business telling two consenting adults that they can or cannot get married based solely on what genitals they have (or don't have). In a country built on personal freedoms, the very notion of it is absurd. I fully support my gay and lesbian friends who want to get married and form families that are every bit the equal of their fellow straight citizens. Furthermore, I strongly believe in standing up and showing Washington's gay youth that their state fully supports who they are. When you finally find that one person who completes you after having searched your whole life, you should be able to share that bond with the world in marriage. Anything less is un-American.
Initiative 502, AKA "Marijuana Reform — YES!
I don't use marijuana. Legalizing marijuana isn't going to suddenly make me want to use it. But, for those responsible adults who do want to use it... I think it should be legal for personal consumption and TAXED! Let's stop wasting horrendous amounts of taxpayer money and resources fighting a recreational activity that shouldn't be illegal in the first place. I-502 isn't perfect by a long shot, but it is a step in the right direction. The much-needed tax revenue is just icing on the cake.
And now it's time to take my aching, coughing, sneezing, feverish, stuffy-headed body to bed in a futile attempt at getting a little sleep.
Today was the third annual "Wear Purple for Spirit Day" where lots of people will go purple in support of LGBT youth and speak out against the bullying they must endure.
I have exactly one item of purple clothing which I save for this day... an old Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt from Maui that I bought in the late 80's (back then, I guess purple was an acceptable fashion choice). I wear it on Spirit Day each year to remind me of the horrors that kids have to go through just for being themselves...
Of course I am against bullying of any kind, because there are an awful lot of kids who aren't gay that still get ruthlessly persecuted day in and day out just for being different. I have no idea why we humans have evolved into creatures that feel better about themselves by making others feel worse, but it's something we need to overcome.
In the meanwhile, I guess we wear purple in the hope that one day we won't have to.
I really, really don't like being sick.
And over-the-counter medication is not doing it for me.
I need to make friends with a doctor who can hook me up with the good stuff. And by "good stuff," I mean something that will put me in a medically-induced coma for 3 or 4 days until this cold has worked its way out of my system...
Scientists are making incredible medical advances every day. But the common cold is still here.
AND WHERE IS MY FRICKIN' FLYING CAR?!?
Brace yourself for an October Surprise... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Elysium! Back in 2009, The Pet Shop Boys released Yes one of their best albums in decades (and contains one of my favorite tracks ever, The Way It Used To Be). Now they've released their 11th studio album, Elysium, and my expectations were very high. Probably too high. It's a good album that has more hits than misses, but the misses really grate on me. Ego Music and Your Early Stuff are about as tedious as music gets, and I can't fathom why they were included on the album when they'd barely be interesting enough for B-sides. What remains doesn't include any of the throbbing dance-pop that made PSB famous, but it does have some remarkable tracks. Far and away my favorite is Memory of the Future, which is an achingly beautiful song that hasn't left my head since I first heard it...
Overall Elysium is another really good album that presents the Pet Shop Boys in a softer, more thoughtful light. Well worth checking out.
• Elementary! As a bit of a Sherlock Holmes purist (the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories remain among my favorite fiction) I've been pleasantly surprised with how much I've been enjoying both the Robert Downey Jr. movies and the Benedict Cumberbatch BBC series. I anticipated not liking the Johnny Lee Miller American series which takes place in New York and has Watson played by
Lucy Liu. But then I saw the premiere and was again pleasantly surprised...
No hat. No pipe. No magnifying glass. No problem.
But now after having seen three episodes I am definitely digging it. I was already a big fan of Miller and Liu, and they've got some good chemistry together. But, more important than anything else, the mystery stories have been really good. Elementary has quickly become my favorite new show of 2012, and is well worth checking out.
• Arrow. And speaking of television that's left me pleasantly surprised...
I guess the ladies will be tuning in...
Now, let's get something clear... this is not the Green Arrow we know from the comic book series. They have radically changed many of the fundamentals in an effort to make "good television." And have somehow succeeded. Millionaire playboy Oliver Queen is the lone survivor of a shipwreck who arrives at a mysterious island. While there, he crafts weapons to survive, and spends five years becoming the deadliest man alive with a bow and arrow. Eventually he returns home to "Starling City" to right some wrongs and free the city from the criminals who have taken over... dressed as Robin Hood. Anyway... the show is basically a Batman clone now, which is probably why I like it so much. Well worth checking out.
• Do Not Call. On Friday night I got a political action call from the National Rifle Association... an organization I used to respect, but have seen steadily degenerate into an organization resorting to fear-uncertainty-doubt to terrify people into doing their bidding. They send out scare tactic press releases against President Obama, even though he has repeatedly said he supports the 2nd Amendment and introduced no significant gun control legislation during his first term. But he said he supports keeping assault weapons off the street, so he's been branded anti-gun. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who actually DID introduce an extensive assault weapon ban when he was Governor of Massachusetts, gets endorsed by the NRA for president! They even go so far as to say he's the "only hope" for firearms freedom! If the NRA were truly an impartial organization fighting for the interest of gun owners, they should have informed their membership about both candidates. But it would seem they're so far in the pocket of the Republicans that Romney's gun-control past gets forgiven while Obama's gets him crucified because he's a Democrat. I guess that's politics for you. Or maybe I'm just pissed that somebody would dare call me during dinner.
• That Derek Zoolander is so Hot Right Now. Tonight's autism benefit show by Comedy Central... Night of Too Many Stars... opened with an appearance of one of my most guilty of guilty pleasures, Ben Stiller as Derek Zoolander. Rumors of a movie sequel have been leaking for a while, and this appearance would seem to verify that it's happening. But the biggest question? When will we know if Will Ferrell will be reprising his role as one of the best movie villains of all time, Mugatu?
Zoolander without Mugatu wouldn't be much of a film. Hopefully Will Ferrell and everybody involved in the project agree.
And... time to retire early. I think my cold is finally breaking, and a couple extra hours rest might do the trick.
As expected, Apple unleashed their iPad Mini at today's event... along with some other surprises...
• iPad Mini! The entire point of this product is to compete with the legions of other 7-inch tablets out there... in every way except price. Apple doesn't play the price game, they play the quality & value game... they make their product worth that extra money. Even so, I thought for sure the Mini would start at $299 and was fairly shocked that they went with $329 on the low end. Regardless, Apple is going to sell a bazillion of these things over the holidays...
But... not to me. My iPad 3 with Retina Display is absolutely perfect for the one thing I most use an iPad for... reading comics a full page at a time. The Mini's lower resolution would require that I read my comics panel by panel (again, like with iPad 2) instead of page by page.
But... I still want one. It's that sweet-spot size between an iPhone and iPad that would make it so perfect and handy for everything else I find myself reaching for the iPad to do... surf the web... read a book... check email... play games. And, unlike every other iPad I've owned, I would want it with a cellular connection so I could have internet everywhere instead of having to find a free WiFi hotspot.
I will resist the temptation, of course, because my iPad 3 is enough. But when Apple comes out with an iPad Mini with Retina Display... I just might break.
• iPad 4! The smartest thing Apple did at their press party was something nobody expected... a brand new iPad. This has a lot of people who just bought the iPad 3 six months ago in an uproar because the latest version is faster, has speedier WiFi, and better LTE connectivity. I don't care because I can't read comics twice as fast if the iPad is twice as fast, but there's a lot of people feeling burned.
Two things... 1) Apple simply had to get on a holiday release schedule with their new iPads because that's when most of them are sold... and 2) In the Android tablet world, there are a dozen manufacturers that are coming out with something newer and better every month. Apple is the only seller of iPads, so it feels worse than it actually is.
• 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display! While the small size is a killer feature for a traveler like me... I need a bigger screen to do the work I do. The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display I have is perfect... and will be even more perfect when Adobe's apps are fixed to take advantage of the additional pixels. Still, for a lot of people, the compact size of this new model will be plenty big with the denser display being able to show so much more information than the old models.
• Mac Mini! For somebody wanting a cheap Mac, the new Mini is about as good as it gets. Even the low-end $599 model will provide an excellent experience for running desktop apps. And it's so ridiculously tiny, taking up almost no space. You'll still need a display, keyboard, and mouse... but a lot of people have those sitting around from their previous computer, so the Mini is pretty much a dream come true for somebody wanting to switch to Mac in the most affordable way possible.
• iMac! And here it is. The new product from the event that I am most jealous of... the new impossibly thin iMac...
I bought the last generation model of iMac for work, which now seems like a clumsy piece of crap compared to this stunningly beautiful machine.
People who have seen the display say it's one of the most amazing computer displays ever, even though it hasn't got Retina resolution. I still don't know how Apple is going to come up with the processing power to even run a
Apple also made it a lot more powerful... even though it's so damn THIN. But it's not the faster chips that make me covet the new iMac... it's the new "Fusion Drive."
I bought both a Solid State Drive and a "regular" Hard Drive so I could use the SSD for speed and the HD for storage. To make work go faster, I put the project I'm working with on the SSD, then move it back to HD when I'm done. A little bit of a hassle, but the speed increase makes it worth the trouble. Now Apple has come up with "Fusion" which combines the two drives and does all this automatically and seamlessly. New files go on the SSD half of the drive, which are automatically moved to the HD half when you stop working on them. Genius.
Of course I want one... I just can't afford one. Wah!
• Mac Pro? Still no Mac Pro. Apple obviously feels that the iMac line is powerful enough that professionals who use Macs will move to them. They added wicked-fast transfer technology like "Thunderbolt" to make sure of it. And they're right... I moved to iMac because there wasn't a new Pro model available, and I've been very happy with it. But... there is a gaping hole in their lineup that Apple has got to address sooner or later or else they are going to start losing customers (if they haven't already). Supposedly the new Mac Pros are coming next Spring. But it would have been really smart to surprise people with a release today to show that Apple is still serious about professionals that need the serious raw power and expandability that an iMac can't offer. Oh well. That ship has sailed for me, so I won't worry about it.
And... it looks like Apple is all set for the holidays. All their consumer products have been refreshed and made better than ever. Which means they are going to be raking in a fuckton of money over the next two months. Which is nice... I hear Apple could use the money.
The way I get over a cold has been the same for over a decade... 1) Overdose on Vitamin C. 2) Stay warm. 3) Drink lots of liquids. 4) Take whatever pills needed to get 10+ hours of sleep each night.
The first three things are what gives you body the ability to repair itself while you are sleeping half the day away. And it totally works for me. I can get rid of a cold in 3 days... 4 days tops. When I am unable to get the 10+ hours of sleep, the damn thing can drag on for a week or longer, so lots of rest is clearly key to fighting a cold. At least for me...
And, sure enough, my cold "broke" last night at around 9:30, four days after it had started. There I was watching television, and CRACK! My sinuses split wide open, letting me know that my cold was over. I spent most of today clearing the crap out of my lungs, which means I'll be good to go by tomorrow.
When I will be flying to Europe.
Here's hoping I don't catch another cold in the 9 hours it takes to fly over the Atlantic.
Because flying home from Cincinnati on a plane full of sick people last week is how I caught the one I just got rid of.
Yesterday I hopped into a metal tube and hurled myself across the state.
And now I'm about to climb into a metal tube and hurl myself across the country... and then the Atlantic Ocean.
I seem to spend a lot of time getting into metal tubes and hurling myself places.
Yes. I just flew 9 hours for an old cheese sandwich and PATATJES MET!
And now it is time for a nap.
Today The DutchBitch's DutchBoyfriend was kind enough to drive us to the new Hard Rock Cafe in Brussels, where we met up with Beautiful Disaster's Pinky. I hadn't been to Brussels since The DutchBitch and I last visited in 2010, and I hadn't seen Pinky since Bitchsterdam 2, so it was a triple threat event for me.
The Hard Rock Cafe Bruxelles is a wonderful return to everything I love about visiting these properties around the world... a beautiful restoration property lovingly brought to life in classic Hard Rock style that has been packed to the rafters with terrific memorabilia...
Truly a fantastic property, the Brussels cafe is a well-crafted, eclectic, multi-level Hard Rock that doesn't disappoint. Located right off the Grand Place "Great Market" square, it is worth a visit... even if Brussels wasn't already destination worthy in its own right...
It was a very quick trip, but we squeezed in a lot. Just like it said in the elevator of the parking garage... we're hardcore like that...
From there it was back to the Netherlands and the end of my 48-hour trip to DutchyLand.
Tomorrow it's back in the metal tube to hurl myself back home.
Please make sure your seat is in the upright position and your tray table is stowed ... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• In-Flight. I am typing this as I leave the Netherlands on Delta flight 233... a ten hour flight to Seattle WITH NO INTERNET! So how in the heck am I supposed to come up with bullets for Bullet Sunday when all I have here is a bunch of movies to watch on my Delta-On-Demand Entertainment System?
Oh...
• Game Change. This film is about John McCain's horrendous mistake in choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate based on some very, very bad advice. Is it completely factual? Probably not 100% so. But boy does it feel like could it be. The initial high that came when Sarah Palin completely killed it with her smashing debut on the national political stage had the McCain campaign ecstatic. Palin would be the savior of the ticket, and they couldn't believe their good fortune in having found her. Victory was within their grasp. But then things start to go terribly wrong. One-by-one the campaign staffers have to come to grips with the fact that Sarah Palin doesn't know much about anything. She is completely clueless on critical concepts like foreign policy. And it's the resulting downward spiral that makes the film so darn entertaining. Julianne Moore plays Palin almost too sympathetically as she gets remade from politician to actress, blindly repeating lines which have been prepared for her because she doesn't understand the issues enough to think for herself. And all the while her escalating popularity makes Palin increasingly dangerous, eventually dominating McCain and dooming the campaign to a Saturday Night Live punchline. If there's one thing I took away from Game Change, it's how terrifyingly close we came to having a vapid joke like Sarah Palin just a heartbeat away from the presidency. It's a scare that no horror movie can match.
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I was actually looking forward to the idea of a revisionist history where our 16th president was a ruthless vampire killer. It sounded fun. Alas, the movie was most definitely not fun, because everybody involved took the film way too seriously. This was a big mistake, because there's nothing to take the edge off the intense violence that permeates one blood-soaked scene after another. One would hope that the result would be a bitchin' action-horror film, but there's not a lot of horror to go with the action (which is actually pretty good). And so what we're left with is a crazy-ass concept for a film with very little substance. I was not impressed.
• The Iron Lady. I was told by more than a couple people that this film about the life of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was boring. But I decided to watch it anyway because the thought of Meryl Streep as Thatcher was literally too good to be true. And, indeed, it was her performance that held me riveted to my tiny seat-back screen. But that's about all that held me captive. The story was a big ol' mess. It vacillated between present to past with little regard for timing or coherence. One timeline had zero relation to the other, and it was this sloppy writing which sabotaged what could have been a fascinating straightforward biography. Still, Thatcher led a fascinating life which was kind of represented here, and Streep certainly made the film anything but boring to me... so I didn't hate it. Actually kind of enjoyed it, despite the missed opportunity it represented.
• Brave. The story of a princess who isn't content to settle down and get married sounds like a modern-day Disney Princess cliché that's the complete opposite of the original Disney Princess cliché. Fortunately, this is a Disney-PIXAR film, where clichés have a tendency to at least be interesting and beautiful to look at. Brave is both. I just wish it was paced a little better. There's a few too many moments that drag on a little long and are a bit morose to fit in with the overall tone of the film. That being said, it IS beautiful. Astoundingly so. There's not a single frame of this film that doesn't look amazing. And there are a lot of clever and funny moments that saved the movie for me.
• Battleship. Holy shit. It would be easy to say that making an alien-invasion movie out of a board game doomed this film to failure... but, if anything, it's this one thing that made it barely tolerable. The only moment... the only one... that I found even remotely entertaining was when the heroes were picking their targets on a big "Battleship grid." Everything else was so inanely stupid and ridiculous that not even the decent special effects reel could keep me from fast-forwarding through this utter turd of a movie.
• Moonrise Kingdom. I am such a huge Wes Anderson fan that I didn't want to experience his latest work on a tiny airplane seat-back screen. But when Battleship turned out to be such a stupid piece of crap, I needed something to watch. I ended up regretting it of course. Moonrise Kingdom is beautiful, wonderful, witty, smart, and filled with a warmth that few filmmakers can manage. I really should have waited to see it on the big screen (or at least my home theater). Which is not to say it's a film for everybody. Those who can't appreciate Wes Anderson's quirky vision may have tough time embracing the odd world he's created. Even so, there's an all-star cast that's performing at the top of their game in a coming-of-age love story that's charming enough to please everybody.
• After-Flight. Arriving at Seattle I was once again embarrassed and humiliated that Seatac International Airport is the way that so many people will first experience my home state. The airport just keeps getting worse and worse, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight as to how low things will go. I arrive at Customs only to find that the escalator is broken. This is no surprise. Most of the escalators are busted to shit most of the time. Stuff is always leaking, falling apart, torn up, or broken at Seatac. And, indeed, when I make my way to the C/D concourse and find yet another fucking busted escalator, I press the elevator call button and find that the button light is also not working (which made me think that the elevator was broke too). By the time I get to my gate at the C concourse, where there's no place to sit because Seatac has ripped out most of the seats to make way for shops, I've just fucking had it. Whomever is in charge of this shithole needs to realize that this is no way to run an airport. Flying now-a-days is already miserable enough without having to put up with this kind of shit at an airport.
And... my flight (which is overbooked and on weather watch warning) is maybe leaving in ten minutes. Here's hoping...
There's nothing quite like staring at weather satellite data during a hurricane all day long to make you feel utterly helpless. With each passing hour I find myself thinking of all my friends in the path of armageddon, knowing full well that I have nothing to offer them except my frantic hopes for their safety.
As I type this, "Hurricane Sandy" has made landfall and is ravaging New England with a surge of floods, 90-mile-an-hour winds, and resulting power outages. The photos being released are horrific, with many places I know ending up under water.
A lot of which will clear up after the surge has passed, though the damage will have been done, I'm sure.
But what about all the water that's collected below ground in tunnels and subways and the like? It's all going to have to be pumped out... and that's something that's going to take a lot of time (and a lot of money) to make happen. For a city like New York which relies so heavily on their subways for transportation, this is a frightening prospect.
But New York City is nothing if not a symbol for endurance under pressure, so I have no doubt they will prevail tonight... and in the future.
All my wishes for a speedy recovery to everyone who weathers this storm.
It's impossible for me to fathom the influence that Star Wars has had on my life.
In more ways than one, the saga of a "long time ago in a galaxy far far away" changed everything. My fascination with Greek mythology and magical heroes of lore gave way to a love of science fiction. My ambitions of becoming a doctor gave way to an obsession with becoming an astronaut. Drawing flowers and mountains gave way to drawing space ships and alien creatures. Playing with toy cars and trucks gave way to playing with an 8mm camera... complete with hand-drawing laser blasts and lightsabers directly on the film with a magnifying glass and a Sharpie marker. Nothing was the same for me, and that's just as it should be when one grows up in the era of Star Wars.
The original film was released when I was 11 years old. I don't think I saw it until months later in its second-run at the local Vue-Dale Drive-In (long since torn down). I can't remember the details. But I do remember the obsession that followed. I remember getting my hands on every issue of Starlog magazine I could find and going insane over the speculation for the inevitable Star Wars sequel.
Then 1980 happened.
And The Empire Strikes Back was unleashed on an unsuspecting 14-year-old me who stood in line to see the movie on opening day at the Liberty Theater. "Unsuspecting" because there was no way on earth I thought that there could ever be anything greater than Star Wars... only to find out that there absolutely was.
And it was then that my love of all things Star Wars was made permanent. The Empire Strikes Back remains one of my favorite movies of all time. It led me into a Star Wars obsession which had me collecting every action figure, toy, pillow-case, magazine, and kick-knack that I could find. And, because even that wasn't enough, I became fanatical about tracking down interviews, specials, articles, and anything else related to the making of the films. Eventually the "behind the scenes" information was almost as important to me as the films themselves.
My addiction was severely tested in 1983.
Though I loved all the space battles and light saber fighting in Return of the Jedi, the burp jokes and Ewok teddy bears reduced a once great sci-fi epic to kiddie fodder meant to sell toys. It was a pretty big let-down after the sci-fi triumphs that was Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
But Star Wars had been imprinted on my soul, and there was no going back... even when George Lucas unleashed the unbelievably shitty prequel movies.
Which I hated.
A lot.
But there's always something to come along and remind me of my love for the original two films. Most recently was this...
Which is a book I highly, highly, recommend. You can get it at Amazon here.
Which brings us to today, where George Lucas dropped this bombshell...
"It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers."
And, just like that, Disney acquired LucasFilm.
Which both thrills and terrifies me.
Thrills me because George Lucas is (assumably) done fucking up the franchise he built.
Terrifies me because Disney could easily fuck things up even worse if they put the wrong people on the property.
All I can do is hope that Disney understands that kids today are far more sophisticated than "burp and fart jokes" and Jar Jar Binks idiocy now-a-days (something I don't think Lucas ever comprehended). As the near-miracuous success of The Avengers has so aptly demonstrated, a serious approach to genre entertainment can pay off like gangbusters, because that's what people are dying to see.
And how frickin' amazing would it be to take Star Wars back to the mind-bogglingly awesomeness we got from Irvin Kershner with The Empire Strikes Back?
Suddenly I'm 14-years old again.
I guess we'll find out in 2015 if I stay that way...
Stay safe this All-Hallows' Eve...
New shifter cables and $650 in repairs and I'm back on the road.
Looks like I can start bitching about how much I hate my car again...
But not today.
A lot of people have a lot bigger problems.
Fortunately, there's something we can all do to help.
Today I wasn't in a very happy place.
All day long it felt as though I was barely containing my rage... that I was going to snap and go all "Dick Jones" on people at a moment's notice...
"YOU'VE JUST FUCKED WITH THE WRONG GUY!!!"
But now I'm home and eating hummus, so I think everything will be okay.
Remember when you were a kid in school and your entire week was spent looking forward to Saturday? On days like today, it's pretty much all I can think about.
I need to go back to when Saturdays were all about watching cartoons and goofing off.
Stop screaming at that football game ... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Sandy. Needless to say, those areas devastated by the hurricane can use your help. If you can spare a few bucks, you can text REDCROSS to 90999 from your mobile phone to donate $10 to their Sandy relief efforts. And because our four-legged friends are also suffering... you can text HUMANE to 80888 to donate $10 to Humane Society Disaster Relief Fund. Every little bit helps.
• Election. Like everybody else in the US, I am sick to death of the non-stop political ads that have been inundating our lives. At this point, I don't even give a shit who wins or loses... I just want it all to stop.
Here in Washington, it's particularly bad because of our gubernatorial race. I'm not particularly thrilled with Democratic candidate Jay Inslee because he seems to be more about talking points than specific solutions. Republican candidate Rob McKenna is geeky smart and not afraid to get into specifics, which is a big plus for me... but, then again, he objected to Washington's marriage equality law because he says it could lead to incest and polygamy... which just goes to show that even people who appear "geeky smart" can be as stupid as a fucking rock. All I know is that no matter who wins, I will be very happy not to have to look at their creepy politician smiles gracing my television every fifteen minutes...
More and more I think our dysfunctional two-party political system is going to be our undoing. The special interest dicks that candidates have to suck in order to get on the ballot insure that they will never be 100% vested in serving the people they are supposed to be representing. If only I could cast a vote of no confidence for the whole damn ballgame.
• Equal? Another thing I won't miss? All these absurd "Protect Marriage" ads. What a load of crap. It's such a chickenshit way of saying "Nobody gets to be a family unless they meet our standards for what constitutes a family... and we hate your family, so you don't get to be legally recognized as a family." Meanwhile, real people who are in real relationships are getting shit on...
It used to be that I wanted Washington Referendum 74 to pass so that my friends who want to get married can finally get married... but now I want it to pass so all these fucking idiots will stop peddling their hate on my television.
• Issues. If politicians really wanted to get on my good side, they'd pledge to get rid of three stupid things that annoy the shit out of me...
And these are only the things that have been pissing me off today. But it's a good start. I think I'd support any candidate for any office if they promised to deal with this crap. Attention Communist Party: here's your opportunity!
• Cancelation. USA Network, which produces a number of TV shows I enjoy, recently announced the cancelation of two series that I was really into... Fairly Legal and Common Law...
I am so tired of seeing smart television killed off to make room for the same old shit. This is no big surprise coming from the major networks, but I expect better from cable networks like USA.
Annnnnd... Two. More. Days. Two more days of this political bullshit before it's all over. If only I could go into a coma for 48 hours.
My Fellow Americans,
No matter how things turn out tomorrow... here's hoping that we remember that we are all Americans first, Republicans or Democrats (or whatever) second, and we're all in this together in the end. There are far more things that unite us than divide us as a country... if only we would choose to remember that more often.
Good luck to all the candidates, and may the least worst politicians win!
Meh.
I called the presidential election the minute Mitt Romney emerged as the Republican candidate.
Unless President Obama strangled a puppy while kicking Betty White in the face after wiping his ass with the American flag during an episode of Dancing with the Stars, the election was his to lose. Sure it was a little closer than I had first imagined... but I just couldn't come up with a scenario where Romney got 270 votes out of the electoral college. My best-guess as of yesterday was this...
I started with the 2008 election map and took Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida from President Obama. I waffled on Colorado, but ultimately gave it to him.
In the end, the President managed to keep Virginia. That surprised me. He may even (eventually) keep Florida. I wasn't counting on that. It also looks like he may win the Popular Vote, which was something else I wasn't sure he'd do. So... a bigger victory than I projected... but not the runaway success he enjoyed for his first term.
And so...
It will be an interesting four years. Again.
But what I am really waiting for is news on Washington State's Referendum 74 for marriage equality. It is currently winning approval at 52% vs. 48% with just half of the votes counted. Whether this trend continues and puts my home state on the right side of history... or whether we continue to rail against the inevitable... is unknown.
Oh well. We just legalized marijuana, so I guess anything is possible.
Kind of a good day for Washington State.
Neither measure benefits me personally... but any time equality, freedom, and personal liberty gain a foothold, it's a victory for all of us.
And so President Barrack Obama has been reelected for another term. To all his supporters, I offer my congratulations. I guess I can kind of congratulate myself here, though I am more of a reluctant supporter. In my mind, the president was merely the "least worst" candidate, which is how I seem to cast all my votes now-a-days.
To Mitt Romney supporters, I offer my condolences. How you are feeling right now is how I felt when President Bush got a second term. And I sympathize, I really do. Because I know exactly what it's like. I thought (and continue to feel) that George W. Bush was the worst president in the history of this country. He was horrendously inept at all facets of the job. He was supposed to be a Conservative, but did stupid shit like passing the prescription drug entitlement and doubling spending, which sent us on the road to bankruptcy. He was a terrible Commander in Chief, getting us into wars with no planning (and no financing)... even worse, he sent our brave soldiers into battle, then turned around and made a joke of it. Bush was laughably bad at foreign policy, and managed to reverse the entire world's support after 9/11 into a seething hatred of America by even some of our most dedicated allies. His leadership was woefully lacking, with him coming across as more of a puppet with Karl Rove's hand up his ass than a president... and his constant caving to special interest and far-right rhetoric only confirmed it. He would pander to most anything that had even a hint of political up-side, and I lost track of the number of subsidy programs he financed with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. And don't get me started on his crazy-ass delusions that convinced him God was telling him what to do. The list goes on and on. With each passing day of the Bush administration, I grew more embarrassed for his clueless presidency, and increasingly fearful for the fate of this country.
So yeah, I get it.
But, in truth, Republicans really have nobody to blame but themselves that Obama got a second term. Mitt Romney was an abysmal choice for a presidential candidate, even by their own standards (don't take my word for it, listen to what his fellow Republican candidates had to say about him during the primaries... it's brutal). And if you can't get your own party base to get excited for your candidate, you're fucked no matter how you slice it. I mean, seriously, how can you get people excited about Romney when it's impossible to know where he stands? He condemned ObamaCare, but he also created the blueprint for it (RomneyCare!). He said humans contributed to global warming, but also said nobody knows what's causing climate change. He says he supports guns, but also passed significant gun-control legislation. He's voraciously anti-abortion in all cases, but also said he was pro-choice. He pandered to both the Tea Party crazies and moderates, then ended up pissing them both off. His non-stop parade of mind-boggling flip-flops and outrageous lies made him a complete joke (though I'd argue Obama wasn't much better). Pile it all up, and Mitt Romney was a disaster waiting to happen.
But, to many people, he was their least-worst choice, so he got a lot of votes.
Just not enough votes.
And it didn't help Romney that there were so many dumbass Republican politicians driving people away from the party. Idiots like Todd "Legitimate Rape" Aikin. And Richard "Rape is a Gift from God" Mourdock. And Bob "Governor Ultrasound" McDonald. All these dipshits (and so many more) seem to forget that Republicans are supposed to aspire to Conservative ideals... such as smaller, less intrusive government. Which brings me to this...
HELPFUL NOTE TO REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP: Give us a presidential candidate that a rapidly growing number of party-indifferent people like me can actually vote for. Give us somebody that's going to balance the budget, keep us safe, be mindful of our place in the global community, represent all citizens fairly and equally, AND SUPPORT PERSONAL LIBERTIES LIKE A GOOD CONSERVATIVE SHOULD! Stop condemning Americans for wanting personal choice when it comes to things like religion, abortion, and marriage. Because clinging to the belief that it's your business to dictate the most personal aspects of a person's life is going to motivate people alright. Motivate them to vote for Democrats like they did in this election.
It certainly motivated me.
And, yes, I realize this is a simplistic assessment, but it's not exactly a bad start. Because if the Republicans don't ditch the extremist Tea Party nutjobs and make some critical changes real soon, they're going to become increasingly irrelevant to a growing number of people who might like to vote Republican for a bit more fiscal responsibility and less government dependency in this country... but can't do so because they want control over their own damn lives.
If the Republican Party is to have a future, they need to embrace the future.
And if you need a role model for your survival, look no further than Maureen Walsh from my great state of Washington.
You probably recognize the name because of this...
Talk about motivation. She's not even in my district and I donated to her reelection campaign (she's a class act too... I got a handwritten thank-you note!).
And boy how I hope she aspires to State office one day.
The question is whether or not she'd be able to run as a Republican. Because if the party stays mired in the backwards-thinking past it would be like hitching her campaign to a boat anchor, and that would be a shame. This is one Republican that wants to sail free.
And if this year's election results are any indication, so do the majority of Americans.
Despite the fact that blogs are kind of dying now that Facebook and Twitter have takeover, Blogography still gets a considerable amount of traffic. And a good chunk of that is thanks to Google searches. My blog has been around so long and has built up so much content that I guess people can't help but run across it. And since I update every day, search engines tend to toss a lot of results my way.
As I was sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Atlanta this afternoon, I was bored enough to check my web stats... only to find out that my visitor counts have gone through the roof. Turns out that people are Googling to find out about "gay marriage" (or, as I now like to call it, "marriage") in Washington, and being directed to an entry I wrote back in 2008.
Something tells me that what they find there is not quite what people have in mind when they click through...
Yes, I was being a smartass about marriage equality leading to the end of the universe, but now that same-sex marriage is actually happening, there are people who seem to honestly believe it's true. This blows my mind on a number of levels. Not the least of which being that TWO DUDES OR TWO GALS GETTING MARRIED DOESN'T AFFECT YOU. And if you think it does, then that's your problem. The rest of us well-adjusted straight people will be standing over here not giving a shit about your insecurities. And I guarantee you that the people who have been waiting all their lives for the right to celebrate their love in marriage aren't giving a crap either...
Some people fall in love with someone that has the same genitals they do. Get over it. Contrary to cartoons you might find on the internet, it's not the end of the universe.
This morning was kind of messed up.
But then I took the train into Decatur for a falafel lunch, and now everything is okay again.
I haven't been to Decatur for years, and not much has changed. It's a beautiful city just outside Atlanta, and there's a lot of cool little eateries and shops to explore.One of the more interesting places I went was The Yogurt Tap... it's a "serve yourself" fro-yo shop that has a lot of interesting flavors. I ended up getting "Marshmallow and Graham Cracker" swirled with "Dark Chocolate" to get kind of a S'mores thing going on.
Then I poured caramel, cashews, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal over the top... which made it not taste much like S'mores any more. But it was totally awesome and incredibly delicious just the same.
But, then again, what isn't delicious with caramel and cashews poured on top?
Heartfelt thanks to my mom and dad... and everybody else who has served...
I'm celebrating the holiday by going on my second trip with the good people at Paranormal Georgia Investigations.
Don't let that calendar fool you ... because a delayed Bullet Sunday on Monday starts now...
• Help. Long-time blogging friend and celebrated author NYC Watchdawg has written a post over at his Social Medic site about supporting medics who lost everything in Hurricane Sandy. If you want to help The Big Picture by contributing to a very worthy small piece of it, here's your chance. You'll be helping those who help others (and continue to help others despite their devastating losses) to help themselves during this very difficult time of their lives. Even if you can't donate, any efforts to spread awareness would be much appreciated!
• Investigation. My expedition with Paranormal Georgia Investigations was a great time last night, as expected. And while I didn't capture any evidence with my camera like last time, I did take some photos of the creepy interior of Old South Pittsburgh Hospital. Of course, they don't look half as creepy when illuminated by a camera flash, but still... pretty creepy...
Not too bad on the outside... in the daylight, anyway..
I liked documenting all the toys left out for the ghost children to play with. This is one lonely rocking horse.
I'm pretty sure this bunny was dead. Totally non-responsive.
I took this bear away from a naughty ghost child and let him go for a tricycle ride.
One sad bear. You'd be sad too if you spent your time in a cold, dark hospital with ghosts.
I volunteered to use my medical skills to remove an appendix or something... there were no takers.
Leaving my mark in Graffiti Hallway with all the professional paranormal teams.
I also tagged the scary dorm room that Muskrat and I got to stay in. We bad! We bad!
Keep in mind that in the dark, while looking for ghosts and stuff, it's quite a different scene than shown here all lit up in a photo. But that's part of what makes the experience so interesting! I'm excited to see what data the PGI team captured of doors opening by themselves and other nifty stuff. Hopefully they'll make their way through the evidence pile soon so I can post a link.
• Medicinal. I've mentioned a couple of times that I carry a "Travel Medicine Cabinet" with me when I'm away from home... whether it's a month... or even just a day. Since I never know where I'll be or what I'll have access to, I choose to be as prepared as possible for any scenario. From allergies, colds, and diarrhea... to lost fillings, cuts, and motion sickness. Heck, I don't even get motion sickness... I just keep it with me in case somebody else I'm with gets it...
Tonight I was very, very glad that my kit contained "Hearos" ear plugs. Let's just say that my hotel neighbors are crazy-loud with their nocturnal activities... and I was in no mood to listen to it. If there's one thing to learn from the Boy Scouts (other than "thou shalt not be gay"), it's to always be prepared. I can't tell you how many times that's paid off for me.
• Petraeyal. Like most people, I am a bit sickened by the massive CIA Overlord / Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus scandal that's rocking the headlines right now. Yes, he's a fucking scumbag that cheated on his wife with another fucking scumbag that cheated on her husband... but we don't know all the facts there, and it's none of my damn business what he does in his fucked-up private life. No, the sickening part to me is the FOX "News"-led conspiracy crap that this was some kind of scheme by President Obama to keep Petraeus from testifying in the hearing concerning the Benghazi attacks. Which, naturally, I learned from watching The Daily Show...
Yeah, no agenda there. Pathetic. I mean, seriously? America's best line of defense against a network that rips this country apart by spreading more lies and disinformation in a single day than North Korea does in a decade is a COMEDY SHOW? At some point, you really have to wonder how we've survived this long.
• Foxy. This will come as a shock to nobody, but I don't watch the FOX "News" channel outside excerpts that get torn apart and mocked on The Daily Show. Their "Fair and Balanced" credo is a crock of shit, and they are the epitome of the partisan hackery that's ripping this country apart. Just like nut job Keith Olbermann on the Left, I long for the day FOX "News" fades into irrelevance on the Right.
And because I don't watch FOX, I was completely unaware of the bat-shit crazy un-reality bubble they created around themselves with the delusion that Mitt Romney was not only going to win the presidency, but was going to dominate the election in a landslide. Until I saw their coverage on Election Night. Since I was convinced that President Obama would get his second term, there was no place I wanted to be watching except FOX. And seeing it all unfold there was a revelation. Everybody there was certain Obama would lose? Really? This made everything even more entertaining than I had imagined... until Karl Rove went into denial, at which time it just became sad. The entire network was dedicated to getting Romney elected, and they completely failed.
And while I get no pleasure seeing people genuinely upset that their candidate of choice was not elected... I fully admit to experiencing an entirely new level of Schadenfreude watching FOX News implode. And now, thanks to the wonderful people over at Pundit Shaming, I can relive the heady days of denial over and over again.
Which is almost as fun as watching Ben Afflek (YES, THAT BEN AFFLECK!) masterfully tear apart the afore-mentioned Keith Olbermann on Saturday Night Live back when people actually gave a shit about Keith Olbermann...
Schadenfreude is so not pretty. But I just don't care!
And, on that shameful note, I suppose I'm off to bed. Goodnight everybody!
Thanks to a... well, let's say "adventurous"... couple in the hotel room next door, I got a late start getting to sleep. And even then it was only because of my HEAROS brand ear plugs. Now that's true love.
Fortunately, factors then decided to converge in my favor. First I found out I didn't need to be into work as early as expected. Then the hotel took pity on me and let me have a late check-out time (which was the least they could do, given the shitty bed they stuck me with). And then a colleague was late getting me some materials I needed to work on. So... I actually ended up getting some sleep last night.
That almost never happens!
Good thing too. If I was drowsy from lack of sleep, I would have ran over a very confused squirrel that wandered onto the street during my backroads drive through Georgia this afternoon...
As it were, I was able to stop in time... after leaving half the tread from my rental cars tires on the pavement.
Nothing quite like racing through the pouring rain in total darkness in an attempt to get to Chili's before they close at 10:00. I mean, it's not like I didn't have other choices... McDonalds and Taco Bell are open 24/7. But I had my heart set on a Chili's Black Bean Burger, and apparently it was worth risking my life for.
Well, I don't know about that, but it sure was tasty. Though the fries were over-salted as usual. I wish I knew why Chili's has such enthusiasm for over-salting their potatoes. It's not healthy, it tastes like shit, and it burns your lips. Yet, without fail, at every Chili's I've ever been to, the fries are caked with salt. Maybe the company is secretly owned by Morton's?
Anyway, I made it there at 9:45, and was given my to-go burger & salty fries just as the restaurant was starting to close. Success. Originally I was going to take my dinner back to work, but it would be cold by the time I got there. So I decided to eat in the Chili's parking lot instead.
Had there been anyone there to see me, it would have been a pathetic sight... sitting there in my rental car eating Chili's alone in a parking lot while the rain poured down. The only thing that could have made it any more pathetic would be if I were crying. I probably could have cried if I took a minute to think about how alone I was, but my fries were salty enough without the tears.
On the plus side, the waitress called me "baby," which I always love. It's just one of the many charming things about Southern girls that makes me feel at home here.
Another charming thing? SOUTHERN GIRLS WHO USE CHEWING TOBACCO! This morning I saw a young lady with a big ol' wad of dip in her lip spitting into a cup while she was hanging out in the Rite Aid parking lot. Adorable! I wonder what brand of drool-repellant lipstick she uses? And something else I wonder? Was it a moisturizing lipstick that can help heal these salt burns I have on my lips? Because this is some serious pain, yo.
I got called for work yesterday at 6:30am. Things didn't go quite as smoothly as planned, so I didn't finish until this afternoon at 3:00, which meant I was awake just over 32 hours straight. This is not something I recommend, because your brain starts going all mooshy around 28 hours in. I was hallucinating that I was a magic dolphin at 30 hours. Once I hit 32 hours, my brain started shutting down, which made it difficult to drive a car. Or even walk to my car, for that matter.
Naturally, the lawn care service was blowing leaves and mowing grass when I got back to the guest house where I was staying, which made getting some sleep a bit difficult. Or at least I thought it would... at some point I passed out.
Five hours later when I woke up I decided I wanted sugar for dinner, so I went into town for dessert.
And that was pretty much my day.
EXCEPT... I did have a conversation with a woman this morning where I remembered to ask about the girl I saw who was using chewing tobacco yesterday. "When did the ladies start packin' dips?" I asked. "Haven't you heard about women's lib? Women are doing a lot of things men like to do." she replied. "But chewing tobacco? Ewwww!" I said. "Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it" she replied.
And so I went and bought me some long-cut, Wintergreen-flavored Copenhagen dips and found me a pretty red Solo cup to spit into. Then, after an hour of scouring YouTube for "how-to" videos, I was on my way...
Now I'm buzzing' like a fuckin' bitch! As promised...
Here's hoping I don't get lip cancer and have to get my face cut off.
This is, like, not a happy day.
The flight from Atlanta was uneventful. And I don't mean that in a good way... it was uneventful because THERE WAS NO WiFi ON THE PLANE... AGAIN!
Then I had a three-hour wait for my 11:49pm flight home, which was put on "Weather Advisory." Which means that they are ADVISING you that the WEATHER may be so bad that they can't land the PLANE.
Which, of course, is exactly what happened...
They knew this might happen, so they had extra fuel onboard. This meant they could circle around the airport for twenty minutes and try again...
Third time's a charm, right? Uhhh... no...
Once back in Seattle I ran off the plane to rebook my flight for tomorrow morning. Then I ran down to baggage claim, because I really, really wanted my suitcase. Yes, I had the option to let them keep the bag and put it on my flight in the morning... but the last time I did that, I didn't get it for FOUR DAYS.
Always get your suitcase.
Because I was delayed by getting my luggage, the line for the "$49 Weather Displaced Passenger Selected Hotel" was a long one. It was 2:00am and I was mostly dead, so I called another hotel and told my sob story (which netted me a room for $89). Totally worth it, because I was the only one on the shuttle and had no line to check in.
And so here I am.
At 2:30am
Not at home.
At an airport hotel.
With my alarm clock set for 7:00am
Wheeeee.
Second verse, same as the first.
My replacement flight for my unsuccessful attempt to get home yesterday was also under Weather Advisory this morning. Oh goody...
And, sure enough, our first attempt at landing failed.
Fortunately, the pilot was a talented guy, and took another long, low run at it... and I was home.
And now it's time for a nap.
Before you start celebrating that I finally made it home, you might want to chill for a minute... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Hostess. I haven't eaten anything from Hostess in decades. They use disgusting LARD in their products, so once I became a vegetarian they were scratched off my shopping list. But, as a kid, I loved Hostess products. Lemon Pies. Ding Dongs. Cupcakes. Twinkies. And Ho-Hos... oh how I loved Ho-Hos. Everything they made was magic...
So you can imagine how the news of their impending doom is a conflict for me. On one hand... who gives a rat's ass that people won't be able to buy their unhealthy crap any more? But, on the other hand... Hostess's unhealthy crap is an American childhood right of passage! Not that I have any doubt somebody isn't going to buy out the production rights for all those classic Hostess products... it's only a matter of time before people can buy Twinkies again. But something will be lost in the process. It always is.
If I'm lucky, it will be the lard that's lost.
Because, seriously, who the fuck eats LARD these days?
• Elementary. As I've said before, I did not have high hopes for yet another reimagined Sherlock Holmes. Especially when they moved it to New York and cast Lucy Liu as a female Dr. Watson. But, much to my surprise, I liked the show. And yet... the bigger surprise was yet to come. The show keeps getting better with each new episode. The mysteries have rapidly evolved into some of the best-written, most clever, least gimmicky, stories I've seen on the small screen. And, of course, Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are fantastic...
If you're not watching... I urge you to reconsider. This is some seriously great television.
• Five-0. Speaking of amazing television... I watched the Hawaii Five-0 reboot off and on when it first started, but the show didn't hook me enough to become a regular thing. Sure it had pretty scenery and the stories were okay, but it just seemed so "by-the-numbers"... like the cast weren't interested enough to make it feel "real" or whatever.
But something happened in the middle of the second season. The characters started clicking. The writers seemed to finally figure out what made everything feel "real." And now? Hawaii Five-0 is can't miss television for me. I love this show. And the biggest part of it is the chemistry between Alex O'Laughlin and Scott Caan. The smartass banter between them ranges from amusing to hilarious, but there's a warmth there that feels absolutely genuine...
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
And now we're in the show's third season where every episode has been gold. Seriously some of the best-scripted action on television, and well-worth your time to tune in.*
*Assuming that completely obvious non-stop Microsoft product placement doesn't drive you insane. Seriously, Microsoft must be providing free blowjobs and millions of dollars to all the producers and writers of this show.
• Maps. When Apple released their replacement for Google Maps, I hopped on the bandwagon to declare them a bad move. But most of my criticism came from the botched 3-D renderings and missing places I ran across (or didn't run across, as it were). Things just seemed so half-assed and "un-Apple-like."
But then I started using their turn-by-turn navigation just to see how goofy it was... and was floored to discover that Apple Maps provides better directions than Google Maps. My favorite thing about Apple's directions? They consider what side of the street your destination is on. Google regularly leads you to places while not giving a shit what side of the street it's on. This means you sometimes have to cross over traffic on busy streets... if you can cross at all. Apple? They provide a route that puts your destination on the right so there's no fighting to turn across the street...
So, yes. Apple Maps have some problems. And their navigation isn't perfect (I hate it when Siri says "KEEP LEFT" only to send you into a left-turn-only lane or something), but the more I use the app, the more I love it. And don't get me started on the beautiful vector maps. They load very quickly and are cached MUCH better than Google. Losing your internet connection in rural Georgia isn't nearly the tragedy with Apple, because your maps still work... they just cache so much of the area because the vector art is so small and efficient. Google turns the screen grey if you venture into a new location without internet. Not the best solution. So if you've been avoiding Apple Maps because of the negative hype... you might want to give them a second look. You might just be pleasantly surprised like me!
And... I'm going to have to cut bullets short, because I'm falling asleep as I write them. It's been a lonnnnng week.
I own thousands of DVD and Blu-Ray discs. This is a consequence of my love for movies and television, and my desire to own those videos I love so I can watch them again whenever I want.
But DVDs and Blu-Rays take up space, and I'm running out of room on my shelf. Now-a-days I am more likely to buy my videos from iTunes to watch on my Apple TV or iPad. Heck... I'm more likely to rent my videos from iTunes to watch on my Apple TV or iPad. But not always. DVDs and Blu-Rays often have supplemental material that enhances my enjoyment of the movie/series, and so I still find myself buying discs of my most favorite movies/series to get all the goodies I can.
Besides, most Blu-Ray movies are available in "combo-packs" which includes a digital copy of the film. This is the best of both worlds, because then I get the supplementary material to watch at home, and the film added to my iTunes account to take with me. Sweet!
But it was a situation too good to last.
Because movie studios stopped offering iTunes codes for the "digital copy" and switched to this stupid fucking "digital locker" scam called "UltraViolet." And, let me tell you, Ultraviolet is one of the biggest fucking turds to ever plague consumers. It's so bad that I categorically refuse to buy any Blu-Ray that has Ultraviolet attached.
The latest casualty? The Dark Knight Rises...
FUCK YOU, WARNER BROS. PICTURES! FUCK YOU UP YOUR GREEDY CORPORATE ASSES!
And so...no $24.96 Blu-Ray for me. I'm instead going to pre-order the iTunes HD "Extras" version for $19.99. I don't know if it contains all the "extras" that are on the Blu-Ray but, as much as I want a physical copy on my shelf, I seriously don't give a fuck. The future is DIGITAL... and if movie studios aren't going to give me what I want, i.e. digital copies in iTunes... NOT shitty "Ultraviolet digital locker"... then the physical disc I covet isn't worth having.
And what's next? iTunes copies of the movie will be "edited for content" and you'll be forced to buy the Blu-Ray Ultraviolet crap if you want to see the entire film? I wouldn't be surprised. Any money-making plan, no matter how fucking insane, seems to be fair game to greedy executives. If movie studios continues this downward slide, I'm not going to "buy" movies at all. There are so many better alternatives to paying a company to fucking shit on you.
Who the fuck breaks into a zoo and beats a monkey to death? I mean, seriously, who does that?
All I can say is that I don't want to be around when the monkeys get their revenge.
Don't people know that this is the kind of shit that lead to Planet of the Apes?
We deserve what we get.
I am so very sad and angry now.
You know when you buy a frozen dinner and it comes covered in plastic that you have to stab before putting it in the oven? HOW DOES THAT SHIT NOT MELT?!? And if it's made of some kind of transparent flame-retardant chemical... is that something you want sitting on your food? Baking on your food?
Anyway, Safeway had some deli side-dishes on sale the other day, so I picked up a seasoned potatoes...
Looks pretty good, huh?
What I did not see was that "purple potatoes" were part of the deal. They're kind of hidden in the photo.
I didn't even know that purple potatoes existed until I opened up the package and thought that my potatoes had gone bad. But after reading the box more carefully, I found out that they do exist and they really are purple...
Photo from Svetlana Catering
Gross!
They look like a human organ gone bad that was then cut out of somebody and served on a plate. With olive oil, garlic, sea salt, and spices.
I ate one, and it wasn't horrible. But it was purple.
So I picked them all out and ate the yummy-looking non-mutant potatoes.
I take no chances when it comes to eating something you dig out of the dirt.
While Americans from coast to coast are gorging themselves on turkey and pumpkin pie, I feel it's important to remember those who risk their lives so we can enjoy this privilege. My most heartfelt thanks to all our brave men and women in uniform... especially those whose military service takes them far away from home on this day of thanksgiving.
I feel it is also important to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our country. And from a grateful nation to those families and friends who have sacrificed with them, know that your loss has not been forgotten...
As always, I recommend a visit to AnySoldier.com as a way to reach out and say "thank you" to a soldier during the holidays (or any time, really).
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
I was asked why I didn't post my annual Thanksgiving DaveToon yesterday.
I was going to, but found the idea of featuring a slaughtered turkey on my blog yet again to be more than a little depressing.
Besides isn't it about time Bad Monkey made peace with that turkey?
Next year, it's the turkey who will have something to be thankful for.
There's few things I love in life more than LEGO.
And it's not just the bricks and toys... the LEGO video games are mind-bogglingly entertaining. I've played them all, and haven't been disappointed yet.
Last year I found a new LEGO surprise quite by accident. I was channel-surfing and happened upon what I thought was a video game advertisement. It was actually a trailer for a LEGO Star Wars cartoon special from Cartoon Network.
Enter LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace...
It. Was. AWESOME.
Smart writing, beautiful animation, and funny as hell. I absolutely loved it, and was dying for more.
Little did I know, Cartoon Network released a second installment this past summer. But I only found out about it today... again, quite by accident.
Enter LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out...
Genius. Yet another LEGO triumph.
I really wish that Cartoon Network would come out with these more often. They're not exactly Star Wars cannon but, in many ways, that's the best part because it frees the writers to be even more adventurous in the stories they can tell. If you haven't seen them yet, I highly recommend checking out Cartoon Network to find out when they're playing again. And the original special, Padawan Menace is still available on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Highest reccomendation.
Don't click that back button on your browser yet... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Hagman. I was never a Dallas fan. Every time I attempted to tune in because all my friends were watching, I was bored to death (Dynasty wasn't much better, but at least Joan Collins kept me from falling asleep those rare times I tuned in). Because of my loathing of all things Dallas, Larry Hagman has almost no relation to his most popular character "J.R. Ewing" in my head. No... when I think of Larry Hagman, I think of three things...
Rest in peace, Mr. Hagman, and thanks for entertaining us for so long.
• Vengeance? Remember when the television show Revenge was starting out? Remember how Emily Thorne would pick a new target each week and then systematically orchestrate an elaborate revenge scenario that crushed her enemies in the most delicious way possible?
Yeah. What the fuck happened to that show?
I suppose it was impossible to maintain such quality for very long... but never did I think Revenge would degenerate so quickly. Now, instead of a show featuring delicious revenge, it's all about boring business manipulations and nonsensical damage control as characters fumble on each other's plans. Yawn. Somebody better shake things up in a big way soon, or something tells me the second season will be the last for Revenge.
Oh... and helpful hint to the writers... if you are having a flashback episode, any attempt to create a sense of danger for a character who is alive and kicking in the present-day of your series is doomed to fail. WE KNOW THEY SURVIVE, so trying to imply otherwise is just lazy.
• Friday. Reading about people getting into fist-fights over a phone or shooting each other over a sparking space or getting choked to death by a security guard on Black Friday makes me glad I have
I do, however, have a huge interest in watching society degenerate into Anarchy. In that respect, Black Friday is a win-win for me.
• Godliness. Back in the day, "Populous" was one of my favorite computer games ever. A few years ago, they came out with a version for the Nintendo DS, and I was surprised to see that it kind of holds up. Now the original creators of the game are trying to get the funding to create a modern version. I would LOVE for this to get funded! If you like a good "god game," here's your chance to support Godus over at Kickstarter...
Ah to play god with all humanity... and if you pledge £30 or more, you get your own in-game pet!
And now I suppose I should get to bed. After working all day Saturday and Sunday, I need to recover from my weekend so I can go back to work tomorrow. Bleh.
I have always hated wearing glasses. The frames are distracting in my field of vision and the lenses get smeared way too easily. So once I got my first pair of contact lenses, I was hooked. There was no way I was ever going back to stupid glasses ever again.
Or so I thought.
But then my eyes worsened, and contact lenses weren't giving me vision as good as they once did. I tried several different brands and styles, but to no avail. The best I could find were a disposable astigmatism lens, but they made my near-vision drop out completely.
And so now I'm back in glasses again, which give me pretty good vision near and far... certainly better than any contacts I tried...
Except I still hate them.
Because no matter how often I clean my glasses, it always seems as though I'm looking through smeary, dirty lenses with a nasty frame getting in the way. Apparently my brain has lost the ability to ignore such non-essential visual information.
Or maybe it's an ability I never had.
Because, come to think of it, I've never been able to ignore such non-essential visual information as Carson Daly or those stupid ads that networks put on top of their television shows...
Life is pain.
Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something.
But, more often than not, it's because somebody is trying to sell you something.
I hardly ever just plop down somebody else's stuff on my blog... but after I saw a photo on Facebook this morning, it has been all I can think about all day long.
So many times I find myself thinking that the job our police think they have is to "Harass and Humiliate" rather than "Serve and Protect" as their motto claims. Getting bullshit tickets... or seeing people in peaceful protest getting pepper-sprayed... or watching yet another "excessive force" dash-cam video on the news... it all contributes to this ongoing terrible image we form in our heads when the word "POLICE" is uttered.
But we know that's not true. Not for some police. Undoubtedly not for most police. I'm betting the vast majority of police officers truly want to help serve and protect the community they work in. They must, because it's a fairly thankless job. And yes, there are some rotten apples in the barrel, but that shouldn't define police officers as a whole.
Especially when wonderful things like this come to light...
Jennifer Foster of Florence, AZ was visiting Times Square with her husband Nov. 14 when they saw a shoeless man asking for change. She writes, “Right when I was about to approach, one of your officers came up behind him. The officer said, ‘I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let’s put them on and take care of you.’ The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man. The officer expected NOTHING in return and did not know I was watching*. I have been in law enforcement for 17 years. I was never so impressed in my life. I did not get the officer’s name. It is important, I think, for all of us to remember the real reason we are in this line of work. The reminder this officer gave to our profession in his presentation of human kindness has not been lost on myself or any of the Arizona law enforcement officials with whom this story has been shared."
*image cropped from the distance at which it was taken
I cannot adequately express what this story means to me.
Because moments like this mean everything to me.
This police officer and kind-hearted people like him are a gift to all humanity. And acts of compassion like this inspire others to open their own hearts and make this world a better place. This is how we survive as a species.
And we need it so badly right now.
So thank you, officer, for giving shoes to someone in need.
And by "shoes" I mean "hope" and by "someone" I mean "everyone."
I wrote a post, deleted it, re-wrote it, deleted that.
Then I started a different post, which somehow ended up right back where I started, and ended up deleting that one as well.
So now I've decided that I should write a damn thing tonight, because I've already wasted 30 minutes of my life and have nothing to show for it.
So, instead, I'm posting a photo of a cute kitty I saw in Shanghai...
He was fuzzy.
Before I rip into the brand new version of iTunes that Apple unleashed on the world today, I thought I'd say something nice.
I love the kind of instant fulfillment that iTunes provides.
Tonight I was watching television when I saw Victoria's Secret's "Sexiest Gifts" ad. It had a really cool song playing that I liked. So I Google the lyrics... find the song title (All Eyes on You by the band St. Lucia)... and BLAM! I go to iTunes and the song is mine.
Then I see a commercial for Men In Black 3 and BLAM! I go to iTunes and the movie is mine.
While at the iTunes Store, I see that seasons 1-3 of Community are on sale for $15(!) each... BLAM! Mine!
No more having to drive to the store or order online and have to wait for it to show up. You want something... BLAM! it's yours.
And now a few comments on iTunes 11...
A classier, more elegant update to the ugly-ass iTunes 10 icon.
The new iTunes 11 interface is big and pretty. It's also a heck of a lot simpler. Everything that can be condensed and collapsed has been condensed and collapsed. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because all the basic functionality is easier to use and out of the way. Bad because some extraneous functionality is not as easily accessible and you have to dig for it. And let's not forget the ugly... "iTunes DJ" is gone for some reason (so is Ping, but that's probably a good thing).
Anyway...
The most important update feature (for me, anyways) is that iCloud is now completely integrated into iTunes. The upshot being that now you can stream your movies, videos, and television shows to watch on your Mac without having to download them first, just like Apple TV. Cool! Now the only time I have to waste space on my hard drive for my iTunes purchases is when I want to have access to them while offline. A bonus feature is that iCloud stores your position, so you can start watching a show on your Mac, then pick up right where you left off on your iPad.
It's not all peaches and cream with iCloud integration, however. Even though you can stream video from the cloud, your Mac will still force you to fucking download all your fucking video purchases even though you don't fucking want them on your fucking Mac. At least from what I can fucking figure out. This is fucking bullshit...
Yeah, delete that shit off your downloads list as many times as you want... they'll be back in your "Available Downloads" before you can fucking blink. Sure I can tell iTunes not to automatically download purchases, but they never go away. And sometimes at random, iTunes starts to download them anyway.
Since iCloud was basically added as a hack on iTunes 10, this idiotic bug upset me, but didn't piss me off. But now that iTunes 11 is "iCloud Functional"... it sends me into a thermonuclear rage that the only way to keep iTunes from wanting to download videos IS TO DOWNLOAD THE VIDEOS. NOTE TO APPLE: THIS IS FUCKING STUPID!
And speaking of FUCKING STUPID, does anybody have any idea why this dialog box keeps randomly popping up when I try to play a video?
It's not consistent. If I click to play the same video that gave me the above error, odds are it will play properly the second time. This is an amateur hour bug, and I cannot fathom how Apple lets this crap slip through. I'm using a brand new MacBook Pro. I've been using iTunes 11 for ONLY TWO HOURS and found this problem... surely they beta test for longer than two hours?
I was excited when I saw that Apple had integrated the iTunes Store into my library. How handy is that? No more being bounced out to the store every time I want to buy a new episode of a show or find similar series to purchase! Or not. Half the time when I press the "In The Store" button, I just get a list of recommendations. The other half of the time, I get NOTHING...
A smart e-retailer would pop up a list of more Cougar Town episodes for me to buy while looking at my past Cougar Town purchases. But Apple? They make me leave my library, go to the store, click on television shows, then perform a Cougar Town search. What a hassle. No impulse buys for me. I guess that despite Apple's massive success, they are still a little brain-dead when it comes to selling. Something tells me this will be fixed real soon. There's entirely too much profit to be made.
And it's not just taking my money where Apple makes things ridiculously inconvenient. Just finding my music in iTunes 11 is a hassle too. Let's say I want to play the Pet Shop Boys new album Elysium, so I search my library and up it comes...
I just click on the album, and I'm off and running, right? Of course not...
Even though I specifically clicked on the album I wanted to listen to, iTunes takes me to ALL of their albums. I have to scroll down to find it. Now, I know that I'm in "Artist" view, and if I were in "Album" view it would have worked properly... but why can't it work properly in "Artist" view too? It doesn't make any sense.
But, then again, more than a few things in the new interface don't make much sense to me. Just like in previous versions of iTunes, there's a "List View" where you can uncheck little boxes next to songs you don't want to have played. But what happens when you go to non-list views where there are no boxes to uncheck? Why, you still uncheck them! Metaphorically, I'm sure...
In lieu of checkboxes, "unchecked" songs are greyed out when you're not in "List View." Well, whatever. This just seems sloppy and lazy and un-Apple to me. "Well, there aren't any checkboxes in this view, but we can't think of a better way to handle things, so fuck it! We'll just pretend there are checkboxes!"
Meanwhile, back at the iTunes Store... things are equally screwed up.
Let's say that I'm shopping for television shows. I see an ad for the third season of The Glades, so I click through. Now, normally, if I wanted to see more seasons of The Glades I would just use the navigation trail at the top of the page...
But you know what? I clicked on that damn link a half-dozen times. And each time iTunes just reloaded the exact same page. Nope. In order to see what other seasons are available, it's back to the search box. And some wacky results..
This is about the most unhelpful shopping search results you could possibly get. The first results are just a bunch of random episodes. They don't even tell you which number each episode is. Hell, they don't even fucking tell you what order they're being displayed! I'm assuming they're sorted by popularity, but who the hell knows? And of course there's no option to change the sort... whatever it is. Want them sorted by date added so you can buy the latest? Tough shit! Can't do it. Even if you navigate to "All Episodes" they are still force-displayed in a seemingly random order. And when you click the back-arrow to go back to your search? Oh, sorry... refinements to a search aren't navigable, so you skip right past it. Useless. At the very least, Apple could put the "TV Seasons" at the top of your search results, because clicking on those will give you actually useful information... like episode numbers and air dates!
Blerg. With all this stupid crap Apple got very, very wrong... did they get anything right? Certainly! They have a new feature called "Up Next" which packs a lot of cool stuff in a small space...
My library is playing through on "Shuffle" and the "Up Next" dialog shows what's coming. I can quickly eliminate songs I don't want to hear... move a song up the queue... add a song to a playlist... jump to the album the song is from... jump to the song in the iTunes Store... give a star rating... and more. Kind of nifty.
Another nice improvement is the mini player...
It's smaller, but does more. Amazingly, you can even search your library from it...
Sadly, you cannot access mini player when iTunes is in full-screen mode. I guess Apple felt it would be way too handy to be able to drag mini player to another virtual screen in "Spaces" while leaving the main player at full screen. I disagree. (UPDATE: or perhaps you can?)
One of the best things about iTunes is not a new feature... it's the speed. iTunes 11 is blazingly fast. Scrolling, even in album view, is a quantum leap above previous versions. Given how much time people spend scrolling through their libraries, this is a really big deal.
And that's about all that jumped out at me.
I haven't spent but a couple hours using the update but, despite my problems above, I have to say that I like it overall. For most of the stuff you'll use iTunes for, the interface is a big improvement. Hopefully the details that are less than perfect will be fixed in time.
And in the case of removing stuff from your downloads list... it had fucking better be sooner than fucking later.
UPDATE: It used to be that the iTunes Store would let you know if you've already purchased an item. Now, it doesn't. I don't know if this will lead people to accidentally re-purchase stuff they already bought, but it's pretty lame.
UPDATE: And... iTunes 11 video streaming is complete shit. Movies, shows, and videos will buffer for playback... but never actually play back. Hitting the play/pause button does nothing, yet I can "scrub" through the buffer no problem. This is fucking insane. How in the hell did this pile of shit ever get released? Even if Apple isn't beta-testing their software any more, they could at least have somebody play with it for 15 minutes to catch these bugs before they ship! I never wanted to be one of these people who said "Apple hasn't been the same since Steve Jobs died"... but, yeah, if this is the direction Apple is headed, we're all fucked.
UPDATE: For reasons unknown, I can no longer stream my video purchases. I have to download them before viewing, which is some stupid fucking bullshit. Amazon and Google videos will happily stream to your Mac or iOS devices. Apple, on the other hand, is living in the past, and forces you to download you purchases... wasting storage space and wasting your time. As you might guess, this laughably antiquated idiocy has me fucking furious. Guess I won't be buying video from Apple until they can stream your shit like everybody else.
I've started saving up for my next vacation, but can't decide where I want to go.
Antarctica is always at the top of my list (I want to see it before it's gone), but I need to find two or three people who would want to share a cabin on the ship. There is no way I can afford to do it on my own. Heck, I'll barely be able to scrape together the $8,000 to $10,000 for my share of a 3 or 4 person occupancy cabin. The high price tag is because I don't just want to board a cruise ship and sail past the 7th continent... I want to take an expedition ship which will actually send landfall excursions to Antarctica and let me wander around. Take a photo of a penguin or something. Anything less is kind of pointless, I think. The problem is that people spending $10,000 for ship passage expect it to be a luxury affair. The trip I want to take most definitely is not. So even people I know who might be able to afford it might have a problem spending two weeks on a no-frills ice-breaker ship for that kind of money.
Next up is India. I've longed to visit the country, and it bothers me greatly that I haven't been there yet. Yes, it's expensive (though half the price of visiting Antarctica!)... but the bigger problem is time. I would want a minimum of 3 weeks to explore a few highlights, but there's just no way I can be gone that long. And so I'd have to either rush through a trip and not get to see much... or settle for a much smaller itinerary and not get to see much. And I just can't make up my mind which is the lesser of two evils. Perhaps I should divide the country in half and make two trips out of it like I plan on doing for Australia. I don't know. All I do know is that I really have to visit India before I die.
And speaking of Australia... as I said, I ended up splitting the country in half for two visits. Last year I took the North half (plus Fiji), but the Southern half (with New Zealand) remains...
Not that I don't want to see Perth and The West, but that's another ballgame entirely.
I loved my Australian vacation. I am dying to go back. And I have long wanted to visit New Zealand (though it could easily be a trip all its own). The problem? Money again. I blew past my budget in no time because it's massively expensive Down Under. It's also so far away that you spend a big chunk of time on an airplane. But, again, I want to visit Tasmania before all the Tasmanian Devils are gone from the wild, so I've got to set there fairly soon.
More destinations I've long wanted to visit...
And so... I have no idea.
I guess I'll see how much money I can save, find out how much time I can take off, then plan accordingly.
Boy does not having millions of dollars suck.
I started writing an entry for today, then realized what I had written back in 2008 still holds true and sums up what I feel perfectly. And so, a repeat, of sorts...
Today is World AIDS Day.
Back when I was in high school, there was talk going around about the "disease that kills faggots dead," and I remember very well listening to some insane bitch on television spout off about how God's retribution against the homosexuals was at hand. Of course, for the homophobic masses, it was too good to be true. Or too good to last. Because AIDS soon moved on to heterosexuals, which was still okay because they obviously did something to incur God's wrath, right? But then children started getting AIDS and, since nobody wants to think that God would give a child AIDS, attitudes towards the disease started to change.
But not fast enough.
Because I also remember the widespread panic that hit in the late 80's as there was serious concerns that the AIDS crisis was going to wipe out a massive chunk of the population before anything could be done to stop it. This eventually proved to be true, but not to the genocidal levels that were originally projected by some of the more alarmist "specialists" in the field.
I've known exactly four people who have died of AIDS.
To me this seems like a tragic number to have died from anything, but it's barely a blip on the radar to some people I know. People who tell horror stories of how they did nothing but go to funerals in the late 80's and early 90's, and how most everybody they knew who wasn't already dead was dying. An unfathomable situation that would test the resolve of anybody.
Yet the human condition prevails. The survivors pick up the pieces and move on as best they can...
AIDS is not over.
AIDS is happening right now.
AIDS is still killing people around the globe.
And now a new generation is reaching sexual maturity. A generation which has no memory of the rampant destruction that AIDS is capable of unleashing... not in some far away country, but right here at home.
Somebody has to educate them
And that's why today we remember.
Learn what you can. Pass it along.
Beware of stray casings... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Chips! Chips Ahoy! is not a cookie brand that I enjoy very much. When it comes to mass-produced bags of chocolate chip cookies, I'd rather not go there. And, if I have to, I'd rather go with Famous Amos. But then I saw that Chips Ahoy! has a new Holiday version that I had to try...
They're just like regular Chips Ahoy!... with the addition of candy-coated chocolate chips. They're crunchy and delicious. As are the cookies. If you see them in your local store, they're worth checking out!
• Killers. Forget The Walking Dead... the scariest show on television bar none is a series on Biography Channel called Killer Kids. This highly disturbing mess features documentaries on, you guessed it, killer kids. As in kids who kill their entire families and stuff like that. It is mind-bogglingly, unbelievably horrific, and I accidentally came across it while channel-surfing the other day. If you want nightmares, by all means please tune in.
• Split. Speaking of The Walking Dead... remember the good ol' days when there was no such thing as a "Mid-Season Finale?" Well, it's more and more common now to break up a television into two chunks, airing the first half when the TV season starts in September/October... then withholding the remaining shows of the season until February sometime. It sucks. Especially when The Walking Dead just aired their mid-season finale and now we have to wait until NEXT YEAR to see what happens. Booooooo!
• w00t! And while I'm talking about television, I would be remiss not to mention that the BBC is going to adapt an amazing book by Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, into a six-part series...
The story is about a kind of alternate history where magic existed, but died out. And now its back as the Napoleonic Wars are heating up. What ensues is more than magic, and one of the best reads you'll happen across.
Obviously, I love this book. So this series could be a very good thing. Or a very, very bad thing. Director Toby Haynes has worked on some nice episodes of Dr. Who, so I have high hopes. All I can say to the BBC and all involved... please, PLEASE don't fuck it up. This chance won't happen again.
• Twain. I've had zero interest in taking in any of the big Vegas shows that have taken up residence on The Strip. Celine Dion? Pass. Cher? Pass. David Copperfield? Pass. Donny and Marie? Double Pass. Barry Manilow? Oooh... Pass? I've come very close to flying down for a Penn and Teller show a couple times, but ultimately decided against it. But now Shania Twain is playing at Caesar's and I can't help but be intrigued. I'm not a big fan... and I really don't like Country music... but I've always been fascinated by Shania and have enjoyed her music...
Shania "Still the One" show photo by Getty Images.
What I don't know is if I like the idea of attending her show enough to spend $55 for crappy tickets... $250 for decent tickets... let alone the cost of a hotel and airfare. Apparently I've got two years to make up my mind, so I guess I won't stress about it.
Annnnd... I'm spent. Another very busy week awaits.
Holy crap.
Seriously... HOLY CRAP!
The new Man of Steel movie poster has been unleashed on an unsuspecting world, and boy oh boy is it a steaming pile of shit. If this... this... is how the people making this movie see Superman, then we're all fucked. And so is the film...
Are you frickin' kidding me?
Look, anybody writing Superman has to wrap their head around one concept and one concept only.
He is a god.
But a god who was raised as a man, so he walks amongst them.
But not really.
Because his powers and abilities are far beyond what any mere mortal can fathom. The problems he has to deal with are on a scale that dwarfs the understanding of any man. Because he's not a man... as much as he aspires to be a man. As much as he tries to pretend he's normal by dressing up as Clark Kent.
So having the movie poster for a Superman film which shows your "Superman" in handcuffs like a regular guy... being dragged down to our level... it's a complete betrayal of everything that makes Superman be Superman. And I don't for the life of me understand what director Zack Snyder is trying to say with it. Superman could bust out of those fucking handcuffs and beat every soldier around him senseless in seconds. Fractions of seconds. So is this symbolic? A way of saying that, despite all his power, Superman is just a man? He's not above the law? Well, barf... who would want to watch that movie?
Superman is not Batman. He's not fighting insanity in the gritty streets of Gotham City.
He is a god.
Who clings to the humanity that his earthling parents instilled in him.
All while being the most powerful being on the planet.
He's about as far removed from the "gritty streets" as you can get. And, yes, he IS above the law.
Superman is above everything.
Except in this movie, apparently. I mean holy crap, Superman was better portrayed in the LEGO Batman video game. This... this... is just pathetic.
Yeah. Not a good day to be me...
Fortunately, the solution is easily accessible and mostly legal.
For some stupid reason I just drank two huge glasses of water without thinking that I'll be heading to bed in about 20 minutes. I can only imagine that I'll be waking up in the middle of the night at least once this evening.
The only way things could get worse for me would be if something goes terribly wrong with that Three Bean Chili I had for dinner.
Oh crap.
And so today is the first day that Washingtonians can get a marriage license if the person they want to marry happens to be the same sex as they are.
It's all the sweeter knowing that their fellow Washingtonians voted to make it so. 53.7% of us feel that love is love, and our laws have no fucking business telling people who they should fall in love with. And this number has nowhere to go but up. Especially now that backwards-thinking straight people will see that two dudes getting married or two ladies getting married has absolutely no fucking effect on their lives.
The pictures rolling in are heartwarming.
Some of these people have been waiting decades for the opportunity to get married...
Photo ©2012 from Meryl Schenker's beautiful set
Photo ©2012 from Meryl Schenker's beautiful set
And even here in Redneckistan, happy couples came to get licenses...
Photo © 2012 The Wenatchee World by Mike Bonnicksen
You have to be one cynical bastard not to be happy for such happy people being so happy.
But, of course, cynical bastards are everywhere.
The bigoted pieces of shit over at the hate group "One Million Moms" apparently feel that gay people shouldn't even be allowed on television. Even when they're not doing anything "gay." Their latest in a long line of absurd targets is this cute ad for JC Penny with Ellen and some elves in it...
What the fuck?
Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK?!??
It's a commercial featuring one of the sweetest, kindest, most caring people on television talking to some elves. I mean, holy shit... I could understand if Ellen was eating out the entire Dallas Cowboys cheerleader squad and the ad was airing during Saturday morning cartoons... but this?!? THIS is what's being protested?
I guess these morons think that seeing Ellen in a television commercial is going to turn girls into lesbians or something, so hold on to your vaginas, ladies.
But even more disgusting than a group of repugnant bitches wanting to eradicate gay people from television is that these repugnant bitches ARE MOMS! They are raising children! Children who may very well end up being gay in one of the most hostile environments imaginable... their own parents want them eradicated.
Which is how teenagers end up putting a gun to their head and pulling the trigger.
I can only hope that the fact that gay people are on television... and gay people are in the news being happy... and gay people are getting married... only serves to show these kids that there is life outside the horrendous environment their own homophobic parents create for them. That one day they can escape from these million idiots and be happy. That life gets better.
And so, on behalf of the 53.7% of the people in Washington who want to create a better life for all kids out there... fuck you, "One Million Moms." Fuck you up your ignorant, bigoted asses. If there's any justice you'll have to pay for the blood on your hands. I just hope your children aren't going to be forced to pay with you.
And to all the happy couples out there... congratulations!
On Pearl Harbor Day, I can't help but think back to the times I've visited this National Historic Landmark. The Visitor Center was re-opened in 2010 after having been beautifully remodeled, and should be on everybody's travel to-do list. The changes and upgrades made by the National Parks Service are world-class and absolutely destination-worthy.
One thing that hasn't changed at the center is the USS Arizona Memorial, which is one of the most stunning monuments I've ever seen. Meant to resemble a bridge over the wreckage of the ship, it was designed by Alfred Preis and had an opening dedication on May 30th, 1962. In some ways, the structure is very much rooted in a 1960's design sensibility... but in others, it feels modern and timeless in a way that few architectural achievements have managed...
Like I said, well worth a visit. Get there early (or reserve a spot online) so you can claim a water shuttle ticket, because there's a limited number of people allowed on the monument each day.
If Hawaii isn't in your travel plans, I understand that the National Parks Service is planning on touring the US with some kind of mobile exhibit in 2016 for their 100th anniversary. So maybe Pearl Harbor will be coming your way in a few years? Keep an eye out.
Today and every day, thanks to those who gave their lives in service of their country. Whether aboard the USS Arizona... elsewhere at Pearl Harbor... or in foreign lands far from home... you are remembered by a grateful nation.
I'm a bit of a video game whore, even though I rarely have time to play them. But that hasn't stopped me from acquiring a plethora of gaming hardware over the years, including the Atari 2600, Microvision, Nintendo NES, ColecoVision, Atari 7800, Nintendo GameBoy, Atari Lynx & Lynx II, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameBoy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and the Sony PlayStation 3.
And, of course, there were a bunch of computers capable of playing games tossed in there (most notably by Atari and Apple) plus a bunch of dedicated handhelds like Mattel Electronic Football and Electronic Poker. Oh... and my iPhone/iPad, which has all kinds of games on them.
And, for a while there, it looked as though my gaming future was going to be the iPhone/iPad.
But the lack of a dedicated control pad make for a crappy experience. And the lack of LEGO titles meant that the games I most wanted to play weren't available.
Enter the Nintendo 3DS XL...
I had played around with the original 3DS, but the 3D screen gave me a headache. I had read that the new "90% bigger screens" of the XL version was easier to view properly, so I decided to give it a shot.
And it's pretty awesome.
The 3D really looks great and, on the larger screen, is much easier to see... though the resolution is kinda low and chunky. The only problem with the glasses-free 3D technology is that you have to hold the hardware a specific distance from your face and look at it straight-on for the best effect. Start looking at the screen at more than a couple degrees off-angle and the screen will darken and eventually go all blurry. At first, this was a problem for me, but now I seem to instinctually hold it properly, so it's not a problem at all.
Having dedicated controls is what makes a hand-held video game superior than a mobile phone for gaming, and Nintendo has quite an assortment. The buttons on the shoulders and right-hand side are pretty standard. As is the D-pad on the left. But above the D-pad is the "Circle Pad." It is glorious. So smooth and precise that gameplay is much improved. A lot of people complained that Nintendo should have put another Circle Pad on the right-hand side (rather than doing so with a clunky add-on) and I have to agree. That would make shooter games a dream to play on the 3DS XL. Oh well.
Both of Nintendo's 3D units have a lot of features outside of gaming... most of them kind of lame, overly-complex, and unnecessary, to be honest. There's "Spot-Pass" and "Street-Pass" for exchanging data with Nintendo, your friends, and even random strangers you pass on the street. There's Mii creation functionality taken from the Wii to make an avatar of yourself. There's an e-shop for buying games and apps. There's internet connectivity and friend codes for playing games with friends over the web. There's a sound editor of some kind. It goes on and on. I will probably use very little of this stuff. I just want to play games.
There's also a crappy, grainy, low-res 3D camera on the back (plus an equally shitty front-facing 2D camera) which can read QR codes. I can't show you what the photos look like without having you look at the 3DS's full-color 3D screen, but I can have Photoshop break out the MPO 3D image file into a cheesy red/blue 3D thing for your to look at...
Get out your 3D glasses! Note how the further back you go, the more the image skews to create the 3D effect.
The camera also saves out a non-3D JPEG image that you can look at on any computer or other device capable of displaying JPEGs. But the quality is so bad, why would you want to?
I guess if you needed a camera in an emergency and your phone wasn't handy, this would be better than nothing. But not by much. Since Nintendo saves the photos to a standard SD memory card they are easy to transfer, so I guess there's that.
I'll probably review the 3D games I bought later on, once I've had time to play them a little more... but I am compelled to mention that my main reason for buying this handheld in the first place was the abundance of LEGO games available...
Sure, they're not very challenging. But they are a lot of fun. Except for the Lord of the Rings game. The battle system is really flawed, which makes playing it more of a chore than fun. Especially for casual, on-the-go pick-up gaming. Unfortunately the 3DS LEGO games don't have all the features of their console counterparts, which means there's less to do. But, on the other hand, you can take it with you.
Nintendo being Nintendo, there's a bunch of great Nintendo-themed games featuring popular characters and properties like Mario, Professor Layton, Link, Nintendogs, Pilotwings, Mario Kart, and the like. No Kirby or Pokemon yet though, which is kind of alarming. Still, a library plenty packed with quality games that people want to play.
Overall, I'm fairly impressed. More than anything else, the Nintendo 3DS Xl is fun, which is kind of the point of video games. If you have the original 3DS, it's probably debatable whether it's worth the $200 price tag to upgrade so quickly (though the bigger screens are SO nice). But if you own any other previous-generation handheld, the 3DS XL is worth checking out.
Wear something pretty and grab your kitty... because a very special Cat Shelter Edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Abandoned! My building doesn't allow pets, which means the cat that's been hanging around here can't live with me. And now that it's getting colder, I'm starting to worry about Spanky surviving the winter outside. So I scoured the internet for shelter plans and ended up taking the best ideas from all of them to come up with a design of my own, made out of a plastic tub...
For anybody who has a stray or feral cat that they want to protect from the elements, here's how I did it...
• Tub! Most of the plans called for a fairly small 18-20 gallon tub to be used so that body heat can be conserved. But I wanted enough room to use some pretty thick insulation, so I went for a 25 gallon tub. It's made by Sterilite in the USA, and costs about $15 at Target. Spanky likes to stretch a bit, and I wanted her to have room to sit up if she felt like it, so the size worked out pretty good.
• Insulation! Home Depot had several weights of insulation. I bought 1-1/2 inch for the floor, ceiling, and back wall (which is against an outside wall of an open carport). I bought the 1-inch for the sides and the front wall to give her a little more room. I got the stuff with the reflective surface to better retain her body heat. The final interior dimensions are 19-1/2" wide by 11-inches deep. That seems like it will be cozy enough to keep her warm, but big enough that she's not cramped. Each sheet was about $4.50, so... $9 total.
• Cutting! The plastic container cut fairly easily with a larger serrated kitchen knife. I made the door 6-inches square, but rounded the top. I think she can fit through that hole fine. Any larger and I worried that dogs might climb in. I also cut the insulation with the serrated knife, but held it flat against the metallic surface so as to minimize the styrofoam crumbling apart. By cutting flat, the blade heats up and gets you a cleaner cut than if you just stab into it. IMPORTANT: Be sure to examine the lid on your tub! Some tubs have a lid that rises above the edges. The tub I bought have a recessed lid which meant that I had to cut the insulation down an extra inch so the lid could fit. I made sure that my tub has side-latches so the lid can't come off easily.
• Gluing! I bought a low-odor, thick-tack, instant-grip glue made by DAP to adhere the floor to the bottom of the tub and the sides to the sides of the tub. I figured this would prevent the shelter from falling apart if she gets crazy in there. The ceiling insulation piece fits snugly into the insulation box I created. I then put the quick-grip glue on it so that it would stick to the lid of the tub. So now when I need to clean out the shelter, the lid and ceiling are one piece. The glue also keeps it from falling on Spanky when she's inside. A tube was $4 at Home Depot, and I used all of it.
• Caulking! This was the part I really questioned. A good sealant is going to stink like silicone (or whatever that is). But I felt it was really important that any snow/rain moisture wouldn't mix with cat hair, work its way into the cracks, then mildew or something. Far better to have a sealed shelter that will wipe out clean. I'm letting the shelter air-out, so hopefully the odor will dissipate once the caulking dries. A tube was $4 at Home Depot and I used half of it.
UPDATE: I now have serious reservations about using caulk to seal the insulation. The smell does not dissipate quickly enough, and I worry a bit about Spanky chewing on it. So I covered it with aluminum tape. If I were doing this over again, I'd probably just glue the pieces together with the low-odor glue and use the tape. It sure looks better...
• Flooring! The vast majority of shelter plans I looked at insisted that dry straw (not hay!) was the ONLY acceptable flooring material, because it dries easily and won't trap moisture on the surface like a rug or blanket. Some plans said that crumpled or shredded newspaper was okay. I decided to go with straw, because many websites said that kitties like to nest in it. It also has some insulation properties to it. I worried about Spanky's claws shredding the insulation, so I found an outdoor straw mat that I could cut down. The mat has a pocket for catnip in it too, which will (hopefully) act as a little incentive for her to use the shelter. If this ends up being a moisture-trap or cause some other problem, I'll ditch it and use linoleum for the floor instead. I drilled holes in the corners with straws so water can drain if Spanky gets soaked. The mat was $12 at Petco.
• Finish! And so... $44 for a first-class kitty shelter that will (hopefully) help Spanky survive the winter. If I were to cut corners, I probably could have made one for $35. I have a covered place to put it, so I'm not worried about snow piling up... but the lid is pretty good, so it would probably be okay outside. Though if it were being placed somewhere exposed... I might think about putting some kind of plastic overhang to make it nicer for the cat to enter and exit the shelter.
• Ideas! If the shelter I made doesn't appeal to you... or you need ideas for something cheaper, a good place to start is the Urban Cat League's "Winter Cat Shelters" page.
• Purchase! If you have the money, the best cat shelter I found was The Kitty Tube for $95 with a straw bottom... $130 for a heated shelter. Another shelter that was recommended to me comes from Cozy Winters and is $95 heated.
And there you have it. Winter shelter info for saving a stray cat or feral cat that might be in your neighborhood. Stay toasty.
I don't know what this world is coming to.
I'm horrified that monkeys are now being jailed for wanting to do a little holiday shopping at the local IKEA. I mean, what the heck? Humans aren't the only ones who want to buy a BOOMFLARG bookcase for their den... or to give POOFENVOOG glassware for Christmas gifts!
And it doesn't even matter if they're wearing a fancy-ass coat!
Needless to say, Bad Monkey is livid.
He seems intent on putting on his little shearling coat and taking a trip to IKEA so he can dare somebody to say he isn't allowed to shop there...
I think he must have at least one gun in that coat. Probably two.
And here's where I start to think that perhaps Zack Snyder might understand Superman after all.
Though it's understandable that I remain skeptical. Between his absurd pet project Sucker Punch (one of the worst films I've ever seen) and the way he managed to fuck up Watchmen while not fucking up Watchmen at the same time... well, his track record rests solely on 300, a film that I'm still very much undecided about. How all that will translate to his Superman movie reboot is anybody's guess.
As I said when I condemned the asinine movie poster that debuted last week, Superman is a god.
The level at which a super-man with such powers would operate is so far above us dregs of humanity that there is no way to treat his story than that of a god-like being. But what makes Superman be Superman is that he aspires to be a "regular guy," thanks to his very human upbringing by John and Martha Kent in the American heartland. It's this concept which drives the character, and the way that writers have walked this line over the decades is what defines a good Superman story.
Which is why the new Man of Steel trailer gives me a lot to be hopeful about...
There he is... all god-like and feeling very much like Superman... all while clinging to the humanity he was instilled with as a child by his adoptive earth parents. Which is not at all the tone I took away from the shitty poster that made Superman look so small and less than super. Contrast that with Kevin Costner debating the merits of saving people with young Clark, and you get the very real impression that Superman has power over life and death... which is exactly what the character is about.
And from the snippets of action being shown in the trailer, it also looks as though we're going to get some epic, larger-than-life battles (General Zod!) which will (hopefully) challenge Superman at that god-like level his fans want to see.
And so now I have something to get excited about.
Even though I still wish they had done a better job on the costume.
And so... today I got pulled over for expired license tabs. Which means that I never got my renewal notice, because I always pay my annual licensing fees immediately after I receive that little card in the mail. Fortunately, the police officer wasn't a dick about it, and just asked me to get it taken care of. Which I did, straight away. And now I've told my iPhone to remind me every year so I don't have to rely on state government efficiency.
In other driving-related news... Google Maps is now available as an app for iOS...
Apple dropped Google for their mapping service because Google wasn't updating the iOS maps as quickly as their own Android mapping service. Android got turn-by-turn directions... the iPhone did not. And so on. This put Apple at a competitive disadvantage, so they really had no choice but to drop Google and create something of their own that would feature-map what the competition was getting.
And we all know how that turned out.
Except...
Now that I've actually been using Apple Maps... I prefer some aspects of their app more than I do Google (even on my Android phone). Especially when it comes to caching map data, turn-by-turn directions, and the look and feel. But there was one area where Apple falls flat. And continues to do so. Location data. Google's database for mapping locations is insanely massive. Apple's is pretty much shit. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, it's also stupid. Google can make pretty good guesses, even when you misspell something. Apple has a hard time finding shit even if you spell it out completely and accurately.
This is something that Apple will get better at with time.
And they do have to keep getting better (=cough= public transit maps =cough=).
Because that's what's going to keep Google from shitting all over iPhone users by refusing to give them the same features of their own Android OS maps. Odds are, if Apple hadn't dumped Google, we would still be without turn-by-turn directions.
But now iOS users have turn-by-turn on both Apple maps and Google maps. They can choose what works best for them.
For me, it will probably be a combination of both.
Whichever one will get me to the Department of Licensing on time.
In case you hadn't heard, my good friend RW Spryszak and I put out a literary magazine called THRICE Fiction, and we just finished out our second year with volume number 6. As always, the issue is FREE to download in PDF, eBook, or Kindle formats... just follow this link to our website.
When we first created THRICE, my only interest was having a creative outlet for my fictional writing. I'm not a very good writer, but I am enthusiastic about it, so why not? After the first year, our little literary rag started getting thousands of downloads... exceeding any expectations RW or I could have dreamed. But this unexpected success was bittersweet. Thanks to people far, far more talented than I, THRICE Fiction had outgrown my meager writing talents.
This put me in an awkward position. I wanted a place to write! Why would I want to continue to work on the magazine now? I do graphic design for a living, so having my only contribution be graphic design didn't sound like a lot of fun. It sounded like more work. Which meant that THRICE was probably going to die a quick and horrible death, as so many lit-mag attempts before it.
But then...
...RW started sending me the stories for the next issue.
They were brilliant, captivating, imaginative, and all the things that I actually enjoy reading. And now that I wasn't having to worry about what I was going to write, I could finally appreciate what everybody else was doing. So I decided to stick around.
And ultimately realized that finding ways to come up with something creative for other people was more "fun" than "work."
And so here we are with another year under our collective belt...
It was not all smooth sailing this time around, however. Two artists who had committed to contributing work had to drop out at the last minute. This left me with no cover plus five additional pieces of artwork that were needed. And this was right in the middle of a very busy travel period, which meant there was no way I could even think about it until December (and it's at this point that I must once again thank Kyra and Chad for not only producing some amazing art, but for getting it to me on time!). Guess I really need to start having firm deadlines for artists like RW does for the writers. Anyway...
When it came to the cover, I kept coming up empty. I had no clue what I was going to do, so I found a random story idea generator on the internet. My first pull was "A FRUSTRATED LEOPARD'S BOWLER HAT IN THE PARK." This was just too insane, so I hit the randomizer again and got "A HAPPY SKELETON'S DREAM DURING ARMAGEDDON." That was even worse. So I combined the two and came up with a frustrated leopard attempting to get his bowler hat back from a skeleton that was dreaming in the park during armageddon. Simple.
I don't know why, but it totally works! The background was grabbed from photo I took of trees in the cemetery. The skeleton was drawn on a yellow pad with a felt-tip pen, using reference pieces I found on the internet (and then scanned). The leopard was traced from a stock photo I bought (because, seriously, I was not going to spend the time trying to figure out how to draw all those spots correctly). Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with it and think everything turned out great. If nothing else, it's colorful.
If you want a "Behind the Scenes" peek at what went on for the rest of the art in THRICE Fiction No. 6... it's all in an extended entry. The art thumbnails are low-res, so you'll be able to see them better if you download the issue...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
I have nothing but an odd photo or two.
The weather outside may be frightful, but everything is still delightful... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Snow. And so it looks like winter is finally getting serious here. Previous attempts at snow have melted away in less than a day... but it doesn't look like that's going to be the case now. To everybody who just looooooves a "White Christmas," I'm happy for you. But for people like me who have to scrape their car windows twice a day...
I want to spend winter in Hawaii.
• Ghey. ZOMFG, y'all! It's been ONE WHOLE WEEK since same-sex couples could legally marry in my home state of Washington... AND WE'RE STILL HERE! I'd have thought for sure that we'd all have been turned gay by now. Or that Seattle would have sunk into the ocean. Or a meteor would have crashed into Bellevue or something. But nooooooo! Now all we gotta do is survive this Mayan apocalypse thing, and I think we're in the clear. Until the end of the year, anyway.
• Sticker. I don't like going shopping. To be honest, I hate going shopping. Which is why most everything I buy (except groceries) is bought online. It's just so much easier and, sometimes, even ends up saving me money. So... on those rare times where I am forced to go shopping (usually for somebody else)... I spend most of my time being very unhappy. Which is why it's always nice when I see something to cheer me up. Like this sticker in the back-window of the car parked ahead of me...
KNEE MAIL! HA! Pretty clever, huh? I like this one better than the Winnebago rear-window screen I saw previously because the horse has his head bowed in prayer too. Which begs the question... what do horses pray for? Probably to be released from the servitude of their cowboy masters. I wonder if eventually God will deliver them from bondage like He did the slaves of Egypt? I guess all we need is Horsey Moses to come along and say "SET MY EQUINES FREE!" and we're on our way to greener pastures for horses everywhere.
• Bob Bomb. The unimaginable conditions Londoners endured through The Blitz just got even more unimaginable thanks to the Bomb Site, which maps the bombs dropped on the city during World War II...
Keep Calm and Carry On, indeed.
• Nowalla. Around this time last year, Gowalla... a location-based social media network... was sold out to Facebook. Users were told that they would be able to download their check-ins, photos, and badges, but it didn't happened. The site was scuttled back in March, and they never did give their users the data they promised. Not surprisingly, they didn't offer refunds to people like me who paid for custom badges when they loaded up on that sweet Facebook cash (and I'm still waiting for my window cling, assholes)...
My logo on the left, the Gowalla stamp interpretation on the right (enlarged 250%).
Look, I get it that sometimes shit doesn't work out. Gowalla lost to FourSquare,the network is gone, boo-hoo, and all that. But a year has passed and we still haven't gotten our photos and stuff? Apparently "it's a long story and still gonna happen" but I'm not holding my breath. Well, lesson learned. Anything I send anywhere is archived and stored outside of whatever services I'm using.
• Six! Just a reminder that the latest issue of THRICE Fiction is out and, as usual, is absolutely FREE to download...
There's some good stuff in there, so be sure to give it a look.
Annnnnd... time to get back to work, I suppose.
Getting old sucks ass.
There can be no better indication of this than having things go randomly wrong for no particular reason. Like tonight when I went to get up out of a chair and found that my back was out. How in the hell did that happen? I mean, when I was younger, I'd have to attempt to pull a car out of a ditch to throw my back out. And now? Sitting.
Ideally, I'd join a gym and strengthen my back (and everything else) so that crap like this doesn't happen. But I am usually so busy that just finding time to go to the frickin' bathroom is a challenge.
Perhaps I should start wearing diapers and use the time saved from not going to the bathroom to work out.
But I digress.
The primary consequence of an injured back is that you can't get comfortable. Ever. Unless you take pills, in which case your brain is able to ignore the pain. Unfortunately, your brain ignores everything else as well, so any attempt to work while under their influence is futile. Which is why I usually chose to be uncomfortable. I may not be as productive, but at least I won't spend my entire day staring at a computer screen trying to remember what it is I am supposed to be doing with it.
Which is usually what happens when I sit down to blog, but never mind.
Today I heard somebody use the phrase "je ne sais quoi" and was overwhelmed with a sudden longing to be in Paris.
This is rather odd for me. Sure I like Paris. Love Paris in the Spring. I've been there four times and have nothing but good memories. And, contrary what everybody seems to say, I find the French people to be very kind and helpful. At least they have been to me. The food there is wonderful. I love their cheese. I love their bread. And French pastry is something to be savored at least once before you die. As if that weren't all enough, Paris is just simply a lovely, magical city...
But, in the grand scheme of things, Paris is not one of those cities that I pine over. Not like, saaaayyyy... Edinburgh.
But I would love to go back. Absolutely.
Especially if the rumors of the Hard Rock Paris relocating to Avenue des Champs-Élysées are true!
Who knows when that will be though. In the meanwhile, a viewing of Amélie and A Very Long Engagement will have to suffice.
I've been writing drafts of emails all night. Since I am leaving work early tomorrow, I want to make sure that I get as much done as possible this evening. It was a good plan, except I just looked over at the clock and it's 1:30am. Oops.
The mountain passes are sure to be horrible (100% chance of snow!) which means it will probably take me three or four hours to make the two hour drive. I hope I don't fall asleep on the way over.
Or get in a wreck.
But, then again, it's not like I put much faith in weather forecasts. They're mostly wrong anyways. It could very well end up being 80° and sunny on the mountain pass tomorrow. You just don't know. Seriously, you don't.
For the longest time, I always assumed that the reason weather forecasts were so inaccurate was because the meteorologists are all idiots. They must be looking at the satellite data wrong or something. So I decided I'd be all smart and look at the data myself...
And now I'm like "What in the hell is THAT supposed to mean?
No wonder meteorologists don't know what the fuck they are doing. It looks like somebody put a map of Washington in a Spin-Art machine or something.
Remember Spin-Art? Where there's a kind-of record player that you stick a sheet of paper on... then dribble paint on it while it spins so the centrifugal force splatters the paint around? The result is supposed to be "art" but always ended up looking like somebody puked on a paper or something...
REAL working motor? FUN and easy FUN? Sign me up!
But sign me up tomorrow. I really should try and get some sleep tonight.
Since the End of The World is a religious holiday for me, I planned on fleeing work today and driving to Seattle where, as is my people's custom, I will spend the entire time drinking Jägermeister.
Unfortunately, the weather updates kept getting worse last night.
By the time I checked the forecast early this morning, I decided that driving over the mountains was not a smart thing to do. I have chains in my trunk because drivers are required to carry them on the passes, but my car manual says not to put chains on for some reason. I ended up booking a flight instead. The local weather was great, so I knew I'd get out...
It was nice knowing y'all.
Well, gee. Guess I shouldn't have told all my friends I hate them, quit my job, sold all my stuff to buy cocaine, and gone on that bitch-slapping spree after all.
Stupid armageddon end of the world doomsayers.
I mean, really. If you can't trust the nut-jobs who keep predicting we're all going to die... who can you trust?
I guess I should have learned my lesson after Harold Camping got armageddon wrong three times...
Speaking of Harold Camping... have his followers put him to death yet for having violated Deuteronomy 18:20 as a false prophet? No? Anyone? Anyone? Of course, Pat Robinson's followers haven't killed his false-prophesying-ass yet, so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
— Han Solo
It appears that FOX "News" has been so successful for whipping up a frenzy over a "War on Christmas" that doesn't even exist that even sane people can no longer ignore it.
I say "sane" because you'd have to be fucking crazy to entertain the notion that such a war is happening, or that Christmas is in any danger whatsoever of being eliminated any time soon. And while I have no problem in people believing in imaginary things, the absurd leap in logic required to even conceive of such idiocy is so far beyond rational thought as to be laughable...
When somebody says... "Our government is supposed to represent all people of all faiths, so I don't think it is appropriate that government institutions should be displaying items which celebrate religious holidays of specific faiths." It is somehow interpreted as... "WHAT DO YOU MEAN A POST OFFICE CAN'T PUT UP A NATIVITY IN THEIR LOBBY? THAT'S VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION!!! YOU ARE ATTACKING CHRISTIANS!!! THIS IS A WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!! Oh, I'm next in line? Give me a dozen Madonna and Child Christmas stamps with baby Jesus on them!"
When somebody says... "I say 'Happy Holidays!' because there are several religious celebrations this time of year, and I want to be sure that I'm including everybody in my well-wishing!" It is somehow interpreted as... "THE HOLIDAY YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT IS CHRISTMAS!!! WHAT?!? PEOPLE CAN'T SAY 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' ANY MORE??? THAT'S VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION!!! YOU ARE ATTACKING CHRISTIANS!!! THIS IS A WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!! There can't be religious freedom if people are allowed to acknowledge holidays other than Christmas during the month of December!"
It goes on and on.
Sure you can always drag out some nut-job exception, but the vast, vast majority of non-Christians in this country have no problems with people celebrating Christmas. No sane person wants to destroy this kind of personal freedom in a country based on personal freedom.
All they want is the freedom to celebrate their own religion.
Or to not be forced to celebrate any religion at all, as the case may be.
And yet everything always gets turned into some kind of personal attack on the front lines of this mythical battle. Some kid is told they can't wear a "Merry Christmas" shirt to school, so the parents go ballistic and start screaming bloody murder about an attack on their religion and a War on Christmas. And yet... these parents would likely be the first people to condemn a kid who wears a "Celebrate Satan" shirt to school on Halloween who comes from a family that practices Satanism. Granted, this is an extreme example, but it's not misrepresenting the situation. Religious freedom always seems to be a one-way street and, all too often, a battle cry of "religious freedom" is leading the charge when attacking religious freedom. Apparently there's no hypocrisy in saying "You can practice whatever religion you want... so long as it's just mine!"
And, yes, I think sometimes it goes too far. I think it's stupid to call a "Christmas tree" anything but a "Christmas tree" when it's obviously meant to be a "Christmas tree." Political correctness is being taken to absurd levels in an increasingly stupid number of situations. But pointing out stupidity does not a war make.
In the meanwhile, Christmas is everywhere. You can't really escape it.
Maybe people who don't celebrate Christmas should start declaring themselves prisoners of war?
The problem is, those who keep pushing the idea of this fucking idiotic "War on Christmas" don't seem to be taking any prisoners. And why should they when they've got God on their side?
Okay. Okay. I take back everything I said yesterday.
Clearly there very much is a "War on Christmas," and Google is leading the charge?
It was definitely a "laugh out loud" moment for me when I read how somebody has posted a complaint to Google that their Santa and Snowman "Emoji" characters look sad, thus destroying the jolly feeling of the holidays...
Personally, I think the snowman looks happy enough with his arms up like that, but okay.
At first, it seemed like Apple was getting a pass because their Emoji characters look happy...
But then somebody brought up that Santa has brown eyes instead of blue eyes so, you guessed it, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!
Then somebody brought up that the Snowman is wearing a fez hat that is worn in some Muslim countries so, you guessed it, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!
I tried to point out that Emoji originated in Japan where most people have brown eyes, but nobody was listening. I tried also to point out that the Snowman wearing a fez is merely an internet tradition based on what got dreamed up by somebody back when the Unicode standard was being created, but nobody was listening either.
ZOMG! THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS IS REAL, PEOPLE!!!
Every year NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) tries to diffuse their scary image as the harbinger of a nuclear attack by tracking Santa as he travels the world delivering toys to all the good boys and girls. Well, those who still believe anyway.
This year, a little drama was unleashed when NORAD dumped Google Maps as their map provider and went with Microsoft's Bing Maps.
I'm guessing that Microsoft paid for the endorsement... one way or another. Just like they do when they buy air time in popular shows like Hawaii Five-0 and Elementary for product placement. Hell, in the case of Hawaii Five-0, they go further than just placement... they pay for actual fucking demos of their products to be injected into the show (I can't imagine how humiliating that must be for the writers and actors).
Anyway, Google, not one to miss out on an opportunity, game up with their own Santa Tracker. But they made it all cute with animations, games, and colorful graphics. I admit it was a pleasant change from the same old cheesy video renders you get from NORAD...
I wish Giant Santa luck on his big ride tonight. Hopefully he has some bottles of 5-Hour Energy to get him through.
This morning I got a ride to the airport not knowing if my flight would be canceled or not. Freezing fog back home limited visibility to a quarter-mile, which is well under what's required to land. Add that to the fact that last night's flight was cancelled, and you can see how sitting at SeaTac was a somber affair for me. At least the airport was relatively calm thanks to it being Christmas and all.
But, by the time my flight was to leave, the fog had lifted, so we took off under a "weather advisory" which means the plane would return to Seattle if it couldn't land. Lucky for me the visibility was over ten miles, which was plenty, and we were on the ground before I knew it.
It's a Christmas Miracle, I suppose.
Despite the high price of a last-minute ticket, I ended up being very glad I flew instead of drove. The mountain passes have been all kinds of messed up since I left, and the route I would have driven over Stevens Pass ended up having some fatalities due to heavy snowfall (and is currently closed).
And here is where I settle down for a long winter's nap.
At least I hope so.
If I can just get a decent amount of rest... a mere six hours of sleep, perhaps... that would truly be my Christmas Miracle.
Hope your holiday was a happy one!
Despite being a major comic book whore, I've never done a wrap-up of my favorite comics for the year. That needs to change.
Overall, I am reading more comics now that I have in many years. This is mainly due to the beautiful Retina Display on my iPad and its ability to purchase comics instantly and immediately via Comixology. Nobody is mourning the decline of printed comics more than I am, but I already have more than enough physical comic books with no room to put them all. My digital collection, however, takes up no space and is available to me wherever I have an internet connection. So many times I find myself stumbling across a review of some obscure comic that I want to read, then click over to Comixology and buy it. All too easy and addictive!
THE TWELVE BEST...
#1 Batman.
What can I say? My favorite comic book character of all time has been given some of the best stories ever in his signature book. Writer Scott Snyder has given us two great story arcs with "The Court of Owls" and "Death of the Family," all illustrated with jaw-dropping beauty by Greg Capullo. Looking forward to 2013, I can only hope that the creative team stays put and keeps cranking out some of the best Batman tales I've ever read.
#2 Hawkeye.
Never a character I've been overly enamored with, Hawkeye has always been nothing more that a Green Arrow knock-off who seems woefully out of place in Avengers stories to me. Enter Matt Fraction and David Aja, who wisely decided to use the character's primary weakness (no super-powers) as a strength by trying to make the book more "reality-based." The Clint Barton in this book is a fascinating effort and I can't wait to see what comes next.
#3 Thor: God of Thunder
With only three issues released thus far, I'm still ready to proclaim the title one of my favorite books of the year, and absolutely my favorite of the new "Marvel NOW" books. I really shouldn't be surprised, because Marvel has consistently given the character quality writers and artists over the past several years. And Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic are right up there. Their stories are epic and wonderfully told. If you haven't checked out Thor in a while, here's a good place to jump on.
#4 Batman, Incorporated
Proving that DC was intent on making sure only top-shelf talent was going to touch their Bat-Books, Grant Morrison is here with some really good Batman & Robin stories that I can't seem to get enough of. I still think the "Incorporated" concept waters down Batman, but it's easy enough to ignore that with stories this good.
#5 Wonder Woman
This is a book I both love and hate in equal measure. Sometimes the art looks great... other times it looks like stick-figures gone bad. Sometimes the stories are brilliant... other times they seem half-written and ill-conceived. But, and this is the important part... Wonder Woman never bores me. It's always fresh and interesting even when I am having issues with it. So much so that this is one of the few books that I buy day-and-date, paying the extra dollar rather than waiting for DC to drop a buck when the next issue comes out. What more praise can I offer than that?
#6 Batwoman.
The book is a deep, meaningful, entertaining read with some of the most beautiful art you'll ever see. All too often, the female version of a male character is just a retread of the same material... but with heels and lipstick. With Batwoman, we have a uniquely different character experiencing uniquely different stories, in a uniquely different way, and I love it. There are also heels and lipstick, which means the book pretty much has it all. And, as a special bonus, Batgirl is yet another unique and interesting book in the Batman Family that's also worth reading.
#7 Invincible
As Robert Kirkman ramps up to issue no. 100, he's got a story arc going on called The Death of Everyone that's going balls-out every issue. And, since it's Kirkman we're talking about, you know that killing off all his characters may not be an idle threat. No... he may very well do exactly that, choosing to start over with all new characters so he can keep surprising his loyal Invincible fans. Regardless of what happens, I'll keep reading. This book has the most consistent quality of any comic out there, and I don't plan on missing out.
#8 Justice League Dark
I dropped this title from the DC Comics "New 52" relaunch after just two issues. It simply wasn't doing anything for me. But then I read The Underwater Welder (see below) and was intrigued as to what Jeff Lemire has been doing there since he took over this book this Spring. What I found was really good stories that were actually better than what the lead Justice League book had going on. And, thanks to Mikel Janin, they were beautifully illustrated to boot. If you like some supernatural in your comics and are looking for something a little different than the standard super-hero fare, this is the book for you.
#9 The Walking Dead.
Just when I think this book is dead, Robert Kirkman somehow manages to save it from the grave with some really good stories. How fitting. And how great for fans of the book. If you are only familiar with the hit television show, the books are quite different... but in a very good way. Though be forewarned that with Kirkman, no character is safe. This was made shockingly clear in the controversial #100 issue that dropped this summer. The book haunts me still and, even though I didn't like where it took me, you can bet I'm going to keep on reading.
#10 The Underwater Welder.
This book was completely off my radar until somebody gave it to me as a gift. As my pick for one of the best comics (well, actually a 216 page graphic novel) of 2012, I obviously owe them a great debt. This is a really good mystery story with borderline awful art that somehow completely hits the mark. Jeff Lemire, who handles some of the better books at DC, also moonlights with indy books like his amazing Essex County and now this. I don't really know how to describe The Underwater Welder, because it doesn't really fit any specific genre. It's angst drama with a splash of sci-fi/horror that's ultimately a kind of a mystery. Or something. But however you want to look at it, this tale of flawed character on the verge of fatherhood who is attempting to sort out issues with his own missing father is worth a look.
#11 Aquaman
It's amazing how a D-List character like Aquaman has been given new life in DC's "New 52" relaunch. Until this effort by Geoff Johns, I always kind of ignored the character. He was occasionally used well in a team book, but ultimately nothing worth getting excited about. But now? Aquaman is actually interesting and the book is nicely entertaining in 2012. If I had one criticism, it would be that the endings to each of the story arcs have been a bit simplistic, easy, and sudden. Almost as if they weren't entirely thought out in the plotting stage. But, ultimately, this is a book well worth reading.
#12 Punk Rock Jesus
I don't even know what to say... except you need to try this book. Seriously.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS...
Justice League
Here's the thing. I like this book. I like it a lot. It's the classic by-the-numbers super-team heroics I love done really well. But everything always feels cramped and rushed. After reading every issue, I get a feeling that the story would have benefitted greatly if only they had a few more pages to work with. Oh... wait a second... they do have more pages to work with! Except they keep running these fucking "Shazam!" backup tales, STEALING PRECIOUS PAGES FROM THE MAIN STORY! It's so fucking stupid! The book is called JUSTICE LEAGUE, NOT SHAZAM! If you want to tell Shazam stories so fucking bad, GIVE HIM HIS OWN FUCKING BOOK! This is a $3.99 title. If the writer/artist truly only needs a $2.99 page count, THEN CUT PAGES so people who don't give a flying fuck about Shazam aren't forced to pay for this shit. Would have absolutely been in my Top 5 if they'd focus on the actual Justice League. P.S. I know it's probably a legal thing, but renaming "Captain Marvel" to "Shazam!" makes me hate the fucking character even more.
All-New X-Men
Surprisingly, it is actually all-new. Lucky for us, it's also all-entertaining. Thank you Mr. Bendis!
Avengers
A really good book destroyed by greed because Marvel is releasing two issues each month at $4 a pop. If they dropped the price a dollar after a month like DC does, I could see paying $6 a month for stories of this quality. $8 just feels like too much, even though I'm certainly enjoying the title.
Morning Glories
I was late to this party because I thought I was already getting the best entertainment when it came to a mysterious school with unusual students, thanks to the television show Tower Prep. But then the show was canceled and this book was recommended to me to fill the void. It is unlike anything I expected in the best possible way. Unlike the television show Lost where the writers didn't know what the fuck they were doing with all the mysteries and subplots... writer Nick Spencer has promised that this is not going to be the case here. There is a definite ending planned out, and everything he is doing is leading to that moment. Good enough for me!
Dial H
There are times I just want something different to read. But, when it comes to comic books, all too often "different" is just another word for something that is different for different's sake instead of something actually interesting. Based on a shitty idea for an old comic book called Dial H for Hero, writer China Miéville has knocked me on my ass with what he's doing in the "New 52" reboot. What a pleasant surprise and a breath of fresh air. I know it sounds hard to believe, but this is a book you really need to try. Most people will be surprised that Saga isn't on my list. For the longest time, it was. Until Dial H knocked it off.
America's Got Powers
Started out brilliant, but then started to fade (not helped by the long delay between issues). In the future, super-powered persons are used as television entertainment in violent sports-like competition, but with some surprising twists. Despite having some "been there, done that" elements (Hunger Games?), the book is fairly fresh and a fun read thanks to scripts by British personality Jonathan Ross and gorgeous art by Bryan Hitch. Still worth checking out.
NOT QUITE A COMIC BOOK COMIC BOOK...
Chris Ware's Building Stories
I am a massively huge Chris Ware fan, but what he does just doesn't feel like a "comic book" to me. His latest epic, Building Stories, is among Ware's best work, and showcases his unparalleled talent in creating true Graphic Novels that exploit the printed medium like nobody else. In this case, it's a $50 box stuffed full of fourteen separate pieces... from comic books to posters, to a fold-out game board... all genius. How you tackle the content is up to you, but everything intersects in different ways to tell a complete story that's not so much a story... but a snippet of everyday life told in separate pieces from different people in three different apartments. Figuring out how these pieces intersect is what makes everything so compelling and uplifting... even though the "story" itself is kinda depressing most of the time. I realize most people are not going to want to spend $50 to buy this tome, or even the $32 you'd spend at discount, and that's a real shame. This is a work of art that demands to be seen and experienced, and is easily one of my favorite "comic books" this year.
Time for my annual wrap-up of movies that came out this year. Not surprisingly, many of them were viewed on an airplane screen or my iPad since I rarely get to the theater now-a-days. But oh well. I wouldn't have seen a fraction of these films if not for occupying time while on a trip.
THE TWELVE BEST...
These are my favorite movies from this year that I actually saw...
#1 The Avengers.
I'm such a comic book whore that I even like comic book movies when they suck. Which is mostly. But when a comic book film doesn't suck, it is an event to be savored. And The Avengers gave audiences plenty to be happy about thanks to writer/director/genius Joss Whedon. Respectful to the source material at an unheard of level, The Avengers got absolutely everything right. Arguably the best comic book movie of all time, and easily the best film I saw this year.
#2 The Dark Knight Rises
The end of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is bittersweet. Yes, it was fantastic, but it left you wanting more. Much more. I don't know that it was the perfect story to go out on, but it was a definite win for Batman fans around the world.
#3 Skyfall
Some call this the best James Bond film ever made. I don't know that I would go that far, but it was a damn good movie that looked amazing. My favorite thing about it, however, was that it was so fresh, new, and exciting... but unquestionably classic Bond all at the same time.
#4 Django Unchained
Everything you love about Quentin Tarantino... but drenched in more blood and violence than usual. Which is saying a lot, if you know what I mean. It's also the most disturbing Tarantino film to date, but not for the reason you might think. Add to that a performance from Samuel L. Jackson that's so brilliantly heinous that you want to crawl out of your own skin... and you've got my fourth favorite film of the year: a Western comedy/drama that's ultimately about slavery and the evils that men do.
#5 Looper
Most times, filmmakers don't even bother to try and get the "science" right in a science fiction film. When it comes to depicting time travel in the cinema, it's usually a thousand times worse. But along comes Looper, which not only did a good job being terrific sci-fi, but a fantastic job being a great film. Smart, entertaining, thrilling, and wonderful to look at... this is a movie both geeks and everyday filmgoers can enjoy.
#6 Argo
It's a very good movie indeed when you can already know how the story ends... yet be on the edge of your seat the entire time you're watching. Director/Lead Actor Ben Affleck takes a true story from the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and crafted one of the most smartly suspenseful films of this year or any year.
#7 The Cabin in the Woods
Nothing quite like taking the horror genre and then completely knocking it on its ass... but that's exactly what Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have done here. If you haven't seen it, I guarantee that you have no idea what you're in for, no matter how many horror flicks you've seen. Smart, scary, humorous fun that redefines a genre and gives audiences everything you could want in a movie.
#8 Life of Pi
This is a beautiful, imaginative, and entertaining work... but Ang Lee wasn't content to stop there. Much like the book upon which it was based, the film is also inspirational in a way that doesn't seem overly-forced or heavy-handed. Even after seeing the movie, I still don't know how they managed to turn a philosophical indulgence featuring a tiger on a raft into something so accessible and entertaining. Try to see this in the theater if you can, because there isn't a television big enough.
#9 Ted
A lot of critics thought this film was shit. They call it offensive, unoriginal, and not funny. I, on the other hand, found it brilliant, unique, and hysterical. The titular character was nothing short of a triumph in computer generated effects. Sure, I thought last year's Paul was a better CGI buddy film, but that didn't stop me from loving Ted. And laughing. A lot.
#10 Moonrise Kingdom
Usually when a filmmaker is defined as "quirky" they end up producing embarrassing, unwatchable shit that makes me want to get punched in the face. But Wes Anderson isn't defined by anything, he just lives "quirky." And totally makes it work in his films. Moonrise Kingdom is no different, taking a charming coming of age romance and infusing it with characters so surreal and wonderful that the movie lingers long after you've finished watching it. I get why some people don't "get" Wes Anderson but, for those who do, this is a magical film.
#11 Sleepwalk With Me
As a long-time Mike Birbiglia fan who loves his brand of comedy, even I was shocked at just how good a film Birbigs managed to create. It's a warm, touching, sweet, and really funny movie that most everybody can relate to in one way or another. It's also neurotic and a little crazy but, unlike Woody Allen films (which I loathe), not annoyingly so. Sleepwalk With Me is humor with note-perfect delivery by a smart comedian at the top of his game. Totally worth a look on video if you missed it in theaters.
#12 Men In Black 3
A film that should have been a complete disaster ended up being a terrific addition to the franchise and added to the story in surprising, wonderful ways. That, along with a masterful performance by Josh Brolin as a Young Tommy Lee Jones, put MIB3 on my Best List, bumping other films that were probably more worthy. Assuming Barry Sonnenfeld takes his time to come up with something this good, I am hoping that MIB4 will come out sometime down the line.
HONORABLE MENTIONS...
Monsters Inc 3D/Finding Nemo 3D — I'm not a fan of 3D films, but fully admit that it totally added to the experience of viewing two of my favorite animated movies. Pixar uses 3D with such subtle perfection, even though they could probably get away with just slapping the shit everywhere... but they don't, and that's why I love them.
The Secret World of Arrietty — Oh shock... Hayao Miyazaki is involved in yet another animated masterpiece. This fantastic interpretation of The Borrowers rings true on every possible level and adds yet another film to Miyazaki's stunning filmography. He keeps saying he's going to retire... oh how I hope he doesn't. Nobody... not even Disney... is making films like this any more.
Shut Up And Play The Hits — I'm a fan of James Murphy's music, and this remarkable film follows him over 48 hours, both before and after LCD Soundsystems's last show ever. I wish more of my favorite bands would have films like this... knowing them better somehow makes me appreciate what they do all the more.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi — I fully admit that this film held no surprises for me. I've been to Japan many times and have studied the culture for decades. And yet... there's something about seeing this very Japanese film that encompasses what I love so much about the Japanese people. Yes, I know a documentary about sushi doesn't sound that exciting, but it's what's going on around that which makes this film such a treasure.
Robot and Frank — The performance by Frank Langella in this film appears so effortless that it's easy to forget the entire story hinges on his ability to deliver when playing against a hunk of plastic and metal. If I had to pick a word to sum up this film, it would be "charming." And don't we all need a little bit of that?
Chasing Ice — Probably one of the most important documentary films ever made, Chasing Ice tells a story nobody wants to hear... beautifully. The consequences of disappearing ice on our world are so unpleasant that most people choose not to think about it. This film is like a slap in the face that all humanity needs.
Gayby — So a single woman decides to have a baby with her gay best friend before the time on her biological clock runs out. It's a concept that's so clichéd as to be annoying, and yet... hilarity ensues and you just don't care. Surprisingly quality filmmaking in a genre that isn't known for it... an unexpectedly funny surprise.
Safety Not Guaranteed — While I didn't love this film as much as the big critics did, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The acting was all top-notch and drove the story to a wonderful conclusion I honestly didn't see coming.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen — Kind of a romantic comedy... but not offensively so. For the longest time after seeing the film, I debated with myself over whether I liked it or not. Was it too predictable and lame to be a good film? Does the story come through just enough to save it? Ultimately, I decided I wouldn't debate the film with myself if it wasn't worth debating so, yeah, I liked it.
DIDN'T SEE, PROBABLY WOULD HAVE MADE MY LIST...
Zero Dark Thirty — This film flew completely under my radar until everybody I know started raving about it. I was gutted that I couldn't find a theater playing the film when I had opportunities, and it will probably go down as my greatest cinematic regret of the year.
Lincoln — Having read two Lincoln biographies, I just didn't make this film the priority it deserved to be. Now I'm regretting not having seen it on the big screen because I would have undoubtedly enjoyed it given my fascination with our 16th President.
Silver Linings Playbook — I saw an interview about this film and became convinced I'd enjoy it. That being said, I have no problem waiting for video rental to see it.
Wreck-It Ralph — When I was at Disney World back in September, this movie was being heavily promoted. Ordinarily, I'd be skeptical, but the retro video game love provided pretty much assures I would like it.
ParaNorman — Another cartoon I passed on. Just like MegaMind and Despicable Me, this animated feature will undoubtedly be something I regret not seeing on the big screen.
Frankenweenie — A Burton film that I was looking forward to for the longest time. Unfortunately, I never found time to see it in a theater.
NOT QUITE AS BAD AS I WAS LED TO BELIEVE...
Dark Shadows — Yes, the film sucked if you were looking for a reboot of the classic television show. Yes, it's not one of Tim Burton's best works. Yes, the story was weak and some of the characters weren't given much to do. But, despite all that, Johnny Depp as Barnabus Collins was pretty damn entertaining to watch. I did not love this film. But there was just enough entertainment at play to make me glad I saw it. I have no idea why everybody else was in such a tizzy over it, but I couldn't throw a stick without hitting somebody rambling on about how much they hated it for weeks after the movie debuted.
OVERRATED BUT NOT TERRIBLE...
Chronicle — From the way comic book fans were gushing about this film, I thought I was destined to love it. Instead I found it to be one of the most whiny, predictable, boring pieces of super-hero cinema ever made. All efforts of trying to portray the realistic consequences of super-powers was clichéd and uninteresting to me. Still, it was a comic book film, and I was glad I saw it.
The Master — The critics were practically blowing themselves over how awesome a film this was, so I put quite a bit of effort into making sure I saw it. Only to find that it was cinematic garbage tied to great performances masking as some kind of deep character study. The critics had no choice but to love it because this is the kind of crap that makes them feel smarter than all the people they write for. Meanwhile, I just sat there wallowing in the mediocrity of this movie, but still happy to see the performances which were quite good.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — WTF?!? I mean, seriously, how could Peter Jackson manage to condense the fucking massive Lord of the Rings trilogy into three films... but not keep a short story like The Hobbit as a single film? I probably could have forgiven stretching it out to two films... but THREE?!? There's so much boring padding attached to this movie that I'm shocked you can even find the story in there. Yes, it's beautifully shot and the performances and all that are great... but holy shit was it repetitive and slow. Granted, I am not a massive fan of The Hobbit novel, but I was still excited to see it after falling in love with The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I immediately regretted it. Here's hoping somebody with some fucking sense in their head will edit all three films down to the story it should have been in the first place so I can love it without shining a LOTR lamp on it.
The Amazing Spider-Man — I just don't get it. Half of the film we had already seen in the Sam Raimi trilogy, the other half wasn't anything to write home about. I didn't think the humor worked. The romance was dead. The tone seemed too dark for the character. And Garfield just wasn't as good as Maguire in the role. Yes, it's a shitload better than Spider-Man 3 (one of the worst super-hero films ever made), but I think it's pretty weak compared to the first two films. About all I can say is that the special effects were really well-done, and I liked the fight sequences. Such a pity they didn't bother to tie all that together with something bigger and better than what's come before. All I can hope is that all the foreshadowing pays off in the sequel. It had better, because I want the time spent watching this to mean something.
Prometheus — I am such a huge Ridley Scott fan that I would have his baby if he asked me to. His films are some of the most beautiful, inventive, imaginative stories in cinematic history. The man defines genre entertainment. So when I learned that he was creating a "not-really-a-prequel" to Alien, one of the best films of all time, I lost my fucking mind. So imagine my disappointment when Damon Lidelof turned in another fucking disaster of a script filled with cool elements, but no explanations of story points, and plot-holes so fucking big that you could shove a planet through them. Holy crap was this a jaw-dropping film to look at... even in 3D... but for fuck's sake, WHERE WAS THE GODDAMN STORY?!? Because of my love of Ridley Scott, I actually went out and bought the 4-Disc Blu-Ray Super Deluxe Home Video Package for Prometheus because there was a sticker on the front which said "QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED." And, yes, some questions are. BUT ISN'T THAT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD FUCKING TAKE CARE OF IN THE ACTUAL FUCKING FILM?!?? You honestly expect people to hunt down and watch a bonus disc and listen to a commentary track to know what the fuck was going on and why the characters acted the inexplicable way they did? Really? Fucking bullshit. Damon Lindelof should be ejected from Hollywood for this overrated mess.
Cloud Atlas — The book by David Mitchell was difficult and demanding, but ultimately brilliant and rewarding to get through. With that in mind, I couldn't figure out how it was going to be turned into a film. But the Wachowski siblings (along with Tom Tykwer) somehow managed to do exactly that... but I'm not sure if it's successful or not. Parts of the movie are just mind-bogglingly amazing and have you convinced that no film ever has managed to do this before. Other parts are just boring, confusing, and so unsatisfying that you wonder how in the hell such talented actors bought into it. Ultimately Cloud Atlas is completely lacking the structure and cohesiveness of the book, but is still something I'm glad I saw. I just don't think it deserves the accolades some critics are hoisting upon it. Nothing here is life-changing, so move along.
Flight —Denzel Washington is so damned talented that I don't even bother to question whether or not I should watch his films. The guy can act his way out of just about anything... including a shitty script... so why should I? Well, Flight is why. Yes, Denzel is his usual amazingly talented self. Yes, I actually did enjoy the movie overall. But to heap such astounding praise on a movie that's not really sure of how to handle a character that's drunk and high all the time... and instead goes for long stretches of BORING to fill the gaps... isn't my idea of fun.
The Grey — I get what the filmmakers were doing. I understand the message that was trying to be communicated. And Liam Neeson remains one of the most talented actors in Hollywood. But The Grey fell way short of my expectations... being more boring than entertaining... as the filmmakers tried to bash me over the head with some great message for humanity. In the end, it just didn't work that well for me even though I thought the film itself was pretty good.
WORST OF THE WORST...
John Carter — Take one of my all-time favorite books, add in a massive budget and a very talented director, then put Disney behind it all... and you're pretty much assured of a great movie, right? Wrong. This film was fucking awful. Everything wonderful about one of the most influential books of all time was systematically dumped from the movie, and the lead actors were so horribly miscast that the end result was beyond saving. I have waited most of my life to see A Princess of Mars and the rest of Edgar Rice Burroughs' brilliant Barsoom books brought to the big screen. This box-office bomb and total fuck-up has insured that I'll probably never see it happen in my lifetime. Fuck everybody who crushed my dreams with this hideous turd of a movie.
Battleship —Taylor Kitsch is on a roll. Not only did he contribute to fucking up John Carter, but he also starred in this crap-fest. You could have guessed that a film based on a board game would turn out badly... but there was no way to anticipate something this fucking stupid. I hated every damn minute spent watching this cinematic disaster, and can't help but blame myself for thinking "YOU SUNK MY BATTLESHIP" would end up inspiring anything but shit.
One for the Money — OH MY FUCKING GAWD... STOP GIVING KATHERINE HEIGL NEW FILMS! She was annoying enough when she whined her way through Grey's Anatomy, but this is the cherry on top of the shit sundae of her film career. Why somebody felt the need to remake J-Lo's character in the far, far, far better film Out of Sight, I will never know. This is bland, uninspired, humorless filmmaking at its worst.
The Watch — OH MY FUCKING GAWD... STOP GIVING JONAH HILL NEW FILMS! He drags down every project he's attached to, including otherwise genius films like Moneyball and MegaMind... so you can just imagine how he could completely sink a turd like this film. Firmly in "so bad it's bad" territory, The Watch is about as lame an alien invasion film as you could possibly imagine.
Taken 2 —The first film was mindless action fun that I found myself enjoying. The sequel is a heinous mess of a film that takes capable stars and plunges them into something less than mediocre. Just further proof that Hollywood will churn out anything... no matter how creatively bankrupt.
Total Recall —In one of the most unnecessary remakes in cinema history... the Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger classic is leveled for a CGI crap-fest that looks incredible, but turns out to be lacking in just about every way possible.
Wrath of the Titans — This is worse than an unnecessary sequel, it's an unnecessary sequel of an unnecessary remake! The filmmakers had two chances to get it right and failed miserably. Has the distinction of being one of the most action-packed movies this year, yet is still mind-numbingly boring... all thanks to a woefully uninspired and humorless performance by Sam Worthington.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — I went into this film expecting good ol' cheesy fun, and ended up getting a violent joke of a film that takes itself way too seriously. More like a mindless video game shooter than a serviceable story, this movie is a worse theater experience for Lincoln than he had at the Ford's Theater (I'm betting a lot of critics thought the same).
The Dictator — Oh look! It's a take on Borat but with a quarter of the laughs! Left me wondering if perhaps Sacha Baron Cohen is out of ideas, because Brüno before it was a take on Borat with half the laughs. Can't wait for his next film with one-eighth the laughs.
Alex Cross — Okay... this one is my own fault... I was somehow convinced that Tyler Perry could step into the impossibly large shoes left by Morgan Freeman and actually manage to carry an Alex Cross movie. My bad. Though, in retrospect, it's not entirely on him. This movie was so badly written that I sincerely doubt even Morgan Freeman could have saved it. For a psychological crime thriller, this movie sure had a lot of laughs... a pity every one of them was unintentional.
Red Tails — Okay... this one is my own fault... I let my nostalgia for George Lucas' early work convince me that he could actually be involved with a film that might be worth a shit today. My bad. What's amazing is that the idea only came from Lucas... the unbelievably cheesy characters, groan-inducing dialogue, and pedestrian situations were all written and directed by somebody else. On top of all that, the special effects for the air combat weren't even that great... AND THIS IS LUCASFILM!!! It just kills me is that the story of the Tuskegee Airman is ripe with all the elements needed for an amazing film, and yet nothing in Red Tails seems to take advantage of it. Maybe one day we'll get lucky and somebody like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg will give us an HBO mini-series as well-crafted as Band of Brothers that is worthy of these brave men and their amazing story. Until then, we get stuck with this crap. Just astounding that George Lucas has fallen so far that he would even consider this flick worth releasing. My pick for the film of 2012 whose poster had more depth than the movie it was advertising.
Time for my annual wrap-up of my favorite TV shows this year.
Despite being a total television whore, I didn't seem enjoy it as much as I had in previous years. Partly because there wasn't as much great television airing to waste my time on... but mostly because I am just getting burned out on TV. Even so, lucky for me, I still watch entirely too much of the stuff.
THE TWELVE BEST...
#1 The Finder
I loved this show more than I thought it was possible to love a television show. That hasn't happened in a long time. Which means it was a show destined for cancellation which, of course, it was. Then Michael Clarke Duncan died, dashing any hopes for a reunion movie or some kind of conclusion written into Bones. And so I re-watch the old episodes, wondering what could have been.
#2 Elementary
The fact that I ended up liking this show was a bit of a shock, given that I'm a bit of a Sherlock Holmes purist. The fact that I enjoy it more than the more faithful BBC series is surprising. The fact that it is now my favorite show on television makes no sense at all. And yet... here it is. The casting of Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock and Lucy Liu as Watson is genius. The stories are well-written and make for good mysteries. Everything just works.
#3 Arrow
Well slap my ass and call me Sally. I had no hope for a television show base on the Green Arrow comic books. And yet... it is perfectly realized for the small screen. The plot is solid. The stories are entertaining. The casting is excellent. What changes they made to the source material serve the medium well. It's not the Green Arrow of the comic books, but it has the feel of a Green Arrow comic book. I couldn't ask for more, and I'm enjoying the show quite a lot.
#4 Raising Hope
Remains one of the best shows on television. Funny, charming, smart, entertaining... everything you want in a series. I had thought that finally getting Jimmy and Sabrina together would be the death knell for the series, but it strengthened it in many ways. Here's hoping they know how to keep things fresh for many more seasons.
#5 Community
Consistently the funniest show on television, and one of the few series which likes to innovate in new and fascinating directions. Unfortunately the latest direction is the firing of show runner Dan Harmon and the eventual departure of Chevy Chase. Marry that to NBC consistently shitting all over the show, and one has to wonder how much longer it can last. Enjoy it while you can.
#6 Justified
In many ways, this is the best show on television. But the genre isn't really my thing, so it's not at the top of my list. And yet, it's such compelling television that I enjoy it just the same. The writing has not faltered since the first episode, but it's the way the cast brings the words to life that makes the show such a must-see.
#7 Breaking Bad
If you're not watching the show, you really should check it out. Preferrably from the beginning. Now that we're in the final stretch, things are bound to get even messier. Which is exactly what has made Breaking Bad such a hit with its fans.
#8 Happy Endings
This show has yet to recapture the magic from its awesome first season. But it's still funnier and more entertaining than most of the crap on television, so I keep watching. The problem being that my interest is waning more and more. If they can't find a way to make things interesting again, it may drop off my radar completely.
#9 The Walking Dead
The second season was a bit of a mess after what had come before. Not so surprising considering visionary director Frank Darabont was fired. But then things seemed to come back together in Season 3. Characters that had outlived their usefulness were eliminated... kickass new characters were introduced... and the threat level started to grow. I don't know if Season 4 will continue to improve, or if we're due for a setback, but I plan on watching so I can find out.
#10 Sons of Anarchy
This show seems intent on shaking things up more often than not, but sometimes what gets shaken isn't very effective in the long run. This season it felt as though the writers had no intention of going calmly into the night, and made radical changes that left SOA fans reeling. Deep down, everybody knows where things are ultimately headed with the show... the question has always been "Will the writers have the guts to take us there?" Now we know the answer is unequivocally yes, and I can't wait to enjoy the ride.
#11 Hawaii Five-0
This show had me, then lost me. Then I started watching again and was amazed at how well it had progressed. The chemistry between McGarrett and Dano is some of the best on television... and funny as hell. The stories are uniquely Hawaii and pretty good crime drama as well. Unfortunately, every episode has a fucking Microsoft product demo crammed into it, which brings everything to s screeching halt each week. But if you can ignore that, it's a show that might surprise you.
#12 Scandal
For the longest time, this show was kind of treading water and didn't seem to have the ambition to do much more than that. Then, almost without warning, things escalated very quickly. By the time we got to the last episode of the season, it was if the writers were throwing everything they could think of to take the story to maximum thrust. I like the cast. I like the concept. And now I'm liking the story. If they have the guts to keep running at this pace, Season Two Three is going to be some excellent television.
A DOZEN MORE WORTH WATCHING...
Castle
This modern version of Murder She Wrote still has terrific mysteries every episode. Even better, they've pushed the show forward by finally having Beckett and Castle hook up. As if that weren't enough, the supporting cast is wonderfully competent and vital to the series.
30 Rock
The show may be coming to an end, but it was a staple of my 2012 viewing schedule. Tina Fey can do no wrong in my book.
Rules of Engagement
Getting tired, but's still funny and worth watching.
The New Normal
Surprisingly funny television, even though most of the humor relies on tired stereotypes.
Grey's Anatomy
Keeps. Plugging. Along. Fortunately, Shonda Rhimes knows what makes good television, and is constantly shaking things up to keep viewers interested. The airplane crash that took out two popular characters couldn't have been an easy decision... but it was critical in keep the show fresh and moving forward though yet another season. But what happens to keep things interesting next season?
2 Broke Girls
Yeah, it's rude, crude, and isn't very smart... but it's also darn funny. Why they keep clinging to the pretense that the broke girls will eventually dig themselves out of their financial troubles is beyond me. That's the end of the show.
The Glades
This show is so far under the radar that few people even know it exists. That's a shame, because it's a crime drama that's worth a look.
Hot in Cleveland
By now, I'm over this show, but the constant presence of Betty White cannot be ignored. She is as hilarious as ever, and that alone is enough to keep me watching.
Suburgatory
I kind of waffle on this show. It's funny and well-cast, but never seems to reach much. It's the same problems and misunderstandings each episode... but with different people and situations. Oddly enough, it kind of works, and I find myself watching more often than not.
Whitney
I'm going to be crucified for mentioning this show because everybody I know seems to hate it with a passion... but I think it's funny. Sometimes charming even. Not so much for brash and abrasive Whitney Cummings, but instead for Chris D'Elia, which somehow keeps the show on-track. Yeah, it can be annoying at times, but it's got real heart beneath it all, and that's what keeps me coming back.
Downton Abbey
This show is not my cup of tea, but it's so incredibly lush and smart that it can't be ignored... even when the drama reaches ridiculous levels. Dame Maggie Smith has just been the icing on the cake.
Doctor Who
I am still not 100% sold on Matt Smith as The Doctor, but the show has such fantastic writing and production values that I don't dare ignore it. I'm also in love with Amy Pond, so there's that. Now that she's left the show, I'm a bit worried about the show, so only time will tell if my television future in 2013 will include Doctor Who... but Amy & Rory's replacement, Clara does look promising...
IT'S NOT TV, IT'S PREMIUM CHANNELS...
Game of Thrones
Continues to impress. One can only hope that George R. R. Martin figures out a conclusion to the books before the TV show catches up.
Boardwalk Empire
Rarely does a show inhabit such a fully realized environment as Boardwalk Empire. Even if the writing were shit, I would still probably tune in just to look at it.
The Big C
While Laura Linney's character grows more unsympathetic with each new episode, I have to say she's as fascinating as she's ever been. This is in direct contrast to Dexter where I just can't find him interesting any more. Since the next season of The Big C is the last (and oddly abbreviated to four 1-hour episodes) it remains to be seen where Cathy will end up. All I can do is hope that it's worthy of what she's had to face over the past three seasons.
ANIMATION WORTH YOUR TIME...
South Park
Continues to be brilliant, relevant commentary on pop culture and society in general. I hope it never ends.
Adventure Time
Probably the most bizarre show to ever air on television, and I love every minute of it. I fully realize that the stories of Jake the Dog and Finn the Human are not going to be everybody's cup of tea... but they really should be.
Archer
The ultimate spy series, but oh so wrong. How they manage to get away with something so raunchy is a mystery to me. Probably because it's so bloody witty and brilliant.
DECLINING...
Burn Notice — Even though I still like the characters, the stories are built on a premise which has grown very tired. I've hoped for a couple seasons now that they will wrap up the show before it gets bad... but I'm starting to lose confidence.
Revenge — The first season of this show was utterly brilliant. Emily Thorne picks a new target each week and then destroys her enemies in clever and darkly humorous ways. This season? Corporate finances and coincidences. How a show so delicious could devolve into something so pathetic and boring is just beyond me.
Modern Family — How many times can Phil Dunphy do something stupid and it still be considered funny? I dunno, but we've long since passed that point.
The Big Bang Theory — Adding Amy Farah Fowler was a stop-gap necessity to keep the show from going stale and repeating itself over and over again. Except now the stop-gap is getting tired.
Parks & Recreation — The show used to be funny because it was so tightly wound. But now it's so expansive, scattered, and decentralized that the laughs are fewer and far between.
Fringe — I still like watching this show, but not nearly as much as I used to. The thrust of Fringe was always the alternate universe. Then that got unceremoniously dumped for a future world which seems so disconnected from what we've known that it doesn't even feel like the same show.
Grimm — The monster of the week aspect of the show is just so tired. There are baby steps made to expand on the mythology of the Grimms, but it's not coming fast enough to save this show from seemingly endless repetition.
American Horror Story — The first season wasn't great, but it was so different from anything else on television that I was compelled to watch. This second season doesn't have that advantage, and seems to be treading water rather than forging out in a brave new direction.
Being Human — At first I resented this show as a poor American copy of the British original. But it quickly grew on me because it had a "voice" that was evolving into something different. But now it's just kind of settled into something that's not nearly as interesting. Yes, they try and pop in some big events to shake things up, but the net effect isn't change enough to keep me watching.
Go On — I really want to like this show because I've been a big fan of Matthew Perry's work in Friends, The West Wing, and Studio 60, but it's just not anywhere near that level. I suppose Perry is okay, but it's too hard to like his character and the supporting cast isn't helping.
How I Met Your Mother — Worn out its welcome years ago. Just reveal the mother and get this over with.
Psych —Probably because of syndication concerns, this show just doesn't seem to grow. Nothing really changes. Even big events like Shawn hooking up with Juliet is played to minimal effect so you barely notice it. As a result, brand new episodes feel like they could have happened in the first season. Something drastic needs to start pushing the show forward or they should just pack it up.
White Colar — Yet another USA Network show that doesn't want to evolve. It seems as if the characters are just caught in a loop so that the episodes can be syndicated more easily. Boring.
Suits — I really enjoyed the first season, but cannot seem to get into the second season for some reason. The characters are ultimately one-note cut-outs that don't engage. Maybe this season I just started to notice that?
SNL — More misses than hits this year. But every once in a while... a surprise that makes it all worthwhile.
Time for my annual wrap-up of my favorite albums that were released this year.
As usual, a lot of my time spent listening to music was rediscovering old bands I hadn't heard in ages. I just can't seem to escape the 80's I guess. 2012 was a depressing year for live music... with the exception of Matt & Kim, I don't think I went to any concerts. Though The Local Strangers did come to Redneckistan, so there's that. Here's hoping I make more time for seeing the bands I like in 2013.
THE TWELVE BEST...
#1 Elysium by Pet Shop Boys
When I first heard this album, I figured it would be lucky to break my top five. Sure it has some nice slow-pop magic by one of my favorite bands, but the lack of amazing dance-based tracks that they usually unleash left me cold. Even worse, I immediately dumped three songs that I didn't like even a little bit (Your Early Stuff, Ego Music, and Hold On). But then, inexplicably, I found myself listening to the remaining Elysium songs more and more. Often times without even realizing I was going there. And then I fell in love with the sublimely beautiful track Memory of the Future... and the rest followed...
Note: The above YouTube song is the original hauntingly beautiful album track... not the butchered pop trash remix they released as a single. Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Yes, I still wish that three or four tracks were killed in favor of some dance tracks... but there's enough great stuff here to nab my #1 spot.
#2 E.P. 1 by Father Tiger
I used to restrain from putting EPs on my list because they're not a "real" album. But, for whatever reason this year, a good chunk of my favorite music was on EPs, so I just went with it. And, in the case of Father Tiger's EP, it came dangerously close to being my No. 1 album of 2012... despite having only four tracks. Which I can kind of explain like this... Vince Clarke, a founding member of my favorite band, Depeche Mode, quit to go on and form two new bands... Yazoo with Alison Moyet, then Erasure with Andy Bell. Both of which are total synth-pop genius that I love. And if somebody were to ask me to describe Father Tiger, I'd tell them that it's a cross between Yazoo and Erasure. I first became aware of them in August when they got some attention for a video they made that was composed from Instagram photos...
Then I kind of lost track of them until they released a video for On Christmas Day that got forwarded to me. It was kind of clever and funny, and sounded great, which got me interested in them all over again...
I ended up buying their EP and loved all four tracks... my favorite being Right Now, which will undoubtedly end up being played at weddings around the globe...
What I don't understand is why Father Tiger didn't pile more tracks on their EP. Their YouTube channel is packed with other great songs I'd gladly buy (especially this one, called High Road... oh, and this one, called First Love). But, oh well... four tracks or one track, Father Tiger has some of my favorite music this year.
#3 Lightning by Matt & Kim
Well, no surprise here. Matt & Kim are easily one of my favorite bands, and Lightning is yet another winner. The sound is less of an evolution from Sidewalks that we previously heard from Grand, but that's not a bad thing at all...
Not uncoincidentally, the above video for Let's Go is my favorite this year. I laugh every time I see it. And now I count the days until I can experience Matt & Kim in concert again.
#4 St. Lucia EP by St. Lucia
The thing about hearing a cool snippet of music in a television commercial is that you don't know if it is representative of the entire song. Plenty of bad songs have a nifty music riff that sounds awesome in a 20 second burst, but fails miserably when listened to in context of the full song. Or, even worse, not representative of the entire album. So when I heard a beautiful, soaring piece of pop splendor in the Victoria's Secret "Sexiest Gifts" ad, I was naturally skeptical...
Or blinded by angels. Nevertheless, I went ahead and Googled the lyrics to discover the song was All Eyes on You by a one-man band called "St. Lucia." A quick trip to iTunes so I could preview the self-titled EP, and I was hooked. It may have only six tracks, but they are really good tracks.
#5 Nocturne by Wild Nothing
In what I can only describe as a dreamy love-letter to the mellower side of the 80's, Wild Nothing has crafted an exquisite album that was pretty much my soundtrack for the last days of summer...
So long as you're giving a listen to Nocturne, I'd recommend taking a listen to their previous effort, Gemini, which is equally amazing.
#6 Port of Morrow by The Shins
James Mercer is the musical genius behind The Shins and their mind-blowing smash album Wincing The Night Away. That he chose to follow that success by abandoning the band and moving on to a new project called Broken Bells was cause for concern. Would we ever get new music from The Shins? Turns out the answer is yes... but with Mercer repopulating the band with all new musicians. Turns out that wasn't a cause for concern, because the new album was as brilliant as fans could have hoped for...
Like butter. But... different than I was expecting... somehow. It's as if this latest iteration of the band has not so much built upon what has come before, but instead tossed it out and started from scratch. I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I like the album quite a lot so it probably doesn't matter.
#7 Battle Born by The Killers
Brandon Flowers has piercing vocals that could cut through steel, and any time he chooses to really cut loose on a song, you can be assured of it touching your very soul. Battle Born is remarkable because he cuts loose on most every track...
And, yes, that fucking incredible video was made by Tim Burton and stars Winona Rider(!!). Here's another track where the video is too good to be true...
If any band was more primed to throw caution to the wind and create a concept album in the vein of Pink Floyd... well, it would be Pink Floyd... but The Killers would be a close second.
#8 Night Visions by Imagine Dragons
After giving a listen to the polished sound of Night Visions, you'd be hard-pressed to peg this as a debut album. And yet, it is...
So pretty. And, just because I can't help myself, here's their latest video. It's pretty awesome...
If this is where the band begins, it will be very interesting to see where they evolve to.
#9 Shields by Grizzly Bear
This entire album could be the soundtrack for a Quentin Tarantino film, and I don't know how I could pay it a better compliment than that. Tarantino uses music to secure a sense of place for his stories... and it doesn't matter from which time period they come. Grizzly Bear has gone retro in a very unique way, creating their own sense of place, wherever that may be...
This album convinced me to check out the band's back-catalog, which is pretty impressive.
#10 The Truth About Love by Pink
If I were to die tomorrow, one of my regrets would be that I haven't yet seen Pink in concert. She's amazingly talented in a way that harkens back to sirens of old, and to experience that live would truly be an experience to be savored. The Truth About Love sounds a lot like what Pink has given us in past releases, but I think her lyrics are getting more clever...
Tell me that listing to Pink belt that one out to the cheap seats from on-stage wouldn't be awesome. You can't! Probably one of the most consistent vocalists working right now, I'd buy any new Pink album audio unheard. This release hasn't changed that.
#11 Living Things by Linkin Park
For reasons that just mystify me, hardcore Linkin Park fans have been railing against Living Things when I honestly feel it's some of the band's best work. It would be easy to dismiss the criticism if I thought there was some kind of new directional shift happening here, but it seems more like a shift back, which should be something that makes fans happy...
Oh well, I have -zero- complaints. The album is a fantastic listen and gets a lot of play on my car's iPod (good driving music!).
#12 Body Faucet by Reptar
I caught this band opening for Foster the People last year and was suitably impressed enough to check out their album debut when it dropped this Spring. My first reaction was "Meh. Nothing really special." But then I found myself playing it a lot more often than I ever thought I would. Body Faucet started growing on me. Like a virus...
Just good ol' fashioned FUN, that is! The album is pretty much more of the same. I think this might be a band to watch.
SINGLE SINGLE VISION...
Home by Phillip Phillips
I don't watch any of the singing competition shows, so I had no idea who Phillip Phillips was. I found this track by using Shazam on my iPhone.
Unfortunately, there were only a couple other songs off his album I liked, so I gave it a pass. Still, it's pretty song.
CHEESIEST VIDEO 2012 AWARD...
Hall of Fame by The Script
Since I've already shown my favorite video (Matt & Kim's Let's Go) I thought I'd come up with a different video award this year. I can see how it would be easy to dismiss The Script as pop fluff... their first single release off of their third album (titled #3, get it?) features a track with will.i.am for heaven's sake. But the album isn't that bad and there's a sensibility behind their music that reaches for something more. Except where their videos are concerned...
When I saw this video, I actually laughed out loud. I mean, seriously. A deaf girl and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks each aspiring for greatness? Holy crap... did they get Nicholas Sparks to write this crap? I kept waiting for Lionel Richie to show up with that blind girl from the Hello video. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have to use schmaltz to sell your song, regardless of how schmaltzy that song is, you're never going to be taken seriously.
And... that's a wrap! Rumor has it, 2013 brings us a new album by Depeche Mode. It's looking to be a good year in music already.
For those who only read one of my posts each year... or anybody wanting a recap of the past year here at Blogography... this post is for you! I've jettisoned loads of the usual junk so this entry is "mostly crap" instead of the "total crap" they usually are.
It wasn't a bad year. Finally made it to South and Central America. Finally made it to The Keukenhof after years of visiting the Netherlands. Got to see Matt & Kim again. Oh... and didn't kill anybody again. And, as usual, any year you don't have to kill somebody can't be all bad, right?
JANUARY
• Found out I'm my own worst enemy...
• Warned the world that Newt Gingrich's presidential plan to colonize the moon would lead to freaky-ass space bitches that turn into freaky-ass space monsters...
• Congratulated the Republicans for re-electing President Obama by nominating Mitt Romney as their candidate...
FEBRUARY
• Live-Tweeted the first time I cut my own hair...
• Explained how politics in Washington State work...
• Tried to understand how YouTube comments work...
• Celebrated Valentine's Day by myself...
• Accidentally had an amazing day exploring Kansas City...
MARCH
• Took a cruise that went through the Panama Canal...
• Got to visit adorable baby sloths in Costa Rica...
• Went to Hell... with chickens.
• Returned to Key West, one of my favorite places...
• Worried about Rick Santorum having a massive repressed gay breakdown over giant pink balls...
APRIL
• Visited the DutchBitch, where she took me on a wonderful tour of bulb fields in the Netherlands...
• Finally had the DutchBitch take me to the glorious Keukenhof Gardens...
• Attended Bitchsterdam 3 with some really great people...
• PATATJES MET!!!...
• Flew to Hamburg so I could see the sights... including MINIATUR WUNDERLAND!...
MAY
• Have a child that's acting a little light in the loafers? You can fix that right up... just beat the gay out of 'em!...
• Said goodbye to Mr. Maurice Sendak and Where the Wild Things Are...
“Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!”
JUNE
• Finally decided to get the tattoo I've been wanting for 26 years, thanks to Mikey at Black & Blue Tattoo...
• Explained what I do to be able to afford to travel the world.
• Became really poor when I bought the single most amazing computer I have ever owned.
JULY
• Decided to take a short, relaxing vacation to the Bahamas, man...
The view from my room pretty much sucks, doesn't it?
• Spent my time in the Bahamas getting drunk, running into a tree, and ending up with a sunburn and a hole in my pants...
• Fell in love with Rafalca, Mitt Romney's dancing horse and tried to understand how one transports a horse to The Olympic Games...
AUGUST
• Exhibited THRICE Fiction at the Portland Zine Symposium...
SEPTEMBER
• Found out what happened to Raggedy Andy after all these years...
• I TOTALLY GOT TO FLY IN THE MICKEY MOUSE PLANE, Y'ALL!...
• Took a trek on the wild side at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom...
• Watched the wildlife outside my window while staying at Disney's amazing Animal Kingdom Lodge...
OCTOBER
• Flew to Atlanta so I could SEE MATT & KIM LIVE IN CONCERT...
• Attended Mr. Fabulous and Turnbaby's amazing Hollywood Nights party.
• Visited the steamy Creation Museum in Kentucky...
• Flew to DutchyLand for 48 hours so I could visit the new Hard Rock Cafe in Brussels...
NOVEMBER
• Totally didn't gloat over having called the election ten months ago...
• Threw caution to the wind and went ghost hunting at Old South Pittsburgh Hospital...
I took this bear away from a naughty ghost child and let him go for a tricycle ride.
• Decided to give dips a try while in rural Georgia...
DECEMBER
• Celebrated marriage equality coming to Washington State.
• Watched Bad Monkey protest anti-primate bias at IKEA...
Pretty spiffy. It never seems that I do much in a year until I take a look back at it.
Hope 2013 is a great year for you.
Yes. Yes I know that it's Tuesday. But I always have to juggle the last Bullet Sunday of the year around so I don't mess up my year-end Best Lists. But don't despair... because a special New Year's Bullet Sunday (on Tuesday) starts now...
• Resolute! My New Year's Resolutions are the same every year. 2012 was a piece of cake...
And what am I looking forward to this year?
• Travel! Where am I going in 2013? No clue. I want so badly to return to Australia so I can visit the Southern half of the country and New Zealand. I have yet to visit India, someplace I have been longing to see. I have tentative plans to return to Singapore, but don't know if I'll make it this year. Antarctica has got to be checked off my list one of these days. Hopefully, no matter where I go, it will be someplace interesting.
• Movies! So many potentially awesome movies to look forward to in 2013. Star Trek: Heart of Darkness, Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Oblivion, Despicable Me 2, Pacific Rim, The World’s End, and lots more. So many promises of amazing movie experiences.
• Music! Macintosh Braun's album never came, so I guess that's dropping this year now. Depeche Mode, Adam Ant, Johnny Marr, and OMD have new releases planned for 2013... and I think Foster the People might be planning something... just to name a few.
• Fiction! Despite the odds stacked against new publications, Thrice Fiction Magazine continues to forge ahead. Really looking forward to what RW is going to find for our three new issues this year (our third!). Hoping to get another B&W Annual out in the Spring.
• Comics! Thanks to Comixology, I'm discovering and buying more comics than ever. I'm very excited to see what Snyder & Capullo have planned for Batman. Am dying to know what's going to happen in Invincible #100. Hoping to see something new from George Pérez and Arthur Adams this year.
• Apple! And, of course, there's whatever my fruit-adorned computer company has planned this year. What's next? Will the Apple Television finally appear? Will they finally get off their asses and let people delete shit from their iTunes download queue without having to send in a support request? Who knows. All I know is that I'm waiting...
I know a lot of people who did not have a good 2012. Mine was okay, as I thought it probably would be. This year? Not a clue. 2013 is the Big Unknown for me. I suppose that's just as it should be.
Hope yours is a good one.
I would like to send a big "thank you" to Congress, The President, and all our elected officials for their hard work on coming to a deal to avoid the so-called "Fiscal Cliff." Totally excellent work, guys. You completely lived up to my lofty expectations. That extra money coming out of my paycheck each month? Totally fucking worth it. I'd recommend that everybody involved get a raise, but you've already given yourself one.
Who says that the American government is filled with useless pieces of shit who are more interested in salvaging their cushy careers and getting their hands on special interest money than serving the American people? Not me! My confidence is running high that we're on the right track now, and everything's going to be just awesome as we barrel forward into the future...
Thanks once again to the best government money can buy! You guys rock!
Way back in the early days of this blog (as in, eighteen months into this blog) I did one of those "Fifty Things To Do Before You Die" that was published by the BBC. This morning I got an email from a friend who stumbled across it and wrote to tell me that a couple things on that list that I wanted to do I actually did.
I thought that was pretty cool, so I went back and pulled those items where the status had changed to see how many I had left that I wanted to do (here's a link to the rest of the original list, if you're interested)...
THINGS I DONE DID...
• Scuba dive on Great Barrier Reef, Australia (Wanna do it! Done it!)... I would want to re-up my certification first (it's been a while), but I would absolutely do this. Finally made it to Australia in September 2011, and diving the Great Barrier Reef was on my must-do list. Unfortunately, thanks to massive Cyclone Yasi that struck in February 2011, much of the beautiful corals were wiped out, and environmental factors mean they probably ain't coming back. Such a shame. But it was still a terrific experience.
• Walk the Great Wall of China (Wanna do it! Done it!)... Absolutely want to do this one. And I absolutely did do this one when I went to China the year after I completed this list!
• Catch sunset over Uluru (Ayers Rock) , Northern Territories, Australia (Wanna do it! Done it!)... And, again, when I finally get to Australia I probably will. Went to Australia, and absolutely fulfilled a promise to myself to do this. Truly an amazing experience.
• Hike up a glacier (Done it! Really done it!)... My home state of Washington has glaciers as well. Nothing like Glacier Bay in Alaska, but still. When I said "nothing like Alaska," I didn't realize how true that was until I actually went there, then took a helicopter to the top of a glacier and hiked around. Epic!
CHANGED MY MIND...
• Climb Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia (Wanna do it! Probably not!)... And when I finally end up making it to Australia, I probably will (despite my fear of heights!). Ummm... yeah... after seeing the climbers actually climbing the thing as I was walking over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I don't think there's any way I would want to do this.
• Explore Antarctica (Probably not! Wanna do it!)... Uh, why? I might consider it if they built an authentic Hard Rock Cafe but otherwise no. I have no idea what I was thinking. This somehow went from something I didn't want to do... to something I obsess about. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to make this happen.
• Explore the Galapagos Islands (Probably not! Wanna do it!)... This is a preserved area, and only scientists, researchers and such are given permission to visit. Boy do I feel stupid. It's absolutely possible for ordinary citizens to visit the Galapagos Islands, it's just really expensive. Of course I want to go there.
• Ride a camel to the Pyramids, Egypt (Wanna do it! Probably not!)... Absolutely something on my list to do. Uhhh... yeah... went to see the pyramids in 2007 and felt absolutely no need to ride a camel there (I've ridden one before). Instead went inside The Great Pyramid of Giza, which was awesome.
STILL WANT TO DO...
• Walk the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, Peru, South America (Wanna do it!)... My brother and I were going to do this, but he decided to get in an accident and nearly blow his face off instead. Oh well, maybe one day.
• See elephants in the wild (Wanna do it!)... Since I'm sure the elephants at Disney's Animal Kingdom don't count, I do think it would be cool to go to Africa or India and do this one.
• Fly over a volcano (Wanna do it!)... While on the Big Island of Hawaii, I walked over a volcano, which seems much more impressive, doesn't it?
• Gallop a horse along a beach (Wanna do it!)... My riding skills are crap though.
• Watch mountain gorillas (Wanna do it!)... Who wouldn't?
• See tigers in the wild (Wanna do it!)... But don't tigers EAT you in the wild?
• Do the Cresta Run, Switzerland (Wanna do it!)... Heck yeah I would do this! Probably die while trying, but what a way to go!
• See orang-utans in Borneo (Wanna do it!)... Why not? Boy, sure a lot of wild animal watching on this list!
• Go polar bear watching (Wanna do it!)... Why not? Boy, sure a lot of wild animal watching on this list!
So that's like... eleven things from the list I still want to do. Half of them, I probably have a shot at. That's not so bad.
If only I have the time and money to get started...
Five days in, and I can't say that 2013 is shaping up to be much of an improvement over 2012. But, then again, 2012 ultimately turned out okay for me, so I suppose this isn't a bad thing.
Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I sat down and tried to figure out what I have to do to make this year something better. A lot of things were written down... people... places... goals... changes... but, in the end, everything kept coming back to one thing...
Money.
If I had more money, I could do this.
If I had more money, I could change that.
If I had more money, I could have those.
If I had more money...
...well, everything would be better, wouldn't it?
Some people say money is the root of all evil. And it's been said that money can't buy happiness. But if there is one thing I'm sure of, it's that money has no conscience and money can indeed buy happiness. And much, much more...
So, if you have a couple million dollars you're not using...
Pretty tough to write a Bullet Sunday when hardly anything has happened all week.
But there's a blog questionnaire that somebody tagged me for a couple months ago, so don't you fear... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
And... that's too many bullets. See you next week.
One of my all-time favorite books from when I was a kid was Curious George Goes to the Hospital.
Recently I was needing to add a cheap item to my order to push my order total above the FREE SHIPPING threshold. For some reason I remembered this Curious George book, so I ordered a copy.
I am happy to say that it totally holds up, even after all this time. If, for no other reason, than to see Curious George get high on ether fumes (turns out this is from an earlier George book, sorry!).
My review on GoodReads...
★★★★★
After re-reading Curious George Goes to the Hospital I am convinced that it is the peak of literary perfection, unmatched by any other human accomplishment. The entire spectrum of drama is fully represented in a tale so filled with wonder and delight as to make all other books redundant. The fact that the story's wealth of knowledge and inspiration is so remarkably accessible to persons of most any age is surely a testament to the unarguable brilliance of Margret & H.A. Rey. I loathe to attribute something as mundane as a "Star Rating" to such a transcendentally significant work which redefines the boundaries of human/primate existence, and so eloquently conveys the folly and ultimate triumph of monkeykind... but if forced to do so under the GoodReads review standard, I offer TWENTY-SIX STARS (of which only five are be visible for some reason). You owe it to yourself... nay, you owe it to ALL HUMANITY... to read this literary masterwork and thrill to the sublime illustrated artistic triumphs which accompany it. Curious George Goes to the Hospital is, quite simply, the most profoundly perfect book ever created, and shall undoubtedly remain so until the end of time.
Obviously, I give the book my highest possible recommendation. If you haven't read it yet, I'd get on that.
Look, I fully realize that food manufacturers have to exaggerate how great their stuff looks on their packaging. I realize this because I make a living creating perfect photos for food manufacturers to use for just that purpose. The idea is that the photo is representing the absolute best-case scenario for the product. Everybody knows to lower their expectations, so no harm no foul, right?
The problem is that sometimes the packaging photo so grossly over-exaggerates the look of the product as to be complete fiction. I wrote about this before when I posted my IN-DEPTH SPECIAL REPORT for Hello Kitty Pop Tarts...
Not only is the pink frosting on the box not even remotely the same color as the putrid magenta glop that's been smeared on the Pop Tart, but they grossly exaggerated the number of kitty sprinkles you'll get. In cases like this, it's not a "best case, idealized scenario"... it's an outright lie.
But it's a fucking Pop Tart, so what can you do?
When shopping at the grocery store, I saw that Kashi had added a new Four-Cheese variety to their pizza line-up. I kind of like their Mediterranean flavor, so I thought I'd give the new pizzas a shot and bought three of them. The picture on the box just looked so darn appealing!
Unfortunately, reality had to come along and fuck everything up...
So... you tell me... Four Cheese Pizza... or BARELY Cheese Pizza?
Other than the three badly-distributed slices of Provolone, the other cheeses are nowhere to be found. Just a tiny sprinkling of assorted shreds scattered around the crust. The pizza was mostly sauce, not cheese at all. So I'm chalking this one up as a BLATANT LIE. And, unlike a Pop Tart, it's not like you can so easily write off.
I don't know if this is a design-issue or an implementation-issue, but I'd appreciate it if Kashi would actually put a half-way decent amount of fucking cheese on their Four Cheese Pizza. I shouldn't have to have to deal with this kind of disappointment when it comes to pizza-related life choices.
Happy Birthday iPhone!
Can you believe it's only been six years? I can barely remember my life before iPhone. Probably because I don't want to imagine a time when I didn't have my iPhone.
Thank you Steve Jobs.
Last Sunday I did a blog questionnaire meme somebody had given me that I have been putting off forever. After posting it, I was told that if I was really ambitious about killing a blog meme, I should answer this Hundred Questions Meme.
And since it was a different hundred questions than I had answered before, here it is...
The totally awesome Mobile Exploration Lab from Question #3.
Ta daaaaaa!
I love toys. Or, I suppose I should say "I still love toys," since adults aren't supposed to play with toys. And my toy of choice? LEGO!
When they came out with LEGO Star Wars sets and games, I was ecstatic. It was a match made in heaven. Then came LEGO Batman sets and games, and I was in Toy Nirvana. Two of my most favorite things in the world together at last!
And now LEGO has gone retro and combined a childhood favorite with their latest line of sets... LEGO Chima...
Looks kind of like Lizard Men vs. ThunderCats... Go Lion-O!
But it's not Lizard Men or ThunderCats that I'm talking about. It's what you can do with the LEGO Chima characters that has me all nostalgic...
The zip-cord pull that makes the LEGO Chima Racers go is the same technology used on a toy I loved as a kid called SSP Racers (which you can read about at Retroland)...
They were a lot of fun because everybody on the block had one, and we'd all get together to race. Mine was the purple "Laker Special"...
Photo taken by Mr. F.M. on Flickr
I don't have any plans of buy the LEGO Chima sets, but this walk down memory lane sure has me wanting my old SSP Racer back. I could probably play with it for a full 15 minutes before getting bored.
Good luck tomorrow, guys!
Stop staring at those Golden Globes... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Good. If you have a passing interest in astronomy... or even if you just like staring at beautiful stuff... then you have got to check out Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog over at Slate. I've been a fan of his for years when he was at Discovery, but he's really been be posting some amazing images lately...
You'll probably want to look at the Big Picture over at Bad Astronomy.
No shit, go check out the hi-res on this one. Mindblowing.
And in-between, Mr. Plait is still dishing up fascinating facts about the universe... and cool stuff worth knowing about our home back here on earth. Be sure to check it out.
• Cookies. Look, if a site requires me to enable cookies in order to use their shopping cart, that's fine. If I want to shop there bad enough I'll enable the stupid cookies, even though I don't want to. However... I am NOT going to be forced into enabling cookies just for looking at your website. And if you go to Target.com, that's exactly what they do ON PAGE ONE...
All I wanted to do was to find a local Target store at a given address. Why in the hell does that require cookies? Stupid. Stupid. STUPID!
• Backlog. Being a man and talking about rape and violence against women can be a tricky situation... even if you are condemning these reprehensible acts of brutality and cruelty. I've learned the hard way how just one misinterpreted word can get you verbally eviscerated, regardless of your good intentions. Even trying to be sympathetic can sometimes get you smacked down. Ultimately, it all comes down to one thing... "You're a man. You'll never know what it's like."
And women are, of course, correct. Men can't know what it's like for a woman to deal with rape... or even the fear that comes from the threat of rape.
So this is a subject I shy away from, even though I have strong feelings about it. Namely, that rape is an unforgivable criminal act which should result in the rapist being evicted from humanity. Permanently.
But, back to reality...
Certainly preventing rape should be goal #1. But if rape occurs, then making sure the rapist pays for his crime and ensuring he can't rape again is imperative. Thanks to a post over at SueBob's blog, I've learned that there exists a massive backlog of
And if you're looking for a place to donate some money, Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation "helps survivors of sexual assault heal their minds, bodies and spirits and reclaim their lives," and is deserving of your support.
• Accused. Of course, being a man, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that being falsely accused of rape can have consequences every bit as horrendous. You. Can. Lose. Everything. Your family. Your wife. Your children. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your job. Your livelihood. Your life. And, even if the truth eventually comes out, your life will never be the same because the original accusation never goes away. People may learn that you're innocent, but you'll always be that guy who somebody accused of rape. And don't get me started on how damaging false accusations are to actual rape victims trying to build cases against the bastard who violated them. Every lie that comes to light makes it that much harder to prove a truth.
So, yeah. If you are a rapist, you deserve everything you get. And more. But if you're innocent? That's the stuff of every man's worst nightmare. Case in point? Nancy Grace's relentless, ruthless public persecution of the Duke Lacrosse Team for gang rape. Day after day she poured on the outrage, pronouncing them GUILTY despite the three accused players' repeated denials (not to mention inconsistencies from the accuser). And when the guys were found innocent? Not even an apology from that fucking publicity whore, Nancy Grace (may she burn in hell for all eternity).
All I'm saying is that the consequences of falsely accusing somebody of rape should be so severe that it's not a viable option when a woman wants to deal damage to a man. Or when she wants to escape the consequences of a consensual act. Or for any reason, really. But it's a scary area to tread because you don't want to make it so that women who have been raped are afraid to come forward. I don't pretend to know what the answer is here, but when working to make sure rapists are punished, I'd hope that the accused innocent will be considered in the conversation.
• Guilt. "A New Hampshire lawyer who works with a virulently anti-gay Christian-right organization has been found guilty of child pornography charges after videotaping her own daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions." —Salon
I am done being shocked by fucked-up news like this. These assholes ruthlessly vilify consenting adults over their sexuality... and it always seems like those who yell the loudest are the most guilty of doing horrendous shit...
"My favorite book is The Bible!"
This piece of crap worked overtime to persecute and deny equality to innocent people... but then spent her off-hours forcing her FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER to repeatedly have sex with TWO MEN while she filmed it. Apparently she felt her professional life was somehow "compensating" for the fucking atrocious stuff she did behind closed doors. Which begs the question... what's going on with all these other anti-gay bigots who are screaming to the rafters with their less-than-righteous fury? I am sickened at the possibilities. But no longer surprised when it shows up in my newsfeed. How sad is that?
And... I really, really wish I had another day in this weekend.
In the 1992 movie The Distinguished Gentleman, Eddie Murphy plays a con artist who figures out that the most profitable con jobs of all can be found in American politics, so he bluffs his way into Congress.
The movie was widely panned by critics. They just couldn't say enough bad things about the film, and most movie-goers seemed to feel the same way. Not me. Yes, it felt like Eddie Murphy was making the shit up as he went along, and the movie would have benefitted greatly from a tighter script... but, overall, it's a pretty funny film.
And a very disturbing film as well...
Early in the movie Eddie's character, Thomas Jefferson Johnson, has just arrived in Washington and is meeting with a lobbyist representative named Terry Corrigan who matches lobbyists to politicians who share their views. Terry asks Thomas how he feels about sugar subsidies. Thomas doesn't know how he feels about sugar subsidies, so he asks Terry whether he should be for them or against them. Terry says something like "Shit, it doesn't matter to me... I can get you money on both sides." This kind of shocks Thomas, who says "Terry, tell me something. With all this money coming in from both sides, how does anything ever get done?" Terry's reply? "It doesn't. That's the genius of the system!"
The rest of the film is how Eddie and his friends try to maximize the money they can get out of the system, all while being in a constant state of shock at just how fucking easy it is for a Congressman to rake in absurd amounts of cash. At the end of the movie, Eddie's character makes a statement about how all his con-jobs in the past are nothing compared to the massive cons going on every day in the US government, except with Congress it's all perfectly legal.
The movie is as relevant today as it was when it was made twenty years ago, and I still think it's worth checking out. And here's why... As crazy and as exaggerated and as outrageous as the situations are in The Distinguished Gentleman, I am absolutely certain that what goes on in real-life Congress is a thousand times worse. And the more I read about what's happening with the assholes we elect into office today, the more I'm convinced that has to be true.
At least in the movie version I can have a laugh while getting fucked by Congress. Reality is not quite so entertaining.
And... something unexpected just came up.
Instead of blogging, I have to hop in my car and drive a lot.
Picking up from yesterday's unexpected journey...
The 3-1/2 hour drive to Spokane is not one of those awe-filled journeys that you look forward to. It's pretty much 30 minutes of civilized nothing followed by three more hours of nothing nothing. The Columbia Basin is vast, flat, and uneventful, with only a few farms and a lot of road to distract you from the tedium. Not to say that there can't be some pretty moments in the summer when the crops are out... I've seen some amazing sunsets, for example... but mostly? Not a lot to look at.
And now it's the middle of winter, which means there's even less to look at than usual...
The truth is that I never minded the drive that much, because there was always the best pizza on earth waiting for me when I arrived in Spokane at David's Pizza. But then this happened...
Needless to say, my trips to Spokane are not quite what they used to be. The owner of what was once David's Pizza is co-owner of a bar/restaurant called Famous Ed's where they claim to serve the same pizza... but not so much. The crust at David's was crispy with a nice snap to it when you took a bite. The Famous Ed's crust is tough like shoe leather and has to be torn off the slice. There's also something different about the sauce, but I can't put my finger on it. David's just had a better flavor profile somehow (though I'm sure it's the same recipe). The biggest problem is that Famous Ed's is always changing the toppings for "The Da Vinci"... last time they added clove garlic and salt... this time they added green peppers (which totally overpowered the feta and pesto notes that make this pizza so amazing). Oh well. They were running a special where you could get a large for the price of a small, so at least I'll have something for breakfast tomorrow...
For those who have never been here, Spokane is an interesting place. It's more like a humongous town than a big city. It stretches for absolute miles, but it never seems densely populated because it's so spread out. Even the downtown area, which is fairly cosmopolitan, never really seems like you're in a modern metropolis. The end result is actually kinda nice... you have most of the stores and services of a big city, but without the massive crowds and craziness.
Meaning "Children of the Sun" in the Native American Salishan language, Spokane (the second-largest city in Washington State), has a few claims to fame that I know of. It was the site of the 1974 World's Fair Expo. It was the setting for the Johnny Depp movie Benny & Joon and the Madonna-soundtrack-fueled film Vision Quest. It's the city where future Ted Mosby (from How I Met Your Mother) designs his first skyscraper (though, honestly, the idea of a skyscraper in Spokane is ludicrous, as I had previously talked about). Spokane is also home to the Lilac Festival in mid-May, which is kind of a notable event. At least it is here in the Pacific Northwest. And then there's the Bloomsday Run, which claims to be the largest timed race in the USA. And, of course, Bing Crosby grew up here and this is the city where Father's Day was invented.
Most important of all, Spokane is home of Gonzaga University Basketball, which is all kinds of famous. Oddly enough, some out-of-staters have asked me where the "City of Gonzaga" is, not realizing that the college is named for a Jesuit saint and not a city (the university itself having been founded by the Roman Catholic "Society of Jesus").
The geography of Spokane is also worth mentioning, because that massive blob on a map of Eastern Washington is not really all Spokane. It's divided into two parts... Spokane and Spokane Valley...
The city of Spokane Valley picks up at the eastern edge of Spokane proper and extends almost to Idaho. If you ever question which city you're in, all you have to do is look at north-south streets. In Spokane, they're labeled as "streets" but in Spokane Valley they're labeled as "roads." The distinction between the two cities is kind of important, and some Spokane Valley locals will be offended if you say they're from "Spokane" (just as a Spokane resident might be offended if you were to say they live in the "Spokane Valley," which has a specific meaning in this part of the state). It's not quite so contentious now, but decades ago it was kind of a "West Side Story Jets and Sharks" situation where Spokane kids and Valley kids did not mix. Even today, both cities have separate ecosystems for living, shopping, and eating... they're just not so isolated as they once were.
And that, as they say, is that.
Probably more about Spokane than you wanted to know, but that's what you're paying me for.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETTY WHITE!
And so I didn't get to leave Spokane yesterday as planned.
In an attempt to make the best out of the situation, I decided to go to Pita Pit for a falafel sandwich last night. It was delicious. Back home, most people don't even know what the heck "falafel" is, so I don't pass up opportunities like this.
On the way back to my hotel, I passed two guys fighting over change on the sidewalk. One of them screams "MY DARK SIDE IS COMIN' OUT AND YOU DON'T WANNA FUCK WITH MY DARK SIDE!" The other guy pushes him away, grabs the quarter off the sidewalk, then runs off screaming "I'M THE JEDI MASTER, BITCH!!"
How cool was that? Witnessing this exchange made me feel better about not being able to go home.
Sadly, this moment of happiness was fleeting. Lately I've been having an even worse time sleeping than usual, and last night I got no sleep at all. Methinks it may be time to revisit my insomnia with a new doctor. Not that doctors have been much help in the past, but I suppose I owe it to myself to keep trying.
Breakfast this morning was the same as yesterday morning... leftover pizza from my dinner two nights ago. Since I don't have any plates, I had to get a little creative in finding something for my pizza slices to sit on while heating...
Anyway...
The drive home was pretty uneventful.
Normally, that's a good thing when traveling... but on such a long, boring drive, a little bit of "eventful" would have been nice. Especially since I was working on no sleep.
Oh well. I survived it. I'm home. Anything on top of that is gravy.
I fly a lot.
And flying a lot means that I get benefits and privileges which help to make my constant flying suck less. I've laid it all out here before but, in summary, it involves things like First Class upgrades, early boarding, free luggage allowances, etc. etc.
For as long as I've been flying, these perks have been earned by flying a certain number of miles within a airline partner program. For example, to earn "Platinum" status with the Delta SkyMiles program, I have to fly 75,000 miles. That's pretty easy for me to do, because I can add up the miles from Delta, Alaska Air, Korean Air, Air France, or any other SkyMiles partner airline.
But all this changes in 2014.
In order to qualify for Platinum status with Delta I not only have to fly 7,500 miles, but I ALSO have to spend $7,500 on Delta flights that are in my name as shown on the following chart...
Which means none of the money spent on Alaska Air, Korean Air, Air France, or other partner airlines means shit (well, unless they are Delta-coded flights, and most of the ones I fly are not).
The upshot of all this is that I'm fucked.
I don't spend $7,500 on Delta flights because Seattle isn't a very big Delta direct-flight hub, which means I will be lucky to make Gold status in 2014.
UPDATE: After complaining about the "Million Miler" changes (which I talk about below) to a Delta rep, I was told that the $2,500 does not apply to Million Miler Silver status, and I would enjoy Silver benefits no matter how much (how little?) I would spend. I sincerely hope this is true, as it really is the right thing to do... but the below information was posted to a frequent flier forum after another SkyMiles flier had asked a Delta rep, so I dunno which is true. I guess we find out in 2014.
But the bigger problem for me is when I reach Million Miler status... probably in 2015. Once I fly a million SkyMiles, I get permanent Silver status, which I was looking forward to using in my later years when I'm not flying as much. But now that permanent Silver status ain't worth shit unless I spend $2,500 each year. And that probably won't be happening when I've retired and am living on a fixed income.
Which means the goal I've been working towards for decades is now practically useless.
So typical.
Over the years I've flown with Delta even when other airlines were cheaper because I thought I would be rewarded for my loyalty down the line. My million mile payday. But companies just don't give a fuck about their customers any more. The only thing they give a shit about is how much money they can squeeze out of you right now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Delta screwed me... that's all companies do any more.
Now we get to sit back and wait for all the other airlines to follow suit.
They are, after all, companies too.
IT'S SATURDAY!
I'm so happy I could just shit because I only had to work a half-day today. Of course, a "work day" for me is 16 hours long, which means my half-day is the same as most people's full-day, so I guess I should be as excited as I think I am...
I miss animated GIFs. They seem to be a dying art in the age of YouTube videos. If you're reading this in a feedreader, then odds are that it dropped support for displaying animated GIFs because nobody cares any more. I can only guess web browsers will eventually follow suite.
I was thinking of that this morning when I found a box of VHS tapes filled with awesome television shows that cannot be found on DVD. The VCR I had been saving to play them wouldn't even turn on, so I guess that's the end of that since the alternatives are pretty terrible. Kind of makes me nervous to try turning on my LaserDisc player.
I remember when records gave way to 8-track which, in turn, gave away to cassette tapes. Those, of course, gave way to CDs. Now all music is digital, so I guess it's only natural that video catch up.
The shame of it all being all those terrific television shows and movies that get left behind.
Like animated GIFs in the wind.
There's a grave disturbance in The Force, but never fear... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Rancor! My love of all things LEGO Star Wars is well documented. But LEGO has stepped it up a notch by releasing a new version of the cool Gamorrean Guards that I'm only just now seeing. As ugly as the old version was, this new version is cute as hell..
Photo from Warehouse 19, Sweden
Awwwww! You can get one in the "Rancor Pit" set, which conveniently interlocks with the Jabba's Palace set (how sweet is that?)...
Now that Disney owns Star Wars, I don't know how worried I should be about the license that LEGO had with LucasFilm to make awesome sets, video games, toys, and such. Since most of the cool stuff that's happening with Star Wars is coming from LEGO now-a-days, I hope that Disney is smart enough to keep a good thing going.
• Infinity! Speaking of Disney... they unveiled their mysterious "Project Toy Box" gaming universe at long last. And it's not anything quite like anybody expected. Called Disney Infinity, it copies the whole Skylanders concept from Activision where players collect real-life toys and play with them inside a video game. The result is somewhat... muddy. In order to have characters from all kinds of different animated styles plus live-action characters be able to interact with any semblance of sanity, a brand new common "Disney Aesthetic" has been created. In some cases it's very good (characters from The Incredibles look great)... in some cases it's a pleasant surprise (characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean films look pretty cool in their animated form)... and in some cases it's pretty bad (my beloved Sully from Monsters. Inc. looks like shit). Overall, I guess I'm just "meh" over the whole idea...
©Disney and ©Disney/Pixar
©Disney and ©Disney/Pixar
Where things may become interesting is when Disney starts leveraging more of their vast array of properties and licenses. They've got LucasFilm, which means you could theoretically have Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker playing along with Captain Jack Sparrow and Perry the Platypus. They also have Marvel Comics, which means Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, and the entire Marvel Universe may eventually drop in. They've got all the various Disney Channel properties available... which means we could finally get that Hannah Montana vs. Darth Vader deathmatch battle we've all been dreaming about...
And don't forget all the Buena Vista movie characters and ABC Television characters that Disney has in their pocket. With that in mind, you can see where Disney's gaming universe might become something monstrous and huge.
I'm not sure that it's something I'm going to buy into... especially since Mickey Mouse isn't even available yet... but I will be following Disney Infinity with no small amount of interest.
• Ads! I hate television commercials. Partly because they interrupt the shows I'm watching... but mostly because they're all annoying, stupid, and just plain suck. Which is why when a GOOD television commercial comes along, I nearly die of shock. It's so rare that this happens... especially outside of the Super Bowl... that I feel compelled to congratulate the people responsible. The latest commercial I'm loving is this very clever ad from TD Ameritrade...
Clever. And smart. And effective, if theirs is a service you're looking for.
• LIES! I really hate Subway® because of their Subway® Sandwich SpokesWhore, Jared Fogle®. And now I find out that they LIE about the size of their shitty sandwiches! It's probably been happening for years, but somebody finally called them on it...
Footlong® Photo by Matt Corby
And Subway's® lame response? "With regards to the size of the bread and calling it a footlong®, 'SUBWAY FOOTLONG®' is a registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway® Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length." This is despite the fact that in their annoying commercials there are people holding their hands up to indicate that a "Footlong®" is INDEED a unit of measure that's a foot long (as noted by BuzzFeed)...
I wish there was some way that Jared Fogle could be blamed for this scandal so he could be brought to trial and sentenced to death. Justice has been denied us long enough!
• Stream! I don't know how it is that I've never heard of "Can I Stream.it?" before, but what a frickin' amazing service! You type in a movie or TV show, and it will tell you if you can rent it, buy it, stream it, or otherwise get it over the internet from a variety of services (including the iTunes Store and Amazon)... or even purchase it on DVD or Blu-Ray. As if that weren't enough? If it's not available, Can I Stream.it? will even notify you when it's released in the format you choose...
How handy is that? If you're looking to fill in your digital library or find out if something you want to see is available for rental, "Can I Stream.it?" is worth checking out!
And that's all she wrote for Bullet Sunday. This week. Don't worry... Bullet Sunday will be back next week. I promise. So don't leave angry comments... or threatening comments... or weepy comments... Bullet Sunday is still going strong, never fear! See you at next week's Bullet Sunday for sure. Totally.
I started today the same way I start every Martin Luther King Jr. Day... by listening to his brilliant and beautiful "I have a Dream" speech in its entirety. In my humble opinion, it's probably one of the best-known speeches that most people never bother to listen to. That's a real shame, because it's famous for a very good reason.
Anyway...
I get MLK Jr. Day off, so I really, really didn't want to go into work today. But it ended up being unavoidable. Now I'm back home where it's 4:00pm, all my energy has been sucked dry, and I don't feel like doing a damn thing. Except watch Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country which is playing on television.
And it's while watching it that I've suddenly realized something I never knew...
Scotty is one badass motherfucker and a stone-cold killer!
For reals. Let me walk you through it. SPOILERS AHEAD!..
At the end of the film, Captain Kirk discovers a massive conspiracy to destroy a peace conference which involves Starfleet, The Klingons, and The Romulans. To foil the conspiracy, he beams down to the peace conference with his crew. The first thing he does? Tell Scotty to check out the back...
Meanwhile, a Klingon assassin is going to kill the President of the Federation of Planets...
But Captain Kirk saves the President, no problem...
One of the conspirators is Lt. Valeris, who is caught by Spock...
Another conspirator is held by Chekov...
Dr. McCoy captures a Romulan conspirator...
Then Sulu captures Admiral Cartwright, yet another conspirator...
As for Scotty?
That's a different story.
Mr. Scott finds the assassin hiding in some kind of balcony... so he kicks the fucking door down...
The assassin turns his head to see what the ruckus is...
While his gun is still pointing in the opposite direction out a hole in the glass...
Does Scotty then say "Drop the weapon!" and take the assassin prisoner? No. No he does not. Even though he's not in any immediate danger, he pulls out his phaser and shoots the guy...
Which blows him through the fucking window...
Plunging him to his death...
What does Scotty do then? He marches to the front of the crowd like a boss, gun in hand...
Then stands in front of everybody to soak up the applause for a job well done...
Everybody else on the Enterprise takes prisoners. But Scotty don't play that. If you're up to some crooked shit, Scotty shoots your ass dead and pitches you out the fucking window. Making him one of the baddest motherfuckers in the galaxy and a stone-cold killer...
Who knew? Sure he could get a little excitable from time to time, but Scotty's the quiet one of the group! Just goes to show that you never know who the true badass motherfuckers are.
Even in outer space.
Live long and prosper, everybody.
Let's see how many 16-hour workdays I can manage before I die... shall we?
This afternoon I made a call for work and got confused when the other party suddenly said "IT'S BACON!" in the middle of our conversation. Not knowing what was going on, I paused and said... "uhhh... okayyy..." The guy then said "Sorry, it's an inside joke." I assumed it had something to do with those stupid "Beggin' Strips" commercials, but couldn't figure out what I said to get that response. All afternoon my mind was kind of distracted by the notion of "inside jokes"... mostly because I no longer have any.
All the inside jokes I had evaporated when one of my best friends died.
Howard and I had dozens, and they've been running through my head all evening. Here are a few of my favorites...
BLACK ANUS
Howard and I used to go to Star Trek conventions because we were geeks who led boring lives. Once we had checked into our hotel rooms the night before the convention, we decided to find a restaurant for dinner. After washing up I went to Howard's room and knocked on the door. When he opened it he was laughing so hard he was crying. I kept asking him what was up, but he was laughing too hard to tell me. Eventually he picked up the phone book Yellow Pages and handed it to me. Under the "RESTAURANTS" category, one of the first places listed was "Black Angus," but somebody had scratched out the "g" so it read "Black Anus." Needless to say, this was a never-ending "in-joke" between us from that point on. Anytime we met up to eat, Black Anus was always on our list of possible restaurants. And heaven help you if we happened to actually drive by one. The longer it went on, the funnier it got. Years later we went to a technical conference and decided to actually eat at a Black Angus because we thought it would be the funniest thing ever. Turns out it wasn't as funny as we thought it would be, and the whole "Black Anus" joke died a quiet death.
FIRE! HOT!
Back in the good ol' days of computing, Apple had a voice recognition technology called "PlainTalk" which was about as bad as you would expect 1990's voice recognition technology to be. But it was new and exciting so I installed it on my old Mac Quadra and wrote a bunch of AppleScripts for the "Speakable Items" folder that could perform simple tasks. At the time, Beavis and Butt-Head had just become The Next Big Thing, and Howard was obsessed with the show...
So, naturally, when Howard dropped by my place to check out my PlainTalk installation, the first thing he said to my Mac was "Fire! Fire!" And what did my Mac do? It spoke back and said "Hot!" To this day, I have no idea how or why it did what it did. We could never repeat the response. But from then on, ANY time we heard the word "fire" we would shout out "hot!" Things went terribly wrong when a co-worker was telling us how her mother just lost her house in a fire. Both of us instinctively started to say "hot!" but managed to stop ourselves. But we didn't manage to stop ourselves from laughing. Awkward...
FRED HERSHBERGER
A mutual friend of ours was married to an absolute jerk that neither one of us could stand. For years we wondered why in the hell she was married to the dumbass. One day we were talking to another friend of hers and the subject came up. It was then that the bomb dropped... apparently this guy we hated had a huge penis. For some reason, we found this hysterically funny. Since his name was Fred Hershberger*, we would say "Fred Hershberger" instead of "penis" from then on. My last words to Howard on his wedding day were "Try not to wear out your Fred Hershberger on your honeymoon."
Needless to say, I miss those inside jokes. Though I suppose it's not really the jokes I miss, but the person I shared them with.
Heh. Black Anus.
*Obviously his name was not Fred Hershberger. I just made that up to protect the identity of the well-endowed.
The geek news of the day has been burning up the internets, so everything there is to be said about it has probable already been said.
Not that it's going to stop me from adding my two cents over J.J. Abrams directing the next Star Wars film. As somebody who has been obsessed with the films and the culture surrounding them for most of my life, it would be impossible for me not to say speak my piece because I've never been one to hold my peace.
In many respects, J.J. Abrams is a no-brainer to helm the next generation of Star Wars movies. He very successfully relaunched Star Trek, so he can obviously handle a special-effects laden sci-fi film... even if his annoying over-use of stupid fucking lens flare was such an amateurish style choice as to be laughable...
To be completely honest, flare aside, I loved the Star Trek reboot. It was respectful to the source material as much as it could be (for what it was). It had really good pacing. It had excellent structure with a definable beginning, middle, and ending. Characters were multifaceted and interesting (despite the fact that they were retreads of television icons). The threat was viable and felt dangerous. But, most important of all, it was just good Star Trek and a lot of fun.
So... maybe.
But that's just one film. What about the rest of his work?
As a "Television Guy," Abrams has a pretty big body of work there with writing, directing, and producing. Of his shows, Alias is my clear favorite... for the first couple seasons. After that, it just spiraled out of control in a gradual slide towards an unsatisfying conclusion. Which is pretty much the story of most his stuff, including Felicity, Lost, and Fringe. His other major works... Undercovers, Alcatraz, and Revolution, never managed to grab me at all. A truly mixed bag.
So... maybe?
But it's his film work that tells the tale. Since Abrams' projects always start strong, a movie would seem to be the ideal format for him. There's no room for that slow decline that plagues his television projects. Mission Impossible III is a good example. I thought it was a fresh and interesting take on the franchise that was really well thought out. It also ended with a satisfying bang that capped it off perfectly. Just like Star Trek. And while I thought that Super 8 was a whiny, corny, disastrous mess, there's no denying it was a well-made film. The true test, of course, will be when Star Trek Into Darkness comes out, because that will tell us if the first film was a fluke.
So... maybe.
In the end, about all I can say for certain is that J.J. Abrams can't do any worse than the shitty Lucas prequels.
For one thing, he can write dialogue that's not cringe-worthy.
And he seems to put things like "story" and "characters" above special effects.
I also get the feeling that he won't dumb everything down to a 2-year-old level by accenting the film with burp and fart jokes.
And it feels like he might have the cojones and integrity to stand up to Disney and not turn his movie into a 2-hour toy advertisement filled with stupid shit like Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks.
So... maybe.
As a huge Star Wars fan, I want so very badly for J.J. Abrams to get a fantastic script from Oscar-winner Michael Arndt and turn it into the most mind-bogglingly amazing Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. This is an impossibly high expectation but, after what I've been through, I deserve it! We all do. And the wait is going to be torture.
So... hopefully.
Flipping through my photos often results in my find two shots that would be better if they were spliced together. Sometimes it works out better than others.
Totally drawing a blank tonight.
Having a blog about nothing in particular means that sometimes nothing in particular shows up.
Don't pop that viagra just yet... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Credit! I pay for everything with my credit cards, because both my VISA and American Express earn me air miles and travel perks. So long as I pay my credit cards off at the end of each month, it's a winning scenario. At least is was until now. Because now stores are allowed to pass along the credit card fees they pay on to their customers. Which means any store not willing to absorb the fees are going to be adding 1.5% to 3% onto the total of your bill. Pile $25,000 onto your card for the miles each year and that could reach $750 annually. Suddenly those "free" air miles just got really expensive. So expensive that it's not longer worth it. If a "free" roundtrip domestic ticket is 25,000 miles (which cost $750 in fees), it's cheaper to just pay the $250-$400 it would cost to buy it outright. This really sucks, but I guess we need to wait and see how many companies start charging a fee before we know how bad it sucks.
• Sin of the City. The horrific nightclub fire in Brazil which killed at least 233 people is a sad reminder of how life can imitate art which is imitating life. Duran Duran's incredible "Wedding Album" features a song called Sin of the City which pretty much spells it out...
Kind of makes you wonder if you're taking your life in your own hands when you go out for a night on the town. Safety code violations are so commonplace and so rarely enforced in many places on this earth that it can be like playing Russian roulette. Eventually the tragedy will strike... it's just sheer chance that it will be on the day you are the one experiencing it.
• Asteroids! All this talk about companies wanting to send ships into space to mine asteroids makes my mind zero-in on one thing every time...
Of course, now that Atari is in bankruptcy and finally set to die once and for all, I suppose I should stop clinging to the past and look to the future...
I wonder if these companies remember that the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3,720 to 1?
• WTF?! I guess marriage equality opponents are finally starting to realize that more and more people want their gay friends, family, and neighbors to be able to have the same right to get hitched as everybody else. This has resulted in some of them abandoning their absurdly ridiculous arguments against same-sex marriage... for even more absurdly ridiculous arguments?!? You know, I honestly try and respect views and opinions that are different from mine... but this has to be the stupidest fucking thing I've heard in ages: Only straight couples should be allowed to marry because only they can have a child unexpectedly, where gay couples have to plan for it? Seriously? THIS is what passes for a logical argument now-a-days? It's witnessing this level of idiocy that is eventually going to be the death of me. My brain simply cannot process this fucked-up shit, and one day it's going to hemorrhage... just you wait. When the blog entries stop, that's when you'll know I've finally had too much.
• WTF?! Part Two You know that you've been blogging too long when you get an email criticizing you for using a split infinitive. What fascinates me most here is not that somebody decided to go all grammar nazi on me, but that they thought I was unaware of what I had done. As if it were impossible for somebody to intentionally ignore a grammar rule that they feel is stupid (see what I did there?). I suppose that I could invite them to kindly go fuck themselves, but I wouldn't want to mistakenly cause their brain to forcibly hemorrhage. I can so relate.
Annnnd... tomorrow is going to be a long day, so I am going to regretfully take my leave of you now.
I once told a woman "You're only beautiful on the outside," because it was the meanest thing I could think of saying. She had hurt me, you see, and I really wanted to hurt her back. Unfortunately, she completely misinterpreted the comment and took it as a compliment. On the surface, it seemed like a total insult failure. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had scored a crushing victory. Not only did I call her an ugly human being, I apparently did it in a way that this vain moron wasn't aware... thus sparing me from the regret and bad feelings that inevitably follow after I say something mean to somebody.
Except, in this case, any regret would have been short-lived.
This woman went on to do some pretty heinous things to a surprising number of people. She truly was an ugly witch, regardless of how nice she looked on the outside.
This had me facing regret of an entirely different kind. I regretted that I hadn't clarified my insult when I had the chance. Opportunities missed and such.
That was years ago.
This weekend I discovered that she had eventually become as ugly on the outside as she was on the inside.
As in, yikes.
So do yourself a favor, kids... have a good heart so you can stay beautiful at your core and not be eaten up with ugliness from the inside out.
Oh yeah... and stay away from drugs. Because, holy crap can they do a number on your looks.
Tonight I finally got around to the massive amount of mail that's been piling up. Thanks to internet banking, I pay all my bills online, so any mail that comes in isn't critical (it's usually junk mail) and can be safely ignored.
Amongst the crap was a new credit card for an account I had closed over a year ago. At first I was mad that I was probably charged some kind of annual fee for something I had canceled and wasn't using, but there was none of that. Just a friendly reminder to activate the new card and destroy the old card. Well okay then... no harm, no foul... I'll just call and cancel the account again.
Which, of course, was easier said than done.
The Customer Service Representative was sorry to learn that I had received a card I didn't want, but she could find no record of the account being closed. "Ah." I said. "That explains it then. Can we just go ahead and close the account again?"
The answer? "No."
"Uhhh... no?!??????" I replied, trying my best to make sure my disbelief was evident.
"No. I am unable to close this account. For that I need to transfer you to a Relationship Specialist."
Before I was able to say "Relationship wha-?!?", I was clicked-over to another line and listening to music-on-hold designed to make one think very hard about whether they wanted to live another day.
Not only was I in a relationship I never knew about, now I was being fed a mix-tape guilt-trip for wanting to end it.
And so there I sat as the minutes ticked by... listening to sad music and feeling guilty. Rehearsing what I was going to say over and over in my head so I could end the relationship gently and avoid all the usual screaming, biting, and punches to the face that tend to happen. "I'm sure you're a wonderful card with a lovely interest rate... and some guy will be really lucky to have you... but... I've found another card that gives me what I need in a way you never can. I'm so sorry, but I'm just in it for the air-miles." I thought that was the perfect approach, but then realized I would hate if somebody used me for air-miles, and decided that the classic It's not you, it's me! approach was probably safer.
She took it pretty well.
At first.
But then things turned nasty. It was kind of a "I was there for you when you needed me... and now I'm being discarded... ON THE PHONE!" kind of vibe. This was punctuated at the end of the call when I was asked to destroy all evidence of the relationship. Usually, this involves texts, photos, emails, and such... but this relationship was different. "Please destroy any cards, PINs, cash advance checks, or any other material associated with this account." And by "account" I'm sure she meant "relationship."
I was feeling pretty bad as I was read the riot act. Then, out of the blue, things turned sunny again...
"If your needs should change in the future, please think of us!"
How nice was that?
It would seem that I am finally getting the hang of this relationship stuff, and can actually get out of one amicably for once!
Unless another card randomly shows up because "there's no record of the cancelation." Then I guess I have a stalker. A stalker who has all my personal information, my Social Security number, and my financial records.
When did relationships get to be so hard?
My love of animation knows no bounds.
And while a part of me will always believe that the hand-drawn stuff will never be eclipsed as the ultimate expression of the art-form... there is no denying that the miraculous work being done by Pixar and others in the realm of computer animation bodes well for the future.
And then today I see that John Kahrs and Disney has come up with a way of making CG look very much like traditional hand-drawn animation with a beautiful and touching short film called Paperman...
Absolutely magical.
I've lost track of the number of times I've watched it.
No, it's not in the same league as a Hayao Miyazaki film. And I wouldn't say that it reaches the heights of Disney classics like Snow White and Jungle Book or even The Lion King and Lilo & Stitch. But the technology is young. And the results are mind-blowing. And there's no telling where this might lead...
My only worry being that this will be the final nail in the coffin for hand-drawn animation. And as great as this new technology might one day be, I think there will always be a place for putting a pencil to paper... then putting your heart into making something come to life, frame by frame...
Ones and zeroes has a hard time competing with that. But it's getting closer every day.
Uh. Yeah. About that blog post...
Usually I just bang out my Blogography entry at the end of the day once I've caught up on work and life. I have no idea what I'm going to write about, I just fire up MarsEdit and away we go. Most of the time this works out okay, but not always. Today was kind of different though, because I had an idea for a post that had been brewing all day long. It came to me in the morning, then kept building and building. By the time I was driving home from work, I pretty much had the entire thing composed in my head, and was quite pleased with myself for having such a great post idea during the usually-boring days of winter.
But then I decided to catch up with the world during dinner, which turned out to be a big mistake.
Because that's when I saw this...
And it's been all I can think about ever since.
On May 3rd we're getting another Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man movie.
Written and directed by Shane Black!
What else is there to blog about?
When I woke up, there was a dull ache in my frontal lobe. I thought maybe I had smacked my head on the nightstand or something, and tried to ignore it.
By the time I got to work, the pain had escalated to something impossible to ignore, so medication was in order. Alas, it was over-the-counter medication which did absolutely nothing.
I lasted three hours before I couldn't take it any more. It was time to take my head home before I puked on my desk or something equally disturbing...
And so here I am... too drugged up to concentrate on work, but not drugged up enough to sleep.
About all I'm good for is a quick blog entry, which is serendipitous, I suppose.
Having missed most of my work-day yesterday because of my aching head, I was determined that I would wake up early this morning and get caught up so I could spend some time working on the upcoming issue of THRICE Fiction. But the pills I had to take for the pain thought otherwise, and I ended up being mostly dead for most of the morning, so that plan went right out the window.
For lunch I ended up eating at the Olive Garden where I ordered the Fettuccine Alfredo. Which isn't really Fettuccine Alfredo because the sauce seems to be mostly cream, instead of the parmesan/butter mix that comprises the original. Oh well. It may not taste as good, but it's still a decent plate of pasta.
While eating my Not-Alfredo, I notice a kid at the table across from mine staring at me. Since he was sitting at a huge table filled with nothing but adults that were ignoring him, I figured he was bored enough to find me an interesting distraction. But that wasn't it at all.
He was studying how I ate my pasta.
Apparently the concept of twirling the noodles into a spoon with your fork was something new to him.
He gave it his best shot... until the person next to him told him to stop playing around, then cut his spaghetti into pieces, ruining it.
Oh well.
Hopefully when the kid gets old enough to strike out on his own and escape from these people who don't know how to eat pasta, he'll remember that he once saw a better way.
Amazing how much my hopes for the future depends on people forgetting what they were taught today.
Cancel your post-Super-Bowl plans... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Poop! On March 1st, one of the greatest innovations in toilet technology ever conceived will finally be available... THE DIGITAL 2-IN-1 POTTY WITH ACTIVITY SEAT FOR iPAD! Or, as I like to call this stunning testament to genius... the iPotty...
Why this isn't available in adult sizes, I will never know. If you want to order one, Amazon is accepting pre-orders!
• Bowl! I really don't give a crap about football in general, and the Super Bowl in particular, but my love of a good television commercial definitely have me looking forward to the big game. Or, since I don't watch the thing, I guess I should say after the big game... where I rush to see all the ads that aired.
This year was a massive disappointment. Most of the ads sucked ass (that idiotic GoDaddy ad was just fucking gross), and there was only one... ONE commercial that I felt was Super Bowl worthy...
And even that was a bit manipulative and predictable.
What happened to the epic Super Bowl commercials of yesteryear?
• Closing! One of my favorite guilty pleasures is searching the internet for "The World's Most Dangerous Airport Landings." There are several really good lists, and a number of scary videos... all glorifying those airports that are insanely difficult to land at. Later this month, one of those airports... Ecuador’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito... is due to close. I am very familiar with it, because it's appeared on a number of those "Most Dangerous" lists I love, and for good reason. It's right in the middle of a big city, is surrounded by mountains, is plagued by nasty cross-winds, and is at a high altitude...
Having trouble finding it? Yeah... that's just one of the problems...
Photo was uncredited, but I got it from Flying Magazine.
I always thought it would be cool to have bragging rights to have landed at one of these crazy airports. Guess there's one less chance of that happening now. Though I'll bet the people whose homes are surrounding Mariscal Sucre aren't sorry about that.
• Trek!
The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel, Oblivion, Monsters University, A Good Day to Die Hard, Gravity, World War Z, Elysium, Despicable Me 2, Thor: The Dark World , Oldboy, Pacific Rim, R.I.P.D.... the list of awesome-looking movies coming out this year is nearly endless. But there are two that I am looking forward to above all others. This is the first...
Talk about boldly going where no Star Trek has gone before... Into Darkness looks amazing.
• Metal! And, numero dos... the ramp-up to Iron Man 3 is going to be excruciating. The new Super Bowl ad seems to indicate that the film will hit all the right notes...
Of course, after this installment, I'm just going to be pining away for Iron Man 4, so I guess it's always something.
And... time to take my busted body to bed.
I never got to see the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, in theaters. I had to watch it on a plane the first time I saw it. But that tiny seat-back screen made it impossible to see the beautiful cinematography that made the movie so compelling, so I watched it again tonight (iTunes has it available in HD a week before the DVD/Blu-Ray hits on the 12th... just $14.99!).
I really liked this film, even though I thought the story was kind of small for a James Bond flick. The villain isn't out to conquer the world or cause mass destruction or steal tons of money... he just wants to kill M. It makes for a more personal movie, I guess, but kind of one-note...
And now a few SPOILER-FILLED notes from this long-time James Bond fan...
And, on that note, I guess it's 007 out.
And so the Monopoly people selected the winning and losing tokens for their latest game sets.
The loser? My favorite token, of course. The iron is no more.
The winner? It's the cat...
It's a pretty cool token, really, though I was hoping the robot would win. But why couldn't they have dumped the stupid wheelbarrow or the stupid shoe instead of the iron?
Oh well. Guess I'll be the top hat from here on out. Who has a favorite token?
After reading my take on the latest James Bond feature, Skyfall (which I said was "one of the best"), I was asked "Well, if this wasn't THE best... which movie IS your favorite?"
The easy answer is to toss out Goldfinger or From Russia with Love... maybe Dr. No... but the truth is that I didn't know. And since your favorite James Bond films probably says a lot more about you than what toothpaste you use, I wanted to think on it.
And so I did. My ranking of all twenty-four films follows.
And that's a wrap. My hope is that Daniel Craig (who is contracted for two more films) will continue doing amazing things with James Bond before the inevitable passing of the torch. Time will tell, but looking at the latter half of this list has me dreading that day.
So this is where "society" is at now...
I choose to believe that everything means something.
Because of this, the cornerstone of my entire belief structure is that nothing occurs by chance and everything turns out exactly how it was meant to be in the end. This is not always an easy things to put your faith in, however. When misfortune strikes... when something goes terribly wrong... when people are suffering... it's difficult to take it on faith that this is the way it's supposed to be. That everything will work itself out in the end. And yet, there's some comfort to be found when you believe that even tragedy will ultimately lead us to where we need to be.
Some people feel this is fate or destiny. Others attribute it to God's will. Still others feel it is a lesson designed to teach you something for your next life. And some just think The Universe has a way of sorting things out. Regardless, it's certainly a kinder way of dealing with adversity than believing tragedy happens for no reason at all. Because if all the world's suffering is for nothing, that would make life almost unbearable, wouldn't it?
Sure there are some lazy, self-involved assholes who use this as an excuse to stand idly by, ignore people in need, and let the world go to hell, but this does not deter me. Even politicians are here for a reason.
Sometimes I think that reason is so that I have somebody to despise, but that's okay too.
Some days...
Ever feel like there's something missing, but you don't know what it is?
You Northeasterners can put down that snow-shovel... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• SNAKE! Happy Chinese New Year! This is the "Year of the Snake" or, to be more accurate, the "Year of the Water Snake." Water snakes are mostly poisonous and deadly, so I can tell already this is going to be a rough year...
• Nemo! Speaking of rough years... I've been watching the northeast winter storm coverage with more than a passing interest. All the snow they're getting on the other side of the country is snow we're not getting here in Washington State. Heck, I gave up wearing a coat two weeks ago because it's been so warm. And while I'm happy on the outside that the winter was mild and relatively short, it's worrisome that we could end up in a drought this summer. I guess the best we can hope for is that we at least get another couple snow dumps in the mountains over the next month before Spring is really here.
• Archer! One of my favorite television pastimes is Archer, which is a kind of an animated James Bond spoof gone terribly wrong. The result is almost always hilarious, and I find myself watching the episodes multiple times. If you're a fan like I am, there's a fascinating look at the real-life people who inspired the look of the characters on the show...
Totally worth checking out, which you can do by clicking here.
• Rejected! LEGO has finally released an awesome MiniFig of one of my favorite super-heroes after Batman, it's AQUAMAN...
And the minute I got my hands on him, I wanted a LEGO Aquaman keychain. And so I wrote to LEGO Customer Service to beg for one...
Dear David,
Thanks for getting in touch with us.
I’m sorry, but even though I think your Aquaman key chain would make a brilliant LEGO® set, we can't accept your suggestion. I know this might be disappointing to hear, but we have a team of experts in Denmark whose job it is to dream up new LEGO sets, themes and toys. They tell me it takes years to plan everything. They need to test all the new ideas, talk to the factory about how to make them, work out what sort of box is needed and then deliver the new sets to all the shops in 130 countries! This means that there's a good chance they could already be working on something similar to your idea.
Yeah, right. It takes years of planning to take a MiniFig they already have and shove a metal loop in his head that they already have to make a keychain. AND THE KEYCHAINS AREN'T SOLD IN BOXES... they don't have any packaging at all! Obviously a form letter reply, but whatever. Maybe I'll have to buy a few Aquamem and experiment with turning them into keychains myself.
• iCrap! Dear Apple. How long is it going to take before you fix all the busted shit in your iCloud syncing? I am so fucking sick and tired of not being able to sync my keychains... LIKE I COULD WITH MOBILE-ME BEFORE YOU REPLACED IT WITH THIS iCLOUD CRAP. And why do you make it so difficult for third party apps to sync their settings and shit? It's just sad that I have to keep a DropBox account to sync all the shit that your half-baked "solution" can't handle.
• iCrap! Dear Apple. Why in the hell do you force your iCloud customers to download videos before we can watch them? You stream to AppleTV, why won't you stream to my Mac or my iPhone or my iPad? Why? If you can't figure the shit out, why don't you talk to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Redbox, Vudu, CinemaNow, or any of the other dozens of services that are streaming all the time. Because this is fucking bullshit.
• iCrap! Dear Apple. Seriously, how fucking embarrassing and pathetic is it that you've had almost TWO YEARS now to get this iCloud crap sorted out, and you're still sitting on your asses? You're sitting on BILLIONS of dollars... FIX THIS SHIT!
And... time to pack...
Back in 2005, I threw my tall hat into the ring to be considered for Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. I don't know if you heard, but I was not elected, despite my astounding credentials.
Instead the The College of Cardinals elected Darth Benedict XVI, who went on to disgrace The Church and worked overtime to reverse much of the good will that Pope John Paul II worked so tirelessly to build with other faiths and the world.
Well, now that His Holiness has decided to resign, The College of Cardinals has a chance to rectify their poor judgement and make the choice they should have made all along...
I hereby announce that once again I am putting forth my name for consideration to be elected Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, and Servant of the Servants of God.
Partly because I think the PopeMobile would be a great way to pick up women... but mostly because I look great in really tall hats and a dress.
And I'm already infallible, so there's that.
So inform your priest... write to the bishop of your local diocese... contact your favorite cardinal... pray to The Almighty... and tell them all that DAVE IS MY POPE!
DAVE 2013!
So now what?
Back in June when I got my first tattoo, it was the culmination of 26 years of planning. I kept delaying, thinking that maybe I'd change my mind... or decide I want something different... or otherwise regret my decision. But the ink I wanted never changed, so I finally found the perfect tattoo artist and decided to just go for it.
Turns out my only regret was that I didn't do it sooner.
I loved my new ink, and was content that I'd finally gotten the tattoo bug out of my system.
I was wrong, of course, and knew almost immediately there was no way I was going to wait another 26 years to get another. I did decide I'd wait at least a year so I could come to fully appreciate my first tattoo though. It seemed only fair.
I managed to make it eight months...
My original plan was to do something fairly elaborate and interesting on my opposite upper-arm. But five months of working on ideas didn't produce anything that grabbed me.
So instead I decided to go with a tattoo band around my forearm that I could complete in stages.
A lot of ideas went through my head for the first piece, but ultimately I decided on my birthday. In Buddhism, your birth is a highly important day for a number of reasons. Mostly because it's a celebration of the day that you were given the ultimate gift... the gift of life... but it also symbolizes other high concepts like suffering (by your mother during your birth) and sacrifice (by your parents to care for you)... along with love, light, hope, and dozens of other aspects of the human condition. And since my birth-year looks very cool in Roman numerals, that was what I decided on.
And now every time I see my new tattoo, I'll be reminded of everything my birthday represents, and that the best way to honor all that is to live my life to its fullest.
I love it, of course.
One piece down, five more to go...
UPDATE AUGUST, 2013: Part two has been added.
I had a free couple of hours to head into San Francisco for cookies.
It was incredible out. Beautiful blue skies and sun. And I saw sea lions. And made a trip to the Museum of Modern Art. And ate at Johnny Rockets for lunch. And I got cookies.
Now it's back across the bay for me.
Oh... And Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!
Just a typical day, really.
Went to the Jelly Belly factory.
Partied with rockstars until 2:00am.
Sat around with Kitty One.
Went to see West Grand Boulevard in concert.
Ate Cambodian food.
The secret to Aaron's sexy-smooth vocal stylings? Cherry Coke Slurpee!
Don't worry about five awesome days of crazy keeping me down... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Grohl! After seeing former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighter front-man Dave Grohl interviewed on The Colbert Report, I was compelled to check out his new documentary film, Sound City...
It's brilliant. A total love letter to old-school music production by some big names in the business... including Paul McCartney, Trent Reznor, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Lars Ulrich, and more. If you love music, this is a documentary that's well worth checking out.
• Cruise! The media has been in a frenzy over the horrors that plagued Carnival's cruise ship Triumph. And the stories were pretty nasty. I mean, once you're pooping in a bag and standing in line for four hours to get a ketchup sandwich, you're pretty much having the worst vacation ever...
Photo by Scott L./Wikimedia
Now, I've never been on a cruise where I had to poop in a plastic bag and eat ketchup sandwiches... the cruises I've been on have been perfectly lovely. So when I hear the public outcry from people vowing to NEVER EVER GO ON A CRUISE because of this misfortunate incident... well, it sounds like a pretty big overreaction. For every cruise disaster blown up by the media, there are thousands upon thousands of cruises that go off without a hitch. Including all six I've been on. And while it's not my most favorite way to vacation, I will absolutely go on more cruises in the future. The advantages of travel via cruising are just too numerous to ignore. But, of course, the media won't be covering that.
• Jelly! I'd much rather post my own stuff than repost things from others, but I just can't help myself this time around. This cartoon from Cyanide and Happiness is one of the funniest things I've ever seen...
Seriously. I can't look at this without busting up.
• The Bay! I have no idea how many times I've been to San Francisco, but it's a lot. I love the city. But more than that, I love the fact that I've been to the city so many times that I don't have to play tourist. I can actually spend my time enjoying it without having to rush from attraction to attraction... I've pretty much done them all.
About the only thing I have to do is buy fortune cookies from The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company. Five bags of those will keep me happy for a month or so.
• Water! As I had mentioned last Bullet Sunday, I have a real worry about the lack of snow this year bringing drought come Summer. After flying over the mountains the other day, I think my fears are justified...
It's the middle of February. Now take a look at a photo I took of the same area back in APRIL of 2011...
By April of this year, I fear we'll have nothing left in the mountains. Hope we get plenty of rain.
And, on that somber note, I guess it's time to catch up on some sleep.
I've been back from Oakland for one day.
And while I already miss my friends (and civilization), what I am missing right now... and quite badly... is food. Here in my little corner of Redneckistan, my culinary options are severely limited.
Just days ago I was eating an amazing falafel wrap...
As for today? It's a box of shitty dehydrated julienne potatoes in "cheese" sauce...
So gross. And exactly the kind of thing that makes you lose your will to live.
Reeeeeaaaly looking forward to me next trip.
After a random look at my blog stats, I saw traffic coming from a website I'd never heard of before. So I clicked through to see what was going on and found this...
NOM lifts pro-gay blogger's personal travel photo
I'm already I'm filled with dread, and I haven't even read the story yet.
And, sure enough, it was my photo they were talking about. The "National Organization for Marriage," which I can only describe as the preeminent anti-marriage-equality hate-group, is using a photo I took as a part of their anti-gay propaganda campaign...
Having something you created being used to peddle bigotry and discrimination is not an easy thing to accept. Especially when it contributes to creating an environment so hostile that LGBT youth are killing themselves rather than having to endure it.
Groups like NOM go against absolutely everything I believe in. But having them drag me into their persecution of the LGBT community is only half the problem. The other is my belief in a free and open internet. Which is why my Creative Commons License (appearing on every page of this site) allows non-commercial usage of the stuff I share here. Granted, NOM violated this license by failing to attribute the photo to it's source in a way that shows I don't endorse their bullshit... but otherwise? Their non-profit status (which is another topic entirely) means that their use of my photo is most likely permissible.
And it's this dilemma that has me frustrated to to tears. How do I reconcile my belief in sharing information on a free internet with my desire to keep my works from being used to hurt people by hateful bigots like NOM??
I thought I might find help in the "moral rights" clause of the license...
"In addition to the right of licensors to request removal of their name from the work when used in a derivative or collective they don't like, copyright laws in most jurisdictions around the world (with the notable exception of the US except in very limited circumstances) grant creators "moral rights" which may provide some redress if a derivative work represents a "derogatory treatment" of the licensor's work."
Except they make it clear that the USA is a "notable exception," which means this is practically worthless.
So what to do? Two things I feel very strongly about seem to cancel each other out. Have an open license, and your works can be repurposed to hurt people. Have a restrictive license, and you're inhibiting the creativity of others to build and share on your work.
I don't know what the solution is. Maybe you can't have it both ways.
All I do know is that I don't support NOM's ruthless persecution of a group of people under the pretense of "protecting marriage." And, make no mistake, it is persecution. They don't like gay people, so they fight to keep them from having the same freedoms as everybody else. And if spreading misinformation and outright lies is what it takes, they'll do that. If allying themselves with individuals or organizations which advocate violence against homosexuals will forward their cause, they'll do that too. Whatever it takes to keep homophobia and fear alive so they can maintain this absurd illusion that marriage is somehow "endangered" by a mythical "gay agenda" that's out to destroy society.
This situation shouldn't be upsetting me as much as it is. It's the internet, after all.
But gay kids are being bullied. Gay kids are killing themselves. And it's groups like NOM that are creating a society which encourages these horrible things to happen.
And being party to that... even unwillingly... is more than I can take.
It's been a sucktastic week so far.
I really wish I could go into a com fora the rest of it, but I'll consider myself lucky if I can just get a couple of hours sleep tonight.
And now in a totally unrelated topic... remember when Wheel of Fortune had a "Shopping Showcase" where the winner of a round could take their money and shop for absurd prizes?
Whatever happened to that? Without the Showcase thing, Wheel of Fortune is kinda boring.
Back when I was in San Francisco, I went into a Walgreen's so I could pick up a new pair of reading glasses. Now that I'm in toric contact lenses, I apparently need them to see my iPhone easily.
As I walked in the door, I heard a woman say "CAN YOU HELP ME? CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME?" I turned around to see an elderly woman clutching a store shelf, looking like she might fall over. "What can I do to help?" I ask. "I NEED TO GET A PRESCRIPTION FROM THE BACK AND I CAN'T WALK ON THAT SLICK FLOOR OR I'LL FALL!" she said, pointing to the tile that started three feet in front of her. "Okay then, take my hand and I'll get you there." I say.
And so I led the old woman back to the prescription department...
As we walked in slow-motion, she went on to tell me how she had been standing there for quite a while, asking everybody who walked by (including employees) for help. Nobody did. I was the first person to even look at her. "Maybe they were in a rush? I'm not in any hurry, so I don't mind," I offered, trying to sound optimistic.
Not that I believed it for a minute.
The truth is that nobody wanted to be bothered to help her.
As depressing as it is to see all the horrific crap going on in the news... as disheartening as it is to hear about all the violence and persecution and terror that permeates our lives... why is this the thing that gets stuck in my head? Seriously, It's been bothering me all week.
There are so many big problems in the world that we can do nothing about... that make us feel powerless.
You'd think we'd seize every opportunity we can to fix the problems we can do something about.
But we don't.
I don't.
Except this time I did. Maybe it's the thought of all the times I didn't that haunts me.
The Oscars are on Sunday. Here are my picks.
BEST PICTURE: My pick is Django Unchained, which I enjoyed more than all the other films combined (excluding Beasts of the Southern Wild and Les Misérables, neither of which I wanted to see). It won't win, of course, but it completely deserves to (like Inglourious Basterds before it).
BEST ANIMATED PICTURE: Heaven only knows that I wanted Pixar's Brave to blow me away... but, while it was jaw-dropping beautiful to look at, the story just didn't measure up. ParaNorman, Wreck-It Ralph, and The Pirates! Band of Misfits were all good films, but it's Frankenweenie that was my favorite.
BEST SHORT FILM: John Kahrs' Paperman is haunting and beautiful and has Disney magic all over it. The other nominations are great, sure, but Paperman is genius.
BEST DIRECTOR: Ang Lee's absolutely masterful handling of Life of Pi makes him my clear favorite. But who doesn't think Spielberg will take it for Lincoln? But the bigger question... how in the heck did Quentin Tarantino get overlooked for Django Unchained?
BEST ACTOR: While I thought Bradley Coooper gave a winning performance, it's pretty hard not to pick Daniel Day-Lewis for his amazing turn as Lincoln.
BEST ACTRESS: This was a toughie, but I give the nod to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. She just seemed more necessary to the success of her film.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Yeah, Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln with Christoph Waltz a close second for Django Unchained.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Hated The Master so Amy Adams is out. Didn't think Sally Field disappeared into her role enough in Lincoln. Refused to watch Les Misérables for Anne Hathaway. Thought Helen Hunt was "okay" in The Sessions, but not remarkable. So I guess that leaves Jacki Weaver for Silver Linings Playbook... although Anne Hathaway is almost certain to take it.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The easy choice would be Life of Pi, but I think too much of what made it cinematically amazing was the special effects. Django Unchained would be a solid choice, but I'm going to have to go with Roger Deakins for Skyfall. A big part of what made it such a good film was the stunning cinematography, and the film is definitely Oscar-worthy.
BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS: For all the reasons I think Life of Pi should not get "Best Cinematography," I think it probably deserves the Oscar for "Best Special Effects." That being said, the incredible visuals of The Battle for New York in The Avengers (not to mention the hundreds of other effects plus Hulk and Iron Man) make me wish a tie could happen here.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: I'm not a fan of Adele's music, but have always liked her as a person in interviews and stuff. And yet... Skyfall was about as good a theme as James Bond movies get, and Adele blew the doors off it.
BEST WRITING, ORIGINAL: I have gone round and round on this, trying to decide between Django Unchained and Moonrise Kingdom, and can't decide. I would be equally thrilled if either won, though Zero Dark Thirty probably has the edge.
BEST WRITING, ADAPTED: Just about everyone (including me) thought that Life of Pi was unfilmable... and yet, here it is. It would be hard not to reward that ingenuity.
I got almost nothing done today. But it wasn't for lack of trying.
I actually started working when I woke up at 4:00. But since I didn't get to bed until 2:00, I was asleep again at 7:00. At least I was until I was awakened at 7:30. After that, I tried working off and on all day, but could never quite get into it. About the only accomplishment I can lay claim to is backing up my photo library and geotagging a couple hundred photos (I swear by all that's holy I will NEVER buy another camera without GPS).
Other than that? Nuthin'.
Which is tough considering all the stuff I've got on my to-do list.
In other news, I've taken up cigarettes again...
Judge me all you want, but nothing calms my nerves like a nice candy cigarette.
Another boring February Sunday got you down? Don't despair... because and even MORE boring Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Oscars! Meh.
• Over! By this time next week, Tiwlight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part Two will have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray. And then it's over, right? I mean, it's the final shitty movie of the shitty Twilight movies based on the shitty Twilight books, isn't it? I won't have to be subjected to any more of this crap... right?
• Overer! And speaking of over... the three internet trends I am so over with this month are...
• Hook! I have to admit that I haven't seen a single episode of Once Upon a Time. I'm not into fables and fairy tales, so the show is not my cup of tea. But I keep seeing these television promos which feature a surprising element...
That's Colin O'Donoghue, who apparently plays Captain Hook. But I don't care about that. I mean, yeah, I guess he's a good-looking guy and all... and I'm sure he's a decent actor and everything... but I'm talking about something more important than any of that...
EYELINER! Or, as I like to call it, "Captain Jack Sparrow Guyliner"...
Apparently it's impossible to be a pirate now-a-days unless you've got eyeliner on. I approve completely. Mostly because I can totally rock the guyliner look...
But also because I'm totally a pirate at heart. The day this goes mainstream, I am so there.
• Suck! I am one of those rare people who believes in paying for the stuff I want. If there's a game I want, I buy it. If there's a movie I want, I buy it. If there's a television series I want, I buy it. If there's a song I want, I buy it. Thanks to Apple's iTunes, most any media I want to own can be purchased quickly and easily, so I pay the price. Until now. I went to purchase the latest season of Archer only to find that FX Network has placed ads in each episode. That's right, I'M PAYING FOR ADS! Well fuck this shit. FX Network is out of the damn minds if they think that I am going to pay for advertising when there are alternatives for getting Archer ad-free.
And now... time to call it a night. Tomorrow promises to be a long, long day.
I'm drinking chocolate milk and watching Castle reruns.
I swear it's true.
Lying or Wrong Speaking as it's known, is something to be roundly avoided according to Buddhist teachings. Outwardly, this is to promote harmony and good will, but that's not the only benefit. It all basically boils down to this: "If you can't speak truthfully and honestly, keep silent, because anything less only causes harm to others... and yourself."
Don't get me wrong, it's tough... really tough... to be honest all the time. But ultimately I find it makes my life easier, so I try my best to speak the truth whenever I can (I'm a terrible liar anyway). Sure I fail from time to time, but my effort is genuine, and this has paid off for me more often than not.
But Wrong Speaking encompasses more than just lying. It also refers to saying rude or hateful things. Or spreading gossip. Or speaking harshly. Or promoting violence. Or any of hundreds of other things that might hurt people... or reflect badly on you as a caring, open-minded, considerate individual.
Not lying is a piece of cake compared to all that.
And yet... I keep trying, because I think Right Speaking an admirable goal.
The problem is that keeping silent when you have nothing positive to add to a conversation can be easily misinterpreted. People might think you're not paying attention. Or disinterested. Or uncaring. Or mute. Or just plain rude. To compensate for this, I have been making an effort to find positive things to say in a negative conversation.
So now people just think I'm crazy.
I'm not sure if this is better or worse than people thinking me inattentive, disinterested, uncaring, mute, or rude.
But, hey, that Jay Leno sure is a breath of fresh air, amirite?
When getting out of the shower each morning, I delay putting on my glasses for a while.
Partly because they start fogging up if I wear them right away... but mostly because I like living in a blurry world for a little while each day. There's something beautiful about an environment which lacks definition and detail... and where color and light battle it out for your attention without distraction...
But then you try to put your underpants on your feet because you can't see they're not your socks, and you think that maybe it's a good idea to put your glasses on again.
It was fun while it lasted.
The sadistic idiot who designed the new sidewalks in town has randomly placed dips and curb-stops where they have no business being. This makes walking down the street a perilous ordeal and a real challenge, even if you're being careful. I know this because I tripped over a cement block jutting out into the sidewalk which sent me crashing to the ground on Monday.
So now I have a skinned knee, a scraped elbow, tore-up hands, and aches that run down my entire body. I think I must have pulled a muscle somewhere and that's thrown everything out of whack. Today it's gotten worse, and just getting up and walking is fairly painful.
Which has me thinking back to when I was a kid. I used to take falls much worse than this and bounce back in minutes. Now it's two days and counting. I have to wonder if twenty years from now such a fall will result in a broken hip.
Something to look forward to, I suppose.
In the meanwhile I guess I just have to be more careful and not risk my life by walking on a sidewalk or other similar dangerous activities.
And load up on pain relief medication.
I'd blog more about how getting old sucks, but it's almost midnight and apparently I need my rest.
CGP Grey, whose fantastic videos I have posted here a number of times, made a new video just for me last week:
HOW TO BECOME POPE!
And now that Il Papa has left the building, and the position is officially available, I thought it important that I take a look...
Wow.
Okay, I'm pretty sure I can create a bishop vacancy... accidents happen all the time. Then I'm confident it's just a matter of a lot of money greasing the right palms to slide into a bishopship. No problem there, as Kickstarter was made for this kind of thing.
But becoming a cardinal?
The current Pope has to appoint me to cardinalship.
And he just retired, so that's a problem.
Maybe if I can just go all Mission: Impossible and eliminate a cardinal so I can impersonate him with a face-mask and get the rest of the cardinals to elect me Pope? I do look good in red...
After impersonating a cardinal with a good chance at Pope, then getting the other cardinals to vote me Pope, I can then take the name Pope Dave Two the First. THEN I can go pray in private at the Sistine Chapel, remove my disguise, and emerge with my own face. Then I'll just convince everybody that God came down and re-made me in his image. Which should be simple thanks to my God-like visage.
Easy. LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN, PEOPLE!
But first, it's time to watch more CPG Grey videos. What a time-suck his YouTube Channel is...
Okay, now let's get to work...
I'd like to think I'm respectful of people's opinions, even when they differ from my own. Especially when they differ from my own. I'm not saying it can't be frustrating, or I'm above poking fun at opinions I don't agree with... but I think it keeps life interesting to listen to what others think. Sure it might be easier if everybody thought the same way as me about things... but it would also be boring.
Where I have a problem is when people make opinions while being unintentionally uninformed or after having been misinformed (either intentionally or unintentionally).
I try harder than most to make sure my facts are correct so I won't be guilty of these crimes of ignorance. But, hey, mistakes happen to the best of us, and so I try to be tolerant even then.
Except...
There are those who make opinions while being intentionally uninformed, and that's what drives me bat-shit insane.
It's only gotten worse on the internet, because people feel less accountable for their opinions when they're bashing them out at a computer. I see it most every day.
For the sake of not being dragged into a fight involving faith or politics, I'll leave those piles of shit out of this, but that's where the most grievous offenses lay. People become so completely absorbed by a religion or political party that they refuse to listen to anything that even hints at a contrary viewpoint. Even cold, hard facts.
Though I may be over-exaggerating here, because I've seen the same kind of ignorant behavior over comic book characters.
Anyway...
The thing that got me thinking about intentional ignorance tonight is product reviews.
Whether it's book reviews on Amazon... or game reviews on the iTunes App Store... or movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes... or wherever you find people spewing their opinions, intentional ignorance abounds.
Which all basically boils down to this...
Which inevitably has me screaming at my computer display... SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU ASSHOLE! Not that that really helps anything, but at least I get the rage out of my system.
Sadly, there can be no end in sight. Intentional ignorance is here to stay, and there's nothing we can do about it. Except to accept that it's inevitable and too many people on this earth are too stupid to want to change it.
Feel free to disagree with my opinion, I don't mind. Really I don't.
Unless you didn't bother to actually read this, in which case... SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU ASSHOLE!
Looking strictly at the numbers, this blog is either a raging success or a dismal failure.
83,214 visitor "sessions" were reported at Blogography for the month of February (which is 9,795 less than January... maybe because it was a short month?). According to the documentation, "A session is initiated when a visitor arrives at your site, and it ends when their browser window is closed or there is a period of inactivity." On daily average, 624 people are accessing my webfeed, so I'm guessing around 17,500 of those monthly "sessions" are from regular readers, though not everybody uses a feedreader, so that number is probably a bit higher.
And the bulk of my remaining traffic? Search results. The majority of which are visitors from Google hoping to find something here. That's what happens when you've been blogging daily about random crap for nearly a decade.
So, from a numbers standpoint, I don't know if "83,214 sessions" last month is good or bad. Probably good for a relatively unknown blogger like me. But a terrible failure if you're a popular blogger like The Pioneer Woman (who undoubtedly gets millions of visits each month).
But I don't sell ads or make any money off Blogography, so the numbers don't really matter. I write here so my friends & family can know what I'm up to... and to keep track of what's going on in my life (five years ago today I was flying back from a TequilaCon Planning meeting in Portland!). From that perspective, Blogography is incredibly successful.
All the great people I've met and the wonderful friends I've made from blogging is just the icing on the cake.
Which is a fact I clung to this morning as I discovered yet another one of the blogs I read has closed up shop. This comes right on the heels of another blog folding earlier in the week (didn't see that coming).
We're dropping like flies.
I'm coming up on my ten-year blogiversary this April. I have no plans on stopping.
Which makes me either a raging success or a dismal failure.
It's getting harder and harder to tell.
This whole "Sequester" bullshit got you down? Well that's only the tip of the iceberg... because and even MORE boring Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Artisan! The craftsmanship that went into the album cover for John Mayer's Born and Raised is pretty spectacular. And the behind-the-scenes look at how it happened is absolutely worth your valuable time...
In a day and age when computers are rapidly redefining art, it's wonderful to see that there are people keeping old-school craftsmanship like this alive... even when using a computer. If only I had skills like that.
• RoboHepburn! And speaking of computers redefining things... the estate of Audrey Hepburn has authorized her computer-generated likeness for use in a chocolate commercial...
More than a little creepy... what with her being dead and all. It doesn't help that the video has a kind of "painterly" feel that seems to only add to the unreality of it. Still, it was kind of charming, and you can't really blame Galaxy Chocolate from wanting her in their advertisement...
I guess it's only a matter of time before actors just have to literally phone in their lines.
• Mashup! Usually I find music mash-ups to suck copious amounts of ass. They're lazy and/or stupid and rarely prove a point. Until now. Somebody named "pomDeter" has mashed up Nine Inch Nail's brilliant Head Like a Hole with Carly Rae Jepsen's vapid pop anthem Call Me Maybe to create Call Me a Hole...
Yeah. Genius. That's gonna be stuck in my head for a while. What makes it even better? The mashup was suggested by Ms. Jepsen herself!
• Supreme! Just when you think Ellen DeGeneres couldn't possibly be a more remarkable person...
...this happens. Ellen has a way of calling people fucking stupid and paranoid in the nicest possible way. Hopefully The Supreme Court will see that American citizens are rapidly moving past homophobic bigotry and will follow suit.
And... my website is down. Guess I won't be posting Bullet Sunday on Sunday then.
Lately I've been having moments where I find myself not breathing and I have to remind myself to take a breath. It's very annoying. And has me wondering what in the heck is preoccupying the part of my brain that's supposed to handle the breathing. I suppose it's better than suddenly finding out your heart isn't beating, but still.
So far as Mondays go, this one was pretty heinous. Despite working my guts out from dusk 'til dawn I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. I suppose that was to be expected, because, well, Monday. What was not expected was finding out that my automated backup utility was, in fact, not backing up anything at all. This was discovered right after I had congratulated myself because a missing file could just be downloaded from my backup. Except it couldn't, because I didn't have a backup, which made me very cross indeed.
Nothing like spending two hours re-doing work you had already finished.
As if that weren't enough, I am still having problems with my blog. For reasons I can't figure out, the back-end that manages everything has suddenly decided to randomly fail while I'm updating stuff. This has resulted in my map page having no map, and my archive page being a disorganized mess.
I'd fix all that, but I have bigger fish to fry.
Like making sure I keep breathing.
Well this day didn't get off to a good start either!
Sometimes events happen in life that are too traumatic for words. They can only be expressed in song.
So now, in the tradition of Bitch Got Three Spaces, Blogography proudly presents yet another Grammy-worthy edition of Song Lyrics from Redneckistan...
Eggo Didn't Leggo My Waffle
Lyrics and Music by Blogography Gangsta.
Sung by Blogography Gangsta (featuring Killa Kyleon, Ice Burgandy, and Gucci Mane).
-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-
Got my butter!
Got my syrup!
Got my fork and knife!
Now all I need is a delicious Eggo waffle
To complete my life!
Open the freezer!
Open the box!
Open that plastic wrap!
What the hell? they gave me half a waffle
Now I think that I might snap!
Eggo ruined my breakfast,
The most important meal of the day!
This ain't no way to be livin',
Ain't nothin' goin' my way!
Yeah, yeah, yeah... yeah!
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.
Pray for peace!
Pray for freedom!
Pray for world harmony!
Lord, they done gave me half a waffle
Why have you forsaken me?
Rage on Eggo!
Rage on Kelloggs!
Rage on breakfast too!
Don't need no haters messin' with my waffle
Or else I'm comin' for you!
Eggo ruined my breakfast,
The most important meal of the day!
This ain't no way to be livin',
Ain't nothin' goin' my way!
Yeah, yeah, yeah... yeah!
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.
Eggo didn't leggo my waffle.
-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-
— All lyrics copyright ©2013 by Blogography.
I am so tired of throwing money away on crap.
I buy a new pair of jeans, and the zipper-pull breaks off the first time I wear them. The landline phone I have at work broke within the first week. My car has been a piece of shit from day one. It goes on and on. As I was cleaning out some old storage boxes this past weekend, I ran across tons of crap that was either broken or not working as advertised. I saved it all in the hopes that one day it might be fixed and become useful so I didn't waste money, but I was only fooling myself.
And it never ends. For the past week when I change the channel to Comedy Central, this is what appears on my television...
It's Stephen T. Colbert! I guess... the sound is all choppy too.
Any time this has happened in the past, the cable company is all "Uhhh... I dunno... it's probably not our fault... maybe you should call Comedy Central."
Really? Why in the hell should I be the one to call? YOU'RE the one that takes my money each month, assholes!
And, of course, they don't provide a credit on your bill for service failures either. Which is irritating, but not nearly as irritating that they just don't give a shit.
Of course, I'm paying them to not give a shit, so I guess it's all my fault in the end. Too bad satellite isn't an option for me. But maybe buying the shows I want to watch from iTunes and dumping cable is.
And so it begins again.
For the past three months I've stuck pretty close to home. Sure, I flew to my sister's house for the holidays in December, made a quick trip to Spokane for work in January, and took a wonderful trip to Oakland to visit friends and get a tattoo in February... but the bulk of my Winter was spent taking a vacation from travel.
Now the vacation is over, and the next nine months are back to travel as usual.
A part of me is sad about that. It's just so nice to stay in one place for a while... but, on the other hand, holy crap am I happy to get back to big city living. I've only been in Chicago for three hours now, and I already feel a change coming over me. This is normal. This is the way life is supposed to be. This is where I belong. At least until I've been on the road for nine months, at which time I'm sure that I'll feel the same way about being home in Redneckistan. But until then, I'm quite happy to be metropolis-hopping.
One of the things I love about being in cities like Chicago is the food. But perhaps not in the way you think.
It's not because the city is filled with five-star fine-dining options... though I do enjoy treating myself to five-star cuisine from time to time... no, it's the variety of things I can get here that I can't get back home.
Case in point... can you guess where I was dying to eat in Chicago the minute I landed?
Not a five-star restaurant, but instead a local fast food chain of Mexican grill restaurants in the Chicago area. Heaven only knows I can get pretty good Mexican food back home... but I can't get Burrito Beach. And I love Burrito Beach. Their grilled rice & bean burrito tastes amazing, and I'm a huge fan. It costs under $5. And it was delicious.
Another thing I'm craving? A Chicago-style vegetarian hot dog. Can't get a veggie dog back home... and certainly not Chicago style for $4.18... or any price. Tomorrow is the day, and this is what I'll be dreaming of tonight...
Yet another food I'm dying for? A falafel sandwich. Just a simple, $4.99 falafel pita sandwich. Back home, most people don't even know what the fuck falafel is. It's one of my favorite foods on earth, and yet there's no place that serves it in all of Redneckistan.
I could go on and on (don't get me started about the amazing pizza here).
People make fun of me because I travel all the way to big cities and, for the most part, don't take advantage of the haute cuisine that's available. But it's not because I'm cheap... or can't appreciate it... or am opposed to it... it's because I'm too busy stuffing myself with all the simple foods I just can't get when I'm at home.
Hell, it used to be that my favorite restaurant in all of New York City was McDonalds Times Square because they had a McVeggie Burger.
When it comes to the food you love, the price doesn't really matter.
Even when it means the price is five dollars.
Just one day in Chicago.
A really pretty day in Chicago.
The end.
I don't like theater.
I hate musicals.
I have a general distaste for ridiculing somebody's faith.
Which makes the idea of seeing the smash musical The Book of Mormon a strange prospect...
I enjoyed it.
Not really my thing, but South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone kept it funny enough that I didn't mind all the singing and dancing that usually causes my eyes to roll back into my head. The icing on the cake was the set design, which was really well done.
As for ridiculing the Mormons...
This was a tough one for me. I have Mormon friends who are some of the nicest, most generous people I've ever met. And even though I disagree strongly with the church's monetary political maneuverings against things like marriage equality (which should result in them losing their tax-exempt status)... I don't find their religion to be any more strange or as unusual as any other religion.
And that's where I had a problem.
I'm sure the Christians in the audience were laughing their heads off at some of the more outlandish things that come from The Book of Mormon. "Ha ha ha ha! Those Mormons believe some crazy shit... that's so funny!" Which only leads me to believe that they've never actually read their Bible, because it's filled with all kinds of stuff that's equally hard to believe. Unless you have faith in it. Like the Mormons do in their sacred texts.
Whenever a satire like this is made spoofing Christianity or Islam or Judaism or whatever... people go ape-shit. But the Mormons? They have a sense of humor about it all. They take out ads in the Playbill...
This made me feel a little less guilty for laughing along with the crowd, but I couldn't get it out of my head how a chunk of the audience would have a very different reaction if it was their faith that was being poked fun of.
Anyway, back to the show...
The Book of Mormon is a play in two acts. It tells the story of two young Mormons who get sent on a mission to a poor and war-torn area of Uganda. One of them is Elder Price, who is the perfect example of the Mormon faithful, and confident he will succeed in his task to convert Africans to Mormonism. The other is Elder Cunningham, who is basically playing Jonah Hill acting more annoying and stupid than usual, and is the polar opposite of Elder Price.
As the story proceeds, Price starts losing his faith as the task at hand ends up being much more difficult than he ever imagined... and Cunningham becomes an accidental hero thanks to his talent for telling lies. Hilarity (and I mean genuinely funny hilarity) ensues.
Overall, the play is as good as everybody you've ever known who has seen it has said it is. I think it gets a bit sloppy and disjointed in the second act, but it's not a deal-breaker. Parker and Stone (along with Robert Lopez) reveal true genius here, and there's some unexpected sweetness woven into the story that makes it pretty irresistible.
But not for everyone.
The two people sitting next to me arrived very late, taking their seats just as the Hasa Diga Eebowai number was in full swing. It's basically a song where the natives are saying "fuck you, God" as a way of dealing with the abject misery that fills their every waking hour.
They left at intermission and never came back. They let their displeasure be known, however... their Playbills were ripped to pieces and laying on the floor.
I guess everybody is entitled to their opinion, but how in the fuck can you show up to The Book of Mormon at this stage of the game and not know what you're in for? I guess they are just really uninformed. Or totally stupid. Or both.
Oh well. It certainly made me more comfortable to have the extra room.
So... for anybody in Chicago who has a tolerance for naughty words and a bit of blasphemy... I recommend seeing The Book of Mormon if you get a chance. The cast was incredibly talented, the story inspired and, even if you hate musical theater like me, there's enough to make it worth your time and hard-earned money.
Extended winter weather got you down? Well don't despair because a toasty warm flurry of bullets is headed your way! An all-new Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Neighbors! I got back from seeing The Book of Mormon around 10:45pm. Taking account that stupid-ass Daylight Saving Time was going to be screwing with the clocks again, it's actually more like 11:45pm, since I'd be losing an hour's sleep. But a mere 15 minutes after my head hit the pillow, some kind of impromptu midnight party started up in the hallway. Unable to get any sleep with all the racket, I wrote my blog entry in the hopes things would settle down after I was done. No such luck. The noise went on until 3:30am, despite signs like this being posted...
Not even a kind reminder does any good, because these assholes don't give a shit if there are people trying to sleep. They only care about themselves. It bugs the crap out of me but, unfortunately, there's no ramifications for for their behavior so nothing is likely to change. A call to the front desk quieted them down for about 15-20 minutes, but then it started right back up again.
Well, things need to change. There needs to be ramifications for this kind of behavior. I don't know if it's a punch to the face or somebody getting their dick kicked in, but I am sick and tired of paying big money to get a good night's rest when I travel only to have to put up with this bullshit.
• Sanity! And speaking of stupid fucking Daylight Saving Time... there's an official petition being presented to The White House that needs your signature. As a reminder of just how utterly stupid DST has become, I once again present the genius of CGP Grey...
• Cake! When I landed at Chicago O'Hare International Airport last Thursday, I bemoaned the fact that nobody was waiting to greet me with cake and balloons...
But then today when I went to RW's house to discuss the upcoming issue of THRICE Fiction and other related business, not only did I get a delicious plate of cacio e pepe for lunch... but also, at long last, my cake!
Bob's wife, Lynne, didn't stop there... oh no. Inside? CHOCOLATE PUDDING!
AND WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR LUNCH THAT WAS SO GREAT?
• DOL! What's one of the things I hate most in life? Renewing my driver's license at the dreaded Department of Licensing. I fucking loathe that time-sucking vortex of joyless horror. Which is why I was happy... positively thrilled, actually... to find out I could renew my license online this year. Seriously one of the best days of 2013 so far... if not one of the best days of my entire life.
• No Go! The official airport shuttle for Chicago O'Hare is called "Go Express." For a fairly reasonable rate, they offer door-to-door service to and from the airport. But there's a problem. Here's what they tell you the van will look like on their website...
But here is what it really looks like...
The only place it says "Go Express" is on a tiny panel on the very front of the sign-board that's on top, everything else is advertising. So if you don't see them as they pull into your hotel, and all you have to look for is the side of the van... how in the fuck are you supposed to know that this van is from Go Express? Well, you don't. Which causes all kinds of unnecessary confusion for people who just want to go to the airport. Apparently a few advertising dollars is more important to this company than consideration for their customers. I mean, seriously, can't they even slap a "Go Express" magnetic sign on the door or something? Does anybody care about their customers any more?
• Paint! I've fallen in love with encaustic painting, which is a technique where pigment-infused wax is melted and painted onto a surface, then fused in place. It's very beautiful, and receptive to all kinds of interesting artistic manipulations. Unfortunately, the tools and supplies to create encaustic works are really expensive. Too expensive to be buying a bunch of stuff just so I could goof around and try it out.
Well imagine my surprise this morning when I found out that there is an encaustic studio in Seattle which offers classes! Unfortunately, the 2-Day course I would want to take is THIS WEEKEND, but I am definitely going to sign up for a future introductory class when I get a chance. If anybody is interested in signing up with me, please let me know, and I'll email you when I get the dates!
• w00t! And, lastly, now is the time on Blogography where we dance!
Wow. Looks like we had a seven-shooter this Bullet Sunday. Time to pack up my suitcase for a return home in the morning.
Today would have been the 61st birthday of one of my all-time favorite authors, Douglas Adams.
Sadly, he died twelve years ago, leaving a void in the universe where his wit, humor, and astounding talent once resided. Best known as the author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he was also a big supporter of the environment and tireless advocate for wildlife conservation... in particular those animals which are most threatened. One of his lesser-known works, Last Chance to See, is among my most favorite books, and documented Adams' attempts to see some of the world's most endangered animals... perhaps for the very last time.
Today Google came up with a Google Doodle in his honor...
It features his most famous phrase "Don't Panic" from his most famous work and it has been words I've tried to live by for decades.
I've met the man at book readings three times. Each time I was allowed to get an item autographed, and these pieces are among my most treasured possessions...
The credit card form was chosen very carefully, as I wanted something unique that he probably hadn't autographed very many times. As I handed it to him, he said "Well this is a first!" as he signed it, and then told me that if I got the credit card approved with his name on it, to please restrain myself when using it.
My favorite memory of Mr. Adams was at a reading for one of his books... I'm thinking perhaps Mostly Harmless, but it could have been The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Anyway, at this particular reading he had a sign language interpreter that he decided to torture for his audience's amusement. All of a sudden he'd read a paragraph impossibly fast, then put the book down and stare at the interpreter while looking at his watch and tapping his foot as he waited for her to catch up. Later in the reading he got to a passage where the character had an impossibly long and complex name (akin to Hitchhiker's "Slartibartfast"). After saying it, he immediately glanced wryly at the poor girl so he could watch her struggle to spell out the name. It was all in good fun, and the interpreter got a hug at the end, which was just the sort of wonderful thing you expect from Douglas Adams.
I cherish everything he wrote, and have read his books many times over. But oh how I wish he had lived to tell more stories. Just as it always goes, you can never get enough of the good things in life.
Happiest of birthdays to you, Mr. Adams.
Today is National Alfred Hitchcock Day. I enjoy his films, but am not a huge fan. What I am a huge fan of is the recent movie about Hitchcock starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Dame Helen Mirren. It details the making of Psycho, the most famous and successful of his films. The story behind the film was far more interesting than I thought it would be. And it was perfectly cast. I don't know that Anthony Hopkins looked much like Hitch, but he felt like Hitch. And Helen Mirren... well... it's Helen Mirren...
Well worth your valuable time. You can rent it at iTunes, or own it for $15.
And speaking of really good films... Disney has decided to release a series of shorts starring Mickey Mouse in June. As a teaser, they released the first installment, Croissant de Triomphe, at Disney.com...
It's wonderful. And it has a number of things going for it...
Heaven only knows I'd like to see Disney produce more 2-D animation to offset the escalation of 3-D stuff. This is a good start. Go watch it immediately at Disney.com
My favorite television show of all time is the "original" Cupid starring Jeremy Piven and created by Rob Thomas. A very close second is Veronica Mars starring Kristen Bell and created by Rob Thomas. But even though Cupid is the show I love best, it's Veronica Mars that I miss most. When the show was canceled, it felt like there was a lot more of the story to tell. Story that needed to be told.
There was talk of a Veronica Mars movie off and on, but nothing ever came of it.
Until today...
With the blessing of Warner Brothers, creator Rob Thomas has opened up a Kickstarter project to raise the two million dollars needed to finance the film.
I donated more money than I could afford, but this is one of those things in life that I just couldn't pass up. I love television, and Veronica Mars is the best of the best that the medium has to offer. The possibility of finally get some kind of resolution for the characters is something you can't put a price on.
Well, apparently you can, it's two million dollars, but still...
If you are a fan (and why wouldn't you be?) you can donate to the cause (and get some nice rewards) by heading over to the Kickstarter page.
UPDATE: As of this moment (2:45pm PDT), the movie is nearly 3/4 funded at
If you have not seen Veronica Mars, this astounding record-breaking Kickstarter campaign should convince you that it's imperative to take a look. The DVD sets are pretty cheap at Amazon. And the show is also available for sale on iTunes (and other digital services, I'm sure). And you don't have to spend a dime to watch episodes for FREE at the official WB website. Nobody I has ever convinced to give it a try has been disappointed. Highest possible recommendation!
UPDATE: Funded IN ONE DAY. Fuck you, television network studio system!
I have to say... the ramifications of this are just massive. The possibilities are very exciting. Now shows which have a dedicated audience may be able to survive outside the studio system. Or... be made and distributed directly to fans outside of the whole television network bullshit system from the start.
We can only hope. I am so tired of watching shows I love getting screwed by television networks who want big money or nothing, and don't give a shit about their viewers.
This afternoon I was in a rush to finish a project before deadline.
So of course I stabbed my knuckle with an X-ACTO knife. The gushing blood was disturbing. But it was the searing pain that made me lose my will to live. By the end of the day my knuckle was swollen to double-size and I couldn't move my finger. "WELL THIS IS JUST GREAT!" I screamed to nobody in particular. "IT'LL PROBABLY GET INFECTED AND I'LL HAVE TO GET IT CUT OFF!"
But eventually the bleeding subsided so I decided to take an aspirin, put my finger on ice, and go on living.
Lucky you.
The swelling on my poor stabbed finger had mostly gone away by the time I woke up this morning. It still hurts like hell, but that's what happens when you poke yourself with a scalpel. I probably bruised the bone, so it's going to be tender for a while. Darnit. Oh well, I suppose it's a nice match for my knee injury... which is still scabby after sixteen days.
Starting tomorrow I'm on vacation for a week and three days. Well, kind of a vacation. I'll still end up working a bit... I just won't be working here. Instead I'll be working (and getting drunk) in multiple vacation-like locations. Including a place I love but haven't seen in nearly a decade. It's long overdue.
Which brings me to a realization I've been working through lately.
More and more when I visit a place... especially a place I've been to several times... I find myself thinking "Is this it? Will I ever come here again?" I believe it all started when I was on my last trip to Cologne wondering if it would be my last trip to Cologne. I used to go every year. Then every other year. And now? Every three years? Five years? Never again? It messes with your head.
Which is fine, because it takes my mind of my aching finger.
Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day.
Like every St. Patrick's Day, I'll find myself wanting to return to Ireland. I haven't been there since 2004 (to see the new Hard Rock Cafe), so I'm due. But I don't want to go until I have at least a week to explore the west coast, which is why that trip probably isn't going to happen any time soon. That makes me have the sads
Anyway... this is my favorite of all the St. Patrick's Day DaveToons. I'm repeating it because I doubt I could come up with anything better given that I've got about six shots of Jägermeister in me...
Hope yours is a happy one!
Put down that St. Patrick's Day bottle of Guinness... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Metroland! One of my all-time favorite bands, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), will be releasing yet another glorious album come APRIL 9th! Titled English Electric, they just released a video for the first single, Metroland...
Beautiful, as I knew it would be. I cannot wait to see them in concert come April. The last time I saw them live was fantastic, so it's sure to be a good show.
• Kicked! Earlier in the week I mentioned the Veronica Mars movie project over at Kickstarter. I had pledged a chunk of money which came with a reward to attend the Los Angeles premiere. I received a "congratulations" notice from the Kickstarter website. Then I received a receipt from Amazon Payments confirming my donation. But a couple days later when I went to view my account, I saw that my pledge was missing. So I contacted Customer Service to ask why... only to learn that it was rejected because that reward level had "sold out." This is a load of crap. Apparently I was just supposed to ignore the two confirmations I got, since I received NOTHING telling me there was a problem. And, obviously, I had no idea there WAS a problem. Otherwise I would have pledged to attend one of the other premieres. Which, of course, have sold out. So now I am left with nothing because Kickstarter has a stupid-ass website that is incapable of reserving a reward properly. Oh well, guess this is the universe telling me I couldn't afford it anyway. Stupid universe.
• Enraged! I saw a video from an airport in China a while back which showed a man going apeshit because he wandered off for breakfast and missed his boarding time. Apparently he wanted them to call back the plane or something and, when they wouldn't, he started tearing the place apart...
As somebody who has spent their share of time in airports, I can say that I've never seen it get this bad in person... but I have seen travelers rip into airline employees for something that was actually their fault. My favorite being a girl who was late for her flight to Hawaii because she was sick, and was somehow convinced that this was not her fault. This resulted in a phone call to daddy telling him to make this mean person let her on the plane. Never mind that it had left 20 minutes ago... logic need not apply. Just like when a person arrives at the airport 10 minutes before a flight and gets pissed off because the security line is moving so slow. THEN they expect you to let them cut ahead in line so they don't miss their flight. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on for hours. I wonder what it is about going to airports which makes people leave their brains (and courtesy) at home? This has me really excited to be flying out tomorrow.
• This is CNN? Two students RAPE a girl, and what does CNN do? Heap pity on THE RAPISTS for the difficult life ahead of THEM?!? Oh how terrible that THEIR "promising future" has been destroyed just because they RAPED somebody...
Are you fucking kidding me? But of course FOX "News" has to prove that nobody is a bigger piece of shit than them when it comes to ruining people's lives... they decided that the 16-YEAR-OLD RAPE VICTIM isn't deserving of any kind of privacy, AND AIRED HER FULL NAME. Fuck integrity! We just want to make the news exciting for our viewers so we can keep that advertising money coming in! This is such a sick, fucked-up, sad society we live in. I don't even know what to say any more.
I really don't.
Left for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on-time for once.
Finally had my first problem with Apple Maps giving me crap directions.*
Discovered that the WiFi didn't work on my flight to Atlanta.
Grabbed my phone after landing to get the gate for my connecting flight, only to find out that my connecting flight had been canceled. Apparently there was a hail-storm in Atlanta, which caused cancelations and delays across the board.
Delta re-booked me on a new connecting flight... which just happened to be on the exact same plane with broken WiFi that I just climbed out of.
Finally made it to my destination.
Now trying to write a blog entry at my airport hotel with a melted brain.
It's been one of those days.
*I've been using Apple Maps exclusively since the last iOS update. I have had -zero- problems, and vastly prefer the Apple Maps over Google Maps for a half-dozen reasons I won't bore you with here. And every time I read a story about errors with Apple Maps, I ignore it because it's never happened to me no matter where I've traveled.
Until today.
Here is where Apple Maps thinks my off-site Airport Parking is located...
I didn't even look at where the pin dropped, because I assumed it would be correct. I just started up turn-by-turn directions and was on my way. But, as I got closer, I started to feel that something was wrong. I had never been through this area any of the dozens of other times I've used the off-site parking. That's because the location is actually here...
Yes... all the way across a river and the highway. Which is not a simple course correction. It is, in fact, 15-20 minutes away (depending on traffic)...
Lucky for me, I had plenty of time to get to the airport. But had I been running late? I would have been totally screwed by Apple Maps because the data they're using in this case is completely wrong.
Apple makes it easy to report an error, and asked me to drag the pin to the correct location, which I did...
Apparently Apple purchased their map data from TomTom. This was probably a mistake, because an error like this is pretty obvious.
Oh well. I guess they had to start somewhere. Given time, I'm sure Apple will get it all sorted out. But, in the meanwhile, I guess I'm going to have to double-check the routes I am given every damn time I use the product.
Otherwise there's no telling where I might end up.
One of these days I am going to visit New Orleans and never leave.
It was here in The Crescent City that my life of travel began. Back in 1983 at 17 years old I took my first "real" trip on my own with no parents and no rules. Many important things were found... and lost... in New Orleans 30 years ago, and the city has had a hold on me ever since.
This is my first visit to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in 2005. My previous trip coincided with the 200th anniversary of The Louisiana Purchase in 2003, and I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it has been an entire decade since I was here last. It doesn't feel like it's been that long.
But a visit to the National World War II Museum makes me feel the time passing. When I last visited there in 2000 after it opened, it was called "The D-Day Museum" and half the size it is now...
The new "Victory Theater" expansion houses a special "4-D" movie titled Beyond All Boundaries which features narration by Tom Hanks and other stars. It was pretty good. What was not good was the boring-as-hell Final Mission submarine "simulation" which felt pointless and stupid. Not at all worth the extra money to see. But even if you skip Final Mission, walking to the massive Freedom Pavilion is still worthwhile because of the planes they've got on display...
There are walkways which literally allow you to walk around the full-size aircraft suspended there...
NOT for the faint of heart, however. Those upper walkways really took a toll on my sanity given my crippling fear of heights. Not that they don't warn you...
The exhibits in the main museum are still nice, and has some terrific artifacts to look at...
After an early dinner, it was time for a trip to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, which always looks so tame during daylight hours...
Dessert was (obviously) freshly-cooked beignets at Cafe Du Monde...
Dusk falls over Jackson Square as I walk the riverfront...
Apparently Bad Monkey now has his own Mardi Gras beads...
Things start to heat up on Bourbon Street as the sun goes down. Never mind that it's a TUESDAY, it's time to get your party on...
And, lest I forget the reason I came here... Hard Rock visit No. 150!
It's a nice enough cafe... but it's decorated in the shitty "new-style" hipster lounge motif that I hate. The original New Orleans Hard Rock may have had a less-desirable location on Jackson Square, but at least it had a beautiful selection of memorabilia and the classic Hard Rock stylings that define the chain.
And so ends my first packed day in The Big Easy.
I awoke to rain and overcast skies on a cold New Orleans morning.
My motivation to get out of bed and wander out into that dreary morning was effectively zero. But to waste a day in one of my favorite cities on earth would be a terrible sin, so I sucked it up and decided to visit some places I hadn't been before.
I started out with The Pharmacy Museum, which is a little place on Chartres Street I had never even heard of. As far as museums go, it's pretty tame... but it only costs $5 and there's loads of beautiful old bottle labels to explore...
They also have a collection of very old eyeglasses and other cool stuff, but a French tour group had their shit spread out all over the cases and would not fucking leave the exhibit, even though there were people trying to take a look. The worst part? THEY WEREN'T EVEN DISCUSSING THE STUFF IN THE ROOM! They were talking about historical figures or something (I'm guessing they didn't want to take it outside because it was raining). What a bunch of rude assholes thinking only of themselves and ruining the experience for everybody else.
Tired of walking in the cold, I decided to take in a couple of book shops, then grab lunch before heading back to my hotel room. But I kept seeing advertisements for Mardi Gras World that looked interesting. I had never visited there before because it used to be across the river. But now it's moved down by the convention center, so I decided to take the piece of shit Riverfront Streetcar* and take a look.
Mardi Gras World is a working facility where they build most of the floats for the 12 days of Mardi Gras parades that happen here every year. They're rather ornate affairs, and the work that goes into building them is pretty intense. So intense that as soon as one Mardi Gras ends (as 2013's just did in February) they immediately start work on next year's 500 floats...
There are dozens of huge warehouses packed with floats and the equipment needed to pull them through the streets of New Orleans. The factory tour only runs through half of one warehouse, but it's still a lot to see...
Every year, each of the "krewes" responsible for the various parades come up with a new theme. Since the theme is always changing, they have to start from scratch every year. This means building or remodeling all the various big props that are stuck on the floats...
The tour lasts about an hour and, much to my surprise, the clouds and rain had completely disappeared by the time I was finished, and it was all sunshine and blue skies...
Now that I wouldn't be slogging around in the cold and rain, I decided to use the free ticket I got from my hotel to visit the Ogden Museum of Southern Art...
From their roof terrace, you get a great view of the massive expansion efforts going on at the World War II Museum I visited yesterday...
On the top floor of the museum there's an exhibit dedicated to the elaborate Indian costumes used during Mardi Gras...
And, of course, paintings and photos and sculpture featuring Southern life... including this painting of the levies...
Next door to the Ogden Museum is the Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall. It's a very nice place, and has quite a few very old artifacts from the war...
Unfortunately, there's no photography allowed... but the guy manning the ticket desk said it was okay if I took a long shot of the beautiful building interior...
After going back to the hotel and working for a few hours, I decided to go hunt down a falafel wrap for dinner...
Dessert was at Cafe Du Monde again, of course...
And thus ends my second (and last) day in The Crescent City. Hopefully it won't be another ten long years before I can visit again... and hopefully that visit will be longer than two days!
*Streetcars in New Orleans are always late, never seem to run on schedule, and will skip a stop at random with absolutely no warning. I started at the Ursulines Street stop where the streetcar was 12 minutes late. The stop for Mardi Gras World was the end of the line (John Churchill Chase stop), but the operator decided that he'd randomly eliminate it, forcing me to get off at the Julia Street stop. No warning. No Explanation. No notice of any kind at any station or on the website. Nothing. Just get the fuck out and walk 20 minutes around the convention center because he felt like it, I guess. So, yeah, the streetcars may be a charming New Orleans throwback, but they are complete bullshit for actual transportation needs
Wah.
If I had any sense in my head, I would have stayed in New Orleans. Instead I took a couple of flights across the US to come back to Seattle. Where it's raining and cold. As if that weren't bad enough, the forecast is for snow. Which is not such a bad thing, because we really need some more snow in the mountains to avoid a drought come summer.
I miss beignets at Cafe Du Monde already.
Remember the good ol' days when killing a taxi driver was only a misdemeanor offense?
Time to get ready for the weekend!
If you don't hear from me by Tuesday, alert the authorities.
I am not much of a gambler so I avoid it. This means that going to a casino is kind of a treat for me since it happens so rarely. That being said, I am kind of lucky at gambling... even though I don't believe in luck. Maybe it's the magical combination of alcohol and all that cigarette smoke?
In any event, going to a casino with a bunch of friends is pretty much the perfect birthday, so here I am.
I used to play blackjack quite a lot and have tried other table games, but it's not very enjoyable because I spend most of my time being paranoid that I'm going to make a mistake. So most of my time is spent playing the slots because the machines do all the work for you.
Many years ago when I first went gambling, it was in Las Vegas because that's about all there was in my neck of the woods. Slot machines were pretty simple and looked something like this...
If stuff lined up, you won. If it didn't, you probably lost. Simple.
But eventually slot machines started looking like this...
Now there were three lines you could win on (sometimes five lines if your machines played the diagonals). This allowed you to place multiple bets at the same time, and the more you bet the more "lines" you were playing. This both increased your odds of winning... but also sucked your money away faster. Still, it was all pretty simple. If stuff lined up on one of the lines you were playing, you won something. If not, you probably lost.
Then, like everything else, slot machines eventually went digital. The "wheels" were simulated and, since it was all a computer program, things could get a bit more complex. Things didn't necessarily have to line up on straight lines any more...
This was a bit confusing, because you didn't always know how you won or why you lost. "Lines" weren't always "straight lines" any more, and so it was getting harder to tell what was going on. In the past, you got a momentary thrill when you saw you had won, and the machine paused long enough before telling you so you got to enjoy that moment. But now? There's so much to look at that a small pause in the action isn't enough time for you to figure out what just happened. Instead you just get annoyed waiting for the machine to let you know what the verdict is.
And today? Well...
I have no fucking clue what's going on any more. I just press the "play" button and watch stuff fly by. The images on the screen mean absolutely nothing to me...
Tonight I played $20 and ended up with $77. Don't ask me how. I saved that ticket and then played $40 which went all the way up to $480... then dwindled down to $0 three hours later. Again, don't ask me how.
So it looks like I'm ahead $17, since I spent a total of $60 and have $77 to show for it.
Tomorrow I'll either lose all of it and be down $60... or I'll have won a million dollars and be ahead $999,940.
Whatever the case, don't bother asking me how I did it, because the machines are so damn complicated anymore that I just won't know. I'll just be happy to be alive.
At least until I have that one drink too many.
It may be my birthday, but that's no excuse to skip blogging... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Thanks! To the many, many people who sent such kind birthday wishes via Facebook, Twitter, email, and blog comments... thank you from the bottom of my heart. It really does mean a lot to me that people take the time to say such nice things, and I was smiling all day long as I checked my iPhone for new messages. Here's to surviving another year.
• Winning! For anybody just dying to know how my gambling bout ended today, I came out $324.35 ahead. The $77 from yesterday (which I spent $60 winning) was gone within the first hour. I was going to stop, but then remembered that I got "Player Points" (or whatever) for my birthday which netted me $20. I rolled the $20 into penny slots for about an hour and built myself up to $105. From there I went to dollar slots and amassed $385.35 in winnings pretty quickly (20 minutes tops). I wasn't having much fun anymore, so I stopped. Subtract the $60 I spent gambling yesterday, and it's $324.35 of cream. Which paid for my very nice hotel room (on special) and most of my dining expenses. Which means I basically had a free weekend at the casino with friends for my birthday. Can't really complain about that.
• Cleansed! Well, okay, I can complain about one thing... the "Fiesta Breakfast Burrito" (hold the sausage) that I had this morning. Within a half-hour of eating it, my insides felt as though they had been run through a food processor, and it took a steady diet of Imodium all damn day to keep my ass from exploding. Not the best way to spend a birthday, to be sure... but it was awfully tasty going down, so there's that.
And in other news...
• Response! I remain completely dumbfounded that it took a 16-year-old girl being raped in Steubenville for some people to understand that having sex with a woman who is passed out is considered rape, and that rape is wrong. I am even more dumbfounded that a video like this is necessary to explain how guys should act when they come across the situation...
Yes... the answer is NOT TO RAPE THEM. Holy crap. THIS is the society we live in now?
Until next week...
And so my week of vacation is over. I know I should be saying something like "Wow! That week flew by awfully fast!" but it really didn't. I guess it's because I crammed so much into it? With all the New Orleans and the casino and the celebrating? I dunno. But it definitely feels like I got a full week's worth, that's for sure.
And now it's back to reality for two weeks. Yay.
And speaking of reality...
It will come as no surprise that I loathe politicians. Mostly because I am bitching about them all the time on this blog. Democrat, Republican, whatever... there are so very few that I actually like or respect that they might as well not exist at all. Especially scum-sucking Senators and piece of shit Congressmen who always seem more interested in getting reelected or getting their hands on special interest money than actually serving their constituents. Who gives a shit if something fucks over American citizens if you can make a buck off it, right?
Well, I give a shit. And I think voters have a right to know which dicks that candidates are sucking in order to get elected. They deserve to know where all the money is coming from, and which companies or individuals own the asses of our worthless politicians. So you can imagine just how positively thrilled I was when I saw a new petition for the White House...
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Require Congressmen & Senators to wear logos of their financial backers on their clothing, much like NASCAR drivers do.
Since most politicians' campaigns are largely funded by wealthy companies and individuals, it would give voters a better sense of who the candidate they are voting for is actually representing if the company's logo, or individual's name, was prominently displayed upon the candidate's clothing at all public appearances and campaign events. Once elected, the candidate would be required to continue to wear those "sponsor's" names during all official duties and visits to constituents. The size of a logo or name would vary with the size of a donation. For example, a $1 million dollar contribution would warrant a patch of about 4" by 8" on the chest, while a free meal from a lobbyist would be represented by a quarter-sized button. Individual donations under $1000 are exempt.
Yes.
YES!
And I am not joking around here. I could not possibly be more serious. If a politician is being paid off by a lobbyist to vote a certain way... then they should have to own up to it. Maybe if we saw a massive "BIG OIL" patch on their jacket, we'd know that their ass has been bought and paid for, and they will probably fuck over Americans by voting for huge tax breaks for oil companies... even when those companies are making record profits. And what about tobacco companies? And drug companies? And food industries? The list of lobbyist corruption goes on and on.
In all honesty, I don't think this petition is out of line. What's out of line is our politicians selling us out for a buck behind closed doors.
Today's the day our Supreme Court gets to decide whether they are going to be on the right side of history.
I find it absurd that a country founded on personal freedoms is set up so that nine people are going to tell gays and lesbians whether or not they can marry the person they love, but here it is. They'll either decide that taxpaying gay Americans are equal citizens deserving of marriage... or they'll decide that a citizen's freedom to marry should be regulated by the government and it is the law, not love, which dictates who can or cannot be married.
What a load of crap. Because, honestly, why should anybody give a shit what two consenting adults do with their relationship? Marriage equality has been legal here in Washington State for months and you know what's changed? Gay people can get married... THAT'S IT! No straight couple has suddenly been told they can't get married any more. Nobody is being forced to get "gay married." The sky hasn't fallen. Life goes on.
Unless you're gay, marriage equality DOES NOT AFFECT YOU.
But equality for every American affects everybody. Here's hoping the Supreme Court is smart enough to see that.
Today was the second day of deliberation by the Supreme Court regarding marriage equality. This time focusing on DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and whether or not one state refusing to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state is constitutional. For example... if a same-sex couple legally married in Washington State moves to Idaho... all of a sudden they're not married any more. Idaho doesn't have to recognize the marriage thanks to DOMA. As if that weren't pathetic enough, DOMA also allows same-sex marriages to go unrecognized at a federal level. So much for federally granted spousal benefits (among other rights and protections) for gay and lesbian spouses.
There are many reasons why DOMA is, in fact, unconstitutional. But the biggest reason is that it creates a second class of citizens when it comes to rights and benefits. States have the right to allow marriage equality but, thanks to DOMA, those marriages are not really equal because they aren't really recognized state-to-state and federally. So much for state's rights and equality under the eyes of the law for gay and lesbian couples.
Unless the Supreme Court is completely ignoring The Constitution, they have no choice but to strike down DOMA...
Constitutional Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
But is the Supreme Court enforcing The Constitution REALLY going to be good news?
From 2008...
I guess not! THANKS A LOT, THE GAYS!
"With the president's signature, agriculture giants that deal with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds are given the go-ahead to continue to plant and sell man-made crops, even as questions remain largely unanswered about the health risks these types of products pose to consumers." — RT.com
So much for transparency in government decision-making... and transpareceny with the food you buy. I can only guess that Barack Obama will be taking a job at Monsanto at the end of his term. This is hard to see as anything less than a government conspiring against its citizens so that they are uninformed about the foods they eat.
I once again have to wonder what it's going to take for Americans to finally get fed up with a government that is BOUGHT AND PAID FOR by increasingly powerful corporations. No longer are we a government of the people, for the people, by the people... we're just up for the highest bidder. Republican... Democrat... whatever... political parties are just a tool to keep Americans at each other's throats while the real people in charge continue to shape the country to serve their interests.
And that does not include us.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about just three days ago... politicians being bought-off in plain sight without consequence. Pieces of shit like Senator Roy Blunt who worked overtime to fuck the American people get to keep smiling and keep getting paid with taxpayer money with no mark of shame for the massive betrayal he's party to.
If it were up to me? I'd tattoo that shit on his fucking forehead...
I DON'T GIVE A FUCK BECAUSE I'M RICH, BITCH!!!
Seriously... go read that article on Blunt... it is far worse than you're thinking. He's sucked so much special-interest dick that I have to wonder how much Photoshop it took to erase the scabs from his lips. This shit-stain is neck-deep in special interest money that fucking BOUGHT AND PAID FOR HIS SORRY ASS. He doesn't work for the people of Missouri or American citizens... he works for the bio-tech industry and just happens to be a Senator on the side so he can be more effective at his real job.
What does it take to be hung for treason in this country any more? This worthless piece of garbage CONSPIRED AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS AND THE US GOVERNMENT! All with -zero- consequences, because that's how we roll in this pathetic joke of a "democracy."
I wish this bullshit could surprise me anymore.
But I digress...
Many happy congratulations to President Obama and Congress for once again fucking over the country and selling out its citizens! I wish there was some kind of award we could give all of you to recognize this unprecedented level of caving to the special interest lobby... but, apparently, you're just doing your job. I wouldn't want to embarrass you.
This morning something popped into my head that I wish I could forget. It was the memory of a bad situation which I handled poorly and have always wished that I could go back and change. But, of course, I can't change it, so now I get to be haunted by it from time to time.
Some people have pointed out that bad memories and the mistakes we make all go into the makeup of who we are. If we could go back and fix our mistakes, then we wouldn't be the same person any more. We are defined and re-defined by our experiences, good or bad, so we shouldn't seek to eliminate unpleasant things from our past... but instead try our best to learn from them so we can become a better, wiser people in the process.
It's probably true.
But don't think for a second that if there was a memory-erasing machine like they have in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that I wouldn't have them blast out a chunk of stuff that I'd just as soon forget.
Because being haunted is nothing like they showed on Scooby-Doo.
I love bread.
Especially when it's freshly-baked. A freshly-baked loaf of bread can heal a bevy of ills and compensate for a multitude of sins. Or maybe it's just an excuse to eat my weight in butter. Regardless, it's nice to spend time in the kitchen kneading a loaf to life so you can smell it roasting in the oven until that sublime moment you can slice it up and eat it...
This isn't a very pretty loaf. It was going to be a French bread, but my circle-pan wasn't long enough so I had to smoosh it down to fit. I guess it's kind of a lumpy boule now.
Oh well. It sure tastes delicious, and that's all that really matters.
Like most things in life.
Don't think the Easter Bunny can stop the power of the blog... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• The Bible! Whether you believe in The Bible or not, you have to admit there are some really good stories in there. And, while the good book has been plundered for entertainment fodder many, many times over the years... somebody is always thinking they can do a better job. This time it's Survivor creator Mark Burnett and his wife, Touched by an Angel actress Roma Downey (who cast herself as the Virgin Mary, natch). This ten-part mini-series airing on The History Channel is called The Bible, and I have to say that it's pretty darn good. The stories are relatively true to the source material, are easy to follow, are shot beautifully with good special effects, and features a capable cast. Including Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado as Jesus...
And President Barack Obama as Satan...
No... wait a second... that's a guy named Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni, who "just happens" to bear a resemblance to President Obama. Everybody involved is saying it's just a crazy coincidence but, considering Ouazanni has fairly pale skin and looks quite different in real life (based on Google Image Search results I've found), that may be a bit of a stretch.
Oh well. As I said, overall I enjoyed the series, and the finale which aired tonight was darn fine television. If I had a bone to pick, it's that I think some very interesting points from these Bible stories were glossed over or changed so they could focus on amping up the stuff they considered to be "more dramatic." That's kind of a shame, because they didn't really need to do that... The Bible has plenty of good drama without going over the top. For example, Matthew (one of my favorite characters in The Bible) was severely short-changed. The guy was a tax collector that had all kinds of wealth and power, yet he gave it all up without so much as a blink for a life of poverty just because Jesus asked him to! That's pretty ballsy, and they really should have given the guy more screen time... or at least made you feel the sacrifice he made while taking a literal leap of faith.
I dunno... I've studied The Bible extensively but, since I'm not a Christian, perhaps my viewpoint on things wouldn't have been the best approach. I just think the show would have been better served if they spent a little more time on important details instead of dozens of shots of Roma Downey's face either in shock or crying. Anyway... I highly recommend The Bible for both it's excellent production and entertainment values... even if you're a non-believer like me.
• Do It! Today is World Backup Day!
Have you made sure your data is backed up and your restores are working? No? Well, you should probably do that soon. Data is a terrible thing to waste.
• Delta! I'm about as big a fan of Depeche Mode as it gets... but, anymore, I don't even know what I'm listening to. I can appreciate that a band needs to grow and change, but I don't like their latest album, Delta Machine, because it's simply not the band I know...
Everything they released up through Songs of Faith and Devotion was genius. Ultra was a bit of a misstep, but still excellent. Then things went terribly wrong. Exciter was truly awful. Then the band kinda redeemed themselves with Playing the Angel and Sounds of the Universe because I could actually enjoy the music on them (for the most part). Now they've gone completely off the rails again. I have a feeling that what comes next will be the breaking point for me. Kind of scary for a band I've loved for over 30 years now.
• iCloud! For the most part, I am a total Apple Whore who loves everything the company puts out with a fiery passion. Unfortunately, there are lapses in my faith from time to time. One of the biggest? It's the massive failure that is Apple's "iCloud" service. It is truly a pile of shit that does not work very well. As if that weren't bad enough, it is LESS CAPABLE than the service it replaced, "MobileMe," because it can't even sync your frickin' keychain data. With each passing day I despise it more, and pray to Steve Jobs that they will finally fix the steamer. So far nothing. And it's getting so bad that even Apple developers are staying away. This article has an excellent summary of just how bad the situation it.
And now? I need a chocolate bunny. Happy Easter to all who celebrate the holiday.
Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you.
Though I would never actually want to kill a bear, so that saying doesn't make much sense for me. Unless I'm "getting" the bear so I can give him a hug. A bear hug!
In any event, the March issue of THRICE Fiction actually slipped a day into April, and there are a lot of excuses I could give as to why that happened. But, the honest truth is that the issue just ended up being a much bigger project than usual (54 pages!), and I didn't budget enough time to get things done.
Oh well. It turned out great, so hopefully our readers will think it's worth the wait...
Download the issue for FREE by visiting the THRICE Fiction website!
The cover this time around was a fun one. Fearless THRICE Fiction editor RW Spryszak told me that he kept on seeing "a man standing at a bus stop in the rain" for the cover as he was reviewing submissions. I thought this was a great idea for a Spring issue, so it didn't take any amount of convincing for me to take the idea and run with it. Especially since I could do a kinda tribute to one of my favorite films of all time... Hayao Miyazaki's wonderful My Neighbor Totoro...
But since Totoro is trademarked, I decided to use geese instead. I also thought geese would be funnier.
The original cover image is composited from 23 separate photos from locations like Costa Rica, Maui, Barcelona, Vancouver, Seattle, and Fiji (among others)... plus one very important piece of stock photo art...
The process of stitching all the photos together into a single cohesive image is long and tedious (as I explained in a step-by-step for a past cover here). Once that's been completed, parts were painted over in Photoshop, then run through various filters to add rain and make the image look kinda-sorta like a painting. As usual, it would probably have been faster had I ACTUALLY painted the thing, but at least this way I didn't get any paint on my clothes. Anyway... here's the end result...
And that's that.
For a look at the rest of the artwork in this issue, click onward to an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
I am not much of a shopper. Most of the shopping I do is under protest because there are few activities I loathe more than having to drag myself through a mall. I don't like the crowds. I usually don't like the salespeople. I don't like the prices. And, most of the time, I don't even like the products. It's for this reason that most all of the things I buy are purchased online. No crowds. No salespeople. Good prices. And every product you can imagine.
But, for things like clothes, online is not always the best option when all things are considered.
So most times when I need new threads, I brave a trip to the mall.
Where, if I find something I like, I buy several copies so I can put off my next trip as long as possible. If I find a great shirt? I'll buy a half-dozen. Find a good deal on jeans? I'll buy ten. Find a pair of shoes I like? I'll buy out their entire stock on-hand. Etc. Etc.
And it's all good.
Until my supply runs out.
Last year I finally had to retire the last pair (of four pairs) of Nike trainers that I had purchased five years earlier. It was a solemn occasion filled with all kinds of grief. Not only because I was having to trash a pair of shoes that I really liked... but because it meant I would have to go shoe shopping again. It was such a tragic event that it made me wish I had a time machine. Not so I could go back and kill Hitler or anything worthwhile like that... but so that I could go back and buy all four pairs from "Athletic Attic" PLUS have them order another ten pair. That way I wouldn't have to go shoe shopping until at least the year 2022.
Fast forward to today, and I had to toss out the last of the six Eddie Bauer Henleys I purchased nearly thirteen years ago. This really sucked, because I don't like the newer Eddie Bauer Henleys. Which means I'm going to have to eventually go out to a (=shudder=) mall so I can find a suitable replacement.
When I'd rather go have some teeth pulled.
Oh well, at least I'll have something to blog about.
When I was looking for geese to use on the cover for THRICE Fiction No. 7, there was one goose that wasn't going to work... but I liked the way he looked, so I shoved him aside. Today as I was working on another project, he popped up...
This is one of the geese that hang around the courtyard at Barcelona Cathedral (also known as "La Seu"). As I started snapping photos, he became curious about the noise from my camera, and just kind of stared at me until I stopped.
Silly goose.
The big news today is the passing of famed movie critic Roger Ebert, which I'll get to in a minute. But also passing today is Carmine Infantino, a prolific comic book artist whose work when a long way towards shaping the comic books as we know them today. The man redefined The Flash, for heaven's sake, and paved the way for The Silver Age of comics.
Despite all his influence and success, I was never a fan of Carmine Infantino. I thought his art style was sketchy and sloppy. I felt his anatomy and proportions were off-putting. I didn't care for the way he used (or didn't use) perspective. And I never like his background art for those rare times he bothered to actually put any detail into his backgrounds. Don't get me wrong, the guy knew how to illustrate a story... I just didn't care for the way he did it...
And yet, it would be impossible for me not to admire the guy who did so much for the comics medium that I love. For that I thank you, Mr. Infantino... rest in peace.
As for Roger Ebert...
Photo by Buena Vista Television/AP Photo
For me, he was THE film critic. Along with Gene Siskel, he created At the Movies, which was a program I obsessed over in the 1980's. I love movies, and back then there wasn't an internet to hang out with fellow buffs to discuss them. Instead there was Siskel and Ebert every week. Of the two, Ebert was the one who was closest to my tastes, and his "thumbs up" sent me to the local movie theater more times than I can count. He expanded my love of cinema, helped me to find films that I still love to this day, and was a tireless voice in the movie geek community that I valued right up until his death. Even when I didn't agree with him.
But movies were not the only thing Roger Ebert helped to open my mind to.
His astounding positive outlook in the face of devastating health problems were inspirational in a way that I can't even begin to enunciate. The guy was in hospitals all the time, he lost his jaw, he lost his ability to speak and eat, he was dealing with crap that would crush the spirit of most anyone. And yet... he refused to let it get him down. He kept working. He kept inspiring. He kept living...
Photo by Associated Press
"I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute to joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."
We should all do so well to leave such a legacy. Rest in peace, Mr. Ebert.
I guess it really is all downhill from here.
Not much I can do but try and enjoy the ride.
When looking back through old photos, I was shocked to find out just how fashionable I was when I was a tyke.
What I wouldn't give to have some of these outfits today.
In my size, of course.
Especially that last one. Because... damn.
Don't go going off all half-cocked... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Cheese! April is National Grilled Cheese Month, and grilled cheese sandiwches just happens to be one of my favorite foods on earth. Sadly, most people seem to think that a grilled cheese consists of a slice of cheese melted between two slices of bread in a skillet. Not even close. Great grilled cheese sandwiches are creative culinary delights that are a little more interesting...
I've already blogged about my "Death By Cheese Sandwich," which is one of my favorite recipes... but lately I've been experimenting with shredded cheese recipes (which melt so very, very beautifully) and adding things like sliced green apples or tomatoes to my sandwiches. The last batch I made had Feta Cheese mixed in, which was mind-blowing. Next up I'm going to try a recipe which is made with potato chips. The varieties of grilled cheese deliciousness are endless. Which is why I want to encourage everybody to take National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month by the balls and seek out a few of the more inventive ways of cooking one of the world's most classic foods.
• Hannibal! Let's just get this out of the way... I feel that Sir Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs is one of the most inspired performances in all of cinematic history. It is one of the few times I can use the adjective "flawless" when describing what actors do. With that in mind, I put my expectations into low-gear when tuning into NBC's efforts to turn the character into a Dexter-style television series...
So imagine my surprise when I start watching the premiere episode of Hannibal only to find that creator genius Bryan Fuller wisely decided to sidestep a failed attempt at mimicking the Anthony Hopkins movies. I was riveted as I watched a much more flawed and interesting version of investigator Will Graham (played by Hugh Dancy) rope me into one of the best homicide dramas in recent memory. As the show continued to play out, I found myself excited at the prospect that this might actually work out.
But then Hannibal Lecter showed up and everything went sideways.
No offense to Mads Mikkelsen, who is a fine actor (he was really good in Casino Royale)... but the guy is horribly miscast as Hannibal Lecter. For reasons that escape me, he's playing the part as about as flat and uninteresting as it gets. I certainly wasn't expecting Sir Anthony Hopkins, but I was expecting to see some of the sparkle and charm that makes Hannibal such a compelling character. Well, there's none of that here. It's the idea is that Lecter is so charming and fascinating that you don't want him to be evil. The fact that he IS a psychotic serial killer is what makes him so terrifying. With Mads Mikkelsen being so eerily lacking in charm, he comes off as exactly what he shouldn't... a psychotic serial killer! I dunno. I'm going to keep watching in the hopes that Hannibal grows on me because Will Graham is so beautifully realized here... but, unfortunately, I can see a day when Lecter's half of the coin pushes me over the edge.
• Bridegroom! "It's not a gay thing. It's not a straight thing. It's a human thing." — I was really happy this Kickstarter project got funded, and I can't wait to see what Linda Bloodworth-Thompson has done with a story that everybody needs to see...
• NIK! When Google bought out NIK Software, I was gutted. They obviously bought the company to get their hands on Snapseed, and I worried that the rest of their brilliant apps would be tossed aside. That may yet come true but, in the meanwhile, Google has dropped the price of NIK's plugin suite to a astounding $149! If you're a photographer who uses Photoshop, scrape together the $149 and RUN, don't walk, to their website and snap it up before Google changes their mind. Color Efex and Silver Efex are sheer magic for punching up your images, and all the rest of the tools are just gravy. If 70% off and my praise doesn't compel you to jump onboard, they have a 15-day free trial available.
• WTF? Seriously. I wants to die now.
• Mini! More and more I have been uploading double-sized photos to my blog, then manually down-sizing the dimensions in the HTML. This makes it so that readers with a Retina Display get a much better quality photo to look at...
Detail of Non-Retina low-res on the Left... Retina double-res on the Right
The problem is that readers without a Retina Display (or equivalent) are downloading a bigger image file, only to have their browser throw out every other pixel. Kinda a waste of time and bandwidth but, sorry, one day all displays will be "Retina" in quality, and I'm trying to future-proof my images here. To make this as painless as possible, I am using a tool called JPEGmini to reduce the size of my large images (small images don't net much of a savings). So far, it's worked surprisingly well, and my largest images are being reduced as much as half. Yes. Half. But the best part? The image quality is maintained! Looking as hard as I can, I can't spot any difference between the original and the JPEGmini version! It's been working so well that I've taken to compress my camera libraries as well. If you're looking to save some space with your JPEGs, I highly recommend giving JPEGmini a try (there's a free version to check it out, so what are you waiting for?).
• Veronica! If you loved me, you'd donate one measly dollar to the Veronica Mars movie project so it can become the most backer backed project in Kickstarter history. If you don't love me, then you can still donate a dollar and pretend to love me... I'm perfectly fine with that. Just five days left...
And now... TIME TO MAKE FRESH BREAD FOR MORE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES!
What a hunk of crap.
A little less than a year ago I was on a Kickstarter high, backing a lot of projects that looked interesting and useful. One of those projects was for the "Pebble Smart Watch," where my $115 pledge would get me an actual watch once the unit went into production.
My thinking was that something like this would be really useful when I travel. Often times I'm in strange places or potentially dangerous situations where I don't want to be flashing my iPhone around. Why invite somebody to steal it? Enter Pebble. This "smart watch" communicates with iPhone and can display notifications for calls, emails, texts, and such. It will also allow you to do simple tasks like control your music. So, cool, I can monitor my notifications without having to whip out my iPhone every time. Sounds good.
Eleven months later, guess what shows up in my mailbox? That's right, Pebble!
And it's pretty shitty.
First of all, it's huge. Massively huge. If you have boney little toddler arms like mine, it might as well be a brick...
As if that weren't bad enough, look how THICK this fucker is...
Oh... and did you notice all the little specs of dust in the case seams? IT CAME THAT WAY! I just took it out of the box, and it comes pre-dirty. And given the number of ugly seams scattered all over Pebble, I can only guess that it's going to look even worse once I actually walk around with it and it gets exposed to the elements.
What's so shocking is that this makes the bulky old Casio Calculator Watch I had in high school look positively svelte. Seriously, until you strap one of these massive things to your wrist, you have no idea how obtrusive and uncomfortable an accessory can be. There is no fucking way I am going to be wearing this around day to day.
If I were to actually consider wearing this pile of crap, I'd probably take time to do a complete review of the thing. Since I'm not, I can say this from the five minutes I played with Pebble...
And that's about it, really.
Rumor has it that Apple is working on a "smart watch" of their own. Why I didn't wait for that, I will never know.
So...
If you've got big wrists and like the retro-future possibilities that Pebble is promising, this may be a watch for you (hey, I'll sell you mine for $50 plus shipping! SOLD!)... otherwise, I'd give Pebble a pass.
Sleeping is not something I'm good at. At least not any more. I think I used to be, but that was a long time ago and I just don't remember. Last night was worse than usual because I had a lot of stuff to get done before catching my flight this morning. I also had a lot of stuff on my mind, which is always a sleepy-time deal breaker for me.
Arriving in Salt Lake City International Airport was made interesting because a couple Mormon missionaries were onboard. After having been away for two years with precious little communication with friends and family, there was quite a crowd waiting for them (as you might imagine). Posters and banners were on display, and a wave of cheers erupted as the missionaries descended on the escalator into the airport lobby.
It was a beautiful sight.
For the life of me I can't wrap my head around the commitment it takes for these kids... as young as 18... to give up everything and everybody they know so they can be sent to God-knows-where for two years of their lives. It's a leap of faith that boggles the mind. Many times, they're being sent to a foreign country where they won't even know the language. They're partnered up with somebody they barely know. They're given a near impossible task of converting the natives to a new religion. To this day I honestly can't decide if it's an adventure of a lifetime... or the height of insanity.
Luckily, I never had to find out personally.
But I have talked to Mormon friends and acquaintances who went on missions, and they all say it was the best time of their lives. A part of me is skeptical but, I'm here to tell you, the stories they have to tell are about as fascinating as you'll ever hear. The trials and tribulations of being a missionary for the Latter Day Saints may be rewarding, but it's also no picnic.
Which is why I'm always as nice as I can be when I encounter them in the wild (especially in foreign countries) or when they show up at my door. They've got it tough enough, and giving them a break is the least I can do.
Anyway...
I didn't hang around the airport and party with the missionaries since Marty was nice enough to pick me up so I could have dinner with him and his family. No offense to the Mormons, but Marty makes sure there's beer available when we party.
Today was kinda a play day where I had no real agenda. That's the good news.
Today was filled with disappointments. That's the bad news.
But, all in all... any day away from the office is a good one, am I right? I mean, sure, I worked a bit... but most of my time was spent looking for things to do in Salt Lake City that I haven't done before. I've been here many, many times, so that is a bit of a challenge.
My first stop was decided last night when I saw "BRUGES WAFFLES" flash across my hotel television's concierge screen. "Wow. I could go for some authentic Belgian waffles!" I said to myself. And so I got up and walked the three lonnnnnng blocks to the waffle shop in time for...
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 1
On their website, Bruges Waffles says that they have "authentic caramelized waffles," which is exactly what I wanted. The reality? Not so much...
Don't get me wrong... it was a delicious waffle, and the cream was out of this world. Overall, a wonderful breakfast. But where is the pearl sugar that makes that delightful speckle of caramelized bits that I love? I sure couldn't find them. If they were there, my waffle would have looked like this...
Photo from A Feast for the Eyes... which has a recipe for the waffles you're looking for!
And let me tell you... those pearls of caramelized sugar are what makes a Belgian waffle go from "good" to "FOOD OF THE GODS!"
Next up? I wanted to visit the Natural History Museum of Utah. I had been there before years ago, but they relocated to a new building in 2011, and it's supposed to be pretty spectacular. The problem is that there's no real "elegant" way of getting there via public transportation. By car, it's a 16 minute drive from downtown to their location on edge of the University of Utah campus. But I had to spend an hour and fifteen minutes taking the Blue Trax Line to the Red Trax Line all the way out to the University Medical Center... then catch a campus shuttle over some gawdaful roads to get to the museum where I was faced with...
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 2
The Natural History Museum of Utah is, indeed, in a spectacular new location and has some exhibits that are incredibly well done. The dinosaur exhibits alone are worth the price of admission. Honestly, if you're in Salt Lake City, you owe it to yourself to check it out... it's totally worth it, even if you have to go through public transportation hell to get there.
HOWEVER... when I was there it was absolute bedlam because (I'm guessing) there was a school field trip going on. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except the kids were running around going ape-shit insane. Museum staff didn't even attempt to reign them in, which was just senseless. And the "chaperone adults" that were accompanying the kids didn't bother to "chaperone" at all. They just lounged around while kids were yelling, screaming, running, kicking, and beating on the displays. It was beyond crazy. Even if they didn't make the kids behave, you'd think they would AT LEAST attempt to keep walkways clear so people could get around the museum... but... no. After 45 minutes, I couldn't take it any more and left. But I still got to see some cool stuff...
The dinosaur exhibits are truly first class.
RAWRRRRR! Says the ancient giant crocodile!
The dioramas were nicely done too... if you like looking at dead stuffed animals.
The "Sky Deck" offers amazing views of downtown Salt Lake City and beyond.
There was a really nice weaving exhibit that was much more interesting than I would have thought.
I complained about the ordeal of using public transportation to get to the museum, but there's one cool bit I should mention. When I was ready to leave, I checked my phone to see how often the campus shuttles ran. Much to my shock and delight, they have a web app that shows you where the shuttles are AND you can tap on a station to get an estimate as to when the next shuttle will arrive there...
Now THAT'S cool... and so useful! I wish the TRAX light rail system here had the same feature.
The one thing I wanted to do above anything else while I am here is to visit The Leonardo so I could see the awesome-sounding MUMMIES OF THE WORLD exhibit. Unfortunately, that brings us to...
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 3
The show was sold out for the day. And the next day. And the next day. Talk about a soul-crushing sense of defeat... I missed getting to see mummies, dammit!
Last night Marty had mentioned that The Apple Store had relocated from The Gateway to a new shopping mall built by the Mormon church called "City Creek Center," so I decided to stop because I really want a different case for my iPhone 5. When I first got it, there were like -zero- cases available, so I thought I would have a better selection now that seven months have passed. You can probably imagine that this brings us to...
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 4
The iPhone 5 case selection at the Apple Store is only barely better than it was back in September. They don't even have a simple bumper I can buy... they come attached to a hunk of ugly plastic. And the rest of the cases they have are pretty lame. WAH! Oh well... City Creek Center is really a beautiful mall (if you're into that kind of thing) so I was happy I got to see it...
After bumming around beautiful Temple Square for a while (which is never a disappointment), my waffle started wearing off so I decided to head back to the Bruges Waffles shop again for a late lunch. They advertise having "wonderfully crispy 'frites' or fries, with 10 delicious homemade mayos." Now, as anybody who has read this blog for even a little while knows, I am absolutely crave "patatjes met" (Dutch Fries with Dutch Mayo) and also love "frites avec mayo" (Belgian Fries with European Mayo). So this was kinda a no-brainer idea, right? Not really...
DISAPPOINTMENT NO. 5
Patatjes Met? More like Patatjes Meh. First of all, the mayo is NOT creamy, delicious, Dutch/European-style mayonnaise with that delicious taste I love. Nope... it's no different than the clumpy, egg-flavored American mayo you get out of a jar. In fact, I would't be surprised if that's exactly what it is. The "homemade" stuff they're talking about must be American jar mayo mixed with spices or whatever. "Disappointed" doesn't even begin to cover it. But that's just the beginning, because then I got the "frites"...
They weren't "bad"... but they also weren't the big, crispy, golden frites you get in Belgium. Not by a long shot. Too many of the fries were limp, waggy, and overly-greasy. But making matters worse was that a full half of my frites were crusty little nubs that aren't fit for dipping... they're barely fit for eating...
BULLSHIT! Even the worst frites shop in Belgium would never serve this. I make better fries at home. Hell, McDONALDS makes better fries than this. The entire time I was eating this mess, all I kept thinking about was flying to Belgium and getting me some real frites. Or, better still, flying to the Netherlands and getting me some delicious patatjes met...
Oh damn. Just look at those beautiful fried potatoes! AND LOOK AT THAT LUSH, CREAMY, FLAVORFUL MAYO FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! This is the stuff you want!
WAH!
Not wanting to risk any further disappointment, I headed back to my hotel so I could rest up and get some work done.
And now it's time to leave all my disappointment behind me so I can put some pants on and head out for an evening that promises to be anything but disappointing...
Last night Marty (of Banal Leakage fame) and I went to see OMD play at The Depot in Salt Lake City.
As expected, it was mind-blowing amazing show. They played a nice mix of both new material and beloved classics. And, just like the four previous times I've seen them live, played them extremely well. Along with Depeche Mode and Matt & Kim, OMD is easily one of my favorite live bands, and any opportunity to see them in concert is a no-brainer...
The tour is in support of their new album (released just two days ago here in the US!) called English Electric. Overall, I like the album very much, and there's some pop music treasures on there that I'll be listening to for a very long time. However... OMD being OMD, they decided to add a bunch of "experimental" stuff that I didn't care for at all. Luckily, it wasn't enough to torpedo the whole album (see: Dazzle Ships), but oh how I wish the band would stick to cranking out the beautiful pop music that I love them for and just stop with the self-indulgent artsy crap (or whatever)...
Still, well-worth a listen if you've liked their stuff in the past.
I've put a setlist review in an extended entry, if you're so inclined...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Back to reality. For a few days anyway.
While hanging out at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on layover yesterday, I ran across a couple who were on their way to Australia so they could hike around the Outback for two weeks. I thought this sounded like a great vacation... assuming I could ever get used to all the bugs...
It's certainly beautiful enough to lure me back.
And now I suppose I should unpack my suitcase so I can get it packed up again on Sunday.
This is a blog post I've been holding for nearly a week. It concerns my home state of Washington suing a florist who refused to service the same-sex wedding of a long-time customer (now that we have marriage equality here). The story itself is a sad one... and most certainly controversial... but that's not the reason I've been sitting on it. The reason is that I just can't form a solid conclusion on the subject, and it's been driving me crazy.
But before we go there, an interlude...
My personal beliefs don't allow me to give money to strangers when I can't verify how the money will be used. So, for example, when a homeless person approaches and asks me for my spare change so they can eat, I always say "I'm sorry, I don't have anything I can give you." This way, even if I do have some change, I'm not lying because (philosophically) I really can't give it to them. They might use the money to purchase something harmful to themselves or others, and then I would be a party to it. Instead, if they're hungry, I'll offer to buy them some food to eat. This is a win-win solution because they get the food they need and I get to help out without violating my beliefs.
But, like everything in life, it's not really so cut-and-dry. Can you ever truly verify what happens to the money you give? Let's say I help a stranded motorist buy gas so he can get home. But once he gets home, he siphons the gas from the car and uses it to burn his house down with his wife inside because she was cheating on him. And what if the owner of the gas station uses their profits to bet on dog-fights which torture and kill innocent animals? By trying to help, I just enabled two people to commit terrible acts, even though I never intended it to happen that way.
The reality is that the only way i can truly control what happens with the money I earn is to never spend it. Since that's not really an option, I just do the best I can to be as responsible as I can... then hope for the best. Money may indeed be the root of all evil, but I'm trying to stem the tide where I can.
End interlude.
With all this in mind, I feel like condemning the florist shop owner is kinda hypocritical. Her beliefs don't include same-sex marriage, so isn't she just doing the best she can to stem the tide? And, since this is America, shouldn't she have the freedom to follow her religious convictions so she won't be responsible for contributing to something she feels is wrong? In her own way, she may even be trying to keep her long-time customer from doing something she considers harmful. And for this she's going to get sued?
That doesn't seem fair. For better or worse, American citizens have the freedom to be raging bigots if they want to be. So why shouldn't this freedom extend to shop owners? If they want to hide behind religion so they can avoid doing the right thing, shouldn't that be their right? It's certainly the right of the customer to let the entire community know that the florist is a homophobic piece of shit. And since more and more people are standing on the right side of history to support love and equality, won't the florist eventually go out of business because she'll keep losing customers? Why do we need to bring in the lawyers and start a lawsuit when the problem will solve itself?
Perhaps we should have faith in the free market to work these things out. If businesses want to live in the dark ages, let them die out as society leaves them behind. New businesses will take their place, and life goes on.
Right?
Well...
I may not always agree with Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter), but there is one thing President Obama said as he was campaigning that really resonated with me when it comes to a person building a business... they didn't build it alone. This was explained beautifully by Elizabeth Warren...
"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
It's this overriding truth which has me not giving a fuck if the florist's freedom to be a bigot is infringed upon. That gay couple she refuses to service? Their tax dollars contributed to the system that allows her business to exist in the first place. But, more importantly to me, my tax dollars contribute to the system that allows her business to exist. The idea that some homophobic asshole can benefit from my tax dollars, then turn around and discriminate against customers holding a perfectly legal event? It pisses me off. Washington has legalized marriage equality. If you don't like it, then pack up your flowers and move to a state where you can benefit from tax dollars that support your bigotry. Otherwise, you deserve to get sued.
Right?
Well...
The bigger truth here is that my tax dollars are going to crap I loathe all the time. I'm a vegetarian. I believe the meat industry is environmentally hostile and killing this planet. And yet beef, pork, and poultry mega-corporations are getting billions in tax subsidies. This is how Burger King can sell a steroid-ridden "Whopper Jr." for $1.29, when that's a tiny fraction of how much it actually costs to make. For oh so many reasons, it should cost much, much, much more, but the US government uses my tax dollars to keep it cheap, and that pisses me off. Much like the way poultry subsidies allow Chick-fil-A to make record profits... which they then use to support hate groups. It's a hard pill to swallow, but I'm sure there are things I do like supporting with my tax dollars that other people don't believe in, so I guess it all balances out.And if my tax dollars are already supporting a bunch of things I don't believe in, then what difference does it make that a florist I don't believe in is getting tax money?
Right?
Well...
What if this bigoted florist was refusing to sell flowers for a wedding because the bride and groom were black? Or short? Or left-handed? Gay friends have told me that their sexuality is not some "lifestyle choice" they make, but instead a part of who they are. They were born that way, and nothing can change it. Just as straight people don't "choose" to be straight, they don't "choose" to be gay. I choose to believe them... partly because they are my friends and I trust them... but mostly because it would be fucking insane to think that homosexuality is some kind of massive deception by gays around the world and throughout all of history. And, since it would be discriminatory and illegal to deny floral service to a bride and groom with red hair wanting to get legally married... it should be discriminatory and illegal to deny floral service to a groom and a groom with gay hair wanting to get legally married.
We have chosen to make laws against discrimination. Here in Washington, we have chosen to extend that to include discrimination against same-sex marriage. If you break the law, there should be consequences. Like getting your ass sued.
Right?
Well...
And it goes on and on.
Marriage equality is something I support 100%. Love is love, and gay couples have every right to celebrate their love in marriage the same way that straight couples do. Anything less is not fair... it's not right... and it's not human. I believe this so strongly that I want to cheer on our Attorney General as he fights discrimination in Washington State. That's his job, after all.
But a part of me will always wonder if this is the best approach. She's withholding flowers... not urgent medical care... not life-sustaining goods... not some other critical need... it's flowers. Might it be better to just boycott her homophobic ass and let nature take its course? Let her business inevitably die out on its own instead of turn this florist into some kind of misplaced martyr for "religious freedom" that slows down our march to equality acceptance? That seems like it might be a better route to take.
Right?
Well...
This is not about fucking flowers... this is about dignity, respect, and human rights! It's about...
Oh hell. At some point I really just have to stop this.
Am I doing the smart thing and packing my suitcase right now? No. Instead I'm here blogging... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Awarded! I pretty much think that all award shows are crap, but the MTV Movie Awards at least show stuff you want to see. Not just with the nominees, but also in the commercials, which featured looks at upcoming hot movies... including two I'm dying to see: Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness. I think I've rewound and rewatched both spots on my DVR at least a half-dozen times now. Here's hoping they live up to the hype.
• Beebus! I know Justin Bieber is young and all... but holy shit...
I've been to the Anne Frank House. It is a very somber and emotional ordeal to experience how her family was forced to live and what they went through to survive. Once you've seen Anne's hopes and dreams on display throughout the museum, you're reminded that she ultimately didn't survive, and it's like a punch in the gut. You feel it.
But all Bieber seemed to take away from the experience was how cool it would be if she were alive today so she could be his fan. I honestly don't know if I should chime in on what a fucking moron he is... or just feel sorry for the little wanker being so blissfully clueless about anything except his own ego.
• Graze! In the UK they have a service which delivers healthy snacks directly to your mailbox once a week called "Graze." They're kind of famous for their olives, but they've got a pretty big assortment of nifty treats. Not so long ago, they launched here in the US, and I've been a member for the past twelve weeks. To make a long story short, it's probably not the greatest value for your money, as the four portions you get for $5 (delivered) are pretty small. That being said, I do like the variety and convenience...
Recently Graze sent out paper doll bunnies to their members(?!?). I have no idea why, as it seemed like a huge fucking waste of money. I would have been happier to get a dollar off my next box or something useful like that, but oh well.
About the only thing I don't like so far are their "flapjacks," which are a slimy granola bar of some kind. Other than that, everything is pretty decent. For some reason we Americans are denied the olives, but hopefully they'll be added at a later time. I think the service is still in beta, so signing up is limited to invite codes... but they should be launching for reals any time now. Might be worth checking out when they do.
• Coachella! Tonight OMD played Coachella and YouTube was streaming it live. While not quite the same experience as being there, I was really happy to see the show from the comfort of my living room...
Oh how I love this band. If you wanna take a look, YouTube may still have it up.
• Opener! Speaking of OMD, their opening act was a guy calling himself Diamond Rings. Surprisingly, his band exceeded my expectations in just about every way. Most of his music is inspired directly from 80's acts, and Marty and I spent his entire set tossing out which bands were the template for the song he was playing. I ended up buying his latest album off iTunes, as it has some good tracks...
If you're into 80's pop and looking for something new, Diamond Rings is worth a listen.
And... now I suppose I should pack that suitcase.
Boston is a city I love.
I've visited many times.
I have friends there. My favorite baseball team is from there.
Not surprisingly, the explosions that targeted The Boston Marathon shook me quite badly. I've stayed at the Lenox Hotel which got evacuated today. I've been to the Boston Public Library, which is just across the corner. I've walked down Boylston Street (where the explosions occurred) more times than I can count.
And I was there today... if only in a memory.
My heart goes out to everyone affected by this senseless tragedy.
The nice thing about working in Anaheim? DISNEYLAND!
It's the perfect place to take extended lunch hours for a ride and a meal. And, for this week at least, visiting an exhibit on Iron Man Armor to promote Iron Man 3... arriving in a theater near you on May 3rd!
They relocated Tony Stark's "Hall of Armor" to the Innoventions pavilion in Tomorrowland...
But the best part? You can SUIT UP to BE Virtual Iron Man!
It kind of works like an Xbox Kinnect game, where you stand in front of a screen with a camera to control the action...
When you start up, the armor comes flying onto you so you can dance, shoot stuff with your repulsors, and fly around...
Really, really cool.
I opted for a pricey (but delicious!) lunch at Wine Country Trattoria, because you can get a dining package which inclides priority viewing for Disney California Adventure's "World of Color" show. The dessert plate was awesome...
Off to Paradise Pier for the show...
I didn't want to get soaked, so I decided to watch from the second level reserved area, which was perfect. It reminds me of a show I saw as a kid called "Dancing Waters" which was at Sea World in San Diego...
It's all water, colored lights, lasers, and projected animation.
Pretty cool. And totally worth buying that expensive lunch pacakge to get such great "seats!"
YESTERDAY...
The drive over the mountain passes was pretty harsh. It was snowing like gangbusters, and there was water a half-inch thick on the roadway...
But, when I got to Seattle, the sky was on fire, so it all turned out okay in the end...
Annnnd... I'm spent.
Today I actually got to spend a little time in the parks, which was fun. The weather consisted of flawless blue skies with a nice breeze to take the edge off the heat.
And now some quick comments on the rides I got to see as I rushed around The House of the Mouse...
DISNEYLAND!
CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE!
If you're thinking "Holy crap that's a lot of closed rides! you'd be right. And the horrible thing is that they're mostly the big "E-Ticket" rides that people most want to see... Splash Mountain, Space Mountan, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Soarin', Dinseyland Railroad... so it's a major bummer. Especially Space Mountain and Soarin', which are only closed because (apparently) Disney stupidly ignored OSHA warnings that were given last year. Oh well. I've riden them all before... many times... but it makes me sad for all the people who came all the way to Disneyland to experience them, only to be told "no."
Anyway...
After dinner I stopped by to see Abigail for a few minutes and get a new wallet, so that was a nice end to my day.
Now it's off to sleep before another busy day tomorrow...
No work today and a late flight home.
It was a golden opportunity to goof around Disneyland and California Adventure so I could do all the little things I never got around to for the past two days. Which, given the massive number of attraction closures, wasn't a lot. California Screamin'? CLOSED. Soarin' Over California? CLOSED. Radiator Springs Racers? CLOSED. Space Mountain? CLOSED. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? CLOSED. I mean, come on... even the frickin' "Golden Zephyr" was CLOSED...
And The Jungle Cruise is scheduled to close for refurbishment next week too.
Though it's not like Disney has to give a fuck. People don't pay to ride the rides... they pay to enter the park. So long as they open their doors, they're making money, regardless of how many attractions they're actually bothering to open. The problem is that with so many of the most popular rides being closed on a busy day like today, all the rides that are open are overwhelmed with massively long line. It makes for a pretty shitty day at Disneyland.
Well, not so much for me. I've ridden all the rides here dozens of times. But can you imagine the family who saved for three years to take that magical trip to Disneyland only to arrive and find tons of shit closed? Pretty harsh.
Oh well. Even with half the good shit not being open, Disneyland is still a fun place to be, I suppose. And I did get to ride Mickey's Fun Wheel, which I've never done before...
There's quite a view from the top...
I also stood in line for an hour-and-a-half to ride "Toy Story Midway Mania" because it's Just. That. Fun.
Time to fly...
The best piece of advice I give when people ask about visiting Disney World in Orlando is to stay on-site in a Disney hotel. It's part of the experience, it has all kinds of benefits, and even the cheapest Disney property assures you of a clean, comfortable, convenient place to stay. If I had the option of going to Disney World today and staying off-site... or saving my money for an additional six months so I could stay on-site... I'd wait the six months.
Disneyland is a little different, because the off-site hotels are often just as close and convenient as The Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel... even though you don't get the "Magic Mornings" early-entry and other benefits. The exception would be Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, which sits inside California Adventure...
The hotel has its own private entrance to both California Adventure and Downtown Disney, which is pretty special.
But the biggest draw for me is that it's yet another architectural triumph from Peter Dominick, who designed Disney World's awesome Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge. Sadly, he died back in 2009, so I guess this is the last Disney hotel we'll be seeing from him. Staying at his hotels is an experience every bit as awesome as visiting Disney World or Disneyland...
The "Downtown Disney" private entrance to The Grand Californian.
Even the frickin' front doors are magnificent...
No joke... just walking up to those big main doors with the sun shining through is an amazing experience.
The rooms are quite nice, and everything reminds me very much of staying at Disney's Wilderness Lodge...
And now... a word about the view.
Since I was already paying the huge expense of staying at The Grand Californian, I felt I might as well go all the way and get a "Premium View" room... which either faces Downtown Disney, the parks, or the pool courtyard. Downtown Disney is noisy, and I've seen many noisy pools, so I picked the "Premium Parks View."
Only to find that my third floor room had no view of the parks. All I could see was trees. And the snout of Grizzly Mountain... if I went to the extreme edge of my balcony and leaned out.
So I went back down to the lobby and complained. There it was explained to me that the trees have grown over the 13 years the hotel has been open, so the lower floors don't have the view they used to. This was kind of upsetting, because they still sell them as Premium Park View Rooms! If they KNOW that there's no view, why do they still sell them as such? Well, money. And "technically" it still is a "parks view" since the parks are in that direction... you just can't see them.
In any event, I got moved up to the fifth floor, which was better... but still not the sweeping view of the parks I had imagined. Mostly just trees...
You can see a little Space Mountain and Soarin' Over California easy enough to the left. And if you squint you can see Tower of Terror and Cars Land. And there's Grizzly Peak hiding behind a tree there. So, yeah... it's a parks view. Just not much of one.
So, if you stay at The Grand Californian, skip paying extra for a "Premium View" that's not very premium. If you must have a "Premium View" room, I'd probably go with the "pool courtyard" view. Sure you've got kids screaming at the pool all day long... but at least there's something interesting to look at.
Anyway...
I didn't have any camera except the one in my iPhone, so I don't have any photos of this amazing hotel.
Well, okay, I have two I took one night...
Overall, I give Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa my highest recommendation if you're visiting Disneyland. Yes, it's expensive. Very expensive. But it will enhance your Disney experience, and is likely worth the money (though I'd probably skip the "premium view" expense). I had a terrific stay, and would absolutely stay here again.
I'm trying not to work all weekend.
Trying not to let a truly crappy week of bad news keep me down... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Czech! I know I shouldn't have been shocked when Twitter exploded with morons wanting to bomb "Czechoslovakia" as retaliation for the Boston bombings... but I admit that I honestly was. Partly because "Czechoslovakia" ceased to exist in 1992 after splitting into two countries (Czech Republic and Slovakia). But mostly because the Czech ambassador had to make a public statement explaining that the Czech Republic and Chechnya (where the bombers originated) ARE TWO SEPARATE COUNTRIES. The level of idiocy at work here just boggles my mind. I mean, if you're going to stupidly advocate bombing an entire country, shouldn't you at least make sure you have the right one? I'd hate to lose Prague, one of my favorite cities on earth, because "Czech" sounds suspiciously like "Chechnya" (as if blaming all Chechens for the act of two men with only remote ties to the country wasn't idiotic enough to begin with). If only ignorance was fatal, this country might actually stand a chance.
• OMNI! In what I can only describe as "wonderful," The Internet Archive has now put every episode of OMNI Magazine online, and they're free to access for everyone!
This groundbreaking magazine was something I treasured, and the copious number of talented writers who contributed to it are like a laundry list of genius. Absolutely worth your time to check out.
• CISPA! Why politicians keep dragging the CISPA "cyber security bill" back from the dead is a complete mystery to me. No American citizen in their right mind would want corporations and the government to have this kind of invasive power over their privacy, and yet here we go again. And what's even more horrific than the bill itself, is how many dumbfuck politicians voted for it to pass The House. TWO HUNDRED EIGHTY-EIGHT to ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN? SERIOUSLY?!? President Obama has promised to veto this shit if it somehow passes The Senate, but I'm disgusted beyond reason that it's gotten this far. How. Much. Longer? How much longer are American citizens going to put up with this?
• Sequestration! And so it begins. I would once again like to take this opportunity to offer a big FUCK YOU to our government for being so astoundingly incompetent. Again. I'm sure that crippling the airline industry will get our economy right back on track. Seriously, how much longer are American citizens going to put up with this?
• Gaudi! Having been to Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece, The Sagrada Familia Basílica three times now, I can say without hesitation that it is one of the most remarkable architectural achievements I have ever seen. Even if it still isn't completed. I could wander around for hours and never get bored just looking at it...
An absolutely magnificent photo of the ceiling taken by SBA73
Which is why I was happy to see an article at The Verge concerning completion of the structure pop up in my feed reader. Apparently 2026 is the date... I hope I'm around to visit one last time so I can see it completed.
Annnnnd... midnight is approaching. I suppose I should at least pretend to get some sleep.
This morning when I woke up I had an awesome idea for a blog post, but have since forgotten what it was. I can only guess I was going to talk about the perils of not writing things down after you turn 40, but who can say for sure?
Fortunately it's Earth Day today, so there's that to talk about.
Uhhhh... yeah... be kind to the earth... or whatever.
Well that didn't go very far now did it?
Except... Earth Day is also the anniversary of my becoming a vegetarian. I gave up meat on this date back in 1988. Which means it's been 25 years since I've had a hamburger.
A quarter-century since I've had a chicken nugget.
And 9131 days since I've eaten bacon.
No. I don't know how I've survived this long either.
And so I broke my tooth.
I don't know how I did it, but I ended up with this sharp crag that kept jabbing my tongue and catching food. My dentist was out last week, so a stand-in dentist ground it down. This kept me from going insane while I was at Disneyland, but didn't solve the problem.
Today was the day for that.
When it comes to dental work, I can't even stand to get my teeth cleaned. So you can imagine how I react to tooth reconstruction. The stabbing. The numbness. The grinding. The scraping. It's all I can do to keep from screaming the whole time. Fortunately, I have a really good dentist, so it was over before I knew it.
The good news? My repaired tooth is beautiful. It fits my bite like a glove.
The bad news? Something is bruised inside my jaw. Once the anesthesia wore off, I was in really bad shape...
Luckily, I still have some Oxycodone left over from my last kidney stone, and it's doing a wonderful job of keeping me from jumping into oncoming traffic to get rid of the pain. I can only hope that whatever is killing me will get better overnight, because I do not have time for this...
Awwww! Who doesn't love Sweet Brown? Especially now that she's doing ads for a dentist!
And now I suppose I should take more prescription drugs and call it a day.
But first? Chocolate pudding.
I don't take sick days.
Well, I rarely take sick days. It's such a rare event that I can't even remember the last time I've taken one. I go to work even when I'm sick, because that's just the kind of dedicated trooper I am.
But today was different because my aching jaw resulted in a migraine that was exponentially worse. Even looking at a computer screen for longer than 5 minutes made me want to vomit, so it was kind of pointless to go into work. Instead my activity was limited to taking painkillers and anti-nausea medication. It doesn't get much more fun than that.
With nothing to do but lay in bed all day, I tried to get a handle on my short-term goals for the remainder of the year (I gave up on long-term goals ages ago). I didn't come up with much...
That's actually a pretty ambitious list, considering I don't have time to get any of it done.
And... I think my five minutes are up.
Still in pain. But instead of doping up and laying in bed, I doped up and went to work today. I figure if I'm going to be miserable, I might as well try and be productive.
It didn't go very well. I got some stuff done, but never felt like myself. Sometimes in the middle of a project I'd forget who I was and what I was doing. Then I'd have to start all over again, which is the opposite of productive. Oh well. At least my mind was taken of my brain exploding. Kinda.
In happier news, I bought a new heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer for making bread...
Previous loaves were mixed by hand... but I could never get the recipe-stated 7 cups of flour into the mix. My arms would start to die at 6 cups. But this mixer easily manages to take the 7 cups, which makes for a much nicer, more elastic dough.
And now for my review of the KitchenAid KV25MCX Mixer (which is a model made for Costco).
I have mixed feelings on this product, and really wish I had researched more before making my purchase. The only thing I did know was to make sure I got a "fixed-head" mixer instead of a "tilt-head" mixer. "Fixed-head" mixers are supposed to be more powerful, which is what you want when you are kneading bread. I also heard that KitchenAid was a high-quality, made in the USA brand.
The problem is that this model has a "wide" bowl, which is what you don't want when kneading bread. Apparently, wider bowls allow for too much slop, which makes the bread want to climb up the hook more easily instead of staying in the bowl. The problem is nowhere near as bad as I've read, but it does happen every once in a while during the mix. The good news is that wide bowls are better for just about everything else. Except I'm going to be using it for bread 95% of the time, so I guess I should have looked for a more appropriate model.
In non-bread-making news, the mixer is awesome. The wire whisk aerates like a champ. The flat beater is nicely designed to mix thoroughly, quickly, and with minimal mess. I like the controls. I thought I'd be unhappy not having a tilt-head, but the bowl-raise alternative isn't bad at all, even though it's a bit less convenient.
When it comes to build quality, my initial impression is favorable. It's looks tough and feels solid. KitchenAid claims the gears are metal, which should make for good longevity. The problem is that customer reviews claim that not all the gears are metal, and some people are reporting that their gears are stripping after 4-8 months of use. Needless to say, this would suck ass when I paid $330 for a professional, high-quality mixer. But KitchenAid has a one-year warranty, so hopefully I'm covered.
If I was starting all over again, I would have probably invested the extra $110 and got the Pro Series 600, which apparently excels at bread-making. Oh well. Live and learn, I guess.
After three days, I'm finally starting to feel better. Not that I'll be doing cartwheels in my living room or anything...
After missing one day at work... and running at half-speed for two more... I've gotten incredibly behind. There are piles of projects on my desk, and I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get caught up.
So, naturally, I put in 16 hours today.
That really put the "turd" in my "Saturday." Especially considering I barely made a dent.
Right now, all I can think about is escape...
Well, escape and a Choco Taco...
Though that probably goes without saying.
You'd think I'd be tired of blogging after ten years, but obviously I'm a glutton for punishment... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Blogiversary! And it really has been ten years since this iteration of Blogography began. I bought the domain in March of 2002 and farted around with a hand-coded blog for a year. But then I ended up deleting it and starting over on April 28th, 2003. I managed to salvage a few old entries so, technically, Blogography began on April 18th, but I prefer thinking of the 28th as my blogiversary because that's when Apple's iTunes Music Store debuted as well. In any event, I should probably be celebrating that I made it this long...
Or committing myself to an insane asylum for keeping with it for this long. One or the other. Maybe both.
• Pot! Google's auto-complete is sure revealing. Guess it's a good thing it's legal here now...
• Chase! And so I bought the latest LEGO video game for Nintendo 3DS. It's called LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins...
It's frickin' adorable.
It's also one of the most frustrating pieces of shit excuses for a video game I've ever played.
Billed as a prequel to the police-themed LEGO City Undercover for the Wii U system, this is a scaled-down version of the massive "sandbox" world of the original, but squeezed to fit in a 3DS. Even so, it's still a huge world filled with puzzles to solve and nifty stuff to collect. Along the way you have missions to accomplish which move you through the story and introduce you to the various areas of LEGO City. All of which are beautifully rendered, and yours to explore as your alter-ego, undercover cop Chase McCain. In an effort to mix things up a bit, McCain can adopt different undercover "disguises," each of which grants him new and unique abilities. It's all very clever and can be a lot of fun... when you're not screaming curse words at the game for being so horrendously frustrating.
I've been playing LEGO video games for years. And there's one thing they can never get right... vehicle control. Any time you have to drive ANYTHING in ANY LEGO game, you're assured of shitty, frustrating, worthless controls. Forget trying to actually accomplish something, you're lucky just to keep the damn car on the road. And there's a lot of driving in LEGO City Undercover. As if that weren't bad enough, certain scenarios require precision acrobatics that are beyond frustrating and pretty much destroy the game. It's astounding how the game can be so forgiving in some areas, but ruthlessly unforgiving in others, and it's enough to drive you insane.
Ultimately, there's enough humor, fun, and surprises to make me glad I bought LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins, but I sure wish that somebody would tell developer Traveler's Tales that frustrating does not equal fun. FIX THE FUCKING DRIVING CONTROLS NEXT TIME, ASSHOLES!
• Repugnant! Some people are such huge pieces of hypocritical garbage that they're pretty much irredeemable. Despite my defending her in the past, Sarah Palin has totally crossed that line. She probably crossed it a long time ago, but this latest round of bullcrap is what got me to take serious notice. What a fucking useless shit-stain on the fabric of society.
• Fugly! Wondering for the hundredth time why in the hell the United States has some of the ugliest fucking money on the planet. Seriously, Yes, I've harped on this before, but the latest release for the $100 bill is the worst yet and near vomit-inducing...
I know that rampant counterfeiting has made it so that certain design compromises have to be made to implement security measures... but this is fucking ridiculous. As if it weren't bad enough that our currency isn't worth a shit, we have to be embarrassed with this ugly, amateurish excuse for "design" that looks like shit too. Why can't they hire an actual graphic designer for important stuff like this instead of letting somebody's kid at the US Mint slap it together in Microsoft Word. Your (hideous) tax dollars at work, people!
And now I'm going to go contemplate whether I can survive ten more years of blogging.
Odds are, you've heard of "Google Glass"... the computer you wear like a busted pair of sunglasses that can take photos, shoot videos, and do much of the stuff you can do with regular Google (such as search, get directions, send an email, check the weather, etc.). All in all, it's an impressive use of tech that could be a hint at how computers will even further integrate into our lives in the future.
If you haven't seen it, here's a first-person promo piece...
The problem most people have with GooGlass (as I call it) is twofold. First of all are the privacy concerns. Somebody wearing a unit could be filming you as you're having lunch or something. Second of all are the rudeness concerns. Somebody wearing a unit could be ignoring you as you're talking to them and instead concentrating on a video of kittens playing on the Glass screen.
I admit these are valid concerns.
But my problem with GooGlass is much bigger...
Photo courtesy of Google... because, well... you know...
Is there any way of wearing this crap on your face that doesn't make you look like a complete douchebag? (doucheborg?)
I only ask because I honestly don't think there is.
Maybe GooGlass will prove so compelling that people won't care.
It's like parachute pants are happening all over again.
A fellow cinephile and I were chatting about the large number of awesome movies being released this year, and decided we should make lists of our most anticipated films so we could compare them. We started with 10 films each, then added another 10 to create a "Top 20" list. After some discussion, I added 5 more films, which means I now have a "Top 25 List of Dave's Most Anticipated Films" for the remainder of 2013.
I should probably come back and grade them all after I've seen them.
That's a lot of movies.
Our local Sears store is closing.
I am not entirely surprised by the news, but I am a bit saddened. For the longest time during my childhood, Sears was the place to shop in our valley. There wasn't much competition, and the internet wasn't a Thing yet, so you went to Sears. My first computer, an Atari 800, was bought at that Sears. All the software I saved my allowance to buy came from Sears (mostly INFOCOM games like Zork). Appliances and tools all came from Sears. Clothing came from Sears too. And if there was something Sears didn't have that you needed, you could order it from their catalog.
So yeah, I have fond memories of Sears and it seems strange to think about it closing.
I haven't shopped there in years, of course.
The last thing I bought at Sears was a Kenmore washer and dryer... or maybe it was some Craftsman tools... but that was at least a decade ago. I feel bad about that, but they just don't have anything I want to buy. Not any more...
I drew this Atari 800 for the cover of Kevin Savetz's terrific book, Terrible Nerd!
And now I think I'll have a beer and reminisce about the good ol' days when I was a kid and the Sears Christmas Catalog was my world.
Much like Apple.com is now.
Today was hot. Next week the forecast looks to be very hot.
It seems like Spring has already gone, and Summer has magically appeared. Meanwhile, one of the mountain passes was closed because of heavy snow. I don't even have an opinion on that.
The good news is that all the flowers are popping up, which makes for a nice distraction as you're walking down the street...
The bad news is that my allergies have started up and are trying to kill me.
Here's to two weeks of watering eyes and a runny nose.
One of the nice things about having a blog that's been around a while is that you have a record of what you were doing in years past. In my case, it's a record that spans ten years, which is pretty good.
Except not always. I was a sporadic blogger in the beginning and sometimes weeks passed between entries. So, in the beginning at least, there are stretches which are entirely unknown. Later years are better, however...
Of course, that's just the stuff I decided I could write about. Who knows what was going on between the lines.
Probably stuff I'm better off forgetting anyway.
Happy Star Wars Day!
Which would be a lot more fun if I had internet. Oh well.
Darth Monkey would say "May the Fourth be with you"... but they don't do that on the Dark Side.
Happy Cinco de Mayo! Hopefully you're somewhere drinking way too much while having the time of your life. Meanwhile I'm sitting on my couch working while the internet keeps fading in and out.
It's a real party.
Or could be, if I had some tequila...
In any event, NO BULLET SUNDAY FOR YOU! It'll have to wait until tomorrow when (hopefully) I'll have my internet fixed.
Don't get confused that bullets are flying on a Monday... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Downey Jr.! Marvel's box office streak continues. Iron Man 3 had the second biggest domestic opening of all time ($175.3 million), second only to Marvel's The Avengers (which bowed last summer with $207.4 million). This is a continuing, shining example of how staying faithful to the source material with popular characters will result in popular movies...
I can't wait to see it! I just have no idea when I'll have time to.
• Gates! Look, I understand that Bill Gates has to continue to support Microsoft even though he's not running the place any more. I get it. The company made him billions upon billions of dollars, and he's obligated to say fantastic things about it no matter what happens. Anything less would be ungrateful.
Really?
Look, if I am going to be doing a lot of data entry or typing a lot of text, I'm going to use a computer. But for surfing the web, taking notes, checking and writing email, reading books and comics, and dozens upon dozens of other everyday tasks? I grab for my iPad. It's not the best tool for typing, of course, but it's really comfortable and useful for a lot of the stuff I do on a regular basis. So, no, Bill... I am not a frustrated iPad user. What I WAS was a frustrated Windows 8 user. So frustrated that I took your new piece-of-shit operating system and tossed it in the garbage after downgrading to Windows 7, which was at least tolerable. So... Bill... before dumping all over iPad with your pathetic whining, you might want to take a look at the turd that you're claiming is such a superior experience. Because it's not. It so totally and absolutely is not.
• Rollins! I just tuned into Hawaii Five-0 tonight only to see that it's guest-starring Henry Rollins and Mare Winningham as child kidnappers! Yes... THE Henry Rollins!
As a big fan for a very long time, it was cool to see Henry Rollins playing a bad guy on TV. His performance was pretty darn good given that he didn't have a lot to do... however... there was a problem.
<< SPOILER ALERT >>
At one point, Henry's character has been caught. But he refuses to talk, so the cops decide not to be cops and beat the shit out of him to get the info they need. The first thing to enter my head was "Well this is going to be hilarious!," because the idea of two Hollywood actors beating up Henry frickin' Rollins is absurd. Even if he was handcuffed. But then the camera turns away, which means that the people making the episode also thought the idea of two Hollywood actors beating up Henry frickin' Rollins was absurd. And that made it even more hilarious.
• Restless! So... turns out that "Restless Legs Syndrome" is not the load of bullshit I always thought it was. I've had leg pains for as long as I can remember, but it's always been fairly mild and ignorable. Over the past year, I've been having increasingly odd and un-ignorable "rolling pains" that move up and down my legs. It kind of feels like electricity on the inside that will give me mild shocks in random places, then tingle and go dead. But it only seems to be a problem late in the day when I've been sitting at work... or sitting on the couch... or sitting on a plane... or laying down in bed. But when I move my legs, the weird feeling subsides. This means I am constantly shifting my legs, often-times without even realizing it. So it looks like I now have a neurological disorder. Which makes me wonder yet again "What's going to go to shit on my body next?"
• Riker! HOW DID I NEVER NOTICE THIS?!?
So... bad back... or lifestyle choice?
And... no internet. Again. This is getting silly.
When I was a kid, I wanted a model train. I loved trains.
For one reason of another, I never got one. And this actually ends up being a good thing, because I've gotten to the point now where I absolutely fucking hate... HATE... trains. And I really don't want any fond childhood memories of them.
BECAUSE TRAINS ARE STUPID NOISY AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GETTING IN THE WAY!
I've lost count of the number of times I've been just on the verge of falling asleep... only to have a train blow through town with its whistle blowing every ten seconds. GAH!
Then yesterday I had an errand to run. I took the first left to cross the railroad tracks only to have a train blocking me. It kept going slower and slower until it just stopped on the tracks. Not waiting to wait, I unleash a slew of curse-words, back-tracked, then headed back down the street... where I took the second left onto 9th Street. Only to have another train (or maybe it was the same one) blocking my path. For the second time, it kept going slower and slower until it just stopped on the tracks... WITH ONLY THREE FUCKING CARS LEFT TO GO! Which meant I had to BACKTRACK AGAIN after unleashing an even bigger slew of curse-words. Fortunately, 5th Street has an underpass, so I didn't get screwed again, but still... this is pretty stupid...
And I thought just waiting on a train was a pain in the ass. Nothing like taking a 20 minute trip and turning it into 40 minutes. GAH!
Stupid trains.
Most every single thing I do for my job is with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. These are the apps I need to do whatever it is I do, and my work would be very difficult indeed without them.
Not to say that there aren't alternatives... there are plenty... but when it comes to the feature-rich tools I know best, and the ability to work together in the way I need them to, Adobe is the only game in town.
It used to be that Adobe apps were purchased like most any software... you buy them. Well, not "buy" per-se, it's more like a "one-time permanent lease payment"... and once you pay your money you can use them for as long as they work for you. This "Creative Suite" can then be upgraded every year or two when Adobe finishes up a new version.
Last year Adobe introduced a new way of using their products... renting. They call it "Creative Cloud" and for fifty bucks a month, they're all yours to use as much as you want...
The good news is that, so long as you keep paying, your apps are always up-to-date. You always have the latest features, and Adobe rolls them out when they're ready rather than making you wait for the next release. That much is really sweet.
I had already moved to Creative Cloud last year, so this doesn't really affect me. But what if it does?!?
This could be bad.
Because what if Adobe discontinues an app?
As unlikely as it may be, let's say that Adobe kills off Illustrator in a couple years. You can't rent it any more. It's gone. And since you aren't able to buy it, you can't access any of your files created with it. You can't open them. You can't print them. You can't export them for use with another program. All your years of hard work essentially vanishes overnight. Everything you've created in Adobe Illustrator has to be recreated from scratch in a different program. Unless some other app comes along that reads the format.
But that's not all though. There's all kinds of doomsday scenarios that come to mind. What if Adobe doesn't kill an app... but instead raises the price of using it to $1000 a month? Pretty much the same thing, isn't it? You're trapped. You pay what Adobe wants or else you lose everything. Or maybe they don't raise the price... but all of a sudden your financial situation changes and you can't afford the rent? Again, pretty much the same thing. You're locked out and all your stuff is inaccessible.
So I guess this is bad.
And right now I'm more than a little worried.
Adobe needs to do two things to make me feel a bit better about this New World Order...
ONE
Release free "reader" programs for all their apps that at least let you look at your work. And print it. And possibly convert it to an open format so you could take it elsewhere if something happened that you couldn't use Creative Cloud any more. Knowing that I could at least see my work... and ideally export it somehow... would go a long way towards easing my mind and helping me to accept our Adobe Overlords.
TWO
Create smaller bundles of apps. As I said, I use three apps from Creative Cloud. THREE OUT OF WHAT... THIRTY?!? Give or take (some of these are services, not apps, that I won't use)...
It feels like a complete rip-off that I have to pay for development of huge bunches of crap I will never (or rarely) use. Even if it were to only save me $10 a month... perhaps by renting a "designer bundle" with only the "Big Three" that I need or something... well... I would feel much better about my rent. As it is, I think it's absurd that I am forced to pay for shit like "Flash Builder Premium" that I would sooner light on fire than ever load onto my computer. This is like the cable company all over again, and it's not a good thing.
Realistically, Number Two will probably never happen. But Number One pretty much has to. If it doesn't... if there's a risk that all my work could become inaccessible tomorrow (for whatever reason)... well... is that a risk I can really afford to take?
Perhaps it's time to start exploring some of those other options?
Tomorrow I'm heading to the East Coast for one day.
Well, technically, it's three days... one to get there... one to work... then one to get back.
Or I suppose I am actually flying to the East Coast for two hours, which is about how long my work will take me. After that, I'm just goofing off to kill time.
In any event, there are some things that emails, video chats, and overnight delivery can't fix, so off I go...
And there goes my weekend.
I always love watching lightning crash outside an airplane window.
But not as much as I love thunderstorms causing a landing delay.
Okay... I'm totally lying. I don't love either of those things. But that's just part of the travel game, and it does happen from time to time. All you can do is hope that you've drank enough alcohol that you don't mind so much. Otherwise? Not fun. Well, it is fun to track your flight path after you've landed and see what crazy loop-de-do holding pattern your flight took...
Flight tracking map courtesy of FlightAware!
And so now it's 12:40am after one long-ass day of travel and all I want to do is go to bed.
But my internal clock is still on West Coast time and there are people screaming outside my hotel room, so I guess you really don't always get what you want.
And speaking of that...
Guess it's a good thing I brought a raincoat.
And so tragedy strikes... my MagSafe ver. 1 to MagSafe ver. 2 adapter has gone missing somewhere between Seattle and here.
Which means I don't have a way of charging my Mac Book.
Which means a recap of my way-too-short adventures in Washington, D.C. will have to wait until tomorrow given that my battery is at 4% and falling.
Not to mention that I have to get up in five hours so I can fly back home.
Assuming the assholes making noise outside my hotel room shut the hell up real soon now, I may actually get a couple hours sleep.
Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America... because a Very Special Washington, D.C. Edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Pret! I headed into the city early for work because I knew that Union Station DC had a Pret shop inside. As I have said many times, my all-time favorite breakfast is a Pret Egg and Fire-Roasted Tomato Sandwich, so missing out was not an option...
As expected, it was frickin' amazing... and a fantastic start to my day.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum! One of the best museums I've ever had the pleasure of visiting is the World War I Museum in Kansas City. The design of the exhibit space is just exceptional, and a commenter told me the same guy (Ralph Applebaum) also designed The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. So, naturally I was curious. Add to that the fact that my very good blog friend, Mr. Shiny, is married to one of the curators, and I was compelled to pay a visit...
Not surprisingly, the museum is stunning. As expected, the exhibit spaces are wonderfully orchestrated to tell the story of one of this planets' greatest atrocities... and it's done so well that you feel it. I had planned on spending a half-hour wandering around, but was here nearly two hours. Deeply moving and extremely popular (get there early!), the museum gets my highest possible recommendation.
• National Air and Space Museum! This trip to DC, I decided to put aside my usual stops and visit some of the places I haven't been to in a while. Like the Smithsonian's Air and Spaaaaaaace Museum...
I swear... everything looks the exact same as when I was first there in 1996! They aren't too big on updating the main exhibits, I guess... which is a shame. But, still, some cool stuff...
And I could never get tired of looking at the original USS Enterprise model...
• Crapital! Why oh why do they have to put up garbage in front of beautiful buildings like the US Capital? There's a tent, some kind of screens, and other crap junking up the place, which is just wrong. When visitors walk by, they shouldn't have all the obstructions and distractions...
Because, seriously, if you came all the way to the US Capital, would you want THIS to be the photo you show all your friends when you get back?
• National Gallery of Art! I've been here most every single time I've come to DC... which is why I was going to avoid it this time. But I just couldn't do it. The place is packed with treasures and FREE! So I took a half-hour to wander a bit, which is when I found this beautiful table that I don't remember seeing before...
It's just like the chess table on the Millenium Falcon!
• National Archives The line was really short as I walked by, so I decided to drop in to the National Archives and see if we still had a Constitution. Between the Tea Party Right wanting to strip everybody of all individual rights except guns... and the Extreme Left wanting to eliminate individuality entirely, sometimes I have a hard time remembering. Turns out we DO! Though it's badly faded and hard to see. Just like real life... and just like this scan of the Declaration of Independence...
• Vietnam Memorial! By the time I got to The Wall, it was pouring down rain. This made the sculptures for the Vietnam Soldier's Memorial and the Vietnam Women's Memorial look even more beautiful than they usually do...
Ever since my first visit to The Wall, I've returned every time I'm in Washington, D.C. to pay my respects to Roderick L. Mayer, a MIA/POW whose memorial bracelet I've been wearing for the past 17 years...
And since every time I post about my dedication to MIA/POW issues I get hate-comments from people telling me that this is all a big myth, I'm just going to post a clickable copy of a letter to Roderick Mayer's parents, then tell any detractors they can go fuck themselves (John McCain and John Kerry included)...
• Korean War Memorial! A hauntingly beautiful memorial, and one of my world favorites. I found this documentary video which explains the thought that went into it...
It really has to be seen in person to get the full experience... and, if you're ever in DC, I highly recommend it.
• Lincoln! Another memorial monument that I absolutely love is Abraham Lincoln's. Visiting is akin to a spiritual experience...
And, of course, the view from the top of the steps is pretty special...
Even if the 2011 earthquake has busted the Washington Monument to shit and it's all covered in scaffolding now...
At some point, you have to ask yourself if it isn't worth knocking the thing down and building a new one from scratch. Yeah... yeah... yell at me all you want, but I'm sick of having busted shit in my photos. Historical conservation aside, it's kind of bullshit to visit a place and have nothing but photos of scaffolding or construction crews (like last time) to show for it. Apparently they're going to finish with the restoration sometime next year. Hopefully the wait will be worth it, and the monument won't fall to pieces again two years later.
• National World War II Memorial! I'm just going to come right out and say it... I have never liked this installation, and wish that they had come up with something more meaningful and thoughtful than this lame excuse for a memorial...
It's just so boring, repetitive and tacky. And I don't "get" how it honors World War II vets... if anything, it looks more like it's some kind of monument to US states and territories...
Compare it to the Korean and Vietnam memorials, and it's just so forgettable and unimpressive... even though it's so big. Probably because it's so big? I dunno. All I do know is that those who fought and died in World War II deserve something better than this.
• Shiny! Tired and soaking wet, I was pretty much done with Washington, D.C. when 5:00 rolled around. Fortunately, Mr. Shiny (who you should know from his most excellent co-hosting duties on the Hey! That's My Hummus! podcast) rescued me from my day and whisked me off to dinner with his family. But before we got there, he took me to see the Peeps & Co. Store in National Harbor and a really cool statue called "The Awakening" that's across the street...
Poor guy looks to me like he's drowning in sand.
Dinner with the Shinies was a lot of fun... until they brought the hummus...
Just because he has a podcast called "Hey! That's My Hummus!" doesn't mean he gets to eat it all. I love hummus! I guess I should be thankful that Faiqa wasn't there, or else I would have had to fight off two people! Fortunately, my delicious black bean burger had hummus on it, so I was totally taken care of in the chickpea department.
And, just like that, my one funtabulous day in Washington, D.C. was over. Hopefully next time I'll get to stay a while.
• WTF?! And jut because I can't end Bullet Sunday on such a happy note... Holy. Fucking. Shit. Not only is Newt Gingrich confounded as to what to call a "smartphone"... he seems genuinely perplexed by multi-functional modern technology. And this is a guy who could have been elected President of the United States of America!
"This pencil also erases. It has an eraser right on the top of it. So it's not a pencil. It's not an eraser. It's something new. A new technology that's only beginning. And we here at Gingrich Productions have spent weeks trying to figure out what to call it..."
I'm horrified that this kind of absurd cluelessness completely defines our country's government. Legislators are making laws about things they don't understand and are too lazy to actually take the time to educate themselves about. This is exactly how idiotic shit like ACTA happens, and we all pay the price for our political leaders being intentionally uninformed morons.
And... it's late. Happy Mother's Day, everybody!
My 6:00am flight out of Baltimore meant that I had to get up at 3:45am. This gave me 30 minutes to pack, shower, put on pants, brush my teeth, check out of my hotel, and catch the shuttle to arrive at BWI at 4:30am. Getting up at 3:45am is no fun at all. Especially when your internal clock is three hours earlier than that.
What was fun was using iPhone's Passbook...
This very cool bit of tech puts stuff like tickets, boarding passes, loyalty cards, membership accounts, and other things all at one place. Buy an Amtrak ticket? It goes to Passbook. Check in for your flight? Your boarding pass goes to Passbook. Check in at your hotel? Open up Passbook for your loyalty card.
And it's always handy.
When I arrived at the train station, my ticket was on my lock screen.
When I got to the airport, my boarding pass was on my lock screen too. One swipe, and it magically appears...
So cool. As somebody who travels a lot, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes my life easier.
The problem is that not enough companies are using it. Many airlines I fly, like Alaska Air, aren't using it. Most of the hotels I stay at, like Hilton, aren't using it. And it would be nice one day if credit cards could be added, because that would lighten my wallet considerably.
I think that Apple made the right move with Passbook because it doesn't require companies to install new equipment for NFC (or whatever)... everybody can use the scanners they already have.
It's just a question as to when (if?) these companies will return the favor and give their customers the convenience of implementing it.
I have never been a fan of war movies.
Probably because the war movies I was most familiar with growing up were the John Wayne war glorification films that put a heroic gloss on war that made it seem like some kind of desirable activity... instead of the horrific failure of the human condition that it really is. There were exceptions, of course (Grave of the Fireflies comes immediately to mind), but the vast majority of films I saw were whitewashed pro-war propaganda.
But then war films started changing.
And the turning point for me was Saving Private Ryan.
Here was a film that was showing us heroism amongst the brutality of war, and it was achieved by being honest about just how horrible and terrifying it is for everybody involved. No glossing over the death and destruction with lame-ass "ACK! You got me, you dirty Nazi!" style casualties... Saving Private Ryan blew people apart with bloody abandon, illustrating that just surviving a war with your sanity in tact was a heroic effort.
Then came A Very Long Engagement and The Hurt Locker and Band of Brothers and Letters from Iwo Jima and Defiance and Zero Dark Thirty and even Inglourious Basterds... and numerous other movies which, while not entirely propaganda-free, at least tried to be more honest in their depiction of war. But, most important of all, they were simply very good films.
Which all leading to (what is now) one of my most anticipated films of 2013, and it finally has an international trailer...
I fully admit that when I first read about the film being made, I was intrigued. Stalingrad is one of the most brutal battles in world history, and getting a modern film on the subject made by actual Russians could make for a very interesting flick. But then I heard it was going the Titanic-love-story-against-disaster route and I lost interest. And then I heard it was being filmed in 3-D and really lost interest.
But now this cinematic and stylish trailer has arrived, and I can't wait to see this film.
I can only hope that the story and acting lives up to the promise of the visuals.
Despite what you may have read, this is not
the best Iron Man movie ever made.
The best Iron Man movie ever made is The Avengers. And that's because, so far as comic book super-hero films go, that movie was insane. Finally... finally we got to see all-out super-hero action taken to the degree it's at in the comics, and Iron Man was a huge part of that.
So I guess that Iron Man 3 would be the second-best Iron Man film ever made.
More or less...
Co-written and directed by Shane Black, the writer genius behind Lethal Weapon and The Long Kiss Goodnight, Iron Man 3 is a very good film in a surprising number of ways. Even if you were take Iron Man out of the equation. Which the movie does... a lot... because Tony Stark is the star of this show. Iron Man is relegated to a supporting player (albeit an important one).
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark so flawlessly that you're always left wanting more... on the other... well, you're going to an Iron Man movie to see Iron Man.
Putting all that aside, the film feels very Shane Black. Which is mostly a good thing.
There be spoilers from here on out, so don't click through to the extended entry unless you've already seen Iron Man 3...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Spanky the Cat finally went to the vet and got a clean bill of health. And a sex change. Turns out that it's a "he" instead of a "she." Oh well. He's in good shape, which is all that matters.
Much to the relief of everybody in the neighborhood, who's glad he's still hanging around...
The trip must have been exhausting, as Spanky fell asleep shortly after he got back.
The cost of a trip to the supermarket has reached such epic heights that I've developed a genuine fear of grocery shopping. The panic sets in the minute I enter the parking lot, and all I can think of is how I am not escaping for less than $50 no matter how little I have on my list. This is especially scary when you consider that I'm vegetarian, don't eat a lot, actively look for sale items, and buy the cheapest option whenever I can.
I have no clue how large families can afford to feed themselves now-a-days.
Guess I'm going to have to start buying in bulk, look into buying a FoodSaver, and start freezing everything.
Or start a garden.
Or beg for food in the streets.
For the past seven months I've been saving for a new camera and I finally ordered it today. It arrives tomorrow. But after my latest trip to the grocery store, I'm starting to wonder if I should have kept the money in savings so I can eat.
Nah.
Priorities and all that.
Fred Armisen and Bill Hader will be sorely missed now that they are departing from Saturday Night Live. And, given their incredible body of work and the dozens of characters they inhabited, it's hard to see anybody stepping into their shoes any time soon.
But the real damage in Armisen and Hader leaving comes from the astounding number of imperessions they contributed. According to the SNL Archives, Armisen had 98 celebrities in his arsenal, and Hader added another 82. That kind of versatility is tough to come by and a part of me wonders how the current cast is going to fill the massive hole left now that they're off the show.
On the plus-side, appearances by Hader's "Stefon" will hopefully be rare from here on out...
I fucking hate Stefon.
Every time he appears, it's the SAME DAMN SKIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Maybe I found it mildly amusing when he appeared the first time, but each subsequent appearance was awful.
And yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, I know people who just love Stefon. To each their own, I guess... but I just don't get it.
Of course, Armisen and Hader aren't the only members of the cast moving on.
Odds are running high that Jason Sudekis won't be returning. That's going to really hurt.
And come next January, Seth Meyers will leave to replace Jimmy Fallon on Late Night when Jimmy replaces Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. It's going to be really interesting to see who takes over the SNL News desk when that happens. There's a peculiar kind of talent needed to pull it off, and I'm not seeing that in anybody left.
In other words, it's not looking very good for Saturday Night Live. Kenan Thompson is the only long-time player left and, while I like some of the newer people, you kinda have to wonder how much longer the show will go on if something big doesn't break soon.
Like Eddie Murphy coming back.
Anyway, farewell to Mr. Armisen and Mr. Hader.
And thanks for the laughs.
Don't put down that remote... because a Very Special Television Preview Edition of Bullet Sunday (filled with the top five shows I'm looking forward to in the coming season) starts now...
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Wait... Agent Coulson is alive? Yeah, like I could possibly pass this one up. Joss Whedon is executive producing this spin-off from The Avengers (AND directing the pilot episode!) which makes it must-see TV...
• The Blacklist. And here we have a Silence of the Lambs homage. Sounds like a complete waste of time, right? Except... James Spader is the one playing the psycho criminal who's partnering up with a young female FBI agent. How can I say no to that?
• Almost Human. Okay, I'm a total sucker for Holmes & Yoyo for the 21st century. The fact that it stars Karl Urban is just icing on the cake...
• Dracula. It's Carnivale meets Downton Abbey... LITERALLY... as two of the people responsible for those shows team up for this ten-part series based on everybody's favorite blood-sucker. If nothing else, it looks to have really nice production values, so I'll be tuning in...
• Intelligence. Former Lost heartthrob Josh Holloway stars as some kind of secret agent with a microchip in his head that lets him access the internet and know anything. I'm guessing this is supposed to be a retread of Chuck with a less whiny character? I dunno, but the whole "Six Million Dollar Man for the Information Age" angle has me intrigued, so I'll give it a shot...
That's five. There will be more to follow, I'm sure. But if the rest of the up-fronts being touted are any indication, it's probably not going to be very much more.
I mean, Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar starring as a father/daughter team in a new show by David E. Kelley? Seriously? And here I thought that Michael J. Fox poking fun at his Parkinson's disease in his new series was over the top. And then there's John frickin' Malkovich playing a modern-day pirate, which looks utterly bizarre. But, hey, at least these are original shows. Most everything else is either a remake of a foreign series, or a copy of what's come before...
Heroes is reborn as The Tomorrow People?
Twin Peaks is ripped off for Wayward Pines?
Roswell is transformed into Star-Crossed?
About a Boy reincarnated as a television series?
Blair Underwood takes on Raymond Burr's Ironside?
It just goes on and on. But hopefully the majority of it won't be as gut-wrenchingly horrible as this shit...
Ye gads. Kind of makes me want to swear off television forever.
So saddened to hear of the horrendous losses torn out of Oklahoma today.
The devastation is soul-crushing, and my heart goes out to those still searching for friends and loved ones amongst the ruins.
This includes pets and animals, whose suffering is all too often overlooked...
Photo by Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press
Oklahoma City's Pet Food Pantry is donating food and supplies to anybody with pets in need. If you'd like to support their efforts, I'm sure they would appreciate your donation.
UPDATE: Well this is frightening...
Ever since I returned from my "Wild Africa Trek" back in September, I've been saving up for a new camera. I love my Nikon D90, but it's like a boat anchor hanging around my neck when I'm leaning over cliffs, hiking on rope bridges, and otherwise actively goofing off. It's bulky and heavy and has lenses that are equally bulky and heavy, so I find myself leaving it at home more often than not. My iPhone may not take "great" photos, but it's certainly good enough (and at least it doesn't get in my way).
But what camera to buy? I already have a pocket camera, which is okay, but hardly the quality I'm looking for. A next-generation "mirrorless" camera seemed like the way to go. They're much smaller than a DSLR, but produce similar quality photos. At first I was looking at Nikon and Canon, since those were the brands I was familiar with. But the reviews of Nikon's N-1 were less than stellar... and when I played with Canon's EOS-M it was a piece of crap.
Enter the Sony NEX-7. A serious photographer friend of mine has one and won't shut up about how much he loves the thing. I borrowed it for a couple hours and was suitably impressed. Right then and there I knew that Sony was the camera for me. Though I did bypass the NEX-7 for the newer (and slightly less expensive) NEX-6. It just seemed like a better fit for me...
My "review" and random thoughts on the NEX-6 can be found in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
One of the few things that will make me set aside my laptop and actually concentrate on a singular event? The Daily Show.
John Stewart is at his best when he's ripping somebody apart for their blatant hypocrisy, and his take-down of Peggy Noonan tonight is among his best efforts...
I wonder if she feels even a modicum of shame for being such a shining example of the very definition of hypocritical asshole
I'm guessing not.
I am not a big fan of bugs. It's not like I faint when I see them or anything... it's just that I prefer not to be around them. Unless I am at a zoo. And there is glass between me and the bugs.
So you can imagine my horror at having to research bugs when I need to draw them. And it happens more often than you'd think... most recently for issues of THRICE Fiction magazine. At first I'm always my usual squeamish self but, after looking at a few hundred photos of the little devils close-up, I start to appreciate their beauty. Often times they have features unlike anything else you can find on earth and it's not hard to appreciate this kind of artistry on such a small scale.
But I digress.
We've reached the time that a bizarre insect known as the cicada starts making one of their rare appearances. After seventeen years underground, they dig their way to the surface where they molt, eat, mate, then die... by the bazillions. We don't have cicadas here in my little corner of Washington State, but I've seen a cicada bloom before. It's pretty much "bugageddon," and the things are crawling everywhere... all while making crazy levels of noise. It's pretty creepy even if you aren't afraid of bugs. Fortunately it only lasts a couple weeks.
When my writer-friend (and frequent THRICE Fiction contributor) Susan Tepper mentioned that she was sweeping them off her home, a "Cicada Challenge" was born, and I had to draw her a picture of one.
I always thought that a poor cicada who spends seventeen years underground waiting for sex would be a little mental when it's finally time to dig his way out, so I gave him crazy eyes...
Along with the drawing, I also wrote this poem for Susan...
Fifteen years and two I'm sleeping
Dreaming of the day I'm leaping
Now it's time to start the humping
But before I get to jumping
I dig, I molt, I eat, I'm singing
Looking for a date I'm springing
Crunch
Crunch
Crunch
Now I'm dead my shell is crushing
Susan's broom and deadly brushing
All those years of patient waiting
Biding time 'til I start mating
No chance now for happy screwing
A lust for love was my undoing
I should have stayed in bed
And now I can put cicadas behind me. Well, for seventeen years anyway.
Summer is really here!
And tonight I decided to cut off all my hair again so I look feel cool. It's not so much an act of liberation, but one of convenience. And comfort. I just can't take having a sweaty mess on my head when the weather goes from hot to unbearably hot. Especially when I'm traveling.
Giving myself a haircut was the highlight of my day. All I did outside of that was work.
And wish I was anywhere but here. Perhaps here...
There are certainly worse places to be than Mt. Haleakala at sunrise.
The big news of the day? I'm out of paper towels.
Ordinarily, paper towels are not something I tend to think about. But when you don't have any... and then you run into a situation where having a paper towel would be really handy... well, all of a sudden you become a huge paper towel fan and all you can think about is how horrible your life has just become without them...
Granted, if you're going to have a problem in life... running out of paper towels is probably the best you could hope for. But isn't whining about inconsequential crap what the internet was made for? I hope so, because that's a lot more fun than going to the store and buying more paper towels.
Better switch to decaffeinated... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Gamer. I am most definitely not what you would call a "hard core gamer." I just like to play an occasional video game when I can find time, and am just as likely to be playing LEGO Batman as I am Call of Duty: Black Ops. That being said, I do own The Big Three consoles (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) along with a Nintendo 3DS-XL, so maybe "casual gamer" isn't the best description for me either. In any event, both Sony and Microsoft have now unveiled their next generation console plans with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, respectively...
Right now, I'm probably a bit more excited for the new PS4. Probably because it doesn't try to add on all the computing and multimedia bullshit, and has Sony solely focusing on the gaming experience. Microsoft, on the other hand, feels distracted by trying to sell you television shows and making you dick around with Windows 8 (which I loathe). And then there's Nintendo's Wii-U, which I just can't seem to get excited about. So I guess time will tell which direction I end up going. Though a part of me wonders if I'm just done with console gaming, so maybe I won't invest in any of them.
• Arrested! Netflix has unleashed the much-anticipated Season 4 of Arrested Development, seven years after it was canceled by FOX. I enjoyed the original episodes, even though they often-times seemed quirky for quirky's sake, but had mixed feelings about the show being resurrected...
The first two episodes were pretty unremarkable. But the third was better... and I just started the fourth, which is better still. So who knows? By the time I get to episode fifteen, maybe it will surpass everything that came before. All I do know is that watching the revival has me now wanting to re-watch the original, which I haven't done in years.
• Square! Square brought affordable, convenient credit card transactions to the masses. Now they're taking on PayPal with Square Cash, which allows you to send funds via email. It's currently in beta and "invitation only," but you can bet your ass I'll be signing up the minute it's available. I fucking hate PayPal after they STOLE MY MONEY with absolutely no explanation, and if there's any company that has a hope of breaking PayPal's monopoly on online payments, it's Square. It's about time.
• Assemble? I was pretty excited that Marvel had new cartoon coming out called Avengers Assemble! After the absolute genius that was Joss Whedon's The Avengers movie, it was bound to be awesome, right?
• Scouts. And so the Boy Scouts have finally taken a step in the right direction and are no longer kicking out their members just because they're gay. I always thought it was shitty how a kid can join Scouting when he's too young to even know what "sexuality" is... only to be kicked out on his ass once he grows up and discovers he's gay. Yeah, private organizations can have whatever bigoted policies they want, but this kind of discrimination towards kids is pretty douchey. Especially when the BSA gets support from public funds, which they shouldn't be if they're being exclusionary anyway.
Annnnnd... I'm spent.
Hope everybody is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend.
When I was in Tunisia my tour group consisted mostly of Americans, so the guide was kind enough to drive us through the North Africa American Cemetery where soldiers from World War II are buried. As it was 9-11, the flag was flying at half-mast...
It's very difficult not to think of these fallen heroes far from home when Memorial Day comes to pass.
To all those who paid the ultimate price for our country, I thank you. Your sacrifice and courage will not be forgotten.
Do you remember in You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown where Charlie Brown won Pro Bowl tickets in a bike race but it ended up they couldn't afford to give him the Pro Bowl tickets, so they instead gave him a certificate for five free haircuts? And then Charlie Brown laments that even when he wins he loses because his dad's a barber and he hardly has any hair to cut anyway? Remember that?
That pretty much sums up my entire day.
It got so bad that, on my way back from running errands in town, I swerved off the road to the movie theater just so I could be distracted for a couple hours. I didn't even care what I watched.
Much to my delight, the next film playing was Star Trek Into Darkness. I was planning on waiting to see it in IMAX but, at this point, I just didn't care...
Overall, I thought the movie was excellent. It was action-packed and oh-so-beautiful to look at. This is the first time I can remember watching an effects-laden film where half my brain wasn't analyzing the special effects shots. They were all executed so flawlessly that there was nothing to really analyze. That went a long ways to taking the edge off of some story points that bothered me, and pushed my love of the film to an A rating.
It's impossible to discuss the finer points of Star Trek Into Darkness without spoilers, so I've put my thoughts in an extended entry...
→ Click here to continue reading this entry...
Today I had to run some errands to the "Barbarian Village" of Leavenworth, Washington.
Well, actually it's billed as the "Bavarian Village" because it's a themed town meant to look like something out of the German Alps, but when the crowds of tourists arrive, it rapidly degenerates into something much more savage.
Anyway, I couldn't very well leave without some German food, so off I went for a bratwurst. Well, a veggie brat, but still... the best part is figuring out which mustard you want, because there's always at least a dozen on-hand...
I went with a more traditional "sweet & sour" because half the stuff is difficult to decipher (what the hell is "Backyard Brat" about?)...
Of course no faux-German sausage garden would be complete without freaky murals to keep you company while you eat...
And since one good thing leads to another, I could not resist stopping by the Danish Bakery for one of their glorious almond custard pastries...
After than I stopped at a chocolate shop because, ya know, it was there. Then I decided to head home while I still had insulin levels that were somewhat respectable.
All I'm missing now to make my day complete is some lederhosen.
And so here I sit at SeaTac International Airport waiting for my redeye flight eastward.
Half the people here are coughing their heads off... and many of those are kids who, not surprisingly, don't cover their mouths when they cough because parents don't seem to teach them to. Apparently they don't give a flying fuck if their kids infect the world because that's somebody else's problem. Typical.
The half that's not hacking away is either loudly slurping on coffee cups and looking like idiots... or falling asleep. Or dead to the world and snoring.
On the plus side, I spotted a lonely hat in one of SeaTac's privacy-free bathrooms...
And away I go...
Thanks to some personal turmoil that keeps dropping on me like a ton of bricks lately, I came very close to canceling my trip to Pittsburgh. I have fond memories of the city, and it just didn't seem right to return with a shit-ton of baggage weighing on my brain.
But within five minutes of Becky picking me up at the airport, all my troubles melted away and I was glad I was here. By the end of the day I was ecstatic that I was here.
She kinda has that effect on people.
As witnessed by this photograph of the last time I saw Becky live and in-person four years ago at ConFab...
Photo by Ginger and, yes, I'm dressed as a pirate. Because I just can't help myself.
First stop was lunch at Nicky's Thai Kitchen, and it was glorious. Especially the Crispy Egg Rolls...
Don't you just love some good food porn on a Friday afternoon?
From there we wasted no time in tracking down delicious beer... at a brewery transplant from Munich called Hofbräuhaus. Becky asked for a beer the size of her head and got this...
THE HUMAN HEAD WEIGHS 8 POUNDS! Becky' beer weighs ten pounds.
Not wanting to be left out, I asked for a beer the size of MY head and got this...
HEY! THAT'S THE WRONG HEAD!!
Whoops... that's better...
Here's to good times. Tonight is kind of special...
Eventually we realized we needed Jägermeister backs for our beers...
Delicious! Is there no problem Jägermeister cannot solve?!?
Eventually Jared showed up to be our designated biker...
Switching to baby beers so as not to drop into beer comas.
Eventually we wandered to Jared's house SO I COULD PLAY LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER ON WII U! And, yes, now I want a Wii U more than ever. Time to start saving my pennies, I guess.
After that, I was given a tour of areas of Pittsburgh I didn't even know existed, which is always fun. There's just no substitute for seeing a city through the eyes of locals.
By this time, beer and not sleeping for two days was finally taking its toll, so I reluctantly headed back to my hotel for some much-needed rest.
Though it's gonna be tough to sleep when I'm anticipating the awesomeness which awaits tomorrow.
Annnnnd... I've just returned from a Pittsburgh Pirates game with Becky. It was a fantastic night out, even though the Pirates lost.
Fortunately, they weren't playing my beloved Boston Red Sox (who slaughtered the Yankees 11-1), so I was able to put on a Pirates jersey and cheer on the team against the dreaded Cincinnati Reds...
Say "Grilled Stickies!"
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because there was tailgating in the parking lot before the game...
There's a Pirates party up in here! Click photo to embiggen.
Becky's friend hand-made veggie burgers (that were some of the best I've ever tasted) for us civilized folk... but there was mmmmmeeeeeat for the savages too...
Fortunately, I was just sober enough to keep myself from licking the grill.
A good time was had by all...
When I've been drinking, I look the exact same in every photo... like I'm happily pooping my pants.
Then it was off to PNC Park...
Take me out to the ballgame... where no crackerjack was to be found.
Becky met up with her pimp along the way...
Pimpin' ain't easy... but with Becky as your ho it is!
My iPhone has said that Pittsburgh's weather was going to be thunderstorms since the minute I arrived. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single time I look, we're supposed to be in the middle of a raging storm...
And yet... it's been nothing but sun and blue skies. Which is nice, because PNC Park has to be one of the most beautiful ballparks ever...
Between innings you can watch the boats go by, which is pretty sweet...
Can't believe how nice the kit lens is for my new Sony NEX-6 camera.
After the game, they wheeled a stage and some giant speakers onto the field for a concert by =gasp!= Kool & The Gang! This helped make the Pirates' loss a little easier to take...
Celebrate good times! The sound system was surprisingly good for a ballpark!
And... the end. After waiting 35 minutes for my 20 minute train, I was back at the South End and ready for bed.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because there was a Hard Rock Cafe pin-trading event before the tailgating and the game...
I've been collecting Hard Rock Cafe pins since I visited my first property 23 years ago. And even though I've amassed thousands of pins over those years, I've never once gone to a pin-trading event. Mostly because Seattle didn't have a cafe for most of those years and I could never manage to fit a pine event road trip into my schedule.
I was also a bit intimidated, because I'm more of a "casual collector" who just buys stuff I like and doesn't really know anything about the hobby. As I've found out from comic book collecting, most of the "pros" simply don't want to waste time with newbies, and past attempts to fit into that crowd were met with failure.
Enter the "Northeast Region Art of Rock Event 2013" which was being attended by seven Hard Rock cities (Baltimore, Boston, Foxwoods, Niagara Falls NY, Toronto, Washington D.C., and the host... Pittsburgh), so I put it on my calendar and was determined to attend.
And today was the day...
The event was well-attended... this was only a part of it.
I ended up having a great time!
The vast majority of the collectors who attended were kindhearted, encouraging, helpful people. I was shocked... shocked... to find that most all of them would trade for something you really wanted, even if they didn't find anything they were looking for in your pin bags. They seemed perfectly happy to just add a trade back into their trading pile if it meant helping you fill a hole in your collection.
That was wonderful and entirely unexpected. I picked up dozens of pins I needed to fill in my glassware collection of hurricanes, martinis, and shooters.
Needless to say, I'd very much like to get my pin collection better organized and attend more events.
So thank you to the terrific staff at Hard Rock Pittsburgh for inviting everybody to your cafe for a great meet-up!
Five minutes before they let the animals lined up outside come in for lunch.
It's now 2:00am. I have to be up in five hours. I should probably at least attempt to get some sleep.
Another morning where thunderstorms were forecast for the entire day.
Which, of course, never came to pass. I swear, whomever is in charge of predicting the weather in Pittsburgh needs to be smacked around a little bit, because this is getting ridiculous.
But the weather miscast was definitely something to be grateful for, because Becky managed to score tickets to today's Pirates game...
They close down the Roberto Clemente Bridge when there's a game, which makes for a nice walk.
This time our seats were on the "Club Level" which has restaurants, billiards, lounges, and ice cream!
But, most important of all, I found Cracker Jack this time!
The game was off to a very bad start, as the Reds scored four runs in the first inning. But the Pirates managed to battle their way back into the game... including a monster home-run hit by Garrett Jones in the bottom of the 8th that cleared the park and ended up in the Allegheny River!
The above video is worth checking out... it's a pretty impressive hit!
Mr. Jones! The little kit lens on my NEX-6 continues to blow my mind. This is from the 200 level... WITH A KIT LENS!
The Pirates eventually won, 4-5 after extra innings...
Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the win... we had to leave early so we could make a concert...
Hold on to your crotch... it's
Now, I should preface this with two pieces of information...
This meant that I really didn't know what to expect. My plan was just to hang out with Becky and drink beer, which would have been a great time even if there wasn't a concert.
But there was a concert, and I totally admit that it ended up being ten times more than awesome.
As her set went on, things got a little weird...
Which was taken to an entirely new level when
Sparks went flying out of her vagina, which was apparently impossible to capture on iPhone. Sorry.
Then it was time to bring on the simulated inter-species beastiality where sports mascots started bumping, grinding, and swapping heads...
After all this freaky shit went down, even
Eventually we got a tiny car, blow-up legs, and a blow-up hippo as
During her set, Ke$ha was all about dishing out life advice ("Be Yourself! Always! Unapologetically!"), sharing her private thoughts and feelings ("I don't want a guy to talk to me, I want a guy to fuck me!"), and giving her fans ideas for after the show ("I want everybody to go home and fuck tonight!")... which just made her even more special to me. I was sad to see her go.
But the party didn't stop there... after a half-hour of DJ music by somebody called "Ump Smoker" it was time for Pitbull. I had no idea who he was, but once the music started I did realize that I knew of his music. Who knew? In any event, his show was pretty impressive.
Apparently, Pitbull was responsible for the Men in Black 3 theme song.
Even if you hated his music (which I didn't), the stage show is still entertaining.
Looks like Ke$ha isn't the only one who can unleash a glitter bomb.
All-in-all? A very good concert, and I had a great time. If you have the opportunity to see the tour, I highly recommend checking it out. Just be prepared to walk through a shit-ton of glitter in the parking lot after it's over...
And that was a wrap.
After an action-packed day of excitement like this, my "real life" is going to seem really, really boring.
Thanks a lot, Becky!!!
I didn't know what could possibly top the Ke$ha concert last night, but darn if we didn't try!
After packing up all my crap and stowing my luggage, Becky picked me up for a day of fun and excitement that only Pittsburgh can offer.
Breakfast was at a cool, old-fashioned diner and consisted of crepe-pancakes, scrambled eggs, and Lyonnaise potatoes. If you're hungry in the morning, then Pamela's Diner is the place to go...
You just know that if there's a pink door it's gotta be good, right?
I could have spent an hour wandering around looking at all the knick-knacks and photos that cover the walls...
There may be two packs of smokes on the counter, but you still can't smoke in the restaurant!
After stuffing our faces, we wandered around the corner to The Strip District, which is an eclectic neighborhood packed with lots of cool shops, restaurants, and other wonders...
Who can resist taking a photo of a building with a giant chicken on it? Not me!
Just about everything in The Strip is interesting in one way or another.
A remnant of a time when helping the poor was considered a good thing.
At Wholey's Market, which is much like Disneyland with it's animatronic cows and pigs and such.
Becky takes her life in her hands when she gets friendly with the ferocious Wholey's Market Bear!
Happy piñatas at the Mexican market want you to beat them with a stick until their guts fall out. Sick!
Becky searches for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Hat at the Mexican market.
As we were walking back to Becky's car, I was compelled to stop at a mini-donut shop. Like most people, I don't possess the will-power to resist a freshly-made, warm, mini-donut that's straight from the hot oil...
If forced to choose between peace, love, or mini-donuts, I'd take the fucking donut.
If I had this job, I would weigh 700 pounds and have oil for blood.
As punishment for giving in to mini-donut temptation, Becky thought I needed to go to Church...
Surprise! It's The Church Brew Works, built in an actual old church building!
Yes, they are totally brewing beer where the church's altar once stood.
Mmmmm... beer! Becky came up with this great shot idea, I just copied her.
Becky spotted this sleepy moth hanging on for dear life in a flower bed outside The Church. He's scary-cute.
From there Becky decided to run out to Randyland, which is so interesting on its own that I'm saving the details from THAT visit for tomorrow's entry...
It's pretty remarkable in a photo, but really needs to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.
From here it was off to see Star Trek Into Darkness in IMAX OMNIMAX at the Carnegie Science Center.
Then it was time to get me out to the airport. But we simply couldn't say goodbye until we had one last beer. This time at Sharp Edge Creekhouse...
Yeah, that goose tap handle is pretty much the ultimate tap handle.
Earlier it was pointed out to me that I was hanging out with Princess Merida (from the Pixar movie Brave) all weekend. I had always thought of Becky as a QUEEN, but darn if it wasn't true...
And thus ends my perfect four days in Pittsburgh with the coolest of Disney's princesses.
Going back to Real Life ain't gonna be easy after this.
Back home, safe and sound.
Yesterday Becky took me to Randyland, which is a photographer's dream come true in Pittsburgh. From the minute I saw all the bright colors and craziness that is so beautifully splashed across everything, I knew I wanted to play around with some HDR photos to see what I could capture.
Welcome to Randy's head...
If you're ever in the Pittsburgh area, Randyland is well worth checking out!
Thanks to the non-stop excitement of four days in Pittsburgh, it was going to be a Bullet-Sunday-On-Monday kind of situation. But there was so much Pittsburgh that it's ended up being a Bullet-Sunday-On-Wednesday situation. So hold on to your hats... because a special ALL RANT EDITION of Bullet Sunday starts now...
• AT&T Assholes. I'm not the kind of guy who jumps on the lawsuit bandwagon because, often-times, I think the lawyers are the only ones who really benefit. But if AT&T gets sued because they PROMISE high-speeds, but then LIMIT the speed on your device, then SCREW THAT. I'd join that lawsuit in a hot minute. What assholes.
• Apple Bullshit. Remember when buying Apple was a guarantee of quality that was a step above what you'd get from other tech companies? For the most part, it's still true. But for an increasing number of things... particularly with Mac OS X... it's not true. And their "Messages" app is a perfect example. The app has been a pile of shit since day one. It's supposed to sync messaging between your iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac... but it doesn't. At least not very well. Messages go missing. Messages get lost. Messages display out of sequence. It's complete bullshit, but that's where Apple is at now.
But then, miracle of miracles, AFTER NEARLY A YEAR OF WAITING, Apple has released a bug fix for the out-of-sequence messages problem. Yes, I was pissed that it took them so damn long but, hey, at least we finally had a fix, right? Well, so far so good. Or not. Because they've introduced a new bug. The badge counter doesn't zero out, even if you've read all the messages in Messages...
Look, Apple is sitting on =literally= billions of dollars. With all that money, can't they fucking afford to beta test their shit? This is amateur hour. This is Microsoft. This is everything Apple is not. And if it keeps up, Apple's going to eventually lose to a company that's more like Apple was than what Apple is now. And they would totally deserve it. STOP DICKING AROUND AND FIX YOUR SHIT, APPLE!
• Trader Joe's Disgust. I am a huge, huge fan of Trader Joe's. I would go so far as to say that I adore their vegetarian food selections. Most everything I've ever tried has been high-quality and delicious. Which is why it sucks so hard when you buy something with high expectations and get burned. Namely, their "Fettuccine Alfredo"
When I saw the "IMPORTED FROM ITALY" line on the bag, I assumed I would be buying the flavorful pasta that I get when I'm actually visiting Italy instead of the boring cream-based shit we call "Alfredo Sauce" here in the states. So imagine my disgust when it ended up being that same bland, tasteless, watery, slop I can get out of a frickin' box. So very sad. Even sadder that I bought three bags of the crap.
• getEQUAL Rudeness. One of the current news items making me much angrier than usual comes from a Michele Obama fundraiser. The First Lady was speaking when all of a sudden some asshole decides to heckle her over government contractors discriminating against gays and lesbians. And whenever something like this happens, the first thing that flashes through my mind is what an incredibly huge douche the heckler is for disrupting EVERYBODY ELSE'S PEACE. I don't give a shit how important your message is... or even how much I might agree with it... it's just fucking rude. Well, Mary Elizabeth Williams has written a brilliant short article on the subject that I consider critical reading and the final word on the matter. Well worth your time. And, as a side-note, congratulations to Mrs. Obama for being one heck of a class act.
• Peter LaBarbera Hilarity. No gay man I know obsesses about gay sex as much as anti-gay crusader "Porno Pete" LaBarbera. The guy regularly goes to gay events so he can "document" the "disgusting and immoral behavior" he finds there. But, odds are, he just likes to look at half-naked men and add them to his private video collection.
Today he decided to speak out against homosexuality in front of The Human Rights Campaign's headquarters. It was yet another embarrassing "press conference" that nobody gives a shit about, because this kind of bigotry and hatred just isn't playing well in 2013. I used to find LaBarbera's antics funny and a little pathetic. But it's getting old, and is obviously a sham to cover his obsession with penises. How I wish all these bigoted assholes would just shut the fuck up already so we doesn't have to deal with their obvious overcompensation.
And... breathe...
I used to like my water room temperature. Drinking cold water was uncomfortable and made my mouth numb, which I did not like at all. Now-a-days, I prefer to drink water that's as close to freezing as possible and loaded with ice to keep it that way.
I used to dislike mustard. Or, to be more accurate, I positively hated the stuff. Wouldn't eat it on anything, and even the smell of it made me sick. Now-a-days I refuse to eat a hotdog without it. Honey mustard is even better, and I smear it on anything edible. I've even buy "Dijonnaise," which is mayonnaise with mustard blended in. That would have been unthinkable just ten years ago.
I used to hate my hair short. In high school it was a constant battle with my parents as to how long I was allowed to keep it. Anything less than shoulder-length was paramount to child abuse. Now-a-days, anytime my hair gets long enough to touch my ears, I want to scream. It's just a hot, angry mess on my head, and the sooner I can grab the clippers and shave it all off, the happier I am.
Things change.
Sometimes in small ways like how you want your water, what you put on your hotdog, and which hairstyle you wear... but other times in life-changing ways that wake up the world.
Since same-sex marriage was legalized here in Washington State back on December 6th, more than 2,400 gay and lesbian couples have gotten married. And despite all the stupid-ass doom and gloom that equality opponents tried to dump all over same-sex couples who just wanted the same rights as everybody else... the earth didn't fall into the sun. A meteor didn't destroy Seattle. A plague of locusts didn't eat up the Columbia Basin. The Columbia River didn't dry up. Spokane wasn't consumed in a lake of fire. And so on.
Which is to say that, for most everybody living here, nothing has changed.
But for 2,400+ Washingtonian couples, everything has changed.
Congrats and best of luck to all of you!
And here's to hotdogs with mustard.
There was a time in the distant past when I looked forward to Fridays.
But that was back when the weekends were fun and mostly work-free. Something which hasn't been the case for years. There's always more work to do, and so I live my life in a state of perpetual Mondays.
Tomorrow is just another work day.
Fortunately, I get to escape from time to time, and so there are Saturdays on the horizon...
The road to the top of Mt. Haleakala on Maui, one glorious early morning.
Such as next Saturday, which means that next Friday will actually be something to look forward to.
And I am.
The nice thing about blowing all your hard-earned money on world travel is that you know places.
This can come in handy. Like when you're clicking through news stories and some random headline pops up about the Ajaccio Football Club getting a new coach. "I've been to Ajaccio!" you say to yourself. And then memories of your trip to Corsica come rushing back to you. So you search your blog to find out when that was, only to discover that it was just two-and-a-half years ago. Then you wonder why a photo of your strongest memory... pulling into port at sunrise under pink skies... isn't on your blog entry. "Oh crap, didn't I get a photo of that?!?" you wonder as you frantically double-click on your digital photo album. And... yes. Yes you did get a photo of that beautiful morning, so why didn't you post it?
According to Lighthouse Explorer, that would be "Ajaccio Citadelle Light."
"Oh well!" you say to yourself as you sigh in relief that you found something to blog about after a boring Saturday of nothing but work...
Time to find your happy place... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Blackhawks!!! And so it's the Blackhawks vs. the Bruins for the Stanley Cup...
GO HAWKS!!! GO HAWKS!!! GO HAWKS!!! GO HAWKS!!! GO HAWKS!!!
• Hart. Hart to Hart was a staple of my television viewing habits when I was a kid. Not only was it entertaining, but Stefanie Powers and her massive pile of feathered hair was almost too good to be true. Now Adam Scott and Amy Poehler have done a shot-for-shot remake of the opening credits.
And it's absolute genius...
If they were to ever do a retro made-for-television movie I would watch the shit out of it. The idea of a remake is just too brilliant to pass up.
• Crapper First Cracker Jack had die-cast metal toy prizes. Eventually those were replaced with plastic toy prizes. Then they ditched the toys altogether and switched to stupid stickers. And now? They don't even bother with the damn sticker. You get an "online prize" of some kind that you redeem with your phone. Well, unless you have an iPhone...
This blows. Why do they even bother?
• Photoshop! Every once in a while something goes viral on the internet that I actually like. "Photoshop Live"is one of those rare events...
I hope they do more of these... it's such a great idea.
• Miley! Since I hadn't heard anything music-related from Miley Cyrus in quite a while, I naturally assumed she now runs a gas station and mini-mart in Pittsburgh after I saw this...
But then lo and behold, this track is waiting for me when I get home...
I'm diggin' it! I can't stop! And I just don't care!
Early to bed... Early to have the alarm wake your ass up at the crack of dawn so you can drive three hours to work.
Alrighty then. As a Certified Apple Whore, it's required by law that I post my thoughts on all the stuff Apple talked about in the keynote speech of the 2013 World Wide Developer's Conference (watch it for yourself right here!).
So for all you Apple-haters, I apologize. Come back tomorrow and I promise to draw a monkey or something.
At Apple, our new visual design direction is lickable like it's 1998!
Apple's new iCEO, Tim Cook, is no Steve Jobs... but I really like the guy. He gives a good presentation, represents Apple well, and inspires confidence in his company, which is all that matters. Seeing Phil Schiller is always fun. The guy has a genuine enthusiasm about Apple that's hard to beat. It's good to see more from Eddy Cue, Apple's internet services guru too. But the real standout this time around? Craig Federighi, vice president of software engineering. The guy is funny as hell, and has a conversational tone when he's presenting that sucks you in and compels you love Apple and the things they do. Seriously, the keynote is totally worth watching just to see this guy at the top of his game.
MAC OS X!
It looks like most of the stuff going on here is under-the-hood improvements, which is fine. But there are a chunk of notable usability enhancements as well, so I'm hopeful that I won't have as many problems with Mavericks as I had with Mountain Lion. Unfortunately, the one thing... THE ONE THING I WANTED TO SEE... was not shown. And that's the option to keep the menu bar showing at all times with full-screen apps. I am so sick and fucking tired of dealing with the bouncing menu bar intruding when I don't want it... and having to go hunt for it when I do want it... WHICH IS ALL THE TIME!!! The clock is there. My battery status is there. My sound volume indicator is there. Just give me a check-box option to keep the menu bar showing always and I'll be fine. Anyway... on with the show...
MACBOOK AIR!
I love my MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It is unquestionably the best bit of tech I have ever owned, and the size, weight, features, and speed are amazing. That being said, there are times when I'm traveling where I would really appreciate having a much smaller machine to lug around. Basically, an iPad that's a fully-functional computer when I need it. The tiny 11-inch MacBook Air has always been so close to what I wanted. Now I think it's there. All I need is a thousand dollars and I'm golden.
MAC PRO!
"Can't innovate any more, my ass! — Phil Schiller, Vice President of World-Wide Marketing.
I honestly don't know where to go with this. I finally gave up on Apple ever releasing a new Mac Pro a year ago, and am now using an iMac that I'm quite happy with. That being said, I would much rather have a "pro" machine that can tear through the bigger projects I have to work on... especially when it comes to 3-D modeling and rendering... and video editing. And here it is. Except... it's not really a "pro" machine, is it? Sure it's got all kinds of killer pro features and looks fucking amazing... BUT EXTERNAL EXPANSION ONLY?!???? WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK?!?? One of the major differences between consumer machines and pro machines is that you can open the guts and configure the thing the way you need it for the kind of work you're going to be doing. But Apple has lived up to every criticism by choosing design over functionality, and it's a load of bullshit. Because it's BADLY DESIGNED! So you can rotate it to plug things in. That sounds cool, right? But what happens when you've got a ton of crap plugged into it? How does it rotate around when you've got a dozen cables anchoring it in place? I'm not debating whether innovations like the new "tri-core cooling technology" is cool... it's frickin' awesome... but this is not the machine pros are after, and it's a really shitty thing for Apple to do to those who have been waiting so damn long for a new Pro machine to come out. When I bought my iMac, I worried I was making a mistake, and a new Mac Pro would be released that would work so much better for my needs. Well all those worries are gone. If I had the choice even today between an iMac and a Mac "Pro"... I'd go with the iMac. This is the fucking Mac Cube all over again! Did NOBODY at Apple learn a damn thing from that fiasco?
iCLOUD!
Nobody is more convinced that the future of computing lies in The Cloud than I am. Having access to all your stuff wherever you are with whatever device you have is the future. The problem is that nobody is doing it very well... including Apple. But, to their credit, they do seem to be the most interested in figuring it all out. More and more cloud functionality is coming into place. Apple's cloud services are getting more reliable and robust every day. And things like iTunes Match are demonstrating the promise of what "cloud computing" is all about... have access to my entire music and movie/television library anywhere there's internet from my Mac, iPad, or iPhone? Yes please. It's all magic, right? Well... not really. Because Apple is constantly sabotaging themselves. Want to stream your purchased movies to your Mac or iDevice? Tough shit! Apple only allows streaming to AppleTV... anything else requires that you download the whole fucking file first. Never mind that Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and the rest of the known fucking universe allows video streaming, Apple doesn't. Will this be fixed with iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks? Who the fuck knows? Will Apple fix the myriad of problems that prevent developers from integrating iCloud into their apps? Who the fuck knows? It goes on and on. The fact that Apple is working so hard on getting The Cloud done right is meaningless if they can't see the forest for the trees. YOU HAVE TO FUCKING COMPETE! Except Apple doesn't seem to care when the competition is trouncing all over them... they're Apple, so they don't have to! Except they really do. We finally get keychain syncing back, but it almost feels like too little too late when services like Dropbox and solutions like 1Password stepped up to the plate when Apple wouldn't for so damn long. And there's the crux of everything that's wrong at Apple... THEY decide what's important to their users rather than responding to what users find important and are actually doing. I love Apple and all, but I'm just so fucking sick of this.
iTUNES RADIO!
Well, it looks a little more polished than Spotify or Pandora... and it looks a lot smarter, even if the details are sketchy (how many skips do you get an hour?). I will probably use it. I will probably discover new music. I will probably end up buying a shitload more music than I am now. So, mission accomplished, I guess. The fact that iTunes Match subscribers don't have to deal with ads is kind of a nice bonus.
CLOUDY iWORK!
Oh... so Apple hasn't killed iWork on the Mac after all! It's just so hard to tell, what with them NOT UPDATING IT FOREVER. Just like with Aperture, buying iWork almost immediately makes you feel like you've purchased abandonware. Sure they'll fix a big or add a little fluff every once in a while (NEW! Documents in The Cloud!)... but it's hard to have faith with Apple as a serious app developer when they don't maintain a consistent release schedule. Years can go by with no major release or update, so you just never know. And here we are at long last... iWork is getting updated. Or is it? Because the focus seems to be on competing with Google Docs with a browser-based solution. Well, I have to tell you, this has me worried. Very worried. And it all comes down to this... will future releases of iWork (the app) be limited by iWork (the web app)? Is an Apple software engineer going to say "Here's a great idea for iWork Numbers... won't it be cool to give our users this functionality?" Only to be greeted with "Oh shit, we can't add that feature... we'd never be able to implement that in a web browser!" Well, I just don't know. But that would suck. And it wouldn't be surprising from Apple. All that being said? How frickin' amazing was that demo of iWork in the Cloud?
iOS 7!
Well, here it is... the moment the world has been waiting for... the next generation of Apple's iOS. The operating system which powers gazillions of iPhones, iPods, iPads, and whatever new iDevices Apple comes up with (iWatch?). I'll reserve comment on the new design visuals until I've actually seen them up-close-and-personal, but my initial reaction is mixed. I like the flatness of it all, which feels modern and forward-thinking. The typography and the stark, clean layouts are stellar. But the bright candy colors that I thought were banished with the old iMac aesthetic feel more "dated and tired" than "retro cool." Yet... Apple is nothing if not a trend-setter, so maybe it's a look that's making a comeback. I guess we'll find out this Fall. If I were to summarize, I'd say that I like most of what I'm seeing... but not everything. If nothing else, I think it's a consistent visual language that competitors lack will help keep Apple at the top of the heap.
PARALLAX!
Okay. There's one thing I saw in the keynote that has completely haunted me about the new design, and I love it more than sliced bread. The new iOS is multi-plane display capable...
This basically means that everything is set on three-dimensional layers, so as you move your phone around, the different planes move to communicate depth. Allowing you to "see around" stuff on upper layers as the camera is rotated. In video games and animation, this is called "parallax scrolling" (or something like that), and it's some visual trickery that really pays off. The idea of having such lush visuals on my frickin' PHONE is pretty spectacular. It's the little touches like this that makes Apple be Apple, and keeps Apple Whores such as myself in a constant state of geek heaven.
Annnnnnd... the end.
For now. As I get a better look at all this stuff, I'm sure I'll have more to say.
Seattle could certainly have a worse symbol representing the city.
Even though it was built in 1962, the Space Needle has aged very well. Still looks contemporary and modern, really.
Here's the monkey I promised.
The view from my hotel room, in glorious HDR...
The Pacific Science Center to the left and Experience Music Project on the right.
And... I'm here to work, not blog, so off I go...
I know I've bitched about them before... but, after driving through Seattle's horrendous traffic again today, I'm more enraged than ever at the money being spent for these ridiculous "Smart Signs" that are popping up everywhere. They're have got to be one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever seen.
The idea is that "Smart Signs" will slow traffic so that everything flows more smoothly during peak traffic times. But, in reality, the signs are always 10-20 miles per hour faster than the speed anybody can actually reach. This makes them effectively useless...
Here I am going 10 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone.
So what fucking difference does it make if, instead of paying for these very expensive digital signs, there were much cheaper traditional 60 MPH painted signs on the side of the road? I'll tell you what... NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE AT ALL! These "Smart Signs" aren't doing shit. Except costing taxpayers absurd amounts of money. Slow traffic is slow traffic and you'll go however fast the traffic allows. No magical signage is going to change that. End of story.
But the "Smart Signs" keep going up.
Not that smart, Seattle.
And so a Seattle-based band I like, The Local Strangers, played a Very Special sold-out show at The Triple Door tonight. It was Very Special because they were accompanied on some of their songs by the Passenger String Quartet.
Which is like taking Amazing, sprinkling it with Awesome, then deep-fat-frying it in Magic.
Such an amazing show, and I find myself filled with pity for those unfortunate souls who didn't get to experience it...
If you ever have a chance to catch them live, this is a band worth checking out. You can keep track of them on their Facebook page or sign up for The Local Strangers newsletter and get free music on their website.
When it comes to our inevitable arrival at a paperless, all-digital world, I'm a big supporter. I really hate having to cart around a stack of cards and bits of paper when traveling, because it's entirely too easy to forget something or, even worse, lose something important.
The problem is that I'm constantly being met with failure in my attempts to "go digital."
Like today, for instance, as I attempt to fly to Boston.
First I go to reserve parking. The place I like best, SeaTac Park, has long had online reservations that can be verified with your email address instead of having to print out a confirmation. It's a great system. When it works...
This really sucks, because you can't get the best rate unless you pre-book online. I've brought it up the last three times I've parked there, but it never gets fixed. I always have to remind them again when I leave so I can get the discount and, if I forget, then I'm shit-out-of-luck.
But the problems don't stop there.
When I go to use Alaska Airlines' new "Passbook" feature on their iPhone app because Passbook is a really great iPhone feature, it won't let me...
This pisses me off because not only do I already have a Mileage Plan number on my account... but I also think it's fucking stupid that you're required to have one in the first place. What the hell does a mileage plan have to do with checking in for a flight? People fly without mileage plans every damn day.
So off I go to Alaska Airlines' website so I can add my mileage number back on my account. Except, when I get there, it won't let me. Apparently my account is invalid...
And so I'm forced to call customer service.
Only to find out that my mileage plan expired due to inactivity. "Well, can you reactivate it? I ask. "Only if you want to pay $75!" the customer service agent replies. "My miles are on Delta... why in the heck would I want to pay $75 to reactivate an account I don't use?" I ask, ready to explode. "If you don't, then you'll have to sign up for a new account." she says. Apparently miles don't expire... only the account which holds them, which makes perfect fucking sense!
Well, crap.
So much for convenience in this wonderful digital age.
Because more often than not, the shit doesn't work. And the steps towards making it work are more complicated and time consuming than carrying cards and bits of paper.
I thought it would be easier than this.
And I'm in Boston for one day so I could attend a party for a very good friend who had some extraordinary news that was worth celebrating. Yes, a day trip across the country probably seems odd to most people, but I make trips like this all the time for work, so it's old hat to me.
But before the party tonight, I had an entire day to goof off in Boston.
I started out in Boston Common because there's an Earl of Sandwich shop there. They discontinued The Greatest Sandwich on Earth... The Earl Veggie... but I was hoping to add/subtract ingredients on a boring Caprese sandwich to recreate it. Unfortunately, they didn't have half the stuff to do it, so my day began in failure. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day to walk around and see the monuments...
The Soldiers and Sailors Monument.
Memorial for the Boston Massacre.
Then it was off to the Granary Burying Ground, which is my favorite of Boston's beautiful old cemeteries that's filled with beautiful tombstones (and home to many famous dead people like Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere)...
Death being more common back then, some of the tombstones are kinda comical.
A lot of tattoo ideas to be found here!
I've been to Boston several times, so I wanted to find a museum I'd never been to before. That ended up being the Boston Athenæum, which is a beautiful private library that allows the public to look around. They also have a small exhibit of wonderful works that explain their part in the creation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Pictures weren't allowed on the inside, but I did snap a photo of the entrance, which is equally cool...
From there I was off to a wonderful little shop called The Printing Office of Edes & Gill. They've got a terrific old letterpress that's still in operation. Every time I visit I buy a new souvenir piece, because there's nothing quite so beautiful as a letterpress print...
Seriously worth a stop if you're ever walking The Freedom Trail in Boston.
The print shop is located on the Paul Revere Mall, where his statue has been defaced with a dreaded Bruins jersey...
Rebel that he was, I like to think he would be a Blackhawks fan!
Since I didn't get my Earl of Sandwich, I headed to Mike's Famous Pastries for the next best thing... cannoli! Not only does it taste amazing, but I love the way they box it up with hand-tied string. You see a lot of these boxes carried by tourists as you wander around the city. Fortunately, the line was only out the door instead of down the block, so it was only a 20 minute wait...
That's a Crushed Caramel Pecan on the left and an Oreo Cookie on the right.
A lot of jealous looks from people when they see the box you'll be carrying!
And then it was time to head out to Somerville so I could meet up with Justin, an online buddy I was very glad to finally meet in person. He suggested an ice cream at J.P. Licks, which didn't take much convincing...
Pretty frickin' amazing ice cream, if we're being honest here.
Since my ride to the party missed their flight into Boston and was going to be late, I was left with a couple of hours to kill. Lucky me, my friend Dave just happened to be in from London! I haven't seen him since Davedon in 2009, so this was a happy (if not totally bizarre) coincidence. We decided to eat at Boston's premiere brick oven pizzeria since 1926, Regina's...
There was a line to get in, of course. But totally worth the wait.
Dave had The Giambotta, which has everything but the kitchen sink. I had mozzarella and feta cheese.
Still needing to kill some time, Dave and I decided to take a walk through the Quincy Market at Faneuil Hall. I love the place not only for the sheer variety of food, but for the decor. Each stall has it's own signage, and most of it is very well done...
So much nicer than the boring signs you usually see now-a-days.
Outside there was a juggler risking his life with some kind of show. He was capable (and funny!) if this is your thing, but I was hoping for chainsaws...
Probably not sharp knives, but you could still poke an eye out.
My friends finally landed, so it was time to say goodbye to Dave and head back to my hotel so I could get cleaned up. Along the way, I saw Boston's beautiful old State House building with a spot of sunset light on it...
Now that's a beautiful building! Though I've never been inside.
Boston is a city that's kinda a strange place for me to be right now. Yes, it's home to my beloved Red Sox baseball... but it's also home to Bruins hockey, which is currently battling it out with my beloved Chicago Blackhawks for the Stanley Cup (wearing my Blackhawks jersey is probably out of the question). The good news is that I managed to find a Jarod Saltalamacchia T-Shirt and a not-LEGO Lil' Salty action figure this trip...
SALTALAMACCHIA!!!
Other than that, it was all good. The party was fantastic, I loved running into my friends, and my trip was a total success.
Until I realize that it's now close to midnight and I have a flight at 7:00am tomorrow morning. Blargh.
Good bye Boston.
Get over your post-Bean-Town-blues... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Happy Father's Day! To all the dads out there... but especially mine, hope your day was a happy one.
• America! And here's how you deal with dumbass racist bigots...
And then? You get right back up again.
This kid says more about the American spirit and the ideals of this country than any number of morons who proclaim to be patriots, but don't have the first clue about what the USA is all about.
• Ferb! Okay then. Today in mind-blowing news...
Thomas Brodie-Sangster is Sam from "Love Actually" who is also Jojen on "Game of Thrones" WHO IS ALSO THE VOICE OF FERB ON PHINNEAS AND FERB! HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?
• DOMA! I don't care what your religious or philosophical beliefs are. Anybody who would want to keep a law in place which causes such needless sadness and suffering is a sadistic asshole. There is simply no justification for this. None.
And yet there are piece of shit politicians who can look at this and still disagree. Like Senator Marco Rubio who continues to double down on inequality and misery by being a homophobic bigot that refuses to support immigration reform which includes gay couples... but then has the balls to turn around and say "Our faith has always been about compassion and it compels you to do something. If you took compassion or the principle of compassion out of the Bible, it would be in tatters because it's all over the place." Hypocritical bullshit like this makes me want to vomit. What a complete and total douche.
And... I've been up since 1:30am, so I'm spent. No more bullets for you!
Day. Made.
This may very well be the greatest movie ever.
And now I can't wait for 2014...
Because... Morgan Freeman, for real?
I hope there's a video game released to go along with it.
It's not the chase that I love.
I've been working non-stop for the past couple weeks which makes for boring blog fodder.
Luckily, I went out for groceries today.
Suffice to say that a good time was had by all... from the second I arrived only to have a woman put her shopping cart in front of the parking space I wanted... to the minute I was leaving only to have a kid run me over with his skateboard... I couldn't have asked for a better end to my work day.
Then I got home and turned on the television. It was on the E! channel. I don't recall what was playing, but I do recall that they interrupted the show so they could announce that James Gandolfini was dead. I had read about the news earlier but, before I had a chance to be sad about it all over again, the announcer proceeded to say "For late breaking news on this story, be sure to visit E! Online!"
I am still trying to figure out what that means.
Gandolfini might end up more dead?
Gandolfini could come back from the dead?
Exactly what are they expecting to happen? Or is it such a habit to add ""For late breaking news on this story, be sure to visit E! Online!" to everything that they don't even realize they're doing it. Or how inappropriate it is.
Or maybe it's all about the web traffic and they just don't care.
But I have to leave open the possibility that aliens could steal James Gandolfini's body, in which case I will absolutely be tuning in to E! Online because they totally called that.
This image is floating all over the internet, but nobody credits the photographer. Sad.
I don't have to wax poetic about what a brilliant actor Mr. Gandolfini was. Any single episode of The Sopranos would testify to that. He had a presence on screen that was undeniable, and he made even a minor role feel larger than life. He was one of the most memorable parts of Get Shorty, but barely ranked a supporting character. His end scene in True Romance lingers still even though his screen time was small.
So many roles. I loved him in The Loop. His performance as a gay hit-man in The Mexican was genius. And who could forget his vocal talent as Carol in Where the Wild Things Are?
It's incredibly sad that he has left us at a time when he was finally breaking free of the mobster role in The Sopranos that made him a household name. There were so many great performances to come.
So there I was driving home from work when a shot rang out.
Not knowing if I was the one being shot at, I pulled over so I could scope out the situation.
But nothing seemed awry.
And then the smell of root beer filled the air. Was I dead? Was I dreaming?
No. A can of A&W just exploded in the back seat of my car...
So now I am driving the root-beer-mobile. There's root beer everywhere... soaking into the floor... splattered on the ceiling... covering the back of the seats... such a disaster.
And I just don't get it. The weather was overcast. It was not hot. There was no reason for the can to have exploded. I can only guess that they must be using really thin aluminum now-a-days to save on cost, and this is what happens when a can gets a little shook up in the back seat of your car.
Guess it's time to fulfill my dream of lighting my piece-of-shit car on fire and rolling it off a cliff... because that root beer smell ain't ever going away.
Though I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been a can of lutefisk that blew up my car.
Or Strawberry Fanta.
Adobe Creative Cloud has arrived.
Adobe software upgrades are usually a reason to celebrate, but their controversial decision to make a monthly Creative Cloud membership the only way to use such popular apps as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign has made a lot of people upset and angry. Sure you can still buy the old CS6 software, but any new stuff is members only. This kind of sucks, because if you aren't able to pay your monthly fee, any files saved in the newer CC format become useless. And, of course, to use the latest features you have to save in CC format. Catch-22.
Regardless, I thought I'd give a quick overview of the thing for anybody out there who's curious. And if you don't even know what Creative Cloud is? Hark! A promo video...
And now for this Creative Cloud business...
The bad news is that Adobe still doesn't beta test anything before release. Or, if they do, they do a really crappy job of it. Just as it's always been with their apps, I've found bugs and problems on my very first day. How the fuck Adobe can miss or overlook stuff that I run across after mere minutes of use is just beyond me. The only thing I can guess is that they know their users don't have any realistic alternative to their tools so they just don't give a shit.
Anyway...
Everything I cover will be on a Mac, because I honestly don't give a flying fuck about Windows anymore after Microsoft released the horrendous pile of shit known as "Windows 8." If you're using that hot mess of an OS, I apologize, but, damn.
The boat-load of apps that come with a Creative Cloud membership are now managed by a menu bar extension. I thought this was a lot nicer than the previous method of hunting down Adobe's Application Manager app, but the thing is (of course) buggy and defective, so it's a mixed bag. Never mind that it doesn't update itself after an app is installed (you have to restart your Mac for that), there is a much bigger problem. In that most times when you switch between Apple's virtual desktops (called "Spaces") the damn thing activates. That's right, it just opens up for no reason at all. And this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about when I question whether Adobe bothers to test their shit. I ran across this problem immediately after installation. How in the hell did Adobe's beta testers not notice it? Do they ignore basic Mac OS X features? This is fucking insane. And the fact that Adobe isn't embarrassed by things like this speaks volumes for what you're getting into when you sign up for their products.
But I digress. The menu extension looks like this...
It's nice that you're told if your app is up-to-date, even though it makes the menu window huge. Oddly enough, if an app is not up to date, Creative Cloud doesn't have the ability to update it. Instead it launches Adobe Updater, which is kind of crazy. Why have one tool that can handle multiple tasks when you can clutter up a hard drive with two? Or, more likely for Adobe, twenty?
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
If you are a professional, you'll want to install the new CC apps next to your old CS6 apps in case you run into some heinous bug that prevents you from getting work done. Thankfully, this is fully supported. But what if you're a rebel like me who only wants the new apps? Do you have the option of overwriting Photoshop CS6 with Photoshop CC? Of course you don't! That would be too fucking convenient, and Adobe has a reputation for shitty, inconvenient installers, so that's not going to happen.
Welcome to Adobe manual uninstallation! It's stupidly inconsistent, but that's the Adobe way!
Some apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat have uninstaller apps in their folders. That's not so bad, right? Well, sure... if they worked. The uninstaller for InDesign hanged and had to be force-quit. The unistaller for Acrobat said that Acrobat was an invalid application to uninstall. You get the picture. Though at least they have uninstallers. Apps like Bridge don't. Regardless of how much work you put into uninstalling (Mac App Cleaner helped a lot), you still end up with traces of crap scattered over your hard drive. I did a search to root out all things "Adobe" so I could trash them, but I'm sure pieces are still around somewhere. Guess reformatting my hard drive is the only way to truly clean out old Adobe apps?
After installation... which was surprisingly smooth and easy... I thought I'd just quit Creative Cloud since I wouldn't be needing it the rest of the day. But, surprise!, Creative Cloud doesn't like that because Creative Cloud doesn't fucking know if it's working on an installation or not!
I suppose it's possible that Creative Cloud hands off installation to yet another app but, if that were the case, why would quitting cancel the install app? Insanity.
In what I can only describe as some kind of bizarre tease, two of Creative Cloud's non-app functions... Cloud File Storage and Cloud Typekit Fonts... are "coming soon"...
The third non-app function is Adobe's acquisition of "Behance" which is an online portfolio you can share with people. I'm already using Deviant Art for my portfolio, but it's free so I went ahead and signed up. Eventually I might even put something there.
And that's pretty much it for Creative Cloud.
But what about the new CC apps? Are the new features in Photoshop any good? Does Illustrator have any cool new toys? Does InDesign finally have decent performance at long last? Tune in tomorrow and see!
UPDATE! And the hits just keep coming. Turns out that Creative Cloud saying an app is "up-to-date" is not always true...
Shocking.
Yesterday I took a look at Adobe's "Creative Cloud" app. Today I'm going to look at the "Big Three" apps within Creative Cloud... Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
But before I go there, I have to come clean and admit that most of Adobe's updates have pretty much been "fluff" to me. Yeah, it's cool to get time-savers like the "Spot Healing Brush" and cool extras like "Perspective Drawing Tools"... but, overall, the basic stuff you need to do the job have been around for a long time and everything else they keep adding is nothing more than fluff.
My problem is that I like the fluff.
I get giddy every time Adobe drops some new nifty feature that makes my job easier... or more fun.
Unfortunately, I think we're getting to the point where the fluff is starting to affect app performance, and that's a problem. Kinda. So let me get the worst out of the way first...
InDesign CC
In a nutshell? Fucking horrendous. The program is practically unusable now.
Should you upgrade? Only if you enjoy excrutiating pain and endless frustration.
By the time Adobe bought out Aldus PageMaker in 1994, I had already moved on to QuarkXpress for page layout. The problem being that I hated Quark. So when Adobe came out with InDesign, I jumped... nay, I bolted to InDesign... and never looked back. Partly because I loathed Quark so badly... but mostly because I loved what Adobe had done with InDesign.
Fast forward to yesterday and I have to ask... what the fuck is Adobe doing with InDesign?
The previous CS6 update felt slower than CS5 and crashed quite a bit. But it's an absolute joy to use compared to InDesign CC, which is ungodly slow and clunky. The lag when typing text is agonizing. Moving objects is sheer torture because they... just... won't... move. Even hiding all the images and turning off every automated feature doesn't help speed things up much. I could go on, but it's pointless to do so because InDesign CC is pretty much unusable and worthless.
But before I go, a question... why the fuck hasn't Adobe gotten off their asses and hidden the temp files that have been shitting all over my hard drive since InDesign 1.0?
Illustrator CC
In a nutshell? Not a lot to see here, move along.
Should you upgrade? Sure. You get a few nice pieces of fluff and I haven't found a down-side.
Adobe Illustrator is my most favorite program ever. I love Illustrator. It's powerful. It's comfortable. It's friendly. And the pen tool I use constantly to draw stuff is sublime. It also doesn't hurt that I'm really, really good at it. Just so long as Adobe doesn't break something, I'm excited by any new feature they want to throw my way. This time I'm especially excited by the free-transform tool (which allows you to distort objects oh so easily, especially with a touch screen)... the "touch text" tool (which allows you to perform really slick adjustments to live text)... the smarter Smart Guides (which is much needed)... and the nifty stuff they've done with brushes (like automatically generating corners and allowing you to use images and brushes). Granted, that's not a lot. But Illustrator is so amazing it really doesn't have to be. Overall a minor, unobtrusive, and welcome upgrade.
Photoshop CC
In a nutshell? Pretty great fluff this time. No noticeable slowdown from the additional features.
Should you upgrade? Only if you have confirmed that any third-party plugins you need are compatible.
Photoshop is a stunning example of what people mean when they use words like "invaluable" and "essential." It is the irreplaceable tool I need to do my job. I use it most every single day and love it more than chocolate pudding. So how does Adobe make a great thing greater? Welllll... the show-stopper this time is "Shake Reduction" which is a really smart, mostly-automatic, all-new version of "Smart Sharpen." And the results are pretty impressive...
Oops. In my defense, my camera didn't have image stabilization. And I was drunk.
Yes. This. With just a press of a button. Is it magic? It's Photoshop.
And, speaking of Smart Sharpen, that's been improved too.
Next up? Camera Raw now only works as a filter now for quickly working on non-RAW images, but they've added some new toys too... like auto spot removal. And a cool little feature called "Automated Upright" which will allow you to more quickly and easily straighten buildings and stuff...
When enlarging photos... especially ones with well-defined edges... I usually use a third-party enlargement plugin that has edge detection or fractals or some method to preserve details in the image. Now Photoshop has a new enlargement method called "Preserve Details." And it works pretty well...
It's tough to tell at this small size, but the "Preserve Details" enlargement on the right is much better.
There are other new features, improvements, and a few tweaks... but the above three are the biggies. And I think they're worth the price of admission when taken in a lump sum. But there is a down-side. Some of my third-party plugins are not working. Most notably, Imagenomic Noiseware. Until you're sure that your essential plugins can work with Photoshop CC you might want to hold off upgrading.
And there you have it. A mixed bag. Mostly thanks to a jaw-droppingly shitty InDesign update.
But also because Adobe can't be bothered to make their apps work well with my Mac. Full-Screen support is broken. Still. And my Magic Mouse acts like a total spaz with accidental scrolls and crappy tracking even though it's been out for nearly four years... so I have to downgrade to my Mighty Mouse, which is much older, but does work for some reason. Yet Adobe did expand Mac Retina Display support, so what do I know?
Now that we're stuck in the Creative Cloud I'm already looking for sunnier weather. Because even though I love Adobe and their critical tools which allow me to to what I do... they simply cannot continue to unleash horrendous piles of shit like InDesign CC any more.
Ever.
When you're responsible for something "invaluable" and "essential," you have to do better than that.
Don't go getting yourself blinded by the Super Moon... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Animal! I've been too busy to spend much time playing it, but Animal Crossing: New Leaf was released for the Nintendo 3DS. It's pretty much the exact same game as Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing: Wild World, and Animal Crossing: City Folk. Basically you run around catching fish, hunting bugs, harvesting fruit, collecting seashells, and other tasks... all so you can earn money to buy cool stuff for you and your house. Except this time the little character you take control of is mistaken for the mayor, so you have other responsibilities as well. It's fun and all... but if you've played any of the other games in the series, you've pretty much played this one...
That being said, it's still an entertaining way to kill some time each day. And the 3-D effects are done very well, which makes it visually interesting as well. If you've never played Animal Crossing before, this would be a good place to start. If you have? Well, if you didn't tire of it before, you probably won't mind playing it again.
• Twikies! And so Hostess has a new owner and is going to start distributing their snack-cakes once again come mid-July. This will mean nothing to me... unless they decide to at least try to have the appearance of healthy ingredients by eliminating the LARD from their products...
A switch to vegetable oil would mean that I can start eating Ding Dongs again after 23 years of avoiding them like the plague. And it might give them a fighting chance of surviving in a slightly more health conscience world where parents are not wanting to feed their kids LARD.
• Devious! I could never get into Desperate Housewives because it didn't really go anywhere and wasn't a very entertaining ride. Now creator Marc Cherry has come up with his next television distraction... Devious Maids. The cast is really good, so I had high hopes that this time it would be worth watching...
Sadly, after watching the first episode, it seems as though it's just going to be more of the same. Somebody's been murdered and everybody has secrets. I'm guessing they're just going to dance around everything for years until the show is so senseless and boring that they get canceled and have to slop together some answers. Again. No thanks.
• Equality! Here's hoping that the highest court in the land remembers what America is all about in the weeks ahead...
If nothing else, we could finally tell the equality opponents to take their ridiculous "arguments" against freedom and just shut up already. Though the parodies of their faux pain over something that doesn't even affect them are almost too good to give up...
Yeah, definitely going to miss that.
• Shiiiiiiiiit! I don't even know what to say about this...
People be crazy. People be crazy.
Annnnd... it's going to be a long week.
CONGRATULATIONS BLACKHAWKS ON YOUR STANLEY CUP WIN!!
I wish I was in Chicago right now.
Oh... wait a second... deja vu.
In my annual music wrap-up for last year, a musical duo called "Father Tiger" came out of nowhere to nab the number two spot for best album of 2012. My only disappointment was that some of my favorite singles from the band weren't on it.
This has been partially rectified with their EP release titled Vernal Equinox which had First Love as one of the tracks. It's a terrific song, and today they release a video for it...
Clever, that.
And timely, given that we're nearing the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality in America...
So DOMA is gone and Prop 8 has been struck down.
Both Supreme Court rulings are very good news for equality and freedom in this country.
But, of course, the hand-wringing and whining from the anti-equality brigade has already begun in full force. Never mind that not a single person lost any rights today... some people just enjoy being able to deny rights to people they don't like, and now they're all upset because some of that power has been taken away.
Though the bigger picture may not be so bleak for the bigots among us.
Because yesterday SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights act.
So now States are completely free to disenfranchise voters as they see fit. Have a class of people you want to eliminate from the voting pool? No problem! Just find the way that they tend to vote and get rid of it! Do they tend to vote early? Get rid of early voting! Do they tend to have difficulty getting certain types of identification? Then require that kind of identification! Do they tend to vote at late hours? Close the polls early! Do they all tend to vote at the same time? Then limit the number of polling stations so they can't all get in to vote! Do they tend to have dark skin? Then require their complexion be lighter than a paper bag to qualify to vote! The possibilities are endless! With enough planning, you can get rid of All The Wrong People and make sure the only people able to vote are the people you feel are worthy of the privilege (i.e. they'll vote the way you want them to).
Okay, I exaggerate.
But not really.
Because it's already happening. Except now, thanks to our Supreme Court, the people doing the disenfranchising don't even have to be subtle about it. Texas waited less than two hours after the SCOTUS ruling to start implementing a redistricting measure for heaven's sake.
And a part of me now has to wonder if the DOMA/Prop 8 stuff even matters.
Because if The Right People can determine who gets to vote, then they can shape election results. And I'm pretty sure this will include making sure only The Right People get into office. Which in turn guarantees that only The Right People end up serving on the Supreme Court. Which means that The Right People win the ball game.
In which case The Wrong People lose.
And that probably includes you.
If not today, then probably tomorrow.
Nope. Not yet.
Kapgar was talking about the Stanley Cup's triumphant return to Chicago in his blog post today, and it got me to thinking back to how I became a Blackhawks fan. That, in turn, got me thinking about how I became a fan of all the league sports teams that I follow.
A blog post was born. Thanks, Kevin!
Boston Red Sox Baseball
Baseball is hands-down my favorite sport. It was the only game I liked playing as a kid (even though I really could't play) and I love watching it. Baseball just seems more intimate and personal for some reason, and it's easier to feel a relationship with the players than with any other sport. When your team loses, it hurts because you're invested with those nine players. The first pro team I rooted for was my "hometown" Seattle Mariners, which were enfranchised when I was 11 years old. That lasted until I was in my mid-teens and was given an brand new Orioles jersey as a gift (probably because somebody didn't want it). I didn't know a darn thing about the Orioles, but I liked the shirt a lot. That was apparently enough for me to become a fan, and it didn't hurt that the Orioles were an amazing team back in the early 80's. But, truth to be told, I was never really into professional baseball growing up. I'd rather watch a high school game than a League team, and I was a "fan" of the Mariners and Orioles only in the vaguest possible terms.
And then it happened.
While I was in college, I had to read the book Shoeless Joe for some class or another. It provided an insight into baseball and the love of the game that completely captivated me. A key story-point to the book was the "Black Sox" scandal that rocked the world of baseball in 1919. It was such a fascinating story that I became a little obsessed with it, and ended up reading a lot about the sport. Fortunately, there were no shortage of books about America's favorite pastime, and one book lead to another... then another... then another... until I landed on a Ted Williams biography. This lead to a run on Boston greats, starting with Cy Young, which lead to Smoky Joe Wood, which lead inevitably to Babe Ruth... and his infamous trade from the Red Sox to the Yankees, which caused a curse that plagued the team for over eight decades. This eventually led me to become interested in pro baseball, in general, and the Red Sox, in particular. Then the movie Field of Dreams (based on the novel Shoeless Joe) was unleashed, became my favorite movie of all time, and instilled a love of Major League baseball in me that I never had before... but felt as if it had been with me my entire life. I've been a die-hard Red Sox fan ever since. I love the team. I love the history. I love the fans. I love Boston. And I love Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia (probably a little too much). SALTALAMACCHIA!!!
Chicago Blackhawks Hockey
Hockey is not a big sport where I live, so I never really "discovered" it until I started traveling to Milwaukee for work in the mid 90's. I went to a couple Admirals games and was instantly hooked. The problem being that the Admirals are not a NHL team, so they were kind of hard to follow when I was not in Wisconsin. Eventually my fandom traveled down the shore of Lake Michigan to the Blackhawks when I started traveling to Chicago for work in 1998. I've been a fan ever since. I don't really keep up the League standings, but I have news alerts set for the Hawks so I can watch games and keep up with the team. Hockey remains one of my favorite sports to watch, so a Stanley Cup win for Chicago is a big deal to me after following the team from afar for 15 years. GO HAWKS!
Seattle Sonics Basketball
Sonics mascot SQUATCH!! Photo credit unknown.
Basketball is another spectator sport I enjoy because, like hockey, it's fast-paced and action-packed. The only team I've ever rooted for is my "hometown" Seattle SuperSonics, and I have more than a couple fond memories of traveling to Seattle Center Coliseum (later named Key Arena) to cheer on the team. Of course we all know how that turned out. Our team was sold to Tulsa and basketball died in Seattle. I haven't bothered to find a new team to follow since. INTERESTING FACT: Seattle Center Coliseum has the dubious honor of being the only venue where a basketball game was rained out. Back in 1986 a rainstorm was so severe that water started pouring through the roof and the game was forfeited. It's also the venue where The Beatles played in their two tours of Seattle in 1964 and 1966.
New York Liberty Women's Basketball
I'm not going to candy-coat this... for the longest time, I had -zero- interest in women's sports, thinking that they would be a pale imitation of the real thing. That all changed when I was taken to a New York Liberty game in Newark. These ladies played their guts out, and I got to see a fantastic game that opened my eyes to the fact that women can bring it to the court every bit as dedicated as men. I am not an avid Liberty fan, but check in from time to time to see how they're doing and what's new with the roster. Since the Sonics are gone, I keep hoping I'll find time to take in some Seattle Storm WNBA games and maybe get interested in pro basketball again, but no luck so far.
Seattle Seahawks Gridiron Football
I find football kinda boring, so I'm not invested enough to have a team. If I were, it would be my "hometown" Seattle Seahawks. Probably because I was there in the beginning. Back in 1976 the NFL expansion granted Seattle a team, and it was an exciting time to be a Washingtonian. Seahawks were everywhere, and I remember collecting player posters from the backs of Lay's potato chips boxes (yes, potato chips used to come 2-small bags to a box back in the day). Players like quarterback Jim Zorn and wide receiver Steve Largent that were elevated to local heroes, and their charisma and enthusiasm for the team made it impossible not to root for the Seahawks. But, as I said, I'm not a big football fan, so any love I have for the team comes out of nostalgia more than anything else.
Arsenal Football
With apologies to my friends who are either Manchester United or Chelsea fans... Nick Hornby's novel, Fever Pitch, got me rooting for Arsenal first. The ultimate irony being that when the American movie version of Fever Pitch was made, the sports-obsessed character was a Boston Red Sox fan. Whenever I can find sports highlights for Arsenal, I'm sure to tune it, and I follow their stats every season.
Cronulla Sharks Australian Water Polo
When I was traveling around Australia, I saw a T-shirt for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks Football Club. The logo was awesome (SHARK EXTREME!!!), but the shirt didn't come in my size, so I was bummed. When I got back to my hotel I Googled the team to see if there was a way to order a shit through the mail. Somehow, I ended up NOT on a Cronulla Sharks football page, but a Cronulla Sharks water polo page. Other than a vague recollection of water polo being an important Olympic sport, I didn't know much about the game and was curious. After some digging, I ran across internet video and was amazed. Water polo has to be one of the most difficult and grueling sports in existence. It's also a lot of fun to watch. And so I tune into water polo from time to time whenever I run across it on my television. I also keep up with both the Women's and Men's Cronulla Sharks teams because they were what started it all for me.
Sadly I haven't decided on a professional curling team to watch, so I guess that's the end?
I'm now mostly dead.
Which is understandable considering I just got finished with a seventeen-hour work day.
What I need now Is a vacation.
But that's a few weeks away yet. Darnit.
Time to pick up that mint julep... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Gone! For my first bullet, I'd like to thank Google for the big "fuck you" they drop tomorrow when they kill off Google Reader. It's great how you blow into town with some essential tool and dominate the entire market after killing off the competition... then abandon that market when you can't exploit it for millions of dollars. Way to be "not evil." Next up... Feed Burner?
• Gone Too! Just to show that Google doesn't have a monopoly in killing off services... Yahoo! is killing off a dozen products, including Alta Vista on July 8th, which was my go-to search engine back in the 1990's. Yahoo! says that you should now "Please visit Yahoo Search for all of your searching needs"... but my guess is that this will actually mean more search traffic for Google. Oh well. Another piece of internet history to be gone and forgotten.
• Schadenfreude! I try to be respectful of other people's beliefs and opinions... honestly I do. But the outpouring of hand-wringing over the repeal of DOMA and striking down of Prop 8 is just too delicious to ignore. Because, seriously, if you don't accept same-sex marriage, THEN DON'T MARRY SOMEBODY OF THE SAME SEX! There's really nothing more to be said on the matter, BECAUSE WHETHER OR NOT OTHER PEOPLE GET MARRIED DOESN'T AFFECT YOU! Apparently Justice Kennedy agrees, having denied an application to halt marriages in California.
The people yelling the loudest seem to be the people who make money from fighting against equality, which isn't really surprising. When you fail utterly in your job... bigoted as it may be... I suppose you have cause to be upset.
• Haunted! As a huge fan of visionary musician Trent Reznor (aka Nine Inch Nails) and visionary director David Lynch, the idea of them teaming up for a music video seems too good to be true. And now, after having seen their effort for Come Back Haunted, I know it was too good to be true. What a boring, predictable, and sadly expected video. Rather than looking like something cutting-edge and new, it reeks of all the "nihilistic" videos that were unleashed after the amazing opening credits for the movie SE7EN happened. This is made all the more sad when you consider that the song used in those opening credits was Closer... by Trent Reznor. So I just don't know. Was this meant to be some kind of homage? A parody perhaps? Some kind of commentary on all those who think intermixing shaky camera moves with disturbing images is still edgy? Lynch had a real opportunity here to take us in a new direction, and we get something that would have looked dated ten years ago. Maybe in another ten years he'll go techno-speed-nihilistic and give us a parody of the US credits from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
• Here! And now we're to the part of Bullet Sunday where I offer up this bit of 80's Thompson Twins genius, courtesy of Sixteen Candles, just because it's there...
They don't make teen angst movies like that anymore.
• Rest in Peace. As somebody who lives in a fire zone and has been threatened by wildfires more than once, my heart goes out to the friends and family of the "Granite Mountain Hotshots," 19 of whom perished in a horrific fire northwest of Phoenix...
UPDATE: The Free Republic has an article remembering this elite team of firefighters.
And... back to work. I think I can still get in another two or three hours before I pass out.
Ooh! Today was Canada Day!
Apparently "Canada Day" is declared as such because July 1st is the anniversary date of the day when three North American colonies were super-glued together to form "Canada" in 1867. It seems a little unfair that there's no USA Day today. Instead we get Independence Day in three days and a newspaper called USA Today. I guess that's a fair trade.
Anyway...
In honor of The Great White North's special day, I've decided to re-print my "Canada Travel Journal" from 2009. Which, in turn, is a re-print of a guest-post I made for my Canadian compadre, LeSombre (whose blog is apparently down right now?).
And so, without further ado, here's my trips to Canada...
I've since been to Canada a few times. That I can remember. The latest being a cruise stop in Victoria in 2009... and TequilaCon Vancouver in 2010. Good times. Good times.
So congrats to our neighbor to the north, and here's to many happy Canada Days to come.
And so Google Reader is dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.
As in I opened up my feed reader this morning and it returned no new articles.
Now, before I jump into things, I should probably talk a little bit about why I even give a crap seeing as how blogs are dying and most everything ends up on Facebook anyway. The short answer is "clutter." Yes, many blogs and news sources post their articles (or, more likely, a link to their articles) on Facebook. The problem is that my Facebook newsfeed is also jammed up with tons of other stuff. And that's fine... I actually enjoy keeping up with my friends by all the crazy crap they post... but I don't want to have to go digging through all that to find the blog and news posts I'm looking for. I want them in a separate place so I can quickly get to the material I'm seeking. And that material generally breaks down like this...
And so... where am I at now that Google Reader has gone the way of the dodo?
Well, I can't very well give up having a central service to keep track of my feeds so I can make sure things are synced between all my computers and iDevices, so I went looking for another service. At first I hopped on the Feedly bandwagon as most my friend have because, hey, it's free. But what happens when they too realize there's no money to be made in free webfeeds? And so I bailed from Feedly and signed up with Feed Wrangler. Unlike other "free" services with no business model for actually staying in business, Feed Wrangler is charging $19.95 a year to manage your feeds. A relatively small amount that I am happy to pay so I won't have to go through the Google Reader crap again.
And how am I accessing Feed Wrangler?
Well... their web interface is really good. Very clean. They have smart feeds there which is a spiffy feature. But I prefer to use an offline app so I can have a more feature-rich experience and a cache of my feeds so I can read where I don't have internet.
My first "real" feed reader was NetNewsWire. Brent Simmons clearly new what he was doing when he created it, as the thing Just Made Perfect Sense. It worked like a dream. Everything was so smart in implementation. But then Simmons sold it to NewsGator who in turn sold it to an app house called Black Pixel back in 2011. Black Pixel was more like a Black Hole from which information never escapes, so I finally ditched NetNewsWire for a new app called Reeder.
Reeder was slick looking, but pretty much brain-dead. When you "mark all as read" in NetNewsWire, it assumed you didn't want to read any more from that feed and popped you to the next one. Reeder just sat there like a turd after choosing "mark all as read," which made me hate the fucking app every time I had to manually step through shit I wasn't interested in.... WHICH IS WHY I MARKED IT ALL AS READ!!! Even worse, you could only navigate backwards to the previous post IF IT WAS IN THE SAME FEED! If the previous post was in a different feed, too fucking bad, you can't see it. Dumb stuff like that permitted Reeder, but I used it most of the time anyway because the alternatives were worse. Reeder for Mac doesn't work with Feed Wrangler (yet) even though the iPhone version does, so I was forced to dump it at long last.
The app recommended for connecting to Feed Wrangler that works right now is ReadKit. Unfortunately, ReadKit is even more mind-bogglingly brain-dead than Reeder. Not only does it have BOTH the "mark all as read" stupidity AND the navigation failure... it also has stupid keyboard shortcuts that ARE NOT USER DEFINABLE! With NetNewsWire, Brent Simmons picked the biggest fucking key on the keyboard to go to the next article... THE SPACE BAR! With ReadKit, it's the "J" key or something like that. A key you have to hunt for rather than lazily smashing the bottom of your keyboard. Not that it makes any difference... ReadKit doesn't even have a "Next Unread" button. It has a "show only unread" option, but it doesn't work until after you leave the current feed. Insanity.
Meanwhile, Black Pixel finally released NetNewsWire4 Beta. Desperate for a feed reader that actually made it easy to read my fucking webfeeds, I downloaded it. Even though it doesn't sync with any feed service. The good news is that after you "mark all as read," you actually jump past all the stuff you don't want to read to get to the next unread article (would be nice if it popped you to the next feed automatically but hey, it's beta). So far so good. Does it manage to navigate to the previous feed when you hit the back button to navigate back through the stuff you've read? Oh... this is new... there's no back button. NO FUCKING BACK BUTTON!! I know this is beta software, but how in the hell do you justify releasing a feed reader without a fucking back button? There may be a key for that, but I couldn't find it. And there's no documentation to speak of, so whatever.
I give up.
The only person I trust to write a feed reader that makes fucking sense is Brent Simons, but he's out of that game. I suppose I could cross my fingers and hope that on of the many alternative reader developers take a minute to truly understand what makes a good user experience, but I'm beginning to doubt that will ever happen. Everybody seems to be releasing the same reader with the same failings... they just look a little different and have a different name.
And so I'm back to reading my feed bank by using Feed Wrangler's website.
Maybe one day I'll spend the time to develop my own feed reader. One that will remember what articles you've read regard of which feed they're in and let you backtrack through them. One that will actually MARK SHIT AS READ AND THEN MOVE PAST IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT ANY MORE. One that has keyboard shortcuts that make fucking sense. One that syncs with Feed Wrangler. One that doesn't make me start dropping F-bombs every time I go to talk about it.
Maybe.
But probably not.
Perhaps I should just follow Google's lead after all and give it all up.
The past several days have been extremely difficult for me on many levels.
Which is why waking up to a very nice email first thing in the morning was enough to have me walking on air all day.
The letter was from "somebody you don't know" who wrote to thank me for keeping Blogography going, then tell me that today he removed a DaveToon from his cubical at work that had been hanging there ever since I first posted it to my blog over four years ago.
I was a little confused as to why he would write to me about REMOVING a cartoon I made... until I followed the link in his email and saw this...
All I could say in return was "Thanks so much. I'm sorry you had to wait this long... even sorrier I had to draw it in the first place."
Which is hardly adequate, but I meant every word.
Happy birthday you big, beautiful, crazy bastard.
Thanks for the apple pie.
Sometimes I have to wonder why I'm still blogging.
Especially when I have to deal with this shit all the time...
I spent an hour yesterday trying to post a picture of a monkey with a flag before giving up.
There's got to be a better use of my time than that.
I love games and always have. They are a great way to socialize, have fun, and maybe even learn something. In my case, they are also a way to escape from my life, even if for just a couple hours.
One of the games I've played a couple times that seems to be on everybody's radar lately is Cards Against Humanity. It's kind of an Apples-to-Apples peer judging game, but totally demented, sick, disgusting, and inappropriate. But... when played with the right people, it can also be a hilarious way to spend an evening.
Basically, somebody draws a Black Card to read to the group, then the other players have to put in the best response to "fill in the blanks" from the White Cards in their hand. The questions can be disturbing enough. But it's the answers that take things to an entirely new level.
Now, given the general audience of this blog, numerous hands of the game simply cannot be displayed here. But... the cards are completely free to download and craft yourself, so you can go to the Cards Against Humanity website, download a PDF, then read or make them (though it's probably easier to just go buy them).
In case you don't want to go to the trouble, here's some of the tamer things that came from the games we played...
Well, okay, maybe one slightly inappropriate one...
See, I said that sometimes you learn something, and there it is.
Not a game for everyone. But funny if you're a bit despicable and have similar-minded friends and/or family. If you should decide to try playing it, you might want to examine every card carefully before proceeding in mixed company.
This stuff is supposed to be fun, people!
I'm in an 80's state of mind... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Sadness. My thoughts are with those affected by the Bodh Gaya Temple bombing in India... including Buddhists around the world. This most holy site is said to be the place that Buddha obtained enlightenment, and is a hugely important pilgrimage spot I have long wanted to visit. Why somebody would wish to destroy a place of importance to a people whose entire belief system revolves around non-violence and inner-peace is beyond me, but here we are.
• Heat! Was very pleasantly surprised by The Heat. From the trailers I couldn't tell if it was going to be funny-funny or funny-stupid. Sure, it dips into funny-stupid a few times... usually when Melissa McCarthy is allowed to improvise for too long a stretch... or Sandra Bullock tries too hard to be awkward and uptight... but it always gets back on track. Basically, Bullock plays an FBI Agent that ends up in Boston to track down a very, very bad man. While there she runs afoul of local cop McCarthy but, as so often happens, ends up teaming up with her. The supporting cast is pure gold, with appearances by Jane Curtin, Michael Rapaport, Taran Killam, Thomas F. Wilson (Biff!), Nate Corddry, Joey McIntyre, Zach Woods, Marlon Wayans... and probably a lot more I don't remember.
It's worth a matinee price to see in theaters, and definitely worth a rental.
• Concert! The Chateau Ste. Michelle is a winery over in Woodinville that has an amphitheater which gets some pretty decent musical talent to play. It's a beautiful venue, but the lawn seating is mostly obstructed and not laid out very well. This means it's not the best place for a concert, but it's okay. Except when you have to watch a drunken train wreck pee her pants.
Anyway, tonight it was Pat Benatar headlining with Terri Nunn and Berlin opening up. Benatar was a little rough vocally, but entertaining. Berlin was amazing. They have a new album coming out, and the taste they gave us at the concert will definitely have me checking it out.
• Faced! I've often wondered about what kind of mentality it takes for somebody to think that people would like to see their giant face plastered all over a bus. Whatever it is, I'm seeing more and more of it, so it must be pretty common. This one I saw on my way to The Coast on Friday was particularly clever, because they had to position afore-mentioned giant head between obstacles...
• Woman! There's a video of Dustin Hoffman discussing his role of Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie which has been burning up the internets. It's a pretty powerful piece, and the epiphany he had about "interesting women" being dismissed because of their looks comes from a perspective most men will never have...
Not surprisingly, not everybody can appreciate what Mr.. Hoffman is trying to say. Some of the comments I've read are positively awful. But that's the internet for you.
No more bullets... but tomorrow is another day...
One year ago today I was waking up from an alcohol-induced coma in The Bahamas with nothing but a huge bar tab and the pocket ripped off my shorts to show for it.
Today I ate breakfast at McDonalds then went to work.
Funny the difference a year can make.
Nothing against McDonalds, but I'd give up a hundred of their "Breakfast Biscuit Sandwiches with Egg and Cheese Only" for just one Bahamian beer right now.
Beer nuts optional.
Yesterday morning I had to head back over the mountains early so I could make it to work on time. The drive is usually 2-hours, 15-minutes... but I always budget 2-1/2 hours just in case something weird happens.
Like some asshole in front of me deciding to drive 15 miles an hour under the speed limit while in a no-passing zone for 20-minutes.
Or, more likely, because I have to stop at McDonalds for breakfast. Which went something like this...
"Welcome to McDonald's! Would you like to try our new Egg White Delight McMuffin Sandwich?"
"What? — No. — Oh gross. No."
"Sorry, we have to ask. What can I get for ya?"
Now, I'm not doubting her word... I'm sure they really are required to ask people to try the Egg White Delight. My question is why? Do they expect that you'll order that hideous-sounding sandwich in addition to what you're already buying? That's not very realistic. Best case scenario is that you'll eat that egg white shit-sandwich instead of what you were already going to buy. Are they cheaper to make, thus more profitable or something? I doubt it. So I just don't get it.
Especially since the Egg White Delight McMuffin looks like this...
Oh hell no.
Because that photo comes directly from McDonalds where it was undoubtedly styled perfectly and still looks like shit. I can only guess how utterly awful it looks "in real life." The best part of an egg is the yolk, and I sure as hell ain't going to go for a sandwich without it. Go sell that disgusting, slimy, mass of vomit-inducing hell to somebody else, McDonalds.
And speaking of food styling... this is what I'm talking about...
From experience, I can tell you that a really good food stylist is worth their weight in gold. The better they are at making stuff look amazing, the less time you have to spend in Photoshop!
But even the best food stylist in the universe would have trouble making the Egg White Delight McMuffin look edible.
= shudder =
Thanks to yet another massive chunk of ice breaking off the continent, Antarctica just moved past India to take the top spot on my travel bucket list. I just have to see it before it's gone.
The problem is that it's SO expensive to do it right.
Even if I start saving immediately after I get back from this year's vacation in October, I still won't have enough money to afford the trip by the time Winter 2014 rolls around. Which means I'll have to go into credit card debt. Unless I wait until winter 2015, which I'd really rather not do.
And, yes... I know exactly what this sounds like.
"Oh boo hoo! People in Africa are starving and you can't afford to vacation in Antarctica! Poor little you!"
And I totally agree. This is the cream of First World Problems right here.
But... Antarctica.
And so I've got to buckle down and get serious over the next couple months so I can make this happen.
Why can't I have millions of dollars so stuff like "budgeting for a vacation" doesn't have to occupy my time?
Okay, okay... that's the cream of First World Problems.
Probably not a good idea to watch a documentary on germs, viruses, and diseases before traveling.
And... back to packing.
The drive over the mountains to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is just 2-1/2 hours. Which is just about as long as it takes to fly over when you add together the driving, waiting, and flight time. Money-wise, it's a wash too, as gas and parking come very close to the cost of airfare.
All things considered, I prefer to fly. But, more often than not, I end up driving because my tiny local airport keeps reducing the number of flights into Seatac and has shitty connections to other flights. And by "shitty" I actually mean "horrendously shitty" because the layovers can be 4 or 5 hours long. Which is entirely too much time to be spending at an airport.
Except...
It's getting to the point where the 2-1/2 hour drive is getting to be far, far worse than a long layover. Case in point, what I went through to get here today...
And that's only the stuff that made me so angry I remembered it.
So... adding an extra 4 or 5 hours to my trip? Not quite the horrendously shitty endeavor it used to be.
At least not when compared to the horrendously shitty driving alternative.
In order to save money on airfare, I flew into Atlanta a day early. Sure it meant getting up at 4:00am this morning, but the cost of flying is getting to be so outrageous that you do what you gotta do. The up-side was that I ended up getting into town at 2:00, which left me time to meet up with some Atlanta peeps for dinner.
And what a dinner it was...
Dante's Down the Hatch "Jazz and Fondue Restaurant and Club" has been an Atlanta institution for 43 years that I've never heard of. Which is odd, because it's fairly famous. It's a themed restaurant built around a "sailing ship" that's surrounded by live crocodiles. Kind of like dining in the middle of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, but without the animatronic pirates and stuff...
All this plus CHEESES OF THE WORLD!!!
The menu is a bit confusing. I thought I was ordering vegetable fondue, but it ended up being vegetables and a pot of boiling oil. But that didn't stop me from unintentionally stealing some of somebody else's cheese, which was delicious (Houston, I owe you dinner next time I'm in town!)...
The jazz was good. Really good. And since our table was inside the ship, we had a front-row seat!
All in all an awesome way to spend an evening. I'm sad that the place is closing at the end of the month, as I would have absolutely come here again.
Many thanks to blogger buddies (et al) The Muskrat, Whipstitch, Coal Miner's Granddaughter, Copasetic Beth, and Houston's Problem for strawberry daiquiri-infused dinner fun!
Don't let invading Kaiju keep you down... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Rim! Okay, I am having trouble deciding if Pacific Rim is so bad it's good... or so bad it's bad. The concept of giant robots fighting giant alien monsters is fantastic. But the story they came up with around that concept was shockingly bad and hugely inconsistent (IT TAKES TWO PILOTS TO OPERATE A JAEGER ROBOT... UNLESS IT DOESN"T!). The acting was, with one exception, awful. And it didn't help that they were being given groan-inducing, cheesy dialogue to work with. That being said, I am still glad I saw the movie in a really good theater because the special effects and battle sequences were mind-blowing...
All in all, a bit of a misstep for brilliant director Guillermo del Toro... but an entertaining one. If you have time to kill, it's worth watching on the big screen. Just keep your expectations in check.
• Acting! The one exception to the really bad acting in Pacific Rim I was talking about? Mana Ashida's performance as young Mako. Absolutely riveting. You could feel her terror in every frame, and it was almost enough to believe that she was actually being chased by a Godzilla-sized monster. She should get some kind of award for that...
I'm guessing this photo came from Warner Bros. and/or Legendary Pictures.
It will be very interesting to see where Mana's considerable talent takes her as an actor.
• Idris! Yeah, okay... if I'm being honest here, Idris Elba was pretty brilliant playing Stacker Pentecost considering the genuinely awful lines he had to deliver.
• Stereotypical! One last comment about Pacific Rim... thanks to everybody involved for once again giving us genius scientists that act so damn stupid and geeky that it's impossible to believe that they are, in fact, genus scientists. Burn Gorman and Charlie Day, both of whom I like as actors, were completely wasted in their roles, being used as some idiotic attempt at comic relief that only served to disrupt the film. Badly. Can we please give up on this overused, stereotypical crutch that never ends up as hysterical as was intended? (see: Brent Spiner in Independence Day or any number of other flicks in genre entertainment where genius scientists appear for "humor value" in a script).
And in another direction entirely...
• Verdict. Well, I wish I could say I'm surprised, but the not-guilty verdict for George Zimmerman was hardly shocking. I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers here, but there's a few things I feel I have to get off my chest...
Zimmerman's story is, at the very least, exaggerated and not entirely supported by facts in evidence. And because of Zimmerman's actions and poor judgement, a 17-year-old kid is dead. Hopefully some lessons will be learned from this tragic situation. But the verdict has me worried that people will take away the wrong lesson.
Heaven help us.
As always, Faiqa has written up a response that's far better than anything I could come up with, so I leave you with a link to her blog.
Take care of each other out there.
"GET BACK HERE, TACO BOY!"
I'm pretty sure I was already kinda awake, but it was those words reverberating through the hallway of my hotel after hearing a door slam that finally managed to really wake me up.
Kids, right?
Or, in this case, more like parents not minding their kids at 5:30am.
Not the best way to start my day, but it did start my imagination running as to how some kid would end up with "Taco Boy" as a nickname. At least I hope it's a nickname.
After that minor incident, I really have no complaints about my day. None. Checkout at the hotel was painless. The shuttle to the airport was on time. The people at the Sixt desk were awesome. My rental car ended up being a Prius that I really enjoy driving. The trip down to my job site was completely uneventful. The day's work started early and went well. I had Dr. Pepper, Pretzels, and GIANT Kit-Kat for lunch. A nice breeze took the edge off the afternoon heat. I caught up on my emails. I had a terrific dinner with a friend from work. Now I'm laying in bed listening to cicadas (or some other noisy bugs) screech into the night.
Well, okay, I really could do without the screeching bugs, but it sure beats screeching kids at 5:30 in the morning, so there's that.
And now I just don't know what to do with myself since I have nothing to complain about.
A few more days like this and I may have to give up blogging.
Oh... speaking of kids... this video was shared on Facebook by Certifiable Princess and is must-watch material...
Just one more good thing to come out of my day.
And another...
Dayamn! These videos are like popcorn. You just can't stop reaching for another handful.
Except I have an early call to work, so no more for me.
Maybe because I'm just so exhausted, but I'm just not getting it.
Why is it that all these homophobic bigots seem to think that gay people are all about gay sex and ONLY gay sex? That there couldn't possibly be something more to their lives than their sex life? That it is impossible for a hetero-challenged man or woman to possibly be interested in something other than where they like to put their bits and pieces?
Because, I gotta tell you... any time I've been hanging out with friends who are gay, their sexuality rarely enters the conversation. We talk about travel... or movies... or books... or restaurants... or music... or work... or pretty much all the same things I talk about with my straight friends. And yet here is how I picture Barber & Crampton must think the conversation goes...
ME: Hey lesbian friend, what's up?
LESBIAN FRIEND: Pussy. Vagina, pussy. Labia, labia, breasts, pussy. PUSSY!!!
ME: I hear that! How about you, gay friend?
GAY FRIEND: Cock. COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK!
I'm not saying that relationships and sex never come up, but it's never the single all-consuming topic of conversation that these idiots seem to think it is.
No. The only people who are interested in talking about gay sex and ONLY gay sex 24/7 seem to be homophobic bigots like Barber & Crampton.
Which kind of makes me wish they'd just fuck each other and get it out of their system already. Maybe if all of them did that, I wouldn't have to keep hearing about gay sex every time I'm on the internet or turning on the television.
Heck, even the gays and lesbians must be tired of it by now.
Apparently my punishment for having a day with no complaints is to have everything go wrong for two days. I just can't seem to catch a break.
So... lesson learned: Find something to complain about, even when you have nothing to complain about, or get something to complain about. I guess that's just the way the universe works. From now on when I ask somebody how it's going... and they answer "I have no complaints!"... I'm going to respond with "THEN YOU ARE A FOOL!!!"
Because I'm all about constructive feedback.
Work has been an all-consuming day-and-night affair. I'm not just burning the candle at both ends, but instead taking a flamethrower to the candle then falling asleep on it. Except I don't have time to sleep, so I pop back up with melted candle on my face and go back to work.
Fortunately, I'm working in Zombie Country again, so I fit right in...
And now for the complaints...
THERE! Hopefully all that complaining will put me back on track for mildly crappy days instead of horrendously shitty days.
Thanks a lot, Universe.
The plan was to wake up early, have a quick breakfast, get my work done, go shoe-shopping, have a nice leisurely lunch, then head to the airport a full two hours early.
The reality was that I woke up early, had a quick breakfast, started in on work... WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN EVERYTHING WENT TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY WRONG! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!
And so I managed to get to the aiport just 45 minutes before my international flight, boarding the plane just 30 minutes before take-off (thank you TSA Pre-Check!).
Without new shoes. Without lunch. Without my santiy.
The flight to the Netherlands itself wasn't too bad. I just watched movies to pass the time.
Add in some episodes of The Newsroom and the 10-hour flight was over just like that.
Pretty much the only thing on the agenda today...
PATATJES MET!!!
I swear, if I lived here in DutchyLand, I'd undoubtedly weigh 600 pounds.
I pretty much have one day in the Netherlands before heading out again.
The DutchBitch decided that this would be best spent visiting "Maastrecht." I thought this might be the name of a windmill... or perhaps a cheese farm... but she tells me that it is a city. "Wow! There are other cities in the Netherlands than Amsterdam?!? I asked before getting slapped in the face.
And so there are. Maastricht is about as far as you can get from Amsterdam whilst still being inside the Netherlands...
It's a very pretty city. The first photo I took was this statue of St. Hubertus reading a book to his deer skull hat...
One of the more famous landmarks of Maastricht is the red tower of St. Jan's. Which looks fantastic when photographed in HDR...
Sadly, there was bad news to be found in the shadow of the Red Tower... somebody lost their Miffy doll and binky. She now waits patiently for her owner to come back and get her...
Walking through the city I found this really cool "Bidweg" monument... "Bidweg" meaning "Way of Prayer"...
The waterway nearby is filled with brilliant green plants which I thought looked like something out of a Van Gogh painting...
There's a wall surrounding old Maastricht that you can walk on top of. It's quite pretty and looks more like a garden than a wall...
The wall itself is home to a lot of flowers and plants that have managed to grow between the cracks...
I got excited when I saw a Free Ladies party... until I saw it was a month ago...
A sign asking people to be quiet so the neighbors can live in peace was interesting. I wonder if it works. I sincerely doubt it would any effect in the USA...
Awesome kid drawings at a Maastricht school...
The DutchBitch then took us to hell...
Helpoort... or "Hell Gate"... is the oldest surviving city gate in the Netherlands (from the year 1229!). It's in amazingly good shape for being so old, and well worth a visit.
After wandering around for a few hours, it was time to head back to Casa de DutchBitch. But not before... WAFFLES!!!
The perfect end to a perfect afternoon.
Take off your wooden shoes and relax... because a special DUTCHYLAND TRAVEL edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Schiphol! Amsterdam's International Airport is named Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, and it's easily one of my favorite airports in the world. It's incredibly well organized, navigation signs are everywhere, and I've never seen extremely long lines for anything. Today I was flying Business Class, and it was literally ten minutes between when the DutchBitch dropped me off and I had gone through bag drop-off and security to be sitting in the KLM Lounge drinking a Coke and one of Dutchy's delicious cheese sandwiches. As if that weren't enough, every employee I have ever encountered at Schiphol has been exceedingly friendly and helpful. One of the cool things they do that seems to be increasingly common outside the USA is to have a monitor to tell you when luggage from your flight has hit the baggage carousel. Schiphol goes one step further and provides an estimate as to when the bag will be unloaded...
Never mind that it's almost always wrong (my suitcase was "expected" at 8:48, but it's 8:54 in this photo and it still hasn't shown up), at least they're trying to keep passengers informed!
• KLM! The major airline for the Netherlands is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. When flying KLM, Business Class travelers are treated exceptionally well. But it's my memories of flying the airline when I was a coach passenger with little travel status that makes me love the company. As an example, way back in 2002 my Northwest Airlines flight arrived late at Schiphol and I missed my connecting KLM flight to London. When I explained that I was now going to miss my train to Edinburgh, the transfer agent asked if they could change my ticket from London to Edinburgh at no charge so I wouldn't delay my vacation. I very nearly went into shock. This just isn't done in the airline industry... especially when something is another airline's fault. But Northwest was a partner company and there was room on the next flight to Edinburgh, so KLM didn't give it a second thought. I probably had "Silver" status back then, but I don't think they even bothered to check before they made the offer. This not only saved me the cost of a train ticket, but actually ended up putting me ahead of schedule for my trip. And that's just one example. KLM has bent over backwards to help me out like that more than once, and is one of the few airlines I honestly have -zero- complaints about.
• Food! Another perk of flying KLM? The food. Yes. The food... on an airline! First of all, I can't recall a time that there wasn't a vegetarian option. Whether it be a simple sandwich or full meal service, they always seem to have a meat-free selection. Second of all, I can't recall ever having a bad meal. Tonight I wasn't hungry, but I couldn't say no when they offered dinner service... on my two-hour flight to Helsinki. Now-a-days, you'd be lucky to get a free snack on a flight that short, but here's KLM's idea of service...
That's cheese gnocchi pasta pillows over spinach, a mozzarella and tomato salad with lemon olive oil dressing, a dinner roll with butter, and a chocolate-praline mousse pudding with cookie topping for dessert. ON A TWO-HOUR FLIGHT! Even on an hour hop, I've been served everything from delicious cheese sandwiches to pizza. It's unreal. I don't just like flying KLM, I thrill to flying KLM, and the wonderful food is a big part of that.
• Trains! In the Western USA, we don't have a very good train network at all. As an example... if I want to take the train to Seattle, I first have to drive 20 minutes to Wenatchee, then catch the one train that goes to Seattle every day... at 5:35am. This is pretty much useless, so I never take the train. Contrast that with the train network in the Netherlands...
Image grabbed from the internet... source unknown.
For a rather small country, the rail coverage is astounding. You can go just about anywhere on clean, comfortable, fast trains with schedules that are actually useful. I long for this kind of service where I live.
• S.T.E.P. The US Department of State has a program called "STEP" which is the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. US citizens traveling or living abroad can register their trip so that if they run into a problem it's easier for them to get help from local embassies since they'll already have your information. It also lets the embassy know that you are in the area in case something seriously bad happens... like a violent uprising, government takeover, invasion, or Justin Bieber concert. I'm guessing if something like that were to happen, they could track down everybody registered in STEP and make sure they're safe. Or, I suppose they could also be hacked by terrorists so that it's easier to find potential hostages and/or victims. Regardless, given the world we now live in, I've decided to risk it and have gotten in the habit of entering my trips abroad into STEP. Whether you decide to do that or not, it's still worth your time to see what the program offers, so here's a link to the Bureau of Consular Affairs and STEP.
And on that note, I must say... Tot ziens! Vaarwel! Dag!
"Why in the hell are you going to Helsinki?"
I must have heard that (or a variation of that) at least a dozen times. Which is fine, I suppose, because it doesn't seem to be a big travel destination for Americans.
The honest answer is "Because I haven't been there before."
Or, more accurately, "Because I haven't been there before and they have a Hard Rock Cafe."
The interesting thing about my day was how shocking the weather was. In no way could it have been identified as "summer"... or even in the same ballpark as "summer." It was cold, windy, rainy, overcast, dark, and very much "Fall-like." Some people would find this horrible. I look at the weather back home where it's 100°F and I am totally loving it.
Since it was raining, I decided to wander around the more non-touristy areas and save the "big attractions" for tomorrow when the weather is supposed to improve. This allowed me to soak in the Finnish architecture, which is mind-bogglingly great. Especially the human column support designs, which are awesome...
Trying to stay dry in the rain, I suppose...
Then it was off to St. Johns, which is a very nice church with an especially nice painting above the altar...
From there I headed down to the southern waterfront and then up to Observatory Hill, where there's a really cool statue called "Haaksirikkoiset" (Shipwrecked) by Robert Stigell...
I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM MY BOAT! (St. Petersburg is 185 miles away)
Restaurants are insanely expensive here. To save money, I decided to pick up a few groceries to make my own meals a few times. As I headed out, I noticed some cool old buildings across the street...
And, of course, there's the Hard Rock Cafe. It's in a mall of some kind, and is small but nice. Since it's a newer cafe, they've used the shitty "Hipster Lounge" design aesthetic, but they (wisely) took a step back and made sure to include a good selection of memorabilia, which is great.
One of those pieces of memorabilia is some hand-penned lyrics to an unfinished (and unused) Nirvana song. Much to my dismay, Kurt Cobain doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're" which made me want to grab a red pen and scrawl a correction on it...
I ended up having a "Caribbean Black Bean Burger" because the Helsinki Hard Rock didn't have the usual "Veggie-Leggie" burger. The flavor was pretty good. The problem was that it had a marinated black bean patty and some kind of sauce on top, which made the burger a wet-hot mess. It was so slippery that it was impossible to keep in the bun. Which was a soggy bun, because the marinade had soaked into it. Making this the singular most stupid fucking "burger" I've ever attempted to eat. Which begs the question... when this was dreamed up, did they ever bother to fucking try one before putting it on the menu? Because there is no way this should be sold like this. The thing costs $23 (with fries!) and I was only to eat half of it because even attempting to eat it with a knife and fork proved futile. I don't expect amazing food at a Hard Rock, but I at least expect it to be edible. The "Caribbean Black Bean Burger" was a disgusting inedible mess.
Sometimes when traveling to foreign lands, people will ask me "Is it weird over there?" To which I always have the same response... "Not weird, just different. The USA is by far the weirdest place I've ever been. And I'm being completely honest. When it comes to seeing absolutely bizarre shit, nobody tops America (WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!).
Which is not to say there aren't weird moments. But most of those come from finding American crap in the country you're visiting. And Helsinki has a lot of that. A prime example is some pillows advertising Lexington, Kentucky that I saw in a shop window. Which is not too weird until you see that they're advertising Lexington seafood at a restaurant that I don't think even exists. In particular, they're advertising Lexington crab... when Lexington isn't anywhere near the ocean... or any crabs. So, yeah... kinda weird...
But the weirdest thing in Helsinki so far? Tex-Mex restaurants. I've seen quite a few, so I'm guessing that it must be a popular cuisine here...
Well that's not too weird, I suppose.
Until you look at a menu and see that they have a kind of "Tex-Mex Cajun Barbecue" fusion thing going on...
It's like somebody wanted to serve American cuisine at their restaurant and just said "Fuck it! I'm putting all their regional shit in there!" Which has me totally inspired to create a "Spanish Italian Greek" restaurant when I get back home.
And take a gander at the menu prices there... Cheese Fajitas are 18,90€ which comes out to $25 USD... FOR FRICKIN' CHEESE FAJITAS!! Salsa and Chips? That'll run you $7.70... which is made even more horrible when you consider that most US restaurants serve them to you for free so you have something to snack on while you wait for your food.
I'm almost afraid to try the salsa here. Odds are it's made with herring.
Anyway, it's just turned 2:00am, so I suppose I should try and get some sleep. Sightseeing is so much more interesting when you're eyes are actually open.
When I looked out my window this morning I was excited to see that it was still overcast, yet not raining. Perfect weather for exploring!
One of the many nice things about the city is that Helsinki has an excellent tram system for getting around. Even so, I usually like to walk so I don't miss anything between stops. Having cooler weather makes the walking so much nicer.
Hammers aren't the only thing swinging here... LOOK OUT!
My first stop was someplace I wasn't interested in going. But I went anyway because I really didn't want people screaming "ZOMG! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU WENT ALL THE WAY TO HELSINKI AND DIDN'T VISIT THE ROCK CHURCH!" at me. And so I give you... Temppeliaukion Church...
Thrilling, I know. But it does get more interesting on the inside...
It's nice enough, I guess, but I like churches for their artwork, so this one really doesn't do it for me. I did like the way that accents, like this prayer candle rack, are bolted onto the rock though...
As I was walking to Senate Square, I saw a statue of a little girl riding a tiny dinosaur. You're welcome...
The top of Senate Square features The Cathedral of Helsinki. It's absolutely beautiful on the outside... but kind of boring on the inside...
Below Senate Square is Market Square, where vendors are selling all kinds of delicious goods. Including berries, which are incredibly popular here...
From there it's a short walk to beautiful Uspenski Cathedral...
As you can tell from my later photos, the overcast skies did not last long. By 2:00 it was so hot that I had to retreat to my hotel room for a couple hours until I could brave the heat again. This time so I could travel to the very awesome Jean Sibelius Monument north of the city center. The guy was a famous composer, and this work is supposed to symbolize his music...
And then it was time for the Museum of Finland, which is an amazing, amazing insight into the history and culture of the country...
They had a map room, which was heaven for a map fan like me...
The exhibits are really well done, but some of them were kind of creepy...
The last stop on my itinerary today was Kamppi Chapel of Silence. It's a stunning architectural achievement that's incredibly beautiful inside and out...
And that's a wrap. Tomorrow is an early start for me, so it's off to bed I go...
Estonia is a country I've wanted to visit for about a decade now. The reason is a rather odd one, so I'll leave that until a bit later in the entry.
And so...
If I was going to ever visit Estonia, now would be the time to do it considering that Tallinn is just a 2-hour ferry ride across the Gulf of Finland. Of course, St. Petersburg, one of my bucket-list dream destinations is just 4-1/2 hours away by train, but the visa requirements are a bit crazy on that one...
Map taken from Google Maps!
There are a few options for the crossing, but I went with Tallink Silja Line because it seemed to be the most reliable. It also looked to be the most comfortable, being more like a cruise ship than any ferry I've ever been on (seriously, there's a supermarket on board!).
The weather in Tallinn, which I checked multiple times, was forecast to be 78° so I didn't bother taking a jacket. I just jumped on an early tram (which was driven by somebody looking suspiciously like Thor, God of Thunder!), jumped off at the West Terminal stop, and away we go...
Tallinn's Old Town was a quick (though somewhat confusing) 15-minute walk from the harbor. After walking up a cobblestone path you reach the city gates, which are right out of medieval times...
As far as medieval cities go, the illusion here is shattered almost instantly because this is what you see the minute you enter...
Oh well. It's not like you're getting an authentic experience anyway. McDonald's aside, Old Town Tallinn is very much like Disneyland. It's mostly crowds, restaurants, and souvenir shops... with a few attractions sprinkled in. Mostly churches. Some museums.
Now, as you can see, the weather was hardly the warm paradise I was told. I kept thinking that it would warm up as the day went on, but it never did. Apparently weather forecasts are just as useless here as they are back home. I was fairly comfortable as it wasn't freezing or anything... but I sure wish I would have brought a jacket. Lesson learned.
My first stop was Holy Spirit Church so I could see their beautiful clock...
It is indeed beautiful, but... crooked. As is just about everything in Tallinn. Nothing is quite straight here, which is enough to drive a photographer crazy. Add that to the very narrow streets which necessitates using a wide-angle lens that just exaggerated how crooked everything is, and I was pretty much a basket case by the time I left. Still, it's a pretty kind of crooked, and I love the stone streets that run through it all...
My second stop was the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Since I wasn't going to make it to St. Petersburg, this was about as close as I was going to get to seeing a Russian Orthodox church this trip. Unfortunately, the cathedral is undergoing restoration so it has green webbing all over it, but it's still quite beautiful...
Not really knowing what else to do after seeing the clock and St. Nevsky, I ended up just wandering around for the five hours I had left. Tallinn has a lot of randomly cool things to see, so it was easy to kill the time.
The defensive wall that surrounds the city has numerous towers, but I only saw one which looked like the castle towers I expected (you know, the kind that look like rooks in a chess set)...
There's a trio of old houses called "The Three Sisters" that I passed as I walked to the Maritime Museum. I'm not quite sure what makes them any more special than the hundred other houses in the city, but tourist groups were going nuts over them, so here you go...
The Maritime Museum is housed within the city's biggest tower, called "Fat Margaret." The building itself is kind of boring, though the museum inside is very nice. But the biggest attraction for me was the terrace at the top. From here you can look out on the entire city, and the view is pretty cool...
Of the half-dozen churches I visited, my favorite was a tiny little hole-in-the-wall place called "Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church of the Mother of God with Three Hands." It's very... shall we say... rustic in appearance, but a lot of fun to visit...
As I was walking along the walls of the city, I saw a sign for the Tallinn Flower Festival. Thinking this might be a cool thing to see, I stepped outside the gate and saw... this...
I'm guessing it must continue on somewhere else? Back inside the wall, I started photographing a bunch of crumbling buildings because the textures were just so amazing. Who knows when I might be able to use such beautiful decay as reference material for a project?
Not everything beautiful is falling apart though. Tallinn is filled with little secret alleys and courtyards that are fun to wander around...
Street art break!
And a couple of nifty signs I added to my photo collection...
There were quite a few "American-style" restaurants in the city, but the Texas Honky Tonk Cantina was my favorite concept of them all...
And now, at long last, is the reason I wanted to visit Estonia's capital for all these years. Tallinn is home to the Depeche Mode Bar! That's right, it's a bar devoted to my favorite band! The decor and music is all Depeche Mode all the time...
I don't think that this is the original location, because the photos I saw years ago looked different, but it's still pretty cool (they have a Pin-Bot pinball machine!). If you're a DM fan, then it's a must-visit place.
And, just like that, my seven hours in Estonia were over. Time to head back to Helsinki...
All in all, a great way to spend the day. If you're in Helsinki for a while, it's a day-trip worth doing.
I didn't think that Helsinki was that much closer to the North Pole than home, but I was wrong. Sunset here is around 10:30pm, which means it's light out until 11:00pm. Usually I like the idea of wandering around a city at dusk because the light is so fantastic for photos, but can't seem to get motivated to go for a walk an hour before midnight.
But anyway...
Yesterday I made such grandiose plans for today.
Finland has hundreds of islands floating off its coast, so I was keen to take some kind of cruise that would let me see some of them. The cruise I found is a three-hour excursion up the coast to the town of Porvoo, and seemed to be exactly what I was wanting. Just look at all the cool islands and stuff along the way...
Map taken from Google Maps!
But then I woke up this morning and the last thing I wanted to do was climb on a boat for three hours, then slog around a tourist-trap city for two hours, then spend another three hours on a boat back to Helsinki. There just isn't enough islands in all of Finland to make that sound appealing. Especially after the trip to Estonia yesterday.
So I down-sized my plans and thought that a 90-minute harbor cruise would be a better option for me.
But as I was getting ready to walk to the South Harbor, I admitted to myself that even 90 minutes on a boat crawling with tourists was too much.
So I down-sized my plans once again and decided to eat lots of Finnish pastries today.
The pastries here are pretty amazing. I especially like the Karelian pies, which have a thin crust filled with some kind of sticky rice and an egg glaze on top... not overly sweet, but tasty. Today I went for something different, and ended up with the Finnish version of a cinnamon roll, and some kind of twisty sparkly donut that had anise (licorice) flavoring...
After wandering around the neighborhood shops for a while, I decided to go back to the hotel for a nap before lunch. Since I'll be headed home this weekend, I might as well start prepping myself for the time change.
But mostly I just felt like being lazy for once.
Lunch was pizza at a really good Italian joint just down the street from my hotel. As I was waiting for my order to cook, I looked up and saw the Chick-Fil-A cows drawn on a chalkboard next to a sketch of Sophia Loren for no reason at all...
Random stuff like this really makes my day.
But not quite as much as stopping in the corner market for a Coke and some chips only to find Cheese Balls with a penis-shaped mascot and MINIPUSSI...
Delicious! And just right. I'm so glad I didn't splurge and get the MAXIPUSSI.
After my late lunch, I wandered around the city some more, snapping a few pictures for duck soup. It was all good until I got back to my hotel and found out that my camera somehow got set to 32-BAZILLION ISO, so everything was all grainy...
Lesson learned. Check your ISO every time you take out your camera. I'm just thankful that this happened on shots that I already had... if it had happened for my entire Estonia trip I would be freaking out.
When it came time for dinner, I just wasn't hungry enough to justify paying $40 for something to eat. Instead I decided that I wanted an OREO McFlurry for dinner. Unfortunately, the local McDonalds didn't have OREO. I was given choices of "licorice" or "powder" or "Smarties candies." Licorice didn't sound appetizing as a McFlurry flavor. Powder had me concerned that it was a cocaine-based flavor, and I needed to get my sleep tonight. So I went with Smarties, which are kinda like M&M's back home... but not really, as the flavor is different (and the chocolate firmer, but smoother and less sugary). It was totally delicious, and my day had been made.
Until I was walking back to my hotel and got attacked by this thing...
As I was making my way past it, the tube deflated and smacked me on the head. I took a step back and was getting ready to beat the crap out of it, but decided I didn't want to spend my last night in Helsinki in jail.
Turns out advertising here is just as annoying as it is back home.
Except when it isn't, because most times I find Finnish and Estonian ads to be oddly subdued. They definitely want to keep your expectations in check...
American Ad: WE'VE GOT THE BEST FUCKING FOOD IN TOWN!
Finnish Ad: Probably best in town.
American Ad: THE BEST FUCKING ELK SOUP YOU'LL EVER EAT!
Estonian Ad: Decent bowl of elk soup.
I'll bet the ads for escort services here are a real hoot.
And now I suppose I should start packing my suitcase and getting ready for my flight back to DutchyLand tomorrow. Given how utterly lazy I've been all day today, that's going to take a major effort.
Maybe I should just do that in the morning?
Yeah. This can totally wait until morning.
The morning where I'll be all "ZOMG! WHY DIDN'T I PACK THIS SHIT UP LAST NIGHT? NOW I'M GOING TO MISS MY BUS TO THE AIRPORT! AAAAAAHHH!
I never learn.
I woke up early and felt like I should be running around buying last-minute souvenirs on my last day, but then remembered that I stopped collecting souvenirs years ago. I don't have room for that crap, so photographs have become my souvenirs. Thanks to the digital age, they don't take up much room at all.
And so now I've visited Helsinki (and Tallinn, at last), which is nice... but, just like when I visited Oslo and Stockholm, I'm disappointed that I didn't have time to head north into the wilds of Fennoscandia, or spend any time exploring the coastline. This is a fascinating geological part of the world, and visiting a few cities is not like I've really seen any of it.
More to add to my bucket list, I suppose.
One thing I did do was head back to the Hard Rock Cafe Helsinki so I could take some pictures. When I was there for lunch a few days ago it was crowded and crazy, so this time I went just before they opened. As I had mentioned before, the cafe is a bit on the small side, so it only took two shots to capture the entire dining floor...
After the Hard Rock, it was time to check out of my hotel so I could catch the FinAir bus to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Which, oddly enough, had NO line at security despite being fairly busy. Security itself is kind of spacey and futuristic with glass gates that light up so you know when to enter... then hold you there until you've been cleared.
Other than some noisy assholes in the business lounge and some rode assholes crowding in line at the gate, my trip back to DutchyLand was uneventful.
And then...
Time for PATATJES MET with DutchBitch. Again...
I'm so going to miss this...
Back in the Netherlands for one last day of vacation time.
The "Pixar 25 Years of Animation Expo" has been traveling around the world since it first began in New York back in 2005. With each new stop, it gets updated with material from their latest works, so now it's actually more like the "Pixar 34 Years of Animation Expo." And it's currently showing in Amsterdam, so off we went...
The expo is pretty great, mostly focusing on the artwork that goes into a Pixar production before it ever gets to a computer... but they've got a few exhibits dedicated to showing how the computer art is created as well. But the highlight of the show has to be a giant beautifully crafted zoetrope featuring the Toy Story characters. It's Pixar animation of an entirely different kind, and well worth checking out.
From there it was time to cash in some of my Reward Certificates at the Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam. I had been dying for a Coke to wake me up all day, but the Coke machine was broken, so I started going into withdrawals right there in the restaurant while waiting for my lunch.
After a Coke-free meal we stopped at Ben & Jerry's for ice cream, which is always a treat because they've got an awesome mural painted on the walls...
We were going to see the Greatest Illusion Show on Earth because, honestly, how could you not... but being lazy at Casa de DutchBitch sounded more appealing, so Hans Klok will have to wait for another time...
And there it is... the end of my week's vacation. Tomorrow it's back to Schiphol Airport and my flight home.
Better renew that passport... because another special TRAVEL edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...
• George! For anybody outside the UK wondering if theirs was the only country obsessing over a new royal baby in Britain, the answer is no. I saw it everywhere I went, and I think every single newspaper in Helsinki announced the birth while I was there...
Not quite sure why it's Great Britain's monarchy that gets people so obsessed when there are plenty of other royals in other countries of the world, but there you have it.
• McBathroom! Much like all forms of DRM, this ridiculous protection racket that the McDonald's near my hotel used to keep their bathroom "for customers only" was grossly ineffective...
As I sat eating my fries and McFlurry, I saw person after person hold the door while exiting so that people could go in without having to use the code. Which makes me wonder why McDonald's bothered at all.
• Frommers! My go-to travel guides have always been Frommers. And when I started transitioning from printed books to online guides, it was always Frommers.com that I went to first. Their information was so professional, informative, and trustworthy, that I didn't feel the need to go anywhere else. But not any more. Just about everything there is badly out of date. As an example, I almost skipped going to Estonia because Frommers had this to say...
Arranging a visa for a visit to Estonia, across the water, is time-consuming and requires planning prior to your arrival in Helsinki. But once you're there, the rich, once-forbidden majesty of this capital of the Baltic republic opens before you, at prices, at least for souvenir goods, that you'll find surprisingly low.
And, in another section, this...
Don't think you can jump on a ferryboat for a spontaneous excursion to Estonia. At press time, despite the fact that Estonia is a semiautonomous nation, visas were mandatory and required applications submitted days or even weeks in advance, preferably from the Estonian embassy or consulate in your home nation.
Well, their "press time" must have been before December 2007... six years ago... because that's when Estonia became a Schengen Country, which means no visa is required for countries mentioned in the agreement (like the USA). Not only did I not need a visa for a visit of up to 90 days, nobody on either side of my excursion to Tallinn bothered to even look at my passport.
Even more embarrassing for Frommers? They don't even have the currency right...
Currency -- The national currency is called the kroon, abbreviated as EEK, and is made up of 100 sents. The kroon is pegged to the German mark, 1DEM = 8EEK. The rate of exchange at press time was $1 = 17.03 kroons.
It's been two-and-a-half years since Estonia adopted the Euro. Do they not even have a single person employed at Frommers to keep track of major events like this so at least the travel basics are correct in their online guides? Apparently not, which means that Frommers is essentially useless for travel planning. Kind of sad that this once-great bastion of travel advice has fallen so low.
• Beer! The Tallink ferry I used to get from Helsinki to Estonia has a duty-free supermarket onboard. Yes, supermarket. I was a little surprised to see such a huge alcohol section there... especially for beer, which was stacked in cases on pallets. Well, it turns out that the reason they have so much beer is that they sell so much beer. Everywhere I went onboard people had cases and cases of the stuff with them. Even the elderly lady sitting next to me in the lounge was not immune...
Give that I saw people with shopping carts hauling dozens of cases of beer off the ship, I'd say her two cases of Beck's was rather restrained.
• Chair! Just because I can't help myself... here are the chairs in the waiting lounge at Helsinki's West Terminal...
Surprisingly comfortable!
• Finnish! I've seen a lot of foreign languages in my travels, but Finnish is the most perplexing yet. Just look at this dialogue box that popped up at my hotel when connecting to the internet...
Those are some really, really long and complicated words!
• Machine! And speaking of dialogue boxes, this idiotic crap kept popping up on my Mac while I was away...
Well, dumbass, the reason you haven't backed up is because my Time Capsule is 4700 miles away! Can't you look at what IP address you're using and figure that out so I don't have to be interrupted by your stupid shit? I swear, for everything Apple does that's amazingly smart and convenient, there's at least one other thing that's hugely stupid and inconvenient. The thing I (usually) love about Apple is the tiny details they handle that takes crap out of your way. Why they can't apply a little of that logic here is a mystery.
Annnnd... that's a wrap. Please put your tray tables up and make sure your seat back is in an upright position for landing...
Somebody wrote a rant about how "karma" is a load of shit and it's being passed around Facebook like a virus. It's amusing, I guess, but the author doesn't understand karma, thus misses the point entirely.
Karma is based on a simple Buddhist principle, but can be pretty complex in concept (which is the opposite of how things usually work). So when somebody inaccurately boils karma down to "Do good and you'll receive good in return. Do bad and you'll receive bad in return"... then gets all pissed off because they think they're doing nothing but good but receiving nothing but bad... while people they perceive as "evil" are doing mostly bad stuff and yet only good things seem to happen for them. Well, yeah... it's frustrating, I know. But that's not the way actual "karma" works, and ranting otherwise is kind of silly. It's like being upset that your dishwasher can't play CDs or something*.
In any event, karma can mean different things to different people, so I suppose there's no "right answer"... but any answer people arrive at should at least be an informed one, and I'm not seeing much of that.
To me, karma is not some kind of cosmic competition where your good deeds and bad deeds are weighed against each other for points, then measured against other people's points to determine who gets to have good things happen to them. Buddhism doesn't have a deity to do the math required, so the idea of karma being some kind of "cosmic judgement" doesn't really fit.
So what is it then?
Karma is cause and effect.
• Greet somebody with a smile, and they will probably be react with kindness.
• Greet somebody with a punch in the face, and they will probably react very differently.
Now, those are obviously simplistic examples. Some people are assholes and all the smiles in the world aren't going to make them treat you kindly... but the principle of cause and effect being illustrated is what karma is all about. And when you look at it in those terms, that's where Buddhists find truth in the guiding philosophy behind their faith...
• Positive actions result in happiness.
• Negative actions result in suffering.
Note that I did not say "Positive actions result in your happiness" or "Negative actions result in your suffering"... and this is where most people who are tossing "karma" around get it wrong. They expect that their actions, positive or negative, have consequences, good or bad, that will reflect back on them... usually in some physically measurable way...
• I don't spread gossip and I found a penny on the sidewalk! It's karma!
• I have a positive attitude and I won a new car! It's karma!
• I drunkenly peed on my best friend's dog and I got stung by a bee! It's karma!
I'm not saying that there's no physically measurable payoff for what you put out there... obviously there can be... but most times that's not the case at all. Perhaps your positive action pays off for you, but only mentally or spiritually. Perhaps your positive action pays off for somebody else. Perhaps your positive action won't have any immediate effect at all, and it will be years before there's any kind of payoff. Whatever. It's the fact that there is a payoff... some time, some how, some way... that defines the cause and effect of karma.
Whether that payoff is something negative or positive is up to you. Or, to be more precise, up to the intent of your actions (that's a very Buddhist thing to say).
So go out there and make good karma by doing something positive!
That way I can wallow in negativity and bitterness over the crappy day I just had and know that some kind of payoff in goodness is happening somewhere.
Which will make my day a little less bitter and crappy.
See? That's karma in action.
*But wouldn't it be cool if your dishwasher could play CDs? Music while you wash your soup bowls!
Yesterday was not a great day.
Today wasn't much better.
Partly because once things start to go wrong, they always seem to continue to go wrong... but mostly because I had an exhausting 3-1/2 hour drive awaiting me at the end of my work day. As I have written many times before, the journey to Spokane is long, boring, and filled with mostly nothing. Which is not to say that I have anything against Spokane itself... it's actually a pleasant and interesting city... it's just not so frickin' mind-blowing that I want to spend 3-1/2 hours driving here.
But... work... and all that.
Anyway...
About 2/3 of the way to Spokane is an exit for the city of Washtucna, Washington. I have never been there. But every time I drive by the exit sign, I find myself saying "Washtucna" out loud over and over again in an attempt to find the proper pronunciation, all the while wondering what the city might be like. Today was no different...
Wash-tuck-NAH!
WARSH-took-neh!
Wash-TUCK-naaaaaah!
When all of a sudden...
BLAM!
RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE!
Apparently my muffler and/or exhaust pipe has now come loose from the frame of my car.
As I said, once things start to go wrong, they always seem to continue to go wrong, because I had already been having problems with my piece-of-shit automobile. And now I have new ones.
So... as you can see by this map, I was not exaggerating about the vast expanse of nothing going on in the Central Washington Columbia Basin...
There was nowhere I could pull off I-90 and travel to where I could be assured of there being an auto repair shop... certainly not one that would be open at 6:00pm. All I could really do was keep going and hope my car didn't fall apart before I got to Spokane. And all the while I was having to listen to...
RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE!
Luckily for me, my car held together.
Like the Millenium Falcon, but not really.
And so I did what any normal person would do after driving 3-1/2 hours with a car that's falling apart. PIZZA!!!
Car repairs can wait until tomorrow.
Probably.
Wash-TUCK-naaaaaah!
When last we left our intrepid hero, his car was making heinous rattling noises.
The only mechanic shop I know in Spokane is Dee's Auto. So in-between work and checking out of my hotel, I gave them a call. They said that muffler & exhaust were out of their expertise, and I should give Muffler Mart a try.
How refreshing to have a mechanic send business away rather than charge you to take a look at something they know they can't fix, then make you pay for a referral.
Muffler Mart ("Three Old Guys and One Kid Work Here!") very kindly squeezed my piece-of-crap car in for a look after only a short wait. They found that my exhaust system was in great shape, and the racket was just a screw that had gone missing (I can so relate to that). They replaced the screw and refused to let me pay them for their time.
How refreshing to have a mechanic not try and sell you something you don't need, but instead apply a band-aid to your car's ouchie at no charge.
Am I in the Twilight Zone? Not one, but two honest mechanics?
So... when my muffler actually does need to be replaced, I guess I'm driving 3-1/2 to Spokane. Muffler Mart is exactly the kind of business I want to support with my hard-earned dollars.
In other news, this happened...
Yes. iPhone will not work because it is too hot to use.
UNLESS YOU NEED TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY CALL! THEN IT WILL WORK PERFECTLY FINE!
I guess 9-1-1 calls have magical heat-defying properties.
Lesson learned. Don't leave your iPhone in a hot car even for just a little while.
Instead of returning across the Columbia Basin yesterday afternoon as planned, I checked back into my hotel for another day (and night) of work in Spokane.
Not a big deal... I packed extra clothes just in case... but I really, really need to get home. The amount of crap piling up that has to get done is reaching epic proportions, and I only have until next Thursday to get it all done. With every minute I stay in the Lilac City, it feels like I'm drowning in a lake that's 180 miles away from me.
My old room was occupied, so they gave me the room next door... where this was waiting for me...
I'm assuming it's for the United States of America... not the United States of Indonesia or something.
And that's lodging in Redneckistan for you! A Bible in every nightstand, The Constitution on every desk! All that was missing was an application form to join the Tea Party and a complimentary IMPEACH OBAMA! bumper sticker. I dunno... maybe they give you those at the front desk check-out. I went with Express Check-Out so I guess I missed it.
After a long, long night followed by an even longer day at work, I finally got to head home at 6:00pm this evening.
Do not have dinner. Do not collect $200. Go directly to home.
Other than an asshole in a gasoline truck pulling in front of me so I had to slam on the brakes and run off the road, it was an uneventful trip.
But oh so tiring.
I can't feel my brain.
So I'm going to stop blogging and start trying to get some sleep.
Assuming I can stop thinking about all the stuff piled on my desk at the office.
= sigh =
Washington State is not a bastion of pro sports-obsession like you'll find in other regions of the country. Sure the Seahawks and Mariners have their rabid fan base here like any other teams do, but it's not the same level as say... Wisconsin and their Green Bay Packers. Even so, being a Boston fan when the Red Sox are playing the Mariners is not always easy... especially when you're west of the Cascades or, heaven help you, in Seattle proper.
Fortunately I was wearing my Red Sox cap and Saltalamacchia jersey in Eastern Washington while driving my car through no-man's-land during last night's game.
I had been following the events at Fenway with increasing disappointment right up until I left Spokane at the bottom of the 4th inning. As I headed out into the Columbia Basin, this is what Siri had to say...
Well, yikes. Somehow Seattle managed to score five runs. Which was all my fault because I stopped watching to go home. I knew I should have stayed and kept cheering Boston on.
Oh well. Two wins outta three ain't bad, I suppose.
I didn't give the game another thought during the 3-1/2 hour drive, and had forgotten about it by the time I got home.
UNTIL 1am WHEN I WAS LIKE ZOMG! I WONDER IF BOSTON WAS ABLE TO RALLY?
And... boom goes the dynamite.
Six runs in the bottom of the ninth to win it.
Cannot wait to read the always high-larious commentary over at Lookout Landing on this one.
In other awesome Red Sox news, Saltalamacchia is finally recognized by Siri as an actual player now...
Used to be when you tried to ask Siri about Saltalamacchia she would bitch about not knowing who "Sulka LaMacchia" was or ask if you wanted to Google "Salt La Macchiato" or something like that.
Good to know that even an iPhone can learn something new.
Especially something as important as this.
Michael Ansara has died!
The guy has acted in a lot of movies and TV shows, but is probably best known to geeks like me as "Kang" in the original Star Trek and "Kane" in Buck Rogers in the 21st Century (opposite Pamela Hensley as Princess Ardalla!). These were two really good and highly memorable roles...
But the role that will ever define Mr. Ansara to me is his voice work as the tragic villain Mr. Freeze on Batman: The Animated Series...
Batman & Mr. Freeze © Warner Bros. Animation
Mr. Freeze is a complex character, and it's no easy performance. He has to be warm and caring one minute, then ruthless and cold the next. But Mr. Ansara was able to make it seem effortless, and was utterly brilliant every time he appeared...
Rest in peace, sir. Your legendary work made this world a better place to be a geek!
Smoke 'em if you got 'em... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Hoarders! I was recently asked if I had any tips for getting the most out of frequent flier programs, loyalty programs, and reward programs. My answer was... make sure your points don't expire, then don't spend them! Rather than blowing your rewards on low-value items (which is what they expect), save them for something special. That's what I do, and every three or four years I have enough for a trip to Europe!
As an example, my trip to the Netherlands, Finland, and Estonia last month? Pretty much FREE. I cashed in Air Miles for all my flights. My lodging was paid for with reward points (or I stayed with friends). Souvenirs, food, and extras were paid from a cash-back rebate on one of my credit cards. The only expense for the entire trip was $167.30 in "tax and carrier fees" for my Helsinki flight and a few meals where I couldn't use my credit card rebate. As thrilling as going on vacation is, it's doubly so when your flight confirmation arrives with this...
Now, granted, I travel a lot more than most people so my points build faster... but the principle still holds. Accumulate your points for something special. Don't waste them on a free toaster or other crap consolation prize they throw at you. And it doesn't have to be Europe... save up miles for seven years and go to Hawaii if that's what works better for you. The point is to make your rewards mean something when you cash them in. All the work you put in will have a much sweeter pay-off.
• Doctor! And so we have a new "Dr. Who"... Peter Capaldi. He's an actor I'm only marginally familiar with (thanks to his appearances on the Dr. Who spinoff, Torchwood), but his credentials seem impressive enough. Most important of all, he managed to impress show-runner Steven Moffat, which is all that really matters...
This photo is everywhere, but I can never find a credit for it?
Of all his incarnations, David Tennant is my favorite Doctor hands-down. When he was replaced by goofy Matt Smith, I was mortified. But the guy eventually grew on me, and ended up creating some of my favorite episodes of all time. Something tells me I'll have a far less difficult time adapting to Capaldi if, for no other reason, he feels like he'll be a step back towards the David Tennant "feel." Time (ha ha ha) will tell.
• Electric! One of my all-time favorite bands is The Pet Shop Boys. They may not always be consistent in creating music I like... but, when they do, it's the most amazing experience I could hope for. Their triumphant comeback in 2009 with the album Yes blew me away thanks to the stunning track The Way It Used To Be, which is the Pet Shop Boys at their absolute best. Then came Elysium, which didn't quite reach the heights of Yes, but was a very good album (enough to be my favorite of 2012). And now they've come out with Electric...
Not really my thing. It's as if they tried to create an apology for all the critics who wanted something more "danceable" out of Elysium, but went entirely too far to do so. Yes, there are hints of Pet Shop to be found if you listen... Love is a Bourgeois Construct and The Last to Die are perfectly nice songs. Other tracks like Bolshy, Vocal, and Thursday are definitely "Pet Shoppy" on first blush, but seem a bit lacking after repeated listening. And then there's dance electronica disasters like Shouting in the Evening which sound like something any DJ with mediocre talent could whip out in ten minutes... not something crafted by brilliant pop gods Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. So... I'm not sure where I stand. I am happy to have a new Pet Shop Boys album and tour, but wish they hadn't strayed so far from what makes their music so amazing to me. But, who can say? It may grow on me after a while.
In other thoughts... nine tracks? Really? That's all we're going to get? Nine tracks?
• S.H.I.E.L.D! Am I the only one who is getting more and more nervous the more they hear about ABC television's show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? Because right now it sounds entirely too good to be true... from the cast right up to the Joss Whedon approved scripts...
I dunno. The better this thing sounds, the more I feel it's probably going to be canceled in three episodes. ABC is very quick to pull the trigger on under-performing shows, and this seems about as geek-centric and outside the mainstream as it gets. Yes, The Avengers took in record-making profits at the box office, but when has that ever been a guaranteed success when translated to the small screen? I hope I'm wrong. I really do. But this has Firefly written all over it.
And... back to work.
Discovery Channel's SHARK WEEK 2013 started today!
And so I plop myself in front of the television to watch their all new shark-tacular Shark Week special... Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives... only to find something that wasn't SHARK EXTREME as expected... but a load of horse shit. Instead of being some kind of scientific exploration of one of the most brutal killing machines that ever lived, it's some kind of fictional Blair-Witch "found footage" garbage which tries to convince people that a mega-shark that went extinct millions of years ago is actually alive and terrorizing people even today. Which explains the odd title of the program.
Wondering what the bloody fuck was going on, I do what I usually do when I want to find out about something happening right now... I turn to Twitter. And there it is, courtesy of Wil Wheaton...
Discovery Channel Owes Its Viewers An Apology http://t.co/8kCqSSpcyD
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 5, 2013
This is so disappointing. Shark Week bites: Discovery criticized for hugely misleading documentary http://t.co/S069YOysIH via @verge
— nilay patel (@reckless) August 5, 2013
Well crap. The write-up at Discover along with Wil Wheaton's comments pretty much sum up how horrible this situation is. What was once a brilliant television channel dedicated to science and education has ended up dredging the gutters of "trash entertainment" in a pathetic ratings grab.
Kind of puts a damper on something I look forward to all year...
On Saturday I spent 20 minutes on my DVR going through Discovery Channel's entire week of programming to record all the great new shark stuff (along with old favorites) so I wouldn't miss anything. I'm not going to dump all that work in some kind of boycott (as a lot of people are doing), but I am going to be watching with a lot less enthusiasm knowing what Discovery Channel has become.
We live in an age of scientific discovery that's both wonderful and fascinating.
But that's not enough to entertain the huddled masses.
Is this what we've come to? Really? Our "science facts" have to be sensationalized with bullshit or else nobody cares?
Apparently.
And I really shouldn't be surprised. We've got "news" channels with very little actual news, "music" channels that don't play any actual music, and now "science" channels that don't feel the need to air actual science.
I suppose the next step is to have science channels denying science.
I weep for the future, I really do.
UPDATE: And... point made. So many people have been passing this crap off as a real story that Snopes had to make an article about it. The huddled masses are so gullible to believe anything on their television... especially something on a "reputable" educational "science" channel... that it doesn't matter how outrageous or crazy the tale. Of course, it's not like anybody ever bothers to verify what they see on TV, even though the internet makes it easy and nearly instantaneous to do so. Unless people start forwarding the Snopes page at the rate they forwarded the Megalodon story, it doesn't make any difference. A giant extinct shark is actually terrorizing the seas.
Today I got sidetracked by somebody asking me a travel question. I didn't know the answer off the top of my head, and ended up having to look through old photos to find the answer. This was a serious mistake, because you can't ever just look at one photo... so I ended up wasting an hour of precious time going back through my dozens of travel albums.
It then occurred to me that if you were to erase all the travel I've done from my life, I would be one of the most boring people on earth.
Because, let's face it, outside of travel I don't really do much of anything. Except work.
I don't have any hobbies. I'm not involved in any sports. I don't belong to any clubs or groups. I don't get involved in community activities. I don't have kids.
I can't Limbo.
Hell, even this blog would have never happened if it weren't for my travels. Blogography was started solely as a way to keep my friends and family informed as to where I was traveling!
Oddly enough, I'm perfectly okay with this.
Because there's nothing I'd rather do with my life than fill in as many holes on my travel map as I can before I die...
Map courtesy of TripAdvisor and Bing
As you can see, I've got a lot of living yet to do.
Everything has gone terribly wrong!
We're all doomed!
DOOOOOOOMED!
So let's sing the Doom Song!
Yep. This is pretty much the only thing that kept me going today.
What could be better than a wedding in Vegas?
I'm not the one getting married!
I am not much of a gambler.
Not because I am particularly unlucky, because I'm not (even though I don't much believe in luck)... but because the paranoia of losing my hard-earned money just kind of sucks all the fun out of it.
But it wouldn't be a trip to Vegas without a little gambling, so I slid $20 in a slot machine... lost everything but $4, then somehow ended up $136.43 ahead...
And there's my gambling money for the trip.
Yes, I'm a total player that way.
But at least I won't be whoring myself on The Strip to earn cash because I lost all my money playing roulette.
No... if I'm going to whore myself on The Strip, it's going to be because I enjoy it, dammit!
And...
I've finally attended a Vegas wedding officiated by Elvis.
I have to admit, I was really surprised at how well done it was. Just the right amounts of tacky and sweet... and about as memorable of a wedding as you could hope for. It didn't hurt that there was a very memorable couple getting hitched...
Congratulations Cher & Nis... thanks so much for letting me be a part of your special day!
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