Those Who Dig

Physics makes us all its bitches.

2008-11-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, long time.

Since I've last posted, I've (a) moved out of Canada; (b) moved back to Lawrence, KS; (c) started teaching at KU, my non-alma-mater, but I like to think alma-mater-in-law, or rather ex-alma-mater-in-law.

I was a bit nervous, I have to say, about moving back here. Would I run into too many people from my high school years that I don't want to see, well, ever again? Would I return to my old bad habits, become the sort of dude that I'm not really all that proud of having been back in those days? The answer, it would seem, is no. Part of this is because I've changed, but part of it is also that the town has changed. Lawrence, you see, is a town that is permeated by the University--every inch of it has something or other to do with KU. So every four years or so the character of the town completely changes as the last round of students rotates out of Lawrence and back to the world.

Also, however, I'm noticing a number of things about the town that I would only have noticed after having gotten a little longer in the tooth. The Red Lyon, with its faux-British-pubness, now seems like a distinctly less cool place to hang out than the 8th Street Taproom, with its dark, simple, uncrowded atmosphere.

This bit of strange self-awareness came about a week ago, when I cajoled Madeline into accompanying me to the "Of Montreal" show at Liberty Hall. Now, a little history is in order. Liberty Hall is a grand old concert hall in the middle of downtown Lawrence, but it was also a prime destination for me when it came to taking in rock shows as a high-schooler. Liberty Hall was where I saw Urge Overkill, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Nirvana, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and a number of others I'm forgetting. One of the great things about Liberty, however, was that all concerts are GA and despite its size; the venue is also relatively intimate. Consequently, there is much clamoring before the doors open to get in prime position to snag a spot at the stage, mere inches away from the performers. I recall participating in this mad dash many times. So when it came time to go to the "Of Montreal" show, I followed protocol: we better get there way early so we can get a top spot.

But it was cold that night. I had a blazer, but still, not enough for warmth. Madeline was game to wait in line, but I could see that she was uncomfortable. So I said, screw it. We'll still be on the floor, and that will be fun enough. So we went and got a cup of coffee, and hung around in Liberty Hall's video rental outlet until the line started moving. We were a ways back. That's when it hit me: am I too old for this? Walking to the back of the line was like walking to the back of the line for a "just got my driver's license" convention. 16-year-olds abound. Am I too old? After all, I did decide to not wait in line for the sake of being a little warmer. Do I have to give up my rock-show cred?

It got worse. Liberty Hall is set up like this. When you finally get in the door you have a choice: enter the main hall on the floor, or go up the stairs to the balcony, which has seats. Looking at these two options, it immediately hit me that if I went down to the floor, I'd be standing for, like, three hours at least. It would be really loud, way louder than if I sat down on the balcony. Furthermore, memories of what being on the floor used to be like flashed into my brain: half-drunk idiots spinning around, banging into you. Tall jerks standing right in front of you rather than standing in a place that is more appropriate given their height. Stupid little boys "accidentally" groping the females in your party. Finally, it hit me: better go upstairs. Better simply admit defeat, brother: you are too old for this. This is a kid's game and you, at best, are a stone's throw from middle-age.

Waiting for the show I was disappointed in myself. I could see the kids down on the floor anxiously awaiting the band. I could see them hanging on every roadie's bump of the curtain, waiting for a clue that the band was just a few feet away. I was jealous. Here I was on the balcony. Pain free, of course, but somehow removed. There were some people around me, of course, but I felt like we were, I dunno, like the aristocrats sitting in their special seats, comfortable, perhaps, but not really engaged. At more than one point, I thought to myself: why did I even buy these tickets if I'm not really going to see the show?

But then the show started. It was powerful, moving. Lots of dance tunes and disco numbers. And that's when I noticed something very interesting. Looking down at the floor I expected to see the usual pushing and shoving, get-out-of-my-way angry mentality that usually characterized rock shows. But no: people were simply dancing. They were mimicking the words, jumping up and down, but in a way that was collectively joyful, rather than aggressive. And right then I had a realization: I am older. And I am too old for the floor. But that's ok. My generation of rock-show attendees had a heirarchical order built-in: if you weren't on the floor, you weren't shit. You didn't really care. But this group seemed simply content to enjoy the music and dance. And suddenly I felt glad I came. I could enjoy the music and be a part of the audience. It was as if the kids on the floor were welcoming me: we know you're older. We know you're in the balcony. But it's all good. Let's all enjoy this. Let's dance together.

And all of a sudden, like, my whole life was put into a grand relief: here I am living in Lawrence, the site of my youth, but in a way that is different. In a way that is more fully a realization of who I am now. This town, like these kids, are welcoming at any age. There is now so much new to discover. Looking at these kids, I felt like the Grinch seeing Whoville singing even after all the presents were stolen.

And then it all came crashing down.

The final song "Of Montreal" played was a curious choice: "Smells Like Teen Spirit." And no sooner had they hit the big four-chord riff, were kids slamming into each other, pushing and shoving, getting into fights, looking generally angry and pissed-off. One of the dance performers, a female, jumped off the stage to crowd-surf. By the time she got back on stage, her silver wig had been ripped off, and torn, and she mouthed: "You fucking assholes!" and gave them all a collective double-fisted single-fingered "fuck you!" salute. By the time I made it out of Liberty Hall, I noticed more than one kid with a bloody nose.

Ah, you can go home again.

I just bought

2008-05-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

a fucking house.

Sweet 'stash, man.

2008-02-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

I think Daniel Day-Lewis should be given the Oscar just on the strength of this mustache.

Rest in Peace, Roy.

2008-02-10T21:31:00.000-08:00

We're gonna miss ya'.

Come on, let us give your mind a ride.

2007-11-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

I'm disappointed by the latest Radiohead album.

There, I said it.

This follows a string of, to my mind, disappointing albums. Speaking honestly, and not through rose-colored glasses, it seems to me that Hail to the Thief was a total disaster, a complete mess of an album. Amnesiac and Kid A were both, well, what they were, but to be quite honest, I didn't really like them as much as many other people did. They were ok, I suppose, but they felt like small albums. They did less with less, rather than more with less. That might be a good thing, but I myself didn't really get into it.

I think the conclusion that I have to come to is that, for me at least, Radiohead has entered the phase of being a band I once really liked, but who are continuing to produce albums far past their prime. They're a band whose new recoreds I feel obligated to purchase, mostly out of inertia, but whose output I recognize full well will sadden me.

This happens every once in awhile. I like to think that The Cure entered this phase with "Wild Mood Swings," although I liked their most recent album, and I actually think that if they keep the lean "Trilogy" lineup, their new record will be a significant step in the right direction. In other words, The Cure appear to no longer just be treading water. It's too early to make a judgment about The Flaming Lips, but their latest record is flirting dangerously.

Midnight Oil's turning point was after "Earth and Sun and Moon," (which is a freaking great record and, by the way, one of the most rotary-speakered albums I've ever heard). Prince's last great effort was "Diamonds and Pearls." Bowie entered this phase after "Scary Monsters," but as of late has appeared to turn it around (although I'm not authoritative on this point).

How about you people? Which great bands are going through the motions?

I get that feeling I had in my younger days.

2007-10-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

Insofar as I'm a diabetic that often runs into bouts of hypoglycemia around the 4-5 o'clock hour, it's important to me to have available a wide array of delicious candy bars. In principle, these things aren't just wonderful snack treats. They're also life savers. I don't mean that they're LifeSavers. Rather, they prevent death.

Canada has some of the American standbys. They have Twix, which, it seems to me on reflection is perhaps one of the greatest of all. One can't do without the cookie crunch for too long. Also, they do, to my great joy, have the T 5. Except up here they call it the MAX 5. But Canada doesn't appear to have any standard Hershey's Chocolate bars. (The T 5 is Hershey's, but for some reason there are a bunch of the standard ones missing.) You know how some college campuses are Coke, some are Pepsi. Well, Canada appears to be Nestle as opposed to Hershey's. This deprives me of the Caramello, the Hershey's Special Dark, Symphony, and your standard Hershey's and Hershey's with Almond. The latter is a significant loss, it seems to me.

But Canada has some candy bars that the US doesn't have. What follows is a description and assessment of the various Canada-specific bars that American's don't have access to:

1. The Aero Bar.

The wrapper makes it seem like it's going to be more like the Nestle Crunch bar, right? (Another bar I haven't yet seen in Edmonton.) WRONG. It's SO not like the Crunch bar. Rather, it's basically a milk chocolate bar with holes in it. That's right. Holes. There's more air in this thing than chocolate. There's like, an ounce of chocoloate, three ounces of air. Or something like that. (I'm not so good with the "ounces".) This bar is a rip-off of gigantor proportions. A rip-off's rip-off.

2. The Sweet Marie.

We don't have the Baby Ruth bar up here. But we do have the Sweet Marie, which is basically a BR but with a few changes. The Sweet Marie is less crumbly. The chocolate is more malleable or something. Anyway, I think that's a plus. But the BR's inner coating is, ironically, sweeter than the Sweet Marie. The Sweet Marie seems like a more sophisticated, travelled, worldly Baby Ruth.

3. The Coffee Crisp.

I genuinely like this bar. It's basically some wafers coated in chocolate with a very slight coffee flavor. Not much more to say about it. A solid bar. It's no MAX 5, but it'll do.

4. The Mr. Big

This bar is pretty big, I mean, it's big in the sense that it's long, but I don't really think it weighs any more than any of the other bars, except for the Aero, which weighs about as much as it's own wrapper. But I think that the Mr. Big is a genuine advance in candy bar construction, and am surprised that something like this hasn't yet been seen in the US. Basically it's a Baby Ruth, elongated, with a long rice-crisp center, rather than a gooey caramel center. It's my favorite so far, I think. Again, no MAX 5, but then again, what is?

5. The Caramilk

Basically the reference point for the Caramilk is the Caramello. They're both cubes of chocolate filled with milky caramel. But for my money, the Caramilk beats the Caramello hands down. One reason: several sets of small cubes rather than one set of big cubes. The best thing about this particular candy bar construction is the experience of biting down on each individual cube. You only get to do that four or five times with the 'mello. The 'milk gives you something like nine or ten.

6. The Wunderbar

This one was a bit of a mystery the first time I had it. I was thinking that it would be more like a Butterfinger, which I also haven't seen north of the border. But no! It was a gooey bar through and through. There wasn't any solid construction to hold it in place. Caramel and peanut butter on the inside, chocolate on the outside. A decent bar, but not my favorite. Good in a pinch.

Now I should say that just because I haven't seen a bar yet doesn't mean they don't have it here. It's possible I just haven't been looking. But I am suprised at the lack of candy crossover. Canada has some good innovations, but some significant missteps, as well. The Aero bar will go down in history as one of mankind's biggest debacles, like the Vietnam War or New Kids on the Block. But there are some upgrades.

Unfortunately, Canada hasn't yet caught up to the dark chocolate craze. However, there is one version of the Kit Kat bar that is "noir," but I'm not sure if they have that in the states yet. Without a symphony or a "Mars Special Dark," you dark lovers are in a bit of a pickle up here, or at least when the 4-5 o'clock hour rolls around.

Why, why, why, Delilah?

2007-08-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

It was a long, long trip.

It takes quite a while to drive from San Diego, California to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5K 1P4. That's for damn sure. If you don't believe me, just try it yourself. Somewhere in the middle of Utah you'll realize that you're in for one whale of a trip.

So the Bassett and I started out on a Tuesday. The plan was to make it to Las Vegas by lunchtime, and begin our little two-day mini-vacation. The trip up to Vegas was surprisingly pleasant, in retrospect. We had planned on making use of some of the various audiobooks we had obtained, and the first day was taken up with a substantial bit of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Which I must say I enjoyed more than she did. It was read by the author, however, so that was a nice touch. It was a mite creepy, however. After all, the guy's dead.

It's a funny thing, driving to Las Vegas. It's basically driving five hours through solid desert. Only occasionally, surrounded on all sides by the desert, is a sprawling patch of green, some golf course, or some planned retirement community. The first thing that going to Vegas does is make you realize how ridiculous some of the developments are in terms of water use. Yikes.

Anyway, you'll know when you're in Nevada. No kidding. Here's you. You're driving in the car passing the Nevada/California line right....now. To your left and right you will see two gigantic casinos, with three more in the distance. They don't look all that glitzy, but they sure are huge. And I'm not kidding. Literally, I think the casino floor ends about 16 inches from the California border.

Finally, after passing more desert, and even more signs for various crappy magicians you could see at the Monte Carlo, you arrive in Vegas. I have to say, driving on the 15, I was less than totally impressed. I expected to be blown away as soon as I got into town, you know, "Vegas, baby, Vegas!" But it wasn't like that at all. Mostly it was a bunch of urban sprawl that eventually led you toward a biggish town, that eventually led you to some hotels on your right. Didn't blow me away.

That is, until we got off the interstate, and on to Las Vegas Boulevard. We exited on Tropicana, which is at the south end of the strip, intent on driving the strip on our way up to our hotel, the Sahara, which is at the north end. Really, these things are huge. These hotels, I mean, wow. The first one we saw was New York, New York. And jeezus, it is really gigantic. Roller costers, huge towers, impressive. The MGM Grand is across the street, and, well, despite being the largest casino, is somewhat less towering than NY, NY. Driving up, you eventually see all the famous ones, including the new Wynn, which has, I must say, rather gorgeous architecture. Finally, we got to the Sahara (and I do mean finally, because it took us about a half and hour to go 3 miles on the strip). We got our room number, and decided to go for lunch. We knew we wanted to have lunch at the Hofbrauhaus, which I knew was over by the MGM Grand. So we decided to take the Vegas monorail to the MGM, go to lunch, go back to the MGM to pick up our show tickets for that night, and then head back to the Sahara.

Boy, when things go wrong.

So we get to the MGM. We walk out. I hadn't really gotten a whiff of the Vegas heat just yet. But it was big. BIG HEAT. It must have been something like 110 degrees. But, according to the map that I saw, the Hofbrauhaus was just right behind the MGM, so I figured, it'd be a hot walk, but short. Boy was I wrong. We're walking along Tropicana Avenue, or Boulevard, or whatever, and we are finding that, well, we don't see any Hofbrauhaus. There's a cross-street. No beer steins. I ask the gas station attendant, he points me further east. So we keep walking. And walking. And walking. Basically, we walked at least two miles in the punishing heat, not knowing precisely where we were going, because apparently, the HBH is nowhere NEAR the back of the MGM Grand. Finally we get there, drenched in sweat, and tired as hell. Red-faced. Keeling over from heat-stroke. Nothing cures that like a liter of beer, which we drank liberally, along with some decent saurkraut and sausage. So, I have to say, on this trip to Edmonton, things started off badly.

But they got better. We took a cab back to the MGM, got the tickets, and went back to the Sahara on the monorail. We just relaxed for a few hours, I paid a few bills, and then we took the monorail again to the MGM. Got out, and looked for dinner. Ate at the Wolfgang Puck grill, made it to the theatre and took in Tom Jones.

Tom Jones.

Wow. What a show! It was in a really small theatre, and we were close to the front. To be honest, it took him a few songs to really get into gear, but when he did, it sounded like his voice hadn't aged a day since 1964. Basically it was a rundown of his hits with a few newer things mixed in. He did "Delilah", "You Can Leave Your Hat On", and a bunch of others. He didn't do "Thunderball," though, at which I was disappointed. Brought the house down with "Kiss" as the finale. It was basically an hour and a half. Good show. A decided lack of panties, however. Oh well. One thing I could have done without was his encore kickoff, "I Like the Way You Move." You know. That song from all the commercials? Eh, but I guess you have to keep the material fresh for the younguns. And by that I mean young people, not young guns.

After the MGM, we went to New York, NY and had a little pizza. The Bassett played some video poker. I had some drinks. We eventually headed back to the Sahara, and more drinks and some gambling. I dropped 20 bucks at the craps table.

The next day we took in the strip. Here is a rundown of the casinos we saw:

Harrah's
The Venitian
The Mirage
Caeser's Palace
The Bellagio
Monte Carlo (where I won 37 bucks playing craps. Apparently, I am the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.)
Paris

We also went back to NY, NY for a few drinks and some appetizers. We then proceeded to Paris, where we hung out and gambled a little (I won 10 bucks each at Roulette and Blackjack). We ate dinner at their buffet (which was really cool), and hung out in a piano bar for awhile. The piano bar basically consisted of two dudes with prop baby-grand pianos and circa-1990 keyboards set on top of what would have been the keyboard were it a real piano. (Pointer dudes, real pianos don't come with pitch and mod wheels.) But I forced them to play "Suffregette City" and "Carry On Wayward Son." They only screwed up about 25% of the songs. I was saving the serious gambling for the Sahara, because they apparently have the best gambling on the Strip. If by "best" you mean, "fastest at which I lose money," you're basically right. I started off playing craps, and won about $25 bucks, but lost back $50 at a different table. Lost $15 at Let it Ride, but made a bit back moving to craps. Basically, I broke even for the trip, which was nice, considering I figured I'd lose about $100.

After that gambling spree, the sleaze of Vegas was catching up to us. So we hit the Mandalay Bay breakfast buffett on our way out of town, and they kissed Vegas goodbye. It was an enjoyable stay for the most part. If you get a chance to see Tom Jones, I say do it.

Driving that day was through the rest of Nevada, some of Arizona, and Utah. To be quite honest with you, there was basically nothing particularly remarkable about the drive. Some mountains, I guess. But I expected hairpin turns. I expected to have to dodge gigantic boulders. I expected to run right off the freeway, use my car's moonroof to somehow simulate a parachute and inform the Bassett at the bottom that I'm a loner, baby. A REBEL.. None of that happened. I honestly can't remember where we stopped for lunch, even. The best part of that day was listening to "Right Ho, Jeeves" on the old iPod. A really, really great story. Absolutely hilarious. I recommend it in every possible dimension. As audiobooks go, I don't think you'll find a better one.

Ogden, Utah that night. The next day, pushing on through Idaho to Great Falls, Montana. That drive was actually quite nice. Idaho is surprisingly beautiful along the 15. I expected Montana to really win the scenery sweepstakes, but it had nothing on southern Idaho.

Lemme tell ya' a little something about Great Falls, Montana. The Bassett suggested that we go downtown to find a place to eat. But as far as I could tell, downtown had just been hit by one of those space-age nuclear warheads that doesn't destroy any buildings but shuts off all the power and disintegrates all living things. I mean, the place looked like a ghost town. I had no idea where I was going, and no one to ask for directions. No cars, no nothing. I felt like putting on a dress and running through town carrying a shotgun and the head of a local mutant I found charred by the side of the road while searching for the juice. So we get to the address of a restaurant. I'm skeptical that we'll find anything but corpses inside. But no! As soon as we open the door, we realize that this place is jumping! There's an irish band playing, people are singing along, beer is flowing liberally. We order buffalo burgers. Who knew? One minute, you're convinced that it's Red Dawn, another you're singing along to some sea chantys over a patty made from the hide of a near-endangered species! What fun!

Took off in the morning for the Canadian border. The funniest part of the trip was seeing a father and son in a motercycle and sidecar combo. The pass through the border was fairly unproblematic. I got myself a temporary worker's permit, and there I was, in Canada. Which, if you're driving through Alberta, is one of the most boring places on Earth.

Trip lessons: Las Vegas: fun. Tom Jones: pantiless. Dale-at-gambling: so-so. Wodehouse: excellent. Great Falls, Montana: possibly supernatural.

Someone's listening in.

2007-07-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

I'm at Rebecca's, a coffeehouse in South Park.

Some douchebag won't quit playing songs from 'Kid A' on the out-of-tune piano.

I'm going to have to leave Rebecca's soon.

Coming soon: a post about my day with Monopoly in LA, and the Police show.

Something deep inside of me is talking through the gloom.

2007-05-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

My Bowie obsession has now reached dangerous levels. With my recent purchases of "Diamond Dogs" and "David Bowie: Stage" (which, by the way, is awesome), I now have a near-complete collection of Bowie's classic 70s records. And I'm really listening to nothing else these days.

The interesting thing, though, is that for the first time in a long time I feel like I'm learning something new about music and how it can be played and written when I listen to this stuff. As Math Rock is fond of pointing out, "Station to Station" has excerizes in phenomenally interesting phrasing. Consider the "Once there were mountains..." bit in the song "Station to Station". Also, the chorus in "Stay". Sweet.

No Prince. No Maiden. Just Bowie, all day long. I'm not wearing glitter yet, thankfully.

In other news, I just watched the new David Mamet-penned movie "Edmond". It was an interesting movie. But what was more interesting than the movie itself was the marketing for the movie. In particular, I mean the blurbs and descriptions of the movie that appear on the DVD box. Here's my internal dialog:

Me: Hmm..."Edmond". Never heard of it. Oh, it's Mamet. That's ok, I guess. "House of Games" was good, but the rest of his stuff is, eh, ok.
Box: A heart-pounding thriller!
Me: Thriller, eh? Maybe. But I'm not yet convinced that it's really a thriller.
TURN BOX OVER
Box: This year's must-see thriller!
Me: This one might turn out to be a thriller, but I want something that's definitely a thriller.
Box: William H. Macy gets caught in a web of sex and murder in this suspenseful thriller by David Mamet.
Me: MMM. I see. Sex and murder. Maybe it is a thriller.
Box: Deception is in the air in this pulse-pounding thriller!
Me: Is this really a thriller? I don't know...it does have Julia Stiles. Are you sure it's not a dance movie?
Box: Special Features: Anatomy of a Thriller with David Mamet
Me: Well, if it's in the special features....but I don't know, I'm still not convinced that this movie is a genuine thriller.
Box: Aspect Ratio: Widescreen. Runtime: 82 minutes. Genre: Thriller.
Me: AHA! Well, if it's says it's really a thriller, that's good enough for me.

Turns out that "Edmond" is not a thriller. Duped again.

If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.

2007-03-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

Ah, San Diego.

On days like today, it's pretty hard to imagine that in about five months I'll be living in Canada. That's right, jerks. Though I did get two job offers, two awesome job offers, I decided to take the one north of the border. But it's a bit strange on days like today - 75, sunny, gorgeous. It's hard to imagine that in half-a-year's time, I'll get one of these days, well, every other year? Maybe? In San Diego, they're basically three of these bad bouys every week.

So the day I took the job, I sent out a message to a bunch of friends informing them of my decision. Basically, I had been thinking about that email since the day I saw the job offer - how it'd be so funny and stuff. Eh, it wasn't that funny. I hope I didn't take the job just so I could send out this sort-of, mediocre, email. We'll see. I think I didn't, but I did think it was gonna be really funny, especially to a certain group of people. A bit strange, though. A bunch of people responded and that was really nice. Several, however, including a certain person to whom I was once married, haven't so much as made a peep. What gives? If Lonny "Bass" White responded, why couldn't these others? Just kidding. I didn't send it to Lonny. Ah, Lonny.

I know I haven't been posting much recently. I've been letting the stress of the job market wash over me. Now there's a new realm of stress: tenure. I guess I should probably have a month or so to relax before I start sending out articles, but I decided to send our three in the last week anyway! That makes a total of four I have under review right now - one that's been over 10 months in the review process. Sucky! Screw you, Nous!

Anyway, the move to Canada is going to be something of a hassle. I have about a bajillion dollars in student loans, controlled by a US agency that expects to receive US dollars. I, however, will be getting paid in Canadian dollars. (Stands to reason.) Anyway, how the hell is that going to work? Do I really need to open a bank account at the Royal Bank of Canada? (Although that would be damn sweet - the Royal Bank. Ha! Sure as hell beats Citizen's Crank, or whatever I had when I was in Boston.) Ah, monarchy.

When looking back on the job market, what will I remember most? It's hard to say, of course, but one strong possibility will be: Iron Maiden. Surprising, I know. But listen here. I was basically hooked on Maiden while I was filling out my applications, especially Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. I remember specifically listening to that sumbitch on repeat while I was writing the seventy-or-so cover letters for these dang applications. To keep my energy up during interview season (don't make fun of me, please; you do weird shit, too) I listened heavily to Powerslave. (I also bought The Number of the Beast, but that one didn't do it so much for me. Maybe it's Clive Burr. Who knows.) I don't have anything like a "Saturation" relationship with The Beast, but I sure did listen to a lot of Maiden while on the market. I wonder if that will stick out, you know, when I listen to "Aces High" ten years from now: "Oh, I remember that crappy application to Cal State Long Beach!" We can all thank Matt Barr for that one.

Ah, metal.

Keep your electric eye on me, babe.

2007-02-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

I got a job.

Woohoo!

Reflections on Black Tuesday.

2007-01-09T15:56:00.000-08:00

Bad day today.

I have it on good authority that I'm not going to get jobs that a) I really wanted and b) I had reason to believe I had a very good shot at. Basically what's left now are places where I thought that either the interview went badly, or that are way out of my league. I think I have to seriously consider the possibility that I won't get a job this year.

Which, of course, totally sucks. I put together a damn fine application and was a damn fine interviewer. I guess the job market being what it is, sometimes that isn't really enough. It helps to have connections to everyone and their sister. I don't really have all that many connections (though I thought I did ok). I have to say it's by no means certain that I won't get a job this year. But the balance of power is definitely not in my favor.

DAMMIT! I really wanted JOB X. AND I really wanted JOB Y. I was good for them! They were good for me! Why? WHY? WHY!?!?!

End transmission.

My bathtub's filled with Perrier.

2007-01-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

The adventure in Washington is now in the can. Whew. What a crazy couple of days.

The interviews went mostly well, I think, save one. I spent an incredible amount of money. Incredible. Seriously mind-boggling.

Let me start by saying a little bit about Dulles International Airport. That place is a little bit strange. It sort of resembles what you might think the Martian Interplanetary Spaceport might look like when we finally get around to colonizing that shit. Maybe that's what they were going for. Anyway, there's this main terminal building, and then three or four independent gate buildings, which are not accessible to the main terminal building except with these crazy lookin' space-cars. These things were very strange. They drove around on the tarmac, dodging planes, trying to get us to the main terminal building after we had de-planed. Totally bonkers.

Anyway, I got in on Tuesday, and had my first interview on Wednesday. That went ok. I ran into someone I knew from SD from awhile back, who coincidentally still looks after my ex-cat. We had a nice creole dinner. Mmm-mmm. Round 1: expensive. The next day I had dinner at the Brickskeller with a buddy from KS who just happens to be into philosophy. He was looking for a job, too. Luckily I got out of that place without having six beers, but it was dicey there, for a minute. I had some numbered beer from Russia. Apparently one of the last remnants of the Stalinist regime is identifying all the beer by number. (That's probably false. Whatever.) "You get a number SIX!!" Anyway, I liked the number six ok, so that was fine by me. Round two: moderate.

Couple more interviews the next day, and I'm headed to the first smoker. The smokers, it seems to me, were the least enjoyable part of the whole thing. It's stressful, you know. You try to get in a little face-time with your interviewers, lest some other candidate get more face time. Grr. That stuff makes me nervous. Then you're stalking someone who's clearly in a conversation, not wanting to be rude and interrupt, but also not wanting to give up lest you not get to talk to them. Ugh. It's a pain in the ass. Luckily I got to talk to a nice guy from one of the schooles, so that was cool. Before the smoker I went to a really nice dinner with some buddies from SD. REALLY nice. A little too nice, in my opinion. But whatever. Good gossip. A little discussion of Iron Maiden and Devo, so that was nice. Round 3: expensivo.

Couple more interviews the next day, and another smoker, and another trip to the Brickskeller. This time only one beer. Round 4: moderate.

The interesting thing about that night was that apparently some dude attempted to celebrate the New Year. It was odd for a couple of reasons. First, it wasn't the new year. Second, he did it with fire. Third, he did it with fire in the hotel room. (This seems to be the only logical explanation for the course of events that transpired late Friday evening.) At 4:30 in the morning, I'm half-asleep and hear sirens, but I don't do anything about it because, you know, I'm half-asleep. Anyway, finally the hotel fire alarm comes on and says: "Ladies and Gentleman, there is a fire in the hotel." Hmm. No instructions, just a little friendly FYI. Do I stay? Do I go? Figure it's better to go than to stay, so I throw some shoes and pants on and whatnot, and head down the stairs with about a thousand other groggy philosophers, many of whom were in their underwear. MANY of whom. A little TOO many, in my view, but anyway, that's neither here nor there. Two hours later (you read right), the hotel is completely soaked (although my room is ok), and we're being hearded up the stairs to our room. The place is gross. Smokey smell, mixed with chemicals from whatever it was that was burning. Super-gross.

So I was done with my interviews, and decided to take a day off. Went to Air and Space. But then I hooked up with some good buddies from a previous University and some friends from KS, who apparently know each other totally independently of me. Weird! Anyway, I had two beers with dinner. Then we go to this guys house, and have two more beers. Then we go out to a bar, another beer. Then we go out to another bar, this time bourbon and a gin and tonic. Then we go out to another bar to sing karaoke. WOOHOO! That was good fun. Singin' and dancin'.

Funny part about it was that I had to catch a 4am shuttle to take me back to the Space-Port. So I just ended up staying up all night. That was fun. I hadn't done that in a dang long time.

And that's my trip to DC in a nutshell. Let's hope I get a job. That'll really be fun.

Lay your weary head to rest.

2006-12-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time.

27-ish has come and gone. Mostly gone. Largely with a whimper, although some brave souls made it through a collection of Devo videos with me that night. Danke Shoen, baby.

December was quite a month. Finally I started hearing about places at which I might spend my career. I flew out to the great white north (although mostly grey than white, these days), and hung out with Klaus, the Missus, the Madman, and a collection of regular characters from over here. It was an enjoyable trip, although I felt like a complete ass when I showed up at Klaus' doorstep as hungover as, well, I don't know who, but anyway, really freakin' hungover. On a side note, did anyone know that in the great white north, you can write checks for drinks at the bar? Checks! And if you're really hard up, you can get cash back! With CHECKS! I'm astounded. I bet the Pio doesn't even charge a convenience fee.

And tomorrow I go out to The Convention. I'm actually not as nervous as I thought I'd be. I've done loads of research. I've got my speil down (I think). I've actually had a few interviews already, with two flyouts. No job offers as yet, but the night, as they say, is young.

Anyway, back to December. Everytime I play the waiting game, I get superstitious. Anyone who's a regular reader (or not so regular these days) knows that I'm one hell of a superstitious cat. But this one takes the cake. Everytime I'm waiting to hear from an important process (grad school applications, etc.) I pick one song to listen to every day from that point until the whole process is over. And it's not like I even know it's a lucky song until the process is over. Actually, during grad school admissions time, the song I picked must have been unlucky because I kept getting rejection letters. Now you know not to trust Survivor with your waiting-game needs. Anyway, this time it's "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas. I picked it for several reasons. First, you know, the band's name is "Kansas". That's where I'm from. Second, well, it used to be on that tape my dad made of the radio that he'd listen to in the car all the time when the radio wasn't working. That's another story. But anyway, I heard it a ton when I was a kid. So I figured, you know, it was connected to my roots or some crap like that. But I haven't exactly done super-star awesome on the job market, so I figued a closer look at this little ditty was in order. Turns out I should have recognized that it was all wrong from the get-go. Here are the lyrics:

Carry on my wayward son,
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don't you cry no more

Now that part sounded OK to me, you know, like it was a bunch of trevails or something that eventually I'd get through. But here's the first verse:

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high
Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreamin',
I can hear them say ...
[Chorus]

Aside from being a decidedly tin-pan-alley collection of lyrics, these are definitely wrong for a dude who wants to do well on the job market. "I still was a mad man"? "I flew too high"? What did I think was gonna happen? Anyway, it gets worse:

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know
On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune, but
I hear the voices say ...

Yeah. Way to go, pal. Way to pick 'em. Well, now I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure if it's worse mojo to keep listening to a song that's clearly unlucky, or to stop listening to a song during the whole process. I'm torn. So far I've been keeping it up, but one never knows.

There has been a ton of blog-worthy stuff that has happened to me in the last few weeks. But I think I'll leave that stuff for another time. Mostly consists of me being pissed off at fellow travelers, or the odd noises one hears when spending the night in the Dallas airport. Actually, that shit is really weird. They've got CNN blasting in your ear every ten feet in that place, but still, you swear there are ghosts hanging out.

One more night in the land of my youth, then off to the Convention. I'm nervous.

Wish me luck, internet.

On such a winter's day.

2006-11-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

Boy do I hate California.

Direct democracy, neverending freeways, bad public radio, and now this. Apparently some crappy TV show on some crappy network is going to be filming around my building for the next century and a half. That means I have to go way out of my way to avoid the lame-ass cameras and the stupid directors and all the jerk-off crew. It would be one thing if I had ever heard of the show, but it's called something like "Veronica Mars," so it's not like I even give a damn. (Is this a kid's show? Sounds like it. Stupid kids.) I mean, if there were some kind of famous person I could meet by walking through and interrupting a take, I would sure do it, but it all seems pointless to me.

On top of that, one of the only fun parts of being in California, mild earthquakes, sometimes pass you by completely unnoticed! That happened this morning as I was getting ready. Apparently a 5 point something, and then a later aftershock happened, all going unnoticed by me. Sucks. Of course, with earthquakes you have to be careful what you wish for, but whatever. The small ones are fun.

I'm Jonesin' to get out of this place in a big big way. We'll see what happens when March rolls around. Seems like forever away. But it really is only four months away. It's the duration of my very first sixth grade relationship. It's one cake of 2000 Flushes. More important than that, though, is that in one week exactly I'll be turning 27 (ish) years old. This is something of a landmark for me. I remember 20, but it didn't make that much of a dent. But 27 (ish) is big time. All of a sudden I'm in a different league than all the Gen-Y-ers hanging around the department all the time. I'm not quite sure what to make of it in the final analysis. I mean, if I'm having this large of a crisis for 27 (ish), imagine what sort of a crisis I'm going to have when I hit 30!

Mothersbaugh = Byrne?

2006-10-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

I know that 1982 was a year of triumph for geek rock, but Mark Mothersbaugh's performance here bears an undeniable resemblance to David Byrne's spastic "Stop Making Sense" dances. Zeitgeist, anyone?

Mothersbaugh = Byrne?

2006-10-28T18:01:00.000-07:00

I know that 1982 was a year of triumph for geek-rock, but the similarities between Mothersbaugh's performance here and David Byrne's spastic "Stop Making Sense" dances are undeniable. Zietgeist, anyone?

Party Statistics

2006-10-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a rough aggregate sampling of the overall drinking at my Fancy Dress Ball last night.

I started out with roughly twenty beers in my fridge, a collection of Newcastle, St. Pauli Girl, and Pilsner Urquell.

Add to that a six pack of:
1. Red Nectar
2. Bass
3. Dos Equis
4. Negro Modelo
5. Negro Modelo
6. Negro Modelo

Add to that a twelve pack of:
1. Newcastle

And you have a rough total (that I know of) of sixty-eight beers. How may beers were half-drank, skunky the next morning? Zero. How many beers were unopened? Two. Two. Which makes for a rough aggregate total of 66 verifiable beers consumed. There is probably more. One of the leftover beers was of a kind I didn't recognize, so there was probably a six pack that was floating around that didn't get counted. So let's set the rough total at a conservative seventy.

How many people attended this party? My rough head count comes in at nineteen, although I might be forgetting a soul or two, so let's bump it up to an even 20. Subtract two people for the collection of three or four people who left relatively early. Subtract three more people who were non-drinking designated drivers. That's a total of four and 2/3rds beers per person.

Add to that an entire bottle of Goldschlager, half a bottle of gin, a full bottle of wine, and at least a full fifth of bourbon, and you've got yourself one bangin' party.

Party Statistics

2006-10-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a rough aggregate sampling of the overall drinking at my Fancy Dress Ball last night.

I started out with roughly twenty beers in my fridge, a collection of Newcastle, St. Pauli Girl, and Pilsner Urquell.

Add to that a six pack of:
1. Red Nectar
2. Bass
3. Dos Equis
4. Negro Modelo
5. Negro Modelo
6. Negro Modelo

Add to that a twelve pack of:
1. Newcastle

And you have a rough total (that I know of) of sixty-eight beers. How may beers were half-drank, skunky the next morning? Zero. How many beers were unopened? Two. Two. Which makes for a rough aggregate total of 66 verifiable beers consumed. There is probably more. One of the leftover beers was of a kind I didn't recognize, so there was probably a six pack that was floating around that didn't get counted. So let's set the rough total at a conservative seventy.

How many people attended this party? My rough head count comes in at nineteen, although I might be forgetting a soul or two, so let's bump it up to an even 20. Subtract two people for the collection of three or four people who left relatively early. Subtract three more people who were non-drinking designated drivers. That's a total of four and 2/3rds beers per person.

Add to that an entire bottle of Goldschlager, half a bottle of gin, a full bottle of wine, and at least a full fifth of bourbon, and you've got yourself one bangin' party.

Wait a minute...

2006-10-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post has this to say today about the inability of many students to write in cursive:

Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say. But academics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades.

Wait. So those people who don't have cursive produce shorter, simpler essays? And that's bad? I say, no cursive in schools! Who's with me?!

Our atom bombs were just no use.

2006-09-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've always had the sense that my previous selves had better musical taste than my current self. Records that I bought in the last two years invariably end up collecting dust on my shelf (or with 0 plays on iTunes), while records that I bought while I was in high school and college get tons of play. It's a bad sign. But an even worse sign is one I just discovered, i.e., that not only did I have better taste in music ten years ago, I also had better taste in music as a nine-year old.

Consider Weird Al Yankovic.

Recently, while trading music with Money Changes Everything (henceforth on this blog: MCE), I was reacquainted with two Weird Al records: the classic "Dare to be Stupid," and "Weird Al Yankovic: In 3-D!". I had no idea that Weird Al was not only a talented jokesmith, but also a musical genius in his own right. Leave aside his song parodies for the moment, such as "Like a Surgeon" or "King of Suede." There are two other essential facets of Al records: original tunes, or "style" parodies, and Polka Medlys.

Let's take the latter first. On "Hooked on Polkas," it seems almost as if Al is putting the pedal to the metal, so to speak. The song starts out SO FAST - it's as if he's daring the audience to keep up with the 3:45 of the song. Something like 11 songs go by in the midst of this polka, it's really amazing, as are the transitions between songs. Sometimes he sticks to standard polka musical staples, but other times, he appears to be building between songs to create a sort of mid-song "metasong," as, if you listen, the transition between "Footloose," "The Reflex," and "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)" becomes. It's really quite astounding. Maybe you think I'm crazy describing a guy who does polka as a genius, but don't knock it until you really listen.

Second are his original tunes, or "style" parodies. There are many of these, including "Velvet Elvis," which is a Police parody from "Even Worse." But two especially deserve mention. The first is "Dare to be Stupid" from that same record. This is clearly a Devo parody, but it's really done with a sense of command over the genre. It's as if Al himself has inhabited the Devo universe and taken control, produced "Dare to be Stupid," was overthrown, and returns to our universe with the original master tapes of his creation. And furthermore, the music is dense, the track is deep, it's overall very satisfying. Slap some non-joke lyrics on there, and you'd have yourself an extremely good synth-pop tune.

But the one that I think just cements Al in the canon of musical greats is the track "Slime Creatures from Outer Space." I listened to this tune yesterday, and I immediately was suspicious that it was an Oingo Boingo parody. But as Al did another Boingo parody later ("You Make Me" on "Even Worse), I was unconvinced. One thing that I knew was the track was totally sweet. Great arrangements, incredibly tight vocal harmonies. Really tight. When writing harmonies like that, you have to know what you're doing. You really have to know what you're doing. The various parts move in an out of 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths in a super compelling way, with each harmony part sounding like a melody of its own. Now that's hard to do.

I didn't know who it was a parody of, but I remember saying to myself: whoever this is a parody of, I really want to listen to because this is so good. Answer: it's Thomas Dolby. You know, that Thomas Dolby I've been going on and on about for a while now. The Thomas Dolby who's super-sweet. But it's a testament to Al's genius that I could find the same affection for Thomas Dolby in one of Al's tracks without consciously knowing that it was a parody of Dolby. Again, he inhabits a musical universe and returns with extremely delightful results.

So, as it happens, not only would the high-school-me slap me around for listening to crap, so would the nine-year-old me. And, frankly, I'd have to agree.

I guess it just wasn't my night.

2006-09-17T02:09:00.000-07:00

Being diabetic and drunk at the same time is sometimes tricky business.

Mixing up one thing for the other can lead you to serious medical problems, or lead you into serious drunkenness.

Knock on wood, only the latter is going on tonight.

A brief recap: it was Mrs. Rugby's birthday (or thereabouts), so I trudged all the way to Claremont - actually near my old house - to drink screwdrivers and party. Well, apparently I had a little more party in me than the party did, because everyone else crapped out by 1am, while I was still three sheets to it. The wind, that is. So I made everyone stay up while I sobered up - no one complained, though I could feel their condemning eyes on me. Screw you, people! Ahem, anyway, just drove home and now I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I was a little too goddamn wasted to a) be driving; b) for any other purpose whatsoever.

Look, I'm getting on in years, and it's less likely that I'm going to find excuses to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-y-day. So I take them when I can get them. Few and far between, as it were. Scarce. So I take advantage. What I sometimes don't realize, however, is the extent to which my own capacity for drunken revelry is trumped by others' consistent alcohol intake, leaving them less likely to want to close down every bar in town when I want to. C'est la vie. Anyway, this has been a long-winded introduction to my drunken blogging skills. Frankly, I think I'm damn good at it. In closing, I wish to present the following sweet-ass picture of his Royal Badness:

Mashed potatoes can be your friends.

2006-09-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

We have a new entry in the crackpot list, found here.

I got this link in an email. The author is apparently campaigning for the Nobel Prize in Game Theory. This is odd because there is no Nobel Prize in Game Theory.

I was there to match my intellect.

2006-09-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Test. Test. Test. Trying out a new blogging widget. Rock and Roll will Never Die.

You can eat a bunch of sushi then forget to leave a tip.

2006-09-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

I. The E-Bay Moment of Clarity

I've been a bit obsessed lately with electronic music gear. I got my SY77 a few weeks ago, and it is totally fun. Like, super fun. It's way more fun than my old SY85, even though that one was slightly newer. Getting the SY77, however, was somewhat arduous. I had to drive up to LA, and not even just LA, but the valley, to get it. When I called the dude the day before he was like: "I know you're coming from San Diego, but could you tell me, you know, exactly when you'll be here, so I can make sure I don't have to spend the whole day waiting because, you know, being in LA I'm used to a lot of flakey people." Whatever. I'm paying you $250 bones for this thing and you want me to send you text messages for every highway I pass? Screw you, buddy! Anyway, I'm driving up there at like 9am on Saturday a few weeks ago, and I call him at the designated time (when I left the 405 for the Ventura Freeway). His wife picks up the phone: "Oh, sorry, he has a meeting for another hour or so." Grr. Flakes in LA, indeed. Me: "That's ok. I have cash. I can just get it from you, right?" Her: "No. He wants to be here."

Growl. Pisser. Sumbitch. What the fuck? That jackass made me drive up all the way giving him little electronic signals for every stoplight I passed, and now he won't even let me pick up the damn thing? Cruddy. Anyway, I get off the freeway and take Mulholland (that's right! WOOHOO!) up to this guy's neighborhood. I decide to wait for his ass in some fancy-ass grocery store, which was far too fancy-ass for my tastes. It had an automatic wine-chiller device. Apparently, you put your wine in this machine for a designated number of minutes, and it returns all chilled-like. I wonder if it works for Colt .45? That'd be a miracle. Anyway, he finally calls and I go get the thing.

The thing is, I was sort of on a time crunch that day because my dad wanted me to come by his house for dinner. However, there was an extra incentive. If I made it by 3pm, I could meet George Foreman! Woohoo! Apparently there was some chance that the Champ was going to be at this function because his kid goes to my dad's school. So I'm trying to burn rubber from Burbank to Redlands. And, thank you very much, I did it in one-and-a-quarter playings of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. (Why did I just write out the whole title? I'm a mystery.

However, the GF thing was a bust. He was a no-show. For my time, I got to sit in a middle of a football team pep-talk, with a speech given by my dad, approximately half of which was given up to introducing me and giving minute details about my personal and professional life. Or, anyway, that I'm a philosopher. Which is too much information for some people to take.

Anyway, that was a long winded introduction to my recent ebay moment of clarity. Because this keyboard is so much friggin' fun to play with, I decided to look around to see what other used gear is out there, and stumbled across this. Now, I have a long history of lust for this keyboard. The first time I noticed the name "Kurzweil" was on the back of the keyboard that Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran was using during the Duran Duran comeback of 1992-3. I thought: that's a weird name for a keyboard. But then I happened to mess around with one at Big Dude's Music City of Kansas City, MO. Sweet. Of course, the price tag was a consistent $3500, beyond my means. So I got a cheaper one, my old standby SY85.

But these things have been showing up on ebay. Especially the rack-mount one, which is considerably less and does everything the normal one does. So I've been bidding. And one was ending today, which started the day off at $120. A steal. So I bid. And bid. And bid. Finally, I get to $150. I know that if I bid even $2.50 more, I'll get it, because I've reached the other guy's maximum.

And that's when it hit me: how the fuck am I going to afford $200 (including shipping) for a Kurzweil K2000? No way at all! So, with 58 seconds left in the auction, and with my cursor in the "Bid Now" field, I let it expire. No go.

A little sad, perhaps. Disappointed. But greatfully, thankfully, alive.

II. The Real Moment of Clarity

I was at a labor-day party on Monday, Labor Day, that is. Having a smashing time with Mr. Rugby, Mrs. Rugby, Monopoly, and assorted others. Occasionally it happens that my glasses will get a little dirty. Perhaps a little dusty, a little oily, a little smudged with mustard or some other condiment. Perhaps some potato salad. Or a little saurkraut (though I rarely do this one on purpose). Anyway, I took my glasses off to rub them with the front of my shirt, and to my utter astonishment, they break in two. Right in half. You know that classic nerd image of the guy with a pocket protector and tape on the bridge of his glasses? Well, that's me without the tape or the pocket protector. My glasses have gone kaput.

What to do? Well, I walked around the rest of that day looking really closely at things. I decide that Tuesday I will get a new pair. But how? If I don't have $200 to pay for a Kurzweil K2000 (a tear...) I surely don't have $200 to pay for a pair of glasses. But then I remember one of the fundamental principles of our economy: credit cards. Mine, however, happens to be a somewhat limiting American Express, refused by the student health optometrists. Ugh. So I guess I'll have to go to Lenscrafters. So I go. I say: "Could you possibly read the prescription off of my glasses? I just want whatever I have in a new frame." He say: "No can do. You have to get eye exam." I say: "Dashed! Ok." So I go get an eye exam. Whatever. Halfway through he takes my glasses. He says: "Ok, I'm going to take your glasses and see if your prescription has changed." Er. Wait. Pause. Consider. Ruminate. Ah-ha! The Thomson Twins! You have to read my old prescription off of my glasses in order to get my new prescription! Buggerer!

So I'm pissed as I go to pick out frames. There was a grand total of one pair that didn't make me want to barf. But it was 250 bones. It was cool, a very distinct Clark Kent look that suited me. Alas, however, I couldn't afford them. I settled for a sub-par pair of Ray-Bans.

Until I went to pay for them and realized they tacked on another $180 for lenses.

BULLSHIT!

So I split. Went to student health. Paid $119 for a pair of semi-Clark Kent frames that just came in today. Poor for the rest of the month, although it's quite likely that I could leap small buildings in a single, or perhaps two, bounds.

Two moments of clarity, for a grand total of $424.

They're just jealous because I seen "Porky's" 27 times this week.

2006-08-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

To set the record straight, I doubt very much that anything coming out of a toaster could rightfully be called "strudel."

To SY or not to SY.

2006-08-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

So I just bought this.

Homo Sapiens have outlived their use.

2006-08-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

So anyone who knows me more than reasonably well knows that I'm a little superstitious. Actually, incredibly superstitious. You know, now that I think about it, for a guy who ostensibly believes in rational argument, proof, naturalism, yada yada yada, I'm really incredibly, unnaturally superstitious.

Especially when it comes to the doctor's office. I mean, look, superstition when it comes to games, or sports, or good grades, or whatever, that's one thing. But when the doctor is involved, you just don't screw around, people. Once a precedent is set, you go with it. Do not deviate. For example, since I've been to the doctor's office nine times in the last two months, I have built myself up into a nice set of rountines that well, are absolutely essential to my health and well-being. Here's something of a rundown.

1. No phone calls the day of the appointment until after the appointment is over.
2. Always take the same (or roughly the same route) to the office. To Hillcrest, it's 30th, University, Washington. I don't even want to think about what would happen if I took Pershing, the 5, Washington. Chills. At SHS, always enter by the West door, never the East door!! This is crucial.
3. Always listen to the same song on your iPod while walking from car to office. This is crucial. If iPod is unavailable, it is essential to hum said song, although this is not ideal. I'm not going to tell you what the song is, lest I be made fun of mercilessly.
4. Always listen to the same song on your iPod while walking back from the office. This is to ensure safe passage from the last doctor's appointment to the next one. This is especially important if it was a good appointment. Again, no dice on what the song is. This is the least crucial one, of course, because the appointment has already past. But it enhances the effects of complying with the other demands.

And fuck you people who say that these things don't mean anything because I finally got my clean bill of health today, FUCKERZZZ!! (Knocking on wood.) Apparently, my --------iogram turned out perfectly normal. The ticker is, as they say, not perfect but workable.

Sweet. Hopefully the number of doctor's appointments in my future will decrease considerably.

I don't want to even think about what would have happened had I taken the 5. Bullet dodged, baby. Bullet dodged.

It's the freakiest show.

2006-08-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

Sick.

Again.

This time with what my doctor referred to as "viral gastro-entoritis". Basically "the flu". I'm not really puking anymore, which is awesome, but I spent some time with an IV drip over at student health yesterday. The flu is tricky business for diabetics: you must stay hydrated, lest you risk ketoacidosis, and you can't really take any insulin, because you might be barfing up all the sugar you eat to compensate. Also you can't really drink fluids, because, you know, the puking thing. Hence the IV.

However, the doctor did give me some anti-nausea pills, and they're kicking ass, especially since they're basically a sedative. Took one last night at around 7pm, and was out by 9. Woke up at 2, wide awake. Read about 50 pages of "Eight Men Out", took another, slept until 9:30.

I hope I'm better by Monday. I start teaching that day. I actually hope I'm better by tomorrow so I know what I'm going to say on Monday. I haven't been able to do any work since I came down with this dashed illness. Although I have gotten a lot of movie-watching in:

The Three Buriels of Melquiadas Estrada (didn't actually finish it. was bored to tears)
Disk 1 of Season 5 of the Simpsons (Shows AND Shows + Commentary)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (good.)
High Plains Difter (still deliberating on this one.)

By tomorrow morning I will have watched:

The Fog of War
Incident at Loch Ness

Dang it. I need to get some work done. This sick crap is getting on my freaking nerves. Me and some colleagues were supposed to go wine tasting yesterday, but that totally didn't work, as I would have been upchucking Sangiovese all the way home.

Work tomorrow. That's the plan. Work work work.

You're drivin' your momma and papa insane.

2006-08-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Drinking alone again tonight. This time it's a bottle of $4.99 spanish vino from Ray's Liquor Center. I probably could have gotten this bottle for $2.99 at Trader Joe's. Or I could have potentially traded a bag of magic beans for it. Or real beans. And not that many of them. The wine's not great. But it does have booze in it, so it appears to be doing all the essential deeds. These days a couple of glasses of wine and I'm dancing topless on the table.

I just finished watching some crappy Wim Wenders movie called "The End of Violence." It was crappy. What is up with Wim Wenders?!?! Why do his movies blow chunks?? I couldn't stand that other one of his movies, I'm forrgettting the name right now. But "Until the End of the World," theough the music was sweet0-ass, the movie super-sucked. I ask you: what is up with Wim Wenders and his crappy-ass movies??

I also rented two other movies from Citizen Video, given that it's three-fer tuesday. (That's only funny if you're from Lawrence, Kansas. But if you're from Lawrence, it's hilarious.) I got "The Three Buriels of Melquiades Estrada" or "Mequeliadas Estrada" or "Michelob Estrada" or however that guy's name is spelled and/or pronounced. Also "The Night Porter." I got the last one mainly because it has a sexy picture of Charlotte Rampling on the cover, though she is wearing a Nazi uniform (or parts of a Nazi uniform). I guess that detracts from the overall sexiness of the picture. But it's still pretty sexy. I hope the movie's good. I suppose I could just stare at the picture for 122 minutes.

But I have a hunch that Wim Wenders could have all the sexy Charlotte Ramlings in the world in his mvoies, and they'd still be crappy. But that's just a hunch. A mere supposition. A fully falisifiable hypothesisiosis.

There has surely got to be some sort of techno-mashup word for drunk blogging. How about "drogging?" No. Blunking? Eh...maybe. Sounds to much like "spelunking." Shitfacelogging? Mmm...too many letters, I suspect. Wastelogging? Whatever. There's probably some word out there already. I'm not qualified to come up with all of these words on my own, people. Why don't you people try shouldering the dang load every once in awhile?!? "Drugging?" Maybe. It sounds a little like what Alex De Large used to do in A Clockwork Orange. Oh, and I guess it's exactly the same word as "drugging," meaning to take drugs. I give up.

End transmission.

Changesdorsey

2006-07-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

For the last ten days I've been on a David Bowie bender.

It all started when Math Rock played a couple of Bowie tunes from the early Seventies during a "Super Monkey Ball" late-night video game fest (of the kind I haven't had since I last visited Klaus; it was decidedly awesome). Anyway, I think he played "Rock and Roll Suicide" and "The Man Who Sold the World". I was all "This is Awesome." Math Rock was all "It's David Bowie." I was all "I know that, but I didn't know that David Bowie was this Awesome." (I'm paraphrasing.)

In reality, I've had some run-ins with David Bowie before. During college Klaus and I had a serious fling with "Let's Dance." If I'm remembering correctly, we had a plan in place to perform "Under Pressure" for some dorm lip-synch show, Klaus as Freddy Mercury. All he needed was the moustache, but I would have had to have worn something like this:

So it was a no-go. In addition, I was passingly familiar with some of Bowie's classic period via my ex-wife's copy of "Changesbowie." I seem to recall listening to that while driving to the Somerville VFW to pick her up after a night of drinking. All I really knew about his early period, however, was that I dug the song "Young Americans" and "Rebel Rebel." Everything else I could have taken or left.

But for some reason - maybe it was the Super Monkey Ball - I was tempted to figure out just what Bowie is up to. The day after I spent like four hours doing research on the web. The iTunes store, Amazon, Wikipedia, everything. I boned up. Did a bunch of research. Was intrigued by the Brian Eno connection, so I bought ""Heroes"" on the iTunes store, and ordered "Ziggy Stardust, et. al." and "Aladdin Sane" with my most recent Amazon.com credit card reward certificate. Sweet. I learned the changes to "The Man Who Sold the World" and the riff from "Rebel Rebel."

I tell ya', I've been on a bender.

I've also been frigging bored. To tears.

I managed to get some work done today somehow. My heart wasn't in it. I think I'm basically committed to going on the job market this year, and though this will require a bunch of work of me between now and September 15th, I think it's basically in the bag. (Hopefully.) But I've just been dang bored. Bored when I'm by myself. Bored when I'm around others (no offense; it's me). I'm not sure why this is. Maybe I'm in a rut. I perhaps need to get into some sort of groove. Or something like that. Anyway, something has got to change. I don't know what the prescription is. Perhaps I need to start experimenting with mind-expanding drugs. More likely I just need to get some exercise. Possibly some jazzercise. But the thrill is gone. Bored bored bored.

In conclusion, Klaus Kinski as Luke Skywalker?

When the words were touched with sorrow.

2006-07-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

Anyway, in other news, I should tell the story of my Dad's pop music tape.

Sometime in, oh, 1987 or so, my Dad must have been frustrated at the state of the radio, or something, so he listened for days and recorded a bunch of songs that he liked from regular rock/pop stations onto a cassette tape that supplanted the radio while driving in the car. The thing about this tape was that it had all these different songs, you know, typical mid-Eighties stuff. "Your Wildest Dreams" by the Moody Blues. "No One Is to Blame" by Howard Jones. "Sussudio" by Phil Collins. "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood. "Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh. There was also, I'm not kidding, "Rock Me Amadeus". But, be quite honest, to this day, merely driving around to that blasted tape has caused me to smile every time I hear one of those dang songs. I heard the Moody Blues tune driving home tonight. I wonder whatever possessed my Dad to make that tape and play it over and over and over? Surely he could have just bought some tape and played that. And that would have even had a few decent tunes on it. Oh well, live and learn. I suppose we all did things in 1986 that we regret now.

I wonder if I can get that tape somehow...

But when I kissed the cop down at 34th and Vine, he took my little bottle of Love Potion No. 9.

2006-07-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

It's been an indecisive day. My current condition (still recovering from surgery), combined with my new condition (possible problems with the ol' ticker), conspired to make it so. I had a doctor's appointment at precisely 8 fucking AM today, which took a reasonably long time, but it still left me on campus with very little to do from 9:30 on. I had heard that there was some sort of beer-thingy going on at the campus bar tonight, so I desperately wanted to go to that (stir-craziness, the explanans). So I figured I would be on campus working and whatnot from, oh, the morning until 6ish, when these beer-thingies usually get started.

How wrong I was.

The beer thing apparently starts at a jovial 8:30. So do I sit here and wait? Or do I go home? Does my current condition compel me to take a shower to wash off any grossness from the day? If so, do I really want to go all the way home to shower and come all the way back for the beer thingy? Or is there some closer shower that doesn't cost a $25 summer rec fee to use? And am I getting hungry?

It was the last question that led to the biggest adventure.

I decided that I desperately needed one of those $0.75 bags of peanuts from the vending machine on the 2nd floor. That would just about do it. Cure the grumbling, as it were. Add bounce to the ounce. But when I went all the way downstairs to get said bag, I discovered that I had imprudently squandered the necessary quarter on a game of "Police Academy Training" at the gameroom. Chastened, I went back upstairs.

All I really needed was a nickel. Five damn cents. After an hour of increasing hungriness, I remembered: Mr. Officemate keeps a whole pile of chump change in his desk! Woohoo! A little petty larceny later, I hurry down the elevator to try my hand at those peanuts. Dashed again! Some fool had pushed in the "Money Return" button until it stuck in the "Return" position. Putting change in the slot was a useless gesture, as it fluttered uselessly to the steel-encased return chamber. But I needed those peanuts. So I worked at the button, attempting to loosen it. Pushing, pulling, inserting keys into, etc., etc. Finally, success.

Dashed again again! The machine was unplugged.

Dare I trudge all the way over to the Old Student Center, and its lone vending machine, in search of these Greek Tragedy-like nuts which are always within my sight but never my grasp? Yes! After nearly doubling over with hunger, I finally reach my goal. A plugged-in, non-tampered machine. I insert a nickel. YES! It registers. A quarter. YES! The readout proudly declares: .30. Another quarter. NOOO! It falls through to the bottom. But wait. What's this? The register reads: .55! Hah! Karma repaid! A quarter returned and read! Finally, I reach a .75 readout, while retaining $.30 in change (it happened again, with the aforementioned nickel). A bag of peanuts: check! An extra nickel with which to repay Mr. Officemate: check!

And that's when I saw the three full bags of free bagels from the Co-op.

There's a city where the damned call home.

2006-07-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the last post didn't exactly trigger my self-censorship button, so I had to do a little "editing." Oh well. That's what vitamin V does to you, I guess.

Finally finished the second draft of my new Chapter 1. Hopefully I'll be able to do a final polish this week before sending it to the C'tte. It's basically toothless, and pushes all the interesting problems off until the next Chapter. But that's the way the boys wanted it, so whaddya gonna do?

Drinking on the 4th? Yes? No?

Cut back up to the cathode ray.

2006-07-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here on a lovely Sunday afternoon wondering why the hell any honest, forthright, non-bone-to-pick, non-dogmatic, individual would claim that Radiohead's Pablo Honey is not a fine record. I've written on this before, but it just astonishes me. Is it a generational thing? These young pups who were but sixth-graders during the 1993 music watershed? Maybe. But deep down, I think it's just dishonesty. A refusal to look at the record just as a record, and a dashed good one at that.

So it's been a while. I've been mostly confined to my apartment recently, having recently undergone a specific surgical procedure for a specific problem. To put that in slightly less vague language, my doctors tore a gigantic hole in my left ass-cheek and didn't sew it up. It's not like they screwed it up, this was the proper procedure, but it does have the tendency to make one not endeavor out of doors all that frequently. I went to a bar on Friday night, and that turned out to be something of a mistake - Saturday was spent groaning and undergoing Vicodin withdrawl. Which, by the way, is some serious shit. I can see how people become addicted to this stuff. Going through Vicodin withdrawl is *exactly* like feeling intense pain in exactly the places you were taking the Vicodin for. So, basically, my ass hurt. My throat hurt (related to the surgery). My shoulder hurt (unrelated to the surgery, though cured by the vicodin). That sucked ass. I'm back on the drugs today, though...woohoo!

This is going to continue for about three more weeks or so. Freaking joy of joys I've also watched more movies than I care to admit. Here's my confession:
1. Being John Malkovich
2. Young Frankenstein
3. Chinatown
4. Donnie Darko
5. Soylent Green
6. Real Life
7. The 39 Steps
8. Ponette
9. Body Heat
10. The Thin Blue Line
11. The Party
12. After the Thin Man
13. Innumerable 4th Season Simpsons Episodes (with commentary)
I know there are at least a few I'm leaving out. But that's a lot of damn movies in a week or so. I've also gotten a little bit of writing done on the dissertation, but not as much as I'd like. Basically working on that thing makes me incredibly exhausted. I think it's the vicodin, but mainly I'll write or edit, like, ten pages, and then fall asleep for two hours. Sucks.

My biggest dilemma is that the 4th of July is in 2 days, and I've been invited to at least one bbq. I'd hella like to go, and I'd hella like to drink an assload of beer, preferably out of some sort of metal can. Failing that, out of some old leather boot. Failing that, out of a pressurized tube connected to a metal container full of beer. Failing that, licked off a puddle dropped on a clean kitchen floor. Failing that, dirty floor. Basically I'd like to drink some beer. But the problem is the Vicodin! Vicodin is a no-no with boozeahol, especially booze out of a metal can. (Some say this is false, but my diabetic ass ain't takin' no chances.) So that means I'll have to skip the drugs for a day in order to get 4th-faced. But can I deal with the withdrawl? Can I? It's a soul-searching dilemma. Just like the soul-searching that needs to be done by those homodox (is that the opposite of heterodox? whatever...) for the sake of homodox haters of Pablo Honey.

You wish you could sex her.

2006-06-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

It appears that I'm getting shitfaced alone while grading finals. This is both liberating and sad. Liberating because it's making the grading a lot more fun. Sad because it's something my former roomate would have done.

Whaddya gonna do? The Anchor Steam is calling.

Anybody wanna join me? You know my number.

Personally, I think this is unrealiable, but whaddya gonna do?

2006-06-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

You Are Barney

You could have been an intellectual leader...

Instead, your whole life is an homage to beer

You will be remembered for: your beautiful singing voice and your burps

Your life philosophy: "There's nothing like beer to give you that inflated sense of self-esteem."

The Simpsons Personality Test

A Poem

2006-06-04T22:20:00.001-07:00

Christmas Reflections

Slick Nick stole the reindeer
from the zoo;
He fell down my chimney
with a keg of brew;
Put my dog out in the cold
Ripped of the candy from my socks
Smokin' cloves
and drinkin' scotch.

Slick Nick, you devil you.

Dressed in red
and overweight to boot
Stole the TV
and the stereo
and the toys were broken, too.

You devil you.

I saw Slick Nick fall over
the Christmas Tree
He was a whole different man from
what Mom and Dad told me;
Spillin' Jack Daniels all over the drapes
Spray painted a bad finger over the fireplace
Tattoos on his arms and knees
I never thought Santa Claus
would be such a sleaze.

Slick Nick, you devil you.

Cussin' and coughin'
and playin' punk rock
And every once in a while
you just scratch your jock
Hey Slick Nick, where are my toys?
You went drinkin' with the boys.
You put Mad Dog in my sock
I wanted candy.
I thought you were my buddy and chum
But you're just a downtown bum.
Instead of puttin' presents in front of my eyes,
You just told me
a bunch of lies.

Slick Nick, you devil you.

Copyright 2002 by Maurice Leiter

Hmm.

2006-06-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

Wow.

I'm wearing fur pajamas.

2006-04-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile.

The greatest commercial website ever.

2006-03-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

Here.

Heater fixed....or is it?

2006-03-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

So the heater dude came yesterday and installed a new heater. I'm dissatisfied. The thing is huge, and it's right in the middle of my main wall, the wall against which my TV, bookshelf, CDs, DVDs, and framed newspaper advertisement for Gilda sit. Talk about a feng shui nightmare.

God, this blog is getting boring.

Sorry, people.

In other news, if anyone can procure me a copy of Mystery Science Theatre 3000's "The Final Sacrifice" on DVD, I'll make it worth your while.

Cold.

2006-03-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

I'm freezing.

It's frigging-a cold.

Now, before all of you non-Californians start bellyaching about, "oh, that San Diego wimp, he doesn't understand what cold is," you should know a few things.

First, my apartment is old. Very old. Let's say it was built during an era in which they manufactured major apartment appliances to work until, oh, say, 2002. Including the heater. Put that together with a San Diego cold snap (low 50s), and you've got yourself one cold yours truly.

My apartment has no heat, so it's exactly the same degree of coldness inside and out. I could be outside and be no colder. Inside and no warmer. Inside has the advantage of having an oven into which I could put my head, but so far it hasn't come to this.

I can see my breath. Inside.

Brrrrrr.

A lame argument.

2006-03-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

I thought of this while I was in the shower this morning.

I take two principles to be generally plausible. 1) If a moral intuition leads to a judgment that is anomalous, there is good reason for revising that intuition and judgment. 2) Most deontologists claim that there is some threshold of harm where the doing/allowing distinction gives out.

Furthermore,

(3) Assume that the threshold is 10,000 lives.

Thus,

(4) it is illegitimate to kill someone except to save 10,000 lives or more.

But given (1), we have reason to reject (4). Because in this case, the intuition that leads us to the judgment that we should not kill one to save fewer than ten thousand is anomalous. Why? Because that intuition is only applicable in a finite number of cases, i.e., cases in which the number of deaths prevented by one killing run up to 9,999. But the alternative intuition, in which killing is acceptable is applicable in a transfinite number of cases. Thus, we should revise (3), and suggest that in all cases, killing one is acceptable in preventing harm. Any finite number will be anomalous.

This argument is pretty lame, but that's what happens when you wake up at 6:45am.

NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

2006-03-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

I just realized something today, as I struggled to put together a paper on mercy, I realized something.

I am getting paid to do nothing.

That's right. Nothing. I'm on fellowship right now, and since I've already turned in the draft of my dissertation, I'm basically sitting on my ass until I get comments. Which, judging my the speed at which my advisors get things turned over, could be in the year 2525. If, of course, man is still alive.

In fact, it's not just like I'm getting paid and can choose to do whatever I want, you know, explore and write a number of different off-dissertation topic papers. Which I actually had been doing. It's actually worse if I do work. It's a little bit of a demerit. Every paper I write needs to get read by somebody, and since my advisors are basically struggling to get through the gigantor that is the d, it would not be a good thing for me if I were to give them even more. I mean, it would be good in one sense, but in a much more important sense, bad.

So the optimal situation, vis-a-vis my job, is for me to do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It's worse than it sounds. I mean, I do get a monthly income for no work in San Diego, California, and it's basically sunny all the time. I also live three blocks from Balboa Park and the Frisbee Golf Course. But I also realized something else a few weeks ago, i.e., basically the only time I'm really satisfied is when I'm working. It sounds dumb, I know. But I suppose it's true. Goofing off makes me restless. The only goofing off I really enjoy is goofing off between periods of working. Am I crazy? Am I biting the hand that feeds me? Am I shunning perhaps the greatest period of life I will ever experience?

Time will tell, I suppose. Mercy calls.

I second that emotion.

2006-03-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

Here, here.

Baseball

2006-03-02T10:14:00.000-08:00

OK, ok. Here's the deal. I cannot run a baseball league this year. I will join the league, but I encourage one of YOU PEOPLE to be the commissioner. The commish. I am standing down. You can very easily start the league by going to the following webpage. Follow the helpful instructions.

fantasysports.yahoo.com.

A bit of an odyssey.

2006-03-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

February 23rd.

I wake up in the morning, knowing that I have a doctor's appointment I've been dreading for quite a while now at 2:40. Normally, doctor's appt's really aren't my thing. And this time it really wasn't my thing. I woke up with a heartbeat of around 120, and couldn't seem to get any work done at all, or concentrate on anything. I took a long walk. Sent a fax I'd been meaning to send. Had two doughnuts. Walked back. I tried to distract myself so awkwardly that I even took a tour of a condo across from my place. I watched most of Caddyshack. Finally, time to drive to the hospital. So I get there, park, go up to the floor, check in, and wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

An hour after my appointment time, somebody calls me back. They sit me down. "What seems to be the problem." "..." "I see, and where's that?" "..." "Where?" "...!" "Oh, I don't know why they sent you here, this is [the wrong area] surgery. You want [the right clinic]." "!!!" "I'm sorry, we'll see if we can get you in today."

My blood was beginning to boil.

"Sorry, that clinic is only open on Wednesdays. You'll have to come back next week."

I think my particular utterance of "Goddammit" was audible from Yuma, Arizona. Very pissed. All worked up for nothing. Turns out the person who booked my appointment deleted a particularly crucial word in the description of my condition. Wrong clinic. I was hella mad.

Feb. 25

Moving day. Moving from here to here. It was probably the easiest move of my life. Thanks to Math Rock and the Turtle, we got all of my crap loaded into a (rather small) truck, drove to the new place, and unloaded everything in a grand total of an hour and a half. Had time to shop for records before getting some burgers that night. Tasty. Actually, I figured it out. In the last eight months there has only been one leg of a move (either a loading or an unloading) that was particularly problematic. And the only outstanding variable, I think, knows who he is.

Feb. 28

With my new doctor's appointment only a day away, I decided that I had to do a little self-distraction again. Started by unpacking most of my boxes and putting stuff on shelves, etc. Then, Ikea.

Ikea amazes me. It's one of those places that just works so bloody well, you like to like it. Drive up, it's warm and inviting. Walk around, really cheap, attractive furniture. Kickin' tunes on the stereo. A cheap, but also good, cafe. Anything you want. It's right there. But then I started thinking that Ikea really is a lot like a casino. I mean, they've totally organized the store to keep a single demographic in the store. The music, for instance. Virtually all 80s pop. Now, that appeals to young Gen-Xers like me, older Gen-Yers, and older Gen-Xers, all of whom have some sort of experience of that stuff with in their childhood. And are most likely to a) be buying a house for the first time with the need to buy tons of furniture, b) have young children that need extra stuff, c) have oodles of disposable income. In addition, like a casino, Ikea is set up like a labrynth. It's impossible to get out of there without some cool thing catching your eye. Also, like a casino, they keep you fed cheaply, so that you are more pleasantly satiated and ready to purchase. It's diabolical.

Anyway, I ended up buying some new tupperware (desperately needed), a frame for something I've been wanting to hang on my wall, and the chair.

After that, I dropped about 60 bucks on groceries, came back and put the chair together, and watched the first hour of Metropolis, which I hadn't seen before, but which was strangely hypnotic and interesting. It's really too bad that so much of the film has been lost, but it's stunning, visually. Probably the most amazing visual statement I've ever seen. Which brings us to

March 1.

Real doctor's appointment. Get there. Check in (which took longer than last time; there was something of a line). I didn't have to wait hardly at all. So I go back, get all checked out. Thoroughly examined. Looks like surgery is on tap for me. But, according to the doc, I don't have to do it until the summer, which is a huge bonus. Sweet. Treated myself to lunch at the City Deli, and have since been doing a little work. In my new chair. In my new apartment.

It turns out all I wanted was a club sandwich.

2006-02-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

Last week was crazy, as I'm sure you all could guess by my total lack of posting. I was desperately trying to finish a first draft of my dissertation by the beginning of this week. Whew. Looks like I wrote a book. A five-Chapter, 197 page, 74000 word monstrosity. It is now in the hands of my advisors, and I have two options.

1. I can work like a dog on a few articles I'm in the middle of preparing (one requires only a few touch-ups, I think, one is midway through a first draft, one is merely in the conceptual stages).

2. I can put aside the articles and read a bunch of stuff that I totally neglected given the work I was doing on the thesis.

3. Go frisbee golfing. For three months.

It's likely it'll be a combination of 1 and 2, but 3 seems damn inviting. I'm going to be moving this weekend, and probably doing a lot of stuff around the house in the meantime, so the temptation to completely blow off the publishing world, and the published world, is extreme.

A couple of other things have happened since last we spoke.

1. I watched 'Gorky Park' with William Hurt, Lee Marvin, and Brian Dennehy. Disappointing. I was hoping for more "cold war" in this "cold war thriller." Mostly it was just a "thriller", but not all that thrilling, after all.

2. I wached a heckuva lot of the Olympics. It turns out that the women's 10k biathalon is more exciting than one might think. In fact, the action at the Olympics has been anything but exciting, except for that one event. Basically this entry means that I've been wasting a lot of time.

3. I've been falling asleep at around 10pm every night, getting really tired around 9. I'm sure it's correlated with my decision to go virtually cold turkey on caffeine, given some recurrent heart problems. The no caffeine has helped that stuff, but it sure is making we tired as all get-out.

4. I've discovered that the 'blogosphere' is basically a worthless entity. Not blogs in general, but blogs that think they can provide news and interesting content as an alternative to the traditional media. Sometimes they can, but it's basically just an exercise in wading through polemics. Rarely do I find anything unexpected. Blogger X is a leftist, hates Bush, etc. Blogger Y is a conservative, hates Blogger X, etc. Snore. I can't think of any better source for news than the New York Times.

5. Diesel and Dust is not that great an album. It's not nearly as consistently rocking as Blue Sky Mining.

Knownst to us.

2006-02-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

I just put my laptop display really flat. It's cool.

I feel like I'm typing in Star Wars.

Grazin' in the grass is a gas - baby can you dig it?

2006-02-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

It all started on Monday morning when I found a little package in my office mailbox. Finally, my copy of Diesel and Dust by Midnight Oil had arrived. I ordered it, like, forever ago (along with a book which has still not shown up), and was quite glad to see that it had not been eaten by some sort of mad CD-eating mail gnome. So as quick as a flash, I ripped it to my computer and set to transferring it to my iPod.

But then something strange happened.

The CD wouldn't transfer. The files, I mean. It just sort of hung there, in the air, like it wasn't goin' nowhere. I jiggled with it (and by that I mean did a bunch of stuff that didn't really make sense, but felt good to me at the time). No dice. The thing was messed up.

Anyway, time passes, and it's time to go home for the day. The iPod works, and I listen gleefully to selections from the Best of New Order (which has got to be the most inconsistent band on the planet, by the way). I get home and try to reestablish contact with the iPod. Nothin'. Try to reinstall the software. Still nothin'. Try to restore it. Still nothin'. Eventually, nothin' turned in to the dark, crimson colors of a failing hard drive. The computer told me that it no longer recognized the thing I was connecting it to. Uh oh.

So I took it to the bookstore today where I bought it. It's still under warranty, thank god, so I figured I'd be iPodless for a while, but would eventually get this one fixed. Well, the guy wanted to be thorough. He tried to establish contact with the iPod. Nothin'. Tried to reinstall the softward. Still nothin'. Tried to restore it. Nothin' again. Eventually, his faced turned into the dark, crimson colors of someone who could no longer help me: "We don't do service here. You need to go to the Apple Store."

Well, this put me in a bad mood, but it had also scared me a little bit. I mean, Apple not only makes iPods, it also makes computers. And, as a matter of fact, it also makes MY computer! Ack! What if this happens to my computer! I'm only under warranty for another few short weeks! ACCCCCKKKK!

So I panicked, and dropped $250 on the AppleCare extended warranty.

And that's when my day really started to get crappy.

I went to the web to enroll my AppleCare plan. No dice. According to the internet, my computer had run out of warranty, like, over five months ago. Incredulous! I called the number. They needed a reciept (which, for some strange reason, I didn't have - that's not like me. I hoard reciepts like some sort of reciept-eating mail gnome). Eventually I had the bright idea of calling the bookstore to get a duplicate copy of my reciept, which they had, eventually discovered under some old boxes and in between a year-old half-eaten hoagie sandwich. A fax later, and I had my AppleCare.

Which brings me back to the iPod.

The Apple Store, thankfully, is on my way home. Now, in the meantime, I'm convinced that as soon as I bring in this thing, they're going to take one look at it, realize it's screwed, chuck it out the window and present me with a brand new Video iPod, 60 gig. Anyway, that's what I talked myself into believing. So I park, get the dang Pod, and walk to the store. Finally, after waiting several years for the customer service counter, I begin to tell the tale, take my iPod out of my pocked and....

it works.

Works. All the songs and everything. The sumbitch had fixed itself somehow. How?!? How did this happen!?! I could see my video iPod slipping away, while I had to walk back to my car with this thing, clearly only a day away from a total screwup. However, they did restore it for me, and give me a software update, which means that it should run ok for awhile - the guy suggested it was probably just corrupted software. After 30 minutes of transferring all the music on my computer into the new old iPod, although without the possibility of episodes of Desperate Housewives at my fingertips, I was ready to rock.

Which I did, to Deisel and Dust.

They see your every move.

2006-02-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Well, this is awkward.

There's this little board in our department, right when you come out of the elevator. It says: "Philosophers in Print." And, well, I got lucky enough to have a few articles appear in print over the last couple of months, so I felt like, eventually, my papers might end up there. I though our person in charge of these things wanted copies of people's first pages, so, you know, people could check out all the cool stuff happening.

Well, it's been awhile now since they appeared, and no posting on the board. I felt weird about doing this stuff myself, as if it were some kind of shameless self-promotion, among people who, let's face it, I really shouldn't be spending my time doing self-promotion, shameless or otherwise. But, finally, I got up the gumption to turn in the copies today, a little sheepishly.

The powers that be responded thus:

"They don't put graduate student publications on the board."

So I got all worked up, looked all sheepish, and now I look like a total self-involved jackass for nothing. I look like the jackass. Something's fishy here.

In other news, did anybody see Prince on SNL this weekend? Awesome!

Sweet deliverance.

2006-02-01T11:21:00.001-08:00

I finally procured a copy of "Driver's Seat" by Sniff 'n' the Tears today, courtesy of California's favorite Minnesotan. And, well, it's not quite as ass-kickin' as the first time I heard it, but it's definitely above-par. It's a seriously filthy riff, but, well, it goes on...and on...

I can't tell you where we're going; I guess there's just no way of knowing.

2006-01-31T12:35:00.001-08:00

I was on a mission to do laundry on friday morning. After stopping to get a quick $20 bill at the local gas station (along with a bottle of water and a big jug of wiper fluid), I took off to the laundrymat. I was listening, in the car, to the local random track station, the one with no DJs that basically sounds like somebody's loaded iPod on shuffle. Anyway, I hear this tune. I think to myself, "this is pretty cool." This morphed into, "this is really sweet," into "this is kicking my ass," into "I just had my ass thoroughly wallopped by the power of that sweet riff."

This sometimes happens. I'll be listening to the radio and hear something sweet I've never heard before. But I'll forget about it before the DJ tells me what it was. But this time I was determined. I was going to listen until they told me what it was, at which point I would decided to buy it, or at least steal it. I was thinking maybe Journey. Maybe Yes. Unforunately for me, because this particular radio station has no DJs, they have no one to tell you whether or not any particular song was Journey, or even Yes. I was at a loss.

But my own ingenuity sprung into action. I heard the oft-stated mantra in the back of my head: "the internet will tell us these things..." I thus decided to fix on the most prominent lyric line in the song, and following laundry, to search that sucker on the wild wild web.

Turns out it wasn't Journey.

It wasn't Yes.

It was the one-hit by a one-hit wonder late 70s-early 80s new wave outfit by the name of "Sniff 'n' the Tears."

That's right. Sniff 'n' the Tears.

I looked them up on allmusic. Apparently this particular song was a big smash, but the band suffered from what many bands suffer from, i.e., a lead singer and songwriter who thought he was more powerful than the rest of the band could possibly imagine. This led to several lineup changes, several rapid-fire albums, with little or no commercial success. Formed 1978. Disbanded 1982.

But, as I suggested, that was an ass-kicking riff. Sweet. Even ultra-sweet. I had to hear it again. So I went to iTunes. No dice. Apparently iTunes has never even heard of Sniff 'n' the Tears. I went to Amazon. They had heard of it, but no sound samples. Allmusic let me play about 20 seconds of it. What to do?

I resolved the following. I would go to Tower Records. Apparently the album from which this particular cut was taken was recently reissued. Perhaps there would be a copy there. So off I went. I looked under 'S'. Not only did they not have the record, or anything else by Sniff 'n' the Tears, they also didn't even have the little card with the band name. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

However, Tower does have this little listening station that will let you automatically search the inventory and order a record if it's not in stock. I search. No sound samples. No in-store copies. And, in fact, no ability to order the record. I was screwed.

Of course, I could have just gone to Amazon, but this was one of those momentary things. I needed to pop that tune into my car and rock. Waiting several days at least didn't appeal to me, at which time this impulse might have passed. So I decided to be a little bit more investigative. Perhaps this song had made it on to a soundtrack, or a compilation? So I type in the name of the song. Four results pop up.

Compilations. Two of the particular record label on which the tune was issued, two other "hits of th 70s" comps. Now, I hate buying compilation discs. In the words of Bruce McCollough's Doors fan character, they're for "housewives and little girls." But I said, hey, compilations are usually ridiculously cheap. Five bucks sometimes. Perhaps this one was, too. So I walk over to the "various artists" category. I browse. No dice. Until...I happened upon:

"Hard to Find 45s on CD: Volume 8 - Hits of the 70s"

Sweet success! Now, as I turn the record over to discover its price....

$17.99.

Ugh. Crestfallen. No way was I paying 18 bucks for one track. Ass still intact. Unbruised.

Unkicked.

I'm a'movin' on down - again.

2006-01-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

So my new apartment didn't quite work out like I wanted. Frankly, it's a little small. Half of the bathroom is in the bedroom. The kitchen is little more than a hallway. The kitchen cupboards are in the living room.

Then there's the chaos outside. One neighbor, Willy, listens to Fox News on full blast all day long. As far as I can tell, he has no means of employment - with two loud kids. The other two neighbords, whose names I cannot pronounce, something like "Sharita," or something like that, are lound beyond comprehension. Screaming. Lots of the use of the word "fuck". Many different permutations of the word. Also home to kids. Ill-behaved children. On one occasion, one of these children chucked a scoop of ice cream at me.

So I just closed the deal for a new apartment beginning March 1st. It's a nice little place. No garbage disposal; you have to take the trash out yourself; no parking; but other than that, it's nice. Bigger. No children. Bay windows. People are mostly quiet. It's also even further South than I am now. It's in a neighborhood that actually has "South" as part of its designator. Although it's only about a ten minute walk from an "independent and foreign DVD rental" establishment, and a place that makes homemade scones. Here's a satellite image. It's supposed to be a "trendy" area. I'm cool with that. It's also three blocks from a frisbee golf course.

So line up now. Sometime in the week before March 1, I'm going to be moving in. Anyone helping is entitled to free Hodad's.

It's got Paul Anka's guarantee.

2006-01-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

While driving up to Redlands, California to visit my dad over the weekend, I hit something of a traffic jam at the 15-215-Temecula Wineries bottleneck. That's when I saw, partially covered by a perma-trailer, on the back of an old beat-up pickup truck, a faded, though definitely legible bumpersticker: "Shit Happens."

This sentiment has always been slightly confusing to me. I mean, there are so many senses in which it could be taken. First, it could be a sort of powerful statement of stoic self-confidence, a "Keep on Truckin'" for the high-flying world of the 80s. Like, "Damn, my dog just got runover by a drunken trucker, the same guy that made off with my old lady! Shit happens." Second, it could be something like a dire, slightly moralized warning. "Hey man, shit happens." This, I take it, is the sense of "shit happens" used in the ever-popular conglomerate, "Shit happens when you party naked." It could also be a somewhat trivial declaration of fact, i.e., that events take place. "Shit happens." But that would be the least interesting use of the phrase, by my lights.

So I make it up to Redlands, and before I can say "shit happens," my dad's new wife is shoving a glass of wine in my hand. After a few minutes of conversation (during which my dad told me that he missed having lunch with George Foreman by only two hours), we take off to a rather expensive restaurant in town - which was quite good, I have to say, but I also got the sense that people who go there are showing off a little. My dad reminded me of the story of some guy he knew growing up in South Dakota who, during a particularly extravagant night of drinking, drove his friend's new car onto a train, which then ended up somewhere in the badlands of North Dakota the following day. Pretty sweet wheeze, if you ask me.

I checked my email that night to find a paper by You-Know-Who on the latest iteration of neuroethics. This one is actually quite a bit better than other ones, but only insofar as it much more clearly details the absurdity of the project, and how, if taken seriously, it would cheapen morality beyond recognition. Maybe I'll make a detailed post on that one of these days, but now's not the time. The next day I had a great time playing with my dad's new XM satellite radio while we made a white-knuckle drive up a mountain to Lake Arrowhead. Turns out that's a ton of fun; there are about 100 individual music channels, many of which are really interesting. There's one "Jamband/Prog Rock" station, although it was about 98% Prog. Tons of Rush and early Genesis. The classic rock station also had a bunch of stuff you don't normally hear. They played this one track by Ted Nugent that, notwithstanding your personal feelings toward the Motor City Madman, had a brutal guitar riff. They also played "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by the Amboy Dukes, which I think was a little beyond me.

At home, before I could say "party naked", my dad shoved about 35 pounds of oranges from his tree in his backyard on me. Ripe as all getout. My apartment smells like a citrus grove now.

Tired of makin' out on the telephone.

2006-01-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

With a new bed comes a new bedtime ritual, and I'm starting to like it quite a bit. Bedtime rituals are, for me, the sort of thing that is best kept short. I'd much rather simply be able to fall into bed and wake up in the morning none the wiser. Nevertheless, two separate medical conditions prevent me from doing this, as well as general hygeine. But I've gotten used to it. In fact, I've purposefully extended my bedtime ritual in recent days, to good results. Rather than just going to sleep, I've been reading the newest Harry Potter book after the assorted pokes and prods. And, given that I'm still in that "new bed" phase where every night seems like I'm on vacation, I don't dread laying awake in bed staring at the ceiling for hours at a time any more. I mean, it's not the greatest thing, but t'aint the worst neither.

Don't really have a whole lot to say tonight. I was going to try again at my extended post on Depeche Mode's "Songs of Faith and Devotion," but I'm once again going to put that on hold. Mostly I was just going to do another long rumination on getting older while everyone else seems to be getting younger, but that's for another day. Right now I'm just going to dig the new comforter.

Here's a nifty pointer, though. It's not all it cracks itself up to be, but there are at least two things I decided to learn more about after having it on for an hour or so. Which is pretty good for these kinds of services, given my diverse tastes.

End transmission.

It seems she ran aground.

2006-01-16T12:01:00.000-08:00

Crazy-ass weekend. It all started earlier this week when I recieved my semi-usual Ikea VIP list email reminding me that the 50% sale and no-tax weekend were fast approaching. It's tough to turn town an excuse to go to Ikea to spend a few hours looking at cheap furniture. So I decided, helped by the offer of ultra-cheap breakfast at the upstairs cafe, to hit the sale on Saturday to see if I could pick up a few cheap dishes, or a set of pos and pans to make up for the horribly blackened set I currently have (blame my tendency to overcook popcorn). Anyway, because breakfast is served early, I show up around 9:30am, and already there's a line out the door. This is remarkable because, first, only the restaurant is open that early. Second, there's a goodly amount of real estate you have to traverse before you get to the restaurant from the front door, meaning that the line was incredibly long. I suppose the Ikea VIP list is not as VI as I thought it was. Anyway, after waiting in line for, like, a half-hour, I finally get my eggs, bacon, pancakes, and Swedish coffee. I sit by a window to observe the ant-farm parking lot below me rapidly fill with insane shoppers coming for the same reason I was. Whew, I thought to meself, glad I got here before everybody and Elton John decided to show up.

It was at that moment that I realized I had forgotten insulin at home, after having eaten a gigantic breakfast.

What to do? I could go home, take a shot, come back. But then I'd have to deal with the insanity in the parking lot. I could go home, take a shot, not come back. Which means no pots and pans for me. I could stay, not take a shot. Which means a very uncomfortable feeling and twenty trips to the bathroom. And no lunch at the Ikea cafe. I went for option A. Drove home, took shot, came back, only to find myself in the middle of a traffic nightmare Lex Luthor couldn't have dreamed up in his wildest and most diabolical moment. After, oh, fifteen minutes spent trying to find a parking spot in what must have been a 2000+ space lot, I finally get back to Ikea to do a little shopping.

This is a bit of a weakness I have. It happens all the time. I see a grand purchase I could make. You know, a computer or something. I fret about it. I say, "do I really need this?" "Can I really afford this?" I do this for a few days and then finally end up spending the money, usually some ungodly amount I can't afford. See my February archives for my fretting over computers. Anyway, I was walking through the showroom and there it was. A bed. A pretty nice bed. A bed for only $139. A bed that would nicely replace my current 15-year-old futon. Then I realize, of course, I'd have to buy a mattress. Mattresses ran, oh, $199. So the grand illusion would come to something like $338, without tax if I bought it this weekend.

This realization threw me into angst. "Do I really need a new bed?" "Can I really afford a new bed?" These things were running around in my head as I meandered, dazed, through the rest of the store. (Which, by the way, is relatively pleasant, given that Ikea has a pretty good soundtrack, including "One of Our Submarines" by Thomas Dolby and some classic Pat Benetar.)

I went home that night with a metal frame too small for the picture I wanted to hang and ten AA batteries for $1.99. I flipped on the TV to have some background noise while I thought about the possibility of a new bed. The Lawrence Welk show came on PBS, which I watched, slightly aghast, for about 15 minutes. I had never seen anyone attempt to make the accordion look sexy before, but I swear to you, during the solo, this accordion dude winked into the audience. After that came some sort of skit about an Italian grocery store owner attempting to marry off his daughter. His failure to this point was accounted for by the high cost of weddings ("but a man-a cannot afford-a to-a have a wedding-a, 's too 'spensive-a!"). His solution was to cut his grocery costs in half for eligable bachelors, enabling them to marry his daughter in financial security. A song followed. I don't know if the plan was successful, but it was looking good: the initially skeptical bachelor was singing and dancing by the time I turned off the TV.

To buy a bed meant returning to Ikea the following day to take advantage of the no-tax. I didn't want to get there super early, so I showed up around 3-ish. But this was a mistake. I thought the traffic was bad the day before. Oh no. We're talking a Lex Luthor meets Darth Vader meets The Joker meets Professor Moriarty frightmare. It took me a half-hour to move 1/8th of a mile into the parking lot. Took me as long to find a parking spot once I was in. It was crazy. Anyway, figuring that I couldn't brave this hell for nothing, I applied for an Ikea credit card and bought a dang bed, mattress, pillows, pillowcases, and a comforter. Tied the dang things to my car and drove home in time to put it together (during which I lost my rag nearly eight times) and watch the West Wing. To be quite honest, the whole thing turned out to be a fantastic deal, even without the no-tax thing, meaning I think I did the right thing overall.

Which raises the question: how many Ikea managers were able to marry off their daughters this weekend?

Hmm.

2006-01-11T19:03:00.000-08:00

I don't think I like this much. One question, I suppose, is whether there will be a reasonable demarcation between type 1 diabetics (insulin dependent, juvenile onset, unrelated to obesity, etc.) and type 2 diabetics, which can develop as a result of obesity or poor exercise habits. I don't think there's a sinly type 1 diabetic that doesn't take it seriously, given that, well, if you don't you'll die. It seems to me that this policy is incredibly patronizing, but there is something to be said for improving overall health. But one wonders. Will this really improve health? I suppose the reason for doing this with communicable diseases is that it prevents others from getting sick. But this is not going to prevent anyone from becoming diabetic. I suppose I'd be for a massive government program that sought to stop people from getting diabetes, but it seems to me that this program is not likely to bring major benefits, and is likely to disadvantage members of the population, especially type 1 diabetics, that are already disadvantaged given their disease, by bringing them under further government watch, and potentially opening them up for problems in getting health insurance and jobs.

Don't you point that raygun at me.

2006-01-09T20:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long absence. I was in the midst of my pre-quarter hibernation. It was only a literal hibernation in the metaphorical sense. I did a lot of sleeping, but it was mostly spent simply avoiding everything possible that had anything at all to do with school. I holed up in my apartment. Played a lot of some stupid game. Read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in, like, three days. Which is pretty amazing, considering it's an 800-some page book. (A small digression into Harry Potter. I feel like the comparisons to great children's literature of old are somewhat hasty. I mean, it's a remarkable achievement, no doubt, but I don't think it rises to anything like the level of Lewis Carroll or C. S. Lewis. For one thing, besides the foreboding darkness, it's mostly a sort of action/mystery. Which is not to say that it's bad, it's just lacking in a lot of the ideas of, say, Carroll or Lewis. In addition, Rowling is at an advantage in creating her universe: she makes ready use of any and all available mythical creatures, but creatures that are already in the popular imagination - werewolves, vampires, wands, giants, ghosts, snakes, dwarves, centaurs, etc. (well, there are a few originals, like the thestrals, for example) - but for someone like Tolkein, who described the universe in an almost completely original way, I think the achievement is somewhat greater. Not that I'm saying I didn't dig Harry Potter, or anything. It's great. But I feel like people are jumping the gun a little in the overly favorable comparisons to other great children's works.)

I have a few observations from my hibernatory period.

1. Clothes are ugly.

Some very ugly. Some achieve a degree of ugliness that could only be the result of special effort. (Appy polly lodges, Douglas.) Not clothes in general, which are, of course, fully necessary and can be very attractive. I mean clothes that you might go, say, looking to buy in any number of the various clothes shoppes or haberdashers in your local outlet centre. Went shopping last weekend, and I would say the aesthetic percentages broke down like this:

50% - very ugly.
30% - ugly; unwearable.
10% - wearable; unattractive.
4% - wearable, attractive, unavailable sizes.
5% - wearable, attractive, too expensive.
1% - wearable, attractive, cheap.

That's 90% of men's clothes (I didn't much look at the women's, though I'd be surprised if it were much different) that were downright ugly. I mean, what are these people thinking! Is it the case that people buy these clothes? If so, who? And why have they not been shamed? In a clearance rack at Calvin Klein, I saw one, only one (meaning others were bought, pair of brown tartan wool pants. I mean, what?!?!? Who would wear such a thing? I mean, besides someone trying to go for ironic effects, but the entire men's clothing industry can't be built around people who want to get a cheap laugh. Ugly shirts. Ugly pants. Ugly ties. Ugly suits. Ugly shoes.

One of the problems might be that I've been described by more than one salesperson, and more than one acquaintance, as a "conservative dresser." Perhaps. But dang, if going unconservative means going ugly, which it obviously seems to, you can count me out, baby. (And, frankly, I don't think I'm a conservative dresser. I like certain color ranges because I'm colorblind, and I like to have things that mix and match well. So screw you, salesjerk!)

Anyway, all I could find was one moderately unhiddeous pair of pants. And a couple of pairs of boxer shorts on sale at the Gap for $1.99! WOOHOO!!

2. A couple of my favorite bits from the Kids in the Hall:

Buddy Cole: What are the odds? I can't believe it. Here I am, stranded on a desert island. And my only supplies are my favorite book - "All About Rhoda" by Peggy Hertz from Scholastic Press. And my favorite album - Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams: "That's What Friends Are For." I always like to have an ex-lover's music around; Denise is good, too. And, for companionship, the one and only Oscar Wilde. Oscar, say something funny.
Oscar Wilde: Shall I?
Buddy Cole: Yes, do your stuff. Do the "Wilde" thing.
Oscar Wilde: Well, Buddy, I recall as I laid dying in my death bed, I came out of my stupor momentarily and declared with perfect aplomb, "Either that wallpaper goes or I do!"
[laughs]
Buddy Cole: Oh, that was rich, Oscar! Oh, jeez, let me catch my breath for a second. Oh, oh, I am so glad that I brought you and not someone common.
Oscar Wilde: Message received, Buddy. You know, Buddy, the trouble with the common man...
Buddy Cole: Yes?
Oscar Wilde: ...is that he is so unbearably common!
[laughs]
Buddy Cole: Oh Oscar, funny, but you're such a snob.
Oscar Wilde: Oh, that's my charm.
Buddy Cole: Oh, oh, it's really too bad that you're dead.
Oscar Wilde: Oh, I know.
Buddy Cole: Does it bother you?
Oscar Wilde: Well, you know Buddy, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.
[laughs]
Oscar Wilde: What? Philadelphia!
Buddy Cole: That's funny, but W.C. Fields said it.
Oscar Wilde: Well, yes, if you had been listening to me correctly, Buddy, what you would have heard me say was, "I may have been born yesterday but I still went shopping."
Buddy Cole: That was me.
Oscar Wilde: Oh, yes, yes.
[Coughs]
Oscar Wilde: Well, I seem to be getting a bit of laryngitis, Buddy. I'm afraid there'll be no more quipping today.
Buddy Cole: Oscar, please, stop with the laryngitis nonsense. You're pathetic. You would have never lasted on television. I'll bet what you really said on your death bed was something more like, "Shit!"

___

Sir Simon Milligan: Let me guess, this is... Jed?
Hecubus: No. No. This is Julio. AAAI-YI-YI-YIIIIIII.
Sir Simon Milligan: Now we're cooking with EVIL gas. Now Julio, how long have you been in the brain, may I ask?
Hecubus: I have... okay I can't take it - it's still Fred. I got you. I got you good. Hahaha.
Sir Simon Milligan: ...eeevil.

That's why, for me, the earth is flat.

2006-01-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

So, apparently, this little thingy of mine has a wider readership than I had originally anticipated, because when I showed up at the dude's apartment, Meister Brau in hand, everybody was, like, way better-dressed than me. Why do you people take me so seriously?! Anyway, I had a tie on, blazer and jeans, but everybody else had the whole "prom night" thing going on, so I looked like I was the only one not taking my advice. Oh, sweet obscurity...where didst thou go?

Anyway, I stayed waaaaay too late because I felt drunk, but couldn't understand why because I had eaten all sorts of food and, realistically, didn't drink that much. Turns out it wasn't booze at all, but sugar; I was in the dangerously high range when I got home. Man. Whaddya gonna do? Anyway, I took some drugs and sacked out, only to get up the next morning and pig out again at the Hash House. Oh, sweet moderation...where didst thou go?

Later that day I finished the novel I had been reading, which was extremely worthwhile, but it wasn't the barnburner of an ending all the reviewers had promised. Frankly, I was a little underwhelmed. It all hinges on this one guy doing something that you would never expect because it's so heinous - but I guess as a film noir devotee and moral philosopher, it's tough to come up with some sort of horrendous action that shocks me into believing no one could actually do it. Maybe for those people who aren't coming up with: "OK-the-terrorists-are-going-to-blow-up-New-York-if-you-don't-kill-your-mom-what-do-you-do"-type examples every single day the book would be a lot more shocking than I found it.

Today I woke up early, got dressed and made my way to campus, only to realize that because New Year's Day was on a Sunday, the world is still shut down until tomorrow. No mail, no school, no nothing. Went all the way there to go to the pharmacy, and the dang thing was closed. People need to quit lollygagging around and get to dang work, for a change. Enough of these makeup holidays! Well, I guess I don't really think that. Or do I? I guess as an academic, all of these holiday-type things, especially the ones over summer and winter break are decidedly irrelevant. It's like the world keeps going for me except I can't mail a package or get a cashier's check. Not that I'm getting all sorts of cashier's checks, or anything, but you know. It's the principle of the thing.

But the thing that sums up my last few days best is boredom. Even the Kids in the Hall haven't really been getting me excited about anything. Bored bored bored. Bored beyond belief. Well, maybe not beyond belief, but you know, beyond the general level of boredom I experience on most days. Even "Jeopardy" doesn't sound all that amusing. And that's saying something.

To Black Tie or Not to Black Tie.

2005-12-31T17:23:00.000-08:00

(Actually, shouldn't that be "to black tie or to not black tie"? Whatever.)

Isn't New Year's Eve supposed to be one of those holidays where people dress up? You know, tuxedos, etc. Fine ball gowns. Too bad those days are gone. Now are the days of coffee-shop T-Shirts (of which I now own two, thanks to The Bougeoise [or however it is you spell "booozche-waaaah"] Pig's $8 sale). Now are the days of coffee spilled on coffee shop T-Shirts. Now are the days when showing up at some loser's mobile home with a bottle of Meister Brau and a paper hat that says 2003 constitute a New Year's Eve send-off.

Well, not any more.

I'm dressing up tonight.

Granted, I'm going over to some dude's apartment.

Granted, I'm bringing over a case of Meister Brau.

Granted, I'm recycling all of my New Year's Eve accountrements from years past, including my 2000 sunglasses, my 2002 party hat, and my slightly scratched CD of Prince's 1999: The New Master.

But dammit, I'm going to try to put a little style back into this holiday.

Tie goes on.

And hopefully, by putting "style" back into this holiday, I'm not also putting the "style" in "stylishly arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and contributing to the delinquency of a minor," or "stylishly thrown in a Tijuana prison."

I may have gotten a reputation.

2005-12-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hey all.

Was doing a little site-meter metering (monitoring? gazing? looking intently?) today (which is a little depressing; it's down to around 20 a day, most of which are links to some picture I linked to like, 30 years ago*). Anyway, despite all this, I occasionally get the interesting search result. Today I found that someone got to my site by typing "how to drive exwife crazy" into Google. That's right.

I have a few questions about this.

1. Why did my site come up? I mean, I know these searches are all driven by keywords and such, and I know that I've had the occasional post in the past referring to my ex, but I don't think I want to be known to the world as a premium resource into ex-spousal abuse. I mean, I'm not exactly super-fond of my ex a lot of the time, but I don't bear her any active ill-will. I can just hear it now, the little internet gnomes running around, telling each other: "hey, if somebody asks you how to stick it to their ex, you know who to call: thosewhodig.blogspot.com."

2. Who are these people? I mean, did this guy actually go to the internet, the internet to find some sort of instructional manual, some sort of guidelines or rules-of-thumb, with which to make productive use in driving his exwife crazy? A lot of stuff is out there on the internet, people. Wikipedia, and all that. I mean, wow. The internet; it's just big. But this guy needs to get a life. Go watch The War of the Roses or something, unless you have some sort of Danny DeVito phobia, in which case I understand.

*More depressing stuff: I just found out that this site is worth a paltry $1129.29, compared to some people's ~$6000+. I have a couple of questions about this. First, who can I sell this thing to to get $1129? Second, what can I do to raise my profit margin? Third, did my recent absence lower the overall value? Fourth, what the fuck?!

They chose a new form for him - that of a giant Slor.

2005-12-28T09:56:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time, and I have quite a bit to recap. Sorry for the long absence. Stories of hallucinations and family misery follow. Be warned.

December 24th -

It was a pretty relaxing day. My sister was supposed to come by and bake cookies, but didn't end up showing up until around 7pm. Instead, Mom and I baked pies. I made a variant of my Sour Cream Cherry Pie, mostly because I couldn't find any cherries. Instead I made a sweet tart Cranberry pie. It was super good. Here's the recipie. (You can keep your piehole shut.) Sorry it's not vegan-friendly.

1 1/2 cup Cranberries (fresh or thawed)
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
pie crust

First, add the cranberries to the pie crust; they should form basically one and a half layers on the bottom of the crust. Vary the berries to achieve that result.
Second, beat the eggs super-good.
Third, add the sour cream and sugar to the eggs. Beat super-good until very smooth.
Then add the extract and salt; stir.
Add mixture to pie w/berries. Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes or until the center of the pie is set - until it's no longer watery or jiggly. Refrigerate pie. Eat.

So that recipie worked out fairly well. After that, I had a shitload of uneaten cranberries, so I tried to make a cranberry pudding, which was the largest disaster in the history of culinary preparation. Basically the pudding was made of cranberries and molasses, which sounds intriguing until you actually taste the flavors involved. Definitely disgusting. Don't ever make a recipie that calls for cranberries and molasses. Unless you would like to bring shame on yourself and on the memories of your ancestors.

Finally, and 3/4ths of the way through Goldfinger on Spike TV, my sister shows up, ooing and aaing about a new beau that she met, like, a week ago at her new megachurch. We eat Christmas dinner and she starts throwing a fit about going to the midnight church service, which is like, waaaaaaay too late for me. Anyway, we go, and I run into some people from my high school days that I don't really say "hi" to - how rude they must think me! I tried to add the dominant 7ths to all of the hymns, which amused me, but I don't think amused any of the people sitting around me.

December 25th -

Everybody wakes up at around 10:30, which is a big change for Christmas morning. I guess when it's only three people, and the youngest one is 26, it's less important to get right into those presents. Anyway, I picked up a copy of the Herzog/Kinski Collection, a couple of shirts, the new Criterion edition of "Tanner '88", and an autographed graphic novel called "Capote in Kansas", done by Ande Parks, who lives in my little town, and is a friend of my Mom's. Apparently he also does a bunch of illustrating for some other comic books like Green Arrow, etc. Anyway, it's pretty interesting. To keep up the Capote in Kansas theme of Christmas Day, we went to Capote, which is a very well-done film, especially given the performances. Everybody's talking about Philip Seymour-Hoffman, but I think Catherine Keener deserves just as much praise as Harper Lee.

That evening was quiet. As usual.

December 26th -

Went into Lawrence to try to get a new remote for my mom's TV, one that would allow her to fix some of the display settings. No dice. However, I did buy the newly-released Grizzly Man on DVD, which I watched later that day at a friend's girlfriend's house (the movie is even more chilling the second time around; it's pretty clear that Treadwell is not only struggling for a life-project, but is also struggling for a sexual identity, and is also struggling to channel his anger in a way that reflects his mischosen life-project and sexual identity), followed by a jaunt into downtown Kansas City for a Mongolian grill-type dinner. The Grill part was quite good, but I have to say that I ordered an appetizer called "Chili Wontons", which sounded, like, super-good from the description, but which had the following, overwhelming problem: the wontons were drowning in cilantro. Like, drowning. This has a decided tendency to overwhelm the spicy aspects and make for an extreme, well, cilantro flavor. To be avoided at all costs. After this, we went back and watched football on TV, because the friend's girlfriend appears to be something of a football junky. I left after that.

December 27th -

Mom and I decided to go into KC to hit the after-Christmas sales. I bought a couple of nice shirts and a new blazer, the only accompanying problem was the french-cuffedness of the shirts, especially given that I didn't own a pair of cufflinks with which to link the french cuffs. Apparently, cufflinks run in the $25-$35 dollar range - much more than I paid for the shirts I bought. Also, I found, it's very difficult to find a tie that will go well with a turquoise shirt. I settled on solid black, which means that I didn't have to buy a new tie. After a new pair of shoes, we returned home, only to find that my sister had once again given up on pursuing a relationship with my dad. This seriously harshed the buzz of the day, given that my mom ended up in tears, as did basically everyone involved. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my dad is being an extreme pissant, needs to apologize, but continually tries to play the victim. Which is hard to do given that he's the one that started all the family problems, anyway. It was pretty depressing to think back to Thanksgiving - there were many families represented, but the only males over 25 were me, my Uncle, and my grandfather. Here's hoping I don't turn out like my dad - or any of my missing uncles.

December 28th -

Not much to tell about today, except that I had a very very strange dream, which involved Shelby playing an open-mic show in which he played two songs, one with a sort of half-guitar half-dulcimer type instrument, the other a cover of Radiohead's "Idioteque", played by him in a sound-booth consisting of several items of trash being dropped on the floor and amplified. And some rugs. I don't quite remember what the rugs did, but anyway, there were a bunch of Persian rugs involved. I also had a dream about being naked running through the Bodlein Library in Oxford trying to return books. Which is strange because I've only ever been naked running through the Widener Library at Harvard. Go figure.

I mean, I'm not an education snob, or anything,

2005-12-27T20:20:00.000-08:00

but I don't think this:

"She is working on a bachelor's degree in management from an online program."

should ever be said about the incoming chief of staff for the governor of California.

I think I'm startin' to lose it, ooh-ooh.

2005-12-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm going a little stir-crazy. I haven't much been out of the house in a week or so. I was supposed to go out tonight with an old friend of mine, who cancelled at the last minute in favor of cooking pasta. So I decided to venture out by meself, as sad as that seems. I don't think I'm going to do any solo drinking, but I sure feel like it. I might go see Good Night and Good Luck, which opened today in Kansas (sometimes it's nice being away from the coasts - the movies you thought were gone are opening). Or I might go play pool somewhere. Or call it an early night. I dunno. I'm slightly annoyed, though, because Friday night in Lawrence is always a, well, decent time. Maybe I'll get a glass of wine somewhere.

Sorry. I feel like I'm just complaining, when I've had a decent day, albeit by myself. I went and looked around at Half-Priced Books, which is one of the most amazing stores on the planet. I found three copies of a hardcover book I wanted for a paltry $9.98, which is peanuts in the academic publishing industry. Brand new! Never read! I like that place. Some decent CDs and DVDs, too, although I should probably hold off on buying anything like that until after Christmas, given that it's likely my family will have gotten me just that sort of thing, or gift certificates, or cash.

After that I had lunch at the Cheese and Salami Shoppe. This was nice, the sandwich was exceptionally good, but the guy working the register was a real pissant. I thought I could get by on a sandwich and no chips, and when I decided that my effort was futile and went to order the chips, he said something like: "You know, I find that it's good to each chips with the sandwich, not so much afterward." Jackass.

I wandered through what looked to be an interesting bookshop, although it turned out to be a Christian book store with a somewhat scholarly bent. That's better, I guess, than the alternative. But I found a coffee shop with wireless, and started playing a little N and working on Chapter One, which is nearly totally revised. Hopefully. I did, however, come up against an incredibly difficult N level, that I think might actually be impossible. It's level four of episode 27. Dang if I can figure that one out.

More observations

2005-12-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

1. I think I prefer Iron Chef America to the original Iron Chef. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, Alton Brown is the host. I love that guy. Second, though I'm a relatively adventurous eater, it's usually only about 10% of the dishes I would try on the original. For the Iron Chef America, it's more like 90%. Third, and this is the most important, the comment section, when the judges are actually trying the food is not simply lauditory. There is actually a lot of criticism. "I can't believe I ate that sausage, it was so bland." "I had no expectations for the cranberries, and they met my expectations," etc. Some of the criticisms are pretty stinging. I find that much more interesting that people just ooing and ahhing the whole time. The one drawback, of course, is the chairman is not nearly as flamboyant as the old guy, but it's a small thing.

2. I've all of a sudden become concerned about the difference between vanilla extract and almond extract. How did this happen??

3. I'm spending a lot more money on Christmas gifts this year than in previous years. Perhaps it's because I have a little bit more money to spend this year, but it might also be just because I haven't been home for a year. Perhaps that's putting me in a spending mood.

4. I'm really enjoying the tawdry thriller I bought in Oklahoma City, and am now halfway through. Here's a picture:

It's pretty good, I have to say. And, I also have to say, that 250 pages in just over four weeks is pretty dang good progress for me on a novel.

That is all.

Leipzig is calling you, Leonard.

2005-12-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

A few more notes about my town. I didn't know this as of yesterday, but apparently there's a new drinking establishment here. Which is actually quite remarkable, given that it's near impossible to garner any alcohol at all in this town - the little old ladies have seen to that. You can't buy beer within 600 yards of a church or school, and since the whole town has about a 600 yard radius, well, that just makes it tough. Furthermore, you can't sell hard booze here. You can only sell beer. Well, that's not exactly accurate. You can't really sell beer, you can sell 3.2 beer. Which, as everyone knows, is not really beer. I suppose congratulations are in order for the blue hair crowd.

Anyway, back to my original topic. The options for bar locations in this town are so limited that the new bar that went in had to be located in a former gas station. That's right. A friggin' GAS STATION. It's a bar, all right. Got the neon signs advertising (3.2) Miller High Life, and such. But it sure was a gas station, all right. It still has the pumps. The dang pumps. Not functional, of course, unless 3.2 beer is supposed to shoot out of them. Which, I suppose, would be worth seeing.

So the singles scene here is kind of limited. Just for kicks, I decided to see what the personal ads looked like coming out of here. There were a few doozies. One person (picture excluded), took the nickname: "lacksoriginality", with the tagline: "not so very interesting." Ah! Enticing! Another one: "chemgirl" declares "need to get out." Oh, I'm out, baby. I'm out. "SweetKansan" starts out her ad by saying "I'm a dirty hoe". And also, apparently, a poor speller. Presumably she meant "ho", as in slang for "whore". But instead she settled on a common garden implement. Which would not have been all that interesting in itself.

The men weren't any better. "boredku_student" says: "lawrence gets a little boring in the winter." I see. You're bored. Hmm, here's one: "ineedcandy" declares "i need candy." "Jammin9791" says "Smokin' weed and all types of ill shit." No comment.

So you can see it's, well, I don't know what you can see from all this, but it has been amusing for me. So you can put that in your gas tank and drink it.

In other news,

2005-12-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

Woohoo!

17 degrees.

2005-12-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

Small town life is beginning to get to me, just as it does every year at around this time. I found a pretty nice coffee shop with some wireless access to the internets, but other than that, it's basically the same town it was 17 years ago when we first moved in. Small. Desolate. Nowhere.

The streets have no sidewalks. Some are paved with bricks, which some people think is charming, but I generally regard as hazardous and prone to potholes, not that San Diego has this town beat in that regard, but I'm just saying. If San Diego's streets were paved with brick, we'd have collapsed into the ocean by now.

For a few days I've been trying to get some work done on my siddertation. I've come to the conclusion that 75% of the first chapter is unsalvagable - which eliminates about thirty pages from the thing, of which I can only see myself replacing about five. I suppose this isn't an unmitigatedly bad thing; it was running a little long in any event (in 12 point font it was about three hundred pages. Luckily I use 11 point, which has it coming in at a tidy 225). Other than that, I'm not making much progress, but I am enjoying the occasional spin of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" on the coffeeshop stereo. (Well, I have one complaint about the stereo here - they keep playing that song "Baby it's Cold Outside," which itself is, I think, a pretty nice song, but the recording of it has some guy singing who sounds like he just swallowed an entire plate of bacon fat - like he needs to clear his throat about fifteen times before speaking to anyone, or singing, for that matter.)

On the plus side, the people here aren't as fat as they were in Oklahoma City. I don't really know what the explanation is. But nevertheless, it seems to be fact. Lawrence remains one of the great towns in the midwest; it's practically a little version of San Diego, only with a sweet music scene and without the endless miles of freeway. And with cold. And snow. And the occaionsal boot shop. And the occasional ad on TV for bootshops. And the occasional ad on TV for Farm Implement Supply stores. (Actually, this one is a little more than occasional. These freakin' stores must purchase 16 hours of advertising on TV every day. It gets a little tiresome. I tell you, I don't want an orange tractor vest!) Off topic, anybody have any idea how many miles of freeway there are in SD county? It's gotta be in the thousands. Anyway, Lawrence has even put in a new World Market, which allowed me to buy the spices I need to make a tasty plate of Aloo Gobhi for me and mom. If you try to make this, add a touch of honey at the end - quite nice.

The thing I notice most about east-central Kansas during the winter are the trees. Leaveless, of course. (KS doesn't have a lot of palms, eucalyptus, or pines.) But they're these huge, majestic trees, all grey in the winter overcast light.

Really quite striking, I think. It'd be a great place to film the beginning of a nifty film noir, if only the Coen brothers hadn't stolen the idea already in Fargo. Er, I guess "stolen" is the wrong word. Fuck it. They stole it. Jerks. You know, you'd start with a wide-angle shot, snow covered, in a clearing where two men in overcoats are walking toward each other, one holding a briefcase, as you discover as the camera slowly zooms in.

MAN #1
Is that the briefcase?

MAN #2
It depends. You have the money?

MAN #1
It's in the car.

MAN #2
Is that the car?

MAN #1
Yup.

And scene.

Budapest - by Blimp!

2005-12-17T16:39:00.000-08:00

I have nothing but, well, decent things to say about Midwest Airlines. It's categorically impossible to give an airline a good rating, but I found that my journey from San Diego to Kansas City was not unbearable in the way an American or Delta flight can be. I had room to watch (most of) The Wages of Fear (again) on my computer, while enjoying some freshly-squeezed chocolate chip cookies. The flight only took 2 1/2 hours, so that was also a bonus. Had dinner with my mom and sister at a place called the 54th Stree Bar and Grill, even though this place was nowhere near any sort of 54th street. Closer, actually, to 154th street. In any event, they had a lot of crazy crap on the walls, so there was plenty to keep me entertained.

Not a whole lot to report, besides (hopefully) getting a draft done on a paper I'd like to send out soon. Any thoughts on the following quadlemma?

1. Would like to get professor's comments on paper.
2. Professor hasn't responded in the four months he's had the paper.
3. In order for the paper to fit on CV for next year's market, would have to go out soon.
4. Sending it out now might risk offending said professor.

What to do?

In other news, I've really been getting into Thomas Dolby lately. I've had a copy of his greatest hits for some years, but never really listened to it. Of course, it has his classic "She Blinded Me with Science," which is a bit, for me, like Devo's "Whip It." A decent song, but not his best, and known by too many people at the negligence of some of his better stuff. There's some really really great stuff on this record. Witness "Screen Kiss". Witness "I Love You Goodbye". Witness "The Flat Earth". Good tunes, all. He gets a little smooth-jazzy in places (and, in a couple of places, I recognize the distinct Prince influence, which, frankly, doesn't fit the British nerd image so well), but overall a very strong collection.

Tonight I'm supposed to be hanging out with Shelby (who is, well, a few hours late; not sure what's up). Unfortunately the open-mic night is cancelled, given that the, well, open mic night is cancelled. So no "Peace of Mind" or "Country Roads."

Take me home, baby. Take me home.

I'm not here. This isn't happening.

2005-12-13T22:22:00.000-08:00

Another year. Another Christmas vacation with mom. It's becoming something of a routine. Arrive late at the Kansas City Airport; hour and a half drive back to the homestead. Dinner at some suitable fast food establishment. Long, restless days, and the occasional drink and smoke-filled night. Kansas, after all, still has smoking in bars. Nevertheless, despite the rampant naysayers these days, Kansas is still a pretty cool place for me to be during the break. Lawrence is so nice this time of year. Gonna go to the Love Garden. Gonna get some Juice Stop. If I play my cards right, I might even get mom to take me out to the Mass Street Deli for a sweet sandwich and some chocolate chip cheesecake. Yes indeedy.

Of course, there are those long, restless days. Mostly I'm going to try to ready a paper for publication. I think I'm one draft away. If I get that sent off, well, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll probably bang away on the piano for hours on end. Maybe write a song or two. Probably not, though. Mostly I'll be playing Beach Boys and the occasional Queen song.

Shelby and I might try to get our acts together (literally) for an open mic in Overland Park. He was suggesting some 70s AM Gold, for which I'm down. Perhaps a little John Denver. Perhaps a little Boston. I'll keep you posted, but it will be sweet.

In other news, I finally got my new driver's license! WOOHOO! And I only had to use my passport to get into a bar once! I'd say I'm doing pretty good on this thing.

Ugh. That's all I got, people. The well's been a little dry lately, I know. But the very least I can do is offer you this really sweet picture of Prince.

I found and old dog and he seems to like me; seems to like me; seems to like me.

2005-12-12T23:56:00.000-08:00

Damn. I spent a long time on the road this weekend, headed up to the eastern LA wasteland - talkin' to pops, etc. I don't really have much that's blogworthy, except that I think I've discovered that I really enjoy Tom Waits' Mule Variations, one of the records that my uncle gave me. His voice is so shot that he's able to use it in interesting ways, from a totally distorted, animal growl to a John Lee Hooker sings the ballads kind of thing.

Cool.

I got the moon, I got the cheese. I got the whole damn nation on its knees.

2005-12-08T23:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I bought a stereo to fill out my decidedly stereo-less apartment. I haven't been able to listen to any proper music in over seven months if it wasn't comin' out of some white headphones. So I looked on Craigslist the other day and found a stereo with inputs (for the iPod and DVD Player) for a grand total of $5. So I bought it.

The journey to pick it up, however, was slightly more harrowing than actually paying the five dollars for the thing. The pickup point was in Pacific Beach which, for those of you people who haven't been there, is possibly the worst place to drive in the world. Well, maybe not the world. Actually, there are probably a lot of worse places to drive. Anyway, it's a crappy place to have to drive. Exhibit A: other drivers. Because PB is a big drinkin' neighborhood, you're likely to get someone who's a) drunk or b) on their way, impatiently, to get drunk. Either way, it's a no-win situation. And with stoplights every five feet, it's tough to get around. Exhibit B: lack of public restrooms. On my way down fabulous Grand Avenue last night, nature called. In fact, nature called multiple times. Nature really needed to get ahold of me. I was being phone-stalked by nature. I stopped at a 7-11. No dice. I stopped at an Am/Pm. No dice. Finally, as I was just about to give birth to my bladder right there in the car, I found a Wendy's that I ducked into and out of rather quickly. Of course, it was hell trying to get out of the Wendy's parking lot, because some asshole who was a) drunk, or b) on his way, impatiently, to get drunk, had blocked the exit, and the cars in the drive-thru had queued up behind him. So it took me about ten minutes to get out of there as the drive-thru line dissipated. So I had all the agony of waiting for the jerk to get done at the drive-thru, without actually getting myself a Big Bacon Deluxe Combo. (Which sort of sounds tasty right now.)

Today I finally finished the grading for this quarter. Which means that the next time I'm going to have to grade a student's work is two quarters from now! I'm on fellowship next term, baby! If all goes well, I should have a decent draft of my dissertation by the end of the quarter, seein's how that's the only thing I really have to work on. (Well, and a couple of other things, too; but this one takes the cake.) I stopped by Math Rock's place for a little chili in an impromptu celebration of the life of Dimebag Darrell, the late guitarist for Pantera. (I'm not a big fan, but, you know, it was a festive occasion.) We watched some Mr. Show and did some blind whisky taste-testing. That was fun - but I was getting tired so I left. Before midnight, even! I am an old man.

Witz a bing-bang-boom-boom-bang.

2005-12-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

Bad day today.

It started off badly. Checked my email and found out that I didn't get a fellowship I, and several department members, thought I was a shoe-in for. Back to the drawing board, both career-wise and financially. Being an associate instructor is pretty much a crappy deal, compared with being a research assistantship. You get paid three grand for the summer, which, superficially, is not all that much less than a ra-ship, because the ra-ship's only $3600. But the ra-ship gets doled out in three separate installments of $1200 a month, which means that your tax withholding is not that much, for me it was like 20 bucks. In addition, however, an ra-ship only gets FICA-deducted (this stupid stupid thing where if you're not enrolled, you have to pay roughly ten percent of your income into a pre-tax retirement account) for TWO paychecks - $2400, because the third paycheck arrives when you're enrolled. So that's only a pre-tax takeaway of $200 for the summer, compared with $300, because for teaching a class you only get ONE paycheck, and it arrives when you're not enrolled. Add that to the tax withholding on a $2700 paycheck, and we're talkin' big bucks here. I did some calculations, and if I were to get an RA-ship, it would be something in the range of $3400 for the summer. Doing an associate instructorship is more like $2400. Bites. I'm of course going to do it, because it looks good on the ol' CV, but I'm going to be eating franks and beans basically all summer. (Sorry for the technical financial language.)

Then I realized I've become addicted to this video game, courtesy of Math Rock. It's called 'N', and it's basically a clone of Lode Runner. I can't stop. It's eating away at my soul. Check it out, if you get a chance.

The acrid odor of vomit.

2005-12-04T13:25:00.000-08:00

I am not really a football fan, even less a college football fan, and even less a fan of 9-page articles on the New York Times website. But this is an extremely interesting article, written by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball.

You behind the wheel, and me the passenger.

2005-12-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

Awhile ago I bought an on-sale copy of the special 2-DVD set of "Depeche Mode 101". I'm dissatisfied with this purchase for two reasons.

Reason 1:

The second disk was supposed to contain the whole Rose Bowl concert from which the "Depeche Mode 101" CD was taken. It does not. Rather, it has some of the songs, but manifestly out of order, and in no particularly different versions than were actually shown in the "Depeche Mode 101" documentary. There are too many shots of the audience, and furthermore, they run "Never Let Me Down Again" after "Everything Counts", which, as everyone knows, is a horrible mistake, given that Depeche Mode always closed shows of that period with "Everything Counts". Ugh. No "Things You Said" - no "Shake the Disease". No nothin'.

Reason 2:

"Depeche Mode 101" is a lot more boring than I remember. Some of it is really interesting, like any bits where Alan Wilder is explaining how the band goes about doing things, or where the accountants are talking, or where the band is hanging out in the Country/Western music store in Nashville (Clerk: "Do you guys like bluegrass?" Martin Gore: "What's bluegrass?"). All that stuff is interesting. What isn't interesting are all these scenes with a bunch of miscellaneous fans on a bus getting drunk. And there are a LOT of those. Totally stupid. Why did they even have those people? It's almost half the damn movie! I guess in my recollection, I sort of erased the boring stuff. But let me tell you, there's a shitload of boring stuff. I'm convinced that D.A. Pennebaker, who made the film, did an astoundingly bad job.

NEW TOPIC!!

There are some times when I really develop a strong hatred for undergraduates. Not all the time. Most of the time I only think that the segment of undergraduates that are, well, let's just say "unmotivated", are worthy of hatred. But today, dang. These kids have no understanding of anything going on around them. I am trying to get from point A to point B in the middle of a crowd, following this one girl with an immense backpack, she's on her cell phone, and at one point she stops dead. I, of course, run into the monstrosity of a backpack she's got on, she turns, still on her cell phone and says: "Hey! Watch it!"

Ugh.

Also in the middle of this incredibly dense crowd of people was some jackass trying to ride his bike. He was trying to weave around people, essentially requiring everybody to get out of his way, lest he end up killing people. I can't stand this. Why can't people just get off their damn bikes, or, alternative, stupid cell phones?

Do I sound like a crotchety old man?

I've been trying to avoid that lately. And I think with a topic like this I come across too much like Mr. Wilson, or somebody complaining about kids these days. And, well, I am complaining about kids these days, so I guess you got me there. And what we me downloading all these records from 1993, it's possible that I am living up to that stereotype. I guess now all I need is a girlfriend significantly younger than I, and I can properly be described as "dirty" along with "old man". Here's shooting for the moon.

I ain't tellin' you goodBYE-YI-EE-YI-EE-YI-EE

2005-11-28T21:54:00.000-08:00

Ralph's is a bit of a strange place sometimes. Not only is it the home of America's Worst Parking Lot, it also has a couple of strange cats that come out at night. Case in point. I went today to get myself one of them Ralph's salads I like so much for dinner. Though I was disappointed that they didn't have those really tasty high-moisture mozzerella balls like they have sometimes, I put together a decent effort. (Although I mistakenly purchased this horrendous drink thinking it was some sort of fruit tea or something. It was called "Sensa", and labelled as "Orange Mango". 'Brilliant," I thought, before I took a drink and a closer look at the label, as a result of which I became aware of two facts: what I was drinking tasted like serious ass, and I was also drinking Diet Orange Mango Sensa, and that Sensa is labelled as an "energy drink". Ugh.) I then decided just to snag one of the outdoor tables outside of Starbucks and each my dinner.

The first incident happened when I was just about to sit down. This guy comes walking down the sidewalk just, well, how to describe it - I guess the best thing to say is just to say that he was "rapping". That's right. Just rapping to himself. No beat. No voicebox. No, you know, whatever, mouth beat noises. Just rapping. He seemed to be attempting to solicit some acknowledgement from the crowd at Starbucks, as if we were going to stop and nod along to the non-beat, or somehow spontaneously burst into applause, or wave our hands in the air like we just didn't care. When that wasn't forthcoming (nor was some sort of fantasy rap-challenger, which would also probably have suited him just fine), he went on his merry way, rapping all the while. I can't remember what he was rapping about, something about "put me in the arena". Good luck to you, miscellaneous rapper.

So I'm midway through my salad now when a guy dressed in a tight-fitting dark blue exercise suit, yellow running shoes, and a skullcap sits down noisily right next to me, puts his feet on the chair next to him, pulls out a copy of "Ski" magazine, and lights up a stogie. Big, fat one, too. And he was unapologetic. Some people were looking at him, as if to say, "where do you get off lighting a gigantic cigar in a reasonably dense crowd, right outside the door of the Starbucks?" I was one of them. But he was undeterred. Gleefuly, he held that thing between his teeth as he perused the magazine. The cigar seemed out of congruous with the outfit and mag, to me, but you never know. Maybe this is his only vice. Although, by the looks of him, I can guess probably three or four more, some of which might involve underage girls.

Finally, as I'm about done, and trying to avoid the chemicals spouting from Ski-man, I notice a reasonably elderly woman double over as she's walking along. I look concerned, but then she seems to regain composure and said something, laughing, like: "Damn! I guess I haven't had enough to eat today! I better go get ... (trails off)". That was perhaps the wierdest encounter of them all, given that I felt an intense urge to help/pity, followed by an intense urge to commit to some sort of asylum. Perhaps those are not contradictory emotions.

And right above her kidney was a bird's-eye view of Sydney.

2005-11-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

Oklahoma City.

Land of Cowboys, The Cowboys (apparently), The Flaming Lips, and endless stretches of unused land.

And my grandfather, which is why I spent the last four days there.

It was a decent-ish trip; I got to see some relatives that I haven't seen in a long time - mostly my Mom's sisters and their families. I don't see family all that much, so it was fun, generally speaking, until one of my aunt's (she's a little on the oblivious side) put in a CD of old music they used to listen to, and before you could say: "I will have the 20-ounce steak!" everybody was crying. Including my grandfather, which is a pretty sad sight, if it's the first time you've ever seen it.

The best part of the actual visit was getting to hang out with my PowerMac bearing uncle, and swapping music back and forth on peer-to-peer networks. It was great. He gave me Tom Waits' classic records ("Heart of Saturday Night" and "Mule Variations"), and "Speaking in Tongues" by the Talking Heads!! "Speaking in Tongues"!! I've been looking for that for a long time, and have just been slightly unwilling to shell out the $12.99 for it. But now I gots it fer free!! I also got another Dire Straits record, and The Best of the Blues Brothers, a record I used to listen to a lot my first year in college. Lots of cool pep band songs on that record.

The most interesting thing that happened is that my mom got a little sick - apparently it was a reaction to a flu shot. So she decided that, though I had a plane ticket for Saturday, she was going to leave on Friday to go to the doctor back home. Reasonable enough. But that left me with a slight conundrum: what to do after she left? The rest of the family was going home, and my flight on Saturday was early enough that I didn't want my 80-year-old grandfather to have to get up and take me. So after doing a goodly amount of cursing at the American Airlines people for not being able to switch a flight, I booked a hotel for Friday night, and checked in at around 3:15 or so Friday afternoon. The plan was to get work done, but my brain was having none of it. I was ostensibly staying at a Ramada Inn, but this was crappier than any Ramada at which I've ever stayed. My room was freezing when I went in, and, after checking the HBO lineup for the night, decided that I would have to seek alternative means of entertainment.

But, as luck would have it, there appeared to be a mall just about 200 yards from the back of the Hotel. Reasoning that malls generally speaking have some sort of bookshop, I thought I might buy myself a tawdry mystery or thriller or something like that to pass the time. Now, there's definitely a phenomenon in multi-mall towns. This was definitely the bad mall. This is Bannister Mall in Kansas City. Mountaineer Mall in Morgantown. The place where you go, well, never, really, unless there's some clear and present reason. And I think my boredom counted as clear and present. I mean, this mall, wow. There were at least two storefronts (whole stores) that were JUST to get out of debt - you know, consolidate credit cards, and that sort of thing. One was specializing in auto loans, so it had a miniture racetrack drawn on the linoleum floor.

Waldenbooks they had. And, frankly, it was a pretty decent Waldenbooks. However, they appear, at that Waldenbooks, to be Robert Jordan crazy. I mean, nutty. Robert Jordan was everywhere. You've never lived until you've heard someone with a North Texas/Oklahoma drawl tell someone else with a similar drawl: "I'm lookin' fer book 12 in the Wheel of Time series. Is it out yeat?" Ugh. It was quite an eye-opener. Anyway, I found a tawdry thriller and decided to walk back to the Hotel. As I did, however, I noticed a restaurant in the mall, a Burger joint by the looks of it that had a sign out front. But before I tell you what the sign says, I have to go on a brief digression.

BEGIN BRIEF DIGRESSION

People in Oklahoma City are fat. They're fat. I don't say that to smear them. They probably like it that way. But I saw more obese people in OKC in four days that I've seen in the past six months living out in California. I don't know what it is - the Cowboy Culture, or some other such thing, that tells them they need to chow down on steak deep fried in Chocolate Sauce every meal of their lives. Perhaps I exaggerate. But there were some serious fat people. And a lot of them. The only group of adults that I saw together that was generally slim was in the security line for the airport waiting to leave the city.

END BRIEF DIGRESSION

The sign, which might help to explain the content of the digression, said the following: "Every Day! All You Can Eat Burgers and Fries! All day long! $5.00! (With purchase of large drink)".

FIVE DOLLARS FOR UNSTOPPABLE BURGERS FOR AN ENTIRE DAY???? AND FRIES!! WOW! No wonder people in OKC are tubs. They sit in places like Wiggee's Burgers and don't stop eating until the place closes. For five stinkin' bucks. With, of course, the purchase of a large drink. Because after having eaten an entire side of beef, one has to have something to wash it down with.

Well, that was my weekend. Family and lard. I tried to have soup most of the time, but I do confess to failing at least once.

I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein, or Superman.

2005-11-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

It's been something of a few days, what what? A decent couple of days at that. On Thursday I left school at around 7-ish, had an extremely pleasing Chipotle dinner (although, I have to say, the meat was quite watery - the tacos lost their pleasant crisp and the inherent danger of breakage - a little bit of living on the edge, if you catch my meaning), and spent a while at Tower Records. I had recently gotten in the mail a "Get $10 off a purchase of $50 or more" coupon, and decided to make use of it. Basically everything they wanted was on sale, so I got a bunch of CDs and the new special edition version of "Depeche Mode 101" on DVD for fifty bucks all told. Pretty sweet. Did anyone know Sting does all the backing vocals on "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits?

I couldn't get to sleep that night, quite a rare problem for me, so I ended up staying up until, like 4am. Quite a harrowing experience, especially since I had to get up at seven the next day for some meetings on campus. And then, after I expected to be extremely tired, I couldn't get to sleep again, so I ended up going to the Live Wire with a bunch of the regulars. I happened to run into a particularly controversial ex-barista who used to work at the pub on campus. Hated by some, but she was always nice to me. One of the members of our party wanted to fight her. I think I helped keep the peace. After last call, I still wasn't tired, so ended up staying up WAY LATE again. This can't become a habit, or I'm going to ruin my education.

Yesterday, however, I regained control. Went in to work, and I think I came up with a reasonably good argument (or set of arguments) for one of the central points in my thesis. Before it was (roughly): Isn't this obvious - and - John Stuart Mill said this! Now it's: Screw John Stuart Mill - and - Isn't this obvious? Which, I think, is much better. Don't you? Saturday night brought me, once again, to the bowling alley for some karaoke. This time it was a special occasion. Money Changes Everything's birthday happened to fall yesterday, and I had agreed, on my birthday, to let her pick out some tune for me to perform. Well, knowing, as I did, that the bowling alley got pretty crowded on a Saturday, I knew I was going to have to get my songs in quick to have a chance of doing them before the night ran out. Nevertheless, MCE and the crew were running late. What to do, what to do. Eventually I remembered her preferences (I thought), and wrote them down. All worked out (I think). I rattled off "Killer Queen" and "Kiss" - though my voice wasn't in any kind of shape for either one of them. I remember I tried to actually do some dancing during the extended dance section of "Kiss", only to wear myself out completely for the finale. Live and learn, I suppose.

Today the momentous actually happened - I finally beat Mega Man. The last bit was really hard, where you have to battle four of the master robots before finally meeting Dr. Wily - without any powerups. Whew! Took me awhile, but I eventually got the pattern for Fireman down, which helped quite a bit. Dr. Wily was actually reasonably easy, I thought.

Early bed tonight. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

I don't believe Winston Churchill would have eaten at Der Wienerschnitzel!

2005-11-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

This sounds a little disrespectful; but maybe it's just me.

I was talkin' to Peachy Peach about Kissy Kiss.

2005-11-16T22:04:00.000-08:00

I can't keep the secret anymore. I've tried to hide it now for months. I tried to tell, you know, certain people about it, but everytime I never really had the guts to come right out and say it. I don't know if it's really been a secret or not. I guess it has. Or maybe not, I never know what people say. Anyway, here it is.

I think my apartment is a drug addict.

All the signs have been there. All the signals. The hacking cough in the middle of the night. The money lent, never paid back. The strung-out looks. But I put this off to all the rich food and vitamins, until yesterday. I was doing a pretty big birthday-dinner related load of dishes, with the rather large accompanying load of disposal detritus. Now, my garbage disposal has never been the most reliable of things. I always sort of felt like, when that thing was going, it was quite possible that some sharp metal blade was going to fly up and plug itself into my brain. It felt, well, a little unstable. Anyway, I turned on the thing, and it took care of business, for the most part, so I figured, why make waves?

So it comes time to do this particular load when it all of a sudden freezes up. Stops short. Hums.

I try to turn it on. No go. Turn it off, on again. No go. I even bend down on my hands and knees, open the cupboard and push the "reset" button. No go. Finally, I call my landlord, and he sends over the maintenance guy. A couple of hours later, said guy comes over and tries a couple of things. No go. Said guy, who is more intrepid and much braver than I, reaches down into the disposal, and roots around a bit. And what does he pull out?

A spoon.

A slightly bent, metal spoon.

A slightly bent, blackened, metal spoon.

A slightly bent, blackened, metal drug spoon.

Said guy says: "Looks like a drug spoon."

What am I to conclude? Looks like there was a drug spoon shoved into my garbage disposal this whole time. I never noticed. Oh, like I say, I should have known. The signs were there. But the only choice I have is to believe that my apartment is, in fact, a secret heroin addict, stealing my used diabetic syringes and using this hidden spoon as it's burner. Why, apartment, why? Was I a bad tenant? Did you learn it by watching me? (Well, not me per se, but you know, me in the sense of tenants generally?)

In other news, my doctor's appointment went fine. I am, apparently, in tip-top shape for a diabetic. According to my doctor, I look "lean". All is well, except that she discovered a heretofore unknown to me congenital birth defect. More on that never.

The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.

2005-11-13T22:07:00.000-08:00

This is a funny post. People's comments on Amazon that rated the 100 best books 1 star. The above quoted review I strongly sympathize with, actually.

Oh, and another thing.

2005-11-13T00:41:00.000-08:00

For some stupid reason, when I came home drunk from the bar on Thursday, I decided to change my profile photo to a pretty sweet picture of Lou Rawls. I don't know why I did this. But I'm liking it more and more now.

I remember you, you drive like a PTA mother.

2005-11-12T13:50:00.000-08:00

Post Birthday de-briefing.

Nothing major happened. In the sense that nothing tragic happened - yet, at least. I forgot to include in my last post the really awful thing about my 26th birthday, namely that my car was stolen. Right out of the parking lot. That set in motion a long line of events that included a drive by myself from Kansas City to San Diego with a relatively new Honda Accord. But that's a story for another time.

There was a goodly crowd at Lancer's. I remember, vaguely, that I couldn't play any pool to save my life. There was a particularly tragic incident where I was shooting at the 8-ball behind an opponent's 9-ball, and the only shot I could concievably pull off to avoid a scratch was incredibly difficult. I scratched. But I played some Dinosaur Jr. on the jukebox (I forgot how cool that band was), and some Louis Prima, as usual. People kept feeding me bourbon and Amstel Light, and I got a little tipsy, but not too drunk. I decided toward the end of the night that in order not to feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders the following morning, I should start protesting people buying me drinks, which always brings a frown to my face, but it had to be done.

Dale-time was also nice. I bought a nice copy of R. M. Hare's "Moral Thinking" at a used book shoppe in La Jolla. There were a couple of other nice volumes there, but they charge market price, so I could only afford the Hare. (Brief aside: why are books in philosophy so expensive? I mean, those things are expensive. When I see a trade paperback for less than $20, I'm thinking: "wow! Why is this so cheap?" I think philosophers and philosophy graduate students in particular ought to boycott or something, until the books are brought down in price by the academic publishers. It won't work, but here's to fruitless efforts.) I then sauntered over to Tower Records and bought a couple of DVDs (Dr. Strangelove and the new Criterion edition of Wages of Fear), and Surfer Rosa by the Pixies. The latter really confused me the first time I listened to it, but then I started to realize what they were up to. There's nothing quite so rockin' as "Debaser" or anything else on Doolittle, for that matter, but that's ok. I was also desperately trying to find a copy of "Cracker" by Cracker, but my efforts were without reward, except that my travels brought me to Borders, where I found that Cambridge University Press is now also trying to cash in on the "On Bullshit" phenomenon - they're marketing copies of Harry Frankfurt's "The Importance of What We Care About", which contains the original essay, with the big marketing logo: "Contains the Best-Selling Essay 'On Bullshit'" on the cover. And they're also charging $20 less than the original (the original was $32.99 at Borders, the new one was $12.99). That seals it. If CUP can charge $20 less for a philosophy book, why can't they do that for all of them? I mean, I suppose they expect this to sell (do they really?) but that big a discount signals that they can afford to charge less for their academic works.

Yesterday was also nice. I went antique shopping in the mid-morning, and bought a nice old postcard of Westminster Abbey done in oil. Then it was off to the grocery store to get the ingredients for a fantastic Veteran's Day dinner. I bought a bunch of potatoes, a bottle of wine, misc. peppers and herbs, and four lamb shanks. I ended up making Herb-Crusted Lamb Shanks with Potatoes Lyonnaise and Haricot Vert with sliced almonds and red pepper. Pretty sweet. It took about two hours to cook, but it was worth it. Way too much food for me, but it'll serve nicely for the rest of the week. I also watched Dr. Strangelove and The Limey. Good stuff.

Back to grading today. The fun never stops. Except for now.

I'm feelin' thankful for the small things today.

2005-11-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again.

I look forward to it with gleeful anticipation, only to be defeated in every expectation year after year. But like a defender of democracy standing up to Ivan Drago, I keep on tickin' baby. It never deters me from excitement the next year. It's my birthday, and I love it.

Of course, I'm turning one year older than I turned last year. But I still haven't yet reached that all-special milestone. The one that signals the change from "wow, he's still a young kid" to "why isn't he married and why doesn't he have children?" But I'm closing in on the milestone. One year at a time.

My last really really fun birthday was my 19th. Friends at college threw me a suprise kinda' thing. And, remarkably, it was a genuine surprise. We listened to a little bit of Bootsy Collins' New Rubber Band's "Blasters of the Universe", and a good time was had by all. That was freshman year. The remaining years were pretty much nondescript. My birthday fell on odd days. Insofar as I remember them.

After college things took a turn for the worse. In Boston, my 23rd - Kyra declares that she doesn't want to stay together after I've completed my Master's. My 24th - a broke friend from high school comes into town and goes to the bathroom during the check for dinner - over a hundred bucks. My 25th - Kyra abandons my plans to go out to dinner to go drink cheap beer without me at, I'm not shitting you, the local VFW post. My 26th - my parents complete their divorce. My 27th - after an extremely cheap dinner of Indian food, Kyra informs me that she's thinking seriously about divorcing.

That's pretty much the roundup. My 28th was pleasant, but nothing special. Squash soup and the West Wing.

Dammit, this year's gonna be cool. I'm skipping class, going used book and record shopping, and then having a few drinks with friends down at Lancer's. I'm going to have a nice lunch and have some Dale time. Would that Karaoke was involved, but alas, that's the problem with having a Birthday on a Thursday.

The beauty part is, of course, that Friday is a university holiday. Sleepin' in. And steppin' out.

A list of achievements.

2005-11-09T14:26:00.000-08:00

I think that once I finish this dissertation, that will be an accomplishment. I feel like I've accomplished one or two things in my life. I had a few papers published. I won a couple of trombone-playing awards. I was third in the state of West Virginia at the parallel bars when I was in second grade.

So why do I feel like my greatest achievements are beating video games?

The first day I beat Castlevania II, I felt like I just scaled Mt. Everest. Or K2. Or whichever one they talk about being the hardest one to climb. I called everybody I knew. Some of them long distance. Most of the conversations went like this:

D
I just won Castlevania II!!

Friend
Oh. That's cool...I did that, like, three months ago.

Ugh. It was a little disheartening. As I don't win video games all that often, it's a big thing to me. Which is why, I think, I've been neglecting work quite a bit these days in favor of playing MegaMan I on my Nestopia emulator. So far, I've beaten Cutman, Fireman (or Burnman, I can't remember his name), Elecman, and Bombman. The tough ones are Iceman and Gutsman, and I have no clue how to do either. Both of them involve some serious precision jumping, at which I've never been all that good. But stay tuned, people. If I beat this thing, it's making headlines.

It fills me with the hope to wish impossible things.

2005-11-06T01:10:00.000-08:00

Q: How does one get completely shitfaced on two beers?

That was me last night. To quote Harry Carey, holy freakin' cow.

It started off with, of all personages, David Lynch. You know, the Blue Velvet guy. The Twin Peaks guy. He was giving a lecture at UCSD, so I decided to attend. Little did I know, however, that this lecture was little more than a way to shill for his new, ahem, philanthropic foundation: The David Lynch Center for Global Consciousness Education and World Peace. No shit. I am not making this up. The dude apparently is so far into transcendental meditation, that he has set up some kind of society for it, doling out cash to poor schools in order to get kids to meditate a couple of times a day. He had a couple of "scientists" along for the ride, apparently claiming that this meditation stuff wasn't just a bunch of hocum (which it obviously was, more on that later). Anyway, there were two faculty members, one from cognitive neuroscience, the other from physics, of the Maharshi University of Management. I am not making this up either. I don't know where the Maharshi University of Management is, or what it is, but, lemme tell ya', I'm pretty sure it ain't Johns Hopkins. In addition to which, the physicist also had listed on his little mini-bio that he was the, and I'm not kidding about this either, "Minister of Science and Technology for the Global Country of World Peace."

Let me say that again.

The Minister of Science and Technology for the Global Country of World Peace.

That's right. A country. A Global country. A Global Country of World Peace.

Talk about a bullshit, pretentious title. Here's what's going on my CV from now on: "Prime Minister and Defender of the Faith for the Global Country of Rock and Roll Will Never Die."

As long as I'm at it, I'm going to add this website to the Crackpot List.

Anyway, as soon as I see all this stuff on the program, I start thinking: this sucks. It's going to be a serious bunch of crap. But I was initially heartened because basically David Lynch came out and said: "I have no prepared speech. I'll just take questions for an hour or so." And he did. But somehow he found a way to turn the answer to every question back into the search for expanded consciousness through transcendental meditation. Although he did say that he still hates Dune. I got up in line to ask a question at one point. My question was going to be something like: "They say that you get ten directors to direct the same script and you'll end up with ten completely different movies. I'm imagining, say, a director like Hitchcock doing Mulholland Drive - it would be tightly plotted, etc., still a nice work of art, but different. What leads you to do movies your way, by emphasizing abstraction and slight-of-hand?" The subtext of which was: "WHY CAN'T YOU MAKE MOVIES I CAN UNDERSTAND?" Although I had to get out of line when the guy two questions ahead of me asked: "WHY CAN'T YOU MAKE MOVIES I CAN UNDERSTAND?" Took away my slightly more politically informed thunder.

A: By not eating anything all day.

So with all this DL business, I forgot to eat dinner. Which caused me to get a little too drunk at the afterparty. I do remember playing a pretty sweet practical joke on The Turtle, though, which was basically the highlight of the evening. I remember talking loudly to strangers. And basically everything else is something of a haze. Which is bad, I suppose. I remember getting home rather late - I didn't drive, but was in a car with Math Rock, The Turtle, and Money Changes Everything. I mean, this is bad. As I sit here, I basically can't remember anything worth commenting on. Well, shit. Screw this. See you jerks later.

Sun rising, birds chirping, family strife....aah! Morning!

2005-11-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

It's like death and taxes, really. I mean, it's not really like death, in the sense that death, ultimately, at least according to some crazy wacko Howard Hughes-types, might actually be overcomeable. I guess it's more like taxes. Unless you happen to be really wealthy with a good tax lawyer. So, I guess it's really more certain than either death or taxes. Anyway, every once in awhile, my sister gets enough juice in her system to yell and scream at my dad, usually involving something or other that my dad said that was perhaps a little insensitive, perhaps involving his recent divorce from my Mom.

This latest one was particularly bad, though. My sister actually declared that my father was no longer her father. And she went out of her way to include me in on the conversation, which made me a little pissed-off, it's really none of my damn business, and even if it was, I am just enough of a coward to attempt to extricate myself by any means necessary. In conclusion, my sister and father are both being stupid, and they're at each others' throats once again. It's like death and taxes. Or, at the very least, it's like bad TV. Inevitable.

This, of course, led me to get stinking drunk at school. Why did I do this? Why did I have that much beer in that little time? Of course, alcohol has a tendency to turn me from him into him, but still. At school? Come on. That's for after hours. And around the ladies. Anyway, off topic. The thing is, it really ruined my day. My sister included me on this rancid email she sent to my dad and his new wife, and I didn't get it until first thing yesterday morning. First stinkin' thing. Ugh. Another thing I have to deal with.

I've been feeling pretty stressed out lately about not getting much work done. It seems like I haven't really gotten anything substantive done in a while, although that's not really true. I've written a few papers, but I haven't really been reading much and I haven't done all that much work on my dissertation. Though a first draft is finished, I don't know where to start in correcting it. It would probably be a good idea to sharpen the stuff my committee hasn't seen yet, but then again, that's the stuff that I think ultimately needs the least sharpening. The other stuff is way off, and will have to be recast in a major way. Why am I talking about this? Good freakin' question, jagoffs.

Here's Dale's surprising aesthetic judgment of the day: I think Depeche Mode's Songs of Faith and Devotion is actually a very good record. Much better than most people think. I'll write a full post defending my view on this blog at some point, but I'm too tired right now. Later.

Anyway, here's lookin' at ya'. Risin' up to the challenge of my rivals.

Just a man with a will to survive.

2005-11-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

The most politically hard-hitting story of the year, bar none.

I'm a walking nightmare, an arsenal of doom.

2005-11-01T23:35:00.000-08:00

This sucks. That post I wrote today took me like a half-hour. It was really long, full of funny anecdotes about waiting in line at Kinko's (or better yet, FedexKinko's), and having to wait at Peet's coffee for like four hours before the thing I had to go to Kinko's for was ready. I mean, it was a really sweet post. Probably my best in weeks, that I know of. It had a collection of short, identically-heighted women dressed as elves/gnomes, and a master-salesman named Zig Ziglar. It had a sign, found in Peet's Coffee that said: "This Concession Area Closed." I made friends. I influenced people.

Dang. I'm gonna miss that post.

AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

2005-11-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

Dashblog has failed me.

I had this really long post about my weird night last night, and it said posting was successful, but to no avail. It's not showing up anywhere. And now it's gone.

FUCK!

Chaos, hostility, and murder.

2005-10-31T10:14:00.000-08:00

This was sort of a crazy weekend. I went over to The Turtle's place on Friday for a little get together, though I couldn't stay all that long because I had to get up a five freakin' thirty in the morning. More on that later. The party was pretty cool, especially the Cajun Pumpkin Seeds. People were making costumes and pumpkins and the like. I was doing neither, really, but I was pleasantly entertained watching others do so. The one crappy thing about the party was that I learned almost everyone I was counting on pulled out of the Oktoberfest extravaganza. Dang. It didn't happen after all. I suppose it's not all bad. I saved some money by not doing it, but it is too bad in a certain sense.

The next day I had to get up at the crack of to get to Northridge, CA in time to go to the Southern California Philosophy Conference. The conference was a lot of fun; I think my paper went over fairly well. But Northridge is just another one of those LA suburban wastelands. Not too unpleasant, but not too pleasant neither. I got lunch at some place called The Falafel Palace. They gave me a free lunch card, which for some reason I kept, although it's highly unlikely that I'll ever go there again. By the time I got home, I was freaking tired.

No Oktoberfest Sunday, so I did some grading and tried to get some work done, and failed. I did manage to watch Brian DePalma's Blow Out, which is another in a long line of DePalma Rips Off x Movies. This one ripped off Antonioni, for the most part, The Parallax View for a smaller part. It was decent as thrillers go, but if you've seen either one of the previous movies, you've seen this one. It has a decent, ironic ending, though, which might be worth sitting through it.

That is all.

So swollen it fills up my mouth.

2005-10-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

I think "The Kiss" by The Cure contains probably the greatest guitar solo ever recorded. This thing so so massive. It's distorted in a particular way, with a wah pedal the last link in the insert-chain. It really screams, this solo. At parts, if you didn't know better, you'd think there was a talkbox attached to the signal, but it's merely the wah being used in really creative ways. It's also really really long, 3 minutes 51 seconds. One thing that's so great about it is that its length becomes almost part of the solo itself: you sort of wonder - is this when the vocals come in? - only to be disappointed at virtually every point. It's almost like the final, climactic showdown scene in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in that way. It's drawn out for SOOO LOOONG, that its sheer length becomes part of the artistry. Unbelievable. I urge everyone to listen to this thing. This is what I mean by daring, courageousness in a recording; the thing the Cure's great albums has but that records like Wild Mood Swings don't.

That is all.

Sweet.

2005-10-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

I received this email today:

You will be able to compete on all days for a chance to compete in the karoake finals.

Ring-a-Ding-Ding, baby.

Jungle love is driving me mad; making me crazy.

2005-10-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's Tiger time, baby. Today, for the price of a burrito, ahem, borrowed All Black's copy of OSX Tiger, and installed that sumbitch. I'm extremely happy with it. I set about downloading a ton of widgets, including a Netflix widget, which gives you instant access to your queue (although it doesn't let you reorder your queue; that kinda' sucks). I also downloaded "Dashblog" that allows you, as I am now, to post without having to actually go to the www.blogger.com website. Sweet! I also like the new aesthetic - it's a little sharper. Now, if I can just keep my damn hands off the widgets and get some freakin' work done, I'll be golden.

I got some relatively disturbing news today. It's possible that the Karaoke competition will only be open to people who are competing on Saturday, rather than Sunday. I would go Saturday, except I'm going to be in Northridge giving a paper. It's a little snippet from my dissertation, but I think the argument is killer-sweet, so if you're going to be in Northridge on Saturday, I'd check it out. Another bit of disturbing news I got today was that apparently somebody, in the dustiness of my car, had scrawled "DIE" on both the passanger and driver's side windows. It was a little freaky. But I'm assuming that this is a prank, given that I don't actually think there's anyone out there who is interested in my death for any particular reason. But I'm going to be watchin' for dudes waiting to jack me with a sock full of pennies - you better believe that one.

For those of you interested, I thought I'd just give a little synopsis of the movies I've seen since I had that little hiatus:

1. Stroszek
2. Duel
3. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
4. Burden of Dreams
5. My Best Fiend
6. The Asphault Jungle
7. The Hitch-Hiker
8. Elevator to the Gallows
9. A History of Violence
10. 2001: A Space Oddessy
11. Just Like Heaven
12. Red-eye

Maybe that's it. Actually, that doesn't seem like that many. Oh well. I need to start watching more movies. Anyway, I would say that, with the exception of #s 11 and 12, basically all of these movies were really good. I especially recommend #s 1, 5, 7-9. Of course, 10 is the greatest film ever made, but that goes without much saying. The others you might not have had such a great impression of.

Am I happy the White Sox won the World Series? Well, yes and no. I feel like Chicago deserves a World Series, but then again, I feel like the White Sox should be condemned to finish in last place for all eternity, thanks to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other 1919 scumbags. It's a tradeoff. Call me neutral.

Abra, Abra Cadabra. Wanna reach out'n grab ya.

2005-10-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

I'm back. I don't promise daily or even bi-daily posts, or anything like that. But I've got stuff to say. So I'm a'gonna say it.

ITEM! The last karaoke night was a serious success. There must have been, like, twenty of us there or something. Only four members of our party actually performed, however, but the performances were good, and the drink was free-flowing. I tell ya', that bowling alley is one happening place. Or something like that. I mean, it's not un-happening. At least when we're there. I mean, we're basically talking about a total shithole, except when we're there. And then it's pretty, well, it's, you know, it's a bowling alley.

There were really three notable things about karaoke night. It was the first night I really thought I was getting to know some of the first years. Maybe it's because I've been spending a lot of time south of the 8, maybe it's because these people are, well, a little scarce in places. Anyway, it was cool. The second thing was that this scary woman who has previously molested Math Rock on a few different occasions was there with an actual date. I mean, this is some scary shit. This woman, wow. She looks a little bit like Cruella Deville's unkempt, gimpy sister - the one who stayed home while Cruella went off to prom with whoever she went with. Lex Luthor, maybe. Anyway, it's a hell of a thing. The third notable thing was that there was a guy who seriously looked like Karl Rove doing some pretty sweet karaoke. Imagine that Karl Rove had a blonde goatee, and you've got this guy.

Oh, and the fourth thing was that I was freakin' sweet, as usual. This time: "Bang on the Drum" by Todd Rundgren, and "Just a Gigolo". I think I'm going to do the latter this weekend at the big San Diego Champeenships.

ITEM! Free Beer Night at the pub was a less serious success, but still cool. There was, for some reason, a ton of undergraduates. Why this was, I don't know, but it contributed to the pub running out of beer at 10:30, which was a little lame. But I was pretty drunk by that time, in any event. The Turtle's neighbors were there, and that made for some pretty sweet gossip - although I felt like I was giving more than I was getting. Oh well. That's the way life works, sometimes. The Turtle's neighbors were also present at The Count and Honest Aeb's cocktail and fancy-dress party on Saturday. I went in a suit. Most everybody there had a tie on, and those who didn't were either a) female, or dressing in female-role clothing, b) wearing at least a blazer, c) wearing a decent shirt. I liked that sort of thing. I like dressing up. Mostly because I like the way tailored clothes look on me. Also because I like the way tailored clothes look on basically anybody. There's a bit of Jeeves in me, I think. I think the world would be a much better place if everyone dressed well most of the time. Of course, there are a lot of things that go with that that would be much more important in making the world a better place, but in any event, that would make it even better. I seem to remember a lot of talk surrounding the Turtle's neighbors and their physical attributes - which, at the time, I might have though inappropriate, but what the hell do I know? I also spent a lot of time talking about Werner Herzog. And who doesn't like that? I didn't get terribly drunk, given that I had to drive, but I had a nice couple glasses of whiskey. Which is always a sign of a good night.

ITEM! I finished a draft of my dissertation on Friday, which is pretty freakin' sweet. I didn't even get drunk or anything. Not sure why. I'm pretty convinced that I'll be getting shitfaced this coming Sunday, though, at Oktoberfest in Del Mar. It's ten bucks to get in, and the beer is five bucks, but it's a good time. And, after all, I must compete in the karaoke-off. And I will win. Oh, I will win.

He himself has said it; and it's greatly to his credit.

2005-09-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hello friends.

When, in the course of human events, a certain blog author gets himself written out, the winds of change, as they say, must blow. I simply don't have the gumption, wherewithal, the energy, to keep maintaining this blog at the whirlwind pace I've been doing so for the last ten months.

So, given all this, I have decided to resign, effective immediately.

There are all sorts of reasons, I suppose. Too much of my life that interests me is stuff I just can't post. The stuff I can post just doesn't interest me all that much. I could keep writing stuff about which songs I like, movies I've seen, but there are other outlets for this and, let's face it, those are the least interesting posts.

It may be the case that after a month or so away, I decide I want to get back into it. In which case, I will. It's possible that I just need some serious time away from this thing. So, if you're keenly interested, I urge you to check back periodically. I won't shut the thing down, or anything like that. But I will stop posting, at least as far into the future as I can see.

For your further blog needs, I suggest you take up this or this.

With that, I bid you farewell. I close with the following lines:

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
-P. G. Wodehouse

He smoked a big cigar and drove a Cadillac car.

2005-09-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

There's this dude who parks in my parking spot all the time. Freaking pisses me off. All the time he's parked there. And it's not like he doesn't know it's my spot. It's not like he doesn't know that he's not supposed to park there, because most of the time, not all the time, as soon as I pull in, he comes out and moves it. But still, it's the principle of the thing. So today, when I got home, this jackass is parked not only in my parking space, but he's taking up my space AND THE SPACE NEXT TO MINE. Well, this was too much to take. I yelled at the guy a little bit. I felt a little bad, but then I thought: no. This guy's a jerk, and I just gave him what for. Serves him right. Next time I'm having his ass towed.

We had the first lecture today in the class I'm TAing. It sounds like it's going to be a reasonable amount of fun. I like teaching this class anyway; it's pretty easy and surprisingly rewarding, given that logic is essentially like math; you can see students' lights go on. And the students for this class generally appreciate you more than classes where they have to write papers. In those cases, they have a tendency to think they're doing great work. When you tell them they're crazy, they get pissed. Here, they know they don't have any idea what they're doing, and it's pretty easy to explain what went wrong. So the pressure's off, at least as far as the students are concerned. Also, doing section is fun, because any sentence can stand for 'P' and 'Q' - I generally like examples that have something to do with international intrigue or superheroes - Superman vs. Dr. X. (Although I don't think Dr. X is a real Superman villain; I think he's a fake Mr. Show Superman villain, but I like the moniker, anyway.) Section's also pretty easy generally. Usually students just want you to do examples on the board, for the most part.

Alright. That's it for tonight. Tomorrow, I'm going to give you the rundown on Nixon's Final Days.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2005-09-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hey. This weekend was, well, interesting. Started out with a meet-and-greet with the new graduate students in the department. Turns out I was able to neither meet nor greet any of them, given that they seemed to be huddled around, talking to themselves or one other graduate student. Oh well. Who needs 'em?, I say. Immediately after that I hitched a ride out of town (well, not hitched so much as drove) and went up to Redlands, to hang out a bit with my dad. That was fun, but Saturday was a little bit exhausting given the scope of the tour of this little town my dad took me on. Had a pretty nice lunch, though. It's funny to see people come introduce themselves to my dad, given that he's something of a big shot in that town, now. Oh well. There were a lot of funny things going on.

After coming back home, I wandered for several hours around the Adams Avenue Street Fair yesterday, which was super-cool! It started with a delectible pancake breakfast and an hour or so spent wandering around all the booths. Man, there must have been fifteen hundred booths full of a lot of cheap crap, although some of the stuff was relatively interesting. It was strange: you had your standard street fair jewelry dealers, face-painters, t-shirt sellers, jamaican head shops, etc., but you also had booths for, like, mortgate companies and chiropractors. Like three booths offering a "Free Spinal Analysis!". Weird. For lunch I had a freshly made corn dog and some really interesting juice from a Mexical juice vendor; basically it was cantaloupe puree with some water in it. Very good.

Watched the season premiere of the West Wing, which was disappointing in the extreme, and then took in My Best Fiend. It's funny; I guess I was expecting something different from MBF; Kinski didn't come across as that crazy a lunatic. I mean, he was clearly a lunatic, but I wish there was more footage of Kinski and less footage of Herzog talking about Kinski. Herzog himself comes across as a bit of a loon, especially where he's talking to the camera during the filming of Fitzcaralldo, suggesting that nature was awful, that the jungle was a place only of disgust and murder. This is also a little ironic because Herzog himself describes at least three separate threats/plans to murder Klaus Kinski. Maybe he was spending a little bit too much time in nature, or something.