CERisE's Testing for L

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 04:58:42 GMT

It is a travesty that:
1) Avatar -- a retread of "Dances with Wolves" -- is being considered for Best Picture.
2) A Harry Potter film is considered possibly the best cinematography this year.

It is mildly better that a Pixar film is being considered for Best Picture, but this isn't the year for it.

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:29:46 GMT

View Poll: Blood on the wall.

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:00:35 GMT

Apparently, the Vietnamese are smarter than Oregonians.

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:27:34 GMT

On St. Phil's Day Eve, greenbuttercup, zweeb, and J~ (zweeb's brother) drove up. As they were driving up, zetshia_gudani took me to the Exploratorium. There was an exhibit on computers and case mods. Some of them were neat, but the other stuff was far more interesting really.

The evening was spent with pizza ordered in and alcohol flowing freely. I poured brain tumors for all and they were enjoyed.

Woke up the next morning and went hunting for pillows. zetshia_gudani showed great acumen of her testing4l and decided to get us all to go to the pillow fight in San Francisco so that I could beat up on San Franciscans. zweeb had a headache, but we went anyway. Some ibuprofen eventually did the trick. We got there late and couldn't stay long to make the sushi reservation. I had a great deal of fun (and we all had a hacking crud afterwards), but it was worth the trouble.

For those interested, the sushi:

1. Salad with sashimi, slices of fruit, and pepper -- served in giant martini glasses.
This was sweet and spicy. zweeb was surprised that I was eating it. One for each couple.

2. Toro sashimi with roe and lemon slices
The Toro was thick -- almost steak like. The fish itself was very mild with the lemon providing a sharp, fresh taste. four per person.

3. Toro rolls, two per person. On the house.

4. Hirame sashimi with lemon slices, also thinly sliced with hot sauce and chives. The latter was slightly spicy. four per person

5. Hamachi sashimi with honey mustard / hot sauce. four per person

6. "Sea Salmon" sashimi -- almost cajun style -- crusted black pepper. Very spicy -- my lips, gums, and tongue were tingling at this point. zweeb mentioned that he was surprised I ate it and I mentioned to Bill (the itamai) that it was a little too much for me. Two per person

7. Scallop sashimi with avocado.
I highly suspect he added that for my benefit. Smooth and creamy -- it did away with the spice. Two per person.

8. Uni rolls
zweeb had uni somewhere else and said that it nearly made him throw up. It was really salty. We had uni the first time about two weeks ago. Bill mentioned that Uni had to be extremely fresh and that it was touchy after a couple of days, so I asked if he'd make a roll so they could taste how it was from a good sushi restaurant. This was the only request we made that evening. One for each of us.

9. Deep fried oyster rolls.
We had this a couple weeks ago and I was looking forward to it. I'm not sure what the sauce they placed on it is. It's sweet and tangy and suits the oysters really well. After we ate them, I said that I couldn't think of a way to describe how tasty it was. zweeb said "I can! Spoon!". With that he grabbed a spoon and began scooping up the detritus at the bottom of the dish. Four per person.

10. Green tea ice cream with tempura.
They always finish up meals this way.

I don't know how much it was at the end -- it was my birthday and zweeb generously took care of that. zetshia_gudani and I ran through three pitchers of sake. The first one I ordered. The second and third were on the house and the empty containers were spirited away before I had a chance to say anything about it. That was OK, though I probably would have stopped at two. I was happy with three though. 8)

Came home and played a few games -- Lunch Money and The Red Dragon Inn. I was DJing for a little and played ST:TNG with the sound off through libcaca on the TV.

zweeb and greenbuttercup bought me a gift -- a bendable The Tick action figure! KEEN!

They also gave me a card which was adorned with binary. The card read (line breaks were indicated by space on the card -- not CR, CR/LF, or LF. Also a transcription error and unknown digit at the end were fixed):

Phil
You
are
30
abort
retry
fail

Short, simple, and to the point. It required a short explanation to zetshia_gudani. They also gave me the front page of the L.A. Times with headlines adjusted for St. Phil's Day. I'll add those when I can be bothered to get up.

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:16:22 GMT

Apparently, there will be a St. Phil's Day celebration -- pillow fighting in San Francisco.

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:26:39 GMT

Happy St. Phil's Day folks! Terribly considerate of the country to make it a 3-day weekend this year.

Stuff is happening today -- zetshia_gudani is the Mistress of Ceremonies. greenbuttercup, zweeb, and his brother are over. At the moment, we're back-seat-playing The Simpsons game. Stuff will be happening soon, but I don't know what exactly.

All I know is that there's sushi at 8pm and the reservation cannot be changed for more people.

After that? Who knows? Give my cell a call and I can pass you to someone who will tell you where you need to be to join in the fun 8)

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:12:03 GMT

I have a bunch to say about this: Bruce Sterling's Keynote. And I will, later.

I also have a bunch to say about the complete lack of suggestions for experiences that people I ought to have this year. Are you all so uninteresting that you can't summon up the idea of something that you thought was fun and think I should do at some point during this year?

I find that terribly hard to believe, so I'm assuming that you all have short attention spans and didn't want to bother reading all of my treatise. I can stomach that.

Seriously, I bore myself sometimes.

So here's the summary, you ADHD kids: I have just about all the material possessions I can stomach. Moreover, most of you don't have the expendable income to get me the things I would want. So what I want for St. Phil's day is for you to suggest an experience that I ought to have this year.

And, for as much as I dig you all, "come see me!" is terribly trite. You can do better than that. Suggestions like "Eat a BBQ Pork Sandwich at Interstate BBQ in Memphis" or "Go spelunking in Costa Rica" or "Volunteer time on a fossil expedition in Montana" would all be much better gifts to me.

I can't promise I'll do all of them, but suggestions are free, and it just might be the sort of thing I tell everyone about.

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:48:48 GMT

Happy groundhog day, all -- my second favorite holiday in February!

Phil -- the other one -- didn't see his shadow this morning.

Unrelated: Things I've decided on for this year: Get licensed in modes of transportation. I have every intention of getting my motorcycle license and getting through ground school this year.

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:24:25 GMT

Well, germs, the beginning of my fourth decade (HINT: That doesn't mean I'm 40. Or 39. Reading is essential!) is rapidly approaching. With it has come one of life's most vexing questions.

Is it "Am I ashamed to have done nothing of any particular value as yet?" -- No, it isn't.
Is it "What happens when you become old and die? Is there some old dude in the sky?" -- Nope, not that one either.

It's "So...what do you want for St. Phil's day?"

I haven't a clue. I really genuinely haven't even the beginnings of speculation upon the idea of what I'd like to find underneath packing material and wrapping on St. Phil's day.

Weird, isn't it?

There's certainly things I'd adore -- a Neo-Geo, a CDi, and a Vectrex. All three of which are unreasonably expensive and I wouldn't expect anyone to get one for me.

Video games? Well -- I've been cranking through a bunch of them lately. Nothing's really come out on the outside for me to leap at. I haven't yet worked through Mass Effect 1 or Fable 2 (sorry, stonesundial! I'm very near starting them though!). I'm just starting the ultimate weapons quests in FFX. More importantly, I have the airship, my ideal team, and loads of blitzball to play

I am full up on books. Seriously. I'm in the middle of my best reading period in two years and I'm only about halfway through "George, Being George" while also finishing "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" and "The Worst Journey in the World". The ratio of read to unread books at my place may as well be considered to be zero.

Music? zetshia_gudani and I have been in the midst of ripping every single CD onto boogeyman. As it stands right now, there's nearly 250 of them on there and more in the pipeline. Every so often something occurs to me or I feel the need to buy a CD I have a ripped copy of. Amazon sits there in the darkness, lurking and waiting for these moments. $100 later or so, I have a constant stream of CDs to tuck in the car with me and listen to on the way back and forth to work.

Hockey stuff? I see a ton of games and I have a jersey that I adore. I've been considering playing again, but it's too early to think about my own skates or things of that nature. What else could I possibly want?

TV shows? Ahh -- here might be a possibility. I have a long outstanding promise from my dad to get the entire run of the Avengers (Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, etc) on DVD. I wonder if Get Smart's out there? I don't own Invader Zim or the Tick, but the ripped copies I have take care of me. And, of course, there's billions of good shows on b which I'm slowly working through.

(I'm genuinely out of ideas for material things I could want. You may know better than me or you may have found something that's distinctly me. Don't hesitate if you are so inclined in spite of this preamble.)

Maybe the best thing of all would be a quest. Something I ought to do between this year and the next. Something fantastic like "On the corner of Flatbush and De Kalb in New York, there's a deli called Junior's with the best cheesecake ever. Go there and get a slice."

(Incidentally, I have. It was pretty good, but not the best. Still, I suspect that love would stick around for half of a slice)

Is there something that you used to do for fun that you miss? Is there someone who you think I ought to meet? Is there some part of your life which you think ought to be shared with me? Give me a timeframe and a location. Being vague is a plus: For example, be at 44.460501°N 110.828106°W at 12:42pm and wait for a period no longer than 91 minutes.

(On a side note: I ought to visit friends of mine more, but that's not really a part of this request. Visiting you will be special and fun, but it doesn't have the cachet of having journeyed the globe to meet a homeless man who scares the living bejeezus out of tourists at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. Unless you want me to get the world's best philly cheesesteak sandwich and it just happens to be around the corner from your house -- but it had better be the world's best in that situation.)

(On another side note: If I were put in your position, the possibilities for a prank or other surprise would be positively staggering.)

I don't demand this of you, but in particular, there are two people who come to mind who -- while still welcome to give me something or suggest something -- should feel positively no obligation whatsoever to this end. Those two people are lishd (who is planning to push me out of a plane some day in the near future) and philled2thebrim.

philled2thebrim especially deserves comment here. I've called him panicked with no notice and asked him to take care of the fuzzy wumpuses before. I usually try to manage at least a day in advance, but there are times when circumstances or memory do not allow. Somehow, in every instance, he has managed to make it work. I shudder to think of the difficulty I've put him through in those regards and I'm ever thankful for his willingness to drive the 20 miles up to my place to feed and water the kittens for a meager sum of capital and my endless thanks.

It is likely over the course of the escapades that you folks wish upon me that I will again ask him to take care of the kittens.

That said...

I suspect this is probably the best that anyone could do for me this upcoming St. Phil's day.

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:13:37 GMT

Well -- there we have it folks.

I promised you all that when boogeyman was done, the secret project would be back on track. And it is.

I made comment last night at game night that we should probably stop having it in Santa Cruz. I've been really tired lately and having it on the other side of the hill would grant us an earlier start.

I've been assembling things in my backyard for about a month. The committee has left a number of nasty posts on my door about the structures I've been building and pointing out "obligations" to the community.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. I've seen a lot of things over the years and one of the most vibrant periods of my life was hanging out in Woodland Hills during the late 80s. Skateboarding was becoming a thing then and a serviceable one fell into my hands.

For a long time as a kid, I was constantly afraid of doing something that would harm me later in life. This kept me off of roller coasters. It kept me from climbing trees. But somewhere around then, the switch flipped and I realized that you're no better off in later years for having lived safely before that. If you're going to do that sort of industrial grade goofing off, do it while you're young.

I've never believed in growing old, so I'm going to do my goofing off right now.

Last night, I pulled up to the pad late -- it's par for the course for game night. When we drove up, I pulled another one of those damned HOA notices off the door. Whiny little bastards. They're just trying to keep me down. Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude. I've been ignoring them as the ineffectual dogs they are for a while.

The suits who I've started seeing are a little more worrying. It's funny that they don't actually drive black cars. I wonder if that makes them think they're camouflaged. Maybe the movies all say they drive black cars and trucks because it puts that misconception in everyone's head?

It doesn't matter. Right now, I've been granted an atheist bomb and I'm going to blow it up, not blow it. It's time for the world to hear the noise I'm bringing.

So, yesterday, I got home from game night and finally switched on the Final Project. It's about time.

Last evening, I took a hammer to everything from the Final Project. I burned the notes. Maybe that'll get the feds off my back. I don't know. I don't care. Release from that prison was a strong message to never get caught again. And I won't. Now that I'm out of the bottle, I need to make sure I never get stuffed back into it. Life in that dimension isn't fun for anyone. Even if you're Italian with a penchant for anthropology.

Before I went to sleep last night, I started typing this post. Today's a special day. I hope nothing goes wrong, but I've already noticed events happening. I was sitting here typing and then two hours passed without me having typed another letter or thought another word.

LJ's being weird too. It keeps saying that I'm trying to edit posts too much and that my login session has timed out again. I wish I knew what was happening. Maybe it's time to put up a camera and figure out just what the heck is happening

It feels like I'm missing time. Like the world is being put on hold for a couple of hours at a time and then suddenly context switching back. Would a film make any sense if you spliced 20 of them together, giving each one a little quantum of time? Some film student's probably done that. I don't know. It doesn't matter.

Last evening, I dragged myself up from the car after game night. I'm exhausted again and I don't know what's going on. Moments of my life are disappearing and things that I don't remember are starting to bleed in and color the things I know.

Last night, I finally regained my sight. Having a helmet carry around your optical gear is weird. Hanging out with other people with the same interface is a little like being those three old witches from Greek mythology with one eye and one tooth between them. And it's about as useful I guess.

Last night...well...that was last night. I guess I know who I am, but who the hell are all of you zombies and why are you posting in my LJ?

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:35:15 GMT

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS TRIPE?

Congratulations, society. The voice of the masses has been heard. We need a movie about couples on Phil's Day with a bunch of expensive celebrities in it.

This is the exact reason why Plato disapproved of democracies. It's beginning to win me over.

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:11:49 GMT

Lots of little posts today.

Inspired by the events of the most recent game night, I've had cause to wonder:

If Superman laid down on his back and vomited, would his vomit escape Earth's gravitation?

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:25:54 GMT

As crisper points out, Rabbit Hole Day is right around the corner!

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:13:18 GMT

Say, if anyone wanted the game night edition of Lunch Money rules, here you go!

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:07:31 GMT

Oxford, itself, was not much of a destination. Nice enough square. Faulkner's mansion is just a bit off and I walked around it. I visited my first ever Sonic and walked by this odd Chevron that everyone knows as the "chicken-on-a-stick" place. I never got around to trying that.

There's a restaurant called Ajax Diner which I also skipped out on. It's where Rebecca works and by the time I was interested in going there, I was more interested in other things. I hear it's "soul food" which usually translates to "instant death" for people who are very sensitive to spice, so it's likely I didn't miss much.

I watched an obligatory football (Ole Miss vs. someone-or-other) game. We were at the grocery store right beforehand which was decked out reminding everyone of the game. In addition, as the game was starting, they put the radio on over the PA. I met Rebecca's boss there and one of the first things he said was "The game's starting in five minutes! What are you doing here?"

Yep! This is the South!

Rebecca introduced me to pepper jelly & cream cheese on crackers. I will take that as the biggest thing I got out of Oxford.

For various reasons, Rebecca wasn't able to be a very good hostess, so I allowed myself to be led into the idea of blowing town. Rented a car (a Dodge Magnum -- one of the nicer cars I've rented as it happens)

Immediately after getting the car, I started orienting myself. Highway MS-7 seemed like an interesting road to me, so I continued down it a ways. During this drive, I became the master of a one-handed photographing technique which served me very well.

This is remarkably typical for the roads around there. I can even tell I was going South on MS-7 because of the kudzu on the right hand side. Very pretty, very long stretches between anything of import. That was one of the interesting differences I saw that would characterize the South.

Coffeeville -- it says so on the water tower!

Coffeeville's a teensy grease spot on the map, but it's one of the more significant points on MS-7. The town was pretty much dead:

Obviously, the high street. Nothing much to speak of.

I wanted to stop off and walk around a while, but it became clear that there really was nothing to see there, even though it was around 4pm on a Wednesday. Anyway, I realized this after I had disturbed this poor dog which was sleeping in the parking space I was aiming for.

It barked in annoyance and walked around in the nearby gravel lot

which had an honest-to-god package store!

I'd heard of these when I was in Rhode Island a few years back. Basically, "package store" became a euphemism for "liquor store" during the Prohibition era -- which was unfortunate at the time because we needed boxes. Coffeeville looked like things hadn't changed much since then, so I guess it's not really much of a surprise to find it here.

I drove South until I hit the I-55. I figured I should get a taste of local color, so I started fishing around the radio dial for talk radio. One show was a minister giving advice to people. Another was a panel of three Republicans talking about the health care bill. One complaint I remember was that it allowed for a medical facility to be set up on school grounds. This led them to the conclusion that the bill was going to be used to put Planned Parenthood at every elementary school so they could teach your kids about abortion.

Wow.

and then decided to turn around...

On the way South, I noticed a sign on the opposite side of the road and resolved to check it out on the way back.

This one, in particular, was at the start of a road that promised a lake. I figured it'd be worth a look, but honestly, the lake was pretty pathetic -- not even worth a picture.

I eventually returned that evening and spoke for a bit with Rebecca's roommate about New Orleans -- she used to live there. She mentioned a couple of places to go and where the Katrina damage was the worst. I did some quick research on the net and got to bed quickly, resolving to set out early the next morning.

By popular demand...

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:16:26 GMT

This was the posting which led to the last meme.

It's interesting that some of the entries are identical, though I'd have to say that stutefish wins out over babe_of_beyazit for the carpool dummy.

Yet another great meme idea from crisper!

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:21:58 GMT

Tell me how you'd dispose of my corpse.

Then post this in your own journal to find out how other people plan to get rid of YOUR body!

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:18:51 GMT

Happy new year one and all, such as it were.

The next post is coming, but I realized why the writing is so darn difficult for me.

From Jeremy Clarkson's latest article:

Thanks to BBM — and I have no idea what this stands for — my kids text constantly. And I do mean constantly. Why? What are they saying? I lead a pretty interesting life and at the end of a week when I’ve driven across, let’s say, Bolivia, I could just about rustle up one 20-second anecdote. All the rest is noise.

It was an awesome trip. It was great in so many different ways. Communicating what was so great about it though is hard. Even the pictures from the trip are relatively dull.

That said, I owe it to myself to punch through the rest of this trip in the same style, cataloguing every teensy bit, so that I can examine it later.

And maybe something will mean something to someone else around here.

Good luck with that, kiddies.

It sounds like Spirit isn't doing too well. With its four still-working wheels, it doesn't look like it'll be able to climb to somewhere where it'll get a better view of the sun (it's been stuck there for 9 months trying to get traction). As a result, it might be forced to shutdown due to a lack of solar energy. Combined with the amount of dust on Mars, it seems likely that if it does shutdown, it'll be goodbye for the amazing little rover that could.

Of course, Opportunity's still at it.

In other news, the price of 6 minutes of weightlessness seems to have gone down. Branson's promising it for $200k.

One of those tickets would be a shame though. You'd never get to use this vital knowledge.

This new year *still* isn't the future, but maybe you've made some resolutions.

My resolution, based on this excerpt from Clarkson's article:

I was watching some footage of the millennium celebrations on television over Christmas and it wasn’t like watching an episode of Minder, where the police had Comma vans and all the women appeared to have put their make-up on with a high-pressure hose: it looked normal. It looked like it had been filmed yesterday. It looked like we hadn’t come very far in the past 10 years.

is this: Don't let another new year pass without some technological advancement of the last year present.

I can say I managed it this year -- new boogeyman has been prominent about the house -- but that just feels like cheating.

Speaking of New Years -- it ended up being quiet. zetshia_gudani broke/sprained her left pinky toe pretty seriously just before Xmas. That led to cancellations of going to LA and meant we had to stay home for the new year. Fortunately, stonesundial and DC were about, so they came over.

At some point around 9am -- after watching the beginning of the Rose Parade -- I went to sleep for an hour. I woke up again to watch the Winter Classic, but I was in and out of consciousness for it.

I'm not a fan of pugilism which makes my appreciation of hockey seem misplaced to some people. That said, I am a fan of the fight in the middle of the Winter Classic this year. Last year, it seemed like there was going to be one, but the refs started cooling things down. That whole situation felt to me like they were trying to put a better face on hockey for those who would tune in, but weren't hockey fans. You start to wish that they'd just put the sport out there and stop trying to make a fast buck on it by selling it to people.

Speaking of hockey, zetshia_gudani and I went to the Firehouse for the last Sharks game. It required a minimum of walking for her and meant a little bit of being out in public. Typical bar socializing ensued which was nice, but I really must remember to never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have alcohol for breakfast again. Having a beer first thing in the morning before I've had any food just screws up my stomach for the rest of the day.

Kurt Vonnegut be damned

It feels nice to get back into this form of posting. Short little snippets tenuously tied together. I need to start reading and writing more.

Speaking of writing, for a moment, I wondered whether "tenuously" was spelled correctly. The Internet informed me that I was correct, and for just a moment, I praised my good fortune to have had a sufficiently literate upbringing to spell something, question it, check it, and have been right far, far, far more often than not.

A friend of mine (rockanachronism) has been writing music reviews. I've enjoyed his writing and after meeting him (during the vacation whose write-up I'm struggling through), I decided I should go out on a limb and take a few of his recommendations. Albums I bought on his recommendation:
1) Kelly Clarkson, All I Ever Wanted
2) Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown
3) Anjulie, Anjulie
4) Annie, Anniemal
5) Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster (deluxe)

Anjulie is, thus far, my favorite of the bunch. The big single on there ("Boom") leads it off and sounds like the theme for a Bond movie that hasn't been written yet.

Anniemal was Bjorklike. It didn't really grab me, but it was nonoffensive.

The Fame Monster was OK. Some tracks on the new portion of the album seemed out of place, but the old one (The Fame) was solid enough.

All I Ever Wanted didn't really grab my attention either. "I Do Not Hook Up" struck me as pretty decent.

21st Century Breakdown is likely to be a letdown -- I haven't liked Green Day since Dookie. Still zetshia_gudani likes them, so in the worst case, she'll be happy. I'll listen to that tomorrow evening on the way to Game Night.

Oh yeah, the way I broke this experiment to rockanachronism:

You know what the difference is between a random jerk posting on the internet and a music critic? I'll buy CDs on the opinion of a critic that I trust. I just received some of those last night. 8)

That's enough for now.

The first round of Memphis

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:51:45 GMT

(Continued from my last post...)

I went up to the ticket window as early as possible and went through security as early as possible. There were going to be no problems this time!

So, I'm biding my time, reading my book, and doing all that wonderful nonsense when I notice a distinct lack of motion around me. I decided to go check the departure board and it turns out that I was leaving through a different gate.

And not just a different gate, a different *set* of gates. Had to get a new ticket and swim through another set of security. At length I got there. If I were any kind of superstitious, I would've called Rebecca right then and said "Not coming. The universe commands otherwise."

Luckily, I'm not!

The flight was a blur. I think I ended up flying to Salt Lake City, transferring, and getting out to Memphis. Everyone on the flight was unremarkable, but my book was good at least.

I got off in Memphis. I knew I was going to have a bit of a wait before Rebecca could come and get me.

Memphis, as that picture suggests, is kinda strange. It's the perfect setting for a scene from The Stand or The Langoliers. It's possessed of this strange kind of loneliness. Part of it is the odd clocks hanging from the ceiling. Part of it is the brick construction. In searching out a bathroom to clean up a bit, I found something that made me realize just how stupid I am.

Tornados, BITCHES!

Here I am in the South and I have no idea about what tropical storms are due or how bad the weather's going to be. Way to go!

I decided to walk around the airport and get a feel for it. I walked right by a place called "Interstate Barbeque". I got a few storefronts down before my brain registered just how good that smelled and how long it had been since my last good meal. I turned right around and sat down, resigning myself to having my first taste of Southern barbeque in an airport restaurant.

A waitress came over and asked what I wanted. I ordered a beer and asked what was supposed to be good, foodwise. She mentioned that the pork is popular. I almost went with the pulled pork sandwich, but decided on the pork ribs instead.

"How big is a half rack?"
"It's eight bones."
"That's not going to be enough. Make it a full rack."

I don't remember what beer I had with it, but it was perfect.

I found various ways of killing time until Rebecca got there. Nothing too interesting. Eventually, I meandered out of security and sat outside the airport. It was deserted. Quiet as quiet gets. Good place to read.

Eventually she found the time to drive up and we had a heck of a time trying to describe where we were in the airport relative to each other. I guess she'd never been there before and distinctions like "upstairs" or "downstairs" didn't seem to work for her. She ended up on the lower level while I was on the upper level. We found each other and then began the drive home through one hell of a rainstorm and my first real look at the South.

The storm was bad enough that we pulled off the road for a little bit. Some cars stopped dead in the middle of the road because you simply couldn't see through the torrents of water coming down. At length, it let up enough and we continued on.

Roads in the South are interesting things. Not nearly as well lit as their counterparts on this coast. To the people who live down there, this is apparently a feature, not a bug. I mentioned this to someone towards the end of my trip and she said, "fewer lights mean they won't blind you."

(I've never been blinded by a street lamp -- I'm usually watching the road --, so I didn't have a lot to add to that.)

At length, we'd made it down the I-55 and over to a subdivision in Starkville. It was a two hour journey or so. Her housemate Micah wasn't around right then, due to an unfortunate piece of business, so Rebecca gave me my first taste of Southern living right after that -- a beer, a rocking chair out on the porch, and a nice, long chat. We had a lot of catching up to do -- we hadn't spoken for a while on the phone.

And here I noticed another interesting bit. As we were sitting out there, frogs -- teensy things scarcely larger than my thumbnail were wandering around.

Rebecca had had a long day. While I was overjoyed to have made it, I was ready to call it a day.

EDIT: I can't promise this will immediately get more exciting, but I'm working on it. ; )

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:33:20 GMT

New boogeyman is mostly well, though there's a problem with 64-bit support that might make me return my motherboard and get a new one in its stead. Other than that, it's just constant work.

This has regrettably put off a number of things, including my further vacation retellings.

That said, this compelled me to post: I decided to look up some of the many reasons why Che Guevara is a jerk to articulate to people why it bothers me when I am compared to him when I wear a beret. Unfortunately, I found this article and it bugged the hell out of me.

It's not just the author's asides which attempt to debase liberals. Pretty much all through the article, her arguments are specious, fallacious, and poorly formed.

Here’s a list of just a few of the humanitarian acts performed or sanctioned by the Left’s favorite pinup:
* Killed dogs for sport as a child – a common trait in psychopaths

The first point makes the fallacious implicit point that Che Guevara was a psychopath.

* Imprisoned, forced into hard labor and tortured countless Cubans he considered enemies – including artists, dissidents, homosexuals and those in the wrong place at the wrong time

The second one assumes that being an artist, dissident, homosexual, or "being in the wrong place at the wrong time" means that you are not in violation of laws. Seriously, criminals in jail were by definition in the wrong place at the wrong time (or, more accurately, either the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time). I suspect that prison populations also have demographics in the "artist", "dissident", and "homosexual" sectors.

If you want to convince me that he punished the wrong people, give me details! Don't tell me what the people were that he punished -- that doesn't tell me why they were the wrong people!

* Ordered and/or presided over the summary executions of scores of suspected enemies, including pregnant women

The third one claims that pregnant women can never be enemies. Call me heartless, but I never understood why pregnancy was supposed to demand leniency. I suppose the theory goes that one is murdering someone who hasn't done anything wrong in the act, but really, the world's overpopulated anyway.

* Brutally murdered a teenage boy whose only crime was trying to prevent Che’s henchmen from killing his father

The fourth one over looks that in the course of protecting one's father, one might make themselves a valid target. For example, if I pointed a machine gun at you while you were pointing a gun at my unarmed father. At that point, I've earned just about any response I get.

Logic, people! It's what separates us from the chimpanzees!

Let's try this phrase on for size: "yuppie fascism"

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:06:14 GMT

Terry Goodkind made an interesting statement at some sort of forum. He claims he doesn't write fantasy, but instead he writes about people.

He's far from the first person to do that. Anne Rice went so far as to preface the VHS version of "Interview with a Vampire" with a 10 minute speech about the fact that she's writing about people, not vampires. Which makes me laugh a little because it suggests that "vampires are people too!".

Someone noted similarities between his "Sword of Truth" series and the "Wheel of Time" series. He responded that "[I]f you notice a similarity, then you probably aren't old enough to read my books."

Someone mentioned that they've been defending his books a lot to former fans of the series, to which he replied:

Don't be fooled. The assertion made by these detractors is a note wrapped around a brick thrown through the window. These people are not fans. There are hundreds if not thousands of fantasy books that fulfill their professed taste in books. Why would they continue to read books they claim are bad? Because they hate that my novels exists. Values arouse hatred in these people. Their goal is not to enjoy life, but to destroy that which is good -much like a school child who does not wish to study for a test and instead beats up a classmate who does well. These people hate what is good because it is good. Their lives are limited to loathing and indifference. It isn't that they want to read a good book, what they want is to make sure that you do not. Ignore them.

Here (and elsewhere), a bunch of people have commented similarly to this comment:

It is just my luck that I have read the whole serie [sic] of The Sword of Truth before reading the various answers and interviews of Terry Goodkind. He just seems to think that people who don't love him the way he is are beneath him (how awfully pretentious). Anyway, his books are good, but now that I got a glimpse of how he thinks of himself and the rest of the world I will think twice before reading another of his books. How can a writer write good books when he/she him/herself is a narcissic [sic] person, just like Goodkind? Don't be scared by his real personality and it shouldn't be an obstacle to read his books.

and

I've never heard of this person but you folk have already put me off him. The thought of purchasing anything by this pompous windbag and therefore contributing to his earnings fills me with horror!

I emphasized that statement because it is yet another instance of the phenomenon I commented on a few posts ago. People are so obsessed with the idea of "voting with their money" that success becomes a matter of being on a tightrope and attempting not to offend anyone, lest they decide that someone "like you" could never write a "good book".

In the simplest form, these are textbook statements of an ad hominem fallacy. You're claiming that someone's work isn't good because of who they are. These say, "You can't write a good book because you don't agree with me."

Reader:
You are a pompous windbag if you ever judge someone's work by what they believe in.
You are attempting to curtail someone else's income because they exercise their right of free speech in a way you don't agree.
You are attempting to prevent someone from earning money in a particular way because they had the audacity to disagree with you.
Furthermore, you have likely produced nothing and you are trying to destroy someone else's work because they disagree with you.

I wonder if we'll start censoring achievements based on the things people believe. Perhaps we'll start rewriting the textbooks. Some suggestions:
Thomas Edison didn't really popularize the lightbulb because he hated academics.
Nikola Tesla didn't really create Westinghouse's AC transformer because he hated fat people.
John Travolta was never in a good movie because he's a Scientologist.
Mark Twain never wrote a good book because he maliciously poked fun at people.

Do you really believe you're somehow making the world a better place this way? You really think that by forcing your beliefs upon people by refusing to let some people profit improves the universe?

If you believe that, you are more egotistical, self-righteous, and incapable of seeing reason than I am. I accept that I can be wrong when I say something. You are committing yourself to action which cannot be taken back because of the things you do.

I am coining the term "yuppie fascism" for this belief and I expect that many people are going to earn this label in short order. Some among my friends list have already earned it.

Click click click click....clunk. smack reboot DING! clackety clackety clackety!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:39:36 GMT

I need something short to restart my LJ. Voila, ebugle obliged with a meme!

YOU HAVE ANSWERS! I HAVE QUESTIONS! YOU HAVE QUESTIONS WHICH REQUIRE ANSWERS TO ASK THE QUESTIONS!

Leave me a comment saying which part of testing4l you like best and you will be graced with a series of questions for your answers and your questions will be answered because of your answers.

Hooray for mutual recursion!

EDIT: Huh -- I thought *everyone* had seen this meme. Ok, so here's how it works. You comment to this with the part of testing4l that you like best. I reply back with 5 questions. You post the responses in your journal along with this header.

1) Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted teacake?

I believe that I prefer human companionship to that of a toasted teacake. I've never understood people who can only love a baked good, but it is only inevitable in an infinite universe, so they must be inevitable too, since they happened.

2) How would you try to escape from The Village?

#6 proved on three separate occasions ("Chimes of Big Ben", "Checkmate", and "Many Happy Returns") that escape by sea was possible. In addition, the other #6 found escape and return by sea. However on more than one occasion, escape by air was halted ("Arrival", "The Schizoid Man", arguably "Many Happy Returns").

I believe that escape by sea is unquestionably the best way to go, barring the ability to find the road from The Village to England (as seen in "Fall Out"). In the meantime, I would attempt to live in areas unseen by the cameras (As shown in "Chimes of Big Ben")

If somehow, my escape was barred, I would replace my number badge with one that said "Number One" and I would proceed to rule the village with an iron fist. It would be the only logical assumption at that point.

From there, an army of guards could proceed to overwhelm other micronations. Eventually, I would have the manpower to invade France. Following France, a landing on Britain would seal my eventual control of Europe. After that, it leaves only negotiations with the Slavic commonwealths and America to ensure my place in history.

3) How do you want your funeral to be held?

I have almost no desire to have my body or life commemorated. Roll me over in the sheet I die in and put me out somewhere for the scavengers.

I have things I'd want done upon my death. I would approve of a convention of friends and acquaintances of mine. I know lots of cool people and the very least that they'd do is be cool together. Why not?

I've always been fond of gemlikeflame's suggestion that she would slap my corpse in the face and say "Wake up, testing4l. It's not funny anymore. Wake up!"

Maybe someday I'll fake my death and see what happens. If I did, I'd come back in 5 years to laugh at everyone who believed it.

4) What is the best number?

The exact amount of money that the Treasury department knows to be in circulation. In several bank accounts under my secret identity, of course.

5) How many monkeys and how many type writers would it take to write your life story?

Thanks to advances with electric typewriters and networking suites (See RFC 2795), I estimate a sliding scale for parts of my life where circumstances were carefully calculated (Fooling my mother into thinking I eloped, for example) vs. the usual random crap I end up involved in (Say, is that a pancake in there?).

I expect that more than 7 billion monkeys would be required since approximately that many humans are engaged in failing to outsmart me thus far. One can assume that each monkey would be at peak productivity with a typewriter for each limb. I recommend instructing them on the hazards of RSIs.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:54:20 GMT

It seems like I post stuff like this all the time, but I'm going to post it again.

A friend of mine just posted something about Stephanie Meyer (the author of the horrendous "Twilight" series) being a Mormon. Part of being a Mormon is apparently giving a portion of your income to the church. The Mormon Church was recently involved in the support of Prop 8 -- a law to prevent same-sex marriage. He posted that people ought to boycott "Twilight" because of this.

This is something that has always made me uneasy. It's particularly difficult for me to defend "Twilight" of all things, but in this case, I find myself defending it.

In our society, we work to earn capital. Capital is then spent on the necessities of life and luxuries. A direct result of work is the ability to feed one's self. By boycotting something, you are attempting to stop the flow of capital to a person or group of people who perform that service. This necessarily means that you are attempting to stop them from being able to care for the necessities of life and their ability to afford luxuries. If very successful, that person could be in a situation where they are unable to feed themselves.

Do you believe that someone should starve for their convictions?

Wrong or right doesn't even play into that. If they perform a great harm, this does not give you license to harm them. Two wrongs do not make a right because their wrong does not make you more right. You are actively seeking to harm someone because you disagree with them.

Most people in America enjoy and defend -- to some extent -- the right of free speech. This action specifically seeks to restrict that right by limiting the amount of money someone can make. Moreover, it does so on the arbitrary basis of one person's opinion. By doing so, you are saying that one can have free speech as long as they agree with you.

That's not the way a democracy works. Even the way our democracy works is flawed -- we treat it in our electoral system as a mobocracy. The biggest mob gets their beliefs enforced.

Possibly the most repellent use of this was after George W. Bush's second election in which I recall Condolezza Rice saying that the win presented a mandate because more people had voted for W than any other president at any other time. It also happens to be that more people voted against him than any other president -- he won 50.7% of the vote.

A margin of victory like that should not give one the impression that their beliefs are correct and ought to be enforced. It should be troubling. By having that impression, you are saying that the 49.3% who disagree ought to have your beliefs enforced upon them. It doesn't mean that their objections are not valid. It certainly does not mean that they shouldn't be considered. It does make their vote invalid because they did not vote with the whole.

If you believe in something controversial, it is your duty to understand why it is controversial and accept that for the greater good (which is not necessarily the good of the majority), you ought to concede some things.

Vacation post - Part 1: "Travelin' ain't easy, but it's necessary"

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:29:38 GMT

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why on Earth would you leave *this* behind?!?"

(Meg in the foreground and Tera in the background, a PS3 game, Netflix envelope, and a collection of Calvin & Hobbes stacked next to them -- I swear this photo wasn't staged. That's really what my place is like.)

As it happens, I had a couple of weeks of furlough from work, so I figured I'd add another couple of weeks to that and make a proper adventure of my time out. There was certainly some inspiration from tsaven (His journey begins here, but it's flocked, so it's mostly for my own edification) who recently took off on a motorcycle ride around the US.

My aims were somewhat more modest. It wasn't tsaven's realization that he was getting any better suited for that journey or Steinbeck's quest for the soul of America. It was just me hoping to visit some friends and take a nice, long road trip.

So first off, I planned on going to Oxford, Mississippi. I have a friend out there who I've known for years and years and years. We'd never actually met in person. We were introduced by one of those happenstances where someone else is sitting at a computer with someone else's IM logged in. From that point onwards, we've spoken on a great deal of subjects. There had been several near misses -- plans that never really materialized. So I took it upon myself to go to a city in a region of the world that I've never been to with the expectation of a few good conversations at worst.

So I made the plan back on 7/23:

Ok -- slight change of plans. The plan is now for me to fly out to MS on 9/4 and fly back on 9/11 (hee!)

On 9/12, I hop in the car and go up to Portland/Seattle/Vancouver. At some point on 9/20 I make my return (though I might make it 9/21 -- depends on how work feels about that).

It's basically putting Seattle post-Mississippi rather than pre-Mississippi. I had some reason I wanted to do that. Anyway, this gives me a bit more flexibility and it means I'll have more weekend time in the Portland/Seattle/Vancouver realm for you working stiffs! 8D

Rebecca's much less squiggly in person

I guess the first sign that things weren't going to go well came on 8/6:

By the way..we need to talk about your travel plans..your flights come in and out on friday and saturday.. my double days...what I may have to do is take off that friday night at ajax and the saturday at oxford floral..then wait and take you to memphis the following friday after I get done at ajax...and you stay in a room for that night until your flight leaves at 1220 sat. I'm excited you're coming!!! Just wanted to make sure you knew it was going to be a bit of a riggamarole.

I had just bought the ticket at that point, so it was a little late to do anything about it. Also, a little odd given that I'd discussed my travel plans with her before that on the phone.

The day of the flight comes around (Friday). I dutifully set out to arrive at my plane an hour beforehand. Unfortunately, due to BART and construction on the bay bridge, I ended up being just a half hour early. I went up to the terminal to sign in and it wouldn't print me a ticket. I ended up talking to one of the attendants who informed me that they couldn't let me through if I was a half hour early.

After about 20 minutes of back and forth with her on things like "Soo....if it's a 1:00pm flight and I have to be a half hour early, then why don't you call it a 12:30pm flight?"

So, I call up Travelocity and we arranged with Delta for a same-day standby. It cost me $50, but c'est la vie. That was at 11:55pm, IIRC -- very late at night. I had to be there three hours ahead of time for them to confirm the standby, so that's what I did. I ended up at the lobby waiting for the flight when they announced that they cancelled it.

One problem with San Francisco: There are two ways in and out of San Francisco. You can drive in and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous traffic. There's also BART (subway) which stops running at midnight. I chose the latter. Since they announced the cancellation very close to midnight, I couldn't make it back to BART.

...so I had to sleep in the SF airport and arrange for a refund & purchase of a new ticket from Delta...

Luckily, it wasn't much more, so I set about finding an electrical outlet, plugging in, and entertaining myself. Mostly this involved playing ATC which somehow went along very well with my slow progression towards greater and greater fatigue.

Morning came quicker than I expected. The flight out wasn't terribly memorable, save being directed by two separate people to call them before I got on the plane and landed. I spent a significant amount of it playing various games, writing code, and reading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. 8)

At long last, I made it to Memphis. And the interesting bits.

Brief, but definite post

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:43:07 GMT

Halloween plans were sudden, brutish, and awesome.

They involved hastily creating costumes, going to SF to #9's place, re-acquainting myself with people I met last year at the same event, and taking to the streets.

Someone decided we should do a reverse trick-and-treat -- that is, we go up to people and give them candy.

Armed with a basket and the knowledge that someone was documenting all this, I had my A game on display. I gave candy to anything and everything that moved. I gave candy to cars stopped at street lights. I parlayed us entrance into a club ahead of a line of people.

(Someone beat me to giving candy to a bus driver, sadly. Such is life.)

At length, the film ran out and I was under instructions to not be funny or entertaining. Not long after that, all the candy ran out.

We'd planned on going back out again, but never quite got around to it. Instead, we went back, relaxed, and flirted.

Speaking of which, there was an inordinate number of people walking around San Francisco who were taken.

One amusing note: K~ came dressed as a beer wench. It was some trivial amount of capital at the Halloween store (which, by the way, is my new definition of rape & pillage capitalism. Jesus, that place was screwed up by the masses of raging consumerism).

The best part? The costume's name was the same as #11's name, so apparently, she came as #11.

I was called upon to toss out an accent for my costume and managed at various times: a passable imitation of Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, an Irish accent, and a Slough accent. Being drunk *definitely* helped me with those.

Briefly chattered with an actress. Not a very serious one, judging by our conversation, but it was interesting to be urged back on a stage. Perhaps I should. I don't think I'm quite that egotistical or free with my time right now.

Besides -- I have a secret project and the care and feeding of an upgrade to take care of.

Anyway, lots of fun was had, excepting the trio who I almost killed because they claimed virtues of San Francisco. Additionally, I could have done without the 30 minutes of trying to park, giving up, parking in a marginal space with a flaking red curb, and deciding that the parking fine would be worth the next 30 minutes I'd spend trying to find a space.

I did have a realization which I'll try to post later about San Francisco.