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Debate? Deflate.
Posted 10:20 PM, Sep 30, 2004 |
This is the only blog in the blogosphere to not discuss the presidential debate this evening.
I am very tired. I’ve been moving and unpacking and packing and moving and buying and driving and generally working for near a week now, with little downtime, except Sunday afternoon. This weekend will be much needed.
Things around the apartment are starting to come together. Most of the plants are back in their happy places, near the abundant windows here. Some of the furniture is assembled, and the rest is, well, at least in the apartment. I consider this a major victory.
There are still purchases to be made, but I’ve decided if I’m going to move, I’m going to do it right, for heaven’s sake, and get new stuff that is mine, rather than hand-me-down stuff that came from an old golfing country club. Really.
My bedroom smells pine-y.
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This Morning
Posted 11:33 AM, Sep 29, 2004 |
This morning I woke up without an alarm. I managed to set my alarm clock 12 hours off.
This morning I wiped the extra shaving cream off my face with a t-shirt because the towels are in hiding.
This morning I realized I forgot to park the car in the underground, heated garage. It’s chilly outside. I trust that is a mistake I will not make again.
This morning I put a Band-aid on my hand because I got a blister from screwing together furniture.
This morning I did not want to get up at all.
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Moving Day
Posted 11:34 PM, Sep 27, 2004 |
Moving day is tomorrow, so there may not be a post. Everything is still getting packed and cleaned, and I’m a tad bit short on boxes - about 2 or 3. And I have a whole lot of plants to take with me. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to manage all of those - a couple early trips with a combination of boxes and plants might give me the boxes I need, and save the plants. I hate to spend the gas, since it’s pushing $2 a gallon, but oh well. You only move once a year, right?
The only things left apart from some kitchen implements are the miscellaneous odds and ends that never really had a place to begin with.
Also, I technically have until the 30th to get out of here, so I have a couple extra days, although my Wednesday and Thursday evenings are full. I might have to take some time off from work to polish off the last little bit.
I’ll see you all on the flip side.
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Clubhouse
Posted 8:30 PM, Sep 26, 2004 |
I watched the series premiere of CBS’s Clubhouse today. Obviously, what drew me to it was the fact that it’s about baseball - I can’t remember a TV series about baseball. There’s probably been one, but I’m not sure. Clubhouse has also been getting good reviews from critics who previewed a few episodes.
After one episode, I found the plotting to be mostly preposterous, putting the main character (a batboy for the New York Empires (read: Yankees) in situations that were utterly ridiculous, from getting a batboy job without his mother knowing to taking the blame for steroids that belonged to an Empire player to being promised a Ferrari. Oh, yeah, and having a random girl come up to him at the ballpark and then going out on a date with her the next day after she, unasked, gave the batboy her number.
Yeah, pretty ridiculous.
But I really liked it.
The acting was good, with Mare Winningham as the mother and Christopher Lloyd as the equipment manager and Dean Cain playing the role of Derek Jeter, I guess. And the kid is good, too. Yeah.
Yeah, it was good. Considering I currently watch all of zero primetime shows, I think I can make time for one that will probably get cancelled after 5 episodes.
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Xiu Xiu
Posted 2:11 PM, Sep 25, 2004 |
Xiu Xiu was in town yesterday, playing down at the Triple Rock. I bet it was a good show, but I wouldn’t know.
The only thing I can speak to is the last two songs, one of which was I Love the Valley, and was excellent. Very straightforward, close to the album cut, but excellent. The other was a song I didn’t know, a little noisier and more experimental, but still excellent. The one thing I could tell from these two songs is that Jamie Stewart is passionate about his music, and that whatever he specifically wrote these songs about is close to him. He seemed able to channel up the same emotion he was describing, while singing. It’s like telling someone a story about how you were really angry, but then actually getting really angry all over again. Yeah, it’s like that.
I didn’t see the rest of the show because I timed it all wrong. The doors opened at 6pm, so I figured the first band would start around 7, then the next around 8, and Xiu Xiu around 9pm. I showed up at 8:45 or so, and Xiu Xiu was just finishing up his set.
So where did I go wrong? Well, I went wrong because I forgot to consider that the show was an “all ages” show. That means the Triple Rock can’t sell alcohol, which means there’s no point in making everyone stand around for an hour between the door time (6pm) and the first band taking the stage (7pm), since the Rock isn’t making money during that hour, since they can’t sell alochol.
So I presume the opening band started around 6:15, which means Xiu Xiu started around 8 or 8:15, which means I missed the vast majority of it.
I’m blaming this on the children.
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That’s What I Meant
Posted 7:45 PM, Sep 24, 2004 |
Of course, when I said, “Every Friday from here on out,” I meant, “Every Sunday from here on out.”
See, Sunday works better for me. I will have had the whole weekend, which means I can do it at 11:59 on Sunday night, rather than 11:59 on Friday night, when I’m usually not home.
It also means I can mail the letter Monday, which, in all reality, is probably when I’d end up mailing it anyway, since I mail everything from work.
So look for the first letter on Sunday.
And if you think changing my mind like this is dishonorable or at least annoying, consider this: I could have just changed the original post and left you thinking you were imagining things.
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An Open Letter to Zach Braff
Posted 11:59 PM, Sep 23, 2004 |
Dear Zach Braff,
I saw your movie, Garden State, a few weeks ago. At first, I thought it was really good. You know, like, really good. I’m sure you can sense the urgency in my italics.
But then I left the theater, and the movie immediately began to be, well, not as good. And, the bad news is, it’s still going downhill.
I guess one good thing is that your movie is sticking in my head, but I think probably for all the wrong reasons.
See, you were pretty good. I liked all the shots of you staring straight at the camera, devoid of emotion. Really, those were good, and I didn’t think you overused them.
But you know who was even better than you in your movie? Natalie Portman. I mean… YOWZAH! Seriously, dude, I hope you tapped that while you two were on set.
I know I would’ve.
Best,
Hal.
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Scent of a Wookie
Posted 9:08 PM, Sep 22, 2004 |
I finished watching the new DVD release of Star Wars and have the following to say, some of which may apply to the “Special Edition” released a few years back, in addition to this “Even-More-Special Edition.”
1) George Lucas is blind. How can he not see that the vast majority of this CG crap he’s putting in looks awful. Mos Eisley has become the same cheesy, digitized crap that plagued the two most recent films. The buildings look fake, the CG (read: non-puppet) creatures are awful, and the animated droids are ridiculous. In this day and age, George, you should still be using puppets and costumes. CG stuff is awful if you want it to look alive (with the exception of Lord of the Rings’ Gollum.)
2) The scene with Jabba the Hutt is terrible. Granted, it’s less terrible than it was in the Special Edition, but it’s still awful. Jabba still looks crappy; just less crappy. Han Solo still stands uncomfortably close to Jabba. I mean uncomfortable for me to watch. There’s one point, near the end of their conversation, when it looks like Han Solo might be dry humping Jabba. That’s all I’m saying about that.
3) Positive #1: the film looks terrific. It’s crisp, clean, and looks like it was made yesterday. I remember when I first started watching Star Wars, it was an old VHS copy that looked dusty. The tracking was poor, the scenes on Tatooine were like a literal sandstorm, and even space looked cloudy. This is a gorgeous print, with gorgeous sound.
4) Positive #2: it’s still a great film. It’s a terrific Saturday serial, a space opera. It isn’t great writing, plotting, or anything else. It’s just sheer entertainment. Outstanding.
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Match Game ‘79
Posted 2:24 PM, Sep 22, 2004 |
While watching Match Game ‘79 on the Game Show Network today, they showed one of the contestant’s parents in the audience. Clearly, and in two separate shots, an elderly woman seated behind the contestant’s mother was sleeping.
Totally asleep. Head lolled over on her shoulder, fast asleep amidst the laughter, excitement, and large cash prizes that is Match Game ‘79.
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Quandary
Posted 8:26 PM, Sep 21, 2004 |
Some days, I have so little to say here that I stare at the computer for 20 minutes. Not the monitor - the computer. I wait for that little 3.5-inch floppy drive to inspire me.
And then there are days, like today, where I have sixteen things to say. I could wrap them all up in one giant post, or I could write sixteen different posts, except some of them would be transferred immediately to the archives, and you would never read them.
To resolve this quandary, I’ve decided to just write a post about it, called Quandary, that does nothing but make my quandary, by describing it, that much more of a quandary.
Tangentially related, at least, quandary is a funny word, especially when you think it about ten times in two minutes.
Quandary.
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Turning State’s Evidence
Posted 8:22 AM, Sep 21, 2004 |
So I was sitting in front of my computer this morning, reading the news and getting ready for work, when this person outside my apartment starts honking their horn. They’re just laying on it for, like, 30 seconds at 7 am. I figure they’re just here to pick someone up for work or something, and are too lazy to get out of the car.
After a brief pause, they start honking again. I turn to look out the window, and across the lot, this woman stops honking and gets out of her black Chevy Tahoe. She walks around the car, so she’s between a greenish Thunderbird and her Tahoe.
Then she starts to beat the hell out of the Thunderbird.
She’s attacking the windshield with vigor, although I couldn’t tell with what. Then she attacks the hood, and then starts to key the car.
Fortunately for me, and the owner of the Thunderbird, my digital camera was sitting on my desk. I snapped a couple photos of the truck and the woman standing next to the car.
The photos aren’t very good, so I’m not going to bother posting them here.
I figured I’d just go out before I went to work and leave the Thunderbird owner a note, but before long the police were there anyway. I threw on some shoes, grabbed the camera, and went outside.
That Thunderbird was messed up. Big swirls of key-marks, windshield cracks, and craters on the hood. The owner of the car seemed to have an idea of who did it, which matched the person I saw.
I burned the photos to a CD and gave them to the officer, and then went on my merry way.
It wasn’t even 7:30 yet.
I hope they find the woman and beat her silly.
The situation also serves to remind me how glad I am to be moving out of Vandalbrook and to someplace normal.
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To Whom It May Concern
Posted 9:39 PM, Sep 20, 2004 |
Every Friday from here on out, I’ll write a customer service letter to some company. Maybe it’ll be praising them for, say, making the best sliced pineapple this side of Hawaii, or maybe it’ll be lambasting them for putting too much salt on my sandwich. In any event, I’ll write them and let them know how I’m doing.
There are three rules:
1) I will never request free merchandise, coupons, or a refund. Each company is free to give as they choose.
2) I will always send an actual, physical, hard copy of the letter. Emailing a company is not allowed.
3) I won’t swear at them (most of the time).
As I post each entry, you’ll also be able to see the status of the letter next to the title, in the form of a graphic reading “open” or “closed.” This will let you know whether a response is still pending - note that some entries may remain open indefinitely. In situations like that, we will label the unresponsive company “heartless bastards,” spit on the nearby carpet, and move on.
If a response is received, I’ll simply add it to the original entry and re-post it, so you’ll be able to read the original letter and the response in an orderly fashion.
The most recent entry in To Whom It May Concern can be accessed through the sidebar. New entries will also post here, to the main site. Functionality will be added to view old entries in this feature, either by month or by status in the coming week.
The first entry (not including this announcement) will be posted to the site on Friday, and mailed either Friday or Saturday.
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The Landing Couch, Day 3
Posted 8:55 AM, Sep 20, 2004 |
In what may be the least (and most!) interesting social experiment to take place here at Year of Glad, the Landing Couch has disappeared, as of this morning, Day 3.
I ran a visual check (read: looked at) the garbage areas around the apartment complex. Funny thing, the garbage areas pretty much constitute the entire grounds of the apartment complex. The Landing Couch was nowhere to be found, although it could be buried under junk mail and dirty diapers in the parking lot - it’s tough to tell.
My presumption is that someone moved it to their apartment. The odds of me figuring out who took it are about 1,000,000 to 1, since I don’t really care.
What a great social experiment. From this, we’ve learned that people will take free furniture, but only after a couple days.
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The Landing Couch, Day 2
Posted 8:06 PM, Sep 19, 2004 |
Today is the second day my old couch has lived on the landing of my apartment building. A couple friends and I were going to move it outside when we realized it would work perfectly on the landing above the stairs.
Today, Sunday, is Day 2. There is evidence that the couch has been sat on - one of the cushions is in a markedly different place.
I figure one of three things will happen:
1) Someone in the complex will take the couch for themselves, moving it into their apartment;
2) Someone in the complex will move the couch to the trash outside;
3) Someone in the complex will figure out that it’s my couch (there was one guy who saw us moving it down the hall, and maintenance workers have been in my apartment in the last week) and give me some sort of notice, even though I’m leaving in about 10 days.
I’ll post future updates if anything happens to the couch; for instance, someone adding an end table, plant, or lamp.
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The Fiery Furnaces
Posted 1:26 AM, Sep 19, 2004 |
I went to see The Fiery Furnaces at the 400 Bar. I’ve been a fan of Blueberry Boat since it came out, despite friends telling me that the lyrics don’t make any sense and aren’t really very good. Yeah, maybe. But anyway:
The show pretty much rocked. The openers (French Kicks and White Magic, no links necessary) were mediocre at best, although I didn’t know any of their stuff beforehand. But then The Fiery Furnaces pretty much rocked, even though their piano/keyboard broke halfway through the show.
They came out and busted into some song which later evolved into the title track from Blueberry Boat. That then evolved into some other tracks from Boat as well as some tracks I didn’t know from Gallowsbird’s Bark, which I now own.
Their whole set was about 45 minutes long, but it kicked ass because they didn’t have any breaks between songs - they played for 45 minutes. They transitioned between every song - some of the transitions were a little easy, but most were pretty smooth. They would play part of a song, like Blueberry Boat, and then move to another song without finishing the first, but then they’d later come back to it and finish it up, more or less.
They played a brief encore, but, of course, their piano was broken, and I think Eleanor’s throat wasn’t in the best shape, which isn’t too surprising, considering they have a pretty demanding tour schedule and she just got done singing for 45 minutes, more or less.
Gallowsbird’s Bark is a little more straightforward than Blueberry Boat, and a little more raucous. The lyrics are pretty much the same, so my friends won’t really like it, but they’re sort of dumb anyway.
Just kidding, guys.
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Emergence in Gaming
Posted 11:41 AM, Sep 18, 2004 |
I’ve been reading Steven Johnson’s Emergence and playing games in the last 24 hours. Johnson himself makes some connections between the ideas of bottom-up programming, ant colony behavior, and games like SimCity. I’m thinking in terms of board and card games, rather than computer games.
Non-computer games can function in the same way as SimCity, although it inherently has to require a lot less computation. Games (by which I mean non-computer ones) that require a lot of computation turn out to be not much fun to play; in fact, they generally seem more like work.
Games that have a huge, complex ruleset can be entertaining, but often keeping all these rules in mind and making sure you’re not overlooking a loophole is, essentially, doing a lot of mental computation.
Then you’ve got games like Puerto Rico and Power Grid that end up being insanely complicated, but with each rule being very straightforward, having few exceptions, and being, essentially, simple.
There is a rather apparent analogy here between:
1) Individual, simple ants in a colony and the complex behavior an ant colony is capable of exhibiting and:
2) Individual, simple rules in a game ruleset and the complex behavior (and interactions) the game is capable of exhibiting.
Simple rules can interact in wildly different ways and will naturally give rise to complex, subtle strategies, even though none of the rules are complex or, necessarily, subtle.
If we think of a game as an emergent system (emerging from a ruleset), we can consider what Johnson writes:
Emergent systems can grow unwieldy when their component parts become excessively complicated. Better to build a densely interconnected system with simple elements, and let the more sophisticated behavior trickle up. (p.78) Of course, the trick with gaming is finding a bunch of simple rules that have interesting interactions. I suppose the analogy here is putting an ant in an empty room with an anteater, neither of which are very intelligent. Some interesting interactions might occur, but the most obvious is that the anteater eats the ant. End program, end interactions. Here, I’d say one rule (that the anteater will eat the ant) outweighs the other rule (that the ant will try to get away).
Now, put a large system of ant tunnels in the room, along with the anteater, and the interactions become more interesting. Add the capability for the anteater to make it rain inside the room, and another level of interest is introduced. And so on.
Lastly, of course, none of these things can be too easy - if the anteater can simply make it rain without any sort of cost, he would flush the ants out easily. (Maybe the anteater is scared of the rain… Scared enough? Who knows.) All the rules have to function together, using checks and balances.
All this talk is evidence that Johnson’s ideas in Emergence really are global in nature, the kind of thing that makes a (so far) fascinating little read.
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Oprah Redux
Posted 11:20 AM, Sep 17, 2004 |
In a previous entry, I talked about Oprah and how she infuriates me, and I’m not quite sure why. I’ve done some more thinking.
1) She gives away a lot of cool things, like cars, to her entire audience. The thing is, she didn’t pay for the cars. They were given away as a GM promotion (read: donated). So, while GM gets some free publicity, Oprah gets to look like a saint. ‘How nice, Oprah bought me a car.’ Not exactly.
2) Will someone please tell me what her talent is? I don’t find her interviews interesting - they aren’t insightful, entertaining, funny… the only thing they are is boring. She, personally, isn’t funny, or charming. The one thing she is: rich. Which brings me to:
3) What is Oprah doing with all her money? She strikes me as a tremendous hypocrite:
Oprah: ‘Look at all these poor children in Russia, with no books, living in orphanages - or should I say Oprahnages? I’ll give them $50,000 for them to buy books.’
Me: ‘But Oprah, that isn’t even your money. It was raised by people visiting your website and stuff, right?’
Oprah: ‘…’
And so on. She’s got millions and makes a big production of giving away other people’s donations.
Oprah, honey, it’s time to step up to the plate. Give away 50% of your own fortune. You can still live on the interest from the rest, trust me. You can. Just try. For me. For the children.
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Timo?
Posted 12:08 PM, Sep 16, 2004 |
Went to a Twins game last night with remarkably good seats - Row 4, just to the right of home plate. I think one of the player’s sweat on me. The interesting about sitting in a section filled with season-ticket holders is that a lot of the fans know one another. Also, a lot of them are pretty well-versed in baseball knowledge, and a lot of them (well, at least one) was a pretty good heckler. To wit:
To the White Sox’s Timo Perez: “What kind of mother would name their kid Timo?”
To a White Sox player, currently batting about .242: “How does it feel to hit your weight?”
Upon realizing the player in question actually weighed only 192 lbs.: “Okay, your wife’s weight, then?”
And so on. It was vastly entertaining.
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Why Do I Hate Her So?
Posted 5:11 PM, Sep 15, 2004 |
Oprah’s at it again, bastardizing another classic book. This time, it’s Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. Now that she’s finished slapping her logo on Anna Karenina, it’s time to deface something else.
I honestly don’t know why she infuriates me so much, but she does. She gave away automobiles to her entire audience on Monday, and today she gave $50,000 (not of her own money, but from her ‘Angel Network,’) to a Russian charity that provides books for children in Russian orphanages.
And she’s getting a bunch of bored housewives to read classic literature.
And still I hate her so.
She’s so damn happy. And she’s a good person. She’s generous, both in superficial things (cars) and charity work. She cares about people.
And still I hate her so.
When Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections came out, I tried to buy a non-Oprah version of the book online, and couldn’t. I eventually buckled and bought the Oprah-stamped copy, and I’ve never been the same.
It’s like that little Oprah seal glows in the nighttime, while I’m sleeping, and infects me with a deep-seated infuriation with Oprah.
The funny thing is, I didn’t even like The Corrections all that much. I can’t think of any other book that has caused me to so strongly dislike another person.
Oprah, I salute and detest you.
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Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Browser
Posted 9:12 PM, Sep 14, 2004 |
I downloaded and am using the new Firefox web browser. Man, it’s already kicking IE’s pasty white ass. Part of it is visual - the default style is nothing to write home about, but still has more character than IE, which has all the character of a piece of cardboard and a Bic pen. Pretty quickly, though, I found some snazzy themes, as well as some jazzy extensions, like a pop-up blocker that’s pretty slick.
Also, it’s got tabbed windows, so when you open multiple browser windows, you can keep the tabs all on screen and switch between them easily. You can also see when a tab you’ve opened is loading and when it’s done (and ready for you to view).
There seem to be a lot of nice little touches with Firefox, too. For example, it imports everything from IE - bookmarks, auto-completed forms, whatever. Also, when you open a new browser tab, it automatically opens it in the background, so you can keep reading what you’re reading, and get around to the other one after it finishes loading.
It does have a built-in search toolbar, which isn’t as obnoxious as the Google toolbar you can download. In addition to being able to search Google without actually going to Google, you can search eBay, Yahoo, Dictionary.com, and Amazon. You can also add search engines, which already number in the hundreds, from UPS tracking to IMDb to tons more. Maybe even porn, if this truly is the browser designed for me.
The other, last (for now), swell thing is that the browser is in a Preview Release, which means it’ll only get better, and which also means that people are developing a bunch of stuff, like themes, engines, and extensions.
This is one f’in sweet-ass browser.
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Jennings, JK Rowling, and Jay-Z
Posted 5:27 PM, Sep 14, 2004 |
Pretty soon, I swear to all that is sacred and holy, I’ll write something interesting of my own here, but for now, I’m content to keep sending you on an Internet scavenger hunt.
Kottke has penned a nice, funny little piece about current Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings for you and I to enjoy.
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Go East(ern Europe)
Posted 9:48 AM, Sep 14, 2004 |
And here’s more things that you should read:
This site (courtesy of The Morning News) is about Romania. Each little piece has a photograph attached. The photograph is slowly being destroyed, one pixel at a time, with each visitor. Pretty soon, I suppose, the pictures will be gone entirely, or at least unrecognizable.
As someone who doesn’t have a country that’s in shambles, as I imagine most of Eastern Europe to be, this seems like the saddest project imaginable: here is my country. Watch it fall apart.
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Read Something Else
Posted 8:53 PM, Sep 13, 2004 |
And so but then.
It seems foolish to say to you, “Now that you are here, at this brand new website, go read something else.” But that’s what I’m telling you.
What an opportune moment, to catch WhyGodWhy in the throes of a relaunch. He’s telling a story, and you don’t even have to read the archives.
So here I am, saying, “Go west, young man,” or whatever direction it is to someplace more interesting than here.
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