Ordinary Language

2005-10-26T16:56:00.000-04:00

Big Fat Dorks

An article about LARPing, from a Detroit alt-weekly.

2005-10-20T19:26:00.000-04:00

Analytic Philosophy All Up In Da Hizzy!

The politics-type people are getting abuzz over the potential indictments from the Plamegate leak case, and the word today is that certain people who might or might not be named Karl Rove have tried to squiggle out of it by saying that they didn't refer to Valerie Plame specifically, but rather that they referred to "Joe Wilson's wife." This has, naturally, led into conversations about 19th-century German logician/mathematician Gottlobb Frege who was the father of analytic philosophy and the person who came up with the sense/meaning distinction in language. The example which keeps being given is his most famous, "The morning star is the evening star." Both the morning star and the evening star are Venus, by two different names. The sense/meaning distinction is that meaning is a kind of harder concept - Venus, in this case, refers to a specific object. Sense is the reference that we get in our heads when we think of something. In this case, we might think of the sense of "the morning star" being the visual impression of Venus, while the meaning is Venus itself.

The problem here is that later analytic philosophers who had worked with the sense/meaning distinction realized that it was basically flawed. One of them (and I always forget the name but I think it might have been Kripke) eventually demolished the distinction by claiming that all language was sense, and there is not "meaning." To take the morning and the evening star once again, the statement "The morning star is the evening star" is true, in the sense of the physcial body of the planet Venus being referred to by both terms. However, the terms can be used to refer to different things which makes the statement incorrect. If I say to you "Meet me next Monday when the evening star rises" I'm not just being cliche, but I'm giving you a specific astronomical time to meet - when the planet Venus is visible on Monday evening. If you show up Monday morning, and not in the evening, and then we try to figure out how we missed one another, and you say "but the morning star is the evening star!" you will be wrong. And I will never date you again.

What does this mean to Karl Rove? Probably nothing. I doubt the trial is going to hinge on linguistic philosophy. But he does have an out.

2005-10-19T12:16:00.000-04:00

No, Really - Republicans Are Racist

The Republican-controlled state legislature of Georgia is trying to institute a Jim Crow-era poll tax of $20 to register to vote if the voter doesn't have a driver's license. Naturally, this falls most heavily on poor blacks. Link here.

The money shot:

"We'll appeal it until the Supreme Court makes a decision. Hopefully by then the president will have a good conservative court up there that understands the will of the people," said Republican state Sen. Don Balfour.

The law did not go into effect until August, when it was approved by the U.S. Justice Department. Under the Voting Rights Act, Georgia and other states with a history of suppressing minority voting must get the Justice Department's permission to change their voting laws.

Pigfuckers.

2005-10-18T19:33:00.000-04:00

Perks!

I just possibly annoyed the editorial director of Time Magazine, working late in the office. Score!

2005-10-17T16:56:00.000-04:00

When In Samaria

I found myself wandering around San Francisco very early in the morning on Saturday night, and came across an abandoned cell phone. I checked the recent calls on it, and noticed one from an hour before - and if you're calling a phone at 3 in the morning, you might be interested if you get called from it at 4. That logic, perhaps surprisingly, succeeds, and I manage to meet up with the cell phone owner's friend and make the dropoff. The guy says he has nothing to offer me as a reward, which I kind of wave off, and he hands me his business card.

I've got the card, somewhere, and I'm pondering e-mailing the guy. But I don't really care for a reward. On the other hand - he handed me the card for a reason, right? Do I e-mail and say "hey, I'm the guy who brought the phone back, give me some mo-nay." Nah. Though it says he's a resident DJ. Maybe he can help me break into the DJ scene. I'd totally rule.

2005-10-11T19:18:00.000-04:00

As Funny As It Is True

It does no good to ask the weakling's pointless question, "Is America a fascist state?" We must ask instead, in a major rather than a minor key, "Can we make America the best damned fascist state the world has ever seen," an authoritarian paradise deserving the admiration of the international capital markets, worthy of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind"? I wish to be the first to say we can. We're Americans; we have the money and the know?how to succeed where Hitler failed, and history has favored us with advantages not given to the early pioneers.

Link here

2005-10-06T17:23:00.000-04:00

Simple. To the Point. I like it.

Protesting - it doesn't work, but it sure is fun!

2005-10-05T18:09:00.000-04:00

Too Cool For School

Like most people I know, I've kind of ignored or turned my nose up at the wristband craze. It's tacky in a completely unironic way. What fun is that?

But having actually handled one now, I have to demand an answer - why did nobody tell me that these things are fun to play with? WHY? They might be the best fidgit toy I've had since my magnets.

Live strong, loyal readers.

2005-10-05T17:10:00.000-04:00

Life as Sex

We are kind of trained by television to see progression through life as a series of episodes, culminating in a bang of a season-ender. Most of life is foreplay, leading up to the orgasm of first car, college graduation, or the literal orgasm leading to children. I try to not view things in this manner, but it's hard to avoid hoping that you have a very special episode in life where all your friends show up and tell you how wonderful you are.

Recent events in my life have made this kind of sexual frustration even more prevalent. For example, last term of college at college was Spring 2004 - but graduation took another year to come. Likewise, the process of getting my first permanent job, and moving out of my parents' house, has been another too-long bit of foreplay, leading to a non-release. First, the housing situation went from being able to move into a really cool place and having a housewarming party and finally being free....to a two-week sublet and who knows what? Likewise, the job situation is as much in the air, with one job started, and another one wanting to interview me on Friday. (I did tell my boss about the potential of me leaving, and he took it as well as I could have hoped.) So maybe in a few weeks I'll actually get that climax of moving EVERYthing out, getting my own place long-term, and having a job I'm sure I can stay at. As it is, though..."Now I know how my girlfriend feels."

2005-10-04T14:49:00.000-04:00

Oh, You Wacky Celebrities

Pop quiz - which is dumber, David Beckham and Posh Spice naming their first child Brooklyn, after the place of conception (do they have sex that rarely that they can pinpoint the exact place?) or Nicolas Cage, who is naming his son Kal-el, after, um, Superman?

I'm just going to pencil into my schedule, 18 years from now - "do documentary on Kal-El Cage. Will be hilarious."

2005-09-29T18:21:00.000-04:00

Remixes

I highly recommend that all of you with high-speed internet connections check out this remixed trailer of The Shining. Even if, like me, your primary association with the movie is the parodies from The Simpsons, it's still worth watching.

Be prepared for a wait of a few minutes to download it, though. Patience.

2005-09-26T18:42:00.000-04:00

Asshole Nerd Battle - Who Will Win?

Penny Arcade apparently took on Harlan Ellison in a dorktastic battle royale of the wits. Shockingly, "Gabe" from Penny Arcade, not the wordsmith of the duo, seems to have been the victor. Very amusing link here.

2005-09-24T19:49:00.000-04:00

And the Winner Is....

Last we heard, my choices were between being an intellectual dork or a technodork. Well, the answer has come in, and I'm the type of dork that nobody likes.

That's right, I tried to get into both places, and both times, they ended up choosing someone else. There was bad timing involved, it wasn't just that they didn't like me. I only really ever talked to one of the three grad school people, so when they apparently hit it off with someone else, well, I didn't really have a chance. And the technodorks liked me, but they gave priority to the person they'd talked to first, so...I didn't really have a chance.

Doesn't make it any less annoying, though.

2005-09-23T02:55:00.000-04:00

Song of the Week

My housing search continues to be frustrating and drive me towards wanting to get the hell out of here more and more each day. So with that in mind, this week's song is Ghost World by Aimee Man. From the sountrack of the movie inspired by the comic...or something. I don't really know, but I do know that it is a good song with a chorus that goes.

yeah I'm bailing this town orrrrrrr
tearing it down orrrrrr
probably more like
hanging around

So go out and "obtain" it.

2005-09-21T17:00:00.000-04:00

Where Do They Come From?

SiteMeter, in addition to including search results that take people to this blog (I'm the #1 result for "why are moms mean when their daughters start dating?" inexplicably), has now started including the location of people who visit. Scanning through, I see regular hits from:

Vienna, Austria
Gliwice, Poland
Okinawa, Japan (I can guess who that one is)

I'm international!

By far the most interesting hit came from Iran, but unfortunately, it seemed to be an aberration.

2005-09-19T01:45:00.000-04:00

Who Am I? Who Do I Want To Be?

I went into the East Bay for the last time today to look at rooms, and came home with a dilemma of the sort that I most hate - having to make a legitimate choice. I believe choices should be easy. The best choices are the ones that don't even really exist - you have to pick the obvious one. And this one was obvious, until she said it.

"I used to be a tester for Sega."

And then I realized, these weren't just technodorks who happened to play some games. They were Gamer Dorks. That was a monkey wrench.

The deal at first was fairly simple. There's one house which promised everything I ever wanted. Nerdy grad students, a room which could be private, great setting. The only real problem was the location, it's a little farther than I wanted (a long walk to my workplace).

But since I was in town, I may as well check out the other offers people have given me, right? Particularly the ones who sent the really long detailed e-mails. Almost obligated to see those...right? So I did. Instead of the beautiful house near the college campus lined with trees, this is the trendy apartment, much closer to the city. And instead of the fairly open spaces of the house, tastefully decorated, it's cluttered with cool furniture, tvs, and computers. Like 4 computers in the 3 rooms I saw. I sat down to talk with the tenants. This place was worth checking out, its location was far superior, though I would have to wait longer to move in. We spoke briefly of video games, and I mentioned my love for the greatest ever monkey maraca rhythm dancing flying skull Ricky Martin game of all time, Samba de Amigo, and my disappointment that I'd never played it with the maraca controller. And then she said it.

"Oh, I have one of those. I used to test for Sega."

How much are the maracas worth in rent? Are they worth the extra ~$40? Are they worth waiting an extra 10 days to move in?

And most importantly, who are my people? Are my people the gamer dorks or the intellectual dorks? I want to be an intellectual gamer, no help there. Am I better off in the college town sort of environment, hanging out with a bunch of grad students, sipping wine and discussing African politics on their cute little porch? Or should I stay up into wee hours of the night playing Halo?

I didn't have to worry about this at Antioch. I could do both, and usually chose Halo. But do I want to stick with the video games...?

2005-09-15T15:33:00.000-04:00

Coming Soon: Content!

Believe it or not, kids, I've got a job. I will be moving to the East Bay Area next week and starting to work. Eventually, this will mean blog posts, but as I still don't have my own computer, they might be few and far between for the first few weeks. But eventually I will be in a "city" where I go "outside" and hang out with "people."

2005-09-09T05:03:00.000-04:00

Mixing It Up

The rise of mp3 play, along with the consistent popularity of disposible pop radio, has led to a focus on the song as the basic unit of music, instead of the album. Which in turn, has given rise to the playlist as the form of organization, and playlist translates easily into mix CD. That in mind, I'm going to post my themed mix CDs here, for two reason: 1) Because I can, and b) Because the five of you who still read my blog also like my music tastes (mostly).

That in mind, I present to you the Super Happy Fun shalalala Police Brutality Pop Song Mix badada Yay! Every song chosen had the specific criteria of requiring a chorus or strong section of the song to consist of incoherent monosyllabic bits of catchiness, you know, "shalalala" or "beep beep mmm beep beep yeah!" Some of the songs are brilliant. Some are annoying. Some are both. All will get in your head.

Bad Cartridge (E-Pro Remix) – Beck
Land of a Thousand Dances – Wilson Pickett
Get By – Talib Kweli
Around the World – ATC
Katamari Main Theme – Katamari Damacy
Penelope – Of Montreal
David – Nelly McKay
Aviva – Anna Oxygen
Beat on the Brat – The Ramones
Drive My Car – The Beatles
He Did It – The Detroit Cobras
Funkin’ Around – Outkast
Little Babies – Sleater-Kinney
The Legionnaire’s Lament – The Decembrists
I Put A Spell On You – Nina Simone
Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreakers) – The Rolling Stones
My Downtown Friends – The Rosebuds
9th St. – The Soviettes
Mass Romantic – The New Pornographers
Samba de Janeiro – Bellini
Fantastic Cat – Takako Minekawa

2005-09-04T03:57:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Shithead

In case you have to defend the point of how the Bush administration completely fucked up to a conservative idealogue, try this simple talking point:

The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA should have emergency evacuation plans for every American city.

These plans should be in place for potential terrorist attacks with no warning, such as a dirty bomb. Hurricane Katrina, by the way, had several days of warning beforehand. You could call it a fire drill for a terrorist attack, but instead of lining up by the foul pole, the students blamed the school district for ruining their education and set the place on fire on their own. Or some kind of metaphor.

Also, Billmon takes a look at very recent history and discovers that the Bush administration does actually have a plan for dealing with hurricanes, but it requires a specific set of conditions. In honor of Kanye West: Two words/swing state/election year/fucked up.

2005-09-03T05:35:00.000-04:00

An Open Letter To The Mainstream American Media

Hey, folks. Welcome in. See, 5 years later, you all have finally realized what many of us have known since at least 9/11: George Bush and his administration are completely incompetent. He's really nothing more than a puppet sent onstage to mouth the words "We're making progress!" and "America is strong and will be stronger!" The problem is, unlike many political puppets, his handlers actually believe what they have him say.

So you're finally starting to ask hard questions and call out G-Dub's bullshit. Good for you! It's a pity you've given him a free pass since 9/11, another massive disaster that he failed to do anything relevant about except make optimistic speeches. Had you actually been doing your job, you might have prevented say, a completely idiotic, insane, and futile war in Iraq, as well as his re-election as President Stupid. Not that I'm bitter or anything, but me and people like me have known that he was above and beyond incompetent, while you have marginalized us as "shrill," "partisan", or completely irrelevant.

But hey, bygones be bygones, you know? Pity it took yet another national disaster for you to figure this out.

2005-08-19T17:06:00.000-04:00

There Was a Kids in the Hall Sketch About This

I just made a phone call inquiring about a job with no pants on.

2005-08-14T02:49:00.000-04:00

Further Adventures In Arguing

I am somewhat astounded by the continuing saga of Cindy Sheehan, the rightously angry soldier's mother camped outside G-Dub's ranch. As the open letter I read from Ralph Nader said, "May you succeed where all others have failed." And she might. Because the American media loves moms, and they love timing things. How many days has it been? How long since a shower? Etc etc.

But even more astounding are the attacks on her from conservative idealogues. Since they can't counter the basic reason for her stunt - that we invaded Iraq and remain there for no real, coherent reasons - they have to try to come up with some way to get at her. So I've heard her called a 'wacko' and a 'traitor.' Other say that she is mad with grief, or even better, that she's been driven mad by the loony left, specifically archdemon Michael Moore.

My favorites, however, are the attacks on her through her dead son. One line of thinking I've seen has it that we shouldn't pay too much attention, because her soldier son died, and good soldiers aren't supposed to die. Therefore, I guess, he was a bad soldier and she....I don't know. I don't get it. But even better are those claiming that if her son was alive today, he'd be horrified by his mother's actions. Which is an amazing bit of logic, speaking for the dead (hey, someone call Ender Wiggin. BLAM! Dork reference!)

The best part about this is that Sheehan's questions aren't answerable by the Bushies. So they won't meet her. And she just might have staying power.

2005-08-13T03:49:00.000-04:00

Adventures in Debate

As I spiral deeper into boredom, I have turned to that most entertaining of boredom-relievers, the chat room. Occasionally, chat rooms spiral ever deeper into that least entertaining of arguments, the politics debate. So naturally, when my instincts for chaos get the better of me, I get involved. Here is an entertaining sample:

me: blah blah blah reasoned reply to militaristic nonsense
conservative: lol you must love michael moore huh?
me: actually, I find him to be a demagogue
conservative: so do you like michael moore or not?
rest of chat room: he just answered that question!
me: I said, I find him to be a demagogue. you do know what that means, right?
conservative: yeah I know what that means. you must have voted for Gore and Kerry huh lol

It was pretty much downhill from there.

2005-07-27T20:22:00.000-04:00

Sex Link Alert!

Savage Love is running its greatest hits, and he's kicked it off with what was by far my favorite Savage Love ever, the pussy-licking tips for straight boys column. You should read it, for it is amusing.

2005-07-21T17:39:00.000-04:00

Had Yourself A Ball, Prisstina?

I am declaring my laptop dead. RIP Prisstina.

It sure was exciting deciding to get you. Naming you was awesome, of course. And of course, setting it up.

But I remember the internal debate I had over how powerful I wanted you, Prisstina. Do I get a fairly cheap computer and coast, or get a power rig so I can game? Ended up, I found a custom place that was cheap and could get me a powerful enough laptop that I could handle the top games of the next few years, for about $800 than an equivalent Dell would have cost.

In hindsight, of course, I should have added another $50 and gotten the TWO year warranty. Or I should have gone with a laptop chip, instead of a desktop one which fried the motherboard.

But the funniest thing is that despite getting a powerful computer, and one which could handle most modern games, with only two exceptions, every game I played on it was released before the computer. Only one of those two needed a powerful computer to play well. And while I liked it, it didn't make my life complete.

I miss my MP3s.

2005-07-11T19:03:00.000-04:00

I Am Annoyed

My computer is well and truly broken. This annoys me. I spent two hours last night trying to dismantle it, as I discovered that the problem might be my capacitors, but I managed little except to pinch my fingertips and perhaps break it further.

The problem is made worse because, in my infinite foresight, I traded for three new computer games, which I cannot play. And I want to.

I finally got a callback from a job. Nothing terribly exciting in and of itself, but it seemed a decent job, and I said I'd e-mail them to schedule a face to face interview. I got a response today saying that they were about to hire someone else.

I'm wandering around swearing to myself. I'm not sure which annoyance is causing the most swearing, but I'll be damned if I ain't annoyed.

2005-07-09T03:16:00.000-04:00

It's Cause The Right People Are In Charge

King's Cross. Edgeware Road. The British Museum. I went to all of those places. My parents are going to London this fall. Isn't the War on Terror supposed to make people feel safer?

Apparently, the paid pontificators are saying that the attack was inevitable. Well, that certainly helps. I mean, I wouldn't want to be sitting here thinking it could have been prevented if the people in charge weren't fucking morons. No, they're doing the best possible job they can. Only the inevitable can stop them. Hell, God himself can't stop the inevitable. Unless he can. I'm not real sure about that. But since he blesses America, and that blessing must trickle down to America's allies, this making it impossible for EVEN GOD to have stopped the last terrorist attack on London.

By the way, how many people die per day in Iraq?

2005-07-05T19:03:00.000-04:00

Well That Wasn't So Bad

The danger of the family reunion was somewhat exaggerated, it seems. For one thing, most of the time we were there, it was just my aunt and uncle added to my normal sense of family. It was a nice Nevada summer day, warm and dry, and we sat around and did nothing. Finally, one of my cousins pulled up in her nuclear family for the last couple of hours. The other cousin and her family never showed, which might have made things overwhelming. Nobody seemed extraordinarily eager to press me about my plans for life, which was nice. In fact, the only misstep I might have made came at the end. I had played with my cousin's 6-year old kid for a while, and she thanked me for it as she left. I replied "kept her out of your hair, eh?" which seems harmless enough, but her expression went blank like I might have said something wrong.

No excess of patriotism, no grilling Rowan, no being forced to eat things I don't want to eat, all good, but unfortunately, no poker.

Still, it was remarkably comfortable, and I think the 6-year old thinks I'm wonderful for playing with her.

2005-07-03T04:00:00.000-04:00

Oh Sweet Jesus

I had a thought that this day might come, but I hadn't prepared myself fully for the possibilities. The other half of my family, which might be called the active half, has called for an impromptu family reunion on the 4th of July. And my parents and I are going.

I call the other half of my family the active half, because they actually seem to be attempting to increase. They're my mom's sister's family, and though the nuclear family of wife-husband-2 daughters is the same size in number of units as my own, they seem to have other people attached. I'm not entirely sure how, but I have heard the word "clan" or the number "twelve" or something used in reference to them. They're also more directly active, in that both of my cousins are actually procreating, a task which my sister and I have gratefully failed to accomplish.

But wait, there's more! My nuclear family tends to keep to itself. When I think "family" there's me, my parents, my sister, and my grandmother(on the mother's side, therefore the matron of this whole mess). I haven't seen any of these people that I'm supposed to know in a decade or more. My image of "cousin" involves a dark-haired girl, about 8 or 10, missing teeth. But they all know each other. Oh, yes, I'm going to be the only one there lost.

To top it all off, I am the mystery man of the family. They're practical people. They farm. Raise horses. That sort of thing. I have heard that they wonder about me and my newfangled liberal arts education. They can understand my sister getting an education in playing the viola more than they understand mine in history. So I will be the focus of Questions. And then I might be asked what my plans are. I need to come up with a good lie and stick with it. I'm currently leaning towards "That information is currently classified, ma'am/sir."

And finally, to top off the topping off.....it's on the 4th of July. I have no idea of the political affiliation of my suddenly discovered extended family, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's not mine, and there might be pro-America or even pro-military celebrations that I am going to have to find some way to courteously excuse myself from. And if there's one thing I'm not...it's courteous.

On the bright side, I hear they play poker. Maybe I can be nice to the kiddies, and hold my own in the gamblin', and thus charm everyone's feminine AND masculine sides!

good god, what if they ask me about my own children

2005-06-26T03:28:00.000-04:00

Pop Quiz!

My romantic life has grown to increasingly seem like a Magnetic Fields song. Or perhaps album. Is this because:

a) those are the only love songs I listen to
b) those are the sorts of love songs the people I become attached to listen to
c) I have some kind of connection to Stephen Merritt and the other people associated with the Magnetic Fields
d) those are the only genuine, honest love songs in existence

2005-06-23T05:06:00.000-04:00

Middle Ages Relic of Jesus Possibly Fake Shocker!

I skimmed a Yahoo news article about the controversy caused by the potential that the Turin Shround, discovered in the 14th century but claimed to be the shroud used to cover Jesus, has been claimed as possibly not accurate by carbon dating. Other scientists say that it could be 1500-3000 years old, according to THEIR tests, which narrows it down. Link.

That's all well and good, but the article contained the following line: "Drawing on a method previously used by skeptics to attack authenticity claims about the Shroud, Science et Vie got an artist to do a bas-relief -- a sculpture that stands out from the surrounding background -- of a Christ-like face."

Shockingly, it appears that this drawing of the face of Jesus actually produced a match very similar to that of the face in the shroud. I have to wonder where the reporter's head was when he or she wrote that line. Or if, perhaps, the editor had said "Yeah, this works, we don't need the bit about the artist buying the skull of Christ used to draw the accurate picture from a street vendor in Novgorod for 20 rubles and a blowjob."

2005-06-17T05:39:00.000-04:00

Geeky Geekerton

Neal Stephenson has an op-ed in the New York Times today about Star Wars and geekiness. It's actually a fairly sound analysis of the problems of the newer Star Wars, and explains why diehard Star Wars fans like these pieces of shit, and the more casual fans among us realize it.

Like most Stephenson, however, it starts out really cool and then falls apart when he starts performing fellatio to the tech-savvy. In this case, the Jedi are geeks. Believe it or not. But the first page is worth reading.

2005-06-15T05:27:00.000-04:00

Brilliant!

There are commercials on the teevee for a new type of Hummer. It's smaller. Hummer Lite, maybe.

They make it sound like it's something amazing and new, as most commercials do, of course, but honestly: what is the fucking point?

2005-06-14T03:31:00.000-04:00

What's the Politest Way to say "I Would Sooner Shoot Myself In The Belly"?

I have decided to change my tactic in looking to move to San Francisco. Instead of looking for housing first, and then planning on temping, I have decided to look for a job first. Upon the advice of a few people, I've started posting my resume on Craigslist. Apparently this has worked well for them.

It took me a little while to get anything out of it, though. The first offer I got was a form letter for a part-time job writing new and innovative marketing for the web. Or something. The sender was named "Prahash Mohole" which amused me, until I realized I was a terrible person and Indians probably laugh at my name too.

Next came another part-time offer from someone who wanted young people to do part-time PR for...something. It looked vaguely interesting, and wasn't a form letter, but I'm not interested in part-time.

Third offer was from a company which designed worksheets for teachers that the teachers could customize for whatever lesson they were doing. The company sounded cool. The job was doing customer service, however. Not that desparate.

The gradual improvement led me to believe that the next job would be worth looking at more. Today I got the e-mail. It was an invitation to apply for the position of ....walmart.com Order Management Associate.

I think....I think.....I think maybe I need to redo my ad. Christ.

2005-06-05T03:50:00.000-04:00

Reading List!

Via Billmon, I discovered the extraordinarily conservative "Human Events Online" and their "10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Century."

I had to wonder why it was 19th and 20th, and not, say, of all time? I mean, if it was of all time, the list probably would have been the same. My sneaking suspicion is that it was originally 20th Century, but they had so many people who wanted to vote for The Communist Manifesto that they had to change it.

Seeing Marx, Hitler, Mao is no surprise, but my favorite was #5, Democracy and Education by John Dewey. They describe the book like this:

in pompous and opaque prose, he disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking “skills” instead. His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.

Book published in: 1916. Bad effects of book: 1990s. Makes complete sense, doesn't it?

I'm also fond of them including John Maynard Keynes (economic policies which helped save the US from the Depression), Betty Friedan (feminazi!) and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the book which kicked off environmentalism, made the runners-up list.

I'm getting a hankering to go back to the Gilded Age and hang with this bros, dude.

2005-05-30T15:59:00.000-04:00

Nerdy Question of the Week

If one gets a job doing clerical work, can one successfully describe oneself as a cleric?

2005-05-28T04:34:00.000-04:00

Poor Big, Dumb, Happy Doggy

My dog Saffron died today. Her stomach apparently turned upside down. I'm not sure what causes a stomach to turn upside down, but it does indeed sound fatal.

Saffy wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. In fact, she was clearly the dullest. But she was cute and very friendly, and I'm sure her excited headbutts will be missed by all, except people trying to hold onto things.

A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with my mom comparing the relative ages of our dogs and cats. I asked what the life span of a Labrador was, anyway? She shook her head and said not to ask. Very reminiscent of my hard drive, where I referenced something that was acting healthy in a way which implied that it might one day not be healthy, and a few days later, bam. Clearly, in the future I will have to never mention anything bad happening ever again.

I would upload a picture of her, but all my photos were on the hard drive.

2005-05-24T18:15:00.000-04:00

Standard

As I recreate my music collection, trying to get it entirely in MP3 format, I'm wondering why we're still using MP3 format. I mean, back when I started in '98 or so, I remember seeing articles about future file formats which would have music files in higher quality formats in smaller files. I have no doubt that these things exist, but they certainly haven't replaced MP3.

Which got me to wondering, what could replace MP3? The sound quality is good enough. Hard drives got bigger and cheaper. And most of the competition is proprietary - .rm, . wma, whatever iTunes has. I can't imagine a file type doing it so much better than it can replace mp3 as the default for music files. After all, we still use Zip files.

2005-05-22T06:14:00.000-04:00

All Grown Up?

I can't really begrudge Sleater-Kinney for moving in new directions. They've been inching their way towards something different for a while. My initial reaction to The Woods was that S-K was moving towards their classic rock impulses (see their covers of CCR and Jefferson Airplane). Then it was that it was like The Stooges' Fun House, an impulse confirmed by the disintegration of the last few tracks. But that's not quite right either. Fun House was the cry of the young for meaning via self-destruction, like so many great punk albums. The Woods is more a reach back for meaning.

Part of me wishes that Sleater-Kinney could make music like Dig Me Out again, only slightly differently. But Dig Me Out is another young album, based around the theme of angry broken hearts and unrequited love. The Woods, an intentionally haunting title, reaches its most haunting point with the song "Modern Girl" and its constantly repeated refrain of "my whole life was like a picture of a sunny day." It manages to convey the distinct impression of being desperately unhappy with being content.

The Woods seems to be filled with paradoxes like that. Sleater-Kinney wants to feel intensly, but they cannot summon the drama of their earlier works. So they have created a subtly intense, difficult album. I believe it's exactly what they want, for the woods are a dangerous place to wander alone.

2005-05-20T16:08:00.000-04:00

Hipster

I got the new Sleater-Kinney album today. FOUR DAYS before it's released in stores. You know what makes me? Cool!

It came with a pin and a sticker. The sticker is for my laptop, which now has three band stickers, which makes it a habit.

EDIT: The Woods, an album in which Sleater-Kinney decide they are The Stooges. This might be cool. But it'll take some getting used to.

2005-05-19T15:08:00.000-04:00

Postmodernism

Yesterday, I took part in the greatest continuing internet prank ever. You can read about the backstory at www . transmogrified . com /future. (for obvious reasons, I'm not posting it as a link that can be tracked back.) Short version - a friend of mine and several of his friends picked a guy they were tenuously linked to (nicknamed Gnome), gathered as much information about him as they could, gave it to him claiming to be from the future, and then have led him on a series of real-life adventure game antics to develop the story about how the Gnome would save the world in the future from a Terminator-like scenario.

Yesterday, they took the next step in the project, which involved inviting the Gnome and his internet buddies to The Realm Online, the oldest semi-massive multiplayer RPG on the Internet. I was invited to observe, which was easy to do by blending in with the internet buddies. I knew the backstory, but not the specifics of the story for the day, which made it more fun.

The group of us solved a series of puzzles to gather items hidden around the game world, leading to an ultimate confrontation in which it was revealed that the guy who had been Gnome's mentor was actually a traitor. Here's the interesting thing - at one point, the purveyors of the prank had put together a little cut-scene where it was obvious that the mentor character was evil to the player, but to the character, in video game terms, it was simply weird. Thus, the character - Gnome - continued to act as though the foreshadowing that the players had seen was irrelevant.

In other words, they have the guy that they've been pranking programmed to act as a video game character.

It reminded me of the movie eXistenZ, which I like to call the intelligent version of the Matrix. The film basically puts humans in the roles of video game characters, though they only partially understand this. At certain times, the characters freeze or do things they don't want to, because the logic of the game forces them to act that way in order to progress. It's quite amazing if you don't watch the movie linearly.

Anyway, imagine what it must be like for the Gnome. He has an ever-increasing group of people (there were at least 6 acting directly in the game and in real life yesterday) who live to make his life interesting. Every several months or so, they appear and give him a new chapter in his life as Future Savior. I'm actually kind of jealous of him.

2005-05-17T16:52:00.000-04:00

Look, Turtleface - Star Wars!

It looks like the tide has turned. First, I saw the full preview for the movie, which only made it look cooler. Then I saw an article about how subversive it was - with Evil Anakin saying "You're either with us or you're against it." It had a quote from George Lucas saying "Of course it's not about the present day, back when I wrote the plot, we were friends with Saddam and selling him weapons to use against Iran." Zing.

Then I saw the first actual review, from the New York Times. The Grey Lady seems to be far more accurate with film reviews than, say, weapons of mass destruction reporting, and it raved about ep3.

The thing is, though, if this movie is that good, then how could the other two have sucked SO HARD?

2005-05-17T16:48:00.000-04:00

There is one thing...

...irreplacable and worth money, almost literally. I had a file on the computer with the CD keys for several games. The keys are usually printed on jewel cases or manuals - you know, things that I might have or definitely did lose in my constant moving. Hopefully, most of them can be found again, or obtained semi-legally from the internets.

2005-05-16T18:15:00.000-04:00

Buy Buy Buy!

I ordered a new hard drive today. It's exciting. All my internet shopping, and with shipping and tax (stupid hardware stores in california!) it's $12 less than the local annoying shop. Well. Hopefully it's a better drive. So there.

While I was internet ordering, I also pre-ordered the new Sleater-Kinney album. You know, just cause.

2005-05-15T19:32:00.000-04:00

The Bright Side of Life

The local shop charges $30 for a hard drive data recovery attempt. $90 if they succeed. What do I have on my dead hard drive worth that much? The only thing that might actually be worth that money are some of my old papers, mainly my senior project and my Newberry paper. Those could theoretically get me into grad school. But I have hard copies of those, and there should be earlier versions in my e-mail.

Then there's my music. There's no way my iTunes ratings and play counts can have survived. Which is sad, but also kind of refreshing. I get to reorganize my music! I get to recount my music, so everything has the chance to catch Flip Flop Rock! (by the way, my top 5 most played songs: 1. Flip Flop Rock - Outkast 2. The Whole World - Outkast 3. The Way U Move - Outkast 4. Hey Ya! - Outkast 5. Turn It On - Sleater-Kinney)

I do have some fairly rare music, mostly game music, which will be a pain in the ass to replace...but hey, replacing rare music is a force that gives life meaning.

I'll lose my pictures, mostly of Antioch last year, which is sad, but I've never put a whole lot of stock in pictures. There's a few files that are probably irreplacable, and some save games I'd love to have kept. But life is transitory. I won't miss the Wizardry VII sound patch that much, will I?

2005-05-11T19:06:00.000-04:00

Well That's No Good

I think my laptop might be dead. It won't boot up, and definitely seems to be making a rattling noise around what's probably the hard drive. I keep turning it off and turning it back on in the hopes that something changes.

EDIT:

Well. No sooner do I write that, but the damn thing starts working. Clearly, this was a one time incident and will never happen again.

On the other hand, plugging it back in, I noticed that the power cord jack seems to be warped slightly. Perhaps it overheated?!?

2005-05-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

Illusion

I was just fiddling with my friendster profile, which includes a picture of me when I had purple hair, and now I keep seeing the dangling piece of hair in front of my eye as purple. Amputees get phantom limb syndrome, do I have phantom hair dye syndrome? Confusing.

Speaking of amputees, I saw this interesting documentary about people who needed to be amputees a few weeks ago. It was called Whole. There were all these men (always men) who felt wrong unless they managed to get rid of a leg, or at least bound it so that they had the feeling of an amputee. You should watch it.

2005-05-09T03:08:00.000-04:00

And Yes I Was Present for the First Day of School and Grad-u-a-tion

It was all of two weeks ago, but I remember it like it was more like a week or so ago. On April 22nd, I graduated from college, a mere seven years after high school.

To be honest, I hadn't anticipated the actual graduation ceremony at all. If I did think about it, it was primarily to wonder what I should wear - my wardrobe has been decimated. I guess I just figured that it would be the same as the others, only I'd have a different seat.

Once I woke up, my first goal was to find my parents. They were doing a hit-and-run. Take a red-eye the night before, speed off to Columbus immediately after graduation to catch their flight back. No fuss, no muss. They didn't answer their phone when I called, and my phone ran out of batteries. Fortunately, it's a small campus and they saw me on my way to breakfast. It was raining. A random guy from the Physical Plant clapped me on the shoulder and told me that it was only the fourth time in 40 years that graduation had been rained out. I gave my parents the fifteen minute tour of campus, only my feet hurt from the Senior Party and still trying to break in my shoes and we were out of time, so it turned into the five minute tour. "That architectural monstrosity is Spalt, I used to live there. There's a building over there designed by the guy who did the St. Louis Gateway Arch, but it's boring. Behind it is the Glen, which is pretty. Hey, time to get in line!"

I went into the main building basement to get in line with the rest of the grads. By then, I was starting to feel that it wasn't just another ceremony, cliche as it sounds. You kind of get forced into it. Putting all 60 or so of the walkers together, and then making them wait for what seemed like ages forced a kind of buzz and excitement to build. Then they called us in. And we stopped. And walked in again. And stopped again. And finally managed to walk into the Kelly Hall auditorium. And suddenly, it was special.

Normally, graduation takes place in what is basically a field next to some buildings. There's a little bit of an arena feeling, but not much. On the other hand, walking into Kelly Hall, in the middle of all the graduates, with everyone in the place clapping and screaming, was absolutely electric. The closest analogy I can think of are large sporting events, with tunnels that the players enter the arena from. But those are competitive, they have a different vibe. This was joy. It was the first time I choked up, and the primary memory I take from the ceremony.

Then there was the clapping. Clapping for every little speech. Every little decent point within the speech. And every person who got called, and walked slowly up to the podium to grab their degree. When it was my turn, I wondered what to do. I could pretend to trip. One of my friends was in the aisle near the graduates, but she left before I could embarrass her with my plans. My feet were killing me. I thought of taking my shoes off and skating across the hardwood stage. In retrospect, that would have been kind of amazing. I eventually decided to just walk, very slowly. Of course, I was excited, so I was doing an excited walk very slowly, which probably just looked normal.

When I walked up, there were loud, male cheers. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who got the masculine cheering section. It kind of made sense. I had attached myself to a group of nerdy fellows, who were sitting close enough to be heard easily. After I grabbed the degree and went back into the pile of graduates, I checked the time. Almost time for my parents to jet. I waded through the fire hazards sitting in the aisle to say goodbye to them. Happily, my friends were sitting in that same aisle, so I could high five them as I walked. One of them, loudly, said "Hey, poker tonight, Rowan?" My mom was standing and sobbing. I gave her a long hug. My dad was sitting. I hugged him too. Then I went back to my place...and resumed clapping.

2005-05-02T17:15:00.000-04:00

Departure

I left Antioch to return to California almost a week later. The night before, I hung out with a friend of mine. That we are friends is somewhat of a surprise. She used to dislike me, and I used to be scared of her. But she's one of those people who has the distinct inability to not be up-front about things, and so, a year or so later when next we met, we managed to be friendly, and realized that things weren't so bad. I didn't have the chance to hang out with her much, though, as she had had a messy break-up with one of my poker friends, and they weren't really talking. However, on the last day, she and I were both around with nobody else in the way, and not much to do.

It actually turned out very nicely that we were able to talk. She's in the same place I was in a year ago: basically graduated, but with two co-ops remaining so she wasn't able to officially walk. She also had the post graduation depression that hit me last year. It took about three extra hours to get her to hang out. I told her a story about how last year at the same time I was late to things simply because I didn't have any particular desire to be on time.

Melodramatically, she said "Roots, Rowan! What's it like to have roots?" I told her of my dream of owning bookshelves. She said she'd really like to fully decorate a room one day. She said she had five cities she was looking at moving two. I told her I had had three, and none still jumped out.

The bad was almost completely deserted. I wasn't a regular at the bar in my time at Antioch, to be certain, but every time I'd been there, it was crowded. With no Antioch students, it was dead.

The last time I was on campus, it was deserted. I had to break into my old storage space. I pulled my books and video games and assorted knick-knacks out of the empty, condemned storage space. I left behind a nicely working TV, my old Palm Pilot accidently, and an $80 drill I'd bought my ex for her stonecarving class.

The whole place was empty. I'd stayed a few days too long. But I'm stuck with that as my last memory.

My friend wasn't sure if she'd come back for graduation - her graduation - next year. I told her I wasn't sure either last year, but as the time approached, I didn't really see it as a choice. I told her I had a blast, mostly, and would try to be back next year. It appears that I'm going to be one of those who goes back every year to watch their trickle of friends finally finish.

2005-05-02T15:36:00.000-04:00

Arrival, Again

Now that I'm no longer sick (a nice graduation present) I can do a better job of description, I think.

Looking back on it now, there was something oddly wonderful about arriving at Antioch at 2AM for the bonfire. The bonfire was occurring on the Golf Course, a pathetic piece of open land next to the campus, claimed by the college but used for virtually nothing and only maintained in the vaguest of senses. It is there that, when the weather warms slightly, Antioch students attempt to have a bonfire party, and usually fail. It was shocking to see it a success, with a hundred people there at two in the morning, music playing, and of course, moonshine.

The fires lit the ground, serving to make the light green and yellow grass look even less healthy than it probably was. It probably did no aesthetic favors to the Antioch students, either. I didn't recognize most of them personally, of course, but there was always the recognition that they were, pale, poorly fed, poorly bathed, and dressed in castoffs, that they were my people.

That's the main memory I have of my week away - wandering into the bonfire, being accosted by people surprised to see me, or doing accosting of my own. My conversations that night were largely mundane - I spent way too long arguing with someone who didn't consider the Bay Area to be Northern California - but what of it? Antioch was always about the mundane conversations, detached any sort of decent housing, or technology. Not that its students are terribly natural, the bonfire was hardly a pagan earth goddess ritual, but in the end, the only thing that it has are mundane conversations with people you might be happy to see, or not. I hear the moonshine was pretty hit or miss.

2005-05-01T18:40:00.000-04:00

Now There's a Good Idea

I can see a bunch of rich Hollywood types sitting around thinking "You know, what the world needs right now is a movie glorifying the Crusades. That'll really make the Middle East happy with America. Man, I hope we can totally dehumanize the Arabs. They love that shit. Just to prove that America isn't arrogant at all."

I'm so glad Hollywood is liberal.

2005-04-30T18:41:00.001-04:00

Diary of a Graduate

Since I don't have anything specific to say, I'll just make a list. It'll be fun.

Tuesday - I can't get a redeye, so I basically spend all day on the plane, arriving in Ohio just after midnight. I never actually got myself a ride set in stone, so during my layover in Dallas I find it. I like the Dallas airport. It feels like an airport should. It is the Platonic airport. I get to Antioch at about 2AM, just in time to head to the last day of classes bonfire party. My entire time at Antioch there hasn't been a decent bonfire. Now there is. It's fun. I hang out with the old timers - the fourth-years, fifth-years, recent grads, and not-so-recent grads. Many of us edited the newspaper. That's a trend that continues. I end up on a couch at my HQ. Couch grade: D+. It's a little too short to get really comfortable.

Wednesday - It's the first time I've ever been on campus without my own room. It's a bit strange in the afternoon, when there's nothing really going on. I get a meal ticket to the cafeteria for lunch that afternoon, and it hurts my stomach. I'd forgotten that. I get six people for a poker game. Finally...right? Wrong. It's not terribly fun until a friend who can't even deal starts destroying everyone. Me and another person eventually turn the tables enough to break even, when the game ends for a bar run. Off to the bar. Meet an old flame? God damn, I'd forgotten how tiny Antioch beds were. Grade: D-.

Thursday - This is the day I was looking forward to the most. I've said hello to all the right people, and it's senior party time. I run into an old friend who went to Antioch, but I haven't seen since. It's a good time. Speaking of good times, while waiting for the senior party to start, I get stuck in another friend's room in a rainstorm. Me and another guy decide to watch Street Fighter: The Movie. We don't get very far, sadly, as it looked like one of the best terrible movies ever. EVER.

The party starts. Or does it? It's supposed to start at eleven, and people are still setting up drinks. There's no music. Just a bunch of old timers mingling and drinking their own beers. I meet a woman who is really excited to see my hoodie from London. She goes to school in Maine, and in London, and is currently at Antioch. I'm very confused, and I'm pretty sure neither of us in a state of chemical imbalance at that point. I see her a few hours later with giant sunglasses. That's the end of our interactions. She kind of stutters.

I think Senior Party was a blast. I spend most of it having two different female-types attempt to charm me. It would be annoying, but I was having far too much fun with the situation. Eventually, I outlast the both of them who go to bed early. Damn younger college students, they don't know how to party. I keep running into people I didn't expect to encounter. There are only about five people I hoped to see but didn't, and none of them were critical. Graduation is fun. I'll go back next year. Bed that night is a matress on the floor covered by a futon to increase the range. Grade: A+.

Coming soon - Actual graduation! Mysterious television femme lesbians! Portuguese terrorists!

2005-04-30T18:41:00.000-04:00

2005-04-30T03:32:00.000-04:00

On This Day Which Began As Graduation Day

I don't really have anything to blog about for the last week. I mean, it was designed as a week of excitement to counteract the boredom of my previous several weeks. And it succeeded. I'm just not sure what to say. I did graduate, though. And I slept in five different beds/couches in my seven nights away.

2005-04-20T14:42:00.000-04:00

Home?

I have arrived at Antioch. One of my friends said "Welcome home!" when he saw me. I suppose that's as true as anything, but it's some strange kind of home.

It's not that strange to be here, though I didn't expect it to be. What is strange is the weather. It's actually warmer here than in California, or at least, more humid. It's the sort of weather that makes me really happy, possibly because I associate the warm Ohio spring with the last week of Spring Term, which might be the best time to be here.

Everyone loves my "Dolphins Are Gay Sharks" t-shirt. I like wearing it to make an impression. It shall be henceforth be designated my "Impression-making t-shirt" though it is not impressionist.

Surprisingly, most everyone I hoped that I might see is actually here. There are only a few friends I'm waiting to see, but I'm sure they'll turn up. Also, there is a buzz amongst the gambling addicts that now that I'm back, there will actually be a poker game.

2005-04-19T04:03:00.000-04:00

Finishing the Job

I have decided that the last stop on my trip down memory lane is my trip to Antioch and graduation. I'm leaving tomorrow, and don't have a ride set up for certain. Go me!

This will really really be the end of this little era of mine. Back when I was horribly unhappy with, well, everything in junior high and high school, my parents and everyone else kept saying "Wait until college, you'll love it, everything will be worth it." They were pretty much right about the first part, but I'm not sure if high school was worth it. At any rate, only a few times in college did people say "Your life will be so much better when you go and work some random job" or "Man, the friends you make in grad school are your friends for life."

Plus, after this, I don't have any specific reason not to go out and do....something........

As a little sidebar to the memory thing, in order to survive the plane ride and the car ride I'm taking to see my friend Jenny next week, I decided to break into my old books to gather reading material. Now, these books are almost all science fiction and fantasy, which I've barely read in the last four years, so chances are good I've forgotten most all of it. I decided which I wanted to keep and which I wanted to take to the used bookstore, and have a little pile of "old Rowan" books to amuse myself on the plane. I was hoping to find the Black Company books, which I actually want to read again, and also because they're what I was reading back when I originally went to Antioch, those heady days ago. But no luck. So it's Discworld and The Silmarillion for me.

2005-04-11T04:01:00.000-04:00

Music is the Air I Breathe

I used to think that The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog was the most coverable song ever. However, after hearing Kraftwerk's The Model, as covered by Electric Six, I am changing my find. Go out and "obtain" it.

2005-04-10T03:59:00.000-04:00

Another Vignette From My Family

Today, the doorbell rang, the dogs barked, and my mom went to go answer it. The person at the door said "Hi, my name is blah blah blah, I'm trying to meet the neighbors, I'm up for some award in Communications." My mom said "Not interested!" and slammed the door in his face. When I asked her how she could be so rude, she answered "He looked like Howdy Doody."

In case you're wondering where I got my astounding(ly bad) people skills, look no further. Also, Howdy Doody might not be so good at Communications.

2005-04-07T04:49:00.000-04:00

Dreams Shattered Like Broken Glass

Now that I'm (almost) officially done with college, I'm apparently supposed to think of my future. What are my goals? Professionally, what I want out of a job is something that I can do, and would be rewarding to me, of course. I really want to do something creative - unique, really. Matching all those interests could theoretically be served, obviously, by doing something in video games. I could be a game designer, I think. I certainly could, say, do storylines for games. So even though I know the game industry, well, sucks for working in, with its mandatory unpaid overtime and domination by marketing and CEO types, I'd thought maybe there was a chance. Maybe I could do it right. Then, the other day, Penny Arcade had a guest post from the designer of Everquest.

He said "in my 8+ years as a professional game designer, not once has any boss of mine ever asked me for an idea for a new game. "

Now, even the non-gamers amongst you have heard of Everquest. It was a huge commercial success. In fact, you could argue that it redefined the way business was done for certain aspects of gaming. One would expect that the designer of the game might possibly be asked what he might like to do. I mean, he's earned that, right? Nope.

You've all also heard of SimCity and The Sims, of course. They were designed by the same fellow. One would think that the designer of SimCity would have an easy time pitching a game idea. But he had to fight tooth and nail to get The Sims actually created and released. Now it's the best-selling computer game of all time.

Imagine if you wanted to be an author, and on the off chance you ever got hired, the CEO of the publishing company ordered you to write whatever books he or she thought would sell. You then had to write it in a month, and sometimes, they released the book before you finished, let alone edited. I mean, the publishing industry is shitty, don't get me wrong. But if you're a quality writer, someone somewhere would like your book and publish you. Game industry? Not a chance.

Someone find me a new dream career.

2005-04-06T17:32:00.000-04:00

And Yes I Will Be Present for the First Day of School and Gra-Du-A-Tion

A bit of bureaucratic hangup caused it to be in the air for a few days, but that appears to be all cleared up: I'm graduating. Well, there's one little bit that needs to be signed off on, that being the foreign language requirement. I was told by the language professor that I had achieved proficiency three years ago, but that never arrived at the registrar's office. Fortunately, the professor has a notoriously bad memory, and is equally famous for his dislike of the language requirement and his friendliness to students. And being crazy, but this all adds up to meaning that he will sign off on, either because he remembers, because he trusts me, because he doesn't care, or because he'll sign off on anything.

I'm currently looking for plane tickets. Still two weeks left, too! That's not bad for me and deadlines.

2005-04-05T17:19:00.000-04:00

On the Subject of Science Fiction Movies...

You know, it's probably a bad sign when the ads for the new Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy film include absolutely nothing to indicate that it's actually a comedy...at all.

2005-04-04T04:57:00.000-04:00

Ode to the Punk Classicers

My sister is going to school to play classical viola, and being near her means that I get the chance to go to lots of classical musical shows for free. Today we went to see a friend of hers subbing in the Sacramento Philharmonic, playing The Rite of Spring, the punkest bit of classical music there is - it provoked a riot on its opening night. The audience was, of course, half old people, a third middle aged, and the rest probably students. But somewhere, way up at the top, were two punkers. They were fairly subdued punks, leading me to believe that they had attempted to dress nicely for the occasion. After all, you wouldn't wear just any hoodie. You've gotta wear the nice, clean, black hoodie. And yes, you're wearing a hat inside at a jaunty angle, but it's a fashionable pink hat. After the show, they went out and smoked - I believe they were the only ones who smoked. I sent them mental waves of support. Go punk kids at the Stravisky show. But next time, I won't care if you wear the spiky bracelet.

2005-04-03T21:10:00.000-04:00

The Water Rolls Down the Drain (the Blood Rolls Down the Drain)

I saw an ad for the next, last Star Wars movie today. My reaction was "Ooooh, shiiiiiiny." Also, did not appear to be awful, though the ads for the last two didn't look awful either, but they were.

After the debacle of Attack of the Clones, I swore not to go see Episode III in theatres*. George Lucas does not deserve my nostalgia money for churning out crap. Still, shiny! This might take some self-restraint.

*unless I see a bunch of reviews or hear from people saying "Wow, that was amazing. I wish he'd done the last two like that." I do not consider "well, it doesn't have Jar-Jar, so I guess it wasn't as bad" to be a good review.

2005-04-03T05:17:00.000-04:00

Future Directions

Despite my well-documented enjoyment of poker, and my recent acquisition of a position where I can watch television often, I haven't caught onto the poker-on-tv craze. It seems to be the sort of thing you have to do, rather than watch. The same argument is occasionally made for sports, but I think that one can find a certain aesthetic appeal in, say, a well-done slam dunk, involving the workings and grace of the human body. In other words, jamming looks cool. On the other side, well, nobody ever used the words "grace of the human body" when describing poker.

In a bit of boredom and waiting for something afterwards to come on, I decided to try watching the poker thing. I think I caught a particularly good match (episode? game? I'm not sure how to describe it, because it's certainly not live, and heavily edited to boot.) It featured a woman winning, big, which was cool enough, but also she was an interesting person, crying when she knocked her brother out and having, well, a personality. She also wore t-shirts over colored turtlenecks, which is kind of adorable at a poker table.

Regardless, I think I see the appeal of the poker on the teevee. At a certain level, all sports or competitions feature a "that could be me" aspect - I've played football before! I've driven cars! I've done trivia in bars! - though of the major sports, only soccer really features people who actually look normal in terms of height and build. Poker exponientially increases this. After all, who hasn't won a hand or two of poker, and really, these people are nothing if not normal-looking. Plus there's no real age barrier.

So obviously, I got to thinking that I could be a poker pro. I have three things going for me here:

1. I love games. Video games, obviously, but I'm also a fan of board games and card games. I flourish in contained systems.

2. I'm really, really, really good at paying attention to detail on things that I'm interested in. The rest of the time, not so much, but when I play poker, I've been called "The Conductor" because I make sure everything is on track. (control control control control controlcontrolcontrolcontrolcontrol) I am also good at pattern recognition.

3. If there's one thing which defines my personality, it's that people constantly misinterpret me. They think my jokes aren't jokes. They think my complaints are real. They think I like things that they like, just because I haven't said that I don't.

Of course, there are a few things going against this:

a) If I were good enough to be a pro, I would have won regularly against my friends. In Chicago, I did, true, but at Antioch, I believe that I broke roughly even. It's possible that my poker friends were also really good at poker. It's possible they weren't a good way to measure my abilities. But perhaps I shouldn't bet the farm on, uh, betting the farm.

b) I don't really know how to go about doing it. I mean, I haven't had a regular game in over a year, let alone ever going to a casino. I'm not exactly rolling in dough, either.

c) Being a professional gambler is not exactly appealing to me. On one hand, I'm probably not going to be a rock star, pro soccer player, or a great actor at this point, so my pathways to fame are limited. Not that I really want fame specifically, but nonconsciously, who doesn't? It's poker or public intellectual for me. Yikes. But seriously, having a career of "I'm going to go take other people's money or they'll take my money" seems like it would be unsatisfying. What would I do to make the world better, donate half my winnings to worthy causes? Plus there's the whole dependency-creation aspect of gambling. Don't wanna become an addict.

Like most of my dreams, this one will almost certainly remain unrealized. But who knows? Maybe one day, I'll have a decently padded savings account, and head to a casino, and become a poker superstar. You know, like the guy with the sunglasses. Indoors.

2005-04-03T04:14:00.000-04:00

My House, Noonish Today

Me: Hey, the pope's dead.

Family Member: Really?

Me: Yeah, that means ABC isn't showing the soccer game.

FM: Fuck the fucking pope!

Hey, when did this country go Catholic, anyway? Someone put the WASPs back in charge, the papists have taken over. Goddamn papists. Next they'll let Jesuit assassins in!

I hope heaven has an intensive care dueling setup, cause I wanna see the Pope take on Tubular Terry in a 12 round bedpan battle. Or something.

2005-03-29T05:16:00.000-05:00

When In Doubt, Don't Turn To The Bible - Judges

This is rather strange. In Colorado, according to law, when deliberating the death penalty, jurors are instructed to consult their own moral guidelines, instead of simply the law. Fair enough. In one trial, jurors doing so also consulted the Bible, which I would consider understandable, given that many people in this country base their morals explicitely on Christianity (believe it or not!). However, because this consultation of the Bible was made public in the verdict, which was to use the death penalty, there were appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that the verdict should be overturned because the jurors used an outside influence, thus ruining their sequesterness.

I wasn't sure what to think of this. As a good secular humanist, I want to keep separation of church and state, of course. But on the other hand, the law specifically instructs jurors to consult non-state concepts. Most important, though, is the role of the Bible. I am quite fine with members of the population consulting the Bible in order to gain insight. However, the Supreme Court judges ruled that the Bible was an outside influnce, like a news article would be. The implication is that the Bible is viewed as a rulebook, which would need to be followed, as a literal source of truth. I am not okay with the Bible being viewed as the literal truth, and I think that a court making a ruling with that viewpoint is much more dangerous than allowing jurors to consult a book when pondering someone's life.

Also important: Colorado is crazy. See: Sand Creek Massacre, Columbine, University of Colorado controversies.

2005-03-28T04:05:00.000-05:00

Alternatives

My side project at Renaissance Gamer has not been going well. My friends that I wanted to corral into writing with me have not actually accepted, let alone written. However, I still play games, and would feel bad not to write about them. On the other hand, the readers of this blog, with only one exception that I know of, don't give a damn about the games.

Therefore, I will use Renaissance Gamer as a gaming blog. Nothing more for now. All one of you who care can marvel at my replaying of Fallout....again. As an anti-war protester.

2005-03-27T02:46:00.000-05:00

Post In Which I Agree With George W. Bush

I'm not sure it's ever happened, but on the subject of Schiavopalooza, G-Dub said something along the lines of "This is an enormously complex situation, and in cases like this I believe it is best to err on the side of life."

I have not been paying close attention to the details of the Schiavo case, so I don't know how complex it is. But I agree completely and absolutely that one should err on the side of life in complex situations like:

invading other countries
supporting the death penalty
providing universal health care

I look forward to seeing Our Glorius Leader continue with this break from his traditional methods and continue to err on the side of life.

2005-03-27T02:33:00.000-05:00

Second-guessing second-guessing

I dislike second-guessing. I dislike reflecting before decisions. I dislike not going with my gut. I blame it for many of my life's mistakes. Now? I'm not so sure.

See, come March, anyone paying any kind of attention to sports (bear with me, non-sports people, this has a non-sports related message) fills out brackets for the NCAA men's college basketball tournament. They usually enter it into an office pool with the hopes of winning decent amounts of money, but sometimes they don't have offices, like I don't. So I entered on ESPN.com. They allow five sets of predictions, which kind of defeats the purpose.

My first set of predictions were what I expected to actually happen. The second one was what I expected to happen if things went slightly differently. The rest were throwaways that I did with certain themes. They ended up wrong from the start. My first thoughts were wrong pretty quickly. But the second? My second guesses were almost perfect. In fact, of 2.8 millions entrants to the contest, I currently sit in a tie for 222nd, in the 100th percentile, with pretty good potential of moving up, though probably not quite enough to win.

My second guesses are better!? And not just better - amazingly, nearly perfect for half the games better. I need to try to remember my thought process for this in case I could win some money next year, certainly, but what if this holds true for the rest of my life? What if my vaunted "go-with-your-gut" philosophy is okay initially, but leads to disaster later on? What if I really need to think things through first, then go with my gut on the assumption that I'm already wrong?

(more importantly, what if Syracuse hadn't lost to Vermont? Then I'd be set. I could be the winner of, uh, whatever ESPN is offering the winner. New bracket rule: Never predict victory for a college named after one of the greatest military disasters in history. "Hi, my brackets are Stalingrad, Waterloo, Cannae, and the Syracuse expedition. Think I can win?")

Of course, the whole thing could have just been luck, and I shouldn't even adjust future bracket-filling style, let alone my life's philosophy. But where's the fun in that?

2005-03-27T02:30:00.000-05:00

Disturbing Thing I Just Realized

The hand gesture for all-in in poker, pushing a stack of chips forward with both hands, is eerily similar to the hand gesture of being the top in doggy style.

2005-03-26T05:16:00.000-05:00

Hey Baby, Wanna Go On An Update?

It's only been about a year and half since my last update of the blogroll, but hey, better to err on the side of life, right? Let me run you through it:

The C-dog linked to Rollertrain a few weeks back, and I found it to be an amusing and entertaining look at the ins and outs of the porn industry. So I have kept reading. It's not safe for work, obviously, but nobody reads my blog from work.

Someone who randomly found my blog several months ago but no longer speaks to me regularly or updates her website once linked to Bad News Hughes. It is by far the funniest blog ever. You should read it.

Not included on the Blogroll are Paul Shirley's Road Ramblings, because they only exist for one week right now. I hope it becomes regular, so I can add it to the blogroll. Paul Shirley is a benchwarmer for an NBA basketball team - the self-described second whitest guy in the league - which may sound boring, except he actually writes amusingly about the lifestyle of the NBA star. This includes: going to games late to catch an Interpol concert, spending most of the game looking for attractive females in the stands, and writing things like I began considering the possibility that there could very well be a bit of playing time in the offing and started paying at least cursory attention to what was going on in timeouts, in case Coach D’Antoni said something like, “From now on tonight, everyone will be shooting with his left hand. Deviation from this plan of attack will result in castration immediately following the game.” The best part is that it's actually on the NBA's website, meaning that a major corporation is sponsoring someone to expose its insidious poker-playing, indie-rock-concert-going, making-fun-of-famous-people-with-HIV (gently) underbelly.

If you've made it this far and you have similar political inclinations to mine, boy are you lucky. Billmon's Whiskey Bar is back. He seemed to have burned out last summer, but the best political website on the net is up and running again. Like many of us, the whole election thing completely ruined him. Huzzah.

Finally, because I am a petty person who does not make decisions on my own, I have removed the blogs of people who seem to no longer read me. Other people now read me, however, at least 13 of you per day or so. And some of you have blogs. So if you want to be included on my blogroll with the pinkhairedgirl, her ex-roommate, the porno girl, and the hippie-hater, now is totally your chance.

2005-03-26T05:03:00.000-05:00

Not That I'm A Bad Person Or Anything

...but hey, part of me finds being in a 'persistent vegetative state' kind of attractive. I mean, sometimes my goal in life is to stay in bed all day. And my cats would like it. I'd still be warm, and that's all cats really want from people - to be fed (my parents would do that) and a warm body.

2005-03-25T05:16:00.000-05:00

Commercial Music Redux

The realization that Jay-Z's S. Carter collection, the name of his shoes, are the "S dot tennis shoes" from Flip Flop Rock makes me want to get them, in addition to the Gucci flip flops the song also describes. Which one is more expensive?

Anyway, I've continued thinking about music in commercials being good. Why has this happened recently? I thought of three possible reasons:

a) Marketers everywhere suddenly realized that bad music sucks, and good music makes people buy things.
b) I've gotten much more tolerant of music in my old age.
c) There's more good music out there these days.

They might be true to some extent, but the fourth, real, reason hit me today: I am their target. I am a male ages 18-35. I have the most potential disposable income to spend on whatever it is they're advertising. Since I am the driver of the capitalist economy, I am cool. Video games were uncool when I was a kid. But kids played them. They are now cool. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs doing the soundtrack for a shoe commercial? I'm theoretically down with that. That iPod commercial with the cool song? It knows that one day soon, I might have the money to purchase an iPod, and that song being stuck in my head - and now, on my computer - and known to me as an iPod commercial song will keep the iPod in my thoughts.

It's kind of cool to know that my (potential) funds are driving the culture of the country. Part of me wants to reject it, though. Wouldn't it be better if everyone suddenly got good taste in music? But I know that can't be true. There is no real "good" in aesthetics. I've become cool only by default. In 10 years, I'll be playing retro video games nobody's heard of or cares about, and listening to 99.5 - your classic indie rock station! and complaining about how there's no good new music around these days.

As ever, I blame capitalism.

2005-03-25T04:56:00.000-05:00

Post In Which I Am Nerdy

Now, I'll bet you didn't know this, but I used to be a big ol' dork. You're probably saying "But Rowan, you're a dork now." And you're mostly right. But the thing is, right now, I'm the cool type of uncool. My geekiness has swagger, and you know what? That band you're listening to - I knew they were cool before you. That kind of cool uncool.*

*maybe.

But it didn't used to be like this. No, back in high school, I was uncool uncool. And to really take a trip down memory lane, I'd have to experiment with those memories. There are three things that I really, really liked in high school that are really, really uncool: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, They Might Be Giants, and Babylon 5 (hey, at least I wasn't predictable nerd and loved Star Trek. Even then, I had some bizarre kind of standards.) Anyway, my relationship with Holy Grail has turned noticably sour - I refuse to watch it - and I tend to pretend They Might Be Giants don't really exist, though I maintain that they put on a mean live show, and one that ruined me when I started going to other shows. "Why don't they talk to the audience? This song sounds exactly like the album show. Only one encore?" etc.

Babylon 5, on the other hand, I don't think I'd like anymore, so I don't do anything with it. I try to avoid it, because I liked it so much in high school and think I'd hate it now. I could be wrong. But on the other hand, the CGI probably has not aged well. At any rate, I remembered that I still had two vestiges of my former love for B5 in the form of the first two soundtrack CDs. So I put the second one in to listen to as background music as I played another game, and the memory tricks did wonders.

Here's how it worked. I watched the hell out of B5 when it was on, but after it finished, I gave up. I haven't seen it in 8 years (part of just realized that since I started having sex, I haven't seen B5, and I want to make a snide comment about that). So my mental connection with specific scenes attached was gone. Second of all, I listened to that CD a baker's shitload. It's scratched to all hell, but more importantly, I have memories of it attached to other things - like video games that I played with it as background music. Finally, it's superb background music. I have realized well after the fact that the music was perhaps the most important aspect of me liking the show.

Therefore, it called up unspecific memories of very cool and dramatic things. I was basically able to separate the bad or uncool memories from the music, while maintaining good emotional memories attached to it.

Unfortunately for further experiments, the CD is scratched to all hell and will annoy me far more than be listenable from now on.

2005-03-25T02:59:00.000-05:00

Art is Cool

Someone smuggled art into a bunch of museums in New York. One stayed in the MoMA for three days before it got noticed. Link!

2005-03-18T05:06:00.000-05:00

Back to Politics

I've tried to not be too shocked by the Bush pirates this term. After all, it's been spent mostly promoting confirmed incompetents/liars (hey, check out this image second on the list of google images for Condi. Does anyone speak Dutch? Nice detail on the breasts. Classy.) Or tilting at windmills. Or the always amusing hiring of gay prostitutes to act as stooges asking idiotic questions at press conferences. Funny, yes. Shocking, not really.

But...asking Paul Wolfowitz to be the head of the World Bank? This is too mindboggling to comprehend. Are they even trying? Do they just not get it? Or are they too busy reenacting Vietnam while claiming no relation between Iraq and 'Nam?

I've given up waiting for the punch line on these people.

2005-03-18T04:26:00.000-05:00

The Sweet Smell of Commerce in the Morning

Mixed in with the joys of being able to watch sports again are the pains of most sports having lots of commercials. I think I've mostly regained my commercial-tuning-outness. However, I feel the need to describe a bunch of commercials to you, my 15 loyal readers.

It was back in 2000 when The Onion mentioned that commercials were starting to sound, well, good (see Most Unsettling Trend That's Probably Good). I keep noticing it to, to the point where I even poked around the internet looking for music from a car commercial. However, the line between commercials and music becomes even stranger when one considers that Jay-Z has a line of basketball shoes. He does not, however, change into his Gucci flip flops after the interlude. Because it is a commercial for Reebok, or should I say, rbk, and not for Gucci. But I know he wants to be in the Gucci flip flops. After all, Jay-Z likes to mix it up. Like gin and juice.

I find the shoes strange, because Jay-Z is a rapper, and not a basketball player. However, I do have any problem with Jay-Z trying to sell me vodka. I must expect rappers to drink, not jump.

In other music/commerce related news, there's a commercial out which asks you "Why do you work?" (well, I don't). "You work to support your family, and because you enjoy working, and because you need to support your generic suburban lifestyle." The ad has some mostly generic muzak in the background, but something about the melody sounded familiar. It made me want to sing "and wasting precious time..." A quick google search revealed that this was a song I was familiar with by the Talking Heads, which is more of an indictment of suburban existance, particularly television-based, than a glorification. I might be inclined to believe that some marketing exec thought the song was actually a perfect fit for the ad, but I would prefer to think that it's some flunky assigned to get music for the ad who decided to be subversive. After all, the muzak doesn't sound at all like the Talking Heads song instrumentally, it's only the melody, and only someone familiar with the melody like I was would notice. So to you, meaningless advertising flunky at a company whose name I can't even remember (nice commercial), I raise my glass of orange beverage. I drink orange because apparently my family is Scotch-Irish, and therefore Protestant, and therefore opposed to St. Patrick's Day.

It's a good post which mentions my Protestant heritage and Flip Flop Rock in one fell swoop.

2005-03-17T03:25:00.000-05:00

Taking it Back

All this talk of memory has me remembering something. Several years ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about the classic SNES game Chrono Trigger, and he remarked that he wished he could have parts of his memory erased so that he could play these games again. At the time I thought he was foolish. After all, there's always other games, or movies, or books, or music. Right? I'm not so sure now. There are a few reasons why I think he was right. First of all, it's a matter of numbers. There's only so many SNES games, only a few of those are classics, and only three of those are RPGs, and I've played them. It's also a lifetime thing. Certain media hit you at the time in your life when you are most likely to enjoy them. Say, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when you're in late high school or college. Many fantasy novels are aimed at, and embraced by, teenagers. As a child, I didn't comprehend the complexity of the amazing Wizardry VII.

Regardless, I have decided to set up a blogmeme. If you could go back and embrace a form of entertainment freshly, what would you pick?

Music:
With apologies to Kanye West, it goes something like this: Two words - S K - One Beat - hot shit. As all one of my old-time blog readers knows, I fell for this band pretty hard. It started when I bought the then-brand-new One Beat on a whim. I'd heard the band was good, I'd heard this album was good. The first couple of listens, I liked some of the songs. I really liked Prisstina and Oh! So I listened a few more times. After about three days, I was hooked. For the next nine months or so, I didn't listen to anything else but One Beat and the other five S-K albums I bought.

The only other album that I can think of as having such a dramatic effect on my musical tastes was when I discovered Television's Marquee Moon. But that album, the first while that I listened to it, I kind of liked it, and only realized that I loved it when I noticed that I'd been listening to very little else for about a month. (Interesting Marquee Moon memory-related aside: The first time I played Chrono Trigger was when I was listening to Marquee Moon. The two happened at the same time often enough that they are now linked in my memory in many respects. One of the best albums and games of all time being linked no doubt increases the memories I have of both.)

Books:
Difficult here. I used to be a big fantasy and science fiction fan, but in the last few years I've basically given up on fiction. Non-fiction doesn't offer the same kind of emotional connection - "yeah, I want to go back to before I read The Mismeasure of Man and realized the inherent racism of IQ tests" - so I don't have anything specific in recent memory. Going back further into my past nerdiness, I have fond memories of certain books. A Game of Thrones gave me hope for the fantasy genre when I was preparing to leave it, though I lost that hope eventually. Hyperion got me hooked on science fiction over fantasy, while Startide Rising was even better. And then there's the first time I met Miles Vorkosigan. But nothing that now I would say that I really wanted to go back and rediscover.
Movies:
Clear choice here, on the other hand. I would love to remove the Lord of the Rings and see The Fellowship of the Ring anew. Despite my love of fantasy books, I had never been a big fan of the most famous trilogy. Movies based on books are usually bad. Movies based in a fantasy setting are almost always bad. So this had three strikes against it...until I saw it. And it was amazing. It captured what I wanted a fantasy adventure to look and feel like - even more than its not-quite-as-good sequels.

The only other movie I can think of is The Royal Tennenbaums, mostly because the first time I saw it, I thought it was the funniest thing ever, and the second time...not so much. That could have been for technical reasons, but hey, funny like that doesn't come along often. I'd rather have it over.

Games:
The toughest category, not because I can't think of anything specific, but because there's so many. Part of this is due to the nature of games. They last longer initially and get repeated less than books, movies, or music, making the bond of "first time" greater. Or maybe I just like games the best. Either way, Chrono Trigger, the game which sparked this train of thought, is certainly a contender, but I didn't realize how amazing it was until later - the same with its sister games, Final Fantasy VI and Secret of Mana. There are also dozens of classics which I played as a child but only appreciate their greatness now. Ultima VI, the game you win by convincing warring peoples to get along - last time ever in a game. Maybe if I could play the new Sid Meier's Pirates without knowledge of the old version, I'd appreciate it much more. Jedi Knight was the coolest thing ever when it was new. Many other games I only realized were fantastic in retrospect: Suikoden II, Final Fantasy X, Master of Orion. I doubt I'll ever realize the fun and newness of Diablo online again. I mean, that game got me onto the Internet. The Dreamcast is worthy of its own category here: Skies of Arcadia, Samba de Amigo, Soul Calibur, and the sublime Jet Grind Radio. Or there's games that I played on the Sega Channel, not knowing they were the cream of the Genesis crop: Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force II, Gunstar Heroes, and of course, the stunning speed of Sonic the Hedgehog.

This was actually giving me some difficulty until, surreptitiously listening to my game music collection, the strain of loud guitar wankiness hit mine ears. Then it was obvious. It had to be Dynasty Warriors III. When I initially borrowed that game, I knew there were Chinese people hitting each other. You chose whichever guy, or girl, looked the badassest, and the game threw battles at you, where you smashed people until you smashed the big person and then you won and got new people to smash. Slowly, I started putting together backstory - there were three kingdoms, five major leaders, characters who fought on certain sides, etc. And there were books. I read the books. I memorized the game. I unlocked all the characters.

I once chose to play Dynasty Warriors III for three extra days over eating decently for a weekend.

To have that all back - the chance to not know the story, the characters, how the game worked, and have someone say "Oh, you have a PS2? You NEED to play this game!" all over again would make me the happiest little gamer ever.

So anyway. If you want to do this, there's comments, or do it on your website and let me know. Or just make fun of my nerdiness. Whatever.

2005-03-11T05:53:00.000-05:00

Oral Displeasure

I keep hurting myself. I have developed a style of sleeping on my stomach with my arm underneath my chest, with my hand reaching to my face. This often makes my hand fall asleep, but more annoying, if I have a dream with a physiological response, I may hurt myself with my hand.

See, the hand typically rests with the fingertips just below my lips. A few times in recent months, I have awakened to discover little sore spots on the inside of my lip. I was somewhat worried about them until I went to bed in my customary position and discovered that my fingertips were placed exactly where they could cause the sore. Apparently, if I have a dream that makes me clench my fist, I will dig into face and cut the inside of my mouth with my teeth.

The moral of the story, obviously, is that my hands make it dangerous for me to sleep with myself.

2005-03-09T03:43:00.000-05:00

Egads. Responsibility.

Having become officially bored with living with my parents and doing nothing, and with a trip to San Francisco in the near future likely, I half-heartedly ventured onto Craigslist to look for housing. I say half-heartedly because, bored as I am here, I have nothing concrete to look forward to elsewhere. Yeah, maybe I'll get a fun job, or meet interesting people, but I don't know for certain, right? And being able to stay home and play video games and read all day sure beats having a boring, lonely job in the city, right?

Because I was specifically unmotivated, when I got to the Craigslist site, I decided to procrastinate by clicking on the jobs button instead of the housing button, for reasons that only make sense to my nonconscious (had I really wanted to procrastinate, there's always "Missed Connections"). Scrolling through the list of non-profit style jobs, I notice one that says "Research Assistant." Hey, I've done that before! I look at it. Hey, I'm actually reasonably technically qualified to do that. My co-ops can be stretched to be called a year of preferably out-of-classroom research experience. History is a social science or related field. And they also want someone detail-oriented. Which I have been called by prestigious members of Antioch's faculty (not that they would know what the term meant. Actually, I think it was Hassan R., who might...) "Good interpersonal skills"........ well, sure, why not. Plus, the work that the company does seems to be good, and it's in a neighborhood that I have been told I should move to.

So naturally, instead of getting excited, I get cold. I have a strange physiological response to getting nervous: I get cold. I don't really feel butterflies in my stomach, but I do shake uncontrollably. I mean, here it is. I'm probably not going to get a better offer. But applying for a real job? Not a four-month trial job? That's rough, man. What if I were to get it? Sweet Jesus, I'd have to go to work, like, every day.

And yet, it's pretty much as good as I'm going to get, barring a close friend of mine suddenly needing a roommate in a place I want to be.

2005-03-06T04:34:00.000-05:00

Best Decade Ever

Yahoo has posted a 100-moments-in-internet-history thingy to celebrate their 10th birthday. By and large, it's fair, and has some great reminders of things like pets.com, hotornot, the Blair Witch Project, and so forth, but it's missing some seriously important items. For example, "Gaming" is one little thing buried in the depths of the list, when it's hard to imagine anything much more important to the creative force of the internet. We need fast connections to shoot people in the head, not the neck, dammit.

Most importantly, in its reminder of quirky-things-across-the-internet, it misses the biggest web phenomenon I've ever seen: All Your Base Are Belong To Us. For three weeks, this was all the internet had. Game sites of course had All Your Base signs all around. Porn sites? All Your Sex Are Belong To Us. People were writing about it as one of the strangest developments on the internet. There were thousands of marketers, trying to reach their choice demographics via novel marketing techniques on the web, and a mistranslated old video game with a photoshop slide show bypasses them and reaches EVERYONE.

And then it was gone. There are still signs of it every now and then. The cheat code to beat any level in Warcraft III is allyourbasearebelongtous.

They also forgot the damn hamsterdance. The Hamsterdance, let us recall, released an ALBUM.

2005-03-05T03:55:00.000-05:00

Why Did This Take Me So Long?

I believe that there are two things that make music good. If it gets you to move, or if it moves you. (god, I'm clever) I also like to organize my iTunes. I really like to organize my iTunes. My playlists tend to fall into the category of upbeat, getting-you-to-move categories, like Hip-Hop, Dance, Joy, Rock'n'Roll, etc. There is also an emotionally evocative bunch, labeled Cheerful Self-Destruction, Unlove, Crush, Joy, etc. (the Unlove playlist has about four times as many songs as the Love playlist). But I didn't use these all that often.

Today, I was fiddling around, wondering how I could tell what songs I listened to at what times. iTunes keeps track of the last time you listened, and how many times, but not each individual time. My train of thought led quickly from there to "hey, I could make playlists based on each segment of my life." Since my life has been conveniently divided into segments, I can make these playlists fairly easily. So now I have lists for my time before Antioch, my first year, my second year, my time in Philly, my last term, London, and the Newberry term. Editing the Record and coming home to quibble with my roommate/girlfriend? I've got that soundtrack. Dancing to bad music in clubs I don't belong at in London? Hell yeah. Being obsessed with certain bands in high school? Nailed it!

There is, however, something strange about listening to music now to directly call up memories of a certain time. I mean, what if one of those playlists becomes my favorite now? Would I have to put those songs on a playlist for post-graduation in a few months?

The process, at least, has worked well...I am calling up the emotions of these times.

2005-03-04T02:39:00.000-05:00

Story in Which I am Clever

After his election victory, G-Dub announced that he had won political capital, which he was prepared to spend. Apparently, it was spent on the doomed "gut social security to give money to my banker friends plan." Which was the political equivalent of blowing that capital on a Hummer.

No, not that kind of Hummer....this kind.

2005-03-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

Almost There

I've sent in my last two co-op papers. I've e-mailed the forgetful language professor reminding him that he said that I had the proficiency necessary to graduate. He won't remember, but he will tell the registrar that he does.

As long as these two things are well-received, I should start looking for plane tickets to Ohio. This should be fun. After all, it's only the culmination of about 10 years of my life.

2005-02-27T03:09:00.000-05:00

Calling all Freudians!

I very rarely remember my dreams, unless I wake up then fall asleep for another hour or so, as I did today.

The dream began with me helping a small child do something fun. Suddenly, I was in some kind of library-looking computer store with my mom, who was buying a printer. The store, I knew in that way that you know things in dreams, was owned by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. When my mom attempted to ring the printer up, the cashier pointed her to the back room and said that the owner wanted to speak with her. I decided to follow her, after all, how many chances does one have to meet Soren Kierkegaard?

I remember being concerned about whether I should take my hat off out of respect or not. This was strange, as it's very rare that I wear a hat, particularly one with a brim, as the dream-hat appeared to be.

The room we went into was a large, old, conference-type room, with three people in it. One was the small child I had helped at the start of the dream, playing with a puzzle. There was also an old man with glasses, and then there was Soren Kierkegaard.

Soren was a woman in her 30's or so, fairly attractive but not stunningly so. She didn't look have a face that I recognized, which usually happens in dreams. (the old man looked like a character from a video game I've been playing, which is no surprise). She had long, straight, mousy-brown hair, brown eyes, and a nose that would be called imperious more often than beautiful. She was not thin, but wouldn't even be called chubby. Full-figured in the nonfigurative sense, perhaps.

I decided to impress the great philosopher by sitting down with the child and playing with him at his puzzle while my mother entered printer-related negotiations. At some point, the old man called me over as if accepting me. (dreamSoren never spoke) He gave me a fairly old book that was a collection of Greek plays. I asked what it was for. I asked what I should do with it. He said I could do what I wanted - read it, study it, write on it, cite it, etc. Using my Rowan-charm, I made a feeble academic joke. Should I use it as a works cited or a bibliography?* The dream ended here.

*Something very strange in dream-logic occurred here. The joke I was trying to make was whether I should use MLA-style citations or Chicago-style citations. Dreaming-Rowan somehow knew this, though Dream-Rowan forgot. I'm not sure I've ever had a dream where the "me" in the dream acted as less than complete than "I" would have wanted.

The dream is not so surprising as it might appear. Soren Kierkegaard was not totally random. Last weekend, I stayed at my grandmother's, and the room I was in had a Kierkegaard book I saw regularly and thought about reading. My dream-fascination with Kierkegaard's looks can pretty easily be attributed to the fact that I have been without, ah, female companionship for a few months now. My desire to impress Soren is a little weirder, however, my strategy of being impressive by playing with a related child was a wise move. The Greek plays probably also come from the game I've been playing. The segment I was playing yesterday contained a list of Greek-sounding plays.

Still, it all added up to the most memorable dream I've had in a very long time.

2005-02-24T16:24:00.000-05:00

Shall We Talk About the Weather?

Ah, February...that gorgeous time of year when the sun comes out, the gentle rains fall, and summer is in the air. Yes, living in California during the winter months is actually quite different from living in Ohio or Colorado. Who knew?

It makes me want to go outside, except for the small problem that I have nowhere to go. Instead, I just play video games and occasionally play with the cats or dogs outside, though the cats, who I prefer, tend to do their playing inside. I suppose I do too. What lovely weather for video games!

2005-02-23T03:10:00.000-05:00

Music Recommendation of the Month

I am generally not a fan of depressing guy indie rock. I prefer shouty girl indie rock. The closest I come to whiny guy is The Decemberists, but they're more weird than depressing. Therefore, you can take it with stronger authority when I recommend this depressing indie guy type: Tom McRae.

Every year, when The Onion puts up their top albums of the year, I try to download a few songs from them. It's a policy which has served me well, The New Pornographers and Blackalicious came from that methodology. The mini-review of Tom McCrae's album said something like "It'll grab your attention with A Day Like Today, but the rest of the album is just as good in a subtle way." So I downloaded that song and a few others, and discover myself agreeing wholeheartedly. A Day Like Today is now in my top 10 most played all-time songs, with over fifty plays in less than two months, but I've opened a spot in my heart for End of the World News, Walking to Hawaii, and even a love song - an extraordinary rarity - Mermaid Blues.

So check it out. Try not to play A Day Like Today over and over. I dare you.

2005-02-21T02:15:00.000-05:00

A True American Is Dead

Hunter S. Thompson, specifically.

2005-02-20T02:40:00.000-05:00

I Am Bad At Accomplishing Goals

I recently started a project aimed at combining my mental capabilities and my love of video games. I called it Renaissance Gamer. It was a good idea, and I stand by the idea, but, doing the work is annoying. I've been trying to gather interest in the idea by going to gamer forums and posting previews...which has led to internet debates and reminded me just how timewasting they are. Is that really what I want? I mean, I can do it. I had Internet Debating trained into me as a child. I'm probably pretty good at it. But it's futile, obviously. I don't want random endless debates! I want people to agree with me when I write, but add their own deep thoughts that I agree with! I want them to right things that I consider and they believe my criticisms are valid as they bask in the glow of my acclaim.

I also want my friends to join me, and while they have expressed some interest, they have not actually done anything yet. I'm not terribly good at staying motivated to do things without others doing them as well.

Plus it's stopping my from doing my co-op papers. Two to go!

2005-02-17T05:12:00.000-05:00

Milestones

So, uh, at some point in the last week or so, I got my 10,000th hit. Not bad for nearly two years of work.

Actually, over a year ago, I was getting over a hundred hits per day, where now 20 is rare. Blogging once a week for 6 months'll do that, I guess.

But anyway. Have a party in the comments, kids.

2005-02-17T02:30:00.000-05:00

Ironic Internet Writer Job Update

The Sports Guy, obviously unable to make up his mind, raised the number of potential interns from 10 to 25, and posted the first half here. These people are good. A couple of them made me laugh. However, I remain cautiously optimistic (to use a great sports cliche) that I may be in the latter 13. My writing is as good and perhaps as funny as most of these people, on the plus side. As a detraction, however, he seems to have chosen people who were self-deprecating in their mini-essay, which amazingly is a weakness of mine, if you scroll on down to read my entry.

That's right, I think I did something with a critical lack of self-deprecation. The irony is killing me.

EDIT:

upon further reflection, I'm realizing that I might also have been too straightforward. Which is a common complaint with me. "Rowan," people say, "why do you always make your emotions so clear? Why can't your train of thought be a little more convoluted?"

2005-02-15T18:15:00.000-05:00

On the Justice of Commencement Speakers

Good old Antioch.

Those of you who are politically aware have probably heard about Ward Churchill. He's the University of Colorado professor who called the technocrats of the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns," a phrase for which he's taking a lot of flak now, uh, three and a half years later.

It was interesting, I thought, that he was taking the heat while Ann "invade all Muslim countries kill their leaders and convert the rest to Christianity" Coulter remains a media darling. But I wasn't too interested until I got an e-mail from Antioch saying that due to the controversy, they have canceled Churchill as the graduation speaker.

Oh yeah! He had been our scheduled speaker. I forgot.

Naturally, this has created a controversy. I mean, we once happily scheduled a convicted cop-killer as the speaker. Someone who compares Americans to Nazis should have fit right in. Add in the fact that he's a Native American, and this graduation should top the last two for drama!

2005-02-13T02:47:00.000-05:00

Like Shedding, While Adding Warmth!

I have a fun new pseudo-OCD habit! Over Christmas at my grandmother's, I made some random comment about not having a good enough sweater, and when my family went out shopping, they came home with a fairly fuzzy black sweater which is effective at doing what sweaters do, that is, keeping me warm.

On the other hand, my parents' house is filled with pets, the majority of which are not black. And the weather is turning warm here, so they're starting to shed. The house, however, remains cold, so the sweater is on fairly regularly. This leads to it acting basically as kind of an orange-fur magnet (we like the tigers). My fun new games is waiting to see how long it takes for me to be able to drag my fingers along the sweater and pick up a pinch of fur. It's usually not long - my kitties are big fans of me, as well they should be. I'm the only one who plays with them.

2005-02-13T01:37:00.000-05:00

Guess Who's Back?

The Internet appears to be back. Yes, there's ad revenue for crappy websites again. There's day trader commercials again. And there's...well, that's about it, really. Maybe it was the blogs and the election last year. Maybe it's the wild success of sites like Salon.com (which made its first profit in nine years recently. Go Salon! Profit good!) So there's money around. A clever, motivated, amoral person can use that to their advantage!

2005-02-07T02:26:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl Lowlight

Anheiser-Busch commercial that has army people returning in an airport, and everyone in the airport starts applauding them spontaneously, as angelic choirs sing.

I wish I were joking.

It's one thing to have respect for people in the military. Worshipping them blindly as heroes? Kinda makes me want to get deported.

Budweiser, you've lost sales to me. Coors is a bad apple, so that leaves Miller, the brand which openly advertises for hipsters. Champagne of beers, you're a winner.

2005-02-06T04:48:00.000-05:00

I Am Occasionally Bad At Math

You're probably wondering "What does Rowan think of digitally remastered albums, such as those Rolling Stones albums rereleased within the last few years?"

That's a good question. A few months ago, I would have said that they're too expensive, and I already have most of them. What's the point of a remaster, especially when it costs more than regular CDs.

Meanwhile, you might also be thinking "What does Rowan think about pop songs produced before the CD era, especially those produced before the late 60's?"

I would reply that those songs are often good pop songs, but the production makes them difficult to listen to. They're tinny, and there's too much space in the music, and so forth.

I never put 2 and 2 together and realized hey! those digital remasters probably update the production of these great songs to sound good to the modern ear. Old Satisfaction and Paint It, Black? Good. Remastered? Kick ass.

Now you don't have to wonder anymore.

2005-02-06T03:03:00.000-05:00

Change Is Painful

I finally got new shoes. I finally got a haircut. I went several months without either of these. However, this has resulted in massive blisters on my heals, as I attempt to break my shoes in, and massive itching on the back of my head, where my hair is suddenly short.

You know, I try and make myself look better, and this is what I get. Only suffering.

2005-02-03T02:35:00.000-05:00

Projects

I am attempting to fuse my intellectual skills and love of video games. The project is currently called Renaissance Gamer. renaissancegamer.blogspot.com. It's not a good idea for a blog format. But it will, one day, become a real website. I just have to start somewhere, you know? (if you want to read what I'm doing, skip past the massive essay thingy to the post at the bottom of the page.

2005-02-03T02:34:00.000-05:00

Gah! Deadlines!

So I just realized I have three co-op papers (6 pages each, but fairly easy) and checking my credits before I graduate. And that's in less than three months. I should probably get a move on everything in the next two or three weeks.

Good thing I don't have a job, eh?

2005-02-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

This think can flash-fry a buffalo in 45 seconds - But I want it NOW

Sleater-Kinney, new album, May 24. This means that after I don't check reviews for like three weeks, I can stop obsessively searching for their name to see if it came out.

Hey, it worked with the Talib Kweli album. Which was a bit disappointing. But that's not the point.