Bava, enfin -

Bava, continued.

2006-04-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, I'm not here anymore, but if you're looking for me, here's where to find me. ------------ The Dancing Librarian - http://exlibrius.org Where I blog about libraries, technology, art, the internet, and everything in the world that fascinates me (which is everything). Dance in the Library - http://ahniwa.livejournal.com Personal ramblings not fit for universal consumption. Readers should have an urge for personal interaction beyond professional considerations, or just an interest in my personal life will do, I suppose. Everything that needs to spill out that doesn't go to The Dancing Librarian will go here. La Casa Comics - http://lacasacomics.com Finally at its own home, and happy to be there, the comic is thriving (or, at the least, maintaining a consistent schedule for the most part), and we're still having a good time with it. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in full color (which is much better than 1/2 color, or even 9/10 color). MySpace (personal) - http://www.myspace.com/ahniwa MySpace (lacasa) - http://www.myspace.com/lacasacomics Friendster (rarely used) - http://www.friendster.com/profiles/ahniwa Email - bavaenfin (gmail) -- also works for finding me on google talk World of Warcraft - Server: Dark Iron - Characters: Bahlyn (main), Vaenu, Meluen There you go. Come and find me, it's not hard. :)

Holy Minima Black, Blogman!

2006-03-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

Transition, revolution, rinky-dinky blah blah blah. For now I need something simple and black. Seriously though, my personal blogging has moved elsewhere. I'm happy to give the link out to people I know. Contact me and I'll hook you up.

"Well, he's no Clark Gable."

2006-03-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

Two men whisper on the back roads, shoulders hunched; their collars are up around their necks and their dogs drawn in on a short leash. In the frigid dawn their breath draws clouds against the gray horizon. Their eyes scan the trees, above the hills, and they are wary. Their dogs are restless and completely silent. ---- Did you ever hear that Postal Service song? How did it go? Right. I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real" And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd I know you're wise beyond your years, but do you ever get the fear That your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by? When I think of "the fear", I think of this and I think of "fear and loathing in las vegas", not the title but a line from the movie, damned if I can remember it. When I think of the fear. No, when I get the fear, like I can feel creeping up sometimes still, like today, my eyes feel too far back in my head. My pant legs feel too short and my shoes ridiculous. All these things that I want to do, but none of them energize me. The thought of these actions inexplicibly turns from exciting to draining, and I'd just like to lay down and sleep for a long, long time. I make poor decisions when I get the fear. I quit dancing. I stay in more often than not. I start to judge the world, and worse, myself, with a scale that nothing can stand up to. Indécise - Coralie Clément Peut-être oui, peut-être non Ca m'est égal de toute façon À gauche, à droite, ça, je n'sais pas De haut en bas, oui, pourquoi pas Un jour où l'autre, on verra bien. Toujours remettre au lendemain Ce que je peux faire ce matin Je ne sais pas me prendre en main... Sometimes I know where the fear comes from, and why it comes, and what it wants. Sometimes it's so simple. Today, the fear is a fucking ninja. It's sneaky and black and pointy, but I've seen its traces. Fuck you, the fear. Come back some other day. Today. Today I don't want you.

It's not you, it's me.

2006-03-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

I'm making something of a break from blogger. Personal stuff will be filtered to a different and perhaps more secure location. Intellectual and link-posts will, eventually, earn their own site with a domain and web page built around them. In my head, this seems like the way that things should be done. I'll still be poking around here, but if you consider yourself a friend, feel free to get in touch with me and I'll give you directions to the new sites as they develop.

OCD, minus C

2006-03-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

I can be compulsive, but usually not in a manic fashion. Obsessive? Absolutely. The subjects vary, but the ones that come to mind immediately are: - Webcomics. - Ideas for websites. - Ideas for La Casa. - Swing Dancing. - Librarianism. - Webcomics. You'll notice that, sadly, blogging is not on that list. I'd love to be obsessed with blogging, but I'm not sure if it will happen in this current format. My idea, currently (and this does fall into the "Ideas for websites" obsession), is to create a seperate space for purely personal, day-to-day things (probably on livejournal, which seems to cater to the format), and another space for something more of a professional (meaning, subject-oriented) blog. I have some fun ideas for what I'd like to write about, mostly technology, information science, design, librarianism, and webcomics. It would be a fun cross-spectrum for fun people, I think. I have two other ideas for what I think would be good websites. The nice part is that once set-up they would, for the most part, run themselves. The not-so-nice part is that I really have no clue how to set them up. The ideas and the execution, I think, would be fairly simple. Unfortunately, fairly simple is generally beyond me at the moment when it comes to web design. I'm decent with CSS and for the most part I "understand" things. Understanding does not a good web designer make. Not by itself, in any case. The point? The point is, if you're good with web design, and might be interested in collaborating with me to get this stuff going, I'm happy to pitch my ideas to you. Understand, they're not "exciting". I don't have the next MySpace lurking in my brain. They're simple, but I think they'll work. Tonight I'm going dancing in Portland. Tomorrow night, to a party in Seattle. Sunday night I may go dancing in Seattle. Monday night, more dancing. Tuesday and Wednesday: dancing. Thursday? Thursdays I crawl into a hole and sleep, or sometimes I go play poker and drink beer. And I wonder why time seems to slip by so quickly ... oh wait, no I don't. The answer is dancing. Dancing and webcomics. The two best answers out there.

Questionably Content

2006-02-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

Everything changed today. You'd think I was overreacting, that the sky had fallen, or that I'd kissed a chicken. The sea isn't boiling, not yet, but even so, everything changed today. Tomorrow, it will likely change again.

When haiku have kids.

2006-02-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

I don't know what the plural of "haiku" is, but I refuse to say "haikus". I imagine, like geese, it could be "heeku", or perhaps "haaku" or "hiiku" (but absolutely not "hooku", which is obviously the plural for "hookah"). However, I'm going to go with the "moose" methodology instead, which remains "moose", and which stands as a testiment, when combined with "goose" and its plural, that the English language really doesn't put forth a whole lot of effort towards being consistent. And that's exactly why I love it. In any case, here are two haiku that I wrote. Afterwards, I decided I didn't like them in haiku form (it was actually their choice and not mine), so from their loins sprung (that's a really ghastly image) the poem underneath. Actually, haiku are hermaphroditic, but will rarely spawn anything but more haiku when left on their own. When two haiku spawn together, you'll often get a poem. Haiku orgies often result in odes, ballads, sonnets in iambic pentameter, and children's songs. Don't look at me. It's the natural order! Without further ado ... one it's not too late yet; i want conversation past midnight and to fulfill your smile's promise. two you smile like moonlight. fingers brush fingers. your cheek is smudged with stardust. it's not too late yet it's not too late yet; minds wrapped around distant angles, long exposures drawn out and sometimes so long that I become aware of nothing but your presence beside me. it's not too late yet; stepping back into the night's artificial flicker. stars make wishes on our cities. we hazard fingertips brushing, too hot to be a holy palmer's kiss. it's not too late yet; as you smile like moonlight, your cheek is smudged with stardust and there's so much time left to go. it's not too late yet; i want conversation past midnight, and to fulfill your smile's promise.

In the end, I couldn't bear it.

2006-02-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I'll watch that show. After the city has turned its lights off and the pre-midnight rainbow has become a sea of flashing yellow down State street, I'll huddle quietly and try to dissolve the mystery surrounding musical and television pop culture. Reality TV? Maybe, but you know it can only be real when people don't know they're being filmed, and some of these people are really, very obviously, aware of the cameras. I'll watch it though not on TV and I won't vote, but part of me is curious about this pervasive pop phenomenon. It's interesting, but I can't get past a skeptical detachment (nor do I want to). Some people spend more time communicating with this show, about this show, than they do with their children, their spouses, their books or their dreams. Once, when we were all in black and white, television seemed so wholesome. It was a reasonable extension from the family sitting around the radio, listening to the Little Orphan Annie show, news radio, or dramatic productions of great (by "great" I mean pulp) mystery stories. Then we had Bewitched, Leave it to Beaver, I Dream of Jeanie, etc etc. The shows were limited and wholesome, the time spent in front of the television set was balanced by time reading, talking about the news, playing chess, checkers, cribbage, bridge, being a family. [long rant deleted] Now, huddled in the blackness as my screen flashes lightning and laugh tracks guide me, sometimes I shiver quietly, and wonder how television could have been so subtle in devouring my integrity.

One, please.

2006-02-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

an anti v-day haiku. lip-locked lovers at the movie; while you made kissy face, I ate all your popcorn.

VD.

2006-02-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's.

Alone and listening

2006-02-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

The first thing these days after I get home: a cup of tea (mint please). I set the cup near the plants to watch the steam caress their leaves. I think they find it erotic. I watch the sky redden, then darken against the sloping horizon, and the city becomes a sea of flickering lights dancing outside my window. By now I've moved on from tea; something with a kick, and while Miles takes five I close my eyes and lean back. Sometimes, alone and listening, staring out into the black and the ground littered with stars; sometimes every night is perfect.

Keirsey's Rational Ravenclaws

2006-02-09T16:35:00.000-08:00

So I took this Keirsey personality type test, which gave me the same results pretty much every other personality test I've ever taken says. And which, according to this Keirsey version of the sorting hat, makes me a Ravenclaw. This, as well, is nothing new. The test describes me thusly:

Rationals, are the problem solving temperament, particularly if the problem has to do with the many complex systems that make up the world around us. Rationals might tackle problems in organic systems such as plants and animals, or in mechanical systems such as railroads and computers, or in social systems such as families and companies and governments. But whatever systems fire their curiosity, Rationals will analyze them to understand how they work, so they can figure out how to make them work better. In working with problems, Rationals try to find solutions that have application in the real world, but they are even more interested in the abstract concepts involved, the fundamental principles or natural laws that underlie the particular case. And they are completely pragmatic about their ways and means of achieving their ends. Rationals don't care about being politically correct. They are interested in the most efficient solutions possible, and will listen to anyone who has something useful to teach them, while disregarding any authority or customary procedure that wastes time and resources. Rationals have an insatiable hunger to accomplish their goals and will work tirelessly on any project they have set their mind to. They are rigorously logical and fiercely independent in their thinking--are indeed skeptical of all ideas, even their own--and they believe they can overcome any obstacle with their will power. Often they are seen as cold and distant, but this is really the absorbed concentration they give to whatever problem they're working on. Whether designing a skyscraper or an experiment, developing a theory or a prototype technology, building an aircraft, a corporation, or a strategic alliance, Rationals value intelligence, in themselves and others, and they pride themselves on the ingenuity they bring to their problem solving. Rationals are very scarce, comprising as little as 5 to 10 percent of the population. But because of their drive to unlock the secrets of nature, and to develop new technologies, they have done much to shape our world.

This, in turn, seems to match fairly well with my monkey traits, and perhaps my ram traits as well. I feel like I know myself pretty well, and I know how I feel about these results. I'm curious to hear from those who know me, and those who don't know me but through my writing here, how well YOU feel these traits fit me. I know other Aries, and other Monkeys, but I don't know if I know any other Aries Monkey Rational Ravenclaw types, so I don't have a very good mirror in that respect, and chances are if I met one I'd hate them. Which leads me to another question. If you met someone exactly like you (a veritable, or perhaps literal, clone), would you enjoy their company?

Implications of changing names in changing times.

2006-02-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

I came across an interesting paper written as a masters thesis (around 2000, I think), that addresses this topic pretty well. "The implications of name changes for library and information science schools" - JULIA ANNE MURPHY the link is: http://www.crowbold.com/homepage/topic4.htm Of particular interest concerning this topic:

Positive and Negative Aspects of Name Changes Most proponents of library school name changes agree that the changes are important in recruiting a new type of student. Changing librarianships' negative stereotypical image is cited as an important reason. Maurita Holland of the University of Michigan says that the term "library" conjures up archaic images (Davis, 1998) and Jose-Marie Griffiths, Director of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Tennessee agrees. "We are striving to recruit students of a different type who wouldn't think about entering a library and information science program because they have the traditional view of what it's all about" (Dean's list, 1994, p. 60). Another important factor is psychological. Name changes show academe and potential students that the field of information science is not limited to librarianship, and that information science education can lead to non-traditional, higher paying jobs (once again, usually in the corporate world). Library schools today are adamant about divorcing librarianship from the physical institution of the library. "Information science" connotes that information is everywhere and that therefore graduates of a program can work just about anywhere, whether that is in a library, corporate setting, or as a freelance information broker. Nancy Van House, former Dean of the now-defunct School of Library and Information Science at the University of California at Berkeley agrees. "If we focus as 'library schools', on the library, then we are tied to an institution that is changing and that could disappear"(Dean's list, 1994, p.62). Naturally, others disagree heartily with the name changes, finding them superficial at best and an utter betrayal of the profession at worst. While proponents of the changes believe the name changes will improve relations with the rest of academe, critics feel that universities will see the new titles as simply another attempt by a low-ranking discipline to manipulate words in order to raise its status (Crowley, 1998). And while name changes may appear to be a token effort to address the reality of the information paradigm shift, it takes time and strategic planning to develop a corresponding curriculum that is properly balanced between theoretical and practical education. In this sense, name changes, especially with the plethora of permutations of the word "information", can be evidence again of the identity crisis within which library schools are involved (Bohannan, 1991). What are such schools, really? More library school than information science school? Or vice versa? These questions lead one directly back to the definitions described above -- definitions that provide few answers except to show that as a profession, librarianship is still struggling to define itself and its schools.

I still don't know how I feel about getting rid of the word "Library" from graduate programs. Perhaps I'm biased because I do want the degree to pursue work IN libraries, which I realize isn't the case for everyone. Here are some more links I've run across that seem relevant. There's a lot to read, just thought I'd throw it out there. http://www.si.umich.edu/cristaled/postings/V52.html http://walt.lishost.org/?p=231 http://www.slis.ualberta.ca/cap03/regan/unitedstates.htm

In addition, library schools are choosing to drop the word 'library' from their faculty names in order to disassociate themselves with the low status occupation of librarian. Farley suggests that librarians can improve their status and pay by: 1) standing firm on wage negotiations despite economic downturns, 2) disseminating information on fair pay, 3) embracing the title of librarian instead of information specialist. She generally recommends marketing the librarian as important to society and refute the common misconceptions of the librarian.

The idea of "library" and the importance of a name.

2006-02-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

McGill's Graduate School of Library and Information Studies is evidently considering dropped the words "Graduate" and "Library", which has some students up in arms. School of Information Studies? I don't think it sounds as nice, or fits as well the role of the school, which just added three specializations this year: Knowledge Management, Archival Studies, and Librarianship. If you're going to offer a specialization in "librarianship", wouldn't it make sense to keep "library" in the name? The crux is this, what does the word "library" mean in the 21st century, and how is it viewed outside of the library community? Removing the word would likely be based on the idea that "library science" has fallen far enough out of its specialization in libraries and into a more general idea of information management. Is there an viable instance where "library studies" are outside of and distinct from "information studies"? If you do a wikipedia search for library science it automatically brings up the entry for LIS (Library and Information Science). For wikipedia, library science automatically incorporates information science, but the reverse does not seem to be true.

Library and information science (LIS) is the study of issues related to libraries and the information fields. This includes academic studies regarding how library resources are used and how people interact with library systems. These studies tend to be specific to certain libraries at certain times. The organization of knowledge for efficient retrieval of relevant information is also a major research goal of LIS. Basic topics in LIS include the acquisition, cataloging, classification, and preservation of library materials. In a more present-day view, a fervent outgrowth of LIS is information architecture. LIS should not be confused with information theory, the mathematical study of the concept of information or information science a field related to computer science and cognitive science. Programs in LIS are interdisciplinary, overlapping with the fields of computer science, various social sciences, statistics, and systems analysis.

Doing a search for "information science" points you to informatics, where the language points much more into the realm of computer science and information management via databases and software engineering.

Informatics or information science is the study of information. It is often, though not exclusively, studied as a branch of computer science and information technology and is related to database, ontology and software engineering. Informatics is primarily concerned with the structure, creation, management, storage, retrieval, dissemination and transfer of information. Informatics also includes studying the application of information in organizations, on its usage and the interaction between people, organizations and information systems. Within information science attention has been given in recent years to human computer interaction (HCI) and to the ways people generate, use and find information.

In the academic world, it's easy to think that being a librarian is all about creating databases, utilizing new software, being technologically innovative, and so-on and so-forth, ad technologicum. However, many LIS graduates find work in small public libraries, where you still find a lot of patrons who don't want to use computers or databases, and who want to ask the librarian anytime they have a question. For a lot of librarians, patron interaction and reference work are what make their jobs worthwhile, and while younger library users will likely jump on the technology bandwagon, utilizing the software and databases created by the librarian instead of the librarian directly, we have a more conventional generation, who having grown up with card catalogs and print indexes, aren't keen on skipping the middleman and jumping straight into information overload. Day by day the line is blurring between LIS and Informatics. We, as librarians and library students, are at a point where we need to try and straddle the gap between the two, and eventually build a bridge. I think that it is important to maintain the distinction between information study as a librarian to information study as a computer science student or software engineer. Yes, as "librarians" we want to be able to branch out. We are versatile, and can offer many skills outside of the library setting. But if that is our explicit goal, then the field of library science will decline, and the importance of the library as place will eventually be swallowed by technology, computer science, and the internet. The library can always expand its purview, and incorporate innovation and technology to its heart's content. We can make the words "library science" mean "information expert", rather than letting "information expert" destroy the word "librarian".

World 2.0

2006-02-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

The president of the U. of Michigan gave an excellent speech yesterday on Google's book digitization and its impact on libraries, information, and publishing. (full text)

New technologies and new ideas can generate some pretty scary reactions, and Google Book Search has not been immune. The project, for all that it promises, has been challenged: on the editorial page, across the airwaves, and, with your organization’s endorsement, in the court system. It is this criticism of the project that prompted me to accept your invitation to speak — and explain why we believe this is a legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society. Legal because we believe copyright law allows us the fair use of millions of books that are being digitized. Ethical because the preservation and protection of knowledge is critically important to the betterment of humankind. And noble because this enterprise is right for the time, right for the future, right for the world of publishing, right for all of us.

Relatedly, a lot of discussion has been happening about "library 2.0". ACRLog has a good post with lots of links here. Stephen Abram has a post here that covers the spectrum of web 2.0, library 2.0, and the 2.0 world. I guess it's the 2.0 revolution, hope you brought your mittens.

Attack monkeys? Attack monkeys!

2006-02-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

The coolest news story, ever.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 Today the Paris Guardian reported on the hottest new trend in Parisian gang weaponry: attack monkeys. "They're ultra-fashionable," said Didier Lecourbe, a police officer from the depressed Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. "Now that the authorities have cracked down on pit bulls, Dobermans, and rottweilers, apes are becoming the new weapon of choice." Imported illegally through Spain from Gibraltar, Morocco, and Algeria, the Barbary apes are known for their powerful limbs, sharp teeth, and short tempers; removed from their natural habitat, they can become highly aggressive, and their favored method of attack is to hurl themselves at people's heads. Police believe as many as 500 Barbary apes have been smuggled into France in the past two years.

Thanks to Jason for the link. I'd like to think they got the idea from us.

La Nouvelle France

2006-02-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

We've a ways to go yet, time to spend, waiting ... for me to get nervous. Will this whole financial aid thing work out? Will I be able to go to Montreal? I'll sell me soul to do so, but I hear they're not going for much these days. In this regard, I was price-checking colleges again the other day. McGill is a good choice, financially. For instance: U. of Wisconsin: Madison charges about $500 per credit instate, and over $1500 per credit out of state. Simmons College in Boston, as a private institution, charges just under $900 per credit, across the board. If I were lucky enough to be a resident of Quebec, McGill would only cost $60 per credit. As it is, it's still only $375 per credit, which is chump change compared to my other options. So that's good, but I still don't know, as an international student, exactly how my aid works out. US Aid should apply to me just as if I was attending a US school, but I need to doublecheck that. Instead, I'm writing about how I should be doublechecking it. Priorities, I know. Rent is affordable in Montreal as well, according to their Craigslist. Bearing in mind that those numbers, as well as the tuition numbers, are in Canadian currency, actual price is about %88 of the amount listed. Even better. Wikipedia has (as usual) a great article on Montreal, with lots of links, shiny buttons, and pikters. If you like that sorta thing. Back in the day I was reading the Montreal City Weblog, which has fun dirt on local political stories, and well as news on various artistic events. Good times. Montreal proper is about three times as populated as Seattle, which gives you an idea of how big it is. Visually, I find it to be an attractive city. So how close am I to getting there? Well, I got my official acceptance packet from McGill, which was exciting in its own right. Included were immigration papers for Canada and Quebec, seperately, to let them know that I'll be there attending school. I filled out my FAFSA, always a joy, and I've started filling out mad scholarship applications. Between four years of library employment and good references from coworkers and professors, I think I demonstrate a dedication to the job and the ability to excel that scholarship committees are looking for. But having never been through this process before, I admit to no small amount of trepidation. My undergrad process was so easy. I filled out the FAFSA (not entirely easy, but easy enough), and the state and federal government practically threw grants, aid, and loans in my face. After four years I ended owing a little over $20k, which isn't horrible by any means, which is now down to about $7k. I'm a giant fan of subsidized loans for education, and if they want to offer me a whole ton of money in loans, I'd be happy to take it. The education is the thing, and I can't think of a cost too great to not make it worthwhile. Which is all well and good, but doesn't mean they'll give me the money, anyway. So that's my state of the union, as it were. I've been out dancing a lot, again, which is great fun, and I've been meeting some super people. And it helps me not worry so much about the grad school money thing, because it will work out, one way or another. Until it does, I'll just keep dancing.

When the rains came

2006-01-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

When the rains came the books were unprepared, languishing in their regulated air, they knew no more of wet than a babe of fire or an animal of greed. The drops started slow, cold dark moisture creeping along the undersides of pipes, melting through crevices, plummeting in the manner of spring leaves, patient for their fate. When they reached the wall they balked, hesitated. The drops behind piled down upon them, forced them to push through, not hungry, but desperate to obey gravity, however slowly they would go. Now, finding paper, old trees, the water soaked, spread, saturated those folds of wood and ink and tried to remember the call that nature gave to water and to wood. The water soaked, and remembering by instinct, told the books, "drink. grow." At first it was an onslaught to paper that had never known worse than cries of censorship, which does not warp the page nor smear the ink. Gradually, listening, they drank. Page by page, thoughts hazy as the ink ran, as the pages twisted, they tried to remember being trees. Eventually the water stopped, human error made right by human hand. Some books were saved. Some had gone mad, the lust to grow turned their spines to sap and their pagination to rings of age beyond their memory. Later, tossed out amidst debris, the books, mad with life, found sediment, water, sky. And from each page, a tiny sprig took hold, following down into the earth, the driving voice of gravity and life.

reflection squared

2006-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

the image in the mirror isn't you, though it looks like you and acts like you, it's face, too, seems such an odd shape, it's smile too forced, it's eyelids too low, and you're reminded so much of yourself. but when, in the desperation of night's cold, you throw yourself into its arms, it shatters, cuts you, destroys your fragile countenance. now there are a hundred, none of them you. regardless, you start an army, a throng of reflections looking to each other for answers.

We're gonna save Zelda!

2006-01-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

Yeah, Zelda! But really, I was just gonna throw down some more links. This article over at The Beast is one of the funniest and most well-written pieces of editorial comment I've read in some time. I got the link via Kottke because I depend on people more well-informed than I am to tell me what to read. Connor Moran is a local, and he knows how to tell a joke. I can appreciate that, even if the bastard never links to our comic.

The Future of the Academic Library

2006-01-24T15:18:00.000-08:00

I'm on a librarian listserv, and these are a couple articles that were mentioned today, concerning the future of the academic library and the growing digitalization of information, entertainment, and education. This article from EDUCAUSE Review eloquently discusses the problems, and ideas for solutions, for the modern academic librarian.

Over the next decade, colleges and universities will have to make critically important practical and policy decisions about the function of libraries, about the space devoted to libraries, and about the roles of librarians. If these decisions are made wisely, the academy may be able to maintain much of the ineffable, inspirational value associated with academic libraries while retaining their practical value through altogether transformed activities and functions built upon a new mission designed for a more digital world.

In turn, the ACRLblog talks about the validity of the arguments presented in the EDUCAUSE article, and it's relation to a few other articles that have been published in the recent past. And to follow up, another EDUCAUSE article that talks about Place as Library. On a personal note, I find it exciting to be a part of a world that is growing and changing so rapidly. I also find it a little scary to jump into a profession that rests so soundly on changing principles and ideas. When I get too worried, I think about all those little libraries, in all those little towns, and in all those big, big states, who don't care so much about these issues as they do about when the next Sue Grafton book is released. In other words, if the Academic Library seems flummocticatedly mutable, the Public Library remains stalwart and honest, which is not to say unprogressive.

God loves a whiner.

2006-01-21T23:27:00.000-08:00

Really no desire to be "out" at the moment, though the night air and the lights from downtown beckon to me. But I don't know their purpose. The last post was fairly accurate, and my favorite bit is:

i'm rambling on rather self consciously while i'm stirring these condiments into my tea and i think i'm so lame i bet i think this song's about me don't i don't i don't i ?

I'm in a goddam lull, which comes as interests wane and I am driven to reevaluate certain things. Most of my friends have taken to hanging out at the Eagle's bar, and I've grown to hate the place, so it's become harder and harder to go out. It's not that I mind the people, but the atmosphere is dark and dingy and it's probably the only smoking bar in the entire state right now. God, listen to me whine. My interests have been waxing in the library world, and I've got a few projects in mind to get a head start with what it might be like to be a librarian, including two web projects and an idea for an article, which I may even try to publish if I ever get it written. But after a day of work I find it hard to come home and devote myself to more work (though I know plenty of people do). For now, though, I think I'll go to bed. I worked all day, and now I'm dead tired. Toodles!

Quite romantic

2006-01-20T22:55:00.000-08:00

lull - andrew bird, weather systems being alone it can be quite romantic like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic a fantastic voyage to parts unknown going to depths where the sun's never shone and i fascinate myself when i'm alone so i go a little overboard but hang on to the hull while i'm airbrushing fantasy art on a life that's really kind of dull oh, i'm in a lull i'm all for moderation but sometimes it seems moderation itself can be a kind of extreme so i joined the congregation i joined the softball team i went in for my confirmation where incense looks like steam i start conjugating proverbs where once there were nouns this whole damn rhyme scheme's starting to get me down oh, i'm in a lull i'm in a lull being alone it can be quite romantic like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic a fantastic voyage to parts unknown going to depths where the sun's never shone and i fascinate myself when i'm alone i'm rambling on rather self consciously while i'm stirring these condiments into my tea and i think i'm so lame i bet i think this song's about me don't i don't i don't i ? i'm in a lull

ePrivacy, iPrivacy, and yPiracy

2006-01-20T10:46:00.000-08:00

Consider this a link-dump, if you like. I won't ramble much myself. I don't think it's that people think of the internet as private, neccesarily, but that they just don't expect it to be used against them. Or perhaps, that it's so big that they can be just a face in the crowd. But internet privacy issues are becoming bigger and bigger, from getting google searched at the border, to having your Facebook profile checked by university admissions staff to help determine if they should accept your application. This Times article highlights the issue of search engine anonymity. Though it clearly states that no "private" information was being proferred, doesn't it feel like that would just be a matter of time?

"These search engines are a very tempting target for government and law enforcement," Givens said. "Look at the millions of people who use search engines without thinking of the potential to be drawn into a government drag net."

I'm not a big fan of facebook (I do have an account), but evidently a lot of people are. This story claims facebook has over 6 million active users, and that over 2/3 of them log on daily. And with stats like that, can you blame a college for "keeping an eye" on their students. Yes, and I think you should. It's easy for college and university administration to forget that students are what keep them in business. So they had a few drinks, in private. So they "threaten" to commmit a crime. On the internet!? Hell, I've threatened to do a lot of things on the internet, but you can bet your ass that if someone "disciplined" me for it, I'd bring a lawsuit down on them with an unholy fury. Should students watch what they post? Perhaps. But maybe the administration should try and respect their privacy a bit too, before they scare all the students away. Because then what will they do? Hit cancel on the login form and you'll get two paragraphs of this story, which details students rushing a football field and starting something of a "postgame riot". Campus police were overwhelmed and only managed a couple arrests, but once again facebook came to the rescue, and through posted photos they managed to finger a whole ton of other students. These students were actually breaking the law, so it makes a bit more sense than the previous example. Yet just another story of Student Beware! This eweek article highlights the story of an Iranian man and resident of Toronto being stopped from entering the US when border guards found out he was a blogger and so googled his name, finding too much evidence that he had been living, without proper documentation, in New York. His blog post about the experience is interesting. It's from November 24, 2005, so a little old but very relevant to the issue. Sure, it seems obvious in retrospect, but how would you feel if the border guard not only found your blog, but started to interrogate you about each and every post? I know I'd be outraged.

He was ecstatic. My blog made his day, or in this case, his night. He kept reading my posts and asking questions about a lot of them: Why did I go to Iran, what are my feelings about Bush administration, why I separated from my wife, what did I think about Iranian politics, etc.

From this article:

Now that students have grown accustomed to posting every detail of their lives, from the mundane to the torrid, on their profiles, they need to show a little more restraint. On many profiles, discretion takes a back seat to showing off Thursday night's killer keg stand or commenting on Friday night's hook up.

Though I totally love this turnaround by some clever students:

At George Washington University, students took it upon themselves to prove that university police were using the Facebook to find and break up parties. They created a "Beer Party" on the Facebook and waited, digital cameras in hand, for police to arrive. When squad cars rolled up, police found students sipping punch and downing cupcakes frosted with the word "beer."

And facebook isn't the only "dangerous" public domain. Myspace is, of course, immensely popular, and got these kids in trouble. Do a Google news search for facebook right now, and you'll get 332 articles, at a glance most of them about students getting busted by schools for things they've posted on their facebook profiles. While you're there, try searching myspace as well, or livejournal, blog, typepad, friendster, etc etc etc. The social tools available on the internet today are amazing, and they certainly have their uses. But unless federal law steps in with internet privacy laws, expect the people you would least like to see your blog/profile/photos to see them, and act accordingly. Also, don't forget that myspace and livejournal both have privacy locks you can put on posts so that not just anyone can read them. Until every service offers similar protection, bear in the mind that at its core, the nature of the internet is that it's public.

Linguatastically yours, bava.

2006-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

I was poking around at thesaurus.com because, once again, I couldn't remember a word (which I never did find, damn it), and thought this was interesting. Their entry for liberal: Main Entry: liberal Part of Speech: adjective 1 Definition: progressive Synonyms: advanced, avant-garde, big, broad, broad-minded, catholic, detached, disinterested, dispassionate, enlightened, flexible, free, general, high-minded, humanistic, humanitarian, impartial, indulgent, inexact, interested, latitudinarian, left, lenient, libertarian, loose, magnanimous, not close, not literal, not strict, permissive, pink, radical, rational, reasonable, receiving, receptive, reformist, tolerant, unbiased, unbigoted, unconventional, understanding, unorthodox, unprejudiced Antonyms: conservative Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. And for conservative: Main Entry: conservative Part of Speech: adjective Definition: moderate Synonyms: bourgeois, cautious, constant, controlled, conventional, die-hard, fearful, firm, fogyish, fuddy-duddy, guarded, hard hat, hidebound, holding to, illiberal, inflexible, middle-of-the-road, not extreme, obstinate, old guard, old-line, orthodox, quiet, red-neck, right, right-wing, sober, stable, steady, timid, traditional, traditionalistic, unchangeable, unchanging, uncreative, undaring, unimaginative, unprogressive, white bread Antonyms: incautious, left-wing, liberal, progressive, radical, revolutionary Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. It may just be me, but it seems like "conservative" is painted more negatively than "liberal", and in a thesaurus, of all places. Who knew Roget was such a revolutionary?

The Terror on Terror

2006-01-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

Call me crazy, but I'm really fucking tired of the "war on terror". Like the bumper stickers say, War IS terror. Anyway, here's a complete transcript of the audio broadcast. It claims to be completely accurate, but I really have no clue. I'm no bin Laden fan, but right now, Bush feels like an evil that is much closer to home.

Montreal

2006-01-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

Beware of what comes out of Montreal, especially during winter. It is a force corrosive to all human institutions. It will bring everything down. It will defeat itself. It will establish the wilderness in which the Brightness will manifest again. - from 'Montreal', by Leonard Cohen The news is official, though still too early to pack my bags. I'm ready now for that trek, again; ready again to consolidate my life into a two-door on wheels and to drive like flying. In August I will take my leave from this rain, from these domes and evergreens, lakes and quiet inlets. August, a day away at best and yet still too far to taste. And long past August, when the hard winter falls, we'll corrode together, Montreal and I, and eat away at the institutions, at the heartbreaks and the lonely solitudes and we'll emerge and be stars upon the earth. And every step will be a search for new constellations.

Write like you used to.

2006-01-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

Today my finger's are antsy, waiting for the right meaning to find its way into my head; for the right word or sentiment, for everything to make sense again. Reading back over July of '04, carpe diem, you know ... and all that; makes me wonder what it felt like, to be me then, and the effort it takes to remember it was me is frightening. Reminiscences are futile, finally, chicken scratch on a chalkboard long since washed away, written over, overridden with current turmoil, and the zen certainty that everything is happening simultaneously. I never asked for Washington. I was born here, lived here, moved away and came back and it has my heart and I can't understand, regardless, a similar connection to a different place. Home is where your car is licensed. My eye, lately, takes to rambling like my fingers are now, and it has no opinion on consequences; leaves them for the rest of me, takes its fill, moves on. Philanderer. Wandering the stacks at closing, i put my hand out, let my fingers run over the spines as i used to do often when i was shelving. I'll close my eyes and feel the whispers of those worlds rasping against my skin. Sometimes my breath will catch, there alone, and I am reminded. I can hardly stand the beauty of this world.

For lack of a suitable thought ...

2006-01-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

Shazzam! It's a ramble! I'm here to gamble, my pocket pair is gonna leave you in a shamble. ... so on and so forth. Man, what a glorious life as a rapper I could have had, passed up for the off chance that I might become a librarian one day. Lately, I've been falling in love a lot. A week ago, I fell in love with Stephanie. You may recognize her from MirrorMask. Since then, I've fallen for Emily Mortimer, from Dear Frankie. This is to say nothing of my past loves. And heck, any of them are certainly still welcome to call me. Three cheers for this totally pointless post!

The Gajillion Dollar Internet $$$

2006-01-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about The Million Dollar Homepage is how few people have heard of it. This disturbs me because it means that this guy made a $ million, cold, in advertising that your common joe will never see. The Wiki article expounds that knock-off sites are rampant, but that "the limited success of these imitators may have an impact on its long-term sustainability." Even so. This guy has already made over $5000. Pixel4Jesus has made nearly $70,000. All in the Lord's name, of course. And there are a boatload of them. This pixel ads list contains over 1175 pixel advertising sites, and growing. If you average one million pixels per page (as most of them do), and say they run an average of even as low as ten cents per pixel (though I'd assume the average is slightly higher), then that's $117,500,000 worth of adspace. In comparisn, The Mile Wall is refreshingly different, if still a very strange beast of an advertising gimmick, and as yet relatively unknown. Since Kottke linked it, I'm sure it will launch into the (internet's) public eye soon enough. At the least, at $1 per square inch (a square inch being being 5625 pixels by the site's standards), you're getting a lot more ad for your money's worth. At a mile wide and 7" tall, the guy only stands to make $443,520. We'll see how that works out for him. It must be a rough life, taking a blank page in the middle of internet nowhere and turning it into an ad revenue Mecca. Pixel ad sites will be short-lived, but you know this has started a trend of outside-the-box internet ad junkies, who will come up with increasingly weird ways to sell worthless internet space for thousands of dollars. Personally, I'm jealous as fuck. I'm interested to see where it goes. And I wish I'd thought of it.

Battle of the Megictionaries

2006-01-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

Whatever their shortcomings, neither encyclopedia appears to be as error-prone as one might have inferred from Nature, and if Britannica has an edge in accuracy, Wikipedia seems bound to catch up.

Continued here... In other Wiki news, have you heard about Wikiversity?

The main goal of Wikiversity is not just to impart knowledge but to facilitate learning. The collaborative model of the wiki will be applied to an e-learning framework. This differs significantly from a classic university model, although it does acknowledge the growing acceptance of a social theory of learning in pedagogical and academic practice. Wikiversity will not prohibit research, though it need not necessarily be a part of every course. In the technical training aspects of its work, its goal is not to discover new things, but to teach things which are already known to new people. At a higher level of education, there will probably have to be some scope for students to do their own research, whether a survey of the literature or of primary research, though this will have to be monitored carefully, and will be dependent on the type of course offered. Wikiversity does not yet certify student's mastery. We currently have no way of assuring who is doing the work for a course. We have no way ensuring that every course that would be required for a degree has enough teachers to even attempt it. We attempt to teach the same material many accredited schools do, and to teach the material as well (or better!). But we are not yet an accredited university. There is no guarantee that we will attempt to gain accreditation in the future. It is an open question with diverse opinions within the current community of participants whether accreditation and the ability to award recognized credentials will be useful or effective in the performance of our mission to facilitate free learning. It is already clear that Wikiversity will be a radically different kind of learning platform/environment/resource and its identity and scope will be continually shaped by its students and its practitioners. Our goal, therefore, is to teach the material to whomever wants to learn it, to the best of our ability and theirs. We set out the materials needed to learn, and set up a framework for collaborative learning and teaching. It is the task of the self selected participants to work towards actual mastery of desired skills sufficient and necessary to pursue personal goals.

And since I don't remember if I posted this before, it's a great wiki resource for librarians. You guessed it, it's Wiki Wednesday! Before I said that, I didn't even know it was an actual phenom.

Clanging in the New Year ...

2006-01-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

... because "ringing" just wouldn't cover it, and I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to mean, anyway. I have never, intentionally, "rung" a year, much less a new one. I find that, once they age a bit, their tone improves, so why ring them when they're all new and shiny? Let them tarnish a bit, collect some wisdom and experience, and then RING THE SHIT OUTTA THEM!!! Evidently, I will clang a new year, which conjures up strange images in my head, and ever stranger sounds. Who knows what that's all about. This is a newsy sorta update, and I may be prone to ramble, as I do when I haven't updated for some time. If you're looking for something interesting to read, move on. If you find ME interesting, then feel free to stick around, but don't say I didn't warn you. Christmas, for me, is about tradition. Every year builds on the memories of previous years to help make each year a little more special. The cool thing about traditions for me is that the longer you do them, the cooler they get. I don't ascribe to religious or spiritual traditions, just the ones that I have chosen to personally adopt into my life, and my favorite of these is probably spending Christmas in Port Townsend. I spent a few with my dad, from time to time, but without siblings around, and lights downtown, and being able to sit on a street-corner and watch random people walking by in holiday bliss, it was never quite the same. I went to Port Townsend this year for Christmas, to spend time with my mom, my step-dad, and my sister. Coyote had been living in New Hampshire, and just moved back, so this was the first time in awhile we've been able to share a Christmas. Holidays in PT are always relaxing, and I get a lot of reading done, sans distractions, which is very nice. I was up there for about five days, blissed out on good food and pleasant company, lots of walks, and red cheeks from the brisk wind blowing off the Sound. After Christmas, I recuperated a few days in Olympia, then drove down with Theo and Rachel on the last day of the year to celebrate with Jason and Amy in Portland. I have mixed feelings about New Year celebrations. It seems to me like nothing aside from a blatant excuse for EVERYONE to get drunk. I understand the idea of making new beginnings, though I try to be aware, and make beginnings, whenever they need to be made, rather than waiting for a number on the calendar to change. Which isn't to say that the holiday itself wasn't charged with revolution. The first day of the year, I broke a sweet girl's heart. On the one hand, it's a horrible way to start a year. On the other, I did it because I felt it was the right decision, and the resolve and courage it took to follow through are not a bad way to make a new beginning. The idea, now, is to maintain this "single" existence, partially because I really do want to work devotedly on making a better me, and also to avoid hurting any more wonderful people. Eight months. It seems so short and so long, and it's all still a mystery and a dream, an idea that may or may not come to pass, though I declare that something will happen in that time, even if it be not what is planned. Anyway, I toast you readers, in this New Year. May it, indeed, rock your faces off. CLANG!

Tumble Dry Low-ku

2005-12-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

We tumbling vestments, warm and content, if dizzy; you cannot bleach our souls. 12.14.2005 Ahniwa Ferrari

How do you define "patriotism"?

2005-12-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

House passes Patriot Act Conference Report. Which leaves the Senate. I'm not anti-Patriot Act, but I think an extension would be good to clarify some issues in language and intent before we permanently place anything into law. But then, I'm anti-American. And I hate safety.

An ode to tumble dry.

2005-12-14T12:28:00.000-08:00

Oh me, oh my, I'm getting dry; a flock of socks has just passed by, their long necks out and wrapped about each other. They're indecent like that, socks. 12.14.2005 Ahniwa Ferrari

Steamed, whole-grain comedy.

2005-12-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

I find this comic to be consistently funny. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present: The Angriest Rice Cooker in the World.

Liberty, Equality, Constant Supervision ...

2005-12-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

ACLU joins fight against internet surveillance.

Some lawmakers have already joined their voices with the opposition. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., cautioned that the mandates could give the government the authority to dictate software designs, drive innovators offshore and threaten security as well as privacy.

Cornell's response to the CALEA amendment.

Not for profit accredited educational institutions contribute uniquely to American society by exploring and sharing knowledge for its own sake. Teaching, research and outreach rely fundamentally on principles of unimpeded communications and open inquiry. If the uncertain administrative, financial and technical expenditures suspect in this regulation do not alone exacerbate the many burdens that currently challenge the autonomy of higher education, the technical oversight provision is plainly inconsistent with our missions. Were no other means available to achieve its purpose, the government could argue a compelling interest. But the alternative exists. Cornell University already provides this kind of information when properly served. Therefore there is no compelling government interest in this specific surveillance technique and it most certainly is not a narrowly tailored method for compliance.

ACLU calls for vote against cloture on Patriot Act.

"Congress must not let a fake threat by proponents of Patriot Act to let it expire to cause them to support a defective bill," said Lisa Graves, ACLU Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy. "Common sense corrections that would better focus limited resources and protect the privacy of innocent Americans already enjoy strong bipartisan support. Lawmakers should adopt them."

Take action against the Patriot Act!

Huzzah for the blue and bronze!

2005-12-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

That's right, 'cause I'm clever like a fox.

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Their diabolical cunning should be well-respected, if not worshipped.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created!

'Tis the season ...

2005-12-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

... for Christmas wish lists. I'm not asking that anyone get me these things. I don't *need* anything for Christmas. This is solely so that if you're determined to get me something, but have no idea what I might like, you might be steered in the right direction. That's my holiday disclaimer. Enough of that. On to holiday consumer madness! Computer Hardware Geekdom: Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe MoBo AMD Athlon 3700+ San Diego Socket 939 Proc (2) eVGA Geforce 6600GT 128MB PCI Express x16 Video Card(s) Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Gamer Limited Edition Sound Card Antec TruePower II 550W Power Supply Bookishness: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes The Complete Far Side "His Dark Materials" Trilogy Box Set Complete Sandman Series (except v. 1-2 & "Endless Nights") Anansi Boys Penny Arcade: Volume 1 (not yet released) Flight: Volume 1 Flight: Volume 2 Daisy Kutter: The Last Train Subscription to "Maximum PC" Magazine Gallant Gadgetry and Games: 4GB iPod Nano - Black PlayStation 2 F.E.A.R. Director's Edition DVD-ROM Indigo Prophecy Rise of Nations: Gold Need For Speed: Most Wanted - Black Edition Call of Duty 2: Collector's Edition (DVD) Age of Empires III: Collector's Edition Desirous of DVDs: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Chosen Collection Firefly: The Complete Series Smallville: The Complete First Four Seasons Serenity (widescreen) (release: 12/20/05) Sin City - recut, extended, unrated (release: 12/13/05) ... and other goodies: Threadless Tees (size: medium) Busted Tees (size: still medium) Defunker Tees (size: x-large ... wait, no, sorry ... medium) Diesel Sweeties Tees (medium) Questionable Content Merchandise (and tees!) (med) Buy Olympia: Cool Oly Stuff Old Navy Gift Card Best Buy Gift Card Circuit City Gift Card END That's WAY more than enough to give people ideas. Clothes are always good too. :)

If your boss is blind, this might be NSFW ...

2005-12-06T12:36:00.000-08:00

Playboy. In Braille.

This would be a terrible gift for the visually impaired, because you don't give the visually impaired one quarter of a decade-old Playboy as a gift. But for you? Put it out on the coffee table like I did. Owning Playboy in Braille is like having a Day-Glo orange monkey that can curse in Farsi. It gets attention. People talk.

Three songs, a rant, and a very big fish.

2005-12-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

So far today I've already had stuck in my head: Fefe Dobson - Stupid Little Love Song The Lovin' Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic? Dr. Seuss - You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch I've got garlic in my soul, and it tastes delicious. So I'm going to geek out on your for a second. If you have a high opinion of me as a man of culture, a refined individual of exceptional tastes, or a debonair superspy, then first I'd like to know what you've been smoking, and second, you might want to stop reading this right now. I'm proud of my geekdom, but I'd hate to ruin such ludicrously high opinions of me. They're in short demand. Anyway, so I was playing Icewind Dale 2 last night, until about one in the ay dot em dot, and aside from really liking it a whole lot, I remembered why I got so infuriated with the basic D&D system, back in the day when I was the uber-dork. In one word: casters. In two words, one hyphenated: low-level casters. Low-level casters in the D&D system get about 4 spells, per day. This means that, in extended dungeon crawls and larger, multi-part encounters, they either have to conserve their spells, and thus either: a) show off their exciting dagger-throwing skills, or b) show off their incredible melee skills, or c) examine flaws in the fighter's technique while they clean their nails, making sure to loudly exclaim about various improvements the fighter could make after the fight is over. Oh yeah, and let's not forget d) die quickly before they even get a chance to cast anything. The other option is that they can use their spells quickly (at least getting them off before option "d" occurs), and then sit around doing any of options "a" through "c". Why on earth, I ask, would I want a caster who has to spend most of his time as a fifth-rate melee class? They seem to have made some improvements in this regard, and perhaps it is entirely better later on in the game. But I am, and will always remain, sad that the better system never caught on. I was always a huge fan of Earthdawn (warning: ugly site). Earthdawn kicks ass and takes names. I haven't played in a LONG time, but here are some of the traits I remember and appreciate: Melee to hit and be hit was based on dexterity. Armor didn't affect this except that heavy armor could reduce your dexterity roll. What armor did do was reduce the damage you took when you were hit. "Critical" hits were "armor-defeating" blows, thereby bypassing the armor damage reduction. I always thought that this melee system made a heck of a lot more sense. Similarly, dexterity gave you bonuses to hit, while strength gave bonuses to damage. Also more sensible. Magic-using types begin with a pretty flush spellbook. Per level, they get a certain number of spell slots, so to speak, which are basically spells they have memorized. They can cast these spells over, and over, and over, and over, and over, to their heart's content. Additionally, they can cast any spell in their entire lexicon at any time, though the ones that they don't have actively memorized at the time are much more difficult to cast and require some additional checks. Finally, add that melee don't choose to just "attack". Instead, they use an attack skill (of which there are many) to attack in a way they choose. Each skill is a little different, each class has different specialties, and it makes hack-and-slash oh-so-much more fun. But enough about that. Earthdawn was one of the few systems (and I've tried many), where I enjoyed playing a fighter as much as a cleric as much as a rogue as much as a mage. The worlds and stories were interesting, and the roleplay was always easy and fun. But back to Icewind Dale II. The combat is fast-paced and real-time, and I have a measure of difficulty controlling 4-6 characters in real-time when they're all doing different things. Granted, it's the only way to keep things running smoothly or the game would slow way down, but I do kind of pine for the old, turn-based system I grew up with. The tasks are fun, the story is interesting, and the voice-dialogue is well done. I'll stick it out for awhile yet, but that whole spell-casting thing is a major thorn in my side. Oh well. Thus ends my review, and rant. The rant is really more about D&D spell-casting systems than about Icewind Dale II. ID2 is fun. D&D, as the rpg medium, is a joke. Honestly, I'll just never understand why Earthdawn didn't take the table-top world by storm. No accounting for taste, I guess ... ---------------- Listen and sing along! You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel. You're as cuddly as a cactus, You're as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch. You're a bad banana With a greasy black peel. You're a monster, Mr. Grinch. Your heart's an empty hole. Your brain is full of spiders, You've got garlic in your soul. Mr. Grinch. I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch. You have termites in your smile. You have all the tender sweetness Of a seasick crocodile. Mr. Grinch. Given the choice between the two of you I'd take the seasick crocodile. You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch. You're a nasty, wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks Your soul is full of gunk. Mr. Grinch. The three words that best describe you, are, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk." You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch. You're the king of sinful sots. Your heart's a dead tomato splotched With moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch. Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, Mangled up in tangled-up knots. You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch. With a nauseous super-naus. You're a crooked jerky jockey And you drive a crooked horse. Mr. Grinch. You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich With arsenic sauce.

A tribute to monkeys, eating.

2005-11-30T16:31:00.000-08:00

As opposed to being eaten, and to appease Sister Amos, who worries of such occurrences in an obsessive manner. First off, I found this site. This site is ridiculously awesome. Sure, it's crass, but so are monkeys. Some gems:

Meteorologists here have forecast a drop in temperatures after days of severe heat which forced officials to convert local citizens into ice-cream bars killing dozens of people in the past week.

A Chinese safari park has dyed the fur of its monkeys black, yellow and white to ring in the Lunar New Year of the Monkey, which started on Thursday. "We had to anaesthetise them first," said a worker at the Forest Safari Park in the city of Shenyang. "That was really hillaroius, we got drunk and used their unconcious bodies as puppets".

The Rhinos wouldn't normally eat meat but they are stupid and easily tricked.

And with pictures like this, this, and this, you know you're getting your mon(k)ey's worth. I voted for the Monkey King. Twice. That is all.

In the arms of winter's debauchery

2005-11-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

Perhaps today is the day I finally break my brain trying to think up something topical and interesting to blog about. Perhaps my brain will actually fry, or implode, or create a small but powerful black hole into which all the world's matter will be sucked. I suppose I could just talk about crocodiles, and their factual or fictual tendancy to eat monkeys. I could even talk about gavials a bit, and try to reason out why our illustrious Archcroc V dislikes them so. Like a coward, I'm sure I could go on for at least two more paragraphs, in a mildly amusing fashion, about not knowing what to blog about. I've always enjoyed the irony in that, simple though it is, and if you go back through my archives you'll notice that I've done it at least three or four times. Nothing like beating a joke to death until it's just ... not ... funny ... anymore. In the end, and since I have to finish this up in the next five minutes or so, I think I'll keep this factual and sentimental. Yesterday I was sick and I called in to work. Then it snowed. So I got a snow-day, with hot cocoa. How fucking rocking is that! Right? Then I got to have coffee and lunch with my sister, who just moved back to Washington. Then I cleaned my apartment, watched a movie, and got my cuddle on. I'm a snuggler, big-time. It's ridiculous. This last week I've been very happy to have someone, who I think is pretty damned awesome, to snuggle with. And on a snow-day ... well you just can't get more ideal than that. I wish you all the warmest and happiest moments of snuggle, as this cold weather heightens and persists. Our snow didn't stick, 'tis sad, but we'll surely get more as winter sheds its timidity and advances upon us with a libertine smile on its lips.

Hermes and the sunset.

2005-11-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

The wind bites at the heels of clouds as they gracefully crest the distant rolling green. Behind the trees the sky blushes, turning the clouds to fire. I think of the snow this morning, large, white, damp flakes that coated the world so briefly before melting. Inside and warm, Hermes and I dance to the steady beat of wordplay.

While we're on the subject of pie ...

2005-11-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

I'd like you to take a moment and look at this google image search of "blackberry pie". Notice something? Not a single one of them look half as good as my pies. Some of them even tried to do a lattice crust, and the results were, frankly, rather sad. Amy says "pie duel!", to which I respond, "It's so on, dude!" I am ten pie-ninjas. Amy knows my super secret, (I'm too cool for surfer chicks) so it might be a close battle. This week I'm ordering a digital projector to go with the home theater surround system that I bought yesterday. Once assembled, this set-up will shake worlds, decimate the minds of children, and annoy neighbors. And I'm so absolutely excited. Wanna come over and watch a movie?

The Life of Pie

2005-11-28T21:56:00.000-08:00

I don't cook often, and that may be for the best. I'm not a bad cook, I'm just unmotivated. Besides, my talent has always lied more with baking. I believe I may have mentioned, previously, that not only did I make the BEST PIES IN THE UNIVERSE, but also that I had photographic proof. Well, behold! These were made from scratch, in case you had any doubt. And they taste divine. Three cheers for blackberry pie goodness! I hope you all had equally yummy treats over the holiday. :)

From the mind that brought you the Edunatrix...

2005-11-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

I've officially dubbed today "Typography Monday". What does this mean? A couple things. For one, it means I named the theme of the day before Theo, and that's a first. Second, it means that Theo is much zanier than I, but I outgeek him at a ratio of 3.7 to 1. So, yeah ... typography. It all started when Theo mentioned that I should get a printing press. Since I have a small apartment, I would have to keep it in the kitchen, which would mean no more eating. Ever. I countered with a cunning business plan, which I have named: Font-Face Sandwiches. Open-Font Sandwiches? Who knows, the point is, it's totally brilliant. Just think, an "amper-sandwich" with cheddar, mustard and tomato. Ellepsis eats for the hunger that never ... really ... ends .... Ampersandwich! Hahahahahah!!! And not just sandwiches, either. How about: Garamond Gazpacho Lucida Lentils Spaghetti Sans Serif I could go on, and on, and on. Really, you'd be amazed and worried about just how ongoing I could go. Hamburger Helvetica Courier Croissants Arial Angel Hair al Dente Okay, that one is just dumb. But you get the picture. I'm taking a half day today. Think I'll go have lunch ... like an ampersandwich! The only food that practically asks you to add a side-dish!

Typo Graphics

2005-11-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

If you read Kottke, and you should, you saw this link already. I'm a burgeoning typography geek (or at least I'd like to be), and thought this was absolutely fantastic. You can check out the forum I stole this from, here.

I wish you a merry turkey.

2005-11-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

I'm sleepy and happy today. It's an obvious, tell-tale condition, and I guess I'm just not that good at keeping secrets. But I'll be damned if I'm not masterful at vague insinuation. I should take up a career as an professional insinuator, confusing situations to the point of hopeless illogic. What can I say, it's what I do. If the sun were made of marmalade ... ... I'd need a much, much bigger slice of toast. As it is, I feel like butter spread over just enough bread. I was forced to post or forfeit my life, so if this rambling makes no sense to you, blame it on my antagonists. -- Five years ago and change - and if you were here now ... things would not be as they are. I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't change us. Not a bit. Well, maybe that time you got killed by orcs. Sorry about that. -- I bought a typewriter on ebay the other day. It's not just any typewriter, either. It's a Hermes 3000 and it's going to completely change the way I type my writing. Watch out, world! No, but I got it specifically for writing letters. There's something about the way a letter written on a typewriter looks. It's classy without being impersonal, eccentric without being trendy-eccentric. To be honest, there is one letter that I need to write, to release, to send out into the world. And it couldn't be done, honestly - it couldn't be done at all if it weren't done on a Hermes typewriter. So, there you have it. I'm sentimental. I cry during movies, I'm moved by music, and I buy typewriters to send letters that are long overdue. I don't know what good may come of it. Perhaps none. It may, before it has even begin, be a futile gesture. Nonetheless, I will persist. Sentiment beats reason, everytime. -- I wish you all the very best of Thanksgivings. I met a lovely girl, who charms the hell out of me. So much for being vague. :) Oh, and just so the universe knows: I make the best blackberry pie, ever. People WILL attest to this, perhaps even in writing and not at gunpoint. Just wait, I'll post pictures as proof. My lattice-top crust is awe-inspiring!

Standardize this!

2005-11-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

This may be cheating, but not everyone who reads the comic reads my blog, so I feel justified in a double post. Besides, it's free advertisement. I originally wrote this post here, following an awesome comic strip introducing the word "edu-natrix" into the American lexicon. Which just goes to show that if you aren't reading La Casa Comics, you should be. Education is one of those wacky things. It is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable resources available to anybody, no matter their interests or their professions. Education is a tool for personal and professional growth, a weapon against ignorance and oppression, and it makes its own sauce. And in the United States, at least, it's becoming more and more of a joke. While the "No Child Left Behind" act makes such claims as, "Every child can learn. Every child must learn. And thanks to NCLB, every child will learn.", Kansas has gone off the deep end and made "intelligent design" a mandatory part of the science curriculum. The good old NCLB goes on to say:

Fortunately, there are schools and reform leaders across our Nation who have shown how quickly effective leadership can transform student achievement and how swiftly success can sweep through a school. With a dedicated focus on accountability and achievement, any school that needs improvement can create a new culture of learning and excellence. The good news is that we know much more about what works: scientifically proven methods; aligned standards, assessments, and instruction; school and district leadership focused on student learning; accountability for results; and highly qualified teachers will improve achievement and bring success. Admittedly, our Nation's commitment -- to teach every child -- is ambitious. But we have the tools and we have the know-how. Working together, we can ensure that all students succeed and that the achievement gap is closed, once and for all.

And in the meantime we cut educational funding, screw over schools and libraries, and pump money into weapons, oil, and wars. And as China teaches us, cutting educational funding gets students run over by big trucks. Come on America, we don't want our students to be killed in traffic, do we!? I could probably spend about 10 hours writing out this post, but I don't want to, and I don't think anyone would read it if I did. So I'll try to wrap things up. The tricky thing about education is that if you don't have one, you don't realize what a valuable thing it is that you're missing. It's like if you've never read Kant, you don't realize how dull and brain-melting the process is. And you won't get it when people make offhand references, as I just did. You are missing out, truly. Parents need to read to their kids. Education starts at home. Teachers need to get excited about getting kids to learn. I had an alternative style of education, in which I was taught the value of learning, and after that pretty much given the option of how often and where I wanted to go to school. As a result, I home-schooled for two years, went to middle school as a part-time student, and dropped out of high school halfway through my junior year. I got my GED, worked for a year, and then went to college, and I've never regretted a single one of those choices. I pursued the education that worked for me, because the way the system had things layed out didn't always make sense. NCLP is making restrictions tighter, and trying to improve education via standardization and testing. To be blunt, fuck standardization, and fuck testing. Teach these kids the value of an education, and they'll do the work themselves. "It is only the ignorant who despise education." -Publius Syrus (42 B.C.)

Continuing the trend of short posts...

2005-11-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

Question of the day: Is it on Technorati because it's popular? Or is it popular because it's on Technorati? Discuss.

Please do adjust your monitors...

2005-11-12T20:02:00.000-08:00

... and be sure to set the awesome rating on them up to "11". I twiddled around with one of the Eris Design templates, and this is what I ended up with. I'm quite pleased with the result. Do you like it? Hate it? Leave a comment!

"The Future of Libraries"

2005-11-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

From the DaVinci Institute:

We have put together ten key trends that are affecting the development of the next generation library. Rest assured that these are not the only trends, but ones that have been selected to give clear insight into the rapidly changing technologies and equally fast changing mindset of library patrons.

Read the rest here.

Things you feel like maybe everyone else already knew...

2005-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

Looking at templates, I came across a whole lot of what looked like Latin, starting with the text "Lorem Ipsum...". Very brief research led me here, which offers an awesome explanation, as well as a Lorem Ipsum generator. Neat!

Template Search 2.0

2005-11-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

More links in the eternal quest for a classy, sexy, working template. Blogger-Templates - Of the templates listed, I particularly like this one. He also has some good tips, tricks, and hacks listed, so it's worth checking even if you're happy with your current template. Not completely blog-related, but this dude's art rocks my face off. Isnaini Dot Com has some gorgeous templates. Half of them are a little off on the layout, which is really unfortunate, but I may tool around with them a bit and see what I can come up with. Dude has a second template site here. Beccary has some simple, elegant, kick-ass work going on, including my favorite so far. I know Nick will like the name. Eris Design has a kick-ass template creator, and some nice stuff. It's a definite finalist. I like this one particularly. I'm gonna go play with these for a bit, but perhaps I'll update some more links later. Ciao!

Belated DC, part 1

2005-11-07T15:09:00.000-08:00

The flight over Lake Michigan as the sun rose, and the architecture of the Smithsonian.

Belated DC, part 2

2005-11-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

Outside the Modern Art Museum, then inside. A strange argument. Hand-outs. Men are not for burning. Miro for Emily. The dog casts a shadow.

Belated DC, part 3

2005-11-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

I AM modern art. So is this warrior-bunny dude. The "No Exit" sign appeals to my Sartrian side, which is most of me. I am having so much freakin' fun on the carousel. Two artsy carousel pictures. Spin, spin, spin!

Belated DC, part 4

2005-11-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

In the botanical gardens. I felt a little indecent taking the first photo. A flock of flowers. Feed me Seymour! Cactus climb.

Belated DC, part 5

2005-11-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

The Zoo. Two prehistoric looking bastards, one of which tried to eat my head. Turtle = whimsy. Strange bedfellows. Definately a "shanx".

Belated DC, part 6

2005-11-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

Back home, a nice cup of tea and a day of relaxation.

Et tu, McGill?

2005-11-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Running a webcomic in a serious fashion dominates your life. It's like crack, giant ramakins full of crack with dollops of "hilarious" and "ARGH!" thrown in as seasoning, simmered for 80 hours, and shoved down your gullet without so much as a bon appetit. Honestly, it's a lot of fun, but time-consuming much? Yes. Of course, I'm the slacker that doesn't have to draw the damn thing, so I got shit to complain about. Ask Theo about his social life lately ... oh wait, you won't be able to find him since he's holed up drawing all the time. That's not entirely true. We hit the town, play pool, and cat about. It's a toss, let me tell ya. So this month is a big month. This month, I should learn if I get accepted to McGill for next Fall. Yes, Montreal is still on the plate, and in some ways it's looking more savory than ever. I love the Northwest, but I dunno if I need to settle down in one area quite yet, and if I don't explore the world when the opportunity presents in my youth, what are the chances that I'll do so as I grow older? In this, I have been fickle so far. Well, not entirely, considering I wasn't accepted and therefore not offered the opportunity to be fickle (and I bet I would have gone, too, though I don't regret staying here for another year). I'll leave it at the fact that I've made my plays, and put things in motion, and at this point I don't mind being a leaf in the wind, watching what unfolds. My French skills fucking suck right now, though. I explete because this irritates me, and I'd like to parler fucking bien. When no one can hear me, I recite Apollinaire to myself, and always stop at the third stanza, dismayed that I've forgotten. Could I look it up? But then what would I complain about? I'll leave you with the first two stanzas, from memory: Vous y dansiez petite fille. Y danzerez-vous mere-grande. C'est la maclotte qui sautille, toutes les cloches sonneront. Quand donc reviendrez-vous, Marie? Les masques sont silencieux, et la musique est si lointaine, qu'elle semble venir des cieux, oui je veux vous aimer mais vous aimer a peine et mon mal est delicieux. That's a memory from a long time ago, indeed.

A modern dilemma

2005-11-02T21:06:00.000-08:00

The problem with being idealistic in our modern society, is how hard some people make it to remain idealistic. And that's all I have to say about that.

Gratuitous Tuesday

2005-11-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

Some things in life are, in fact, quite free. Or mostly free. Free enough that you really won't even notice you're doing anything to get them. I've been researching such things, and now I would like to share them with you, my readers, that you too might reap the rewards of an advertising, click-based society. We'll start with an easy one. Blingo is a search engine. It uses Google, so if you're a Google-searcher, you've got no reason not to give it a shot. Basically, your first 10 searches per day with Blingo give you a chance to win a prize. You don't have to click on ads, or do anything, other than search. Mostly, you'll win free movies tickets. They give away bigger prizes on a monthly basis, such as Playstation Portables and iPods. There is no weird registration, just an email address, and they don't ask for any financial information at all. Convinced? Give Blingo a shot. There are companies that give out free stuff, mostly hardware, using a very simple offer-based system. Of these, Freepay, a company of Gratis Internet has been around the longest, and is the most trust-worthy. It's a simple business model. Affiliates, such as Blockbuster, RealNetworks, and AOL, pay Freepay for each registrant that signs up for a service. Freepay gives you free stuff with a cost equal to less than what they're getting paid by the affiliates. The breakdown I read was Freepay requires 1 referral for every $50 of item worth; i.e. a $300 iPod will require 6 referrals. Affiliates pay $90-$150 to Freepay for each offer they sell. One must assume that for the affiliates, this is also a lucrative arrangement. Yes, it is, essentally, a pyramid scheme. But if you're smart about it, it's a free one for both you and your friends, and you may or may not get some goodies out of it. If you figure in the amount of people who fizzle out without meeting all of their referrals, Freepay is making hell-of bank on this deal, and can certainly afford to give away some merchandise. And they don't have to scam anyone. It's all legitimate, but that doesn't mean you don't have to be smart about it. If you click on one of these links: Free 4GB iPod Nano (4 referrals) Free Xbox 360 - Complete Premium Edition (8 referrals) Free Gaming Systems - Xbox, PS2 Slim, DS, Gamecube, or Gameboy Micro (4 referrals) Free Flatscreens - 5 options (8 referrals) It will take you to a sign-up page. All you need is a valid email address and a password, and a mailing address. Once you've created an account, you will need to complete one offer. This is where you need to be smart, and I recommend checking out this site to find the best offer available. Some of the offers are downright sketchy, so I STRONGLY recommend you check before you complete one. It may take awhile to get credit for your offer. Once you do, you can get friends to refer for you, and within a few referrals, get sent a handy, (mostly) free gadget. It's not a scam, but you have to be smart about how you do it. I'll leave it at that, and if you have questions you can email me at bavamalin (at) gmail (dot) com. Freepay's terms and conditions say I'm not allowed to "walk anyone through the process", but I'd be happy to answer specific questions. The Anything4Free Forums also have a large amount of information, as well as referral trade areas, which are worth checking into if your friends seem reluctant to join. I'm not trying to paint a perfect picture of Gratis Internet or Freepay. I'm just saying that if you do it right, they work, and that unlike other "pyramid schemes", the financial investment can be very, very small, making it worthwhile for both you and your friends. Read the Wikipedia article on Gratis Internet. Which is not wholly complimentary, but certainly honest. Here's a Wired article about Freepay's FreeiPod service. Is "free" a misnomer, used here? Perhaps, but "Dirtcheappay" doesn't have the same ring to it. Just be smart, that's all.

Brief Flights

2005-10-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

What brief flights are these that men have made, assailing dreams and stars with their effusions, unconscious that beneath their hopes are laid their fears, their doubts, and all of their confusions. 10.29.2005 Ahniwa Ferrari

Do you have anything to declare?

2005-10-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was struck with the realization that at some point I began to apologize for myself. It's not that I wasn't happy with who I was, but that I became afraid, I think, of what other people would think of me. It's strange to have these realizations about yourself, that you might have been doing this for so long and not even been aware of it. I think that my tendancy is to try and adapt to situations, and I don't always know if that is the best course of action. And perhaps there are situations where it is almost never the correct course of action. I'm speaking of relationships. I'm fairly sure, and I say this without any blame, that I really started this practice in earnest during my relationship with Emily. I'm equally sure that I had this tendancy long beforehand, pretty much as far back as I've been dating. And it sucks. The truth is, nobody is going to like everything about me. I'm a heap of jumbled wires, a mass of contradictions, a logician and a dreamer rolled in nori and rice with a large dose of wasabi. The thing is, that's fine. Without sounding arrogant, I like me. And that's more important to me than if you like me, or anyone else likes me, or anyone at all likes me, honestly. I don't remember becoming so concerned about popular opinion. I'm unsure when it happened. I suspect it rolled out of a sense of self-consciousness brought about by home-schooling and a constant feeling of being different. And not really different in a "you're unique, a beautiful flower with its own, joyous blossom". More like a "well you're a weird one, aincha?" sort of unique. I guess the weird part is that I was never very conscious of it. How the heck did that happen? The goal, now, is to embrace my multitudes, I suppose. I'm a gamer-geek. I do, really, like to play video games. Sometimes for hours, and even days, on end. I'm a grammar nerd, and I'll hesitiate for long minutes over a comma; sometimes I'll haphazardly throw in a semicolon for the sheer sense of danger it gives me. I'm a cinephile and a romantic; a caustic cynic who is endlessly acerbic to his friends and who would do anything for them without them even having to ask. I will never ask for reciprocation. The thing is in the doing. I will not ask for permission to be myself, or hesitate away from my own honest opinion. Emile Zola said, "I am here to live out loud." And I am. I don't like television, and I don't like ignorant people. Still, I'm endlessly forgiving, and I don't think I'll give that up. I have a gaggle of interests, and you don't have to like all of them. They aren't all very exciting. Vocally, I don't always tell stories very well. That bit I'm working on. I'm listening to comedy so I can learn how to tell a joke, and I think it's working. I will work each day to become something new. Something better. Life is just a process of clearing away all the clutter and grime we attach to ourselves, to rediscover that shiny core underneath. I have my faults, too, but I'll take them. Who knows, maybe one day, I'll find someone else who can take them too.

Pygmy monkeys from the future?

2005-10-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

Theo and I are flippin' insane! How insane are we? I'm glad you asked. We're so stark, raving mad that we posted two friday strips for La Casa. Two! And we posted a sunday strip as well. Sunday! Also, there are pygmy monkeys in the future. Lots of them. Prepare yourselves for ... the insanity! Seriously though, you need to be reading our comic. It's the best thing since sliced beer.

Pirates will win, every time.

2005-10-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

A thing of unadulterated beauty.

Three for three

2005-10-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

So far, our comic is three for three. Which means, of the three days we've said we'd update, we have! We're so cool! Heh, I'm a little excited. We will continue to update on a regular basis, so you should totally check it out on a regular basis, because that's how we'll be updating. Ya dig? In other news, I put a dropdown of library blogs over on the sidebar. If you're interested in libraries, at all, then you should check some of them out. If you're interested in me at all, then you might check them out too, because that's the stuff I'm going to be doing one day. Maybe even soon. I'd like to start a library blog. I'm leaving for Washington DC on Wednesday evening; red-eye flight arriving at like 8 am on Thursday, and then straight to Arlington Cemetary. Hopefully I can sleep on the plane. I'll be back Sunday, so take care of yourselves until then. Perhaps I'll find a library, and get some web time for a quick update while I'm there. I went to an amazing blues party on Saturday. It started at 10 pm, I showed up around midnight, and went past 5 am. I left around 5. But I'm outta here for now, so I'll have to post more on that later. [sorrybabythatsmynutterbutterbar]

As if the things that irritate us lasted.

2005-10-15T16:12:00.000-07:00

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone -- those that are now, and those to come.

I horde things. I pack them away in boxes, store them in attics, hide them under beds, and treasure them in my heart. I'm an afficianado of personal memorabilia. I must have the best, for only the best will do. Among the treasures most valuable to me are the many letters I have kept over the years: postcards, holiday greetings, announcements, letters of love, and letters of brokenheartedness. Being that we now live in a digital age, on top of my collection of letters, I've horded away a much larger collection of emails. Since Hotmail archiving sucks, and used to suck much more, and it's the email client that I used, this unfortunately only goes back to around June of 2001. Even so, I printed out most of the important emails from before that, and put them with the letters. Every once in awhile, and fairly often when I'm feeling introspective, I'll shuffle through these artifacts and try to repiece the memories of past loves, triumphs, and failures. I have every written correspondence between Margaret and I (the printed emails) from India to France. I have Prairie's letters of the Summer of 1995, from Colville to Port Townsend. Perhaps most poignant of all, I have the letters that Amanda Stevenson wrote me as she was bouncing around the country looking at colleges. She wrote letters that were works of art, and if I were to publish an autobiography I would include them solely on the merit of literary perfection. Her last letter, hurt and angry and confused (and rightly so, unfortunately), contained a sticker sheet of gold stars ("for my achievements") and a condemnation so pure and powerful that it actually changed my life. Almost exactly six years later, and I still feel my stomach churn when I think of how I acted then. I'm slightly comforted in the fact that though I absolutely acted stupidly, I never acted maliciously.

Existence flows past us like a river: the "what" is in constant flux, the "why" has a thousand variations.

Sometimes I pore over the emails between Emily and I, trying to find the crisis point; trying to recreate an entire relationship through the brief thoughts we would send each other day after day. I don't do this with regret, though nor can I claim that I examine them with any sort of detatched intellectual curiosity. All of it, in the end, is in the hope of personal salvation; the idea that if I put my failures under the microscope, I will be able to see how they came to be, avoid the same mistakes in the future. And even here while I call these moments "failures", like some mad scientist trying to create life, the word feels false. Perhaps they weren't my best moments, and they certainly aren't my happiest memories, but who is to say that the end of a relationship might not be a triumph? Certainly, leaving Ohio was one of the best things I ever did, which isn't to say that moving there was bad, but that enough was enough. I don't know if I could have lasted another year there, sane.

Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us -- a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

The past is a blur filled with brief moments of stark clarity: that night by the river with Prairie and Cree; waterfights in the summer in front of Jamie's grandparent's house; Monday, 1st period, getting pulled out of Biology class by Sara completely unaware that the world was about to give me the first of many lessons in "fuck you"; sitting on Kas's roof singing "semi-charmed life", and the walk that followed; the night, too nervous to sit, when Amanda and I listened to bull frogs and counted shooting stars; all of the various dances Margaret and I went to, and many of the nights of tears that I tried so hard to understand; the day Emily drove away in the back seat of a rented car; our early, failed games of chess, and the day I drove away and felt more liberated than bereaved. Perhaps, as a whole, I'll never understand my past. I'd settle for understanding those few moments that seemed so lucid that they couldn't have happened any other way. I'd settle for really, truly understanding any one of them. And it's terrifying and exciting to think of a future as full of these moments as the last ten years have been. Will time slow down as the years go by? Will those clear moments of the past fade away as the new ones occur less and less frequently, until finally I look back on my life and see only a blur of faces and events, none distinct from the others?

So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.

Honestly, I don't worry much about the future. I tend to think a lot about the past, though, trying to find answers and insights into who I am. The problem with looking into myself in this way is that I don't know if I looking at who I am or who I was, or where the two might merge. Every once in awhile, though, these musings lead to a cathartic sort of revelation, sometimes loud and sometimes subtle, that takes a strange weight off my mind, and for a moment makes my heart feel whole. And for these moments, it's all worth it. Because the things that irritate us don't last, but those few, clear glimpses of beauty in this world, those last forever.

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone -- those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the "what" is in constant flux, the "why" has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us -- a chasm whose depths we cannot see. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted. -Marcus Aurelius

Life, stripped.

2005-10-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

I've been busting my tailfeathers lately on a new project, which is turning out pretty well so far, all things considered. Theo and I are making a serious attempt at a three-day-a-week webcomic. Perhaps you remember "La Casa Comics" from back in the day, when we had it hosted on Zhonka. This is similar, but oh so much better. First off, we're running it off blogger, but trying to make it look like it's not being run off blogger. As lead web mechanic of this endeavor, I don't know how well that turned out, yet, but I think it looks pretty good. It's a work-in-progress, and rest assured, it will be tweaked, continuously, until it looks the way I want it to look; and I have some fabulous ideas. For now, it's simple and functional, and it doesn't look half bad. I've been learning a lot of css as I go, the last couple days. Now when I dream, I try to set the max-width so I don't miss anything, but get frustrated when my dreams switch to an IE interface and max-width isn't supported. Read the comic and enjoy. It WILL be updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We may also update on Sunday. I hope you become a regular, and please leave us some comments and let us know what you think about the comic, or any particular strip. We would like to do this, and we would like to do it right. Without further ado: La Casa Comics.

A Noodley Testimonial

2005-10-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

Subject: To all the "Heathens" I love so well Sent: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:03:01 -0700 (PDT) Friends: I'm sure that many of you have already felt the all-encompassing love of Our Noodley Lord, but I wanted to take a moment...to give testimony. I was 29 when I felt the first stirrings of the FSM at work in me. Brother O'Donnell had passed along Our Lord's message of hope and healing, but at first I turned away from the light of His Starchy Magnificence. No doubt it was the stony hand of the No-Carb lifestyle that still clutched at my breast, weighing down my soul, as the paperweight doth weigh down important documents, such as receipts and power bills and pornography. But no sooner did I look upon the tangled wonder that is His Noodleness than the scales fell from my eyes! Yea, though I walked through the Valley of the Shadow of High Protein Diets, I would certainly fear no empty calories. No longer, friends! I have felt the Touch of His Noodly Appendage, and smelled the smell of his Refreshing, Tomato-Based, Sauce-like Covering. Surely, it is the smell of Salvation. Please, friends. Follow me along the path. Your first step begins here: http://www.venganza.org/ May you all find the peace that I did. And perhaps buy a t-shirt. Cheers, Sister Rachel, O.F.S.M.S.M (Order of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Sisters of Mercy) PS - Thanks again to Brother O'Donnell for showing me the way to the light.

Bananaphone Monday!

2005-10-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

That's right kids, it's Bananaphone Monday! Chock full of scrumptious links for your viewing enjoyment, high in potassium and zaniness! First up to bat: Bananaphone gets a South Park remix. Next up, we fly back to the 60s for a little spoken word. Sad, really. Follow that with my favorite of the "bunch". A sadistic, bananaphone flash movie! May cause seizures. Badger Badger Badger, Bananaphone! I really don't understand. I really don't. A brief respite from Bananaphone. But don't say I didn't warn you. And here is some llamaness. llamallamaduck

In which Ahniwa does not reveal his secret plans.

2005-10-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

I look forward to explaining this to my own children one day. Or perhaps to my cats. Or plants. Or just to the wall. I have commitment issues. So today has started off well. So far, all before lunch, I have:

Applied WD-40 to the wheels of library carts, thus streamlining them for the new millenium. Of course, I had to ride each one down the hill behind the library to make sure the annoying squeaks and squeals were "completely gone". Aside from one of the wheels flying off, hurtling me to my doom, it went pretty well.

Pointed one "community" member in the direction of the public library because, "Hell no you can't use our computers for your nefarious deeds, you freeloading smu-dent hating ... freeloader." Boy, I told them.

Located with celeritous alacrity three(3!) literature reviews on aids stigmas for one(1!) very cute smu-dent. I know I make it sound easy, but give it a shot. That's what I thought.

Talked down a student who was in a frantic state over her network account: Me: "Calm down, it's going to be okay. We can reset your password." Stu: "It's not even worth it. You know what? I just can't ... I just ... it's not even worth it. I don't care anymore, anyway. I mean ... I just. I have to go, I have to go now." Me: "Look, look at me. It's all right. I'm here with you, we'll get through this together. Your account was locked out, but look, I unlocked it for you. See, all better. Now, all you have to do is enter a new password, here and here. It'll be all right." Student begins typing in a new password Me: "It has to be between six and fourteen characters, and it can't be the same as any of your previous five passwords." Stu: "What!? What!!! Oh my god, oh my fucking god, I can't deal with this. This is just ... oh god! How many? Okay, what? Six ... fourt ... ummm, I can't, wait ... no, okay." Student enters in the word "god". It doesn't work. Me: "No, look, it has to be between six and fourteen-" Stu: "Fuck you! You know what, fuck you! I don't need this! You're supposed to HELP me! Fuck ... you know what, just fuck you!" Student killed me with a computer monitor and stormed out, crying. So okay, I guess that didn't go so well.

Frolicked. After which I lifted a building. You know, just for fun.

After lunch. Well, I have big plans for after lunch. Secret plans ...

for the M. L. E.

2005-10-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

It's a daytime stress case, dialing for rebates, trying to find the line between the bars and in the suitcase. A workplace gossip mop-up, clean the shit out and let's stop it, talk up the values they deny you, because only you supply you, and they should watch it if they try you: you've got the HADOKEN like Ryu. Take it away, take it away. We never had it anyway. There's no time to lose, you've paid your dues, they've taken their toll and now you've got to choose; 'cause life's not a balance of the good and bad, and if you let them sell you then you've been had, if you can't get even, then just get glad, 'cause life's too short to just stay mad. Take it away, take it away. We never had it anyway. It's not a story with a happy ending, because nothing ends while we're still sending; so take this bit of advice I'm lending, you'll never stand straight if you keep on bending. So stand up straight and stand up right, and rage against the dying light; you know you got skills straight out of sight, why keep them caged until the night? Take it away, take it away. We never had it anyway. Take it away, take it away. We didn't want it anyway.

Raffi will lead the way

2005-10-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

In the mornings, we ramble: Ahniwa: oh my ... Theo: it's gonna be crazy Ahniwa: definately crazy, like vinyl sunglasses crazy Theo: alligator mini-skirt crazy Ahniwa: giraffe-print pajamas Theo: like these: http://www.crazyforbargains.com/bubrgicopafo.html in a one-size-fits-all kinda way Ahniwa: something like that i didn't realize it was so hard to find a decent pair of giraffe pajamas on the internets Theo: yeah, that was my problem. I'm genuinely concerned at the complete lack of pics of giraffes IN pajamas. Ahniwa: yes, absolutely Theo: I like Mcsweeny's today Ahniwa: this is cute though: http://www.marythackston.com/filterfrenzy2/weektwo/giraffes.jpg Theo: awww! Ahniwa: oooh, kona coffee flavored cigars Theo: where? Ahniwa: hulagirlthestore.com Theo: Utah: The State Version of a Polite Nod in the Office Hallway Ahniwa: heh Theo: nice storefront Ahniwa: http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink10766.html bartender: what can i get ya? you: a fucking monkey Theo: that sounds sooo good... Ahniwa: they have a whole list of monkey drinks on the sidebar Theo: damn... Ahniwa: and a drink called no fucking idea Theo: haha Ahniwa: i wonder how long it would take to explain that to the bartender Theo: what do you want? No fucking idea Ahniwa: yeah whoah: http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink698.html Theo: Wholly crap. That would make me shit my pants dude... http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink114.html that's what I need. An absinthe frappe. Ahniwa: i'm sure you can get one at starbucks! Theo: only a matter of time. Whenever people complain about the state of society here, I'm going to point out that you still can't get an absinthe frappe at Starbucks. That'll show 'em. Ahniwa: won't you be proving their complaints valid? i just want a coffee-flavored monkey IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!? Theo: Oh...I was imagining their complaint would be that there's TOO MUCH debauchery. But yeah, I see what you mean. The temptation to eat him with a light cream sauce would be wayyyy too high forme. for me..even Ahniwa: there is far too little debauchery in our country too much coitus, too little debauchery Theo: damn skippy! http://sharkys-martini-bar.com/ Personalized martini glasses Ahniwa: it's a clumsy battlecry: "less coitus, more debauchery" Theo: it sounds too titillating. Although that's probably the proper effect Ahniwa: maybe we should just stick with "ring, ring, ring, BANANARCHY!" because i think that really sums it up well Theo: much better. I would totally participate in a raffi-led revolution. The Algonquin Hotel in New York offers a Martini that costs $10,000. Why? Because the main ingredient is a diamond. No one has ever ordered it and you must order it 3 days in advance. Ahniwa: dude, i would so do that if i was a bagajillionaire maybe Theo: when we get there, we should go order that drink http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink3191.html I just like the name

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

2005-10-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

Confused dreams about eyelashes left me too addled to effectively manage my alarm this morning. Hitting "snooze" every nine minutes became a riddle I continuously failed for minutes at a time. Eventually, my fingers would accidently fall against the appropriate button, allowing me some brief reprieve, where I fell back into a Cocteauian montage of sphinx and self-betrayal. To say that I finally awoke refreshed would be a gross exaggeration. Too many cigarettes and my mouth tastes like tar in the morning, though I persist in this slow suicide, like so many millions of others. Peer pressure is one thing. It's blunt and tactless: "Be cool, smoke." Peer reassurance, on the other hand; knowing that if I have a weakness then it's one shared by multitudes. That's my downfall, my death, and perhaps the explanation of the self-betrayal in my dreams. More likely, it was the General Tsao's chicken I finished off just before I went to bed. I still don't get the eyelashes thing though.

Serenity N... last night!

2005-10-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

The chain of events that lead me to watch Serenity on opening night is long, but not overly complicated. Somewhere along his path in life, Tim Bard watched an episode of Buffy and liked it. He's not a fanboy, but he's close. Okay, he might be a fanboy. Tim and Theo became friends. Ohio struck my as a crappy place to be (almost simultaneous with Theo moving back from France and Tim needing a place NOT with an ex): "Hey Theo, need a roommate?" The house called "La Casa" was formed. Hilarity ensued. Well, hilarity in a very non-productive sort of way. And drinking, and darts. Lots of ensuing ensued, quite. Tim makes me watch BtVS a la "A Clockwork Orange". My droogs beat me up by the river. Firefly comes out on DVD. Tim buys. I am once more chained to a chair with my eyelids forced open. Tim moves to Vermont. As he is stepping through the threshold, he asks me to make a solemn vow that I will watch Serenity. I might have nodded. The sun was in my eyes. Serenity comes out in the theater. I watch it, opening night. Other than the near fatal dose of American Consumerism Humanity, it was an enjoyable experience. And by enjoyable, I mean totally sweet. I'll do an actual review later.

Who are you people?

2005-09-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

Who are you and how did you find me!? Interrobang Huh? I have spies everywhere: Spies drink martinis, and the occasional g&t: We're watching you.

How old is that in internet years?

2005-09-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

This isn't new. In fact, it seems to be nearly two weeks old. This means that, in internet terms, it's positively archaic. But it still cracks my shit up.

We rain devils play

2005-09-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first day of rain we've had in some time. If you're familiar with the Pacific Northwest, then you know how odd that is. Sure, we have nice summers, but it seems like it's been dry as a bone around here for a solid month, and that just isn't how we rain devils play out here. The best thing about rain is the morning after, and how many things can you really say that about? Right. All the humidity is drizzled/poured/bucketed from the air onto terra firma (terra sogga?), and afterwards, especially in the morning, the atmosphere seems so clear that you should be able to pick out individual veins on individual leaves of individual trees at a thousand feet. Breathing seems like something you may have never experienced before; entirely enjoyable as though each draught swept the vapor of ambrosia through your lungs. Colors are enhanced, leaves hang from limbs like emeralds and turquoise, embedded with the rubies and garnets of the approaching fall. The post-partum sheen of the rain sparkles in the wan light of the clear sky. In the distance, perhaps, a cloud or two, and the promise of more rain to come.

next time, shoes

2005-09-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

Life like a dirty martini dance the fork out and swing it wore holes through my socks on a sticky floor trying to find the right way to woo She's mentioned that breakfast numerous times I'm always flattered French poetry in the underground smiles and coffee and oh what times and thank you for the years Now a reciprocity, previously unsuggested French and dancing? at the same time no less like Dionysus waiting in the wings with wine and fervor and he's winking but I'm not going to chase because I've tried that and ... The right way to woo is like dancing like jazz in the underground club with smoke against the ceiling and wine for 10f and every night we'd stumble home across the Rhine just find the syncopation and Apollo be damned

I Need Some Intelligent Design

2005-09-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

I want to completely redo the template for my blog. And perhaps, even the idea for my blog, and what I post about. I feel like working on one thing will help negotiate the other. What I'd like to do is take the elements I like from certain blog designs and weave them together in a masterful way to create something pretty, and wholly my own. Like Frankenstein's blog, I guess ... and yes, it will probably come out looking like a monster. Here's a big link-dump of design sites and blog designs I'm eyeing enviously. Please feel free to make any suggestions. powazek - I like the banner especially, and the way it fades into the rest of the page. shifted librarian - Nice, simple, easy layout. Very readable. Could have fun with the 2-tone aspect. bizgirl - very simple, easy, elegant. girl's hot. I need to actually read this at some point, too. stephanie klein - pretty straighforward. i like the colorful banner and the absolutely useless line of green along the right side. indiekids - i like the top banner with the links. also the muted background colors. it's nearly blogger-styled, but cooler. tequila mockingbird - rocking colors. nice, easy layout. easy is good. color is good. take notes. boudist - i think this is fucking class. nice primary colors, elegant. chromewaves - good width-fit. i like how the boxes are seperated. fluxblog - ooOoOo, I kinda like this mono-color thing, especially with the banner. Cute logo, too. I need me one of them. jason santamaria - this is way too clever for me to figure out. but i like the banner and link style up top. how the hell do you do that stain thing along the top-right of the page? karen cheng - very clever, fairly simple, good content. i like the day-of-the-week headers especially. lowculture - i like the two blogs in one approach. could do some fun shit with this, i think? popagandhi - i like the retro banner, and once again, the white on white background keeps it simple pussycat - simplicity rules the day. this is a well-done minimal. watchblog - tri-blog, one page. good idea Design & template sites: cookie designs francey.org thisisliz notthatugly rp designs squidfingers If you know of any other gorgeous blogs, or awesome design sites, let me know! That's it for now!

SMU goes BOOM

2005-09-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Saint Martin's Campus, where the fun never stops, even when it means blowing shit up. Komo got the damn story before we even issued our official press release. Old Main is the main building on campus (as you may have guessed from the name). The O'Grady Library, where I work, is near Old Main, and the coolest building on campus anyway, so it filled up with displaced students, faculty, and administration in the blink of an eye. Even so, things have quieted down a bit already. It's kind of amazing how fast life can just ... move on. Not that this was a tragedy by any means, more of an incident. Just allow me my little dramatic moment. edit: The Seattle PI is a little slow, but they're doing their part. The Olympian chimes in. Brief coverage from the Tacoma News-Tribune. The Olympian takes photos of our suffering. I wouldn't make light of it, but no one was seriously injured. Even so, my condolences to everyone who had flying glass shooting at their heads. That can't be fun.

FreePay Referrals

2005-09-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the day verifying this is legit. I'm convinced. FreePay makes bank advertising these services, and people get free stuff for it. Not too shabby. :) Anyway, I've never tried this before, so I thought I'd give it a go. If anyone else is interested in trying it, I'd be happy to trade referrals with you. It really is real. I'm no fool, and I don't get scammed. Free iPod Nano (4GB) - Click here. Requires 5 referrals. Free X-Box 360 (w/hard-drive & extras) - Click here. Requires 8 referrals. If you click on those links, and sign up by referring me, that would be awesome. And by awesome, I mean totally sweet. In turn, if you want me to refer for you, I'd be happy to do so. I can't refer on the same things, unfortunately, but they have lots of other stuff available, like digital cameras and the like. You can check the whole FreePay catalog here. They're both sexy pieces of machinery. Help a brotha' out. :) edit: You do have to sign up for one of the offers for your referral to be effective. Most of the time, once the referral has gone through, you can cancel the service for a full refund. Some of the offers have trial services, and you can cancel within the trial period. Some of them are actually decent. On one of the referrals I did, I signed up for the Blockbuster dvd-by-mail account. On another, I spent 99 cents to sign up for RealRhapsody. You can research here for which offers are easiest to sign up for and cancel.

I'm going blind for mankind

2005-09-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Masturbate for peace? Yeah, ummm, that's exactly it. Excuse me... Some hilarious slogans though.

The Highest Tide

2005-09-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday I went to a local book reading/signing at Orca Books. The book being read was "The Highest Tide" by Jim Lynch, who is an Olympia native, and whose book takes place in Olympia. As of about an hour ago, I finished reading it, and I have to say, it rocks my face off. Seriously, go read it. The story follows a thirteen-year-old boy named Miles O'Malley who lives on the edge of the Puget Sound and who is obsessed with Rachel Carson, marine life, and the girl-next-door who used to babysit him. When Miles finds a giant squid washed up from a high tide, he is catapulted into local fame. When he continues to find things in the bay that shouldn't be there, his fame goes from local to national, and he gets a lot of largely unwanted attention. Despite these catalysts, the story remains focused on Miles' experiences with the ocean, with growing up (at the age of thirteen he still looks nine), with his parents who are growing distant, a friend who is dying and a girl he loves who is spinning out of control. It's often funny, particularly when Miles is explaining such things as the sex life of barnacles, or trying himself to understand the perhaps more bizarre sex life of humans. His friend Phelps plays a mean air guitar, and constantly talks about "melons". The girl he loves is a local rockstar known to faint onstage. The book is so abundantly infused with life and energy and depth that it mirrors the bay around which it is framed. Jim himself seems very cool, and he signed my book, which is awesome. Rating: 5 / 5 stars. Note: This book rocks my face off. Link.

Snark the f*** up.

2005-09-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Snarky political rant. Go Eric!

I Love Virals

2005-09-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about viral advertising, but I find it much more engaging than the alternative. More about Origen. Granted, it will be hard to top "I Love Bees". But I hope someone tries.

Reticence, I smite at thee...

2005-09-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

And 'lo there was a great smoting, and those quiet moments between words were banished, and the cup of conversation runneth'd over, and there was a great rejoicing. Sometimes you just can't do events justice with words. Letters glued together like matchsticks trying to build the strongest bridge, but that annoying kid who eats lunch with you sat on it, and it was never meant to withstand that sort of "earthquake". Poor, poor matchstick bridge ... My analogies keep running way the hell away from me. We'll simply call them expeditious and leave it at that. The short of it is that I met a girl. Those of you who are vigilant would have noticed two posts, that lasted just a day or so, and were then deleted, expressing my enthusiasm about said girl. They were deleted because, when the pot comes to boil, some things are still private, and even if I don't care that strangers know my most intimate moments and/or embarrassing analogies, it's not my place to share everything that involves other people. Besides, sometimes you just have to play your cards close to home. This blog is, after all, ridiculously easy to find. So it was one of those conundrums. And I panicked. These things happen. So I met a girl, and I was completely flabbergasted. As a friend has told me since (and I would tend to agree, now), my being completely flummoxed about this girl said a lot more about where I was then it really did about her. But you can't tell these sorts of things to a madman. We went on a date, I bought her dinner, I was smitten instantly. We talked about France, and film, and school and friends and London and travel and language ... oh the things we said! The conversation was good, to put it simply. The next day I sent her flowers, and then I didn't hear from her for a couple days, and got dreadfully anxious. When I happened to run into her at a restaurant downtown, it all seemed so serendipitous that it HAD TO BE FATE! Seriously, my brain was all gunked up with romance. Stupid thing. A few nights ago, as I was walking around my neighborhood, admiring the stars, she called me and we had a nice conversation. It was nice until the "I can only offer you my friendship" part, and then it was kind of not-nice. But it did help get my head screwed back on straight, and it really didn't hit me as hard as I was setting myself up for. Thank goodness for skeptical friends who are completely willing to balk at your inexplicable enthusiasm and give you sketchy glances when you're being foolish. I pay heed to these things, anymore. So the "f" word was dropped, not so much like an atom bomb as like a ... I dunno, water balloon. I was disappointed, sure, but I don't have anything if not perspective, and I'm a resilient son-of-a-gun, anyhow. Besides, y'all wouldn't love me if I weren't unpredictable and spazzy. The longer people know me the less surprised they get when I do completely off-the-wall things, without explanation or warning. And usually so mild-mannered and level-headed ... but that's what makes life snazzy!

Posthumously humane, humanity...

2005-09-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

A Pithy Mood has been a secret pleasure of mine for months now. Something delectable, to be treated with earnest admiration, but from afar, and infrequently. We must not oversup on our extravagances. Her recent post is about helping out with Katrina, and donating to a cause we might otherwise forget about. Pets. In most cases, these are family members that were left behind with food and water and a wish to stay well. As Tamea says:

However, the millions of now homeless, lost and starving animals who've also been affected by this hurricane have no politics to disagree with and they need help desperately.

If you have issues with humanity, then donate to save these animals instead. You can donate to the humane society who is working to reunite pets with their families, or find new families for abandoned animals. You can also donate to the petfinder disaster fund, which is doing the same thing.

Soyez patient.

2005-09-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Merci pour votre patience pendant que je traduit tout de ce blog en Francais. Je vous plaisant, bien sur, mais c'est vrai qu'il faut faire des changes ici. Ne me quittez pas! Je reviendrai. Gros bisous, l'homme autrefois connait comme "bava". babelfish: french--> german--> english Thanks for your patience, while I translate everything this blog into French. I you pleasing naturally, but it is true that one must make rates of exchange here. Do not leave me! I will return. Large kisses, humans known in former times as "bava".

A couple jiggers of rye.

2005-09-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of a "double shot of espresso," you could pound a couple jiggers of rye into this coffee? Then go back to work and pimpslap the boss? Yeah, that'd be great. Not gonna happen, though, fella. You'll finish your pastry, grit your teeth, and get back to the grind. Bottoms up! My oh my. But seriously. Oh my. I feel bad about feeling so good while people are doing so poorly.

We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," Rev Issac Clark told the Associated Press news agency outside the city's convention centre, where dead bodies are still lying in the open. People have faced shoot-outs and some reports say martial law has been imposed in some areas. Armed gangs have moved into some hotels. Some have been breaking into shops, houses, hospitals and office buildings. Thieves used a forklift truck to break into a pharmacy, AP news agency reports, while dozens of carjackings have been reported.

I've made my donation, and honestly wish there was more I could do to help, but for personal reasons I've been walking on sunshine for the last couple days, and it's difficult to break free of my happy myopia. My best wishes to all those displaced by nature. Life will find a way.

Why George W. Will Save Our Country

2005-08-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Good, now that I've gotten your attention. You know how a lot of medicine that you have to ingest tastes like shit, but if it didn't taste that bad then it probably wouldn't be as beneficial? Well, I think that's Dubya. Before you burn my blog to the ground, I'll explain. This idea started when I glanced over the Friday cover of the New York Times, and perused an article which talked about rising energy costs. The article mentions that even though the national temperature average is still in the 80s, people nation-wide are already worried about budgeting heating costs for the winter, with prices higher than most of us have ever seen, and not estimated to drop any time soon. Common ideas were to turn the heat down, and put on a sweater, be it for a home, a school, or the workplace. But you know what, I think that's perfect. Let's face it. As a nation, we're coddled. We've had a good run of prosperity lately, and no matter how much people will bitch about monetary imbalance, the amount of people in "comfortable" financial situations seems to just keep growing. I know I can't cross the street without getting bumped aside by a new SUV, a fat woman pushing 8 kids in a Wal-Mart SUPER-STROLLER (tm), or some guy younger than me with leather pants and a new BMW. The thing is, our financial gain has nothing to do with us becoming smarter, stronger, or more driven than we have been in the past. On the contrary, the lazier we get the more shit seems to get handed to us. Think of the "No Child Left Behind" act. Oh, you have a LEARNING DISABILITY!? Well let us just bend over fucking backwards to make sure than when you're 25 you can still force someone smarter and older than you to bow to your will. Because really, that's the trademark of our society now. The more you suck, the more you can boss people around that suck less than you. I was reading movie quotes from "Stand and Deliver" the other day, and I think one applies here.

There is two kinds of racisim, Mr. Escalante. Judging a group because they are a minority, and NOT judging a group because they are a minority.

Granted, I'm not talking about race. What I'm talking about is natural intelligence and ability. Perhaps we could insert "intellectual prejudice" for "racism", and make the quote more applicable. The point is that while it may not be right to judge a group because they are less intellectually skilled, it's not necessarily right to NOT judge them because they are less intellectually skilled. More simply, while it may not be nice to point and laugh at the dumb kid, you should still realize that he's the dumb kid. I'm so going to hell for that ... So to get back on track, we're coddled and we're letting people who don't deserve to run our businesses run them, who don't deserve to be our managers manage us, and who don't deserve to friggin' fry our "freedom fries" run the country. And for that we get to start worrying about our energy costs in August, and we deserve that. See, Bush isn't the problem. Yeah, I was upset when he won the first time. I was absolutely DEVESTATED when he won a second term. Whether or not he cheated is moot, the fact remains that about half the people in this country WANTED him. And that, to me, means that he is just the symptom of a much larger problem. Those people we are trying so desperately to "not leave behind"? They're growing up, having hordes of "little miracles", and they're voting. They run our Wal-Marts, our McDonalds, our movie theaters and our Auto Dealerships. They sell us insurance, they buy stock in Starbucks, Microsoft, and Enron, and they run for office. And they're part of the problem, but they're not THE problem. THE problem, really, is that this is a self-propogating cycle. More than that, they're gaining momentum while we're losing it, and things seem pretty bleak. But then, like a pile of rotten refuse gleaming in the Texas sun, they offer us a solution. George W. Bush. I'd like to side-track a little bit to offer up an oil analogy. It's fitting, don't you think? We've all seen those big oilwell contraptions, with the big hammer thing rotating around the big piston thing, mesmerizing us with its tireless tick-tock efficiency. At some point, I assume it's before those things begin their work, men strike oil deep in the earth (sticking a giant drill deep into the ground is as close an analogy to "raping the earth" as I could ever think of), and it gushes to the surface in all its black-gold glory. Sometimes, the oil catches on fire, and you have a hole in the ground that becomes a flame-geyser. Can you say "not fun"? To put out these fires (and my point is coming up here very soon), they don't try to lessen the flow of oil, or pour water on it, or smother it (in any conventional sense). They certainly don't attack it with their liberal ideologies and they don't try to plug the hole with Michael Moore (though that might be worth a shot). What they do is they set up an explosion so big around the jet of fire that it feels puny in comparisn and dies (kind of like if a guy were all full of cock and swagger, and to bring him down you send Orlando Bloom into the room). Okay, so really it's an oxygen-deprivation thing, but the point is that to put the fire out, they make a much bigger fire, which steals the little fires oxygen, and both of them end up not being able to sustain, and die. George W. Bush is our explosion. (Whew, took me awhile to get there. Sorry.) We've got the steady flame of mediocrity burning strong in the American heart. How do we fix that? With a supernova of mediocrity that'll steal all the oxygen from the little mediocre flame, and they'll both burn out. The energy thing is a start. People who are colder tend to move more. The best heat solution is body heat, and the best way to maintain body heat is to stay active. This, in turn, will start to help with our obesity problem. Also, improved bloodflow increases brain activity (though plenty of jocks have proven that this is not a solution by itself), so people might get a tiny bit smarter. Our economy, which is not going to be able to sustain this level of prosperity indefinately with W. at the helm, will suddenly get a lot tougher. Ideally (and I can be a naive idealist at times), this will increase job competition and create a more rigid standard against incompetence. Sure, you may not get a grad student hired to cook your fries at Burger King, but in general a tougher market will mean that the lowest of the low will have to bring themselves that much higher to compete. If not ... well, it's Darwinian, and I like it. I think I already mentioned that I'm going to hell for this. In "What is to be done?", Nikolai Chernyshevsky wrote of an ideal society based on peasants in a social commune. In it he lauds a social commune of peasants that live in perfect peace and suffer from absolutely NO conflict or unhappiness. Other than the impracticality or such a society, it shows a prevalent underlying ideology that conflict is intrinsically "bad", and only happiness and contentment are "good". Dostoevsky, with great contempt, often referred to Chernyshevsky's utopic peasants as being no better than an organ-stop. Particularly so in his "Notes from Underground":

Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort; for what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? What do you think? Let us reckon the chances–can such a thing happen or not?

The reason I mention this is that I feel like our society now is perilously close to an ideology where we would be better off without choice, freedom, or free will, so long as we are safe, warm, fed, and "happy". I say "happy" when I mean content, and though I think they're worlds apart, I'm not sure most Americans could describe the difference. I won't get into it here why I think a "happiness"-based society is ridiculous. I think Chernyshevsky described it well enough, and in reading his description it's fairly clear to see why it's patently absurd. But that's what we're doing. On a day to day basis in our society we are getting rid of conflict. Classes too hard for some students? Make them easier. Too hard to get a job? Hire those poor, unqualified folk. Better yet, promote them. Let them run the company. Too much trouble to be in shape? Introduce more fad diets than anyone knows what to do with and start selling salads at McDonalds. No, don't worry about exercise. So long as we're skinny, who cares? We don't like to see failure. We don't like to admit that any task is too difficult for any person. We're all equal, right? It seems like we'd rather have those people with exceptional qualities lower their skills to a more average level (we don't want to make anyone feel bad, right?), than try to really push those who don't have the natural abilities. Sure, plenty of teachers work hard to do just that. I mean, we've all seen "Dangerous Minds", right? At least twice as many don't care. I'll bring this all around, and finish up, by saying that a slow decline into mediocrity is a subtle thing. A warping of values into something that will destroy our society can be even moreso. Dubya is as subtle as a pygmy monkey thrown at your face. And in this case, he may be just the splash of cold water we need to realize that it's sink-or-swim time folks, and it might be better if a few of us sink.

'Cause I don't wanna dream alone...

2005-08-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

So last night I met the girl of my dreams ... it's a pity I was only dreaming. It was incredibly vivid, and I woke up really disappointed that it hadn't really happened. For what it's worth, if you see her around, she was: tall, about 5'8", I'd guess, with a medium/fit build, and shoulder-length medium-brown hair worn back in two braids. She had a kind face and a mischievous smile. I'm such a sap sometimes. ------ In completely unrelated, and more disturbing news, I'm concerned about the number of people who have been finding this blog with various searches for Second Life "furry avatars". Seriously though ... ick. Alternately, I wonder how long it will take someone to start making movies using either "Second Life" or "There.com". With the amount of freedom these programs offer in both character creation and movement, it's only a matter of time ...

It's a G thing, part the second

2005-08-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

Google has released, in beta, their IM software. It's called "Google Talk", and it rocks my little world. I don't know where you can download it from, except that I can send you an invite if you like. You NEED Gmail to use Google Talk, so if you need that, let me know and I'll send you an invite for that as well. Cool points for Google Talk:

It's connected to Gmail, so you get email notifications.

It's tabbed chatting, in a cheaty sort of way. IM me and I'll explain it. :)

It fully supports voice chatting, so talk to your friends in China for free.

The UI is simple, minimal, and ad-free. It reminds me a bit of ICQ, back in the old days. I won't claim it doesn't have some room for improvement (can you say "integrated google search function"?), but it rocks the hell out of everything else available, on day 1. But that's just one man's humble opinion. Comment me an email address, and I'll send you an invite. Let me know if you need Gmail as well.

Like photos to the tribesmen

2005-08-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's nice having a good view, good company, good beer, and good conversation. 'Nuff said.

Sunset from the second story

2005-08-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

As the sun began to subside behind the horizon, I thought I would try out some of the manual settings on my digital camera in the low light. These two are pretty straight-forward. Some of them turned out pretty crazy. Let me just add, I love sitting out on my balcony at night and watching the stars, and the lights, and the quiet. It may, in fact, be the best thing ever. Really.

The eaves of your indifference

2005-08-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Beware the ides of eucalyptus eyes, and the crunch of hearts dropped beneath the eaves of your indifference. Kisses dropped on my lips by idle loves, women who would have me but would not cherish me, perhaps. I know nothing of it. Lately lying late in the arms of conversation, mild parties of wine and whimsy, poetry and flimsy excuses to brush against each and every other. Sleep is brief, waking early to breakfast or to go to the airport, or because the light sifting through the leaves strikes my closed lids and pries them apart, coaxing my pupils to wax like black moons as I rub lingering dreams from my lashes. Today, two LARGE drip coffees, before 8 am. Only three hours of sleep, and two hours of driving as I bid my friend adieu on his journey to China. My skin, like butter over too much bread, stretched taut over jittery muscles and bones infused now with the tar of too many cigarettes. Last night, conversation for hours with a strange girl who gazed at me while she spoke. Drinks over an open mike, and a late ride home as she and her friend sifted through books I needed rid of, as if they were the only copies ever printed. As she left the car she leaned toward me, looked at me, waited ... ... the car filled with a pregnant hesitation ... ... and then she wished me a safe drive to the airport in the morning. And then she was gone. As I drove home, I marvelled that we're all so disparate, so unknown to each other and fascinating, though each normal in their own way, each perfect and unique and mad like Alice and her chesire cat. Three hours of sleep on a night following a night of three hours of sleep, and momentarily alert I notice the quiet of 3 am, that even the gulls are still. As we merge onto the freeway at 3:45, I turn to my friend, who had not slept at all, and say, "So, last night was pretty crazy, huh?" He looks at me, confused. "Wait, you mean tonight?" These hours of the day are ambiguous, secretive creatures, subject to miscalculations and shifts in perspective. As I get home, the sun has begun to diffuse its light into the fog, and the gulls are screaming.

Fingered and Towed

2005-08-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Hank eyed the lump of metal warily, as though it were prize cock, defeated but not yet dead, ready to lash out one last time before the rattle. Held together by rust, duct tape, and the sheer conviction of its own durability, the car stood stalwart, defiant; its front bumper, long since turned gray from the sun and elements, lay crooked across its face like a wry smile. Finally, he nodded stoically, lifted his finger to the car, cocked his thumb, and shot, a symbol that the beast, at last, was dead. The sun just began to peek its light over the distant hills as the truck roared to life and towed the old heap to its final grave. -Ahniwa Ferrari 8/18/05