yeah. I just finished writing another one of my (hopefully entertaining) mini-essays. except this one isn't. entertaining, that is.

I found myself returning to thoughts of suicide-- to be perfectly clear: not as an immediate agenda item but rather as a part of my personal history that has been faced, analyzed, assimilated, and grokked.

I've got some good thoughts on the subject. Or more accurately, some good thoughts on avoiding taking action on the subject.

It's still very personal. even after all this time. So everything I wrote gets saved to the buffer file, and I'll gnaw on it a little more before I post. (If ever I post it) (some of it was written months ago, at least initially as a response to sacrecoeur-- a response to a post I think she herself has since deleted. and possibly a post that I might have misinterpreted anyway. I'm glad it's no longer an issue. But the memories and musings that were stirred up have stuck with me, and proven a bit tenacious.)

yeah, I know, I'm a tease; talkng about posting rather than posting. But on this one topic... unless someone asks, I may not bother to share at all.

Decisions were made. The troops have already been deployed. Money by the billions has been spent and there is no way to get it back from Iraq.

Right, wrong, good, evil, whatever; I won't debate the need or morality or consequences of our country's overseas adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you wanted that kind of discussion, go find one, there has to be a half million of 'em on the web.

I just think that its a damn shame our boys are over there when we need them at home, and of course, when it would be nice to have a couple billion dollars or so to spend in immediate relief, not to mention the tens (hundreds?) of billions that will be needed to rebuild, it hurts just a bit to think of
$200 billion and more that isn't available for this crisis at home.

Yes, obviously, I'm against the war in Iraq. But I won't argue with you if you disagree with me. After all, that mistake has already been made, saying "I told you so" is just childish and doesn't help to solve either set of problems.

My heart (and my money) (and my blood, I'm giving a bit of both to the Red Cross today) goes out to those who are suffering on our Gulf Coast. That's a practical response to crisis. I wish I could do more, but I have to content myself with that small gesture.

Here's a longish sort of post (I can post more on my days off, I guess for the obvious reason that I have time to write.) with a little bit of current events and the stuff I have going on, without the drama or self-critical-reflection. I guess I should lay off my three favorite topics for a while--me, beer, and me drinking beer--and maybe go for something a bit on the lighter side.

If I can find a lighter side. you know, I'm also depressing *myself* more than a little with the heavy stuff I crammed into some recent posts. Granted, it's good to examine your own thoughts and feelings, and obviously, if there is something dark and you insist on locking it up inside, well, that's just not healthy.

Still, it's hard to go from 'dark hidden history from the teenage angst period' directly to 'ha ha, he's drinking again, isn't chemical dependence funny?'

In fact, seen in the light of recent confessions, anything I tried to write would end up seeming depressing, me thinks, even if it were funny. Nothing to do but put some verbiage up, and wait for time and the mass of words to cycle small confessions off of the main page and into the archives. Where it will be relatively safe, my own little version of the government warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

How long can I talk without saying anything? Now, there's a question. I may just switch from personal to fictional, and finish polishing up lecture #2 with your friend and mine, the Professor. It may be another week, actually, before the lecture is done because unlike the first, which started off the cuff and seemed to flow naturally and while it did have a conclusion (sort of) it really was all over the map, for the second I actually have a topic, and I keep thinking of more details to throw in, and am trying to go for a narrative that actually flows more or less chronologically through the pre-historic and historic examples I'm using to illustrate my point, and of course there is my tendency to go off on a tangent (maybe you noticed?) so I will have to do both a first-pass edit and a re-write (and maybe even do a little fact checking) before I post it here.

Other projects are going well, also. I'm taking a new look at script formatting (as in t.v. scripting) and storyboarding, and coming up with my own ideas on how this can be adapted to simple HTML for posting to the web (posting here, actually) in a way that conveys something of the cinematic flow of the visual medium while simultaneously considering the limitations of the written word & the web log format. (which actually, is pretty damn flexible when you think of all the different things people are doing with blogs)

The first application will be something like a comic book, or old movie serial. If I think I can get away with it. The working title is "Nine and Ninety" and has to do with the survivors of an abondoned research station after they are rediscovered by the galactic federation they thought would never catch up to them. The catch: all the survivors are clones (illegal clones) and none of them is older than 20. The crew of the ship that discovers them decides to keep their secret, but as more and more folks move out to what has become the new frontier, it may be tough going.

It's sci-fi. It's meant to be fun. and funny. and yes, I guess I am watching too much anime.

#2 in the pipe is for NaNoWriMo and has an excellent title which I'm keeping to myself for now, but had the working title "28 conversations with 3 bartenders". Now it's four bartenders. And actually a number of other bar regulars; as it is shaping up, I guess it's going to be a novel told almost entirely in dialog. Keeping to the NaNo rules, I won't be writing a word of it until November, but I should have an outline, or at least a seed-topic, for each day's output, and I think I will be able to win NaNo this year. (everybody who meets the goal wins, it's not a contest)

("Ha! A book set in a bar. Are you sure that's fiction, mister?" well, write what you know, right?)

#3 is even more notes and ancilliary documents for the Damn Novel, which I may never finish but will be one hell of legacy to whomever is chosen as my literary executor many decades from now, and of course would be great if I could only wrap my brain around actually getting a finished book out of the mess I've written myself into. (does that paragraph make sense? to anyone else but me?)

I guess project #4 would be the Damn Novel itself, which is an epic fantasy. Not "in the tradition of" anybody, though I occasionally drop names like Tolkein and Eddings and Jordan and Martin when explaining it to folks just so I don't have to explain it to folks. I get a bit tired of the blank expressions that come over people when I say "well, it's a synthesis of three different time periods-- pre-Alexander Greece, the Italian Renaissance, and ancient Mesopotamia-- with a focus on urban life and settings instead of the-hero-wandering-the-empty-wilderness-bit, and of course there's an added magic component, along with an overlay of Chinese-instead-of-Aristotlian ideas about elemental composition and cosmology, and few ideas about gods and demons that I pretty much stole from Terry Pratchett."
[cricket chirp.]
"it's fantasy, but with no elves." [oh. I see.] [*smack*]

And that's about where I'm at, at the moment. The idea of doing some writing for, you know, money is still on the back burner, but my first investigation into this area (pulp romance novels) proved to be a bust. After doing some research, I have come to two conclusions: first, that the occasional romance paperback can be a fun read, even for a guy, as long as you can find a sub-genre you can enjoy, and second, I don't think I'd be able to write one without irony. It's not a guys-can't-write-chic-lit kind of thing; I can see how it could be done. I just don't think I can do it.

You may see the November novel before any of the rest of it. Though if I get requests, I suppose I could find a little something to post from the other projects.

It's a shame I have to go all the way to the BBC for a link that is critical of how we're handling the storm disaster.

From the article/editorial:
"The truth was simple and apparent to all. If journalists were there with cameras beaming the suffering live across America, where were the officers and troops?"

other opinions from the world press (also via the BBC)

I've been working all weekend (evening shifts Sat. & Sun.) and am stuck doing "labor" today on this fine Labor Day holiday (I put that in quotes because, um, I'm not digging ditches or anything. but it's still work) so there may not be a full update until Thursday.

Oddly, it may be worth reading by the time I do update. For the class:

"As American transitions to a service and information economy, retail is the new 'blue collar' job, and possibly the core of the new middle class."

Discuss.

oh, and btw, Go Tech!

It would seem that the wifi at work has moved from a paid to a free system. I guess Barnes and Noble is finally getting around to picking up the check on that. I'll continue to subscribe to the SBC Freedomlink bit, at least for a while, because I use that account to log in at other places--

but hey, good news for you guys. Free Wifi at Barnes and Noble. whether its a bug in the system or a change in policy, it's valid for now. If I notice a change (for the worse) I'll post an update.

and once again, Eric over on Websnark has managed to write more eloquently than I can manage.

From the start of his essay:
"I write what I write to be read. I'm confident in my readers. I'm confident that if what I say is important enough -- or good enough -- they won't unsubscribe or stop coming when they see a given snark is five thousand words long. I'm confident that they know what they're getting. And I'm confident that if it is more than they can take, they will leave and let me know. To date, I haven't been disappointed on any of these scores.

"But today I'm using a cut tag. Because today's essay is highly political, and very critical of our elected government. And that's also not why people come to Websnark, and I'm aware of that. Folks know I'm a liberal because I never shut up about that fact. A good number want nothing to do with my politics.

"So. I'm putting in that extra step. If you want to read what I have to say, realizing I'm far far far past the point of being 'fair to everyone involved,' then by all means click through and read it. If you're here for webcomics commentary or slice of life or whatever, and you just don't want to read yet another person talking about the Gulf Coast, then you don't have to. I won't be offended. "

If you don't want to read it, don't click here. You have that option. And on that note I'll stop most of my own personal bitching on the topic, except to also point you to the red cross and blood donations (remember, as after any disaster, stocks will be low-- so particularly for those of you in the south, consider donating blood sometime in the next 6 weeks.)

So, I engaged in an oddly engrossing but also slightly embarrassing exercise last night:

I read my own archive.
It's not some big anniversary, the number of posts hasn't reached Big Round Numbers (looks like this one is going to be #339.), in fact I have only written [checking] 110,000 words or so for this...

hang on a sec; that's like a [calculating] 400 page book. And some of you have also read it all. I am soooo sorry to have subjected you to this crap. (well, only 90% of it is crap. There was a good 10,000 words in there somewhere)

back on point: while going through my own archived tabulas entries, I came to at least one major conclusion (no, it's not about beer): I actually enjoy reading my own writing. Yeah, I guess it's also an ego thing, but I find that when I'm on target, I can manage to throw down with some quality bullshit writing. Obviously, I'm at an advantage because I know what I mean, if you know what I mean. um. But I'd like to think that some of that comes through to casual readers also.

Of course, the web journal is more than just writing practice, but it's nice to see that at least (for some small, insignificant fraction) some of the time I can get it right.

Obviously, the conversational style, the varied and changing point-of-view (even slipping into 2nd person, on occasion), a passing disregard for the rules of grammar, and a willing rebellion against standard diction aren't helping me much. At least, it's not helping me write the Damn Novel. (fantasy writing, not in-spite-of but because it relies so much on unusual names, archaic words, and even invented languages, requires a writer to be much more rigorous and mindful of grammar and correct English usage.)

But I find that this style works for me, and perhaps suits me best--which is why NaNoWriMo this year will be a contemporary-lit. effort, rather than more work toward the fantasy novel.

I guess the other point that I took away from the self-review (you know, other than the ego-stroking thing) is that I seem to be at my best when I'm working on a longer essay, like this one. (though of course a shorter entry also has it's good points--they tend to be funnier, for one) I suppose I could get around to posting more poetry, too. (if I can follow the Frost example and not just descend into free-form thought. my favorite Frost quote: "Writing poetry that doesn't rhyme is like playing tennis without a net") (though there are points to be made in favor of stream of consciousness) (and when in the right mode, even my thoughts are in meter, so I guess it's a wash)

Speaking of writing, I hope to have some fictional output to post soon, or failing that, some notes on the process--particularly on my attempt at synthesizing script-and-storyboard, which is turning into a fun little project on its own, even without the content I plan to use the format for.

more on that later. The bars are opening; it's time for a change of venue.
And whatever point I had has probably been made by now.

The Line @ 285
(no, really, that’s what they call it.)
Location: 5525 Interstate North Pkwy NW, 30328
Contact: 770.952.0001
Cost: Manageable. Call it a $20 tab, unless your drinkin’ beer all night. Not that we do that.
Best time to visit is: after midnight, we’re gonna let it all hang out... doo di doo, doo
Amenities: Game room, etc.
Coolest feature is: um. proximity to my apartment?
Order suggestions: The wings are good. So are the burgers. And see the review for other food notes.
Description:

Like many other remnants of the former “Sidelines” empire, here we have yet another example of an old Sidelines location still doing the same damn thing under a new name and ownership.

This is your typical crappy suburban sports bar.

While I’m tempted to just leave it at that, I must say that to be fair I should consider the location on it’s own merits, and I might as well take this opportunity to condemn sports bars as a category.

The single bar has ten stools. There are a whole lot of tables, an actual game room with darts, pool, and a number of video game machines, a deck that no one seems to use (it may be a different matter in the Spring and Fall) and maybe just a few too many stairs. The bar area, which includes a half dozen bar-height tables, is set up a couple of feet above the rest of the restaurant seating. There are only three stairs, so I suppose they might be considered a simple field sobriety test. If you fall down on the way to the toilet, you should probably pour yourself into a cab to go home.

Speaking of pours: 15 beers on tap, including what seems to be a standard loadout of Amstel-Bass-Guinness-Newcastle-Stongbow (hats off to the sales reps at Empire Beverage—I’m seeing this setup at nearly every bar nowadays) to complement the de rigueur domestic yellows. It looks like they have a number of bottled selections as well, but Bud and Lite were the only ones I saw pulled from the voluminous tubs, and of course if there’s draft Guinness available, you can guess that I’m not ordering bottled beer.

The ceilings are a bit too high. The interior lighting is whack, with spots over the pool tables, too many neon beer signs, and the over-encompassing glow of the ubiquitous TV sets (it’s a sports bar). I feel a little seasick in the red-green glow, and that’s before I start drinking.

They claim the kitchen is open until 3am. Which is nice. The food is a highlight, being the usual pub grub but a couple of notches higher; and a special note should be made of the tater tots. You remember tater tots? the potato based nuggets that were a staple of the school cafeteria menu, and a favorite finger food of little kids everywhere? Apparently, these are also a favorite of drunken white-collar bar warriors, as I watched basket after basket of the golden brown treats pass from the kitchen to the waiting tables of trivia teams throughout the evening, particularly after the game when folks were finishing up their final pitchers of beer and ‘one more game of pool’. (note to self: if I open a bar, put tater tots on the menu.)

I suppose I should also note: Trivia Wednesday nights at 8pm. Actually, trivia runs continuously on the NTN network, where you answer multiple choice questions off of a TV set, using a little keypad. And the Friday night crowd is also lively and entertaining, though it shows up a little late, this being the last stop for a beer (and tater tots) for many of the commuters who live in the numerous nearby apartment complexes.

So, taken on it’s own merits and only held to the sports bar standard, the Line @ 285 is an exemplar of the class.

##

I hate sports bars. Actually, I hate the kind of atmosphere you typically find in sports bars. They aren't in and of themselves evil (it is the purpose to which they are put) (and St. Thomas Aquinas is probably asking God to smite me for quoting him in this context ) and I have to admit that a good time can be had even in dismal surroundings. It's the damn TV sets.

Sports bars... give us the option of tuning out. You can be in a bar full of people, and yet drink alone. All you have to do is fix your eyes on a TV and enter the trance state of the desperate drunk, refusing eye contact with other people, refusing to engage, begrudging even the need to occasionally nod at the bartender to get another bottle of Bud. Maybe that’s your thing. And of course, you can find folks like that everywhere, from the airport bar to the local Italian or Chinese restaurant that has a small three seat bar manned by the recent-bartender-school-graduate.

You can’t avoid the TV sets anymore, no matter where you go, but some of the best places manage somehow to limit themselves to single digits. You can sit with your back to a TV if that’s your preference; you aren’t force-fed sports and news. In contrast to the sports bar crowd, people down at the pub talk about, well, everything, sometimes the big game but not always. I am a big fan of pub culture, at least the sort of (perhaps mythical) pub culture that (perhaps I only imagine) folks enjoy in Britain and Ireland. And the Victorian-era bar or saloon—which evolved from the modest public house, which in turn evolved over centuries from the medieval inn or tavern—if taken on architectural, psychological, and sociological criteria, may be the ideal sort of surroundings for the occasional drink and also for convivial companionship with your fellow man.

(or I’m just a drunk with a regrettable tendency to romanticize the experience. But I also took architecture history and studied both lighting and acoustics for major number 4 at Georgia Tech. I have a wealth of personal experience hanging out in both good bars and bad. I may be the one bar patron uniquely qualified to make that assertion.)

I like to think that places like Cheers exist, that there is a community that develops among the staff and regulars down at the local. A surrogate family, even, if you can find the right sort of place.

Yeah, we’re all lonely. Maybe a little desperate. And even those with family, with circles of friends, with the support of church communities or strong work environments or a full social calendar; when we walk in the door of the pub we’re looking to connect with the group there. To find something that the other support networks don’t offer.

It’s a pickup group. The membership constantly changes, from night to night and year to year. But there’s often both a familiar face and someone new to talk to. And when you leave, you don’t need to stay in touch. No one is going to accuse or condemn you for staying away, though they may tease you a little when you finally do come back after a few months. They say family is where you go when you have nowhere else to go. The stop right before that might be the bar, as long as you have enough to cover tab and tip.

The sum of knowledge that can be tapped at the bar rivals a think tank or scientific conference. Doctors, lawyers, professors, students, businessmen of a dozen different stripes, and folks like me. And if you think that a car mechanic or contractor has nothing to contribute, then you need to hang out in a bar sometime. A blue collar is a shirt selection, not a condemnation of the man who wears it.

There is a lot to be said for the local pub. I’ve likely mentioned it once or twice myself.

sunday morning (afternoon, whatever, I just got up) web trawl # 8. we'll call it 8 this time.


Of course, first, take a moment. it's 9-11. And it may be that only kids born in 2002 or later will be able to think of today in historical rather than emotional terms. Unless you're a heartless unfeeling bastard. Not that I am unfeeling, or unsympathetic, and I recognise the need for others to dress the day in mourning colours and weepy observations. But... there's a small part of me that's more than ready to move on. It being 9-11, we have many luminaries making statements, including the new pope doing the pope thing. Comparisons are inevitable, considering the late JPII was beloved or at least highly respected by so many, including pagans like myself whose idea of "sunday service" is the nice young lady who brings the pitchers of beer to our booth. Whereas Karol W. might have called for brotherhood and understanding, Benny 26 is asking for justice. Old Skool, Benny; I'm digging the retribution thing.

I'm being more than a little facetious. I'll be fair and give you the quote: "Today, 11 September, we remember the victims of terrorist violence throughout the world," Benedict said in English. "May God inspire men and women of goodwill everywhere to renounce hatred and to build a world of justice, solidarity and peace."


A gwb-level metaphor for global warming: when you increase the heat applied to a pot of water, more bubbles come to the surface. Of course, pointing to summer storms and crying chicken little over global warming isn't scientific. It relies on evidence that is statistically insignificant when compared to historical trends or even the normal range of temperature fluctuations. But then again, if you ask me, saying categorically that nothing's going on isn't very scientific either. And ignoring international efforts to combat pollution, which is going to be a good thing anyway even discounting the global warming angle, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. link link link link link link


Hockey Night October 5th


Kegbot article @ the Make blog, or direct from the source, kegbot.org. Now, I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. This stikes me as being merely a scientific instrument to determine, for example, who should be putting $20 into the donation bucket for the next keg, as opposed to those who honestly 'only had the one cup'.


Lots of good stuff to be found on the Beeb:

It would seem that climate change is nothing new. Interesting as a historical matter, or course, but not so much for the current debate.

UK Public calls for tougher tests, the opposite of what happens here in the US. No wonder our educational system sucks.

Physics or Chemistry? love, attraction, and science

A pill instead of sleep. But then what? And it's not like we'll be getting rid of beds anytime soon. (they have other uses)

Authors playing inside your head. Madness is often portrayed in fiction, but how accurately?

Hoo, boy, I don't want to be the judge who ends up with the first one of these kids in a custody or child support situation.

"Just because these genes are still evolving doesn't necessarily mean they make you any smarter," said Dr Lahn.

"you're getting old, you geezer."

So maybe I am getting a little older. (no cracks from the peanut gallery) The way I use the internet is changing from those heady days in the college dorms when high-speed access was 'free' and La Grande Internet was a wild and wooly place.

My first browser was Lynx. From a command prompt. On a terminal hooked into something running BSD Unix in a back room of the college of computing. Oh, yeah, that's the stuff. (FTP anyone? how about Gopher?)

(I kid. I never used lynx much. I think my first browser was some flavor of netscape. Honestly, it didn't occur to me to use my student account to download stuff until some point after I had been browsing the web from the mac cluster in the library basement. still, I had to use the shell account to check my email-- so hopping on lynx was no big leap.)

There was a lot of stuff out there back then, but no good way to find it. (some smart folks made a lot of money fixing that little problem)

Now, it seems like there are ways to find nearly anything, but none of it is good. Sample exercise: think of a simple question or topic. Google it. How many links are you going to have to go through to find what you need? YMMV, but for me it's usually at least 3, in some cases I go through page after page of search results, and then end up figuring out some new search string rather than mess with any of them.

Its not just a matter of the novelty wearing off, I don't think. My needs and requirements are completely different now. More often then not, I use the internet just to check the news & my messages. It's my newspaper. It's an answering machine. It's not unknown terrain that I have to explore anymore, it's something that I have on my kitchen table each morning next to the coffee and raisin bran.

Back in the day I'd think nothing of searching for hours to find something. Now, I'm more than willing to pay money to a site that has quality content just so I don't have to go through that process.

(and no, I'm not talking about PORN) (um. not just porn [chuckle] we all know that "the internet is for porn", thanks to Avenue Q)

Specifically, I'm thinking of Salon.com and maybe a few other news-magazine-type-things. $35 a year doesn't seem that bad. And unlike a magazine subscription, I'll likely be reading it every day rather than just one-in-thirty.

not that I've spent the money yet. There are other calls on my finances. Like beer. mostly beer. and some piddling stuff like, um, rent I think, and car repairs that I keep putting off, and medical bills, and other trivial crap like that. (but mostly beer) The fact that I'm even considering it, though, just shows (to me anyway) how far both the web and I have come in 12 years.

“20 ounces of beer is a pint, goddammit, and that one fact is reason enough to chuck this whole independence thing and reconcile with the British crown.”
...but, the British use the metric system now
“Don’t confuse me with the facts, lad.”

As you all know, I hate Microsoft. Everyone hates Microsoft. I think even Bill Gates might, if he's ever honest with himself at 2 in the morning after a 16 hour day of doing nothing but counting his money, or perhaps swimming in it Scrooge-McDuck-style in an oversize money bin 20 minutes outside of Redmond.

The problem is, much as we hate them, quite a few of us end up using their products for one thing or another. In college, I used windows as much because I like computer games as anything else. I don't play as much as I used to (mostly because I got tired of upgrading the CPU/video card every six months. That and I tend to suck at the hand-eye coordination thing) but I still use Windows, out of inertia if nothing else.

A lot of my life is in saved computer files. I have electronic backups, but not so much is printed out anymore. So if I wanted to continue to write the novel the way I have been (which, considering the volume of text I already have, is a given) then I have to continue using Word and Excel (I use some spreadsheets to keep background info) (you think I'm kidding. Ever try and make a fantasy setting from scratch? I'm supprised I don't have to resort to a pro dBase application) though I haven't bothered to upgrade either since Office 97.

Put all that in the past tense. I recently switched over to OpenOffice.org and I don't think there's going to be a need to go back.

It works the same. I opened up the program, and immediately knew how to use at least half of what's up on the menu bar. Figuring out the rest may or may not be necessary. The conversion from my end will be seemless, just a matter of saving each file in the new (open source) format the next time I get around to reading or updating it. And OOo will export to the old MS formats if I ever need to share with someone else who hasn't cut the apron strings.

It's a small thing.

Now, in the interest of saving a little money (which is an admirable goal, dare I say an achievable goal) I cut back a bit on some extraneous expenses. No, not the beer. That's the second line item of my budget, actually, right after rent. And yes, that comes before food. If you think it's a problem, well, I disagree, and we have to agree to disagree on this point, folks. (I'm not starving. It's more of a budgeted entertainment expense, really: $ budgeted for a bar tab ends up being spent on beer + food + money for the jukebox, and smoke, and tip, etc.)

Anyway, In the interest of saving a bit of money (for retirement, or Friday's bar tab-- whichever comes first) I switched my Netflix membership from the 8-at-a-time plan to the better-in-comparison-but-still-sounds-ridiculous 5-at-a-time plan.

I can feel my readership slipping, and that's just from my overuse of hyphenate compounds... let me try and bottom-line it. Actually, I'm not sure if I can bottom-line it without being equally confusing. And we're not really all about explaining things here at (p.a.), if obfuscation and circumlocution end up being more entertaining.

Bottom line: We're talking about $20 a month. This is the difference between the two plans. Twenty dollars is a non-trivial chunk of change (I can eat for a week and a half on $20 worth of groceries) so you can see why I might be tempted to make this particular move, renting fewer DVDs and finding better uses for my entertainment dollar. Well, let me just say that actually, renting DVDs is an excellent use of the money, and netflix is a great value, especially in bulk, and at first blush you might think the more expensive plan is a waste, but in practice it doesn't work that way.

extended aside: my life with netflix.
You go online, you pick the next 4 or 400 or so movies that you want to see, and you're done. At this point it's just a matter of watching them and mailing them back. One reason I first switched to their top program was that the only sticking point in the whole process is the USPS. It takes about 6 days total to turn around a disc, from me sending it to netflix and them processing it and mailing out the new title. Actually, ideally, it only takes 3 days (1 out, 1 to process, 1 back) but it seldom works out that way, with the inconvenient weekends inserting themselves into an otherwise perfectly working system, and the occasional disc that ships not from the county next door but from Oregon or Massachusetts or wherever. So, the point: you can roll the discs over 5 or maybe 6 times each month, which means the only real limit on how many DVDs you can get is how many you subscribe to at a time. (assuming you don't sit on 'em for a week before mailing them back-- which is likely how netflix makes a fair chunk of change: inefficiencies on our end of the process.)

If your eyes glazed over and you skimmed the last three paragraphs, let me put it this way: Each title takes a week. Ignore everything I said about mail and numbers and all that. If you subscribe to the standard $20, 3-at-a-time program, then you're going to end up watching 3 DVDs a week. With the 8 at a time, considering delays for weekend mail and whatnot, that's just one disc a day.

This is why cutting back on my netflix plan doesn't really work out well. I asked myself if I really watched 40 DVDs a month. I thought the answer was no. It turns out that I had gotten used to having the option of watching a DVD instead of crap TV every night of the week. Now with a cheaper plan, I feel cheated, because at least twice a week I find myself waiting for netflix to check their mail and get back to me. And it was more than just one each night: 8-at-a-time works really well with the mail being what it is: a couple here at the house, a couple in transit there, a couple of new ones making their way to me... I always had something to watch. Every now and then I'd get caught up, and then a bit later get 8 discs all at once; I'd check the mailbox and know exactly how I could spend one of my days off: oh yeah, the whole damn season of something on DVD, no waiting.

Doing the math, it worked out to something like $1.30 for each rental. Cheap.

With only 5-at-a-time (which I thought was saving me money) the average price is still the same, but (important point) I don't have anything to watch. Twice a week all the discs are in the mail, nothing is actually here. I'm not really saving money; strike that: I am saving money but I'm also depriving myself. And if it's only a matter of an extra five bucks each week... I might as well go back to the more-costly-but-also-cost-effective plan. And considering the cost of movie tickets, or even Blockbuster rentals, the extra 5 bucks is one hell of a deal.

Oh, and Netflix rocks, btw. If you watch anything on DVD (movies, documentaries, TV, or even bad Japanese anime) (and the anime isn't always good...) then it is certainly worth looking into.

editorial note: since I hit kind of a glancing blow knocking anime in the last entry, I thought I'd go fetch something out of the old buffer file that was more or less to the point. Actually, it's not on point at all, except for the fact that it's also about anime. But this seems like as good a time as any to post it. One of these days I'll write an essay on the standard plot forms that get continuously recycled by our Japanese animatin' friends, and how that is both a good and a bad thing... but not today. Today, we cut and paste:


Shocked. Amazed. Appalled. But not surprised, not really.

Among the many other things one can learn from watching anime...

extended aside: in this case, a ‘normal’ piece of anime, not what has been termed ‘Japornomation’—a term which may actually have originated among my friends, since we tend to throw it around occasionally but I don’t recall seeing or hearing it used elsewhere. 'Hentai' seems to have filled that word-slot nicely, though a fan's knowledge of Japanese is necessary to know what folks are talking about (which may be one reason otaku are using it.) Japornomation is of course a corruption of Japanimation, which is an outdated American slang term for anime dating back to the old Robotech days (and I won’t define it, since I think the meaning should be obvious)

This particular series, well, I don’t know that they show it in the afternoon after school, but it was produced for regular broadcast TV. It does seem to be overburdened with a double dose of innuendo and a healthy amount of cheesecake... but [cough] you know, I watch it for the [cough] character development. Yeah, that’s it. Anyway...

...among the many other things one can learn from watching anime is that apparently, much like the French term (and for some it is the only French they know) menage a trois, there is a Japanese slang term for a fourway, which of course us lazy Americans would just call (with a touch of longing and envy) a “fourway”. I have learned through animation subtitles that this particular configuration is nicknamed “the Grand Cross” (no, I don’t really know if, um, the equipment or polarity of the various personnel makes a difference. In this case it referred to one dumb lucky bastard and three chicks.) And to be fair, in context, the Grand Cross was mentioned (with more than a touch of longing and envy) by the guy’s friends who had no idea of the real situation going on, which in keeping with an undercurrent I’ve noticed in quite a few of these of shows, consists of (note the change of adjectives here) one poor, hopeless bastard who couldn’t score with a woman, let alone multiple women, let alone simultaneously, even if they were throwing themselves at him. Which they do. (playfully, maliciously, continuously.)

I would say it reveals something deep about the Japanese male psyche. Except, you know
(“Mr. Kettle, there is a long-distance collect call from Japan from a Mr. Pot, will you accept the charges?”)
I’m sitting here watching it too.

While I will defend anime-as-art in a few select circumstances, I have to admit that like anything else, of course anime follows Sturgeon’s Law and 90% of this stuff is crap. Sexist, possibly misogynistic crap—occasionally, sexist-but-entertaining crap, but even when I’m laughing my ass off I can’t quite bring myself to defend it.

So, except for this one bit of trivia, I can't say there is a whole lot to redeem this show, except for the fact that it will kill a lot of time. It ran for 26 episodes (which will take 11 1/2 hours or so to watch) (Most of these anime titles have just 13 or 26 half hour episodes. I guess that's so they can run it for three or six months, and then plug something else into that time slot for the remainder of the year. Most anime shows also have discrete story arcs and come to a conclusion, like a novel. --if it's popular, they make a second season, or do a spin off, but with the noteable exception of Dragonball and a few others, they aren't really set up to just run forever like an american cartoon or sitcom. which is a good thing, in my opinion)

one final aside: the Grand Cross only showed up in the English subtitles to the original Japanese dialog; the dubbed version makes some similar-if-not-quite-so-graphic (or funny) sexual references, which leads me to believe there was a meeting at some point, “OK, folks, we’ve pulled in both the translators and our scriptwriters for our staff meeting today. Now. What kind of spin are we going to put on the fourway? Comments?”

http://radio.tabulas.com/users/10690/

added the radio. now, I need to figure out how to get it on this page, rather than it's own...

the super nova theory: just as it dies, each brain cell is going to have a really good idea.

The trick is to catch this light before it fades away, to capture the really good idea. or alternately, to kill a whole bunch of brain cells all at once in the hopes of catching at least one idea. While killing brain cells (via the usual method, of course) the 2nd trick is catch the ideas while you’re drunk.

One might be tempted to say, that all you need to do is practice.

As a rule: I hate kids in the bar. This is not really the place for kindercare, and while the experience is going to be educational for the little bugger, I can't really justify exposing most grammar-school-age kids to this kind of environment.

Now on the other hand, some bars are also restaurants, and in fact I think Hooters is making more money off of 6-year-olds (and their dads) than they ever will from the in-their-20s crowd. There are also the "neighborhood"-bar-and-grill types (which are only near the shopping malls, for some reason) and numerous variations on the sports bar concept (of which Hooters is one) and these are OK, if that's where your friends or wife insist on going. These large corporate chain type deals seem to handle family units pretty well.

Even in a dive, a place with nothing to offer in the family-entertainment-line, I will concede the occasional necessity of a kid, briefly, being allowed inside.

(that’s something like four qualifiers, you know a 'but' is coming...)

BUT, in my experience, there are few combinations worse than a drunk dad and a little kid hopped up on like 18 or 19 sodas. Leave the kid at home, dude. The both of you, you’re harshing my buzz; the kid, because he’s being a kid and playing pool (usually badly) and occasionally doing the annoying things bored kids do; and you, because you’re an asshole and don’t seem to care. Go to the park and play catch or something. Bring a six-pack along if you need the alcohol, just get this particular family dynamic out of my damn bar.

Thank you in advance.

A follow-up to my earlier post telling ya'll about the free wifi currently available at (at least the Southern) Barnes & Nobles:
It's a temp. thing related to other Hurricane relief efforts, sort of a community service thing, obviously of use to someone without their accustomed DSL though also pretty damn handy to anyone else who wants to stop by and mooch.

friendly reminder: NaNoWriMo 2005 registration starts in 5 days. even if you can't string more than 3 words together without spelling, grammatical, or logic errors, you should give wrimo a try.

Everyone Can Win. No One Has to Read It; It Can Suck Out Loud. You Have Nothing to Lose Except, um, sleep. (maybe that's not a selling point.) If you haven't yet, at least go over to their site and check it out, you never know: the writing bug may bite.

And I hope they sell the official wrimo "I am a talentless hack" T-shirt this year. A lot of us are looking forward to those.

And as stated previously, this November my efforts will be posted here, for you all to mock mercilessly. I will probably keep a couple of counters going on the site; one showing progress on the novel that I'm writing for nanowrimo, and a second showing all the extraneous writing I'm doing.

(Lecture #2, and a following interlude, will be posted sometime on or around the first of October.)
(The first sketches for my sci-fi serial effort will likely follow a week later)
(additional bar reviews will be posted soon, likely on or around the 15th)
(nothing in parentheses today should be construed as a promise, I'm just saying what I'm going to try to do, OK? But I'm going to try to make some progress on each of these little writing projects over the next few weeks, first because I have a week off of work coming up but no money to actually take a vacation anywhere, and also because I know wrimo will take up the month of November. So it either gets done now or in February)

(completely unrelated: Anyone in Atlanta seen a black moleskine notebook sort of lying around, either in a Barnes and Noble, or maybe on top of some bar? I seem to have misplaced mine...)

random Monday night: Take One

tonight at an odd moment I was reminded of the fascination and delight that must have captivated a past generation of drunkards. The intersection of the new-- and complimentary-- technologies of clear glass vessels, light colored lagers, and carbonation came together and conspired on the intriguing view of a head of beer.

...as seen from underneath.

The dance of fine bubbles, the writhing surface, the distorting effects of diffraction through both a liquid and curved glass surfaces. It's like an insight into an alien biosphere. The interplay, the motion, (...the cumulative effects of the previous 7 beers...) it was and is a sight to behold. And today it's all too commonplace, too easy to miss. It's an event that exists just beneath the surface, a spectacle that we will forever be unaware of, unless we take a moment to raise a pint

and look.

Random Monday night: take three.

every now and then, my liver and my poor dumb brain are just too damn efficient. It can be exceedingly hard for me to just get drunk. Damn it.

Tolerance is more than just a matter of getting used to chemicals. Of course, chemical tolerance is a primary concern, and the reason folks with a dependency have to occasionally up their dosage.

Tolerance to alcohol is not just a matter of getting used to chemicals, however. Unlike narcotics, which inhibit neurochemical transmitters, or stimulants which affect the the whole system, alcohol is nothing more than poison. It'll kill you. It's affect on neurochemistry (and I'm speaking now as a volunteer participant, not as some sort of scientist) is difficult to quantify.

Dude, if you're doing some sort of study I don't know about and can shed light on the phenomenon, hell, let me know [quick sobriety check: phenomenon... damn it. How many beers do I need to drink? Maybe spelling is a learned behavior; but then, how much writing have I done while inebriated that I can correctly spell while drunk?] From my end of the pint glass, apparently alcohol is something that one can learn to live with.

“Learned Behavior”
If you were to handicap yourself, say, by wearing a set of mirrored glasses that only showed the view behind you, eventually you would adapt. Walking backwards, that kind of thing.

If you stop for a moment and think about it, it's not only obvious, it's easy to see. (obvious; easy to see; hell that's the same damn thing)

If you were to handicap yourself, say, by drinking a gallon of beer... [copy, paste, adaptation, blah blah blah]
this is what I mean by learned behavior.

Can everybody do this? Eventually, yes, they could. I'm not sure why more people aren't going to the trouble. But of course, you wouldn't want to drive drunk anymore than you would want to drive while facing backwards and using only mirrors. Possible, yes. --Advisable, no. This is what we're talking about. And when you run into me at a party and notice that I'm not really drunk, well, that's just a party trick. The alcohol has it's effect, believe me. I'm just really good at dealing with it.

Or at least, this is how it looks through the bottom of a pint glass. Where does learned behavior stop, and a really good drunk kick in? Well unfortunately, in my case I only manage the transition from one to the other a few scant seconds before I pass out. I have gotten so good at dealing with drunkeness that I can no longer enjoy it, past an intellectual appreciation of what's going on... I know I'm drunk, and it doesn't affect me, (or the knowledge doesn't affect me) and then I reach a point where knowing and being drunk are one, and I can't really handle it. Up to the point where I pass out (because even a smart ass can't shrug off the effects indefinitely) all I can muster is an off-hand sort of feeling that I have been drinking.

This is a curse. I have found ways to work past/through these natural limits. But it's not something I can do every weekend. (hell, I need a support network, a place to crash, and enough money to pay for all that damn beer) (ah yes, but if we're buying a keg anyway, then 2 outa 3 are usually covered) (but even so, often the 'we' supplying a keg is just me, and I still have to doublecheck the other points manually before lapsing into drunken indifference) (damn it. Why is this so difficult?) I miss the naïve days of my youth when all I had to do was figure out who was going to drive my drunk ass home. (Home? Hell, I miss the days when I didn't give a shit either way)

A fiver is called what? A fin, me thinks. A sawbuck. I don't know that there is a corresponding term for "fifth" like trifecta or hat trick, for three (or deuce and birdy/eagle/whatever-the-golf-term-is, for two). I was fairly wordy yesterday, wasn't I?

Now, I can see why there were five posts yesterday-- um. yeah, I wrote them-- but good gods damn... somebody should have shut me up. I blame the beer. which is still in effect. If I hadn't time-delayed this message, it would have been #6 for Sept. 26. Which, outside of it being a good Monday night to get drunk apparently has nothing to recommend it

Work. Tomorrow. So I should think about getting to sleep before midnight. So I'll delay this last Monday night post for 27 minutes so it pops up tomorrow, and collapse (dare I say, pass out) and try to get some sleep before work becons at 7am just a few hours from now.

No hangover this morning. which was odd.

I had a chance to read through last nights output. Which was entertaining in it's own way. I won't bother to delete anything... though I may try hiding it.

After a summer (and spring, and winter, and... when was the last good movie out anyway?) of ho-hum movie releases, hollywood is finally getting around to putting out something I'm not only willing to sit through for two hours, but also that I'm genuinely excited about:

Actually, make that three somethings. And actually, I'm not sure that your standard-hollywood-studio-types had a whole lot to do with any of them.

Mirrormask. Now, Henson could put out a pile of crap, and I'd go watch it. You could say my opinion is biased; I do like Henson, in fact I'd be stalking Jim Henson right now but after three weeks of watching the headstone, I got bored. I like nearly everything the Henson folks have done, and since Farscape was cancelled, I've been drooling over the thought of their next project.

Which happens to be a feature film: Directed by Dave McKean, if you didn't know, he's a artist and illustrator; written by Neil Gaiman, who rocks in a weird-Brittish-neo-funk-fairy-tale kind of way; and produced by Lisa Henson & Co. (brother Brian was working on Farscape): this picture has been in the pipe for years, so I'm glad it's finally making it to the light of day. Even discounting the talents of the director and writer, advance word is that the Henson creature shop was working overtime figuring out new ways to get puppets and computer to talk to each other. The results should be stunning.

Opens 9/30. Probably in some small, dingy art theater, but you should go see it anyway.

Serenity. Which should be titled, "Firefly: the movie, but we can't call it Firefly because Fox has too many anal retentive lawyers"

This movie was made because Joss wouldn't give up, the fans wouldn't give up, the actors wouldn't give up... And Fox Network is run by brain-dead, soulless plugs who have no idea what entertainment is, and wouldn't know a good idea if they showed it on their own damn network, and whose idea of an exciting, eventful evening likely consists of watching reruns of My Mother the Car while eating a big bowl of packing peanuts-- which actually has nothing to do with how the movie made its way into production, but it felt good to say anyway.

Just as soon as I verify that Fox isn't getting a single damn penny, I'm going to buy three movie tickets and throw away two. Joss deserves the extra cash. (even if the stupid bastards at the network get a cut, I'm still going to go see this movie) Serenity also opens this Friday, so now I have to make a decision over which movie to see first.

Wallace & Gromit. Nuf said. Limited release 10/5; should be in most markets soon after.