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A Mind Occasionally Voyaging |
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Okay, so I used up this week's reserve of funny entertaining my girlfriend with what a clever and witty guy I am. (First person to add "in bed" to that sentence faces something really unpleasant.) So this week, you're getting a secondhand observation of wittiness.
I've said it before, I will say it again: Punctuation is yor friend.
Spent an amazing, wonderful weekend with my beloved. As a result, this week's posts are going to be late, since I am several kinds of tired and sore and happy. Sadly, she had a cold, and therefore wasn't able to sing so much as she'd like, but she did manage to get a couple in. Also, this week's list guest stars my sister, who accompanied us to karaoke Saturday night. I'm not going to tell you who sang what, because I'm a bit of a rogue like that.
1. Hooked on a Feeling, BJ Thomas
2. You Were Meant For Me, Jewel
3. Steal My Sunshine, LEN
4. Accidentally In Love, Counting Crows
5. Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin
6. Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
7. American Idiot, Greenday
8. One, U2
9. Bathwater, No Doubt
10. White Bird, It's a Beautiful Day
tongodeon: The "Work Blind" Curtain
I don't even have a cubicle, and I want one of these.
Best Idea Evar.
[3 points]
The tivo has returned. The world is a little brighter.
But since I like to complain, here's some things that really bug me about this process:
1. They've been at this for the better part of a decade now. Why can't I use my network for guided setup?
2. Why can't I edit wishlists on my computer, where I have, say, a keyboard, instead of the freaking ouija board thing?
3. Or, indeed, where I could save a backup of my wishlists
4. Eight hours? It's going to take it eight hours?
5. This tivo has approximately the same processing power as the computer I was using in 1995. Why are the minimum specs for a homebrew PVR faster than almost anything I own?
6. STUPID FREAKING OUIJA BOARD
7. Augh! Choke! Walked into the phone cord that's strung across my dining room at neck height.
8. Nobody wants that stupid damn "skip to end" button.
9. For that matter, why did I need to have the damned thing replaced in the first place? This should have been a 45 second fix, tops.
There. Now I feel better, and can go back to programming my tivo.
Well, I have pieced together a fair bit of my dream last night. As usual, it made far more sense when I was asleep.
In the first part of the dream, I gather I was in a race. Other vehicles included the General Lee, a Corvette ZR-1, and Viper. Not a Dodge Viper: one of the fighter jets from Battlestar Galactica. My own vehicle was a race car I invented for a story I wrote when I was a kid, a sort of hybrid between an F-1 and a swamp boat. I don't actually know who won the race, since me and the Viper stopped at a drive-through to pick up lunch, and this seamlessly led to my cleaning out the refrigerator, a journey of discoverey that revealed many interesting foodstuffs I'd forgotten that I had.
This (naturally) led me into an episode of The Tomorrow People. There was some kind of alien cloning plot going on, and, naturally, we had to deal with it. Now, I was a mere novice Tomorrow Person, but I was able to deduce the company acting as a front for the evil plot. As luck would have it, John had been financing his private life by freelancing as an accountant, and theirs was one of the companies in his portfolio. Thus, we were able to use this as a pretext to infiltrate their operation. A clone secretary attempted to seduce me, but I was able to fend off her advances while the others reprogrammed a clone (played by David Verrey) to off the other conspirators (being unable to do it themselves).
So this is more or less when I woke up. But after a long and pleasant phone call from the lady of my affections, I must have nodded off again, because I remember having the very clear and distinct sense that she'd crawled into bed behind me and was pressed against me, whispering affectionate things in my ear (this was a very chaste dream, but even if it wasn't, it's not like I'm going to tell you lot all the details, as those are between me and her). This was one of those rare, very tactile dreams, and even though it was fairly obvious that I was indeed dreaming, it was still several minutes after I'd snapped all the way back to consciousness that I could suppress the urge to look around, under the bed and such, to see where she'd gone.
From http://www.sixapart.com, the home page of Movable Type, which powers this blog.
When I first read this, I thought, "Wow, what an amazing coincidence!" And I bet you did too. But on closer inspection, This is not a coincidence at all. Any two people are born some exact number of days apart.
Will ya hose me down with holy water, if I get too hot?
Me:
1. Falling for the first time, Barenaked Ladies
2. Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright
3. Bed of Roses, Bon Jovi
4. One Headlight, The Wallflowers
5. Friday I'm in love, The Cure
My Girlfriend (Man, do I love saying that)
1. No Mistakes, Patty Smyth
2. Borderline, Madonna
3. The Warrior, Scandal
4. The Shoop Shoop Song, Cher
Us:
1. I'd do anything for love (But I won't do that), Meatloaf
The first song we ever danced to was What a Wonderful World. Wish I had a better song for that memory, but today I can really get behind the sentiment of it.
[99 points. It's not hard, but I am in an excellent mood]
I haven't slept in a long time, so I may say more after a nap. But here's the Reader's Digest Version:
It's going to be hard. Don't quite know yet how we're going to handle it. But we're going to. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back together.
As I'm not really coherent right now, that's all I have to say on the matter. Except that I am tired, dizzy, sore, and I can't remember the last time I was this happy.
And since I now know for a fact that she's reading: Miss you already. See you soon
[2 points]
Well, my most popular, or, at least, most cathartic posting (here) is a couple of weeks old now, and in keeping with the slow evolution of my life into a TV show, that means it's time for a sequel.
You will recall that a few weeks ago, the girl with whom I was romantically linked in college (I get that "woman" is really more apropriate than "girl", but every time I see the sentence with the word "woman" in it, the cadence jives wrong) was in town, leading to me seeing her for the first time in several years, and resulting existential angst.
Now, what happened next is an interesting story but not really relevant except insofar as it served as a lens through which to interpret my feelings. What is relevant is what happened after that.
I'm going to see her again this Friday. That's right. She's going to be in town again, and she wants to come out to karaoke again. Yes, karaoke, that miracle healer.
My first thought was, "do not read anything more into this than that she likes karaoke and the show to which I go is, in fact, excellent." My second thought was "Even you can not possibly be that pessimistic." If you trek over into my subconscious, you'll see that my non-waking mind has a different view on the matter.
Exactly what I had feared when she asked to see me weeks ago has come to pass: I can't seem to get her out of my head. This is not really surprising, since it took about a year the last time. Unfortunately, the voices in my head all have different opinions. My conscious mind says "Take this as nothing more than it is: a nice gesture between old friends." My subconscious mind says "Are you blind, man? Hello? Hammer... Useful.... Hammer? [4 points]"
I'm not usually the sort to do cliche and stupid things like making pro/con lists, but I'm also not the sort to do anything at all without worrying about the consequences, so:
Pro: Everyone who is not me who was witness to the last time we hung out together thinks the signs are unequivocal.
Con: My understanding of the reasons that things ended before is not total. My general sense of it is that it was, ultimately, almost but not quite entirely all my fault, and while I think I've grown a lot since then, I am not confident that I will know how to avoid making the same mistakes again.
Pro: My mom and my sister think I should have done it years ago.
Con: She lives two states away
Pro: She likes karaoke
Con: I may come off as insane-stalker-guy.
Pro: (Withheld for dramatic effect)
I can make this list longer I'm sure, but this is as far as the thought experiment ever gets before I hit the thought that makes all the other ones irrelevant.
Looking back over the things I've written this past year, it seems like if I have a literary gift, it's the gift of circumlocution. Whenever I talk about my own feelings or opinions, I'm circituitous about it. I think it comes back to my faith in words. If I don't say it, if I leave myself some room, I'm not tied down. It's not quite real. Safe. Also, it's not like I have infinite time before she happens upon this blog, boosting its readership into, well, single digits.
But there are things in this life that it's worth taking a chance on. I think this is one of them. So I'm going to admit it to myself, and I'm going to admit it to all of you. I don't know what's going to come of it. And I don't know how to go about it. Hell, I can't even guarantee that I won't chicken out even if I do work out exactly how to approach this. But I have to take the chance. Make it real.
Pro: I really, really want to.
I guess that's it then. The other stuff kinda pales in comparison. I started writing this entry days ago, and it hasn't been easy. What comes after this is even harder, and I don't know how to do it (Advice?). But even if I can't make it happen, I am going to try. So in this place and on this date, I'm going to say it, if to no one else but myself.
I want to get back together with her.
Now I just have to work out how.
Two days till volcano day.
As you know, Tivo and I have been having some unlove recently. I missed The Daily Show last night. I almost missed the Gilmore Girls season premiere. I am running out of DVDs to watch during the dead hours.
But now, at least, I know why. PVRBlog reports that TiVo can now stop you from keeping your recordings.
I like to think that I'm a man of taste, culture, and morality, and I hope that rubs off. So, my natural conclusion is that my Tivo killed itself out of shame.
DRM has its place in the world, don't get me wrong. Even though I don't think that what we term "Intellectual Property" is really "property" in any meaningful sense, nor that copyright infringement is "stealing" does not mean that I think it's okay, or that I dispute that it is and ought to be illegal.
But let us get this straight: the purpose of DRM today is not to protect copyright. It is (as, for example, the XRML specification says) nothing more and nothing less than a mechanism to enable new business models.
It's not a matter of "Now we have a way to protect our media from those evil pirates!" Instead, it's "Hell's Bells! Before, we had to actually sell you a physical copy of the movie, which you could watch as often as you wanted! But now, we can charge you for things we had to give away before. We can charge you for every viewing! We can charge you extra to pause! Double fees if you rewind! An extra charge for turning the volume up too high!"
The real problem, for me, is that the technology isn't being driven by what the consumers want. It's being driven by what the industry wants. How many consumers want this? None. None at all. We get what they want us to have. And what recourse do we have? A few of the really clever among us might have something, but not most.
Remember Divx? Not the Mpeg-4 codec (that's DiVx); I'm talking about the DVD-competitor. Their schtick was that you'd only pay $5 or so for the discs, but they'd bill you a dollar every time you watched it.
If you remember, it also failed spectacularly. But I'm not boycotting Tivo, and neither are you, are you?
However, please leave a comment if you have evidence that you can build a PVR out of a <200Mhz computer (It only has to record; I can handle playback externally). Because I'm really thinking of building a MythTV or Freevo or something.
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging, I had a plan.
Well, it's time for me to crow about my progress. So, here are grainy, low-resolution photographs taken with my cell phone's camera. I present, for your vieing approval, the project:
http://photos.trenchcoatsoft.com/thumbnails.php?album=2
In last night's dream, I was following some folks to Ocean City. On foot, though I was making pretty good time. I was getting hungry, and passed a McDonalds I knew was on the way. Sadly, though, it was abandoned. Fortunately, I saw that this was because they'd relocated to a brand new and spectacular glass-fronted facility down the road. But McDonalds was not to be for me, since just down the road a bit, I saw a small mall wherein there were far superior vittles to be had. When I arrived, I was first drawn to the chinese food kiosk, but quickly decided I'd rather go to the deli. At the deli counter, a man and his wife were discussing the special offer. For an extra dollar, you could spend fifteen minutes gathering as many knick-knacks from the shelves which covered a far wall as would fit in a small basket. The man and wife were convinced that there was some kind of trick, with the size of the basket or the time limit being rigged to prevent you from getting anything useful. As the vendor assured him there was no trick, I inspected the far wall. It was full of neat little arty knick knacks and oversized books. So I had put my dollar down even before the man ahead of me had, begrudgingly, gone over to the wall. This means that my decision was uninformed by what happened next: the wall retracted to reveal this amazing alcove of toys and wonders, essentially a large toy shop, guarded by a free-standing fireplace.
A satanic Santa-like fgure guarded this wonderland, and explained, in stilted, poetic language, how the game worked. My understanding came to be that he and everyone else inside had fifteen minutes to gather as much stuff as they liked, but they could only keep it if among his take was one particular object.
I am caught in the throng that moves toward the alcove, and forced up a staircase to the top of the fireplace. But the density of the line is such that the fifteen minutes expire just as I reach the top, where I would otherwise have been expected to jump down the fireplace to enter this alcove. Of course, as I have paid my dollar, I am now next to play the game. When I reach the contestant's enterance, I find a coin gumball machine, which, I now understand, delivers a tiny little brass model of the particular object I must find. I insert my token and an given a small brass model of some kind of model train freight car.
At this point, the dream shifts slightly, and I am a mere spectator in the holding area; playing the game in my place is the boy Goku of Bragonball fame. As he searches for the freight car, I notice and point out to my companions how amazing is the motion of the toy Optimus Prime robot I can see jumping about and doing kung fu outside of the holding area. It is now that I come to understand that the game is somehow rigged, as there would be horrible otherworldly consequences for the demonic plan of the game's organizers should anyone win. To stop me revealing this, the organizer, a Corrupt Corporate Executive type, and his henchman, Peter Lorrie, try to kill me. As I fought him off, twisting him into various pretzel configurations, Goku finds the freight car, but is barred access to the holding area to turn it in. He instead pitches it at the organizer, who ignores it, so it bounces off of him and disappears.
This is a problem for me, since Peter Lorrie is still trying to kill me, and while I've got the advantage over him for the moment, as I can't actually do anything to hurt him, I'm going to have to struggle with him pretty much until one of us gives up. Young Goku is forcibly ejected, and the organizers rejoices, since now he's just got to kill me and let the clock run out, and their evil plan will be safe for another day. But I know better, and Goku returns minutes later in his adult SSJ4 form, sure to use his instant transmission and super-speed to re-find the freight car and force the organizer to accept it in the time remaining.
Will he? Well, I might have found out had I not been awakened by a wrong number call.
Such is life.
| Humphrey Bogart You scored 33% Tough, 14% Roguish, 33% Friendly, and 19% Charming! |
| You're the original man of honor, rough and tough but willing to stick your neck out when you need to, despite what you might say to the contrary. You're a complex character full of spit and vinegar, but with a soft heart and a tender streak that you try to hide. There's usually a complicated dame in the picture, someone who sees the real you behind all the tough talk and can dish it out as well as you can. You're not easy to get next to, but when you find the right partner, you're caring and loyal to a fault. A big fault. But you take it on the chin and move on, nursing your pain inside and maintaining your armor...until the next dame walks in. Or possibly the same dame, and of all the gin joints in all the world, it had to be yours. Co-stars include Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall, hot chicks with problems.
Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the Classic Dames Test. |
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My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on Ok Cupid |
Well, there's nothing tech support can do about it. So they're going to exchange it.
Now, I could have opened the thing up and fiddled with the drive -- if nothing else, I could replace the hard drive and salvage the shows (not to mention my wishlists -- why can't they give me a program to do really sophisticated scheduling over the computer, where I have, say, a keyboard?), but then they wouldn't do the exchange.
So I am out:
$49 for the replacement
$5.75 FedEx
$2.89 for the box (The Tivo's original box having been discarded in the great basement cleaning incident of last month)
$3.50 gasoline to Kinkos and back
2 hours on the phone
1.5 hours at Kinkos (!)
1 copy of the MacGyver episode "Hell Week"
1 copy of the made-for-TV movie The Librarian
1 rather good parking space
But I feel purged at the least. Now I just have to see if they'll credit me the service for the days I am bereft of tivo.
Gee. Technology sure makes our lives easier.
Isn't it just the way? My tivo went crazy and is now stuck in a reboot-green screen-reboot cycle. Called tech support, and was told to let it grind for three hours and call back. I wish there was some kind of password I could give tech support lines when I called to let them know I wasn't an idiot. That green screen is generated by the filesystem checker. If the screen stayed green, the FS checker would be running, and there's be a chance that it would fix the problem. But it's cycling. This means that the FS checker is dying without fixing the problem. After three hours, it's not going to be any better, and I'm not going to be any closer to a solution.
And I know the next bit too. Send the DVR to us, we'll fix it, charge you shipping, and send it back. This will take a couple of weeks. Now, there is a chance (provided the drive isn't, after nine months, borked. This is possible I suppose, since recording video all the time certainly does spin the drive a lot. But it's only nine months old at the outside) that I could fix the problem myself by popping the drive out and running some diagnostic tools on it. But, of course, you're not supposed to go opening up consumer electronics, and I do not want warranty trouble. SO I'll send it to them, and they will slap in a new hard drive. This means I will lose all the stuff on that drive, including my favortie Macgyver episode and a TV movie I'd been hoping they would show ever since I got the thing, and which they just did last night and I never got the chance to watch it. And, of course, they won't just send me the replacement drive, even though it would take me approximately eighteen seconds to install it by myself.
And this is the week the network season starts up. So I am going to miss out on the tivoey goodness of tivoing all my favorite shows which have just started up.
On top of all this, I've got one of those damn 20 hour skull-cracking headaches from sleeping on my neck wrong. And my NecroTech just got killed again.
I know that none of the problems in my life are really all that big (I mean, except for the big ones), but it's like when I was cleaning up my basement last week: the piles of boxes and ancient computers took a day or so to clean up. The small pieces of life-flotsam took the balance of the time. A billion styrofoam packing peanuts are as much work to clean up as a dozen boxes of old clothes. It takes as much time and effort to deal with a whole bunch of little things as it does do deal with a couple of big things. Like Sam Spade said, "Maybe some of them don't matter, but look at the number of them." The camel's back is loaded with straws, and each new one makes it shudder.
The most worrisome part of it is that there is a (small) glimmer of hope, which I will discuss at length when the mood strikes me to be able to do it justice. Each bad thing that happens (What I've talked about here is the tip of the iceberg) makes that glimmer more dear to me, which is cute and all, but when you start investing so much importance on a hope (especially one whose exact probability of turning out well), you can set yourself up for a fall.
If this doesn't work out, I really think I'm going to lose it.
And I watch too much damned TV anyway.
We live in a dangerous world during dangerous times. But when you find yourself worrying about the state that the world is in, just remember, things could be worse. At least this hasn't happened:
Because No, I am not a sufficiently Bad Dude. I only wish I were so Bad a Dude.
Let's see. I swear this all made some kind of sense when I was dreaming it.
There was something to do with a produce stand. I don't exactly recall what it was, but the produce stand was in the same place as the farm where my family has always bought our Christmas trees.
Then there's something where I was on a train, dancing with this girl I know from karaoke. It was fun and somehow I actually had moves. This shoulda tipped me off that it was a dream. Unfortunately, she saw something that tipped her off and reverted to her natural state, being in reality a small snail-like alien. She ran away, and I gave chase, because, alien snail or not, she's a friend. Also, that seemed to be where the plot was going, so I wasn't about to let the good bits happen off-stage. She explained that she'd seen someone who might expose her presence to the government, and therefore had to go on the lam.
Now, I can not explain how this is possible, but you've probably had dreams before, so you can maybe empathize with me when I say that the segue felt totally natural and organic as I transitioned into a 1942-style primitive flight sim. Of sorts. It was not so much a cheap 8-bit plane as it was, well, me, in my trenchcoat, walking over the image of enemy installations and gun turrets, tossing bombs down on them. Of course, I got shot down a couple of times and had to start over, but eventually, I got to the other side, where there was a television providing my in-train movie.
This movie was interrupted by a video-voice-mail from, of all people, my former girfriend (the really great one, not the crazy one). Her message was intercut with a montage she had produced to summarize her feelings toward me. I started to get the general drift of this, and it was positive (Funny how while awake, I am painfully pessimistic on this subject, yet my dreams are universally hopeful). Unfortunately, before I could get a handle on the specific, my sleep was rudely interrupted by the credit card company, wanting me to take advantage of a spectacular new opportunity.
You know, if I can figure out how, I think I will.
You're an angel in a see-through dress.
From Tonight's Karaoke Lineup:
1. If I had $1,000,000, Barenaked Ladies
2. Dancing With Myself, Billy Idol
3. Peacekeeper, Fleetwood Mac
4. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
5. Touch of Gray, Greatful Dead
To make the list come out to ten:
6. Second Best, Barenaked Ladies
7. Heart of Gold, Neil Young
8. More Than This, 10,000 Maniacs
9. Kiss Me, Sixpence None the Richer
10. There She Goes, The Las
Ladies and Gentlemen, I HAVE A PROJECT. Those of you who know me (I have a total readership of what, three?) know that, my natural sloth aside, I really like building things. I also really like repurposing things in true MacGyver fashion. I'm also a pack-rat.
Now, I recently spent a week or so organizing my basement. The results were amazing. A whole bunch of Home Despot shelf systems and a whole lot of sweat later, and my entire history has been compacted from "gigantic pile of crap in my basement" to "carefully organized alcove of crap forming a de facto partition dividing my basement into a laundry room, room of storage, and other room". A side effect of this is that there is now a space approximately the same size as my living room in the basement with nothing in it.
I like clutter. It's just a thing about me. I like rooms full of stuff. Having a big empty space in my basement just will not do. I needed a project.
Now, I could install a pool table, but, well, I don't play pool. Also, pool isn't much fun alone, and I can't guarantee guests to play with, since it doesn't happen often. Most importantly, I live in a townhouse. It's about ten feet wide. A pool table would maybe fit, but it'd be tight and difficult to play. Now, I could install a bumper-pool table. But, um, no one plays bumper-pool.
So, what can I contrive to fill the basement? I need something that is fun solo, fun at a party, and, above all, cheap. Hm. I've got a pile of ancient computers. I've got power tools. I've got lots of scrap lumber. And I've got a plan.
Okay. Here's the deal. You know that scene in
I am going to build a video arcade. In fact, I'm going to build a cocktail cabinet arcade, using ancient computers to emulate real old-school video consoles. I've got plans for a Ms. Pac-Man cocktail cabinet, which I will modify based on the specific dimensions I need, insert an ancient computer with emulators installed, liberally mix with the coolest joystick ever, and provide a real old-timey arcade experience.
I will post more details as work progresses, but for right now, I am contriving the games. I plan to pack as much game as I can into this thing, but I'm starting with the original Nintendo Entertainment System. So I went out, got a bunch of ROMs, and am now in the process of sorting through them. And playing through these old games of my youth has reminded me of two things:
1. My god that music is bad.
2. Man, I really liked some of these games. Why aren't there more?
So, here's a list of games whose franchises have not lasted into the modern era, but which I really hope will reappear in new gamecubey 64-bit glory:
1. Kid Icarus
2. Bionic Commando
3. A Boy and His Blob
4. Bomberman
5. Wizards and Warriors
6. Blaster Master
And on the other hand, I played "The 3D Adventures of World Runner". When I was a kid, this game was amazing and excellent. It would totally not work at all now. Shame.
Anyway, 10,701 games left to consider. Wish me luck.
Oh, and the title? [.5 points].
Let the games begin.
And, one day in, the whole thing falls apart. I barely recall any of what I dreamed last night. Here's what I do...
1. The Tomorrow People
2. My Karaoke friends
3. Strippers
4. Groundskeeper Willie
Stars shining bright above you,
Night breezes seem to whisper, "I love you,"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree,
Dream a little dream of me
I have from time to time been told that I'm better at recalling my dreams than the average person. But I've really been slipping lately. They say the best way to improve your ability to recall your dreams. So, whenever I can recall enough of it, I'm gonna start adding my dreams here. They won't appear on the index page since, well, I don't want it to. I reserve the right to hold back anything that's too freaky, and, of course, levels of detail will vary based on how much I remember. So, here's what was woven into last night's REM excursion...
The narrative of this dream was coherent at the time, but since I can't adequately explain it, here's a list of things that were there.
1. The deck around my parents' swimming pool.
2. My former girlfriend (#1) (Third consecutive night)
3. BATS!!!
4. Iron Chef (Second night since Friday)
So, even though I don't normally hang out there but once a week (I've been reading the review of Left Behind), I saw this on slacktivist when I hit "reload" today, and since this was the first I'd heard of it, I read on.
I very nearly held this back for Sunday's Inappropriate Thoughts, but I couldn't come up with a clever picture, so instead I'll have to think deeply about it.
See, what interests me about this turn of events (For those of you disinclined to click the link, here's the capsule version: The Klan endorses a non-Klan anti-gay rally. The folks responsible aren't happy with this, even though, at least on this issue, they agree with the Klan, because, well, no one wants to have "supported by the Klan" on their resume) has less to do with the actual content, and more to do with the first thing I thought when I saw this article:
Wait. I'm quite sure this was the plot of an episode of South Park.
The exact details of this particular episode (#408: "Chef Goes Nanners") aren't really relevant, aside from the key scene. Jimbo and his vocal-cord impaired friend Ned are horrified to find themselves on the same side of a particular debate as the KKK, so they go undercover at a Klan meeting to suggest that they change sides. Their argument, which is actually pretty good, considering, is this:
Jimbo: Look! We have to accept the fact that most people in the world hate us! Right?!KKK: Yeah!
Jimbo: So whatever side WE'RE on is the side that's gonna lose! Right?!
KKK: Right!
Jimbo: So why don't we all say that we want the flag changed! That way, most folks will vote
to keep it the way it is!(Pause for thought.)
KKK Member #1: THAT'S A GREAT IDEA, BROTHER!
One of the many, many things that troubles me about this exchange is that it really seems like it could work. The reason I know this could work is that it has worked. Consider this article from several years back. Down there at the last paragraph. The very place of my birth got rid of a pretty successful and useful program, because they didn't want the taint of the Klan on it. Well, it's hard to blame them, but it worries me.
Just about the only good thing you can say about the militant extremist groups out there is that they seem to be much better at making enemies than friends. It's as true of the Klan as it is of Al Qaeda. This is, of course, a problem when the militant extremist is on your side. Not long ago, while driving through Virginia, I saw a billboard showing Michael Moore and several other overly-vocal liberals emblazoned with the slogan "Thanks for four more years!" making the implication that people voted Republican who otherwise wouldn't have to avoid being associated with their lot. But I can live with that, because, at least in an ideal world, there would be at least as many people running to the left to avoid being associated with, eg., Pat Robertson and his Angry Supreme Court Justice-Accursing Being as running to the right because Al Franken is kinda a loudmouth. What worries me is the possibility of collateral damage. They could do more to help their various causes by just, every once in a while, pretending to support the other side. The Klan could fund a gay rights bill. Al Qaeda could donate money to Israel.
Another television citation, and more evidence that the real world and the TV world are converging. Consider this bit from The West Wing ("The Portland Trip")
You know, I never understand why you gun control people don't all join the N.R.A. They've got two million members. You bring three million to the next meeting... call a vote... All those in favor of tossing guns - [Snaps fingers] - Bam! Move on.
My inherent notion is "We wouldn't do that because that would be wrong." But I suspect that when you get a bit farther out on the ethical spectrum, this would matter a lot less.
What's the moral? I don't actually know. I think maybe it's "Hate the message, not the messenger," but I'm reluctant to suggest that groups such as the Klan aren't worthy of some moral outrage. Maybe it's, "Even Satan can quote scripture to his own purposes." Hm. Still not quite there. With life becoming so much like a TV show, you'd think the Aesop at the end of the story would be a lot easier to identify. Where's Bog Saget or Shipwreck [1 point] when you need them?
Because, after all, knowing is half the battle.
Went to a Labor Day Party today at the home of some Friends From Karaoke. A wonderful time was had by all. Good food, public nudity (Don't get all excited. I'm the youngest of my karaoke friends by about a decade), free booze, and Karaoke. So, as part of my "start blogging more often" kick, I've decided to start relating what songs I sang each time I go karaoking expect these lists to be short, dull, redundant, and redundant. All the same, here you go...
With one exception, none of these songs were chosen by myself: I gave the list of songs I know to the masters of ceremonies, and they chose what I'd sing next.
1. I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme), Johnny Reznik
2. Alcohol, Barenaked Ladies
3. 867-5309/Jenny, Tommy Tutone
4. Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Judy Garland
5. Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright
(Lest anyone think I don't know this, (a) The Jeff Buckley cover of Hallelujah is way better, but it's not available for karaoke, and (b) Rufus is covering a Leonard Cohen song)
As you might have noticed, this blog looks a lot different than it did a couple of days ago. This is because I've switched to Movable Type, since it seems like a way more impressive package than Blogger.
The down side is that I haven't got all the kinks worked out yet. It looks like MT might be out-pacing my web server, and sometimes producing broken documents for its work. So if you find a link that goes to a broken or missing page, don't sweat it. I'm sure I'll get it all sorted out eventually. As you can tell, I've had a higher than usual quotient of drama and angst in my life lately, and hopefully, this new platform will allow me to share my angst with you more efficiently than ever.
So I came across this as I was wandering the web, and it seems to be an example of a phenomenon (But then, what isn't? I'm reminded of a conversation of several years ago wherein someone described one of the early bloggers as "a phenomenon". He was promptly told "I'd hardly say this counts as a phenomenon! It's just some guy's thoughts. Look up "phenomenon" you twit!" His point, of course, was that "phenomenon" should mean something far more spectacular. Of course, if you did look up "phenomenon", you'd discover that it actually does not mean that at all). I'm a little (okay, a lot) amazed by the choices of songs in this random ten, and in the others surrounding it. See, I'm not nearly as hepcat cool swinging indie with great love of obscure music as a lot of people, but my tastes are far from mainstream. And yet I know a lot of these, and rather like them, especially the Elvis Costello song which donated the epigram and which, until now, I believed I was the only person in the world who remembered.
So anyway, it got me thinking. As well you know, I'm always the first to jump on the bandwagon two years late. I don't know how long I can keep it up (but hey, I've been on time with Inappropriate Thoughts for a whole month now), but for the time being, here they are, a Random Ten...
1. Fable, Robert Miles
2. Tonight and the Rest of My Life, Nina Gordon (Prettiest Song Ever)
3. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot
4. Mona Lisa, Shawn Colvin
5. Joey, Concrete Blonde
6. In The House of Stone and Light, Martin Page
7. Knightrider 2000, Jan Hammer
8. Across the Universe, Rufus Wainwright
9. After the Rain, Nelson
10. Never Been to Spain, Three Dog Night
