Life After Oldsmobile???

Nothing to see here

2011-11-07T21:34:00.001-06:00

No updates during National Novel Writing Month

Why did I take a database course that consumes so much time in November???

Do open letters undo closure?

2011-09-10T00:03:00.000-05:00

(Alternate) Heart of my Heart clocked in at more than 5000 words. The font looks appallingly tiny on my screen, but I suppose I can deal with it? I can make the font bold or larger type, but that just makes the blog taller with fewer words per line. I need a wider format.

The earlier entry was an exploratory piece that I decided to abandon entirely. It was a story that I intended to be my November is National Novel Writing Month project. It would have been fun to write, but the C-cannon Star Wars Universe is complex, and someone has already written stories about Piett surviving the collision. And the clone of Palpatine. So yeah, I don't have any interest in re-visiting ground that someone else exhausted.

So then I thought that I'd write a prequel to the film 'Escape from New York.' I always thought the film was intriguing - but it really missed... something. I think that John Carpenter had meant for the idea of a walled-in NYC prison to be creepier (like the scene where all those guys emerge from manhole covers). Well, of course, the best monster movies are the ones where you make your own suspense because you don't see the monster for a long time. But when you do see these 'monsters', they're extras wearing Chuck Taylor sneakers. And they mostly run past in the shadows during eerie sound effects. Wooo. So it pretty much missed the horror bus, and all that was left was half of what could have been a decent action movie.

But we never learn much about S.D. Plissken either, and this makes it a little difficult for the audience to connect with the I-don't-give-a-fuck tough guy. Who is 'Snake' Plissken? Why do people think he was dead? There should be plenty off room there for a story. So I did some brain storming and I came up with some really good story ideas, including the origin of the eye-patch. [I had him as a younger man falling out of a tree after trying to put the moves on some girl - resulting in single-eye double vision] Then last week I suddenly realized that it wasn't enough to watch the film to see where a prequel novel should end. If there is a movie, there is probably a book out there, right? Well there is a book. And it starts before the film. And it includes the origin of the eyepatch. And it includes the story of the robbery of the Federal Reserve Depository. So it basically covers all the bases before the film begins.

Well shit.

Scratch that idea then. It does save me the trouble of how a one-eyed guy could get into Special Forces. A one eyed man flying a plane isn't a big deal though; see Wiley Post. It would have been fun to write though. Dammit. I do have a fallback idea for NaNo, but I'll hang onto that one for now.

(Alternate) Heart of my Heart

2011-09-09T02:48:00.004-05:00

This is a fan fiction based on the characters, stories, and ideas of the Amazingly Nifty Pete Abrams, as His Niftiness made manifest in the worshipful comic: Sluggy Freelance

[Pete, I hope you don't mind me playing in your sandbox. I just couldn't stand the tension betweeen Torg & Zoe. ]

[Ye Olde Sluggite Canon date: December 9, 2004]

            Torg has once again been drawn into a parallel universe - or alternate dimension if you prefer. Torg has been to this world before. On that occasion, Torg was rescued from great peril in the Dimension of Pain. Instead of being tormented by demons, he was suffering in an alternate dimension that had no beer or pornography. Alternate Riff and Alternate Zoe were sad to see him leave, but Torg's Alternate pet mini-lop 'Bun-Bun' showed him the kindness of returning Torg to his home dimension. 

            Owing to the wonders of not-quite-happy science, the portal through which Torg was rescued from the Dimension of Pain did not close properly. [Pay attention children! This is what happens when you do not put away your plot devices when you are done playing with them!] When the demons of the Dimension of Pain discovered this, they invaded the dimension of overarching niceness, bringing the terrible "Not Particularly Nice Times." Faced with such uncourteous visitors, Bun-Bun 'requested' aid from the only person he could think of. Thus Torg was again pulled unwillingly into the Dimension of Nice - along with a large section of his bedroom.

             Fortunately, the sword that Torg kept from his previous adventures was among his newly displaced belongings. When energized by the fresh blood of innocent victims, the sword "Unholy Bringer of Death and Bitter Wine**" (but known as "Chaz" to his friends) was able to speak, and otherwise assist Torg in his battles, making Torg a true hero. However, Torg was a single champion fighting a horde of demons through the time-honored strategy of "hiding somewhere with a fair maiden until the wine turns bitter**." Eventually the demons were forced back into their own dimension, where the Alternate Zoe perished before Torg could free the Goddess of Good from her cold prison, whereupon she sealed the rift between dimensions for ever.

** Translator's Note: There has been much debate about this expression used in the Language of the Ancient Guys. It is true that the language clearly invokes some manner of bitterness, causing 'puckering' or 'sucking'. This author maintains that it is wholly improper to make the rash assumption that the Ancient Guys were intentionally trying to say "this sucks."

(Alternate) Heart of My Heart

Finally. I can go home. I’ve been stuck in this bland Dimension of Nice for... uh...

Well, it's been ages. I'm not even sure what day it is, and I don't much care. In fact I'm kinda numb about the whole thing now that it's over. (She's gone) Shut up! Stupid brain! Don't think about it! Think about something else. I’m so very close. I'll be home soon. Back home in my own dimension with Riff... and Zoe. 

And now I dread going back.

Stupid 'Dimension of Nice'! This place just rubs me wrong. Everything here is wrong! It's all off-kilter and twisted compared to Home. It's like the story of my life if it were written in a garish font. The people and places seem to be the same, but I can't look at anything here without being annoyed by how wrong it is compared to the reality that I know. There's no alcohol, no meat, even their “pornography” is really a celebration of healthy sexuality. There, you see, that is just wrong; pornography is supposed to be dirty. Everything here is so upbeat that it drives me buggy. 

What's worse is that my own annoyance is also at odds with this dimension. When I show my disaffection with their 'socially progressive' ways, I'm immediately casting myself as the Bad Guy in this endless parade of smiles. These people listen patiently to my long-winded complaint, even take notes sometimes, in order to be properly attentive to my ranting! Then they respond with kindness and acceptance. It makes me feel guilty and ashamed to have raised my voice to these nice people in the first place. 

Home could never be like that. Hollywood would curl up and die for lack of plausible tension. People would be afraid to change the channel on their televisions for fear of slighting the actors or writers in the sitcoms. Politics would be a smiling contest between two boring suits with slightly different ideas on how to make the world a more cheerful place. And reluctantly, I have to admit that things at home could be vastly improved in the direction of “Nice”. This place though, this place is just nuts; so much pleasantry and well-wishing makes my flesh crawl.

Anyway: I am going Home!

Steak! Tequila! Beer! Spicy food! ... and Zoe.

(She's gone) Shut up!

Just the thought makes my heart sink. The idea of facing my dimension's Zoe disturbs me in ways I had never thought possible.

What the hell do I say to Zoe? I have to say something; we live in the same house for Goddess' sake!

“Hey sweetheart! I didn’t miss you because I was with you!” Yeah, that’s a non-starter. Maybe I’ll tell her, and then quickly turn her into a camel? Nah, she’ll just carve me up with my own sword when she changes back to a human again. Actually, I could probably keep her in camel form for a long time. That might actually work... except Gwynn would get suspicious at all the camel droppings. Then Gwynn would change Zoe back, and happily show her how to make her revenge much more painful. 

“I loved her, because I love you!” Yeah, I might as well break my own arm first. That way there's maybe a 50% chance I could get a little sympathy before she kills me. 

And now I feel like an ass for thinking up these silly excuses. Was I a victim? Not really. Alt-Zoe loved Alt-Torg. Alt-Torg died... somehow... apparently there was a fission popcorn experiment. When I showed up again I took Alt-Zoe into hiding from the demons. Alt-Zoe loved Alt-Torg, and somehow that translated into her loving me. I went along with it because... because... I guess because it felt right. I guess I've always been in love with my dimension's Zoe. So I loved Alt-Zoe willingly, and now that she’s gone, I’m quick to dishonor her memory by making excuses for my actions. Pretending she didn’t mean anything to me is pretty poor behaviour for a former lover. ... Replacement lover? ... Alternate lover? ... whatever. Stupid confusing alternate dimensions. I got involved with Alt-Zoe, we were happy, and I don’t think I would have done anything differently there. Well, except for the part where she died... argh... Shut up brain! I can cry about this later, let's go home first! Hurry up Goddess!

It’s going to be hard to look Zoe in the eyes, whatever else I do.

“Hurry up Goddess, I have to go home and suffer!” 

How do I get mixed up in all this stuff anyway?

Riff's inventions, usually. And tequila. I miss tequila.

[Ye Olde Sluggite Canon date: December 9, 2004]

I’m really back? This place... it’s been so long that the house seems strange to me. I’m back, but now it feels like I don’t belong here anymore. It's very quiet. (She's gone) shut up! I'm in the kitchen, and it's not quite like I remember. Oh, now I understand, someone finally got the jalapeno hot pocket stains off the stove! The place got cleaner without me. Woah! Maybe they moved out after I was zapped to the other dimension? It’s dark outside, so it must be late at night? Maybe they’re all asleep? That could be a good thing! Maybe I can sneak up to bed and surprise them in the morning... 

Uh oh, someone’s stirring in the living room. Well crap.  So I guess it’s time for my triumphant return. I step into the room, into the light... and into my new private hell. 

Oh God please help me. It’s Zoe.

All my thoughts evaporate and I want to cry.

I want to say something but I can’t. I can see dark streams of blood on a mountain of bleached bones. A nightmare punctuated by my own screaming. I can hear her pouting - only because I was too slow to reassure her that I would return to her safely. Poor meek, doe-eyed Alt-Zoe. I can taste her gentle kisses. She's dead and gone and she's looking right at me. The real Zoe. The Zoe that I secretly loved before... before... 

Her eyes are wide with amazement, and then she smiles. That smile that always brightened my day before; now it destroys me utterly. What do I do now? What can I do now? Say something Torg! She rushes to me, barefoot. Each light foot fall breaks my heart. I can't bear it.

“Torg! You’re back!” She takes those arms that Alt-Zoe held me with, and throws them around me, sealing my torment. It’s too much, I feel helpless and start sobbing. I sink to my knees but Zoe stays with me. She’s surprised, but she hugs me and says that it’s alright. She says that I’m safe now. The Zoe’s have the same smell! Oh, Zoe. How can I tell you? Where would I start?

“You can't imagine... how happy I am to see you ... alive”

Uh-oh.

“Of course I’m alive, silly!”

... what did I say? The shock of realization helps me recover.

“I... it’s a long story...  that I’d... I'd rather not talk about right now ... and I’m so tired...”

I’m still coming back to my senses, but at least I’m talking. Say something meaningful, Torg!

“I’m glad you saw me first, Zoe. I missed you...”   so much? Should I say that part? Wait a minute? Is she still seeing Leo? I don't know. I can't remember. Wait until you feel yourself, then you can confuse the poor girl with professions of alternate love. Wake up Torg! Wake up, and get back to reality, Torg.

“I'm sorry. I ... feel a little silly, Zoe. I’ve been away too long, huh? I... uh... I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Is that alright?” We help each other up, and I start to tramp upstairs to bed. 

 Wait a minute, I can't go to bed. My bed is in the Dimension of Nice! Way back when that crazy Alt-Bun-Bun showed up. That stupid auto-something took a large part of my bedroom to the Dimension of Nice! 

So I’m sleeping on the couch...  and if I’m going to do that, I may as well get comfortable. Oh man, this is going to be difficult. So I muster all the energy I can find, and stop climbing the steps. I turn around, and look directly into those beautiful eyes. It was never this painful before. Every conversation is a new horror. What should I say? Somehow, I even manage to smile.

“Hey Zoe? You know what? I just remembered something. I seem to have left my bed back in the Dimension of Lame. Join me for a beer - or ten - before I sack out on the couch? Maybe something stronger if we have it?

"Wine??? Really??? Er, is Crystal’s bar* still open?

"Well, alright... but just because it’s you. 

"Do we have any of those microwave jalapeno pizza-puffs? 

"So what’s that you’re reading?”

And for God’s sake, please don’t see the anguish in my eyes.

[*Sorry Pete, I couldn’t remember if Crystal’s bar had a name.]

[Here endeth the canon. The above thoughts and words could reasonably take place within canon. This part of the story isn't even close to the Worshipfully Nifty Sluggy Freelance multiverse.]

Days later....

"Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo."

Oh man, am I ever hammered! Boy, did I need this! I’ll say this for the Dimension of Nice: after drinking sping water and rice cakes for-FREAKING-ever, I have no tolerance at all - and it is awesome! OK, sure, it was more awesome *after* I was sick, but: there can be no overindulgence without after effects! It is an immutterable law! Or something! And becaush it is a law, I am always happy to be in complic... agreement! (Haaaarf!)

I was starting to think something was wrong with me. I don't feel different, but I am. Everyone around me can see something’s different about me - and I still can’t bring myself to explain. What could I possibly say? Everyone around me was dying because they were too nice to be aggressive. They didn't even think to defend themselves, because that would be a kind of violence. I was terrified, but I was the only one who could do anything. I was a terrified beast among a docile people. Terribly nice dead-people-to-be. 

Now that I'm back, I don't want to remember. No, that's not true. Alt-Zoe was real. I don't mind remembering Alt-Zoe, but all the crap around us was surreal. It was so awful that it's hard to reconcile it with reality. How do you wipe pieces of your friends off of your shoes and go on with your life? So I haven't been talking much. To anyone. My friends have been good natured about it. Except when they ask each other if I'm really the right Torg for this dimension. Riff was so concerned that he got me a stripper in a nurse costume. I need to ask him if that’s going to be a new custom; a beer every year, and a stripper every time we go dimension-hopping? I guess that was a nice thing for him to do, but it felt awkward. What’s worse is that I’m still so wrapped up with my obsession with multiple Zoes, that I had no interest in that poor girl. I sure hope that’s normal.

"... hate to look a gift nurse in the blouse. Ha!” Torg muttered as he tried hard to make his key go into the lock. How strange that the keyhole doesn’t swim around like this in the daytime... Yes! There we go! The trick is to move with the lock! ... Or did I move in the opposite direction? Doesn’t matter, I’m inside now with my good friends. Oooh! I need to go thank Zoe for giving me the few dollars it took to get me obliterated. That was very thoughtlessful of her. Ha, ‘thoughtlessful’, that's funny. I should remember that. Ooooh! There she is!!

“Do you see, Zoe?” I announced, “I always return to you!” and with one arm I corral her and kiss her passionately. Then I had some strange notion that this was wrong - for some reason that eluded me. There was definitely some reason why I'm not supposed to do this, but at the same time... call me crazy, but I just don’t see why it's wrong. After a few wonderful moments, Zoe pushes me away. That's... odd. Zoe is startled, out of breath, and starting to blush. Crap, I just bet she’s going to ask if I’m the right Torg for this dimension again. Then suddenly I remember why I wasn't supposed to kiss her.

“Torg?” she finally manages, “Torg, you’re drunk! I mean, I know that was the idea, but what...  I mean - wow that was really nice - but what was that for? Also, ew what’s in your mouth?” 

Zoe’s turning crimson now. Oh yeah, that was definitely a bad idea. This is the wrong Zoe. I mean it’s the right Zoe. I mean... argh! Stupid alternate dimensions! Hot remorse washes over me. Embarrassed, I want to run away. I don't, because... because of the stupid Dimension of Nice. I don't run away because Zoe deserves better than me moping about and running away. Well, OK, technically I did run away. I moved about 5 steps away so I could throw up in the toilet down the hall. But then I came back. Gwynn was in the adjoining room, but I can just bet that she didn’t miss out. Wouldn’t matter if she did, she’d hear about it from Zoe soon enough.

“I... I’m sorry Zoe, I’m so glad you’re alive.” I hung my head, my numb and dizzy brain trying to think of a solution.

Zoe is very crimson. She can’t decide whether she should be furious, insulted, impressed, or just embarrassed. 

“Alive???” Zoe sputtered. Oh yeah, she’s definitely decided to be mad at me.

“Thats the second time you said it. Torg, what the hell happened?”

Riff is coming down the stairs, with Kiki the ferret, to see what’s going on. Zoe still doesn’t understand, but Gwynn... Gwynn was always smarter than I give her credit for. Gwynn feels like she’s intruding and hesitated to speak up, but decides to do it anyway.

“Torg, you said there was another Gwynn in that dimension....” she trails off. She doesn’t need to finish. Absolutely right in one, Gwynn. Remind me to treat you with more respect. That's the key idea for this situation. Alternate dimensions; alternate people. Zoe will figure that out all by herself. I’m not getting out of explaining it this time. I can feel tears on my cheeks now. The tears of a drunken man; the brain can no longer feel pain, but the body remembers the pain. So many people were dying around me; I can't say that I mind weeping now. The tears are welcome. But my friends don't know yet. So now they'll think that I've gotten into Riff's psychotropic drugs too. I need to tell them the story right now. Except that, even if I really wanted to, I’m not in a good state of mind to tell the story. Fortunately, I’ve thought about this long enough to come up with a solution. And best of all, it's a solution that doesn’t involve Torg telling Zoe that he loves both of her! Or all the 'her.' Should that be 'hers?' Stupid alternate dimensions!

So I began with a cop-out: 

“I’m sorry Zoe. You’ve been patient with me. You’ve all been good to me since I got back from that stupid dimension. I want to tell you what happened, but I can’t. It was pretty awful. But I have the next best thing. Someone else can tell you... if you’ll give me a little blood.” I was looking directly at Zoe when I said that.

“Blood...??? What the hell!”

“I know that sounds crazy. It’s no crazier than me being in another dimension for... how long was I gone Riff?”

“I dunno.” 

[Now why in the world did I just say that to Torg? Riff wondered.]

“I was gone for far too long! Get yourselves seated comfortably, it's going to be a long story. I’ll be right back.” I carefully went upstairs, because the stairs were still moving upstream. I pulled Chaz from his cradle, grabbed some items from the bathroom, and made the return trip a little too fast. I landed mostly upright, but Chaz poked a hole in the opposite wall. I’m pretty sure they were speaking about me in urgent whispers and hushed voices while I was upstairs, but it won’t be anything like what they will say after this.

“Whoops... So Riff, given the whole 'Good' and 'Evil' thing, would you say Zoe is innocent?” I asked as I stepped cautiously back to my feet.

“I dunno.” 

[What. The. Hell. Am. I. Saying? thought Riff]

“Innocent of what, Torg?” Zoe asked cautiously, eying the sword. Now why didn't I consider drunken sword-waving before??? This would do the trick... No! I have to tell them now! Explain it to her quickly, while she’s too anxious to be mad at me. It won’t last, but it makes this next part easier...

“’Innocent’ in general. Have you killed anyone?" Not counting you killing me about 2 hours from now, of course. "Gwynn's been using that book of E-Ville, so I’m guessing she’s not particularly innocent. We can all agree that Riff is not innocent.” I gave Riff a nod, and he beamed back at me.

“Thanks, buddy!”

“So here’s the sitch." I raised the sword - wow, this feels good. "This sword has been keeping me alive. I can take some credit for killing that evil Aylee clone thingy, but even then Chaz was helping. This sword helped me kill demons when I was in the Dimension of Lame, and let me tell you, those darn demons are pret-ty difficult to kill. Uh... anyway, what happens is this; the sword wakes up, or something, when ‘the blood of the innocent’ touches it. And it can talk, really! It can. I had it with me most of the time, so this sword knows everything that I know. So, for a little innocent blood, you can hear the whole story strait from the swords... uh... lack of mouth. There’s only two of us in this room that prolly have innocent blood. And I really don’t want to hurt Kiki.”

“Eeeep!” Kiki squealed as she dove behind the couch. Riff glared at me.

“Don’t worry Kiki.” I said “Nobody’s going to hurt you.

“Zoe. I’m so sorry. I was wrong, an' I should have known better. But it is a pretty horrible story, and I still can’t bear to talk about it. So, for a little blood..."

 I held up my thumb and forefinger and pressed them together for 'little'... 

"you can have the whole story.” I moved over to where Zoe was sitting, and handed her the sword, some bandages, and the bottle of antiseptic.

Now that Crazy Man had stopped waving the sword around, Zoe was calmer. She considered the bandages and antiseptic, and realized that I had actually been thinking about this. Everything about the situation was wrong. But it was wrong in the same way that Torg... wasn't quite right. Zoe hadn't held a sword before, it was sharper than it looked.

“So I just...” Zoe winced as she moved her forearm on the blade.

Zoe's blood gleamed on the blade. Then slowly, a crimson gleam spread out across the blade. Zoe was so alarmed that she cried out "Torg! What's happening?"

I couldn't help but chuckle; "It's alright Zoe. It's like this every time." Chaz was glowing again, just like old times. That transformation always amazes me. I started having flashbacks of fear and violence. I shook my head to drive the thoughts away.

“Good evening Master, whom shall we slay tonight?”

The looks on their faces was priceless. Stark disbelief. These moments always fills me with a strange kind pride. My. Talking. Sword!

“No killin' tonight Chaz. Can I interest you in some conversation?”

“That would be... agreeable. You’re quite certain that there’s no-one to kill?”

“Chaz, these are...” my breath caught, I looked around at their faces, and I went on when I could “these are my closest friends. Would you please tell these nice people about our adventures in the Dimension of Lame? They think talking swords are really cool, and would really like to hear your version of the story.”*

*[Based on the initial dialogues, I should be within bounds of canon by claiming that Chaz should know the entire story despite being passive on multiple occasions.]

“I should be delighted, Master Torg.”

“That's great, Chaz. I’m sure that they’ll have some questions before you begin, and make sure to tell them when you’re losing power. Zoe knows what to do. I know it's a long story. I’ll be back later.”

Zoe was surprised “What? You’re not staying?”

“Zoe, Chaz will only be awake for a short while each time you bleed on it. So I’m afraid more blood will be needed.”

I looked over at Gwynn. “Gwynn? Would you get Zoe something to eat, please? I promise you won’t miss anything.”

I turned back to Zoe. “But I will miss it. My own memories are pretty darn awful. I can’t talk about it. I sure can’t bear to hear Chaz’ ... pretty words for it all. I’ll be back later. I’m sure Crystal has more experimental drinks to try out on me.

“Hey Chaz? Don’t forget to mention how cowed and helpless those people were. I ... think it is important to the story.” With that, I aimed for the door, and moved in a direction that was basically forward. So I did run away. Not in a particular hurry, mostly I just tried to move with the room.

This time, the alcohol didn’t help. The business with Zoe had stopped my buzz cold, and the cold air helped keep it down. Yet the buzz came back soon enough, but it did nothing to distract me from the hard questions I was going to face later. Crystal was a little annoyed to see me again. I calmed her down by promising to mop up at some indeterminate future time. She harumphed and gave me something that tasted like an ashtray. Maybe it was an ashtray, but there was some sort of alcohol in it, and Crystal didn’t charge me for it. Then she had me try something that tasted like old feet. Ugh, why doesn’t she use sweetener like everyone else?

I didn’t know how long I should stay away. Crystal started giving me quality drinks. I guess it must be obvious that I’m moping around at the bar by myself. I'm more or less certain that I was literally crying in my beer. I wasn't drunk enough, and my mind was stuck on Alt-Zoe. I tried to think of other things. I wonder where the Sampire is these days. I’ve been gone so long, Riff must have let Sam know he’s not particularly welcome around here. I suppose you can’t blame Riff. Or Sam for that matter. Sam's a man with unique skills. I’m going to need a job soon, I wonder if I can’t find a use for Sam’s talents. Heh. Would I have “a Vampire in the hole” then? It would beat an ace in the hole every time. Eventually Crystal threw me out. Of course, I can't really remember it that clearly. Maybe someone else threw me out? It didn't matter that much. As I walked back, thoughts of Sam reminded me of Valerie. Valerie...  She’s dead too. ‘Saved’ from being a vampire. 

It was much easier unlocking the door this time. Chaz was nearly done with the story. Everyone was paying rapt attention. Kiki was whimpering softly. Riff was taking notes. Gwynn was... apparently beaming at the power her alternate self was wielding. Zoe... well, Zoe was pale. That was understandable. I got beer from the fridge and joined them, feeling very self-conscious. Presently, after more blood from Zoe, Chaz addressed me.

“Master, I must confess I am not entirely sure whom the other Torg was, could you enlighten us?”

I distributed wine coolers to Gwynn and Zoe, and handed Riff a beer. I found a chair and fell onto it. A deep sigh, a mighty pull of the beer, and I thought back to a few days ago when the mutated Alt-Riff had confessed to me his sins. They weren't real, actual sins, of course. Stupid Dimension of Nice. “Chaz, that Torg takes us all the way back to the beginning of the story.” My breath caught because of what I was going to say. Then I started anew. “The Torg that belonged in that dimension has been dead for many years. He and Kiki were killed by Riff’s fission popcorn experiment.”

[The words 'fission popcorn' were a semi-audible echo in Riff's direction as more notes were taken.]

“That dimension’s Zoe was married to that dimension's Torg. Zoe and Riff were so forlorn that Riff began a series of experiments with his Dimensional Flux Agitator to ‘recruit’ a Torg from another dimension, much the same way as our Riff did.” I stopped to glare pointedly at Riff. And of course, to drink more beer.

“They found another Torg, but he was definitely not happy with the new arrangement. He tried to use the DFA to escape. He had what Riff would call a limited success. He escaped to the Dimension of Pain, and became trapped in the upright freezer side of the Demon King’s fridge. This happened right about at the same time that our Riff 'accidentally' sent me to the Dimension of Pain. So while our Riff couldn’t find me...”

“Hey! If I had proper equipment...” Riff exploded, but Zoe cut him off.

“Don’t interrupt.” she snapped.

Ooooh boy. Zoe’s real mad. I used the break to take another pull at my beer, found it empty, and switched bottles. “Yeah... so their Torg was trapped, so their Riff was looking for him, but pulled me out of the Dimension of Pain - believing I was that other Torg. It was a coincidence that both of us were there at the same time. That was when I first met their Bun-Bun, and it was Bun-Bun that sent me back home. So when the demons invaded, Bun-Bun knew how to find me for help. And don't worry Kiki, the alternate Bun-Bun is still alive.” I drank more beer.

Kiki beamed; "Yay! I love happy endings!"

That drew funny looks from all corners. Kiki didn't miss the part about Alt-Zoe dying, she was just happy that Bun-Bun was alive. That and Kiki has the attention span of a gnat.

“Whoo. Is it hot in here, or is it just me? Anway, that Torg was still in the freezer when I got there. I was out of options, and the only hope for anyone was if the Goddess of Good was still in that ‘fridge. I think you know the rest. ... oh yeah, I did have a little chat with that other Torg afterwards. He did help me free the Goddess, and I probably couldn’t have done it without that smug, self-serving jackass - and mister serving tray didn’t like him either. So we expressed our displeasure with him - and I’d like to point out that there was no pointy sword involved.” I smiled to myself at the recollection. I probably shouldn’t be proud of doing that, but it felt really good at the time.

“Ah, good for you master Torg, and unless there are further questions, my power wanes.”

“You did a marvellous job Chaz! Thank you.”

Chaz’ bright glow began to fade away. An awkward silence grew along with the darkness. I finished my beer and said “Hey guys, can I have a few minutes with Zoe?”

They agreed, and moved out of the room, leaving a trail of urgent whispers that grew in intensity as they got further away. Well, maybe Gwynn will respect me a teeny bit more. That wouldn’t hurt. ... Also I could help things by showing her more respect too - but it’s so darn easy to get a rise out of her! I smiled at that, and forgot that Zoe was expecting me to say something.

“Well, Torg?” she spoke louder than she needed to, and it jolted me. Zoe had set her face in a grim expression. It was time to take my medicine.

“Zoe...” I sighed. “I... 

Then it came to me. I spoke haltingly.

"Zoe... I’m still in the Dimension of Pain. I’m surrounded by torment, and there’s no shelter from it. I met a woman who looked like you, but wasn’t you. She was killed because she was with me while I was trying to ... well it doesn’t matter now.” I was starting to lose it again. 

“What does matter ... right now, is that when I look at you...” Strangled noises came from my throat. “... I see someone else. Someone who died because of me. Someone who I can still feel...” 

I looked to the beer bottle for sustenance in my moment of need. The beer bottle was empty. I was suddenly angry at the bottle for being empty. Angry at it for betraying me in my moment of need. The same way that I let Horribus kill Zoe. I was there, but I was inadequate. Like an empty bottle. I jumped up and I flung the bottle hard. It bounced off the wall and landed on the couch. I had jumped up way too fast and got dizzy.

"Someone who trusted me!" I blurted out as I collapsed back into my chair.

It was hard to control myself, but this was important, so I managed somehow. Zoe’s expression changed to alarm, but I was trying to focus on what I was saying.

“I... I know that who she was, that makes things between us ... complicated. But I think that’s...

well, that can't be helped now. 

"You were wrong, Zoe, it's not alright. It can't be alright. It's never going to be alright, because she's dead, and she shouldn't be.

"I know that you're mad at me. And I guess that's normal, because this crazy nonsense about alternate dying people doesn't make any sense. But... I wish you wouldn't be mad at me Zoe, because... " And that was all. I just couldn't think of anything else.

"Because?"

I started to sob. "I'm trying to remember her smiling at me... but I just see blood..."

“Torg, I think I should be angry with you, but ... but it makes sense, I guess. But it’s still really creepy!” she admitted.

We sat in growing darkness.

“There’s one more thing.” I said, looking away.

“What's that?”

“Zoe, you're a really great girl, you'll forgive me eventually. Just, please don’t hug me for ... a while. It’s too much to bear.” I said slowly.

“Poor Torg. So much pain, and the very first person you see is Zoe: alive and well. I’m still not sure how I should feel about that...” A few minutes went by. “So tell me about this other Zoe.”

I smiled, “Well, she had purple hair.”

“Ew. Really?" A thoughtful moment passed. "Torg... would I look good with purple hair?” Zoe said with a sly grin.

“Don’t be silly. You’re a pretty girl, but you’re no Zoe.”

That surprised her. Then she half-smiled, not sure how to take that. I tried to grin reassuringly at her, but it wasn’t funny.

Greatness and Ashes

2011-07-08T12:51:00.000-05:00

Flanked by Imperial Guardsmen, a lonely man in a shabby uniform stands in a busy antechamber.

There was activity around him, yet this man was the epicenter of a perceptible doldrum. Many people moved past him, into and out of the Emperor’s audience chamber, but all were visibly distracted by him. Groups that were previously speaking amongst themselves would grow quiet on seeing him. All conversation stopped when they recognized him. Some of them paled visibly. On seeing him, some decided to alter their reports to the Emperor. If he was here, the Emperor would be in a very bad mood indeed. Officers who passed him did not salute. They would apologize later - if he survived his appointment with the Emperor. Several passers-by made a note to reschedule later conferences. Best to put off any other business until after His Eminence disposes of this one. Palpatine was always in a forgiving mood after an execution.

He was flanked by Imperial Guardsmen, but it was not at all clear if he was a prisoner. The lonely man was unfettered. Palpatine did occasionally have prisoners brought to him in chains. Not always metaphorical chains, either; sometimes it was the Emperor’s Will that actual wrought-iron manacles and chains be used on prisoners of interest. Modern energy binders were much more effective since they doubled as a means of controlling the prisoner, to the point of termination if necessary. Palpatine enjoyed using crude ancient restraints on certain individuals. It may have had something to do with the vulnerability of energy binders to certain kinds of energy. More than a few Imperial Guardsmen had ‘disappeared’ in the aftermath of a prisoner escape that occurred several years ago. It was rumored that the prisoner’s energy binders were damaged by Palpatine himself. Thus the Emperor had ultimately been responsible for the prisoner’s escape. The small purge was a pointed lesson in discretion to the surviving Guardsmen, and intense fury over the rumor itself.

The pair of Imperial Guardsmen who flanked him weren’t sure what to think. Not that they had any business forming any opinions. Guards who developed opinions quickly found themselves patrolling the outer rim as rookie Stormtroopers - if they were fortunate! Sympathy was an undesirable quality, one that was strongly weeded out by the Emperor Himself. Imperial Guardsmen were not promoted or recruited from any normal ranks. Battle-hardened veterans, and others of similar unfeeling nature could apply, but many were turned away. Clones had almost no chance of being accepted, unless the individual had done a great service to the Emperor - and even then a trip to Camino for ‘adjustment’ was absolutely required. Even given the strict requirements, some Guardsmen still slipped up. You couldn’t hide your feelings from him, he just knew. This time was different from other assignments. This lonely man had quite recently been in Lord Vader’s favor. Favorites of Lord Vader had the tacit approval of the Emperor. The guards struggled to control their feelings. The temptation to sympathize with this man was very strong.

Even the smart-looking young man who expedited the Emperor’s audience schedule felt some apprehension; and he was usually safe from any Imperial Fury that took place in the next room. This was highly unusual. The Emperor’s schedule was always tightly controlled, except if the Emperor himself made an exception. Exceptions to the Imperial schedule did happen, but very seldom, and on those occasions, it was more likely that the Emperor was clearing his later schedule than seeing an unscheduled visitor. He always had time for his Sith minions, but that was certainly not the affair of the Imperial Scheduler. Palpatine merely made his audience wait while he communicated with his agents, and occasionally his commanders.

As the lonely man awaited the Emperor’s pleasure, only one of Palpatine’s vistors behaved differently than the others. He abruptly moved away from his escort, marched up to face the lonely man, stopped, and saluted smartly. “Sir! It’s a great relief to see you! I’ve... ”

The lonely man interrupted him with a quick motion, but returned his salute with a stern look. “As you were. You have business to attend to. It’s best that you go about it. Right now.”

“Yes, sir!” The officer tried not to betray his disappointment at being cut off, saluted again, and rejoined the Imperial Guardsmen that had been on the verge of warning him away. They continued into the audience chamber. The lonely man watched him move away, and made a mental note to discover who that officer was. Loyalty (admiration?) in the face of possible Imperial Wrath was a valuable quality. Many of the self-important officers that Lord Vader had disposed of would have made apologies for behavior like that in junior officers, and then have the offender transferred elsewhere.

His thoughts were interrupted by the Guardsman on his right. The Emperor was free, and they would appear now. The lonely man paled, and moved with the Guardsmen. He chided himself for feeling such anxiety about this meeting. It was the same cold feeling that he had felt many times before. And precisely like he did on all those other occasions, he found the strength within himself to go on. This meeting was his own idea, even though he knew it could go... badly. Many times before, he had found himself in questionable circumstances, with incomplete information. On every such occasion, he had come to one conclusion or another, and presented that conclusion or decision to his superiors. His results had little justification in reason - he just knew. His trepidation was usually self-consciousness at his lack of justification. He had been wrong, and had his failures. Yet time after time, when it mattered the most, he had been right. He hoped that this was one of those times. It could mean the end of his life, but this felt like the best thing to do. And with that, he did the Unthinable; he spoke out of turn in the presence of the Emperor. He saluted crisply, and then suddenly, he knelt down - as he had seen Lord Vader do - and said:

“I have failed, your Imperial Majesty!”

The Emperor was amused; he had actually been surprised by this gesture.

“My dear friend, don’t be silly. Please rise, Admiral Piett.”

Oi! You can't sleep here!

2011-07-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

Its time to wake this blog up.

Well, unless you were having a really good dream or something, in which case, as you were. Just a gentle reminder, you don't actually have to get up. You should probably stand up, stretch out, and then sit down again. Its good for you. Or something.

I don't even remember where I was last time. I was updating my Pandora Punk radio station more often than this blog. [Karl suddenly realizes how quiet it is and turns on the Punk radio in a new tab. Ahhhhhh much better!]

So where was I? Oh yeah, I now have an Associate's degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Technology, and I'm looking for a job. I'm looking for electronic technician, computer help desk, and chemistry jobs. Even if I end up staying with chemistry jobs, its nice to have this degree because now I know things about transistors and operation amplifiers that I always wanted to know about. I understand electronics much better now, and I never really would have had the discipline to sit down and read books about it if there wasn't a lesson plan involved. At the moment I'm building a really cool little capacitor/inductor tester from a kit. Then I'm going to repair a garage door remote control.

Then I have an idea for a capacitor leakage tester which will probably require me to program a microcontroller (a programmable integrated circuit - they are quite common now, think 'arduino'). This project is actually a lot simpler than it sounds. Its just one or two current amplifiers to get a current of around one nano-ampere to be about 10-100 milliamperes, (alternatively transforming the signal to 10-100 millivolts) then into the analog-to-digital port of a microcontroller that I have had lying around anyway. And a little code to do the math and let me read the results with my laptop instead of digital LED readout which would require writing a LOT more code.

That's right World, I can officially take apart a remote control AND fix it and then put it back together. So, 9 months of schooling when I didn't have a job anyway - totally worth it!

I'm also finishing up a Fan Fiction which will appear here shortly. If I can re-write it so that it can stand on its own, then I may submit it for a short story contest. The immediate problem would be that the characters are not mine, and the story occurs amid ongoing adventures of these characters, so it doesn't stand alone very well. That means readers will be more confused than if they were reading Harlan Ellison.

Also, since the year is dragging on, I'm planning to participate in NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month. I had intended to write a character study between a freshly cloned Emperor Palpatine, and a badly scarred Admiral Piett, set a few years after the destruction of the second Death Star. BUT some rudimentary reading and exploring issues relevant to the 'Expanded Star Wars Universe' leave me believing that the whole concept would be a fool's errand. LucasArts have enormous control over future releases: there is a novel featuring 'Darth Plagus the Wise' scheduled for release next year. Also, I really don't care to sit down and read a stack of Star Wars novels just to grasp the milieu, when I've never really cared to read Star Wars before. My future leisure reading will be Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' and 'The Crusades' by Thomas Asbridge. I just finished Charles Freeman's 'The Closing of the Western Mind' [EVERYONE should read it! ... though it is moderately dense]. Star Wars fiction is simply incongruous with my desired reading material these days.

MonsterPunk Radio

2009-10-17T22:44:00.001-05:00

Created a punk rock radio station.

Give a listen. Give me a holler if you like it.

Half-Life?

2008-12-07T22:34:00.004-06:00

Going to wander into obscure territory here. (taking longer than I thought to locate it)
There already exists a good summary and 'researched' description here. I generally agree with it, but wish to add some material.

Half-life is the standard method of describing the rate of radioactive decay of a specific isotope. It is also the name of the very popular first-person "shooter" game that effectively put Valve Software on the map. Two other software developers made "Equels" - my own word for a "sequel" - that occur in the same place and time as the first one. Half-Life featured a nuclear physicyst named Gordon Freeman. Opposing Force featured Corporal Adrian Sheppard. Blue Shift featured Black Mesa Security Officer Calhoun. When playing the "Equels", you do not actually meet Gordon Freeman, but the developers allow you very brief glimpses of him - if you are paying attention.

Most recently, Half-Life has been succeeded by a proper sequel in Half-Life 2, and the subsequent "Episode 1" and "Episode 2". Valve has stated that offering the follow-on adventures in a more modular installment allows for more regular updates to the saga. I expect that it also allows them to put more cutting-edge technology into the latest installment, rather than delaying a big project by re-writing the underlying code. As far as I am concerned, whatever they want to do is fine by me.

Half-Life features Gordon Freeman grappling with the aftermath of a bizarre laboratory mishap. Apparently a portal to an alien world was opened releasing dangerous creatures into the Black Mesa complex. But was it an accident? What really happened at Black Mesa, and who is the mysterious "G-Man" that keeps surfacing in the background, always seeming to have more control over the situation than Gordon does? We get the idea that a powerful being called "Nihilanth" became aware of this world and used the energy released inside the test chamber to open a portal to Black Mesa. Yet that fails to explain the identity of the G-Man.

At the end of Half-Life, Freeman comes face to face with the G-Man, who offers praise, but no explanations. He does, however, offer Gordon Freeman (you) a job. If you accept, you are left in a bizarre place, and apparently you perish if you refuse. At the begining of HL2, the G-Man appears and speaks to you before you find yourself on a train, about to arive in City 17. Has the G-Man kept Gordon in stasis all this time? And odder still is that the Vortigonts who we remember as nasty enemies in HL, are now co-conspirators, and actually treat you with a reverence approaching adoration. What the hell has happened?

The Vorts are grateful for their liberation from bondage to the Nihilanth. But there is more, much more. In HL2, talk to a Vort after key dialogue has finished and its time for you to move on. I recommend enabling subtitles for this, and talking to the Vort that just installed the gun on your airboat. There are other opportunities, but theres just too much background noise at New Little Odessa, and the Vort there has to wait for breaks in Colonel Cubbage's endless stream of radio hails to speak. The Vort will speak in prose and allegory, and make the clearest references to the Vortessence before Episode One. The first thing that the Vort will say is: "We remember the Freeman: we are coterminus."

Coterminous: sharing the same boundaries, having the same span or scope. What an odd thing to say.

Gordon Freeman (you), of course says nothing, the other characters talk to, or near him, usually presenting expostion to explain your situation, or its background. The enigmatic part is that you are put in a number of places with no clear objective save what the minor character tell you. [Might as well call them 'meatlings' as most of them die anyway.] Since you do not speak, and in many cases you (as the player) have no forenowledge of what to do in some situations, there is a vaguary of identity. Is this really Gordon Freeman, or someone else? Someone that might truly not know what they are doing?

This is never more clear than in the very begining, at Black Mesa. You are apparently late for the test procedure, but you have no clear idea where you should be going. Fortunately, people that you meet tell you brusquely where you should be, and there are color-coded lines on the wall that you can follow to your destination. When you arrive, the scientists speak to you in a slightly formal manner, not exactly as if he has done this hundreds of times before. Then at the crucial moment, you can see what needs to happen, and where the crucial object needs to go. I remember thinking - "Can this be right? I just do it this way?"

Of course, when I do perform the task, everything goes to hell. Did I do it wrong? Did I cause this catastrophe? There turns out to be other reasons why it happened. Yet that does not mean that what I was doing, as Gordon Freeman, was correct.

At the very begining, before anything happens, we are told that the identity of Gordon Freeman's Administrative Sponsor is classified, and that his disaster response priority is discretionary. Discretionary? Isnt he just a theoretical physicist? Surely we were informed of these vaguaries for a reason?

I think Gordon Freeman may not be a physisict at all, but an agent of some kind. His (late!) insertion in Black Mesa was a trial run of some sort, which worked well. At least the G-Man was pleased enough to preserve him for later use. The G-Man, as we see in Episode Two, seems to have ideas that diverge from those of the Vortigonts, and I think this is why the beginning of HL2 played out the way it did. Had Barney not interfered, Freeman would have gotten onto the express train to Nova Prospekt. This is not an accident, it was the only train there, and the player has no real option but to go that way. Then, when finally in Dr. Kleiner's laborotory, its true that "Hedy Lamarr" the headcrab interferes with the procedure. One of the scientists however also says "Something is drawing him away!" and Gordon Freeman appears in Dr. Breen's office not just one time, but twice, before ultimately ending up back at Dr. Kliener's laboratory. In retrospect, being teleported twice to Dr. Breen's office hardly sounds like a random failure.

When Freeman is fighting [your] way through Nova Prospekt, (he got there anyway, but by way of the Resistance) Dr. Breen can be heard over the public address system. He discusses the state of affairs regarding Overwatch's capture of Dr. Vance, but their failure to get Dr. Freeman. [Its a Utopian Dystopia where the world seems to be in decay, but the most prominent figures are physicists.] Dr. Breen says that Dr. Freeman's condition; between the episode at Black Mesa and his current efforts against the Combine, precluded the development of any combat abilities. In short, Dr. Breen knows that the G-Man has been keeping Freeman in stasis. Given the train schedule, the teleport 'fiasco', and Dr. Breen's unexplained knowledge of Freeman's situation, I believe that the G-Man was intentionally sending Freeman to Dr. Breen. Possibly at the request of the Combine Advisors.

What precisely is the meaning of "Half-Life"? Does it infer that time is of the essence? That things are decaying and falling to ruin all around him? That Freeman has a short life expactancy? Or perhaps it means that Gordon Freeman is only half human. Half living, half not living, possibly a prototype Combine soldier. Now a soldier without orders, who can only react to his situation.

Half-Life.

Or no life at all.

A new WPA? Over my dead Union!

2008-11-27T04:05:00.002-06:00

I read an interesting Newsweek article about the "new affluence" in America. With the current situation, and forseeable future adjustments, any bright spots are about 10 years away, with belt tightening rampant at all social strata until then.

America still has foreign debt, and seems to be maintaining current spending levels only by printing and selling T-bills (maybe the wrong term, but we're printing and selling something). The U.S. Government is currently disbursing a $700 million piss-in-the-wind fund, with some expectations of a second economic stimulus package.The American economy is very resilient, but real economic activity will be slowing to about half because all the "liquidity" has just evaporated in a meltdown of leveraged credit. Comming regulations are badly needed, but will have no impact on economic activity.

Retailers.... are just screwed. Consumers have negative net worth these days and almost zero savings. With a bleak economic forecast, the smart consumers will be shunning luxury items and even 'perks.' Those franchises that just opened new branches and dont have appreciable market share in their new areas - closing and writing off those same branches their best option.

TARP is a very apt name; hide financial weakness by whitewashing it. Throwing big wads of cash at fundamentally unsound problems. I think the Federal Government is making an enormous mistake by propping up AIG and CitiBank. The way I understand it, the only way of recouping government money is if those firms start to profit again. Unless this Republican administration required them to abandon using unregulated financial instruments (I'd be suprised, Paulson has been mum on the topic of further regulation, I read that as quiet resistance), they will continue to do so. These firms will feel even more pressure to profit now, so that they can stop Uncle Sam from looking over their shoulder. I have to expect that their past methods of 'risk management' will continue, especially since they have just been 'fixed'. A continuum of repeat failures on the parts of these firms is not acceptable to me.

Add that the American automakers are going to fail. If they've gone begging to the government, like they have done, then they are on the verge of going under. Again. They were losing money during times of prosperity, and they are going to do much worse now. Its way past time to pull the plug. And that means we're heading for an umemployment rate in the U.S. of something like 10%.

Almost out of the blue, someone mentioned to me that they had heard rumors of a WPA program coming. That was a suprise, and probably not grounded in fact, but it did get me to think about the overall state of affairs. If a Federal Public Works program were created, it would create a lot of jobs for skilled and unskilled labor, largely building infrastructure which is badly needed in many areas despite recent American prosperity. Surely that would be much more cost effective than an economic stimulus package. Prima Facie, it sounds good to me.

Unions won't stand for another WPA. Maybe that is a good thing, in the way that a terrorist attack is a serious wake up call to a situation of lax security (or poor socio-economic foriegn policy, but I digress). I feel that labor unions no longer serve a useful purpose, and are now actually anathema to free enterprise. Unions artificially increase wages while acting to reduce productivity. [Feel free to disagree here, but don't forget to factor in lost productivity time for picketing, contract negotiations, and union-determined productivity] I'm not saying that worker protections are uneccesary, I'm saying that unions have become powerful entities that are hindering economic progress. Certainly the U.S. automakers would agree. [Automakers almost don't count though, theres a forest of dead wood there that seems uninterested in making radical changes necessary to seriously compete in the auto market. Their cash cow until recently was pickup and SUV sales. That is not innovation, thats a gimmic which exploits a CAFE loophole. A loophole I want to see closed.]

I mentioned to my friend that the unions would never stand for a new WPA. He replied that their voice will count little when there are no jobs. That sounds good, but its an over-simplification. Here is what I see happening in the next 3 years. The big three fail, declare bankrupcy, merger, restructure or a combination of these. My money is on bankrupcy - the dead wood executives will want to restructure their status quo. There will be many union job losses but not 100%. So UAW will continue only slightly diminished.

Pilots, mechanics, and other airline workers have been getting progressively shittier deals through continual airline failures. They are union, but its not doing them a fat lot of good. There are many other union groups but I'll lump them with the most powerful - road construction and railroad workers. Construction companies do private work as well, but their main meal ticked is Federal and State infrastructure. The railroad industry has the most powerful lobby of the U.S. Government. Somehow they figuratively hold channel lock pliers around congress' balls. Amtrak collision? It was the respective railroad company's rails or signals that failed, but who picks up the tab? Uncle Sam. We never hear of Union disputes with the Railroad. Ever.

There is clearly a spectrum of union organizations in terms of union strength, which appears to be tied to the economic stability of their industry. So, how would they respond to a new WPA? They would all oppose out of solidarity, but by worker population they would be a minority. Unions serving economically weakened industries would rubberstamp this opposition, but a growing percentage of their former membership will want a WPA, and somewhat undercut their position. The stronger unions would be the most adamant, Railroad being the anchor, butconstruction workers causing the biggest problem. They will claim that a proposed WPA would be taking their jobs. Thats not necessarily true; it would be entirely possible for WPA jobs to work alongside union construction by performing lesser jobs. Also, WPA would not necessarily be limited to construction jobs. The reality would be that no construction company could compete with a cost effective WPA. They wll use the claim of unfair competition to try to litigate any WPA out of existance and try to get injunctions postponing any work and making a WPA ineffective.

That brings me to another WPA roadblock; Congress. A few lines above I used the phrase "cost-effective WPA." I don't see that happening as a result of actions from a contemporary congress. Given the abject failures or reconstruction in Iraq [which I blame on congress' failure to provide adequate oversight to planning and structuring the reconstruction program - since it clearly turned into a free for all of inept firms winning contracts to provide shoddy workmanship] I am extremely skeptical that congress could create a successful public works program.

These are my thoughts at the moment, I'll revisit and edit this some later.

Call of Duty - World at War

2008-11-26T08:45:00.002-06:00

I've been bored completely out of my tree. I'm now unemployed - which is a story I may or may not divulge in a separate installment - for two months now and nothin much is expected to happen for a third month, for reasons also not appearing in this installment.

It is true that there are plenty of things that I should be doing. Many such tasks require disposable income. I could go all out in an ambitious campaign to clean my apartment, but I'm not insane, merely bored.

I purchased the above title to give myself a mindless passtime. I had been playing Bioshock, and finished that. I really ought to talk about that first, but I really need to get this out of the way first, or my head may explode. I need to begin with some context, though, to try to make sense to you (and to me as well) of what I'm feeling.

In the beginning - for my purposes - was Battlefield 1942. [The beginning really was a game called Codename: Eagle that came out maybe 2 years earlier, but I don't pick up every title that is out there, and certainly not without knowing something of it] BF1942 presented conflict on approximately 12 maps which covered the major theatres of war; Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. You select your role as a soldier (assault, sniper, medic, engineer, anti-tank) which determines what gear you will carry, pick a map and join about 60 computer-controlled friendly and enemy soldiers in solo play, or a blend of human and 'bot' in multiplayer mode. By far the most popular featured all human soldiers. In addition, you can operate vehicles from jeeps and tanks to P/T Boats, Stukas, Heinkels and B-17s - depending on the map.

Multiplayer had an interesting quirk. In a nod to realism, the less you move around, the better your aim is. Towards that end, lying prone is better than crouching, is better than standing. What ended up happening in application was players learned to dive prone when they sighted the enemy, fire their weapon, jump back to their feet, and keep going. The process could happen alarmingly quickly. This disturbed me for a number of reasons. Most of which was that diving onto your battle rifle should primarily give you a concussion. The battle rifle of that era was particularly heavy as it was also intended to be used as a melee weapon.

I came to terms with this glitch, eventually. BF 1942 made for enormously amusing games of Capture-the-Flag, since the flag carrier could jump in a jeep (or a tank), speed off and get picked up by a swooping Messerschmidt. [Ah the realism.....] BF1942 was followed by Battlefield Vietnam, or BFV, which I did not purchase, I expect I had a job at the time. The next iteration was Battlefield 2, and the glitch had developed a life of its own, grown tentacles, and eaten the game developer.

I was able to fly the planes in BF 1942, but I wasn't able to get as much agility from them as the majority of people whome I played with. So I lost dogfights, but had a good time. BF2 is in a contemporary setting, with jets and helicopters the order of the day. I have yet to be able to fly them successfully, but they seem to be heavily overpowered. Airstrikes can be delivered with great accuracy - and I have felt their effectiveness many, many times - yet anti-aircraft missile stations are few, far between, and nearly ineffective. And someone called me a cheater when I finally managed to shoot one down. This I could accept, air power is the mainstay of the modern world.

Not only are player still able to kill nearly instantly by diving on their rifles, now there is also some bizzarre ninja roll that can be executed while shooting. This manoever not only seems to gaurantee killing the opponent, but the player executing it can seldom be shot while he is doing it. I'd say the concept was staggering, but I don't stagger so much as fall stone dead. The ability to "bunny hop" has also been increased. Soldiers in full anti-tank gear can not only perform ninja rolls, they can effortlessly spring high into the air, and even change direction in mid-air. Perhaps I jave joined arms against Scotland Yard's Special Flying Squad. Those that regularly play this game learn to take advantage of these things to be more effective, and make the game more frustrating for me.

Enter CoD-WaW. Solo play, quite frankly, is painful. At the beginning of the single-player scenarios they run TV-quality graphics that set up the situation and explain how the future of the entire free world is hanging in the balance. And then show a cutscene featuring you.

I downloaded CoDWaW from Steam, and the only manual that I have is a 9-page PDF which doesnt explain nearly as much as I would like. I have found solo play baffling. The developers provided you with a squad leader to bark orders at you and tell you what to do. The reality is that what you are precisely supposed to do, and where you are supposed to do it arent nearly as obvious as the buffoon who is shouting at you. Sarge ordered me to go "use my knife on that barrel." Um.... but I dont have a knife? See? I got this Garand, and I picked up a Japanese SMG, but no knife that I can switch to...... Well, after trying a lot of different things I found that I was supposed to go up the the barrel and press the "use" key. Viola! I suddenly reach for the barrel with a hand that is holding a knife. Amazing. And not even slightly intuitive.

The majority of my solo play experience was spent in negative reinforcement training. Learning to run far away from grenades, which killed me about a hundred times in the first two hours. By the time I had re-played every scene multiple times until I had dodged all the grenades, nasty gunfire and banzai attackers, and actually achieved the mission objectives, I realised that I was in a cutscene. Not literally. What I mean is that if I have to do all these little moves (dont get killed by this grenade, shoot that guy or he will killl you) in such a very specific way in such a short span of time, they might as well past my face on the cutscene, because in the end, there wont be any difference. That bothers me a lot. Mostly because the game looks great; I'd really enjoy having some free will in such a beautifully hostile environment. There aren't vehicles that you can fly (the closest you get is being a PBY gunner) but the aiming mechanics are right on. CoDWaW avoids all the problems that I have with the BF series, and even one that I had not thought of; you cannot aim your weapon while moving forward in the prone position.

Multiplayer in CoDWaW is great. Perhaps I'm overstating my case. I should qualify that by saying it is the multiplayer experience which I had been wanting during the whole time I had been suffering at the hands of BF2. A limited arsenal is available at first, with more weapons and 'optional extras' (like suppressors, flash hiders and bipods) unlockable through scoring in online play.

Here endeth the lesson. I'm about to run off for a Bird Day weekend, and want to get my frag on before I go.

Hello again

2008-11-26T08:28:00.003-06:00

Yes, time has passed. Yes, I have neglected you.
Did you deserve such a lull? Perhaps.

I've previously posted some writings here as well as the thoughts and reflections that ostensibly belong here. I've always been of the mind that this media should have a discrete purpose which I should avoid blurring by diverging into other subjects which you don't care about.

On the other hand, its already far too late for that now.

While I was talking to others in a virtual chatroom - yet another venue whose ostensibly discreet purpose blurs in every direction imagineable - the subject of elderly parents came up, and means by which to engage in quality time with them. I was shocked that someone suggested a Wii. Not the Wii that is normaly discussed in that forum either, the Nintendo Wii. It has been used - successfully I hear - in physical therapy for elderly patients. That notion merits some investigation. It does promise an interesting opening conversation, at the least.

On the other hand, it may go unnoticed altogether. At my family's Thanksgiving dinners it is typical for us to discuss the other Wii.

Did you hear the one about the nudist at the Republican National Convention?

2008-01-03T05:09:00.000-06:00

I've taken to saying that I was born a Stoic, but the World (or Society) made me a Cynic. Meaning Stoic in the classical sense, and Cynic in the modern sense.

Lately, I've realised that cannot be true. No-one is born anything. We're not preprogrammed with thoughts, goals, sexual orientation, or language. So what in my upbringing made me a Stoic?

I am able to relate the several instances at a very young age that caused my introversion. Suffice it to say that there were several occasions that caused me physical pain. The existence of those events make a clear case for that part of my persona. Where in the World did Stoicism come from?

I began reading at an early age, but I didn't really have anything much to read. Anything much that I can recall, anyway. Eventually, during grade school, I took to reading science fiction. Was it science fiction literature, with horrific problems being resolved in future Utopias? I watched far too much Television. Was it Television, where Justice is done in less than an hour, and there are no un-attractive people? Was it my grandfather's farm, where daily hard work didn't have a palpable reward, it was a necessary means to a far, far distant end.

In retrospect, I probably did not develop into a Stoic until sometime during college. Somewhere in my philosophy classes I heard about Stoicism and said "Hey! That's me!"

Perhaps I wasn't a Stoic until that very moment.

To Thine Own Self be Treed

2007-08-14T08:22:00.000-05:00

Having erred in one or more pages of my driver's logbook, I was waiting to take a "log class"; a one-on-one session to correct my errant ways. The waiting was more painful than the session. There wasn't a sense of anticipation or angst, so much as the sheer length of the wait. Making matters worse was the book that I had chosen to pass this time with.

Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" is a book about Darwin's theory of Natural Selection that I had been looking forward to reading. That estimation seems to have been erroneous. Perhaps I am giving short shrift to a book which has fine points that I was not seeing. My wait hardly put me in a patient or receptive mood such as might allow a fair evaluation. However, after reading a third of the book I gave up. Dawkins spent most of it patiently explaining (with several examples) that Natural Selection brings about changes in a species over a very long period of time through the cumulative accumulation of genetic variations in surviving members of the species and their descendents. Some genetic variations are lost to a species if all members of the species carrying that variation die or fail to breed. Thus the variations peculiar to the surviving members of the species will be present in all or most future generations of that species, unless one or more of those variations is superceded, reversed, or lost due to future variation. To wit: Natural Selection. It has been described as a lottery where only the winning numbers are showing (living members of the species).
Anyway....

A fellow truck driver struck up a conversation about my reading and asked where I stand on evolution. Where I stand? Probably over there by the Pepsi machine. I didn't know there would be a test, much less that I had to have a position on evolution complete with annotated justification for same. I tried to begin by telling this nice fellow that I could not accept Genesis as dogmatic. That it was too cluttered with what may be a borrowed mythology on the one hand and an extensive listing of the lineage of its principal characters that smacks of an oral history.

I did not get very far in my attempt. He began an awkward evangelistic dialogue. Well, thats too kind, it was more in the line of a solliloquy. He talked about agonizing over his belief. That he had read a book or five about it. [Note to self: how do you research faith?] That he had gone from believing in his head to beleiving in his heart (a process going from acknowlegement to enlightenment, I imagine). He spoke of the truth lying somewhere between fate and freewill, and other things. He did not cover any topics that were new to me.

In general I agreed or acknowledged most of what he said. I even assisted him by summarizing or reinforcing his points with evidence that he had not brought to bear. Then something extroardinary happened. I had begun to indicate to him that my experiences do indicate the existence of a Supreme Being, whom I am not so arrogant as to ascribe to Him a particular name or religion. I was contrasting this with Genesis' insistence that man is the image of God. He was trying to counter this idea by explaining that God was a Trinity (I'm still wondering why that is a rebuttal), when he summed up by saying that some scripture was intended as allegory [not his words].

"So, I shouldn't interpret it literally?" I asked. He said that was about right.

I guess I missed a nuace of his argument, because I thought that was the point I tried to make at the outset. Perhaps I need to work on my debating skills.

Missed and Envious

2007-07-18T21:01:00.000-05:00

(dont read that title, listen to it)

I've been busy, but scarcely busy enough to blame lack of blog entries on it. Here are a few of the lesser things that I can mention that I will/am/was doing/thinking/intending.

I've managed to finish Jared Diamond's "The Third Chimpanzee". He tries to summarize what, if anything, there is that is unique about Homo Sapiens by lcomparing and contrasting human genetics, behaviour and history with examples from the animal kingdom. It turns out that we arent as unique as we often think we are. Animals communicate with a large vocabulary, make art, intentionally behave in dangerous ways (e.g. smoking, drug use, etc.. in humans) and even commit genocide. It was written before "Guns Germs and Steel" and parts of "Third" were fleshed out and expanded upon to compile that book. Having read "Guns" first, the relevant sections of "Third" were tedious to me.

I have determined to begin learning some practices that probably get labeled as "heathen" by Christians. Partly this is to facilitate research for my book. Mostly, however, its because I have always been curious about Shamanism and mystical healing. I have no intention of consuming Ayahuasca or any other ethneogens as they would probably cause me to lose my job. There are drumming techniques that are used to induce visions, I may look into those. Other areas include Qi gong, chakra and kundalini etc.

I've not been drug-tested in the past 4-5 months, but thats beside the point. I dabbled with marajuana in college and came to the conclusion that I would stay away from it and other "mood enhancers" (save alcohol- that was a different decision) since in hindsight the state of being a giggling/laughing imbecile for 2 hours or so without any humorous stimuli that I can remember strikes me as the ultimate in masturbation. I could possibly salve my ego by saying "at least I was happy". I'd prefer that there be a palpable cause.

I've just finished reading a book entitled "The Art of Dreaming." While there were some guidelines for developing one's ability to master one's dreams, the book wove these into what I must classify as fiction. A fiction that left meunsatisfied. I could have accepted that in a better written book, but I was rather put out by the vague ending scenario. The author did have a talent for stringing the reader along, though the character of himself seemed to me to be unbelievably dense and inexplicably rigid in his lack of acceptance, even over the course of what he descries as years.

The "adapter" for the GPS reciever for my Microsoft Streets & Trips software broke Yesterday. After examination, I determined that it was a pathetically constructed device (much as I had heard since buying it). A replacement will cost $50. OR I could spend $150 and get the DeLorme street atlas software with their proprietary GPS solution and call it even. I hear their software is superior anyway. Replacing the broken unit that came with MS would only be a temporary fix. Barring any unlikely design changes, the new unit will simply break again due to really asinine structural design.

And I really hate MS anyway.

Eureka!

2007-07-02T17:47:00.000-05:00

I fixed my truck, after the mechanics couldn't!

Naturally, I need to begin from an earlier point in the timeline.

For some time mow I have had a bizarre electrical problem going on here. The truck runs fine and its external lights necessary for safety are good. Its the non-essential interior circuits that seemed to be messed up.

At arbitrary times, for no apparent reason, I would lose power to the cigarette lighter circuit, and all interior dome and map lights, as well as the utility lamp on the back of the cab that helps me to see when I'm hooking air lines to the trailer. Then after an equally arbitrary period of time, they would come back on. Also for no apparent reason. After a while I realised that there was a click from the fusebox when this happened, and until recently I had been of the opinion that the sound was from an automatic breaker that was re-setting.

What was odd, and of course maddening because of its oddity, was that these items that lose power should belong to at least two separate circuits. There is a fuse for the cig lighter outlets, and a fuse for the dome light, etc. Being separate circuits, they should have nothing in common save that they get power from the same batteries.

I had the truck in the shop twice with this complaint, and after the first time I thought that they had fixed it. Perhaps they did fix the problem, but the issue developed again. I noticed it again during a heavy rain. There were incidents of rain around the first occurrence, so I wondered if there was a short in a ground wire outside at the battery box. When I picked up the truck from the shop the second time, the interior lights were on, and I had cold Pepsi in the cooler. Within 10 minutes, the lights were out again.

So I got a styrofoam cooler out of the car, and put 6 pounds of ice in it to keep my sandwich meat from spoiling. I discovered a few hours later that there was a hole in the bottom of it as evidenced by the squish of my stocking feet on the rug. So now I have to rely on whatever arbitrary thing is doing it to work in my favor. Not likely.

Then I remembered that there is a system that shuts off power to non-essential accessories when battery voltage is low. It didn't occur to me earlier that this could account for the multiple and ostensibly separate circuits that I was having problems with. So if theres a short there, or it just isnt reading the voltage right, that would result in the current situation. [Hah! "current" situation! I kill me!] The remaining problem was; where is this relay? [I assumed a relay since it is on in one condition and off in others]

So. Finally I found it. Its a relay actuated by an electromagnet of apparently unusual designs for most relays. This stands to reason as it must be sensitive to the voltage of battery current and open or close the relay appropriately. And one of the 4-5 wires that feed this relay is loose. Hold relay this way, lights go out. Hold relay that way, light goes on.

So now I just need to have them re-wire that relay so the connections are secure. But I prolly have to explain to them which one and why it needs to be re-wired... Until then I need to leave a light on. That way I can know when to go and wiggle my relay.

I'm Society's Fuel

2007-06-17T09:20:00.000-05:00

When people think about petroleum consumption in general, I believe that a common image is that of freeways choked with automobiles. Previously, in my own visualisations, I added airline and military usage. Even that liberal estimation did not prepare me for the apalling truth.

There are millions of Big Rigs hurtling down the roads today. Powered by diesel fuel, they get an average of about 7 mpg. Thats being generous. This is the overwhelming real cost of modrn consumerism, but I digress.

As a "company driver", my employer provides my diesel fuel. Fuel is probably the most problematic expense in truck driving. Sure there is the cost of maintenance (parts and labor) and insurance, but these are not given to nearly as much volatility as fuel costs.

Trucking companies try to mitigate fuel costs in simple ways. They will specify what route a driver may take, and thereby ensure that the freight travels the shortest possible distance. Other methods are maintaining a fuel-efficient fleet and encouraging drivers to reduce speeds and Out Of Route miles.

As a driver, my cheif obligation is to deliver on time. It has not been overtly requested of drivers in my company, but if I have adequate time to deliver, I will travel at a reduced speed to conserve fuel. My Frightliner Columbia has a Detroit Diesel engine with a 9-speed manual transmission. I shift into ninth at about 46 mph, and the truck is governed at 65 mph. I have a small LED display on my dash. When I recieve Qualcomm messages, it displays the first 8 characters. The rest of the time it displays my fuel efficiency and gives a general indication of engine load. From this display I have determined that the torque peak in ninth gear occurs around 55 mph, and that fuel efficiency begins to fall off at about 59 mph. Based on that information, I have been maintaining 57 or 58 mph when on multi-lane highways. I estimate that I am using about 20% less fuel than most other company drivers that are "zipping" around at 65. And since the minimum speed is 45 or 55 depending on where you are, everybody's happy, right?

Perhaps not everyone.

A New Mexico trooper stopped me near Tucumcari for impeding traffic. My GPS was reading an average of 57 mph. He clocked me at 52 mph and urged me to go faster. I find the ramifications of that particularly interesting. Now I have to travel faster because the cell-phoning masses blather away at ludicrous speed? The posted limit on that interstate (I-40) was 75 mph.

There is probably some subtext here about conformity within a society, but if this is part of a trend, then I really dont like the way its going.

So. Anyone know what I need to do to be legally considered a renegade?

Aaaaaaargh!

2007-06-17T09:15:00.000-05:00

I wish my truck had power windows.
(such things exist, they run on compressed air)

That way, when oncoming traffic fails to dim their high beams, they can also illuminate the digit I present as a pithy rejoinder.

As it is, it takes far too long to crank down the window.

There Is No Spoon

2007-04-12T18:23:00.000-05:00

I've been a solo truck driver for three weeks now, and I have no regrets about taking this road.

A lowly occupation, perhaps? Not from my point of view. Truck drivers bear an enormous responsibility. Manoevering vehicles with a gross weight up to 80,000 lbs amidst a crowd of ever-more-zippy "four wheelers" - that don't appear to acknowledge ANY rules - can be quite frustrating. Should there be any mishaps of any sort, a court of law will always judge a truck driver more harshly than operators of passenger cars; because we are professional drivers.

Yes, we are in a big dang hurry, because we dont earn very much, and pay is usually a fraction of our loaded miles [more and more are also paid for empty miles]. Our haste, and our maddening slowness, is more than mitigated by the fact that more often than not, we are looking out for you on the road. There are some caveats that go along with that, of course. Don't expect any quarter if you have a poor grasp of right-of-way, don't grasp the concept of merging with traffic, etc. etc. Its our job to see as much as possible of what's going on around us, and diffuse or evade bad situations as they occur.

I saw The Matrix for the first time about two weeks ago, and bought the DVD about 10 days later. Today my ponderings wandered to the concept of bending spoons in the Matrix. The key is that there is no spoon, you effect change in the "physical" world by bending yourself. In a way, that's what I have done. I cast off the need to be a young professional chemist (or whatever) and bent myself in a new way. The world is different now, to me, at least. My paycheck for week two was just under $500 net. It wont always be that much, but thats not bad at all for a rookie. My bottom line is: Dude! I drive around and they actually pay me for it.

But bear in mind, I'm not one to shy from responsibility. This job ain't for everyone.

My Letter to Congress (work in progress)

2007-01-25T19:40:00.000-06:00

Honorable Senators and Representatives,

Some time ago I resigned myself to accept a dim immediate future. For some six years now, I have been impressed by how my worst expectations have been exceeded. Time and again, a cadre of "noble patriots" succeeded in bending Congress to accept their machinations. They succeeded in thwarting your oversight by hook, by crook, and by righteous indignation. Your membership was repeatedly bullied, misinformed, or left entirely in the dark. Their misdeeds, when brought to light, were defended with bluster, or laid at the feet of minor characters who, coincidentally, had already departed to take a position elsewhere.

Now comes a season of change. You architects of law, you defenders of America from the iron grip of the Executive Branch, do now enter now upon a vast opportunity of compromise. How else can a body, comprised of ideologically opposed factions, legislate on behalf of a people that are equally disjoint? I implore you, all of you, to conspire together to correct a grievous wrong that has been wrought upon our civil service time and again by multiple administrations.

America's recent disasters had no single cause, but there is one privilege of the Executive Office that has consistently been a contributing factor to all of them.

When it was perceived that a change was needed in CIA leadership, it was the President's prerogative to select someone else. While his choice of steward was a veteran CIA agent, that agent's congressional aides were not. Those underlings, inexplicably raised to positions of authority in CIA, precipitated a greivous loss of talent from the Agency.

Prior to the inundation of the city of New Orleans, a FEMA agent called to alert the FEMA director with news of how critical the situation was. That politically-installed Director's secretary was quick to act; top priority was to get reservations at the best restaurant in town. I should be keen to know how kind FEMA was to that establishment after the shambles.

When NASA scientists brought exciting recent discoveries to light, their exaultations were squelched by the embedded political officer. His job was to "make the President look good". [Kindly forgive my conceit here. I have just remembered that these events have not yet led to a calamity.]

Gentlemen and Great Ladies of Government, I implore you to effect a change. If the president must hand-pick these agency heads, let him do so only from experienced (and current!) personnel within those agencies. Americans deserve to be served by experienced artisans in these positions, not political horse traders. The election of a new president is a serious and momentous occasion and must not be treated as the arrival of Santa Clause; distributing shiny positions of responsibility to all the good little fund raisers. If this change can be made by a new law, then I urge you to pass it. If it requires a Constitutional Amendment, then I beseech you to frame it. Give the stewardship of America's bureaucracy back to those who learned their trade through hard work, rather than usurping the position through cronyism.

In closing, good citizens, I wish you peace, for you and for all America. May she find it soon.

Follow the Yellow Striped Road!

2006-11-08T16:48:00.000-06:00

Wow.
Driving a truck is no small affair.

Four weeks of truck driving school in Chicago to get my CDL. Then two weeks in Green Bay, Wisconsin at Schneider National's Training Academy. Now I'm back in IL, and not far from Chicago, so I can get home more often than some people do at this training stage.

What I'm doing now is "studying" under a "Training Engineer". I do the driving (in his truck), and he critiques my form, while (hopefully) giving pointers on what to do that would be better. Apparently there aren't quite enough Training Engineers (or T.E.'s) to go around. There were more than 60 people in my class in Green Bay, so thats a lot of new people needing TE tutelage. Add to that a similar number every week for other Training Academy classes.

While I do now have a TE, its something less than I imagined. There is one other student that has been with him for a week or so. "Shared" tutelage isn't a terrible thing, but its not going to get me out on the road making mileage-based pay any sooner. As I said, it's his truck, he has a regular schedule of pick-ups and deliveries of his own, and I'm along for the training. The other (possibly crucuial) difference is that he is dedicated to carrying freight for a particular retailer, and I am slated for OTR driving (Over The Road, otherwise known as "long-haul" driving). He does from one to three deliveries to branch locations on weekdays, gets to go home every night, and even has at least part of the weekends off, whereas I'll be sleeping in my truck most of the time. [In a future version of me, where they have given me my own truck]

This is going to be it for now. That's the pithy information. Hopefully I'll score a suitable laptop for getting Wi-Fi from the truck. But that's looking like it may be at least a month away from now.

Speaking of which, November is (as per usual) National Novel Writing Month. Last year I failed to finish, reaching only about 6000 words instead of the 50000 minimum. That failure was precipitated by two factors. One; my 60-hour per week job was monopolizing my time. Two; the story needed (and still needs) much more cultural research. This year, again I have work issues, but it is work-training, which may not make any difference at all. However, the story does not require research of any kind as has a vague setting. Since there is a Dryad that comes into play, I suppose I have to call it a fantasy. It's a story that occurred to memore than a year ago. I intended not to write it at all because the key event in the opening chapter is ... not pretty. I imagine that I am telling myself that I can write around that until such a time as I am comfortable with it. That could be never, but I don't have any other "hot" stories that are ready to be committed to hardcopy at this time.

I stole this title.

2006-10-20T06:24:00.000-05:00

Today I am off to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to begin job training for the trucking company Schneider National. Thereafter my life will consist of irregular routine on a regular schedule: 2 weeks on the road followed by (approximately) two days at home. For those who actually read this blog, that is actually a good thing. I expect there shall be somewhat of a hiatus until such a time as I can aquire a suitable laptop with WiFi, and I shall (perhaps) be blogging away merrily again.

I could ramble on about how pleased that I am with the current embattled state of the current Administration, and their "Conservative" stalwarts, but for the moment, its enough for my purposes simply to mention it.

November raises its frigid head. That means that once again it is time for National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is simple: write a novel of 50,000 words or more within the calendar month of November. Meet similarly aspiring authors both in your area, and via chat room, from around the world. Proceeds from both donations and merchandising will purchase books for schools in Viet Nam and similar areas in Southeast Asia.

My attempted novel last year suffered from the usual over-reaching and overly grandiose vision that I seem to apply to most of my projects. I did turn out some 8000 words or so despite working 60 hours a week. "The Order of the Shining Moon," however, will not see significant progress until a good amount of research has been completed in the areas of shamanism, shape-shifting, and Christian mysticism, to name only a few. This year, I'm thinking of a much simpler subject, but like last year, it is doubtful that I will have the time to get out a full 50,000 words. I do have some voice recognition software on this computer, but I abandoned that project when I realised that I had to take the time to orally record a "lexicon" of words needed to enable such transcription. Perhaps I can do that when I return from orientation, since I now see how useful this could be, and copy those files to the future laptop. A laptop computer which now seems to require an external microphone.....

Before I go; Anna Karenina. I was tasked with reading this book in... grade school, I think, but I didnt manage more than some 300 out of 868 pages. What I did manage to read then, I didn't much understand. So, when I was away over my July vacation, having finished a book on the life of Voltaire, I picked up Anna Karenina. It was not out of a desire to say that I had completed what I had started so very long ago. Rather than that, it was a conscious attempt to broaden my knowledge base as an aspiring author. I was looking for the means to write from a female perspective, as impossible as that may be for a man. In that regard, I may have chosen the wrong book, as its not especially clear that Tolstoy himself had any such clarity.

What I do find in Tolstoy, is the depth that he gives to even his minor characters, in their motivations, internal dialogue, and experiences. [I expect this is generally why his books are notoriously long: between the book covers he is packing a segment of history and society as experienced by several characters.] This depth stacks up favorably against a number of "popular" authors who may or may not have 'style', but seem to gloss over matters of internal dialogue or even ignore it in order to move the plot along.

Anna is the indifferent victim of an arranged marriage to a successful civil servant. At least, she is indifferent until her social intercourses bring her in contact with Count Vronsky. Vronsky is obsessed with her, and wins her over to the consternation of her husband. Karenin is not a man of action; at times the intrigues within his comittees sometimes exceed his mental capacity. Anna's infidelity seems to him largely an inconvenience, personally, and to his standing in society. She leaves him to live with Vronsky, which proves to be a better situation for both parties. She is free do do as she pleases and is not present to embarrass Karenin. Karenin, whether intentionally or not, ultimately succeeds in making her life miserable. He refuses to give her a divorce, which complicates her happiness with Vronsky. Anna still belongs to Karenin, and any children that she may have will bear his name.

As Anna's situation blossoms and then degenerates, Constantine Levin flourishes. They are aquainted, but rarely meet during the novel; their circumstances apparently not affecting each other. Constantine is a good and thoughtful man who is married and has his first child in the course of the novel. Levin is both a lens for the setting of the novel and a 'normal' person to contrast Anna's experiences. Levin is accepted in high society through his bloodline and his marriage, though he is most at ease on his farm. He tries to understand the world around him and his very existence, though in arguments he has difficulty expressing himself.

I have no option but to come away liking Tolstoy. His characters feel real. They have flaws, talk pompously, and sometimes fail to understand each other. There is a good scene in a train where two men (strangers to each other) speak very highly to each other of a group of four volunteers (who are esteemed in society). But what one man fails to ask about, the other knows and intentionally fails to mention; these men are socially derelict. Volunteering is possibly the only honorable course of action possible for them. These two fail to breach this topic (each for his own reasons) for fear of speaking contrary to what seems to be a publicly held truism: these volunteers must be applauded as (departing) heroes.

My head is cold.

2006-10-12T19:33:00.000-05:00

I did it.

I passed the basic skills test, and then passed the road driving test. I may have cheated a tiny bit during that backing up part, but I'll become much more proficient with practice. The road test was all me. My shifting was a bit rough in places [I slowed to 15mph, clutched out of 7th gear, gunned the engine, and shifted smoothly into 5th - without depressing the clutch pedal! D'OH! I don't know if the examiner saw that - it would have counted against me] and even jerky at times. All my cornering was good, and I was looking in my mirrors frequently (both very good). Best of all, I did not hit anything.

It definitely helped that the examiner was in a good mood. [Propriety prevents me from stating why.] All four of us passed the basic skills test (one retested the same day and passed). One of us passed his pre-trip test. I was the only one that passed the road test on the first attempt. I fear that at least one person may have failed on his second attempt. At that time I took the necessary paperwork, said my goodbyes, and headed for the barber shop.

My barber had gone to lunch. To pass the time I did two things to celebrate: bought melatonin tablets (I ran out this week), and Navy blue twin-size flannel sheets. After standing in snow flurries for at least two hours that morning, and being proud of myself, flanell sheets for a future truck berth seemed an appropriate means of celebration.

After a mane removal, I spent an inordinate amount of time locating the CDL facility in South Holland, IL. Once there, I tested for Doubles and Triples (# of trailers), Tankers, and HazMat endorsements. Passed them all. I had been rightly concerned about the Hazmat one. Now I am CDL-ified with all of the endorsements (and for that matter endorphins while the warm glow lasts) that I desired. I now seem to be capable of becoming a truck driver.

How I did not do it

2006-10-06T10:49:00.000-05:00

The Truck Driving school has an arrangement with the Illinois Department of Transportation which dictates that a State Examiner will come out and test students on and around the school grounds. This is nice because that means students are tested in the same setting and on the same course on which they practiced. However, if a student fails to pass, as I did, two things can happen. He could be retested that same day if time permits. [Time did not permit. The oral examination on the "pre-trip" takes a while and there were six students that day.] Otherwise, that student has to wait until the state processes and files the relevant paperwork and arranges another date for an examiner to go to the school. In my case, that took nearly four weeks.

I passed the pre-trip part handily, with no points against me. I won't have to be tested for that again (at least not this side of getting the CDL). Following the Pre-Trip part, is the basic skills test, and then driving out on the road about 8 miles near the school. I wasn't concerned about the road driving; I've got my double-clutching down pat. I am paranoid about allowing the truck to roll backwards when stopped at a stop sign or similar. If the truck rolls, I fail that part.

What tripped me up was the basic skills test. There are four basic parts to it. You need to pull forward to within 18" of a point on the ground. In my case the nose of the truck reaches that point roughly 7 seconds after I lose sight of it in front of the truck, when idling forward in low gear. Thats right: I have to stop within 18" of a point that I cannot even see when I am 18" away from it. The main trick to that is timing your stop from the moment it disappears from view.

Then I back up a distance of about 40 yards - while not drifting into any cones that mark the lane that I just drove forward in. That's harder than it looks, but the technique for steering a combination vehicle slightly when in reverse isn't difficult to learn. You must have your hazard lights on when in reverse. Also referred to as "four-ways", for the lamp at each corner of the combination vehicle. Next you move forward and turn right. During this turn, the wheels of your trailer must be near a specific cone (without touching it). Contacting any cone, or breaking the plane between any cones is an instant failure.

Now comes the tough part. After that turn you head back towards the entrance to this lane of cones, go past it, and bear left, stopping with the truck at least at a 45' angle to the "lane". Put it in reverse, and turn your "four-ways" on, you're backing the 45' trailer into the slot that is the "lane". And you won't be done until you stop within 18" of a spot that marks the back of the slot. The good news is that you can see this point... most of the time, the bad news is that you will never be closer to it than about 62' because you are in the part of the truck that is farthest away from it at all times. Not to mention that steering the trailer is doubly difficult because of the pivot point at the fifth wheel.

The first time I tested, I managed to get it into the slot, and within the 18" target. But it was "winning ugly". I basically forced the trailer in there at the last moment, leaving the tractor at a sharp angle to the trailer (not desireable) when I stopped. And the trailer wasn't straight in the slot either, factually breaking the plane (in real life this would be another trailer) of the cones with the driver's side rear corner of my trailer.

So, that was it for me for that day. I had to wait for the paperwork to be filed with the state of Illinois. Then I had to wait for the State to shedule a date for the examiner to come out to the school again for re-testing. That took nearly four weeks.

Truckin'! Got my chips cashed in!

2006-09-28T18:15:00.001-05:00

It would be decidedly pretentious of me to lay claim to being busy these past few months.

I took a ten-day vacation from my job and returned to it on approximately July 8 or 9 (I dont recall which). By that time, my idyll had nurtured any notions of discontentment that I previously entertained (and there were a great many) to the point that I had already determined to move on to something else.

My nine hour drive from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Chicago consisted of me wondering what other sort of work I should I should be getting into. [Normally an eight hour drive, I was taking a longer, "scenic" route to avoid a few toll booths and other hubbub] I have a degree in chemistry, but the last jobs that I had that "required" it could also easily have been performed by a cadre of trained monkeys. In point of fact, a cadre of trained monkeys would have been much more efficient in both positions due to the volume of activity that was expected from me. My last position maily consisted of me running around for 12 hours and pausing only long enough to test something before I was off again. Said monkeys probably would not enjoy it any more than I did, but would have the benefit of working at a much more relaxed pace.

To be sure, I wasn't looking for someting much more lucrative, so much as I was looking for something that I might enjoy doing without putting me at risk for heart failure or other exertion or stress-related disorders. That can be a tall order since many businesses are trying to do more work with fewer people.

Somehow I ended up thinking that I should be a truck driver. For a number of reasons, that makes sense. I'm patient. I am a careful driver. I am mechanically inclined. I prefer to go for days without shaving. And I'm predisposed to sitting around on my ass for several days at a time. I'm kidding. Sorta.

Certain issues at the workplace at the time made me especially anxious to make this change as soon as I could arrange it. From a starting point of knowing very little, I poked around on the internet to try to find out what I ought to be doing. I was shocked to discover that truck driver training could cost more than $5000, depending on where you go and what is involved. [The $5000 was for a 5-week course learning/practicing with multiple truck types] Also available (takes a bit more looking) from some places is a sort of on the job truck driver training.

After poking around a bit I found an address for a truck driving school was was suprisingly close to me. I called them on the phone and then went round to see them in their office and pick up a pamhlet with a course description. They charged $3000 for the course, and the next class, starting the following Monday, was already full and would last four weeks. The previous class was taking an exam, so I lounged around for a bit and talked to the owner about his street racing days. [Apparently he used to have a '51 Olds that was set up with dual thermoquads. He would disconnect the linkage to the front carburetor when he was not racing.]

To my impulsive mind, that was all the information that I needed. That night I gave four weeks' notice at work. I gave notice in an e-mail that I didnt sent til about 3am (cause I was busy) but by the time I returned to work on Saturday night, it had been replied to with a "hope-we-can-work-this-out" tone. I was astounded that it had been replied to at all, especially on a weekend. I gave notice at that time (July 22nd I believe) also because I didnt want to be a brand new truck driver in the middle of winter. There's a scary thought for ya!

I gave four week's notice for a few reasons. It would be four weeks until August 21, when the next class started. They had no prospective students for that class at the time, and I had not given them a committment yet. Four weeks, however, should be adequate time to see if I could find something better, and leave me this school to fall back on if I did not. The main reason that I gave four weeks was because the place I was working for isn't capable of doing anything significant in a mere two weeks time. The only reason that our work schedule was up to date was because people kept going on vacation that month. In the four weeks that followed, they did find one person to replace me (although they were ALREADY short by one person) and started to train him on the Thursday just before I left. That person quit the very same day. Four weeks wasted, just like I expected they would be.

During that four weeks I applied to do an on-the-job training deal with PAM transport. PAM, a few of its subsidiaries, and another company called USA Truck apparently contract this company to do driver training (the related screening) and then hire (to the tune of a one year agreement) the successful candidates. Their brocures read like a fast track to the trucking industry, with information on the four companies that you could be working for. I was all set to go down toFort Wayne, IN to start truck driver training with them on August 21 (ayep, same date!) when a closer reading of their materials revealed a sub-plot that I didn't like.

(Quotes are taken directly from their booklet:)
You can pay $2495 up front to pay for the tuition, in which case you will get $1750 back after one year of employment. (Nominal tuition cost is $5000 which will be deducted from your pay at $45/week during your employment) While you are recieving driver training, you will be staying (typically) at a local hotel for three weeks. "The cost to you is $295. [We] "may, at our option, agree to finance your housing at a cost of $400." There is a further offer of $200 spending money during the training time. Far at the bottom of the page is the caveat: "Any loans made to you by [us] are simple interest at 18% per annum."

Immediately after hire, you spend 4-8 weeks driving with a trainer in the cab with you. You earn $300/week at this time (minus the $45 for tuition, I expect). Then you start out at 29 cents per mile and can be as much as 32 cents per mile after one year. Increases are more gradual after that.

Basically, I read the financing conditions for training costs and decided that I didnt like what I saw. I fully intended to pay cash up front and be done with it. IF, however, conditions with my employer for the next year were to be anything like the less-than-generous financing offer, I didn't want anything to do with it. So after they had screened me and everything, I finally acted on my suspicions and told them no. I hung up the phone, went down the street to Bestway Truck Training and wrote them a check for $3000.

Upside: I sleep in my own bed and have training less than a mile away.
Downside: I'd be driving a truck right this very moment if I'd gone to Fort Worth.

More on that next time.

No Getting Married in the Front of the Bus

2006-07-13T18:04:00.000-05:00

Hi.

Did you miss me?
Well, don't worry. My aim is a bit off too.
Just make sure you get me next time.

Regular readers will have divined that I support "gay marriage". If you don't mind, I thought I'd expound on that for just a little while. Why it is constitutional, and why it is not going to be admitted as being constitutional until approximately 2008 or later.

My prima facie argument for marriage withought restrictions or bigotry is based on the Declaration of Independance's inherent promise of "life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Yes, I read that rather broadly, but I would do that, wouldn't I? I like the idea of a 'Pursuit of Happiness' as a lofty goal that can be attained by just sitting here and writing a blog that illuminates or irritates.

I recently remembered a certain senator who was opposed to Unrestricted Marriage speaking out against his being labelled a "bigot" for his views. Apparently, he and his comrades in arms fighting the Good Fight against people who are engaged to be married, beleive that they did not deserve to be slandered in those terms.

"Bigot" conjures up images of a past turmoil with its own injustices that took far too long to redress. Some observers might point out that in our current iteration of social unrest, the same sorts of people appear to be the agressors in curtailing the "Pursuit of Happiness". I don't care to point, but thats usually because I am picking my nose at the time. I consider that time well spent by minding my own business, thank you very much.

I'll leave it for someone else to compare and contrast the problem of Unrestricted Marriage with the Civil Rights Movement. I really do not have the time to be as exhaustingly thorough as that project deserves. Furthermore, I dont recall enough of the milestones in Civil Rights to get started on it - being the lazy American that I am.

What I do find to be enormously disturbing about this Marriage issue is that, following the Civil Rights movement, why is there any crisis at all? Shouldn't the core issues about people being free to go about their lives without being discriminated against or hasselled by a Draconian "Man" have been solved already? Why wasn't there a Constitutional Amendment saying that "Thou shalt pursue thy freedom such as it doth not violate existing laws or infringe on the rights of others."?

The answer, as I divine it, is probably the main flaw in our legal system. As my buddy Jim reminds me, the Constitution was written to be a living document, that can be changed and adapted to the needs of our country. As a part of this evolution, the Supreme Court is empowered to strike down laws enacted by Congress that are deemed to be Unconstitutional. Because of these Supreme Court decisions, most "evolution" or "interpretation" of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is manifest in Supreme Court Decisions about what protections are, or are not provided for under the Constitution. Thus, the problem of school segregation (Jim Crow laws) and other social problems were "resolved" (a word I use only while rolling my eyes) through Supreme Court Decisions and not through adding amendments to the Bill of Rights.

So, lets start at the top, shall we? Why is unrestricted marriage legal? Because of Amendment #1 (and my personal favorite):
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

To hedge that bet, I'll stack on top of that Amendment #14:
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Regardless of how anyone chooses to restrict marriage, it is simply unconstitutional to do it. Amendment #1 precludes prevention of discriminating against religions that permit it, and Amendment #14 gaurantees equal protection against "abridged priviledges" and due process of law, which I take to mean that the state must recognize a religious or civil union as marriage under the law.

BUT, sadly we have to wait for the Supreme Court to strike down all these naysayers first. What that requires, is three things. First, a relevant case has to wind its way up to the Supreme Court. Secondly, the High Court has to be willing to try the case, and they don't always. Third, they have to adjudicate the case without simply sending it back to a lower court, in which case no judgement may be made on whether the pertinent laws are constitutional or not.

Fortunately, in the mean-time a constitutional amendment that proscribes certain unions could never get off the ground since that would be unconstitutional to start with. By 2009 or so I expect people will be proudly going to the altar. In a church with protesters outside, because that sort of thing wasn't allowed until after the Supreme Court struck down all the laws against it. Isn't democracy wonderful?

Visions Revisited

2006-06-05T01:52:00.000-05:00

1:48am; need a 3 hour nap before work.

What do I believe?
Sometimes I dont know the answer, but thats because I don't have the information to define it ... yet.

I had been about to post here that, for various reasons, I was renouncing my Christianity. As reasons I intended to cite tenets of faith that were simply at odds with the physical world and portions of Holy text that appear to be at odds with everything. Chief among these would be the book of Genesis which appears to consist largely of mythology, much of it not even of Hebrew origin. I'm not just talking about Creation or the Tower of Babel. I mean that I have serious problems when the basic identity of the main characters appears to have been subjected to revision. Another significant, but related, issue that I have is when the Book of Revelation trots out the ida of a New Heaven and a New Earth. That idea is basically a repackaging of a much older "pagan" religious idea of continuous cyclical destruction and regeneration of the world. I cannot very well be a Christian knowing that if this can even happen, the time scal would be in millions of years between the bounteous part of the cycles. The universe tends to not support physical regeneration.

Before I went ahead and posted that, self restraint urged me to do some research. My main inquiry went something along these lines:

1) Modern Christianity is based upon the New Covenant with God, established through the travails of a historical figure named (variously) Iesu. [How anyone can get 'Jesus' from a Hebrew name is beyond me - I'm fairly certain that it begins with a "Yah" sound, but thats an entire other discussion]

2) That being the case, I should restrain my criticisms to the body of work entitled the New Testament. That effectively reduces the mythological and mystical content by about 75-80%.

3) For the purpose of simplicity, I'll forgo critiquing the Gospels. There is surely plenty of meat there, but the preserving of oral traditions always results in problems like the bias of the authors. I'll call them the rough edges of perspective then, and move on.

The bulk of the NT is actually well edited for content. The epistles of Paul and a few others formulate a nice handbook for Christian living. There persists some debate on semantics, and who the real author of some letters were, but in general, I'll forgo those issues as well.

Thus my main questions boil down to these:
We go through the entire Bible, when all of a sudden, in the last book, we get all kinds of new bad guys on the scene. Where were these guys before?
I'm referring to the Anti-Christ, the False Prophet, the Beast, and a host of imagery and Evil Forces. Also, as I mentioned, we get amazing detail about what the last days of the world will be like. Where did all this stuff come from???

So, my first inquiries were as to when the Book of Revelation was added to the canon of the New Testament. Had it been added later (for whatever reason) that might add reasons for my distrust. The early Church, however, was very careful about selecting which texts to preserve in the face of severe persecution. The earliest documents on the subject clearly include the Book of Revelation as already part of canon (if I use that word correctly) attributing it to being written at about the same time as the gospels (roughly 80 C.E. or so - all the survivors who contributed to first hand accounts of Iesu were dying). So it was definitely not a later addition.

I was rather at a loss for how else to approach the problem after I had determined that Revelation was canon. Then I read an article in Christian Archaeology (I think I'm murdering that periodical title) about "the Throne of Satan". That greatly illuminated, and clarified the issue for me.

The "Throne of Satan" was the Great Altar at Pergamon, which was initially dedicated to Zeuse and Athena, and in time became consecrated to Roman Emperors, including Diocletian.
The message to the Christian Church there emphasized the great peril that they were in, since Diocletian, among other things, tried to preserve the pagan religions and persecuted Cristianity with renewed zeal. That was the answer that I was looking for.

The portents and imagery of the Book of Revelation can be read in several ways. Some choose to interpret them as pertaining to the End Times; the last days of civilization on Earth. They can also be interpreted as short-term prophecy, where the Great Beast is Rome, the Anti-Christ is Diocletian, and the False Prophet probably Nero. It is in this short-term sense that the Book of Revelation makes more sense to me. In this context, the messages to the churches have greater urgency. In this context, the promise of a position of honor in Heaven - not just of a vague treasure - must have been particularly heartening to those who lived in danger of imminent martyrdom. For the Christians living in the shadow of Rome, Revelation portrayed not a dark vision of the End Times, but a vital promise of ultimate victory when the Church faced its darkest days.

Sitting here, in a swivel chair within my messy apartment, I think I can forgive all three John the Revelators if they decide to dust off physical reincarnation of the world (and the body) in their message of hope.

Because it appears to me that the message was recieved.

Certifiable Mail

2006-06-03T07:31:00.000-05:00

(based on an idea that came to me at 7:15am)

I never liked shopping malls - until I realised how very useful they can be. The people milling about were a melange fairly representative of the local population. In one brief session, a curious outsider can discover much about the area he is in. Racial diversity, economic vitality, popular fashion, unpopular fashion, median age, even the populace's general mood might be percieved by someone receptive enough. Should curious extra-terrestrials happen to visit a shopping mall as the first stop in their visit, they might learn many of these things. And if they also heard the popular music that was piped into these places, they would know for certain that humankind was tone-deaf.

"Pardon me, are you Mr. Ludwig?"

Alas, the figures moving in the background never left him alone long enough to complete his thoughts... but perhaps the world was a better place because of that. In keeping with his previous train of thought, Ludwig faced the interloper and attempted to divine its nature.

Dress: businesslike. Not garish like a salesman, nor costly like an financial executive. Shoes clean but not highly polished; thus not an ex-soldier. [Ludwig wondered where that thought had come from - was it dogma that soldiers are doomed to polish their shoes fanatically for the remainder of their corporeal existence?]

Ludwig greeted the newcomer and assured him that he had found the right Ludwig.

"Good morning. You are right on time. Excellent!"

The newcomer's sudden look of bewilderment pleased Ludwig. He did expect to see this man today but there was no appointment set. Not only was it amusing to see how easily different people could be disturbed by relatively trivial concepts like timeliness and deadlines, but it was also instructive to see how well the subject recovered from unforseen stresses.

The man remembered his purpose relatively quickly.
"Er... I have a message for you, sir."

"Which you cannot give to me here." Ludwig stated as if completing the man's sentence. He was completing the man's sentence. Inwardly he sighed about people not paying attention or following directions that were so painstakingly drafted.

"Yes!" The man brightened visibly.

"I trust you drove here?"

"Yes..."

"Good. Lets go out to your car: I have something to give you."

"What? But I thought that this was just the one message?"

"Shall we? I'll explain as we go."

The man turned and began to walk to an exit. Ludwig moved to stay near his side.

"You are correct." Ludwig began. "With the delivery of this message, your obligation is fulfilled.

"I should stress how unusual this situation is. Having never met me, you must have felt some considerable anxiety about being able to deliver the message successfully. Quite understandable. Similarly, I might question whether the message is genuine, since I have never met you and cannot therefore determine how reliable you may be.

"Unusual as it is, we felt that this arrangement was neccessary to achieve our goals. You, Mr. Smith, were neccessary to achieve our goals. Is it much farther?"

Ludwig had stopped abruptly, and was looking around at the parking lot.

Mr. Smith, a bit startled, had gone a further two steps before he realised Ludwig had stopped. "Its just over there" he said, pointing. "I like to walk. Need the exercise. Easier to find parking that far out."

Satisfied, Ludwig continued walking and talking.

"To be sure, if our goal were less important, almost anyone could be used as a messenger. Perhaps even a different John Smith would be sufficient. Are you aware of how many John Smiths there are?"

"Twenty seven, last time I looked."

"Quite. It must be bothersome for the various Mrs. Smiths to not be able to page their husbands lest they inadvertently draw a sizeable crowd. Certainly you can imagine my dismay when I was informed that we were looking for a man by the name of John Smith."

"Yes. It can be a nuisance. This is it. Do I give you the message now?"

"That won't be neccessary. It's just a blank page."

Ludwig plunged a knife into John Smith's chest.

"I told you. We needed to be certain we had the right man. It's a waste of time studying pictures and biographies when you can get the poor bastards to come to you."

Ludwig turned and left, since there were now only twenty six of that name.

Correction

2006-03-19T19:56:00.000-06:00

Upon reading my last blog entry, my friend Jim became alarmed and inquired whether I had been burned.

Sigh.
Adagio is a work of fiction and should not be mistaken for a chronicle of actual events or a veiled allusion to same.
With that said, it is also true that there is some of me in the story. This simply cannot be avoided. Often I 'paint' myself into the 'picture' as a way of solving problems of plot or dialogue. I know what I would wish to say or do in some situations, so it is easier to implant myself rather that speculate what some other character might do. This does occasionally lead to complications, however. It occurred to me whilst I was delineating the story that I should not want to be resussitated from complications which were caused by/included burns to more than 60% or so of my body. [depending on what areas, but you get the idea] The concept of bad burns was more a plot device to keep the subject's arms raised despite their natural tendencies than any reflection upon my well being.

In that vein, in order to prevent any future misapprehensions I shall delineate several things that I have/am/will be writing about that have also not happened.

I have not been killed.
(is that a shock or what?)
I have not killed anyone [today].
I have no uncurable diseases, though I may be susceptible to colon cancer.
I have not been shot, stabbed, peirced (violently), skewered, impaled, transfixed, bludgeoned, beaten, or properly taunted.
I have not engaged in sodomy, either as a 'pitcher' or a 'catcher'.
I have not engaged in bestiality. Anything that the aardvark claims is a lie.
I have not channeled any souls or spirits, nor knowingly come in contact with anything supernatural, except for one occasion where I sat partly in the 'cold spot' where someone died.
I am not aware of being the re-incarnation of any persons, spirits, or other personas of beatific or malevolent demeanor. Despite what my parents say.
I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party. I'm on the Communist Party Planning Committee. These parties dont happen by themselves.

I fully intend to add more B.S. as it comes to me.

I thought that Adagio turned out extremely well, considering that it was pretty much a direct download from my brain. I'm not sure that its an accident, but the only real details are in what the main character feels or attempts. That goes a long way to making it feel somewhat surreal. No irrelevant objects are described, or no notice is given to them. I should have added a few lines in the middle, something like:

Holding her again was exhilarating, almost overwhelming. Being all that she can see and feel at this moment. Right now. This is the moment he wants to preserve. This moment and no others.

That would have gone a lot further to making the alternate title make sense:
"A Time of His Life"

On the other hand, I realised that my feet had forgotten how to waltz, and that I do not have a proper copy of die blau donau. Bummer.

Adagio

2006-03-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

Desperate to endure its enormity, he pushed the mountain back and braced himself to hold it there. Satisfied that he could hold it there, for now, he smiled.

"You'll be just fine."

It was such a lie.

He sat on the edge of her hospital bed for a while longer and talked.

1.) You must rest now.
2.) I gave the nurse my pager number.
3.) Just ask the nurses if you need anything at all.
4.) I'd like to fool around, but I don't think the doctor would approve.
5.) Look, see? They made these gowns just for frisky people like us!
6.) I love you very much and I cannot wait to have you all to myself.
7.) Yes, I took care of that. Leave everything to me.
8.) ...

Those were things he wanted to say.

He couldn't be sure whether or not he actually said them because he had to keep one eye on the mountain, just in case.......
He kissed her very gently, and bidding her goodnight, he slipped out of the room.

The mountain was shifting.

He walked down the hall towards the elevators. Casually at first, because he was still within earshot. Clean tiled surfaces do absolutely nothing to dampen sounds. After about ten paces, he began to walk with long, swift strides.

He had to hurry, because the mountain was moving again, and he wasn't going to be able to hold it back this time.

Reaching the elevator, he jammed at the button with his thumb. COME ON! He heard the hum of the elevator car, but it was scarcely fast enough for his liking. He hadn't really exerted himself, but he felt breathless. A frantic eternity passed in the space of about seventeen seconds. The elevator door opened lazily after emitting the obligatory "ping". He nearly ran into the orderly that was stepping out. Safely inside, he might have looked tired as he reached for his handkerchief. The elevator door closed.

Exhausted, he gladly allowed the mountain to crush him.

He cried, wept, sobbed, wailed, shrieked, wailed, and bawled. Not necessarily in that order, and sometimes all at once. Fleetingly brief periods of self control were used to wipe his face with the handkerchief. Still weeping, the elevator discharged him into the lobby. He didn't bother trying to compose himself, the attempt would have been futile. He wandered out into the parking lot, found his car (perhaps by smell: he certainly didn't appear to be actively looking for it) opened the door and collapsed inside. A good deal more crying followed.

It cannot properly be said that he ceased crying, and he was not weeping uncontrollably, he just chose not to control it. His mind eventually wandered out of the gloom. There, that's more like it! Think man!

She was going to die, but that was as it should be. The fire that burns brightest consumes its fuel fastest and dies out sooner. It was the fire of passion that burned so painfully now; the grand lives they had shared in such a very short space of time. The passion was still fresh, but now suddenly rent horribly asunder. It was too much to bear. It was...

Was???

No.

Is.
Is. Is. Is. Is. Is. Is. Is. Is.
I am not dead. She is not dead, and I will not give her up to death. The passion is still very much alive. We are only being.... sidetracked. Her malady is unfortunate, yes; but we should continue to live well while we are alive. Precious moments are wasting. These moments shall never return to us... I need some way to... ... ... Yes!

Then he did stop crying. He reached for the small notebook that he kept in the cutout for the parking brake handle. He had such a poor memory that it was necessary to write down ideas lest they be lost forever. He uncapped the pen ..... but hesitated at first. His eyes shifted and his mind roamed...... Finally he wrote sporadically, and then furiously. He needed a telephone! He needed a telephone directory! He needed.... well, he needed a bath too.

___________________________________________________________

He strode into her hospital room wearing a dark blue suit with a portable CD player in one hand and a bundle in the other arm. She looked pale, glad to see him, and insatiable about knowing what he was up to. His smile was akin to the sunrise. It was all that he could do to stay calm. He was proud and excited and pleased with himself. He put the things down on a chair and went and sat at her bedside.

[Admittedly, it is cruel to make people wait for their surprise gifts. Procuring the gift is a very special act in and of itself, but so very fleeting is the actual giving. A very great and grand thing it is for the giver to savor the moment before the giving. To feel the incurable curiosity and palpable excitement, and profess indifferently "Oh, its just a trifle.... nothing special." while delaying that blissful moment for as long as possible. Ah, the excruciatingly tenuous anticipation.]

He knew she would be brimming with curiosity, but he spent an inordinate amount of time fussing about how she was feeling and how well she had slept and whether the nurses had been good to her and was it very painful when they drew her blood so early in the morning and did she know that it had rained overnight and that the rain had not been in the forecast and wasn't it just a shame that they can't forecast rain like that and isn't it just as if we were still living in the Stone Age when we can't even tell what the weather is going to be like tomorrow and...

His smile completely gave him away (as he knew it would) and she lovingly struck him with the plastic knife that had been on her breakfast tray. She demanded to know what was in the parcel or she would find a very unpleasant use for the plastic knife.

His smile blossomed. He feigned reluctance as he slowly surrendered the bundle wrapped in colored paper. The paper did not last long. Then, for the first time in about an hour, you could hear a pin drop. He smiled a mix of pleasure and adoration. She just stared for a moment.

"What did you do? Karl? What did you pay for this?"

"It's a trifle," he insisted. "Look."

He showed her how he had cut the blue gown open at the back, and down the backs of the sleeves, and how he had added hook and loop fasteners to close the gaps so that it could be worn properly.

"It is a much more appropriate hospital gown for you, my dear.
"Now. You must put it on."

She protested faintly, and was fairly weak, but stood shakily as Karl closed the dress around her.
He set up the CD player and started the music. The opening strains of the Blue Danube filled the room. She was pale, excited and happy, but unsure...

"But..... Karl, I can't dance....." she said, not wanting to disappoint him.

"You do not have to."

Karl tried to contort his face into a debonair and dignified look, but he knew it didn't quite work on his features. She smiled at the attempt all the same.

He moved to stand facing her, and reached for her hand. Bowing to her, he kissed her hand. Straightening up from the bow, he moved a step forward and put his arm around her. Straightening fully, he lifted her off the ground with the arm he had put around her.

Karl was suddenly shocked by how light she was, but he recovered quickly and, not wanting to jolt her too much, started to sway around the room. Her eyes misted and after a while she laid her head on his shoulder and kissed his neck.

"Would you like me to stop?"

"Never."

"Very well then" he smiled.

He pranced around the room as the orchestra's performance reached a crescendo.

bah-dah-dah-dah dum, dum dum -

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The heart monitor wailed. The attempt at a debonair look was frozen on Karl's burned face. A twisted smile of delight on his taut lips. Lying on the gurney in the ICU, with his blackened and oozing arms outstretched he looked like a mannequin separated from its eternal dance partner. Despite the urgent wail of the monitor, the only pertinent activity is a woman's grief; watching this destroyed man slip away from her. She sobs helplessly.

A passerby takes in the scene with some alarm, but querying a local nurse receives only a brief countersign; "DNR."

_____________________________________________

She lifted her head from his shoulder. Her complexion wasn't nearly as pale as he had thought earlier. See? It was just a trick of the light! She only needed some air; to be up on her feet a little. Isn't this wonderful?

She was up on her feet. She was dancing. And it was wonderful.

He did hear someone wailing in the distance. Yes, over there - down the hall. In the ICU. Well.... it's a shame that someone should be hurt or dying while he was having such a marvelous time, but he couldn't very well help everyone, could he?

Adagio.

Karl Erik Aune
[alternate title - A Time of His Life]

People should know what horrors lie in wait for burn victims. Especially after the fire is out. People go into the flames but shattered lives and broken minds come out of rehab years later. Life is precious, but it is the quality of life that matters.

It's not the real Grail???

2006-02-20T21:15:00.000-06:00

After yesterday's summary of what the typical theme is in Indo-European mythos, I will now, in what promises to be a multi-part discussion, dissect the King Arthur legend through the lens of that mythos. Specifically, since there are several versions of the legend, I have chosen to use John Boorman's "Excalibur" as a pithy summary. This is largely because Boorman uses wonderful symbolism, and it is my favorite film. In the interests of brevity, I will have to ignore Boorman's marvellous visual symbolism, which is a real shame. Go see the film now; I'll stay here and wait until you are done. I capitalise the word "land" to stress its importance, or because of my conceit, whatever.

There are two basic ideas that you must retain for this discussion:
First, the world is a macrocosmic representation of man, and its components are the equivalent of the constituent parts of a man. Secondly, that a proper king must be the embodiment of all three social classes, or be depicted as doing that through his posession of the symbols for all of the classes. The symbol for the common people varies, the warrior caste is usually represented by a sword, and the priest caste is typically represented by a (ornamental?) cup such as priests use to pour libations.

In the opening, we see the mighty Uther Pendragon ("pendragon" means the precedent to the dragon, but the Dragon is a further layer of Boorman's symbolism that I have to ignore here) doing battle with the forces of the Duke of Cornwall. Merlin promises him the sword Excalibur, but we see that Uther is ruled by his vices and proves to be an unworthy king. [This is true to themes in other Indo-European folklore] Uther, ambushed and at the point of dying intends to deny Excalibur to everyone else, believing himself to be the rightful king, and drives the sword deep into a large boulder. Since stones are the homologic alloform of bones, it could be said that he drove the sword into the bones (or marrow) of the world. Uther is the mightiest of warriors, but posession of the symbol of his class (Excalibur) and access to divine guidance, which is the priest caste embodied in Merlin the Magician, is not sufficient. He fails as a king, and the land descends into the strife that occurs when the classes are not united.

Along comes young Arthur, who easily plucks the sword from the stone when no warrior is capable of doing it. [Arthur, as a squire, is hardly a commoner, but a later exchange between Uriens and Arthur makes it very clear that squires are definitely a social strata that is subordinate to Knights.] Merlin appears and briefs him on the situation. An interesting sequence follows where apparently Arthur melds with the land.

"What does it mean to be King?"
"You will be the Land, and the Land will be you. As you thrive, the Land will blossom; if you fail the Land will perish."

Arthur goes on to become a successful King. There is peace, prosperity, and it seems they have driven away evil. This should imply that Arthur is successful at uniting the classes, although the common people do not appear to be represented. I believe that Boorman has substituted "the land" for the working class. This actually fits well with some known folklore.
[Afterthought: "uniting the classes" may not be the proper description. It may in fact be completely wrong as the classes continue to be stratified throughout the King's rule.]

[One example is a tale of three sons that attempt to usurp their father's throne - the only link between them and the three social classes are their names, which are rather obscure etymologically. The son who represents the lower class is named 'Lothar'. In celtic, it appears that that can mean ditch, trench, or canal, among other things. Bruce Lincoln opined that the commonality there is a low-lying water vessel; like a wash basin. That may be a bit of a stretch, but I'll accept that either a ditch or wash basin symbolizes the common people.]

Therefore, Boorman's King Arthur *is* the Land/commoners, posesses Excalibur (the symbol of the warrior caste) and has the guiding advise of Merlin (priest caste).

Internal divisions occur, strife originating from within the very Round Table destabilizes the kingdom. [Karl's note: I've just realised that the Round Table is yet another instance of symbolism - it indicates a wholesome state out of a cycle of strife and stability] In dual sequences involving Launcelot and Gwenevere, Merlin and Morgana, King Arthur loses the advise of Merlin and posession of Excalibur at the same time. The result, of course, is strife. Morgana's evil takes root in the world, and the land languishes. Arthur grows ill as the Land suffers, again because Arthur is the Land"

Launcelot: (anguished) "Excalibur! The king without a sword! The Land without a King!"

"We must find what was lost." Boorman's film never actually refers to the cup as "the Holy Grail". I believe the word 'grail' is used, but so is 'chalice'. [Morgana, on the other hand, offers questing knights a 'cup' of her own. Morgana will have to wait until a later installment.] What you and I now know is that what was lost is the essence of the priest caste. How shall the knights recover that? "Signs. Portents. Omens." All of which have traditionally been the domain of priests.

Here (to my personal joy) Boorman stays faithful to the Arthurian legend. In the legends as I read them long ago, Percieval, Bors, and one other knight found the Holy Grail. Bors and the other knight were taken into heaven, and Percieval returned the Grail to the King. Percieval was a wild boy who became a knight, and thus ..... oops, I was going to leave Boorman's general symbolism out of this, wasn't I? Well, it can't be avoided now. We see that it is only by Percieval shedding his armor (symbolic of innocence or nature or common people, your choice) that he can approach the Chalice, and provide Arthur with what was lost: the preistly advice of Merlin: "You and the Land are one!"

Once Arthur drinks from the Chalice, he is filled with inspiration and psychoanalyses the entire film since the point where strife started to take hold of the Round Table. [JOKE] Having recieved this infusion of priestly advice, Arthur knows what to do. He must posess Excalibur to be King and save the Land. He finds the sword in the keeping of Guenevere. Notice that it is only AFTER Arthur reclaims Excalibur that the land flourishes again. [huh, actually, I have forgotten, been too long since I have seen it, and its too cold right now - but I remember the land conspicously thriving after Arthur has Excalibur]

In another important sequence, Arthur awakens the spirit of Merlin when he is leaning against a stone circle. Again, stone is an alloform of bone.

Merlin's spirit vanquishes Morgana, but Merlin himself is otherwise out of the picture. Arthur intentional disperses the last of the symbols that is in his keeping. Mortally wounded, he commands that Excalibur be returned to the Lady of the Lake. "One day a King will come, and the sword will rise [again]". This is another common theme in folklore; a king falls, and there is strife between the classes until another (worthy) King comes along.

To summarize: A common (or lowly, in this case they are not the same thing) boy that is able to posess the essence of the three castes rises to become the rightful King. When he loses control of the classes or the symbols that are their essence, the King loses power and fails. A society in strife becomes wholesome under a proper King and returns to strife without him. A cycle that is implied in folklore as eternal until the destruction and re-creation of the world, which is also an eternal cycle.

And by now you may have guessed at the truth:
There was never any "Holy Grail".

Is there a symbol for the map legend?

2006-02-19T08:06:00.000-06:00

No way to shorten the long story, so I'll just skim the marrow. Still 12 hour shifts, now 60 hours a week. I miss my three day weekends. What is really crazy is that I have more than ever to blog about now that I have no time to blog. Theres probably a good blues song in that. That will be my contribution so society. The song wont sell a single copy, but will get shared endlessly in the dark corners of the internet.

I am in a hurry to get my musings on King Arthur down in black and white here, but cannot do that without providing backstory first. This time the lengthy banter is not so much that I want to tell the entire story. It is because I want the reader to at least glimpse my fantastic vision when I reveal it. So: on with the book review.

I have just finished Bruce Lincoln's "Myth, Cosmos, and Society : Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction." It will take me some time to fully digest, but I am already gaining new insights from it.

Lincoln presents excerpts from several cultures throughout the spectrum of Indo-European languages that clearly show a similar and all-encompassing mythos. He leads us into that mythos gradually, presenting to us first the "homologic alloforms" - that man is a representation of the cosmos, and the parts of a man have equivalent representation within that cosmos. [Mind that 'cosmos' here refers only to the visible world; earth, sky and stars] We begin by recognising that the multiple cultures have creation myths where the first man was killed and his body was the material used to construct the world. From that it follows that the earth (soil) is flesh, the stones are bones, the trees are the hairs on the head, and so on.

From there we go deeper and deeper, the significance of "homologic alloforms" with respect to food, growth, human sacrifice, magical healing, cures for baldness, and the afterlife (or rebirth, for these cultures).

In the last chapter, he expounds on myths that, when taken together, define the roles of the social classes in these very similar societies. This is the important part. As per usual, the social structure is vertical. Commoners at the bottom (represented by various symbols) supporting the 'nobler' classes; warriors in the middle (symbolized by the sword), and the priest class (symbolized by a cup or goblet) at the top. A recurring and key theme among many examples of folklore is that for a king to successfully rule the society, he must unite all these classes. When he fails to act properly, or dies, or there is no king, there is strife between the classes, or simply strife in general. At least two examples clearly show the rightful king as being the embodiment of all classes, or the only one who can hold the symbols of the three classes.

He concludes by telling us that all of these myths were clearly propogated by the priest class in order to maintain their positions at the top of society. They recieved tributes from every other class and gave counsel to the king. The commoners far outnumbered the priest class, but were treated poorly. The commoners were largely kept placated (in part) by a thorough system of myths and folklore that depicted that it was normal and proper for the warriors and priests to be the nobler classes. Furthermore, if they were not the rightful lords, then all of the other myths were also false, even the promise of a ressurection in the end times. The latter was probably the anchor for the whole mythos: for a downtrodden commoner the only real Nirvana could come with the ressurection.

I had some reservations throughout the book. Were there contrapositive excerpts that he did not present? How thorough was his review of folklore? Overall, I found it a fascinating and enjoyable book, although I had very little time to read it. It is not a long book - a full 1/4 of it is notes on the text - but I only finished it after I renewed it from the library for the last allowable time. My one big complaint is that the last chapter (reflecting on the societies propped up by these myths) ends rather abruptly. I felt it needed more. An example that brings everything together. I was thinking about this last night when I realised what the perfect example was. I shall present that next time.

Working Title

2005-10-22T18:49:00.000-05:00

Been busy.

Too much work.
Too much training of new people.
Too many new people quitting the job once they have been trained.
Too often starting all over with other new people.

Thats almost a haiku. Too bad I havent the energy to rewrite it into the proper syllabic form.
In the meantime, the last two trainees appear to be staying, so maybe I'll have some bona-fide free time again.

Theres been quite a lot going on here and in the world in the meantime. I was looking to buy a Russian/Soviet Moisin-Nagant rifle when I came upon a German-issue Mauser K98k that I grabbed instead. There must have been some activity recently from surplus military arms importers, because what piqued my interest in the first place was several Moisin-Nagants that I had seen at gun shows. This K98 wasn't the first of its kind that I had seen, but I have been seeing more of them lately than I can recall. This one isn't perfect enough for a museum piece since a few of the numbers do not match (meaning it was rebuilt from parts of other rifles that had been issued), but in my book that means its OK for shooting and perhaps some minor modifications. The bore is corroded from the salts used in WWII era primers (deposits in the bore attract moisture), but I think I have learned of a 'fix' for that. A proper fix would probably be to replace the barrel. I'll have to see what happens.

Cool weather returns, and I still live in a poorly insulated and drafty townhouse. Well, I refuse to spend a metric ass-load of money on natural gas heating. I went to Home Depot and got a second electric heater and a pair of 15 amp timers (the sort that normally are used to switch on lamps). The heater I bought is a variation of the baseboard heater, but it has a "soft on" power switch. That means that I've got one too many timers, since the device plugged into the timer should be left on, and lack of power causes auto shut down on this unit due to the rudimentary computer that controls the temperature and a timer which determines how long the heater will run. Thats not quite the sort of timer I had in mind, but since I intend to do without gas heat, I'll be leaving this thing on a large percentage of the time. I only going to actively be heating a 2-3 room area to 55 or 60 degrees, so continuous duty shouldnt be a problem.

Now I have some caulking to do.

Book Report Time

2005-09-11T15:55:00.000-05:00

Not a lot to say at the moment, been reading up on the Indo-Europeans lately, and much more about that soon. I'm still assimilating it and gathering my thoughts.

I have a problem focusing on one book at a time, but I'm done with one and finishing a second. I'll add the second later today or tomorrow.

"Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaardner

Mr Gaardner has accomplished something quite admirable with this book. He has couched a fairly complete overview of the history of Western philosophy in a story of a 15 year old Norweigian girl, AND made it to the New York Times best seller list. That's something to be proud of; getting the masses to read more philosophy! Gaardner covers most significant philosophers (and some minor - depending on their contribution and what era they lived in) in most major eras of civilization, noting their major contributions and when applicable the social and historical context in which they formed their ideas. I found the book to be very illuminating, in some cases correcting misperceptions I had about some philosophers.

What I did not like about this book was that it focused almost exclusively on Western philosophy. I will grant that the majority of novel philosophy and influential thinkers lived in the 'Western' world, but the omission of non-Western philosophies constitutes a blinkered or incomplete picture. Philosophical schools of thought tend to be 'alive' like languages; influenced by preceding and concurrent ideas. Omitting 'Eastern' thought is tantamount to saying that the Western world exists in a vacuum. The Semitic peoples are only mentioned long enough to introduce the social context surrounding the birth of Christianity. Hinduism and Buddhism are glossed over very briefly, while Islam is ignored completely. Confuscius isn't even mentioned and Buddha only merits a pair of passing comments - because his philosophy was similar to that of Hume and Kierkegaard, though he predated both by 2500 years.

Next up: "Blood and Oil" by Michael T. Klare

Tommy, can you see me?

2005-08-16T00:17:00.000-05:00

I was progressing in my philosophical/religious research (or trying to) when I realised something that occurred to me to be extroardinary.
But again, I should start at the beginning.

I'm finding the Indo-Europeans fascinating, theres a few good articles here and here. I have also been trying to see what I could learn about mysticism in these societies.

Mysticism is defined as the gaining of direct knowledge (of the world, the universe, or God) through a subjective experience that is neither based in reason or perception. The Oracle at Delphi was a decent example of mysticism. A priestess inhaling fumes from a fissure in the earth uttered things that her acolytes interpreted as answers to queries from petitioners. Ostensibly a trance brought on by planet fumes gave her mystical insight. A curiously lasting rumor goes that the Oracle declared Socrates the wisest man in Athens.

What I recently realised is that there is a very common form of mysticism that is practiced fairly often in the modern world: prescience in dreams. It is foreknowlege of a sort. Specifically it is typically foreknowledge of yourself at a future time, and thus is knowledge of the world or the universe. For me personally, it has only occured once in a great while.

What seems more significant to me is that most (or some, I havent taken a poll or anything) people of this glimpse of mysticism in their dreams. So the subconcious is capable of mystic knowledge at rest, how much greater if effort was put into the task?

Why North Is Not Always Up

2005-07-21T01:52:00.000-05:00

Once again, just as I am poised to spill the beans, the real world scoops me. Or not. So I'll save my conspiracy theories for the moment.

I had an interesting conversation the other day. I was training a new contractor to take up some of our workload in anticipation of a Zero hour that is expected to coincide with August 1. Things will then return to the normal level of mind-unraveling frenetic here at work. Naturally that will precipitate a long pause in blog updates, or perhaps a series of longer pauses.

Anyway. I was talking of my work-related sojourn to Alabama with this trainee. It is noteworthy that he appears to be of Indian descent, possibly first generation American. He made a comment that reflected that the old stereotypes about Southron "Good Ole Boys" were alive, well, and prospering. I pointed out that while I certainly found strong evidence of rampant Conservative Christianity, there was no racism evidenced in the places that I visited. I went on to say, before I caught myself, that while there were still traces of the Old Ways, Southroners in general had become largely "Westernized".

Now wasn't that a strange thing to say?
I cannot even claim that I was consciously using a language more suitable to my audience. I don't normally do that (to an extent that I am aware). Nor is the term "Westernized" a normal part of my speaking vocabulary. "Y'all", on the other hand, makes a regular appearance - making a sailor's dive from my lips into the cauldron of conversation.

For as strange a thing as it was to say, it seemed the right term to use in that context. The definition of 'Westernized' is particularly bland. It is more informative to define what we typically uphold as a contrast to the trappings of Westernization. What comes to my mind immediately is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The majority of the population lives in traditional Muslim culture while all 4000 or so of the Saudi Princes jet-set around living it up in a fashion that is common to Western Capitalists. Thus the contrast in this case is a culture that is deeply rooted in religious tradition, typically poor, subservient to its rulers in a feudalistic or tribal hierarchy, and relatively poor access to a 'liberal' (non-religious) education.

As you can see, there is a huge difference between the 'backwards' culture that I describe and the stereotypical Southron American man: most middle-eastern Muslims simply hate Westerners whereas the xenophobia of the Southroner is much more pervasive.

So I suppose that 'Westernized' must refer to a culture found near an imaginary "pole" that is located significantly north of the Mason-Dixon line.

My apologies to any Southron folk that take offense. I would wager, however, that anyone who does take offense can also take you aside and tell you that most Southerners "....aren't like that hereabouts. But now, you go visit that town in the next county? You know the one? Now that is like being in the Land That Time Forgot!"

Turn Your Coat and Cough

2005-07-10T04:37:00.000-05:00

On July 6, 2003, Joseph C. Wilson the 4th was published in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times, where he stated:

"I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

I suppose that it is a bit late to say this, but I suddenly realised who the Prime Mover behind the Valerie Plame leak is.

I was reading Frank Rich's latest treatise on the ultimate developments of the same issue, and while surfing over his hyperlink back to Wilson's article I dashed my brains on the shoals of insight. I'll omit where the surf-board hit me.

I'll expand on this tomorrow, I have work to do now.

There's a Hole In My Bodkin, Dear Liza, Dear Liza

2005-07-09T03:59:00.000-05:00

Message from Alabama - summary and prologue

So, how'd I come to be here, and what's with the disjoint continuity??

Kind reader, the fact is that I am lucky to have any access to media services beyond rudimentary telecommunication. When I suddenly achieved blog update capability, I felt it my duty to convey the most amusing tidbits available - in case this ability turned out to be fleeting. I have managed to configure an Outlook accout at work to receive e-mail from my personal accout, but it seems incapable of sending anything. I am, however, getting ahead of myself.

How did I come to be ejected out into tornado Alley?
Greed did play a large role. On June 28 or 29 (I forget which) my boss sauntered in awkwardly and sat down. [That sounds an odd, doesn't it? perhaps an awkward meander would be a better description?] The very fact that he was willing to remain in the hot room long enough to sit down was sufficient to gather my attention. He stammered something about how one of the other company facilities was experiencing difficulties and was significantly shorthanded; since our facility was relatively inert (sufficient for me to be concerned about being cast off for a month or so) would I be willing to willing to go down to Alabama for 2-4 weeks to help them out?

I thought for a moment. I realised that I was not on the verge of completing a major symphony. I did not recall any significant upcoming exams, probably due to my not being enrolled in any classes. Nor would I be leaving anyone of either sex at the altar if I was away over-long.

"Sure" I said.

My boss told me that I would be flying down there on Sunday, July 3, and then watched apologetically as I contemplated the best protocol for withdrawing my jaw from the floor.

The short version of the rest of the story is that the preparations for such a long away were relatively painless compared to the same endeavours as percieved in my mind's periscope. A minor hitch or three have occurred, but overall results have been positive - Yours Truly should bear no evidence of permanent scarring.

Positive ramifications are manifold.
One: I get to stay for free in a fancy home that the company took over in recent years.
Two: all my foodstuffs and related consumables will be reimbursed by said company.
Three: they even sprang for a rental car (this eliminates the need for a second person to act as a taxi service). Dashboard design aside, I am liking the 2005 Toyota Camry.
Four: (and not entirely foreseen) I am getting lotsa working hours. They generate the same products here as at the Chicago facility, but have all different customers. This mandates different tests to qualify the material for the customer's specifications. While there are similarities and differences between the procedures of the two facilities, the similar things are often done differently, and add to the completely foreign methods I must learn.
Five: while I am riding an ersatz gravy train here, I am not at home augmenting the sortfall of energies that must be supplied by the utilities.
Six: while being away for so long, my car will be idle for an unprecedented number of consecutive days. I took swift advantage of this by delivering it to my mechanics on July 1. At the time of this writing, a palpable drain on my finances indicates to me that their arcane manner of posturing around my horseless carriage has reached its climax. Hopefully that means that meine auto has regained its superb fuel economy. That will be most welcome for the imminent gasoline crisis that will materialize in approximately Q3 of 2006. If not sooner.

In short: Having a good time. Wish you were here sweating your balls off (instead of me). Suffering withdrawal for lack of unrestricted internet and e-mail access. Money and rental car good, weather ambivalent, tornadoes bad, don't whiz on the electric fence.

I have been told that I "talk like a Northerner, but ya dress like a Southroner."

Truthfully, I do like it here.

Now if only I could sleep for more than 5 hours a day....

How Not To Be Seen In All The Old Familiar Places

2005-07-08T03:43:00.000-05:00

Message from Alabama III

12 hour shifts are hardly new to me, so it was with some consternation I realised Monday night that my eyelids were bound and determined to engage in Greco-Roman wrestling. Similar occurred on Tuesday night, when I should have been much more rested than on the previous evening/morning/moment/eon/epoch/period/age. Ultimately, I determined that my symptoms were a product of my environment.

In Chicago, it had been warm of late. Warm/hot at work, and warm/cool at home. Typically I switch on a window air conditioner when I feign death, but of late I had become concerned that the power requirements of that unit were not being properly met. I had been trying (with little success) to get by without it until a relevant solution appeared. [That issue has yet to be addressed, so back to this one.] When I considered what was new or different about this Southron environment I could only pick out two interrelated factors. The air conditioning works here, and I am in it for a substantial time. At my job in Chicago, the building has air conditioning, but my corner of it is by far the hottest room or area within it.

Aha! So, the problem appears to be that the A/C here is making me cold and somehow sleepy. No problem, instead of just the T-shirt, I shall don a long sleeved shirt!
That is to say, I would - if I had one with me. In truth, I do have one. It is a nice dark royal blue dress shirt that is a blend of cotton and silk fibres. It is my precious. It is also not going to venture near a fithly lime kiln.

Whilst I was packing, I considered bringing several sleeved shirts. I dismissed the idea, however, since some miscreant had planted within my skull the notion that Alabama was hot. To be sure, its a bit warm here, but no more so than was Chicago when I left it. Apparently the significant meterological feature of Alabama is the humidity. This is a side-effect of Alabama being located within that special place called "tornado alley". When tropical storms saunter by (as they are wont to do) they have an annoying habit of sending rainstorm heralds to announce their potential arrival. This causes it to rain here a bit more often (and more suddenly) than might be normal in Chicago or elsewhere. So a sudden rainstorm in the middle of the afternoon which clears quickly to re-admit the powerfull sunshine gives rise to some nifty humidity. The locals tell me that it gets so humid that one has trouble breathing. (I'm all a-tingle in my nether regions with anticipation of this new sensation.) Digressions on weather patterns aside, I'm still up Alabama without a sleeved shirt.

Well, through the ~~miracle~~ travesty of Karl's dressing habits and the properties of cotton fabrics, I managed to solve the problem anyway. At this moment, I am alert, lucid, and functional at 4am. The fact that I am wearing two T-shirts is not a coincidence.

I know.
You are ever-so-glad that I could share that with you.

That's what I'm here for.

Quick reaction to headlines

2005-06-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

Such interesting things happening: where to start?

Most noteworthy is CNOOC late attempt to buy Unocal - but that deserves a separate blog. Its actually a big enough topic where a cursory treatment doesn't do it justice.

Recently read about the "Evicted Three" - three young pro-Kerry people that got kicked out of one of Cheerleader W's "Social Security" forums for having a liberal bumpersticker on their car. If you haven't heard of it, that pretty much sums it up. The bumper sticker said "No Blood For Oil". They had tickets from a local congressman, and were stopped on their way in by one of the "extended" White House flunkies who was acting like a Secret Service agent. Oddly, the Secret Service says no, it wasn't one of theirs, and allegedly they are looking into it as a criminal investigation (which in itself is strange). Anyway, a liberal group is footing the bill for them to go to Washington and protest getting thrown out for that. In an ironic twist (I'm getting a real charge out of this!) some of the most White House freindly conservative Congressmen are coming out in support of them since the whole issue smacks of a Free Speech (or Assembly) violation. There was even a remark from a congressman like this: if W is only preaching to the choir, isn't that counterproductive?
Rah-rah! Go Evicted Three!

Mister Grey, former head of the FBI under Nixon, is feeling betrayed now that it turns out that his trusted #2 was the one that broke the Watergate story. Well golly. Apparently Mr. Gray didn't quite understand the terms of his posting. Mr. Grey, it says quite clearly in your job description that you don't get to complain or feel betrayed.

The Supreme Court refused to hear the case of Miller and Cooper, reporters who will now be jailed for contempt of court in what I ironically am led to call "the Valerie Plame affair." Ironic because her name becoming public is the guiding theme of this whole circus. I do sympathize with the reporters, but the legal precedent in Branzburg does ~not~ protect the reporters from the arena of a grand jury hearing (if I read it correctly). The precedent set there is clear enough to make the matter a non-issue.

There was at least one more thing in the news....

... ah well, thats probably enough entertainment for today.

Send Bolton to the Sudan! Please???

2005-06-23T07:56:00.000-05:00

O.K.
As I previously telegraphed, the topic is John R. Bolton.
Why him? Why now? Why are some legislators that I otherwise respect (e.g. Sen. John McCain) supporting him? And just... why?

When I think of the United States' Representative to the United Nations, I picture a kindly gentleman schooled in the subtleties of statesmanship. I imagine an atmosphere of negotiations, where an economy of international relations is transacted in the coin of prudently chosen words of goodwill.

The stark reality callously betrays my idealism.

I did some diggin' around on the 'net. At first I wasn't sure where to start. I'd been following the story in the NYT, and outside of overt support from the left (esp. Cheney) there hasn't yet been any significant reasons given why this thug should be Representative to the United Nations. Without a clear motive and no significant clues in the news articles I had little to start with. I didn't bother trying conservative websites, they'd only rehash the say-nothing tagline the White House has been using. The past usually makes a good starting point for understanding the current situation. So, who were the previous Reps to the U.N.?

A quick search reveals that John C. Danforth was the last Representative, with a tenure of 6 months (????), and before him John D. Negroponte. Those are interesting names, and we got more Johns' than a whorehouse already!

Go ahead and read up on Negroponte first, I'll wait right here.
All of a sudden his new job as Spook Master makes more sense, doesn't it?

The important part for this discussion is that for 2001-2004 (when, for his faithful dervice, he got shipped off to darkest Iraq!) he was W's point man for trying to bully the Security Council into going along with resolutions against Iraq. Aha! The plot thins! Now Bolton makes sense! Also bully-boy would be helpful to the Neo's for the upcoming expansion of the U.N. Security Council. More members means the U.S.'s influence on the council will be diminished. So the conservatives came up with a plan - we'll support you as a candidate for the Security Council if you agree to not gaining veto power until a later date. Much later.
Here's yet another situation at the U.N. Bolton should be well prepared for.

Danforth doesn't fit this picture though. I like this guy. He's written several opinion peices since resigning from his U.N. post. Often suggesting that conservatives are only hurting themselves by going along with the Christian extremists.

Here's an article that I found really interesting though:
It has been an important time to be in this position, especially as we attempt to enlist greater U.N. participation in the future of Iraq, and as we advance the interest you have personally shown in helping the desperate people of Sudan."

"the interest you have personally shown" ???
Having read this man's writings, and thinking what I do about W - I think that was a swipe!
W is personally interested in not being accused of ignoring the Sudan conflict, but otherwise I am sure his attention flags.

It seems clear that Danforth's experience as a mediator in the Sudan was poor preparation for the dissonance of the U.N. I rather think he would have resigned (or been asked to resign) from the U.N. had his wife not been ill.

So that's why Bolton.
W needs someone who can bully the security council and threaten the Islamic nations that think that terrorism is a 'right'. If he has any spare time, he can go back to trying to force Dr. El Bardei, ther head of the IAEA to resign. Man's gotta have a hobby I guess.

The good news is that, much like Negroponte, Bolton doesn't have much hope of being appointed by the Senate. They only caved on Negroponte a few days after 9/11.

So there's still some hope for a bright future.

Ahhhhhh, the pain!

2005-06-21T09:29:00.000-05:00

Its been a while, so I apologise for the lull.

I have scarcely done anything but work, so I didn't have much to blog about. What I did percieve happening politically, and did intend to blog about - W losing his mandate, some republicans wriggling free of the party straitjacket, and Dr. Frist made to look bullheaded (W-esque) by 7 'rogue' Reps forging a compromise with 7 Dems - was all covered fairly succinctly in the New York Times. In fact, so many things are going not quite so well for our Cheerleader-in-Chief that I may well reduce the effort and requency of my disaffection.

Many years ago (early 1990's I think) I was watching the NFL draft on ESPN. They had the 'war room' cams going at several team headquarters, including for Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys. Now, I suppose that there must be many people with good things to say about Jerry Jones. I can only recall how upset Russell Maryland was when he was told (camera footage of Jerry talking to Russell, who had put down the weights he was lifting and was visibly upset) by Jerry that his contract WAS being restructured so that Jerry could raise the money to offer a one-year contract to some baseball player. On this particular draft day, Jerry wasn't getting what he wanted. I gathered that he had been trying hard to trade up into the top 8 picks or so (I think they were coming off of a Super Bowl victory, making the task that much harder). It was simply not happening. So there was Jerry, on live TV, losing his cool in a fit of frustration in his war room. It was beautiful.

I loved it. It was much better than 'Cats'. I laughed. I ~~cried~~ laughed. I want to see it again and again.

I want to believe that somewhere, in the White House, W is having a fit. Just like that. That bullheaded, obstinate man that we caught a glimpse of during the first debate with Kerry when he let his cool facade slip. He's punting the designer wastebasket and flinging poll results across the room.
Ahhhhhhhh. Such a wonderful image.

Anyway.
I do have something to blog about today.
You may have noticed in the past - um, I probably blogged about this previously - that I was at a significant loss for why a Neocon policy maven like Bolton would be nominated as Representative to the United Nations. More to the point, why would he want to go there??
It would seem to me that he would be happier in the State Department bullying analysts and skimming secret communiques.

So, I did me some of that thar interweb suff'rin.

It had suddenly occurred to me to compare Bolton to previous Reps to the U.N. I found what I was looking for. Not quite a smoking gun, but enough to satisfy me.

I don't recall who the Rep to the U.N. was under Clinton. W nominated John Negroponte early in 2001. His reputation... or..

hmmm, time got away from me again.
I'll finish this Tomorrow as a separate blog entry.
However, heres a chance for you kids to try and guess what I know.

John Negroponte UN Rep 2001 - 2004, then sent to Iraq as ambassador
John C Danforth UN Rep 2004, resigned after 6 months

Gentlemen, start your browsers.

Cogito ergo kama sutra

2005-05-31T09:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, yes.
Mostly I've been working, but there has also been an interesting pause of sorts on multiple political fronts. I'll say something about that soon. I'll have to because, from my perspective, there is an interesting and unusual power shift taking place. Hell, I may be wrong again, but we'll see.

For now I thought I'd mention something on the Oldsmobile front.
Due to workload, I'm prevented (in general terms) from getting Oldsmobile-related things done. Most of my usual free time is immediately after work. I am variously prevented, however, from using that time for car work.
Firstly, the car area is out in the open, so I am at the mercy of the weather. Then there is the after-work problem - it is always at an awkward time of day. After second shift its too dark. After third shift... well, I just dont care to be hammering away at 8am; that strikes me as bad form from a neighborly perspective. [I don't know why I care - the neighbors seem to hate me] That leaves what daylight remains after first shift, which is workable. The problem there is that the first-shift guy (the "day-slave" as I call it) gets run around and generally abused such that I'm often feeling too drag-ass to do anything constructive.

I do keep some car parts indoors, and for some time I have rather wished that I could do some things inside. Most of what I need to do involves grinding rust off of parts, and that would generate airborn mettalic particles which would generally be bad for everything from the carpet to my stereo equipment. I do store some flammables in the bathroom, and have been cleaning some small parts, but it really hasn't been that fruitful. Not like it should be.

Yesterday I realised that there was a fairly simple solution: I can work indoors, I just need to prepare for it properly. {ooops, pepsi evaporated again} What I intend to do is fabricate something like a blasting cabinet. The purpose of such a unit is to contain and recycle blasting media. I don't have a media blaster, and I don't intend to buy one, but I would like to restrain any metal particulate matter to the area in which I am working. What I mean to build is more in the vein of a glove box. Well, a glove box the size of a large blasting cabinet. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, since I already have a majority of the materials I will need: plastic sheeting, wood scraps, and a table with a metal top. I have previously used my small Hoover 'cannister' (its not a proper cannister, but I call it that) vacuum for car/shop related jobs so that will serve for cleaning the interior of the glove box.

Of course, a commonly recurring theme will re-appear now as my current impediment. I need to clean up a bit in here to make room for this endeavor. Funny how that keeps happening. Its a goal that I seem to approach tangetially. Or is that asymtotically?

I'm starting to beleive that the Zeroth Law of Termodynamics is wrong. Simply stated as an equation; E > 0, or entropy is positive. It is expressed as "entropy increases" with the implication that it perpetually increases. One expression of that law is the phrase "nature abhors a vacuum." If entropy increases, then disorder propagates and displaces order, and a vacuum is a nice orderly lack of anything in particular. I think I'll go ahead and take that one further. I think the situation is much more pronounced than that.

Its not that nature abhors a vacuum.
Nature abhors my vacuum.

That would satisfactorily explain the mess in here.

Our Father, Who Art in America, Hallowed be Thy Name

2005-05-18T14:56:00.000-05:00

That little dialogue about abortion directed my thought in a direction that they had seldom traveled before. As a result, I suddenly realised that America no longer has Freedom of Religion.

America's ties to religious freedom began in 1681 with the founding of Pennsylvania, "a holy experiment in religious toleration." and was crystallized in the First Amendment to the Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" It is in modern times, after 300 years of success, that this freedom is being curtailed. I would submit that the spirit of this freedom has already been destroyed.

Allow me to explain with a rather extreme example.

Since we have Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech (and inferentially 'freedom of expression'), and Freedom of Assembly, any otherwise law-abiding citizen (such as myself) is free to create and subsequently observe any crackpot religion of his choosing. I'll make the rash assumption that you agree to the last statement.

So...... as an example, I am herewith forming a crackpot religion.

My new deity is the Great Dismembered Foetus who reigns on high from his Shattered Womb of Heaven.

(Yeah, its tasteless, but I do have a point coming....)

As a minor tenet of my new religion, practitioning females will willingly have abortions performed, by the "Dilation and Extraction" method. Yes, this religion involves partial birth abortions.

You can already, without my assistance, detect a problem with my new religion.
Right from the inception of my new Holy Cause, my religion, and its practices are subject to persecution. Despite the "freedom" that I am alleged to enjoy.

"Karl, you dumbass, you are intentionally using an extreme example in an effort to distort the facts!"

Extreme, yes M'lud, guilty as charged. I have not, however, distorted anything.
[Speaking of distortions, you might note on that last link, that the D&X method accounts for a mere 0.85% of all Ohio abortions in 1999. Isn't it odd that prevention of so rare a practice requires an overt act of Congress?]

The concepts that "all life is sacred" and "abortion is bad", or even "evil", are borne of religious convictions and not requirements of civil law. As you can see in my extreme example, the insertion of religious views into the legal code is only to the detriment of Religious Freedom.

And infringes upon my Constitutional right to worship the Great Dismembered Foetus.

To Tree, or not to Tree

2005-05-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

It looks like I posted about abortion after all.
I meant to lead up to it, but then I seemed to strike the right vein, and just kept going with it.
I thought it went well.

Going to be far busier than I had imagined. The money will be proportionally good. No. Exponentially good. I'm looking at 68 hours next week.

I'm mostly using this space now because I think I came up with an ending for "sorrow" and I wanted to get it down without too much distraction.

Fred was losing focus. His perspective had slowly been drifting from a subjective bystander to an objective one. He no longer sensed the wind on his skin or rustling his hair, but he felt the wind. It pushed at him playfully; he could sway gently with it, but never yeild. He sensed the sustaining earth beneath him and the airy sky above - and at the same time the world was fading from his eyes. He realised that the pain was subsiding, and then the memory of his wounds was gone.

He heard a noise. Sobbing? He looked/felt/sniffed around and detected a figure huddled against the trunk of a tree. It was Morgaine. And Fred was the tree. That puzzled him for a moment. She was caressing the tree and calling his name. He thought he should say something but found no voice, only the rustle of his leaves in the wind and the creaking of his branches.

Fred had a last fleeting memory of holding her in his arms. He thought he should do that now... before that memory fades as well. Then he found he had no arms to reach for her with. He had only branches now, and they could grasp only at the sky.

A breeze sighed through helpless branches.

Of Specks and Boulders, Beams and Splinters

2005-05-13T07:41:00.000-05:00

I know, I'm late.
I owe you lot a dialogue on abortion.
All of my sheduled 8-hour shifts grew to 12-hour shifts, so perhaps you'll understand that I simply don't have time at the moment to lay awake pondering the existence of Dog.

However, in anticipation of that dialogue - no, thats wrong, at best it is a soliloquy - here is a follow-up thought on the soul and yet more about what I believe.

I was talking about how unscrutable the soul is. If there is re-incarnation of the soul, how many souls are there total? There are 6 billion people on the face of the earth at this moment, so at present there are at least that many souls, right? Thats quite a large number of souls. What were they all doing before there were 6 billion corporeal entities to inhabit? Hanging out at a Nirvanic laundromat?

As part of research for my attempts at writing fiction, I have been trying to learn something about Hinduism. I was digesting this heady work when I came across this statement:

"Let the wise man, having examined the world and perceived the motives and the results of actions, realize that as from a blazing fire sparks proceed, living souls originate from the indestructible Brahman and return to Him. All doubts disappear and the attachment to work subsides when the Supreme Being is cognized."

A quaint little bit of circumspection with some interesting ramifications. Not only does this outlook make a tidy explanation for re-incarnation, but at the same time, it identifies God as greater than the sum of many parts. A gestalt of souls, if you will.

And now for something completely different.

The Quakers among the original colonists came here seeking freedom from religious persecution. That specific freedom, of all those freedoms that we enjoy, was the specific impetus that formed this nation. The other freedoms followed as a matter of course. Unfortunately, freedom of religion appears to have evolved into "freedom to practice conservative christianity," even at the expense of other freedoms.

Separation of Church and State is an important principle of American Government, and must remain so in the interest of religious freedom. It is not separation of the Christian Church from the State, but the divesture of all religions from government apparatus. For freedom of religion to be maintained, there must be balance, not bias. Murder is a crime not because it is specifically mentioned in the Ten Commandments, but because murder is contrary to the interests of social order.

If abortion is a political football, it should not be so. As I mentioned before, I believe abortion should be regulated better. Pregnant women should have the benefits of all the counseling or guidance that they could ever want. Anyone that doesn't like what happens in those places should chastize their randy male children instead of perpetrating social disorder. That book with all the thump-marks on it contains a word that's been overlooked far too often. The word is forgiveness; it starts at home and is not supposed to end, ever.

The so-called "Pro Life" movement consists largely of conservative Christians, and they desire that abortion be banned because it is against the laws of their God. I say that they are suburbanites with too much time on their hands and a burning case of "Not In My Backyard."

They claim that all life is precious, but I don't remember hearing much of a fuss from them about ethnic cleansing in Darfur, or Rwanda, or Yugoslavia. One would think that a greater hue and cry would be raised over such atrocities. This leads me to believe that some lives must be more precious than others. It would seem that the exchange rate for sentient beings has grown out of proportion, making foriegn lives worthless compared to domestics. If that is the case, perhaps Congress can regulate it due to their authority in matters of commerce. Perhaps this imbalance is an application of the 'new math.' They'll have to explain it to me someday.

These groups are only some of those that intend to affect the U.S. government by installing pro-life judges so as to bias the judiciary in the same way that the legislature and the executive branches have already been affected. The only possible result from this is an end to religious freedom. Speech will be the next casualty (it is already being affected) and assembly is sure to follow.

Once again our very way of life is imperiled by religious extremists: our very own conservative Christians.

May God help us all.

Soul What?

2005-05-05T16:32:00.000-05:00

My friend Jim asked me to expound a bit about abortion, but his question was more philosophical than political, so its a bit difficult to assail that all in one go. I'll tackle the impossible part today, then the possible tomorrow, and Saturday, and Sunday...

The main stumbling block is his definition of abortion. Which I am not certain that I understand. Apparently the foetus must be transformed to a person from mere flesh and blood by the addition of a soul before it is considered a living person, which would then make termination of same a killing.

I don't follow that reasoning at all. First of all, pinpointing the moment that the foetus becomes a person or is imbued with a soul is masturabatory philosophy. You can argue about that all you want and all you will get is tired.

What is a soul? Where does it come from? Where does it go to? Is there reincarnation of the same soul or does every person get a brand-spanking new soul? Do animals have souls? If so, how far down the animal kingdom do you have to go to locate non-soul species? And then what about ghosts: is a ghost a soul? If so, is a ghost a 'trapped' soul?

I cannot answer those questions, nor do I intend to try.

I will mention that the conversation we had about this was fairly lively. I had to say that I could not accept the concept of a new soul being created at a particular time in the evolution of the foetus. Multiple independent spontaneous miracles like that seems to be a bit too miracle-intensive.

If I had to commit to a philosophy of God's intervention in the world, then I prefer to think of God as the Clockmaker. The Clockmaker fashions a clock (the world), bringing a complex and intricate machine into being through the sheer force of His divine will. He winds it up, then sits back to watch it run.

"And just how does that explain Jesus?" Jim countered.

"Jesus," I replied, "is daylight savings time."

We want information. Information. Information!

2005-05-03T16:18:00.000-05:00

"You won't get it."

"By hook, or by crook, we will."

Somehow this has been a consistent theme throught my life.
I never seem to possess, or have at hand, the information that I need to properly proceed in my duties and responsibilities. There were some early occurrances in my childhood, but the amount of repetition in my "professional life" (it iss a stretch to call it that) is staggering.

When I worked at a Hazardous Waste facility, I was the lead man on night shift. For the most part I was (unwittingly) the man to talk to if you needed anything, but I still didn't have all the answers. It became clear after a time that the boss was talking about new developments/procedures with the guys on day shift, and somehow thinking that by telling them, he was communicating with me, too. This was never more obvious than the day the EPA raided us. They popped in about 5am and gathered us all into one building so they could conduct some interviews without anyone leaving. They asked to speak to "crazy Carl". That was apparently a reference to me. [I typically wore a camoflage bandana, and I presume that this was one of the reasons that the operators were calling me "Jeffery Dahmer". It is germane to mention that these operators were the "general labor" of hazardous materials, culled from the finest that East Chicago, Indiana had to offer. Naturally, these poor lads were any oblivious to any serial killers that didn't make headlines during their lifetime. It also doesn't take a huge leap of intuition to realize that it was a former operator that called the EPA. Anyway...] The EPA guys asked me about places that seemed of great importance to them, yet that I had never, ever heard of. What was really unfortunate about the episode was that we would have loved to toss the whole company "under the bus" (as my boss was fond of saying), but the EPA guys weren't interested in how poorly we were treated. Those issues were not within their jurisdiction, and we didn't know anything damning that was.

Then there was the time I worked at an oil refinery. Due to the predisposition of most materials contained within to go "boom", there is a significant amount of safety training required. Also, everyone's outer layer of clothing MUST be flame-retardant Nomex. Someone conveniently didn't tell me that last one. They issued me a Nomex jumpsuit for the duration, and when it got cold I wore a coat over it. I had at least three VERY confusing conversations that in retrospect were adressing the Nomex issue, but it was not until later that someone explicitly told me what the problem was. (This leads me to a corollory that I'll mention in a bit.)

That was when I came up with the most appropriate way to describe it: "discovered check".
I can not act without discovering that I am doing something wrong.

The corollory to "discovered check" is a related phenomena that I don't have a catchy name for... yet. I also become party to conversations that make absolutely zero sense to me, but ultimately turn out to be related to "discovered check".

I was entering the refinery and this guy Julian stoped me and talked to me. I remember his name, and that he asked about the jacket I was wearing, and that something seemed important to him, but to this day I haven't the slightest idea what he wanted. Apparently he was concerned about the Nomex issue. One would think he would SAY that to me.

After driving for hours on Michigan state highways on a moonless night I arrived in Lansing. I already had a hotel room reserved, so my first errand was to locate a liquor store. It was not at all obvious that the first one was closed until I had gotten out of the car, so I got back in and resumed my search. I was then pulled over by a police car. This is a direct quote of the first thing the officer said:
"Isn't it kind of dark out?" (expectant pause)

You might possibly begin to grasp at how utterly dumbfounded I felt at that moment. It turned out that I had failed to turn on my headlamps when I returned to the car. That corner of Lansing was positively lit up like the sun compared to the roads that I had been driving on less than an hour before, so it's not at all unreasonable that my brain did not grasp the current need for illumination. The punch line for that story is that the officer then obliged me by directing me to the nearest liquor store.

Those are just shining examples. This sort of thing happens altogether too often. Yes, yet again today it occurred. "Discovered check" reared its ugly head at work. Yet again what I've been doing for a year now was wrong. Or I was under-informed. Whatever. I think what actually happened was this: a clash of realities. On the one hand, its likely that I was trying to enact what my boss proscribed, which in reality conflicted with what the operators and the company lab guys were doing (I'm a contractor here). I had been aware of only one instance of such a conflict before, and didn't really expect that the schizm was more pervasive. I am of the mind that I am not prepared to continue with this: being caught between what the boss says and what the techs/operators do when I am the one without any job security.

However, lacking information, it appears that I was not prepared at all.

To Thine Own Self Be Cruel

2005-04-28T21:54:00.000-05:00

It has been suggested that I had ought to outline what things I support if I am going to go casting aspersions on arbitrary other agencies. That would establish the persona and quantify whatever credibility the author may have. Actually, I have been thinking of doing just that. I don't however know of an apropriate (or easily portable) label that describes what I beleive in.

I'll just take it from the top then, shall I?

I beleive in God; I was raised as a Midwestern Baptist. I'm not particularly devout, and certainly not evangelical in practice.

As a scientist, why do I beleive in God? My life's experiences have brought me to the conclusion that a God must exist. I do ~~beleive~~ [ARGH] believe that it is the ultimate vanity to think that "my" god is different from "their" god. I have heard this philosophy described thus: "There is one god, he has many faces." Furthermore, I believe that in the hereafter, Stuart Copeland will sit at the right hand of the Almighty ( Neil Peart ).

Politically... well, I'll call myself a Libertarian-leaning Centrist until I find a better label. I agree with the Libertarians up to a certain point. That point is where the extreme "Constitution in Exile" Libertarians live. I may tend to agree that the Federal Government is too excessive and overreaching, but I believe that we need the regulatory agencies (such as the EPA) that the "Exile" Libertarians would like to do away with.

Libertarians firmly believe in personal freedoms. I believe in the lowest common denominator; the human animal is consistently self-serving and in general will take advantage of any absence of regulation.

Abortion/Gay marriage. These two subjects are not related, but are treated the same in my philosophy. There are those who favor Constitutional amendments to ban either. My belief is based on the document that precedes the Constitution. The signers of the Declaration of Independence cited "...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." If you as an American accept this as a guiding principle, then you also have no right to impede, hamper, stigmatize or castigate anyone else's "pursuit of Happiness," whatever the goal or object of their happiness may be. Live and let live, what other people may want to do is none of your damn business.

I also believe that the legislature and its system of checks and balance in the federal government has become flawed in modern times. The President should not have allegiance to any political party in the legislature. Explain to me please: how can Emperor W possibly be impeached (I'm not saying here that he should be, I am saying that the framers of the Constitution intended for impeachment to be a normal process when neccessary) when a majority of the legislature support him as his fellow Republicans?? What was intended as a representative government has degenerated to two warring factions of political idealogies that simply can not (and sometimes has no intention to) function in the best interest of its constituents.

I believe that Social Security was a wonderful idea. It works; it may need a little tweaking to work better (be properly funded), but it does work.

If any Constitutional amendment is necessary, then I believe it should be amended to allow the legislature explicit authority to create, oversee, and dissolve when neccessary, Federal regulatory agencies. The Constitution, as it stands, authorizes congress to regulate commerce between states and with other nations, as well as regulation of the military, and all monetary policies.

I believe in government and corporate transparency... and....

I believe that my knees are burning?
They are both physically warm to the touch. Damn, I haven't even done anything today. I suppose its more to do with actually being idle. At work I've been walking as much as 10 miles in eight hours, up from the typical 6 miles. So I guess its the sudden relative exertion followed by relative inaction. Not to mention I didn't feel the need to take my after-work knee-related "dietary supplements". How amusing would it be if this is a kind of withdrawal?

Survey says this blog entry is over.

Ist das nicht ein W?

2005-04-27T01:32:00.000-05:00

My friend Jim recently made the suggestion that my recent attempts at creating fiction might be akin to "pulling a W."

For those that aren't familliar with that banter, it is a mocking reference to how Emperor W. made war on Iraq much as his father did. That is the intended meaning anyway.

The truth, unfortunately, is that a neo-conservative by any other name would smell just as bad.

Once again, its all about oil.
Even before Saddam, the only significant military powers in the Persian Gulf were Iraq and Iran (and it is significant that they are themselves oil producers). The Nixon doctrine called for backing "freindly" powers in the region with funding and hardware in order to protect the interests of the United States (Saudi oil). After the revolution in Iran, no friendly military powers remained in the region. Fast forward to the first Bush administration and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

The U.S. could not care less about Kuwait. The concept behind Operations Desert Sheild and Desert Storm was to protect (sheild) the Saudi Kingdom from possible conquest by Hussein. [The Saudi peoples are sufficiently disaffected with the Saudi Royal family that Hussein could easily have pulled off a coup similar to Hitler's annexation the Sudatenland]

Let me be absolutely clear here. You've seen on this blog how I've characterized the U.S.-Saudi relationship. The character of this relationship is very important. It is significant because every other country with a significant Islamic population is sympatico to the plight of the Palestinians and generally hate (for lack of a stronger word) the United States for supporting Isreal. The only thing that is preventing a 1970's style petroleum embargo against the United States is our cozy relationship with ths Saudis. There are other oil-producing nations, but the Saudis have so much more that they will still have untapped reserves when every other country has been pumped dry.

So, in a way, George Herbert Walker Bush was forced to go to war as a natural extension of the Nixon doctrine. There simply were no third-party options available, only direct U.S. military intervention. Under the guise of a multi-national force, of course.

Fast forward to September 11.
The assault on Afghanistan was necessary and sufficient; the country had become a safe haven for terrorists. For the neo-conservatives that came to power on Emperor W.'s coat-tails, however, this was precisely the scenario they wanted. We already had forces in the region for "legitimate" purposes; lets take out Saddam too while we're at it! [Rumsfeld was quoted as saying as much on September 12, 2001] "Neutralizing" Iraq by invasion would accomplish several things that Cheney and his pals wanted. Primarily, Saddam Hussein and his ambitions would become a non-entities in the Persian Gulf. Secondly, but more important (if also more short-sighted) for the long run, it provided a chance to "stabilize" the region with a democratic government that would (naturally) be freindly to the United States. Just in case anyone forgot, Iraq has oil too, thats another significant reason.

So, did W. "pull a W."?
My answer is no. George H. W. Bush was forced into Desert Storm as a natural result of the doctrines of preceding administrations. Emperor W always could have chosen not to make war on Iraq, but I seriously doubt that it was the W itself that made those decisions.

I know its too late to make a long story short. Why did Jim think that "Pulling a W" might apply to me? Well, I have a father too.

Should my prose be well-received, I'll accept that as a good thing.
W or no W.

The Things They Do. The Things They Slay.

2005-04-20T13:05:00.000-05:00

[not really happy with that title, but I'm tired of working on a better one]

What really infuriates me about this administration is its patent character of arrogance. I have already had my fill of "the White House denies..." over the last four years, but whats so appalling is how aptly that describes a significant number of the administration's players and supporters. Its very unsettling for me to hear some of the rhetoric that these brownshirts are doling out.

For this discussion I have to omit the actor who portrays Emperor W. Not because he isn't arrogant in his veiws. It is because when he isn't reciting speeches, the man makes no sense at all.

Rumsfeld is equally dense; "You go with the Army that you've got." Apparently you go with the Secretary of Defense that you've got too. (He's another puppet of the neoconservatives, why he's heading the DoD is beyond me)

Cheney is one of the few brains in this operation, and like Karl Rove, he's smart enough to keep a very low profile. If it weren't for news articles outlining the origins of "enemy combatants", a majority of America would scarcely have seen him since his debate with Edwards. [He mostly bellowed "You've got your facts wrong" but Edwards was pretty much correct. Since Cheney didn't say anything particularly enlightening of his own accord, all he effectively did was look like a bully. See the above statement about the last four years...]

Condoleeza Rice. I honestly do not know what to say about her. "W's pet" will do for starters. The NYTimes calls her "a scholar of Russian history." Its true, but its no accident either. I don't recall how long she's been in W's entourage, but she was earmarked very early on to be the principle Russia expert in W's future administration. (you read that right, I believe that at least 6-8 years of planning went into W's ascendency) Now, I'll respect her as a scholar, I've no trouble with that. What is remarkable is that her outlook seems to be colored by her loyalties.

In today's New York Times Online: ... she said recent trends in Russia's struggle to become a full-fledged democracy were not positive, citing increasing central control of state governments and broadcast media. But, she added, "it would be a mistake to start to think of this as somehow reverting back to Soviet times."

When I hear that kind of a statement in normal conversation, it is my cue to shut up and go away. When the other speaker has not just an opposite viewpoint, but one so badly distorted and in such a harsh contrast from what information I have access to, there simply is no middle ground for anything resembling a conciliatory attitude. (but thats just me I guess)

Anyhow, why is this arrogant? It is arrogant because it is another instance of the truth being distorted to fit W's Black and White universe. Bush and Putin (from most accounts) get on famously and may even be good friends. It would be anathema for members of this administration to label Putin a neo-Soviet (although it sounds right to me, that would make it the Russian version of a neoconservative) or otherwise paint him or his government in an unfavorable light. The fact that all forms of dissent, opposition, and even independent news sources have been marginalized (if in fact they are fortunate enough to have survived at all) must be trivial. The the blatant attempt to compromise the Ukranian government must have been similarly innocuous. [I am not going to go into the Yukos saga for good reason. The trials don't appear to be fair, but perhaps I missed something crucial: I have yet to see anyone from Yukos claim that they did not owe gazillions in taxes. If they do owe the government, thats not our concern.] "...It would be a mistake to start to think"... sorry Condi, but I already think that, so I guess I've gotten past the mistake of starting to think that way.

The "non-Soviet leaning" Russian leadership brings me directly back to this administration. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and her predecessor Rod Paige have referred to top educators and their associations as "un-American" and "terrorist organizations" respectively. The educators are trying to perform their duties and responsibilities within the framework of the new "No Child Left Behind" law, and would probably prefer to hear something a little more constructive from the administration.

The list goes on and on and on. Tom DeLay and the congressional republican leadership that conspires to sheild him from ethics rules: arrogant. John R. Bolton (insert anything you want here): arrogant. The White House's defense of same (Condi Rice is on-message for this one too): arrogant.

OK fine, thats politics right? We want "our" respective people holding power so we can pursue our respective agendas. I understand that concept. Fighting to put a real turd like Bolton into office (into the United Nations of all things! He's a better candidate for Secretary of Education, if the current and former ones are indicative of desirable qualities) is positively absurd. It is presently the summit of their arrogance. I'm sure there is more to come, so it would be more appropriate to use a mathematical term: local maxima.

What really gets to me is how low down the political ladder this nonsense goes. And its not "us versus them" or even "my way or the highway" anymore. We've somehow regressed all the way back to Senator Joe McCarthy accusing everyone of being a Communist sympathiser; and especially since 9/11. Now these people in power are using phrases like "un-American" and "terrorist organisation" when dealing in national affairs. I don't have the reference handy but I read where a leader of christian conservatives said of Democrats: "They hate your God." We have freedom of religion in this country, but this guy makes it sound like one of the next 4 or 5 Constitutional Amendments will correct that.

When they were talking about the importance of values, they should have specified whose values they were talking about. Now it appears that they really meant the values of the Josef Mengele family.

I resent this administration, and their arrogance, and their lies. I am not, however, diametrically opposed to their program. It is the feral sophistry of their conservative extremism that rubs me the wrong way. Listening to them rage on, I am forced to remember that some 51% of America voted for this.

Welcome to the Melting Pot.
If you don't agree with us, we can always make it hotter for you.

I Before E Except Afternoons And Evenings

2005-04-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it is a disease. I keep writing everything (even freehand) in absolute contradiction to the rule. I even wrote "concieved" a few hours ago, so I am even getting the exception backward! This is extremely embarassing for one who aspires to wrestle with diction, or other politically incorrect fare. It must be a new strian of vuris.
(heh)

This is a good, and fairly shrewd article on the times that bind. My only real objection is I think he's overly harsh with the media. On the other hand, I have my own reasons to think that the New York Times is a conservative-leaning wolf in non-partisan drag.

One of the contributors to the Science Fiction Blog wrote this regarding a news item:
"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense." It's possible that I have taken that too much to heart. I kept trying to re-write resurgence because the introductory banter when the two characters meet never felt real to me. Instead of "Ooooh! Tell me more!" she should kick him in the balls and scream for the cops. Several rewrites later it looks like I'm writing a completely different story. So many ideas, so little focus. What I ultimately decided... um, about 12 hours ago (golly I need to get to bed) was that I need to get resurgence posted, even if its only a first draft. What I did to resolve the dialogue issue was to put it in a strophe/antistrophe format... if thats the correct term. I think it actually reads better that way. I also corrected the dead link on my home page to link to a menu containing it and future literary misdeeds.

More Guns Than The Texas Legislature

2005-04-10T13:00:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a long, interesting trip. Several people were interested in my rifle, including a man whom I rather presume was german. He apparently has a set of claw mounts such as I might need to mount a scope. I told them all that I was not interested in selling. I wonder how true that really is. At a guess, I could probably get $1500 for it which is easily thrice what I paid for it. On the other hand, I'm old-fashioned, and a romantic. Posessing a rifle chambered for a cartridge that is: a) archaic, and b) not currently mass produced by any company (8x57J), greatly appeals to me. [Norma used to make it, but last I heard (5 years ago) they no longer do] At any rate, I am feeling remiss that I did not get the german fellow's contact information.

It turns out that I cannot use stripper clips. There is a cutout guide for a stripper clip, but the 'ears' have been filed down long ago (bluing over the truncated ears). The claw-mount type scope mounts are a kind that would have to be readjusted every time you remove and replace the rifle's scope. Thus the scope would be left in place, and since the scope leaves no clearance for stripper clips (which must be held directly above the receiver and pushed down into the magazine) the cartridges were loaded manually. So now, even though I have neither the appropriate mounts or original scope, I cannot use a stripper clip because the ears are gone, and the clip would not be held properly.

I saw a WWII-issue (1943) Remington Rand Colt .45ACP with chrome finish. Very nice. Has "Property of US Govt" on the right side of the slide and looks brand new. It's also $1200. I took the vendor's buisiness card because he's also a dealer for Eagle Grips (as in for 1911 pattern pistols). Spotted a Ruger GP-100 for $340, $100 less than I paid for mine... wow.. 8 years ago?? Saw a 9mm CZ-75 in stainless, I like that design, but I'll pass on any 9mm. There was an Astra .45ACP pistol for $270. Should be a decent gun, and at a sweet price, but I have no practical use for a compact pistol. Kimber. One vendor was a Kimber dealer who had a nifty array of their products. Noteworthy was the 'Warrior' model. Apparently a civillian version of a SOC Marines pistol. Steel frame, black matte finish, night sights, and lower frame accessory lug for flashlights or laser dot sight. What really makes the 'Warrior' attractive is the tan (or is that Army olive?) grip panels, which appear to be rubber. Also noteworthy is that it does not have the Kimber Series II safety. I presume that is due to the Marines requiring a "series 80" saftey. I would expect the military to be picky like that. The one I saw wore a tag of $1150. The vendor also had a 'Raptor' model, but there's nothing new there, just fancy (and expensive) cosmetics. Just in case I hadn't had enough, on the way home I stopped by a Gander Mountain store that was near the fairgrounds. They also had a selection of pretty Kimbers, as well as other brands. I was not aware that they had a gunsmith on staff. I'll have to remember that.

I was standing by an older man who was peering at pretty guns at one of the vendor's tables. The man asked to inspect one of the guns and showed his IL FOID card. The vendor said "That's not valid; you have to sign it." The card dispay's the owners picture at the upper right, and right where the right edge of the card ends, there is a faint blue line on the lamination. Words on the right edge of the lamination (where there is no card underneath) say "sign name above using ballpoint pen only". I had not noticed that either. Actually, that is idiotic. You should be able to sign the card BEFORE the lamination is applied. What really happens is that, once approved, you get the card in the mail from the State, and as I recall, there was no hint about any need to sign the card. Just tiny letters in faint blue, on the hazy clear lamination.

I have to go make a bumper sticker now. It will say: "I brake for stop signs."
What a world we live in.

Does a Fusillade Increase Entropy?

2005-04-09T22:14:00.000-05:00

I was rather pleased Friday morning at work. I had about two hours of idle time in the morning and turned out about four pages of dialogue for 'Resurgence'. [That'll probably turn into one page of dialogue after I transcribe it.] Finally I have the time, and am in a frame of mind to do the transcribing, but just thinking about what I have written, I want to change it during the transcription. Some parts I want to change radically. So now I guess I need to hang on to my rough notes longer than I had intended to, just as a means of preserving the product of Friday's thought processes. Well, I guess this is another instance where the filing cabinet come in handy.

Finally, my weekend is here. As I've mentioned, I work seven straight days, then have off only about 40 hours to change to a different shift for another seven days. And so on. Then after seven days on 'first' shift I get a 4-day weekend. Thats where I am right now.

Ah.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday and this morning playing Counter-Strike: Condition Zero with my clan mates, as this is also pretty much the only time that I have free time that coincides with people actually playing on our clan's server. Also last night I realised that following my not-so-recent HDD issues, I had never updated the chipset drivers. Since this is a PIII 800MHz system (obsolete), using updated drivers does actually make a significant difference in my in-game performance.
Also: ah, much better.

Off and on I worked on filling the filing cabinet, and other related 'spring cleaning' functions. I think I have a majority of the catalogues filed; a small victory won over the encroaching chaos. I have a sudden urge to give each file a discrete name in order to starkly contrast each one to the other, permanently establishing this compartmentalized order.

My friend Jim asked me if $660 sounded reasonable for a Kimber. I knew that name, but I guess I had not grasped the sheer sleekness of their products. As it turns out, I should think that $660 was a steal, depending of course which model is being considered. The polymer frame models sell for a bit less than the other models. Of course, the real problem was in my seeing these wondrous things, because now I want one. (The Royal Custom II appeals to me, but if there are any examples still available of the 25th Anniversary Custom Limited Edition (2004), that should be a nice peice at a very reasonable price.) Its foolishnes, of course, but that fact doesn't blunt the perceived longing for a new 'toy'. So I'm going to the Kane County Gun Show tomorrow. Hopefully several hours spent looking at the pretty guns will cure me of the new desire. Of course, there are practical purposes for going. My rifle needs proper scope mounts 'smithed on, and I need to locate stripper clips that will fit it in order to chamber the sweet 8x57J goodness. Its typically a good long ride out to the better events, not to mention I work on 3 out of 4 weekends, so I only go to these shows once in a great while.

Which of course reminds me that I need to awaken in 6 hours to get on the road.
Goodnight!

Spring Cleaning

2005-04-05T20:31:00.000-05:00

But first, a bit of fun!

Mr. Anon! A. Mouse writes: "Everything that you write is automatically copyrighted by yourself, so there's no need to do anything special if you wish to reserve all rights to your writings."

The legalese goes this way: That is very true for this blog, for multiple reasons. In general, once I "fix" anything onto paper or recordable media (includes HDD's such as wherever this server's storage media is), I secure copyright to it. (Note: What if I lose the media and it doesn't have my name on it? I'll come back to that.) This blog automatically encodes the date and time, and has (sometimes) my likeness over in that area, so there is little question of whom created it when. Thus the copyright is automatically, and obviously, attributed to me.

If my normal website (well.... for certain values of 'normal' anyway) happens to be disorganised, or incomplete, then (this is my interpretation) copyright of material on those pages is automatic, yes, but ownership is a bit vague. You can tell ownership of the web page from the META tags (whoops, those aren't filled in), or the associated "about me" page (oops, it doesn't exist, or the link is broken), but there could be a problem if its not obvious. That's why folks like to use the explicit notices on their most prized work. That leaves no doubt as to ownership.

Fortunately, copyright law allows you to register for a formal copyright with the patent office (providing you act quickly) if any suits or similar issues regarding your work arise. That should protect your work adequately (given the copyright is granted, of course). So if I lose the paper with my award-winning poem on it, I can simply contact the copyright office, only to discover that I cannot remember how my poem goes....

I learned what I needed to know in any event. And perhaps I should clarify - no, I didnt lose a poem.

Another good day for me. The brutal content of my work for the next 3 days took a significant downturn at the end of today's shift. So it turns out I will not be having my rectum used to score a ringer after being propelled skyward to carrom off of the 'stone guy'. This newly revised job workload does actually rank in the 'acceptable' category, a very unexpected but delightful twist. After work I did actuall spring cleaning stuffs. I actually swept up some (not all, I didnt want to overdo it!) dead leaves and twigs in the area where my Ninety Eight resides amongst a throng of random engine parts. Sweeping dirt outdoors: I must be getting old. Then some apartmental cleaning. Again, quite a lot to do in here, but it's happening.

It turns out that the HHW event is a good ways downstate. What this means for me is that instead of breaking even for the refresher training fee, I may actually gain some money due to a fuel allowance. The agency hasn't confirmed that my prescence is needed, but a day off is good too.

The Eyewashes Have It

2005-04-04T22:49:00.000-05:00

OK. Got my HAZWOPER refresher training done and certificate in hand (well, figuratively anyhow).
I used that company last time I needed a refresher, and although their website really falls short of convincing me of their legitimacy, nobody has questioned my certificate (but then, how often do you ask to see a mechanic's credentials?).
That's taken care of anyway.

Mr Anonymous comments: "Everything that you write is automatically copyrighted by yourself, so there's no need to do anything special....."

That sounds good. "Automatic protection" however, doesn't quite sound like the America I know. Yeah, I'm probably just being paranoid, but I'd still like to see the legal-ese on that. Also, I can't beleive that "Mr. Anonymous" is spending his time at work reading my blog. On the other hand, since you're getting paid while you're heading, I'm happy to distract while you earn monies towards your next domicile.
(It is possible that I have mis-identified Mr. A, but my intuition verges on the uncanny, so I really doubt that it is a Mr. E)

I'll call that 1.5 of two pressing issues down and an unexpectedly easy day at work. I only got a speck of foreign matter in my eye once. [Saturday was horrible on my eyes: grit, quicklime and coal dust multiple times. You really don't want to know how painful coal dust is.] Very nice weather too; if I could bottle it I would forge a diction. That would probably be redundant, so I just tried to soak it in while I could. Moving down the laundry list, two items are of moderate importance: more HTML on the website, and I need to finish a draft of "Resurgence".

I cannot imagine why I decided to call the homepage "ground zero". Maybe it sounded progressive. Maybe it sounded cool. Maybe I need a good slap. There's certainly almost nothing happening there, so the Zero works. That phrase is also a designation for the rubble from the World Trade Center. I'm not particularly pious when it comes to cultural icons but thats the sort of sacred cow that I'll prefer to respect: neither milking nor slaughtering it. Perhaps something quite the opposite would be better. "Dead Zone" sounds bizzarre and perhaps pretentious. Doldrum is probably more to the point but... it's one of those words that becomes awkward in parlance. "Welcome to the Doldrum".... So is it a singular doldrum where everything is just dead? Why bother to issue a greeting? Just take a pillow and pass them around. At any rate, change is needed.

Resurgence. I really like that for the title. Not a case of multiple meanings, but multiple ways to apply the same or similar meaning. It makes a nice short story, and I certainly need to get something finished. Because after that I have an alternator to rebuild (still), more filing, multiple expressions of spring cleaning, car stuff....
(hmm.... writes down "order carburetor rebuild kit")
With the sudden spate of fair weather, I'm instantly behind in everything.

.....and thats pretty much it for now. Its way too late again, and I haven't even come up with a title. I thought of one this morning, but I've forgotten it. That title may have been more appropriate for an essay about Vladimir Putin, which I thought I was going to write about - and still will, I think. Another time. So, I'll go with a combination of HazMat and all the crap getting in my eyes on Saturday. Goodnight.

Is It Safe?

2005-04-03T22:02:00.000-05:00

I just got a 4-drawer file cabinet for $40.
OfficeMax lists these for $160 new!
(insert happy dance here)

I was visiting my brother, who lives very near where we grew up. While I was there, I excused myself and walked down the street to the GNC at the mall, to score some melatonin and Chondroitin (I tend to use the latter religiously, the former, less nowadays than I used to... so I guess its appropriate that it was also my birthday). Anyhow, the Circuit City branch that had been there had closed and was gone. Just two guys selling off the furniture & fixtures. A lotta beat up junk, including the file cabinets. And the Brother happens to have a van... YES!

Yeah, it probably shouldn't be such a big deal, but it is to me.
I have been needing this very badly. I make tornado alley destruction look like an anal-retentive's closet. Car parts, parts catalogs, car magazines, old Oldsmobile parts books, old car literature, a pamphlet about how to find parts catalogs (if you can beleive that!). That's only the automotive section. "Pack rat" probably applies to me. I am way more excited about this than I really should be. I even installed a lock on the cabinet. My brother pointed out (correctly) that it really didnt need one. Well jeez, its my parade, damn it! I'll go overboard if I want too. Hell, call it the "bling" for my new toy!
Plus I was impressed at how easy the install was... low-cost ego boost!

So that's been filling my non-work time recently. What to file, and how to file it.
Dammit, I just realised its been keeping me from working on HazMat refresher. Crap. That's time sensitive. I'd like to have it done by Friday. Sooner if possible.

I had to do a quick wash at the laundromat. Left 'Blood & Oil' at the Brother's house, so I was without my usual laundry passtime. Instead I decided to do a little writing. Ended up using the last few pages of my mileage logbook (no great loss, its unlikely I'll ever fill it up) to progress with the Sorrow story. Wrote 2-3 pages, added a new twist that I rather like. [I'm glad that I managed to distance myself mentally from the last "idea" I had for this one. That was so awful.] The experience of writing at the laundromat got me to thinking. That was probably the most casual setting that I'd written in. Sooooo.... when I was returning some filing paraphernalia today I bought a .... uh... what're these things called? Its a leather "pad holder". I had been using a VERY low-rent folder thing to carry my resumes and related certificates around in. This should be able to do double duty as a resume aid. I guess its always easy to justify luxuries if you're just willing to think too much about why you MUST have one. Anyhow, it does fulfill a perceived need. I had been keeping a tiny notepad in the car for capturing creative moments, since I'm likely to forget what the hell it was that I was thinking of. This is much easier and sturdier to write on and fits between the seat and the center console.

And speaking of poor memory, I want to snoop about the net for information about copyrighting what I've written. Is there something that I can do that will cover what I write as I am writing it? Or do I have to finish something (yeah, as if!) before any such protection can apply?

Mitaswell mention the actual birthday. The Brother hosted a family thing oestensibly for me, when in actuality I was like 3rd or 4th on the actual list of attractions. I'm the oldest child, but my younger brother is married with a boy-toddler and a girl-infant. Both of whom rated far higher than I on the scale of my parents attentions. But I showed them! I got food poisoning or something similar and eked out my personal 5 minutes of spotlight for that evening at the mere cost of my own severe discomfort. And mild embarrassment. I haven't been ill like that since before I quit drinking. Fun birthday huh?

I do have a rather pithy political dialogue coming, but I thought I'd put that off just a bit. I can use that angry energy to file more things away!

Must sleep. I'm the day-slave this week.

To Be, Or To HazMat, Is That The Question?

2005-03-30T00:29:00.000-06:00

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to survive, or to collect a paycheck and pray it expires before you do.

While spring may or may not have arrived. The weather gives no definitive answers, but agitating the ethereal 8-ball yeilds the determination "my sources say yes".

The weather is once again warm enough for Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) pickups. The gist of it is that a township (in conjunction with the state's version of the EPA) will arrange for a HazMat company to set up a temporary staging area where the locals can come by and drop off their nasty things. Typically arranged on an odd Saturday on a large parking lot.

Working in Hazardous Materials (as I used to do full-time) requires quite a lot of training, especially in safety. Its standard for new hires to have 40 hours of training before they are allowed to be in the HazMat facility. Thats just the start. Its been years since I was fired from that job. I deserved it, but I was also very glad to go. It didn't have to be a difficult job, but that was one of the few parameters that evaded my control. The training (naturally) I get to keep. While I was unemployed, one of the odd jobs that helped was going on these little HHW pickups. The snag is that the essential HAZWOPER training requires a yearly "refresher" training. Employees sit in on a session paid for & scheduled by the company. For me, having no company, the best I can do is a $100 course on the internet. Call it an investment. I guess.

So, now I've been contracting again, at the same client for a year, and starting to get financially stable again. BUT now I work most weekends. Well there's another HHW coming up on April 9th. Miraculously I don't work that day, but my certification has expired. So, do I drop a yard and call it an investment for the next 365? This may be the only day that I can work, and if so, I'll break even at best. It'll look good on a resume, though. I'm really tempted to just take the darn day off, too.

Sorry, Mohammed lives three mountains down the road.

2005-03-25T03:47:00.000-06:00

Yesterday's concept was 'stepping stones.' Even a failed venture can have positive fruits. How, I wonder does that explain me?

Today we'll learn how to saw a lady into three bits and then dispose of the evidence.
Oh, Damn. She ran away. Even faster than the man with nine legs.

I had a great idea for a story a few hours ago. A good, funny ending too. You won't see it today. (See Jim? Ya shoulda stuck around! Thanks for the Marlinespike.) You won't see it tomorrow either. It's good enough that I think I'll mail a copy of it to myself. That's actually part of a problem I am having. The disbeleif angle. You see, I have to wonder if some of these things aren't me remembering other work. From my perspective, what I've just started writing feels a LOT like Harlan Ellison's prose. HE is one of my top 5 favorite authors, so that's more a compliment to myself if it is genuinely original work. I don't beleive that I fear success on my own merits or anything like that. I'd really hate for anything of mine to be received as really great and then be revealed as someone else's work.

You've heard the BS saw about monkeys and typewriters? BS I say. How in the world are you going to have a monkey want to type instead of running around eating, fucking, or shitting on everything? A population beginning as small as multiple millions tends to be used in the example right? There are now 6 billion people in the world today. Alive right now. I cannot fit that number into my brain. 6 billion. Now lets count backwards to the era of the printing press. Just for grins. A generation is what, 18-30 years, depending on degree of prudishness? Call it 4 generations per hundred years? (a longer rather than shorter generation is more conservative and helps correct for "losses", you know, like genocide) All the way back to 1436. Does 27 generations sound right? With a population decrease in each generation going backwards. I won't do the math but lets consider ALL of those people at once. Everyone who lived during and since the printing press was invented. More than 10 billion sound good? 12-15 billion? Sounds good to me.

So, call it 15 billion humans, from printing press to now. Not monkeys, but bona fide homo sapiens. Once of all those people, of all that time, only one William Shakespeare. What I'm thinking about right now are his sonnets. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day.." was written, I beleive, about his young son, who died at an early age.

Monkeys tend to pick insects off of their children, not sonnets.

So you bring your one gazillion monkeys. I got a nice IBM Selectric. First one to type a sonnet wins the argument for good and all. Creativity trumps fecal ability.

So how does that explain congress?

Listen to mah story 'bout a Gov'nor named Jeb....

2005-03-24T10:06:00.000-06:00

A poor Texas Oil Baron that barely kept his family fed.

Yup. Politik.

I don't expect anybody to beleive this. I first realized about two years ago that Jeb Bush is being groomed for the Presidency. Oh its not such a huge revelation, and the little ways that it is happening are becoming more and more obvious. Did anybody notice when Jeb went on a tour of the areas devastated by the tsunami? Thats right, Governor Jeb acting as foriegn dignitary and faux good-will messenger.

Funny how things work. I thought that he had a state to run, you know, duties or something. What precisely was Jeb going to do about what he saw, implore congress to send more aid? The entire concept seems masturbatory until you consider his future political prospects. The same could be said right now about the Terry Schivaro case. There's Jeb again. Now he wants to assume custody of Ms. Shivaro. I guess he has a nice spot planned for her in the garden of the Governor's mansion. Since the constitution still works properly, hes not going to accomplish anything. Our courts and the application of the law must be absolutely devoid of feeling and compassion. Unfortunately, whats really happening is that Jeb is campaigning (yes, I'm sure you noticed that too). He threw himself on this political football early on, and now, despite his failure to accomplish anything, he's the #1 champion of Ms. Shivaro's right to life. [I'd rather it be him than Tom De Lay, but thats personal bias] Look for a post-failure invitation to the White House for the Shindler's (Shivaro's parents), also attended by Jeb. That last part is actually a bit of a suprise for me, I hadn't expected the entire GOP to jump on the bandwagon at the last moment. Two weeks ago I would have guessed the invite would be to the Florida Governor's mansion.

Now I'm going to make a subject transition, and its something happening a lot like Jeb's Presidential prospects. Jeb's attempts may have been fruitless, but he is gaining in recognition, in potential political power to be called upon for a future goal.

That is precisely what is happening in America's oil industry. Domestic oil production has been falling off since the 1970's, resulting in increased dependence on foreign oil. You knew that. [Pepsi break.... mmmmm] The 2001 National Energy Policy made a number of politically dangerous reccomendations; facilitating better ties with foreign oil producers (particularly in the Western Hemisphere when possible, and that means Hugo Chavez!), and increasing domestic production. ANWR raises its ugly head.

Let's not have any illusions here, if current efforts fail, the GOP and Big Oil will try again, and succeed at some point. Big Oil, however, has been becoming a bit disillusioned with the current push. They were hoping it would happen sooner. Whats the point in spending billions to lobby congress when thats what the billions that went so support GOP campaigns was for? Whats really happening is that Big Oil knows something that you dont. Very few people do, actually. The President himself might not know, and if he does, he is NOT telling.

There was a geological survey performed on the area some years ago. The results, however, are secret. I can guess what it is though; There is an oil deposit there, but strategically negligible in size. If there was an oil feild there to put the Saudi's to shame, then we would already have been pumping it. As it stands, if there is (miraculously) some 10 billion barrels of oil there, that source will reduce dependency on foreign oil by 3% for about 20 years. Much Ado About Nothing.

So its a political football, and any success is going to be moderate at best. So why all the fuss? It is because Big Oil has a bigger goal in mind. ANWR is just a stepping stone. If they can bludgeon their way through to drilling in a protected wildlife refuge, then they are one step closer to the real goal of drilling off the coast of the continental US. Especially off California. Yeah. Wouldn't the environmental groups just throw a fit.

The sad fact is: thats what it has come to. A majority of oil from overseas, and a minority of energy conservation at home. Switching gears to focus on renewable energy would throw a constellation-sized spanner in the works of the American economy. The real point should be that the same will happen when we suck the Saudi's so dry that their testicles shrivel up and die. When that happens however, we will be nearly 100% dependent on them. So a small crash now, or a much bigger one after the incumbent political figures are out of office. Pretty easy choice for them to make.

What a marvelous country we live in.
At least the legal system still works.

2005-03-23T11:29:00.000-06:00

oh yeah, its rotten
And this was back in October.

I am no Icarus; I crave not your Sun.

2005-03-23T08:37:00.000-06:00

What the hell is wrong with me?
Awake for 26 hours or more, I managed to sleep for all of five. If even that.
Yet when I awoke, I set down and wrote this in a single sitting:

Endeavour

I remember the stories that my mother told
Of dangerous desert creatures; their dread sight
Remembered ‘round the campfires late at night
Of the great Fyros warriors, mighty and bold

Of Pyr! O Mighty City! Tireless walls and ramparts
Home to the noble Fyros that wield fire and steel
The Emperor's wondrous palace; fine sparkling jewel!
Fortress of the desert, shielding courageous hearts

So powerful the tales, so memorable the words
That my dreams were short-sighted; far too meager
To be great as the Fyros of legends, Yes! I am eager
To be remembered in songs that shame the birds!

Much have I leaned, and so much sweat
Great friendships were made; so many were kind
Fine advice they gave; my wounds they did bind
These trials are long, but I cannot forget

That my heart is yearning, awaiting the day
When the energy I feel and the Kami consult
Fiery desert I shall scour, and the Dragon hunt
I will yet be with you, Mighty Pyr, so far away

For long shall I toil, and ever strive;
Ever stronger become, and thirst for the day
This journey is complete, and I proudly say:
O Majestic Pyr; I have arrived!

Wow.
Then, I was responding to something else on the message boards, and I threw this down;

(I was working nights; the days just melt together. The sun comes and goes as always, never pausing to ponder the name affixed to its journey.)

Where does all this come from? Is it lingering in my subconscious from some half-remembered poem?
And yet, when I get up to attend the head, I unwittingly punt the 2-liter bottle of Pepsi that nurtures me. Great, Karl, just great. Since when was I deficient in the Froth group?

This is not news, but neither have I mentioned it (that I can remember).
I shall not be taking the 425 to the machine shop this year. Nothing has changed except possibly the gravity that I assign to issues of personal finance, which shall not be addessed in this medium. I shall continue dissasembly and cleaning. Rebuilding the 2v carb will barely be a rainy afternoon's worth of distraction. Possibly I may rebuild the starter, since I've had nothing but trouble when it came to replacements for my beloved Soylent. Body issues on the Mission will be paramount importance. Particularly since I went to the trouble of replacing the trunk weatherstrip only to find that the real problem was a leaking back window. That's almost definitely going to be cancerous.

More fuss and fume to that. I cannot weld. I have never brazed. I am unwilling to perpetrate a partial rectum fix which will only need to be corrected later. Nor am I inclined to make use of any patch material that is not structurally useful. I only used a resin patch on the rear quarter last year because I beleived it was helpful to contain the cancer for the interim. I may, however, have sealed IN water leaking through the rear window.

And now on to the bashing....

EDIT
After further review, regarding how to write from a woman's perspective. A much more terrible pun would be:
"What literary tool shall I snatch from my box."
Ah. The power of lewd thinking.
/EDIT

Happiness is a nice warm 40

2005-03-22T11:49:00.000-06:00

Ahh.... 40 hours away from work.
Yeah, its just a grunt job but the OT is a nice plus. Short layover while I acclimate for moving to a different shift.
Accomplished a good deal this morning. Created a links page for my website. For now its just some of the webcomix I frequent; much more content to be added in future. I need to select an appropriate wallpaper. Or an inappropriate wallpaper, whatever. I re-learned some HTML tags and learned some new ones to alter the side bar awaaaaaaaay over there on the right. Thats MUCH better. Hmm.... ooops. I need to alter the bottom of that. Needs a bold Karl and a hard break after that for improved spacing.

I think I made a major breakthrough for "Disconnect". Thats what I decided to call the first peice, and no, I'm not linking to it yet. It is an internal soliloquy refencing another (minor) character. Switching the genders of the two make it much more plausible. The main question remaining is what do I need to know to successfully present a woman's thoughts? ~~What literary tool should I pull from my box?~~* The safe route involves basic truths about men from the standpoint of women. That's not at all hard to do. Yet something that more explicitly has the hallmark of femininity is desired. That nuance that would make the character really live. I may already have that element, but more on that later.

I had originally written myself into the major role, as it was based on a dream I had whose storyline spun WAY out of control. Since the peice is still mutating, it is obvious that control has yet to be established.

Political content will likely return as the mood takes me.

*This blog ensures reader safety through PUNBOT - Making your lives safer and happier through drab reading.

Dumb Ass ex machina

2005-03-21T07:57:00.001-06:00

I had thought for some time that I should leave politics out of this journal. To be completely honest, I cannot come up with a single good reason why. Since I'm VERY disappointed with some 52% of Americans, and I have to suffer through another 4 years of "... the White House denies...", then by God, I am going to use my Constitutional right to complain about it!

Financial 'Reform'

I mean tax cuts, tax code reform, social security 'reform', everything. Its all about America's rich people (excuse me, America's rich who donate to Republican causes) gaining more money and being taxed less. [Its also about market share for Wall Street, who has been after this since at least the 1970's, but thats incidental to the GOP.] Those fancy ass tax cuts do a lot more for the rich than for you or I. Social Security is an even better example. FDR did something brilliant when he created Soc Sec. A poor laborer who gives a lifetime of work and pays his taxes will get more in retirement benefits than he ever would with any personal retirement account. Thats because Soc Sec uses that payroll tax to redistribute the 'wealth' downward. Thats also why the GOP wants to kill it. Why should rich executives (and politicians) submit to a payroll tax when they ALREADY live like they are retired?

Government Infomercials

As if I have to say how asinine this really is. Not only are they selling their BS under a thin guise of journalism, but I'm paying for it???? Hey! I want my money back!

Here is the real kicker:
Lets imagine for just a moment that the W regime is a big corporation. (Not that its hard to think that way, but bear with me.) This corporation's legal counsel (the Justice Department) has told the head office to ignore the independent auditor (the Government Accountability Office) when they say that the Infomercials are illegal. Hmmm... I smell Enron.

Jesse 'the Body' Ventura

Speaking of Social Security and Government Infomercials, remember Jesse, the former Governor of Minnesota? I beleive we need more public figures like him. Opponents loved to seize on his association with 'scripted entertainment' in attempts to discredit him. At this moment, Emperor W is on an infomercial tour. He's making grand speeches about how we need Personal Retirement Accounts to pre-screened audiences that offer only well-rehearsed questions. Everything by the numbers. One, two, three, turn; turn, turn, kick, turn.
Hey W! Jesse may have been wrestling, but the audiences were REAL.
Thats something that the White House will never, ever allow.

Hey! I want to see W fly over the top rope. D'ya suppose I could convince them to spend my tax money that way? Hell, I could sell tickets.

During his Navy SEAL years, Jesse and his team were lucky to survive a training accident. I can think of a number of politicians that more richly deserve to be caught by the current at the bottom of a freezing river. And that list crosses party lines.

EDIT
Thou Shalt Have No Message Before Ours!

From today's New York Times:
"The agenda submitted with the application indicated some of the conference activities would support lobbying, and the budget that was submitted was not able to show that federal funds would not be used for lobbying activities."
Crudely interpreted: the enemy of my enemy just might be lobbying for my enemy, so kill both.
/EDIT

The Saudi Royal Family

My current reading has proven most illuminating. Anyone in this Administration, or ANY administration, who says that its not all about oil is full of shit. Full. Of. Shit. The only way to be more completely shitty is to be employing a team of monkeys to actively fling more feces at you.

The relationship between the United States and the Saudi Royal family is ~exactly~ like this:
The U.S. is a wealthy and powerful woman executive and the House of Saud is her 'kept man'. She's going to buy him a house, a car, playthings, and generally throw money at him because he gives her what she wants. When all is said and done, she is going to take it VERY far up the ass, and then - bleeding and screaming in pain - ask for more. Because thats what it takes to get what she wants.

Overdrived and sleep-deprived

2005-03-17T21:25:00.000-06:00

I was informed by the outgoing co-worker that it was going to be slow last night. Wrong. I wasted time filing on my boots when I shoulda been cracking. For some reason I awoke after only 4 hours sleep, and it was one of those times where just going back to bed would not be fruitful.

Running around on 4 hours sleep: not a good thing. Multiple moments of brain fade, though I did have some ideas for Sorrow. From those ideas, what I've adopted so far looks like it may be headed in the wrong direction. It gives the story a dark turn right from the start, and seems no longer to be going where I wanted. OTOH if I can make it work, then it will have a built-in message.. dark, but a good fit for where I thought I was headed. Then again, tired minds are way too susceptible, I should consider tossing the new ideas.

Landlady wants to know if my keys work. Well she's a cheapskate and the lock needs to be replaced. The original keys are so old that copied keys dont work well. Fortunately, I have one of the originals, but I come and go more often than anyone. But I'll be happy to leave a not suggesting she get a new lock. She could take the current one to a 'smith and have it refit, leaving the joint unlocked while I'm asleep. I'm going to forget to mention that option.

3/18/05 Edit: That was SUCH a bad idea for the story. Needs to be placed in the "Why I Need a Lobotomy" file. I hope nobody EVER finds out what it was I was contemplating, and in fact started to write. It's just as well it was going nowhere. Now I have to go do something else to get my perspective back. Thats good as I need to finalize another story.

What font size is the letter of the law?

2005-03-15T16:48:00.000-06:00

Does this text appear overtly gigantic to anyone?
I tried veiwing this with IE yesterday and the font appeared to be of size = fucking huge!
Most likely a difference between how a style sheet is rendered in IE and Mozilla.

So I wondered what anyone else thought of the font size.
Maybe I just have the default size set to tiny in my browser. Also I've ditched my Ye Olde 13" Monitor for a 17" flat screen. A concurrent switch from 800x600 to 1024x768 desktop resolution kept most everything looking the same as before.

Resolved at least one issue with Morgaine's character for 'Sorrow'. More remain, but will be easier to resolve now. Its a matter of completing a jigsaw puzzle when you do not know the ultimate size/shape of the completed image or the individual peices. Each peice succesfully added redefines the remaining task.
Work tonight, doing some research before bed.

2005-03-14T18:25:00.000-06:00

Multiple topics today. Begining with me not being satisfied with this blog template, the column is much too narrow. I suppose I could compensate for that, but honestly, why should I bother?

Oldsmobile

A mister John Scott Pajak (hereafter referred to as "JSP", which is actually his pagan name) chose to infuriate me once again the other day. He seems to be convinced that I am the obvious candidate for a future owner for his 1965 Delta 88, despite the Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles of sound and sober argument that I consistently provide to the contrary, and formal requests that he not repeat those overtures. Given the curent political and economic trends, it is likely for the best that I have lost my beloved Soylent to the forces that tax. In the interests of fiscal responsibility, I have previously made clear that if I cannot make progress with The Mission, I will quit the Oldsmobile as a hobby for good and all. JSP my freind, screw you.

Writing

I've decided on a format for that last display of creative fervor. I'm going to write it as a triptych, with one section written from each point of veiw. That accomplishes a number of things at the same time. It makes the narractive a lot more interesting. It will help me greatly in fleshing out the other characters when writing a third person's perspective. Most importantly it keeps me from losing interest in the project since there are now 3 (three) distinct backstories to develop. [Well, since I've already got a good idea for two of them that argument loses some weight, but I really do need to keep my attention focused] The working title for the story is "Sorrow", and I'm thinking of posting it on my website as I progress. (if you noticed the "dead link" link, thats what I have planned for it)

Counter-Strike

Yes, an old hobby, but a topic new to this blog. I've been in Graveyard Shift Killers for a few years now. Like most families, we've had problems and our founding member retired, but we're still together. Our server is still going ...er, well, this may actually be the third server in our history, but its running. We maintained it as a fun place to play and our rules emphasize respect for the other players. We were trying to brainstorm for new ideas recently. I suggested time-unspecific competitions, and someone else suggested T-shirts.
T-shirts? DAMN. Why didn't ~I~ think of that?

Miscellaneous

I got some errands done today ... and there was much rejoicing ~yay~! Aluminium recycling and laundry were the big ones. While waiting for the laundry I got gas (eeep!!) and bought a needle file set. It should be handy for my automotive hobby, but theres something else much more pressing: my workboots. I finance my poverty by trudging around a lime kiln. Quicklime is very hard on boots. It just saps the moisture from leather. A side-issue that I've been having is that my laces keep breaking. Apparently multiple eyelets on the boot are cutting into the laces? I dont remember similar happening so quickly elsewhere on other boots, maybe its the lime making the laces weaker? At any rate, I'll try to file down any sharp bits on the problem eyelets and see what happens. For the most part I'm already doomed to replacement laces, which are never of the same quality as OEM bootlaces. I don't really understand why that is either, Red Wing et alii could make a killing.

Incendiary Imagination Implies Inspiration? or Indigestion?

2005-03-12T11:02:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned the other day: Positively. On. Fire.

I formulated a character some two or three days ago whilst doing the usual 3/4 mile hike at work. I was thinking about something T Campbell had written - about how he created the character of Catherine from Fans! - and something about that process influenced the development of this persona. I'm loath to be fully candid about what makes her (for now I'm satisfied that it is a she, and tentatively her name is Morgaine - after the player who is leader of the Order of the Dragon guild in Ryzom) noteworthy, but I am starting to realise a grand vista of possible scenarios that she might play a part in. Just this morning something like the following fleshed itself out in my mind:

[I'm not certain of the setting, nor how many are present. Certainly Morgaine and Fred, I'll add other characters and develop setting to better suit the conversation, I suppose.]

(Morgaine flushed even more than normal, and not snuffling as she normally does, sees her moment and launches herself, placing her shoulder very nicely into the hollow of Fred's back [I'll conjure a name later, although there's nothing wrong with Fred], effectively knocking him off his feet. Morgaine has her dagger out now and stands over him.)
(Morgaine's voice is rising throughout the first few lines, but rising unsteadily. She's never taken this tone with anyone before, and she's trying to put ferocity into her voice that she knows she might not really have)

Fred: (startled [duh])Uhhh! Morg! What're you...
Morgaine: (trying to be loud and authoritative) Stay there!
Fred: (annoyed) Morg, what's the...
Morgaine: (afraid of losing control of the situation, panics: she screams!) Shut up!
(VERY sudden quiet)
Morgaine: (recovering, but still loud) What happened to Fred?
{OK, Fred not working because.....eh, I'll continue so you can see why}
Fred: (attempting calm, but (visibly?) surprised)Morg. I'm right here, what are you....
Morgaine: (recovering calm but still loud) Fred died yesterday but his body is walking and talking. No-one else seems to have noticed but me, and I'm DAMN well going to find out why. (a palpable hush follows)
Morgaine: (hurriedly: she senses the lull and tries to break it to stay in command of the situation) Who are you and what happened to Fred!!

Fred: (sorrow: starts to weep) I'm sorry Morgaine. I couldn't sustain him any longer.
(Fred puts his head between his knees and sobs)

{Oooh! I just pulled that last line out of my ass, but I like it.
Strike the entire sentence following "Fred died.."... much better.. thats just nonsensical bravado for plot development, its not at all a sensible thing to say.}

And that's just what my brain came up with during a trip to the supermarket! Who Fred is/was and what happened will stay in my notes (after I write it down) for now, but this is just another scenario that my mind has been toying with lately. You may or may not have realised why 'Fred' cannot work as a name: I refuse to even try to dance around phrases like "Fred's dead". That just oozes bad karma. Not even to mention the fact that its been done. In spades.

I've even been considering the media types for these various concepts. For example, the political thriller I mentioned last time would have to be a book; there is simply far too much internal dialogue for it to work as a more visual form such as a movie, graphic novel or comic strip. Since it is the internal dialogue and character development that is the real hook, the visual aspect would fall flat. On the other hand, the scene I wrote above could work as a comic, although a movie might be better for capturing the emotions. I did end up just know writing that rather like a screenplay.

Where the hell did all this creative energy come from? Maybe I can turn it into something lucrative. That'd be a nice change of pace. The downside right now is that I just do not have the discipline to sit down and turn out a story based on the above. Hell, I cannot even seem to clean my apartment.

Bah.

The Saga of Chtomelji

2005-03-10T17:10:00.000-06:00

My creative bowl seems to be runneth-ing over these days.

Some months ago (inspired by November elections) I had a wild dream. Of that dream I can remember little of value. Shortly afterwards I fleshed it out a bit in my mind, then committed it to paper during rare idle moments at work. It actually came out a lot better than I could have imagined. It is most of an opening scene - potentially a particularly riveting one if it ever hits the Big Screen - in what could be a fairly promising novel. A political thriller at that. I had been at a bit of an impasse for a while - I knew where I wanted the story to go, but knew knothing of the trade that I wanted the character to become involved in. To wit: lobbying.

Lobbying, prima facie, rather offends my sensibilities. What and where, precisely is the fine line between lobbying and bribery?

'Blood and Oil' (current reading) may be the key to progressing. I'm starting to understand how the bastards think. Its personally disappointing for me to learn that the foreign policy of our puppet master administration is merely the fruition of doctrine planted by Roosevelt and developed by Carter and Reagan. I prefer to continue to blame the current administration anyway. Its just as well; their flawed policies and pathetic denials are my muse.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, mind racing and like that.
Well, that germ of a novel seems to have been only the beginning.
As you've probably noticed, my participation in .... oh very well, I'll just say it...
This GAME I've been playing lately (Ryzom) has also proven a willing conduit to my imagination. Lets see... best to start at the beginning for the story to make sense.

I groused earlier about Ryzom having a problem with documentation (in many cases, its absent). I was very impressed with how my first character was going. I had created an entity, and its success was the fruition of my will. Lack of documentation caused more than one misstep though, each one very costly. Finally, I was simply too far behind; skill points that I needed to spend wisely had been wasted, putting me at a severe disadvantage to the 'leveling' curve. Each successive level requires gaining approximately double the experience of the previous level to advance. Had I chosen better, I would have been gaining exp much faster, but instead I was stuck. So I had little option but to discontinue the character and start over. I wasn't happy with that decision, but it made the most sense. I did, however, wish to somehow retain membership in the guild that I had joined. To that end, I created a 'backstory' to explain the relationship between my old character and my new character. What made this a real act of creativity was that the new character was of an entirely different race. That wasn't too hard to explain:

The Saga of Chtomelji

My mother and father met in a wild place between great civilizations. She was a great forager for the Fyros people and he a Matis of Noble house journeying to discuss an alliance with one of the friendlier renegade tribes. That very tribe raised me, and still holds great feasts and tell tales of that day.

A lesser bandit tribe had ambushed them (whether he came to her aid or she to his depends on whom is telling the tale!) and together they fought. The rage of the bandits increased as each of their tribe fell. As they perished, their numbers seemed to be replenished, as others came to avenge the fresh losses. [Many bandit lives ended forever, since neither the Kami nor the Karavan, will succor those that prey on their servants.] The furious commotion that was that shambles quickly attracted much attention. Wild beasts, predators, scavengers and grazing animals, came to witness the fury that raged on, and also to prey on survivor and victim alike. The sun began to set, making the two bloody swords of my mother gleam red with her vengeance as they sang through the air. My father smashed men together or rent them apart with such fury that it was difficult to properly count those he slew. The suns last rays were all that illuminated the scene when the woman I call "grandmother" arrived with guards of her tribe.

The few remaining bandits were driven off. My mother and father were bourne back to safety, as they had been seriously wounded and needed healing. Their wounds required many days of resting, yet they fell in love long before that time was complete. They stayed with the tribe, who welcome them as family, mostly to raise me where I might be shielded from the bigotries of either race. Father knew the Matis people, and his family in particular, would never approve, for they are ever suspicious of the Fyros; even now the peace between them is tenuous at best. My mother is loath to keep him far from his people and position, since he has been a great force in easing tensions between the great peoples. He is away often, in the great city of Yrkanis, but returns as often as he is able. He laughingly complains that every time he returns to his beautiful women he must endure a three-day hangover following the tribe's celebrations.

This troubled time has brought a shadow, even over this happy tribe. A time has come to forget our differences, homins, because unity is all that will shield us from Oblivion. I must now leave these happy people so that I may prepare and grow in strength, for every one of us will be needed in the coming battles. There is much preparation to do, the battles will be hard, and many will fall.

It is my dearest wish that when we finally win (for we must) we will recognize the new bonds between us. Bonds of blood and bone, forged like steel in a great fire. From that moment on we must be true to our new bond, or our precious victory may degenerate to hollow irony.
The old times will be done, friend homins, and a new era began. The old rivalries and hatreds must also die with the past, giving way to our new bonds. We will have a new Golden Age to build bridges and mend fences, and Atys will prosper in ways not seen since before the Great Fire.

When I was born, my parents agreed to name me in a language of the Old Tongues, spoken on Atys long ago - all but forgotten even before the Great Fire of Coriolis.

I am Fyros, and I am Matis.

I am Chtomelji.

It means bridge.

Ad Astra per Aspartame

2005-03-07T17:34:00.000-06:00

Figured out my e-mail problem. Not really "solved" because I dont know if I can recover any of the e-mails that I had before two days ago. Bear in mind that that includes e-receipts, verification of site-specific passwords, ersatz love e-mail from web girlfreinds (if they are female), and even my addressbook. Now the scope of the problem is evident. For the future I'll have to figure some way to text dump everything into a storage file of some sort... but first things second.

Recieved from Amazon and started reading Michael T. Klare's "Blood and Oil", and as I imagined, I've only gone a few pages and am already enraged. Its pretty much just confirmation of what I've already suspected, but having the facts is a good thing.

Had Jiffy Lube perform an overdue oil change last week. They suggested a coolant change (antifreeze) for a mere $79.99. That is ~fucking~ insane. The coolant capacity of the Nissan is 8.75 quarts, which is two gallons and change. I've got that much AF lying around from Oldsmobile projects and thus could change my own for NO material outlay whatsoever!
(well mebbe it was $49.99 - its still crazy)
((fucking would still be appreciated though =P))

Parents are off to Turkey this week for some tourism (and some work-related for dad I think). Yeah, I worry a bit... or more than a bit. However, if you aren't living then you are not really alive, are you? Hell, I wish I could go.

A sudden burst of warm weather yesterday lasted overnight until early this morning. It peaked at 10am and then got overcast and grew colder. Good. I need to do Olds things and I'm not really prepared for it. I still dont know what I'm going to do about that leaky window. I didnt realise it was that bad until after I had the trunk area sealed, then it was ALL wet after a rain. Its really gonna turn out to be a situation where metal has to be added, and theres only one or two good ways of doing that. I can do none of them. I was going to caulk it... last fall. Still haven't done it. I'm getting that old helpless feeling again. There are things that I can do and things that I can't. Its just sad that the crucial things that I need to do have prerequisites of more money than I have.

Something will come to me, but it will probably be another cold.

I haven't got to Pyr yet. Haven't tried walking it since Sat. I want to post the Chtomelji saga, but Word Perfect is freaked out by my current HDD config, which I only need to have for another day or so. Then back to normal. Its mostly written, but I need to add a few details that I had thought of and one I left out because it felt awkward when I wrote it. Fear not. I'll link to it when I post.

Game on. -K

Fuss! Fume! Fuss! Fume! BASH!! BASH!!

2005-03-06T18:07:00.000-06:00

Bah!
Mozilla seems to have "lost" my e-mail settings. ARGH!

Is it just me? I have no end of frustration getting my e-mail to work properly when this happens. The Ameritech e-mail client is EXTREMELY cumbersome compared to the Netscape/Mozilla style.

During the periods when I give up in frustration, I have manages to get fairly far in my resource mapping. I will soon expand to the north of Yrkanis for various reasons: a lack of resources in the souther areas being a cheif one. Most importantly, it is almost spring, and some transient spring-only resources are soon to appear in one location I know of. Its mostly Choice fiber, but I'm sure theres an Excellent resource there that I havent tapped yet: I didn't yet have the ability/skill to harvest it when I first found it.

Also I am trying to get to Pyr. Not the smartest course of action, due to the big nasties that are on the way. I got relatively close to the border before I "discovered" that those flying javelin thingies will attack without provocation. Damn. I need a respawn point much closer to the border. Anyhow.... game on!

On the Origin of Spatulas

2005-03-04T16:45:00.000-06:00

In determining the prescence or abscence of intelligence of our anscestral humanoids, determining usage of tools plays a major factor. Not so much whether tools were used, but how. Did they differentiate between different tools for similar tasks, i.e. using better adapted or specialised tools?
The right tool for the right job.

As I seem to have a penchant for, I've been using a 20 ton sledgehammer to drive carpet tacks again. Figuratively. As you can see, a simpler method was always available, but my desire for detail drew me to attempt an insane chore of creating a map of impossibly large scale such that 1" = 1". Just imagine attempting to fold that sucker. Not to mention the gathering of images detracts from actual game enjoyment. I hate to give up on the attempt anyway. Maybe I can contract Nevrax to send a probe for some aerial photos.

I finally disbursed the majority of Kalehar's posessions (all moneys to the Order of the Dragon guild) and quit the guild. I did send Lady Morgaine an in-game mail providing some of my heart-wrenching backstory while (hopefully) opening a 'legacy' way for my Matis character to join the guild and making a fond good-bye from Kalehar. Chtomelji has surpassed her abilities in half the time, although the Matis setting did help much with the crafting. Now all that remains is the trek to Pyr, which is probably going to be much less than fun, but we shall see. I would like to return to the Matis lands though, as foraging wasn't this easy in Fyros. On the other hand, I have a distinct impression that the Fyros is the more popular homin among players. Pyr was always jumping, and Yrkanis seems totally dead by comparison. Most remarkable is the level of chatter. HOURS will pass in Matis lands with not a single p33p peeping.

Well, game on, lets see if I can reach Pyr today... -K

If Knowledge = Power, does thought = impulse?

2005-03-03T14:17:00.000-06:00

Don't get me started on the physics involved there, cause I can do it!

Photoshop SC dont like my OS (ME) and I have been considering a move to XP, but that would necessitate a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade due to 1) Win OS' = resource hogs and 2) the general principle of MITASWELL to address item 1. So I'll go back to earlier efforts of trying to appropriate an earlier version (except that the conduit for that wil be in Turkey until about the end of March...).

OK, preliminary image melding using software at hand went better than expected.

Nice as that looks, technical problems remain. Using that software requires that I specify an image size and then insert image copies into that void. I'd really like to just merge images without previously specifying a size. I'd also like to keep the images full-size for as long as possible into the process, but I'm sure that'll lead to hella big file sizes real fast. That wouldn't actually be a problem, but would almost certainly cause irritating swap-file activity during editing. Bummer.

And I managed to overwrite my homepage index while trying to post that image.
BAH! Yet another thing to fix/clean/do/email... argh!

But I'm wasting time. Morgaine got on a bit ago, I need to go and tell her that I am formally retiring Kalehar.

And kill things.
Thats always a plus. -K