Ree 101

2002-09-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Oh, and there's that posting problem again, although I've learned that posts will show up eventually, without my having to do anything. Aggravating but workable. I've also lost two archives on this blog, which is more disturbing.

2002-09-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

We did talk about things other than computer stuff, although Matt got started in on why he would choose a Unix server over a Linux one. Or something like that, I kind of zoned out and did some people-watching while that was going on. An amazing lot of people there who looked like they were trying hard to be "pub" people, but looking around like they didn't know why they were there.

Walking out of the place after dinner, we interrupted the peregrinations of a large group of Asian tourists, who looked like they were just fascinated by where they were. Got interrupted by another group as I was trying to turn the corner at West Temple. Must be NuSkin time again.

2002-09-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

Matt and I attended the Meet Up on Wednesday, and although six were signed up to go, there were only four of us there. Dan and Levi showed up, and we all sat in the back of Squatters Pub. The food is okay, I probably should have gone for the chimichanga rather than the classic cheeseburger, but we shared a plate of calamari, and that was just what my tastebuds had been screaming for.

Just one question: Why must everything, now, in all the trendiest, hippest, pubs, come with aioli? I mean, it's fine in its place, but really unnecessary with calamari. And how come ketchup, in restaurants across the broad spectrum of quality and price points, comes in little containers rather than a bottle on your table? (Yeah, okay, that's two questions, but what-the-fuck?) Is there a ketchup shortage, some problem with ketchup tomatoes? (Yeah, okay, we discussed this at the Meet Up; I'm just full of scintillating conversation, dontchaknow?) Those little cups don't contain enough ketchup to satisfy my ketchup RDA. I'm tellin' ya....And I'm sorry, but I don't especially need designer mustard. Just a nice, good quality mustard will do on my regular-joe hamburger, thankseversomuch. Picking mustard seeds out of my teeth for several hours after I eat is not my idea of entertainment.

It's like being punished for choosing a meal that does not conform to the latest Cool Gourmand Requirements.

But the calamari was tender and battered lightly, and there weren't too many babies on the plate. Which is another disturbing trend. What ever happened to just having sliced tentacle on there, when did baby squid (or octopi, it's so hard to tell when they've been battered and deep fried) make their appearance? I'm just askin'.....

2002-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

In the meantime, you might want to check out this "letter", if only to reassure yourself of your own mental superiority.

It sure made me feel like my IQ hadn't dropped as significantly as previously believed. (Although a lot of what is alleged in this "letter" could be or is true, what the letter mostly reveals is the writer's own insecurity.)

Makes me almost ashamed to have been born in Canada

2002-09-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Of course, it's getting harder and harder to be optimistic about the entire situation. If there is a war with Iraq, I might have to give up the whole thing as a complete loss.

I keep hoping I can trust the majority to think rationally. This may be a personality flaw.

2002-09-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Matt sent me a couple of links a couple of weeks ago, regarding the whole "loss of freedom since 9/11" thing. There was a whole list, printed in Newsday (and which I cannot, now, find via the link or via searching), which enumerates the various efforts our gummint has made towards catching what it perceives to be terrorist criminals.

Yep, we're losing a lot as a country, but there are already outcries about the more egregious things done, and a complete stop put to the whole Operation TIPS debacle. Personally, I'm counting down till the next presidential election, and maybe the voters can put that all behind.

Maybe.

2002-09-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

My mother hasn't been in contact with the kids for a while. Mum sent Trystan a birthday card (she made it herself with her computer, innit special?) and a small check. She did call that week and wonder what we were doing for his b-day dinner, but no one seemed too anxious to have her and the Evil Little Troll join us. No point in forcing everyone to be nice and try like anything to avoid anything approaching a political conversation, or even anything resembling our real thoughts and feelings about anything much at all.

That would've been bad, oh, so very bad.

I can't wait for Christmas.

2002-09-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

There may be some subjects I've been avoiding over the past few weeks, not least of which is the fact that my sister (Kathryn) is going bananas. Going bananas in much the same way her husband did, but with more seeming time to drown her sorrows in alcohol. Not much I can do about it, not unless I want to start another family rift; this of course would last for a good few years, with me being the Bad Sister. All I can do is stand by and watch, and hope she doesn't crash and burn in the same way.

I feel so blessed to have such a crazy family.

My brother, Jason, last time I spoke to him, could do nothing more than complain about how much he misses his ex - that would be the woman who beat him over the head with heavy objects, sending him to the hospital periodically for stitches, and causing him to be arrested each time. That would be because, y'know, if there's violence in the household, it must be the man responsible. After all, who would stay home and beat the children, otherwise?

Not that I'm bitter, or worried, or anything like that. All I can do is feel their distress. Ain't much fun being so empathetic.

2002-09-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Wow. I've really been remiss. And going out of my mind, but that's not something anyone need concern themselves about here.

Har!

Just discovered another synthpop band that should go down in history as being the most literate of all time. Spray is magnificently wonderful in the way they use their words, and as the intro to their lyric page suggests, there are a lot of them. Good words, words some may have to look up in a dictionary, not that anyone of that type would be reading this particular blog. I use too many, myself. Matt and I had to have the cd, just one of those necessities. I mean, how could anyone resist I Am Gothic, with lyrics such as:
I am gothic
I am pale
I am scary
I'm insane
I'm a loner
I am cold
I feel special when people don't phone
?

2002-08-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

The trouble with posting a review at Amazon.com is that I always get sucked into writing more than just the one. I go there with all good intentions, but it's like the Black Hole of Critics Guilt. I see all the books and movies that I've noted that I own, and am moved to comment. And then I realize it's been a while since I've read any William Gibson, and I would have to get each individual Terry Pratchett book to make sure I was talking about the right one. So much work.

Not that I'm compulsive about stuff like this, or anything. Not in the least....

2002-08-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, sorted the password problem, but have already done a review for Amazon. Ah, well.....

The Rapture was written (and directed) by Michael Tolkin, who is also responsible for The Player (which I've seen several times, and is one of Matt's favourites - Tim Robbins is always a good choice), and The New Age (which I haven't seen, but now I'm very curious).

2002-08-24T06:59:00.000-07:00

Actually, I've always preferred the movie, The Rapture. I saw this with a friend (Robert, where are you now?) in 1991, right when it came out. We were both so stunned by the movie and certain concepts it played with, that we walked home from the theater at the Beverly Center to our apartment building near MacArthur Park (and if you follow the link, you will be able to see the building - the short, red brick behind the peaked windows, past the west end of the lake (far left if you're moving the thing counter-clockwise). This panorama thingy is cool....).

I think I'm going to have to post a review, which for right now will be at Amazon, because I apparently can't remember my IMDB password (so rarely do I feel moved to post a review at IMDB).

2002-08-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

Like conspiracy theorists and the folks who thought that 2000 would send us all hurtling into a barbaric world, Apocalyptic Wowsers strike me as being people who look forward to the disintegration of society, lots of bloodshed, and living like cavemen.

(So, whatever happened to the militias? We never hear about them anymore....)

My opinion is that the joyfulness is related to seeing the smiting of those who don't measure up - for whatever reason is ascribable to any group or individual - kind of Schadenfreude-in-advance. Although, if you follow the prescribed methods of the more religious wing-nuts, you might just sail through and be caught up in the Rapture. And while you're enRaptured, you can be safe in the knowledge that those folks down the street, who don't believe the same things as you, didn't make it. It's an "I told you so" kinda thing, I think. Bugs the shit out of me.

2002-08-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

In the plus column, Frankie rides so much better.

And, a little levity: $769.95 - Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul, from this site - The Number of the Beast. A more comprehensive list is found here. I bring this up because, while I was flitting about the American Idol message boards, I came across a poster who was, well, disturbed that another poster had the number "666" in her screen-name (mine generally tends to be "Lap Dog of Satan," which has a long and storied history, none of which I am going into at this time). The first lectured the second about associating herself with things unholy, and the second took the telling-off with grace and aplomb. Heh. Strange to see that kind of off-topicality again.....

Anyway, I did a bit of a search, just to see if I could come up with anything regarding The Number of the Beast that didn't theorize that Bill Gates was Satan incarnate, or that These Last Times were The Last Times, et cetera, et cetera. Not much luck, but - wow! - the number of sites willing to share theories about what is truly going on with a simple little number.

So many people breathlessly awaiting the end of the world, as if this world, for them, is beyond fixing, and they would really rather not bother to try. Looking for the Debbil under every rock and in every boardroom (or government) - it seems to me as though one or two of them might get the thrill of their lives if they were actually right.

2002-08-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

Unless one counts spending an incredible amount of money to make Frankie feel better. Having a motor mount break, causing the clutch fan to hit the frame, break, and then fly into the radiator and destroy that will make a mechanic's profits for the day.

Poor, poor, Frankie.

What bothers me more I think, though (despite the fact that I was lucky to end up with a functional vehical at all, and parting with a check that big was one of the most psychically painful things I've ever had to do), is that Randy - who I've been going to since Steve closed his shop (I'd worked with Steve when I did the secretary thing for my bro-in-law, Mike, at his shop. It's all very incestuous, mechanic-wise) - is selling his shop. Selling his shop to someone who will put his brother in charge, oh-he-who broke into my vehicle two visits ago (according to Randy at the time). Oh, yeah, there's a trust issue.

Randy's brother's name is Andy, by the way, they're twins. Randy is the Mormon, Andy is, uh, different. (Not that I want to start speculating on their growing up, or current relationship.)

But all this means is that I am now going to have to find a mechanic I can trust, without my brother-in-law to guide me (because he died last November). Kathryn (my sister) might have a suggestion, but I bet anything (perhaps the cost of repairs to Frankie?) that she's going to question why I won't take Frankie to Andy. Argh. (That's the kind of relationship we have. Kathryn, despite being four years younger, thinks and acts like an older sister. Sometimes it's cute, sometimes it bugs.)

Argh, argh, grrrr.....

2002-08-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Not that I'm accomplishing anything of a tangible nature at the moment, but time-suckage is time-suckage.

2002-08-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

It was all I could do not to get deeply involved in the posts, myself - I mean, I read some, and posted a couple (mostly to tell people they were taking it all too seriously) - but that is more unjustifiable time-suckage than I can take, even for me.

2002-08-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true, I've been sucked into American Idol. I apologize to everyone, but for the past couple of weeks I have watched both the sing-off programs and the results programs. Ugh. It was the voices that got me, and the surprise I felt that they actually found some talent to be on their little pablum-producing production.

Of course, I do expect pablum to be produced, because the imagination to make anything resembling something new is lacking. I can see one contestant who will break out of that mold, but otherwise we're going to end up with a new, if short-lived, crop of boy-band imitators and more tired divas, all singing the same kind of crap playing on your favourite radio station.

I really have no will-power, it's worse than Bachelorettes in Alaska. I think this fascination has a lot to do with the sadism inherent in any competition, which American Idol has honed and refined to quite a breath-taking quality. Yes, what a good idea! Let's force the bottom two contestants stand up on stage (the first one all alone for at least one break) for at least ten minutes! You can watch the nerves crack in fine lines, as these contestants await their fate, as if this is the only chance they'll ever get to do anything with their voices.

No, I am not voting. That would violate my own personal law of inertia.

What's worse, though, is that today I checked out the message boards attached to this circus, and although I shouldn't have been surprised, was stunned and amazed at the seriousness with which "fans" take the whole thing. Do you think they know that in a few months they won't care at all? Until the next round....

2002-08-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Finally! Something I've been meaning to write about, but it took picking up a copy of Elle yesterday to really get me in the right frame of mind (pissy) to get down to it. Why is it that every fashion magazine must now have a celebrity on the cover? I realize we're now a very celebrity-driven society, but c'mon!

I remember the time when I was a new subscriber to Vogue, and then I was sick of Madonna, and I wrote to complain about putting her on the cover. At least at that point (lo, these fifteen years ago, now) it was a fairly rare thing. Now I am shocked, shocked I say! when I see an actual model on the cover of either Vogue or Elle. [Truth is, my memory is so vague at this point, anyway, I don't recall the last time that was.] At least put an actual icon on the cover for crying out loud, not just some random bippy who happens to flip past on the radar. That should rid us of at least 80% of the noxious cover pollution.

Or, maybe it's just a summer thing: Elle covers and Vogue covers. It's either that or the beginning of a trend I don't want to think about. This kind of thing tends to happen right when I want to start paying attention to the magazines again. Not that Elle's fashion photography is anything to shout about, recently. And they dropped my favourite fashion writer, Sweetie.

I don't know how this happened, but I have started getting professional discount subscription offers from magazines. I took W up on it (a $12 sub for what they normally try to charge $18 for ain't bad, and that was their "special, introductory offer"), since I've been extremely impressed with their lay-outs recently, and I attempted to do the same with Elle ($9 for an "introductory" $12 sub) but lost the envelope somehow (I blame the couch). I must've mentioned costume designer on some form, somewhere, at some point, and despite all the claims that "No, no! We don't sell your private information!" I'm guessing that the information got sold.

Oh, and my "free bag" from W is a plastic wonder I could possibly put my cell phone in. Wow. Thanks, W, 'preciatcha!

2002-08-15T05:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do feel guilty about not posting here. I've been tapering off one of my more cognitively-suppressive medications, and it hasn't done wonders for my temper or ability to sit and write. There's my excuse, and I'll stand by it.

2002-08-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

The Atlantic Monthly has a great article in its September issue (which we got the last week of July, go figure), Homeland Insecurity. Written by Charles C. Mann, it mostly concerns Bruce Schneier, who (for those, like myself were unaware, is one of the leaders in the field of cryptography, and now he is the chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security. The article expands upon and expounds on the nature of security post-September 11. I really enjoy it when a lot of what I spout off about is accidentally proven to be (even partially and noncommittally) correct by unsuspecting experts.

Excuse me while I preen. (I almost said "whilst," but restrained myself. You may thank me later.)

And I quote:
To forestall attacks, security systems need to be small-scale, redundant, and compartmentalized. Rather than large, sweeping programs, they should be carefully crafted mosaics, each piece aimed at a specific weakness. The federal government and the airlines are spending millions of dollars, Schneier points out, on systems that screen every passenger to keep knives and weapons out of planes. But what matters most is keeping dangerous passengers out of airline cockpits, which can be accomplished by reinforcing the door. Similarly, it is seldom necessary to gather large amounts of additional information, because in modern societies people leave wide audit trails. The problem is sifting through the already existing mountain of data. Calls for heavy monitoring and record-keeping are thus usually a mistake. ("Broad surveillance is a mark of bad security," Schneier wrote in a recent Crypto-Gram.) [Homeland Insecurity, Charles C. Mann. The Atlantic Monthly, September, 2002]

I did want to keep that in context, so I included the entire paragraph. My apologies to the author and to Mr. Schneier.

2002-08-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

I so want this car: GM's fuel cell car. In fact, if Frankie can hold together till 2010, I wouldn't mind a new one. But, thinking upon it seriously, I think I'd rather wait a couple of years past that and get one used, just on environmental principles.

Everyone has to have something to stand on. Besides the shoulders of the downtrodden masses, that is.

Hah!

I don't know if it's just me, or if every self-aware individual deals with this, but every so often, when certain issues are brought up, I get a whanging sensation to my conscience that I like to refer to as Generalized, Overhwelming Guilt About Everything. I think Douglas Adams probably described it best in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and I realize I've brought this up before. I just think it bears repeating, because I know some of you out there just skim through without paying the true attention some of these links and information truly deserve. [If you are out there, of course; I'm making a big assumption.] Environmental issues are one of them, and gee, don't I wish I didn't have to drive a great big vehicle that eats gas like it was pancakes and (real) maple syrup for breakfast, with eggs and bacon and hashbrowns? But the same wish would apply to any vehicle that eats gas and spews forth any kind of emissions.

I try to rationalize it like this - at least I'm not what used to be called MAGCORP. The EPA listed MAGCORP as the USA's #1 air polluter; now of course, MAGCORP has sold its assets to US Magnesium. Woo-hoo! None of which I can do anything about but get all huffy and rant.

Which I won't, because that would be pointless.

It would, really.

I think I'd better stop before it gets ugly......

2002-08-06T06:01:00.000-07:00

Here's something everybody should be subjected to: Yatta!. Hey, Matt did it to me, his brother John did it to him, we did it to our children, I'm just spreading the love and joy.

I'll warn you now, the lyrics in either video make absolutely no sense in English (I can't speak to the Japanese, not speaking Japanese), but I do enjoy the fig leaves.

2002-08-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

That sparrow-type bird was trying mighty sparrowfully to accomplish something with the quail that should be physically impossible, for a sparrow, that even a quail shouldn't be able to accomplish on a fence.....

2002-08-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

A (mercifully) brief critique of KurzweilAI.net: One major problem I have with it, thus far is the overlinking of certain words, terms, phrases, or whatevertheHell they feel apparently like linking on any of the papers, interviews, and news articles on the site. Word to your mama - you need only do it once for most of us to get the clue. I'm guilty of some of this, myself, but this goes beyond all comprehension! At least I will post sites I think are important, and I will not do it in one post, and will try not to do it on the same day. All those blue bits are extremely irritating and make me want to go away and find the information elsewhere. Fortunately, printable versions are available, but the overlinkage is so damn' unnecessary, I have to wonder who's at the wheel on that one? Some kind of bot?

Yeesh.

2002-08-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

I just saw something unusual on my trip to the Outside - a sparrow-type bird jumped on the back of a quail. Now, I would've assumed that the sparrow-type bird was doing this because it was a pig-bird and was trying to hog food, and the quail had hopped on the fence because I'd come Outside, but the sparrow-type bird followed it off the fence.

Nawhty.....

2002-08-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

Not that I don't think there won't be great leaps made in the research as it was originally intended. But I am sure that there are and will be surprises. There always are. 'Slife.

2002-08-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

That being said, far be it from me to tell other people what to worship, and if all that hard work and research brings me one step closer to immortality, hey! go right ahead. There are a thousand and one stories of technology being used for purposes other than for what it was researched for in the first place, and I'm sure this whole Singularity stuff will be no different. I'm just glad I finally figured out what was bothering me.

2002-08-04T05:01:00.000-07:00

Or morning.

I had to give this one a bit of time to percolate, as sometimes I do on tough conundrums. Sometimes I can't quite put my finger on what it is that bothers me about something, I just know that I'm bothered. It may not be anything big, it may be something I need to rant about at length. This one is somewhere in between, but I think it's important, if only because it's me talking. After all, I am planning on ruling the Universe someday, I'd better get my thinking in order, yes?

Here are a few of the sites that are eager for the Singularity to get here, and are working to achieve that goal:
Singularity Watch
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
KurzweilAI.net - yes, I've mentioned this already, I know, I know.....
Singularity - the Organization, apparently (I just found this one on a search.)

They talk about it as if one single event will be all it takes to precipitate human evolution past the cusp of what we know of our current humanity. As if they will be able to pinpoint the time when the Singularity will happen, is happening, happened.

This cannot ever be the case. Events will catch up with us before we even know it ourselves - but it will be many events, a combination thereof, an interwoven, serendipitious accretion, not something architecturally stable or well-designed. Humans are just not that talented - observe many civilizations that have gone down in flames (knock on wood and cross fingers) - and have unwittingly observed Muphy's Law from time immemorial. So, why worry about it? Buckle up and enjoy the ride! I know I've mentioned that before. It might be bumpy, but so is Space Mountain, and I've always enjoyed that.

Then, too, too much trust and apparent hope is put in machines, particularly AI - friendly AI (Singularity Institute definition) - as if this putative machine, when it comes to the point (and given that said machine should have an intelligence far greater than that of a human being), will limit its programming to friendliness, and we will somehow be able to control it; or, that said machine would want to help precipitate a human Singularity. [This is all based on the assumption that AI, being intelligent, will also be self-aware. I think it'll be like anything else, some good, some bad, but not nearly to the extent that everyone thinks. And, in the end, machines might turn out to be just machines.] The hope is that the AI will help the poor little humans along, being by this point that much smarter than we are. Because after all, we couldn't figure it out for ourselves.

That attitude in itself, pisses me off.

I find that kind of thinking to be rather backwards and, truth be known, lazy (this coming from one of the laziest peopel I know). All that concentration, talent, and effort targeted in a direction that will only pay off to a certain degree, and most certainly not to the degree on which so many apparent dreams and aspirations are pinned. I am not saying that the research is worthless - it most clearly is not! I am saying that the term itself is a misnomer and the worship is misguided.

2002-08-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

Just to mention something quickly, and it's too bad I don't have time for my Singular dissection, 'cause it's a beaut, it really is - there is only a rough correlation between intelligence and brain size. All the hoo-ha about women's brains being smaller than men's, therefore we must be less intelligent is just a bunch of misogynist wishful thinking. According to this little hor d'ouevre (or, horsey doover, to quote a favourite tv character of mine) on brain size: The brain size of recognized "geniuses" can vary from 1000 cc to 2000 cc in modern humans. Heh.

No particular bone to chew, here, besides the misogynist one, just enjoying the moment. Now I've got to cede The Dude to Trystan, which means my thoughts must wait another night.

Bummer.

2002-08-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

All righty, then.

le puff...le pant....le puff....le puff....le puff....le short....

This all started with the H2G2 Vingean Singularity Discussion, right? Several links were provided, which got me wandering off in all sorts of directions, zipping around, brain oozing about like something amoeboid.

Now, I don't buy into the whole Singularity thing. Let me just get that straight. I think Moore's Law (which a lot of the Singularity hope is pinned on) is probably going to reach a natural limit here at some point. That's just me speaking, and I'm a know-nothing, so if I'm proven wrong, there's no loss. Even if there is no natural limit, and with nanotechnology and AI (which another article of faith of Singularitians), I find it hard to understand why humans are so bent on throwing away their humanity - or, that is my impression, as you will eventually see - to achieve overarching machines that will have superintelligence. I just don't get it. I mean, these guys are so hot for it, so woo-hoo and shit, it's amazing. The Kurzweil site, albeit a Singularity-based site, is nevertheless well-balanced and more into something they refer to as extropy. The only dictionary entry I could find on the word defines it as the extent of a system’s intelligence, information, order, vitality, and capacity for improvement [wwftfdictionary].

I dunno, man. I don't want to give up my humanity. I just want to live forever and continue getting smarter. I don't believe getting smarter or being immortal necessarily defines one as being superhuman or transhuman. I guess we'll all see when we get there. And, by the way? I don't believe this will all happen (if it happens at all, in the way these guys believe it will) in the next eight years (they're hoping it will happen by 2010, mostly). I'm still betting on twenty-thirty years, and still a mixture of media.

More to come.....

2002-08-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

I haven't been ignoring The Blog, I haven't! I've been doing research on the Singularity. Which led me to research on the evolution of the human brain, and I kind of got sucked into KurzweilAI.net which is a pretty groovy place to get sucked into, if one really must get sucked into someplace. Honestly. I wouldn't lie about something like that.

Not me.

And I got compulsive about the garden. Well! We have The Dude (it's a Dell, you have to understand) finely scheduled, and I can't just kick one of the Boyz off whenever I feel the urge to write something down (I have a notebook and pen, now, for that kind of thing, should it be necessary). It's either do something useful or sit around and feel unutterably bored. Whatcha gonna do?

Smoke?

puff....puff.....puff.....pant....puff.....pant....puff.....

2002-07-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

I do have an internal dialogue. It comes in handy when no one else will talk to me, which happens more frequently than one might imagine.

2002-07-31T05:57:00.000-07:00

Or editor, apparently. I mean, content editor. I do my best with errors. Sometimes they slip through, but they slip through in the best magazines, newspapers and periodicals, so I don't feel too badly about a quality publication such as my blog.

Heh.

I mean, I catch the most egregious, right?

Right?

Right?

2002-07-31T05:33:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I can't help myself. I have no internal monologue.

2002-07-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

Oh! It's spelled: D-a-r-r-e-l-l. For those of you who were waiting with bated breath.

At least I hope it was with bated, and not baited, breath. That would be bad.

2002-07-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

"I think we've got 'er, Captain!" Blogging last night, and just now, adding the bowienet link (all hail David Bowie, ooohhhmmm.....), I have had no problems. Wow. Will wonders ever cease? Of course, I didn't receive an e-mail update, but I don't ask for the world, merely the Universe.....

That's just Me.

2002-07-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

While waiting for the boys during their Tae Kwon Do lesson, last night, I was sitting in Frankie (the Sweet Transvestite, our Jeep), reading the September Atlantic Monthly and enjoying Blatant Propaganda's compilation CD, which Matt won through one of the music lists he is on. (Well, I didn't listen to it the whole time, that would be stupid, and drain the battery, and I have learned many things since learning to drive, and how not to drain a vehicle's battery is one of them.) I happened to glance up at the billboard, under which Trystan had parked (yes, he has his learner's permit, and is at large upon the taxpayers' roads, so watch it!), and said to myself, "My! Lookitapigeons!"

Then I started really looking at the pigeons, and said to myself, "My! Lookitapigeons doin' nawhty things!"

One surprised female and one eager, but - being a pigeon - not completely agile lover were negotiating the lower edge of the billboard, the female trying to gently, but forcefully, get the message across to her suitor that she was not interested in his advances at this time; then another male pigeon, at first just watching (voyeurs, it seems, are everywhere), decided to get in on the action. The female pigeon, disapproving of this new turn of events, tried to distance herself from the fray, but was corralled by both. Two - two pigeon lovers. Two inept pigeon lovers and one increasingly alarmed female pigeon finagling their way along the walkway of this billboard, with many other pigeon onlookers, and a whole bunch of other, smaller birds on the top of the billboard for a further audience. Plus me, of course. Then, to compound matters, a third male pigeon jumps in with his gold necklace and a bottle of wine.

Anthropomorphize much?

Of course, I can only assume that the second, third, and fourth pigeons were male, being at the foot of the billboard, in Frankie, as I was. I am not a pigeonologist, nor is my eyesight that good. Maybe there were two females and two males and everyone was consenting? Maybe one of them was jumping in to defend the female's honour? So many conjectures, so little time.....

2002-07-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

Saturday, I was tooling around The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy site, for no other reason than I've got a link down there to the side, and I haven't really delved into it too deeply and I thought I'd better have a better look at it if I was going to recommend it as "cool." I mean, I recommended it as cool on the very good General Principle that it is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, even if it is a BBC satellite. I was a bit disappointed at first, and then I started get into it a bit deeper, and then I discovered all the science stuff.

And, I ran across a discussion on The Vingean Singularity, which, being a Vernor Vinge enthusiast, I had to take a good look at. I then did a search and came up with Vinge's original paper on the subject. All of which bring up some engaging ideas regarding immortality and intelligence - which to me are wrapped up together in this concept. I have as yet to form much of an opinion, since there's more research for me to do. I just thought I'd better mention it before it goes the way of other thoughts I have. I do think that this idea of a Singularity, like many other Big Ideas or Predictions that many Big Thinkers come up with, miss a lot of other data - which is to say, they don't take into account the vagaries of humans. Which is silly, when you think about it, since they are humans, to begin with.

I wonder who's going to take the Long Bet in Wired?

2002-07-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

We seemed to have picked up another son over the summer - Troy and Trystan's friend, Daryl (I always spell "Daryl" D-a-r-y-l, don't ask me why. Of all the permutations, D-a-r-r-e-l-l, D-a-r-y-l-l, D-a-r-r-e-l, and whatever, that's the one I choose. I guess it's easiest. Other than that, I don't know how his name is actually spelled). He seems to be the grease that keeps Trystan and Troy running smoothly. And, for some reason, I miss him when he's not here. He laughs at our jokes, he enjoys our movies, he plays endless videos games with Matt and the boys, he tortures Shannon. He's the missing link.

If it weren't for the "No Sleeping Over Two Nights In A Row" rule, I think he'd just move in.

2002-07-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we decided to have a "Jordan-Free Day" and basically have Shannon stay home and do some chores (like, clean his room) and spend some time with us. Jordan is nine, two years older than Shannon, and kind of a tryant. He wants to be the cool guy to Shannon's follower, when in reality, Shannon is the Cool Guy, and Jordan is the sycophant. Nothing wrong with that, but Jordan sometimes gets frustrated and acts like an idiot. And his mother isn't any help. So, yesterday Jordan comes by before Shannon is even awake, and since I'm outside, I break it to him that Shannon won't be able to play. All day. I thought I made it pretty clear, but it became apparent several phone calls later that I hadn't, not to Jordan.

Jordan has very poor phone ettiquette. Even my sons, who one might think had been raised in a cave with nothing but twigs and berries for sustenance, know to say "'bye" before hanging up the phone. Not Jordan. He barely lets you say "goodbye" or even "no, Sha-" before hanging up the phone. Which is usually fine, because after awhile, you realize that that's just Jordan, and you figure that's his parents' problem, not yours.

Sometime yesterday afternoon, I got a call from his mother, who asked me why Trystan had hung up on Jordan, and why Troy and Shannon didn't want to play with him. I tried to explain to her that Troy and Shannon were at home for the day with us, and that I was under the impression that Trystan had not hung up on Jordan. She replied that she just didn't understand why my kids didn't want to play with her son, that's all, and why they were hanging up on him all day. I ended up with the phone in my hand, and my jaw at a loose end.

Of course, I often end up with jaw hanging around loose on my face, because people often strike me as odd.

I ranted a bit, wandering around the house and wondering aloud about what made Jordan and his mother such incredible wackaloons. After I had toned down a bit, got my breath (and this was not a DEFCON 3, more like DEFCON 1, rant - or should it be the other way around? Do I need to watch Wargames again?) back, I called Jackie and explained to her that Jordan had been the one hanging up, and that he'd done it at least three times that day, to my knowledge, and that he'd had it explained to him each time why Troy and Shannon couldn't play each time.

It turns out this may have been a mistake, because five minutes after I got off the phone with her the second time, we get another call, and it's Jackie again, this time to have Jordan apologize to each of us. Okay, I understand the point, but I don't see what good it does to humiliate the child. I'm sure he understands that he done wrong, all right? It's not like we're going to ostracize him, Shannon's forgiven him worse. I wasn't going to argue with his mother, but having tried the same tactic on Shannon, and having seen what it does to him - make him cry, and never actually apologize - all I can say is that all it accomplishes is the humiliation.

Bad idea.

Sure, a parent's job is to dole out embarrassment and cringe-worthy experience, but psyche-scarification should be avoided, methinks. I know there are situations where such apologizing and abasement is appropriate, but I don't think yesterday's psychodrama was one of them, she could've just said something about it when she called and left it at that. But, that's the way the ego bounces.

2002-07-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Ever get a song stuck in your head? I thought you might have. How about getting the same song stuck in your head, on and off, all your life? Huh? Eleanor Rigby was released eight months after I was born, and has been played on the radio pretty much ever since. We just got two copies of a free CD with a cover of it, courtesy of both A Different Drum and ninthwave records - which goes to show the (to use a global term) synthpop community is really incestuous, because we've bought CDs from both labels recently. Because, really, we had to. The cover is done by Dissonance from their CD, Reincarnate. (Unfortunately, their site seems to be Under Construction, which I always find to be an inconvenience.) What made this worse for me, living in Blanding, was that I was in constant contact with a woman named Eleanor Rigby. This song was like a crochet hook to my brain.

Probably a bad sign. And I love this song.

2002-07-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

I've gone through three e-mail addresses since signing up with Blogger - reequeen@megapathdsl.net, reequeen@firelinedsl.com, and now reequeen@attbi.com. I think I signed up with the megapath one, but one can never quite be sure. The little box that is always encouraging me to sign up for the newsletter says "fireline," so who knows?

So, I'm wondering: how on Earth do the people at Blogger know it's me, specifically of Ree 101, that's got the problem with my archives, when I insert my e-mail address for updates on the problem? I suppose it doesn't really matter, but dontcha think it would help if they could look at the problem? Because I still don't have my first archive from way back last September showing up (on the Bod Log), and I've done everything the advice columnists say to do. Same thing goes with the "error 503" shit. Although I suppose there's some technical thingamawhacky involved. Makes me feel kind of meaningless as an individual, though. Takes that personal-type service right out of the equation. Yup, I'm getting that service for free, all-righty.

I'm wondering what's going to happening when I have a whole year of archives lined up down alongside my scrawling.....

2002-07-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

Speaking of examples of me being wrong about stuff (I wasn't, but it was bound to happen, anyway, it usually does, so I might as well get on with it): The first person I met at the Weblogger's Meet-Up was Jim of foppery.net, and we did talk a little bit about blogging. I admitted that I didn't read much of any blogs, as I didn't want to be influenced by look or tone (and, truth be known, the blogs I'd run across till that point had been mindless diarizing, and quite frankly had terrorized me to the point where I was scared to go there, man). Another reason is addictiveness. I got sucked into Betty Bowers the other day, and all that is, is an ad for a book, fer crissakes! I mean, really.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make - and I do have one - is that I have been lightly dipping into Jim's blog, as well as Dan's, he of Amidst a tangled web, because I felt it was the least I could do, having met them in person. I would've done the same for Levi, if Levi had his up yet (yes, this is a hint and an abjuration). I've also followed links from both blogs, and wandered off a bit, and gone, "huh." Which is to say, I've enjoyed myself and come to the conclusion that some blogs are much less terrifying than others. (Let's just say I never want to accidentally follow a link from the main Blogger site to an "Anorexia is so Cool!" blog again, 'kay? It wasn't my only experience, but it was one that has scarred me for life.) I am starting to feel, too, that I am enough of an individual that I don't have to worry about sounding like everybody else. Where was my self-confidence when I was having that conversation?

After years of aggravating people at Pleiades (now defunct, but where I got my start), moving on to Salon's Table Talk, where Matt and I ran a little thing we like to call Marie and Matthew's House of Fun, and then playing The Rant (also, for now, defunct), you would think I'd know better. Maybe it's the lack of an audience, although I do enjoy not having anybody sass me, I have to say.

Except for Matt, and he likes the blog.

And the boys, but they rarely sass me about the blog.

All-in-all, I'm happy with the way this thing is going, and as I start to read the blogs of other people, I realize that my blog is pretty damn good. At least it's not about Anorexia Being Cool. Heh.

2002-07-27T05:28:00.000-07:00

There is this view from the bench we put across from our living room window, that, just around 5:30am looks so cool: if I look to the north, between the third-and-second-to-last-trees along our fence, there's another tree in somebody else's backyard (one backyard over), with the backdrop of mountains, backlit by a barely-lit morning sky, and I don't know if they've got some sort of light on in their house, because I can't see their house, but some sort of combination of morning light and whatever light they have goin' on just makes that tree glow some sort of pink. I'm just sayin'. And it's weird, too, because as dark as it is down in the neighbourhood, with the grays of early morning, I shouldn't really be able to pick out pink among them.

That tree just sits there, surrounded by darkness, with the sky hovering above, in its own pool of dark pink glow. Out of the corner of my eyes I can tell the sun's coming up on one side, and I can sense the cats' eagerness for me to feed them (again, because they don't have enough food from when I fed them five minutes ago, and they're on the brink of catastrophic starvation, can't you tell?) on the other side, but right in front of me, there's this beautiful thing, right where it shouldn't be, not in the context of this neighbourhood, at the beginning of another hot summer day. I breathe, and let my eyes become all that I am, and it's enough.

2002-07-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, the absence of the "error 503" was clearly an aberration. Natch.

2002-07-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

Wow. Has "error 503" been fixed? I just had the easiest time posting in weeks. And in the middle of futzing around with my links, too. Huh. Amazing how they didn't e-mail me with an update, too....

We watched Lagaan last night. Wowie-wow-wow. Three and a half hours of a singing and dancing - period! - sports movie about Cricket. Set in India. And the boys dug it. Matt and Trystan were anxious for the next musical number, which was completely out of character for either of them, especially since the lyrics were in Hindi, and weren't either industrial or synth-y. (I kid because I love, right?) (Right.) Even Shannon was entranced, and that was surprising, because usually he gets completely bored by the adults' choices of movie-watching material if we're not taking him to the theater. Of course, he did eventually fall asleep, but the movie is really, really, long.

I can only imagine what my reaction would've been if I'd had seen it in the theater. It must've been truly stunning.

The only problem that I have with it, is that it glorifies the sport of Cricket. That should never be. A sport that is exponentially more boring and baroque than baseball, and that I was grateful for leaving in Tauranga, New Zealand.

2002-07-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

My granddad occasionally took me to watch Cricket, and I was not appreciative, I'm afraid. He also took me to watch Bowls, which is basically outdoor bowling, without the automatic pin-replacement and about as much fun to watch. With an older demographic of players. He loved me, he really did. I liked it better when we sailed his model boats at the beach....and my mother said he had no hobbies.

What I don't understand, now, is that my mother spends no time with my kids, or my sister's, and my grandparents used to vie for time with me, and my brother and sister. They would have one of us every weekend, we would take turns, and they would share their hobbies with us, teach us about the stuff they liked, their history. Granddad was a medic in WWII, with the ANZACs. He came back damaged, he suffered from malaria and who knows what else? [The British did not treat their ANZACs well. The infantry may well be cannon fodder, but I got the feeling that the ANZACs were somehow further down on the scale of things. I could be wrong, I often am when I look back through the prism of childish memory, but this is what I recall. I guess I could do research, but right now this is what I'm getting from this thing I refer to as my brain.] My mother's parents acted as if it was something they enjoyed! spending time with their grandchildren, can you imagine? I would go shopping with Grandma, help her garden, go through her jewelry and old stuff, trying on clothes and walking around in her shoes, watching her cook. Not exactly helping her cook, because she and Granddad were a bit on the fussy/over-protective side. We would play games like Ludo (I think that would be Snakes and Ladders to you American persons, but again, memory is a bit vague at this point), and do jig-saw puzzles. They had also kept the old girls' and boys' albums (kind of combo kids' stories/comics/activity books, and these were ancient, so short on the comics; definite division between genders) from when Mum, Auntie Barbara, and Uncle John were children, and I did a lot of reading - I don't know what Kathryn and Jason did.

Grandma was a big Shirley Temple fan, and so had a collection of books on her, so I read those, as well as several - naturally - on the Royal Family. I know way more than I need to, thanks.

2002-07-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Nothing beats waking up in the morning and putting on a cat-fur stole. True, it's a warm, purring, cat-fur stole, but you still can't beat it.

She'd bite and scratch if I tried.

2002-07-25T08:05:00.001-07:00

Although, wildly optimistic might be a good discription.....

2002-07-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

I understand that immortality won't happen in my currently projected lifetime (ie, eighty to one hundred years - both sides of my genetic forebears are long-lived), but given the advances in medicine, and the fact that I am female, I expect my life-expectancy to increase as I live longer. I also expect that whatever it is that's bothering my central nervous system to be resolved (well, I hope, and given everything that I read and have researched, I project this to be the case) in twenty to thirty years. I realize that whatever-it- is is probably far down the list of things to be cured, and I am working on being oh. kay. with that. So, given these factors, I think that my life will be extended long enough for immortality to be available while I am still alive and able to take advantage of it.

I am not entirely without gorm. I do think these things through.

2002-07-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most beautiful sites known to mankind: First Church of Christ, Elvis. Don't walk, run!

2002-07-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

So I'm contemplating eternity, and living forever, because that is one of my goals, you know? and pondering the vagaries of medical science and figuring the possibilities of medical science getting it's act together in the twenty years or so I think I can stand feeling like I do. (Much longer than that and I think I'm gonna start doing some serious screaming.) Then I get to wondering why it is that neither magazine articles and science fiction extrapolation cannot seem to look beyond one outcome at a time for extending life or immortality. It's always one thing or another with one or the other. Periodicals always tout the Next New Drug or Treatment or Surgery (or, possibly, Genetic Modification), and sci-fi would frighten or awe us with tales of the human race attaining immortality through merging with machines, becoming pure thought, or other such linear solutions.

Oh, I'm sorry, I tell a lie. I did read one sci-fi novel that involved life-extension that had a sensible regiment of exercise, diet, vitamins, and expensive visits to gerontologists, and with the exception of the last, that's pretty much where we're at, now. And plastic surgeons, dermatologists, witch doctors, and astrologists. Miss Cleo, where are you now? (I'm sorry, she's a shaman, not an astrologist....) Naturally, I cannot for the life of me remember the name of that novel, nor the author. pfft.

I don't see immortality being achieved through one singular process, and I think there will be choices to be made by those who choose to go the immortality route. Some will choose to merge with machines, in addition to other modifications, as others will choose plastic surgery and genetic manipulation. I think I'll choose immortality through simply not dying at all. Har-de-har-har....smirk.....Seriously, I think there will be a whole slew of options available, and consumers will be able to pick and choose from a dizzying array. Some will be quite possibly alarming, most will be innocuous. Just like every other technology. I don't think cryogenics will pan out, I think the biological impediments are just too much to overcome. That's just my lay opinion, but I do know how to read.

I get in discussions with friends of mine about living forever, and naturally most of them think I'm fuckin' nuts for thinking I'm going to live forever. (I've got the kids convinced I'm going to do it, although they probably just go along with me because I'm The Mommy and agreeing with me is easier than telling me I'm full of bullshit.) The philosophical/spiritual questions arising from immortality are many and interesting, and the permutations thereof can provide hours of drunken entertainment, especially if I'm sober, and everyone else is not (this does not include my children, thankseversomuch). True, we have discussed it when everyone is sober, and those conversations are interesting, as well. My stance is that there's just too much I want to do (like, rule the Universe), to be interrupted with bothersome things like dying, and the other stance is that people just get tired, and life is meant to have a limited span. To which I answer, "According to what?" Or, "According to Whom?" I don't see it written down anywhere that I have to live nine or ten decades and then fade away. Nah. Not gonna happen. People go on about reincarnation or passing on into the next world, finding Nirvana and Transcendence, but this one does just as well as a training ground for me, and I can find Transcendence wherever I am.

And, to be perfectly honest, I think the Next World is going to be a little too crowded with the wing-nuts and nut-jobs that have been jostling for elbow-room on this plane, thanks-ever-so. Hee! Not to put too fine a point on it, I believe that everyone gets what they truly believe in the next life, and that there's a Next Life for everyone, and I really don't want to see that. Nope. I'm a coward that way. I'd rather work on making this life better. It just seems more worthwhile somehow.

2002-07-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

I had entirely forgotten about Betty Bowers Is A Better Christian Than You. Visit the gift shop, it is well worth your time. I could spend much more money than I have, there. But that's because I'm a bad person, and would like to wear many of the t-shirts around town.

Ah...

2002-07-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's me feeling slightly stupid - Chi-Chian is strictly flash-animation, strictly on SCIFI.COM, and apparently won an award. Doh! This is what I get for not watching the Sci Fi channel for who knows how long? I can't help it if I don't like their programming. Or, to put it another way, am distracted by the programming of other channels.

I just felt I had to clear that up. So everyone could have a good chuckle at my expense, and also so you could all know I realize that I made a mistake. I know, okay?

Sheesh.

Criminy.

I mean, I get it, already. Just let it go. All right?

Kree-yist.

Please.

Are we done, yet?

Thank you.

2002-07-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

Oh! Also, in case anyone cares, or maintains interest in this sort of thing at all, I did manage to get a sketch done for my website-thingy - not that, that, in any way, foretells an imminent website-warming party, I am still wary of certain aspects of that process - and have extracted a promise from someone at Reuel's Art and Frame (and also, art supplies) that they have marker paper in stock, so I have actually accomplished something dispite my recent disposition.

2002-07-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

I finished watching Chi-Chian, and it was well worth it, let me tell you. Of course, there was no way I could've watched it on the Obsolete Computer (otherwise known as Bobert).

Have hunted down comics vendors, and know what I want for Christmas. I am not acquisitive in any sense, no, not at all.....

2002-07-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Chi-Chian, yet another Voltaire creation. See it, you must. I'm up to Episode 5, and will probably watch a couple more before it's Troy's turn on the computer (or not, depending on how long this post takes me), and feel badly that I missed it on tv. Still, this is why Whomever gave us the Internet, yes?

And my Oh My Goth comic fell apart today, a sad combination of humidity, bad binding, and leaving it splayed open during my second run-through. Shee-yit. Now I have to just keep it until I can let it dry out some and glue it back together. Good thing I'm not concerned about the collector's value....anymore.....

2002-07-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Gawd, let's lay off the diarizing, shall we?

Duck's a great guy, and I wish him all the luck in the world with Bonnie, he surely deserves it. I don't know Bonnie well enough yet to know if he'll get it, but they've been together at least eighteen months and she's stuck through lots of crappola with his ex, so there must be something to recommend her. It's just too bad I had issues about the dress.

So, anyway, Matt e-mailed me a couple of links regarding Operation TIPS, which is something we predicted the day of September 11 (and argued the pros and cons, neither of us taking sides but knowing it would happen whether we particularly approved of something like this or not). Oh, come on! I think most of us knew something like this would come down the pike, given our current government's make-up and paranoiac level. Which, it is true, is not entirely without basis. I just think that the gummint (and, at this point, it truly deserves that spelling) is going about the process of culling information about possible terrorist activity in ways that are going to totally subvert it's intentions - what I said earlier about too much data will become even more true. The other link Matt sent me was for an hysterical newspaper article about Operation TIPS and published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Although what the gummint is doing should be the more alarming because of it's institutional nature, I think the wing-nuts balance out the equation pretty nicely. Six of one, a half dozen of the other. I know I'd love to watch the two groups in a closed room together. I wouldn't want to get between them, though.

With the, you should excuse the term, chickens running about, squawking up a storm, and the government advertising for spies for their systematic subversion of any kind of right to privacy (which, folks, by now you should realize you do not have), I feel pretty damn safe. Not from terrorists, mind you, but from any form of interference.

2002-07-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

One day, this current attitude of mine, which seems to consist of being snarky, may change. I'll keep you updated.

2002-07-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Aw, do I really want to do a review of the wedding right now?

Um. No, not really, but I might end up doing it anyway, entropy being what it is. The dress turned out remarkably well, considering. Not what I would've done, but then, I'm physically incapacitated, so it's a moot point. I'm sure Bonnie was satisfied, and in the end that's what counts. Schadenfreude didn't get a look in. Which is really too bad, because schadenfreude is something I enjoy oh, so very much. (This is because I'm a bad person with an evil heart.) There was no fiasco-type thing happening until Scott, a friend of Duck, Gina, Matt, and Kevin since they all climbed out of the primordial ooze, started in about his usual post-girlfriend angst (she broke up with him a year ago - or more, I lost count), and tried to start some shit. First, apparently with Gina, who at one point was affianced to him and has since commented, at length, about how glad she is that she's married to Kevin now, since Scott is a fuck-up (he is) who can't hold down a job and has four kids, three of whom he refuses to support (all true). Of course, if I had to hear that at every gathering and social function, I'd get a little testy, but then he does set himself up by complaining about the aforementioned situations: a) he was "trapped" by the women who gave birth to children he didn't want, which leads to b) him not holding down a job where they would just take all his money to pay for those children. Then, of course, there's the matter of his "art:" he is, or was a talented artist, but he's just pissed it away, labouring under the delusion that his art will be more valuable once he's dead.

Uh-huh. You have to be somewhat noticed and, well, famous while you're alive for your work to be valuable once you're dead, jerk-face.

So, he's gets drunker, and more drunk, which it is true, is his natural state, and is dancing around the reception - outdoor, since it's at Gina and Kevin's house - yelling about how a woman is going to have to chase him for seven months to even get his attenion (although why she would want it in the first place is a matter of some debate, and something I, and several of his closest male buddies, discussed in detail while Scott pranced for our amusement), and then shouts something about all the men there being his best friends and all their wives his [sic] assholes. Which is when he stated that his art would live on after he was dead, and in seven hundred years it would be worth a lot of money.

Oh, yeah.

Which is when I stepped in, and being the only sober person, I should really have known better. I stated that he would have to actually produce something to have it last seven hundred years, and something about my surviving longer than his art and making the most of your opportunities. I then walked away from him, and apparently he called me something really nasty, which I didn't hear. Matt and Gina's dad both said something to Scott, and by the time I got back, there were several people telling him it was time calm down or leave.

Scott took off in a huff, but didn't really, actually, leave, because the next thing I heard, Gina had bitch-slapped him on the front lawn. Heh. He did leave after that, because I think even he can only take so much humiliation.

And there was the drama everybody needed for the wedding to be complete. At least it happened after the ceremony, since Scott was in it. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer person.....

2002-07-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ooooh! OOooooh! I nearly forgot to mention, and I would be disappointed in myself if I did (forget, that is): Matt bought for me these things - Attic Base - Night Vision, the arrival of which also brought their first CD, signed (free, apparently because the Night Vision CD took so long to ship); and Voltaire's comic book Oh My Goth (version 2.0, encompassing all four comics). If you are in any way interested in totally humorous, dark violin and cello-driven synth-y goth-y music, check out his CDs, as well, they're beauts. I highly suggest Banned On Vulcan, if nothing else. You'll never regret it.

2002-07-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

I must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Matt's a geek, and we're raising two known geeks, plus one possible, and this morning I was made slightly ashamed of ranting about "tech-geeky" language - and I swear, rarely do my rants come back to bite me on the ass.

Okay, maybe not that rarely. Hah!

When I was in high school, I was the good little nerd, taking my computer science classes like I should, doing all the algebra, geometry, trig, and physics classes like I should, but when I was the only chick in physics and the guys tried to do my physics homework for me, and would answer the questions for me even though I had my hand raised and the teacher had picked me to answer, what was I supposed to do? Glaring didn't work. Telling them to shut up elicited laughs. It was frustrating, I tell you, especially since physics was the easiest class I had that term. The same thing happened in woodworking class, as well, but that class wasn't was easy.... Of course, that was San Juan High school, 1983, so what could one expect? Then, of course, I fell in with the wrong crowd at Ricks College, and it all went downhill from there. Style over substance, and biology was the easiest class there was, and in a Mormon culture, girls were expected to husband-hunt before paying attention to what their majors were, and the pressure was on to pick a major so I went with English. I mean, I went with the challenge, didn't I? Arts over sciences, anyway.

Words seemed to have a less-plug-in quality than chemicals. Of course, I hadn't got very far into the whole scientifical scene, so what did I know? And I was at the wrong school to find out.

Blargh.

So now I'm playing a bit of catch-up, but that's what periodicals and the Internet are for, n'est ce pas?

2002-07-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Oh. Yay. The Bachelorette Party. Yup. I went over to the Hard Rock Cafe, which, for some reason, Bonnie is enamoured with. She has friends who work there, one is a manager, and every time Matt and I have been roped into going over there, it has been with promises of "Oh, we'll get free drinks and food!" I have had yet to experience this miracle. Honestly. But, hey, I only ordered a Coke last night, so SEP.

[I've been noticing lately that there has been a tendancy towards the overuse of commas, so I've been trying desperately to excise them, prune them, get rid of them before they take over. I read a magazine, and they seem to be all over the place - some in nominally acceptable places, some, in places, that, normally, you wouldn't accept, a, comma. The fashion magazines are really, really, really bad at this. The celebrity magazines are close behind, with the news magazines nipping at their heels. It is as if the use of the comma connotes some level of well-heeled literacy - the more expensive the fashion mag, the more commas: "By God! We're paying for them!" The celebrity magazines a faux intellectualism: "We need to lend the air of well-done research, now, make up a story!" The news magazines, hey, don't they know this stuff already? "Hey, we know this stuff already!"]

Gina was there, already half-way to three sheets to the wind, Bonnie of course, Heather, Angie, and Chris (a male friend, not gay). Heather, Angie and Chris are friends of Bonnie's who I may or may not have met before: this would've been at the Engagement Party, at which I was bawling and in pain and not paying much attention to anybody else. Heather seemed nice enough, but trying to speak over the combined attention-getting of Gina and Angie was like fighting gale-force winds and it wasn't happening. Bonnie is almost as bad, but she's had years of experience, apparently, of basking in Angie's lovely presence and knows when to worship appropriately.

You know I would never make snap judgements of people. Hah!

So, what I'm saying is that I never had a chance to even speak to Heather because Gina and Angie were vying for attention, and shouting over the sound system in the Hard Rock's bar, whatever the name of it is. Everyone else, it is assumed, is to maintain a worshipful attitude and attention on Angie, at all times. Gina, at least, doesn't expect that, and knows that I will involve myself in a conversation. Oh, the dirty looks I got when I tried to inject a bit of humour in a conversation, without talking over anyone mind you, but got interrupted by Angie going back to another subject. Guess who the Maid of Honour is? I believe she's wearing a corset-thing, too, and will probably look better than the bride (I'm trying not to go there, but I may have to later), but apparently that's acceptable.

Oh, I am being such a bitch. Such a bitchy, bitchy, bitchy-bitch.

Anyway, Heather left, and a little later Chris and Angie left, so Gina, Bonnie and I wandered over to X-Wife's to hang with the guys (is it bad form to crash the bachelor party?) for a while. Bonnie's goal was to go with them to a shaker bar if they ever got around to it.

What we found were a bunch of extremely drunk men, which in no way surprised me. I was with two very drunk women. Not that Gina would admit to being drunk at that stage. Somehow, no one ever admits to being drunk at 10:00pm, it just doesn't seem right. They were playing pool, which to me is one of the world's most boring activities, and some of the guys were more ugly drunk than the others. I stayed and talked with Gina and Bonnie for a bit, but then they wanted to be with their men, understandably, and I wanted Matt to feel he was still out at the bachelor party, so I was just hangin' out in a booth.

Bonnie came around and tried to tell me how cool I was and how sorry she was that I couldn't do her dress and blahblahblahblahblahblahblah and she'd "let" me do her Halloween costume and blahblahblahblahblah and she didn't know it was going to stress me out this much and blahblahblahblahblah and I knew it was time to go home. I had no intentions of bringing the subject up at all last night, and I thought that it was just ill-timed. So I said goodbye to Matt and walked back to Frankie and came home.

And if Bonnie wants me to do a Halloween costume, she can pay, just like anyone else.

2002-07-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

I'll get the Meet-Up out of the way first - I showed up in my Bachelorette Party outfit, which may not have been the first impression I wanted to make, but I wasn't going to go home and change. Hey, since I ended up being the only woman there (surprised, anyone?), maybe it's a good thing I actually had makeup on and a shirt that announced I wasn't one o' da boyz. It did make it a little harder to make it believed that I understood more than seventy-five percent of the tech-speak, but naturally that doesn't mean I'm entirely interested in it. When not drifting off on paths of wireless accessibility (which I actually do find an interesting technology, so that was a bad example - I just don't know enough about it to be able to contribute intelligently yet, wherein lies frustration) and so forth, Jim, Dan, and Levi were very interesting to talk to.

I just hope there will be no need for my patented sneaky proofs of intellect. It's been known to happen. I've got references and patents.

I had really hoped we'd be able to talk about blogging, if only a little, and unfortunately I was only able to spend an hour there before putting in an appearance at Bonnie's party. The conversation was general, more about technology than even about who we were; although, I have to say we did get into a good conversation about the lack of ethics that some people seem to think is a natural gift. You know the people I'm talking about - market strategists, business majors, most lawyers, my mother. We all seemed to agree that you just can't seem to convince these people that what they're doing is wrong on so many levels; I don't know if this is because they sincerely believe that what they're doing is for the best, or because they simply couldn't care less. It's just one o' them things, dontcha know? This is why I find these gentlemen interesting. they understood my language when I talked about these things, and I understood theirs. Things like that are important in a conversation.

I wouldn't have known what to do with a big bunch of people. I really rather would've spent my time with a bunch of guys who were literate, even if they didn't really know what to make of me - that will change, I'm sure. (And I could just be a little defensive and not giving them enough credit. We shall see.) It's a matter of getting used to something. Matt promised to come next time, which should make it even more interesting, the count against me going up by one.

But you know what could be so much worse? An all-female blogger group. A group just for me. I can't think of something that would make me run screaming faster into the woods.....

2002-07-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, not nearly as painful, and no "503" bushwa, either. Wassup wit' dat, chile? Still got the slow-movin' bullshit, and I don't know if that's me or them, probably them, since I can Yahoo fine and dandy, no probs. I've been up since 4:30, don't ask me why, because I could not explain it to you, least of all to myself.

I slept a lot yesterday, in between appointments and running the boys back and forth to Tae Kwon Do (they will make use of those lessons - not on other people, I hope, just the exercise and getting them out of the house is enough, goddammit). Got my hair cut, I will not let it grow out again - and I say that every year, and somehow there's always a six month period where I end up with it down to my shoulders and lookin' Shaggy. I get this delusion that I'm going to end up with long, straight hair, and I should know better. As I get older, my hair gets this weird wave-thing going, and it's not as if it's an attractive thing, since it's very fine and there's a lot of it it ends up looking unkempt and old. If I keep it short I can keep my illusion of the little English schoolboy. Of course, my body doesn't follow along, but I'm not asking for the world. It's too hot to really cross-dress much, anyway. Heh. Oh, my mother hated the day I discovered shopping at the DI (actually, in Rexburg, Idaho, but that was the best link I could find, and I looked, I looked a lot), and found out that wearing men's jackets was really a lot of fun, so was wearing men's shirts and pants. Hee! I'm a bad, bad, Ree-Ree. She actually gave me money for clothes at that point, as I recall, but it didn't do much good. Oh, sure, I love the frilly stuff, but on me it looks like I stepped out of some Victorian romance novel, and that's just silly, because then I have to explain myself, that it's not really a fetish. I mean, I would love to dress up all the time, I don't have a particular "look" I enjoy all the time, unless it's comfort goth (can I bring my stuffed animals?), but that kind of thing always gives folks the wrong impression. And then I would have to put the beat on my face, do my hair (although with short, short hair that's not generally a problem), and with the way I feel all the time, I'm not up to it. Besides, what kind of social life do I really have? And, would my doctors really appreciate the effort? They already think my disco shirts (which were originally bought for Matt, who just doesn't wear them - although I hear that he would if he had the opportunity, place, and whathaveyou, to do so) are a little out-of-place.

C'est, as they say, la vie.

Of course, I could show up somewhere wearing a white blouse with a ruffled neckline, and then what would people do? Choices, choices.....

I'm still ruminating over what to wear to the wedding. I've got a sheer purple-print blouse I'm dying to wear over this groovy purple bra I bought when it didn't quite fit (too small), but since I've lost weight, I think it'll work nicely. With jeans and the cute little purple slides I bought for $5 at Baker's (why pay more? I'm just that kind of person), I think it should annoy and fascinate appropriately. Yes, I'm in bitch mode. I can't help myself. This whole thing with the dress has sent me into hyper-drive. I'm still pissed, and trust me when I say I'm not pissed at Bonnie, she did what she needed to do, I'm just pissed at the situation. So, I show my ire by dressing in a slightly inappropriate way. I'm sure I'm not going to be the only one. Outdoors, at 5pm, middle of July, the temp will surely be almost 100. It's not like the dress code is formal, so before anyone goes all gaspy and hissy on me. At least my mother won't be there. Although, that could've been amusing. Matt is standing up for Duck, so he's got to wear a suit, black of course, with a tie to match Duck's kilt. Lucky him. Just think of me balancing him out.

On the other hand, I could just mellow out and wear a pair of velvet pants (I have some light-weight panne velvet pants, so it won't be too sweltering-hot) and a tank-top. And I could wear the other outfit tonight, when I'm biting my tongue and not asking about the dress.

2002-07-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

And shall we see, given the extreme measures I just went through trying to post something to the Bod Log, what happens here?

2002-07-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

Yup. Oh well.

2002-07-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

Let's see what the deal is today....

2002-07-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

The thing is, I am angry that I'm not well enough to get the dress done in the way I would like to - I would've liked to have been able to design and make the thing properly, and I'm angry that the girl went out shopping and bought a stupid rag from a shop that sells sex accoutrements. Not that selling sex toys is a bad thing, just not an appropriate place to go looking for a wedding gown, not if you want it to hold up at 5pm in the middle of July in Salt Lake City. She should've asked someone who knew what she was doing (me, f'rinstance) to go shopping with her, to at least find something that fit, firstly, something that didn't need so much fucking work done on it and at a reasonable price. David's Bridal has those $99 dresses all the time, MacFrugals (I still refuse to call it by that stupid new name) has $99 wedding gowns, too. Jeebus. I mean, really. If you're going to do something like this, you need to fucking think things through.

At least when Matt and I got married, we didn't expect anyone to do anything for us. We got married at the county building and had lunch with family and friends at the Olive Garden. Not the most elegant of circumstances, but hey, when you need health insurance, you do what you're gonna do. It was fun, it was amusing, and my sister threw us a surprise reception at her house. Matt and I have plans to one day renew vows in Vegas with an Elvis impersonator, and that is where it's at.

Yargh. SEP.

When my sister got married, she asked me to do her dress, as well as the bridesmaids (of which I was one - the first and only time), all seven of them. Yee-haw! That was about 1991 (and forgive me, Kathryn, if I got it wrong), I worked from a Vogue pattern, and several cheap See'n'Sews. It's a nice idea to draft your own, but why? If you can adjust and manipulate from a paper pattern that you already have, I say, go for it. Yeah, yeah, there's always the copyright factor, and you can never say you're the one who truly designed the actual dress, but it saves, you should forgive the term, yards of headaches. So, I designed my sister's wedding gown and seven bridesmaids dresses, including my own. I did, of course, criticize Kathryn's choice of colours - green and gold (kack, gag, ick) - and end up in a bit of a fight with her before actually starting the project, but we settled down once I realized whose wedding it was and it wasn't my choice to make. But still, green and gold? I should distance myself from the designs on that point, alone. But I soldiered on, and I think it turned out well, despite the fact that tissue lame is hard to work with, and I didn't have a serger (I still don't, but that will be eventually resolved, I have every hope, just as I have every hope that everything else will be eventually resolved), but I managed, somehow. One of the bridesmaids didn't even bother to show up for any of the events leading up to the wedding, fittings, or anything, and so I just threw together a basic dress (which fitted, since the girl was your basic size 6) and she didn't end up in the wedding since she decided to run away to be in a band. These things happen.

Kathryn's dress turned out just as Kathryn wanted it - a froth of white satin, lace overlay on the bodice, sheer sleeves, and a mild bit of bustle. If it works, it works. I think I still have my bridesmaid dress somewhere.

2002-07-15T05:32:00.000-07:00

And the beat remains the same, Blogger-wise.

Well, I had prepared myself for an evening of going through patterns, looking for a sleeve that would go with the wedding dress last night, but it was not to be: Bonnie called with a message to call her back, which I did - lo, and behold! Her mother (it suddenly turns out) works with someone who runs a bridal business, shop included (thus obviating the need to go running around fabric shops), and is, naturally, a master tailor (funny how these things turn up at the last minute, when someone refuses to do exactly what one wants you to do) with an amazing machine that will simply rip that nasty, tenacious, waist seam out in minutes, and can have the whole thing done in a day! Isn't that amazing, and convenient? (Especially when all this miracle is going to be accomplished for free.)

I am not in the least bit skeptical about this, at all. I'm just remembering the "But I want!" look on her face when I showed her what I could, and would do, in the mirror, as I was pinning her, and am wondering to what lengths she'll go to get this done. I'm envisioning a trip to David's Bridal on Friday. But, that's just me.

I do have the week free, now, which is a relief. Except for the bachelorette party, which she invited me to last night. I'm a bit skeptical as to whether she'll actually invite me when she gets the place, day and time nailed down (it's a question as to whether or not she'll have to throw it for herself). If I am invited, when it comes to the point, I'm obligated to spend a couple of hours, which is fine but tiring: how to entertain myself around a bunch of really young (around 21 years old) women without drinking. That could be entertainment enough, just trying to figure it out. Gina - another friend of Matt's and Duck's - had better be there too, should this all come about. The question I have about being invited is the whole wedding gown thang - I think she's going to end up being a bit embarrassed about it. That's my bet and I'm sticking by it.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I will be willing to admit it. Stand by for updates.

Could the "amazing machine" possibly be a pair of electric shears? I did a quick search, intrigued by any tool that could possibly make my life easier, and that was all I could find - I doubt the bridal business has some secret weapon. Oh my gracious.....this master tailor is still going to have to tell Bonnie the same thing I told her. Princess seams and an overskirt do not make for an easy waistline adjustment. Neither does the cheapest polyester taffeta fabric known to mankind. Yikes.

And that's it for the drama, I swear. No, really. Did I mention the ceremony is set for Gina's backyard at 5pm? No shade....

2002-07-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

Yup. And another thing is, there's no telling exactly how many times I have to shift between safe mode and normal, before it'll actually show up on the blog. It can be just a couple of times, or it can be a frustrating many times. I'm not going to sit there and count, because that'll make me crazier than a shithouse rat, and I think we all know how close I am to that, already.

Buggerfuck.

I guess this is what I get for using a free resource, yeah? Just like everything else. Although, I'm absolutely certain the same thing would've happened had I actually paid for the service, and then my ire would've been many times greater. Of course, I would've been e-mailed by now. Because I know I will never be e-mailed, it'll just - one day - be fixed and that'll be the end of the story. As far as I can tell, there's not even a message board for me to bitch about this. All I can do right now is vent here. So, here I vent. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, fuck.

.....Just checked, and there is a message board, but not to bitch about this, merely one to "discuss" possible help. Well gee, thanks, but I already figured out how to work around this, but I'd rather bitch. Probably better if I bitch on my own. I get into much less trouble this way. Nobody I can drag down with me. Hah. What a timewaster.....

Last night I accidently bumped the thermostat while trying to make it outside for a cigarette at 1:30am and so the furnace was going all night, on top of the air conditioner. Nice atmosphere inside the house this morning. S'posed to get over 100 degrees again, today. I knew we should've turned off the furnace, I'm just an accident waiting to happen.

Matt's friend, Duck is getting married on the 20th - surprise! Yeah, we didn't know about it until a few days ago, either. He and Bonnie had been planning to get married in October, and I'd promised her I'd help her with her wedding dress way back last year when they were actually planning. Y'know, helping her design, I said I'd design and make the gown for her, but that was before all the bod stuff piled on top of me like an Everest avalanche. Well, Matt gets a call Thursday, while I was napping, I wake up and he tells me they're getting married next week, and that Bonnie wants me, and I quote "to attach a few things to her gown." I look at him, I'm sure with murder in my eyes, knowing that it's bound to be more than that. I didn't call her until Friday night, and left a message, and didn't manage to get in touch with her till last night, and hey, guess what? It was more than just "attaching things" to the dress. She wanted full-on major transformation. In less than a week, because she wanted to meet me on Tuesday. I asked her if I could come over tonight, then started panicking, and went over there last night.

The dress is from the Blue Boutique, a semi-medieval gown that she got on sale, and what she wanted me to do in the fitting would've taken more than just the "45 minutes" that she said would've taken her (if she knew how to sew). I mean, really. I wish people who had no idea how to go about these things would refrain from telling me how easy the task is going to be. I managed to talk her down from that idea, and managed to pin (safety pins! always remember that) some shaping in the sides that will help the dress and not cause me pain or too much tension, but she also wants to add sleeves, which won't be too difficult, but we also have to shop for the fabric and go through my patterns for appropriate sleeve-types. Oh boy. It's going to be a fun week. I just hope I can make it to the wedding.

2002-07-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

So, let's see what this thing does today.....

2002-07-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

Oh, okay. So it's not doing this with the Bod Log, just with this one. That really, really sucks. Especially since both use the same template, and the same user, same log-in, same everything. Bullshit.

Whine, whine, whine, complain.

So, anyway. Today I'm going to try and do an illustration for the frontpage of my new, improved website. I swear. Try. I managed to finally go through my backlog of mags and pull some pages, stuff I'd been putting off because of all the body stuff that's been going on, I printed off the pickies I needed to do an illustration with (and I've got a photo of me I can use, too - I know I can't just download, scan, or fake just any old thing to go on this, it's got to be special if I'm going to do it right), and I'm determined that this time, my webpage is going to be nothing less than what I want it to be. Well, some of the others were came pretty darn close, I just didn't have the tools I'm working with, now. Besides, if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right. Now, if I could only find marker paper, my life would be complete. I guess that means another search, because I've already looked in the local art supply stores, and the only paper I could find that was even close soaks up my markers like a sponge. Going to get expensive in rubber cement thinner.....

I know this is going to take some time, but patience is, after all, one o' them virtue-thingies.

2002-07-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

I figured out how to operate this thing with the error. Switch between "safe mode" and normal. I don't know why, but switching back and forth seems to force it to publish. Other people have probably figured that out by now. Gargh. Of course, you have to do it a few times to get it to take.....

2002-07-13T06:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know that should be "so many" eggs, but it doesn't have the same kind of resonance.

Fuck.

I was going to post a bunch of links that I found in this month's Atlantic Monthly, but I don't think I have the patience. On the other hand, I don't have anything else planned for this morning, and I think my stubbornness just got the better of me. There was an article in there about all the pictures you can see from the various JPL and telescope sites around the world. Including the Hubble. I, personally, had no idea, although I really should have. It was a logical leap. I wasn't impressed with the way the article was written - the guy was trying hard, but missed poetic descriptiveness by an order of magnitude (when he quoted others, he was fine). What he did provide was several web addresses for find these pictures of the sky beyond our atmosphere:
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Hubble Space Telescope
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Galileo Project
NASA's Image Access Homepage
Project Apollo Archive
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

Just a bit of education with your morning libation.

2002-07-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

The answer is: It shows up, eventually. That sucks so much eggs, I can't even begin to tell you.

2002-07-13T05:54:00.000-07:00

I went to hit the "post and publish" button, and got an error message. So, I checked what the error message was supposed to mean, and got some jargon and hoo-ha (and I've been using that word longer than Wired, so they can stick it up their collective bums - if there's any question, check Salon Table Talk archives (if you paid for the subscription; I didn't, I feel forums should be free. If I'm going to be spreading my words all over the internet, it's going to be for free, and if people are going to be reading them, it should be for free. Bells and whistles are for, you should excuse the term, losers. One day, oh, one day, despite the demise of The Rant, there will arise a forum, mighty in stature, that will be free, and will fuck the other forums right up their asses. 'Scuse the visual) and a po-up window that invited me to leave my e-mail to be updated when there was any news on the problem. Because, you see, it seemed that there had been some fiddling about, and apparently Blogger wasn't reading certain templates, and when I went to post and publish, Blogger wasn't reading my template. Apparently it managed to publish my post anyway, but that concerns me. And, given the swift and informative update they gave me on the whole archive thing (I still can't publish the first week of my bod log), which is absolutely nothing, I have deep reservations as to what the Hell is going on.

Nice.

I guess I'll see what happens when I try to publish this little bit of early morning testiness.

2002-07-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

I got the August issue of Wired, and learned of a new term, blogorrhea, which apparently means blogging when you don't really have anything to say. Made it hard to write anything this morning. Nothing like a term such as that worming it's way into the vocabulary of the technically self-satisfied to make someone such as myself a little self-conscious.

Not that my little bloggeroo is anything I expect that sort of ilk to be reading. Way too, er, non-topical.

Kind of makes me want to write just for the heck of it, after all.

We all went to see Reign of Fire, in a nice, air-conditioned theater. Pretty good flick, I don't mind watching Christian Bale, although I've about had it with that McConaughey person. Actually, the movie was much better than I had anticipated, and that's always a good thing. A little action-adventure, then a struggle home in the heat to a home that is slightly cooler than the outside. Not that I'm complaining about the heat, not at all. It's just that it had been nice and cool, comparatively, earlier in the week. Today was a nasty surprise. Hated it. Liked the movie, hate the outside temperature.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to drag the weather into it. I think I'm going to log off until I can behave myself.

2002-07-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

Although, now that I think of it, selected quotes may be entertaining and enlightening to us all....

2002-07-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not going to share what I wrote in that long-ago diary. Please.

2002-07-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Eek! Aaaaaaack! I just re-read an old diary because Dr. Russell thought it might be interesting for me to do, just to compare what I thought then to what I think now. I kind of started my embryonic philosophy way back when, and yes, it has evolved but a lot is the same. But, oh! The other stuff!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

2002-07-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Grace magazine - don't miss it before it's gone! I kid because I love. Seriously, check it out before it goes the way of Mode. It is a new magazine for the, well, same body-type Mode was marketing to. It seems, too, that they're starting out making all the same mistakes that Mode made, and adding a few twists of their own.

I picked it up at the Ole Food4Less, because, hey, it was a new mag and I can always use some reading material. The editorial quality is egregiously bad, though, I mean, really. They shoulda checked their words - using "exasperated" when they meant "exacerbated" is a good sign that someone is not reaching for the dictionary, or at least not checking OneLook Dictionaries online....sheesh. If you want to use the big words, you need to make sure you're using the big words correctly.

There needs to be a magazine that focuses on fashion for everybody, not just the painfully, rack-thin, but do we really need another magazine that puts a fine distinction between small and large? Or, for that matter, between small or medium, or large, or larger still? Magazines that show just one body-type are missing out on variety, on showing the wide assortment that is available in the human form, and how clothes can look on everyone, not just some cardboard cut-out. I want to look at clothes on someone beautiful and well-presented, and I don't give a good goddamn what her size is, it's form that matters.

Another problem this magazine has is this assumption that readers are somehow interested in the various writers' interactions with various Big Names. Why? Who cares? I mean, should I care if one contributor or another shopped or had lunch with this socialite, designer, whichever or whomever? Should I, really? I'd much rather look at the pretty pictures and wish for thought-provoking articles. Combine the Atlantic Monthly with the fashion spreads of Vogue and Elle, and I'd be a much happier camper.

2002-07-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

I do tend to scribble when writing long-hand, which is not to say that when I'm typing I'm not babbling. Those were the thoughts that crossed my mind that early Friday morning. I did have a dread of going to Blanding, as I do most Blanding trips, and I do think I figured it out. It's not that I don't want to see Dad, or that I think we're strange to each other - although I do think he feels like it's sometimes difficult to keep a relationship going with me, simply because of the whole break-up with Mum, and the fact that he adopted me because I'm not his biological daughter and the whole town knows it.

Mum interfered in that, too, by getting in touch with Tim, my biological father, and trying to re-establish a relationship - for herself - with him, and I think Dad expected I would get along with Tim and leave him behind. Well, Tim was an idiot, which he pretty much had to be in the first place (har, har), and wanted to spend time with my brother-in-law rather than with me, when he did finally decide to re-establish an affair, I mean relationship with my mother. Besides which, Dad has always been my Dad, and Tim's an idiot.

In Blanding - I guess any small town - gossip can be a grinding bitch. There are basically two kinds of gossip: gossip for entertainment, which is not virtuous or clean, but it isn't evil and passes the time; then there's vicious gossip - gossip to bully, destroy, hurt, and gain power over others (whatever one might think that power is). The dissolution of Dad and Mum's marriage, as any of anyone in town, was grist for the mill, and any lonely daughters from supposed prior relationships need not apply. Kathryn and Jason are fine, but barely, since they are only one relationship back, but since I'm two, and the relationship was so old and illegitimate, I think there's a question there as to why Dad bothers. I know it's crossed Joann's mind.

Blanding, July 6, 2002 -

I think Dad tries hard to find his way through all the circumstances of the past years since Mum left, the circumstances that she, Joann, and who knows how many others would seem to have been pressing himto let make a stranger of me. He's always been cautious, as if wondering whether or not I've suddenly changed between the now and then, whether it's between phone calls or visits. My own strangeness can only be related to his relationship with Joann, how she's treated my children, and how she's treated me, but since I've learned to bull-doze right over her (and, really, bull-dozing is overkill, only a small roto-tiller need apply), Joann's influence in my relationship with my father need not be any influence at all.

Dad seems to see his relationship to me in terms of how he can help me out - fix the Jeep (Frankie), help with the yard, give us some amoxycillin, fill the tank before we leave town again (I made an end-run around that one this time) - even though we do always manage to have conversations on the level of intelligent adults (or, if I wasn't quite an adult, he could always sink to my level).

I've always sought his help and advice because he's my dad, it's just Blanding and the people in it that are now strange to me. I don't fit in it and I don't think I ever did. I don't know that I fit in Salt Lake, either, but it's a bigger place to not fit into, more wiggle-room for non-conformity. A good base of operations.

2002-07-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

I ended up buying a notebook while I was in Blanding, which just goes to show that I should always know where my notebook is - I actually bought it right as the parade was going by, because we were sitting a few feet down from a convenience store (the name of which I forget, some nasty mix of an A and W, a grocery store, gas station, and Dollar'n'More store) which was taking full advantage of the location. I figured I should write down my impressions of that float while still fresh, and since I was plotting naughty little plots to interview the gentlemen (I knew it would be men in charge, it always is, sorry guys) responsible, I needed a notebook. And, since I had a notebook for the rest of the weekend, I couldn't help but take advantage, could I? That's what I thought.

Blanding, July 5, 2002 -

Maybe my reluctance to come down to Blanding stems less from the fact that I was afraid of being Bored Beyond Belief and more from the fact that these people are all strangers to me.
When did they become strangers?
Were they always strangers?
Am I as strange to them as they are to me?
Have I always been?
Is this why Blanding has always been uncomfortable?

Probably just teenage angst relieving itself. But I look around, and there are faces I recognize and faces I vaguely recognize, but unless we're introduced, it doesn't seem like they recognize me.

The HS reunion seemed like a special case - nostalgia - everybody knew me, even if in high school they couldn't have remembered my name if I'd had worn a name tag the entire time. Now I wouldn't know most of them if they passed me on the street, and if they pass me they sure don't say anything.

Strangers.

I wonder if that's why Terri and Dian and I have lost touch? Are we strange to each other? Terri and Dian never had that much to do with each other, but I was such good friends with each of them I have to wonder what happened, and what's happening now, to make me a stranger to them. Or maybe it was always that way, and we were just in an environment that made us friends of circumstance and convenience - outcasts who clung together to have any friends at all?

It's hard to come to a town full of strangers knowing that it should be a homecoming, that you should be more comfortable, that you should feel a welcome in the eyes of the people you meet, but all you see is a question - who are you? If I mention my dad, there's an immediate relaxation, a sense of me being put in context with the rest of their world. But there is still tension, because people still don't quite know who I am. The feeling increases with every trip, and with the further erasure of the memory that Dad was ever married to Mum. There's the sneaking suspicion that I'm kind of the distaff daughter, now, that I'm there on sufferance.

2002-07-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

Picking over the actual definition a bit, perhaps the makers of the float would have been better off putting "The Price of Independence" on it, rather than freedom. I think independence is more a political concept, as they meant it, than freedom.

Just thinkin'....

2002-07-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

Blanding, July 4, 2002 -

We went down to Main Street for the parade, a privilege and a joy as always (I don't really approve of parades, I'll have to do some more mulling on the subject to really figure out why, but they bother me on some level that's hard to describe), and along with the usual military display - my step-brother Doug marched along with two other National Guardsmen first, some large military vehicle, other Army-type stuff - there came along a float that had a bunch of crosses and those small flags that are ubiquitous since September 11, all stuck in a bunch of straw bales. Along the sides were the words, "The Price of Freedom." This disturbed me on such a deep level I actually said something so that both Dad and Joann could hear me, and Trystan and Troy knew exactly what I meant when I said, "This is so wrong!" Of course the flags and crosses represented the deaths of veterans, and as I interviewed the makers of the float afterwards, they were of local veterans of foreign wars (the makers were members of the local VFW post) who had died in the "cause of freedom."

I personally did not think it was in good taste to see death mounted and rolling by, past all the kids, giving them the idea that it was to be celebrated as if it was something they could look forward to doing for their country, as if it was something that they should be doing, as if it was something noble, that it was the only good way to protect this idea of freedom. And freedom is an idea, not something the USA owns, or can define, or has a particular franchise or trademark on.

Death is not necessary to preserve freedom, not when freedom is an idea, not something tangible that we can hold onto with grasping hands. Ideas are preserved in our minds, our thoughts and imagintations; we can't hold onto it with guns and violence, and in fact, those are the very things that will drive it away.

With this iconization of war, the martyrdom of soldiers, and the overriding patriotism that is now pervasive in this country, the US is becoming more and more a mirror of what it is accusing the ever-amorphous enemy of doing. Of course, when the US does it, it is "good" because it is for this country, for these "values," these "ideals," for these "freedoms" but it becomes increasingly difficult to define what the ideals and values are.

There is no price on freedom. Freedom is priceless. Freedom is free.

free·dom: Pronunciation: 'frE-d&m; Function: noun; Date: before 12th century
1 : the quality or state of being free: as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : INDEPENDENCE c : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous d : EASE, FACILITY e : the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken f : improper familiarity g : boldness of conception or execution h : unrestricted use
2 a : a political right b : FRANCHISE, PRIVILEGE; synonyms FREEDOM, LIBERTY, LICENSE mean the power or condition of acting without compulsion. FREEDOM has a broad range of application from total absence of restraint to merely a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated . LIBERTY suggests release from former restraint or compulsion . LICENSE implies freedom specially granted or conceded and may connote an abuse of freedom .
[Merriam-Webster Online]

2002-07-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, I'm back from Blanding, land of drought and poor water-resource choices (yep, we gotta have the baseball fields and golf courses, but what should be our crops are merely swaths of red dust), but I had to do some more research on the whole agnostic thing before I got caught up on the trip.

It's a matter of priorities.

I did a Yahoo search and came up with the stuff I was missing from the Rant, plus some other stuff that may turn out to be even more interesting. Thomas Huxley coined the term, agnostic and a more complete definition is to be found here.

".....he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.”

2002-07-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

With a note to the previous: I do make a distinction between the wackily religious and the sincerely religious. Honestly. There are the crazies, and then there are the normals. Which group do you find yourself hanging out with more often?

I'm just sayin'.

I call myself an
agnostic: Pronunciation: ag-'näs-tik; Function: noun; Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnOstos known, from gignOskein to know -- Date: 1869; : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable
[Merriam-Webster Online]
- the best definition I could find, I lost my favourite link thinking I wouldn't need it again and I don't have time for a search. Argh. Anyway, gotta run. Going to Blanding for the Fourth, taking the boys.

Woo, as they say, hoo.

2002-07-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Matt ordered, and we recently received, The Salmon of Doubt, by Douglas Adams. Oh, okay, not that recently, we must have received it about a month ago, and I'm just now reading (when I get around to it, in an off-hand sort of way) The actual Salmon of Doubt. Matt, of course, read it as soon as we got it (mostly because I let him), while I perused other tomes, periodicals, and scraps of paper with words enscribed there-upon. Oh, and computer stuff. We got our big Sci-Fi Book Club shipment about the same time, and I believe I dived into the Tales of the Slayer (It's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer thing, and if you don't understand a Buffy the Vampire Slayer thing, I can't explain it) and nothing could sway me. I think I convinced Matt I was being noble in retrospect, or is that one of those things I tell myself to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.

Or, it would be if I could see myself in the mirror in the morning. Har, very much har.

The Salmon of Doubt, to get back to what I was trying to discuss (implying there's someone out there who's going to get a chance to reply, oh yeah....) is a collection of letters, essays, and so forth by Douglas Adams, collected by his friends and published post mortem. It contains the bits of the novel he was working on prior to his death, which could've been a Dirk Gently novel, or a Hitchhiker novel, but which ended up in this book. I dunno. It's been a struggle. I generally like my novelists, celebrities, and great minds (none of which should ever, ever, ever combine into one agglomerated individual, I'm beginning to believe, the result is too frightening to contemplate) doing what they do for the entertainment of society without my ever having to find out what they do in private life, or what they actually think about how to make society better, the world a nicer place to live, or which political party to vote for. They should all shut up and just express their opinions in actions if they feel so fucking strongly. Jeebus. Which is something I can say for Douglas Adams, he did act at least, but I would've been much happier having known much less about his personal feelings about atheism, and what it could do for me. Fundamentalism in it's truest form, it ain't just for those espousing a religion, you know.
Fun·da·men·tal·ism: Pronunciation: -t&l-"i-z&m; Function: noun; Date: 1922; [for purposes of this post, I chose only the second definition given in this entry] 2 : a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles
Atheism: Pronunciation: 'A-thE-"i-z&m; Function: noun; Etymology: Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god; Date: 1546; 1 archaic : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS; 2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity [Again, I think the second entry is the most appropriate, but I had to get the first one in for amusement factor and complete disclosure.]
[Merriam-Webster Online]
A'THEISM [emph. theirs], n. The disbelief of the existence of a God, or Supreme intelligent Being.
Atheism is a ferocious system that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us, to awaken tenderness.
[Websters 1828 Dictionary] [I'm sorry, I had to throw that one in for kicks and giggles. Appropriate, but nonetheless, giggle-inspiring editorializing in a dictionary entry.]
Is it just me, or are these Christian Tech. guys not paying attention to etymology? Is etymology a relatively new thing? Did the 1828 dictionary just not have it, or do the CT people just not care that much about it? I'm just askin'.....

DA was all about letting people know how much Atheism could do for them, stripping away the unnecessary trappings of belief, spirituality, and all that, dontcha know? Prosyletizing, dontcha also know? Woof.

What is a constant source of amazement to me, and to those who agree with me, is the fact that atheists and religious wing-nuts fail to see how close to the bar they really are. They're all so convinced they know what's going on, they have all the fail-safe answers, and if you'll just listen to what they have to say, believe them utterly, that your mind will be, um, clear, and everything will be all.....right....you're getting very, very sleepy......

Where was I?

Right. One side swears up and down that there is a form of God and He is Theirs, I mean, theirs and what they say is True and Right and whatever they say goes and you'd better do whatever they say, or Else! I mean, come into the Light, my lamb, rejoice and be Reborn! Just follow this lengthy list of commandments, rules, ammendments, appends, notes, bylaws, codicils, Holy Days, Feast Days, High Holy Days, Fast Days, dietary laws, sumptuary laws, tithes, give us your first born son and three hairs from the head of your four youngest daughters, pray five minutes before the sun reaches zenith each Tuesday, except when it's raining, when you must do penance for not doing so. Not that this is anything they tell you while they're inviting you over for a barbecue to discuss the kids and neighbourhood gossip, I mean, politics. They'll appear normal at first, only sneaking out the ritual-wear while everyone else in their right minds is watching the Simpsons.

I am not paranoid. I've just lived among Mormons, Born Again Christians, and people trying to sell me stuff all my life.

Atheists, on the other hand, now Atheists are another kettle of fish. Or not, really. Ever been in a conversation with a really passionate atheist? It's just as bad as being buttonholed by anyone else moved by, well, whatever it is that moves them. Atheists will tell you that God (or, as I prefer to refer to Whatever it is that set everything in motion, Whomever) doesn't exist because there is no proof that God exists. They will tell you that science has proven everything, or as near everything as really matters, and there has yet to be a God-given address for this God-person, therefore, God doesn't exist.

Uh-huh. One almost hates to break the news that no, science hasn't proven everything, and that the more science discovers, the more science discovers, the more science discovers there is to discover. Almost. Well, except for the fact that one knows that if one gets into an argument of this type, one needs to have a certain amount of alcohol swilling about one's system, a terrifically silly sense of humour and the power to use it, and vast tracts of time available for use in the endeavour. Then, of course, one also has to realize that the argument will win no friends, and there will be no winning, period, because like all True Believers, the athiest one chooses to argue with will not be convinced by any reasonable proofs, hypotheses, conjectures, puns, riddles, ribbing, or mild teasing, because the atheist has already made up his or her mind and will not let go of the idea that There is No God. In fact, one might say that it is as central to the atheist's view of the Universe as the religious wing-nut's view of his (or hers), that that view be absolutely, positively, the One, True View.

Because if it isn't, then all Hell might break loose, there would be wobbly bits around the sides, and there would be - gasp! - unanswered questions. We can't be havin' with that, now.

Nope, because fundamentalists like every answer right there, before them, lined up and in order. Nothing to question. Makes things a lot simpler, if somehow less wondrous. Personally, I'll take my agnosticism straight up, with a twist.....

2002-07-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

Thinking about it, I realize I probably mentioned the previous before, but I figure it bears repeating. Yes, I'm a complainer, but I do it well. And if I'm a repeater, then at least I'm a serial repeater, and if I'm going to repeat what I'm repeating, at least I'll repeat it consistently, with only minor variations on the theme. If any new information comes up and I find out I'm wrong, I'll let you know. I don't mind being wrong, I just mind being put out.

I don't mind putting out, though. But I am married, so bear that in mind. Monogamy puts a damper on that sort of behaviour.

Wow. Coming up on nine years of complete and utter monogamous relationshiphood. Matt tried to make it ten years just a few days ago and I almost jumped out of my skin. I mean, I'm almost jumping out of my skin 90% of the time anyway, just on general principles (General Principles ought to be taken out and shot is my General Idea, but I shan't discuss that further at this time), but c'mon, don't make the time longer than it is, already! Here I was, happily sitting outside, as I am wont to do lately, simply because that's where we smoke. Yes, smoke, you heard me!

Why the defensiveness? Because I know damn well good and sure that I shouldn't be smoking, and it's too fuckin' hot to be outside - shit, it's too hot to be inside, it's too hot to be anywhere - but it's part of my wandering routine. Wander outside for a cigarette, wander back inside to watch tv, meditate, get on the computer, wander back outside for a cigarette, mess about in the garden, take Trystan to his Driver's Ed. class, go do an errand, whatever.....It's either defensiveness or I'm going mad, mad, Mad! I tell you! I'm sorry, I'm a little crazed this morning.

So I was happily sitting outside, minding my own business, and Matt brings up the subject of us being together ten years. I was thinking it was more like five or six (which is impossible because Shannon's seven years old and I know for a fact Matt is his biological father), and Matt says "ten years" and the weight of those years slams into me like a tidal wave of time. Whoompf! That was completely unnecessary. I'm sure I gave him an evil look. I'm sure my jaw wandered around loosely for a few seconds while my mouth tried to figure out how to say it had only been eight or nine years (since I knew he wouldn't buy the five or six year story). For some reason I remembered we'd met in '93, and succumbed to the immediate (attraction isn't the right word) insta- and perma-bond that occurred at that time. And I say that because it was like hearing an audible "click" as everything about us seemed to just fit together just right.

But it ain't been no ten years.

2002-06-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the way I'm doing archives is the way I'm supposed to be doing archives, and if so, how come Matt's archives are automatic? How come his are automatic and I have to do it manually? It seems to me that, if I'm doing my blog on Blogger, the base of all Blogdom, I should have the same convenience as my husband. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think not.

2002-06-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Matt suggested this, and I think the idea has merit - I should hire myself out as a professional Bitcher. Someone to complain, tell-off, yell, cajole, and otherwise reveal to others what people can or will not say for themselves. I think there's a niche there for that kind of behaviour. Kind of like a singing telegram, but not.

Last night (and yes, this is a Crocker Tale, so if you don't want to read a story about the exploits of my family, then scroll, click, or otherwise move on, do), we get a phone call at 2am from, apparently, the Gang Enforcement arm of the police force of this fair city. Not that we, or I, since the phone is on my side of the bed, manage to answer the phone on the first try. I was trying to turn the light on so I could call back (thanks, Caller ID!) when the phone rang again, and the nice officer informed me that he had Trystan and Troy in (a sort of) custody, that he'd picked them up walking home - at least, that was what they'd told him, he was trying to verify their story (you know kids these days, well, they'll say anything to get away with stuff, was the unsaid subtext). "Your son Troy has been trying to cop an attitude and he's very lucky not to be spending the night in lock-up. Blah-blah-blah....Something about being picked on, your son stuck up for him, got hit in the shins, walking home, where do you live?" So I told him, and he allowed as he could let them come home, but we shouldn't let them wander around at night since there was a curfew, and blah-blah-blah. Matt and I went outside to wait for them, smoking, of course, and trying to untangle what to me had been kind of a mixed-signal conversation. I'd been asleep for a couple of hours and didn't know if I was mad at the boys for whatever it was they had putatively been doing, or the officer for interrupting the boys during their walk home.

Just a little weirded out by the whole thing. Freaked by being called in the middle of the night by a police officer at all, and freaked by being called by a police officer in regard to my children. My first leap to conclusions was it was about Jason, my brother, because, hey! If it was the police, the middle of the night, that was the obvious leap to make.

Trystan and Troy came shuffling home about ten minutes later, Trystan carrying a pair of crutches (?!) and Troy limping and sniffing. They were both very agitated, scared and angry, but able to tell a pretty coherent story all the same. Apparently the officer had stopped Troy, and Troy didn't even know he was an officer at all. He thought the guy was some sort of pervert, because he didn't recognize the uniform - some kind of ranger-type get-up. The vehicle had been unmarked, and when the officer answered his in-vehicle phone, it had been "Domino's Pizza." Troy had totally freaked out, because the guy had tried to get him to go to the car and then the officer had gotten obstreperous with him and of course Troy was totally, by then, out of control. Trystan had come up with the crutches, and the officer had seen those as weapons, and Trystan had had to be calm, cool, and collected and then the officer had called us. So, Troy, the little trouble-maker, had only been terrifed out of his mind of the officer, and then probably very angry with him. I bet Trystan was probably very angry with him by then, too. This, on top of them both being very angry with their buddies over at David's house to begin with (more on that....). Not a good confluence of emotions and events for the officer, and I'll probably be contacting the police department tomorrow to let them know who fucked up.

Thus we get to why they were wandering home (Trystan in his pajama pants and robe, by the way) at this time of night in the first place. These guys have been playing D'n'D pretty much all week. Troy has just been getting into it, and has been getting along pretty well with a kid named Daryl (who doesn't have another brother named Daryl, more's the pity), and they've spent more time together than Troy's been able to spend with any of his other friends without fighting than I've ever been witness to. And he's part of the same group that Trystan's friends belong to, so it's all one big incestuous Dugeons and Dragons Pit of Doom over at David's house - which is where Trystan and Troy were walking home from, and the site of all the D'n'D activities, because that's the way David likes it, he has control, he feels like he's the Big Dude, his mother is never there, and his sister, who is supposed to be there, is always out on a date, conveniently. His brother, who is sometimes there, is another story altogether. David is the middle child of approx. nine children; parents divorced; mother juggling boyfriends; picture painted? I could go on, but I'm sure I'll get to it further on.....and on....and on.....Troy likes to be liked, and so he takes a lot from other people, he'll take teasing and he'll take teasing and he'll take teasing, until he's had enough and then he won't take it anymore. At that point, people will act surprised that he won't take the teasing anymore. Apparently there was this chickie who decided it was cute to kick Troy in his knees (he has Osgood Schlatters, which causes him a lot of pain upon occasion, especially if he is kicked in the knees), asking him which knee hurt worse, then kicking him there. After kicking him there again, after he was trying to go to sleep, he tried to leave. But David decided that, no, he wasn't going to leave, because his being picked on was all in his head. Of course. No one would pick on Troy at David's house, it was all in fun, Troy was just being paranoid, right?

Riiiight.

I think that's when Trystan got in on the action. I think part of the issue is that Troy and Trystan have a pushandpull thing going on - Trystan punches Troy, Troy takes it, and then doesn't, and Trystans buddies only see him taking it, and think they can get in on the act. They don't see the other part, where Troy gives as good as he gets. They don't understand what they're messing with, because Troy outweighs any two of them put together, and when he finally decides to take David on, David's going to fully regret it. Unless some sort of detente is achieved.

Anyway, this little chickie (well, she's not really little, but she is fully stacked, which is why I can only assume David had her over there) made the assumption that she could kick Troy because he wouldn't fight back. She assumed, incorrectly, that because he wouldn't fight back, that Troy is weak. No, honey, he doesn't fight back because we taught him that is wrong.

2002-06-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

Another morning of the cats being shocked and exciting by my getting up. "Ooh! Foodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodfoodmrrooowmrooowprrrruuooow!" Because, you know, they don't have food in their bowls, and this doesn't happen every single morning. Malley's belly swaying down the stairs, brushing any dust and cat-bunnies out of the way, and Blue running up and down and sharpening her paws on the window-sill in all the excitment (she knows it's something I'm impressed by and that it will ensure the food is extra-supremo-good-sah!). Sweetness just lays back in whatever nook or cranny the other two have driven her into during the previous evening's cat fights and awaits further developments. She won't start kissing up to me until later in the morning when she feels that Malley and Blue have done all they can to make me entirely fed up.

And it's not like I won't give in and give them fresh food soon, anyway. I'm not a monster, but I will make them anxious. I'll go outside a few times, have a couple of cigarettes, fiddle about with my rock garden, make them watch me out the windows. It's good for their nervous systems. If I didn't get up so early, they'd still be sleeping either on the bed on top of me (in the case of Malley) or on my feet (in the case of Blue), or on the new sheepskin rugs I bought for six bucks each at MacFrugal's (I absolutely refuse to call the store by it's new name, which is an offense to all bargain shoppers everywhere). It's not like I bought the rugs for the cats, but they sure act like I did, so no sense in disillusioning them.

2002-06-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

(I want it noted, for the record, that I read Diamond Age quite some time ago, and the concept of palimpsest has been with me for years. Just so you know. I do think it's important, if you want to know anything about me, words, or anything else in the world, that you should grasp the concept and run with it. It has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or paranoia, but everything to do with meaning and richness; with literacy, imagination, and with bringing power to what you say and to what you hear and read. Think about it awhile, mull it over. You'll understand. And that's just one word - there are lots more out there.)

I have run the cash contribution idea by my Grand Vizier and General Counsel, and it is the consensus that, uh, I shouldn't have been quite so hasty in offering to have donations sent directly to the palace. It'd be fun and all, Whomever knows I could use a good shoe-shoppin' spree, but it just wouldn't look good and the inter-galactic press would have a field day. No, gratitudinal monies should be sent directly to the campaign headquaters, no mucking about. Directory assistance will guide you, I'm not allowed to give out the address on account of what happened yesterday.

See, it's okay if I beg for campaign contributions, but not okay if I siphon off shopping money, because apparently everyone thinks I have enough already (and with the on-site shoe-workshop, they say I should be satisfied, but I'm not, dammit! What if I'm missing something truly fabulous out there? Huh? Huh? Huh?) Honestly, I don't really need campaign contributions, either, so just go ahead and donate to your favourite charity and forget I ever said anything. Wow, this is embarrassing.

[One day you people will be having to deal with these problems, for real, and then what will you do with me? You better enjoy while you can, and then enjoy while you've got me, because it'll be a long, long time; especially if I'm going to live forever. I'm just sayin'.]

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I got up at 5:30 this morning - again - and was sitting outside, watching the pre-dawn sky and my back-yard neighbours futz around their kitchen. Not that I'm that much of a voyeur (well, maybe slightly more than other people, but not as much as anyone who would deliberately go out and rent porn), but I was sitting on my chair, looking in that direction, and there they were. They're Little Old People, Mormon (with 9 in 10 chances in this neighbourhood, our family representing #10, it's a safe bet), and I've watched this ritual for the past few days. They mess about, eating breakfast I suppose, go out of the kitchen, turn off the light, go do something else, she goes back in, turns on the light, does something, and he comes outside and turns on the water, takes out the garbage, whatever. The fence is in the way (five foot cedar), so I can't really see, I'm all the way at the front of our house, and I'm not going to stand up to satisfy what is really no curiosity at all, just observation. It's interesting ritual, and I have no idea what happens after that, although I can make a fairly accurate guess: they're obviously retired, being Little Old People over the ages of 65 (at the very least), in the Most Blessed City in the entire world (if you're Mormon), and they're getting up at a consistently ugly time of morning. The only reason I'm up at this time of morning is because I can't sleep any later (I state my reasons on the other blog) - if I could sleep later, I would sleep later, believe me. This lovely couple is obviously going to go to do Temple work at the Salt Lake Temple. The Number One reason in this city for old folk to lose out on the enjoyment of their retirement. Oh, I'm sure they enjoy their retirement, but I don't see how. What a friggin' waste of time and energy, that's all I mean.

(Religious intolerance brought to you by Ree, cranky in the morning!)

I guess it's not any worse than any other hobby they might be enjoying, it's just that Mum and Richard do the same thing, only they have two nights a week they go, and Hell if those nights haven't played Hell with some of our family events. Mum was the one who bitched, complained, threatened extortion (in her passive-aggressive way, of course) and pouted like nuclear fallout if you didn't rearrange your schedule around her family events, but your insides could be hanging out in front of her, and she and Richard would still be going to the Temple, but they'd check up on you around 11pm, after they were done.

Words can't express.

But they still get up about 4:30-5am, because Richard does his 3 or 4 or 5 mile walk. The man is 72, and then he can't stay awake while he's talking to you at 10 in the morning. Of course, he'll probably be talking to you about why Dubya is the best prez this country has ever had and why the Russkies want to flouridate the water, so you probably want him to fall asleep by this point, but nevertheless, one might think a little less early rising and a little less walking, and perhaps a little more social interaction might follow. Richard is of the school that if you have to suffer, it must make you morally superior. He refuses to take anything, even aspirin, for the pain in his shoulder. I don't know if he takes cortisone injections for it, but the man seems to think he gains points the more pain he feels.

We call him The Evil Little Troll. It's bad, I know, but there are so many reasons. Not least of which is the time he tried to convince Matt and I of his destitution: Mum and Richard are basically paying for everything for my brother, Jason, and his girlfriend, (Bitch Troll From Hell) Janet, to live in the trailer house we used to occupy - rent (lot and loan), phone (apparently), and electricity. Janet and Jason have a little girl together, Jaycee, and Janet has two sons from previous relationships (I think she was married to one and may have been to the other, but I don't know for sure - I have tried to stay out of her business as much as possible because, as I may have noted, she is the Bitch Troll From Hell). Janet lost the older boy to his father because of certain aspects of her lifestyle - from things that I've observed, and that Kathryn has told me, BTFH not only has as great a problem with alcohol as Jason does, but she also does crystal meth. Okay, so Jason probably does crystal meth, as well. I'm not going to grant him any leeway just 'cause he's my brother - he's gone way too far for that. Anyway, Mum and The Evil Little Troll have been pretty much supporting them both, I don't know why, but they have. BTFH has had jobs, Jason has been bringing in money one way or another, but as far as I can tell (all this gets back to me when Kathryn calls, or Mum calls to ask me to call Jason because BTFH has left him - again! - and he's "feeling lonely," and I get to catch up on yet another installment. Truthfully, I've opted out of Jason's life for now) the only things they spend their money on is food (good), clothing (good), beer (um...), and whatever (urggghhh....) not housing or other necessities. Matt and I listened to The Evil Little Troll tell us about his retirement income, Mum's last CD, and how she had to cash it because of Jason, how she had to work so hard because she was paying for everything, how they had a limited income and how that just wasn't going to make it. They just didn't have enough to pay for what they needed, and for what Jason and BTFH needed. It was a sad, sad, situation. Of course we could see where he was working around to, and Matt skillfully headed him off at the pass.
"Yup, it surely was a turrible situation, and gosh if we hadn't just bought this house which need a lot of stuff done to it, and if Marie didn't have health problems, and the kids didn't need stuff right now, well, we'd love to help out, but don't you think you and Pat need to tell Jason and Janet they need to start paying rent? If Janet doesn't start paying rent, you need to evict her, anyway. Isn't she causing a lot of problems, what with hitting Jason over the head and sending him to the hospital every other week, anyway?"
"Yes, yes, that's true. Yes, I think that's what we must do. Janet should probably leave, that's what would be best for everybody."
And six months later, Janet is still there, surrounded by more beer, and still hitting Jason over the head every other week and sending him to the hospital. At least she's getting charged, now. This being part of the New Cruelty. I mean, Law.

Well, Matt and I felt pretty bad, that Mum and The Evil Little Troll were put in such financial straits over the whole thing - we tried to give Richard the best advice we could, we even started calling him Richard amongst ourselves, is how badly we felt. We still can't understand how they feel they can underwrite Jason and the BTFH, even if they do plan on selling the trailer, it just doesn't make sense. Matt and I always paid Mum when we were living there, even if we were late, we always made up what we owed. Even during the lowest of our lows, we made up what we owed. So it boggles that Jason and the BTFH are getting this free ride. It stuns and amazes, but I guess it's just one of those things Man and Queen weren't meant to ken, not at this time, anyway. Wow. I guess Richard feels like he's doing a Deed, or something, and Mum must do what she must to make Richard feel like she's the woman Richard thinks she is.

As I was saying, Matt and I felt genuinely bad for Mum and The Evil Little Troll, we really did. We wanted to take them to dinner, do something for them to thank them for what they were doing, express to them our gratitude, or at least show them that they were appreciated. But it was within days, or a week, that Mum and the ELT were flying to Seattle for their delayed honeymoon. Oh, it was in conjunction with one of Richard's many relative's weddings (he and his first wife, Ila, had nine children, and he has 47+ grandchildren), but they stayed at a bed'n'breakfast on Vancouver Island over the weekend afterwards, and Mum was so smug and gloated over the whole thing. They arranged to do this while the roof was being redone on their house. Since, I believe, they have taken two other trips, and plan more.

Mum also plans on replacing the ELT's butter-yellow 1980 Cadillac (oooh! pimp-daddy!), with something that suits her a little better. Richard insisted that she rid herself of her own car when they get married, along with most of her furniture and her cat. We ended up with Sweetness (Mum named her!), a completely deranged animal, and Mum managed to hang onto her favourite piece of furniture, a huge dresser, in exchange.

Mum and Richard got married withing six weeks of meeting each other, last summer, and did not date at all. They saw each other twice a week - once when she went to the Temple while he was greeting, and once when he came in to the Pantry (where she works) for lunch. The way I found out she was getting married, was when she called the day of. She asked me to call Kathryn and Jason and tell them, and I was leaving to take the boys down to Blanding that morning. I think things could've been arranged with more....um....tact, but then, Mum could have acted with more tact her entire life. Everytime I think I'm used to it, something else she does amazes me. More entertaining than television, I tell ya what!

There is stuff you should just let go, and then there is stuff you hold onto for it's value to amuse other people.
See, if you remember the things I say, you'll see the reason for it. (And you'll come to the realization that I am quite as mad as advertised.)

I know I'm rather hung up on Mother Issues, and I try not to be. But it is balanced out by the fact that my father is a good person. He's married to a complete whackaloon (yes, another one), but I don't have to be influenced by her, not having been raised by her, and Joann stories are Weekly World News fodder, I kid you not.

2002-06-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

I finally watched Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Matt and I were, at first, a little bleah, and concerned that the rest of the world (of film-watchers) were bananas and didn't know what they were talking about or referring to, but then we finally understood! Ka-blam! It all became crystal-clear, and thanks to Peter Sellers (I mean, we should have trusted the movie on Peter Sellers' grounds, anyway), a thousand little references fell into place, and we enjoyed dozens of movies even more in retrospect. As Steve Martin says in LA Story, I "projected back" into several that I could name off the top of my pointy head (but I'll save everyone the pain, you can thank me later, cash will be fine. The address is:
Ree, Queen of the Universe
One Universal Palace
Third Planet Out, Sol
Milky Way Galaxy
The Universe)
and enjoyed them so much more. Layers upon layers.

I discovered a word in one of Neal Stephenson's books, The Diamond Age, palimpsest, that I think applies to this situation. The dictionary definition:
pa·limp·sest
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin palimpsestus, from Greek palimpsEstos scraped again, from palin + psEn to rub, scrape; akin to Sanskrit psAti, babhasti he chews
Date: 1825
1 : writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased
2 : something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface
[Merriam-Webster Online]
Not that I think the movie was trying too hard to do something like that, although Kubrick may have been making some sort of attempt in that direction, but I think the results, given the references down the years in other movies, have been this layering effect. It's beautiful, and now I can fully enjoy it. George C. Scott and his constant gum-chewing was magnificent, but Peter Sellers in his three roles was simply stunning.

It forcibly brought to mind that we must force the boys to watch the original Pink Panther movies before the remakes spoil it for them in perpetuity (we like Chris Tucker, and I wish him well in this endeavour, I just want the boys to have a chance to enjoy Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, the One and Only Clouseau).

I also now truly understand where the whole Communist Flouridation Conspiracy comes from. It's amazing. It's the Communist Conspiracy in Action, I'm tellin' ya.....

2002-06-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ooooh! By the way, got PaintShop Pro 7, Tenth Anniversary Edition, thanks-ever-so-much, bought it from Amazon.com, with a $30 rebate from Jasc, plus a $40 rebate from Amazon, am I a bargain shopper, or what? Hah! Hah! Hah! I say unto you, Hah! and again, Hah!

It doesn't take much to make me happy, really. Just saving $70 on a $100 piece of software. I've been waiting five years to get PaintShop Pro, and I'm glad I've got this one. We've downloaded demo after demo, because, y'know, the demos keep expiring. I've printed off how-tos and studied up on how to use it, and now I have the real thing, and by all that's unHoly, I am going to have great webpages, oh yes, I will. I swear. One day, when I have the energy, and get our pictures developed. Heh. It's just not the same, using the stupid templates and bullshit you get from the freeservers and so on. I mean, sure, they're easy, but boring and plain, and stupid. And not nearly overdone enough.

Because It's Not Done Until It's Overdone.

I'm sure once I start getting over my gardening obsession, I'll start obsessing over my web-pages, and that'll be all she wrote, but not all I wrote. Not all I wrote, not at all....

2002-06-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

One has to wonder why the band Baushaus named themselves (being the practical genesis of the musical Goth movement, c'mon, let's be honest) after an offshoot of the Arts and Crafts movement? I'm sitting here, listening to Bauhaus, and just wondering. That's all. It's a question that springs to mind....It's like the band had absolutely no clue about the Bauhaus movement whatsoever, and it kind of makes them seem a little silly in retrospect. This is an aging wannabe Goth chick speaking, here, so....

Yes, I know there's a whole story behind it, I am not without gorm. Duh. I don't buy it.

2002-06-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

Matt and I watched Hannibal. We added it to our list (NetFlix), since we'd recently watched Silence of the Lambs - "It puts the lotion on it's skin!" - It's a whole Joe Dirt thing, and we had to show the boys where the original line came from. What can I say? We like to give our sons a good grounding in cinematic history. Hannibal was definitely a little more, well, gory than Lambs, but I knew it wasn't going to be the same move, and although I had expected a lesser movie, simply because I'd heard rumours and talk, I was more than pleasantly surprised in it. It was a very good film.

It didn't try to be Silence of the Lambs at all, it didn't try to not be Silence of the Lambs, it was just Hannibal. That is so refreshing in a film industry that is always trying to repeat the success of one movie after another. "Forumula always wins!" seems to be the mantra. Well, no, formula is for babies, who grow up to be ticket-buying members of the community. Hello? Do we understand the underlying principles of the previous concept?

Good flick, gonna watch it again. Now I think I'm going to go write a review for the IMDB. Heh.

2002-06-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

Actually, the more I think about it, and the more I read about what is going on now and what went on before the World Changed, I have to wonder where the personal responsibility lies? And I shouldn't just pick that particular date, either. It goes so much deeper than that. What with all the bullshit going on with major corporations, the impending threatened repeal of regulations regarding one of our most precious resources - clean air - and the other monekyshines and shenanigans, I really do wonder where the personal responsibility lies?

It seems to me that people are trying to foist blame on anybody and anything but themselves. Face it, we are all to blame, even in small part, for letting these people be in charge of the country in the first place. Well, I'm not, because I didn't vote, but that's beside the point. I can take some blame simply for taking up space, spending money that I'm sure somehow got back to some of these people, and that I'm positive got back to at least one or more of these mega-corporations that is in deep, black, sticky, and noxious shit. There is no way any of this isn't sticking to everyone.

But, that's pretty much what everyone has to live with, just being alive. I've been trying to think of a phrase for it, that doesn't plagiarize Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently, who said it best in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: the hammering of the guilt of being alive. But I can't think of any better way to put it. At least, not yet.