Semi-live blogging: The GOP debate

8:39 pm

They were all looking surprisingly good for a bit, there. I disagreed with them on several points, but I was impressed with some on several other points. One fellow - I think it was Huckabee, but I'm not sure - actually said what I've been waiting for: "What we did with Iraq was wrong. It was a mistake. But we can't leave, because we have to clean it up." I'm paraphrasing. I'd go further. But I was surprised to hear it.

Sadly, they turned to Roe v. Wade. All but Gulianni made me ill. And Gulianni left it up to States' rights, which I don't believe in.

Made me ill. I can't help it.

Now (8:41) they're talking faith. Ugh.

I'm thinking, could it be that the U.S. shows that I watched as a child were Canadian-version U.S. shows? Because I remember when the U.S. was founded on reason, not faith.

But the GOP says it was otherwise.

8:45 pm

Okay, Gulianni needs to stop talking about what he DID, and start talking about what he thinks and believes. Yes, a record is important, but we can look the record up. The news people will surely do it for us, when they've got some down time. This is an opportunity to respond to some questions, and when you veer away from them, you better have something more to say than, "when I was Mayor of New York..."

8:48 pm

Wow, they're totally losing me now. I mean, I could never embrace a GOP candidate, but now I'm creeping out on them.

Also, let us note that McCain had better be GONE after this. He's been tanking already, but tonight he totally lost it. Yeah, let's attack Iran. Good choice. Way to go.

8:57 pm

One thing I've liked about Gulianni in this debate is that he's at least once said, "it's up to the judges." I am sick to death of these "leaders" failing to recognize the rule of law and the constitutional role of the judiciary. "Activist judges" indeed --it is their JOB to decide how the Constitution applies to present-day matters. You don't like it? Tough.

We just had a break. We left the TV on, but we talked about Obama. He worries me. I'm about ready to buy a t-shirt, and he worries me. I'm not sold. Mainly, I don't think that I can "vote" (support: I can't vote, so it's a virtual thing) for somebody who says we have to get out of Iraq. I agree, yes, we have to get out. But we can't JUST LEAVE. We put them where they are, and we made a mistake. As I said earlier, we need to admit the mistake --as a nation, we ought to apologize to the Iraqi people, actually, and bizarrely I think that would help, at least with the educated population that understands how this representative democracy works. We made a mistake as a nation, but now we're going to stay because we have to help clean it up.

NO democrat has the nerve to do this, yet. But Luther makes this point: There are stages to the nomination and election process. Now is not that time.

That's fine, but Obama better leave that window open if he wants to do something grand. Leave it open just a crack. Say you want our troops home. But say you need to become leader first, before you can get all the intelligence necessary to figure out how to do it best.

Back to the stupid GOP...

9:03 pm

WOW. Mcain, paraphrased: We have to make the tax cuts permanent, and we have to cut some expenditures.

I used to semi-like McCain. That's what started the Obama talk -- Luther and I were talking about how McCain has to win so far before he can show his true colors. And I'm sorry, but no. He's too much of a whore now. It's sickening. Whey would we have any reason to think he wouldn't be like this as a leader?

9:08 pm

Wow. This is actually pretty interesting! But the wine with dinner is hitting my brain to the point that even if you were interested in this topic (which you probably weren't), I wouldn't satisfy you. I shall add links to any pertinent blogs I find.

'Night.

b

9:11 pm I CAN'T HELP IT

Is the time oddly freakish?

Are there any of you who don't believe in evolution? Three GOP candidates reased their hands.

McCain said he believed in evolution, but then spouted some nonsense about a sunset in the Grand Canyon.

Expletive expletive expletive.

Expletive.

The question was flawed, of course. One doesn't "believe" in evolution.

THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT.

ARRRRRGH!

Okay, really, I'm done.

I just won $10,000,000! Now I know it's real!

I've been entering Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes lately. Anybody with half a brain knows that the odds of winning are... ridiculous. But then again, it takes 10 seconds to enter.

In today's entry email, PCH reports that they awarded a winner and got a less than satisfying response at the door, and it made it to the television, and they're awfully disappointed. So for this sweepstakes, they've created an acceptance script. If I say the lines when they come to my door to award me $10,000,000, I'll win an extra $5000 on the spot! Woot!

"I just won $10,000,000! Now I know it's real! There's no way in hell I'm going to win anything, but I'm rehearsing my lines JUST IN CASE!"

If I win, I'm giving the $5000 to charity. But I'm keeping the $10,000,000. All of it.

Tips and tricks on a Sunday morning

It was nice to see Anne drop by and leave a comment! Hi, Anne!

She noted the little Twitter box. Yes, it is a little fun, but I get the sense that I'm not experiencing the full value, because A) I don't use text messaging --it's not part of my phone plan, so each message would cost extra, and B) I don't have a Mac --for which there are apparently some nice messaging and other applications through which you can pop a note over to Twitter without having to log in to the Twitter site.

For me, instead, it's mostly a new way to keep in touch with my friend JamesJames in Toronto. He's a very nice and smart guy, this JamesJames, and through his little Twitter posts I feel like I "see" him all the time, much like the old days, a friend walking in to work, yet again proclaiming his undying passion for his Starbucks coffee.

Dmitry Chepovetsky, by way of cleaning up the mystery left by my previous drunken post, is an actor who was studying in the Ryerson Theatre program when I and my friends were at Ryerson's film school. I'm sure to this day he'll say that his greatest role ever was in Stephen Ayres' film, "When I Grow Up," YEAH! That was such a fun shoot! (Stephen, I swear I still don't know why my underwear was on the rock outside the cabin. I swear!) Nowadays, Dmitry is a big TV and movie star, but I hadn't been paying attention, so when I saw him in Man of the Year, I was quite astonished and thrilled. Yay, Dmitry!

Meanwhile, I am now officially finished my semester, and I seem to have managed to squeek by with my silly grad-4.0 (because it sure isn't 4.0 if you count undergrad) intact --official results due later today. One cool trick that came in handy for both my classes was Google's Page Creator, suggested by a classmate named Michael Wood. I can build a static web site from scratch, of course, and I do have some web space through school and our ISP, but when I had a couple of different assignments for which I had to "present" either a recorded voice presentation or a web page... Googlepages was so very much easier than building my own. When you just need to put a couple of pages out there quickly, try it --it is FREE, which is just the way I like it. All you need is a Gmail account.

Finally, because this is a tips and tricks post, let me take a moment to shout out to my friend, the restickable glue stick. You would not believe how useful this is. It's kinda like... it's kinda like when we bought our multi-purpose printer-scanner-copier-fax machine, and I thought the one thing I really would never use is the copier, and wouldn't you know we probably use the copier every day? I use the restickable glue stick to put stuff up on my wall beside my desk: Luther's class schedule for the next two semesters, the colors I am thinking are right for painting the house, the notes from a halfway finished job...

...which I should finish now.

Dmitry Chepovetsky

Buzzed and sleepy, and I have a Luther two rooms away that...

Well, let's leave that to the imagination.

Meanwhile, look up Dmitry Chepovetsy. I love this man. Check him out. I am so STOKED to see him in Man of the (okay, the name of the movie sucked and I don't remember it, but Robin Williams became president).

Dmitry.

I swear I was freaking out. Yay, Dmitry!

Getting a grip

I'm up at 11:20 p.m., which used to be pretty early but has been pretty late for quite a while.

I have a screenplay to read and a screenplay to write. I have French CDs and Greek CDs to comprend et katalaveno, et je comprend un peu, mais then katalaveno. Oh boy do I ever then katalaveno, sheesh.

I know it's a tired phrase, but I'm not getting any younger. And the gym isn't getting any closer.

I've been planning to paint all the closet doors since we bought the house that we bought four years ago. Or has it been five? And the bathrooms need painting. The fan downstairs has been halfway-installed for millenia, it seems.

A friend of mine asked about business card designs and I had a whole clear idea about cool, creative things to be done, and I have the Photoshopping to prove it, just... no actual designs. I got my cousin's phone number last week, because I think my cousin actually lives not far from where we plan to move to, but I haven't tried calling him. I installed Skype after two months of procrastination, but I don't turn it on.

Is it just me?

On the up side, I have a presentation to attend, and a short exam, and I'll be finished the semester. My next class starts in three weeks, and I intend to graduate in the fall. I am working; I am working from home, which makes me feel like a slouch for all the things I could be doing and am not doing, but on the other hand I am working and occasionally I even get paid. I submitted another little short story to Jason's new and lovely contest. I helped one of Luther's school friends write a letter, and for some reason she sent me some money when it was done. I mowed the lawn... twice. Sometimes I remember to water it.

Yeah. It's just me.

If only we could come up with a reason to go to war

First, I want to say that "these people" is not a good way to refer to any group, but in the case of Bush et al, I just don't think "this administration" is necessarily correct in all cases. Some of his buddies aren't precisely part of the administration, and I have a vague (perhaps unfounded) notion that some members of this administration aren't part of "these people," either. So I'm going to use "these people," and you can imagine who I am referring to.

These people just amaze me.

Do you remember when Saddam Hussein had engineered the attack on the World Trade Center? No? Why not? It seems to have faded from the public record, perhaps because shortly after that reason to go to war against Iraq, these people had to admit that Saddam Hussein wasn't directly responsible. But then he had at least aided Osama bin Laden, and was perhaps sheltering him in the aftermath. Later, he hadn't actually given aid to Osama bin Laden, but it was clear that he was a really bad man and we needed to save the poor, oppressed women in Iraq. I remember the few weeks when it was all about women's lives. What? You don't remember that either?

It seemed like every time we turned the radio on, there was a new reason for attacking Iraq. These days, they're even losing their grip on the completely hopeless "bring democracy" mission, so it's all about the country being a haven for terrorist activity, nevermind the fact that this situation is exacerbated by the fact that we attacked in the first place.

But I'm not here to talk about Iraq today. No, I'm just reliving the shifting sands of untruths. Check this out, and tell me it doesn't sound awfully familiar:

The Office of Special Counsel is also responsible for protecting the job rights of National Guard and Reserve members who are called away for military duty. In that capacity, Bloch is looking into whether David Iglesias, one of eight U.S. attorneys dismissed earlier this year, was punished for missing work to serve in the Navy Reserve.

Iglesias, who was the U.S. attorney for New Mexico until he was replaced in February, was cited as an "absentee landlord" in a Justice Department document laying out reasons for his termination. William Moschella, the No. 3 official at Justice, told a House subcommittee in March that Iglesias was fired because he delegated too much responsibility to his deputy.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Iglesias was added to the list of prosecutors to be replaced after the midterm elections, and that Rove had complained Iglesias had not pursued voter fraud cases aggressively enough.

Iglesias has said he felt "leaned on" when two Republican members of New Mexico's congressional delegation, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, called him to inquire about pending corruption cases against state Democrats before the election.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/24/rove.probe/index.html

When the firing-of-attorneys thing finally fades from the news cycle, I wonder what the last reason will turn out to be?

Defeat in Iraq? Mission Accomplished!

I don't understand why Bush et al are so freaked out by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement last week that the "war is lost."

I mean, with this administration's vast experience of meaningless statements about the war - Mission Accomplished anyone? - why should they fear anybody would take this latest one seriously?

Angry people get angrier when they're told they're too angry

This morning, the Virginia Tech shootings finally got to me. I'm not sure what it was. All of a sudden, there were tears. Last night, I was laughing while watching Bowling for Columbine, and this morning, I was crying for a crazy young man and what I can only assume was a kind of desperation that led him to wantonly destroy other human beings.

Luther and I have talked about it all a few times. I roll my eyes at the simultaneously consoling and alarming messages about grief and security from my school, Southern Poly, and Luther's, Macon State. Life for these Georgia students is no different today than it was yesterday, but school administrators seem to delight in insisting that everything has changed. A crazy person with a couple of guns could shoot you at your work as easily as at your school, and it's not a new thing. I was standing at a gas pump a half hour ago remembering that somebody with a gun can shoot me from where he is hiding in the trunk of his car much more easily than he could shoot me in a classroom on a college campus. The fact is that it is all easy. Practically everybody has access to a gun, and when you're not worried about getting out alive, you can take a lot of people with you when you die.

It might be the gun arguments that are getting to me most of all. I don't really believe that guns are a necessary part of life. We have them. We rarely even think about them, let alone take them out and use them. But the other day I read an article in the National Post that quoted a young woman in Montreal, whose school had witnessed a shooting last fall, and in response to Virginia Tech, her question was, How can people be allowed to own a gun like that? And I laughed. It was the kind of question I can't imagine hearing from an American, even now.

And then I read in today's junk on CNN.com, an article by Ted Nugent, who in my limited experience talks like every other "gun nut" in this country. You'd have to be crazy and by the way, dickless to suggest that we shouldn't own guns. He goes on to talk about the examples of gun owners who have saved the day, preventing other gun owners from shooting other people.

You can argue the whole gun thing both ways, but THAT particular argument is what makes this whole thing stink. THAT argument is what makes this country a voilent and selfish and frightening place to live. Because what Ted Nugent is saying is that if we are to be responsible, if we are to do the RIGHT thing, we must counter gun ownership with guns of our own. The more guns there are out there, and the more willing people are to use them, the more guns we ought to have, and the more willing we ought to be to use them.

That's just plain sick.

This kind of violence will only get worse if we maintain and encourage the mentality that the right answer to our fears and the dangers we perceive around us is to arm ourselves. And if this is what Mr. Nugent really believes, then perhaps he would like to step up and take the blame for a young man that conquered his enemies and himself at Virginia Tech the other day. Because I won't blame the gun.

I'll blame the asshole.

The "Endless Hour" Short Fiction Contest, Woot!

Come one, come all, and join me in giving Jason Evans far too much to read. Yes, he is hosting another short fiction contest.

How much can you say in 250 words?

Visit the Endless Hour at Clarity of Night for details on the rules of the game, as well as the photograph that will be your inspiration.

And don't forget to check out the past entries for Jason's fun contests --you'll find the links in his blog.

Thanks, Jason! Now, to shake out my memories of the days before dishwashers...

June Callwood

"I’m all right with the doom questions," she said, adding that she was not afraid of death. "I don’t think there’s anything to fear. I do fear dependency, and I’ve talked to my doctor about that: ‘Don’t you leave me lying there in a diaper with tubes all over. No, no, no.’ Most of us, my generation, share the same feeling that we don’t want to be dependent and we don’t want to be undignified. You’re going to go, and if you can find a way to go quickly, that’s the best."

At the time, she also chuckled about her poor family who, she said, did not share her enthusiasm for dying. "They’re showing a little grumpiness about this, although they’re getting a lot of preparation. Every time they open the damn newspaper, I’m dying again." Then she laughed, that silvery sweet laugh her friends and family knew so intimately.

When she was still around nearly two years later, her tumours having stabilized, she joked about it. "I'm finding it rather embarrassing that I'm not dead," she told The Toronto Star in January 2006. I'm not the least afraid of dying, but I'm beginning to be concerned about not dying."

National Post: June Callwood, author and activist, dead at 82

Nappy-headed hos

I'm not a big rap fan. And I agree that the "rap culture" and the lucrative businesses that trademark it pretty much rests their money-making power on putting down women and minorities. Yep. Swear words don't scare me, but ugly, violent attitudes as displayed on a constant basis... what is one to do?

I disagree, however, that the Imus faux pas should be related to rap music and any other entertainment genre.

Imus is a radio personality. And he's made a name for himself by "speaking his mind," which translates in a public sense to "saying shocking things in order to convince people that I'm speaking my mind and not being all PC and stuff." But when he was talking about Rutgers' women's basketball players, he was delivering some sports commentary. And he was talking about real women who can be identified by name, who have fans, who have families that might be listening; young women who might be listening themselves.

They're not generic "hos" in a rap song. They're basketball players. And if he doesn't like that they're strong, and they're proud, and they're rough, and they're tough... that doesn't excuse labeling them as prostitutes.

In a rap song or stand-up comedy routine, sure, the concept ugly enough. It's just not personal. And it's not nationally syndicated. And it's not married with a racist slant.

Get over it everybody. Pick on rap if you want to, but understand it has nothing at all to do with Imus. Imus is getting his knuckles rapped because he was just a little bit more of an asshole on the air than he is paid to be. Rap musicians are barely scratching the surface of what they're paid to be.

Film school

I keep wondering what Wil studied in his "film" class in high school. They watched movies, including movies such as The Matrix. That's about all I've gathered.

I'm watching Mulan, the animated movie, on TV. Research questions immediately come to mind, for young students watching this American movie that makes use of a cartoon version of Chinese traditions. These should be opportunities to gain some perspective on the world, but also on film, on American storytelling, on how "foreign" is often used to depict situations we won't deal with in our own culture.

For example: Mulan is told that she should "learn her place." Men go to war, women make a home. Research women in combat in present day United States. Do women hold combat roles?

Childhood obesity

There was a quick piece on the rise of childhood obesity on the news this evening. In the piece, the news organization said childhood obesity had been on the rise since 1963.

I blame convenience food. I've been blaming convenience food for quite a while. I remember being a teenager, and how easily I could have eaten a can of Chef Boyardee spagetti for every meal, without fail, if given the opportunity. It wasn't because I loved the food. It's because it was sweet and tart and easy.

Easy.

"Easy" in those days meant washing a pot afterward. And a bowl and a spoon. Nowadays, "easy" means throwing out the paper napkin you used as plate and napkin both, for your corn dog that came individually-wrapped in plastic. Where I used a stove (a gas stove, I might add), these days' kids use the microwave. Put the pre-wrapped item in the oven, press a button, wait 60 seconds, and then put the item on a napkin. When you're done, the waste goes in the trash. No preparation. No clean-up. Just eat.

Just eat.

I think it's significant. I live with a kid that is remarkably conservative about how much he consumes, and he's additionally willing to walk home each day from school (to the point that I worry that he won't take the bus when he needs to do so, but that's a different story). I'm pretty happy with where he's going with his health, except that when he's on his own, if not taunted by my comments, he'll eat... canned pasta and frozen corn dogs.

Canned pasta and frozen corn dogs aren't good for you. And kids who start their lives eating this stuff are in a real bind.

I know some parents. It is clearly not easy to get kids to eat stuff that's good for them. Then if you're busy, to get kids to MAKE stuff that's good for them? It's practically hopeless. "Honey, I'm going to be busy studying for my doctorate tonight, so I'm going to need you to make you're own dinner. Can you chop up some fresh vegetables for a salad instead of eating two of those frozen corn dogs from the freezer?" COME ON.

It's ridiculous.

Anyway, they said "1963."

When did the microwave become affordable in the average household?

Early 1960s.

When did TV dinners become common? When they started including desserts.

In the 1960s.

I don't think I'm crazy. Convenience is killing our kids.

Thank goodness I don't have one of my own, eh? Be drivin' me nuts.

Form 4562 is fucked up

Seriously. Look up IRS form 4562. Does it make any sense?

I dare you to tell me, what is "section 179"? Because my understanding is that I can take a "1st year expense" for my business that covers such things as the new computer (and the software to run it). But all 179 roads lead to form 4562, which has instructions attached, and the instructions say things like, "Section 179 property is property that you acquire by purchase ofr use in the active conduct of your trade or business, and is one of the following.
Tangible personal property."

Well, hell, wouldn't that cover everything? And if so, why do web sites all over differentiate between "equipment" and "first year expense"?

Ack. Argh.

April Fool's Scavenger Hunt

First item found 8:56 a.m.

http://www.google.com/tisp/

Serious matters

Wow, this is bizarre. It's a quote from a news piece about the testimony of a former aide to Alberto Gonzales on the firings of U.S. attorneys. But doesn't it encapsulate so much more?

Leahy accused the Bush administration of "a series of shifting explanations, excuses, lack of accountability or even acknowledgment of the seriousness of this matter."

Ex-aide contradicts Gonzales on attorney firings

A Lost Dog Ate My Brain

Alright, I'm good and spooked and up, sipping a Diet Coke. That's my current middle-of-the night vice: Diet Coke and the Internet.

Had a doozy of a dream tonight, starting with a chat with my Mom, Paul, and Aunt Donna, a literary analysis type of chat (because who doesn't have those?) about a specific book.

In the book, a man grows old and ultimately dies. He has a rich social circle, but he has a keen desire to pass something on to a direct heir. Unfortunately, his immediate family -especially, his son- go before him. As the story progresses, he winds up with his only "descendant" being the girlfriend of his son, a woman he never approved of, but late in his life, comes to respect and love. She is his posterity.

There are visuals, so I pictured Mom and Paul and Donna, the ice and... Calvados?... in our glasses, the printed words on paper, the old man -can't quite place him, but know him- and his "daughter," who is played by Helen Mirren. I've been a fan of hers since 2010 and that stupid pen fiasco, so don't go all The Queen on me.

Well, Donna wants to know, have I read the short story that is in response to this book?

Okay, so another author wrote a short story that is a commentary on the first book. In the short story, the main character is a funeral director. A large part of his job is talking with the bereaved, being a sounding board for them, listening. Listening and being still, being... nothing.

You know how when you're selling your house you're supposed to leave it mostly empty, nice-looking but with as little of your own life as possible? It's supposed to have enough room for the potential buyer to be able to picture their own life in it, instead of yours. That's this guy. He has so little of himself, he has almost none of himself, so that he can be there for these bereaved individuals. As a result, on his own he is almost not there. Plastic, still, sticks out like a sore thumb visually (black suit, white shirt, black slicked hair, white face - a wax museum young Al Gore -and I like Al Gore!), and can sit in a chair 30 feet from a graveside service and nobody will see him there.

So, he watches. And he figures out that there's something wrong with the characters in the first book. He figures out that he can sit there at the funeral and watch them, and he'll figure out what's wrong. What wasn't said in the book. Something underlying, unspoken, unwritten. Something not quite right.

This is where my dream shifts. Mom and Paul and Donna and me, we are no longer in the dream. Instead, the major character is the author of the short story, but with a narrator. This is like a third story, a story about the writer of the story that was written about the book.

And he is Bill Cameron, author of Lost Dog.

And the short story comes out, and it creates quite a stir, being essentially a whole new take on the original book that was so well-received. Remember Rosencrantz & Guidenstern? It's a little like that.

In the middle of the night, the short story author gets a phonecall from a fan. The fan wants to "interview" him about the story. The line is breaking up quite a bit, but the author, tiredly, is determined to see this through, to play the author role. And the "fan" is a grinning, maniacal, corpse.

Yes, I said corpse. Think back. Didn't I start this post by saying I was spooked?

Flesh rotting on bones, corpse. Grinning. On the phone.

That's it. I don't know what happens next. But I don't think it can be good for Bill.

A Taxing Woman

Apparently, I was wrong. The connection between God's creation of the world and Donald Rumsfeld is even closer than I thought. God made the world in six days. Six! On the seventh day, that slacker-loser-bedwetter rested.

If he had actually worked on the seventh day... he would have had to pay taxes.

So here I am, doing our taxes. I spent all day Sunday on our taxes for 2006. Very interesting stuff, as you can imagine. Everything about Georgia, as usual, is stupid. I'd done our federal taxes, and then I turned to the Georgia form, and it's little things, you know? Like the fact that they've now managed somehow to hire somebody who can build a fillable PDF form, but you can't save the form with data in it, and some hidden codes cause several of the number fields to be replaced with big, black, plus signs when you go to print. Given last year's fiasco (Georgia said we didn't pay and therefore owed them several thousand dollars, even though we had our little receipt and everything), I am unwilling to trust our fate to some big, black, plus signs. And the envelope tore when I tried to get it out of the booklet. And the address label is bigger than the space alotted to it. And it's next to impossible to figure out their schedules, or tell when they're referring to federal forms versus state forms.

I finally got the damn tax envelopes out to the curb, and I came back in and did a little work, and then it came time for...

...wait for it...

2007 taxes.

Yes, welcome to self-employment. I must now estimate my tax burden and pay taxes on a quarterly basis. To do so, I must essentially... do my 2007 taxes now, with made-up numbers. I'll have business deductions, and income from several different sources. When you boil it all down, in order to figure out what to pay to the government in the next few weeks (1st quarter), I have to do taxes all over again, only today's taxes are more complicated than yesterday's taxes. How is an honest sole proprieter supposed to make any money, when she spends all her time doing taxes?

What's the big deal? Apple, Obama, and cancers for president

I've now read and heard several news reports on the YouTube Obama-for-president ad, modeled after a 1984 Macintosh ad. And I have to say, I'm disappointed in the reporters. Across the board, they've been expressing excitement over the amazing things people can do with a computer in a living room at home.

If you search YouTube, you can watch not only the Obama ad, but also the original Macintosh ad. And what's the difference? Hilary Clinton's face plastered over the screen image. Not even top quality. Her image is degraded -a common technique for handling the fact that you are using a borrowed image to begin with- to look like a bad video signal.

If I've had one disappointment about the Obama campaign thus far, it's been that he is quoted as saying his staff don't have the capability of doing something like this. The fact is, they probably do. It's just not that hard.

On the up side (as an Obama supporter, which tentatively I am), if the media response is to be considered at all representative, I am not your usual audience and it shouldn't be a problem for the campaign.

Meanwhile, the media is freaking out over John Edwards and his wife's cancer. Now, I applaud their apparent sympathy. But they seem to be eager to cast this cancer as a campaign weakness, and I admit I'm sitting here thinking, "what gives?"

The man is putting a whole lot of his campaign eggs in the health insurance basket. And his wife has cancer. I may be cruel and heartless, but it seems to me that this can only help his campaign. He either understands what real people face (true: His wife has cancer; also true: They don't have to worry about the expense of health care), or by his campaign platform, he understands that others don't have the benefits that he and his wife enjoy (true: They don't have to worry about the expense of health care, but he is campaigning for universal health care).

Either way, it looks pretty good. I fail to see how it is a liability. What, because he might not have a glowing blond wife at his side in every picture? Give me a break! That only makes him that much more desireable to hetero female voters. Rock stars always get more when their wives are absent.

Cynical? Moi?

Video is such a pain in the neck

I pulled a muscle in my back or neck early this morning. The most painful thing I can do is look sharply to my right. Naturally, there is a window to my right, and interesting noises. If I have the impulse to look, and force myself to stay still, my muscles clench just as if I did look. Either way, ouch.

Meanwhile, I just saw something interesting on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Yes I am working. I just took a little break, I swear.

The show played a clip of Donald Rumseld at the start of the Iraq war. He was telling the press that the operation would take maybe six days, maybe six weeks, but "I doubt" six months.

Now, this is a pretty painful video for all to see, but it speaks to a long-running controversy, much older than the Iraq war or the silly old United States. How about them seven days and seven nights, people? You know, when God made the world?

Plenty of people have proposed theories about the time period in which God made the world, in an effort to explain how we've got all this what is it called... EVIDENCE of a world much older than suggested in the Bible. Maybe a day for God is a really, really long time.

But watching Rumseld today, I realized the truth. God said he'd do it in seven days. The work turned out to take longer. But just like Rummy, God is remembered for his bad estimate.

Listening

Just now, I was listening to a class presentation for my online class. Interestingly, the topic was "listening."

A week or so ago, I'd bought a new screen door for our house. The house came with a glass door instead, and we like to get some fresh air moving through, so a screen door has been something we've looked forward to. Finally, I went out with Luther and Wil and bought a door. Luther put it up, and then apologized for taking my project over. Oh for goodness sake, it's high time I took the lead and DID the project if I want to keep it to myself, eh? But thank you, Luther.

Today, Luther and Wil were shaving a little wood off the door, so it fits right. They were using the power saw. I'm good with the power saw. I like using it, but I do have a little trouble watching or listening to Luther use it. He is methodical, careful, and mechanically-inclined... and I am imaginative and in love with him. You do the math.

While you're add it, add the following: An inexperienced, non-mechanical, non-participatory, often inept, teenager. Don't forget the power saw.

So while I was listening to my presentation about listening, I had to consciously put Luther and Wil and the noise of the power saw out of my head. I had to focus my listening on the presentation, give it due attention, and put all that other stuff aside. It is amazing under such conditions how freakishly alarming it can be when someone suddenly shouts loud enough to filter through.

*SHOUT* Suddenly, brain reminds bekbek that there is a power saw, and a Luther, and an inexperienced teenager. Auto-feed the images of dismemberment.

So I have learned an important lesson about listening, while listening to my presentation on listening: If you're going to risk a heart attack in your attempt to put the nice, weekend sounds of a project in progress out of your mind... maybe it'd be better to just hang out down there, roll your eyes at the process, and do your homework later.

That is all.

The budding photographer (not so much)

Things you should always look for in a new camera:

1. Some kind of tripod mounting hardware. Our digital camera from Kodak has none.

2. A button lock, like on any common CD player, that prevents the camera from being accidentally turned on while jostling around in your bag. Our digital camera from Kodak... has none.

So this morning I lay back down on our bed and looked up and back at the trees and sky we can see because our pillows are at the five-foot-wide window, and I put the camera up so I could take a picture for all of you... and the camera was dead. Batteries had been used up, yet again.

I wanted to show you the pretty pink morning light on the tiny, fresh green leaves that are sprouting from the branches. Yes, bright green leaflets lit by warm morning sunshine against a gorgeous blue sky.

I probably wouldn't have got around to uploading the picture in any case. Our digital camera from Kodak also did not come with an upload cable that connects to any of the ports on my Dell.

Realistically, I should just skip stills and move directly to video. The squirrels in our back yard have a habit of sitting on fire ants, and then they do an incredible dance, oh boy. Plus, apparently the middle of a fire ant dance is the right time to start playing with an inch-thick, foot-long stick. Yes, fire ant bedeviled squirrel tosses stick in air...

...and catches it!

It is now spring. Enjoy!

Tarpon Springs, Visit One

We now officially have a new target for the long-awaited move from Warner Robins: Tarpon Springs, Florida.

It's a small town, with a one-block downtown strip and, a few blocks away, a docks area choked with rusting boats that no longer serve any function except as a backdrop for tourism. The docks area is the Greek part of town. The handful of curling residential streets are peppered with a mix of nicely updated craftsman-style homes and white-washed Greek miniatures, complete with columns and statues and paved yards, all leading to the docks, where Greek residents and visiting tourists gather in many small Greek restaurants and bakeries, or shop for tacky souvenirs.

The downtown strip is dominated by antiques, but we also found an old department store with a real shoe-repair shop in the back, and there's an honest-to-goodness butcher's shop there, too. We stayed down the street at the Spring Bayou Inn bed & breakfast, and walked to the Greek restaurants for dinner each night. On our one full day between baseball games (Pirates vs. Jays in Dunedin, and then Jays vs. Phillies in Clearwater), we had lunch at a little place called Zante's. The decor is "flea market," with tiny tables almost hidden in the piles of kitchzy junk, and the stinky candles were a bit annoying, but the food was pretty much "to die for."

In the mornings before breakfast, we walked a half block to the bayou and small park, and watched the manatees play in the water. Yep, I saw real manatees for the first time! There must have been half a dozen at least. A couple of them were quite frisky, too. One lady standing nearby on the first morning cried, "oh look, they're hugging!" Yeah, that's right. Hugging.

We walked along the streets and enjoyed the beautiful weather. I discovered that Tarpon Springs is full of the tiny lizards I love so much --and by "full" I mean that you have to watch your step, as they dart across the sidewalks in front of your feet. We also saw one great blue heron standing a few feet from the doorways of a one-storey apartment building near the bayou, and later we saw a white blue heron "decorating" the lawn of a suburban home near the causeway to the beach. Don't they know they're not city birds?

The two beaches, which both look ridiculous by satellite, are quite lovely and quite easy to get to. When we have a house downtown, we can ride our bikes to the beach in a fairly short time, or drive to one in about ten minutes. We watched the sun set from Sunset Beach. Further down the coast a bit, we also visited Honeymoon Island, and saw pods of dolphins swimming by, and little brown bunnies playing together in the brush. Yeah, I know. It almost sounds ridiculous. Manatees, big old herons, little tiny lizards, dophins, and bunnies.

It is a really small town, but it is connected to all the bigger cities to the south by public transit. City buses cover the entire area. Tarpon Springs is also connected all the way to St. Petersburg by the Pinellas Trail, which is a paved bicycle/wheelchair/roller-blade/foot path that goes through towns and parkland for almost 35 miles.

It just... seems right for us. I'd still like to get Luther on a surf board, which means going across the state to the other coast where there is really some surf. And I'm hugely worried about money -even the smallest house is going to be a lot more than what we currently afford nicely in Warner Robins- but we knew that would happen in any case, when we finally move from here.

The long and the short? I loved it. The funny thing is that unlike some other places we've visited in Florida, to a certain extent we ran out of things to do as tourists in Tarpon Springs. Instead, I want to be painting my house there, or walking to the grocery store, working in my little office, and getting on my bike to ride out to the beach to see the sun set before riding home to start a late dinner. Doesn't that sound nice?

Stressmonsters say "opa!"

For the past few days, I've been stressing out a little. You see, I need to work, and I have work coming in, but work coming in is not work received. Meanwhile, I have a couple of fairly major assignments due today. I was worried that the work would come in, so I wouldn't have time for the school stuff, so I was frantically working to finish the school stuff. So I was stressed about work, and then school, and then the work didn't come in after all, and I'm now back to being stressed about work.

Given my low earnings this week, then, I figure it's time for me and Luther to celebrate our sixth year. Early Monday morning, we're going to take the wee del Sol and scoot on down to the Tampa area. We'll put our feet in the Gulf of Mexico, and then we'll go see the Pirates play the Jays at Knology Park, and then we'll head North to a little town named Tarpon Springs to check into our B&B.

Tuesday, we'll explore what has already become, in our minds, our very likely future home. Check it out: Tarpon Springs. See the funny little white dots out in the Gulf? Those are the beaches! It's a small town, with a large Greek population. We expect to eat well.

Tarpon Springs is the Sponge Capital of the World, making last week's trip to the Granite Capital of the World part of an unending adventure. Where will I go next, I wonder?

The Granite Capital

I am in Elberton, Georgia. Yup.

The pillows in this Days Inn ROCK!!!

The humor, therefore... is inescapable.

b

Failures - not catastrophic, but annoying nonetheless

I ordered some baseball tickets online. The Phillies were fine. The Jays' site, however, gave me a very ambiguous error message. I tried again. I tried a third time. Then, for two days I was wondering if I'd ordered three sets of tickets. I emailed the Jays to tell them their ticket ordering system was flawed. They emailed me back to say that they don't deal with spring training tickets; I had to talk to Dunedin, Florida. We went back and forth several times. I just wanted my tickets.

I ordered a new Dell for Luther via AAFES. The machine is on its way. On the AAFES site, there is a link to track the package via Dell. But the AAFES site fails to forward an order number to the Dell site, so Dell doesn't know who I am, and I have no reference by which to track the order.

UPS's automated contact service called a few days ago. The recorded message told me to expect the package on Monday. Before I even had a chance to find a pen, it had given me a tracking number, something like 20 digits' worth. I was unable to write it down, and I was given no option to replay the message.

I need to leave town on Monday. The automated message from UPS said the computer would arrive on Monday, and a signature was required. I could have gone to the UPS depot today, if I'd been able to confirm that the package was there. With no tracking number, however, I have no way to identify our package.

I ordered some software online. The idea was to get the software in time to load it onto Luther's new machine. The site has a "track order" option. On the "track order" page, I am informed that I was given a tracking number via an email sent to the email address registered with my account. I registered my correct email. I got a copy of my order confirmation. But I never got a tracking number.

I went to book a hotel room online. Luther had signed up for a rewards program the last time we stayed at this same hotel (it's near my business partners' home), so I tried to use the reward. The booking failed. It was unable to book my room, no reason given.

Luther's Mom just called. We bought her a really cool present for her birthday, a DVD player that should be able to play her PAL DVDs from Greece on her NTSC TV. We sent it only two days before her birthday, so we sent it via Priority Post. I took it down to the post office myself. We had the correct address. It's been over a week, and she has still not received anything from us.

I have lots of homework to do. For the life of me, I'm just grateful I can actually log into the class website. Anything more would be miraculous.

Happy birthday, Luther, and thank you!

When I met Luther, I quit my job and moved in with him. Oh sure, it wasn't quite as simple as that, but that's what it boils down to. I couldn't work in the States, but I had a small part-time telecommuting job with which to make my student loan payments. And two can eat as cheaply as one, I said to myself.

I enjoyed a luxurious six months in a small apartment. No car -or rather, no license- but my bicycle and a really amazing man who often came home for lunch. I finished my degree, I worked, I played, and I enjoyed my freedom. I spent a lot of time outside. It was beautiful.

Thank you, Luther.

Then about four and a half years ago, I got an office job at Macon State College. And sometime after that, Luther retired from the military. He's worked on and off since then, but the best part of all has been that I could help with the bills, so he finally quit working so that he could go to school and spend a good chunk of his time at home, working and playing, enjoying his freedom. Maybe spending a little time outside.

Well, we're flipping sides again. Now Luther is working, and I am at home. This time is quite different -I'm working. I'm actually working a lot more than expected, which is all to the good. But I'm working at my desk at my window, and today it is warm enough to open that window and spend a little time "outside." And I have some flexibility, so when I finished a project, I sent the files off, and then I got into my car and I hit the road.

A little while later, I found myself in a parking lot, still "in town," but for the life of me I felt just like a kid or a teenager or even an adult from the "Toronto days," when the only time I stood anywhere and listened to cars going by and the breeze and the sun and the hot parking lot and no tall buildings in sight for miles... was when somebody else drove me there. I felt like... I was on a road trip. Or camping. I was Outside The City.

This time, all by myself with my own little car!

Wow.

So today, I am all grown up. It finally happened. And I'm free to work and play and be outside. And it's all thanks to the nice man that used to come home for lunch sometimes.

I love you Luther. You've given me so much.

Dare I say it? Thank you Scrubs.

I am really glad I found you.

Happy birthday!

Squid tentacles, yum!

I discovered something interesting:It's a bag-o-noodles made of tofu and some kind of yam flour. Practically no carbs (okay, 2 servings in a bag, 3 grams of carbohydrate per serving, of which 2 grams of each serving is fiber...) and definitely no fat.

I drained the noodles, then dumped them into boiling water, added some low-fat, no-msg stock mixture, some grilled chicken (no skin), a couple of egg-whites, and some chopped onions and broccoli and garlic.

I should have skipped the broccoli, which was lame. And I should definitely have added some chopped green onions. But I gotta say, my one of two servings was exceptionally yummy and filling.

Flavor: Whatever you cooked it in. Consistency: Not quite noodles. Like a cross between pasta and some kind of crunchy vegetable. There was definitely an unusual crunch to them. Yes, for a moment I thought, "squid tentacles!" but only for a moment. I like squid, but tentacles as noodles is a bit beyond even me.

I'm on a diet, by the way. I ate too much in this meal. Next time, smaller portions. But oh boy was this satisfying after a couple of days of just a bit of meat with salad. And really hit the spot on this cold, cold Thursday.

Time is money

I've been thinking about clutter. I hate clutter, so how come clutter loves me?

The other day, I was looking at our trinkets. We really don't have too many trinkets compared to what I see other people carting around in the back windows of their vehicles. I assume they ran out of space in their houses. We just accumulate in specific places -a few boxes tucked away, the odd item (a.k.a. bat beany baby) in the office, a couple of stuffed animals, and the official crap station next to the TV.

It's nice crap, mind you. Little things like the wedding couple from our cake (Happy Anniversary, Luther!), the ebony buffalo from a former coworker, the Pier 1 "African Decor" figures we picked out of the pile beside the Salvation Army dumpster.

Still, I find myself doing things like... tracking eBay auctions to find out how much my Google Da Vinci Code contest prize might go for, now that I've chucked the collectors' packaging and have only the cryptex, which I did because I was proud of winning a contest and wanted to keep it.

I mean, alone it's cool. Together with other prizes, it's clutter.

This morning I realize it's all fantasy. I have four boxes of comic books in the closet. I brought them here from Toronto because they're worth money. By the time I actually pull them down to sell them... I'm going to want to read them again!

And I'm working. Yeah, I know, I quit my job. My last day was a week ago, and I'm officially swamped. Yay, me. It's actually pretty fun. I'm learning about The American Democracy, from the Eighth Edition thereof. William Jennings Bryan was nominated by both the Democrats and the Pluralists, did you know that? Sadly, the reference no longer exists in this edition. Mr. Bryan has made room for more interesting folk. Good-bye, Mr. Bryan. And hello...

Well, crap. What the heck am I going to replace Mr. Bryan with?

Reality = Propaganda, an unabashed rant

When I was a kid struggling through puberty and toward my early teens, faced with the knowledge that I was "different" (which turns out to be true for everybody, but even to this day my first thought is that it was more true for me), I learned from my school that I was "from a broken home." Possibly I'd heard it on the television, too, but my teachers and principal told me directly.

Was that reality or propaganda? Should my parents, who lived apart but spoke more and had a better relationship than most together-parents I'd met, have sued the school for imposing the school's morals on me?

In this day and age, were the same thing to happen, I'm sure the parents could indeed sue. Picture some poor, sniveling kid coming home, just a wreck because he'd had it made clear to him by figures of authority that he was from a broken home and therefore he, himself, was broken. He could never be like those other kids. Alright, it's a little far-fetched with all the divorces and everything, but it could happen. And the parents would have a case. And I have mixed feelings about it, but I think that it would be wrong.

Somebody has to teach a child to translate the many stupidities of the world into concepts that make real sense. At some point a child has to make her own way. She can, as I did, disagree. And it's very likely the responsibility of parents -broken or otherwise- to teach this to their child. It's not the kind of thing schools are set up to do. Kids will be faced with propaganda all over the place, and they're going to have to learn to differentiate. Yes, the commercial does tell you that if you eat chocolate all day long, you'll be happy. No, it's not real.

Okay, but what about the fact that we were taught history?

Is it reality or propaganda when you teach a room of boys and girls about all sorts of interesting ways that men have shaped the world; when you have them memorize a whole lot of important men's names; and then you lead them to learn about daily life in early Canada, when women took care of the home while the men went out to work? Reality or propaganda, people? Because I have to say, the message seemed pretty clear to me.

Schools are a messy, sloppy place. I can't say I'm happy with how the public school thing is going, but I can say that it's a fair representation of how messy and sloppy real life is, pretty much everywhere. Schools are responsible for teaching kids how to learn. They dwell a lot on what to learn, because frankly it's easier to assess knowledge than ability. Also, the what in our world is a language all its own. Facts are building blocks to higher concepts, and you do need a certain number of facts to get from a to b in the learning process. So okay, schools are also responsible for teaching facts and concepts, representations of the real world kids will face, stuff that maybe they can't learn in the home.

So now we have school-teachers here in the States having the nerve to represent the fact -the fact- that there are gay parents with kids in the world. "Non-traditional families." Is that reality or propaganda? Should parents be allowed to sue the schools for imposing the schools' morals on their children? Shouldn't the parents' lawyer be able to show these parents some stats about the fact that non-traditional families exist in the world, and just say, "I'm sorry, I'd really like to take your money, but we're not going to win."

And why do I have the feeling that they could win anyway?

Today's "news" on CNN:

School wants lawsuit over gay discussions dismissed

"Robert Sinsheimer, an attorney for the parents who filed the lawsuit, called the homosexual discussions and materials 'a form of propaganda' that goes against the parents' religious beliefs."

Maybe it is about God again. Maybe, since some people have got the perception that God is being stricken from the record by crazy liberals, there should be a tit for tat thing. "Okay, if you get to take God away, I get to take gay parents away."

That's fair, isn't it? Well, here are my arguments:

First, God isn't real. Gay parents are real.

Yeah, I'm thinking that wouldn't go over all that well. But God has his own schools, all set up to teach your kids about God! Reality doesn't have any schools at all, if you start taking real people out of what's being taught by our teachers.

Which leads me to my second argument: Let's just take all people out of what we teach in schools. You want tit for tat? How about I sue the school system for teaching my kid (yes, yes, I know I don't have one, bear with me) that straight parents are normal, that straight parents are the foundation of our society? That there's always a mommy and daddy. That a "real family" has a mommy and a daddy, and so therefore when I lived in a "broken home," my family wasn't real. If you look at a lot of the early stuff kids are given in schools, I expect that's what you'll see. The simple, charming, no-nonsense model for life. How is that not teaching my child the school's morals? Shouldn't I get to decide what to teach my child about what's right for a family? So let's take all people, all relationships of any kind, out of the schools.

Let's therefore stop teaching history and literature, thank you. And language is probably out. Math is probably okay... except that + and - looks awfully sexual, so we'd better take Math out too. Let's not even talk about sociology, psychology, politics.

I know I know! We can just take them to school on the bus, and have them sit there, and then we can take them home again!

Oh wait, we already do that. Hmm.

Reality check: Gay parents exist. Often, they are happy. If this fact is shown to your child, it is not propaganda unless you consider reality is propaganda, unless you just want to keep your child from learning about the world. If you want to limit your child's learning to what you and your preacher can teach him... Keep him home. On the whole, I don't think our society would suffer too much from his sniveling ass staying out of our schools and our reality.

For everybody else who has the guts to send their children out into the world, to grow and become fully-fledged individuals, to face new ideas and maybe even "wrong" ideas and find their own strength to handle them one way or another... Remember that schools are just as messy and sloppy as the real world, and it's your job to teach your children about how you deal with that messiness and sloppiness, or if you don't, then how you want them to be more courageous than you have been.

Difficult? I can only imagine. But from what I've heard, pretty much the only part of making new human beings that isn't difficult... is that + and - part that God doesn't approve of anyway.

Gluck!

Useless trivia

I just changed the profession listed in my Blogger profile.

One day and a wake-up...

Slackers, sicknesses, and some other stuff

I'm doing a crappy job with my courses this semester. It's awful. I keep telling myself that I'll be able to do better once I'm finished with the day job (three more days to go!), but I don't know. I just took a look at the paper I submitted last week, and the paper I submitted last night... and the APA is wrong.

The fucking APA is wrong!

It's totally embarrassing.

Meanwhile, my Dad is in the hospital. Even with the worry, which gets worse as the days go on, I'm still amused by the scenes he's described to me of his everyday life right now. The really funny part is that I keep describing this to others the same way, in reference to the same TV show, and I have yet to come across anybody other than myself that has actually seen the show.

This is how it goes: Have you seen the TV show "House M.D."? No? Okay, well, it's a current TV show starring Hugh Laurie as House, and he's a doctor who is regularly faced with bizarre medical mysteries. Anyway, Dad's reached the point where every new doctor that comes in to see him says something like, "You know that show House? Well, that's me."

Dad's a bizarre medical mystery.

Anyway, they poke and prod and try all kinds of fancy tests, and so far they've discovered that some of what used to be wrong with his heart appears to have gotten better, but his heart isn't working as well as it should for some reason, and they haven't come up with a good explanation for the fever and the pain in his thighs, but it might have something to do with a low red blood cell count and a suspicious and complete lack of iron. All of which leads them down unfortunately scary roads... except they still don't actually have an answer, good or bad, so... I wait. Being a thousand miles away makes it strange. It's like... there's a distance between me and what's going on. Well, it's not so much like that, as it is that. Ack.

In the meantime, I had to put up a "home page" for my classes, to introduce myself to my classmates and so on. I was so rushed for time and feeling so uncreative, I just used Google Pages to put something -anything- up. To use Google Pages, I had to sign up for Gmail, for which I had to use my phone to receive a text message. I don't do the texting thing, so it seems quite bizarre to me that in order to even use a service, I must A) have a cell phone, and B) be willing to use the texting feature. But I guess that's commonplace now, eh?

What's really bizarre is that after I signed up for Gmail, put a stupid page up, and went to bed... I got up this morning and tried to log in to Blogger, and I couldn't do it.

Password didn't work. Had I forgotten my password? Uh, no, that's my password. Had I forgotten my login name? For crying out loud, it's my email address, I think I know my email address. Finally, Google told me that it did not have a user by that name. What?!

Google switched my login. Automatically. My login is now my Gmail account.

How the heck was I supposed to know this? Holy crap!

That is all.

Black cat tales

Not until just this moment did it occur to me to note the irony: I'm known for launching myself at difficult things with the question, "how hard can it be?" and my cat is named "Simplicity."

Yeah, well, sure, it's easy for HER...

What?!

From Canada compensates man U.S. deported to Syria

"The Canadian government now has taken several steps to accept responsibility for its role in sending Mr. Arar to Syria, where he was tortured," Leahy said in a statement Friday. "The question remains why, even if there were reasons to consider him suspicious, the U.S. government shipped him to Syria where he was tortured, instead of to Canada for investigation or prosecution."

He said the U.S. Justice Department intended to respond to his demands next week.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, on Wednesday chastised Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for continuing to press Washington on the Arar matter.

"It's a little presumptuous of him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins said.

Haha, news!

Alright, so it's probably pretty obvious now, but here's the news you've been waiting for:

I have resigned from my position at the college. Yup.

I feel terrible. It's really sad! I have such great admiration for my current boss, and I really do hate to leave her in any kind of bind, but there you go. Now turns out to be the time.

Instead, I am going to be self-employed, with my own company named Virtual CKS.

Yes, ta-daa, new company: Virtual CKS. Website to follow.

Virtual CKS offers editorial services and document design. That's one of them so-called "umbrella terms" for "anything and everything that I know a bit about." Logo design, brochure creation, newsletters, press releases, proof-reading and copy editing and typesetting and so forth and so on... heck, give me a shot at greeting cards, and I'll probably do it.

I have plenty to learn, but this is where the "how hard can it be" mantra comes in handy. In my experience, especially in this day and age, all the information I need is pretty close to being at my beck and call. I've got some stock trips up my sleeve, I've got an in-house Excel and PowerPoint expert and Business Manager to boot, and I've got some great reference materials and some friends in many usefully related trades.

It looks really good, and fun, too.

I will work from home in my home office. I make too big a deal of this, but I'll work in my jeans (or jammies), which I just consider the epitomy of "civilized." I won't have to commute, I'll save money on gas, and I'll do work that interests me and utilizes my specific skills.

Like I said, it looks really good.

The next two weeks will be the hardest, as I'm juggling my day job, where I really want to do my best to make the transition easy for Sue and Olivia; and some new contracts in my new job, which I'm certainly not about to turn down!; and the two classes I'm taking with Dr. Hopper, which may yet kill me.

After that, we can talk. I plan to make time for a regular appointment with the gym, and a serious change in diet. I expect to take over more of the housework, since Luther is now working part-time in addition to going to school full-time. But other than that, I have to say... it already looks like I'm going to be plenty busy with my new employer: ME!!!

Should be interesting. I won't say the words. They're a given.

Ships and sails and sealing wax

This is a long'un, and none too fascinating, but it is time to update the far-flung friends. Otherwise I will have to read a textbook or something, and I'm not quite up to that this evening.

So... in chapter form:
1. I wrote another short-short story.
2. Luther and I started our own company.
3. I am apparently responsible for snow in Toronto and St. John's over the past week.
4. Luther started a new job today.
5. Stay tuned for Important News.

1. I wrote another short-short story.

Yes! This was great fun! Jason Evans again blessed us with a fun flash fiction contest, complete with inspirational photograph and 250-word limit. I promised myself I'd participate, then didn't have any energy and wasn't inspired, then wrote an exactly 250-word story, and then despite Wil's promising assessment (he reported that he almost cried), I decided to write a different story, something about a bike courier coming to a dead end (so to speak).

And then I didn't have any time, so I sent the original story to Jason.

I think he liked it! I placed second! Woot! Thank you, thank you, Jason, for another grand challenge and the really enormous ego boost. Your contests have been a lovely break from all the daily stupidities, and I'm truly grateful.

You can read my story here.

2. Luther and I started our own company.

Well, it is really a "sole proprietorship." I am doing more and more contract work, proof-reading and copy editing and document formatting and graphic design, and all the sundry little tasks that bind these things together. Our research suggested that it would be wise to lump the various jobs under a common heading, so that's what we've done. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Virtual CKS.

Why CKS? If you know us, you may be able to figure it out. If you don't know us... Well, get to know us!

3. I am apparently responsible for snow in Toronto and St. John's over the past week.

"Write what you know," they say. Well you know, that story that I wrote for Jason's contest was very much inspired by real events in my youth. Dad and Sarah and I lived together in a flat in downtown Toronto, on Robert Street, and the kitchen door exited on a little space between the houses. Dad hired slow Russian movers, and my move was to a tiny 3rd floor bachelorette North of High Park. I think of the Robert Street flat and remember old walls, old grime, and noisy neighbors. But I also remember family, and the memories invoked in the writing of a little story made my recent trip to Toronto a little surreal. All that history! Sometimes it is difficult to hold the emotions in check.

I hung out with Dad and Sarah quite a bit. Isn't it strange how people can change so much and yet somehow seem just the same as always?

I again stayed at the Madison Manor Boutique Hotel, which is to say, next door to the Madison Pub. I highly recommend this location for your next visit to the greatest city on the planet -but please do understand that the Madison caters to young fools on Fridays and Saturdays, and from midnight to 2:30 a.m. it is not what you'd call... peaceful. If drunkenness offends you, stay at some lame airport motel. But if you want to pretend for a sweet few days that you once again live in the city... stay at the Mad.

I also saw some friends, though not nearly enough of them. Antun Bosanac spontaneously dropped by my hotel with a tin foil packet of homemade birthday cake -his Dad's specialty is divine! I was able to share dim sum and martinis with the beautiful and amazing Cheryl Zalameda, and catch up on at least some of what my adopted sister and our brothers (such as Jesse!) have been up to. I finally got to meet Martha Heder, who is making our friend Doug so very happy. And I had a nice, long talk with my oldest friend of all, Liz Bischof, who I first met when I was 11... and living in that very same little flat on Robert Street. See how it is all connected?

Next time, I need to see the wee Max. I need to be pampered by Catherine, the most amazing hair stylist in the world. I need to see JamesJames or he's really going to finally disown me as a friend. And damn, I might even finally get to see the infamous Danny Sadder again... if he knows what's good for him. But the visit was short. I was on my way to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Here's the funny part: It snowed. Apparently, it had been a mild winter thus far, but as soon as I show up, you know what happens. Yup. The sky fell, and it was cold.

It snowed Sunday. It snowed Monday. It snowed some more on Tuesday, but the storm had gone East... which is convenient, seeing as I was flying East myself. After an hour of circling over a runway in St. John's, my plane landed for refueling in someplace named Gander. What a crazy night! But thankfully, we took off again and gave St. John's another try, and this time it was more forgiving.

You know, it has only snowed in Georgia once since I moved here, and that time... happened to be when my Mom and Paul were visiting. So I don't know, there might be something about our family and snow. I need to be a bit more careful about scheduling these trips. I could at least warn people to get out the mittens and booties before I arrive.

St. John's was beautiful. I stayed with Mom and Paul in their incredibly gorgeous Victorian home (which is not a bed & breakfast anymore!), and only on the last night did I actually feel the wind shaking its foundations. Boris is as fat as ever, and being a very generous uncle to the newcomers, Cleo and Julius. We ate lamb. And we hung out at the Duke. Life in St. John's is really, really good, I have to say.

Alas, the visit was short, and I was once again headed home. Here's how geeky I am: I am actually intensely proud of finding my own car and driving my own self out of the airport. It's like I'm all grown up!

4. Luther started a new job today.

Luther is a full-time college student at Macon State College, studying for his Bachelor of Science degree in Business & Information Technology. What this actually means is that he wears earrings, flirts with all the girls and some of the boys, and does far, far too much homework.

Well, now he is also going to be working. He landed a position through a co-op program on Robins AFB. It's not clear what he's going to be doing, but I missed him all day! It was awful!

I really need to win the lottery. This thing of having Luther working just plain sucks.

But the money will be useful, that's for sure.

Congratulations, Luther. I'm very proud of you. I hope it isn't too horribly stupid for words.

5. Stay tuned for Important News.

After many long discussions, quite a bit of research (mostly done by Luther), and probably not nearly as much hesitation as it deserves, I'm about to try something new.

Only... I gotta actually set that up officially, first.

And then I'll write about it here.

That's it for now! There's your update! You want more, you'll have to come back again sometime.

I don' wanna work in education no more

Pattern recognition is the foundation of all human learning.

You know how much formal study I've done into human learning? That'd be: squat.

But pattern recognition is the foundation of all human learning, and pattern application is the key to growth and change.

I don' wanna work in education no more because so many of the people -the professionals- who seem the most likely to "have the say" in an educational setting seem to also be the least likely people to be able to communicate patterns.

There it is, that magic word: communicate.

People don't learn in a vacuum. If you think people come ready-made with abilities and talents, and they just "happen," stop reading now. I am done with you. I am seriously done, today. That's it, I've got no more patience. People don't just "know" stuff. They learn, or they don't learn. I'm surrounded by people that haven't learned and I gotta tell you, this isn't just happenstance. Their environments did not supply them with the necessary patterns.

Well, when you go to a school -presumably an institute of learning- and the "rules" are vague to begin with, vaguely defined, vaguely conceived, vaguely applicable to everyday life (witness: dress code says how long your pants can be and exactly which students can wear earrings, but fails to require any degree of cleanliness) and then the "rules" are also only vaguely enforced, what does one learn from the rules?

Nothing. Actually, no. One learns that rules are bull shit. One learns a very clear lesson on why one should never bother to actually try to follow rules. Don't run by the pool, you say? Don't play with guns? Pfft. I've heard rules all my life, and they never amount to much. They don't mean anything.

What's worse, in my mind, is the lost opportunity. Are all kids in school ready to learn? Hell no. But this is, at the very least, their "status." They are identified as students. In the best of all possible scenarios, they actually identify themselves as students. This is their role, and when you fail to clearly define and then SUPPORT your systems, your structure -your "rules"- then you fail them. You fail these kids.

At work, I'm told on the one hand that I cannot advise. I am not an advisor. I do not advise students. I should not register students for classes. Faculty advise students. Faculty register students. On the other hand, I'm told that I should not send a student away if I can help a student. I'm told that students feel they get the runaround, and if I can help them now, rather than sending them away, I should help them.

When I send them to a faculty member, the faculty member might or might not see them. Might or might not register them. Might or might not check to see what their degree requirements are, what classes they've taken, what they need to do in order to fix that GPA, whether or not they need to take a test THIS SEMESTER or have to take and pay for otherwise unnecessary remedial classes. In the best of all possible scenarios... the faculty member picks up the phone and calls... me.

But I am not an advisor and cannot help the student except oh wait, I was supposed to help the student.

. . .

It's not just the students that are having trouble with pattern recognition in this situation.

When you change the pattern, when you "flex" your rules, ask yourself, please: What does your audience -er, student- learn from the change?

When you send your student to me for "not-advising," what does the student learn? To come back to you next time? or to see a "not-advisor"?

When your student waited until the last possible minute to register, and you let him or her into the class, what does the student learn? to register early if it's crucial? or to beg and plead?

When your student scrapes by, at the end of the semester, having ditched assignments through much of the semester, and you say, "yippee! You did it! Congratulations!" what does the student learn? to pay attention next time?

I don' wanna work in education no more. I suck at it. I haven't the heart for it. I just don't. Because I've never been a rules person, but if I had been clear on the patterns, if I'd recognized clear patterns and seen their value, I could have succeeded in a whole lot of things. And now that I can recognize patterns, I AM PISSED TO HIGH HEAVEN THAT ANYBODY WOULD FUCK WITH PATTERNS.

That is all.

The green headed monster

As long as I'm going to be jealous about other peoples' talent and adventures, I might as well share.

Here's a blog I try to keep up with. What is not to love about a gorgeous woman who takes beautiful photos, understands what's fun about Aaron Sorkin, apparently is some kind of lawyer (I'm quite mystified about this), and likes good food and good drink? I mean... okay, I'm just living vicariously, but damn, it's a good vicarious life.

She's in India right now. Quote: "So anyway. I saw a monkey masturbating today. NOW my trip to India is complete."

And if that doesn't make you feel totally lame in comparison, this will. Thinking With My Skin: What Happened to My Daughter on Friday It's by Bill Cameron's daughter. Who the hell is THAT creative? Damn. I'm such a slouch.

Bill's pretty cool, too.

That's all for now.

A six pack for brains

Alright, no Happy New Year post from me, no nothing. I've half-written half a dozen posts but finished none. Well, half a dozen is six of one, you know what I mean? And contrary to the Gumpism, stupid is as stupid is.

We've had a glorious week of adults only in the crazy blue house on the hill, and despite total insanity at work, I've been able to enjoy some quality time with my Luther. Last night was no exception, but the quality was in the viewers and not at all in the television. Ack!

Ack, I say!

We idly watched a little bit of a show called, "1 vs. 100." It's a game show. One contestant is pitted against a 100-person "mob." It's not really clear how they're actually "against" each other, since the contestant can call on the mob for assistance... But it has Bob Saget as the host, so I don't suppose we should expect it to make sense.

I am surprised I didn't actually break anything while watching this little bit of this show. Rather bizarrely animated blond contestant (she did this wild, full-of-elbows air-drumming thing when she was happy -it gave me nightmares, it really did) is asked, "how many six packs would you have to have for 99 beers on the wall?"

Now, she didn't have to provide an exact answer or anything. She just had to pick one of three:
More than 15
Less than 15
Exactly 15

HOLY CRAP!

Her response? She said it was a "strange question." What the hell is so strange about arithmetic?!

And then it got worse. It turned into this BIZARRE comedy of horrors. "I don't even drink beer." She asked the mob for help. And 20% or something of the stupid mob got it wrong. "I only drink wine."

I ONLY DRINK WINE!

OMG

In the time it took to gasp and giggle and squeal over this "strange question," she could have counted it out.

So Happy New Year, my odd little group of readers. This year, we will accept even greater stupidity than the last. We will actually pay people to go on television and react to simple arithmetic as if you cannot know the answer if you didn't "learn it" from somebody else. We will no longer build knowledge, create understanding, find or figure. Nope.

We'll ask the mob.

Virgin birth

Check it out!
Virgin birth expected for Komodo dragon in UK zoo

Of course, we recall that "love can't replace a mother and a father."

But nature can. COOL!


And on that note, we are all heading off to do the family thing in California for the holiday. Sadly, Mom-Vicky has to be in Greece, having lost her Dad, Luther's Papou (grandfather), a few weeks ago. Our hearts are very much with her, and we promise not to trash her house while she's gone.

In January, I'll be traipsing up to Toronto and then St. John's to see the Canadian side of the family.

And then when I get home, Luther and I will be looking at exactly what crazy things we want to do for our 2007.

How hard can it be?

Happy holidays, all!

The Slavery Controversy

One of the things we talked about at dinner with friends recently was the concept of the "Slave controversy."

To graduate with any degree from a Georgia state college or university, students must learn some Georgia history. Luther had his history from a California college, so he was given the option of taking a "test out," and had to read a study guide for Georgia history. The little book spoke often of the "slave controversy," as if there was any controversy. Slavery, bad. No controversy at all!

Meanwhile I have to admit that the "Tape controversy" continues. Here's the thing: 3M Scotch Gift Tape (Invisible) sucks! Holy smokes, I had no idea, but seriously, it don' stick so good!

I wound up practically begging for the shiny tape Luther originally purchased. And in some cases, I used a stapler.

Invisible tape my ass. If it is invisible by virtue of not being used, why buy it?

ily Luther. Thank you for the tape, and for helping me with the boxes. You rock.

Letter to a friend

My dear friend 4.0,

I'm sorry it has been so long since my last contact. I admit, my thoughts have been so full of other things, I have once again failed to give you the attention you deserve. And here you are again, the end of another long semester, propping me up when my own efforts should have been deemed insufficient at best. All I can say is, thank you.

Remember when I thought I'd lost you forever? I even gave your eulogy! I had so little faith, it seems, but you were stronger than I'd thought possible, and held on, and stayed with me.
The thing is -and I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but... it seems like the longer I have you in my life, the more pressure you put on me. I know you have high standards, and I know you mean well, but sometimes I try to avoid you so that I can relax, put my feet up, have a drink or three, and just get by, you know?

So if I don't seem as attentive as I should, I hope you'll understand. I know I will, when you finally leave me. Maybe... next semester.

Your friend,
bekbek

Well, whattaya know?

Does anybody really know that they know stuff, that they can do stuff? Because it turns out that I typically just "can do" things, and I don't know that they're special skills until somebody goes wide-eyed and mentions that nobody else can do the same stuff. I mean, I sit there and say, "but... it's easy. It's not hard. Anybody could do it."

Is that normal? Or do most people actually know that they have talents? I wonder what that would be like.

Christmas Twenty Questions

Since I'm clearly not writing a novel anytime soon, and the screenplay is going nowhere fast, and the Simplicity comic is still just a bunch of sketches showing no sign whatsoever of developing into actual drawings... I have time for a survey! This one is courtesy of Bill Cameron, who got it from some other fine folks, and so on, and so on...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
You know it's interesting, but I bought some egg nog recently, on my way home from gift-shopping, thinking that I'd have some nog while setting up the tree, and... it's just not all that great. I mean, I like the taste fine, but it's awfully thick and awfully sweet and in the end I'm wondering... wouldn't I rather have a beer?

That said, egg nog with Mount Gay is the way to go. Alternately, bittersweet hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and a dash of whipped cream. I guess the answer to this first question is, therefore: Both, and I'm clearly a drunk.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa doesn't exist, hello, but when the gift is for the whole household (including myself), it's a useful "from" name to use on the tag.

Presents are always wrapped. Even if you have to cover them with a Mexican blanket, there has to be some "unwrapping" going on, or there's almost no point!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Both on the tree! I like the white lights because they look like little twinkling stars, but I like the colors because they're so festive.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No, it already grows on all the trees around here without my help or anything. Fancy that, eh? Mistletoe growing, like, for real and everything!

I get a lot of kisses. *wink*

5. When do you put up your decorations?
When the last of the homework is done, and especially when I'm itching to put some presents out. Have to have somewhere to put them! I put up the little plastic tree this year (just this past weekend), when normally I insist upon a real tree, because we're going to be in California for Christmas and the poor cat will be all alone in the house, and I figured a plastic tree with only the plastic ornaments was the way to go under such tempting circumstances. She's already been under it once, but to be honest I think she was more interested in the presents. I do love the little plastic ornaments...

We do have exterior lights, but man oh man are they a pain, so for the past few years they have just sat in the closet...

6 What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Fruit cake and Wensleydale cheese with port around the fire with Mom and Paul. And whatever they're serving for breakfast the next morning! YUM!

7. Favorite childhood Holiday memory?
This has to be when I bored everybody (Mom especially, I am sure) with a year-long campaign for an electric train set I was sure I could never actually have, and then Christmas came and the entire family got together to give me an N-scale train set. People just kept pulling little packages out of their pockets, and each one was an engine, or a car, or some plastic cows or something, and I got more and more and more excited, and then Dad and Paul went outside together and came back with a huge piece of plywood with a track nailed down to it, all ready to go! And then when we ran the train, a light came on inside the Pennsylvania line passenger car that my sister had given me, and you could see the tiny, tiny people inside, and it was almost like I was on a train trip with them.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
There has never been a Santa. "Santa" is a fun game that we play at Christmas. There are some movies and stuff that go along with the game. Miracle on 34th street was a particularly good little fantasy story.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
More and more often, yes, but I don't really like it. I miss the whole getting up early, all excited Christmas morning thing, and starting with the stockings, everybody in pajamas, and the sun just coming up, and the frost on the windows, and the shiny paper everywhere, and then breakfast and old movies on the television. But it gets harder and harder to find the old movies, and the presents are less and less likely to be toys that one plays with for the rest of the day, and one of us actually has to make the breakfast now, and I've gone and gotten mixed up with someone with a whole different set of traditions, to boot. So... the presents happen whenever, but usually early.

This year will be interesting because we'll be with Luther's brother and family. Sadly, Luther's Mom will be in Greece and not in California, because her father passed away last week. I don't know what Mike and Robin's traditions are, other than the upside-down tree. And what about our presents to each other? Do we open before leaving for California, or do we hold them until New Year's?

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
First, the annoying untangling of lights. I wrap them up perfectly nicely when I put them away, but somehow they never come out of the box like that. Then the ornaments one by one. I try to make an event out of it. I like to think about where we got each ornament and what it represents. But this year, like I said, most of the ornaments stayed in the box for safe-keeping and anti-cat-ness. I did hang our souvenir from Greece, though, in Mom-Vicky's honor and in memory of meeting her Dad in Athens a few years ago. It is a simple little brass cut-out of a pomegranate.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it. Of course this is easier to do, now that I never get to see any. I miss shoveling, but I think I would probably die of a heart attack if I actually had to do any.

12. Can you ice skate?
Bill wrote, "Not really. I mean, I can scoot around on skates a bit, but I have a hard time stopping and usually crash into the side of the ice rink. But I think it's very fun, actually." And this is a pretty good description of my relationship with skating, too. I used to be able to get up to a good speed, but that only works if there aren't too many other people skating, because my direction control is a little sketchy...

13. Do you remember your favorite gift for Christmas?
My absolute favorites are two gifts I gave to others:

The first was a tree that my sister and I got for Mom and Paul, when they were in Australia for the holidays but then unexpectedly were coming home in time for Christmas. We found an enormous blue spruce, absolutely gorgeous, and took it to Mom and Paul's house and set it up with lights, and the box of ornaments sitting next to it, ready to be put on the tree, and some champagne and cookies, and a little gift tag with a cartoon of my sister and me hanging on the tree. We got out of there just in time! Mom and Paul got home within a half hour of my leaving, and saw the twinkly lights when they were just getting the door unlocked.

The second was by own Ikea stuffed bear, which I put in a box and sent to Luther, his first Christmas after his marriage broke up, alone in the new little apartment without his kids. Apparently it arrived Christmas Day, and the postman decided to go out and deliver a few last packages so people could have their presents, and so Luther had his bear to hug, and it makes me cry all over again to think of.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Getting a chance to remember what an amazing life I've led, with such an amazing family and wonderful adventures.

Also, the sappy movies.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
I do like pie, yes.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The ornaments on the tree, I think.

17. What tops your tree?
Two stars, when the tree is big enough. One is from my life in Toronto, and the other is from Luther and the aformentioned "new little apartment" and the tree he decorated for his children. But if you read the "love tree" post already, you know all this.

One time, someone (it may have been Luther) asked me about the star on the tree. If I don't believe in God and the whole Christmas story, why the star? I said, "I believe in stars."

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Yeah, the giving! I love to go all out, I love love love to come up with creative ideas for "just the perfect present." Sadly, this is not always possible, and then I admit to getting a little down. It's just not... as much fun, if I couldn't make them go WOW!

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
White Christmas. And lots and lots and lots of Frank.

20. Do you like Candy Canes?
Not really. I'm not a hard candy person. But they sure can be pretty!

Thanks, Bill. :)

No plot? No problem!

I finally got around to getting caught up on my Optimist Realist reading the other day, and was amused to read about James Koole's six-word memoir. Six words!

How the heck does one do this? Mine could be... "Grew. How hard could it be?"

James came across the memoir-writing contest at a site called NaNoWriMo, for National Novel Writing Month -which apparently was all of November. I didn't even know there was a National Novel Writing Month, and now I've gone and missed it!

Still, my novel-writing prospects are looking up: As many of you know, I am plot-challenged, so the idea of actually sitting down and writing a novel pretty much sends me running. NaNoWriMo apparently has a solution for me:


Sounds good. Amazon has it, even. And after all, plot or no plot...
...yeah, yeah. How hard can it be?

It's beginning to feel a lot like... What the HELL?!

Luther bought some scotch tape recently, because we were almost out. He didn't actually say, "and it's the Christmas season, and we'll be wrapping presents," but that was definitely what my mind conjured up when he mentioned the fresh rolls of tape in the drawer.

Today, I wrapped a couple of presents, and OH MY FREAKIN' GOD.

He didn't buy invisible tape.

Who the hell buys anything but invisible tape? Come to think of it, why do the tape people still make the non-invisible tape?

I mean, THIS IS BLASPHEMY, PEOPLE!

I fail to understand. I'm just sitting here, looking at these shiny blue and silver presents with the shiny strips of tape on them and shaking my head. What has the world come to?!

Also, I am printing the cards. If you must have a card, please send me your mailing address. I'm thinking my blog readership is very close to nil (but not nil, thank you, Jason), but all the same, it's a way to get the word out. If I don't have your address, I can't possibly dis you by failing to send you one of our cards.