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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Happy Birfday Anyway, Clara
We've adopted bad Southern accents. We can't help ourselves.
Conversation in the car on the way back from my friend's house:
-"Did you see that sign back there? 'Happy birfday, Clara'?"
-"Yeah, well, we done got rid of a coupla letters in our alphabet. We don't need as many as you Yankees."
-"We'll never forget the war of Northern aggression, when you came marchin' down and tried to impose a 26-letter alphabet."
-"You know how many letters we really need? Ten. One for each Commandment. If God'd meant us to have more, he would have given us 26 Commandments."
-"Hell, all we really need is three. G-O-D. An' maybe a period at the end, too."
Daily Blah for... Monday, September 29, 2003
Note from Nawlins
The updates will be as slow as molasses this week, as I'm on vacation in the swampy suburbs of Louisiana's party city. Which, I am reliably informed (despite previous reliable information to the contrary), nobody but tourists actually calls Nawlins.
Here we are in a fabulous colonial-style holiday home, and one of the first things we do on arrival is set up the Airport base station. We must have Wifi.
"Are we addicted?" asks P.
"Ya," I say, affecting an Ah-nuld accent. "Ve should go to the addiction place."
Daily Blah for... Friday, September 26, 2003
Might As Well Face It
Robert Palmer died yesterday after a long battle with love addiction, a family spokesman said.
Palmer, 54, had led an international campaign to raise awareness of love use since 1986.
Despite earlier statements that he was immune to the stuff, Palmer admitted he was a frequent user. "It's closer to the truth," he told one reporter, "to say I can't get enough."
Symptoms of love addiction include tightness of throat, inability to breathe or eat, insomnia, cardial sweat, grinding teeth, shaking body, a pulse rate twice the normal level, and a one-track mind.
"Really, it's amazing he lasted as long as he did," said a family friend. "Oblivion was all he craved."
The lights were on at Palmer's penthouse apartment last night, but no one was home.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, September 25, 2003
Chips Conspiracy
I love being able to see (via the Extreme Tracking service) what kind of Google searches bring people to this site. But sometimes it's frustrating not knowing why they searched for that combination of words. For example, would the person looking for "Pringles + Conspiracy + Theory" please stand up?
One Unweird Day
We’re in the McDonalds opposite the Space Needle and the Wifi isn’t working. We’re getting a signal, but there’s nothing behind it. Apparently it’s a problem with the WAAS – the Wireless Account Access Server, (pron. “Woz”, as in the Apple co-founder). My Cometa handlers are in calm crisis mode, dialing their cellphones to see if we can fix it. Then, all of a sudden, in walk the Intel Spotters. There are five of them wandering around the city, tasked to give prizes to anyone they find happily surfing in one of the hotspots. They’re wearing these horrifyingly bright pink zip-up shirts – pink, we discovered today, is the appointed color of Intel Centrino. There were pink balloons at many of the One Unwired access points, for what would look to the untrained eye like no reason whatsoever. The effect of five of these pink-shirted spotters walking into this sad little McDonalds together is to make you feel like you’re about to be assaulted by some religious cult. And, indeed, you are. “Hi!” says one brightly. “Are you having a happy One Unwired Day?”
My laptop is fast running out of juice, so I look around the McDonalds in vain for an outlet. Meanwhile one of my handlers explains to the spotter that the access point has gone down. “Yeah,” says the spotter. “We were having the same problem in Tullys.” The handler tries to shush him and points subtly at me. I pretend not to have heard anything and keep my attention focused on the non-existent outlets.
(Un)Wired Welcome
From the Tully's near Bill Gates' house -- a big hello to everyone coming here directly from the Wired News piece my good friend Dan quoted me in. Come on in. Make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back.
Wi-Fi City
I'm here in Seattle for Cometa's awkwardly-named One Unwired Day, in which all the company's new 102 wireless Internet access points are available for free. After today, you gotta pay. I'm going to try to hit as many of the hotspots as possible. Since a great deal of them are located in the city's Tully's, McDonalds and Barnes & Nobles, I'm guessing this is not going to be the greatest day for my diet -- not to mention my rule about not buying any new books. More later.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Minority Report
The most misunderstood minority in America today? Introverts. According to this lovely little piece in the Atlantic, they make up roughly 20% of the population -- and because public life is effectively controlled by extroverts, the particular needs of innies (like, say, spending a couple of hours alone to recuperate after a party) are being ignored. Or worse yet, stereotyped. Denounced as antisocial. Read the piece, and you'll understand how to cope better with the introvert in your life. When a friend read it to me, I wanted to stand on the table and yell "preach it, brother!" Of course, I didn't. We innies aren't big on pronouncements. You don't see crowds of us walking down the street yelling "introverts of the world, disperse!" Or "say it quietly: I'm introverted and proud."
Issa Irony
As a gourmet of irony, I deeply appreciate the words that spewed forth from Congressman Darrell Issa's mouth yesterday. "If two major Republicans remain on the ballot," he said, "I'd advise you to vote 'no' on the recall."
Stop and swill that quote around your mouth for a moment. Inhale its delightful bouquet. This is the guy who paid $1.6 million of his own money to organize the recall petition and plunge California into its current madness. Without Darrell Issa, there would be no recall election. He already pulled out of the race to replace Gray Davis the moment Arnold entered. This was the preliminary irony, an appetizer, an amuse bouche. A multimillionaire movie actor, it seemed, was going to get a free ride into the governor's mansion on a check cut by the rather less wealthy Issa.
And now, because his party can't unite and Arnold isn't going to win, Issa doesn't want to play any more. He's taking his recall and going home. You have to laugh at his fit of pique. You have to laugh, California, because otherwise you'd have a fit of pique at the $65 million of taxpayer money he caused to be spent on this nonsense, and then you'd probably end up as an angry mob, millions deep, outside his San Diego home with pitchforks and lynching rope. And we wouldn't want that, would we?
Daily Blah for... Friday, September 19, 2003
Happy Together
Oh frabjous day. Delly and I are back together. After a good two hours on the phone with the guidance counsellors at Microsoft, she decided our relationship could work, and all's forgiven. Until the next time ...
Pieces of Eight, etc.
I couldn't figure out why everyone, but everyone, was instant messaging me this morning saying things like "Arrrr!" and "Avast!" and "back, ye scurvy dog, afore I cut ye to ribbons with me trusty blade!" Then it hit me -- September 19 is, of course, International Talk Like a Pirate day. How could I have missed this one?
If, like me, you're not nearly caffeinated enough to want to screw one eye up and say everything through gritted teeth in a bad Cornish accent, don't worry. Simply run your landlubber speak through the English-to-Pirate translator. Either that or go to your neighborhood bar and order a quart of their finest Jamaican rum. You may not actually be speaking pure Pirate afterwards, but it'll certainly feel like it.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, September 18, 2003
An Open Letter to My PC
Dear Dell Dimension XPS T500,
That sounds so formal. Can I just call you Delly? Of course I can. We've been through a lot, you and I. Think of all the happy hours we've spent together. Yes, there were happy hours, I'm sure of it. There was that time you installed that one program without a hitch. Well, without too many hitches. Let's just say it was smoother than usual. You know, that program. I can't remember which one it was, but you did so well, Delly.
I want you to hold on to those good times, because some of what I'm about to say may be difficult for you to process. The fact is, Delly, you're not the machine you once were. You're creating a lot of unnecessary drama, and it's just not healthy for us to carry on in this way. I've had to reboot you twelve times today, and three of those times were in safe mode. Now you've got this problem where all the text shows up black on a black background, and you know I can't work with you when you get like that. I can't spend all my time nursemaiding you. I've got a career, Delly. I've got a life, and you've got to let me live it.
To be honest, I think a lot of these "problems" of yours are simply your way of monopolizing my attention. I think in some twisted way you're not satisfied until I open your cover and fiddle around with your innards. And that time when you wouldn't start up until I went shopping on the laptop for a machine that might replace you -- was that a coincidence? I don't think so, Delly. You're, what, four years old now? Frankly, Delly, it's a little embarrassing to see a PC your age behave so childishly.
I can guess at why you're doing it. I know you get jealous when I spend time with the Macs. But you have to understand, Delly, I love Macs, I always have, I always will. I made that quite clear when we started our relationship back in New York. Hell, you were sharing an office with G4 even then. I did nothing with her that you didn't know about. If only you'd been able to work with her. Why is it that whenever the Macs want something from you, you won't let them peek at your hard drive? Why is it that file transfers only work if you're in control? Is it a power thing? You know I don't find that attractive.
I was always good to you, Delly. I bought you so many presents -- a new sound card, a DVD-CDRW drive, a video card, 5.1 surround sound speakers with subwoofer. Good stuff, no tat. I spent more on you than I ever spent on the Macs, you know. I got you a 100 GB hard drive for all your music, and it was all I could do to get you to accept it. Even now, after all we went through, there are times I'll boot you up and you'll tell me it's not there, when I can see it right in front of me. And if it's not the hard drive, then the DVD drive is supposedly missing. Come on. Lies hurt, Delly.
I'm not going to say what happened today with the wireless base station was the last straw, because I don't know if I'm really ready to leave you yet. The Macs can't give me everything. I still love your versions of Eudora and Palm Desktop the best, and oh, the games we play! All I'm saying is, it would be best if we spent some time apart. And that's why, when I shut you down tonight, it's going to be a while before I start you up again. Please try to understand. I need less computer drama in my life. When you're ready to work on our relationship, you know how to reach me. I'll be with the Macs.
Map to Mordor
Frodo would have arrived at Mount Doom a lot faster if he'd just printed out some online walking directions.
Vote for the One Who Breathes
Thanks to those wacky funsters on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals here in San Francisco, Californians may now have to wait until March to vote in the recall election. Which means we've got a lot more time to consider the platforms of all 135 candidates. Here are two strong contenders noted recently in the Guardian. Only 133 more to go!
Trek Thunder Kelly, Independent
Dear Voters, Please vote for me, thus breaking the Seventh Seal and incurring Armageddon. I will legalize drugs, gambling and prostitution so they may be taxed and regulated, the funds derived would subsidize the deficit, education, and environment. I believe in peaceful resolutions backed by a strong military; I don't care who you marry or have sex with.
Kevin Richter, Republican Party
I breathe.
(Thanks, Rich!)
Head Games
Are you a genius? Yes, you too can start seriously doubting your mental faculties after playing Find The Man's Head!
(Thanks, Emily!)
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, September 17, 2003
The Wes Wing
With the right pair of ears, you can hear Democrats across the country let out a sigh of relief. Wes Clark is in the race! We've got our wartime presidential candidate! Better news still is that it looks like Clark was doing his homework all this time he was a noncandidate. His freshly-minted campaign website doesn't just look pretty and solicit donations. Already, it's got a lengthy description of something called the "100 year vision" -- how best America can make itself a nice place to live a century from now, largely by preserving the environment and funding education -- that is refreshingly free from platitudes. Sighs of relief all round.
Most politicians consider it risky to talk in anything but the vaguest terms about the long-term future. But this is where Clark's military training has led him -- he consistently talks about where we need to be in five years, 30 years and 100 years. He articulates a long-term vision where other Democrats (mentioning no names, but there's this guy with a medical degree) articulate short-term rage. Sure, you can be angry about what Bush has done, and you can make him the whipping boy of your stump speeches. But you'll never get anywhere in the Midwest or South unless you give your audiences a surge, a moment when they feel good about themselves and about where we're all going and about what we can do if we just stop thinking about tax cuts and tomorrow's Medicare payment and college loans and focus on what we're going to leave the next generation and the six generations after that ...
There's no way around it. Every successful Democratic candidate had the proven ability to get audiences up on their feet, all starry-eyed with possibility. There's Clinton with his place called Hope, Carter's post-Watergate optimism, LBJ and his Great Society, and don't even get me started on Kennedy, Truman and Roosevelt or I'll be sitting here typing all day. Have the nine Democratic dwarves done that so far? Have they heck. But Clark has (see this lengthy Esquire piece for a good description). We're dealing with a different animal here. He may well be a member of that most rare species, Winningus Democraticus.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, September 11, 2003
Homeland Insecurity
Here's one for the annals of irony: the Department of Homeland Security has tapped Microsoft as its primary technology provider. Um, Microsoft? Wasn't that the company that made the operating system with all the security holes through which those record-breaking worms I wrote about the other week managed to wriggle? As if to underscore the point, there has of late emerged yet another Windows security hole that CERT says is about to exploited by a wave of crackers. I'd rate this one a dark purple on the color-coded warning chart, Mr. Ridge.
(Thanks, Kathleen!)
Clark in '04?
There's a greatly inspiring piece in the latest issue of Fortune pumping up General Wesley Clark as the Democrat's last, best hope to retake the White House next year. It makes sense that only a military man -- one who did a little more than simply serve in the Texas national guard, for instance -- could beat the incumbent in these sad, scared times. Clark is articulate, moderate, experienced in world affairs: in short, everything Bush isn't. He hasn't officially decided yet, but there's a lot of groundwork being laid behind the scenes. A private poll showed an unnamed candidate with Clark's attributes trouncing Bush, 49%-40%. I'm still an Edwards man myself, but I would support Clark in a heartbeat if he announced and demonstrated he has the political nous to win the primaries. Edwards would make a great Veep this time around.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Keeping Up With the Smiths
Vermont stages a first-of-its-kind smart mob-style gathering this week: all of the people in the state named "David Smith" are going to the same pot luck. But then, Vermont is always more liberal about this sort of thing than most states. Maybe we'll see the first David Smith-squared civil union soon. Or maybe it's a Howard Dean political ploy, a shameless grab for the nationwide David Smith vote. Which, in these days of low turnout, may be just enough to elect a President.
Shocking Review
Keeping up with the Joneses is so last century. These days, it's all about laughing at those worse-than-useless purchases the Joneses made. Sites like Epinions.com, where consumers rate their experiences with consumables, offer an increasing amount of schadenfreude. Take this review of a Cardiosport Heart Rate Monitor, which apparently gave its New Jersey owner so many electric shocks while out jogging that he ended up writhing in agony on a neighbor's lawn. You might expect him to start ranting about lawsuits, but the Zen-like owner merely remarks that Cardiosport "did not put their hearts into this one." And he still gives it five points (out of five) for "durability."
(Thanks, Aaron!)
Daily Blah for... Saturday, September 06, 2003
What's So Funny?
American Splendor has to be the most uplifting movie I've seen all year. Which is odd, given that the plot revolves around an incorrigible curmudgeon (hospital file-clerk and autobiographical comic-book creator Harvey Pekar) who inhabits the most depressing parts of industrial Cleveland, fights with his third wife and ultimately gets cancer. But if you've seen it, you probably know what I'm talking about. And chances are you can't adequately explain why most of the audience was laughing heartily at the above, either.
Partly it's because we know everything really happened, which somehow takes the sting out of the movie's tail. For one thing, we know Pekar survives because he – the real one --is there in the opening scenes, as curmudgeonly as ever). The director’s deadpan style is refreshing; there is none of the emotional manipulation we've become eye-rollingly familiar with in Hollywood-style independent weepies (cf. Billy Elliot). But mostly, I think, we’re laughing because of Paul Giamatti's scowl. Giamatti takes Pekar's doom-and-gloom disposition and runs with it like a madman. The facial expression he wears throughout the entire flick deserves an Academy Award by itself. Lip curled, eyes wide, one brow several miles above the other, it is probably best described as a freeze-frame of a man discovering a pubic hair on his toothbrush. This is exquisite comic exaggeration, allowing us to see how ludicrous we look when we're convinced, however momentarily, that life is out to get us. Come on, Harv, you keep wanting to say, it isn't as bad as all that. And then you realize -- it isn't, is it? It never is. Hence the odd sense of uplift on leaving the theater.
Get it? Ah, never mind. Just go see the damn thing. You’ll know soon enough.
Daily Blah for... Friday, September 05, 2003
Time Gadget Guy
Some months ago I blogged about this guy who seemed to be sending out e-mails asking, quite seriously, if any one of his readers happened to be from the future. And if so, could they lend him a couple of gadgets that were capable of traveling in time. Specifically, he wanted an "Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement" (wasn't that in a Road Runner cartoon?) and an "AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor" (of course, if AMD built one, you can be pretty sure Intel would bring out a cheaper model a couple of months later). I never found out if he was for real -- until I read this Wired News piece. It turns out Robby Tordino, a 22-year-old Massachusetts resident with some psychiatric problems -- is the source of the time travel e-mails, of which he sent out 100 million. It's one thing to be delusional; it's quite another to share your delusion with 100 million of your closest friends.
On the other hand, who knows? I've watched and read too much science fiction to be the guy who scoffs at evidence of something apparently wacky and out of the ordinary. What if there were men from the future among us? Certainly, their e-mail addiction would be worse than ours. And who wouldn't want to get some antique greenbacks from the gullible residents of this time by peddling a Dimensional Warp generator or two at way over the asking price? You can probably pick those things up from Best Buy in 2159 for $5.99 a dozen.
(Thanks, Arik!)
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Bad Predictions Dept.
I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I had a dream about Jonathan Abrams last night. Friendster had just run out of funding, the press was beating down his door and I'd grabbed an exclusive interview in which he was going to announce his retirement. Wishful thinking, perhaps. Having just read the news about Friendster's $1 million investment, I have finally decided against a career in professional prognostication.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, September 02, 2003
I Went to the Desert ...
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," wrote Thoreau in Walden, "and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." It occurs to me now, sitting here wrapped once again in the garb of civilization, my hair, skin and nails picked clean of playa dust, that this is also the Burning Man philosophy. For one week at the end of August, thirty thousand people go to the desert because they wish to live deliberately.
They may not do this exactly the way Thoreau did. Walden's resident was Spartan in his intentions; he wanted to clear the noise of the 19th century city from his head, not create more of his own. Had he been in Black Rock City last week, Thoreau would no doubt have been shocked by the costumes, the licentiousness, the thumping rave music. Nevertheless, the playa is a harsher environment than any mere wood. Nature does not want us to live here. To survive for a week -- and be able to party at the same time -- requires a keen mind. You have to jury-rig some way to keep out of the heat in the noonday sun, and a mere tent won't cut it. You have to drink a gallon of water a day, or you may die.
Thoughts like this concentrate the mind, and you are made suddenly aware of the satiated haze in which we spend most of our modern lives. Case in point: on our way there, P and I visited about four different shopping malls to pick up our supplies. Coming out of the last one, we both had the sudden disorienting realization that we had no real sense of exactly where we were on our route. Was this Sacramento? Vacaville? Who knew? All we could see was a Starbucks, a Home Depot and a Wal-Mart. We could have been anywhere on the North American continent.
To me, the $200 Burning Man ticket is worth at least that much for the feelings you get on your return alone. I'm not just talking about that first post-playa shower, but about everything: nonfat double mochas. Delivery Indian food. Fridges. TV. Every trapping of modern life seems like a gift. And at the same time, it is obvious that this is all they are. We've kidded ourselves into thinking we need more of this stuff than we actually do. All you really need to live, and to have a rollicking good time, is a gallon of water a day, three meals, seating, bedding, shade, a bicycle, fabulous clothing, community and art. All the rest is icing on the cake. Yes, we all like icing. But too much of it and we get spoiled. Too much of it and we get sick to our stomachs.
I've observed, over the course of my five Burning Men, that this feeling generally lasts a couple of days before the general nonappreciative glaze of the consumer returns. And that's why I cherish this particular post-party hangover like no other.
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