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Friday, 1-25-8
Wow, this new iPod
is cool. I know I'm coming late to the party and a lot of these
features are old news to a lot of you but I just came from an early
Gen4 iPod to the new iPod Classic. My old screen was still black
and white for god's sake. It has double the capacity and 50% more
battery life than my old one and is half the thickness and weight.
I can see album covers and track listings on the CDs before I play
them (so I don't have to interrupt the current song). It also has
that pesky alphabet search feature I've been after for so long. It
uses the album art as a screen saver and tells me how many tracks
are in each playlist. I still have NO desire to incorporate a phone
into this thing so I'm not a candidate for the iPhone but other than
that, this thing does everything I want it to do.
What's next? Oh
sure they can make them smaller and increase the capacity but what's
the next real change? A dental implant and you hear the music in
your head? They can do so many cool things, why are all of our best
innovations focused on entertainment? 50" televisions and
pocket-sized music libraries... Why can't we solve any real
problems? Why aren't the brains behind these things focused on
things like space flight and solar energy? Get these guys out of
their cubicles and put them in boardrooms and in front of
classrooms. If they can make laptops that know when they are
falling and will brace for impact, then they should be able to
perfect a proton−exchange−membrane fuel−cell!
Thursday, 1-24-8
I started to write
this up Wednesday and I never finished it so, I have come across a
question. If anyone was still active over at the forums I'd post it
there as a poll/question but that comment board really never took
off like you said it would. That's right, YOU said it was a good
idea. And I guess it was, but it's not really a hotbed of activity
is it?
Anyway, back to my
question, When I borrow audiobooks from the public library and I
load them on my iPod/iTunes, am I *morally* obligated to delete them
when the books are due back to the library? If not, how is that
different from pirating? If I get a free copy from a P2P service or
from the Jacksonville Public Library, what is the difference?
I know I used a
scary word back there and I emphasized it for that purpose. I don't
think I have a legal obligation, I'm concerned about the "right"
thing to do. If I don't think that pirating is bad then no, of
course I have no "moral" obligation. I'm talking about people that
believe that pirating is bad. What do they think?
See, I fall in
between. I will not go so far as to say that pirating is stealing.
A copy was given to me by someone that originally owned the rights,
even if it was 30 or 40 people back, someone probably bought it. If
I get a copy of a copy of a copy, it costs the movie/music industry
nothing. If I walk into a store and take a copy from the shelf and
don't pay for it, that is stealing because not only did the
movie/music industry lose that product but also the retail store. I
have also made one less copy available for legitimate purchase as
opposed to using the P2P networks where I am actually CREATING more
copies to be available to the public.
If Fred buys a CD
and brings it over to my house and turns me on to a new band, I'll
copy that CD but if I like them I'll look on iTunes and see what
else is available for purchase. If he hadn't shared that CD with me
I probably would have never checked out that band and would have
never bought their other CDs.
What about the old
days when we had the great underground tape trade? We'd dupe
cassettes and pass them around amongst ourselves. I got turned on
to a lot of good music that I otherwise would have never been
exposed to. I have since bought these CDs along with a lot of other
music that they inspired. I have also turned other people on to
music much the same way.
Without the P2P
networks (specifically their predecessors like tape recording) I'd
still be listening to nothing but 80's and swearing that no album
will ever be as good as "Master of Puppets". Without the P2P
networks, where can I find obscure tracks like "Ernie's Safari"?
Wednesday, 1-23-8
I've shifted to doing a lot of night
work and luckily, a lot of it has been here in Jacksonville so I'm
home all day. I leave just when they go to bed and come home in
time to take Becca to school (once). But the change in hours is
really a bitch to get caught up on. I normally operate on five to
six hours of sleep but I am amazed at how much of a difference it
makes, WHICH five hours you get. Sleeping from 1am until 6am is
enough to charge me up and keep me going. But when I sleep from 7am
to 1pm I'm still tired all day! I figure just about the time I get
used to this they'll switch me back to days.
The work load has been focused on
maintenance requests recently and we've got another few weeks of it
ahead of us. I have been told all about this new CSMP project
they've got me slated for but everyone on the project got an e-mail
asking for an updated resume. Followed up with an e-mail asking how
interested we were in six months overseas. He asked us to rate it
on a scale of 0-3
0 = No interest
1 = Interested only if located in Europe or Asia
2 = Interested as long as site is not in hazardous region
3 = Interested in all opportunities
I listed myself as
a 0.5 I really don't want to go away for six months but if they put
me somewhere I want to see and the pay scale improves dramatically,
I could be talked into it.
The new iPod
arrived this afternoon. I barely had time for it to load up my
usual 40G I carry on my old iPod before I had to drive in for
another night at work. I can't wait to get home and really inspect
my new toy.
I have been
updating my iTunes like a madman. I have become obsessed with
loading album art for all the songs. There's a lot of cover art
that didn't update automatically and a lot of it that is hard to
find. I had to load a lot of popular bands manually as well. I was
surprised that the Beatles didn't automatically load. But it made
for a lot of fun looking up the single/B side covers and all.
Another time killer
I've been wasting away on is "Stella". An Atari 2600 emulator.
I've been playing thirty of forty of the old Atari games and Becca
is looking at me like I'm stupid. I've got an Xbox in the other
room and I've got the computer right here, loaded with lots of cool
games and realistic graphics. Instead I waste my time playing old
shit that looks like one blob hitting a pixel across the screen to
the other blob. And I'm having a lot of fun doing it. Old school
baby, old school.
Tuesday, 1-22-8
Heath Ledger
died. So fucking what? Am I supposed to be upset that another
millionaire took a drug OD? Oh sure, he might be a nice guy, he was
somebody's son and it is a bit sad for his kid and all that but in
the end, he OD'd. If it was a case of a switched prescription
bottle at the pharmacy or something and he took some old lady's
prescription instead of his then I'll take it all back but
otherwise, fuck him. I'm glad he's dead, another moron that
couldn't handle his high. "It was just sleeping pills Chris, it's
not like he was doing crack. Calm down." NO, I will not calm down,
these things are prescription for a reason. They are dangerous. If
he took a few extra to fall asleep than he's a moron who couldn't
follow directions. If he took a bunch to kill himself then he's
still a moron. Either way the sum total of human intelligence just
got smarter.
I'm baffled at
these message boards that have people crying about how it's a
tragedy and how he was a brilliant actor. Some asshole actually
compared his early death to Brendon Lee for fuck's sake! How do you
compare overdosing to being shot by a live prop gun? Brandon Lee
may or may not have been brilliant but his death was certainly more
a tragedy than some dink OD'ing on fracking sleeping pills. A
celebrity death by their own hands is not something we should
mourn. We should celebrate the fact that this person was obviously
incapable of dealing with a life that we all dream about and ohhh
poor him, he couldn't sleep because he's afraid of the big scary
"Joker" character he's playing... Fuck him, I'm sure he can sleep a
little better than any of us because instead of counting sheep he
can count his money. Rich man can't handle life... A shame maybe,
but NOT a tragedy. My only thought about his "untimely" death is,
this better not screw with the release of "Dark Knight".
Friday, 1-18-7
Everyone has
faith, but faith comes in levels. From "fairly certain" to "hope
against the odds". But what does faith cost? It erodes our
cynicism and in some cases our good sense.
I have faith
that I will live long enough to write out the rest of this
sentence. That level of faith cost me nothing because it was fairly
certain. But to have faith in an interventionist supreme being? It
would require me to stop living life and to save up all my living
for an intangible afterlife. I am not willing to pay that cost.
Some faiths
are unfounded, simply bad gambles. When we started our latest
venture, Teresa and I had faith that we'd pull through this and
could afford the new house we are building. As the additional costs
pile up and there is no relief in sight and almost no one interested
in buying the old house, faith in our new house is fast approaching
the levels required to believe in god. Our new house is our god and
I am starting to have a crisis of faith.
So I have to
wonder why is it that as people grow older and death approaches,
people cling harder to their faith?
Here I sit
with my own deadline approaching and rather than my faith growing
stronger it wanes. I guess I am just not capable of attaining that
level of faith. At that level I won't put my faith in anything but
myself.
Tuesday, 1-15-8
So this is it? America has spoken
and what we have collectively called for is, "American
Gladiators"!?! That's the best we can do? That is how we choose to
be entertained? Why am I continually surprised at the cultural
depths we plunge to? In our world where Britney Spears is a news
item every time she picks her nose, where people believe "reality
TV" shows are real and where we'll spend 30 minutes watching some
yokel pick through numbered suitcases... Why am I shocked that
Gladiators is back on the air? I thought we were getting better, I
thought we had moved on. Evolved. I was wrong.
The unthinkable has finally
happened, I am without portable tunes. My iPod started making
rattling noises a while back and I figured I just got lucky that it
was a broken piece of plastic or something. Last night I could hear
the hard drive spinning from three feet away and it wouldn't dock
with iTunes. It still functioned, I just couldn't update it with
any new music or podcasts. I'm working midnights this week and this
morning on the way back it cut off in the middle of a file. I reset
it and it worked for another two minutes. Now all I get is a
whirring and clicking like some bad 80's robot. After trying just
about everything I could think of I finally got it to stop spinning
and I even got it to restore to factory default. That means it's
empty. I think it will make a very interesting paperweight.
Of course this comes at a time when
we are dead-flat broke. We still haven't recovered from the house
repairs or Christmas. We're running on absolute empty and waiting
for the income tax refund to set things straight again. Coming up
on the other side of that is this new house that we can't afford if
someone doesn't buy this one. Right in the middle of all this I
need (not want, NEED) to spend $350 on a new iPod. Lucky for me
I've been saving up my hotel points. The entire first year I was on
the road I wasn't enrolled in any hotel "reward points" program
because I was only going to do this for a month or two (remember
that!?) So January last year I finally enrolled and just one year
later I've got enough to save my ass. A new iPod classic is on the
way to the house. FREE. I like that price. I went with the 80G
because 160G wouldn't be enough to hold all of my music anyway so
why go with the thicker/heavier iPod just to get a few more songs?
I'm running 40G now and it is sufficient. I don't watch movies on
tiny screens so 80G should be all I need for quite a while. At
least another four years like my 40G lasted me.
Another reason I went with the 80G was because
this left me enough points to book a couple trips. I booked Teresa
and me into The Hamilton hotel in DC for the weekend that we go to
pick Becca up from her trip in April. That week just happens to
fall in the middle of the Cherry Blossom festival! The hotel is
only a few blocks from the White House (14th and K St)
and less than a mile from the National Mall. Teresa and I should
be able to walk around and enjoy the sights for a couple of days.
The suite is normally $500-$690 a night, we're getting it for FREE.
Nice. Historic sites aside, I'm already preparing for my "upside-down dead priest" pose because there's no way I'm not
getting a picture of me at the bottom of the "Exorcist stairs" over
in Georgetown.
I also booked
a weekend at the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando for Becca's birthday.
We're going to let her bring a friend and they'll have a weekend of
green slime, SpongeBob, waterslides and stage shows... I think I'll
be drinking extra heavy that weekend. I booked a two room suite so
the kids can have their own room and it was about half the price as
the hotel in DC but for some reason cost me more points. Strange,
but still free. All this travel sounds good in theory but it's
going to be expensive. The hotels may be free but we still need gas
money to get there and money for meals. But still I have to say,
it's nice cashing in these points. If it were up to me (and my
wallet) we'd stay in a flea-bag hotel in DC and I'd still be whining
about not having an iPod.
I'd try to
explain my absence with some sorry excuse about writing but it would
be bullshit. We've just been very busy. I haven't written anything
in over a week and that is depressing. Of course after watching one
of Teresa's soap-operas last night I may have to give up writing
altogether. I don't want her to think I'm going to be just like
that idiot on her TV show that calls himself a writer. At least I
know my limitations... I'm no writer. Speaking of that, I have
finally come to the realization that I need an editor. It was
only after reading my last post back over to myself that I realized
how stupid I was. George Bailey doesn't try to escape from
prison to see the world; he takes the rap for someone else, his
cellmate or his new boyfriend or a corrupt guard or something.
That's more in his initial character style than a prison break.
Why didn't I see that in the first place...
Monday, 1-7-8
How far can you run? Is there a
place you can run to anymore? Is the destination any less important
when you are not running toward it but rather away from something
else? What if you're not running from anything in particular, what
if you just want to run. What if you just want to give up? If you
just want to arbitrarily escape your life, can you bring the good
elements with you? Can you run with the people closest to you,
would they want to run with you? Could they keep up?
Just twenty or thirty years ago, if
you really wanted to throw it all in and give up, you could go to
the other side of the country and start over. No one knew you, you
had a fresh start. Further back, say, a hundred years, you could
move to the other side of the state. Now you can't even go to
another country. I'm positive that even in the deepest parts of
Africa there is some dink with a laptop or a sat/phone. To
disappear in today's world I don't need a plane ticket or a shovel.
I only need to sit still long enough and the world will swallow me
up and pass me by without even thinking twice. Six months from now
someone somewhere will think, "Hey, do you remember that guy....?"
And that will be the sum total of my existence. A speed bump on a
couple minds.
Do, create, invent... none of these
things are as easy as complain, destroy, steal. That is how you
make a mark on this world. Not with a revolutionary idea or a cure
for a disease but with a bolt-action rifle and a clock-tower. The
infamous always get more press coverage than the famous. Being good
at being bad seems to be the easiest way of identifying yourself.
Even if I never have it in me to make the big splash and take out a
handful of upstanding citizens with me, even if I have to go it
alone, someone will have to clean up the mess. That person will
remember me for a little while. But even with them, the monotony of
the job and the resultant waning sanity will necessitate that I
become a number, a statistic. Just another crazy loon that ran full
speed into a mental wall and had no idea how to climb over it. I
wonder if while he's picking up bits of my unused grey matter from
the carpet, will he know my name or will I be a job number, a crime
scene statistic? Will I have ever mattered beyond my own little
world?
My mood may have been brought on by
an overwhelming schedule here in the real world or maybe by
something I just finished writing. A short story I worked on over
the Christmas holidays. Since you'll never read it, I'll share its
guts with you. It is a continuation of "It's a Wonderful Life".
In it I have the bank examiner
insist that Bert take George to jail. Embezzlement and fraud
charges don't disappear just because you (or the town) coughed up
some money. While in prison, George is determined to finally visit
those far-away places. He is caught in an escape attempt and
sentenced to eight more years. Uncle Billy became an alcoholic over
the guilt and he ends up hanging himself from the same bridge George
was going to jump from. Clarence never showed up for Uncle Billy.
George's mother, distraught with grief for the loss of her entire
family slowly becomes a recluse and is eventually locked up in a
sanitarium after the authorities discovered her living in squalor
with 47 cats. Mary and the four kids had to move into a small
apartment down by the movie theatre. The rent was cheap but more
importantly, Martini's bar was close by and with George gone, Mary
found work pouring drinks for the steady influx of customers. The
money wasn't great but the war had just ended and the bar was always
full of lonely soldiers. There was plenty of extra money Mary
brought home that she may not have been proud of, but it kept her
kids fed. Even so, ZuZu caught pneumonia and eventually dies. Mary
gets depressed over ZuZu's death and copes with cheap drugs and
strange men. Pete, Janie and Tommy get taken into foster
homes.
Harry got his Medal of Honor and went on to become one of the
most decorated men in the Navy. The decorations didn't stop that
sniper bullet though. In a news story we read that Sam Wainwright's
plastics company has gone under because his plastics factory was
burned to the ground during a labor dispute. He has returned to
Bedford Falls looking for refuge and eventually moves in with Mary.
When George is finally released
from prison he has nothing to return to. He comes home to a
shattered illusion. Mr. Potter again offers George the job he
offered him in the original movie but at a much lower wage. His
pride reduced to ash, George accepts the job. After George draws
$8001 salary, (the amount Uncle Billy lost and gave to Mr. Potter
plus one dollar) Potter summarily dismisses George and refuses to
give him a reason. When George demands an explanation all Potter
will say is, "I got my money's worth out of you." And then after
George threatens him he tells George where the $8000 came from.
George becomes enraged and attacks and kills Potter, at one point
lifting up his wheel chair and crashing it down on Potter's already
broken body. Bert has to club George to subdue him. George goes
back to prison for murder. Clarence is chastised by the head angel
Joseph and told that he is tired of his screwing up. Clarence is
winked from existence and sent back to Earth to be reborn and "try
to learn something this time!"
The last scene is a zoom out from
the bar. Sam and Mary are slumped over the bar, blue and cold, the
heroin needle still in Sam's arm. The bar is deserted except for
their corpses and the door, dancing wildly on its hinges. The
coming storm is blowing the door open and closed causing it to hit
the bell over the door every few seconds. We close with the ghostly
voice-over from the dead Zuzu, "Teacher says every time a bell
rings, an angel gets his wings." We fade out on a book, Instead of
Tom Sawyer and an uplifting message about friends, this time
it is Franz Kafka's, Metamorphosis and the inscription reads,
"In real life, there are no happy endings."
Saturday, 1-5-8
New Years Eve, a
night of stupidity, a night of oblivion drinking. We surround
ourselves with people we love (or at least people whom we can
moderately tolerate) and spend the night pouring poison down our
throats and getting louder and louder until that arbitrary display
of a new year, the stroke of midnight. Yeah! What now? What has
changed? Did the "New Year Fairy" float overhead and drop presents
to everyone? Did "Papa New Year" give us a guarantee of a better
year ahead? What did we get? Older by one day. Wiser? Probably
not.
I was watched all
week at work. No one told me I was being watched but a man can
tell. The person watching me was waiting to see if I would fail.
The temptation was dangled in front of me and I don't know if it was
a real temptation or if it was there only until I reached for it and
it would have been yanked away just to watch me fall... My cynicism
and paranoia keep me safe in moments like that. It feels good to
pass the character test once in a while. I'm so used to
failing...
I spent an hour
out on the beach this week. Midnight and I was standing on the
bright white sands staring out into the Gulf of Mexico. The moon
was dark, hidden behind the storm clouds and the wind kept the
temperature down around 26 degrees. The water stretched out in
front of me for about six feet. Beyond that, total and complete
darkness. It felt wrong. Like any second now a door to another
reality would open up and I would walk through it. Darkness is easy
enough to comprehend but this was beyond dark, there was nothing
there. I stared into the void for about an hour until I couldn't
feel my fingers and toes. I was cold to my core and I felt empty
after releasing my fears into the empty ocean. I had to leave
before the nothing swallowed me up and I disappeared into the
darkness. My body would have washed ashore somewhere and they would
have identified me through the ID in my wallet but they would have
never found me. If I had given in, I would have evaporated.
Why did I write all of that crap?
Ok, on to more interesting things...
I was on Eglin
AFB this week (and next week) and testing circuits to their 33rd
Fighter Squadron. They call that squadron "The Nomads".
I saw this sign...
Notice anything unusual? I wonder
if anyone pointed this oxymoron out to them yet?
In less than 24 hours I will have
officiated my first (and last) wedding. I promised years ago that I
would perform the wedding if Freddy ever got married. I got the
on-line ordination for just that purpose. This was always a thing
in the far distant future. In the mean-time, I have come to realize
just how absurd the on-line organization is and have nothing to do
with them. Well due to some womanly insistence over a terminally
ill friend, that far away event is now tomorrow. I have made the
phone calls and inquiries, my ordination is sufficient for Duval
County standards. It's a shame really that their standards are so
low. All of my ritual gear is packed away, there is no music, no
flowers, no candles, no anything. It's a poorly thought out and
rushed affair. This didn't stop thirty or so people from flying in
for the event. So now I'm going to go, unpracticed and unsure of
myself, stand in front of a crowd and hold court. I am not the
person that can do this. I hate public speaking. If I had more
time to practice or organize maybe... I hated the preacher that
officiated Teresa and my wedding. He never listened to what we
wanted. He changed things without telling us and when I think back
to the ceremony all I can remember is holding Teresa's hand and
whispering to her, "I didn't make these changes did you? What the
hell is this guy doing!?!" I don't want to ruin Freddy's wedding by
passing out in the middle or forgetting the lines.
On another note, (and here is where
my cynicism and paranoia gets me in trouble) I've had enough of
people having deadly problems and "miraculously" recovering. I know
this will ruffle some feathers and miff some people but if everyone
here is truly an adult, you'll understand the situation. I've had a
few occasions of people I know that have become deathly sick and
after the attention was lavished upon them, they "got better".
After the third relapse and recovery, I got wise. Another person we
knew tried this same thing. A year or so back, an old acquaintance
from high school contacted me to say hello. Soon after that she
went back in for more chemo. She has cancer and is probably going
to die. In fact, I haven't heard from her since before
Thanksgiving, she may have gotten sick enough that she's not able to
use the computer anymore or maybe she is already dead. While she's
not someone I hang out with on a regular basis, she is someone I
knew, someone I spoke with and I remember hugging her at least
once. A very real person I know is dying of a very real disease and
this is not a light matter. If I ever find out that the mysterious
"sick" friend that is causing this rushed wedding has a miraculous
recovery or was a manipulation...
I am tired of lies, I am sickened
by the nature I find in many fellow "humans". Most of all, I am
disappointed in my own suspicious nature and the jaded way I
participate in this world. I wish I could blindly believe, I wish
it was that easy.
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