So this is probably not new to all of you, but it is to me: I just got a wireless network card (thanks Silky!!!) So here I am, in Pioneer Square updating my blog. Only with the advent of this new technology am I able to simultaneously update my blog and be annoyed by the school children who just decided to sit in front of me.
Thanks also to personaltelco.net for making this possible. Woo hoo!!!
No no no. No Jar Jar is good Jar Jar.
Last Saturday, we went and saw Garbage at the Roseland. It was a fun show. I was reading the tour diary before the show, and decided that I like Shirley Manson. She's a smart lady. Sure, on stage, she looks like she'd be the most annoying aerobics instructor in the world (all that energy!) but there's a lot going on in her head.
Unfortunately, I'm nitpicky when it comes to grammar and spelling (even though I make my share of mistakes) and I had a hard time with the tour diary. I don't know if it's the way she types, or the forms they're using for updating the site, but there are no spaces after periods. The sentences all kind of run together like a URL or something. Ridiculous though it may sound, things like this seriously detract from my reading enjoyment.
Still, Shirley Manson hates Kobe Bryant (even though she likes Shaq), so she's okay in my book. I would love to think that Kobe Bryant is an amazing ball player, but he's such an arrogant little bastard that I have a really hard time thinking good thoughts about him in general. In fact, I think the only Laker that I like is Robert Horry. He's an excellent three-point shooter, and he's the best looking of the bunch, to boot.
Speaking of which, did you see the Kings beat the Lakers on Tuesday? So cool. It was one of those really close exciting games, and you could hardly hear the TV announcers because the fans at ARCO Arena were so loud. I hope the Kings win tomorrow!
Friday was one of those evenings where everything just seems good in the world. After work, I went wine tasting with Silky and Cherz. The wine was, as always, yummy (though not quite as good as the Zinfandel tasting they had a couple of weeks ago). While drinking wine and chit-chatting, Cherz mentioned that he'd lost his truck stop glasses. This was a travesty, indeed, so we decided to get some dinner and then head to the Flying J to get him some new ones.
Out to the Flying J we went, blasting Tool on the CD player and generally feeling young and free and all that happy good stuff.
Somehow, I always manage to be inappropriately dressed for occasions such as this one. In this case, I was wearing a blue flowery sundress rather than my usual jeans and whatever top is clean at the time. It should be noted that the people who are to be found at a truck stop at 10:30 on a Friday night are not your average blue flowery sundress type people.
Anyhow, to make sure we got the best sunglass selection possible, we wandered from the Flying J over to the TA travel center. Their sunglasses selection wasn't as good, but there were much better opportunities for getting a glimpse into the trucker world. We wandered down a long hallway, past a laundry room, and into a little arcade area. While we were playing some pinball, a lady came on the overhead to announce that a shower was ready for #701, like it was a Happy Meal or something. We also passed a room filled with truckers, some of them snoozing and some of them watching TV. Silky later confided that he'd never want to sit in there for fear of "trucker ooze". I knew what he meant.
So then, we headed over to the bar. Silky and Cherz were debating whether to go in, but curiosity got the better of me, and in I went. They had no choice, I suppose, but to follow. I've never entered a room and so obviously been noticed by every single one of its occupants before. The three of us stood there, conscious of the curious gazes aimed at us and my flowery sundress, and after a short discussion, decided it was probably best to leave.
Back to the Flying J we headed, purchased our groovy shades, and then it was home again, home again, jiggety jig.
On Thursday, we took a tour of the Shanghai Tunnels that run beneath the fair city of Portland. These are a network of tunnels that were used for any number of questionable activities, the most notorious being the Shanghai trade. Picture this: it's 1910 and you're a lumberjack. You have heard the rumors about Portland being the most dangerous port in the west, so you take a buddy with you to a saloon/brothel.
You and your buddy are a little scared, so you agree that one of you will go in and drink, and the other will stand watch at the door and make sure that you don't leave with anybody but them. Sounds safe enough, except that while you're standing at the bar with all the other fellows (women weren't allowed in), a trap door opens, and suddenly, you're in this underground tunnel and people are hauling you to your feet and locking you up. Or, perhaps you were slipped a mickey, so you're passed out and they've carried you downstairs. Either way, you're in a holding cell and they've taken your shoes. You can still hear the patrons of the bar above you -- chairs scraping and pianos playing, and it's probably pretty stinky down there. I can't imagine the chamber pots were cleaned out all too regularly.
So there you are, barefoot, and even if you can get out of your cell, they've sprinkled shattered glass all over the floors, so you won't get very far. The people who have captured you then go to the river and work out a deal with a sea captain. You are most likely drugged again, and by the time you wake up, you're far, far out at sea and are forced to work on the ship for its entire voyage (usually about three years). Not only that, but if the ship runs out of food, you're going to be the first to become "long pork" served up to your shipmates. Not a pretty scene.
Apparently, this worked because the good citizens of Portland didn't want to believe it. The police either didn't believe it or were in on it, and City Hall would hear none of it. All the business owners where this was done were on the take. It was just a huge sea of corruption, and the fact that 3000 men disappeared every year didn't really faze most people. The men who were targeted for this -- mostly sailors and lumberjacks -- were men who weren't close to their families and didn't have standing in the community. In other words, they wouldn't be missed.
The tour wasn't quite what I expected, in that a lot of the tunnels have been filled with cement, and the volunteers at the Cascade Geographic Society have only been able to dig out about a city block. I had imagined walking all the way to the river underneath the city, but we didn't actually get very far. Still, it was a fascinating glimpse into Portland's past and I'm very happy I got to go. Hopefully, they'll be able to expand the tourable tunnels over time.
Justin sent me a link to the Surrealist Compliment Generator. "If seen on a disintegrating smokestack, your eyelashes would certainly compell even a wayward band of masticating cod into a feverish frenzy."
E-mail from my dad today: "So I'm sitting here reading your home page instead of going to work, and I wanted to let you know: you were born before Velcro, baby girl. Well, maybe not before it was invented, but before it came into use on every item of toddler apparel."
He's right; I still remember learning to tie my shoes (red Keds). No velcro for us! Boy, did we have it rough! Why, we had to tie our own shoes uphill both ways in a snowstorm.... er... yeah.
Dad's e-mail also pointed out that my Grandpa was born in 1908, only 20 years after Jefferson Davis died. He was born when horse-and-buggy was the preferred mode of transportation and lived to see us put a man on the moon. How crazy is that?!
I read on peterme.com today that he coined the term 'blog'. Good for him! I agree that language is a fun thing, and am very happy to know the origins of this word, which has certainly been a subject of much study and interest over the last 6-12 months.
I also like it when things that happen in my real life end up being reflected in someone else's thoughts. Perhaps this is why blogs are so popular: We can all find someone who's thinking the same way we are and we somehow feel more connected to a larger community, even if it's people we'll never speak to directly. So it is that Peter's blog entry on the word 'blog' reminded me that my mother is keen to start off a word herself.
When my sister was graduating from college (1995, I think), my mom tried to convince us to all use the word 'dial' to mean 'cool'. She wanted to know that she had coined a new term. Now that 'dialed' is used to mean you've got something under control, she's not sure if she can take the credit. I'm kind of thinking it's a stretch, but you never know. A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about this and I promised her that when she came up with a new word, I'd put it on my site and see if I could get others to spread the word. She's still working on one, so I'll let you know when she's ready and maybe we can all help her create a new bit of slang.
You know how sometimes you hear a song and it just strikes a chord with you? Like the song and your soul resonate with the same frequency or something... You know that feeling? Sure, it sounds dorky, but there aren't any words to describe it without sounding like a dork. Anyhow, for me, the song I'll Fall With Your Knives by Peter Murphy has that effect. I remember listening to it when Cascade first came out and I just listened to that song over and over and over. Really, I have an amazing capacity for repitition. I'm listening to it now for the first time in a long time and it still makes me happy.
This reminded me of something totally weird. I'll Fall With Your Knives starts out with some percussive sounds. The doorway to the stairwell on the West side of the 11th floor of the building I used to work in makes a sound with the same exact note as the first percussive note in the song. Every time I took the stairs when I worked there, that song started playing in my head.
I was thinking today about all the technology that has appeared during my lifetime. Much of it, of course, was invented before I was born, but it didn't end up in the average household until I was old enough to understand that it was fairly new. This is always strange for me when I think that my little brother, who will be 13 this year, has always taken these things for granted. Here's my mini-list of things that I remember our family purchasing for the first time (big events!) before my brother was born:
- Answering machine -- my grandmother still doesn't have one. I secretly think this is rather sensible of her. My sister and I used to fight over who got to be the one to leave the outgoing message. Occasionally, my parents would let me record it. I'm probably making this up, but it seems like she always recorded over it within the week. I find it amazing that the purchase of an answering machine was such a big deal.
- Microwave oven -- our friends' mom ran out of the kitchen the first time she turned hers on, and just peeked around the corner until it was done. Also, some of the early models had a rather interesting design flaw: they didn't turn off if you opened them while they were still running. My mom always made us stand about four feet away from the microwave 'just in case'.
- Computer -- my dad had an Eagle 2E and he taught me Basic. He also keyed in Space Invaders and PacMan from one of his computer magazines and they lived on the big floppy disks (that were actually floppy). I used to love playing PacMan with the "j, k, l, and ;" keys.
- Remote control -- getting up and changing the channel or the volume was usually my job pre-remote, since I was the youngest.
- VCR -- I was jealous because Jenny Tistle had a BetaMax that loaded from the top and it looked cooler than our VHS. They must have had better advertising for kids than for adults though. Incidentally, the first time I ever became aware of porn was about a year or so later. We were in a video store and I thought I saw the 'Annie' move on the shelf. Only, it wasn't 'Little Orphan Annie', it was 'Little Often Annie' and the cover nearly shocked my Keds off. I hastily put it back on the counter and scooted over to the kids section.
- ATARI -- I miss my 2600.
- Speak & Spell -- this came in super handy when I was in the hospital when I was little. There was a math one, too, but I forget what it was called. I loved those things.
- Nintendo -- we never had one, but I used to set the clocks forward when I babysat and send the kids to bed so that I could play theirs. I know, I'm a bad bad person.
- CD Player -- it was all cassette tapes and vinyl when I was a wee lass. I still find myself heading to the 'record store' to buy CDs.
- Indoor plumbing -- okay, that's a joke.
- Automatic windows in the car -- I actually have no idea when this became mainstream, but my grandma got a car with automatic windows when I was a kid and it was like the coolest thing ever.
I'm sure there's more (and you could add a bunch of your own if I ever got off my lazy duff and got the comments thing going), but that's all I've got in my head right now. I just find it interesting that my brother will never think of any of these things as new and utterly amazing as I did... I still think it's neat when I play car racing games on his Sony and the control thing shakes when I crash.
It's difficult not to think of Darth Vader and Episode II when reading the description for the up-coming movie about Hitler's early years. Then again, I'm clearly on an Episode II kick lately. (Link via pizzaguytom).
Kungfukitten and I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream on Friday. I was really impressed with the interpretation. I only say things like "the interpretation" when I'm trying to seem cultured. Did it work?
What they did, though, was really interesting. The play was set in Athens, Georgia and the main characters had southern accents. The players were hillbillies, complete with the jug o' moonshine. They were hilarious. There was an afro-Carribian theme to the music and the fairies, and some dancing and singing was added. One of the actresses was from Ghana and, if I remember what I read on the program, she also teaches dancing she learned in Ghana, as well as Black studies at PSU. Anyhow, it was really a fun show. This was the last weekend, or I'd recommend that you go see it.
I just read this review on Episode II. I agree. Now that I've gotten more sleep, the movie doesn't seem so horrible. On the other hand, the creepy, lecherous gaze that Anikan sported most of the time still strikes me as creepy and lecherous, and the on-screen chemistry between Amidala and Anikan is obviously lacking. But the Yoda fight and the C3P0 scenes were excellent.
My nephew (cutest baby ever) is now 15 months old. He is also shaping up to be the smartest baby ever, as he can now perform tricks like putting the shoes on the stairs. He knows what shoes and stairs are, also balls, bananas, mommy, daddy... He can look out the window when you tell him to. Okay, okay, this has all been said before by everybody who has ever known or seen a baby, but it's amazing. Truly amazing.
Episode II. Oh dear. It was horrible. I'll admit, my expectations were inflated by a little of the hype I heard before seeing the film. But no matter how bad I thought it would be, I never figured I'd be laughing for a good majority of the film. The attempted romance was pathetic, at best. Still, there were a couple of good action scenes. Actually, I thought it started off promisingly enough, but then it kind of got boring for about an hour or so, and then it got okay again at the end.
People in line behind us were all reading (we got there early). I thought it was a good idea. Silky disagreed. There was a book on Conceptual Chemistry, a Moscow Travel book (looked like the Fodor's series, but I didn't want to stare) and some kind of management book. "The Complete Somethingorother", I think. Then again, maybe it is a little über-geeky to be standing in line for Star Wars an hour and a half early reading about Chemistry.
Go see Spiderman.
At dinner last night, we were sitting at an outside table across from the C.A. Butt building. Say it out loud; it's funny. I'd never noticed the stenciling on the door before. It gave us a good giggle.
Last December or maybe January, I decided to boss my friends around and have them help me create a zine. My friends rock (even the ones who didn't have time to participate), and I'm happy to announce that Where's My Rocket Car? is now complete and ready for showing off.
Where's My Rocket Car? is a collection of all the creative stuff my friends submitted. Originally, I suggested we make it a 'Reflections on 2001' kind of thing, so there is a lot of reflecting going on. That was never a hard and fast rule, though, so there's lots of other stuff, too. I hope you read/look/listen and enjoy!
No hablo Español.
Here at work, we are translating one of our sites into Spanish. More accurately, we have sent all the text to a company who does English-Spanish translation and will copy and paste it into the site once they've completed the translation. Since I took four years of Spanish, I tend to think of myself as semi-Spanish literate. I know better, particularly after my failed attempts at communicating with people in Madrid. I think my only success was when some guy asked me what time it was and I told him. I also could have told him hay mono in el cierco (there's a monkey in the circus) or el pone la foto en el piano (he puts the picture on the piano), but I didn't think he'd care.
Still, despite knowing better, I always think I can pick it up again. Riding the wave of this silly notion, I changed the home page on my browser to Yahoo!'s headlines in Spanish because, hey, why not? Surely I can get the gist of the news and learn more Spanish in the meantime, right? It's only been an hour, so I suppose it's too soon to tell, but I have a feeling I'm going to spend way more time on translation sites than I ever intended to. I'll probably give up in a day or so because I like real news. With everything in Spanish, I'm likely to just start making things up.
I was peeking at little.yellow.different today, and he mentioned the Loma Prieta Earthquake, which gave me flashbacks. I was in the middle of a volleyball game when it happened, and I thought I was going to pass out. One of my teammates said she felt dizzy, and I looked at the girl who was about to serve the ball, and she had her hand to her forehead as though she were dizzy as well. The earth was just doing this huge swaying thing where we were (Sonoma, Ca).
Anyhow, I didn't know what was going on, but I was worried I was going to pass out because I had passed out in Albertson's the year before and that was super embarrassing. So, dork that I am, I sat down right on the court and put my head between my knees. No sooner had I done so when someone in the bleachers figured out that nobody was underneath shaking them around and we were probably having an earthquake. This prompted them to shout, "Earthquake!" and everyone ran out of the gym.
Then we sat on the lawn outside the school and waited until they officially cancelled the game before heading home. On the radio, the announcers were asking for people to call in with structural damage reports. One guy called in and said, "Hi, this is Bill from San Mateo. My pumpkin fell over." Lots of people had pumpkin damage to report, seeing as it was two weeks before Halloween and all. Some kid called in, too. "Um... I think there was an earfquake," he informed the radio audience. Nice one, kid. Thanks for the heads up.
I read Invisible Monsters this weekend. Chuck Palahniuk is a good writer, there's no doubt about it. I couldn't help but think that his literary trick of repeating a certain phrase throughout the book might be worn out, though. The only other book I've read by him is Survivor and I liked that much better. I'm wondering now if it's just the first book by him that will strike the reader as new and exciting, and it just gets tired and worn after that.
It's not that I didn't like the book; I'm just not sure if I can recommend it. I didn't really like or relate to any of the characters. Maybe he's just not convincing as a female in the first person. Maybe it's because I felt like he was going for shock value and I didn't end up feeling shocked. Maybe it's because the back cover said it was 'hilarious' and it wasn't. The humor is way too dark to ever be called 'hilarious' in my mind.
I decided that they ever made a movie of Invisible Monsters and then showed it on TV, the TV Guide channel (which always gives the worst indication of what a movie is about) would say something like: "A new twist on sibling rivalry in this hilarious adventure story." The TV Guide channel is excellent at skewing expectations.
I had this whole beautiful thing about my mom going in my head on the bus the other day, but I forgot to write it down, and it has evaporated like so much steam from a hot cup of coffee. So I'll have to improvise and shoot from the hip for this Mother's Day tribute to my mom. "The Mom" I like to call her, and she puts up with it because she loves me.
My mom's way cool. You should know that about her. Those of you who know me have probably heard several of her stories, so you know how cool she is. They're way more interesting than my stories, for sure. I'd tell you some of them, but I'm not sure if you're old enough.
My mom will be the first to admit that she and June Cleaver don't have a ton in common, so I guess you could say my upbringing was unorthodox. Not "call social services" unorthodox, but just in the sense that family time was more likely to be spent in a bowling alley or on a baseball diamond than around the dinner table. My mother still has ten times the energy that I do. It's less embarrassing now, but when your mom's running circles around you at age seven, it makes you feel super lazy.
She gave us good stuff though: values, a sense of independence, and the knowledge that no matter how much the world is sucking, we've always got a fan at home. Whenever I get a little sulky and manage to convince myself that the world is against me, I hear my mom's voice in my head. "I'm rootin' for you, Kiddo," her voice says. And I know she is. She's my biggest fan.
I think sometimes my mom worries that because she doesn't fit the 1950's definition of the word "mom" that it says something bad about her. The truth is, I think we got lucky. I'm not sure a June Cleaver mom would have worked out so well for us. The truth is, she has two grown daughters who still love her and call and visit frequently. Two daughters who are perfectly capable of coping in the world. She has a 12-year-old son who still hugs her and tells her he loves her. None of us have been to jail, or committed any crimes against humainty. The truth is, she's a good mom and we love her.
The hoot owl is back. Not an actual bird, but the girlfriend of my upstairs neighbor. Actually, she's now reminding me of Victoria from Sleepless in Seattle. Today, she sounds more like a hyena than a hoot owl. Except when she walks. Then she sounds like a herd of yak. I guess she reserves the hoot owl laugh for foreplay.
To Local Friends: I'm going to be participating in the "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk on May 19. If you want to join me, please let me know. If you want to donate, I'll be happy to take your donation, but I'm not going to ask you in person because I hate doing stuff like that. Thanks.
I've been heading back to fush! every now and again, and I dig it. He's a good writer. I really like it when people have a clever way of putting things. Like this:
"If the 80s taught me one thing it's that wackiness is a non-renewable resource and should be rationed carefully. In retrospect we shouldn't have splurged all our wackiness on beautiful rock hair, The Safety Dance, and the word "tubular". In the years since 1989 our nation has been woefully unwacky. I want a return to the days when, on a whim, our nation would collectively embrace any fad that came along, even if it was truly truly outrageous, like Jem."
--Jason Fush
I read part of the Lucas Helder manifesto. My main thought, sadly, is that the kid doesn't know how to spell "therefore" and he uses that word a lot. While I was reading it, though, I found myself surprised that, aside from the one repeated spelling mistake, he does pretty well with grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation. Therefor(e), I have a hard time thinking of him as a raving lunatic.
On the other hand, he blew up people's mailboxes and wanted to kill a celebrity to get his point across, so I do think of him as a raving lunatic, but there's a new light cast on that judgemental notion of mine. I didn't finish the manifesto, so I still don't know how he was going to save us from both fear of death and, by extension, slavery to the government. It will be interesting to know.
I have a theory that if one does too much philosophical thinking and digging into one's soul, one can easily go mad. This is not to say that one shouldn't do a whole lot of getting to know oneself, but one should also be mindful of the line between self-examination and mania. I wonder if that's what happened to Lucas Helder...
(Link via beefpile)
Interesting aside: When I wrote that sentence about the 'line between self-examination and mania', I was very close to putting 'monomania' instead of just 'mania'. 'Monomania' is a word I learned while reading Crime and Punishment in high school, and I always think of Raskolnikov when that word comes to mind. Then I read what kottke had to say about Lucas Helder and was surprised to find that someone else made that same connection (though much, much more directly).
My friend Cathy was telling me about an article she read on the relationship between nerds and autism. Or, rather, the fact that many nerds are now believed to be mildly autistic, which explains their poor social skills and their inability to connect with other humans. This article explains it more thorougly.
I find it interesting that one of the completely unexpected and crazy outcomes of the dot com explosion is that because the nerd population in Silicon Valley was so saturated, a lot of nerds married other nerds and produced autistic children. Who ever would have expected that? Oh, wait! Didn't Nostradamus predict that? (Okay, that was sarcasm.)
Been scrolling through the Rolling Stone's 50 Uncoolest Records. You will laugh at me, but why even have a web site if I'm not going to put myself up for public ridicule? I think I have the Weezer one and the Pet Shop Boys (not so laughable), and I know I've got the Tesla one on cassette (highly laughable). My stepdad has Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell, and my dad used to like Supertramp a lot, so I'm going to guess he has that one. I wish I had Elvis Presley's Clambake. (Link via plasticbag.org)
Other skeleton casettes in my closet? I still have the Tiffany tape (the only popular one, possibly self-titled) and Milli Vanilli's tape. I'm pretty sure there's a Debbie Gibson in there, too. The first tape I ever purchased was El Debarge, but I don't think I have that one anymore. "Dance to the beat of the rhythm of the night!"
I did see Spider-Man on Friday. Woo hoo! Very exciting, fun, well-made movie. There were only two things in the whole movie that I thought were unrealistic; for everything else I happily suspended all disbelief. Those two things? I'm not going to tell you because I want you to go see the movie without any spoilers. I can't wait to go see it again!
I'm really happy that Spider-Man was so good. It could easily have been a huge disappointment, seeing as I went in with huge expectations and all. But they did a great job of combining live-action movie with comic book camera angles and visuals. I would say something more interesting about it, but I'm fairly braindead today, so that's about all I can muster.
It's Spiderman Day!!! Why am I so excited? Not sure. But I am, indeed, excited. I've also decided that today is badass day, and have dressed accordingly.
I love the idea of putting people in two broad categories: pirate or ninja. (See 4.30 post on www.plasticbag.org). I'd like to think I'm ninja.
I've been watching too much TV lately. What I've noticed while watching all this TV, is that almost every commercial seems to suggest there is something horribly wrong with my life, and I should worry about more things than I would ever think of on my own. For instance, within the last week, I've been told that I'm paying too much for car insurance, I might start losing my hair, my panties aren't protected well enough, my internet connection is too slow, I'm unhappy with my cellular service, I need to ask my doctor about eighty or so different drugs, I would be happier working in an office if I had an SUV parked outside, and I need to lose weight fast. It's kind of wearing me out. The truth of the matter is that I just got my car insurance rates lowered, I have a full head of hair, my panties are fine, as is my broadband internet connection and my cellular service, I don't want to go to the doctor, I like my Honda Civic, and I'm not overweight. I'd plead for it to stop, but I know it won't until I stop watching TV.
It's interesting how much advertisers are looking to fill the void in our lives. I guess they have to point it out to us first, though.
