Month: March 2005

I’m glad you asked

General

What kind of dreams do I have?

Glad you asked! Strange ones.

Last night I dreamt that I was going to take a practice run, my last run before the Bridge to Bridge 5K this weekend. I started out running, in slow motion (of course) and found myself recreating the actual B2B route. As I got near the Memorial Colliseum / Rose Quarter Arena, I got worried about dodging traffic (normally they close off the streets during the real race, but this was a practice run. So I was careful to stay on the grass. I couldn’t remember the actual route but I figure I can make it up as I go.

Pipe down! I know, I know, this is all normal. I’m getting to the weird part. Sheesh.

I spot, ahead of me, a pile of boulders as large as houses, piled up on the side of the street. I worry about running around them and still avoiding cars, so I slow down even more (barely moving now). I notice that the road isn’t entirely level, and some of the boulders are shifting, which makes it even trickier to manuver around them. And, sure enough, one of the boulders shifts enough that now it’s rolling straight towards me. Luckily I’m nimble enough to get out of the way, but now, all the boulders are rolling down the street my way and it’s suddenly like that scene in “The Empire Strikes Back” where Han is flying around the asteroids. Even the boulders look familiar now. Except I’m still running in the street, and to my right is the Memorial Colliseum and off to my left is the Steel Bridge.

I’m finally pulling even with the pile of rocks, and I notice an overturned dump truck that obviously was carrying the load of boulders only the truck seems like it’s been smashed. Then I almost get pelted by a rock from the sky! After a second or two, another one comes flying down. I look up, and I see a third one arcing towards me from the river. It smashes into the pavement. A fourth one (I told you I was running really really slow, right?) slams into the side of the Colliseum. It’s all I can do to avoid them but I manage.

I decide to turn towards the river and run across the Steel Bridge. And… I’m there (must have sped up) but I’m having to climb up into the superstructure of the bridge to avoid traffic. And down by the docks I can hear a maniaical laughing, and a periodic fffTHOOMB! noise like… well, like giant boulders being shot into the sky from a tube. I look down from the bridge superstructure and see a guy in a booth, kicked back, feet up, laughing crazily, and repeatedly hitting a big red button. For every button he pushes, another boulder goes arcing towards the Rose Quarter.

I’m dodging through the metal beams trying to keep a good pace, but I have to crouch down and it’s hurting my time. I pull even with another guy running along, and I point out the laughing man in the booth down below me. The runner turns to me and says…

And then I wake up.

Green doesn’t exist

Politics

Say an author in our great country, the US of A, writes a book about the “fact” that the color “green” doesn’t exist. Not only doesn’t it exist as a color in the spectrum of visible light, he insists, all the things that we assume are green, like grass, or frogs, simply don’t exist at all. The book is a complete denial of everything and anything “green”. The author presents a lot of data from selected sources, wraps it all in tons of anecdotes, writes in a breezy, chatty manner. It’s an entertaining read and some folk reading it take it as humor. But there are some readers who take it seriously.

Sales of the book start taking off, it starts appearing on best-seller lists, which the serious “non-greenians” point to as further validating their viewpoint. “See,” they say, “there’s been a supression of this knowledge for years. People are hungry for the truth about this so-called ‘color’, ‘green’.”

Because the non-greenians are becoming more popular, the media, always alert for entertaining controversies, takes notice. Several of the cable news channels book the author on their shows. Because this this ostensibly a science-related issue, they don’t book the author on the fluff talk shows, and they don’t simply interview him. No, see, there’s a dispute here over the existence of the color green; so they need to be balanced. They need to give the pro-green folks equal time. After all, the journalists don’t want to appear to be biased, and they don’t want to risk the ire of the “non-greenians”. Or, rather, they want to fan the ire of the non-greenians just enough to get them to watch. After that, they don’t care.

And, in fact, during his appearances, the author of the book points out that “non-greenian” is a derrogatory term. The people prefer to call themselves “truthians”, and what they practice is “truthful physics”. They don’t deny that others may claim there is this thing they call “green” but it simply isn’t so. The evidence is against them. The folks that are disputing his truthful physics haven’t even read his book! And, besides, all he’s after is a honest debate on the merits of his research. What could be more scientific than that? His critics attack him and ignore all the research he’s put into his study.

And so his critics are forced into defending themselves as being “open-minded” and of following proper scientific method, and generally presenting their “evidence” of something that, up until this author trotted out his “facts”, everyone simply assumed. Nobody questioned the existence of the color green, and if someone had raised that thought in a friendly discussion, most would have laughed and not given it any further thought. But because someone has written a book, and others have seen fit to publish the book, and the idea that others have purchased the book, and even others behind the scenes at major national news organizations have seen fit to not only give the author a public forum for his views but to have others on to “debate” him… Well, it seems impossible that all this would have happened if there wasn’t at least some merit to his idea, right?

It doesn’t matter who you put up against the “truth physicist” — an artist, a physicist, a cognitive psychologist, Hell, a child or an average Joe off the street. No one is able to argue against someone who calmly, reasonably, backed by public opinion and the power of authority granted by having passed through the various media filters in the publishing and television industries.

And if anyone dares to suggest that the idea is simply outrageous, that there’s no merit to the idea, that it doesn’t even bear repeating, well, that person can easily be accused of being closed-minded, that everyone is entitled to an opinion. The critic can easily be tarred with the ad hominem brush and dismissed.

It seems that there is no frame, no argument, that can counter an outrageous idea that’s presented with all the trappings of reasonable discussion. And the problem is that it is so very easy to give any idea those trappings. Our national media has become quite comfortable with the idea of false balance; get one person for, one person against, and let them have at each other. May the best idea win. Takes all the heat off the “journalists” — after all, they’re just giving people what they want. Let the people decide. It’s a compelling idea; consider it reality by consensus, arrived at via a process of elevation of selected concepts above the background noise.

Never mind that not all ideas are equal. Never mind that you can’t “balance” a truth with a lie. Never mind that the ones who complain the loudest about not getting a fair hearing are the ones who most abuse the system.

Something’s terribly wrong and not only will most people not acknowledge it, but, admit it:

at some point in reading this post you actually considered, even if for a moment, even if fleetingly, even if as a fancy, the idea that green doesn’t exist.

Didn’t you? Maybe not all of you but I’ll bet there were more than a few.

Not all ideas have merit. You can’t balance a true statement with a lie. Rational thinking is hard but it’s very much worth it.

Meh

General

I should blog something.

…but I’m just so apathetic today. Today, this week, this month, this year, this decade.

Meh

Home internet

Tech

For the longest time (which roughly corresponds to at least the entire time I’ve lived there) I haven’t been able to get DSL at my apartment. Qworst, which is in charge of the telephone wires in my neighborhood in accordance with their government-mandated monopoly (how do you break up a national monopoly? Why, you break it up into slightly-smaller but still predatory regional monopolies, of course, you silly rhetorical questioner!) has long offered the paradoxical answer of “Yes, but, no” to the question: “Can I, in fact, get DSL at my address?”

The “Yes” part of the answer means, in corporate-monopolistic-style verbiage, “Yes, it’s available in our list of options in that area!” but the “but, no” part of the answer means “but, because we’d have to spend money to replace all the crappy decades-old equipment in that area, we wouldn’t make any money on it until there’s enough suckers customers to pay us to install it, so all these stupid laws mean that we can’t actually sell it to you. Yet.”

The advantages of DSL over what I’ve had to settle for (Comcast cable modem broadband) is that, with a DSL line, I can have a dedicated, all-my-own IP address on the internets, and run a server out of my house. With a dedicated IP address I can have a domain pointed at the IP address, so that people wouldn’t have to remember a string of numbers that might change at any moment. Also, most companies that offer DSL don’t have restrictive terms of service like “If you run a server of any kind (email, ftp, porn, you know) we’re going to sue you and throw you into Gitmo as a terrorist and confiscate all your pretty shiny computers and spit on your friends and family and rape your pets and make fun of your personal consumer electronic device choices”, like, oh, say, Comcast does.

It’s so screwed. Comcast has faster download speeds, and decent upload speeds, but Cthulhu-forbid that you actually, you know, make use of those speeds. So, even though DSL is technically slower, it’s less-encumbered by restrictions of the legalistic type. Depending on where you buy your DSL service from, of course.

Here’s the problem: even though I could go to any of a number of places to buy DSL service (I’m thinking of Speakeasy, myself, but there’s lots of others and I haven’t decided yet)… it all comes in over your phone line.

And, therefore, because DSL comes into your house over phone lines… that means that, essentially, I have to deal with the local telephony monopoly at some point in the transaction.

Y’all may remember my epic battle with the local phone monopoly last year.

I did win that battle, though. Basically. It was a tactical victory. I had to give up my phone number but I got out of a two-year contract without having to pay any early-cancelation fees. And, of course, I got Qwest in trouble with as many as four different consumer-protection agencies. And I got to own the sexiest phone ever (even though it’s very high maintenance and even (shhhh! don’t read this too loud!) a bit… um… jealous, noIamnotkidding).

So the idea of dealing with them again, even through a proxy… well, let’s just say that my cockles remain cold. Unwarmed, even.

Hmmm. Still trying to decide.

WhereChristiansMeet

General

I got a spam email from “WhereChristiansMeet”, with the subject line “Meet Singles With Christian Principles”. Hmmm. Funny thing for an atheist to get, but beyond that, it sparked a snark in me.

I mentioned the email to a friend, along with my feelings: “Must… not… unleash… snark… soooooo… difficult…”

She replied, “why bother? It’s just spam.”

But the temptation was too great. “OK,” I said, “Just one; a grammar snark. Do they mean to suggest that I can meet singles who practice Christian principles? Or do they mean that I can meet singles by using Christian principles? C’mon, people, English isn’t that hard! Subject-Verb-Object. It’s easy-peasy.”

“Hmm…” she said, “is there a difference?”

“Sure. One’s about praying. And one’s about preying.”

Thanks, folks! I’ll be here all week! Try the salmon!”

PS: Yes, this was an actual conversation.

Soup is good food

General

I’ve spent the past half-week fighting off that stupid cold virus that’s been beating up my co-workers and friends (“that’s a pretty big virus”) and it’s taking its toll.

My days have consisted of work and sleep, with intermittent periods of eating and the occassional email exchange with friends. Lots and lots of sleeping. In fact, I’ve spent more time asleep since Sunday than I have at work. No, I’m not sleeping at work, although a couple of floors down in the building where I work is a little room with a cot and an alarm clock that’s expressly there for the purpose of taking a quick nap at work if necessary (I love the county sometimes).

I haven’t been running, either, because running lowers the immune system or something and I want to fight this crappy giant cold virus (I picture it being much like a red-orange-yellow beach ball, with spikes) so I can get back to running and breathing and enjoying things like coherent thought and not blowing my nose and such.

The world takes advantage of my confused, doped-up-on-over-the-counter-medication state by dangling things that might relieve this misery a tiny bit and then sliming it in gelatinous oozing confusion. I wanted some soup for lunch. Soup. Simple hot liquid with something tasty in it. Kinda hard to find downtown, but I walked past this sandwich place I’ve been meaning to try and, sure enough, on a little sandwich (ha-ha) board out on the sidewalk they list their “specials”:

Grilled: Roast Beef, cheddar, roasted red pepper, red onions, blah, blah, I’m losing focus here… Soup: Black Bean

Coolio! Soup and a sandwich. I walk in. To my doom.

I see that they have two“soup and sandwich” items on the menu: both of them have a 12 oz. soup, but one is a “half” and one is a “whole”. Obvious first question: How big is a half? I ask the counter girl that, and she pauses.

“Uh… well” she hems and haws, making vague size motions with her hands “it’s, uh, half of a whole sandwich…”

A bespectacled boy with a blonde soul patch pokes his head out from behind an oak wall, holding a loaf of bread in his hands, muttering something that may have seemed, to him and the counter girl, to be an answer to my question. Already confused, I decide to order a “whole” and hope I don’t get a “whole” loaf of bread. I guess I could save it for dinner. They’d better not charge me more than the menu’s stated price of $8.25, though.

“OK, I’ll take your roast beef and black bean special.” I state this as decisively as the phlegm in my throat allows.

Again, counter girl looks lost. “Um… well, you’ll have to” she hands me a little clipboard with a chart full of options on it “fill this out.”

“I can’t just order the special?”

“You can customize it however you want.” She replies. I step aside to study my options, getting a bit frustrated.

Roast Beef wasn’t even an option on the menu. A sign hanging over the register explains that if I want Roast Beef or Pastrami that I’ll have to write it in, and apologizes for the menus being confusing. Yay. Some validation. Yes, yes, I am confused.

I manage to fill out their devilish form with only a couple of mistakes. I accidentally checked an option that made the counter girl think I wanted the “Kid’s brown bag” special, when instead I wanted the “whole sandwich and soup” special. I also marked “Orange” on one part and “apple” on another for my choice of fruit, but I did that on purpose to highlight how confusing the menu was. Either I was too subtle or not subtle enough because it went right over countergirl’s head.

I probably won’t go back, even though the soup was pretty good. The sandwich was average and the oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie was kinda thin. And, no, I didn’t get a whole loaf sandwich, either, so the value… not so good.

I just wanted some soup, dammit.

Shamrock Run 2005 Results

General

The results are in for the 2005 Shamrock Run and… well… I knew I wasn’t exactly a speed demon. I did, however, better my time from last year, so it’s all good.

My friends did well, also — those who ran, at any rate. Even the sick ones. But not all who were there, ran. And not all who were expected to show up… showed up. Hmmm.

Stuck in my head

Music

Curse you, KEXP! Curse you, morning DJ John in the Morning!

John (in the Morning) just played The Go Go’s this morning and now I’m gonna have “Vacation” (and Belinda Carlisle in a swimsuit) running through my head all day!

…and as if that’s not enough, clicking around on The Go Go’s official site, I stumbled across the all-male Go Go’s tribute band We Got The Meat, headquartered (where else?) in my hometown Portlandia, Oregonia.

Non-food content of food

General

I’ve become obsessed with the non-food content of my food.

It started when I decided, earlier this week, to keep track of the protein, fat, and carbohydrates in my diet. The very first thing I looked at was my delicious Cliff Bars. See? It says right there that they are Certified Organic and therefore horribly healthy.

OK, so one serving is one bar; 68 grams. (I’m looking at the Crunchy Peanut Butter bar; others are similar). Total protein = 12 grams. Total fat = 6 grams. Total carbs = 40 grams.

That only adds up to 58 grams.

So what is the remaining 10 grams? It’s non-food. Vitamins and minerals? There can’t be ten fucking grams of vitamins and minerals; I don’t care how healthy those Cliff Bars are.

I guess the “sodium” and potassium account for just under another half-gram. Part of it could be water, I guess, although water isn’t listed as an ingredient, and if it accounted for almost 15% of the weight of the bar you’d think it would be listed. So just what is it, anyway?

…do I really want to know?

What’s funny to me is that the supposedly-healthy-and-organic Cliff Bar has waaaaaaay more of the non-food stuff than does, say, a serving of Doritos or a Hershey’s Special Dark bar (only about 1-2 grams unaccounted for on both of those).

Food is scary. I’m going to stop looking so close now.