The bright side of a Moon
Damn, if only I could have waited a month and a half, I could have saved $300 off the cost of my new sexy thing (click on “Special Deals”, then scroll down the page).
Of course, then it wouldn’t have been a new sexy thing. It would have been a refurbished-to-new sexy thing.
Is that worth $300? Um… duh.
Update 4:03 PM 31 March 2006: fixed broken link
A month or two ago, I forget exactly when, I was at work, and having contact lens problems. I keep some saline solution at my desk, so I took the saline into the men’s room, took out my contacts, rinsed them off, put them back in… all was fine.
Except that I left the bottle of saline solution in the men’s room. Forgot it was there.
Couple of weeks later, I was in the men’s room and that bottle was still sitting on the counter next to the sink.
…or was it the same bottle?
Had somone else used it in the meantime? Probably not. But… I can’t tell. And, just like girls are told not to use each other’s makeup because they can pick something up, I’m wary of using a saline bottle or eye drops that someone else has used.
Trouble is, I can’t tell if someone else has used it or not.
Is that paranoid? Yeah, probably. Better safe than sorry.
So I was having contact lense issues today.
Think I’ll go up to the drug store and buy another bottle.
Better safe than sorry.
This is my public apology to Christi. Back in February, she posted about running into some skanky (but in a good way) boys in her apartment complex who were playing and singing songs by a band called Travis.
I’d never heard of Travis before and asked her about them, and she recommended a bunch of songs, including (and I am not making this up) their cover of Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)” which, Christi insisted to me, was hawesome (although she might not have used that word). She also compared them to Radiohead, for which statement I berated her because there is no other band like Radiohead, past, present or into the future.
I made a trip to my favorite used music store and found two Travis albums in the used bin (I’m a cheap motherfucker), ripped them to my iPod and listened to them once through.
I bought “The Invisible Band” and “The Man Who”.
I liked them – melodic and synth-heavy and definitely BritPop.
Lately I’ve been shuffling through my library, but once every couple of days I still like to pick out a CD and listen straight through. And in the last couple of weeks, more often than not, I picked one of the two Travis CDs. They have been growing on me. I haven’t really added any new music to my collection in a while, mostly just picking up new releases from bands I already like, and I think my lack of newness has been affecting me – might explain why I’m letting the iPod do all the work of choosing my tunes lately. But Travis satisfies the need for new.
…to be perfectly honest, they’re still not as good as Radiohead. However, they do come close. All they’d need is lyrics that are far more angsty, and to try once in a while for a completely different sound, to stretch out musically. But they’re still good, and better than some of the other BritPop bands I’d tried.
(Like Manic Street Preachers. What the hell was I thinking? Blech.)
At any rate, this post is a public apology to Christi for doubting her and for dismissing the idea that Travis could have any comparison to Radiohead without, y’know, listening to the band first. I should know better.
I still haven’t heard their cover of Britney, however… dammit, iTunes Music Store! Why don’t you have that song? I’ve got all these free credits available for download…
Widely reported all over the internets this week is the survey that is part of the American Mosaic Survey that is reporting that atheists are the least-trusted people in America.
Hey, can I say something, here?
I could go on and on on this topic, actually. So, after pondering this article for almost a week, I think I can pare down my response a bit, to just directly rebut some of the statements in that article without getting all rant-y about religion and atheism as a whole.
Basically, it boils down to this: Christianity in its modern, Western form, is predicated on belief. Christians are told that they are to believe something without evidence and that they are part of a community that shares that belief. Forcing themselves to believe something without any evidence, or “just knowing” that some things are “true” even though those things can’t be verified in any fashion is not just fundamental, it becomes a point of pride.
Contrast this to other religions that put the focus on the here-and-now, religions that require their adherents to put into actual practice actions favored by that religion. Sunni Islam has its “Five Pillars of Faith”. Mr. Abrams, quoted in the article above, talks about Jewish acts being more important than belief.
But it’s the Christian idea that has taken root in America – a focus on a perfect, ideal world and a rejection of this imperfect world, and favoring irrational mental stimulation overtaking action.
Obviously, I’m simplifying here. There are many forms and flavors of Christianity, with different flavors of belief, just as there are many different groups of Jews, or Muslims, or Wiccans, or atheists, for that matter. My reader may argue that I’m constructing a straw man to knock down. I accept that it may seem that way, however, I’m only basing this argument on the article quoted above. “Belief” is used 13 times in the article, out of 605 total words. “Act” is used twice, and once as part of the word “actor”, describing one of the people quoted. “Reasonable” is used only once.
The study is about what people believe, and what people believe others believe, and how they feel about that. My argument is that basing issues of trust on belief rather than action is going to result in problems, and that atheists are best equipped to focus more on actions, and are therefore more trustworthy.
Now, people can be atheists for many reasons. In my own case, I am an atheist because the religious descriptions of God do not meet basic, verifiable, logical criteria. Without getting too deeply into it, take a look at the problem of evil. In a nutshell, the following statements can’t all be true:
Various ways to work around this problem have people re-defining evil, or finding ways to have God self-limit His power for some ultimate end that justifies the existence of evil. None of these explanations make any sense for me. And in coming to that realization, I understood that logic, flawed though it might be, is a valuable tool for figuring things out. So is science, and reason. All these things rely on reproducible results, and on observing actual events rather than imagining events that would be “better”, somehow. So, for me, belief is all well and good but belief is trumped by reason.
I can believe lots of things. However, I can use various mental tools to discern between beliefs that actually produce positive results right here and now, and beliefs that get me or others hurt right here and now.
But, and we see this in the article linked above, people still see atheists in terms of what they “believe” or not. And, somehow, most Americans are frightened of someone who doesn’t simply “believe” in invisible, unprovable things. Is it really that scary? I’m oriented towards action, and trying to find actions in this world that produce positive results for people right now or very soon, rather than having some vague, internalized belief that may or may not produce a positive result after my death.
In this way, I think, atheism (at least for me) has more in common with other religions – in my focus on concrete results, rather than ethereal far-off events that may or may not take place. Isn’t having an immediate feedback loop for reinforcing decisions made, such as I try to practice, a better mechanism for producing socially positive actions?
And, that being the case: isn’t that someone you would trust more?
Just sayin’.
When did The Oregonian become a real newspaper, like we had in the olden days where the reporters would, y’know, report the news without “balancing” it with a fake opposing viewpoint?
First, I read about (on Glenn Greenwald’s excellent blog) The Oregonian’s lawsuit to unseal some crucial documents in a NSA wiretapping case.
Now, with all the excellent coverage of Dave Boyer’s early resignation from the county.
Because the Boregonian only allows access to their articles on the web for 14 days, I’ve saved and archived them all as PDFs.
I’ve also included the letters to the editor that The BigO has printed, Willamette Week’s article on the topic, as well as another copy of Dave Boyer’s original resignation letter.
But, maybe it’s just because The Big O has decided that Diane Linn, Multnomah County Chair, has got to go?
I do notice, however, that the Boregonian has been silent on Dave Boyer’s other accusation – of differential treatment for line staff, managers, and executives?
Damn, I’d like to bring that to their attention. I just wish I could think of some examples of that bias. Oh, well, I’ve got to go; I need to talk to a co-worker who testified against Jann Brown and is getting laid off… after interviewing for a new position on a panel that, completely coincidentally, included Jann Brown…
Update 28 March 2006 – I have added the link and the PDF of The Oregonian’s front-page article detailing the internal battles between Dave Boyer and other managers at the county. Interesting read, and I completely forgot to include it earlier. My bad.
I overslept this morning and missed the Bridge to Bridge 10K. I’ve been wanting to run this race ever since I started running, since the course goes over the upper deck of the Fremont Bridge, which would lead to some awesome views, I think. I’ve done the 5K before but not the 10K.
I was upset with myself this morning.
As punishment I ran up Terwilliger Blvd., from SW 4th and Mill St. (my start line), up through Duniway Park, all the way up to the Chart House Restaurant and back down again. It threatened to rain all afternoon but didn’t during my run. I got to the restaurant in about 32 minutes, and made it back down in about 30. Per Google Earth, that distance is just a hair under 3 miles, so that’s a good pace for as steep as it is!
Billie Joe and the boys were my musical companion.
Next year I’ll do the 10K… next year. Maybe Max will run the 10K with me next year!
Over a week ago, the thought occurred to me that I was angry. About a lot of different things. Personal things, professional things, political things, even some things that didn’t fit into a category that started with the letter “P”. I figured I could turn that idea into a post. The post was going to be a listing of all the things lately that make me angry.
I even started working on this post. As the list lengthened, I decided that, since I was going to be posting this publicly, where in theory some of the people and institutions mentioned on the list might see it, I should try to make it more effective. I decided that I was going to add, to each item, what would have to happen in order for me to not be angry about that item anymore.
Constructive, see? Honest and direct. “Hey, buddy, if you would just do this one thing, I could stop being angry and we’d both be better people.”
It was a beautiful dream. I was finally laying it out there for anyone to see. Baring my soul and hopefully shaming some folk into shaping up.
At least, it felt honest…
But I had, in the back of my mind, some reservations about posting this “Anger Wish List”.
As a side note, let me say that, a lot of times, anger is funny. Think about the funniest comedians; they’re all angry, angry people. Some may display a cool, collected exterior, like Jerry Seinfeld or vintage Chevy Chase. But for most of them, the anger is like a raw, exposed nerve: Sam Kinison (damn, I miss Sam); John Belushi; Rodney Dangerfield (I’m just listing my favorites here so it might just be my perception). Even Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler, with two completely different approaches to their humor, share that bedrock of anger that makes them, well, damned funny. And, apparently, when I get “rant-y”, especially about something that I find very serious, like governmental abuse of power, my friends’ reactions are often to… laugh. Which sometimes makes me angrier (and therefore, funnier), and sometimes I see the humor and the spell is broken.
And that connection between anger and laughter started to shine through the items in my list. Or maybe it clouded over it. I’m not sure. But at a certain point, I started seeing the list in a whole different way.
For one thing, I started to wonder if my goal in writing the list and trying to shame people into making me not be angry anymore wasn’t, well, funny. Would that even work? Would I be able to feel my internal upset-O-meter read lower and lower levels of angrions until I was at peace with the universe, as I checked items off the list? “OK, she apologized for the lies… great, that makes me 15.3% less angry!”
For another… well, I was putting a lot of power into other peoples hands. Power over me, and my thoughts and feelings. And, considering that these people have pissed me off and therefore make them almost be definition my enemies, means that they are probably not going to treat all this power as a great responsibility, to be approached with caution and respect, now, are they? No, more than likely, at least some of them are going to start yanking on that anger lever even more, trying to see if they can jack up my anger levels until I literally explode… or, worse, trying to see if they can sustain the anger levels at a high point, just below where I would burst, trying to prolong the process…
OK, maybe not. That could just be my anger and paranoia talking. But, honestly, to a certain extent, it’s true: I was ceding control of my happiness to people I don’t particularly like.
After pondering this for several days, I knew I needed a fresh approach to this list. I think the initial impulse was good: to try to figure out what I was so angry about, to put it all into one place, to ponder it all and see if there was a pattern, and to give it all a name.
But the other parts, pushing the solutions off to anyone else but me, and to make it all public? Not the right choice.
I asked myself, “Self, why are you angry about [X]? What was it that made you angry? Was it a failure on their part? Or was there some expectation you had that wasn’t met? Where did all this freakin’ anger come from, anyway? Could there be an upside to anger? Is anger automatically negative, or is it neutral or even positive? Does it depend on the circumstances? Which parts do I control and which parts are out of my control?”
Yeah, I had a lot of questions.
I don’t have a lot of answers yet, but this is the place to which I’ve arrived: Anger is the flip side of passion. If I’m angry about something, it’s because I care about something that doesn’t seem to be going well, or started out going well but took an unexpected turn, or I just thought it was going well but I was really fooling myself. Or maybe all of the above, or parts of the above, or none of the above. I. Don’t. Know.
What I do know is that for every angry-making-thing on my list, there is or was a corresponding passion. And instead of blaming the event, person, institution or thing for betraying my passion, I’m going to try to re-connect to that original passion, to figure out why I felt that way, and if it was reasonable for me to feel that way, and if it’s reasonable to now modify my expectations to bring back that passion.
Doesn’t mean that the passion is still going to be attached to the same person, event, institution or thing, mind you. What is past will remain in the past. But the qualities or ideas that I recognized at the time, and became enamored of, may now continue to bring a smile to my lips and a light in my eyes, instead of a grimace and a dull angry glint.
I’m going to work to convert my anger into a positive force again. I’m going to use the emotion as a signpost that says, “You’re feeling this way because, dammit, you LOVE TOO MUCH.” Like seeing pain as a positive signal for change, I’m going to try to use my anger in the same way.
…I just hope that I remain funny in the process.
Congratulations
to Ken and Merry and Aleyna
and the newest member of the family…
…I hope Ken doesn’t mind that I stole his picture. But it links to his Flickr pics, so he shouldn’t.
I may have mentioned this before, but I’ve been dieting in addition to my every-other-day run. My dieting plan is quite simple – I’m cutting back on total calories per day. I owe the basic concept to John Walker, author of the online book “The Hacker’s Diet”. Much more detail than I give below can be found in Mr. Walker’s book.
I’ve been playing with the allowance since early February and have settled on keeping it under 2000 calories per day. That (combined with the running) seems to result in about a 1.5 lb loss per week, a nice, steady, healthy weight loss.
The other part of my diet is that I weigh myself every single morning, as soon as I wake up (but after going to the bathroom). I do this in spite of the advice of almost every diet book out there. “If you weigh yourself daily you’ll just discourage yourself with all the daily fluctuations” seems to be the message.
However, I have a secret weapon that I use to obliterate any emotional reaction to the daily fluctuations. I have “rationality”. Scary, huh?
Instead of focusing on the daily number, I focus on a moving average of the daily numbers. Since my actual weight isn’t a constant from day to day even if I’m not dieting, and isn’t constant throughout the day depending on how much water and food I’ve recently eaten (or, ahem, gotten rid of) I have to extract the trend of the overall number, rather than the actual number itself.
By standardizing on a time of day, I control a lot of the other variables that influence weight – people are typically lightest (also tallest but that’s not important here) right out of bed, so it’s closer to the true weight of the stuff that doesn’t (normally) change. And if the number bounces up a bit one day, I can rely on the fact that as long as I cut calories consistently, my actual weight will go down over time.
The best part is (and the thought that triggered this post) that even when my weight bounces up, as it did this morning by a half-pound, if I compare the average of the past 7 days with the average of the immediately preceding past seven days, the average has gone down. That’s the beauty of a moving average. (If I was really technical I could write an exponentially-weighted moving average, but I’m not, and this is good enough for my purposes.) For instance, here are the averages for the past week:
Even though there seemed to be a bounce up on that third day (from 196.0 to 196.4) the overall trend is downward, and in the course of seven days my average loss is 1.0 lb, lower than I’d hoped but still a loss. To give you and idea of the numbers, the high point in that week was 196.0, which appeared twice, once at the beginning and once in the middle, up from a low of 194.5, which would have been frustrating if I hadn’t been tracking the average. It would have seemingly wiped out any gain I’d made up to that point. By focusing on the trend, and not the daily input, however, I know that it’s working.
I ran last night after work, in my new shoes, and it felt great! It’s so funny how much difference new shoes make. I don’t realize, over the course of 6 months, how much cushioning and flexibility a running shoe loses. Plus I’m not convinced that the Asics are the right shoe for me. They never fit as well as the Brooks do – I had fit problems with the Asics from the beginning but just endured it. Shouldn’t have done that – my feet were signaling something important.
I have half a mind to call Emily at Fit Right NW and thank her!
Anyway, grabbed some dinner, then caught a bus home. Then Christi called with a favor to ask, and Tracy called, and Smacky demanded some attention and food (equal parts of both). I gave some time to my friends (I include Smacky in that category) and then I took some “me” time.
I sat down to play with my new keyboard.
No… the musical keyboard. The one I bought for my 3-year-old New Year’s resolution? Yeah, that one.
And, I finally got to the good part of my music theory book.
I was learning scales. And it’s so cool.
I always knew, in a general way, that music had a mathematical underpinning. And way back in grade school and junior high, I took some music theory classes, but for whatever reason, the whole idea didn’t gel in my head. And 15 years ago or so, I tried to learn harmonica, since it seems to be the easiest instrument to learn, but again, I was just memorizing what I was being taught. I couldn’t break out of that to see the basic idea that would allow me to create new songs.
Either the book I’m reading now is written by a brilliant teacher, or I’m finally ready to learn, or some combination of the two, because last night was an epiphany.
I learned about how notes are just vibrations (yeah, I knew that already) and how vibrations that are exactly double or half of each other sound alike (didn’t know that) – so that a note that’s, say 100 vibrations per minute has a similar sound to one that’s 200 vbm and one that’s 50 vbm.
That explained how people have broken up the notes in-between those similar sounds into discrete, evenly-spaced notes – the familar C-D-E-F-G-A-B scale.
It gets a little more complicated with flats and sharps (the black keys on a piano) but that’s just for convenience and language – the basic idea is that each key is the same “distance” from the keys next to it. So there are twelve steps from one C note to another C – that’s the chromatic scale.
The part that made me sit up and go “wow” is that each type of music only uses a few notes out of those twelve, usually 5 or 7 of them. And if you restrict yourself to those notes, you can improvise that type of music. There’s the major scale and a minor one, that’s the basis for most Western or European music, there’s a scale for Blues, there’s the pentatonic scale that’s the basis of Country and Western music. And rock is either based on the Blues scale or the C&W scale – the difference there is the chords and the beat.
This is probably over-simplified for any musicians out there, and might not be interesting to any non-musicians. Sorry ’bout that.
But man I was having fun last night, recording a simple chord (which is three or four specific notes in a scale played together) and drumbeat in GarageBand and picking out random notes in a specific scale and being amazed at how much like an actual song it sounded like!
Holy freakin’ cow! I’m a musician!
I know, I know, I have a long way to go before I could play anything live. But now that the essential concept has taken root in my head, it’s like I have a brand-new brain. I’ve been given a new way to look at the world, a new sense to complement the traditional twelve. I’m hearing songs on my iPod as if for the first time!
I don’t know why it took me so long to get this. I’m just glad I did.