Lunar Obverse

Shamrock Run 5K 2010

2010-03-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm in running clothes waiting for Kevin to show up.

It's 36° F according to my weather widget.

I can hear a train outside.

I've had a slice of toast with peanut butter and jelly on it, and one and a half cups of coffee.

I went to bed last night around 9:00p - 9:30p, although last night we turned our clocks back an hour, so getting up at 5:30a is almost exactly like getting up at 4:30a. Not to mention the fact that I had very restless sleep.

I'm wearing my running pants, new(-ish, I've run in them a few times already) Brooks Adrenalines, long-sleeved (green, for St. Patrick's Day) tech shirt, and my white Shamrock Run commemorative t-shirt over it. Oh, and a black stocking cap.

I've got my timing chip strapped to my left ankle and my iPhone strapped to my left bicep - oh, crap, am I going to be unbalanced?

My worst time in this race was my first year, 2006: 35:07, an 11:19 pace. But that was before they started using timing chips.

My best chip time was last year, 2009: 31:21, a 10:06 pace (my gun time was 34:00). I'd like to do better this year, and it's within my reach.

I'll report back later on my time and experiences.

I'm kind of in love with Simon Singh

2010-03-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Why haven't I ever heard of this man before? He dramatically demonstrates how an expectation can create a false signal from something that's nothing but noise.

This demonstrates why it's so important to have tools, objective and rational, that can be used to separate out actual signals from the noise that surrounds us.

If you expect there to be an invisible sky man, then you will see an invisible sky man, in spite of the mountains of positive evidence against ISM's existence.

Cherry Bomb

2010-03-12T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hollywood is so out of ideas they're remaking music videos.

I'm astonished at two facts about The Runaways biopic:

Although it seems odd that the role of Cherie Curry is being played by 16-year-old Dakota Fanning, that's the correct age for when Cherie auditioned for the band. If anything, Dakota is a year too old.
But Kristen Stewart does not a Joan Jett make, in my head and without having seen the movie yet.

Of course, I'll see the movie.And this song is practically Stormy's theme song.

Who is Newton?

2010-03-10T08:26:00.001-08:00

Mmmm... Newton.

Video game memories

2010-03-10T07:55:00.000-08:00

Wil Wheaton has reminisced about video games, and why not? And it's prompted me to remember old video games, too.

Asteroids Deluxe, the short cabinet version, Elevator Action, and several others will always remind me of the 7-11 at Park Ave. Kevin and I would play that damned Elevator Action for hours.
Dragon's Lair will forever be associated with Kellogg Bowl in Milwaukie, OR. I remember Terry putting quarter after quarter into it, while I stood around and watched, until he got to the end one night. He had done it before, and wanted to show me that at the very end (Spoiler Alert!), when the knight killed the dragon and rescued the princess, his helmet came off and he looked like our friend Andy.
There was a video game that involved landing on a planet that was only found at Kah-Nee-Tah in eastern Oregon; it was a black and white vector graphics game in a primitive cabinet. I can't remember the name but I have a vague feeling it wasn't Lunar Lander, though it may have been. I played it once during one brief glorious road trip, with Amy and Terry.
I and others from high school would play Battlezone, the tall cabinet version, at the Kienow's in downtown Milwaukie, a store no longer there. Steve Kilgore was the best at that game. Kilgore was also the best I'd ever seen at regular ol' Asteroids; he demonstrated the trick of saving one small asteroid, then flying up constantly and waiting for the saucers to come out, picking them off one by one.
I know there were games at the bowling alley in Gresham where mom and dad and Donna and Gary would play, but I can't remember what they were.
And the sit-down versions of Pole Position and Red Baron, and several others remind me only of the arcade at Clackamas Town Center. I can still hear the sounds of that arcade, and feel the excitement of knowing all that entertainment was waiting for me. I can hear the jingle of exchanging quarters for tokens, see the specific brass color of them, and feel the groove in one side of the tokens that made sure you could only put the token into the slot one direction. I remember the red-headed guy who worked there, then moved next door to the hamburger place after a while, and spending hours talking to him. I worked in that mall, at a small game store that sold, among other things, Dungeons & Dragons books and dice, for six long years, and spent years there prior to getting a job, and the arcade was a favorite hangout. I could write a week of blog posts about all the silly things I did or saw there.

You?

Running

2010-03-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

Nine days ago I participated in the Running With The Wolves 5K, and I ran the fastest I've run in months: 5K in 0:30:17, for an average pace of 9:44 per mile.

The day was perfect: not too cold, sunny, no rain. There were very few people on the course; only 81 finishers total. But it was fun, and I am glad I did it.

Then I didn't run until tonight.

I had a mildly-injured foot, a bruise or something on the ball of my left foot. Other than that, I really have no excuse. Maybe I needed the break, and maybe I just failed to motivate.

Mrs. McGinnis, my sophomore high school English teacher, once told me, "If anyone learns how to motivate you, you'll be an unstoppable force for good!" She meant it kindly, I suppose; generally I liked her. But that fear of motivation has haunted me for over 20 years. To this day, I don't know what motivates me.

I run because I want to be faster, although realistically I'm too old to ever be considered a fast runner. I run because I want to be thinner, and then I wipe out any gains from exercising with a single donut. I run because I want to meet other runners, and then I just run, solo, through my neighborhood and never join running groups. It's like I'm working at cross purposes to myself.

The inner workings of my mind are as impenetrable as, well, other people's minds.

But I ran tonight; I ran 15 minutes at 6 MPH, and then switched to run/walking, with about a minute break every half-mile. I finished 3 miles in 0:31:28 total.

My plan is to run again on Thursday. I'll be sure to update if it happens.

What the internet is for

2010-03-06T09:31:00.001-08:00

Here's what the internet was made for: funny cat videos.

This one made me laugh out loud.

"I didn't do anything to you, you stupid creature!"

2010-03-06T08:45:00.001-08:00

That's what I said to the opossum in my dream that was spraying me like a skunk.

Good morning, blog.

Bother me tomorrow; today I've got no sorrows

2010-03-03T05:53:00.001-08:00

Doot doot doot, lookin' out my backdoor.

This Too Shall Pass

2010-03-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

I love these guys.

Seriously. I want to give them money. That's how much I love them.

Update:

I gave $7.99 to Amazon so I could download their album. I hope Amazon gives at least some of that to those guys.

Two strippers

2010-02-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

Her head hung over the edge of the bar, dangling upside down between my friend and I, her long dark brown hair fanned out as a curtain towards the floor, while her naked body stretched away from us towards the stage. Her legs made a V that framed the far side of the stage.

Another night at the Acropolis.

The dancer, N., had been telling us how excited she was to be leaving Portland and going back to Las Vegas to do a photo shoot and enjoy the warmer weather.

"Are you going to work the Spearmint Rhino?¹" my friend asked.

N. turned to look at me, her face expressing disbelief, then back at my friend. I laughed at her expression. N. gracefully lowered her legs and pivoted up and off the stage back to a standing position and moved towards the pole in the middle of the stage.

My friend looked confused. "What'd I say?"

I said to my friend, "You have to realize that the best clubs for guys are not necessarily the best clubs for dancers."

N. heard my explanation and returned to us (we were the only guys at the rack; it was early in the evening). "See? Right? He gets it!" she pointed at me. "I don't want to work at some place where you have to grind. I'm just not that into..." her voice trailed off.

N. was an older dancer, meaning she appeared to me to be in her mid to late 30s. She was tall (hard to tell exactly, because of her 8 inch clear plastic heels) and tanned and thin with a magnificent pair of well-done but enhanced breasts. Her face was plain, but lit up when she smiled in spite of needing some dental work. When I had first approached the stage I wasn't sure how attractive I thought she might be; my philosophy in strip clubs is, if I don't think the current dancer is my type, to just pass until the next one. But my friend had approached the stage as if drawn, and I went with him.

But the more we talked, the more interesting I thought she became. It was as clear a distinction between physical beauty and charisma as I could think of. I was impressed and now understood why N. was clearly a successful professional stripper.

The three of us continued to discuss various types of strip clubs and eventually segued into strippers who actually want to have sex with a celebrity and keep the baby (have you heard the story about the star of LOST and the exotic dancer from Bend?), while my friend and I tossed dollar bills on the bar.

And then N. finished her set, and K. took the stage.

Where K. was clearly younger than N., but just as thin. K. had not spent any money on medical upgrades that I could see. Where N.'s hair was long and straight, K's hair was short and wavy.

And in spite of her newness to the "industry", which I admit is pure speculation on my part, she had already done a photoshoot for Hustler.

She was dancing for us, when her attention was caught by something on the far side of the bar. She stopped, covered her naked breasts, and walked away from us. "This is a no-cellphone zone, sir," she said, putting as much venom into the honorific as she could muster. Which was quite a bit. The guy she was talking to had an iPhone out, and was holding it up, camera lens towards the stage, while staring at the screen facing him. K. had a back and forth with him until he relented and put the camera away.

The pair of bouncers, stationed at the door, never looked up or moved from their seats.

When K. returned to us, she said, "You can't take pictures in here."

My friend laughed. "It's been so long since I've been in a strip club, I didn't even realize that you'd have to ban cell phones in here!"

K. nodded. "Yeah. Not that I care that much. I mean, I've got a spread in Hustler coming out. If someone wants to shoot a camera phone picture of me, that's a hundred bucks. No sweat." She laughed.

"Really? Hustler?" I asked. "How'd that happen?"

"A friend of mine set it up for me. She's got connections in the porn industry." I wondered at the euphemism once again; how "industrial" was dancing naked or having sex on camera?

Just another night at the Acropolis.

¹ Careful - that site has auto-playing music.

The real spoilers

2010-02-24T07:19:00.000-08:00

I'm not the spoiler for talking about LOST around people who aren't caught up.

No, the real spoilers are the folks who aren't yet caught up who hang around when I want to talk about last night's episode with my friend who is equally obsessed with me, preventing me from discussing all the many revelations and implications and making us talk in vagaries: You're the real spoiler, sir!

He's spoiling my fun!

It's always fun

2010-02-23T13:37:00.000-08:00

It's always fun when the old guy who sits on the bus mall and yells about how the God Who created us all full of sin wants us to accept His love and forgiveness for the sin He created us with, gets into a shouting match with a crazy street lady who just wants him to shut the Hell up.

Yeah. Good times. Good times that never end.

A thought about our bodies

2010-02-19T06:56:00.001-08:00

As I drank my coffee this morning, a thought arose. I was pouring liquid into a bag of liquid. More than that: my body is made up of cells, which are, themselves, tiny bags of fluid.

Even our bones, which seem pretty solid to us, and are the structure that everything hangs off of, are made of cells.

We're bags of fluid made up of bags of fluid.

So what holds it all together?

Or maybe I need more sleep.

So now I have a plastic tooth

2010-02-18T06:46:00.001-08:00

I had my temporary crown put in yesterday. It was only going to be a partial crown, or "onlay", but when Dr. Jill saw the extent of the crack I've been living with for the past two weeks, she decided that it needed the full crown treatment.

First step was to take an impression to build the crown from, and "prep" the tooth. Prepping means using a drill and grinding down the tooth into a smooth nub, onto which the crown will be placed.

While the crown is being made, a process that takes 3 weeks and consists of fabricating a gold-and-porcelain replica of my old tooth, I wear a temporary crown made of acrylic.

Or plastic, if you will.

Since leaving the dentist yesterday, as the massive amount of anaesthetic slowly wore off, I've been feeling the replacement. You know that feeling, that there's something new in your mouth, and it's odd and out of place? That's what I feel. I keep biting down on it, then remembering that I'm supposed to baby it, because it's only plastic.

This morning it felt "smaller", meaning I'm noticing it less. But it's still there. And it occurred to me: it's just like the classic "plastic tooth" spy story cliche!

I hope Dr. Jill didn't include cyanide. That'd be awkward

No coffee morning

2010-02-17T09:01:00.001-08:00

Because I was lazy, I was early for work today.

I was lazy yesterday and did not wash my coffee pot. So when I got up this morning at my normal time, the time that gives me time to make coffee and make breakfast and do a little surfing before work, I could not make coffee.

Instead I showered and shaved and got dressed early. Then I was still hungry, so I headed out to a coffee shop to get some coffee and wake up.

Having done that, I took the bus to work. Where I was early.

Because I was lazy.

Michael Emerson is confused

2010-02-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

Caution: the clip below, from "The Soup", contains a spoiler for last week's episode of 24, which I do not watch nor care about, but is a set-up for Michael Emerson to riff on themes of LOST.

And it made me laugh. Out loud.

The shirtless dancing guy theory of leadership

2010-02-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

A fascinating talk from TED by Derek Sivers on leadership:

Building a movement requires a leader... and followers. And following is framed as a brave act.

(via Charles Lemos @ MyDD.)

An observation

2010-02-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

As the amount of TV shows and motion pictures I watch increases, the amount of blogging I do decreases.

I hope that this is just a fall/winter phenomenon, and that as the days grow longer once again, I'll spend more time outside and away from the glowing small screen.

I'm sure I must have an opinion on something

2010-02-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday of a three-day weekend, the third day of which I have been granted a paid non-work day due to the American penchant for honoring elected leaders as if they were gods.

I've eaten breakfast; thick sliced applewood smoked bacon, nine-grain whole wheat bread without any high fructose corn syrup slathered in real organic butter and the preserved fruits of the marionberry vine, and farm-friendly organically grown coffee beans, blended half-and-half with decaffeinated beans and beans meant for use in espresso, but ground and brewed in a drip machine, flavored with low fat vanilla soy milk and raw sugar.

I'm listening to Lady GaGa sing about being Starstruck while I sit here at my desk. I can raise my head to my right and look out the window, and see the occasional runner trudge by dressed most often in dark-colored form-fitting synthetic fabrics from neck to ankle as protection against the rain and cold. When I hit the F12 button on my keyboard, a transparent overlay falls over my screen and displays, among other things, a widget that tells me it's 47º Fahrenheit in my zip code.

I take a sip of my decaffeinated and flavored coffee. Yeah. Saturday.

Elevated

2010-02-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

Scene One

I walk into the elevator lobby. The guy there before me has already pushed the up button; since I'm going to the basement, I push the down button.

We wait.

An elevator arrives; the up light lights up. The other man gets on.

He looks at me, leans out, holds the door open. "You going up?" he asks.

I look at him, blankly. I point at the still-lit down button, directly in his line of sight. "Uh... no. I'm... I'm going... down. That's why I pushed... the down... button." My voice drips with snark.

He lets the door close, shaking his head.

Scene Two

Hours later, I'm ready for a break. I leave the basement, go out in the sun; I want to take a walk and get some fresh air.

I approach the intersection and the lanes of the one-way street are clear, except for a lone white SUV approaching in the far lane.

The SUV slows. The SUV stops. Inside, I see the driver, an older woman, wave me across.

I double-check and the lady has no stop sign. There is no other traffic. In my head, I calculate that if she hadn't stopped, she would be well on her way and I would already be half way across by now. Why did she stop?

I wait.

I feel anger at her, though I'm not sure of the reason, or even if it's reasonable for me to feel this way.

She waits.

Finally, she rolls down her window and waves me across again.

I look around. Still no traffic - wait, a car approaches from the other intersecting street. The driver of that car sees me and the lady's standoff and appears confused.

All three wait.

Finally, the late-arriving car pulls out and around the front end of the SUV, which was slightly blocking him.

I still have not moved from the sidewalk where I stand.

The lady rolls forward and looks out the window at me. "Why didn't you cross?"

"Why didn't you just go?" I ask her in return.

"Because if someone is crossing the street, the law says I have to let them cross."

My anger returns at what I see as her lecturing me. "I'm not sure that's true."

She's still there, in front of me. There is still no other traffic. "Were you going to cross?"

"I'm waiting for someone," I say, and I think, I'm waiting for you to leave.

"Oh. OK." She pulls away.

I immediately cross behind her, hoping she will see me.

I don't know why that made me mad. Or perhaps I started out mad.

Scene Three

Back at work, I wheel an empty cart out to the elevator bank. I use my key on the freight elevator and wait for it to arrive.

A lady, dressed in a professional outfit, in contrast to my jeans and t-shirt, walks out of the training room. "Are you going to one?" she asks. Just then, another non-freight elevator arrives, and she walks into it. She turns towards me, holds the door open. "Do you want to take this elevator?"

My anger returns, unreasonably annoyed. "No I am waiting for the freight elevator because I need to get this cart to the loading dock and I can't get there from those elevators."

"OK," she says. "Fine. Sorry."

Epilogue

Is it just me? Was I in a bad mood? What the Hell was going on?

It's probably just me.

Turning data into a story

2010-02-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

first, I saw that Michael Lopp, writing as Rands, posted a long, thoughtful essay on the hierarchy of information, and about how the data points available to us are getting shorter and shorter (going from long newspaper articles to short, 140-character tweets), and how those of us who love Twitter are taking the small data points and creating a narrative, a story, from those tiny bits:

"Those frustrated with Twitter are frustrated because they have a belief that a story needs a beginning, middle, and end. And that it should have all of those parts before it’s presented to them. What the hell am I supposed to learn from a tweet? The point of Twitter isn’t knowledge or understanding, it’s merely connective information tissue. It’s small bits of information carefully selected by those you’ve chosen to follow and its value isn’t in what they send, it’s how it fits into the story in your head. There are great stories to be found on Twitter, but you have to do the work."

And then I saw Google's Super Bowl ad, and it demonstrated the point perfectly:

The small pieces of information we get from Google aren't the story; it's what we do with the information.

Brilliant.

New Orleans knows how to party

2010-02-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

I guess my favorite non-Portland-Oregon city had something to celebrate this past weekend.

Does this look insane, or what?

Saints Fans Celebrate Super Bowl Victory on Bourbon Street

And this is the edited-for-polite-company video.

Is it just me?

2010-02-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or does it give me a tiny sliver of hope that this Saturday Night Live skit is based in the idea that Americans who watch SNL will recognize who the current White House Chief of Staff is, and his reputation?

Or did the writers of the skit just figure that people would laugh because of all the cursing?

(I fall into the first category, myself.)

My chosen form of passive entertainment

2010-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, while a significant number of people were watching the American football championship game lovingly called the Super Bowl, I spent the day listening, instead, to a different form of passive entertainment: I listened to a group of geeks play Dungeons & Dragons in a podcast from Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons & Dragons.

The geeks are Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik of the webcomic Penny Arcade, Scott Kurtz of the webcomic PvP, and Wil "Just a geek" Wheaton.

Last year, they, along with Chris Perkins from Wizards of the Coast as Dungeon Master, played several sessions of 4th Edition D&D and recorded it for posterity.

This is only interesting to those who like D&D enough to be entertained by others playing, but for my own part, I was vastly entertained. Mr. Perkins is a lively and animated Dungeon Master, and the rest of the players are all creative, quick-witted and share an amazing camaraderie. Wil Wheaton, of course, has skills as both a D&D player and an actor and writer. I spent the afternoon with my iPhone playing the podcasts while I cleaned the house, and went shopping, and generally goofed off. And I spent much of the time smiling or even laughing aloud at their antics. It was vastly entertaining.

The one quibble I have, listening to the game mechanics for 4th Edition D&D, is that it doesn't really feel like D&D to me. All classes have a seemingly vast array of special powers and magical-seeming abilities, and everyone gets "healing surges" and ways to shake off damage and keep fighting. It feels more like a comic book; the characters feel more like superheroes or video game characters than the gritty ordinary folks I remember from old pulp fiction and my early days of D&D.

The other downside is that Wizards of the Coast has not made it easy to get all the episodes of Series 2 and 3, at least that I could find with my Google-fu. And they don't seem to be in iTunes anymore, either. For my friends' sake, I have compiled the various links below. I'm not trying to infringe anyones' copyright or intellectual property; these links go to the official versions of the files. If anyone from Wizards of the Coast asks, I will remove these links. Until that happens, feel free to click on these links and choose the option that saves the linked file, and then enjoy them.

When I get around to finding Series 4, I will update this page. Yes, I'm aware of what happens in Series 4 even though I haven't listened to it yet; don't post a comment here and spoil it for anyone else still unspoiled. As Mr. Wheaton says, "Don't be a dick."

Note: All episodes of Series 1 can be found on the page for Series 2, Episode 1.