There and back and there and back and home

I literally travelled from one end of Portland to the other today.

Actually, further, because I started near downtown, crossed the river downtown, then headed all the way out to Clackamas and then back downtown and then out to Tigard and then downtown. And then home.

And I did it on the bus. Started right after work, and didn't get home 'til 10p.

Oh, and I walked the last mile or so. Stoopid buses.

At least I got what I was looking for. • 10:58 PM 1 comments

Re-Launching "Run, Moon!"

Check it out, y'all! I re-launched my diet and exercise blog, "Run, Moon!"

It's been dormant for a while. A long while. A long, sad, while. And meanwhile, I've gained about 25 pounds and haven't gone for a run, with the exception of the Shamrock Run 5K this month with Kevin,, in months.

I need to start over, and get back to regular exercise and mindful eating, and how. But to keep all that off my main blog, I will be doing all that on the blog specifically dedicated to it.

But for here, I just have to say that I don't know why I was so afraid of setting up Virtual Hosts in Apache 1.3. It was a freakin' snap and I didn't even have to touch my DNS or router settings. Just added a couple of entries to /etc/httpd/httpd.conf, one for the main domain of lunarobverse.com and one for the new domain of runmoonrun.com. I can now add new domains to my heart's content, up to the limit of bandwidth provided by Comcast and the disk space on Eggers.

I still have several other domains I'm not currently doing anything with, which are "parked" and pointing elsewhere. As my time and inclination waxes, I'll start doing stuff with them again.

One of those ideas is re-purposing my liefactory.com domain from its previous purpose (political blogging) to strip club blogging... The domain name kinda works for either one, huh?

And if and when I ever finish my novel, I've got a domain already purchased to host it! How rockin' is that?

In any case, I'm happy that "Run, Moon!" is back up and running. • 8:49 PM 1 comments

Deep thought

I'm always surprised at the amount of foam in my no-foam chai lattes. • 3:28 PM 1 comments

Pirate's ears

Long day, long week. I sat on the bus, texting Tracy and surfing on my iPhone.

My peripheral vision picked up a feminine shape holding a midget pink-colored shape and by automatic response I looked up.

Mom was dressed in a warm navy wool coat and jeans, my height or a bit shorter, hair so red it was nearly black and pulled back into a practical short ponytail with a clip.

The pink bundle was a toddler, dark curly hair and dark eyes that appeared to take up a third of her face, the rest puffy cheeks, all wrapped in pink vinyl speckled with cartoon kittens.

Mom set the pink bundle down, and momentarily our eyes met. I smiled, shyly, and looked back at the screen in my hands. I could not tell if mom smiled back, so quickly did I glance away.

The little girl sat quietly, making sounds that may have been words or may have been nonsense, but not making them loudly or constantly. Just occasional cute interjections, punctuated by chubby hand gestures that may have been waving or may have been pointing. The mom just sat there, in front of me, looking around, content. Sometimes as the bus moved and turned, mom put her arm out, resting her hand against the window sill, forming a human safety belt to keep the baby girl in her seat.

I noticed that mom had no wedding ring on her hand.

I should say something, the voice in my head said. I asked what, and the voice said, Anything. Hello. Whatever.

The bus rolled on.

I noticed that mom wore two earrings in her left ear, presumably matching the pair in the right ear, out of my sight. One, a large elliptical silver hoop, the other, a small round black disk. The disk was emblazoned with a skull and crossbones.

Pardon me, the voice suggested, your earrings. The pirate ones. I like them.

I said nothing and continued surfing. I mentioned none of this to Tracy via text. I was afraid she, too, would urge me to take action.

I told my inner voice that it would be weird flirting with a mom. She might feel uncomfortable flirting around her daughter. She might be going home to a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. This is Portland, after all. Who knows? People on the bus may notice, and laugh.

The bus rolled on.

It's been too long, I thought. Too much time had passed. The four-second rule for making an initial "hello" had long since passed. The four minute rule of social coaches had passed. Too long. I'll look awkward, much as I already feel awkward.

In truth, it had probably been only a few minutes. The bus had driven maybe a half-mile, in evening city traffic, but still, not that long. The voice inside my head kept repeating, reworking, restating, some comment on the pirate earrings. Is there a story behind them? Where did you get them? Are you a pirate? Did you steal them from a pirate?

The bus stopped to load and unload passengers, and then, being early, the driver paused. In the interlude, the little girl got a bit restless, and decided to stand, awkwardly, on her tiny chubby legs. Holding on to the back of the seat, she pulled herself up. Bent over, face half-hidden in the pink vinyl hood of her pink vinyl coat, her huge eyes looked my way and, briefly, we made eye contact. Not wanting to encourage her, not wanting to seem weird or odd or creepy, I looked down at my iPhone.

She looked away, turned and looked out the window. She bubbled her babble.

Mom kept quiet herself, just paying enough attention to the young one to make sure she did not fall or lose her balance. Mom hummed encouragement, or soft questioning "hmm?" or just smiled and nodded.

The baby girl looked back at me, and again my automatic response was to look at her.

Framed in pink, topped in dark brown loose curls, dark eyes wide, she smiled at me.

I smiled, softly, showing no teeth.

She giggled.

I smiled a bit wider. I set down my iPhone.

She burbled a single word. "Daddy."

"Hmmm?" Mom turned in her seat to face the little girl and smiled, then looked at me, then back at the girl. "What's that?"

The baby girl pushed her fist in my direction and said, more questioning this time, "Daddy?"

I laughed, ruefully. "What, little girl?" I raised my hand, and wiggled my fingers at her.

She babbled something I did not catch.

Mom and I shared a glance. I smiled in a way that I hoped was not intrusive. "She's very cute," I said. "How old is she?"

"She's almost two," mom said to me, also friendly, smiling, but cautious.

"Very cute," I mumbled, and lost the energy to continue. I picked up my phone again and pretended to be immersed in operating it.

The bus began moving again and the little girl sat down. Mom congratulated the girl for sitting down without prompting.

The bus rolled on.

Now ask her about her earrings, the voice said. The ice has been broken.

I said nothing more.

Mom and daughter got out several stops later.

The bus rolled on. • 8:48 PM 2 comments

Don't laugh at the warming part

It's snowing outside.

In Portland, in late March.

Without digging into actual historical archives, this seems unusual to me, a Portland native who has lived here most of my life (brief tenures as a child in parts of Washington state, and a short less-than-a-year in Austin, TX).

I think the planet is broken.

The snow could be a result of natural variation.

Or it could be indicative of increased moisture in the atmosphere, which could be a result of increased evaporation, which would be explained by higher-than-normal temperatures somewhere else on the nearly 317,000,000 square miles of surface on the big blue marble we call home.

But, yeah, on the bus people were dismissing the concept of "global warming" because of the snow, when in fact to my mind (and others who grasp the overall picture and not the sound bite) the snow may be direct evidence of said warming. • 7:58 AM 0 comments

The state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve and that (when achieved) terminates behavior intended to achieve it

I've been off-track lately. For at least the last several months. Seeing that the holiday of Discardia is reaching it's termination (probably - Discardia is a very low-key and ill-defined holiday), I thought it might be time to start putting my affairs back in order.

So many things and projects I want to do and so little time and mental willpower to achieve it. Did you know that there are studies that show we each have only a limited amount of willpower (via 43 Folders)? And when we use it up, it's gone until we can refuel. That's why, I think, it's harder to resist those donuts at the end of the evening, rather than in the morning or during the day. I still have some will-fuel left but it seems to run out around 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM.

OK, this isn't helping. Time to go work on some of those projects.

Things to look for from me in the future:

• A survey! Yay! Everyone loves surveys, right?
  
• More regular posting.
  
• More long-ish posts - at least two a week.
  
• More of me in other outlets - that's the goal, anyway.
  
• More posts about my exercise and diet - one of the things I'm missing is the regular boost I get from consistent documentation of my efforts.

I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of at the moment. Plus an annoying co-worker is bugging me right now. Double-ugh.

Time to do the dayjob for a bit. • 7:51 AM 2 comments

Plus one

Annnnnnd then another friend request comes in and destroys my adolescent sexual number joke.

It would be rude to ignore #70 just to maintain the joke, right?

Oh well. Was fun while it lasted. • 11:51 PM 1 comments

BADAT apology

Also, I would like to publicly apologize to my friend Kevin for my role in derailing the BADAT experiment. It was fun while it lasted but then I got tied up in other things and got sick and I lost my momentum.

So, my sincere apologies and hopefully we can make another crack at blogging at least once a day for a whole month at some future date!

Labels: BADAT

• 5:57 PM 1 comments

Perfect

Today I finally added another friend to my MySpace page, bringing the total number of friends to...

69. Awww, yeeeeeeah. • 4:55 PM 0 comments

Six days of silence

My apologies. Looks like I haven't posted anything here in six days. But at least no one put me on blogwatch.

Just a helpful hint: don't wipe your main computer clean in preparation for it to be sold at the same time you contract a horribly draining head and chest cold. That'll keep you from blogging, fer sure.

I think I was only awake for about 10 hours between Friday evening and this Monday morning. Yeah. Hard to blog in my sleep. • 8:30 AM 0 comments

I'm under the weather

Sorry y'all. I've been stoopid sick the past week. Taken more time off from work than I ever have before.

I've also yelled at a cop and ran a 5K in a kilt. And been trying to sell my laptop which has made blogging a bit more difficult.

I'll be better soon. I hope. And then the reindeer games will continue. • 6:48 PM 0 comments

Where there's a will

Up, up and off with your bad self. Big bad wolf-whistle in a graveyard, no, past the mother-fuckin' graveyard, grave stone tomb stone cold killer bees from outer space, the bee's knees knee-cap capsule space capsule space race riots quiet riots "We're not gonna take it!"

No, we're not gonna take it. We're not gonna take it, no more.

No more.

No more teachers no more rooks no bored leeches leechin' hooks. Captain Hook Captain Crook Captain Crunch crunching his crunch berries No more!

No, more. I need more, mmmm. More is better, better off, off and on, on and on and on and on and so on and so so so damned on it's off.

Off the clock, off the hook, how'd that mother Captain Hook crawl back, back in black, back to black, black and white, white power powerless powerlessness Loch Ness, nest nesting nesting instinct outstinct extinct extinction extraction traction tractors strange attractors strangers in the night nighttime is the fight or flight time.

Which brings us back to extinction. It stinks.

Stinks kinks kinky shit on a stick stick around!

Round the bend Bender Bending Rodriguez in the future Futuama lama ding dong.

Ding dong the rich are dead! The poor are dead, too but they can't afford it bored it scored it down the middle class. Class action traction oh hell we've been here before.

Before the court full court press press on nails on rails rail against the dying of the light and the dark. Darkness is the new black and white off and on and on and up.

Up.

Up.

And away.

And a way.


Kevin, did something happen to you today to make you "beware the Ides of March"?

Labels: BADAT

• 8:19 PM 0 comments

Birthdays

Seeing that Jason Kottke is celebrating 10 years of continuous operation today, it makes me jealous.

I don't remember how long I've owned the domain bamoon.com. I think I bought it sometime in early 2003. The first time the domain got archived by the Internet Archive is 3 May 2003, and the date on the page that's there says 2 March 2003, but as you can see there's not much actual content. By the next archive update, there's content of a sort: my bookmarks page, which looks very similar even today. That's the private page without formatting. It's how I've kept track of important or daily-use bookmarks for nearly the past 5 years. That page was archived on 12 December 2003.

But my first post with Blogger was made 1 November 2003. I made another post in that month, then didn't start continuously updating until January 2004.

And digging further, the WHOIS information for the domain bamoon.com shows that the registry entry was created on 7 January 2001! Holy crab, that's much longer ago than I thought or remembered. I sat on the domain for almost two years before doing anything with it.

So which birthday should I celebrate? I've posted about the anniversary of my first post before. But I've been using the domain for a bit longer than that, and I've owned the domain even longer.

What the hell. I'll celebrate all of them! I'll go add all these dates to my calendar to remind myself in the future... • 11:09 AM 0 comments

Who wrote the book?

Sadly, I find it very difficult to write a love letter when I'm not feeling actual love.

I'm just not feelin' it lately.


Kevin, how are you feeling today?

Labels: BADAT

• 8:00 AM 1 comments

As easy as

Happy Pi Day! You may also celebrate Pi Minute at 1:59 PM, or Pi Second at the appropriate second which I am too lazy to look up right now.

Also, it's Albert Einstein's birthday. Appropriate, yes? • 7:19 AM 0 comments

Greater than the whole

What's my favorite part of pizza?

Oh, man. Don't make me choose. • 11:58 AM 0 comments

Results

All through the day, I wondered about the details of the task that had been set out for me. Do I set aside a specific time for the three hours? Is it just the ones I notice, or do I have to make a special effort to look at everyone in sight?

I knew Kevin wouldn't be picky, in fact, he'd be interested in how I processed the instructions as much as he would be intrigued by the results.

In the morning on the bus, I forgot about my task until I saw someone wearing red and black together. But then I decided that I didn't want to start the clock on first noticing. I wanted to start a timer and then notice.

At work I spent most of the day in a basement with, at most, four or five other people. Not a good test. I did make a run outside to take our work van in for a quick service, but there wasn't a lot of opportunities for people-watching while I drove back and forth. So that was out.

I did go out for lunch - but that's only one hour, at most. Not enough time. Wait - maybe Kevin meant three hours total, not three consecutive hours? But that seemed too much of a reach.

Slowly the day drained away. And that evening I was planning on spending with Kevin, the man who had set the task out for me. It seemed almost unfair to perform the task while trying to enjoy the evening with my friend.

And on the other hand, it was perfect.

So he picked me up shortly after 4:00 PM, and I told him that I had not yet done the red-and-black-observing. I told him it would start at 5:00 PM and run until 8:00 PM.

At dinner, I had to keep interrupting my story to make a notation on my iPhone (the only thing I had handy to make notes on, lacking a pen and paper - no way could I keep track of the totals for red-wearers, black-wearers and both-red-and-black-wearers for three whole hours), which caused Kevin to smile, every time.

He manfully tried to not direct my attention, although he slipped once or twice. But he was a good sport about it. And it caused many light moments.

At one point, as we were walking through a park, we were approached by a woman walking three dogs. In the fading daylight, I tried to determine if she had red or black on, or both, and I was surprised when she looked our direction, appeared to look at me, and smile and said "Hi!" as if she knew me. Um, actually, she knew Kevin, had once worked with him, and they stopped to exchange pleasantries while I secretly put her down in the "both" category.

And, damn, navy blue is hard to tell from black at a distance. Just sayin'.

In the end, the final tallies are:

Red: 4
Black: 20
Both: 10



Kevin, what does a coffee table say?

Labels: BADAT

• 10:14 PM 1 comments

Best value

I don't really buy things online. I've sold things online, and I remember buying a GPS unit from eBay once, but it arrived broken and I had to return it.

But one thing I do do, a lot, is online dating. More in the past than lately. But yeah.

So the best thing I ever got through craigslist would have to be... Making out with a ballerina on my couch.

I'll always treasure that memory.



Kevin, write about the cover story on the 12 November 2008 Willamette Week and offer your opinion about the topic.

Labels: BADAT

• 6:06 PM 0 comments

What?

I'm taking a brief break from BADAT to share this wonderful new blog that I think most really smart people will enjoy: Passive Aggressive Notes.

Oh, you don't get it? Um... sorry. • 2:04 PM 0 comments

Tuesday

First, I feel guilty and stressed, just a bit, that I'm late on this post. If I had just taken five minutes to write a bit last night, I tell myself, I could have done it and not been late.

I feel a tickle in the back of my throat and there's something running back there, and it's seconds away from making me cough again.

Listening to two co-workers, one a close friend, the other a friendly but irritatingly-racist and short-sighted person, discuss welfare recipients is irritating, too.

Damn, all I feel this morning is negative. That's not good. Realizing that only makes it worse.

I coughed. Stoopid cough.

I keep thinking about the stunningly beautiful Latina or Italian woman on the bus this morning and how, when she first sat next to me, I was overcome by the reek of cigarette smoke. She didn't seem so attractive then.

Just got a text from a friend in Texas. She says it's sunny and bright and birds are singing. So, somewhere, someone is enjoying a nice day. That's better.



Kevin, analyze, annotate, and deconstruct a favorite song. • 7:34 AM 1 comments

Tooth and nail

There was the time I and my sister brushed Kevin's teeth.

Sadly, many details have been lost in the mists of time.

Kevin was probably around 2 or 2 1/2 years old, which would make me around 8 to 8 1/2 years old, since Kevin and I were born exactly 6 years apart, to the day. That would make my sister 9 to 9 1/2 years old, which seems kinda young to be babysitting a 2-year-old, so maybe we were older, because I'm almost positive that there were no adults around and my sister and I were in charge of Kevin.

I remember being there in the bathroom and helping Kevin get ready for bed, and my sister getting his toothbrush and looking for toothpaste.

Maybe the parents were busy and elsewhere in the house, or apartment. Yeah, it was more of an apartment. When I first started thinking about this memory, I was sure we were in our apartment, by which I mean Lisa and mine, but it's possible that we were in his, by which I mean his and his parents, apartment. Because why else would Kevin's toothbrush be there?

But perhaps he was staying the night and my sister found the toothbrush in some kind of bag or kit, a travel kit. Because next she pulled out a pale yellow tube and applied some of the paste inside to the toothbrush.

I remember the look on Kevin's young face, sitting on the edge of the counter in his footed pajamas, and looking at me and my sister in silence as she asked him to open up, and then proceeded to brush his teeth for him. He did not appear to enjoy the experience. I was almost eye level with him, his head only a little higher than mine, even though I was standing and he was sitting on the high bathroom basin.

And I'm pretty sure that I was the one who read the yellow tube and discovered that this "toothpaste" was manufactured by a company called "Desitin". Which I announced to my sister.

Who reacted in shock and laughter!

Desitin doesn't make toothpaste. It makes diaper rash ointment. Which was now in Kevin's mouth.

It was a simple mistake.

I mean, really, why would such young kids have responsibility for an even younger child? There's bound to be mistakes made. It might've been so much worse, but now it's just funny.

At least, I think it's funny.



Kevin, relate your earliest memory.

Labels: BADAT

• 8:29 PM 2 comments

Defining moment

Bal • a • cast (BAL • uh • kast): 1. verb, tr.The specific act of throwing a pamphlet, esp. a ballot for voting, against a wall or through a window, as if in anger, disgust, or chagrin at the options displayed thereon. 2. verb, intr. A metaphoric way of describing anger, disgust or chagrin at the available options for voting.

"If I go through one more primary season holding my nose and voting for the least of two evils, I swear I will balacast so hard I will never get my cleaning deposit back."

Kevin, write about the top, front page headline on today's Oregonian and give your personal perspective on the topic.

Labels: BADAT

• 8:36 PM 0 comments

Pine Street, park, mope

Tracy and I were walking back to our hotel from the concert late last night, dark streets in an unfamiliar downtown. A white sedan, maybe a decade old, pulled up alongside us and I heard a man's voice call out. "Excuse me, can you tell us how to get to--" I stepped towards the sidewalk, between Tracy and the car, and yelled, my voice cracking and hoarse from yelling lyrics I knew well. "I'm sorry, we're not from here!" As the car drove off I turned to Tracy and laughed, "Why am I always getting asked directions?"

Jack and Ben were lost in an unfamiliar city, driving in circles among tall buildings that blocked the gray sky. Jack, piloting their battered sedan, implored Ben to ask for help but so far Ben had refused. Jack, impatient, decided to pull near a man in red and black with a snappy hat walking with a redheaded woman in a sky blue shirt. Ben sullenly rolled down the window and started to ask directions, but the man lurched towards the car and yelled out menacingly, "You're not from around here!" Jack, startled, accelerated away as Ben rolled up the window against the cold night air. A full five minutes passed before Ben finally glared at his friend and grumbled, "I told you we shouldn't have bothered the natives!"


Kevin, write a post as if you were an animal, but without explaining which animal. Give enough information for the reader to guess.

Labels: BADAT

• 7:22 PM

BADAT Day 6: Amphihoury

My apologies for this one being late. Yesterday Tracy and I drove to Seattle to see one of our favorite bands, Harvey Danger, play their 10th anniversary show. I'll have a separate post on that later.

Also, I did not finish the nonsense poem, or "amphigoury", that Kevin challenged me to. So to keep moving, I'm posting what I had, incomplete.

Mr. McBlogger
lived with a logger
on Stark, in a 10th story condo.

Said the young logger
to his roommate Mcblogger
"I crave a burrito, mas mondo."



Kevin, Google your name, click "I'm feeling lucky", and blog about the result.

Labels: BADAT

• 8:15 AM 1 comments

Five alive

Kevin asked, what are my top five favorite stories across all media?

Being a writerly sort of fellow, I think I'd like to answer this in a slightly different way.

In no particular order, my five favorite types of stories:

• I like stories about journeys, real or metaphysical, or, in some cases, both. Stories that take the main character along a path, where they grow from a naive young inexperienced child, to an older, wiser, tested adult. It may not be the first example that I encountered, but the story that had the largest impact on me in this vein is the Original Star Wars Trilogy, a.k.a., the adventures of Luke Skywalker. Digging in to the inspirations for that story, I encountered old Joe Campbell and his explication of the Hero's Journey, also known as the monomyth. I found J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy chronologically after Star Wars, but remember reading "The Hobbit" before. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, specifically Frodo's trials as Ring-Bearer, have obvious parallels to Luke's trials facing his dark father.
  
• I like stories that take one idea, usually a Big Idea, and explore all of its implications. The seminal story of this type, for me, was Larry Niven's "Ringworld", a sci-fi epic about humans and advanced aliens exploring a giant artificial world, a ring around a star, the most massive engineering project imaginable. The people in the story are almost dwarfed just by the idea and the details of how such a world could even come into existence, and the novel is just a small piece of Niven's Known Universe, a galactic history that only peripherally includes Earth and extends from the distant past to 3 billion years into the future. It's a spectacular example of world-building, and the bits and pieces of the KU still live in my head. Obviously Tolkien's world is another example, as is the Star Wars universe or Star Trek. Sadly, Star Trek is a bit more fragmented and discontinuous than the others, thanks to Paramount's greediness in selling off parts of the Star Trek franchise.
  
• I like stories about hard choices and the consequences thereof. "Casablanca" is the story of a hard-bitten cynic who is faced with the choice between re-uniting with the woman he first loved, and helping a man who could save millions of people. Unfortunately, he can only choose one of them, because the woman is married to the man he needs to help. Ouch. Other characters faced with such a tough choice include Desmond and Penny from TV's "Lost", or (I am not kidding) Philip J. Fry trying to decide between saving the universe and his love for Captain Turanga Leela. Seriously, I'm not kidding - that animated television show produced some very touching moments in its four-year run, and I can't wait to see it continue on DVD.
  
• I like stories of an underdog that triumphs over powerful forces. Average, or even sub-average people, trying to make their way in a world they can't control. An atypical example of this is the movie "Office Space", where the main character, Peter Gibbons is trying to deal with the soul-crushing beigeness of office work. Joe from "Joe vs. The Volcano" takes a similar journey in his quest to make the life-threatening "brain cloud" mean something. The main character of "The Fuck-Up", Arthur Nersesian's hilarious first novel, is also trying to find some meaning in a menial life. At least one of my unpublished novels is a Portland-based homage to "The Fuck-Up", actually. Philip Dick's characters also mostly fall into this category, although the world in a PKD novel is usually far, far more chaotic than, say, Nersesian's Brooklyn or Mike Judge's Initech. In fact, in a PKD novel, the world may transform or even cease to exist entirely.
  
• Lastly, there are stories that tell a well-known history or describe a well-known place, but reveal far more beneath the surface than most know. Tim Powers is a master of this - his version of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas seems familiar, except that Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein were not just scientists, but magicians of the highest power, and the smelly homeless that wander the streets in their gray clothes are in fact zombies and ghosts who have accreted their bodies from the trash that surrounds them. Powers' colleague and friend, James Blaylock, has also written novels like this, where the Holy Grail is, in fact, an origami paper cup folded from a priceless drawing. PKD's greatest novel, "Valis" is a masterful turn on this, where Horselover Fat, PKD's alter-ego in the novel, discovers that the world in which we live is actually ancient Rome, and that Richard Nixon is really a Roman Caesar.

Sorry, Kevin, I couldn't just pick five! I'm all un-decide-y.


Kevin, for Day 6, take a picture, post it, and write about it.

Labels: BADAT

• 7:22 PM 1 comments

Four times four

Part One: Slow Rise

Alert hours after awakening.

Part Two: Basement Work

Fixing things others broke.

Part Three: Clean clothes

Wash and rinse again.

Part Four: Online

People unmet move me.


Kevin, on Day 5, retell a fairy tale as a sitcom.

Labels: BADAT

• 9:51 PM 2 comments

Light posting

"Illuminate the world"? I'm not sure I know what that means.

I mean, I can dig into the bare meaning of the words. Perhaps there's inspiration in that.

Illuminate - light up, brighten. From "lumen" which is (probably) Latin for "light". Or a special typographic calligraphic technique especially used in Bibles. An illuminated text is one with amazing large first letters on a page, decorated and painted in intricate detail.

The world? Does that mean the globe? The Earth? The ~8000 mile diameter pear-shaped mass of nickel and iron and various trace elements on which we live? A speck of rock and dirt and water and air, and not much of those last two in comparison to the rest of it. I mean, check out this picture, showing the relative size of all the water on Earth, and all the air on Earth, compared to the planet as a whole. Seems like such a tiny amount to me.

Or maybe just my world. The world in which I live. Sellwood, Portland. The #70 bus. The dark black and red smoke-filled booze-enhanced party that is Devil's Point. The beige basement in which my work desk sits. My friends, my family. The dark apartment I live in. The warm soft bed in which I sleep. My world.

Light up the Earth? That's the Sun on the dayside, and the Sun reflected off the Moon (along with a tiny amount of light from distant stars) on the nightside. And all that artificial light, of course.

Illuminate the Earth? That'd be like gilding the lily.

Illuminate my world? My day-to-day work-a-day world, apartment to work to apartment again. That's what I try to do by going to the strip club, or going out with my friends to coffee shops or music stores or live music or bookstores... I try to brighten my life every day. I try to smile at people, talk to pretty women, make people laugh.

I'm just rambling here. I've been thinking about this post idea for a day and I fear I'm not getting it.

That's what I've got.



Kevin, Day 4: Would you be any different if you had a different name?

Labels: BADAT

• 7:40 PM 1 comments

Closing doors

Evidence that fewer options are often better.

Simple? No. Simple != easy. • 8:33 AM 0 comments

MacBook Pro for sale - $1300 obo

Update: This laptop is no longer for sale. My apologies if a search led you here. - 5 May 2008, bam

For various reasons (sexy new MBPs out from Apple, mmmmmm), I'm selling my MacBook Pro. Here's the stats:

• 15.4" LCD screen @ 1440 x 900 pixels.
  
• 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo processor
  
• 1 x 1 GB RAM (other slot open)
  
• 90 GB 5400 RPM hard drive
  
• SuperDrive optical drive
  
• Ethernet, 802.11g wireless, Bluetooth
  
• Firewire 400, USB 2.0
  
• Monitor out for second display, line out and microphone input.

This sexy thing was purchased new in February 2006 with AppleCare, and is still under warranty until February 2009. I have an extra power brick for it and a laptop case. Currently has Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) installed but I can install OS X 10.5 Leopard and iLife '08.

Since it's an Intel-based Mac, it can dual boot or run Windows in emulation (not included).

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

Asking: $1300.00 or best offer. • 7:54 AM 1 comments

Star Wars jazzy

This video is 100% awesome for a film buff like myself.



For reference, check out Saul Bass on Wikipedia. • 9:08 PM 1 comments

Google-verse

I remember two lives, my first small and humble
my second quite important and consequential.
It all started one day when quite on a whim
I slipped from one to another potential.

At my computer surfing the world wide web
I Googled my own name. Is that a sin?
Clicked the "I feel lucky" button
And watched as the page faded in.

First up was a headline in flashing purple
Followed by pictures of me, in my hat,
"Moon man modestly maintains Mankind"
and descriptions of my dreams, along with a cat.

The cat and I
Dreamed defenses
against invading
alien races.

This fictional Brian with his fictional feline
Appeared quite familiar and yet didn't exist
as far as I could determine in my own memory
and all of the reasoning and logic I could enlist.

Trembling, shaking, my eyesight grew dim
and my Sellwood apartment was the last thing I saw
as I slipped into a deep and encompassing rest
Until, gently, gingerly, tenderly, my face felt a paw.

The steady green eyes of my furry friend
Watched me awaken and come to, quite alert.
And I remembered (but didn't) the advancing armada
who could only be stopped by our minds in concert.

The cat and I
now dream defenses
against invading
alien races.



Kevin, write about truth.

Labels: BADAT

• 8:26 PM 0 comments

Small world

I saw the New York Dolls last night. They were an influential pre-punk band from the '70s. I moshed. I had fun. The friends I was with had fun.

Tonight I mentioned the show to Stormy. She told me that the band opened for her when she was a Suicide Girl.

Stormy's a star. What can I say? I wonder if David Johannsen would recognize Stormy? That would complete the circle. • 11:42 PM 0 comments

March BADAT 2008 Day 1

Kevin challenged me to take pictures of my day as it progressed. I'm more of a "do-er" than a "document-er" but I saved the pictures I took today into a Flickr set, which is linked below.



Kevin's BADAT Idea Day 2: Pick up some object, hold it in your hand, examine it with all of your senses, and describe it as fully as you can without actually naming what it is.

Labels: BADAT

• 6:50 PM 1 comments

March Blog-A-Day-A-Thon 2008 begins

Kevin and I are doing something special this month, as a way to challenge each other and to reinforce the habit of writing daily about many things. And, also, just because we can. There's no better reason than that, is there?

We call it the March Blog-A-Day-A-Thon, or BADAT. The rules are as follows:

1. We would send each other ideas for blog posts.
   
2. The ideas will range from one-word concepts, to entire ideas, to actions we can take that we then must blog about.
   
3. ...leaning more towards the simple end, so as not to overwhelm the other person with too much to do and not enough time to write.
   
4. We each send and post our ideas the day before.
   
5. The other person posts their response to the idea, and then (probably in a separate post) their idea for the other.
   
6. Hmmm... so, really, we're posting two items a day - the idea, and the post.
   
7. Cross-linking to each others' blogs is part of the idea.

I'm going to tag each BADAT post with the tag "BADAT" just for organization's sake.

Kevin's BADAT Idea #1: Write a short story in exactly 50 words.

...and Kevin posted his response already!

Labels: BADAT

• 6:36 PM 0 comments